Are you ready for the digital switch in September?

The stock clerk in the Canadian Tire store seemed quite certain, as a customer shopping in the electronics aisle reached for a $15 antenna.
“Forget about those,” said the clerk, pointing at the set of rabbit ears, a time-honoured gadget that more recently has at least kept budget-conscious people free from enslavement to cable.

End of an era
“What’s the problem?” the client shot back, a little offended by the red-shirted clerk’s directness. However, by next September, the shelf stocker insisted, rabbit ears will be as good as useless.
Although he wasn’t entirely correct, the truth is that analog TV transmission — which has been the standard in Canada almost six decades — will indeed soon be ending.
By Sept. 1, many old but still reliable sets (many of which have been relegated to a secondary spot in the home) won’t be good for anything but watching snow, as the last of Canada’s analog transmitters shut down to make way for all-digital television.

Late arrival
Compared to other parts of the world, digital television (DTV) has been a long time coming to Canada. In 2003, Toronto’s CITY-TV was the first station in this country to start broadcasting digitally over the air.
But after years of speculation as to when the rest of the Canadian broadcast industry would catch up on their own, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) decreed in 2007 that most TV broadcast stations would have to complete their transition by Aug. 31, 2011.

Converter needed
Even though you should still be able to make some use of your rabbit ears to capture digital signals, you’re going to need a digital-to-analog converter box, ranging in cost from about $70 to $90, depending on the make and model. And you may want to spring for a new made-for-digital set-top antenna, if you’re determined to have good quality over-the-air (OTA) digital reception.
In the meantime, it’s estimated that 900,000 Canadians currently still relying on rabbit ears or some other kind of external antenna to watch OTA will be losing all reception in September, when they won’t be ready for digital. While the switch is expected to have the greatest impact on OTA viewers, pay subscribers (cable and satellite) are not expected to be affected, even if they are using older televisions.

Spectrum management
According to the CRTC, which is overseeing the transition, one of the main reasons for switching to digital is the need for more radio frequency spectrum, commonly referred to as “airwaves.” Spectrum is used for things like wireless telephone services and emergency communications. Digital signals use less airwave space than analog. This means that the liberated space can be used for other services that have a high demand for more space. Digital technology also provides better sound and picture.
Quebec’s major urban centres, including Montreal, are among the areas across Canada where the old analog transmitters are going to be switched off for good on the last day of August. In Montreal, where the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s French and English stations, CBFT and CBMT, have been running digital transmitters alongside their analog ones since 2008, CTV-Montreal (CFCF) is only switching on its OTA digital transmitter at the end of January. While it’s worth noting that the stations have been providing a digital “feed” to local cable companies for years, people without cable, or who can’t afford an OTA converter box, could easily find themselves cut off completely from television starting in September.

U.S. helped OTA viewers
In the United States, where OTA analog TV transmission by major broadcasters ended two years ago, the federal government launched a subsidy program so that stranded analog OTA viewers could receive coupons good for a sizeable discount on a converter, allowing them to receive DTV after the transition. In Canada, where the CRTC appears to have been in no hurry to implement the transition, there is no such plan, a CRTC spokesperson told the Laval News.
With the transition just seven months away, the CRTC hasn’t yet decided on the format that public notices are going to take to inform viewers of the virtually overnight analog shutdown. “We issued a call for comments in December with regards to what should be done to advise consumers,” the spokesperson said.

Needy left stranded
At charitable organizations like Agape Inc. in Laval that distribute second-hand goods to the needy, questions are arising about how they’re going to deal with the fact that virtually all the donated TVs they have on hand are only good for analog reception. When a family or a person on welfare can’t afford cable and their only entertainment is television, how will they afford the cost of a converter?
“If rabbit ears aren’t going to work, then these people are screwed,” said Nick, an Agape worker who manages the group’s inventory of donated items. Betty McLeod, Agape’s executive-director, added, “If the States came up with a subsidy to help out these people, why can’t we do it?”

Useless without converter
At Renaissance, a Montreal charity that sells previously-owned goods including old televisions, a spokesperson was surprised to learn that their TVs, which were sold in a usable condition up to now, may no longer be so without a converter. “I must admit I was not aware of the change,” said Cécile Carasco. She suggested that Renaissance might deal with the problem by posting notices alongside their TVs, warning buyers that the sets won’t operate past the analog cutoff date without the addition of a digital converter.