Digital Technology

The digital switch is the end of one TV era, but broadcasters and device companies hope it's opening up another. Their vision for the future: a world in which we access live television not just on big screens in our living rooms, but also on cellphones and computers and in cars.

Kristina Schauer followed all the instructions to bring the promised benefits of digital television -- clearer reception and more free channels -- to her Santa Monica condominium. The 32-year-old stay-at-home mom bought a converter box, hooked it up to her old 17-inch Toshiba set and attached the rabbit-ears antenna. She then scanned for the digital signals that all Los Angeles stations and most nationwide have been transmitting in advance of turning off their analog broadcasts.

As the goods in our daily lives transform from analog to digital, it's hard not to wonder: Where did all our stuff go? We take photos, but the leather albums remain empty. The music collection bulges but requires no space next to the stereo. When "War and Peace" lives on electronic reading devices, it can no longer serve as a doorstop or a sign of being well-read.

Fifteen years ago, nearly 52,000 Holocaust survivors and witnesses began sharing their stories with a group that would come to be known as the USC Shoah Foundation Institute for Visual History and Education. The testimonies, averaging about two hours each, were documented on videotape, a format whose quality deteriorates over time.

If you're still using old-fashioned rabbit ears to watch television, you may be in luck for a few more months. The mandate to switch from old-school analog to new-school digital over-the-air TV is likely to be postponed from Feb. 17 to June 12, if a Senate bill passed Monday makes it through the House, which is scheduled to vote this morning. But it's not quite that simple.

The transition to digital television next month has been hailed as the biggest advance in over-the-air TV since the advent of color, but it's shaping up as a black eye for the government and risks leaving millions of viewers without a picture. On Thursday, President-elect Barack Obama asked Congress to postpone the federally mandated switch to all-digital broadcast television, called DTV, scheduled to take place Feb. 17.

Fears of blank TV screens and pixelated shows largely failed to materialize in San Diego on Wednesday as months of public outreach left the vast majority of viewers capable of receiving pictures via the new all-digital broadcasts. Although Congress delayed the digital TV transition until June 12 for most of the country, San Diego's major broadcast stations were among hundreds nationwide that received federal permission to turn off their analog signals early.

Eighty years after the 7 1/2 -minute cartoon "Steamboat Willie" helped launch the career of a certain iconic mouse, Walt Disney Co. has returned to its short-form roots with the debut of a digital studio that will develop original content for the Internet. Stage 9 Digital Media, quietly in the works for two years, will be unveiled today with the premiere of "Squeegees," a comedy series about window-washer slackers, on ABC.com and YouTube.

Just as consumers now pay for HBO, they may one day be charged for a digital music service as part of their monthly Internet bill. After resisting subscription services out of fear they would weaken CD sales, music companies are considering the idea in an attempt to reverse plummeting sales and unabated illegal downloading of music from the Internet.

Douglas Merrill remembers driving past the Capitol Records Tower at Hollywood and Vine and wishing he could stop in and look around. Now he's getting an office there, in the West Coast headquarters of EMI Music. On April 28, Merrill will start his new job as president of digital business at the label that's home to artists such as Coldplay and Norah Jones. His hire, announced last week, surprised many in the technology and music industries.