Why people accept the lie, told by mass media, that digital it's perfect??? (1 Viewer)

[Dave Moritz]

I am not a big fan of digital content over the internet and would rather have a disc but that being said. I have about 90 titles that I can view with Vudu and the only reason I have it is because I registered the ultra violet codes online so I think of them as a back up encase something happens to my discs or they get stolen. I have watched a few of the titles from time to time if I am watching something outside of my main home theater. I am using a LG 4K UHD 43" TV as my pc monitor so once in a while I will watch something on that system. I have seen some decent looking movies that look good to some that honestly do not look that great. And it is ridiculous how I have a few movies that are stereo and not even 5.1 when the dvd and or blu-ray is in 5.1. The quality has come a long way and it is amazing how much content there is that can be viewed on our tv's, pc's, tablets and even our smart phones. It is even more amazing that even most movies viewed using digital using the internet are far superior to watching the same content on our old CRT TV's and even using VHS or Beta Max video tape. When I got into buying movies I never thought we would have the quality that we have available now! I never thought we would have HD quality via streaming services, cable, HD disc formats and especially 4K UHD Blu-ray disc. And who would have thought we would go from stereo and pro logic surround to lossless DTS/Dolby and now Atmos and X. Some of the issues I think are caused by bandwidth issues and some are caused by heavy compression. Let's face it that so many people in the world do not have the bandwidth for 4K content and maybe no even for HD content. I was having some issues streaming off vudu just earlier today so maybe I need to cycle my router and see if my connection improves. I was having issues and I have a 150 mb/sec so I don't think speed/bandwith is the real issue with my connection. The thing is not everyone is getting the same performance when streaming digital content. My two screen sizes are a 55" Samsung 4K UHD TV and a 43" LG 4K UHD TV and my 55" screen has a 7.1 Pioneer Elite SC-05 surround sound receiver. I have watched movies that where streamed and pay per view using Verizon Fios, Direct TV and have streamed movies with Vudu and I have seen some good quality. If I want to check out a movie before I buy it I will stream it, if I want to own it I purchase a disc.

Now if we are talking about digital content via cable, satellite or terrestrial there are a number of things that effect that delivery system as well. The content providers compress there broadcast then the cable or satellite company adds more compression depending on the channel. I am under the impression that not all channels are compressed the same. Some HD content looks very good and some not as good as others and what I have found is standard definition just looks horrible. I have not upgraded my Direct TV so I currently do not get any 4K content via Direct TV. I live in Southern California and while I wouldn't mind see our Dodgers I do not see myself getting Spectrum cable just so I can turn around and pay for the Dodgers channel. Will have to see if I end up moving and if I decide to get cable or stay away from it period and just get a antenna for local channels or subscribe to some streaming service, if not I will just continue with Direct TV.

One thing is for certain and that digital will continue to improve and come closer to physical media. The only decision people can make is which one they prefer and if it is more important to own the actual media or just pay for a viewing license. For some total convenience is what they are looking for and digital looks good enough for them. For other it might be a balance of both and for others it might be owning physical copies. It is the enjoyment of watching our movies and listening to our favorite music that is at the heart of it all.

 

[Vic Pardo]

Tino, I will keep your tips in mind.
But look what happened other day:

I showed a frame of Gone with the Wind 1080p to a person here (my country) in a 50 inch TV, and said the movie was shot nearly 80 years ago. It looked way better than any image from any HD channel in my country. It was a scene where the camera focused close in Vivian Leigh's face, and the background was out of focus, since it wasn't Citzen Kane deep focus tricks.
That person, instead of point the sharp fine details on Scarlet's face (which I showed carefully) and admit it was better than any other image from the HD channels here, just pointed to the background and told me : "It's not any good, I see the entire space there out of focus." Latter that person said angrily that i didn't know nothing about video quality.

Ok, you can laugh... it's so disturbing that it's funny...

