Watching regular broadcasts on HDTV?

Archived from groups: alt.tv.tech.hdtv (More info?)

"CGott" <curtgottler@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:70fae150.0407170921.746df3d9@posting.google.com...
> I was recently at a local television dealer, and another customer was
> considering an LCD hdtv, which was receiving a HD signal. It looked
> pretty good, but she asked the salesman if he could show a normal SD
> over-the-air signal on it. I have to say that it wasn't very
> impressive, a fairly blurry picture unless you backed up about 20
> feet. Is that the type of picture we have to put up with until
> everyone switches over to HD broadcasting? If so, it barely seems
> worth the $2000 price tag for some of these sets.

I agree it's tough watching SD after your eyeballs are calibrated to HD, but
like anything else, once you get interested in "the story", SD won't be that
bad. It's nice to know the set can perform when given a superb quality
signal, though. For the ultimate HD, check out the "show off" aerial shots
of the
city they show on CSI Miami for a few seconds after each commercial
break - -
that's how good it can really be. But even though the rest of the episode
is
still in HD and the image is sharp, you don't see that extreme detail, and
you don't miss it. I paid $5000 for my 60" Sony LCD projection set 19 months
ago, and it has been a blast - - worth every penny. And it can only get
better as more HD content is broadcast.

Chuck

Archived from groups: alt.tv.tech.hdtv (More info?)

"Chuck Olson" <chuckolson01@REMOVETHIScomcast.net> wrote (in part):

>For the ultimate HD, check out the "show off" aerial shots
>of the
>city they show on CSI Miami for a few seconds after each commercial
>break - -
>that's how good it can really be. But even though the rest of the episode
>is still in HD and the image is sharp, you don't see that extreme detail, and
>you don't miss it. I paid $5000 for my 60" Sony LCD projection set 19 months
>ago, and it has been a blast - - worth every penny. And it can only get
>better as more HD content is broadcast.

I agree those aerial shots are impressive, but even better are the
similar shots of Las Vegas at night on CSI. That show looks the best
overall of the dramas I've seen (Leno wins for best-looking show of
any kind, but that's a special case; it's easy to look good in such a
setting). But what annoyed me before I had HD, and even more so now,
is the "artistic" directors' penchant for intentionally bad video.
CSI keeps it to a minimum, reserving it for brief depictions of how an
investigator thinks something happened, or a witness says it did. CSI
Miami does the same, but it also shoots many of its outdoor scenes
through an orange filter, apparently to remind the viewer of the hot
sun beating down. Cold Case is the worst, since much of it takes
place in the past, and all of that is shown in some combination of
high grain, high contrast, clipped blacks and whites, garish colors,
wrong colors or almost no color. I finally gave up on it, much as I
gave up on NYPD Blue years ago because the constantly bobbing and
weaving cameras were making me seasick.

The Law and Order shows have always been a tad on the low chroma side.
But chroma on JAG and NCIS is way high. I can't watch either of these
shows without turning it down.

E. Ogden <eoyymm@nycap.rr.com>
where yymm is the current year and month

Archived from groups: alt.tv.tech.hdtv (More info?)

When I was auditioning my finalists for a purchase last October, I found
that the Sony GWIII LCD RP set handled SD and OTA content better than did
the Sammy DLP set. I compared various sizes in different stores with the
same results.

YMMV

"CGott" <curtgottler@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:70fae150.0407170921.746df3d9@posting.google.com...
> I was recently at a local television dealer, and another customer was
> considering an LCD hdtv, which was receiving a HD signal. It looked
> pretty good, but she asked the salesman if he could show a normal SD
> over-the-air signal on it. I have to say that it wasn't very
> impressive, a fairly blurry picture unless you backed up about 20
> feet. Is that the type of picture we have to put up with until
> everyone switches over to HD broadcasting? If so, it barely seems
> worth the $2000 price tag for some of these sets.

Archived from groups: alt.tv.tech.hdtv (More info?)

curtgottler@yahoo.com (CGott) wrote in message news:<70fae150.0407170921.746df3d9@posting.google.com>...
> I was recently at a local television dealer, and another customer was
> considering an LCD hdtv, which was receiving a HD signal. It looked
> pretty good, but she asked the salesman if he could show a normal SD
> over-the-air signal on it. I have to say that it wasn't very
> impressive, a fairly blurry picture unless you backed up about 20
> feet. Is that the type of picture we have to put up with until
> everyone switches over to HD broadcasting? If so, it barely seems
> worth the $2000 price tag for some of these sets.


If find with my Sony 40XBR watching SD TV via the S-video is much
better. I just change the input over to HD for HD content.

Archived from groups: alt.tv.tech.hdtv (More info?)

Jsheldon wrote:
>
> Alan wrote:
>
> > ...
> > It seems that the conversion process from 480i to the native display
> > format of the high definition display is severely lacking. Angled lines
> > in graphics angling across the screen have shown severe jagginess, as
> > if the HD conversion is only looking at one of the two fields used to
> > make up the 480 line screen. Next to it, the 480 line display shows
> > a smooth and clear image.
>
> Alan,
>
> How do you explain the fact that a DVD (Which is formatted in 480i and
> outputted as 480i, 480p,or sometimes other formats) can appear great on
> an HDTV. That clean analog OTA signal is not a clean 480i signal.
>
> Garbage in garbage out.
>
> HDTV's are certainly capable of taking a 480i signal (from a DVD) and
> display a great image, even if not HD.
>
> Jerry


I think the answer lies in the fact but a DVD and HDTV
have native digital formats...

