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Whether (And When) To Buy HDTV?
zzxc writes "A NBC local station in Indiana is carrying an article on whether it is smart to buy a high definition television now or later. While it isn't very technical, it does provide some practical insight. Keep in mind that the FCC deadline for television stations switching to HDTV is December 31, 2006." I don't think I want another television screen that can't also be a computer monitor.
how about when i can afford one? (college is expensive)
mechanicos ergo cogito
And why is it my TV costs more than my monitor yet in comparison a TV is terrible quality ?
Pretty soon we will HAVE to buy HDTVs so why waste the money on an old analog TV when it will be almost useless in only a few years. Hopefully my analog TV will last a little longer so I don't have to shell out the cash.
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Yeah. And in a couple years they'll push it back because there's not enough adoption of the technology or it's still too expensive...
alias uptime="echo '5:33pm up 22342352324 days, 6:28, 2124315623 users, load average: 2432.40, 12312.31, 123123.19'"
They've just standardized HDTV for cable.
HDTV's still do not have digital outputs, and
VCR's & DVD's do not have completely digital output yet.
Another few years, it should settled out.
I thought everybody had to switch to DIGITAL TV, not necessarily HIGH DEFINITION DIGITAL TV.
Something tells me December 30, 2006 will be the time to buy for most naive, uninformed Americans.
Give us content and buyers will follow. Content ... any content. Content! Content! Content!
I love my HDTV set, and it's only a 32" 480-line 4:3 TV. Watching Sopranos in HDTV, or any movies on HBO/Showtime, and even network television if I'm home for prime time.
However, it's had it's hassles and difficulties, and you are paying to be on the cutting edge. It's fun, and the sound/video is incredible. However, be ready to pay the early adopter premium and pain.
Alex
HDTV looks amazing. Thats great. But, the price is amazingly high as well. When (or rather if) all the stations broadcast only in HDTV, I am POSITIVE that cable companies will give/let people rent set-top boxes that will translate HDTV signal into what 'normal' TVs now will understand. Cable companies and stations can't afford to lose out on the hundreds of millions of customers simply because they don't have the money to buy a compatible TV. The only reason to buy an HDTV now is if you are addicted to great quality video... but, the hassles of there not being a clear-cut HDTV standard make this close to a waste of money 5 years down the road.
I think my principles are reachin' an all time low
>But that's not the total price. With that $700 >model, you'll need a tuner, which will add >another $400 to $700 plus about $150 for cables. >That brings the total price in at least around >$1300.
$150 for cables?
I knew Monster cables were a racket, but DAMN, I need to buy stock in that company. Is that best buy sales associate going to try to sell me an extended warranty for my cables?
Computer Display technology would seem to be better and more flexible. HDTV sounds like some government program that's doomed for failure.
I hope some entreprenuers out there start producing 30" wide Field Emission Displays with higher resolution and ditch HdTV standards. Hdtv was invented in the 60's or 70's I heard. Not very up to date .
that guy spent at tv school to explain how a remote works.
the other day I was walking around in Best buy taking a look at the big TVs and I saw a display for some company's fision of the future of home theatre: The little illustration showedd a big TV, DVD player, Receiver, and other boxes all joined together by Firewire cables.
No fancy wiring schemes just to be able to record off the Satellite, or to do other things that require clever wiring, just Firewire between all the devices that can route a purely digital signal wherever it needs to go.
Once all of my components can do that, AND interface with my PC and Mac, then I will see a revolution in TV/Home Theatre. Until then, it's just another way to make the picture sharper and better looking overall, not redefining the whole idea of home theatre
An article about whether to buy a new-technology-enabled TV on a TV station's web site.
Palaces, barricades, threats, meet promises
The 2006 deadline is for having DIGITAL broadcasts, *not* High-Definition. They are two seperate issues right now. While there will be a set-top adapter available to convert digital to analog for older TVs, it is unknown as to whether or not these will actually be inexpensive enough to warrant not just purchasing a new television set. It is also very likely that stations will maintain an analog broadcast if it proves to be useful in their area (perhaps where the demographic is not likely to upgrade old systems).
Hear that, CBS? You'd better keep analog up for your demographic (the old farts that don't want to give up their old console Zenith from the 1970s).
Jethro73
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur.
This guy did an in-depth HDTV report. It's on his web site: HDTV Report
- Eric, InvisibleRobot.com
What are these TV's that you speak of?
;o)
All I know of is what's in front of me now
But seriously...I never really watch TV, ever.
I don't even have cable, and could care less.
Paying that much for basically non-stop advertising, and non-stop channel switching.
Television just isn't all it's cracked up to be.
Even most news anymore hits the web before you see it on TV. I can watch my movies, see the few shows I like (simpson's, anyone?) and enjoy my music. For me, a TV is just an added, unecessary expense.
That's a proposal by the HDTV manufacturers that'll never happen.
The media giants have their scheme down pat. They reveal new technology, tout it's benefits with heavy advertising, then slowly withdraw the old technology to force consumers to buy the new hardware product.
How often do you see VHS advertised anymore? Yes, DVD is better quality, but except for videophiles, people don't care much about the negligible difference. I don't see that HDTV is in anyway different.
It's no coincidence that manufacturers like Sony, that also make hardware, are the ones who push new technologies the most.
--spin2cool
It was the rule to switch to just digital, not high definition.
When did this change?
its still a stupid rule, and only serves to push more content to fall under the dmca.. and to get rid of the 'small fry' independent broadcasters..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Are there any HDTV tuners out there so I can take advantage of my high-res computer displays?
I own a 32" TV right now. Supposedly, by 2007 it will be obsolete -- as an analog set, it will need a converter box to play digital broadcasts, and the quality will probably be sub-par. I'll probably want to buy a new set.
Since it's the government forcing my equipment into obsolecence this time, though, perhaps they've thought up a conventient way to recycle my (and everybody else's) old CRTs? Or are we just going to dump them into some godforsaken rural town in China, and let the kids pick through the remains?
Breakfast served all day!
I'm not sure about the patent issues, but I would think that it won't be that long before someone comes out with a HDTV tuner card for the PC. TV tuner cards have been out for many years, and it only seems natural that an HDTV card would be in the offing. This way you could use your monitor to watch HDTV. Granted, I don't forsee entire families crowding around the computer monitor to watch TV, but there would be a market for this... just look at how many people watch movies on their PCs. The monitor can do the resolutions needed, and then some.
Soon we will have to buy a DTV converter. There is no guarantee that HDTV will ever become a reality; it's just DTV that is required by the FCC.
DTV has 480-line modes, as well as 1080 lines.
I just bought one a few weeks ago. A few random thoughts:
1. There is a distinction between monitor and tuner. I went with the "just the monitor" route, and picked up a $150 HDTV tuner off ebay. I plan on replacing it with a HDTV TIVO late this year or early next. Unlike previous posts suggest, you can get tuners with digital outs, but they use some sort of "copy protection" on them.
2. It's amazing how hard it is to get a good over-the-air signal. From my apartment I can SEE the actual antennas on the tower that transmit HDTV for my area, but the signal still goes in and out with a normal indoor UHF antenna. On the other hand, maybe you live in an area that has HDTV over cable.
their HDTV PVR late this year.
3. Everybody Loves Raymond looks great in 1080i, but does it really matter?
Good Luck.
With any of several HDTV tuner cards (HiPix, AccessDTV, and MyHD, to name three) you can do timeshifting and in some cases editing of HD material. For example, I record "Alias" in HD every week and archive it to DVD-R. It's a much more versatile option than a simple HDTV set-top tuner box. All of those cards will output either composite or RGB to feed into an HDTV set. If you subscribe to DISH Network and you have the right kind of satellite receiver, you can feed HD HBO into one of those tuner cards for timeshifting as well.
If they'd just gone with the existing, working standard for Japanese HDTV (maybe with necessary compatibility adjustments and maybe incremental quality improvements) we'd have had HD sets below $1k before the Millennium.
Instead, we got a "standard" that was a combination of 6 competing standards and a system that will be supported in all the different permutations and never actually look like it's been standardized.
The cost of building TVs to work with all those permutations (because you know the end-user will never accept being unable to see Matlock reruns; or rather, the advertisers will never accept that the end-user will have an hour to not watch commercials) has resulted in TVs that are hideously expensive despite being poor in amenities (beyond the HD, of course).
An issue near and dear to my heart:
First off, I bought an HDTV capable RPTV (rear-projection television) in April of 2002. It's a nice set, I mainly bought it because it was highly discounted as a customer return, a few scuffs, and nearly 40% off the normal price so I jumped on it.
My main motivation was to have a 16:9 format television because I love widescreen and can't stand mangled versions of movies designed to squeeze into the wrong sized screen. (See the Widescreen advocacy site for more info.).
This set has Y-Pr-Pb input (wideband component) which and supports 480p and 540p/1080i and upscales 480i beautifully. The results of this is gorgeous displays of widescreen DVDs.
My intent was to eventually have some HDTV to watch, but it hasn't happened. First, I live in an apartment. My cable company is clueless and does not carry any HDTV programming. There are some that do (Time-Warner Houston - 9 channels). My other options are satellite, or local broadcast. Neither of which really thrill me with the aspect of having to ask my landlord about installing stuff on his roof.
Aside from actually having the signal available, usually with satellite you need more than the basic receiver box you get for free when you sign up, you need one that goes for $400+ (last I checked it was 500). So that sucks.
So, net result, I own an HDTV set and still don't get to watch any high-res content. I'm happy though since my anamorphic widescreen DVDs look gorgeous. But I'd love to have some HDTV to watch. Eventually....
-------
Just a side note: The us "deadline" for digital TV does not mandate high definition, just that stations broadcast in digital format, which could simply be 480i upscaled to 480p (which is one of the standard digital formats).
For the longest time I couldn't decide what I wanted more, but watching DVDs on a 55in HD Widescreen TV are definitley worth the cost, until yesterday when we spent the money on the Powerbook.
The quality of the TV is great, I have my PVR computer hooked up to it, and I can navigate around all right but I still prefer my CRT monitor to read or post to Slashdot
But if you don't watch that much TV your money will be better spent on that new Powerbook you have been drooling over.
The UK is a bit ahead of the US in broadcasting HDTV -- we have several digital-only channels -- but as reported in this BBC article takeup of HDTV (more generally known as just "digital TV" in the UK) has been slowed by the collapse of the first big digital TV company, ITV Digital. The collapse was more due to poor management than any real flaw in HDTV, but as another article states, the deadline (in the UK) of 2010 for the full switch to digital is probably unrealistic, given how long it took to switch the nation to colour television (didn't happen in any major way until 1969!).
Programming is keeping me. While the major networks seem to do everything in HDTV now, most cable networks dont (at least the ones I watch). For example, as far as I know the only Hist/TLC/Disc/Etc channel that is HDTV is Discovery's special HDTV channel. And I won't get any benefit for most of the shows out there (like all the old sitcoms, etc).
Cable/Sat is keeping me. To get HDTV cable I have to rent an expensive box from the cable company, instead of just plugging a cable into my TV (I don't have digital cable, it's not worth it for me). To get my DirecTV, I have to have an oval dish (or a second circular dish) IIRC, AND a sattalite box that instead of costing me $100 costs me $500. I'm not going to pay that kind of fee ontop of the premium I'll be charged over the normal service fee ontop of paying way too much for a TV.
Tivo is keeping me. I want to buy a Tivo and plan to when a good Series 2/DirecTV combo box comes out. But I am not going to buy a new TV so that when Tivo records sitcoms and such for me, they're not in HDTV. I know they are comming out with an HDTV model, and when it comes out I'll give better consideration to buying an HDTV.
DVDs are keeping me. HDTV was finalized after DVDs, IIRC. When DVDs change (Blu-ray, which was recently put into production) they might support some new/better resolutions and I want a HDTV that will support them.
Features are keeping me. A quick look at Sony's site shows that a 32" HDTV is going to set me back $5000. My 32" Sony CRT TV cost me about $350. Yet the HDTV doesn't have PIP (I do), a V-Chip (not that I use it, but I've got that too). It doesn't have Channel naming (I don't use that, but oh well ;). It doesn't have more video inputs that I have (if I'm going to pay an extra $4500, I'd better get at least 1 more input). I doesn't have Firewire/i.Link (something that I'm going to want in an HDTV). Why should I pay $4500 more for something that's inferior to what I'm already using.
Standards are keeping me back. I'm worried that the FTC is going to change standards soon, and then I'll have to buy a $300 converter box to use my "new" TV. I guess this going with the DVD thing above. I don't trust that the TV I'll buy will continue to work as I want it to. By the way, weren't we all supposed to have HDTV by 2000? Then by 2003? Why should I buy one now, when they'll move adoption up to 2009 next, then 2012. I'll just wait 'till things actually get adopted and then get one. Why rush in with that kind of money on the line.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
If/when at any point and time my current TV becomes useless because of this b.s. then I will just say "you lose I win" and never "upgrade" my TV to the new b.s. standard.
"TALK HARD" -- Pump Up The Volume
"Matt French is a product specialist at Best Buy in Mishawaka. He says, "Tube TV's start at around $700. The projection televisions start at around $1100 for the square televisions and the 4x3. And about $1500 for wide screen TVs."
;-)
But that's not the total price. With that $700 model, you'll need a tuner, which will add another $400 to $700 plus about $150 for cables. That brings the total price in at least around $1300."
I paid $199.00 for my 27 inch Daewoo color TV at Fry's three years ago. For the amount of TV
I watch, it serves me just fine! The deadline for DTV will be moved back several times. Just watch. The average person simply isn't going to shell out "At least $1300.00" for TV in this recession! Food and clothing are simply more iportant - though the Channel 13 weather girl here in L.A. who does the weather braless in her tank top and tight leather pants would sure look
cool in HDTV!
If HDTV adoption deadlines *don't* get pushed back like they did 80 bazillion times previously, I'll be amazed. We're in the middle of a recession, people aren't that interested in HDTV period, yadda, yadda, yadda.
May we never see th
So go ahead and get one now with an over-the-air receiver, then when the satellite and cable companies add more HD channels you'll be all set!
> I don't think I want another television screen
> that can't also be a computer monitor.
I've written about it a few times, but I'm loving to death my Sun 24" HDTV screen, hooked up to my PC. 1920x1200 resolution (32 bits) and wide-screen goodness. And I've got a video card with good enough hardware acceleration to make playing wide-screen DVDs a joy.
But I have to say, it is a little small for a home television (even if it is a monster for a computer monitor). I really would like to see the convergence of the home television and the computer monitor, but they really are keeping those separate markets.
reminds me when the sega saturn came out for a big $750 AUD or one of the other console disasters, and then they wondered why no one bought one. That pretty much became the beginning of the end of Sega in the console market (debateable?).
They must aim these types of products for the monetary elites, anyway a rich person buying one HDTV is no different to a kid who saved up all his pennies to buy one, still the same sale. Chances are alot of people won't be saving their pennies for one if they see it a waste of money. When will I be buying a HDTV? not any time soon.
