[mythtv-users] HDTV cards...looking to the future

Wendy Seltzer wendy at seltzer.com
Tue May 3 20:43:05 UTC 2005


At 2:06 PM -0600 5/3/05, Robert Johnston wrote:
>On 5/3/05, joe.white at wachovia.com <joe.white at wachovia.com> wrote:
>> 
>>  In about a year high def TV will bubble up to the top of my priority queue.
>>  After another year of studying the technology and figuring out the best buy
>>  for the money I will buy one.   Considering that there are only about 55
>>  shopping days till Broadcast Flag Day, would it be beneficial for me to
>>  purchase a pcHDTV or an Air2PC now?  Or will the technology in those cards
>>  be pointless by then?

My recommendation is to buy at least one card now.  The ATSC spec is 
fixed, and if the flag rule sticks, the current cards will be the 
only ones you can get (in the U.S.) that can give you the high-def 
digital signal for all channels.  If there are any PCI cards at all 
post-flag, they'll have to be "compliant" and "robust against user 
modification" -- which means not giving your general-purpose PC (a 
non-compliant device) the full digital signal for flagged broadcasts.

The current cards ignore the flag and will continue to do so.

>
>And, out of interests, how will this "Broadcast flag" affect us
>Canadians (For whom the flag is not an issue). Should I still be
>stockpiling HDTV cards now?

I'm not sure whether anyone will be making cards for the Canada 
market.  There's also a push from the U.S. to give you folks a 
broadcast flag too.

--Wendy
-- 
--
Wendy Seltzer -- wendy at seltzer.com || wendy at eff.org
Electronic Frontier Foundation
Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School
http://wendy.seltzer.org/mythtv/


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