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...that every family would just have to have a PS3 and then "accidentally" get a Blu Ray player That could (conveniently) play Sony's HD format. But sadly, PS3 never quite has lived up to Sony expectations in that regard, and many families (stubbornly) continue to live with Xbox or Wii.
Meanwhile, I watch my 720p Panasonic front projector, the one Projector Central is claiming it would "take a video critic" to see any difference between the picture on that unit and the picture on a native 1080p unit all of which cost about twice as much, or more. And besides, they claim, it does the most spectacular job ever of upconverting a well-made 480p disc to make it look like it is really a higher resolution disc.
Guys, there is a lot more to the world of video clarity and the entire video experience than just the native resolution of the equipment. To argue that the best video experience comes from the equipment with the highest raw numbers, that any 1080p video experience will be obviously clearer to everyone in the room than something running at 1080i or 720p regardless of manufacturer is quite a leap, a leap I'm not willing to take.
In audio, I suppose the best sounding speaker is the one that tests to have the flattest, broadest frequency response, and presumably a speaker rated at 30-20,000 Hz + or - 2 db should sound better than one rated, say, at at 40-15,000 Hz + or - 3 db. But MOST audio buffs would not want to reach that conclusion w/o using their own ears first. There are always a few, however that want to leap to that conclusion.
Similarly, the entire video experience is the embodiment of a whole series of factors that determine whether it is satisfactory or not. The raw resolution is justy one of many factors. Everything else being equal, equipment capable of higher resolution should produce a clearer picture than lower resolution equipment, but like in everything else, the law of diminishing returns applies. Plus there is all these other things going on that affect the experience, overall brightness, color saturation, whiteness of the whites, blackness of the blacks, shadow detail, etc etc that at the end of the day may have more to do with the quality of the experience than the raw resolution number.
As I sit in the real movie theater on Saturday afternoons, I can't help but judge what I am seeing and try to relate it to my in-home theater experience. I think at this point what I see at home appears to me to be every bit as bright, sharp and clear as what I see in the movie theater I go to Saturday afternoon. And isn't that the entire point of the home theater experience, to in essence, recreate inso far as possible the experience at the theater. In this world, the raw numbers really do not matter, now do they?
David
Follow Ups:
make me wanna puke. Thoroughly disgusting.
I don't know what you mean about "accidently get a blu-ray player", since that's what the PS3 is, and in less than a year it already has a greater installed base than HD DVD...it's interesting how some people interpret solid first-year growth as "losing". Sony is looking a few yrs down the road and can afford to lose a year or two to X-box and Wii to come to market with the right product.
As far as source material and whether you really need 1080p...for the past 60 yrs we have been stuck with NTSC, an interlaced, low-res technology that is ready for the junk yard of the industrial age. Now we have an opportunity to choose the next technology. Carpe diem, friend. 720p may look fine, but are you sure you want to limit yourself to that when you can have 1080p? I myself watch blu-ray on a 720p plasma, but my next plasma will be 1080p and it will have a significantly better picture. No, resolution will not be the only reason, but it will be a reason.
I just can't understand people who would argue against better technology, better capacity, better resolution simply by arguing that it may not be visible or audible. Using your gear or my gear it may not, but that's the thing about new technology. Sometimes when you're on the bleeding edge, you are afraid of cutting yourself. Don't let that stop you from adopting the best format you can when you're ready to upgrade.
-------------"I have found that if you love life, life will love you back." -Arthur Rubinstein (1887-1982)
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Which IMHO would be a very idea if I were Sony! :)
Actually it is a bit scary and while I have no specific stats to back this up other than reading through forums is that the PS3 (which would be regarded as a gaming console if a poll was done with J6P) may actually be more reliable as a BD player than the standalones at this point!
Bundling a game console with BD at this point hasn't exactly worked but that may be more still due to the price and the games not being all that great. But the PS3 is actually a very good piece of hardware for the buck considering the fact other BD player cost as much without half the features.
