[Lancaster Online]

[Artie See]

This is just plain wrong.

Broadcasting - as with all other issues that do not involve public safety or welfare - should be determined by free markets, not government intervention.

I'm old enough to remember when the Federal government required all new televisions sold after a certain date to include UHF tuners (above channel 13). That was a very different situation: UHF stations were already available, but under-utilized; this greatly expanded the number of broadcasts people could view. But even this situation proved the power of market forces: channels 70 thru 83 were practically unused, and were eventually reassigned to cell phone service.

If the Federal government had required that all televisions sold in the U.S. after a certain date include digital tuners, that would simply have allowed market forces to introduce digital channels at their own rate. But forcing ALL television stations to stop broadcasting in analog, leaving hundreds of millions of TVs and VCRs obsolete, simply forces both consumers and broadcasters to spend billions of dollars that they would not have had to otherwise - some of which might have been better spent on more important and pressing issues.

[Hawkeye]

Artie is quite correct. While HD TV is clearly an improvement over analog and SD TV, one may well ask the question, "Just how much better?" The most important issue here is simply: "Is HD TV worth the cost(s) involved?" My own response is simply that while HD TV is an improvement over its predecessors, it is not enough of an improvement to be worth the cost of a brand new HD TV set until the existing TV(s) wears out, breaks or must be replaced for some reason other than to obtain a somewhat better picture. Unhappily, the Republican "big business" syndrome has made this foolish decision for everyone, regardless of their personal judgment in the matter. So don't rush out to spend your huge Subprime Catastrophe Rebate on a new HD TV until your older one(s) must be replaced for some mechanical or other common sense reason. Converters are much cheaper than new HD TVs and will make the old TV work quite well in the coming HD world.

[hahaha]

You know you are getting old when.........

[pml]

First of all as a happy comcast customer with digital cable and an hdtv I am anxiously awaiting the change. Nothing dissappointed us more after buying out new tv than when we realized comcast only offered a minimal amount of channels in HD.



Now for all of you who wish to stay in the dark ages or who don;t watch tv, you will be fine. All you need is cable. No box or fancy tv. My husbadn has a tv in his office without a box and it will work just fine.



The change will mean that the outdated analog channels that take up so much room on the network will now be gone and more HD channels will be available to those who have put out the money and believe me it wasn;t tht much and what a difference. It is actually like being in the movie. HD is fabulous and with DVR and on demand, there is rarely a boring night when we can find nothing on tv.