The change to digital less noticeable than color was
 

I have had people come over and I would show them what a program looked like broadcast in HD. For the most part (even my wife) the response was less than enthusiastic.


When I was a kid a my dad took me to a tv store one day, my eyeballs just about popped out, there was a television and the show was in living color! I guess in simpler times color was much more of a big deal. In today's world with all the other distractions it almost becomes a ho-hum!

I agree that digital is more ho hum then color, but to me so far it's not been as nightmarish as I expected.

I think that the issue here is that today's public is spoiled by technology. Probably radio was the single most exciting technical development, the first time that a human voice was heard over the radio, as opposed to Morse Code. Then television itsself was a big one, and finally color.

Now with all the other technology around, there just isn't any true excitement no matter what the development is. We are now conditioned to just expect these developments regularly, and nothing is a great wonder anymore. Just as cellphones were a new excitement about 20 years ago, and I was only marginally fascinated when we were driving to Wisconsin last year, and Kay decided to get on the internet and do the company payroll from her laptop, with a cellphone modem, on a desolate highway in the middle of the Utah desert. Ho-hum, anymore.

Charles

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I often think of what a big deal it would have been if HDTV had hit the market big back in the late 80s. It would have been a big deal, and would have saved a lot of people in the industry their jobs. (think Zenith)

Funny you should mention that because I remember seeing prototype HD sets at the consumer electronics show back in the 80's Remember there were several proposed hd systems back then and it was left up to the ATSC to decide which system the US would use

I have to agree that for most consumers that is probably the case.
After 10 years HD is still exciting for me because it mostly just works. When I started working in commercial TV in 1967, the station had just begun broadcasting locally produced color programming. At that time the effort required to make good color included complete camera setups and adjustments before every show, and usually while the show was in progress. Videotape in proper color was not at all easy to achieve, besides the fact that some of those 2 inch thick reels of tape weighed 30 lbs! It was sooo hard to make really good detailed and colorfull pictures at that time with the then current state of the art and to do it consistantly day in, day out.
With HD today all that is usualy required is to turn the equipment on and wait for it to boot!
Cliff

Hey Cliff - great- uh, I mean SUPER avatar!

Color produced a significant consumer benefit over B&W. For the past 20 years, NTSC color TV produced a quality picture. Only the most critical viewer can appreciate the difference between a decent NTSC picture and and HDTV.

Consumer acceptance was limited so manufacturers, now all foreign, lobbied for a mandated change to force public acceptance. If it were so great, it wouldn't be mandatory. Color was never mandatory. Customers and advertisers wanted it so broadcasters and receiver manufacturers provided it. Like most government mandated programs, we just endure it, not welcome it.

With over 70% of viewers on cable, the Feb '09 hard shutdown will have less effect so there is no urgency and diminished interest. Like digital cellular, digital TV is not about customers.

Hammer, meet Mr. Nailhead. :thmbsp:

For most people, standard definition is good enough.

When it comes to movies, VHS quality was good enough for most people.

The change to colour was a far more significant change for the average consumer than a change in resolution.

Last night I found myself in a hospital ER waiting area (sick relative).

Anyways, there was a Sony 16:9 flatscreen playing away. I'd guess about a 42". The picture was not squashed, it displayed correctly. The program was local news (WDIV Channel 4) Is there such a thing as low-def 16:9?

I ask because the picture was GARBAGE!!! Even accounting for things like incorrect adjustments, it still sucked. The talking-news-head's face appeared purpleish at the center, yet greenish around his ears. Any type of text was stair-stepped/pixelated. It also seemed like it was just slightly out of focus.

There is no way that could have been HD.

HD isn't all that exciting if you're going to watch it on a 20" screen, what is exciting is it's now possible to have a real Home Theater system with a 100" widescreen format and near theater quality.

If VHS was good enough for most people DVD would never have taken off, I thought it sucked from day one IMO.

I agree that we have all become used to hi tech, nothing quite has the power to amaze us like it did years ago but that's normal I guess.

Judging by some of what I have seen out there as "popular taste", the DVD format may have replaced VHS for the following two reasons, only:

-No rewinding, and
-No flashing 12:00 on the front panel.

"VHS quality" is an oxymoron.

Thanks Don my point exactly
 

That's the response when relatives come over and watch HD, I do mention the program is broadcast in hd, but I get this ho-hum response.

On the other hand we were the first family to get color in 1963, and when relatives came over we got an oh-wow! Response. Color was a tangible change to where HD for us in the business is a major improvment over analog but is wasted on the masses

Critical eye
 

I was such a critical color viewer, I could tell you which network you were watching based on the color images broadcast by the networks.

Of course that was back in the sixties. Now I gues it really doesnt matter.

I can remember going to relatives homes in the late sixites and early seventies when color was finally starting to overtake b & w. And I was horrified by what people were content with. I don't think they ever tried to adjust the color pictures for accurate color rendition.

