pgdownload Posted March 23, 2007 Share Posted March 23, 2007 HD (IMO) isn't about quasi 3D 'wow' imersion. Its about taking a picture on a standard 68cm CRT and making it twice/thrice as big without people saying 'that sux'. On a 32" screen HD has little merit. However the oft under valued ability of individuals to convince themselves that yes, it really is not quite that disappointing, is well worth preserving. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder Regards Peter Gillespie Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AndrewW Posted March 23, 2007 Share Posted March 23, 2007 On a 32" screen HD has little merit. However the oft under valued ability of individuals to convince themselves that yes, it really is not quite that disappointing, is well worth preserving. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder You know, if we all thought like that, we'd all be hunkered down over our gas stoves, watching our 34cm black and white sets with mono sound with Panasung ... Have you actually witnessed the HD formats in action ? Even on a 32" LCD display, the lack of compression artefacts and other crap that DVD is usually rife with does actually make a difference. Watch HD on a 32" for a couple of weeks and then try to go back to DVD and you'll notice the difference (and hate the DVDs). It's just that its a lot more noticeable on a big screen. Andrew. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Livingthedream Posted March 23, 2007 Share Posted March 23, 2007 My missus even said "oh wow" when she watched her first BD movie and she isnt the type to care either way . (Actually she probabably would if i stopped spending money ) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
momaw Posted March 23, 2007 Share Posted March 23, 2007 HD (IMO) isn't about quasi 3D 'wow' imersion. Its about taking a picture on a standard 68cm CRT and making it twice/thrice as big without people saying 'that sux'. On a 32" screen HD has little merit. However the oft under valued ability of individuals to convince themselves that yes, it really is not quite that disappointing, is well worth preserving. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder Regards Peter Gillespie Whatever you need to say to convince yourself HD is not for you......just don't foist *wrong* info onto others. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Versus Posted March 24, 2007 Share Posted March 24, 2007 It's funny. I was expecting to be a little more blown away too. Blu-Ray really does seem to be a crap shoot, with some discs like Mission Impossible 3 and Speed (very surprisingly) being significantly above DVD quality. Other discs, such as The Fugitive and Hostel, being on par or worse than 1080i upscaled DVD. Further, there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to the quality based on the simple age of the movie. I was watching Blu-ray 'Enter The Dragon' today, and I anticipated little potential for improvement upon DVD. I was quite wrong. The picture was truly outstanding in parts for a 1973 movie. So I guess my point is that I can certainly understand the variance of opinions on the merits of moving to HD/Blu-Ray formats. It's in no way as clear cut as the move from video to DVD from a visual, extras, storage or convenience perception. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brodricj Posted March 25, 2007 Share Posted March 25, 2007 I watched BlackHawk Down BR, US import 1080p/60 using PS3 outputting 1080i/60 to VP30 outputting 720P 60 Hz locked to PE8720 in real mode on a 90inch screen. The PQ was NO different to watching the same title on the Oppo DVD at 576i to VP30 outputting 720P 50Hz unlocked. Can't really make a fair assessment of SQ because it was late at night so I had the volume down. The wow factor was just not there, HD-DVD on the same projector certainly DID have high wow factor. Gaming on the PS3 at 720P is stunning, but BR video to me, is not (however I've only watched 2 BR titles so far). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AndrewW Posted March 25, 2007 Share Posted March 25, 2007 I watched BlackHawk Down BR, US import 1080i/60 using PS3 outputting 1080i/60 to VP30 outputting 720P 60 Hz locked to PE8720 in real mode on a 90inch screen. The PQ was NO different to watching the same title on the Oppo DVD at 576i to VP30 outputting 720P 50Hz unlocked. Can't really make a fair assessment of SQ because it was late at night so I had the volume down.The wow factor was just not there, HD-DVD on the same projector certainly DID have high wow factor. Gaming on the PS3 at 720P is stunning, but BR video to me, is not (however I've only watched 2 BR titles so far). Well as most people know, I am one of the biggest anti-Sony members on the boards. Having said that, I will give them their dues in producing a fantastic BD player in the PS3 (although bundling a remote and HDMI cables would have been nice). I'll have to go back and check my DVD version of Black Hawk Down, but like I said previously unless you were watching the first couple of minutes where the film is intentionally grainy, I can't see how you're not noticing an improvement. Unless the VP30 is degrading the PS3 signal down to the equivalent of the upscaled DVD image ? Have you tried it direct to the pj ? Andrew. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
momaw Posted March 25, 2007 Share Posted March 25, 2007 I don't understand why you would run a native 1080p image through a scaler anyway. How could it do anything but degrade the picture as it is performing additional processing that isn't necessary. I admit I know little about the VP30. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gino Posted March 25, 2007 Share Posted March 25, 2007 The VP30 is doing the scaling because his projector is 720p native, and I guess it does a better job of it than the projector. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The_Preacher1973 Posted March 25, 2007 Share Posted March 25, 2007 Unless the VP30 is degrading the PS3 signal down to the equivalent of the upscaled DVD image ?Have you tried it direct to the pj ? Andrew. Bingo! That's exactly what it's doing. The VP30 cannot deinterlace a 1080i signal and then downscale the 1080 line to 720 lines. It doesn't have the horse power. All it will do is take the 540 lines of each frame and upscale them to 720 lines. So when you watch the SD version it will combine the even and odd frame to produce 576 lines and upscale them to 720. When you send it 1080i it will only upscale the 540 lines to 720. Hence there would be minimal difference between SD and HD as all you're comapring is 576 lines with 540. The only improvement would be in the reduction of compression artifacts. EIther hook the player up to the projector directly or buy a VP50. The VP30 is for SD only. