Is HD Really THAT Much Better

I had a TV with digital cable for a while, in Fargo, until I realized that there was nothing on those hundreds of channels worth watching. HD was noticeably sharper and clearer. But of course the difference is more noticeable on a larger screen. Any given number of pixels will be more spread out on a larger screen. On a 4-inch screen I doubt anybody would see a difference. On a four-foot screen, the difference will be significant.

So the answer to the question in the thread title is, it depends on the size of your TV.

 

Some sets upsample standard def to HD better than others.
Are you saying both HD and SD look great or are both mediocre?
If they are not both great, I would make sure your cable and Apple boxes are set to output 1080i .They might both be set to output 480.

 

The more I read, the more I'm convinced that Dan and mojo are probably right; that perhaps there's something wrong with how your equipment is set up. If you're using HDMI cables, then there's unlikely to be anything wrong on the TV side. Take a look at any "video out" options on your AppleTV and cable box and make sure they are set for the appropriate values (i.e. 720p, 1080i, or 1080p, depending on your TV).

Actually, this may be a stupid question, but are you sure that you have an HD package over your cable? Just because you have digital cable does not mean that you have HD service by default; usually you have to pay extra for it.

Take a look at some major sporting event soon (there is college basketball and golf on CBS all afternoon tomorrow) and if the difference isn't significantly better than watching SD, then I think it's safe to say that something is wrong.

EDIT: Another thing I just thought of: on my TV, there's a button I can press to get information about the current signal that the TV is displaying. It will tell me, among other things, the resolution of the signal. Do you have some sort of info display that you can get up on your TV that will tell you something about resolution?

 

The answer is highly dependant on how much compression the signal provider is using. I have seen some cable companies that compressed the signal so much that their HD signal was not noticibly better than the Standard Definition digital signal. Dish Network is better for me, but Over the Air is fantastic and a noticible difference.

I have a projector onto a 165 inch screen, and it does look much better than analog would look that big.

 

When I first received my 50" 1080i Panasonic plasma,I was truly awestruck when I first hooked it up.The HD picture is so vivid and 3 dimensional, like looking out of a magic window.
I know somethings wrong if you arent wowed.Maybe there are video settings in your tv which are incorrect.Could sharpness setting be at lowest level?
I would go to Aquos thread on AVS and find recommended settings.
LCD Flat Panel Displays - AVS Forum
I suppose your sets internal scaler could be defective.
Look and compare at the big box store ,they have horrible feeds and settings.Yours should look much better.

 

HDMI in no way implies that the signal it's carrying is high-def. All my high-def satellite receivers are connected to their displays via HDMI, and I can choose for them to send a 480i or 480p signal, in addition to 720p and 1080i. Same is true for my Sony Playstation 3 (except it doesn't do 480i over HDMI, lowest resolution is 480p). I'd go so far as to say the majority of TV signal sources that can be hooked up via HDMI can be set up to send a standard definition signal over that HDMI connection, so just because you are using an HDMI connection in no way means that you must be receiving an HD signal. Most likely both devices are HD capable, but the source still needs to be configured correctly.

 

There is no such thing as a 1080i plasma. All flat-panel display technologies are inherently progressive. Only CRT-based displays perform interlaced scanning.

 

Duh.

I can't understand why it is so hard for some of you to tell when you're watching a true HD source vs. upconverted SD being broadcast as SD. It is extremely rare for a broadcaster to perform an isomorphic zoom on SD content to fill a 16x9 frame. Most of them add black bars to the sides, or do an isomorphic zoom that doesn't quite fill the screen (14x9 from Animal Planet HD), or do a horrible non-linear horizontal zoom (TNT-HD).

Even if you were so blind you couldn't see the higher resolution, you can still be able to see the black bars on the sides of 4x3 content, or the effects of the zooming in the case where the broadcaster stretches SD content.

 

Yeah. You're quite right. The more I thought about my statement, the more I realized it was stupid. You can send whatever signal you want over the HDMI cable but, as you said, chances are that almost every device with HDMI connections is HD-capable. Therefore, there is almost never a reason to set up a piece of hardware to send SD over an HDMI cable, but that doesn't mean that a device can't me mis-configured to do so.

 

There are major differences in color and fine detail but all HDTVs are not created equally. You must have quality resoltution to appreciate the difference. A large screen also helps.

See 1080p - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

As previously mentioned in another thread....You'll have to forgive us for this when our manuals say things like "enables the display of 1080i, 720p, etc.." we naturally take it to mean that it does display 1080i, not just that it is capable of accepting 1080i and converting it to the TV's native 720p.

Cheers

 

If that's the case then it sounds like you need to read your TV's operating manual. Only a handful of channels zoom SD commercials, so you should be seeing the black bars on most commercials (since HD commercials are still the minority).

I'm guessing you probably pressed the "zoom" or "aspect ratio" or "view mode" by accident to get rid of black bars, in an effort to get your "money's worth" out of your TV by filling the screen.

 

This brings up a real pet peeve of mine: Hotels that install wide-screen TVs set to stretch out regular TV broadcasts so everything is distorted and people appear fatter than they really are. It's annoying as hell! Sometimes the TV or the remote has the necessary controls to select 4:3 aspect ratio for TV programs, but often they do not. I was at a Marriott while visiting my mom on my recent trip, and they specifically told me there was no way to change the aspect ratio. The TV itself appeared to have no controls, and the remote was a hotel remote, not the TV's own native remote, so it lacked any way to access the TV's internal menu.

 

The vast majorities of movies, as well as scripted TV shows, are shot on film. The film is transferred to digital media for mastering using a machine called a telecine. There isn't anything inherently different about transferring an old movie vs. a new movie except:

1) It might be harder to find a good print of an older movie compared to a newer one

2) A lot more care (including restoration, defect removal, etc.) is taken in transferring a film that is destined for a high-definition disk format, or going to be broadcast on a major network. I'm sure HDNet and Voom spend only a tiny fraction of the time and money transferring a film compared to say, the Blu-ray transfer of Casino Royale (Daniel Craig version, not Peter Sellers)

I have no direct experience with the quality of the HD channels on Comcast, though I have read a number of complaints about it over on AVSforum. Most of those complaints centered around excessive compression due to the need to cram more HD chanels into a limited amount of bandwidth.

 

Here's a good thread on AVSForum discussing reference Blu-ray titles (titles that really show off your home theater). Looks like I need to go pick up Blade Runner today.

Best BD-exclusive reference titles? - Page 8 - AVS Forum