So You've Got Your HDTV. Now What's There to See?

[John Corn]

After years as little more than a showpiece at electronics trade conventions, high-definition television is finally becoming practical. HDTV sets still don't qualify as basic appliances, but with prices as low as $1,000, they're now within the realm of possibility for many consumers.

But here's the important question: when the gizmo is hooked up and ready to display its wide-screen, high-quality pictures, what will there be to watch?

Full Story (http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/11/arts/television/11EVER.html)

[Chris Blount]

To tell you the truth, I don't really watch very much Hi-Def programming. HBO and Showtime occasionally show something worth watching but I almost never watch Hi-Def local broadcasts because I can't stand commercials. Now, when the HDTV PVR gets released, that could change drastically.

I guess right now my HDTV is mainly an over glorified monitor for watching DVD's. Of course, DVD's look awesome on a Hi-Def monitor so I'm not really complaining.

[James_F]

NFL ST HDTV would be awesome....

[AllieVi]

The HD programming situation now reminds me of my father being the first in the neighborhood to buy a color TV. Friends/neighbors would come to see the few shows that were being broadcast "in color." The Rose Parade was a big draw, as I recall. Color sets were very expensive compared with B&W and they required a lot of adjustments, so getting one was not a trivial matter.

[Mark Lamutt]

I watch quite a bit of HD material - over the summer here, primarily shows that I haven't seen before on PBS, and now Disc-HD. Once the new tv season starts up again, I'll watch probably half of the CBS shows, and 5 or 6 of the ABC shows. Can't get NBC in HD in Denver (and won't be able to for the foreseeable future)...we're really hoping that KWGN gets their half power transmitter approved and in place soon - really want to watch Smallville in HD.

I built my own HD-PVR, so I don't have to deal with commercials most of the time...actually it's more of a HD-DVR, as I can't record and watch at the same time...but at least I have skip buttons to miss the commericals when I do watch.

[Robert James Clark]

C.S.I. and Alias in HD are my favorites....

And the WB announced they will broadcast in HD - Smallville should be cool in HD (Kristin Kreuk, anyone?).


Robert

[invaliduser88]

Originally posted by Mark Lamutt

I built my own HD-PVR, so I don't have to deal with commercials most of the time...actually it's more of a HD-DVR, as I can't record and watch at the same time...but at least I have skip buttons to miss the commericals when I do watch.

What does it take to make one of those suckers?

[Mark Lamutt]

Intel Celeron 1 ghz processor
Asus TUSLC-2 motherboard
256mb ram
3 80GB hard drives
IDE Raid - 1 10GB partition and 1 230GB partition
Tellman Hipix DTV-200 HD tuner card (hard to get these days - the MYHD card is readily available)
IR keyboard and mouse (in my case a particular one that works with my Pronto, allowing it to be a mouse as well as a remote control)
Windows XP Pro (I started with 98)
Audio Authority 9A46 VGA to component video transoder
sound card (optional)

All told, about $1500 or so, but I also have a DVD rom drive in my box and use it to scale DVD to almost high definition resolution as well.

[DarrellP]

John, I hear the Hawaiin Tropic Bikini contests on HDNET are pretty hot!

[Lurker]

How many hours of 1080i can you record on that setup? Is the picture degraded at all upon playback? How often does Windows crash?

[Mark Lamutt]

I can record just over 28 hours of HD on 230GB. Works out to just over 8GB per hour. It makes no difference whether the signal is 1080i, 720p or 480p (Fox) - the ATSC stream is directly recorded to the drives, so all three formats are exactly the same size. There is no picture degredation at all because it is the exact stream that is recorded before any decoding is done. I started this computer out running Windows 98se, and am now running XP Pro, and have had no crashes at all. Very stable. Actually, the dvd playback is the most unstable part of the entire system, and that's just because I love to tweak it to get the best picture possible. I've never had any crashes at all from the HD recording side of things.

[DP1]

That sounds like an nice HTPC Mark. It seems alot like this one: http://www.digitalconnection.com/Products/Computers/cassinird.asp

Theres a little more to yours of course.. the extra HD's and such. But the one above seems like a pretty good "bargain" if ones looking for no fuss no muss, no? I suppose a person could add the Firewire card for another 80.00 and dump things off to D-VHS.

Any thoughts on that unit price/performance wise off-hand for somebody that doesnt want to bother with building their own?

[Mark Lamutt]

Definitely a good box, and DC is a great company to deal with. If you don't want to put the effort into building yourself, it's definitely a winner.

And with the myhd card, you might even get a better signal from KMGH than you do now. It supposedly has a slightly more sensitive tuner.