<<<I still think HDTV is a reasonably good idea, I suppose, but an answer to a question nobody asked. I've seen demos of HDTV, yeah, its got a GREAT picture, whoopty doo, yadda, yadda, yadda. >>>
If that's the case do we really need widescreen 70mm movies? Isn't what they were using in 1940 good enough? Look, people have been wanting bigger TV screens since tv came out. There comes a point where after you blow up analog shows up start to look like crap. So the only answer to that problem is HDTV. Now they can watch giant screens and still have the picture look sharp similar to a movie screen.
<<Pisses me off come Jan 2007 or 2008, 2009, 2010, take yer pick, all my old tvs are gonna be obsolete & won't work. John Q. Public is prolly gonna be pretty steamed, too that he won't be able to watch his beloved new year's day football games.>>>
We will be able to buy cheap little boxes that downconvert it to analog and watch our old tv sets forever, so don't start taking them down to the Salvation Army yet ; )
<<If HDTV was as golly-gee-whiz as color TV was then, they'd have made it backwards compatible...But WTF do I know...-Sandy G.[/QUOTE]>>>
There comes a point where something new is so much newer (50+ years newer) and better (10x the resolution) than the old you can't do the compatibility thing. Color was just black and white with color squeezed into the signal and the big technology hurdle was making the color picture tube. Plus it was only separated from the beginning of BW by about 15 years.