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

Not worth it Yet.

[msolnik]

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.

Re:Not worth it Yet.

[jesup]

Digital cable is LOWER resolution then even normal cable. In fact, because the displays are large and sharp, digital cable often looks far worse on an HDTV than on a smaller regular TV.

Quality will improve, but not dramatically - the limits are size and (for RPTV's) gun size.

Prices have already come down lots - I paid $5k, but that was 2 years ago for a top-of-the-line Pioneer Elite. Now effectively the same TV (minus lacquer) is $2500.

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my first impressions...

[morcheeba]

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.

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.

Re:my first impressions...

[foobar104]

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...

It's important to note that full-bandwidth 1080i is over a billion and a quarter bits per second of data[1], while over-the-air terrestrial broadcast is encoded with MPEG-2 at just over 19 million bits per second. HDTV over satellite is even lower than that, sometimes as low as 6 million bits per second.

The Sony HDCAM deck uses DCT compression at a ratio of around 10:1, and you have to be pretty sharp to see the difference between that format and uncompressed 1080i. But even uneducated eyes, like mine, can see the difference between uncompressed 1080i or HDCAM and over-the-air 19 Mbit, and 6 Mbit direct-broadcast satellite isn't even in the same ballpark.

Of course, your point was that the monitor makes a difference. This is absolutely true. The difference between a consumer set (about $4000) from Sony and a broadcast monitor (about $40,000) from Sony can also be perceived by mere mortals.

Funny story about that. I was told by a Sony rep at NAB two years ago that they manufacture all of their picture tubes on the same assembly line, then they test them. Depending on the quality of the finished tube, they'll put it in their broadcast monitors (if it can resolve 1000 lines), or their high-end consumer TVs (if it can resolve 600 lines) or their low-end consumer TVs (if it lights up when you run current through it). Is it true? Don't know. But it's amusing anyway.

[1] Screw this "giga," "gibi," "goober," "bippi" crap.

Problems with HDTV

[Pinball Wizard]

Although broadcasters will be broadcasting HDTV by 2006, there is a catch. HDTV can be broken up in to several different, lower quality channels. Its much cheaper for networks to do it this way, so what do you think will happen?

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.

Re:Problems with HDTV

[Detritus]

The FCC wanted to take away some of the UHF TV spectrum for public safety, land mobile and other uses. The broadcasters didn't want to lose any spectrum so they said that they needed it for high-definition TV. They pointed out that the Japanese and Europeans were working on HDTV, and we didn't want to fall behind those sneaky furriners. It worked, they got to keep their spectrum on the basis of a vague promise to broadcast in HDTV, someday. Fast forward to today, those same broadcasters are now bitching about how expensive HDTV is and how they need extensions to the FCC deadlines for switching to HDTV. The transmission standard (ATSC) has severe problems coping with multipath (ghosts on NTSC). The cable companies are trying to ignore the issue of digital must-carry, they would rather have 500 channels of PPV, HSN and WWF in sub-NTSC quality digital cable. Hollywood views this as their golden opportunity to push encryption, copy protection and conditional access. The networks aren't eager to spend a lot of money on HDTV production when there are so few ATSC receivers (less than 200K) in American homes. Electronics retailers are pushing "digital ready" TV sets and DBS receivers, but ATSC receivers are hard to find, buggy and intolerant of multipath.

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.

Rushed?

[CaptainSuperBoy]

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.

It depends.

[NetJunkie]

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. :)

Ah, the age-old question...

[SlashChick]

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. ;)

Not true.

[NetJunkie]

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.

Only if money is no object.

[.@.]

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.

Re:I think it's a bad idea...

[liquidsin]

No...THIS is a bad idea!

...I wanted to get Slashdot's opinion.

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.

HDTV is really hitting it's stride nowadays

[jesup]

I got an HDTV almost 2 years ago, when the amount available was pretty low other than Jay Leno and some football and a few other specials. Even so, it was stunning. Nowadays, it's not even that expensive, and some cable companies are starting to carry it.

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).

Re:Questions about HDTV

[.@.]

My set can do both 720p and 1080i. 720p is better, hands down.

I'm scared!

[wfmcwalter]

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

Yes and No

[rocur]

First, check out HDTV Galaxy for lots of good information.

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.

Warning sarcasm alert

[discovercomics]

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

/*Begin sarcasm (särkzm)*/
[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...

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).

Don't always need a receiver...

[NetJunkie]

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.

How's the weather?

[TexTex]

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.

if you have the cash to spare for HDTV

[tcc]

another option if you're not watching a LOT of tv and you have the money is buying a cheap DLP projector.

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 :) ). 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.

Personnaly I think buying a tv for 3K$ (or kibidollars :) ) 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.

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 :)

Widescreen TV without HD?

[Malc]

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 ;)

Dissenting View from AV Snob

[Doctor K]

Hello,

I saw lots of comments here adovocating HDTV if you have the money. I would like to offer a dissenting view.

Some background ... 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.)

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 ... 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?

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 ... 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.

- 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 ... _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.)

- Their is still bickering about standards (modulation formats ... 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.

- 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

existing tv is limping along?

[Splork]

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...

HDTV & Australia

[gavcam]

Australia has had HDTV for nearly a year now, and the uptake has been, shall we say, woeful! This little beauty comes from www.chaser.com.au.

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.

Re:I think it's a bad idea...

[flacco]

Well, I would say that a very high quality picture is a good idea, but I agree that the economics are all wrong. Cable and Satellite have demonstrated that people want more channels,

Replace the drek currently on TV with XXX high-resolution porn and see how quickly the public changes its mind. They'll want just one extremely high resolution channel.

HD for DVD or TV?

[maraist]

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

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

Worth It

[renehollan]

I recently bought a Sony 32" HDTV-ready set for US$1800 delivered from Crutchfield. Combined with a Sony Sat-HD100 terrestrial/satellite receiver (another $800, from American Satellite) and a Terk TV55 terrestrial HD/Standard TV antenna, it is great.

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).

Re:I think it's a bad idea...

[isdnip]

HDTV fits into a single TV channel.

The FCC has told TV stations to transition to digital TV. The 12/31/2006 date is a goal, but there are extension built into the rules that WILL be invoked, so expect analog to stay on the air through 2008 at least. Many DTV stations are already on the air, though not all shows are produced with HDTV quality. After the deadline, analog TV transmitters will go dark and the broadcasters will be back to one channel, DTV, between channels 2 and 51 (52+ are being recycled).

The DTV standard uses a single TV channel with digital modulation to create a >20Mbps bitstream. That stream can be used for a single HDTV show or multiple lower-rate streams. MPEG-2 compression, used on satellites for high-quality feeds, is generally 6 Mbps; HDTV has various formats that compress to under 20 Mbps.

HDTV is a production medium, not for distribution

[SIWaters]

I spent 1991-2 working for an HDTV production company here in the US, and then consulted for several years, writing the first book on HDTV production (The Guide to High Definition Video Production: Preparing for a Widescreen World; Focal Press 1996, ISBN-0-240-80265-9).

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

wait another 12-18 months.

[Gumber]

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.

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... ;-) )