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High-Def TVs?

Hi all!

Last weekend I went shopping for a 50-inch plasma TV. The picture looked great as long as there was a high-def signal. I asked the salesman to change the channel to a non high-def channel. He did and it looked absolutely horrible! My old 27-inch tube TV has a far better picture at its 480 resolution than the plasma did at 480. Why would anyone want to watch a TV with such a pitifully poor picture?

The salesman explained about the HD channels and non-HD channels. He said that the local channels do not broadcast in HD 24 hours a day. That surprised me. He talked about cable and satellite channels.

I learned a lot that day. Basically that these new TVs are not worth the money until every station/channel is broadcasting in HD 24 x 7. Does anyone know if that is supposed to happen by a given date?

Dave
diofan56

Showing 1 response by whoaru99

whoaru99
98 posts
 
"Why would anyone want to watch a TV with such a pitifully poor picture?"

Because we don't buy HDTVs to watch standard definition TV.

If your prime interest is still in standard definition broadcast/programming, you simply might not be a good candidate for HDTV. But, don't blame the technology...a small amount of resolution can only be enlarged so much before it looks crappy.

Think of taking a 128k MP3 and running it through gear that upsamples to 24/192 and expecting some big increase in quality. Sounds like crap on your "big rig", but it might sound just fine on your iPod.
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