Why is Edge Enhancement more obvious on LCD than on CRT?

Most of the observations you've made wrt color depth, contrast ratio, blacks, etc. are all related to each other and are basically more or less just observations about the same thing from different POVs, etc.

RE: the pixel definition/accuracy thing, yeah, the diff there probably has mostly to do w/ the inherent limitations of (analog) CRTs vs fixed-pixel (digital, chip-based) displays like LCDs, not that LCDs don't have their own related limitations (like fill factor due to use of the chip, which is probably what can sometimes translate into the screen-door effect, particularly for very large LCD projection setups).  I suspect this aspect of CRT inaccuracy is very similar to the "euphonic" distortions/inaccuracies that one prefers from quality analog audio tech/gear, especially of the tube (and vinyl) variety.  They're the kind of inaccuracies that we humans have grown (or maybe even unconsciously trained) to prefer (and even "love") vs the other set of compromises found in digital (and/or semi-conductor-based or similar) audio tech/gear.  Most of us tend to prefer warm and fuzzy (to an extent) over cold, seemingly edgy and clinically accurate (but yet still missing something else and still far from actual perfection).

At the end of the day, I think the pursuit of the absolute sound (or such other similar playback ideals for a recorded medium) is kinda moot when I pick up a real violin w/ my meager beginner's skills and find that sound never before heard by me on any recording on any gear/setup I can possibly afford (both in terms of $ and effort) -- and that's besides to point whether one can reasonably find true audiophile recordings that also satisfies musically, not just technically.

Anyhoo...

_Man_

BTW, sorry if I sound like we shouldn't care about these issues.  That's not exactly what I meant.  I'm just saying we're probably not quite as concerned about accuracy, etc. to the Nth degree as we might like to think, but ultimately, we're just looking for what makes us happy/satisfied (at least for the forseeable future) -- and that more often than not involves personal preferences on which set of compromises suit us best (whether decisions/preferences are made consciously or subconsciously).

Basically, at some point, it becomes kinda moot (and just academic) when it comes to stuff like why EE looks worse on LCDs vs CRTs (or whether the 2.0:1 Criterion-MARed version of The Last Emperor is acceptable or not under the circumstance or something else like that).  

_Man_

PS: Maybe I'm just rationalizing about all this stuff because I finally broke down and bought the TLE BD, but am still kinda conflicted about that...

Let's not forget that some of the difference you're seeing, at least on widescreen movies, is simply the difference between a tiny letterboxed image on a 19" set and a full- or nearly full-screen image on a 24" LCD.  Smaller screens and tiny phosphors do a lovely job of concealing flaws in source material.  Back in the days of VHS tape I had tons of off-the-air recordings of hard-to-find movies.  The all looked very nice on my 19" TV/VCR combo.  When I got my first big screen TV, a 46" rear projection set, I found most of them literally unwatchable.  A larger image magnifies flaws, as well as details, and that alone is probably responsible for a least a percentage of the problems you're now seeing.

Regards,

Joe

 

Well, it's quite evident that the picture has suffered at least in some shots due to the 2.0:1 crop even w/out doing a side-by-side comparison.  Guess we'll just have to live w/ Storaro's imposed set of compromises in this instance unless one is willing to settle for the quality compromises (vs the AR/composition compromises) of one of the available DVD versions out there (or simply go w/out) -- I still haven't seen the R2 PAL version, except for a few screen caps that show odd color balance.
 

 
Yep.  Like I tried to allude, basically, a lot of our preferences regarding flaws/compromises just have to do w/ what we're used to seeing/hearing/experiencing.  Consider the CGI example, it's soooo much easier to spot (and be distracted by) less-than-perfect (or rather, ironically, coldly, unreally/unconvincingly perfect) live action CGI of things that we're used to seeing/experiencing vs CGI effects (or animation) of things we're not so familiar w/ in real life.  When CGI is not expected to look, sound and feel exactly like the real thing, it becomes free of that burden to convince us to the N-th degree that's needed -- and depending on what it is, the CGI creators can even freely throw in all sorts of completely unreal aspects into the effects/animation and have those actually be convincing parts of the CGI creation.

It's like if I listen to music written/arranged for and played on an electric guitar, I naturally accept it more than if someone simply tries to play a piece originally written for acoustic and played on electric w/out giving due consideration to the inherent diffs between such guitars.
 

Yep.  BTW, people often don't think about that in the digital photography world and just assume they want higher dynamic range capability for their camera, but there are tradeoffs to consider there (at least at this point in the tech).  If you want higher DR, you're gonna need more bit-depth (and thus, larger file sizes, higher storage and processing demands, etc etc) to accommodate the higher contrast ratio unless you sacrifice granularity w/in that contrast/gamma curve in one way or another, eg. maybe fewer fine grain steps in the dark gray and off-white regions for starters.  That's actually the kind of tricks that lossy compression of audio typically uses to reduce the needed bandwidth, ie. throw away much of the low bass and high treble first.

Likewise, while shooting RAW affords extra degrees for postprocessing of photos, there are real limitations there too since the available bit-depth is limited.  Further, people often overlook that doing color correction in the digital realm (w/ RAW files) is not w/out compromises again due to the actual available bit-depth in the source files.  If in the process of color correcting a tungsten lit shot, you need to throw out lots of the red channel data and/or push what little there is in the blue and green channels -- because tungsten lighting has very little blue and green -- the final result does not just magically appear out of thin air just because you're using RAW files.  The results will be much weaker than if you had made the shot w/ all the color correction done in the shooting chain before the light of the image is caught by the image sensor, eg. longer exposures to go w/ high quality color filters (to do the color balancing), lighting that actually need less/no correct correction, etc.  And of course, factoring in the color/exposure corrections into the shoot, instead of in post, requires certain compromises too, ie. takes lots of extra work, gear, etc., longer exposures may not be feasible for certain kinds of shots, etc.

And roughly the same things can be said if you shoot film, instead of digital, too of course.

At the end of the day, it's all physics, and there just is no free lunch there.


Could be although that aspect probably is less significant for 16x9 DVDs though since the old 19" 4x3 presentation was actually throwing away 1/4 of the vertical resolution before.  When he switched to the 24" 16x9 LCD, he's getting 1/3 more vertical res than he used to see (for 16x9 DVDs), not just the bigger picture.

There's also the issue that his LCD probably needs to uprezz those DVDs to its native res, which may introduce additional possibly noticeable artifacts -- and some of that *might* exaggerate certain DVD artifacts too.  Yes, the 16x9 DVDs had to be downrezz for 4x3 CRT -- unless he had the rare one w/ 16x9 squeeze function -- which also could add artifacts, but usually, such artifacts are not nearly as noticeable as uprezzing, IMHO.

_Man_
Edited by ManW_TheUncool - 9/6/09 at 7:23pm