HDTV enabled :D

[Jerrek]

Lookie here, the comparison between regular TV and HDTV:















On a Radeon:





I love my HDTV-enabled computer. If you're thinking of making the move, DO IT@

[philip.j.fry]

Is that rugby they're playing

[TimmyB]

Impressive. But how exactly do you recieve HDTV in the UK - how much content is available and from where?

[Jerrek]

Here are some screenshots at 720p, not shrunk this time:

http://www.wilcoxhs.org/albums/album42/0324_151110.jpg (Oscar night --ABC)

http://www.wilcoxhs.org/albums/album42/0324_150159.jpg (Monsters, Inc. --ABC)

[Richard M]

Yeah, nice isn't it?
The reality is though, that the UK will take years to move to HDTV broadcasts - even fast internet access is taking ages to become widely available.

The 40" TFT TV I'm buying in April/May when I've finished selling a house has a native resolution of 1280x768 so will look quite nice when playing DVDs or games via the Radeon AIW 9800 Pro.
More details here and here.

[Chris]

Originally Posted by TimmyB

Impressive. But how exactly do you recieve HDTV in the UK - how much content is available and from where?

I don't believe you can. The Government offered to legislate to give the industry the chance to move over to HDTV at the same time as the move to digital/analogue switch-off, and the industry said it didn't want the expense of doing it all at once.

Given that they seem to want to get digital sorted first, and then concentrate on HDTV later, I suppose we could easily be waiting another 5 years before anyone starts transmitting HDTV in the UK.

[Nor]

The normal TV grabs you've posted are 4:3 stretched to 16:9.

[Bifta]

Originally Posted by towny

I don't believe you can. The Government offered to legislate to give the industry the chance to move over to HDTV at the same time as the move to digital/analogue switch-off, and the industry said it didn't want the expense of doing it all at once.

Given that they seem to want to get digital sorted first, and then concentrate on HDTV later, I suppose we could easily be waiting another 5 years before anyone starts transmitting HDTV in the UK.

http://www.euro1080.tv/

[Chris]

Originally Posted by Bifta

http://www.euro1080.tv/

Fair point, but I can't see this having any influence on domestic TV services in the UK - they claim to be offering a service to all European hosueholds in one breath, but with the next they reveal they're actually interested in events broadcasting and supply of HDTV content to public locations like hotels and bars.

We won't see any significant HDTV take-up in this country until our established service providers choose to broadcast it, and from what I understand about their reasoning for not doing it already, we have a while to wait.

Don`t forget to take into account that PAL non-HDTV transmissions are already at a higher resolution than NTSC ones.

[Bifta]

Originally Posted by towny

Fair point, but I can't see this having any influence on domestic TV services in the UK - they claim to be offering a service to all European hosueholds in one breath, but with the next they reveal they're actually interested in events broadcasting and supply of HDTV content to public locations like hotels and bars.

We won't see any significant HDTV take-up in this country until our established service providers choose to broadcast it, and from what I understand about their reasoning for not doing it already, we have a while to wait.

The new Xbox is supposed to support HDTV output, that'll be reason enough for me to invest in some HDTV equipment, not overly bothered about the lack of content on view atm, no doubt if it is introduced various suppliers will whack a hefty premium on it.

[Chris]

Originally Posted by dr wadd

Don`t forget to take into account that PAL non-HDTV transmissions are already at a higher resolution than NTSC ones.

625 lines for PAL, 500-and-something for NTSC if I remember rightly (NTSC known in the industry as Not The Same Color, due to its infamously muddy pictures - I can well appreciate why North America is so keen to ditch it asap. And to think the BBC actually did early colour TV trials using NTSC! )

[Bifta]

Originally Posted by towny

625 lines for PAL, 500-and-something for NTSC if I remember rightly (NTSC known in the industry as Not The Same Color, due to its infamously muddy pictures - I can well appreciate why North America is so keen to ditch it asap. And to think the BBC actually did early colour TV trials using NTSC! )

Heh, I thought it was "Never Twice the Same Colour"

Originally Posted by towny

And to think the BBC actually did early colour TV trials using NTSC! )

On a technical front, I`m not sure that there is much that is television related that the BBC haven`t had some involvement with.

Originally Posted by Bifta

The new Xbox is supposed to support HDTV output, that'll be reason enough for me to invest in some HDTV equipment, not overly bothered about the lack of content on view atm, no doubt if it is introduced various suppliers will whack a hefty premium on it.

The XBox already supports HDTV if you use the correct cables to connect via component video. I`m not sure if the functionality is present in PAL XBoxes given the paucity of displays in this country that will accept a component input. That said, the games do need to support HDTV explicitly, so it is not an across the board solution.