Hmmm...
So, the optitian, who makes money from eye tests and prescription lenses things moer people should get.... eye tests and perscription lenses...
Shock.
HDTV 'pointless' without perfect peepers
If you’re about to decorate your living room with a 50in plasma HD TV, Freesat HD box subscription and a Blu-ray Disc player, you’d be wise to add an eye test to your checklist. You won’t get the benefit if your eyesight’s iffy, it’s been claimed. High Street optician Vision Express has warned that many people aren’t getting …
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Thursday 15th January 2009 17:12 GMT Iain
Not that perfect - don't be so alarmist
My vision is very far from 20-20, in the 1960's it was something like 15-18 if I recall correctly, and it sure is worse now than then....
I've got a foxsat HD plugged into a sanyo plv z4 and the difference is glaringly obvious - even if I use an old pair of specs (that I can't use to drive with) I can see the difference. Mind you, the difference is pretty hard to spot on smaller screen (I use a 22" LCD screen when I don't need the big screen).
Paris? - well she weras specs too
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Thursday 15th January 2009 17:14 GMT Mark Edwards
Hmm...
I smell an optician trying to gain some free advertising here. I suffer from bad eyesight (incredibly long sighted in one and partially long sighted in the other) and have no trouble seeing the difference when looking at 1080p streams when compared to lesser formats...
Boffin because he's wearing specs (why else?)
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Thursday 15th January 2009 17:14 GMT Frank Bough
Not true
The POINT of HDTV is not to allow for higher definition pictures at some fixed picture size, it's to allow for LARGER picture sizes without unacceptable image quality deterioration. So, glasses wearers, go ahead and replace your 28" SD CRT with that 46" HD LCD that you've been promising yourself.
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Thursday 15th January 2009 17:14 GMT Bumhug
Story correction
High Street optician Vision Express has warned that many people aren’t getting the full adavantage of HD quality telly because their specs, contact lenses or good old unaided peepers aren’t strong enough and should immidiatly pop down to their local Vision Express to see the new range of HD ready glasses and contact lenses.
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Thursday 15th January 2009 17:14 GMT Lee Dowling
HDTV 'pointless'
I'd say not just "pointless without perfect peepers" but just pointless anyway.
New, expensive display equipment with DRM built-in.
New, expensive cables to shuffle the DRM about in.
New, expensive reception equipment
New, expensive and additional cost of being able to recieve anything worthwhile in HD anyway (e.g. Blu-Ray, or HD channel subscriptions).
All to stare at a few more pixels that, from any sensible distance, you can't even spot anyway. Sure, you might think you can but the truth is you were probably never able to and the only reasons it looks different are:
- Contrast (expensive TV = better contrast = "sharper" image).
- Interpolation
- De-interlacing
- Refresh rates
- better MPEG compression (HDTV signal = more bandwidth)
- Flatscreen vs CRT (i.e. better tech in the first place, nothing to do with the number of theoretical pixels)
- Input sources (Aerial, Composite, S-video, Component, HDMI, all handled by different circuits and cables with different qualities and sources).
- Larger screen size
- Downgrading standard SD content on your HD TV (some models actually do this - make SD signals look poorer than an average SDTV could manage with the same signal, in order to make the HD "look good" and save money).
Do a double-blind scientific test with identical (fair) equipment recieving the same signal in SD and HD (no "better MPEG compression" tricks please, a pure full-pixel signal to both!) side-by-side in the same room from the same distance for a reasonable time at several times of the day (tired eyes see less, etc.). It's almost impossible to do, mainly cos all the HD stuff introduced all sorts of extra enhancements with its introduction (see above) over sheer pixel size and because of the biasing of many models towards HD content.
But the fact of the matter is that HD on an average setup looks no better to the average person than SD on a similar average setup. You can make a non-HDTV that looks the same or better than a HDTV for the same price using the same signals. Except the fact that the dollar signs won't be rolling in front of your eyes on the HD setup because you blew it all on expensive kit and subscriptions to watch the same programs.