Analytic & algebraic topology of locally Euclidean meterization of infinitely differentiable Riemmanian manifold
Anyone know that Weird Al song? heh heh
... especially if that set does a good job of upconverting to 1080i (or preferably, 720p, particularly for action movies and sporting events). If I were to buy an HD-ready set, I would avoid sets with built-in digital converters, and run everything through a component-capable receiver.
Also, howsabout HD-ready sets that don't even have speakers? IOW, proper 'monitor' sets..
Maybe by the time I have the $$$ to drop on a HD-ready set (along with the prerequisite receiver upgrade and rack furniture redesign) the selection in 50+ inch 720p-true sets will be better and cheaper..
funny i have had hd over cable since about sept of this year. its only 2 channels (hbo, sho) but it does not cost anything if you have the chanels already. the decoder box is no cost either as long its your only box. overall the quality is nice but the channel selection is weak.
I,
Just upgraded our HDTV ready TV to HD this last weekend via a dealer demo model HDTV reciever I bought off of ebay.
CSI does look really good in HD, but quite frankly, unless you are either really into being able to see the pimples on some guys face or you feel the need to impress your friends then high def just isn't worth spending a ton of money on.
Take the route I did, if possible, buy something cheap off of ebay.
Now if you truly want a digital tv experience then go out and buy yourself a TIVO. I would'd trade my TIVO for fifty HDTV sets.
Over...
Caution: Contents under pressure
a generation has grown up accustomed to the TV being there. And now there are actually arguments on who gets to provide the technology to present you with 1/3 advertising in a half hour show, and all you all are focusing on is 'its a clearer picture'.
The american consumer never ceases to amaze me with how eager they are to give up money to do nothing...btw, keep it up I like having the money to travel the world while others pay me so that they can sit around and look at glowing chemicals!!!
just read it in the Globe today. They're going to charge something like 2.95 per month for a different converter.
If it's 480p, then it's legitimately HDTV. HDTV is not one resolution, but a whole mess of them:
480p
720i
720p
1080i
And higher for the newer specs. The latest Star Wars films (bleh) were recorded in 1080p.
I'd rather have a 720p picture than a 1080i one. Interlacing is the work of the Devil!
I'm waiting till retinal implants go wide screen.
Ooops, wrong rant . . .
I'm not getting one of these new-fangled color sets until they get the colors to look right.
What happened to Jack Benny? He sounded great on my wireless but I seen him on one of these new color gadgets at the Sears & Roebuck, I don't like it one bit.
That was a while back. I ain't never heard of this Digital HD stuff, is that new colors?
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
Anyways, if you have never seen HDTV played on an HDTV capable display, looks beyond amazing (and you thought DVD looked good ... heh.)
I must admit that I watch less TV these days.
Once I could spend the whole evening watching TV, but today there is just so many other things I'd rather would be doing, so I don't watch much tv anymore.
Now I have the local version of cable, which brings me about 40 channels and about 3 times as many if I would rent a decoder and subscribe to the digital channels. But I just don't care. I haven't even gotten a DVD player yet. I was into laserdiscs a lot and surround sound before it became "hot".
It looks like more and more channels are going digital and I guess that in a few years, most of the channels I can see today will be digital too. Maybe they will use the step to go digital to squeeze more money out of the viewers. I like the cool features on the digital channels, fx formula 1 where you can choose between different cameras but again I don't feel like paying more so I guess I will end up looking at public service channels only.
my sig
First, I think the transition requires a certain percentage of people to have HDTV sets and can't occur before 2006. I don't expect the percentage to be reached by then or even in several years beyond 2006.
Second, I don't care to have HDTV. I mostly watch "talking heads" type shows, such as CSPAN, CNN, etc. and can't see how HDTV would make those any better.
When people discover their TV sets won't work any more, they will scream and the whole thing will collapse.
Get yourself one of these displays with one of the above, and WoW!
I have the same sentiments as the top poster. Now I'm just buying DVDs of movies/shows I absolutely love...because I'm sure in a few years they will have an improved standard to match HDTV. I mean, if I can see the compression artifacts on my $300 27" TV w/ S-Video, how sad am I going to be when they slap me in the face on my $2500 wide-screen HDTV set?
Blar.
Do the shows you like come on in HD? That's the way to get the answer. Go hit titantv.com and check out the week's HD lineup. It's definately worth it to me. I don't even have to deal with antennas and such... Time Warner around Raleigh does HD via cable. ABC, CBS, FOX, HBO, ShowTime, and PBS. Not bad at all.
Plus, usually HD sets are higher quality. You get progressive for your DVD and consoles.
To get HDTV running well right now, you are looking at 3000-5000 dollars, and unless you get broadcast HDTV, AND have a compliant aerial, you will get one channel of HBO, and HD theater channel in HD. So until you get a good variety of programming over the way you get your TV, dont bother. It will be quite a while before enough programming is HD to make it worth your while.
People who think they know everything really piss off those of us that actually do.
Remember, the standard is not HDTV (1024I, 720p, or 480's or even 16:9) but digital. Think direct tv and digital cable but with multicasts. If you are hoping for all tv channels to be the quality of HBO-HD or Discovery-HD, you need to read more about the standards. The magazine Sound & Vision has had some great articles on this subject. This kind of reminds me of my Digital Cable box that has NO audio digital out, but has the Dolby digital symbol on the front of it. Go to Dolby site to wet your appetite on how standards and fine print make a difference. I am going to wait until the industry can get their heads out of their asses and figure out the interconnection (firewire) between the HDTV/receiver and D-VHS or the soon to be HD-DVDs (blueray standard). The only way you can record High Def programs right now is to have a D-VHS and a HDTV/receiver that allows you to record. Believe me, there are plenty that do NOT let you. I dig DVD's but the industry is going to rake everyone over when DVDs are released in HD-DVD format.
I live in an area of the world where every broadcaster trys to get their start and so the Telecasts are un professional, and boring. (10 minutes about a cat stuck in a tree) And All HDTV would allow me to do is see their faces more, and I try not to.
And People wonder why I watch the Cable News Networks and not the local news.
Those are my thoughts, I spend enough money already on electronics, and Computers that SWMBO "She who must be obeyed" Would be royally pissed if i came home with an HDTV when we watch less than 5 hours of TV a week. Serves no point for me, but hey if they offer it In your town/state/city , go for shit.
---
>If you buy a 4:3 HDTV set, your a moron.
I'm a moron with a great tv. Shut the fuck up.
"think of it as evolution in action"
What I want is a nice 15 inch 4:3 HDTV for $150. I don't want 30 inches like they usually are. Maybe when that comes out I will get one.
Why don't you guys have friends or journals?
While the FCC is pushing the December 31, 2006 "deadline", the law gives local stations an out: they don't have to kill the analog services if DTV hasn't reached 85% penetration.
And please don't confuse DTV with HDTV. DTV is the modulation method, HDTV is one of the formats used. Locals CAN send HD, or they can send up to 4 channels of standard definition DTV, only one which has to be free, the rest can be subscription or private.
Also, with the FCC requiring DTV tuners to be built into all new sets, don't expect the price to come down soon.
HDTV's highest resolutions are 1920x1080i or 1280x720p. I agree the resolutions probably won't be top of the line in 3 years but you can't expect 3 year old technology to support the newer resolutions. Plus creating new standards will only cause us to be stuck on NTSC for longer. HDTV is plenty good for now, granted I wish the frame rate was higher and there was a 1080p. But I don't want to be spending more than I already have on my HDTV equipment. HDTV's resolutions are plenty high for today's equip. Try and find a DLP projector that supports native HDTV resolutions.. Also Digital Projectors used in theaters to show Star Wars only has a resolution of 1280x1024 and they rent those for $100,000.
'nuff said. I would like to keep my brain from atrophying, thanks.
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
You should by an HDTV right after you buy a HDTV enabled attena. That was easy, next question!
It seems that you will need to buy a separate antenna with most if not all of these PC cards (or get cable HDTV with a matching connector).
Oh, and to see if there are HDTV signals in your area, try entering your zip code at The HDTV Pub.
--LP
Why buy HDTV when you can buy a similarly priced computer projector, and run all your media through your PC?
Kind of off topic but I just have to say, Monster cables are about marketing and technobabble more than quality. Alot of people call Monster the BOSE of cables. You get a decent cable for 2x, 3x the price of a regular good cable. They are anti-competative, alot of stores ONLY carry monster because monster has an agreement that they won't carry anything else. (this is from a store manager's mouth). You won't get a a bad cable for the most part, just paying alot for hype and limited retail options.
Because, sometimes they just have to touch the stove.
-YY1
Why spend money on TV? Judging by this poll, it seems the groupthink is that TV is pretty bad - I'd agree with that. So why spend heaps of money upgrading the dang thing? Let the silly box languish.
TV is the antithesis of innovation
I went TV shopping a couple of weeks ago, after I had filed for my tax refund. Went to Circuit City here in Austin and took a look at the 27" sets, as I watch TV in a very small space.. anything bigger would be a waste.
They had the Zenith C27V22 there for $700.. originally went for $1200 or so. The picture quality was far better than the high-end 27" non-HDTV Sony's. Got it home, set it up, and it's just great. It's a nice, flat screen 27" set that can do a fantastic job when playing anamorphic DVD's through the component inputs.
That's only at 480p, of course, which is one of the HDTV modes this set can handle, along with 1080i. It can unfortunately take only one high-def input at a time, so if I ever get an HD tuner or cable box I'd need to get a component video switcher, but it's great for now.
With HDTV sets available starting at such a low price, there's no point in paying for a high end standard tube anymore, if you ask me.
- jon
Ganymede, a GPL'ed metadirectory for UNIX
I especially like those widescreen tvs at Best Buy that are playing widescreen dvds and still have extra black space above and below it ...
Let's all run out and spend $$$$$ on a brand new TV, throw our old ones out, create a landfill the size of New Jersey, so that we can watch "Joe Millionaire" and be bombarded with Coca-Cola ads in super-duper 17.1-quadraphonic digital surround-sound bliss!
WAKE UP PEOPLE. Turn off the TV, and play a game with your kids. Go for a walk. Discuss politics. READ.
The more we act like drones, the more they'll try and cram down our throats. 10 years from now, there won't be any outcry over the next version of the DMCA.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
At CES 2003, Zenith had a nice set of HDTVs with HD-DVRs built into them. I thought it was the best HD display at CES, and pretty much everyone was showing off their HD.
The funny thing was that most of the HD displays that I saw were not getting sent a good signal, so it looked like crap. Most of them were showing canned content, but it was low-res canned content!! Some of them were showing 4:3 canned content stretched to a 16:9 screen! Zenith had just used their DVR to record some HD TV (some show, probably from HBO, that had chicks in hot tubs), and used that as their demo, and it looked very nice (even without the girls in the hot tubs).
-If
Run a pencil-and-paper RPG campaign with your far-off friends: Gametable!
When I worked in the video industry, we developed RAID-based servers for HDTV. Being a small company, we had to rent HDTV monitors for trade shows like NAB.
... but that's another story.
... hmmmm.
But that didn't stop us from watching HDTV content on computer monitors. I remember this one test video we had featuring sunbathing beauties in Sweden
Say, a lot of HDTVs have VGA inputs these days
Not that good of deal right now. Story
There's another guy around here from Tweeter who posts... help me out if you're out there, dude...
:) CBS will also do 1080i, and they'll be doing HDTV in the studios, requiring no upconversion from local affiliates (that's the current news, anyway, that I have).
:)
Anyway. HDTV sets do *not* have to cost $6,000. You can get a HDTV-capable set for as little as $1400 from Sony. That's a nice 32" Wega flatscreen.
OK, what's HDTV-capable and HDTV? Here ya go.
A "true" HDTV set generally means that the TV set has the off-air tuner built in to the set. That means you can put up an antenna that can receive in the 54-860Mhz range, and if your local network is broadcasting a HD signal, your set will display it.
HDTV-capable TV's generally don't have the tuner. Many of their components are the same (Mitsubishi is a good example of this), but you'll need either an outboard tuner - about $800 - or a cable box/dish box that supplies the HD signal to your set.
High Definition TV generally refers to the picture resolution. DVD for baseline purposes is 480 lines of horizontal resolution. HDTV is in several formats, with two main choices for networks. Cheap-ass networks or local repeaters may just use 480p (progressive), as it's the easiest for them to do. Next step is 720p, which is what ABC uses, and why those of you who got to see the Super Bowl in High Definition went "Woah!"
DiscoveryHD is in glorious 1080i - which is like looking through a freakin' window.
HDTV can also carry true Dolby Digital 5.1/DTS surround, so your HDTV movies can be as great as the theater. Or better!
The commercials during superbowl probably looked weird for a few reasons. The HDTV format is *likely* going to be 16:9. National ads were either upconverted at the studio to 720p, or shot natively on HD cameras. Local insert ads were likely (unless you're in a large market) standard def, so they were either boxed on the sides, or stretched to fit like other fullscreen material.
The HD conversion can be done either at the head-end (CBS, NBC) or by the local networks. The local networks will likely use cheaper equipment, so don't expect all shows to look fabulous.
Also - with HD on an antenna, it's a cliff effect - you'll either get HD or you won't - if you've got a weak antenna signal now, you'll likely want to make sure you can get a signal amplifier to help you out.
Lastly, the 2006 deadline seems pretty hard and fast ATM - the government (FCC) wants that frequency range back to give to emergency and police services, and will levy fines monthly on broadcasters who are not using their digital equipment. Local broadcasters don't want HDTV, because it does nothing for their revenue stream. It takes more power to run a HD tower, and it's nearly 10x the normal bandwidth of the analog channel. Compression methods improving, blah, blah, blah, HDTV carries a boatload more information than regular TV.
Any doubts I had about HDTV were laid to rest after I saw Shania Twain in 720p glory. The woman looked BETTER in High Definition!
Also:
No Sony rear projection TV for 2003 has the tuner built in. Even the badass XBR series doesn't have it.
Mitsubishi has 3 main levels of TV - the Gold, Platinum, and Diamond series. The Platinum and Diamond TVs have the tuner built in. The difference between Gold and Platinum is in the HDTV tuner, Firewire connectivity, and a Digital Coax audio out to provide your receiver with true surround input. Mitsubishi Platinum and Diamond series TVs also have QAM64 & AV8SB (sp?) cable tuners built into them, so if your cable provider is pushing QAM or AV8SB, your TV can be your set-top box - yeah, it can do the channel guide for you out of the box. And yeah, Firewire ROCKS. Plug in a HD Digital VCR, and boom - "DVCR Connected". Price on a 65" Mitsubishi Platinum? About $4000. That's SIXTY-FIVE INCHES. That's a big-ass TV, folks.
