changing to HDTV in the USA

[geekwannaB]

In Feb. 2009 all television will be broadcast as HDtv in the USA and my current TV sets will no longer be useful. Instead of investing in an expensive HDTV set I would much rather invest in a new PC that also receives HDTV. Are there any HDTV AGP or PCI or USB plug-ins out there that that work on LINUX (any flavor)? I am REALLY trying to avoid the Hauppauge-HD PCI card with Vista OS route. For many reasons I would prefer Linux over Microsoft. (This is my third year using Linux and I find the GUI well written and intuitive - great job - radical firefox 1.0 just keeps getting better, looking forward to 3.0, I'm just starting to use the CLI . . . it works rather <oh my gosh> quickly)

[techieMoe]

You have been misinformed! Your regular standard-definition television will continue to work, as long as your only source for programming is not analog antenna signals. Even if that's the case, you can purchase a relatively cheap (approx. $40USD) digital to analog converter and continue watching free broadcasts.

See my article on the subject:

Things I've learned about HDTV

If you receive your television from a cable or satellite provider, the digital switchover won't affect you at all, since it's up to the provider to make any hardware or software changes necessary.