Present TVs Will Be Useless In 2006

As a TV critic, I hear a lot of complaints about television:

There’s too much violence or not enough, too much sex or not enough. There aren’t enough channels or more than people need. There’s nothing on for kids or adults, or nothing decent on at all.

However, I have never heard people say, “I’d gladly scrap my working TV set and pay $2,000 for one that gives me a picture that’s twice as wide as it is tall and a lot sharper.”

And why would they? Consumer-testing organizations report that most modern TV sets deliver terrific pictures if they’re hooked up right, and are among the most dependable products you can buy.

Too bad, folks. Last week, the federal government declared that every TV set you own no matter what size, no matter how expensive, no matter how well it’s working - is obsolete. Outdated. Outmoded. Dead. Defunct.

Right now, all TV sets and stations operate using analog technology. But by April 1999, the New York stations owned by ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox have been ordered by the FCC to start broadcasting via digital technology, the system used by computers. Other cities will follow.

Existing sets can’t handle digital signals, and although stations will broadcast both digital and analog signals at the same time until 2006, after that, analog’s history. That will make today’s 240 million reliable, high-quality TV sets as useless as spring tulips in a blast furnace.

Much of the reporting about the recent FCC ruling has gushed about high-definition TV (HDTV), which offers spectacularly sharp pictures, crystal-clear multi-channel sound and a wide image like those in movie theaters.

Wide-screen TVs, of course, won’t fit in the millions of cabinets and hutches and entertainment centers holding current sets. So on top of $2,000 or so for a new digital TV, consumers had better be prepared to plunk down a few thousand more for cabinetry.

As for better sound, most moviegoers already talk during films at theaters, not to mention the pictures they rent and watch at home.

In other words, consumers will have to junk their perfectly good TVs for expensive digital ones that display images about as sharp and lifelike as the ones people get now.

Such a deal.