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In Reply to: I finally have HDTV! But what's up with the poor quality HD signals out there? posted by kurt s on August 9, 2006 at 08:00:05:
I just ordered a new TV to get HD for football and baseball. But more and more I'm reading about how little real HD there is out there, and now I finally get it... the only true HD is the HD "commercial", that is, the bug and flower shows, and that five-minute chunk of a North Carolina football game I used to see at Harvey's. Just like SACD! Oh well, at least the screen is bigger. I guess I'll never live to see HD as the standard for all TV shows, or high def as the standard for all audio, either. They're interesting when company comes over (look what I've got), but there isn't enough of it to involve yourself on a regular basis.
Follow Ups:
While true HD still seems to be mostly hype, the enhanced def promoted by the networks as HD does make regular programming much more viewable on a big screen tv. Much SD fare looks horrible when expanded to a big screen, its almost unwatchable.However, many cable programs on non-HD channels appear almost as good as HD for reasons I don't understand. Perhaps digital broadcast of SD permits better res than analog?
Still, there needs to be far more HD programming. At least Football season is coming up pretty soon.
It's like MP3's and SACD. Most people want quantity, not quality. Remember DirecTV is "100% digital quality". It's digital, so it's good! Remember that. :)The goal for digital media is to cram as much information in as little space as possible and do it so it's cheap. I really don't know the wisdom of taking away analog broadcast signals. Where I live, I can barely get an analog TV signal from SF on my over-the-air antenna. When they switch to digital transmission, an "all or nothing" reception, I will certainly get nothing.
You also notice we don't all have 30ips reel-to-reel decks for our music systems or IMAX film projectors for our home theaters, either. But those systems wouldn't be "digital quality".
Somewhere around half (depending on the day) of broadcast evening shows are HD. Cable is pretty spotty. If you haven't already, get yourself an upscaling DVD player.
Jack
the free to air channel networks all have HD transmissions as well as SD.What you get depends on what the station obtained the program in. I tend not to watch all that much TV programming but the ABC, our national broadcaster, transmits quite a few programs in 1280 x 720 progressive scan and the quality is extremely good. Most of the high definition stuff I've watched on the ABC has been in that format. The ABC shows a lot of British BBC material and that seems to be almost routinely in 720p and high quality.
The commercial networks are a mixed bag with some stuff in 1080i, some in 720p, and some in standard definition. There seems a lot more variation in the formats they transmit than what I've seen on the ABC.
Of course, there's no value in having a high quality picture if the program itself is not to your taste.
Somewhere around half (maybe more) of the network TV in the 8-11PM time frame is broadcast in HD, plus sports, but that may depend on the area and whether or not the stations have updated their broadcasting. I watch very little of it, because as you've noticed, it doesn't improve the content any. I think CBS and NBC are 1080i, anf Fox and ABC are 720p.
Jack
There must be a lot of compression and little consistency in the way the major networks distribute HD signals because I have yet to see a major network HD production that looks like HD. Its not even DVD (480i) image quality. The only true HD on ABC-NBC-CBS seems to be the local news. I wonder how long will it be before content catches up with the capability?
Only CBS in the DC area broadcasts local news in HD. I watched CSI last night, and it looked OK in HD, but not as good as local news. It will be a few years before the networks get serious about HD, there just isn't enough HD TVs out there yet .
Jack
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