Widescreen TVs in the US? 270
Steeldrivin asks: "What's up with widescreen TV, in the US? If you go to the widescreen TV website for Philips, you'll see that they have a bunch of cool widescreen TVs...but only in Europe. The US catalog is devoid of widescreen products unless you want to spend $10,000 for a flat-screen plasma model. The catalog for Great Britain, on the other hand, has CRT-based 28" and 32" models, that are probably much more affordable.
As far as other manufacturers are concerned, the only widescreen models seem to be the more expensive plasma units, or huge projection TVs. What's up with this? When will the US get affordable widescreen TVs?" Philips' US catalog can be found here.
HDTV in the USofA (Score:2)
The current plan is for NTSC broadcasts to end in 2006, and for HDTV to completely replace it. Consumer electronics companies like this because then everyone will have to buy new TVs, VCRs (or better yet, DVDs - read only as a plus) etc.
However, HDTV only really seems to be working when broadcast from towers. Not over cable, and not over satellites. Broadcast ground transmissions frequently get messed up, and in the digital world, if it's not a 1, it's a 0; You either get a perfect picture or you don't get the time of day.
Additionally, a large investment will have to be made to install the HDTV transmitting equipment, and more power is required for the signal.
So far it sounds like it would all work out cool in the end if only the cable and sat companies would get on with transmitting HDTV.
Bzzt, wrong. The current scheme allows broadcasters to send either a really ultra-high quality channel or several low quality channels. Now given that ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC (and even UPN and WB) have been bought by big conglomerates who have additional channels providing a not-inconsiderable revenue stream, who really thinks that we can expect to see a single good channel instead of loads of crap.
So the outlook for HDTV is pretty dismal, and it's really a necessity for getting those widescreen sets out into the market, cheaply. (heck, it even requires people to get new TABLES! the electronics companies must love this)
Personally, I'm waiting for HDVT, so I can buy a 160 character wide vterm, with ultra-high-resolution characters in a single technicolor
Re:Losts of channels = no good channels (Score:1)
Re:I don't see the reason to switch... (Score:1)
Re:Third World (Score:1)
No, in the US we have this cool rating system so tweaked that frequently we can't show uncut american made films in america, though you *can* show the uncut american films in europe.
Re:Third World (Score:1)
Seriously though, does anyone have a pointer to some of this stuff?
Re:wrong wrong wrong (Score:1)
Re:At last, our chance to shine for a day (Score:1)
a top-loader. Shoot me.
I've also got 1.5/0.128 Mbps in/out w/unlimited flat-rate access for the price of a second phone line. Drool, goddamnit, drool. Just cause we suck at lots of things doesn't mean you don't.
We all suck! (and I prefer ding-dongs to twinkies, thank you)
Next time I want to live in a 300 year old building, however, I know right where to go. Thanks!
-kabloie
Re:Pal Plus (Score:1)
PAL is a technically superior standard (to NTSC
But now, the worm is turning. In Australia at least, most A/V hardware is NTSC capable. Seems that the consumer hardware companies have worked out that making hardware work everywhere is cheaper for them than producing localised hardware. I was out shopping for a new VCR a few days ago, and saw one advertised as "Hyperband Cable ready!". Something which I've *never* heard of. Even the salesman at the store had no idea what it was
I can't wait for DTV. Hopefully countries will agree on a *standard* this time.
Yeah, right
Re:Natural Aspect ratios (Score:1)
//rdj
You can see them in commercials (Score:1)
I want widescreen TV to view movies in their original widescreen glory, but I'll have to wait until the standards are established.
Re:Moron (Score:2)
Re:Are the broadcasters supporting widescreen? (Score:1)
...and since the programmes are made within a safe 14:9 frame people with 4:3 sets don't lose anything essential.
The trouble with digital TV is that we now get programmes on analogue in anamorphic occasionally when the autoswitching mechanisms break. Also, the ratio switches that occur after advert breaks and before programmes start don't look pretty either
Re:4:3 Has A Larger Surface Area... (Score:1)
Couldn't have said it better myself. Theaters widened it yet again during the "cinerama" period of the '60s, which turned out to be a flop... then finally settled on a standard.
In the end, theaters found that competing with TV meant constantly upgrading their technology to surpass that of the average home viewer. That's still the case today. Screen size ended up having very little to do with anything except for the three main points in my original post.
Re:Multi-format TVs (Score:1)
it will happen (Score:1)
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Are the broadcasters supporting widescreen? (Score:2)
That and the fact we have digital TV available, are driving the sales of widescreen TV sets, I'd imagine.
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Re:What is exactly PAL Plus? (Score:1)
At http://iiit.swan.ac.uk/~iisteve/palplu s.html [swan.ac.uk] is a very good technical primer on Pal Plus...it's old (1995), but I suspect the technology hasn't changed much since then.
To quote part of it:
There are other features as well (such as different Film and Video modes and ghost cancelation)...
Strangely, even though it took Europe quite a long time to move to color television (granted the war had something to do with this), it has been far more willing to add features to it's systems than the US has been. While we in the US have only added teletext and analogue stereo+sap, europeans have digital stereo, more teletext channels, data services, and of course Pal Plus. And of course PAL, with it's chroma phase alternation has far better color than NTSC.
I suspect much of this can be traced to the FCC's original decision to require that the US color system be compatable with the old US B&W system. Europe didn't have much legacy hardware to support.
