Is HD Really THAT Much Better

The difference between HD programming and SD programming is completely obvious to me. HD looks crisp and clear and SD definitely has a bit of "fuzz" to it. It can be the case that digital SD looks better than analog SD, but it has been my experience than ANY HD broadcast looks better than ANY SD broadcast; it's just night and day and anyone who looks at the TV can notice the obvious difference (even my S.O. who could care less about all this HD crap).

One situation where the difference is less remarkable is when I'm viewing (SD) DVDs. With my progressive-scan (SD) DVD player, I think that DVDs look amazing. While I think I could tell the difference, I'm not completely positive that I could differentiate between a 480p source and a 720p source. This may be the difference that you're seeing with your AppleTV, but I can't account for you not seeing a difference in your TV signals.

 

If you cant tell the difference between normal SD and HD then your "HD" content is not not 720p or 1080i. It can be hard to tell the difference between 720p and 1080i sometimes. It all depends on how the content was captured.

 

The quality difference between 480i/p vs 720p+ is more apparent on larger screens. DVDs are noticeably lower quality compared to HD content. Recently, I downloaded Planet Earth in 720p HD. I was currently borrowing my friend's DVD of the same series, so a comparison seemed logical. The result was a significant difference in quality and detail on my 46" LCD. The Planet Earth series is a must have for your HD library. It really needs to be viewed in HD to fully realize the experience.

 

I think the only way to see an actual differance is when the tv show you are watching was actually shot with a HD camera.

 

the old TV standard was based on the human eye
eye to screen distance etc
HD only brings a better image to the eye buth @ a distance the human eye can not see a lot of change!

i dont care about HD only maybe for a home movie thats it!

for normal tv i just wanna see ... nothing special!

 

Mine is! I was tempted to go with a cheap HDMI cable and the guy at Best Buy talked me in to taking both and returning the one I didn't want. There was a noticable diifference between the 2, particularly when there is a lot of motion on the screen.

The most pleasant surprise is the quality of signal I'm getting over a $17 UHF antenna for local digital broadcasts. I'm getting 1080 consistently for local channels. Very few breakups and amazing quality for free!

 

They love people like you. What's better than selling a cable for $50-90 that cost $1 to manufacture in China and another dollar to ship to the US? Monoprice sells cables of equal or better quality for $6.

 

^^

I try to tell everyone about Monoprice, especially customers at big box stores. It's pretty easy to spend $150+ on a simple HDMI cable at the retailers. They even wrap it up in pretty blister-pack packaging and, of course, gold-plated.. so you get a crispier picture. HAH! My $6 HDMI cable from Monoprice performs every bit as well, and it didn't come with a whole bunch of packaging to throw away, either. For less than $50 bux I got all my digital video/audio cables, and even my Wii component cable.

 

I had been a sceptic of HD programing and didn't think there could be that much difference. Then in '05 I bought my first HD tv, Toshiba 50" DLP, and haven't looked back. I've moved on to my second tv, Pioneer Elite 50" Plasma, and the only non HD programming I watch is Outdoor, VS, and SciFi Channels. When they go HD I'll never view a non-HD program again.

If you want to see the difference between HD and SD you have to watch the Planet Earth series. I have all the episodes on my HD Tivo and it's the ONLY way to watch. I tried watching 1 ep in SD and I could only take about 5 minutes.

I've been forced to go from Direct Tv to CommCast, forced by $ not by location. UFC in HD is unrivaled, CommCast doesn't offer PPV HD programming yet and that drives me crazy, but they do have OnDemand so it's a love hate right now.

HD is absolutely worth it!!!!!!!

 

Same here.

The high end stuff looks absolutely amazing.
.

 

I have recently had the opportunity to watch a bunch of TV on a friends 42" LCD tv. The quality of the picture for the HD programming is absolutely jaw dropping. I feel there is a bigger difference between HD and SD than there was between black and white and Color TV.

Maybe if you only have a 32" TV you don't see much of a difference. But at 42" the picture quality is amazing. BTW the input is from Comcast cable.

 

With the right equipment, the difference between HD and normal TV is like the difference between night and day. Even ordinary DVDs look a little fuzzy compared to high quality HD. I can hardly stand to watch ordinary TV content anymore. I have a 56" Mitsubishi Diamond-Vision DLP set that does 1080p with incredible colors and contrast. There is just no comparison.

Tom

 

I can tell you that many people make this claim. This is usually because installers from either satellite and cable companies are untrained in how to hook up and display HDTV. Of the three friends who made similar complaints as you do, all three had their expensive TV's and cable boxes set up to display HDTV in standard definition, thereby losing all of the benefits true HD brings. If this is what's happened to you, then it makes sense that you'd see the same ol' picture.

As a video systems technician in a previous life for the major TV networks, if you are certain you are hooked up right (and DON'T trust the installer to do it correctly) and you still can't see the difference, I recommend a trip to the optometrist. The difference even to my 87 year old father is apparent -- but only after I hooked him up correctly. I suspect your hookup is in error.

Dan

 

Can you tell us how you are connecting the AppleTV and Cable box to the TV?

 

Yes, and the quality of true HD differs dramatically from one channel to another. Some use a lot better equipment, some compress heavily so that motion artifacts are obvious. The playing field is very uneven at the moment, but when you see good HD you will know it, unless, as already suggested, your equipment is improperly installed.

Tom

 

Although the source quality varies (not everything is shot in HD or its equivalents), I think one can easily compare HD and SD broadcasts by just jockeying back and forth between an HD channel and its SD channel equivalent. If I jockey back and forth between say the CBS HD channel and the CBS STD channel, I think the difference is still night and day even when the source material is not HD.

 

Perhaps, but after re-thinking this original comment, HD content should still be WAY better than SD content, no matter how it's delivered (i.e. via analog or digital).

You should check out something that you're certain is in HD and try to see if it looks a lot better. It should be easy to find something that's broadcast in HD; most sports these days is as well as most/all of current prime-time programming.

Something to be aware of is that there is often/always two channels broadcasting the same material; one in SD and one in HD. Is it possible that you're looking at the (digital version of the) SD channel?

Someone else asked the cable question earlier, which is a good one, but I do remember having a conversation with you in a previous thread where you were going to get some HDMI cables from monoprice, so that's what I've been assuming that you're been using. It is hard to hook up two sources together with HDMI cables in a way that would allow you to *not* get HD (I'd say it was impossible, but I'm sure someone here could think up a way). If you're using some other type of cable, I will agree that this is something to check into. Certainly, you're never going to get any HD content if you've just hooked up your TV to your cable box using standard composite cables (i.e. one cable for video and two for audio).

 

No, Japanese and South Korean bikes are way better than HD although HD is much better than it was, it has a long row to hoe.