Blu Ray / FULL HD

[chevypower]

has anyone here seen a Blu Ray player connected to a Full HD 1080p plasma/projector yet via HDMI? saw it down at JB HIFI the Samsung units (i am sure all brands will be awesome), then went and looked at all the regular plasmas, and came home to ours.... all i can say is, it makes DVD, standard def, the previous generation 1080i interpolated plasmas look like old VHS systems of the past. There is such a huge difference, you would not want anything else once you have seen Blu Ray connected to a full HD display! (I have worked in home theatre sales previously, and nothing ever impressed me so much - i just had to write about it) Will be good when it takes over DVD and its cheaper to buy, more titles etc. I noticed audio is uncompressed PCM 5.1 audio (not Dolby Digital) DVD can't even support that. But then there's always the inevitable, there's always something better around the corner, but if i were to buy a system today, this would be it!

[Lukeyson]

i havent seen it, but i cant wait to try something of that res on my tru HD panel. And i wasnt aware that its uncompressed 5.1, nice !!!

[MrSparkle]

Yep was dribbling over the demo unit they have at Harvey Norman in the CBD (Martin Place), running the Sony sample Blu-Ray disc. My Lord what a picture! So 'ken sharp and clear, really puts the old skool LCD's and plasmas to shame. I'm keeping an eye on pricing of the 1080p tv's with an eye to upgrade in maybe 6 months time when the initial price shock has dropped. It's already happening in the US so we should follow suit.

On the other hand, the other danger is the 1080p PROJECTORS on the way... that could get me into serious financial poo!

[chevypower]

oh they are already out Mr Sparkle! Sony VPLVW100 and VPL VW50!!!
Theres also a Sony 70inch Bravia, and a Panasonic 65inch Plasma that do it too.

[gtfpv]

is it worth buying a standard definition 42 '' plasma for $1800 anymore . or wont they be compatible with anything .( time frame) ????

[MrSparkle]

Originally Posted by gtfpv

is it worth buying a standard definition 42 '' plasma for $1800 anymore . or wont they be compatible with anything .( time frame) ????

Depends on your definition of "compatible". If you mean, will the plasma show video stream from a blu-ray, then yes - it will. If you alternatively mean, will the plasma show blu-ray at a level that can match a 1080p tv, then hell no!

I'm holding out on the flat screen purchase in order to get a good 1080p one when they hit closer to $3k. That was my plan and seeing it in person only reinforced the idea!

Will be adding a PS3 into the budget of course... mmmm Gran Turismo HD on a 1080p screen... :

I should add that I already have a Dell 24" LCD monitor for PC and digital TV duties, but I have not got ANY videos or clips or media that run at the full 1080p (1920x1200) resolution, apart from games of course - and those look just sensational with my new 8800GTX video card :evilsasmo

[MeestaNob!]

BlueRay does look good, but I quite simply refuse to go nextgen until there is one format. Multiple formats are the work of the devil.

Currentgen anamorphic DVDs upscaled looks quite fine on our 42" Viera, so I can wait as long as it takes for the industry to pick a winner.

I aint jumping out of the boat until I know where I'll land.

[charles_wif_xf]

Originally Posted by MrSparkle

Depends on your definition of "compatible". If you mean, will the plasma show video stream from a blu-ray, then yes - it will. If you alternatively mean, will the plasma show blu-ray at a level that can match a 1080p tv, then hell no!

I'm holding out on the flat screen purchase in order to get a good 1080p one when they hit closer to $3k. That was my plan and seeing it in person only reinforced the idea!

Will be adding a PS3 into the budget of course... mmmm Gran Turismo HD on a 1080p screen... :

I should add that I already have a Dell 24" LCD monitor for PC and digital TV duties, but I have not got ANY videos or clips or media that run at the full 1080p (1920x1200) resolution, apart from games of course - and those look just sensational with my new 8800GTX video card :evilsasmo

Geez, someone's got money to burn!!!

