Welcome to the new "American way". Sucker the money out of you now and apologize in 50 years for the horrible actions of our ancestors.

Sorry, no class actions allowed. Bad for business.

The whole thing is such a mess---HDTV with tuner, without---satellite tuner, cable tuner, ota tuner---SD-HD-ED-RD, widescreen, select 18 possible zooms, 720p, 1080i, 1080p, 480p, 480i, LCD, Plasma, DLP, Projection, HDMI, DVI, DVD upconvert and about ten thousand other things.

JJK

JJ: Think positive! All the bonus profits the man makes from confusing the plebeians keeps technology developing and affordable for us who think (?) we know what we are buying.

As said above, it is sad but this is now the American way. No longer are we a country of entrepreneurs and hard workers striving in union for a high standard of living and fairly sharing the rewards. It's a global economy run by corporations for the benefit of manager-stockholders.

Mike S

I'm really disappointed in HP's marketing SD display as HDTV.

My apologies. I should have stated that the ad is for Ken Crane's, a local home theater specialist that has been in this specific business for decades. It is very possible that this ad was not endorsed by HP.

Once a customer has jumped over the very significant hurdles of buying a decent actual HDTV, the next test comes: figuring out which submenu items to tweak for each channel that:

a) broadcasts HDTV without setting the widescreen flags properly, so the picture is squeezed or elongated (I have seen both)
or
b) shows embedded data as several lines of rapidly flickering pixels at the top of the screen
or
c) says they are broadcasting in HDTV (as indicated by the HD flag in their signal), but offering only a 4:3 signal
or
d) shows a feature film with the HD flag set, but it's panned-and-scanned to 4:3 and pillarboxed
or
e) the audio is out of sync with the video (the Olympics had a record 8 minute separation, but it's gotten better since then and the top AV receivers now have built-in delay lines at great expense to fix this problem)

There is more, but...

TV Week says Good Morning America will start in HD shortly, but there was major infighting over whether to bother with this, because they couldn't offer the HD signal in major midwest and Central areas. "Why bother with HD when 35% of households can't access it?"

And consumers are saying, "Why should I buy HDTV when there is so little content, and what is there is such a pain in the a** to set up for each viewing?"

SMPTE recently set up a working group to fix the audio sync problems. I sincerely hope they add a group to get TV stations to set the aspect ratio flags correctly also...

OK, i know nothing about HDTV, and i don't really care. But, it seems to me that the digital signal should include the aspect ratio (4:3, 16:9, 2.35:1, etc.), and that it should be up to the digital display devices to use that information and display the image correctly. There is no reason why a human viewer should ever have to worry about, or even know about such things.

Chienworks:
Makes you wonder. I now expect all of what was mentioned in the above posts when I turn on the tv. There are four local stations that broadcast 4 x 3 SD stuff all day long without the flags on the HD channels and it comes out widescreen with short fat people so I have to change the zoom to compensate. One of the channels broadcasts like this with some oddball format to almost fill the widescreen but not quite and it is uncorrectable with my 18 zoom combinations. And now PBS is just broadcasting SD but they are sending the correct flags. What happenned to the HD? Did they run out of money? There is also some technique whereby they broadcast in HD widescreen which is fine but everything in the background is out of focus. (All the liitle people in the grandstands are blurry instead of sharp) Fox is the leader in this. CBS is about the best along with PBS and NBC. ABC tends to use the "FOX" technique. I really don't think this technique is true HD, maybe just enhanced digital.

JJK

This is not a shameless plug (I have shame), but a colleague of mine is a really great technical resource for this type of thing:

http://www.smartcalibration.com

his semi-local (where local == Texas) business provides high-end TV (HD and otherwise) calibration services. I will say that from my own experience, he is very very good.

Now back to your regular programming.

I guess it's finally happened: I've become an old man who can't understand the appeal of new-fangled gizmos.

I'm trying to figure out why a person can't just buy a TV and have the picture appear as it's supposed to, without a lot of menu hassles / calibration / setup, etc. Not squashed, not elongated, just...RIGHT. Plug it in, turn it on, and it works. Why is this so impossible?

I'm also trying to figure out why HD is any better than SD (I've seen HD at the big box retailers, was significantly underwhelmed ) or why 16:9 is better than 4:3, or why 5.1 is better than stereo. DIFFERENT ain't always BETTER.

