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Cable HDTV Not Ready For Primetime?
A reader writes: "Shelly Palmer head of the New York Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Advanced Media committee and the man that gave us the singing cats in the meow mix ads has posted a very entertaining article on his blog about finally getting a Scientific Atlanta SA8000HD High Definition, DVR-enabled cable boxes from Time Warner Cable in Manhattan, his adventures getting it to work, and its less than stellar performance."
HDTV is High Definition TV, roughly 4-5x the resolution of a Standard Definition (NTSC) picture, but with many more features, such as 16:9 aspect ratio, multiple channels within a signal, and digital signal, with error correction capability, meaning you get a good signal even in a weak reception area. One downside is the "Do not record" bit, which allows broadcasters to block your ability to record certain shows. I have two HDTVs and they are awesome!
There's a lot of factors that go into setting up a HD system, just like setting up an over-the-air system. The SA8000 box does have some problems, especially when compared to the DirecTV HD Tivo. Additionally, the cable company might have problems. Our local cable company in Milwaukee does a decent job, but they've been ahead of the curve for HD for a couple years now. Some cable companies are just jumping into it and having some problems along the way.
Does this mean that the HD format is flawed or not ready for widespread consumer usage? No. It means that you should be aware of the problems you could run into, like any informed consumer. You should ask a salesperson at a reputable store (not Best Buy or Circuit City) about your options: OTA vs Sat vs Cable, the pros and cons of each, and how to determine which equipment you'll need.
You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life. --Winston Churchill
PAL has slightly more resolution to make up for slightly less refresh rate, IMHO.
It is more than just your opinion - it is pretty much a fact. PAL is ~50Hz but has about 100 more scan lines, where as NTSC is ~60Hz.
What hurts PAL sometimes is that NTSC video is often poorly converted to PAL using pretty sloppy methods. But if you use a 100% PAL signal chain (direct from camera or direct from film telecine), it will generally have a better picture than NTSC, all things being equal.
One thing that bugs some people is that 24fps film gets speeded up to 25fps so it displays well on PAL, but it also causes a 4% frequency shift in the audio to synch the audio to the video.