You should not have to adjust or do anything. Your cable company makes sure the signal they send out is in the right format. Your TV is new enough that it should have a converter box built in. This means that even if your cable company goes out for a while you can still use rabbit ears to get local stations.

My understanding of what will happen in February 2009 is that broadcasters will change from using an analog to a digital signal. The content will not change, only the way it is packaged. This is directly analogous to the switch from vinyl records to CDs.

[Sorry to butt in, Endi, but I wanted to clarify. With the conversion in the US, one does not need a digital TV. One can use any TV with a digital box from the cable company or satellite provider or can purchase a converter box (approximately $70, and the government is providing coupons for $40 off) that enables any TV to receive digital, even with only an antenna. -- The Mudge]

Last Edited on 7-Aug-2008 8:33 AM

The stations already broadcast in digital format as well as the analog; with the right equipment, all of these can be picked up by rooftop antennas and rabbit ears. My seven-year-old rabbit-eared TV has never heard of digital, but the converter box, which I got from a store that charged $40 (same as the government-issued coupon), sits atop the TV with the rabbit ears' cable going into it and its own cable going into the TV. A few clicks on the remote control so it could find all the stations, and it's in business. But as you have cable, you don't need that.

1. If you have cable or satellite, you don't need to buy a converter. These devices are used only if you receive TV with an antenna.
2. As long as you have a digital receiver box provided by the cable or satellite company, the age of your TV set does not matter.
3. Digital TV (what is being broadcast on all channels starting next February) is not HDTV (high-definition). Broadcasters aren't switching to all HD (which requires a high-def set and a high-def cable or satellite receiver box). Digital is not high-def (although all high-def is digital).

To be specific, what matters here is not your TV set but how the signal is processed once it reaches you via cable. If your cable box is capable of processing a digital signal, you can relax. Don't go out and buy a new TV set. You don't need a brand-new TV (much less a high-def set) to receive digital, just the proper kind of cable box from your provider. Certainly, at three years old (going on four), your set is new enough that you don't want to upgrade yet. The set may even have a digital tuner, but that's irrelevant because your only need is to ensure that your cable box receives digital signals. These will be transmitted even to an old analog set with no problem; the cable box takes care of that.

Our own situation is possibly instructive. We have two TV sets. One is an old 27-inch analog set (much older than your set and I'm pretty sure without a digital tuner). When our cable provider (Verizon) sent messages to all its customers saying that it would be transmitting everything digitally as early as July of this year, I was concerned that this set might not be "digital-ready." I e-mailed a contact I have in the executive offices at Verizon, and he assured me that, since we have a digital cable box attached to that set, I did not need to do anything. Of course, this set does not receive high-definition – never has, never will – because it's not an HDTV set. It will receive all the channels it now receives after the digital conversion takes place, but it isn't built for high-def. I repeat, however, that the February conversion is simply conversion to digital broadcasting, not high-def broadcasting.

Our second set is a flat-screen HDTV. It is equipped with a high-def cable box (not merely a digital cable box), which enables it to receive high-definition. We pay an extra fee for this box, and it enables us to receive high-def broadcasts on different channels. For example, on this set, if we want to watch, say, CBS, we have our choice of watching it on the standard (soon to be digital) channel on one hand or the high-def channel on the other (of course, on this set, we always tune in the high-def channel). On our first set, however, we cannot get the high-def channel. Similarly, you will not be able to watch high-def until you get an HDTV set, an HD cable box, and subscribe to your cable company's HD package – but you will be ready for the digital (not HD) conversion if you have a digital cable box.

Here are two websites for further information –
http://www.dtv.gov/
http://dtvfacts.com/digital-tv-facts-cable-customers/

P.S. Congratulations on being the first to post on the Tech Board. This page is being bronzed, and a plaque with the bronzed page will be sent to you on your 100th birthday – by which time the government will have mandated that we all have flat-screen, high-def TV sets capable of receiving three-dimensional TV, but you won't be able to afford one because Social Security will have gone bankrupt.

P.P.S. I was writing this as others were posting (great to see such an initial flurry of activity). They are essentially correct; with cable, you probably need to do nothing. I went into detail because you seemed to be equating HDTV and digital (a common misconception), and I wanted to clarify that.
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Rich Turner (The Curmudgeon Himself)

Last Edited on 7-Aug-2008 8:24 AM