DVD HD transfer (1 Viewer)

[ted cruz]

I understand that if you want to view a standard DVD movie in high definition, you need a DVD player that transmits HD to an HDTV through a DVI connection. Director Benicio Del Torro (he directed Blade 2) did an HD transfer of "The Devil's Backbone" (see the specs), which was recently released on DVD. Since the DVD was not a garden variety DVD, but instead it was manufactured as an HD transfer, does that mean I can view the movie in high definition on my HDTV with just a regular DVD player, instead of a DVD-HD player with a DVI connection? Can I do the same with Terminator 2: Judgment Day (Extreme DVD Edition) since it was also a high definition transfer?

 

[Andre Bijelic]

Not exactly. True HD-dvd isn't available yet and probably won't be until late-2005/early-2006. There are a growing number of upconverting players that will take the 480i signal from a standard DVD and convert it to 720p, 1080i or some other custom resolution, but this is not the same as true HD. These players use sophisticated algorithms to "fill in" the gaps, but they can't add detail that wasn't present in the original source.

Also, it is not necessary to use DVI or HDMI for upconversion - a few players scale through component inputs, as well.

As far as HD transfers are concerned, just about every movie is transferred from film to some sort of HD format. That HD master is then downconverted to a standard 480i DVD.

The "Terminator 2" edition that you refer to is a rare exception - it does contain a true HD file - but only in Microsoft's WMV 9 format, which means that you can likely only watch it on your computer.

 

[Ed St. Clair]

No.
The DVD is 480p, on the disc.
480i out of the decoder.
480p out, if you have an onboard scaler (progressive).

 

[Ed St. Clair]

Oh, if I may add. Should be an excellent transfer to 480i/p DVD, coming from a HD master. Loss of resolution, yes. Butt, should afford you the best picture DVD has to offer.

 

[Ken Seeber]

Benicio Del Toro is an actor who starred in "The Usual Suspects" and "Traffic." Guillermo del Toro directed "Blade II."

A lot of movies are transferred to video in HD these days, either for release on D-VHS, broadcast in HD or eventual release in a year or two on HD-DVD.

But for standard DVD, these HD transfers are down-converted to standard definition 480p.

 

[RodneyT]

thats what i thought .

 

[Thomas Newton]

Not exactly. What you would need is magic fairy dust.

There are DVD players that will scale 480i/480p content up to a 720p or 1080i signal. As with WAV => MP3 => WAV, the HDTV => DVD => HDTV conversion loses detail permanently in the first, lossy, conversion step. The second step is one that therefore involves data duplication and interpolation to compensate for the information not present on the DVD.

I would guess that if you are using a CRT-based set, there would be little advantage to upconversion (from 480p). If you have a LCD set with a fixed native resolution, and the players can do a better conversion to that resolution than the set can, you might see an improvement.

Then again, this is based on my model of how monitors work and could be wrong.