HDTV in Singapore - The story so far

Revised Blu-ray and DVB and LCD or Plasma topics 20 June 2006, thanks to feedback from Jeffong and karlie over at Xtremeplace. Thanks Jeff & Karlie.

HDTV information in Singapore is framgmented, so I attempt here to summarize here what I know about HDTV in Singapore as of today. I include information on HDTV display choice, content availability in whether broadcasted, in loadable media form of from the internet, future trends, etc. This is highly summarized and I may not include links within - so if there is anything which you need clarified kindly treat Google as your friend. This is targeted towards the mainstream public, as the serious HD geek has no need for summaries - they know it all and more.

What's HD?

HD is capable of showing much higher resolution than DVDs - and DVDs are the best which our Standard Definition screens can offer. What we have known until now, on TV, is SD. If you thought that SD was good, HD is breathtaking if properly shown with the proper equipment and configurations. Here are some sample shots of the World Cup HD broadcasts.

What kind of content can we get on HD?

1. Broadcast content, Cable transmission from Starhub, and DVB-T transmission from Mediacorp. 1080i/50 is the standard transmission standard.
   
2. HD-DVD - this is a format with Toshiba as the chief hardware contributor - up to 1080p content with enhanced audio.
   
3. Blu-ray - Sony and Panasonic are the chief hardware contributors - up to 1080p content with enhanced audio.
4. Internet content - there is a whole host of content, legal or illegal, which is available from the internet, downloadable from ftp sites or using peer-to-peer technology. A lot of this content is now in HD. Microsoft's WMVHD site also offers a lot of sample clips, all of them beautifully encoded.
   
5. HVD - High Definition Versatile Disc, up to 720p resolution. But content is `inexpensive' and has great variety.
   

Singapore HD Broadcasting Trials

On Wednesday, May 31, 2006, Singapore kicked off the HDTV trials officially. 2 broadcasters are involved, Mediacorp (broadcasting HD in DVB-T) and Starhub CableVision (DVB-C). Both broadcast in 1080i/50 which is the traditional PAL which Singapore uses. Triallists were selected from applicants who have been applying since 2 weeks before May 31st 2006, and it is reputed that there are a total of 1,000 participants of the trial. These trials will end at the end of the year, presumably then, or before that, Starhub and Mediacorp will open it up to all subscribers to receive HD.

Just a word on DVB-T and DVB-C. DVB is a suite of international standards on how to broadcast digital television signals. DVB-T broadcasts the digital television signals `over the air' like traditional television, and uses the same antennas too, where DVB-C broadcasts the signals over cable as you've been receiving SCV for the past decade or so. In high-rise Singapore, it's pretty hard to get a decent signal from DVB-T transmissions if Mediacorp doesn't improve the signal strength, but again, look at all the buses having TV Mobile!

HD-DVD

HD DVD was launched April 2006 officially, and Toshiba had the first player (HD-XA1) shipping in the US. It is unfortunate that the first iteration of the product outputs only until 1080i/60, and Toshiba has acknowledged this, and promises to have 1080p output in the 2nd revision. The first content is shipping also, courtesy of Warner Brothers, and the following is confirmed (by WideScreenReview.com and Stephen Nickerson, Warner Studio executive) with regard to the content:

1. All the HD content in the first launch was mastered in 1080p/24
2. The Image Constraint Token (ICT) is not activated, meaning, the content will not be degraded when played via Analog Component
3. All the titles are not using discrete 8-channel PCM uncompressed audio.

So it is clear that for an optimal performance, one should wait for the 2nd version of the Toshiba players, or at least, wait for a player which outputs in 1080p instead of an interlaced format. But the true message is - HD-DVD is here!

Blu-Ray

The official release date for Blu-Ray is June 20, 2006 (today) but major backbone backer Sony's Blu-Ray player has been delayed to August 2006. Samsung has announced that they will ship their player on June 25, 2006 but seems to have pre-shipped some quantity of players.

Blu-Ray content will start shipping in the older MPEG-2 compression method instead of newer codecs like VC1 used in Warner's initial HD DVD releases, since Sony had focus group sessions which preferred the MPEG2 instead of the AVC at high bitrates. This seems to be a wrong conclusion, however, see here. However, they will also support MPEG4 AVC and VC1 among other codecs. Warner has promised to ship their first Blu-Ray discs in VC1 compression.

The consensus on the forums like AVF, is that the first round of Blu-Ray (Samsung) vs HD-DVD (Toshiba) went to HD-DVD, suspected because of the content, but once Warner releases its VC1 discs for the Blu-Ray formats which they have promised are the SAME for both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray.

The main message is, as with HD-DVD, it is serious, it is surely coming, and the HD age is upon us.

