HDTV Questions

Factual Questions
1

I hope someone can straighten me out here! I have a few questions about HDTV and it seems like everything I read on the net about is written by an engineer and just a bit over my head. Anyway, here’s my questions:

First off, Why are HDTVs in wide-screen format? I mean, it looks great when you’re watching HDTV wide-screen programming, but,…analog and digital programming, wich makes up the majority of cable and / or satellite programming, is not in wide-screen format and thus makes everything look squashed.

Also, why the big retail push with HDTV? I mean,…sure, there is HDTV programming available, but,…from what I’m reading, even the large metro areas are not completely HD ready yet. I’ve heard (yes, heard - no cite), that only a handful of channels are even broadcasting in HDTV. Does this mean people are going out and wasting money for HDTVs with the assumption that plugging it in and hooking it up to their cable / satellite providor will automatically get them HD programming? Are HDTVs still a couple years ahead of their own time?

2

They’re widescreen because it’s the Wave of the Future!

But seriously, that’s just the new standard. Probably for the same reason that movies are widescreen. My WAG is that it has to do with humans having a wider field of view side-to-side compared to up-and-down.

The retail push is because A) in a few years, the FCC is going to require that companies provide HD broadcasts anyway (IIRC, anyway), so why not jump on the bandwagon now? and B) other things, like newer video game consoles and higher quality DVD players, can already take advantage of an HDTV’s higher resolution and sundry other features. People that are going out and spending $2000 or more on a big screen HDTV, I imagine, are not so uninformed that they don’t know whether they’re capable of receiving HD broadcasts or not.

3

HD is the mandated format of the future. Digital TV will replace analog TV. When that happens there will no longer be a 4x3 picture, except for reruns of old shows. Notice, for example, that all commercials that are expected to have a fairly long shelf life are already being filmed in 16x9 wide screen.

Is it time to jump? Well it depends on the TV you now have. If you’re going to buy a new big screen TV it doesn’t make any sense to buy 4X3 or analog. Because it has no life expectancy.

All of the networks are broadcasting in HD now. HBO, Showtime, ESPN, etc. are going that way.

But if you aren’t in the market for a new TV, you’d probably be better off waiting a little. Standards aren’t established yet. There are three different resolutions being broadcast. And as the technology gets mass produced it will come down in price.

But if you’re buying a new TV or your first big screen TV, then take the plunge. Things like the Hitachi S series are not going to be improved on much.

4

A widescreen TV can correctly display both widescreen and normal 4:3 pictures. A 4:3 TV can only correctly display 4:3 pictures. Therefore a widescreen TV is a better choice because it can display everything.

It is kind of a chicken and egg thing right now. Networks say the more eyes that are watching HDTV, the more HDTV content the networks will put out. However until there is more HDTV content, customers won’t buy HDTV equipment. So the FCC steps in and says in 2006, all TVs sold must have a built in digital tuner. This is also when analog TV stations start getting shut down.

As for HDTV content now, all the major networks have some HDTV programming, mostly during primetime. My DirecTV system has 5 HD channels (6 if you count the PPV one). All the digital cable systems that I know of have HDTV programming as well. The new satellite system Vroom has like 23 HD channels (including Playboy in HD) and will have 35 or so by next year.

5

“Correctly” in what way can wide screen project 4x3? With big blacked-out areas on both sides?

OK I guess, but it would look just as stupid as current 4x3 TV’s showing wide screen TV with that blacked-out areas top and bottom.

6

That’s an inevitable fact of trying to retain backwards compatibility. the alternative is to suffer worse from losing all older programming, or never getting anything better. The current NTSC standard for color broadcasting, for example has been widely ridiculed for 50 years as “Never The Same Color” because it is fairly poor at consistent color rendition. It did have the advantage however, of being backwards compatible with the older NTSC B+W standard. Windows 9x and Me operating systems have been very severly hampered by the decision to support older software and driver models (Win2K, the 1999 version of Microsoft’s WinNT architecture, did not support older software to the same extent, and is at least 1-2 orders of magnitude more stable, as measured by Mean Time Between Bluescreen <crashes>)

Don’t whine. Appreciate.

7

Really, now?

