The Facts About HD Video

High Definition (HD) digital broadcasting has been at the forefront of the news in the past few years.  A lot of confusion was generated among consumers when the FCC mandated all terrestrial broadcast TV stations to change over from analog to digital signals by June 12, 2009.  Many people mistakenly believed that their old analog televisions would no longer work, but this was not true.  The federal government issued vouchers for owners of the old type of TV set to buy a converter box to convert digital broadcast signals and watch them on analog TVs, and this system works fine.

The 2009 switch to digital only affected viewers who received their TV signal over the airwaves.  Meanwhile, cable TV subscribers were already watching digital signals on both analog and digital TVs without missing a beat, because the cable companies had already converted a few years ago.  The confusion for these viewers stemmed from the aggressive marketing activities of the cable providers pushing HDTV cable plans on their customers.  Capitalizing on the uncertainty of analog viewers receiving broadcast signals about whether their old TVs would still work, the cable companies hinted that their own customers would no longer be able to watch their favorite cable stations unless they upgraded to a HDTV set and bought an expensive HD cable package.  The misinformation sent many a cable customer scrambling to buy a new TV and to find an HD video converter for sale.

The reality is, HDTV cable signals can be displayed by any TV, digital or analog.  If the TV set isn’t an HDTV, it will simply display the signal in standard format instead.  The visual quality of HDTV is admittedly stunning.  However, it’s a choice, not a necessity, to invest in more expensive equipment, an upgraded cable plan, and video converter software like AVS4you.  Consumers who want to hang on to their old TV sets a few years longer until the price of HDTV comes down a bit more will still be able to watch their favorite shows.