The digital television transition, also called the digital switchover, the analog switch-off , or the analog shutdown, is the process in which older analog television broadcasting is converted to and replaced by digital television. This primarily involves the conversion of analog terrestrial television to digital terrestrial. However, it also involves analog cable conversion to digital cable or internet protocol television, as well as analog to digital satellite television. Begun by some countries around 2000, this is an involved process because the existing analog television receivers owned by viewers cannot receive digital broadcasts; viewers must either purchase new digital TVs, or converter boxes which change the digital signal to an analog signal which can be viewed on the old TV. In many countries, a simulcast service is operated where a broadcast is made available to viewers in both analog and digital at the same time. As digital becomes more popular, it is likely that the existing analog services will be removed. In some cases this has already happened, where a broadcaster has offered incentives to viewers to encourage them to switch to digital. In other cases government policies have been introduced to encourage or force the switchover process, especially with regard to terrestrial broadcasts. Government intervention usually involves providing some funding for broadcasters and, in some cases, monetary relief to viewers, to enable a switchover to happen by a given deadline. The switchover process is being accomplished on different schedules in different countries; in some countries it is being implemented in stages as in Australia, Brazil, India, Mexico, and the United Kingdom, where each region has a separate date to switch off. In others, the whole country switches on one date, such as the Netherlands, which switched off its analog terrestrial services on 11 December 2006. On 3 August 2003, Berlin became the world's first city to switch off terrestrial analogue signals. Luxembourg was the first country to complete its terrestrial switchover, in September 2006. Technically the United Kingdom and Ireland were the first countries that turned off analogue signals - in the form of satellite television on 28 September 2001 - but terrestrial signals in the two countries were not switched until 2012.
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