Go Back   Flash Flash Revolution: Community Forums > General Discussion > Chit Chat
Register FAQ Community Calendar Today's Posts Search

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 11-15-2008, 11:27 AM   #1
Afrobean
Admiral in the Red Army
FFR Veteran
 
Afrobean's Avatar
 
Join Date: Dec 2003
Location: the moon
Age: 32
Posts: 13,262
Send a message via Skype™ to Afrobean
Default HDTV and YOU!

tldr version: General information about HDTV, followed by the revelation that HD and BD (Blu-ray disc) are a lot better than you may realize and not as costly as you may think either.

Before I begin with the spiel about HDTV or even touch Blu-ray, I'll need to familiarize you the concepts of interlacing, de-interlacing, and progressive displays.

Interlacing is the method by which television has been displayed for ages, and it was developed as a means to conserve valuable bandwidth. Without this shortcut technique, the CRT screens of old wouldn't have been able to display the image fast enough to make the "animation" appear smoothly. The way it works is that rather than just displaying a frame, the frame is broken in half, each half called a field. When the screen renders the image, it displays the first field first, but the trick here is that the fields make up alternating horizontal rows. So the screen displays the first field, but every other line is empty. The second field contains all of the information which will fill those gaps between the rows. Traditional television is 25 frames per second, but in actuality, it's 50 fields per second. The reason you probably never noticed this happening is because it happens too fast for you to be able to tell, although it can actually become noticeable in instances of high action or slowmotion/stills. Notice that even today, broadcasts are interlaced, previous generations of gaming systems were interlaced (and even today retain the option of using composite RCA connectors), even VHS and DVD are interlaced by nature.

But the problem here is that high quality screens don't work the same way that CRTs of old did. In so few words, they're not designed to display frames as sets of fields, so images input into them need to be de-interlaced to be displayed. Without going into absurd detail, de-interlacing the image for display on high quality televisions makes the weaknesses of the technique much more apparent. It's not difficult to overlook interlacing's weaknesses on low res CRT screens, but when the image is de-interlaced onto a higher res screen, the "tearing" is much more apparent.

Truth be told, the highest quality choice here is progressive scan. Progressive scan is different from interlaced images in that each frame is displayed as a frame rather than as two separate fields. This is how media is filmed too, so this format is more natural all around, as well as better looking. Notice also that it is an HDTV's native method of choice for this. Furthermore, interlacing was only even developed to preserve bandwidth while maintaining higher resolution, and frankly, that's not an issue any more. After all, back in the 20s, a screen with vertical resolution of 440 pixels might have been mighty impressive compared to the 220 progressive equivalent, but we live in a day where images with 720 pixels of vertical resolution are beamed through the air like child's play. We needn't bind ourselves by the shortcuts our forefathers needed to take.

So then, you've got a basic understanding of interlacing and progressive displays, right? If not, take a look at the relevant wikipedia articles... Ok, then, next I'd like to touch on resolutions. Sorry for you Eurobutts out there, but I'll only be talking about NTSC formats, so no PAL for you...

Basic formats are as follows: 480, 720, 1080. There are a few others, but they're largely forgettable or not worthy of looking at in this case. The skinny on it is: 480 is standard definition, 720 is high definition (HD), and 1080 is full HD. Of these resolutions, there are interlaced and progressive possible and they are denoted by a "i" or "p" afterwards. For example, SD television broadcasts are 480i. HD television broadcasts are 720p (or in some cases, 1080i). But don't get complacent. There are 480p designations referred to as "Extended Definition", and 1080p is the format Blu-ray has a stranglehold on. I have prepared a simulated sample of each one below; note that 1080 is the image in its natural position. Click the image for a 2x zoom.







Things to notice between the comparison:

#1: The blue color on the left is actually a checkerboard pattern of two blue colors. This detail is lost on the 480 version and largely indistinguishable on 720. The same is true of the pinkish arc as well.

#2: The edges of the black. Particularly the text and the round arc.

#3: The only feature which does not appear to lose a large amount of definition is the gradient. Notice that the gradient looks rather smooth, even on the lowest resolution. This is one of the things that lower definition can skate by on.

Ok, so that's all out of the way, I want to briefly touch on aspect ratios before going further. Basically, SD has always been 4:3. This basically means it's a little wider than a square. HDTV is typically 16:9. This means that it's a lot wider than a square, and in fact, is not far from being 2x as wide as it is tall. This is a major benefit for watching movies, because the wider native screen allows for more efficient letterboxing (or no letterboxing at all in some cases).

So I guess at this point, you're probably thinking, "why is he bothering with this?" Well, it's simple, see, and here it is. I don't like the crap that gets slung about HD. I want more people to see the light. So now, I will do my best to debunk popular commentary regarding HD content/hardware.

