Will this tv continue to work after the switch to digital signals in 2009? Assume it’ll be hooked up to a cable feed. Or is purchasing this TV ensuring a 1-yr lifespan max?
(I’m helping a friend look for a 10" tv set that will work past the switch to digital broadcasting…)
At a guess I would say no. It only mentions a standard NTSC tuner.
To receive the digital broadcast you need a digital receiver. If you have a TV that cannot do that natively you need a box between you and the signal source to do the conversion. In the case of cable television I imagine the box they give you anyway will do this. Plugging the cable directly into the TV however likely will not work when it is nothing but digital.
Short answer, no. The product spec you linked says, “It offers a standard NTSC television tuner…” So it won’t be able to receive broadcast digital signals.
However, after the switchover, cable companies can still provide analog service via cable. The government mandate affects only over-the-air broadcasts, not cable.
However again, many cable companies are going all digital and won’t provide analog signals. Two examples are Cox and Verizon FiOS.
However the third time, they will generally provide the set-top boxes needed to convert digital signals to analog either no charge or for a fee. Verizon just sent me a free one for my FiOS.
I was under the impression that for a few years now all TVs sold in the US had to have a digital tuner. Is that wrong?
Yep, they do:
What CookingWithGas said, but with more detail. From the FCC DTV FAQ:
If it’s attached to cable, it might.
Cox guarantees analog cable until 2012 (at least in Arizona).
Check with your cable provider.
Funny how I work in TV, am a bit of a tech-head, and am still somewhat confused by all this. 
Thanks for the excellent info. So next question – does anyone know of any small, 10" tv’s that will work with a digital signal, which are available now? I haven’t found any…
Bolding mine.
Yes it will, as long as you have cable or satellite with a tuner box. The box is a digital tuner. The output is analog. This is not changing. What is changing is that local TV stations are no longer broadcasting over the airwaves in analog. If you use an antenna, you need a digital tuner. If not, nothing will change.
How can Amazon ship this across state lines if it doesn’t meet the FCC requirement I quoted above?
I’m doing this research for a friend of mine. He doesn’t want a cable box, he wants the TV to be cable ready without an external box. I know, he’s not making this easy on me.
Um yea…if its connected to cable then its not even using its tuner at all right?
As I mentioned before, you really need to check with the cable provider. Most cable will still have analog channels available.
It does have an RF input, which means it should accept a cable. But, again, it depends on whether the cable company will continue to provide an analog signal, and for how long.
Wal-Mart and Sears now have small TVs with digital tuners. Not as cute as the one in the link, though.
Surely if it has an RF input then you just connect the output from the digital set-top box or cable box? At least that’s how it works here in the UK - I still use an ancient TV with a cable box. The TV doesn’t know or care where the signal has come from, right? What am I missing?
Anecdotally, and in my experience, the FCC’s digital tuner requirement is very laxly enforced.
That it lacks an ATSC tuner is perhaps a violation by the manufacturer. “Perhaps” because I suppose it’s remotely possible that the device was manufactured before the requirement was modified to include all small sets. That doesn’t seem likely, though, and you’ve probably just got a small manufacturer ignoring the FCC rule, and betting that they won’t bother about it.
The seller, on the other hand, is off the hook if they display that “This television receiver has only an analog broadcast tuner …” message sometime during the order process. I wonder if they do, but I’m not going to buy one to find out. Amazon is probably covered by the fact that the real seller is some entity called Hannspree; Amazon is just brokering the sale.
What you’re missing is that the cable may soon only have digital signal available, which the TV in question cannot process. This is probably not going to be the case, as the FCC has mandated that cable providers make analog signal available at least until 2012, as previously mentioned, but it is best to check with the cable provider.
All that being said, on the self-same Amazon page in the OP, it says that 45% of customers ultimately buy another model of TV, which does have digital input, and for a lower price. Why not consider that one?
This may be out of bounds, but I’m curious.
One of the creatures my husband works with has no cable box, but his TV is hooked directly to the coaxial connection. He hasn’t said directly that he’s stealing cable, but I’m guessing he is.
He asked hubby if he would still have a signal after the change over, or should he get a converted box.
We had no answer, and I would never give the creep any information that might help him steal.
My question is, do the converter boxes, besides digitizing the signal redirect to the high numbered channels?
Like, now, our HD channels are all on channel 200 or greater.
If this is too close to a “work around” I don’t need to know that badly.
We don’t have this problem in the UK. The set-top or cable box converts the incoming digital signal to RGB which is then connected to the TV (of any age) using either a SCART connection or an RF modulator. This means then we go completely digital in the UK by 2012 all you have to do is buy a very cheap (£20) box for each of your TV’s to continue watching.
The one difficulty is with VCR’s. They usually have analogue tuners and will have to be replaced, usually with a hard disc ( think TIVO) or recordable DVDs. The most elegant solution is to use a combined set-top-box / recorder with twin tuners. This means you can watch one channel while recording another.
That’s not a problem here, either, if your TV is hooked up to the cable box. Terminus Est was talking about what would happen for those who connect the cable directly to their TVs, without using the box.