# When do you think ALL analog broadcasts in the US will really end/turned off?



## mini1 (Jan 25, 2004)

Please take part in this poll! have any thoughts on this issue? please post them below!  here are some more questions to think about:
~do you think that there is any chance we will make the FCC digital OTA deadline of late 2006? 
~do you think the FCC will mandate all cable systems go 100% digital by a certain date? 
Thank you for your input on this issue!!!!


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## DarrellP (Apr 24, 2002)

I will miss the Analog channels, they look better in Portland than the SD OTA Digital channels do.


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## Jacob S (Apr 14, 2002)

Wonder how much cable will have to raise their rates particularly in those areas that are not digital yet (like they are around here where you only get 22 channels).


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## uncdanwrong (Feb 11, 2004)

There's no way that the 2006 deadline is technically feasible without massive gov't subsidies. With or without subsidies it's not politically feasible. Neither Congress nor the FCC have the authority to place a 100% digital date on cable systems without their consent. Major cable systems may however agree to consent as a matter of convenience. IMHO, it will occur in an odd numbered year (time for members of Congress to recover from any backlash) and probably in the summertime before a new fall TV season begins.


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## Mike D-CO5 (Mar 12, 2003)

The majority of people have satellite or cable services. It shouldn't be that hard to change the feed from sd to digital. Dish has done this on one of my local channels from Little Rock. ( It only lasted a few days before Dish realized that there was no captioning on the digital feed for the local ABC station. They had to go back to the inferior ananlog feed because no captions on the digital feed. ) The only people who really sub to ota with an antenna is probably low in todays world. If it wasn't for high def coming out there would probably still be a steady of decline of ota antenna users. 

The real problem will be having all the sd tvs be able to see the digital channels with a converter. Getting a cheap digital to analog converter to everyone out there in the country who needs it would be the first way to transition everyone over to digital . Most digital set top boxes do both analog and digital channels. You can still see the digital on a analog tv but it is down rezzed to 480i . When they can get the price down to a cheap vcr price than most Americans can afford the converter box. Then of course as the analog tvs crap out we will finally get everone to buy a digital tv. That is if the digital tvs are as cheap as the analog tvs are today. A digital tuner shouldn't add 700 or more dollars to the price of a tv. 

In conclusion I think the way to get the country to transition everyone to digital is to get the price to come down comparable in price with analog tvs and to provide cheap digital to analog converters for all the old analog tvs. Then as the old analog tvs go out the replacements will be digital. Then you will have just about everyone watching digital tv for good in 10 to 15 years from now as all the older model tvs go out and of course if no more analog tvs are being made in the near future.


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## Mark Holtz (Mar 23, 2002)

It will take a manufacturing mandate, like they did with closed captioning and v-chip. With the average life cycle of a TV set being around 10 years, it takes a while to convert.

Scanning through some old TV webpages, it wasn't until 1964 that TV sets had to have UHF tuners as well as VHF.


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## dfergie (Feb 28, 2003)

my only digital ota sucks brinewater too the analog is better.


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## Foxbat (Aug 1, 2003)

The FCC needs to force the DTV stations to bring their power levels up to at least 25% of their licensed level. The worse ATSC channel I get is running 10kW on channel 58, and if there is any wind, this channel breaks up big time.


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## uncdanwrong (Feb 11, 2004)

Mark Holtz said:


> It will take a manufacturing mandate, like they did with closed captioning and v-chip. With the average life cycle of a TV set being around 10 years, it takes a while to convert.
> 
> Scanning through some old TV webpages, it wasn't until 1964 that TV sets had to have UHF tuners as well as VHF.


There is already a digital tuner mandate beginning in July for the largest sets and applying to all sets with tuners over 13" by 2007. This is huge because not only will it accelerate the adoption of digital sets but it will also reduce the price of the chips used in converter boxes.


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## freakmonkey (Sep 11, 2003)

Not untill you can buy a digital set at wally world for 99.99. Hey ******** gotta be able to watch tv too


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## Charles Oliva (Apr 22, 2002)

Looking into the Crystal Ball... 

Q1 '05: FCC issues Digital Must Carry Rules, sets new timetable for the "Big 7" to turn off analog, will allow UHF non-network stations to return analog licenses upon 85% of market able to view channel by any means (OTA/Cable/DBS) by 12/31/06. 

