I live in an apartment complex (have been here for two years--and previously I lived in another apartment where we had the same cable/DTV systems), and we have cable TV (the cable is underground, and is of the fiber-optic kind), and some residents also have DTV satellite TV. I see the dishes all around me. Anyway, I have BrightHouse networks' digital cable TV, with HDTV and high-speed Road Runner internet service (@7MB/second), and the HD DVR from Scientific Atlantic. It's a very good system. As for older TV shows, the cable channels delivering the content should be able to convert them to the appropriate format for digital delivery (correct me if I am wrong, but I think the 2009 standards are not just about HD delivery, but are more about going digital!. If that's not the whole story, then I think the HD delivery, if that's what is required, must be backwards compatible to analog --i.e., non-digital-- receivers). FYI - the DS DVDs are digital, so they should play just fine in the future.
On another note, we still have telephone landlines, that are analog, even though we have digital cell phones. What a strange world: first there was the telephone (and telegraph), both connected by wire; then radio, over the airwaves; then we got television, also over the airwaves; then cable TV over wires; and there is Satellite radio and TV, over -- well-- satellite transmissions (without wires). Now we're back to cable transmssions for digital and HD TV (not to mention cable TV going back into the 60s). Soon, we'll have HD and digital TV over the airwaves or satellites....what goes around comes around, I guess. And who'a'ever'thunk we'd be watching a movie or TV shows on a plastic disc?
And wasn't DS originally taped via cameras in the studio that trasnmitted the sound and images over telephone wires to a remote location, like a truck or studio?
All very interesting, isn't it?
And one last question for Darren Gross....re HODS--if and when we see it on DVD will we get the full-screen picture we see on TCM and VHS cropped at 1.85:1 scale, or will there be additional picture information on both sides of the screen, as if the TCM and VHS versions were panned and scanned (with little or no actual P&S action)?
So many comments, so little time. LOL
Thanks,
Brian