HD TV

I have used the "search" facility and can't find an existing thread, or one in the last year to post this in (which surprised me) so here goes:

I notice the attached comment today in MediaGuardian about the "benefits" of HD:



Mmmmm . Although I am not a football fan, I cannot see the advantage of seeing individual beads of sweat on a player's face, or the atomic structure of the goal netting as enhancing my viewing enjoyment.

They also mentioned the availability of Dolby Digital 5.1 sound, but this is already there on Sky+ as long as you have a compatible surround sound system.

My TV picture looks excellent at the moment, it is perfectly clear and detailed, and the sound is great when I watch a film with any sort of Dolby encoding.

Do I need my eyes testing? Am I missing some amazing improvement that is possible here? I doubt whether 1080 lines will make much more sense to my (slow) brain than the current 525 lines that I believe Sky broadcast at the moment.

Does "Little Jimmy" really mean that it's "very, very important" to Sky and the Murdoch dynasty because they haven't got anything else on offer to tempt existing punters into spending more cash?

What does everyone else think :

IMO, HD is just the "wow" factor, though the picture and sound quality is fantasic, it's not really needed, we already get good quality transmission on digital picturewise.

I was lucky enough to see lots and lots of examples of HDTV at a broadcast show, and I really was astonished by what I saw.

I'm in a similar position in that my domestic TV setup looks good to me already, but the difference was stark.

Worth repeating what was told to me (by Marksi) that oftentimes these displays are well designed to show the *best* of HD examples, where in actuality, some programmes won't be quite as breathtaking.

I'll be signing up to the Telewest HDPVR roll out in January, so I will let you know what I think then!

I hope everyone doesn't get me wrong, I am not against the idea of HDTV, and I have even registered with the SkyHD site on-line and get ocassional Emails on their plans........I aim to have a look at some demonstrations once they appear in the shops, but purely for interest.

However, I anticipate that I will have the same reponse as you; an initial "wow" factor from a demonstration, but in reality little point in putting something like that to use in a domestic situation unless I have a large plasma screen and a regular flurry of visitors who wish to watch cinema-quality TV (at my expense)

Besides, I tend to end up watching about 30% of stuff I record on Sky+ using the ancient 14" portable in my bedroom when tucked up in bed. I don't want to see the state of a film characters sub-dermal layers when I am dozing off after a hard day at work

HDTV is of course an exciting prospect, and something I hope to see in my lifetime but I'm very apprehensive about switching anytime soon (and not just because of cost). Feel free to shoot me down if this is a wicked lie, but I've heard that some of the current sets have some fairly dodgy upscaling of SD.

Just to share with the rest of you an idea of what I told Gavin a while back about HD/HD Ready/LCD demos...

Ignore animation. Pixar movies are a favourite to use on a demo. These type of images often contain large blocks of flat colour and are easy to process. The depth of colour is not close to that of a real moving image.

Also ignore arty shots of butterflies and landscape. They're generally slow moving shots giving plenty of time for processing. How often do you watch an image like that on TV?

What WILL give you a good indication of a display capability? Ideally show me some swimming coverage with a credit crawl over it! You'll never see that mind you. Any fast moving sport will give you an idea of how it deals with processing. Credits crawling reasonably fast will also show up a poor screen. Oh - and be careful that they're not pretending to show football and are actually showing it in slow motion. Don't laugh - I have seen it done!

I remain unconvinced that I would buy a flat screen tv for living room use for the moment, but the day I change my mind is probably not that far off.

I bet ya within seven years, all the HD channels will look crap too, remember what they said about Sky Digital at the beginning, and look at it now. half the channels are so pixellated and broadcast at poor bit rates ala ITV1!

Harshy....wash your mouth out with soap - I believe you mean ITV Digital, not ITV1

I'm very behind on all of this. What is HD, what provides it, what does it do and how do I get it?

I meant it will look rubbish, you get the drift

HDTV = High Definition Television, the resolution is four times as much as standard TV, you will be able to see the blades of grass on a footie pitch, and the sweat coming out of footballers, each drop of it lol

I get the impression you agree with my initial thought at the top of this thread then harshy :

BOL 10X - I don't think you are missing anything yet by not knowing

With so many technical advances currently taking place in TV, widescreen, digital, lcd/plasma, plus dvd and hard disk recording, I'm finding HD just a complication that most people won't be bothered about.

People go into Dixons, hearing that they need a digital tv because analogue is being switched off. Decide we'll get a widescreen one as that's in thesedays and then consider a flat screen plasma. Most people won't be interested in watching Coronation Street in HD anytime soon

There's already the problem that many people's fancy new kit isn't digital, or isn't widescreen, never mind not being HD!