Gil Scott Heron famously said once that the revolution will not be televised.

It’s funny then that in the world of broadcast television there is a revolution and, unless something is done about informing people about what Digital TV actually is, then there’s going to be a group of people without any television signal at all.

What is worse, ecommerce operators, wholesale dropship electronics suppliers, and eBay traders will probably be the ones to be caught in the crossfire.

It’s true that the world is in the middle of a digital TV transition. Broadcasters are gradually switching from analog to digital TV. From VHF an UHF television signals to DVB-T, ATSC, ISDB-T and DMB.

Scandinavia and Northern Europe started the transition to DVB-T in 2003, which they completed in 2007.

The US started the transition to ATSC from NTSC in 2007 and is scheduled to complete it in February 2009.

The majority of the early adaptors started putting wheels in motion for the DTV change between 2007 and 2009. They are expected to completely cut off analog broadcasts in 2012.

But is the average Joe and Josephine ready for the digital switch over?

Retailers, and search trend watchers are beginning to suspect this is not the case.

The good news is that people have partially come to turns with the digital switchover and, for the most part, have stopped asking ‘what is digital TV’.

But there is still a disturbing lack of understanding around the standards used in different countries.

DTV standards are not the same in every country with about four digital broadcasting standards being used.

Much of the world (All of Europe, most of Asia, Large parts of Oceania, all of Africa and sections of South America) has gone down, or chosen to go down the DVB route.

This includes DVB-T for terrestrial digital TV channels, DVB-S for satellite television and DVB-M for mobile television (although many mobile TV devices and signals currently work on the DVB T standard).

The US, Canada, Mexico, South Korea and some US-controlled territories in the Pacific Islands will watch ATSC TV.

China, Hong Kong and Macau use DMB-T/H and Japan and Brazil use ISDB. Japan uses the ISDB-T version while Brazil uses the SBTVD-T version, which was developed for the South American terrain and conditions.

It’s perhaps not surprising that people are so confused.

Global online retailers, eBay traders, Chinese Wholesale electronic products manufacturers and wholesale dropship electronics suppliers say it is common for their customers to order the wrong item.

It didn’t matter if it was a digital TV tuner, USB TV tuner, a car TV tuner or a portable device with digital TV receivers the results were the same.

In fact one representative of China’s first internet wholesaler said that the confusion over DVB-T and ATSC alone had led to problems for customers and the company.

This was even before the lesser-used ISDB-T and DMB came into play.

So, in essence electronic ecommerce operators are facing a big problem with Digital TV that bricks and mortar operators don’t even have to face… that is until they start sourcing stuff from overseas.

So what steps do we need to take from here and what can ecommerce operators do to prevent customer complaints and bad feedback?

One thing they could do is put a notice on the bottom of all products notifying customers where they will work.

While this won’t stop everybody from buying a gadget which is set up for the wrong standard it will work most of the time and guarantee them an extra layer of indemnity when they come back to complain.

So, for example, if you are trying to sell an ATSC digital TV tuner you could put ‘Will work in USA, Canada and Mexico’ at the bottom of the description while you could put ‘Will not work in the US and Canada at the bottom of the description on a DVB T USB.

By doing this, retailers should be able sell most types of digital TV converter, laptop TV tuner and in fact any DTV product without too much difficulty.

So is the global community ready for digital TV? Probably not.

But if ecommerce operators prepare themselves they could avoid any fall out over confusion between different DTV standards.

Want to learn more about Digital TV? Check out the products at Chinavasion or sign up to the Chinavasion blog for more information on digital TV and home entertainment.