The World Cup: Great for flag makers, rough for LCD TV makers

[Steve]

The Inquirer are running an article today called LCD TV glass piles up as World Cup looms . In it they write that warehouses are filling up with LCD TVs in the hope that footy fans will buy them up.

American TFT glass giant Corning has warned the second quarter of this year will show flat growth to less than five per cent.

So why am I hoping people are happy with their existing tellys? It'll mean oversupply; stock they'll have to shift, which means lovely low prices post-World Cup. One-Nil!

Meanwhile, those hideous England flags are selling well. Oh well.

[chojin]

I would like a LCD / Plasma but I have read / heard that most of the new HD's do not support 1080p, so wants the point of spending £1000+ on a TV that in 12 months when HD settles down and more and more broadcasters hope on and your TV does not support all the HD formats.

I like my Sony 32" widescreen I ordered it for World Cup 98 and love the image I get all i want is something bigger, but I will wait



.

[Stoo]

I wouldn't count on 1080p being a standard here until at least 2012 - there's no where near enough bandwidth on current dtv until after the analogue switch-off, and it's doubtful even after that if it'll switch (less channels at higher bandwidth, or more at lower.. hmm).

Most of the 1080p content out there will be pretty much stuck to downloads or pre-recorded media for more than the life of any tv you buy today..

[geo]

I wouldn't count on 1080p being a standard here until at least 2012 - there's no where near enough bandwidth on current dtv until after the analogue switch-off, and it's doubtful even after that if it'll switch (less channels at higher bandwidth, or more at lower.. hmm).

Most of the 1080p content out there will be pretty much stuck to downloads or pre-recorded media for more than the life of any tv you buy today..

Can someone help me understand why there *needs* to be a 1080p broadcast standard?

Coming from a graphics-world sensibility pov, managing BW limitations elsewhere in the chain seems like a "duh" thing to me.

When I look at 1080p, I think to myself "shouldn't that be happening at the receiver set?" Is there some reason why the receiving sets can't buffer two 1080i frames and present me with 1080p on the set? Given the BW limitations described, wouldn't this in fact be the sensible thing to do?

[Steve]

When I look at 1080p, I think to myself "shouldn't that be happening at the receiver set?" Is there some reason why the receiving sets can't buffer two 1080i frames and present me with 1080p on the set? Given the BW limitations described, wouldn't this in fact be the sensible thing to do?

Surely if that happened the 1080i frames would need to be transmitted at twice the data rate?

[chojin]

I wouldn't count on 1080p being a standard here until at least 2012 - there's no where near enough bandwidth on current dtv until after the analogue switch-off, and it's doubtful even after that if it'll switch (less channels at higher bandwidth, or more at lower.. hmm).

Most of the 1080p content out there will be pretty much stuck to downloads or pre-recorded media for more than the life of any tv you buy today..

Cheers for the info, I was looking at the new Toshiba 32" 56., its had some very good reviews

[chrestomanci]

I wouldn't count on 1080p being a standard here until at least 2012 - there's no where near enough bandwidth on current dtv until after the analogue switch-off, and it's doubtful even after that if it'll switch (less channels at higher bandwidth, or more at lower.. hmm).

1080i does not use as much extra bandwith as you think because it has half the frame rate as 720p.

1080 lines x 1920 wide x 25 fps = 51840000 pixels per second.
720 lines x 1080 wide x 50 fps = 38880000 pixels per second.
So 1080i has only one third more pixels per second.

When you consider that larger frame size video compresses better (needs fewer bits per pixel) because motion vectors are more effective, then you can probably fit 1080i into the same bandwith as 720p.

The reason 1080i is rare these days, is because the TV needs twice as many pixels, which makes it more expensive, and because the lower frame rate makes it is less good for sports which is the emphasis at the moment.

[Jawed]

Aren't the BBC's (and ITV's, CH4's and Five's) HD trials in 1080? I'm not sure whether that's i or p, though...

I'm not really paying attention though, cos I don't want to watch nature programmes or the world cup.

Jawed

[geo]

Surely if that happened the 1080i frames would need to be transmitted at twice the data rate?

