News Europe turns on to high-definition TV

So we're actually going to get HDTV then? Huzzah! This from VNUNet:

More than 4.5 million households in Europe will switch on to high-definition TV (HDTV) by 2008, a figure up by nearly 100 per cent from 50,000 at the end of 2003, research has claimed.

Analyst firm Datamonitor expects Germany, the UK and France to lead the adoption of HDTV. But it warned that take-up rates would initially be slow due to the high cost of HDTVs (currently around $4,900 across Europe) and the limited availability of high-definition content.

Current technology displays 576 lines, but HDTV will increase this to either 720 or 1,080 (depending on which standard is used by the broadcaster).

More here

720 progressive lines, or 1080 interlaced, IIRC.

 

It's all down to Sky now....

 

On Sky by 2006, aledgedly...

 

2 years to go, gives me time to save my pennies for a nice big telle or hd projector.
At least thats good news for us britts. I wounder how much a sky HD+ box is going to cost

 

i think its kinda sad that we gotta miss out on stuff while companies span out other releases... they have our whole lifes length and more already planned in what is going to be released and when.

its the same **** over and over.. MACH3 TURBO NOW IN BLUE.... WOW EVERYONE BUY IT!

2 months later...

NOW IN RED!!!

so we are gonna get BE THE FIRST TO GET HDTV... and it will only have stereo sound or something...

then be the first to get hdtv with 5.1

then be the first to get hdtv with 5.1 and setbox recording...

then hdtv will 'change'
ooh we have discovered that 30 more pixels of width gives us the perfect resolution. all your old tvs are now incompatible... buy our new tvs...

buy our new tv's with 5.1...

THEN...

buy our new tv's which support dual system uk hdtv... the old system and the new system with 30more pixels...

by then it will 2007 and usa would have invaded iran, and the kuwaities will be helping the iranian 'insurgents' by giving them weapons....

osama bin laden will be old news there'll obviously be a new guy by then, someone we can all relate too... has to have that 2007 designer stubble...

damn this future is gonna suck so much... and hdtv in the uk just made me realise

 

o......k


Personally, I can't wait.

 

it wasnt random, it just went a bit pearshaped around 1/3 through hehe

my point is dont you think we deserve these things when they are invented, rather than when a large corporation has decided they have milked us all they can using the last product?

im not gonna sit here and suck ass for hdtv, we should have already had it

 

i get what you said.corparations drip feed us new tech.so after a year they've milked the most amount of money out of us.while we are left with tech thats a year old.

 

I doubt thats the case, many of these new standards are competing and only the best wins. As such, the companies who design and implent these standards are in high competition with each other to better the technology at any price, the problem being that not enough thought is made for making a Standard-Standard that can be upgraded... like mods for games, a base standard which is usable but limited scope, after a year or two a new standard comes out that is updated but backwards compatable.

 

yeh ok but in reality thats not how it works

the inventions and new technology for the next 50+ years have already been planned, they just are in the release queue...

half the stuff you could imagine has already been invented and patented... but of course they arent gonna release 3dtv when flat screen is just getting popular... for example... get what i mean?

the technology boom youre talking about where everything was released as it was cutting edge happened about 170 years ago, started with the telegram and then as soon as things were invented they would share it with the world...

companies have got a lot more greedy since then

 

Explain then, why computer components are so large? if all the tech' has been invented, computers should be tiny - completely portable. There is no profit holding back that type of technology as larger size + transportation + exportation == lower profits.

Additionaly, are you suggesting that EVERYONE in EVERY sector of commerse is doing this? If so, you are (to be brutally honest) quite mad - companies do compete, some companies do go bankrupt because they have been out-done by their competition. If there was the tiniest way of getting a product out with the smallest inhancement, they'd do it - and charge you for the pleasure. It doesnt make sense for them to keep it back, not one bit.

IMHO you've got yourself a conspiracy theory that could just as easily explain alien abductions.

 

I dont know about this 50 years stuff and It is not all companies but I gurantee that ALOT of companys do hold back, and some of the time competitions a joke anyway. They do not want to privde us with ne tech when we are more than happy to pay for old stuff.

 

Thats true to a degree, but 50+ yrs? thats just madness.

This cant be true of all sections of commerse however - software for example is barely usable now (not a single peice of [major] software has be produced without a major bug or missing feature), holding back better software would be stupid. Also, hollywood is in competition with itself - all the graphical effects etc. there would be no sense holding technology back when they'd be willing to pay through the nose anyway.

Its probably true of only a select few, definitely not a worldwide conspiracy.

 

look at intel... two years ago they made a working 10Ghz cpu, if they released it then, they just wouldn't sell anything for a few years after, as they would have to wait until software was released that actually needed such high speeds (for the consumer market that is).

 

proof?

 

dont be ridiculous, dont you think the manufacturing costs of that would have been astronomical? they only sell what they can make and they can only make what is profitable and they can only gain profit by selling that which is not beyond the will of the consumer to purchase - would you have paid $5000 for a 10ghz processor?

besides, not everything has an application - only recently has 3Ghz actually felt the slightest bit sluggish. Hell, I still use 1ghz.

yes, some technology is held back, but not for reasons of dumping out old crap until we cant take any more - more that theres no market for it yet.

 

I like what maplin man said

It's totally true... we don't need digital television, we don't need widescreens, we don't need digital radio, we don't need hdtv...

All of these new things existing is nice and everything but it's a pain in the arse to be forced into upgrading. Why should my granny be forced to buy a digital radio because radio companies want to make a bit more cash by cramming more adverts into the same frequency range?

If anyone says "more choice" in any formed sentance I'll be mad.



Obviously I'll get one though. Mmm, gadgets.

 

they made it as part of their R&D plans, they made it to test out technologies (new and old alike), it was never intended for the mass market, or for the server market either for that fact.

have you ever compiled an OS? i do everything from source (nearly) and at the moment i've got 7 machines doing that for me(total of 9Ghz), and it's still slow. I used to have a dual system (burned one out) and i really notice the difference even though a second cpu won't make your pc run faster, it'll just allow it to do more processes at once. My pc has an average load of 50%, it's left on 24/7 as it's the houses file server. I'm the type of person that could use such technologies, it would mean my power bill would go gown. At nearly a ton a month it's a bit exesive

 

Digital radio is a big improvement... Worth the upgrade!

 

So what... we can see Dot Coton's wrinkles more clearly...