# Anyone else disenchanted with HDTV? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [November 24, 2008, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-disenchanted-with-hdtv/474177 "2008-11-24T02:09:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![control-z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/eada6e/32.png) [@control-z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/control-z)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2008, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-disenchanted-with-hdtv/474177/61 "2008-11-27T19:09:34Z")
I’m sure that’s true to a certain extent, but if you look at them side by side in a store, you’ll notice that some have a noticeably better picture. They usually feed the TVs with a crappy signal in the stores though, so it may even look better at home. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2008, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-disenchanted-with-hdtv/474177/62 "2008-11-28T14:57:41Z")
> [@Szlater](#): > > That’s weird. My home theatre amplifier has a built-in synchroniser, well I can alter the audio delay quite easily (to compensate for digital processing overall, and on a speaker-by-speaker basis to compensate for speaker-cable length). As a nitpick, you’re not compensating for speaker wire length - you’re compensating for the distance the sound has to travel in air. Electricity in speaker wires travels at the speed of light. You could coil up a mile of wire, and you’d never hear the delay. But once the sound hits the air, it’s only traveling at 760 mph. When one speaker is farther away from your ear than another, you get phase errors, and that’s what you’re compensating for. ---
**Author:** ![Szlater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/90ced4/32.png) [@Szlater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Szlater)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2008, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-disenchanted-with-hdtv/474177/63 "2008-11-28T15:01:03Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > As a nitpick, you’re not compensating for speaker wire length - you’re compensating for the distance the sound has to travel in air. Electricity in speaker wires travels at the speed of light. You could coil up a mile of wire, and you’d never hear the delay. But once the sound hits the air, it’s only traveling at 760 mph. When one speaker is farther away from your ear than another, you get phase errors, and that’s what you’re compensating for. Ahh, okay. Thanks for pointing that out. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2008, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-disenchanted-with-hdtv/474177/64 "2008-11-28T15:44:24Z")
I’m gonna wait till we can have true 3-D TV; I am perfectly happy with 1950’s color TV technology. ---
**Author:** ![I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/i_love_me_vol.i/32/521_2.png) [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_Love_Me_Vol.I)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2008, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-disenchanted-with-hdtv/474177/65 "2008-11-29T03:04:00Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > Well, some people aren’t as impressed with nose hairs as they are with a picture that doesn’t pixalate. Whether one’s picture “pixelates” or not has nothing to do with HDTV vs. SD (standard definition). Rather, it is an issue of whether the signal is analog or digital. I am guessing (perhaps incorrectly) that when you say “pixelation” you are talking about the way a digital TV screen might stutter, “mosaic”, or even freeze altogether when there are signal strength and/or reception problems. When _analog_ television signals are weak or degraded there may be significant ghosting and other video noise (as well as audio noise) on your analog TV, but at least there will still be something of a picture. With _digital_ TV reception problems (with either HD or SD programming) you might lose the picture entirely. This has more than a few people spooked about the changeover to all-digital TV in a few months. Some have asked, [Will digital TV reception problems doom broadcast TV?](http://dtvfacts.com/latest/81/will-digital-tv-reception-problems-doom-broadcast-tv/) ---
**Author:** ![I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/i_love_me_vol.i/32/521_2.png) [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_Love_Me_Vol.I)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2008, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-disenchanted-with-hdtv/474177/66 "2008-11-29T03:22:02Z")
> [@ParentalAdvisory](#): > > This must be what colorblinded people had to deal with before color blindness was discovered. It is quite possible that what is percieved by you, may not be the same for everyone else. I assume most people can tell the difference with HD vs SD/Regular. For those that cannot tell any difference at all? Maybe their internal “CMOS” is different than yours. I would not be suprised if that was the case. If you sat someone in front of two 30" televisions sitting side by side–one HDTV and the other SD-- and showed them the same program simultaneously (say “Law & Order” because I know that it is produced in HD) they would immediately see the difference. I believe that just about 100% of legally-sighted people would clearly see the difference. NOTE: I have phrased this very poorly, but I am not up to rewriting it just now. Sorry. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![control-z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/eada6e/32.png) [@control-z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/control-z)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2008, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-disenchanted-with-hdtv/474177/67 "2008-11-29T04:40:07Z")
> [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](#): > > I am guessing (perhaps incorrectly) that when you say “pixelation” you are talking about the way a digital TV screen might stutter, “mosaic”, or even freeze altogether when there are signal strength and/or reception problems. No, I don’t think the OP is talking about bad reception or signal strength. Digital compression algorithms tend to have trouble with rapid motion and/or dark areas. Happens in DVDs and YouTube videos as well. [This](http://www.multichannel.com/blog/100000410/post/1150024115.html) is an extreme example, apparently Comcast was/is doing bad things with their HD stations in some areas. Click on the images for full 1080p screen caps. I’ve never seen pixelation nearly that bad on regular ATSC HD broadcasts. ---
**Author:** ![I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/i_love_me_vol.i/32/521_2.png) [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_Love_Me_Vol.I)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2008, 9:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-disenchanted-with-hdtv/474177/68 "2008-11-29T09:09:00Z")
> [@control-z](#): > > No, I don’t think the OP is talking about bad reception or signal strength. Digital compression algorithms tend to have trouble with rapid motion and/or dark areas. Happens in DVDs and YouTube videos as well. > > [This](http://www.multichannel.com/blog/100000410/post/1150024115.html) is an extreme example, apparently Comcast was/is doing bad things with their HD stations in some areas. Click on the images for full 1080p screen caps. I’ve never seen pixelation nearly that bad on regular ATSC HD broadcasts. Oh. I see what you mean. I didn’t quite get it the first time around. It’s true that fast pans look worse in HD. In regards to cable compression, I watch my HDTV on ATSC broadcast (via Elgato EyeTV) precisely because the cable companies compress their HD channels WAAAAAAY too much, and it really doesn’t always look that great. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2008, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-disenchanted-with-hdtv/474177/69 "2008-11-29T14:40:13Z")
That kind of “pixelation” is called “[artefacting](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compression_artifact),” a term originally used for overcompressed jpegs. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-disenchanted-with-hdtv/474177.md?page=3)