Video Asylum

Posted by Joe Murphy Jr (A) on August 02, 2008 at 23:54:25

Despite the fact that it won't be Blu-ray quality* (DISH Network should rethink its blatantly false advertising), 1080p is now available via their satellite system with compatible receivers and DVRs. Not to be outdone, DirectTV will enter the 1080p game later this year as well.

The question is, how can they do this? I mean, seriously, a few people in this forum stated that 1080p would never be available due to standards/ATSC/their mom said/other BULLSHIT reasons. It won't be long before the cable companies begin their rollout of 1080p programming and then, "Oh My God!", the world will surely come to an end when we get...

OTA 1080p.

* 1920x1080p24 actually uses less bandwidth than 1920x1080i60: that's actually a good thing when bandwidth/transfer rate/storage capacity is an issue. However, Dish Network has a problem if they continue to say Blu-ray quality because the compression ratio, how much real information/detail/data is thrown away per video frame/field, is higher than Blu-ray. These providers are limited in the amount of bandwidth that they will allow for each HD channel. Blu-ray peak rates for the video can go as high as 40Mb/s. In order to be Blu-ray quality, other providers will have to match or at least come close to those numbers and that's not going to happen anytime soon, if ever. What about audio? Well, Warner Bros would be proud, as they're offering good ol' Dolby Digital crap (that's not High Resolution audio), unlike Blu-ray which offers 6 - 8 channels of uncompressed or lossless audio and reserves a minimum of 8Mb/s for audio (Blu-ray peak transfer rate = 54Mb/s = 40Mb/s peak video + 8Mb/s minimum audio + 6Mb/s read ahead/overhead). Dish Network raising the video bar to 1080p is a good thing, but the false advertising is not.

• 1080p4U looozaaas   (Open in New Window)