Stupid human tricks: No HD on an HDTV
If the picture doesn't pop, it's not HD.
(Credit: CNET Australia)
"Dude, what do you think? Pretty good, huh? I got the one you guys [CNET] recommended."
I look at the TV and there seems to be something a little off about it. I move closer and say:
"You have HD?"
"Yeah," he replies, pointing to the cable box sitting underneath the TV.
I tell him to turn it to an HD channel. Something in the 700s (the HD channels for Time Warner Cable in New York are all in the 700s).
"I have it on an HD channel."
For good measure, I have him turn to 702, CBS HD. (Now that we're owned by CBS, I always tell people to go to CBS HD first. Naturally.)
"Dude," I say, "You're not watching HDTV."
"I'm not?"
"No, you are not."
On New Year's Eve, I was dealing with a Sony Bravia. About 3 years old. Cosmetically, really good looking. It wasn't displaying HD, however, even though there was an HD box sitting right next to the TV.
I took a quick look at the box's rear and lo and behold, there was a yellow composite video cable running from the back of the cable box to the back of the TV. Sound was carried by the standard red/white composite cables.
"I hate to break it to you," I said to my host (I didn't say dude because he was a buttoned-up dude who you don't call dude), "but you're running video to your expensive TV through the worst possible video connection."
This was actually the fourth time I'd encountered just such a scenario in the last couple of years. Three times the owner had screwed up and in the fourth instance, a "professional" installer had--remarkably--hooked my friend's system up with a composite video cable. (Shame on my friend; double shame on the installer).
In this case, part of the problem was that the cable box was fairly old and had a DVI connection but no HDMI. That meant the owner would have had to purchase a DVI-to-HDMI cable, then run the sound to the TV with the red/white composite cables (he didn't have an AV receiver in the mix). For a lot of people, that's just too complicated. Of course, today all new satellite and cable HD boxes feature HDMI connections, which makes things much simpler if all you're looking to do is hook your set-top box up to the TV and get HD video and stereo sound through your TV's speakers. But somehow people occasionally manage to screw that up, too. (Watch our "How to connect high-def to your HDTV" explanation here).
Anyway, to make a long story short, in the middle of the party I magically turned the composite cable into component cables (no, the colors don't match up, but in a pinch you can always convert the yellow/white/red composite cable into a red/blue/green component cable) and pumped the HD into the set that way. The sound had to be passed through a separate red/white composite cable, but people always tend to have an extra set of those lying around, so we were cool there.
I then fiddled around with the cable box's video-output settings and the Sony's settings until everything was how it was supposed to be (at least in terms of getting the pictured displayed at the proper aspect ratio and resolution). Unfortunately, a lot of this stuff is still too complicated for the average person to deal with (and sound is a whole other matter entirely).
When I finally got the HD working, the small crowd erupted in applause and the owner of the TV stood back and looked at the set, stunned. I was briefly Moses parting the Red Sea.
Alas, I think this situation is more prevalent than I initially thought. I had guessed that around 10 percent of HDTV owners weren't actually watching HD. But it may very well be closer to the 20 percent the LRG survey cites.
What do you guys think? Anybody willing to admit to being an embarrassing victim of the think-you-have-HD-but-you-really-don't syndrome? (Or maybe you're just worried you have it and need advice). And has anyone helped save a friend with an HDTV afflicted with non-HD syndrome?
Hunkered down in New York City, Executive Editor David Carnoy covers the gamut of gadgets and writes his Fully Equipped column, which carries the tag line "The electronics you lust for." He's also the author of "Knife Music," a novel. E-mail David. Follow David on Twitter.
I went to school for engineering and have been here since I started my undergrad in 2000. Those few I know who aren't engineers are still very, very tech-savvy. I have to say I have yet to see this problem except on a Wal-Mart display shelf (I mean, really, do they even WANT to sell their over-priced TVs???)
On a side note. I just helped a buddy replace his color wheel last night in his slightly older Sammy. It was PAINFULLY easy! We popped about 8 screws off the lower back panel and opened her up. Then removed two screws holding in the bottom tray containing the lamp, color wheel and projector. We had to unhook one connector from the power supply PCB on the right before sliding the board out and pull a few cables out of their cable guides, but keeping them connected. Removed the lamp heat sink (no screws), removed 2 screws from the plastic cover/air director over the color wheel's heat sink, removed two screws from the color wheel's casing and just slid it up and out (disconnecting two cables from it, first). When spun by hand the wheel did that awful you-know-your-bearings-are-shot sound and the glass lens attached to it had a nasty crack across it. Within 10 more minutes we had the new one in and the back panel bolted on. The whole job took about 45 minutes because we kept wondering why this dude on the internet had posted 4 videos and about a 15-page description on this job making us believe it was way harder than what we were doing. That job would have cost us $500, but instead, $120 parts-and-shipping plus 90 dude-hours equaled about 4-5 hours of straight Gears of War 2 madness!
Unless you have a plasma and pause whatever you're watching for a few hours, nothing is going to "burn out".
