Someone PLEASE answer the question as to WHY the government is forcing us to go HDTV ? We are seniors and don't want or care about it. There is very little worth watching on TV anyhow so why should we have to pay for a box just to watch the few shows we do like? I think it is pure government control.
Nobody forces us to take part in this scam... I can get all my entertainment off the internet these days... check out sopcast and give the mass brainwash media the elbow. Our old hardware dvd's and vhs tapes will still work fine, and judging by the 30+ year old Thorn colour tv I have in the bedroom my Tatung dumpster tv still has a good few years left in it...and I have a couple more 4x3 crt sets kicking about for the future. Gather a few of those discarded vhs machines.. they have very useful parts inside to give you a suitable rf signal from a/v sources if your antique tv doesn't have a/v inputs.
If you don't like it just don't do anything and your television worries will be over. I know of no country whose citizens have the "right" to television. And guess what? Free radio, all you want. Step into the future or live in the past.
North Korea?.. I hear it's compulsory. Anyway.. it's going to be a really sucky future so why not stay in the past?
You best be close to the broadcasting tower too. There is either a great picture or no picture. At 25 miles I tried a new box with rabbit ears and could get a signal from UHF only. The 2 VHF stations did not come in. Good luck without antenna on roof away from towers. The electronics industry perpetrated this switch in order to sell all new stuff since the analog market was dead.
Ahh, another voice of doom and despair heard from. "I tell you the past is a bucket of ashes." - Carl Sandberg
And yes the worldwide economic mess and hatred is surely a "bed of roses" We will upgrade and new and improve the Earth to death. garmoon 10/22/08
Archaeologists in the future will know the years 2007-2010 by a layer in landfill full of consumer electronics.. "The Vista and Digital TV Boundary" they will call it. Now.. would you.. with the benefit of hindsight say the internal combustion engine was progress??.. or gunpowder?? or religion??.. how about towns and cities?? We are the animal that has it wrong, and "progress" is our punishment. Only a couple of things in the bible ring true.. let there be light, then she went to bed because it was too bright.. and getting booted out of paradise for gaining knowledge... actually paradise was lost because it wasn't good enough for man. Man always wants more than the ultimate.. and the ultimate more is nothing... hmmm.. that sounds a bit Bhuddist to me.
If this person is still around, which I doubt. You can either get 2 coupons for $40 each to get a digital converter for your older television(dtv2009.org), or a cheap tv under $100 at walmart. I do wonder if we are going to see riots in the streets 2/17/2009.
We wont be watching an HDYV set because there is NOTHING on TV that is worth watching anyhow, just a bunch of slanted news and so called comedy shows and stupid talk shows so why care. My biggest problem is the government has far to much control and They should not be involved PERIOD !!!! Give me rabbit ears anyday because it was FREE and it got the job done. That was the problem, it was FREE and the big guys couldn't make any money off of it. Sad day indeed.
Not enough evangalist bulls-it and money begging for ya eh? Bum boy of Billy Graham.. the mouthpiece of the false messiah and those who would oppress by lies. Liked your retarded psuedo-christian babble in my shoutbox BTW... what a load of complete crap.. keep your half baked indoctrinated religious shite out of my face. I am the antichrist incarnate.. come to ensure the end times and the downfall of the false messiah and work of man pretending to be work of god... for I have seen god.. and god does not care about the human liar and bigot who uses her name to oppress and corrupt his fellow man. You are mine to torture and punish as I choose.. for ever.. as are all false profits and spreaders of lies and division.. for we are in the end times, and the beast is near. Jan.. from the lake.
Wtf J? Post this stuff in your shoutbox/profile not in the forums. I could care less what anyone's religious beliefs are or are not - that and the forums here aren't here for stuff.
well, the whole country is going digital, no more cable wires for telephones, its going to be fibre optic, etc... noone is forcing hdtv, not yet anyway, but why not?, i mean, if we r going digital, why not higher definition?
The reason for the switch is that digital television uses a narrower spectrum of the radio frequency and the FCC can now auction off the old television frequencies for big bucks.
I found that HDTV always has problems streaming the TV. Every now and then you hear a really loud squeak and large blocks on the TV lag. Never happened on my old TV.
I think big business has the government in their pocket. They want to force us to move on and buy the newer technology. You will need to get a newer tv, or get the converter box, or sign up for cable.
It is only a matter of time until these hi def signals become lower end, oh, it has started already http://www.broadbandreports.com/shownews/Rogers-To-Degrade-HD-Signal-Quality-93298
I work part time at Best Buy In HT & it amazes me when people think them have to buy a new TV because of the switch coming in Feb 09. I alwyas tell them if your tv works fine now, just get a converter box & it will still work fine or how some people don't even know that if they are on cable or sat they don't have to do anything as it doesn't affect them anyway. As to the digital/HD I'm all for HD because if you haven't seen good HD then you don't know what you are missing. HD picture is 5 times better picture quality than digital. I have a 61" Samsung DLP with a HD TIVO using cable cards & when you watch a game on ESPN that has been filmed with HD cameras & broadcast in HD it is like they are coming off the screen at you it is so realistic. The down side is that if your on cable depending on your cable company they don't have many HD channels available. But you could always go to Direct or DISH as both have 100+ HD channels with more coming soon. Once you see programs broadcast in HD you will wish everything was in HD. Another thing I hear about all the time from people is when they are watching some HD channels on their cable they get loss of signal or audio drop out. In our area Madison WI our cable company has a pretty bad rep. I tell people if their video is dropping out or tileing that it strictly a signal strength issue from the cable company & keep bitching at them until they fix it for you. GO HD!!!