Standard definition is dead?

siddrummer

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Does anyone seriously ever watch SD broadcasts unless absolutely unavoidable? I have sky HD and a Samsung ES8000 and can honestly say I rarely watch an SD broadcast now. To the point where unless its in HD I don't / cant watch it!
Anyone else got an allergic reaction to SD these days?
 
Yeah me too.

I got the HD bug 3 years ago, SD (imo) is pants on any tv. I can honestly say i dont watch any SD material anymore. It looks a mess.
 
Same here - with a good TV I can really see the difference.
 
I make a serious effort not to watch SD, I have a pj and at 100" size screen SD is awful, I have 100+ dvd's and have not watched one for at least 3yrs now. I only ever watch blurays on my pj, on the tv it's the same maybe have to watch sd very occasionally but only if not available in HD.
 
Yeah I avoid SD like the plague but you'd be surprised how many people can't tell the difference. I pointed out to my in laws recently that their tv had freeview hd and showed them BBC1 HD only for them to say it looked no different :facepalm:

I do wish the broadcasters and tv makers would make it easier to replace the main 5 SD channels with their hd equivalent. It seems so backwards having to type in numbers instead just flicking between 1-5.
 
Yeah I avoid SD like the plague but you'd be surprised how many people can't tell the difference. I pointed out to my in laws recently that their tv had freeview hd and showed them BBC1 HD only for them to say it looked no different :facepalm:
It depends on the broadcast and the upscaling.

On my setup, I have actually seen some pretty damn good SD broadcasts on BBC1 and BBC2 that, when upscaled by my HTPC, are almost comparable to the equivalent HD broadcast (even on my 59" panel). Most of the time the bitrate is pants though, and SD looks like poo regardless of the upscaling.

Most DVDs look acceptable upscaled to 1080p. But given the choice, I'll reach for a BD every time.
 
I watch a load of SD: Dave, the various +1 channels, ITV2.

Looks like **** at 50" but such is life. Now that I think about it I should get sky or virgin for the HD version of Dave.
 
Some is ok but avoid most of it now on my 51".

We watch DVD upstairs on a 32" LCD and it looks great, bluray only on on my 51" downstairs.
 
I have a pioneer kuro 60 in my lounge and although I watch mainly hd material on it I have to say that all DVDs played on it via my amp (up scaling) are more than good enough to enjoy....I agree that some SD channels leave much to be desired but SD in my inion is far from dead.

Saying that my three newish plasmas All have either Freeview or freesat HD tuners and the picture from the FTA HD channels are amazing (in fact this was the reason I picked these screens over any others) but we still watch a lot of SD material on these screens
 
dazwaldo said:
Yeah I avoid SD like the plague but you'd be surprised how many people can't tell the difference. I pointed out to my in laws recently that their tv had freeview hd and showed them BBC1 HD only for them to say it looked no different :facepalm:

I would also point them in the direction of the nearest "Specsavers"!
 
how can you avoid watching sd with so many classic programs in sd? The golden era of tv (70s-80s) is sd! The Sweeney, Hill Street Blues etc... Do they look any better when upscaled?
 
I must admit I'm not really that bothered by picture quality, when content quality is so abysmal I've greater concerns that the standard of the trite that bleats through the tv most days
 
I must admit I'm not really that bothered by picture quality, when content quality is so abysmal I've greater concerns that the standard of the trite that bleats through the tv most days

Interesting observation , HD all the way for me if I can ...
 
I have a 64" Samsung TV and I think the upscaling must be excellent because I don't have a problem with SD broadcasts. HD is better, but SD still looks absolutely fine.
 
