All about HDTV.

Sparky

I just thought id put a post up about HDTV, and liks to some sites which offer content, if anyone is interested.
Can be made sticky if required.


Well we all know america and japan have had HDTV for years, and finally europe had joined the club.

Basically tv now as we know it (Standard defination television, SDTV) 480lines(NTSC) and 576/625(PAL) where as HDTV has more and is either 720lines or 1080lines
Some say that 1080 lines is true real HD, but is only at its full glory on screens 50" and up.
Where as 720 lines is the min to term a new tv HD ready.
Europe is more heading towards using the 720 format and from 2006 Sky (BSkyB) will broadcasting material in HD, but will require you to purchase a HD Sky+ box, rumoured to be priced at £500, so whatever that is in euros it will be alot.

If you do decide to buy a HDTV there are a few factors to look out for.
Make sure it displayes a HD ready logo, dont be fooled by the HD compatable signs (this takes a HD signal and downgrades it to SDTV)

Next make sure it has either a HDMI socket (High Defination Multimedia Interface) and/or DVI (Digital Visual Interface) and Component inputs.
Even the min is a HDMI socket as it has HDCP (High Def Copy Protection) but if it doesnt have a DVI dont worry as the HDMI is your ticket to futureproofing the TV.
If it does have just DVI and no HDMI and is a HD panel, make sure the DVI has HDCP for use with skys HD service in 2006.

Tv type:
LCD's are getting bigger, just last year the max seen anywhere was 32", now they have 37" and 40" available. One manufactuer of LCD's Samsung have made a policy that their LCD's over 23" are HD ready making the purchase of a new TV easier if its Samsung, and all samsung models have HDMI as standard.

Plasmas start from 42" as this is where plasma is king of screen size, you will find that most plasmas on the market since last year are HD ready but were expensive, now they are cheaper some touching the €2000 mark.
Whereas just to mention the SDTV plasmas are droping in price like dead birds, some good makes like phillips are now retailing at €1600 that will take a HD signal but will downgrade it as mentioned above.

So thats it for now.:D

Some sites worth a mention if you need more info are:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDTV

http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/hdtv.htm

HDTV videos:
Please note that for some videos a laptop screen with a min of 1280x720 will do, but most pc monitors set at a high resolution will give the same effect to give an idea of the quality of HD.
Aswell the quality is more noticeable on larger screens like 26" and 32" HD tvs.

Windows Media Video High Def:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/win...tshowcase.aspx

Divx High Def:
http://www.divx.com/movies/browse.ph...ovi es_index_

HD Clips.net
http://www.hdclips.net/forums/index.php?showforum=9

An ftp. site with lots of clips
ftp://dvdcenter.hu/HDTV/
I reccomend this clip ftp://dvdcenter.hu/HDTV/trailers_oktober.ts its 2gb in size but is well worth it.

And last but not least. to play most of these, if not all you can use VLC media player.
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

Clover

good post and some good links , now that i'm back in the HD race i will try them out.

caster

Quick question ....Thinking about getting the RZ26LZ55 from LG... It mentions having DVI-I (With HDCP) and Component Inputs but no HDMI, is this OK or should I really try and get one with HDMI?

Thanks
C

http://uk.lge.com/prodmodeldetail.do?actType=search&page=1&modelCategoryId=0102&categoryId=0102&parentId=01&modelCodeDisplay=RZ26LZ55&model=9#

Khannie

Nice post there sparks.

Caster: I think DVI and HDMI are equivalent quality-wise.

pH

In terms of picture then they're equivalent, you can buy a cheap plug that converts between them as they use the same digital picture standard. Both will also support HDCP. HDMI has additional audio pins, so if your panel only has DVI you will need to feed it's audio some other way (if it has speakers and you want to use them)

Sparky

Yeah HDMI can carry surround signals to the panel whereas DVI is just picture.
Both have same quality picture wise.
You can get DVI to HDMI cables, but from what ive come across they are expensive
one set was €125

HDMI http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDMI
DVI http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVI

In answer to

caster wrote:

Quick question ....Thinking about getting the RZ26LZ55 from LG... It mentions having DVI-I (With HDCP) and Component Inputs but no HDMI, is this OK or should I really try and get one with HDMI?

Thanks
C

http://uk.lge.com/prodmodeldetail.do?actType=search&page=1&modelCategoryId=0102&categoryId=0102&parentId=01&modelCodeDisplay=RZ26LZ55&model=9#

Yeah go ahead its ok, aslong as it has the HDCP (for sky), i did hear a while ago that the first few boxes of the skyHD would have DVI and HDMI, but if you do get the box where it only has HDMI, im sure a HDMI to DVI adaptor will do, all that will be needed after is to use the audio out of the HD box to your panel.

pH

You can get DVI to HDMI cables, but from what ive come across they are expensive one set was €125

Long lengths of cable are expensive but I think that is more to do with the quality/cost of the cable itself than the plugs.

