MaichBlack, I can't claim to be an expert on HD but I can give you my experience from a user's perspective.

I bought my LG HD Ready TV about 2 years ago and like you I thought that it would transform my television viewing. On connecting it to the DSTV decoder, there was no discernible difference with the CRT TV. Indeed like you pointed out some stations were worse!

I recently wanted to invest in an HD PVR but unlike the TV investment, this time I demanded to see the difference from Multichoice and they sent me to the Nakumatt on Uhuru Highway.

When they switched to channel 171 (SS-HD), the difference was like that of day and night!

My observation is that in order to enjoy the HD functionality on your TV, you need to receive a HD broadcast signal or an input from a HD device (some gaming devices have HD output). I've noted that live HD broadcasts are even sharper than say movies that been reformatted to HD.

Note that although the other DSTV channels are routed via the HD PVR, they are not HD quality. So I'm not sure that the Mecer Lt320 TV box would be worth investing in.

@eddyz - Kindly breakdown for me this blue ray - HD DVD issue. Correct me if I'm wrong but I thought blue ray uses different kind of discs (blue ray disc - how different are they?). Why would HD DVD be discontinued in favour of blue ray if they are using different discs and hence serving different demographics?

And to answer your question, yeah, there are HD DVDs on sale in Kenya.

Here is a demonstration of the most important rule in electronics: GARBAGE IN, GARBAGE OUT.

If you feed garbage into any device, you will get garbage at the output.

Feed poor quality music into you high-end system, and you get poor quality at the speakers.

Feed poor quality broadcast into you HDTV, you get poor pictures on the screen.

You cannot improve the quality of the picture/sound to a level higher than that coming from the broadcasting station.

@subzero

If you buy one of these set top boxes that claim to have HD, will this transform your local station TV viewing to HD.
Answer: No. The HD STBs will not give you HD pictures as non of our local stations are transmitting on HD

Now that akina KBC citizen are also transmitting in digital, does that necessarily mean that they are transmitting in HD as well,

Answer:NO. All local tv stations currently transmit on analogue PAL and not digital.The current digital transmissions from Signet are in SD format.

I recently heard that CCK changed the some specification for digital TV broadcasting? this will render some set top boxes useless very soon, is this true?

Answer NO.specs changed from DVB-T1 to DVB-T2 Mpeg 4 for new STBS but both formats will run concurrently for a while possibly until the entire T1 STB base is replaced

What's the connection from the set top box to the TV, HDMI i hope?

Answer: If you’re talking of smart tv STB, the connection is composite and component video. No HDMI connection

Is smart TV, yet another set top box but with few other extra chargeable stations.

Answer. Smart TV uses an STB and has some premium channels accessible only with subscription

What other advantages do i get from buying a set top box?

Answer.(i) clear pictures and sound due to digital reception of STB
(ii) electronic program guide
(iii) STB is a cheaper way of accessing digital TV using your existing analogue TV set as compared to obtaining a
pure digital set which is much more expensive.

@subzero
Yes, virtually all content nowadays is actually compatible with 16:9 displays and you get proper pictures even with existing analogue transmissions.
Moreover mpeg encoding takes care of both 4:9/16:9 inter conversion hence this is not a problem