HDTV and Digital Question

Round Cable

In America there is high definition TV and in Europe there is Digital. Are they the same thing? If not which is better?

Thanks in advance.

Mossy Monk

HDTV spanks the arse off our digital satellite. actually there is some HDTV on Astra 1 now. regular STB's dont work for it

watty

USA mostly has a "low" HD TV because of some problems:
1) 480 lines USA is noticabley grainer than 576 Lines in Europe
2) NTSC Analog is poor. PAL analog at best is BETTER than ordinary USA Digital TV.
3) Films on NTSC are very bad due to comb artifacts on moving vertical edges caused by the 3:2 pulldown 24fps to 30fps conversion
4) USA has stupidly big 4:3TVs compared with size of room. WS TVs have taken off very slow. HDTV while it could be 4:3 is mostly Animorphic 16:9 only. Americans like their screens filled.


The Astra tests are gone. They where 1080i mode, which is a BARE minimum for HDTV really. Most USA HDTV isn't as good as that.

It is hard to see market for Europe HDTV other than Clubs, pubs and Cinema (Cinema worldwide is changing to even higher HDTV to replace film by Satellite links allowing simultanous release reducing piracy, earlier syncrtonised DVD release on all regions and saving on Film Prints which can cost millions).

watty

The Japanese did have an Analog HDTV and BBC also did Analog HDTV trials in late 1970s!

All "modern" HDTV is Digital TV.

Digital TV can be any quality or Resolution from 320 x 240 pixels (about 1/5th normal PAL TV quality) to 5 times PAL resolution for Cinema screening, or editing SFX for Cinema.

PAL is 768 x 576 for square dot 4:3 resolution

S-VHS PAL is about 520 x 576 equivalent (The quoted 400 lines of resolution assumes a 1:1 display, vertical on ALL VHS is 576 PAL, 480 NTSC)

DV Camera, DVD and "Best" Sky Digital is 720 x 576
704 x 576 possible too.

Cheaper Sky channels are 544 x 576 or even 384 x 288!

Animorphic WS (16:9) means use the same number of horizontal dots as 4:3 but stretch them out, so in "Lines of Resolution" at SAME HEIGHT of Screen a PERFECT SVCD or S-VHS in 4:3 video is the same quality as DVD or DV Camera at 16:9 animorphic.


You sorry you asked now....

Most "Digital TV" is about fitting more channels not quality, esp. on DTT in UK which has 29 channels in space that should only have about 10 Channels if quality was as good or exceeded "Best" Analog PAL.

Most peoples TV sets does NOT even show all the detail possible in DVD, Analog PAL or Digibox......

So why worry about HD?
Try listing more than 3 broadcasters on Sky that would use HD if the viewers could receive it.

Recording direct to Hard Disk and measureing *REAL* bit rates and resolutions is revealing. Ask owners of 36" or 42" CRT or RPTV 100Hz sets what the quality of Sky is like....

If you have less than a €2500 36" WS TV you likely arn't missing anything by not having HDTV.

p

In case what the others said was a bit of a blue for you, here's a simpler answer.

Digital TV, is a delivery method, and thus Digital TV can be High Definition or regular definition.

HD TV has been talked about for years and years, so who knows if it'll ever come in seriously over here any time soon.

So, Digital TV is better than analog, and HD TV is better than what we have now, since it's much better quality, but since you can't view HD TV in Europe at present it's not much use. (Maybe when the next generation of DVD stuff comes out it might make sense)

watty

No....

Digital is NOT better than Analog. It can be though.

It is just a different delivery method.

High definition is nowadays Digital, but used to be analog. Like Digital vs Analog, the quality difference depends on many things:

Quality of original material
Transmission bit rate
Size and quality of TV set
Size of room and distance from TV set.

Mike 1972

In Europe Digital iss been used as a means for increacing the number of available channels wheras in the US it is being used for improving picture quality

This is a somewhat ironic reversal of traditional practie on either side of the Atlantic where up until now NTSC offered more channels (due to its narrower channel bandwidth) but of poorer picture quality

On the other hand as (when properly implemented) the pictures on PAL are already quite good picture quality is arguably less of an issue for Europeans

Mike 1972

If you try tuning the HDTV transmissions on Astra 1 on a digibox you get either a blank picture or a wierd striping effect

nice sound though !