Internet content and HVD

This has been with us for at least 1.5 years. Those in the know would be playing the content using a PC, which brings me to an easy prediction that Living Room HTPCs would be in good demand this year.

What do you need for HDTV?

The official requirements by Starhub for purposes of trial:

1) The minimal vertical resolution of the HD-ready display must be at least 720 lines in an aspect ratio of 16:9;
2) The display device has an interface to accept HDTV signals such as Component interface (Y-Pb-Pr), HDMI (High Definition Multimedia Interface) or DVI (Digital Visual Interface); and
3) The HD inputs is capable to accept the following HD video format:
-1280 x 720 @ 50Hz progressive (720p)
-1920 x 1080 @ 50Hz interlace (1080i)

Please note that the official Starhub HDTV listing is hopelessly outdated, and you should do your own research for newer models. There is no reason why you should limit yourself to old models - preferably get a good new model instead.

The following are not official requirements, but from correspondence and phone calls and speeches, they are required if you are buying a new display:

4) HDCP should be implemented on your digital ports, preferably both DVI and HDMI ports. Component only is not recommended since HDCP cannot be implemented on Component analog ports.
5) Since some of the content may be straight USA content, your set should also support 1080i/60Hz framerate also.
6) Get a set with the HD-Ready logo - this logo is insufficient, but at least a HD-Ready TV fulfils the minimum specifications.
7) For optimal viewing experience with near future HD Loadable media formats like HD DVD and Blu-ray, the 1080p format should also be supported.

The above 1-7 are MY minimum requirements for anybody considering buying a new HDTV display.

What kind of screen should I buy?

Before anything, let's get something out in the open - What signal a screen can take in, does not means that they can render it at perfect 1:1 resolution. So if a screen takes in 1080i resolution for example, they may not be able to render it in 1920x1080 because the screen lacks pixels, so it will be `downscaled' to fit the screen. Therefore, I'm going to talk from the perspective of screen resolution, not so much what the screen can take in.

There are LCD, Plasma, Front Projection and Rear Projection screens available today. I shall not delve much into the Projection arena, though they are popular today, because it is not exactly `mainstream' though they are very very cheap for the size of the screen they project, especially front projection. Just that Projection type screens, especially front projection screens, require pitch dark rooms for optimal performance.

Previously, the `trust your eyes' worked because most of the shops pumped DVD content to the screen, so it was a good approximation on what you'd get at home. Now that we are buying for HD, pumping DVD content to the screen is MISLEADING. DVD has a 576P resolution, and on plasmas it looks good. But if you pump 1080i HD content to the screen, many screens actually have to re-scale the content to fit their resolution.

Nevertheless, the `trust your eyes' principle should still hold. So you have to get a powerful laptop, download a 1080 video, and pump it to the HD DVD screen in order to achieve this. Instructions here. What kind of videos to download? I would suggest ANIMATIONS with a lot of TEXT and SUBTITLES - because TEXT degrades most in any downscaling operation. And Animations reveal problems more easily than normal videos. I would suggest 3 clips - a horror movie with lots of dark scenes, an animation probably a kid's show or the Simpsons, and a sports broadcast with lots of stats (in text) on the screen.

How many shops allow you to do that? It's a matter of being nice to the sales guy. He may let you do it just to get a sale. And just don't waste the sales guy's time - he's trying to make a living. Be fair. If he lets you do it, buy from his shop. Don't be an asshole.

So LCD or Plasma? Trust your eyes, you must. All the LCD vs Plasma arguments you can find on the net, still hold sway. But just some background information only with respect to the new consequences brought to us by HD:

1. Plasmas have typically a lower resolution per screen size compared to LCD. In MOST cases it would need to rescale, and for 1080i, it is almost assured that an affordable plasma screen needs to be rescaled. Some upscaling technologies might be so good that you will not perceive a difference.
2. The name of the game for perfect resolution reproduction, is a concept called 1:1 pixel mapping. This means that the entire image of the video, can be put into the screen without having to sacrifice lines, or without an electronic device having to make algorithmic decisions on which line to keep and which line to discard, and which line to interpolate. With 1:1 pixel mapping, EVERYTHING is dumped to the screen. And the magic of full 1080 line HD, in my opinion and that of many early reviewers of the Toshiba HD-DVD player, is all about CRISPNESS of the image, the incredible SHARPNESS. To achieve 1:1 in the Singapore HD environment and in view of the upcoming Blu-Ray and HD-DVD, the screen must be exactly 1920x1080 in size. Plasmas don't have that easily attainable or affordable. There have been reports that, when a multiburst test pattern for 720p or 1080p is pumped to a typical plasma screen with a resolution 1024x768, 1024x1024 or 1024x1080 it is unable to resolve perfectly. Note however, perfect resolution does not mean `best quality' - for that, you'd have to trust your eyes.
   

