Im confused, (hdtv)

[Struggler]

Forgive me if im being very ignorant. but...

when doing some research into HDTV's for myself, i look that the pixel depth is 1920x1080,

but hang on, my computer at home 1280x1080, and it was far from the first flat computer monitors to come out. So does this mean that High Definition media has been around for over a decade?? with windows utilizing the screen resolution on this computer, and its faaar from new lol.

looks to me like theyve strapped a tuner to the back of a computer monitor, announced that ONE day they'll broadcast all television in it, and called it HDTV, and now the entire worlds going crazy for it. but the actual high definition bit is not even new technology, whenever your using a computer you are infact experiencing high definition.

so i looked up the actual definition of it, and it is (as im sure many of your already know) just refering to the actual broadcasting of the TV, and not the tvs. hence why all proper adverts for TVs say 'HD ready'. Makes sence, but kinda brings the hype down a notch.

and then they thought they'd bust out the old reels to movies they filmed (once again in very high definion) and put them on DVDs for people to watch on theyre new tvs...(once again they had the technology to do this years ago to watch on computers :S. but still arguably the best part of high definition so far (bar xbox 360 and ps3).

but this still begs the question, why on earth are so many other media companys advertising things as HD?? Cameras?? theyve been well over 1920x1080 since 2 mega pixels?? graphics cards are the same story. and printers?? viedo cameras?? all of which have had a defininition of x amonut of pixels per cm, (which in the case of cameras and printers, is far over that of HD 1080p)

seems that the companies are loving the world lapping up this HD frenzy.
Am i getting something awfully wrong?? or is everyone relabeling everyhing thats had a high pixel depth for years as HD so people will buy it lol.

please explain??

 

[Struggler]

Just to correct that a little bit,

To be a HDTV the tv itself does accually need to meet a few criteria,

needs to be widescreen (not new technology)
needs to be able to display 1920x1080interlinked for full hd (not new technology)
needs to have some form of dolby surround sound (not new technology)

infact the only piece of new technology is the decoder that recieves the HD signal, which begs even more questions as to how cameras and other items have suddenly 'Become HD'?????

 

[EngineerD]

The fact that video is being encoded in 1920x1080 is the new technology, new because it takes a large amount of processing and disk space/bandwidth. Try getting a computer more than 3 years old to play 1080p video smoothly, not easy!

Cameras being advertised as HD is sometimes referring to the fact they can record 720p video, which is good, however some do say 1080 still image HD which is nothing new at all but looks good on a nice logo.

 

[Keydogg]

+1 ^^ and also they all mention HD now because if people hear the word HD they automatically think its the dogs. (Joe public I mean).