You’re in the living room with your “significant other” watching a movie or TV show or sports event on your beautiful big flat panel HDTV, and then one of you decides that you’d like a snack from the kitchen, which is the next room. Do you pause the show (if it’s a movie or you’ve got a DVR or equivalent service that will let you do that) or does the person leaving the room just lose out? If you’ve got a TV in the kitchen, you’ve got a third choice: send the show to that TV at the same time.
All you need is an HDMI splitter (assuming that your source — DVD player, DVR, or set top box — has HDMI connectors) that will let you connect two TVs to the same source. Then you can stay current with the show as you go back and forth to raid the refrigerator. And the single cable will carry the sound as well as the video image. Note that you can run long cables for HDMI connections, though you may need to invest in a high quality cable or additional hardware if you go farther than 20 to 30 feet.
Well, it looks as though the U.S. Congress is going to delay the transition to digital television broadcasts, and I’ve already made my position clear on why that’s not a good idea. Nielsen reported new numbers last week on about how many households remain unprepared for the end of analog broadcasts, and the results provide support for both camps on the issue.
According to Nielsen, 6.5 million households remain completely unprepared for the switch to digital-only broadcasts. That number is down from 7.8 million a month earlier in December 2008, and down even more from the May 2008 mark of 10.7 million. For those in favor of the delay, this signals a possible acceleration of those getting ready for the switch. It also supports the position that 6.5 million is too many, and the federal phone banks could only handle calls from about one out of 20 of a day for that many those households. This is sure to leave millions frustrated and unhappy with their loss of television service.
On the other hand, those opposing the delay could argue that four months will not be enough to reach most of those who remain unprepared, as many of them either cannot afford to get ready, or are not capable of dealing with the problem for any number of reasons. The delay will only cost taxpayers and businesses money, and in the end, we will still have millions of U.S. TV households that will still be completely unready.
That’s the beauty of statistics and other information; they can tell you what the situation is, but they can’t tell you what is the right decision to make.
Q: Why do HDTV’s at major retailers look pixelated, especially on lower third text effects at bottom of screen? Is it just me or is something wrong?
Anthony
A: There are a number of possible explanations for this. The most likely one is that the retailer is using a distributed signal from a single source to all the sets on display at once. If they cut corners on the signal processing and distribution (cables and amplifiers and splitters and such), the signal could be significantly degraded by the time it gets to the set.
Another possibility is that some sets have difficulty with a “text crawl” which can mess up the image quality in the area of the screen where the crawl is located (usually the bottom).
Yet another possibility is that the source image is in standard definition and the image is being scaled up to HDTV. If the scaling is done badly — either as part of the signal distribution or in the individual TV sets — the text quality could suffer.
My advice is to ask to hook up a DVD directly to the set that you’re might want to purchase. That way you’ll know you’re getting a clean signal, and any problems with the image will be the set’s. Use a standard DVD player; an upscaling player won’t let you see how good or bad the TV’s scaler is. Also, use a DVD that shows real scenes; animated and computer generated scenes are typical too consistent to reveal much about image quality. Close ups of actors’ faces can be an excellent test image.
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