Australian peace restored with free HD tuners
By Steven Kim 
posted Aug 25th 2008 11:10PM
posted Aug 25th 2008 11:10PM
For all of our complaining about the long run-up to the analog shutoff here in the US, this story illustrates the benefits of taking time to do a little consumer education. In Australia, it turns out that not everyone was aware that TVs with analog-only tuners are unable to receive the HD programming that Seven and Ten are advertising so heavily. This all came to a boil with Ten's HD-only Masters golf broadcast, and some customers returned to stores with talk of "misrepresentation." Retailers are giving away digital set-top boxes to smooth things over, though, so hopefully things are cleared up for now. This sounds exactly like the kind of thing US big-box retailers avoided by clearing shelves of analog-only TVs, and we might suggest some similar action for other global HD citizens.
There doesn't appear to be anything HD about that box. No component out. No HDMI out. No DVI out. No SCART out. This appears to just be a digital converter, incapable of actually outputting HD.
You are correct, Sir! www.dtvpal.com
That's not the DTV box that was given away in Australia. Sorry, the linked article didn't specify what tuner was given away.