Do Detailed HDTV Listings Exist? 31
nick_davison asks: "Having finally made the move to HDTV, I've been getting up to speed on the usual debates about HDTV (is 720 rows/frame better than 1080 served every other frame, 540 at a time? Is 1080i meaningless if all your signals are 720, and thus 1080 is just having to resample your image? Is 1080i and 720p meaningless if the digital signals bitrate is so low it's garbage anyway? etc). Trying to form my own opinions, I went looking for TV listings that would at least show the resolution of the signal (1080i or 720p) and, ideally, though I guess less likely, the bit rate. What I ended up with was, if I was lucky, TV listings that differentiated HD and non HD shows on HD channels but nothing more. Do such listings exist? Is this something the TV companies deliberately hide? Is there any way to even piece together this information?"
Per Network (Score:1)
http://alvyray.com/DigitalTV/Naming_Proposal.htm [alvyray.com]
Here in Austin... (Score:3, Interesting)
Finally, to add some fuel to the 720p vs 1080i debate - IMHO: it's all about your output device. If your output device is any type of projection (including rear projection TVs) then p is always better than i simply because that's how your device draws the screen anyway. I could be wrong, but at least it seems that way to me.
Re:Here in Austin... (Score:2)
You're right that resolutions are fixed by channel. (E.g., see here [alvyray.com]). The networks all either chose 720p or 1080i. However, in most areas of the country. ABC is 720p through most of the country, except some areas of Texas. See here [go.com]
Re:Here in Austin... (Score:2)
Yes, and 1080i is 1920 pixels per line, whereas 720p is 1280.
They're saving bandwidth.
Sorry, but WHAT?!!?!?! ?!?!
This is a broadcast or cable delivery, not an internet feed. The bandwidth is fixed, whether they use it or not.
Re:Here in Austin... (Score:2)
1080i is great for slow moving high res stuff, like landscapes and stuff on PBS.
720p is great for sports.
I personally want a 1080p native system before I move to HDTV. , or else I will feel that I am being down-sampled when I want 1080i. I feel much better about upsampling from 720p to 1080p.
Just read there are nice 1080p systems out there if you look. A couple of huge 46" flat screens are out for about $6000. The 1080p projectors are still about $20,000.
Re:Here in Austin... (Score:2)
Re:Here in Austin... (Score:2)
Depends on the broadcaster (Score:2)
Constant on a per-channel basis (Score:2)
Fox does everything in 720p. If it's not HD content, they upsample it to 720p (e.g., The Simpsons, advertising, etc.). CBS does 1080i. I'm not sure what PBS uses.
Personally, I wish they would use whatever is as close as possible to the original format. If it's a movie, then do 24 frames per second without interlacing, one frame per ori
Re:Constant on a per-channel basis (Score:3, Informative)
Not sure what their reason is, but the reason I would *hate* this if they did it is resolution switching. My projector takes a few seconds to change resolutions (think of a CRT monitor flickering when you change screen resolution). As it is when I change channels I have this effect, if it happened when going into / out of commercial, et cetera, it would be very irritating.
Re:Constant on a per-channel basis (Score:2)
For me, the solution was to pass it over to the cable box to handle. I can tell the cable box what inputs my TV accepts (480i, 480p, 720p, 1080i) and then it will only send in combinations of those modes. Accordingly, if I switch off everything but 1080i, everything gets upsampled (or, technically, kind of downsampled if a single frame of 720p vs. the 540 of 1080i) in the cable box without the flicker. The TV then never switches modes - it always gets a 1080i feed - and so no
Re:Constant on a per-channel basis (Score:2)
I know exactly what you mean. When I switch from DVD to DirecTV, it rescans the devices to find where the new input is coming from, even though the new input is exactly where the old input was. I have two signal cable run from my equipment over to my projector, but one is only for legacy equipment (PS2), and the SVideo (to the PS2) rarely used. It does the same thing on resolution changes, thinking the old device was detached.