Q2 '06: FCC announces that enough spectrum will be returned that 1st round of auction can take place in Q1 '07(Channels 61-69).

Q2 '07: FCC issues new timetable for "Big 7" to turn off analog, will go DMA by DMA. Will use two DMA's as test cases, Portland(ME) and Honolulu, 1/1/08 as switchover date.

December 29,2007: 9th Circuit Court issues "stay" on the switchover. Welfare, Citizen Groups and Municipalities File Suits, claming assortment of issues.

Q1 '09: US Supreme Court rules that benefit to overall public of digital switchover and that Broadcast TV is not a "right". Allows FCC to follow through on analog shutdown.
FCC annouces that all analog broadcast will cease on 12/31/2009.

Jan. 1, 2010: The end of analog.


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## SamC (Jan 20, 2003)

In my market:

Fox - does not broadcast. just defies the FCC. FCC does nothing about it.
ABC - 20% STA. single simulcast of SD.
CBS - 50% STA. single simulcast of SD.
NBC - 50% STA. single simulcast of SD, except for a few sports event. has been off the air for "antenna repairs" for 3 weeks.

If the FCC were serious about HD and DT, it would:
- require DBS to carry the HD feed of the Big 4 networks, and make them available in every market where the local is not broadcasting at 100% and in HD.
- likewise allow cable to do the same.
- announce that any station that is not up and running by 1-1-05 can sign the back of BOTH its analog and digital liscenses and mail them in.

But the FCC is NOT serious about DT. It was a pay-off of an ADDITIONAL slab of bandwidth by the then currently powerful for 50 years of loyal service. It will never be used in the way we were told. It will evolve (we saw this story just the other day) into a system for providing additional scrambled services to the non-cabled.

Never.


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## Geronimo (Mar 23, 2002)

Is there a REQUIREMENT to broadcast in digital today?


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## mini1 (Jan 25, 2004)

Geronimo said:


> Is there a REQUIREMENT to broadcast in digital today?


As of today there is no requirement for any station to broadcast in digital in the US. (i'm not talking about a mandate for the future). if a station doesn't want to broadcast in digital they don't have to, and there is nothing the FCC can do about it, until they make a new mandate. Locals only pass the digital and HD feeds because it gives them more viewers and better ratings, making for more commercials, and more money. where I live I can only get 3 out of 8 locals in digital and only 2 in HD, the others have no money, and don't think there is a lot of veiwers to make a HD or digital feed make them money. It takes a lot of money to broadcast an HD feed OTA, and lots of power, so only higher income stations can do it.


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## FritzM (Feb 2, 2004)

If the signal is NOT over the air, like CNN e.g., is there a legal complusion for them ever to be digital? Just how many people rely solely on OTA signals, anyway? Are they the only ones who will be affected? Does the FCC have jurisdiction over the types of signals cable and satellite systems distribute?


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## mini1 (Jan 25, 2004)

nope, there is no complusion for cable/satellite channels to go digital, it is just more expensive for them to operate, and a lot of cable systems and all satellite companies just convert their feeds to digital, so why should they spend the money to go digital? I don't know if the FCC has rule over cable/sat networks, but I think they do. does anyone know for sure?


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## ypsiguy (Jan 28, 2004)

I am ready for the conversion now, much easier to pick up my Detroit locals via OTA 8-vsb. I hear PBS is aiming to hit the deadline, because they want a cut of the auctioning off of their old analog frequencies. Read that they have 20% of the allocated analog frenquencies. Would make a nice trust fund so they don't hafta beg so much. However, I sympathsize on digital vs analog SD. A CLEAN analog SD picture is better looking. MPEG-2 puts a lot of artifacts into the picture, especially when its displayed on a HD set.


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## SamC (Jan 20, 2003)

Yes, there is a "requirement" for most broadcast stations in the US to be using their ATSC channels. 

But they can do so under flea-powered STAs or they can just ignore the law and not broadcast. In either event the FCC will do nothing about it.

"Cable" channels are already "digital". Don't confuse ATSC with HD with digital.


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## mini1 (Jan 25, 2004)

from what I have heard most cable channels are not digital, they are just upgraded at your cable box. I may be wrong, but that is what I have read.


