RAVE: Bluray

[Arthur Dent]

IMO this is an issue with LCD's. Plasma's have a richer, less "harsh" picture.

In the store, they turn the LCD backlight way up. I think it looks horrible. Turned mine down at home. In addition to looking better, it cuts energy use about in half.

[AdmiralKird]

What do you have it connected with: Component, DVI, HDMI?

I don't think this makes much difference.

There is a huge difference between DVI/HDMI and Component. Component is an analog conversion of a digital format which must be scaled and readjusted inside the monitor to try and fit its original resolution. HDMI/DVI is sent pixel to pixel.

There is really no good reason for the 24 fps choice in film. It derives from the average speed of hand cranking on ancient cameras and is really too slow. A truer sense of motion would be obtained if the frame rate were increased beyond the perception limit.

24fps allows the shutter speed of the camera to be set at lower settings in dark environments (1/48 compared to 1/60) which allows significant more light into the camera and increases picture sharpness and color reproduction.

1080i is particularly stupid. Interlaced video is a 1930's hack to make things work with vacuum tube technology. There's no excuse for it being incorporated into modern HD standards.

1080i is used by cable and satellite companies since they only need to drop half the field for broadcast, which will significantly reduce rendering power than 1080p->720p conversion. Also, test studies have discovered viewers found 1080i more eye-pleasing than 720p.

[Arthur Dent]

What do you have it connected with: Component, DVI, HDMI?

I don't think this makes much difference.

There is a huge difference between DVI/HDMI and Component. Component is an analog conversion of a digital format which must be scaled and readjusted inside the monitor to try and fit its original resolution. HDMI/DVI is sent pixel to pixel.

There is a significant technical difference, but not necessarily an important one of outcome. The same scaling must occur with with pure digital transmission, and that comes with a similar set of problems. As a transmission medium, coaxial component cable is actually superior to the twisted pair used in HDMI/DVI. A serial digital coax system could have been a better choice, but analog component cable performs just fine.

There is really no good reason for the 24 fps choice in film. It derives from the average speed of hand cranking on ancient cameras and is really too slow. A truer sense of motion would be obtained if the frame rate were increased beyond the perception limit.

24fps allows the shutter speed of the camera to be set at lower settings in dark environments (1/48 compared to 1/60) which allows significant more light into the camera and increases picture sharpness and color reproduction.

I don't know much about film, but it's hard to believe the technology hasn't advanced since the 30s when this standard was established. In fact, I know there are alternate film standards that work just fine with a higher frame rate.

EDIT: I suspect that lower frame rates are preferred for film not for technical reasons but because it saves money on expensive film. (Faster frame rates mean more feet of film would need to be purchased.)

1080i is particularly stupid. Interlaced video is a 1930's hack to make things work with vacuum tube technology. There's no excuse for it being incorporated into modern HD standards.

1080i is used by cable and satellite companies since they only need to drop half the field for broadcast, which will significantly reduce rendering power than 1080p->720p conversion. Also, test studies have discovered viewers found 1080i more eye-pleasing than 720p.

The first bit is a lame excuse. 1080p->1080i still requires compression which is by far the most computationally expensive step. The only thing eliminated is the scaler which is relatively cheap and easy. Furthermore, continuing to use interlacing makes the consumer equipment more expensive as it now must include deinterlace circuitry. As to quality, my understanding is that subjective testing shows that 1080i and 720p have equivalent quality, but more quantitative measures show 720p to be superior.

[Arthur Dent]

One thing that's annoying about HDTV is the poor quality audio encoding on some channels. There is an obvious tinny noisy character in the high frequencies. Has anyone else noticed this?

[AdmiralKird]

What do you have it connected with: Component, DVI, HDMI?

I don't think this makes much difference.

There is a huge difference between DVI/HDMI and Component. Component is an analog conversion of a digital format which must be scaled and readjusted inside the monitor to try and fit its original resolution. HDMI/DVI is sent pixel to pixel.

There is a significant technical difference, but not necessarily an important one of outcome. The same scaling must occur with with pure digital transmission, and that comes with a similar set of problems. As a transmission medium, coaxial component cable is actually superior to the twisted pair used in HDMI/DVI. A serial digital coax system could have been a better choice, but analog component cable performs just fine.

It doesn't matter what gauge or quality of cable component has if its still carries an analog signal, the pixels color illumination data is still going to spill into adjacent pixels and create a blurrier image than digital. There is a substantially clear difference between the two when transporting a 1080p or greater medium. Image data is also going to degrade much worse with analog and digital over similar distances which is why the cable is superior. For distances around six feet, a standard HDMI/DVI cable will be sufficient with no degredation in quality.

There is really no good reason for the 24 fps choice in film. It derives from the average speed of hand cranking on ancient cameras and is really too slow. A truer sense of motion would be obtained if the frame rate were increased beyond the perception limit.

