Question about digital TV's

[CoolCockyChick]

I've been hearing in the news that we'll all have to have digital TV's by next year. I'm going to be buying a Vizio for my living room and I know that one receives digital signals, but I have five other TV's in my house. How can I tell if those are digital TV's? I've heard there may be converters, but does anyone know how expensive those will be?

I'm tech illiterate, so any help here would be greatly appreciated! I'm trying to determine if I'm going to have to buy all new TV's or if the converters will be cheap enough.

[Spur's Addiction]

I am sure they will have converter boxes. most people don't have HDTV's yet and can't afford one. I am sure someone will offer converters.

[Spur's Addiction]

And if you have a cable box I assume you cable company would replace that. I think it would be mainly an issue with ove the air broadcasts. People with rabit ears will stop getting a signal without a converter.

[CoolCockyChick]

And if you have a cable box I assume you cable company would replace that. I think it would be mainly an issue with ove the air broadcasts. People with rabit ears will stop getting a signal without a converter.

Yeah, I have a cable box in my room and the family room, but my three boys each have a TV in their rooms and only one has cable hooked up to it (but no cable box, just the cable cord). So I may have to buy a converter for him. The twins aren't old enough to have cable on their TV's yet, but I am buying them new TV's for Christmas, so I'll probably be getting them digital TV's anyway. Maybe I'll just get rid of the 5th TV.....I mean, how many TV's do we need? :lol: Thanks!

[ShutTheSuccop]

I thought that most TVs produced in the last ten years are digital. Guess I am wrong about this

[ColaCock]

I have digital cable from Time Warner...which is pretty much all they offer I thought. I don't think you need anything special...I don't have a fancy TV. There is just a digital cable box that they give you.

[GamecockSkip]

Your old TV's tuner sections won't work when the networks switch to digital signals from the current analog signal. If your tv has inputs on the back to hook up a DVD player, you can get an external digital reciever and hook it to your old TV using those inputs. You won't get high definition with the old TV, but it should work. The problem is that the external digital tuner boxes will probably cost enough to where it won't be worth it to convert an old TV to recieve the digital signals. I imagine you will see a sharp drop in the price of HDTV's in the near future. Ain't progress grand?