# High Definition TV ~ Have you been conned?



## Private Prozac (Jul 7, 2003)

There was an interesting article in the Daily Mail last week indicating that the majority of us with 'HD Ready' television sets haven't actually got TV's that will enable 'proper' HD resolution pictures.

Apparently there is currently only one HD TV on sale in the UK that is capable of displaying pictures at true HD resolution and that is a Phillips.

Although your TV may be 'HD Ready' you will only be displaying at a lower resolution than is being transmitted.

So, I've been conned. What about you?


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## saint (Dec 6, 2002)

I take it you are talking about the big daddy 1080i resolution - other tvs can easily cope with the "smaller" standard 720p.

So basically you've not been conned - you just don't have the top dog.

http://www.consumer.philips.com/consume ... VHKFSESI5P

Wow - what a link  - anyway that's the 42"


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## Private Prozac (Jul 7, 2003)

Well my Panny 42" shows, when playing on the 360, that it is in 1080 but if this is true and only the Phillips displays 'proper' 1080 then my Panny's talking bollackies!!!


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## saint (Dec 6, 2002)

Well - it may show it's displaying 1080i but with a screen that can only display 1024x768 there must be a bit of tweaking going on to compress the picture down.
Your screen will only do 720p.


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## jandrews (Feb 21, 2005)

I'm not really sure where you are getting your info from, but there are a lots of HiDef ready screens out there that can easily display the 1080 (True HiDef) resolution.

Ive had my Pioneer 43 inch plasma for almost 18 months now and when I bought this, it was indeed one of the first TRUE HiDeF displays.

To be honest, there are not many hi def sources out there at the moment. SKY HD is in the test process, and there are a handful of HiDeF DVD machines out there, but nothing in the way of the HiDef discs...apart from the Demo discs from the manufacturers themselves....not the sort of thing you wanna watch on a saturday night with a pizza...more of a "hey look at how cool my screen is" sort of thing. I have in fact just got my Xbox 360 and this does use the 1080 resolution and I can confirm that it looks beautiful.

I have in fact just seen a Denon DVD that has an upscaler built in and a HDMI output (enabling true HiDef picture quality) for a very reasonable Â£250ish so this should give yo umore of what you are after

http://www.denon.co.uk/site/frames_main.php?main=prod&ver=&MID=3&sub=1&action=detail&Pid=232


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## Rogue (Jun 15, 2003)

I thought that it was 1080p that was the daddy, and that 1080i was it's wee brother?
The "p" being progressive and the "i" being interlaced.

That was just my understanding of it though, so may be wrong.

Rogue


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## saint (Dec 6, 2002)

Sorry - yes - progressive is always better than interlaced. :idea:

True high-def screens will be able to show 1080i 'cos of the interlaced and thus can compress the feed to fit the 720p specs (ie into a vertical resolution of 720 pixels (horizontal lines))

1080p - will require a display of atleast 1080 pixels in height.

The Pioneer 43" is a true High-Def ready screen - ie able to display atleast 720p.

You got to think of HD tvs like pc monitors and their display resolutions - when buying look for display pixels - hd 1024x768 will do 720p with 1080i whateverx1080 will do true high def 1080p.


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## Storm (Aug 4, 2004)

Just look for the badges, they make it easier (just).

HD Compatible - means the TV set will *accept* a HD signal, but only display it as a lower quality, standard def, image (commonly downscalled to 480p).

HD Ready - means the TV set will *accept* a HD signal AND be able to display it as nature intended at one of the standard HD resolutions (720p being the most common).


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## David_A (May 7, 2002)

saint said:


> S
> 
> You got to think of HD tvs like pc monitors and their display resolutions - when buying look for display pixels - hd 1024x768 will do 720p with 1080i whateverx1080 will do true high def 1080p.


Or if in doubt count em! But seriously though the vert res that a pc could display like Saint says ie whatever X 1080 is the safest way to check I would guess.

Dave


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## BAMTT (Feb 22, 2004)

auditt260bhp said:


> Well my Panny 42" shows, when playing on the 360, that it is in 1080 but if this is true and only the Phillips displays 'proper' 1080 then my Panny's talking bollackies!!!


