Are You Ready For The DTV Transition?

Over the past few weeks, several people have been asking me about the change coming to television. Despite all of the PSAs’ and crawls during newscasts & other programming, there is still a lot of confusion out there when it comes to this transition. I will use my parents as an example who are in their 60’s. While things like digital TV are easy for me to understand, the technology is confusing to those who were used to just turning on a TV. They are not ready to fork over some dough for a new HDTV. For now, they watch local channels using an outdoor antenna while subscribing to Dish Network. I told them that they could get a Dish dual tuner 322 with the Dish 1000 & get the local Erie stations like I do. Right now, they use two receiver boxes (which are not able to get local stations) so with the one box, they’d pay no more than they do now. They also now have two DTV converter boxes for other TV sets not hooked up to satellite. For Mom & Dad, they want to keep things simple (unlike me with technology, just ask my wife.) I have heard things like “Why is the Government doing this?” “Why do we have to buy converter boxes?” and so on. I explain about the coupon program & give them the website address or phone number. I even offer to go to their house to install converter boxes or other options like I told my parents about. If you’ve had similar experiences or are still puzzled about the new digital world, drop a line here & share your thoughts.