Tech Amazing

If your television is old and doesn’t have a digital receiver, you’ll need a DTV converter to get over-the-air signals when analog broadcasting ends on Feb. 17. Consumer Reports paid $55 for this model and judged it tops of the 35 it tested. The federal government is making $40 debit cards available to help citizens absorb the cost of converting analog TV sets. Call 888.388.2009 or visit www.dtv2009.gov to apply. The Alpha Digital AT2016 DTV converter box will be a must-have.

At a list price of $99, the Netflix Player by Roku is a set-top box that allows you to access 12,000 Netflix titles for instant streaming on your TV. There are other devices that will do the same thing, such as the Xbox 360, which every household with a teenage male probably already owns.

The Sony Reader costs about $100 less than the Kindle, and appears to do a lot less like in the periodicals department, which is a favorite use for e-readers. It also doesn’t have the super-slick wireless-download thing going for it, connecting to Sony’s eBookstore instead through a wired PC connection. But if e-books are your thing, the Reader is a less-expensive option, and some users prefer its look and feel to the Kindle’s.