Slashdot Mirror
To HDTV or Not to HDTV?
fishrokka asks: "I'm considering buying an HDTV, but before I jump in I wanted to get Slashdot's opinion. The demos I've seen at
stores look great, but is it worth the extra money? I would love to
hear some real-life experiences..." I have yet to actually go
out and see a demo of HDTV, but from what I hear, it's markedly better
than the current analog technology. Although there are HDTV
broadcasts to be found today, the FCC deadline for adoption of the format is not until sometime in 2006. Are the current HDTV implementations worth the pricetags, especially when one can limp along
with their existing TVs for another 4 years?
is worth it, only if you are upgrading tvs. if you arent in the market, dont bother.
Sig
I dont know WHAT they do to those TVs in stores, but they always look so much better there than they do once you lug em' home. Must be the lighting...
What would make me buy an HDTV today is if it had a VGA Input. At the very least I could have a Star Trek style main viewer in my apartment!
"Derp de derp."
GameCube supports HDTV.
:(
:)
:) (heh, at least its already progressive. :) )
Me?
I'm still using a shoddy Zenith 19in with only RF plugs.
My computer moniter is bigger then that.
Thus, the TV in card I am using.
Anybody know of a TV In card that supports HDTV signals? Seriously, I have a 36inch monitor and a fscking 19inch TV set and things aren't likely to change soon! Nifty to be able to view HDTV on my computer though.
Need help treating your acne? Come here!
Please insert here the usual factual, rational and well considered argument that the FCC only hinders real innovation without adding any benefits.
The FCC: Another monopoly, another failure. No surprise.
Bob-
The Ludwig von Mises Institute. The reasoning individuals economics
First of all, what are you going to watch there? HDTV requires a LARGE amount of bandwidth and most broadcasters would just rather have 12 regular channels than 1 HDTV channel in a sat transponder, for instance.
I'd wait...
I forgot my login.
At any rate, I don't see HDTV catching on. My guess is that the prices are still too high. The FCC will have to move back the digital deadline again if the prices don't get below $499/unit in a hurry.
oh my my my!
http://www.geocities.com/lilmacumd/escape.html
I bought a HDTV last year. Yes the picture is great but the price/performance is definitely not worth it. I have digital cable and some other HDTV supporting stuff but currently its not worth it. I get 15 HDTV channels. I would say wait for 2006. Everyone will need one then and prices will drop drasticly. Plus the current tvs havent really been tested a lot. Once they all start hitting the market they will be tweaked much better and I would say the picture will increase in quality 2x.
Don't Buy Yet. Coming from an HDTV owner spending 5K for a TV isnt worth it yet.
but unless you have to be an early adopter for some reason or another, I would hold off for a while. The HDTV ready TV's are still way too expensive to only be HD ready. You still have to buy the HD reciever. And the true HDTV's (with built in HD receivers) are even higher. If you just want a quality big screen, those are cheaper than they've ever been and not a bad option for limping along for a couple or few years. In a couple of years, as there actually a fair number of HD broadcasts available, the HDTV's will be more reasonable (hopefully) and (hopefully) more advanced, so why pay a premium for what will be commonplace before too long? You can't beat HD quality, but a nice FD Trinitron Vega is close enough for now.
Windows is going the way of phlogiston...
Game consoles will enjoy HDTV, that will be another positive reason to get one. XBox games support it and i think so do some PS2 titles via the composit connection.
Mini Dish receivers now have HDTV support as well. Most new stations and some old ones have HDTV support as well.
HDTV seems like its one of those rushed standards. I'd give it about 2 or 3 years to shape up before I even tried with HDTV.
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I think it quite funny that this shares the front page with "A New Year's Idea: Pay For Some Freedom".
The other article is about giving a little bit of your cash to help people in Open Source out, and how and where you can.
This one is about spending a couple of thousand dollars on fixing something that isn't broken, in this case; television.
This is NOT meant to be a troll, I just felt it was a funny slashdot choice.
-- Dan
Although TV networks are required to broadcast in HDTV in 2006, and return their current spectrum allotment back to the government at that time, there is a very powerful "if" in that clause.
Essentially, if more than 5% of households haven't upgraded their televisions to HDTV, then the networks get to keep both.
I'd be willing to bet my house that over 5% of households don't have VCRs, and they cost less than $100 and have been around for over 20 years.
HDTV will never become mainstream in this country. Already the networks are realizing that there is a lot more potential in delivering 5 or 6 different, analog-quality compressed video streams in that HDTV spectrum than to actually deliver HDTV.
I first saw HDTV on a large runco projector... they brought in a studio-quality deck to play the source material since there were no on-air broadcasts at the time (we in dc were one of the first cities to get on-air broadcasts - they had demos of this in national airport).
The HDTV picture I saw was on a large screen (8 foot by 4 foot?), and was film-quality perfect. Lots of detail, no scan lines. Kindof what you'd expect for a $30k TV. But the coolest part was a much smaller normal-definition projection TV that was in the foreground... it was perhaps 3 feet wide, and despite the much smaller picture, it looked worse than the blown-up HDTV picture. It was amazing.
Of course, take this with a grain of salt... I don't own a TV.
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
Right now Directv is supporting HDTV on a few channels (HBO comes to mind) and at one of my local electronics stores has an RCA HDTV with built in Directv receiver... also progressive scan DVD players may look decent on one... now if I only had the $2,999 to get one...
Right now PBS, CBS, and ABC transmit the majority of their new programming in HDTV. The quality is outstanding, epecially some of the PBS stuff.
The major issue is can you receive the HDTV broadcasts? Some cable companies are beginning to retransmit HDTV channels and there are a few on DirecTV but your best bet is over the air. This link http://www.antennaweb.org/antennaweb/ will tell you what kind of antenna you will need depending on how far you are from the transmitters.
Good luck. If you can get the major networks over the air, you will not regret it.
My area has only got a couple of HDTV stations, and they aren't very good ones. (ie no guns and animal channels like TLC or Discovery.) However, DVD playback on HDTV sets is amazing. The discs carry enough data to take advantage of the high resolution, and it shows. If you've gone into a Blockbuster in the last 2 years, you'd see the greater presence of DVDs, especially with nifty stuff on them. That's a pretty good reason to adopt early, especially if you're the home theater type.
My Karma is so good, I'm the Dalai Lama...or something.
The other big problem is that by 2006, the majority of us will still have plain old nonHD-TVs. What incentive will there be for the networks to provide a high-quality signal?
I don't think its realistic to expect networks to broadcast high-quality TV for free when they can split the signal and make more money, especially when the consumer demand is not there. The only hope is to have pay channels like HBO - I think thats the only real HDTV you will see.
No, Thursday's out. How about never - is never good for you?
I could've sworn it was supposed to be earlier.. Or did they push it back because of manufacturer whining?
Honestly, though, as others have noted - if it ain't broke, don't bother. My ol' philips magnavox has been kickin' along for a good five years now, and I have no intention of replacing it unless it breaks (Or the deadline comes, in which case..)
I honestly don't know anyone who has a newer HDTV capable TV yet..
I bought into something a while back (about 8 mo.) From samsung called EDTV. (enhaced definition.)
Instead of the 720 progressive scan lines required by HDTV, EDTV must be capable of 480p. While it doesn't carry the buzz word "HDTV" it is still a very nice looking flat screen 27", and I got it for $799 U.S.
I can notice a marked difference between regular analog TV and EDTV. While HDTV does look better, it is a good medium-range for someone looking for higher resolution, but prolonging the HDTV purchase until the networks go full high definition, however little publicity it has gotten..
"I do not fear computers. I fear lack of them." -Isaac Asimov
Back when I was flush with .com stock, I got a nice big HDTV and a progressive scan DVD player - and it looks great! If you've got the bucks to blow, and you watch a lot of movies, it's a great way to go.
HDTV displays are *AWESOME*! I saw a display in a large geek-friendly store (known for returns sitting on the shelf), and an american football game was on, and it looked like you were just watching the game through a picture-frame.
... the U.S. is so slow to adopt HDTV that if you get an HDTV-ready TV or one with the receiver already in place, it may well be a couple of years before you can use it. There are, though, some stations already broadcasting using the format. Were I to buy a TV right now, and were I looking in the mid- to high-end market (i.e. $2000 range), I'd personally get an HDTV receiver built into the TV.
:)
Simply amazing.
HOWEVER
Just my $.02.
Try, 20 years in the making.. if you asked a 'pundit' or a 'visionary' in the early 80s, whether we'd have HDTV yet in 2001, they'd laugh that you were being so generous with your estimate. HDTV has been a 'couple years' down the road, for the last 10 years.
Anyway, it's not rushed but I'm not buying the damn thing until cable/satellite providers adopt it.
I just bought a Pioneer 64" TV. It's 16:9 and HD capable. It replaced a Sony 53" 4:3 I've had about 4 years.
:)
First off widescreen rocks. It's great for movies, and go ahead and get a good progressive DVD player to make them look even better (on most sets).
As for HD, it depends. I'm in Raleigh, NC and have Time Warner digital cable. They offer HD cable boxes here, if you can get to the right person. Luckily, I did. The local network stations all have HD digital feeds on the cable. So, first off I get better quality signal than the normal analog cable streams (When they advertise digital cable, they never mention that the broadcast channels are still analog...sigh). I also get the HD stream when shows are done in HD. This includes CBS, ABC, FOX, NBC, HBO, and PBS (Nature shows are excellent in HD).
Now..as for which shows are in HD... NBC just does Leno. CBS does a LOT of their primetime stuff. FOX does some widescreen, but almost none or no actual HD. ABC does a few shows. HBO does many movies in HD, but unfortunately a lot of their original shows (Oz, Dennis Miller, etc) are not. Band of Brothers is though.
I'm also very lucky to have WRAL, the local CBS affiliate. They are the leading station in the country for HD. They broadcast all of their local news in AMAZING high definition. Kudos to them for all their hard work in driving this.
If your cable company doesn't do HD you can go over the air (OTA) using an antenna. That varies by area and distance. My friend did that for like 2 years until he recently got his cable box. It worked well, just wasn't as convenient. He got all the same network affiliates I do now, but no HBO or PBS. If you have DSS you can get a HD DSS receiver and they do HBO, HDNET (HD demos and movies), and I think one PPV.
I'm very happy with my setup. Once you start watching HD shows you'll really become a snob.
My parents bought a big-screen (52") projection TV in 1986. Mom was the one who ended up buying it, because Dad insisted on waiting for HDTV.
;)
They still have that TV. It does everything they need (it has S-video inputs, for instance), and still looks like a lot of the models in stores today. Will they upgrade to an HDTV? Sure. But not for a couple of years.
Take my mom's advice: Buy something you like now if there is something out there that is significantly better than what you have. You can always upgrade again later.
Simpli - Your source for San Jose dedicated servers and colocation!
dont even bother for another 2-3 years. hdtv is still way too expensive, and very few stations are broadcasting on hdtv.
ask slashdot.. hah... more like ask the short bus
The court was tired of recounts, and demonstrated how to take care of it.
A lot of the new HDTV's nowadays are utilizing new, exciting, but not consumer-proven technologies.
Plasma screens, massive LCD's, etc. seem to be the HDTV kings right now, but all these hi-def gadgets have a major problem - price. While memory is getting cheaper and cheaper, these haven't had the kind of production surplus necessary to drive these prices down to reasonable levels. Even in Japan, the home of HDTV, these products cost more than a pretty penny. Then again, considering the recession...
Point being, unless you have a really, really compelling reason to leap, don't. I know you're dying to hook up your freshly unwrapped GameCube and play it in full digital glory, but it really doesn't make sense right now. If you're definitely looking for a new TV or whatnot, consider a home theater projector. They run about as much as a lower-end HDTV would cost you, but you can use them as a monitor or a massive movie wall.
Of course, the more people buy into Plasma and so forth now, the faster prices will drop... Hmmm... Go Now! Buy buy buy! Then maybe I'll be able to afford one in a few years when they're more practical. ^_^
DVDs do not display at a higher res on an HD box than on a normal TV. It's just they usually use the current 480 resolution better since the widescreen image isn't only using half the screen.
Also, you can use a progressive scan DVD player on DVDs. This basically doubles the lines on the screen to get rid of interlacing that causes scan lines and flickering.
HDTV is worth it, but you can't balk at spending USD$5000-$10,000. If you're going to "go cheap", you're better off waiting.
I currently enjoy quite a bit of HD content on my 56" 16:9 rear-projection set (Panasonic PT56WXF95A, which does 480i, 480p, 720p, and 1080i). I get my HD content OTA (over-the-air), using an imported British UHF indoor antenna. The SF Bay Area has about 10 HD OTA stations currently, and more on the way (see this page for info).
At the minimum, you need a set (and I strongly recommend a 16:9 set that's at LEAST 40", and a direct-view set if you go that small. Anything bigger and you should get rear- or front-projection. My set was $3500 new), a tuner (I use a Panasonic TU-HDS20, for which I paid USD$1000), an antenna (I got mine for USD$40).
To this, you may want to add satellite (DirecTV or Dish Network) for additional HD content (such as HD-HBO), or cable...there are a few test markets in which the cable companies are testing HD content over coax. Digital cable is NOT HD. it's not even 480p. It's just digitally-compressed analog.
Further, you'll want a progressive-scan (480p) capable DVD player (I use a Toshiba SD6200 and Sony 7000, around USD$1700 all told. The Sony isn't progressive, though.)
Finally, you can enjoy things like the XBox, which can output 16:9 480p for games.
Of course, with all this visual quality, you're going to want a sound system to match. That means at least 5.1 Dolby Digital, and preferably THX. You're looking at a base of USD$2k for a system and speakers.
Additionally, you're going to need to get your set calibrated if it's a rear- or front-projection unit. A good ISF calibration on all inputs can run USD$1000 and take two days. And you'll want the correct lighting and light control in your viewing area, which may cost you an additional $500-several thousand in screens/lamps/etc.
Last, you may want a "toy" or two. My current toy is a standalone DVD recorder, the Panasonic DMR-E20 and a Data Video TBC1000 timebase corrector for videotape->DVD transfer. That was another $1200.
Is it worth it? Every single penny. Is it something you should jump into if the money I just described makes you nervous? Not yet.
.@.
One thing about digital technology that pisses me off is when I see or hear an advertisement like: "This product offers digital quality audio/video..."
What the hell does that mean - digital quality? It all depends on the sampling rate of the digital recording. I've heard many analog recordings that sound just as good or better than some digital recordings (although it is becoming more rare now).
I have asked many companies and consumers about the meaning of "digital quality" and no one can give me a definite answer.
Now to the actual subject. I have seen a HDTV demo and it was much cleaner overall. I especially can't wait until most programming is in 16:9. That will help tremondously. I have only seen Mitshubishi (sp?) and Pioneer models but both were stunning!
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
At this point there are a bunch of things you need to answer internally before deciding to DTV your world:o ru mhdtvdigitaltelevisionnewsforum.html
1. Are you in a major DTV region? (Or are you stuck in Denver where there is none?)
1a. If not, do you want to pay for 2 WHOLE Channels on DirecTV or 3 on DISH--both in a lowball ATSC standard (540P?)
2. If you are in reach of a major city with fair DTV coverage, do you know anyone who can get the channels (I'm in Southern Orange County...and I get all but one LA station with a couple of Double Bow Tie RS Antennas and an amplifier on a Second Gen Tuner.)
3. Do you give a rat's arse about primetime content or HDNet's Hockey Coverage (Thank-you for carrying a whole second channel part-time, DirecTV...Magnanimous of you.)
4. Can you cope with knowing that in a year and a half the quality of whatever you buy will double and the price will halve--at a minimum.
If you answered yes to most of those or enough to convince your wallet, go second and a half gen now... otherwise wait for the 4th Generation with better res, lower prices, more content, real multipath abbeyence... et al.
PS. NBC has One Whole Primetime Show! Whooohoooo!
This site might help you:
http://pub1.ezboard.com/fdigitaltelevisionhdtvf
I took the plunge mainly for console gaming
I went out and found the smallest, cheapest widescreen projection HDTV I could and bought it. It was a Panasonic 47". It's amazing.
Getting HDTV for watching Television channels is just silly, there's only 2 here in NYC. But the component video/s-video in ports (of which there are 2 Comp/3 s-vid) are just awesome for gaming.
Xbox supports HDTV (up to 1080i) and allows me to play with progressive scan mode turned on making the games look sooooo much better than before.
The S-Video out on my Geforce3 allows me to use the TV as a giant monitor (although I've yet to get it to look good enough to play a game on), it's definitely good enough for chatting or browsing the web. I picked up a wireless keyboard and mouse for just that occasion.
