Editing 732: HDTV

{{comic
| number    = 732
| date      = April 26, 2010
| title     = HDTV
| image     = hdtv.png
| titletext = We're also stuck with blurry, juddery, slow-panning 24fps movies forever because (thanks to 60fps home video) people associate high framerates with camcorders and cheap sitcoms, and thus think good framerates look fake.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic pokes fun at the differing standard between image quality for television sets and other electronic devices, even though both are based on essentially the same standards. When rating television sets, a {{w|1080p}} screen, that is, a screen 1,920 pixels wide and 1,080 pixels tall with progressive scan, is considered impressive.
In comparison, high-end smartphones in late 2009/early 2010 had 480×800 resolution (with horizontal resolution of 1,920 pixels being more than twice of 800 pixels). As of the comic's publishing date, there had been even higher resolution monitors available (30-inch diagonal 2,560 by 1,600 pixels and 22-inch diagonal 3,840 by 2,400 pixels).
In 2004, common desktop monitors had WUXGA resolution of 1,920 wide by 1,200 pixels tall, which is how the TV "almost" (but not quite) has the same resolution as an upper midrange monitor would already have six years earlier.

Soon after the comic's publishing date in 2010, phones with long edge resolution approaching 1,000 pixels were being announced. The first smartphone with a 5-inch full HD screen was announced in November 2012.

The title texts explains another disagreement involving images and popular opinion. The feeling that a viewer gets from watching a film in a theatre is different from the feeling from a home film, or again, between a serialized programme from an international television channel and a locally-broadcast programme. The disparity is that the small-time productions actually implement better-quality equipment than the big-time productions, in terms of higher frame rate (although not in image fidelity or other respects). However the small productions really are cheaper in other respects, and this feeling is transferred to the look of high frame rates, thanks to videotapes often being used instead of film stock. Low frame rates on more big budget films (and all old, nostalgic productions before high frame rates were commercially possible) mean low frame rates are associated with quality, despite not being as able to capture as much motion as better-quality high frame rates. Blur, judder, and slow pans are mostly absent in high-frame rate productions. This is changing, however, since the major films {{w|The Hobbit}} and {{w|Avatar 2}} were shot with higher framerates.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is pointing to a huge flatscreen HDTV on the wall. His friend is holding a cell phone.]
:Cueball (HDTV Owner): Check out my new HDTV-a beautiful, high-def 1080p.
:Friend: Wow, that's over ''TWICE'' the horizontal resolution of my cell phone.
:Friend: In fact, it almost beats the LCD monitor I got in 2004.
:[Caption below the panel:] It baffles me that people find HDTV impressive.
{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]