Hmm i have been looking at getting the Panasonic TH42PX60, I spoke to the bloke at Crampton and Moore this am who said thje Xbox would only transmit 720p via the component cable and that at 1080 p or i (cant' remember which ) the picture would become unstale any way :?: :?: :?:


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## scavenger (Jun 25, 2002)

Saw this for Â£100 at the weekend which upscales DVD's.

Also saw this for Â£3k running a demo. What a fantastic picture, I was blown away.

Shame the 42" one doesnt run at the same res.


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## saint (Dec 6, 2002)

Â£3k and it's still 1080i - ie: 1333x768. Won't doubt the picture quality as am well impressed with my 26" (used for home pc) which runs at the same resolution.

The 42" PX5d comes close with 1024x768 - but that's fairly poor for a screen of that size. Just shows up the limitations of the technology.


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## John C (Jul 5, 2002)

Most of the current 'HD Ready' sets are around the 720 lines vertical height mark.

To display 1080 res with out any downsampleing you need 1080 lines of vertical resolution. So at 16:9 (widescreen) you need a display panel with 1080x1920 resolution of which as pointed out above are few and far between at the moment. The difference between 'i' and 'p' is whether the screen is made up of the traditional interlace format which sends lines 1,3,5,7,9 etc one refresh and then 2,4,6,8,10 etc on the second pass of the screen. This builds up the picture with 'half' the data each refresh where as 'p' progressive sends lines 1,2,3,4,5,6 in order each refresh of the screen giving more info per refresh.

So unless you have a 1080 display at the moment which most are not out yet you will be technically short changed from HD. That said a 720 display fed a good signal, scaled well, will be a massive step up from standard definition.

For the best picture you need your display fed in an accurate 1:1 pixel mapping. This means each pixel on screen is fed from a pixel of information off the source.

I currently achieve this by using a HTPC (Uvem) with the graphics card set to 1080X1920 feeding a progressive signal to my Sony Ruby Projector, presto, every pixel is mapped in Real/True/Whatever HD.

For 1080i or lower resolutions I use a Lumagen Scaler to convert to 1080p to feed the projector.

Simple huh?


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## saint (Dec 6, 2002)

:lol: :lol:


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## jonah (Aug 17, 2002)

I'm sure I've read somewhere that to view TRUE HD the screen would have to be a min size of 48in or atleast around that size to display the correct amount of pixels.

Sony's new Bravia series is supposed to be True HD

http://gadgets.fosfor.se/sony-bravia-x/


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## John C (Jul 5, 2002)

...it is hence.....



SONY said:


> The new BRAVIA X line from Sony comes with a full High Definition resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels.


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## Karcsi (Mar 6, 2003)

What will HDTV sources (Sky, BBC, Blu-Ray/HD DVD) be in: 720p or 1080p?


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## John C (Jul 5, 2002)

Karcsi said:


> What will HDTV sources (Sky, BBC, Blu-Ray/HD DVD) be in: 720p or 1080p?


Sky, BBC 720p and 1080i depending on content, Blu-ray HD-DVD all including 1080p

And let's not forget D-VHS - been 1080 Hi Def for years!!


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## saint (Dec 6, 2002)

They're finally getting there.

(PS - That ok for you MB?)


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## jedi_quaTTro (Sep 29, 2003)

interesting to know..

i've got the panny th42pv500 and apart from the demo I've not seen any HDTV, at this rate when it does appear the screen will probably be almost out of date 

but does the job for normal tv, so at least that's ok !


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## saint (Dec 6, 2002)

Not out of date - just not able to reproduce the top spec. It's not as if any of the current tvs, apart from a few, can actually achieve such resolutions.
HDTV will be here for a while before 1080p is common - and as common as hdtv ready tvs are at the moment.

Therefore I would not worry about it.


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## Storm (Aug 4, 2004)

BAMTT said:


> auditt260bhp said:
> 
> 
> > Well my Panny 42" shows, when playing on the 360, that it is in 1080 but if this is true and only the Phillips displays 'proper' 1080 then my Panny's talking bollackies!!!
> ...


Then the bloke at Crampton and Moore is officially FOS.

