Sooo... (HDTV in Europe/UK)

[JaylumX]

There is a reason why in the UK if you own a TV you have to pay a license fee. Its because some of the channels are run by the govenment, hence the word BBC or British Broadcasting Corporation. What that involves it that since its funded by the government, they are able to take more risks in their programming. Also they produce excellent quality production and know how to present excellent quality programming. Because it is government funded with all the above i have mention the programs they show is of much higher quality. They were the channel to introduce and to an extent revolutionise Digital Television by supporting full stop all its features, such as native widescreen presentation of their programming in 16:9 format [analogue users were subjected to the naff 4:3 pan and Scan format (unless it were films but that was rarish, but the digital revolution tranfered all their licensed productions such as their soups, game shows and news programs into 16:9), although i must add that even though they showed films in 16:9 aspect ration they had a terrible habbit of reformatting films in 2.21:1 to 16:9....okay it better than formatting it to 4:3 but still there was still a bit of information that wasn't viewable], Digital Text and interactive service, such as 48khz mpeg2 sound [unfortunately we don't have the bandwidth hogging AC3 sound transmission]. Once this was established by the BBC did the other channels follow suit [To add before the digital revolution over hear we had 5 channels], Some lucky get got Analoge cable and Sky but those have now been tranfered to the Digital format. I myself have Digital Cable and seriously i hardly watch anything except films.....plus Sienfield Episodes [Good ole Paramount Comedy Channel]. Government funded doesn't mean PBS. They've got money and they are not afarid to use it. The BBC have been around since the begining of Television in the UK and has always been government funded be big up [and i mean this is a big up] is that there are no commercials or adverts fullstop. So if you watch a program or film, you won't get interupted.

From what i understand and have learnt from American Television in its infancy, it has always been in the comercial sector and never started out like the UK. That is the reason why we pay to have TV license and if it means shelling out 100 squids every year to have high production value programming that takes advantage of Digital TV with No advert....hell i'll take it. I hate adverts it dstroy my concentration in films and i love films.

 

[Geo]

I'm not criticising the model --y'all are happy with it, beautiful, and I have no doubt there are advantages. Just pointing out that it works better in a stable technological environment than when you are suddenly facing huge one-time transition expenses. Showing films 16x9 is not the same thing as recording TV in 16x9 --the former you are just doing what it was meant to be shown as in the first place (i.e. you are removing the pan and scan step rather than adding it). The latter requires a whole different infrastructure.

 

[Ty]

That's the one we always used. Sounds great in theory.

And depending on the make/model of TV, it can work out quite well. For instance the Panasonic version on their PDP line is generally regarded as having a decent stretch mode but the NEC Stadium mode for their plasmas is considered to be quite superior.

Try watching a CNN or Fox or business channel continuous scroll across the bottom tho. Or a sporting event like basketball or football (long pass, punt return) where you have a lot of long horizontal action.

Naturally there are degenerate cases where it breaks down - it's certainly not magic but the availability of these modes can certainly help to swallow the bitter pill of non-widescreen format media.

The Sammy DLP's are well regarded.

Most definately as Samsung is pretty the leader of consumer DLP technology. I myself was considering one but instead went for a Plasma. Couldn't stand the uneven brightness of RPs or the poor vertical viewing angle (sometimes I play games lying down on the floor in front of the TV).

Now that I've sung the praises of DLP, I will say anyone who is thinking of buying one needs to spend some time figuring out if they will see/be bothered by "the rainbow effect" some people see (and some don't). If you're one of those fast-twitch 120fps-is-soo-much-nicer-than-115fps types you might be driven batty by Rainbow Effect (it comes from having a spinning color wheel doing the heavy lifting on making color).

Newer 7 segment color wheels should mitigate this. I believe there are even 8 segment ones debuting soon. I don't normally notice the effect unless I'm moving my eyes rapidly from side to side.

My wife is a TV engineer, and she can see it at times but it doesn't bother her. Only way to know for sure is spending time with the exact model you are thinking of purchasing. She saw it much more in some other models at the showroom.

Yep, this is true for any display. Have to see it in person. Even then you're still wrestling with uncalibrated/torchmode/poor signals.

 

[JaylumX]

I'm not criticising the model --y'all are happy with it, beautiful, and I have no doubt there are advantages. Just pointing out that it works better in a stable technological environment than when you are suddenly facing huge one-time transition expenses. Showing films 16x9 is not the same thing as recording TV in 16x9 --the former you are just doing what it was meant to be shown as in the first place (i.e. you are removing the pan and scan step rather than adding it). The latter requires a whole different infrastructure.

Sorry brother if i came across a bit agressive i apologise that was not my intention. I was mearly replying to your post.

 

[Geo]

Sorry brother if i came across a bit agressive i apologise that was not my intention. I was mearly replying to your post.

