# 1080p broadcast reality?



## newsposter (Nov 13, 2003)

http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/04/16/1080p-channels-on-the-way-according-to-tandberg-ceo/

Tandberg TV is preparing for the next big thing in broadcast HD - 1080p. According to CEO Eric Cooney, satellite providers are already preparing to offer full HD channels in the next few years to separate themselves from cable and IPTV competition with more limited bandwidth. Aside from the company's current projects rolling out MPEG-4, he sees 1080p/60Hz as an inevitable progression, with the hardware already in place. Three years from now, after switched digital's hit and fiber continues to expand its territory offering "Blu-ray quality movies" might be a great selling point for Dish and DirecTV, although we shudder to think what kind of DVR we'd need to store the programming.


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## jabrwocky7 (Oct 22, 2006)

Do D10 and D11 have hardware support for 1080p?


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## bkwest918 (Jul 11, 2007)

jabrwocky7 said:


> Do D10 and D11 have hardware support for 1080p?


No they don't need special hardware. The satellite only relays a stream of data.

/b


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## joed32 (Jul 27, 2006)

They would have to carry a lot less channels.


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## sean67854 (May 9, 2007)

Personally, I don't want to see 1080p on the sats at this time. I would rather they use the bandwidth for more HD channels at 1080i or 720p, like my locals. 

The bandwidth difference for the various formats are:
720p -- 55,296,000 pixels/sec
1080i -- 62,208,000 pixels/sec
1080p -- 124,416,000 pixels/sec

You're effectively doubling your bandwidth for 1080p for what is arguably a minor quality difference. Add that to the fact that a large percentage of HD monitors currently in use cannot display 1080p and I just don't see the point for now. Maybe when we get to the point where everything is in HD (not just digital like next Feb), then I think it's time to start looked at the upgraded formats, but until we have capacity for everything on the sats in HD, I think looking at 1080p is a waste.


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

Not again ! How many times we dig into it ?

Major problem in your calculation is _bandwidth_. You can't do it that way without incorporating MPEG compression and bandwidth 'shaping'.


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## feschiver (Dec 19, 2006)

Why not go to the 4K and 3D rendering at the same time:lol: :eek2:


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## Gocanes (Jul 15, 2007)

I'd prefer if we could just get all content in some form of HD first. Let's start with things like all games being produced in HD on the RSNs. 

Wasn't the HDTV standard released in the early 1990's? It's going to take 20 years just to get all programming produced in HD!

Also, movies will be produced in 24p for the forseeable future (the majority are still shot on film and the new digital movie cameras are being developed with 24p in mind) so what content is really going to be available in 1080p 60fps?


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## Draconis (Mar 16, 2007)

Lets go ahead and gack this one early.

One reason DirecTV does not carry 1080p because none of the broadcasters are using it and bandwidth considerations.

However, the main reason is is not carried and will not be carried anytime soon is that the decoder is the HD receivers is only a level 4.1 H.264/MPEG-4 AVC decoder. So it is not capable of decoding a 1080p signal.

The video chipset is capable of displaying 1080p but (since the decoder cannot decode a 1080p signal) if 1080p was enabled you would only see up-converted 1080p and not native 1080p.

*smiddy* found the product brochure for the chipset so I invite people to read it.

Please pay careful attention to the second page, particularly paragraphs 3 and 6.

http://www.broadcom.com/collateral/pb/7401-PB04-R.pdf

The nutshell, until DirecTV develops a new receiver that uses a different H.264/MPEG-4 AVC decoder there will be no 1080p.


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## Cozmo85 (Dec 2, 2007)

Couldn't broadcasters use 1080p/30 so it doesn't require any additional bandwidth over 1080i/60?


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## cartrivision (Jul 25, 2007)

Cozmo85 said:


> Couldn't broadcasters use 1080p/30 so it doesn't require any additional bandwidth over 1080i/60?


What would be the point? A 1080p/30 signal wouldn't have any more information than a 1080i/60 signal and it could just be broadcast as a 1080i/60 signal and deinterlaced to 1080p/30 by the receiver box or the TV. Most of today's 1080p capable TVs already have the capability to do such deinterlacing.

Furthermore, a deinterlaced 1080i/60 signal has the capability of displaying 24fps film source identically (with the exact same amount of information) as a 1080p/60 signal.

1080p isn't the Holy Grail. It provides very little improvement (and in some cases none) in the displayed picture compared to 1080i.


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

The chip still support 1080p/24/30 so PPV and movie channels could benefit the formats for *our* pleasure.


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## rudeney (May 28, 2007)

cartrivision said:


> What would be the point? A 1080p/30 signal wouldn't have any more information than a 1080i/60 signal and it could just be broadcast as a 1080i/60 signal and deinterlaced to 1080p/30 by the receiver box or the TV. Most of today's 1080p capable TVs already have the capability to do such deinterlacing.
> 
> Furthermore, a deinterlaced 1080i/60 signal has the capability of displaying 24fps film source identically (with the exact same amount of information) as a 1080p/60 signal.
> 
> 1080p isn't the Holy Grail. It provides very little improvement (and in some cases none) in the displayed picture compared to 1080i.


There *is* a difference between a 1080i and a 1080p signal. There is a .0333 second delay between the drawing of each odd-numbered scan line and its adjacent even-numbered scan line. When you get down to the analysis of the individual pixels, there will be the opportunity for smearing and jaggies and other artifacts.