Re:Losts of channels = no good channels (Score:1)
Sadly, the day when we could feel unified by our experiences as a culture (say, by all watching the Beatles on Ed Sullivan) are over. Not that diversity in propaganda isn't a positive result (harder to brainwash us all the same if there isn't a five channel monoculture to force us to watch), but there's something to be said for a unified experience, nonetheless.
Thought for the day... (Score:1)
The Dirty Big Secret: 8VSB doesn't work! (Long) (Score:2)
The only way to watch a movie (Score:1)
Re:Multi-format TVs (Score:1)
NTSC=Never The Same Color
This is because the color component of NTSC (and PAL) is transmitted as phase changes to the chroma subcarrier... Unfortunately multipath and other annoyances to the signal can shift the phase of the overall signal so the color gets all screwed up. This is why NTSC sets have a Tint control.
PAL=Pay for Added Luxury
PAL actually stands for something in German...but it translates as "Phase Alternate Line". This is the same as the NTSC system except the phase of two adjacent scan lines are inverted to one another. So any overall phase shifts will be canceled out in the end. PAL sets have no Tint control.
Unfortunately decoding PAL requires the use of a one-frame acoustical delay line (a kind of analoge memory device), and at one time these were quite expensive, so PAL sets were more spendy than similar NTSC sets.
SECAM=System Essentially Contrary to American Method
SECAM is the French system. It's weird. It transmits the video information on an FM carrier (PAL and NTSC use AM)... It's generally assumed that the French did this for no other reason that to be different from everyone else. The Soviets chose the SECAM system so that their citizens couldn't watch non-Soviet transmissions.
France also at one point had an 800 line analog television system (B&W I think)... It used 21 MHz per channel...(NTSC uses 6 MHz, PAL 6 or 7)...
Re:HDTV broadcasts in Spokane, WA (Score:1)
UK Widescreen (Score:2)
I must admit to being surprised that the US is lagging behind - at least we've beaten you guys to something!
Pal Plus (Score:1)
Re:What is exactly PAL Plus? (Score:2)
PAL Plus is compatible with PAL. That means you can watch PAL Plus programs on a standard TV (of course, you'll see the black bars). What PAL Plus does is to send encoded information hidden in the lines that are carrying the black bars. This encoded information is only readable by PAL Plus TV sets. Regular PAL TV sets will discard it and only show those 2 black bars.
These encoded lines contain video signal destined to improve/enhance the quality of the image. For example:
If 30% of the video carrier is encoded info for the PAL Plus video signal, what you get is the remaining 70% improved by 30%. Therefore: you get full quality picture on a wide screen TV set.
If, OTOH, you have a PAL (without the Plus) wide screen TV set, you are not decoding that info. That means you are ONLY zooming the image to make it fit your screen. I wouldn't recommend that. Yes, you watch the programs in wide screen, but you're losing image resolution!
Buying a PAL (without the Plus) widescreen TV, or broadcasting in the same manner, is just plain stupid when PAL Plus gives better image quality to widescreen TV owners and remians 100% compatible with regular PAL.
Re:Pal Plus (Score:1)
Get a digital box, you know you want to.
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Froggie, who loves his widescreen telly.
Re:Losts of channels = no good channels (Score:1)
Shows a pretty depressing worldview, methinks.
*shrug*
I don't see the reason to switch... (Score:2)
Speaking from personal experience...I'd much rather view something on a 4:3 device than on a 16:9 device. You can digest the information much faster when it is contained inside a square area. You don't have to scroll your eyes (or worse, your head) back and forth as much.
Besides, anyone who make a movies these days are thinking ahead to video and TV playback. They make sure they can fit what's important in a 4:3 area, while the rest of the scene is useless fluff or scenery. If they can't fit it all in, they play that clever trick where they squash the scene to make more of it fit in the same horizontal space.
The only movies that truely look wrong on 4:3 are the really, really old ones that weren't planning on the television format. As a result, part of the key action is cut off or they have to digitally zoom the image and pan around.
Any movie made from 1980 onward is going to look fine on a 4:3 device. I don't see that this is likely to change considering the length of time it would take for 16:9 to trickle down. During this period, people with 16:9 devices will have to play 4:3 content with black bars on either side or chop the top and bottom off of the 4:3 image. This is exactly why people argue you should by 16:9 in the first place...so you don't have to see black bars or cut off part of the scene.
Clearly, it's a no-win situation...I say follow the standards that computers use. We still don't have a TV that can match the clarity of a plain old 640 x 480 VGA monitor. If the TV industry wanted to truly impress the viewing public, they would quit the @#%@#% interlacing and just display a static image (thankfully, there's at least one most of HDTV that uses a non-interlaced display mode).
Just my thoughts...
- JoeShmoe
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UK "TV Tax" helps market leading... (Score:5)
[Actually, I'm sillywiz@excession.demon.co.uk, but everytime I've ever tried to create an account it's failed...]
The licence fee that most Americans seem to regard as something archaic is partly what drives this stuff. The BBC for example just started doing both widescreen and digital broadcasts. Few people could receive them, but because they're not a commercial organisation they don't have to justify things the same way. Having the broadcasts means that the TV sets will sell and the tech gets bootstrapped that way. The US is more hamdstrung because no-one's going to start broadcasting until there are sets to watch it on and no one's going to buy a set without broadcasts. Unless they're rich, in which case they'll buy a TV for what most people spend on a car.
The BBC is a relatively massive organisation, it has large budgets, a worldwide audience and a remit to make the best television it can. It can afford to bear the "losses" of being a field leader, where commerical television simply couldn't.