That said, it amazes me that the same people who think nothing of spending $500-$600 on a video card whine and cry about how expensive big-screen TVs are. Have you really LOOKED at a good big screen TV? Compare it to a Hitachi or other cheap brands. You'll see why they're cheap. A good big screen TV is easy to watch at 6' (though you can only watch part of it at a time! *Grin*), and the color saturation, detail, and edge clarity are that much better. Think it's bullshit? That's fine, but ask a reputable store - Tweeter, a good local specialty store - and they'll be happy to give you the straight skinny. If you're really skeptical, take your favorite DVD to the store, and watch the same scene (2 min or so) on several different TVs. As the man said, "Ya get whatcha paid for."
I don't have experience with LCD/Plasma picture quality and longevity as yet, but the HDTV/HDTV-compatible standard holds there, as well.
On another side note, if you buy a new TV, treat yourself to a GOOD progressive scan DVD player. It uses the component inputs, and looks like a million bucks.
Buy what you think you need/can afford, but if you buy cheap now, you'll buy cheap again and again and again instead of a moderate price once.
"If there's hope, it lies in the proles..."
Analog signals can't be compressed nearly as well as digital - so stations would need big new allocations of the spectrum to broadcast (fat chance). It also means good bye, interactive TV, good bye multicasts, etc - there just wouldn't be the room for them. (you can get more info about this here, if interested.)
You wouldn't be the first to be confused about Frenchies and monkeys. There's a strange resemblence to M. Chirac too.
"Without it, we won't get content from Television companies because they will be too afraid to make it, fearing industry destructive pirating."
Nah! There's nothing to fear from us.
We would never hurt you.
----
Many, MANY HDTVs are available for under $2000 now. Also there are MANY bargains to be had for clearance items (saw two sets for under $1500 yesterday @ Best Buy).
However all the other points are valid.
Odd. My TV runs at 1920x1080 (admittedly 30Hz), while my monitor is currently set to 1280x960. The TV looks quite a bit better, as long as you're using it as a TV, instead of as a monitor.
Australia has had digital TV over free to air (in the cities at least) since 2001. However, 2 years after the digital deadline, we still aren't that much closer to digital TV.
It's the chicken-and-egg problem. If people don't have enough reasons to get digital TV, then they don't get one. If the networks don't have enough viewers on digital, they don't spend money on the digital content.
We are slowly starting to see some improvement. Almost all local content and much overseas content is displayed in at least 16x9 SD. Some channels (ABC) are experimenting with multicasting (multiple broadcasts). Nine is starting to offer a lot of HD broadcasts (there is a minimum of 1040 hours per year required).
Most digital TV viewers though are using a set top decoder on their 4:3 analog TV. While this is definitely a step forward, it doesn't do HDTV any favors yet.
Our deadline for transition to digital is 2008, but by the looks of things, analog TV sets are still going to be common in 5 years time, so that deadline is likely to be extended.
Maybe a bit offtopic. I just upgraded to digital cable from Comcast (they had a promotion and they have on-demand, a tivo like feature). While the on-demand is really great the quality of the compression is horrible on some channels and noticeable on most. I find this really annoying and I will probably downgrade to analog because of this. Does HDTV also have compression and who determines the quality (the cable company or the networks)?
When HD pr0n reaches critical mass.
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
...mmm...coca-cola...
The "cue the foo posts in 3, 2, 1..." posts will commence with no subsequent foo posts in 3, 2, 1...
MAYBE 5% of all broadcasts are hdtv. As to whether it will be "required", duh, there will be analog-digital converters around for quite a while. And when the broadcasters see that only 5% of the public has them, do you think the law will actually go into effect to force them? Get real. They will get it postponed indefinitely until the public starts buying them.
I love the part of the article that states "if your the type of person who buys a new tv every couple of years". God leave it to a salesperson at Best Buy to say that. Anyone like that should be shot for being a consumeristic pig(like all americans right?).
Get real. Save your money, keep buying the tube tvs until:
They get the quality there w/ hdtv
They get the prices down (in 5 yrs they will be comparable)
They find a reason for hdtv-there sure isnt one yet
They stop pushing them down our throats (like everyother product brought forth to spur an industry that hasnt/maynot happen so that rich bureucrats(sp) their family/friends/business associates can make a fortune off the american people.
FUCK BIG BUSINESS ANYWAY
Somebody care to enlighten me on where this was posted prior to my comment?
Some moderators not aware that I was responding directly to an error in the slashdot story as posted?
I have to ask, how the hell did you get a normal tv to run 1920x1080@30hz
All subjective tests show that 720p makes a better picture than 1080i.
Most of what you say is dead on, but someone would be making a mistake if they didn't buy a native 720p HD monitor.
nuclear iraq bioweapon encryption cocaine korea terrorist
I've been looking to buy just a regular VHS VCR with S-Video in/out and find that this is a near impossible thing to buy - never really needed or wanted one before - the old mono VCR was good enough but now that we have DVD we now have a new 42" flat TV, good sound system with surround sound decoder for Dolby and DTS and now the VCR we have just looks like crap - sounds like crap too... checked Sears, the local Superstore type places, The Sony Store (they don't even sell VCR anymore!) looks like unless we buy used or choose to buy Digital VHS we're stuck with the old VCR.
So a parallel question is not just when to buy into the new but when to buy into the old if you've waited for whatever reason.
Nah, I use one of these.
Detailed specs for the protocol? Why? It should have been clear to them that computing power would eventually reach a point where...
1. The packets broadcast would contain information telling the receiver what encoding was being used.
2. The decoder (if not already installed in your set) could be downloaded, either piecemeal from the station as it transitioned to more advanced codecs, or through a devoted decoder download channel maintained for that purpose. A devoted channel would present some financing and bandwidth allocation issues, but nothing worse than what we've seen before.
A system like that would prepare us for the day when a 6-foot wide TV is considered "small" and anything less than 2048 horizontal lines is simply "unacceptable" to consumers.
Instead, they've got the standard locked in, setting up another upgrade cycle, forcing people to spend money and... oh... wait... they know what they're doing. Nevermind.
At any rate, if analog signals stop, I'll just watch less TV. Actually, I've been thinking that what this ammounts to is a TV tax. It'll decrease TV watching, just as cigarette taxes decrease smoking. This could, in my wildest of dreams, actually lead to a renaissance as people discover how much time they were wasting... but I won't hold my breath.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
On the topic of using your TV as a monitor, i'm curious if anyone has done this with an HDTV succesfully. I'm talking about connecting your computer to your tv and running at HDTV resolutions (720p). Does the text look good? is it useable?
I am amazed at slashdot with everyone talking about how good thier dvd's or tv shows look on HDTV what about using it as a monitor?
Is my only option for using my computer from my couch at a higher resolution than 800x600 a digital projector?
... we don't want to accuse SlashDot of being USA-centric after all :)
... there is NO consumer television available that can fully resolve the resolution of the 1080i signal. Plasma can't, CRT tubes can't, rear projection sets can't. That does _not_ mean the television is useless, though. if you have a 76cm (32") widescreen TV that could fully resolve 1080i, you would have to sit about 30-40 cms from the television to be able to see the picture in its full glory. If you're sitting 3 meters back, there's no way that you could see all the detail.
For a great website about OZ happenings in the digital broadcasting world, check out http://www.dba.org.au/ . It has an excellent FAQ area which should answer many general questions on digital television for anyone around the world.
All television stations in the major capital cities are now transmitting standard digital signals (576i). High definition signals (576p,720p,1080i) will be transmitted from the 1st of July this year. All stations are _required_ to broadcast a minimum of 1080 hours per year of HD transmissions. Channel 10 have already stated that they will broadcast HD continuously, so they're going beyond the obligations.
If you want to get into the HD thing, you basically need a HD television, and a HD digital set-top box. Your existing antenna should work perfectly fine (read the DBA FAQ for more info). Currently, the cheapest HD capable TV available is one by Palsonic, and retails for a little over $3000 AUS. The _only_ HD digital set-top box available is the DG-TEC DH2000a. It does the job decently, but has a loyal following of dgtec haters. Read the forums on the DBA website for more information. There are a few more HD set-top boxes due to be released "any day now".
One thing to know
Does that mean HD signals are a waste of time? Absolutely not! A HD signal is much clearer than your standard signal, even if you can't see all the detail. The sweet spot for a 76-86cm TV is around the 720p area (any more resolution, and you just can't see it from a viewing distance). For larger displays, full 1080i resolution is definitely an improvement.
I've already bought my HD display. Now I'm just waiting for a decent HD set-top box, and also waiting for that July 1st deadline. It's a pretty exciting time for television!
DeeK
A lot of people say that the channels they watch aren't (yet) in HD. That's exactly what the big 3 see (fox doesn't count, its just 480p digital). I know that when I get an HD set that my viewing habbits will shift a little. I'll still watch TLC and the others, but I'm afraid that I really like image quality and will end up watching a bit of broadcast primetime. I'm sold.
When Dec 31, 2006 rolls around the local affiliates have no choice but to give up the analog spectrum. The FCC is foaming at the mouth to sell those airwaves as soon as possible. There will be no other option other than a TV with a built in digital tuner, or a set-top digital box for use on analog TVs.
Consider this:
4:3 aspect ratio TV, 32" diagonal screen
Given some simple math, 32/5 = 6.4
6.4 * 4 = 25.6 inches
Measuring my TV, it seems that this is correct.
Now, a 16:9 30" diagonal TV is approximately 26.14726575863" wide. Measuring the dimensions on my 16:9 lcd screen on my portable dvd, these proportions are also correct.
On the other hand, when viewing a 4:3 signal (certainly far and away the vast majority of signals), the 16:9 image is only approximately 14.70783698922" tall. The 32" 4:3 HDTV displays it 19.2" tall.
Riddle me this, flame boy: is it better to gain 0.54" on the minority of signals, or gain 4.49 inches on most signals? Especially given that the 4:3 HDTV is perfectly capable of displaying a 16:9 signal and simply not use the extra screen real estate (letterboxing)?
The reason these numbers were used and are relevant is that I just bought an HDTV yesterday. There were two beautiful HDTV monitors for $1000 - a widescreen 30" and a 4:3 32". I bought the 32". I am very pleased with my purchase.
Also, just for the record, I am NOT a moron. But you are - the same math gives a 53" 4:3 TV a 42.4" wide screen. A 43" 16:9 screen gives you only a 37.47774" wide screen.
"My God, this must be a truly remarkable corn chip, to be so widely and confidently touted."
Around 6 months ago I bought a big screen TV, a Toshiba HDTV 42" with the realization that I wouldn't be able to watch broadcasts for probably a couple of years. Luckily, this wasn't to be the fact!
Time Warner (of Columbus, OH) now offers 3 stations in HD. Granted I don't have a tuner, but for $6 a month I got a box from Time Warner that allows me to watch HD broadcasts.
I've only had it for a week, so I can't give a full report, but the HD broadcasts look great. They look better than DVDs. Now if only more stuff was broadcast in HD (why doesn't NBS broadcast there Thursday night lineup in HD?). Shows that aren't that need to be include Buffy, Angel, Enterprise... Smallville is though.
Anyway, I'm happy, and am only out $1,600 for the TV (plus subscription costs). DVDs and TV all look great, and if you do end up getting a HDTV, I would recommend looking into the dish offers (Dish Network or DirecTV). I have Dish Network, and it looks SO much better than the analog cable.
What, me worry?
... or a satellite IRD. They'll probably do very nicely.
The very few people that watch their four or five channels over the air will have to pony up at their favorite Fry's or Best Buy. But really, are over the air viewers a large viewership anymore?
Regarding prices, they have been coming down nicely over the past year and will undoubtedly continue to do so. This is the usual trend and like DVD's the slow adoption rate will not change the outcome. DVD's now have over hald the market and only increase their share every day. Don't forget also that TV's are like any other consumer appliance these days -- cheap and temporary. The days of the ten year set may be mostly gone, just like high quality VCR's, DVD players, computers, car stereos, et. al.
That's 1080i HDTV. Unfortunately, all HDTV interlaced modes look approximately like crap. 1080p is where the money will be. Eventually.
When most games for whatever the current popular game console can do 480p or better, also in 16:9 mode when possible
This is the best reason to get an XBox. I picked up my HDTV a few month ago and got an XBox after that. Most of the games I have are in 480p and all display in 16:9. They look amazing. Some games even display in 1080i--I think the football titles, but I don't have any of those. Oh, I also get DD5.1 on all games.
Oh, and Microsoft finally got their crap together and labels right (at least on DOA:XBV). You can look on the back now and find out the max resolution it will use. DOA:XBV is in 480p.
Can't really help on the price much. My TV was pretty expensive, but HBO and Showtime in HD are great.
This is the first rational post on aspect rations I have ever read anywhere.
Believe me, you'll appreciate the shitlessness factor.
Time Warner here in the Raleigh area has done a great job. All of the major networks (sans Fox, who doesn't do HD yet) have their own HD companion channels, along with HBO-HD. The local PBS outlet is in the act too, albeit a bit strangely -- their station is an endless loop of HD programming but is not anything from PBS.
WRAL-TV our local CBS affiliate is a leader in HDTV and produces a great deal of it's own programming in HD. All of the news, and many of the local NHL games are shown in HD by them in conjunction with Time Warner.
In short, the future for many of you is here and it is crystal clear for those of us so equipped.
....not because you think the FCC is going to implement "Plan A" or "Plan B" by 2006. Fact is, that in May of 2002, approx. 74% of the televisions missed another FCC deadline requiring them to carry at least "some" tranmission in HD. (According to Home Theater Magazine and various other Home Audio/Video resources). For now, those of us who are audio/videophiles enough to want HD buy it and pay a larger sum.... those more patient who don't think its as important will wait and get a better deal for possibly a better set. For me, I am one of those have to have it now people, but thats not right for everone. Get it if it makes you salivate and you can afford it, wait if its at the bottom of your list of must haves, either way, don't worry about the FCC for now.
This article isn't horrible but I feel it is somewhat useless. It states the obvious about the HDTV market which only echos the trends in most newer technologies. Does it really provide good information of helping someone decide whether to go HD now or not??? NO. And furthermore if they really wanted to give people some useful information the last thing they should have done is interview someone at BestBuy.
Go to here and download some videos (large!) and download the codec here. These videos are REALLY nice, it's like looking at digital photos.. For me it really is like that since my p3-733 just isn't fast enough to play them! Also get Microsoft's shot at HD quality video here.
First, cable needs to provide HD unchanged as part of basic cable package. Its free OTA (over the air) so should it be on cable. DTV is broadcast over air in a format called 8VSB, yet on cable it almost always comes in 256QAM, meaning regular OTA HDTV tuners won't recieve it. Instead you have to RENT a cable box that works with their propritary format. Secondly, cables are a misunderstanding. You can get broadcast-quality Belden cables for a quarter of the price of that "Mon$ter Cable." Another HD problem is this whole ruckus about HDCP (copy protection), over which CBS is threatining to stop HD transmission next year. A good resource for HDTV-related issues is at http://www.avsforum.com But, there is more and more content every month. Check out http://www.hdtvgalaxy.com/broad.html Lots of stuff. ESPN is launching an all-HD channel next month, to go along with HDNet, Discovery-HD, SHO-HD, HBO-HD as the other full-time HD channels. Comcast is starting a HD-version of SportsNet too. PS- Someone mentioned "digital" DVD players. I have one. It outputs a 270mbps data stream (SDI Video, same used in broadcast facilties) which goes into the PC for scaling, and out via DVI to my 1280x768 50" plasma display, so I DO have a completly digital DVD system. Also, I can record HDTV to the HDD (9gig/hour) or output it via firewire to a D-VHS record deck. I love my HDTV... When I had a superbowl party this year, people had to take their jaws off the floor after they saw how crisp it looks. Bob
I used my TV as my monitor. 1986.