I invete others to share some weird stories you have about video too.
And I see many forum member have hi end projectors. I neve saw a hi end home projector, jus medium quality stuff.
How is going the advances with Hi end projection technology, compared to HD and UHD TVs ?

Alberto, I'm sure many members here can tell stories of watching something on a friend's TV and being horrified at the blatant disregard for aspect ratios and the need to "fill" the screen even when it stretches out the actors' faces.

I worked at a TV station once and when widescreen flat screen TVs were introduced, my boss insisted on putting them up in his office and in the reception area and transmitting our programming on them--with the screen filled out, even though our programs, at the time, were all standard def. So everyone's faces were stretched out on those screens. My boss didn't care.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

One thing is for certain and that digital will continue to improve and come closer to physical media. The only decision people can make is which one they prefer and if it is more important to own the actual media or just pay for a viewing license. For some total convenience is what they are looking for and digital looks good enough for them. For other it might be a balance of both and for others it might be owning physical copies. It is the enjoyment of watching our movies and listening to our favorite music that is at the heart of it all.

For me, physical media versus streaming is not an "either / or" situation. Both technologies fit in my world. If the material is something I will truly enjoy over and over again, then I want it on physical media. However, there are a lot of films I will only want to see once, and streaming works great for that. Also, it takes me so long to watch an entire TV series that I rarely will ever go back on watch it a 2nd time, so streaming works well there -- and there's an incredible amount of TV material out there in the streaming world, more than I could ever buy and have shelf space for.

As for Alberto's premise on newer technology being inferior, it may be more due to the country where he lives -- picture quality from cable and satellite can vary drastically depending on how much it's compressed. Personally, I think the current setup I have is the best-looking video quality I have ever experienced in the home. I couldn't image trying to watch a VHS tape on my 70-inch screen, but well-produced 4K and 1080p material looks stunning -- both on disc and streaming. Even my Comcast cable provides decent image quality for the few things I watch that way.

 

[Edwin-S]

I don't get your argument. You complain that digital isn't perfect, yet argue that an analog recording (VHS) of a "prime DVD" ( a digital source) can look good. First, nobody but marketers and sales people claims that digital is perfect. Digital is just a method of transmission like analog. The quality of a broadcast or recorded image is still reliant on the quality of the source it is taken from plus the limitations of the transmission method. In other words, a bad source is going to look bad regardless of it being digitally recorded or recorded in analog. If the source image contains more information than the digital or analog transmission method is capable of resolving then detail is lost. On the flip side, if the digital or analog display device can resolve more detail in an image than the source can or is delivering then the image quality is going to suffer whether the source is a digital or analog recording.

It has always been maintained, on this site, that 35mm and 70mm film (analog) contained more information than could be displayed or recorded by analog or consumer devices such as VHS, DVD or HD Blu-ray. It is only now that digital devices and sources are reaching the point of being able to resolve most (if not all) of the detail of 35 mm film or better. And it has only been a few scant years that shooting movies digitally has reached the same or nearly the same quality as shooting on 35mm film or better.

 

[Alberto_D]

Bigshot, I didn't said VHS was better. Prime VHS was a very rare thing, since most copies wasn't made in ideal way. Even so it had limited resolution.
I compared things to prime VHS just to try to make a point about relative loss of detail. Like if we talk about a small solar panel (fotovoltaic) of a X watts/hour production, and compare to a very larger model that do not render as much per same area, but more to the overal full size.

Edwin, yes VHS it's not perfect, very far from it... I tried to compare thing in relative terms. VHS, if prime made (rare thing) could look good considering the numeric resolution limitation, while HD could look horrible, and look horrible in the cable TV (mini Sat antenna) system in m my country comparing to the numeric resolution claim. It's like say a small car was very powerfull for a small car, and a truck was terrible for a truck.
But there was one channel (MGM GOLD version for Brazil)that had some HD films that in some scenes with moovment had so blur and so much artefacts, that was worse than a prime VHS. A case of extremilly heavy video compression you probably never saw in USA.

