For some foul reason I was watching Herbie fully loaded the other day on BBC1. I was at my parents where they have a nice 32" Sony Bravia and a HD freesat receiver. The film was also on the BBCHD channel so we switched to that. It was noticably higher def. The racetrack fence wire could be clearly made out etc. But was it any better? And after a few minutes did we even notice any more.
You have to try quite hard to buy a tv that isn't HD ready these days and, with Sky (cue spitting noise) leading the way HD is now available via satellite to the UK. So far I've resisted, sticking to an aging CRT tv and using our excellent Topfield Freeview PVR.
To shoot HD means the cameras have to be better, and I think that shows on standard def broadcast.
But here's the big HD con. High Defininition as promised by Sky is usually nothing of the sort. The broadcast resolution may be higher but the feed so heavily compressed the resulting quality is terrible.
It's a bit like smearing your expensive HD tv with Vaseline. High resolution is meaningless if the detail is smeared by heavy compression.
HD broadcasting is marketing fluff. More is better. That's easy to sell. So HD is more and must be better. Even when it isn't.
Finally, consider that first example of the terrible film. When someone left the room I switched it back to standard def. When they returned, they didn't notice.
So by all means buy a high def tv if you need a new one. And buy a blueray player as HD discs benefit from a nice high bitrate and films do look good. But as I sit watching sky HD (away from home) I can tell you it's a complete waste of money.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone. Yeah iPhone. How cool and culturally relevant am I?
Interesting about the HD. I was suspicious at the hype surrounding HD on satellite and you've confirmed my fears. As for Herbie Fully Loaded - as a Dad to Nelson, I have spent obscene amounts of time watching that movie and can recite large swathes of it's mediocre script. The older Herbie movies had charm, at least.
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