Till recently, we’ve only had access to what I call a “pilot program” for Hi-Def TV. But, as preparations for the launch of DirecTV’s D10 satellite developed, content providers began working at what they’re supposed to. Converting, upconverting, rebuilding their production facilities to offer varying levels of High Definition digital television from scratch.
Some of those channels began to work their way out into distribution. Via cable systems, via DirecTV and DISH Network, 10, 20, even 30 or more national HD channels started to appear in one’s and two’s. Generally limited by available bandwidth, they were what has been called HD-lite.
I’ve been one of the geeks following the testing of D10. Right now, they have 16 transponders hot – each ready to carry about 6 channels of full-blown HD. There are more than that remaining unused – so far – on that bird.
By the end of October, there will be 70 HD channels received from DirecTV. By year end, 100 channels. And D11 launches before Xmas. All broadcast in 1920x1080i and DD5.1. They’re mpeg4 instead of mpeg2; so, recording space per program – on a hard drive – is essentially halved. Technical parameters aside, anyone who’s ever watched HD-lite can see the difference in the new transmissions.
This won’t be a DirecTV exclusive for long. Sooner or later, every distribution system that adds capacity – will add content. Cable systems will have to expand their bandwidth. DISH Network has E12 scheduled to lift off roughly the same time as DirecTV’s D11. Still, DirecTV is first to the table with the most full-quality product – and provides the opportunity for HDTV to be distributed as quickly as it is created. In fact. the slowest part of the process, right now, is content providers coming up with original programming in true HD – or uprez’d into true HD. There’s a lot of stretchovision out there.
Prices for HDTV sets will continue to drop. That decline will probably accelerate as market expansion moves up the curve. None of that is unexpected to experienced geeks.
Some folks still miss black-and-white and monaural sound. Some still record and listen to mp3’s at 64kbps. I don’t.
As a D*Tv subscriber I have to say the difference in picture quality is HUGE. I wasnt expecting quite so large a difference but I can truly say on a 42″ screen the images are truly phenomenal especially with some of the new content like Smithsonian channel.
>>As a D*Tv subscriber I have to say the difference in picture
>>quality is HUGE.
Great. Now just as soon as they start broadcasting stuff on TV worth watching in HD (or worth watching at all), I’ll be upgrading.
Well, since NASCAR and Fox are already there – and Smithsonian, Discover, Science, National Geographic are there – a bunch of movie channels are there along with most “American” sports – what is it you’re waiting for, MM?
Cartoon Network showed up, this morning.
>>Well, since NASCAR and Fox are already there
Right. My point exactly. And I really don’t need to see “Myth Busters” or “Dirty Jobs” in high definition. I guess it’s hard to say what I’m waiting for. Maybe I’m just not cut out for the couch potato life. I’d rather go to Macchu Picchu in real life and see it in ID (infinite definition) than watch a TV show about it in marginally better quality than I already can. And if there’s a new movie that just can’t be appreciated in regular definition, I’ll go to the theater and view it. There are precious few of those, though.
If I could watch HDTV for $499 on a set I can just plug and play, maybe I’d consider it, just for shits and giggles. With all the expense, heartache, confusion, and everything else that surrounds this medium, I just don’t see it being worth the trouble right now. Not for the movies and shows that I can watch.
And doesn’t DirecTV crap out every time it rains? Pffft.
I bought an HD set this year. It will spoil you quickly. Even though my wife resisted, she is now the biggest fan in the house. She even asked for a surround sound receiver and HD/Bluray player.
MM – do you always comment extensively on something you obviously have never seen, read about or experienced?
Sat TV craps out every time it rains? Even the cablecos have given up on that one – since they receive their feeds by sat.
btw – there are 720p HDTV sets for $499. And mp3 players for $29.
>>do you always comment extensively on something you
>>obviously have never seen, read about or experienced?
Very seldom. In fact, my sight, experience of (at friends’ houses) and reading on the HD debacle is one of the reasons I’m punting on the “upgrade”.
And yes, the DirecTV craps out during rain storms, and even worse when ice forms on the thing.
In any case, I’d be willing to put up with that.
It’s the quality of what I’d be watching between rain and ice storms that keeps me from forking over the cash. NASCAR and Bill O’Reilly aren’t doing it for me.
If watching television floats your boat, go for it.
Gave away my 29″ TV and moved the 14″ from the guest bedroom into the lounge. Have to say, it looks just like HD, just smaller.
Don’t have cable or satellite.
Have a 19″ T.V that we barely watch. It’s used mostly on Friday nights for viewing kid friendly DVDs.
My 3 year old doesn’t get that we can’t pause broadcast T.V. (no Tivo either).
There’s no room in the house that wouldn’t be overpowered by a 40 inch or larger screen.
Guess we won’t get getting on the HD bandwagon any time soon.
Most HD content is upconverted. Scam!
There are two stories here that are more interesting than D* going HD-crazy (and I’m a D* subscriber who’s been enjoying the new channels):
1. Can E* keep up? They don’t have the bandwidth currently, and Uncle Charlie’s too busy trying to sell the company to put more birds in the air. Those Voom channels aren’t going to keep the channel going in the high end market for long.
2. Can cable keep up? To match D* they’re going to have to implement switching technology that will render everything they currently have for HD obsolete. I’m sure they’ll pony up the cash eventually, when the mainstream wants more HD channels, but will they be in a hurry for the high end guys?
>> the bad part about watching machu pichu in ID, is all the
>>garbage that you have to go thru in the middle before you
>>actually get there.
Kinda like the garbage you have to go thru in the middle before you can watch it on TV, hm?
Hey MM get a life and quit crapping on every comment made.I have been watching t.v. my whole life and yes its a waste of time. BTW so is this.
Well, there’s a reason the song calls him *Mean* Mister Mustard!
