# HD Lite



## brad1138 (Mar 22, 2006)

I was looking through the forums and happened across the term "HD lite" I hadn't heard it before, so I googled it   .

What the heck is up with this???

Are any Dish HD Chan's currently broadcasting HD lite? I thought the channels used to look better but I thought maybe I was just getting accustom to the HD.

Before you say, "If you can't tell which channels are in HD Lite, you must not be able to see the difference". Every different HD chan/program seems to have a slightly different picture quality, it would be hard if not impossible to where the picture degradation was coming from.

Anyway, whats the latest on this?

Thanks,
Brad


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## olgeezer (Dec 5, 2003)

I have a Dish 622. All of my HD channels are special. I wouldn't call them lite. The term comes from any broadcast that is less than 1920x1080i or 1280x720p, but more than the minimum allowed to be called HD.


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## Ron Barry (Dec 10, 2002)

Brad.. if you do a Search on HD Lite here you will see what it is described as. It is not an official term by no means and there is a lot of opinions and a lot of discussion as to what it really means to the end user.

and :welcome_s


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## brmann (Apr 22, 2002)

I think we should mint a new term - CSR Lite


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## Nick (Apr 23, 2002)

Once again, there is no such video display standard as "hd-lite". :nono:

In the context of tv set displays, it is nothing more than a marketing gimmick. Any display resolution less than true high definition is not "hi-def'.

Read also this thread in the HDTV Programming forum.

Welcome to DBSTalk.com, Brad. :welcome_s


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

Nick said:


> Once again, there is no such video display standard as "hd-lite". :nono:
> 
> In the context of tv set displays, it is nothing more than a marketing gimmick.


It is not even that. It is a derogitory term applied by some users to an approved standard format for the TRANSMISSION of high definition signals via satellite. Both DBS systems accused of using "HD Lite" provide HD output from their receivers in a selection of the also approved display input standards.


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## Presence (Mar 14, 2004)

What do you mean "via satellite?" Does that mean my cable provider is less likely to be using so-called HD Lite?


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

The real problem with "HD Lite", as others have already said, is that it really doesn't mean anything. HD Lite is not a standard, different folks have used it to mean different things.

Cable and Satellite companies broadcast HD and SD at different compression levels and may have different technical problems and may have more or less bandwidth... same for OTA, although OTA usually tends to be the best quality for HD digital if your station is transmitting high power and you are in a location that lets you receive it well.

This is not to say that Dish, and others, haven't sacrificed picture quality for quantity of channels in SD and HD... I think there is enough evidence to suggest that... and I side with people who have been complaining for the most part.

I just don't like "HD Lite" as a term because it tends to distract from what the real discussion is at times.


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## GeorgeLV (Jan 1, 2006)

There no need to dance around the elephant in the room. HD-Lite is a derisive term for HD broadcast at non-native resolution at reduced bitrates.


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## DP1 (Sep 16, 2002)

GeorgeLV said:


> There no need to dance around the elephant in the room. HD-Lite is a derisive term for HD broadcast at non-native resolution at reduced bitrates.


Exactly. On one hand you have folks that dont think much about it because I guess they consider it "business as usual" for a DBS co. because it's not like they were every worried about the PQ being the best it could in the SD world, so why would they in the HD world.

On the oher hand you have subs that have been getting HD from the DBS co's going all the way back to '99.

In those early years, for various different reasons, you had in some cases an HD channel with a whole transponder to itself. PQ couldnt get any better than that. Now certainly that was actually a waste of bandwidth and logically as time went on they started doing certain things that owed them to get more out of their bandwidth. New stat-mux for HD and so on. Putting 2 or 3 HD channels on one tp. Mixing SD and HD channels on the same tp. etc.

But obviously to go from full throttle HD on a channel like HDNet when it had a transponder to itself, to something well less than full throttle.. especially on D* if it's a case where it's now 1280x1080i instead of 1920x1080i (not saying if thats true or not as of this moment because I havent been following D* lately).. is rather disconcerting to folks that have seen the difference as time as went on. Prolly no biggy to those that only got HD in the last couple years

I guess the hope for some people was because they were passing it through unmolested for a while at first, maybe they'd keep doing it. Well obviously, in certain cases, not.


