[geeks] 1080p TV broadcasts?

[Andrew Jones]

On Mon, Jun 14, 2010 at 10:44:05AM -0400, nate at portents.com wrote:
> On Mon, 14 Jun 2010 08:19:57 -0400 (EDT), Steve Haavik
> <shaavik at soc.lib.md.us> wrote:
> > I just don't know that anyone is actually broadcasting in 1080p yet.
> 
> In the US, the ATSC standard initially only supported 1080p24, 1080p25 and
> 1080p30.  It was amended in 2008 to support 1080p50 and 1080p60, however
> those frame rates require H.264/AVC High Profile Level 4.2, which isn't
> able to be decoded by the vast majority of ATSC decoders, and therefore,
> currently, nobody is broadcasting shows in 1080p50 or 1080p60 in the US -
> just 720p or 1080i60.  Using metadata in an MPEG-2 stream, broadcasters can
> encode a 1080p24 signal inside a 1080i60 signal, enabling proper 3:2
> pulldown reversal for movies on TV (to confuse matters however, even a
> "Full HD" TV set in the US isn't guaranteed to be able to do proper 3:2
> pulldown).
> 
> I don't have any experience with European DVB, so I can't comment on that.
> 

With today's consumer televisions, 24 fps anything is a waste of time.

1. We can all agree 3:2 pulldown kinda sucks.  It makes scenes with panning
jerky.  It's just best to avoid it.

2. 3:2 reversal won't help you: only a few TVs support 5:5 pulldown. Most 
"120 Hz" units just do interpolation on 60 Hz inputs, not any real 120 Hz
display modes.  No 5:5 pulldown means no decent 24 fps viewing.

Very little TV is shot on film anymore, so there's no intrinsic advantage
to 24p over 60i.  I'd much rather have 60 interlaced fields than jerky
progressive-scan, particularly if the source material was 60 Hz.  (And it
usually is.)

ATSC supports all kinds of progressive-scan framerates other than 24.  How 
many of them actually get used ?