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## ypsiguy (Jan 28, 2004)

Cable systems are closed systems, so they can take a signal and transmit it in analog as long as they want. I'd be willing to guess that they continue some analog signals for quite a few years, to attract subscribers with older TV sets.
Comcrap in my area already takes some Digicipher and PowerVu channels and sends them up the system in analog.


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## scooper (Apr 22, 2002)

Items to note - 

#1 - Manufacturing mandate for consumer TVs is set - as pointed above
#2 - there is NOTHING REQUIRING HDTV - only digital. All the FCC will care about is that you are not getting OTA using NTSC when analog is turned off
#3 - NO WAY on DBS HDTV of all locals - there just isn't the bandwidth unless they can get additional spectrum / spotbeams, etc.
#4 - cable, since it is a "closed" system, can do whatever they want. At the analog shutoff, they could put in ATSC receivers tuned to the primary feed down-rezzed to 480i, and modulate them to NTSC channels, and you would still be able to receive them via NTSC. Likewise, DBS can do the same.
#5 - By this time, all the major network stations in all markets should be doing ATSC as well as their NTSC. UNFORTUNATELY, the FCC is being entirely too limp on forcing them to broadcast at a decent power level. 
#6 - cheap OTA convertors - I think these will come as the manufacturing mandate starts clamping down. 

My opinions/ facts as I understand them.


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## Mike123abc (Jul 19, 2002)

Do not underestimate the need for the federal government to collect money. They see the $$ sitting there. I picked 2009, the president would have just been elected, congress will have a year to recover.

90%+ of Americans would not notice the difference, if they cannot afford cable/DBS then they probably cannot afford to make campaign contributions, and are likely not big voters. Plus they will not be able to get the message out about their plight because they do not have the $$ to do so.


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## thebigjp (Jan 21, 2003)

I think it will be in 2009 when analog goes off.

Also of note: here in the Lafayette, LA market sone "HD slogans"

KATC: "Now broadcasting in DT on Channel 28"
KLFY: "Broadcasting in HD on KLFY- _HDTV-56_
KADN: "KADN- FOX 15, DIGITAL 16"


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## mini1 (Jan 25, 2004)

this poll is still open and it needs your vote or interesting post! please vote now!


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## DonLandis (Dec 17, 2003)

At one time I thought it might happen but since there has been no requirement yet that all NTSC sales be stopped and retailers and consumers are buying NTSC TV's like there is no tomorrow and you just can't find a ATSC TV tuner built in, I voted like 2011 or higher. Heck, we're still trying to convert to the Metric system after 35 years.
When the first announcements start advertising on broadcast TV that in 30 days your local CBS will only be available on ATSC, and people begin to call their Local Congressman, the overnight extensions will appear rather quickly. 
Today, I went to buy a new TV Set for my new Kitchen. I wanted an HDTV 16x9 LCD under counter model. Good news- Lots of choices all for affordable prices. All had NTSC and (Bad News) none, NONE! had ATSC tuners. Go figure! Now how the hell do I get HDTV on this "HDTV" "ready" TV with only an NTSC tuner? I expect to be able to use this Kitchen TV for another 7-10 years! By the time the NTSC goes dark in 2011+, I will have to buy a future Rat Schack ATSC tuner for $29.95 that fits in a cable inline barrel adapter. That's my prediction.


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## scooper (Apr 22, 2002)

DonLandis said:


> By the time the NTSC goes dark in 2011+, I will have to buy a future Rat Schack ATSC tuner for $29.95 that fits in a cable inline barrel adapter. That's my prediction.


And just what else were you expecting ? I've been saying all along that we need cheap convertor boxes available before this transition will happen.

There is some good news on the ATSC tuner front - starting this year, some percentage of large screen TV will be required to have built-in ATSC tuners. As this goes to smaller sets in future years, the price of the tuners themselves should come down.


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## mini1 (Jan 25, 2004)

THIS POLL IS STILL OPEN! If I have not heard from you yet, I would like to know what you think, so post below! VOTE now


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## mini1 (Jan 25, 2004)

please vote today!


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## mini1 (Jan 25, 2004)

have you voted yet? or told us your story? please post it below and Vote now!


