Unscrambling Digital TV
By MIKEY HIRANO CULROSS
RAFU STAFF WRITER
Saturday, May 30, 2009

On June 12, television will complete a major shift as all over-the-air broadcasts will be digital. Here, we try our best to make sense of it all.

Mikey Hirano Culross
On June 12, your picture will disappear unless your TV is confi gured to receive digital broadcasts. Don’t worry, it’s not that complicated.

UTB executive vice president Ann Haneda is proud that LA now has a 24-hour all-Japanese broadcast station.

Back in March, the Rafu began to receive a steady flow of phone calls and emails, asking what happened
to several of the Japanese television programs that had been broadcast on local channel 18 but then vanished. Not entirely sure why we here at the newspaper were fielding inquiries about the TV station, but we always try to help. One caller was completely exasperated that she missed the latest episode of “Tenchijin,” as it had been supplanted by a Korean drama.

The good news, dear readers and viewers, is that the shows have not vanished. On the contrary, they are thriving and have been joined by a full schedule of programming tailored for the Japanese and Nikkei
communities.

“Tenchijin,” is among dozens of Japanese programs from Untied Television Broadcasting Systems that have been aired locally on KSCI Channel 18, mostly on weekend nights, for years. Somewhat abruptly,
UTB’s shows disappeared from Saturday and Sunday evenings, leaving many to ask, “Where did they go?”

The answer: they went to digital TV.

What is DTV?
As confusing as it all sounds initially, the basic concept of digital television (DTV) is frankly simple. A few years ago, the United States Congress mandated that all over-the-air television signals—that is, any  signal that can be received freely with a standard antenna—would be required to be digital by Feb. 17, 2009. That deadline was later extended to this coming June 12.

What does that mean? Simply that the kind of TV signal you get at home is changing. Since TV began wide broadcasting in the late 1940s, the type of signal remained unchanged until now. It was an analog signal, a series of vibrating electronic waves, basically the same way radio works. There is a physical limit to how many vibrations one signal can transmit, but for decades, we only had a handful of stations in any one area, so we didn’t need much extra capacity to carry the transmission of “Captain Kangaroo” and our other favorites.

Our TV viewing needs—and desires—have changed drastically, however, and the major culprit in the change is HDTV, high definition television. While HDTV works on the same principal, it contains so
much detail that it requires much higher capacity to transmit the vast amounts of information, and puny
analog signals can’t handle the load.

Another problem with analog—one with which we are all familiar—is that if you’re in an area that doesn’t
receive a decent signal, your picture is wavy or everyone looks as though they’re standing in a snowstorm.
Digital TV solves these problems by slicing the old vibrating waves into millions of slivers and converting each sliver to a number, or digit. From that point, only numbers are transmitted; whether they’re fuzzy or distorted doesn’t matter, they’re still the same numbers. As long as the numbers are discernible, your TV can reassemble the image with absolutely no loss of picture quality...as long as your TV is capable of processing digital signals, which is our next topic of focus.

What DTV is not
Although it has “digital” in its name, DTV is not DVD, HDTV nor DVR. Furthermore, and we’ll get
into this later in the article, it is NOT “digital cable.” DTV simply refers to the kind of signal that is broadcast over the air, for free.

Does my TV do digital?
If your set is two years old or newer, the easy answer is yes. The Federal Communications Commission
has required all televisions sold in the United States since May 2007 to contain a digital tuner. That flat screen TV on your wall is digital-ready, dear readers.

If your TV is older—and you receive TV over the air, not via cable or satellite—you’ll need a digital
converter box. It’s basically the digital tuner component your TV doesn’t have, and you’ll need it by June  12 this year, or your TV won’t receive diddly squat. In fact, many stations have already made the switch to
digital-only broadcasting—including UTB. More on that later...

Making converts of us all
It’s easy to determine if your TV has a digital tuner. Check the owner’s manual, or if you’ve lost it, take a
look at your remote control. Digital stations operate subchannels, such as UTB’s 18.2, sometimes written
18-2. If your remote has a hyphen (–) key, your TV has a digital tuner. If not, your set likely can’t receive
DTV signals.

If you need a digital converter box, getting one and installing it can be cheap and easy. Also remember that if you get TV through a paid cable or satellite service and you’re happy with it, you don’t need a converter.

