Poll: Is anyone still watching SDTV?
By Richard Lawler 
posted Apr 25th 2009 1:00PM
posted Apr 25th 2009 1:00PM
posted Apr 25th 2009 1:00PM
Now that we've thrown 'em off the trail, use the form below to get in touch with the people at Engadget. Please fill in all of the required fields because they're required.
For some reason I can't see the poll.
Until DircTV can get the local channels in HD, a decent chunk of what we watch is SD. Mind you it probably is shot in HD, but we can't see it that way. Same would be true with Dish.
All the other channels D* has in HD certainly helps though. It would be nice to see BBC America and a few other channels finally making the plunge though.
The last SD channel I was watching was Comedy Central but now they are HD. Hurray! Now I just need ABC and I'll have all my locals in HD too. So yea, I hate it when the Laker game is on ABC.
Discovery, Food Network, Comedy Central ... not being broadcast in the clear by CableVision, and I hate using a box ... gonna order an HD PVR soon though, so that should raise my percentage fairly signifigantly when used at the same time as my regular tuner and my HDHomeRun. Plus, H.264 transport streams!
I refuse to pay extra for HD, just on principle alone. So it's only OTA local HD channels for me, and standard def DirecTV.
Daily Show & Colbert Report not HD yet!! :(
lol @ blank option people (including myself) chose X)
if comedy central was in HD where I live then I would watch all HD. The Daily Show and Colbert Report ruin it.
The only TV I watch is Lost (OTA) and BSG. During the last year I watched BSG via Boxee/Hulu on the ATV because it was free or via SD iTunes downloads (because the show was so noisy and grainy and high key it didn't look any better in HD).
So its not that the show wasn't available in HD. Its that I wanted it for free and if I did pay for it I was not going to throw in an extra buck because I could barely tell the difference.
With most other content I'm much more picky, almost always preferring to rent in HD.
I have Comcast, so I don't get a whole lot of HD. For shit's sake, I watch Comedy Central more often than anything, and that channel isn't HD in my area, and I live 30 minutes south of DC!! Even Spike isn't HD here!
The one channel I watch most often is NBC (Heroes), and that is spotty, at best. Comcast continues to tell me to "reset" my box by unplugging it, but NBC is the only channel that is messed up. Every other damned HD channel comes in fine, except NBC. Anybody else??
I still watch Comedy Central alot, and it's not on FIOS yet. Other than that, mostly everything else is in HD.
I watch Redeye on Fox News from time to time and it is still not really in HD. Sometimes I watch the SD version of TBS or History just to get around their Stretch-O-Vision. And every once in awhile there is something interesting on some obscure channel that is SD only.
I'm glad you asked this week instead of last!
Finally 100%!
MTV HD and FOX News HD FTW!!!
SD makes my eyes BLEED.
Bring on the 4K channels!
Fox News makes MY eyes bleed.
"shuref00t @ Apr 25th 2009 1:52PM
I refuse to pay extra for HD, just on principle alone. So it's only OTA local HD channels for me, and standard def DirecTV."
Exactly which 'principal' is that?
The same principal that keeps you from paying more for 'the attractive hooker' or more for the 'tasty food' perhaps more for the 'ethical tax preparation?!?'
Paying more is good for the economy.
Did I mention that SD makes my eyes BLEED?
sorry, edit 'principle,' please.
probably a flashback to my georgeous bikini-model grade-school principal...
Basically 95% of what I watch is in HD. The exception being an occasional movie on FX *****Dish doesn't have FX HD yet :(*****.
Although my roommates watch probably about 50% SDTV. They just stop the channel on whatever they like. They claim they "can't tell the difference between HD and SD" That is my biggest pet peave. You have to be blind to not be able to tell a difference between the two. HD FTW!!!!
Comedy Central - Southpark and Daily Show
CNBC - Suze Orman
Those are the only SD channels I watch regularly
2 Words: The Soup
Just Craig ferguson!
oh and chelsea lately/the soup
I love all the HD channels I have. Its all HD for me now, thank you u-verse.
Only SD I watch is things like COPS that I record on my sageTV system to watch on my tertiary monitor, which is 4:3.
We still have far more SD than HD on FIOS, but I don't really use any of it.
My latest pet peeve below stretch-o-vision is 4:3 "HD" broadcasts. The wife (like most) is an Oprah addict, so by default I get my share. But dammit, Oprah along with so many other SD shows seem to cop out and just run their 4:3 feed through an upscaler, slap an HD logo on it, and call it a day. My show of choice, Jeopardy, does the same thing. I think its rotten. Results are only slightly improved from regular SD feeds, and the vertical black bars bother me even more knowing that the producers are dragging every last heel before popping for REAL 16:9 HD cameras.
