Those graphs at http://www.carltonbale.com/2006/11/1080p-does-matter/ on viewing distances make HD at full 1080p look a bit unreal as a practical proposition for most people. How many sit at 1.6m in front of their 42" (105 cm) display to gain full benefit? At 2 m back they lose any hope of perceiving the benefit of that 1080p high resolution. Yes they will see improvement in a 720p signal over SD and maybe that is enough.

But it all makes one wonder how many will get sucked in to expensive HD DVD players if they cannot see any improvement on SD DVD or even scaled up SD that receivers like the Denon 4306 provide.

Any why bother with those buggy HD PVRs when there is minimal being broadcast and they require HDDs of 2X the capacity? :ph34r:

IMO the HDMI and 1080p hype is being pushed as a "feel good" factor. People have a warm fuzzy feeling with a setup capable of that even if they do not sit close enough to the screen to appreciate it.

Or am I being too cynical?

John

I too have been wondering why the hype around the Toppy and Beyonwiz Twin Tuner HD PVRs. It is newest toys on the block - that is why! The Strong equivalent seems to be the most stable and performs well, but gets little attention....

p/s do not own a PVR - so do not have a brand that I am pushing.

I think it's so they can record Sophie Faulkner on the 7 HD loop.



... and it's not even real HD!!!

I'm sitting 12feet from a 100inch screen, so I think 1080p will suite me fine.

cheers

Yes, you ARE in the loop!

But doesn't it demonstrate just how large the screen has to be if you want to sit back? With a 96" wide screen, we are not getting much more than the equivalent of 720P here where we sit in this large room. But the PQ (using the DVDO HD+ scaler) from SD is very nice. In the second system I'm in the process of setting up in another room we will get benefit from 1080p, but not the full benefit. But that will be SD via a scaler also (this time in a Denon 4630 AVR).

John

At last ... I have a name to label all those recordings! 'Ch7 Not-Quite-HD-Loop', that is

John.
You've rolled many issues into one and lumped it under 'HD' con. Impossible to answer with a simple yes / no.

Is 'full 1080p HD' on (say) a 42 - 50" screen viewed at 3m necessary..... no.
Is 'HD' on a 42 - 50" screen viewed at 3m necessary..... I would argue yes.
Are HD / blueray players a con.... naturally it depends on screen size. If you invest in a HD projector and large screen, of course you would want a HD / blueray player to match your equipment.
Are HD PVRs worth it? Again, depends on screen size and viewing preference. If you just watch a few FTA shows then of course it's not worth it. If you're passionate about specific shows, then yes it's worth it. A good example is Ten's Sat night footy. While others wouldn't care, I've found the HD presentation (including 5.1 sound) miles ahead of the bitstarved shite they present on foxtel or Ten SD. And I'm watching this from 3.4 m on a 1024x768 plasma. The difference is very noticable to me. To someone with older eyes.... perhaps not. What better to watch the footy with than a HD PVR. Put the kids to bed, start the game later, chaseplay / skip the ads, all over in 2/3 of the time...

As for HD PVR disk size, well, put in a larger one, or delete the stuff you've watched, or transfer it to your PC.

The con is in consumers buying gear when they don't understand benefits and limitations of the gear being marketed to them.

Echo echo echo ...

Until (if) the Gov't stops tinkering with the legislation, then a simple YES, HD is a waste of time at present.

We should have gone down the multicasting route, but as Nine and Ten had interests in Poxtel, they were, of course against it.
Seven, on the other hand, were quite pro multicasting, hence their minimal investment in "HD".
1040 hours of HD content per year is not worth the expense involved, and I don't expect to see too many HD discs for hire in the local video store for several years.

The other joke about all of this is, LCD and plasma technology is simply not up to scratch. I look forward to what SED displays will really offer... rather than what the spin doctor marketers tell us.

Good response thanks.

My post was not meant to rubbish keen videophiles like those of us who lurk here. However there is an alarming amount of advertising hype about HD. But then what is new? The advertising spin doctors are paid to do this and it is not confined to HD. All that said, not as many really see the benefit of HD as might be thought and, as you so wisely say "The con is in consumers buying gear when they don't understand benefits and limitations of the gear being marketed to them."


John

Yes there is very much an element of keeping up with the Jones' in all of this with HD equipment. How many people in the HD-Blu forum with setups that don't allow them to be in the viewing sweet spot but are buying HD material like there's no tomorrow?

That chart is a great find John, stickie!

