Quote:
Originally Posted by old_tv_nut
Sorry, but not everything in this world is a conspiracy. Sales went way below sustainable levels years ago, so production stopped and sales continued on existing inventory, which is finally being depleted. Very simple - manufacturers have to recover costs or else close the doors.
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But the result is still the same--once the supply of converter boxes runs out (this includes the ones currently on eBay), people will be forced to get a flat screen TV once their old set quits, whether they like it or not. Let's face it, the age of NTSC 4:3 TV has ended. We are now in the age of digital everything, including television, and there is no turning back.
HDTV is not all bad. I've had a flat screen set for over four years and I like it, a lot (much better picture and more channels than I ever dreamed would have been possible with analog), and my Roku player and Blu-ray DVD make my viewing experience even better yet. (How did I ever get by before HDTV?
) One quirk in my personality is that I do not adjust to change easily, but eventually I do, and once I am past that block I'm OK with the changes; this is how I'm dealing with the changes, sometimes one after another, occurring these days in TV technology. The longer I have my flat screen, the more I like it. The only thing I can honestly say I do
not like about HDTV is the fact that the sets don't last as long as the old NTSC CRT TVs did.
When my set quits, I may well get a larger one, although since my apartment is quite small, I might decide to get another 19-incher if they are still available. I say this because, with the switch to 4K "ultra-HD" television not far off, the makers of today's flat screens may well stop making 19" and smaller sets altogether. I read somewhere recently that 4K resolution does not display well on 19-inch TVs, if it will display at all, so the 19-inch and smaller flat screens may go the way of the ATSC->NTSC converters eventually, with no new sets of this size being manufactured after a certain date.
For jr_tech: I apologize if my post in which I all but said outright that I was dead-set against HDTV, after stating in another post that I liked the improved picture quality afforded by HDTV over analog NTSC, confused you in any way. As I mentioned above, it is just that I don't adjust to change easily. Now that I have a flat screen, a Blu-ray DVD player and a Roku player, however, I am enjoying television more than I ever did in the days of 4:3 NTSC, and I would probably miss it if it ever reverted to the old standards. Thank heaven the latter will never occur, since time and technology only move forward. One of the opening screens on my Tagital tablet PC, in fact (the last one that shows before the tablet's home screen appears), states "Tablet PC. Keep moving forward." This is what we all must do in this day and age, lest we are hopelessly left behind.