Analog TV is 480i Analog
DVD can be 480i Digital ( Note: 480i can be either)
DVD can also be 480p Digital
HDTV is Digital

Converting an Analog 480i picture to 1080i Digital is
sometimes difficult and can generate a marginal
digital picture......

Archived from groups: alt.tv.tech.hdtv (More info?)

Dennis Mayer wrote:
> I think the answer lies in the fact but a DVD and HDTV
> have native digital formats...
>
> Analog TV is 480i Analog
> DVD can be 480i Digital ( Note: 480i can be either)
> DVD can also be 480p Digital
> HDTV is Digital
>
> Converting an Analog 480i picture to 1080i Digital is
> sometimes difficult and can generate a marginal
> digital picture......

All SD DVDs are 480i. Whether or not the DVD player performs 3:2
pulldown or some other sort of deinterlacing is irrelevant. The fields
on the DVD are interlaced. The progressive image either occurs in the
DVD player or in you HDTV. Many find a progressive image from the DVD
player preferable because it generally means fewer D to A conversions,
but that's not always the case. Sometimes the TV deinterlacing circuitry
does a better job. I would tend to think that the vertical resolution
for most DVDs is much better than what you get over SD satellite or
cable. If you could actually measure the resolution of the signals being
sent, you would find the DVD signal has more apparent resolution
(despite the fact they are both NTSC). And as another poster mentioned,
the signals on most DVDs are of high quality to begin with.
Deinterlacing a signal tends to magnify any problems in the signal, just
as a bigger set does the same.

I have a SD Pioneer RPTV and despite its great picture, it doesn't
really look as good as my brother's 32" Sony CRT set unless I'm watching
a DVD or a high-quality DirecTV channel like HBO.

Conversion from 480i to 720p / 1080i / 480p can be done well in most
sets. I would think that some cheap sets don't perform 3:2 pulldown on
480i movie-based signals and that can introduce additional digital
artifacts. Deinterlacing video-based material is much more difficult,
which is why companies like Faroujda have spent a lot of R&D to get that
process working as best as possible.

Also, the fact that a signal is digital is somewhat meaningless. My
digital local channels on DirecTV have less resolution than their analog
counterparts from my local cable company (I have both running).
Laserdisk is analog and looks great. The main benefit of digital signals
is the compression. But overcompression or compression without the
benefit of high-quality MEPG2 encoders (DirecTV uses a 2-pass system,
whereas home DVD recorders use a 1-pass system) can result in less than
ideal picture.

--
David G.

Archived from groups: alt.tv.tech.hdtv (More info?)

nixjunk wrote:


> If they are capable then why do so many standard images look so lousy on HDTV
> sets in all stores you go into while nearby the standard TVs are displaying
> those signals just fine. Maybe they are not typically capable?

Do you believe that analog OTA is broadcast at 480i ?

Archived from groups: alt.tv.tech.hdtv (More info?)

Could it be the compression done to the SDTV signal when it is broadcast digitally?

"Rajendra Gondhalekar" <rajgon@comcast.net> wrote in message news:<0JSdnblZlN7_-GHdRVn_iw@comcast.com>...
> The reason cable SDTV looks bad is noise.

Archived from groups: alt.tv.tech.hdtv (More info?)

Good for you. I guess those who complained about poor SD picture
quality on HDTV understand what I meant.

I understand you can do full width HD. But my letterbox means you
don't have full height. So the debate is which one is better:
Letterboxed HD on a 4x3 or Piller-boxed SD on a 16x9?

Based on some quick calculations, assuming the viewable area is same
as your screen size, then the screen on your 53" 4x3 is 42.4" wide and
31.8" tall. A fullwidth HD picture fully utilizing the 42.4" width
will be 23.85" tall which is 75% of the 31.8" height. BTW, it is
equivalent to a 48.6" 16x9 TV. 25% of the HD pixels on the screen is
unused when you are watching HD on a 4x3 screen.

You can get a different set of numbers for the piller-boxed SD on a
16x9 screen. Using an equivalent 48.6" 16x9 TV, you get a SD picture
that is 31.8" width and 23.85" tall which is equivalent to a 39.75"
4x3 TV. 31.8" out of 42.4" width is also a 25% waste of pixels.
Though the percentage waste is the same, but the quality of the waste
is different. For me, wasting pixels in HD is no good; wasting pixels
while I watch SD ... I couldn't care less.

Though in both cases, 25% of the screen is wasted. But for HD,
resolution sacrificed, for SD, only size sacrificed because the SD
picture is not using all available resolution to begin with.

If two TVs give the same size 48.6" HD picture, the 4x3 TV will give
you a 53" SD picture but the 16x9 TV will only give you a 39.75" SD
picture.

If two TVs give the same size 53" SD picture, then the 4x3 TV will
give you a 48.6" HD picture but the 16x9 TV will give you a 64.8"
(56.5x31.8) HD picture.

So your 53" 4x3 TV is equivalant to a 48.6" 16x9 TV when viewing HD,
but it is equivalent to a 64.8" 16x9 TV when viewing SD.

To me, resolution is the key for HDTV, not the size.


Buzzer <r.pay@comcast.net> wrote in message news:<28prf0dr5iabhct6o3kbhve6u70oig0smu@4ax.com>...
> On 20 Jul 2004 16:04:44 -0700, caloonese@yahoo.com (Caloonese) wrote:
>
> >That is exactly what people get when they buy 4x3 HDTVs. They get the
> >ugly SD pictures as big as they can get and they get the nice HD
> >pictures in a small letter box.
>
> Strange. My 53 inch Sony 4:3 looks fine in SD and can do full width
> HD.