It is mentioned in my sticky under item 3 when discussing HD - a recent revision.

John

I resemble that comment! MM! :ph34r:

Well I did till that screen got moved on and this replaced it.

No I don't think you are being too cynical, when I bought our Panasonic plasma I was lucky enough to see a side by side demo of 2 Panasonic Plasma screens one HD the other SD, and from a metre away you could see the pixels were finer on the HD, but from a normal average viewing distance I couldn't see any difference, both were very sharp with good natural colour, true enough the TV transmission was probably SD, but when I see our SD screen the picture is stunning, so I wonder if it is possible to get a better picture on HD at that viewing distance, I should add my viewing distance is about 4 metres,

and when we bought this plasma the salesman tried to sell me a $95 set of component leads, anyway I went to DSE and spent $47 dollars for component leads and as I said about HD versus SD, I can't believe those $95 dollar leads could give me a better picture, I'm pleased enough that I bought another set of the same leads for my new PVR.

Rob38

Very interesting comment. I have set up a few plasma tvs for friends who don't want to know what an RCA lead is, let alone HDMI. I've set up some SD and HD units of 106 cm and some 720p 127cm units. Close-up (anything closer than 2m) and you can see the difference in pixel size. There's a definite "flyscreen" effect visible on the SD units. The contrast and color (when set up properly) are virtually identical. From 3m onwards you'd be hard-pressed to see any difference at all unless you were a teenager with A-1 perfect 20-20 vision! A well set-up plasma with correctly adjusted contrast, saturation and brightness should give a very pleasing picture.

Running HDMI or component cables makes no visible difference to PQ, IMHO (-unless you have an up-scaling DVD player then, I suppose, HDMI is a must). And as far as cable cost is concerned...what a rip-off! Apart from the really cheap and nasty 2 dollar shop jobs, I have used supermarket el-cheapos through to expensive hi fi shop cables. I can't spot any difference! I've even used normal yellow-red-white RCA cables and stuck labels on the yellow and white cables marking them "green" and "blue" to make use of component connections when no proper component leads were available...no problem.

A lot depends on the quality of the tuner being used, as well. Integrated tuner plasmas seem to have excellent PQ. El-cheapo STBs with SCART or composite-out only sometimes give really crappy PQ results. An interesting aside...
I recently bought one of those inexpensive Tevion dual tuner PVRs to connect to my 50' Hitachi rear-pro CRT set. I had previously used a Digicrystal PVR9000 connected with Svideo (from SCART) and a Dgtec HD2000 box that I have owned since the "dawn" of DVB in Australia. The PQ out of the Digicrystal was okay, but nothing to write home about. The Dgtec PQ was much better, but noticeably noisy and lacking in saturation. The Tevion, however, has been a revelation! Excellent color, contrast and brightness from a budget PVR! So good is the PQ that I am going to delay "retiring" the Hitachi because the PQ is truly excellent. Not quite as good as a Plasma but almost!

I saw a glossy black and gold "Full 1080 HD" sticker on a digital still camera the other day ... you can't tell me that isn't marketing to the uninformed!
Philip

Can we name the company, Sony.

All it is is a 1920x1080(p) picture mode. I got excited and thought it was a quality video mode on the still camera, but no, the work experience student at Sony just thought it up in his second week.

Well if you've never made a good camera and only joined the industry in the last few years, you need to have something to say about your product if you want to shift a few boxes....

Tassie Devil Thank you for raising this issue. I am in total agreement with your views on this subject matter. I will go into print on this subject in more detail when time permits.

You have confirmed my thoughts, most of us get caught up in all the hype of technology, and we are really the test bed for the manufacturers who are leapfrogging their competition in order to have the latest gimmicks to catch the sales tunover, when the negative consumer feedback is big enough in numbers then they attempt to correct the problems, by the time they might get the product performing reasonably, ( IF YOUR LUCKY ) out they come with another super duper model, and again we will be the test bunnies for this, too many changes, too quick, blue ray, green ray, pink ray, and maybe the deathray.

"DeathRay" LOL...brilliant!

But I'm sure I read an article by Rod Easdown saying HD was clearly better than SD and he's a journo.. used to write article for car magazines too. :ph34r:

Yes it IS clearly better if -

1. you sit close enough

2. the display is a really good one and of appropriate size for where you sit (see the link in my first post on this)

3. the material being broadcast is high quality

My thesis is that very few people (excluding nutters here) meet all 3 criteria. They are now selling HD TVs with 26" screens!!! Hello?

