HD Ready TVs

[bernarga]

Hi Guys,
I have seen some Sony regular CRT Tele Visions are comming with HD Ready Logo (Model KV-DZ29M81). My question is these CRTs are same as LCDs in video quality wise?. or simply they are taking the HD signal and displaying as regular CRT?. Also Sony advertise on their selected LCDs as Full HD and other LCDs as HD Ready. I dont get the meaning of Full HD and HD Ready. Can any one clerify my doubts?.

Thanks in advance.
Bernard

[gshelley61]

"Full HD" and "HD Ready" are marketing terms.

"HD Ready" generally means that the TV or monitor has component video and/or HDMI (or DVI) inputs that accept high definition video signals (1920x1080p and/or 1280x720p) from an external source, but does not have its own built-in digital HD tuner.

It does not necessarily mean the the display itself can actually produce a high definition image. Most direct view CRT tube TV's are not capable of displaying details higher than about 800x600, regardless of the source signal or scan rate. LCD, plasma, DLP and LCoS screens are fixed pixel displays and have a native resolution (usually something like 1280x720 or 1366x768).

"Full HD" 1080p generally refers to many of the newer LCD, plasma, DLP and LCoS high definition TV's and monitors that have a native display resolution of 1920x1080 pixels... or to external source units like Blu Ray and HD-DVD players that can produce a 1920x1080p signal.

[mats.hogberg]

If I understand anything, where I live, "HD-Ready" means 1280x720p, "Full HD" means 1920x1080p. Nothing to do with built in digital tuners AFAIK.

/Mats

[ironape2]

I just bought a Full HD TV and from what I was told by the 10+ sales people I talked to was this.

HD-Ready = Internal tuner is not capable of decoding a HD signal but has inputs for a HD decoder to be hooked up via HDMI/Component Cables. This can be any 720p. 1080i or 1080p screen and is a term used to describe wether you will need addition hardware to decode a HD signal. This term is independent and can be used in conjunction with the following two terms and isnt used that much anymore from what I can tell.

Edit: per the WIKI

"In the USA, "HD Ready" refers to any display that is capable of accepting and displaying a high-definition signal at either 720p, 1080i or 1080p using a component video or digital input, and does not have a built-in HD-capable tuner"

HD/720p = Screen is capable of displaying HD content at its native resolution resolution of 1280x720p

FullHD/1080p = Screen is capable of displaying HD content at its native resolution of 1920x1080p which is what HDdvd and Blueray discs display at nativly. No up-conversion or down-conversion necessary hence the term FullHD.

[splash1955]

If I understand anything, where I live, "HD-Ready" means 1280x720p, "Full HD" means 1920x1080p. Nothing to do with built in digital tuners AFAIK.
/Mats

Here in the states HD ready means a monitor of at least 720. ie no tuner.

the term wont be used in a short while since hd ready was a modifier of "TV" expressed as "HD ready TV." These units without tuners will in future have to be called simply hd monitors shortly.

Here in the states something liked 85% of HDTVs are hooked by customers to hd cable or satelite so monitors without tuners, which are cheaper, are often a good purchase.

[edDV]

"HD Ready" is a marketing term and purposely never was defined with precision. It was designed to mislead. Digital and high definition television transition is a complex multi-variable issue.

Most average Joes think only about resolution and don't understand the difference between transmission resolution and display resolution. The consumer TV market was happy that Joe stays confused. "HD Ready" mainly meant there is no HD DTV tuner. It didn't relate to resolution other than an implication that display resolution exceeded "EDTV" which was tightly defined around 720x480p DVD.

No real comparison was made to 720x576 PAL because borderline "HD Ready" sets could only reach ~800x540p, that is one field of 1080i/29.97 or 1080x540p/29.97. Horizontal resolution was limited by the display. Very few "HD Ready" sets could reach 720p (1280x720 progressive) for input processing. Most were limited to 1080i, 480p and 480i inputs. The good news was 720x480p (DVD) looked very good on these displays.

An "HD Ready" set that received 1080i almost never displayed at full 1920x1080i. The best CRT sets of 2003-2005 could barely reach 1280x720p although Sony's top model reached 1440x1080i or 1280x720p. Typical CRT displays were limited by the shadow mask to around 800x600 to maybe 1024x768 for some projectors.

Plasmas were 1024x768 to 1440x1080 and cost in the several thousands. LCD wasn't a serious contender until recently because of smear and black level issues.

