Last Time, Our Blu Hero was…

Last time I made some predictions about the future of Blu-ray, I set some specific targets I saw as the direction that Blu-ray needed to move,  in order to enjoy some success. I said that if there was a $5 difference in the price of media and a $50 difference in the price of players, then it would be a no-brainer for the typical consumer to pay a little more for a jump in quality. I didn’t think people would pay double for better quality, though, which was where we were when I made that prediction. And yet the times, they are a-changin’.

Recently, I was at a store. I won’t say which one, but it rhymes with Bostco. This store often has high-end merchandise, but only high-end merchandise for which there is strong demand. This store doesn’t go in for fads on things like movies, it waits until there is an established market. Blu-rays have been on the market for years, but this store didn’t until very recently sell movies on Blu-ray, although they have sold the players for several years. This store typically sells DVDs of older movies for $10-$12. When I saw that they had Blu-ray versions of some movies for $15, I knew that the price barrier had finally been broken and things were looking up for Blu-ray.

While media is adopting appropriate mass-consumer pricing, its still hard to find a Blu-ray player at a reasonable price. Players can be found for as little as $199, but that’s still a hefty premium over a bottom-of-the-barrel DVD player, as those start at around $50. Blu-ray Players still need to drop another $50-100. If they hit $100 by Christmas, almost everyone will find one under the tree, and Sony’s gambles will have paid off. It’s been a rough road, Blu-ray, but I think you’re gonna make it after all.

Old Computer Monitors

Most people who remember what computers were like way back in the eighties remember the old green-screen computer monitors which suffered from burn-in. When images were displayed over and over, the light slowly wore down the coating on the screen. Toolbars, the lines around the outside of a window or the lines of a spreadsheet which were almost always on screen would wear the screen out faster.  After several years a faint image of whatever was on the screen the most would be ‘burned-in’ and then was always on the screen, even when the monitor was turned off. Modern computer monitors don’t suffer from burn-in, but still tend to use ’screen savers’, which were originally intended to vary the image when the computer was not in use. They limited the amount of time that the same image was displayed continuously and preserved the screen. Now they just display cute images of cats or scenic vistas.

Plasma Screens

Modern plasma screens suffer from burn-in in two different ways. One is permanent, the other is temporary. If a screen is left on too long, the individual pixels can become charged in such a way that they glow slightly even when they’re not on. This effect is temporary, and fades after a few hours.

Plasma screens can also suffer from permanent burn-in, like the type of burn-in that occurred on old computer monitors, although it doesn’t happen as quickly or as severely as with the old monitors. Burn-in can occur on plasmas when the same image is displayed continuously for long periods of time. Ordinarily this isn’t a problem, because television images are constantly changing, not static images like the outline of a spreadsheet.

There are a few exceptions. When a television displays a computer game, very often the same images are displayed over and over. Sports shows often have a logo displayed in the same position on the screen, and news programs have logos or news tickers that appear in the same position over and over. If these channels are left on for long periods of time, it can result in burn-in.

When to Avoid Plasmas

Ordinarily, Plasma screens should work just fine for normal television. But, there are a few scenarios where an LCD would be a better choice. If you plan to use the screen as an oversize computer monitor, LCD is a better choice. Likewise, you should consider an LCD if you play a lot of video games. If you’re buying a screen for an office, or a sports bar, or a health club, where it’s likely that the same news or sports station will be played all-day every-day, then an LCD television is a better choice than plasma.

The situations under which Plasmas suffer from burn-in are few, and like every technology, the people who design them are working hard to eliminate difficulties like burn-in for newer generations of the product. I wouldn’t advise a typical television shopper to avoid Plasma, in fact I personally prefer the image on a plasma. Burn-in is something to consider, but it is only an issue depending on how you use the screen.

MiniDV

MiniDV, or Miniature Digital Video, was a breakthrough for home video enthusiasts. The format used analog tapes, but encoded a digital signal. This is like the old style modems that sent a digital signal over telephone lines. When it first connected, you heard that series of squeals and beeps that was the sound of digital information being communicated in an audible format. These cameras are all able to transfer video to a computer through a Firewire cable. This technology ushered in the era of desktop video publishing. Software to edit video has become a standard feature for operating systems, and many excellent software video editing packages are available at a reasonable cost.