"High Definition" is a gimmick for most people, but a MUST for the dedicated few who know what it is all about.

John

nutters is probalby a bit harsh - I prefer the term "enthusiasts"

Not at all! 1080p is great, when you have a dedicated theatre and a 120 inch screen. As for 1080 on a 50 inch plasma, I have customers who can't pick the difference between 720p and 480p on a 42inch HD plasma from 3 meters! I think it does come down a lot to knowing what to look for, like speakers wired out of phase. I've gone round to someone's house before, and they are showing me their new stereo that they just hooked up, and it's like can't you hear that? You've got one of the speakers wired incorrectly.

I don't think there is really any requirement for 1080p resolution in a display 42 inches or smaller if it is being used for video as you don't need that much detail with moving images unlike say a computer monitor that you are using for CAD or the likes.

As for DVR's, don't get me started! I am looking for a unit that has either Ethernet or a serial control interface for a control system, and it needs a good protocol too. Please let me know if anyone has come across one.

threads like these seem to draw all the 'nutters' ..just have to mention HD and viewing distance and they come out the woodwork ! . Only thing saving this thread is that its buried away in the PVR sub forum !

I have found that the image processing capabilities of the PVR or DVD is more important to me than the display.

I have a 50inch Samsung DLP and went and bought a Zensonic DVD player with HDMI in the hope that the picture would be great. I have now upgraded to a Denon DVD player and it's like I also bought a new TV with the improvement in picture quality!! At least 10 times better - no exaggeration.

I can now see an enormous amount of detail in dark scenes. Colour and contrast transitions across the screen are faultless, whereas on the cheap HDMI player dark scenes were just blurry shapes and all sorts of artifacts were on the screen.

I also have a Mediastar 920PVR which has dreadful picture quality IMHO, at least compared with what I know the display can handle. Mind you, I have had three SD PVR's/STB's and the Mediastar is mediochre at best.

So in a PVR, HD or SD, I am looking for image processing power and usability so that my TV can perform up to the standard it was designed to do.

Rich

On my 37 inch 768 panel have just watched (if you could call it watching) David & Kim, flicking to Kerri Anne, flicking to the Today show on Seven or whatever you call it.
Sitting at my normal viewing distance of around 2.5 metres the HD version of each looks very sharp and almost like being there, especially the cooking sections where you can literally see the scratches on some of the pans! The SD version of each is quite acceptable, nothing to get upset about if you don't have an HD tuner, but nevertheless SD.

Clearly my setup is not top of the market. I would suggest that anyone posting that there is no observable difference between HD and SD either:

Doesn't actually own at least a 768 panel of whatever technology and is talking out of their a**e or:

Should see an optometrist. Truly, often as people age they are not aware that their sight is deteriorating, are convinced in their own minds that they still have 80 80 vision, and the biggest surprise of their adult life is when the optometrist slips the pair of test lenses on them and they go 'my God I didn't know it was possible to actually see individual leaves on trees' Happened to my Brother, he still can't get over it

Hi Rich

Not arguing with you but am not sure what you mean by "more important than the display".

It is akin to the audio chain (and I'm a really big audio nutter ) - the signal coming out is no better than the weakest link in the chain. Garbage in -> garbage out.

Same thing with video so what you are saying about the importance of the DVD etc feeding in is spot on. My basic thesis is that given a good display, and given good input, the difference between SD and HD is barely noticeable if the person sits at the viewing distance used by most people (and I should add, the quality of display some people own - they are not good, even if touted as HD or HD ready).

But having said that I'm not decrying HD. This week we put in a Sony 70" rear projection SXRD set. At a viewing distance of 4.5 metres the difference between SD & HD is clearly visible. I'm waiting for a Denon 4306 receiver to arrive to scale up SD to a better level. It will not be true HD, but it will be better than unprocessed SD. Such upscaling is needed because there is not much broadcast on the HD channels where we live.

John

Even from my normal viewing distance of about 3m, our 40" 1366 x 768 Sony LCD is a lot better on HD than it is on SD. It is sharper, clearer and has better colour (and sometimes better sound). I much prefer watching the HD subchannels when I have the choice. A 50" 1920 x 1080 screen would be even better, and is likely to be our next choice when prices come down and reliability goes up.

Long live HD!

Rod

There are many qualities that go into making the final image, even though one may not sit close enough to see the extra "detail" most often other qualities mean that the resultant image is significantly better than an SD image on the same display.

The issue with HD PVRs is that you need to be somewhat tech-savvy to get through the issues and do the patch upgrades, etc.