But I know that my next TV will be HDTV compatible. Sports alone are enough to do it for me, plus while i am waiting for all the stations to catch up and support it I still have use of the wide aspect for DVD's and progressive scan hook-ups for my Gamecube. I saw a commercial today (at work) saying ESPN was moving to support it. Well for me that is about all I need. The ability to see "Friends" in 16:9 just doesnt do it for me. Now watching my bruins with clarity and a wide screen shot of the ice? What body part do I have to sell?
---- The real Slashdot is still here. You just have to browse at -1 to read the comments.
since noone will buy it.
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
In 1992 I was briefly mucking around in the set top box world. It became apparent that people behave as if they have an entertainment budget. At the time it was something similar to:
I don't believe it has changed much. If the person intended on buying a new TV/VCR every three years then they would only spend $750 on both. Every ten years - $2500.
The other factor was an equipment threashold of around $250. If it was more expensive than this people thought too much about the purchase, below it they would buy on impulse. This doomed lots of game boxes that tried to sell above this price.
The trouble with introducing a new service (payTV) or a new product (like a set top box) is that it had to fit into this budget by replacing something that was already there. HDTV and DTV are facing the same problem.
Tivo clearly got it. Pricing less than $250, replaced the VCR.
DTV tuner (4:3) is at least $100 more expensive (now) than the normal cable TV tuner - for what additional value? That is $100 they have to find from somewhere else in the budget. People are good at maximizing their entertainment value within the budget.
HDTV 16:9 tubes are at least $500 more expensive - too much thinking.
The FCC is trying to speed up the adoption but are proving to be rather toothless, the old deadline was the end of this year. 2006? 2010 more like it.
The broadcast companies were given the option of using the 6Mhz bandwidth for one HDTV signal or 5 DTV signals ... guess which one they prefer? Where can you sell more advertizing space.
There is also the confusion of will DVD/PVR work with the new HDTV set. The cable companies aren't helping either. Why would they want to replace their infrastructure, they already own their customers.
Until HDTV reaches these threasholds and budget constraints it's not time to buy for most people. The FCC won't, or won't be allowed to, force the switch.
It would have been faster and less traumatic if the FCC had said "on YYMMDD everything HDTV or DTV" a couple of years ago instead of the slow phase in. Networks would have been scrambling to subsidize the converters and new TVs so their audience and advertizing revenue didn't get hurt.
Bit of a ramble ...
- AndrewN
Not to mention 16x9 is a rip off
do the math, the diagnal on a 16"x9" screen is 18.35, and gives you 144" square.
Now look at a square 18" screen (yes I know they're not totally square, but they are mostly): 12.7"x12.7" and 162" square.
on plasma screens especially, the lesser the materials, the cheaper (unless you have economy of scale working against you)!
the only thing it'd be good for is letterbox, but who uses their computer in letterbox (aside from silly iMac people)?
My solution? buy this, you might have to get an HDTV tuner, but it'll be all digital, 1024x768, will input VGA from your computer, and will be less than $1,100 (including shipping) off pricewatch, and it's 27inches of happiness!
Are you telling me you deny the existence of Power Goblins?
Does the MPEG compression adversely affect picture quality. We get DirecTV, and I can't stand all the compression artifacts. They're particularly irritating when watching weather broadcasts, when there is a sharp color boundry between the weatherman and the map behind him.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Why exactly does watching TV equate to being "drones"? Or mean that we're somehow unaware of or complicit to the evils of DMCA?
Or does that just make for easier trolling?
Why? Because this year prices will come down. I'm looking at the mitsubishi WS-55511. Three Firewire ports. Three. One cable connections to DVHS VCRs, DVD players, etc. And you can daisy chain. Integrated OTA 8VSB tuner and QAM256 tuner (for in-the-clear digital cable channels).
Prices will come down about 300-500 this year.
The Doormat
If you're not outraged, then you're not paying attention.
I faced the same dilemma when using my component 480i inputs. One bank of 480i inputs on the TV, but three sources that need to be connected at the same time. Funny how those component switches cost near $300.00 for some models.
:)
I bought a Radio Shack, RCA connector style, 3 source manual switch, and then invested in cables w/the gold connectors to hook it all up. No issue, and I get that ever valuable exercise when I have to walk over and punch the selector
Do you all really think that that the IP people will let another round of DRM fail?
Do you think that any Digital signal will be breakable? At some very near point, it will NOT be easily breakable, unless of course you reverse engineer the ASICs, which is dificult at best
-or-
you have a few years and hundreds of Gcycles to factor numbers. Not likely.
The XBox was hacked (one way) because of a bus that was left exposed on the PC board; single chip solutions are on the way that eliminate such detective work.
Do you think that there will be an "analog hole" into any future digital system? When it goes digital, it behooves manufac. to kill off analog; at least high res analog.
There will be mistakes and very clever people, but with DMCA you will never hear of them as you have in the past.
I can't wait until tomorrow. I'm going to Best Buy and taking whatever advice the sales associate offers.
My old place, I was capped at a certain width, and limited to cable (no ability for a decent antenna). So with no HDTV to watch, I went for the best TV I could in the space, which was this TV. Now, 20% of my TV watching, at most, is HDTV. The rest is recorded on the ReplayTV (in NTSC), so I use the full screen. Additionally, look at the costs, at least 1.5 years ago, a 43" 16:9 set cost about $200 more than a 53" 4:3 set. So you could have saved $200, and got extra screen for regular viewing.
:)
I'm not a moron, I just have different viewing habbits. When HDTivo ships, I will probably be watching 80% of my television in HDTV. At that time, I will buy a nice big HDTV, currently looking at the Sony GWII (50"), but I might save some money and get the Sony 46" CRT Rear Projector that is pretty small. This 32" 4:3 set will be perfect in the bedroom. In the bedroom, I watch the news, but the 19" TV is too small (but is TERRIFIC for flipping through Sunday ticket during football season).
No offense, but calling me a moron because my viewing habbits are different from you is quite rude. I mean, you're watching cable (NTSC) or digital cable (NTSC + MPEG2 artifacts) on a wide screen HDTV set with barn doors because it looks right with DVDs? Give me a break. DVD watching is a minority of my viewing, having some entertainment when I get home at night is the majority.
I'm not forced into letterboxing everything when 16:9 programming is the majority, I'll simply get a new television.
I don't know if you watch any HDTV, but its all framed for 4:3 televisions. So while it is wide screen, most of the sides are just extra space. Sure for movies its nice, but right now the widescreen is kinda silly.
My reason for going widescreen next time isn't aspects, it's the way HDTV letterboxes. My television looks better if I give it the 1080i signal for HD signals, and let it convert it. It accepts 1080i, but only has 480 lines (newsflash, most "HDTV" sets on the market NOW are 550-800 lines, 1080i is a transmission spec, not a television spec), but this results in it being letterboxed. Now, for widescreen content, this is fine, but for 4:3 content (a LOT of the stuff on DTV channels right now), I get letterbox AND bard doors. This is no good, and will be dealt with on the new TV.
Meanwhile, I have HDTV, and you don't.
Alex
does anyone else think it is absolutely absurd that this is even supposed to happen? i dont need or want perfect tv. i dont even have a have a color tv now if i dont want. why should i have to get a hd one?
yes...one of the few things that made me think twice about leaving LA to go to school in texas...
</drool>
This is my digital signature. 10011011001
The game I play is called Metroid Prime. It works great on my new HDTV. Progressive scan is the best thing to happen to video games.
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
Am I the only one to wonder if he makes minimum wage?
-Mr. Fusion
I work for a digital video equipment manufacturer and I am used to testing HD equipment. I also have been using PCs for most of my life and have watched video resolutions increase by the year.
The idea of HDTV is to catch up with computers in terms of resolution. There are some added features but they take a back seat to this resolution upgrade. The problem is they've been working on this for years and PC resolutions have by themselves been increasing at a much faster rate. Within less than 2 years HDTV will be obsoleted by PCs in terms of resolution. Right now there is little need for HDTV resolutions on a PC montiro but that will change when HDTV's big switch. PC users will become jealous of their HDTV counterparts and this will spawn the next increase (maybe Super-duper-VGA or some other equally-hyped marketing buzzword stardard). Then all those years to make HDTV the bleeding edge thing will pass and they'll be back to the drawing boards.
Save your money and only upgrade your video card and monitor (and optionally your tuner-capture card). HDTV is over-hyped, not agile and certainly not useful for the next 10 to 20 years of TV when you see what will be possible on PCs.
Upgrading studio equipment to HDTV standards: $150,000
Additional makeup and digital processing to cover up newly visible flaws in prime-time soap stars: $2,000 per episode
Paying off government officials to mandate HDTV and draconian DRM systems: $100,000 per senator
Watching consumer-whore lemmings run to the nearest electronics retailer to fork over big bucks for your "new" technology: $... Priceless
But seriously folks.. it's just television. If you want a large, high-resolution display, get an LCD projector or build one yourself. (Search google for dozens of plans)
From what I understand, tons of people in the US got color tv in 1969 (my parents did) - to watch the moon walk. If history is any guide, it will probably take some massively awesome event to drive rapid transition to HDTV. Maybe the all digital, commercial-free, watermark-free airing of StarWars and Return of the Jedi....
Pre 1996, cable companies simply rebroadcasted the local channels, since they put it out for free. The networks/affiliates were floored that cable was taking over the market and getting paid for THEIR content and then using shopping channels and premium channels to make money. Telecom Act passes (I think that it was the 1996 one, the BIG one) that let stations designate as must carry (you have to carry them if you are carrying other ones... spanish language, pax, and local-only stations use that), or require compensation (the networks do that).
After a bit of playing chicken (different cable companies squaring off with networks, using the customers as pawns) resulted in the current situation, the networks allow their signal to be carried, but the cable companies have to carry several different random network owned stations, so ABC requires that they pay for ESPN ($2/customer, and it has to be in basic cable), Disney, etc., etc.
But they all haggle, and the network has the power, not the broadcasters. So ABC gets their other stuff on, but the affiliated stations don't get compensation.
So, with DTV, the broadcasters would get even better. Told to come up with a standard for HDTV, they came up with a brilliant solution with 3 HDTV settings (720p, 1080i, 1080p - the last only 24 or 30 frames, no 60 frame mode), an enhanced setting (480p) and then they snuck in 480i for backwards compatibility. The catch is that they got what they wanted, and in the same bandwidth of one analog station, get 6 480i channels, AND they can be made must-carry. All of a sudden, anyone that had a license to broadcast one channel now had 6!
Well, the FCC and cable companies hated this. The cable companies didn't want to give up free bandwidth, and the FCC didn't like looking stupid for giving them the bandwidth for HDTV and instead getting current NTSC quality, with compression artifacts, and 5 channels of infomercials.
So the cable companies whined and the FCC ruled that must-carry only applied to the analog signal. So with their plan squashed, the networks began preparing for HDTV. Remember, only 10% of american households use an antenna for their television (20% is satellite, 70% is cable), so getting the ability to send 6 channels to 10% of the market is pointless. Without must-carry, there is no point to squeezing 6 SDTV signals in. The only exception to this will be PBS stations, where there are normally 2 in a market, may send one HDTV signal, two SDTV signals (the current PBS programming), and use the extra bandwidth for school programming by day or stuff like that).
So HDTV is happening, because there is no advantage to the 6-for-1 deal.
As a satellite customer, I'm happy to add an antenna to get 8 DTV channels locally, but if I was a cable customer, I'm not sure what I'd want (other than to move so I could become a satellite customer). If the networks were sending 36 channels over the air, plus whatever PBS sent, who knows what that does to cable. Realize that analog cable systems are normally only 60-86 channels, and I bet you that 30 channels could cover 75% of American viewing. It would kill basic cable as a way of getting basic television. The original reason for cable was because antennas suck. With digital broadcasts, antennas don't have to suck. And $50/mo (basic cable in Boston) goes a long way towards paying an antenna installer...
I think that HDTV is happening and happening fast. Whatever HD-DVD format comes out is very likely to be sent at 1080p24, which will look awesome on either 720p or 1080i sets, especially with the extra bandwidth available to avoid compression problems. This season, LOTS of HDTV happened. Next season, just about every primetime event and lots of sports will be HDTV. End of this year, HD Tivo and Dish HD-PVR ship. HDTV over cable is coming to some markets this year. HDTV cable-ready systems will roll out soon. And the DVI-HDCP vs. Component vs. Firewire/5C issue was resolved... everything will be supported. DVI-HDCP protects you from needing to go analog for non-MPEG2 systems, Firewire is just (IMO) the superior system.
It's all happening, get on board when you have some spare cash.
Alex
As an HDTV and Home Theater enthusiast, I am amazed at how much misinformation many of the highly moderated posts have. It really makes me wonder about many other subjects that are discussed on Slashdot, and how much misinformation is spread through the discussions here.
While being a programmer, I keep an up-to-date computer, other consumer electronics are not neccesary for me, so I can afford to refuse to be their guinea pig. I'll let all you jokers out there spend $300 for the new gaming system or video playing device. I'll wait until the kinks are worked out and I can get it for $49.99 at wal-mart. While I've had a DVD-drive in my PC, I just last month purchased my first DVD component player. 3-disc carousel, plays MP3s, VideoCD, S-Video out, region and macrovision-hackable/hacked. $60 at Sam's club. Now I find if I had waited a bit longer, I could have gotten one that plays DiVXs. A rule that has never let me down is "There's NEVER a reason to buy the first releases of any hardware, tool, or microsoft OS platforms." But if you do and it messes up, I thank you. You're the guys that pay extra money to ensure I can get a quality product for cheap :)
1.) If I buy a 1394-enabled HDTV today, what is the maximum bitrate of MPEG2 that the decoder in the TV will support? If I buy a D-VHS deck, or a future HD-DVD with a higher MPEG2 bitrate, will the TV show a lower quality image, or none at all?
2.) If a future HD-DVD standard uses a compression format other than MPEG2 (e.g., MPEG4), will the TV work at all over 1394/HAVi? Will the video source be required to transcode the video, loosing the benefit of the higher video quality of HDTV?
1394/Firewire/HAVi is the most flexible A/V connection, but I fear the answers to the two questions above are to buy a new HDTV again!
The Apple Cinema HD is a lot cheaper.
