HD vs. SD on a nice TV (1 Viewer)

[EricW]

i was over at my friend's place watching the new samsung DLP 50" (the HL-R5078w). it was right out of the box and uncalibrated, but the images were NICE (1080p). we had it connected to an upconverting DVD player.
anyways, we also connected it to an xbox360 and watched some of the hi-def trailers on it - and seriously, i didn't see that much difference in image quality between the 2 resolutions. neither could my friend. and we're both into HT. is this a case of the xbox trailers not being authored to the full potential of HD (because the colour seemed kind of saturated in them to be honest). we didn't have an HD tv signal to compare either, so the trailers were our only material reference.
anybody else have this experience?

 

[Jack Briggs]

I'm deferring on this post. Not sure that this is the correct location. If another admin sees fit to move it to another area, please do so.

 

[BrettGallman]

Did he have the HD switch on the 360 cable turned on? That makes a huge difference. It's an easy thing to miss or forget.

 

[EricW]

yeah it was definitely tuned to HD. and yeah, the detail was there. it's not that the HD didn't look good - it's just that the SD looked really good too. i've also read in some DVD review threads like Revenge of the Sith, how the new DVDs look almost like HD, so i thought maybe other people didn't see much of a difference either.

 

[Cory S.]

I'm interested in seeing Episodes II and III in HD, considering how they were captured. Especially Episode III.

 

[Shawn Perron]

I spent most of episode 3 on dvd wishing I could see more in the background. While it looks great for DVD and the close ups were great, I think people are going to be amazed by all the detail of things in the backgrounds of scenes when HD takes off. Those art directors that spent the time fleshing out the sets and backgrounds of movies will be greatly rewarded when a lot more of thier work is visible. It'll be cool to not only see books sitting on a distant bookcase or nightstand, but to actually be able to read the spines. Lots of subtle background nuance may be revealed in titles you have previously watched.

 

[Larry Sutliff]

I watched parts of OCEANS ELEVEN(the original) last night on the INHD2 channel, and the picture was absolutely stunning. It smoked DVD on resolution and color purity. It looked like it was filmed yesterday. I could count every hair on Peter Lawford's arm(!). Incredible.

I have 2 very good upconverting DVD players on a CRT HD RPTV, and even brand new films like EPISODE III and FANTASTIC FOUR didn't look as good as that forty plus year old film in HD. An analogy: a good DVD is like a nice 16mm film print, but a good HD transfer is like a mint 35mm print.

 

[Peter f]

I agree with Larry.

I watched Battle of the Bulge on INHD2 and the resolution on that film was much better than any DVD in my collection...Including SWIII.

Amazing they can do that with the older films like that...although i have no idea how

 

[DaViD Boulet]

That's (partly) because good film has more resolution than 1920 x 1080 HD...and those 1080 24PHD cameras that Lucas used actually look *SOFTER* than good film because they are limited to 1920 x 1080P pixels and so they need to actually add more vertical/horizontal fitlering to avoid aliasing on fine detail...that's detail that can be left in-tact with careful downconversion algorithms when starting from a higher-res source like a good film print/negative. And it's also possible that Lucas added more softening artifically to try to "blend" live-action with CGI...too much detail would show the difference all to plainly.

When we get 4K projection in theaters and some good film-digital transfers of catalog films, people will be shocked at the clarity (except in cases where the film-style or film-stock was chosen to produce a soft-focus negative). At that time "state of the art" 1080P HD movies like Revenge of the Sith will look soft and burrly in comparison on the big screen.

 

[Cees Alons]

Not the people who are used to (proper) analog projection, of course. Analog film still has much more resolution (both spatially and colourwise) than 4k digital scans.


Cees

 

[DaViD Boulet]

True. But in comparison to "normal" 35mm release-print quality, a 4K transfer straight off a negative or interpositive will probably look much better than what most folks are used to seeing.

But you're right...proper film projection is the benchmark, and has superior resolution and color capacity. Everytime I see a pristine 35mm print (like 2001 last summer) or excellent 70mm projection (like Hello Dolly) I wonder how any digital capture could possibly encode all the detail and color space that's so effortlessly revealed through the film medium...

 

[Cory S.]

Eventually, a digital camera will be able to capture that amount of info. I do know that a company is working on a 4k resolution digital camera for film production.

"And it's also possible that Lucas added more softening artifically to try to "blend" live-action with CGI...too much detail would show the difference all to plainly."

That's exactly what Lucas did with Attack of the Clones, I know for sure. Revenge of the Sith is much sharper than Attack of the Clones but some filtering to soften the image was involved as well but not as much as Attack of the Clones.

Also, if you know David, what were the Star Wars Trilogy DVDs mastered in? I've read 1920 x 1080p.

 

[EricW]

i guess it's like vinyl vs. CD?

analog rules!

just kidding but not entirely.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

You're talking to someone who discovered what recorded music can really sound after years of CD when I first heard my friend's turntable coupled with his tube pre-amp. Now *that's* a soundstage...

 

[Marko Berg]

A vinyl recording certainly sounds better than a digital 8-bit 15kHz reproduction of the same music. Just because something is digital doesn't mean it's automatically better quality. Digital movie cameras aren't yet ready to replace film-based equipment.