A Few Words About A few words about... Enter the Dragon -- in High Definition (1 Viewer)

[Rachael B]

Yeah, but think how bad the Kentucky Fried Movie might have been without this film's template?

If this is an example of a poor ole bobbed HD-DVD all I can say is give me mo'!

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Keep in mind that all the HD that most of us see on progressive displays is "bobbed" so that's what many of us are used to.

If you've got a conventional 720P display you're probably not seeing true inverse-telecine deinterlacing and most 1080i CRT displays don't have the focus/clarity to really let 1080P detail shine.

The new generation of 1080p displays (like the Sony Ruby) will really start to let 1080p show it's stuff. That's where this will matter.

It's like back in the late 1990's when most of us had 4x3 TVs and were wondering what all the fuss was about with the "anamorphic" lingo... those non-anamorphic DVDs looked just fine on our 4x3 TVs. But in just a few short years most folks at HTF quickly learned how much better a true 16x9 DVD could look on their new 16x9 HDTV.

Same type of curve will come with HD media... true 1080p will outshine our older 1080i CRT gear and 720P gear, though even "non optimal" HD media (like bobbed discs) will look make our old displays look better than ever before!

dave

 

[Robert Crawford]

I hear you! So now "bobble" becomes the new catch phrase on the internet for substandard HD presentation, but the disc looked very fine to me and much better than any other home video presentation.





Crawdaddy

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Just like non-anamorphic dvds like Titanic looked better than anything we'd ever seen before on our 4x3 TVs.

It didn't mean it wasn't sub-standard by DVD potential, however. Just that our 4x3 TVs weren't capable of showing us the difference.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Except I've been watching HD material daily for 3-4 years now and I know a good HD presentation when I see one. However, last time I checked, you don't have a HD DVD player and I doubt you have watched this disc from beginning to end?




Crawdaddy

 

[DaViD Boulet]

I've been enjoying HD for several years now too. And I know that my 720P projector, as great as it is, isn't capable of revealing the full detail of a true 1080p signal.

Therefore, when I see HD DVD titles like this on my 720P projector, I enjoy them as we all should. But the impressions of image quality from my system are incomplete since my system isn't capable of resolving the full quality of an HD DVD. (for this reason I much prefer to watch HD DVD titles at either of my 2 1080-P capable friend's HT systems).

What type of display do you have?

 

[Dave H]

I haven't seen "Dragon" on HD DVD (or any format for that matter), however, I have high respect for Kris Deering who is a true video expert and I trust his opinion. On any rate, I think it's very important to keep the bar as high as possible with the new HD format - and that means doing proper 1080p transfers. Even though something less than that may be "good," I still think it's important to strive for the ideal or the best...particularly since it's practical as we have seen with some of the other outstanding looking 1080p HD DVDs. Good habits need to start early.

 

[Robert Crawford]

My current display is a Pro-720HD that is 1080I capable, but hopefully, by the end of this week it will be replaced by an ordered MD6580n 65 inch 1080p Microdisplay TV that accepts the 1080P natively.




Crawdaddy

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Cool. Does that new display do proper 3-2 pulldown for 1080i 60 film? (some newer sets are starting to do it right). If so... I'd be interested to hear your impressions once you get it and have a chance to check out your HD DVD collection on it.

I've noticed that HD titles that look very similar in quality to each other on my 720P projector and my one friend's 1080P projector which only "bobbs" to deinterlace look much more different on my other friend's Ruby which is full 1080P *and* does proper deinterlacing. That think is freakin' amazing with HD DVD via HDMI.

-dave

 

[Robert Crawford]

The MD6580N accepts 1080p input at 24, 30 and 60 fps!




Crawdaddy

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Fantastic.

Any idea what it will do with the 1080i60 output from your Toshiba until an HD DVD deck becomes available with native 1080p output? Hopefully one will soon... and with 5.1 Dolby True HD. Then deinterlacing issues will be moot!

dave

 

[Robert Crawford]

I'm sure those discs will look fine and probably better than the upcoming Blu-ray MPEG-2 releases!

By the way, did you watch the "Enter the Dragon" HD DVD in it's entirety or you just like commenting in HD DVD threads?

