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Author
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Topic: Video Forum HD Visit
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Paul Adsett
Film God
Posts: 5003
From: USA
Registered: Jun 2003
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posted February 08, 2007 12:22 PM
Hi Lee,
A friend of mine bought into a $4,300 45 ins Sharp Aquus LCD HDTV for Christmas, and it is a big disappointment precisely for the reasons you have noted. The overwhelming satellite, cable, and broadcast TV here in the USA is still standard definition 4:3. Yes there's some HD programming out there, but you have to pay a premium to get it. So he's watching standard dafinition 4:3 for the most part, on a 16:9 LCD HDTV with black bars on the sides, and which washes out when you get more than 45 degrees off center! The 4:3 picture size on his new TV is no bigger than his old 36 ins Sony Wega CRT TV. And the picture on the Sony puts his new LCD TV to shame! I don't know if he will take it back or not, but he's one disgruntled consumer.
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The best of all worlds- 8mm, super 8mm, 9.5mm, and HD Digital Projection,
Elmo GS1200 f1.0 2-blade
Eumig S938 Stereo f1.0 Ektar
Panasonic PT-AE4000U digital pj
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Timothy Ramzyk
Expert Film Handler
Posts: 220
From: Milwaukee,WI,USA
Registered: Nov 2006
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posted February 21, 2007 05:28 PM
I have had an HD LCD projector for five years, and an upscaler to project my DVDs in 1880i. The results can be stunning, and the one thing it has bought out to me is just how far DVD authoring has come. The negotiation between decent blacks while still holding detail in the dark areas is my biggest issue.
In terms of new HD formats I've watched “the war” like a hawk. I'm so far a staunch HD DVD supporter, and have a lot of issues with Bluray. I think neither are going anywhere soon, but I too would like to see universal format players rather than toss all this risk at the consumers feet.
A lot of Bluray supporters wish HD DVD would just go away, but a little completion is a good thing, it's made prices drop, and cracked the whip on some of the Bluray quality issues early in the game. This might never have happened otherwise
My lean toward HD DVD for many reasons, but these are the biggies,
It's region-free, any HD-DVD you buy, you can play, and I buy a lot of imports.
It's cheaper to master and produce which is better for low-volume and catalog titles and independent labels. So it will cater more to my taste.
It's upconversion of regular DVDs is better than Bluray's
SONY and Lionsgate (bluray only studios) do a so-so job with DVDs and they predictably have done a so-so job with Bluray titles. Even stuff from a weak ago is getting questionable press in terms of picture quality. They also have no regard for titles over a decade old, and 90% of my films and disks are pre-90's.
Unfortunately, Bluray has more studio support (presently) so we may be force-fed it weather we like it or not. So I'd like to see both formats survive, at least until universal players and more studio neutrality give us a real choice.
Tim steps down from the soap-box. ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
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Joerg Polzfusz
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 815
From: Berlin, Germany, Europe, Earth, Solar System
Registered: Apr 2006
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posted February 22, 2007 03:46 AM
quote:
It's upconversion of regular DVDs is better than Bluray's
Of course this upconversion is done by the player itself and therefore hasn't got anything to do with the format ... .
But to come back to the topic: I was playing around with the thought of getting myself a LCD-tv (either SD or HD) since my crt-tv started to make some problems. So my wife and I went to shop and returned very disappointed: ALL LCD-TVs below 5000 EUR have been "unwatchable": We knew that the image is only visible when looking more or less straight onto the LCD, but so far every laptop we've ever used/owned had a 300% wider view angle than those cheap TVs! Even worse: As soon as the camera made a faster panoramic pan, the whole image started to blur, smear and judder. Since we don't wanted to get "sea sick" while watching TV, we decided to wait for the next generation of LCD-tvs or for cheaper crt-hd-tvs. In the meantime our TV-problem turned out to be only a damaged cable between DVB-T-receiver and TV, so we saved a lot of money ;-)
The increasing film-prices made me also think about switching from Super8/Single8/Doublesuper8 to HDV or similar... but so far all HD-camera tests I've read state that landscapes and immobile objects look great while moving cars, ... always result in blurred, smeared and jerky pictures regardless of using MPEG2 or MPEG4 and of using DV-tapes, HDDs or SD-cards to store the video. (DV-tapes also seem to have a great problem with drop-outs when used for HDV.) Not to mention that my PC isn't fast enough and hasn't got enough storage to edit HD-video, that I would need a newer version of Adobe Premiere, ... . As a result the whole "image chain" would cost much more than my predicted expenses for film for the next 10 years and would only give mediocre images. So I decided to stick with film and get a HD-transfer of my films "later"... ;-)
Jörg
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Chris Quinn
Master Film Handler
Posts: 372
From: England, Bedfordshire.
