On Fri, 2 Jan 2009 09:05:46 -0500, "dadiOH"
wrote:

Ed Pawlowski wrote:
"Robert" wrote in message
...
Welcome to 2009. The year we lose our TV signals. What a way to
start the year, knowing in another month and a half, we will lose our
tv reception, unless we subscribe to costly cable or satellite tv. Oh
yea, they tell us we can get convertors and even give us coupons
worth $40 for the $50 and up boxes that DO NOT work in rural areas,
because the digital signals are under-powered for those in fringe
areas.

Progress.

Progress? The reason for the change from analog to digital is money,
nothing more. It allows removal of some VHF and UHF from TV use thereby
enabling those friendly, caring folks in Washington to peddle the freed up
frequencies. The feds get billions...and the manufacturers get to sell new,
"improved" TV sets. Wide screen ones at that (another useless
"innovation").

You hit the nail right on the head with what you said. The govt will
make a killing selling these frequencies to cell phone companies. so
those companies can continue to pollute our youth with their toy
cellphones. If cellphones were only used for business and personal
emergencies, like they were intended, we would nto need more
frequencies.

I dont buy the "Progress" concept at all. In a fringe rural area, I
can get analog signals that may be a bit snowy at times, but I can
still watch them. With digital tv, it's ALL or NOTHING. I can NOT
watch a program when the screen goes blank every few minutes. As far
as picture quality, their ads say how much better it is. To that I
say BULL****. At least not on a standard tv with converter. But
then, I have always been satisfied with a regular tv picture. I am
not trying to get a home theater, I just watch tv. About the only
real improvement in many years was stereo sound.

Like you said, Wide screen is just another useless "innovation". I
personally could care less. And for those who think HDTV is better, I
disagree. I have looked at many of the HDTV sets on the stores, from
the low end cheap ones to the most expensive. For some reason I
always end up watching the cheapest ones referred to as SDTVs. The
ones with the CRT. For some reason those LCD screens give me a
headache, (literally), and I do not care for the picture. It looks
fake. Closeups of faces look like they are made out of plastic.
Nature scenes look a little better, but I still much prefer the CRT
sets.

But like everything, these companies will continue to brainwash
consumers, particularly the youth who have been programmed to NEVER be
satisfied with any consumer product, and always want more. I'm
elderly, I have been watching analog tv on a CRT for many years.
There have been great improvements since the 1950s, and the tv sets
made since the 1990s have been superior. Now we can all go back to
the 50's where we have poor reception. Poor reception, but in wide
screen HDTV color...... Whoopie. I AM NOT IMPRESSED !!!!

Robert