A report on the web where someone goes to Best Buy and asks them for help on making the HDTV decision? Sounds like something that would be done for a High School newspaper....
The economic benefits of HDTV flow exclusively to the consumers. Local stations thrive on ad revenue, which is not increased via better broadcast technology [DOLBY5.1]BUY TIDE[/DOLBY5.1]. To stations HDTV is simply a big cash outlay. Think about the incentives here.
Roughly 75% of American households subscribe to a multichannel programming service like cable or DBS. The numbers for over-the-air reception increase when you look at second and third television sets.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
And they go up to 1080i as well. 16x9 widescreen, what else could you ask for at that price? Golden for DVDs as well.
My hope is the FCC will stick with their deadline and everyone will be able to experience the true quality of an 1080i HDTV signal. The change from Black and White to Color may give a good comparison of a difference.
But with the possiblity of Dolby 5.1 coupled with the "looking through a window quality the discovery channel offers". Why not think of it as a change from the radio directly to color TV, even if the FCC has to force us to do it.
The typical anamorphic DVD is stored at 1.78:1. Though most Hollywood films are shot at 1.85:1, some films are shot at 2.35:1. Thus, they still look letterboxed even on a wide screen. If you have Goldeneye for N64, look at the difference between "Wide" setting (1.78:1) and "Cinema" setting (2.35:1).
Will I retire or break 10K?
Next week. That's when I start working at a local electronics store. Then you can come in and buy one off of me and I'll get a huge commission! Er, I mean, I'll give you all the advice you need! Yeah, that's the ticket ...
A "true" HDTV set generally means that the TV set has the off-air tuner built in to the set. That means you can put up an antenna that can receive in the 54-860Mhz range, and if your local network is broadcasting a HD signal, your set will display it.
Will stores sell small-screen digital TV sets for less than $500 by the time analog TV broadcasts end in the United States (end of 2006)?
Will I retire or break 10K?
The decoder (if not already installed in your set) could be downloaded, either piecemeal from the station as it transitioned to more advanced codecs, or through a devoted decoder download channel maintained for that purpose.
For what DSP architecture would the binary encoder be compiled? Wouldn't this lock the industry into one manufacturer? What guarantee would there be that your DSP can decode the particular format?
Will I retire or break 10K?
Two years ago I bought a Sony Wega 36 XBR, HD capable along with a Toshiba 9200 (true) progressive DVD player. The CRT is 4:3 and was intended to view DVD movies, exploiting the Sony internal line doubler to achieve excellent (apparent) resolution. The fact that I'm now watching PBS and other cable programming in HD is just gravy. When they come down to a reasonable price (~ USD 5000), I'll get a fifty inch 16:9 HD flat panel. Probably not a plasma, too many problems with burn-in and motion artifacts, but that could change.
:)
All told, with sound, the system cost about eight thousand. Quite reasonable for the achieved results, IMHO.
"Computers are useless. They can only give you answers."
-- Pablo Picasso
I got a widescreen HDTV about a year ago and have loved it. I got an HD cable box and Time Warner is nice enough to broadcast about 7 HD channels for me. BUT, in non-HD they put nice black bars on the screen. Never having owned a rear-projection tv, I didn't realise this was a Bad Thing. I noticed that I now have noticeable burn in where the black bars were (well, kinda inverted...the black bar area is nice an clean, while middle parts of the set look a little yellowish).
I love HD. I love progressive DVD. I love widescreen. I love Xbox. I HATE BURNIN.
Lesson here is, switch to HD ONLY when watching widescreen format broadcasts. Otherwise have your tv zoom to fill the whole screen.
Once when I went to my local high end TV/Stereo store and I saw a Monster Cable power cord on the rack I almost laughed my head off. I mean maybe their signal cables are somewhat better and can make a difference, but the POWER cord???? Gimme a break!
Reading about the play by play action from the superbowl, or seeing in graphic detail as the WTC collapsed just doesn't give you the emotion (be it happy or sad) that video from the television does.
Instead of a plasma, LCD, or rear projector I really like the thought of getting a projector to use as my primary video monitor device.. does nayone have any insights on what to look for that would be good for primarily video use (including HDTV tuner connection) but also work well with computers?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
HDTV "tuners" cost way too much. $800 for a radio receiver, an MPEG decoder, and some RAM? Is the market so dinky nobody has made a chipset yet? For $300, you can get an HDTV tuner board for a PC, and it emulates a PVR, too.
I have noticed.
Use ISO 8601 dates [YYYY-MM-DD]
"Here's the agree part: FireWire *is* a great technology with the potential to actually make our lives *simpler* instead of more complicated. But due to politics and the content providers' mortal fear of content "theft" we'll all be very luck if we ever get to enjoy a tiny fraction of its potential."
Well as I pointed out. Can you blame them? After reading the last few stories and looking at the overall tone. If I was a content provider I would be scared shitless too. Sometimes the best protection is to keep it to yourself. May not benefit as much that way, but neither will any "copyright infringers", and we all suffer because of it.
The owner agreed that if the sales rep could tell which of two stereos was wired with Monster Cable and which was wired with generic cable and lamp cord 8 out of 10 times in a blindfold test, then he would stock it.
That store never did carry Monster Cable.
Good post, but I feel obliged to speak up for the humble TV set.
In Europe, with analogue PAL and DVB, it's safe to say that a PC monitor is a poor substitute for a TV when displaying video. Teletext shows you can display legible text, albeit at low-res but you watch TV from a distance of several metres and not everyone has 20:20. The phosphors in a TV CRT behave differently from those in a PC CRT - sure, you can mess with your graphics card gamma and colour calibration but you can't alter the phosphor persistence or the phosphor composition, and why should you, because TVs just work and give a decent picture.
TV rocks. Type "Charles Poynton" into Google and you'll learn so much about what lies behind your humble TV screen - this is deeply deeply well thought out engineering, that the PC world in its arrogance thinks it can muscle in on.
I'll admit I didn't finish reading all the responses (I will - this subject has particular interest to me) but after plowing through ca 100 posts w/o any actual real World experience, I had to pipe up:
Slashdotters should realize that a decent (not great) PC with some free software and inexpensive hardware can be the key to nearly State-of-the-art (compared to the stuff in the retail chains) TV exceeding kilobuck HDTV sets. A spectacular home theater is within the reach of a dedicated high school fry cook working at McDonalds and living with their folks. In fact, get your folks to chip in, and it's *easy*. In Home Improvement, we call it "sweat equity": creating with work and know-how something that would cost mucho dinero to buy (plus learning a thing or two as a major benefit -- I can easily afford an HDTV at Best Buy, but that would be boring to me, or even pointless)
1) Some starting points for real-world solutions:
AV Science: where I hang out now (esp. the HTPC forum, whose Linux section could use more programmers!)
Keohi HDTV (they helped me get started, I assume they're still good)
The Home Theater Spot: Admittedly, a home for guys with more dollars than sense, but at least they experiment instead of spouting sales literature at each other. They also had some great group buys from One-Call, which is as good as it gets for both support and service (if you want to buy)
2) Only now am I retiring my original HTPC (Home Theater PC), a Celeron-466 with 256 MB, a $20 TV card, and a $45 Matrox 450 DualHead with s-video, composite and XVGA outputs - a simple system that would still wow a lot of 'retail buyers'. I can't explain how it changed my TV viewing, how great it is to have a library of 150-300MB archived eps of my favorite shows, etc. Add a few sub-$1/GB HDDs (see Anandtech Hot Deals or FatWallet for bargains), and you'll wonder how you ever tolerated clumsy VHS tape libraries. For archiving, these same forums will tell you how to get 4x DVD-R recorders for as little as $140 at major chains (epending on sales)
3) My current aging workhorse is a Athlon 1700+XP ($209, barebones, from Outpost.com a year ago). I added memory, a sub-$300 MyHD card (some other HDTV cards are as good or better) and a few minor bits like a $50 Dolby Theater Sound card, etc. It'd be much cheaper today, and many of you already run gear that's much hotter than this. The software was mostly free and/or open source.
4) My favored output device is a Toshiba TLP650 LCD projector (native 1024x768, but with a nice 1600x1200 mode) cost $900 on eBay last year - a bit pricey, but that was last year and the last-gen prices are dropping fast. On President's Day (Monday) I got my GF a nice 640x480 projector to experiment with: under $100, and it exceeds the line resolution of any 'normal TV'. You can assemble a decent HTPC/projector for about the price of a "pretty nice" normal TV if cash is tight, and you'll have far more capability, like HDTV and HDTV *recording* (which runs a few kilobucks by itself, retail). Admittedly, I'm comparing "MSRP" TV prices to bargain-hunting for HDTV, but hackers have always been scroungers, right?
To me, the learning is the biggest benefit. I'm not a big fan of most TV, but building my HTPC has been a wonderful (and not *that* pricey) hobby. I don't need cable when most of what is sold locally as "digital cable" doesn't come close to the 1080i resolution I pick up with a $20 "double bowtie" antenna from Radio Shack (As a general rule, any antenna that calls itself an HDTV antenna will be *worse* than a cheap 1950's retro-looking double bowtie)
When your videos are always on your HDD, you'll rule in Geek Debates on SF tech or plots (one-click access encourages the invaluable habit of rigorous fact-checking). You can make outrageous SF music videos or parodies, and otherwise exercise your creative and intellectual side instead of being purely a passive couch potato. Modesty prevents me from linking my own videos, but I'd gladly recommend a friend's site of example TV-SF music videos and parodies
Hahahah... Yes, I remember Univision. A few years ago I was living in south florida, and there was this great game show on the Univision network called Llevatelo.
I can still remember the hosts... Gaby Ruffo and Paco Stanley (Paco was later assassinated by some unsavory mexican mafia types in Mexico city... machine-gunned him while he was sitting in his Lincoln Navigator at some cafe... they did it in broad daylight in front of God and everybody... nasty)
Anyway, it was like a Nickelodeon show for adults... they would climb things, crawl through slime pits, etc for prizes. What struck me at the time was how sexist the show was in terms of prizes. Now, I'm no hypersensitive politically-correct type (those people make me want to vomit), but the prizes for the women were always a vacuum cleaner, a stove, a toaster, etc. Notably, the prizes for the men were always just a bit different: a car, a stereo, etc, but NO household appliances. I guess that's cultural... but it was still funny.
The chicas-dancing-in-bikinis theme was present throughout, however. It was actually quite entertaining, particularly if you spoke a little spanish.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
I want to know what the native resolution of the next-gen DVDs will be. *When* we get that, I'll be able to choose whether I want a 720p or 1080i(/p) TV. For now I'll settle for my non-HD (but 16:9) TV.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Not to mention 16x9 is a rip off
do the math, the diagnal on a 16"x9" screen is 18.35, and gives you 144" square.
Now look at a square 18" screen (yes I know they're not totally square, but they are mostly): 12.7"x12.7" and 162" square.
This is one of the more poorly informed posts here on Slashdot. All that "extra" screen you get with a 4:3 display is wasted anyway; your peripheral vision doesn't see much at the top and bottom of the screen when you look at the middle. Your eyes do see stuff at the sides of your vision, however. A 16:9 screen therefore takes the wasted image at the top of the display and gives you extra on the sides. Your eyes "see" a lot closer to 16:9 than they do in 4:3. Its the exact same reason that cinema screens are wide and thin.
Yes, work, work, work.
Somehow, we think we must do this.
Why?
How much is a day worth anyway? Sleep in. Go fish if you wanna. Spend some time with the kids. Watch your little female kitten grow up and become *very* attractive to the neighborhood tom cats. How much is that worth?
When I got laid off, I was used to going through a lot of money. The paycheck went right to the VISA account. But something had to change, I needed to re-establish a new job to keep that money coming in at such a high rate, or learn to live with less. After seeing how much it was taking out of my health to remain "employed", I figured all I was going to do was spend my remaining days either at my desk or at the doctor as he tells me I am having all these problems because I do not get enough exercise. So I decided to just freelance.
No, I do not have near the money I used to. There is no way I am going to keep up spending money everytime the big guy churns the OS. That kinda stuff is for big business that has the megabucks to pay so they can brag that "if their customers don't upgrade too, they won't be able to do business with me" mentality. Also known as "this site best viewed with xxx". Thats Big Business. They have the money not only for the software but enough to pay for the salary of the guy who specifies it. I have better things to do than work from dusk to dawn trying to keep up with them. I give up. They win.
I'd rather go fishing than work "8-5 + unpaid overtime" to earn money I just get taxed on. So I make the bare minimum I need to get by. It means I have the time to fix my own stuff, do things myself that I would have had to pay others to do. Take courses at college that interest me. I end up recycling a lot of stuff others toss out, and learn how it works. Doesn't mean I do without anything. It is amazing what people throw out simply because it has a minor problem. I have more computers, TV sets, Microwave ovens, you name it, anything, than I could ever use. I end up fixing them and giving them to others.
I honestly do not know what keeps all these people so motivated to spend thousands of dollars for the latest technology that not only enslaves them to pay for it, it also enslaves their time once they have it. TV is not something I much like in the first place.. I may watch it if its something really good, but to think I would actually spend money on the thing is out of the question to me. If they think I am going to spend $1000 for it, I think of how many hours I will have to spend working for someone else to get that money, after taxes, for it. Then they think they wanna pester me with DRM rights too? Forget it. Its just not worth that much trouble. Turn the damm thing off.
Now, where is that stick I pound into the ground and rub it with a brick..so it vibrates the ground and makes the worms come up.. I'll get a few, grab my stick and string and head over to the lake.
"TV rocks. Type "Charles Poynton" into Google and you'll learn so much about what lies behind your humble TV screen - this is deeply deeply well thought out engineering, that the PC world in its arrogance thinks it can muscle in on."
Oh how wrong you are! TV is a disaster area - nothing makes sense, nothing is how it should be and the whole infrastucture creaks forward based on who can sell football rights to whom. Technically, the four most profound injustices are a) Interlaced scan - this fucking tradgedy was used as a quick fix to the problems of bandwidth limitation 50-odd years ago and yet has actually been PRESERVED by the Muppets who formulated the ATSC spec. b) 29.97/59.94 - a classic case of "evolution not revolution" this one has been causing headaches in post production for ever, and always will.... (look up drop frame timecode and shudder) c) non-square pixels - a concept that ONLY a video engineering comittee could EVER come up with - don't even TRY and get your head around WHY d) 3:2 pulldown - an astonishing solution to an unneccesary problem - as with all TV engineering, creates more problems than it solves.
I could go on, and bore you with the insanity of widescreen (although the movie industry bears a large part of the responsibilty for THAT one) but I won't, suffice it to say that in TV engineering, there's five problems for every solution.
That was classic intercourse!
Indeed. We have no HDTV *at all*.
We do however have no non-digital channels now. The only 5 you could get on analogue are all avaliable on cable, satellite or the rather snazzy Freeview which is a BBC led digital service that just chucks digital over the air to your standard aerial.
The Government want to turn off analogue in 2010 and despite the fact there's already no reason to not switch they don't think they'll make it.
