So Just What IS HD?

[BMXTRIX]

High Definition keeps getting spoken of over and over again with phrases like "True HD" being applied to plasmas and the like.

The problem is that it seems like nobody actually knows what HD actually means. That is, they know the formats that are being dubbed HD by the industry (720p, 1080i) but they don't know what actually is the definition of High Definition.

High Definition is not a specified standard. It is in fact not accurate to call 720p or 1080i high definition because of what HD means.

High Definition is an occurance. It occurs when from a specified video screen, at a specified distance, adding one more line (or pixel nowadays) does not visibly add any resolution to the image.

So, if you have a 5" video screen that you are 4 feet away from, and are looking at a 480i presentation. Then, watching the same screen, from the same distance in 480p, or 720p, or 1080i doesn't actually make it look ANY better - you have achieved an HD presentation.

That also is the reason why when 480i was first brought out as the NTSC standard it was called High Definition TV.

Now, once again the term is being thrown around loosely but we are already making displays and screens which are clearly larger than what makes a presentation appear in HD. A 120 inch wide screen, at 5 feet is not high definition at 480 lines, 720 lines, or 1080 lines. You would probably need closer to 2000 lines or more of resolution to make any image, from that distance, appear to be HD.

The industry is putting a lot of emphasis - and a lot of cost - into making the HD term one that every consumer looks for, but many consumers are being duped into thinking that HD is the end all be all of what their television must be, without knowing what it means.

A television with 480 lines (dubbed EDTV, but actually 480p) will likely handle all ATSC/NTSC formats (480i, 480p, 720p, 1080i) and will display all those formats at 480p. If you are far enough away from the screen, that display will be truly HD. You could change it out for a display with 1080 lines and it wouldn't look any better from where you are sitting. This obviously is subjective to your eyesight and where it is going, etc. But, paying $1,000 or MORE for a display the exact same size, just because it has those extra lines and is considered 'true' HD... Does not mean that you are getting your money's worth out of the product.

For a couple of years I worked at a local high-end A/V company and I ended up purchasing the Panasonic PT-L300U projector. This is a 960x540 projector (dubbed 1/4 hd) and was astonished at the quality of the image this sub $2,000 box produced. So, with it being small, I brought it into our various stores and put it head to head with the Sharp 11000 projector - Barco projectors, and the Marantz projector. All of which were DLP based 1280x720 'true' hd projectors.

Bottom line - was for about $10,000 more you got a projector that clearly gave you higher resolution - as long as you were watching a 8 foot image from about five feet away. Or - to darn close. The 10 grand also gave you a better contrast ratio and better internal processor which made things run more smoothly. But, the contrast and processing were almost only noticable when the two products were being swtiched in an A/B test. Sometimes the Panasonic was even brighter than the more expensive projector! Were the others worth more? Absolutely! They produced a better image... But, $10,000.00 more? Not one person within the store saw the justification for such a huge price difference.

This is all I am saying: Find the screen (plasma, lcd, rear/front projection) that is appropriate for you and how you will use it and do some research and know what you actually need. Don't fall into jargon pitfalls which are less understood than they are simply used as buzz words to make consumers swoon. There is a lot out there and a huge price range to work in and some manufacturers don't want you to know that the less expensive product may work just as well as the more expensive one for your specific needs.

 

[docferdie]

For a couple of years I worked at a local high-end A/V company and I ended up purchasing the Panasonic PT-L300U projector. This is a 960x540 projector (dubbed 1/4 hd) and was astonished at the quality of the image this sub $2,000 box produced. So, with it being small, I brought it into our various stores and put it head to head with the Sharp 11000 projector - Barco projectors, and the Marantz projector. All of which were DLP based 1280x720 'true' hd projectors.

Bottom line - was for about $10,000 more you got a projector that clearly gave you higher resolution - as long as you were watching a 8 foot image from about five feet away. Or - to darn close. The 10 grand also gave you a better contrast ratio and better internal processor which made things run more smoothly. But, the contrast and processing were almost only noticable when the two products were being swtiched in an A/B test. Sometimes the Panasonic was even brighter than the more expensive projector! Were the others worth more? Absolutely! They produced a better image... But, $10,000.00 more? Not one person within the store saw the justification for such a huge price difference.

