Most of Hawaii switched to full power digital television a few hours ago at noon Hawaiian Time on Thursday, 15 January 2009.
Apparently, hundreds of Hawaii residents have ignored months of public service advertisements, tests, and crawls on their old analog television sets. They finally realized that their analog television service had ended when a 7-minute “digital night light” segment began appearing on the local analog television channels instead of regularly scheduled programming.
This week, both Honolulu newspapers have run front-page stories on the transition. See Hawaii makes DTV switch tomorrow from the Honolulu Star-Bulletin for an example.
According to the Associated Press, FCC and broadcaster hotlines have been flooded with calls this week about the transition. See Hawaii takes closely watched digital TV plunge for more details.
Most residents of Oahu use digital cable or satellite television, so they already have the proper set-top boxes. Residents who had spliced into the analog cable signal may have lost their stolen service today, however. Basic cable service in Hawaii still works, as Ryan Ozawa pointed out in his comments below. See Oceanic Time Warner’s FAQ page for more details.
Thousands of viewers in rural areas of Oahu, Maui and the island of Hawaii rely on broadcast television. Because digital signals tend to have lower power than analog signals, residents may not receive digital service on channels that had usable analog signals.
Kauai relies on low-power analog repeaters, so that island has received an extension for its analog service.
The FCC allowed the state of Hawaii to cut over to digital television a month early, so that analog transmission towers could be taken down ahead of the kestrel’s dark-rumped petrel’s mating season.
Related articles and pages on billso.com
- Digital television
- 15 December 2008: All day digital TV test in Hawaii
- 31 May 2008: Advertisers worried about digital television conversion
- 16 May 2008: Want to test your digital television in Hawaii?
- 25 March 2008: Digital TV is coming
- 18 January 2008: Digital TV and business models
- 12 November 2007: I want a better television - but it’s not ready yet
- 12 September 2007: The Google Phone and the iPhone – both looking for software and spectrum
- 5 July 2004: San Diego Padres promote HDTV