On another note and a horse of a different color, Sony tried to bundle SACD with DVD players and I'm not sure that went over well.
No "surprises" with PS3 this year. Of course, they have been know to deny it before it happens.
jack
No analog outs. One would need an amp with HDMI if I'm not mistaken.
Perhaps there is a workaround with switchers, bypassers, and the like but one needs to also get an audio upgrade IMHO than just a video upgrade for high def to be worth it.
There is a decent amount of PS3 games. The quality is being questioned for what has been released to date.
The player also allows for SACD, 2 channel and MCH. As a throw in, that isn't bad. Also, it's other capabilities puts it above standalone BD players in my mindset.
Unless you have a super-expensive receiver, it's easier to buy the Onkyo 605 ( <$499, Nebraska Furniture Mart) which has the HDMI 1.3x TrueHD and DTS HD MA and make someone else happy with your cast-off! This Onkyo got a very favorable mention in passing in the latest Stereophile.
BTW, even if Gefen made an HDMI-> high-def audio conversion device, it would probably cost almost as much.
As for 5.1 analog output, it's not clear to me whether the typical HD DVD / Blu-Ray player can output it's highest-quality audio in this manner, or whether the hardware is all that great-sounding to begin with. Someday when I've got nothing better to do, I will hook up my Toshiba HD DVD to the 2-channel system and see how it fares with music via the analog outs.
For better or worse, PS/3 defines the Blu-Ray state of the art, and if someone dares to add features that the PS/3 can't utilize, they've already lost most of their potential audience. Even things like B-D Profile 1.1: Either PS/3 will be firmware-upgradeable to support it, else that standard likely doesn't stand a chance. Either way, I'm covered ;-)
Last I looked. I didn't see the latest edition of Stereophile but it promised last month it would do a review of that AVR and I want to check it out. I cannot believe though for the price it would be anything else but entry level for sound quality.
I'm unsure about outputting audio through 5.1 analogs. I have no experience other than what I read on forums but it sure seems the audio signal is weak on most players utilizing this instead of going through coaxial or optical and just using DD or DTS for the sound. It may be these first gen players or the amp utilized though more so than the audio track one is trying to play.
We haven't actually seen companies dealing with higher end equipment dipping into high def yet so there isn't any real high quality out there IMHO!
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Figure that most upscaling DVD players won't output anything better than 480P through the analog outputs, and HD players typically top out at 1080i, and if you want 1080p, you are forced to use an HDMI connection instead--I wonder if they similarly limit analog audio output quality?
The built-in processing/decoding capabilities of mass-market players are rarely, if ever, as good as what you can get from a pre/pro, or even a good-quality HT receiver. This isn't so much a matter of the manufacturers "deliberately" trying to make things bad - it's more a function of the cost to engineer and implement. See my comments below regarding the TrueHD decoding capabilities of the Panasonic BluRay players as an example.
What I actually want to know is whether you get "full resolution" from the analog audio outputs, up to 24 bits? Because it's not generally the case with the video outputs which are deliberately limited, and not out of cheapness, but as a form of copy protection.
As to analog "resolution," there have been a number of low-end DVD-Audio, SACD, and universal players that don't output better "resolution" via the analog ports for DVD-Audio or SACD than they do for Redbook CD. Again, it's not deliberate, it's because of cheap/low-quality engineering and implementation.
Since those low-end players come from some of the manufacturers building hi-rez video players, it's reasonable to expect similar limitations - again, not "deliberate" in the sense that you mean, but because of cheapness.
The audio bitrate just went up significantly over DVD; how much R&D has gone into audio processing algorithms to handle 5.1/7.1 TrueHD or DTS HD MA or uncompressed LPCM ? And have the processor heavy hitters (e.g. Meridian, Lexicon, Levinson, Theta, Halcro, Classe et al) even started on this given the format war uncertainties ?
Neither my Toshiba HD-A20 nor Sony PS/3 even offers 5.1 channel analog audio, so an HDMI 1.3x-connected receiver or processor really is my best bet for surround audio!
