damonrpayne Posted July 12, 2005 Share Posted July 12, 2005 I'm sure this has been talked about before but I'm just ranting here. To me "true" HD is better than 480p resolution. 480p is "EDTV". In the proces of getting my cable installed I've argued with two technicians and one phone support person about how H the D of their TV channels are. I finally got the phone person to track down a technical person to find out if the DVI connection on my cable box would work: some TVs do not accept 1080i over component cables. I had to ask because the Time Warner in my area purposefully disables the DVI port on their cable boxes, ostensibly to avoid confusing people. When the second technician shows up with a working HD cable box, he goes to the setup menu and sets te HD resolution to 480p. I say "I want 1080i", not knowing why I bother since I'll be redoing the whole thing after he leaves anyway. "OH, these motorola boxes sometimes don't like 1080i" "Why do I bother with HD channels then? 480p is not HD resolution" "yes it is" "No its not, 480p is DVD resolution and pales next to true HD" "Whatever, I'll set it to 1080i and see if it works." It works, later went out and got a DVI cable and picture improved even more. The only issue now is some of my HD channels are in 4:3 aspect ratio. Apparently my local news channel doesn't know HD should be 16x9, or the cable company thought it didn't matter. The average consumer doesn't know anything, leading providers to hire technicians who know only slightly more than nothing. Don't let your cable/sat provider sell you an HD package and then cheat you out of your HDTV resolution! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
j-malotky Posted July 12, 2005 Share Posted July 12, 2005 I remember reading once that any line count over 576 is considered HD. JM Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
charlieboy Posted July 12, 2005 Share Posted July 12, 2005 ---------------- On 7/12/2005 4:29:50 PM damonrpayne wrote: I'm sure this has been talked about before but I'm just ranting here. To me "true" HD is better than 480p resolution. 480p is "EDTV". In the proces of getting my cable installed I've argued with two technicians and one phone support person about how H the D of their TV channels are. I finally got the phone person to track down a technical person to find out if the DVI connection on my cable box would work: some TVs do not accept 1080i over component cables. I had to ask because the Time Warner in my area purposefully disables the DVI port on their cable boxes, ostensibly to avoid confusing people. When the second technician shows up with a working HD cable box, he goes to the setup menu and sets te HD resolution to 480p. I say "I want 1080i", not knowing why I bother since I'll be redoing the whole thing after he leaves anyway. "OH, these motorola boxes sometimes don't like 1080i" "Why do I bother with HD channels then? 480p is not HD resolution" "yes it is" "No its not, 480p is DVD resolution and pales next to true HD" "Whatever, I'll set it to 1080i and see if it works." It works, later went out and got a DVI cable and picture improved even more. The only issue now is some of my HD channels are in 4:3 aspect ratio. Apparently my local news channel doesn't know HD should be 16x9, or the cable company thought it didn't matter. The average consumer doesn't know anything, leading providers to hire technicians who know only slightly more than nothing. Don't let your cable/sat provider sell you an HD package and then cheat you out of your HDTV resolution! ---------------- I cant stand when ESPN HD shows games in 4:3 I know its tough to have that many cameras all over the country for the games but.... but man I never thought I could watch the Discovery channel for as long as I do sometimes!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ray Garrison Posted July 12, 2005 Share Posted July 12, 2005 The 16:9 vs 4:3 issue is one I've always wondered about. Why would you prefer to watch a picture with the top and bottom cut off just to make it look more like a movie screen? I mean, I've rented a lot of tapes that were in the "widescreen" format, and a few DVD's, but it always bothered me that I was missing part of the picture just to make it feel more like I was watching a movie. I'd much, *MUCH* rather get the whole 4:3 picture. And the idea that someone would buy one of those wide, funny looking TeeVees to stretch out the picture seems kind of silly, but I guess to each their own... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
charlieboy Posted July 12, 2005 Share Posted July 12, 2005 ---------------- On 7/12/2005 6:25:54 PM Ray Garrison wrote: The 16:9 vs 4:3 issue is one I've always wondered about. Why would you prefer to watch a picture with the top and bottom cut off just to make it look more like a movie screen? I mean, I've rented a lot of tapes that were in the "widescreen" format, and a few DVD's, but it always bothered me that I was missing part of the picture just to make it feel more like I was watching a movie. I'd much, *MUCH* rather get the whole 4:3 picture. And the idea that someone would buy one of those wide, funny looking TeeVees to stretch out the picture seems kind of silly, but I guess to each their own... ---------------- Most of the HD programing Ive ever seen and Ive had HD for 3 years almost has no bars on top or bottom just a few movies and it is not streached out.But HD programming like CSI Cold Case etc... fits the screen perfect. Non HD programing can be streached out to 16:9 but why? I cant remember when I watched regular tv but if I must I watch it on a rugular 4:3 tv. HD has spoiled me in that way. Also as for DVD thats not HD anyway. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