One important feature in a HD display which is important, now that we have HD, is some sort of enhanced de-interlacing technology, like Faroudja's DCDi, in the display. When we were dealing with DVD progressive technology (with progressive decoding), it didn't matter so much, but now that we're dealing with an interlaced 1080i signal, technologies like DCDi can do a lot to improve the display quality. The Starhub ADB 3800C box has been shown to have unsatisfactory deinterlacing - many people who have scaled the image to 720P report obvious degradation - at this time the ADB web is down, can't check the specs, but signs are that it uses a cheapo scaling/deinterlacing solution as described by JasonYeo in Xtremeplace.

Other accessories to consider

Video enhancer/Deinterlacer - if your LCD TV has a bad deinterlacer, coupled with unsatisfactory deinterlacing performance from the Starhub ADB 3800C box, you'd probably need an external deinterlacer box like the Digital Projection VIP 1000 to quote a high-end example.

AV Amplifier with HDMI inputs and output - Because so many HDMI boxes loom in the horizon, you'd not have enough HDMI ports in any LCD TV you buy today. Since Digital Audio will be in a lot of the HD content, it'll make sense to buy a good AV Amplifier to increase the number of possible HDMI ports you'd be getting content from, and also have a decent digital audio receiver and amplifier to handle the digital audio from the HDMI. An example of this class of products would be the Yamaha RX-V2600 which might offer some kind of deinterlacing but most importantly, 2 HDMI input ports to handle your Starhub HD receiver and one more Media-based player, probably a Blu-Ray or a HD-DVD player/recorder in the near future.

A universal remote control - Because the current ADB 3800C Starhub box does not output a continuous downscaled 576 signal which can be recorded by your present DVD-Recorder, you'd make mistakes for sure if you try to record a HD broadcast - blank screen. What you'd actually need to do to record a program you're watching, would be to downscale the HD to 576i and record that signal. All this requires control of your DVD player, your TV set, your Xbox, your deinterlacer, etc etc. It'll surely be a reduction in the temperature of hell if you had a Universal Remote Control. The Logitech Harmony is excellent, IF it's available in Singapore.

HD-DVD or Blu-Ray Player/Recorder - Hey, you know you want one. Just get one with 1080P output capability. Which means you can't get one now.

Final Caveats for Early Adopters

OK folks. The new HD world, with HDCP, is breeding a lot of compliance issues. Take note of the following (source from Widescreen Review) :

HDCP Repeat issue: If you connect a HD-DVD or Blu-Ray to a AV Amplifier, then from the Amplifier to the HDTV, there have been reports that the TV blanked out. This is because the player did not send a HDCP repeat instruction to the Amplifier, which caused the HDCP signal to stop at the amplifier. A correct implementation would be to send a REPEAT to the amplifier, so that it would be allowed to send the same signal, processed, to the TV, and since the TV does not have a HDMI out, it would be a safe measure from all quarters. Before buying a HDCP HDMI HD-DVD or Bluray player, make sure the manufacturer solved this issue first.

Multiple HDMI ports on TV switching issue: It has been reported that, if you connect a cable set top box and a HD DVD player to the same TV, using 2 HDMI ports existent on the TV set itself, once you toggle the inputs, the display blanks out. This is the TV's fault - when you toggle, some TVs switch off the HDMI port completely, so when you toggle it back on, the HDCP system has already blocked the output to a the HDMI port which was switched off previously. Even when you switch on again, HDCP will not restore the display. So make sure your multiple HDMI port TV does not switch off the port once the toggle focus shifts away from that port. How to test? I really don't know now, but in the future, having 2 HD-DVD or bluray players connected to a HDTV set, both playing, toggling should not cause the screen to blank out at all.

HDMI 1.3 issue: HDMI v1.3 (none of today's HDTVs have it yet) will support Dolby Digital Plus, TrueHD, DTS HD and DTS HD Master Audio. The HDMI licensing authority has not permitted manufacturers to implement full DDP or DTS HD in existing 1.1 and 1.2 HDMI ports, even though the bandwidth of these prts at 6Mbit/s is plenty enough to support those codecs. So, it is not clear now what will happen to HDMI 1.1 or 1.2 ports, which can support DDP and DTS HD, yet disallowed by the authority. The workaround demonstrated by the Toshiba HD-XA1 seems to be that it will decode these streams internally to linear PCM and output using the 5.1 output on the analog or the HDMI.
If you can't support that, it will internally decode the DTS Digital Surround and your receiver should be able to handle that.