* In a message originally sent to Paul Lopez, Charlie Young stated:
-CY> > For those of us who own analog systems how will the switchover to
-CY> > digital affect us?
-CY> Paul,
-CY> I have a big dish analog system.  I think our big dishes
-CY> may still be
-CY> useful for several years to come.  I have several reasons
-CY> for thinking
-CY> that.
-CY> The cable networks have an interest in keeping their C-band
-CY> subscribers
-CY> because we pay about 5 times more for programming than
-CY> cable and small
-CY> dish viewers.
-CY> General Instruments (or whatever their name is now) want
-CY> you to believe
-CY> that you need to buy their system right away -- that in a
-CY> few months
-CY> there won't be anything left to watch on your existing
-CY> system.   That
-CY> may indeed happen eventually, but I think the switch away
-CY> from analog
-CY> could be a long process over a period of several years.
-CY> Most home viewers will not convert to digi-cipher (GI is
-CY> now calling it
-CY> 4DTV) at the present price of $1,000.  And besides price,
-CY> there is the
-CY> issue of compatibility.  The Family Channel and possibly
-CY> others will be
-CY> using a competing non-compatible system.  How many people
-CY> will spend
-CY> $1,000 or even $700 for a system that will not receive some
-CY> of the
-CY> popular channels when they could pay $200 for a small dish
-CY> system and
-CY> get more channels for about the same total programming
-CY> cost?
-CY> Why does the digi-cipher cost so much when the small dish
-CY> systems are so
-CY> cheap?  Competition.  There are 2 different manufacturers
-CY> for the Hughes
-CY> DSS sstem, and there is competition between the small dish
-CY> systems.
-CY> Unlike the DSS people, GI does not like competition.  Years
-CY> ago GI sued
-CY> potential competitors and won.  The days of 1,000% markup
-CY> on
-CY> video-cipher modules are coming to an end.  GI knows that,
-CY> and they have
-CY> been developing other products.  However, they are still
-CY> not allowing
-CY> competitors to build digi-cipher equipment.
-CY> I want to try to explain a difficult concept of programming
-CY> cost.  Some
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