Stores fast running out of analog TVs

Don't want to spend more than a Benjamin on a new TV or VCR/DVD player to use with your cable or satellite TV service? If so, you'd better run, not walk, to the nearest big-box store and hope its inventory of cheap video goods hasn't already been decimated.
On a recent visit to Target, I found only one product in stock that almost fit the bill - a 20-inch Magnavox TV, priced at $108.88. At my local Best Buy, cheap TVs were nonexistent.
When replacement combination models start to show up next month, they'll be significantly more expensive, say $249 to $349.
And in the new breed of direct-view TV "bargains," already popping up in stores from the likes of RCA, Sharp, Sony and Toshiba, prices start at $280 for the smallest, 27-inch models. Billed as "Digital Tube SDTV" sets, these models pick up both analog and digital broadcasts, including high-definition (720- and 1,080-line) widescreen shows.
The televisions then down convert the HD images to a standard definition (480-line), letterboxed display.
WHAT GIVES? We can thank the Bush White House and the Federal Communications Commission, in cahoots with broadcasters and hardware makers, for taking away our cheap electronics. As of March 1, an FCC mandate went into effect requiring that all TVs, VCRs and DVD recorders shipped interstate with an (old-style) analog NTSC TV tuner must also have an ATSC tuner on board to nab the new generation of broadcast digital TV signals that will reign supreme in a couple of years.
An ATSC tuner adds $75 to $100 to the retail price, so these updated models must be at least that much more expensive.
Manufacturers sold off noncompliant goods well ahead of the cutoff date.
But retailers with warehoused inventory can continue to sell it until the shelves go bare.
Equipment makers can dodge the ATSC tuner mandate only by building video players and TV monitors lacking any tuner whatsoever. At walmart.com, we found just one product that fit this loophole: This "new" Magnavox DV200MWS DVD and video cassette player was priced at $59.86.
THIS IS AN IMPROVEMENT? The irony, of course, is that 85 percent of Americans get TV signals through a cable or satellite box.

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