Regardless, I can't tell any difference between a 1080i picture and a 1080p picture on my TV. That doesn't mean that there is no difference, though. It could simply be that *I* don't have the physiological capability for seeing the difference. It could be that my TV is so crappy that it can't display a good 1080p picture, or maybe that it's a great TV and does a most excellent job at de-interlacing 1080i.

My thought on the quality of audio and video has always been that if it takes a laboratory test to tell the difference between two grades of quality, then it's definitely not worth any price difference. But then again, I can't tell the difference between Monster Cables and a coat hanger.


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## JeffBowser (Dec 21, 2006)

Nice perspective Rodney.


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## cartrivision (Jul 25, 2007)

rudeney said:


> There *is* a difference between a 1080i and a 1080p signal. There is a .0333 second delay between the drawing of each odd-numbered scan line and its adjacent even-numbered scan line


There is not a difference in all cases. When viewing telecined 24pfs film based source material (which is the base format of virtually all theatrical motion pictures, and some TV shows), if the 24fps source material is encoded with a proper telecine process and decoded with a proper 3:2 pulldown/deinterlace process, there will be absolutely no difference between 1080i and 1080p in terms of what is ultimately displayed on the TV screen. This is a special case where 1080i can be upconverted to 1080p/60 to produce the exact same end result that you would get if the source was encoded at 1080p/60 instead of 1080i.

Most people don't realize that 1080p/60 gains you nothing whatsoever over 1080i when it comes to it's most common use&#8230;. viewing the BluRay (or HD-DVD) version of most theatrical motion picture releases on a 1080p television.


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## gfrang (Aug 30, 2007)

Got a question if 1080i is deinterlaced by line doubling on the next scan would the opposite set of lines be doubled so 1080i 60 signal would be the same as 1080p30or almost?


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## gully_foyle (Jan 18, 2007)

1080p/30 and 1080i/60 are the same damn thing if you have a buffer and can keep track of odd and even. It gets a bit trickier if you are trying to deal with 1080p/24, but even then it's just housekeeping -- you have all the data, just have to decide how to present it.

So, my glib reply to the 1080p transmission idea is that my TV already shows me 1080p. Given all the stages of compression, multiplexing, encoding, and other twisting and untwisting, what on earth IS "1080p broadcast" as seen over a satellite system? How can I tell where the 1080p-ness of it was created?


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

You want to walk - that's your choice, but why you prohibit other ppl take a ride on bicycle or a car ?!
Stay with you TV, with your resolution, your eyes vision, your brain perception, but live other ppl alone if they want see picture in 2K or 4K format !


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## spidey (Sep 1, 2006)

So if I had a brand new 1080p TV what settings would you setup on the HD receivers for optimal viewing???


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

max - 1080i


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## cartrivision (Jul 25, 2007)

gfrang said:


> Got a question if 1080i is deinterlaced by line doubling on the next scan would the opposite set of lines be doubled so 1080i 60 signal would be the same as 1080p30or almost?


Deinterlacing is much more complex than just line doubling, and it can be done differently depending on the source of the material that was used to create the interlaced video. As I said in my previous post, 24fps film source can be deinterlaced from 1080i in a way that the end result is identical to what you would get if it had been encoded and transmitted in 1080p, and 1080i live video can be deinterlaced by simply combining every other half frame or by more complex methods where an interpolation is done between pairs of half frames to create each full frame. In the case of deinterlaced live video, the end result would be a different from a 1080p encoding of the same source.


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## cartrivision (Jul 25, 2007)

kcmurphy88 said:


> 1080p/30 and 1080i/60 are the same damn thing if you have a buffer and can keep track of odd and even.


No it's not. With 1080p/30, one full frame is sampled every 1/30th of a second, and with 1080i/60 one field (one half frame) is sampled every 1/60th of a second. 1080i/60 is sampled twice as often as 1080p/30, but each time sample of 1080i/60 only contains half the amount of data that is in a time sample of a 1080p/30 frame.


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## rudeney (May 28, 2007)

cartrivision said:


> No it's not. With 1080p/30, one full frame is sampled every 1/30th of a second, and with 1080i/60 one field (one half frame) is sampled every 1/60th of a second. 1080i/60 is sampled twice as often as 1080p/30, but each time sample of 1080i/60 only contains half the amount of data that is in a time sample of a 1080p/30 frame.


As for the number of pixels displayed per second, 1080p/30fps and 1080i/60fps are the same. The issue is that the resulting images won't be. The 1080p/30fps will display 1,080 lines that are all from the same "frame in time". The 1080i/60fps will always be showing lines from two different "frames in time". This offset can create video artifacts.

If you really want to consider the issues of fps and interlacing and resolutions, go read about the missing moon landing video. It was shot in 320p at 10fps. What we (those of use old enough to have been there) saw on our TV's was actually a camera pointed at a CRT monitor connected to the telemetry receiver. The rudimentary "conversion" of that signal resulted in some pretty crappy images (of course that didn't stop us from cheering and crying and celebrating). With today's digital technology, we should be able to take that original telemetry and clean it up&#8230;if only we could find the original&#8230;


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## HarleyJoel (Dec 10, 2005)

sean67854 said:


> Personally, I don't want to see 1080p on the sats at this time. I would rather they use the bandwidth for more HD channels at 1080i or 720p, like my locals.


I agree 100%. I'm satisfied with the PQ now using mpeg4.


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## cartrivision (Jul 25, 2007)

rudeney said:


> As for the number of pixels displayed per second, 1080p/30fps and 1080i/60fps are the same. The issue is that the resulting images won't be. The 1080p/30fps will display 1,080 lines that are all from the same "frame in time". The 1080i/60fps will always be showing lines from two different "frames in time". This offset can create video artifacts.