Actually the decent widescreen TVs still aren't *THAT* cheap in the UK. The cheapest ones are maybe 4x the cost of similar spec normal TV, but the prices are dropping astonishingly fast - especially as digital takeup is picking up. I think I'm almost the last of my circle of friends to get digital... (I'm trying to watch less TV. I can't help but think that suddenly having 30 channels instead of 5 won't help.)
Britain also has the advantage of being smaller: there are less transmitters and equipment needed, we can be covered by one satalite's footprint. This just helps our TV market be more nimble.
Re:You actually WATCH TV?? (Score:2)
Just something I "observered" about your post.
[mutter] Flamebait [/mutter]
- JoeShmoe
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Re:only 17% ?? (Score:1)
And it's not that we don't have wide screens, if we wanted to pay an average £750 ($1200) for a TV everyone would buy one.
Not to mention the fact that the average American household owns multiple TVs...
Right now, your average 32" 4:3 costs $600.
And a lot cheaper if go for a little smaller TV...
Re:Third World (Score:1)
And what can I say about those stoves? It makes so much more sense to split that big thing up in to a small top oven, and larger main oven, and move grill (broiler) out of the main oven. Duh! Get with it. Monolithic systems aren't just bad in computer circles
Big price drop in LCD projection TV (Score:1)
Not completely true (Score:1)
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Re:Multi-format TVs (Score:1)
Re:I miss something. You've a lot more DVDs, then. (Score:1)
Re:Free market benefits the producer not the consu (Score:1)
Point taken, but under a completely free market, crap does sometimes drive out or marginalise good stuff, simply because it appears cheaper. Which is why there are regulations & laws about truth in advertising, pollution during manufacturing, minimum standards of durabilty, minimum wages, etc.
Check out the interview with Bruce Sterling at http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=99/10/08/11472
For an example of how to do it right (someone please correct me if this is an urban legend!), there is a law in Germany that any packaging that a company ships, they must be prepared to accept back and recycle. Beautifully elegant, no?
> A free market may suck, but the alternatives are much worse
I won't disagree. As someone else observed, the democratic system is the worst system ever. Except for all the others.
Re:NTSC vs. PAL/SECAM... Fight!! (Score:2)
"Checksum"? Isn't that the sort of thing those guys with those big room-sized Automatic Data Processing Machines would use? :-)
According to this TV Systems: A Comparison [surrey.ac.uk] page, one PAL advantage is:
That stuff was done before anything we'd think of as a "checksum" in the digital sense would fit inside a TV, as far as I know - it's all analog....
Here's the WorldWide TV Standards - A Web Guide [surrey.ac.uk] main page, with information on TV broadcast standards; unfortunately, I didn't see anything there that said what the memoire is avec which the French SECAM system comes; how exactly does it differ from PAL?
Re:Third World (Score:1)
Everyone else is watching those "athletes" that need helmets, pads, and rests every 10 seconds... go figure.
Your best option: check out the Sony KL-W series (Score:1)
Re:Digital format still up in the air in the State (Score:1)
These "$3000+" plus sets are all well over the 35" mark. That's a big freeking tube tv.
There is no point in making a HDTV set that's only 20" big -- the only people interested in getting them right now are filthy rich are need to be on the bleeding edge of A/V hardware (usually both
Re:What about wide monitors? (Score:2)
You can get wide-format monitors with the SGI name on them from a variety of places; Number Nine [nine.com] sells (at least in the US; their online store only sells in the US) the Digital Flat Panel Solution Pack for PC's (and I think they had a package for Macs as well), which includes a Revolution IV-FP video card and the SGI monitor. It's probably available from various distributors as well. It comes with drivers for operating systems from Redmond; Accelerated-X also includes drivers, as does, I think, the latest XFree86. (I see nothing in the graphics card section of the BeOS Ready List for Intel [be.com] about it, and I wouldn't be surprised to hear that there's no OS/2 drivers for it, either, alas, as, when I get a second disk for my home machine, I'd be tempted to install those on it as well, just to see what they're like....)
The ones you installed are presumably CRTs; this one is an LCD, and thus presumably not so heavy (or bulky)...
...and give you 1600x1024 as well.
The price on Number Nine's online store is about USD 2800, but I got mine for about USD 2200, at least several months ago - I seem to remember the list price being less than USD 2800 when I bought it, so maybe it's gone up; I don't know what the price would be outside the US.
Re:Why HDTV is really a waste of money. (Score:1)
I can live without the high definition part of HDTV. What I really want is digital TV. My over-the-air reception is hopeless and the local cable system delivers a mediocre signal. I've been inside a TV station and seen how nice the signal looks before it gets mangled.
Not for auto industry (Score:1)
My car just hit 85k miles (~135k km). If I was still in the closed auto industry of the 60s and 70s, I would be buying a new one. Instead, thanks to foreign competition, my car is just getting warmed up. (Yes, its even an American car.)
The point is, until the auto industry in the US became a truly free and open market, they produced junk, on purpuse some would say.
The problem with the TV industry (at least in the US) is that it isn't free and open. Its not free because the FCC is regulating the broadcast formats, etc. And its not open: I get one foreign channel (even on my dish), BBC-America, and I think it is a stretch calling that foreign.
As for Microsoft, while they may dominate in Windows land, they are by no means in control of the software industry. They couldn't stop the Internet, although they tried. They haven't been able to stop Java. The move to thinner and thinner PCs is still progressing, despite Microsoft's tugging otherwise. None of this had a damned bit to do with government regulation or inquiry.
