(formerly)tangentmind.org

I just realised that my monitor can't display hdtv resolution. all this time I thought 480i(ntsc), 1080i and 780p(hdtv) were the width resolutions. But they're the heighth. the width resolution is 1920. My 25lb gargantuan 19" CRT Sony Trinitron monitor can only display 1600. Of course, it is a 4X3 screen, so there would be borders on top and bottom, so it might get scaled down or something.

The real amazing thing is that I didn't know what the ntsc resolution was(720x480). I know all about resolutions, I just never bothered to get it right. I think that, displaying or recording tv on a computer screen, it should be 640x480, because the 720x480 pixels are not square and the computer screen pixels are, though I'm not completely sure about this yet.

Regardless of whether or not I will have a proper display, I would still like an hdtv receiver(probably a computer card because my computer monitor is my best tv) because with hdtv the sound is better quality and the picture is either perfect or non-existant...and I hate fuzzy tv. Even when I had cable, I had fuzzy tv, so I've been putting up with fuzzy tv my whole life. I'm ready for it to end.

Not only that, some stations will actually multicast...meaning that one station may have both adult and children programming showing at the same time and you can switch between them. That's like having even more channels.

I think some hdtv cards are getting down to around $100, and the card made for linux pchdtv is around $160. That's getting closer to my budget. Some cards can also pick up hd radio too, which is pretty sweet. NPR is the only station around here that broadcasts in hd radio, but that's usually the only station I listen to. There's a nice hdtv "set top" receiver right here for $176 also.

Edit 05-04: I added some info about the ntsc resolutions.

Edit 05-22: The hdtv resolution 720p is 1280x720, which my monitor can do, just fine. I think 780p was a misprint on my part. So, though my monitor can't do 1080i, 720p is probably good enough for me.