For comparison, none of my local news stations have HD broadcasts yet, but one of them does broadcast in "digital widescreen". So I guess its not technically HD, but I'll say it looks a whole lot better than 4:3 "HD". How many years have 16:9 TVs been the norm? I can't wait for the day when all shows at least adopt this "digital widescreen" approach, so all of us with 16:9 screens can at least fill them. And no, I will not resort to zooming and cropping. I'm with Philip S where I would rather suffer SD video if its not distorted and bastardized like so many "HD" channels. And to think we're paying for these kinds of crap manipulations, this is exactly the principle shuref00t was talking about. Come on Hollywood, how stupid do you think the public is! It's time to bite the bullet, join the 21st century, and adopt HD recording/broadcasting/distributing on all television programming!
dude I don't know about Oprah (thank God) but I know Jeopardy is syndicated so that means that it is up to YOUR LOCAL STATION to record it and then air it in HD.
Comedy Central HD and G4 HD will make me almost 100% HD. Until then, I am stuck in the horrible, ugly SD world.
I only watch animation in SD. (Except for The Simpsons! Woohoo!)
Don't receive HD channels over my school's cable so anything I watch over standard TV is standard def, sadly. Thank goodness for torrents though, and thank goodness for Ben's guide on converting content automatically - so I still get all my regular shows like The Simpsons, Dollhouse, The Office etc in wonderful HD.
CRAIG FERGUSON!
Somebody get our favorite Scotsman in HD will ya?!
It's giving him an inferiority complex already!
That is the ONLY thing I will watch in SDTV now. Every other show I watch is HD. If it is not HD, I have stopped watching it. It hurts my eyes now.
I have Cablevision in new york (long island)
Well, it's not the cheapest option in the world but I do get a whole ton of HD channels. I'm not really even sure if there's and SD channel that I don't have in HD now. All of our local news is HD. I have comedy central HD, G4 HD, CNBC HD etc etc etc.
Of course all the HD channels don't broadcast everything in HD but it's coming along very well. To be perfectly honest, I feel like after looking at all other options cable vision offers the most HD with the least hassle (no contracts, satellites, or messy half baked homemade DVR solutions)
So yeah, I'll put my scientific atlantic explorer 8300 DVR and my HD lineup against anything you've got. I find it to be about as good as it gets.
What is this HDTV? Will it still play the Jeopardy? Will I need a new remote clicker?
and maybe most importantly: will I have to replace my beautiful wood TV console circa 1974?? (my parents still have one of those!!!!)
Fox Soccer Channel
As a footy fan, Fox Soccer Channel and Setanta Sports are still in SD. Champions League matches on ESPN are also in SD only. Also, America's Next Top Model is in SD.
Other then shows I download to watch which aren't in HD, such as Veronica Mars right now, but on cable the only show I don't watch in HD because the channel doesn't have an HD version in my area is Breaking Bad.
I rarely watch live tv, so to prevent my Tivo from filling up I'll record most shows in SD
In my area, only 20% of the channels are in HD. The high price of HD cable is not worth it here, no one with an HDTV in my area has got it.
Wow. I am surprised by these results. I feel damn sorry for all you watching 25% of your shit in SD. That's pathetic. I'm lucky enough to be spoiled by Directv and all their HD including locals. I don't think I would even watch TV if it was SD.
Chalk one up for the 100% HD or nothing crowd.
I have 2 CRT TVs and one plasma 720p, so no biggie here to get HD channels that I have to pay.
In Australia there is not a lot of choice when it comes to HD content. We have only 3 commercial networks that broadcast in HD ( one of these is a 24hr Sports Channel). The cable market here is a monopoly, there are 2 companies but they have a partnership, one is cable the other is satellite. HD content is only available on cable and if you can't get cable then no HD content for you. Not to mention the fact that you cannot use a 3rd party receiver or cable card tuner the and the best output u can get is s-video on the satellite box and you have to pay through the teeth for this. We also have the issue that we cannot access any of the online content through Hulu or other services.
Torchwood -- and other BBCAmerica shows. As many others, Daily Show, Colbert. NHL Center Ice is mostly SD.
+1 fo BBC America. I really wish BBC would add an HD feed on this side of the Atlantic. Watching Primeval up-converts on SciFi is just painful. I haven't researched whether all their shows are produced in HD (particular Primeval, Skins, Top Gear, Kitchen Nightmares, Graham Norton), but they all air letterboxed, so I'm guessing they are.
The only SD I watch is SciFi HD. Everything is letterboxed.
Well, I choose to watch HD 99% of the time but AMC is still in SD and so far TWC only offers about 60 channels of HD programming in Los Angeles area.
Question for TWC how come 2nd largest market in US has only 60 channels of HD? Can you hurry up and add more channels this is getting ridiculous! Seriously Ridiculous!
Hmm, let's see. I watch a lot of reruns; Simpsons from when it was great, King of the Hill, Malcom in the Middle, as well as the still very much SD Hell's Kitchen.
So yeah, I watch SD quite a bit still.
How can I go all HD? Nothing after 1 a.m. is HD! That about makes up 25% of my viewing! If you want to make it 100%, you'll have to help me get World News Now to go HD. And it's not like any of Seth MacFarlane's shows will ever go HD; that stubburn son of a bitch!
That last statement isn't really mean as mean, but for dramatic effect.
Sadly enough, there are no HD channels at all in Spain
Terrestrial Digital TV is all SD and 4:3 at barely 4000 kbps, not even 16:9 widescreen broadcast anywhere :(