Digital television adapter

Because the DTV transition did nothing to reduce the number of broadcast television system standards (and in fact further complicated them), and due to varying frequency allocations and bandplans, there are many other combinations specific to other countries.

Viewers who watch broadcast television on older analog TV sets must use a digital converter box.

At the Consumer Electronics Association's Entertainment Technology Policy Summit in January 2006, Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein said many Americans did not know about the February 17, 2006, deadline for ending analog TV.

Bob Seidel of CBS said companies (especially in countries other than the US) might use cheaper tuners, and people would need new television antennas for proper reception.

Thomson's model stored three days of TV listings, allowed parental controls, and could set a VCR.

CECBs (Coupon-eligible converter boxes) will not work on these systems because cable ATSC uses 256QAM modulation instead of 8VSB, and so a separate but similar DTA with a QAM tuner is necessary.

DTAs also allow analog sets to receive digital signals using RF output on channel 3 or 4, using coaxial cable.

[5] Pace plc developed the XiD-P digital transport adapter for Comcast, allowing 4K service and offering the potential to expand the DTA from one-way to two-way.

A RF/antenna output, if present on a converter box, is usually just a passthrough ("LOOP OUT" which does not provide the box's output signal, but only provides the raw antenna input signal to watch analog channels via a TV set's tuner if analog broadcasts have not ended yet or to connect another capable device to the same antenna feed) because even older TVs usually have at least composite input; this removes a need for an RF modulator in a converter box.