Am I the only person who's not excited about HDTV?

A television picture is a television picture. Clarity and pixelage (or whatever) can only do so much. In the end, it's still just a picture and not the real thing.

People spend ridiculous amounts of money on plasmas and HDTVs and then act insulted if a show or a game isn't on HDTV. I just don't really get that.

I couldn't care less about it.

I got a new HDTV a month ago

or something.

It's a little different than HD. Here's a link to the coupon program for $$$ off the conversion box!

http://www.ntia.doc.gov/otiahome/dtv/

that pisses me all the way off.

That should help some folks anyway, and not many people have heard about it, so pass it on.

http://www.ntia.doc.gov/dtvcoupon/faq.html

4. How can I request my coupons?
Requests will be taken beginning January 1, 2008, and going through March 31, 2009, by calling 1-888-388-2009. Check back to this website during that period of time to find out convenient ways to request your coupons, including calling a toll-free number.

:shrug:

If not, I'm still not that impressed.

For me, the HD picture is amazingly better and makes anything we watch much more interesting. Especially such things like Planet Earth. Vast difference between the HD version and the normal one.

Bottom line, I love my HDTV. Lots.

It's been only like 10 years since we were pissin' all over ourselves about Intel's new 486 DX-2 processor. Y'know what a computer with that's called now? A doorstop.

Ten years from now, or less, people will be rioting at Best Buy and Circuit City to buy the new UHDTV. Then the ZOMGHDTV.

Et cetera.

:P

:D

Like Hollywood, the technology is very impressive, the content is usually idiotic.

This is a good thing. I would otherwise waste too much time watching it.

make it worthwhile for me, along with a few select shows like Good Eats and Heroes.

Gadgetry in general gets on my nerves, actually.

maybe men in general. But "the boys" as I like to call 'em, just can't get enough electro-mabobs. Like this guy I know who puts his laptop--his new super-dooper-laptop--in the pulpit to preach from. I'm convinced this is mostly to let people know he has this new hip cool laptop. Me, I don't preach from notes, on paper or on a computer. I am so uncool.

I'd love to be able to buy HD movies without worrying about them going Betamax.

The only difference between them and standard DVD is they display non-interlaced, assuming your TV can handle it - if it wasn't bought in the last year, it probably won't.

I like HD-TV and I can't see the difference between 1080i and 1080p.

Save your money.

A clear winner in the format wars
An affordable dual-format player.

Until then, I'll settle for content that I can record on my TiVo HD from the HD package that my cable company offers

Sexxxxxxxxy. OMG. It's like having your own home theatre. Amazing.

It's not going to cure cancer or find life on Mars, so I guess I really don't care.

A friend of mine won an HDTV in a raffle and she said you would not believe the clarity that is available. You don't know what you are missing until you have it - basically.

Another friend told me she and her DH have been "discussing" the HDTV and he really wants to get a new TV because "there are things I can't see when I am playing X-BOX" :rofl: She told him to get over it - the TV works fine for now.

:D

I have heard it shows much more of the pitch which allows the viewer to see plays develop sooner. I have also heard it makes hockey watchable?

Absolutely breathtaking, and was my "aha" moment for HDTV.

And I really can't afford it. At the end of the day, it's the same ol' crappy programming.

With a better picture.

Heck, I don't even have cable/satellite. Occasionally I'll watch TV at someone else's house, or at the bank/nail parlor. From what I've seen, it's not worth the money to upgrade IMHO.

There's nearly nothing on TV that I have any interest in watching. :shrug:

The resolution is so poor on standard TV you can barely see what's going on even when the TV's working perfectly, which is impossible.

Standard colour TV's cannot work perfectly. There are two basic types - 3-gun and Trintron. Both display on a raster of coloured phosphor dots. Trinitron uses a single cathode ray gun and complicated electronics to make it fire at the correct phosphor. 3-gun TV's use a separate gun for each colour. Both can easily go out of alignment - a 3 gun TV displays bizarre colours, and the Trinitron just goes dim. Both are also prone to focusing problems.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television

The frame rate or refresh rate of a typical NTSC format CRT TV is 29.97 Hz, and for the PAL format, 25 Hz, both are scanned with two fields per frame in an interlaced fashion.

This means every second, the beam has done two passes over the screen. It flickers visibly and gives people like me migraines. Its interaction with fluroescent lights can also cause problems. Any movement onscreen causes bizarre artifacts (combing) such as wagon wheels rotating backwards. Problems with transmission cause interference patterns such as herringboning - another source of headaches. LCD monitors do not improve the situation because they simply duplicate the effect - interlacing, interference and all - using LCD's instead of phosphors.

High Definition does away with most of this because the signal is digital. It either works or it doesn't. In addition, you get higher resolution, allowing more content on the screen. Hence, looking at a face, you have a better chance of catching a facial expression because you can actually see the lines of the face instead of a bunch of blur. You aren't distracted by somebody having a purple face because the colour is always perfect. Same with the sound. The only problem you will get is drop-out caused by loss of signal. The TV will even try to make a best effort at freeze-framing and catching up when the signal resumes.

Basically, if you can't see the difference between Hi-Def and standard TV, when you're watching a Hi-Def signal you truly, literally need to get your eyes checked. - it's that monumental a difference.

The difference is totally underwhelming to me and not worth the cost of replacing my 3 sets - at all.

also in fluorescent lighting and LED Christmas lights. I was an early adopter of LCD monitors for my computer for that reason, and when HDTV became somewhat affordable this year, I jumped. I still have an older 27" Sony in my bedroom, but I think that will be replaced soon.

I think it's massively overpriced for a marginal improvement in picture quality.

if you take inflation into account.

the 1971 Sears Catalog offered an 18" color TV with wireless remote for the low price of $429.95. In 2006 dollars, the most recent year that I could find, that would be $2156.49. I paid less than that for my 42" Sharp Aquos (tax and delivery included) last March, and if I bought it today, I would pay even less.

As for the picture quality, of course that's subjective, but IMHO there is a huge jump in picture quality from 480i to even the lowest HD standard.

Pretty pictures, but they just don't set off my "must have" alarm.