My TV was $1700 + delivery of about $70, and it was definitely worth it for the geek in me to watch widescreen DVDs and play games like Halo, Gran Turismo 3 and Super Smash Brothers Melee in all the glory that is widescreen progressive scan.If you have the money, go for it.
I've also been looking into HDTVs. And here is a question I've wanted to ask somebody, and hopefully there is someone here that might be able to answer it.
Which looks better, 720p or 1080i? I've noticed that a lot of HDTV don't do 720p and "upgrade" any 720p signals to 1080i. How does this affect the image quality?
As far as I can find, he best HDTV (well technically it's a "monitor" b/c it has no built-in tuner; you need to use a cable box or VCR or something) I've seen is from Princeton. Thier AF3.0HD looks to be the best one out there. And you can find it for less than half of the $4000 MSRP online right now. CNET has a good review of the Princeton Ai3.6HD. (I think the main difference is the aspect ratio between this one and the AF3.0HD).
If anyone owns one of these tell me what you think.
HDTV is not worth it if you plan to just watch cable. I have a Sony i1080 57", and I did not buy it to watch cable..
:) It is DEFINETLY worth it for DVDs and games.
:)
:)
Now, when I pop in a DVD using the component out cables, the quality is awesome!
Just plan to have a lot of equipment with component out, you can even buy component out adaptors for the PS/2. And despite what the techies say, it does help in reality.
Been playing a lot of Final Fantasy X on this screen, and it is badass
I got myself setup with an HDTV system for under $600. I got a Princeton Graphics monitor and a cool chinese import DVD player from Project Design and Trading Company that has VGA output. So I have a high-resolution non-interlaced signal. The player, the DVD-368PS, also has normal progressive scan signals if you decide to upgrade your TV later to a 'conventional' HDTV.
25% Funny, 25% Insightful, 25% Informative, 25% Troll
My Dad has a 61" HD TV and its awesome. Definitely takes some investment in getting access to everything you need, but highly worth it. Television in HD is not even in the same league as regular broadcast or satellite. If you're going to buy a good televsion, its gotta last you a good 15 years. I would certainly spend the extra now then have to spend it again in 3-4 years.
Lee
My cable company has been offering 4 HD channels (HBO East and West, SHO East and West) for free for some time, and when I decided to add a computer to my entertainment center, I took the plunge and bought a 35" Zenith HDTV/VGA monitor. It was a discontinued, slightly battered store demo, for "only" a thousand dollars. I grabbed it.
Well, I must report that HDTV is certainly all it is cracked up to be. Although the 4:3 ratio monitor squishes some display modes a bit when it letterboxes them (I suppose to get better vertical resolution), the difference in picture clarity is phenomenal. I'd have to say it equates with the difference between VHS and DVD.
The only that really irks me about the Zenith monitor is its inability to handle VGA at 800x600, despite its being able to display much higher HD resolutions. I think Zenith might've improved that in their newer models, though.
Frequently-asked questions:
http://www.avsforum.com/hdtvfaq/HDTV-FAQ.htm
http://www.nwlink.com/~rxg/hdtv.html
Reviews, tips, tweaks, etc:
http://www.hometheaterspot.com
http://www.avsforum.com
http://www.keohi.com/keohihdtv/index.htm
Adversive
My cat's breath smells like cat food.
Now, there's a wealth of HDTV material available:
- Most of HBO, including Sopranos and Band of Brothers (wow).
- Some of Showtime (increasing)
- HDNet on DirectTV (Marc Cuban of broadcast.com and Dallas Mavericks fame - sports/etc HD channel that will carry much of the winter Olympics in HD).
- PBS (several Nova/Nature/etc shows a month, plus many stations show repeats of HD material)
- Almost all of CBS including CSI, District, Alias, etc, also US Open tennis, football playoffs, etc
- Much of ABC including movies of the week, The Practice, etc
- NBC is starting to get on the bandwagon after being first with Leno; they now have Crossing Jordan and more are coming. - Fox isn't interested in HD, but they do some in 480p widescreen like Ally, X-Files, etc.
CBS lets viewers not in range of a station or in the area of ones they own (most big cities) view the HD feeds from either NYC or LA via Dish Network.
Dish Network has 24-hr PPV in HD; DirectTV has partial-day. Dish has a 24-hr HD promo channel.
Comcast and Time-Warner are starting to roll out carrying HD HBO/Showtime and local HD channels (most of Philly has it now).
HD is here to stay and has come WAY down in price. It looks even better than in the showrooms - they turn the brightness up too high; they often try to sell it using DVD's (which look great but not near as good as real HD material); they don't bother to converge the sets, etc.
Prices are way down - I've seen $13xx in Best Buy for a small 4x3; and $1800 for an open-box 38" RCA CRT HDTV, 16x9, with HD DirectTV built-in.
Don't forget to get an HD receiver; $400-600 currently, but if you're a new DIsh Network subscriber it can be cheaper.
In short: Buy one. Subscribe to HDTVmagazine.com ($35 lifetime; daily email newsletter with the day's HDTV lineup, upcoming news, reviews, etc). You will enjoy it for a long time to come, and you'll have lots of excuses to have people over for parties (starting this winter with playoffs and the Olympics).
HDTV 'ready' TVs are almost always 'ready' to push 3 native resolutions: Standard NTSC (480i analog), 480p (4:3 MPEG2 at 480 lines progressive) and 1080i (16:9 MPEG2 at 1080 lines interlaced).
When you see that your local TV stations are broadcasting in digital TV, they are more than likely broadcasting in 480p, or 480p converted to 1080i.
This gives NO image quality improvement over a perfect NTSC image, like what you would get from a dish, becasue those signals started out as NTSC on BetaCam, or film.
But that doesn't really matter, because the FCC is gonna make all those stations broadcast in HD anyways, right? Wrong. Most large-market stations are already broadcasting in the FCC mandated 480p. No 16:9, no HD, very little improvement.
Then there's the black sheep of the DTV world, alone crying for public approval. 720p is quite possibly the best image quality on HD. Even ABC uses it for their rare HD broadcasts.
The bad news, only one TV will show it to you without a res change. Have you ever seen a notebook trying to display a screen res other than the native? 720p on almost all HDTVs looks like that.
If this confuses you and me, Joe Slashdot, think about what it does to the poor Joe Technophobe, or TV exec. We should all wait until the industry figures out what to do, and I can see ALL images the way they were supposed to be seen.
-twb
I recently replaced our older 27" Toshiba with a 36" Sony WEGA XBR, HD capable set. The difference in resolution is obvious and amazing. If you get an HDTV then make sure it has a high quality line-doubler that utilizes the 3/2 pull-down method. That feature will make it look like you have a progressive scan DVD player, since it will in essence be showing your DVD's at their recorded 480p(rogressive) resolution rather than the 480i(nterlaced). What you should do is take a couple of favorite DVD's to the store and watch your favorite scenes (that you've seen over and over again) and see of you can see a difference. It also helps to calibrate the display settings on a TV since most of the time their cranked way up in the stores to make them look "better". A DVD that has worked for me, for this purpose, is the AVIA Guide to Home Theater.
I think the enhanced DVD picture is worth the HD price tag, but shop around to get the best deal. I was able to save $500 because I waited for a sale. Also, make sure you get in house delivery because they're heavy. Mine weighed in at 250lbs and there was no way I was going to be able to lift that from "curb-side". Some of the resellers on the Web only offer curb-side...
Hope this helps.
Sven
If it outputs 4:3, won't you have those annoying grey bars on the sides of the screen.
Only 16:9 fills the entire screen... i think
I'm scared to look at an HTDV.
Everyone I know who has done so has, to a man, come back to me and said "It's amazing - you don't know what you're missing!"
Yep, that's right, I don't know what I'm missing. I know my NeverTwicetheSameColor TV sucks, but I'm not sure just how bad. If I find
out, it's liable to be an expensive revelation.
Ignorance is bliss
## W.Finlay McWalter ## http://www.mcwalter.org ##
You need a very large tft monitor, something like this:
http://samsungelectronics.com/tv/tft_lcd/
Imagine you're improved productivity with one of these babies!
Or maybe just a $400 card:
http://www.telemann.com/products/dtv200.html
There isn't too much reason to get a HDTV as far as broadcast channels go. But it sure makes DVDs look great. I'm surprised more slashdotters haven't mentioned it. Oh, I forgot, they're all running ripped VCDs ;)
don't buy a tv. buy a digital projector. you won't have to worry about burn in abd u can get a very large screen like 100". go to projectorcentral.com and www.avsforum.com to find a good one in your price range.
Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead.
I was also trying to decide 50 inch HDTV or 60 inch projection. I went for the 60 inch Projection.
1. Letter box was actually Bigger on the 60 inch.
2. DVD looked the same on both. (I didnt have progressive scan, so cant tell ya..)
3. TV I watch was all NTSC, waste for the HDTV.
4. Money, 2500 for the 60 inch, or 6500 for complete 50 inch HDTV setup.
5. Normal TV is larger on the 60 inch. It was either squished, stretched, or had wasted space on the HDTV.
6. I watch a 27inch in the bedroom while im on the computer or jay leno when im going to sleep. The 60 inch was for movies and some TV, but wasnt my main tv.
1 Drawback with the projection, the kids watched too much disney channel, and the logo started to burn. Lucky I caught it in time, its very very light and I dont see it unless the screen is the same color. But make sure you dont have logos on for days.
-
I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me. - Hunter S. Thompson
do you want wide screen ,,,do you want rear projection,,,do you want the best possible picture when watching dvd's ? a 4x3 shaped hd ready rear projection looks better for standard deffinition television than a 4x3 tube tv, but a 16x9 hd tv gives up a little quality for regular tv ...
the best suited for dvd watching is a 16x9 shaped tv wether it is a rear projection or tube, i would say to go with a rear projectin 16x9 hd ready tv....
some choices::sony kp51hw40 51" of hd 16x9 oh yeah
for 2499.99
mitsubishi 46" wt46809 16x9 hd ready for 2199.99
mits 55" 16x9 ws55809 hd ready for 2799.99
the best but costly the pioneer elite PRO520HD hook up your box, man what a monitor. weighing in at 5300.00 big ones for a 53 incher yep 100/in
its jus the over all best tv for a 4x3 i would say sonys XBR weaga tv's the kv36xbr450 36 inch for 2349.99 or the kv32xbr450 32 incher at 1989.99 . both are great tv's.
If you have, or planning on having a good DVD collection, it's worth every penny!
I got an HDTV about a year ago and yes the prices have dropped, but then again I've been watching high quality movies for about a year now.
If your looking at watching regular tv shows with the HDTV, you won't get any better picture. One day HDTV will be nice on regular television, but the DVD really shows what HDTV can do.
Also I'm not sure if the rest of the HDTV manufacturers do this, but the Mitsubishi brand has a lifetime commitment to send a tech to your home and upgrade the software or hardware in your HDTV to be compliant with the new HDTV standard once it comes out.
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.
Just get an HDTV-ready television. You won't get an HDTV signal unless you buy an adapter (which is expensive right now) -- but when HDTV is more widely used (even if you have HDTV right now, what will you get, four stations that broadcast on HDTV signals?) you'll have the screen resolution and performance that HDTV will require.
A few months ago, I laid out a few grand for a 65" widescreen Hitachi HDTV-ready box. Beautiful picture. Excellent television. And in a few years (2006) when HDTV is the standard and most other signals have been knocked off the air, you'll be able to pick up a converter box for next to nothing. Hook it up to your killer widescreen TV and enjoy! In the meantime, you'll be able to enjoy the sweet picture of your television when you watch your DVD's and stuff.
FYI: If you want a bood price/performance range, get the 50" Hitachi widescreen HDTV-ready which even a few months ago was around $2100. It could be even less now if you shop right (got mine at Circuit City). Spend that $2100 on a beautiful box today and in a few years, spend another $100 on a converter. There's no sense in spending $5,000 for an HDTV box now -- or four years from now. That's *way* more than is necessary.
I doubt anybody, even the reps at the local cable company, have heard anthing about HDTV. I've never seen a demo, not even while I lived in Pittsburgh.
That said, I'd wait. They will come down in price by then, have a stable feature set, and will be easier to use with 'vintage' VCRs, game consoles, etc.
Personally, I'd like to get a better video capture card and a big monitor. Throw on some SNES emulation, make a nice little menu, and the set top box from heaven. Oh, and an integreated MP3/CD/DVD/PSX Player.
Then again, why don't I just wish to be ruler of the world, or as rich as Bill Gates. At least that way I have a chance of my dreams coming true. O_o
We bought a 61" Widescreen Mitsubishi HDTV about 6 months ago and it's great. Watching DVD's on a HDTV is like watching a movie in a theater. I would recommend buying it if you own a DVD player with progressive scan. There is no real HD signal in my area yet, but still, I have a reason to brag about and a lot of friends who want to come and watch DVD's.
I love having a HD TV.
:)
Is there anything more sad than when someone feels it necessary to say they don't own a tv like it's some sort of badge of honor?
[sarcasm]
Yep thats why I want to get a HD reciever...So I can watch the local news in glorious high definition
[/sarcasm]
/*End sarcasm (särkzm)*/
Yeah I know that wasn't the point of the comment..NetJunkie gave a balanced overview of the situation..it boils down to what the stations AND cable company in your area are doing..
Personally I'm holding off until the local affiliates decide what they are going to do...If they opt to split the stream most of the time what signal if any is left that is HD and if they do split the streams how does that affect cable companies and must carry rules.
Back when the cable companies were first pushing their product I seem to remember that one of the selling points of cable was a picture superior to over the air broadcasts...But now when you try to use that same logic to get national feeds from a satellite service like dtv or dish the responce is that the over the air signal is of high enough quality to prevent you from being able to legally obtain a network feed off of the satellite...
A few weeks ago I saw an HDTV at a local Costco. It was magnificent; looked like a Kodachrome transparency (this old man's Gold Standard.) There was a coax coming down from the ceiling tiles. I figured they were feeding it a cable signal, and that's cool, although I thought the programming was a little too colorful/sportsy/girls, as if it might have been a taped program to entice the TV-buying male demographic.
Last weekend it was still there, only the ceiling coax was gone, and the picture quality was as shitty as any of the big screen projection TVs they were running on display.
So, buy if you want to, but bring a clear head as well as your wallet.
I work in the news dept. at a tv station in a smaller market. We were meeting with one of the big-wigs from corporate and someone asked about the transition to HDTV. If I remember right he said that there is a loophole that unless a certain percentage of the market has a HDTV, you don't have to broadcast in HDTV.
When we are supposed to go HDTV, we will have to buy a new transmitter(I think) which will cost a chunk of change.
Having said that, most of our equipment is already set up to go HDTV, and our sets were designed with that in mind.
Sterio AM didn't survive because people didn't want it. This is a "failure"?
I am looking forward to the discussion on HDTV to see if anyone has a good reason to go buy it. Is wiz-bang enough, like sterio AM wasn't, to support the cost to producers and consumers to re-tool?
Since the FCC is using force to make people change, the only producer/consumer decision is "when". This is a failure, it reduces real choice into someone elses idea of right and wrong.
If you wouldn't stand that choice being made for you about religion, why do you support that choice being made for you about TV?
Does the preference for Windows make the (percieved IMHO) monopoly status of Microsoft right? Does your preference for the mandates of the FCC make their use of force right? Maybe in your eyes it does. Die, infadel, in the holy name of Alah!
Unfortunately, there is no way to be sure what wireless communication technology would be like without the FCC, because they have so hamstrung and restricted innovation for so long. However, I have in my pocket a Japanese cell phone from 3 years ago, so small, light and useful compared to the "American" versions of a technology the Americans invented.
One reason is because of the frequency restrictions that the FCC, in their infinite and perfect judgement for the betterment of mankind, placed on cellphones.
You may disagree with what specific technology is best, in fact I enjoy such discussions. Just be glad you're disagreeing with me, and not the FCC, because if you disagree with them you go to jail.
Bob-
The Ludwig von Mises Institute. The reasoning individuals economics
I have shopped around for HDTVs for quite some time now, and have not decided on buying one. Mainly because of the high cost and lack of much content.
The main note I have to make is that most of the so-called HDTVs are crap. The only ones I've seen that are quality are also very expensive. If you can't tell the difference, heck, buy the cheap one. But if you can't tell the difference I say, why bother? It gives you bragging rights perhaps, buy you are not a "video-phile" and don't really appreciate the benefits anyway.
The main complaints I have with them is the lack of actual resolution (dont believe the ads, *look* at it), bad viewing angle, and abominable "back-lighting" that leaves a halo on the picture.
