You can't show me HDTV on my TV, so stop trying.

The BBQ Pit
21

Same here. It’s odd.

It’s like the OP is imagining a room full of Ad Men sitting around Madison Avenue staring at a regular TV going, “HEY MAW! Why ain’t this pick-chur toob showin’ me the hi-deffy signal?”

I’m one million percent sure that the first issue raised in the very first meeting was “how do we advertise high def to people who don’t have high def sets?” and every ad since has tried to deal with that.

They know you can’t see it in HD. They’ve tried to do what they can. That’s why the little girl with the mirror box is saying mystiical things about seeing the big men for the first time.

They don’t do “side by side” comparisons. They show you a fancy streamlined TV with a pretty picture on it and hope that the viewer gets the point; it sounds like some of our doper viewers apparently missed it. :dubious:

22

Ah fuck 'em. They have found yet another way to force me to look at Jessica Simpson and have chocolate sauced it with her doing the worst southern accent ever.

For that, they must die.

23

Actually, they aren’t trying to sell HDTVs. Those adds are for the benefit of all of us who already own an HDTV. We watch the ad showing the before (SD) and after (HD) screens and then feel so good about spending ridiculous amounts of money for a TV that we try to talk all of our SD owning friends into reaching deep into their pockets and joining the experience.

Glad to help

24

The ones that got to me were the ones that advertised the same movie that I was about to watch – on VHS – was available on DVD. “Packed with extras! Bring home Toy Story 2, now on DVD!” Fuck off, Disney. There is one of two fucking reasons I’m watching your shit on VHS, and it’s either because I don’t own a goddam DVD player yet, or because the fucking video store only had this stupid movie in VHS still in stock.

25

Have to concur. Not that decisions-by-committee don’t often seem boneheaded in retrospect, but does anyone genuinely think that Trunk’s points weren’t considered by the people who made these ads?

26

The horrifying thing is that she’s actually from the South (Abilene, TX). How dumb must you be to be unable to convincingly pull off your own regional accent?!?

:smack:

27

I used to think that, but then I saw one of those ads on an HD TV at a bar while watching the Sunday games. Whoa. Pretty amazing. I guess the idea is that football is one of those group viewing sports where people either gather in bars or at the friend’s house where the best TV lives and the low def people will get a chance to really lay eyes on what HD looks like.

28

Nice rant !! :slight_smile:

The ads don’t matter because the United States transmits in NTSC, which has such an appalling lack of clarity ( SD or HD, regardless ) that in my industry, which happens to be Television and Film Production, we call that Never Twice the Same Color. This is opposed to places like England that broadcast in PAL which is a much tastier signal.

The R&D costs for HD have been heavy and they’re just trying to make their bread back before t.v. sets become completely obsolete.

Which will be any day now. :smiley:

Cartooniverse

29

To those who are saying that the ads are simply doing what they’re supposed to do, by giving you an example of the product being advertised by showing you, as best they can, what it can do: you’re right. But that’s not the point.

Let’s say, hypothetically, that I view one of these ads and it is 100% effective. I watch the advertisement, my jaw drops at the astounding representation of the power of HD, and I begin to imagine all the benefits of watching a TV that looks like that. Visions of 1920x1080 sugarplums dancing in my head, I pick up my keys and head for the door, fully intent on going to Best Buy to renew my memberbership in the Digital Generation.

Then, as I step out the door, something hits me. It’s the door, which smacked into my ass when I stopped halfway through because I thought of something. I think: “Waitaminute. Those brilliant, beautiful, crisp-n’-yummy images I just so recently adored…well, I saw them, didn’t I? I did. I know I did. And, last I checked…” (at this point, the power of the ad being such that I’m beginning to doubt my own sanity, I step inside and check again) “…yes, I only have a regular TV.”

“So, unless I’m mistaken,” I continue (my mind, avid reader that it is, always pauses between paragraph breaks in thought), “that means that it’s entirely possible to make images like that on a regular TV broadcast. Seeing, I mean, as how that’s what they just did. This means that, if I want a TV that can make things look like that, I don’t have to do anything, because I already have one!”

