Forum - View topicHey, Answerman! [2010-04-16]
|
Goto page Previous 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Next Note: this is the discussion thread for this article |
| Author | Message | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
mulrich
Posts: 139 Location: Denmark |
|
|||
You do realize there are other places in the world than America, right? Also, $1000 for an HDTV is far too expensive? Since when? That's a decent price for a good TV. Go lower and they're usually crap. Go higher and they're usually better - or overpriced, but that's rare, really. |
||||
|
||||
|
Petrea Mitchell
Posts: 438 Location: Near Portland, OR |
|
|||
|
I didn't write in for Hey, Answerfans! because I thought there'd be more responses, and mine would be the first one eliminated since I had a response printed recently.
I also went to Japan in 2007 for Worldcon, and the weather was... Well, take a hot, humid day in the Midwest or the South, and then crank up the humidity another notch. Pocari Sweat became my new best friend very quickly. After Worldcon, there were two and a half days at Tokyo Disneyland, where the daily routine became: 1. Tour park into the early afternoon 2. Come back, shower and change clothes because we were drenched in sweat 3. Nap, then return to the parks after dinner when the outdoors was bearable again I've been in Phoenix when it was 110 degrees. "But it's a dry heat" may be a cliche, but one with much truth in it. As for Japan through the eyes of an anime fan-- well, many things were as promised. The trains do absolutely run like clockwork, the streets really are lined with vending machines, and my 6'-tall SO was living every gag about the excessively tall gaijin. (I, at 5'3", really enjoyed having many things scaled to me for once.) On the other hand, anime failed to forewarn us about things like the terrifying advanced toilets, or the fact that you do not hand money directly to someone when buying food at any place more upscale than a cart. I could go on and on. In fact, I've applied to do a panel on Japan at Kumoricon so I can do just that. |
||||
|
||||
Bored_Ming
 Posts: 242 Location: The Edge of ...... |
|
|||
|
I think Professor Frink from The Simpsons submitted this weeks Flake. "HOYVIN-GLAYVIN!"
|
||||
|
||||
|
JediMom
Posts: 4 |
|
|||
That's interesting- my 6'3" husband caused less of a stir than my blond, blue-eyed son (& the excitement increased when he opened his mouth & understandable Japanese came out). 
I also had a weird experience in a department store ladies room. I couldn't find the flush button anywhere- pushed every button there was, but no flush! Knowing that people were waiting for me, I abandoned ship (with great embarassment) & hoped that it would flush on it's own... |
||||
|
||||
leafy sea dragon
 Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
|
|||
|
Well, I mean that putting an SD production into an HD data stream would be detrimental to how it would look, primarily that small errors that might not be visible at SD will become visible at HD. I hear that animation in HD is more difficult for this reason, that there are more quality checks because mistakes are that much easier to spot.
Yes, I do. I would suspect the HDTV penetration in Japan and in Europe (and possibly even Canada) are higher than that in the United States. The fact that HDTV penetration in the USA is so low, however, should be enough to show that it's still too expensive for the ordinary American. Well, either too expensive or still unnecessary. We have a lot of perfectly functional SDTVs in our house. Why should we go buy a new one? You can say to get a higher quality experience, and I don't doubt that. But I'm satisfied with what I have. In our household, we don't intend to get an HDTV until there are no more functioning SDTVs. (Yes, I have watched stuff on HDTVs and they do not impress me. They are not worth $1000 to me.) Also, perhaps inflation has something to do with it, but when SDTVs were still on sale, they rarely went above $1000 unless you had those huge monitors. I don't think any of our TVs were ever obtained for more than $500. We have a TV manufactured in 1979 that's still in use because it works just fine. (That being said, I come from a pretty low income family, so our notion of "expensive" is probably much different than yours.) |
||||
|
||||
|
edzieba
Posts: 704 |
|
|||
1) Produced on cel, mastered on film -> Can be remastered to HD, quality improvement, moderate cost (film rescanning) 2) Produced on cel, mastered digitally in HD -> Can be remastered in HD, quality improvement (AFAIK,only the original Ghost in the Shell falls into this category) 3) Produced on cel, mastered to SD digital tape (i.e. film was scanned and edited as video, or cels were scanned directly)-> Cannot be remastered in HD without rescanning and reediting at great expense, if originals even available. BD upscale will look slightly better due to increased bitrate (SD master tape higer quality than DVD). 4) Produced on cel, mastered to SD digital tape, original tape lost -> Cannot be remastered in HD, quality cannot be improved via upscaling from lossy secondary source. 5) Produced with digipaint, mastered to SD tape, working files unavailable -> Cannot be remastered to HD. BD upscale will look slightly better due to increased bitrate (SD master tape looks better than DVD). 6) Produced with digipaint, mastered to SD digital tape, working files available -> Can be remastered in HD with massive time investment, essentially requires re-creating every shot. Occurring with Serial Experiments Lain (and as far as I know, the only occurrence). Production blog here. 7) Produced with digipaint, mastered to HD digital tape -> HD master available, BD release possible without remaster. Most very new shows fall into 7 (or 4 if budget was tight). Early 200x shows and OVAs generally fall into 5. Films before the late 90s fall into 1, and after fall into 7 (due to the resolution requirements for cinema performance, films are invariably produced in higher resolutions than TV, and can be remastered in HD for BD). TV shows and OVAs produced before the late 90s will generally fall into 1 for earlier shows (up to the early 90s) and 3 for later shows (90s), occasionally 4 if the show is old & the studio is defunct. |
||||
|
||||
|
leafy sea dragon
Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
|
|||
|
True. Of course, what I wonder is if it's necessary for some shows. Would the slightly higher quality be worth the cost? For some things though, they seem to be virtually the same, except with pillarboxing. Those productions don't need the HD treatment without some serious digital touching-up.
