Slashdot Mirror
50% of HDTV Owners Don't Use HD
Ant writes "Broadband Reports and Techdirt posted The Technology Liberation Front's article that said apparently half of all High Definition Television (HDTV) owners don't actually use the HD capabilities of their set, and nearly a quarter think they are watching high definition video when they actually haven't set it up correctly. Set-top box maker, Scientific Atlanta's survey, noted that HDTV sets will be in approximately 16 million homes across the country by the end of the year."
"16 million homes across the country by the end of the year"
Which country? Mongolia... Peru... Turkmenistan?
I'm not trolling , but does anyone really care enough about HDTV to
fork out huge wads of cash on a new set? Perhaps its different in
the USA with NTSC but here in the UK we have the PAL system which does
a nice 625 lines per picture and a good PAL set does an extremely
good picture. Sure , HDTV would be better , but $3000 worth better?
I'm not convinced and neither is my wallet.
My grandparents bought a HD LCD and watch mostly 4x3 SD channels... in wide zoom mode "so the picture fills up the screen instead of being so small." The center area of the their television where a 4x3 picture would be displayed is nearly a foot bigger than my TV, but I suppose old folks need the biggest picture possible. Attempting to explain that they should watch 16x9 mode with letterboxing is futile. At least the digital sound on the HD channels is clearer than SD stereo.
If you think HD sports and HD Discovery channel are nice, you must not have seen HD PBS yet. "Viewers like you" do a fabulous job getting the latest tech into the hands of skilled TV producers, yielding amazing widescreen programs with remarkable sound.
I'll be your candy shop of infinite deliciousity if you'll be my discotheque of endless rump-shaking.
What's the point of having an HDTV?? There's just not enough content out there to warrant dropping the bucks on the bling. It's status and ego. As for usability, it's not very usable. Not yet anyway..
It's so you can be 'future-proof' - yes, you can spend a silly amount of money making sure that the silly amount of money you just spent won't (necessarily) be completely wasted when HDTV becomes more common. Alternatively, you can buy a cheap telly now, and another cheap (but HDTV) telly in a couple of years - one which will most likely out-spec the top-of-the-range ones currently available.
Me, I use a 14in CRT effort. It's probably approaching 15 years old. The picture's still rather good - and it's completely free of the horrendous smearing, deinterlacing, aspect ratio and other problems present on TVs supposedly worth umpteen billion times more. Hooray for the luddites!
Tedious Bloggy Stuff - hooray?
But for now, I can go to Wally World and pick up a nice 27" CRT set with multiple inputs for $150 that will last me 10 years or more.
How long do LCD TVs last? I know CRTs are pretty reliable, but is the lifespan of an LCD comparable?
I did the same thing. I have been using my HDTV primarily for upsampled DVD content for the past year and a half. I have a Zenith DVB318, and the picture quality is amazing. I hear the OPPO is even better.
When I first bought the TV, I tried HD programming for about two weeks. I was disappointed in the lack of true HD content as well as the heavy compression that was being used on the SD channels. I called to cancel not only the HD package, but digital cable completely. I switched to the basic analog package. Imagine my fun trying to explain "compression" to the CSR. She finally got it when I told her I saw little squares around the edges.
I remember watching many _good_ films as a kid on out old b&w telly (my parents upgraded to colour only in the mid-80's iirc). The lack of colour didn't really harm the experience. (only as a kid i thouight big bird was white). If the programme is good, it's worth watching whatever the image quality is, otherwise, HDTV soesn't make it any better. Get a grip. I know this is /. and all, and I'm biased because we live in a house that's so much more enjoyable to live in because it has no TV, but let's face it: HDTV is for wankers.
I watched "The Triangle" on sci-fi earlier this week, and the quality of the night scenes just sucked, really, really, sucked, because DirecTV is cramming too many channels onto too small of a bandwidth.
I've also noticed this with star scenes on astronomy programs on TDS, and with night scenes generally.
