HDTV by 2007?

SB, I thought that the $300 for a (27") Philips HDTV was too good to be true too, and I checked it on the PhilipsUSA web site, and that model ISN'T HD ready. either somebody moved a sign in the store, or the store lied.

The best deal I've seen so far is a Philips 50PP9202. It is a 50", rear projection, true HD ready. It lists at $1,599, but I found it on the web for less than $1,000, a few months back. It is a 4x3 aspect ratio! Strange, I know, but for some reason, the 4x3 HD sets from Philips cost less. You can check out its specs, even the instruction manual online, with drawings of the input panels.

Philips says that no standards for HDTV color and luminance have yet been set. The group responsible for all things HDTV in the US is the Advanced Television Systems Committee. They report to the FCC, and their web address is: www.atsc.org.

FYI, Australia is also going the HDTV route by about 2007 / 2008. We already have digital converters for sale to convert digitial signals for analogue TVs (our networks are transmitting both signals until analogue is phased out).

There is
analoge tv, analoge HDTV
digital tv, digital HDTV

HDTV takes up more bandwidth than ordinary tv. Digital channels can be compressed, so several can fit in the space taken by an analoge channel.

SB, I thought that the $300 for a (27") Philips HDTV was too good to be true too, and I checked it on the PhilipsUSA web site, and that model ISN'T HD ready. either somebody moved a sign in the store, or the store lied.

The best deal I've seen so far is a Philips 50PP9202. It is a 50", rear projection, true HD ready. It lists at $1,599, but I found it on the web for less than $1,000, a few months back. It is a 4x3 aspect ratio! Strange, I know, but for some reason, the 4x3 HD sets from Philips cost less. You can check out its specs, even the instruction manual online, with drawings of the input panels.

Philips says that no standards for HDTV color and luminance have yet been set. The group responsible for all things HDTV in the US is the Advanced Television Systems Committee. They report to the FCC, and their web address is: www.atsc.org.

Click to expand...

HDTV receivers.

The one I use for both DirecTV and terrestrial broadcast. If you only want terrestrial HDTV signals Samsung has this model.

The Panasonic HDTV ready set I use.

As to how much band width HDTV takes up, I certainly don't dispute your source, but I am mystified. I have read over and over again in the press that HDTV takes more bandwidth, usually they say about four times as much. When the new area of the broadcast spectrum was alloted to broadcasters in the US for free, many said that they should have paid, especially since the amount of bandwidth they were being given was bigger than the analog that they would eventually return. I have also read about the greater bandwidth need repeatedly in connection with why cable and satelite providers were reluctant to carry HDTV, since they prefered to show several analog channels in place of one HD. That part could possibly be explained by the fact that one HD digital signal can carry several standard definition channels, so in that sense HDTV does need more space than an SD DTV signal.

Click to expand...

HDTV only requires additional band width by satellite and cable carriers. That is because satellite and cable companies have to carry their original channels in addition to the HDTV channels.

Over the air broadcast TV stations have been given an additional channel allocation by the FCC, one for digital and one for analog. You can carry more information in one digital 6 MHz channel than you can carry in one 6 MHz analog channel.

For example, analog channel 2 occupies the same frequency and bandwidth as digital channel 2. The digital channel can carry up to 1 HDTV program and 2 STDV programs in the same 6 MHz.

The channels in Sacramento for example:
_______Analog______Digital______what the local digital shows up on tuner as
FOX______40_________55_________40-1 (HDTV english) and 40-2 (HDTV spanish)
CBS______13_________25_________13-1 (HDTV CBS) and 13-2 (SDTV CBS)
ABC______10_________61_________10-1 (HDTV ABC) and 10-2 (Local Doppler radar SDTV)
NBC_______3_________35_________3-1 (NBC HDTV) 3-2 (WB SDTV)
PBS_______6_________53_________6-1 (HDTV) 6-2 (Sac Cable PBS) 6-3 (Future broadcast PBS)

I hope this eliminates, rather than adds confusion.

Okay, I get the bandwidth thing now, except I have read that FOUR SD-DTV programs can go in the bandwidth of one HD broadcast, and I think one of the above links said 5-6.

I wouldn't need a receiver, since I would get HD from the cable company. Your Panasonic TV looks interesting. I have read some good reviews of Panasonic Plasma TVs too, not that I could afford one. I am assuming you have been happy with your Panasonic, or you wouldn't recommend it. I haven't owned any Panasonic equip for a while, but what I had in the past took a back seat to Sony, Pioneer, and Philips, but it was better than JVC which IS the pits, as I have recently reconfirmed by buying a JVC SVHS VCR. The specs say that your TV has only HD component inputs, and no SD ones. Will it take DVD component outputs?

The Panasonic has an excellent picture.

The Hughes HDTV / SDTV / DirecTV moniter has a 1080i component video out. The Panasonic moniter has 2 HD component video in. I use one for my HD receiver and the other for my progressive scan DVD player. In the Panasonic set the HD component video in is compatible with both 1080i and 480p video. I also have a Yamaha audio receiver (RXV 2200) with two component video in to one component video out.

Yeah, I figured that spec that it had no SD inputs had to be wrong. Probably has S-VID and composite inputs too? I see it has a DVI input. It seems that DVI, and I-Link, also known as IEEE1394, or firewire, are the two leading contenders for the eventual standard HDTV connector. Pioneer prefers I-Link. It seems that the film industry won't allow I-Link outputs from set top receivers, so that they can't be connected to any of the existing HD recorders! You can only record HD from over the air broadcasts! I did read that there will be a HD TIVO soon, but until then, you can't time-shift HD programs!

Is your Panasonic a CRT projection set? I've been reading up a bit, and DLP - digital light processing - sounds very interesting. It uses "a million or so tiny mirrors." It doesn't burn in, or dim with age. I do like the scalable PIP that your set has. Below is a link to HDTV info, with more links. You probably know much of what is there, but others may be interested.
www.hdtvprimer.com

Besides the two component video inputs, the set has 4 other video inputs, S video can be used as input for up to three of them. I use the S Video input for the TiVo box.