David Rakoczy Posted June 25, 2009 Share Posted June 25, 2009 ..when it comes to the issue of symmetry... I have always been down the middle... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim Hyslop Posted June 25, 2009 Share Posted June 25, 2009 ..when it comes to the issue of symmetry... I have always been down the middle... My thoughts mirror yours. -- Jim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Rakoczy Posted June 25, 2009 Share Posted June 25, 2009 It's like one big Rorschach... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Member Keith Walters Posted June 26, 2009 Author Premium Member Share Posted June 26, 2009 The significance of having more TV's than households is that there are a substantial number of families that have satellite or cable, but also have other TV's that only get broadcast TV -- like in the kitchen or kids' rooms. This is a much bigger group than those who only have OTA reception. -- J.S. Market research has consistently shown that the results obtained by different market research firms can vary widely, and should not be trusted. There are two kinds of people: Those who arbitrarily divide the world up into two types of people, and those who don't. Shocking but true: 50% of the US population are of below average intelligence. 50% of the US population consume less than the average number of calories consumed by the entire population. Other TV standards besides NTSC are rumoured to exist, and even - outrageously - delivery better picture quality! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Member Keith Walters Posted June 26, 2009 Author Premium Member Share Posted June 26, 2009 It's like one big Rorschach... They don't sell those at McDonalds. Subway, maybe? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Rakoczy Posted June 26, 2009 Share Posted June 26, 2009 Keith.. are you taking your meds? :blink: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Member Keith Walters Posted June 26, 2009 Author Premium Member Share Posted June 26, 2009 Keith.. are you taking your meds? :blink: Who needs mind-altering chemicals, when we have this forum? Logging in here occasionally serves to remind one when one is well off ^_^ ^_^ ^_^ ^_^ ^_^ ^_^ ^_^ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Annie Wengenroth Posted June 27, 2009 Share Posted June 27, 2009 Wow, you guys are all crazy. It's just TV, who cares. :rolleyes: I blew $400 on a flat-panel HD TV this fall...recession special. Ain't got no box...Cablevision robs me of $90 a month for cable and Interwebs...and life goes on. The 4x3 thing is irritating, but it doesn't ruin my day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Member Hal Smith Posted June 27, 2009 Premium Member Share Posted June 27, 2009 One slightly happier item: The Channel Master CM-7000 ATSC set top converter has an S-Video output. At least one can squelch the NTSC color line crawl with one of them. I've got two of them and when I had one hooked up to my old 52" Zenith NTSC SD CRT projection set the picture was as good as RGB in from a DVD. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Member Hal Smith Posted June 27, 2009 Premium Member Share Posted June 27, 2009 ...........I'm going to Alaska next week so I'm thinking I'll try out a McDonald's there too.....While technically America, it kind of feels like a foreign country. I understand they even have their own Queen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Member Keith Walters Posted June 28, 2009 Author Premium Member Share Posted June 28, 2009 One slightly happier item: The Channel Master CM-7000 ATSC set top converter has an S-Video output. At least one can squelch the NTSC color line crawl with one of them. I've got two of them and when I had one hooked up to my old 52" Zenith NTSC SD CRT projection set the picture was as good as RGB in from a DVD. If you are using an SD display, it's almost impossible to tell the difference between S-video and component, even when you use a test pattern DVD. If you display colour bars, you can just see a small difference in the transition between the green and magenta bars if you switch between S-Video and Component. Actually, component has no real application for SDTV, it's only when you use the progressive scan function that it comes into its own, since there's no such thing as a Progressive Scan S-video input! On a general note, despite the incessant chatter about irrelevancies, this has all been quite informative. Nothing like information from the man in the street as opposed to official starements. In Australia, where analog transmissions are due to continue for a few more years, the standard price for a unpretentious but still full-featured Digital Set Top Box is around $A50 (“$49.95”), and as low as $34.95 when the sales are on. (At the current exchange rate $A50 converts to about $US38-40) “Full Featured” means in addition to the standard Red-Yellow-White A-V connectors, it has component (“YUV”) and S-Video, and quite often, a serial digital audio port for connection to a home theatre system. The video output is adjustable between 4:3 Pan & Scan, 4:3 letterbox, and. 16:9, and the component output can be set to progressive or interlace. With most, (but not all) units, Composite, S-Video and Component Video are all available simultaneously, with their settings independent from each other, so if you screw up your component settings and lose the picture, composite will always allow you to see the setup menu! Some earlier models had RF modulators built-in, but this is pretty rare now. But it appears that in the US, because of the government’s $40 voucher