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## openhouse (Jan 25, 2003)

Charles Oliva 
Good Crystal ball Of yours, hope your are correct,
want to see the end of this garbage of analog signals


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## MarkA (Mar 23, 2002)

The big problem with ATSC is that is JUST DOESN'T WORK. And yeah, I voted 2007... I think the FCC will push ahead, the spectrum is more valuable going to wireless phone providers. But I think it'll mean the end of broadcasts for many. ATSC simply does not work properly, it's an inheriently severely flawed, not to mention positively antique air interface. It has no multipath resistance. We should have gone with DVB-T, which Europe is proving works much better... (yes, it's SD there, but you could send HD over DVB-T. DISH Network's HD is HD over the satellite version - DVB-S)


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## tnsprin (Mar 16, 2003)

I am curious why the results of this poll are still being hidden?

I voted 2007.


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## Guest (Apr 11, 2004)

Your comments about ATSC not working is totally bogus. I live 90 miles from several DTV stations I receive off-air and they are incredibly reliable. In Fact more reliable than analog ever was. ATSC requires less power and goes much farther than the European standard. I've never had multipath issues either.


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## olgeezer (Dec 5, 2003)

The major hurdle is neither cable or satellite, but those 30 million people still on antenna. Talk about armed revolt at a cuttoff date.


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## greggg (Dec 3, 2003)

geezer is correct. Believe it or not there are still a ton of people that won't pay for TV and just have a roof antenna. My neighbor is one of them and he makes high six figures.


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## Mike500 (May 10, 2002)

Most likely, the sale of the current NTSC spectrum will be tied to the cost of subsidizing ATSC converters. Produce in the quantity of millions, they might be had for less than $10 each. 

Sounds unreal, but remember when a SoundBlaster brand computer sound card sold for $299? Now, the generic ones sell for $6. A single converter chip can be developed, and mass production will bring it down to about 50 cents each.


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## Cholly (Mar 22, 2004)

Please excuse the lengthy post that follows: hopefully, I can give a bit of perspective on this issue.
Regarding DonLandis' post -- most small, reasonably priced 16x9 lcd sets are only ETV capable, not HDTV. And as he points out, none have ATSC tuners. You have to go quite high in price to find any flat panel TV's with ATSC tuners, just as with projection receivers. Unfortunately, the buying public knows little indeed about HDTV, digital TV, or for that matter, widescreen format ("don't like them black bars at the top and bottom of my screen", they say about WS).

The networks tout their limited HDTV broadcast schedules with banners like "also broadcast in HDTV where available". In my area, only the ABC affiliate does any HDTV broadcasting on its digital channel, which is operating at low power. The Fox, CBS and PBS affiliates are all on the air at low power, just to hold their licenses. NBC is not available in digital in my local market. I've applied for waivers and only CBS granted one, which is interesting, because the local CBS outlet is the only one having a VHF analog channel, and has the strongest digital OTA signal (albeit no HD).

HD ready receiver prices have come down significantly in the past two years. You can walk in to your local Wal-Mart and buy a Panasonic 47" widescreen HD ready projection receiver for around $1250 (but you have to find a way to get it to your home -- they don't offere setup or delivery unless you order it from their web site). That's not too much more than the cost of a low end analog projection set.
Unfortunately, there is a real downside to buying and using widescreen receivers (other than direct view CRT and LCD sets). CRT-based projection receivers and Plasma flat panel receivers are subject to burn-in when watching standard 4x3 program material. Direct view widescreen CRT sets are pricey and heavy. What incentive, then, does the buying public have to upgrade to a set that's truly HDTV capable?

Broadcasters are reluctant to go digital because of equipment cost and perceived limited viewer market. Set makers continue to crank out analog receivers because they can sell them at a low price and still make a good profit. Advertisers don't push for digital or HDTV programming because of cost.

Many years ago, when NTSC color was in its infancy, I worked as a broadcast engineer at the NBC owned station in Chicago. We were the first station in the country to go to all live local color broadcasting. However, when we did feeds to the network, we had to turn off the color burst signal on our equipment because advertisers wouldn't pay the premium for color in an era where there were few viewers with color sets. Once advertisers and broadcasters got together to provide a lot of color programming, the sale of color sets started to take off. (NBC deserves credit for this, because the network, which was then owned by RCA, knew it was in their best interest from a profit point of view to push color programming; it helped sell RCA color sets. )
The FCC didn't mandate color broadcasting. Universal color TV broadcasting came about because the public bought into it and advertisers realized that color sells products. It took several years for that to happen and even then, it took many more years for the market for black & white TV's to go away.

