HD - lite vs HD TV Set Resolution

Toggle sidebar
W

woljr

SatelliteGuys Family
Original poster
Jun 17, 2005
80
0
In todays Atlanta paper there are HD TV sets advertised with resolutions at 1024 x 768, 1280 x 720, 1280 x 1080 , 1440 x 1080 and 1920 x 1080. Obviously there is no standard for HD TV set resolution. Few people will realize what they are buying.

Now we have HD - lite by Satillite. Where does HD - lite fit in this complicted picture? Is this DISH network's response to this RESOLUTION puzzle? :confused: :confused:
 
No, this is the tv manufacturer's answer.

Why should they bother going to the expense of having all sets capable of full rez if satellite and cable aren't even going to provide it. There's just not enough incentive for people to spend that kind of money.

And the bigger picture being what it always is, money, the industry realized it can probably sell more $1000-$1500 ED+ TVs to average customers this year (since that's all cable and sat are going to pass on anyway) and still sell some high end units to HD-DVD enthusiasts.

In a year or two, when more customers are attracted to the HD-DVD scene (as it always works) and the price starts to get driven down on the higher end sets, the ED+ TV goes to the bedroom and we buy a full rez for the living room. That's when the competition for better PQ will resume.

The industry tried to by-pass the usual "tiered" marketing strategy by going straight from SD to HD but it didn't work and now they're trying to recover. Had signal providers stuck to their full rez guns a little longer, in may have worked out. Better sets were starting to fall in price but not fast enough to attract enough customers, quick enough.

Another big problem was most electronic stores did a lousy job of presenting HD. If you're trying to sell a sterling silver candy dish, don't display it holding saltine crackers.
 
ATSC Table 3 Formats for DTV Transmission

Vert----------horz---------aspect----------fps/scan
1080---------1920----------16:9--------24p, 30p, 30i
720-----------1280----------16:9--------24p, 30p, 60p
480------------704----------16:9--------24p, 30p, 30i, 60p
480------------704-----------4:3---------24p, 30p, 30i, 60p
480------------640-----------4:3---------24p, 30p, 30i, 60p

LCD plants can make the 768 lines easily, carryover from computer monitor production. They rescale to fit. Basically, it's cheaper to manufacture than the higher resolution units. You get to pick what you want to pay for. But keep in mind, how much difference could you see between the resolutions at 19"? Or the average size TV, 27"? 36" Certainly by the time you hit 61" you'd see plenty of difference, but why pay for 1080 lines on a 20" or so screen, when most people would see little or no difference.

Note that it's 18 formats for digital TV, not HDTV. And the holy grail, 1920x1080 60p, is not one of them.
 
Last edited:
This is all part of the migration to HD.

Few early HDTVs supported the full 1280x720p or 1920x1080i resolutions.

Now we have an increasing number of higher end HDTVs that can display these resolutions, and the prices are moving toward mid-priced ranges.

However we also have the low-end market, which is much larger than the high-end market, and so TV manufacturers offer lower capability sets to achieve certain price points. Smaller TVs don't necessarily need full resolutions to look very sharp.

So it is understandable and predictable that we have a variety of technologies and capabilities in the early introductory years of HD.

As time progresses, we will see more affordable sets having full HD resolution. You can see progress across the board in all technologies. Plasma set prices have dropped dramatically, LCD panels are dropping in price, increasing in resolution and in refresh rates, DLP, LCDRP, and LCOS sets are offering 1080p at prices dropping close to or below $3K. Several new technologies are being developed.

In a few years we will be able to buy 1920x1080p 50" flat panels for $1K.

At some point there will be few sets above 25"-27" that will have anything less than true HD resolution. There won't be a market for them and the cost to make a panel will be cheap. But the technology and pricing isn't there yet.
 
Last edited:
Tom Bombadil said:
This is all part of the migration to HD.

Few early HDTVs supported the full 1280x720p or 1920x1080i resolutions.

Now we have an increasing number of higher end HDTVs that can display these resolutions, and the prices are moving toward mid-priced ranges.

However we also have the low-end market, which is much larger than the high-end market, and so TV manufacturers offer lower capability sets to achieve certain price points. Smaller TVs don't necessarily need full resolutions to look very sharp.

So it is understandable and predictable that we have a variety of technologies and capabilities in the early introductory years of HD.

As time progresses, we will see more affordable sets having full HD resolution. You can see progress across the board in all technologies. Plasma set prices have dropped dramatically, LCD panels are dropping in price, increasing in resolution and in refresh rates, DLP, LCDRP, and LCOS sets are offering 1080p at prices dropping close to or below $3K. Several new technologies are being developed.

In a few years we will be able to buy 1920x1080p 50" flat panels for $1K.

At some point there will be few sets above 25"-27" that will have anything less than true HD resolution. There won't be a market for them and the cost to make a panel will be cheap. But the technology and pricing isn't there yet.
Click to expand...

Good, and as time progress, HDTV providers will be increasing bandwith by using fiber, switched digital, more satellites, transponders to take advantage of the full rez.

Meanwhile they will squeeze more channels as possible from the technology available to woo customers in this emerging market instead of appeasing to a small minority who either own of the very expensive sets already or have a standard small tube HDTV only capable of 1080i that would rather settle for less content. Listening to the few minority complainers on bulletin boards would be a sure death warrent in the HDTV business.
 
Last edited:
Tom Bombadil said:
Technically there are 6.

1920x1080i30
1920x1080p30
1920x1080p24

1280x720p60
1280x720p30
1280x720p24
Click to expand...

