Digital Rights Misery: When Technology Is Designed to Fail

by Jeff Porten

Here's the summary of what the CEA wants you to know:

• On 17-Feb-09, analog TV broadcasts in the United States will be cut off and replaced by digital-only transmission.
• That will free up all of the current analog broadcast spectrum that is now being used for Law and Order episodes and Head-On commercials. The CEA strongly wants to imply that this spectrum will go to police and firefighters, as opposed to making billions of dollars for consumer electronics industries.
• The CEA repeats ad nauseam that you'll continue to get free broadcast TV, and all you need to do is add a converter box to your old TV. That will cost around $50, but there will be a $40 coupon from the federal government. This is starting now, in 2008, in an apparent bid to drive voters to the Libertarian Party when they realize Uncle Sam is buying everyone a new gadget.

But if you're a member of a typical American family, your home is populated with more televisions than people, and each of your older sets will need its own converter. Charmingly, even then your old TV is probably the wrong aspect ratio (4:3 versus the increasingly common 16:9; your widescreen Mac is 16:10, just to make it more confusing), so 25 percent of your screen will generally be filled with thrilling black bars.

Reading between the lines, you won't be forced to buy one or more new TVs next year, but you're probably going to anyway. Eventually, your analog sets will go the way of TVs with UHF dials. Note to younger TidBITS readers: "UHF channels" are where we used to go, late at night, to watch really bad movies and sitcom reruns. This is why your parents still think cable TV is niftier than you do, and why we're amused when you choose to watch TV Land and really bad movies.

The truth is that you will see a vastly improved experience with the new technology. In the past we've seen upgrades from black-and-white to color, and from broadcast channel selection to the far greater bandwidth of coaxial cable; digital television, likewise, is the sort of change that will eventually make you wonder how you ever got by in the old days.

Unfortunately, the upgrade is coming with a cost, and one that's greater than the mere price of a shiny new TV.

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