2006 for the US isn't going to happen.
I watch movies at the cinema, i.e. many months before they come out on DVD/Cable/etc.
and live in Van Gogh themed houses, or it that a result of NTSC->PAL conversion? I.e. Does Jerry Springer/etc. look yellow in the US or only when it gets converted to PAL?
no, it isn't
if it were 30Hz it would be 1080P
That was classic intercourse!
You talk like a marketing huckster.
I used to have an unbelievable hatred for the sales fucks who work in the stereo stores. I would occasionally go in looking for a particular kind of connector. They didn't know shit but were sure capable of putting on a show. And they were hostile vampires if all you wanted was an RCA jack.
I've gotten over the hostility toward such bullshit. But it still is a matter of great distaste.
There's nothing on Television worth what all the hype promises. Every geek knows that. 'Nuff said.
I have an old console TV. When that breaks down I'll probably buy HDTV, but, I don't expect it to break down for another 10 years. By then HDTVs should be selling for a reasonable price.
You dont' have an HDTV.
HDTV is 16:9 and can do at least 720p.
Saying "I have an HDTV that's 4:3" not only makes you a moron, but an ignorant moron.
So, *you* STFU.
You moron.
"Also, just for the record, I am NOT a moron."
Look.
People can be happy with a 19" portable playing fuzzy reruns of "leave it to beaver"
There's not much point to HDTV if all you get is the same old picture ratio. Movies today are all shot in widescreen format.
If you think the point of HDTV is primarily to get a sharper picture, then I have no reason to buy an HDTV. It doesn't make sense to spend money just to get a sharper picture. Its dumb.
The only compelling thing about HDTV is to finally watch movies the way they're intended to be seen; in 16:9 format.
And you can spout al you want about what pixels yout think you're getting, but the thing that sell people is the widescreen format...not a sharper picture.
I hope you're not in the majority of people, because otherwise HDTV is destined to fail, but you think watching "The Simpsons" in a really high resolution is a killer app.
How did you make it this far in life?
Also, just for the record, I am NOT a moron. But you are - the same math gives a 53" 4:3 TV a 42.4" wide screen. A 43" 16:9 screen gives you only a 37.47774" wide screen.
Hey... hello... I was referring to picture size when viewing widescreen programming, you know, what the majority of HDTV and DVDs contain?
Run through your math again with 1.77:1, 1.85:1, or 2.35:1 for a picture aspect ratio and you'll quickly see why a smaller widescreen TV can give the same or larger net result than a 4:3. I think this point is obvious and doesn't require mathmatical proof. Anyone who's watched a 2.35:1 movie on 32" tv, and saw their movie shrink to a little stripe knows what I'm talking about.
I apologize for the harsh tone, but I cannot understand how anyone wouldn't go for the widescreen format. It's just more natural to be looking at a screen that better fills your field of view.
" DVDs are superior in every way to VHS."
Really?
I want you to tape the basketball game tomorrow because I can't get home from work in time.
Here's a DVD player and a VHS machine.
Which will you pick?
I'm guess you'll say DVD because " DVDs are superior in every way to VHS".
Oh wait.
DVD's have a huge flaw in them.
What could that be, bright boy?
I'll bet you drive a 1969 Dodge Dart because they're reliable and you can get them for under $200 at this point.
Why would you push an analog standard? talk about crap!
though the Channel 13 weather girl here in L.A. who does the weather braless in her tank top and tight leather pants would sure look cool in HDTV! ;-)
Holy shit! Dude I gotta move to L.A....
;-)
Ehh, wait on second thought, can you just record that and send it to me
Wait a second... yeah, why isn't PLAYBOY or HOT NETWORK all OVER this shit yet? Come one! The first cable company to carry Playboy HD, or HotZone HD will be RAKING in the dough.
A monnkey with a nuclear bomb is:
www.shrubya.com/monkey.html
Sorry, gotta call bullshit on this one. Here's why:
Now all that's needed (since 540p is a snap for any HD set now) is enough horizontal resolution to display 1920 horizontal pixels.
OK, here's where the importance of a widescreen set comes in.
My set (which is fairly low end) has 1200 horizontal TV lines of resolution.
In a 1:1 area, the height of the set, 1200 pixels can be resolved. Now, my set is 1.77:1 (16:9). So expanding that to the full width of the set, you get (1.77*1200) 2124 pixels.
So a widescreen 1080i capable set has more than enough resolution to display the full detail. Now with 4:3 in letterboxed mode, YMMV. You will most likely not get the full detail because the picture is forced into a desner area.
And people laughed at me when they saw my TV filled the space to the sides with grey bars. That's designed to prevent this exact problem.
ExtremeTech has a much better look at the trials of buying an HDTV running this morning.
Teletext is only 40x25 characters IIRC, even a DOS text-mode program expects 80 columns. Make the characters any narrower and they will not be particularly easy to read, even with specially designed glyphs.
What size characters does WebTV manage to use?
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
What's wrong with non-square pixels? Why should it matter if you are sending television pictures? For that matter, why should square pixels be so important for computer displays either? (I know that they _are_ right now, because we still have loads of windowing systems using pixmaps which have been created for square pixels, but with SVG icon support and scalable fonts there's no reason why the display couldn't adapt to whatever pixel size you have.)
Not that I'm advocating changing the square pixel to something else for computer displays - but I don't see why it's such a stupid idea just for televisions.
But anyway, do television sets even have pixels? I thought they had scan lines and within each scan line there were no discrete pixels, just a continuous smear of different colours.
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
Bah, your cost estimates are WAY too high, at least for the average Slashdot reader.
PC: Most Slashdotters already have one.
Good display: Many Slashdotters already have one.
PCI HDTV tuner card: $300 MyHD from www.digitalconnection.com
You don't necessarily need a widescreen super-huge monitor to get the advantages of HDTV. I have an 18" LCD flat-panel and my PC is my HDTV tuner. The quality is stunning. Even on the relatively small monitor the difference is incredible for shows like CSI.
Note that the MyHD card OR your existing video card both make for excellent progressive-scan DVD players.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
it's a stupid idea because a) it's generally confusing and requires constant resampling during post production and b) because it was arrived at from a stupid definition of line length and "made to fit" the available bandwidth. If you had a piece of string that was 43cm long, but you needed one that was 30 cm, would you simply change the definition of a cm? Nope, neither would I, but that's what non-square pixels do - a pixel CANNOT be a 'point' if it has a shape, and TV pixels have SHAPES!
That was classic intercourse!
You could've simply used any decent quality cables with RCA connectors on the end.
Even better, look around and find RCA connectors that fit on RG6 coax. That way you can make a cable that blows that $75 cable away for a fraction of the price. (Heck, at only 12 feet, even RG59 should be fine.)
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Even the Fox pseudo-HD content (It's 480p, which some don't consider to be HD, but is still far better than 480i), I can definately tell the difference.
Given a choice between HD (Or even simply non-widescreen digital content such as the Simpsons), HDTV/DTV on my PC screen blows away NTSC on our larger TVs. non-widescreen Fox 480p content looks incredible compared to even WNBC, which is the station with the best analog reception where I live. It's a decent bit better than cable too.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
A pixel is never a point anyway, it is either a square (on LCD monitors, or CRTs with a high enough dot pitch relative to the display resolution) or a round fuzzy thing (on low-end CRTs).
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
of course a pixel is a point - it's only a square if you display it as square (and BTW, neither CRs or LCD actually display a square pixel, they display several primary colour sub pixels that YOUR EYE AND BRAIN are expected to consider as a single point). Go and look at a CCD imager - are the photosites perfect squares with an infinitely narrow border? Nope. How about a flying spot telecine? Perfect square? Nope, more like a fuzzy dot. Only in CGI does the idea of a pixel having a specifically defined area make sense - and the multitude of different anti-aliasing techniques developed to deal with THAT situation are a testament to the inherent problems with that.
That was classic intercourse!
MIT = Macro Image Technology, some Korean company, not the famous educational institution.
Both are available from www.digitalconnection.com, although the HiPix is VERY backordered.
The HiPix is universally agreed to have the best software available, but I've heard the receiver is so-so in sensitivity. The MyHD has so-so software (although constantly improving, the latest beta is an incredible step forward) but reportedly excellent receive sensitivity - Still kinda sucks compared to the Samsung SIR-T151 STB.
I have had the MyHD for about a week and was reasonably happy with it. No additional antenna needed, although we never got cable here so we have a pretty large OTA antenna. I'll be soon building a custom antenna just to get Philly stations. (Unfortunately, thanks to 9/11, the state of HD in New York City isn't too good. Only CBS and Fox are on the air, with UPN piggybacking a 480i signal on one of Fox's subchannels.)
Don't believe the hype about "HDTV antennas" - Any antenna that can receive analog can receive HDTV, although because many of the HDTV channels are currently on UHF, you can get away with a UHF-only antenna.
Best antennas you can get by walking into a store are the Zenith/Antiference Silver Sensor (Available at Sears, a very nice LPDA design), and Radio Shack has a pretty big UHF yagi. Mail-order, if you can't get a station with the Channel Master 4228, you won't be getting that station at all.
Don't be misled by the Terk TV55. It's a $99 piece of crap, the unamplified $39 Silver Sensor will eat it for lunch.
Stay away from Radio Shack preamplifiers. Lowes home centers carry Channel Master mast-mount preamps - CM and Winegard are two of the best TV antenna/preamp manufacturers.
A lot of the problems with HDTV are marketingof accessories... $150 cables that aren't any better than generic $10 RCA cables, and a multitude of ultraexpensive antennas that are pieces of crap.
Do your research and go to www.avsforum.com
And don't knock HDTV until you've tried it.
My HD setup:
18" flat-panel
AMD Athlon Tbird 1.1, 512M RAM
GeForce4 Ti4600
MIT MyHD card
Old creative DVD drive
Altec Lansing ACS-48 computer speakers
Total outlay to get HDTV: $300. The rest of the hardware was already there, my HDTV is also my trusty 'ole primary desktop. The only part in the above list other than the MyHD I've had for less than a year was the Dell 1800FP display.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
For easy-to-find indoor antennas, do not touch anything other than the Zenith/Antiference Silver Sensor.
It's a very slick LPDA design, which at $40 will blow away the $100 Terk TV55.
There are 2-3 other indoor antennas popular on avsforum.com, although they're usually harder to obtain.
I'm 33 miles from NYC and the Silver Sensor unamplified was just *barely* able to get WCBS-DT and WNYW-DT (CBS and Fox from NYC), when my monster V/U yagi in the attic with a crappy preamp couldn't get anything. (In the end I put a Channel Master preamp on the big yagi and am returning the SS, which I mainly bought out of curiosity. Its performance is incredible for such a small antenna, it just wasn't sufficient for my location.)
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
If you're just concerned with picture quality and not screen size. (The difference between HDTV and analog is noticeable on even a good 1" FP or 19" monitor, prolly even a 17" Trinitron which is dirt cheap and probably considered bare minimum by many readers of this site.)
Just get a good PC monitor. Buy an HDTV tuner card for your PC, and boom. HDTV for $300 beyond what you've probably already spent long ago on a good monitor for your computer.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
absolutley badass. They are just coming out, so look to see them showing up in stores in about a month. It supports HDTV and all that other stuff, but the best beneift is just the gorgeous size.
Slashdot needs to interview Natalie Portman.
The Samsung SIR-T151 is only $400 at BestBuy. Probably less if you shop around.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
"I don't think I want another television screen that can't also be a computer monitor."
Most HDTVs have DVI or VGA inputs.
For those that don't, quality-wise component YCrCb is as good as RGB VGA for inputs. Radeons have component capability built in, and a $200 transcoder is all that's needed to make any other video card output component. (I've seen plans to DIY a transcoder for $20 or so too.)
This gives a large, widescreen, decent resolution monitor that kicks butt for games. Many current consoles support component outputs also, I've seen many people raving about how great their Gamecube or Xbox looks on their HDTV.
Conversely, if you're not concerned too much with screen size and only with picture quality, you can't go wrong with using a $300 HDTV tuner card (MyHD, available from www.digitalconnection.com)to feed your current monitor.
I added a MyHD to my machine for a total outlay of only $300 beyond what I'd already spent on my system for general computing and gaming. I have an 18" flatpanel, anything better than a 17" CRT will do pretty well as an HDTV resolution-wise.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Like I said, a pixel is either a square or a fuzzy round thing. It is not a point. Pixels have area.
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
Well, I did avoid 3:2 pulldown and NTSC with my disclaimer about PAL here in Europe :) Widescreen is everywhere in the UK, and the 4:3 14:9 16:9 transition has been handled well enough, although I'm totally brassed off with 2.35:1 DVD on a 4:3 screen, you'd think DVD could have got pan-scan sorted.
Yes it'a all a nightmare and a mess, I guess I was trying to convey my admiration for all the poor people who've had to deal with it. Non trivially, you simply can't walk away from 50 years of legacy equipment in the real world of telly - PC people have it easy with planned obsolescence.
I bougth my DVD player at my local Wallmart (a Zenith)and it has DVD AND VHS built into the same unit. Pretty usefull for now as I like the advantage of DVD's but can't afford to lose the recording ability of the VHS yet...
I'd rather be sailing...
Pixels do have area (they must, if they exist at all), they just don't have a DEFINED area, so you shoudn't go giving them shape as well...
That was classic intercourse!
If you have already bought an HDTV, it is time to buy one.
If you have not bought an HDTV yet, it is not yet time to buy one.
Simple! (Don't believe me, check the posts.)
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
Run through the original poster's math again yourself. He has tried, very carefully, to show you that a 32" 4:3 TV shows WIDESCREEN movies (letterboxed) only 2% (or about half an inch) smaller than a 30" 16:9 TV. Ignoring 4:3 programming altogether, the two are nearly identical FOR WIDESCREEN PROGRAMMING. That "little stripe" you mention is complete crap. Even if the movie is wider than 16:9 (meaning the 16:9 TV has to letterbox it somewhat as well) his math holds, and the images will be roughly the same size on the 32" 4:3 and the 30" 16:9. The SAME SIZE. The SAME WIDTH AND HEIGHT.
The smart buy right now, even for widescreen movie buffs, is to pick the widescreen HDTV size they like, and buy a 3:4 HDTV that can display a widescreen image the same size. The 3:4s are significantly cheaper, can display the widescreen image the same size, and finally, will not take a huge punishment on displaying older 3:4 content. The converse is not true.
To sum up concisely: 3:4 HDTVs can display 16:9 (and wider) content as well as 16:9 HDTVs if they are only a few inches larger in diagonal measurement. (In this case, a whopping two inches.)
Oh how wrong you are! TV is a disaster area
I agree with your sentiments, but I must also agree with the original poster's opinion that it is deeply well thought out engineering.
The problem they solved with the technology and limitations they had to produce something affordable was amazing. Especially using 1940'ish technology. (Vaccum tubes, expensive bulky transformers, huge metal chassis.) Didn't you ever take apart old TV's as a youngster back in the 60's? This would give you an appreciation of how much they did with how little.