MiniDV is on the way out as a standard format, and the cameras are starting to get rare in stores. But, no other format has emerged which completely surpasses MiniDV in every respect. Every other format that has come out since MiniDV is also digital, but instead of storing a digital signal on an analog medium, the new formats store a digital signal on a digital medium, like a Hard Drive or Flash Memory. This makes a difference, because analog tapes have way more room for information than a Hard Drive or Flash Memory. That means that MiniDV required very little compression to make things fit. It’s able to store video information that hasn’t been shrunk down to a lower quality. Newer formats, because they have less space to work with, need to compress video down to fit onto a digital medium.

Compressed video isn’t a problem if all you want to do is play the video back. But, if you want to edit the video, then that compression means that you have less raw material to work with. When you apply effects and transitions, a compressed signal is not going to produce as nice a picture as raw video. For most people who just want to capture video of the kids as home movies, this isn’t a serious issue, but if you want to make a short film, you might want to pay attention to how much compression your video camera is putting on the video you capture, and what options the camera has to reduce that level of compression if you want video that is higher quality.

MiniDV tapes can stretch or become caught in the camera mechanism, but on the whole it is still a good option for Standard Definition, because it stores uncompressed video on an inexpensive medium, and the cameras are getting dirt cheap…if you can still find them.

Mini DVD

Mini DVD, which annoyingly has almost the same name as MiniDV, is an all-digital format. DVDs are highly compressed, and the minature discs don’t hold a lot of video. This format is most suitable for those who do not wish to edit video at all. If you primarily want to record and be able to watch the video on your DVD player without having to bother with editing it on a computer, then this might be a good option for you.

The primary drawback of this format is that discs need to be ‘finalized’ before they can be played on a regular DVD player. The process of finalizing a Mini-DVD can take up to twice as long as the recording time. This means that if you shoot an hour of video, it could take the camera as long as two hours after you finish shooting to prepare the DVD for a DVD player. Different cameras do better or worse at cutting this time down, but be aware this can be an issue and read some reviews on the camera before taking the plunge. This format is also on the way out, and while the discs are cheap right now, the cameras are getting rare, and are only available in Standard Definition models.

Hard Drive

Hard Drive video cameras are currently the popular choice. A 30-40 GB Hard Drive will store several hours worth of recording, and offloading it is quick and easy. MiniDV transfers video information in real time. This means that if you want to transfer an hour of video to a computer, it takes an hour to copy it over. Mini DVD takes a long time to finalize a disc. The advantage of a Hard Drive camera is that it stores computer files on a Hard Drive, just like the files you would store on your computer, so when it comes time to transfer from camera to computer, it only takes a few minutes to move those files, just like you were transfering a file from one computer to another. Quick and easy.

The inherent drawback of a Hard Drive camera is that the Hard Drive is sealed inside the camera and you can’t swap it out for another when it gets full. If you’re out shooting for a day or two then returning to your computer, it’s no problem, just offload the files. But, what happens when you go on a two-week vacation? Unless you have a laptop, you might run out of space pretty quick.

The answer is flash memory. When 2GB memory cards were the only reasonably-priced option, buying a dozen of those and swapping them out regularly would be a terrible hassle. But, now that 8 or 16 GB cards are getting into a decent price range, buying several of those cards gives you the flexibility to significantly increase the amount of recording time available on a Hard Drive video camera.

The good thing about Hard Drive cameras is that many of them are available in High Definition formats. This means that they can record in 720 or 1080 resolution. The tricky thing is that the abbreviation for Hard Disk Drive is HDD, and the abbreviation for High Definition is HD. So, there are a lot of letters stamped on the side of one of these units and you need to look closely to see whether it’s a HDD unit, yet only Standard Definition, or both HDD and HD. In order to be able to shoot in HD, a lot of these cameras will significantly compress the image they shoot and often will only offer 1080i resolution (interlaced) which alternates lines of video, not progressive, which displays each line each time. See earlier posts for a further explanation of the difference.

Flash Memory

The next step is to entirely skip the Hard Drive, and only use flash memory. As memory becomes less expensive, this becomes a more attractive option. Without a Hard Drive, the bulk of the unit can be significantly reduced and the power required takes less of a toll on the battery. These cameras can often take High Definition still images, and the line between where Flash Memory camcorders ends and regular Digital Cameras begin blurs a little. This is especially true since some regular Digital Cameras are now offering High Definition video as an option.

