Clay Washington

Most of the "Over the Air" Broadcast Stations have their "prime time" programming available in HDTV. CBS and NBC use 1080i, and ABC uses 720p.

The Tonight Show has been broadcasting on NBC in HDTV for a while now. The Superbowl was broadcasted on ABC in HDTV. and the AFC Playoffs were broadcasted on CBS in HDTV. Monday Night Football is scheduled to broadcast all of its programming in HDTV in the 2003 NFL season.

Your local stations are scrambling to meet the FCC deadline for broadcasting in HDTV.

• May 2002: All commercial TV stations are scheduled to begin digital broadcasting
• April 2003: Commercial stations must simulcast (simultaneously broadcast) at least 50 percent of their NTSC (analog) programming on their DTV channel
• May 2003: All public TV stations are scheduled to begin digital broadcasting
• April 2004: Stations must simulcast at least 75 percent of their NTSC programming on their DTV channel
• April 2005: All stations must simulcast 100 percent of their NTSC programming on their DTV channel
• December 2006: All TV stations must turn off their analog signal

I believe that 2003 will be the year that you see a surge in HDTV broadcasts. I highly recommend that everyone take a hard look at their future Home Entertainment plans and incorporate HDTV.

Clay Washington

The latest Mitsubishi Integrated HDTV Television sets have the HD Decoder included inside. While this allows you to connect an outside antenna and begin receiving "Over the Air" broadcast signals, it will not help you if you want HD programming from Direct TV or your local Cable provider. These "broadcasters" require their own decoder box, so you would not be using the HD Decoder inside the TV (that you paid for).

I recommend that you save some money on the TV and buy an HD-Upgradable Mitsubishi. You will still need to buy a separate HD receiver to receive the "Over the Air" broadcast signals, but it will make you more flexable when you are ready to upgrade your system.

mlitefan

Speaking of convergence!

Can anyone recommend a good ISF technician in the Virginia area? I have had my Toshiba for a year now and I have never had it tuned. I am not sure I want to tackle the procedure myself. Also, what can I expect to pay for the tuning service?

Audiofn

Clay you must lay on your side when you view all your video. It is 4X3 and 16X9 Width is always before height in video.

You are close with most of your info. I will try and get ya on some technicalities. First off 480P in HDTV is still True HDTV. It is still when watching a HDTV brodcast a awsome picture. The "Fire Wire" output is called a DVI output and there is another one available and I am having a COPLETE mind crap as to the name right now . However it looks like the DVI is going to win that battle as all new sets have the DVI input on them and all new HDTV set top boxes have the DVI output. Not all in fact very few have the other.

Resolution does not translate into picture quaility. Runco plasma's were always a hard sell unless the customer could look at the picture. They did not spec well on a piece of paper. However you put them up against anything, and even the old ones blow away what is available today from most manufacturers. Remember you do not wantch a sheet of paper with numbers. Processing is just as important as the glass that the image is shown up on.

720P is the best available to us format of HDTV. It has the highest scan rate and frequency. However what it does better then 1080i is it has MUCH less motion issues then 1080i. I however find that with some of the new stuff putting the video to 480p can offer up a better image then 1080i or 720p (Runco 996 projector), you just have to play around with setting a little to see what works best with your set up. There is also the possibility that when you watch regular tv taking the s-video output out of the sat unit and going to the tv and letting the tv decode and process the image will be better then forcing the image out in 1080i, 720p, or 480p. Also if you force the image out in one of these formats your set will not allow you to change screen size so the s-video cable is required if you want that.

For us in Boston we get all our major stations in HDTV including PBS who is the only one that seems to be doing it the correct way. The broadcasts however for the most part including the Tonight show are upconverted from a standard camera and then they process it in house. Still a very good image and MUCH better then we have been watching in the past but NOT HDTV. The problem that arrises in this transition time is that when they apply makeup on the actors and what not it has to be done differently for HDTV then SDTV. If you shot a person that was made up for SDTV with a HDTV camera they would look like a clown.

Jon

Clay Washington

Jon,

I knew that you would have a more technical (and more accurate) explaination of HDTV. Thanks for the corrections.

I will tell you that I am very happy with my current setup, and I will be even happier as more and more "Over the Air" broadcasts are in HDTV.

I still think that 2003 will be the "Year of HDTV".

Clay Washington

Just one more comment...

HD Net now has live NHL games in their program schedule. The picture quality is so good that you feel as if you are at the arena looking through a window. It also has Dolby Digital audio, so it "sounds" like you are there!

Kokopelli

Can someone please educate me on the differences. I'm sick of listening to shyster salesmen just trying to make a sale. I'm pretty sold on the Mits 55411 (gold plus) but a bit leery of the Firewire. I would much rather it had the DVI input Sony and Hitachi have. Does anyone have accurate info on what the industry standard will be? What will be the options if you have one and the other becomes the standard. Jon, would love to hear your take on this. Thanks

War-snow melting and lakes filling up

Shane

Audiofn

What will the industry standard be..... Not to be a smart ass but in this industry that is a oxymoron. The bigest problem with this industy and the reason that guys like me exist is because there is NO standards out there. From my seat it looks like the DVI is going to win. All the sets that I sell have the DVI inputs in them, Mits being the only exception. Runco (my largest video line) has DVI inputs and not the fire wire. So my only guess and this is STRICKLY a guess is that the DVI is going to be the more flexible choice (even though DVI is inflexible in it's nature to keep us from copying movies). The Best HDTV box that is out now (the Zenith and Sony that happen to both be made by Zenith) have DVI outputs so that is what I look for because that is the receiver that I use. Unfortunatly this industry has a habbit of confusing the ever loving crap out of the end user.

Clay I agree 100% with you that we will have TONS more channels by the end of this year. I already have with out going to look at leaste 13 channels that are broadcasting digitally in some form of HDTV. Probably only 2 of them are true HDTV and the others are some mix of different formats for now. Even HBOHD is NOT hdtv!!! They are just taking regular movies and upconverting them. See more confusion for the end user.

All this is why my customers will spend the big money for the remotes and installation. They want to take all this confusion and make it simple.

Jon

liquidlocomotive

Jon, if we should not use monster who should we use? How about bettercables? seems this is the biggest joke and rippoff of the whole A/V industry. The markup on this stuff is higher than marine and aero products.

Kokopelli

Jon, So if one has firewire inputs and not DVI and wants to use a component with DVI outputs is there a way to convert - an adaptor so to speak? Thanks

Shane