Windows Media Center guide to surviving the switch to digital TV in the United States

With the digital TV switch over looming in the US (June 12th) there are great resources to help you out to see if your going to be effected and what to do if you are

On Windows Help and How To there is an excellent guide :

By now, you’ve probably heard about the digital TV transition—or digital switchover—that requires all full-power TV stations in the United States to broadcast exclusively in the digital format by June 12, 2009. If you use Windows Media Center to watch and record TV on your PC, there’s a chance that this transition might have an impact on you.

Whether you’ll be affected by the transition depends mostly on two things: the type of TV signal you are receiving, and whether your TV tuner supports the signal. You are most at risk if you have a TV tuner that is only compatible with the NTSC signal type (see below for a description), and you receive your TV signal from an over-the-air antenna or directly from a cable jack in the wall (no set-top box).

and on Pete Brown’s blog there are some hand tips too:

Next week, June 12, is the “Digital Transition” in the US – over-the-air broadcasters will switch over – if they haven’t already – to broadcasting their signals digitally.

How will Media Center users be affected?

Luckily, our friends at Windows Help and How-to have published a detailed article on the transition that you can find here. The basics:

• If you are using Media Center with Cable or Satellite, you are likely to be unaffected by the transition.
• If you are using Media Center with an Antenna for your TV signal, you need to read on.

Attention, Old School XP users!

Of particular note, if you are running an older version of Windows XP, you must upgrade to SP2! In your IE browser, select Tools | Windows Update to find and install this Service Pack! I got nothing to say to you until you’re up to SP2.