As the full weight of this miraculous epiphany settles in my consciousness, bringing with it the joy that can only come from not needing to spend $8,999.99 to own what I already have, yet another thought strikes: “Of course, most of my current TV programs don’t look like that. They could – that much was just proven to me, courtesy of Madison Avenue – but they don’t. Why not? Well, if they DID, I wouldn’t at all have been tempted a moment ago to give TV manufacturers nine thousand dollars…”

:eek:

“They’re…THEY’RE JUST TRYING TO TAKE MY MONEY FOR NO REASON!”

At this point, having unfurled the heinous HD Conspiracy between the advertisers, the broadcasters and the manufacturing companies, I immediately purchase a shotgun and set out to improve the world by slaying everybody involved. Obviously, this is disadvantageous to them, and they clearly didn’t think things through to the end. Not that it matters anymore, since for them, the end will be sooner than they think.

Hypothetically.

That scenario aside, I think it’s safe to say that trying to get me to drop nine grand on something by showing me that my current version can duplicate its performance may not be the world’s most convincing ploy. Just a thought.

30

Bingo. My point here (and I did have one) was that the ad execs should have strayed from their time-worn scripts and thought up a different gimmick. Show the set from the rear, with the camera pointing at the viewers’ faces. Show them in the store, with the camera POV on top of the shelves at Best Buy, so that you can see the helpful clerk, the macho dad, the awestruck trophy wife, and the suddenly-sedated children. Show anything that conveys the reason to switch!

The Mustang advertisement, where the suave American is getting his Shelby something-or-other delivered to Germany, and the German dockworker says (in a hilariously injured tone) “So… you kould not find a kar you liked hier in Chermany?” That’s great! Makes me want to get a shitload of American cars delivered to Germany, and go around the Autobahn causing Volkswagen airbags to deploy in the middle of people’s conversations.

The girl with the elephant and the puzzle box? Yeah, it makes me think I’m watching an advertisement for a Japanese horror movie, or maybe a game show.

Don’t simulate the picture! Don’t try to show me what the picture might possibly eventually look like, sort of. I know it can’t be done and so do you, so don’t insult either of us by trying. Show me what it will be like to make the switch. Show me people that I can identify with (not little girls and not a goddamned elephant) enjoying your product. One good advertisement for HDTV – which I forgot to exempt from my rant – showed all the participants in a football game making sure the smallest details of their appearance were tended to, because they knew folks would be watching in high-def. That’s a good ad.

31

This might be an effective ad, maybe. Show some blurry, pixellated image. Have a narrator saying, “If you had an HDTV, regular TV would seem like this to you.” Then resolve the image into whatever megaultrasuperawesome thing it’s supposed to be, while the narrator goes, “Buy our MegaUltraSuperAwesome HDTV and see what you’re missing.”

32

Man, it took 3 passes to realize you weren’t saying the girl was giving a handjob to the elephant all over the peanuts. Cuz that would have been odd.

This was my giggle point.
Overall, very good rant.

33

I’m always kind of hoping the elephant will just maul the little girl in a glorious and grizzly hi-def massacre. I asked my wife if it was wrong to think that way. She said “About that commerical? It’d be wrong not to hate that freakin’ little girl. ‘It’s the mirrors…It’s amazing’…Fuck you, you little twit!”

I married the right woman.

Nice rant. I liked it better than “Cats.”

34

I hate the little girl/elephant commercial too. I want to smack her for that chirpy voice, especially when she says, “It’s the meeeeeeers!”

I was reading this thread yesterday and thinking about how I hadn’t seen any of these “simulate hi-def” commercials lately* but then last night I saw one with some white cheetah, and gems, and whatever, and that was supposed to simulate the improved picture. It was a nice display of computer graphics, but whatever.

  • I have my laptop propped up on a little desk next to the couch, so typically I find I only hear bits and pieces of commercials and rarely actually see any of them. It’s surprising when I find myself actually watching an entire commercial that I’ve heard parts of for weeks, and realize that’s the first time I saw who the commercial was for.
35

As annoying as the mirrors are, advertisers have to do something to convince people to at least go and check it out at retail. Doesn’t help that when you go to Circuit Shitty or wherever, there’s an even chance someone hooked up most or all of the demo HDTVs with SD connections, which, in some ways, actually makes the image look worse than on an SD set.

