Melinda,--and anyone else I'm gald you enjoyed my post. A friend of mine also expressed concern over the whole obsolescence problem. He seems incredulous about HDTV anyway, since we already have a system that seems to work well enough anyhow. He didn't see the *benefit* of world standardization. You're right about corporations having equal--if not more--control than the gov't. I honestly think that HDTV will never take off to the lofty heights its proponents claim--or maybe I just don't like to think about one united world where my culture is lost to some vague world order. Buck Jordan Georgia Southern University [log in to unmask]