I can go on forever! Bottom line, the times the consumer has gotten the shaft is when the producer's market has been protected by the government, either by isolationism or by regulation.
Is that possible? (Score:1)
Sounds like FUD to me to say that the area of a 30" diagonal 3:4 TV is bigger than a 30" diagonal 16:9 TV.
And while I'm at it, talking about your television in terms of "screen real estate" is petty and worthless. A TV is only worth what you display on it. My 19" TV that I use to show 16:9 anamorphic DVDs (with the vertical scan compressed) is more valuable to me than a 35" 3:4-restricted TV that I might use to watch ghosty OTA "must-see TV."
Re:I don't see the reason to switch... (Score:1)
U.S. is getting there (Score:1)
I live in Dallas, TX area, which is one of the top 10 television markets in the country, and local TV stations have been broadcasting HDTV signals for a year now. The television sets are still very expensive, however the prices are rapidly falling. I saw a nice Sony 16:9 HDTV set for $6,000. That's still a lot of money, however considering that six months ago the same unit was $8,000, the price drop indicates to me that within a relatively short amount of time, we'll see these things at a price point where ordinary consumers shopping for a new TV set will opt for the newer 16:9 digital televisions, simply because it's clearly the future. I know that personally I'm holding out on buying a new TV, simply because I'm waiting for the price of 16:9 sets to drop to more reasonable levels. I have already upgraded the rest of my home entertainment equipment to Dolby Digital/DTS audio equipment and DVD (which supports 16:9 aspect ratio), so the wide screen TV is the only missing element. Once the prices drop, it will be my next purchase.
The biggest problem here in the U.S. is simply consumer ignorance. Most people don't realize how much motion picture content they are missing when watching movies on their 4:3 televisions, unless the movie is presented in letterbox. Of course, this format has quite a few enemies as well, because they just don't understand the simple fact that the black bars at the top and the bottom of the screen are NOT blocking any part of the picture, usually. I say usually, because it is true that some films are shot using the 'super 35' process which is in fact 4:3, however during theatrical presentation is 'soft matted' to a 1.85:1 aspect ratio. It is then possible to actually present more visual information on a 4:3 television set, than what was actually seen in the movie theaters. However, even in this particular scenario, I usually prefer the matted 1.85:1 presentation, simply because the film still 'looks' better. It has more to do with the art of cinematography, than with the technical aspects of the presentation medium. As someone here stated earlier, movie directors generally want their films to look the best in the theaters. This is simply because the theater is where most of the initial costs of making the film are recovered. Unfortunately, until the day comes when 16:9 fully replaces 4:3 format in the U.S., the aspect ratio wars will rage on. To see what I'm talking about, simply look into any DVD news group.
Re:NTSC (Score:1)
Re:Big price drop in LCD projection TV (Score:1)
A couple of years ago.
Currently this technology is used for business PC projectors which has fallen from $15,000 to $4,000 the past two years.
Like any new technology, the initial products are very expensive. Don't expect prices to fall any faster on these than they will on LCD projectors.
Biggest problem I have at the moment with DLP is the relatively short life of the DLP chip. LCD still lasts much longer. And the rest of the projector is essentially the same for both technologies. The arc lamp/ballast/cooling systems will be the same, and so will the lenses. And both of these subsystems are very expensive.
(I sell and rent audio/visual equipment, including LCD projectors. When I'm not wasting time reading /.)
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Re:I don't see the reason to switch... (Score:1)
However, the trends are definitely in favor of widescreen images. DVD's explosion of popularity has really put widescreen movies in the home. With HDTV offering 16:9 aspect ratios and now widescreen TVs for more middle-of-the-road consumers, it's apparent that 4:3 is on the way out, not in. Even assuming that directors make films for the home video market first and foremost (an uncharitable assumption at best) they would still be designing for at least 16:9 at this point.
At any rate, since I enjoy watching "really, really old" movies (i.e. those made before 1980) I am very grateful for the recent trend towards higher fidelity in the home theater market.
Re:Third World (Score:2)
And don't even get me started with those top loading washers. I had one of those ruin a perfectly fine t-shirt because i didn't turn it inside out and the pole(more of a screw) that sticks out in the middle of the washer basically ripped the not-so-well attached picture of the front of the t-shirt. I'm scared(living now in US) to put stuff in those archaic remainders that are supposed to wash clothes(without destroing them). How about a nice steel drum with now poles loadable from the side thank you..
And the toilets.. do you really need to put a gallon of water just sitting in the bowl? How about making the bowl look less like a wide cup and more like a shallow glass. That thing just wastes water so enormously.
Showers.. uhh.. never seen a decent way to control the water in showers in US. Sometimes there is one turn-knob that controls both the temperature and the pressure of the water. You pull the thing out(basically on and off only) or, worse, have to turn it to make the water flow. How about separating the temperature controller(totally) from the pressure control. Wouldn't necessarily have to use full pressure to take a shower but rather something milder AND still be able to control the temperature well.
And the 110v electricity. With all the plugs POLARISED. Yes.. they are specifically marked for for the hot and cold wires thus letting the people designing the stuff that is connected to them take advantage of this(a BIG no-no when designing anything connected to the power grid). And then people travel to europe and use a plug-converter (maybe with a transformer if they're smart) and get electricuted because of the bad design. All of the stuff that i have in my apartment right now only plugs in to the outlet ONE way. And what about the power losses with residential power transfer.. P=I^2*R && P=UI.. Thus to deliver the same amount of power to the appliances one has to double the current which means quadrupleing the power loss of transfering the electricity.