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AndrewW Posted March 25, 2007 Share Posted March 25, 2007 wow, I was only guessing. but thanks for confirming preach. I guess I have to be right once in a while I just couldn't see how you could not be impressed by BD (as long as your display device is up to the task). Andrew. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gino Posted March 25, 2007 Share Posted March 25, 2007 So why is it that HD-DVD looks great running through the same VP30? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The_Preacher1973 Posted March 25, 2007 Share Posted March 25, 2007 So why is it that HD-DVD looks great running through the same VP30? Because reportedly the HD-DVD transferrs have been cleaned up considerably. Also, HD-DVD are using the VC1 codec whereas Black Hawk DOwn is still using MPEG2. So with BHD, we're comparing 576 lines of MPEG2 encoded content with 540 lines of MPEG2 encoded content. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OzHTfan Posted March 25, 2007 Share Posted March 25, 2007 I watched BlackHawk Down BR, US import 1080i/60 using PS3 outputting 1080i/60 to VP30 outputting 720P 60 Hz locked to PE8720 in real mode on a 90inch screen. The PQ was NO different to watching the same title on the Oppo DVD at 576i to VP30 outputting 720P 50Hz unlocked. Can't really make a fair assessment of SQ because it was late at night so I had the volume down.The wow factor was just not there, HD-DVD on the same projector certainly DID have high wow factor. Gaming on the PS3 at 720P is stunning, but BR video to me, is not (however I've only watched 2 BR titles so far). I've got Black Hawk on BR and have read it's considered a ref quality disc. I haven't tried it yet but have viewed several other titles on my PS3 on Sony 70", VPL-VW100 and VPL-VW50 and the better ones all meet HD-DVD. Today being a good example, Casino Royale on the VPL-VW100 was every bit as good as the many HD-DVDs I've now viewed on it. I've said for a long time now it's really hard to justify 1080p based HD formats on 720p equipment. Upscaled DVD's looked fine on my 768p projectors, however I had trouble putting up with them for the minute I moved to 1080p. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gino Posted March 25, 2007 Share Posted March 25, 2007 Because reportedly the HD-DVD transferrs have been cleaned up considerably. Also, HD-DVD are using the VC1 codec whereas Black Hawk DOwn is still using MPEG2. So with BHD, we're comparing 576 lines of MPEG2 encoded content with 540 lines of MPEG2 encoded content. VC1 doesn't necessarily mean better PQ than MPEG2, just probably more efficient compression. As OzHTfan said, BHD is supposedly a top tier disk. With both formats, the VP30 is still going from 540 to 576. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mella Posted March 25, 2007 Share Posted March 25, 2007 O.K, I saw my first BR movie (Casino Royal). Firstly it was with my 86cm Sony CRT, using a PC form the kid across the road who had downloaded the movie off the internet. It was 720P transfer, dialed in 1160 X 680 @ 60Hz through component with an ATi GTO800. Once we had all that done, we got a down converted DTS HD signal out of SPDIF output. Sat back and watched. I was very impressed with the picture! Night shots are blacker than black, even when 007 walks across to the casino in his tux, you can see the detail. The cards on the table, razor sharp! Hair follicles, stubble, skin tones, all there! No banding in sky scenes, no grain (good transfer) and definitely no pixels. It sickens me to admit this, but it blows away my Denon 2930 DVD player. When all the dust settles in regards to problems with current players and availability of software I am soooo buying one Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
attilathepun Posted March 25, 2007 Share Posted March 25, 2007 I watched Mission impossible 3 on my PS3 on the weekend - wow. The picture was superb. The only distracting thing was the detail on laurence fishburne's face - he has a face like the surface of the moon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brodricj Posted March 25, 2007 Share Posted March 25, 2007 So why is it that HD-DVD looks great running through the same VP30? Actually, the HD-DVD demo went straight to the projector, VP30 wasn't in the loop. I'll try running BHD-BR direct to projector with the PS3 output at 1080i and 720P and see how the PQ compares. Can't run the PS3 at 1080P because the projector doesn't support it. I have 3 HDMI sources now so need the VP30 to do the switching, so it is always in the loop doing at least something. As much as I'd like to upgrade to VP50 the budget doesn't allow it because I'm almost about to lay down $5k on a new Stewart GreyHawk. Having said that, I'm probably better off selling the PE8720 and VP30 now whilst they still have some resale value, putting the money towards a new JVC projector and a HDMI switcher (I'm guessing there will be little benefit in using an external VP), and deferring the new screen purchase until later. This will probably be a cheaper option and will certainly leave me with a better PQ. It's just that the PE8720 produces such a watchable picture, and any new hardware will cause mayhem with the WAF! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gino Posted March 26, 2007 Share Posted March 26, 2007 Well, that explains it Brodric. Why the $5K on the Stewart? Seems to me its worth more than your PE8720? I'm trying to get rid of my Stewart Luxus Deluxe 121" Screenwall.. its 1.0 gain though, but I'm selling it for much less than $5K Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AndrewW Posted March 26, 2007 Share Posted March 26, 2007 Actually, the HD-DVD demo went straight to the projector, VP30 wasn't in the loop. Bingo. Case solved. Please do yourself a favour and try the PS3 direct to the pj. If worse comes to worse, you can always buy an external HDMI switcher. Andrew. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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