| From: Michael Tan <michaeltanyk@gmail.com> | Mailed-By: gmail.com |
To: yeo_chun_cheng@mda.gov.sg
Date: Jun 20, 2006 4:20 PMSubject: High-Definition TV trials use widely adopted HD standard
Mr. Yeo,
I am one of the HDTV enthusiasts who have jumped on the HD bandwagon with gusto. I work in
the technology industry, in the IT environment.
A lot of us are so enthusiastic that we have made HD a chief topic of our blogs and post enthusiactically at forums. I maintain a blog at http://miketan.blogspot.com and a majority of our posts have been on HD.
Because we are at the trial stage of HD, and your organization has a large influence on HD formats, I would like to state a preference that most of us at enthusiasts forums in Singapore, including Hardwarezone and Xtremeplace, for PROGRESSIVE VIDEO FORMATS.
I include an article in issue 109 of WideScreen Review, an enthusiast magazine, on why progressive is better, technically. This article, Progressive High Definition Video, by Joe Kane, include the following points:
1) Interlace introduces artifacts, progressive escapes this.
2) Our video compression technologies for digital media content today are more efficient dealing with Progressive than Interlaced.
3) HD is our chance to escape the legacy of analog, embrace it - Interlace is an analog compression technology serving no good purpose in today's digital video environment.
4) Progressive reduces bandwidth, giving better quality at a given bandwidth. 1080p/24 takes up less bandwidth than 1080i/60, with significantly better picture quality.
5) Most of the masters for newer content is done in 1080p/24 already, not interlaced.
6) The majority of new displays appearing on the market today support progressive signals
7) We cannot always sell what the consumers want, because they are not qualified to know what better they can have. Some technology shift is necessary to reach the next stage. IF HENRY FORD GAVE WHAT THE CONSUMER WANTED, HE WOULD HAVE MADE A FASTER HORSE.
From the Singapore perspective, I would add the following points:
1) Singapore is now usually now at the forefront of product releases, almost at par with the USA. In a way, we are really quicker than the USA because our customs policies encourage free trade, and Singapore is almost totally a free-entry port. We have the newest products from USA, Japan, Korea, Taiwan and China, and our tradesmen are very up to date in their product offerings. The smaller market make niche purchases more viable, our distributors do not keep containers of stock, and our product salesout are frequent, making it easier for the Singapore
market to introduce new models.
2) Singapore does not have a huge legacy of set top boxes which are incompatible with the 1080p standard. We are starting afresh, and it is imperative that we start with the most sensible, logical mode - Progressive Video.
3) The broadcasters can easily purchase content in 1080/24 at almost no additional costs - the bulk of the costs of programming is the license fee, but the media fee is minimal in comparison.
4) One of the considerations when 1080p was not made a standard in the broadcast industry was because manufacturers cited difficulties in making a decoder which could decode and output in 1080p. Today, 5 years later, this is not an issue. Blu-Ray and HD-DVD both are in mass
production stage, and decoders outputting in 1080p are easily obtainable, competitively priced with economies of scale offered by the giants selling 1080p-capable playback devices.
Mr. Yeo, we are at the true crossroads today. Mediacorp has the ability to deliver via DVB-T and IPTV, where Starhub can deliver via DVB-C, all of which video endpoints exist today. I felt compelled to try to write to you regarding this, at least, at the end of the day, I can't say I didn't try.
Thank you for your time.
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12 comments:
mike, since you won't see a difference in pq between a 1080i and 1080p feed even on a 50" screen, why waste the resources. mda/media corp shud improve on broadcast necessities like strong signal and higher bit rates to reach all corners of singapore.
why won't I see a difference in PQ between 1080i and 1080p? In movement sequences, surely I would. Any person would. Why this matters, is because if we standardize on 1080i, Starhub won't demand a 1080p box from ADB, and if it doesn't, damn we're stuck with a 1080i standard forever! That's really bad!
mike, i think you are too obsessed with 1080p and high pixel count. all these doesn't mean a thing if you view them on < 50" screen. just like camera pixel count, view a shot from a 5 megapixel vs a 10 megapixel camera at 4r size and you won't see any difference at all unless you blow it up to a4 size.
i am not saying that i080p is not important but this is not the priority right now. providing stable and good pq broadcast reaching all corners of singapore is a MUST.
and you are right that good pq broadcast reaching all corners of singapore is a must. And mediacorp should do it.