Well, no, technically :). If one wants to be truly anal and count all of the available frame rates as different "formats" of HDTV, then there are actually 13!! (this tally includes the "as shot" frame rates of 23.976 and 29.97).

leaving engineering analness aside, however, for the purposes of this discussion (and since frame rates have already pretty much been "standardized"), the aformentioned answer of 3 HDTV formats is close enough for government work :)
 
Even if we had full rez HD monitors when speaking about satellite and cable I believe their STB's don't output full rez.

So does any tv provider (cable, dbs, fios, etc) provide full rez out of their STB's :confused: :confused:
 
As there are thousands of true 1920x1080 sets being sold every month now - for example I believe Scott G just purchased one - there are going to be more and more people who will see the shortcomings of HD-lite. All major manufacturers have either got true HD sets in production or are close to releasing them. Sony & Samsung have multiple 1920 HDTVs on store shelves.

The Westinghouse LVM-42w2 LCD set supports 1920x1080 and can be had for around $1800.

E* is moving from true HD to HD-lite right in the face of the public transition from HD-lite TVs to true HD TVs.

I should add that even on HDTVs that cannot display a full 1920x1080 resolution, it is easy to see the degradation from HD-lite. When the quality of the source is degraded, then the output/image from TV is also degraded.
 
Last edited:
Tom Bombadil said:
E* is moving from true HD to HD-lite right in the face of the public transition from HD-lite TVs to true HD TVs.

I should add that even on HDTVs that cannot display a full 1920x1080 resolution, it is easy to see the degradation from HD-lite. When the quality of the source is degraded, then the output/image from TV is also degraded.
Click to expand...
Yep, even on my older Sony GWIV (1280x768) I could see a noticeable difference when switching between the 1920x1080i TNTHD feed from Adelphia cable and the 1440x1080i TNTHD feed from VOOM DBS...and 1280x1080i is even more noticeable. Superficially, VOOM's watered down version of TNTHD looked pretty darn good, but it didn't have the 3-D effects. However, when I flipped over to the Adelphia 1920x1080i feed you could immediately pick out the facial features in the crowd. Heck, even my "I don't care about HDTV" wife admitted to seeing a difference. I had her switch the inputs and I was able to identify the VOOM/Adelphia feed each and every time.

I'm sorry to break all the HD-Lite Apologists hearts, but the differences are noticeable on many older non-1920x1080i sets. Don't let the corporate shylocks deceive you into believing there are no discernable differences. They have an agenda, and they are lying. Let your own eyes serve as the judge and jury.
 
riffjim4069 said:
Yep, even on my older Sony GWIV (1280x768) I could see a noticeable difference when switching between the 1920x1080i TNTHD feed from Adelphia cable and the 1440x1080i TNTHD feed from VOOM DBS...and 1280x1080i is even more noticeable. Superficially, VOOM's watered down version of TNTHD looked pretty darn good, but it didn't have the 3-D effects. However, when I flipped over to the Adelphia 1920x1080i feed you could immediately pick out the facial features in the crowd. Heck, even my "I don't care about HDTV" wife admitted to seeing a difference. I had her switch the inputs and I was able to identify the VOOM/Adelphia feed each and every time.

I'm sorry to break all the HD-Lite Apologists hearts, but the differences are noticeable on many older non-1920x1080i sets. Don't let the corporate shylocks deceive you into believing there are no discernable differences. They have an agenda, and they are lying. Let your own eyes serve as the judge and jury.
Click to expand...

You guys must really have some bad sets as a majority of us do not camplain about the HD quality from Dish.
 
Last edited:
foghorn2 said:
You guys must really have some bad sets as a majority of us do not camplain about the HD quality from Dish.
Click to expand...

I do not understand this comment at all. The better the set the more you notice the degradation. I certainly see it on mine.

The fact that the majority do not complain only adds to the problem.
 
foghorn2 said:
You guys must really have some bad sets as a majority of us do not camplain about the HD quality from Dish.
Click to expand...
Just someone with three calibrated sets, 20/20 vision, and the ability to tell the difference between sh*t and shinola...DishHD, once a polished product, now stinks to high heaven! ;) It's quite sad when Adelphia, the scurge of cabledom, has HD channels that blow away Dish Network.
 
Any time an HD-lite proponent brings up the "bad sets" or "bad eyes" argument against those who claim to see the difference, it only shows how little they understand about the issue.

Better sets and better eyes will see more shortcomings of HD-lite.

Bad sets and/or bad eyes will fail to see the difference.

Saying someone can see the shortcomings of HD-lite because they have a bad TV set makes no sense. It's like stating that the reason why someone CAN read the bottom line on an eyechart is because they have poor eyesight.
 
Tom Bombadil said:
Technically there are 6.

1920x1080i30
1920x1080p30
1920x1080p24

1280x720p60
1280x720p30
1280x720p24
Click to expand...


Technically there are 0

There are 18 ATSC Digital resolutions. Aftermarket it putting the descriptor of HD vs Non-HD.
 

Similar threads

dweber
Dish Anywhere low Resolution on Toshiba Fire TV
Replies
10
Views
1K
MikeD-C05
MikeD-C05
J
Hopper Plus vs Smart TV for Streaming
Replies
4
Views
701
jackson85
J
H
Replace a vip722k HD
Replies
9
Views
1K
navychop
navychop
E
Folders in a external HD
Replies
3
Views
569
jpmarto
jpmarto
N
Dish anywhere not allowing timer to be set on OTA channel
Replies
11
Views
1K
NJeanA
N

Users Who Are Viewing This Thread (Total: 0, Members: 0, Guests: 0)

Who Read This Thread (Total Members: 1)

Latest posts

Share this page

Share this page
Top
Back