Isn’t this how it always goes. The bigger better item that everyone must have becomes old news and sometimes the level of enjoyment actually is less then the older one.
Yes there is the WOW factor with a new HDTV (or whatever), but once that is gone it becomes the new normal, is the level of enjoyment really better with HDTV once the novelty has worn off? Is the enjoyment of watching the game the relationship between you and the TV or perhaps the socialization that goes with it, either directly (inviting friends over), or indirectly talking about it after. How important is HDTV in that aspect?
I have noticed this trend with the # of channels now available, and the more channels we get the more disatified most of us get with what’s on TV.
First of all, I find the 16:9 aspect ratio much more natural than the 4:3 of a SDTV image, even over a relatively small 19" viewing area. So to me, even if you’re not able to appreciate the increased clarity/resolution of an HD image, you’re already winning in terms of being able to see, for example, more of the field in a football game, or when watching movies in their proper aspect ratio.
But yes, you will appreciate the difference more on a larger image. It’s the way you can see details like non-blurry words on the sides of boxes in the background of a scene, and the lack of fuzzy or blocky edges due to digital interpolation and anti-aliasing when an SDTV image is “blown up” to a large size.
To get the best bang for the buck in big HD images, get a front-shooting projector. They go for under $1,000 now in 720p, and you can throw up a very bright 100" diagonal HD image on a screen or even a suitably painted wall that will blow away any floor-standing TV of similar cost or size – plus you can easily put it away.
You do need a reasonably big and dark room to get the most out of a projector. You would also need to invest in audio gear, because AFAIK no projectors come with speakers (or at least speakers that you might actually want to listen to outside of a presentation in the office conference room).
I still don’t have an HDTV because like some here TV isn’t very important to me, but I am a gamer (as well as movie-watcher), and am planning on getting an XBox 360 for Christmas. Does anyone know if the 360 is designed to look better in HD? Also (I should know this being interested in the film industry, but I don’t) how many films are being shot in HD nowadays that it will make a difference in watching DVDs?
Yes, I believe that the Xbox360 was designed with HDTV in mind. All films are capable of being encoded into HD for playback from a blueray disc, or an HD channel (although the quality will be downgraded for broadcast due to bandwidth limitations). Your standard DVDs, when played on a upconverting DVD player (or blueray player), also look considerably better on an HDTV than they do when played on normal DVD player onto a SDTV.
Yes, those next-gen systems look great in HD. I have a PS3 and most of my games play in 720p (Fallout 3’s max resolution, ugh), with some of the newer ones playing up to 1080i.
I bought a PS3 during the “format wars” between HD-DVDs and Blu-Ray discs. Luckily, Sony chose the right one and now I rent Blu-Rays off NetFlix for some great looking picture.
Very true. Though many projectors are bright enough for viewing sports with a moderately dark room (where the lights are off where the image is projected, but lights may be on elsewhere in the room), for movie watching you should have as dark a room as possible. And you are also right on the audio aspect; I have had external 5.1 sound for so long I forgot about listening to the audio through TV speakers.
As for gaming in HD – I personally would recommend NOT getting a giganto image for that. I did the projector thing to watch movies at home in as awesome a way as possible (with three small kids, I haven’t been to a movie theater in 6 years), and for sports, but the one time I tried playing a video game in HD on the big screen it (a) looked awesome and (b) got me motion-sick in less than five minutes.
The next step in sports may be 3d. They’re experimenting with it now with 3d football games. Then you’d have to buy electronic glasses to wear and I suppose another box to attach to the TV. And another remote. There won’t be any money left for beer at this rate.
In a way, most movies ever filmed were in “HD.” The resolution of a movie you see in the theater, filmed on typical 35 mm film, is MUCH higher than standard definition video. When these movies are transferred to DVD, the picture is compressed to fit on the disk and a lot of the image information is lost. But you are watching a DVD on a much smaller screen than the theater projection, so it usually looks okay.
With Blu-ray or cable HD movies, they are still somewhat compressed, but much less so than on DVDs. So an HD version of a movie will almost always be noticeably clearer than the DVD, whether it was shot on a digital HD camera or on film.
