First BD titles under scrutiny: The Fifth Element and others (1 Viewer)

[Kelly Grannell]

well, nothing is forward compatible, but take ATRAC, for example, you can have an 8 year old MD player but if the source is recorded using the latest version of ATRAC encoder, the sound quality will be better.

So my question, that remains unaswered by HDMI website, is whether older TV with HDMI 1.2 or older will reap the benefit of HDMI 1.3 (I'm just talking about picture quality, not audio).

 

[Jeff(R)]

You all might be interested in Bill Hunt's latest column regarding his Samsung. He was able to compare it to a Pioneer Elite BDP-HD1:


More: http://www.thedigitalbits.com/#mytwocents

 

[Ed St. Clair]

First gen buyers get screwed AGAIN!!! :-(
Thanks people for buying all this stuff right out of the gate (or wrong out of the gate, if we were perfectly honest), so poor slobs like me can reap the benefits of products done right at cheaper price points!

 

[Paul Hillenbrand]

Bill doesn't mention trying the Samsung @ 1080i output via HDMI, Only component. We've already heard elsewhere that the 1080P HDMI output is bobbed, just like the Toshiba HD DVD player.

Using the Samsung’s 1080i via HDMI into my Ruby and letting the Ruby deinterlace the signal to 1080P, seems to make the picture as good as the Toshiba's 1080i output via HDMI to the Ruby.

Wish Bill would clarify the tests.:rolleyes

Paul

 

[RobertR]

People are resporting elsewhere that they don't see the improvement Hunt is talking about on component. If anything, component is softer.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Paul,

the Toshiba doesn't have 1080P output (bobbed or not).

it is a concern that the 1080p output of the Sammy is bobbed, but I hadn't heard that confirmed anywhere. Did you? The Sammy seems to be a less-than-reference player in any regard!


I thought the same thing watching the Ruby via HDMI from both players as well.

BTW, thanks for posting about the mosquito noise around the text on T5E. I hadn't scrutinized that scene.

 

[Craig F]

The analogy here doesn’t equate. The reason why a newer ATRAC (or any other lossy encoder) can have benefits is that they use perceptional encoding to try and remove information that you theoretically can’t hear. As newer algorithms improve upon this, you reap the benefits. The data is in the same format, but the encoder is doing a better job of determining what is that you theoretically can’t hear.

With an interface like HDMI, data is being transmitted back and forth. Both the transmitter and the receiver have to understand the format of that data. If a new format is introduced, both ends of the connection have to be updated in order to utilize the new format. The updates to HDMI 1.3 require new data formats and in some cases a higher bandwidth. The HDMI connection will only use what both ends can understand. So, for example, your HDMI 1.2 TV won’t be able to use the higher color depth of a player with HDMI 1.3.

 

[Kelly Grannell]

Craig, thanks for the info. I didn't know that.

 

[Paul Hillenbrand]

No problemo!

Paul

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Paul,

You're exactly right though that the "bobbed" output from the Sammy's 1080p would have the same problems and look the same as a bobbed deinterlaced 1080i signal via any processor.

BTW, upon more investigation you're actually sortof right about the Toshiba player... for it's 720P output! It first "bobs" the 1080 to 1080p which cuts the vertical resolution down to about 540 effective lines (each line being repeated twice blurring the image), and then scales to 720 vertical.

In fact, Toshiba recommmends NEVER using their 720P output... even with a 720P display! They recommend only using 1080i to keep the image preserving all the pixels and letting the display take care of downscaling to 720P.

 

[VincentK]

DaViD,

I think Stacey responded to your thread on AVS here http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=692990 and said that the samsung doesn't bob.

 

[Cees Alons]

David,

You're doing it again!


Each frame is indeed doubled vertically, so is having an effective resolution of about 540 lines, but each other frame is carrying the vertical resolution information the previous frame was missing.

So the effective vertical resolution (to the human eye, after cumulation) is closer to 720 vertical lines (probably even higher, all the information of the 1080 lines resolution is there, although a little bit muddled).


Cees

 

[TedD]

And if this is the issue, using 1080I from the Sammy should show a fully detailed image.

Ted

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Cees,

we can debate the semantics of this issue. It's commonly accepted by most engineering folks that bobbing 1080i produces an effective vertical resolution of "540p".

Now, your point is a good one... that each individual frame may have "540p" vertical elements of resolution... but since each alternating frame would be interpolated upon the "missing" information from the frield before... that the combined effective resolution may appear higher. However, in practice the "blurring" of the two together still leaves the viewer perceiving a low-threshold of detail. I don't know if anyone has done tests to measure the actual limits of vertical frequency that can be perceived, and it very well may be closer to 720p. It would be a valuable test... though hopefully eventaully these bobbing issues can be left behind forever!

In any case, my "540p" characterization is consistent with the industry on the matter of bobbing 1080i, though I agree that better explanation of the process is helpful and your comments describe that process in detail.

And to be clear to anyone else reading who's confused, horiztonal resolution would remain unaffected by bobbing (you're still getting 1920 horizontal) regardless of the vertical reduction in perceived detail.



Only if viewed in native 1080i60 (like on a CRT) or deinterlaced using proper inverse telecine/3-2 reversal.

 

[ChristopherDAC]

I saw two Blu-ray demos today, one at a Fry's Electronics and one at Circuit City. Obviously, neither was set up for best performance, but the comparison was interesting. Both used some large flat-panel, and I didn't make a note of what. The Fry's demo ws running "Fifty First Dates", and I honestly cannot guess what they had done to it, but it looked awful. The thing which I noticed the most was that the colour looked extremely posterised, like it had been reduced from 8 bits per channel to 2. There was also a high level of MPEG noise, which came out of the background and looked like a series of heavy overlays on the picture. The contrast and brightness controls seemed to be turned up all the way, which didn't help, but the picture had an overall smeary and granular appearance I associate with VHS. I was 1 screen height or less away, but it was ridiculous. I also noticed what seemed a freakish level of jitter or judder in scenes with any degree of panning or fast motion. I have to think that there was something seriously wrong with their setup. The one at Circuit City was "House of Flying Daggers", and by comparison it looked excellent. There was still MPEG background noise, just as on the upscaled DVD of the Gene Wilder "Willy Wonka" playing around the corner, but it was in the background, not the foreground. The colours also looked like colours, and not like someone had spilled a box of pastels. As a matter of fact, the overall impression I got was that it looked like upscaled DVD, except for having full resolution — in other words, the visual texture was the same as DVD, there was just more picture information.

 

[Adam Tyner]

I don't have the manual in front of me, but I seem to remember it saying that 720p output should be used when the native resolution of the HD DVD is 720p.

720p HD DVD == 720p output
1080p HD DVD == 1080i output

I guess the point is to never use the player's scaler.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

They retracted that in a statement via Amir at AVS and in other venues. The manual is in error. I believe they even sent a memo to Best Buy asking them to be sure their HD DVD demos were all outputting 1080i even if connected to 720P displays.

Read the latest issue of WSR where Amir from Microsoft talks about the Toshiba player in an interview along with Joe Kane...

There are also tons of posts at AVS about the problem with running the Toshiba at 720P.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Which engineers are we talking about and how do you quantify that number as most?

 

[Adam Tyner]

I'm aware, although I'm not talking about 720p displays, so I'm not sure why you're bringing this up. I'm talking about discs encoded at 720p, of which there are none at present.

Perhaps that is outdated, though.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Ahh. I see. Sorry for the confusion on my part.