Newbie question: Is HDTV the same worldwide? (1 Viewer)

[Rod J]

I have an HD monitor but haven't taken the HDDVD/Blu-ray plunge. My DVD players are multi-standard, region free.

Does HD replace pal/ntsc with a single video standard?

Is region coding still around with HD discs?

 

[Sam Davatchi]

Region coding is still around and no unfortunately HDTV is not standard. I saw the worldcup 2006 here in HD and it was 50hz! So basically you have super-NTSC and super-PAL with HDTV which annoys me a lot! Especially if movies in PAL regions come out as 1920 * 1080 50hz. That would be a real shame.

 

[ChristopherDAC]

There's no technical reason for going 50 Hz in Europe, as proven by the fact that the Japanese have used 60 Hz all along despite having half their country on 50 Hz power. RAI, for instance, was working with 1125/60 quite early on, using Japanese equipment. Unfortunately the EBU was pressured into trying to make a different system by European interests who thought a common world frame rate would reduce their hold on content and manufacturing.

The BBC found a way to record a 1250/50 HD picture using 4 D1 machines linked together [1250×1440], and for a while this was being promoted as being "better" than the Japanese system the same way 625/50 was supposed to be better than 525/60, but the EUREKA-95 project and the hybrid analog-digital HD-DMAC transmission system were pretty much failures, so Europe is left with the same picture resolution as the rest of the world at a lower framerate. :rolleyes