It might be a bit technical for the average viewer, but they really could do a commercial that simulates high-definition on a standard TV. Zoom in on an image with a lot of detail, say the grass on a football field. Point out how one can see the individual blades, and so on. Then indicate that on a high-definition set, one can see the entire football game in such detail, not just one section of the field blown up.

This isn’t correct. PAL and NTSC are analog transmissions. HDTV is broadcast over the air using ATSC in the US and DVB-T in Europe, which are digitally encoded signals. The quality of an over-the-air HD broadcast is far superior to any PAL or NTSC broadcast.

36

He’s not saying that PAL is digital, he’s saying that PAL delivers a clearer picture and more consistent color, both of which are true by all accounts. This is due to the technical details of how the color information is encoded in the signal.

37

I’m not trying to imply NTSC is better than PAL (which I agree is untrue) or that Cartooniverse stated PAL is digital. This part:

seems to imply that HD is sent over NTSC, which is the part I take issue with.

38

What kind of stupid rant is this? This is one hell of a whoosh thread. No surprise then that it slowly veers off topic as a result. Cheesesteak, Trunk, and scr4 all seem to get it though, and Sturmhauke came up with a better ad idea in two sentences than the OP did in his entire rant.

Can you taste food on a TV?
Can you feel the rush of acceleration or turning a corner in a new car on a TV?
Can you smell the aroma of a scented candle or an air freshener on a TV?
Can you drink a soda, energy drink, beer or other beverage from a TV?
Can you touch an article of clothing after it comes out of the dryer all warm and soft on a TV?
Can you determine how well a chair or other piece of furniture will suit your space and/or ergonomic needs on a TV?
Can you experience the relaxation of a tropical island getaway on a TV?
Can you tell how cozy a house is and whether or not you’d like to live there when it’s on the Sunday morning realtor home showcase on a TV?

No, you can’t. Hence the ad. It’s purpose is to promote a product or service for sale. Particularly for the purchase of major items like homes, appliances, vehicles, or in this case an expensive toy, the commercial’s raison d’existence is to to motivate the consumer to head to the nearest point of retail to examine the product and possibly buy it. It logically follows then that, this being the SDMB, this thread should veer off onto a tangent about HD technobabble because some people can’t see the forest for the trees.

I get it. You can’t savor the quality of an HD signal on a standard television set. I’m not a luddite, I have embraced HDTV, and I understand all the terminology involved … but at its core, this pitting is not about consumer electronics … it’s about marketing. Does anyone who has HDTV consider the fact that they couldn’t originally witness the fidelity of an HDTV signal on their old SDTV to have been a motivating factor for not investing in the technology? If that was how people really thought, then they’d have never bought it. As with most purchases, you heard about it first, then perhaps saw it advertised, then you probably read up on it to know whether or not it would be a good purchase for you, and then you decided to buy it. That’s how buying stuff works, except maybe for Jurph, who in this case stops at the second step due to an incidental technical fallacy and proceeds to cuss and spout infantile names at the advertisers who aren’t as savvy as he obviously is.

It’s a shame those advertising agencies aren’t smart enough to realize that a 1080 image on a 1080 product won’t display at 1080 resolution on a 480 set, and that they’re losing valuable customers as a direct result of it! The inherent paradox of promoting a new product’s technological achievement via the broadcast medium it’s set to replace is simply inexcusable because it will never be able to convey the new product’s true beauty. How could they be so stupid? Why can’t they just wait until we all have HDTV sets before they start advertising them so that we can see how cool they are before we know whether or not we really want them? :rolleyes:

Not sure why I bothered writing all this … Frank summed it up on the third post. :smiley:

39

I stand corrected- live and learn !!

Cartooniverse ( who guesses that ATSC stands for Almost The Same Color :wink: )

40

Bravo! Good rant.

I have thought much the same thing about ads for stereos on TV, before the advent of stereo TV, and even after, given that they’re talking about mega-huge stereo systems and my TV has two little 3" speakers in it.