HDTV: Not Convinced Yet

Filed in archive Buying Stuff on November 28, 2006

Soon enough, we'll all have HDTVs, whether we want them or not. Those of us that don't care about HDTV will eventually be dragged kicking and screaming to it, just as many of us ended up paying for cable TV even though we couldn't care less about the majority of its channels. Sometimes as a consumer you're simply held hostage by a criminal that's hard to identify.

But I'm not going there until I have to. "Confusion Over High-Def TV Dampens Enthusiasm" is the headline on a USA Today article from last week, and it doesn't surprise me. You're sold all the benefits, shown the beauty of the TV's picture when a DVD of finding nemo or another animated flick is being played, but you never hear the downside---like, "who broadcasts in HDTV?", and "do I need special equipment?"

This excerpt from the article captures the confusion:

About 30% of HDTV owners haven't even signed up with their cable or satellite companies to get HD channels. Many of them were turned off by an extra fee they'd pay for HD - or thought they'd have to pay. There's a lot of confusion, because some operators charge for HDTV. Others throw it in for anyone paying the extra monthly fee for the digital tier. And some don't charge extra for the channels but charge more per month for an HD-capable cable box.

I remember when broadband Internet was still trying to take hold, with DSL and ISDN and whatever else out there ready to boost your conection speed. It sounded great, but Lord knows I wasn't about to fork over $100 a month for a service that I'd only heard horror stories about, which generally went like this: the service guy comes to set it up, it stops working immediately, the customer service people on the phone blame it all on you or threaten to charge you if they have to send the repair guy back out. I didn't need the faster connection that bad---call me when the technology's actually ready, guys. (Eventually I got my broadband via cable, bypassing these other services.)

Unless you're a lover of new technology and the bling associated with being on the cutting edge is worth the price to you, my experience has been that it's wise to let the technology wars play themselves out before jumping in. Eventually things will work and the price will be a little easier to swallow. Until then, you're paying for a soon-to-be-broken promise.

Call me when you have that HDTV thing figured out, guys.