system, the minimum price of a set top box has settled around $US50, (e around $A70-75) for a government-mandated ndated “VolksBox” with NTSC output only (albeit with an RF modulator function as well), and no aspect ratio choice available. Something to point out to our ignorant politicians! Interestingly, the landed price of the ones they sell here for around $US40, is about $US10, and I doubt that we could get as good a price as a US distributor! A lot of the earlier bottom line models had no controls at all on the box, depending entirely on the remote control, which made them useless if you lost it or the batteries were flat. Current models tend to have at least on/off and channel buttons on the box itself. Most inexpensive models don’t have a front panel channel display but a few do, which is handy if you just want to record from it. On one cheapo unit I bought, the channel display turns into a clock when you switch to standby, and the clock is automatically set to GMT-referenced time embedded in the TV transmissions. A $A50 self-setting digital clock that’s always correct, and, oh yes, it picks up digital TV too! In line with our new energy efficiency regulations, (thank you Gov Swartzenheimer - yes our politicians are actually influenced by the government of Californication :lol: ) current models tend to have an AC power switch on the front panel, and non-volatile channel and channel settings, so if you turn the power right off, they remember where they were set to when you switch them back on. However, SD models are getting harder to find now, because some of the new channels available are only available on HD, so people now want HD models even if they're only going to use the SD output. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Member Keith Walters Posted June 28, 2009 Author Premium Member Share Posted June 28, 2009 Wow, you guys are all crazy. It's just TV, who cares. :rolleyes: I blew $400 on a flat-panel HD TV this fall...recession special. Ain't got no box...Cablevision robs me of $90 a month for cable and Interwebs...and life goes on. The 4x3 thing is irritating, but it doesn't ruin my day. Yes, there's currently a lot of "use up the inventory" manufacturing going on in China. (I presume you mean your TV either only has an SD ATSC tuner, or no tuner). We had a lot of that here for a while, but all the current model large screen flat panel TVs have combo analog/digital HD Tuners. However I notice that a number of large US retailers currently have large-screen LCD TVs for under $400, where they coyly mention that to get the "full benefit" of HDTV you need an "HDTV source" And they never seem to get round to mentioning the display resolution:lol: One disturbing trend is a sudden proliferation of large-screen (50"+) plasmas with only (junk) 1024 x 768 resolution. You can see the pixels on those from across the room! There are also a surprising number on analog-TV-only CRT TVs being sold here, which I guess gives some indication of the level of consumer awareness! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas James Posted June 28, 2009 Share Posted June 28, 2009 Those plasma panels with 1366 x 768 are in no way half HDTV resolution simply because according to the International Telecommunications Union only the 720p format can be considered full high definition because the ITU insists on a minimum temporal resolution of 50 or 60 frames per secound. 1080p and 1080i fails to meet high definition standards because the framerate is limited to 30 frames per second. A 1080p television can display 60 frames per second but unfortunately it cannot properly scale a 720p picture so that means a native 720p television will deliver the sharpest picture possible. Also the Blu-Ray 720p format is much sharper than the Blu-Ray 1080p format and this is the reason why all sports documentaries are delivered in Blu-Ray 720p. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Member Keith Walters Posted June 28, 2009 Author Premium Member Share Posted June 28, 2009 Those plasma panels with 1366 x 768 are in no way half HDTV resolution simply because according to the International Telecommunications Union only the 720p format can be considered full high definition because the ITU insists on a minimum temporal resolution of 50 or 60 frames per secound. 1080p and 1080i fails to meet high definition standards because the framerate is limited to 30 frames per second. A 1080p television can display 60 frames per second but unfortunately it cannot properly scale a 720p picture so that means a native 720p television will deliver the sharpest picture possible. Also the Blu-Ray 720p format is much sharper than the Blu-Ray 1080p format and this is the reason why all sports documentaries are delivered in Blu-Ray 720p. Fortunately (in this country at least), "High Definition" means "anything that provides more information than PAL". So 575p (ie the equivalent of the active picture area of 625 line PAL) is classed as "HD". So is 720p, 1080i and 1080p, (but nobody to my knowledge broadcasts 1080p). So that's a great relief to me at least. :lol: The government-run ABC network (Australian Broadcasting Comission - sort of PBS on Steroids) transmits on 720p, the commercial stations use 1080i, and 1080i is definitely sharper than 720p on my TV at least. The only thing these discussions prove to me, (and those on selected other forums) is that, yes, it DOES make you go blind... :lol: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Member John Sprung Posted June 28, 2009 Premium Member Share Posted June 28, 2009 and 1080i is definitely sharper than 720p on my TV at least. Yes, on one TV set. I've seen it go either way. Particularly in early CRT HD sets, whichever was the native scan of the display would win. Usually that was 1080i, but I remember one 720p at NAB years ago that was some of the sharpest TV I've ever seen. Bottom line, they're really close to a wash, and the conversions they go through to get displayed make most of the difference. Perhaps that's why it was so hard to pick one that the ATSC didn't. -- J.S. