'Catters:

I could not find another thread on this so I thought I would start one so people could pool their knowledge about and the changeover from analog to digital broadcast TV and selecting a box.

First of all it seems vendors are pushing digital TV antennas. Any antenna that works with analog will work with digital signals so there is no need to replace an antenna that is working.

I put an antenna in my attic years ago mainly to receive local weather and traffic information that is lacking on the satellite channels. It works great with the box I selected.

I selected and obtained an Insignia NS-DXA1-APT digital TV converter box at Best Buy for $59.95 before the $40 coupon.

It has both coax and RCA phono plug outputs. I hooked it up to my analog TV using the red whits and yellow RCA jacks. It auto tuned 33 channels that are sharper than any of the dozen or so channels that were coming in on analog.

Some stations have three channels. At least 4 are all local weather. The remote controls the volume using the phono plug outputs but not using the coax output. the remote does turn the TV off and on so you don't have to juggle remotes.

LG makes the Insignia and an identical Zenith box. Some people were saying the Zenith branded box has a better tuner that gets a clearer picture. I don't think it could get any clearer on an analog TV.

The only thing I think it lacks is an S video output and a better program guide with more rows. The guide only has one row.

It has an on screen signal meter and beeper for aiming the antenna like the satellite boxes do and it finds all the channels automatically.

I think and and I hope that when analog cuts off and digital broadcast TV cuts in 100%, it will give some competition to the cable and satellite gougers.

They can't transmit digital at full power until they cut off the analog transmission, so I heard. So it is costing them more $$ to transmit both. That is why broadcasters are whining.

Seems to me that the boxes should be made in America if the government is going to pitch in $40 of our future tax money.