[Martyvan]

Originally Posted by MrSparkle

Will be adding a PS3 into the budget of course... mmmm Gran Turismo HD on a 1080p screen... :

GT HD *sigh* thats enough to make me spend some more money, which will not only send me permanantly to the dog house, but, it then becomes the neighbours dogbox.... !

[fourl6]

Originally Posted by gtfpv

is it worth buying a standard definition 42 '' plasma for $1800 anymore . or wont they be compatible with anything .( time frame) ????

how times have changed... just got a 42" panasonic HD with built in HD tuner for $1300...

[russellw]

I've just upgraded to a True HD Sony and added the Panasonic Blu-Ray unit (don't ask) which makes for an awesome picture with the one Blu-Ray disc I have at present.

In terms of whether Blu-Ray or HDDVD wins out I think the number of manufacturers and content producers who have adopted Blu-Ray will put it in the stronger position but that is yet to be seen. From my perspective it doesn't matter much either way as I'm happy with the image I'm getting and have plenty of Blu-Ray discs on the way for Xmas!

Cheers
Russ

[P6LTD351]

I think the average income person (the one that isn't a drug dealer or a millionaire) would be stupid to buy either blu ray or hd-dvd at the moment. Sure, buy the panel but don't buy the player. At a min of $1500 just for a player that isn't a recorder cannot be justified to the average family person. Then there's a problem with 2 formats. Until one wins out, or they make dual format compatible players, if u buy one now, u must have cash to burn. I'll be watching my HD television for the moment and wait in anticipation for the day that I also get Hi def DVD of some sort. Btw who has seen a 1080I panel next to a 1080p panel? Is there much difference?

[Nevermind]

On the other hand...
Im yet to be convinced. Saw the setup in JB Hifi running some B grade movie, and wasn't ALL that impressed by it. Sure it looks clear and sharp, but I dont know. Maybe it will grow on me with a little more viewings. I think if I could compare them side by side running the same movie, might make a difference.

I do have the new Panasonic 1080p projector and a Xbox 360 so when the HD-DVD drive comes out for the 360 it will be a cheap way to get HD-DVD happening in my house.

[gtfpv]

i seen it in a store where theyu had a split screen , one side running blu ray other side running dvd . bluray was awesome . but dvd . was blurry . i'm sure the dvd side was purposely exagerated for the display.

[chevypower]

Originally Posted by gtfpv

i seen it in a store where theyu had a split screen , one side running blu ray other side running dvd . bluray was awesome . but dvd . was blurry . i'm sure the dvd side was purposely exagerated for the display.

I thought that too at first, but it actually isn't - every set i walked past after seeing the comparison, was like the blurry picture. SD cannot display the really fine details that HD can, you can see the image, and it looks good, but you can't see the fine details in the image - of course the picture is simulated though, as it is still coming from a Blu Ray, not a DVD, but the comparison is fairly accurate i think.

[Full Spectrum]

It's all too soon bluray... Wait till the burners and disc's get cheap and then see the big switch..
Some haven't upgraded too plasma or LCD yet, And as the prices come down for the 2 i can't see many leaping too bluray until it's video shops etc. That will take time.

[RPO83]

What kind of specifications do I need to run HD-DVD/Blu Ray? My user manual for my televsion is quite vague and i'm not sure what to look for!

[chevypower]

you can run it on any TV,

but a true 1080x1920 progressive resolution with HDMI inputs will give you the best it possibly can, you can also go in via component at 1080p, 1080i, 576p or 576i (I am pretty sure)
or S-Video and Composite at 576i resolution

[RPO83]

Well the tv I wanted to run Blu Ray/HD-DVD has a resolution of 1366x768 and no HDMI, and yet to me it has a better picture than my Pioneer tv that runs at 1920x1080. Not sure if it's worth getting now...

