Re: HDTV

[Dan Strassberg <dan.strassberg@worldnet.att.net>]

At 11:23 PM 12/23/98 -0500, you wrote:
>Dib9@aol.com wrote:
> 
>> The HDTV manufacturers will
>> also be competing with converters for traditional TVs so they will have to
>> bring their prices down or people will just substitute converters for new
HDTV
>> sets.
>
>Yes, and I suspect that converters will be rather inexpensive.  I suspect,
>too, that regular TVs with converters built in will probably be on the
>market in the near future unless the FCC bans them.  For HDTV to catch on,
>first the programming must be there, and so far it isn't.  Especially, the
>cable companies will have to convert to HDTV.  And for it to really catch
>on, someone will have to offer something that is simply not available on
>regular TV.
> 
If you'd like to read my article on HDTV, which appears in the current
(12/17/98) issue of EDN Magazine, go to http://www.ednmag.com. Until the
next issue comes out around January 1, you can click on "current issue" and
you will find a link to my HDTV article. You can then choose to read the
HTML version "live" or download a 271 kbyte file in Adobe Acrobat PDF
format. (Note that printing out the Acrobat file can be a challenge. The
Acrobat reader uses your hard disk to cache the bit maps it sends to your
printer. I had to print pages 1 and 2 separately, and then I had to free up
over 40 Mbytes on my C: drive before the file would print.)

A disappointing feature of the HDTV landscape is that according to the
current plan, HDTV via cable will be incompatible in important respects with
over-the-air HDTV broadcasts from terrestrial transmitters. The modulation
schemes specified for the over-the-air terrestrial transmissions and the
cable transmissions are different, and there is no obvious technical reason
why the cable-system operators could not have adopted the over-the-air
standard. My hunch is that this is a bid to push over-the-air TV aside and
to make cable (plus satellite in remote areas) the only means of delivering
TV signals to US households.

- -------------------------------
Dan Strassberg (Note: Address is CASE SENSITIVE!)
ALL _LOWER_ CASE!!!--> dan.strassberg@worldnet.att.net
(617) 558-4205; Fax (617) 928-4205

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