OTHER TECH

Turner has checked the bit rate DirecTV uses for its high-def signals and found nothing awry. The feeds from the major broadcast and pay-TV networks "have no reduction in bit rate," he says. "Anyone who says their resolution is no good doesn't know what he's talking about."

Yet Cohen is right when he says companies like DirecTV don't transmit 1080i HD in 1,920 x 1,080 format (DirecTV uses 1,440 x 1,080 instead). This wasn't an issue when most HDTVs could only reproduce images at about 1,000 pixels across and still isn't for 720p (1,280 x 720) sets or plasmas and LCDs with display resolutions such as 1,366 x 768 or 1,024 x 768. But today's fixed-pixel 1080p TVs can achieve full 1,920 x 1,080 resolution, making the picture on one of these displays less than optimal - unless you're using it to watch a 1080p Blu-ray Disc or HD DVD. In fact, whether you're seeing a degraded image or not depends on many factors, including the quality of the display, the performance of its deinterlacer and scaler, and the age and make of the encoders used at the point of signal origination.

While compression might leave legions of videophiles incensed, experts who track the issue think it's even less important than O.J.'s efforts to find the real killer. And so, apparently, does Philip Cohen. Despite his lawsuit, he hasn't canceled his DirecTV service and gone elsewhere. When it comes down to picture quality vs. content, content invariably wins. "The problem is, he's a big sports fan," says Cohen's attorney. "And DirecTV basically has the monopoly on the NFL."