480i picture quality

Looking at Digital tv and I wonder if 480i is much better than NTSC.

L wrote:
Looking at Digital tv and I wonder if 480i is much better than NTSC.

Resolution-wise it IS NTSC but with DTV you won't get any of the
potential analog degradations like ignition noise, ghosts, ringing or
cross-color artefacts from decoding the composite into RGB. The best
NTSC feeds (rarely on cable) on the best hardware will be very close to
DTV BUT that is the exception, not the rule.

With DTV the high performance is typical. Since DTV and DVD originate
from the same fomat, typically Digital Betacam (Sony) they are very
similar though the DVD is potentially less compression but BOTH are
drastically reduced from the 270 megabit/second uncompressed data. A
4.7 Gig DVD would hold 174 seconds of uncompressed 480i

GG

G-squared wrote:

L wrote:
Looking at Digital tv and I wonder if 480i is much better than NTSC.

Resolution-wise it IS NTSC but with DTV you won't get any of the
potential analog degradations like ignition noise, ghosts, ringing or
cross-color artefacts from decoding the composite into RGB. The best
NTSC feeds (rarely on cable) on the best hardware will be very close to
DTV BUT that is the exception, not the rule.

With DTV the high performance is typical. Since DTV and DVD originate
from the same fomat, typically Digital Betacam (Sony) they are very
similar though the DVD is potentially less compression but BOTH are
drastically reduced from the 270 megabit/second uncompressed data. A
4.7 Gig DVD would hold 174 seconds of uncompressed 480i

GG



Thanks for the input but that makes me ask if 480p would be a
significant improvement.

L wrote:
snip

Thanks for the input but that makes me ask if 480p would be a
significant improvement.

Perhaps but where does one get 480p material ?

GG

"G-squared" wrote in message
oups.com...

L wrote:
snip

Thanks for the input but that makes me ask if 480p would be a
significant improvement.

Perhaps but where does one get 480p material ?

GG

On the Comcast digital cable here the digital SD is much closer to DVD
quality than it is to analog. However, I believe they get a digital feed
from the local stations. I know for a fact that they do not rebroadcast an
OTA signal. If you assume the digital SD has a resolution of 480 x 640,
that is about twice the horizontal resolution that a typical analog receiver
has. With a digital signal objects have a much sharper outline than analog
because the digital can do an abrupt change from pixel to pixel, which the
analog can not.

Tam

Tam

G-squared wrote:
L wrote:
snip

Thanks for the input but that makes me ask if 480p would be a
significant improvement.

Perhaps but where does one get 480p material ?

I see 480p from my Gamecube videogame player,
and upconverted 480i-480p from my cable stb. The
latter doesn't look any better than 480i sent to my
TV (probably because the TV does 480i-480p
upconversion anyhow). The 480p from the Gamecube
looks substantially better than 480i from the Gamecube.
Occasionally I see 480p from a cable station that
is downconverted from 720p or 1080i -- it doesn't
look that great.

Of course some people see 480p from an upconverting
DVD player.

Greg

The Insight cable service here is divided into:

Basic NTSC Analog Channels which don't need a cable box. I think we can
consider this 480i.

Digital SD Channels which need a cable box. Some are premium like HBO. I
think this is probably 480i digital converted back to NTSC analog.

Digital HD Channels which needs a special new cable box.

I just got into HD with a Sony 50" Rear Projection LCD. Here are the results
I'm getting my cable service:

Basic NTSC Analog Channels - The local OTA channels are a bit noisy and
fuzzy. But most of the non-OTA channels are unbelievably good. I have to
call them near HD quality. I live close to the cable company, so I'm
probably getting a good feed. (People across town get a noisy signal on the
analog channels.) Anyway this shows NTSC can be very good. The Sony is doing
line doubling for sure, and probably some digital voodoo on top of that.

Digital SD Channels - All fuzzy with dull color, every single one of
them. Shows that the word "digital" alone tells you nothing about the
quality.

Digital HD Channels - Magnificient, blows me away. I just wish all of
the programming was HD.

--
Bob D.

"Tam/WB2TT" wrote in message
. ..

"G-squared" wrote in message
oups.com...

L wrote:
snip

Thanks for the input but that makes me ask if 480p would be a
significant improvement.

Perhaps but where does one get 480p material ?

GG

On the Comcast digital cable here the digital SD is much closer to DVD
quality than it is to analog. However, I believe they get a digital feed
from the local stations. I know for a fact that they do not rebroadcast an
OTA signal. If you assume the digital SD has a resolution of 480 x 640,
that is about twice the horizontal resolution that a typical analog
receiver has. With a digital signal objects have a much sharper outline
than analog because the digital can do an abrupt change from pixel to
pixel, which the analog can not.

Tam

Tam