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## olgeezer (Dec 5, 2003)

I have a related question. Some televisions are 1024x768 native, some are 960x1080 native. How can you show native resolution on these sets if native is 1920x1080 or 1280x768? How can a theater show a 1280x720 image on a 50' screen and it looks better than your "full spec" 50" HDTV?


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

Presence said:


> What do you mean "via satellite?" Does that mean my cable provider is less likely to be using so-called HD Lite?


I wrote "via satellite" because there is a legitimate compression standard for transmitting HD via satellite that I found on the ATSC.org website that includes the scheme that is being called "HD Lite" by users on the forums. (HD Lite is not the ATSC's term. But they recognize 1280x1080i as a legitimate standard for compressed HD via satellite.) There is probably another standard that allows for similar compression via cable but as I was answering the question for satellite I didn't go looking for cable's compression.


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## Steve Mehs (Mar 21, 2002)

Presence said:


> What do you mean "via satellite?" Does that mean my cable provider is less likely to be using so-called HD Lite?


Most cable companies respect HD and will offer their high def content in true 1080i or 720p for Disney and Fox programming. I have yet to read about a cable company that dumbs it down. If you want to check the exact resolution of any channel, including HD on a system that uses Scientific Atlanta boxes, hold down the 'Select' and 'Info' buttons on the box and scroll to page 31 of the hidden diagnostic screens and you will see the exact current resolution of the channel your viewing as it is provided by the cable company. Not sure if you can check the rez on Moto boxes.


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## Rogueone (Jan 29, 2004)

olgeezer said:


> I have a related question. Some televisions are 1024x768 native, some are 960x1080 native. How can you show native resolution on these sets if native is 1920x1080 or 1280x768? How can a theater show a 1280x720 image on a 50' screen and it looks better than your "full spec" 50" HDTV?


various answers. 1024x768 is a 4:3 TV, and some will accept HD then convert it down to the proper number of pixels for that display to keep the 16X9 ratio intact, or it can dump the "extra" side info of 16x9 and just give a full 4X3 in it's best resolution. But you are correct, such a display can not technically produce any HD image as there simply are not enough pixels (normally this size is a small LCD).

There is a 1024x1024 with Plasma, that once i researched it, explained that since Plasma isn't like LCD where there is a fixed pixel on a grid, this nomenclature is more so you know what technology is being used, that the display can produce HD. I still don't understand what it's doing, nor what the "resolution" would be , I suppose 720p level since these aren't $10000 units, which is still fairly normal for 1080p plasma/lcd in large sizes.

960x1080 there isn't any TV with this resolution. I'm sure you've never seen a TV that is taller that it is wide  But, you seem to be referring to the "actual" mirrors on the new DLP 1080p chips. Due to size/space/cost issues, TI constructed this inbetween DLP chip (until they have real 1920x1080 mirror chips), which "wobbles' the 960 mirrors to light 2 pixels at a time. As discussed many other places, due to how the HUMAN eye/brain works, doing this hundreds of times per second is so far beyond the ability of a Human to detect that it is not possible for the brain to notice the wobble. We only see 30 frames per second, so as long as the wobble is higher than 60fps you simply won't notice (thought I'd read something like several hundred per second. If it's actually only at 60fps, some people will notice, like the rainbow affect from the color wheel) . But this also puts some extra wear and tear on the chip design, so I'm sure they'll get a real 1920x1080 when they can, as that would be less likely to break since the mirrors would move less over it's lifetime.

