More Confusion for the 2009 Digital Turnover: Re-tuning Your Digital Box

Since writing here last about the threat of technophobia putting a huge damper on the analog to digital turnover, it seems that the delay of the digital turnover until June 12 has done some good. The FCC may have averted disaster and an overload of phone calls by delaying the turnover by five months--plus more of a concerted effort to educate people since the original turnover date. After likely a lot of shouting matches and confused people who suffer badly from technophobia finally getting their boxes hooked up to their TV (yes, believe me, the hookup isn't simple for all), there could be a victorious stance here for the FCC in their uphill battle in eliminating any sign of technophobia from our borders.

But then there's the new suggestion from the FCC to retune one's already tuned digital box to avoid missing out on all channels.

At the time of this writing, you may be seeing little ads and scrolls on the bottom of your local stations stating that you should rescan your box in order to pick up more channels that may have gone digital since you last did the tuning. In most cases, that refers to people who bought or acquired (via the coupons from the guv'mint) the digital box last year before some of those channels decided to take the digital plunge. That might bring up the question if you tuned the box within the last couple of months: Should I re-tune since it's so close to the June 12 deadline?

The FCC says yes, even though the troubled governmental agency may have more trouble on top of all their other troubles by saying at the 11^th hour that you need to do more to enjoy the world of over-the-air digital TV. As they did before with the directions on obtaining the box, attempts are being made to explain it in a way that doesn't confuse people. Unfortunately, learning how to retune a digital box isn't necessarily a cinch for the technologically challenged.

Most of the ad campaigns trying to explain this give overly general instructions on how to retune a digital box. For the few millions out there who just went through sibling rivalry hell getting a box set up, they're now expected to read through their English-challenged manuals on their box and learn how to retune to get more channels. Of course, this was probably a last-minute request by the over-the-air networks themselves who may have panicked that those who didn't rescan their boxes would never watch these channels, hence ratings suffering. Considering each digital box has slightly different menu designs, it may lead to more chaos and confusion in June when the digital turnover otherwise could have been blissful.

What can one who has technophobia do then if he or she doesn't want to miss out on channels and yet doesn't want to take the plunge in retuning their box? As with most technophobia, fear is in the eye of the badly-written manual. Yes, the FCC says that you should just consult your manual to find out how to retune the box since auto-tuning took place during initial setup. If you're like a few people I know who set up one of these boxes, it's best to go by intuition sometimes and not literally follow every word of the manual. You'll realize this when you see that most of them were written in Japanese, translated to Swahili, then into English, and then conversely repeated several times over before going back into something resembling English.
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If you take the time, everyone will notice that most of the digital converter boxes won't have a way to get into the menu functions manually on the front of the box. For some people who have trouble using the remotes that come with the digital boxes, you'll have no choice but to use the remote in order to bring up the main menu on your TV screen. Most menus on the boxes are going to be organized the same if not looking the same. Merely press the Menu button that's on all remote controls that come with the box. This should bring the menu display up on your TV screen where all options should be readily available. By pressing the arrow keys on your remote, you should be able to select a "Tuning" option that'll take you through the tuning process for a second time.

During this second tuning procedure, chances are small you'll get myriad channels and likely be one or two at best. If you happened to read my article on the growing over-the-air channel universe (see second source link at bottom), the majority of channels you'll ever care about are already available with almost as much variety as you get on cable. The only channels that you might miss should you decide to not retune your box by June 12 are going to be local channels that decided to join the hi-def fray and may not contain enough interesting programming to warrant the trouble.

Keep in mind, however, that a lot of over-the-air channels are going to be added in the future. These will be true national networks with good programming that you'll truly want without having to pay for a thing. Many of them are already broadcasting in certain areas, though will be expanding into other local markets within a year or beyond. In that scenario, it's a good idea to remember how to get into your menu function again later on so you can retune again for perhaps a third or fourth time just to keep up to speed on the slowly expanding over-the-air channel frontier.

The FCC will presumably remind people of this rather than thinking that more tuning won't have to be done after June 12. Nevertheless, as with the insinuations in this article, those afraid of doing anything more to their digital box ultimately may create more headaches for the FCC in June. Our government still dreams of a peaceful transition without having to deal with a bevy of confused people blowing out their phone lines. It may not happen because of the lack of ability to simplify the process down to the most basic level.

What's at fault here is bringing the digital universe to fruition at a hurried pace rather than realizing that when dealing with the entire populace of America, at least several years of extensive education needs to be done rather than starting it all just a year away from the turnover.

Someday we'll look back at the digital turnover as a stumble into new technology rather than peaceful awe that those who lived with the conversions into color and stereo television went through decades ago...

Sources:

http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/rescan.html

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1516354/why_you_should_consider_overtheair.html?cat=15