Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With tech stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hey there, welcome to the podcast. This is Jonathan Strickland, staff writer with how stuff Works dot com and with me is Chris Palette, editor extraordinaire. Hey there, we're coming to you digitally. Yeah, and the question for today is do I really need a digital converter box for my TV? UM? And we'll give you the short answer right up front. If you have a plain old TV that was manufactured, you know, in the last uh not in the last five years. Let's say, and you are using a plain old antenna one that you stick on your roof, when you stick on top of your TV, probably you probably need a digital converter box for your TV. UH. Now there's a little bit more backstory to it. UM. Basically, the federal government in the United States UH decided in to look into the possibility that they needed more radio spectrum, more broadcast spectrum for emergency communications, which is why you're probably seeing ads on your TV that by February two thousand nine, you are going to need a converter box if you're going to continue watching your local stations. But that's confused a lot of people. And yes, it's it's pretty easy to find out why people are being confused, because I'm actually I've been reading up on this stuff and and for a while I was confused too. I wasn't really sure who had applied to And of course now that I've read your article, uh, it's all become clear to me. But to help you guys out there, like Chris said, we're talking about the televisions that are going to be affected. Are the TVs that are analog televisions. That means they only accept analog signals, that use a regular old antenna to get their television signals. So if your television can't accept digital signals, that's and you're getting it over in antenna. That's what when you need to look into a converter. Uh, otherwise you might be okay. So first of all, if you've got a television and you you notice that it can accept digital signals, you're fine. You don't need to worry about that converter at all, because the converter is doing exactly what your television already does. Yeah, a lot of people maybe thinking that they need to go out and buy a flat panel TV. But most most regular TVs, the tube TVs manufactured in the last few years, have a digital tuner and it should be labeled that way. So you should be able to figure out from looking at your television whether or not it's got a digital tuner in it. That's right, and uh so, if it has the digital digital tuner, you're fine. Otherwise you may need to get this converter box. And what that does is it accepts the digital signal that's broadcast that you know, he picks up from Narontanna, goes to the converter. The converter then converts the digital to analog signal and pushes that signal to your television, which means that your TV then accepts the analog signal. You get to watch Wheel of Fortune or whatever it is you want to see. And uh I just say that because you know I'm big on the Wheel. But that way your TV. From your TV's perspective, nothing's changed. It's it's getting signals the same way it always has. It's just there happens to be a converter in between it and the antenna. But that's not necessarily the case with cable cable conversion that it might stay analog or it might go to digital. Is that right? Well, yeah, and uh, you know, satellite, both Direct TV and Dish Network use all digital, but cable companies have been sort of some of them sort of sit on the fence, if you will. UM, if you have a box on top of your TV that's getting in cable signal and it's going into your TV, chances are that box is going to keep you from having to get digital converter box, although you may still be getting some analog channels through that. UM. If you subscribe to digital cable, a lot of people will probably be surprised to find out that not all of their signals are digital. UM. But again it depends on the provider. Now, if you're ugging the cable from your cable provider directly into the back of your TV, UM, then you're probably getting all analog cable and the While the cable providers are not necessarily required to switch over, UM, they you know, they might, they might. They might take this as an opportunity to change all their operations over to digital. It's simpler on their end, but it's not required by the government. And that's because the the cable it doesn't factor into this frequency range. That's what that's what the government's concerned with. They want to free up this this broadcast frequency. They don't really care so much about what's going over the cable, but the cable companies might care. They may want to switch make it easier make on their end and uh and lowers costs on their end. But for the user it might mean some changes. That's true. So again, if you have a an analog tuner in your television set and you are using a terrestrial antenna, you know one that you stick on top of your TV or on the outside of your house to get your television, you should get a digital converter box. They run between forty and I think eighty dollars at your local electronics store, although at DTV two thousand nine dot com you can apply for a coupon from the federal government to give you a little discount on that. UM. If you have cable, contact your cable provider to make sure and otherwise you're happy, yeah, happy watching UM. So for more information check out do I really need a digital converter box my TV? Which is online right now? At how stuff works dot Com and we'll talk to you again later for more on this and thousands of other topics. Does it how stuff works dot com Let us know what you think. Send an email to podcast and how stuff Works dot Com brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you

Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With tech stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hey there, welcome to the podcast. This is Jonathan Strickland, staff writer with how stuff Works dot com and with me is Chris Palette, editor extraordinaire. Hey there, we're coming to you digitally. Yeah, and the question for today is do I really need a digital converter box for my TV? UM? And we'll give you the short answer right up front. If you have a plain old TV that was manufactured, you know, in the last uh not in the last five years. Let's say, and you are using a plain old antenna one that you stick on your roof, when you stick on top of your TV, probably you probably need a digital converter box for your TV. UH. Now there's a little bit more backstory to it. UM. Basically, the federal government in the United States UH decided in to look into the possibility that they needed more radio spectrum, more broadcast spectrum for emergency communications, which is why you're probably seeing ads on your TV that by February two thousand nine, you are going to need a converter box if you're going to continue watching your local stations. But that's confused a lot of people. And yes, it's it's pretty easy to find out why people are being confused, because I'm actually I've been reading up on this stuff and and for a while I was confused too. I wasn't really sure who had applied to And of course now that I've read your article, uh, it's all become clear to me. But to help you guys out there, like Chris said, we're talking about the televisions that are going to be affected. Are the TVs that are analog televisions. That means they only accept analog signals, that use a regular old antenna to get their television signals. So if your television can't accept digital signals, that's and you're getting it over in antenna. That's what when you need to look into a converter. Uh, otherwise you might be okay. So first of all, if you've got a television and you you notice that it can accept digital signals, you're fine. You don't need to worry about that converter at all, because the converter is doing exactly what your television already does. Yeah, a lot of people maybe thinking that they need to go out and buy a flat panel TV. But most most regular TVs, the tube TVs manufactured in the last few years, have a digital tuner and it should be labeled that way. So you should be able to figure out from looking at your television whether or not it's got a digital tuner in it. That's right, and uh so, if it has the digital digital tuner, you're fine. Otherwise you may need to get this converter box. And what that does is it accepts the digital signal that's broadcast that you know, he picks up from Narontanna, goes to the converter. The converter then converts the digital to analog signal and pushes that signal to your television, which means that your TV then accepts the analog signal. You get to watch Wheel of Fortune or whatever it is you want to see. And uh I just say that because you know I'm big on the Wheel. But that way your TV. From your TV's perspective, nothing's changed. It's it's getting signals the same way it always has. It's just there happens to be a converter in between it and the antenna. But that's not necessarily the case with cable cable conversion that it might stay analog or it might go to digital. Is that right? Well, yeah, and uh, you know, satellite, both Direct TV and Dish Network use all digital, but cable companies have been sort of some of them sort of sit on the fence, if you will. UM, if you have a box on top of your TV that's getting in cable signal and it's going into your TV, chances are that box is going to keep you from having to get digital converter box, although you may still be getting some analog channels through that. UM. If you subscribe to digital cable, a lot of people will probably be surprised to find out that not all of their signals are digital. UM. But again it depends on the provider. Now, if you're ugging the cable from your cable provider directly into the back of your TV, UM, then you're probably getting all analog cable and the While the cable providers are not necessarily required to switch over, UM, they you know, they might, they might. They might take this as an opportunity to change all their operations over to digital. It's simpler on their end, but it's not required by the government. And that's because the the cable it doesn't factor into this frequency range. That's what that's what the government's concerned with. They want to free up this this broadcast frequency. They don't really care so much about what's going over the cable, but the cable companies might care. They may want to switch make it easier make on their end and uh and lowers costs on their end. But for the user it might mean some changes. That's true. So again, if you have a an analog tuner in your television set and you are using a terrestrial antenna, you know one that you stick on top of your TV or on the outside of your house to get your television, you should get a digital converter box. They run between forty and I think eighty dollars at your local electronics store, although at DTV two thousand nine dot com you can apply for a coupon from the federal government to give you a little discount on that. UM. If you have cable, contact your cable provider to make sure and otherwise you're happy, yeah, happy watching UM. So for more information check out do I really need a digital converter box my TV? Which is online right now? At how stuff works dot Com and we'll talk to you again later for more on this and thousands of other topics. Does it how stuff works dot com Let us know what you think. Send an email to podcast and how stuff Works dot Com brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you