All Ready for Digital TV, Are you?

Well, two days left and I’m good to go for the digital TV conversion.

I used my DTV coupon to get my oldest daughter a converter box a couple of weekends back and setting it went very smoothly. She picked up around 13 channels (mostly public TV) and things are working well. I still need to do some cable clean-up as she has some static which isn’t from the signal. I was pleasantly surprised that the converter box includes a TV guide. That wasn’t a feature I was aware of.

We had bought my youngest daughter a TV with a digital tuner for her birthday last year. However, the first time I tired to use the tuner, it wouldn’t pick up any channels. Well, with the deadline looming, I headed to the attic and dug around in my old wire stash to find a pair of rabbit ears with a UHF antenna. A quick connect and bingo, digital channels for the viewing. Unlike her sister’s TV, the picture was clear and crisp. I also found I could change the TV layout to widescreen or crop to match the programming. Pretty cool.

In all, I’m pretty pleased with the results. Since I can’t receive CBS on DISH due to an ongoing dispute, I can at least watch Big Brother this summer if I so desire.