Quote:
You need special equipment to watch HDTV.
Not entirely true. All you really need is an HD capable set. If you wish to watch a movie on Blu-ray or some other sort of HD content from a settop box, you'll need to connect the device with a cable, it's true, but this is true of ANY device on ANY television. If you want to play your NES or a VHS on your VCR, you better have the cable to hook it up to your television just the same as you better have a set of component or HDMI cable to hook up your HD device.

Quote:
But those cables are expensive and I have to buy that crap separately!
No, they are not expensive, and no, you do not have to buy it separately. Many devices may come packaged without an HD cable for connection, but it's not too difficult to find one with the cables included. Furthermore, things like HDMI cables are often gouged in retail outlets. They may charge 50~80~100+ for a single little digitial cable. Rip-off, plain and simple. Shop around and you can find HDMI cables for a lot less.

Quote:
But what about the TV itself? That is expensive.
Sort of, but not exactly. A lot of folks think of an HDTV and they think of a 60 inch 1080p plasma. But they forget to think about the 20 inch 720p. They also tend to overlook the sorts of deals where they might give you a Blu-ray player or a few movies on BD to sweeten the deal. It's true that you'll almost certainly be spending more on an HD set, I will admit, but you'll be getting more for it as well. Better things will always cost more... or would you rather buy all of your movies on VHS? Rather do your gaming on an Atari 2600? I bet VHS and Atari cartridges are a lot cheaper to buy now than DVDs and Xbox 360 games.

Quote:
Yeah, Blu-ray looks pretty good and all, but I can't afford a 1080p set!
The glorious thing about BD is that 1080p set is not necessary to enjoy it. The quality of BD on a 720p set is STILL remarkably higher than DVD on a SD set.

Quote:
Even so, Blu-ray players are still pretty new, and I can't afford to drop 400 dollars on a fancy movie player.
Commendable, but the fact is, you simply don't have to. Blu-ray players are getting cheaper and cheaper all the time. The cheapest of them are now under 200 dollars, and if you get a great deal on one of them, you can save even more. Personally, I recently bought a BD player on Amazon.com on a special deal where I got 100 dollars off of a ~200 dollar player. The only stipulation on the deal was that I bought 4 movies from a select list, but I didn't have any problem picking out 4 titles from their list.

Quote:
Yeah, I don't mind buying DVDs of movies I already owned on VHS because the quality improvement was amazing, but the step up from DVD to BD isn't as good.
This is simply not true. VHS's vertical resolution was around 250 pixels, although it varied from tape to tape and from VCR to VCR. DVD upped this to 480. That's nearly a 2x increase in resolution, so yeah, that's pretty great. But consider DVD versus BD. BD has 1080 pixels of vertical resolution, while DVD manages less than half of that at 480. That's not a noteworthy upgrade in picture quality? Then there's the simple fact of switching to progressive scan, something that is a major boon for films due to the fact that the BD can display the frames exactly as they were originally recorded.

Quote:
But I have dozens of DVDs already. I don't want to rebuy my entire collection!
The glorious thing is that you don't have to. Even as DVDs become obsolete, far off in the future, your BD player will still be able to play all of your old DVDs. Can your DVD player play your old VHS tapes so easily? And another great thing here is that some DVDs can be upconverted very well, so even if you refuse to replace DVDs (I can relate to this sentiment myself), your DVDs can find new life on your BD player.

Quote:
Wait a minute! I don't want to be paying 3x as much for BD titles as I would be for DVDs of the same film!
Blu-ray discs aren't 3x as expensive as DVDs. They're not even 2x. Heck, considering the deals I mentioned already, you can actually get some movies for cheaper on BD. But that aside, a BD title shouldn't cost more than a few dollars more than a comparable new DVD title. Notice that the 5 dollar DVDs that you cling to are only so cheap because of how old those movies are or how poorly they're selling. New titles on DVD don't go so cheap. And you need to shop around too. Of course your local Best Buy is going to charge 10~15 dollars more for BD vs. DVD (actually, mine is only like 5~10 at most, but I digress). You just have to look around at prices and not get suckered in by overpriced garbage. Amazon, for example, tends to have great BD prices (and great special deals too!). For instance, The Dark Knight shall be coming out soon; Amazon prices the DVD at 21.49 and the BD at 23.99. In all fairness, they also have an issue on DVD for only 15.99, but that's single disc and doesn't include ANY special features it seems.

Quote:
Sorry, but I heard Blu-ray was dying.
Who told you that? Blu-ray beat out HD-DVD as the HD format of choice for the future. And if BD was to fail, what? You think DVD is going to last forever? Digital distribution, right? Quick question: do you know how much bandwidth you'd burn to download a single 1080p movie? Do you know how much harddrive space would be taken up with a single movie? Take a look at the music industry, because that's what we'll be seeing once digital distribution works its magic a little more in the distant future-- we'll be able to pay money to download movies over the internet, and we'll "own" the movie in digital form only, OR we can choose to go a store and purchase a physical copy of the same film to own. Just because digital distribution becomes possible doesn't mean the end of physical copies, not so long as people continue to choose and prefer tangible copies. Even now we can choose to go to iTunes and download new albums or we can go up to our local Kmart and pick up a CD.

