Like to cheer failure? Buy despair.
by Broderick Perkins
© 2008 DeadlineNews.Com
Unauthorized use of this story is a copyright violation -- a federal crime
Deadline Newsroom - Converter boxes, digital TV (DTV), high definition TV (HDTV), analog vs. digital, rescanning channels, buying new equipment or keeping the old.
Lions and tigers and bears! Oh, my!
The long planned and often delayed transition from analog TV to digital TV is upon us.
Effective June 12, 2009, at the stroke of midnight, analog TV goes dark and while it may feel a bit like Y2K (for the "Year 2000," when electronics dated without digital brains were all supposed to self-destruct and take us with them), it'll probably come and go with a whimper too.
That's because the delays (we were supposed to have been taken digitally hostage by Feb. 17 this year) have allowed for experimental digital TV transition trial runs; reams of digital TV transition consumer information and even deep dollar discounts for those who want to simulate remaining analog (and keep those rabbit ears), all to give consumers more options and more time to get some extra padding for those easy chairs.
After all, this historic Information Age spawned digital TV transition is mostly just a quit-procrastinating-sit-down-and-do-the-damn-job event.
You can't put it off anymore.
But no need to get squeamish.
Stay seated.
We are going to make it easy for you.
Just navigate to these helpful online resources and unless you want to turn around to get your TV ready (or get something to eat, or go to the bathroom, or take another procrastinating nap, or, or, or...), you need only read to learn how to prepare for (music up) digital TV transition.
This is just a small sample of the myriad independent, no-bull information available to get you turned on -- even now -- in time to tune in to the transition to digital TV.
Without further delay, here's the 'National Consumer Examiner's Digital TV Transition Cheat Sheet.'
• Get "DTV Made Easy," a little number Consumer Reports produced for the federal agency running the show, the Federal Communications Commission -- which also has a ton of information.
• Right from the horse's mouth, information from the Federal Communications Commission is yours, because you paid for it with tax dollars. Use it up. Get what you paid for.
• From the people turning the dials, flipping the switches and keeping us awake at night over all this, the National Association of Broadcasters were good enough to take lots of time and offer answers to virtually any question you might have.
• From new equipment to buy, to how Americans are coping with DTVitus (so you won't feel so bad about your squeamishness), to how cable companies are confusing us, Consumer Reports offers an everything television blog including a channel specifically for DTV news and the latest countdown information.
• Also from Consumer Reports, a video (you can watch on your computer without a TV!), "DTV Made Easy"
Finally, Consumer Reports also offers some money-saving tips revealing what you don't have to buy!
Stay away from 'snow' and white noise.
• Click on the keywords below for more stories on this subject.
© 2008 DeadlineNews.Com
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Broderick Perkins, an award-winning consumer journalist, parlayed 30 years of old-school journalism into a digital real estate news service, the San Jose, CA-based DeadlineNews Group, including DeadlineNews.Com, a real estate news and consulting service and Web site, and the Deadline Newsroom, DeadlineNews.Com's news back shop.
Perkins is also the first Examiner to cover three beats for the Examiner.com news service:
• National Offbeat News Examiner
• National Consumer News Examiner
• National Real Estate Examiner
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