If I’m just taking a short video that I want to upload to Facebook or YouTube, then I just use a point-and-shoot Digital Camera. It is able to record at Standard Definition, the video responds reasonably well when I put it into a desktop video editor, and the result is more than enough resolution to look good online. If your job is posting to the Internet, you’ll want a real video camera, but if you’re just having fun, a regular digital camera is really all you need. Some Digital Cameras even come with a ‘YouTube’ mode, which records in the format YouTube uses, to make it easier to upload your videos.

Digital SLRs

Some Digital SLR (Single Lens Reflex) Cameras have begun to offer video. This is a huge development, because the ability to change lenses and control focus directly is really what separates consumer video cameras from professional equipment, and the price difference is HUGE between the two. Now that DSLR makers have started to add in video, they have been able to offer a product that gives amazing control over video shots for thousands of dollars less than professional equipment.

Early DSLR models that offer video do so with some limitations. The units that have just come out tend to overheat if used too long. The auto-focus these cameras use is often designed around taking still pictures and hasn’t yet been optimized to be effective when shooting video, so manual focus tends to be a better option. That manual focus is possible with these cameras is a real positive, but there are times when you just want the camera to do its thing. DSLR Video is still a very new thing, and some of the limitations that currently exist will soon be overcome, but this is a very exciting development and will soon become the must-have tool for those who are serious about shooting amateur video.

Standard Definition

A Movie DVD contains compressed video at what we refer to as Standard Definition, 480 lines of resolution. DVDs introduced progressive video, which was an improvement over older interlaced signals. Instead of alternating odd and even lines, progressive video presents every line every time. This results in a smoother picture than older television systems were capable of producing.

High Definition

Television has now moved beyond the limits of standard definition. 720p and 1080p dramatically increase the number of pixels displayed on a screen. Screens can display better images, but the medium that distributes the stuff you want to watch lags behind. DVDs are stuck at Standard Definition.

This isn’t the first time that there has been a lag between the ability of a TV to display a better picture and the lack of a medium to store video. VHS (Video Home System), the most popular form of VCR (Video Cassette Recorder)  could only display 240 lines of resolution. I was recently attending a seminar delivered over the course of several weeks, and each week we watched a DVD. There was a problem with the group who had lent the DVDs, and they needed them back. The organizer managed to borrow an alternate copy, but it was a set of VHS tapes. I was amazed at what a difference it made to go back to the old format. Faces were fuzzy and indistinct. I never had a problem with VHS 15 years ago, but once you get accustomed to something better you realize the difference and going back is painful.

The Contenders Vie for the Crown

DVD has not yet been succeeded by another format. HD-DVD and Blu-ray were two new formats that were meant to replace the DVD. One is now defunct, and the other is struggling to gain traction. There is speculation it will never become popular enough to truly replace DVDs. One reason why Blu-ray struggles is that DVDs are really, really inexpensive. This is partly because those who sell DVDs see the end of the line and are rushing to make all the money they can before the gravy train ends. This doesn’t make a whole lot of sense because they’re the same people who want to Blu-ray to take off. Making DVDs dirt cheap changes people’s expectations of what a movie should cost, so the movie industry is shooting itself in the foot.

Fortunately, the people behind Blu-ray have announced plans to lower costs for the new format in the near future to kick-start the transition. Let’s hope that happens.

The Conversion Experience

Upconverting DVD players are the other reason Blu-ray hasn’t taken off. Older DVD players didn’t always look all that great on the new high-resolution screens. This is because the screens are so precise. To illustrate, let’s assume that you have a bar with 4 lights on it. The lights flash according to a pattern. If you want to display that same pattern on a bar that has 8 lights, it’s easy because you just double the pattern, and wherever light number 1 was flashing, both 1 and 2 now flash. Wherever light number 2 was flashing, both 3 and 4 flash, and so on. The pattern translates easily, because it’s just double. But, what if there are only 6 lights? Now, you can’t just double the pattern, you need to make choices about which lights will flash when to best represent the original pattern, but you’ll never get a pattern that identically represents the original pattern because the math doesn’t divide evenly.

One of the great ironies of Digital television is that it is so precise, it shows up flaws. Older, analog TVs could fudge an image and come out looking OK. It is important that that you feed a Digital TV a properly formatted signal so that it displays correctly. The better the TV the better a good signal will look and the worse a bad signal will look. It cuts both ways.

An upconverter improves the way your existing DVD collection looks on your big screen TV. An upconverter doesn’t improve the resolution, it still works from 480 lines of resolution because that’s all that’s available on a DVD, but it takes the original image and stretches it smoothly over the larger space, fudging the numbers to keep things looking smooth, despite the fact that the numbers don’t translate evenly.