Meridian should be intimately familiar with the TrueHD spec because they helped to develop it. But at the moment, they don't seem to offer a product that will actually process it.
I think I will not be shoveling many thousands of dollars into this particular hobby, because I'm not convinced that I need to in order to have a lot of fun. In the 2-channel world, I've already owned my share of Levinsons, ARCs, c-js, etc, etc, etc, so a lot of that whole "pride of ownership" business is mostly out of my system. And I got no problems with doing minor circuit mods to a Denon or Onkyo receiver if it'll get me to where I want to go.
from a Sept 2007 review of an Onkyo receiver on ultimateavmag.com:
"In addition to the usual multichannel Dolby Digital and DTS modes, the Onkyo provides decoding for those high resolution, lossless audio modes mentioned earlier if it receives them in raw bitstream mode. But none of the HD DVD or Blu-ray players available to me are apparently capable of sending Dolby TrueHD or DTS-HD Master Audio bitstreams to this AVR. We are still investigating why this is so at press time, but there is no indication that the reason for this failure originates in the receiver."
Onkyo told me they tested the Samsung BDP-1400 and it was successful.
> > Onkyo told me they tested the Samsung BDP-1400 and it was successful. < <
Maybe you should buy a Samsung then.
While there should be a significant difference with these new audio tracks, I do really think I was getting my hopes up too high at this juncture of the game regarding their quality given the first and second gen players and what processors are available (as I stated in an earlier thread).
I expect the audio portion of the new hi-rez video products, and the codec capabilities of receivers and pre/pros, to lag behind the video portion for a long, long time.
Less than 15% of HD DVDs have lossless audio tracks. Some will blame this on HD DVD studio indifference to lossless audio, but they'll have to start proving it's not a bandwidth limitation issue (and/or storage issue) by combining pristine video with lossless audio on their blockbuster releases.
The list of Blu-ray music videos with 5.1 24/96 lossless audio tracks is still fairly small but it's growing and the number of releases is a non-zero quantity unlike HD DVD.
Chris Botti, Dave Matthews, Legends of Jazz, etc. Have you done any comparisons with DVD-A per se? I wondering how the sound compares.
I'm more intrigued with high def because of the audio. The video is nice but if one is use to upconverted SD DVD on something like an Oppo, I don't feel there will be a large difference in quality with lots of these high def titles (ie. 1080i versus 1080p).
Maybe I'm getting my hopes up too high and perhaps the audio isn't a vast upgrade than what is on some of the better SD DVDs already released? Perhaps it is a matter of one's equipment to note a vast difference?
You'll definitely hear it between lossy DVD music videos and lossless HD media music videos. I don't have enough source material to make a real comparion between DVD-A and and 5.1 24/96 lossless blu-rays. I'd expect the same source material released on both at the same resolution will sound the same (TrueHD dialog normalization BS might screw it up).
Is "Immortal Beloved". The audio is something that needs to be heard from what I'm reading. Unfortunately, there has been a long wait on Netflix for this title. It looks like an outright buy if I ever would want to experience it in the near future.
Even with the new "approved" triple-layer discs, storage capacity may be up but bandwidth hasn't budged. It's also kind of interesting that Toshiba hasn't outright made a statement as to the ability of today's players to actually play triple-layer discs. You'd think that they would have tested this already. I guarantee that the line from HD DVD fans will be something along the lines of "Oh, well. That's the price early adopters have to pay. I'll just get a new player to play the triple-layer discs. HD DVD players are cheap, anyway." if those discs, should they ever make it out of the lab, refuse to play (thus rationalizing their "investment" and quietly dismissing the crap they threw at Blu-ray owners for purchasing -- incorrectly -- so-called "obsolete" Profile 1.0 players).