Hi John,

I guess what I meant was that, like you say, if you give it a good signal you get a very good picture, at least on my 720 line display. I have no doubt that a great picture could be achieved in HD if the quality of the signal is genuinely high quality and the equipment decodes and delivers it effectively. But, again as you say, there are a number of factors to consider and I thought I would highlight the fairly dodgy quality of some other, non-display, equipment to just help confuse the argument!!

So basically, is HD better because the end-to-end solution is better than the current crop of SD equipment, or, if we had good SD equipment would there still be an argument apart from the incremental change (which is a valid argument if the display is large with the correct viewing distance)?

Rich

I've got the 9022 HDMI PVR, The HDMI control menu lets you upscale to 576,720 or 1080. I find 720 as good as anything. I think MS have gone that way because of the ongoing hiccups with the Broadcom processor, used by most HD PVR's. The NEC processor used in the SD Topi's, and MS has proven to be very stable.

I heard MS are bring the Sat pay-tv/Terrestrial combo with HDMI soon.


ps. click underline text for more info

MS is usually the abbreviation for Microsoft! I was wondering what Microsoft was doing in in this business.

That is a good way to go. With most broadcast material still on SD, a scaler is really becoming a must.

And yes, the HDMI link IS better than component. I have a Sony DST-HD500 STB and yesterday replaced the component connection with a Belkin HDMI cable. No significant improvement on HD but SD was better. I gather there has been debate on cables here many times (which I have not followed) but I do come down on the side of cable quality being important. I just ordered two more from Home Theatre Custom cables - I have some of their digital audio cables in the main system already and they are first class.
http://www.htcustomcables.com/hdmi_dvi_cab...CFRK1YgodJGpr5g

John

Sorry John, I need to make my sarcasm clearer.
Rod Easdown (like most print journalists) is an absolute gumby for reporting about HT.

A little bit too cynical as those graphs are straight lines. Reality is a little more grey in that you can still see the difference between 1080P and 720P say between those two lines but it isn't as enhanced. Are you getting full bang for your buck, probably not, but are you getting a better experience the more detail you do have, almost certainly in an average living room. The problem right now is, is the extra bucks for 1080P worth it in the screen, I would say not becsuse i have a 720 capable set already and the price differential today is a little too high but that will go away and then I would get a 1080P with my next set as I can see the difference at the 2.5m I sit away give or take in the same way I can see the 576 SD difference to 720.
Is it a feel good factor? Maybe a little as you can still happily watch your SD CRT and get the same entertainment experience that you have had and enjoyed for years - but mono sound works too.

I don't have a PVR or IQ as I don't really worry if I miss something, I don't see TV as that important to tape shows, but others do and I guess if you do again you want the best experience possible which is a HD PVR even at distances that don't fall neatly into a graph that is lacking in some areas.


Did Ten have an interest in Foxtel? I thought it was only Nine and that is why ten is an analogue signal similar to seven. Seven's rationale behind HD is not the same as Ten's or so I thought?

Good post.

re SED, I just have the latest "Widescreen Review" to hand and it says that SED technology is stalling because the price of plasma & LCD technology is dropping so fast & is improving so much in quality that SED is looking uneconomic. There is doubt about them being able to recoup development cost let alone make a profit. Sad news because SED held out great promise.

John

SED and OLED will happen, but probably for large industrial displays and the defence industry. Plasma and LCD will probably continue to evolve and drop in price with "last month's" panels going into the Chinese cheapies. Laser holds a lot of promise because it has the potential to be produced very cheaply.

The next "big thing" will be no-glasses 3D...I kid you not. Phillips, et al, are working hard to perfect this technology so that you will have a flat display that accurately portrays 3D depth of field.

well i'm glad the level headed approach beign taken in this thread. The difference between HD and SD is clearly visible to me on my 1024 line hitachi at 2.5-3m as was when I owned a 37" version of hte same screen.

if anyone hasnt seen the new hi-def disc formats, even if you have a 42" or 50" panel I'd heartedly encourage you to check it out. the visible improvement over Sd is quite apparant and shits all over HD TV on fta thats for sure.

3D may be technically feasible, but it's going to take as long time to filter through to the general public. If it's simple stereo-3D you are talking about, then you have to have to double the bandwith required, or alternatively halve the picture quality (although 3D does add to PQ, I suppose). In the case of holographic 3D the required increase in bandwith is enormous. Eventually you may be able to buy HD or BD disks that incorporate some form of 3D encoding, but you'll need the hardware to go with it. You can just about forget broadcast 3D TV in our lifetimes .

