[Al Shing]

 http://www.japantoday.com/e/?content=kuchikomi&id=267


Plans for digital TV lagging



"There's no way we can phase out analog broadcasting by 2011," proclaims the article. "It's time for the Ministry of Public Management, Home Affairs, Posts and Telecommunications; the TV networks; and the electronics manufacturers to come out and tell the truth!"


[see link for rest of article]


The situation in Japan sounds a lot like the situation here.

 

[magic123]

Plans for digital lagging.


And I agree. After the last analog tv is sold in USA, I would say add on about 8 years from that point for all tv stations to change over the full digital. There can be no such thing as a deadline by the Government on this matter. It is up to the public, to a large degree, when the final changeover happens. So far, I must say all people interested are doing a fair to good job of selling digital, most certainly not an excellent job.

This is my view, of course.

 

[Steve S]

I read the article and the pessimism about the changeover seemed to be solely based on the fact that viewers weren't going to be buying sets with digital tuners quickly enough.


This totally ignores the idea that set top tuners for the digital signals which will output analog signals for existing sets should drop to the price of an average vcr or dvd player within the next few years.


Even an SD digital signal looks better than the average analog ntsc picture, and even owners of analog sets would probably gladly pay