goaliebob99 said:
Too bad they couldnt have the tv 2 out put in ATSC on a digital tv for those tv's that are HDTV ready and can scan in digital.. so you can have hdtv on both tvs. that would make sence
Doesn't the real issue regarding TV2 output boil down to copy protection?
Consider the wiring that a typical house might have between wherever the main DVR is and the second TV. It's probably coax, right? I doubt a lot of homes have 50' DVI or component runs; feel free to correct me, but I'm not holding my breath.
So they could use ATSC, or QAM, or any kind of modulation scheme that runs over coax. The problem is that there are already plenty of cheap capture devices on the market that can grab those signals and write them to a hard drive. If E* were to try putting any kind of HD signal over coax, they'd piss off a lot of their content providers while kneecapping their own DVR business. Pretty neat trick.
The only way I can think of around this is to encrypt the content and put a small STB at TV2 . . . but even then, you could conceivably use a PC as a bit bucket and place it on the coax line, capturing whichever shows you wanted to. A little inconvenient, and theoretically the files would still be slaved to the E* boxes in your house, but if you're E* you're still allowing for a way for your customers to timeshift and you're not seeing a dime from it.