You could probably be saving much more than 25l waters weekly by just having a decent washer, shower and a toilet. Americans are less than 4% of the worlds population but yet they consume over 30% of its resources. I wonder if it could be the lavish way of life and the archaich designs that waste some much resources that cause this?
Regardles of the previous things I kind of like it in US. Everything is cheaper, not necessarily of terribly high quality(unless it's imported) but still okay. It costs less to buy a big mac meal than it costs to buy just the burger in most european countries. Computers are cheaper(about the only technological thing in which US. really is the leader in the world) internet is fairly cheap and widely in use. If only they'd stop being so naive about the rest of the world and open their eyes for all the improvements they could get from us. And stop talking about money all the time..
Re:"Fuel-efficient" doesn't sell in the States (Score:1)
Depends on what you mean by fuel efficient and what you think your going to need going cross country.
Where I live in California there are only two directions you can go without crossing a desert and a couple of mountain ranges. Running A/C at 80 mph at 6000 feet with 100F outside temp and you may burn up some fuel. However, my Uncle in Belgium keeps driving Volvos that seem to burn way more fuel (not running A/C and BE is real flat) than any caddie I've zipped to Las Vegas or Mammoth in does (normally 25 to 30 mpg for the cads). Also, we don't have the option of taking comfy trains when we go intercity. I wish we did but that is not where the money has gone so far. Actually, the last few times I've been to the continent I've been noticing the locals are driving more and using the trains and bikes a lot less. Better whatch out or you'll all be driving Fords next.
Re:The only way to watch a movie (Score:1)
I was actually quite amazed to read that widescreen is not widely available. Popularity of DVD came a lot earlier in the US. And I have yet to see a widescreen TV that does not support NTSC, so the technology is there.
NTSC is great for europe too, because this enables us to order DVD's in the US at much lower prices. (although I personally use PAL60 to play NTSC discs. PAL60 has about the same framerate and resolution as NTSC, but with the superior PAL color signal).
>
Well, with most DVD's begin 2.35:1, you'll have black bars anyway.
I can't wait for a real world standard for HDTV (if it can ever be agreed upon)
Re:Third World (Score:1)
Ahem... To my knowledge, foreign movies aren't much shown in the USA... Because most theaters are tied by their *big* parent companies not to show anything that's not from the *big* production companies, as well as anything that's NG17. The movie market there is completely dumbed down as to promote quantity instead of qualities.
Foreign movies are considered a "niche" market, and are only shown in independent theaters, mostly in cities like NY or San Francisco, where people are educated enough to understand a movie that's got a deeper meaning than all the "entertainment" crap.
In Europe, there are *some* regulations in *some* countries, most of them being there as to protect the European film industry from the big american studios and their monopolistic policy. Without *our* regulations, European movies would barely make it to the screens, since american companies would simply push the distribution channels to be american-exclusive.
And European movies don't suck. Many of them gather millions of people, and many of them are later bought by american companies as to make "remakes", following american (dumb) standards.
Re:100 Hz (Score:1)
I can too, but with TVs the picture is blury and always moving, so you don't get to notice the flicker that much.
It depends what you are looking for. The resolution is the same, there is just a lot less flicker!!
Problem is, I don't see much flicker in regular 50Hz TVs, so I'm not sure it is worth paying +60% for a 100 Hz TV that seems almost the same to me. Or maybe it is the showroom lighting that hides the flicker differences.
Re:"Fuel-efficient" doesn't sell in the States (Score:1)
The only extra you'll get from the 3.0 litre car is more torque at lower revs. Unless you're planning on towing a house behind you, that doesn't often matter that much.
I'll agree with you on the comfort level of 'compact' cars though. I quite often drive trips of well over 800 straight miles in the U.S. (try doing THAT in the U.K. withought falling into an ocean!) and there's NO way that I could those journeys in your typical compact car. Give me big comfy seats and air-con any day
Looks like that "rude French" stereotype holds up! (Score:1)
More digital channels = less picture quality (Score:1)
Unlike than analog TV stations on cable, which all get the same bandwidth chunk, digital sat broadcasts have one enoumous bandwidth that can be split into a number of differnet feeds. As you ramp up the number of feeds, the quality for each feed drops. This can be done inequally, so that movies have bigger chunk for a better picture, while channels 'requiring' less picture quality--especially sports broadcasts--can be squeezed on. This trades off picture quality for variety.
Re:100 Hz (Score:1)
When you watch TV, the refresh rate isn't as obvious because of the low resolution, interlacing and changing picture.
On a PC monitor, you don't have interlacing, the picture is typically static, and the screen is often predominantly the same color, often white or light. This makes the refresh rate much more obvious. Set your Mac to 75 MHz and see if you can tell a differnce between watching full motion video and staring at a blank white window. (If you don't have a Mac, you probably don't care how the screen looks.)
Then again, some people just don't see the difference, or it doesn't annoy them as much. I can't hardly stand anything less than 85 MHz--it gives me headaches.
Re:UK "TV Tax" helps market leading... (Score:1)
Yes, widescreen is nice, but it's hardly essential. And I can live with "letterboxing" even on a plain old TV (which looks really good with a digital source and something to filter out the Macrovision crap). I suspect if the "HDTV adaptors" are as good as they can be, few people will upgrade to widescreen.
(Hell, I'd have to buy new furniture just to fit a widescreen in my den! And most everyone else in the U.S. is in a similar boat, unless they want a smaller screen surface area...)
