Tune tv to Digital

Time is almost over before old-style broadcast TV, now federally mandated digital transmission, and the government said Monday it is funding local assistance centers in San Francisco and other cities to help viewers who are struggling to cope with the transition.
The community-based programs will provide services such as hands-on instruction in installing digital converter boxes to elderly, low-income and non-English-speaking residents. Neighborhood organizers such as Anni Chung, CEO of Self Help for the Elderly in San Francisco, had been trying to meet those needs on their own. Now, with funds from a government grant, a San Francisco community center will be able to translate instruction booklets for Chinese speakers and help homebound seniors who can't come in for a workshop on the digital box, she said.
"With this grant, we can hire installers to go to their homes," Chung said.
The $1.6 million grant will be administered by the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Education Fund, a Washington, D.C., nonprofit that had been urging the government to support on-the-ground services for vulnerable consumers for more than a year. The organization has been racing to line up community groups to do the work since it received the grant Nov. 21, said spokesman Mark Lloyd.
Due to the challenging timeline, the Leadership Conference fund cannot yet identify the local groups that will host DTV Assistance Centers in San Francisco, Oakland, and six other U.S. metropolitan areas. The centers themselves won't open until January.
The program is part of an eleventh-hour effort by the Commerce Department's National Telecommunications and Information Administration to reach consumers at risk of seeing their TV screens suddenly blink into electronic snow on Feb. 17. That's when most broadcast stations will be required to switch off their analog transmitters in favor of a digital signal that can't be picked up by older televisions.
The conversion offers potential boons to viewers, the electronics industry and the government. TV watchers are being promised higher-quality images and sound; the government is auctioning off $20 billion in rights to the old analog frequencies to wireless broadband companies such as Verizon; and electronics manufacturers have a chance to sell new TVs with a built-in capacity to pick up digital signals. Cable services, which can carry the digital signal into old-style TVs, also are mining the opportunity to sign up new customers who watch only over-the-air broadcasts.
Those die-hard consumers can still receive digital TV free with their old TV and rabbit ears, but they need to buy a digital converter box. The government dedicated $1.5 billion to a coupon program to help on-air viewers pay for the boxes. But only $5 million was originally earmarked for educational outreach efforts to help consumers navigate the technological challenges of the transition.
TV stations, broadcasters' groups and other trade associations have pitched in with on-air public service announcements worth roughly $1 billion. However, faced with data indicating that some people weren't getting the message, or couldn't understand it, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration diverted an extra $5 million to grassroots community programs such as those being organized by the Leadership Conference. The agency, which administers the DTV coupon program, also awarded a $2.7 million grant to the National Association of Area Agencies on Aging.

Making the transition
-- For more information on the conversion, call (888) 388-2009. Translators are available.
-- Hearing-impaired customers should call (877) 530-2634.
-- More information can be found online at www.dtv2009.gov.
-- Supplies are limited of the $40 federal voucher intended to defray the cost of the converter box that makes analog TVs work. Coupons expire 90 days after they are mailed. Requests must be received by March 31, but people are urged to apply as soon as possible. You can apply for a coupon online or by phone at the above numbers. No more than two coupons per household are permitted.
E-mail Bernadette Tansey at btansey@sfchronicle.com.