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Viewers Call To Ask 'Good Questions' About DTV

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Nov 17, 2008 10:29 pm US/Mountain

Viewers Call To Ask 'Good Questions' About DTV

Good Question: What Will Happen To My TV Feb. 17?

Don't miss "Digital TV: Making the Transition" (a special about the upcoming HD conversion) on CBS4 Thanksgiving night Nov. 27 at 6:30 p.m. with an encore presentation Friday Nov. 28 at 11 a.m.

Reporting
Alan Gionet
DENVER (CBS4) ― It was a busy phone bank that would make a charity envious.

The calls were backing up by the dozens in the studios of KRMA-TV, but they weren't taking donations. They were phone calls asking about the conversion to digital television. TV stations around Denver put up a two minute message at various times during the day Monday to inform people who were watching old-style analog TV; that they are not ready for the digital conversion.

Electronics stores are seeing people looking for converter boxes that will enable older TVs to show digital television, but a recent Nielsen survey shows about 8 percent of the households in the Denver area are completely unprepared for the switch to digital.

"There's always going to be a segment of the market that, as you say, puts things off until the last minute," said ListenUp store manager Chris Havekost. "So it's wonderful that you're doing the soft test because this is going to give people the opportunity to notice that and if they've been putting it off to say, 'Hey, wait a minute, something's going to happen here and I need to find out about it.'"

And they did call. Sometimes the calls were backed up by the dozens. Retired CBS engineer and production expert Wayne Wicks was there fielding calls. He listed some of the questions: "How do you get the converter? What's the 800 number to call for the coupon? How come I'm not getting all the digital channels right now?"

A Few Answers

Converter boxes are available at many retail stores.

Coupons are available by going to www.dtv2009.gov or by calling (888) 388-2009.

The reason some are not getting all the digital channels right now is because the signals don't have to be up until after Feb. 17, 2009.

While CBS4 is full power in digital, others, including some of the major affiliates are not.

"Some of the TV stations here in Denver, they're not at full power yet," Wicks said. "When the 17th comes and you'll have full power, you'll have no problem at all."

The signals were put on the station's analog broadcasts, but not on their digital broadcasts. Digital viewers didn't see them, or at least that was supposed to be the way it was supposed to go. Some of the cable companies are still pulling down the old analog-style signals and sending them to viewers. That meant they sent the analog signals with the messages to cable TVs that won't need to add converter boxes when the switch to DTV occurs after Feb. 17 of next year.

There's more information in the video version of our story on the right.

CBS4 is currently broadcasting a high-power digital signal from Lookout Mountain. After a viewer programs their TV or set top box the channel number should appear as 4.1 or 4-1.

Additional Resources

Story: CBS4 Starts Digital Transmission On Lookout Mtn. (Includes Many Resources)

(© MMIX CBS Television Stations, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

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