Quote:
You know what? My TV I've had for 20 years works just fine still. I don't think I should throw out a perfectly functional set just so I can drop a few hundred bucks and get a new one.
This is actually an excellent point. If you're perfectly satisfied with your TV and don't feel like throwing it out, don't. When I'm preaching the good word of HD, I don't intend to motivate you to throw away your perfectly good set for nothing. I only intend to motive people to go for HD if they want to, or if they're getting a new TV anyway. You want to wait a few years for prices to drop? That's fine. You want to wait til your current set dies? That's fine. But don't write off HD as not being worth it. Even if you think it's too expensive, the prices are dropping all the time, and deals are a-flowin' every day too. Shop around, keep your ear to the ground, and you'll see. It's a lot better than you think.

...

Ok, I'm glad to get all that off of my chest. If anyone has any questions or comments, I'd love to hear them. Otherwise, general discussion about HD can now commence.

ps if this thread can get any sort of reasonable activity, I'll do my best to keep my HD soapboxing to a minimum outside of this thread.
__________________
Afrobean is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 11-15-2008, 02:31 PM   #2
DoctorSerpentine
Banned
 
Join Date: Nov 2007
Posts: 396
Default Re: HDTV and YOU!

Good guide, but why?
DoctorSerpentine is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 11-15-2008, 03:15 PM   #3
Afrobean
Admiral in the Red Army
FFR Veteran
 
Afrobean's Avatar
 
Join Date: Dec 2003
Location: the moon
Age: 32
Posts: 13,262
Send a message via Skype™ to Afrobean
Default Re: HDTV and YOU!

Quote:
Originally Posted by DoctorSerpentine View Post
Good guide, but why?
I gently tucked the answer to that question in the middle to gauge whether anyone would actually read the thing in its entirety.
__________________
Afrobean is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 11-15-2008, 03:24 PM   #4
DoctorSerpentine
Banned
 
Join Date: Nov 2007
Posts: 396
Default Re: HDTV and YOU!

nah i just looked at the pretty pictures

looking at it now, i do see you said that (i swear i actually did read the thing) in one line
DoctorSerpentine is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 11-15-2008, 08:13 PM   #5
Rubin0
FFR Player
 
Rubin0's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: New York
Age: 32
Posts: 1,279
Default Re: HDTV and YOU!

I tried, I just couldn't get through it. My attention is that of a three year old.
__________________
The weight of what I say depends on how you feel.
Rubin0 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 11-15-2008, 08:31 PM   #6
sonic-fast-fingers
FFR Player
 
sonic-fast-fingers's Avatar
 
Join Date: May 2005
Age: 29
Posts: 268
Send a message via AIM to sonic-fast-fingers Send a message via MSN to sonic-fast-fingers
Default Re: HDTV and YOU!

Blu-ray technology will quickly get outdated. Soon all movies will be downloaded onto your computer (whether it is downloaded legally or illegally is up to you). So many people that I know have 1TB of hard drive space. Soon you will have more (if you even need it).
__________________
sonic-fast-fingers is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 11-15-2008, 08:52 PM   #7
Squeek
let it snow~
FFR Veteran
 
Squeek's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2004
Age: 34
Posts: 14,457
Send a message via AIM to Squeek
Default Re: HDTV and YOU!

It's still too expensive.

As long as it's not in black and white, I'll be just fine with SDTV. Hell, I've even played games in black and white when PAL-NTSC conversions failed.
Squeek is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 11-16-2008, 12:39 AM   #8
Afrobean
Admiral in the Red Army
FFR Veteran
 
Afrobean's Avatar
 
Join Date: Dec 2003
Location: the moon
Age: 32
Posts: 13,262
Send a message via Skype™ to Afrobean
Default Re: HDTV and YOU!

Quote:
Originally Posted by sonic-fast-fingers View Post
Blu-ray technology will quickly get outdated. Soon all movies will be downloaded onto your computer (whether it is downloaded legally or illegally is up to you). So many people that I know have 1TB of hard drive space. Soon you will have more (if you even need it).
Yeah, like just the other day, I drove up to Best Buy to pick up a few CDs and those losers told me they don't even make CDs anymore before everything is downloaded.

Oh wait, that's not right. They'll always continue to create physical media because many people choose it and prefer it.