Re:"Fuel-efficient" doesn't sell in the States (Score:1)
fps vs. Hz (Score:1)
Imagine trying to play Unreal if your computer monitor refresh was sync'ed up to the frame rate. Yuck!
Re:"Fuel-efficient" doesn't sell in the States (Score:1)
Isn't that the strongest reason ever to have a fuel-efficient car?
Check out the Sony KL9000 and W400Q (Score:1)
The W400Q is a DTV-ready projector that streets about $3600 new, and can display up to 300" in 16x9 mode (that's like 20' wide by 1' high or something), though it probably maxes out in quality terms at a mere 130-140" or so. It has an internal scan doubler to display 480p (that's 480 non-interlaced, or progressive) scan and has native 16x9 LCDs. It'll accept a DTV converter that uses Y-Pr-Pb (or is it Cr-Cb? I always confuse them) analog signals though it downconverts to 480p. It's probably the best budget home-theatre projector you can get, and it's the one that'll be driving my home theatre (with actual movie screen and seats scavenged from a closed old theatre) sometime in mid-November..
You _can_ get 'affordable' 16x9 sets in the US, if you're scavengy enough.. Though after visiting Amsterdam I only really saw maybe 2-3 channels actually broadcasting 16x9 PAL and I had cable!
Links:
W400q unofficial FAQ [thebigpicturedvd.com]
KLW9000 unofficial FAQ [thebigpicturedvd.com]
Now, all I need is BBC teletext..
HDTV broadcasts in Spokane, WA (Score:1)
Surely if it's being done in Spokane, it's being done elsewhere, no?
Geoff
widescreen IS here... and cheaper than you think (Score:1)
Due to the (eventual) digital nature of the broadcast medium, more information will be crammed within the space alloted for each broadcast, therefore allowing high definition widesreen broadcasts to occur. This unit is NOT ready to receive such broadcasts, and will require a set-top box to be purchased (estimated at around $500) when the time comes.
A friend of mine purchased this same unit last weekend. It weighs in at a hefty 150lbs. The picture is incredible, color reproduction almost perfect, and Toshiba's GUI is easy and fast.
Widescreen is here!!
Re:I miss something. You've a lot more DVDs, then. (Score:1)
Re:100 Hz (Score:1)
As for lack of widescreen TVs? I see lots of widescreen films around. Only problem is that in North America, everything tends to have a lot of competition, thus cheaper. However, since TV's and most other goods are shipped worldwide, it makes no sense to ship a more expensive set to a place where stuff is cheaper. I've seen it. Here, the "advanced" cell phones with their nifty web browsers and ultra small formfactor don't come out until 6+ months after they've been released elsewhere (which, coincedentaly, has higher phone rates...). Similarly, why sell widescreen TVs here? There's so little profit to be made it's hardly worth the effort (only those with home-theatre systems and cash to burn can *afford* them...).
Re:Pal Plus (Score:1)
What's that you say, doesn't RCA stand for "Radio Corporation of America"? Yes, it does. However, it's been the property of the Japanese Victor Corporation (JVC) for some decades.
None of the big-name TVs are American. Mitsubishi, Hitachi, Panasonic, Sharp; nothing you'll find at the local Wal-Mart or discount electronics whore. Nor are any of the possibly lesser-known TV manufacturers, such as Proton or Fisher or...
Now, none of this is to say that TVs aren't made here in the states - Philips has a nice little fab near here which cranks out CRTs 24/7.
But it leads me to ask, when someone mentions American companies in the context of TV and VCR manufacture, to whom they refer.
Re:only 17% ?? (Score:1)
Why HDTV is really a waste of money. (Score:1)
Normal Television is 60Hz interlaced. It's this interlacing that gives Television it's "flicker"...
Line Doubling uses special circuitry that examines each interlaced frame and compares it to the one before... good line doublers can tell the difference between stuff that was originally on film, and stuff that was originally on Video, then they reconstruct a 60Hz non-interlaced (or any refresh rate you want since this is all done digitally) progressive scan picture.
www.dvdo.com makes a $699 line doubler, plus they make the OEM chips that TV manufacturers
DVD and DSS are actually in reality, progressive scan devices, since they are digital. Most likely your DVD player or DSS has circuitry in it to convert this progressive scan picture into a crappy NTSC interlaced picture. By removing this step, we could hook DVD players or DSS units directly to monitors and television which support "RGB or component video". RGB is basically VGA, so you could use a nice 20" computer monitor as a very nice display.
Unfortunatlely, I don't know of a single DVD player or DSS unit that has progressive outputs.
The last thing is the move to "widescreen". 16x9 is the aspect ratio that has been adopted by HDTV. By "squeezing" a widescreen movie onto a 4:3 signal, and then "unsqueezing" it to 16:9 you get an excellent picture.
And movie studios continue to release DVD's without converting the movies to 16:9, instead "letterboxing" the picture onto a 4:3 frame.
I've seen the future... and HDTV is a small part of it. I have a buddy who has a Barco Data 1100 Projector, it's basically a huge projection computer monitor. It will do 1024x768 at 60Hz non-interlaced.
I took my PC with DVD-ROM drive over to his house and we hooked it up and soon had Windows (yuck I know but DVD isn't under LInux yet) at 1024x768x24bit on the screen...
I proceeded to put an anamorphic movie in and used a software DVD decoder program (WinDVD) to watch the movie. This was true progressive scan, being resampled up to 1024x768...
