The FCC/ATSC have made final decisions on US broadcast of HDTV. There is a standard for digital transmission, the ATSC specification, which includes 18 possible digital formats. Some are SDTV, some are EDTV, and six are HDTV.

The HDTV formats that are supported are 1080/24p, 1080/30p, and 1080/60i, as well as 720/24p, 720/30p and 720/60p. All HDTV in the US is broadcast as native 16:9.

The FCC has never mandated a switch to HDTV. They mandated a switch to digital broadcasting (DTV) to free up the analog spectrum to be auctioned off. But there's no mandate that anyone has to (now or ever) switch to broadcasting High-Definition television. The option exists for them to go either way: they can broadcast digital SDTV, digital HDTV, or digital EDTV, and as long as they're broadcasting digitally, they're in compliance. So an HDTV future is a possibility, but not a government mandate.

Broadcasts are already occurring in HDTV in something like 99% of the country. If you have an HDTV tuner, you can pick up some sort of HDTV signal almost anywhere, whether it's VOOM or over-the-air broadcasts. The variety isn't there yet... in Vegas, COX cable has hundreds of SDTV channels but only about six or eight HDTV channels. However, those channels are available, and I think there are three or four over-the-air HDTV signals available for free as well.

As for general consensus as to which one is better; "beauty is in the eye of the beholder". Some of the networks have chosen 1080/60i, others have chosen 720/60p. As far as "real world" resolution, they offer about the same perceived vertical resolution. 1080/60i offers 50% more horizontal resolution; even so, 720/60p offers about 20% more total discernable "pixels per second".

For making your HD-destined DVD's, keep in mind that you're making a standard-def DVD. The only real concern is that you'd want to author it as widescreen, because all HDTV formats in the USA are widescreen 16x9. Which means that you'd want to have shot on a high-quality widescreen camera, for prosumers that would mean an XL2, FX1, SDX900, DSR570, something like that. If using a 4:3 camera like a DVX or PD170, you'd want to use an optical anamorphic adapter when shooting.

Unfortunately, HDTV will not be a worldwide one-size-fits-all. We will still have to deal with differing frame rates. Europe is going to embrace either 720/50p or 1080/50i, with likely no provision to support 1080/60i or 720/60p. Europe has not made their decision yet; the EBU's announcement is highly anticipated. And US broadcasting has no provision for 720/50p or 1080/50i. So frame rate conversion will continue with us even in the HD age. Sure would have been nice if they would have designed the sets so that all HDTV's could play either frame rate!

These answers may be found in-depth at www.atsc.org and are also found in the "HDV:What You NEED to Know" book.
It's anticipated that EBU, like the US, will embrace the dual standard, however, early indications suggest that 1080i will win out as the primary standard. The goal, maybe in some of our lifetimes, would be to achieve 60p.

First of all, the FCC is pushing broadcasters to go to DTV, which doesn't mean HDTV. DTV can be broadcast at resolutions as low as 704x480i, which is standard def but delivered digitally. It is completely optional if the broadcaster wants to deliver HiDef, which is usually considered at least 1280x720.

Personally, I prefer 1920x1080i, but there is certainly nothing wrong with 1280x720p. But I use a 34" CRT display capable of displaying 1920x1080i material, most plasma TV's are progressive and will only display just over 1280x720p. I've said it here before, I think plasma TV's suck for any number of reasons. Anyway, 1920x1080i produces 62,145,792 pixels per second of image information. 1280x720p produces 55,240,704 pixels per second. Also, in broadcast bitrate terms, 1080i can be encoded at up to 19 Mbps, 720p is usually encoded at around 12 Mbps. Both of them have a temporal resolution of 59.94 fps.

As far as what to do to a DVD to make it look better on an HD compatible TV; start with really good looking 16x9 video and encode it at as high a bitrate as possible withing the confines of the DVD standard. Currently, DVD's can only support a maximum of 720x480 or 720x576 PAL video at up to 9.8 Mbps (inclusing audio.)

Camcorders in the 16x9 mode "squish" the 16x9 image into 720 horizontal pixels, this is called "anamorphic." There are currently only a few camcorders which actually have 16x9 chips, the rest of them "fake it" and look pretty lousy. Widescreen DVD's are still 720 pixels wide, just like in 4x3, but have a flag in the bitstream to tell the TV to "unsquish" the 720 pixels horizontally to fill the 16.9 screen. By choosing the wide-screen template in Vegas it will either maintain the anamorphic 16x9 image from the camcorder or will convert any non-widescreen images to anamorphic. Rendering as widescreen MPEG2 just puts the flag in the bitstream to tell the DVD player to spit it out 4x3 or unsquish the anamorphic image to 16.9.

DVDA does not modify the wide-screen format, it merely recognizes the 16x9 flag in the bitstream and displays and authors it accordingly.