My question to you is what type of image were you trying to do comparison testing on. The easiest test I can think of is an Internet Explorer Browser window. You shouldn't have a hard time picking out which one is running 1280x720 and which is running 960x540 as long as they are being fed with the corresponding resolutions. Of course if you were testing them both with DVDs with a resolution of 720x480 then of course you shouldn't see any differences related to the resolution. Any difference that you see would be related to the quality of the scaler of each unit.
Any PC gamer would easily be able to spot the difference between a game running at 640x480 vs. something running at 960x720 or 853x480 vs 1280x720. It's night and day. The problem with most retailers like CC or best buy is that they haven't figured out that the best way to demo their products is to feed it through the DVI port with a computer game that actually supports the native resolution of the set--Doom 3 at 1280x720 on a 50 inch DLP comes to mind -- of course this should be done with a PC that can actually run Doom 3 with all the bells and whistles turned on.

 

[BMXTRIX]

That's a good point with two downsides...

1. While many people enjoy video games on their projector - I have never seen anyone hook a PC up in a 'high end' install. They always use a GC, X-Box, or PS2. Then they use it 10% of the time for games and 90% of the time for 1080i, 720p, or 480p programming.

2. Almost no projector actually shows a PC coming through it pixel for pixel. Almost every single one (including all Runcos) process the PC input and scale it to fit... Even if it does not to be scaled! The Seleco HT-300 was one of the first DLP projectors that offerred true pixel-for-pixel pass thru. So if you put 1024x768 through their 1280x720 projector, the top and bottom were cropped. It was totally fantastic to see and would be the projector I would buy if I could justify $10,000.00 more than I paid for my projector.

The NEW LCDs from Sony and Panasonic look very promising though... upgraditis time.

 

[docferdie]

I have never seen anyone hook a PC up in a 'high end' install. .

What's even more frustrating is when stores do stuff that is just designed to drive customers away. A local BB has a 60 inch DLP set running doom 3 through the vga port with a geforce 4 mx. It was an absolutely horrid experience. The framerate was probably 1 to 5 fps at best and it wasn't running at the TVs native resolution.

I checked out that DLP projector you mentioned and the astronomical cost is probably related to its use of a newer DLP chip compared to those in rear projections sets. I would actually be curious as to whether a home consumer could actually purchase the DLP projectors used in actual cinemas and what specs those things have.

 

[MarkOcena]

It comes down to practicallity

Original Posted by BMXTRIX
If you are far enough away from the screen, that display will be truly HD. You could change it out for a display with 1080 lines and it wouldn't look any better from where you are sitting. This obviously is subjective to your eyesight and where it is going, etc. But, paying $1,000 or MORE for a display the exact same size, just because it has those extra lines and is considered 'true' HD... Does not mean that you are getting your money's worth out of the product.

I agree that when you're far enough away from a monitor that the picture is unlikely to be better if it was 1080i instead of 480i. This you can see if you watch the 32" tube TV wall from halfway across the bigbox electronics store. The problem with saving money on the TV with only 480i (larger sizes especially) means that you have to sit so far away that you're in a different room to achieve 'high definition'. Not very practical for most people, and I'm sure they'd pay the extra money for the 1080i-capable set AS WELL AS the 1080i (not upscaled; original HD) programming. I know I wouldn't want to watch TV down a long hallway. Neither would I want to huddle around a tiny 5" screen with all my buddies on movie night. But I understand where you're coming from BMXTRIX.

The way I see HD compliments your thoughts. Say you have a 51" projection TV capable of only NTSC's 480i scan rate. Within a few feet of the TV you're definitely gonna see black bars between the scan lines. Once you move a certain distance back (sorry, I don't know the exact viewing distance) these will no longer be perceptable. Continuing to move back will result in the smoothest, most lifelike picture quality: 'high definition'. Unfortunately, the distance from the TV at this point is probably impractical for watching it for most peoples' rooms. Now, one always has the option of going down a few TV sizes to fit yourself into the room with the TV. However, who can resist the appeal of a large screen in such a space... projectors are great for packing lots of picture into rooms not that much bigger (relatively) than the screen! So higher resolution programming was developed to help provide better watchability of these huge screens in small rooms. And as soon as there is enough HD programming to watch with our HD monitors, then we'll never look back.

Original Posted by docferdie
The problem with most retailers like CC or best buy is that they haven't figured out that the best way to demo their products is to feed it through the DVI port with a computer game that actually supports the native resolution of the set--Doom 3 at 1280x720 on a 50 inch DLP comes to mind -- of course this should be done with a PC that can actually run Doom 3 with all the bells and whistles turned on.

