No more Analog TV...

[snijers FE]

In Belgium we have the two systems. Analoge and digital. But I think analoge will desepire the coming years. HD is coming up here very strong.

[Daniel]

Testing

[Mark in Oshawa]

If you have the money for a large HD TV, and you watch sports, then HD is worth it. For 90% of the dreck out there, no.......

A buddy of mine is an audio man in TV production. He is very fond of saying "I help make this crap, they pay me. they cannot pay me enough to watch it".

Sums up most of the dreck foisted on us....

That said, I think Analog is a dead format in Canada for most since 95% of Canadians were on cable or satellite services anyhow. With the large distances and weak US signals for their networks, I don't know of anyone who would bother with antenna unless they have a little TV up at the summer trailer and they want to watch the ball game on a Saturday afternoon. Even so, most of the people I know with trailers have satellite dishes.....

[inimitablestoo]

I presume they had to wait to do the digital switchover in the US until George Dubya had left office. The chances of him misunderstanding the instruction "Press the red button know" don't bear thinking about...

[Dave B]

HD is pointless, it is not even that good.

It is if you see it done properly. The trouble is that much of the content on HD channels is upscaled SD (Channel 4 and Sky 1 are the worst culprits), and very often when you see HD sets displayed in stores they're connected up by composite video - or worse: RF - and therefore displaying awful pictures. Also keep in mind that many people watch HD on terrible quality "supermarket" LCD sets which will make even the best source look dubious.

Watch something like Sky Sports HD on a proper setup and if you can't see the difference you need a trip to the opticians.

[Tomi]

In Belgium we have the two systems. Analoge and digital. But I think analoge will desepire the coming years. HD is coming up here very strong.

We got digital tv about 10 years ago, they stopped the analoge brodcasting about 2 years back.

[Daniel]

HD is great. I'm watching a HD programme downloaded from iPlayer on a 24 inch 1920*1200 LCD in our bedroom at the moment and the difference is noticeable compared to SD content even though it's only 720 and not 1080. Whether there is enough HD content is another thing.

[Mark in Oshawa]

I presume they had to wait to do the digital switchover in the US until George Dubya had left office. The chances of him misunderstanding the instruction "Press the red button know" don't bear thinking about...

Alas no. It was advocates for the poor that were delaying the change. It seems those boxes were part of a gov't plan to subsidize the conversion of older TV's and the plan's went awry when people buying the boxes then hoarded them. This great and wonderful idea was supported by people like ACORN and other poverty advocates. I suspect who was in the Oval office had no concern or knowledge of it all.

Then again, in you world, I suppose you would blame George Bush if you ran out of toilet paper.

[Mark]

Indeed I don't see the point of Freeview HD. Freeview is supposed to be the replacement for the analogue TV service to provide a basic broadcast service for those who can't afford / don't want to pay subscriptions to Sky, Virgin, or indeed buy freesat equipment.

HD is certainly a premium service so I see no issue to having it restricted to satellite and cable, platforms able to deal with it.

[Valve Bounce]

Are we talking about the same thing?? I'm totally confused by many of the preceding posts. Here in Oz we have 1HD which shows the Grand Prix live. The cars look fantastic, clear as anything, and all the colours are true and the image sharp when the cars are going flat out.

I can only say that alone is enough for me to love HD.

Of course, we have a helluva lot more on HD, as I mentioned in my post above.

And it's all free!!