charlieboy Posted July 12, 2005 Share Posted July 12, 2005 ---------------- On 7/12/2005 6:25:54 PM Ray Garrison wrote: The 16:9 vs 4:3 issue is one I've always wondered about. Why would you prefer to watch a picture with the top and bottom cut off just to make it look more like a movie screen? I mean, I've rented a lot of tapes that were in the "widescreen" format, and a few DVD's, but it always bothered me that I was missing part of the picture just to make it feel more like I was watching a movie. I'd much, *MUCH* rather get the whole 4:3 picture. And the idea that someone would buy one of those wide, funny looking TeeVees to stretch out the picture seems kind of silly, but I guess to each their own... ---------------- With 16:9 your not missing any picture your just getting a little more on the sides that 4:3 cuts of if I'm not mistaken. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ray Garrison Posted July 12, 2005 Share Posted July 12, 2005 uh, guys, that was a (not too successful) attempt at a bit of humor... I actually heard someone say that one day when I was at a Sams Club buying 36-pacs of diet soda. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
charlieboy Posted July 12, 2005 Share Posted July 12, 2005 ???????????????? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrWho Posted July 13, 2005 Share Posted July 13, 2005 ---------------- On 7/12/2005 9:16:39 PM Ray Garrison wrote: uh, guys, that was a (not too successful) attempt at a bit of humor... I actually heard someone say that one day when I was at a Sams Club buying 36-pacs of diet soda. ---------------- wow im so glad you were joking...I work at a video rental store and so many people come back complaining that they wanted full-screen cuz the wide-screen chops everything off. I seriously need to print out a brochure that explains the difference as it really pisses me off when older folk act like I don't know what I'm talking about..."what would you know? you're just a kid working in a video store" (direct quote from some old rich yuppy fat dude). My favorite is when they have a late fee and then they ask for the fee to be removed because the picture was being chopped off. The things people will do to cheat the system. We have this policy where if the dvd was scratched that we'll let them get another copy of the movie...well some people go ahead and deliberately scratch the disc, claim they recieved it that way and then get an extra day free; though they always plead to watch another movie because they didn't want to watch that one in the first place. I wish renting cars worked like how these people wanted video stores to run. "The car was smashed up when I got it and I didn't want to drive that one anyway...I know I paid for the mini-van but I want to drive the ferrari this time and I'm the customer and I'm always right so give it to me now". ok, sorry for ranting to get back on topic...I remember reading another post a while back about some installation tech that was incorrectly hooking up the surround sound on a fellow board member's system. He thought you could just hook up the analog outputs, select dolby and then you were getting surround sound. I don't remember the whole story but the board member had to put up a fight telling them they were wrong and eventually the head tech dude realized their mistake (and they've been doing it that way for years) and wrote a letter of thanks or something. The typical AV installer has had no training whatsoever AND they tend to be rather stupid. I would know considering I used to be one . I couldn't believe some of the elaborate sound systems we were installing and then having a project manager who had no understanding at all about why things were the way they were (which means corners are cut in places that shouldn't have been). My fellow peon installer coworkers were even more stupid and the majority of them don't even appreciate music. It was even more disturbing when we would be installing systems in churches where they're relying on a "professional installation" when the guys doing it had no clue what they were doing. I remember my first church install I was put in charge of hanging the acoustical panels...I had no clue what I was doing and there were no directions so I was told to go into a back corner and figure it out that way if I made a mistake I don't have to worry about it being very obvious. I did my best but I felt awful that this church was paying so much money for skilled work when there was no skill involved. (Even worse, the panels being used were the crappiest version of what they were quoted because it put more money in thier pocket). Obviously I quit that job and I'm back in school now. Ok, one more story...a while back at MY church the woofers in the PA went dead. Basically the diaphram seperated from the voice coil and it was making this nasty floppy sound. This of course was no good because we now had no output below 200Hz. So our music minister calls up the local AV company to have them come out and fix it. In the end we dropped $16,000!!! I could have reconed those woofers for $200 tops. They came back a while ago to reroute the audio feed for the TV monitors throughout the church and that same AV tech