What is Hi Def TV supposed to look like?

I was at someone's house yesterday who had about a 3 - 4 foot wide Hi-Def
TV, w/Tivo. They were watching what was supposed to be a Hi-Def broadcast of
a football game. As I recall, it was a Panasonic.

Gotta be honest, after all the hype I've heard about Hi-Def, I was
underwhelmed. Standing about 6 inches in front of the tv, the edges of the
images had this very noticeable jagged edge, the whole image seemed to be
comprised of these diagonal lines which were really distracting.

Viewed from about 8 ft back, the picture looked okay, but didn't strike me
as being any better than a decent standard tv. I noticed this vague halo
effect around the images. I'd heard that the Hi-Def images were supposed to
be crisp, brilliant, razor sharp. Also, while seeing the game in widescreen
like that added an interesting dimension, somewhat distracting was this
noticeable parallax at the outer left and right portions of the image as
they panned around the field.

Is it possible they had it set up wrong, or maybe this just wasn't a great
model, or does the hype exceed the reality?

 

When you say you saw "noticeable parallax at the outer left and right
portions of the image as they panned around the field", I wonder if you were
watching a broadcast that was actually a 4:3 standard defintion broadcast
that was being stretched (by a setting in the TV) to fill the 16:9 screen?
There is a stretch mode for some TV's that tries to keep the center area of
the screen in fairly normal proportions while it stretches just the left and
right (less important) areas of the image.

If the broadcast were a true 16:9 high definition broadcast, you would
definitely have noticed its superior quality.

Neil
Salem, MA USA

 

I have a 65" HDTV and believe me, the hype is NOT overplayed.

If it was indeed a HiDef broadcast and you could not see a difference
compared to regular analog broadcast, then it's quite possible that it was
not hooked up right.

You can't get HD programming through a coaxial cable connection to the TV,
it has to be connected through composite cables (red, blue, & green RCA-type
cables - NOT the red, yellow & white ones!)

That means that there are now 2 connections to his TV from the cable box
(coaxial - for regular cable broadcasts and composite cables - for HiDef
broadcasts) and that means you have to select the right input on the TV to
see the HiDef images, if this was left on the normal input then what you saw
was not HiDef.

I would also say that at 6", if he had a scratch-guard screen on top of the
actual TV screen that would cause a double image that close up, but at 8'
you should have almost seen the individual blades of grass (or
Astroturf)....

The "parallax" effect you noticed also leads me to believe that he was not
showing in HD (if it was a new TV he may be unaware of how the TV actually
works), because more widescreen TVs offer other "images" or "widescreen
effects" besides Thin (a 4:3 standard analog broadcast screen) and the
Standard (16:9 HD aspect)....there are some others that will either stretch
the whole 4:3 image to make it look 16"9 which makes people look fatter than
normal, and some that leave the center portion of the screen normal but then
stretches as you go further out from there so the whole image fills a 16:9
screen, but leaves the primary image (the middle) "normal" and
unstretched.....this is what you were seeing in my estimation from your
description).

He should also be able to display on the TV screen what the TV is decoding,
"1080i" is true HiDefinition, anything in the "480-720" range ("i" or "p",
interlaced or progressive), while better than old analog TV resolution, is
still far below the HiDef standard.....a "480p" or "480i" means there are
480 lines of resolution (top to bottom), a "720p" or "720i" means there are
480 lines of resolution (top to bottom) while 1080i (you guessed it), gives
you 1080 lines of resolution, almost double that of regular broadcast
television!

He should either be sure to read his manual front to back and double check
all his connections or hire a pro to come in and do it for him to be
absolutely sure he gets everything he wants from his new HDTV
experience.....!!!

 

I wrote : "He should also be able to display on the TV screen what the TV is
decoding, "1080i" is true HiDefinition, anything in the "480-720" range ("i"
or "p", interlaced or progressive), while better than old analog TV
resolution, is still far below the HiDef standard.....a "480p" or "480i"
means there are 480 lines of resolution (top to bottom), a "720p" or "720i"
means there are 480 lines of resolution (top to bottom) while 1080i (you
guessed it), gives you 1080 lines of resolution, almost double that of
regular broadcast television!"

Obvioulsy the line "...a "720p" or "720i" means there are 480 lines of
resolution (top to bottom)..." should have read "...a "720p" or "720i" means
there are 720 lines of resolution (top to bottom)..."

Sorry about that!

 

I have a hidef Tivo. With this unit, you can easily switch between 480i and
1080i by pressing one button. This makes comparison easy. I can assure you
that even with a five your old TV, there is a dramatic difference. HDTV
pictures are much sharper, but to me, the most dramatic differences are in
the colors. Standard definition colors are frequently dull, lifeless, washed
out. HDTV colors are lush and vibrant. Trying watching some of the nature
shows on DiscoveryHD and you will readily observe the difference. It is
quite evident. We're not dealing with a subtle difference, the improvement
is quite breathtaking.