Then why is it that every bar, casino, sports book, airport, and other establisment that uses a widescreen TV to display live sporting events seems to have a model that can’t display a 4:3 broadcast correctly? Every picture is squashed down/stretched wide to fit in a 16:9 aspect ratio.

I swear, in October, it looked like I was watching the World Series of Midget League Baseball.

Who the hell wants to pay $5000 for a monitor that a) doesn’t have a tuner (because they still haven’t settled on a broadcast standard yet), b) will cost your neigbor $1500 in 2 years for a better unit, and c) makes 90% of what you watch look like it came from the Planet of the Fatheads?

OK, I’m not being fair. I must assume that there is a way to make these things display a 4:3 image in a 4:3 aspect ratio. But there’s still something wrong. Is every owner of these things so stupid they can’t configure their TV correctly? Or are they designed that it’s such a major pain in the ass that no one bothers? Or does a 4:3 image on a widescreen display look like such crap that owners would rather put up with apparent universal dwarfism than watch sports in the proper aspect ratio?

At least when you watch the NBA like that, the players don’t all look like freaks.

Take a survey of what you want to watch. What percentage of it is in widescreen format? Is the format really that important to you? Is it worth a several thousand dollar investment that will depreciate faster than a personal computer? Will you be able to accept the fact that next year, superior TVs will be available at a fraction of the price?

I sound like a naysayer, but I just want to make sure you make a fully-informed decision. People who have advocated widescreens so far all sound like early adopter types who put more value on having it first, than on having it right.

If you know how to operate the TV, and will get good use out of it, and will not have remorse over the cost, then by all means, get one!

I’ll bring the beer and chips!

8

My vote is for “stupid”, at least for the issue of widescreen sets in bars and restaurants.

About a month ago, my TV died, and I had to replace it. I opted for a widescreen projection set, because I didn’t want to shell out for a TV today that was going to be obsolete in a couple of years. Besides, I’m a DVD fiend. So, widescreen it is.

Now, my TV has four viewing modes: Normal, Full, Zoom, and Wide Zoom. If I’m watching a 4:3 broadcast or other source, here’s what they look like:

Normal - displays a 4:3 picture with grey bars on either side of the picture, which gives the image proper proportions.

Full - displays a 16:9 picture by stretching the 4:3 picture horizontally. This is what you’ve been seeing in bars and such.

Zoom - zooms in on the center of the 4:3 image, cutting off the top and bottom of the image, to fill the full 16:9 frame.

Wide Zoom - takes a thin slice from the top and bottom of the picture, leaves the center of the image normally proportioned, and gradually stretches the image as it moves to the left and right edges of the screen. Fills the full 16:9 frame, but doesn’t look nearly as misproportioned as “full” mode, since most of the action tends to occur in the middle of the screen. I leave my TV in this mode most of the time.

It’s not difficult at all to change modes; one button on my remote cycles among them. If these places you visit aren’t in the “wide zoom” mode, they should be, and if they don’t have one, sucks to be them, they shoulda bought a better TV.

9

You have to fiddle with the remote to set it to 4:3. Most likely, they’re too lazy to change the mode when a show with a different aspect ratio comes on.

Not that I blame them: A lot of these remotes these days are so poorly designed, even the “universal” remotes that are touchscreens rather than buttons… you’d think that a menu display like that would make things EASIER…

Someone with extra cash.

10

Remember Digital TV is coming and Digital TV AIN’T HDTV

THE BEST DARN SITE FOR EVERYTHING YOU COULD POSSIBLY WANT TO KNOW ABOUT DIGITAL TV

:cool:

11

There’s a lot of incorrect information floating around this thread. I’m not a DTV expert, but I’ve done enough research to try to straighten out a few errors of fact.

Because the HDTV format is configured that way. The main reason for that is to make it better suited to Hollywood movies, which are roughly the same aspect ratio.

This is incorrect. As Markxxx says, Digital TV is not the same as HDTV. The FCC mandated the conversion to digital TV (I think by 2006, although that may have been changed) but broadcasters are not being forced to make all channels HDTV. Some (probably many) will be Standard Definition Digital TV (SDTV), basically a digital version of the current TV picture–a 4:3 image! (See the link on Markxxx’s post for all the gory details.) So come the digital age, we will have new 4:3 programming.

