These are just some notes on the pending digital conversion for television:

http://www.dtv.gov/consumercorner.html

http://ftp.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/digitaltv.html

When: Feb 17, 2009

There's a lot of sites out there with information now, but it's still not exactly common knowledge. And, quite frankly, I think money is being made over the confusion between "HD" and digital. Basically, the digital conversion does not imply HD. You buy HD strictly because you choose to get the heightened HD signal. You don't get HD because of the pending digital conversion. If you already have cable or satellite, you already get a digital signal. Put an HD set on that digital signal it will make your picture worse not better. You'd have to upgrade your package to HD to get an improved picture on your HD set. What's happening is that these large HD sets simply reveal all the flaws that had been hidden before resulting in a worse overall picture when using a standard signal.

I'm not certain people really understand this distinction just yet. Im also not entirely sure all the HDTV hoopla is particularly in the consumer's best interests. After all, HDTV is the best possible digital signal currently available. For most products, people behave much like Goldilocks. The most popular sellers are never the most expensive or the least expensive. The most popular products are always those positioned comfortably in the middle. So, why is there such a discrepency when it comes to HDTV? Why don't we get meaningful other options?

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