[BC] An HD Tuner for $110

[Robert Orban]

At 10:17 AM 12/24/2005, you wrote:
>From: Robert Meuser <Robertm at broadcast.net>
>Subject: Re: [BC] An HD Tuner for $110
>To: Broadcast Radio Mailing List <broadcast at radiolists.net>
>Message-ID: <43AD7BC2.3070408 at broadcast.net>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
>
>
>Not sure what you're watching or what you're taking while watching it,
>but around here those problems dont exist.
>
>R
>
>
>DANA PUOPOLO wrote:
>
> >Yep...Just try and watch a hockey game on HDTV - the slurring will drive you
> >nuts! But this is the FUTURE, so it must be better - RIGHT?!
> >Even Dish TV has artifacts by the tons now (NTSC). Whenever anything goes to
> >black, what you see are a bunch of square pixels with differing amounts of
> >black.
> >
> >So much for "digital quality".

I think HDTV is the greatest advance in home entertainment since NTSC 
color. I find myself watching shows I wouldn't have otherwise watched 
because of the near feature film production values that are visible in the 
HDTV broadcasts in the best network series (like the CSI's). I only see 
artifacts very occasionally and find them far less annoying than the 
ghosting I get from off-air NTSC or the video noise from the analog NTSC on 
my cable service.

As far as I can see, the only dark cloud on the horizon is that Hollywood 
plans to screw early adopters by not making analog high definition outputs 
available on the upcoming high definition DVD players (and possibly 
down-rezing the analog outputs of existing HD cable boxes). In Hollywood's 
brave new world, you need HDMI or you don't get high def, period.

The consumer magazines are WAY behind the curve on this issue; Consumer 
Reports recently did an issue devoted almost entirely to big-screen TV 
without mentioning copy protection issues and HDMI even once. I can 
understand advertiser-supported magazines not making an issue out of this 
because the fact is that right now, any multichannel receiver you buy is 
obsolete before you get it out of the box. Smart consumers will wait until 
a new generation of receivers with a full complement of HDMI inputs and 
outputs becomes available. And no one should buy a big screen TV that 
doesn't have at least one HDMI input.

Bob Orban