You do need a high def cable - the component will work fine (it's what I use) or you can use the VGA cable too. To say a 1080 line image (be it 'p' or 'i') is unstable is just stupid. HDTV quality isn't really any different to monitor resolutions and I'm running my monitor at 1900x1200 (essentially 1200p) and that's rock solid.


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## Karcsi (Mar 6, 2003)

http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2006/03/20/eicta_hdtv_logo/

A new logo, to further confuse people. Must because of the advent of DVD players and other receivers which can upscale standard video to one of the HD resolutions. Why not have the same logo for everything that can process HD information?


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## jedi_quaTTro (Sep 29, 2003)

saint said:


> Not out of date - just not able to reproduce the top spec. It's not as if any of the current tvs, apart from a few, can actually achieve such resolutions.
> HDTV will be here for a while before 1080p is common - and as common as hdtv ready tvs are at the moment.
> 
> Therefore I would not worry about it.


thanks for that, good to know, thankyou... although with the amount of headache it was to get the screen secure on the wall, I know that it ain't coming off as long as I live there, so I'm hoping that the technology will survive


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## Private Prozac (Jul 7, 2003)

Well, the X-Box 360 shows as 1080i on my Panny so looks like I've been 'ad!


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## John C (Jul 5, 2002)

The x-box will be inputting at 1080i just your Panny will be down scaling to 768 or whatever the vertical res will be.


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## jonah (Aug 17, 2002)

auditt260bhp said:


> Well, the X-Box 360 shows as 1080i on my Panny so looks like I've been 'ad!


I have a Panny PW6 none HD well it will accept a 720 or 1080i signal but simply down scale it to 480 so you could say it is HD ready :wink: 
I will say though the Panny's are very good at down scaling and tbh I've seen some HD ready screens that will accept a 720/1080i signal and the PQ is worse than on my PW6.

The point is are you happy with the picture


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## bash-the-monkey (Jun 5, 2002)

Calm down people!

Do I have to be the voice of reason? 8)

Remembering that I work for a company that designs Broadcast equipment and HD is the next big thing, perhaps this may be of interest...

"First, to be technical, there are eighteen different (digital television) formats of which only six are actually High-Definition. Of the six HDTV formats only two are used frequently, 720p and 1080i.

The answer comes down to what type of content the broadcaster is looking to optimize. We all know that 1080i has the higher resolution, so why bother offering another format like 720p? While it's true that 1080i has a greater number of pixels (1920 x 1080 vs. 1280 x 720), 720 has two things working to its advantage. First, 720p is a progressive signal. Second, 720p is 60 fps (frames per second). 1080i, on the other hand, is interlaced and 30 fps (60 fields per second).

Where does this matter? It matters for fast movement (e.g. sports). Let's look at an example using both 720p and 1080i:

Suppose that we have a tennis ball moving across the screen for 1 second. A broadcast in 720p is going to show 60 complete images of the tennis ball. Think of it like an old-fashioned flipbook that has 60 pages. Each page will have a complete image and when you quickly flip through the entire book it will give you movement. This is much like how traditional film works (albeit with 24 fps).

If we were to do the same experiment with 1080i, it would be quite different. Unlike progressive formats, which show the whole picture, interlaced material relies on the fact that two half-pictures will generally combine to make one whole picture. As such, 1080i will display the even lines for 1/60th of a second followed by the odd lines for 1/60th of second. If we return to the flipbook example, we can see that the book will still have 60 pages but each page will look a little like we're looking through mini-blinds. Of course, when it's sped up it doesn't look like this. A combination of the display (afterglow) and the mind combine to complete the picture.

But can't you de-interlace a 1080i signal and have the best of both worlds? (De-interlacing is the process of converting an interlaced signal into a progressive signal by combining the even lines and the odd lines to form one solid picture) Yes, but even in the best case you are only getting 30 fps (half the frames of 720p). In the worst case, the even lines and the odd lines don't quite match up. For instance, assume that the camera is capturing half the picture every 1/60th of a second. In that case, it's possible that the ball has moved enough in that short amount of time that the odd lines don't align with the even lines.

*In either case, 720p has the potential to deliver a smoother, more stable picture when dealing with fast motion.*

It's easy to see why SKY chose 720p as its standard.

