Digital TV confusing you? WGBH can help

Station plans day of programs on switch

If you're still confused about the coming transition to digital television broadcasting, switch on your TV next Tuesday and prepare to be educated.

The public TV station WGBH will halt regular programming for nearly the whole day to broadcast information about the changeover. Other major TV stations in Greater Boston will interrupt regular programming three times during the day to help viewers test their TV sets, and flash frequent on-screen messages about the transition, scheduled for Feb. 17.

On that day, major TV stations must stop over-the-air broadcasting of analog TV signals - the kind that have been used for over half a century. While stations in New York and Chicago have launched digital TV education campaigns, Boston is the first city to see a major station, even a noncommercial outlet like WGBH, sacrifice an entire day's programming to the effort.

WGBH's president, Jon Abbott, volunteered his station's airtime last month during a planning session with other broadcasters and Democratic US Representative Ed Markey of Malden. "We realized that the original plan of the three two-minute tests should be supplemented," Abbott said. "We thought we ought to get it right."

Nearly all US TV stations now broadcast both a digital and analog signal. But on Feb. 17, the analog broadcasts will stop. The Federal Communications Commission estimates that 123,000 households in Greater Boston get all their TV programs the old-fashioned way: over the air, through an antenna. Those viewers will lose TV service unless they either have newer televisions, built to also receive a digital signal, or obtain digital converter boxes to use with older sets. The boxes generally cost about $60, and the federal government is providing households with up to two $40 coupons to be used toward their purchase.

Over 90 percent of the 2.4 million households in Greater Boston subscribe to cable or satellite service, and they won't be affected by the digital changeover. But many subscribers own spare TV sets that get programs through an antenna. Those sets must be converted to digital TV, or they'll become useless.

On Tuesday, from 5 a.m. to 7:30 p.m., TV stations will flash frequent on-screen messages alerting viewers to the coming digital TV changeover. The stations will also broadcast two-minute digital TV tests at 5:15 a.m., 6:15 a.m., and 5:15 p.m. Sets that are not digital-ready will display information on how to obtain converter boxes.

From 5 a.m. to 7:30 p.m., WGBH's analog broadcast will constantly repeat a 30-minute documentary on converting to digital TV.

Impatient viewers can already test their TVs for digital compatibility by tuning into MyTV, a Derry, N.H., station that broadcasts in Boston on Channel 18. On Monday, MyTV went all-digital, more than two months ahead of schedule.

Diane Sutter, president of MyTV's owner, Shooting Star Broadcasting LLC, said the changeover has been nearly flawless. "We have had about a half-dozen calls of people with questions," Sutter said. "Our chief engineer's been helping them through."

More information on the digital transition is available at 1-888-225-5322.

To get a coupon for a digital converter box, go to www.DTV2009.gov, or call 1-888-388-2009.

Hearing-impaired users can call a TTY line at 1-877-530-2634.

Hiawatha Bray can be reached at bray@globe.com.