D e s e r t E x p o s u r e
February
2009
Poor, Poor Digital Me
Time to throw another analog on the fire. . .
I haven't lost any sleep over the big switcheroo from analog television transmission to digital TV that's supposed to take place this month. (Unless, that is, so many folks have lost sleep over the switch — or, more likely, somehow failed to tune in to the 637 bazillion public-service announcements and news stories about it — that the changeover gets postponed.) I grew up on over-the-air television, and wax nostalgic over the dubious pleasures of tweaking "rabbit ears" just so — and then, all too often, having to stand there holding the antenna lest Red Skelton dissolve into a blizzard of static. But we got cable in the first apartment of our married life — the cable guy right behind my bride as I carried her over the threshold — and never looked back.
 |
Ever since, we've enjoyed 500 channels with nothing on courtesy of cable or, more recently, satellite. Once you've watched "Weird, True & Freaky" on Animal Planet or thrilled to the 1965 Masters tournament on the Golf Channel, there's really no turning back to the narrow universe accessible through broadcast television.
Besides, the antenna-viewable options in Silver City are even more limited, as we learned the hard way when we arrived a few days before the moving van (six years ago this month!). We'd kept out a pint-sized Sony Watchman TV when the movers came to pack us up, and took it with us and the yowling cats as we drove across the country to New Mexico. This trusty little portable TV had a lone "rabbit ear," like Bugs Bunny after Elmer Fudd almost got lucky. Struggling to find a comfortable seat in our furniture-free new house, we whipped that antenna around in moves reminiscent of some 1950s teen dance craze, seeking a signal, any signal. One, sometimes two over-the-air stations from Albuquerque, dutifully broadcast by local repeater stations with call signs like XQ223ZZTOP, would briefly appear on the teensy screen, accompanied by a burst of crackly palaver. (Inevitably, the stations came in best during the commercials.) Then they'd vanish. It was like holding a seance.
As you might expect, we had the cable guy poised to enter even as the movers exited after delivering our regular TV set. Several years later, when we switched from old familiar cable to satellite, it was gut-wrenching. The first Catholics converted by Martin Luther during the Reformation must have felt pretty much the same: But what if we go to hell? What if we can't watch "Doctor Who"?
In any case, cable or satellite, as I understand it we have nothing to fear from the big analog-to-digital switch. Life as we know it will proceed uninterrupted, and "Weird, True & Freaky" will appear on our screen as though nothing had happened.
Evidently, however, as least judging by those 638 bazillion ads and news stories (another bazillion since I typed the first paragraph above), not everyone will pass through Feb. 17 — or whatever new date gets set — with such equanimity. Inexplicably, not everyone has a 152-inch plasma screen TV with adjustable frammistats and 3,672-pixel doohickeys, purchased within the past four years. (Technically, pretty much any TV bought since 2004 probably has a digital tuner, but why skimp?) Stranger still, not everyone gets cable or satellite TV. Yes, this mean they are bereft of Animal Planet and the Golf Channel; they may never have seen "Meerkat Manor" — ever!
Such benighted folks presumably fall into one of these seven categories, which I believe will be added to the 2010 US census:
_ Cavemen.
_ Hillbillies who have yet to strike oil (aka "black gold" and "Texas tea") as in "The Beverly Hillbillies."
_ Senior citizens over the age of 112 who are resistant to any technology introduced after the buggy whip.
_ Poor people foolishly spending their meager incomes on food and shelter rather than television. (No, apparently there is no simple way to identify these un-American types and deport them.)
_ People living in rural areas so remote that word is just now reaching them about the first Great Depression — the one in the 1930s.
_ Intellectuals who believe TV — "the vast wasteland" — rots the mind. (Well, duhhh!)
_ Space aliens who have advanced so far that they have no need of television.
(OK, I have a hard time believing that last one myself. Who doesn't need TV?)
If you fall into one of these categories and still depend on the combination of an old, analog TV and an antenna, come the digital revolution your three or four fuzzy over-the-air channels (none of them carrying "Meerkat Manor") will abruptly drop to zero. The world of analog, antenna-based television that has suckled generations of Americans, from "Our Show of Shows" to "The Biggest Loser," will go dark. A gut-wrenching scream of confusion and panic will echo from sea to shining sea as Luddites twirling their dials (yes, "dials" — look it up) and adjusting their rabbit ears in search of "Oprah" find only static.
Maybe. My hunch is that if you don't care enough about TV and reruns of the 1965 Masters to invest in a new boob tube and/or to get cable or satellite, it may be weeks before you even notice that analog broadcasts are gone:
"Hey, honey, I can't get 'The Dick Cavett Show' to tune in!"
"I think Cavett was cancelled, dear — I remember reading something in the Times. Try 'Charlie Rose' instead."
"Nope, nothing on PBS, either."
"No PBS? Drat that Bush administration! As soon as I finish re-reading Remembrance of Things Past, I intend to write a sharply worded letter to my congressman."
Not only couldn't I live without TV, I pride myself on being pretty techno-savvy. So nothing to worry about in our household come Feb. 17!
On the other hand, I am a little freaked out about our DVD player, an essential adjunct to the TV for those times when we've already seen this episode of "Weird, True & Freaky." A couple of recent DVDs we've popped in have not merely refused to play, but actually turned the DVD player off. These are Blu-Ray discs, naturally, our player being the latest and greatest as befitting our "early adopter" bent.
Well, not exactly the latest, it turns out. After a healthy session or two of screaming ineffectually at the DVD player and cursing the gods of technology, I went online (yes, of course, I was ahead of the curve on the Internet, too) for answers. Apparently, newfangled DVD players need their "firmware" updated periodically to keep up with the latest on-disc innovations.
Now, wait a minute. My record player never needed its "firmware" updated. The VCR gathering dust in our closet was 100-percent hassle-free unless it ate a videotape. The CD player just, well, plays.
After a lengthy download (apparently, you can't own a DVD player nowadays unless you also own a computer with broadband Internet access and a CD burner), I followed instructions and burned a CD, which I popped into the player. Firmware-updating magic failed to ensue.
Feeling like my parents — who didn't even have a Touchtone phone, for gosh sakes — I called the manufacturer for help. Yes, I was technologically stumped. Me! The manufacturer offered to send an upgrade disk at no charge; I gathered mine was not the first such frustrated call. ("Old fogey on line seven!" I imagined the operator announcing.)
The disk arrived today, and I'm about to go give it a try. Tonight we may be watching Hellboy II in all its high-definition glory.
Or I may be beginning that slippery slide into techno-ignorance, from digitally up-to-date to (shudder!) analog. I'll bet those old folks now flummoxed by the TV transition once prided themselves on being hip to the latest gizmos, too, and knew everything there was to know about vacuum tubes and crystal sets. There but for the grace of Blu-Ray go I!
Besides, I just realized: That trusty old Sony Watchman won't work after the analog-to-digital transition. No converter box can save it, either, as its backside is blankly devoid of inputs. After decades of faithful, albeit occasional service, it will pathetically scan the airwaves for analog signals that have gone silent.
So maybe I'm nearer to techno-obsolescence than I thought. I wonder if there's some sort of converter box I can buy for my brain? Maybe I need a firmware upgrade, too.
It's either that, or check into becoming a hillbilly or space alien.
When he's not watching TV, David A. Fryxell edits Desert Exposure.