Digital (HDTV) gets a stay of execution from the FCC - the current state of HDTV and digital TV

Below is a recent update I received from a local television station manager (Doug Finck) who has been kind enough to keep me informed on what's going on in the Maine Television market. But as Maine goes, so goes the rest.

The FCC has been passing some new rules which will impact
DTV. In the last two weeks they have approved a rule that will require
most (read, "big") cable companies to offer both analog and digital signals for
a period of three years commencing on the DTV transition date of February 18,
2009. I assume that the cable companies will be responsible for converting
the digital signals to analog signals in order to offer both. This rule
comes out of the recognition that the confusion and fallout from a sudden
elimination of all analog signals would be too much for consumers and
politicians.

The majority of people with cable will be able to
continue to watch all of the local stations on analog TV's for until at least
2012. It could be extended further if all of the analog TV's haven't been
replaced by then. In addition, the FCC agreed to allow cable operators to
remove sub-channels from the digital signal in an effort to allow as much
compression of the signal as possible. Cable operators point out that
carrying both analog and digital channels eats up bandwidth so allowing them to
strip out non-essential content provides them with a "thinner" signal. of
must-carry local TV stations.

Here's the interesting thought regarding the carriage of
analog and digital signals post-transition. Our two stations will cease to
offer a 4:3 signal, instead up-converting everything to 16:9 to allow us to stay
in a HD mode at all times. That will result in pillar-boxing of our any SD
content on a 16:9 set. I believe that when cable (or anyone) then converts
our 16:9 HD signal to a 4:3 analog signal, the end result will be both pillar
and letterboxing on an analog set (since we will be broadcasting in HD, the
converter will simply shrink the image to fit on a 4:3 screen which will
introduce letterboxing, but we will still have SD product which appears up on an
HD signal with pillars…therefore our 4:3 analog signal will have both pillar and
letterboxing).
We are currently looking at various systems that will support
our introduction of local HD programming. We already have HD cameras and
HD editing computers. We need only a way to inject locally-produced HD
product (programs, commercials, promos, PSA's, etc.) into our bit
stream.

In summary, viewers who watch over-the-air signals will lose the analog signals on February 18, 2009 and will have to purchase a converter box if they want to continue to use their analog TV's. The government will be offering vouchers that will substantially reduce the cost of converters boxes (I believe it will cost about $40 for a discounted box). Cable (and presumably satellite) subscribers have been given an additional three years of analog service (although it's not clear if cable can/will charge for offering the analog version of a DTV signal). With all sets now required to offer DTV tuners, time will eventually resolve the problem as old analog sets wear out and are replaced by digital sets. In the short term there'll be less disruption. Starting very soon you'll see TV promos from a variety of trade groups (including the National Association of Broadcasters) seeking to explain many of these issues and raise viewers' awareness to the conversion.