HD masters without a blu-ray (yet) - Page 2

It can be turned off, but every manufacturer calls it something different - it's usually something along the lines of "smooth motion".

I think its a little silly complaining about some of these TV HD versionss not being 1080p With so Many Not on Blue Ray,and little chance for them coming out anytime soon,and

most of the versions are better,or a lot better than any dvd that out now.Its a Mad Mad Mad ect world was far the best version 1080p or not,Badlands looks a lot better than

the dvd ,so does many others ,Manhattan looked the best it ever looked (mgm had some stupid logos on this)

Thief ,Sounder and many others were very nice

 

 

Yes, VUDU is a streaming PPV service.  They have a vast library of titles available in 1080p HD that aren't on Blu Ray.  The quality is quite good, depending on your internet connection.  Most of Hitchcock's 1950's - 1970's films are available in HD, from the better known  titles like Rear Window & Vertizo to stuff like Torn Curtain & Topaz.  And everything in between, like Rope, Trouble Harry, The Birds, Family Plot, etc, etc.  Probably about 20 or so titles.

 

Probably coming from the same masters that appeared on HDNET around Dec '07 & were never shown again.

It can be turned off, but every manufacturer calls it something different - if you can get her to tell you which model TV she has so you can look up the manual online, look for something with "motion" in the description.  On my Samsung, it's called "Auto Motion Plus".  (Also, I found that in addition to turning that off, turning off the "edge enhancement" setting fixed whatever remaining weirdness was still present.)

 

Some people don't even notice - I don't know how they don't, but my dad had picked up a brand new 46" 1080P Samsung back in 2008, great picture, but it came with that setting turned on.  I remember visiting for the holidays that year, I bought him a Blu-ray player as a gift, and when I popped something on I couldn't believe how terrible it looked.  And he said he didn't notice but let me change the setting.  I was very tempted to take one of his favorite records and unplug one of the speakers and ask if he noticed that 

I noticed the same thing on my mom's new Samsung. It's funny because she had had the thing a week and hadn't noticed anything (and had watched at least 1 Blu-ray). Why is it that the people that don't know how to drive have all the Ferraris? Cable and on-air hi definition content looked fine, but Blu-rays had an awful "artificial" look I'd never seen before. Weird is as good a word as any. I was able to shut it off and everything looked fine again. I know my LG has a setting for this and Samsungs obviously do as well. Does every manufacturer provide the ability to shut the "motion enhancement" feature off? I hope so.

 

The new Samsung with its default settings made Blu-ray content look "processed." Foreground characters seemed to pop way into the foreground (and it wasn't on a 3D setting) and motion seemed a little too fluid, as if there somehow weren't any defining lines around characters or objects, for that matter. When the action on-screen was still, everything was perfect. Put anything in motion (camera or character) and things got weird. 

 

Not silly at all, people have tried to fool us for commercial reasons.

Only (potentially) would differences be visible if those are images of real-time recordings, like TV-camera recordings (video). In that case, it makes a difference if the "odd" (-lines) image part is recorded after the "even" (-lines) part or not. And the difference will only be visible then if it is projected on your screen the wrong way (e.g. wrong sequence; theoretically that can also be caused by a wrong 3:2 pull down sequence, but that's not relevant when we're talking about BD).

 

However...

 

When a movie frame is scanned, the whole picture ("odd" plus "even" lines after scanning) is readily present (as a "photo", you could say) and frozen in time together, so it doesn't make any difference at all in which sequence the pixels are subsequently transported and finally put back into the frame you are looking at. All that matters is that they arrive at their proper place in the image buffer of your TV - and in time. Of course this is exactly what the system carefully does.

 

So - unlike some marketing tried to tell us - there is no difference at all between a properly displayed 1080i and a 1080p image once you see it with your eyes. Both have exactly the same image resolution: 1080 horizontal lines (and 1920 vertical columns). This is called a 1080 vertical resolution x 1920 horizontal resolution (sic!) image.

 

Both images (interleaved or progressive) would exactly be equal and are thus of exactly the same picture quality.

 

 

Cees

re: turning off "auto motion" on different TVs - someone posted a link to this article in another one of the sections of the HTF.  For the purposes of this discussion you can skip all of the parts in it about why the author prefers plasma to LCD, but what was really useful was that they showed pictures of the menu screens of different brands of TVs with how to turn off that motion smoothing on different models:

 

http://prolost.com/blog/2011/3/28/your-new-tv-ruins-movies.html

"Funny Girl" looks better on Netflix then the RoadShow 35mm print I saw in 1968! I was an usher. If I remember they used a filter or cheese cloth on the lens,to tone down her features. This might be legend, as I was only 16. Anyway I remember It being very hard to keep in focus. I would love most of Barbra S. films on BD. On A Clear Day You Can See Forever looked great on Netflix while they had it!

some other titles I got off Playstation Store,Vudu,and Netflix all better than dvd
Death Becomes Her
Happy New Year
Fearless
Heavens Gate
Bullworth
Little Budda
fellinis Satyricon
Harold and Maude

I'm looking forward to Chinatown on Blu-ray, which is in my personal top 5. It's also on Vudu, but I haven't watched it.

I'd think there's thousands of movies with good HD masters that are waiting for a Blu-ray release (that probably won't happen). You only have to watch Sky movies HD to see really great looking classic movies. Universal horrors, Road To films, a lot of Fox films. Just looking at the telly in the UK, there is cheap films like the Carry On's & the Margret Rutherford b/w Miss Marple films, all looking fantastic. I don't have Sky movies (or Sky HD), but when visiting my mother (who has) I've been very impressed. Not so long ago I saw three Billy Wilder movies, Witness For The Prosecution, Double Indemnity & Stalag 17, all looked terrific (& I have the early DVD of Stalag 17 & that looks really ropey). I think the days are long passed when as soon as a studio had a good master they released the disc.

Not everything broadcast on the Sky Movie HD channels is actually HD - there are a few upscales in there, particularly amongst the 'Carry On' films you mention (on Film 4HD), but you're right there are some absolute gems and some great surprises - Chinatown, Pursued, Sunset Blvd., Moonrise, and I've just watched a pristine HD presentation of White Feather.

You mean a fan base largely in the demographic of my grandma? She's a big Streisand fan, still has a CRT from the late 80's, and only got a DVD player a few years ago. I don't mean to stereotype the elderly population or Streisand fans, but it may be a factor.

I think the studios know that "HD" sells, and when people see that "HD" in the spec, regardless of low bit-rate artifacts that only allow a glimpse of what a real HD presentation would look like, they think they are getting it. Product delivered. I have to wonder if that middle road of "HD" streaming and cable were not an option, if a lot of these films would not already be released on Blu-ray.

Well you might say the same thing about THE SOUND OF MUSIC and Julie Andrew's fan base, but that sold well.  Streisand Dvd's sold well and we should see this in a year.  I keep thinking that Sony will open up the floodgates on the bigger titles soon.  Since Sony Pictures was the only bright spot in Sony's latest financial results,
 

 

I just watched STAND AND DELIVER (WB) in HD. Anamorphic widescreen with much improved color timing.
Sure beats the hell out of the full screen dvd that has been out for many years.

Finished Adrian Turner's wonderful biography of Robert Bolt last night, and serendipitously recorded a 4am showing, in HD, of the quite brilliant A Man For All Seasons - as I'd hoped, it looks utterly gorgeous. Surely a BD cannot be far away?

...and whilst I bang on about it, Sky have been showing a beautiful HD transfer of The Bounty; come on MGM...