You and I both said the same thing.... just in slightly different ways.


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## Artwood (May 30, 2006)

Maybe they should go beyond 1080p to 2160p--then after DirecTV and Dish compress it and down rezz it maybe we could get what we don't get now--FULL HD!


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## gfrang (Aug 30, 2007)

Are pulldowns used in broadcast movies or just DVD's ? I can't notice any difference when i turn on reverse 3:2 pulldown detection on tv.And any way of finding out what movies are broadcast in 1080i30 or 60?I just watch moves on HDmovienet and MGM.


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

Its for DVD or HD/BR discs mostly.


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## cartrivision (Jul 25, 2007)

gfrang said:


> Are pulldowns used in broadcast movies or just DVD's ? I can't notice any difference when i turn on reverse 3:2 pulldown detection on tv.And any way of finding out what movies are broadcast in 1080i30 or 60?I just watch moves on HDmovienet and MGM.


The pulldown process has to be done to change the 24fps frame rate of the film source to the 60fps of the video signal, so the pulldown process is done for both the broadcast stuff and DVDs. The distribution medium makes no difference.


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## cartrivision (Jul 25, 2007)

P Smith said:


> Its for DVD or HD/BR discs mostly.


That is incorrect. Pulldown is necessary for presenting a 24fps source on any distribution medium that ultimately presents a 60fps video signal. That includes virtually every type of television broadcast, as well as home video tape and SD DVDs, plus Bluray and HD-DVDs. There is nothing about DVDs that makes doing a pulldown process any more likely or necessary compared to any other distribution medium, including broadcast.


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

Well, in theory that's correct, but practically ... Show me any TS with telecine flag from Dish or DTV mux.


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## cartrivision (Jul 25, 2007)

P Smith said:


> Well, in theory that's correct, but practically ... Show me any TS with telecine flag from Dish or DTV mux.


It's correct in more than theory... it's correct in everyday practice. Virtually all 24fps film source that is shown on broadcast, cable, and satellite TV is converted to 60fps video using the 3:2 pulldown telecine process, and lots of consumer level reception and display equipment has the capability to auto-detect telecine source material and do deinterlacing with reverse telecine processing... it's built into the Broadcom chipset that is used in the HR20s and HR21s, and it's built into many HD TVs too. The fact is, that's the way things are commonly done in the broadcast industry.... not just in theory.


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

OK, I'd like to have instrumental approach to reveal telecine flag for particular channel; hmm is there debug port to monitor kernel/BCM messages ?


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## gfrang (Aug 30, 2007)

cartrivision said:


> It's correct in more than theory... it's correct in everyday practice. Virtually all 24fps film source that is shown on broadcast, cable, and satellite TV is converted to 60fps video using the 3:2 pulldown telecine process, and lots of consumer level reception and display equipment has the capability to auto-detect telecine source material and do deinterlacing with reverse telecine processing... it's built into the Broadcom chipset that is used in the HR20s and HR21s, and it's built into many HD TVs too. The fact is, that's the way things are commonly done in the broadcast industry.... not just in theory.


If telecine is done in the HR20 then that would explain why i cant tell any difference when i turn off detection on my tv. Is that correct? 
And if deinterlacing is also done in the HR why don't it show up as a 1080p signal on tv?


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## texasbrit (Aug 9, 2006)

gfrang said:


> If telecine is done in the HR20 then that would explain why i cant tell any difference when i turn off detection on my tv. Is that correct?
> And if deinterlacing is also done in the HR why don't it show up as a 1080p signal on tv?


The HR deinterlaces if you set the output to 720p.
To gain the benefit of pulldown on deinterlacing 1080i, you need to make sure that 1080i signals are passed from the HR to a 1080p TV. If your TV has a good pull-down detection system (some are very poor) then you will get a true 1080p picture from movie-sourced material. 
Some of the audio-video magazines and web sites test the pull-down capability when they are testing new TVs.
If you can't see the effect of reverse pulldown on a movie channel on your TV, there are three possibilities:
1. the reverse pulldown system in your TV can't detect the flag in the video stream (or it is not there)
2. the reverse pulldown system in your TV is performing poorly
3. you can't see any difference between a 1080i signal deinterlaced to 1080p without pulldown detection and a 1080i signal deinterlaced to 1080p WITH pulldown detection. Unless there is fast movement in the picture, this is quite possible. After all, the resolution is still 1080.


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## alfredk (Feb 19, 2008)

sean67854 said:


> Personally, I don't want to see 1080p on the sats at this time. I would rather they use the bandwidth for more HD channels at 1080i or 720p, like my locals.
> 
> The bandwidth difference for the various formats are:
> 720p -- 55,296,000 pixels/sec
> ...


Agree ! ` also they should try to fix what they have running now and add more local channels in areas like northern NY state. Right now with my Zip code I get zip/zero local HD channels for networks. There are also issues with picture pixcels during all their migration activitie, and no it is not my brand new setup down here on earth, I have verified and fine tuned everything and have the latest and greatest equipment on the market.


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## SPACEMAKER (Dec 11, 2007)

It seems that a DVR capable of storing 50 hours of 1080p would need a huge hard drive. 10TB..50TB... more?


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

SPACEMAKER said:


> It seems that a DVR capable of storing 50 hours of 1080p would need a huge hard drive. 10TB..50TB... more?


