🚀 go-pugleaf

>In article <7322@celit.fps.com> billd@fps.com (Bill Davidson) writes:
>How long do we have to carry around the baggage of a standard that was
>designed so long ago that it can't even get the colors right most of
>the time?  Color was an add-on and the implementation suffered in order
>to maintain compatibility with old black and white sets.  At some point
>you have to say "enough is enough".
>Why suffer with the old forever?  Just because most people
>won't be able to afford it is rediculous.  Most people couldn't afford
>pocket calculators when they first came out (or TV's, or cars or most
>other major new technologies).

In article <MIKEMC.90Mar20102012@mustang.ncr-fc.FtCollins.NCR.com> mikemc@mustang.ncr-fc.FtCollins.NCR.com (Mike McManus) writes:
>While I basically agree with you Bill, the issue of backward compatability is a
>very sticky one.  Simply making the change and living with it is not as easy as
>it sounds.  Your analogy to CD technology is not valid.  The introduction of
>CD's did not make records disappear, and you could still play old records that
>you had, even if buying old one is harder now days.  Making the TV which you
>currently have in your home unable to be used is quite another thing.  Unless
>all you want to do is watch video tapes (not likely)...

The point that you are missing is that HDTV's should be done in a
similar way to CD's.  You are right in saying that CD's did not make it
impossible to use vinyl records.  However, they are taking over the
market.  In ten years, you may find it very difficult to buy vinyl.
CD's are slowly killing the vinyl market.  HDTV should do the same
thing.  Both should be available for several years.  Eventually
everyone will get HDTV's and at some point eventually the vast majority
of people will have HDTV's and broadcasters can just dump the old
broacasts.  If HDTV and old TV have to share the same band space then
we'll have to suffer with less channels on both for a while.  For this
reason, I think cable should be the first market for HDTV since it has
a lot more control over bandwidth and channel placement.  Perhaps for
the first 5 years or so it should be available only on cable.

Another possibility that I'm not too sure about is a converter box.  It
might be possible to produce a relatively cheap converter box that
could read in an HDTV signal and cut the resolution down and convert to
NTSC and feed it into an old TV.  If it's cheap enough (say under or
around $100) and doesn't degrade the signal too much beyond the what we
currently live with, not too many people will complain.

The general public won't be convinced that they need HDTV until they
see it.  Once they see it, they will want it.  NTSC is far below the
resolution of the human eye.  The difference with increased resolution
will be very noticable to anyone with decent eyesight (>1000 lines and
72Hz would look so good by comparison it will make old TV's hard to
watch).

--Bill