QOTD: Were You Prepared for the Switch to DTV?

It’s been a long, delayed road to the switchover in the U.S. from analog TV broadcasts to all-digital. Today marks the day that the analog frequencies are freed from carrying TV, which means that unless you took the proper steps to ensure that all your hardware was up to snuff, you’re not getting anything on the boob tube.

For a recap of our coverage leading up to today, check out the links below:

We expect that most of you were ready for DTV, but the question of the day is:

Wwere there any of you (or people that you knew) who weren’t prepared for it? Or even better, do you know anyone completely taken by surprise on the sudden cutoff of analog signals?

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Marcus Yam served as Tom's Hardware News Director during 2008-2014. He entered tech media in the late 90s and fondly remembers the days when an overclocked Celeron 300A and Voodoo2 SLI comprised a gaming rig with the ultimate street cred.

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70 Comments Comment from the forums

oh very much so. I have been running dtv/ota hd for about three years now get stations 2-13 just fine. I can see the empire state building from my kitchen window just across the river. so all is good in dtv land
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LATTEH

i was but i didn't see a difference in my TV quality...
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IronRyan21

What switch?
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p05esto

Sure, I wish 5 years ago. I just wish the govenment didn't spend my tax dollars to give out coupons to others. Since when is TV an essential survival tool that the government needs to hand out to people? WTF. No wonder the economy is crap, our lawmakers don't have a clue and spend money on the dumbest things.
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fuser

I don't even remember the last time I watched broadcast television. It has been > 15 years.
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gosefroba

is this one of those jokes threads you guys were talking about last week?
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Ciuy

hahaha noob americans :)) TV coupons loool ...

Anyway i still have analog in my old apartment but digital in the house. Cant see any difference in quality tough. Same bullwack. Why cutoff something that worked perfectly for tens of years. Digital is not trustworthy.
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fuser

There are lots of reasons for switching from analog to digital broadcast. The government can sell the freed up broadcast spectrum, digit broadcast allows for higher quality picture and sound, broadcasters can multicast several programs instead of one, ...
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tayb

There are legitimate good reasons for switching to digital... but the market should have decided when that time was to come, not the government. We spent what $25 billion making this switch when we could have just waited about five more years and the market would have switched on its own, for free. Government can't do anything right.
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computabug

I was still a little baby when they switched over (ok maybe not baby, but I was in elementary school) so it was such as smooth transaction (for my home) that I didn't notice it. Heck, I didn't even know 1% of the tech stuff I know today back then lol. I thought a computer was completely cramped on the inside, and the case/circuits were one part. Gosh, I was reaaaaally stupid back in the days :lol: but I'll always be ready for technology transactions now that I spend like 2 hours reading tech sites daily :D
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