You may seriously need glasses. I just got a Sharp Aquos 40" LCD TV coupled with an up-converting DVD player, connected via HDMI, and the improvement in image quality even from a standard DVD (not to mention sound) is stunning.
Have you only been watching analogue cable on a HD monitor? If that’s the case, the image quality when you’re up close can be considerably worse than what you’d get on a standard set, but that’s just the nature of the down-conversion beast. Hi def with the proper input is so far superior to i480 the results have exceeded my expectations, and everyone who’s watched a movie on our set (granted, it’s only been about five people) think it’s beautiful.
Just say for argument really good 3D TV became as widely available as HD is now. I know a guy who gets seasick playing FPS’s on his primitive old 2D display (not a problem I’ve ever experienced, but I guess it really happens to some). I suppose the more realistic the experience of space and motion, the more prevalent and severe this problem might become. Will families need to have barf bags handy when watching Mission Impossible XVII together?
But seriously…I’ve never actually been to a 3D show, like those 3D vsns. of films that pop up at various IMAX theaters. For those prone to motion sickness, is it more like “SUPERDUPERMAN IN 3D HURL-O-VISION!” than a really fun time? Is this the reason (perhaps among many) audiences don’t warm up more to 3D?
Yeah, that would be a problem for all but a small, deeply disturbed minority of folk. And what you want is a very large market. But this strikes me as a technical issue for which there may be a fix of some sort, though I have no idea what that fix might be (I will concede it is possible that no reasonably effective fix might exist, as well, in which case the concept won’t work.)
But here’s the thing. I’m not thinking of “a woman.” I’m thinking of particular women. Celebrities. Of course, the first women to colonize such a tech would be porn stars. But in fairly short order you’d have ex-Playmates and B-movie stars doing it, and you’d have minor celebrities desperate for any sort of notoriety doing it, and you’d have look-alikes for celebrities doing it. And since you wouldn’t necessarily have to pose naked for the oral sex scene, it might be more acceptable than doing nude stuff (though I doubt it). And there’s just some wild-ass actresses out there who’d do it for whatever reason: do de name Chloe Sevigny ring any bells?
In short, name your hottie in 3D.
There’s a ton of potential money for the person who can solve that technical issue, if it is in fact solvable. I can see that it would be tough, but 3D projection itself is quite an achievement.
Then, to feel better about himself, maybe the inventor would develop a cure for cancer.
Well, I don’t own an HDTV, and I wouldn’t buy one myself (I spend my money on big, high resolution monitors), but there is one in the house that belongs to my brother and I can tell you watching football on HDTV is much better than on regular TV. There is a marked increase in resolution. Then again, I’m a visual artist and high resolution is something I respond to. YMMV. If you don’t like HDTV, then don’t get one.
The article mainly demonstrates that HDTV is yet another technology that will take years to get over the stupid barrier. How many people remember in these days of the internet being ubiquitous how much difficulty people once had doing even the most basic shopping at Amazon? Or how many people a decade earlier swore they would never use a computer because it’s too complicated? All those cup-holder jokes about the CD tray?
If people are finding it too tough to change the channel on cable, then they don’t have a ghost of a chance to appreciate what’s available that looks better on HD. And if their cable systems are like mine, way too little product is available in HD.
But just get them to watch, say, an Imax nature film in HD at home and they’ll never switch back. Get the sports nuts to watch all the games in HD and they’ll dump their CRTs in a second. Get the entire day’s programming in HD and the mainstream audience will follow. End the format wars and make all movies in HD and they’ll be clamoring for sets.
It’s still the internet in 2000. Give it six years and the only problem you’ll hear is lack of HD, not the presence of HD.
I really doubt that 3-D TV will ever be a big deal. I’ve seen many different formats of 3-D movies that never caught, including the the IMAX 3-D theatre in NYC. I was a manager there when it opened and the 3-D was incredible. They don’t bother much with the proces that the theatre was built for anymore.
I’m with the OP about HDTV. I’ve never understood what’s so great about it.
But maybe I’ve just never seen a good example? The only times I’ve been able to find what I took to be side-by-side comparison were at electronics stores like Best Buy and Circuit City and so on.
Would it normally be that a TV at one of these places, advertised as having an HDTV display, would in fact be showing me an example of what it’s like to look at HDTV programming?