Mainly, what a progressive DVD player does is takes video which was originally shot 24p and "un-does" the 3:2 pulldown which has been applied to the video in order to play it on a 29.97fps interlaced display. It will actually output the original 24p footage to the TV. However, this no longer conforms to NTSC or PAL video standards and it requires a component video hookup and a "multiscan" TV capable of displaying video signal timings other than the standard NTSC or PAL interlaced formats. S-Video and composite video inputs ONLY know about standard 29.97i NTSC (or 25I PAL.)

The DVD player will not take 29.97i footage and make it 29.97p. There is really nothing to be gained from doing this. The big buzzword is PROGRESSIVE!, but unless the material was shot progressive to begin with, converting it to progressive just compromises the quality, from both spatial and temporal standpoint.

John

"Q. In reading the tech specs on several DVD players and TVs there seems to be some hickup over how or if a DVD player can deliver a higher resolution "progressive" output..."

All NTSC DVDs store video as 480i. Many DVD players today (primarily those that cost more than $19.95!) have a progressive output. This progressive output is generally 480p, i.e. the same number of lines, but scanned progressively rather than interlaced. It is most correctly referred to as EDTV (Extended Definition TV), and yes it does look a lot better than SDTV (Standard Definition TV at 480i).

This used to be referred to as "line-doubling" but should be more correctly referred to as deinterlacing. This is actually very difficult to do for moving subjects, and it has generated a large number of very serious patents, most of which were filed by Mr. and Mrs. Faroudja, two video engineers in California who probably know more about this than anybody else in the world. Their technology used to come in a large box that cost about as much as two decent new automobiles, today it comes mostly in a chip built-in to either the DVD player or an HDTV display.

There are competing chips, but the latest tests (Dec. 2004) indicate that Faroudja's technology works the best.

Real line doubling is even more difficult (it used to be called line quadrupling...). Faroudja does this very well also.

It is also somewhat important to know that today there are no HDTV displays in any reasonable price range that can display 1080 true lines.

When you use a common 800x600 projector and display a 16x9 HDTV image, what image size do you get ? 800 pixels wide of course, then divide this by 1.85 (16:9) and you get, er, uff, 432 lines vertically.....

Hmmm, better look at that 1024x768 projector instead. 1024/1.85= 553 lines vertically. That's almost standard definition PAL territory (PAL is 576 lines in this context).

What's next? For a grand or two extra you can get a DLP projector with 1280x720 resolution such as the Hitachi PJTX1000 ($2800 street in the U.S., 1450 euro in Europe, snif). This resolution is native 16:9 so now there is no loss, you get your full 720 lines. This is an incredible projector in every way, the picture looks almost three-dimensional.

Note that it is depressing to watch 4:3 video on a native 16:9 display, it looks terrible with "black columns" on each side.

What about 1080 lines? Sure, there are some possibilities. Expensive CRTs can do it, but the images are small and the CRT factories are closing everywhere. There is always Samsung's new 102" 1080p plasma screen, coming soon. If you have to ask the price, you can't afford it. Then there are a number of so called "1K" projectors for professional use, the $60K Christie and a few others.

No doubt there will be more affordable true 1080 displays coming in 2005, perhaps even shown at the Tech Toy Expo (er, CES) in Vegas this month.

Expect to see a LOT more 1080p displays at CES, due to Samsung's stepped up committment to several companies to supply more raw panels.

Thanks SPOT for the reference and John for your detailed comments.

So to boil it down some unless you're shooting with a camera that uses a wide format chip, its mostly smoke and mirrors to get a "wide" image and setting the flag for 4/3 or anamorphic contracts or expans the image but quality wise nothing is really changing and DVD-A knows the difference. Progressive mode DVD players undo the 3/2. If you view on a TV/monitor IF is can output higher then NTSC formats you see the benefit, otherwise not.

Hopefully some others out there will benefit from a few of my really basic questions. I have a sony XBR910 and have comcast digital cable.

Are any commercial DVD's considered Hi-def?

When I watch monday night football or anything on the inHD channels, I am seeing hi-def. Some of the programs are beyond belief, better than my vision, these are shot with hi-def video cameras. Regular broadcast TV looks worse on the XBR than on an old TV. Are the sopranos, 6 feet under, etc considered hi-def? presumably these are all shot on film. They look much better when watched on a hi-def channel.

Some shows that are being broadcast on hi def channels do not look that good. Is that because of the camera, the broadcast, both? I think some hi-def channels have broadcasts that are not hi-def.

inHD broadcasts 60's-70's olympics, while it is interesting and entertaining, it really does not look good due to the quality of the old film, yet it is widescreen.

I have a friend who just finished producing a feature 35mm film, she was asking me similar questions as her movie is destined for Cable TV broadcast and DVD.

