HDTV in the UK

[BarMoo]

Yes they did, LOL. Albeit, I am sure there was at least a weeks discussion beforehand. Never heard of German efficiency?

BTW the Panasonic DTT TU-(europe wide) is only €80.00 here; albeit, no-one seems to go for it. People seem happy with the usual Humax, Zender offerings (usually more expensive) that mostly look like sat STB's ??

Thiking of STB's - I am pleased that Pace have got their foot in the STB market here - their little Pace gem (tiny sat treasure box with a UI and EPG that is a dream) is finally making ground ;) [first they sent a philips stb, urgh]

Have Fun,

Mark.

 

[RedDevil_UK]

As most technology is introduced, its success is down to the price, to the consumers.... if its too expensive it will be a slow and may even fail!!

I dont think HD will fail, it will happen wether we like it or not, but the cost will decide how quick our systems are transformed.

Take Sky+ for instance, some say its not been the success Sky thought it would be.... are we suprised?? NO!! because most people think sky charge way over the top now!! so why would they want to pay £10 extra for a few extra functions? if it was free or £1 a month more.... we would all have sky+
and its not just Sky either, you can bet your life that the BBC will use it as an excuse to put the TV licence up im sure. So you can watch the repeats and old films they show in HD

so in short if its gonna cost me even more money, to watch the same programs im watching now they can all sod off

as ART Sport has proven, as long as you show content people really want.... then you can transmit it in the poorest quality on the planet.... and people will still pay for it

 

[Jaffer]

Hi friends,

Lookig around for an LCD TV with HD ready. I have a doubt about ratio; some tv say 500:1, 800:1, 1000:1

The question is which is better 500 or 1000

Your help is much appreciated. Please!

 

[Channel Hopper]

as ART Sport has proven, as long as you show content people really want.... then you can transmit it in the poorest quality on the planet.... and people will still pay for it

As BSkyB has proven, you can transmit virtually any content in the poorest quality on the planet.... and people will still pay for it

 

[pgh13]

I never understood why the UK sucked consumers into/manipulated them into dead technologies like SD widescreen in the first place ;) The US and Japan already had HD at that time and it was only the ad agencies in the UK that ultimately got broadcasters fully into SD 16:9. Saying that, I actually liked the PAL+ transmissions on Channel Four way back in 1687.


let the suckering continue....been looking at 32in LCD of late (yes I know!) and am amazed at the number of sets claiming to be HD ready that don't have Freeview tuners - I know the 2 aren't related, but the attitude seems to be "sod today's technology; here's tomorrow's" Also, there seems to be quite a premium for a Freeview equipped set which costs maybe £5 to fit at the factory

 

[BarMoo]

Hi friends,

Lookig around for an LCD TV with HD ready. I have a doubt about ratio; some tv say 500:1, 800:1, 1000:1

The question is which is better 500 or 1000

Your help is much appreciated. Please!

This figures simply refer to the 'Contrast' Ratio of the screen.

While 1000:1 is a stunning ratio (usually sold as meaning: deep blacks, a good range in the middle and a brightness level that's uncomfortable at close range) LCD's with ratios as low as 450:1 are still perfectly watchable and are usually cheaper.

Have Fun,

Mark.

 

[jimbo]

Also, there seems to be quite a premium for a Freeview equipped set which costs maybe £5 to fit at the factory

...And if ppl want to take it further and get Top up TV (perish the thought), a cam is £40 then a sub of about £7.50 a month. For what??

 

[rolfw]

This figures simply refer to the 'Contrast' Ratio of the screen.

While 1000:1 is a stunning ratio (usually sold as meaning: deep blacks, a good range in the middle and a brightness level that's uncomfortable at close range) LCD's with ratios as low as 450:1 are still perfectly watchable and are usually cheaper.

Have Fun,

Mark.

Thanks for that Mark, must confess to not having gone into this very deeply, perhaps we ought to get together a glossary with layman's descriptions and what the real benefits of these quoted performance figures are.

 

[BarMoo]

I never understood why the UK sucked consumers into/manipulated them into dead technologies like SD widescreen in the first place ;) The US and Japan already had HD at that time and it was only the ad agencies in the UK that ultimately got broadcasters fully into SD 16:9. Saying that, I actually liked the PAL+ transmissions on Channel Four way back in 1687.

Ah, the benefit of hindsight. SD widescreen might well be a dead technology now, but, HD is only just becoming a realistic and affordable proposition for broadcasters and consumers alike.