I don't see any proof of that your demand. 
Have you seen and compared recorded 1080i and 1080p files ?


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## hdtvfan0001 (Jul 28, 2004)

Aside from the technical implications.....

At the end of the day - 1080p deployment will be driven by a combination of content provider adoption and related camera and hardware procurement.

Other than speculation and a few short opinions towards of 1080p, I'm of the belief that we won't see it for at least 4-5 more years at the soonest.

With the massive expense tied to the overall digital migration, as well as the past 36-month investment in mostly new HD equipment, any quick followed-up with another such major cost burst of investment in 1080p to make this all happen is highly suspect.


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## gregjones (Sep 20, 2007)

I will be blunt.

A lot of people have bought 1080p sets because of Blu-Ray. A lot of companies are trying to get buzz by saying they will support 1080p or provide programming in 1080p, etc. Look at the names of the companies.

Aside from Blu-Ray (and the now soon to be forgotten HD-DVD), how many of the names are from industry leaders. New companies or companies that make components often make sensational claims to get press attention. They mention capabilities but not often practicalities.

Yes, chips that can do this are out there. Yes, the satellites could transmit the signal (since they don't care what signal type it is to begin with). That doesn't mean you will be watching SCIFI in 1080p. If we see it, it would be for material sourced in very specific ways (PPV) that would be separate from the main network streams.

Keep in mind that a number of cable systems already request the content providers to overcompress the signal to make it more useful on bandwidth-constrained cable systems. These networks would be adding very significant bandwidth just to get the signal TO the content distributors (cable, satellite).

I think that if we see 1080p anywhere close to the near future, it will be in a very controlled setting. The current hardware won't do it. Many viewers would not notice. And it seems a very shaky business proposition to justify the additional cost. Keep in mind that most stations around the country cannot yet handle even syndicated programming in HD.

If you want to view 1080p, go find a sale on Blu-Ray discs. Don't bet on anything else.


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

I would bet different - Charlie Ergen said in 2007 Dish is working on bring 1080p to customers.


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## cartrivision (Jul 25, 2007)

gfrang said:


> If telecine is done in the HR20 then that would explain why i cant tell any difference when i turn off detection on my tv. Is that correct?
> And if deinterlacing is also done in the HR why don't it show up as a 1080p signal on tv?


Telecine is the process that converts the film source from 24fps to 60fps video. That's probably usually done before the program provider (such as HBO etc) even gets the source material.

Then to convert an interlaced 60 fields per second video source back to 24 fps, something on the receiving side has to perform a deinterlace/reverse telecine process.

The chipsets used in the HR20s and HR21s have the capability to do reverse telecine processing, but that doesn't mean that they necessarily do it. If the output from the HR20 is not progressive (480p or 720p), the reverse telecine processing has to be done in your TV (or by a device between your HR20 and your TV).

Many TVs don't have the capability to do reverse telecine processing, and on your TV that does, the fact that you have been unable to detect the difference with it turned on or off is part of the reason why TV manufacturers haven't regarded the capability as a "must have".


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## cartrivision (Jul 25, 2007)

P Smith said:


> OK, I'd like to have instrumental approach to reveal telecine flag for particular channel; hmm is there debug port to monitor kernel/BCM messages ?


The problem is that you have become hung up on this flag and it has nothing to do with what is being discussed. The fact remains that contrary to your statement that telecine processing was done mostly only for DVDs, it is almost universally done for material that comes from virtually all program providers including OTA broadcasters, and cable and satellite program providers.


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## gregjones (Sep 20, 2007)

P Smith said:


> I would bet different - Charlie Ergen said in 2007 Dish is working on bring 1080p to customers.


Having a 1080p announcement on a loop doesn't count. If their receivers could process it, the only 1080p sources right now are on Blu-Ray. It would require brand new source material from the content owners to make that happen. Working on it doesn't mean delivering it.


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## cartrivision (Jul 25, 2007)

P Smith said:


> I would bet different - Charlie Ergen said in 2007 Dish is working on bring 1080p to customers.


You would lose that bet. It's not happening anytime soon on Dish Network on any wide scale basis. Charlie is having problems even being able to provide his customers with the 1080i channels that they want because one of the satellites that he was going to use to do that is about to be ditched into the ocean.


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## cartrivision (Jul 25, 2007)

P Smith said:


> I don't see any proof of that your demand.
> Have you seen and compared recorded 1080i and 1080p files ?


If you have any proof or reliable information indicating what the actual file size difference is, why don't you just post it? Right now you are providing absolutely nothing useful or meaningful to the discussion of the subject.


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

Now what ? Switching to finger pointing and call personal things ?

He did ridiculous statement about 50+ TB for 1080p files and you're agree with that ?
As to telecine flag, it could be discovered in unencrypted files and while I'm not disputing it's presence in current sat stream, I'm questioning how to check it. Don't you think your statement require verification ?


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## JeffBowser (Dec 21, 2006)

There hasn't been any good fisticuffs around here since the whining about the 24hr PPV limitation. C'mon guys, ratchet it up a notch, it is boring here at work today. :lol:


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## hdtvfan0001 (Jul 28, 2004)

cartrivision said:


> You would lose that bet. It's not happening anytime soon on Dish Network on any wide scale basis. Charlie is having problems even being able to provide his customers with the 1080i channels that they want because one of the satellites that he was going to use to do that is about to be ditched into the ocean.


Amen brother.


