Peter recently realized that HDTV reception has become relatively affordable, so he set about getting it. For the record, I’m indifferent to HDTV. I grew up in the pre-cable era, and remember watching movies from LA channels that were often ghosted in with competing signals. Anything better than that is fine by me, though I have to admit satellite TV reception is pretty sharp.
But Peter’s the graphic guy, and he can never get enough detail, so now, for a minor increase in our monthly satellite reception bill, we have HDTV. It did require changing satellite TV providers, much to our surprise. We’d been with the Dish network for 9 years, and they always seemed to bend over backwards to make us happy. But DirecTV was the service providing HDTV at an affordable price, and nothing we said could get the Dish network to even budge in that direction. And so on Friday, two men in blue uniforms (whom Kelly dubbed “blue daddies”) spent the day stringing new cable and attaching a new satellite dish to our house.
HDTV is impressive, though I’m not sure the detail is always a good thing. The first image we got was of an older actor and you could see every pore and wrinkle on his face and hands, as well as the greasy makeup that had been painted on him. And it wasn’t just him. Actors look much more ordinary now: you can see the bags under their eyes, the creases on their foreheads, and each and every single pimple. I don’t mind: it probably is more real, and it is more like seeing a stage play, but it does ruin the illusion somehow.
As for the rest of the stunning detail, well, I don’t know. The one show I watch that I thought would really benefit from HDTV, America’s Most Wanted only broadcasts partially in HDTV. So if you really want to examine the telling tattoos on that nascent serial killer, you’ll have to go to their website. So I guess I’ll have to wait and see how valuable HDTV is for me personally.