figured he would disconnect the entire recording system so that he could plug in his stupid audio feed (we're talking 10 channels of recording that he messed up). He left a note saying what he did and suggested that we reroute the recording channels to places that wouldn't even work. I could not believe that he would take it upon himself to reroute the entire system, which has a lot of intricate tricks for flexibility. So of course I spent that sunday morning rerouting everything back to normal and I was even able to plug in the audio feed without changing anything else. Of course our music minister will keep hiring the guy back because he's been brainwashed and believes everything he's told. Might I add that this guy put a rotating feedback suppressor on the FOH mix...the system sounds different everytime you step up and if you ever get a little ring, your thresholds get totally shifted. I can't go in and change it myself because it involves using a laptop with a cable I don't have and downloading software which I have to go through the Shure technicians to get. Ok, I'm done ranting for real now. Moral of the story, "professional" just means they're getting paid...it has no bearing on skill level. I really hate the image that professional carries with it because the audio industry seriously abuses it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
colterphoto1 Posted July 13, 2005 Share Posted July 13, 2005 DrWho=angry young man. But you are quite correct. Had me laughing on the church thing. I felt a little bad buying those LS from the FL church, knowing that this sound contractor had probably sold them a new rig for tens of thousands and they were getting rid of a perfectly good, but probably horribly set up LS stack. What's the world coming to when people will knowingly rip off churches? Michael Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maxg Posted July 13, 2005 Share Posted July 13, 2005 HD? Something of a mystery to me too. I bought a new projector that does 720p (I think) and 1080i. When I told my videophile guru friend about this he immedately said 720p is not HD and neither is 1080i. Apparently 1080p is where it is at now - that is what he has - but he did pay $22,000 for his projector - a 3 chip DLP from Barco I think. Right now - of course - he has nothing that will play in that resolution. He uses an upsampler (a very expensive one) that gets to 1080p from anywhere. It is a good picture - mine's ok too - but cost about a 20th of his so it is not that good. I think BlueRay disks are big enough to support 1080p - so he might have something to play in native resolution soon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wangdang Posted July 13, 2005 Share Posted July 13, 2005 Back to the setting at 480p --- If this is a Motorola box, what you are setting is the default for the non-HD signals. If you have cable stations that you subscribe to, hooked up between a motorola HD box and your TV by DVI, then the HD signal will more or less bypass the processing in the motorola box. That menu setting is telling the box how to send you the non-HD signals. Frankly, I bypass the motorola 480p and send just the plain cable signal to my Sharp Aquos, because the scaler in my TV is much better than the scaler in the STB. Plus, the default setting stretches the signal in a way I do not like. So I control all that at the TV. It is true that many cable guys do not really understand HD. but usually there is a techie back at the ranch who does. Call him if you have problems. You can change that setting on the Motorola menu. You do it by turning the power off to the cable box, then pressing the menu button on the cable remote (some boxes require you to press it a couple of times -- also make sure the remote is set to "cable"). My suggestion -- change it and see what you get. Big caveat -- make sure you are subscribing to the HD channels -- the cable packages usually include local stations (IF THEY ARE SENDING AN HD SIGNAL -- many do not), Discovery HD Theater, ESPN-HD, INHD-1, INHD2, and maybe a premium or TNT-HD. If yu do not subbscribe to the cable package for these, you will not get the HD signal -- this has been a big probalbe in my town -- where people assume that they subscribe to the pricy digital packages, but not the HD separate package,and think they are getting HD. I promise, if you are getting the HD signal on the stations I mentioned, you'll know it. But yes, all the other channels will look like typical cable crud. One last suggestion -- when I went HD, I had the cable guys re-run the line from the pole to the house -- it made a world of difference on the non-HD signals. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JJkizak Posted July 13, 2005 Share Posted July 13, 2005 Keep this in mind. When you view an HD channel and you see a correct 4 x 3 picture they are transmitting in 480P which is SD. When the picture automatically goes to 16 x 9 they are transmitting in HD which could be 720P, 1080I, 1080P. When they revert back to a commercial it jumps back to 480P. If you have an over the air tuner the resolution is usually in the upper left corner for a few seconds when you select the channel. Now also remember that the picture is as good as the source, meaning if they are transmitting a 1920's fuzzy movie it will look like a 1920's fuzzy movie.If they are transmitting a film that is grainy or resampled from Cinemascope (2.5 x 1) to 16 x 9 it will look like a grainy film. If they are