Comcast HDTV cable question (1 Viewer)

[Larry Fletcher]

Comcast will have the HDTV cable ready for my area 11/01/02. For those of you who have comcast HDTV cable, I have a question. Does the set top box convert 720p to 1080i? I am interested because I bought a toshiba 50h81 widescreen hdtv a year a go. how will Espn hdtv in 720p look on my screen? I am newbie with hdtv so I apologize in advance for my ignorance on the technical ignorance.

thanks!

 

[EricK]

Larry,

Yes, the Comcast HD DEcoder will convert 720p to 1080i. I have had Comcast Digital Cable and the HD box for about a month now, and when it is true HD, it looks amazing and incredible. I can't wait for ESPN HD and I hope Comcast gets CBS on there too- in the Trenton area I have HBO, NBC, and ABC plus some PBS samplers.

ABC does a lot of HD stuff especially prime time and it looks great! Boomtown was on NBC yesterday and that also looked good in HD. Unfortunately NBC didn't broadcast Boomtown in 5.1 As ABC does with most of it's HD programming. HBO you have to be careful of because they are non-OAR, so anything wider then 1:85-1 is zoomed to fit the 16x9 screen. But when HBO does true HD, it looks awesome. And of course you get Sopranos in HD and 5.1 from HBO...so that is a plus.

Eric.

 

[Steven_ R]

Eric - I just got my Comcast HD Box today. One of the first customers in the Baltimore Metro area to get it. A few questions, one of which you just answered I think. My Sony only does HD in 1080i and I read that ABC is only doing it in 720p. Are you saying that the box will convert it into a 1080i signal that is as good a picture as a native 1080i signal? We seem to get the same programming you get - NBC, ABC, HBO and Showtime. I've only watched one movie so far in HBOHD - Ace Ventura. It looked very good - but frankly not much better than my better DVDs. Then I noticed in HBOs programming guide that a few movies are tagged as "true HD." Any idea what that means? Also, where can I get information on what TV shows and movies will be in HD? In addition, (and thanks for your patience) I'm not sure what setting to use in the HD Box for the screen display - the choices are Pan and Scan, Letterbox and Cropped. I have a 4:3 TV that does the 16:9 squeeze. Lastly, they showed me how to use the menu to toggle between 1080i for HD programming and 480i for analog programming - is there a better way to do that. Seems like a pain to switch it each time I go between HD and analog.

In any event, I'm very excited about finally having HD.

Steve

 

[Jason Hartman]

I could be wrong but i'm guessing "true HD" means the show was actually filmed in HD and remained in HD all through the filming->master process.

Obviously older movies like Ace Venture couldn't have been filmed in HD so they have been "upconverted" to a higher resolution. Probably will look better than the original but not as good as something filmed entirely in HD.

Jason