Digital TV - How Australia got it wrong

I’m not sure why it happened or – worse still – who forced things, but Australia (to wit: the federal government) has really screwed up digital TV. This is free-to-air, not pay TV. Don’t get me started on pay TV…
First some basic technical stuff about TV. It’s not hard, trust me.
In Australia, a normal good old fashioned TV has 625 lines of information broadcast. Your TV ‘paints’ these lines very quickly, over the screen.

50 of those lines are reserved for things like testing and teletext. Reserved means a normal TV can’t show them. They are like ‘below’ what it can see. So, 625 – 50 = 575 lines; a typical TV has 575 lines down the screen.
Jump ahead to DVD. The first D in DVD stands for Digital. Being Digital means we can talk about pixels if we want. Indeed DVD in Australia means a picture (or ‘frame’) size of 720 wide by 576 high. The eagle-eyed would have spotted something already. A hint – think of a frame as made up of 576 lines of pixels; each line 720 pixels wide. Mmm, 575 is pretty much the same as 576.
I’ll help; the picture tube in the standard old TV can show DVDs! But, as some people found out, the TV may not have a spare input plug to allow the DVD player to physically connect. That is nothing to do with the ‘essence’ of the matter; normal TVs can theoretically display DVDs.
So along comes Digital TV (DTV). Let’s consider Standard Definition DTV. Firstly note the term “Standard”. To the typical consumer it is synonymous with “plain” or even “nothing special”. It’s made worse when placed beside the other type of DTV: the cool-sounding “High Definition”. It’s understandable that we poor buyers may think that Standard Definition is “NOT High Definition” so therefore it’s “Low Definition”.
Here’s the rub. An Australian Standard Definition TV picture is (wait for it) 576 lines of 720 pixels. Does that sound familiar? Yep, DVD equivalent.
So by using a Standard Definition Set Top Box (SD-STB) your TV picture should look identical to a DVD. This assumes – as per the DVD player – you have a suitable input plug on the TV.
Now, High Definition (HD) TV in Australia is either 720 or 1080 lines (broadcasters have the choice) Your normal 576 line TV simply cannot display 720 or 1080 lines. Hence, to see full HD you need to buy a new TV that can show 720 or (preferably) 1080 lines.
But our dear government has really confused the issue by announcing the arrival of both Standard AND High Definition at pretty much the same time. In science you make one major change at once. In technology, particularly consumer-electronics, it should be the same.
The government changed two things at once and the issues became clouded. The benefits of SD TV were lost in the mess. Hence it has been slow to take off, particularly compared to CDs and DVDs.
Techno-hindsight is bordering on arrogance, but it’s not too late. We should have had Standard Definition Digital TV announced first. The “DVD Quality picture on your current TV” message would have won over hearts and minds. Clear, widescreen images, with digital sound. Let it bed down for a few years. Then – and only then – announce High Definition.
To my way of thinking Standard Definition should be relaunched with just such a theme. No major changes, just get the message out. SD : It’s clear, not dear and here.