The FCC is going crazy

It may just be me, but I don't really see where the problem is...

"...It's hard to believe, but one issue is whether the broadcasters should be able to make their picture quality more fuzzy as a means of limiting the distribution of programming, say over the Internet. The technical term is "down-resolution," or "down-rezzing."

Deliberately making the picture look bad. If I do buy an HDTV wide screen TV I want a sharp clean/clear image while watching an HD broadcast. I'm not going to steal programming for resale.

"The FCC proposed the PDNE (Personal Digital Network Environment) as the solution - a boundary, within which consumers could shift their digital content. The agency suggested that the PDNE could be thought of as a zone, "within which consumers could freely redistribute digital broadcast television content." The problem is that there really is no way that such a zone could be defined, and it would be silly, as well as wrong, to try to do so."

Just a frivolous waste of time and money...our money. There are other issues which the FCC could better spend their time on.





[Message Edited]

Well, it's my understanding that down-rezzing would be hardly perceivable on a HDTV but would have for effect to make the image very fuzzy when compressed with techonologies such as MPG or DivX, the compression amplifying the fuzzyness.

As for the second thing, I just don't get it. A limited broadcast area?