> In reality, we just swapped analogue distortion for compression artifacts.

Yep.  In some cases, it's more pronounced than in others.  Initially, 
satellite HDTV was horrible in comparison to what's available now.  They 
simply didn't have the bandwidth to support it.  Even now, I can notice it a 
little bit, but for the most part, I don't see the artifacts.  Artifacts are 
most noticeable in dark images.

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> It's kind of hard to know when you're being crazy and when you're just 
> being dense. :-) I can get an excellent 46" LCD screen for like $1500. 
> What the heck are you paying £20,000 for?

$780 USD for my Sony 46" 1080p.  Other brands are cheaper.

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"Neeum Zawan" <m.n### [at] ieeeorg> wrote in message 
news:4b9297f6$1@news.povray.org...
> On 03/06/10 02:24, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
>> I've only seen HD stuff in shops, but from what I can tell, there's no
>> visible difference between HD and SD. If I ever get time to set up my
>> mum's new BluRay player, maybe I can test for myself. But seriously,
>> everybody's going on like it fundamentally transforms your viewing
>> experience. But it's only 4x the resolution. Not 40x or 400x, just 4x.
>> And, from what I've seen, this equals to a slight increase in constrast,
>> and not much else.
>
> Woah! There's a *big* difference in quality. Try playing 1080p content
> if your TV can handle it. If not, even 720p should be noticeable. Many
> stores I've been to just show trash.
>

Agreed.  The stores suck.    And the difference in quality is huge.  Anyone 
who doesn’t see the difference should switch back to a 640x480 interlaced 
analog monitor.  ;-)

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"nemesis" <nam### [at] gmailcom> wrote in message 
news:web.4b9311a1977651427220e2710@news.povray.org...
> "Jeremy \"UncleHoot\" Praay" <jer### [at] questsoftwarecmo> wrote:
>> claim that the $100 Monster cable gives them such a better picture than 
>> the
>> other (mon-Monster) HDMI cables.  Unless I'm missing something, that's 
>> like
>> saying your Internet looks a lot better since you switched from a cat 5
>> ethernet connection to cat 6.  In the analog realm, high quality cables
>> meant a lot.  In the digital realm, anything capable of handling the 
>> signal
>> should be as good as any other, although I've seen my share of really 
>> crappy
>> quality ethernet cable, as well.  But they either work, or they don't.
>
> Perfect analysis.  You know how software makers are able to get a lot of 
> money
> from consumers blissfully ignorant at how software works?  Audio-video 
> industry
> is just about as horrendous.
>

I suppose that if I spent $100 for a 3-foot cable, I'd delude myself too, 
though.  Admitting that I just paid 20 times more than a reasonable price 
would just be too difficult for me.  ;-)

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"UncleHoot" <jer### [at] mutualdatacom> wrote:
> "Neeum Zawan" <m.n### [at] ieeeorg> wrote in message
> news:4b9297f6$1@news.povray.org...
> > On 03/06/10 02:24, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> >> I've only seen HD stuff in shops, but from what I can tell, there's no
> >> visible difference between HD and SD. If I ever get time to set up my
> >> mum's new BluRay player, maybe I can test for myself. But seriously,
> >> everybody's going on like it fundamentally transforms your viewing
> >> experience. But it's only 4x the resolution. Not 40x or 400x, just 4x.
> >> And, from what I've seen, this equals to a slight increase in constrast,
> >> and not much else.
> >
> > Woah! There's a *big* difference in quality. Try playing 1080p content
> > if your TV can handle it. If not, even 720p should be noticeable. Many
> > stores I've been to just show trash.
> >
>
> Agreed.  The stores suck.    And the difference in quality is huge.  Anyone
> who doesn’t see the difference should switch back to a 640x480 interlaced
> analog monitor.  ;-)

I seriously think Andrew's glasses are wearing out, but the stores may be guilty
indeed:  many of them just play regular blurry DVDs on HDTVs.  Talk about truly
awful marketing skills...

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UncleHoot wrote:
>> It's kind of hard to know when you're being crazy and when you're just
>> being dense. :-) I can get an excellent 46" LCD screen for like $1500.
>> What the heck are you paying £20,000 for?
> 
> $780 USD for my Sony 46" 1080p.  Other brands are cheaper.

Or if he wants a big picture but without a TV:
http://www.pixmania.co.uk/uk/uk/2018129/art/sanyo/plv-z700-video-projector.html
I'm pretty sure Andrew could get The Best dvb-tuner in the world for the
19k£ that's left...

-Aero

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OK, so I set up the BluRay player today and took it for a spin.

The player is hooked up to the LCD TV via an HDMI cable. Apparently the 
TV is in 1080p mode. (Presumably that means 1080 scanlines with 
progressive scan?) I've played some DVDs and some BluRay disks.

There *is* a difference. But it still seems quite small. The main place 
you see it is actually in the setup menues, weirdly enough. The 
texturing seems sharper. Once the film itself is playing, you don't 
really see a whole lot of difference. Except sometimes in shots that are 
very still, or have lots of close-up detail.

I can only guess that most of the time, large parts of the frame are out 
of focus anyway, so there's no extra detail to capture except on the 
foreground objects which are in sharp focus. And also, if the objects 
are moving around a lot, there's so much motion blur that you don't see 
any extra detail.

So in summary, apart from the occasional shot where you go "oh, that 
looks a little sharper than usual", there's not much to see. (And most 
especially, when you first start watching it seems a little sharper, but 
after 20 minutes you've forgotten all about it.) It's certainly not the 
"OMG, your eyeballs will drop out of your skull in sheer amazement" 
effect that everybody keeps promising.

Now I've got Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. The box contains 
the exact same film on BD and DVD, so I can actually compare like for 
like. But I haven't done so yet.

The main thing is, I can now throw away the *useless* DVD player we've 
been using! :-D

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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hey, how about paying a visit to your ophthalmologist? :D

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"nemesis" <nam### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> hey, how about paying a visit to your ophthalmologist? :D

BTW, here's a spot on comparison I caught from another forum.

DVD shot, upscaled to 1080p:
http://i166.photobucket.com/albums/u98/adzez/Gone%20With%20The%20Wind/4ac8c10f.png

Bluray:
http://i166.photobucket.com/albums/u98/adzez/Gone%20With%20The%20Wind/03a3bde1.png

guess for someone calling Mozart bland it's all equally blurry, but I can see
details of the dress, faces and background foliage in bluray HD glory. :)

and that's a very old movie, with blurry images by default!  The difference is
much more pronounced in the crisp images of modern movies like, say, Pixar
movies:

http://www.pixartalk.com/2009/06/17/the-blu-ray-difference-with-pixar/

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nemesis wrote:
> and that's a very old movie, with blurry images by default!

Yeah, it really doesn't help to watch something recorded when color film was 
new and amazing on blu-ray.

Do the same comparison with something like Batman.

And remember that DVD is significantly better than VHS and (most) broadcast, 
while HDTV has only compression artifaacts to worry about.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   The question in today's corporate environment is not
   so much "what color is your parachute?" as it is
   "what color is your nose?"

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