The Conversion to DTV - Big Brother Is Watching

As most everyone knows (unless you've been living under a rock), as of midnight on February 17th, 2009 , a move from analog TV to digital TV will occur. People who do not have a "Digital Converter Box" will no longer receive a transmission unless they have a "Digital Converter Box".

Now - I'm not a person that is overly paranoid of govt. conspiracies, but I truly believe that this change in the way we receive our TV transmissions is a big move that is going to literally bring the govt. right into our homes so that they can monitor almost every single one of us through our "Digital Converter Box". I gaurantee that every single one of these boxes are equipped with microphones, even video cameras. I wouldn't doubt if the majority of the cable boxes already in many american homes have these secret devices attached to them.

Now that almost EVERYONE owns a TV, NOBODY is safe from the eyes and ears of our govt. officials.

Go DTV!! Hello New World Order!!

I doubt they have cameras in them. Even if they did, it would be easy to open the box and disable it. Probably take 5 minutes.

Threat nullified. Carry on.

And who pray tell us is doing all the listening and looking?

For all of us to be monitored, we would all have to be monitoring each other.

I do not believe that the government has a giant computerized mind capable of the task.

It is the same problem as being able to photograph the entire surface of the earth in five different spectrums down to resolution of reading a newspaper every day.

The effort to utilize the data is greater than actually combing the surface of the earth on foot. In the late 70s the largest item in the military budget was neural networking computers for this very reason.

To comb through all those photos, and recognize patterns. True neural emulation has not been practical without a simple analog memory cell. The IBM Memristor recently announced fits this bill. Soon the neural network chips will be in every device you buy, You will litterally be living inside the brain that watches and knows all.

The ghost in the machine is coming. But it is not here yet.
Today, at best they can monitor who they want, at will. And keyword search the rest for hits.

I don't really believe they will be "watching" us, as they can already discern which programs we tune into...thus the ratings numbers...but I do believe that forcing people with tv's (which is practically all of us) to go digital has a hidden agenda. It makes me nervous, what with all the shinanigans this White House has been up to...anything and everything is possible. I hope it's for the sole purpose of getting clearer images on our screens...but ya never know!

The DVB standard is a one-way communication system only.

In Australia at least, the standard definition digital video stream (DVB) for instance can reach 5-10Mbps. Now that's a lot faster than typical broadband, right? But it's only one way.

Digital TV is great, I wish the transition in Australia was as fast as it is in the US. We're on track for 2013! So many people are clueless.

I recently had a set top box that I bought back in 06' give up the ghost. I took it apart to see what the problem was - bad capacitors in the power supply.

And no, there wasn't any uber-secret listening devices, just cheap and unreliable China-made electronics.

Considering that these digital converter boxes are going to be used for people who are still watching antenna based televisions, there won't be many of these boxes out there. Most people already have cable or satellite that will be compatible with the transition. Most people won't need a converter box. Only those few who refused to move to cable or satellite will be required to have this to keep their televisions in order. I see no threat in this transition at all.

Originally posted by mattguy404
The DVB standard is a one-way communication system only.

In Australia at least, the standard definition digital video stream (DVB) for instance can reach 5-10Mbps. Now that's a lot faster than typical broadband, right? But it's only one way.

Digital TV is great, I wish the transition in Australia was as fast as it is in the US. We're on track for 2013! So many people are clueless.

I recently had a set top box that I bought back in 06' give up the ghost. I took it apart to see what the problem was - bad capacitors in the power supply.

And no, there wasn't any uber-secret listening devices, just cheap and unreliable China-made electronics.

How many directions does TCP/IP go?
broadband is broadband, so what if they throw the feedback through a different protocol? The box is wired and the wire is enabled for any signal, all you need to do is use that channel and encode the signal for it.

reply to post by Cyberbian


I see what you're saying, but the digital free-to-air standard in Australia (and probably everywhere) doesn't have an IP layer, it's just plain broadcast.

I'm guessing cable is different - cable TV here is a rarity, it's all satellite or broadcast. So I guess feasibly, such as with ratings boxes, that they could route data back to some central overwatch.

But the governments of the world already have many more practical means of gathering your personal information besides your TV habits.

It may be useful for advertisers, but I can't see how digital television is some part of an NWO. You may as well label every consumer electronic device as a possible snoop machine, if that's the case, and you should immediately throw them out

I have to say that since I heard of the mandatory switch of everyone to DTV I've had a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. I definitely think there is some kind of hidden agenda. They've put an awful lot of money into advertising (commercials, billboards, etc.) to make sure that everyone switches to DTV for just something that has "better picture quality", does the government really care that much that we have better picture quality? I think not.