The term "HD Ready" is now obsolete in the USA because the FCC now requires digital tuners in all sets except those sold as monitors. The replacement marketing term is now "Digital TV". A "Digital TV" is required to receive all 19 ATSC formats (even 1920x1080p/24) but processing and display starts around 640x480i which is below EDTV (defined as 720x480p).

All this emphasis on "resolution" distracts the consumer from the important issues of HDTV performance. The most important is how well it displays NTSC, DVD, digital SD broadcasts or cable MPeg2 "digital". The answer usually is poorly except for 480p movie DVDs.

Most TV source remains NTSC or 480i digital. All standalone DVD recorders only record in 480i. Most camcorders are 480i. Watch 480i ESPN on your new 1080p LCD and be prepared for inferior display performance. The truth is the main criteria for HDTV selection is how well they display NTSC and 480i. Few realize this until they get the TV home.

Although there is some 720p programming and HD/BD DVD will bring eventually 1920x1080p into the home, most broadcasting will remain 480i or 1080i for decades. Most current and future display technology is progressive. The deinterlacer (and cinema inverse telecine processor) are overall more important to picture display quality than resolution. The TV manufacturers know this but deinterlacer performance doesn't make a good sales pitch. It's full of negatives that may cause doubt. "Full 1080p" is easy to manufacture and the noobs buy the simplicity. Give them what they will buy, not what they need.

Devious consumer marketers now push upscaling DVD as a partial solution to poor HDTV performance. This is a good gap filler until they sell you HD/BD players and recorders.

They know that most early adopters will junk these poorly performing early HDTV sets when the Smiths next door get a better performing model. And on it goes.

[edDV]

Edit: per the WIKI

"In the USA, "HD Ready" refers to any display that is capable of accepting and displaying a high-definition signal at either 720p, 1080i or 1080p using a component video or digital input, and does not have a built-in HD-capable tuner"

This is clearly untrue because the vast majority of HDTV sets sold as "HD Ready" weren't able to display close to 1280x720p resolution. They could display something but not at that resolution. Most could accept 1080i inputs. Some but not many could accept 720p at their inputs.

[ironape2]

The part about resolutions may be untrue. The part about not having a built in digital tuner is true. Im not trying to split hairs with you but just because one part of that definition is wrong doesnt mean the entire statement is false.

I posted that in rebutal to what splash1955 had to say about HD-Ready having nothing to do with the TV's tuner capability. Which you agree is false.

[edDV]

The part about resolutions may be untrue. The part about not having a built in digital tuner is true. Im not trying to split hairs with you but just because one part of that definition is wrong doesnt mean the entire statement is false.

I posted that in rebutal to what splash1955 had to say about HD-Ready having nothing to do with the TV's tuner capability. Which you agree is false.

I think I was specific as to resolution. The goal here is to set expectations for the average Joe. Reception of an HD signal doesn't mean the TV can display in the same resolution. The retail sales people and manufacturers do little to clarify these specs. The good news is most flat panel displays now spec "native display resolution" but these specs are often missing for CRT and rear projection TV sets.

Also good news is retailers and manufacturers are disclosing the frame buffer resolutions for the new generation "Digital TV" sets. Here is an extreme example where the set is capable of 1920x1080i broadcast reception but internal processing is 640x480. Regardless of CRT dot pitch, the displayed image will never have more than 640x480 resolution.
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=8206087&type=product&productCategoryId=p...=1165610667287

[jman98]

To followup a little on edDV's excellent comments, I would advise anyone to do a little internet research on any HD TV they are considering buying and see what the true resolution is for the TV. I have forgotten what the exact language is, but in the USA the manufacturers say something like "supports 1080i/p" when what it really means is that the TV is 720p and downconverts everything to 720p. Just because a TV says it "supports" a resolution, that doesn't mean it can display that resolution. It just means it can do something with it. The resolution you can get out of your TV depends on what it's true resolution is. Amazon.com is one good source for such information. I remember in the not too distant past here how some guy from, I think, India, told us proudly about how his HD TV could display 1080p and he was not very happy to find out that he bought a 720p TV and it was downcoverting everything to that resolution and he got fooled by the "supports" language used to describe the TV. He thought he had bought a 1080p TV and he did not.

[TBoneit]

edDv OTOH that tv you referenced is sold as a "20" Standard-Definition Digital TV".

Anybody that thinks a SD tv set is HD, well what can I say.