No doubt, retailers want to show off the best abilities of the products they carry to help sales. They often use the same 'overpriced' cables that they sell to demo their projection and other advanced TVs. Matching the input signal to the native resolution of a TV gives such an awesome picture because of additional scaling doesn't need to be done by the TV. Computers give you the flexibility to change the input resolution. Unfortunately, this won't be done in retail stores because of the cost it would be to connect 20+ TVs in this manner. DVI cable costs, at least in my area, aren't that low. Then there's the trouble of the limited distance DVI runs over for a good pricture. Much cheaper to demo them still with the inferior analog stuff, even if its 'overpriced' in its class. I got to watch part of the Star Wars trilogy recently on the new JVC 52" HD-ILA connected by HDMI to the new Toshiba HDMI DVD player... Quite astonishing at how avoiding a few analog-digital conversions and some scaling can clean up the picture and bring the 'high definition' point closer.

Mark

 

[Rob Babcock]

It's not at all uncommon to see HD sets demoed with the feed from a regular splitter & an F-connector, even in specialty stores. Mindboggling. It's also absurd that in 90% of the store demos, the staff can't even be bothered to ascertain the proper aspect ration of the material they're displaying.

 

[nick_danger]

It's not at all uncommon to see HD sets demoed with the feed from a regular splitter & an F-connector, even in specialty stores. Mindboggling. It's also absurd that in 90% of the store demos, the staff can't even be bothered to ascertain the proper aspect ration of the material they're displaying.

^^^^
My biggest pet peev. I'm the customer, do what I say, dammit! I was in BB a few days ago and they had ESPN NHL 2005 (Xbox) running to a Pioneer Elite plasma. I'm not a fan of the TV, but it supports 480p widescreen and the Xbox was only set up for 480i 4:3...

Having seen Amped 2 running at 720p on a true 720 display, I was apalled that BB wasn't trying harder. They would move more TVs, sound systems, and videogames if customers were blown away - and customers like me wouldn't be so ticked...

Is it really so much to ask that they at least put more effort into endcap displays? If the computer and TV have DVI... USE IT!

 

[BMXTRIX]

I agree that when you're far enough away from a monitor that the picture is unlikely to be better if it was 1080i instead of 480i. This you can see if you watch the 32" tube TV wall from halfway across the bigbox electronics store. The problem with saving money on the TV with only 480i (larger sizes especially) means that you have to sit so far away that you're in a different room to achieve 'high definition'. Not very practical for most people, and I'm sure they'd pay the extra money for the 1080i-capable set AS WELL AS the 1080i (not upscaled; original HD) programming. I know I wouldn't want to watch TV down a long hallway. Neither would I want to huddle around a tiny 5" screen with all my buddies on movie night. But I understand where you're coming from BMXTRIX.

This is exactly true - except the general rule is you want to be at least 1.5 and 2x a 1280x720 screen width for optimal viewing. Let's scale that down... That's between 5 and 7 feet away from a 42 inch plasma. Which is really close! Keep in mind that a 853x480 screen will scale all content to 480p. This means that everything is displayed 480p. Likewise a 1280x720 display scales everything to fit 720p... no exceptions. So, that $2,000.00 480p plasma will show about 410,000 pixels. The 1280x720 will show about 920,000 pixels - twice as many. If you double your distance to achieve optimal viewing of that 42 inch 480p display then you are now about 10 to 14 feet away from it... Or roughy the size of your living room, bedroom, or any number of other rooms where you might utilize a 42 inch plasma.

Now, you start getting bigger... you will want more lines. Also, internal scalers and the quality of the source material play a huge role in image quality. But, line for line, most users would be hard pressed to tell the difference between a 1280x720 display and a 853x480 display at about 14 feet... because they have both achieved HD from that distance.

 

[b_panther_g]

By BMXTRIX
“…except the general rule is you want to be at least 1.5 and 2x a 1280x720 screen width for optimal viewing…”

Please forgive my ignorance. I’d like to know more about recommended viewing distances. I usually like to sit closer than the recommended distance.

Who came up with these distances? How did they come up with them?

I'm sitting in front of a 4:3 computer monitor. The screen is 16” wide. I usually sit 24” to 30” away. Do I sit too close to my monitor? If not, are there different recommended viewing distances for computer monitors and Hi-Def (or “true” Hi-Def) devices. Why?

Thanks in advance for your help.

Later,
B

 

[b_panther_g]

I agree with nick_danger when he said:

“…They would move more TVs, sound systems, and videogames if customers were blown away - and customers like me wouldn't be so ticked...”

Judging from the reaction I get from even my modest HT, I’d have to say they’re really dropping the ball. Just turning down/off the lights in the TV section and setting up 1 or 2 good displays would really WOW a lot of people.