To understand the difference, imagine a balloon with words written on it. Before the balloon is blown up, the words are small and clear and you can read them. An old DVD player playing on a big screen TV is kind of like stretching the balloon with your hands to try and make it bigger. The image will be uneven. An upscaler or upconverter stretches the image smoothly, like blowing up the balloon. The even pressure causes each part of the image to be smoothly stretched as the balloon increases in size. It’s still the same image, starting small and stretched big. Nothing new has been added. High definition is like printing in a large font on a piece of paper. There’s no need to stretch the paper image, it’s already as large as the words on the balloon when the balloon is blown up, and it’s going to be a clearer and sharper than the stretched balloon. Even if the balloon has been stetched smoothly by blowing it up, there’s only so much ink to spread out, and it won’t be as crisp and clear as the printed page, but will still be better than stretching by hand.

In addition to smoothly stretching the image, an upconverter can output video via an HDMI cable, which is a digital cable. Older DVD Players are only able to output analog video. This means that the digital signal from the DVD gets converted to analog for the cable, then when it reaches a digital television, it gets converted back into digital. The conversion process to and from analog reduces the quality of the video signal. By using a digital cable, an upconverting DVD player maintains the digital quality of the picture from start to finish, resulting in a better picture, as long as your TV can accept HDMI.

So, an upconverting DVD player provides a smoother, clearer image on a big screen TV by stretching the image smoothly and delivering it to the TV in a digital format.

The Switch

The US broadcast system was scheduled to switch over to solely digital transmission on February 17th, 2009. As of March 2007, every TV sold in the US has had to be compatible with the new system.  Many TVs sold before that were compatible with the new system, but many TVs currently in use will not work with the new system. Older TVs require a box to convert the new digital signal back into the old analog signal.

The Delay

This isn’t the first time that the US has delayed the implementation of their DTV transition. It was originally planned for years ago. Once again the date for the transition has been put off. Millions of US households have older TVs, but haven’t taken advantage of coupons to help them buy the equipment they need to be able to watch the new TV signals on an older TV. That’s the reason given for the delay – there are still too many who haven’t gotten ready, about five percent. Really, though, a small percentage of people will not do anything about this problem until they absolutely have to. Procrastination is just too popular. The moment people realize they can’t watch TV anymore, there will be a run on the stores.

Is it Political?

There may be a political aspect to the delay. There will be lots of people who won’t do what it takes to get ready, and then be furious that ‘no one told them’ this change was coming. Millions of Americans unable to watch TV a month into his presidency would be a negative hit for the new President’s popularity, despite the fact that he really wasn’t central to the transition. One of the joys of being a politician is taking responsbility for the way things are the moment the term begins, despite the fact he or she likely didn’t cause the situation. Putting this transition off by a few months means that a large mess is delayed, and will not fall right at the beginning of the new President’s mandate. The opposing party is resisting the delay, because they know it’s going to be a mess and they would love to see it land on the president’s desk right away. Anything that happens at the very beginning of an administration is naturally going to linger in the public’s perception. Good news is good. Bad news is bad. Vice versa if you’re the opposition.

The US is not the first country to make the change to broadcast only digital television and will not be the last. It is probably the country in which television has been woven most deeply into the cultural fabric of the nation. The impact of the switch will be felt more deeply in the US than anywhere else, and the impact will be messy.

Normally televisions in North America run at 60Hz, which means that images flash on the screen approximately sixty times per second. New 120Hz TVs double that, which means that the image flashes more often, and should theoretically result in a smoother image. In practical terms, the human brain is not capable of perceiving the difference between 60Hz and 120Hz, so it makes little difference for normal television watching.

Visualizing the Process

Imagine a fan, with a light behind it and slightly to one side, so that when the blades of the fan spin, they cover and uncover the light. Each time a gap in the blades passes in front of the light, the light shines through. If the fan is spinning slowly, then you will be able to see the blades, with flashes of light in between. As the fan spins faster, it becomes harder to see the blades, until they are simply a blur. At this point, the light will still seem to be flashing, but very quickly. If the blades turn fast enough, the flashes of light will come so fast that the light will seem to be a constant, continuous light, instead of a series of discernable flashes. In the same way, a TV that flashes quickly enough will appear to be smooth and continuous, even though it is made up of a series of very quick still images. The threshold at which the human brain begins to perceive motion as smooth is known as ‘flicker fusion’. The point of fusion changes in different lighting conditions, but the point at which the human brain is guaranteed to perceive motion as smooth is around 60 times per second.

