Good demo disc for Picture quality?

Michael_Her · 09-23-2003, 04:59 PM

Can anyone suggest a good dvd to take along on a trip to Tweeter and the Home Theater store to look at DVD Players? I am going to go take a look at the Denon's and Mitsubishi.

James_SCEA · 09-23-2003, 05:11 PM

Michael_Her ,

I would highly recommend the Fifth Element as a video reference disc. It is actually available in a Superbit version which includes DTS and DD, along with a higher bit rate which slightly improves the quality of the film.

Good luck and don't by the first thing you see!

JeremySt · 09-23-2003, 06:08 PM

Gladiator, Seven, North By Northwest, Ferris Beullers Day Off, and the recent Starship Troopers Superbit are some of my refrence discs. They all show a variety of style and quality, all are relatively compression and EE-free.

greg_t · 09-23-2003, 06:09 PM

I would suggest you take some with bad transfers and some video based dvd's. Any dvd player should be able to handle well done reference dvd's easily. Take some not so great ones to really see what the players are made of. Maybe take some of the ones that the Secrets of Home theater and HIFI uses to test players with.

Phil Nichols · 09-24-2003, 12:43 PM

greg_t,

Excellent suggestion! What a player does with terrible PQ DVD's shows you best what a DVD player can and can't do.

Michael_Her,

I've heard that the letterboxed "Zulu" is quite poor, so you might want to rent it and take a look.

My best reference disk is a superb demo DVD of independent shorts from Sony called "Dreams". It's formatted in 24 frames per second instead of 30, and it's formatted in 480p (progessive) instead of interlaced. This DVD makes it unneccessary for your DVD player or display to do 3:2 pull-down or to convert from 480i to 480p. This DVD shows DVD the best it can be, but as greg_t says ..... this DVD does not "stress" your DVD player ...... it only shows off what your display can do PQ-wise with your DVD player out of the way.

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Dan Driscoll · 09-24-2003, 04:05 PM

If you want a lousy transfer that has poor cadence and bad flags, nothing beats Titanic!

09-24-2003, 04:38 PM

Quote:

If you want a lousy transfer that has poor cadence and bad flags, nothing beats Titanic!

Oh, I don't know. 101 dalmatians II taught be every thing I ever wanted to know about combing. And the BMW Hire films are a close second in terms of my disc collection!

Side note: I own a Pioneer 45A (almost DFL in the Secrets shoot out). Sitting downstairs is a brand new Denon 1600 (second from the top in the shootout).

This evening, I will be having my own private shootout with the above mentioned discs. I figure that comparing the best to the worst should show me what all the buzz is about.

And if they look the same, I can then ether get my set ISF'd, or get me eyes ISF'd.

BGL

Michael_Her · 09-24-2003, 05:40 PM

Brian_L please post your thoughts when you get done with this tomorrow, I have had several people recommend the 1600 to me.

Drew_W · 09-24-2003, 10:52 PM

I second the Fifth Element disc as a reference disc...there are all sorts of nice vibrant colours in it all through the movie, and it is Superbit, so compression artifacts and the like will be minimal. Not to mention that the audio on it is also reference material, and it's a fairly good movie.

Neil Joseph · 09-24-2003, 10:53 PM

Moved to software.

You would want something with fleshtones (live action) like Vertical LImit SB or The Fifth Element SB.