Watertown Commission on Disability

“Rabbit ears” on televisions will be history after the February 17, 2009 cut off date for analog TV signals. Although I’m somewhat of a techno-dunce on how these things work (I’m still constantly amazed that airplanes can get off the ground, heavy as they are…ha ;), however, this transition strikes me as yet another example of the ever-widening digital-divide …. this just in from the American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD): 

The TechnoBeat

by Jenifer Simpson

Many of us already know television is changing and the government has set February 17, 2009 as the date when most TV stations will no longer broadcast in analog and will have switched to digital signal transmission. There’s a lot of hoopla about HD TVs and whether or not consumers have to do anything or whether we understand what even is meant by the digital television. Even pay TV subscribers (cable and satellite) are wondering what’s going on and what they have do. Confusion reigns, in short.

And for persons with disabilities, even before the 2009 cutoff, we’re seeing lost, garbled, missing, messed up and otherwise poor quality closed captioning as a result of “the digital transition” and technical pass through problems. [more…]