If the fan, already spinning fast enough that the light appears to be one solid light was to spin faster, would it make a difference to your perception of the light? No, there comes a point where the light appears smooth, and if the fan spins 10% faster, 100% faster, or 1000% faster, it won’t make any difference to how you perceive that light shining through the blades. Your TV, just like the light behind the fan, only needs to be so fast. Hardcore users might be able to pick up on subtle details which are affected, but for the typical user 120Hz is not going to make a significant improvement in image quality.

NTSC, Film and PAL

‘Frames per second’ indicates how many unique pictures are displayed every second in a video stream. NTSC, which is the standard for broadcast television in North America, displays 29.97 frames per second. So then, if there are only 30 pictures each second, how does the screen flash 60 times each second? Well, remember interlacing (part of an earlier blog post) where only the odd lines are shown, and then the even lines? Cut 30 pictures in half, and you have 60. Progressive video simply displays each of the 30 images twice. Even though you’re seeing 30 doubles every second, the human brain perceives it as smooth motion. Most hand drawn cartoons were 15 frames per second, and they showed each picture four times, which is about the lower end of the limit of this Jedi mind trick that TVs are able to do.

The earliest film images couldn’t get beyond the threshold at which the human brain perceived them as smooth motion, which is why the famous footage you’ve probably seen of a train running down the tracks looks like the image is stuttering or flickering. The image isn’t flashing often enough to seem smooth. Modern movies run at 24 frames per second, which is doubled to 48 frames per second, which is sufficient in the controlled environment of a theatre to appear smooth.

PAL is the standard for video in Eastern Europe and Asia. It displays 25 frames per second, and doubles them for a total of 50 flashes per second. This is a little slow, and can result in a bit of flicker, depending on the conditions. Newer televisions for the Eastern Europe/Asian market also double the Hz for a total of 100 flashes per second, and the difference between 50Hz and 100Hz is noticeable in some situations.

One Good Reason for 120Hz

There is one clear situation in which a 120Hz TV makes real sense. When a video camera is pointed at a TV, a 120Hz display will appear better than a 60Hz display. If the TV you are recording with a video camera is displaying 60Hz, and the camera is recording 60Hz and those two devices are out of synch at all, then the image will look blurry or only partially there. That’s because the exact moment that the camera records a frame is out of synch with the exact moment that the TV is displaying the image to be captured. With a 120Hz TV, it’s putting out way more information than the camera needs to record a smooth image, so it looks better.

The Bottom Line

Should you buy a 120Hz TV? Well, there’s nothing wrong with 120Hz. Only the newest and best TVs available right now have it, because it’s new. When I was working in retail, however, I often had people coming in and asking about 120Hz, and a few who insisted that any TV they purchased had to have it. For typical viewing, 120Hz makes little difference, and you have to be paying very close attention to see the difference. It is technically a better television, but the human brain is not capable of perceiving the difference under normal conditions. If you’re buying a television, this is one of the last criteria that should influence your decision. Nice to have, but certainly not critical for the average consumer.

Pyrrhus of Epirus

Pyrrhus of Epirus was a Greek general who attacked Roman Republic forces around 280 BC. He won the battle, but won very narrowly and couldn’t effectively hold on to what he had taken. Today we call a victory that doesn’t actually result in a positive benefit a ‘Pyrrhic Victory’. Winning the battle and then having to limp home leaving the prize behind isn’t very satisfying.

VHS vs Beta

In the late 70s, Videotape devices were introduced, and they became very popular in the 80s. The two main contenders were VHS from JVC and Beta from Sony. Beta was clearly superior technologically, but VHS was cheaper and while Beta was establishing itself as the choice of the elite, VHS won the day by grabbing 70%+ of the market share, soon making Beta irrelevant.

The Birth of the DVD

A new battle started in the early 90s with formats for video discs. The obvious idea was to create something the same size as a CD which could hold enough information to store a movie, and several companies had ideas about how to do that. Thanks to some behind-the-scenes wrangling by some IBM executives, the two competing formats were brought together at a very early stage and were merged into a single format, taking the best parts of each of the original two formats that were being developed, and the result was the DVD.

