First BD titles under scrutiny: The Fifth Element and others (1 Viewer)

[Steve Tannehill]

It's on the User Control Panel, along the left side. Click on the menu, then you can define a buddy / ignore list. Hey, wait a minute, I feel like I am talking to myself. Hello? Bueller? Bueller? Oh no, I've been ignored!!!!

- Steve

 

[Kelly Grannell]

thanks Steve! It is for sure not you

 

[JediFonger]

okay, lemme bring it up again. have you folx seen the in Demand HD transfer of TFE on cable (Comcast specifically)? *should* still be free (last i checked it was). can you check this print against the BR print? i'm thinking they're both the same prints. they just dumped what they had to BR. i'm sure a better version of TFE is coming out later on in... SUPERBIT-HD!

i'm sure of it, if not the name then somn along the lines of that .

 

[Ed St. Clair]

I'm 1st on THAT list!!!

 

[Edwin-S]

I'm not quite sure how the HD-A1 for a C-note less is a better deal than PS3 with HDMI 1.3, assuming of course that the news that PS3 is going to be equipped with 1.3 isn't just hot air from Sony rep Kutaragi. The HD-A1 will have to be replaced since its HDMI connector will not be able to take advantage of audio codecs that require HDMI 1.3; therefore 1.3 equipped audio and video equipment will not be fully utilized by the HD-A1. The player is also not upgradeable to 1.3 via firmware updates.

The PS3, assuming it is equipped with a 1.3 connector, will be backwards and forwards compatible with older and newer audio and video equipment. It would appear that a system that costs 100 dollars more is actually a better value than a player that will have to be replaced relatively soon. Of course, all this also assumes that the PS3 will have playback comparable to a standalone player. Personally, I believe it will because the PS3 is being specifically designed to play both movies and games, unlike the PS2 which was designed for CD-rom games. I believe PS2 circuitry was never designed to incorporate DVD. The fact that they got a DVD drive to work at all with the PS2 is a demonstration of the kind of power contained in game boxes.

 

[Kelly Grannell]

oh, so the DVD playing capability on PS2 (even the later generations of PS2 such as PS2 Slim) is more like an afterthought rather than by-design? No wonder the DVD player capability is bad.

 

[Edwin-S]

Sorry Kelly I'm going to have to change my tune. For some reason I thought the PS2 was originally designed as a CD-rom platform. I decided to check that and now I have realized that I was wrong. It appears the system was designed with DVD in mind from the start. I should have checked my facts before posting. I'm sure wearing egg on my face.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

HD DVD and Blu-ray evalutated on Sony 1080p SXRD...

I'll be posting more in-depth impressions in a dedicated thread,

but I wanted everyone to know that after helping Healthnut get his PJ mounted (a task that took us about 2 days) I finally had a few minutes to do some side-by-side Blu-ray and HD DVD evaluation.

Movies viewed:

Sowrdfish, Blazing Sadles, Riddick (HD DVDs), Fifth Element, Underworld (BD).

Quick impressions:

The Sony 1080p Ruby SXRD looks noticably better with 1080i60 film-material than the JVC2K, which I believe is due to the proper IVT (inverse Telecine or 3-2 pulldown reversal) deinterlacing.

Much sharper, more detailed, and 3-dimensional picture.

All HD DVD titles were mind-blowingly spectacular. Blazing Saddles has an immense sense of 3-dimensionality (film style) and both Riddick and S.F. looked stunning in full 1920 x 1080p.

Sony's 5th E ranged between looked "pretty good" in some scenes to looking "disappointing" in others. IMO, it's *** not *** an MPEG2 thing. It's just that Sony has an old HD master and they (unjustifiably) wanted to get some use out of it for this Blu-ray instead of making a new state-of-the-art HD transfer. The film print is beat and there's lots of video-noise and film-print garbage that's just not up to modern HD transfers. I should mention that HBO's HD transfer of this same movie was done in-house at HBO and by all reports is superior to Sony's own HD transfer!

Underworld looked as breathtaking, natural, and free from any "video" signature" as Riddick on HD DVD... so even 25gig BD using MPEG2 isn't automatically a step down in PQ... it seems that mastering and the film-digital transfer have a lot to do with how well it can be presented. My guess is that clean movies without much grain or random video information may compress quite well using MPEG2 on 25gig BD though naturally advanced codecs need to arrive sooner than later (along with dual-layer 50 gig.). I don't mean to step off into the usual debates here... I really mean to point out that the Underworld BD looked "like HD DVD"... not inferior in any way to my eyes.

Once we get Chris' constant height 2.35:1 screen up we'll watch the full movie (underworld) and also screen some other HD DVD and BD titles to get a wider scope.

For now... it seems to me that the biggest problems with the PQ of BD is Sony's foolish desire to maximize the use of older (inferior) HD transfers that are noisy and not up to today's more transparent-transfering standards. VC1 and 50 gig can't make a bad HD transfer look any better... so let's hope Sony learns this lesson as well!!!

