I have not been following this closely, and I have heard at least one member
of this discussion comment elsewhere on MIT's Media Lab director, Nicholas
Negroponte. Whatever one thinks of him, Negroponte has been arguing that
HDTVs should be like our monitors and video cards: they more or less figure
out how to talk to each other, and they almost never fail to talk at all.
Another example of this intelligent communication is email, where the
message may get mangled, but it generally does arrive. Some of his writings
are available at http://www.obs-us.com/obs/english/books/nn/bdcont.htm.

I can only hope that whatever is being done with HDTV, they will be able to
figure out what kind of signal they are receiving, and handle it
appropriately. Some sort of flashable prom or other scheme could hold
'programming' to that as these standards evolve, new formats can be
supported, and we can enjoy a best common denominator and better than that,
instead of a lowest common denominator holding the technology back. Then we
will be upgrading our TVs... perhaps buying and loading HDTV 2002?

If memory serves, HDTV signals require 1/4 the bandwidth of analog, and some
watchdog groups have protested that a switch to HDTV makes the bandwidth
rich even richer.

And I'm not sure that much of what is broadcast is any less frivolous than
NASA, rah, rah, rah.