transmitting an HD live program it will have no grain and will be superior to all other pictures and is the sharpest of all. Also remember that all broadcasters at the present time use the MPEG2 codec to send their programs across the country and you will occasionally see blocking. This is called technically "HDV" or High Definition Digital Video". This is the 24 meg per second data stream (1080I) whereas true HD is approximately 50 to 100 megs per second data stream. One other anomalie is the local stations will broadcast their analog and digital SD pictures simultaneously and the SD picture doesn't look any better than the analog picture because the analog picture is so crappy to begin with. Cable just grabs signals from the local stations weather or not they are analog or digital and re-transmits them on their digital system and that's why sometimes the 4 x 3 looks like crap on digital cable. The newer DVD upconverters do work well as long as your set can handle the HDMI input. (DVI jacks are kind of like "8 track tapes" now) The state of zoom capabilities are in chaos. My LG 3510 tuner can perform 18 different zoom configurations. The engineers who make these configurations must be on LSD. I do know some people who purchased a widescreen set asking why isn't the picture always wide? And if they would have known that the the picture isn't always wide they would have never purchased the set. So they look at short fat people, fat cars, missing text, etc. because they have selected the wrong zoom. There went 2000 years of R & D out the window relative to "optical linearity distortion". JJK Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
damonrpayne Posted July 13, 2005 Author Share Posted July 13, 2005 Wangdang: there are 2 seperate settings on my motorola box. The one you are talking about is "480i override", which I have set to 480p. "DVI HD Output" is set to 1080i. Whoever said 1080i is not HD is a little off I think. I would think 720p looks better than 1080i to a lot of people so I agree with Anything over 576 lines. There are so very few things that can do 1080p right now, a couple Qualia products come to mind and that's it. When the PS3/Blu-ray comes out I may have to look into a 1080p TV. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ARPRINCE Posted July 13, 2005 Share Posted July 13, 2005 ---------------- On 7/13/2005 10:01:25 AM damonrpayne wrote: When the PS3/Blu-ray comes out I may have to look into a 1080p TV. ---------------- Can't wait for PS3 (2006 release). But hey, XBOX 360 is coming out in December. I believe based on the specs it supports up to 1080i only while PS3 goes up to 1080p. Gotta have both though! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
damonrpayne Posted July 13, 2005 Author Share Posted July 13, 2005 Yeah, too bad Intel decided to back out of the LCOS market, or we'd all be able to have 1080p games. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
j-malotky Posted July 13, 2005 Share Posted July 13, 2005 No matter what formats come out, I still plan to use my HTPC to upscale to whatever my current or future projectors native resolutions are. Today you can get a nice 1920 x 1080. In the future ?????? I'll jest get whatever HD receiver card to receive "whatever" the current standards being used at the time, descale and upscale the image. Options to use hardware descaling or software descaling for odd ball formats or older images. Its all good JM Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lb19984 Posted July 13, 2005 Share Posted July 13, 2005 full hd is 1080p which has twice as much information as 1080i read it in some magazine. The future is gonna be megapixel tv's (just like cameras) LMAO they'll be like 20 times the resolution of HDTV Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JJkizak Posted July 13, 2005 Share Posted July 13, 2005 These are the existing HD formats available now: HDV 1080I--(Television) (24 meg data stream) HDV 1080P--(Television) (25 to 50 meg data stream) HD Full HD-2K------twice the resolution of HD (movie theatre digital projection) HD-4K------four times the resolution of HD (movie theatre digital projection) HD-6K------six times the resolution of HD HD-8K------eight times the resolution of HD (Viper camera $110,000.00) HD-100K----100 times the resolution of HD (Japanese medical microscope) Additions and/or changes welcome. JJK Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wangdang Posted July 13, 2005 Share Posted July 13, 2005 ---------------- On 7/13/2005 10:01:25 AM damonrpayne wrote: Wangdang: there are 2 seperate settings on my motorola box. The one you are talking about is "480i override", which I have set to 480p. "DVI HD Output" is set to 1080i. Whoever said 1080i is not HD is a little off I think. I would think 720p looks better than 1080i to a lot of people so I agree with Anything over 576 lines. There are so very few things that can do 1080p right now, a couple Qualia products come to mind and that's it. When the PS3/Blu-ray comes out I may have to look into a 1080p TV. ---------------- I've got those same options on my motorola box -- one is set to 480I, so i can scale it with my TV; the other to 720p, which is the preferred HD setting for the Sharp LCD. Hope you watch some good HD shows and can let the joy of watching and listening to a wonderful a/v system help you forget those maroon installer guys! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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