I am actually surprised by this. It does seem true that a good DVD at 480p can have as much detail as bad 1080i or 720p HD, though decent HD also exists, at least for slow moving scenes.
But when you add the interlace factor of 576i I'm surprised the difference is not fairly obvious. Something seems wrong here and HD (sans low bit-rate artifacts) should seem obviously better than 576i.
- Tom Manfredi, Albert E wrote:
Barry Wilkins wrote:The situation here to start with is that we have a mix of SD at 576i, HD at 720p and HD at 1080i source content. This is all transmitted as either 720p or 1080i via upscalers where needed.Hi Barry. Here are my observations as a viewer (not a broadcaster): My new LG TV tells me in what mode a broadcast is being transmitted. Assuming it is correct, all of our programs here are *not* upconverted, as yours appear to be. Typically, but not always, the -1 subchannel of each multiplex is transmitted as 720p or as 1080i, and the program content may be HD or upconverted SD. The other subchannels are typically transmitted as 480i. It appears to be that when SD content is upconverted, it is transmitted as 4:3 rather than 16:9, just judging from the detail in the image. It seems that all true HD content is 16:9. (One of our local stations transmits five 480i multicasts only, nothing upconverted.)Some supposedly SD source material can look exceedingly good, i.e. better than my best looking PAL SD dvd from my collection.Certainly has been my experience here as well. And some SD looks very similar to analog TV broadcast, minus the ghost. It's strikingly bad compared to other SD material.The HD source material at 1080i, i.e. Boston Legal for instance, is extraordinarily good imagery. So is some Aussie HD content. To complicate this issue is the fact that my screen is only 1024 x 1024 42" with no HDMI. I use the component inputs from the STB which down scales the image to 576i. Nevertheless, I can clearly differentiate between the better image quality on my screen and that of a 42" LCD connected directly via HDMI to the same type of STB running the same demo HD programme content. What I am getting at here is that in 3 weeks of looking, I have not been able to find a demonstration of HD source material received on a STB connected via HDMI to a 1080 x 1920 resolution LCD/plasma screen that improves over what I am seeing.(And I am delighted in what I see). If and when I do see a significant difference from a better screen set-up I shall be "over the moon" knowing I can make a difference by upgrading the screen later..I believe it. Your LCD panel should be more than adequate. If I understand what you're comparing, you have determined that OTA HDTV, via HDMI, on a 1024p panel is about as good as OTA HDTV on a 1080p panel. First off, tests in the past have shown that 720p and 1080i are roughly comparable in quality. So, if you find that converting either of these to 1024p (1.05 Mpel) gives results similar to converting to 1080p, I wouldn't be a bit surprised. IMO, if there's any reason to go up to 1920 X 1080 in a 42" display, it would be to view BluRay disks, from a 1080p player, up close. For broadcast TV, shouldn't provide any meaningful improvement. There is a small difference, though, that I have noticed. In comparing 1366 X 768 (also 1.05 Mpels) to 1080p panels from the same manufacturer, and standing close in, concentrating on brightly lit parts of the scene, the 1080p screen looks smoother. In the 768p screen, standing close, you can see individual pixels more readily. I pointed this out to my wife, and she noticed it too. But at normal seating distance, with the 42" panel, the individual pixels disappear. Exactly as the math says they should.Also, what HD I see is easily better than the quality of image viewed at any of the local cinemas. So what has been the general impression of the image quality of the best ATSC content. Are you all very impressed? How close does it get to Blue Ray quality at 1080i? What screen resolutions are you viewing this on?I've been impressed ever since first seeing HD in stores. Most people are, as far as I can tell. Most comments I've seen are that live sports are especially impressive as HD. Bottom line: I always take negative comments from habitual critics with a huge grain of salt. Unrelated example: last night, we went to see "88 Minutes," with Al Pacino. It got some pretty bad reviews, but we went in spite of these. Well, it was a great movie. Plenty of suspense, perfectly fine acting. I have no idea what drug those moron critics were on, but no doubt they will dissuade many people from going to see it. Their loss. Bert----------------------------------------------------------------------You can UNSUBSCRIBE from the OpenDTV list in two ways:- Using the UNSUBSCRIBE command in your user configuration settings at FreeLists.org- By sending a message to: opendtv-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the word unsubscribe in the subject line.
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