Consumers Are Morons

Why the hell do you put up with this?

There was a post on "Ars Technica" from someone trying to diagnose their crappy HDTV experience. Ok, this is television. T-frickin-V. Since cable-ready homes became commonplace some 30 or more years ago, TV has been ever more plug-and-play. It seemed to reach a peak when we didn't need external cable boxes anymore thanks to the advent of the "cable-ready" TV.

We're in the umpteenth year into the never-ending transition from analog to digital/H TV. Setting aside that a clearer picture doesn't make a bad show anything other than bad, why haven't I taken the hi-def leap?

Look at this reply on Ars: "Scroll down to 4:3 override and select either Off, 480I, or 480P. Use whichever looks best for your TV. This will mainly depend on the quality of your TV's processor compared to the quality of the cable box's processor... (blah) upconvert ... (blah) and 480P will feed a 480P converted signal. Use trial and error here. / Also, check that YBbPr Output is set to 720P or 1080I and TV TYPE set to 16:9."

Ooo-K!? What in the HELL is this? This isn't plug-and-play TV any more, this is the stuff of 12:00 flashing VCR nightmares!

Brother got a 40" SONY Bravia and mounted it above the fireplace for the SIL because, well, she demanded he buy one for her. I was up at the house early in the week and the TV was on. They've got DVR, digital this, blah, blah that. The picture sucked. I wanted to take a stick to the macro-blocking in the picture and beat it smooth.

I'm seeing the macro-blocking on my "old" analog cable setup. A lot of times it's from a crappy satellite feed to the cable station. Other times I'm not so sure satellite transmission's the source. It's distracting. Hey, I get annoyed with color banding on DVDs, do you think I'm not going to be annoyed by a pile of boxes littering the screen? Any moderate motion is the worst!

These are reasons why I haven't thrown down two grand on an HDTV, am not paying a couple hundred for "high-end" digital cable service for eight HDTV channels each month and just roll my eyes at TV in general. I'm a cheap bastard but the value proposition just isn't there.

Even those handful of HDTV channels, sometimes they look like crap. Other than playing a BluRay or DVD-HD on a 1080p true HDTV, you're watching a 1080i or 720p compressed to hell signal fed to you for a princely sum and somehow you love it! You're morons!

The macro-blocking makes me want to gouge my eyes out with a blunt instrument! You know, I'm sure I complained about that a few months ago when I was window shopping HDTVs. Thinking back, the BluRay playback on that 50" Panasonic 1080p screen was mesmerizing.

*That* is the quality you should be getting on every one of your premium HDTV channels and every damn bit of it should all have been plug-and-play. Wake me up when I can have that.