I kid you not, it looked like FILM. I have never seen anything like it. HDTV would have to be a major improvement over this, and frankly I can't imagine most people being able to tell the difference...
We don't need HDTV, we need better televisions.
Re:I don't see the reason to switch... (Score:1)
Of course, we don't necessarily want a TV with the clarity of a VGA monitor... the fuzziness hides the pixelisation, especially with those crappy low-bandwidth MPEG streams from digital terrestrial.
Re:Why HDTV is really a good idea (Score:1)
>I kid you not, it looked like FILM.
You don't go to a lot of movies in the theater, to you? The idea that by scaling the crappy NTSC signal up to 1024x768 could make it higher quality is utterly laughable.
All I can say is that if you think HDTV isn't worth it, you really don't understand the ideas of digital transmission and higher resolution.
Third World (Score:3)
What are you complaining about? (Score:1)
We better get it soon, i like it much better.
Re:Saw at Fry's (Score:1)
I miss something. You've a lot more DVDs, then... (Score:1)
I'm surprised to see that US people do not pay attention to widescreen, esp.ly considering that we still have a minimal catalogue of DVD titles in comparison with the US one.
Why buy sorround systems, etc... and not a widescreen TV?
Re:I miss something. You've a lot more DVDs, then. (Score:1)
Re:I don't see the reason to switch... (Score:1)
Well, if you sit less than 1 meter away from the screen, maybe.
But if you go into a cinema, you don't sit in the first row either, do you?
Re:I don't see the reason to switch... (Score:1)
What I will say is that you are off technically - a lot of DVD's are presented in an Anamorphic widescreen format that leaves only a small band of black at the top and bottom of a normal TV, but adds extra lines of resolution when watching on a 16:9 TV. Hopefully everyone would agree that more lines of resolution are better...
Would you REALLY rather watch The Matrix in 4:3?
TV in the UK (Score:1)
analogue UHF transmissions (4:3 aspect ratio)
to digital. We can get digital via satellite,
cable, or a new digital format on spare UHF
channels.
An increasing amount of new programmes are shot
in 16:9 widescreen (most top soaps etc) and the
digital deliveries serve this up. With the old
analogue system however, the aspect ratio is
fixed, and dropping the height of the picture
just wastes radio frequency bandwidth. As a
compromise, they use a half-way format of 14:9
with not-so-bad black bars at the top and bottom
of the picture.
It's pointless buying a widescreen set just for
"normal" TV as there is no more EXTRA picture
available on the analogue system. The 14:9
stuff properly shown on a wide set just results
in black bars down the SIDES of the picture!
You'd need to have a digital receiver of some
sort or a DVD player, etc. to make it worthwile.
It's not worth investing a lot of money in a new
set until EVERYTHING you watch is in the same
format. What MAY happen is that if you watch a
lot of programmes with black bars the main area
of the screen will wear at a different rate to
the unused areas, leading to annoying yellowed
stripes in the long term. Apparently us humans
don't notice a gradual change in the colour of
our TV sets over the years, but we are far more
sensitive to the RELATIVE differences on parts
of the same screen.
The analogue system is due to be shut down in
ten years (they hope) or however long it takes
for a certain percentage of us to have changed
to widescreen.
The average TV shop in this area has about two
thirds of the stock in widescreen format.
What also puts me off, is that to get the same
picture height as my current TV would require
the purchase of a relatively enormous screen,
at great expense. I don't personally like the
wide format! I'm convinced our field of view
is roughly the same in up/down AND left/right
dimensions, and anyway it looks stupid to have
a small news reporter on screen and acres of
scenery to each side of them.
Bah.
+AndyJ+
HDTV Interlacing (Score:1)
Not that anyone really cares...
In the USofA: The "official" term "HDTV" (High-Definition, as opposed to the more generic Digital TV) covers four cases:
Re:Third World (Score:2)
Re:NTSC (Score:2)
So it's swings & roundabouts, innit.
Hope HDTV gets here soon, and is cheap enough.
--
Re:Are the broadcasters supporting widescreen? (Score:2)
Not quite true. The digital versions of the BBC's channels (as available via satellite (Sky Digital) or through your TV aerial (onDigital)) are in full 16:9 widescreen. When the analogue BBC channels show a programme that was originally made in 16:9, they compromise and cut it down to 14:9, which cuts off some of the sides and gives you thin black bars.
Still waiting for digital cable TV, though...
What about wide monitors? (Score:2)
I heard talk about this a few years back, but have never seen anything like this since then except in a publishing house (on SGI I think). At the moment my only option to get documents up side by side is to run at eye crunching resolutions, or get a twin-head setup and buy a new desk.
Actually what I really want is a 180 degree wraparound high-res monitor, with me in a delux swivel chair in the middle. So I can play at being the badguy from a Bond movie, 'So Mr. Gates, you thought you could defeat me! MuHaHaHa..'
Re:UK "TV Tax" helps market leading... (Score:2)
Anyway, if the BBC can afford to bear the losses than why does it want 24 pounds a year extra from digital TV viewers for channels (showing mostly widescreen programmes) no one asked for and very few people seem to want.
The cheapest widescreen set I've seen was 299 (in Tescos of all places), and I think they're about 400 - 500 in Comet/Dixons etc. so they are not really that much more expensive than a normal TV.
Re:I don't see the reason to switch... (Score:2)
I think it's because...if the director has a 16:9 canvas, he or she is going to use the whole thing...and since our eyes are trained to focus on a single point, we subconciously move them around to follow what's going on.