If DirecTV et al do the same thing with their HD channels, then what's the point of having HD at all (except to watch DVDs)?
Those who sacrifice security to condemn liberty deserve to repeat history or something. - Benjamin Santayana
If you are really trying to tell people that 480i images look better then 1080i on your panasonic HDTV then you are in the same boat as this thread is discussing. You MUST BE DOING SOMETHING WRONG.
I completely agree. I was helping my dad set up his new surround sound/projector system and that shit is way too complicated for it's own good.
I told him that I couldn't wait until the next generation, or the one after that, when we could get something like ethernet on all the components, each one providing a number of services (audio, video), and each one being capable of receiving a number of services. Then you'd do some dragging and dropping of virtual wires, saying audio from this, goes to these speakers, and this video goes to that monitor/projector.
Jeez.
HDTV has been caught in a catch 22 for the last decade. Content providers don't want to invest the money converting their broadcasts to HD because the market of HDTV owners is small.
Consumers avoided buying HDTV's because there wasn't enough content.
So, who needs to initiate the HDTV revolution? Consumers or Content Providers?
Content providers should have taken the reins and initiated the HDTV revolution like 10 years ago. They should have started making all their content available in HD broadcasts, it is easy enough to down grade the HD content to standard def and put them on two different channels. Digital Cable has been around for over a decade allowing dual HD and standard def content. With content immediately available, consumers would have adopted HDTV sets more quickly and thus this technology would, by now, have been well underway to becoming a mature and successful implementation.
Instead, content providers are slowly rolling out content, and I have really only seen this year cable channels promoting their content in HDTV.
Also, why are HDTV's so expensive? LCD's and Plasma's are luxury items, but not the only technologies capaple of HD digital content. Anyone with a CRT computer monitor has been able to display HD content for over a decade, and CRT monitor resolutions exceed HD resolutions. There is no reason for CRT HDTV's to have been $5000 when they were first introduced, and still these televisions are over $600, when an equivalent sized standard television could be bought for $300.
Finally, its the greed of cable and satelite companies that has stagnated HDTV adoption. The requirement to buy or rent a digital cable terminal in order to view HDTV content is one reason why few people are adopting this technology. I don't want to buy a $4000 television and then another $150 - $500 for the "convertor" box. Cable companies need to OPEN UP digital cable broadcasts and allow ALL HDTV and SDTV's to be able to decipher cable content and HDTV content built-in, WITHOUT PAYING A PREMIUM. I know that many HDTV's are being built with ATSC tuners capable of over-the-air HDTV broadcasts, but cable companies do not allow 3rd party television makers to decipher the program guides and other features that made digital cable easy to use. Also, digital cable companies don't allow 3rd party PVR's to read HDTV and digital cable content, allowing for quicker adoption of HDTV technology by buying 3rd party devices with recording capabilities.
It is greed which is preventing HDTV from becoming a "must have" technology. Greed by the content providers by not investing in the conversion to HDTV broadcasts until there is a well established consumer base, and greed by the cable/satellite companies for not allowing ubiquitous HDTV technology adoption by allowing 3rd party companies from decoding and using digital cable and HDTV broadcasts. And ultimately, it is greed which is stagnating rollout because all companies involved CANNOT find an easy to implement solution that will prevent people from recording digital content and distributing it for free online.
I for one will continue to wait, patiently, until such a time where I can buy a HDTV set with built-in digital cable and ATSC tuners without the requirment of having a cable company box attached to my tv as well, and pay extra for HDTV content. I want a PVR that can use the same digital program guide that the cable boxes display to be able to select which shows I want to record WITHOUT having to buy the feature limited box from the cable companies. I want CHOICE in this industry, not force fed content and products at the discretion of greedy corporation who have been stalling adoption simply because can't find an easy way to protect content from being copied.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
And that just goes to show you how irrelevent "high definition" television is to the majority of Americans. I'm technology-savvy but I have no interest in buying a $3000 television set so I can watch television in HD. Higher resolution doesn't make these shows better, better scripts do. I don't watch any sports on television so I'll stick with my 32" Toshiba CRT until it goes on the blink and then if these 50" LCD TVs are under $800 I might consider one. DVDs look beautiful on my 32" CRT using an SVIDEO cable and if I really want a bigger screen I'll hook it up to my SVGA projector and watch them on that.
