[ohohyodafarted]

AS I see it the big issue here is not Analog vs Digital, but the Bandwidth. The satelite and cable providers all want to provide more bang for the buck on existing available bandwidth.

I understand the conversion from analog to digital. However the real issue is the amount of compression beng used. The more the head end compresses, the lousier the picture becomes, but the tradeoff is that the cable provider is able to offer more chanels int he same amount of bandwidth.

Moving to digital is a good thing, but too much compression for the sake of craming an unrealistic number of chanels into a given bandwidth, is a bad thing.

I have an old style 10 foot c-band dish. The picture quality generally much better than the little dishes (Dish and DirectTv). However depending on what chanel I am watching, I may have low amounts of compression or high amounts. Last night I watched a movie tha was so badly compressed that the images were wavering and out of phase not to mention the poor resolution. It was a digital signal, but so highly compressed that the picture quality sucked big time. By the same token, I get the primary signal of Discovery HD theater, and that picture is second to none.

Over the air network digital transmitions from the major networks can be fantastic. Many of the prime time shows, and sporting events are now in HD. Tonight Show is great every night. Golf on tv is unbelievable, when the shots are done from a stationery HD camera, but the hand held cameras used by the camera men that walk around usually are of much poorer quality. HD is stil in its early stages. Just because you are watching a "HD" transmission dosent mean your will halways have a HD quality picture.

And of course Digital does not mean HD in any way, shape or form.

But back to my big dish. I get hundreds of chanels, both east coast and west coast feeds. I subscribe to all the premium chanels, HBO, Showtime, Stars, Cinemax, The Move Chanel, Flix, Sundance, Encore etc, and dozens of the usual basic package chanels that you normally expect on your cable or small dish. The difference is that my cost is about %30 less than cable or the small dish.

My annual subrscription is only about $750 (62.50/month) Warner cable wanted over $95/month for the same amount of programming. For me, at least, this ist he best way to get my television. There are some inconveniences, like being able to only watch this on 1 set at a time, but for our home that works very well.