I can't speak for everyone but...when Windows 98 came out, the first thing I did was throw in a second video card. I used this dual-monitor system for about two weeks. The new crick in my neck from moving my focus between monitors just wasn't worth the extra desktop space.
I'm more excited by advancements in head mounted display technology. With a nice set of glasses, I would could get the picture equivalent of a 30 foot screen, and have 3D capability to boot!
Yes, I know the idea of two people slipping on separate pairs of VR goggles isn't nearly as romantic as curling up in front of the television but...I really think this is where we are all headed...Like how most minivans have built in headphones jacks so parents and kids can listen to two different audio programs.
I think someday everyone will be carrying around a cheap video headset they can plug in at work, in public theaters, on planes, in cars, on their home player, or wherever they need to see digital content. That'll be cool.
Just as long as they aren't implanting them in my eyeball...that's where I draw the line... =)
- JoeShmoe
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Re:Free market benefits the producer not the consu (Score:2)
Perhaps you are defining "best" to be "whatever people buy the most of", but I don't buy that definition.
There is competition among producers be the best producer, ie. to sell the most product or to make the most profit, not to make the highest quality, innovative product. As in any evolutionary scenario, the actors act in *their own* best interest, no-one elses.
To make the best product is one way for a producer to get ahead, but is is often a difficult way. Alternatives are good marketing, cheap product, good *looking* product, sweatshop labour, cheap but polluting manufacturing methods, dumbing down the consumers, products that wear out quickly and of course, vendor lock-in. Market dominance by one company is only one possible problem. Sadly, increased competition encourages manufacturers to cut corners in order to compete.
Which is why you can get 10 different brands of toaster, all of them cheap crap. Which is why, last time I was in the US, I could get 20 kinds of salad dressing, and all the ones that I tried tasted sickly-sweet.
> they don't make em like they used to
And this is in spite of lots of competition. Because producers, even under competition, act in thier own best interests, not yours.
Re:Third World (Score:2)
"Fuel-efficient" doesn't sell in the States (Score:2)
Those tiny, underpowered "fuel-efficient" cars don't sell well in the States. Maybe it's because our land mass is so much larger, so we have so much farther to go. :-) When I went to get a car recently, I started out thinking about saving some money, but the efficient models I tried just cramped me to no end.
Re:Losts of channels = no good channels (Score:3)
Losts of channels = no good channels (Score:3)
Unless of course you pay extra for some channels, but most people don't want to do that.
Re:I don't see the reason to switch... (Score:3)
Actually, your standard Real Life view is a lot wider than it's high, so 16:9 is _better_ for digesting information than 4:3.
The only movies that truely look wrong on 4:3 are the really, really old ones that weren't planning on the television format. As a result, part of the key action is cut off or they have to digitally zoom the image and pan around.
You're way off here. Just as an example, when Casablanca and Gone with the wind were filmed the standard aspect ratio in the _cinemas_ was 4:3. Cinemascope etc were partly created so that movietheaters would be able to compete with the home television.
Today, filmmakers make extensive use of aspect ratios close to 2:1 (1.86:1, 2.35:1 etc) and the only way to experience these movies to their full extent is (at the moment) to get the movies on DVD and view them on a widescreen television ...
Before you continue .. have you actually _tried out_ 16:9? Watched a standard 4:3 movie and then the 16:9 version? Or even larger aspect ratios?
Multi-format TVs (Score:2)
In France, multi-format TVs are pretty common (though not universal). This is probably due the fact that they're stuck with a TV standard (SECAM) that no-one else other than Russia uses. Multi-format TVs let them view TV from other nearby European nations (the UK, Germany, etc.). I know of several people in France that view UK satellite TV using a multi-format TV. I suspect multi-format TVs haven't caught on elsewhere because there's no real demand without which prices aren't driven down. In France, there is a demand, and multi-format TVs are barely more expensive than a regular TV.
Re:What about wide monitors? /tall? (Score:2)
You didn't have to scroll. And because black and white monitors use a continuous coat of phosphor, rather than small but discrete rgb phosphors, it's easier on the eyes.
Wish I had one - perfect for long stretches of typing and some composition. (21" b&w for better composition of course
American DTV standards (Score:2)
Actually, the American DTV technical standards are pretty well settled in at this point. The only half-way outstanding question is which copy-protection scheme will be used for the box-to-box connection (cable to TV, etc), and at this point 5C seems to have it sewn up. Thomson and Zenith seem to have lost their battle to keep home video recorders a viable product.
A six-month-old overview of the standards situation can be found online at Communications Engineering & Design magazine [cedmagazine.com].
Many questions remain, however, in the non-technical areas. A huge battle lies ahead in determining who's going to make all the money from the "extra" bandwidth that the stations have. The stations would like to sell it themselves, but the networks have other plans.
In that vein, CBS had been the big champion of using the extra bandwidth for HDTV, since they had only the one program stream. With the recent sale to Viacom, they might well change their tune to preferring non-HDTV multicasting of all of Viacom's programming.
The other battle is between the broadcasters and the cable operators. The cable operators see DTV as added competition and don't see how DTV makes them any money, so they're not enthusiastic about it.
Digital format still up in the air in the States (Score:2)
Additionally, the sets still cost $3000+ to get. And the costs have not come down drastically from when they were first released. If, in 2005, these sets still cost in excess of $1000, I suspect you're going to see some major lawmaking either pushing the cost of sets way lower, or pushing back the transition date.
Re: (Score:2)