Believe me, they were not thinking about computer monitors. They solved a problem using their technology (not ours), using amazing engineering. Bitch all you want about interlacing. It was a good idea that sovled a real problem. Reduce flicker by drawing the screen 60 times each second. But each frame is only half full. You only send the bandwidth of 30 complete frames in a second, but get the non-flicker of 60 Hz.
Do I agree with you that by today's standards it looks like a giant kludge? Yes.
Do I agree with your whole disgust of the football / tv-industry? Yes.
So in 50 years, will people look at our computers today in the same kind of disgust? Yes.
Hey mommy and daddy, what were computers like way back in the olden days when you were a kid when dinosaurs roamed the earth?
[....answer....]
Eeeewwwwwwww! They had segment registers! Booted up in "real" mode. Stupid short sighted limits like 32-bit filesystems, etc. And it's all financed, and the industry only moves forward based on who can force upgrades and lock-in on whom.
Those who would give up liberty in exchange for security and DRM should switch to Microsoft Palladium!
Please tell me you didn't just use "$1400" and "as little as" in the same sentence. For a television? Are you insane?
If anyone pays over 400$ for a tv, they are insane. Besides the fact that there is little on tv worth watching, It is worth noting that European's dtv{mpeg2} standard is superior to the standard that our friendly Congress is pushing down our throats; not to mention the handling of the data is much more user friendly, ie.. making your own Video Digital REcorder, vs. spending money on a tivo type service, where they milk you for having the ability to record in the digital age.
It would be nice to have a congress pass a law that requires IPDroids to put their content on the internet in mpeg2 standard, then consumers wouldn't be put in a position of wasting ton's of money on bullshit technology that isn't necessary!{of coarse that is Congresses plan, Milk ya for all ya worth!}, as well as having to pay for bullshit content you never watch or would ever think of supporting ie..{foxnews, cnns, etc..}, if given the opportunity to pay for content in an unbundled environment, those crazy propogandist mind hacking news stations would QUICKELY GO UNDER!
I haven't decided where to move, Canada or Europe, but America, the land of the Free has become.. America, the land of Corporate Donors and the land of "we'll stick it to every one of ya peons pocketbooks, so our rich lobbying friends can continue their money/power grab.
Big Whoop! Only 10X what I paid for my TV! OK, it's only 19", but that's a good fit in my small living room.
Oops, did I say 10X? Try 15X the price of my set!
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
He is talking about 16:9 movies! They are as big on a 32" 4:3 (even letterboxed) as they are on a 30" 16:9!!!! He did the math to show you, and you still don't get it. Fine, pay more for less-- but don't say we didn't warn you.
At least line a pair up and bring a tape measure to see for yourself before you buy. Please.
How did *you* make it this far in life?
Bad conversion screws with colors and brightness. I watched the Stanley Cup Finals and a couple of baseball games in the UK in '01 when I was over there on a university choir tour, and they were (a) dim and (b) a bit off in the colors. Both were conversions from the ESPN feed, the same one I'd have been watching at home. Conversions from PAL to NTSC, like (for example) Champions League broadcasts on ESPN, usually look just as bad here.
One could probably tune the conversion to get better quality, but none of the programs we're talking about are really worth it to the broadcasters in question. Fox Sports World, on the other hand, seems to do pretty well, probably because virtually all their programming is converted, and it's worth the money to them to not have their entire channel look like ass.
They're no different than the stuff you get at the hardware store for 30 cents a foot.
But why fight it? You can't convince a moron he's not. And an audiophile is the worst kind of moron out there.
Perceived content value notwithstanding, I thought I'd give the information I had available.
:)
Marketing huckster - that was particularly cruel!
"If there's hope, it lies in the proles..."
HDTV is designed to provide a much more immersive television viewing experience: the wider screen should fill more of the viewer's peripheral vision, and the detailed picture will frequently exceed the visual acuity of the viewer at traditional TV-vieweing distances. The Society of Motion Picture Television Engineers (SMTPE) recommends that viewers sit *much* closer to the television when watching HDTV:
For traditional 4:3 televisions, recommended viewing distance was seven screen-heights (heights, not diagonals) away from the screen. For a 34"-diag screen, that's just under 12 feet. But for HDTV, SMPTE recommends a viewing distance of just four screen-heights. When comparing against a diagonal distance, this is compounded by the squatter 16:9 aspect ratio: For a 34" widescreen HDTV set, that's about 5' 6" away from the screen. If you want to buy a new HDTV and keep your sofa 12' away, SMPTE says you'll want a 73" screen.
OK, so they're not cheap. I'll grant you that. Most people who are seriously looking *now* at HDTV are early adopters. Put it this way: Some people will spend $400-$500 more on a cutting-edge PC/laptop, while others buy two steps or more down because those features aren't that important to them.
:)
Some people buy brand-new cars instead of used ones, for different reasons.
By "only $1400" I was making the point that HDTV-ready TV's didn't have to cost $6,000 or more.
For the record, I only have a 27" TV in my living room, but I've been watching the HDTV information very closely, and some of my friends/coworkers have HD in their homes.
Didn't mean to incite a riot, people!
"If there's hope, it lies in the proles..."
BWAHAHAHA
For that price, it better come with a hooker!
So, when's lunch?
I thought a lot about this before making my purchase. I was originally going to buy a 36" tube, but ended up with a 55" RPTV.
I didn't get a built in HD receiver, and, when I purchased, had no idea when I'd be able to get one or when I'd actually see true HDTV on my set.
Didn't matter to me. My purchase was based upon having a widescreen television that did a good job on DVDs. I got it. With a progressive scan DVD player (an extra $6 with the TV), my DVDs look fantastic. That alone was worth it to me.
Now it turns out that my local cable company has added HD to their line up. For an extra $3 per month, I get the HD receiver, all my locals, and a couple of movie channels in HD. I'm switching to cable just for that.
I bought rear projection, but you can get direct view for less. I'm not sure what you were looking at, but I found a 32" HD ready Sony on the Sony site for $1500. I won't argue that HD ready will be more, but you don't have to pay $5000 for it.
Sean.
I thought that DRM was necessary to make this all work.
Otherwise, we just end up with 1's and 0's and no content.
At least, that's what I've been told.
The ability to record and time-shift without cost is crucial to acceptace by mainstream.
DVD's are a great way to watch movies, but we need a non-DRM way to record HDTV broadcasts.
We used to call somebody like that a whore.
Not that they were literally a whore, but they dressed and used makeup like a whore.
Jillian looks like a $500 a night whore.
I think Brittany pioneered the look, but now its mainstream.
and post back in here.
Peace,
-Joe G.
Get off my virtual lawn, you damned virtual kids!
I thought the FCC was going to auction the spectrum, most likely for cellular voice/internet. It doesn't look like there will be alot of bids from the moribund telecoms. Just as well, because I don't think the FCC will be able to stop analog TV. Too many voters just won't switch in time with these prices. If they're extremely lucky, they might be able to free the UHF band by moving stations to VHF.
hmm well my TV is 4:3 and does 1080i it's a Panasonic CT-32HX42.
I would imagine that a tv that does 1080i is hdtv.
"think of it as evolution in action"
He is talking about 16:9 movies! They are as big on a 32" 4:3 (even letterboxed) as they are on a 30" 16:9!!!!
But, if the 4:3 TV displays 16:9 by just turning off the electron guns to draw black rectangles top and bottom, the 16:9 will have better resolution. In this instance, the 4:3 which would normally display 480 lines will instead be displaying 360 lines.
The really good 4:3 TVs now typically will do 16:9 by 'squeezing' all 480 lines into the 16:9 area. This is better, but the 30" widescreen may still have higher resolution. The 4:3 TV (if it isn't HD-ready) may not have a tight enough dot pitch to really resolve all 480 lines in the 16:9 area. The widescreen, on the other hand, will be designed to resolve all 480 lines. In fact, since 99% of widescreens are HD-ready, it most likely will resolve far more.
Hey kids, there's only 5 days left 'til Yak Shaving Day!
Yeah, I was talking about the "bare minimum" to get a decent HDTV setup that's excellent as a "first taste" of HDTV for the average Slashdotter.
:)
The original poster was basically saying that such expensive items are the minimum level of entry into HDTV, while there are much cheaper ways to do it that work quite well.
That said, once you've had your first taste, it could get expensive. Once I can afford it (Going to be a while) I intend on upgrading my current crap projector (640x480 only, not good for HDTV) to something a bit better, it looks like the low $2000 range will get you a 1024x768 DLP unit. I'm also very tempted at getting a basic low-end surround decoder, I've seen em' for as low as $150 or so.
It's possible to save a LOT of money with getting yourself up and running with HDTV if you're not afraid of a little bit of DIY hacking.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Black leather pants last night...I swear they either paint them on or pour her into them!
The smart buy right now, even for widescreen movie buffs, is to pick the widescreen HDTV size they like, and buy a 3:4 HDTV that can display a widescreen image the same size. The 3:4s are significantly cheaper, can display the widescreen image the same size, and finally, will not take a huge punishment on displaying older 3:4 content. The converse is not true.
Unless you're looking at RPTV's. A 55" 4:3 which can display letterbox movies the same size (and resolution; see my other post on this thread) as a 50" 16:9 is not significantly cheaper. It might even be more expensive; for instance, Sony is really proud of their 4:3 units which do 16:9 squeezing. On the other hand, the 55" 4:3 might be significantly larger, heavier, and more difficult to get through doors (this was one reason I bought a 50" 16:9).
Also, a big-screen is likely to be kept longer than a tube TV, and is more likely to still be in use as HDTV content becomes more pervasive, so the tradeoff in 4:3 picture size may be less of an issue. In my case, I have a prefectly functional older model 32" tube to watch ordinary TV; the widescreen is used almost entirely for movies and Enterprise. Now that my local CBS affiliate has their HD broadcast on line, it'll also get used this coming college football season.
To sum it up, everyone's viewing habits are different, and everyone isn't going to want the same kind of TV. Someone else isn't a moron because they choose what's right for themselves instead of what's right for you. If they choose to watch Jerry Springer, however, all bets are off!
Hey kids, there's only 5 days left 'til Yak Shaving Day!
The problem I see is that you can't actually buy an HDTV. Go to the store and look around. Where are they? There are lots of humongo-screen sets that are "HDTV-ready", but you have to buy a converter box to have a complete HDTV.
Okay, where are the converters? I've never seen one advertised and I've never come across one in any store.
(If I *could* buy a converter, I'd probably just hook it to my 25" set, which is plenty large enough for now.)
Whatever.
Get off my virtual lawn, you damned virtual kids!
"So in 50 years, will people look at our computers today in the same kind of disgust? Yes."
Well, almost ALL operating systems have ALREADY suffered a degree of this - MS DOS/Windows being the worst offender, of course. What depresses me is the consistent failure to legislate cruft out of the TV system - ATSC has spectacularly failed at this by allowing ALL of the old failings to migrate to the new platform, removing ANY incentive for producers to alter their output for the new medium. In the UK things are slightly better, but i'd still like to see Widescreen being forced on the broadcasters a little harder - there are still some GLARINGLY 4:3 productions (Channel 4 News, hello?) and a disappointing lack of resolve to get tough with Sky over standards, or with ANYONE over the use of fucking DOGs.
Ah well, plus ca change...
That was classic intercourse!
" Very few HD monitors are capable of displaying 720p -"
Most are either capable of 480p/720p-i/1080i, or they only do 480p.
However, 480p is a damn sight better than what we've got today. It essentially doubles the vertical resolution.
720p in 16:9 format is great and is *the* killer app for HDTV.
But I find the HDTV tuner situation EXTREMELY confusing, and I'm a fucking genius.
HD DVD is still in a blue-laser MPEG-2 vs. red-laser MPEG-4 fight, but digital VCRs already exist and do let you record high definition programming.
It's called D-VHS. D-Theater is a standard on top of that that adds tough encryption for distribution of Wacky Jack V.'s movies so they'll be hard to back up.
The limitation of D-VHS in recording is that you're depending on a tuner to give you signals. 8VSB-broadcast-only (OTA or "over the air") tuners may never be DRM-crippled by the proposed broadcast flag, but satellite and combo HD-OTA/sat tuners are subject to nasty firmware upgrades with Digital Restrictions Managed. It's possible that even OTA-only tuners will be upgraded with MPEG private section data, but that reqires cooperation of broadcasters.
There are also OTA-only HD tuner cards for PCs. Whether there are backdoors for "upgrading" the DRM if the broadcast flag flies is left as an exercise (try SoftICE). The streams that at least one of the cards captured are not "in the clear," which gives you an idea of the mfg.'s intentions. There are no open source drivers for any of these cards working yet. The Telemann "independent developer" project for HiPix requires an NDA to get source access. Teralogic who makes the chip on that board has been bought by Oak, BTW.
Nobody "owns" EM spectrum. its like claiming you own a patent on One-Click sales on the internet...
oh cripes. Never mind.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
These set top boxes should be less than $150 retail at this point.
Well, I'm the original moron, but when I get my new TV, it will be widescreen. For the opposite reasons that my old TV was 4:3. In my old entertainment unit, I was width limited, and therefore wanted more TV. When I get a big screen, I'll be resolution limited.
When watching SDTV content (currently the bulk, HD Tivo, come here NOW), I would like a slightly bigger set. A 36" 4:3 TV would be perfect for SDTV content. When watching SDTV, I don't want bigger, or it will look awful.
However, with really wide screen movies (2.35:1), I sometimes switch to pan-and-scan (ooh, the devil) because it is too small on my 32" television. Additionally, with the extra resolution of HDTV, I would be happier to have a bigger image. i.e. a 43" HDTV signal will look awesome, a 53" SDTV signal is unwatchable. Therefore, Widescreen lets me get away with what I now want, which is slightly more 4:3 space, and a LOT more 16x9 space.
However, there is no question that a 32" 4:3 HDTV ready is a better buy than a 30" 16x9 television. However, at the bigger sizes, you reach the point where you want the "extra" widescreen space without getting more vertical space.
However, the asshole that called us morons because our television watching is different is unacceptable.
Alex
Fair enough, everybody's different. It just looked to me like the poster's point got missed altogether. Before reading that post, I was pretty much settled on buying a 16:9, but my mind has been changed. Get what's best for you.
I was referring to RPTV's in general on the price, though-- stores around here have 4:3 sets starting at $1500, and 16:9 sets starting at $1800. That's a chunk. From Best Buy:
Mitsubishi 50" 4:3, $1800
Mitsubishi 48" 16:9, $2000
Samsung 54" 4:3, $1600
Samsung 55" 16:9, $2200
Sony 43" 4:3, $1600
Sony 46" 16:9, $1900
Sony 53" 4:3, $2000
Sony 51" 16:9, $2200
Buy what you like. I was only trying to underscore the original poster's comment that for widescreen viewing, 4:3 TVs are very nearly as good as the 16:9 sets. They will probably be heavier, too. And if the "black bars" give you fits, by all means, move on to widescreen.