I recently purchased a 58-inch 720p Panasonic palsma set. I agonized over waitng a few months and buying a 1080p set that was coming out or some other sets that were already out, but this particular model has an excellent picture for what it is, and the price kept dropping. I spent a lot of time looking from various distances at this and some excellent 1080p sets and discovered what is well known. Once you start getting beyond the distance at which you can see the individual pixels, the differences start to matter less and less. At the distance I planned to view the set, I couldn't see much, if any, difference between the two resolutions. I decided to save more than a $1000 and get the set right now.
The pleasnt surprise was how good upsampled DVDs look. On my Oppo 970HD they are not as good as the best HD programs that come over the air or Dishnetwork, but they are as good as a lot of so-called HD programming that I get. That means they are very good. To put it another way, the quality of upsampled DVDs is far above ordinary broadcast TV , and watching a movie on a 58-inch screen is quite satisfying; the quality is good enough not to be distracting in the least. In fact, it is so good that for now I've lost all interest in a HD player of any kind. I'll wait until they decide on which format wins, if that ever happens.
As for comparison with a movie theater, theaters lost out for me a long time ago. I dislike the sound in all movie theaters. It is almost invariably too loud for me, and the sound quality is poor, even in highly-touted theaters. My system at home is vastly superior. I dislike people talking and standing up in front of me, sticky floors, scratched films, out-of-focus projectors, and the high prices. However, my biggest problem is finding movies that I enjoy watching. They are far a few between, but there's not much I can do about that. If I'm lucky, maybe five movies a year come out in the US that I really enjoy watching. But my HD set is a wonder for watching sports.
Joe
conversation with the technical director for a local movie chain. He claimed that after one week, any superiority of film was lost simply because the film sprocket drive stretches the original perforations on the edges of the film inducing jitter. While digital will not have the ultimate resolution of film the matter of this drive induced jitter would render that superiority meaningless. In fact, he told me there are certain film followers that insist on seeing the films on opening or at least in the first few days for this simple reason.
IMHO, this is true, whether using up sampled 480 P software or using true High Def software. What becomes very apparent with the newer players and sets is that one becomes very aware about the depth of view of the cameras used.
In testing a new Blue ray machine I played Field of Dreams, a sort of lack luster issue on DVD: you can clearly see the limitations of the care lenses in looking at detail on the baseline gravel. The focus is sharp about plus or minus 6 feet of the characters and simply out of focus everywhere else. Some producers like Cameron use very long lenses and have tremendous depth in their camera work, but that of course drives the cost of production much higher as details have to be much more accurate. In viewing the Forrest Gump DVD up sampled, It is very clear that Robin Wright is wearing a body stocking in her nude scenes as you can clearly see a 'bikini' style darker outline on her body. I remember the movie when it first opened and that kind of resolution was not really visible in the theater. In fact one amusing aspect of the movie was that in the scenes supposedly taking place in the Vietnamese jungles, you can clearly see that the uniforms are unnaturally clean, even though the actors have mud smeared faces and arms....
In short, for many older movies, I believe the viewer can recognize continuity issues much more readily. That of course, can work both ways. Some hate it, but I find them amusing and not subtracting from the overall meaning of the movie itself.
Stu
Wow. Does a 480p DVD at home really look as good to you as film in a theater? I thought MY eyes were bad!
I had a PS3 for about a month, decided I wouldn't be able to live with the fan noise, and returned it. However, neither SD DVD nor BD looked as good as a film in the theater. Sure, the BD looked much more film-like than SD, but it still looks digital. If I find a BD player I like, I will enjoy BD discs much more than SD.
Doug
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 precise—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
and good luck with the cataracts. I'm 49 and my eyesight is worsening. Even with contacts, in my usual chair from 12' away, the 42" plasma is not as clear as it could be.
Anyway, I agree with your statements about the generally poor PQ and overly loud sound in theaters. Here in the Washington DC area, we're lucky to have two new chain theaters opened locally. I've only been a few times, but every time the picture quality has been excellent and the sound was at a reasonable level. The last time I went, I thought the picture was out-of-focus, but I realized I was sitting too far from the screen! Anyway, it still looked better than any SD or BD I've seen at home.
