HD once more

What with the economy shrinkage, the credit crunch and Christmas fast approaching it appears some retailers are in full panic slash price mode and as such it is our patriotic duty to take advantage of this while it's going on. So to that end I've been finally musing on the purchase of a HD television and have been refreshing myself as to the nuances contained therein.

First up is the new kid on the block FreeSat, at the moment the number of receivers and built-in televisions can be counted without taking off your shoes and as such still remain relatively pricey. This is annoying as, for the moment, this is the only method to receive free HD broadcasts. The option for me is to pick up a FreeView TV then down the line pick up a separate FreeSat box.

Next is the prevalence of the FullHD logo, as I mentioned in the earlier article this appeared to be an enhanced specification to the HD Ready logo - I was wrong. FullHD has no official guidelines and simply indicates that a TV has 1080 lines; that's it. The official version is HD Ready 1080p which is indeed an enhanced version of the original. 'So what?' you may cry; well it can make a difference in four ways.

The first obvious point is the "p" in HD Ready 1080p, anything with this logo has to support full progressive scan FullHD only indicates it has 1080 lines.

Secondly it's the gorilla in the corner that is HDCP the copy protection system that prevents you ripping and selling broadcast material. The kicker is that for content that demands HDCP you won't be getting HD output you'll be getting the same scaled version you'd get if you'd hooked up with a SCART cable. HD Ready 1080p requires all HDMI connections support HDCP; FullHD... [shrug].

[Update 20/11 - Something I should have made clear is that plain old HD Ready logo'd televisions also have HDCP so a FullHD HDReady television will have HDCP, but it won't necessarily have the other features mentioned here]

The third catch is 24fps playback, as I'm sure I've mentioned due to frickin' weirdness film is shot at 24 frames per second, but television is set at 25fps (or 30fps for the USA) and when placed onto VHS and DVD it was set at one of those two speeds (and format), but for Blu-ray HD content films retain their native speed. So a player that can transmit 24fps hooked to a television that can display 24fps is obviously better then one having to faff with the speeds. HD Ready 1080p at the minimum has to support 1080p@24 (although it doesn't require 720@24); FullHD once again [shrug].

Finally something that most won't even realise a process known as overscan. To put it bluntly for ye olde CRT televisions part of the tube would be hidden under the casing so you wouldn't see the full broadcast picture. In theory this should be banished with both plasma and LCD televisions but it still crops up because some HD tuners don't filter out a flickering bar that runs across the top of digital broadcasts. So to remove the bar you enlarge the picture a little and lose some of the top and bottom, but to keep the same ratio you have to also lose some of the sides. HD Ready 1080p demands that 1080 signals can be displayed without overscan.

So after all that everyone should be on the look-out of "HD Ready 1080p" logo'd televisions. Are their any out there? Yes, just difficult to find as there are plenty of "HD Ready" televisions that do 1080p, but aren't "HD Ready 1080p". Look for the logo demand nothing less.