Apr
23
Television or Monitor?
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Quick tip today so I’ll get right to it, I see a lot of unnecessary confusion around the differences between what counts as a television and what classifies as a monitor and wanted to explain it real quick. All in all the differences between televisions and monitors are really simple but as with many things in the world of consumer electronics, some salespeople have a tendency to overcomplicate the terminology.
In a nutshell televisions come with built-in tuners monitors do not. Now that alone in many circles sums up the difference between a television and a monitor, but some salespeople have taken it upon themselves to throw built-in speakers into the mix as a quantifier for what constitutes a television or not.
Here’s the problem with using speakers as a gauge for what is or isn’t a television versus a monitor. While it’s true almost all televisions will have built-in speakers some monitors (aka tuner-less displays) also have built-in speakers, but clearly the presence of speakers doesn’t make up for the absence of a tuner.
Apr
21
Off-Air HDTV Antennas
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As I’m sure many of you know by now, off-air antennas are back and, in some circles, back in a big way. You can receive crystal clear HDTV images from local broadcasters off-air (ABC, NBC, CBS prominently) but there are a few tips I may be able to provide to help you get the most out of off-air HDTV.
Rabbit ear antennas have been eclipsed by newer designs but that doesn’t mean they’ve lost all usefulness. If you live relatively close to your cities broadcaster, rabbit ears may be all you need to receive off-air HDTV signals.
However, if you live far away from those transmitter towers like I do, you may need something a little more powerful. Most ATSC antennas are no more than a few feet long but if you have the room (in an attic perhaps) Radio Shack sells some large, sensitive off-air antennas that can pull signals from over 90 miles away.
Apr
9
Interlaced Versus Progressive
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I touched on this a while back but wanted to expand a little as it’s something that’s going to remain relevant, as long as we have 1080i cable and satellite broadcasts (hint for a very long time to come). Interlaced video, sometimes called interlaced scan, creates images on-screen by filling every other row of scan lines with an image and then alternating to the other row in rapid succession.
This “interlacing” happens so fast that it appears seamless and for all intents and purposes it is, but there is of course another way to render video images on-screen. Progressive scan omits the alternating rows of video altogether and fills the entire screen with one big, smooth image often with no visible jaggedness whatsoever.
In the past, I was always quick to defend interlaced video and I still enjoy it but of course as time marches on and 1080p displays become more common I find myself caring less about progressive versus interlaced and more about the overall resolution.
Mar
28
Older Movies in HD
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This one has rocketed to the top of the most asked list in the last two weeks, so without further delay: yes older (and just plain old) films can be “HD”. Not only can older films be HD, they can actually surpass the highest resolution HD format (1080p) several times over. In short the actual resolution of film far exceeds any consumer display technology in-use today. Note: I said today because the Japanese are hurriedly working on super HD resolutions as we speak.
Film, being an analog medium isn’t bound by digitals hard limit of x by y resolution, but that’s not to say analog film, or rather the equipment used to capture and project it doesn’t have limitations. A Group of ISO engineers measured the nominal resolution of film at around 800 lines of resolution by going into working theaters and projecting images of a resolution chart, and then measuring the results.
Those 800-900 lines of resolution were increased to well over 1600 lines of comparable resolution with newer projection equipment, but even this doesn’t accurately reflect the amount of resolution film can capture. Using digital scanners (skipping the entire projection process) it’s not unheard of the get over 3500 lines of resolution or more from a single frame of 35mm film. So as you can see “film” isn’t the weak link here, it’s our ability to retrieve the information from the film.
Mar
22
1080p Broadcasts?
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I’m often asked when the networks will start transmitting their programming in 1080p. I usually reply something to the effect of: when they scrap 90% of the gear they use, replace it all with equipment capable of transmitting at those bandwidths and have every local affiliate across the country do the same, or in other words, please don’t hold your breath.
The good news however is that much of the 720p programming that is already broadcast into our homes looks excellent and the 1080i content that makes up the majority of all HDTV programming can be de-interlaced inside our televisions and displayed as 1080p. Given the current (good) state of HDTV broadcasting and the fact that the majority of HD displays in use are still 720p, and a few 1080p displays as well, many of them can’t even accept a true 1080p signal.
Again this probably isn’t something you should wait for with baited breath, you’ll surely run out of breath first. It’s unlikely we’ll even see widespread 1080p broadcasts this decade but again, the quality we already have is quite good in many cases, and if it absolutely must be 1080p at 24fps there’s always Blu-ray waiting in the wings.
Feb
12
What is HDTV?
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I’ll spare you the big drawn out, super technical mumbo jumbo explanation (for now) and keep it straight up. HDTV (high definition television) is generally recognized as having a minimum resolution of 1280×720 which is referred to as “720p”. 720p for many of us was our first entry into the world of high definition, most of the early high definition televisions were 1280×720 models and many of the 720p displays manufactured in the last few years are still capable of making phenomenal looking images, but make no mistake 720p is on its way out.
1920×1080, “1080i” or 1080 interlaced most often comes in the form of HDTV broadcasts and often rivals 720p in overall detail but not necessarily in motion reproduction. The best of both worlds however is accomplished 1080p or 1920×1080 progressive, 1080p is also known as Full HD but it’s all just another way of saying this is the ultimate (currently) in resolution and theoretical image quality. Even though we have different HDTV resolutions, the aspect ratio for HDTV remains a pleasantly wide 16:9.
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