No, there are 4:3 TVs that are capable of showing HD programming in widescreen format with black bars top and bottom.

As Max Torque has pointed out, a widescreen TV will have black bars on the sides when it displays 4:3 pictures. The black bars (along one dimension or the other) are the inevtiable result of trying to fit a square picture in a rectangular frame, or vice versa, without distortion or loss of information.

A final important factor that hasn’t been discussed here is receiving broadcast HDTV signals. As with most things digital, it’s all or nothing. If you expect to receive over-the-air broadcasts (with an antenna, as opposed to via your cable TV system), you should carefully research signal strengths at your location. If you’re too far from the transmitter you will not get a weak or fuzzy picture, like with analog TV. You will get nothing. Overcoming this problem is tricky. It may come down to making sure the store has a good return policy.

Fortunately, more and more cable systems are offering more and more HDTV channels so reliance on broadcast signals is becoming increasingly rare.

It’s a confusing situation, no doubt, and that’s one of the reasons things haven’t progressed more quickly. But with a little reading (okay, a lot of reading!), like Markxxx’s link, you can make an informed decision.

12

Just wanted to mention that some folks might prefer to have a 4:3 image squashed down to a 16:9 ratio – my wife, for instance, would rather watch 4:3 broadcasts on our widescreen TV with the mild distortion instead of seeing the grey “windowbox” bars on the side.

On the other hand, I’ve got our DVD player set up so that when it’s playing 4:3 media, it will automatically windowbox the image to avoid the squishiness. Pity the TV itself can’t detect a 4:3 signal over-the-air and adjust itself accordingly.

13

I’d rather watch 16:9 on a 4:3 TV than vice versa, because with the horizontal ‘letterbox’ you get a nice straight edge at the top and bottom of the picture. It’s much more difficult for widescreen TVs to display 4:3 pictures cleanly. You tend to get some ugly curvature where the picture meets the black/grey bars.

14

Count me in the group that prefers to watch a 4:3 broadcast distorted but fully filling my 16:9 HDTV screen.

For regular television the slight distortion doesn’t bother me, and I like to have the larger image when viewing a widescreen DVD on my widescreen TV. Though as you all know, some widescreen DVDs still will have black bars at the top and bottom of the 16:9 screen because for example, some movies are filmed in a 2.5:1 ratio.

Another thing to note is that if you’re receiving your signal via satellite, any High Definition broadcasts from local network stations will not be transmitted in HD. As of now, you’d need an antenna to capture the HD signal. Not something I’m willing to do. I’ll just wait until the technology catches up.

15

Will watching 4:3 shows on an widescreen TV with the grey bars on th esides eventually burn the screen unevenly, or is this not a concern anymore?

16

bump

17

I believe “burn in” with projection TVs is a remote possibility, but not one to be really concerned about. The die-hard video game players I’ve heard from talk about playing games for days on end without burning in any static images, so I imagine the “windowbox” bar wouldn’t be a problem.

It helps, though, to have your projection TV properly calibrated; most TVs ship from the store with their brightness and contrast turned to the maximum settings, so they look better in the store, but that increases the chances of burn-in and reduces the overall life of your TV. I picked up a TV calibration DVD for my widescreen TV, and have a beautiful picture with the brightness and contrast at around 40%.

I’ve also heard that some of the newest plasma TVs have a bigger problem with burn-in, but I don’t know the specifics.

18

For CRTs, it should, indeed, be an issue, smoke. For plasmas and LCDs, I don’t think it matters.

19

This site says that plasma TVs can have a burn-in problem. I don’t know how reliable the information is though.

I was told by my salesperson that my widescreen tube television might be susceptible to burn-in, so I should be careful about leaving the viewing format at 4:3 all the time.

20

I believe a standard has already been adopted. According to this site:
“On December 24, 1996, the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC) adopted the major elements of the ATSC Digital Television (DTV) Standard (A/53). The ATSC DTV Standard has been adopted by the governments of Canada (November 8, 1997), South Korea (November 21,1997), Taiwan (May 8, 1998), and Argentina (October 22, 1998).”

And also, you already can buy TVs with built in digital tuners, like this one