I always thought those looked better too but let's face it: price > quality any day. Even if it's a few $$.

And I can't stand compression artificates eigther. HDTV TV streams have subchannels.. so instead of one crystal clear channel you get 3/4 highly compressed ones. A REAL leap above analog snow. :p

Over the air, with good source, is stunning. PBS, Olympics, some specials look great. Cable, same channels, not quite as good, though I haven't checked lately. I don't have satellite HD yet. I don't have a HD player yet to compare.

Once everyone gets converted to AVC/mpeg4, you can push more data at the same/better quality within the same timeframe. But will the providers push quality over quantity? Hopefully so, but probably not.

Viewing on 65" Sony Rear Projection CRT 1080i.

I think the TV itself has a lot to do with it and the scaler used in them seems impact as well.
Our Sony V series Bravias look just terrible on 1080 and SD, 720, their native res, seems to hold up quite well.

Bob.

This is very interesting. Years ago I kept hearing about HDTV and met a few people that had actually seen it. My cinematography instructor who shot some HDTV years ago said it was like looking at a hologram. Almost 3D.

Years go by and I walk into Future Shop and have a look at what they're calling HDTV now. It's nice, but it sure doesn't blow me away like I thought it would. This post made me realize what my instructor saw 15 years ago is not what we're seeing today. Too bad.

And I agree on the compression aspect. Some of it looks horrible. A friend of mine said that the quality of my Sony Trinitron tube is actually a better looking image than most of the LCD and Plasma's out there. The pull is the widescreen format and the 3 inch thickness of the TV itself.

15 years ago, HDTV was going to be all the rage and in most parts it is. I guess I was hoping for something more....

Stan

Familiarity breeds contempt -

When the first audiences saw the first movies, of a steam locomotive, they ducked, screamed and ran for cover.

The older I get - the better things were.

v

Of all of the various ways I have to watch 1080 HD, my Sony 34" XBR960 CRT is by far the most pleasing.

John

Nothing beats HD on a CRT IMHO.

The other day I watched some BBC HD on both the new Sony Bravias (1080 native), and some of the Panasonic displays.

It was high resolution for sure. But my eye was constantly drawn to the dot crawl caused by compression.

Compression types are the one aspect that will hold HDTV, and HD in general, back from what it could be.

The CBS affiliate here in Albuquerque is throwing the full 19 mbits at their single HD channel and it looks really decent. The PBS station has one subchannel for their SD stuff that's taking up around 2 mbits, even with the subchannel, it looks quite acceptable as well. All the other stations here are running multiple subchannels and their HD is loaded with artifacts.

John

I remember being at NAB in Vegas (I guess in the early 90's) and checking out the HD exhibits. In fact, if I remember correctly, they weren't even in the regular display section. They were on the lower level with the radio stuff and "experimental" stuff. At the time, I was working at a NBC affiliate, and NBC was kicking around an HDTV format called "ACTV" (Advanced Compatible TV) that the Japanese were using at the time.

One of the vendors were displaying an HDTV digital paint workstation. I watched for a few minutes while the artist worked his magic. I noticed a bright orange label applied to the hi-def monitor diagonally across the lower right corner of the screen. I stepped a little closer to see if it mentioned something about the monitor itself. Then, to my surprise, the label went away... It wasn't a label at all -- it was being displayed on the monitor! That was one sharp monitor! I asked the guy later about the monitor and all he knew was that it was Japanese made (he thought it might be Hitachi) and was told that it was worth around $150,000...

I have yet to see any monitor that had that sort of realism :-)

Jim

Corporate greed will always win over quality. Just look at how many commercials you have to fast forward through now compared to years gone by.

If a broadcaster can send out 4 channels instead of one, they will. The satellite TV industry started this trend with the smaller mpeg dishes. Cramming 20+ channels on to a transponder that once held one gorgeous station.

I agree that mpeg4 could let the consumer get back some of the quality but my guess is that the broadcasters and signal deliverers will squeeze that much more into existing bandwidth, all for the sake of making more money.

I once worked for a network that believed in producing quality programing first, making money second. Their approach was simple, "if we make a good product, folks will buy it and we will make money."

That mentalitly is long gone I'm afraid.

In my opinion, the best video quality I've seen is:

Imax
35 film in a theatre
HD on a broadcast monitor (*haven't seen much projection, so can't comment)
SD (quality close to HD)
Youtube

Ironically, time spent viewing each format may almost be the reverse (well ok, people probably watch more TV than youtube).

2- Implementation is still important... good viewing conditions beats a lit room with excessive glare on the screen. Excessive compression is bad.

Well-shot footage also makes a huge difference.

3- In my opinion:
Most people don't notice if they are effectively seeing a SD picture. i.e. they are too far away from the screen / the screen is too small. I don't think the low resolution bothers us at all / is noticeable except in a side-by-side comparison.

HD tends to reproduce with a slightly higher contrast, because details aren't blurred out. Details are a little bit crisper.

Film projection is still beautiful.

"Film projection is still beautiful."

70mm is definitely beautiful. It's hard to find a good theatre these days.

Give me a carbon arc lamp, a well maintained Simplex E-7 35mm, and a 65 FOOT screen. Those were the days.

From a former theatre projectionist:
"The Fulton Theatre opened in 1928 as a single screen theatre seating 716 on two floors. It ran a long life as an independant theatre."

Not to steer this thread away, but you mentioned 70mm. I had the chance to see just one film that was actually filmed in 70 mm and not just up-printed. 1992's Far and Away. I was probably the only one in the theatre that knew or cared about the stunning image quality. But then again, being a media dude, I looked for that kind of thing.

This makes another point. Maybe why we have the compressed HDTV we see these days is because Joe Public can't see the difference. I guess when 90% of the people at Best Buy are paying a couple grand for a new TV, they're gonna just think their TV is the best image quality.

"I guess when 90% of the people at Best Buy are paying a couple grand for a new TV, they're gonna just think their TV is the best image quality."

The old 80/20 rule. We, who care, are the 20% that gets screwed out of the quality we expect. Although I think your 90% is more accurate than the 80% in this instance.

I imagine at some point there will be a bit of HD backlash (isn't there always a backlash?). The folks that got all those "extended definition" plasmas wont be too happy when they finally get their HDDVDBlueRay player going...and it doesn't look any different than their DVD player.....

It could be that 80% of the public doesn't notice because:

A- They just sit too far away. In many living rooms, with the couch at one end and the TV at the other, this can happen.

B- They haven't learned what to look for?

C- We filter out extraneous visual artifacts (unless we're looking for them, or know what to look for). For example, most people's memories aren't that good at recognizing details in pennies. Look at the following image, and see if you can pick out the correct penny:
http://www.dcity.org/braingames/pennies/