Ed's View - HDTV Quality Reduction - A Time for Action

[Ed Milbourn]

In 1969 Japan's National Broadcast Network (NHK) started research on an advanced television system to bring truly high definition television to the public. Their goal for such an endeavor was to "appeal to a higher level of psychological sensation and emotion by transmitting highly intellectual information with detailed characters and graphics." ¹

That highly eclectic goal for HDTV remained through its complex evolution to the US system commercialized in 1996. Unfortunately, that goal is being severely and continuously...

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[terrypaullin]

You are absolutely right about the potential of the ATSC system we have put in place. Technological improvements have and will continue to give us a better palette to express images that are so powerful they (and the stories they tell) could truly be culture changing. My only hope is that there are enough of us that care.

My belief is that many more WOULD care if they could experience HDTV at or anywhere near it's potential. That's why I will continue to advocate paying a little extra for genuine quality products on this site and elsewhere. (yes, that includes BD players). I'm guessing that upwards of 80% of consumers have not yet seen HDTV as good as it can be - or even close. If they had, they would hold the industry to the standards that would better serve us all.

You characterized the power of the consumer as being "very strong". I contend that it is even stronger than that! It is, at the end of the day, ALL powerful. Whether it's hardware manufacturers we are talking about or content providers, if we refuse to buy it, they don't have a business. Said differently in a Harvard Busineee Review article I read years ago (but just as appropriate now) "Sellers will only survive if they build products people want to buy" Sounds simple and obvious, but sometimes we forget who ultimately calls the shots in our free enterprise system.

Shame on us (all), if we settle for mediocrity!

[ragnars]

This deterioration of quality as opposed to technological capability goes back a long time. In the early era of black-and-white television, the US had a 525 line system, Germany 625 and Great Britain a legacy 405 line one. Obviously, the 625 should provide the best picture, followed by slighty worse 525 and really poor 405. But most international observers consistently credited the British, with their 405 lines, as having the best picture. How could this be?

Simply because the British TV engineers (from the BBC, which in those days was the only game in town)were meticulous in every respect to wring out every last bit of quality that their system was capable of, no matter how much time and effort it took. In the US, in contrast, the attitude of "good enough" prevailed, and the quality suffered noticably.

Incidentally, the French 819 line sytem, which should have provided the best picture by far, suffered from another problem. For it required so much bandwidth, that to achieve that in a tube TV receiver was prohibitely expensive, so that ordinary French consumer TV sets were built with limited bandwidth, and consequently the picture was no better than in a 525 system. However, very expensive commercial TV receivers, meant for displays in public venues, and built with full bandwidth did provide a picture that for that time was breathtaking.

[Richard]

I have yet to see the promise of HDTV since 2002. I had visions of actually being able to watch broadcast content with the clarity of DVD and decent audio. Thank God for D-Theater, HD DVD and Blu-ray!

On the other hand we watch more TV now than we did prior so to that end HDTV has been the success it wanted to be in my home but that's at 5 screen heights, not 3.

[perfectinght]

"Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public." H. L. Mencken. "The game is flawed." John Nash (A Beautiful Mind)

The economics of scale tend to render mediocrity more affordable, visible, accessible and convenient; while excellence persists in being more rare and costly. Such observations should not mean that those with a passion for excellence should be silent in advocating for superior performance. Quite the contrary. It simply means we have to work harder, speak up more frequently, articulately, persuasively and aggressively.

"We're on a mission from God!" Jake and Elwood Blues (The Blues Brothers)

Best regards and beautiful pictures,
G. Alan Brown, President
CinemaQuest, Inc.
www.cinemaquestinc.com

"Advancing the art and science of electronic imaging"

[54mbps]

The so-called High Def channels that are currently provided by Cable and Satellite are more like DVD quality than HD...if not worse. I've compared sports programs that's supposed to be "HD" from ESPNHD with a 480p, 4mbps DVD: The 480p signal from the DVD looked sharper than the "HD" signal from ESPNHD. Standard Def from cable and satellite companies are utter garbage...just watch ESPN. They look like they're encoded with 1mbps. It's very discouraging...and this is why I don't watch cable TV anymore. I think it's a crime that TV stations continue to hype about their "HD" quality channels and then not fulfilling their words. Lots of people don't care about HD though, and I think that's a bigger problem

[stevekaden]

In fact we are almost brutally not concerned with quality it is just scary. No one (okay a bit of hyperbole - but what - 85% of us) wants to be bothered learning anything about most anything (except our 1 obsession - sports being a big one). We are running after our bills, kids, work, life, taxes...etc. I'm a recognize-the-problem kind of guy, but there is almost nothing we seem to be able to do about the situation. I work with my kids, but they somewhat act as if I'm obsessive, my wife just smiles vapidly.

Anyway, sorry for the rant, but it is so frustrating. I suppose if we all just work with our friends, teach what to look for, then ask those who have crappy video providers to drop an email or note to their providers...well maybe a sample of the audience speaking out will push them along. We can only help it won't take a solid majority of complaints.

[akirby]

The so-called High Def channels that are currently provided by Cable and Satellite are more like DVD quality than HD...if not worse. I've compared sports programs that's supposed to be "HD" from ESPNHD with a 480p, 4mbps DVD: The 480p signal from the DVD looked sharper than the "HD" signal from ESPNHD. Standard Def from cable and satellite companies are utter garbage...just watch ESPN. They look like they're encoded with 1mbps. It's very discouraging...and this is why I don't watch cable TV anymore. I think it's a crime that TV stations continue to hype about their "HD" quality channels and then not fulfilling their words. Lots of people don't care about HD though, and I think that's a bigger problem

On what type and size of display? What about OTA?

I've compared OTA football games with DirecTV on both Fox (720p) and CBS (1080i) on my 55" Mits CRT RPTV and I honestly could not see a difference. This was 1-2 years ago though.

[stevekaden]

Personally, I am liking what i see in sports from my dish system, and my cousins DirecTV system. BUT, I have not compared with over the air or...Verizon's FIOS. I have a co-worker who got FIOS from Comcast cable and he said with out a doubt, without even comparing purposefully, FIOS was CLEARLY significantly a better picture. (This on a new 1080 panasonic plasma.)

So, I think FIOS with it's ~infinite bandwidth fiber, is maybe the gold standard.

A way to convince all the providers to up their quality is to beg for FIOS, and then sign up the minute it is in your neighborhood. I'm still waiting, but bug them regularly.

Besides, it's a great value as well and has very fast internet.

[hharris4earthlink]

I'm a little uncomfortable commenting on this subject because it is so subjective and depends on so many factors, but here goes.

First of all, you have to have a screen larger than 50" to see the full 1080p resolution anyway unless you sit closer to the screen than one would normally comfortably view a TV set. Paying for 1080P with a 50 inch or less screen is probably a waste of money. So unless you have a very large display, you'll never notice a quality problem with any source 720P or greater.

I have a 50 inch display and get a ton of high resolution content that looks amazing from my DirecTV receiver and my PS3 Blu-ray player, HD sources that are available to anyone. This includes movies and network and satellite programs that have all gone HD. Also my Samsung display upscales normal DVD to give a very clear picture that looks to my eyes almost, but not quite, 720P. From a practical point of view, this means I get to keep most of my large DVD collection while replacing certain favorites with Blu-ray.

So from my, admittedly very subjective, view, I don't see a problem.

Henry