NFL - 720p vs. 1080i

The broadcast of last night's NFL game between the NY Giants and the Jacksonville Jaguars was as sharp as a tack. (The Jags beating the Giants was a bonus.)

Most videophiles claim 720p is better for fast-moving sports and 1080i better for pictures with less action. And, to my eye, games on ESPN-HD are always sharper than those on CBS-HD and NBC-HD so it appears my perception supports that popular notion.

But there are many factors in HDTV picture quality. Signal strength, the TV's native resolution and the signal source all have an affect. If you read the experiences of a large sample of people (like those on popular forums such as the avsforum) it's easy to see why one group of people claim Network A has the best picture and another group sees the best pictures on Network B.

My HDTV's native format is 720p and I have my Grande-supplied Motorola 6412 digital cable box set to output 720p. But I also have the cable split so I can bypass the STB and use a CableCard and I often switch between the STB and the CableCard signals to see if I can see a difference. I can't say that I see a difference between the two even though, by going through the STB box, 1080i signals are coverted by the STB to 720p before being displayed on my TV.

It's also common knowledge in the videophile circles that an Over-The Air (OTA) signal is noticeably sharper than a cable-supplied signal. The signal captured by a High Definition camera is compressed when transmitted OTA. The signal is compressed even more when transmitted over cable (and even more again over satellite) and compression results in loss of quality. How much the loss is obvious is a popular topic of debate. I have not made the effort to experiment with an OTA antenna so I can offer no opinion of the differences.

NBC (KWES9) and CBS (KOSA7) broadcast 1080i and, even though I see a little bit more blur in action programs, they both provide excellent HDTV locally. I hope to see that the FOX 720p signal is as good as that of ESPN-HD and I hope to see it locally before the end of the regular NFL season.

First Live HD Transmission from Space Tomorrow

At 10:30 a.m. on Wednesday (Nov. 15th) DiscoveryHD will air a live broadcast from the International Space Station. Set your DVR.

Director of McDonald Observatory to speak in Midland Monday night

David L. Lambert, Director of the McDonald Observatory will speak at the monthly meeting of the West Texas Astronomers on Monday night at 7:30 p.m. His talk will be about the past and future of the McDonald Observatory near Fort Davis.

The event will be held at the Blakemore Planetarium in Midland and there are not many seats so you better get there early. See the ad in todays Midland Reporter Telegram.

Born and educated in England, David Lambert obtained a B.A. in physics in 1960 and a D. Phil. in solar physics in 1965 from the University of Oxford. His contributions to research in astronomical spectroscopy have been recognized with numerous prestigious awards and appointments including a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship (1990-81) and the Dannie Heineman Prize for Astrophysics by the American Institute of Physics and the American Astronomical Society (1987).


Dr. Lambert is one of the most productive and innovative astronomers in the world. In over 35 years of research, Dr. Lambert has over 450 publications.

FOX24 - KPEJ update

Thanks to a comment on my last entry concerning KPEJ, we are informed that KPEJ is expecting their HD to be available in time for the NFL playoff and BCS games - maybe "mid-December".

I really appreciate the input from readers. As a non-authority on HDTV I encourage input from everyone who has information about HDTV in West Texas.

Who's Buying HDTVs?

An article in USA Today reports 63% of the U.S. families with at least one HDTV earn over $75,000 per year. Only 14% of families earning less than $50,000 per year have an HDTV. HDTVs are still too expensive for all but those in the upper tax brackets ( Thank you Ric Romero) or the gadget geeks among us.

But, results of a survey conducted by Scientific Atlanta (they make settop boxes used by cable companies) in July indicate 49% of people with HDTVs are not seeing high definition programming - mostly because their sets are not properly connected to HD service. Maybe only half the buyers are geeky enough to make HDTV work? Part of the problem though, is that display sets in retail stores are often displaying Standard Definition programming and many shoppers have no idea what real high definition programming looks like. After you've seen real HD, the difference should be very obvious.

Search amazon.com and you'll see that 32" HDTV sets* are beginning to slip below $1,000 but that's still a long way from what it'll take to put HDTV ahead of SD television sets. For now, the average West Texas television viewer is not willing to pay the price - no matter how much HD content is becoming available.



*remember that a 32" wide screen TV would appear smaller than a 32" standard screen TV. See this.