I’ve written about digital and high-definition television and what to look for when buying an HD or HD-ready set in past years, but I haven’t paid much attention to the march forward in TV technology lately. My analog set at home is something like 13 years old, so I haven’t been in the TV-buying market personally for a while.
We’re hurtling toward the day, however, when analog TV sets like mine will become obsolete, at least without a special converter box. A big sign of that coming day? Best Buy, the nation’s biggest electronics retailer, is no longer selling analog sets.
The federal government has mandated that by Feb. 17, 2009, all stations have to be broadcasting with digital signals. Those aforementioned converter boxes will be needed if you want your old-fashioned analog set to keep watching “The Office,” or whatever will be the hit program du jour in 2009.
The FCC has a quick guide to this big digital transition. And here’s a handy second-by-second countdown clock to “the end of TV as we know it.”
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