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Why people accept the lie, told by mass media, that digital it's perfect??? (1 Viewer)
Alberto,
I really have to disagree with you Alberto as I have not had that experience of diminishing quality. Now back when VHS was still king and I also had laserdisc and laserdisc became my go to for getting the best quality. Sure on the displays of the time VHS did not apear to look that bad because the displays did not go past what the vhs format could deliver. That is not to say that there where some bad VHS transfers out there because I would be willing to bet there where plenty. Now when DVD's came out basically same store but DVD's offered a jump in picture quality that I am sure most would agree on. Not only did it provide a nice jump in picture quality but now we could rent a movie and not have to worry about someones cheep dirty VHS deck chewing up the rentals, and no rewinding. Back then IMHO and many know it hear because I was very vocal about my feeling on DTS surround sound, DTS back then IMHO was the bomb! But then HD came out and we had HD-DVD and Blu-ray HD and yes there have been some bad transfers in HD but most have been very good. I can think of one movie that IMHO has looked like dried up dog poo on the sidewalk almost every time I have seen it from broadcast tv to VHS to laser disc to even DVD and that movie is Blade Runner! After I purchased it on blu-ray and it was a 5 disc collectors set with all the releases in one set and I watched it, wow it was like seeing it for the first time and it looked gorgeous! I also own the same movie on 4K blu-ray and it looks great. I own a Samsung 9000 series 4K UHD 55" TV and it is by far the best TV I have ever owned. It kicks butt on the 50" LCD rear projection HDTV that was produced by Sony and the picture was not bad on that ether at least for the time it was made. Blu-ray and HD-DVD looked good on my Sony 50" HDTV but I noticed on that screen size that DVD's no longer had that punch and looked softer and had less detail. I have alot of blu-rays that look increadible to me on my Samsung 4K UHD TV and the 4K blu-rays look even better. So I honestly do not know what TV you own and if it was calibrated or if it is still on factory settings and what player you own but I do not get motion issues or pixelization issues when watching HD content or 4K content from discs! I do not even experience pixelization problems when I watch HBO using Direct TV! But I have had pixelization issues streaming and there are a number of issues to cause that so not everyone gets the same experience when they watch digital streaming media. Now I used to have pixelization and jumpy video when I would rent DVD's back in the day because people would scratch the DVD's and return them but that was caused by careless people and sometimes there children. Broadcast can have it share of issues if you live to far from the broadcast tower, maybe the attenna is not that good or maybe the spot you live in has building blocking the signal or a hill side. I have seen pixelization issues on broadcast tv and sure there are some issues but again like I said I have not had that issue with blu-ray, HD-DVD and 4K blu-ray. I don't think I have ever had pixelization issue with my laserdisc movies. So again I just really do not agree with what your seeing. That is not to say that there have not been technical issues with some tvs and or players that caused problems and lets face it we no longer live in a time when equipment is manufactured and it is done! Today's gear is just like your pc or your smart phone as there are always software updates and sometimes those updates improve performance and sometimes you need them because of a new feature that will cause a movie not to play. Those days of just buying a piece of equipment that just works no matter what album you play or what movie you played are gone and they are not coming back! But this is the best time to have this hobbie and I am willing to bet that most here would agree with me! We have mostly very good HD transfers and very good 4K transfers not including the Terminator 2 transfer that is a bit of a mess. We now have lossless audio with very few of them being PCM uncompressed audio and most being ether Dolby True HD or DTS-HD Master Audio. And now we are getting Dolby Amtos and DTS-X both of which are backwards compatible with True HD and Master Audio. Are there some TV with issues? Sure but there are some very good HDTV and very good 4K UHD TV's and many of them are still being compared to the Pioneer Elite Kuru plasma tv. I wouldn't trade my blu-rays and 4k blurays for anything! This is my experience in the US market!