I was in the WIZ a few years ago looking for a Hi-Def TV. The displays were so bad that the woman with me called me nuts. She couldn't believe I wanted to spend so much more for some “Hi-Def Crap.” She could hardly see why anyone would spend more then a few dollars extra.

Fast forward a couple months and she’s over for dinner. I've got a Hi-def TV, tweaked it with AVIA, and receive a few OTA Hi-Def channels. I show her what “Hi-Def crap” really looks like. Then she wanted Hi-Def too.

Later,
B

 

[BMXTRIX]

Please forgive my ignorance. I’d like to know more about recommended viewing distances. I usually like to sit closer than the recommended distance.

Who came up with these distances? How did they come up with them?

I'm sitting in front of a 4:3 computer monitor. The screen is 16” wide. I usually sit 24” to 30” away. Do I sit too close to my monitor? If not, are there different recommended viewing distances for computer monitors and Hi-Def (or “true” Hi-Def) devices. Why?

Thanks in advance for your help.

Later,
B

Recommending viewing distances are something I have picked up by being in the industry, not through a lot of personal research. But, generally high end projector manufacturers say 1.5 to 2 times screen width is good to achieve HD. That is the goal - so you don't see the scan lines and the image looks the best. That's typically based on a 1280x720 display. So, your PC with 1024x768 - has a few more lines. Also it has excellent source material (your graphics card)... So, that means you can probably be a little closer than 1.5 times the screen width without it losing detail. You are right between 1.5 and 2 times though if you are 24 to 30 inches away from your 16 inch wide screen.

On the side comments: Best Buy in my area has begun setting up theater rooms. That is, about 200 square feet or so in the back of the store has a dedicated 'dark' section with custom lighting, Sharp projectors, 50 and 60 inch plasma displays, custom woodworking and lots of interior decorating touches. They also have created 'cave' areas at the back to show off many tv displays. It is considerably different than many Best Buy stores that I have been in before... But, they aren't in the HQ specialty department like custom retailers, they are in the hang and bang field - or box sale field and have hourly employees pulling in slightly more than minimum wage. They are NOT a value-added reseller and you do the legwork.

 

[aarond]

I would actually be curious as to whether a home consumer could actually purchase the DLP projectors used in actual cinemas and what specs those things have.

The new Sony cinema DLP projector is a 4k unit (4096x2160) And I'm sure its in the hundreds of thousands. The Texas Instruments is a 2k unit (2048x 1080) The 4k unit is good for 60' screens but i think overkill for a home theater

 

[docferdie]

The new Sony cinema DLP projector is a 4k unit (4096x2160) And I'm sure its in the hundreds of thousands. The Texas Instruments is a 2k unit (2048x 1080) The 4k unit is good for 60' screens but i think overkill for a home theater

Would you happen to know what was used to show episode II in the Loews and AMC DLP theaters?

 

[MarkOcena]

HD distances

BMXTRIX, you're probably better at finding out what the actual distance from a TV than me because of your experience. I may be wrong, but I think the 'optimal viewing distance' you mentioned eariler refer to the distance at which the elements like screen-door effects, scan-lines, and the other such 'distractions' just disappear from sight. I am under the impression that the 'high definition' or best possible quality is farther back than this, far enough that the impracticality that I mentioned earlier start to places viewers outside the room.

I just want to add that, at least in Canada, Best Buy does go do some length to train employees who are paid hourly. This has included flying them to intensive training seessions. Unfortunately, most of them do not know much about Home Theater going into their jobs and the training helps aleviate this. But there are a select few, such as myself, who are interested enough in the hobby to try to make sure they know as much as they can about HT to try to make the demos as appealing and eye-catching as possible. That's why I hooked up an HDMI DVD player to the HD-ILA (on an end-cap, by the way) with HDMI as soon as the DVD player arrived inside the store. Don't expect all BB employees to be so keen because to most of them its just part-time job. But it is expected that a lot of the employees in bigbox stores don't have a passion for what their doing. I do agree that the speciality store will give you the best service.

 

[rgriffin25]

I work at an electronics store where we specialize in TVs. The proper seating distance from a projection TV is approx 3 times the height of the screen. If you sit any closer you will notice more artifacts and noise in the picture. It is just a guideline, nothing set in stone. I think it really helps the consumer decide what size of a TV they need in their living room. (I can't tell you how many times a customer freaked out when they saw how big the TV was when we took it out to their house to set it up.)

