Lack of Bandwidth Oversight Damages HDTV Quality

mattnyc99 writes "Over at Popular Mechanics, Glenn Derene has a great new column investigating the lawless lands of broadcast television, where the quality of the picture that ends up on your expensive hi-def set is determined by a bunch of fuzzy math. Quoting: 'In fact, there's no real regulation over high-definition picture quality at all — "none whatsoever," one industry consultant told me. And that's part of the reason why different HD stations often have wildly varying levels of picture quality that change from one moment to the next. Behind the scenes, content producers, broadcasters and cable and satellite providers are engaged in a constant tug-of-war over bandwidth and video quality, with no hard metrics to even define what looks acceptable. Even officials at HBO, where Generation Kill looks pretty fantastic on my TV, bemoaned the lack of a silver bullet ... for now.'"

Re:FIOS Baby

[Anonymous Coward]

that's what she said

Blind testing -- of video?

[Latent Heat]

Blind testing of video, now that's a good one!

Re:ehh..

[negRo_slim]

I don't think cartoon network needs full bandwith just so it can show powerpuff girls in full 1080p

I disagree.

Re:Same thing with standard def

[Percy_Blakeney]

A related example: I have a friend that bought a HUGE 1080p HDTV. He loved to talk about how great things looked on it. He bragged one day about how great a certain nature show looked on his TV -- until I pointed out to him that it was a 4:3 show that the TV was stretching to 16:9. He never would have known if I hadn't told him.

Re:More Regulation?

[Shaitan Apistos]

Let me explain to you how this works: you see, the corporations finance HDTV, and then HDTV goes out... and the corporations sit there in their... in their corporation buildings, and... and, and see, they're all corporation-y... and they make money.

Re:Same thing with standard def

[Ron_Fitzgerald]

The other side of that coin is a friend who owns a panasonic 50" TV from 2002/2003 that doesn not go beyond 1024x768. He just bought a Blu-Ray player and the planet earth series on blu-ray. He marveled over the quaity of his new high def toy when in fact, he wasn't really there. I still have not brought this point up to him though, you cruel bastard.

Re:Same thing with standard def

[stewbacca]

there'd still be people left who have never used electricity, have never depended on it, and who would quite happily continue living the way they do now if it went away.

I threaten your magical flying machine with my Amazonian spear, you insensitive clod!

Re:Same thing with standard def

[stewbacca]

I have a friend that bought a HUGE 1080p HDTV. He loved to talk about how great things looked on it. He bragged one day about how great a certain nature show looked on his TV -- until I pointed out to him that it was a 4:3 show that the TV was stretching to 16:9.

You know my dad?

I just sold one of my HDTVs and had to warn the guy who was buying it that it would be worse for him, since he didn't have a cable provider with HD content. He says his sd stretched tv "looks great" though. Oh well, I tried...