I'm afraid I failed to make people understand me (and I assume it was probably my sole fault and not from members here) about my feeling of disapointment to some side of technology and the people (here near me and not on on web) who didn't liestened me. Keeping in mind the system here (Brazil) is way worse than in USA .

Sam, I'm changing approach now, as said yesterday last posts, to be more positive. So I'm being more open to listen to you guys. Like I said, my feeling was not well placed and some of you understood it was against you guys. My fail in comunication. My feeling was more to some technician in my city, the cabble company, and people with little understood of digital video, here (my city and not this web forum).

The wrong use of the word "HERE" was my biggest mistake in this tread. I edited some later, but the damage was already done. Sorry...

Today I'm trying to be better in this topic, trying to prove I'm not a troll. Just responded the questions above, but I will be less boring.

 

[Dick]

1080 resolution, in mathematical language, should look many many... times better than SP speed VHS. But in practical... it can look even worse in very high compressed HD films in motion scenes. Believe me, I saw it.

I don't know where you saw it, but personally, I own close to 3,000 Blu-rays (what you call 1080 resolution) and, while there are some rather poor ones and many more that are merely acceptable, I have never once seen a commercial, domestic Blu-ray that doesn't drastically improve over VHS at any speed, including Super VHS. I do not include among these some boots I inadvertently ordered from Spain or elsewhere, which were, in fact, worse than VHS.

 

[Alberto_D]

Sorry. I refered about HD broadcast (air, sat or cabble) and not blu ray. The worst here (Brazil) is the digital sat mini parabolic antenna system.
For blu ray you are very right, unless a bootleg pirate distributor get a old VHS tape and transfer to a recordable blu ray.

I remamber someone comment, not sure if from DVD Beaver, about a blu ray mastered from a VHS source, but I never saw it.

I have never once seen a commercial, domestic Blu-ray that doesn't drastically improve over VHS at any speed, including Super VHS. .

 

[Alberto_D]

One local TV journal, sub division of a large TV broadcast, had a extreme bass sound adjust, making the voice of the male anchor silly and anoying. My TV was right, since all other channels were fine. I call the them and explained about the horrible sound. Notting was made.

A local newspaper of the city was publishing the TV programation of the major TV broadcast, and not the programing of the local TV atractions. I called them, they changed, but 2 days later get back to the same thing.

One TV channel here already crushed the shaddow direct in the signall, for any TV series, cause look crushed even on CRT. I bet guy who adjust the signal gamma and colors probably is using a poor LCD screen and beliving the crushed shadow is only due the LC.

I worked at a TV station once and when widescreen flat screen TVs were introduced, my boss insisted on putting them up in his office and in the reception area and transmitting our programming on them--with the screen filled out, even though our programs, at the time, were all standard def. So everyone's faces were stretched out on those screens. My boss didn't care.

 

[dpippel]

Sorry. I refered about HD broadcast (air, sat or cabble) and not blu ray.

If you're not talking about Blu-ray, then why have you posted all of this in the Blu-ray and UHD forum? The Streaming Media forum would probably be a more appropriate place for this discussion.

 

[skylark68]

I've seen some material today being extremely badly displayed. I was at the doctor's office a couple of weeks ago and HGTV was on a cheap "HD" flatscreen. The aspect ratio was completely off (left and right side of the image were clearly cut off - the image must have been zoomed in) and there was actually some static which I didn't think was even possible anymore.

I have an older set up, but I would never go back to VHS or other analog equipment (although I still have a handful of laserdiscs that I've held onto). Set up correctly, today's technology (in the USA) is light years ahead of what we had 20 years ago. I have to admit though my father in law had one of the last Sony widescreen 1080p CRT's (can't remember the size, somewhere around 40") and it did have a beautiful picture but it was an absolute beast weight and bulk wise.

