A few weeks ago, we stayed in the 4400 building at Newport Coast Villas. It's one of the five new buildings that opened this year. We had three flat-screen HD televisions — a large one in the living room and smaller (but still appropriately large) ones in each of the bedrooms.
But when we turned the TVs on, we discovered that none of the channels were HD. In fact, none of the channels were even digital. All were analog. These televisions showed just how bad the analog signals are when blown up on a big screen (especially for those of us who have HD televisions at home). The TV actually displayed the text "ANALOG" in the corner of each channel as we progressed through the channels.
On the morning that the Olympics began, we received a note that NBC would be available in hi-def. Sure enough! The picture was great:
Thank you to Newport Coast Villas!
I learned that the Newport Coast Villas Resort is in the process of replacing all the old RCA televisions that are still in most of the villas with new flat-screen LG televisions like those in our villa. (The exception is that that some of the relatively new villas have relatively new Sony Wega TVs, and these won't be replaced yet.)
Also, I learned that more and more HD channels will be phased in over the next 12 months or so.
I hope that when we stay next year, most villas will have large flat-screen televisions with plenty of HD channels, and that the remaining channels will use digital signals rather than analog signals.
By the way, just because broadcast channels are switching to digital, it doesn't mean that cable systems (including those within resorts) won't still deliver analog signals.
