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Admiral in the Red Army
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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:
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... 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.
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#2 |
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Banned
Join Date: Nov 2007
Posts: 396
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Good guide, but why?
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#3 |
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Admiral in the Red Army
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I gently tucked the answer to that question in the middle to gauge whether anyone would actually read the thing in its entirety.
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#4 |
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Banned
Join Date: Nov 2007
Posts: 396
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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 |
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#5 |
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FFR Player
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: New York
Age: 32
Posts: 1,279
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I tried, I just couldn't get through it. My attention is that of a three year old.
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The weight of what I say depends on how you feel. |
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#6 |
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FFR Player
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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).
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#7 |
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let it snow~
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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. |
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#8 | |
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Admiral in the Red Army
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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?
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#9 |
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let it snow~
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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. |
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#10 | ||
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Admiral in the Red Army
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![]() 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.
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#11 | |
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let it snow~
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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.. |
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#12 | ||||||
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Admiral in the Red Army
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Furthermore, your screen must have high enough resolution. In addition, your eyesight is bad, isn't it? Quote:
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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:
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#13 | |
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FFR Player
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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.
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#14 | |
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FFR Player
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they were competing formats welcome to 2008
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Last edited by Tokzic: Today at 11:59 PM. Reason: wait what |
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#15 | |||||||
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let it snow~
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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:
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:
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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:
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Last edited by Squeek; 11-16-2008 at 05:34 AM.. |
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Admiral in the Red Army
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Do you really think we'll have ~1 gb/s internet connections that soon? Quote:
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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:
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#17 |
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Retired Staff
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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. |
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#18 | ||||
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Admiral in the Red Army
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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:
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Seriously, it can complement what is there, but it can't generate information that isn't present in the source data. Quote:
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.
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Last edited by Afrobean; 11-16-2008 at 05:02 PM.. |
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#19 | |
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let it snow~
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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. |
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#20 | |
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Admiral in the Red Army
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:\ 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.
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