[chevypower]

a 1080 x 1920 will only show a better picture when a higher res signal is going in to it (like Blu Ray), but even a Blu Ray with Component into yours at 1080i will be far better than DVD.... we used to run DVHS D Theater 1080i movies on plasmas at work, cos it was the best thing at the time for testing out HD

[RPO83]

Originally Posted by chevypower

a 1080 x 1920 will only show a better picture when a higher res signal is going in to it (like Blu Ray), but even a Blu Ray with Component into yours at 1080i will be far better than DVD.... we used to run DVHS D Theater 1080i movies on plasmas at work, cos it was the best thing at the time for testing out HD

So HD-DVD would still make a noticable difference on the 65" 1366x768 panel?

[chevypower]

yep, it would still be better than watching DVD, Foxtel or HD Digital free-to-air broadcasts on the same plasma. But there is a potential to watch Blu-Ray or HD-DVD at the higher res of 1080x1920 on a display that will show it that high. Remember DVD is 576x720, so is Foxtel, so is SD- Digital free to air
Foxtel and Digital STB are at a lower bit-rate than DVD. HD-STB is at 1080x1920 (interlaced) at a lower bit rate than Blu Ray or HD-DVD

[RPO83]

Thanks for that chevypower, next fun step is to find a player that will work well with my setup

[russellw]

Just so everyone is more knowledgeable let's just go quickly over the technologies involved here as there is a lot of misinformation in the market place at present.

We'll start with what we have lived with since the start of colour television (for us) which is a resolution of 625 lines @ 50Hz and 25 frames per second - NTSC (the US standard) is 525 lines @ 60 Hz and 29.97 fps. As some of the lines are used for tranmission of sync data the actual formats are best referred to as 576i (PAL) and 480' (NTSC) - that is 480x720 and 576x720.

DVD (in PAL format) operates at the same frame rates and resolutions.

Any television made since colour television was introduced is capable of displaying those images in the 4:3 format. It is important to note here that the resolution equivalent of a good analog TV is about 480x640 pixels.

SD digital broadcasts change this by supplying a 576x720 (4:3) image and a 576x1024 (16:9) that is also free from artifacts such as ghosting. All older televisions will still display a better picture with a DSTB box added in the 4:3 format although some of the programming that is filmed using HD equipment with 16:9 native aspect ratio will be downsampled and appear a bit odd. At present analog broadcasts will continue until 2008 anyway.

HDTV is where the water starts to get muddy. There are basically three resolutions available to Australian viewers: 720x576 (576p), 1280x720 (720p) and 1920×1080 (1080i) although there are also 4:3 variations on these. (Please note that I have turned these numbers around for clarity).

A lot of the early HD "ready" TV's sold (and some still on the market) are 852x480 pixels and they don't display even 576p without some upsampling of the image although they can display widescreen DVD fine. This is a bit like selling a BA I6 as "V8 ready".

The next generation were often 1024x768 (the so called XGA in computer terms) or 1024x1024 (WXGA) - these can display 576p but have to upsample 720p and most things look funny on the 1024x1024 units.

Then we started to see units (very common now) with resolutions of 1280x720, 1280x768 and 1366x768 pixels which can all display 720p in native form but which can't display 1080i without upsampling.

Let me digress for a moment into what we are broadcasting for TV these days. The ABC, SBS and Seven are broadcasting 576p while Nine and Ten are broadcasting 720p although these are moving targets as they bring new technologies on stream.

Finally we now have the so called True HD displays which have a native resolution of 1920x1080 and which can therefore display 1080i without any resampling. At present they are of no real benefit for our HDTV broadcasts but they are of benefit for either Blu-Ray or HD-DVD content.

The question as to which format will end up the dominant (if either does) remains undecided. Technically the Blu-Ray 24fps frame rate is a better match for cinematic quality images than the 30fps rate of HD-DVD but it's not very noticeable most of the time. Likewise the higher native capacity for single sided discs (25 Gb vs 15 Gb) offers a perceived advantage and the dual layer Blu-Ray disc can support up to 9 hours of encoded content.

