Mailing List Archive

Sep 4, 2006, 6:23 PM

Post #2 of 12 (3654 views)

Mike Dilger wrote:
> Back in San Francisco, I had a rear-projection 42" wide HDTV. There was
> a free-to-air HD channel that was 1920x1080i (which, IMHO, is 'true'
> HD). It was nothing short of spectacular - bright vibrant colors,
> super-crystal-clear detail. Only thing was... they played mostly
> boring stuff, and a lot of time was taken up by looping scenery shots
> instead of real content of interest. Satellite (DirecTV) also had some
> HD content, about 4 channels. That included HDNet (which occasionally
> had girls in bikinis), DiscoveryHD (my absolute favorite), and HBO in
> HD. HBO showed movies, and when you transfer a 24fps movie from film to
> HD to 1080i at 30fps (USA), it actually looks really really good... you
> can see the graininess of the film, and the wrinkles on peoples faces,
> which gave it a theatre feel. They were also moving in an HD adult
> channel, just at the time that I was leaving.
>
> I miss HD. ;-( I built my MythTV system to be HD-ready, as far as
> possible. I can watch some HD content from the web, but download times
> are quite limiting.
>
> HD is taking a long time, because of the chicken-and-egg problem ("well
> no one has HD ready hardware".... "well no one has HD media to show
> us"). That doesn't mean HD won't happen, but just that it won't switch
> over as quickly as you might think.
>
>
> Steven Ellis wrote:
>
>>1. Most local production companies have international owners and are
>>moving over to HD as they can afford it. Shooting on HD video is usually
>>cheaper than film.
>>
>>2. Some local content is produced on film which if it is Super16 or
>>better can be turned into HD.
>>
>>3. TVNZ's new equipment is all HD. They can't buy SD kit even if they
>>wanted to.
>>
>>4. Maddigan's Quest was shot in HD.
>>
>>5. Most US and a lot of UK/AU imported is in HD.
>>
>>6. One H264 HD Channel takes the same bandwidth as One SD MPEG2 channel.
>>
>>
> This is all awesome news. I'm still psyched... but just not expecting
> anything "real soon now".

Yeah don't expect too much and you won't be disappointed :)

I'd like to see some HD from day one but I doubt it. One thing of interest
is the bitrate on the widescreen TVNZ channel is serously high and
upscales to HD very very well.

Steve

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Re: HD [ In reply to ]

Sep 4, 2006, 6:30 PM

Post #3 of 12 (3641 views)

On 9/5/06, Mike Dilger <mike@mikedilger.com> wrote:
> HD is taking a long time, because of the chicken-and-egg problem ("well
> no one has HD ready hardware".... "well no one has HD media to show
> us"). That doesn't mean HD won't happen, but just that it won't switch
> over as quickly as you might think.

That's why I think it'll be driven by HD-DVD/Bluray in this country.
People will buy HD equipment because the movies are available. And so
the chicken and egg problem goes away for the broadcasters.

Steve

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Re: HD [ In reply to ]

Sep 4, 2006, 6:54 PM

Post #4 of 12 (3645 views)

Steve Hodge wrote:
> On 9/5/06, Mike Dilger <mike@mikedilger.com> wrote:
>> HD is taking a long time, because of the chicken-and-egg problem ("well
>> no one has HD ready hardware".... "well no one has HD media to show
>> us"). That doesn't mean HD won't happen, but just that it won't switch
>> over as quickly as you might think.
>
> That's why I think it'll be driven by HD-DVD/Bluray in this country.
> People will buy HD equipment because the movies are available. And so
> the chicken and egg problem goes away for the broadcasters.

People aren't buying normal TVs any more. Almost everyone wants a HD set
and then is shocked at how bad SkyTV looks on it :)

Steve

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Re: HD [ In reply to ]

Sep 4, 2006, 7:01 PM

Post #5 of 12 (3624 views)

On 9/5/06, Steven Ellis <steven@openmedia.co.nz> wrote:
> Steve Hodge wrote:
> > On 9/5/06, Mike Dilger <mike@mikedilger.com> wrote:
> >> HD is taking a long time, because of the chicken-and-egg problem ("well
> >> no one has HD ready hardware".... "well no one has HD media to show
> >> us"). That doesn't mean HD won't happen, but just that it won't switch
> >> over as quickly as you might think.
> >
> > That's why I think it'll be driven by HD-DVD/Bluray in this country.
> > People will buy HD equipment because the movies are available. And so
> > the chicken and egg problem goes away for the broadcasters.
>
> People aren't buying normal TVs any more. Almost everyone wants a HD set
> and then is shocked at how bad SkyTV looks on it :)

