I Got Bit

I’ve finally been introduced to the madness that is HDTV. I guess I’ve been “HD-ready” for a while now — the 50-something inch projection TV downstairs supposedly supports 720p and 1080i, while the 37 inch LCD I have in my office area supports up to 1080p — but I haven’t had much high-def content. Sure, I could play Counter-Strike at 1900×1080, but that was about it.

This weekend, however, I bought a combined ATSC/NTSC tuner card for my PC. By the time I got it setup, there was about two minutes left in the football game that was on — and that two minutes completely sold me. I’m not really sure why (I should have expected it, being digital), but, more than anything, I was impressed by the fact that there was nothing lost in the “TV”->PC conversion. Because, well, there isn’t any.

Now I’m obsessed with finding shows that are available in HD. In fact, for the first time, I’m considering upgrading to digital cable to get more HD channels. Even the rabbit ears precariously balancing on top of my lap aren’t deterring me.

4 Comments so far

  1. n1zyy on September 12th, 2007

    We’ve had HDTV for a while now. Even at home, we’re close enough to Boston that an antenna in the garage gets us all the local stations in HD. Most of the shows I love (e.g., House) are on one of those big networks anyway. We get a few basic HD channels over cable, too.

    We just got an amazing LCD TV for the room at school. (Thanks, Kyle!) I loved playing things like Dead Rising on the Xbox 360. (Aside: Dead Rising was initially being blamed for killing a lot of Xboxes… Apparently it made the most ‘intense’ use of the machine ever.) With the new TV, output via VGA, we’re seeing it at the maximum possible resolution. And I can sit about 2′ away and not notice any lack of quality.

    The “problem” is that it’s like upgrading from a CRT to an LCD at native resolution for a computer: all of a sudden, you can’t go back without dwelling on how hideous it is. I love the Wii, it has some incredible games. But boy is the quality bad. I’d never noticed before.

  2. andrew on September 12th, 2007

    Uh, the antenna is balancing on my lamp. I do not sit around watching TV with an antenna on my lap.

  3. n1zyy on September 12th, 2007

    Sadly, I just accepted it as normal the way it was.

  4. Mr. T on September 13th, 2007

    So did I.

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