24fps allows the shutter speed of the camera to be set at lower settings in dark environments (1/48 compared to 1/60) which allows significant more light into the camera and increases picture sharpness and color reproduction.
I don't know much about film, but it's hard to believe the technology hasn't advanced since the 30s when this standard was established. In fact, I know there are alternate film standards that work just fine with a higher frame rate.

You can't lower the shutter past 1/60 with a 30p/60i feed or you're letting the light from each frame spill into the next and you recieve ghosting.

EDIT: I suspect that lower frame rates are preferred for film not for technical reasons but because it saves money on expensive film. (Faster frame rates mean more feet of film would need to be purchased.)

It's more so that people prefer the artistic look of 24fps provides over 30p+

The first bit is a lame excuse. 1080p->1080i still requires compression which is by far the most computationally expensive step. The only thing eliminated is the scaler which is relatively cheap and easy. Furthermore, continuing to use interlacing makes the consumer equipment more expensive as it now must include deinterlace circuitry. As to quality, my understanding is that subjective testing shows that 1080i and 720p have equivalent quality, but more quantitative measures show 720p to be superior.

It really doesn't matter what quantitative tests say, if they don't correlate with keeping viewers in their seats.

[Arthur Dent]

It doesn't matter what gauge or quality of cable component has if its still carries an analog signal, the pixels color illumination data is still going to spill into adjacent pixels and create a blurrier image than digital. There is a substantially clear difference between the two when transporting a 1080p or greater medium. Image data is also going to degrade much worse with analog and digital over similar distances which is why the cable is superior. For distances around six feet, a standard HDMI/DVI cable will be sufficient with no degredation in quality.

An analog signal is not automatically worse than a digital signal. If cables have low loss, sufficient bandwidth, and good impedance control, no data loss will occur. Coaxial component cable generally has this property and will work just fine for most users. The higher the transmitted resolution, the greater the required bandwidth, so if there is loss, you might see it with 1080p, but I doubt this is a significant problem for many people. In this case, if H&K looked sharp, but Iron Man did not, it seems very unlikely that the problem is the cables.

It's more so that people prefer the artistic look of 24fps provides over 30p+

That's probably true, but it's also just what people are used to. A higher frame rate would result in more realistic and smooth motion. My point is that the technology to do this is available even if the are some drawbacks like higher film cost (and I guess worse performance in low light).

You can't lower the shutter past 1/60 with a 30p/60i feed or you're letting the light from each frame spill into the next and you recieve ghosting.

I believe that movie projectors actually run at double the film frame rate to reduce flicker. Anyway, if a hypothetical camera films at 60 fps, you can project at 60 fps with no ghosting.

It really doesn't matter what quantitative tests say, if they don't correlate with keeping viewers in their seats.

Who says 1080i keeps viewers in their seats? I maintain that from a viewer perspective the difference between 720p and 1080i is overblown, and that there are good technical reasons not to use outdated hacks like interlacing that just has to be undone in some in some unpredictable and imperfect way in the receiving device. I don't have access to published studies (maybe you do?), but this is typical of what I've read on attempts at viewer testing:

http://www.cinematography.net/edited-pa ... r_780P.htm

You should be aware that 1080i is already pshcyovisually deinterlaced by the human eye (AD edit: Today, the vast majority of displays are native progressive, so the deinterlacing is done by electronics and not the eye), and, based on fairly reliable observational and scientific experience, the human visual perception system throws away as much as 40 to 50% of the vertical resolution of interlaced content, and when that content is further resolution converted (down rezzed to 480 or deinterlaced for any other reason, line disseminated, or interpolated) the vertical resolution is further altered, negatively. No matter how 720P is scaled it is still progressive; inerpolation, down conversion, and upconversion have much less effect on the content, and only interlacing has a truly negative effect.

This is not my opinion. All of this has been borne out over and over again in testing by Fox and multiple high level imaging studies. Fox even did a test wherein they captured 1080i, 720P, 480P, and 480i (all 60 frame) images simultaneously with match framed shots using cameras all from a single manufacturer. That content was shown in the blind (with no formats discussed or labelled) on multiple multi-format HD monitors all from a single manufacturer, of appropriate HD viewing size, and at optimum viewing distance, to multiple focus groups, some entertainment industry, some "non-industry", and mixed groups, and content was shifted to different displays for different groups to avoid any conjecture or discussion of which monitor or viewing position was the best.

Almost unanimously, 720P was selected as the "highest" resolution; second in the hierarchy (almost unbelievably) was 480P30, which contained a 2:1 pulldown (not 60 frame), third was 1080i, and lowest, of course was 480i (digitally captured and recorded). Other tests I have seen were done differently, but all yielded similar outcomes.

See also:

http://www.atd.net/HDTV_faq.html