In terms of support the group behind Blu-Ray consists of Apple Computer, Dell, Hewlett Packard, Hitachi, LG Electronics, Mitsubishi, Panasonic, Pioneer, Philips, Samsung, Sharp, Sony, TDK, 20th Century Fox, Walt Disney Pictures and Warner Home Video while the group supporting HD-DVD are Toshiba, NEC, Microsoft and Intel while Warner Bros and Paramount Studios have a foot in each camp.

Finally let us spend a moment talking about how the picture actually looks and how that is relayed in the specifications. Here the terminology used is different between plasma and LCD so we will look at them as such.

Plasma

The two key measures here are brightness and contrast. One of the advantages a plasma has over an LCD is the greater distinction between something that is black and something that isn't - which is known as the contrast ratio. Ignore the grey ratios that some people use as their measure and you will find these are typically in the 3-5,000:1 range. The more the better as long as it is accurate. Brightness is stated in candelas per square metre (cd/m2) and typically will fall in the 1,000-1,500 range. It only really matters if you are in a brightly lit room.

LCD

While some of these will give you the two measures listed above, the numbers will be different. Contrast ratios will typically be in the 1,000-1,500:1 range while brightness specs will range from 400-600 candela. The additional measure added for LCD's is their response rate exactly as it is with your PC monitor. Anything under 8ms black to black is likely to be rubbish within the scope of modern technology but anything over 12ms is likely to see some pixellation on fast moving images.

Finally we'll mention size. Bigger isn't always better despite what you may have been told. The higher native resolution the screen is then the larger it can be for any given viewing area but there are some simple rules of thumb to follow. In general you'll want to allow 3x the actual screen size in viewing distance for a mid range plasma (so a 60" screen requires 180" of distance or about 15' (4.5 m). Higher resolution screens reduce that factor to about 1.5x meaning the same size screen would be viewable at about 8' of distance.

Cheers
Russ

[chevypower]

Russ, with all due respect, but where did you get your information from? Does the term "information overload" mean anything? i was deliberately trying to keep it simple (as much as possible anyway) nobody's gonna take all that in Russ. I know all the TV technical jargon, and I hate using it. Just buy a Blu-Ray player, it's gonna outsell HD-DVD... yes there will be machines that do both i am sure, make sure ya display is FULL HD 1080x1920 with HDMI - that's all you need to know....

Please take note Russ, i will correct you on a couple things. When we compare resolution, we measure in visable lines in the actual picture - not the signal, otherwise we would refer to HD as 1125 oh and by the way, PAL has 576x720 in BOTH 4:3 and 16:9 and NTSC has 480x720 in BOTH 16:9 and 4:3 widescreen has no additional pixels at the sides, just non-square pixels for W/S. 640x480 is not a TV standard, it's a computer resolution - and not a very good one - nothing to do with video
FULL HD 1080 has square pixels in it's only current aspect ratio (16:9) which is a really good thing

[JADED6]

Originally Posted by chevypower

i was deliberately trying to keep it simple (as much as possible anyway) nobody's gonna take all that in Russ. Just buy a Blu-Ray player,

I took it in and found it to be rather useful. Specs and information is hardly overload. (but "just buy a blu-ray" is certainly keeping it simple. I'm sold)

By the way, How are things down at the Blu-Ray factory chevypower?

[chevypower]

Originally Posted by JADED6

I took it in and found it to be rather useful. Specs and information is hardly overload. (but "just buy a blu-ray" is certainly keeping it simple. I'm sold)

By the way, How are things down at the Blu-Ray factory chevypower?

that's fine... but he was wrong on the specs, theres no 640x480 in video... and Standard Def widescreen doesnt have extra pixels (you cant just get the calculator out and start dividing and mulitplying to get what you think is the answer) cos widescreen standard def has non-square pixels and has the same number of pixels as 4:3 - if you want the correct specs and are interested, i can give them to you - but what really matters, is not the specs (unless you find more joy in talking specs than watching movies) - but the picture you see in front of you when you're looking at it.... the specs just back that up with technical reason

[RAREV8]

RusselW,

That was a concise and pretty accurate breakdown of the technologies- very good reading!

