As far as digital goes, seeing as so many of you in the States use cable, then I would imagine the switch wouldn't mean as much.

Here in Australia, we still aren't up to the full switch over date, but I've been using digital set top boxes/pvrs for the past few years and am UTTERLY sold on digital transmission vs Analogue. Why?

Upsides
* Reception: Much better reception. With the same signal strength that would provide fuzzy, ghosting images in analogue, the digital signal is crystal clear. A friend's moved into a house and was getting only a couple of channels, and those poorly. When I went over I discovered that there was no aerial cable, just the cord going into the wall which would end in an open termination. I gave her an old set top box... voila, all stations in great quality... using NO AERIAL, just the aerial cable connected to nothing!

* Clarity: Over and above the better reception, the image, whether SD or HD, is just clearer and more vibrant... very nice to watch.

* EPG: The channels transmit up to a week's worth of program information, so you can bring that up, find the shows you want and set them to tape automatically on your....

* PVR: Having a digital signal means it's far easier to record to a digital media... hence PVRs, hence no more tapes, hence having a nicely catalogued set of recordings... hence, we pretty much never watch anything 'live' on TV anymore... record everything and watch it when we have free time.

* More channels: Sort of... here in Australia we only have 5 main stations (ABC (government run), SBS (multicultural etc.), 7,9,10 (commercial stations)). Now, the ABC has ABC2 with extra shows, many great, and the other stations sometimes actually show different things on their HD channels vs their SD channels (although things are about to change). The much heralded ability to have multiple views of sports etc. has never eventuated... could have been used to GREAT effect during the Beijing Olympics, but noooo, one channel, forced to watch what they want you to... so this plus point is only minor. (Although ABC2 is great)

Downsides?
* Rather than having a slow degradation of image quality if you don't have signal strength, you instead get digital breakup, which is far worse.

I love digital tv, and only wish the stations would use it better than they do.

Wow! Intelligent political discourse on US television? That's mind blowing. Must've been on at 6 in the morning on ABC2 or something.