The standardization (as in when the FCC officially said “no more analog TV as of now”) of DTV happened in June 2009, meaning DTV is just shy of 15 months old at this point in the USA. When the standardization first came into effect, only the higher-priced televisions had built-in DTV receivers, so if you wanted over-the-air television for a lower-priced set, you had to buy a DTV receiver box.
It took television manufacturers a while to catch up with DTV, but the fortunate case is that now most if not all of them have built-in DTV receivers. Actually, it would be better to describe it as a hybrid solution. The DTV receiver is used in concert with RF (analog) channel detection when you run an auto-scan. RF will be scanned first, then digital. It’s good they did it this way because the TV manufacturers could have just as easily made RF and digital over-the-air channels on separate menus, but fortunately didn’t.
“I have cable/satellite. Why should I care about DTV?”
Being that a DTV receiving is being put into just about every new TV now, college kids short on cash (which is very common) will appreciate they can watch free television as an option, and that it’s a built-in feature to the set, provided you get a set of rabbit ears.
If you have a garage or shed that you want to put a television in but you can’t string a cable connection to it, DTV allows you to at least show something besides DVDs. Again, rabbit ears or external antenna is required.
DTV always works when your cable or satellite goes out, so it’s nice to have as a “backup” of sorts for television viewing.
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