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## hdtvfan0001 (Jul 28, 2004)

JeffBowser said:


> There hasn't been any good fisticuffs around here since the whining about the 24hr PPV limitation. C'mon guys, ratchet it up a notch, it is boring here at work today. :lol:


OK...

All people who are nuts enough to think 1080p will be a mainstream delivered format via sat or cable in less than 5 years, please raise your hand.... :lol:

(I didn't say Simon Says...)


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## flipptyfloppity (Aug 20, 2007)

hdtvfan0001 said:


> OK...
> 
> All people who are nuts enough to think 1080p will be a mainstream delivered format via sat or cable in less than 5 years, please raise your hand.... :lol:
> 
> (I didn't say Simon Says...)


I think we'll see 1080p/24 in under two years. It may initially be created on the receiving box, by putting reverse pulldown on 1080i/60 content. I think boxes with 1080p/60 output capability (strictly to relax the need for "native mode") are on the near horizon too.

I don't really see 1080p/60 on the horizon. Even the media that can provide it (BluRay) isn't providing it yet, there isn't a lot of content available in it.

Once Pixar re-renders one of their movies and releases it on 1080p/60 BluRay, then you can start the counter until 1080p/60 shows up as broadcast (OTA/satellite/etc.).


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## cartrivision (Jul 25, 2007)

P Smith said:


> Now what ? Switching to finger pointing and call personal things ?
> 
> He did ridiculous statement about 50+ TB for 1080p files and you're agree with that ?


I never said that I agreed with what he said, only that your contribution to the discussion was completely useless. You are clearly implying that you have information that contradicts his statement that 1080p would take twice as much bandwidth as 1080i. If you have such information, or even a theory about what the actual size difference would be, as I said before, post it. Otherwise you contribution to the discussion will continue to be little more than noise.



P Smith said:


> As to telecine flag, it could be discovered in unencrypted files and while I'm not disputing it's presence in current sat stream, I'm questioning how to check it. Don't you think your statement require verification ?


Again, on this issue, you seem to be hung up on some flag being present in the stream, which is completely irrelevant to the issue at hand&#8230;. whether or not the telecine process is routinely used by OTA, cable, and satellite program providers for converting 24fps film source to 60fps video. It doesn't take the detection of any flag to know that that's happening, and it doesn't even take a flag to detect telecine encoded source material. Many consumer level devices that have reverse telecine processing capability can also auto-detect the need for reverse telecine processing (without any flag) by analyzing the incoming video signal and looking for other signs of telecine processing in the video signal. No flag is necessary, but since you seem to have a keen interest about whether or not a certain flag is present is things like the DirecTV video stream, I invite you to investigate that and report what you find.

Again I invite you to add something to the discussion besides noise. Educate us about this flag, about how and where it's typically used. Tell us if there is some equipment that you know about that depends on the flag, and tell us why it may or may not always be set on telecined source material. You seem to be implying that you know a lot about this flag... share your knowledge.


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## cartrivision (Jul 25, 2007)

flipptyfloppity said:


> I think we'll see 1080p/24 in under two years. It may initially be created on the receiving box, by putting reverse pulldown on 1080i/60 content.


Today's 120Hz refresh HD sets can already create and display 1080p/24 from a 1080i/60 signal. Whether or not there are significant bandwidth savings that could be achieved if it was transmitted from the provider in 1080p/24 format in the first place might be an interesting related issue.

I don't think that most of today's TV sets that can display 1080p/60, can display a 1080p/24 signal.... or can they?


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## gfrang (Aug 30, 2007)

cartrivision said:


> Today's 120Hz refresh HD sets can already create and display 1080p/24 from a 1080i/60 signal. Whether or not there are significant bandwidth savings that could be achieved if it was transmitted from the provider in 1080p/24 format in the first place might be an interesting related issue.
> 
> I don't think that most of today's TV sets that can display 1080p/60, can display a 1080p/24 signal.... or can they?


Thanks for explaining the pulldown process now i full i understand whit me is wasn't 
something that didn't work but when i turned off the dection i was looking for the picture to look worse. My Sony has a 60 hz processor and does 1080/24p on both hdmi inputs


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## hdtvfan0001 (Jul 28, 2004)

Simpler explanation.

*It ain't gonna happen for at least 5 years*. :eek2:

The content providers and the broadcast infrastructure requiring hundreds of millions in upgrades to support it is neither a priority nor ROI project on the near-term radar.

Most of those elements are barely supporting 720p and 1080i mainstream now, let alone beyond this level...and everyone is struggling with bandwidth to carry it all.

I'm not holding my breath for 1080p for some time, and besides, I don't look good in *purple*.


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## Artwood (May 30, 2006)

I think all advances in resolution are being reigned in to get people to buy more Blu-Ray discs.

People aren't going out to the movies as much anymore.

Make DirectTV too good and people won't buy Blu-Ray discs.

Look for more compression and more downrezzing.

1080p is a pipe dream--they may get it in Japan but not here.


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## flipptyfloppity (Aug 20, 2007)

cartrivision said:


> Today's 120Hz refresh HD sets can already create and display 1080p/24 from a 1080i/60 signal. Whether or not there are significant bandwidth savings that could be achieved if it was transmitted from the provider in 1080p/24 format in the first place might be an interesting related issue.
> 
> I don't think that most of today's TV sets that can display 1080p/60, can display a 1080p/24 signal.... or can they?


Some 120Hz refresh HD sets can recreate 1080p/24 from a 1080i/60 signal. None or almost none can do so if the input signal is converted to 1080p/60 first though. And I do feel that receivers that output 1080p/60 (upconverted) are on the near horizon simply because they can send out 1080i/60 or 720p/60 upconverted to 1080p/60 with no loss of information and without native mode, which causes various ugly things like flashing and changes on the on-screen UI.

