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Friday, Jul 11, 2003
DTV
Since I work with high definition television, I need to train my eyes for this new medium. So I've upgraded to HD at home. It's still about a $2000 proposition. An entry level set costs about a grand. An out-of-box unit might run as little as $800. Including shipping, I paid $1200 for a Samsung 30" 16 x 9 unit with 1080i resolution (TXN 3098 WHF for those taking notes).
I already have DIRECTV so I bought an HD reciever to work with that system. These run $500 to $800 depending on brand. I got an out-of-box Samsung (with DVI output to match the TV) for $510.
The satellite receiver also accepts over-the-air digital television from a conventional antenna (these channels are not carried at full HD resolution by satellite or cable companies at this point). In order to get HD signals from PBS, CBS, etc. I strapped an improbably large antenna to my chimney and pointed it roughly in the direction of Mount Suto in San Francisco.
I'm sad to say that hooking up HD TV is still too hard. I ran into a few technical difficulties along the way, and continually found that I knew more than the DIRECTV, Circuit City, Radio Shack and Samsung people I spoke with.
I had trouble getting techs to understand things like "I need a single output LNB because the satellite at 110 degrees uses only one polarization", and had to resort to statements like "it has two things sticking out, but there's only one hole."
Once I finally got it working, the first movie on HBO HD was a forgettable Jim Belushi film with a poor quality transfer to video. This was followed up by Ishtar.
It's gonna get better. It has too.
HD Net is the shining hope at this point, at least in terms of production quality. They just need to get the right content. I watched some horse racing simply because I was impressed by the stunning video quality. They nailed the video in situation after situation -- the announcers booth, the post race interviews, the post race close-ups of the horses, the actual race footage, the establishing shot of the facility with an unsettled sky as the backdrop. All the video was clear, crisp and nuanced. Too bad I don't really like horse racing.