Hold Off on That HDTV Buy

The [high-definition] image is still blocky, strained, and flat. The best time to buy a new TV will be 6 months to a year after Feb. 19, when both the TV manufacturers and the broadcasters are on the same page (“HD Sets Now In More Than One-Third of U.S. Homes: Survey,” Multichannel.com, Nov. 13). They will know the limits and potential that digital broadcasting will actually bare when the older transmissions and all its needs are out of the way for both. But new issues and requirements will surface. All in all, there is no system that is perfect. What I am seeing now on the digital-broadcasting end is the horrible digital interference that happens when there are transmission errors. Just like the MP3 players. Great idea, easy to carry, lots of music, but the music quality is not much better than a cassette tape without the hiss. (Why record [at a sampling rate of] 96-plus k and convert it down to 32 or less?) More news programs are using YouTube video. Oh my gosh — it sucks!

Gerald Martin Davenport, Sacramento, Calif.

Something Else To Look Into

Hopefully, the FCC’s Enforcement bureau can investigate the way cable abuses programmers seeking to exercise the right to leased access; the way their ad sales divisions unfairly compete; the practice of selling time on local origination channels for less than the regulated rate for leased access and how some sites unfairly charge for or deny Internet delivery of remote signals (“NCTA to Martin: Abort New Rate Probe,” Multichannel.com, Nov. 12). Maybe Enforcement can investigate how FCC’s Media Bureau undermines the commission and Congress in the way it favors cable in petitions for relief and why the Media Bureau refuses to act on petitions in a timely manner. Cable companies aren’t the only ones needing investigating. FCC’s own wayward and maverick Media Bureau needs looking at as well.

Charlie Stogner, President, Leased Access Programmers Association, Jackson, Miss.