They all should shut the analogs off, everywhere, right now. Keep the basics/locals QAM-in-the-clear, put them in a frequency range separated so you can still block them with a filter outside in the green box if they got the basic basic (only locals package). Digital can re-map channel numbers so you don't have to make them actually consecutive on the listings.
This way you can have compatibility with all new TVs, and most of the really cheap boxes coming up to allow people OTA 8VSB on their old TV usually will have support for in the clear QAM.
New cable boxes will be required to leave out the security hardware, so essentially they'll just be QAM tuners with a cablecard slot. This hopefully will make the prices drop if things take off, Cablecard 2.0 FTW. I would like a CableCard 2.0, that can do multi-stream(with no limit-or something like 5), and that will support encryption on a stream other than MPEG-2.
I say do it now, and up the bandwidth on the current stations. Switch everything to MPEG-4, as well, better quality whatever the bandwidth.
In 2008, I want to buy a "bring your own SATA HD" LG DVR for $100 (so its got the bad-ass OTA tuner), with a cable-card 2.0 slot, feeding on MPEG-4 based digital cable. - supplied with guide information from a in-the-clear information stream from the cable company, and running some sort of commercialized version of MythTV, or a licensed copy of the Tivo OS.
“An engineer explained to us that hundreds of ear impressions were gathered in the name of research, and while each one obviously boasted its own unique shape and size, one single characteristic remained uniform across the board: the entrance into the ear canal is not a perfect circle, it's an oval.”
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They all should shut the analogs off, everywhere, right now. Keep the basics/locals QAM-in-the-clear, put them in a frequency range separated so you can still block them with a filter outside in the green box if they got the basic basic (only locals package). Digital can re-map channel numbers so you don't have to make them actually consecutive on the listings.
This way you can have compatibility with all new TVs, and most of the really cheap boxes coming up to allow people OTA 8VSB on their old TV usually will have support for in the clear QAM.
New cable boxes will be required to leave out the security hardware, so essentially they'll just be QAM tuners with a cablecard slot. This hopefully will make the prices drop if things take off, Cablecard 2.0 FTW. I would like a CableCard 2.0, that can do multi-stream(with no limit-or something like 5), and that will support encryption on a stream other than MPEG-2.
I say do it now, and up the bandwidth on the current stations. Switch everything to MPEG-4, as well, better quality whatever the bandwidth.
In 2008, I want to buy a "bring your own SATA HD" LG DVR for $100 (so its got the bad-ass OTA tuner), with a cable-card 2.0 slot, feeding on MPEG-4 based digital cable. - supplied with guide information from a in-the-clear information stream from the cable company, and running some sort of commercialized version of MythTV, or a licensed copy of the Tivo OS.