DVD sales figures: WIDE SCREEN vs FULL

[Welverin]

In point of fact, most of the video afficianados I know claim that digital cable's signal is much worse for picture quality than analog, at least currently.

And there are people that thnk records sound better to cd's, but does it really matter to us normal people?

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

And there are people that thnk records sound better to cd's, but does it really matter to us normal people?

But, unlike the record vs. cd issue, the math often supports analog cable over digital. Most stations on your digital cable are analog broadcasts converted to digital. So there's no base difference. Plus, the digital infrastructure is pretty shoddy in most places (like where I live) such that you get a LOT of artifacts and skips in your digital signal, much more so than analog. Doesn't matter if the picture is marginally clearer if it wonks out every 10 or 15 seconds while the analog one is stable.

 

[John Crichton]

Digital cable is really only good for more channels. The picture quality doesn't noticeably improve with digital cable. The only way to get a better picture from a broadcast is from satellite for now. The TV receiving the signal does make a difference, but not that much.

 

[mojo1701]

Digital cable is really only good for more channels.

I second that. When I first got my Hi-speed, it came with 2 months free digital cable. All it had was certain stations that did reruns of old shows (Gilligan's Island, Batman), or the GameShow network (although I wish I still had that). There wasn't a noticeable difference, especially considering that the old shows were lesser picture quality.

 

[WizarDru]

And there are people that thnk records sound better to cd's, but does it really matter to us normal people?

As Canis mentions, I'm not talking about 'sounds richer'...I'm talking about blocky images and bad artifacting, particularly if the signal comes over poor transmission equipment.

In some cases, digital cable channels are decompressed and then recompressed, creating visual problems and reducing quality. In others, the image is assembled in squares, and you can see the borders/stitches, making lots of strange artifacting, and so forth.
In my local market with Comcast, there are complaints of slowdowns during peak broadcast hours, audio mis-sync, and other problems.

So yeah, it makes a big difference to everyone, not just video die-hards.

 

[KenM]

They should have full screen and wide screen options in DVDs.

Some DVD's do. The first princess Bride was a double sided DVD, one had widescreen, the other P&S. Shrek's 2 DVD set is like that, too. One DVD widescreen, the other full.
I prefer widescreen, you miss too much with P&S IMO. I have a 27 inch TV, so its not too bad. I'm saving for one of those 42 inch plasma TV's. My Girlfriend likes fullscreen, but I have a soution. My DVD player has a feature called Zoom, where you can fit the picture to the screen. Yes it changes Widescreen to P&S, but I only do that when She watches it with me. I think most DVD players have that zoom feature.

 

[S'mon]

Maybe it's because our TV system uses a higher quality broadcast, but digital does make a big difference to picture quality in the UK. With a digital feed a cheap TV screen looks comparable to a Sony trinitron on analogue broadcast. I've noticed that TV shows like Star Trek TNG recorded off digital (or off broadcast to my little old Trinitron) onto video look a lot better than the analogue STTNG videos I actually paid for.