I was in Circuit City the other day ogling the marvelous HDTV widescreen pictures. In talking with a salesperson he mentioned that I should not be put off by the current scarcity of HDTV media and signals as progressive scan DVD players will give you a video output virtually as good as a true HDTV signal. He said that a DVD actually contains more information than a standard set can display and that the progessive scan DVD player can make use of this so that your exisitng DVDs can be used and will be HDTV like on the new set and with a progessive scan player.
Is this true or should my BSometer have been clanging?
If one compares a good Hi-Def transfer (1080i ie. 1080 lines of resolution, interlaced) of a film with a good anamorphic progressive DVD, HD is a good deal better. However DVD is still great and will blow away what one sees on a normal (480i) set.
First anamorphic video does give more lines (33%) of resolution with widescreen movies. Here’s a good explanation of how it works http://gregl.net/videophile/anamorphic.htm
Being able to display DVD’s progressivly(480p) w/3:2 pulldown also gives a noticable improvement over and above the anamorphic enhancment.
So DVD is not HD quality, but it can come pretty close. For various reasons (mainly copyright issues) I doubt we will see anything like a HD-DVD format for several years. I think that DVD is the best we’re going to get for a while.
Matt
If you’re interested, I’d recommend that you visit a home theater store where they can show you progressive DVD on a well set up HDTV. It’s hard to explain what a good image a decent set up can provide.
I regret I don’t have a factual answer that would be most appropriate for GQ, but I do have a response that would work if this questions were in IMHO…
I just bought a widescreen HDTV and a progressive scan DVD player. In the store where I bought it I compared regular DVD with progressive scan DVD… to my 49 year old eyes the progressive scan was only marginally better. The salesguy gave me all sorts of specs about why it provides a better picture of course, but the cost differential IMHO is greater than the picture improvement.
I would speculate that it might make a bigger difference with a TV that was not a HDTV… but I didn’t do that comparison because I already knew I was buying a HDTV.
astro, the link your provided is fascinating. I can’t say I memorized all that info, but it is interesting. From a pragmatic perspective, even if there are some visual artifacts… the difference between what I’m seeing now (progressive scan DVD with a HDTV) and what I was seeing before (VHS with a 8 year old normal TV), is night and day. That is irrelevent to your OP, but I thought I’d throw it in anyway.
Thanks for the link. I’m sure it’ll help out many other people as they make this decision.
If you want an HDTV and have a room with total light control, I highly recommend a front projector. You can get something like an NEC LT-150 (the projector I have) for about $2000, build a screen for $70 (or buy one for $300-1000), and have a movie theater in your home. I’m building a theater in my basement right now, and I have my projector set up with a 92" X 52" screen. With a progressive-scan DVD, the picture rivals a movie theater, and animated films are often better than the theater (“Toy Story 2” is jaw-dropping).
Even a big TV still feels like watching TV. But with a projector you’re at the movies.
And, the projector weighs 3 lbs and the whole system can be packed up and put away whenever you want, or mounted on the ceiling out of the way.
Another way to compare DVD & HDTV is to ignore the progressive/interlaced issues (although important) for a moment, and to consider just the pixel count:
DVD = 720 x 480 = 345,600 pixels
HDTV1 = 1280 x 720 = 921,600 pixels
HDTV2 = 1920 x 1080 = 2,073,600 pixels
A progressive DVD image can and does look fantastic on an HDTV, but a true HDTV image blows it away…