There are currently rather few TVs that can accept 1080p/24.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=997138

But the number will rise rapidly.

There is essentially no bandwidth to be saved by broadcasting movies in 1080p/24 instead of 1080i/60. If the movies are properly converted to 1080i/60 in the first place, the frame differencing inherent to the compression takes advantage of the duplicated fields to reduce the data stream rate to almost the same as a true 24fps stream. In fact, HD-DVD didn't even support 24 fps at all, it was just extracted from the 60 or 30 fps disc using the same techniques DVD players use (as DVD doesn't support 24fps either, or progressive, it is all recreated).


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## DBEX (Jan 29, 2007)

gregjones said:


> I will be blunt.
> 
> A lot of people have bought 1080p sets because of Blu-Ray. A lot of companies are trying to get buzz by saying they will support 1080p or provide programming in 1080p, etc. Look at the names of the companies.
> 
> ...


This guy said it in a nutshell. Good synopsis!


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## rudeney (May 28, 2007)

When choosing a TV, don’t forget that it’s not just about vertical resolution. That “1080i” set is most likely using a 1366x768 resolution. Anything you send it - 1920x1080i, 1920x1080p, 1280x720p – has to be rescaled to fit the TV’s native resolution. With a 1080p TV, it’s native resolution is 1920x1080 which exactly matches the resolution output by a 1080i or 1080p source – no conversion needed.


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## Radio Enginerd (Oct 5, 2006)

newsposter said:


> IPTV competition with more limited bandwidth.


 I know you're quoting the article but this couldn't be more untrue.

Cable = YES = Limited Bandwidth.
IPTV over Fiber = Not Limited on Bandwidth.


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## newsposter (Nov 13, 2003)

rudeney said:


> When choosing a TV, don't forget that it's not just about vertical resolution. That "1080i" set is most likely using a 1366x768 resolution. Anything you send it - 1920x1080i, 1920x1080p, 1280x720p - has to be rescaled to fit the TV's native resolution. With a 1080p TV, it's native resolution is 1920x1080 which exactly matches the resolution output by a 1080i or 1080p source - no conversion needed.


is that why my crt rptv is superior to all those newer technologies :hurah:


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## gregjones (Sep 20, 2007)

DBEX said:


> This guy said it in a nutshell. Good synopsis!


Thanks, I try.


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## steelhorse (Apr 27, 2004)

More on the 1080P mess. While at circuit city last weekend getting an hdtv for my mother in law. The salesman only showed 1080P models. I asked if they had any 720P sets around as there is no 1080P content that is going to be broadcast.
He then told me that comcast had informed them that they would offer 1080P by the end of this year. I told him that was very surprising as there is very little if any content anyway. He insisted.
I emailed comcast and they have no plans to do that. I may print that off and take it to circuitcity!


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## crashHD (Mar 1, 2008)

steelhorse said:


> circuit city





steelhorse said:


> salesman


The information was as credible as the source.

Circuit city...best buy...radio shack...wherever else. There's never more than one knowledgeable salesman, and he's usually helping someone else.


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## cartrivision (Jul 25, 2007)

steelhorse said:


> More on the 1080P mess. While at circuit city last weekend getting an hdtv for my mother in law. The salesman only showed 1080P models. I asked if they had any 720P sets around as there is no 1080P content that is going to be broadcast.
> He then told me that comcast had informed them that they would offer 1080P by the end of this year. I told him that was very surprising as there is very little if any content anyway. He insisted.
> I emailed comcast and they have no plans to do that. I may print that off and take it to circuitcity!


Lack of 1080p source material is not a good reason for buying a 720p TV. 1080i source requires a TV that is capable of displaying the 1920x1080 resolution inherent in a 1080p signal in order to be able to display the full resolution of the 1080i signal. Displaying 1080i video on a 720p TV will give you about half of the resolution contained in the 1080i signal.


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## mishawaka (Sep 11, 2007)

can we get all our "HD" channels in 1080i/720p first? it'd be super if espnHD were actually, you know, HD.


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## steelhorse (Apr 27, 2004)

mishawaka said:


> can we get all our "HD" channels in 1080i/720p first? it'd be super if espnHD were actually, you know, HD.


Finally, someone gets it. They have yet to fully implement the current standard. This standard has been in place over a decade and only some prime time stuff and a little daytime stuff is broadcast in it.
I really doubt they are going to scrap it and go with something else that will cost them even more money to use.
Remember, it is all about the return on their money.


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## gregjones (Sep 20, 2007)

mishawaka said:


> can we get all our "HD" channels in 1080i/720p first? it'd be super if espnHD were actually, you know, HD.


Can we get our posts on topic first? It would be super if we had one thread that actually stayed on topic.


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## cartrivision (Jul 25, 2007)

steelhorse said:


> Finally, someone gets it. They have yet to fully implement the current standard. This standard has been in place over a decade and only some prime time stuff and a little daytime stuff is broadcast in it.
> I really doubt they are going to scrap it and go with something else that will cost them even more money to use.
> Remember, it is all about the return on their money.


How long it has been in place is irrelevant. What has limited the conversion to HD is the lack of demand. Now that more and more people are HD capable, that demand will continue increasing and program providers will continue increasing HD content in an attempt to outpace or keep up with the competition and the demand.


