On February 17th, 2009, every portable television will no longer be able to receive over-the-air broadcasts. If you don't know why, see www.dtv.gov

If you have one of these portable televisions, and intend for it to be an "emergency" television, you'll be out of luck on February 18th.

If you want a portable ATSC (Digital) Television, there are TWO models on the market:
7" Screen - $199

5" Screen - $149

As far as I can tell there's no ATSC tuner box that's battery-powered.

One alternative, and it's not a great one, is to get a "tuner-on-a-stick" for a laptop computer.

Hey, thanks! I've been interested in seeing what kinds of portable digital TVs are available.

If you have an analogue portable TV which has a composite and audio inputs there is the Shinco DVB-100T portable digital TV adapter. It is slightly larger than the DVB-T USB sticks for Laptop computers but might be a useful adition when the analogue broadcast signal is turned off as it will allow you to view digital TV on older but still useful analogue portable TVs.

Yeah I hope they come up with something that can be ran on regular batterys cause it's kinda hard to charge stuff up when the lights go out. My little sony runs off of 4 C's and the cheapies run off 8 D's both are cheap when they are on sale at walgreens. But you would have to keep that one constantly charged to be usefull when it all hits the fan.

That unit will only work in the UK. It will not work in the US frequencies.

Is there a way to tell if my big screen will handle digital without the converter?

Someone in the marketing department of Insignia Products needs to learn how to convey specifications of their products. I laughed a bit at the 5-inch model that states, "Note: Digital content, regardless of broadcast resolution, will be displayed at standard-definition (480i) screen resolution," then states 324×234 as the pixel size of the screen.

What really made me scratch my head was the 7-inch model, which carries the same 480i resolution note, then states the pixel size as 234×480! It took me several hours of asking myself, "Are you supposed to turn it sideways or something," before I realized what they did. Someone really needs to learn that you measure the horizontal units before the vertical units, as in a "16:9" aspect ratio.

Still, it is nice to see some portable ATSC TVs coming out... even if you might need to stand still to get a signal. (ATSC broadcast formats have some mobility issues, last I knew.)

Perhaps that should have been 'works in most parts of the rest of the world except North America'. Yep you're right though the unit won't work in the US.

I've done a little bit of internet 'googling' on the subject. Wow the analogue signal is going to be turned of on February 17th, 2009 and on that day tens of millions of Americans will wake up that morning and won't be able to watch their televisions. Could this potentially become a TEOTWAWKI day

I've been surprised at the lack of ATSC to NTSC analogue coverter boxes available on the market for all the millions of perfectly servicable analogue NTSC sets that will still be operational.
In the UK the PAL analogue signal is also going to be turned of for the digital DVB-T signal in the next few years also but DVB-T set top convertion boxes have been available for about 5 years now. A DVB-T set top box can be purchased for around $30-40.
From what I've also gathered, there appears to be a problem with the quality of antenna required for the ATSC signal. So for many a new antenna installation and a new (expensive) High Def TV (Plasma or LCD panel) will be required once the NTSC analogue signal is turned off as millions of perfectly good CRT TVs make there way to the landfill.

As for the battery portable ATSC compatible digital TVs it will also have some problems as I've also read that the ATSC signal requires the TV to be stationary and cannot really be used wilst moving due to reception problems.

If you have a laptop you might consider something like the:
"Pinnacle PCTV HD Pro Stick- HI-DEF TV Tuner"

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2485646&CatId=1427
(I've never done business with these people but they have nice pictures on their web page)

Don't know how good they are..

Type the model # of your TV into Google and you should see the specifications. What you're looking for is an ATSC tuner. If your TV currently gets Hi-Def with an antenna, it's got an ATSC tuner in it.

Just as an FYI I had picked up one of the 7" Insigna TV's from BestBuy last week - I had this brainchild that my wife and I could take it into the backyard and watch TV on the deck at night... This unit was unable to tune a single viewable station either on the NTSC or ATSC tuner. The best I could do was one or two stations with heavy static for sound and almost no picture (looked at it's best like you were viewing it through a white cotton curtain). This is in a suburb of Chicago only about 15 miles outside of the city. Needless to say - it went back the next day.

You won't get over the air ANALOG broadcasts any longer, but you will get over the air DIGITAL broadcasts including those broadcast in HD. I have been doing this since January of this year and like it alot. Free HD television for local channels is enough for me. I bought a 20" Sharp back in January.

Remember those two LCD tv's won't be high def, but who cares for an edc. Cable prices will probably drop or offerings improve alot, because more and more people will dump cable tv when they learn they can get digital broadcasts over the air cheaply and in digital quality.

My experience with Insigna branded product has been dismal. I would stay away from it in the future. I've had two VCR/DVD combos and a portable DVD player...all crap.

Sorry, didn't meat to sidetrack the thread.

Thanks for the information Martin. I know that my older sets I'm out of luck on, but the big screens were bought after the Digital Craze started so I might be ok.