A minor skirmish broke out when recordable DVDs appeared. The two camps divided into DVD-R and DVD+R, but devices soon came out which would read both, and the format war was aborted by device manufacturers who gave people the option of using either format. The DVD is a huge commercial and technological success, so it only makes sense that large corporations would learn this lesson from history and act cooperatively to develop a new format to replace the DVD, right? Not so much.

HD-DVD vs Blu-ray

HD-DVD and Blu-Ray were two competing formats to replace the DVD, which only offered Standard Definition resolution. Sony designed Blu-Ray and Toshiba developed HD-DVD. Both did essentially the same thing: playback high quality video by offering much more storage capacity. But, they couldn’t play nicely. Sony had learned a thing or two with Beta. Sony priced its products competitively, built its new video game system around Blu-ray, and made back-room deals with other movie companies.

In early January 2008 HD-DVD was defeated when Sony got official backing from a strong majority of movie studios with exclusive deals. The HD-DVD camp declared defeat by cancelling an event at a major trade show. Remaining HD-DVD stock was sold off at fire-sale prices.

You would think that was the end of the story, but no. Sony learned the importance of the battle from previous conflict, but apparently it hasn’t read about poor old Pyrrhus. A year after the death knell sounded for HD-DVD, Blu-Ray still hasn’t gained enough market share to be considered ‘locked in’ as the logical replacement for DVD. Blu-Ray isn’t competing with HD-DVD anymore. It’s competing with DVDs, which have dropped dramatically in price. Why buy a Blu-Ray when DVDs are ‘good enough’ and dirt cheap.

Where is Blu-ray At?

Blu-ray has been in development since the late 90s and it’s been on the market since 2003. That means they’ve been working on it for 10 years and selling it for 5, but it still hasn’t achieved significant market penetration. As 2009 arrived, there were a virtual chorus of bloggers predicting the marginalization of Blu-ray. Worst of all, when I talk to people about Blu-ray, I still have to explain what it is most of the time.

Personally, I don’t see any other obvious options on the near horizon, so I think it’s too early to call for the marginalization of the format, though that’s likely to change by the end of 2009. There are several scenarios that seem possible to me, but it’s hard to say which one will win out:

1. Sony will read all the bad press and lower licensing fees making it cheaper to buy the players and discs. This will close the gap between the cost of buying DVDs and Blu-rays, and the market will take off, because most people will pay more for better quality, but not a lot more. When it’s less than a $50 difference per player and a $5 difference per disc, upgrading to the better version becomes a no-brainer and Blu-ray becomes the new standard, replacing DVD.
2. Sony won’t get it and will leave the expensive fees in place, because they feel they have the right to make some serious money off Blu-ray as the prize for killing off its primary competitor. Another format (probably some sort of downloadable content) will come in and steal the market away from Sony, leaving Sony to gnash its teeth in dismay yet again.

Whatever happens, there’s already a lot of content available for Blu-ray drives. They also play DVDs and CDs, so it’s not like you’re going to get stuck with an obsolete product if you buy one. Blu-rays are coming down in price and as of this writing they’re still the best (and pretty much only) way to watch commercial content at 1080p on your fancy new television set.

I don’t see buying a Blu-ray player as a bad investment, unless you spend too much. Fortunately, they are getting more reasonably priced. But you should know that if you buy one in early 2009, you’re still an early adopter and the format’s future is murky. It may turn out that Sony has expended great effort to vanquish a foe for a prize they can’t hold on to. That right there is the definition of a Pyrrhic victory.

Digital

HDMI cables are the best option available for connecting your TV to Disc players, cable boxes, satellite receivers or gaming systems. HDMI stands for High Definition Multimedia Interface. An HDMI cable will carry a 1080p signal and 5.1 surround sound audio together on a single cable, without losing any audio or video quality because the cable is digital.

Digital audio cables transfer audio (not video)  in a digital format. If you have a home theatre system (external speakers), it is best to run a digital audio cable from the television to the stereo system.

Component

Component cables are the second-best option if HDMI is unavailable. These cables are a bundle of five wires that have RCA plugs on the end. RCA plugs are the type that you might use to connect parts of a stereo system together that plug into the little red and white donut-shaped holes on the back of your CD player. The five wires in a component cable are divided into three for video (Red, Green and Blue) and two for audio (usually Red and White). The video wires transfer red, green and blue video signals separately and the audio wires transfer left and right audio. Because the video colours are kept separate, or in components, they produce better images than composite cables, which mix (compose) all three colours into a single signal passed over a single wire.