And it occurs to me that the blessing of digital media is at the same time the curse of digital media---it is quickly replaced by something "better," requiring yet another enormous outlay of cash / learning curve to "keep up."

Just curious about these things, I guess...

And I suppose you think Black and White was as good as Colour?

And I remember looking at a mirror on the lid of the first TV I saw as a kid because they couldn't figure out how to invert the image . . . .

I'm also trying to figure out why HD is any better than SD ...

If all you've seen is Circuit City demos, then I don't blame you for that reaction. If, however, you've seen a proper HD demo, the quality really is a remarkable departure from SD. In my opinion, the difference is far greater than the improvement in quality we saw (er, heard) going from LP vinyl to CD, or from VHS to DVD. Problem is, until HD DVD comes along next year (hopefully), most people will only be able to get HD from satellite or cable, and most of that is poorly converted existing material, and therefore not very compelling (hence the lousy Circuit City demos). By contrast, if you've seen HD from a hard disk, it is almost hyper-real.

LP to CD? Actually the only improvement was less background noise. And more time per side. And cheaper equipment (now). But otherwise "better audio" is a doubtful claim.

Yeah,
I'd been looking to buy a good turntable for vinyl but at >$35K (that's just the bit to make the thingy go round) I figure the money would be better spent on a whole new HiFi and a SACD player.
Bob.

A problem with plasmas is that they'll burn that pillarbox right into the screen, Manufacturers are recommending that you view 4:3 progarms at 16:9 so that you keep the screen active all the way across.

I'm thinking that when we have to switch to HD tuners I may just retire the TV altogether. I like radio anyway.

Rob Mack

LP to CD? Do you have a real time crackle and click and noise remover? I guess if you round off all of the transients you can obtain that nice vinyl sound.

JJK

I have a large antenna in the attic and am picking up HD over the air. Just a few channels, CBS, ABC, NBC PBS, UPN. The NBC olympics in 1080i were stunning as well as most of the PBS-HD material.

The over-the-air HD that I have experienced has none of the switching of aspect ratio that has been reported. I have a few cable HD channels, and the quality is not as good as my antenna, PBS-HD on cable is not as crisp as PBS-HD antenna. Maybe the aspect swithcing is related to the cable/satellite transmissions.

I'm also picking up HD over the air, in Los Angeles. My current antenna is a very compact indoor double bowtie (this is not rabbit ears), about the size of a pizza box, that has excellent gain actually. I'm fortunate enough to have a clear view of Mt. Wilson, although the distance is about 40 miles.

A friend who lives 2 miles from me (and 1000 ft. higher) needs a masted roof Yagi the size of a VW bus to get the same signal. This varies a lot...

I haven't even bothered to count the number of stations that transmit in HDTV or DTV here, quite a few though. Unfortunately all of the aspect ratio and other problems I mentioned exist in the OTA signal.

Cable and satellite HD is not as crisp as OTA, this is due to added compression that has gotten worse every year for the last several years, as the focus is 100% on increasing the quantity of channels rather than the quality.

DirectTV has acknowledged that this is a problem and says they are working on reducing this problem. They are also introducing MPEG4 set top boxes currently, this should give a better picture for the same bandwidth.

Are there any decent, inexpensive set-top DTV receivers out there? Preferably something portable.

Lots of them on eBay, Amazon, and in stores everywhere.

I bought a Samsung SIR-T451 which was a good choice at the beginning of 2005, paid $200 at Fry's back then (without the $200 extended warranty, duh!).

It works well signal-wise, but changing channels is sloow, and the remote works best at distances less than 3 feet.

It is super important to read reviews for any ATSC tuner (that's the proper name for a DTV set-top receiver today).

Don't even think of buying anything but the latest. Why? It took several generations for the manufacturers to solve the problems inherent in the modulation scheme chosen in ATSC, and my box was of the first generation that was OK.

Antenna is also important, as DTV is an all-or-nothing deal. Either you get a perfect picture, or you get nothing at all. Amazon has the Zenith ZHDTV1 set-top antenna for $19.99 again, this one is the best for its size by a very wide margin.

Don't buy any Terk antennas, even their $150 model can't compete with the above $19.95 antenna, based on serious tests.

Here's a review of an ATSC tuner that's being closed out at Radio Shack for $89:
Accurian review at hdtvexpert.com.

This site has many other reviews, highly recommended.