As for movies, they aren't 720p. Movies will be 1080p/24. Movies are always shot in 24 frame per second speeds (cost issues, as well as how it affects the 'look' to create part of the 'film' effect we are used to at theatres. Not sure on the tech , as in LCD, CRT, that the new Digital theatre projectors use, but the design would be such that the 'screen door' so often talked about would not be noticeable except probably in the front row or two. And considering the cost difference of those systems, the gap between pixels is likely much different than a tv set that costs $5000. As to why the theatre looks better, their stuff is calibrated, the lighting is correctly balanced, the cost of their projector is probably in the $100 to $250k range, not the $1500 to $5000 range. Superiour equipment and conditions for viewing yeild a lot of benefits 

I used to sell 3 gun crt's for conference rooms, as well as LCD projectors. The LCD units were good for standard windows viewing. the 3 guns could handle SGI computers. LCDs were under $10k, the 2 3-guns we sold were $20 and $25k, and these were low end NEC's (in comparison to Barko's). They were designed for normal conference environments, with screens up to say 120" diagonal (though 300" is possible in best case lighting environments). But Barko makes the cream of the crop of projectors, and theirs would be $50k to over $100k, and are the types of devices you see running those huge wall displays you'll see when watching NASA's control center, or when at a sporting event or concert. Those big displays are normally powered by Barko's that are easily in the $50k and up range, depending on how large the display, and how much lighting has to be overcome. Commercial is another world unto itself, compared with consumer. it's sorts of like comparing Nascar/Indy/F1 technology to the cars we drive. The stuff in our cars today was tested and developed on the tracks, but is in no way comparable to what is in the race cars


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## harsh (Jun 15, 2003)

GeorgeLV said:


> HD-Lite is a derisive term for HD broadcast at non-native resolution at reduced bitrates.


HD-Lite was actually coined by DirecTV subscribers as I recall. They used it to describe the PQ offered by DirecTV and it wasn't so much about the "pixel" resolution, but the horrible degradation that results from compressing something well beyond acceptable limits.

In the end, an image free of obvious degradation at half the resolution is much better than a "full" resolution image full of distracting artifacting. It is unfortunate that the term "resolution" has been taken over by the Pee Cee weenies to mean something different than the conventional video resolution term. In my opinion, resolution should remain a measure of visibly distinguishable detail but with the new twist of being able to do it with a moving image.


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## Joe Clark (Jan 10, 2006)

James Long said:


> I wrote "via satellite" because there is a legitimate compression standard for transmitting HD via satellite that I found on the ATSC.org website that includes the scheme that is being called "HD Lite" by users on the forums. (HD Lite is not the ATSC's term. But they recognize 1280x1080i as a legitimate standard for compressed HD via satellite.) There is probably another standard that allows for similar compression via cable but as I was answering the question for satellite I didn't go looking for cable's compression.


The latest Wide Screen Review has an article by Joe Kane that suggests we should have even more latitude in the digital standard than we have now, to accomodate the wide variety of material out there. I doubt, though, that he approves of HDLite, no matter what people mean by that term.

I have seen people throw the term around, but they always mean something has been done to the signal to degrade it from its original form. Generally, they refer to the practice of taking a signal that originated as a 1920x1080 interlaced signal and converting it to 1280x1080i. This is what DirecTV does with virtually all its 1080i HD, and what Dish has started doing just recently with its Voom channels. They have not reduced 720p sources in such a fashion (such as ESPN), at least as of now. Some people use HDLite to refer to any recompression that reduces the overall sharpness of the image (by, for example, reducing the bit rate).

As more and more channels become HD, the bandwidth of the sat providers will be squeezed even more. I suspect that we have only begun to see the rescaling and recompression from the satellite providers. Although I am a Dish customer now, I have no particular allegiance to any media provider. As more and more 1080p sets become available, the quality differences in providers who do not do HDLite will become more obvious. If that means cable or telco, then I won't have any problem jumping ship. I will say, though, that as long as I have a way of recording material in HD, even if it is HDLite, I'll stay with that before abandoning it for a provider where that option is unavailable.

I've been a Dish sub for about 7 years, and I have no intention of leaving right now, especially because of the Nextcom R5000 mod for the Dish boxes. And now Dish provides me with the greatest number of channels and the highest HD quality for those channels in my area. That's going to have to change quite a lot before I adopt something else.


