Posted by Kimba W. Lion on 10/22/05 13:02

NunYa Bidness <nunyabidness@nunyabidness.org> wrote:

> Broadcast HDTV is absolutely crisp,
>regardless of your location. If the signal tunes, the receiver sees
>everything crystal clear.

I wonder if that's true.

In my location, I can get Jeopardy at 7pm from a station here in town, or at
7:30 from a station 40 miles away. So sometimes I watch it at 7, sometimes
at 7:30. I repeatedly notice artifacts on the distant station's picture that
I never see on the local station. I'm not talking pixelation that represents
losing the signal, I'm talking JPEG-like artifacts around sharp edges. I
can't tell if it's a signal-related phenomenon, or if the distant station is
transmitting at a lower bit rate. (The local station also provides
programming on two subchannels, the distant provides just one subchannel,
which would tend to argue against a lower bit rate on the distant HD
channel.)

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