I really have to disagree with you Alberto as I have not had that experience of diminishing quality. Now back when VHS was still king and I also had laserdisc and laserdisc became my go to for getting the best quality. Sure on the displays of the time VHS did not apear to look that bad because the displays did not go past what the vhs format could deliver. That is not to say that there where some bad VHS transfers out there because I would be willing to bet there where plenty. Now when DVD's came out basically same store but DVD's offered a jump in picture quality that I am sure most would agree on. Not only did it provide a nice jump in picture quality but now we could rent a movie and not have to worry about someones cheep dirty VHS deck chewing up the rentals, and no rewinding. Back then IMHO and many know it hear because I was very vocal about my feeling on DTS surround sound, DTS back then IMHO was the bomb! But then HD came out and we had HD-DVD and Blu-ray HD and yes there have been some bad transfers in HD but most have been very good. I can think of one movie that IMHO has looked like dried up dog poo on the sidewalk almost every time I have seen it from broadcast tv to VHS to laser disc to even DVD and that movie is Blade Runner! After I purchased it on blu-ray and it was a 5 disc collectors set with all the releases in one set and I watched it, wow it was like seeing it for the first time and it looked gorgeous! I also own the same movie on 4K blu-ray and it looks great. I own a Samsung 9000 series 4K UHD 55" TV and it is by far the best TV I have ever owned. It kicks butt on the 50" LCD rear projection HDTV that was produced by Sony and the picture was not bad on that ether at least for the time it was made. Blu-ray and HD-DVD looked good on my Sony 50" HDTV but I noticed on that screen size that DVD's no longer had that punch and looked softer and had less detail. I have alot of blu-rays that look increadible to me on my Samsung 4K UHD TV and the 4K blu-rays look even better. So I honestly do not know what TV you own and if it was calibrated or if it is still on factory settings and what player you own but I do not get motion issues or pixelization issues when watching HD content or 4K content from discs! I do not even experience pixelization problems when I watch HBO using Direct TV! But I have had pixelization issues streaming and there are a number of issues to cause that so not everyone gets the same experience when they watch digital streaming media. Now I used to have pixelization and jumpy video when I would rent DVD's back in the day because people would scratch the DVD's and return them but that was caused by careless people and sometimes there children. Broadcast can have it share of issues if you live to far from the broadcast tower, maybe the attenna is not that good or maybe the spot you live in has building blocking the signal or a hill side. I have seen pixelization issues on broadcast tv and sure there are some issues but again like I said I have not had that issue with blu-ray, HD-DVD and 4K blu-ray. I don't think I have ever had pixelization issue with my laserdisc movies. So again I just really do not agree with what your seeing. That is not to say that there have not been technical issues with some tvs and or players that caused problems and lets face it we no longer live in a time when equipment is manufactured and it is done! Today's gear is just like your pc or your smart phone as there are always software updates and sometimes those updates improve performance and sometimes you need them because of a new feature that will cause a movie not to play. Those days of just buying a piece of equipment that just works no matter what album you play or what movie you played are gone and they are not coming back! But this is the best time to have this hobbie and I am willing to bet that most here would agree with me! We have mostly very good HD transfers and very good 4K transfers not including the Terminator 2 transfer that is a bit of a mess. We now have lossless audio with very few of them being PCM uncompressed audio and most being ether Dolby True HD or DTS-HD Master Audio. And now we are getting Dolby Amtos and DTS-X both of which are backwards compatible with True HD and Master Audio. Are there some TV with issues? Sure but there are some very good HDTV and very good 4K UHD TV's and many of them are still being compared to the Pioneer Elite Kuru plasma tv. I wouldn't trade my blu-rays and 4k blurays for anything! This is my experience in the US market!
Mark-P
Senior HTF Member
Of course not, Laserdisc picture was analog so there wouldn't be pixelation, but instead you would get dropouts from surface damage or dust trapped in the plastic during pressing.
And I always thought Laserdisc was digital all this time, guess I never really thought to read up on it.
Always thought this was Digital and the laser part was the thing that I think made me think digital. So was DTS recorded as an analog signal as well?
And for sure this was analog and wow did this one suck!
Always thought this was Digital and the laser part was the thing that I think made me think digital. So was DTS recorded as an analog signal as well?
And for sure this was analog and wow did this one suck!
Now we are talking without problem. I think a did a better text this time, without misunderstanding.
I wonder if they will create a "Laser disk size media" with UHD microscopic density, for 8K.
I beleive they would focus better encoding, more bit rate available, or a new video format for 10 bits, instead of go from 4K to 8K.
I have tom confess one thing.
Despite DVD was fine, at the time I did complained about some few artefacts in some editions...
I also complained about the fact the transfers, telecine, wasn't like a great scanner. For example, a frozen frane (PAUSE) in a DVD film, did not look like If someone had scanned that 35mm film frame on a film scanner for stills, and converted to 720x480 pixels.
