The Digital Television Transition: Part 2

In the second part of my series on the upcoming Digital Television Transition, I’ll cover the websites available for consumers specifically about the transition as well as the TV commercials promoting these websites.
We’ll start out with the official website for the digital transition, DTV.gov. The website is difficult to navigate around and it looks like it was designed in 1997, which might actually be the case considering how many times this digital conversion has been pushed back. However, on their getting started page the bottom shows the most important distinction they need to make: the difference between analog, digital and Hi Def. I still talk to relatives who think that they’ll need to buy new HDTVs before February 2009. This page attempts to draw the distinction between the three, though it does it in a manner that is very confusing, as just above they draw the distinction between SD, ED and HD programming.

However, you probably haven’t heard much about the DTV.gov website, since just about all the advertisements you’ve seen or heard have been for DTVAnswers.com, a website not run by the government but rather by the National Association of Broadcasters. DTVAnswers is not only a much better designed and layed out website, it also much easier for the casual user to navigate and figure out what they will have to do. The options provided by the DTVAnswers are much more clear than the government’s website: buy a converter box for your analog TV, buy a new TV that has a digital tuner for over-the-air reception, or subscribe to a pay multichannel video distribution service (cable, satellite or telephone company’s TV offering).

Both of these websites provide prominent links to the official voucher website, DTV2009.gov, which is designed to take users through from finding out if they need a voucher based on whether or not they receive television over rabbit ears, whether or not their TV has a digital input, and how to apply for a voucher for a digital converter box.

I would have to say that the most informative and easy to use site is the DTV2009 website, where it will walk you through questions on whether or not you need to consider applying for a voucher.

In the next part, I’ll discuss the converter boxes, which are expected to be on the market in February or March, along with the voucher process and its limitations.

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• The Digital Television Transition: Part 1