CBS and PBS went black for everyone in Nashville receiving broadcast TV. OTA DTV prepared folks (such as myelf) had to rescan. Other channels unaffected as of yet, will be interesting to see if more switch throughout the day.

Rescanning is easy to do if you know how. But if you don't know how, it's next to impossible. Spent 15 minutes on the phone talking a widow through the procedure for rescanning a Magnavox converter so she could receive CBS and PBS. How many will simply think those stations just went away or their boxes are broken and return them?

Forget about the 2.8 million totally unprepared, think about the countless millions that are wondering why they lost some channels. If they do know why they lost them many are incapable of fixing the problem.

Point 1: Mandatory switch is only due to monetary greed on the part of the Government. Switching from Black and white to color took decades, no 'hard date' was set. Simply wait until a large percentage have switched anyhow. Of course you don't make money doing it the graceful way.

Point 2: After a station goes digital it may also elect to move the digital channel to another place in the spectrum at the same time. So those folks that *were* prepared may still face a blank screen. Try explaining to someone they have to rescan, especially if they had the converter box installed professionally or by a relative at thanksgiving/xmas.

The DELAY compounds this problem. After March 16th channels will again have the option to switch early before June 12th. Consumers will be required to rescan their digital tuners multiple times rather than just once as stations migrate gradually leading up to June 12th. Who's gonna reimburse grandma who may have to get the geek squad come out several times to do this?

I wonder if Obama really understood the extra hassle he has/will create for consumers who did things on-time by delaying the cut-over. The best thing he could have done would be to have canceled the hard date altogether.

Did the Government really make much money at all after they spent so much on education and coupons?

I agree about the waste of time and money this article raises. But do we really think that the 4 month delay will reduce the unready from 5.8 Million to 2 million? That's awful optimistic IMHO.

JP

Ready or not the switch will be a mess anyway. I read recently that 'rescanning' channels is necessary intermediately after the analog channels are turned off. Many folks will have had help provided by more technically competent friends and family, or worse they paid a tech to setup the box for them.

Ask the uninitiated to rescan all on the same day? Good luck.

Why did they design the analog to digital switch to require a digital to digital 'switch' to new channels the day after transition? Talk about silly.

It's gonna be a cluster whichever way the wind blows.