I have been in the industry for several years now and there is a vast amount of conflicting information around at the moment which serves to confuse customers to no end.

We need to bear in mind that Australia was the first country that ran a PAL based TV system rather than NTSC to adopt HDTV....at a time when we couldn't even broadcast the Olympics in widescreen!

HDTV was developed in 1994 by Toshiba in an attempt to "fix" the poorer quality NTSC broadcast quality used in Japan and the U.S.

Certain maufacturers took advantage of the market by inaccurately rating their monitors as HD ready as was earlier mentioned.

I would like to mention that HDMI (high definition multimedia interface) is NOT necessarily better picture quality than component, and in fact, can be worse.

The whole point of HDMI is that it can carry digital video signals and uncompressed multi-channel audio down a single cable rather than separate 3 lead component and digital or descrete audio leads.

You are still limited by the run of cable used with HDMI- if you are using a projector that is more than about 15m from the source, I would reccommend Component as its signal loss over a distance declines slowly rather than dropping out either intermittently or altogether as it is a binary digital signal. You also don't need an audio signal going to the projector!

Original HDMI could only run video and 2 channel audio whereas the latest versions can run video and multi channel audio with a hell of a lot of bandwith to spare.

Even with a HD video signal and 6.1 audio being run, you will be using around 60% of the HDMI capability.

[merlin]

Originally Posted by russellw

Just so everyone is more knowledgeable let's just go quickly over the technologies involved here as there is a lot of misinformation in the market place at present.

We'll start with what we have lived with since the start of colour television (for us) which is a resolution of 625 lines @ 50Hz and 25 frames per second - NTSC (the US standard) is 525 lines @ 60 Hz and 29.97 fps. As some of the lines are used for tranmission of sync data the actual formats are best referred to as 576i (PAL) and 480' (NTSC) - that is 480x720 and 576x720.

DVD (in PAL format) operates at the same frame rates and resolutions.

Any television made since colour television was introduced is capable of displaying those images in the 4:3 format. It is important to note here that the resolution equivalent of a good analog TV is about 480x640 pixels.

SD digital broadcasts change this by supplying a 576x720 (4:3) image and a 576x1024 (16:9) that is also free from artifacts such as ghosting. All older televisions will still display a better picture with a DSTB box added in the 4:3 format although some of the programming that is filmed using HD equipment with 16:9 native aspect ratio will be downsampled and appear a bit odd. At present analog broadcasts will continue until 2008 anyway.

HDTV is where the water starts to get muddy. There are basically three resolutions available to Australian viewers: 720x576 (576p), 1280x720 (720p) and 1920×1080 (1080i) although there are also 4:3 variations on these. (Please note that I have turned these numbers around for clarity).

A lot of the early HD "ready" TV's sold (and some still on the market) are 852x480 pixels and they don't display even 576p without some upsampling of the image although they can display widescreen DVD fine. This is a bit like selling a BA I6 as "V8 ready".

The next generation were often 1024x768 (the so called XGA in computer terms) or 1024x1024 (WXGA) - these can display 576p but have to upsample 720p and most things look funny on the 1024x1024 units.

Then we started to see units (very common now) with resolutions of 1280x720, 1280x768 and 1366x768 pixels which can all display 720p in native form but which can't display 1080i without upsampling.

Let me digress for a moment into what we are broadcasting for TV these days. The ABC, SBS and Seven are broadcasting 576p while Nine and Ten are broadcasting 720p although these are moving targets as they bring new technologies on stream.

Finally we now have the so called True HD displays which have a native resolution of 1920x1080 and which can therefore display 1080i without any resampling. At present they are of no real benefit for our HDTV broadcasts but they are of benefit for either Blu-Ray or HD-DVD content.

