Still no comparison

[Kiwick]

No outhouse, and i have an electric pump for my water, but i do ride my horses, it's far safer and relaxing than driving a car in traffic

Let me say that i know what HDTV looks like, and i think i can live without the ability to see a billion of details on a 50" screen... 625 line PAL looks really good on my vintage 26" Philips CRT...

The EU and the Italian government had to retain the 4:3 625 line PAL standard to ensure compatibility with older CRT sets, which still account for about 80% of Italy's TVsets and are being replaced really slowly, it's not uncommon to see 20-30 yrs old sets and even some tube B/Ws in regular use here, especially in poor rural areas, they just get repaired and patched up over and over,

That's also why many DVB-T set top boxes sold here are fitted with an analog RF output, that's needed to feed the converted analog PAL signal in the antenna input of older sets without AV inputs.

Don't forget that many people cannot afford to buy a "new & exciting" HDTV set just because it's cool... they just need something to watch the news or a soccer match into...

Francesco

Originally Posted by ohohyodafarted

Gosh Francesco,

Are you still riding from one village to another on horseback, getting your water from a well with a bucket, and craping in an outhouse overthere?

Do we "NEED" HDTV, probably not. the world would not come to an end if HDTV did not exist. But if you had it, you would not want to watch anything else. The picture detail is incredible.

To bad they chose not to do HD in your country Francesco. I guess you will just have to get a DVB (direct view broadcast) receiver and a dish to get your HD. Here in the USA our government made the "correct" decision and every American citizen will all have the opportunity to view the highest quality television picture that modern techonology can produce...over the airwaves and for FREE. I guess the EU will have to suffer with second rate quality television until your governments get with the program.

BTW I realy enjoy my
"SMD filled, robot assembled, disposable, stinkin' flat panel junk"
It has a better picture than your best euro-centric PAL tv set.

[NowhereMan 1966]

Originally Posted by Kiwick

Don't forget that many people cannot afford to buy a "new & exciting" HDTV set just because it's cool... they just need something to watch the news or a soccer match into...

Francesco

There are people like that over here too, I could hear my grandmother now if she was still alive. She passed on in 1997 but if she was still here, sometime in 2009, she'd be complaining that "I cannot get my 'stories' (soap operas) on my TV anymore." She used a 1962 RCA B&W TV, no UHF tuner, up to almost the time she died.

I watched Archie Bunker al ot and there is one time I have to agree with Meathead, his son-in-law, where he read on a box where it said, "new and improved," he said "what were we using before, old and lousy?"

I know someone else said this but I'll second it and say that I apologize on behalf of most Americans about that snide comment, there are times that we can be too arrogant for our own good.

Myself, I can't afford a lot of cool and new stuff,I struggle from time to time economically. Many say, "just buy a new TV," well there are times money is tight that it would take an Act of God to do that. Heck, I've been watching the same set for almost 25 years, a 1982 Zenith System III, I was a 16 year old sophomore in high school when we bought it new and now I'll be 41 next month.