Tuner Card if nothing else (Score:3, Informative)
Early Adopter Blues (Score:1, Insightful)
TitanTV (Score:5, Informative)
Examples in L.A. area:
Alias
The Horizon (New) 12/14/2005 10:00 PM, 1 hr
Syd is reunited with Vaughn after being kidnapped and hypnotized by a familiar face, who has a vested interest in her future---and in her unborn child.
Cast & Credits: Jennifer Garner, Ron Rifkin, Victor Garber, Michael Vartan, Carl Lumbly
Drama/Action
TV14, English, 2005
HDTV - presented in 720p (Dolby Digital)
--
The Late Show with David Letterman
(New) 12/14/2005 11:35 PM, 1 hr
Stephen Colbert; a holiday toy demonstration.
Talk/Other
TVPG, English, 2005
HDTV - presented in 1080i
Re:Beware of upscaling (Score:2)
I was talking to a friend, who now works for a major cable company. He said they dropped several of their HD channels, because the demand wasn't there. I was surprised, I thought they'd be turning more of them up, not bringing them down.
I get more HD channels with DirecTV than his company supplies on cable. I'm not in his market (wrong side of the country), so his company's decisions don't matter much to me.
Re:Beware of upscaling (Score:2)
a decent digital SD format would be a much better investment, rather than one channel running at 1080i or 720p we could have 2
Re:Beware of upscaling (Score:2)
I agree totally. DirecTV added more channels, so they could have the duplicate of regular resolution and HD. It's kind of cool for me, since I do have HD, but a couple months ago, before I got the HD receiver, it was completely worthless to me.
I have a big front projection screen, so having things in HD is actually very nice. Until I moved, I had my screen set for roughly 10 feet wide, and yes, I saw things that you weren't suppose to see. Reruns of sliders became even more
My take (Score:1)
Bitrates? (Score:4, Interesting)
For example, NBC29 (WVIR in Charlottesville, VA) dedicates the entire 19.393 MBPS to their NBC-1080i broadcast, while my local NBC station (WSLS in Roanoke, VA) reserves a small amount for a radar feed and serves the rest (in the neighborhood of 16.5 MBPS) to HDTV.
Further, some stations that broadcast more than one stream do what's called stat-muxing, short for Statistical Multiplexing. This means that when the HDTV feed needs the bandwidth, it is given to it and the other streams are cut down, then when it's not needed anymore, it is given to the subchannel, so there is NO set bitrate. This is done dynamically as it is transmitted, so in a high-motion scene it may draw 18 MBPS, but then change to a scene of someone sitting in a chair talking and drop to 12 or 13 MBPS.
Re:Bitrates? (Score:2)
Also I heard that DirectTV, at least in some markets, has dropped some of its 1080i signals from 1920x1080i to 1280x1080i with the excuse that most HDTVs only natively support 720p (downscaling 1080i as needed) and thus 1280 horizontal is sufficient and lets them compress further, fitting more channels on to a single transponder which, from what I have read, costs satelite
Re:Bitrates? (Score:3, Interesting)
1080i:
Everyone except ABC and Fox stations and other properties, such as ESPN.
720p:
ABC, Fox, ESPN. Dunno for sure about DirecTV, but it would make sense as they're owned by Fox.
Now there are exceptions, such as WVEC-13 (ABC) in Norfolk and WFAA-8 (ABC) in Dallas doing 1080i instead of 720p. All Belo stations are doing 1080i, even if they're ABC (they're upconverting it).
On the other hand, WHRO-15 (PBS) in Norfolk and WCBI-4 (CBS) in Tupelo, MS doing 720p instead of 1080i.
Mo
Re:Bitrates? (Score:2)
There is the trick, what most people don't realize is that 1080i is actually only able to capture motion at 15 fps. because at 30 fps, 15 are the a frames, and 15 are the b frames. The reason Motion pictures worked so well with 24fps is because movies have alwys used a 'progressive' display technology.
There is also a 1080p format, but unless you pay as much on a tv set as a car, you won't be getting one of those (unless it's a PC monitor) anytime soon. Sinc
HD Sports Guide (Score:3, Interesting)
HDTV Galaxy (Score:2, Informative)
Re: (Score:1)
Per Network In Australia (Score:1)