HDTV, are we ready for it?

Ah, the wonders of HDTV. A techno-dweep like me can go over for hours pondering about the effects of HDTV compared to SDTV.

How sharp an image can go. How much larger a screen can be, although it quites depends on the size of your TV/monitor.

In case you don't know, HDTV stands for High Definition TV. The pictures shown in HDTV are much clearer than the usual Standard TV (SDTV). HDTV also allows things to be broadcasted in a much larger, 16:9 pixel resolution.

However, is the world truly ready for HDTV.

Moreover, do we really need HDTV?

It all boils down to how one would really want to watch television.

For people who really want to see how the ripples of a water look like on television, or how a lion's mane would look like under a gust of wind, they would be the ones to go for HDTV.

Others, like me, would go for actual content. I don't really care how nice this show looks. If it has quality, I'm watching it.

This can easily be seen in Animes. There are some animes out there which look pretty decent, but have a great storyline, which resulted in a huge following of fans. Naruto, Bleach and Detective Conan, 3 of the most popular animes today, are not shown in HDTV.

On the other hand, Black Lagoon, was shown on HDTV. However, as to why it was shown in HDTV, will perhaps be something beyond me. While I am an action fan, I never found Black Lagoon any interesting.

All it had was random swearing and shooting.

Story? What story?

Hence, a good graphics, may not necessary mean a good show which is to be watched. After all, WOWOW, a Japanese station, airs pretty much of its animes on its HDTV channel.

My point is, are we watching a show to be entertained, or to woo at some graphics which is 4x sharper?

Currently, Singapore has Discovery HD and National Geographic HD channel. However, with most television sets being 1080i instead of the proper 1080p (Note: 1080i takes half the bandwidth required of p, but the difference varies. Many arguments have gone on as to say "Which is truly better", but technically, 1080p > 1080i), and the LCD/Flatscreen television sets having yet to truly die off, it would be hard to see people shelling out thousands of dollars (unless you are buying a HDTV enabled projector, which is another matter) for a brand-new television.

Also, are you watching Discovery to learn about the lions, or to see how a lion's mane would flow with the wind? On top of that, you have to cope with "current" technology being obsolete within a week or two. With the 1080p50 and 1080p60 (50/60 encoding frames per second) yet to be released, would one take the risk?

Perhaps, in a few years.

But for now, let's just enjoy the story.