I'm sure that to most people here, the answer is a resounding "Yes." Though as I've mentioned, I'm completely fine with SD stuff. |
||||
|
||||
Greg Aubry
 Posts: 224 Location: Detroit, MI |
|
|||
|
This idea that HDTV penetration in the US is low isn't exactly accurate: it's around 2/3 of American households.
I've watched a few HD versions of SD shows, and a discerning pair of eyes can absolutely tell the difference. '80s show Bubblegum Crisis on Blu-ray looks a LOT better than AnimEigo's DVDs. For one thing, you ditch the interlacing artifacts. With cel-animated shows of this vintage, you do get a lot of grain, but I find that to be warm and welcome, perhaps the same way that old-school audiophiles prefer analog recording's harmonic distortion. Even old shows filmed on 16mm can be better presented with that higher progressive scanned resolution. I'd love to see everything get the hi-def treatment, even as I know full well that the likelihood is fairly nil. |
||||
|
||||
dizzon
 Posts: 338 |
|
|||
That sounds about right, A buddy of mine moved to Phoenix a couple years ago and his first summer there he kept telling me how much people would ask him about the heat and if he was ready to move back to the Midwest. He kept telling them "you don't know heat unless its combined with humidity", sure enough last Summer he brings a couple people home with him on a visit and it was the funniest thing I've seen in quite some time, I swear one of them was about to cry he was so miserable. You can escape heat by finding shade, but there's no escaping humidity. |
||||
|
||||
Tamaria
 Posts: 1512 Location: De Achterhoek |
|
|||
Wow, they're a lot cheaper here in the Netherlands. You can get a nice Full-HD TV for about €500-600. Regular old SDTV's? Good luck finding one over here. Last time I saw one is stores was over a year ago. When grandma's TV broke down, we wanted to buy a replacement for her, but HDTV's were out of the question (she has a tendendy to move her furniture around and those flatscreens aren't quite as sturdy as a good old tube). Couldn't find one anywhere, so we gave her the biggest one we had at home and we'll get an HDTV. |
||||
|
||||
|
leafy sea dragon
Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
|
|||
|
Wait, aren't 500 to 600 Euros already about a thousand US dollars?
Hmm. That's interesting. Then my information must be outdated. It certainly doesn't feel like two-thirds where I live. A lot of homes around here don't even have Internet, but that's mainly because I live in a poor area. Don't get me wrong; I would like to watch stuff in HD. However, I do not think it's worth a thousand dollars. I will settle for something of lower quality (i.e., SD) if it means I don't have to pay as much. Incidentally, if you guys are any indication, this must mean that there will be a large number of used SDTVs available for someone like me to pick up. What exactly determines quality for a TV anyway? I suppose this means my eyes are not discerning, but the picture quality among the TVs I see displayed at places like Target and Sears look pretty much the same. The one thing I can see that's different is screen size. I would imagine some will break down more easily than others, and I would imagine the lowest-end TVs only go up to 720p and don't have HDMI outlets. I take good care of my electronics though, and the stuff that goes into my hands tend to last at LEAST several years longer than the manufacturers would expect. I actually do have something that would be considered an HDTV--a cute little Polaroid that doesn't do 1080p that I got for $300 in a clearance sale at Circuit City. I've had it for four and a half years, and it still works perfectly fine. The only thing bad is that I lost the remote by accident, but that's my own fault. |
||||
|
||||
|
Tamaria
Posts: 1512 Location: De Achterhoek |
|
|||
Nope, $1000 is about €750 right now. |
||||
|
||||
GWOtaku
 Posts: 678 |
|
|||
|
You don't need $1000 for a good HDTV. A perfectly good 32 inch TV can be had for around $500 give or take $50 if you shop smart. Not some cheap model either, I'm talking about a Samsung or a Sony.
|
||||
|
||||
The King of Harts
 Posts: 6712 Location: Mount Crawford, Virginia |
|
|||
|
Or, if you're really good like me, you can grab a 42" Vizio for $750. Walmart was running a special and I jumped on it immediately.
|
||||
|
||||
|
Greg Aubry
Posts: 224 Location: Detroit, MI |
|
|||
There are several metrics. Contrast ratio, black levels, color accuracy, refresh rate; these sort of things. At a certain price point and up, the differences become more and more subtle or minute to the point where the average consumer won't even notice them. Other factors to consider are the number of connections (most mid-range HDTVs have 2-4 HDMI inputs), screen finish (I'll NEVER understand why any TV maker would put a glossy finish on a flat-screen set), size and price. None of this is new, incidentally. Videophiles compared these features on old tube TVs as well. Lots of people swore by Trinitrons in the '90s for this reason. That having been said, even a median- to low-priced HDTV is going to look at least "very good" with proper calibration and the right connections between equipment and TV. That you can pick up a decent 32" set for $350-$600 has had a lot to do with the rate of adoption, I'd imagine. As it turns out, I just gave away the 25" tube TV that I bought way back in 1995; a Samsung. Fifteen years was a pretty solid product life, and it'll probably hang in there for at least another five. HDTVs tend not to live that long, unless you buy high-tier. (And even that's no guarantee.) My wife and I bought (get ready to shudder) an Olevia that is now totally crapping out on us. The price war sometimes means companies will use lousy circuit boards inside, resulting in "disposable" television sets. (For the cost of repairing the bad TV, you can buy a new one.) Buyer beware. |
||||
|
||||
 |
All times are GMT - 5 Hours |
|
|
|
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group