WOSU received two federal grants totaling more than $1.2 million for the conversion to digital television of WOSU channel 34 Columbus and WPBO channel 43 Portsmouth.

“We are now focused on going digital with these stations sometime in October of this year,” said WOSU general manager Tom Rieland.

The Public Telecommunications Facilities Program, through the U.S. Department of Commerce, granted $738,676 to WOSU for digital transmission equipment. So far, the PTFP has distributed $25 million in grants to 56 public television facilities in 31 states.

Another grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting Digital Distribution Fund awarded $500,000 for the construction of a digital transmission system at the Portsmouth station. The station serves more than 460,000 people in 22 counties.

“While our digital production facility still needs to be built, we’re thankful for the state and federal support we’ve received so far,” Rieland said.

A federal mandate, passed in 1996, established deadlines for all stations to be broadcasting digital signals by May 1. The Federal Communications Commission has already established channel assignments for the new technology.

The conversion of the two stations will be enabled as federal money will be matched by state money received in previous years.

“We got a six month extension from the FCC, which is common. We are planning on starting Oct. 31,” said Don Scott, director of marketing for WOSU.

The new digital signal has the option of broadcasting three different transmissions of datacasting, multicasting and high definition television. Multicasting will allow for three separate channels, each assigned to a different transmission purpose.

“We are having weekly DTV meetings,” said Scott. “We are at the early stages and are making progress, but we are still in the planning stage.”

The meetings, involving television and marketing associates at the station, have discussed assigning the first channel to HDTV while leaving the other two standard definition.

WOSU has been on air since 1956 and the new technology will usher in yet another first for the station.

Digital picture and sound quality is much higher than that of standard analog transmissions, said Matt Orosz, a senior in English, who owns a high-definition television.

“The picture looks amazingly clear. There really is no comparison,” he said.