Composite

Composite is a word used to describe a variety of cables. Coaxial cable is the old style of television cable with the screw-in end that you attached to the back of your TV on the threaded silver post that stuck out the back. RCA cables that had three wires (Red, White and Yellow) passed audio on the red and white wires, while all the video passed through the yellow wire. S-Video had a round plug with four wires positioned inside. All of these cables are called composite, because they combine the three colours into a single wire. They should be avoided if at all possible, because they do not produce as good a picture as the newer styles of cable.

LCD

LCD screens are brighter than plasmas, are lighter, use less power and come in a wider range of sizes. LCDs generally start at about 19” in size and go up from there, with new models in ever-larger sizes coming out all the time.

LCDs are best for well-lit areas, like a living room with big bay windows. If the TV will be competing with direct sunlight or bright lighting, then LCD is probably the right choice. Because they are lighter, LCDs are easier to mount. LCDs come in smaller sizes, making them your only option if you want or need a smaller screen.

LCDs can have problems with ghosting, when an image doesn’t fade quickly enough off the screen. This results in fragments of an image that should no longer be on-screen being superimposed on what should be there, or a ‘ghost image’. It looks like a double-image or smeared image. Better LCDs are able to provide crisper images. The ability of an LCD to quickly release an image is measured in milliseconds and is referred to as the ‘Response Time’. A very good response time is 5 MS or below. Some computer monitors are rated as low as 2 MS, but most TVs have trouble getting below 5. 5-8 MS response time is acceptable, but anything above 8 may cause problems.

Here’s a simple test for how well a TV responds: watch a football game. Wait until the ball is kicked or passed and the camera moves quickly to follow the play. Look at the grass. The slower the response time, the more the grass will blur into a green mass and the longer the image will take to resolve once the camera stops moving.

The best type of television to watch on an LCD is anything shot in a studio. Talk shows, sitcoms and news programs are shot in controlled environments, with careful camera work. LCDs are going to show this type of programming best because the images will be optimized for a bright, clear display without any subtleties or surprises.

Plasma

Plasma screens are able to display dark, subtle scenes with more finesse and detail. They are more responsive, resulting in a clearer image. Plasmas aren’t available in smaller sizes. They are expensive to make, but the price gets more competitive the larger the screen due to economies of scale. Plasmas generally start at 40” and newer larger models come out all the time.

Because of the fact that LCDs and Plasmas are both available starting at 40”, that’s where the sweet spot in the pricing at the time of this writing for both types of screen. Go below 40” and you won’t save much money. Go above 42”, and you’ll see a significant price jump. It’s also the point where the highest available resolution screens begin to appear, so 40” screens are very competitive and where you see the best deals at the start of 2009.

Plasmas are better for watching movies and sports. This is because these images are difficult to display clearly, and the responsiveness and subtlety of a Plasma screen becomes apparent. Movies are often dark, and plasmas are better able to display really dark images. When Frodo is walking through Mordor, or a soldier is sneaking through foliage at night, a good TV will present that dark image as dark, but clear. LCDs aren’t as good at that, and will make the night look grey because everything is too bright, or else you will see forest, but no soldier because the fine details are indistinguishable. If you get frustrated because you can’t see what’s happening on the screen during a night scene, it’s because your television isn’t capable of producing a subtle enough image.

TVs compete with other sources of light. A good TV showing a dark image in a dark room will show up well, but the same TV showing the same image in a brightly lit room will be hard to see. Plasmas aren’t as bright as LCDs, and while Plasmas shine in the darkness, they can be overwhelmed by sunlight.

DLP-Projection

While not as common as LCD or Plasma, Digital Light Projection TVs are Rear-Projecting televisions. They have a projector mounted behind the screen. This means they are much thicker than Flat-Panel displays, but not nearly the depth of old CRT screens. They are very dim compared to both LCD and Plasma, but tend to come in larger sizes. If you can turn out all the lights and you want massive size, DLP may be the way to go. The newest units come with displays powered by LED lighting systems (light emitting diode) instead of regular light bulbs. LEDs will not dim over time or run the risk of burning out the way a bulb does.

Projector

A data projector, like you might use for a PowerPoint presentation, can also display video, although they usually do not include TV tuners. Resolution beyond 720 is still very expensive, but nothing beats filling an entire wall with an image from a projector for a large gathering. If you can turn out the lights and have a good screen or wall available, nothing beats the ‘price to screen size’ ratio of a projector.