Digital converter boxes are easy to find. TV and electronics stores carry them, as do places like Target
and Radio Shack. They usually cost between 50 and 60 bucks, but the U.S. Government has a program that will give you a coupon worth $40 towards the purchase. To apply, visit the website www.dtv2009.gov. Getting the coupon is quite simple and any store that sells the converter is required to
accept it. Connecting the device is straightforward and uncomplicated. Unplug your antenna from your TV and connect it to the converter, then plug in the converter to the TV. Adjust your antenna for the best reception and voila!

My antenna, my friend
One of the great ironies of this newfangled digital technology is that it still requires the reception of a good,
strong signal. Remember your dad on the roof of your house, cursing and fiddling with the arial while our mother hollered directions up to him to get the best picture? “A little to the left! Good! No wait, back a little! Almost!” Get ready for some nostalgia, because your antenna- adjusting days are back.

Alan Harikian operates Speers TV in South Pasadena, a shop that has been in the same location since 1955, almost as long as there’s been television. He said that a good reception is even more important with digital TV than it was with old analog.

“With analog, you can still get a picture with a weak signal; it’s fuzzy or snowy, but you still get it,”  Harikian said. “With digital, you either get the signal or you don’t.” He emphasized the importance of
getting the proper antenna for the area in which you live, as broadcast signal strength can vary greatly, even from neighborhood to neighborhood.

“We have a lot of customers who are still using rabbit ears who call us a few days after installing the converter box and they complain that they don’t work,” he said.

Harikian said there are many types of antennas, and for most people an inexpensive set-top device should
work just fine. He recommended one from a company called Terk, which Speers TV sells for about $69.
There is a very useful website, www.antennaweb.org, that can help you determine not only which antenna
may work well for you, but also show you how to properly connect it and which way to point the darn thing. My dad really could have used their help.

Brave new DTV world
So now that your TV is connected and ready for digital broadcasts, you’ll find that there is a new universe
of programming soaring across the airwaves. All the familiar local channels are there—2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13,
18, etc.—but with a new twist. Many of the stations have substations, kind of “bonus” channels that transmit additional programming. Channel 4 here in Los Angeles, for example, also broadcasts weather information over channel 4.2 and mostly sports programs on 4.4.

It is to this realm of substations where United Television Broadcasting’s Japanese programs have moved.
In late March, UTB ceased airing their shows over channel 18’s main station—we can call that 18.1. Now,
UTB has its own spot on 18.2, where they broadcast a full day of Japanese or Japanese-related programs, including a great deal of English-language content from Japan’s public broadcaster, NHK.

Ann Haneda, UTB’s executive vice president, said that with analog there was only so much that could be
offered. With digital, channel 18 has used the expanded capacity to create additional subchannels.

“L.A. has a huge market and we’d like to, along with KSCI and other channels, offer more to the public,”
Haneda said during my visit to UTB’s Hollywood studios. “We’re bringing something that L.A. has never had: a full-time, all-Japanese broadcast which has never happened in the States, and it’s completely free, You don’t have to pay for cable of satellite and anybody can watch,” she boasted.

Haneda explained that UTB formerly had very limited airtime on channel 18, but now effectively has 24 hours each day to work with. Not only are the current UTB favorites—“Tenchijin,” “3-minute Cooking,” among others—available, but now a great many shows run daily.

Personally, I have found myself tuning in to the NHK World news on a daily basis. It’s in English and runs at the top of the hour in the morning and early afternoon. I’ve also connected a digital converter to our little TV here in the Rafu newsroom and the newscasts help keep us up to date on the latest from Japan.
“We are here to serve our community—the Japanese/Nikkei community, but also, we’re here in Southern California where there’s people from all over the world,” she said. “We’d like to share our culture with everybody. That’s why we’ve done subtitling or dubbing of many programs so that all people can enjoy the Japanese culture.”

Haneda added that UTB, which first began broadcasts in Japanese in 1971, has an eye toward producing
more local programming. She believes the expanded availability of broadcasting space could bring a possible shift away from paid TV services.

