120hz versus 240hz

Both VHF-High (channels 7-13, 170something to 220? MHz) (3 stations, here) and UHF (channels 14-51(?), around 500-700 MHz) (another 10, here). There are some VHF-low band stations in other parts of the country but I gather that 54-88 MHz has real problems with thunderstorms and interference.

The US channels are all 6 MHz wide, both UHF and VHF. ATSC using 8VSB with something around 19 MBPS, using MPEG-3. As I understand it, HD will use about 12 MBPS. The over the cable version uses a different modulation, [mumble]-QAM, and has twice the number of bits per second. HD in the case of ATSC may be only 720p, or 1080i.

I can't get them all, (They're clustered in 5 different locations), but at least 8 (maybe 10) are in HD.

The bucks from auctioning off channels 52(?) to 69 to the cell phone and wireless companies is what got the government to push this through.

Around here, since nobody had to be nice and share, they just toss off a few crap channels when they shift to HD. (The PBS non-commercial stations were about the only ones to do this, as they were early adopters, and had their transmitters going long before they rebuilt their inside equipment).

One of the things you have there, judging from the web pages I surfed a while back, are the audio only transmissions from the various national stations. I wish they had done that here, but most of the stations that used to be combined radio and TV split up into separate corporations back 15-20 years ago, so there no organizational connection anymore.

Sounds cheap to me, I gather you can spend $90 a month (not including pay per view) to get the full load. Minimum, $30-$40 a month.

Mark Zenier snipped-for-privacy@eskimo.com Googleproofaddress(account:mzenier provider:eskimo domain:com)

It is cheap. The 10 quid (UKP) is an EXTRA fee for HD. You buy whatever package you want, and if you want HD, you buy the HD package, which is a few channels in HD.

Most channels are not available in HD.

Here for example, the DBS system I use has 4 movie channels, in HD they have one. If you want all four channels, or a different movie than the HD channel is showing, you have to watch it in regular, which means you had to pay for that channel.

Regular def here is a mixed bag, about 10% of the programs are 16:9, most are 4:3. The decoder box gives you a choice of always 16:9 (which means the TV set has to detect the difference and switch), always 4:3, or letterboxed

I have no idea of what really is on HD, I don't have a TV capable of it.

Note that if I were to upgrade to an HDTV, I would not upgrade the service, I get so much of my program material from other sources, it's not worth it.

Geoff.

It's not too bad, price-wise. The (basic) digital terrestrial service here is all free - if you ignore the cost of the required broadcast receiving licence. That's all of the 'national' channels that were available as part of the analogue service, plus other offerings from the same broadcasters, such as BBC3 and BBC4 and ITV2 and so on. On top of all of these channels, there is a cartload of other channels that are a real mixed bag of 'specialist' and 'kinda watchable' right through to utter crap that is a total waste of bandwidth and transmission resources. There are also, as you say, many radio stations. And finally, some quite clever 'interactive' services. It would seem, in the not too distant future, that there will be some HD content on there, shoehorned in amongst what's already there. Mpeg 4 DVB T-2, I seem to recall reading somewhere. All of this is broadcast in the UHF band CH21 to 68 - about 470MHz to 860MHz, alongside the existing analogue transmissions, which are being totally phased out over the next two years. I believe that after the last analogue has gone, the UHF TV band is being shrunk, to allow the government to sell more of it off, and some of the high-band multiplexes will shift down-band.

Direct broadcast satellite TV is very well established here, and is mostly operated by a private company called Sky. It's one of Murdoch's News Corporation companies. A lot of basic content can be viewed on a Sky receiver for free, although there is a one-off small charge for a free-to-air viewing card. Outside of this content, you move into the realms of pay TV. Sky have cleverly designed a very complex system of putting together your own viewing package. They have grouped channels by genre, and then you pick those genres to assemble your package. I take all of the channels except premium movies, and premium sports. It costs me 22UKP (about $33) a month, and provides me with a very wide range of content.

When I recently bought my HD TV set, I then added an additional bundle to my package. This was all of the available HD channels, ex the premium movie and sports channels. For this, I pay an additional 10 UKP, so my total monthly cost is now 32 UKP (about $48). Whilst this is not exactly 'cheap', I also don't think that it represents too bad value for the entertainment value it provides, although there are many who disagree with that point of view, and think that Sky as a company, belongs to the devil himself ...

Of course, there are hundreds of free radio stations on the satellite, as well.

Signals from the same suite of satellites can also be received via a system called FreeSat. This allows you to receive pretty much the same free channels that you would get on terrestrial FreeView or free-to-air Sky, as well as a very limited amount of HD content, all for free.

Then, of course, there's always cable ...

It's all getting a bit complicated here now, and I don't see much scope for it all settling down, until the analogue services have finally all stopped, which will then force people to make service provider choices, more than they are doing at the moment.

Arfa