The Questions to ask:

1. How much light is there where I want to place this TV?
2. How big do I need the screen to be? Can I afford the size of screen I want?
3. What kind of television will I be watching? News? Talk Shows? Sitcoms? Movies? Sports?

Some Tips:

1. The perfect spot for a Plasma is in a basement, where there are no large windows and the light is easily controlled
2. LCD is better in brighter areas, if it needs to be wall-mounted or if power consumption is an issue
3. If you can turn out the lights entirely and it needs to be huge, consider DLP
4. If you can turn out the lights entirely and it needs to be gigantic, consider a projector

Resolution refers to the number of dots of light on a screen, and says nothing about the size of the screen. Imagine you were bringing a tray of cupcakes to a party. If the only tray you had was a one foot by one foot tray, and you wanted to bring enough cupcakes for 30 people, you’d need to make very small cupcakes to pack them all in. But, if you only had a three foot by two foot tray, and you only wanted to bring 6 cupcakes, the tray would look very sparse. Matching the appropriate size of tray to the number of cupcakes makes for a good presentation. In the same way, you want enough dots of light, or pixels, to be well-spaced on the screen. The larger the screen, the more pixels you need for them to be well spaced. If you pack too many pixels onto too small a screen, the pixels would be too small to be seen from any distance.

Standard Definition

SD, or Standard Definition, is the old type of television, and it has 480 lines of resolution (TV resolution is measured by the number of vertical lines). If we were to measure TV resolution in Megapixels, like we do for digital cameras, standard definition would be 0.3 MP (640×480=307,200 total pixels).  Two new formats have emerged, both of which are considered High Definition, because they are greater than the old Standard Definition. 720 is the equivalent of 0.9 MP and 1080 is the equivalent of 2 MP. High Definition is not a single level of resolution, but simply means anything more than the old standard. That’s why some manufacturers have taken to calling 1080 ‘Full HD’ to try to differentiate it from 720. Of course, they’re going to regret calling it ‘Full HD’ when they decide to make something with higher resolution.

Digital televisions start at 720 lines of resolution, they don’t make them in the old Standard Definition format (at least, not that I’ve ever seen). 1080 screens start at around 40” in size. Why don’t they offer them in smaller sizes? The answer is distance from the screen. TVs are designed to be watched while sitting on a couch 10 feet away.

Getting in Close

When you want to see the detail on a painting in an art gallery, what do you do? You go closer. The closer you are, the better able you are to see the fine detail. From further away, the detail all blends together. You are magnifying the image by getting closer. The same thing happens with TV. The closer you are, the more detail you can see. A 30” television that offered 1080 resolution would be indistinguishable from a 720 television of the same screen size from a distance of ten feet. The dots would have to be so small to be packed into such a small space that you wouldn’t be able to see the fine detail of that image unless you were very close to the screen. You aren’t likely to be watching from that close, so it would be a waste of money to pay for the extra resolution.

The larger a screen is, the easier the detail is to see from further away. The easier it is to see from further away, the better able you are to pick up the fine details on the screen. On a 50” television, 1080 resolution makes a big difference. The screen size is big enough that the pixels are stretched over a large enough area that having the extra resolution really improves the image quality in a noticeable way. Manufacturers still offer 50” screens in 720, and they look OK, but they aren’t ideal and they’re becoming more rare.

Between 40” and 50” its a judgement call whether you want to move to the highest resolution available. 1080 resolution starts at about 40” in screen size and you don’t pay much of a premium for the highest level of resolution at that screen size. The difference at the time of this writing is as little as $100 more for the higher resolution at a 40″ screen size.

Finding the Right Content

To further confuse matters, very little content is available at 1080 resolution. Almost no one broadcasts television at the highest level of resolution. Virtually all cable and satellite television at the time of this writing is 720. So, if you buy a 1080 television, you are essentially future-proofing, getting ready for the day when having the best resolution available will actually matter for main-stream content. Unless you make your own content or you have a Blu-ray or HD-DVD player (more on what that is in a future posting) it doesn’t matter yet what level of HD resolution you have because the companies that deliver content to you have had such a hard time agreeing on how they’re going to deliver high definition video to you.

What’s the Bottom Line?

The bottom line is that if you have a TV below 40” in size, 1080 isn’t really available. For that size 720 is your only option and all you really need. For screens above 40” in size, 1080 will make a difference if you have a video source capable of delivering 1080 resolution to the screen. If your screen is 50” or higher, a 1080 screen is definitely worth spending a little more on.