“I think it can, because it’s free,” she said. “It’s like a radio; you can get it anywhere. Of course, it’s
only a local reach, but I think being offered several more channels and options that were available before can
rival cable and satellite.” Which leads us to our final—and most complicated—topic...

The disconnect with cable
The cable and satellite television companies have made liberal and broad use of the word “digital” in their
advertising. It is true that the signals they transmit are indeed digital, but that is not DTV. It is also true that if you have cable or satellite TV, none of the channels you currently receive will be affected in anyway  after the DTV transition deadline on June 12. What I believe companies like Time Warner and Cox would  prefer you not know, however, is that substations like UTB on 18.2 will not—repeat, will not—be carried  on their systems.

There are several reasons for this, both technological and profit-motivated in nature. Eric Olander, a veteran broadcaster who is now KSCI Channel 18’s vice president, said that because cable and satellite providers have a finite  broadcasting capacity, they need to decide what is most desirable for the greatest number of people–and therefore, most profitable. He added that the move to digital-only channels has been decided by the broadcast companies that supply Channel 18 with much of its content—as in the case with UTB.

“Everybody wants more channels. NBC, for example, has CNBC, MSNBC, etc., on cable,” Olander said. “The calculation for them is that they can make more money by selling more ads on more channels.”

Olander also said there has been a lot of manipulation of the term “digital,” much of it by the cable companies. “The more people are confused about terrestrial television, the more they think that cable is the answer,” he said. “That, of course, benefits the  cable companies.”

Robert J. de Maria, a professor of journalism and mass communications at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia, speculates that cable companies will need to add the expanded channel lineups to their basic services to survive.

“What you have now is a universe much larger than the cable world,” de Maria said. “You’re going to have all these digital subchannels that can carry all news or all sports, for example, and if they’re available over the air—for free—in a metropolitan market, why would you need cable?”

An executive at a local L.A. station—who spoke under condition of anonymity because she was not authorized to make statements for the company—said the main reason cable companies are not carrying the new channels is because the FCC doesn’t require it.

“A lot of people with cable don’t know what they’re missing,” she said. “What local stations are offering via digital television is free and in direct competition with cable.”

In a phone call to Time Warner Cable’s customer service line, the first two representatives I spoke with
didn’t know what digital broadcast television was. Another insisted that the expanded channel lineups of
broadcast stations were “temporary,” until they complete contracts with the cable companies.

I was finally able to get one of the Time Warner tech support agents to fess up that at this time, the additional local digital subchannels are not available on their system and that there are no current plans to include them.

Lana Ong, a communications specialist for Cox Communications in Rancho Santa Margarita, said that
while her company is not currently offering any expanded digital channels to their cable customers, they already provide a wide array of international channels.

“Cox realizes that Orange County and Palos Verdes has a large multicultural audience, so it’s a priority for
Cox to provide a variety of international channels to the Cox customers who want them,” Ong wrote in an
e-mail to the Rafu. She added that Cox provides a free International Tier for their Digital Cable customers and that they have launched 22 international programming channels in twelve languages in the last year.

Ong acknowledged that KSCI had moved some of their popular programming from their main feed to their
multi-cast channels and that Cox customers who want to see those shows can only do so by receiving over-the-air broadcasts. She noted that Cox’s current agreement is for KSCI’s main feed (channel 18.1 as it is now known), but that the expanded lineup may eventually come to Cox.

“Cox realizes that Cox customers find value in the additional channels, so we’re working with our  corporate office to reach out to KSCI...so we can hopefully carry these multi-cast channels,” Ong wrote.

A technical service representative at Cox said the cable boxes themselves may be an obstacle to receiving DTV. Like your old TV most of the devices don’t have the (–) or (.) keys and are unable to tune in to  “point” anything, such as 18.2. Trying to re-equip all their millions of customers with digital-capable  boxes would require a huge and expensive undertaking. All this information may very well be far more than you need, but if I’ve helped to clear up the confusion about DTV, then I’ve done my job.

Please feel free to give me a call here at the Rafu if you need some help and I’ll do my best to assist you.  You can also access channel 18’s website, www.LA18.tv, which includes explanations of digital television and resources to help answers questions about the new way to watch TV. And remember, “Tenchijin” is on Saturday night at 9 p.m. on channel 18.2.