Wirt says,

> In that same vein, but perhaps far less amazing, the first
> nation-wide (at
> least in the larger cities) HDTV broadcast will be
> accomplished this Sunday
> night by ABC and will be a movie, the 1996 remake of "101 Dalmations."

Yes it will - but alas, I won't be one of the ones who plunked down the
price of a decent new car for one of those newfangled TVs...  I was in Best
Buy yesterday, to pick up a printer cable (OfficeMax was out - they always
are)... I got to see one of these TVs..

Picture is much like the dimensions of a movie theatre screen, crisp, clear
- everything about it was fantastic - a videophile's dream come true.

Then I saw the price tag.

They ran for the Smelling Salts after that.

The least expensive set, a small set that would replace a standard 19" set,
ran about US$5,000.00.  The home-theatre models run almost US$20,000.00.
(The salesperson claims to have sold two of the theatre models and about
eight of the smaller sets.  I think he's full of it myself, but who knows?)

I'd rather have the car.

Hopefully the prices of these sets come down rapidly.  Supposedly, by
2002(?) - analog signals bit the dust, and it's all digital in the US.

What's also funny is that the cable systems are really balking about
carrying these signals.  Either they cannot handle the signal, or they
refuse to allocate the additional channels for the HDTV broadcast.  (Yes -
HDTV is broadcast on a different, UHF channel.  Example:  What is normally
Channel 10 here, is Channel 61 for HDTV - but the TVs are smart enough that
if you tune in Channel 10, it will pull 61 in for you).

Oh well, off to watch my analog TV, and see the what's left of Prime Time
programming...

Joe