Nick Neg flashback: Why HDTV will never catch on

As a celebration of the magazine turning 15 years old this month, Fimoculous uncovered this little gem from back in Wired's heyday, the very first issue: "High-definition television is clearly irrelevant." That's Nicholas Negroponte, of OLPC fame, making some bold predictions from his inaugural column in the back page of Wired. Sure, his thoughts on user control of when and what we watch really hit home with the YouTube generation, but his lack of interest in resolution seems a bit silly if you've stepped inside a Best Buy at any point this decade. That said, it's certainly worth a quick read before you run to the attic and dive into your archives.

[Via Fimoculous]

[boe @ Feb 8th 2008 4:52PM]

1080p may be irrelevant soon enough as more people are looking for larger screens where 1080p isn't quite enough. 4 x 1080p may become in two years what 1080p was just two year ago.

[System48 @ Feb 8th 2008 4:54PM]

They may have the TV's but there will only be two channels.

[a ham sandwich @ Feb 8th 2008 5:21PM]

yeah but to be honest, people are just starting to invest in nice 1080p sets. the last thing they need to hear is that that's now obsolete in favor of 4k (which it isnt)

[zargon @ Feb 8th 2008 5:31PM]

Going beyond 1080p is going to be a while, more than 2 years I would say. With current technology, we don't even have the bandwidth required for 1080p, let alone more than 1080p. Sure there is compression, but you can only go so far with that and currently, cable companies especially are relying on it heavily and it is making the quality suffer.

Maybe in the HT realm, with physical or downloadable media (I still feel this is a pipe dream many year away from becoming a reality and viable solution).

[Nathan @ Feb 8th 2008 5:54PM]

Unless you have a gigantic television, the perceivable benefits of anything higher than 1080p will be moot. The human eye can only see so much. You would be hard pressed to see a difference between even 720p and 1080p from 6-7 feet away on a 42" TV unless you are using it for a computer monitor.

[frozo @ Feb 8th 2008 6:45PM]

@boe: WRONG!

[spyder91 @ Feb 8th 2008 11:43PM]

People seemed to be OK with 55" 640x480 TVs for quite some time.

[Tom @ Feb 9th 2008 12:59AM]

@ Nathan:
The human eye can see, theoretically, 576 megapixels. So, yeah we can tell the difference. You just have to look.

[Tim @ Feb 12th 2008 4:40PM]

Actually Tom,

Theoretically you can tell the difference.

[JD @ Feb 8th 2008 4:52PM]

ha that's a good one

[m @ Feb 8th 2008 9:26PM]

if he was so wrong, isn't it odd that video ipods have caused such a stir? not to mention the fact that we should all be watching reruns of "house" tonight, not reading a blog. the revolution won't be televised, but not for the reasons previously predicted.

[anonymous @ Feb 10th 2008 7:14PM]

House sucks

[fischju @ Feb 8th 2008 4:53PM]

I remember seeing an equally old report from an IT specialist saying that personal computers will NEVER have more than 128mb of RAM....good times...

[Andrew @ Feb 8th 2008 5:10PM]

Bill Gates has been falsely quoted as saying we'd only need 610k of memory, perhaps that's what you were referring to?

[kojo87 @ Feb 8th 2008 6:06PM]

hahaha. i have 3GB and thats not really out of the norm.

[skulldriveshaft @ Feb 8th 2008 6:52PM]

also @Andrew:

Actually anyone that claims Ghz and RAM are more than enough will always be proven wrong, it's just a matter of time. And usually only if someone who is quoted as saying it remains relevant until they are proven wrong.

We're definitely going to see larger displays, higher resolutions, it's the steady march of technological improvement.

When can I get a 4K or 8K tv?

[John @ Feb 8th 2008 6:54PM]

Unless they had some reason to believe that 27 bit OSes would be prevalent, I highly doubt anyone has thought of 128MB as a cap for RAM.

[Macha88 @ Feb 8th 2008 10:29PM]

Screw 4k, hell screw 16mil. When do we get holographs?

[DT @ Feb 8th 2008 5:01PM]

Also that Apple pod thing. Stupid name, and there are plenty of MP3 players on the market!

[thenino85 @ Feb 8th 2008 5:02PM]

Wow, Sega's going to be putting multimedia devices in my house very soon? I can't wait! (I wonder if they were talking about Sega Channel.)

I love reading old Wired articles. They remind me of all those 50's magazines that claim that we would have flying cars in the year 1980, but with a faux hip style. Nerds trying to be hip, the most pathetic kind of posur there is. Also, it's almost always someone who's an expert in some field completely talking out of their you-know-what about another field that they have little experience with.

