Its All About The Size Of Your Megahertz!

[whooliggen]

Hi all,

Calling on all you videophiles that I know are lurking about these here waters:

I’ve just bought meself a samsung 100Mhz telly, but if my UBC feed is not the digital format feed, will my 100 MHz beast display a better picture that my old 50 MHz model??

Conversely, if I sign up for UBC digital is that a High Definition output? If so, then I guess my 100 MHz model will display UBC nice and Highly Defined...??

Any input appreciated as I can't quite get my head around all these Hertz!

Cheers,

W

[Khun Jean]

???

Do you mean the refresh rate of the screen?

Normally it is 50 Hz (Not MHz).

This means your screen will be updated 50 times a second. With 25 picture frames a second it is 50 times a half screen per second. This is called interlacing.

First lines 1,3,5,7,etc are drawn then 1/50 second later lines 2,4,6,8, etc.. resulting in 25 complete pictures per second.

When you have a 100Hz tv the update is twice as fast resulting in a more stable picture. As the original picture is still send with 25 frames a second a digital buffer is necessary to be able to display it faster and more often.

The higher the refresh rate the more stable the picture is.

The same is also valid for computer CRT's. I see many computers configured for 60 Hz while the monitor is capable of faster refreshes. You can notice a big difference between 60 and 85 hertz. The 60 hertz will flikker a little (causing headache when watched long) the 85hertz will look a lot more steady. Especially when you have fluorescent lighting that reflects in the screen.

[whooliggen]

???

Do you mean the refresh rate of the screen?

Normally it is 50 Hz (Not MHz).

This means your screen will be updated 50 times a second. With 25 picture frames a second it is 50 times a half screen per second. This is called interlacing.

First lines 1,3,5,7,etc are drawn then 1/50 second later lines 2,4,6,8, etc.. resulting in 25 complete pictures per second.

When you have a 100Hz tv the update is twice as fast resulting in a more stable picture. As the original picture is still send with 25 frames a second a digital buffer is necessary to be able to display it faster and more often.

The higher the refresh rate the more stable the picture is.

The same is also valid for computer CRT's. I see many computers configured for 60 Hz while the monitor is capable of faster refreshes. You can notice a big difference between 60 and 85 hertz. The 60 hertz will flikker a little (causing headache when watched long) the 85hertz will look a lot more steady. Especially when you have fluorescent lighting that reflects in the screen.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Cheers Khun Jean!

In response to your question: I have no idea what I was talking about, hence the need for some clarity You have very nicely summed up pretty much all I needed to know. Thank you. Still not sure about the UBC digital feed, whethter its broadcast in SD or HD, but Im sure the answer is out there somewhere..

Thanks for your help - much appreciated.

[Firefoxx]

It's in SD, and compressed using something like Mpeg, so you'll see the quality degrade sometimes.

Your TV will display 100hz no matter what. If you want to watch HDTV, you need 3 things: A TV capable of displaying HDTV resolution, a tuner capable of receiving HDTV signals, and a nearby TV station broadcasting in HDTV. Unless you paid $$$$$$ for your TV, it's doubtful that you have the first two, and Thailand certainly doesn't have the third.

[LivinLOS]

Almost certainly not a HDTV..

Dont forget that you can buy WMVHD DVD's for HDTV sources also..

[whooliggen]

Cheers for all your help..

The telly I just bought is in fact HDTV ready, but it sounds like I would still need an HDTV tuner (any ideas as to how much that’s likely to cost??) and to find a satellite provider that transmits in HD. Are there any satellite links that I could hook up to (with the right dish setup of course) in this part of the world that transmit in HD? I know there are a bunch in the States, but don't know about round here??

Going back to the UBC Digital bit of the thread - will signing up for this give me noticeably improved picture / sound quality? Or does the "digital" bit just mean that you can get all interactive with it? Phoned up UBC but the engineer I spoke to had no idea what SD or HD was, or what the digital feed was all about! Handy . If anyone out there has UBC digital, maybe you could let me know how you are finding it compared to the analogue setup...

Anyhows thanx again or all your help...cleared those muddy waters indeed

W.

Edited September 24, 2005 by whooliggen

[whooliggen]

After your advice about the HDTV tuner I did some poking around and found the following excerpt from one company’s fact sheet:

"An HDTV Tuner is made for the use of a TV antenna and is not made to work over cable or a satellite. You will also need a TV antenna that is digital ready. Bottom Line is if you are not going to get your HDTV over a TV antenna then you have no use for a HDTV tuner. HDTV ready TVs should be able to pickup HDTV broadcasts from cable and a satellite if they broadcast it without an HDTV Tuner."

So it sounds like as my telly is HDTV ready, then if and when there is / are HD transmissions in this hemisphere, I should be all good...

From my experience of UBC here, I'll probably be waiting a while..Sure too that CAT would like to get involved just to somehow slow the whole process up so as to deem it almost redundant - they're good at that...But that’s another thread and not exactly a novel one at that!

W.

[Khun Jean]

Whooligan,

What i have seen from UBC was not good quality. I am no expert on UBC different subscriptions but my undersanding is that they jam a lot of channels in the space (bandwidth) they have. Putting more channels in with a larger compression gives a lower quality signal. The digital part enables UBC to put more content at lower quality in the same bandwidth.

Never seen HDTV in Thailand, even the normal DVD's are not capable of storing enough data to produce HDTV quality. Have to wait a few years before that is common.

[LivinLOS]

You also have to be aware of sales terms.. HDTV ready is a common trick one in the states to mean that the TV can accept a HiDef signal over its component, DVI (make sure it handles HDCP or it probably wont work anyway), or HDMI inputs..

However just because it accepts the signal doesnt mean it then displays that signal in HiDef, just downrezz'es it for display at whatever it works at.. Very common in the plasma market which are rarely very high rez..

Seeing 1080p sources displayed on a 1080p projector is incredible.. Most early D Cinemas are only running at 1024x1440 with anamorphic lenses and thats for 40 ft+ screens..

Edited September 24, 2005 by LivinLOS

[Firefoxx]

Actually, normal DVDs *are* capable of storing enough data to produce HDTV quality. It just depends on the codec. There are currently some titles, such as Termintor 2, which have been released in HD resolution. The problem is that they're only playable on computers, since no current DVD players can decode the HD resolution WMV files.

[LivinLOS]

There are actually some stand alone players based on a conexant (and possibly phillips) chipset that can play WMVHD in HD.. Admitedly they are very rare but they do exist I believe..

Of course all the problems that have been associated with the online DRM (hence why the international testers and MVP's of which I am one, are screaming for on disc DRM not online activation) creates issues where some discs cant authenticate..

Not only is there a fair bit of documentary stuff theres some feature film content and also some out on from a german distro on R2.. The underworld disc is a superb HD transfer and with a display device that can really work the dark pallete (probably not LCD) and display a true HiDef pic it looks amazing..

At the moment there are such strides in display technology (the first 1920x1080p DLP projectors are hitting market now, I was due to go to singapore and review one) but the content here in asia is so far behind it.. UBC is awful.. DVD's are done with no care for R4 transfers and the street DVD's are very often recompressed DVD5's or unwatchable screeners.. Tho some people can actually sit and watch these things in my setup and claim not to see the difference..