There's a lot of confusion about HD though - I think there are a lot
of sales of TVs capable of 480p, especially now that 42" plasmas with
that resolution are under $3000. SBS in Australia advertise HD as
meaning "DVD quality picture + DVD quality sound", i.e. 480p + AC3.
But that's not what I'd call HD. I consider 480p to be evolutionary
rather than revolutionary compared to SD. I don't think there are as
large a number of sets being sold that do 720p or 1080i natively.

Steve

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Re: HD [ In reply to ]

Sep 4, 2006, 8:20 PM

Post #6 of 12 (3655 views)

Steve Hodge wrote:
> On 9/5/06, Steven Ellis <steven@openmedia.co.nz> wrote:
>> Steve Hodge wrote:
>> > On 9/5/06, Mike Dilger <mike@mikedilger.com> wrote:
>> >> HD is taking a long time, because of the chicken-and-egg problem
>> ("well
>> >> no one has HD ready hardware".... "well no one has HD media to show
>> >> us"). That doesn't mean HD won't happen, but just that it won't
>> switch
>> >> over as quickly as you might think.
>> >
>> > That's why I think it'll be driven by HD-DVD/Bluray in this country.
>> > People will buy HD equipment because the movies are available. And so
>> > the chicken and egg problem goes away for the broadcasters.
>>
>> People aren't buying normal TVs any more. Almost everyone wants a HD set
>> and then is shocked at how bad SkyTV looks on it :)
>
> There's a lot of confusion about HD though - I think there are a lot
> of sales of TVs capable of 480p, especially now that 42" plasmas with
> that resolution are under $3000. SBS in Australia advertise HD as
> meaning "DVD quality picture + DVD quality sound", i.e. 480p + AC3.
> But that's not what I'd call HD. I consider 480p to be evolutionary
> rather than revolutionary compared to SD. I don't think there are as
> large a number of sets being sold that do 720p or 1080i natively.

Some useful references

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-definition_television
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1080i
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/720p

Steve

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Re: HD [ In reply to ]

Sep 4, 2006, 9:02 PM

Post #7 of 12 (3642 views)

On 9/5/06, Steven Ellis <steven@openmedia.co.nz> wrote:
> Steve Hodge wrote:
> > On 9/5/06, Steven Ellis <steven@openmedia.co.nz> wrote:
> >> People aren't buying normal TVs any more. Almost everyone wants a HD set
> >> and then is shocked at how bad SkyTV looks on it :)
> >
> > There's a lot of confusion about HD though - I think there are a lot
> > of sales of TVs capable of 480p, especially now that 42" plasmas with
> > that resolution are under $3000. SBS in Australia advertise HD as
> > meaning "DVD quality picture + DVD quality sound", i.e. 480p + AC3.
> > But that's not what I'd call HD. I consider 480p to be evolutionary
> > rather than revolutionary compared to SD. I don't think there are as
> > large a number of sets being sold that do 720p or 1080i natively.
>
> Some useful references
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-definition_television
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1080i
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/720p

Yup, seen those - good pages.

My point is that when you say "everyone wants a HD set" what you mean
(or at least what I see) is that everyone wants a big, widescreen TV.
A lot of those TVs (particularly plasmas) have native resolutions of
around 850x480 and are advertised as "HD ready". Which they are,
strictly speaking. But 480p is pretty underwhelming - it's really not
much better SD. Even a lot of the higher resolution sets can't really
do 720p properly because they don't have the full horizontal width
(i.e. there are often 1024x768 rather than 1280x720).

People are not going to be very impressed by HD if 480p is all they
can get (either because that's what's broadcast as HD or due to the
limitations of their "HDTV" set). Personally I don't think including
480i and 480p in the HDTV spec was a smart decision. They should have
left those as EDTV modes.

Steve

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Re: HD [ In reply to ]

alan.p at orcon

Sep 5, 2006, 5:10 AM

Post #8 of 12 (3647 views)

>People are not going to be very impressed by HD if 480p is all they
>can get (either because that's what's broadcast as HD or due to the
>limitations of their "HDTV" set). Personally I don't think including
>480i and 480p in the HDTV spec was a smart decision. They should have
>left those as EDTV modes.

