PB PHOTO | Joan Gilroy speaks to the Town Board on Sept. 13, 2011 about Cablevision's digital conversion.

For Shelter Islanders who might be a little confused about who needs a Cablevision signal converter box to keep receiving programming after Valentine’s Day — the latest deadline set by the company for its conversion to all-digital service on Shelter Island — the following story may help. It reports on the appearance of the company’s government affairs director, Joan Gilroy, before the Town Board on September 13 to explain the digital conversion and the need for converter boxes:

Joan Gilroy, a representative of Cablevision, came to Tuesday’s work session [September 13, 2011] to explain the company’s phasing out of its analog signal for basic programming, which will require at least some customers to obtain cable boxes to continue receiving even basic programming. Eventually, all customers will be charged $6.95 a month for each box.

The boxes will be delivered free if customers request it or they can obtain them at the Cablevision stores in Southampton or Riverhead. Customers who have never had a cable box are entitled to two boxes free of charge for two years, Ms. Gilroy said; customers who already have a box may obtain up to three more free of charge for a year.

After those grace periods, the $6.95 fee per month for each box will be charged. The fee is regulated by the FCC so it is not likely to rise by large amounts at any one time, she told the Town Board.

The company has been operating with dual systems for delivering programming through its lines, she explained, one analog and one digital, which Cablevision in recent years upgraded to include fiber-optic lines. Any subscriber package that provides more than basic channels requires a cable box to receive the digital signal but, until now, the analog signal could be received and processed without a digital box.

She said the federal government in 2008 had encouraged cable companies to “go digital so the government could obtain analog bandwidth.” Cablevision announced in late 2008 that it would go 100-percent digital between 2009 and 2011, she said, and had completed the process in New York City and most of Long Island; it will next make the transition in Westchester. The digital signal, she said, was much clearer, had better sound, and allowed more programming and services to be provided because the signal is compressed.

Ms. Gilroy said there were about 2,400 Cablevision subscribers on Shelter Island and about 52 who do not have a cable box in their homes to receive digitally transmitted programming.

She said a story in last week’s Reporter about the digital transition had been accurate except for one point: it reported that even people with new digital TVs would need a box to continue to see basic programming. In fact, only people with older digital TVs without “QAM” tuners would need a digital box, she said. [The information had come directly from a Cablevision spokesperson. — Ed.]

That contradicts the experience of two customers known to the Reporter staff. In their cases, they were told by Cablevision customer service personnel on the phone that a box would be necessary for all TVs to receive any programs. In each case, those customers — one in North Haven and one in East Marion — had late-model digital TVs that displayed basic programming directly through a cable connection but, when their areas went all-digital, they lost the picture.

Ms. Gilroy explained in a phone interview Wednesday, September 14, 2011, that only subscribers with basic programming will continue to see programming on their digital TVs after the analog signal is discontinued. Because the signals sent to subscribers with more expensive programming packages are encrypted, those customers will need cable boxes for every TV when analog is discontinued, even to see basic channels.