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.

Plasma vs LCD: Enough Already!

Previously, before I dove into research into this area, here were my considerations:
1) I prioritized LCD over Plasma simply because the plasmas were real hot and the LCDs were cooler.
2) LCD screens, when the backlight go kaput in about 60K hours, all you'd have to do would be to change the backlight CCFL tubes, a much cheaper process than changing the entire screen as you'd have to do in plasmas
3) Plasmas were more susceptible to burn-ins of continuously shown logos etc.

As if that were not enough, now I realise that HD broadcasts cannot be shown in their full 1920x1080 glory using today's plasma technology. So here's consideration 4:
4) Plasmas of today, have limited resolutions relative to similar sized LCDs, and cannot show full sized 1080i HD broadcasts without downscaling the image to fit the limited pixel arrays which plasmas typically have.

In a fit of interest, I started to buy some UK magazines like WhatHIFI and Sound & Vision, and I was shocked to see Plasma displays as a viable alternative to LCD TV screens in the HD arena. And it's incredible that some of the weird panel pixel counts like 1024x1024 or 1024x1080 screens can actually get a HD-Ready logo.

I can't stand this. Not only is there misinformation, there is actually some such `poorly designed' websites like this: http://www.hitachiconsumer.com/sg/products/proddetails.aspx?pid=1731&cid=107&tid=71 It does not list the pixel specification, only here does it list: http://www.hitachiconsumer.com/sg/products/download.aspx?file=42PD8900TA.pdf Whether this is on purpose or as an oversight, is a matter of debate, but clearly, the buyer MUST do a whole lot of research before committing to their HDTV investment and see through these little bits of misinformation or malinformation!

Worst of all, many buyers now base their decisions on the display when looking at DVD content, and that's just plain wrong. What a 576P DVD output can be rendered on a plasma is totally not the same as rendering a 720p or 1080i video on the same screen. Where DVD is upscaled, HD content is downscaled. Most of the time, visually speaking, Downscaling is much more horrible than upscaling. Where plasmas worked great in the final stand of SD - namely DVD - they suck in HD. Don't take my word for it, check it out for yourself. As before, let me voice some clear messages across:

1) If you're buying a HDTV today, in today's HD-centric world, just KNOW that you can't just compare your screens using the Standard Definition DVD feeds which most of the shops give you. Go download some HD content from the Microsoft WMV-HD site, put it into your notebook and pump the WMVHD full screen into the VGA port of the HDTV you're evaluating. Bring your VGA cable along when you're shopping. From the Display Settings in control panel, make sure your LCD is output in the correct pixel resolution, and check `extend desktop' like this:


2) With LCD TVs so much reduced in price, and quality, a 1366x768 LCD screen should perform much better than plasma display using your test. With the test above, you can also take a look on how your DESKTOP TEXT appears. Text gives away any shortcoming of the display in the most dramatic fashion.

3) In fact, now that Singapore's HD broadcasters have more or less settled on 1080i as a broadcasting standard, with the World Cup broadcasting on 1080i full HD, go for a full LCD TV supporting full 1080i HD instead! Previously I mentioned that these screens are ungodly expensive, I was wrong. I bought one yesterday for under S$3000 and it was .... wow. If I was impressed with the LG L3200TF playing 1080i rescaled to 768 pixels, I was STUNNED by the Amoi 37" LC37AF1S playing the World Cup at 1920x1088 pixels. So it's now possible. Why even bother with the 1366x768 panels? This here is `for the taking!'

4) Don't be misled by the HD Ready label. I realised that if a plasma display can get this label, they must be dishing out those labels like slop in a soup kitchen. In the past I thought that the minimum requirement was that you needed at least to be 1280x720 to get that label, but if a 1024x1024 ALIS Plasma screen can get the label, it's even more irrelevant as I previously thought.

5) Most displays can `take in' 1920x1080 signals - so if any sales guy tell you that a certain TV can take those HD signals, it's almost meaningless. If a screen has a 1024x1024 pixel arrays, when it takes in the 1920x1080 signal, it's going to rescale the 1920x1080 to 1024x1024, which is a 50% horizontal downscale and a 6% vertical downscales. That's shocking. Too much rescale here to be any good. What you REALLY should ask, is ... what's the pixel array of a certain TV. Just to simplify matters, at this time, you should just look for 1368x768 or 1920x1080 pixel arrays - everything else compromises too much on the pixel count.

Looking through many of the `LCD vs Plasma' websites all over the world, I realised that they're outdated. They're looking at all the old considerations, but HD has dealt the finishing blow and put the final nail in the coffin of plasmas - unless of course they release 1920x1080 plasma displays at an affordable price. Until then, bye-bye, Plasmas.