The obvious caveat that nobody has pointed out to going 4:3 is that some of these sets will not "squeeze" the image (full res in the letterbox) like some of the Sony sets (including the one listed here) do.
My TV has BNC-5 connector as well as 2 sets of Wideband component inputs, one RGB HD connector and many S-video inputs. It is a pioneer elite pro 520hd model and is arguably the finest picture of any rptv ever made, puts plasma to shame. The new pioneer elite models even have DVI connectors as well. Make sure not to confuse Pioneer ELite RPTVs with standard Pioneer RPTVs. Thats like comparing a rolls royce to a honda.
o me Products/HomeProductDetails/0,1422,20884,00.html
http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/Pioneer/CDA/H
30"? Nobody is buying HDTV's that small. The smallest is 32", and 42" is really the smallest 16:9 set.
The reason for the limit isn't the display technology. We have better displays now. There are several reasons that HDTV is limited to those resolutions.
1. Broadcasting equipment is expensive. The equipment on our end doesn't ever hit economy of scale.
2. We only get 6 megahertz of specrum. When you factor out forward error correction that only leaves 19.39 megabibs of data using MPEG 2. When we work in-house we use at least 50 megabits (of MPEG 2) for HD streams. If we tried to broadcast a higher resolution we would have to "squeeze" it even harder. And no one wants their HDTV to look like DirecTV.
3. Their has to be some kind of standard so that everyone knows what we are aiming at. We don't want someone to pull and "embrace and extend" on TV. Wouldn't you be pissed if I made a TV transmitter that could only be tuned in by the TVs that paid me for a license, and then I sold the transmitter cheap to the stations in your area?
4. Computers are expected to break - ask any normal user. In TV we don't have that luxury. People expect their TV to come on and work flawlessly every time.
I have great faith in fools - self confidence my friends call it. - Edgar Allan Poe
So the prices of those big HDTV boxes isn't the issue. It's a matter of when will they come out with affordable standard digital receivers, or set-top converter boxes (ugh!) to plug into your old analog set. Broadcasters will often prefer the low res modes, because they can broadcast multiple programs (= multiple ads = multiple revenue streams) on the same channel that carries only one HDTV program. The big name movies and the Super Bowl (tm), sure, they'll draw a big enough audience for HDTV. But all the regular programs don't warrant the cost or the bandwidth.
I'll believe the digital TV revolution is here when Wal-Mart has sets priced for Joe Six-Pack. The mass market hasn't enough money, space in the house, or motivation to spend thousands of dollars on a big screen, high definition, surround-sound Home Theater System. They just want a TV set.
2003 is a good year to go hi-def!
Once you lick the lollipop of mediocrity, you'll suck forever!
and she gets to stand up as opposed to being on her back all night!
"the set is one of the smallest costs of an HD setup. There are the obvious costs, the TV set, and $250 for a progressive-scan dvd player (or significantly more if you want a region-free one). But then come the non-obvious costs... the new receiver that can switch component video, the $125/m video cables, the HD OTA receiver if you want to receive HD content off the air, the HD satellite receiver and dish to get your hbo and showtime, and the list goes on, dependant on your installation."
:)
[SAVINGS: $100]
and
"...I don't recommend purchasing HD signal unless you're willing to spend four or five thousand dollars in miscellaneous crap in order to make the opening sequence of CSI look really damned cool."
You don't have to spend a fortune for a great HDTV setup. Let me show you how to save $500, right off the top.
$250+ for a region-free proscan DVD? No way! I paid $50 (after rebates) for a Cyberhome CH-500 Progressive Scan DVD player with Dolby 5.1 and component video outs from BestBuy. Image quality is great and yes, it's region free. Open the tray, press 1999 on the remote to bring up the service menu, and choose any region you like. [SAVINGS: $200+]
If you're paying $125 for cables, you're wasting your money. The difference between $20 component cables and the high-end $100+ "video snob" cables is beyond the capabilities of my eyes to discern and I'm pretty damned picky about image quality. Why buy cables that cost more than your components? Seriously, try a set of mid-grade cables and see for yourself. Better yet, have a friend swap cables while you watch the picture and you try to identify which cables are connected. I bet you can't! If I'm wrong, you can call me an idiot, just try it first.
The OTA ("set top box) HDTV decoder is expensive, usually $400. Zenith and Samsung seem to be the only models offered in my area's consumer electronics stores. I bought the Samsung SIR-T151 is about $400 as an Open-Box item (it was returned but it has a full warranty). My cost = $260.00. [SAVINGS: $140]
What about the Over The Air antenna? Radio Shack has some fine Yagi antennas for around $50 and a 10dB antenna-mounted signal booster (to help signal loss over a long span of RG6 -- 1db drop per 18 feet of cable!) runs around $25.00. Also RadioShack sells a Terk TV50 clone for $50 (half of Terk's price) Add $40 for a length of decent RG6 cable, a cable stripper, some ends and make your own cable rather than buying pre-built lengths. (savings? about 30%) Don't forget a grounding block unless you like lightning damage. [SAVINGS: $50+]
So there you are. I just saved you at least $500, not including taxes! That's half the cost of some of the 32" tube HDTVs and is about 1/3 the price of many 48" projection sets.
A decent computer goes for 1500$. A projection widescreen HDTV that takes two men to lift going for the same price... sounds good to me.
Oh yeah, and the TV will be worth something 10 years from now.
Democrats or Republicans. They are both taking us to the same place and they are not afraid of us anymore.
Digital TV channels are capable of broadcasting both a HDTV signal, and a lower resolution digital signal or two that is roughly the same as existing channels. By the time 2006 comes around, there will be super cheap set top boxes that can decode the low definition digital signal and display it on any current analog TV.
For example, the Tonight Show with Jay Leno is actually broadcast twice on the same channel - one subchannel for hi def and one subchannel for low def. The only part that is actually mandated is the low def signal.
The 20 MHz digital signal for each broadcaster can support multiple signals. For example, 15 MHz for a high definition signal and 5 mhz for the 480i equivalent (480i is roughly the same as an ideal analog channel).
The 480i signal is all that the FCC mandates; the hope is that the networks will use the rest of their bandwidth for high def signals and not 5 channels of low quality infomercials.
1)D
2)M
3)C
4)A
Perhaps we should right to TV manufactureres that we will not by one as long as that law lasts? IF we need to buy congress, then lets get some people with money on are side.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
It's amazing how much better a projector with a decent av receiver + 2 speakers is than a big box projection tv.
Find it here. It's LCOS, released in January, on display at CES, and currently on allocation. Next year's model is supposed to drop to USD $5000.
-Joe
Get off my virtual lawn, you damned virtual kids!
"Bill Duxbury says, "At that point you're taking this beautiful high resolution image and you're scrunching it down so that your TV can view it in a standard format which is a waste.""
Sorry, but I'm not an audiophile. To be honest, HDTV doesn't do a damn thing for me. What's the point of high-resolution pictures if it's still the same old "reality television" crap as always? HD crap is still crap, just more expensive.
What has me drooling on the idea of getting a digital tuner is the SDTV offerings. Over the air, I'm able to get two PBS stations pretty well, and the concept of turning those two into four or six seriously piques my interest. And even then (especially because it's SDTV), I have no qualms against plugging that tuner into the S-video or component inputs on my "old" TV, despite what the Best Buy guy says about the "waste."
Of course, I suppose you can't expect anything different from a Best Buy employee. Heck, I even have more respect for Radio Shack employees than Best Buy.
When I can record HDTV digitally, and archive it in a format that doesn't have DRM and isn't tied to a specific piece of hardware, then I'll consider HDTV. I don't even want a Tivo because you can't archive with it; I'll stick with VHS until I upgrade my PC to where it can be a good PVR. Picture quality isn't the most important factor, not by a long shot. How will HDTV improve "The Simpsons"?
I know that my 23 inch TV screen is low resolution. I can see the damn pixels. They are huge! And the colors are in separate rectangles. No to mention the edges of the screen are round and kind of just fade out.
A computer monitor is much better.
And they have been for a while. I remember using the composite video in from a VCR to my old Apple II color monitor. The picture was much better than even on a bigger TV.
Sure, NTSC is a big problem. But the actual CRT on a TV is too.
Um... no. Are you on crack? These signals will be compressed much more than the average DVD. Not to mention they will be interlaced and lower resolution with some bit errors introduced.
Standard NTSC is 480 lines, so you don't have HDTV. Not to mention you have the wrong aspect ratio. Are you sure it was called HDTV or was it just "Digital TV"?
Copy and access controls! Programmable menus which will force you to watch previews! Region controls to illegally divide up your markets! And of course mandatory signal degradation (AKA Macrovision).
:)
These too, are advantages over VHS, at least to a few wealthy international corporations. But hey, it would be sinful for us little guys to question the future that they have decided for us
Or people that want to make a tape for their kids to use on another set which you don't want to buy a DVD player for and wouldn't trust them with anyway...
....
Or those with do-it-yourself projections systems.
Or those who don't have a spare input on their TV and have to pass the signal through the VCR.
I am happy to see 720p and 1080i are going to be universal. Maybe we can get rid of region coding and finally be able to purchase DVD's abroad, bring them home, and play them? I am waiting to find a set I like with IEE 1394/firewire, so in the short term I can use D-VHS, and in the future I can make use of other peripherals.
:)
2005's version of this set may be the set to buy.
Peace,
-Joe G.
Get off my virtual lawn, you damned virtual kids!
That's completely daft. 4x3 looks like crap, so your second paragraph isn't worth reading. I did anyway.
What the hell are you going to squeeze into the (comparatively) extra up-down space on the 4x3? You going to hire taller actors???
Idiocy.
You have described an NTSC analog TV front end. The problem is that the transmission system the FCC picked for use here in the United States is 8 level VSB. The "comb filter" you described is used to seperate the luninance component of the picture from the chromanance component. The DTV signal is a much different animal involving a digital data "transport stream" of 19.3 megabits per second. Within the transport stream are many kinds of data packets, each serving a different purpose. Some packets are Dolby digital 5.1 audio. Others are MPEG-2 compressed video with something like 18 different video formats. High defintion TV accounts for only a few of those video formats. The DTV system is able to "multicast" several strandard definition video streams (with their accompanying audio streams). To sort these streams requires some meta-data packets, which tell your DTV receiver which audio stream goes with a particular video stream. There are other uses for meta-data as well, such as conditional access (subscription programming) where only certain receivers are allowed to decode and display a program stream.
The big problem as I understand it is that the 8-VSB system we have is quite prone to damage from multipath, or ghosting, which makes it very difficult to impossible for a DTV receiver to stay "in sync" with the transmitter. Recovering the transport stream intact, in the presence of multipath requires what is called an "adaptive equalizer" and that is a very complex digital device. I met someone who worked for a company designing demodulator chips for DTV receivers. The European Coded Orthoganal Frequency Division Multiplexing (or COFDM) transmission system requires something like 1.5 million transistors in the demodulator chip. Our 8 level Vestigial Side Band (or 8-VSB) system required 8.5 million transistors, and they weren't really happy with the performance of that chip. Understand that we are talking about demodulators that are as large and complex or larger and more complex than most Pentium class microprocessors. These are non-trivial designs, yet without them, DTV is not usable.
Recall that I said 19.3 megabits per second for the "transport stream" but that is not what you will see at the antenna. At the antenna you will see an almost 30 megabit per second stream because there is forward error correction added into the transport stream. There is 1 FEC bit for every 2 data bits. There also is a "sync" interval that consists of relatively wide pulses, used to make clock acquisition and tuning a little easier. If you were to look at a DTV signal with a spectrum analyzer, you would see a rectangular shaped block a little less than 6 MegaHertz wide, with a small "spike" near the lower frequency edge of the top of the block. That is the "pilot" signal, also used to ease tuning in a receiver.
There probably are several of these signals present at the antenna input of your TV set now, if you use a regular TV antenna. If you use a CATV system to get your TV programing, then all bets are off, because the Cable folks decided that their digital transmission scheme would Quadrature Amplitude Modulation, or QAM. They use either 16-
An analog gray hair frantically clinging to the trailing edge of technology.
"Something that is digital is either all there or none there."
I would agree if you used the word "binary" instead of "digital". Dictionary.com defines "digital" as "Expressed in numerical form, especially for use by a computer." Something that is digital is either not there at all, or there in some discrete quantified amount. The number of calendar days in a month (don't bring up astronomy please...) can be expressed digitally. There are 28, 29, 30, or 31.
Your comment gives a very good explanation of some of the problems of transferring binary information. This is what I agree with in my statement that cables can make a difference in the transmission of digital signals. But you leave out the whole idea of error correction. If a few bits of my CD get misread by the laser (due to dirt or whatever, like you mention), I don't get static, and the CD doesn't stop. I get the best guess of the error-correction software that comes between the laser and the D/A convertor.
Transmission of digital signals is not a binary case situation as you describe. Sometimes you get most of the signal with a few dropouts. Sometimes DirectTV signals get blocky in bad weather.
And light can be represented as a discrete number of photons hitting some surface in some period of time (no half photons!), which is digital. And electricical current is discrete electrons traveling through a conductive medium. If you conted them, you would get an integer number. So that's also digital.
The Apple Cinema HD does not do all of the above, does it?
Mother is the best bet and don't let Satan draw you too fast.
A monitor is a monitor. I wasn't suggesting that the Cinema HD replaces an HDTV tuner.
Widescreen, ideally at DVD resolution, is all I care about. I'll settle for widescreen at regular resolution. It just bugs me when I watch TV shows (most of which are now made in 16:9) and know I'm getting a cropped pan-and-scan image.
When is someone going to make a box that takes HD signals and sends them via regular component video or S-video to a widescreen set and ReplayTV box?
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
Dont forget the Martians messing with your signal.
I see lots of links to HDTV cards for over-the-air broadcasts, but how about an HDTV (or even just DTV) card that can display and record digital cable?? I got a Hauppauge WinTV-HD -- the only HDTV card at the time -- and I met with nothing but endless tragedy (including the inability to even tune into the local FOX syndicate without a BSOD). Eventually I sent the $400 piece of crap back. Fine me one! :P
[insert witty comment here]
I watched that channel enough to notice the same thing... so when I bought my entertainment center, I made sure to have it custom sized so that it would be tall enough to hold the largest 4:3 (tube, no projector for me) I'll be able to afford in the next 5 years, but also have it a bit wider in case I wanted widescreen. There is a good amount of open room now with my current TV, but in about a year everything will look good.
IANAL, but I play one on
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I do not believe that a "full" HDTV display exists, yet. Wouldn't such a display have to support 1020p? Not that such content exists yet either. But, I'd, at least, like to see the full technology before I plunk down my cash. Another reason for my delay is fear of other technology changes due to "security." I keep hearing that Hollywood is nervous, since DVDs have been cracked. Proposals include moving decryption closer to the device, thus making devices up to that point obsolete.