Catch 22

Terrestrial Digital is making an HDTV tuner / antenna similar in design to the LaCrosse Micron antennae, except of course it has a built in high definition tuner. How good is the tuner? Who knows, who cares, because the unit only outputs composite video or s-video with two channels of analog audio.

"HUH?"

Yup, that's what all us journalists said.

"HUH???"

Richard Schneider explained. In 2009, when the analog TV band goes black, people with piles of cash invested in standard definition TVs are going to want to find a way to make them work. The FCC actually started that ball rolling. Every household in America can get two $40 vouchers good towards the purchase of a high-def to standard def converter. But only – and you've got to love the government's logic – only if it the tuner does NOT also have a component or HDMI high definition output! No of course not. You wouldn't want to give anyone the incentive to upgrade their set at some point would you?

$129 when it's available in January 2008. Any iPhone hackers out there that want to take a stab at converting these buggers into cheap HDTV tuners?

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