Whether you are aware of it or not, old analog television sets will no longer be able to receive any programming without a digital converter after February 17, 2009. That’s the day a new federal law mandates that all television broadcasts in the United States be digital.

With a digital converter attached to an analog TV, you should be able to receive the new digital signals in your area just fine. EchoStar, the company behind Dish Network plans to offer digital converters for sale for $40

Since the federal government is offering $40 coupons for people to use for their purchase of digital converters, it will be possible for many people to obtain one of these new converters from EchoStar at no cost.

The new converters should be available in March on a limited basis until June when the company plans to have more than enough supply to meet with demand.

Although you should be able to continue receiving the analog signals from your local stations just fine until 2009, many stations are now already broadcasting a digital signal and my experience with it has been very positive, which I talk more about later.

In addition to the $40 model called the TR-40, EchoStar plans to offer a TR-50 model that will include a DVR. No pricing has yet been disclosed for the TR-50.

A few words about digital TV: When I upgraded my Dish Network system last year and got a new HD-capable DVR I was able to experience digital TV for the first time. My VIP-622 DVR can be connected to a standard roof-top TV antenna to receive both analog and digital TV broadcasts over the air.

I do have a good quality roof-top TV antenna here and our reception of the analog signals from the stations in Boston has not been that great. There were a couple that came in quite nicely and the rest of them were good enough to watch but had quite a bit of noise in the picture.

I don’t know what makes digital TV so different but the digital signals from Boston all come in perfectly here. I was rather shocked to see just how much better the picture is. Perhaps the digital signals are transmitted with more power or something, I don’t know.

The only problem I have seen with watching local digital broadcasts is that it does seem to prone to a bit of interference from the weather at times. It has not been a big problem at all, but once in a while I will see a little pixelation or an artifact or two during bad weather.

So far I think the pluses that come with digital TV far outweigh the minuses I have seen. With digital TV the stations can also transmit some programming information. Kind of like a limited on-screen TV guide that provides some information on the program you are watching.

If you are planning to stick with your local over-the-air TV stations and your analog TV after February 27, 2009, it might be a good time to start looking into these new boxes from EchoStar.

I don’t see any information on how to purchase them just yet, but you may want to keep an eye on the Dish Network site since they may show up there when they are available.

DISH Network Fresno, California

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 9th, 2008 at 10:04 am and is filed under Special Offers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.