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## olgeezer (Dec 5, 2003)

1024X768 are HD plasma displays and XGA front projectors. Yes the imaging devices are 4X3, but are perfectly capable of displaying 16X9. 960X1080 are some of the new "1080p" DLP sets


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## olgeezer (Dec 5, 2003)

The original digital cinema movies were 1280x720 (Including some of the Star Wars epics). my response is due to the HD lite discussion. When digital still camera first came out their 35mm equivalent was 24MP today it is 12MP to equal analog quality of 35mm. The reason for this is the argument that bits are bits ain't necessarily so. It has already been mentioned that DLP 1080 sets are using wobulation. Dlp also uses a 50 year old technology in the color wheel. All folks creating digital cinema use a technique (don't ask me how, I'm not an engineer) called macroblocking. MPEG2 compression is lossy. The larger the image on MPEG2 the worse the image. Digital cinema uses different compression algorithms and macro blocking so the image improves with size. The 2k and more recently 4k movies are Hollywood's feel that Cinema should have more bits than TV to keep the customer happy. We can call anything less than 1920x1080 or 1280pX720p "HD Lite" but that is not necessarily the most important issue in HD.


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## Chris Blount (Jun 22, 2001)

olgeezer said:


> We can call anything less than 1920x1080 or 1280pX720p "HD Lite" but that is not necessarily the most important issue in HD.


 I agree. This may not be a popular opinion but to me HD-Lite is a non issue. The other night I was watching a movie on HBO-HD on DirecTV. The PQ looked sharp and clean and still miles ahead of standard DVD. Personally, as long as the image pushes the limits of my display device, I don't really care about HD-Lite and would guess the average consumer doesn't care either.

Personally, I'm not really concerned about what the satellite providers are doing with HD signals. I get most of my HD locally through the networks and soon, via DVD-HD. I would guess that over time when internet streaming gets more refined, most of us will be getting HD content through the internet. But that's just me.

I do, however, feel for those who don't have OTA HD locals available to them and have to settle for whatever the satellite companies are offering. Choice is always a good thing and the satellite companies should at least put forth their best effort to those who don't have viable choices for HD programming.


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## scottchez (Feb 4, 2003)

I like to think of HD Lite using this chart

======chart=========
True 1080i 1920x1080i: 1920x540x60 = 62,208,000 pixels/sec
720p 1280x720p: 1280x720x60 = 55,296,000 pixels/sec
HD-Lite 1280x1080i: 1280x540x60 = 41,472,000 pixels/sec
DVD 720x480i: 720x240x60 = 10,368,000 pixels/sec


True 1080i: 6X DVD quality 
720p: 5.33X DVD quality
HD-Lite: 4X DVD quality


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## Lorax (Apr 22, 2002)

scottchez said:


> I like to think of HD Lite using this chart
> 
> True 1080i: 6X DVD quality
> 720p: 5.33X DVD quality
> HD-Lite: 4X DVD quality


IMO - this makes the argument that HD-Lite *isnt* a big deal.....

The difference between 480i SDTV or even 480p EDTV to HD-Lite is *much* more significant than HD-Lite to True HD......Everyone should be able to tell DVD to HD-Lite, very few can tell HD-Lite to HD....

In fact, the whole HD-Lite thing really sound fishy.....Most people cant tell and only get irate after someone tells them what they are getting....Followed by an "oh, I thought it was softer" or something similar....Usually it takes something like a diagnostic program or screen to confirm - the eye cant really tell at first glance....

I understand the uproar....But the fact remains; Most of the GP cant tell the difference and really dont care....In fact, very few people are amazed by true HD. I get alot of "I cant tell the difference" from non-videophiles....More than I wish to admit openly....With these people even a really good setup doesnt help - they just dont care that much about it....

You really have to love TV/Video to notice the difference and more importantly be passionate about it....I am sure I can tell the difference - but I am not real passionate about the whole issue....Its so much better than what we had before - I find it easy to "settle" - if thats even what it is.....Things have to progress ALOT further for me to side with anti-HDlite crowd passionately...I want more content first.....I will sacrifice some degradation for content for now....

I know - settle now and it'll get worse....Maybe I am an optimist - I dont believe that....More content - more provider options - all will lead to a better product - its the American way...I think....


