[Discuss] OT: HD TV capture and bittorrent

[Adam Parkin]

R. Langkamer wrote:
>     This is a very good question. While I have watched TV shows 
> purportedly broadcasted in HD, I have no frame of reference. My "analog" 
> TV is nothing more than a 3 digital comb "tube" style TV. While I have 
> noticed that HD TV content on my TV is crisper in colour and very vivid 
> in detail, I don't really know if it is HD TV. As far as I know, HD 
> content is only truly HD content if created in HD format.

Somebody please correct me if I'm wrong, but just because when you 
download a show off of Bittorrent and it was recorded off of a HD signal 
doesn't mean that *you're* watching it in HD.  An HDTV signal is 
typically 720 or 1080 horizontal lines of resolution, whereas your 
typical AVI you'd find off of a torrent is usually in the 400-ish 
horizontal resolution (512x384 seems to be a common resolution) which is 
about the same as SDTV.  So while the recorded show was originally 
broadcast in 720/1080p, the encoded AVI (or whatever format you grab) is 
typically a much lower resolution.

It certainly is possible to download shows which are true 720p 
resolution (ie the encoded downloaded file is truly 720 horizontal lines 
of resolution), but then the problem becomes how do you play it on your 
TV as a HD signal (for example, if you use a typical TV-out like what is 
found on most video cards nowadays, the full computer resolution is 
usually scaled down to SDTV resolution before being displayed on the TV, 
so you're still not seeing a true HD signal).
-- 
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Adam Parkin
E-mail: pzelnip at gmail.com
Blog: http://pzelnip.blogspot.com/
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