I love the way that these HDTV mode tags seem to dance around resolution
without coming out and stating them. I can never keep track of whether i or
p are the normal or the minature.

All I know is that every time I think about shopping for a HDTV, I am
positively horrified by the piddling little resolutions that remind me of
my S3 Trio, my 486, and playing SimCity. If one of the resolution numbers
are below 1000 (866 or whatever they chose that week), then it is
Pentium-133 era, to my mind, not better-than-DVD. My 19" monitor has a
higher res than these multi-thousand dollar sets. That, and the prices for
said under-rezzed screen. As a result, upgrading from SD to not-very-HD is
not very high on my priority list. Especially not when a HD screen costs
$2000-$5000, compared to $600 for a 42" or so SD TV.

>Steve

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Re: HD [ In reply to ]

nick at rout

Sep 6, 2006, 1:39 AM

Post #9 of 12 (3637 views)

On 1:54 pm 09/05/06 "Steven Ellis" <steven@openmedia.co.nz> wrote:
> Steve Hodge wrote:
> > On 9/5/06, Mike Dilger <mike@mikedilger.com> wrote:
> >> HD is taking a long time, because of the chicken-and-egg problem
> >> ("well no one has HD ready hardware".... "well no one has HD
> >> media to show us"). That doesn't mean HD won't happen, but just
> >> that it won't switch over as quickly as you might think.
> >
> > That's why I think it'll be driven by HD-DVD/Bluray in this
> > country. People will buy HD equipment because the movies are
> > available. And so the chicken and egg problem goes away for the
> broadcasters.
>
> People aren't buying normal TVs any more. Almost everyone wants a HD
> set and then is shocked at how bad SkyTV looks on it :)
>
> Steve
>

Frankly I'd rather the networks properly broadcast in 16:9 than worry
overly much about HD. I get pissed off watching almost anything on NZ TV
knowing that I am missing a huge chunk of the director's vision, not to
mention the awful waste of screen space on my widescreen TV.

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Re: HD [ In reply to ]

Sep 6, 2006, 2:05 AM

Post #10 of 12 (3629 views)

Nick Rout wrote:
> On 1:54 pm 09/05/06 "Steven Ellis" <steven@openmedia.co.nz> wrote:
>
>> Steve Hodge wrote:
>>
>>> On 9/5/06, Mike Dilger <mike@mikedilger.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> HD is taking a long time, because of the chicken-and-egg problem
>>>> ("well no one has HD ready hardware".... "well no one has HD
>>>> media to show us"). That doesn't mean HD won't happen, but just
>>>> that it won't switch over as quickly as you might think.
>>>>
>>> That's why I think it'll be driven by HD-DVD/Bluray in this
>>> country. People will buy HD equipment because the movies are
>>> available. And so the chicken and egg problem goes away for the
>>>
>> broadcasters.
>>
>> People aren't buying normal TVs any more. Almost everyone wants a HD
>> set and then is shocked at how bad SkyTV looks on it :)
>>
>> Steve
>>
>>
>
>
> Frankly I'd rather the networks properly broadcast in 16:9 than worry
> overly much about HD. I get pissed off watching almost anything on NZ TV
> knowing that I am missing a huge chunk of the director's vision, not to
> mention the awful waste of screen space on my widescreen TV.
>
The widescreen test channel is very nice, but does anyone know what the
extra information is in the signal as if your screen doesn't overscan it
becomes rather annoying.

I'd expect 1-4 to go widescreen pretty much immediately, most of their
product is already geared for it.

Steve

--
Steven Ellis - Technical Director
OpenMedia Limited
email - steven@openmedia.co.nz
sales - sales@openmedia.co.nz
support - support@openmedia.co.nz
website - http://www.openmedia.co.nz

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Re: HD [ In reply to ]

Sep 6, 2006, 2:51 AM

Post #11 of 12 (3612 views)

On 9/6/06, Steven Ellis <steven@openmedia.co.nz> wrote:
> I'd expect 1-4 to go widescreen pretty much immediately, most of their
> product is already geared for it.

That'd be good. What do you think the chance of getting AC3 sound are?

Steve

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Re: HD [ In reply to ]

Sep 6, 2006, 4:46 PM

Post #12 of 12 (3633 views)