It's not that it was bad, but I was wainting something a bit better, like clear transfers for that 480p resolution, since at that time internet overal resolution for good images download for photos was in a similar resolution, and many looked better than DVDs.
About TV calibration, It's useless. It's a 4K LED (backlight) Samsung 50 inch.
It's like a doctor plan to fix a very broken finger and ask if the patient prefer if be able to move but looks ugly distorted, or if prefer if looking fine and unable to move the last two falanges, so It's a lose or lose situation. The TV can look less faded but get clipping and crushing, for highlights and shaddows, or look with less of these but overall very fadedl. I have not this problem on CRT, so I watch CRT for entertainment, and just don't look to that 4K faded ugly thing. I check resolution on a computer monitor, but have no patience to watch long films looking like faded or clipped. IThe 4K TV can be almost fine for some quality photos, which have a different standart of contrast than videos. Some HDR videos looks better, but it's still a LCD screen (despite LED ilumination) and have uneven light distribution, distortion ate low view angle (maybe 4 degree in reality before notice distortion) . It anoys me.
A 4K video that had 1GB FOR JUST 90 SECONDS OF VIDEO, looked artefacted on this TV. And it was a demo video of a manufacturer. And this because that video had stand still camera. For the resolution it have, the artefacts was huge. Some people blame the TV decodification processing...
The screen of this TV have noticeable vertical and horizontal bars, as light differences, light unevenness, when watched by distance displaying a entire white image made of pure white pixels. And if look closer the center of the screen is brighter than the edges.
Nearly the same to a 27 inch 1080p Samsung monitor... I tried the images used for calibratons of color and contrast, and still get a waste. The calibration have black and white bars of different tones, and If I try to make all them visible, the image got faded for videos. It can be fine for photos, but all videos look somewhat faded. As I said in other topic, the computer monitor and TVs, today have the same contrast standart. In CRT times videos only looked faded in CRT compouter monitors but not on CRT TVs.
If I insist on it people will think I'm Monk, the detective, but with a compulsive disorder for video :
You can say I'm wrong in be negative because there is OLED and PLasma. Expansive and prone to burn-in effect.
But to say LCD or LED backlight of LCD it's a great technology... For me it's not true. Sorry, it's what I feel.
It's used because it's cheap to manufacture.
I wonder if they will create a "Laser disk size media" with UHD microscopic density, for 8K.
I beleive they would focus better encoding, more bit rate available, or a new video format for 10 bits, instead of go from 4K to 8K.
I have tom confess one thing.
Despite DVD was fine, at the time I did complained about some few artefacts in some editions...
I also complained about the fact the transfers, telecine, wasn't like a great scanner. For example, a frozen frane (PAUSE) in a DVD film, did not look like If someone had scanned that 35mm film frame on a film scanner for stills, and converted to 720x480 pixels.
It's not that it was bad, but I was wainting something a bit better, like clear transfers for that 480p resolution, since at that time internet overal resolution for good images download for photos was in a similar resolution, and many looked better than DVDs.
About TV calibration, It's useless. It's a 4K LED (backlight) Samsung 50 inch.
It's like a doctor plan to fix a very broken finger and ask if the patient prefer if be able to move but looks ugly distorted, or if prefer if looking fine and unable to move the last two falanges, so It's a lose or lose situation. The TV can look less faded but get clipping and crushing, for highlights and shaddows, or look with less of these but overall very fadedl. I have not this problem on CRT, so I watch CRT for entertainment, and just don't look to that 4K faded ugly thing. I check resolution on a computer monitor, but have no patience to watch long films looking like faded or clipped. IThe 4K TV can be almost fine for some quality photos, which have a different standart of contrast than videos. Some HDR videos looks better, but it's still a LCD screen (despite LED ilumination) and have uneven light distribution, distortion ate low view angle (maybe 4 degree in reality before notice distortion) . It anoys me.
A 4K video that had 1GB FOR JUST 90 SECONDS OF VIDEO, looked artefacted on this TV. And it was a demo video of a manufacturer. And this because that video had stand still camera. For the resolution it have, the artefacts was huge. Some people blame the TV decodification processing...
