Well I guess I can load out my 2 cents. Firstly, absolutely none is using the digital TV signal. Secondly, cable TV operators were already offering it and I do have this service plus a Full HD tv and I can surely say that the image is not even native 780p. We do not have native HD's resolutions (just a blurry interpolation), a lot of black holes in the biggest cities in the country and of course the price is ridiculous (you cannot find a converter for less then U$2000,00 at all). 

Just to finish off what our government has said, the pure growth number that is shown everywhere is in fact due to new TV's already shipping the converter as an add on. Still none gives a dam about a technology that may be even better at a jail in Congo, does not deliver any better images and is way too expensive. Somebody's gotta tell the guys up there that they do need to turn on their TV's before defending a failure.

my 2 cents

Well as a brazilian living in Sao Paulo, I say it's a godawful failure so far.

After several months, the signal is crap anywhere in the city. The image quality is at best the same as the analog system (which will stay for some good decades) and there's no new content to talk about.

Also the digital-to-analog boxes are extremely overpriced, costing even more than some digital-ready TVs, which overthrow the only excuse to adopt the japanese standard.

At least on paper ISDB is technically superior to the other two, an advantage that's typical to the johnny-come-lately standards, avoiding the pitfalls experienced by its predecessors.

So, it makes sense to use ISDB, even though at the end of the day the technical aspects matter little, as the DTV standards differ very little among them and the consumers would have the same experience with any of them.

Now that Brazil, the largest TV market in S. America, has adopted ISDB, it would be best for the S. American consumers that it would be adopted by all S. American countries, improving ISDB economy of scale and making DTV cheaper.

In the past, Brazil adopted PAL-M, which, although technically superior to NTSC on paper only, ostracized the country as the sole user of such system and availability of TV equipment was scarce and expensive. In the end, NTSC-compatible TV sets and production equipment were abundant, of course adding to the cost to consumers.

If the rest of S. America doesn't adopt ISDB, the same will happen all over again. In the 60's, when Brazil adopted PAL-M and every other S. American country adopted its own incompatible TV system, there were political interests to avoid the population from watching TV of neighboring countries. There's been much talk about a renewed closeness among S. American countries, but very little has materialized, whether in trade or in culture. Whatever S. American union of its countries is, each of the major countries desires to be its leader, seeking a preeminence that will forever stymie economic progress in the continent.