No biggie, just didn't want to unintentionally start an international incident. Well, aside from ads, we've practically given up watching movies on regular broadcast TV over here, so there are definitely advantages to your way.

Otoh, have you ever seen your favorite sport on a HD big screen? That was the thin edge of the wedge over here.

 

[WhiningKhan]

If i remember correctly before the BBC premiere or more accurate fueled the digital TV revolution, there was internal debate as to whether there should be HiDef broadcast. It all came to nowt however since HiDef nicks about 4 times more bandwidth than normal broadcast.

ATSC (HTDV in the US) doesn't use 4x the bandwidth for HDTV vs. NTSC. It uses the same bandwidth, better. Matter of fact, within the same 6Mhz of an NTSC signal, 2 1080i signals can be broadcast.

Note that JaylumX is obviously referring to "SDTV" DVB-broadcasts (720*576) vs. HDTV DVB-broadcasts here, not analog vs. HDTV. It's pretty much given that HDTV streams take up 4x the bandwidth, if the transport medium is the same but bitrate is four-fold... Typically, something like 5 SDTV streams are delivered in one transport stream here.

 

[horvendile]

I'll throw in this question here.
Right now I have a common 4:3 CRT TV. In the near future I may have to replace that, and chances are that it will be an interim solution in the form of a 16:9 CRT. It's a cost thing.
Now, there's this Pixel Plus technology that Philips is so proud about. They claim to double the resolution in one way, IIRC. Perhaps this is similar to some other techniques mentioned earlier in this thread. I, however, am suspicious.

I'm definitely rusty on this, but don't we have a possible problem with aliasing here?
I've been watching some Pixel Plus TVs, and they do indeed give a sharp impression, but the picture looks a bit... restless. Which adheres to aliasing worries.
When asking sales persons, I just get the blank stare. This may be due to them being sales persons, or due to me totally misremembering the mechanisms of aliasing. Perhaps someone here could clear things up?

 

[London Geezer]

I'll throw in this question here.
Right now I have a common 4:3 CRT TV. In the near future I may have to replace that, and chances are that it will be an interim solution in the form of a 16:9 CRT. It's a cost thing.
Now, there's this Pixel Plus technology that Philips is so proud about. They claim to double the resolution in one way, IIRC. Perhaps this is similar to some other techniques mentioned earlier in this thread. I, however, am suspicious.

I'm definitely rusty on this, but don't we have a possible problem with aliasing here?
I've been watching some Pixel Plus TVs, and they do indeed give a sharp impression, but the picture looks a bit... restless. Which adheres to aliasing worries.
When asking sales persons, I just get the blank stare. This may be due to them being sales persons, or due to me totally misremembering the mechanisms of aliasing. Perhaps someone here could clear things up?

The point is, at the end of the day, it depends on what you feed into your TV. PixelPlus TVs are still vanilla non-HDTV displays. DVDs will look good, nice broadcasts will look good, but they're not HDTVs and all they do is maybe upscale the signals to make them look slightly better than they do on non-pixel-plus TVs.
The next TV i will buy will be an HDTV, whenever it becomes worth it to but one in the UK (when there will be HDTV material to play on it, that is)

 

[RussSchultz]

Note that JaylumX is obviously referring to "SDTV" DVB-broadcasts (720*576) vs. HDTV DVB-broadcasts here, not analog vs. HDTV.

Wasn't obvious from my point of view. It wasn't obvious from the context that he was discussing satellite delivery vs. PAL.

It's pretty much given that HDTV streams take up 4x the bandwidth, if the transport medium is the same but bitrate is four-fold... Typically, something like 5 SDTV streams are delivered in one transport stream here.

Yes, though new compression methods (Mpeg4, for example) reduce the bitrate in half.

 

[sytaylor]

JaylumX do you work for the BBC? Sure their news is pretty good, and they have been close to chanel 4 latley as far as cutting edge programmes goes (although still not in the same league). For production values though the award has to go to sky. Sky news pwns BBC news. Sky sports pwns BBC sport all over the british isles and back. Sky one carries some excellent shows and doesn't reflect its ratings. The innovator on briths TV the last 10 years has been sky for production values. Chan 4 for cutting edge, and then maybe the BBC for comedy.

 

[horvendile]

Oh yes, I'm aware that Pixel Plus does not introduce any new information in the signal, though perhaps I should have written that more clearly.

The real question is whether this upscaling will actually make things look better. In some ways it does, but if aliasing is introduced I will also see false information, and one may prefer a slightly blurrier picture that does not shimmer of falseness!

 

[nutball]

The BBC has been going downhill since the Charter renewal under Thatcher forcing them to compete for ratings. By all accounts that's been reversed in the recent/pending Charter review (so they're free now to spend license-payers money making programmes no-one wants to watch! Yay! ).