Jeff

Other than your last line confusing me a bit, you're dead on.
There will be an interesting war in another year, whether 720P is the pref, which is really good for stop-action in sports, or 1080i, which is better for fast motion clarity. 1080p is the grail, but it's unlikely we'll see that in our lifetimes if the Bells are allowed to continue their dominion. Kinda like fiber...know whut I mean?

1080p may become reality with more up-to-date codecs like MPEG-4/H.264 etc., since their compressed data rate is far lower than with 10-year old technology like MPEG-2.

MPEG-2 is sooo 1995!

:O)

Well, I just picked up a very cheap NeuNeo DVD player via eBay. Great player, has decoded Dolby/DTS outputs, every type of video connection inc SCART but the damn thing will play anything, it claims to playout 25/30p mpeg, now the TV will not cope so I haven't been able to verify this but it also has a VGA output so I could try that I guess. And oh yes, it plays Dvivx and Xvid.
For a few dollars more they also have a model with an upscaler and a single bit de-interlacer (don't ask me, just quoting the specs) in it.
Now for the money I sure didn't expect much, well I can even copy a raw mpeg-2 file onto a disk and it'll play that.
But the most remarkable thing, it plays my DVD stress test DVD as well as my pro player, it and this new player leaves anything with a brand name on it that I've tried so far for dead.
And in case you think I'm nuts, I mean how can these guys churn out such gear so cheaply, well the answer is simple. Firstly the build quality is pretty ho hum, but they get to use the same chips and PCBs as anyone, these things cost peanuts, where the big costs is, is in the licences for the technology and yes you guessed it, these guys don't pay 'em.
Bob.

1. Live broadcast programs are the clearest and sharpest in HD.
2. Commercials typically revert back to 4 x 3 or 4 x 3 letterbox and
the quality varies from excellent to poor.
3. Filmed programs show a lot of grain in HD, but is variable in how
much.
4. Some programs are shot in 16 x 9 but are not HD but are broadcast
in HD and appear grainy.
5. Some HD sitcoms appear to be purposely blurred. Don't know why.
The blur isn't much though.
6. Some HD programs exhibit a slight reduction in brightness (black
level) and need to be adjusted.
7. Some scope films (2.5 x 1) are broadcast in 16 x 9 HD and you
loose about 50% of the picture and the film grain gets worse.
Example: Sound of Music.
8. Some live broadcasts mix HD with 16 x9 digital shots and the 16 x 9
looks terrible. Example: Golf, Blimp shots for Monday Night Football.
The resolution goes to hell and you will pick up about 7 small
ghosts.
9. Some programs will deliberately grain up and darken indoor shots while keeping
the outdoor shots perfect. Examples CSI, House, Cop shows, etc.

10. A majority of HD broadcasts will not send the proper flags for
4 x 3 commercials and the result is real fat people.

JJK

There was an article in the paper this morning about the fact that Apex (a very large and successful DVD player manufacturer based in China) had not paid many of the royalties required, and one division of the company was apparently being sued, the president had disappeared in China, etc. I bought an Apex AD-1500 a little over a year ago (for $40) and it has been a great player.

Lots of good information on this thread about HDTV. Back in the 1986-89 time frame I was involved in the standards-setting process by being a member of several committees (SMPTE, ATSC) that were hotly arguing pros and cons. I recall that, first, HDTV was defined to be a standard where measured horizontal and vertical resolution (not lines, resolution) were at least two times the current NTSC standard. Secondly, there was only one HDTV format at the beginning: it was developed and championed by NHK in Japan, and was comprised of 1035 active lines (out of 1125 total) running at 59.94 interlaced fields per second on a 5:3 screen. NHK had done some serious research into number of lines, aspect ratio, interlace versus progressive, and so forth and had settled on the above-mentioned specs.

Companies in the US and particularly Europe saw the oncoming light as a Japanese train about to utterly destroy their home manufacturing base, and did everything they could to stop or at least slow down that train. Zenith introduced a 720p standard; committees began insisting on "square pixels" (this forced the NHK standard to have 1080 active lines, requiring a complete retooling of all their gear). When the ATSC finally got around to endorsing an "HDTV standard," they actually endorsed a number of approaches. And of course, Europe wanted nothing to do with a 59.94 field rate. Oh, and don't forget: the broadcasters wielded a very big stick and wanted nothing to do with HDTV--they just wanted to preserve their birthright to free broadcast spectrum, which Congress was about to take away from them in order to expand availability for land-mobile and cellphone proponents. So the broadcasters went wild for any technology that required additional space (i.e. either "helper" channels for conventional NTSC, or "digital simulcast" channels located somewhere in the UHF band). So now we have the absurd situation of today. HDTV is in no way compatible with the tried-and-true NTSC or PAL, and comes in a variety of flavors guaranteed to confound the buying public; broadcasters have locked up all that delicious extra spectrum, and even though they have promised to Congress that they will give their first channel back, they were able to squeeze in a law about 8 years ago that says they don't have to give spectrum back until 85% of their viewers are using the new digital signal. Count on that happening during your grandchildren's lifetime.

