Uh-Oh... three WB (film) HR discs somewhat sloppily upconverted to 1080p!!!

DaViD Boulet · 06-01-2006, 11:27 AM

This post is not an HD DVD slam. This is FORMAT NEUTRAL. This problem can affect either format at any time. It's a STUDIO problem: Do not turn this thread into an HD DVD/BD debate or I will get MODs to take action.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...&&#post7753789

http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htf/...5&postcount=20

Quote:

The Fugitive was a 1080i master, not 1080P. Not all of Warner's masters are like this, but this one just happened to be. (Full Metal Jacket was too). The master was converted to 1080P but the de-interlacer was not capable of inverse telecine, so you are seeing the artifacts. Hopefully Warner (and any other studio with 1080i masters, and YES there are quite a few of them!) will either do new masters down the road or get a de-interlacer that will do 1080i to 1080P properly before they keep doing HD DVD like this. Thankfully this seems to be the minority so far[...]They were simply "bobbed" to 1080P for the HD DVDs. This will be the case with some titles depending on what the source master is. Again, this will probably be pretty rare, but it will happen. I know that new masters are being struck for some titles that would have ended up the same way, so there is hope that the majority of older titles will get the proper treatment down the line, instead of just pushing them out. I know this is the case for at least 1 title that has been announced so far.

This is really bad news. Folks, don't ignore this.

The Fugitive and Full Metal Jacket are apparently mastered from 1080i60 HD conversions rather than from native 1080p24 feeds.

This is serious. and this is not a problem with HD DVD... it's a problem that can happen on either HD DVD or Blu-ray at any time... it's a STUDIO problem.

And it extends beyond problems with aliasing and deinterlacing issues upon playback (as well as confusing a HD DVD/BD player's ability to output a true 1080P stream). It means that most likely these 1080i60 conversions already had vertical-domain pre-filtering which is routine with all interlaced masters.

Let your voices be heard.

And Warner... there is no excuse. If consumers can procure deinterlacers that can do proper 3-2 pulldown from 1080i60 film-based signals, so can you!

Jack Briggs · 06-01-2006, 11:48 AM

Yet, David, I still recall Robert Harris's ringing endorsement of the Full Metal Jacket disc. It's basically like film. Add to that Sound & Vision magazine's glowing review of the format ("best HD picture we've ever seen"), and I think this sort of objection is, for most viewers, picking nits. However, I'm sure a plethora of opinions will soon follow.

Larry Sutliff · 06-01-2006, 11:49 AM

Very interesting. I haven't watched THE FUGITIVE yet, but I've read that it looks considerably less pristine than most of the other HD DVD's released. Thanks for the info, David.

DaViD Boulet · 06-01-2006, 11:59 AM

Quote:

Yet, David, I still recall Robert Harris's ringing endorsement of the Full Metal Jacket disc. It's basically like film. Add to that Sound & Vision magazine's glowing review of the format ("best HD picture we've ever seen"), and I think this sort of objection is, for most viewers, picking nits. However, I'm sure a plethora of opinions will soon follow.

Jack,

then it's possible that this 1080i60 transfer had not had additional pre-filtering applied to the vertical domain.

That at least gets rid of one bad issue. And anyone watching 1080i output from an HD DVD player wouldn't notice a problem.

But the problem would be with future HD DVD players that might use disc-authoring to govern their "progressive 1080P output"... they might read this title as a "real" interlaced one and just to bob/weave to output it as 1080P60 without any 1080p24 option!

Quote:

Add to that Sound & Vision magazine's glowing review of the format

Was that regarding HD DVD in general or the two specific 1080i-mastered titles?

Most HD DVDs seem to be mastered properly in native 1080p24.

Quote:

and I think this sort of objection is, for most viewers, picking nits. However, I'm sure a plethora of opinions will soon follow.

Like lack of 16x9 and EE ringing were once considered "nit picking" with DVD media?

Vincent_P · 06-01-2006, 12:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DaViD Boulet

SNIP:
The Fugitive and Full Metal Jacket are apparently mastered from 1080i60 HD conversions rather than from native 1080p24 feeds...

SPECULATION, BUT-

Wouldn't this likely mean that FULL METAL JACKET used the HD transfer that was done in 2000 for the remastered Kubrick DVDs- i.e., the "full-frame" one for the DVD (which I assume was a 1.33:1 pillar-boxed image within the HD 16:9 frame)? Back then, Leon Vitali said in interviews that the "full frame" Kubricks were mastered in HD with the 1.33:1 image pillar-boxed. As such, is there a chance that not only is this DVD mastered from a 1080I source, but that said source was then CROPPED top and bottom in order to turn it into a widescreen source, thus lopping off a bunch of the scan lines? I've read some reviews of FULL METAL JACKET that say the difference between it and most of the other HD-DVDs vs. their standard-def counterparts is a lot more subtle, and if they took a pillar-boxed 1080I transfer then cropped it to 16:9 top-and-bottom, thus throwing away scan lines AND expanding the pillar-boxed actual image area (which would lose a good portion of the 1920 horizontal pixals to black bars at the sides) to fill a 16:9 HD frame, this could account for this, no? Obviously, THE FUGITIVE wouldn't be affected this way since that master filled the full 16:9 frame to begin with, but now I have to wonder/worry about the upcoming "widescreen" versions of the Kubrick titles...

Vincent

**HTF Ads**

Paul Hillenbrand · 06-01-2006, 12:04 PM

Last night I watched "The Fugitive" on HD-DVD and the picture quality was very good. The first thing I noticed was the faded colors, so I used the "wide" color space selection, instead of "normal" and that corrected that.

The detail in close-up shots was not as resolved as most of the other HD-DVD's I've viewed, but I thought at the time it probably was because of the film itself and its age. Never saw the movie before last night.

Paul

DaViD Boulet · 06-01-2006, 12:15 PM

Paul,

what type of display do you have? a native 1080I, 720P, or full 1080P display?

Chad R · 06-01-2006, 12:19 PM

Couldn't they just release the DVD as 1080i (which the majority of displays are anyway for the time being), which would skip the de-interlacing, or will the player only take a 1080p disc?

Herb Kane · 06-01-2006, 12:39 PM

Watched The Perfect Storm last night and it was gorgeous - and - absolutely problem free - great colors, razor sharp image, no ringing etc. Will be working on the full review over the weekend.

Herb.

DaViD Boulet · 06-01-2006, 12:43 PM

Chad,

good point. Yes, they could release the HD DVD encoded as "1080i60" looking like a "normal" 1080i interlaced signal.

That would work *fine* for the interlaced output of HD DVD players.

but it could make a mess of future "progressive-scan" HD DVD players able to output 1080p60 or 1080p24... they might look at the signal and just assume it's a standard 1080I signal and just bob-weave it for progressive processing.

But yeah... that would still probably be better than using a *bad* deiterlacer to convert it to 1080p24 for authoring... bcs once you "lock in" the bad processing you can't undo it.

Of course... why can't WB just use a deinterlacer that can actually do 3-2 pulldown reversal? Duh!