Ahhh. I hadn't thot of that --the constant frame-rate requirement screws that idea, doesn't it? Bugger. So then 1080p tvs can never be more than upscaled from lesser detail sources? At least until we've got a new broadcast standard with higher compression (the bandwidth is unlikely to change, it seems to me)? At which point the current 1080p TVs can't deal with it anyway?

I think I've finally had the epiphany on what all the nay-saying is about on 1080p.

Have to muddle along with our two 720p then.

[Hiroaki]

I think I'll wait until after the world cup then! All that said, I'm holding out for when 1080p kit gets a bit cheaper.

HD-TV - you can watch low quality programmes in even higher definition!

[chrestomanci]

Ahhh. I hadn't thot of that --the constant frame-rate requirement screws that idea, doesn't it? Bugger. So then 1080p tvs can never be more than upscaled from lesser detail sources?

Not quite true, as 1080p could be a telecine from movie film.

The company I used to work for shared a building with Technicolor, who have a large department specialicing in scanning old and new films for conversion to digital formats. The lowests resoution they scanned at was known as 2K (2000 pixels wide), which nicely matches the 1920 pixel with of the 1080p format.

Pros can also get 1080p video cameras, that some low budget film makers use as an alternative to 35mm film, though they still cost around $10k

[Funkstar]

I doubt we'll see 1080p broadcasts, but there is definite scope for 1080p films on DH-DVD or BluRay.

Once the volumes of HD disks increase, i wouldn't be *too* surprised if you get 720p editions that are around the same price as regular DVDs, so they can encourage people to jump up to HD. Then they could offer 1080p disks with lossless surround encoding at a premium for those that can apreciate the higher quality.

[Stoo]

1080i does not use as much extra bandwith as you think because it has half the frame rate as 720p.

yadda, yadda, yadda *snip*

Great, but I never said anything about 1080i, I was talking about 1080p, which is what chojin wanted to know about...

btw, 1080i uses about the same bandwidth as 720p, and half that of 1080p, rather than the confused jist of your post mentioned..

As Funkstar said, 1080p is highly unlikely to be used in broadcast unless an even better method of compression than h.264 comes along and is integrated into a future DVB-T standard.

Even given that It's far more likely that more channels at the lower bandwidth 1080i (or 720p) would be preferred than less channels at a future 1080p compression method, as there is far more scope to made more money from quiz/shopping channels etc..

Like I said in the first place..

[Jawed]

I've been mucking about with captures from the Beeb's HD trial.

1. The broadcasts are in 1440x1080 - they're stretched horizontally to make 1920.
2. Current set top boxes can't show HD programmes - so when HD does eventually come people will need to upgrade. And what happens to those that don't want to upgrade? Will standard definition continue to be broadcast? Or will there be a "SD switch off"?

Jawed

[Funkstar]

Nah, SD switchoff isn't likely not for years and years. Just like the mobile operators aren't going to switch off 2G phones now that 3G is here.

EDIT: I think we'll see HD compatible STBs long before we see a HD roll out. I believe Humax already have H.264 capable boxes etc.

[chrestomanci]

I've been mucking about with captures from the Beeb's HD trial.

Thats interesting? Are you capturing to a PC? what type of capture hardware are you using?

I was wondering if I might be able to capture the broadcasts myself using a DVB-T USB dongle and some linux software to capture, demux and decode the signal.

1. The broadcasts are in 1440x1080 - they're stretched horizontally to make 1920.

That sounds sensible. Current SD broadcasts are 720x576 steched to 1024 wide. (Though when I transcode them, I shink them to 720x400, as the quality is better).

2. Current set top boxes can't show HD programmes - so when HD does eventually come people will need to upgrade. And what happens to those that don't want to upgrade? Will standard definition continue to be broadcast? Or will there be a "SD switch off"?

My guess is that the BBC will lauch new channels that on terestrial are only broadcast in HD, Anyone with an SD TV will be able to watch them by buying an HD capable set top box, that downscales the picture. Anyone with an SD set top box will be stuck, but then set top boxes are very cheap these days, so an upgrade will will not cost to much.

Sky & cable will have enough bandwith to broadcast SD versions of the new HD only channels if they want to, but they may decide not to in order to encorage people to upgrade to HDTV.

Alternantively the BBC might wait untill the analoge switch off, in 3 years time, when there will be much more bandwith avalabe.