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## koralis (Aug 10, 2005)

Rogueone said:


> There is a 1024x1024 with Plasma, that once i researched it, explained that since Plasma isn't like LCD where there is a fixed pixel on a grid, this nomenclature is more so you know what technology is being used, that the display can produce HD. I still don't understand what it's doing, nor what the "resolution" would be , I suppose 720p level since these aren't $10000 units, which is still fairly normal for 1080p plasma/lcd in large sizes.


Plasma works very much like an LCD as far as addressability... it's a "fixed pixel" display. You're thinking CRT. Plasma uses a grid of charging lines over and under gas chamber cells to composite a picture. The maximum resolution that can be displayed is based on the density of lines and gas cells. The link has a picture.

http://www.plasmatvscience.org/theinnerworkings.html


> The phosphors in a plasma display give off colored light when they are excited. Every pixel is made up of three separate subpixel cells, each with different colored phosphors. One subpixel has a red light phosphor, one subpixel has a green light phosphor and one subpixel has a blue light phosphor. These colors blend together to create the overall color of the pixel.
> ...
> To ionize the gas in a particular cell, the plasma display's computer charges the electrodes that intersect at that cell. It does this thousands of times in a small fraction of a second, charging each cell in turn.
> 
> When the intersecting electrodes are charged (with a voltage difference between them), an electric current flows through the gas in the cell. As we saw in the last section, the current creates a rapid flow of charged particles, which stimulates the gas atoms to release ultraviolet photons.


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## jerryez (Nov 15, 2002)

I like the term "HD Lite". It means that we are not getting true HD. Which is what it is met to describe.
I think that we should coin a new phrase for Dish Network called "MPEG-4 Lite.


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

And now we're back to my definition: "A derogitory term applied by some users to an approved standard format for the TRANSMISSION of high definition signals via satellite."


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## DP1 (Sep 16, 2002)

James Long said:


> And now we're back to my definition: "A derogitory term applied by some users to an approved standard format for the TRANSMISSION of high definition signals via satellite."


Well whats wrong with it being derogatory? *IF* the the DBS co's and cable co's (which 85-90% of homes sub to at one level or another) should ever start just using 1280(or1440) x1080i instead of 1920x1080i because it looks "good enough", why should the programmers even send out the material in the higher resolution to begin with? Whether it's the HDNets, InHD's, Discovery HD's CBS/NBC, TNT-HD or all the others that are/will be using the interlaced HD format.

Why dont they just send it out in that lesser resolution to begin with? Heck with any luck CBS will start dong that even with their OTA feed so they can take all those bits that wont be neccessary for their full blown HD feed and grace us with an SD shopping channel or 2.

And why didnt the ATSC just pick the lower number as the top end interlaced HD standard in the first place if thats plenty good enough? Wait I know why, because they knew the multichannel providers would continue to do whatever they see fit with their incoming signals, and this way it gave them some headroom so even if they throw out a ton of pixels it'll still look "pretty darn good" compared to their overcompressed SD fare..


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## jerryez (Nov 15, 2002)

James, Approved, by who?


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

ATSC.org


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## DP1 (Sep 16, 2002)

But that "approval" doesnt really mean anything other than it's technically possible to take a 1920x1080i signal and re-transmit it at 1280x1080i with no issues.

Without that "approval" would they be arrested for doin it that way? Of course not.. no more so than they'd be arrested for sending out full resolution but with a bit rate of 5 Mbps.. even if it looked like total azz.


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

Message-Lite

This is when someone posts a message that doesn't contain true intelligence behind it. We are being cheated, when we expect a message with fully thought out concepts and good spelling/grammar.



It had to be said!


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## DP1 (Sep 16, 2002)

HDMe said:


> Message-Lite
> 
> This is when someone posts a message that doesn't contain true intelligence behind it. We are being cheated, when we expect a message with fully thought out concepts and good spelling/grammar.
> 
> ...


G_od spel_ing does_'t ma_ter. We c_n j_st thr_w out s_me le_ters the sa_e way D_sh thr_ws out pix_ls.

See it didnt make any difference. It was still good enough, you can read it either way and the real beauty of it is the board saved some bandwidth to use for other things to boot!


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