Do you honestly think that you're HDTV will last that much longer by only using it for select HD shows?
Do these things have a life span? sure they do. consider the following:
"Both Plasma and LCD manufacturers typically state 60,000 hours of useful life. Consider that these figures are a great amount more than old CRTs, which regularly post life span to half brightness at 25,000 hours. Let's put these hours in perspective. The average U.S. household watches 4 to 6 hours of television per day. Staggering. Taking a mean time manufacturer stated longevity of 50,000 hours of usage, times our average 5 hours per day, calculates to over 27 years of usage."
if you want to make sure that tv lasts 30+ years, then by all means, watch SD on a smaller, crappier tv.
The inner workings will more than likely give out long before the screen gets "burned out" from watching tv.
"LCD monitors use on average 50 to 70% less energy than conventional CRT monitors."
http://www.viewsoniceurope.com/uk/monitoruniversity/lcdvcrt/lcd.htm
"The power required to run an LCD is about one-third of that required for a CRT with the same screen area."
with that said, i'd rather watch a larger SD signal on a standard size LCD, than use just as much power on a much smaller CRT.
and with your comment on color, it's actually the lamp that fades. and the lamps last 2x's longer than the tubes.
...and don't emit radiation - "An LCD is essentially emission-free, while a CRT monitor can generate electric, magnetic and even X-ray emissions due to the high-voltage power supply necessary to drive the CRT."
Am I still a fool? at least this fool didn't spit out whatever he assumes is correct. I did my homework and made a correct statement. You, sir, can not claim the same.
You said "there is No point in watching an analog signal on a f***ing HD TV"
With all the facts above, there is a valid point.
you can watch a larger size screen, and still use less power. all with out radiation.
I couldn't find power consumption for "f***ing HD TV's", but maybe that's why yours uses so much more power than a CRT. Turn off your "f***ing" feature and I bet it'll be much more efficient...
think before you type next time.
The only type of tv that I know of that uses more energy than CRT is Plasma. Now I wonder what you'll say when everyone starts using AMOLED tv's or when OLED tv's come down in price.
Also, who wants a TV thats bigger than the cabinet holding it up, eh? or to bother moving a CRT?
But, if your family is watching standard definition (SD) broadcasts on your HDTV stretched, then I would kick them off the TV too.
But this is where it gets fuzzy: Your cable company is stuffing the signal into your house on a coaxial cable. Into the HD cable box it goes. Does the signal spontaneously upgrade itself if you choose to use an HDMI cable to go from your box to the tv? Or can you get away with a coaxial, because after all, that's how the signal was delivered.
Basically, I think the TV would need extra hardware, and end up costing more money to include this conversion in the TV itself; not to mention that I'm sure Comcast, Time Warner, Brighthouse, etc. all use different methods of sending the streams through the cable.
So yes, it is possible to get HD with just coax hooked directly to your television. However, I'm guessing that the cable boxes aren't designed to export an HD signal through the coaxial output. That's why you must use component cables or an HDMI cable. If you're curious, it's as simple as hooking the coax directly to your TV and performing the automatic channel scan. If there are HD channels to be found without your cable box, your TV (if it's relatively new and has a digital tuner) should be able to find them.
However, the point is almost moot for my wife and I because we watch most of our programming through the internet, but having the main networks in HD is nice for live sporting events. I don't know if those HD channels are supposed to be in the cheap signal we pay for or not, and I'm not going to call mediacom to ask for fear that they will remove them.
This is only a guess, but I don't think a cable box's coaxial output (if they even have one; I don't know because I don't own one) is capable of transferring the coded signal. The box receives the signal, decodes it, then sends it to the TV by whatever means the user has it hooked up. If the signal simply passed through the box then to the TV via coax without being decoded, then there would be no need for the box. I'm guessing that any box with a coaxial output only outputs SD signals through it because most people who will use a coaxial hook-up will have an older, non-HD, non-digital TV. My short answer is I think the reason you can't use coax for HD is because the cable companies set up the boxes so you can't.
Of course this is just conjecture on my part, and I have no idea if any of that will make sense to you or not, or if it's even close to being accurate. It would be nice if people could just use a piece of coax cable that they probably already have lying around to get that HD signal from the box to the TV instead of having to spend a few bucks on another cable/several cables. But I'm sure the cable companies don't care. That's why I've limited my cable to the lowest possible plan just so I can keep the internet through the cable company. That's another ripoff by the way: where I live mediacom won't allow you to buy cable internet without cable TV... just another way to screw us, I guess.
So you're saying coax is fully capable of carrying the signal to a box, but not the next few feet to a TV? That doesn't make sense to me. And if I was using my wiring as a huge antenna, then I could have mediacom disconnect me and I would still be able to get those same HD channels, which I cannot; I've tried it. The over-the-air HD channels in my area are on completely different channels than the ones I use while hooked up to cable. The channels I get are through the coax from the cable company, and I have compared them to several people I know with legitimate HD sources on similarly sized televisions. The picture I have on the few HD channels I receive is at least as good as all of theirs.