 

You were watching a stretched SD broadcast. A lot of people buy an HD
TV, but 1) fail to hook it correctly, 2) don't realize they need to tune
to the HD channel whether it is OTA, cable, or satellite; or 3) don't
realize that they need to get a digital HD channel to see HD. There is a
huge amount of confusion out there about how HD works.

The only HD Tivo out there is from DirecTV satellite service, all the
standard TiVos are SD only which is a big clue that your friend is not
getting HD.

One possibility is that the game was in SD and was upconverted &
non-linearly stretched by the TV or station, but even digital SD looks
better than regular analog SD. If the game was in real HD, the
difference in picture quality would have been huge.

Alan F

 

You were likely watching *compressed* HD.

 

720p is also true HD and is not "far below the HiDef standard". It is part
of the standard and is every bit HD as 1080i.

 

It becomes very apparent when viewed on larger display devices,
especially when comparing with old analog signals. Even using a
non-hdtv projector (Infocus X1) at 800x600 native resolution on a
100" diagonal 4:3 screen, the display is incredible.

Viewing up close isn't the point. It's viewing from where you would
normaly view from is what's inportant. I view the above setup from
15' and the picture is stunning. I couldn't see the benefit of
watching HDTV on a 36" display device even though they make them.
That's just me, though. Well, maybe there would be a benefit. It's
just not one that I would be willing to pay for.



Richard M.

 

720p _is_ a HD-standard.

cheers

-martin-

 

I've been watching HD for about 4 years on a 16:9, 34" glass tube Sony WEGA.
We got it just before the Utah Olympics. What we saw was mostly AMAZING. One
exception was the ice hockey. I remember looking at it and thinking -- hey,
what's wrong? A minute or two later there was a lower third that basically
said, "Sorry, we don't have the good cameras in the ice hockey venue."

By comparison, the recent Greek Olympics SUCKED BIG TIME.

Was it crappy acquisition gear? Was it Satellite up/down link? Was it that TV
stations are doing more multicasting?

Here's the deal.

1. Source material is EVERYTHING. If it wasn't shot well or with enough
resolution, it won't look good.

2. The more TV stations engage in multicasting (simultaneous program stream
on different D channels), the lower the quality of each channel. I've seen
noticeable drop off in picture quality as stations add more lower res
channels.

Regards,

Ty Ford

-- Ty Ford's equipment reviews, audio samples, rates and other audiocentric
stuff are at www.tyford.com

 

All broadcast HD is compressed.

Ty Ford



-- Ty Ford's equipment reviews, audio samples, rates and other audiocentric
stuff are at www.tyford.com

 

So even if there is a QAM tuner in the TV one still needs a set top box
and can't just use the coax with the QAM? Thanks.

 

something is definitely wrong... and it's not hype

I read the other day where 35% of HDTV owners have them connected
incorrectly so all they can display is regular TV.... could be one of those.

Last night, I watched ABC's "Finding Nemo" on my 60" HD in 720P - it was
incredible - better than I remember it in the theater, during the end
credits, the local station flipped from HD to standard in preparation for
their local news and the effect was shocking, it was like the depth of the
image just disappeared.

 

The QAM tuner can receive digital channels that your cable company puts
out in the clear.

Your cable company may or may not put any digital channels in the clear.

For any channels that are not in the clear, a QAM tuner in and of itself
won't work. You need something to decrypt the encrypted,
not-in-the-clear digital signals.

That something could be a CableCard (on TVs equipped to take one), or a
set top box from the cable company.

 

Why do people make these stupid comments? Obviously he meant compressed
more than the standard compression of MPEG2 transport stream files.

 

Did you happen to watch ESPN channel? It's not true HDTV, just stretched SD.

 

Ty Ford () wrote in alt.tv.tech.hdtv:

To expand on that, all HD that end users have access to is compressed: OTA
HD, HD via cable or satellite, D-Theater tapes, and the upcoming HD-DVD or
BluRay.

The only time uncompressed HD is ever used is in editing, and most often
that still came from an original source that had some kind of compression.

--
Jeff Rife | "This? This is ice. This is what happens to
| water when it gets too cold. This? This is
| Kent. This is what happens to people when
| they get too sexually frustrated."
| -- Chris Knight, "Real Genius"

 

First, it's not stupid because many people do think that HD isn't
compressed...they believe that is the reason it looks so much better than
DVD or SD digital cable/satellite.

Second, it's not obvious what OP meant.

Third, what is the "standard compression of MPEG2 transport stream files"?

Fox sends 15Mbps to the stations, and the stations pass it on unaltered,
while NBC sends a 30-50Mbps feed which the station decodes and re-encodes
back to the 17-19Mbps range, but Fox generally looks better on scripted
shows (as far as lack of MPEG artifacts, anyway).

D-Theater tapes use the same TS format, yet they can run as high as 38Mbps.

Despite the fact that DirecTV sends out "HD Lite" at 1280x1080 at 10Mbps
or so, it still looks far better than what the thread starter described.

There is no "standard compression", and quality isn't always directly
related to bitrate, so your broad statement is actually far more "wrong"
than what you are replying to.

 

l e o () wrote in alt.tv.tech.hdtv:

That hasn't been correct for over a year now...have you been in a time
capsule or something?