When will HD TV become the "standard"?

Digital broadcasts will be all that is available after midnight on February 19th 2009.

That doesn't mean that you current TV will not work, if it has a NTSC tuner it will need a external ATSC tuner to receive over the air programing. Most new TVs have HDTV/ATSC tuners built in already. If you have a cable or satellite provider you will want to make sure your equipment will be compliant after the date mentioned above.

As far as any lawsuits are concerned, they won't be necessary since the FCC will be able to shut down any TV stations that violate the directive.

The following links come strait from the FCC and have some interesting facts on the transistion.

I have been waiting for the change since 1999!

Cuts sums it up pretty well, In addition the manufacture of TVs without a ATSC tuner will stop as of the same date.

HDTV has been out for almost 10 years in the US. So most people who don't have a HDTV will soon have to get one since 10 years is the average life expectancy of most TVs and it is getting worse every year.

The government is making the transition not because they want you to have a better picture. It is the bandwidth that is filling up and the Man wants a change to make room for other devices. Once the change is made the bandwidth will be less than a 1/3 of what it is now

I think the broadcast deadline is in 2009. I think it's going to end up getting pushed back though or cable companies and satalite companies are going to have to start offering down converting recievers because a great deal of people still have standard deff tv's. I think it's also going to take longer because the industry cant settle on a standard. 1080P tv's just hit the market last year, with the resolutions increasing i'm sure there are people waiting for it to settle. I say stop at 1080p and work on getting the price of the tv's down.

Since you mean broadcasting in HD, many people here already said the date of digital broadcasting, however digital broadcasting is still not going to be mostly HDTV.

It will took decades for HD to become standard.

Here's a few references you can use:

"BBC started the first regular TV broadcasts (405 lines/frame, 25 frames/s) in England 1936."

"The USA was first in starting regular colour TV broadcasts, in 1953."

"By 1970 regular colour TV broadcasts had started in most European countries."

The 1970's also is when most broadcast in the USA are in color.

"ABC was the first broadcast network to showcase HD, back on November 1st, 1998 with "101 Dalmatians."

Overall, it took around two decades for a broadcasting TV to become the dominant standard.

If the first HD broadcast was done in in the late 1990's, then it will become dominant in the late 2010's.

As for your beat-up, non-HD TV.

Well, even old black and white TV can be still use today, like many said it you just need to adapt it to the new standard.

Well last i heard in 2009 all stations will have to broadcast digital signal not hd signals. HD signals are a way off from being standardised would say after 2010 or a few more years after it. As far as your TV goes after 2009 you will need either a cable box/satellite receiver or they will be selling digital receivers for people that don't have digital tuners. I have heard those will being sold for around 60 to 70 us dollars

Yes, your old TV will become totally useless with Hi Definition signals.

But you can get an ATSC to NTSC conversion box which should be available...OR you can use an ATSC box IF IT HAS the yellow/red/white VIDEO connectors on them!

If you have a CABLE box or SATELLITE BOX that presently provides signal to your TV set, then you can use those too....

ON FEBRUARY 2009, ALL "Over the Air" signals will become Digital Transmissions ONLY.....

The rest are not controlled by the FCC...So Cable and Satellite will do it WHEN they want to, not when the FCC tells them to do it.......

By law, all stations must broadcast all programs in HD, beginning in Feb 2009. However, all older TV will still be able to receive the signals, but you will not view them in HD, only in the same format that your TV can accept (just like you can now).

You do not have to buy a new TV, unless you want to see it in the HD format.

They will not stop making HD->LD converters for quite awhile, but yes, relatively soon, the networks will stop broadcasting in LD.

Think of it this way: For every LD station out there, there is one less HD station ... and it is the view of the government that it is in the national interest for the public airways to be the best technology feasible.

They do not/cannot regulate the cable industry this way, so cable companies may be re-broadcasting in LD for a long long time, but yeah ... in terms of what is actually broadcast as a radio signal - LD is on its way out.

That would be February 2009

TVs that have standard tuners are no longer being made along with DVD recorders with built in tuners. The law came into effect in February 2007. You will be able to buy a government subsidized converter box.Congress has already set aside money for them.