[mythtv-users] OT: Why 1080p?

[Michael T. Dean]

On 11/08/2006 09:46 AM, Steven Adeff wrote:
> I have a feeling once h264 takes over at the cable companies and
> they're able to use that for SD shows and free up space for HD that
> things will get better. It won't reach HD-DVD quality on copper cable
> necesarily, but thats fine, for the most part thats overkill anyway. I
> have a feeling though IPTV will end up being the way to go for people
> that want the best HD signal.

Yeah, and cable companies have the option of going to different encoding 
formats that provide better compression so they can get a) lots of 
channels (for them), and b) appropriate bitrates (for us).  (Sure, 
they'll have to buy off the FCC again after the whole cable-ready HDTV 
thing, but that's never stopped industry before.)  OTA will probably be 
stuck with MPEG-2 for, oh, I don't know, another 50 years (like with 
NTSC).  :)

<rant>
The annoying part of the OTA thing is that the defining reason why 
change is bad is because consumers, "Don't want a STB when their TV's 
already have a tuner built in."  Of course, the /only/ reason our TV's 
have a tuner built in is because the FCC mandated that all TV's /must/ 
have a built-in digital tuner (they did it in a > some size at 
such-and-such a date phased-in approach).  The Consumer Electronics 
Association fought that mandate and argued that most consumers don't 
even use the built-in tuner--the first thing they do is disable the 
tuner and use their cable/satellite STB (they didn't say anything about 
HDTV HD-x000's or AverMedia A-180's or HD HomeRun's or ..., but I'm sure 
it was implied ;).
</rant>

Mike "don't need the tuner I paid for" Dean