Actual converter plugs are not too expensive.

http://www.keene.co.uk/cgi-bin/bigcodesearch.pl?KA169

And while we're here ... surely PAL is normally quoted as having 576 lines (It actually has 625 but the extra are used for other things). NTSC has 480 lines but that's not something we're really concerned with here!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PAL

Also what are peoples thoughts on 1080i, surely an interlaced picture is a step backwards? Although its wider than 720p, there's only 540 lines per frame, isn't this going to bring us back to the world of interlace jaggies that 720p is immune from?

Sparky

actually i must change that

anyways, ive looked everywhere for just the converterplug and some places dont know what im talking about or just dont have them yet.

Khannie

pH wrote:

Also what are peoples thoughts on 1080i, surely an interlaced picture is a step backwards? Although its wider than 720p, there's only 540 lines per frame, isn't this going to bring us back to the world of interlace jaggies that 720p is immune from?

I reckon it would probably be less noticeable at that kind of resolution. It's glaringly obvious on normal television sets mind you ("your tie is blinding me!!!"). Also, refresh rate will have a lot to do with it. At 100Hz you just wouldn't notice it. Or you could have a deinterlace algorithm applied to it at source maybe.

From what I've read though, 720p via H.264 is looking like it's gonna be the standard in Europe.

pH

But from what I understand we're getting nothing like 100hz!

Take Euro1080, its broadcasting at 1920x1080ix50hz, which if I understand this correctly is actually 25hz (as each 50hz frame is 1/2 an image) so the whole image is updated only 25 times a sec!

Whereas 720p is a full 720 line frame 50(or 60) times a second

Headshot

for xbox 360 owners heres a great link to dells w2600 hd ready tv

http://gear.ign.com/articles/666/666568p1.html

Khannie

pH wrote:

But from what I understand we're getting nothing like 100hz!

True, but 50Hz interlaced is better than 25Hz non-interlaced.

It only really matters (to your eye) on CRT tv's anyway, as with LCD's your'e seeing a constant picture, it's just the update rate that matters (and not to your eye....in terms of harshness). 100Hz CRT TV's just double up the same frame (on the second pass they have no new information) but it does soften it somewhat when you're looking at it.

You raise an interesting point though. There is less information than people expect.

Headshot

whats better for xbox 360

Samsung LN-R238W [[http://reviews.cnet.com/Samsung_LN_R238W/4505-6482_7-31292237-2.html?tag=nav

or dells w2600

samsung one is the one which they have at the xbox 360 pods

dor83

i have a hdtv which has a dvi connection but not a component or vga and was wondering if i could get a converter so i can connect an xbox 360 in hi-def(there will be no dvi cable available at launch).
thanks.

Sparky

dor83 wrote:

i have a hdtv which has a dvi connection but not a component or vga and was wondering if i could get a converter so i can connect an xbox 360 in hi-def(there will be no dvi cable available at launch).
thanks.

Yea its possible you just need either a HDMI to DVI adaptor


Or a component to DVI


im not sure what cable comes with the xbox360
and if these are readily available here.

digitalninja

how does the sound go through the dvi/hdcp

Sparky

digitalninja wrote:

how does the sound go through the dvi/hdcp

Sound does'nt go through DVI, you will need to supply your tv with the sound signals seperatly, or go to a surround amp.

HDCP = High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection

Omnipresence

Yeah its a bit of a minefield with the different specs...

Some people say 720p looks better than 1080i due to the higher refresh rates... but others see the higher resolution as giving a better picture

I am gonna hold out and buy a 1080p compatible LCD when first available for maximum future proof compatibility... LG are coming out with one here soon...

http://www.product-reviews.net/2005/12/04/lg-55lp1-lcd-tv/


AFAIK PS3 will support 1080i images

-A

Sparky

i can imagine the cost

Omnipresence

I know pretty steep...

Here is Philips 1080p on komplett : http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=315307&cks=PRL

comes in at 5K !!

But LG and others should be hitting here soon and expect price to drop up to 50%... still crazy money...

I will buy when one comes down to 2k

(I watch a lot of movies... and want something to play the PS3 in all its glory ;-)

Starting to save now

Omnipresence

Also something to remember about HTDV

A lot of the good HDTVs today offer native 1366x768 resolution but this res. does not match either spec. The set has to upscale and downscale to fit this resolution.. obviously this scaling is not perfect and adds extra processing on the box.

1080 i/p (1920x1080)
720p i/p (1280x720)

have a look at the bottom of this for a visualisation:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1080p