The screen of this TV have noticeable vertical and horizontal bars, as light differences, light unevenness, when watched by distance displaying a entire white image made of pure white pixels. And if look closer the center of the screen is brighter than the edges.
Nearly the same to a 27 inch 1080p Samsung monitor... I tried the images used for calibratons of color and contrast, and still get a waste. The calibration have black and white bars of different tones, and If I try to make all them visible, the image got faded for videos. It can be fine for photos, but all videos look somewhat faded. As I said in other topic, the computer monitor and TVs, today have the same contrast standart. In CRT times videos only looked faded in CRT compouter monitors but not on CRT TVs.
If I insist on it people will think I'm Monk, the detective, but with a compulsive disorder for video :
You can say I'm wrong in be negative because there is OLED and PLasma. Expansive and prone to burn-in effect.
But to say LCD or LED backlight of LCD it's a great technology... For me it's not true. Sorry, it's what I feel.
It's used because it's cheap to manufacture.
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Wayne_j
Senior HTF Member
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- Nov 7, 2006
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Laserdisc audio was digital, the picture was analog.
Dave, it's not diminishing quality, but increased percentage of image detail loss (lines and textures).
Like if we would compared average DVD edition loss of quality during compression/encoding, comparin it to a uncompressed file. Supose the percentage of loss is 12% for DVD. For HD the loss is higher, let's say 27%, or more during motion even than low lotion like camera moving. Fore 4K it's probable more.
I would not be surprised if the percentual oss for 8K would be higher than for 4K.
Like I said before in a methaphor , it's getting more meat, but the larger meat have more fat and more cartilage.
Like if we would compared average DVD edition loss of quality during compression/encoding, comparin it to a uncompressed file. Supose the percentage of loss is 12% for DVD. For HD the loss is higher, let's say 27%, or more during motion even than low lotion like camera moving. Fore 4K it's probable more.
I would not be surprised if the percentual oss for 8K would be higher than for 4K.
Like I said before in a methaphor , it's getting more meat, but the larger meat have more fat and more cartilage.
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Angelo Colombus
Senior HTF Member
Happy to see talk about the laserdisc. Have 3 players and over 300 discs with half Criterion and many box sets. There are a few movies and shows i have on laser but not available on dvd or Blu-ray as of now. I still play the discs on my 4K Sony tv and even though the picture quality is not the best that does not bother me at all and just enjoy watching the movie.
The Star Wars Laserdisk, prior 1997 "restoration", probably worth gold now, since it's the largest home video resolution released for the original version.
About resolution, one relative of mine, who disagree when I said the cabble (paid mini sat parabolic digital antenna) HD cannels had horrible quality, was watching the 50 inch Samsung for this cabble channels. But was in the SD version and not the HD. I pointed it, then I changed to the HD to show what I mean about bad quakity, and she said a bit pissed : "But I see no difference between the too channels".
I said to her: "I got you. If you see no difference to the HD over the SD it's because the HD is so bad that look very similar the SD"
It wasn't a case of a channel which movie or series had just SD tapes or SD cameras. That channel, a news channel, really had HD, but in the end the cable company had so crap bit rate/compression that the difference to SD in the end was very few, most just less squared edges. Basicly only the edges had high resolution, cause the textures that should fill the rest of the image was soft in detail.
About resolution, one relative of mine, who disagree when I said the cabble (paid mini sat parabolic digital antenna) HD cannels had horrible quality, was watching the 50 inch Samsung for this cabble channels. But was in the SD version and not the HD. I pointed it, then I changed to the HD to show what I mean about bad quakity, and she said a bit pissed : "But I see no difference between the too channels".
I said to her: "I got you. If you see no difference to the HD over the SD it's because the HD is so bad that look very similar the SD"
It wasn't a case of a channel which movie or series had just SD tapes or SD cameras. That channel, a news channel, really had HD, but in the end the cable company had so crap bit rate/compression that the difference to SD in the end was very few, most just less squared edges. Basicly only the edges had high resolution, cause the textures that should fill the rest of the image was soft in detail.
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Háa háaa... I need to see the broadcast in USA to judge.
Hey, one more critic to technology. I unintentionally drove people crazy againt me this week, but even so Home Theater Forum A.I algorithms gave me a trophy.
I need to controll my high curiosity and my critic perfectionism judgment,
Hey, one more critic to technology. I unintentionally drove people crazy againt me this week, but even so Home Theater Forum A.I algorithms gave me a trophy.
