Home Theater Forum - View Single Post - Blu-ray: Do my eyes deceive me?

Hartwig Hanser · 03-14-2008, 04:18 AM

I had the same experience, when I bought my BD player in December and used it for 2 weeks on my old Panasonic AE300 projector (540x960) before upgrading to the AE2000. BDs simply looked better than DVDs despite the necessary downscaling, even PAL DVDs with 576 lines of resolution.

My explanation: Most DVDs filter fine details to make encoding easier and therefore do not use all pixels effectively. Downscaled Blu-ray will offer more then SD resolution, no matter if it is filtered itself or not, so you have different picture information on every pixel, i.e. you use the pixels on the projector with maximal efficiency.

There are unfortunately only a few SD DVDs which seem to me to use the full SD resolution, e.g. the PAL versions of The Two Towers and Return of the Kind, extended editions, or Star Wars Episode III and V. Almost every other DVD loses some potential resolution.

Nick, in your case you have another factor: your projector has 600 lines resolution which is more than on NTSC DVDs (480 lines). So, while DVDs have only 480 lines resolution, your downscaled BDs use the full 600.

03-14-2008, 04:18 AM	#7 of 16
Hartwig Hanser Member Location: Heidelberg, Germany Join Date: Oct 1998 Local Time: 09:59 AM Local Date: 10-12-2008 Posts: 530	Re: Blu-ray: Do my eyes deceive me? I had the same experience, when I bought my BD player in December and used it for 2 weeks on my old Panasonic AE300 projector (540x960) before upgrading to the AE2000. BDs simply looked better than DVDs despite the necessary downscaling, even PAL DVDs with 576 lines of resolution. My explanation: Most DVDs filter fine details to make encoding easier and therefore do not use all pixels effectively. Downscaled Blu-ray will offer more then SD resolution, no matter if it is filtered itself or not, so you have different picture information on every pixel, i.e. you use the pixels on the projector with maximal efficiency. There are unfortunately only a few SD DVDs which seem to me to use the full SD resolution, e.g. the PAL versions of The Two Towers and Return of the Kind, extended editions, or Star Wars Episode III and V. Almost every other DVD loses some potential resolution. Nick, in your case you have another factor: your projector has 600 lines resolution which is more than on NTSC DVDs (480 lines). So, while DVDs have only 480 lines resolution, your downscaled BDs use the full 600.