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Re: What's the deal with high defintion?

199.174.183.23

Posted by kotches on August 16, 2000 at 17:30:00

In Reply to: What's the deal with high defintion? posted by sherwood on August 16, 2000 at 15:31:57:

Wow, that was a lot of questions, but I'll try to answer them as best
I can.

Question 1:
Is it true that the current TV broadcast signal will be discontinued
in the next 5 years and all pictures transmitted will be high defintion?

Not necessarily. It depends on how quickly consumers adopt HDTV.
IMO, it'll be more like 8-10 years from now before analog goes away.

Question 2:
Doesn't this mean that current TV sets will be obsolete?

No. A decent set top box would be able to downconvert the HDTV
signal to a 4:3 480i signal that could be handled by a conventional
TV. It would be ugly, but it could be done.

Question 3:
Is DVD compatable with high definition?

I'm not sure what you mean by this question. Are you asking if a
DVD can be played back on an HDTV? If so yes? Some further info
from you on what you're really asking would be helpful :-)

Question 4:
What is the difference between digital and high definition?

DTV (Digital Television) is two things, a transmission standard
(8VSB) and a family of screen resolutions and scanning rates.
Included in the DTV standard are 480p, 720p and 1080i. Only 720p
and 1080i are considered "High Definition". 480p is considered
SDTV (Standard Definition Television).

Note that the standards allow for as many as 6(!) SDTV signals to
fit into a single DTV "channel".

Question 5:
When will high definition sets get cheaper?

I'm not sure. There are several factors keeping the cost high.
First, the technology is still pretty new in making high res TV
displays at the size needed. The computer industry has had higher
resolution monitors than HDTV for a number of years, but the biggest
computer monitors around are 24" widescreens (for all practical
purposes).

Second, the number of unit sales is still quite low to get really
good economies of scale. This is a classic "chicken and egg"
situation -- The cost is too high for the manufacturers to sell
a large number of units. The number of units sold is still too low
to get superb economies of scale, leading to higher costs.

Third, HDTV is as good as it gets TV wise, so a price premium is
paid by the early adopters.

My guess is that it will be 2 years or so before we see HDTV sets
at the US$1000 price point. Until then, it'll be in the hands of
the early adopters and/or the wealthy.

Hope this helped you out.

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