When the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) auctioned the airwaves that would serve as Digital Television broadcasts back in the mid-1990s, the goal was for the United States to “fully” transition to new ATSC DTV standard by the year 2006. At such a time, Congress would take back the airwaves originally allocated to NTSC analog television and re-allocate it for other purposes. (Not everyone is aware of this fact.) Analog television signals would cease to be broadcasted over-the-air, and everyone in the United States would watch Digital Television signals.

To make the huge number of existing analog televisions forward compatible with the DTV signals, manufacturers would make set-top boxes (STB), much like the set-top boxes that you may have today from your cable TV or satellite TV provider, that down-convert the DTV signal to an analog television signal so you would be able to drive your existing analog TVs with a signal that it is able to display. The down-conversion process takes the higher resolution picture of DTV signals and re-formats it to a lower resolution picture that analog TV sets is capable of displaying.

The DTV transition has been rather slow to date. Only a few percent of all U.S. households have DTVs or DTV-ready displays. The problem is similar to that of the chicken and the egg. The chicken being DTVs and the egg being DTV programming. (Or is it the other way around?) Without DTV programming, why would consumers want to upgrade to the more expensive DTVs or DTV-ready displays? From the content producers and broadcasters’ perspective, why would they upgrade their production equipment to DTV when there are not enough consumers with DTV capability to justify the investment?

Given the more realistic (read “slower than expected”) rate of DTV rollout by content producers, broadcasters, and distributors, and the adoption rate by everyday consumers, this 2006 “deadline” is extended. The U.S.Congress provision calls for the transition to occur when 85% of the United States population has Digital Television. This date has been formally set for February 17, 2009. Your analog TVs are safe from obsolescence for a few more years.

For more information about the history and future of Television in the United States, see "TV Grows Up" by PBS.