[LINK] US going digital TV in 2009

[rchirgwin at ozemail.com.au]

Wow. Mossberg's statements are truly amazing, to the point where you 
wonder if there's a handbook telling shills what to say about digital TV.

For mine, I have never seen any reason to change my position on digital TV:
1) The "digital dividend" is probably chimerical; at best, it's overstated.
2) Consumers are being required to subsidise consumer electronics 
through a forced upgrade they mostly don't care about (they're more 
interested in a screen to play the fave DVDs than what might happen in 
free-to-air).
3) The digitisation of TV is being used to trojan more DRM into the 
household.

The benefits to consumers don't justify the policy or the penalties, and 
never did...

RC

andrew clarke wrote:
> On Sat, Mar 03, 2007 at 09:22:44PM +1100, Jan Whitaker wrote:
>
>   
>> The News Hour had a story on Friday about the US going to digital.
>>
>> http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/media/jan-june07/digital_03-01.html
>>
>> The 'expert' was panning SDTV and settop converters. I dropped them a 
>> note that he didn't know what he was talking about since I was 
>> watching him right now using a converter. What a Wall Street Journal snob.
>>     
>
> Quoting the 'expert', Walter Mossberg, from the article:
>
>   
>> "I have not seen one of these converter boxes, but my guess is it's
>> going to really give you a lousy picture. You'll be able to receive the
>> signal, but you're going to get kind of a lousy picture."
>>     
>
> Later on in the article he talks about how good High Definition TV is,
> so he is probably comparing the relatively the output of a set top
> converter shown on an old analog CRT TV, to a new HDTV with a builtin
> digital receiver.  Obviously the analog TV display will indeed be fairly
> lousy compared to the new HDTV set.  But of course, HDTV isn't
> everything.
>
> I don't know what the plan is with digital TV in Australia these days.
> Digital transmission has been required for commercial free-to-air
> networks for quite a few years now, but as far as I know, none of the
> analogue transmitters have been switched off, partly because retailers
> are still allowed to sell new TVs with analogue receivers.  Most flat
> panel (non-CRT) TVs sold probably have digital receivers though.
>
> Walter Mossberg, once more from the article:
>
>   
>> "It's unbelievably confusing. You need an encyclopedia to walk into the
>> TV aisle at Circuit City,"
>>     
>
> Unfortunately he doesn't elaborate on any of that.  Clearly he is
> exaggerating, but even so, I don't think the situation is as confusing
> as he makes out, unless the US is using multiple digital transmission
> formats in different regions.  In Australia (and also many parts of
> Europe), DVB-T is used for free-to-air TV on the VHF & UHF bands.  I was
> under the impression though that the US had chosen a single format,
> albeit incompatible with DVB.
>
> I suspect the most confusing aspect of buying a new TV is whether to
> choose a CRT, LCD, plasma or rear projection set...
>
> Regards
> Andrew
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