HDTV, Blue-ray, HD DVD, HDV, PVR, TV & Macs

Bruce — Sun, 17 Jun 2007 09:29:18 +0000

I was recently impressed by a HDTV broadcast I saw in Brisbane. The Wellington House & Home Exhibition demoed the Bose Series III Lifestyle 28 ($NZ5500), a Toshiba-based DVD player with media centre functionality. House of flying daggers looked and sounded superb on a large $NZ10000 Samsung "high definition" LCD TV. Although the Lifestyle is a multi-region player (I'll never by region-locked again) it uses yesterday's tech, offering neither HD nor support for higher-capacity optical discs (Blue-ray or HD DVD). My current DVD player, TV, and camcorder are all limited to "standard definition". Would largely garbage free-to-air TV programming justify the cost of making the jump to high def? What equipment would I need and what technology standards should I be mindful of? And, in a Mac-centric home, how much of this would be compatible with my preferred computing platform? Here are the results of my investigations into these surprisingly complex questions: if I have erred please feel free to re-educate me. Terminology and standards Firstly the normal PAL television is now considered to be SD, or standard-definition. HD is thus high-definition, and HDTV refers to high-definition television. There are three HDTV formats in common usage: 720p, 1080i, and 1080p. Note that: The numbers stand for lines of vertical display resolution; The p stands for progressive scan (the whole frame is redrawn in each refresh); The i stands for interlaced (alternate lines are redrawn in each refresh); Sometimes another number, the frame rate, is tacked on to the end (e.g. 1080i25). "Full HD" may refer to 1080p, ...

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HDTV, Blue-ray, HD DVD, HDV, PVR, TV & Macs