Incidentally, if there is a time when I'll be able to download 50 GB in a reasonable amount of time, I shudder to think the cost for me, as well as the costs of the necessary changes to the infrastructure. I max out at a couple hundred KB per second... how can you possibly think that 1080p streaming is coming that soon? The other day I was streaming 480p video on hulu and it was lagging a little at first... now consider that hulu is a commercially provided service and that 1080p has literally 6.75x as many pixels per second to display. To say nothing of the increased sound quality possible on BD versus "regular" television, nor is that considering the wealth of additional features folks have come to associate with films on DVD but that are available to an even greater degree on BD.

ps I GET THE FEELING THAT SOMEONE DIDN'T READ THIS MIGHTY POST MAN YOU PEOPLE ARE TERRIBLE

pps sqek, that's really weird. You're just waiting for One Piece to make it's way onto BD ARENT YOU? You know, I hear they'll be putting out a One Piece movie on BD some time next year. DBZ doesn't have a lot to gain from 1080p due to low production quality, but One Piece seems to have one up on them there... what a difference 20 years can make, eh?
__________________
Afrobean is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 11-16-2008, 12:54 AM   #9
Squeek
let it snow~
FFR Veteran
 
Squeek's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2004
Age: 34
Posts: 14,457
Send a message via AIM to Squeek
Default Re: HDTV and YOU!

No interest for cartoons on Blu-Ray, as I've mentioned to you before. There's absolutely no reason.

Besides, I don't know why I'd pay $500 for something I already have. And I'd have to swap discs, even with BR discs. That's stupid. I prefer being able to watch any episode at a moment's notice.
Squeek is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 11-16-2008, 01:36 AM   #10
Afrobean
Admiral in the Red Army
FFR Veteran
 
Afrobean's Avatar
 
Join Date: Dec 2003
Location: the moon
Age: 32
Posts: 13,262
Send a message via Skype™ to Afrobean
Default Re: HDTV and YOU!

Quote:
Originally Posted by Squeek View Post
No interest for cartoons on Blu-Ray, as I've mentioned to you before. There's absolutely no reason.
No reason? Did you look at the examples? Dude, look at the text specifically. You don't think line art has anything to gain by higher resolution? I can understand you thinking it's not worth it for that, but to bluntly state "there's no reason" is just wrong. There is a reason: line art looks a lot better at higher resolutions.

Quote:
Besides, I don't know why I'd pay $500 for something I already have. And I'd have to swap discs, even with BR discs. That's stupid. I prefer being able to watch any episode at a moment's notice.


Anyway, some folks like to "swap discs". I much prefer to have a physical medium for each of my movies. The only thing I'm not a fan of is multidisc sets. Like, I would prefer all episodes of a season of a program on a single physical source, but that would probably only be possible with 480p video on a BD disc.
__________________
Afrobean is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 11-16-2008, 03:41 AM   #11
Squeek
let it snow~
FFR Veteran
 
Squeek's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2004
Age: 34
Posts: 14,457
Send a message via AIM to Squeek
Default Re: HDTV and YOU!

Quote:
Originally Posted by Afrobean View Post
No reason? Did you look at the examples? Dude, look at the text specifically. You don't think line art has anything to gain by higher resolution? I can understand you thinking it's not worth it for that, but to bluntly state "there's no reason" is just wrong. There is a reason: line art looks a lot better at higher resolutions.
Just for kicks, I downloaded an episode of One Piece in HD and one in SD. Could not see any difference at all, other than that one was way too large to consider archiving 370 episodes in that size.

The subtitles are readable and the lines look absolutely fine. I really have no idea what you're getting at here.

I looked at your examples. They all say "Sample". If you wanted to convince me, you should've written the SD example in Wingdings or something. OH NO, SLIGHTLY JAGGED EDGES! THIS IS COMPLETELY WORTH $1,000 TO UPGRADE!

You're not getting my point. YOU have expendable income and don't care what you buy. MOST PEOPLE DON'T. When you show someone who does not have the money to spend the difference between SDTV and top-quality HDTV, they'll look at it and go "that's nice and all, but I don't see a reason to upgrade." I'm one of those people. You really have no way of convincing me otherwise. Unless you can find a good-sized HDTV for under $200, I won't even consider it. And seeing as not a single Black Friday deal even breaks $300 for even a 27", it's not going to happen.

It took me 5 years to buy an LCD monitor, and I only got one because it was cheap as hell and because my parents needed a new monitor. I gave them my old one, I got the new one. It's nice, but aside from being widescreen and thinner, I still prefer my old CRT. It was a lot brighter and I didn't have to worry about touching the screen or dead pixels or viewing angles or any of that.

ps - guess who doesn't have to worry about delays and lag in rock band? Meeeeeeeeeeeee

Last edited by Squeek; 11-16-2008 at 03:43 AM..
Squeek is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 11-16-2008, 04:36 AM   #12
Afrobean
Admiral in the Red Army
FFR Veteran
 
Afrobean's Avatar
 
Join Date: Dec 2003
Location: the moon
Age: 32
Posts: 13,262
Send a message via Skype™ to Afrobean
Default Re: HDTV and YOU!