So, if 720p delivers a smoother picture, why not just use it? The answer is resolution. 1080i has many more pixels and often you don't need the extra frames. The majority of the content being shown today was first shot on film. Most TV dramas and nearly all movies start their lives as film. Since film is 24fps, 1080i's 30 fps is more than enough to capture all the frames. The result is that broadcasters who feel that film-based material is their bread and butter will often choose 1080i."

so there are three advertised standards:

720p
1080i
1080p - this is the daddy - however as nothing is filmed in this format (it's all upscaled) and more importantly - the human eye struggles to differenciate 1080i and 1080p - it doesn't really matter - and is not worth spending the extra on at the moment.

It's a salesman's pitch to someone who MUST have the best - or like buying a 200+ sportscar and not being able to go over 100.

Hope this clears it up - you have not been conned!!  

Bash
www.bashthemonkey.com


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## saint (Dec 6, 2002)

I think we got there


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## clived (May 6, 2002)

auditt260bhp said:


> Well, the X-Box 360 shows as 1080i on my Panny so looks like I've been 'ad!


Can the xbox not be set to output 720p?


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## jampott (Sep 6, 2003)

clived said:


> auditt260bhp said:
> 
> 
> > Well, the X-Box 360 shows as 1080i on my Panny so looks like I've been 'ad!
> ...


Aye.


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## vlastan (May 6, 2002)

Does anyone knows when HD terrestrial broadcasts are due to start? I guess they need to be delivered in digital format as well, so you need a digital tuner?


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## saint (Dec 6, 2002)

You would need a digital tuner able to manage HD - no word as yet when they would be available.

Telewest have an HD Tuner c/w TV-Drive (like Sky+ but a bit better) out now. Sky will be offering HD tuners later in the year with updated Sky+ boxes.

The BBC have announced that they will be broadcasting the World Cup in HD format - so am sure Sky will want to have something in place for then.


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## TTwiggy (Jul 20, 2004)

I went (back in December!) to Sky's press briefing for their HD programming. It did look lovely, especially the shots from last year's Champions League final, where every face in the crowd was crystal clear, but they weren't (and still haven't ) saying when they were going to 'go live'.... in answer to a couple of Q's I asked I was told that there would be a charge for a new box, there would be an increase in the subscription cost and there would likely be incentives for peole who do not currently subscribe..... and yes, as far as we know, the BBC will transmit the World Cup in HD this summer....


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## jonah (Aug 17, 2002)

jampott said:


> clived said:
> 
> 
> > auditt260bhp said:
> ...


Yes and alot of people think the 720p is better than sending it a 1080i although minor


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## stevett (Jan 13, 2003)

Storm said:


> BAMTT said:
> 
> 
> > auditt260bhp said:
> ...


Agreed, I'm running at 2560*1600 (on one screen) via DVI, rock solid, 1080 content doesn't fill the screen though, waiting for true HD !


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## saint (Dec 6, 2002)

What size/kind of screen do you have to give that resolution?


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## stevett (Jan 13, 2003)

http://www1.us.dell.com/content/product ... l=en&s=biz

comes well recommended......


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## Karcsi (Mar 6, 2003)

saint said:


> You would need a digital tuner able to manage HD - no word as yet when they would be available.
> 
> Telewest have an HD Tuner c/w TV-Drive (like Sky+ but a bit better) out now. Sky will be offering HD tuners later in the year with updated Sky+ boxes.
> 
> The BBC have announced that they will be broadcasting the World Cup in HD format - so am sure Sky will want to have something in place for then.


So, my brand new Panasonic TX-26LX500 with built in digital tuner will not be able to handle HD transmissions; I have to buy a separate digital receiver (assuming the BBC will transmit it to our aerials)? Another damn box under the telly. I thought I had got rid of one for good.


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## saint (Dec 6, 2002)

That's ok - 'cos it ain't no tv.


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## bash-the-monkey (Jun 5, 2002)

Hmmm....

Our R&D department has a few 'prototypes' for broadcasters as well as receivers - state-of-the-art fifth gen stuff.

Let the bidding begin and you too can enjoy true HD full stream pictures from all over the globe.  

Bash
www.bashthemonkey.com

PS - you may have to stick 9 different satallite dishes of various sizes on the side of your house - but hey, small price to pay :lol:  :lol:


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