I am kind of upset with America's requirement of HDTV. Here is why:

1) HDTV signals are either on or off. If the signal strength drops below a certain point, nothing. In the old anolog signals, I could at least watch or hear a program I was trying to watch, though the audio or visual was less than stellar. This has "forced" me to get cable or satellite in order to watch TV.

2) Black Bars. I have a 50" plasma TV (better blacks) and have screen-burn now. Most programs have black bars in the upper and lower portion of the screen, even though HDTV was supposed to rectify the "letterbox" issue. Now, if I watch an old DVD, I have light distortion on my TV where those black bars have burned the screen.

3) There is definitely trouble when showing older films/programs now. Either the station "stretches" the old program to fit, making everything distorted, or the black bars appear.

What are your thoughts on HDTV? Is it a better way? Is it a hassle? Do you like it? Do you long for the old anolog way?

I mix both. I have an antenna going through a digital/anolog converter box feeding a 20-year-old 20" CRT TV. I also have a 27" 1080p monitor with a digital tuner and speakers. The CRT is for general TV viewing and the 27" is for sitting down to a specific show or DVD.

I did like the ability to listen to a show even when the picture was almost pure snow.

Actually i like HDTV, but i thing they should keeping the anolog TV as well, for any kind of reasons....

As the realtor says, location location location. Where I live it has been cable or nothing (well, satellite) for so long I have just ridden along with the tide. I do wonder about the black bars issue though...I don't have them at all, and I know that when I did the setup on the TV there were some signal source options that I had to sort through to get things 'right'.

All that said...I think that living in the golden age of HD cable TV with DVR is as good as television has ever been, and I can't figure how it could get any better. At this point picture quality exceeds the capability of my eyesight, sound is reproduced beyond my capacity to hear, and I can fast forward through commercials.