I must admit I'm not really that bothered by picture quality, when content quality is so abysmal I've greater concerns that the standard of the trite that bleats through the tv most days

True enough mate! I don't watch much modern telly because of this. Isn't it sad that as picture quality has increased, the quality of what's actually on has decreased dramatically?!:(
 
There aren't any good programmes on TV anyway! I am selling my 42" Panasonic E6 (which has great SD PQ) because its too small and have replaced it with a Samsung F5000 46". I realised quite quickly that the versatility of the E6 was just pointless because there was nothing I wanted to watch! And when watching blu ray it was just too small. Not a good compromise at all. I mean how many repeats of Top Gear can you watch?! They are even showing repeats of Blackadder on BBC2!! So I have decided to go for a bigger TV and just use it for HD channels, blu ray and gaming. I will miss BBC4 though because they usually have some great stuff on.
 
I don't mind quality repeats. I was talking more about x-factor etc. rubbish, and stuff like that. Why do you need to see that in hi-def?! Sport is the main new content I watch (football/F1). I like my tv shows 70s/80s style (Knightmare/Starsky & Hutch, Blakes 7 etc).
 
I wish standard definition was dead.

Most of the "hd" content on the likes of sky etc is barely passable.

As most of you are aware you need blu-ray to really get the most out of your tv, and even then some blu ray transfers are horrible.

I tend to use netflix often and their 1080p streaming is better than the quality I get from the sky hd channels.

But yes in answering the original post I have an allergy to sd and avoid watching it at all costs, despite my tv having very good sd processing and scaling it still looks like ****.
 
Erm, there aren't that many HD channels in comparison to SD ones.

But when it comes to watching films, I never watch DVDs now if a Blu-Ray version is available.

My upstairs SONY 40" V4000 handles SD content awfully, but for HD it's still superb. My downstairs LG 50" PK350, with the bigger screen size, actually handles SD well, but HD looks obviously better.
 
SD will die in 10 years !!!! Many many countries in Europe and Asia are still launching premium SD channels every single day...so NO it will not Die!!!
When 4k TV comes around...maybe SD will be replaced by 720p
 
Maybe but not guaranteed, only when hd is cheaper to make than sd will it ever replace it. Look at cameras for how this will happen
 
Maybe but not guaranteed, only when hd is cheaper to make than sd will it ever replace it. Look at cameras for how this will happen
Most stuff is recorded in HD now, but yes, old stuff is still shown in SD even on supposedly HD channels (which is why I hate BBC2 HD replacing BBC HD - there's no real guarantee of HD content anymore).
SD channels won't disappear easily I feel, even if the bandwidth was increased. My suspicion is that the government/Ofcom would rather rake in money from licensing hordes of crappy SD channels rather than a few good HD ones.
 
As a Freesat user rather than a Sky customer, I still watch a ton of SD content.

Until the majority of free-to-air channels are available in HD versions people will still be watching SD. And upgrading all those channels looks pretty remote at the moment. I have no idea why it looks to be such a long way off: it's not like HD is a brand-new technology. It's been around for years now, and yet many channels still have to make an HD offering. Something of a pet irritation of mine.

It's why I still have a CRT screen in the house. If almost everything was available in HD and/or upscaling on cheap sets was solid, I wouldn't feel the need.
 
Gonna stick up a little for SD here.....although my comments are based on having a decent upscaling TV and are aimed at higher bit-rate channels....

Whilst obviously, on Freeview, which is main viewing platform, you've got BBC1/2/ITV/CH4 HD, their SD counterparts are not at all bad - perfectly watchable on my new Sony 55" W9 set... ok - why would you watch SD when the same content is on HD - true - of course - but SD can sometimes look very good indeed depending on the source and equipment used to upscale.

Some of the channels like Dave or ITV3 etc don't tend to look as good, but they generally seem to be broadcasting on a lower bit-rate so the SD images here will look poorer on a huge LCD/LED/Plasma screen, but overall, SD can be quite ok - I watch a lot of older archive TV stuff (as well as BBC4 and BBC3 regularly) and I dont have many complaints regarding the quality of the image on this SD material..... certainly not on my TV anyhow!
 

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