How can you tell...

[dreamshark]

If the channel you're watching is HD or normal? Assuming that the signal is coming in on an antenna, not cable or satellite.

Comments

[carbonel]

Aspect ratio. Regular TV picture is almost square; HD TV uses a 16:9 ratio, and is much more rectangular.

Also, assuming you're watching it on an HD TV, it'll look much crisper -- as if you had made the final adjustment on a telescope and it came into clear focus.

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

Well, of course I was hoping that it would look much better, but it didn't, it looked crappy. What I was trying to figure out was whether:

1) it looked crappy because the little antenna I'd bought wasn't powerful enough.

or

2) it looked crappy because I was actually watching low-res analog TV on a big screen.

Fortunately it turned out to be #2. I found the answer I was looking for in (who da guessed it?) the user manual. You push the Info button and a display pops up with, among other things, the resolution of the display. It took me a while to figure out how to get to an HD station, but when I finally did the results were amazing. Wow.

And you have to set the aspect ratio manually, so it's not much help in figuring out whether you've found an HD transmission or not. Yes, the screen looks distorted when the aspect ratio is wrong, but this is of very little help when you're looking at Saturday morning cartoons. :-)

[carbonel]

I'm glad you got it working properly. And yes, the difference between HD and low-res is really pretty wow.

As someone who used to do technical writing, I'm entirely in agreement with the concept of RTFM.

[barondave.livejournal.com]

As above. If you have a 16:9 screen and don't set it to "Zoom" (or somesuch), regular tv looks stretched and HD will fill the screen. Also, it will probably look better. Analog tv is 4:3, the size of the screen on current sets.

Also sound, if you have a 5.1 setup.

Plus, HD smells better. It's in the specs.

[ckd]

Some TVs may also have a "display" or "info" button on the remote which will show among other things the resolution you're getting. (720p, 1080i, or 1080p are HD; 480i or 480p are standard definition. The number is how many lines fill the screen from top to bottom.)

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

Bingo. :-)