OTOH I'd bet it has a much better display than what my younger brother watches a older Tube TV that is slightly fuzzy. He is always making disparaging remarks about TV shows, About all I see him watch is Races, and News 12 a local news channel that repeats every 1/2 hour and select DVDs and VHS. He was just saying that the librarian at the local library was a gem. She manages to find things to fill his weird requests. The last tape he showed me she got through interlibrary was from down near Atlantic City and he's in central jersey.

Anyway for the money it is probably more than many will need or want for the near future. They'll most likely be happy that the display is sharper than what they have and will display cable HD channels and make their DVDs look better.

it says "Display Type Digital tube" How can a tube be digital? I guess you could digitize the signal levels going to the three guns, RGB, but why bother.


If I wasn't planning to give away all my spare money to my Mother for her vacation expenses I'd probably get it for him as it bothere my eyes watching his TV when I sit there and visit if it is on. Same reason I passed down my NEC 17" monitor when I got the 19" LCD. Now unused since I feed the computer to the TV so I can switch back and forth with a press of the remote's buttons. Plus it is bigger

[gshelley61]

It's only been within the past couple of years that a significant number of HDTV's and monitors have appeared on the market that actually have 1920x1080 viewable pixels.

Most digital fixed pixel screens (LCD, plasma, DLP, LCoS, etc.) were 1280x720 or 1366x768, and many still are. Some so-called HDTV's are even less than that (1024x768 plasma screens, for example).

The only CRT based displays (direct view or projector) that are capable of fully resolving and displaying 1920x1080 images are front and rear projection units with high resolution 9" CRT tubes. I don't think anyone is building units with tubes that large anymore.

For a few years, Sony did build a 34" widescreen high definition direct view CRT with a Super Fine Pitch aperture grill tube that could display about 1440x1080i maximum. They have since stopped making that tube for consumer products. Their current 34" widescreen CRT set can display about 900x1080i image resolution.

[edDV]

edDv OTOH that tv you referenced is sold as a "20" Standard-Definition Digital TV".

Anybody that thinks a SD tv set is HD, well what can I say.

I was praising Best Buy for once making it clear that this Digital TV processes at 640x480 even though it accepts all ATSC resolutions up to 1920x1080i.

People may not understand the term "DigtalTV" It is a different animal than a normal analog sets (even HD-Ready CRT sets) that have a YUV to RGB analog path to the CRT. HD-Ready sets support various scan resolutions.

A digital TV more closely resembles a computer graphics card. The digital tuner inputs all ATSC resolutions. The tuner section downconverts all input formats to a 640x480 display frame buffer that is similar to the RAMDAC on a VGA display card except it has only one display resolution. The 640x480 video goes through the D/A to RGB for the CRT and to YPbPr for composite NTSC or S-Video output connectors.

High definition "DigitalTV" sets are also available such as the newer LCD-TV and Plasma sets that include the ATSC tuner. Instead of 640x480, these TV sets have a display buffer that matches the "native display resolution" of the HDTV. LCD displays today use mostly 1366x786 or 1920x1080 panels. Plasmas are often 1024x768 (non-square pixel), 1366x768 or higher.

it says "Display Type Digital tube" How can a tube be digital? I guess you could digitize the signal levels going to the three guns, RGB, but why bother.

This is exactly the way CRT computer monitors have worked since the 70's. The main difference is CRT computer monitors are designed to adjust to many display resolutions. An SD or HD Digital TV displays only one resolution.

The other major difference is an SD CRT DigitalTV processes 640x480i as interlace rather than progressive. This is a good thing because all NTSC, SD ATSC and SD cable MPeg2 are currently broadcast interlace as is most HDTV. An interlace frame buffer avoids all the deinterlace artifacts common on cheap progressive LCD-TV sets. For this reason, cheap CRT DigitalTV sets will look better than cheap LCD-TV sets until premium deinterlace processors are cost reduced.

[MOVIEGEEK]

Well up until a couple of months ago Best Buy sold two CRT HDTV's(27" & 30") by Samsung that were 1920x1080 resolution,you might still find them in the stores.The only reason you would use a tuner is if you use OTA broadcast,most people(in the US) won't need it because they are on cable/satellite.

[edDV]

Well up until a couple of months ago Best Buy sold two CRT HDTV's(27" & 30") by Samsung that were 1920x1080 resolution,you might still find them in the stores.The only reason you would use a tuner is if you use OTA broadcast,most people(in the US) won't need it because they are on cable/satellite.

Wrong. Samsung has never sold a CRT TV that displays 1920x1080 from the front of the TV.

