Will Standard-Def still be around?

I do a lot of small shoots for small non-profits and they have no use for HD right now. They just want to pop in the footage and watch on there computers. SD will still be around especially for internet purposes because HD is overkill sometimes for the quick little podcast.
 
The thing that annoys me is: I have an HDTV and if I compare the picture to my old Sony CRT monitor (a PVM), the picture looks worse. The whole thing is a scam. I spent all this money on a HVX which can shoot full HD (cough, sort of), and my old work looks better in SD. We've been had. I will now replace the HDTV with the 1980s monitor and live like a technophobe hermit, watching VHS tapes exclusively.

OK - that is a lie. VHS never looked good. We should have been using Betamax. It never ends....
 
evilken said:
The thing that annoys me is: I have an HDTV and if I compare the picture to my old Sony CRT monitor (a PVM), the picture looks worse. The whole thing is a scam. I spent all this money on a HVX which can shoot full HD (cough, sort of), and my old work looks better in SD. We've been had. I will now replace the HDTV with the 1980s monitor and live like a technophobe hermit, watching VHS tapes exclusively.

OK - that is a lie. VHS never looked good. We should have been using Betamax. It never ends....
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It is a horror, but it is true that at the right distance to display diagonal ratio that you simply cannot see the difference. What you will find is that with HD you can move the TV closer, and be able to have the TV take up more of your vision.

there are also results that show that a good camera with good imagers good res, and effective film making will result in better images on a lower quality screen.....but then again you can have even better images on a better screen with a better camera when you film well....

In the end it's more about preference then anything....lots of people loved Blair Witch, while I HATE IT....Do what you want....the only thing I think anyone should avoid is the blocky digital encoding problems, and Cmos rolling shutter BS.
 
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I have an HDTV and if I compare the picture to my old Sony CRT monitor (a PVM), the picture looks worse
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youre not comparing apples to apples here. all HDTVS (at least plasmas and lcds) look crappy displaying SD content. and your "old Sony" cant play back HD. so this particular comparison doesnt really stand up.
 
wgzn said:
youre not comparing apples to apples here. all HDTVS (at least plasmas and lcds) look crappy displaying SD content. and your "old Sony" cant play back HD. so this particular comparison doesnt really stand up.
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I tried playing HD on the old Sony using the component output from the HVX. Unfortunately it simply displayed a series of strange lines and flickered. But it didn't take this lying down. In a second test I shot some 4:3 footage on the HVX and the old Sony displayed it in the correct aspect ratio, whereas my HDTV stretched the footage out sideways - which made the actors look fat. No one want that.
 
Unfortunately it simply displayed a series of strange lines and flickered
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yeah. thats because your sony is NOT AN HD MONITOR!

In a second test I shot some 4:3 footage on the HVX and the old Sony displayed it in the correct aspect ratio, whereas my HDTV stretched the footage out sideways - which made the actors look fat. No one want that.
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the 4:3 from your HVX is SD thats why it worked on the sony monitor. and every widescreen HDTV ive ever seen has had a 4:3 display setting. if you feed a 16:9 display 4:3 content - OF COURSE ITS GOING TO BE STRETCHED!

you cant blame the format for your not taking time to consult the manual
 
Nick Walters said:
Like some have said....stations are upconverting...How many? Probably thousands. They are required to BROADCAST in HD....
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Um, no. When the switchover happens (now scheduled for June-something?), they will be required to broadcast in DIGITAL, not necessarily HD.
 
wgzn said:
youre not comparing apples to apples here. all HDTVS (at least plasmas and lcds) look crappy displaying SD content. and your "old Sony" cant play back HD. so this particular comparison doesnt really stand up.
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While SD broadcast does tend to look crappy on HDTV sets, much SD content on DVD can look positively beautiful when displayed on HDTV sets.
 
KMR said:
While SD broadcast does tend to look crappy on HDTV sets, much SD content on DVD can look positively beautiful when displayed on HDTV sets.
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I know what you mean. I have actually played back several things on my HDTV that were shot at 480p and they look great!
 
Just to make it clear, 480i is the requirement for digital transmission.

At the end of the day the facts still hold...people want hi def broadcasts, and the stations will deliver it whether it's true 720/1080 or not. This means they will continue utilizing the tools they have on hand, and bring in the cheapest solutions to acheive their goal: Hi-Def....they will, are, and will continue to upconvert their SD content to 720 or 1080.

At the end of the day the facts still hold : SD is not dying any time soon, whether it be as a transmission standard, a recording scheme, part of a workflow, etc....

Now if we were to have a discussion about a specific section of this we might come to a conclusion that SD is dieing, but only in a cetain piece of the SD puzzle....Like say prosumer entry level cameras, then yes I can see SD in that particular scenario being dead...in the manufacturing world in the segment of prosumer entry level cameras.
 
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please realize I didn't do any research into required standards, but have made assumptions to construct my overall optinion....I really wish you would have realized this, as now we've both just wasted two posts.
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Why would you ever say that Nick wasted a post by correcting an incorrect statement? If anything it helped clarify the switch to dtv that people still might not understand.
 
I don't know if anyone pointed this out, but SD is still great for web delivery. If your client is going to shrink it down to 320x240 or even 640X480 then SD looks great on the web.
 
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