How it is now
But that general concept coloured my thinking to such an extent that my opinion on HD TV became fossilised. Until that BBC open day, there had been no time since 1991 that I'd taken account of the changes happening in the TV market.
I did know that sets with very large screen sizes (37in and over) were becoming ever more popular but hadn't made any connection between that and the appeal of HD TV. But the connection is real and very important. And that became clear after spending some time in the company of Alan Roberts – a stalwart on the DVdoctor forums who'd recently retired from BBC R&D – and some of his remaining former colleagues.
During demonstrations of big sets showing footage that alternated between standard definition and high definition, they made me realise that the move towards large-screen sets - whether LCD, plasma, or back/front projection – is creating unstoppable momentum for HD TV, and for one very good reason.
With big screens showing standard definition footage – without any form of up-conversion to HD – you need to sit further away than with smaller sets otherwise you see the line structure. So, unless you do move further away than you would for a smaller set – and the room size or arrangement may not allow it - your viewing pleasure is spoilt, the more so if you've paid out a lot of money for a big screen and are expecting something special.
With smaller sets, few people in PAL-land need HD. They won't see the structure of the picture at normal viewing distances – so it will look pretty good, assuming the input signal is decent.
But, with a big-screen set being fed HD (or equivalent - including 720p HDV), the line structure isn't visible and the picture quality seems rather wonderful. This is something of an oversimplification because you need to talk specifics. These include the actual distance of the viewer from the screen, the size of the screen (or projected image), the specific resolution of images produced and even the visual acuity of the viewer. Nonetheless, the general principle does stand.
Mind you, the BBC, as you'd expect, works with set standards – including a "standard viewing distance" at which many people watch (reckoned by the BBC to be 2.7m; roughly 9ft); and a "standard observer", that is someone with a visual acuity limit of about 1 minute of arc (1/60 degree). But, of course, it has ways (as shown by a chart Alan Roberts devised) to take account of variations from these norms.
The point is, though, that as more and more people move to large-screen sets (as they have been doing - and will do ever faster if, as expected, prices continue to fall rapidly), the demand will continue to rise for footage that lets them get the most out of their investments.
They'll be pulling the technology towards them, rather than having it pushed at them by companies with vested interests – as many videographers and editors faced with the dilemma of whether or not to buy into HDV wrongly think is happening to them.
That desire enhances the prospects for any hardware that can deliver HD footage. Possible sources include Microsoft's forthcoming Xbox 360 (which, with three CPUs and component-out for HD footage, is considerably more than just a games system); high-def DVD systems, notably those in the HD-DVD and Blu-Ray camps; and well-spec'd personal computers.
PCs have to be pretty powerful simply to play back HD footage – never mind edit it - even if highly compressed in Windows Media 9, Real, QuickTime, H.264, Dirac or whatever format becomes the standard. They also need either a graphics card suitable for feeding HD to a TV set or to be paired with a dedicate network media player, such as Pinnacle's ShowCenter 200, that sits alongside a TV or AV system and pulls the footage over via Ethernet or wireless networking.
Clearly, HDV camcorders and editing hardware and software also have a part to play. They allow owners of big-screen sets to produce home movies that will do justice to bigger screens. And, they also present a range of commercial opportunities for selling great-looking, high resolution footage. This might be weddings, presentations or anything that's currently shot on standard definition but likely in future to be shown on large-screen sets or projectors.
But, more than anything else, the rise and rise of large-screen TV bodes well for the future of HD TV broadcasting – and I found it hard to escape the feeling at the open day that the BBC believes there is sufficient demand for it to launch some kind of HD service soon, perhaps even in advance of Sky. BC