The *only* advantage of HDTV (specifically referring to a modern implementation of a HDTV standard, not just "a new/expensive TV") that I can see is that you can sensibly plug a real high-res display in (such as a computer signal) and get pixel-perfect representation. In the past, you had to knock things down to 800x600 at stupidly strict refresh rates, or live with the squished image. But this has always been true of computers - standard monitors / laptop screens have always been "HD" because you're never more than a few inches from them. Back in the day, a WinTV card on even a crappy SVGA would look ten times better than any TV you could buy. It's nice to be able to plug a laptop into a unsilly-priced 42" screen and get a pixel-perfect image so you can play silly games in the living room, but from any reasonable distance, you could equally well be using an old TV-out signal on an SDTV without even noticing.
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Thursday 15th January 2009 17:14 GMT Jimmy Floyd
Spot on
Despite the blatantly obvious sales pitch here, the point is perfectly valid. I have 20/20 vision (with my contact lenses in, admittedly!) and a HD film running on a 28" screen is only marginally (repeat: marginally) better than a standard DVD when I'm more than 6 foot away.
Which is why I laugh at an acquaintance's 48" plasma. The picture is either incredibly pixelated on SD or you have to sit so far back that it appears no better than a SD would do on a smaller screen.
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Thursday 15th January 2009 17:14 GMT Anonymous Coward
"Marginal" short sight at "two meters"
"even a marginally short-sighted person sitting on a sofa watching a couple of metres from an HD TV broadcast may not see the full enhanced image quality."
I have little to say other than that this sounds like utter bullshit designed only to advertise Vision Express. And the fact that this article has appeared on the Reg proves that it has worked. Suckers!
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Thursday 15th January 2009 17:14 GMT Anonymous Coward
This just in from the "no sh1t Sherlock department"
People with bad eyes can't see a TV properly. Well, yes, that sounds about right...
What's annoying is they haven't clarified the "2/3s of people who need a new prescription haven't had it yet" - presumably because the new prescription is 0.25 variance and therefore largely irrelevant.
That and I wear contact lenses 99% of the time (even when I'm asleep) - the prescription has changed by 0.25 and 0.5 respectively. The lenses I get have been changed, but my glasses haven't as it's just not worth the effort or expense. Presumably I'm in that 2/3s category.
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Thursday 15th January 2009 17:14 GMT DT
Impartiality
Can't think of any alterior motive of Vision Express reccomending that everyone gets their eyes checked asap.
20/20 vision is pretty average, just over halfway down the chart.
Having 20/10 vision is the schizle. HD -24/7.
Still, can't fault their cynical marketing, doing shit like giving laser surgery prices "per eye".
Which one eyed individual is going to risk their remaining good eye for the convienience of being monacle free?
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Thursday 15th January 2009 17:14 GMT nick sciarrotta
Nonsense
The compression used to bring hd into your home, or store HD on a disc, results in poor color separation and large macro blocks and video artifacts. You can see this by standing close 1-2 feet away from your TV. A far cry from a good viewing experience. As you move further away from the tv, these are less noticeable, giving you the perception of Clear viewing. If your glasses are not up to date, you wil notice the effect even less. Thus able to enjoy video where the darker scenes have no noticable noise.
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Thursday 15th January 2009 17:15 GMT Anonymous Coward
Free advertising
By running this story you have fallen for this opticians bid to obtain free advertising for their products and services - their comments are pretty obvious - if your eyesight is defective then you can't see properly - wow !! I never realised that.
They do get a couple of name checks in the write-up though - I didn't see that coming - maybe I need to visit Specsavers
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Thursday 15th January 2009 17:15 GMT Anonymous Coward
Who is REALLY blind?
El Reg it seems, as this is clearly an advert for Vision Express..
Shouldn't this article have the "This is an advertisment" discalimer on it, like in the newspapers? I hope they paid you well.
You would have to be blind, or own a supermarket HDTV to not see the difference between SD and HD.
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Friday 16th January 2009 14:50 GMT Maksim Rukov
specs criteria
Most of my TV viewing is of fuzzy DivX movies from BitTorrent. Not really worth donning glasses for them. (Not that I'm complaining, mind, they're still very watchable.)
Though I do need to grab my specs when it's time for a HD console game. Otherwise I get in trouble for not spotting the terrorist crouching in the dark corner...
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Biting the hand that feeds IT
