One of my goals is to buy a data projector for my MythTV box. Full HD projectors are, unfortunately, rather pricey. But there are plenty that do 1024x768 (XGA) and lots more that do 800x600 (SVGA) which is almost PAL... and I'm currently using an ordinary TV with it, anyway. Hmm.

Having been a reasonably early adopter of digital TV, it's been instructive to watch how it's developed here in Australia. I remember a decade ago how one particular network was pushing for mandatory HDTV, whilst another was really strong on multi-channelling. This resulted in a bun-fight that the Federal Government had to arbitrate over. When they all finally pulled their fingers out and got on with it, they all provided a SD channel with same content as on analogue, plus a HD channel that was the same content most of the time. And 'most of the time' is a crucial detail in the story.

Remember, too, that a decade ago, HD TVs were almost non-existant and *if* you could find one, very very expensive. Of course, in the meantime, flat-screen technology has come down in price and gone up in resolution and HDTVs are everywhere. But it turned out that Joe Public had almost no interest in HD over SD images. Given a choice between better pictures and more content, the vast majority of the viewing public will chose more content every time.

The three commercial networks in Australia have now long abandoned promoting their HD stream (ABC and SBS never even did that). All of them discovered the hard way that a HD stream that is usually the same but sometimes different from the main SD stream confuses much more than helps.

Ten eventually chose to completely re-purpose their HD stream to sport (which gives them an interesting advantage with graphics) but do have a SD repeater stream. Seven and Nine setup completely new SD streams... just as the ABC setup a third. And more are on the way.

Multi-channeling in SD is so very clearly what the great unwashed want. Not HD. I'm still going to try to find a projector that does at least 1024x768 (XGA), but I'm unlikely to invest in one that does full HD for quite a long time.

Wade.