SHOPPING CHANNEL HOGWASH

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I was flicking through (as one does) last night and paused at one of the shopping channels that was flogging some HC kit. They had a Phillips HDD /DVD recorder that was going for £127 which looked a good deal (not that I need one....), but here's the thing - they kept saying that it "upgraded DVD pictures to High Definition". This must be 1080p upscaling (right?) but I always thought that this was most certainly NOT true High Def. It 'approaches' Hi Def, but it ain't the real deal. Misleading, eh?
OK, so there's obviously a Trades Description issue here (but that's true off most of the tatt that appears on these channels, 'allegedly'). But here's the kicker. They kept showing the Phillips box and it had HIGH DEFINITION PICTURE written all over it.
How can Phillips get away with this, or has the definition of what actually is 'High Definition' changed?
 

Andrew Everard

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You got my hopes up there: I have a friend whose birthday it is soon and he has a pig that's always getting filthy, so I thought...

Oh well, back to trawling the agricultural section of ebay*, I guess...

*Other online auction sites are available.
 

tvmog

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I may be wrong, but as far as I can see there is no legally enforcable definition of the term "High Definition". "HD Ready" and "Full HD" are accepted to mean certain things within the TV market, but the phrase "High Definition" seems to be a generic term that just means higher than standard definition. I would be intereted to know if any one from What Hi Fi can clarify this.
 

Clare Newsome

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Casca:I was flicking through (as one does) last night and paused at one of the shopping channels that was flogging some HC kit. They had a Phillips HDD /DVD recorder that was going for £127 which looked a good deal (not that I need one....), but here's the thing - they kept saying that it "upgraded DVD pictures to High Definition". This must be 1080p upscaling (right?) but I always thought that this was most certainly NOT true High Def. It 'approaches' Hi Def, but it ain't the real deal. Misleading, eh?
OK, so there's obviously a Trades Description issue here (but that's true off most of the tatt that appears on these channels, 'allegedly'). But here's the kicker. They kept showing the Phillips box and it had HIGH DEFINITION PICTURE written all over it.
How can Phillips get away with this, or has the definition of what actually is 'High Definition' changed?

I doubt Philips has much to do with it - it's merely the media. Someone has explained that the recorder upscales the picture to suit HD TVs, but that's way too complicated for the on-screen caption and/or perceived audience - so it's got distilled down to simply 'HD'.

We've had the same when we've provided copy/quotes etc to national newspapers, whose sub-editors have decided to trim our accurate desciptions down to (potentially misleading) over-simplicities.

But don't get me started on much mainstream media coverage of AV in general, or 'hogwash' is one of the politer terms I may use!
 

Clare Newsome

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tvmog:I may be wrong, but as far as I can see there is no legally enforcable definition of the term "High Definition". "HD Ready" and "Full HD" are accepted to mean certain things within the TV market, but the phrase "High Definition" seems to be a generic term that just means higher than standard definition. I would be intereted to know if any one from What Hi Fi can clarify this.

You're right, there's no set definition for HD, other than it being higher resolution than standard def.
 

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