The Switch

Most people are shocked in 2009 when they learn that my parents don't have Cable, that our television signal comes from an analog antenna mounted on the chimney outside our house. Truth be told, I remember being made fun of by kids in elementary school as far back as the ‘80s for my lack of channels. Honestly, even though it's not my house nor my decision to make, I've yet to hear compelling argument in favor of taking on another monthly fee to get hundreds of channels. I spend a ridiculous amount of time in front of a television or computer now, and there isn't a television show or movie that I can't find online or on DVD. I can count on one hand the number of Cable series I've followed, and when Battlestar Galactica concludes its final season in a few short months, True Blood will be the last show of any interest to me that isn't on broadcast television.

So, I would think the majority of Americans aren't too concerned with the switch from analog to digital taking place next month. Most are already on Cable or satellite or something other than an antenna, and won't be affected. But for the significant minority of us who do use an antenna, we need a DTV converter box, which will allow us to continue using the antenna.

The government has provided coupons for these devices, which I applied for a while back. In the interim, my uncle gave my mom a converter box for her birthday, so I was able to set her television up. Currently, a coaxial cable runs from our outside antenna and connects to the television in our living room, and the one in my parents' room. We have a third television in our den with rabbit ears that has had increasingly bad reception over the years; I suspect that thing will soon be useful only when I'm feeling nostalgic and hook it up as a monitor for my Intellivision or my NES. Since the antenna hooks up by sliding wires under Phillips head screws, I doubt it would even be compatible with the new boxes.

Hooking up the box to my mom's TV was pretty simple. I attached the existing cable from the outside antenna to the box, then connected that to the VCR, and finally to the television set. Since the VCR normally plays off channel 3, I set a switch on the box to channel 4. So when the box is on, the television set has to be on channel 4, and we can use the new remote to change channels on the box, not the television. For people who've had cable for years, I doubt any of this sounds like a new concept. For me, I was impressed with the new sub-channels we can now get. Instead of just having a 4, we now have 4-1, 4-2, 4-2, etc. One channel has all weather, all the time, while another randomly cycles through traffic cameras. I was actually mesmerized watching a gridlocked intersection in Manhattan. If we did have Cable, the risk of never leaving my house would be greatly increased.

Now here's where things get complicated. For now, we can still use the normal channels and record the normal channels. My mom can tape various shows on various channels throughout the day, or watch one show while taping another show. But apparently, once the switch kicks in, the VCR will only be able to record through the box. So the VCR will need to be set to channel 4, and the box will manually have to be tuned to the station we want to record. That means if my mom normally tapes one show on one channel at one time of day and later on another show on a different channel, she needs to be home to make the switch. And she can't watch television while it's recording, at least not a different channel. “I don't understand; how is this better?” she asks, not unjustified.

I began doing research, and I'm still doing research. Would a DVR be needed to resume our normal recording and viewing habits? VCRs are all but obsolete, although many of us still use them. Would a DVR even work with an antenna? Would we need a subscription service like TiVo? Technology was swiftly leaving us in the dust, or forcing us to pay a monthly fee to do what we'd always done for free. I did find the EchoStar TR-50, which appears to be a digital recording device that would be compatible with an antenna and not require a subscription service. I know my mom wouldn't be comfortable giving up her VCR completely. I bought my parents a DVD player last year, but they have so many shows and movies on tape that they'd still want to be able to watch. Blu-ray is on the verge of making DVD obsolete, and the technology is changing way to fast right now. I suspect we're moving away from physical media, and soon there won't even be removable discs, only harddrives with high speed connections downloading movies and other content as data from some central hub. Unfortunately, my family moves in baby steps, not leaps.

Further research led me to charts that seem to explain how we can use the VCR autonomously of the television. It actually seems quite simple, that if I hook up a splitter to the antenna cable and have two boxes, one for the TV and another for the VCR, it will solve one problem. Unfortunately, there's no way to preprogram the VCR to tape multiple channels since the box controls the channels and can't be programmed. So the VCR would have to be programmed only to tape channel 4, and we'd still have to manually switch the station. Am I missing something? I have to agree with my mom that it seems like a step backwards. I'm not sure we wouldn't have the same problem with a DVR, unless that would act as both a recording device and a converter. I suspect, on nights like Mondays and Thursdays when I watch multiple shows on multiple stations, I'm about to be stuck watching more and more television through the internet. We're on the verge of a Hulu society.

If anyone has any suggestions or advice(other than “get Cable”), or can explain how a Cable box wouldn't have the same problem where taping shows was concerned, I'd greatly appreciate it. Every time I hit another dead end, I'm sure I'm missing some obvious workaround. I’d also be curious if there are any readers out there who still use an antenna.

I love the improved picture quality and additional channels that the switch offers, but recording shows seems to have just gotten a lot harder than it should be...