| Video Noise August 2005
Progress for HDTV and DTV?
It’s time to take a look at the
present state of the transition to digital television (DTV) and the expansion of
high-definition television (HDTV). DTV encompasses all digital TV broadcasting, including
HDTV, but it is often used to indicate "standard resolution" digital TV
channels, which have about the same resolution as a DVD. HDTV is the highest-resolution
DTV format, resulting in spectacular 16:9 images and, usually, 5.1-channel surround sound.
You may know that the US government has mandated that all analog television broadcasting
will stop at some future date and that from that point on, only digital signals will be
broadcast. Here are some interesting DTV and HDTV statistics for the US as of summer 2005:
- WRAL in Raleigh, North Carolina, began experimental HD
broadcasting in the summer of 1996, making HDTV nine years old this summer. There were
few, if any, home viewers of these early experiments. In September 1997, WRAL broadcast a
college football game in HD for the first time via a satellite feed from the stadium.
- Approximately 18 million DTV/HD-capable video displays have
been sold into 12 million homes.
- Four million homes have HD programming available to them via
broadcast tuner (set-top or built-in), HD cable TV box, or HD satellite box. This is
somewhat surprising: three of every four DTV/HDTV sets are not receiving HD
programming. This may speak to the still somewhat limited availability of quality HD
broadcast programming and to the cost of HDTV broadcast tuners.
- Sales of video displays are up 78% in dollars and up 63% in
numbers of displays sold, as people buy better DTV/HDTV sets.
- There are 1446 DTV broadcast channels, 840 of which
broadcast HDTV. It’s difficult to get an exact count of the total number of broadcast
stations in the US, but the number appears to be somewhere between 1700 and 1900.
- More than 100 million households are within reception
distance (75-80 miles) of at least one DTV and/or HDTV broadcaster. That represents 95% of
all households in the US. The more distant households may need a larger and/or taller
antenna to reliably receive these broadcasts, but in theory, they could receive
them.
- 73.9% of households can receive four major broadcast
networks in DTV and/or HDTV.
www.checkhd.com
will tell you the DTV/HDTV broadcast channels available in your area, and even show you
what type of antenna you need and where to aim it to receive DTV and HDTV broadcasts.
Is the transition to DTV slow compared to the rise of
color TV?
The progress toward DTV/HDTV may seem slow, especially to
those of us old enough to remember their family’s first color TV in the 1960s. To us,
it seems that color TV was nothing one year and ruling the world the following year, but
it wasn’t like that. It wasn’t until 12 years after the first color TV show
(1954, NBC) that all prime-time network programming was broadcast in color (1966; ABC was
the last). Even more years passed before daytime and local programming went color.
Is the image quality of HD programming equal to the hype
and demos?
It is not debatable that HDTV programming is a remarkable
leap forward in audio and video quality. The only shortfall is in the amount of new,
first-run HDTV programming. We are still plagued by a fair amount of non-HD
"HDTV." This happens when a DVD-resolution movie is upsampled to HDTV resolution
and broadcast or sent out over a cable/satellite channel. These movies are touted as being
HDTV, but they aren’t. Anyone who is familiar with the appearance of HDTV can tell
when a movie is not a true HD transfer. This happens most often with movies more than five
years old, which were released when digital transfers for DVD were done at less-than-HD
resolution. These days, HD digitizing of movies is almost universal -- studios realize
that HD versions of their movies will sooner or later be needed for broadcast and pay TV
as well as for the upcoming HD optical disc format(s). In the worst cases, TNT-HD for
example, a 4:3 standard-definition movie is stretched to fit the 16:9 HD frame, rendering
the film essentially unwatchable.
How much HD programming is there on an "HD"
channel?
There are a few dedicated HD channels that run only HD
programming. Unfortunately, these channels repeat shows many times each month, and run
older programming that may already have been shown to death six months or a year earlier.
With all the repeats and "archival" HD programming, they may run only 20 hours
or so of "new" HD programming each month. There’s still a long way to go.
...Doug Blackburn
db@hometheatersound.com |
