Is this true, about HD-TV? (1 Viewer)

[Matt_Vaudrin]

My aunt and uncle were visiting the other day and my uncle starting talking about HD-TV.

He said that soon (he said like within a year), old tv's would be obsolete because everything would be in HD. So people with older tv's would have to buy new tvs or some converter box to make them work.

Is that true? Will the standard tv I bought just 2 years ago be obsolete by the end of the year?

 

[Brian Elwood]

Yes but not by the end of the year - probebly more like 5 years - I think you will need to buy a converter box - on the GOOD side your TV will look totally 100% awesome with DVD quality picture.

 

[Ennsio]

Close, but not quite. Your uncle is right that tv will be changing very soon, but the big shift is from analog to digital, not HD. Februay 17 2009 will mark the end of analog tv according to this article at Sound and Vision:

Your tv won't be obsolete, but you will need a converter box if your old tv can't handle digital signals. HD channels will continue to grow as they do now.

 

[JeremyErwin]

The high quality convertor boxes in years past could output 480i, 480p, 720p, and 1080i, and could output over composite, s-video, component and dvi outs. A digital out supported dolby digital bitstreams. So, on a standard NTSC set, it's probably comparable to DVDs, depending on whether the station overcompresses, and whether the signal is strong enough.

Come 2009, however, the cheapest convertor boxes will likely be quite limited, subtracting out the digital outputs, component video, and so on.

 

[Robert_J]

What everyone fails to mention is that this affects over-the-air transmission only. If you don't have an antenna, then you have nothing to worry about. The satellite companies and cable companies are not changing because of the FCC. DirecTV and Dish are already fully digital (but over compressed). Some cable companies are trying to go fully digital but that is a business decision on their part.

-Robert

 

[JohnRice]

Robert makes the most important point. It is really yet to be seen what an impact this will have on most people, since most people use cable or satellite. Besides, the existing sets will in no way become obsolete. That word gets tossed around with a meaning it does not have. Obsolete mean useless and unnecessary. Analog TVs will in no way be oblosete. in fact there is little to no substantial difference between an analog TV with a digital tuner and an SD digital TV. You can already get DVD recorders with digital (SD) tuners for under $150.

 

[adam613]

And even the cable companies that do go all-digital aren't a problem, because even the fancy HD boxes have composite and S-Video outputs. In fact, I've got a brand-new DirecTV HD-DVR connected to a 15" CRT TV that is at least 10 years old. (It's my backup TV for when I just want background noise and don't want to fire up the projector.)

(Does anyone even watch OTA TV on a TV anymore? The only reason I even have an antenna is to hook up to my computer's ATSC card so that I don't fill my entire DVR with 5 football games I haven't had time to watch yet.)

 

[Brian^K]

I ran into a problem yesterday, though, moving the TiVo's around my house. My older S2 doesn't have coax out except as RF bypass, while the television in the kitchen only accepts coax in -- it has no video in port. Those two won't ever mate-up.

 

[Robert_J]

A $5 channel 3/4 modulator from Wal-Mart will fix your problem.

-Robert

 

[Brian^K]

Believe it or not, it's discontinued at most places I've checked. (We don't have Wal-Mart here in Burlington.)

 

[Robert_J]

Parts Express
Amazon - a better deal

-Robert

 

[JeremyErwin]

I do, mostly atsc, except for one day a week when I watch Dr. Who on ntsc. Assuming a solid signal, the ota broadcasts will quite often be the least compressed.

No cable, no satellite, no fios. But HDTV. Does that make me a half luddite?

 

[Matt_Vaudrin]

Okay, thanks for answering the question.

He may have said Digital not HD, I wasn't actually part of the conversation. He was talking to my mom, and she knows nothing about about TV other than how to turn it on and seems to think I know a lot about it. So she's asking me about it later, thinking I know everything about it.


Thanks again.

 

[Brian^K]

Far cry from $5! I was pretty sure the days of $5 modulators was gone...

In the end, it isn't worth that much (plus shipping) to bridge this gap. I just swapped some equipment around to obviate the problem.