Evan, what antenna were you using.

http://www.antennaweb.org/ will help with the antenna to see how far a digital signal is from you and what type antenna will work best.

These take a serious laptop. I've tried it on two. One is a desktop replacement level from a couple years ago. I have to give it a mixed review. When it pops up & says the processor can't handle HD they are serious. After flipping through a couple HD channels, it locked up. If you have a machine that can handle it, the HD reception is AWESOME compared to the tv receivers for computers from a few years ago.

Requires:
XP w/ SP2 or Vista
Pentium 4 @ 2.4 GHz, Pentium M @ 1.3GHz, or equivalent AMD Athlon 64 processor for normal resolution.
Pentium 4 @ 2.8 GHz, Pentium M @ 1.7GHz, or equivalent AMD Athlon 64 processor for HD resolution.
XP takes 256MB ram (512 recommended)
Vista takes 512MB ram (1GB recommended)
Audio & graphics support for DirectX 9
1GB of hard drive free minimum

I was using the internal antenna - (the whip that extends up from the unit itself). That was the whole point of the purchase. If I have to tether it to another antenna, it looses a lot of the appeal. Not to mention, what's the point of purchasing a portable TV, if I need to connect it to a directional antenna on a 30 ft tower to make it useful?

"...what's the point of purchasing a portable TV, if I need to connect it to a directional antenna on a 30 ft tower to make it useful?"

You are obviously unaware of the main point of scientific advancements in electronics and merchandising.

The Main Point: Make it totally !NEW!, so all the older stuff is obsolete. And once its obsolete, it needs to be replaced, usually for several times the cost of the last one.

Sue

Couple of things to remember if you are really concerned with "salvaging" your old analogue sets after the transition...

1) Any television with A/V inputs (yellow & red/white jacks, S-video connector, etc) can be hooked up to an ATSC tuner. The picture will not be much (any) better, but it will work.

2) Even if your TV lacks A/V inputs, it can be connected to a tuner box via an RF Modulater. This device converts A/V signals to channel 3/4 and plugs into the antennae jack. (~$30 at Radio Shack)

3) ATSC signals operate on the UHF frequencies and as such require a slightly modified antennae for best performance.

4) Being digital, ATSC signals tend to exhibit something called "cliff effect". Meaning when they come in, they tend to come in very well right up until the point where the built-in error correction can no longer compensate for bad reception. Then the reception falls off a cliff.

But the real question is do you really want to try and salvage your old set? Industry experts predict there will be a rash of cheap TVs (as well as expensive ones) made that recieve ATSC signals. The fact is the tuner chip sets are getting very cheap already and that trend will continue. And there are always companies willing to enter the market at the bottom price points.

Hope this helps,

I bought an LCD TV last year and it doesn't even have a tuner, several sets of inputs though including VGA so I can surf equipped.org at 32"

The digital over the air signal surely isn't perfect. Faltering reception for me does about two things.
1. Picture goes along and then freezes for a half second before starting again, along with audio dropout
2. Pixelating appearance of the digital signal (usu lasts only few seconds with no drop in audio)

Neither of these bother me unless the audio is stopping and starting frequently. Then it's no use watching. I get that mostly with NBC, sometimes ABC. Whatever channels are coming in on the VHF rabbit ear portion can be the most difficult to tune. The loop (UHF) channels usually do better.

If I bought again, I would probably look for a set that had a built in amplifier for best reception. Then all you need is the cheapest rabbit ears for great reception. A friend has that setup. My HDTV didn't have built in amplification. I suspect those small non HDTV LCD sets will get poor reception due to the antennas as Evan has stated.

My parents use DirectTV and it wil do the same thing, if its raining or an airplane flys overhead they will get a blocky picture that sometimes drops out.
My local cable provider is aparently doind the same as I get the same thing on some channles at times.

Sue -

How right you are - and probably replaced at today's pace more than once a year...

What still appears to be not well understood is that 'digital' does not mean better! With an analog TV or phone for that matter if you get a brief dropout - you might notice a small amount of static or the picture on a TV might fade - We are so used to this our brains tune it out and we probably don't even notice it. With a digital signal - if there is any amount of signal instability and dropouts - picture and audio will be UNWATCHABLE. I serously doubt that portable sets will work at all in my location (only 15 miles from chicago) anytime in the near future. And tethering a portable set to a BIG antenna or to cable from your cable provider just isn't worth it. What we ended up doing so we can watch TV on the deck in the back yard is to connect up a 'slingbox' to our cable TV in the house and then using my notebook computer over our wireless connection I can watch TV and control the cable box from the computer. It actually works pretty good. Mind you this does nothing for emergency preparedness but it solves the imeadiate problem. At least we will continue to have AM/FM analog radio broadcasting for the near term!

As a side note, it has been proposed that the revenue of the 700 MHz auction be spent on providing ATSC tuners to the general population, that way everybody doesn't have to buy a new tv. You would have to file for a voucher to get an external tuner sent to you.

But this is only a proposal and not set in stone.