Quote:
Originally Posted by Squeek View Post
Just for kicks, I downloaded an episode of One Piece in HD and one in SD. Could not see any difference at all, other than that one was way too large to consider archiving 370 episodes in that size.
1080p versions of such things aren't possible to have, so your example isn't entirely valid. If I had to guess, what you're considering to be HD was actually probably just a higher quality rip from the normal SD aired on television. I doubt if the show is even aired in HD at all, and again, 1080p is DEFINITELY not.

Furthermore, your screen must have high enough resolution. In addition, your eyesight is bad, isn't it?

Quote:
The subtitles are readable and the lines look absolutely fine. I really have no idea what you're getting at here.
Just because something is "good enough" doesn't mean that it can't be improved.

Quote:
I looked at your examples. They all say "Sample". If you wanted to convince me, you should've written the SD example in Wingdings or something. OH NO, SLIGHTLY JAGGED EDGES! THIS IS COMPLETELY WORTH $1,000 TO UPGRADE!
It doesn't cost that much (I've spent ~1400 on my setup, but it would not be difficult to get a HDTV and a BD player for ~500), and frankly, if you don't think the sharpness is drastically improved between 480 and 1080, you really do have terrible vision.

Quote:
You're not getting my point. YOU have expendable income and don't care what you buy. MOST PEOPLE DON'T. When you show someone who does not have the money to spend the difference between SDTV and top-quality HDTV, they'll look at it and go "that's nice and all, but I don't see a reason to upgrade." I'm one of those people. You really have no way of convincing me otherwise. Unless you can find a good-sized HDTV for under $200, I won't even consider it. And seeing as not a single Black Friday deal even breaks $300 for even a 27", it's not going to happen.
The prices are dropping all of the time. And what exactly is "good"? I used to use a 20 inch SD and it was "good" (until the day it died for no reason). I upgraded to a 42 in HD and it is also "good". What size is your television right now?

Quote:
It took me 5 years to buy an LCD monitor, and I only got one because it was cheap as hell and because my parents needed a new monitor. I gave them my old one, I got the new one. It's nice, but aside from being widescreen and thinner, I still prefer my old CRT. It was a lot brighter and I didn't have to worry about touching the screen or dead pixels or viewing angles or any of that.
I don't have any dead pixels on any of my LCD screens. There is a dead pixel on the CRT I used to use though (not sure what the deal was there). Oh, and I can see both of my LCD screens from literally any angle.

Also notice that you got one because "it was cheap as hell". You might not consider HDTVs in that range quite yet, but they'll be there in time.

Quote:
ps - guess who doesn't have to worry about delays and lag in rock band? Meeeeeeeeeeeee
Uh... no one...? There is the ability to calibrate for that, you know...
__________________
Afrobean is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 11-16-2008, 04:43 AM   #13
sonic-fast-fingers
FFR Player
 
sonic-fast-fingers's Avatar
 
Join Date: May 2005
Age: 29
Posts: 268
Send a message via AIM to sonic-fast-fingers Send a message via MSN to sonic-fast-fingers
Default Re: HDTV and YOU!

Quote:
Originally Posted by Afrobean View Post
Yeah, like just the other day, I drove up to Best Buy to pick up a few CDs and those losers told me they don't even make CDs anymore before everything is downloaded.

Oh wait, that's not right. They'll always continue to create physical media because many people choose it and prefer it.

Incidentally, if there is a time when I'll be able to download 50 GB in a reasonable amount of time, I shudder to think the cost for me, as well as the costs of the necessary changes to the infrastructure. I max out at a couple hundred KB per second... how can you possibly think that 1080p streaming is coming that soon? The other day I was streaming 480p video on hulu and it was lagging a little at first... now consider that hulu is a commercially provided service and that 1080p has literally 6.75x as many pixels per second to display. To say nothing of the increased sound quality possible on BD versus "regular" television, nor is that considering the wealth of additional features folks have come to associate with films on DVD but that are available to an even greater degree on BD.

ps I GET THE FEELING THAT SOMEONE DIDN'T READ THIS MIGHTY POST MAN YOU PEOPLE ARE TERRIBLE

pps sqek, that's really weird. You're just waiting for One Piece to make it's way onto BD ARENT YOU? You know, I hear they'll be putting out a One Piece movie on BD some time next year. DBZ doesn't have a lot to gain from 1080p due to low production quality, but One Piece seems to have one up on them there... what a difference 20 years can make, eh?
It really wasn't that long ago that we were all using a 56k fax modem. Therefore it isn't that far fetched to think that technology will continue to rise on this steep incline.

