sky and HDMI connection,

[ijd]

yes i did, still think it will be a long time before HD is the norm,i wanted a good picture now,and for my money that was what i purchased,i am sure in about 5 or six years when the rest of my equipment is HD compatible then i will make the switch.but this will be when the prices drop and the HD format is more widely available,as i say i wanted the best picture i could get for my money now and not have a compromise in the hope of what i actually bought would fill my needs in a few years, i would always buy on what is presented before me rather than what is thought to be the future

[ijd]

i am pretty sure the GA4E was considerably more expensive, some people have mentioned the ga5 was a mistake for sharp, i disagree although i never got to see the ga4,the sales guy at capital sounds/unbeatable.com god rest their souls told me that the qualities that made this set so special were put into the ga5 which made the PQ what it is, of course if it was HD for the same price i would still have gone with it,just that standing next to a sagem, LG, toshiba(suprise) and another brand i cannot remember the sharp stood out, plus the sharp was the only set offering component,which was important to me for my dvd which is a sony s725p. all this couple into my yamaha vs10 makes me very happy.

[Starburst]

Originally Posted by Nick_UK

I'm sure I remember reading somewhere that HDCP was going to be on the SKY HD box, because the movie companies had insisted upon it. Was I dreaming ?

HDMI was going to be the only connection offered for HD output as required by mainly US distributors who obviously don't like the idea of people copying digital sources and by using HDCP they hope to prevent this

However SKY I expect have pointed out that in the UK there is an established non HDCP enabled market and they and the US companies can not afford to ignore them with launch of HD.
The failure to force the broadcast flag onto the US consumer probably also gave SKY some leverage in the negotiation/discussion.

So a compromise seems to have been worked out with the first SKY+ HD allowing both component and HDMI to supply HD to a suitable display however at this time SKY have said they will allow this on all their channels but that does not stop a third party broadcaster from only allowing HDMI.
The component option is only expected to be on the first generation STB's which could mean the option is gone for new STB's which may come into play after X months or X amount of the original are sold.
That is why buying HD ready is the safe bet

Interesting to see how the Premiere STB will handle component/hdmi options.

[ijd]

one other point,having not being able to audition HD on a set is surely buying blind, how can viewing a set on an analogue signal be reprasentative of what it would be like on a digital signal,it is a little bit like choosing your set without actualy hearing the sound, just because it performs task A satisfactually does not mean it performs task B satisfacually, IE good picture but awful sound, ok i know the digital signal will be a improvement of the digital so the formulae must be that the HD will be better than SD, but how do we know that set A is not a patch on set B when it comes down to the HD format and yet both sets could well be comparable when set to SD.

even with this in mind what tricks might come up when dvd or other sources are released??

[ianh64]

Because HD feeds have been around for ages, be it a PC, upscaling DVD player or whatever. So an upscaling DVD player may not be native HD, but its going to sort out the men from the boys and be a very respectable indicator of what the display is or is not capable of.