[mythtv-users] [OT] *Real* High-Def TV!

Brad Templeton brad+myth at templetons.com
Sat May 21 20:11:33 UTC 2005


On Sat, May 21, 2005 at 12:26:35PM -0400, Michael T. Dean wrote:
> One reason that I haven't yet purchased a high-definition TV is the fact 
> that TV's being sold today do not fully support the ATSC standard.  
> Whereas the maximum resolution allowable in the ATSC standard is 
> 1920x1080 pixels, today's TV's only support 1280x720 pixels resolution.

True, but that's similar to the logic that says you should never buy
a computer, since if you buy one, it will be obsolete in 2 years when
something twice as fast and half the price is available.

This is a bit different, because with TVs there will be a 1080 line cap
for a while due to standards and regulations, but even so the 1080 line
TVs will be expensive at first, then drop in price every year, and then
1080p will start showing up and then drop in price (primarily from
high-capacity DVDs whichever standard wins.)

In the meantime if you "don't buy until..." you are missing a couple of
things.

a) 720p is actually a major step above your regular TV. After watching
it for a while, you will start finding the SDTV unacceptably blurry.  You
will be annoyed at yourself for having watched those shows in SD.

Imagine seeing Lawrence of Arabia on TV and eventually seeing it in
the cinema and kicking yourself.   Ok, it's not so dramatic as that,
but it is pretty good.

b) 480p on a 720 line TV is also surprisingly good.  You get this from
DVDs and also from the digital TV stations that upsample their 480i or
(rarely) 480p image to an HDTV resolution for broadcast.

So if you bought earlier you will have wasted some money, and gotten a
much better TV experience for an extra year or two, and the main question
is whether it's worth it and how much money you want to spend on video
equipment of course.

This isn't as bad as the people I talk to who say they are "waiting" to
get a PVR (typically Tivo) until they mature and get cheaper.  Though they
are now pretty cheap.   I worked out that, due to commercial skip, if you
watched 10 hours of TV a week (which is way below national averages)
you would end up skipping about 10 hours/month of commercials and other
stuff, which even at a burger flipper's wage valuation of your time
paid for any costs within just a few months.  Many of the people who
were waiting were highly paid people who's time could easily be valued
at a level that paid for the thing in less than a month.

HDTV doesn't do that to you of course, it's just a lesson about waiting.


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