The High Tech DTV Coalition, a group formed to speed the pace of the broadcast industry's switch to digital TV, has scheduled a news conference on April 27 in Washington. The group wants a "rapid completion" of the DTV transition to free up spectrum for important wireless broadband and public safety services." Members of the coalition include Alcatel, Aloha Partners, AT&T, Dell, Cisco Systems, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Qualcomm, Texas Instruments, T-Mobile, the Information Technology Industry Council, the National Association of Manufacturers, Business Software Alliance, the Semiconductor Industry Association, the Rural Telecommunications Group and the National Telecommunications Cooperative Association. The group sent letters to congressional leaders (House Commerce Committee Chairman Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas) urging legislation for a "date certain" for the switch to digital TV and force broadcasters to end their analog transmissions."Continuing failure to bring the DTV transition to an end will adversely impact our economy, our public safety and our position as a global innovation leader," the CEOs of each of the coalition members wrote under the auspices of the Computer Systems Policy Project. "We urge you to establish in law a firm and binding date certain for completing the DTV transition as soon as possible." The group has already disbanded according to CEA's Jeff Joseph. In a speech to CEA's HDTV Summit in Washington three weeks ago Congressional members said that homeland security would be a prime beneficiary of the returned analog spectrum as would the 3G mobile telephone services. There are some skeptics who question the value of this particular spectrum for the 3G wireless phone groups yet no one in the press challenges these statements when made. The congressman told the 300 in attendance at the Summit, "The new and still to-be-invented services inspired and designed around the high performance of this spectrum would mean new jobs in the United States. Those wishing to influence Congress on legislation for a 'date certain' return of the spectrum should wave that flag. Finally. The congressman said that the consumer would be the big benifactor since a 'date certain' for analog cut off would insure to the customer that HDTV or DTV was now a fact and they could buy their HDTV or digital television set with confidense . Fellow journalist, Frank Beacham, offers his formula for removing the last technical hurdles as well as a few of the social issues http://www.tvtechnology.com/features/Big-picture/F_Beacham-04.18.05.shtml. Broadcasters are asking federal regulators to reconsider a February FCC ruling that leaves cable carriage of multiple digital programming services an option and not a mandate. The ruling now says that cable needs only to carry a station's "primary program signal", be that HD or SDTV. Broadcasters are left to serve their multiple program ambitions using their own over-the-air transmission system and want the cable companies to carry all of what they deliver. Cable's resistance is more than bandwidth conservation. Cable fears that accepting five or six TV stations multiple programming could amount to enough programming in a community and cut into cable's traditional multiple programming business. Critics say the ruling should stay as is in order to encourage HDTV to the primary program signal (which uses all of the 6MHz of the DTV spectrum). Broadcasters say that their markets are so diverse now that things like ethnic programming (cheap to acquire and with a tightly targeted audience for strong ad rates) makes much more sense and is a public service to those enthic groups. TV station WUSA in Washington is moving to HDTV news gathering. The 3 chip HDTV Sony camcorders they plan to use in the field are priced under $10,000 per camcorder. It makes no sense to acquire SDTV camcorders at just slightly less expense. WUSA joins a short list of news operations around the nation presently in HD production. Management of WUSA forecast that all stations will move to HDTV for their local news in order to remain competitive, as was the case with color. Both David Letterman (CBS) and Conan Obrian (NBC) are joining the ranks of HDTV programming with Conan launching into clarity the end of this month. Letterman's studio--the old Ed Sullivan theater--was previously occupied by HDTV pioneer, David Niles. It is being outfitted with all-new Sony HDTV gear and will be on the air with HDTV signals later this year. Still not sure what you are looking at nor what you want to buy? Here is URL to an easy-to-read cheat sheet: http://www.bradenton.com/mld/bradenton/business/11467779.htm