BluRay/HDDVD compared to Movie Theater???

mseanschmidt · 01-10-2008, 09:19 AM

I just bought the LG BH200 Dual Blu/HD Player to go along with my 60" LG Plasma 1080p.

Just watched my first movie last night. Why does BluRay or HDDVD looking SO MUCH better than a movie I watch at my local movie theater? I watched Pirates last night and also saw it in the theater. I can say that the DETAIL on my plasma was so STUNNING. The movie looked VERY different then when I watched it at my local cinema a few months ago.

Why is there such a difference? I always thought the cinemas were supposed to have the best picture quality. Sorry for what may be a dumb newbie question, I'm just SO impressed with how different the BluRay experience is.

Terry Hickey · 01-10-2008, 10:26 AM

There are a lot of variables at play. The theater projection unit might not be
functioning at its best anymore or the calibration is off a bit. Your home theater might be set up high in the contrast and brightness or it might just
be encoded differently (the bd disc). There are a lot of factors at play. Others here on the forum that are more knowledgeable will probably chime in.

Welcome to the forum. Its a great place to exchange viewpoints and learn
some things on the way. Enjoy your BD player and I hope you get many years of enjoyment out of it. I'm only HD DVD as of now, but when I get some disposable income, I hope to enjoy Blu-ray movies in the future.

p.s. How's the HD DVD side look, or have you only got BD software only? Also curious as to what the price was for your player?

Bmoney · 01-10-2008, 11:11 AM

why is high contrast and brightness so bad? it makes the picture pop and look phenominal including blacker than blacks. bu the movie stndard is soft looking smooth images. why is that ...if the case is that HC and HB displays are more pleasing to the general eye?

(now i do know the reason behind this....i just wanted to spark a discussion)

Jeff Cooper · 01-10-2008, 12:22 PM

Technically speaking, there's no reason why your home theater should look better than the public theater. Flim has a much higher resolution than HD Media.

That being said, it seems that there are so many other factors that make the home theater much more preferrable than the local multiplex. No rude people, no crying kids, no sticky crap on the floor, no cell phones going off, proper calibrated in focus pictures, properly balanced sound, etc. etc.

It takes a serious event movie to get me to go to the theater these days.

Man-Fai Wong · 01-10-2008, 01:17 PM

Yep, there are lots of variables. They include the fact that film prints get worn and get dirty, etc. in the theaters -- if you didn't see the movie in the first few days of theatrical release, there's good likelihood such things would've impacted your movie-going experience already. Seems like the only time you get a pristine presentation of film is at some star-studded world premieres of the films unless it's a digital presentation.

Some also believe that some theaters might be intentionally running their projectors at less than optimal (eg. dimmer) settings in order to prolong the lifespan of projector bulbs and such, which is apparently a misguided trick from what I read. For instance, this particular issue comes up from time to time in Roger Ebert's Answer Man column.

Another thing is unless you're sitting really close to your 60" plasma, you might not really be doing a fair comparison to your experience in the local theater. Even the sharpest picture won't look so sharp as you get closer to it...

_Man_

**HTF Ads**

Jerome Grate · 01-10-2008, 02:04 PM

If you can find a digital theater, it'll make you think differently. I remeber my experience with a digital theater when the third installment of Star Wars was released and I tell you, everything about that was simply beautiful. As far as I'm concern Blu-Ray nor HD-DVD was able to better it. Just my opinion.

mseanschmidt · 01-10-2008, 02:41 PM

so if i'm watching true 1080p on my system what is the resolution of "film" at the theater? And, how is digital better than film at the theater?

Steve Schaffer · 01-10-2008, 02:43 PM

I've usually found that even a good SD transfer beats anything I've seen in the theaters in the last few years. I put it down to lousy QC in most theaters--everything in today's multiplexes is automated and run by minimum wage teens.

HRD-DHC · 01-10-2008, 08:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mseanschmidt

so if i'm watching true 1080p on my system what is the resolution of "film" at the theater? And, how is digital better than film at the theater?

Back when I did digital darkroom stuff, we used to say that film was on the order of 3000 to 5000 lines per inch.

If one 1080p frame has 1080 lines in it, a single photo frame should have 3-5x as much, and possibly more depending on the size of the crystals involved in the developing of the negative.

And that was photo film. Not sure about movie film; because it's meant to display on a six to ten meter tall screen, they may increase the lpi. At 4000 lines per inch and using 70mm wide film at a 2.35:1 aspect ratio, that's about 4700 lines displayed on a 6100mm tall screen...or about 1.3mm per line (but viewed from six to eight meters away, at least, so the angle subtended by each 1.3mm line is pretty small...1.3mm divided by 7000mm = .000186)

A 60" screen will be about 550mm tall, and at 1080lines, that's about 0.5mm per line, but 2-3 meters viewing distance. 0.5mm divided by 2500mm is 0.0002.

So the movie screen will look slightly sharper given 4700lpi, and if film is finer grained than this, will only look better.

I have no special knowledge; all of the above is one assumption (about the lpi of film) and then some math. An expert may tell you different, and better.

Jeff Gatie · 01-11-2008, 09:22 AM

Digital film restorations are optimally done with a 4k scan (approx. 4000 lines) and that seems to be the sweet spot for capturing resolution from film without losing the fine grain structure. But Man-Fai Wong is correct, film is a physical medium which deteriorates with each showing and depending on the theater and it's setup, you very well could be seeing an inferior print on inferior equipment.

Grant H · 01-11-2008, 11:43 AM

Don't forget that the film print you see at your local cinema is far from the original source since it's been duped multiple times.

If you can get a perfect presentation at your cinema, the resolution will be far greater than at home; then again, if it takes a very large screen at a fairly close viewing distance to appreciate the difference between 720p and 1080p at home, additional resolution at home probably can't be appreciated anyway. Not until people just start using entire walls as screens anyway. Even the biggest screen at home isn't the size of a full-sized cinema screen. Hence, it NEEDS the extra resolution film provides. Of course they'll have to update the Blu-ray spec to accomodate it. TVs are on the way already. It's likely we'll need the additional space on those discs.

I think moreso than resolution, it's an improvement in color depth we'll be appreciating at home in the near future. It's taken time for digital to catch up to film in that regard.

I've yet to enjoy a perfect DLP presentation even, though I should try one in the area I live in now. I saw Episode III in DLP. The sound was phenomenal in that theater, not harsh at all, very nuanced (word is most DLP cinemas use uncompressed sound). But the colors were slightly off. Black starfields were inconsistent with some of the screen leaning toward red.

I actually did take in Superman Returns, at what turned out to be a crappier DLP theater in northern Virginia. The image was so dark I could barely see anything compared to the film presentation.