-----Original Message----- From: Jason Clinton
Brian Kelsay wrote:
So, do you get the HDTV signal from the air or can you get it from your cable connection? What is the total cost of the card?
I'm pretty sure there's no way to get it from a cable carrier. DMCA, thank you.
Elaborate please. I thought some cable companies were already sending HDTV signal. I see ads all the time for some satellite provider saying all of their channels are in HDTV format (I've got a box of salt handy for that claim), as opposed to their cable competitors who only provide a few channels in HDTV. I'm not sure what all the hubbub is about anyway. It's not like the human eye has that kind of resolution where it's going to amount to a hill of beans.
Brian Densmore wrote:
Elaborate please. I thought some cable companies were already sending HDTV signal. I see ads all the time for some satellite provider saying all of their channels are in HDTV format (I've got a box of salt handy for that claim), as opposed to their cable competitors who only provide a few channels in HDTV.
Well, the bits flying over the wire are a binary stream in a proprietary, usually MPEG4 variant set by the cable company. Once it arrives at the cable box, it's decoded and given to the TV for display (480i/p, 720i/p, 1020i/p, DVI -- all standards). You could receive the signal from the cable box and do something with it if you had the right connectors but, other than that, you won't be decoding the data stream from the cable company yourself.
I'm not sure what all the hubbub is about anyway. It's not like the human eye has that kind of resolution where it's going to amount to a hill of beans.
Well, as an owner of a 1080i CRT TV, I can attest to the great improvement in quality offered by HD signals. I personally don't feel that the LCD displays are at the right price point, yet. Plasma is just plain bad. YMVV. If only OLED TV's would come out ...