Pseudo HTV

[kwicky]

I suppose this is a question for the technobuffs. I have seen advertised these black boxes that attach to the input of a normal non high definition TV. It takes the input signal, compares two adjacent pixels and inserts its own interpolation pixel between. It does this throughout the transmission. It is proclaimed that will give near to a normal HTV transmission with the added bonus of showing all programs to this high definition. Does the theory work and is it worth the cost of about �300.

[Hammer]

In theory it will convert SD to HD by guessing what the missing pixels should look like. But it will not give any extra detail that is not there in the original signal, and what�s to say that it will guess correctly. For example, the original signal has a sharp black line against a white background. Would the upscaler put grey pixels in between the black ones and the white ones? If so, your actually worse off.

If you know someone with Sky HD and a big HD TV, try watching a channel showing an old programme (pre-HD) in both SD and HD to see the difference. Sky use similar technology to upscale their pictures. I did this for the first time over Christmas and was very disappointed. There is hardly any difference at all.