The year is 2007. You’re lounging on a couch far away from Madison, idly flipping channels on the trusty old television you bought for your first dorm room.

Suddenly, the screen blacks out, destined never to cast its bluish glow again. All your knowledge of television CPR won’t bring it back to life. Could this happen to you?

If the House of Representatives approves new digital-television legislation proposed last week, the answer may be yes.

The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Billy Tauzin, R-Louisiana, intends to help the economy by pushing consumers and broadcasters into a world of mandatory digital television by 2007. Since the majority of channels today are broadcast on analog frequency, most current televisions and VCRs would become nothing more than worthless hunks of plastic.

Additionally, the bill would require the Federal Communications Commission to support technology designed to prevent consumers from copying and distributing digital programs. This technology could give broadcasters the power to stop viewers from taping TV programs altogether.

Existing law sets 2006 as the target digital-switchover date, but allows for delay if fewer than 85 percent of homes have purchased digital sets. Current percentages are far below 85.

“It is an absurd attempt to force by legislation what the marketplace is rejecting,” University of Wisconsin-Madison telecommunications professor Barry Orton said. “It’s not going to help the American people. It forces us to buy things we don’t necessarily want.”

UW senior Elizabeth McGoey, who said she watches TV occasionally, completely rejected the bill’s premise.

“I’d say that that’s absolutely ridiculous,” she said. “That’s the most stupid thing I’ve ever heard. I’m not going to pay $800 to buy a brand-new TV so I can watch a half-hour of “Blind Date” every so often.”

Madison’s representation, Democratic congresswoman Tammy Baldwin’s press secretary Jonathan Beeton said, has not picked a side in the digital-television debate.

“The congresswoman has not taken a stand on this issue as of yet,” he said. “And so until she does, we just don’t say anything about it.”

Others, however, are not hesitant to comment. Orton said he thinks the bill “doesn’t have a prayer.”

One legislator, Rep. Eliot L. Engel, D-New York, said, “The end of analog signals could also be the end of most of our political careers.”

But lawmakers are still pushing to free up the TV-clogged analog spectrum for other uses, like wireless emergency communication or military applications.

“The entire spectrum has been allocated by the federal government,” UW electrical engineering professor Parameswaran Ramanathan said. “When we allocated analog spectrum to TV, we didn’t know that other applications may be better suited to analog.”

When and if the switch is made, the government will auction off the analog spectrum for profit. This money, estimated to be near $18 billion, is already factored into the plus side of the 1997 Balanced Budget Act. Without the frequency transition, the government will see a massive budgetary shortfall.

Expensive enterprise

While lopsided government balance-books are obviously important, most people are a little more attached to their own bank accounts. Purchasing trends indicate consumers are willing to trade a slightly fuzzy image for a lower price. Brand-new television sets are expensive already, but digital sets and receivers can add thousands of dollars to a price tag.

At Madison’s Best Buy, a 27-inch analog set costs an average of $250 to $350. A digital set of the same size costs $700, and the required digital receiver costs $500. A 32-inch digital set runs for about $1500.

For those who are willing to pay, however, the digital quality is up to four times better.

“If one watches it constantly, they won’t want to watch regular television ever again,” Ramanathan said. “The difference is like cassette to CD or VCR to DVD. The quality is way, way better.”

Unfortunately, improved quality is, and will continue to be, expensive until more broadcasters begin using digital frequencies and more people start buying digital sets.

“For the broadcasters it’s a big cost, so they are reluctant to switch,” Ramanathan said. “Their whole entire hardware they must switch. They don’t want to switch until they know there are enough people to watch it, but people don’t want to buy until there are enough channels. It’s a cycle.”

If the new legislation did take effect, Ramanathan said, set prices would drop.

“The prices will come down tremendously once there are enough people watching digital channels,” he said. “It’s economy of scale. Right now, there aren’t that many people using them. And also, since very few are being bought, they are expensive to manufacture.”

Since the digital conversion has crawled along, the FCC is trying to shift the process into higher gear. Last month, the FCC ordered television manufacturers to install digital tuners in most sets by 2007. Digital sets can receive analog signals, but the picture remains analog-quality. Some manufacturers have vowed to contest the measure, which they say will drastically boost prices.

Other potential price increases triggered by a digital switch could come in the service arena. Today, digital service carries a high premium, but Ramanathan said costs would likely drop when everyone has the same service.

“After a critical mass, digital cost would change, and analog would cost the most,” he said.

Technological control

While proposed digital deadlines may disintegrate, the issue will remain. Digital signals provide better reception and chew up less frequency; a future switch is likely to be inevitable. When that day comes, the government must decide whether broadcasters will be able to use digital-pirating encryption tools to block consumer recording.

The second part of Tauzin’s bill requires the FCC to support this type of technology, called broadcast flag. Basically, the power to record “Days of Our Lives” or “Friends” could disappear.

The law only hazily defines consumers’ ability to record copyrighted material. As VCRs became popular in the early ’80s, copyright owners attempted to stop viewers from recording broadcast material on videotapes. The 1984 Supreme Court decision in the Sony Corporation of America vs. Universal City Studios case, commonly known as the Betamax case, came down on the side of consumers.

“What the Betamax case said was that it wasn’t copyright infringement for someone to tape a television show if the reason was for later viewing, and it wasn’t copyright infringement to sell equipment that allowed people to do this,” UW law professor John Kidwell said.

Specifically, the court said “time-shifting,” private, non-commercial home-television taping to permit later viewing, is a “fair use” of copyrighted material. Fair use is a limitation on the exclusive rights of copyright holders and is determined by judges on a case-by-case basis.

However, Kidwell said, the Betamax decision does not say anything about compelling copyright owners or television broadcasters to make consumer recording easy.

“I don’t think the law of copyright insists you make things available to people on a fair-use basis,” he said. “The law is designed to deal with the privileges of borrowers, not obligations.”

Kidman cited Muzak, the conventional “elevator music,” as an example of encrypted broadcast consumers cannot tape.

“Muzak is broadcast in encrypted programming,” he said. “A person is not entitled to the right to decrypt it under the theory that if you broadcast something, you have to give me some right to it.”

Although consumers may not have a legal right to tape their digitally broadcast favorite shows, revoking this privilege is sure to spark intense anger among viewers. UW junior Bobak Roshan said it could spark innovation as well.

“People would break the encryption; they always do,” he said. “For every measure they take, we’d take a counter-measure. It will just be a prolonged game of cat and mouse.”