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Learn me a thing or two about HDTV
TheSonicRetard
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I just bought an HDTV after discussing it with some forumers who generally agreed with me that it was a worthy purchase. However, I'm 100% new to HD, and I'm pretty lost about all these new connections and what-not. I've been using standard RCA connections since as far back as I can remember. Now I have connections for R, G, B, RCA, VGA, etc.
Can anyone point me in the right direction to a site that'll teach me what I need to know about HD? Also, what is EDTV? I know the dreamcast can be hooked up to a computer monitor via a VGA adaptor to sport higher resolutions - is that HDTV?
Also, syndalis (on another forum) told me to stick with VGA for connecting my Xbox 360 to the TV over the RGB cables because DVDs will be upscaled. Pardon my ignorance, but what is upscaling? And is there any advantage to RGB over VGA?
Can anyone point me in the right direction to a site that'll teach me what I need to know about HD? Also, what is EDTV? I know the dreamcast can be hooked up to a computer monitor via a VGA adaptor to sport higher resolutions - is that HDTV?
Also, syndalis (on another forum) told me to stick with VGA for connecting my Xbox 360 to the TV over the RGB cables because DVDs will be upscaled. Pardon my ignorance, but what is upscaling? And is there any advantage to RGB over VGA?
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EDTV is a little more complex to explain. I'm not sure if you're familar with interlacing and progressive scan video. Interlaced video basically divides the video into two sets of bands. the bands are actually displayed only one at a time alternating about every 60th of a second. This is too fast for the eye to really see but sometimes the fields don't match up perfectly which can make movement look blurry and cause pixelation. EDTV is the exactl same resolution and standard defintion tv but it using progressive scan instead of interlaced. The Wii and Xbox 360 both support EDTV. HDTV actually has more pixels than standard def and there are progressive and interlaced flavors of it as well.
EDTV is basically just SDTV with progressive scan. Look at this image for a visual aid as to the difference between interlaced and progressive scan video. Some lower-end HDTVs can have problems with fast moving video when it's interlaced, which may show itself as either lag or image tearing. This shouldn't be a problem with movies, but it may crop up in games. No. I may not be technically correct on this, but I would consider it EDTV. Unlike LCD monitors/TVs, CRTs don't have a native resolution that they run at. The Dreamcast should set your monitor to run at the proper resolution for the game you're playing.
The other aspect of NTSC video is that it is in a 4:3 format - in terms of resolution, this means that there are 480 lines of horizontal pixels and 640 lines of vertical resolution. So, to sum up, NTSC video is in a 4:3 picture format, broadcast in 480i (480 interlaced lines of resolution). Today, NTSC video in a digital (ATSC) format is referred to as "SDTV".
ATSC is the new digital video format, and is actually made up of 18 different video standards. Because of new technology, video can now be broadcast digitally at much higher resolutions than NTSC video. ATSC can broadcast any one of its 18 different formats, depending on how the broadcaster sees fit:
Generally though, there are 4 main ATSC digital formats used in NA. 480i SDTV is the first. The second is 480p SDTV, also known as "EDTV" (Enhanced Definition TV). The only difference between EDTV and normal SDTV is that EDTV scans all 480 lines of resolution at once, or "progressively". So instead of 60 half-frames of video per second, you have 30 full-frames - 480p. Most people generally think this looks much better than 480i, and it really does. Interlacing can cause some bad visual artifacts, especially during very high-motion video like sports and video games. Progressive video does away with these artifacts making for a much cleaner, more attractive picture. Note that EDTV can also come in the 60 frame-per-second variety, which looks even better, but it depends on which one is being displayed.
The other two main formats are "HDTV" formats. Though there are six HDTV ATSC formats, only two are very prevalent in North America (and most of the rest of the world as well, I would guess): 720p and 1080i. They are both 16:9 instead of 4:3 (so they have a wider screen), and the picture is exactly what they sound like. 720p has 720 lines of horizontal resolution displayed progressively, and 1080i has 1080 lines of horizontal resolution that are interlaced. There is much debate over which looks better, but I don't want to get into that. GENERALLY, it is accepted that 1080i looks better for normal television viewing due to the super-high resolution, while 720p looks better for high-motion video such as sports and video games due to benefits of progressive scan. In truth though, after watching 480i/p, it's tough to tell the difference between the two sometimes. They're both great formats, so which one you prefer is very much a subjective thing.
A new HDTV format that is gaining popularity with the rise of HD-DVD, Blu-Ray, and next-gen consoles is 1080p. As you could guess it's an incredibly high quality picture and pretty much blows everything else out there away. However, it will still be a while before it gains the widespread use of 720p and 1080i, so I wouldn't worry too much about it right now.
Whew, that was a long post. Hopefully someone gleaned something useful from it.
Oculus: TheBigDookie | XBL: Dook | NNID: BigDookie
But yeah, if someone DOES know the answer to that, I'd be curious to hear it as well. It definitely doesn't make much sense.
Oculus: TheBigDookie | XBL: Dook | NNID: BigDookie
Pixels don't have to display as squares on a non-fixed pixel display such as CRT. In fact, I'm pretty sure that they almost never do (though I could be wrong here.) The pixels actually display at a 0.9 aspect ratio, so they're narrower than they are tall. DVD players output using non-square pixels like this, as do most game consoles (I think). It's a pain in the ass. If you want to display a circle, for example, you can't make it a circle. A 256x256 pixel circle will appear squished horizontally, and so you have to actually stretch it to be wider than 256 pixels. If you stretch it by about 10%, then it will display as a normal circle on the TV screen, even though it will appear squashed on a computer screen.
I have no idea why they do this, only that they do, and that it's annoying. I also don't know what happens on new fixed-pixel displays, because the only TVs I've worked with have been CRTs.
All Dreamcast games that support the VGA box (almost every game) output in 640x480p60., which is the same as standard 480p.
So yeah, EDTV. Or whatever. I don't like the acronyms, they're imprecise. EDTV can mean 480p or 720i, HDTV can mean 720p or 1080i or 1080p. Use numbers, it'll work better.
A question about upscaling and downscaling - my TV has a native resolution, right? So why can they say I'm watching 1080i if my tv might actually be displaying more or less pixels?
Wouldn't this make the picture look odd?