I will also have to say it is very expensive to "properly connect" HDTVs on display at a store. A distribution amplifier for HDTV is approx $300 to $600 to split a true HD signal between a few sets.Trust me it adds up FAST. Most people will buy TVs regardless of how they are connected at the store. So at this point it is not cost effective for most retailers to spend thousands to please a few customers.

I would say for me the biggest difference in HD is Sports. Analog broadcasts do not even compare to HD. I recently watched a NFL game and saw a players mouth piece fly out of his mouth.

 

[Rob Babcock]

It may not be dirt cheap to demonstrate the technology competently, and the big box movers won't bother with quality, but isn't that the entire raison dete for specialty dealers? If someone won't give me a quality demo, my assumption is going to be that they're incapable of doing so. That doesn't inspire much confidence in me as a consumer. Take away the resellers experience and you may as well just buy online; there's just no added value.

At any rate, I don't work in retail, but I know that a good HD demo can sell itself. A lot of people are apathetical to hi def because they've seen only the incompetent mass market BB/CC demos. On the basis of that, why should they care? But show someone a football or B-ball game in true HD, and he/she is invariably blown away. Even a direct DVD feed of a good disc can be remarkable- I recall a demo of the animated flick "Dinosaurs" from a Pioneer progressive scan DVD player shown on a nice HD set. Lot's of people couldn't believe it wasn't HD.

As to the actual central question, although there's 18 DTV formats, I'd personally define hi def as 720p or better. 720p or 1080i is typically what people mean when they say "high def TV."

 

[docferdie]

The sad part about my local BB is that they have a lame Geforce 4 MX PC hooked up via VGA to a 60 in DLP set while at the other end of the store they have a "gaming PC" with a 9800 pro hooked up via DVI to a samsung 213T. This entails absolutely no extra cost. All they need to do is switch the PCs and they can have far cry running at a jaw dropping 1280x720 with a better framerate than what they are trying on the small monitor since they insist on running it at 1600x1200

 

[BMXTRIX]

As to the actual central question, although there's 18 DTV formats, I'd personally define hi def as 720p or better. 720p or 1080i is typically what people mean when they say "high def TV."

Rob - The entire reason I made this post is to dispell people's belief that 1080i or 720p are HD. They are not - they are video formats.

Similarly, a car is a car - whether it is a Hyundai, or a Mercedes. You can't say a Mercedes IS a car while a Hyundai is not a car. It either is a car or it is not a car.

HD is either achieved or it is not achieved. It has nothing to do with 1080i or 1080p or 5000p... If the screen is big enough, and you are close enough, it won't be HD.

If you have 2 displays - both showing a 1080i broadcast with good encoding and one is 1365x768, and the other is 853x480 when you start moving back from them there is a point where the higher resolution display will stop looking any better. That is it's HD point. You will have to move further back still and the 853x480 display will then hit it's HD point. NEITHER display is showing 1080i though. One is showing 768p the other 480p.

So there is no question here - there is a definition. That is to stop thinking of formats and start thinking of resolution, scalers, processors, distance, and source material. This defines HD a lot better than 1080i, 720p, or any ATSC standard.

Just a happy rant.

 

[djoxygen]

So, BMX, what you're proposing is that we define HD as scan lines per degrees of vertical arc, right? I think that's a defensible argument to a certain extent.

(BTW: I spent a few hours one afternoon trying to find any specification or definition after someone (maybe BMX) raised the question in another thread. I don't believe there is one. If I'm wrong, it's so well hidden on the 'net that it's of little use to the majority of us - maybe buried somewhere in password-protected archives of NAB?)

Of course if we were to allow the marketing suits at the TV makers this proposed lines/deg definition, they'd slap the label on every set they ship - much like "Hi-Fi" has been essentially meaningless for the last 20 years. And I think that would make true quality an even harder sell.

I should think that you'd want to add in a minimum number of degrees of arc for the picture height, and also require that it be 16:9. What good would HD be if I'm 20' from a 20" 4:3 TV? (At least I only spent $100 to get HD, then!)

Personally I'm OK with what seems to be a relatively consistent convention of only calling things HD if they're at least 720 lines, 16:9, and capable of progressive scan at some resolution. But not having any solid requirements leaves a lot of room for shady sales tactics.

 

[docferdie]

I don't know if this link works.

http://gullfoss2.fcc.gov/prod/ecfs/retrieve.cgi?native_or_pdf=pdf&id_document=6515383101

Page 10 sheds some light on the FCCs take on the definition of HDTV issue.