Remember when people were buying HDDVD players and HDDVDs? What happened soon after? Blu-ray...everything eventually gets outdated and so why waste your money now on these movies. Blu-ray players and blu-ray movies are expensive.
__________________
sonic-fast-fingers is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 11-16-2008, 04:49 AM   #14
Tokzic
FFR Player
 
Tokzic's Avatar
 
Join Date: May 2005
Location: TGB
Age: 31
Posts: 7,109
Send a message via AIM to Tokzic
Default Re: HDTV and YOU!

Quote:
Originally Posted by sonic-fast-fingers View Post
Remember when people were buying HDDVD players and HDDVDs? What happened soon after? Blu-ray...
lmfao are you serious

they were competing formats

welcome to 2008
__________________

Last edited by Tokzic: Today at 11:59 PM. Reason: wait what
Tokzic is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 11-16-2008, 05:30 AM   #15
Squeek
let it snow~
FFR Veteran
 
Squeek's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2004
Age: 34
Posts: 14,457
Send a message via AIM to Squeek
Default Re: HDTV and YOU!

Quote:
Originally Posted by Afrobean View Post
1080p versions of such things aren't possible to have, so your example isn't entirely valid. If I had to guess, what you're considering to be HD was actually probably just a higher quality rip from the normal SD aired on television. I doubt if the show is even aired in HD at all, and again, 1080p is DEFINITELY not.
It airs in 720p in Japan. The SD version is probably just compressed a little more.

Quote:
Just because something is "good enough" doesn't mean that it can't be improved.
And normal television has been improved, even without really upgrading the television itself. I have a 19" television from 15 years ago that still looks as good as the day I got it. 15 years ago, television looked a lot worse, but the television only shows what the broadcast is transmitting. This signal itself is always improving.

My point is, if I can still see everything, I don't get the point in upgrading. Let's take sports. Even on a two inch screen, I can still see the name on the jersey of the player making the play. What more do you need? I see a guy running down the field with a football, a guy hitting the baseball with a bat, whatever. People always say to buy HDTVs for sports. Really, that's the last thing I would buy an HDTV for, and I love football. Like I said in the FFya thread, I'd rather have an interactive camera system over slightly better quality in the picture. I can see everything just fine as it is. I've always seen everything just fine no matter what television I see it on. I'd rather be able to control the play re-cap during the broadcast. Like, I don't need a playback of every play. Just the important ones or the ones I miss. So, the audio feed from the announcers would still be there, and the main feed of the field would still be there, but I'd be watching the playback from the previous play, and could do so for as long as I wanted. Kinda like TiVo, but much better.

NBC has been pretty good with this. When watching their football games online , you can watch a specific camera. I really like this feature. Sometimes, you want an angle that the network broadcast won't show. With the online tool, you can specifically keep it with any angle you want or watch all five angles at once.

Quote:
It doesn't cost that much (I've spent ~1400 on my setup, but it would not be difficult to get a HDTV and a BD player for ~500), and frankly, if you don't think the sharpness is drastically improved between 480 and 1080, you really do have terrible vision.
You got lucky with your $100 BD player. Most of them are still $200. And $300 gets you a piece of garbage television from some unknown manufacturer at 22 inches. Vizio, Sharp, Samsung, etc. will all run you close to $1,000 even discounted if you want a decent size and resolution.

Once again, I'm not denying the sharpness. I see the jagged edges on the text. I just really don't care. If I couldn't read it, then I'd care. I think it'd have to be a size 1 font for me not to be able to read text on an SDTV. I have an S-Video cable out on my video card and sometimes use my SDTV as a second monitor. It looks absolutely fine. I can put Word on the other monitor and drop the font as low as it goes and even zoom out and still read it. And as you so subtley mentioned twice, I even have horrible vision (without glasses), yet I can still read it. Amazing.


Quote:
The prices are dropping all of the time. And what exactly is "good"? I used to use a 20 inch SD and it was "good" (until the day it died for no reason). I upgraded to a 42 in HD and it is also "good". What size is your television right now?
The prices are dropping, but they're flatlining. I know we don't pay $3,000 for televisions anymore, but I highly doubt that I'll be able to buy a 20" HDTV for $50 anytime soon, which is what I got my latest SDTV for last year.

Quote:
I don't have any dead pixels on any of my LCD screens. There is a dead pixel on the CRT I used to use though (not sure what the deal was there). Oh, and I can see both of my LCD screens from literally any angle.
First of all, I wasn't saying I had a dead pixel. I'm saying Liquid Crystal Displays can have dead pixels, and Cathode Ray Tubes cannot. You're clearly lacking knowledge on the subject if you think CRTs can have dead pixels. They're incapable of it.

