Legard No More, bring on the Brundle and DC show.

[Grizzly]

Ill agree that from 15' away SD looks nigh on the same as HD, on a small screen.

But to quantify just a little, normal TV or DVD create the image on screen from around 250 thousand dots max. Full HD uses over 2 million dots, at least 8x the data on the screen.

Try using a PC on a 480 line (SD) screen, it'd be a blur and your 'start' button would take up 1/3 of the screen. We've all been using computers that carry around double to 4x the quality of SD TV the last 15 years and we wouldn't manage without them.

 

[FB]

The best comparison I could give between SD and HD is the move from VHS to DVD. Remember the wow factor when you saw your first DVD? In my house if a program is on HD it's always watched or recorded in preference to the SD version.

I take the point on bit rate, I sure I remember reading somewhere that Sky have deliberately reduced the quality of SD transmissions to encourage more people to move to HD.

 

[fat jez]

I take the point on bit rate, I sure I remember reading somewhere that Sky have deliberately reduced the quality of SD transmissions to encourage more people to move to HD.

Sadly they've also reduced the bit rate on quite a few HD channels, although they are apparently using more "efficient" algorithms now. One piece of good news for people whose spouses can't tell the difference between the two formats and insist on watching SD versions of channels - Sky's next software release will apparently allow people to swap the positions of channels where an HD version of an SD channel exists.