I am a gadget freak. I love technology, gadgets, audio and video toys. I am typically the first guy on the block with a new device. I’ve had PVRs since before there were Tivos. I had LaserVision and and flying-rease head VCRs when people were just getting VHS decks. I still have one of the only linear-tracking tone-arm turntables on the market, and that is coupled with a tiny moving coil cartridge instead of a brute force magnetic media cartridge.
I must confess though, that I do not have High Definition Television (HDTV) and I still have no interest in getting HDTV. You see, along with my gadget-freak status I also inherited a keen sense for being scammed. Frankly the whole HDTV marketing push is a scam, shrewedly designed to separate consumers from their money for no additional services.
The key question anyone considering an HDTV purchase should answer is: Where is the High Definition content and is that content something I am interested in seeing?
For me, there is basically still nothing available that I am interested in seeing. Blue Planet on HD Discovery stands out as a notable exception – and that would be amazing… but is it amazing enough to justify thousands of dollars in new gear?
A few sports games are reliably high definition now. Beer commercials are all high definition (hell – the beer companies have figured out how to sneak what looks like HDTV into my old standard definition equipment!). One channel of HBO or Showtime or The Movie Channel is often high definition at least some of the time. PBS is reliably high definition, unless it is one of the really popular shows PBS viewers insist on seeing regardless of source, so it is usually standard definition then.
The fight between HD DVD and Blue Ray is a joke, because no consumers are interested in either format. We are perfectly happy with standard DVDs, and still sorting out the difference between animorphic widescreen and letterboxed or pan and scanned. Most consumers don’t even know the difference between those last three terms. So most DVD sales are now, and will continue to be for some time, standard definition DVDs.
There is a possibility that content off the internet via Democracy and/or iTunes Music Store will change this dramatically, but I consider that remote. Fans like me will pay to bring Terra: The Nature of Our World to high definition screens (still computer for me, at least until my Apple TV gets here); but that is still very little content.
So for now, and for some time to come, I am firmly happy with my standard definition television.
Which means, no need for upconversion, down conversion; no need for HDTV tuners, no need for special expensive and confusingly labeled devices. No need to be scammed.
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