Too cheap to go "full HD"? Well, crank up Photoshop and get yourself a monster cable to attach (with tape or something) to your crappy SD-TV, and before you can say "placebo effect" you'll have yourself convinced the picture is much sharper, at least according to some Dutch guys. Spend the extra dough on ice cream.

Sixty people in turn were shown the same video clip on the same television. Half were told to expect clearer, sharper pictures thanks to HD technology: an impression backed up by posters, flyers and the presence of an extra-thick cable connected to the screen. The other half were told to expect a normal DVD image.

Questionnaires revealed that the people who had been led to expect HD reported seeing higher-quality images. "Participants were unable to discriminate properly between digital and high-definition signals," says Lidwien van de Wijngaert at the University of Twente in Enschede, the Netherlands, who carried out the study with colleagues from Utrecht University...