Just an afterword - I'm not a subjective picture quality type of guy. There no method in my madness - I just cannot bear a 1920x1088 signal being shown on anything less than that. HOWEVER, you must note that sometimes, the maxim `what you don't know won't hurt you' might apply. OK, under certain circumstances, if the stream is not encoded well, a high-resolution video with artifacts such as motion smearing, incorrect white balance or color points, and grayscale rendering problems may not look as realistic as a lower-resolution image without any of these problems. Take THAT into consideration, and I apologise in advance for adding such headaches to your already-difficult decision. Read this, it's not wasting time. Sorta it debunks whatever I've written here: http://www.hdtvexpert.com/pages/x1080.htm and he's a HDTV expert, while I'm just a bum.

Let's face it - this is a tough choice. But in view of a sub S$3000 1920x1080 display, it may `relatively speaking' be termed as `disposable' nowadays. It's much of a no-brainer.

Tomorrow I'll post some high resolution camera shots of the World Cup matches.

Starhub ADB 3800 compatibility with LG L3200T multifunction LCD panel

OK finally got my Starhub ADB 3800-series to try with my LG L3200T multifunction LCD TV Panel. Note that the L3200T is the commercial/industrial class of LCD panel which are optimized to commercial 24-hour 365/7 use in a public environment (read `tough') and are not available from superstores, but the Sim Lim Square and Funan people will order one for you on request.

The Starhub ADB 3800 can display the following modes in Singapore:

1. 576i
2. 576p
3. 720p
4. 1080i

The L3200TF is a 32 inch 1366x768 monitor which has one DVI(HDCP) digital in, besides a whole plethora of normal connections like Component, S-Video etc. I only tried the DVI(HDCP) here's the result:

1. All display modes have no issues with the monitor except 576i, which makes the monitor go into sleep mode. That's OK, I got HD so that I could run away from 576i
2. There is no SELECTOR for the ADB box to selectively output - all outputs are pumping simultaneously
3. Even if you select 720p or 1080i which your DVD-Recorder most probably cannot support, there is a special output called VCR (a composite/stereo port set yellow, white, red) which will remain at 576i to preserve DVD-Recorder support no matter what mode you select for the video on the other ports.
4. The best modes were between 720p and 1080i. However, the 1080i looked better on this screen.

OK, note this theory (I cannot confirm, but it seems logical to the best of my knowledge): if you pump a 720p native signal to a 720p capable monitor, compared to pumping a 1080i signal to a 720p monitor, the 720p is better. However, the Starhub native HD signal on channels 300 and 301 last night, were 1080i native. If you select a 720p output from the ADB box, the 1080i native signal is rescaled in the box to 720p, and after that it is pumped to the L3200TF, and the L3200TF re-scales the 720p signal to fit the 768 horizontal lines. Thus there are 2 levels of rescaling at the video endpoint itself.

If you select 1080i, the native signal is not re-scaled at the ADB box, but is merely pumped as 1080i to the L3200TF. The L3200TF will rescale the 1080i signal to 768 lines which the monitor can take. This is only 1 level of re-scale, and therefore, I guess that's why I got a better signal.

I'm very very happy. Digital Audio AC3 can be pumped form the ADB 3800 to my external AC3 amplifier, no issues. Audio was great.

Now I'm buying yet another L3200TF. For my room this time. Under S$2K, it fits my purposes great - connecting a PC to this gives fabulous results too. The Caveat: I sell LG monitors, so please, take this review with a pinch of salt. The bigger the better.

HDTV-Plasma or LCD?

Before you go out and buy a nice big 42 inch screen for HDTV, ponder on this first.

My assertion is that an LCD display is more suited for HD than Plasma, because Plasma usually comes in real small resolutions.

LG is the world's largest Plasma manufacturer, so taking a look at their website:

Model : 42PX4RV Resolution 852x480 (WVGA) eerrr... a 42" Plasma Display which supports 480P only?

Model : 42PX5R
Resolution 1024x768 (XGA) - what a weird resolution... for 720P at 16:9 ratio, the number of vertical lines should be 720/9 x 16 = 1280, 1024 needs to be rescaled.

This is not comprehensive, but just before you buy, take a close look at the plasma's resolution specification. for 720P, you need 1280x720, and for 1080I or 1080P you need 1920x1080. I've limited my discussion previously to LCD TVs only, so if you elect to buy a plasma, which is way cheaper, take a few minutes to look at the brochure!

Getting hung up on HDMI and eschewing DVI?

Many people have responded and criticized my selection of DVI over HDMI in my previous blogpost here. Many have also questioned the need to connect a PC to the LCD TV in the living room. I was looking for an opportunity to spend a bit of time to post my counter arguments on this.

