Television Signals

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.

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.

In less than nine months, old-fashioned broadcast television will go the way of typewriters, vinyl records and 35-millimeter film. Like just about everything else, it's getting upgraded to digital. If you haven't been paying attention -- and who could blame you, it's not even football season and the government-mandated change won't take place until after next year's Super Bowl -- broadcasters, federal officials and consumer advocates say it's time to start tuning in to the digital TV transition.

The chairman of the Federal Communications Commission on Wednesday proposed opening up unused portions of the television airwaves known as "white spaces" to deliver wireless broadband Internet service. The proposal by FCC chief Kevin J. Martin appeals to public interest groups and many of the nation's biggest technology companies, including Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp., which hope it will bring affordable high-speed Internet connections to more Americans.

Federal regulators on Tuesday approved the largest ever expansion of wireless Internet access, unanimously backing a controversial plan to allow a new generation of devices to use the empty airwaves between television channels to go online. Dubbed "Wi-Fi on steroids" by its supporters in the high-tech industry, the plan promises to offer wireless Internet service across America -- most likely for free -- and spur new systems for transmitting video and other data between devices in homes.

At noon sharp Thursday in Hawaii, a message appeared on analog TV sets across the islands: "All full-power Hawaii TV stations are now digital." The state shut down old-fashioned broadcast signals more than a month before the rest of the country is set to make the now-contentious switch. Even before the change, residents lighted up TV help-center phone lines set up by the Federal Communication Commission. More than 300 calls came in Wednesday, and 10 lines were lighting up Thursday.

The move to delay next month's nationwide transition to all-digital broadcast television stalled Wednesday in the House, but supporters expected the measure to pass as soon as next week. A fast-tracked bill to delay the switch until June 12 failed to get the two-thirds majority required for an expedited vote after it passed the Senate on a unanimous voice vote Monday.