Sooo... (HDTV in Europe/UK)

[London Geezer]

...

Sooooo... What's new?

I was in town yesterday, tube grinded to a halt in Oxford Circus so i just went "fuck it, i'm going shopping" (I'm sure London Underground was paid by all the retailers in town, everyone pretty much did the same)...

Ended up in Tottenham Court Road, which is basically London's street for electronics.

Saw some new amazing HDTVs, and for the first time EVER they were actually showing HDTV material (up until not too long ago, all these plasmas and stuff were showing freaking BBC and stuff, and it was a crime to see those HDTVs showing a blurry mess, sometimes even a totally fucked up signal like a not-too-fine-tuned aerial signal)...

Obviously, a 1080i image on a 60" Sony HDTV (one of the new ones) made me weak at the knees.
Then i saw another one, Pioneer, which technically sounds much better than the Sony one, and i saw HDMI.

Now, before i get cranky, what the hell is HDMI and why do i feel like it will be some sort of standard like Macrovision?

When will things come into place in Europe? HDTV broadcasts, PROPER standards, PROPER information.

Sony were doing a 24months interest free thing and i was this [ ] close to treating myself... But i resisted.

Also, it was interesting to see Sony mentioning in their leaflet something like this:

Blue-laser discs:
The next generation of DVDs will use blue laser, to store more information on disc. These discs will be either Blue-Ray or HDDVD and will......

Which i found quite commendable of them, they weren't advertising their own Blue-Ray technology, they were being informative saying that there will be 2 standards to choose from. I mean, they could have just gone all "Blue-Ray will be the new standard for DVD, the biggest, the best, because it's Sony and we do it bettter", but they didn't. The leaflet was certainly printed before the news of a possible unification of Blue-Ray and HDDVD, so i guess things are better for everyone now.

Most important question, is it worth investing on a HDTV now? I'd think i better wait till material is out, by which time prices will have come down anyway... still, those things are SEX.

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

...

Most important question, is it worth investing on a HDTV now? I'd think i better wait till material is out, by which time prices will have come down anyway... still, those things are SEX.

Can you get any HDTV broadcasts now? If not, you should wait until you can. The longer you wait, the better/cheaper the equipment will be. Anything you buy now will just sit there until being superceded when HDTV broadcasts actually begin.

IIRC, Sky, NTL & Telewest are beginning to gear up for HDTV, with their new decoders/TiVo style boxes being HDTV capable and launching between now and the end of the year. However, there's been no actual info on when their HDTV broadcasts will begin or what they will consist of.

 

[Tim]

...
When will things come into place in Europe? HDTV broadcasts, PROPER standards, PROPER information.

The process is started and the first HDTV are actually availeble in Europe to day:

http://www.euro1080.tv/

But one channel is not much fun, we will see more HDTV content become availeble this year but it wont be before 2006 that the process picks up speed.

 

[Dave Baumann]

Now, before i get cranky, what the hell is HDMI and why do i feel like it will be some sort of standard like Macrovision?

Read the articles here!!

As for content - although its estimated that BBC won't broadcast HD until a few years away that have brought up their schedule for recording and I believe they are starting in 2006 or 2007.

 

[_xxx_]

It starts next month in my area, but I'm not gonna buy a new TV-set just for that. Maybe in a few years.

 

[London Geezer]

Now, before i get cranky, what the hell is HDMI and why do i feel like it will be some sort of standard like Macrovision?

Read the articles here!!

As for content - although its estimated that BBC won't broadcast HD until a few years away that have brought up their schedule for recording and I believe they are starting in 2006 or 2007.

Well i knew what it is, it's just that i've heard new HDDVD/BR machines will use HDMI and will only work @1080i with HDMI HDTV for copy protection reasons...
So, according to the voices, if i were to buy a Sony HDTV now which has no HDMI, i'd only be able to get 480p out of those machines in the future, which is not good news to me...

 

[Geo]

So, Wavey, if you can afford a new enthusiasm for geeky details, try these folks http://www.hometheaterspot.com/htsthreads/categories.php

Bringing HDMI into a sentence with Macrovision was interesting. I was under the impression it was just a way of avoiding digital/analog/digital, but then I'm not nearly the geek that many at that board are.

Were you looking at CRT, DLP, or LCD? If DLP (and maybe LCD) you are probably better off waiting until later this year. There should be new DLPs that are 1080p instead of 720p (which is what we bought in December last) widely available by then.

Of course US and Euro prices are hard to compare, but HD receiver-builtin Mits 720p DLPs are going for well under $3k for 52" here now. We bought a 62" for around $4k just before Xmas, but could probably get it for around $3,500 now.

The thing I love about DLP/LCD is NO BURN IN, so you don't have to fuck around with stretch mode (an iq abomination, imho) in order to protect your investment. Oh, and the new one is a table-top model that weighs 150 lbs and fits nicely in a corner (back is corner-shaped), and replaced (We moved 2,000 miles and sold it rather than move it) a 250lb 55" CRT HD that was a huge rectangle monster.

 

[pax]

If you like dvds a lot a big screen hdtv with a momitsu v880 dvd player which upgrades 480 dvd signals to 1080i is pretty sweet.