As to the future of TV technology, who knows? Plasma is energy hungry and heavy, but screens with half the normal electricity requirements have already been prototyped. Plasma does need finer pixels. LCD is inherently inefficient in that it works by cutting out most of the backlight. However, LED backlights have the potential to overcome this disadvantage, as well as improve the contrast, motion blurr, colour gamut and energy efficiency.

Ultimately, though, LED technology may hold the key, as it is very efficient, robust, responsive, long-lived, and availible in just about any colour. This may turn out to be OLED, or big screens made with some sort of printed LED technology. The problem with OLED at present is that it does not have sufficient longevity, along with some other deficiencies that may be overcome in time. Big-screen LED displays are already with us at sports stadiums, etc., but the trick will be how to make them cheaply in sizes and resolutions suitable for domestic consumption.

Oh, and they will all be HD!

Rod

I raised a similar question in the Blu/Ray/HD-DVD section where I posed the question if the upgrade from DVD to a HD format is worth the investment given current prices of players average around the $1000 mark (as opposed to decent quality upscaling DVD players which can be had for less than $200).

I received a variety of responses, but the ones that made the most sense to me was that the difference in quality (between DVD and HD) was best illustrated on screens 100 inches and above. I have seen HD formats demoed on screens 50 inches and below and to be honest, I struggle to see that much of a difference. Yes, of course HD formats have the better picture but I guess my question was do you see enough of a difference to justify the cost, given the fact that HD players cost 5,up to 10 times as much (I saw a panasonic player at Myer listed at $2499 - Whoa!).

Obviously, AV enthusiasts with big Home Theatre budgets can justify this cost, but as someone who is a mainstream user, I have come up with my own criteria as to when to upgrade:

Current upscaling DVD player which I am more than happy with: $190

% increase benefit of BD/HD-DVD when compared to DVD: around 20-30% on a 50 inch plasma IMO

Average prices of BD/HD-DVD players today: $1000 (IMO still way too expensive)

Optimal price when I believe benefit of upgrade justifies the cost: $200-$300 (based on the 20-30% increased benefit, although realistically, I will jump in when prices fall below $500)

As I said, the above is my basis and my basis alone as to when to upgrade and I don’t expect anyone else to necessarily agree with or follow this. But, it’s the basis I will stick to, no matter how good people believe BD/HD-DVD is. I know that there are people out there who will disagree with the above and I know there are people who will spend thousands, even on incremental improvements. However, I truly believe I represent the masses who don’t necessarily have the budget to spend on fancy AV gear.

I’m hoping optimal prices (under $500) can be achieved around Xmas – here’s hoping.

Sensible post.

My take is than HD DVD (of both formats) will be very slow to get a following for quite awhile. Why?

1. As you say a lot of people will not have displays which show an improvement in PQ to justify the price

2. People interested in DVD collection will already have a collection which they will not be persuaded to duplicate

3. Others, like myself will be satisfied with scalers + the genre I'm more interested in (opera, ballet, music docos) are unlikely to be released for some time, if at all.

Yes, there are enthusiasts who take pride in being early adopters but whether or not their enthusiasm spreads to the wider community or not is questionable. DVD has been one of the most successful (and profitable) formats ever devised so it will be interesting to see if HD formats take off. Ironically the spin doctoring hype on "HIGH DEFINITION" could work against their acceptance by an already confused public. Many will feel their HD display will give HD on DVD!!!

John

you say that john. but have you tried it ? have you experinced the new hi-def formats on yoru system. if you havent I'd seriously encourage you too. damn the benfits is clearly and visibly apparant on my 1024 line 42" panel I'm sure as hell it would jump out at you on both yoru larger screen and display you have.

and yes have experienced both spectrums of it myself both on my panel and on a projected image via the JVC

The only place I have spent more than a couple of minutes watching at 1080P was at teh e-home gtg with the new Pioneer 50" and BluRay Player - even at between one and a half to two times the distance I would watch from at home, the difference was clearly visble to me that High Definition is far better than DVD. Yes that was on a full HD panel where mines only a 768, but I am sure I would see the difference between 576 and 768 as I can easily see the FTA HD over teh SD.

No, I have not seen HD DVD on a display here but yes, I did see it on display in the USA last year and yes, it is impressive.

I'm not arguing against HD, it is a significant improvement in PQ.