I bought myself a Panasonic HDTV at my local Panasonic outlet.. Got it for half the retail price (it's a refurb) but damn is it nice. Having said that, there really isn't anything you can practically and cheaply pick up with an HDTV at the moment.. Most hdtv's require a seperate decoder box which needs good 'ol rabbit ears to pick it up. Some cable and satellite companies are broadcasting HDTV, but don't expect much. Where you will get some benefit is from the stuff you hook up to the TV. Gamecube and DVD players support 480P (progressive scan mode) which will give you an awesome picture. Xbox supports resolutions up to 1080i which must be equally stunning. HDTV is coming. The sets are coming down in price, but people won't jump on it until it's easy to pick up programming. Right now it certainly is not.
www.lonseidman.com
An HD TV monitor is heavier, and therefor harder to steal than a 27" TV!
My other sig is extremely clever...
Do you guys *really* think the price will drop in 2006? Somewhat, sure.
:)
But when "Joe Sixpack" is told "buy this now or you will no longer have TV at all" then, I suspect they will advertise based on fear & keep the price up; even perhaps driving it up a bit.
Conversion boxes probably won't be cheap, either. I wonder what will happen when everyone figures this out? Oooh boy...
I've heard talk of "line doublers" for standard TV's, though I know very little about how they work. Do these things work (how?), and are they a good crutch until I break down and buy HDTV?
We had a 60" progressive input television in the common space for a couple of years, and i can say undoubtedly that it's much, much better than the analog sets. If you can sport for the rest of the home-theatre setup it only makes it better - though IMHO i don't know how you could not go ahead with the rest of teh setup if you're going to drop a chunk of change on the TV. This coming from someone who has the full gig, though, so 'caveats'.
however, i can also say that although the progressive-display TVs are wonderful and all, i really think that for your money you're better of getting a projector.
the units themselves take up a fraction of the space (and weight!) that a large TV does. You'll also be able to get a larger image, ultimately, if you choose to project it that big. Projectors have generally been less expensive new than a comperable 'TV' unit. you're only real caveat here is the lumens on the unit. If the projector is not bright enough you won't be able to put it in a room with _many_ windows. a few are always fine if you have any decent model, but if you have an older/underpowered unit then fore thana window or two, or leaving them uncovered, will seriously wash out your image. granted this will only bite you if you watch a lot of movie in the daytime - but for most people with day-jobs to afford all this stuff you don't need to worry about that much ; )
you'll also have to buy a decent screen or rig a nice white sheet on one of your walls with weights or tape. Friends walking in front of the projection beam will also be an 'issue', but these pretty much pale in comparison to the benefits,, IMHO. it's one of those things: when you see one setup and running it really strikes you how much better a projector is.
In most cases you'll also find that projectors have a VGA input for a computer monitor - something that most televisions won't have (and even if you convert the signal to get it in there you won't be able to read much of any text with it on a TV). Projectors make wonderful computer setups.
....and not to plug a mega-corp, but Sony makes a really great LCD projector right now for about $4-5000 new that we just got and installed. it's super-cool and all the new consoles rock on it. [you'll probably also find that tube projectors won't be worht it. the LCD tech is much better for the money unless you can afford to go DLP, but if you're worried about a 5K TV then DLP is not for you]
-shpoffo
If you are buying a new TV because you don't like your old one, get an HDTV Ready TV and a Progressive Scan DVD Player. That way you can watch widescreen DVDs in 480p mode instead of NTSC, getting a slightly better resolution.
Most areas still do not have HDTV broadcast, or if they do it is limited and you need a really weird antennae. DirecTV and Dish Network have HDTV broadcasts, but they are pay per view, and the endless loop you watch in the stores.
I will be buying a new TV this year (bigger and better baby) and will be getting an HDTV ready TV, nothing more. Heck Kansas City isn't supposed to come close to HDTV until 2003 or 2004 anyway.
As a rock-in-roll Physicist once said, No matter where you go, there you are.
I'd say go for it ;) ... Or better yet check this place out. http://www.mirage-mmc.com
Happy New Year!
"I bow to no man" - Riddick
HDTV, right now, is a tremendous waste of money. It's not worth paying 6 thousand bucks for a TV that only has about 4 channels that actually show programming for it.
HDTV is intended to prevent home copying and fair use. I looked for a simple, factual link and couldn't find one - the best I saw is this FCC ruling about the right of the content cartel to mandate controls in the TV set itself, as opposed to the auxiliary "POD" which the FCC had originally designated as the site for access control. Circuit City tried to get the FCC to uphold its original idea, and the FCC gave in to Time Warner. I don't understand how this particular decision impacts users; as far as I can see we are harmed by the access control regardless of which piece of equipment houses it.
In the above mentioned ruling, a footnote claims that the DMCA nullifies the Betamax case.
I will also point out the obvious: TV is bad for you, but when you watch it regularly you don't realize how bad it is. Unless you have severe mobility problems due to obesity or a medical condition, you really don't need a bigger, sharper TV. But recognizing that this anti-TV sentiment will not appeal to all, I note that TV lovers are frequently into archiving or sharing shows. HDTV is all about removing your ability to do this. So whether you love or hate TV, HDTV sucks.
In any event, it will eventually be crammed down your throat, like it or not. No need to jump the gun.
But the local news is actually kind of cool in HD. They do the remote cameras in HD too so it's not just the talking heads in the studios. This is WRAL, the leading station in the country for HD, so they do a great job of it. They seem to try and find good shots to really use the widescreen and increased resolution.
Not to mention it's a great way to check out the hot news chicks.
Fuggit, man. I work in retail, lemme tell you. It's a bunch of shite. The technology is fantastic, however, the market, hah. c'mon, who wants to watch crossing jordan in hdtv?! 4 total channels in direct tv line up. SHOWTIMEHD, HBOHD, Pay Per View, and a demo channel. It looks amazing, however, you need a 700+ dollar satellite reciever to just GET the hdtv signal. The majority of tvs don't come with a reciever built in, and those that do, are the RCA's that'll only do the HDTV from direct. Panasonic offers a widescreen that has the 18 format decoder, so what. Let's say you get a nice 2,999 dollar tv. Tack on another 1,000 dollars for your goddamned reciever.
RCA'S LCOS technology is amazing, but wait.
SONY -- They make HiScans, the vega series. A DVD on a nice Sony Hiscan looks almost as good as HDTV.
I'm waiting.. for a very long time. Until then, I'll just take a Sony hiscan, and let it do it's oversampling magic.
Over here, on my plain old analog TV, I receive UPN's "Enterprise" in a slightly letter-boxed format. Not a full 16:9 letterbox, but more like 5:3. The black bars just barely clear the UPN logo in the lower-right corner.
When the show begun airing, I thought that it was done purely for artistic reasons (and I actually liked it, it gave the show a more "mature' look) but it just occured to me that the show might be filmed in wide-screen HD, and its letterboxed for analog. Anyone know for sure what's up with that?
For those saying you'll need to spend another $500-$1K on an HD receiver, that isn't always true. My cable company has HD cable boxes and broadcast HD signals. I just have a component cable out of the cable box in to the TV. No receiver needed. This also goes for DSS HD receivers, though those do cost more than a normal receiver. You only need a receiver if you have an antenna and get HD OTA (over the air).
Check with your cable company, you may be surprised.
Anyone seen the one where Dilbert buys a Video Phone, plugs it in, and then says "Now all we have to do is wait for someone in the city to call us on a compatible Video Phone."
Dogbert's Retort: "Its amazing technology couldn't have progressed without people like you."
Dilbert: "I think I saw something!"
Take Dogbert's advice: advance technology, get HD TV. Its going to be the de facto standard sooner or later, so buy it and enjoy it.
I can't see any other use for one.
A couple things you'll want to be aware of.
Depending on where you live...meaning what city AND what kind of building (house, apartment complex, downtown area, etc.) off-air broadcasts of HDTV vary greatly. They can be able to tune a picture fine in one area and fail 50 feet away. It's a whole bunch of bandwidth bouncing off everything solid around the antenna, so depending where you buy it from, you may be able to have someone check signal strength first.
DirecTV-HD is real nice but it does require two dishes (one for the regular satellite, one for the HD feed). It's possible in some areas you won't be able to locate both and then that option is out. Not as likely as bad off-air signals, but still something to consider.
And weather plays a huge factor. Low clouds, rain, and pretty much any other funky atmospheres can not only affect the signal you're receiving, but the one the headend is broadcasting as well. So local channel feeds of HD can look pretty bad because its raining several states away where the DirecTV is receiving them from.
Right now, HDTV is a novelty item. The FCC battle seems to have a lot more punch in it and broadcasters have a lot more profitable ways to fill their signal space than a pretty picture (you can't charge 4x the commercial price just cause is high-def). We'll get there but for now, we're just getting there.
-Barkeep, a draft of your most hazardous brew, for the world is slowly stepping into focus, and I don't like what I see.
If you watch a lot of TV it's well worth your investigative investment, but you hafta balance the cash hurt too.. However, if you happen to have a DVD player then HDTV is an absolute necessity!
You might also want to poke around at those widescreen TV's too...
Broadcasters don't have their act together now and probably won't for a while. I suggest getting the display now, tuner later. Many sets can just act as monitors and that is a good thing since the tuner adds a big cost to the set. However, movie DVD playback is where it's at right now. Get a set for $3000-$5000 and a $500 DVD player is a great combo, esp. if you already have a good audio setup.
If you got the money to burn, the real winner right now is the Panasonic PT-42PD3-P and the PT-50PD3-P. One is 42" diag. and the other is 50". I recently saw "A Bug's Life" on the 50" model at Fry's and it blew me away. Of course, the price tag of $14999.95 is a bit steep, but it is only 2.5" deep and puts out no heat!
Unless you enjoy the 'forced viewing' of previews/commercials/etc. that the DVD format provides, you probably want to avoid HDTV. The HDTV format allows the program producers to disable your ability to record them -- used to time shifting with your vcr? Not with HDTV. And that's just the current incarnation. Who knows what horrors '2.0' will bring. HDTV costs too much and is another attack on the rights of the consumer. The current tv standard is open, works, and doesn't allow anal profit mongers to infringe on your rights. Just say HELL NO to HDTV.
Get a good 19" or 21" monitor. Get the RCA DSS/HDTV tuner (lists at USD $699.00, but you can find it cheaper.) Get a video switch that can handle SVGA.
Enjoy your nice new monitor when using your PC, flip a switch and watch HDTV 1080i or 1080p on the monitor. It all costs less than a thousand dollars.
Get off my virtual lawn, you damned virtual kids!
another option if you're not watching a LOT of tv and you have the money is buying a cheap DLP projector.
:) ). Why so much for the lights? I've noticed that the replacement is not only a light but somekind of module with some optics, maybe when my Nec will wear off I'll be tempted to open it up and see if I couldn't hack a new lightbulb in the system, but anyways you get the idea.
:) ) is kinda crazy, every year or 2 they come out with new display technologies/electronics that renders your 3K+ tv down to 1K, if you *really* enjoy it well I guess it's worth it, but when I look at the quality you can get in the sub 1000$ area, I'm not tempted to shell out 4000$ for that nice sony hdtv screen.
:)
That way, you can get any size you want, at the 3000$ price point they have HDTV support, it's cool but the downside is the replacement lights are really expensive (200-300$) and lasts for 1000 or 2000 hours depending on manufacturers (that's why I specified if you Don't watch a lot of tv
Personnaly I think buying a tv for 3K$ (or kibidollars
In the end it's like buying a computer, you don't need a quad alpha if you want to send email, but if you do a lot of renders, you'll probably enjoy it, same goes for a tv I guess, if you watch a lot of movies and get a home theatre, you'll probably appreciate it.
The last thing that comes to mind is the brain's adaptation of the content, I mean, it's like going to an IMAX theatre, you're like "wow" the first minutes, and after that you don't even notice you're sitting in front of a super large screen unless you "detatch" from the movie and take a look again. Then again, I'm sure it's nice to actually see the players when you watch an hockey game... get one and tell us after a month of usage
--- Metamoderating abusive downgraders since my 300th post.
Even if I could afford one I'd wait. With a progressive scan DVD player and a wide screen HDTV (Yes, Virginia, there are non-wide screen HDTVs. Though what's the point?) you can get some awesome pictures. Oh, and don't forget the Dolby 5.1 system. But if you love TiVo even at the highest quality it looks like crap on HDTV, though it looks fine on a regular television. I have heard that DirectTV TiVo has better video quality than a standard TiVo unit but I've not seen one on a regular TV nor an HDTV.
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
Why are is there so little widescreen without high definition in N. America? I remember going to Britain 3 or 4 years ago and seeing digital wide screen (non-HD) being broadcast everywhere. Now, widescreen TVs are very commonplace. Really, I don't give a rats arse about HDTV, I just want widescreen. Going to 16:9 improves the TV experience much more than just going HD.
;)
HDTVs are well over-priced when compared with wide low-res TVs. What a swindle! No DVD's do better than 480p, and if I can't get much to watch out of 70 cable channels, I'm not giving them more money for the priviledge of receiving some of the same stuff as HD.
But, if you've got lots of money that you just need to waste^H^H^H^H^Hspend, that's your business
They used a studio deck wired straight to the projector, so the signal did not have to go over the air and thus began in better shape.
They used their own equipment, thus you had no idea what specs (resolution, etc.) they were using. After all, HD has resolutions from 480 to 1080 lines, progressive and/or interlaced.
Remember, there were no nuclear weapons before women were allowed to vote.
I went out about 3 weeks ago and picked up a 27" HD-ready Samsung Dynaflat at Best Buy for about $900 (actually, $820 but that was due to a 10% discount).
... 1 * CATV, 2 * Composite, 2 * SVideo, 1 * standard component and 1 * progressive component).
This is a now defunct model, but with the exception of the lack of Picture-in-Picture it is identical to the 27" Samsung Tantus.
Anyway, to make a long story short, what sold me on this TV (it's a 4:3 so you view 16:9 in letterbox) was viewing it side-by-side with a high-end NTSC ("normal" or 480i) TV. The Samsung has a scan doubler, which makes even normal NTSC look twice as good as a normal TV since it displays the 480i ("i" is for interlaced) in a pseudo 480p ("p" is for progressive or non-interlaced).
I'm about to buy a progressive scan DVD player to take advantage of the 480p mode. I've been holding off to buy a "real" DVD player (currently I use a PS2) until I could get a good progressive scan DVD player for under $250.
Another selling point of this TV was that it had all the inputs I could need
It's important to realize that HD-ready sets do -not- have a built-in HDTV tuner. Those still regularly go for $700+. I'm holding off getting one until they are well under $500, probably another year or so.
I would say that even though I can't view HDTV on it, buying this HDTV was a terrific move. I figure I'll end up putting it in a spare room for a second TV in 3-4 years when the larger widescreen HDTVs with built-in tuners come down below $1500. For now it is still a terrific kick in the pants for my TV viewing habits.
It is more productive to voice thoughtful opinions (reply) than to judge (moderate) others.
According to the link he provided, the X-Box outputs 16:9.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Hello,
... several years ago, I plunged most of my summer job income and left over money from scholarships into my stereo system. It is all high end equipment that you won't find at BestBuy. For example, my CD player has a 2Hz-20kHz frequency response +/- 0.3 dB. (Yes, 0.3 dB --- not 3 dB ... and, yes, you can hear the difference a CD player makes if you do a side-by-side comparison with a mainstream CD player. The difference is really obvious on jazz tracks with walking bass lines.)
...
... so, do I spend over $1K for a piece of furniture that would be obsolete if HDTV becomes commonplace? And if I buy the entertainment center, do I upgrade my 21" screen?
... most people wire their systems to get an even worse quality signal than NTSC ... do they care they can't see Jay Leno's pores on the Tonight Show? Do they want to upgrade perfectly good equipment or buy converter boxes? No.
... _every_ Digital Cable system I've seen has worse picture quality on average than regular cable for a variety of technical reasons including: original signal is NTSC, original signal is broadcast in a different digital format, cable companies compress the hell out of the original signal assuming customers won't know the difference ... my in-laws are now quite pissed about their Digital Cable after I showed them the quite obvious artifacts on their large screen TV screens over the holidays. Perversely, most people assume that since digital artifacts are different that NTSC artifacts that it is some kind of sign of quality.)
... the plethora of resolutions ... digital "protection" schemes ...) Don't buy a technology if it might be dropped like a hot potato in the next few years. HDTV has such a low market penetration that it is not entrenched.
I saw lots of comments here adovocating HDTV if you have the money. I would like to offer a dissenting view.
Some background
As I assembled my system, I never upgraded the original 21" monitor (not a really a TV as it doesn't have speakers or a tuner). Why? Because, over 21", you can see the crappy resolution of an NTSC signal even at a distance. So, for me, large TVs are expensive and only serve to remind me how crappy a signal is being transmitted.
