High Definition, Old School Methods

While this story might seem somewhat dry to some, to me, it represents a sort of ham-radio type of democracy that I didn't think could apply to the airwaves - while the Internet definitely counts as a democratic technology (in some countries), it has yet to replace the television in terms of ease and accessibility.

It's free, but not for you.

Essentially for years, if not decades, many people have preferred to slap on a pair of rabbit ears to their TV set, rather than pay for cable for various reasons - as expected, unless you have very good rabbit ears or a fancy antenna parked on your roof, reception really varies depending on where you live. Let's face the facts however, cable programming is by and large forgettable; there's always a few channels that are good but you have to pay a premium price to get them.

The same unfortunate truth exists for digital television - where the price for such channels via cable or satellite are extremely expensive (60$+ a month) - now here's the punchline or the part where digital subscribers get punched in the gut: The majority of the digital signals cable companies get are taken off air and then re-compressed to a lower quality (so they can dish out more of it). So essentially, like bottled water, you are being sold something that is already free ...