Chav TV Chic

Wow Google really have taken over Writely, making a blog post is like writing a gmail email now, it is an even better editor than before.

Now you Americans are more wowed by HDTV than Brits because of the awful default resolution (first 405 then 525 lines) of your normal broadcasts and sets as opposed to our default 625 line well defined behemoths. That notwithstanding, to your questions:

Q1 -- Is it true that standard, run-of-the-mill DVDs played on a standard, run-of-the-mill DVD player will not be as eye-poppingly good on an HDTV screen as "real" HDTV?

A1 -- Yes it's true. The problem is that the DVD images on the normal DVD platter are at 720x480 resolution. So when you play them on your HTDV (which runs at either 1280x720 or 1920x1080) you're not exploiting the TV as much as you could were you showing an image that was photographed at that higher resolution. You can buy new DVD players (known as "HD-Compatible" players) that use a process called "upscaling" -- upscaling mathematically matches the pixel count of the output of the DVD signal to the physical pixel count on an HDTV, so it looks smoother on the HDTV, but it's a fudge at the end of the day. And you have to match your native resolution from the DVD to ensure you don't get the same issue you see on a thinkpad when you don't display at the correct "native" resolution, ie. fuzziness. So I would carefully match any "HD-compatible" DVD player you acquire to the HDTV that you are going to use with it -- apparently most of them do a good job. There is a better option though, read on McDuff ..

Q2 -- Is there going to be "real" HDTV DVDs coming out soon?

A2 -- They are already here among us. The first question is when are they going to make DVDs with images of HDTV resolution like 1280x720 or 1920x1080? They do already! Clearly to store a movie at this higher resolution on a disk you're either going to need more capacity that the 8.5 GB or so of a current dual layer DVD disk, which is pretty much filled up by a 2-2.5hr movie at 720x480, or better compression, or both. Thus to your next question ..

Q3 -- What the heck is "Blue Ray"? I keep hearing that.

A3 -- So we see that current DVDs cannot exploit true High Definition playback and recording capability. So two competing camps have come up with the solution: "Blu-ray" and "HD-DVD", they are direct competitors (they are INCOMPATIBLE -- remember VHS vs. Betamax? :-) There are a bunch of manufacturers behind each technology, and someone is behind both (Thomson I think). There appear to be more "big hitters" behind Blu-ray so perhaps it will win. These new Blu-ray or HD-DVD players go further than the "HD-Compatible" upscaling mob mentioned in A1 above. These new ones are called "True High Definition" players. They both use "blue" (actually ultraviolet) laser technology and higher compression algorithms for storing the images of the movie, and the disks are bigger, a single layer Blu-ray disk is 25gb, a dual 50gb for instance (I think HD-DVD disks are half that size so 15/30gb). The images on both Blu-ray and HD-DVD disks are at 1920x1080 resolution, 'cept you can get a lot more on a Blu-ray. (Note: I have a question about how they capture at this high res, I guess the manufacturers must go back to the movie masters?)

If you go out and buy a movie in Blu-ray format or HD-DVD format (yes they are different!) then expect to pay 5 bucks or so more than a standard DVD, which seems reasonable.

These new players play normal DVDs and CD's also, and they can upscale normal DVDs like those in A1.

Oh and you can buy Blu-ray drives for your PC now, I'll be putting one into my new rig when I upgrade to a quad core Intel Kentsfield around Christmas time (the Kentsfields ship in Nov!). Incidententally, Intel say they will have 80 cores on a wafer by the end of the decade. How mad is that?

Q4 -- Are HDTVs the new status rage in the UK they are in the US?

A4 -- Yeah the chavs love 'em !