xkcd not Fans of HDTV

In today’s xkcd, Randall Munroe takes on one of the great consumer tech inducers of nerdrage: Namely, HDTVs, and their decidedly non-earth-shattering resolutions.

As one commenter on the xkcd forums points out, “most laptop screens are, in fact, HD. A lot of laptops screens are currently 1280x800px (16:10) – perfect for 720p content. Though there aren’t a ton of laptops that actually have 1920x1080px resolutions, almost all laptops are well suited to view HD content (a lot better than some people’s giant TVs).”

And don’t even start on framerates:

The xkcd comic’s alt text, found by rolling over the real thing: “We’re also stuck with blurry, juddery, slow-panning 24 fps movies forever because (thanks to 60fps home video) people associate high framerates with camcorders and cheap sitcoms, and thus think good framerates look “fake”.

Ironically, regular old TVs (and computers) from the pre-HD era typically convert 24fps video to 50 or 60 Hertz, a rate at which visual artifacts aren’t nearly as big a threat: In the name of providing a ‘cinematic’ look, Blu-Ray movies and the like are actually regressing in framerates.

(xkcd)