The question as to which format will end up the dominant (if either does) remains undecided. Technically the Blu-Ray 24fps frame rate is a better match for cinematic quality images than the 30fps rate of HD-DVD but it's not very noticeable most of the time. Likewise the higher native capacity for single sided discs (25 Gb vs 15 Gb) offers a perceived advantage and the dual layer Blu-Ray disc can support up to 9 hours of encoded content.

In terms of support the group behind Blu-Ray consists of Apple Computer, Dell, Hewlett Packard, Hitachi, LG Electronics, Mitsubishi, Panasonic, Pioneer, Philips, Samsung, Sharp, Sony, TDK, 20th Century Fox, Walt Disney Pictures and Warner Home Video while the group supporting HD-DVD are Toshiba, NEC, Microsoft and Intel while Warner Bros and Paramount Studios have a foot in each camp.

Finally let us spend a moment talking about how the picture actually looks and how that is relayed in the specifications. Here the terminology used is different between plasma and LCD so we will look at them as such.

Plasma

The two key measures here are brightness and contrast. One of the advantages a plasma has over an LCD is the greater distinction between something that is black and something that isn't - which is known as the contrast ratio. Ignore the grey ratios that some people use as their measure and you will find these are typically in the 3-5,000:1 range. The more the better as long as it is accurate. Brightness is stated in candelas per square metre (cd/m2) and typically will fall in the 1,000-1,500 range. It only really matters if you are in a brightly lit room.

LCD

While some of these will give you the two measures listed above, the numbers will be different. Contrast ratios will typically be in the 1,000-1,500:1 range while brightness specs will range from 400-600 candela. The additional measure added for LCD's is their response rate exactly as it is with your PC monitor. Anything under 8ms black to black is likely to be rubbish within the scope of modern technology but anything over 12ms is likely to see some pixellation on fast moving images.

Finally we'll mention size. Bigger isn't always better despite what you may have been told. The higher native resolution the screen is then the larger it can be for any given viewing area but there are some simple rules of thumb to follow. In general you'll want to allow 3x the actual screen size in viewing distance for a mid range plasma (so a 60" screen requires 180" of distance or about 15' (4.5 m). Higher resolution screens reduce that factor to about 1.5x meaning the same size screen would be viewable at about 8' of distance.

Cheers
Russ

Interesting info - can you or someone else add in what a HD Set-top box will do to the res in these situations.

Personally I run a standard 68cm CRT TV for regular t.v. and then have a 140 inch motorised drop down (from the ceiling cavity) projector screen ($120 bucks new from ebay, 1 year on and still going strong) for movies (generally burnt DVD's from torrents). Projector was a give-away PC data one from my wifes work so resolution is not great and I am looking to upgrade - I am guessing from the info here that going for any projector under 1080i is going to be a waste of time and money?

[russellw]

Originally Posted by merlin

Interesting info - can you or someone else add in what a HD Set-top box will do to the res in these situations.

Personally I run a standard 68cm CRT TV for regular t.v. and then have a 140 inch motorised drop down (from the ceiling cavity) projector screen ($120 bucks new from ebay, 1 year on and still going strong) for movies (generally burnt DVD's from torrents). Projector was a give-away PC data one from my wifes work so resolution is not great and I am looking to upgrade - I am guessing from the info here that going for any projector under 1080i is going to be a waste of time and money?

As mentioned above an HD set top box is capable of outputting signals at 1080i/p but the limitation will always be the capability of the TV, monitor or projector to display the signal provided so the addition of a box to a standard CRT is likely to only provide a minor improvement and only then if it is capable of displaying higher resolutions. It gets a little more complex with projectors as a lot of data projectors are XGA or WXGA capable so while there is some image cropping the actual image quality is improved with the addition of a STB. Again a lot of the early home theatre projectors were only 720p capable and quite a few of the ones on the market now are still only UXGA (1280x720) like the Sony UHVLP60. There are some true HD projectors around like the Sony VPLVW50 but it's over $6k and is only 1080p - the 1080i WS version is over $12k.

Cheers
Russ