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."

Comments

Where?

[KyrBe]

"16 million homes across the country by the end of the year"

Which country? Mongolia... Peru... Turkmenistan?

Do many people *really* care about HDTV

[Viol8]

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.

Re:Do many people *really* care about HDTV

[DrXym]

It may have 625 lines but only 576 are visible and the picture is interlaced on top of that. Despite that, I think the picture quality is okay and certainly much better than NTSC. Of course it depends on what channel you're watching as well and what content. If you end up watching some crap US imported comedy on a crap highly compressed channel, the picture quality will be horrible. If you watch one of the main channels such as BBC, picture quality is just fine and widescreen already.

Still, HDTV is coming to the UK. Lots of TVs are tagging themselves as "HDTV Ready" though what that means is highly questionable. There are a lot of different HDTV resolutions and progressive & interlaced modes to choose from. The labelling is confusing as hell and I would be extremely wary of buying a TV now when there is nothing to test it against. I truly expect some chumps will buy their HDTV now and the warranty will have expired before they discover what the quality is truly like. On top of that Sky are touting some HDTV channels but where is the pricing for them? When is the service and the HDTV rolling out? How many channels are there? When will Sky+ go HDTV? I wouldn't put it past Sky to bend the early adopters over and rape them for every penny they have. The only other use for HDTV at present is the XBox 360 and next year the PS3. That hardly seems worth it either.

Better to wait a few years until there is a market and channels that actually justify the price of these things.

Re:I believe it

[TheStonepedo]

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.

it's the show that counts not the number of pixels

[MancunianMaskMan]

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.

Re:Not set up properly

[Carthag]

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.