If you have a TV with a QAM and/or ATSC digital tuner built in, then yes you can get HD right off the coax itself.
There is no difference in the picture quality between digital cable and satellite. The only real difference is in the quality of the cable box or dish reciever. Comcast in my area and everywhere else in the country uses crappy Motorola boxes. My mother just got the VIP722 DVR from Dish Network, and it TOTALLY rocks.
Also, you will see little difference if any between using a component video cable vs HDMI unless you are using a Blu-Ray Player or have Dish's on demand service.
All HD broadcasts are 1080i, and are effectively passed through either connection, albeit one i digital and one is analog.
The coax is capable of carrying the signal from the cable to the cable box and straight to your tv, if you wish. However, your tv cannot descramble the signal (neat trick Motorola and Scientific Atlantic use to maintain the need for those nifty boxes). The _descrambled_ signal is what benefits from a digital transmission and decoder. And your cable box doesn't send the signal out that way over coax. Its probably all pie in the sky anyway--most of us don't have good enough eyesight to see the difference once we're actually getting HD to the monitor. If you spend your days watching really nice sets with BluRay players, you might learn to recognize problems the rest of us never do. Otherwise, probably any way you use to transmit a real HD signal is fine.
In my opinion, a big part of the problem is that the people that should know better - the installers - whether it's the cable company, Best Buy, or whatever, just either don't care to do the installation right or don't have enough knowledge to do the installation right. It's one thing if you are new to HDTV and doing it yourself, but seriously, most pay extra to have these things installed and it should be done right by knowledgeable and caring people.
I do what I can for friends and family but it just seems like the educational aspects of stepping up to HDTV should be much better now since it's so much more mainstream. I mean HDTV is mainstream now right?
At some point it will be harder and harder to find a traditional tube tv to purchase so most people looking for a new TV will have to purchase some sort of HDTV. It's time to educate the public! The more people that adopt HDTV, the bigger the chance of new and improved HD services. :) Win-Win baby!
Except when you have a non HDMI 360 or a frequently used Wii
With an aging population getting technology, who knows how many people are looking at HD, but can't see in HD.
I go around the back and lo and behold, his TV was hooked up via composite. I snatched the component cable from his crappy DVD player and hooked it up to the cable box. He was blown away at the difference in picture. It was the 1st time he had actually seen HD in the 5mos or so that he had the TV. He says to me, "how come you didn't come over sooner"?
Needless to say the games were much better after that lol.
The most frustrating situation occurs, however, when the television is hooked up properly and the customer is just watching all the standard definition channels. I was at a friend's house last night (whose TV I hooked up) and they were watching ESPN on the standard-definition channel, but zoomed in to fit the screen. Talk about crap! Of course I grabbed the remote and fixed the problem, but every time I go over there it's screwed up again. I don't understand people's ignorance and unwillingness to change their habits despite being offered a vastly improved viewing experience. All they really seem to care about is the fact that it is flat.
I said all along during the HD DVD/Blu-Ray race that folks were far less concerned about the actual HD quality of the picture (considering how nice DVD is), but would be interested in HD sets so that they could have the widescreen experience. Your comment would seem to support that contention. I would add that HD does really shine for sports and certain documentaries (e.g., Planet Earth), but where the story takes precedence over the picture, plain-old DVD on a widescreen set is pretty darned nice. --mark d. (whose HD set is properly set up and tuned to HD channels).
Of course, I learned as a child, sitting in my dad's shop every summer, that the general public is made up of 80 -90-percent idiots, often idiots with money, such as the case here.
Most of us who read and post to this forum and at least somewhat tech savvy; many very tech savvy. However, just as an example, we may be "idiots" when it comes to something else, like doing your taxes, planting a garden, fixing your car or whatever.
The truth is that the vast majority of the public are simply uneducated about these things. We're all good at some things, and bad at others.
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by jeremy-brett
January 6, 2009 1:21 PM PST
- edmundh...that's a pet peeve of mine, too...when people stretch non-widescreen content to fit the TV. I'm not sure which is worse: when they use the setting where the entire screen is blown up and you end up with the top and bottom cut off, or when they use the setting where it's only stretched horizontally and everything is distorted. I housesit for friends who do the latter, and I'm constantly having to adjust their TV settings when I arrive then change them when I leave.
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by ender21
January 7, 2009 9:19 AM PST
- jeremy, at least you're describing a fixable problem that's solely based on the viewers personal preference. What's worse than consumers manually stretching their content this way is *broadcasters* doing it for us! TNT, TBS, Cartoon Network HD, are you reading this? We don't need a non-linear horizontal stretch that we can't fix with our video scalers.
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by Notoapplefanbois
January 10, 2009 6:46 AM PST
- Or they could just get a tv which has pixel mapping to change the image, sometimes with little f-ups, from 4:3 to 16:9/10 aspect ratio. I know that not a lot of TV's have it but i think it'll soon be in a lot of tv's like upscaling is today.
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