There will (and may be already) digital tuners that you can plug into an
NTSC set- part of the governmental logic involved in darkening the analog
airwaves (so they can be auctioned off) is to give out certificates to cover
part of the costs for such devices to provide to people who still don't own
a DTV.
I must admit, a well mastered blu-ray title on a 720p or 1080p display looks
awfully nice.
Compression is horrible on many "Hi Def" channels on satellite and cable.
And the FCC and/or congress rolled over for the broadcasters in allowing
them to use DTV not for its HD potential but to cram more crap onto one
channel. Plus, now broadcasters can include "content protection." It's the
American way! (want fries with that??)
Funny thing about the competing disc formats are the manufacturers who are
not allied with "content providers" (cf. supposedly Paramount, who just
dropped their blu-ray support- but with a handy escape clause- is due to get
something like $150MM from Toshiba for their support of HDDVD) and are
manufacturing machines that read both formats, thereby doing an end-run
around the evil cabals.
-----Original Message-----
From: Association for Recorded Sound Discussion List
[mailto:ARSCLIST@xxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Steven C. Barr(x)
Sent: Tuesday, August 21, 2007 10:02 PM
To: ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Blu-Ray gets the BetaMax treatment
----- Original Message -----
From: "Tom Fine" <tflists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Another Sony format about to be marginalized.
I wonder if either of these HD formats will catch on near-term. I predict
a
major outrage and
perhaps outright rebellion among "da folks" when NTSC TV really gets
switched
off. Sure, everyone in
certain elite groups now has a flat-panel HD television, but most of the
rest
of us don't and don't
want to spend thousands to replace the TV's in our house simply because
someone is hyping an
allegedly better boob-tube.
Actually, what I'm thinking about is buying a present-day DVD player...which
will fit my current NTSC set. No idea if they'll come up with some sort of
device to allow digital TV broadcasts to DVD machines, though...
Also, I suspect that given the huge numbers of NTSC-only TV's still in use,
somebody will create and sell a digital-to-NTSC (or better yet, to ALL
analog TV formats...?) set-top converter...?
Steven C. Barr