TV's and Game Consoles

[Espnetboy3]

Ok, my friends have bought new tv's. Both sony and one is 50 inch lcd and one is 60 inch dlp. They are HDTV quip and when we watch sports and such it looks amazing. Correct me if im wrong but what they dont get is that nothingg else is HDTV nor can be if they shoot hdv fotoage. The only way you have true hd is basically if you have a broadcast station . (Or if you shoot hdv and play from your cam to ur hd tv i believe). They think dvds are hd even the ones that come out from like dreamworks and such. Which I continue to tell them that they are wrong. There is no point in HD cams right now becasue the only thing you will get is tv stations that broadcast it. The guys at the store are trying to sell them on an upconverter box that displays regular dvds in HIdef for the tv or something and the tv's they have say 1080p which i wasnt even sure if that existed yet. I know with anythin you can never upconvert. Supposidly xbox 360 plays 1080p is this true.

I would like if someone could clear this nonsense and perhaps myths up. Thanks

 

[i.Feature]

I have seen upconverting DVD players in action and they do make a noticable difference, especially on Large TV's. On my 32" the difference is minimal but still noticable. I'm debating buying one, but only because i need a new player. I wouldn't run out and dump your current DVD player if you're happy with what you see already.

From Wikipedia:

A video scaler is a device which can convert a video signal from one format to another; most scalers can convert between arbitrary resolutions (low to high or high to low) and accept digital and analog inputs & outputs. To be completely accurate, a scaler not only interconverts resolutions but must also perform deinterlacing, which is a completely separate, resolution-independent process. In the consumer market, a frequent application for these devices is to take low-resolution NTSC signals and convert them into high-definition ATSC signals, by inserting the scaler in the video chain between a legacy device (such as a DVD player) and the TV. Depending on the quality of electronics, the viewer may perceive an improvement in video quality even though the amount of video information remains the same throughout this process. All TV stations which broadcast in high definition use commercial-grade scalers as part of their infrastructure to enable transmission of legacy standard definition video material on a high definition signal.

A rare use of the term "HD upconverter" applies to the upconverting DVD player. This type of DVD player converts DVD-Video format video on a DVD directly to a high definition video signal for use with an HDTV. An upconverting DVD player effectively has a simple video scaler built in that is limited to accepting input from the player's video transport and not from any external sources. Such a DVD player may be constrained by copy protection licenses such as CSS which limit upconversion to being output only on copy-protected digital transports (such as HDMI or DVI-HDCP in the US).

 

[filmamigo]

Lots of people are confused about the HD tv sets they own or want to own.

I don't know about your friends' TV sets in particular, but most HD sets are able only to display HD -- they don't even come with a tuner for over-the-air HD broadcasts. As such, these TVs are like a big computer monitor. They are capable of displaying a high maximum resolution, but only if you feed them from a source that is actually HD.

"Regular" TV has now been renamed "SD" (standard definition). The maximum resolution of SD is 720x480 (a little bit better than VGA resolution).

"HD" is actually an amalgam of different digital resolutions, though different TVs and products will support different maximum resolutions. The supported resolutions are: 640x480 (commonly called 480), 1280x720 (commonly called 720), and 1920x1080 (commonly called 1080). An i or a p get appended to the common names to describe whether each frame is drawn interlaced or progressively. The label on your friends' TVs indicate that they will support a maximum resolution of 1920x1080, interlaced. However, if they are fed lower-resolution material, they will simply scale the picture to fit on the screen.

Here are the rules of thumb for what can actually deliver HD to those big screens:

* An over-the-air HD tuner
* An HD tuner for digital cable or digital satellite
* An HD VCR, like the D-VHS from JVC, or professional broadcast HD decks (read: $50,000+)
* An HD camcorder (like the Sony, JVC or Canon HDV camcorders, or the Panasonic HVX200 camcorder)
* An HD TiVo
* XBox360

However, if you plug any of the following devices into your friends' TVs, the TV is receiving regular SD (at 720x480 maximum), and then just scaling it up to fit on the TV's 1080i display. Of course, you can't invent resolution that isn't there. The TV simply enlarges the pixels from the SD source. These devices would be:

* VHS/Betamax VCRs
* All current DVD players (even if the player has "HD" outputs, the electronics and discs only support 720x480, and the picture is getting electronically scaled up somewhere.)
* All video game consoles except the XBox360
* All non-HD camcorders
* A regular TiVo
* All NTSC video outputs from laptops and computers

Basically, if the device says NTSC anywhere, it is regular "SD" video that it's putting out.

Hope this all helps.

Cheers,
Dave

 

[risc]

Supposidly xbox 360 plays 1080p is this true.

The Xbox 360 can do standard definition, and 720p/1080i (not 1080p) HD.

 

[evil_santa]

well said filmamigo,

I find that when people see something in 16:9/wide screen the assume that it is HD . At the end of the day you can not create resolution that wasnt there in the first place, its the same as the TV to print thread on this forum