(A side note: most people with large TVs wire up their systems in brain dead ways --- cable to vcr to tv, all with coax, such that the TV signal is decoded three times and re-encoded twice. This makes TV viewing that much more painful.)
Now that I am gainfully employed and have a wife who doesn't appreciate the dorm wiring look, I was in the market for an entertainment center. However, I had a dilemma
Most entertainment centers are designed around a 4:3 aspect ratio big screen TV. However, the FCC has been threatening to go to 16:9 HDTV
Here is the compromise I came up with for my wife and the reasons for it. We bought a smallish entertainment center which did not require upgrading my screen (after some fun with a drill and jigsaw). Why?
HDTV is not just around the corner.
- Consumer motivation is not there. See above
- Cable operators are not required by the FCC to send HDTV signals --- only free space broadcasts. Don't forget, cable has roughly a 70% market penetration. (However, I'm sure the cable company would be happy to rent you converter boxes at a monthly rate if required.)
- Many cable operators are encouraging Digital Cable. (This absolutely sucks
- Their is still bickering about standards (modulation formats
- The stuff is expensive for what you get.
I personally am waiting until the standards settle, the prices drop, the equipment becomes more widely adopted and there is an obvious quality improvement.
I'm not going to pay several thousand dollars to see MPEG artifacts from an over compressed signal blown up life size in my living room. (Watch any shot of the rippling surface of the ocean on Digital Cable to see what I mean.)
Kevin
dude, you need to get out of the house more.
invest that $10,000 you're about to spend on a brain cell wastage device in a good cause like a donation to the EFF so that you can actually record some of those digital HDTV broadcasts in the future...
My friend just purchased a 53" projection HDTV unit. There are digital cable and satellite boxes that do support HDTV, but they do not justify the huge cost of a tv such as this. However, if you are into movies (read: DVDs), and you love your video games, well then you haven't lived until you've seen HALO in (somewhat) High Definition... man is it awesome. I'm dying to try out GT3, but my friend hasn't got a composite RGB connector for his PS2 yet, so the picture looks like crap.
So basically, if you are a hard core Movie / Game nut, and you've got money to burn, then by all means get one. You'll never regret it.
No FSCKing way....
Recommendation: Limp along
In a few years, when (if) HDTV is a commodity, the tubes will be (a commodity) as well, with commensurate, commodity level, pricing.
Bide your time...
OK, I know this is offtopic, but did JohnKatz quit (or get laid off), or for some other reason leave Slashdot? It occurred to me today that I haven't seen any posts from him lately. Is he still around?
i can't even imagine trying to sit in front of a screen that large ? dual or triple 19"s are plenty for me .. i had a 21 & a 19 hanging from a rack in front of me a while back 'n' that was enough for neck strain ....
.. who sells 36" monitors ?
seriously 'tho
- tensions in our lives that are attacking our minds, unite themselves together to make our consciousness blind - op'ivy
If you want a big screen then go HDTV. The non HDTV big screens look hideous in comparision.
Even normal directv looks amazing on my 53, DVDs (progressive 480p) looks as good as a theater to me.
If you only have cable and don't watch movies (dvd) don't bother (even digital cable).
You mean PS2, not PS/2...
'the Playstation 2 is capable of displaying NTSC 640x480 interlaced resolution on a 4x3 composite screen, which does fall under HDTV standard.'
It also falls under NTSC standard, which is what most of us have right now. Standard (non-HDTV) TVs you get now are 480i
I know that on my time warner digital cable box (in the kansas city metro area), they broadcast PBS, HBO, HBOW (just the pacific version so everything on three hours ago is on again), Showtime, and Showtime West for HDTV. I don't have an HDTV so i've never been able to check it out, but i think this is probably true for most digital cable across the country.
http://www.chaser.com.au/show_story.asp?ID=349&ED= 44&NAME=None
Digital TV passes exciting tenth subscriber milestone
CANBERRA, Wednesday: Television executives celebrated with Federal Communications Minister Richard Alston after Australia's new digital TV networks chalked up their tenth subscriber earlier this week. "They said we'd never make it to double figures, but we've shown them," Alston said. "And what's even better is that we've shown them in high-quality widescreen!"
Alston believes that the future is bright. "We taxpayers gave all of that free broadcasting spectrum to the Packers, and it's inconceivable that public-spirited people like them would give us nothing in return," he said.
The new subscriber, Bertrand Williams, joins an exclusive club of digital TV owners including Alston himself, John Howard and the Packer family. Mr Williams is also unique because he is the first subscriber who has actually paid for their set. Williams says he was convinced to buy one of the extremely expensive digital televisions after a salesperson at the SonyCentral store in Chatswood told him that conventional televisions would soon become obsolete.
"I should have asked her for more details before I paid for it," Williams said. "Her subsequent estimate of 2030 might be wrong, though - some experts have said digital TV may become dominant as early as 2025."
But Williams' family says it was a good decision nonetheless. "Digital TV is really cool, it has heaps of great features" his teenage son Billy said. "Because it's widescreen, I can get much more out of the cricket. You can see much more grass on either side of the batsman. Plus you can change camera angles, although when I try that, I generally find myself watching Stumpcam while someone takes a brilliant catch in the deep."
Williams' daughter Louise has also really enjoyed the widescreen technology, which she says makes it far easier to fit all five Backstreet Boys onscreen at the same time Alston claims that digital TV is already incredibly popular, at least at his place. "Once you've tried digital, it's hard to go back," Alston insists. Williams agrees, saying that he has tried, but the shop insisted that his TV was completely non-refundable.
27incher and: 32incher I've found the 27 inch for about 1000 USD, and the 32 for about 1300 or 1400 USD.
Regular analog TV is 480i, and the majority of non-HDTV (or SDTV, which people usually just lump into HDTV) televisions can't display a progressive scan DVD picture (which is 480p, so double the piture information, though not exactly 'twice the resolution'). Some can, but a safe assumption is that you're going to have to buy a digital or digital-ready set AND a pregrssive scan DVD player in order to get the benefits of either for your movie watching.
Get an HDTV ready system. All HDTV capable sets are progressive scan, meaning that the entire screen is displayed at one time.
Today's analog signals are made up of two interlaced fields. Interlacing was necessary in the 1950s to make it possible for the television sets of the day to refresh the screen 30 times per second without there being a noticeable strobing or flicker on the monitors. Breaking the image into an odd and even field, drawing one field first, then drawing the other, was the solution to this strobing. Because of backward compatibility, broadcast images are to this day still limited by these interlaced signals.
All HDTVs use "Line Doubling" dechnology. Line Doubling is a term that describes a television image that has had each field converted to a complete frame. That is, the television is showing you 60 frames per second instead of 30 frames. This increase in picture information causes the image to look more film-like, with richer colors, lower video "noise" and less graininess.
Analog televisions are designed to show only 30 frames/second, so line-doubling an image on a standard television is impossible. The television cannot display the image at this increased speed.
The improvement in picture quality is tremendous. Get the good TV.
If all you want is to display DVDs on high quality display consider getting a usual projector instead. They are comparable in price (or cheaper) and a lot of them are "HDTV-compatible", and you can play Quake (or whatever you like) on them too.
Television is the devil's vision.
I'm personally unimpressed with HD"TV", but have been a DVD finatic for as long as the media has been out. I'm a busy tech head, and the last thing I want to do at the end of the day is watch commercials (anxiety building, just like stop lights). Every now and again I get HBO for their original programming, but most of the time, I'm perfectly happy just buying/renting every DVD in sight.
Given that I'm from the computer world, the interlaced v.s. non-interlaced debate is very religious with me. I refuse to watch anything interlaced, no matter what the resolution. Sadly 480p is all that is left for me.
Rather coincidently, this is the DVD resolution. Add one to the DVD-only usage of HDTV.
There's an interesting point to be made about wide-screen. Half my family is hard of hearing, so I've become very accustomed to utilizing closed-captioning. Now I know that a majority of people out there are distracted by the feature, but even the strongest opponents have "missed subtle dialog that has so sheepishly requested that I backup and enable CC". Having a wide-screen TV means that there is no lower black-bar to hide the captioning off to. I know that there are different dimensions that can cause black bars even on 16:9, but in general CC is going to take up a greater percentage of the visible area. Since I've learned to ignore the black bars, I've found that you can get a larger TV in 4:3 than 16:9 for you dollars. Not to mention you won't have those annoying black-side bars while watching Frasier.
Either way, the BIG difference that is going to make your life happy is a line-doubled TV set... err.. progressive-scan (non-interlaced). I say line doubled because that's what most of them are going to wind up doing.. If you get a 960 line (or 1080 line) set, then it's going to have to perform image duplication, no matter what. Some sets have the ability to perform interpolation, but as I hear, that has horrid quality. No matter how bad the line-doubler is, the loss of shimmer is a God-send.
A little more on DVD pro-scan. I've done a lot of research into the pro-scanning of DVDs and it's not a pretty picture (pun). Apparently 60fps is the minimum that you'll want to see to avoid visial distinguishing of the strobe-effect.. NTSC uses 60fps at half the resolution (240 for traditional DVD-capable 4:3 sets). A pro-scan DVD outputs 30fps at a full 480p, and the pro-scan TV prints the full picture twice (to minimize the strobing). Thus, all you really need is a TV that's capable of accepting the pro-scan input and ideally rendering 480 distinct lines. Being 4:3 or 16:9 is merely a matter of preference.. You're not going to get that much extra detail (though there is horizontal compression for "anamorphic wide-screen 1.666" downsampled to 4:3 (1.33)). Lastly, if you're very unlucky, then the 16:9 -> 4:3 conversion is going to consume some of your 480 lines for use with the black-bars, thereby also having vertical compression. If your 4:3 pro-scan TV can accept a wide-screen input and has excess vertical resolution, then it can generate its own black-bars, thereby fully reproducing the vertical component. Note that many TV's have excess vertical resolution (i.e. for Picture in Picture). Unfortunately, no matter what you do here, there are many DVD's that aren't properly designed with pro-scan in mind, and inappropriately set the pro-scan flags. The player has to compensate (or won't properly render the picture), and the more money you spend, the better the results (usually).
Still, unless you're in that upper income bracket, I'd say that anything below $2,000 that's pro scan, coupled with a half decent DVD player (such as the Toshiba 4700 for $225). Tweeter carries $1,100 pro-scan TVs in 4:3.
Lastly, for those that have a size complex, there is no differnce between having a TV that's twice as large verses sitting twice as close to the TV.. It's all about field of view.. In fact, a larger set is probably going to have poorer quality (due to convergence issues on said large projection sets). I personally would rather a picture tube and a properly engineered living room over said projection sets.
-Michael
-Michael
Lately, I have been comparing HDTVs and LCD projectors. The fact is, projectors can do as many lines at 1/2 - 1/3 the cost. Compare yourself!
Please mod the parent up so that the AC's posting can be read at a normal level!
My dad's a TV repairman, and he tells me that if you have a 16:9 direct view TV but watch mostly 4:3 stuff on it in "reverse letterbox" (i.e. with big black bands on the left and right) you can end up with your picture tube burning in unevenly -- more in the middle than the sides. Then, when you do watch some 16:9 stuff it'll look brighter on the sides than in the middle. It's not covered in your warranty, either. And a replacement 16:9 picture tube will cost you nearly as much (if not more) than the original TV.
COX in my area is sending hdtv through their digital cable service. I honestly don't know if its any better than the current standards because the video is displayed on my room-mates 7 year old 27 inch TV. Is the quality any better than analog cable? I don't really know, but instead of there being 55 channels of nothing, I have 500.
WARNING!!!
This 'How To Be A Nigger' post is obviously a Troll since why would anybody actually try to act like one of those smelly bastards.
First, HDTV does not mean widescreen (16:9) displays. Nor do widescreen displays mean HDTV. You can find a regular 4:3 television (rather 1.33:1) that does HDTV, and you can find widescreen TVs with no HDTV support (builtin or "ready"). However, most projection TVs and widescreen TVs today do support HDTV.
Also note that Playstation 2 does support widescreen televisions as well as the X-Box and GameCube. Some games have anamorphic and/or widescreen specific capabilities. Gran Turismo 3, NFL 2002, Jak and Daxter, and quite a few more support widescreen displays for the PS2. Most games for the X-Box and GameCube come with some support for widescreen TVs, and as time moves forward, I believe that most game developers will support it. X-Box and GameCube do have support for specific features of the HDTV specifications, but I don't believe that HDTV itself will be taken advantage of until 2 or 3 years at the end of this console generation's lifespan.
The question is - projector or no projector.
I will buy a projector, when:
It has 1280x768
It has 1000 ANSI lumen
It costs me 2000$
1280x768 was the format good enough for George Lucas when he released the Toy Story 2 on digital cinemas with digital pojectors.
In the meantime. Why should you put up with 52" screens for 5-10,000$ when you can have
800x600
800 ANSI lumen
for 2000$
No, projectors are the future, for me.
Almost anyone will appreciate the improved definition of the HDTV broadcasts. The image is just amazing. Many major markets (and some not so major) have at least one network station sending out the HD signal.
;)
FWIW, I was playing with a friend's RCA set last weekend, and was pretty surprised by a couple things I didn't know about:
1) There are sub-channels available. Briefly, we received the high-definition network broadcast itself, then we also got a "standard"-definition transmission of the Red Wings game, and, a standard "weather radar" transmission. These channels were labelled 7-1, 7-2 and 7-3 respectively. Kinda neat, if you ask me. Think FM subcarriers...
2) Dolby Digital showed up, which I assume means a discreet 5.1 channels of sound. Beats dbx/MTS any day!
2) While the "standard" TV broadcasts at this rural location suffered badly from ghosting and generally poor signal reception, the HDTV did not, and was basically crystal clear. Supposedly, if you can get the signal at all, this will always be the case.
Now, here are a few warnings before you plop down all that money:
1) If you're wanting to use that HDTV with a DVD player to enjoy the most faithful picture, you should do some homework. Depending on who you ask, you may want a "progressive-scan" player. Honestly, the whole thing is confusing as hell, to me at least: Anamorphic video, 480p, 1080i, line doublers, component video... ugh. There is an excellent FAQ at http://www.nwlink.com/~rxg/hdtv.html which I highly suggest you read, or perhaps news://alt.video.digital-tv if you're a Usenet type.
2) On top of that, some of these HDTV sets actually require you to buy an extra box to receive the hi-def TV broadcasts. Yes, they're *capable* of showing HDTV signals, but they're essentially missing the tuner, kind of like a monitor with no computer.
3) Don't expect DirecTV to beam you those HDTV signals for free, even though the present equipment allegedly supports it. And if you use an emulator/hack, who really knows what works and what doesn't.
4) Play with the candidate HDTV set at the store, extensively! Note what options there are for the screen size when it's NOT hi-def. In other words, that big-ass 16:9 tube is probably going to have black or gray bars on either side, which can be annoying. Some models allow you to "stretch" and "fill" which alleviates this effect (somewhat). Furthermore, because of the innate complexity, the menus can be either easy to navigate or a button-pushing free-for-all.
-- LunarFox (nee' LunarQT)
in Portland Oregon area almost all of the local broadcast stations are broadcast in HDTV as well as analog. The only ones that arent are the shopping channel and the religios channel which nobody watches anyway. But all the network channels are in HDTV just waiting for you to watch them.
DirecTV, in all of its digital glory, only offers 2 HDTV channels. There's HBO HDTV, which requires HBO on your account, and HDNet, which comes with the base package (though much of it is pay-per-view). You also have to have a HDTV-capable receiver and an oval (multi-sat) dish.
In other words, don't get DirecTV.
Washington, DC: It's like Hollywood for ugly people.
I had the opportunity to work with a company working on digital terrestrial broadcasting solutions..
.. nothing. (Helps to have a spectrum analyzer..)
Here's what I learned:
1. Signal strength matters -- If you don't have a 15.5 db Signal to Noise Ratio, you get nothing. A blank screen.
2. A decent antenna helps immensely and sometimes an amplifier, but too much signal strength will also overdrive the receiver and you'll get
3. All reception chipsets are NOT the same. The RCA DirectTV HDTV receiver sucks compared to what is available in newer chip sets. Try different receivers and you may notice substantially different performance.
4. If you don't live somewhere where there are DTV transmitters, none of the above matters. And currently in New York (Maybe one still up?) and outside of large markets, there are no digital television transmitters!
Nope - nothing (well very little) on TV, but there is plenty of excellent stuff to watch. I use a digital projector, have an excellent sound system, and I don't have cable. Other than Junkyard Wars, I wasn't watching *anything*, and since I only caught about every other show, I was paying $25 per hour of show.
