Chat & Social > The Bar - General Chat
HDtv confusion
Range Rover Blues:
They covered this in a recent what li-fi sound and vison article and as said above, if your screen is below about 36 inches it's hardly worth going 1080.
720 is the minimum standard for HDTV but interstingly is also the same resolution available via componenet video cable, also called RGB but in truth 3 cables carrying colour, luminescence and contrast IIRC. This is what I'm using from my (6 month) old DVD into my new 1080p 46" TV and the picture is damn good.
Given the lack of DVDs that play 1080p it seems a bit of overkill but you need to future proof yourself a bit, I don't inted buying another TV for many years and have a warranty to cover all eventualities.
So I suggest a 1080 for a bigger TV, make sure it's got plenty of inputs, say 2 HD and one composite as a minimum, then make the best of whatever source you have until HD-DVD comes down in price after Christmas.
As for HD sources, I won't pay for Sky so it's either console (which claim to play DVD) or a DVD player.
There are already DVD players that upscale to 1080i which as explained above is not quite as good as 1080p but I defy you to notice the difference on a machine that is basically increasing the resolution electronically, that is making up data that isn't there.
The you have Blueray versus HD-DVD. Blue ray is by far the better standard with about 4 times the information available, but then betamax was better than VHS.
I'm told the deciding factor in that battle was the "adult film" industry and is likely to be again, blue ray is way too expensive for low-budget films.
I know whichever I buy will be the new betamax so I'm staying on the fence. After Christmas expect a new crop of DVD players that play both formats, but they will be expensive. As it is the few good DVD players that play one format or the other are around £1,000 :shock:
The cheapest way of getting either Blue ray (playstation 3) or HD-DVD (X-Box plus DVD drive) is to buy the games console, though they aren't dedicated movie machines and apparently you can really tell.
Scared yet? wait till you see the price of the films themselves then, Blueray titles are around £30-40 a piece and will only play on a blue ray player (as HD-DVD will only play on HD-DVD).
Great, so to get anything better than you had before on composite video (720 lines) you have to buy a TV, DVD player and a new collection of films :evil:
Sod it, go outside and get muddy instead :wink:
BrumLee:
--- Quote from: "Range Rover Blues" ---There are already DVD players that upscale to 1080i which as explained above is not quite as good as 1080p but I defy you to notice the difference on a machine that is basically increasing the resolution electronically, that is making up data that isn't there.
--- End quote ---
Just bought one of these as most of my DVD collection is from Hong Kong. Good reviews and free P&P :wink:
Range Rover Blues:
That's a good price, most in the shops are around £60-70 still.
One thing the magazines go on about it native resolution, forgot to mension this above. To get the very best outof your equipemtn then the source and the monitor should be at the same resolution, then there is no uprscaling/rescaling to spoil the picture quality.
Just one more thing to think about.
Welshbreed:
--- Quote from: "JumboBeef" ---I used to work in TV and I worked on a HiDeff TV prog back in 1989 :shock: It still hasn't caught on really and HD has many, many more years before it becomes main stream, if ever (just wait for the next big thing)
--- End quote ---
In america they've a satalite system (not sky) that offers 70+ HDTV channels, I think it's called Direct TV. Seen adverts on the NFLNetwork (online TV for American football by Yahoo)
http://www.directv.com
looks like it's the one. Just a matter of time before it becomes available in the UK hopefully
JumboBeef:
--- Quote from: "Welshbreed" ---
--- Quote from: "JumboBeef" ---I used to work in TV and I worked on a HiDeff TV prog back in 1989 :shock: It still hasn't caught on really and HD has many, many more years before it becomes main stream, if ever (just wait for the next big thing)
--- End quote ---
In america they've a satalite system (not sky) that offers 70+ HDTV channels, I think it's called Direct TV. Seen adverts on the NFLNetwork (online TV for American football by Yahoo)
http://www.directv.com
looks like it's the one. Just a matter of time before it becomes available in the UK hopefully
--- End quote ---
I'm not saying it's not out there, but it still has a very long way to go. I mean, most of the viewing public are still not yet even digital!
I stand by what I said, if you watch 'normal' type TV programmes and don't have a collection of DVDs for your viewing plesure, just buy the best one which fits in your budget from a good manufacturer
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