Hey MM: Just admit it, you’re either too cheap or too broke to get HDTV!
>>Hey MM get a life and quit crapping on every comment made.
Oh, poo. Put on the asbestos knickers, son. And thank your lucky stars that you don’t have to take the guff here that I do for believing in God.
>>Just admit it, you’re either too cheap or too broke to get HDTV!
Naw, I’m too cheap or to broke to get an iPhone, I’m too cheap or too broke to get a new refrigerator, I’m too cheap or too broke to get a new Intel-based MacBook Pro.
But HDTV?
As they say in BabelGhoti, “pffffft”. If I win one, you can have it. OK?
MM,
I have to go with you on this. I really don’t care to watch Dirty Jobs or Cash Cab in HD. Second, weather does affect every dish I’ve seen.
The Cartoon Network is in HD? WOW, how did you know that? Now you can watch Scoobie Doo scarf down his snacks even better.
There will always be those who fall for the pretty over substance.
James, as usual, we halfway agree.
This post is about technology offering choices – and it appears most responding would rather whine about how they make their choices. Absurd; but, not so unusual.
I think you’re you’re half right about Charlie and E*. They do have E11 and E12 scheduled – but, I also hear that E11 may be required to compensate for leased space running out and/or replacing at least an old sat.
Cable companies will continue to drag ass on HD the same way they do on broadband – real broadband.
There’s no conflict over substance vs. wrapper. You pays your money and you make your choices as you always have. Otherwise half the whiners here would still be using VHS – instead of DVD’s. A whole retail segment was built on offering more bits of information to the human eye – the same way stereo and surround sound offered more bits to the human ear.
I’m just waiting to hear back from SpeedTV – hoping they might put up the Brazilian GP in HiDef for the end of the season. I kinda doubt it. They’re as cheap as the rest of Fox.
Great write-up Ed, I was really looking forward to this!
pains me to say it MM, but I gotta disagree. ‘The Sopranos’ on HBO HD was killer. ‘Lost’ DVDs on a good upconverting player – Hawaii never looked so good. ‘The Matrix’ and ‘Unforgiven’ on HDDVD … whoo. And I got a box of the first season of ‘Heroes’ just waiting for me to finish off last season’s ‘Lost.’
I am just waiting for my cable company to round out the HD tier so I can get BSG, Torchwood and Dr. Who in HD.
one point of agreement – I had DirecTV at the old place and it used to cut out in the rain A LOT.
HD is a commie plot to undermine our way of life. Just like floridation(look what it did to those poor Floridians, couldn’t even mark a ballot properly after) of water, only now the reds are trying to make us enjoy t.v……thank God for folks like MM and others, who will fight the good fight for us.
Where I was raised and still live we are to far out for cable, or DSL, or to recieve regular antenna signals….so we went Direct many years ago, for internet when it became available and of course t.v. programming. We get 40 to 60 mph winds as a regular weather feature and have never lost signal, we lose signal if there is an extreamly heavy black cloud cover from one of our electrical/thunder storms during monsoon, lasts at the most 10 or 15 mins(the storms here are usually fast and furious), we have had a gazzillion sand storms but only once had a haboob bad enough to block the signal. Can’t say about ice and snow since we have never had those.
Having lived in the city where cable was available, I actually had more outages from that in 7 months than we have had in 20 years of Direct. My parents love the HD and can’t wait for all the new stuff to come online. I don’t have an HD t.v. here because I watch almost no t.v…..not worth it here, the bay area charges outragous fee’s for cable and dish tv.
>>Otherwise half the whiners here would still be using VHS –
>>instead of DVD’s.
Hey, I long for those days. The picture was just as good, and at least I could fast forward over that FBI shit about how I was going to burn in a lake of fire if I pirated the movie.
Crap in High Def is still crap. And just about everything on TV now is…you guessed it…crap!
Mike T
#26, Mike,
Excepting of course, the Cartoon Network. I’m assuming this, but, apparently you haven’t lived until you’ve watched Scoobie Doo in HD.
I tested a HD receiver on my standard TV for a day or two it was much better then overly compress stuff they send down the stream, Almost good as 4DTV
Silly me. I should have realized that MM also wouldn’t have any experience with DVR’s.
Dude, time-shifting has been around longer than HDTV and in the digital era, you can be more precise. Our family watches nothing in real time.
Even sports like proper football – soccer to you – we start watching ~15 minutes after game time > skip half time blather > finish with the second half in real time.
With a decent DVR and a 30-second skip/slip, you jump through commercial intervals precisely with a couple of button presses on any programming. And you watch what you want whenever you wish.
Take that tinfoil off your head and put it back on your rabbit ears antenna.
“All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.
-Arthur Schopenhauer, German philosopher (1788 – 1860)
“Hear me now, believe me later”.
-Hans und Franz
BTW, I have some 8-track tapes for sale if anyone is interested…
>>Silly me. I should have realized that MM also wouldn’t
>>have any experience with DVR’s.
Silly you is right. wtf are you talking about?
I tossed the satellite a year ago, hooked up a set of amplified rabbit ears that brings in ETV and a couple of UHF channels, and the health benefits alone are impressive. Health benefits: No spike in blood pressure thinking about how much I was paying for this thing when there was absolutely nothing on that I could stomach to watch, and that I was paying a ridiculous amount of money so that I could watch commercials. I live alone, so I don’t need a baby sitter, either for the old lady or kids, and it saved my TV’s life, as I was about ready to shotgun the thing everytime some commercial was telling me that just because I felt ok didn’t mean that I didn’t need to buy some kind of snake oil with a list of side effects that would scare hell out of Superman. Commercials on broadcast TV don’t bother me, as that’s the way I pay for it, and besides, about the only time I watch it is when I’m eating.