But I *do* sit down regularly to *watch* a movie. You know - not just on the the background (which is annoying as hell to me) or something to fill the gaps between a conversation. I pull out a movie from my collection, and watch it.
My projector is HDTV ready... but there is nothing consumer level to play on it. I'm almost hesitant to get DVDs for this reason - I want The Wall, Apocolypse Now, End of Evangelion and wouldn't complain about Fellowship of the Rings - but I want them in HDTV. I have the first three in that list in DVD, and I know I'll be buying them again in format X when it comes out. I'd be willing to pay $120 per movie, a la my laserdiscs, just to have them in the HDTV format now... but it's just not available.
--
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
I purchased and HDTV, nothing really special, 32". I love it. Personaly I belive the 450 USD price tag was not bad at all, and very much worth the cost, especialy if you watch lots of movies on DVD.
Seriously ,sir,do we really need High Definition Television.IMHO taking into account the stuff that's on air,what we really need is a very Low definition tv.
Count in Britney Boobs and company,and a low fidelity sound system is an absolute necessity.
Wanted : A Signature.
unless your a huge sports fanatic don't bother right now. Really the only thing decent being broadcast in hdtv are sports. Well unless you wanna watch who wants to be a millionare or sexorama island part 3 or something don't bother, for now only mega sports fans and hardcore couch potatos are gonna find any use of hdtv. If your a geek there are a 100 more interesting and useful things to blow the cash on.
Quite frankly the quality of television programming these days leaves a LOT to be desired. I mean, we're talking about higher and higher resolutions for television, but for what? Survivor? Rosie O'Donnel? Bleh. The broadcasters and "content providers" can have their HDTV and their 1080i nonsense. Why do I need to see Jay Leno's pores?
...to each his own, I guess. :)
As for movies, I find no reason to watch the DVDs any "crisper" than they are on my middling Sony 27" TV. I guess I am not "ooh-ed" and "aaah-ed" quite like most people. I'm not even interested in surround sound. My 10 year old JVC stereo (that I got as a floor model when Tandy closed all their McDuff stores) works great. Crisp stereo sound, no problems there.
For the most part, the people who advocate HDTV say to wait, and even being on the "who cares?" sidelines, I have to agree. The standard is so messed up right now, I don't know how long it will take to get things ironed out.
In waiting, you're not so much holding out for the "next big thing", but just in case they screw everything up more, you're not out $4K+ for a TV. Unless of course you're made of money....then it won't matter. *grin*
---- James
You can get some pretty nifty 21"+ monitors, or even the Apple Studio Display. It's easy to make DVDs and broadcast signals appear on those. That's plenty large for personal viewing. With the money left over you can still buy a high quality large screen display for social viewing in large groups.
paying that much for a marginally improved image is not very wise;
BUT a DVD will do 1024x480, which fills the 16x9 wideness ratio; and should look better.
Truth isn't Truth - Guliani
Just my little opinion, but I think that an HD-DVD is needed (and skip the zones please) to make HDTV more worth it. Then we could speak about home cinema, as DVDs can't compare to the upcomming digital cinemas, and not to 35mm film (70mm and 135mm... well, you know).
/., a technology nut ;)
I would get an HDTV, but I am like many on
From The Onion's Dispatches from the 10th Circle:
****
"By the year 2005," said Bob Rowell, president of the American Association of Broadcasters, "90 percent of American homes will enjoy their favourite heap of dung on a high-definition TV."
"Soon, your children will be able to watch shrill, grating Hanna-Barbera re-runs on the Cartoon Network with a degree of crispness unheard of when you first watched that crap in the '70s," Roswell said. "And those whose lives are so empty that each Thursday night they actually watch all of NBC's so-called 'Must-See TV' lineup will be amazed at the clarity and resolution with which all those stupid people's apartments come through."
In addition, big-budget movies such as Independence Day and Eraser will soon be available in HDTV digital-cassette format, which manufacturers promise will offer an experience comparable to shaking your head and thinking "This sucks," in an actual movie theater.
Being bitter is drinking poison and hoping someone else will die
As a side note, they'll sell little boxes, sorta like cable boxes, that will convert the new HDTV signals to old analog signals you can use on legacy TV's.
I think the HDTV upgrade is awesome, but only if you watch a lot of DVDs and make sure every component in your system uses the full ability of HDTV.
I just won a big 65" HDTV at a company party.... and lemme tell you, it's amazing.
:)
Granted, I don't have anything that actually runs in HDTV resolutions, but the quality of the picture really is striking even with normal, "old" formats like RCA plugs, or the picture from the digital cable.
A couple huge plusses:
- All the new console games look AMAZING! Pikmin runs at 1080i resolution (I think that's the one), and the last batch of PS2 games all support the 16x9 ratio. With component plugs, everything really comes across nicely.
- DVDs (again, using component cables) also look amazing. There's a huge amount of texture to everything that I missed on my older projection TV. Watching something like Shrek, or Starship Troopers again was a real treat, because it actually looked like the theatre.
I say if you can afford it, GO FOR IT! Using nice plugs and wires, you end up with a much nicer setup for watching TV, movies, or games. And as more things support the different formats, you'll be all set. Just because there isn't widespread use of HDTV just yet doesn't mean you shouldn't enjoy some of the benefits now.
The best part is it's almost completely replaced my need to go to the movie theatre. The theatre may be bigger and better, but there's nothing that can beat sitting on your couch in your pajamas, watching a movie. I can definitely wait for the rental of, say, Oceans 11 instead of waste theatre time doing anything other than watching LOTR or Monsters Inc. again.
suddenly, it seems depressing to live in europe...
The best part is that it's not made by Sony :) Unlike most non-Sony TVs, it doesn't suck.
DVD Video on it is just incredible. It also lets you see exactly how CRAPPY some DVDs are. The Unbreakable DVD has the worst encoding I've ever seen- at times it's like watching an 8-bit dithered QuickTime movie. I can see every single fault of every DVD, but OTOH, and I see some amazing detail come out that I've never realized that was there (and I am a pure video junkie- it just doesn't get through on those olde archaic teles). As more people get HDTVs I guess the encoding quality bar will raise.
But by far and wide, the best reason is to hook up a Gamecube :) I haven't gotten the component video cables yet, but I picked up a cheap S-Video cable from Toys R Us (about $10 CDN, say $2 USD) and the graphical quality is just mind blowing. The difference between using composite video and S-Video is truly striking on this TV, not as much on regular TVs. I used to think that the N64 had great graphics, and on a classic TV, it does. But on this it's very obvious that it's 320x240- I can see every pixel clearly (as said above, there are no visible scan lines).
It's a mixed bag of joy, but for the price of this thing it's a total waste of money to buy a normal TV. This is leaps and bounds better and worth every penny I paid. If you don't have the cash, wait. You'll be happier :)
Moderators should have to take a reading comprehension test.
HDTV is collapsing in complete disarray.
You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict HDTV's future. The hand writing is on the wall: HDTV faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for HDTV because HDTV is dying. Things are looking very bad for HDTV As many of us are already aware, HDTV continues to not gain market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood. 720p is the most endangered of them all.
Due to the troubles of ATSC, abysmal sales and so on, Zenith went out of business and was taken over by Funai who sell another troubled Television. Now Funai is also dead, its corpse turned over to another charnel house.
All major surveys show that HDTV has steadily failed to gain market share. HDTV is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If HDTV is to survive at all it will be among TV hobbyists dabblers. HDTV continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, HDTV is dead.
The problem with HDTV is that consumers are not adequately informing themselves on the pros and cons and many of the dealers don't know enough to seel the product.
:)
;)
I was in Sears the other day and heard a young couple watching a HDTV (which was displaying some cartoon) remark "Well, it certainly doesn't do anything for cartoons." Well, duh.
Salespeople are even worse. When I was buying my HDTV (a horror story in itself) I would visit the chain stores to see what they had. At Best Buy, the salesperson attempted to sell me a Toshiba over a Panasonic because the Toshiba had twice the resolution. Not really. The salesperson was comparing the pixel resolution of the Toshiba to the vertical line resolution of the Panasonic.
If the dealers can sell the things correctly, and the consumers can't buy the things correctly, then all you'll get is a bunch of idiot consumers complaining about how crappy their HDTV looks with theit low-res digital cable plugged into it.
On the other hand, you'll get well-informed consumers who know what they want, bought what the wanted, and are extremely happy with HDTV. In fact, I'll probably be buying another one soon for another room in the house.
Vincent J. Murphy
Spandex Justice
i mean c'mon. I've seen 3 HDTV's broadcasting in my life - the first was prolly 7 years ago at the Smithsonian Museum in D.C. MAN! that thing rocked. They were playing a video of a fountain in Italy, and i swear i could see individual drops of water. Looked almost 3D.
Flash forward to today where i visit my photographer friend who couldn't wait to show me his new set that he got. Now keep in mind that this is a professional photographer who knows a thing or two about image quality, but not a whole lot about wiring, etc. (i was there to fix his Win2k box which he had fried fo the third time - Sircam? looks intersting, let me open it!!)
Anyway, he showed me back-to-back comparisons of regular HBO and HDTV HBO. Sure you could tell that there was an obvious quality improvement, but if he didn't tell me, i would never have been able to guess. Now, this was a tube screen, so i know it wasn't any rear-projection crap. I was all like, "Man, that's awesome" but inside, i was thinking, "Man, that sucks!"
Then, a few days i'm at Circuit City, and i browse through their HDTV section. Same thing!! Less-than-stellar picture. I couldn't believe it. There was a basketball game on, and there were all sorts of artifacts on the screen. It seemed to be especially prononounced in the areas immediately around something that was moving, i.e. someone was running down court, and he would hav a "halo of crap" around him.
So, the question is - does neither my photographer friend, nor the high-school kid working at Circuit City know how to properly wire these damn things, and does that have that dramatic an effect on the quality of an HDTV picture? Or does it just look better than regular TV, but not as good as HDTV should look?
I'm perplexed!!
There are 01 types of people in this world. Those that understand binary, and me.
When you see that your local TV stations are broadcasting in digital TV, they are more than likely broadcasting in 480p, or 480p converted to 1080i.
True
This gives NO image quality improvement over a perfect NTSC image, like what you would get from a dish, becasue those signals started out as NTSC on BetaCam, or film.
Wrong. 480 p can look lots better than NTSC. In NTSC, the color information is wedged into hypothetical holes in the black-and-white information. In practice, fine brightness details show up on the screen with added false colors (the proverbial sportscaster's jacket), strong color contrast shows up on the screen with jaggley edges. See demo images at http://www.tpt.org/innertube/inside/hdtv.html
Stuff shot and edited on Betacam or one of the cheapish (~$5000) pro-sumer digital formats can give you a 480p image that runs rings around NTSC, provided the signal is never dropped down to NTSC anywhere in the shooting / editing / transmission process. Once you own Betacam-class hardware, doing it right only adds a tiny bit to the cost.
Depressingly, most of those high-end large screen consumer monitors won't have a long lifetime -- in projection TVs and plasma screens the manufacturers are driving the light generating elements hard and they will start degrading in ~hundreds of hours. LCD projectors and micromirror projectors could -- in theory -- run a good long time, but they aren't showing up much in the consumer market.
Email: slashdot3@FreeMars.org (Address will be abandoned when it gets spam.)
I live beyond the range of HDTV (about 40 miles) in flatland USA. Cable company (TCI/ATT/Comcast/nike/whatever) doesn't offer HDTV signals, don't want to spring for a Directv setup to get HDTV, looks like I fall outside the jurisdiction to the FCC's 2006 mandate. Ah well.
Everyone here seems to be screaming $5000 - $10000 for an HDTV...
You don't NEED to get a 50"+ set. There's a 27" Samsung Dynaflat that's under $1000. I'd rather get a Sony personally, but they don't exist under 30" yet.
Calm down, it's not that expensive. Last year a friend of mine bought a Sony WEGA XBR 34" for about $2400. Non-HDTV. The HDTV version is out now for how much? $2600. Is 8% markup that much? No.
It's not THAT expensive if you look around and have a normal sized tube and it's coming down quickly. Look at DVD players. Bought my parents a nice Sony that does 5.1 among other things for $200. A few years ago I'm sure that was nearly $1000. It's coming down. I say if you have cash and need a new TV (my 25" mid 80's Panasonic has about had it) this will be the year to go get one.
I own a Sony 4:3 HDTV, the 61' model. Cost me $4k. I and my roomates were moving into a new apartment and decided that the 21' just looked too damn small in the living room. Plus, we're a geek house, so there is the toy factor to consider.
If you only watch television, the improvement over standard projection TVs is definitely NOT worth any investment. Save your money. This is true even with the HDTV feeds you can get from sattelite providers. The picture gain in my mind seems to be about 10-15% at most. That's not worth nearly double the cost.
Now, if you watch movies and not television (like myself) and you have a DVD player, then definitely consider getting HDTV. DVD movies look far, far better on HDTV, so you'll get a lot more value out of the DVDs you buy. Our DVD library is at 150 films and counting up steadily... in the dark it's very close to watching a movie screen on a 61'. The picture quality is such that you don't even notice the letterbox effect in the dark, since you can't see the black bands. I considered springing for a letterbox set, but frankly there just isn't enough material that uses letterbox to justify that price increase on an already expensive HDTV set. 61' is plenty big enough to show letterbox at a good size anyway.
We play a lot of games. The PS2 looks very good on the HDTV, but not all that much better than normal television. Our XBox, on the other hand, looks like DVD compared to VHS... huge improvement in picture quality. Beating Halo in Legendary on that set was a blast... co-op play kicks a lot of ass when the screen, split 4 ways, still gives every player a viewing area comparable to most TV sets, AND with the full quality, nothing pixellated.
We have a PC linked to the TV for watching rips and whatever other misc media we manage to download, be it movie rips, anime music videos, or pr0n. The PC image looks pretty sharp, but without a video card capable of 480i or 1080i output you won't get much out of it. Most PC graphics cards capable of that output are very pricey, hopefully those will drop in the future as well. I'll definitely be buying one once they do.
It all depends on how much time you spend in front of the set. I wouldn't upgrade unless you need a new one. May as well wait until 2006 if you can, your old set will fail eventually and by then it'll be really cheap to pick up an uber-tv.
Hell is being intelligent in a world full of idiots.
Best TV I ever saw was a continuous silicon fiber tv. The picture had no pixels that you could see even when you tried to stick your nose to it. Samsung made it just to show they could. I will wait until the TV's and moniters merge.
Just too much damn money. Recently went shopping for a new TV. I ended up getting a 32" Sony WEGA. For $700, it's awesome, looks great with DVD's, etc. The HDTV one the same size was thousands and the demos weren't that convincing.
The only thing that would tempt me with HDTV is I'm a huge hockey fan. Hockey is a tough game to show on TV (bunch of reasons: puck is small and tough to follow. Contrast of stuff on white ice is a bitch and you can't see the line changes 'cause the camera follows the puck) Anyway, I'm told that there is a trial where games are broadcast in HDTV. With the widescreen, you get full frame of the ice and can still see the puck..... if that comes into full I would probably get one.
DO NOT DISTURB THE SE
Rather than spend the big bucks on the display, I bought an HDTV receiver (dish 6000 with OTA module) to watch on my regular analog TV (5 year old 35" toshiba). Hooked it up to the antenna in my attic (which the previous owners left!), and I'm very pleased with the results.
CBS, NBC, ABC, and Fox all broadcast digitally in my area (Boston), and PBS is testing on a limited schedule. This weekend's project is going to be adding another antenna so I can get the southern NH PBS station (WENH) which has more broadcasting time than WGBH.
If you're on the fence about taking the plunge, it's another option!
-- If you don't understand it, blame it!
And their recievers still only decode DD 5.1 and NOT DTS .. I know about 4 friends who all jumped on the DVD w/ 5.1 Home Theater setup years back and we only have DD 5.1 on our systems still. I would assume they play DD 5.1 over DTS as default simply because DTS came into the game too late and it's safer to *assume* you wont tick people off by playing DD 5.1 as a default. (Like me :) )
I bought an SDTV a year or two ago. At the time they were cheaper than the HD's (stil1 ~2k). It doesn't do 1080 but will do 720(i/p can't remember). The picture is great especially for gaming. However if you have a week signal it makes it look worse and even sat or digital cable (had both) looks really graining if the incoming signal isn't great. I nearly always have my sharpness on the really low side, otherwise it just shows to much. Overall I think its a great picture especially when compared to regular tv except the price still makes me cry.
Yes but every time I try to see it your way, I get a headache.
check it out, I think its what you would want.
