Enterprise in HDTV format!

[Jerrek]

http://www.startrek.com/startrek/view/news/article/3218.html

10.15.2003
Enterprise Gets the HDTV Treatment

Get ready for high definition Star Trek: Enterprise. UPN and CBS have partnered with Zenith to broadcast primetime programming in the high definition format. This is UPN's first year offering HDTV programming.

UPN will kick things off tonight with HDTV broadcasts of the Enterprise episode "Exile," as well as the new episode of Jake 2.0 (8:00-10:00 p.m./PT). "Star Trek: Enterprise and Jake 2.0 are the perfect shows for UPN to make its high definition television debut as we showcase the spectacular special visual effects of these shows with the richness and clarity of HDTV images," said UPN Entertainment President Dawn Ostroff in a press release. "This is just the beginning, and we're looking forward to expanding our high-definition broadcast to other nights of our schedule."

Enterprise and Jake 2.0 will be produced in HDTV's highest definition format, 1080i. According to the press release, "The stunning and intense special visual effects of both series will be sharper and more amazing with the clarity of 1080 lines of picture resolution. Each line contains 1,920 picture elements for a total image quality of over two million picture elements, which is six times sharper than standard definition television."

UPN also plans to broadcast select feature films presented on the UPN Movie Friday in HDTV -- the first will be the broadcast network premiere of "Double Take" on Friday, October 24 at 8 p.m./PT. (emphasis added)


So tonight's episode will be the first HDTV episode aired. I'm anxious to see how it goes.

Anyone here have a HDTV receiver? Or experience with HDTV?

[Xaccers]

From what I've heard, HDTV is only slightly better than PAL, so there's no call for it over here.
HDTV has got to be a vast improvement on NTSC

[Jerrek]

You're wrong. NTSC and PAL are basically the same.

NTSC - 525 lines, refreshes at 60 Hz
PAL - 625 lines, refreshes at 50 Hz

HDTV - 1,080 lines

HDTV is also digital and in a different aspect ratio. The onscreen resolution is 1,920 x 1080, which is more than my monitor can do.

(HDTV has a higher quality than DVDs)

[Xaccers]

I'm just reporting what I heard form the long dull discusion about it on .com a while back.

[Stuart]

Actually, I think the reason we don't have it here (and AFAIK there are no plans to introduce it here either) in England is that when our Government was allocating the licences for digital TV, they offered to switch to HDTV at the same time, but the broadcasters complained it would cost too much to change their equipment. They also wanted the extra space for different channels (they can get three or four standard definition channels in the bandwidth occupied by one HD channel).

I could be wrong though.

[Lew]

We do have widescreen broadcasting with digital TV though, so at least we can get a nice anamorphic picture (now that Sky are finally broadcasting in widescreen). Seasons 1 and 2 were shown in 4:3 format on Sky :( (Channel 4 show it in widescreen though)