What is HDTV ?

Maybe you had the chance to read our previous article explaining what is HDMI. Now we’ll make a step forward in finding out more about this new type of television panel that the HDMI cable connects your High-Definition sources to.
You have probably seen HDTVs in large electronics stores and were stunned by the high image quality. This happened to me too a while ago, when passing by some LCDs and Plasma TVs, at the moment when a spectacular video clarity stopped me.
This new digital television broadcasting system is the most advanced providing the highest resolution possible at the moment, using less bandwidth for the appropriate video compression level.

While standard definition television uses 720×480 pixels or 720×576 pixels for the videos, being characterized by 480 vertical lines of resolution, HDMI features 720 horizontal lines, and enables resolutions of 1024×768, 1280×720, 1366×768, 1280×1080, 1920×1080 and 3840×2160. The latter represents the Quad HDTV format for the upcoming DCI Cinema 4k standard which will be available after 2015.

Like any new technology, HDTV has advantages and disadvantages. Among benefits of watching TV shows on such an advanced display are the high quality of the image, smaller pixel squares discovered when you watch the panel close compared to LCDs, sharper image, and the fact that High Definition images are broadcasted together with Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound for a perfect video and audio experience.

At the moment, the main disadvantage I found after discussing with one of my colleagues is that you can’t receive High Definition if the source is not compatible with this standard. You’d need the video source to be HD-enabled as well as your TV panel, in other words, all your audio/video equipment has to support High Definition, starting with the source and the video, and ending with the HDMI cable and your TV panel. And not at last comes you budget, which has to be big in order to get the best.
If your cables are S-Video or Component, the image on the television will still be great but not as good as it gets, and in this case you’d realize there was no point on spending so much money on HD if you can’t use it.

To show you a bigger picture let me do some calculations for you.
A High Definition Multimedia Interface cable costs around $20, while a 40-inch Sony BRAVIA HDTV can be found at around $4,000, so together with the TV broadcast subscription to can reach $4,500.

Another aspect is that digital television freezes during interferences, unlike standard definition television, where the image you see is just trembling for a while.

After identifying the compatible broadcasting source which has to be HD and not SDTV, in order to avoid making the image quality worse due to scaling artifacts, you’ll need to find also some additional HD solutions such as a HD tuner for over-the-air digital broadcasts, if it’s not built into the TV panel by default, video game consoles like PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360, Blu-ray Disc players, or computers with HDMI connectivity on their graphics card, if you want to play some cool video clips from vimeo, one of the best places when it comes to High Definition video content.
On vimeo you can watch 1280 x 720 videos, as well as upload you favorite collection for others to see.

One example of TV channel broadcasting in High Definition format is abc, which is one of the first channels using this new format in the United States.
According to Kagan Research, by 2010, 81% of the households in the US will have High Definition TV panels.

Source; Published by Sierra Monica B., on September 30th, 2008 in Reviews