HDTV Setup

This time last year, we tested 61 2006 HDTVs to learn how they process all the detail contained within 1080i, the most common high-definition broadcast format. It's the highest resolution format the majority of HD broadcasters and cable channels use, including CBS, NBC, CW, HBO, and Showtime. The results of our 2006 tests were quite disappointing; less than half of the HDTVs were able to properly process the interlaced broadcast signal to the TV's native, progressive resolution. This year, we have expanded our testing to include 74 HDTVs that range from 19 to 67 inches. We have added a new test for 1080p displays to judge their resolution with motion as compared to their stationary resolution. This test illustrates how all HDTVs lower the amount of detail you can see when the camera is panning or where there is action in a scene, such as on a football field. More on this later.

The current top HDTV broadcast resolution is 1080i (interlaced). Most television and cable networks use it, including CBS, NBC, the WB, HBO, Showtime, HDNet, The Movie Channel, Starz HDTV, and others. What happens to this HDTV signal when one of the latest digital HDTVs processes it? Does it take the full 1,080 lines of transmitted resolution, change the signal from interlaced to progressive (called deinterlacing), detect and compensate for motion, and send it to the screen, as it should? Or does the display's processor cheat you out of seeing all the detail within the broadcast?

Every year, I throw a Super Bowl party. This year I hosted an AFC Championship party instead because I wanted to show my friends championship football in HD. The only post-season game I knew I could receive in HD was CBS's broadcast of the AFC Championship, which I pulled in using an off-air antenna. My friends, predictably, were blown away by high-def football.

BG: What was your goal in founding the Imaging Science Foundation (ISF)?

You used to be able to buy a TV, plug it into an antenna or cable outlet, and start flipping channels. It was an amazingly simple system. Digital television and its high-resolution subsystem, high-definition television, aren't quite as plug-and-play . . . yet. Antennas only pick up high-def signals in some markets; cable usually doesn't pick them up at all. Satellite seems like a good bet, but it doesn't offer everything. Plus, certain DTV tuners don't work with certain displays. It's enough to drive any self-respecting videophile to drink (not that we'd fault you for that). But there is hope. The following three-step guide is intended to make setting up an HDTV system easier than following that other multistep program. First, figure out what sources are available to you, then find a tuner that works with those sources. Finally, buy a high-definition display that works with that tuner.

There is a lot of confusion for most people as to what they should look for when buying a TV. With the plethora of acronyms, abbreviations, nomenclatures, technologies, and other multisyllabic synonyms for "huh?" this is hardly surprising. While we feel, as you would expect, that prodigious study of Home Theater magazine would educate you to make an informed decision, we also appreciate the need for a boiled-down version for those new to the home theater world—the Cliffs Notes version, if you will. Well, let us oblige.