It's all in the dots. Pictures, that is.
What got me going on this topic was reading this past week that the large electronics retail stores are coming under fire for selling people HD (High Definition) TV sets for literally years now, but that there is in fact hardly any HD content out there. Now, I think the stores are not all that much to blame - I think the logic works like this: a) I want to buy a big screen TV; b) many big screen TVs have HD capability and also other features that are desirable; c) by buying HD now, I will be ready for the future, since I am buying a big screen set anyhow.
The problem is that there just isn't much HD material out there. Satellite and cable TV services are just now starting to roll out HD; local broadcasting has been mandated to have HD content, but it seems that very few people these days actually pick up their local signals via an antenna - most get their local stations through cable. Even if the local stations broadcasts an HD signal, the version of the station that you get on cable probably does not have the HD content.
So, what's it all about, eh? Let's try to sort it out.
All pictures are composed of dots. That is true of magazine photos, photos from film, digital photos, TV pictures, and pretty much anything else you see. Even the cloth of your clothes is dyed, and if you examined it under a microscope you would see that the dye is in fact little dots of dye color adhering to the cloth fibers. Your eyes also see things in dots (the light sensitive cells in the retina) - it's the miracle of the brain that it integrates the dots into what looks like a seamless pictures to us; similarly the brain interprets dots changing fairly quickly as continuous motion. So, TV pictures are composed of dots, changing about 30 times a second to give it motion. More dots, in general, mean a nice looking, finer picture. HD has lots more dots than standard TV.
The dots get to your TV screen via a signal. The signal can be analog or digital. Although it's probably true that the higher definition (i.e. more dots) signals are carried via digital signals, it does not follow that digital means high definition. In other words, just because you have a digital cable or satellite box does not imply that you have HD, and probably not except for certain special channels.
Another interesting fact is that any signal that comes from your DVD player, whether analog or digital, is NOT HD by definition. There are no HD DVD players yet, nor HD disks. So if you are buying an HD TV to play DVDs, you're not going to get HD quality. Until we get the next level of DVD players and disks, you won't have HD from your DVDs - period. And, yes, that means that your old DVD collection will be obsolete when the new ones come out - oh, they can still be played, but not with any better signal quality.
So, in order to get HD you need either a cable or satellite box with HD capability and you need to tune to the specific channels that have HD content. And, of course, an HD capable set.
I don't have HD here yet. The reasons are obscure, but have something to do with the fact that my wife thinks TVs are furniture instead of electronics. "If the TV don't fit, you must desist", to paraphrase a recent trial admonishment!
(Bob Seidel is a local computer consultant in the Southport - Oak Island area. You can visit his Website at www.bobseidel.com or e-mail questions or column ideas to him at bsc@bobseidel.com. For specific inquiries, please call Bob Seidel Consulting, LLC at 278-1007.)