What could have been a natural evolutionary improvement has instead become a kludge.

You got lucky with your Apex. A backroom guy at Best Buy told me that they had to return half of the Apex DVD players to the manufacturer because they were either DOA or croaked within the short return period.

I'm most impressed by the 17 video formats in ATSC. How could we possibly make do with less?

At least here in the U.S. we have broadcast HDTV fairly widely available, but it's primitive and lots of things don't work properly.

The record for all HDTV fiascos must be NBC's 2004 Olympic Games though, I heard the sound was out of sync by 8 minutes sometimes.

It appears that the broadcasters are facing a continuously rising pressure from Congress when it comes to their channels. The new concept is that the 85% of viewers who use the digital signals will include those who use a cable box or satellite tuner. That may save a generation or two.

And then there's been the whole fight between TV manufacturers (interlaced is cute and familiar!) and computer manufacturers (it's gotta be progressive!).

I forgot to add that power out on the digital channels can be very annoying if it ain't enough. Some of the local small timers come in most of the time at 0% to 60% signal strength and my tuner can handle about 30 to 40% continuous, but not 0% to 40%. They also delay the video and audio almost 1 full second from the analog channels and continually broadcast their logo somewhere in the corner of the screen.
They do not want you recording and being naughty. I guess if you watch the entire program with the logo who cares if you watch it again after recording.

JJK

I'm lucky in that I can get a perfect DTV/HDTV picture even from stations whose analog signals are so noisy as to be unusable.

Better yet: I am using only rabbit ears (well, it's a Gemini ZHDTV1 small yagi that is the only settop antenna I know that actually works). A friend of mine who lives about 2 1/2 miles from here can't get as good a signal even with a huge rooftop antenna that is nearly the size of a VW van. :O)

I paid not much over $20 at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00006FXR9/qid=1104951411/sr=8-1/ref=pd_csp_1/102-2625387-4448969?v=glance&s=electronics&n=507846

My problem is the analog stations pretty much come booming in and the major network digital NBC, ABC, CBS, WB, UPN, all are fine. Its the small local stations, PBS etc. that I have a low signals.

JJK

Hey farss? was that the 3rd gen mpeg4 player or the Neu Neo HVD108 model that supposedly upconverts the DVD sigal ? I ve seen that player and was interested in it. I was wondering about the upconversion quality. Not so much that it make it look super spectacular , more so that it does introduce more artifacts.

I have been testing out the ADS HDTV upconverter and so far I am severly disappointed, it seems to even degrade a 1080i passthru signal. I've emailed ADS Tech supprot , to see if its possibly a defective unit, but no reply in a week. I'm gonna call them in a few days.
I was interestest in it because it upcoverts copmosite/s vid/ 480p DVD to 1080(or 720 and others) ,and again the main reason not to make a composite signal look like HD(we all know you cant make water into wine, and garbage in/garbage out) but to be able to utilize a single input(1080 component) on the Hd monitors. The biggest problem is severe Banding in the gradients and images like smoke.If this is the products output I cannot reccomend the unit.
Sorry to drift off your original Q BB, but its sort in the realm ,kinda? ; )

>>>You got lucky with your Apex. A backroom guy at Best Buy told me that they had to return half of the Apex DVD players to the manufacturer because they were either DOA or croaked within the short return period.<<<

I must have gotten lucky with my AD-1500 as well. Had it now for several years with no issues. I love it, got it so I could view PAL DVD's. But back on topic here - the AD-1500 does not output HD - it doesn't even have component out. But I recently got a Cyberhome DVD player. Got it in October maybe - and I got it because it did have component out. But I also got big bonus things - such a PAL playback and pulldown as well. It outputs at 720p and I can say the differance between looking at films like Monsters, Inc and Toy Story on my old $400 DVD player (via S-VHS) and this much cheaper one (720p with pulldown) is just amazing. I love Toy Story and I just noticed little details I never saw before.

On black friday a lot of places were selling these same Cyberhome units for well under 20 bucks, I cheapest I saw was $14.99. And when I got it in October I thought paying $29.99 was a great deal.

P.S - a PDF on the new Apex AD2800 can be downloaded here: Apex Digital Announces New Generation of HD Ready DVD Players

The reason they blur sitcoms is the sets would look like crap. I did a studio tour and they were explaining how since HD started, they have to redo the sets, because you can see how fake they are in HD.

They showed us an old and new set for the same show. Real wood vs paint etc.

Of course it helps the celebs look better too - LOL.

I want to see the Archie Bunker's chair in HDTV... also Phyllis Diller. On second thought, maybe not.