The Senate moved the digital TV transition one step closer to reality on Thursday, setting a firm date for television broadcasters to switch to all-digital transmissions.

I thought that something like 80% of households got TV from somewhere other than terrestrial broadcast anyway. If that figure is in fact accurate, it almost makes me want to say "to hell with terrestrial broadcast and spend the $3B to subsidize cable or DSS for the few people that don't have it already." It seems like a huge waste of resources to convert all those transmitters to digital when most people will never tune in the signal in the first place.

Is watching broadcast HDTV in your car ever going to be a killer ap? People seem to have bought a lot of SUVs with (video) entertainment systems but those seem more oriented towards pacifying children.

Am I missing something here? Why is broadcast TV still relevant? Cellphones and PDAs? Is this the right infrastructure to deliver that content to those devices?

RE: Senate Sets 2009 Digital TV Deadline - Yahoo! News