1080p: Don't Take the Hype Bait

Toshiba's sub-$500 first-generation HD DVD player is now shipping, with an RCA-branded counterpart poised to join it in the marketplace within a month. Meanwhile, Sony's first Blu-ray player is still listed at $1000, and won't be out until (at least) August 15^th. Mark my words; Sony's marketeers are going to spend the next few months trumpeting their planned player's 1080p output capability, both in an attempt to blunt HD DVD's first-to-market momentum (these first few HD DVD players have 1080-line interlaced, 60 field-per-second outputs, not 1080-line progressive-scan, 60 frame-per-second outputs) and to justify the BDP-S1's 2x larger price tag.

Take my advice; don't buy into the Sony hype. Why? HDTVExpert covers the part of the answer; Peter Putman's writeup echoes the point I made in in my recent cover story, that "even if a display accepts 1080p, the video processor might immediately discard half of the information to simplify its job, effectively transforming the signal into 1080i" (editor's note: or 540p). But here's more ammo. The vast majority of 1080p content available at the moment (including, I might add, all of the first wave of HD DVD discs) is 24 frame-per-second source material, either initially captured on film and then digitized, or recorded by a 24 frame-per-second-capable HD digital camcorder. The remainder is 30 frame-per-second content, from a high-def 1080p30 or 1080i60 (60 field-per-second) digicam source. In all of these cases, a HD DVD player is capable of progressive-to-interlace converting (if necessary) the material into a 1080i 60 field-per-second output without any pixel content or temporal information loss. This transformation includes (again if necessary) doing a 24-to-30 frame-per-second telecine transformation prior to the frame-to-field slice-and-dice, again with no generational loss.

At the television, a chip such as National Semiconductor's AVC2510 or AVC5000 is able to reverse the process and recreate the exact source material. This is possible because, bottom line, 1080p60 digicams don't yet exist. Industry scuttlebutt claims that prototype cameras will be showcased this upcoming week at the NAB show I'm currently at, but by the time the content captured by such digicams enters the market, you'll be on your second (or third, or….) generation of high-def optical disc player. Again, as I said in my recent cover story, "Future HD DVD players will likely be 1080p-capable; the fact that they're not now is negligible." So buy away, if you must, and use this comic strip as amusement (and inspiration for purchase justification). Or follow my lead and keep your money in your wallet until the format confusion sorts itself out, via attrition, opposing-camp compromise, universal-format players or some other means.