Audio Slide Show: Digital revolution

LEWISTON - After five months of visiting home electronics stores and searching the Internet to understand the jargon - analog, digital, HD, DLP, LCD and plasma - Gene Gilbert of Lewiston still doesn't know what kind of TV he'll buy.

"I've been here four times," Gilbert said Friday morning, nodding to the wall of TVs at the Lewiston Sears. "I just try to get a little bit each time."

He's part of a growing-but-confused market who believe their TVs may soon be worthless.

That's not exactly true. But change is coming.

On Feb. 17, 2009, the over-the-air signal used by traditional TVs to pick up local programs will end. By law, those transmissions will be shut off. Only late generation TVs equipped to receive new digital signals will work.

A Federal Communications Commission Web site, www.dtv.org, ominously displays a ticking clock, counting down the days, hours, minutes and seconds until the old-fashioned analog transmissions will end.

At first, the change will effect only a small minority of TV watchers: those who get their programs with an antenna. Nationally, that number is around 10 percent of all households, according to the FCC.

A similar number for Maine was unavailable; however, the vast majority of local folks get their programming via cable TV or a satellite service, and operators of both systems promise a seamless change when the deadline passes.

"People's TVs will work just like they do today," said Melinda Poore, spokeswoman for Time Warner Cable.

However, the industry change is not limited to folks with antennas.

In March, the FCC ruled that all new TVs manufactured in the U.S. must have digital tuners. New analog sets still sit on some local shelves, marked with a mandated FCC warning about the 2009 deadline.

But they are rare.

In Auburn, Wal-Mart had no analog TVs this week. Neither did Best Buy. Agren Appliance had one. Sears, in Lewiston, had a few, but they were marked down and set aside.

Instead, each store devoted its prime space to high-end digital TVs. While some, like Wal-Mart, carried several digital sets priced as low as $100, the walls at each displayed rows of high definition TVs: DLP or projection TVs, and sets with plasma or liquid crystal displays.

Most cost more than $1,000. Costs for some surpassed $3,500.

"They have a lot of eye appeal," said Gilbert, a retired truck driver for UPS. He knows. He began looking around when his 12-year-old TV broke last spring. He's still looking.

"I know my old TV was obsolete," he said.

He has visited most of the local sellers. He's listened to the pitches and the explanations of all the diverse technology.

In most cases, the sellers worked to explain the pros and cons of each TV and the technology behind them, he said.

"There are a lot of questions out there," said Eric Weeks, a 20-year-old business student who has sold TVs at the Auburn Best Buy since it opened in March.

However, there's no one question that every person asks.

Some people come in with lots of understand, often from researching the TVs on the Internet.

"I don't try to sell people something they don't want," Weeks said. "I don't make a commission on the TVs I sell."

Instead, he tries to tailor his work to how a TV might be used.

For instance, plasma TVs, which have a glass front, might work best in a room with little light and little glare. A liquid crystal display TV might work better in a brightly lit room, but it would have a tougher time than the plasma with fast moving pictures like those in a football game.

The cost for either TV can run more than $2,000.

People ought to know that the marketplace is changing and be aware of the deadlines, said Jason Agren, a vice president with Agren Appliance. There's no reason to panic, though.

"People think if they can't use their TV, they have to buy a flat panel screen," Agren said. "Most people don't understand what it's all about."

One way out for people with old-fashioned TVs might be purchasing a converter. The box, which FCC officials predict will drop in price to $50 or $60, will allow an analog TV to get over-the-air digital transmissions.

Congress has set aside $1.5 billion for coupons that the U.S. Department of Commerce will distribute to people beginning next year. Each coupon will be worth $40 toward the purchase of a converter. Several companies have begun producing them.

At Best Buy in Auburn, the first such box arrived a week ago. It's price: $179.

No customer has asked for one yet, Weeks said.

Gilbert said he has ruled out buying the box. It would mean repairing his old TV and it wasn't worth it, he said.

"I have a budget of $1,000," he said. With that, he hopes to by a 32-inch high definition TV. It will fit well in his big living room, he said, and it will help him see the screen, since his eyes don't work so well anymore.

Then again, he hasn't missed watching TV since his broke in the spring, he said. Instead, he's been visiting the library once a week.