TV goes digital; did disasters ensue?
Is your TV having a snow day? For most of us, television as we’ve known it continued unchanged this morning.
But TV’s change to all-digital broadcasting, eons in the planning, finally took place at 12:01 a.m., as St. Louis stations KSDK, KMOV, KTVI and KPLR switched off their analog signals. (KDNL and KNLC had already gone digital back in February, when the change was originally scheduled.) Actually, KSDK — which volunteered to be St. Louis’ FCC-designated “Night Light Station” –is keeping its analog signal on temporarily, advising viewers on what to do if they can see an on-screen message but not see, say, the “Today” show.
Given how exhaustive the government-mandated informational campaign has been, can anyone really still be unaware of the switch? That will become clear today. I’ll be doing a follow-up story for the Post-Dispatch on how the change went, and if you know of anyone who has problems, I’d like to hear about it and possibly talk to them. I also have one $40 government-issued coupon for a converter box that I could be persuaded to share with someone who really needs it. (Here’s an earlier Q&A about the change — why, how and where to get help.)
When you comment below, before you dismiss anyone who isn’t ready as an idiot who doesn’t deserve to watch TV, consider the elderly, shut-ins, disabled people and others who might not have the capacity or the support system to follow the complicated procedure for making their old antenna TV keep working. And be kind.
Later this morning, I’ll put up another Tube Talk item reporting on whether the TV stations’ phone banks got many calls and also giving numbers and resources to help our less fortunate neighbors get their TVs up and running again.
Channel 4 KMOV is awful. We live out in Lake St. Louis and can’t get the digi-signal. Every other channel is beautifully clear. C’mon Ch. 4: boost your signal today.
This is odd. I was expecting other comments. I came here from Google trying to look up the reason for this digital change (Google isn’t reliable FYI). What’s the point of this?
I’ve been using a 20 year-old attic antenna to pick up the locals in HD and Digital Quality for two years now. (I use a Tivo HD box, not one of the converter boxes) I live approx. 30 miles from the antennas (I live in Edwardsville, IL). I pick up all STL stations except WPXS (channel 13).
I’m curious as to the future of channel 4.2. It’s currently being “lent” to KNLC, I think in exchange for giving up the channel 24 frequency a little early. But now that everyone is digital, and it is a duplicate of the primary KNLC channel, any clue what it will be broadcasting?
Speaking of the digitial “sub channels”, like 5.1 or 4.2, will those ever be offered by cable or satellite?
Also, a reminder to rescan your digital box. Stations have boosted their power, but you have to rescan to make sure you are at their precise location.
95% of the information & entertainment I need/want is easily obtained from the Internet. A TV in my house is merely a dust collector used to watch Seinfeld reruns.
I work in video production, and I think it’s hilarious how bad some of the HD broadcasts are. The worst are the commercials that someone has attempted to compress to h264 and ended up with skips and digital artifacts. Yup, we were real ready to make production and broadcast all digital.
The cashier at borders says she hooked up her digital box and cannot get it to function. If she’s having difficulty then I am quite pessimistic about the shut-ins and the elderly. Reminds me of how in Canada when they switched from 240 volts to 120v, engineers had to go to door to door changing out the motors in appliances. Will the FCC do the same?
Can’t get Channel 4 on over the air digital.I heard KMOV is really cheap and still use a squarrel to power up their transmitter.C’mon Mr.Cohen,let go of some of that money from all those infomercials you show so you can boost up your digital signal!
I live in U. City and I can’t get channel 9. I heard they are boosting their signal come August though. Does anyone else experience this problem?