BUT, at the moment there is virtually no HD broadcast here, just pretty pictures and it is obvious on the 70" Sony that SD is inferior. However, scaled up SD is also obviously better than SD displayed on the 96" screen from the Barco 808s projector. As we time shift just about all we look at, and as these programs are only in SD, the scaler is the obvious choice here.

Now if all programs were broadcast here in HD and I could time shift via a RELIABLE PVR, you could count me in. But not yet.

And, reverting back to DVD, I'm definitely not tempted to either of the HD formats.

In a way it is a bit like audio (another of my passions) HD. Theoretically SACD & DVd-A are better, but that is often only the case because the CD audio chain is poor. In this house some CDs sound better than some SACDs and that is using the same universal player (but not the internal DAC for CDs). But I'm meandering off topic again.

John

Guys (and gals) can I please re-emphasise the "MOST" in the header. Most people are being conned into buying HD when they either sit too far back to see any significant difference or have a mediocre display which really does not show it to advantage + HD broadcasts are limited - only 20 hours per week required at the moment.

Of course enthusiasts like those lurking here appreciate the difference, but generally speaking I stick to my thesis it is receiving far too much misleading advertising hype.

John

john since getting a hd-dvd player I havent bought one DVD since, yeah sure still have my collection, yeah we still rent the odd old dvd, but I aint paying money to ever buy one again. and thats on my meagre system. FTA HD ? what a joke that is compared to the hi-def discs formats. sorry the PQ comparison jsut isnt there and neither in the audio stakes. We watched the worlds fastest indian on hd-dvd last night what glorious pictures and what lovely sound. nothign on fta compares sorry. And anyways the difference SDTV be it DVD or FTA vs hi-def be it FTA or HD-DVD for me its clearly there.

in regards the sacd/dvda vs cd comparisons - I own good player for both. We are not talking theoretical improvments with the hi-def disc formats - the difference is clearly and definetely there. hell even my wife can notice it walking in the room. and she never comments on this kind of thing.

I'm not surprised you like your HD DVD player. No suggestion of criticism about that. But for most people it is HD FTA they will theoretically use their HD displays for. Ironically, with so little HD FTA being broadcast, they cannot be used for that. Hence my header of it being a con.



Now I'll reverse your approach back on you.. You obviously have not heard a really good CD setup. The one here with an Esoteric UX-1 player feeding into a highly modified Benchmark DAC 1 is giving better audio on SOME CDs compared to SOME SACDs. And that is not just my opinion. I had a music lover visitor here a few weekends ago (he sells classical and jazz CDs, SACDs, DVDs etc) and we both chose the audio quality of some CDs over the same (classical) work on an SACD.

There is hype about HD audio just as there is hype about HD video. SD can be good if done properly. Sadly a lot of SD video is not good to start with and no scaler can turn that pigs ear into a silk purse. However, given a pristine signal (maybe derived from HD), scaled up SD can be impressive. OK, maybe not as good as your HD DVD, but that is not what we were originally debating here. But you have succeeded in diverting me away from that

John

tas I have both cds and sacds and enjoy both. there are great cds I have jsut as there are great SACDs. I would not say SACD is automiatically bettter. As can get great quality out of both.

sorry if your eyes my cd setup isnt "really good" probably not in the league of your esoteric but best I can afford as with the sacd player. I think its good and with both enjoy the discs I have in both formats. its a completely differnet discsuion to hi-def displays and audio vs SD in the video formats....that was my point. I have experienced the benchmark both in my system and others as with top end esoteric and $80k DCS front end and the like. Plus also done quite a few CD vs SACd comparisons on my system and others including my players and others incluing a $10k moon CD vs my sony sacd. sorry we can take the cd/sacd audio discussion over to the HT subforum if want.

ps re getting back to the discussion, it is only recently that all the networks have now commited to more HDTV. even abc and sbs have now moved acorss to 720p and channels 9, 7 and 10 are now doing 1080i where previously we had sbs, abc and ch 7 on 576p which was a joke. I know a couple of hte networks as has been posted here have infact done major upgrades to support HD.

there is more hd on as there ever was on fta. I think its worth havign a display to watch it. but no it does not compare to audio video that on demand is a good step up. and yes HDTV does have a way to go but it still improves on the SD experience of FTA.

re the point of a HDpvr the toppy I have is only jsut getting there..perhaps that is a case in point have a hd stb which are cheap and a SD pvr thats mroe releiable ?. that said have seen some pretty good hi-def movies on FTA and would like to record them where I can if cant watch them live.