Video Asylum

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"Does a 480p DVD at home really look as good to you as film in a theater?"â€¦

Posted by David Aiken on September 18, 2007 at 17:17:20:
Actually the DVD at home looks better to me than the film in the theatre.

My last three trips to a theatre were to see '300', 'Curse of the Golden Flower, and the latest Harry Potter. Each time I felt the picture was dull, low contrast, and slightly out of focus. The quality was definitely below what I see at home with standard def DVDs (576p since Australia uses PAL) on a 32" LCD TV.

A couple of weeks after seeing the Harry Potter, I had my eyes tested again and mentioned my movie experiences to the optometerist, an audiophie friend of mine. He said 2 things to me: my pupils are relatively small so they don't let much light in which puts me at a disadvantage in a low light situation like a theatre, and he could see the start of cataracts on my eyes.

I got a new prescription for my spectacles and the standard def DVDs of '300' and 'Curse of the Golden Flower'. '300' definitely looks better on my system at home but the difference with 'Curse' was amazing. Those over the top coloured sets in the palace were suddenly clear, detailed and preciseâ€”not only in a way that they had never been in the theatre but that I would never have imagined.

I'll still go to the theatre every now and then, and enjoy it, but for sheer visual spectacle what I see at home on my LCD screen is significantly better. I'm 60 and my eyes are deteriorating, and that does make a difference. Watching films at home is a much more visually rewarding experience for me than it is in the theatre, but the theatre offers other advantages such as a much bigger screen and the ambience of the setting. There will be films I definitely want to see in the theatre but they will be films I also want to see at home so I can see those things I now miss in the theatre, and they will also be films which really interest me strongly. For many films I'll simply go the DVD route at home and avoid the theatre.

And the sound quality is usually better at home. Theatres tend to set their levels too high for me.

David Aiken