The BBC still wins at documentaries in my book (with C4 a close second). Oh and costume dramas too, I mean we *seriously* need yet more f***ing adaptions of goddam Jane Austin novels. Six versions of each book clearly isn't enough! *cough*

 

[JaylumX]

JaylumX do you work for the BBC? Sure their news is pretty good, and they have been close to chanel 4 latley as far as cutting edge programmes goes (although still not in the same league). For production values though the award has to go to sky. Sky news pwns BBC news. Sky sports pwns BBC sport all over the british isles and back. Sky one carries some excellent shows and doesn't reflect its ratings. The innovator on briths TV the last 10 years has been sky for production values. Chan 4 for cutting edge, and then maybe the BBC for comedy.

No brother i don't work fo the BBC but in terms of production values, BBC are not afraid to take a few risk and personally i'd rather watch a program uninterupted than one on the other terrestial channels, freeview channels and cable channels. More or less the only channels i surf is usually the BBC1 and 2 channels, Sky [only for the Simpsons....okay i'm 29 there is nothing wrong with liking the Simpsons ], the Sci-Fi and Paramount Comedy [the only time i surf Channel five is when the show movies [plus the pccasional filth] other than that its pretty shit, and obviously channel four the channel that holds no barrels when it comes to taste....and i love it], but my TV viewing is getting scarce more and more.

 

[sytaylor]

It has its place, and it does stuff like newsnight fantasticly. Its not a big ratings winner buts its valued and fills a much needed gap. The way BBC was post hutton was more or less fine IMO, besides the obvious typical public service bloat...

 

[sytaylor]

JaylumX do you work for the BBC? Sure their news is pretty good, and they have been close to chanel 4 latley as far as cutting edge programmes goes (although still not in the same league). For production values though the award has to go to sky. Sky news pwns BBC news. Sky sports pwns BBC sport all over the british isles and back. Sky one carries some excellent shows and doesn't reflect its ratings. The innovator on briths TV the last 10 years has been sky for production values. Chan 4 for cutting edge, and then maybe the BBC for comedy.

No brother i don't work fo the BBC but in terms of production values, BBC are not afraid to take a few risk and personally i'd rather watch a program uninterupted than one on the other terrestial channels, freeview channels and cable channels. More or less the only channels i surf is usually the BBC1 and 2 channels, Sky [only for the Simpsons....okay i'm 29 there is nothing wrong with liking the Simpsons ], the Sci-Fi and Paramount Comedy [the only time i surf Channel five is when the show movies [plus the pccasional filth] other than that its pretty shit, and obviously channel four the channel that holds no barrels when it comes to taste....and i love it], but my TV viewing is getting scarce more and more.

I'm in the same boat that i dont watch much tv, except at weekends. Stuff like the MTV channels/music channels you just won't get on the bbc. Challenge TV is running Bullseye, now thats comedy!

 

[London Geezer]

What worries me is that it's like chicken and egg.
HDTVs wont be adopted properly and get cheaper here until there is HDTV material like broadcasts or BlueLaser movies.
And HDTV material won't be released properly until HDTVs are cheap enough to get a vast user base.

I'll just... wait.

 

[RussSchultz]

The US market is doing its best to make HDTV cheap, and its doing its job.

There are 30" tube sets available for ~$500-ish. I bought a 36" tube 4 years ago for $3000.

 

[sytaylor]

The US market is doing its best to make HDTV cheap, and its doing its job.

There are 30" tube sets available for ~$500-ish. I bought a 36" tube 4 years ago for $3000.

I'd kill for some US style competition/market in the UK. That's why we're a rip off, the supply/demand model is in the hands of the companies and they play it safe, rather than letting user demand ramp up their profits.

 

[London Geezer]

The US market is doing its best to make HDTV cheap, and its doing its job.

There are 30" tube sets available for ~$500-ish. I bought a 36" tube 4 years ago for $3000.

I know, HDTV in the US is very affordable now, i've been Amazoning it and (1) you have LOTS of choice (2) it's CHEAP (3) once you get one, you can actually play HD material on them.

 

[Geo]

What worries me is that it's like chicken and egg.
HDTVs wont be adopted properly and get cheaper here until there is HDTV material like broadcasts or BlueLaser movies.
And HDTV material won't be released properly until HDTVs are cheap enough to get a vast user base.

I'll just... wait.

Going later should make it cheaper as the production of the basic infrastructure building blocks ramps up and 2nd gen equipment shows up. I would think y'all would still get some growth in the right kind of TV in the user base from DVD-driven sales, and the price reductions that your cousins over here are providing by being early adopters (you're welcome! ) so there should still be some momentum in the right direction (even if slower than you'd like).