 

[Worth]

I had a 34" HD CRT that had a terrific picture, but both my current 42" and 60" plasmas blow it away in every respect.

 

[Alberto_D]

The specfic VHS claim I did was comparing to broadcast.
Some other aspects, other comments in the huge texts I did, I refered about LCD limitations runing blu ray, to spot the LCD fails. I did short remarks about some blu ray compression issue too, but not puting as inferiior to VHS.

I did some critics about the percentage loss of details in video compression, trying to clear that for me, in pratical ways, the higher resolution had higher percentage of detail loss. Like if DVD use to loss let's say 1%, and BD 28% and 4K 44% . But varies accord compression of each. In practic I feeld the percentage was higher in higher resolution videos.
I tried to state that in a 45 inch TV a DVD resolution would have noticeable detail loss, but a HD with the same percentage of loss would be more difficult to know, and a 4K even more difficult, since HD and specially 4K would require people to stay close to very close to the screen to be able to check out full resolution.
And a 8K TV could run 4K and nobody would notice it wasn't a 8K.

I also did some remark about MPEG2 (DVD) work better for low motion moviment, in terms of don't let details vanish with little slow camera moving, than most encoders used in Blu ray. But I didn't explained right givving the codec names, and people probably understood me wrong due this fault I did.

But like I said in latter posts, I'm now putting many of my extreme critcs by side and trying to listen more to the forum members, make a better debate and a helthier place.

If you're not talking about Blu-ray, then why have you posted all of this in the Blu-ray and UHD forum?

 

[Alberto_D]

Interesting...

How do compare/percieve, the plama 60 to the OLED TVs ?

I had a 34" HD CRT that had a terrific picture, but both my current 42" and 60" plasmas blow it away in every respect.

 

[Sam Posten]

@dpippel good point. We don't have a subf that discusses broadcast per se, so this will have to suffice.

@Alberto_D - Being digital does not inherently make anything superior to an analogue equivalent. Garbage in Garbage out, always. If you have a lousy broadcast source or a poor connection to that broadcast it's never going to be perfect. If anyone tells you differently they are trying to sell you something.

 

[Sam Posten]

How do compare/precieve, the plama 60 to the OLED TVs ?

MY 2017 era LG OLED E series and Sony 940E 77" FALD have left me with ZERO regrets giving up my Panasonic 65" VT30.

 

[Worth]

Interesting...

How do compare/precieve, the plama 60 to the OLED TVs ?

I've only seen OLED in stores. Looks promising, but I haven't spent enough time with it to comment.

 

[Alberto_D]

I saw a OLED very close in a store. But I didn't know if the few motion blur I saw, in a low motion scene, was from the video encoding, or from some possible refreshing rate problems of OLED technology.
The video had virtually no visible artefacts, so compression was fine. Maybe it was the camera used to record the scene, that have the digital frame exposure for a long time (1/30 of second).

Also I didn't know if the nice contrast look, without crushing and clipping, was due be a DHR video or if the OLED really avoid it even in a non HDR video.

But the price was so high... God my... for a TV that have 50% of lifespam of LED backlight LCD .

Maybe a good thing from 8K OLED starting, is that with 8K OLED, the 4K and the 1080p models will probably get better prices in a couple years or so.
Somewhere I heard they were almost solving the risk of burn in effect .

I've only seen OLED in stores. Looks promising, but I haven't spent enough time with it to comment.

 

[Dick]

I saw a OLED very close in a store. But the price was so high... God my... for a TV that have 50% of lifespam of LED backlight LCD

Is this shorter lifetime assertion based on multiple, corroborated reports from reliable sources? OLED just hasn't been around that long.

 

[Dave Moritz]

Besides equipment manufacturers have almost always advertised new equipment like it is the best thing since sliced bread. Every time there is a new format they always use words like the most life like picture ever, the sharpest picture ever or sound so real it makes you feel like your part of the action. But now we do have the best quality reproduction in our homes for movies that we have ever had in the history of our hobby! This time we actually can have true theater quality cinema in our homes! We are very spoiled!

