Garrett said:
You are soooo right. The difference is huge.
The problem I see is that the CRTC is not going to be on the side of consumers for over the air digital signals. They are going to allow broadcasters to hijack the bandwidth to their coverage area without actually providing a digital signal to those in all of their coverage area. This means broacasters won't need digital transmitters everywhere and no one can use that bandwidth to provide services to an underserviced area.
This will also make the cable companies happy since it will feed the idea that you need cable or satelitte to get a digital signal. Broadcasters complain about cable not paying them for their signal but then rely on cable to get their signal to their coverage areas that cannot recieve their signal. So don't expect broadcasters to support the promotion of over the air digital signals.
I know a few people who get over the air digital and they are in the minority. It is true you won't get the specialty channels that are only on cable but in Toronto with a good location your choices of over the air digital is big. Also you will avoid the substitution of a Canadian signal when the American network broadcasts the same program at the same time a Canadian network broadcasts it.
I hope we will see more antennas going up to pick up free digital signals and more people getting off the monthly payments to cable or satellite.
So if you are in the market for a new televison make sure it also has an ATSC tuner then connect it to a UHF antenna and see what you get. If you never removed your old antenna, that was VHF/UHF from your tower or roof, you can benefit from it now with digital, since a UHF antenna is all you need for digital signals.
