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and one thing that keeps getting lost in the public discussion is that it keeps being "sold" to us as "wow, now you'll have HD on all the time, and the regular channels will have digital clarity"... bullshit. The dirty little secret is that your TV stations will look worse than before. I used to work for a major player in the business, and it's relatively simple - analog you can't do much to squeeze extra efficiency. With digital on satellite for example, on one transponder you might have 12 stations in crystal clarity. but you can dial back the quality in the encoder and squeeze in an extra 6 channels of PPV movies or time shifted channels by mixing high complexity signals (sports channels etc) with low and averaging the bandwidth needs of the 18 stations so it effectively gets juggled. BUT, that has a big effect on the picture quality especially when watching on a high quality LED or plasma. So you'll but a great new HDTV, turn it on and see an HD signal full of artefacts from the lossy compression they will use. same thing for standard size channels. They will be digital, but look worse than their analog predecessors.
Cable's days are numbered anyhow, VOIP will render dedicated boxes unnecessary. Youtube's closer to the future of TV than most people think.
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