Unless you've been living in a cave or just got back from Neptune you know that as of February 17, 2009 all TV broadcasts must be digital instead of analog. If you get your TV signal via cable or satellite then you don't need to worry about the switch. We're currently getting our TV from DirecTV (satellite). Our monthly bill is over $80!! We decided to see if we could "live" with the new DTV (digital TV), dump our DirecTV and save $80 per month. Our first step was applying for the government converter box coupon. You get 2 $40 coupons towards the purchase of converter boxes.
Click here for more info and to apply for your coupons. It took a couple of weeks for the coupons to arrive and what we actually got looked more like credit cards than "coupons". We took one of them to Best Buy and bought an Insignia converter box. Based on our research it was one of the best boxes for the money. It rang up at $65 total so we had to pay $25 out of pocket for it. We rushed home (not really) and hooked it up. The installation is very straight forward and the box is very easy to use. After it scans for channels we found that we can receive about 30 digital channels! The best surprise was the picture quality. It's OUTSTANDING! And you even get a guide like you do on cable or satellite except it only shows what's currently playing and what's on next. Today we bought another Insignia converter box with our second coupon. On Monday we're going to cancel our DirecTV service. Based on the comments we read while researching converter boxes a lot of people are canceling their cable or satellite services.
We're very happy with DTV, but after dealing with all this digital/analog/satellite/converters/etc stuff we found ourselves wondering "when did TV get so freaking complicated?!?"
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New DTV converter box on the top right. Under it is the DirecTV box that will soon be leaving us. Note the old "rabbit ears" antenna on the left on top of the cable modem and wireless router. Yup, you need an external antenna with the DTV converter box!
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