I still find it odd that at Circuit City in the USA you can purchase a 4:3 tube HDTV? and that Warner Cable has an imbalance of programming in 720p. So are they any more advanced than the UK? I'd say enjoy the black and white and wait for colour ;-)

Back in the UK - SD widescreen is still totally underused/abused within its ratio - Content Makers' continue to poorly re-version 4:3 archive material AND what the hell SKY News are doing beggars belief. Worse is my mate who will insist on squeezing a 4:3 picture into a different shape. Folks this is not 16.9 as it was meant to be!

And, as pgh13 points out, it WAS those ad buggers who demanded SD w/s for their ads. Not that half of 'em frame anything properly.

Back to the post, SD w/s was a fine solution at the end of the last century: unlike PAL+ a decade earlier. PAL+ was only interesting if you could workout what was going on with the hidden w/s info in the letterbox., hehe.

SONY demo'd analogue HD at the same time the EU was trying to be clever with PAL+ (wasn't the project called Eureka!). Whatever, the problem was that there was neither a viable transmission method nor was there any consumer kit - (that alongside PAL+ being pushed which did have kit- Confused?)

Time travel: Magaret Thatcher still didn't die, Mungo Jerry re-entered the German charts, and then ........

... comes MPEG2. It could do what PAL+ failed to deliver/do/inspire and, as MTV later pioneered, it allowed you to transmit 12 channels for the price of one.

So, when you want to speak of dead-in-the-water technology - you might want to thank PAL+ for the emergent love of SD w/s and the mainly American desire to make a fook load of money by maximising channel abundance as opposed to maximising quality.

This is how EU telly evolved. Unlike, Japan, the US and South Korea which decided to blaze ahead with the real thing.

So here we are and after only a few short years the latest (available) generation of the MPEG family will allow SKY to transmit 9 HD streams for the price of one olde-worldy MPEG2 one: even if SKY News is currently making a mockery of the 16.9 format whether its HD or not.

let the suckering continue....been looking at 32in LCD of late (yes I know!) and am amazed at the number of sets claiming to be HD ready that don't have Freeview tuners - I know the 2 aren't related, but the attitude seems to be "sod today's technology; here's tomorrow's" Also, there seems to be quite a premium for a Freeview equipped set which costs maybe £5 to fit at the factory

Maybe the clue is in what you have read for yourself. Why on earth would you want an HD ready LCD with a built-in Freeview decoder. Barmy lack of understanding of HD enacted to the letter. IMHO low res inputs on an LCD look shyte. LCD's shine at high resolutions. So, you want to suffer urgghh quality for five years and hope that that built-in decoder becomes HD compatible - fine. I wouldn't.

Surely, a wise man buys a monitor and a STB?

Off on a track - this is topical for me only because I do not want to render anything in my house (under the Telegraphy Act of 1435 (reg (a) 132)) to be "a device made ready for the reception of television programmes, with or without sound" or as the Television Without Frontiers Directive (proposed) now likes to call 'programmes' - "Audiovisiual Media Services". You can hide a USB DVB-T stick - you can't hide a 32" LCD MONITOR ;-) LOL.

Have Fun,

Mark.

 

[Jaffer]

I have been to many outlets to see and feel it. After spending 2 weeks reserch, I bought Panasonic 32LXD52 from John Lewis. I have connected it with my Samsung A300W digital receiver with a video component cable and I could not believe my eyes. I have never seen such sharp and detailed images before. What I suggest if you are spending huge amount on lcd screen, it is important to see it has component video connection and also HDMI for the near future. The JVC component cables costed just under £10 from Dixons. That is the cheapest; you can find the cables upto £100 such as Monster Cable, etc.

I have seen contras in other LCDs ranging from 400:1 to 2000:1 Panasonic has only 800:1. I am sure this has better quality picutre than the 2000:1.

I am very pleased with my purchase and got 5 year warranty that gives peace of mind.

 

[Sir Bronking]

theres a promo on astra HD,
19.2E-12168-V-27500,
i take it this shows the quality, (i can see a difference on my lcd monitor) but how do they do that, i mean if you had a black and white telly and they were promoting colour how can you tell ?

 

[Lancelot]

Check out the TPS one on 13E 11242V 27500.
Looks fantastic


L.

 

[frund]

I am very happy with the picture quality I watch mostly footy and films through a CRT and they, although old technology, work well with a non HD signal. I use a lg 7500 for time slip and HDD/ DVD write. I think will be a long time before HDTV is widely accepted due to the almost certain high cost.

 

[Jaffer]

We will all see, very soon, these HD TVs will be affordable and CRT will gradually disappear from the market. HD Ready TVs are the hot cakes in today's Electronic Market.

 

[BarMoo]

I do find it strange that most people associate HD with flat-panel displays only - like its the only option* or that one cannot exist without the other.