Except that that’s not responding to what I was responding to. I can certainly see why some people would just not CARE about HDTV. And I can even see why some people would even prefer to NOT have HDTV, either because they happen to get an incredibly overcompressed (and thus pixellated and artifact-y) HDTV feed, or because they just can’t stand the nose hairs and stuff.
What I can’t understand is someone who says they honestly can’t see the difference.
Also, I’m a little puzzled by comments like “It also doesn’t make Saturday Night live any funnier or improve the plot of movies”. HDTV doesn’t improve acting or the script or the quality of the jokes. But of course no one ever claimed it did. But TV shows and movies are visual media, and, for a good number of them, part of the art form is the cinematography, the costumes, the sets, the effects, etc. Take a show like Pushing Daisies. Much of its appeal is in the gorgeous visuals. And (to many people, at least) they look even better in HD. Does that make it a better show in HD? Well, that’s arguable, but I’d certainly say it makes it a more enjoyable show.
I was making 2 points. One was a valuation of higher resolution versus motion blur from pixalation. the other was more about commentary on the quality of the shows versus the extra cost of the sets. But you’re right. There is certainly a return for investment to see a movie in 1080P versus regular DVD quality. I would buy a 50 inch 1080P TV if it was $600 and it never pixalated. But before I do that I will have purchased a synchronizer box for the audio. That makes me crazy. I’ve been patiently watching the quality go up and the price come down. I’m seeing less pixalation across the board. I’m hoping by the time the cost breaks the $1000 barrier they will incorporate the synchronizing technology into the TV so I don’t have another remote to play with.
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). I did it once when I bought it and then never had to change it, and that’s with digital TV, DVD, DVR, PC and a TiVo hooked up to it.
Never experienced any lipsync problems with the home theatre (except when my first DVD player was dying and would lose sync when it got warm requiring a restart).
I bought the amp in 1999, so it’s 9 years old now.
We bought an HD tv a few months ago and yeah, the Xbox 360 games look amazing in it. Very nice.
I have to say, get the right cables for it. My FIL’s tv is a HD model but I swear he doesn’t have it hooked up right, because in my husband’s terms. “everyone looks like orange dwarves”. I think we many need to visit him to see if he has the settings messed up.
My old DVD player used to lose sync with only certain DVDs, only about seven or eight in my collection. I couldn’t figure out if it was the DVD, the player, or the TV, but a new DVD player since then has never had sync trouble, so I guess that was the answer. My conclusion was that somehow my old player handled certain qualities of video decompression at a speed that didn’t match its audio decompression.
Anyways - I have had my SD Plasma TV and digital TV set-top-box since 2003, and it was a great leap forward from the analogue 4:3 signal. That has improved the TV and DVD watching experience immensely for me.
But the subsequent leap from SD Digital to HDTV is less of a leap in quality, comparatively, and has no immediate appeal for me. I’m perfectly happy with the status quo, until my equipment breaks down, or I suddenly become unexpectedly wealthy, and upgrading becomes an obvious option.
My guess, though, is that a lot of people, Americans especially, are in fact leaping from SD Analogue to HD Digital, which is such a huge leap it really is an overwhelming improvement, and is causing their pleasure inputs to explode.
Yeah, jumping from analogue SDTV to digital HDTV would be a massive improvement, especially if what I’ve seen of analogue NTSC broadcasts is representative (it looked like ass when compared to analogue PAL).
I’m holding off on HDTV at the moment. Partially because I want the OTA digital HDTV tuners to be included in the set and DVRs (probably start happening in the new year) and partially because I intend to upgrade all my a/v kit at once and would rather do it after I sort out the room it’s in.
(also disabled, so I have an excuse)
Are there really (still?) just 3 factories which make those screens?
Do they make noticably differtent models, or are all (of one factory’s) screens all the same resolution (or however cality is defined)? Does factory A make 3 different 42" model screens?
If each makes only one, why does the market suppport so many price points? (yes, I do have a dim view of human intelligent. Why do you ask?)