Registered: Nov 2003
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posted February 23, 2007 01:10 AM
I have been reading about DVD being a format, but i don't think it is. It is DIGITAL its self that i feel is the format and it does not matter in which way it is stored be it a DVD, hard drive or a memory stick. DVD is just a piece of hardware to store it on. VHS and Beta were both analogue along with laserdisc, but they were both the same and not different formats, just different ways of working. Blue Ray and HD is also the same, although they store differently and Blue Ray has the potential to store more, but both are the same thing, it's all digital.
Maybe i'm going nuts, reading this back to myself, 9.5 and 35mm are also the same format.
What does constitute a format? ![[Confused]](confused.gif)
Chris.
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The other half thinks i'm up to something. Shes right of course.
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Timothy Ramzyk
Expert Film Handler
Posts: 220
From: Milwaukee,WI,USA
Registered: Nov 2006
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posted February 23, 2007 09:44 AM
Not to state the obvious, but with film its mostly a matter of medium/format that determines results, a better lens and a brighter bulb, can do wonders, but it's the prints themselves that ultimately deliver, and in kind it's where the money goes. Three Derann prints can be equal in cost to your projector.
With digital, the investment can be much higher on the projector end (my LCD was $5500) but then that's recouped my the cheapness of a disk. HD on the other hand should probably be seen as an “upgrade” rather than new format. But it is one heck of an upgrade if you project at almost tripple the resolution of a DVD.
Are the real-world result three times as good to the naked eye? No, but I'd say they are clearly a good 35% better-looking, an that's pretty darn impressive on a 100” screen.
Who knows where the next stop is, “holographic” disk storage is up to 300 GB (HD is 30-50 GB) and is supposed to reach 500GB. Which may mean no compression of an image at all, but it will probably only be used for archiving.
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Timothy Ramzyk
Expert Film Handler
Posts: 220
From: Milwaukee,WI,USA
Registered: Nov 2006
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posted February 23, 2007 01:49 PM
quote:
Providing the picture is reansonably sharp and stable and it has clear steady sound, you will immerse yourself in the movie and enjoy it. The fact that your mate has a HD system with 3 times more pixels only matters for 5 minutes and the initial 'wow' factor.
Well, I see your point, many is the time I watched a films emulsion more than it's subject, but I'm a bit of a tech-geek, so I do tend to have an awareness of quality that rides along side content. My projector was HD when I bought it five years ago, and I've only had the chance to see it “do it's stuff” to the maximum recently.
You get what you pay for in projectors tho the optics even on lesser models have come along. A $3000 projector will now produce an image comparable to a $6000 machine of five years ago.
Sony is still the best bang for your buck, and I say that begrudgingly because there is much I loathe about how Sony does business.
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Timothy Ramzyk
Expert Film Handler
Posts: 220
From: Milwaukee,WI,USA
Registered: Nov 2006
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posted February 23, 2007 11:59 PM
quote:
They often talk about film grain in a transfer as if it's a flaw, not realising that it's the thing that gives those images the texture that makes them FILM. It seems that more and more the studios are using digital technology to clean up but also alter films to "improve' their look when no improvement is needed for those of us who want a picture that re-creates the original.
Yup, this is a major pain, I want film to look like film, and if Snow White had watercolored backgrounds, then I want to see the “organic” appearance that medium generates.
The beautiful quality of Warner's Wizard of OZ DVD is a remarkable achievement in that they were able to re-sync the original Technicolor separations, so though the medium has changed from film to digital, the number of generations has been drastically reduced. They also didn't over-sharpen and let the fine grain of the film remain. I'm really hot to see an HD of it. It's not IBTech, but in truth neither is a low-fade Agfa print either. What would a 16mm Technicolor print of Oz fetch, about $3500-4500?
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