 

[Alberto_D]

Yes Dave.
When fine or very good systems are available...

The misunderstood I created in the begning of this tread, by my fault, my ansiety, my hurry and non ideal translation to english, and the word "HERE" bad used (it was about "here" in my country and not "here" the forum), is that I did not managed to do start step by step. I wanted to try to point a matter of measure of resolution numbers, but I mixed all in once with many technical stuff in a non ideal text explanation, overloading the whole thing.

But for example one thing anoyes me a lot.
A VHS video, only available in VHS, looks worse in a LCD TV. The CRT it's made to create a nice as possible image for the interlacing used in VHS. On LCD it looks pixelated. The CRT helped hide the pixelated aspect, and the proper display of interlacing also helped. And LCD have the downsides of view angle, clipped and crushed, for bright and dark tones, which I cannot tolerate.
A good DVD it's great in a great CRT flat screen progressive up to 480p resolution. On LCD it looks worse.

Now let's jump to HD.
Most HD encodings (blu ray and specially real time broadcast os TV stations and cabble) have a higher percentage of video artefacts than good DVDs. Despite DVD be lower resolution, in percentage it losser less of the 480p resolution. HD typical codecs, for encoding, are also worse to deal with motion than the codecs used for DVD. Also create more much artefacts in shadows. These new codecs are better in save space, but have some downsides.
The industry knows resolution number and advertises impress people, and know that the TV sizes are not giant for most homes, and that people do not watch very close to screen, and that very close it's not good in terms of light distribution look, along screen in LCD technology. You get close to the screen and the light start to look not uniform. As result people watch from a distance they will not notice much of these encoding problems of these new codecs.

Now let's thing about 4K, the things relativelly got worse, despite be the best we ever had in home video as you said. People buy the 4K UHD movie title discs, but most movies are finished in 2K. And even if was really 4K from a movied finished in 4K, the compression probably make it loses a high percentage of details than the percentage loss of 1080 Blu rays. They know people had not how check it, since they will not stay 16 inches from screen to see full details.

Making a analogy, it's like you would prepare a quality barbecue, and had meat enough call 3 friends. But get better next year and have meat to call 7 friends, and next year meat for 20 friends. But the meat used in the 2 last barbecues had more fat and cartilage.

That's why I said earlier that if e would create a mosaic, using the image video of a DVDs (480p) to fill a 4K screen repeating if until fill all the 4K area, and encode it, making a video of a mosaic in 4K, and could look very close to one little image that is part of this mosaic, we would notice that this is much worse than the DVD.
Not sure if my text is good to transfer what I intent. The 4K it's better, than DVD for normal watch of normal films, but in the mosaic example, made from 480p video repeated until create a mosic, filling a 4K area, if we separet one of the tinny images (720x480 pixels) after the mosaic video is finished/encoded, and compare with the DVD, we would see a huge drop in quality.

That' why I said I was afraid to think about 8K... because I presume the "tricks" will be even of "higher scale"

And in one aspect one higher resolution can be worse than others. If you have a 480p display and watch a 480p film very well encoded, it will have fine gradients, not blur in low motion, nice shadows tonalities. But if you take a HD movie encoded as crap, it will have crap gradients (banding effect), and you will notice that even in a 480p. Also the large artefacts or poors shadows in dark areas. The same to crap encoded 4K watched in 1080p display.

Sorry the large text. I couldn't reduce and keep well explained.

Besides equipment manufacturers have almost always advertised new equipment like it is the best thing since sliced bread. Every time there is a new format they always use words like the most life like picture ever, the sharpest picture ever or sound so real it makes you feel like your part of the action. But now we do have the best quality reproduction in our homes for movies that we have ever had in the history of our hobby! This time we actually can have true theater quality cinema in our homes! We are very spoiled!