In 10 or so years HDTV will be in a semi main stream position. Analog broadcast will never be retired. Let's face it, many people have analog TV's that they will not replace untill they fail. Some Tube TV's can last upwards of 13 or more years with nary a glitch.
Currently there are very few broadcast channels that are making use of HDTV broadcast. As time goes on this will undoubtedly change but my point is still the same.
Analog TV's have come a very long way in the past 10 years. Even budget priced big screens (yes that is an oxymoron) have superb picture quality. My RCA 61" can display a maximum of 900 lines horizontal resolution and even DVD's are far lower quality than the TV can display (480 lines).
My mother's fiance bought a Pioneer TheaterWide 16x9 Projection HDTV and then he went out and spent 3x more for the RCA HDTV DSS setup (Just the HDTV DSS's are a good 400 dollars more than analog versions) and to be quite brutaly honest I am NOT impressed.
Perhaps it's just that the Pioneer TV is not as high quality as the $3900.00 price tag reflects. But in my honest opinion there is no comparison in picture color and sharpness between my RCA and his Pioneer HDTV.
I am not here to step on the toes of HDTV set owners. It is, after all your money and your choice. When my RCA wears out (hopefully 10 years+ from now) then I will upgrade to HDTV. But for now I am very pleased with the quality the good old NTSC Analog provides.
