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?

Comments

Progressive scan on the cheap

[FauxPasIII]

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.

My HDTV

[TheSHAD0W]

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.

Don't buy it.

[crucini]

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.

Re:Directv

[Osty]

also progressive scan DVD players may look decent on one

s/may/will/. Only HD-upgradeable TVs (at a minimum. HD-ready is the same but with an HD tuner) will make use of the progressive-scan features of a progressive-scan DVD player. Otherwise, you're just wasting your money on the player (unless, of course, you're worried about future-proofing your investment, in which case you may as well buy a progressive-scan player if you expect to buy a new HDTV within the next couple years). Regular TVs only do 480i.

IMHO, an HD-upgradeable TV is very much worth it, and at $2000 for the 46" 16:9 Mitsubishi 46809 (I got the 807, but same difference), it's quite affordable. Sure, you don't get an HD tuner in the set, but for a couple hundred $$$ you can have one added. Or you can use your DirectTV tuner, or cable box (in select markets) instead, and not need an HD tuner at all. Plus as you already mentioned, it's great for progressive-scan DVD players (and non-progressive scan DVD players, even), and the latest generation of game consoles have HD support (XBox will do progressive scan natively if your TV supports it, though not all games are 16:9, and it's also capable of doing 720i, 720p, and 1080i once games begin supporting those resolutions; Gamecube requires you to enable progressive scan per game in games that support it; I don't know how the PS2 works). A good investment, and about $1000 less than you're expecting (a $2000 TV will cost you near $2700 once you've added in a base for the TV, tax, and a service contract, but then a $3000 TV will end up costing that much more as well).

Re:my first impressions...

[FFFish]

No salt needed. I'll vouch for what you've said. My full disclosure is that I do own a TV. It's a 1976 12" Electrohome. No cable. :-)

KCTS, Beautiful BC Magazine, and Overwaitea Foods grocery stores funded a project to film British Columbia. The video is named Over BC.

It is stunning.

To promote the video, it was shown in Overwaitea and Save-On stores, running off uncompressed digital tape and displayed on a true HDTV. No artifacting: 20MHz bandwidth sent to a 1080x1920x60Hz (120Hz interlaced) professional-grade display.

Mindblowing quality. It's like watching film, but without the flicker. Amazing detail. Rock-solid imaging. Fan-fucking-tastic.

Naturally, the HDTV that we're actually ending up with can't compare. It's been compressed, so there's all sorts of obnoxious aliasing. And the screen quality isn't quite up to the pro-quality $50,000 rig they had at the store. And it's impossible to pump 20MHz of information to consumers; current standards limit HDTV to about 6MHz bandwidth, with a subsequent loss of detail and quality.

But, still, even the consumer-grade stuff looks a helluva lot better than the age-old NTSC format.

Shame there's still nothing on TV worth watching.

Another Consideration

[JabberWokky]

Shame there's still nothing on TV worth watching.

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

Broadcasts are fine, BUT....

[Kjella]

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

Re:Problems with HDTV

[Refrag]

Well, I don't have a better summary of what you think went on behind closed doors. But, I do have an HDTV, so I can tell you what reality is.

ABC and CBS broadcast a large portion of their shows in HDTV. Each affiliate in Charlotte has a station that broadcasts in 16:9 HDTV 24/7 (however during the daytime the programs mostly have black bars on the sides to create a 4:3 image). They both also have an additional sub-channel that is in 4:3 SDTV and continuously runs a weather map. For a brief period of time one of these stations was experimenting with running one 16:9 channel, a 4:3 sub-channel with the same content, and an additional 4:3 sub-channel with a weather map.

NBC does a few shows in HDTV. They have a channel running in 16:9 HDTV 24/7 (most times with black bars -- not even Friends is in widescreen). They also have a sub-channel running a weather map.

Fox does a few shows in 16:9 480P (X-Files is one). They have a sub-channel that runs 16:9 24/7 and a sub-channel that runs a weather map in 4:3 with voice synthesis reading the weather report in a loop. Fox almost always has bars on the sides of the 16:9 channel.

PBS has five subchannels. I don't remember exactly what they all are; but one appears to be dedicated to kids, one to education, and one to 1080i HDTV.

HDTV won't make it - here's why

[dublin]

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:

- HDTV sets are *really* expensive. They will remain so until volume grows, so this is a chicken-and-egg problem with no reasonable solution. Most people will NOT buy a new TV to deal with HDTV. TV viewership is falling as it is with more and more channels of tripe. Really high-fidelity tripe is not likely to sell any better.

- Existing OTA (over the air) TV viewers will have to use set-top HDTV tuners after the transition. I predict that when the average TV viewer realizes the government is planning to force everyone (especially those that *only have* OTA TV access) to buy a $300-400 tuner box, there will be a huge outcry and the FCC will back down quickly. Expect the race/class card trump to be played here.

- Remember that 70% of US TV viewers get their signal over cable. There is no standard way to deliver HDTV over cable (nor will there be for some time), and in any case, the MSOs (cable companies) are balking at burning more of thier bandwidth for local stations. The FCC has determined that MSOs are *not* required to carry both analog and digital broadcasts for local stations, and most don't want to. If the local stations then, have to choose between sending out their analog or HDTV signals over cable, they *won't* pick HDTV, since doing so would cut them off from the majority of their audience, allowing their competitors to clean their clocks.

- There is an implicit assumption in most of the HDTV advocate posts that HDTV will be actually be worth something. In reality, the FCC has consciously not spcified that HDTV bandwidth be used to deliver HDTV picture. The stations can carve up the HDTV bandwidth in any way they want to - it's likely that many will choose to use that bandwidth to deliver several lower-quality channels and datacasting services, for example, rather than a single HD channel. This is fairly predictable, since there's more money in several smaller chunks of bandwidth than one big one.

- The technological complexity that HDTV throws into the already overly complex interconnections of DVD players, VCRS, cable tuner boxes, satellite receivers, etc. is not to be overlooked. Most people (even many geeks, from what I've seen) do *not* have the skills required to figure out how everything *should* be connected, and even if correctly connected, the devices themselves don't lend themselves to quick or easy reconfiguration during viewing. The simple fact that hooking up more than two sources to the average TV is a major PITA will keep many away.

- Another ugly secret of HDTV today is that (in almost all cities today), if you want it, you'll have to re-enter the wild and wooly world of TV antennas in order to receive your local HDTV broadcast. This is the ugly secret of the HDTV industry - there are almost no cable systems that can deliver HDTV signals. Don't confuse "Digital Cable", which is just the regular NTSC stuff with MPEG encoding and a digital conditional access system (CAS) with delivery of HDTV over cable. They are very different. In almost all areas of the country today, you have only two options for receiving an HDTV signal: Broadcast antenna, or the few channels that are available via satellite, if you have a new enough box/dish and deep pockets for programming.

- Further, the lack of off-line HDTV video sources (videotapes, discs, etc.) is another crippling blow. 16:9 is nice, but not enough to drive most people to HDTV. The MPAA and its ilk are not likely to allow HD media anytime soon, so don't expect to use that capability you paid for except as noted above.

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... ;-) )