No. of Recommendations: 2
So the relatively new Korean Samsung does not support it, but (coincidently) new Chinese TCL being delivered today does.
Last time I looked, Samsung did support 3.0, in some high end models. LG was sued by a company that is not in the 3.0 patent pool, and lost. LG paid the royalties for the 3.0 tuners they had already produced, but omitted 3.0 tuners from future production.
Due to the cost, 3.0 tuners are only installed in high end TVs. At last report, no TVs sold at Walmart, as a for instance, have a 3.0 tuner. I have seen some models at Best Buy, with 3.0 tuners, but they all have over 50" screens, far larger than the space I have for a TV would allow.
Here in Detroit, one station has a 3.0 transmitter. The local Fox, CBS, NBC, and ABC stations rent space on it, for their primary channels. The secondary channels, like H&I and MeTV are only broadcast in 1.0, on their old transmitters. Additionally, the CW and PBS affiliates are not on 3.0 at all. Right now, the Nextgen TV web site shows 5 channels broadcast in 3.0, and 95 channels broadcast in 1.0, here in Detroit.
There are technical reasons promised to want to watch 3.0, but I would suspect the main driver is the use of DRM, so content providers can more tightly control their content. Hah! Jokes on them. Their content is poo. I don't watch any network entertainment programming. :^)
In the long run, the cell phone operators want all the spectrum that is currently used for broadcast TV.
Steve
