HD = High Demand

... and rather low delivery.

So of course, being a widescreen HD owner, I want stuff that is real HD on my screen.
It looks like HD-DVD and Blu-ray is a coming soon ( like end of spring ), sort of outcome, and the offerings will be ok. Personally i would like the first 2 seasons of the very visual and engaging Babylon 5, but it looks like a wait and see situation out there for what really comes out crisp in these new formats. My opinion is the HD-DVD will be the walmart kind of market quality level and the Blu-ray will be the sought-after high-end.

A bunch of ways to get HD/TV.

The First is nicknamed "OTA" :
#1 = Over The Air, uses an antenna like your basic UHF and reaches maybe 50 miles out to whatever is there from wherever you are. Its Free, but it basically isnt rich, robust and worth buying an HDTV to get. You Need a tuner with the label ATSC, either in a set top box or built-in so if local TV delivery is what you plan on, pay attention to that detail. I mentioned the Govt subsidized Tuner program in my Entitlement post.

#2 = Cable ... many channels and providers do very nicely, I watch Discovery HD, HDnet and INHD etc, about a dozen decent HD channels on my Adelphia System, and some on-demand channels are also HD.

#3 = Dish/Satelllite. Uhmm, sorry but what i have seen of this is not yet there, but the signup incentives may make it worth it for you, and you get an overload of standard definition content.
I dont know if it is who I know or what, but the dish crowd always seems to be cranky about what they have, and the telemarketers have so totally angered me with thier persistence that i will NEVER get a DISH ANYTHING. Yes Mr. Dish Network marketing dude, this is consumer backlash. My Phone is on the National do-not-call list and you still pummel me with recorded crap about "Being in My Area". F**k You Very Much.

#4 = Fiber Optics - a cable that runs right to your doorstep, that removes the "last-mile" problem totally from the high-end digital distribution equation. This is the ideal on-demand scenario for the Tivo-thinking time-shifted crowd that wants a tv show or movie but also wants to see it when its good for them, give me a-la-carte.

awww... there are 5

#5 A sort of WiFi-like wireless technology similar to cellphone systems, well suited to cosmo-city dwellers, that cuts all the clunky wiring but still has the juice to deliver high definition, it has a lot of names right now but this one has proven in test market that it can be bi-directional, where users can actually interact with the programming, uploading cellphone images and video of rather high quality much like a video chatroom, all real-time... i would imagine some speed dating channel will pop up as a result of this form of connection. Single women looking for Mr. Van Bucksright III , move to NYC.

oops.
# 6 ways sort of.... If you have bluetooth gizmos like a nokia camera-phone, you can see your photos at 2 mpix ... Not really TV but at least HD something., most importantly a larger than life ability to share things that normally are locked in a closet and forgotten.

The end-point of course is the HD Screen in whatever way you cut it, and very soon the early adopter will have the DVD on-steroids ( hd-dvd or blu-ray ) coming out in the next month or so, or something, and November when the Global Sony PS3 launch happens, it will be HD mayhem of the coolest stuff ever.

Again i am going to stress one thing.
1920 x 1080 Native Screen Resolution is the high-end desireable resolution of Large Widescreen displays... about 1000 people a day search and wind up here, andthe search words include 'HD-Ready'. so.. if you see this in some advertizing:

HD-READY ( on Sale ) "1,366 x 768 native pixel resolution; accepts HD signals up to full 1080i; includes HDMI and PC inputs "

Do not go for it... THINK FIRST why:?
This means you can connect a 1080i HD source to it, but it CANNOT DISPLAY FULL HD QUALITY at 1920 x 1080 resolution, and never will - instead you will get a downsampled & rescaled image, which is a bad thing if the tv is huge. You will end up with a big bright slightly fuzzy image as compared to a 1920 x 1080 screen. This Matters, 1080 is the right stuff for the larger screens. See this post http://hd1080i.blogspot.com/2006/04/responding-to-hd-1080i-questions.html


Note: thanks to all the illustrious visitors this page gets. I am honored.