LeeJend

The US Gov. site to get your free coupons has opened a day earlier than expected. Apply for your $40 coupons now before they run out. No lag or delays on site yet.

Background:
In ~13 months only digital broadcasts will be available in the USA by government mandate. To lessen the $60 billion dollar impact on the US consumer the government is supplying discount coupons (up to 2 @ $40 each per household). Box prices are expected to be in the $60-70 range.

https://www.dtv2009.gov/ApplyCoupon.aspx

2 allowed per address.
Answer the question about pay TV services wisely (no).
They have a list of the available converter boxes on the site.

The approved boxes have limited abilites. i.e. they have remotes but are limited (no DVR, no component output). Plain Jane boxes for converting older TVs to support Digital reception.

This is not a bad deal. Switching over to the digital channels in the Fort Worth market gets rid of all the power line and AFB interference that made most of my analog channels near useless. I am still researching which of the 10 approved boxes has the best features. And I have not actually seen any for sale yet at BB or CC.

I wonder what the auction price will be on ebay once the government runs out of the limied number of approved coupons...

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Petros

Digital rocks...lower bandwidth, higher quality, lower power requirements. The government will profit from this investment in the long run because we'll be able to free up so much more of the frequency spectrum. Communications systems will get geometrically better as we pass more data with less effort.

American Zombie

I think you only need this if still using antennas.
Comcast (cable TV) has already stated you do not need any conversion if on their system.

LeeJend

That is correct. Cable or satellite subscribers who pay for/get local channels do not need the boxes. But many people refuse to pay $60 extra per year that satellite charges for local channels and some cable companies do not supply all of the local channels.

One big surprise I got when switching to digital was that the over the air HD quality exceeds the picture quality I am getting from my basic SD satellite service. I would have to pay for a more expensive satellite package to get HD. I'm now watching more broadcast TV again when I normally did not.

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