Oh, and I can see the screen from any angle too. It just changes colors when I do. Certain televisions have a feature that will not alter the color when you look at it from angles, but most computer monitors do not have this feature.

Quote:
Also notice that you got one because "it was cheap as hell". You might not consider HDTVs in that range quite yet, but they'll be there in time.
HDTVs have been out for just about the same amount of time as LCD monitors. They're not dropping fast enough.

Quote:
Uh... no one...? There is the ability to calibrate for that, you know...
Not having to worry about delay = Not having to worry about calibrating for delay. If you're calibrating for delay, you're worrying about delay at least once. I can play the game on any of my televisions at home and never even think about the calibration, whereas the timing will completely change for you depending on which television you hook it up to.

Last edited by Squeek; 11-16-2008 at 05:34 AM..
Squeek is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 11-16-2008, 06:58 AM   #16
Afrobean
Admiral in the Red Army
FFR Veteran
 
Afrobean's Avatar
 
Join Date: Dec 2003
Location: the moon
Age: 32
Posts: 13,262
Send a message via Skype™ to Afrobean
Default Re: HDTV and YOU!

Quote:
Originally Posted by sonic-fast-fingers View Post
It really wasn't that long ago that we were all using a 56k fax modem. Therefore it isn't that far fetched to think that technology will continue to rise on this steep incline.
I went from maxing out at like 32kb/s to maxing out at like 200 kb/s. Over a period of like 10 years.

Do you really think we'll have ~1 gb/s internet connections that soon?

Quote:
Remember when people were buying HDDVD players and HDDVDs? What happened soon after? Blu-ray...everything eventually gets outdated and so why waste your money now on these movies. Blu-ray players and blu-ray movies are expensive.
As was said, they were competing formats. Blu-ray didn't obsolete HD-DVD, it put it out because only one format is viable to market.

Quote:
Originally Posted by sqek
You got lucky with your $100 BD player. Most of them are still $200. And $300 gets you a piece of garbage television from some unknown manufacturer at 22 inches. Vizio, Sharp, Samsung, etc. will all run you close to $1,000 even discounted if you want a decent size and resolution.
Actually, "most" of them are more. It's the cheap ones that are ~200 or a little less.

And man, my TV is a 42 in. 1080 and it cost me less than 1100. LG. It is LCD rather than plasma, so there's that, I guess...

Quote:
yet I can still read it. Amazing.
Yeah, but what's the resolution set to? 480x640? 800x600? 1028x768? SHUT UPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP

Quote:
You're clearly lacking knowledge on the subject if you think CRTs can have dead pixels. They're incapable of it.
I'm aware of the condition, but the screen does have a pixel which is consistently black and fails to display anything there. That's why I said, "not sure what the deal is", but there is definitely a pixel there which is quite truthfully dead.

Quote:
you're worrying about delay at least once.
Yeah, holding the guitar up to the screen for 10 seconds was mighty hard.
__________________
Afrobean is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 11-16-2008, 04:43 PM   #17
MalDON
Retired Staff
Retired StaffFFR Veteran
 
MalDON's Avatar
 
Join Date: Feb 2004
Age: 32
Posts: 618
Send a message via Skype™ to MalDON
Default Re: HDTV and YOU!

Actually let me interject because are a few flaws in your description on what HD is.

HD has nothing to do with quality (although HD video uses a lot better compression codecs which usually results it a lot clearer image), it's the screen resolution. Your example photo showing 720p v. 1080p is wrong. There is little to no visual difference.

In fact, most people cannot tell the difference between 720p and 1080p. Playing 1080p video on any TV smaller than 42" is useless. However, playing 720p video on a tv larger than 42" is just asking for bad video.

Both 720p and 1080p primarily use the VC-1 codec (partly developed by Microsoft; ironically used by Sony with Blu-Ray). The reason there is such a big visual difference between 480 video and 720 is the interlacing and the encoder used. However, you can use any dvd up-converter and magically a dvd looks damn near close to a 720p video.

I use my HD DVD drive for my 360 to play dvd's. It does an amazing job upscaling dvd's.

I think what I'm trying to say is that if anyone falls for the "HD = good quality picture" is an idiot. I've seen many times normal dvd video being upscaled to 1080p on tv and them passing it off as HD. Which it is, but it's not the same as if it was shot with an HD camera.
__________________
MalDON is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 11-16-2008, 04:58 PM   #18
Afrobean
Admiral in the Red Army
FFR Veteran
 
Afrobean's Avatar
 
Join Date: Dec 2003
Location: the moon
Age: 32
Posts: 13,262
Send a message via Skype™ to Afrobean
Default Re: HDTV and YOU!

Quote:
Originally Posted by MalDON View Post
Actually let me interject because are a few flaws in your description on what HD is.

