Federal regulators have decided to move up the deadlines for manufacturers to make mid-sized television sets capable of receiving digital signals.

The Federal Communications Commission unanimously voted to require that all medium-sized televisions (25″ to 36″ screens) be capable of receiving both digital and traditional analog signals by March 1. This is four months earlier than the deadline the commission had laid down three years ago.

Regulators also retained a requirement that half of all new mid-size televisions must have digital receiving capability by July 1.

The commission also proposed moving the deadline for all small TVs to have digital tuners to the end of 2006, rather than the July 1, 2007, deadline the regulators set in 2002. That proposals will be voted on later after a period of public comment.

All in all, this is pretty cool. I have been wanting to purchase an HD capable television, but they are pretty spendy right now and I figure they are going to come down in price pretty substatially soon. This just makes me want to wait even more.

The lack of digital-capable television sets has been a major impediment to Congress’ tentative deadline of December 2006 to complete the transition from traditional analog TV signals to digital. The 1997 law setting that deadline permits it to be extended in any market until 85 percent of the homes have a digital TV.