Next month analog television will come to an end and the era of digital television takes over. God, I really wish that didn’t make me so cranky.
For a little over a year I have been watching all the networks advertise the deadlines for the switch to digital television. The ads about the conversion have been on longer than that but they really upped their obnoxious factor in the last year. They have told me my good, old analog signal will go the way of the dodo bird and in its place I will have more channels, better sound, and a picture so good I’ll be able to see every pore on the faces of the news anchors. In theory, it seems like a veritable Xanadu, improved network television arriving in America just in time for a recession when millions of Americans are reassessing their home entertainment budgets.
And this would all be lovely. If it worked.
Call me cynical, but I have my doubts about how well this conversion will actually work. On the plus side, unlike the failed metric conversion the digital conversion is reliant on our deep affection for entertainment rather than our ability guess whether kilometers are more or less than a mile or what we should wear for 26 degrees centigrade. My concern is not that people won’t buy ridiculously expensive new televisions, subscribe to cable or satellite services that raise prices faster than a Vegas loan-shark, or that the rest of us poor slobs will be able to get our mitts on converter boxes. No, my concern is that digital television won’t get any better than it is now, ‘cuz so far the experience is not stacking up well with the hype.
Armed with a not-new television, a converter box, and a very intelligent person to help me, I am now receiving the much hyped digital television signal. It sucks.
Adjusting and setting the damn thing up is, apparently, just the first step. I have found that despite being in a prime location and being set up correctly, the digital signal is very finicky. The adjustment that gets me a clear picture during the day doesn’t always work at night. If the wind is blowing at all, forget it. Half the time I’m doing a cross between the wave and tai chi trying to unfreeze the screen when it glitches up.
Tonight I was watching the season finale of American Idol and it sounded like all the performers had a stutter because the channel was glitching out so badly. Oddly enough, that actually worked in Rod Stewart’s favor. His voice is not what it used to be. When I watch CSI I am constantly surprised at who they cuff at the end because with the way my crystal clear picture freezes and cuts out the vastly improved sound I miss half the plot.
But my frustrations with how digital television affect my viewing fall largely into the category of annoying. What scares me is how this signal, that cuts out when there is a slight breeze, will do during severe weather when I’m hoping the National Weather Service will tell me whether there is a large funnel cloud barreling toward me is going to redeposit me in Oz.
And it would be nice if my poor set up was the only one afflicted with a bad case of the glitches, but I have seen it happen even with new televisions. My dad spent roughly what it would cost to buy a kidney on the black market for a sleek-looking glitch factory. I made the dire mistake of walking into the room while he was watching it and it took him 15 minutes to get the picture back.
I’m all for progress and scientific advances in the cause of mindless entertainment, but this looks a lot more like a lateral move from where I’m sitting with my pixilated picture. Makes me want to click my heels together and say, “There’s no place like analog.”
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I can’t stand TV. On occasion though i like to check out what’s on and I especially like the weather - when there’s a storm. I am SO glud to that TV when there’s a (possible) tornado heading this way. weather is what makes TV worthwhile.
Which is why I’m going to have to get all that damn digital shit. What a pain.
pmchin reply on May 21, 2009 10:01 pm:
Maybe we’ll have to get those weather radios. Not quite as much fun as seeing harried weather guys doing their thing in front of the green screen though.