Call me a heretic but HD television is pretty much bullshit. Whether you categorize it as a conspiracy to sell more TVs, blu-ray players and everything else associated with it is entirely up to you.

I loved reading the comments when Danielle Nagler, Head of HD @ BBC Vision called for reasons to broadcast Top Gear in HD:

What it is about Top Gear that means you really want to watch it in HD?
What are the qualities which you identify as particularly suitable for HD?

Unless you live in a rain forest far away from any TV set you’ve likely heard of Top Gear at least in passing. It is by far the best show currently being played on television anywhere. Stunning visuals, funny hosts and amusing challenges, oh and some cars you’re likely never going to drive (or see). But that’s a bonus that doesn’t really matter. The thing is… people really want to watch it in HD.

However I just don’t see why?!

I’ve been looking at many, many screens at work, day in and day out with that specific idea in mind. From uncompressed camera output, to broadcast 720p on various LCDs and huge plasma screens and all the way to standard 55cm CRT screen at home. And really, the only difference I see is in saccadic eye motion of the presenter reading off teleprompter. That and perhaps some other minor details (hair & dust on jackets) get partially lost on the way to my old cathode ray tube TV. And that’s the difference between the uncompressed stream and SD!! The compressed HD broadcast on LCD control screens doesn’t show those details either!

So really… what have we lost?

Now to get back to Top Gear. Cars are big, the landscape around them is a stage zooming past, you’re unlikely to have a particular wish to see how poorly shaved the presenters are or how many paint scratches are on the cars. So which details exactly would you like to see in HD???

HD on room sized TV sets, for the majority of content, is largely a pointless exercise. Period.

Addendum: Aug. 3rd 2009

Apparently I stepped on a few toes with this one. Which is nice :) However it quickly becomes obvious people assign more meaning to HD than it deserves. But really, the name says it all – high definition. That’s all there is to it. It’s not magical picture transformation, just more detail. It’s hilarious to read the high speed movement would look less jagged and such. Well… even straight out of the camera there wouldn’t be much of a difference since movement has little to do with detail. Much more with frame rates, shutter speed and such things. And after all that comes compression. Which destroys all that lovely detail, especially in high speed movement, especially at bandwidths currently used in broadcast.

I’m pretty sure BBC is aware of that and that it is probably the reason they’re asking for (good) reasons why Top Gear should be in HD. They just don’t see the point. The HD decision would be pure marketing and little substance.

Addendum: Aug. 5th 2009

I see we got around to the age old audiophile paradox. For some people a CD or god forbid an MP3, is simply not good enough. Nothing short of top quality vinyls and associated hardware in a purpose built acoustically perfect room would do (slightly exaggerating of course). This sort of phenomena is widespread in every hobby really. Which is fine. I don’t care what other people spend money on.

What started this post were ridiculous claims by people who only want the best, but quite honestly have no idea what that is. Repeating marketing hype is easy. Justifying ones expensive purchase by any means necessary is something Mike Johnston wrote about quite a few times (browse the archives if you wish) and is quite natural. Everyone does it. He also wrote about the difference between worthiness and value. Two wildly different concepts.

I guess what I tried to say from the beginning is that sometimes you need the ability to step back and evaluate something in an uninvolved manner. BBC is doing that (I hope so) by trying to figure out if HD would bring enough added value to Top Gear. On the quality scale it probably wouldn’t, on marketing it probably would.