Dave Horvath
9 Oct 2007 14:18
As many of you already know, February 17, 2009 is the analog blackout day in the United States. On that day, broadcast television will no longer be dished out in analog form, forcing every couch potato to conform to the new digital age. If you don't have a digital television, you're either out of luck or have to purchase a converter box capable of bringing that pesky digital signal back down to the comfortable old analog you know and love. Being the understanding government system that is the United States, they have set aside several billion dollars to issue up to two $40 coupons good towards the purchase of said converters. Well, leave it up to the folks at LG Electronics to remind you that "Life's Good".
Korean based LG has become the first company to be certified by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) to offer set-top digital to analog converter boxes that are redeemable with the government issued coupons.
"It is an honor for LG Electronics to be the first major company to receive official NTIA certification for digital-to-analog converters," said Michael Ahn, president and CEO, LG Electronics North American Headquarters. "This product is a very important component of the DTV transition assuring that millions of Americans will continue to receive free-over-the-air TV programming after the digital switch in just 18 months. LG Electronics is proud of its leadership role in the development of digital television technologies generally and the converter box specifically."
The LG box is said to deliver DVD quality images via multicast broadcasting from several different digital sources. The box also brings more advanced features to older analog televisions by incorporating a next generation closed captioning which allows the user to choose different fonts, colors and backgrounds to their on-screen messages as well as V-chip parental control. Other features include an all-format ATSC receiver, flexible 4:3 and 16:9 display formats, PSIP processing, Channel 2-69 tuning, RF input and RF output, and composite (RCA jacks) video and left-right stereo TV audio outputs.
Expect retail availability to be early 2008 and coincide with the NTIA market of the national coupon program.
Source:
PR News Wire