They have made "HD Ready" CRT TV sets that scan 1080 lines behind a shadow mask that limits front detail to less than 960x700. Normal consumer CRT tech would put that closer to 800x600. Samsung has never targeted the extreme high end of TV CRT technology. That space belongs to those selling broadcast monitors with high price tags (e.g. Sony, Ikegami, JVC, Panasonic ...).

If you want to buy a CRT monitor used for HDTV production quality control like the $11,799.95 Sony BVM-A20F1U 20" HD Broadcast Video Monitor, it resolves ~900 lines of horizontal resolution over 1080 scanned lines. This translates to less than 1440x1080 resolution.
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/410268-REG/Sony_BVMA20F1U_Sony_BVM_A20F1U_20_HD.html

Why don't the pros care? Maybe because nothing with full 1920x1080 is ever stored for distribution let alone broadcast to the masses. The top distribution master tape format is 10bit, 144Mb/s HDCAM which is compressed 1440x1080. How does 1920x1080i broadcast happen? With horizontal upscale from 1440 to 1920 during playback.

The pros care more about 10bit vs. 8bit (as transmitted). In other words, bit depth is more important to image quality than resolution especially if you intend to record it.

[TBoneit]

edDv, I probably wasn't clear, I knew you that you were aware of the difference. Your depth of knowledge amazes me.

The part I didn't catch was that you were praising Best Buy for their Advert. Sorry.

So if a provider could get the raw 1440 by 1080 before the upconvert and use that they would have a better picture? Rather than getting the upconverter signal and maybe compressing and resizing it.

[edDV]

...

So if a provider could get the raw 1440 by 1080 before the upconvert and use that they would have a better picture? Rather than getting the upconverter signal and maybe compressing and resizing it.

1440x1080 is the 75% horizontally squeezed version of 16:9 1920x1080 and is similar to
1024x768 is the 75% horizontally squeezed version of 16:9 1366x768 and is similar to
960x720 is the 75% horizontally squeezed version of 16:9 1280x720 and is similar to
768x576 is the 75% horizontally squeezed version of 16:9 1024x576 and is similar to
640x480 is the 75% horizontally squeezed version of 16:9 853x480

See the pattern of familiar resolution numbers? It represents the relationship between 4:3 and 16:9 aspect ratios.

The resolution numbers on the right are all square pixel 16:9 display resolutions.
The numbers on the left are representations of 16:9 with pixel aspect ratios (PAR) of 4:3 (or 1.33:1).
They are also the same as square pixel 4:3 display resolutions.

The numbers above form the basis for high def 16:9 video recording formats:

HDCAM SR RGB = 1920x1080 (full resolution)
HDCAM/XDCAM/HDV 1080i = 1440x1080 (75% of 1920)
DVCProHD 1080i = 1280x1080 (66% of 1920)
HDCAM/XDCAM/HDV 720p = 1280x720 (full Resolution)
DVCProHD 720p = 960x720 (75% of 1280)

Do the numbers above represent rankings of video quality? No because color sampling and digital compression are equally important. For color sampling DVCProHD uses 4:2:2, HDCAM uses 3:1:1 and XDCAM/HDV are limited by 4:2:0. HDCAM SR can be either 4:4:4 or 4:2:2.

Bit rates rank as follows.

HDCAM-SR 880Mb/s
HDCAM-SR 440Mb/s
HDCAM 1080i/720p 144Mb/s
DVCProHD 1080i/720p 100Mb/s
XDCAM 1080i/720p 18-35Mb/s
HDV 1080i/720p 25Mb/s

Recall that ATSC broadcast transmission bit rate is 19Mb/s MPeg2 maximum.
HD/BD DVD use ~ 16-25Mb/s for MPeg2 and 8-12 Mb/s for H.264/VC-1

All HD consumer formats use 4:2:0 color sampling.

[SatStorm]

I second mats.hogberg on this.

In Europe, "HD Ready" are the LCD/Plasma screens with a panel of 1366 x 768.

Full HD are those with a panel of 1920 x 1080

[edDV]

So a 1024x768 Plasma is not HD?

[SatStorm]

I believe 1024 x 768 is a "HD Ready" Panel.

To tell you the true, I have a couple of years to see a panel of that resolution. It seems they don't sell in my area (the same I can say for the plasma screens - People here prefer LCD TVs).

[splash1955]

I posted that in rebutal to what splash1955 had to say about HD-Ready having nothing to do with the TV's tuner capability. Which you agree is false.

You need to be a bit more of a careful reader. That is the the opposite of what I wrote./

You also did not post in rebuttal to me since your wiki quote was before I wrote anything and the errors in it, which others also noted, where part of why I responded