[Andrew Jones @ Feb 8th 2008 5:32PM]

Actually, he wasn't very far from the money on most of his points... Apple led the way to bringing media into the home in new, innovative ways (see iPod & AppleTV - it's still not we want, but it's better than what we had). The difference between a TV and a computer is becoming blurred - most TVs include basic picture viewing and other additional functionality. STBs and consoles are largely indistinguishable from a PC on every level below the OS. TV is no longer viewed in real-time - many people have made the switch to viewing content on demand via DVRs.

He was completely wrong about practically every point about digital TV, however. Yes, there is now VOD via FTTH and cable, but the digital standard we went with is ATSC. Higher resolution was emphasized over additional content (see just how many TV stations in your area even broadcast fairly basic programming guide information - go ahead, I'll wait...) Higher resolution is a tremendous improvement on any screen 30" or more - something inconceivable in '93 since at that time bigger TVs were typically grainy, pixelated, and VERY heavy. In all, he hit pretty close to the money on all of his tangential tidbits and was WAY off on his main point :)

[ck @ Feb 8th 2008 9:24PM]

I threw out about 10 years of Wired mags a couple of years ago. They were taking up too much space, and I hardly ever looked at them.

Man that was a hard decision. :(

[ck @ Feb 8th 2008 9:26PM]

Erm I mean a couple of *weeks* ago, which is why I'm still sad about it.

[Jason Collin @ Feb 8th 2008 10:06PM]

@ck

I hope by "throw out" you meant recycled them or donated them to some place, yes?

[Marc @ Feb 8th 2008 5:09PM]

if you actually read the article you will see that nick neg is essentially saying that the most important changes in TV will not be with resolution but rather with delivery and he outlines various set top box delivery issues like VOD etc

obviously HDTV has been a big deal but hes saying that digital services will change TV more

[Crayola @ Feb 8th 2008 5:25PM]

Yeah, in the article Nick's concern was that the US decided to follow the suit of the Japs and Europe, to tackle HDTV broadcast in the analog domain, this was a big deal back then, I recall at that time, airports in Japan had demo sets all over the place showcasing their analog HDTV, and in circumspect, MP3 was nothing but the pursued of graduate projects, it wasn't even a standard, I think!

On hindsight this was clearly a mistake, and he clearly predicted its demise and why it would fail to converge with the nascent digital programming.

You teenybopper with your blogs and facebooks are so ignorant these days. :D

[Daniel Cheung @ Feb 8th 2008 5:32PM]

I agree with this.

If Engadget actually read the article, then it wouldn't have been put out of context.

"Nintendo, Sega, Apple, and IBM - not your run-of-the-mill TV makers - will present us with a burst of multimedia products in the home very soon."

He nailed 2 out of 4, about 10 years too early. Instead it should read "Nintendo, Sony, Apple, and Microsoft"...think "Wii, PS3, Apple TV, and XBox 360". It is the content that has changed the rate of adoption for the new HDTV's.

[Dr. Evil @ Feb 8th 2008 5:39PM]

Whooo Hooo everyone! Look at me, I can read! I know what words mean.

Show off.

[OuroborosATX @ Feb 8th 2008 5:41PM]

Re: Daniel Cheung

Actually he was even correct about IBM (look at the chip in 3 of the 4 that you mention)

[len @ Feb 8th 2008 8:38PM]

Seriously. The man was right, 15 years ago, and everyone yawning at the format war in favor of digital downloads is a testament to that fact.

Even the idiots who miss the point are still wrong - HDTV is a joke. The only reason it has any momentum is the fact that standard broadcast is going away in a year. Nielson had HDTV penetration at 13.7% last October, I doubt it is over 20% now. I bought a hi-def television to play video games, not watch network crap.

At 52" I can't tell the difference between 720p and 1080p, but damn do my DVDs look great upscaled. I ignore the more expensive hi-def downloads, and I have no intention of buying any hi-def movies until they're the same price as DVD.

I guess you could say it's the size of the LCD that makes me feel like I'm finally living in the future, not the pixel density. And neither attribute really has anything to do with television.

[austin @ Feb 8th 2008 5:07PM]

hdtv was much more acheivable then than watching a baseball game from the baseball's perspective.

nobody buy the XO. this guy is obviously an idiot

[skulldriveshaft @ Feb 8th 2008 6:56PM]

because they're not handing out free XO's in your neighbourhood?

what would you have said?

I would have told them "I'm going outside to play, thanks."

[Bob S. @ Feb 8th 2008 9:30PM]

So... it's OK for someone to be a visionary, as long as they stick to your schedule?

[Bob S. @ Feb 8th 2008 5:16PM]

I still haven't found any point to it. It sure doesn't help TV get better. I'm at a loss why I should stretch a resolution smaller than my monitor across three feet of wall space. And letterboxing is so ugly. Ironically, movies are generally shot in 2.39:1, much wider than 16:9, so it was a stupid aspect ratio to adopt anyway.

[tpp @ Feb 8th 2008 5:36PM]

I agree.