Thankfully, a certain gentleman Samsas at the MDA HDTV trial forum posted the gist of most of these objections, so I took the effort to write my comments on his reasons for HDMI and against DVI. Here's the post and my reasons:

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samsas wrote:
That's an interesting article. But I don't agree that DVI is the way to go over HDMI. The reasons for this.

1. DVI does not support audio. Period. We're talking TV here, and the HDTV signal will have multi channel sound whenever available in a program. Now if you are going to use a fibre connection to a reciever for audio and DVI for video its highly probable that there will be a sync problem. The sound and video signals won't be simultaneous for the most part, so you will need a reciever that can adjust for this and believe me it's not a simple task.

MT: All receivers will have AC3/Optical out. If you connect via DVI, which does not multiplex digital audio inside itself, you can use the AC3/Optical out to connect to external AC3 receiver or the TV itself since all TVs which support digital audio will have AC3/optical. It is assured that there will not be a sync issue, since this technology has been used ever since DVD was born. We are now using AC3 with DVI for most DVD output even, in computers, and in some China players. NO sync issues as long as encoded stream do not have sync issues.

2. Wer'e talking TV again here. How many of us are going to hook up desk top computers to the living room TV? It's a logistic problem. Even if we did we'd need a tuner for the TV signal going into the PC. It's a bit easier with portable lap tops, but you still need a laptop with a tuner built in. And even if you get one not many laptops give you 5 channel sound output, so you need a card from Creative or whatever.

MT: This is 2006. Intel has released the ViiV, Apple release Mac Mini with frontrow. Many people have content based non-standard codec, and require the flexibility of a CPU to decode. Singapore IPTV service by Mediacorp mobtv.sg is right now PC-only. Many people view football with Asiabookie web page on the same screen, half half. See Donald Trump Apprentice #1? It's an LCD TV connected to the computer leh. Surfing has become a lifestyle, to be performed in the living room, not only the study, bedroom and computer room.

Just surf forums.hardwarezone.com and you see tons of people trying to connect their computer to the living room. The era of a living room PC is here already. LCD TV last you for 10 years. Within this 10 years, you're willing to bet you not gonna connect your PC to the TV?

3. Every upscaling DVD player I've seen in the shops now outputs the upscaled DVD signal via HDMI not DVI.

MT: Upscaled DVD content can traverse whether over HDMI or DVI. There is no issue. HDMI can easily be converted to DVI and vice versa, and yet DVI has the advantage of computer compatibility. This is not a point to get hung up on.

4. Correct me if I'm wrong but the new HD DVD player on the market in US (Toshiba) has only HDMI out.

MT: Toshiba is one of the smallest major brands in the market for DVD, and I don't usually follow them. In any case, HDMI is equal to DVI when it comes to the video protocol profile, therefore, HDMI can easily be converted to DVI using a direct mapping cable. This is also not a point to get hung up on.

5. I don't think HDTV will go beyond 1080i for some years to come, so if you want resolutions beyond 1080i you're back to scalers again. So your PC internal DVD or HD DV player must be able to upscale to the higher PC resolutions above 1080i and 1080p (HDMI ver 1.3). You're going to need a top range desktop to go anywhere near the processing power you need.

MT: My point on preferring DVI to HDMI is not because I want higher resolutions. It's because of PC resolution compatibility, since DVI supports ALL and HDMI by definition only supports 480p, 720p, 1080i and 1080p, pending further developments. Today, a S$1K PC with a nVidia 7600GS card can already drive a WQXGA display very satisfactorily, and that's 2560 x 1600, in 3D even.

So unless the TV came with both DVI and HDMI in, I'd go with the HDMI option. Its the most practical.

MT: As stated in my blogpost at http://miketan.blogspot.com/2006/05/less-discussed-complications-of-hdmi.html most of the dual HDMI+DVI options you can find, only have HDCP on the HDMI port and not the DVI port. The trick is to look for a LCD TV with only DVI and the HDCP will be implemented on the DVI port. if you see Vincent's post here at http://www.mycarforum.com/forum/Help_on_LCD_tvs_P1356966/gforum.cgi?do=post_view_flat;post=1346681;page=1;sb=post_latest_reply;so=ASC;mh=-1;guest=2398 he found a LG 32" which did exactly that.

ALWAYS REMEMBER, the TV and DVD and set top box manufacturers will manufacture an entire range of products with every Input output available, since it's almost free for them. They're not gonna limit the number of outputs and inputs, because more outputs and inputs will make their player more flexible and for reverse compatibility. Don't get hung up on HDMI because it's `newer', because it's not. It's same as DVI for video, and multiplex normal AC3 into is own transmission envelope, nothing we can't do normally even now with AC3 out and DVI combined.

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ALL THIS MAY BE MOOT! I have just been informed by VincentV that HDCP may not be necessary until after 2010 ... I'll read it up and repost.