November 2002, Faith Hill recorded a Thanksgiving Special which broadcast on NBC in hi-def 1920x1080i. Later in 2003, DVD was released.
Comparison is taken from Breathe performance which featuring Carlos Santana. Left is 1920x1080i from NBC broadcast and right is NTSC DVD anamorphic at 720x480 which got blown up to 1920x1080 for comparison.
Breathe
CMA Music Festival 2005, Dierks Bentley performed "How Am I Doin'".
CMA Music Festival 2005 was broadcast by ABC in high definition 1280x720p
CMA Music Festival 2005 - How Am I Doin'
Now the comparison is not exactly from the same show but you will see the big quality different anyway. Dierks Bentley was back to CMA Music Festival 2006. The show was again on ABC but not in high definition. It's amazing how they could step backward. With HDTV booming I hope they will go back to hi-def for 2007.
CMA Music Festival 2006
CMT Music Awards 2007 was premiered on both CMT and MHD simultaneously. CMT on my cable is in digital with resolution of 528x480 and bitrate around 3mbps. MHD on the other hand is in hi-def 1920x1080i and has bitrate around 17mbps. CMT chose not to crop the image, so on CMT channel the show is in letterbox which mean that the actual picture is now only using 528x360. However, it seems that video quality on MHD is not as good as 1920x1080i should be, my guess would be that camera is not capable of 1920x1080i. However, with CMT quality, it's hard not to prefer MHD "Anyway".
Comparison
Since MHD version is not that great to begin with and for the sake of CMT version, let's look at how the 2 versions look at 1280x720
Left : CMT : black bars from top and bottom are removed then image got blown up to 1280x720
Right : MHD : Image got reduced from original size 1920x1080 to 1280x720
Click image for full size horror.
For original size screencaps of MHD click here