Go over to access.dtv to see a PC card that will take HDTV signals and display them on your monitor. Price is not given (dealers are), but it is much less than a full HDTV set.
HDTV is still very limited and the content's not there. Its good to watch some sports games (like the Knicks on MSG TV,) and the rest sucks as hard as it usually does. Broadcast TV, Feh!
It is good for watching DVD movies if you happen to be anti-social, can't stand crowds and want good pop-corn.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
I already have a 16:9 TV. Not HDTV, just a normal one. DVD playback on that gets to use pretty much the full 720x480 resoution of a DVD. Where's the 1920x1080p DTS-ES übermovies to play on a HDTV set? They aren't there.
Use mpg4, and the 6:1 pixel increase should without problems be offset by a 1:6 compression over mpg2, to make it fit on a conventional DVD-9 (single side, double layer) like most movies are today. If I was to shell out that much money, at the very least I'd want the convinience to watch the movies when I want to. Oh and I can live with a CSS equivilant, but DROP THE DAMN REGION SYSTEM (for you US people that might not be that big a deal, but for me it is).
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
I currently own an RCA F38310 High Definition Digital Television. In my opinion, if you watch a lot of CBS, HBO, or DVD's it may be worth it. These channels provide a good amount of HD programming because most of their production is done in 35mm or better. Fox, ABC, and NBC with the exception of the Tonight Show are stuck with standard definition digital for a while. PBS does some HD. DVD's played on a progressive scan, component output DVD player provide a picture quality that makes it hard to go back. The DTV tuner technology is somewhat established, but rapidly improving at the same time. Sets and tuners (best bought separately) are raplidly dropping in price, so patience may pay off.
Of course, you need to be able to get the stations (either OTA or Satellite/Cable), but the coverage range is also increasing with cable companies now offering HDTV feeds.
Add to that the benefit of being able to watch DVD in WideScreen, progressive output and its fabulous.
I definitely recommend a look at AVS Forums for much more information. I would also highly recommend getting the set ISF Calibrated after you have it for 100+ hours running. Makes a drastic difference in the picture quality.
BTW - AFAIK, the 2006 deadline (or whatever the year is) is for stations to be broadcasting DIGITALLY, which does NOT mean HDTV, just Digital. We all know digital can look like crap and worse than analog with too much compression (DirecTV and DishNetwork on some channels for instance).
-Frank
Satellite does offer HDTV. Both Dish Network and DirecTV offer HDTV programming.
Some cable companies (TimeWarner Cable in NYC, even Cox Cable in Nebraska) offer HDTV over their cable networks. Usually this comprises of HBO-HD and the local affiliates.
I work in TV, at a broadcast station. Yes, the FCC has said that 2006 is the cutoff, but the reality is that it is going to be extremely difficult if not impossibe to meet this deadline. Digital transmitters, about $1 million a pop, are already getting hard to come by. We had to orders many months ago to insure that our second station transmitter would be here by our May 2002 deadline. The FCC has already rolled back the deadline for smaller UHF stations due to the large monies and lead times involved. All that said, I would not be in any kind of hurry to go HDTV due to one simple fact - there is no programming. We air about 12 - 14 hours a week of digital content and digital does not mean high-definition. On average about 4 to 6 hours are actually recorded and transmitted in HD; everything is upconverted NTSC. With absolutely no way (no content = no commercials) to get back any of the investment in HDTV, broadcasters are in no hurry to move or change their current business model. I guess if you're really into DVD's the equipmnet may be worth the price for home movie watching but I would not be thinking in terms of watching broadcast/cable TV on it.
... and have come to the only obvious conclusion. Linus, you can have this one for free:
Get Linux-47 times simpler than HDTV!
I know that the FCC will mandate HDTV by 2006, but I think that what they're really doing is mandating digital TV by that period, so that broadcasters can effectively fit up to 8 channels in the channel bandwidth where they used to fit only one -- that is, compete with cable television. Consumers won't pay for that necessarily, so equipment providers are marketing the HDTV part of it. So you've got the carrot (HDTV) and the stick (can't use your regular TV after 2006) to push you towards a slightly lower quality TV standard (DTV).
The problem is, picture quality is not the limiting factor in today's media experience. How will high definition fix the quality of television today? Will it suddenly make the latest season of the Simpsons as funny as seasons 3-8? Will it make the damn football games on Fox shorter, so they will no longer pre-empt Futurama on Sundays (at least in Dallas)?
The moral? Wait for HDTV until it's as cheap as a regular TV. Take the extra money you would have spent and donate it to PBS.
Insert simplistic political, ideological, or personal proselytization here.
I suspect George Carlin is still correct, and the Brightness knob STILL doesn't work, even on HD :-p
I bought my 55" Toshiba HDTV (55HX70) about 6 months ago for about $2150, shipped. For projection televisions, HDTV is definitely worth it, as they look so much brighter and clearer than standard-def projection TVs. On a CRT, I don't think you would see enough of a difference to warrant the price increase.
My set does not have an HDTV tuner. HDTV broadcasts are few and far between, and IMHO it is not/was not worth the extra cost. Plus, who pulls signals off the air anymore anyway? Save money by buying "HDTV-Ready".
Also, I'd suggest avoiding widescreen unless all you watch is movies. If you do the math, letterbox image on a 4:3 set is like 10% smaller than the same diagonal 16:9, but 4:3 image on a 16:9 set is like 20% smaller than a same-diagonal 4:3. Add to that the fact that 16:9 sets cost $300-1000 more than a 4:3 equivalent, and the choice is easy.
A good example is the Toshiba sets, where a 61" 4:3 is cheaper than their 56" 16:9, and the 16:9 letterbox size on the 61" is the same size as the 56" set (56" vs 55.4"), but the 4:3 picture is way bigger (61" vs 46").
I've built up so much character I have an alter-ego
did you perhaps filter out his trolls in your personal settings, because you tired of his endless and completely UN-thought out rhetoric? I did, and it has been VERY pleasant, as the only thing he seemed good for was as serving as yet another example in human history of how sheep that talk and use fancy words are still sheep mindlessly following the flock.
Okay, I've been waiting on HD for a while, and have grown tired for the tuners to come down in price. $500 is not what I want to pay for a 3 year old first generation box. And there are really no alternatives on the horizon. My advice is to save the extra grand you'd pay for an HD model and get a smallish RPTV (60" diagonal) with component inputs for DVD viewing. It's the advice I give to friends and family. However...
If you really itching to spend a few grand, and you're viewing room has light control (blinds on the windows for daytime watching), consider researching a digital front projector. Two years ago I was in the market for an HDTV for my new home. 55" 16:9 ratio monitors were running $5500-$6500. I planned a little recess in the living room to accomodate the behemoth, and started counting up the costs for all the extras. Then I ran across a review of the soon-to-be-released Sony VW10HT projector. It was a 16:9 ratio, 1366x768 pixel digital projector. Street price: $5500. Holy shnikes! I reworked my plan, put a bookcase on the wall with a soffit above, and spent another $1000 on a 120" diagonal 16:9 ratio automatic screen. I still don't have HD in my area, and only one station in my city (Roanoke, VA) is planning on going live prior to the revised 2003 deadline. My wait for HD will be rewarded eventually, but until then I have the best movie watching setup in the neighborhood.
Since then, the big black boxes have gotten cheaper, and seem to be dipping below $3000. Inexpensive (but quality) front projectors are still in the $3000-$7000 range if you do your research and find a good vendor. Though the prices haven't come down as quickly as the console units, the new projectors have higher brightness, higher resolution, and better image processing than those of just a year or two ago. If you think you might want to go this route, surf on over to avsforum.com and check out the digital projector area. Just remember that we're fanatical and will argue about the most minute flaws - don't be scared off. My projector gets panned on a daily basis for its shorcomings, but it's really an argument on whether it's 94 or a 98 on a scale of 100. Either way it's a winner.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
The problem with hdtv is that although the resolution is increased, the same crappy programming and lousy movies are being broadcasted.
love is just extroverted narcissism
I am close to purchasing a new HD-ready set myself and I've been following the market closely for the past few months.
First, you'll probably want to read some of the threads on the AVS Forum in the HDTV Hardware (a lot of good set top box info here!) and HDTV programming forums. Another good source of info on specific sets is the Home Theater Spot. Finally, if you want some perspective on the industry check out Mark Schubin's Monday Memo. It's published weekly.
I think it's a pretty good time to buy because:
Here's the only rub. If you care about being able to view premium or pay-per-view content at full resolution, the set you buy today will likely be obsolete once the HDCP copy protection scheme gets deployed.
Almost none of the sets or set top boxes you can buy today have a DVI or Firewire interface. These interfaces will enable set top box to talk to the TV and decide if it is a display device that is allowed to get the full 1080i resolution of a HDCP encrypted broadcast.
This won't be a problem if your set has a built in tuner that does HD or if your manufacturer is promising to upgrade your set to meet whatever standard gets decided on (and you don't mind replacing your set top box). That's why you probably ought to check out the Mitsubishi sets before you make a final decision. I don't work for them, invest in them, etc. I just like the fact that they are promising to upgrade whatever set you buy from them today via a plug in module that they'll sell for less than $1000.
Anyway, that's my 2 bits. Good luck!
Once you lick the lollipop of mediocrity, you'll suck forever!
It's been noted several times in comments here that HDTV really isn't worth the extra $$ when compared with what you get.
Here in Raleigh/Durham, NC, there are several stations broadcasting their digital signals, including the nation's leader in digital television, WRAL-TV. WRAL produced a special on the move of the Cape Hatteras lighthouse, and it looks SPECTACULAR in HD.
But...
I look at the cost of the digital-ready sets. And cringe. Keep in mind that you have to buy the set, and then you have to buy the tuner to actually receive digital signals!
All the other toys mentioned are nice as well, but let's look at why standard definition is still the best value (and still the choice of millions of consumers).
Standard definition televisions today produce an incredible picture. They're capable of much better quality than we actually see!
How's that?
Analog cable in many, many locations is awful. Here, for example, the NBC affiliate is unviewable on Time-Warner. They have it on channel 2, but tune in to channel 2, and nobody's home. WRAL on channel 3 isn't much better, but you can at least see there's a signal there.
If you're a cable customer, there are few instances where your TV isn't able to actually give you a much better picture - but it just isn't being given a good one to show you.
The same is true for the DirecTV and Dish Network customers... sure, the picture quality blows away cable. But bandwidth issues are causing both companies to use a lot more compression than is healthy, as well as other tweaks, to cram all the channels they have onto the system.
This results in digital artifacts (pixels, etc) showing up on even the worst televisions. My wife can never see those - until the recent addition of local channels required by law (a whole different topic). Then even she noticed what I'd been talking about with digital artifacts.
Over the air reception is still the best way to get the best possible picture - and of course doesn't include cable-only channels. And even over the air presents its own problems, with antennas, pointing them, etc.
My major point is this - there just aren't enough HD signals available. Standard definition televisions can actually display better pictures than are currently provided (yes, yes, aside from DVD and HD).
Unless you're a video buff, rent/buy a lot of DVDs, or are willing to settle for a limited amount of High Definition programming, the cost to move to HDTV simply can't be justified right now.
Personally, I'm hoping my old 27" Magnavox holds out for another 3 years. I'd hate to buy a new TV right now, but if it becomes necessary, until prices come down (and they are, fairly quickly) quite a bit, and digital tuners are included in the sets (I know, some have 'em now - but I think they should be in every one), I'll be sticking with standard definition.
Very little available that works with HDTV:
--progressive DVDs (expensive)
--gamecube
--nothing else that I know of
I say, overall, it isn't worth it. Of course I say that while having a 61 inch hdtv from toshiba that I love!! Rarely use the hdtv potential though....
So witch one do you fit in?
Save yourself money and get a DLP projector from Ebay.
Sounds like what most of us have been consuming during the holidays. I thought you were pulling our leg until I ran across this. I don't think that moniker would cut it the diet-obsessed U.S. of A.
I agree that everything video looks better in the store. They're always showing you how great a DVD of "Bug's Life" or some video of a ballgame looks on a giant screen or a flat screen, but when you ask them to switch over to your local Channel 5 or whatever to see how regular TV would look, they have some excuse about how they're not set up to show it.
I used to not have a TV either, but then I got a job.
Things to look out for:
Make sure the HDTV gets all resolutions up to 1080i. Many sets such as Plasmas only go to 720 and downconvert 1080 to display it. They also tend to be contrasty, so that compression artifacts show up more. Source HD can look GREAT, but broadcast HD has lots of artifacts. You must make sure you are in reception range, or you may get more macroblocks than anything else....or nothing at all.
Couple points, though, that will save you $$$:
While there is a dearth of HDTV programming, there is plenty of DTV programming, even terrestrial. All satellite programming, for example, is digital. The immediate bonus is that all terrestrial digital channels look great, and a great reason to drop cable in favour of an antenna -- if you get enough local digital channels.
16:9 sets add about $1000 to the price, and most broadcast material you will watch is still 4:3. Get a big enough screen and live with letterboxing for the next several years. Sony makes a 36" version of the set I bought, and I would say that 32" is the bare minimum you should consider. Of course, there are bigger and cheaper projection sets, but I never liked them and the convergence problems they have. Your call.
Similarly, you can save money if you buy an HDTV-ready set instead of an HDTV set (the former lacks an HD tuner/decoder). This provides some flexibility in the choice of outboard tuner/decoder and combining such a set with a HD terrestrial/satellite reciver is a nobrainer. The total cost amounts to about the same, but the flexibility is important. RCA makes a 38" set with a built-in HD Satellite receiver, but they have had problems with early versions of that model, and I've heard people complain about the noisy fan (yes), in them. I have no opinion of my own about the RCS sets, but have generally been pleased with the Sony's I've owned.
Important feature #0: Make sure it displays 720p, and possibly 1080i. There are some cheap DTV sets (480i, 480p) that accept HD signals (720p, 1080i) and downsample them. Beware.
Important feature #1: progressive scan component video inputs -- at least two sets (one for sat receiver, one for DVD player). I don't know of any HD sets that don't have this, but it is important.
Important feature #2: a line doubler. This takes interlaced material (like from an analog broadcast, or source) and makes it progressive (i.e. 480i becomes 480p). The result is a sharper-looking picture. Line doublers vary in quality and poor ones can have difficulty with motion. A bonus is that if you have a DVD player with interlaced component output, instead of progressive, the set can "sharpen" (figuratively) the picture.
Important feature #3: On 4:3 sets, make sure that the set actually displays 720 or 1080 lines of resolution on letterboxed material, instead of downsampling to the area between the black bands. This feature goes by various names, and works by cutting the amplitude of the vertical drive to get the letterbox aspect ratio instead of downsampling. Of course, the shadow mask will be the limiting factor in actual resolution.
DirectTV has only 3 HD channels on one of their non-main satellites, so unless you subscribe to HBO, a sports package (I think), or like to watch the demo loop, you won't find much HD material (yet). But, because it is on another satellite, you will need two LNBs and, in most of the U.S., an 18" x 24" elliptical dish with four coax cables (two from each dual-LNB), or wo dishes. Spanish programming (Para Todos) is on a third satellite and requires an additional single-LNB (for a total of three on the dish). The point of all this is that if you get an HDTV or HDTV-ready set and DirectTV (Dish competes with them in the U.S.A., and there are comparable services elsewhere in the world), spring for the twin dual-LNB 18"x24" dish instead of the standard 18" round one -- you won't want to have to redo installation later that way (while the extra LNB and elliptical dish add about $100 to the cost, initial installation is usually free, while a retrofit will probably cost that $100).
All totaled (set, sat rx, dish) I must have spent about $2800. So far (three months later) I am pleased.
Oh, if you do get a satellite system as well, you will have to learn all about multiswitches (satisfied customer plug: Hometech has 5x8 Trunkline multiswitches for about $160).
You could've hired me.
Sell all your damn TV's and do something more enjoyable than passively absorbing spoon-fed audio/video and emotional crack!
Progressive scan means all lines are drawn on the screen at once, where interlaced (normal TV signals) draw half the lines (at every other line), then draw the other half 1/60th of a second later. This was done to compensate for slow-reacting phospher elements in early TVs (from the 50's). This is no longer required with modern TVs, but the NTSC standard is interlaced.
What's the problem with interlaced? Well there is a catch with interlacing a picture. When done in motion, interlacing removes about 30% of the apparent resolution. So while it's 640x480, the apparent resoultion is 30% less crisp.
Computer screens, even at 640x480, are always non-interlaced, which is called progressive. that is why they seem much more crisp than TV, and thats why when you hook a laptop up to a TV the smaller text is blurry.
