Slashdot Mirror

HDTV Galaxy gives listings for shows being broadcast in HDTV, and gives the resolution. I find it to be fairly accurate.

Here is a good site that updates HDTV listings:

http://hdtvgalaxy.com/broad.html

It does not list Fox shows, because they are broadcast in 480p widescreen, not true HD. Fox is in the process of transitioning to 720p HD. Their 480p material, while not as sharp as HD, is MUCH better than SDTV.

All the big sporting events are shown in HDTV (e.g. The Olympics, Super Bowl, NCAA Final Four, World Series, NBA Championship, etc.) and the amount of HD sports is rapidly expanding. There will be a large number of NFL regular season games in HD this year, up to 10 per week.

The lack of HD content is a myth.. maybe a few years ago it was true, but we're way past critical mass now.

Dish carries HBO-HD, SHO-HD, PPV-HD, CBS-HD, Discovery-HD and is working on more. DirectTV has a similar line-up, I think minus CBS but plus Cuban's HD-NET.

All the major networks have HD shows, ABC, CBS and NBC have nightly line ups that are practically all HD - the most common exceptions are the "reality" crap shows because they shoot so much footage that just gets wasted it is not yet worth the expensive for them to shoot in HD. Other than that, any show that is new in the last two years is almost certainly HD and plenty of older ones have moved up too - NYPD Blue is a great example of an old mainstay that has been modernized and made a lot more engrossing with HD, it is like a whole different show now. Miracles, which I think was canceled, was a new show that was just beautiful in HD.

The one exception is FOX - for some reason they won't show anything higher than DVD quality (widescreen 480p) some of their stuff looks damn impressive for such a low rez, particularly 24 and Fastlane, but some looks like crap (Malcolm is always out of focus and the framing is terrible). The cartoons like Simpsons, Futurama (RIP) and King of the Hill are still all 4:3 but digital and 480p makes them look incredible. They get more bandwidth than a DVD (19mbps vs 9mbps) which may explain why they look so vibrant.

My local cable system (Comcast) has started carrying HBO-HD and SHO-HD along with all the locals

Here's a site that has a decent, but not totally complete, list of each week's HD programming.

HDTVGalaxy

Finally, with the right equipment, depending on your situation -- surprisingly cheap equipment, you can "tivo" HD easier than regular tv because it is already an MPEG bitstream, no encoding required, just pull it out of the are and drop it to disk. At 19mbps, you get about 8GB per hour. I watch all my HD timeshifted and commercial-free, it is totally the way to go.

There's lots of HD content being broadcast today. No, not everything is in HD, but enough that you'll probably find something you like. And even without HD, DTV broadcasts often look a lot cleaner and crisper than analog NTSC broadcasts. Think over-the-air DVD-quality video.

FUD. This is already not true.

Check out the prime time lineup from CBS or ABC. They are already broadcasting a large percentage of High Definition programs. NBC is coming along a bit more slowly, but moving in the right direction, Leno has been in HDTV for years, and in December Conan O'Brien will be in HD. PBS does a lot of really impressive science and nature specials in HD. Even WB is broadcasting some of their lineun in HD this fall.

The only networks talking about doing multicasting are the fringe guys, like PAX. I don't know about you, but I don't care what format they broadcast in, it could be 3D Holodck format, I still wouldn't watch PAX.

They mention HDTV in the article, but only in the context of HDTV output of a lo-res source. The DVD's are 480p at best. So, you can scale them up to 720p or 1080i, but it's not full HD.

Slap an HDTV PCI card in there, and get true 1080i (1920x1080) HDTV. They also HD PVR functions, and some even do DVD decoding & scaling in hardware.

Check out the MyHD Card, the HiPix, or the AccessDTV cards for options.

Unfortunately, none of these (that I know of) support Linux. The MyHD is the newest, and the HiPix has an open source effort to enhance their Windows software.

If you live in an area that has digital TV broadcasts (most major cities do), HDTV is the way to go.. there is a LOT of HD Programming available.

I bought myself the Toshiba 34" wide-screen direct-view (tube) monitor and the matching HDTV/DirectTV receiver for Christmas. Total cost around $3000 from Best Buy (you can save at least $500 if you buy off the web, but do you really want to mail back 200 lbs of glass if it doesn't work?)

If you only watch TV and your existing set works fine and you either get satellite or good cable, it's probably not worth the money now. If you just have bad cable, get DirectTV or Dish. If your TV set needs to be replaced but you are happy with your existing TV, get one of the new true flat screen sets (flat as in flat picture tube, not plasma); for $500 you can get a really good picture. On the other hand, if you watch a lot of DVDs, an HDTV set coupled with a progressive-scan DVD player must be seen to be believed. From a normal viewing distance it's hard to tell it's not film. Absolutely gorgeous.

As for actual HDTV content, DirectTV currently carries both HBO and HDNet in 1080i, Dish (I believe) carries HBO and Showtime. HDNet is a startup HD-only channel that carries a mix of movies and "non-mainstream" sports (this week it seems to be mountain biking) and will be carrying several hours/day of tape-delayed Olympic events. The image quality varies from great to amazing, all 3 providers claim to not broadcast any up-converted materials.

As for over the air broadcasts, most major markets seem to have digital broadcasts from PBS, ABC, CBS, NBC, and FOX. However, this doesn't mean that they are broadcasting HDTV, most of the shows are simply up-converted from NTSC. Many of CBS's night-time lineup are in 1080i, some of ABC's is in 720p (NYPD Blue and Alias). NBC claims Jay Leno is in 1080i, but that doesn't seem to be true in Boston. Fox is all 480p

Bottom line, if you watch a lot of movies on DVD (or just want a cutting edge toy), you can't beat an HDTV monitor. If you just watch TV, there isn't enough on yet to make it worthwhile.