What Is PDTV

[Master Yoda]

Now i know PDTV stands for pure digital tv, but could someone explain to me what the hell pdtv actually is please ?

I did do a search, but all i came up with was about encoding to pdtv and pdtv vs hdtv.

Thanks

[Fredledingue]

PD in french means "gay". So it must be some gay chanels or something.
:) :D

No, seriousely, I don't know what it is. Looks like they abreviate too fast, before the poeple had the time to get an idea of what it is.

[Joe Fenton]

In a nutshell, PDTV is a signal that was broadcast and received digitally, but is not HDTV resolution. For example, the 720x480 MPEG2 stream from a digital satellite service like DirecTV is PDTV. Also called Pirate Digital TV because it is the choice for discriminating rippers. :D

Here's a nice description from a ripper:

"The HDTV label is given to releases that are both purely digital, AND are broadcast at either 720p (60fps) or 1080i (30fps). The PDTV label is given to releases with purely digital sources with direct digital stream extraction such as via a DVB-{S,T} pci card or a HDTV card. This includes non-HDTV resolution digital transmissions such as the Enhanced Digital TV format used by Fox that is captured with an HDTV card. This does NOT include a captures from a digital source with an intermediate analog conversion, e.g. a digital satellite receiver box with S-Video out to a capture card. These we label as TVRips"

[Erik_Osterholm]

Just to clarify, my DirecTV stream is 480x480 :)

[Joe Fenton]

Actually, it depends on the channel and the time of day. Digital satellite providers like DirecTV and the Dish Network provide for different resolutions at different data rates at different prices. A 720x480 high data rate broadcast costs more than a 480x480 medium data rate broadcast. Some channels run at a higher resolution during primetime, then switch to a lower resolution and/or data rate the rest of the time. Cartoon Network did this the first two years they were on satellite to keep costs down. I've seen some programs that keep the same resolution, but change the data rate during the credits, much like many DivX/XviD rips.

[Erik_Osterholm]

Huh, fair enough. In all the pure stream extractions I've seen, I've never seen a stream higher than 480x480. I wonder if they increase the bitrate for the higher resolution streams. The 480x480 streams are between 1 and 1.5 mbps, which is a bit lower than I'm used to for SVCD resolutions.