Tech | June 15, 2009 | 6 comments

U.S Goes Digital

source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8096438.stm

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Gregsalter
On Friday one million households in the U.S had blank television screens after stations switched off their analogue signal.

The U.S transition to digital services saw a huge rush to buy converter boxes and TVs for the digital switch.

In total the U.S was spent $2bn to smooth the change.

Television viewers were bombarded with a series of adverts warning them that the analogue signal would be switched off on Friday.

The adverts urged them to buy converter boxes if they did not want to lose reception.

Alot of people remained confused by the challenge of switching to digital. Some TV stations choose exactly when to cut their analogue signals, with some waiting until late at night.

Television stations, electronics stores and the government received a number of calls that people needed help setting up their converter boxes.
  1. groups:
    Tech,   Upstream
  2. tags:
    Tech,  Upstream,  Digital TV,  U.S
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6 comments // U.S Goes Digital

  • Tomcatt
  • Tomcatt
  • dscottg
    • 0
      dscottg  

    • I have no pity for people who weren't ready for this. How many months were the ads that warned everyone running? How many times did they actually delay the switch? For anyone who has no tv now, then welcome to the radio and the internet!

    • 2 years ago
  • Viciouspike
    • 0
      Viciouspike  
    • dscottg:

      What about the elderly couple that just can not comprehend wtf was happening... Not everyone is technologically up to date... And of the few times I watched TV I have never seen a single damned ad for the switch...

    • 2 years ago
  • Skyscraper08
    • 0
      Skyscraper08  

    • It's amazing to think how far technology has come -- i remember when there were loose talks about the digital switch over, now it has officially happened in the States and is a prime example of the speed in which human technology evolves.

    • 2 years ago
  • zwan008
    • 0
      zwan008  

    • Well they did warn them about the swtich over, instead of having the adverts they should also have displayed the message on all of the programmes by having a small message box in one of the corners of the screen, (we have the message slap, bang in the middle while we are watching our programmes).

      BUT DID THEY LISTEN NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

    • 2 years ago
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