I need to controll my high curiosity and my critic perfectionism judgment,
I think you should move out of Brazil. That will solve all your issues.
IMHO you are getting bad encodes being sold in Brazil and just horible picture quality that is not the fault of the format itself not to mention compression to the point of destroying what you are seeing over cable. Because believe me when I tell you that here in the US and other places we are not experiencing what you are! And HD and 4K has alot of picture detail, more so with 4K. Even 1080p blu-rays look better on my 4K TV.
Tony Bensley
Senior HTF Member
OMG David, that RCA Selectavision advert brings me right back to 1981, and my late brother's Selectavision! It was OK for the time, but by the late '80s, he and his wife were using the disc cases on the floor of their apartment to prevent their cats from scratching it up, or something like that!
I was actually in Bogota, Colombia in November 2005, but the then new flat screen technology (Always on CNN, which was my earliest Anderson Cooper exposure.) that I experienced while there was probably not the most apt example of Alberto's current broadcast experiences.
CHEERS!
How is USA HD air broadcast compared to youtube 1080p rentals, assuming youtube movies in 1080p for rent are the same in quality for Brazil and USA... correct if I'm wrong... ?
For example this film begining :
This is much better than braziliqn HDTV broadcast , and light years compared to the garbage paid "cable(mini sat)".
Even so, this "youtube quality" for movie rent it's not good enough for me, since can have artefacts very present in foggy turve images :
Like I said, HD and 4K decoders use to have poor image to the shadows, while DVD have shadows and middle tones more evenly in terms of video artefact.
While this youtube video have sharpness and have small artefacts, the "cable" have giant ones and much more motion blur.
For example this film begining :
This is much better than braziliqn HDTV broadcast , and light years compared to the garbage paid "cable(mini sat)".
Even so, this "youtube quality" for movie rent it's not good enough for me, since can have artefacts very present in foggy turve images :
Like I said, HD and 4K decoders use to have poor image to the shadows, while DVD have shadows and middle tones more evenly in terms of video artefact.
While this youtube video have sharpness and have small artefacts, the "cable" have giant ones and much more motion blur.
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Angelo Colombus
Senior HTF Member
Olivia Newton John said it years ago. Lets get physical!
Jimbo64
Senior HTF Member
Possibly a bit off the beaten path of the discussion, but one of the best pictures I saw was my 55" LG LED at the time I bought it. I'm sure there's better now, but I remember bringing it home and watching an old SD program, Daniel Boone, and being absolutely blown away at how good an SD program looked on it. I consistently watch a lot of older SD programs via YouTube and continue to be impressed. I also watch DVD's via my blu-ray player and there's no way I'd go back to SD.
So, in Brazil...
VHS > DVD > Blu-Ray > UHD 4K
Do I have that right?
Thankfully it’s not that way in the U.S., where VHS is, relative to 2017 expectations, terrible, DVD tolerable, Blu-Ray is superb, and UHD I’m told is excellent.
Streaming quality is great, approaching physical media in visual quality, if not audio. And cable TV is pretty good, if lesser to further compression due to bandwidth limitations.
VHS > DVD > Blu-Ray > UHD 4K
Do I have that right?
Thankfully it’s not that way in the U.S., where VHS is, relative to 2017 expectations, terrible, DVD tolerable, Blu-Ray is superb, and UHD I’m told is excellent.
Streaming quality is great, approaching physical media in visual quality, if not audio. And cable TV is pretty good, if lesser to further compression due to bandwidth limitations.
As for CRT vs LCD vs Plasma, etc...
Yes, there are differences and trade offs. This is no surprise. It’s no big secret. We’ve been talking and arguing about this for about a decade relative to HD. Nothing is perfect.
CRT has terrific color and contrast. They also had geometric distortion and maxed out around 40” and weighed hundreds of pounds. On the whole, except for retro-gamers, I think everyone is happy to now have flat panel displays.
Yes, there are differences and trade offs. This is no surprise. It’s no big secret. We’ve been talking and arguing about this for about a decade relative to HD. Nothing is perfect.
CRT has terrific color and contrast. They also had geometric distortion and maxed out around 40” and weighed hundreds of pounds. On the whole, except for retro-gamers
, I think everyone is happy to now have flat panel displays.
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