My favorite was always the Motorola 23" color series. People just loved that soft, inaccurate color picture. I gues the lack of detail helped hide the lousy design put out by Motorola, the best part of those sets was the cabinets made by the Drexel furniture company.

You really think so? I've had HD for a couple of years now and while it can be impressive depending on the programming, it seems to have an awful lot of glitches. Picture freezes, sound dropouts, out of synch sound/picture, and pixelization problems are fairly common. It strikes me as much the same as other digital technologies -- great when it works, but beset by an infinite number of bugs and compromises that nobody really understands very well.

I've seen bad "HDTV" done in places like "Best Buy". Lots of low res, over cored images on every screen. The source images look to be low res over processed, and then cascaded by more processing in each set. Barf. I've seen real HDTV, so I know what it should look like.

HDTV and digital TV in general "just plain work" for me, too. Yes, there were some problems with it here in, like, 2000 and 2001, but I can't remember the last time I had any issues with receiving TV signals. I haven't watched any analog TV in years.

I was recently asked to help set up a new HDTV (Samsung LCD, I guess is what it was) and digital cable. I know nothing about either one, but that was more than anyone else in the room. The folks there included a college-age guy, his mother and grandmother. When we got it up an running they all agreed that the picture was lousy, worse than the 20 year old Magnavox console they had taken out of service. Some programs and commercials looked quite good, but the local news and some other programming was worse than any late model NTSC set I've seen. We played around with it but couldn't get it any better. I blame it mostly on the cable company but I don't really know. It didn't have me in a hurry to change.

Hi, when you talk about those 'quad' vtrs..I wonder, just how finicky were they..especially about being in the right environment, having to be cleaned, and the adjustments that had to be made to get a decent picture, either in black and white or color? And what color cameras did you get to work with?:scratch2:

Yeah, DVD is great...but what about being able to record onto a DVD? I had enough troubles with burning audio CD's on my computer...the discs would be rejected 70% of the time..and I'd end up frustrated beyond belief! Do DVD recorders have the same problem..and how would it be dealt with?:scratch2:

I am surprised that anyone has trouble recording DVDs anymore. I have had both fairly expensive DVD recorders, which did have some problems with compatibility with computer DVD drives early on, and I now have two relatively inexpensive DVD recorder/VCR combos, both of which work like a charm and are compatible with my computer. I figured it was worth buying the combos to have backup video cassette players in case I want to view some old tapes that I don't have time to transfer to DVD. Last year, I did take the time to transfer my vacation videos from Hi-8 (the older ones are starting to show drop outs) to DVDs for archiving. I exchange DVDs of programs each other has missed with friends and have no problems. I have also transfered tapes to DVD and copied them on the computer for fellow New York World's Fair enthusiasts. I have stayed with the DVD-R format, which seems to have settled down as the most common.

I have literally hundreds of DVD's recorded off the Satellite movie channels using a Panasonic VCR DVD combo, the thing has been running almost non stop for a year and a half!

I've also dubbed several hundred pre-macrovision VHS tapes to DVD with it and it actually upscales VHS so it looks better.

As far as burning DVD's on the PC the burner makes all the difference, I've had a 99% success rate with a Plextor 12x burner, my previous burner was a Lite-On and it was temperamental from day one and died in 6 months.

I have heard that burned DVD's have a limited life and will go bad in time? This has kept me from upgrading. Perhaps it was just some brands/types?

Depends on the brand and the dyes used. High-quality DVD-Rs can be quite long-lived. Taiyo Yuden DVD-R discs (generally regarded as very high quality discs), for example, have a claimed 100-year life.

order of longevity, as I recall from what I have read:

chiseled stone (if not subject to weathering)
ink on papyrus/rag paper (if kept dry, cool, dark)
chiseled stone (subject to weathering)
pressed commercial DVDs (with physical pits) (maybe)
black and white photos
high quality recordable optical dye DVDs (maybe)
video tape, low quality optical dye DVDs

Video tape has the problem of deterioration causing the coating to flake off; recordable DVDs can suffer from gradual dye deterioration (not so terrible for the good ones) or worse, delamination of the layers (disastrous). Life estimates for DVDs are just that, based on accelerated tests, since they haven't been around for 100 years.

By the way, I haven't seen any estimates, but I would guess that the magnetic information on a hard drive platter might last nearly forever if it's not subject to corrosion, head crashes, etc. -- anybody know?

I tend to have a lot of respect for tape; got lots of stuff that was recorded in the fifties, including some paper-back stuff, and it still sounds great. But I have noticed a big difference in how more modern stuff ages. Some recordings from the 80s look like they are live while others have become unwatchable. I would hate to go through the time and expense of dubbing everything I care about to DVD only to discover the new copies won't outlast the old. Looks like, as with most things, you need to seek out the highest quality. The DVD equivalent of all my old Certon audio tapes just won't do.