Sure, the HD broadcasts and movies look more vibrant and the field of vision is larger (does make a difference in sports broadcasts), but does it really matter?

And if it does matter, is it really worth the added costs of HDTVs (larger ones are QUITE a bit more expensive than SD models) and HD movies (blu-ray and HD-DVD disks are almost twice as expensive as DVDs)?

I'd have to say no, not really. I do enjoy my HDTV, but I could easily live without it.

The whole thing is just more consumerism and marketing. All that's really happening is that some fat cats in Japan get their pockets lined up with even more money.

Maybe that's where Negroponte is coming from. He's not a marketer, after all. It's just meaningless fluff when you really think about it.

[Andrew @ Feb 8th 2008 5:18PM]

I especially like when he says we will watch baseball games from the perspective of the baseball. I can't wait to see the Yankees from that spinning, blurry perspective.

[Bob S. @ Feb 8th 2008 9:19PM]

Well, they've been tailspinning for years. Or did you mean seeing Roger Clemens' bulked-up ass from the point of view of a syringe?

[Eric @ Feb 9th 2008 10:13AM]

I want to watch baseball from behind home plate. That way I can see what's going on without a bunch of graphics taking up screen real estate.

[W00ter @ Feb 8th 2008 5:24PM]

This is nothing. More than 10 years ago, they had a chart in one of their issues that categorized the "hype" of upcoming techonologies. They declared the DVD player as being overhyped and a technology that would suffer from hype.

[Spyvie @ Feb 8th 2008 5:24PM]

Way back in the mid 80s, I worked with a guy who desperately needed a new TV but kept saying he was going to hold out for one of those new HDTV sets. He didn't want to buy something that would quickly be obsolete.

[labrats5 @ Feb 8th 2008 5:26PM]

I woyld rather have SD random access programming than 1080p cookie cutter networks.

[Matt @ Feb 8th 2008 5:33PM]

Whatever, hippy

To me, the alternative channels are cookie cutter, how does that grab you?

[cap'n @ Feb 8th 2008 5:29PM]

Ahh, the good 'ol days of Wired, before the new art director...

[Andy B. @ Feb 8th 2008 5:29PM]

Proof once again that you should ALWAYS avoid ALWAYS and NEVER use NEVER when predicting the future...

[sinai @ Feb 8th 2008 5:30PM]

HD TV still hasn't caught on. it would have never had a chance to catch on except for the fact that many people confuse HIGH DEFINITION with DIGITAL programming, and still others think the two go hand in hand. 720p on a large screen looks like shit compared to a good analog signal on a large screen.

it's like comparing pixels of a jpg to the information on 35mm film.

[Andrew Jones @ Feb 8th 2008 5:46PM]

Um... I really can't agree with that. Unless you're comparing an over-compressed POS digital stream with crappy signal quality with an analog signal coming straight off professional broadcasting equipment... Seriously, have you even SEEN a true 720p image? You do realize that analog TV is mapped to pixels in exactly the same way, except it requires a LOT of filters in order to remove as much static as possible (and in the process, a good amount of the color data)?
I can quantitatively show you that even a marginal 720p signal will trump even a very good analog NTSC signal.

Oh - and comparing a 35mm shot taken with a consumer camera to a high quality JPG taken with a consumer grade camera, the JPEG retains more information. Comparing an SLR image to a DSLR image becomes more shady, and the difference largely depends on which the photographer is more experienced with. A DSLR is certainly capable of capturing more information more accurately.

Now, if you want to talk about AUDIO, yes - an analog signal can easily trump a digital output. Audiophiles typically agree that high quality phonographs produce a much more pure sound than even the best high def audio formats. The same isn't true for video - videophiles all use digital, as near as I can tell.

[/rant off]

[sinai @ Feb 8th 2008 6:25PM]

if you blow up a digital signal, you get pixels and jagged edges. if you blow up an analog signal, you get fuzzy edges.

i guess we're debating over which is better.

And no, a DSLR does not retain more information than 35mm. Film has infinite granularity, a DSLR is limited by the amount of the data the CMOS can handle.

[w00t @ Feb 8th 2008 8:43PM]

If film is indefinite, can I enlarge it until I can see the atoms?

Didn't think so.

[Drew @ Feb 8th 2008 7:38PM]

Wow. You are so wrong on so many levels.

[DarkLightConnection @ Feb 8th 2008 8:36PM]

I'll not discuss his comparsion, BUT on the avg. Joe getting confussed with the digital/HDTV thing, HE'S SOOOO DAMN RIGHT...

Maybe not in America, but just come to the border and you'll see what I'm talking about....

Stores around the place are not helping at all, they advertise digital CRT TVs as "the future", "latest technology at affordable prices here"

I ranked him high for pointing that out... And if it wasn't for me, my aunt would have bought one of those digital CRT TVs.....