Maybe its one of those european anomalies: you know where consumers are cajoled down a purchase route of the manufacturer's choosing - not one of our own. Just like they cajoled us into purchasing horrid 100Hz TV's (they were cheaper to manufacture).

Quick OT: if the power supply remains the same, the picture is scanned the same way (tubeHD) - how long will it be before we see 100Hz 1080i monitors?

Back OT: Have a look at the attached HD beauties. HD even come in good 'ol 4:3. Top-to-Bottom: Samsung, Panny, Sony. Probably won't be available over here - ever. Sourced from global sites. *(sic).

Have Fun,

Mark.

 

[spiney]

er, mlj, just for info ......

Original analogue HD system was hi vision, developed by NHK.

Eureka was a multi-platform project, the particuar HDTV system was HD-MAC.

1st HD proposal in Europe was E Pal from the BBC, using a 2nd PAL channel to transmit "futher lines", allowing a 1250 line fully backwards-compatible picture. But the "BBC satellite project" collapsed, around 1985-ish.

PAL+ was just a widescreen format transmitted via ordinary PAL, prior to digital tv, and not in any way HD.

The USA ATSC "project" had - at one time - lots of different competing systems, what's now called "atsc" - in fact 8vsb - was originally just a hi def "helper" signal underlying the still-there complete NTSC analogue signal.

For more details, see my HDTV primer.

 

[BarMoo]

Hi spiney,

Your post starts with an "er" so clearly I have balls'd something up along the way - probably my earlier and tediously long post. Don't remember being on the med's in January, huh?

To be fair, I didn't really suggest PAL+ was digital or HD. Whatever it was, it was an EU subsided waste of money. The only 'plus' point was that films were shown in their native ratio: unlike today.

As for vsb - I can only recall the ongoing lobbying of the DVB group and how they failed to tempt the yanks into the camp. The smart folks wanted Linux - the FCC wanted Windows, so by the mid/late 90's the FCC determined vsb was much less communistic than anything DVB - COFDM, pwah! I believe the yanks still use vsb today. There is also 16vsb - but, that's where my brain takes a hike

Thankfully, DVB-T is making inroads into markets that were previously NTSC, hehe. And that is something any european can be proud of.

Have Fun,

Mark.

 

[spiney]

er, I'm really confused now, but anyway everybody knows I'm a tedius windbag by now, so "super-pedant mode on":

VSB was tried and tested, using known adaptive filter techniques, whereas COFDM was new, and ridiculous (and unfounded) claims were made for it! Plus, the recievers were originally much more expensive, thanks to the extra processing stages and chipsets needed. On Digital finally failed - at least in part - because COFDM isn't as good for tv as originally claimed (it's great for wi fi routers, but that's different!). Something said quite publicly by the disgruntled ex chairman, but largely ignored in news reports.

As it's turned out, VSB is actually slightly better, although there isn't that much in it!
( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8VSB ; googling "atsc cofdm" will get many articles with various viewpoints!)

With mpeg, i think 12 channels for price of one is probably a slight exaggeration!

 

[BarMoo]

i think 12 channels for price of one is probably a slight exaggeration!

Not if you're MTV its not. They certainly get their monies worth. 12 channels for the price of 1 to be exact, hehe. 12402V at 28.2°E goes further - with 38 services.

We shouldn't really speak of vsb here. It doesn't play any role in European Digital Television AFAIK and I think most people wouldn't give a hoot. We have enough on our plate working out the pros and cons of plasmas vs LCD.

As for Peed-off ITV execs - well, ITV can swivvle. AFAIK they use today the same delivery method as they did with OnSquigital and Freeview hasn't gone tits-up.

ON Digital failed because it wasn't free, was run by baffoons, thought it was SKY with sports and thought that a 0.5W signal would cover a region from Notting Hill Gate to Bradford.

We could have a tea and biscuit discussion about 16 vs 64 QAM (rubustness vs channel count) - but this thread is about HDTV (so we both better get back OT - well me at least)

Have Fun,

Mark.

 

[spiney]

Sorry, mlj, you've lost me again .....

"12 for the price of one" - I thought - referred to re-use of existing bandwidth via compression, in fact impossible at that ratio. So, what did it actually mean?

Yes, there were many factors in On Digital's collapse, but poor cofdm performance was certainly a major one (they didn't get enough revenue - partly because - not enough people could get the signal!).

The original descriptions of cofdm were stupidly optimistic (especially if your business had to depend on them being true). There are still many digital tv "guides" around which describe it as "wonderful", magic", etc, without being specific about exactly how.