My point is that a good theatrical presentation of actual film is still better than a well-done SD or even BD. However, I enjoy BD more than SD. After seeing BD, even the best SD still has some color bleeding and other artifacts that aren't so obvious in BD.
Doug
Doug,
Part of my point, though I didn't really state it, was that the picture quality in the theatre for those 3 movies may not have been bad. While I saw the first 2 on my own, I saw the Harry Potter with a friend who said she didn't find have of the problems I did with the picture quality. Now that may be partly due to her being 'less discerning' than a perfectionist b******* like me, but not all of it is going to be that. A 32" LCD screen at 8' is always going to be brighter than a theatre screen for me given my eyes.
I don't have a hi-def player and my screen is only 1366 x 768, but I've been impressed by the picture quality of the BD demos I've seen in shops and I'm contemplating getting a player sometime in the next few months. Despite its cost, the coming Denon player is tempting since I'm very impressed with my Denon 2910 DVD player.
David Aiken
For picture and sound quality. I not sure it is whether who sets up the theater is not very knowledgeable, they don't have the right equipment, or what have you.
It is the biggest reason why I don't go very often. What comes to film has alot to do with that also I suppose.
The mere size of the theater screen over what I have at home (50" RPTV) is really the only big plus. Watching King Kong, Titanic, etc. on my display leaves me wanting much more obviously.
Stadium seating, SOTA DLP screens, etc... maybe I'm fortunate. I'll agree my nearest theater makes any of the older theaters look so mediocre. I don't bother going anywhere else except the occasional IMAX movies.
I pretty much stopped going to the theaters by me. After all of the hassle of parking, high priced tickets, crowds etc., my theater experiences match yours-the PQ and AQ just aren't what they should be.
Jack
David, it sounds to me as you're the one who needs the most convincing!
These are all just toys, and one size does not fit all: Do what makes you happy, and when it stops being fun, step out of the sandbox for awhile ;-) Anyhow, there's no such thing as a no-compromise system: It's really more a matter of prioritizing your compromises.
As did I. I keep telling myself NOT to upgrade just yet because the display is perfectly good. I'm told the right 1080p display will blow it away but I'm just not yet ready to spend the money.
I also gauge the theater experience against my HT. The picture often seems sharper at home but I have to keep in mind it could be several magnitudes tougher to put up a decent picture on a 10000" screen than at home. OTOH, I did go to one modest theater and the screen looked only a bit larger (50% ?) than the one I had at home; talk about feeling cheated.
Oh yeah, I've already retired my DVD collection. 720p/1080i/1080p source material rules in my HT room. Blu-Ray and/or HD DVD needs to thrive long-term (at least until the next generation Master (lossless) video/audio consumer format appears.
Interview with DavidLD
Is the 720p projector better than my 2 y/o 1/4 HD Mitsubishi unit?
Yes
Is there a big difference?
No
Why did you do it?
Well the new unit IS a little brighter and sharper, with a higher contrast ratio, but the main reason is that the lens on the new unit allows me to push back the projector to the rear wall whereas the old projector had to be on a cart or table in the center of the room?
Have you given up on your old projector?
No, I figured out a way so that I can continue to use both. Sometimes I watch part of the movie with the new projector, then the remainder with the old. The differences are subtle at best but there are small differences.
Would a 1080p projector do still better?
Probably not unless I am ready to dump my 200 DVD collection and buy HD or Blue Ray discs. Acquiring the movie collection is probably the largest single cost of my setup.
At any rate I expect the improvement in quality of 1080p to be less substantial than the subtle diffreences I am seeing between the projectors in the current comparison.
Are you happy?
Happy as a clam, and looking to get more enjopyment with my current setup which allows me flexibility in both projectors and speakers.
As the audio guys say, "sometimes its best to quit worrying about the system and just sit back and start to enjoy the music." I would say, "sometimes its best to quit worrying about the equipment and just sit back and start to enjoy the theater experience.
When I think of the 21-inch B&W TV sets I grew up with, what I am seeing and hearing now just boggles my mind.
D
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