Its not as good as real hd but its better than 480p dvd... Id look to momitsu when hd dvd comes out and I bet they will have component out for it in 1080i.

They better or panasonic will get an awful nastygram about my component in only hdtv 47".

 

[Gerry]

AFAIK It'd be sensible to get a set with HDMI. Forget where I read it, but I believe high-def sources are likely to be encrypted when output from a set-top box, and you'll need a HDMI set to decrypt and display these signals. The same box may send non-hidef material in unencrypted form. Depends a lot on the content providers though.

I'd wait a while. See what next-gen consoles provide in terms of output. See what Sky and the BBC have waiting, and then splash out sometime late 2006, early 2007 on something that fits the bill.

 

[London Geezer]

If you like dvds a lot a big screen hdtv with a momitsu v880 dvd player which upgrades 480 dvd signals to 1080i is pretty sweet.

Its not as good as real hd but its better than 480p dvd... Id look to momitsu when hd dvd comes out and I bet they will have component out for it in 1080i.

They better or panasonic will get an awful nastygram about my component in only hdtv 47".

But how is the quality? i mean, the source is still 480p, i can't imagine the final output will look a lot better than the original, whatever scaling the player does...?

 

[London Geezer]

AFAIK It'd be sensible to get a set with HDMI. Forget where I read it, but I believe high-def sources are likely to be encrypted when output from a set-top box, and you'll need a HDMI set to decrypt and display these signals. The same box may send non-hidef material in unencrypted form. Depends a lot on the content providers though.

I'd wait a while. See what next-gen consoles provide in terms of output. See what Sky and the BBC have waiting, and then splash out sometime late 2006, early 2007 on something that fits the bill.

See that's what i've heard. I'll definately wait, i'm a waiter kind of guy anyway...

 

[pax]

If you like dvds a lot a big screen hdtv with a momitsu v880 dvd player which upgrades 480 dvd signals to 1080i is pretty sweet.

Its not as good as real hd but its better than 480p dvd... Id look to momitsu when hd dvd comes out and I bet they will have component out for it in 1080i.

They better or panasonic will get an awful nastygram about my component in only hdtv 47".

But how is the quality? i mean, the source is still 480p, i can't imagine the final output will look a lot better than the original, whatever scaling the player does...?

I compared both outputs (the player can switch it on and off easily) and its measurably better. At 480p you clearly see the scan lines. Much less so at 1080i. But the best signal of course is hdtv through my sat dish especially the hd movie channel and PBS. The hd sat signals are quite a bit better than the upgraded dvd signal for sure tho. But the network hd channel lineup is mediocre (especially when there programming itself isnt hd... they often run non hd tv over hd channels).

Im really hoping the new hd dvds will give me another boost in image quality over the sat hd tv signals. Rumor has it the sat, cable and aerial hd signals are much lower bw than the kind you get from your dvd player.

For sure the 480p signals from my dvd player are MUCH better than the 480 signals of the non hd channel lineup. Those are the worst images yet Ive seen on the panny 47" save vhs which didnt last long when I got the tv hhe.

So to resume hddvd should be > 1080i hdtv movie channel\pbs which are > 1080i dvd signal > 480p dvd signal which is much > than 480p sat signal (bell expressvu) > vhs...

Im basing my hddvd hopes on my experience with the 480p dvd vs 480 p sat...

 

[hey69]

i 'm going out to shop one of the days for a nice 17" LCD widescreen TV / MONITOR with component en vga input.(399euro thats 21% tax included)


so i can see use at last componant cables and see what's the fuss about on consoles ..

anyone here has widescreen tft screen for PC purpoces?

 

[London Geezer]

Hold on...... What's the difference between DLP and Plasma?

 

[Gerry]

Isn't DLP a back-projection and projector technology?

 

[London Geezer]

Isn't DLP a back-projection and projector technology?

Yes yes yes my god i though i was going mad. So DLP aint flat. But i keep reading Plasma is on the road for extinction... Google might be our friend but some articles i find around the net sound a bit strange to me...

 

[Gerry]

Yes yes yes my god i though i was going mad. So DLP aint flat. But i keep reading Plasma is on the road for extinction... Google might be our friend but some articles i find around the net sound a bit strange to me...

Oh DLP is certainly flat; something to do with lots of tiny mirrors if my memory serves me right (and yes, I probably should just google it). I didn't think it was suitable for creating big screens though, just smaller displays that could then me increased in size by projection technology.

 

[London Geezer]

*confused*

So many different techs...

All i know is that my first experience of a 1080i image on a 50" HDTV (or was it 61"? meh...) was pure sex.

 

[Mariner]

When roaming around various electronics stores I've been quite impressed by the quality of the DLP displays, considering they are back-projection devices. Millions of little mirrors on a chip obviously do the trick!

 

[Geo]

If you like dvds a lot a big screen hdtv with a momitsu v880 dvd player which upgrades 480 dvd signals to 1080i is pretty sweet.

Its not as good as real hd but its better than 480p dvd... Id look to momitsu when hd dvd comes out and I bet they will have component out for it in 1080i.

They better or panasonic will get an awful nastygram about my component in only hdtv 47".

You have a CRT? The fixed-pixel formats (like DLP and LCD) have their own scalers built-in. Our 720p shows everything at 720p no matter what format you throw at it.