All the info you hear and read about the analog-to-digital television conversion taking place this weekend consists of how to hook up an analog-to-digital converter, if you need one, and the fact that you will have to rescan your channels after the changeover.
Just one problem: As anybody who is using an antenna-based TV by now knows, you have an additional problem once you've converted: The actual use of your TV is now very different.
This is completely ignored. Not surprising, because everything is apparently written by engineers, who are very interested in technical details and not at all interested in the user experience.
What I mean is this: The favorite channel of my mother-in-law, who is Chinese, is channel 26, which in San Francisco is the Chinese network (in the evenings). She knows how to enter "26" into the clicker to get there.
Since she uses a rooftop antenna, we got her a converter box and scanned the channels. But now, instead of Channel '26,' she has Channels '26-1', '26-2', and '26-3'. Only '26-3' is her regular Chinese channel; the others are other channels, not identified, and not familiar.
So we bought her a new digital TV--and got the same results. Now we have to teach my mother-in-law to enter "26" and then click the 'Channel Up" button twice (or press '26' - 'dash' - '3' -- with the "dash" being represented, intuitively, by the "100" button on the clicker).
Did you know that? Not if your information comes from the voluminous propaganda about this conversion. Because nobody has bothered to mention it. You'll be surprised! Woo hoo!
Similarly, she now has channels 2-1, 2-2, and 2-3, 3-1, 3-2, and 3-3, 4-1 and etc. Some of these are the still-continuing analog channel (which will go away), the new digital channel for that station, and an HD channel if that station has one. But in many cases, the extra channels are random other channels I never heard of, don't recognize, and don't know what they are supposed to be: There are all-news channels I don't recognize, all-weather channels I don't recognize, and just channels that are unexplained and unidentified.
Naturally, none of this is in the newspaper TV listings. Less naturally, all this comes as a complete and puzzling surprise because it is not mentioned in any way in the documentation for the TV or in any newspaper articles about the conversion, or on DTVAnswers.com or any other Web site on the topic that I've been able to find.
Everyone is worried about those 2 million Americans who haven't converted yet, but what about the additional Americans who have converted but will be faced with this odd system with nobody in authority seeming to be aware of it? I guess all the "experts" on this topic get Cable, which doesn't have this mixed-channels problem.
Can anybody tell me where info about this is published? Can anybody explain why the widely distributed discussions about the conversion completely ignore this interface problem? Is it really that the experts all have cable and are talking entirely theoretically but haven't actually *used* the systems they're explaining? Or is it really that the engineer mentality causes everyone to ignore the customer experience?
Or is this published everywhere and I have somehow entered an info-free zone?
I've got a dollar that says that starting Monday, June 15, our info channels will be filled with belated info about what the heck all those extra channels are. And while they're at it, maybe they can explain to my mother-in-law how to arrange it so she can just type in "26" and get her TV channel again!
Irritatedly yours,
Mac McCarthy
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