I was reading in Usenet regarding HDTV and came across this post where someone claims she is more sensitve to HDTV broadcasts.
The poster writes
"The HD reception has many more lines than DVD obviously. It must steal
compression from analogue as when I opt to receive a few things in analogue the great picture I got with conventional cable is
compromised.
I hate the postage stamp digital channels with top and side margins.
I am electrically sensitive and sense strong emissions from HD. Maybe
the box is not well shielded."
First of all is this even POSSIBLE to sense strong emissions? Can someone be “electrically sensitive?” Would a TV signal broadcasting in High Def use anymore power than one in analog TV? Original Posting in Usenet via Google Groups (courtesy tinyurl) I was reading in usenet about HDTV
If you couldn’t detect electromagnetic emissions from a TV, it’d be worthless. A person who’s especially sensitive to such emissions just has particularly sharp eyesight.
Although they both use 6 MHz of spectrum, digital and analog television signals are very different from each other. Each channel, analog or digital, is independent. An analog channel carries one program. A digital channel can carry multiple programs.
I’m having a hard time understanding, but is the person saying that they get HDTV from the cable company and now the analog stations look bad? If that’s the case, I’m going to guess that when they got the HDTV stations they also got a HDTV TV. As in, they just went from a standard 4:3 20 some inch TV to a giant 16:9 TV. If that’s the case, then that alone will make SD stations look worse then what you’re used to, you have to stretch the picture out so much more.
Another possibility: Some people see what is called a “rainbow” effect when watching DLP TV’s. DLP is a specific method of projecting an HD picture on a screen. It uses a colorwheel to separate the colors and some people are sensitive to that and find DLP pictures irritating to watch. It’s not really that HD is the problem, it’s the kind of HD that is the problem.
Of course, I was not really able to understand what the Usenet poster was complaining about.
[comes back after reading linked thread]
Okay, I actually read the full tinyurl post. DLP isn’t this person’s problem. I’m not sure what the problem is, but I don’t think it’s a TV or cable issue…
They need an aluminum foil hat. Oh, I see someone in that other thread already advised her to loosen her foil hat and call Bellevue. Seriously - she gets an odd nasal sensation and abdominal swelling? Well, we all can have that - it’s called becoming a couch potato and getting fat.
Oh, some people can also pickup a rainbow effect from plasma panels as well as DLP. For me, it’s most noticeable on black and white images - there’s a yellowish fringe in areas of high contrast, especially if my eyes are moving. If I stare at the screen, there’s no rainbows.
ETA: At the moment, she’s got a 36" 4:3 CRT-based “enhanced definition” TV that can take in up to 1080i on a component input. It will only display at 480p, though.
“Electrical sensitivity” is the buzzword malady de nos jours. It’s what people claim to suffer from when they get tired of food allergies. It’s unmitigated bullshit.