JAD said:
All this about HDTV... by the time its in full bloom the tech will be
old news. ;^o no?
It pretty much _is_ in "full bloom" in the US. I can get HD broadcasts from
all the major networks, with several different stations for the larger
ones, and I'm in one of the areas where the local broadcasters dragged
their feet.
I think its going to be left behind for a better alternative and
'easier / cheaper to implement' technology.
So let's see, the FCC is going to turn around and change the broadcast
standards just as everybody gets the new system online? I've never heard
of an FCC director being lynched by a coalition of broadcasters but if it's
going to happen that would do it.
Just seems to be a looonnng time in coming, and didn't HD come out in
ads before 'digital' TV?
What do you mean "came out in ads"? Do you mean that it was advertised or
that advertisemetns were somehow transmitted at higher defnition than the
programming with which they were surrounded? If the former, do you always
believe advertisements? If the latter, that's quite a trick, care to
explain how equipment that was designed around the NTSC standard, and
signals that are strictly regulated by the government to comply with that
standard, somehow conveyed higher resolution than that standard allows, and
how that higher resolution was displayed on hardware that isn't even up to
displaying the full resolution of standard NTSC?
I sort of
remember it that way.
If you're talking about the US you remember wrong.
Now digital in many forms is here and HD
broadcasting is barely mentionable.
Why? What happens if you mention it? Will your date get out of the car and
call a cab or something?
Or is this considered apples and oranges? Kinda like the PII, seems it
got stampeded over
as the III's weren't that far down the road. If I'm way off, then this
will spark interesting thread I guess.
I think you're confused about something.
There is a set of standards for high definition broadcast television in the
United States. Those standards are mandated by Federal regulation and all
broadcast stations have been given a deadline for commencing high
definition broadcast. That deadline has either passed or will pass within
a few weeks (I don't recall the exact date offhand) and nearly all
television broadcasters in the US are transmitting high definition. All
you have to do is stick up an antenna and hook the right tuner to it to
recieve it. To actually get some benefit out of it you need a display that
can handle 1280x720 or better, but that's another story.
All the HD modes are digitally transmitted--this has some benefits and some
disadvantages--the big benefit is that you either have a perfect picture or
none. The big disadvantage is the same--it doesn't degrade
gracefully--instead of having a fuzzy picture and staticky sound you have
dropouts or no display or no sound at all.
There is also digital cable, which is digital to the set top box, not to the
display--what comes out of the set top box is no better than what is
carried by ordinary analog cable, they use digital because they can
compress the signal a lot more that way and carry more channels for a given
amount of bandwidth. There is also high definition cable, which requires
the same type of displays as high definition broadcast, however the set top
boxes have no HD modulator (personally I think they should be required by
law to have one) and so the only way to see the HD content in HD is to use
a monitor with DVI or component inputs connected directly to the set top
box--you can see it with a conventional TV but it gets down-converted to
ordinary NTSC. The same is true for direct-broadcast satellite.
If you've seen HD on a big-screen HD display you're already converted. If
you haven't, you will be.