"How long do LCD TVs last? I know CRTs are pretty reliable, but is the lifespan of an LCD comparable?" Depends on the brightness of the LCD and when it was made, as recent models of LCD are better then older ones. A typical LCD TV probably has a lifespan of 60,000 hours. If you left your TV on 24/7, then theorteically it would burn out in apporximately 6.8 years. If you have your TV on for say...8 hours a day, it could potentially last you for 20.5 years. That of course is the actual expected lifespan of the backlight before it burns out, so it doesn't arrount for other factors like contrast getting poorer as the years go by ect. This is all an estimate based on probibility anyway. LCDs, like any lighting appliance, will dim over time and with use. The picture you see will dim ever so slightly as the lamp itself dims. However, in general an LCD TV will last you longer then any Plasma TV.
When I used to work in repair shops, I was always amazed by how many items would come in for repair with the clear plastic protective film still covering the display windows, keypad bezels, etc. Usually well yellowed with age and nicotine residue....
Remember "News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters"? Help make it a reality again! http://soylentnews.org
I don't watch TV, but playing Guild Wars at 1920x1080 on a 70" DLP is pretty spiffy.
"The 3:2 pulldown is created in software by the player."
c hmark-part-5-progressive-10-2000.html
Sure seems logical, but this is just not the case:
"There's a persistent myth that DVDs are inherently progressive, and all a DVD player needs to do to display a progressive signal is to grab the progressive frames off the disc and show them."
http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/volume_7_4/dvd-ben
This is just one of the many, many well-written, technical articles out there that explain this issue. Unfortunately, as your post suggests, I just don't think this myth is ever going to go away.
I *just* bought a new non-HD television. Why? Because a decent 27-inch analog TV costs $150. Out of the box it can recieve broadcast signals and works with all common hardware from satellite and cable companies. A comparable HDTV monitor costs somewhere around $300. If you want to receive broadcast signals, you have to pay an additional $200 for an HDTV receiver or buy a $600 TV (I still can't figure out where the extra $100 got there, but that's the prices I saw in the stores). If you have cable or satellite, you have to get an HDTV decoder for their signals, and the upgrade can cost money with some providers. In other words, I saved a MINIMUM of $350 by not buying HDTV. The government can just buy me a decoder when they force the shut down of analog signals in a few years. Screw HDTV, I'll buy it when it's at a reasonable price.
120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
However, figuring out how you want audio represented is actually a pretty difficult job. Determining the difference between a bad audio recording and a pro-logic signal is not necessarily nontrivial.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
It's crap, that's what it is. I'm one of those people with a HDTV with no digital content except for my DVD player. I cancelled my subscription to HD Cable. Why? Because it's bad enough that you have to remember to go from watching the Discovery Channel on 56 to Discovery Channel HD on 623. But on top of that, there's a worse problem!
Oh? There's a program I want to watch on Discovery Channel? Cool.. I'll watch it in HD. You switch over and... Whaaat? It's a completely different program! The show you wanted to watch in HD, simply isn't on, because all the HD channels aren't simply the same programs in HD.. They are completely different channels with completely different programming! That's what none of the content providers want to tell the public. They want you to believe you get all your normal programming, but with the extra benefit of HD!
It's simply NOT TRUE. It's like a bait and switch. Watch Discovery Channel in HD! But you can't, because all you get on Discovery HD is the same 10 programs about Ocean Life played over and over again, while none of their "normal" programming is ever broadcast in HD!