Analog Digital Confusion!

It's such a quandary, isn't it? To go digital or stay analog. It's almost like they are saying – get with the new century or sit on your behind and "go dark."

I haven't given this digital conversion a single thought because I have cable. But the ads on tv are glutted with promos for getting a converter box before D Day (Digital Day) or you won't be able to watch tv.

First, this is a government mandated conversion. For your television connection. I think all kinds of conspiracy theories can propagate themselves right in this one little conversion proposal. It's government mandated! It's very "Big Brother is Watching You." I wonder if this means that Big Brother is **really** watching me as I watch Desperate Women. Can Big Brother hear conversations in my house? Is that just too paranoid? Is it really? If the government can mandate how your television is connected, then can it eventually mandate what you watch and when you watch it?

We have been hearing promos for box coupons for months now and the deadline crept closer and closer to reality, even pre-empting a rerun of Boston Legal to go on for an hour about how easy it is to connect your tv to the converter box, when suddenly, now we have an extra four months, until June. What ARE the elderly, the poor, the ones with just a simple television that isn't on cable, going to do???

I did a tiny bit of research on this and in a Q&A:

"An important benefit of the switch to all-digital broadcasting is that it will free up parts of the valuable broadcast spectrum for public safety communications (such as police, fire departments, and rescue squads). Also, some of the spectrum will be auctioned to companies that will be able to provide consumers with more advanced wireless services (such as wireless broadband). "

.