7-13-07    New Antennas Pick Up High-Def TV for FREE!

I just saw the above headline in a newsletter, and it struck me that there must be a great many owners of new High Definition TVs that are convinced that they need to subscribe to either High Def Satellite or Cable service to enjoy their new sets to the full.  Not true. You can quite easily receive high def TV for free with an antenna.  Also not true is the concept that you need a special “digital antenna” or “high definition antenna” to pick up those channels.  Nope.  Nothing special is needed, just a good antenna.  In fact, the same good antenna that has always been necessary to pick up old analog TV channels clearly works fine for the new High Def channels too.  And the nice part is, once you’ve installed your antenna, TV is free.  No monthly charges.  Not a dime. 

So what does it cost to install an antenna?  Antennas cost from about $20 to over $100, and should be mounted high above ground, like on a roof top.  And you need good quality coax cable to bring the signals it captures to your TV.  A typical installation within a major city should cost around $200 or less…substantially less if you do it yourself. 

What about that TV antenna in your attic?  If it is in good shape and had at one time brought you good analog TV, why not give it a try?  We recently installed new cable from our 25 year old attic mounted TV antenna to our HD-TV, and we now get all the major channels and networks perfectly.  Oh, and by ‘perfectly’ I mean with better pictures than can be obtained from cable or satellite!  

Did I say better HD? Yep.  The reason is that cable and satellite providers must compress all those channels to get them to fit within the limits of their system.  Compression degrades the signal.  Off-air pickup is a direct link to the TV station, with no additional compression.

Don’t be fooled by those peddling HD antennas.  They have no more basis for the claim that their antennas are designed for HD than the old ‘analog’ antennas that said they were designed for ‘color’.  A good antenna is a good antenna.  Bigger is often better, as additional antenna elements “bring in” stations that may be farther away, or suffer from weak signals.  Bigger antennas with more elements also are more directional, which can help zero in on the strong direct signal from the TV station while ignoring a reflection of that signal from a building or mountain.  But if you live very close to the local stations, a large antenna may not work for you due to the overly high signal level it might provide.  Sometimes smaller is better too.

Contact Platinum for more details on how you can install a winning antenna that will get you free HD TV channels!

7/11/07 - SONY UNVEILS NEW "4K" DIGITAL CINEMA PROJECTOR

Now that I have your attention, sorry, it's for theaters not home theaters. But...have a look anyway (click here)! Then you might be intersted in my comments below.

I'm still amused at how hard engineers have to try to obtain a film-like image out of a digital system. You literally need several times film resolution to get the same resolution out of a fixed pixel system. There also was a strange comment in the press release about large capture formats, like 65mm. Hmmm! Who last did that? If memory serves, the last film shot on 65mm was Ron Howard's "Far and Away" in 1992. By the way, you'd need at least two of the new Sony SXRD 4K theater projectors to equal the Omnimax format on one of their domed screens.

4K projection is indeed the 'holy grail'. But there are two things that are amusing about this. First, perceived film resolution vs perceived digital video is already a moot point with 2K projection, mostly because by the time film hits the release print, it's been softened to under 1000 lines, so just figuring in the Nyquist theorem, 2K should do it just fine, if "as good as 35mm film" is the goal. Second, once you've dropped your pixel size below 1/60 of a degree of arc for the closest viewer, you're pretty much done, as the human eye can't do any better than that. But what theater ever really cared about the front row anyway? Screen perfs are bigger than 4K pixels! By several times! So if you projected a 4K image on a typical perfed screen would you end up with a moire pattern? So, theaters get new screens with that projector? Hope so.

Digital production might offer some advantage if 2K is held all the way through the chain, shooting through release. But, as Kodak is quick to point out, 35mm film has the ability to be significantly sharpened via software, where 2K digital only sharpens up to the pixel, then it's done. 4K production chains will be nice when they get here, along with the new lenses to match, etc., but one wonders if the extra cost is warranted, as we seem to be still satisfied with 35mm film as the reference target.

What really will drive all of this is the cost of installation vs the cost of operation and distribution. For distribution, a 35mm print is easily over $10K, while a hard drive big enough for a release is about $150. But theaters have to invest money to show that digital print/HDD. A new 35mm projector costs about $30, and runs nearly forever, except for relamping (my projector is older than me by about 20 years, runs like a new one). Sony didn't price their SXRD based 4K projector system, but current 2K DLP units are way over $100K each, still need to be relamped, and need periodic re-alignment.

I'm watching for studios and distribution companies to provide free digital projectors to small/medium theaters with network-based release distribution. The theater pays for maintenance of the system, the studios save enough on prints for one major film to outfit a whole bunch of theaters to play the digital version. The cost of putting in a digital projector system equals about 15-20 35mm release prints. So even a second run house is taken care of in a couple of months' worth of prints. Or perhaps they won't pay for the installation, but might offer some long term incentive/kickback program to digital theaters.

So, it's not really a 2K vs 4K question at all. The real holy grail is the $30K 2K digital projector. That would move the theater market to digital quite a bit faster.

So what does all this mean to us...the home theater guys? Better projectors, sure, but not in the affordable range for a while yet. Don't forget, though, that 2K at home or theater is really quite sufficient. Probably the biggest benefit to the home market will be not in the projectors, but in content distribution. Bicycling hard drives won't last long, so network based file distribution will win out. And that's what home theaters really need...good HD content at low cost without individual media.

By the way, current DLP and LCD projectors for home theaters match 2K performance quite well. And they even hit 'film-like' contrast ratios and curves too.