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## Paul Secic (Dec 16, 2003)

newsposter said:


> http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/04/16/1080p-channels-on-the-way-according-to-tandberg-ceo/
> 
> Tandberg TV is preparing for the next big thing in broadcast HD - 1080p. According to CEO Eric Cooney, satellite providers are already preparing to offer full HD channels in the next few years to separate themselves from cable and IPTV competition with more limited bandwidth. Aside from the company's current projects rolling out MPEG-4, he sees 1080p/60Hz as an inevitable progression, with the hardware already in place. Three years from now, after switched digital's hit and fiber continues to expand its territory offering "Blu-ray quality movies" might be a great selling point for Dish and DirecTV, although we shudder to think what kind of DVR we'd need to store the programming.


Wouldn't broadcassters have to rescan every program in 1080P. GEEZ! It will be 10 to 15 years from now before everything is HD. Digital trans isn't here yet.


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## mishawaka (Sep 11, 2007)

gregjones said:


> Can we get our posts on topic first? It would be super if we had one thread that actually stayed on topic.


i'd say the fact that not all of DTV's channels being in actual HD is quite relevant to a discussion regarding 1080p, but thanks for playing.


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## gregjones (Sep 20, 2007)

mishawaka said:


> i'd say the fact that not all of DTV's channels being in actual HD is quite relevant to a discussion regarding 1080p, but thanks for playing.


Mishawaka, this is not all toward you. They are separate topics.

This has very little to do with the extent to which DirecTV recompresses the signal and everything to do with trends. We are undergoing an extremely expensive, encompassing transition to digital TV in the US. This has been years in the making and required the buy-in of a number of disparate groups. There are standards out there that were part of those decisions years ago. 1080p is not a broadcast standard utilized over the air. It is only relevant because of an offline delivery system (BluRay).

There are numerous reasons to want DirecTV to move the MPEG2 stations to MPEG4. They are valid. But they have little or nothing to do with an uninformed sales hack trying to get press because his chip has a capability greater than a current practical usage.

The overwhelming majority of local TV stations cannot currently rebroadcast a primetime show in HD at an alternate time. Those stations cannot show syndicated content because they lack the equipment to timeshift or splice HD delivered by anyone but their network. They can't timeshift 1080i or 720p. Do you expect them to magically get the equipment for 1080p broadcast more easily? Even if they could afford it, they will not for the relevant future because it is not in the spec. We just spent a lot of money giving people coupons to receive signals conforming to the spec and show them on their SD TVs. Who wants to tell all of those people they have to pick up a $40 receiver to pull in 1080p so that 17 people in the country can see the obvious difference in the progressive scan at 1080?

Could DirecTV eventually choose to broadcast some specific content (PPV or DirecTV created content) in 1080p? Yes. But what is the profit motive there? It would require new hardware in a lot of homes. The networks (OTA and cable) are already bandwidth strapped by the requests of cable companies. Cable companies already gripe if they get a full bitrate 1080i signal from the cable network sources, complaining that it forces them to include fewer HD channels.

Who, in the current environment, would ask that we significantly increase bandwidth in order to gain an extremely marginal gain in level of detail? Who wants to go back to seeing fewer channels in HD? Who wants to not get new HD channels for months or years while additional bandwidth is made available? I will gladly take a pristine 1080i signal (which we see now on the MPEG4 stations) versus a compressed 1080p signal that requires new hardware and is only available for a handful of DirecTV-controlled sources.

Moving MPEG2 to MPEG4 is valid, but not really relevant to this thread.

1080p is being thrown around as a selling point by the same geniuses that tell you that a UHF antenna has to have an HD label on it to get HD OTA signals. Would you like our extended maintenance with that?


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## Bobby H (Mar 23, 2008)

I am skeptical of the 1080p thing happening at all on satellite or cable any time soon.

One problem is the nature of lots of TV broadcasting hardware. Much of it is set up for 60Hz operation. New HD transmission gear has been grafted into a lot of old museum-piece gear and that's why the 60Hz thing just seems so relentless.

720p/60 is easily do-able. 1080p/60 is not.

Much is being mentioned about image resolution and the benefits of progressive scan. However, not enough is being said about the very severe levels of lossy data compression that would be necessary to squeeze 1080p material into the limited space of typical cable and satellite HD channels.

Native 1080p resolution and 24p encoding both help movies on Blu-ray look great. The high bit rates on those discs contributes even further to the great image quality.

Currently, it's impossible to run video bit rates on cable and satellite channels at rates of 30 million bits per second with peaks over 40 million bits per second. And that's just the video end of things. The audio on Blu-ray can add several million more bits per second.

As the HD-DVD versus Blu-ray format war was drawing to a close, lots of "FUD" people out there were trying to raise movie downloading as something that would doom Blu-ray before it could ever hit its stride. Thankfully, many noticed just how terrible those "720p HD" movies from Apple's iTunes really look. Apple is squeezing 2 hours movies in 720p down into a 4GB footprint -roughly half the space used by a typical 480p SD DVD.

Terms like "720p" and "1080p" alone are not really enough to describe what's happening in video quality.


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## N5XZS (Apr 26, 2002)

Wait till you see this..... :lol:

It's almost like holodeck experiences!!!!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Hi-Vision_television

http://www.nhk.or.jp/digital/en/super_hi/index.html

It's amazing how they can transment on IP!

5-7-08


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## FogCutter (Nov 6, 2006)

This is great news. I project to 194 inches at 720p, and I'd love to have 1080p. Glad to read that DBS is up to the challenge. In three years 2-5 terabyte HDs will be around, that will help the DVR situation. Best of all, upconverters will shove things to 2160p. 