HDTV is capable of doing 640x480p (p is for progressive), and progressive scan DVD players are capable of converting the interlaced signal to progressive (because films are done in 24 frames per second, there is extra half-frames in a standard NTSC signal, a progressive scan DVD player combines these and produces a full 640x480 signal) will show DVDs with an extra 30% resolution over standard TVs.
Ever notice that playing DVDs on your computer always seem much crisper? That is because the computer does the progressive scan conversion.
So HDTV can be worth it for DVDs alone, making them much crisper and more resolute. But this is only if you have a progressive scan DVD player.
Speaking from a hardware standpoint, HDTV is almost here. I used to work at the local Ratshack in 2000 and early 2001, and while we never had an actual 16/9 HDTV unit, we had a 4/3 35 inch monitor. It was a glory for all the geeks out there, who wanted to maximize their gaming experience, 2048/1536 resolution, quad usb ports, firewire support and of course, because it was a monitor, pro-scanning. Anyway, enough gushing over the hardware....
DirecTV had a special sattelite hookup for the stores, that used a special combination of elliptical dishes and quad LNB. It provided an outstanding picture, and really showed off the technology. Anyway, we never did sell the TV. It was $3500.
BTW, the monitor was made by RCA. Look it up.
13 year old white supremacists are shitty web designers.
Actually, it depends. I just bought a nice HDTV and I love the quality... even on analog broadcasts. I do have digital cable, but as you said, it's not that great of quality.
However, in some markets like LA they actually have HD signals via Digital Cable, just as they have some HD signals via sat.
Amazing, only one person brings up the negatives?
This is slashdot, where are all the critics? Where are the privacy activists? The fair use crowd?
Did everybody loose their principles over the weekend?
This is a great site to find out what stations you can pick up with an antenna. Enter your address and it will give you which stations you can get with different antennas, both standard and HD broadcasts. I've been shopping hdtv's, too, and this helped a lot.
http://www.terk.com/tv/antwebframe.html
Light cup, beer drink, thin so chain, neck turtle fat, man I won't say it again
HDTV generally needs more than the standard digital cable box from a given provider. For example, Rogers Cable here in Ottawa (Canada) offers HDTV as an extra on top of the digital cable package, but instead of using the normal digital cable box you get an HDTV box (which costs more to rent). If I've read correctly you get your standard digital cable channels as well as those for HDTV.
Hello, I'm looking into buying a DVD player, and I'm wondering if it really makes sense to spend the extra money to buy a progressive scan player (I have a non-HD tv, so I won't see a difference) and be "ready" for when I can afford a HDTV, or if the "line doubler" or whatever the name is of the HDTV will give me the same results, with a conventional DVD player. What do you think? Thanks!
I just picked up a 32 RCA digital HDTV ready monitor/tv with svga inputs for $800 If you look around, you can find good deals.
Regardless, If you are int he market for a TV, look for at least a digital or progressive scan TV. IIRC all RCA and proscan digital TV's come with svga inputs as their HDTV inputs as well as componant in for DVD playing.
Personally i wouldn't worry too much abotu a 16:9 or widescreen trv though.
Yes, it looks like a real football game, especially when a player gets really blocky looking because he has turned his shield generator on in the manner of the stupid Dune movie.
You trade analog noise for blocking artifact, and the only one who would own up to that was the tech from the local TV station. My academia colleagues who publish tons of papers on image processing and get themselves promotions and fat pay raises pat each other on the back on how realistic-looking their compression algorithms are (my foot!). Academic jealousy on my part, yes, but the Emperor remains naked.
I have a Panisonic 16:9 HDTV.
I watch no TV at all, but the purchase was really worth it simply for the DVD movies. If you have an HDTV you MUST use a progressive scanning DVD player using component video. The difference is like day an night, especially on widescreen.
The Xbox also looks magnificent, although im sure it would look even better if some of the games had anti-aliasing turned on.
On a similar topic, I know many GeForce2(3?) cards have component video out? Has anyone tried running their computer in widescreen over component? What res do you get? Is it worthwhile, etc.
GameCube's most certainly do not support HDTV. The only console that supports HDTV is the Xbox and they have no games that are HD. Both systems do support 480p. The Xbox has a high level of 480p and 16:9 support but the GameCube has only a few titles that are 480p and fewer still that are 16:9.
Note: 720p and 1080i are HD formats anything less than that is not HD.
You can get a Hauppage WinTV-D and get ATSC HDTV formats on your PC for about $500 :).
:). I can buy one of these and a decent projector off eBay for $2000 and have HDTV cheaper and with a better picture than actually buying the set and spending over that amount. If a better HDTV card comes out, I'll just upgrade.
The link to the Datasheet is Here.
It's a nice device, and it does TiVO functionality too. I'm not sure if this card has any Linux support.
However, it also does Digital to SVHS conversion, and all the other good things like recording of Digital TV. The only downside is that it renders everything in 480i.
For $500, I know what I am buying
HDTV was designed to deliver equivalent resolution, to the screen, as the best 35mm projection. (Although film starts out with much higher resolution, by the time it goes through all of the processing steps, each with mechanical transports, and then projection, the final resolution is quite low.)
A minimum 36" diagonal monitor is required to display every pixel in the image. However, the full effect of HDTV is not apparent until the image is at least 8 feet (diagonal measure). Furthermore, the original color space demands very low light level conditions in order to appreciate fully. Finally, the minimum viewing distance should be 3x the height of the screen, in order to make the pixels/grain disappear, so you'd need to sit at least 15 feet away from the image.
There are very few viewing environments that meet these conditions -- the average American home is certainly not one.
From a production viewpoint, HDTV requires film-level production standards. The sloppiness that NTSC and PAL encourage (and hide) is clearly visible to HDTV production processes. As my old boss, Barry Rebo, used to ask, "What does HDTV bring to 'Wheel of Fortune'?" The answer is absolutely nothing, except increased production costs.
The political stalemate in Washington is a blind for the desires of broadcasters to capitalize on the offer of free spectrum. The technical arguments are about how a broadcast signal will degrade in fringe reception areas. This is a smokescreen designed to delay introduction until terms are more favorable to broadcasters.
In fact, there is a production medium today that can be broadcast today over existing equipment with only marginal incremental costs to broadcasters: widescreen D1. It's the appropriate aspect ratio (16:9) and is a component system from beginning to end, which is the major contributor to quality.
This format could be delivered more or less right away and would deliver picture quality far in excess of what people expect today, and is, in fact, perfectly appropriate to the broadest range of viewing environments. Importantly, the incremental cost of production in D1 is virtually zero making it very attractive from that standpoint.
Finally, it is very easy to downconvert an HDTV-originated image to D1, especially because the timebase is the same (60 frames (or fields)/second as opposed to 29.94 frames/sec for NTSC).
HDTV is a perfect production medium and is great for projection in controlled viewing environments. For mass distribution D1 (or, more particularly, widescreen component) is far more appropriate, with or without line-doubling.
-- Clay
"I never metadata I didn't like."
or sell it to the pawn shop... whichever.
help out.
In Japan there is a new technology that is thoroughly trashing HD, called ClearVision. Today it's HD, tomorrow it's CV. Whatever, like CPU's, buy the best you can afford today, 'cuz that's gonna be knocked down a step sooner or later.
My $0.02 worth.
'K, I'm a newbie at AV stuff...
I borrowed the little Epson LCD projector from work a couple of weeks ago, hooked up my DVD player, and projected it onto a blank wall. I had an 8-foot screen at 720 resolution (the highest by DVD standards), and I was playing games off my laptop at 1024. (If you ever want to make someone motion sick, try EPI Racer on a HUGE screen with the view set to first person.)
My question is at $2500-$3500, I can carry this projector with me, vary the screen size, and get a very clear picture. So, what does HDTV offer for 10X the price? I know that projector bulbs burn out after 1000 hours or something, but at $200 a pop, I can take that over a $30K TV set.
I'm not flaming here, I really want to know.
I'd rather have someone respond than be modded up.
I'd say wait. Although for me, when the day arrives that non-HDTV is no longer available, is the day that I will stop watching TV.
P.S. I don't feel that Digital Cable is worth the money since I already own TiVo.
While there are many reasons while digital cable isn't worth the money, what does having a Tivo have to do with it?
Steve M
I, for one, have little interest in paying exorbirant amounts for technology that does not/will not allow me to time-shift. TV does not get to set my schedule.
Well, kind of. The PS2 internally displays at 640x240, then stretches it up to 640x480. If you've played the ESPN Snowboarding game (I forget what it's called) on the LCD in the demo at your local video game reseller, you will know that there are awful jaggies. That is because of the stretching method - it is not antialiased. For comparision, the Dreamcast can render at any of three resolutions: 320x240, 640x480 (native!), and over VGA, 800x608 (yes, 608, not 600.) Speaking as a Dreamcast owner, and homebrew developer, that's how the Dreamcast works. For my source of data on the PS2, go here. (Even if you don't want to verify my data, it's a good read anyway.) The page does indeed seem a touch biased, however the data seems accurate. I await your replies.
--pi
The problem with current HDTV's is that broadcasters are working on ways to control your viewing times through encryption of the HDTV signal. If this becomes widely accepted, you will need a DVI interface on your HDTV to view a program at maximum resolution - and essentially none of the HDTV sets on the market currently offer a DVI interface. Therefore if you buy one of these now, it's quite possible that two years from now you will be frozen out of full resolution HDTV broadcasts.
The only manufacturer that I know of that is 'future proofing' its sets is Mitsubishi - they promise upgradability to a DVI interface in the future. Even then though it's an expesive guarantee - that upgrade is likely to cost about $1000.
It's a damn shame, because the price/performance of HDTV sets has improved dramatically over the past year.
but just don't complain when you realise that your dvd collection is crappy low-res. I can't wait for 'dvd-2' with more copy protection systems (rot-13) and more ways for the mpaa to extort money. if everyone just bought projectors and watched 35mm life would be so much easyer....
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
Wait another year to 18 months. Even if you pop for an $800 normal def TV now and then a 16:9 high def set later, you will probably come out ahead.
Plus, what compelling reason is there for an HDTV set now? DVDs aren't high def and can look pretty bad when they are pushed onto a hi-def set. Most of the high-def broadcast stuff is barely worth watching.
Hang tight.
I have an RCA MM52110 -- it does have a line doubler built in.
Over DSS Satellite, it looks great. You can use the VGA input (HD input) or the analog input, and even regular channels look fine through BOTH inputs.
It also has an extra VGA input (plug a regular computer into the TV) -- it'll do 64k colors in 800x600 -- i wish it would do higher rez, but this is good enough. X looks wonderful in 52" BTW. I like to play some MP3's with XMMS and a full screen plug in that interacts with the music, it looks wonderful. For the price, the TV is really good.
I've had HDTV for a while now (the dish, the receiver, the TV) and aside from watching the HD demo channel now and again, there hasnt been ANYTHING worth watching in HD on the TV yet.
HBO does some broadcasts in HD but you cant tell a difference between it and the regular broadcast other then it is in widescreen. Its not filmed with the proper equipment, and so its not truly HD.
Thats my take anyway.
Forum Foundry, Inc.
If you don't know what you're missing, then you're not missing anything.
Quit going to stores and looking at them. As long as when you go over to your friends' houses, they don't have HDTV, you'll never notice that anything is wrong with old TV. Therefore, HDTV is a complete waste.
But once you start to see what it actually looks like, then you'll be in trouble.
Stick that head in the sand, and the danger will pass.
BTW, I am not joking.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
I watch TV about 3 times a week for about 1 hour each time. I additionally will watch 1 DVD/week for an additional 2 hours. This means I generally have the TV on 5 hours/week, or 260 hours/year. Since it seems that entertainment center type devices have a lifespan of about 10 years before boredom or penis-envy force an upgrade I figure the devices will be used for 2600 hours. Since I value the addition they bring to my life at about $2/hour I'm willing to spend about $2500 for the TV and the same amount for the other associated upgrades and video rentals (cable service is included in my rent).
In my decision I look at how long I've had my current gear and how much better it would be if I started replacing components. It would seem that my 9 year old 32" Sony will have to provide a couple more years of service. That's my way of doing things. YMMV.
-michael
I have everything a person needs to get HDTV except one item which I will explain a bit later.
I've got an 80 inch Mitsubishi which is HDTV ready. It is a 4x3 format TV that can show HDTV. Of course it's huge and great. Of the rear projection TV's it's the biggest I've personally ever seen. Ok, to make everyone jealous, the PIP on this baby is 27 diagonal inches by itself, WOW!
I live in the SF Bay area with a high number of the local stations producing HDTV signals.
I have a very large rotatable antenna on my roof which can grab the signals.
But I do not have the HDTV tuner for my TV yet.
The reason is is that I personally am a time-shifter and time-shifters need a way to record their programs. You can't cheaply record HDTV yet. There are $3000.00 VCRs out there that will record the signal.
If you prefer to tape your programs then watch them at a convenient moment in time then forget HDTV. Plus, you get the added benefit of being able to skip the commercials.
If you don't mind watching the commercials and have the cash to get the HDTV then get it.
Personally, I just recently purchased a TIVO (which only added to my timeshifting habits) and I have to say it is the most awesome gadget I have purchased in the last 10 years.
Spend the $100.00 on the TIVO with DirectTV receiver and save the odd $3-$4 thousand on the HDTV for now.
Second half to this story:
My 80 inch TV is broken at this moment. Will leave the details out here but suffice it to say that I did purchase a 5 year warrenty. No problems there, the service tech has faithfully been attempting to fix it.
But, my wife and I are terrified that the cost to fix it may exceed what it would cost our local Fry's Electronics (where we bought it) to replace it with the "latest, greatest" HDTV ready model.
The "latest, greatest" is a 73 inch Mitsubishi HDTV ready. Nice machine when showing HDTV, but when I ask the store to show me something in 4x3 format it looks crappy. Much, much worse than my current 80 inch TV.
Thus, make the salesperson show you the picture of a DVD or DirecTV or anything in 4x3 mode, because you might find yourself looking at a lot of it until 2006 or so.
Thus, if they try to replace our TV with newer technology we are going to say no thank-you, we want our old TV fixed. Or give us an 80 inch HDTV ready machine (BTW they don't make these anymore, hah, hah) to equivalently replace our current set.
Anything less is just not acceptable since I can't tape HDTV and I cannot record it on my TIVO.
My 2 cents.
OYAHHH
AirportTools
Caution: Contents under pressure
What makes TV good for me now-a-days is the fact that I can timeshift my shows and watch them at my convenience. The small amount of shows available for HDTV as well as the unability to timeshift at the current time makes HDTV score very low for me.
I just got (on Saturday) a new Sony 16:9 HDTV (57") TV and got Cable installed yesterday. The TV cost me $3000.
I mostly watch DVDs and that is my target. DVDs look awesome on this TV BTW. However I also wanted to get a TV that would last me many years to come.
If you think that you might get some use out of HDTV and you are planning to buy a new TV now, I say spring for the HDTV now and then later you will have it when you need it.
Buy quality, get the features you want. The TV will last a long time and in the long run you will spend less.
Joe
42 - So long and thanks for all the fish.
Bandwidth is still expensive!
Mpeg2 is old...
Why not use a mpeg4,7,.. for HDTV?
Does mpeg4/divx scale up to 1900x1080?
I have a TV that's large enough to be comfortable, but I'd like a larger one. The problem is that the next steps up take me near a thousand dollars for a decent set.
Well, I'm not going to pay a grand for a TV that I won't use more than a year or two, so I'm not going to do it. For now, I'll stick with what I have, and when a good wide-screen HDTV comes into my price range, I'll grab it.
steve
Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
I'd far prefer to have a monitor the size of an HDTV, as monitors are capable of much better resolution. The huge monitors and the nifty video boards that will follow will give the ultimate resolution.
By the FCC cut off date for HDTV of 2006, the prices of these units will have to drop incredibly. If not, "Joe Public" won't be able to afford HDTV sets and...who is going to watch all those comercials if nobody has a HDTV?
Congress only stated that the broadcasters must broadcast a digital signal, not a high definition signal. Likely, the rest of the bandwidth will be sold off, while the consumer enjoys EDTV (Enhanced Definition Television, a by-product of digital signals).
Similarly to how TV is not broadcasted with a full strength of red (that's why your picture is never truly black).
Don't buy into something that will never be fully realised.!
"I'm a busy tech head, and the last thing I want to do at the end of the day is watch commercials."
;)
Good grief! You mean you don't have a TiVO yet? I have mine set to record all my favorite shows, and I don't ever bother with commercials. Also, DirecTV has much higher quality than regular cable or antenna or whatever it is that you use to watch TV.
