John Shutt wrote: > As opposed to a market that uses HD and 7 MHz channels, and > consists of fewer than ten million television households? > Riiiight. "Uses" HD? Riiiight. The cheap boxes Australians got were purely SD, similar to those used in Europe. The HD boxes in Australia were not cheaper than the HD boxes here. Mark Schubin gave those figures several times. As I recall, the prices tracked fairly closely, as they tumbled over the years. Remember: Australians have to simulcast HD, still today. > Then we're back you your conspiracy theories as to why > Australia has 80 different STBs (not integrated television, > just STBs) without a federal mandate. Because they have OTA TV viewership, therefore demand. If we had OTA viewership here, we too would have had 80 brands of STB. Instead, we have a population that forgot about OTA TV more than two decades ago. Only satisfied with 150 TV channels. Americans are only now rediscovering OTA TV. According to the sales guy at Best Buy, because the HD quality is better than that of DBS or cable. Bert ---------------------------------------------------------------------- You can UNSUBSCRIBE from the OpenDTV list in two ways: - Using the UNSUBSCRIBE command in your user configuration settings at FreeLists.org - By sending a message to: opendtv-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the word unsubscribe in the subject line.