More to come...

 

[Kelly Grannell]

So we're back to the same hypothesis that by deduction on PS2, PS3 may have inferior, albeit crazy expensive, BD movie playing capability.

 

[Ed St. Clair]

Are you saying "this" HD master introduced "lots" of noise to the transfer?
And you belive/know a new master would, what, not add any or very little nosie?
Thanks.

Sounds like a GREAT time, hope you enjoyed your HD experience...
immensely!!!

Anything on sound???
If not thats OK, for now!!!

 

[Ed St. Clair]

Where does "crazy expensive" come from, when a standalone player goes for $1000US?
Are you comparing a BD players cost to a HD DVD players cost, to get "crazy expensive"?
Thanks.

 

[Paul Hillenbrand]

David, as I said in post #96

Re: THE FIFTH ELEMENT and the descriptive sentences on the screen written in white.

“The extreme edging of the letters had a tremendous amount of noise that I've never noticed on any other format, and that was completely distracting for me, but other than that, the film itself, wasn't too bad.”

This wouldn't be in the HD transfer, because of the "movement" of the edging around the letters, IMHO, it would be in the use of the MPEG 2 codec.

Paul

 

[Kelly Grannell]

no, I mean a gaming machine that cost $600. I'm not a game person. To me spending anything more than $300 for a console is "crazy expensive" although a $1,500 SD DVD player is not "crazy expensive" to me

 

[Ed St. Clair]

Noted.
I have my very own "crazy expensive" definition, as well.
Thanks for clarifying "yours"!
Just right after your "CE" you posted; "BD movie playing capability", that's what threw me! ;-)

 

[Ed St. Clair]

GREAT NEWS!!!

New HDMI 1.3 capabilities include:

Higher speed: HDMI 1.3 increases its single-link bandwidth from 165MHz (4.95 gigabits per second) to 340 MHz (10.2 Gbps) to support the demands of future high definition display devices, such as higher resolutions, Deep Color and high frame rates. In addition, built into the HDMI 1.3 specification is the technical foundation that will let future versions of HDMI reach significantly higher speeds.

Deep Color: HDMI 1.3 supports 30-bit, 36-bit and 48-bit (RGB or YCbCr) color depths, up from the 24-bit depths in previous versions of the HDMI specification.

Lets HDTVs and other displays go from millions of colors to billions of colors
Eliminates on-screen color banding, for smooth tonal transitions and subtle gradations between colors

Enables increased contrast ratio

Can represent many times more shades of gray between black and white. At 30-bit pixel depth, four times more shades of gray would be the minimum, and the typical improvement would be eight times or more

Broader color space: HDMI 1.3 removes virtually all limits on color selection.

Next-generation “xvYCC” color space supports 1.8 times as many colors as existing HDTV signals

Lets HDTVs display colors more accurately

Enables displays with more natural and vivid colors

New mini connector: With small portable devices such as HD camcorders and still cameras demanding seamless connectivity to HDTVs, HDMI 1.3 offers a new, smaller form factor connector option.

Lip Sync: Because consumer electronics devices are using increasingly complex digital signal processing to enhance the clarity and detail of the content, synchronization of video and audio in user devices has become a greater challenge and could potentially require complex end-user adjustments. HDMI 1.3 incorporates an automatic audio/video synching capability that allows devices to perform this synchronization automatically with accuracy.

New lossless audio formats: In addition to HDMI’s current ability to support high-bandwidth uncompressed digital audio and currently-available compressed formats (such as Dolby® Digital and DTS), HDMI 1.3 adds additional support for new, lossless compressed digital audio formats Dolby® TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio™.


Products implementing the new HDMI specification will continue to be backward compatible with earlier HDMI products.

Link to entire article:
http://www.widescreenreview.com/news...l.php?id=11502

I've been waiting since '02 for a digital connection (DVI), since '03 for HDMI, & since '04 for 1.3.
Maybe, my digital connection wait is finally over!

 

[Kelly Grannell]

I currently uses a Sony HD CRT RPTV with DVI (HDCP compliant) input. Will HDMI 1.3 positively affect the PQ outcome on this TV or does it mean I have to buy a new TV with HDMI 1.3 compliant in order to get the full PQ capability?

Again, I'm just talking about the PQ improvement, I know that DVI doesn't pass through sound.

 

[Paul Borges]

How did you watch in 1080p? I thought the Toshiba only outputs in 1080i?

 

[Ed St. Clair]

I don't know.
Surprise! ;-)
Maybe the HDMI site can help;
http://www.hdmi.org/
Great article in WSR #110 about all the screwups 1.1 & 1.2 had with point to point connections. One of the reasons I had for staying away from HDMI!

 

[Kelly Grannell]

The FAQ doesn't say whether owners of HDMI 1.2 (or older renditions) will reap the benefits of HDMI 1.3, it only says that it's backwards compatible.

 

[JediFonger]

yes, it's not forward compatible, only backwards compatible.