 

[DaViD Boulet]

I'm interested in HD media being all that they should be. That includes both HD DVDs and BDs mastered in proper 24p. That also includes the use of VC1 and AVC advanced video codecs. I've made it clear, this isn't an anti-HD DVD issue at all: It's a pro-HD issue that's format neutral.

Have you watched all those MPEG2 BDs in their entirety or just like commenting on MPEG2 issues?

 

[AlexBC]

I think David is absolutely right on this one. This is not anti-HDDVD, it's completely the opposite. I think we should raise the bar and not accept faulty products (or at least demand studios start getting it right) , even if they look good, because then, they could look even better.

And I also think the analogy to letterbox widescreen works perfectly. Once more revealing systems becomes standard, we're gonna start hearing more complaints about this.

Furthermore, things can get deceiving on a 65 inch screen, even if it's a 1080p display, when some of us are watching FP systems that have double that amount.

 

[RobertR]

I view these issues in studio-specific terms. Warner is aware of the issues with some early HD titles and is working to correct it. They're also aware that MPEG2 on BD is not adequate, and will not use it after the first wave of titles. Sony, on the other hand, in a continuing display of arrogance and "we do what's best for us" attitude (going back to at least the rootkit disaster), gives no indication that they need to change a damn thing.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

A fair assessment of these two studios and their diverging attitudes towards mastering film and serving the HT community.

As usual, WB is stepping up to the plate of doing things right (and has the humility to admit error and correct their process when appropriate). Oh for the day that Sony could do the same!

However, threads like this are still useful in general because many of these issues that WB is experiencing early in their HD presentations are new issues that every studio will face when they begin offering HD media, and it helps raise awareness of these issues both about the potential problems and how to address them.

 

[Ed St. Clair]

What "deinterlacing issues"?
Thanks.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Ed,

whenever you send an interlaced signal to a display that's inherently progressive, the signal is run through a deinterlacing algorithm to convert it to progressive-scan before it can be displayed.

There's one right way to deinterlace film-based material that's encoded in 60Hz interlaced... and that's to use 3-2 pulldown reversal/Inverse Telecine to zip the right fields back together to recreate the original full-frames of information.

Most displays do this right with 480i 60 (like from DVD) but *very few* do it right with 1080i 60 material. In other words, unless your 1080P TV is one of the rare sets that properly deinterlaces 1080i film material, the 1080p image you see on your screen when you feed it 1080i60 from your Toshiba HD DVD player isn't the full-quality 1080p of the original.

Yes this makes a difference. Despite looking stunningly gorgeous, I noticed immediately when direct A/B comparing that watching HD DVDs on my one friend's JVC HD2K 1080P projector that lacked proper deinterlacing, the picture looked about as detailed as the image on my 720P projector-- only a little smoother since the greater number of pixels of the 1080P LCOS image produce less screen-door and look smoother to the eye. I was a bit surprised that my 720P resolution maching looked almost as detailed even though the 1920 x 1080 projector had more than twice the number of pixels... as did the HD DVD image we were watching.

However, on my other friend's Sony Ruby 1080P projector that does proper 3-2 pulldown, the image looked *dramatically* sharper, more detailed, and more 3-dimensional than either my 720P machine or my other friend's (improperly deinterlacing) 1080P projector. I've also heard that feeding the JVC projector a native 1080P signal (bypassing it's poor deinterlacing) looks even sharper than the Ruby!

Most folks with improper 1080 deinterlacing don't know there's anything missing from their image because the picture looks better than anything they've seen on that display with HD DVD anyway and even improperly deinterlaced HD is still *way* better than DVD. However, the improvement of going all the way with correct 1080p conversion is dramatically sharper on a display with full 1920 x 1080 resolution... it's much more dramatic that the improvement from going to non-anamorphic to anamorphic DVD, as a point of comparison... which is why the HT community shouldn't just "settle" for improper deinterlacing of 1080i despite how good they think it looks to their eyes not having seen true 1080p.

By having the 1080p feed from the HD player to your 1080P in native 1080p form, you bypass any problems entirely (as long as your player is producing the 1080p signal the right way to begin with).

 

[Paul_Scott]

yup. gotta agree with you there, David.

 

[Mattias_ka]

Finally a GREAT movie on HD-DVD. There are too many crap movies like A Knight's Tale, Sky Captain and that is holding me back to get a HD-DVD player. But now when some good movies are coming I will bit the bullet and get my a player.