Major TV network HD signal Comparison

Evan Winter · January 25, 2007

I could attempt to explain what was done but it'd be better if I let Gizmodo do it:

During "the State of the Union address last night... we HDTV gearheads had fun jumping between the networks, checking out which net was able to deliver the best HDTV signal....This was a notable occasion, because all the networks were using precisely the same feed?the same cameras, same everything?where the only difference was between the Capitol pool feed and the viewer.

We took an HD gander at NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox, and HDNet, to see who delivered the crispiest, most colorful and most gorgeous HDTV signal of all.

For our eyeball test, we looked at a typical array of HDTV stations on our Samsung 1080p reference monitor....We took some pictures, all at the same F-stop and shutter speed, and along with those are a few value judgments."

Check out the stills and more information at: http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/home-entertainm...nion-231148.php

Personal POV - Am I the only one who can't stand the look of images on the current HD-TVs? Whenever I'm in a audio-visual store of any kind I always see people crowded around the HD-TV display models oooh'ing and aahhh'ing over what look to me to be noisy, overly enhanced, artifact-ridden images. Give me a high-end CRT any day.

Keneu Luca · January 25, 2007

Give me a high-end CRT any day.

I agree with that.

I don't have an LCD or plasma TV. Would be a waste of money to me; I have film expenses. In my bedroom, I still have a 13" TV/VCR combo.

Alessandro Machi · January 25, 2007

Personal POV - Am I the only one who can't stand the look of images on the current HD-TVs? Whenever I'm in a audio-visual store of any kind I always see people crowded around the HD-TV display models oooh'ing and aahhh'ing over what look to me to be noisy, overly enhanced, artifact-ridden images. Give me a high-end CRT any day.

Sigh. So true. It's the black levels that look so awful most of the time. It's as if they are blasting us with a ton of brightness and color and saying, "see how good it is!". Every now and then I do see good HD when I'm at an electronics store.

Even standard definition has taken a turn for the worst. I wonder if part of it is the bottle neck that happens when you are getting 200 different channels piped into ones home at the same time. I am disappointed at Time Warner, it seems as if they have dumbed down their quality on certain channels. KTLA looks one big motion blur, absolutely no detail in the blacks at all. It's as if Time Warner has the power to make the over the air local channels in L.A. look however they want in terms of motion blur and no detail in the blacks, but then an actual cable channel will look crisp and fine.

I wondr if everyone in the transmission chain appears to think they are the only ones using digital noise reduction. Newsflash, DNR can ONLY BE USED ONCE, in the chain, and only minimally. Yet it appears that everyone in the transmission food chain must be thinking they are the only one using it. Perhaps satellite TV is better quality because it's signal is not being processed by a local cable company that is recompressing the signal????? Anyone know about this? I'm a big fan of cable TV because they actually have a local presence, but the quality of the image is worse than it was a few years ago on some of the channels that they provide.

Jonathan Bowerbank · January 25, 2007

Give me a high-end CRT any day.

Still the highest quality image out there, even if the 34 inchers weigh about 200 lbs...who cares! How often are you going to be moving your TV around! ha ha

Edited January 25, 2007 by Jonathan Bowerbank

K Borowski · January 26, 2007

I agree with that.

I don't have an LCD or plasma TV. Would be a waste of money to me; I have film expenses. In my bedroom, I still have a 13" TV/VCR combo.

Amen Brethren :-)

I laugh whenever people tell me digital noise is "less objectionable" than film grain. Granted this isn't digital noise from the camera itself, but, when you consider almost every digital image printed in papers or burned onto film has some sort of lossy compression built in as a necessity for ease of use, it really does belittle the technology as a whole. Frankly, I still wish they were using analog tape, regardless of the bulkiness I assume it would need to record uncompressed high definition data.

I love it when people look down their noses at me for continuing to shoot 35mm over a DSLR whenever it is impractical to carry a medium format camera around. Says they:"You should shoot digital; it's clearly superior to film." Says me: "Oh yeah? Then how do I get digital into print at a resolution higher than 250 DPI and without any JPEG compression?"

Robert Houllahan · January 26, 2007

Still the highest quality image out there, even if the 34 inchers weigh about 200 lbs...who cares! How often are you going to be moving your TV around! ha ha

Up until about a year ago I had a 3 CRT 8" Sony projector with a line tripler (I was living in an old mill) sort of the best of both worlds all the nice picture you get from a tube set and a large projected picture. Some of the nicest in home theatre pictures I have seen were with a 9" Sony G90 CRT projector and a high end scaler. The 9" crt's will do 1080p.

I now live in a situation where a CRT (or any) projector is impractical so I scrounged up a 42" nec plasma on ebay for 200.00 with broken analog input. I got a Mac Mini and connected it to the plasma over DVI and it makes a acceptable picture, that is if you do not mind banding and the occasional solarization that you get from the display obviously not even being able to resolve 8 bits (probably more like 6bits) oh well.

I do like the look of the newer plasma's more than the LCD's which I think for the most part are so flat and dull why bother?

-Rob-