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Rakoczy Posted June 28, 2009 Share Posted June 28, 2009 The 4x3 thing is irritating, but it doesn't ruin my day. I can imagine Annie, however, if you made your living Composing and Framing for Broadcast and everything you shot was shown on TV.... you (might) not have as much indifference about the 16x9/ 4x3 matter. ;) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas James Posted June 28, 2009 Share Posted June 28, 2009 Yes I remember seeing a 720p ESPN sports broadcast at Costco and the 720p television was actually sharper than 1080p television. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Member John Sprung Posted June 28, 2009 Premium Member Share Posted June 28, 2009 I can imagine Annie, however, if you made your living Composing and Framing for Broadcast and everything you shot was shown on TV.... you (might) not have as much indifference about the 16x9/ 4x3 matter. ;) And we're right at the point where this is really going to heat up. Back when 16:9 viewers were in single digit percentages, clearly we framed for 4:3, and just did some minor decoration for 16:9. Now the audience is about 1/3 16:9 and 2/3 4:3 (too many numbers....). You really do have to try to solve the compositional Rubic's cube of making both frames good. But it's still primarily 4:3, because that's what most of your Nielsen viewers are looking at. It does no good to compose for the long term future if you don't even get a back nine. -- J.S. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Rakoczy Posted June 28, 2009 Share Posted June 28, 2009 Absolutely John! Right now it depends on your audience.. if you are shooting a Mercedes spot then you'll probably lean 16x9 as that demo probably has a 16x9 TV... so you just cater to them as far as framing goes... but all Graphics will still need to be 'protected' in 4x3... sadly! For the most part, you don't know what 'picture' you are missing if they framed for 16x9 and you have a 4x3 TV... but you sure will notice if half the words are missing because they too were not kept in 4x3 title safe! That you can't miss!!!! I can't wait till all this is done and we can go full bore 16x9! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Member Chad Stockfleth Posted June 30, 2009 Premium Member Share Posted June 30, 2009 It's a design and composition challenge to say the least. I have certainly seen some creative ways of dealing with it. Having imposed parameters can lead you to an inspired solution. Not just in framing but really in every aspect of cinematography and media creation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Member John Sprung Posted June 30, 2009 Premium Member Share Posted June 30, 2009 Having imposed parameters can lead you to an inspired solution. For a comedy, maybe get a couple big potted plants and put them in the extra side area on every damn shot.... ;-) -- J.S. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Rakoczy Posted July 1, 2009 Share Posted July 1, 2009 For a comedy, maybe get a couple big potted plants and put them in the extra side area on every damn shot.... ;-) -- J.S. ......for a more 'theatrical' look, hang plush curtains right and left..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
K Borowski Posted July 1, 2009 Share Posted July 1, 2009 Lol, or rock a matte around the frame with two words written on each "pillar": 'HARD' and 'MATTE'. Would be really funny if someone could pull it off. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Member Keith Walters Posted December 7, 2010 Author Premium Member Share Posted December 7, 2010 Interesting that I re-visited this old thread this morning when I was actually looking for something else, then I happened upon this article this afternoon: Rabbit Ears Perk Up for Free HDTV People with modern Digital TVs are apparently re-discovering the joys of free-to-air TV. Some of them appear somewhat surprised that just about any old analog TV antenna in reasonable order will pick up digital TV just fine. I didn't realize that US cable rates are pretty much the same as here, and apparently with the same level of quality and service. I had FOXTEL for about 3 months about 15 years ago, and that's the full extent of my cable patronage! The company I work for sell huge numbers of "active" digital indoor TV antennas, that consist of little more than a piece of wire connected to a low-noise preamplifier, and the customer return rate of those is astonishingly low. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Member John Sprung Posted December 7, 2010 Premium Member Share Posted December 7, 2010 You don't even have to buy an antenna. I took the wire that comes around a large head of lettuce, wrapped one end around the threads of an F-barrel, poked the other in the center, and got over 70 channels according to the HDTV set's scanning function. We've tried and dumped both satellite and cable now, and get a better looking HD picture. I did, though, replace the lettuce wire by re-connecting to an existing rooftop antenna. -- J.S. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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