Originally posted by jeepin4x4girl
As most everyone knows (unless you've been living under a rock), as of midnight on February 17th, 2009 , a move from analog TV to digital TV will occur. People who do not have a "Digital Converter Box" will no longer receive a transmission unless they have a "Digital Converter Box".

Now - I'm not a person that is overly paranoid of govt. conspiracies, but I truly believe that this change in the way we receive our TV transmissions is a big move that is going to literally bring the govt. right into our homes so that they can monitor almost every single one of us through our "Digital Converter Box". I gaurantee that every single one of these boxes are equipped with microphones, even video cameras. I wouldn't doubt if the majority of the cable boxes already in many american homes have these secret devices attached to them.

Now that almost EVERYONE owns a TV, NOBODY is safe from the eyes and ears of our govt. officials.

Go DTV!! Hello New World Order!!

It'd be like watching "The Royale Family" TV show for them!

Originally posted by Cyberbian
And who pray tell us is doing all the listening and looking?

I do not believe that the government has a giant computerized mind capable of the task.

Evidently you haven't seen the movie "Eagle Eye" my friend!


LOL j/k, if you have not seen it, you should check it out, pretty good stuff.


I am quite weary of this big switch for 09, it's smattered all over television multiple times a day. I realize the benefits, but man is it annoying.

reply to post by jeepin4x4girl


To answere your concern, the conversion of analog to Digital TV is merely because we ran out of channels that the Government desperately needed for emergencies. Big corporations were bidding to own TV channels because it was limited. With digital out of one analog the government can assign 256 channels (my knowledge here is very limited). But to reassign analog channels for digital has that advantage besides the picture quality and other reasons. To this day the big brother hasn't done anything to watch us in homes but these kind of things that you are talking about are possible. When there is possibility of control, you bet the big brother would exploit it. No question about it.

reply to post by jeepin4x4girl


You say you are not overly paranoid.. then come out with one of the more paranoid theories I have seen on a site full of paranoid theories.

You miss.. are overly paranoid.

Originally posted by jeepin4x4girl
People who do not have a "Digital Converter Box" will no longer receive a transmission unless they have a "Digital Converter Box".

Someone else mentioned this, but I thought I'd point out that those watching TV on "rabbit ears" will be the only ones that will need a digital converter box. I don't know ANYONE who watches TV in this manner

Originally posted by jeepin4x4girl
Now - I'm not a person that is overly paranoid of govt. conspiracies...

Go DTV!! Hello New World Order!!

Uh...nevermind.

hahahahahahahahaha....


wow... man too much....


ok, there is nothing the gov is doing. I knew about this since 2005. They had it on c-span of the FCC they decided to convert to digital singal.They wanted it done by sep 2008 but the industry complaint it was too soon so they extended it to Feb,17 2009.

Now why change to digital.... well because now there can be more channels assigned at one time etc..

The gov didn't do this to spy on americans... it's a FCC standard type thing.

The gov won't have access to those boxes. you only need those digital boxes if you get tv signal locally meaning using a atennna.... now if you have cable or direct tv. They took care of it and you don't need to do anything.

I hope you get what I am saying sooo.... don't get all big brother on me on this.

The RF system is indeed a one way system you cannot transmit a signal back down the path – its impossible. But you could transmit video and audio from another box on another channel however there would need to be countless channels and there simply isn’t the band width. There is also the problem of transmit power it would be limited to a very short range. A better way to do it is sit one off those white vans outside your house – go have a look

reply to post by mattguy404


i dont see how cable could have an ip layer or the point for it. they wouldnt be able to track us ne way web tv is dead.

Someone told me that the Digital Converter Boxes can send as well as receive information. I don't know whether or not this is true.

We don't need TV anyway.

Originally posted by garayn
Someone told me that the Digital Converter Boxes can send as well as receive information. I don't know whether or not this is true.

We don't need TV anyway.

Converter boxes nowadays are two-way: they send and receive on the same cable coax. This is how you can order a PPV movie with a remote control.

The DTV switch will only affect people that receive their channels "off-air", which is with an antenna (either rabbit ears or a rooftop antenna). So basically if you have a coax wire coming into your TV you won't have to have a converter.

The official reason for the switch was to free up analog bandwidth for other uses. Analog takes up much more room than digital so they can free that up and sell it the highest bidder, thus allowing more channels in less bandwidth (with digital) and pocketing a nice chunk of change in the process by selling the unused analog bandwidth.

Now the downside: Say there's a war and something happens like in the show "Jericho". All of a sudden the government completely controls what you see on TV. No more local news. It all comes to you filtered by (likely) DHS. You only know what they want you to know. Scary. But at least we still have radio .

Silent Sound Spread Spectrum

Do some research on it........ it might fill in some blanks on why
the gov boys are all of a sudden nice enough to subsidize billions of
dollars for converter boxes JUST so we can all watch tv.

Think, peeps, think !