But MDA is the regulatory body, and they should make the correct decision. This decision can be concurrent with the decision to invest more in infrastructure.
francis - i disagree with you. yes, a 5 megapixel camera will produce an image that does not look different from a 10 megapixel camera, when reproduced onto a 4R hardcopy. But that is because there is a maximum dpi which those mini photo labs can output. where HD panels are concerned, the fact is that there are 1920 pixels across in a 1080i or 1080p image. to force that down to 1024x768, 1366x768 or (yikes) 640x480 is just doing injustice to the image quality. it's like buying a color tv in 1980 that only does 256 colors instead of the whole color gamut that broadcast analogue tv could handle at the time.
so i fully agree with michael that 1920x1080 is the best possible HD standard to support. regulatory support of this standard means that everyone that wants to, and can afford to, can shell out for a display that can handle such images. dumbing down to a lower standard means that we will probably be stuck with the lower quality for a long long time, and those that wish to sell off their first-born to get full HD will not be able to get much for their money. multiple transcodings will lead to severe image degradation, and should be avoided like the plague, or the birdflu.
phew!!, i guess you are not reading me correctly. getting a 1920x1080 or a 1366x768 lcd/plasma is a individual choice. personally, i find watching hd contents on a 1366x768 plasma good enough.
mda/mediacorp is already broadcasting in 1080i and soon maybe, hopefully, in 1080p! they have done their part and now it's up to the manufacturers to do their part by putting more 1920x1080 panels in the market at a affordable price to reach out to more consumers. mda/mediacorp shud now concentrate on dishing out more stable and quality broadcasts at higher bandwidth and bitrates.
Francis, Big brand 1920x1080 panels will be good price in 2007 only. Right now though, there's Amoi. Good enough is good, but some people will sell off their son (not me, mine is too cute) for a super display.
Anonymous, good points raised by you that I did not envision. esp the camera prints.
strange that everyone is pointing towards the amoi, what about the benq dv3750 which received an 8 out of 10 marks for excellence? from hwm.
i believe that technical specs do not mean anything if pq is crap and seeing is believing.
yes, go see it in action.
Actually, almost all HD chip sets today can achieve 25p, 50i, 30p and 60i. Most can also go 24p. So I am optimistic that HD STBs should be able to achieve 25p or 30p should there be a movie encoded in that format. It is the holy grail of HD at 1080/50p or 1080/60p that is rare.
To date, only movies are archived at 24p. Most other TV productions are done in 50i or 60i for ease of down-converting (with minimum artefacts) to PAL or NTSC.
From experience, both interlace and progressive produce artefacts. Just different kind of artefacts. Also, 50i and 25p uses almost the same amount of bandwidth. Since Singapore will not be going for 30p/60i, so 24p and 25p difference is negligible? IMHO the bitrate is more important. Looking at StarHub's current MPEG2 bitrate over the digital STB is kind of sad.
mr. Foo chit yee,
When you say HD chipsets, are you talking about the decoder, or the HDMI transmitter?
To date, the only AVC and VC1 decoder chips capable of 24p is the Sigma Designs 863X series to my knowledge. The others (ST and Broadcom) can decode, but they will not output as 1080p24. Correct me if I am wrong.
Right, all movies archived in 24p. And I only request movies to be pumped at 1080p24, the rest 720p50 and 1080i50 suffices.
All video produces artifacts, only that Interlace introduces a lot of new ones in additional to the norm.
MPEG2 is very inefficient, so even the 16Mbit/s MPEG2 broadcasts over Starhub SD is bad. But, 10-12Mbit 1080p24 HD with AVC codec, would be far superior to anything we have now. FYI, World Cup HD is being broadcast at 18Mbit 1080i50. Looks pretty Ok except for the moving scenes, an expected issue given interlace. It would have looked much better in 720p50, even at 10-12Mbit/s. I am not asking for 1080p24 for sports though...
For an even more in depth viewpoint(s) take a look here: http://www.xtremeplace.com/yabbse/index.php?topic=40070.msg285285#msg285285
http://www.xtremeplace.com/yabbse/index.php?topic=40070.msg285285#msg285285
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