I hear the "but I never watch TV" excuse all the time. I never watched TV either until I got my TiVO. Now I watch several shows and tons of movies. It's expensive, but IMHO worth it. And I don't have to go to the video store.
I would not consider HDTV without also ensuring that the display includes a digital interface, particularly DVI-I. If you ever compare digital to analog interfaces on the same device, you'll never go back to analog. Besides, when you're blowing a few grand, an extra grand is going to be worth it in the long run.
(I purchased a Proxima projector about a year ago with the intention of getting a computer-based HDTV decoder solution.)
IIRC, their reject pile would pass Q/A for a Nikon Nikor lens, which is hardly junk.
You could've hired me.
In my living room I currently use a 32" TV (700 line res), but the SVID input is connected to a computer with SVID output (800x600), high-speed internet connection, a DVD drive, Dolby 5.1 sound card, and a wireless keyboard/mouse. There is a TV tuner card in the computer that acts as a digital VCR, storing the files on my home file server. This has been OK for the last 2 years, but I'm looking at upgrading a couple of things. I'm looking for an HDTV tuner card, which I haven't found yet but should be available soon. I still have a hard time reading text from the far end of the room, so I'm considering a XGA (1024x768) projector ($2000) and a motorized screen, for a ~100" diagonal display. That still doesn't approach the picture I just saw when I played the DVD of Cirque du Soliel's Journey of Man, which was originally filmed for IMAX, on my new laptop with the 15" 1600x1200x32bit screen! Wow! I swear you could see every leaf in that forest! Yes, if you have money to burn, you can get really good quality. But if you have to live within a budget, you have to learn to think. Yes, and compromise a bit...
A DVD player with progressive scan looks great on my HDTV. Most people forget about the DVD factor.
Also my xbox supports hd, it looks incredible.
I have a Toshiba directv receiver. It gets about 8 local channels, 3 or 4 of which broadcast regularly in hd, as well as an HBO HD and HDNet.
Get it dood. If you can afford it, get it. It is sweet.
I'm going to go somewhat against the flow of the technology-obsessed geeks posting here and point out that HDTV's success or failure will depend on the great masses of average TV viewers out there, not a few videophiles.
HDTV almost certainly will not make its scheduled transition for several very good reasons:
All in all, HDTV is *far* too expensive, troublesome, and immature to reach the market penetration it *must* achieve to be successful. Personally, I laugh at people paying thousands of dollars for technology that will be obsolete by the time they get a chance to use it.
My call: HDTV will remain an expensive toy for several years, and the FCC will back off from its timetable once the general populace realizes it's being railroaded, leaving the industry in a shambles. It is possible, although not entirely likely, that HDTV will wither away entirely at that time, replaced by HD-over-IP standards that avoid the problems of HDTV entirely. I wouldn't buy any HDTV gear for another several years in any case, even if there were anything out there worth watching.
(As an aside, one of the more interesting (and terrifying, for the industry) possible outcomes of the FCC sticking to its guns and forcing analog off the air would be a wholesale exodus of people simply deciding that they can easily live without TV at all given the cost in both dollars and aggravation to go through with the "upgrade". Forced upgrades are likely to work even less well here than in the Microsoft world. If these people started reading old books again instead, HDTV could turn out to be a very good thing for society...
"The future's good and the present is nothing to sneeze at." - Roblimo's last
I was reading about HDTV and DVD's and I found out that: "Regular DVDs are almost all 480i, but some "progressive DVDs" exist at 480p. (They talk about 720p DVDs but that's in the future)" (found at http://www.nwlink.com/~rxg/hdtv.html) What is a progressive DVD? Is that same as any other DVD but played on a player thats capable of playing it progressively? So basically any DVD movie can be progressive as long as you have the right player? And oh anybody heard anything about 720p DVD's? Will they be "burned" on same DVD media format? Will they require different DVD players? Will they be bigger in size (resulting in a new DVD media disc format) since I imagine with increased resolution movies would need more space on a DVD disc? Thanks for all of your comments ;o)
I don't think the future of Digital Television (DTC) is entirely clear yet, but that doesn't mean you can't enjoy better TV watching today.
My understanding is that the FCC's 2006 deadline is a "soft deadline", and that the present TV broadcast spectrum will be returned to the FCC by that date or whenever 85% of the population is equipped to receive DTV (Digital Television) broadcasts, so the transition to DTV may actually take a good deal longer.
Also unresolved is the matter of copy protection for high value programming like first-run movies: The movie studios want it, but will the public buy into any scheme which renders a lot of existing video gear obsolete? One such copy protection standard known as DTCP (Digital Television Copy Protection)has been devised. Relying on encrypted IEEE1394 data links between audio and video components, it has the potential to simplify system hookup, but it also gives content providers the means to control your access to their program materials, and it renders current gear obsolete. To the best of my knowledge, only 1 Sony XBR2 set is currently equipped with IEEE1394. Meanwhile, the competing HDCP (High-Bandwidth Digital Content Protection) system utilizes a different connection between components. You can find a HDCP overview here: http://www.dvhs.co.uk/100046.htm . I think inclusion of either in the hardware that we buy amounts to a tax benefiting the movie studios. Neither system affects off-the-air broadcasts but rather, D-VHS tapes, premium programming over cable and satellite.
But success of these or other copy-protection schemes depends on our willingness to buy into them (remember DiVX DVDs?)and I'm perfectly happy to vote for "None of the above" with my dollars. Meanwhile, today's regular broadcasts, video games and DVD movies look dramatically better on a line-doubled premium quality CRT, and at $853.97 (Best Buy), I think a set such as the 27" Samsung Dynaflat is well worth a closer look. When mine wears out, I'll check back to see whether the future has sorted itself out yet ;-)
can be found at http://www.ee.washington.edu/conselec/CE/kuhn/hdtv /95x5.htm
Does anybody here really think that that the FCC mandate will stay in place if the current curve of non-compliance holds? Sure, some broadcasters are spotting the airwaves with bits of HDTV here and there, but they'd much rather use the extra free bandwith for more lucrative purposes. And if the content providers get their way technologically and the Disney/Betamax decision gets turns on its head so that the proletariat can't timeshift programming anymore, suddenly HDTV doesn't look sexy at all. Not to mention the huge installed base of rendered-incompatible NTSC boxes owned-by-voters-during-a-recession-or-worse: who will be the first to try to make political hay by standing up and decrying the mandated obsolescence of a bazillion consumer boxes of the most ubiquitous and popular technology in the country? (And by a group of unelected officials,no less!)
I don't care how many contributions have been rolling into the coffers, this deadline's going to slip, slip, slip and die. It was dead as soon as the technology chosen wasn't something that was also receivable, even if poorly, on Never Twice the Same Color sets.
Really long S-Video cables tend to degrade the quality. What you can do instead is cut an S-Video cable in half, and then splice two coaxial connectors (of the BNC or CATV variety) to each end of the S-Video cable, and then connect them using standard coaxial network (or CATV, depending on the type of connector you use) cable. It doesn't matter which wires go where (although putting the ground on the sheath will improve signal quality and let you make the cable longer) as long as they all get there in the right order. I think there are some companies that make cables like this for you.
Doing this, instead of buying a really long S-Video cable, will help out signal quality, especially if you are using a large digital TV.
As far as hooking a VGA up to an HDTV, if you're lucky (wealthy) enough to have an HDTV with 5 BNC on the back, you can just by a 15-pin to 5 BNC adaptor cable (this should cost at least $20 for a big enough cable -- make sure it's nice and heavy duty. Never use a cheap VGA extension cable (it should be at least a centimeter in diameter)). I know that some monitors already have a 15-pin connector. Most of them, however, have a 3 BNC connector with sync-on-green/Cr. If you make/buy a 5BNC-3BNC converter, or get a 15-pin to 3BNC cable, you should be able to hook it to the TV directly, without the RGB->Y/Cb/Cr converter, as most progressive scan TV's have support for both color spaces.
To learn more about color spaces, do a Google search for something like NTSC color space or NTSC gamut (or PAL depending on where you live).
I know the Mitsubishi diamond series have a VGA input. It is only 640x480 though. It should be good enough for simple purposes (ie. mp3 player display, text console) but not for much else.
_damnit_
It's my job to freeze you. -- Logan's Run
I bought a Hitachi 43" HDTV last week for myself, and I love it so far. I hardly ever watch normal TV anymore, but the quality for my DVD and PS2 are insane. I bought the TV without the HDTV tuner because I knew I would never watch a HDTV show or if I did I wouldn't care to watch it in normal TV. Really depends on what you want to use it for.
And yes, I do think the HDTV is a _required_ upgrade for FFX *grin*
Why would you spend money on expensive equipment just to watch TV? It's not like there's much worth watching in the first place. C'mon now. You want MORE corporate produced culture and brain-numbing advertising? And it's not like your DVD movies will look any better on a HDTV. If you have some cash burning a hole in your pocket, make yourself a video projector using an overhead and a modified LCD panel.
mike
I've yet to see an HDTV unit that's worth it. The concept is great, but all the set's I've seen have lousy pictures. The color tends to wash out unless your sitting directly in front of the monitor. Motion and curved objects cause all sorts of problems. Objects are aliased on the fly, so there are square chunks in the picture. Nothing is worse that some non-linear shaped object in motion. It constantly flips into "focus" as it's being aliased (or whatever the process is).
If you haven't noticed this, you're kidding yourself.
Sorry, but I think HDTV is nothing but a con.
Plasma screens are the best for picture quality. They are really coming down in price lately also. Try looking at the NEC's. They support 1080i and 720p. I'd recommend getting a satellite for the HDTV though. Make sure you also get one that supports 720p it's much better than the 1080i. If you are looking for a good deal on a plasma try PlasmaOne.com they will give you a good deal and can give you some more information about HDTV.
Whose idea was it to put Windows servers on the net in the first place, anyway?
Classic troll--and that's a compliment.
My theory is: there's one guy who posts all the best trolls on Slashdot. He's got a PhD in Trolling from Pacific Western University, and that's all he ever does--that's why he's so good.
Keep em coming.
PS Your comment about the govt forcing you to buy HDTVs was totally ignorant, knee jerk, pathetic reationary shitscum. So stick to trolling.
Actually you might want to go reread the spec. I've played several Gamecube titles which support the widescreen format of HDTV. True progressive scan existed before HDTV but it *is* in the HDTV spec. Regardless GameCube supports the widescreen format which definitely is one of th HDTV modes.
I think the big question is if HDTV will actually survive?? Everyone seems to think it will, but I have some serious doubts.
The FCC has their little schedule on when and how this will all happen. But personally I think a safe bet would be that in 2020, we'll still be watching NTSC television. As for HDTV, who knows? It may not last.
It's a crappy system anyway. We should go along with the rest of the world and use the DVB standard. http://www.dvb.org
So no, I wouldn't buy a HDTV receiver at this point. You may be buying nothing more than a $2,000 coversation piece!
why?
let's first look at where everything start, in the studios of television stations.
at current, the technology that most are using are dvpro, digitelbetacam, and d1(but mostly for mastering). when you are going to get to use hdtv, you will have to change:
1. cameras - if you are going to use >720i or 720p and above since NTSC uses 720i
2. tapes - since you will need to store more information and you will need a bigger tape to store 1 hr of video
3. editing stations - you will have to replace all those avid systems to support hdtv and you will really need lots of storage space to store those video
4. transmission equipment - you will need a different equipment to process and transmit digital high resolution signals and multichannel audio
if one is missing, it is useless to go hdtv since a low quality and/or analog signal will just ruin your output. it will be very costly to replace everything at the same time. just go to sony website and look at their professional hdtv equipment. although there may be some who are running 100% on hdtv and just converting it back to analog, majority i believe is not 100% hdtv ready.
i believe that hdtv right now is just converted to hdtv from standard ntsc signals. so you will not see any difference except since the pixels are much smaller so it is clearer but in terms of resolution and other aspects, there are no changes.
Live your life each day as if it was your last.
I bought a 46" projection TV with an HDTV receiver and a DirecTV dish. Right off the bat the TV is too good, it makes the digital satellite broadcasts and my DVD's look pretty bad ;) Just too hi-res; you can easily see all the flaws in signals that look fine on a 27" crt. I even bought a progressive-scan DVD; still not good enough.
;) Every once in a while PBS has a great special on.
And the channel selection is pretty poor. I'm lucky; many of the Bay area stations broadcast simultaneously in HDTV for part of the their programming. There isn't very much, though. CSI looks wonderful, and very unforgiving to the actor's skin
Then DirecTV has the one HBO channel in HDTV, and it's nice, but not quite as good as real HDTV source. They have a "preview" of an HDTV channel, but it's just random stuff. Pretty, though.
So, to summarize, the real HDTV broadcasts are wonderful, almost like looking out a window sometimes, but there is precious little programming for it yet.
If you think it will be hard to make HDTV commercial, just think that this relates only to the US. In third world countries with American cable the hope of making it popular is dozens of times lower.
The problem comes if the FCC does institute the HDTV standard and all our networks go HD by 2007 or 2008. Just let the idea glow a little. Now, what if it did happen... how in the world will those American signals be passed to countries where there is no financial motivation or hope to get receivers or even sell the expensive TVs?
Nothing that has to stay in a bubble can really become profitable and standard. So if they tell me America will have HD signals by 2006, America will drop out of the rest of the world because its signals will be compatible with only a few countries.
"Wireless : LAN
feel my penis
xbox sucks
If you watch a lot of DVDs, go for it. If you don't, then I wouldn't. Your selection of HDTV broadcasts in the US is extremely limited right now, and you can't count on it getting any better anytime soon, regardless of what the network PR people might be saying.
The choice should be no television, period.
... doing stuff? Like: hanging out with friends, reading, coding, skateboarding, writing, having sex, listening to music, designing cool buildings, reading /., rock climbing, eating, or even -- gasp, working?
On average, most people watch about 20 hours a week. (see here for a somewhat over the top interpretation about the effect on kids) That's a part time job. Think about the cost of the intellectual capital involved here when you multiply 20 hours a week times everyone who has a television.
Granted, there exists a healthy amount of interesting, educational, and entertaining programming. And the Net hasn't entirely replaced CNN yet as the chief means of disseminating American propaganda to the masses during times of crisis or hysteria.
But let's face it, for every hour of really enlightening TV you saw, you also sat there flipping around for at least two hours of Who Wants to be a Millionaire or some other crap. Not to mention 48 minutes of ads.
Wouldn't you rather spend all that time
Real life: it's better than HDTV.
Here is an inexpensive way to try out HDTV on your PC:
http://www.accessDTV.com/
I for one, would not buy a full HDTV receiver right now, because there is some doubt whether the FCC is going to succumb to special interest groups and postpone HDTV implementation indefinately.
As far as I know the DTV transmission and receiving standards that the FCC wishes to force upon the t.v. viewing nation do NOT require HDTV compatability. While t.v. broadcasters may find it profitable to simulcast a HDTV friendly signal on the ample bandwidth they're being traded for their current allotment, we will have to see if the standard sinks or swims. I am assuming that there will be available conversion boxes for HDTV and I am assuming that they will cost a bundle compared to the regular television conversion boxes that are planned on being made cheaply available to the non-DTV owning masses. Buying any television is a scarier proposition every day as there really is no way of knowing if the DTV standard will actually be forced or not.
Important feature #3: On 4:3 sets, make sure that the set actually displays 720 or 1080 lines of resolution on letterboxed material, instead of downsampling to the area between the black bands. This feature goes by various names, and works by cutting the amplitude of the vertical drive to get the letterbox aspect ratio instead of downsampling. Of course, the shadow mask will be the limiting factor in actual resolution.
Regular old analog NTSC sets can have a similar feature as well, renehollan gave a technical description of what many folks call "anamorphic squeeze mode" which is supported by many sets. In layman's terms, a 4:3 set that can do an "anamorphic squeeze" is capable of drawing all of the scanlines slightly more close together, so as to "squeeze" the video signal from 4:3 to 16:9. This is particularly usefull for those DVDs which are "optimized for 16:9 TVs", or even the few odd Laserdiscs which were made for 16:9 TVs. For those of us who don't have the money to spend on progressive scan HDTV sets just yet, the ~$500 Sony Wegas have this feature, and DVDs look just great on them. Also, the apeture grille ("Trinitron") tube of the Sony sets have unbroken vertical stripes of phospher, so there is no shadow mask to limit actual vertical resolution.
"Remember, there never were pineapple-almond cookies here."
I know my employer is already broadcasting in HDTV, we carry one station HGTV (yay). We have a HDTV monitor ( a hi-end TV, not the kind you connect to your computer) in our head end and it looks really nice. What I find dispisable is that they use DVD or HDTV recordings on those TVs. NTSC on a HDTV is horrable.