I think it’s time that someone went through and dissected the new digital TV foray. Back in June or July of 2009, the federal government mandated that analog television through the airwaves was a thing of the past and this new service was going to be a better solution. They promised better signal, more channels and still would be accessible to everyone.

In my personal opinion, I have likes and dislikes about this new digital television and have heard similar comments from other people I have talked to as well. Yes, we will talk about how it is good for us and how it is bad for us as consumers even though it is a free commodity.

Since television began broadcasting through the skies many decades ago, people were able to watch a certain amount of programs, channels and on occasion only specific times or only a specified amount of time. With digital television services slicing through the clouds from many different networks from many different satellites it is still free like they promised. As long as you have a converter box to convert that signal to your current television set. It’s great that it’s still provided at no cost to those of us who can’t afford cable, satellite or other television services. It was also a huge help for the federal government to supply forty dollar vouchers for converter boxes so the switch was easier.

A lot of people still needed a better antenna as the old rabbit ears were still only bringing in the same amount of channels as before. In essence, the old antenna wasn’t receiving enough signals from the television networks. The more expensive your antenna, the more channels you would acquire correct? Not necessarily. You have to position your antenna at just the right angle to get normal over the air channels like NBC, ABC, and CBS. Also, there are still networks that have not gone digital or that have refused to make the change from analog to digital. Some are still riding piggy back on other stations channel frequencies. If digital is supposed to create more channels why do something like that that does not make any sense? Then if you position your antenna differently you can lose channels you absolutely love and gain new ones that you may like and some more that you may not. Then it’s also not as reliable just like the satellite fiascos you used to hear about and probably still do.

You would hear people going around saying things such as “I’m not getting good reception due to the rain or clouds. Now the same is happening with digital airwave television. Since I’ve never had satellite and the only person never to complain about it was my uncle, I don’t know if they ever fully fixed their reception problems. The only reason my uncle probably never complained about his satellite service is because he installed it himself.

Either way, whether you like it or not, digital television will more than likely have its malfunctions worked out soon and signals will be boosted so we all get channels we know and love on top of all the ones we don’t want. Maybe, just maybe, we’ll also have those networks piggy-backing on others using their own frequency to broadcast shows we will enjoy. I don’t know why they didn’t create digital television through the airwaves a long time ago and to be honest they could implement it into satellite and cable services providing more channels to those subscribers as well.

 

Written by: Warrior Princess Mekayla