It hasn't been clear if the HD tech standard would level off at 1080i then rot for decades. There will inevitably be a point of diminishing returns, but not yet.


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## gregjones (Sep 20, 2007)

FogCutter said:



> This is great news. I project to 194 inches at 720p, and I'd love to have 1080p. Glad to read that DBS is up to the challenge. In three years 2-5 terabyte HDs will be around, that will help the DVR situation. Best of all, upconverters will shove things to 2160p.
> 
> It hasn't been clear if the HD tech standard would level off at 1080i then rot for decades. There will inevitably be a point of diminishing returns, but not yet.


It will be at 1080i for years. The standard was out years ago and won't change just because a component company claims that their chip can process 1080p.

The DVR problem isn't the problem. It has to get here via some method. 1080p only provides more picture detail if it uses more bandwidth (assuming the same compression methodology). This becomes the classic trade off: would you rather have fewer channels at 1080p or more at 1080i. As we have seen from the recent subscriber numbers at DirecTV, people want more channels.

If you want 1080p, I suggest getting a BluRay player.


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## FogCutter (Nov 6, 2006)

gregjones said:


> If you want 1080p, I suggest getting a BluRay player.


Sure, I understand the issues involved. My point is that the industry isn't leveling off at 1080i. Americans tend to be slow with new tech, like music cassettes persisting for long after CDs came on the scene. Not long ago people were saying there wasn't a need for HD at all. It took the Feds to make it happen in the US, years after the Japanese had made the change.

I was delighted when set makers were pushing 1080p tvs even before there was any source. The buzz at that time was that 720p was all we needed and 1080i would be rolled out in a very limited fashion, citing bandwith issues. America has caught the HD bug and we can look forward to many more refinements ahead after decades of lassitude.


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## gregjones (Sep 20, 2007)

FogCutter said:


> Sure, I understand the issues involved. My point is that the industry isn't leveling off at 1080i. Americans tend to be slow with new tech, like music cassettes persisting for long after CDs came on the scene. Not long ago people were saying there wasn't a need for HD at all. It took the Feds to make it happen in the US, years after the Japanese had made the change.
> 
> I was delighted when set makers were pushing 1080p tvs even before there was any source. The buzz at that time was that 720p was all we needed and 1080i would be rolled out in a very limited fashion, citing bandwith issues. America has caught the HD bug and we can look forward to many more refinements ahead after decades of lassitude.


But you are missing the point. 1080i is where we stop for OTA broadcast. There is no push to go beyond 1080i in anything coming out of a local station. Refinements in what a local station broadcasts will be within the current standards, of which 1080p is not one.


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## FogCutter (Nov 6, 2006)

gregjones said:


> But you are missing the point. 1080i is where we stop for OTA broadcast. There is no push to go beyond 1080i in anything coming out of a local station. Refinements in what a local station broadcasts will be within the current standards, of which 1080p is not one.


I did miss that you were talking about OTA, which is constrained by the FCC to 1080i. But OTA means less to the industry every year. 30 years ago the networks were virtually 100% of viewership, and I think this year they will dip below 30%. They are increasingly irrelevant, so when there is demand and capacity elsewhere for 1080p and above, who cares what they are doing?

Before long their frequencies will be worth more than their businesses. But you are absolutely right.


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## Artwood (May 30, 2006)

Will 1080p broadcast be achieved by the year 2100?


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## cartrivision (Jul 25, 2007)

Artwood said:


> Will 1080p broadcast be achieved by the year 2100?


We'll know by 2095, so ask again then and you'll still have 5 years to make any plans based on the anwer.


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## gregjones (Sep 20, 2007)

FogCutter said:


> I did miss that you were talking about OTA, which is constrained by the FCC to 1080i. But OTA means less to the industry every year. 30 years ago the networks were virtually 100% of viewership, and I think this year they will dip below 30%. They are increasingly irrelevant, so when there is demand and capacity elsewhere for 1080p and above, who cares what they are doing?
> 
> Before long their frequencies will be worth more than their businesses. But you are absolutely right.


What percentage of cable programming originally aired on the networks? It is a bit higher than you think. We will have upconverted programming indefinitely because that is what historical programming is. The cable networks shape their bandwidth footprint based on the demands of individual cable companies. We have seen the effect of this on a number of channels. The source (the cable network) has downrezzed the picture because cable companies complain about their inability to show more than X full bitrate HD channels.

DirecTV is a big player, but not the only one. Who else is going to broadcast 1080p? It is not as if anyone else has anything near the capacity. Do you think the cable networks will be providing DirecTV a separate pristine feed? The expense of that would be considerable. There is little if any upside for the cable network.

Again, the requirements are so great as to make it unfeasible for anything other than PPV or DirecTV-controlled content. It would still require considerable changes to the hardware on the receivers.

I for one, do not want to trade the storage space to see 1080p vs 1080i. And no, it doesn't matter how large the hard drives are. 1080p is often lauded by people that don't know how good 1080i can look.


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## Artwood (May 30, 2006)

If you compressed and down rezzed 2160p would it look like 1080p? DirecTV might go for that scenario one day.


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## gregjones (Sep 20, 2007)

Artwood said:


> If you compressed and down rezzed 2160p would it look like 1080p? DirecTV might go for that scenario one day.


DirecTV is not down rezzing 1080i content on MPEG4 channels. Please keep that discussion in the other thread.


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