Yes, digital TV is better than analog (let's not get into things like MPEG compression). If you can get a useable signal, picture quality is going to be great. Television manufacturers are going to have to take the lead by including ATSC tuners in their sets, whether the sets be SD, ED or HD. The FCC will have to stand by the mandate that broadcasters go digital and give up their analog channels. Even then, much "digital" programming will be simply converted from analog at the source. With the carrot of being able to broadcast up to six separate programs on a single channel, many broadcasters will not bother to go high definition. Set top digital to analog converter boxes must also be made affordable to protect the viewing public's investment in their existing analog sets. 
Can it happen? Yes -- some of us are old enough to remember that FM broadcasting went through a big changeover when the FCC changed frequency allocations from the orignal 50 MHz band to the 88-108 MHz band, requiring people to get set-top boxes for their older radios. For a brief period, manufacturers produced radios capable of receiving both bands.


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## mini1 (Jan 25, 2004)

tnsprin said:


> I am curious why the results of this poll are still being hidden?
> 
> I voted 2007.


The poll results shouldn't be hidden, I have already voted and I see them right now. something is wrong if you are not seeing them.


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## mini1 (Jan 25, 2004)

greggg said:


> geezer is correct. Believe it or not there are still a ton of people that won't pay for TV and just have a roof antenna. My neighbor is one of them and he makes high six figures.


Good point! I was thinking about that other day while driving thru a Seniors housing development, noticing all the antenna's on the roofs. who is going to tell all the old people, who have very little money, on analog antenna that they will have to invest $200 per TV if they still want to watch TV is a few years? Remember most of these people still use TV's that are not even analog cable ready, some still in black and white, and they must have stuff simple, turn 1 knob and tune to a channel. They don't want "ugly-new fangled-confusing" hard to use set top boxes on every TV that out cost their TV's by 20X. They also have in some cases no way to connect the STB to the TV. I have tried connecting a cable box to a UHF/VHF TV with a coax to dual screw input for the TV, and had terrible luck.


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## openhouse (Jan 25, 2003)

I don't see them either,

all i see is 0% across the board on all of them.


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## Cholly (Mar 22, 2004)

mini1 said:


> The poll results shouldn't be hidden, I have already voted and I see them right now. something is wrong if you are not seeing them.


Ummm ... I just got around to voting, and I also got "the results of this poll are hidden"


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## Geronimo (Mar 23, 2002)

Me neither. It was visible once but no more.


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## mini1 (Jan 25, 2004)

I think it might have to do with this from the DBSTalk.com Survivor: All-Stars Contest-"If you haven't yet cast your votes for this week, all poll results are now hidden, so you will not see how many people have voted for any result.

The option that you vote for will still show up in italics, but the total number of votes for that option will remain at 0 even though you have cast your vote. This is normal. If you see your choice italicized, your vote has been counted"-Mark Lamutt-Administrator

does this effect all polls? I don't know? contact Mark at [email protected] to complain or he may read this and help us out. who knows


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## thebigjp (Jan 21, 2003)

mini1 said:


> The poll results shouldn't be hidden, I have already voted and I see them right now. something is wrong if you are not seeing them.


The answer to this question may be explained in this thread. http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=26166


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## Geronimo (Mar 23, 2002)

That hread says that either mini1 chose to hide it or that we have a bug. Mini1 seems surprised so either he did it inadvertently or there is a bug. I dsont know about anyone else but Is ee 0 votes for all choices.


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## mini1 (Jan 25, 2004)

I did not hide the poll, as you all could see it before this change for the All Star contest took place, and now it is gone. I would say we have a bug. The only other thing I can't figure out is why I can see the results now, but you can't?


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## mini1 (Jan 25, 2004)

do you want me to post the most current results, as I can see them? Or should we wait until they fix the poll?


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## mini1 (Jan 25, 2004)

OK, The problem has been fixed. You all now should be able to see the results to the poll. Again if you have not voted please vote now! have an interesting story? tell us about below. don't agree with something said in this thread? despute it.


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## mini1 (Jan 25, 2004)

please vote!


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## mini1 (Jan 25, 2004)

vote!


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## tonyp56 (Apr 26, 2004)

I still remember when they first started talking about HDTV, I seem to remember 1999 was the year it was supposed to be completed. But think of it this way, the longer it goes the more crazy it will get, so when it finally becomes truly wide spread, HDTV probally won't look anything like it does now.


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