HD has nothing to do with quality (although HD video uses a lot better compression codecs which usually results it a lot clearer image), it's the screen resolution. Your example photo showing 720p v. 1080p is wrong. There is little to no visual difference.
This is right, but quality at high res is better than quality at low res.

And the fact that there isn't a massive difference between my 720 and 1080 example is indicative of the fact that 1080 is only a little better than 720. The differences are clearer on a 2x zoom, but 1080 really just isn't that much better than 720.

Quote:
In fact, most people cannot tell the difference between 720p and 1080p. Playing 1080p video on any TV smaller than 42" is useless. However, playing 720p video on a tv larger than 42" is just asking for bad video.
I wouldn't use the word "useless", but yeah... Anyway, I was reading some things earlier and folks were using 720p projectors for upwards of 10 feet displays, and they had nothing but good words for it, at least considering how much cheaper a 720p projector is than 1080p...

Quote:
Both 720p and 1080p primarily use the VC-1 codec (partly developed by Microsoft; ironically used by Sony with Blu-Ray). The reason there is such a big visual difference between 480 video and 720 is the interlacing and the encoder used. However, you can use any dvd up-converter and magically a dvd looks damn near close to a 720p video.
Not exactly, and frankly, some things look like garbage even upconverted, without even considering deinterlacing artifacts. For example, Smallville looked pretty darn good upscaled (aside from deinterlacing, that is), but Birds of Prey looked like complete ****.

Seriously, it can complement what is there, but it can't generate information that isn't present in the source data.

Quote:
I think what I'm trying to say is that if anyone falls for the "HD = good quality picture" is an idiot. I've seen many times normal dvd video being upscaled to 1080p on tv and them passing it off as HD. Which it is, but it's not the same as if it was shot with an HD camera.
Man, I just got done reading **** on Kotaku from people who don't understand. HD recording technology is not necessary. All movies and TV programs are recorded on film which has higher fidelity that never makes it to air or DVD. Even movies which are decades old, the film master has a higher resolution than 1080p even. On low quality film, grain and damage is a potential problem, but major motion pictures used 35mm typically and that looks just dandy, assuming the film master has been kept in good shape (or they can manage a good restoration as was the case with Sleeping Beauty for example).

Like, really, all this extra fidelity is sitting there on the master film. They just have to go back to the master and make a new higher resolution transfer. Like, what? When I buy Superman the Movie on BD, you think they just took the 480i DVD transfer and upscale it? **** no, they go back to the master film and make a 1080p transfer from the original source.

ps funny story, I tried putting together an example today showing off a live action image, but I seriously could not tell the difference between the 720 and 1080 samples, so I didn't go forward with posting it. After flipping back and forth between them, the only difference I could note was that the wrinkles in the person's furrowed brow were slightly more defined in the 1080 one. Kinda sad for me, but even so, it proves that 720 is a worthy means of delivery for BD content and still get an amazing image.
__________________

Last edited by Afrobean; 11-16-2008 at 05:02 PM..
Afrobean is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 11-16-2008, 05:13 PM   #19
Squeek
let it snow~
FFR Veteran
 
Squeek's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2004
Age: 34
Posts: 14,457
Send a message via AIM to Squeek
Default Re: HDTV and YOU!

Quote:
Originally Posted by Afrobean View Post
I'm aware of the condition, but the screen does have a pixel which is consistently black and fails to display anything there. That's why I said, "not sure what the deal is", but there is definitely a pixel there which is quite truthfully dead.
Dust on the light.

It happens.

@Afro: I said years ago that 1080p is at the threshold of human vision limitations. 720p is just about the best you can see.

The reason is because we can only see 60 lines per degree arc. 720p is pretty close to 60. 1080p is way over 60.
Squeek is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 11-16-2008, 05:21 PM   #20
Afrobean
Admiral in the Red Army
FFR Veteran
 
Afrobean's Avatar
 
Join Date: Dec 2003
Location: the moon
Age: 32
Posts: 13,262
Send a message via Skype™ to Afrobean
Default Re: HDTV and YOU!

Quote:
Originally Posted by Squeek View Post
I said years ago that 1080p is at the threshold of human vision limitations. 720p is just about the best you can see.

The reason is because we can only see 60 lines per degree arc. 720p is pretty close to 60. 1080p is way over 60.
Years ago? You were familiar with 1080p back then?

:\

But yeah, man, I totally agree. It's funny seeing people yell about how BD will die because an even higher resolution format will come along. Yeah, that's great to have 2k vertical resolution, but it won't be distinguishable from 1080, and it'll scarcely ever be viable in the mass consumer market. It'd only be any good for those of us with projector rooms with a screen size somewhere in the neighborhood of ****ing enormous.
__________________
Afrobean is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply


Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)
 

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump



All times are GMT -5. The time now is 04:43 PM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.1
Copyright ©2000 - 2021, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Copyright FlashFlashRevolution