Well shave my head and use me as a surf board... the BT Vision box 
*does* have an HDMI socket! o_O

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> Well shave my head and use me as a surf board... the BT Vision box 
> *does* have an HDMI socket! o_O

And, unlike the SCART socket, by using HDMI I don't get those annoying 
scrolly watermark patterns on my TV picture. Yay!

I must say, I've been watching digital TV for well over a year now, and 
I never really noticed any difference in picture quality other than the 
absence of snow and so forth. Other than that, it just looked like a 
normal TV picture.

But now I'm watching TV on a big LCD TV, suddenly there seems to be MPEG 
artifacts all over the place! o_O

Heh, I guess the old CRT was just too blury for it to show up! ;-)

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Invisible wrote:

> But now I'm watching TV on a big LCD TV, suddenly there seems to be MPEG 
> artifacts all over the place! o_O

My projection TV is like that. Less obvious on the HD channels, the 
cable system here generally compresses the "less glamorous" channels to 
death. It's pretty obvious. The HD channels are usually very sharp and 
crisp, only showing MPEG blocking during sections where the picture 
changes rapidly.

> Heh, I guess the old CRT was just too blury for it to show up! ;-)

Maybe.. I'll hold out of the new OLED sets to become mainstream before I 
trade in my TV, though, it is a CRT projector, but HD...

I like the idea that OLED has such an incredible viewing angle, superior 
contrast ...

what I don't like is that like plasma, it will likely suffer burn-in.
-- 
~Mike

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Invisible wrote:

> And, unlike the SCART socket, by using HDMI I don't get those annoying 
> scrolly watermark patterns on my TV picture. Yay!

And BTW, what is SCART, and how similar is that to HDMI?

-- 
~Mike

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Mike Raiford wrote:

> And BTW, what is SCART

The consumer-level unmodulated signal interconnect that existed before HDMI.

> and how similar is that to HDMI?

It isn't.

(Or at least, it's a cable that carries picture and sound from place to 
place, without RF modulation. There the similarity ends.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scart

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Mike Raiford wrote:
> Invisible wrote:
> 
>> But now I'm watching TV on a big LCD TV, suddenly there seems to be 
>> MPEG artifacts all over the place! o_O
> 
> My projection TV is like that. Less obvious on the HD channels, the 
> cable system here generally compresses the "less glamorous" channels to 
> death. It's pretty obvious. The HD channels are usually very sharp and 
> crisp, only showing MPEG blocking during sections where the picture 
> changes rapidly.

I noticed several adverts with stuff happening underwater had seriously 
blocky bubble clouds...

I also watched Ice Age II. Several of the "blue wash" backgrounds were 
noticably blocky. (By which I mean there were 8x8 blocks of solid colour 
instead of a gradient.) For some reason all codecs known to man destroy 
the blue channel...

I hadn't realised that this could very by channel. I assumed there was 
just a standard that says "Digital TV = MPEG2 at X Mbit/sec". I'll have 
to investigate. Hmm, I wonder what a DVD looks like?

By the way... Watching the snooker, I could actually see the pattern of 
the felt on the table (and the depth of field of the camera)!

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Invisible wrote:

> I hadn't realised that this could very by channel. I assumed there was 
> just a standard that says "Digital TV = MPEG2 at X Mbit/sec". I'll have 
> to investigate. Hmm, I wonder what a DVD looks like?

Essentially that is what DTV is. OTA (Over the air) here in the U.S. has 
a set amount of bandwidth. Enough for an HD signal, and several 
sub-channels. Most of the local network stations have their main 
channel, a weather channel, and a 24hour local news channel.

*Most* DVDs look quite nice. You'll still notice compression in fast 
action scenes, though, especially if the encoding was managed poorly.

-- 
~Mike

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Invisible wrote:

> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scart

Wow, looks like some strange modification of a VGA connector. 
Convenient, though. So you connect your VCR with one cable, then?

-- 
~Mike

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Mike Raiford wrote:
> Invisible wrote:
> 
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scart
> 
> Wow, looks like some strange modification of a VGA connector. 

Except it's about 4x the size of a VGA connector, and the pinout is 
utterly unrelated.

> Convenient, though. So you connect your VCR with one cable, then?

Indeed.

In the old days, you'd connect the RF arial to the VCR, and another RF 
lead from the VCR to the TV, and tune the TV to a special channel when 
you want to see the signal from the VCR. (I hope it doesn't clash with 
one of your local channels!)

That's because in the old days, a TV would have an RF input, and that's 
it. But then people figured out that, actually, RF-modulated signals 
look *rubbish*, so various other connections were invented. SCART is the 
most popular, since one big connector delivers picture and stereo sound 
(though obviously only one video channel, and no telitext).

I have no idea what HDMI delivers. Seems to work nicely though... Only 

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Invisible wrote:
> Mike Raiford wrote:
>> Invisible wrote:
>>
>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scart
>>
>> Wow, looks like some strange modification of a VGA connector. 
> 
> Except it's about 4x the size of a VGA connector, and the pinout is 
> utterly unrelated.

So, the cable ends are about the size of your average parallel 
connector? Yeesh.

>> Convenient, though. So you connect your VCR with one cable, then?
> 
> Indeed.
> 
> In the old days, you'd connect the RF arial to the VCR, and another RF 
> lead from the VCR to the TV, and tune the TV to a special channel when 
> you want to see the signal from the VCR. (I hope it doesn't clash with 
> one of your local channels!)
> 
> That's because in the old days, a TV would have an RF input, and that's 
> it. But then people figured out that, actually, RF-modulated signals 
> look *rubbish*, so various other connections were invented. SCART is the 
> most popular, since one big connector delivers picture and stereo sound 
> (though obviously only one video channel, and no telitext).

Hmm, oddly the U.S. went with the "maze of wires" approach. 3 connectors 
out, 3 connectors in. (or 2 if SVideo) or 5 if YPrPb. Though CC is done 
in the blanking area, so it doesn't matter how its connected.

> I have no idea what HDMI delivers. Seems to work nicely though... Only 

> 


HDMI is all digital. Delivers audio and video, As well as signals for 
encryption, and the ability for the device to communicate its 
capabilities, etc.

-- 
~Mike

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