Yeah...I know of BBCAmericas past. It does seem to favour shows that are likely going to sell well on DVD... lol...bemusement, not riot.
Did you know that RCA developed HDTV back in the 1950s? There was no market for it then, so they didn't do anything with it and eventually sold it. 1950s technology, with modern manufacturing capability...? Yeah, I smell a ripoff.
I have a 7 foot satellite dish and have had it since the late 80's. Now, I have seen the transition from analog to digital, and believe me, an analog backhaul was the best picture there ever was. Sure beat the compressed digital picture, and still does. But unfortunately, too many tv stations came along, and analog took up to much bandwidth. On one satellite for instance, it will have 24 transponders, and back in the day, that carried one tv station per transponder, or one live backhaul per transponder for news, sports, etc. Nowadays, you can fit up to 36 stations per transponder, by digital compression. 36x24=864. So now, you have the capacity to put over 800 tv stations on one satellite, and for the US, we have over 20 satellites for tv alone in our line of sight. Some of those transponders are also used for cell phone communications and internet and conference calling and such things. But nothing, and I mean nothing, will ever beat the quality of an analog picture. Especially when you can receive it directly from the source(backhaul), before it goes to the tv station and is re-distributed. Our need to move forward with all our other electronics made us suffer for less quality with the advent of digital.
I have an antenna and I'm kind of torn. I love the vivid color and sharper image, but I actually have less channells than before the switch.
Here in Boston, I pay Comcast about $85 a month for HD with a very nice DVR. We have lots of HD channels and the quality on all of them is good, except TBS. Most of the On-Demand programming is not HD. I almost never watch non-HD channels anymore. I love the following HD shows: Rescue Me, Californication, Big Love, Weeds, True Blood, House, and Red Sox Baseball on NESN.
For the people useing off air, It probably will suck.. The digital switchover normally tends to have less channels, or People are looking for specific ones that are now not comeing in. High Def however, Only a few channels are HD, Is much better. But Since the old 480i signal looks like crap on the new TV's, it becomes a 50/50 on upgradeing. Once more stations are HD it will be a better choice.
I was just thinking about that the other day. Sales of Long-Playing Records have increased steadily for the past few years, for the same exact reasons. Digital media makes compromises in the reproduction of the (audio or video) image. Instead of a continuous stream of information, which is an actual magnetic, chemical or physical impression of the original, it chops up the source information into little bits of data containing only ones and zeroes. And then it spits them back at you in fast succession, so that you THINK it's a continuous stream. I never really noticed it until I started listening to my LPs again, but I noticed it particularly one day when I was watching an old The Wild Wild West episode on DVR. I sometimes imagine... If an alien civilization were to land on Earth after we have finished up making ourselves extinct, our history will appear to have ended in the late 1990s. If they don't use the same computer technology, they will not be able to see anything we've created for the past ten years. A record you can drag a cactus needle stuck through the bottom of a paper cup and listen to. Acetate film can be held up to light and the image seen. How the f**k can you derive beauty or art from a flash drive or a CD-ROM?
Even Neil Young, who hated digital music, finally came around on digital and is releasing his Archive. There's nothing wrong with digital that a higher bit rate or bandwidth won't cure. Analog doesn't last.
Most T.V's let you manually adjust the format in order to fit the screen, of course you might get a funny angle or two every now and then but hey, those are the laws of physics.
On my Samsung, every channel is shown automatically in the correct aspect ratio, except TBS which always shows commercials wrong, but I blame incompetence at TBS.
I have to say HDTV has been really good for my viewing because it ended it. We got a converter box and that gave us like only one channel and then the fucker conked out after the warrantee ran out so I've actually been reading and playing guitar more and working on projects more and I don't have all that garbage going into my brain anymore so it's been win win for me.
There are only two things that bothers me about HDTV. The aspect ratio issues seem to be never-ending, and it takes too long to change channels. My old TV on analog cable switches stations at least three times faster.
I don't believe in having television channels at home. I have 2 children and they don't need to watch that garbage. I do however have a 52" 1080P HDTV. Even after getting my 47" stolen in my house burglary 2 months ago, I got another one. I wasn't planning on it, but for $600 I couldn't pass it up. Cars on blue-ray, is something else. I love watching movies on it, way more then a traditional tv.
I do love HDTV. I got a smaller 32" Element HDTV... and a Blu-ray player... and it works like a charm. And the HD channels look way better... though I must say, I've had enough of SyFy channel... hahah... some of the movies on there are AWFUL. Anyways, I'm pleased with HD. I'm glad it existed. You know such technology existed in Japan and even Mexico years ago, and they are way ahead of us?
Some of the mechanisms of popular ATSC tuners are shit. Some of the firmware is shit Some of the business practices being used in this time of transition are shit but HD isn't evil