The digital TV conversion and cable customers

It appears that there is a lot of confusion about the February 2009 changeover to Digital TV, especially as it pertains to cable television customers. Cablevision has done their part to add to this confusion by their recent switch of several channels (most recently the Public Access, Educational and Government stations, collecting known as the PEG channels) to digital. Just in this past week I’ve heard of two people who tried to get the conversion boxes to work with their cable TV service.

So let me start by saying something that I hope will clear things up for most of you. If you are a cable TV customer and have all of your televisions connected to cable (with or without boxes), the February changeover does not apply to you. The $40 coupons and conversion boxes you buy with them? You don’t need them. If you get one, you can’t plug cable into them. They are only for customers who get their signal over the air (i.e., rabbit ears or roof antenna). They are not a substitute for the boxes you get from the cable company (unfortunately).

Now, let me address the Cablevision conversion of some channels to digital. They started by converting about a dozen back in August, and the PEG channels in September. Cablevision says that 85% of their customers are digital, so they make it seem like it doesn’t affect them and that it only affects a minimal number of customers. But I know plenty of people (myself included) who have cable boxes on some sets but not others (like in the kitchen, or in my case on my DVR). Those folks can no longer access these channels on the box-less analog sets. I can no longer record town board meetings or the educational channel on my DVR. My friend the author can no longer watch Book TV (on CSPAN) from his kitchen (although he can on his big HD set with a cable box). The town and schools will need to pay for boxes for every set they want to be able to view their own channels (ouch!). Several towns have filed complaints with the Public Service Commission over the PEG change, including Yorktown. Whether they will do anything about it is anyone’s guess, but I wouldn’t bet on it.

Now, if you have a fairly new television with a “QAM” tuner (short for quadrature amplitude modulation, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QAM_tuner for more details), you can still watch the PEG channels without any box. This is because the QAM tuner allows you to watch digital channels. However, to add to the confusion, you will NOT be able to view the other digital channels that were removed earlier, because those are scrambled and need the box (or a CableCARD, which is a topic for another day).

The good news is that Cablevision does not have any plans to discontinue their analog service until 2012, which is the deadline for cable services to switch to digital (I didn’t even know there was such a deadline!). Here’s an interesting article on that topic: http://saveaccess.org/node/2171. That said, I would expect that the number of analog channels will continue to shrink over time. Why? Because analog channels take a lot more bandwidth than digital and Cablevision needs that bandwidth to add more HD channels to the system. So look for more low rated channels to drop off the analog service.

If you are not currently a digital customer, you can get one free digital box from Cablevision, and I am told that it will be free forever, so long as you do not change your service. Earlier reports had said that there would be a charge after the first year. You have until the end of 2008 to request it. Call customer service if this applies to you.

How does this affect the Verizon FiOS service? I’m told that their service is fully digital, so you will need a box for every set. Something to consider if you want to switch providers, although Verizon does appear to have some bundle deals on box rentals. And I have read something about $3 boxes (or maybe even free) for low end boxes, but I do not see anything on their site.

Confused? Please post your questions here and I’ll try to answer them.