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[XMonkey]

If you use MP4 encoding, but at higher bitrates, won't that look better than equally sized MP2 encodings?

Yes, but I think we're going to have to see the authoring tools for mpeg4 mature some more before we start seeing a lot of HDDVD/BR movies go mpeg4.

 

[empanada]

the PS3 is going to be more widely available and well known this fall than even HDDVD. I mean, where is the hype for HDDVD? Its launching this week and i haven't heard anything outside of hardcore hometheatre-philes.

The latest Best Buy ad has a full page devoted to HD-DVD so its just starting to pop up in the mainstream.

Also, the PS3 is popular because its the PS3, not because of Bluray.

 

[sportzhead]

the PS3 is going to be more widely available and well known this fall than even HDDVD. I mean, where is the hype for HDDVD? Its launching this week and i haven't heard anything outside of hardcore hometheatre-philes.

But that doesn't mean a thing if the PS3 is too expensive or impossible to find in a store. Half year ramp up time + worldwide launch = shortage.

 

[Ninja Scooter]

holy shit this thing is a beast!

 

[DMczaf]

holy shit this thing is a beast!
http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e87/casualwear2006/IMG_2481.jpg

He's actually a midget.

 

[.hacked]

 

[VictimOfGrief]

WTF? Anime is the first thing going to be played on that player? :lol

 

[.hacked]

WTF? Anime is the first thing going to be played on that player? :lol

Yep going to watch the last vol of Galaxy Railways on it tonight. I wanted to break it in with TLS or Serenity but I'll have to wait till tomorrow...

 

[racerx77]

Its interesting that no one has any movies for it yet. I went to my local BB today and got Last Samurai and Serinity (Million dollar baby was delayed).
Got to watch Samurai and it was a stunning sight to behold.. Very bold color and Wonderful detail.

 

[Kleegamefan]

Isn't the reason there's no 1080p support because they haven't finalized the hdmi specification for it, or something? Not that it matters for movies, though. If a deinterlacer in a 1080p tv is doing its job (and most actually don't), a 1080i 60hz signal will show 1080p at 30 frames per second, which is higher than the 24fps of movies.

The Broadcom decoder chip that enables 1080p output isn't available yet....that is the only reason why there is no 1080p support yet...

 

[Count Chocula]

looks like blu ray is on it's way and supports 1080p

http://circuitcity.com/ccd/genericC...=JWIN-_-3-_-Coming soon: Blu-ray disc players

 

[Lord Error]

Actually, with animted features, you can appreciate the picture fidelity even better, if the transfer and compression are excellent.

I was watching Finding Nemo rfom DVD on a 40" or 50" TV in a store, attached through component cable from a nice standalone DVD player, and from upclose (not THAT upclose) it looked so pixelated and compressed, I couldn't believe...

That's why I love my good ole' HD direct view CRT, lower fidelity sources still look fine on it, and HD footage still looks amazing.

 

[Ninja Scooter]

:lol the box just keeps getting me. The player doesn't look that big, which is the wierd thing.

 

[Kleegamefan]

OK, found it:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=660193

I didn't read the whole thing, but if people in that thread know what they are talking about, doing correct inverse telecine in realtime might not be always that simple and accurate. I know how that process works and have been using it in Aftereffects, but I don't know what problems could occur in realtime.


Other than the academic curiosity, do you think it really matters? If you are worried you are going to end up with a dead format few years from now, with no movie release either on BR or HDDVD, what other option do you have? Continue buying DVDs in hope they will survive longer? But why limit yourself to an inferior format for the sake of possible longevity that you get nothing out of?

Here Marco, Ill help you out


http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/volume_7_4/dvd-benchmark-part-5-progressive-10-2000.html

How Progressive Players Work

How The Information is Stored on Disc

It’s important to understand at the outset that DVDs are designed for interlaced displays. There’s a persistent myth that DVDs are inherently progressive, and all a DVD player needs to do to display a progressive signal is to grab the progressive frames off the disc and show them. This is not exactly true. First of all, a significant amount of DVD content was never progressive to begin with. Anything shot with a typical video camera, which includes many concerts, most supplementary documentaries, and many TV shows, is inherently interlaced. (Some consumer digital video cameras can shoot in progressive mode, and a handful of TV programs are shot in progressive, particularly sports events.) By comparison, content that was originally shot on film, or with a progressive TV camera, or created in a computer, is progressive from the get-go. But even for such content, there is no requirement that it be stored on the DVD progressively.

DVDs are based on MPEG-2 encoding, which allows for either progressive or interlaced sequences. However, very few discs use progressive sequences, because the players are specifically designed for interlaced output. Interestingly, while the sequences (i.e., the films and videos) are seldom stored progressive, there's nothing wrong with using individual progressive frames in an interlaced sequence. This may sound like a semantic distinction, but it’s not. If the sequence is progressive, then all sorts of rules kick into place which ensure that the material stays progressive from start to finish. Whereas if the sequence is interlaced, then there are fewer rules and no requirement to use progressive frames. The encoder can mix and match interlaced fields and progressive frames as long as each second of MPEG-2 data contains 60 fields, no more, no less (or 50 fields per second for PAL discs). The progressive frames, when they are used, are purely for compression efficiency, but the video is still interlaced as far as the MPEG decoder is concerned.

The input to a DVD encoder (the instrumentation that is used to author a DVD) is almost always an interlaced digital master tape, even if the original material was shot on film. The video transfer is typically done at a different facility, and the output of the transfer is interlaced. Since the DVD encoding software doesn't even have access to a progressive master, it must rely on the same kinds of algorithms that a deinterlacer uses to put the proper fields together. Since there is essentially no requirement that it actually always put the proper fields together, other than compression efficiency, many encoders are conservative about using progressive frames. If the encoder cannot be sure that a frame is progressive, it will typically mark it interlaced, because the only real loss is a few bits of disc space.

When the mastering engineers view the disc for quality control, they view it on an interlaced monitor. They don't necessarily care how well it deinterlaces, because that's not part of the DVD spec. Some mastering houses do pay attention to the flags produced by their encoder, and some do view the disc on progressive players just for quality control, but that's not at all required.

In short, the content on a DVD is interlaced conceptually, and is stored in interlaced sequences. Frames can be marked "progressive" to help compression, but are not always marked that way, even when it would be correct to do so. In interlaced sequences, the encoder can either keep the fields separate, or combine them together into one frame, whichever is best for compression purposes. There is a flag on each image stored in the MPEG-2 stream called “picture_structure” that can be either “frame” for a full 720x480 pixel frame, or “top field” or “bottom field” for a single 720x240 field. (We’ll learn about top and bottom fields later.) And it is allowed, but again not required, to set a flag called “progressive_frame” as a hint to the decoder that the fields in that frame were taken from the same frame of film. This allows for better pause and slow motion modes, and better down-conversion of 16x9 images for 4x3 displays. But this is again, purely optional. The content will play fine whether the data is structured as fields or frames, and whether the flag is present or not.

In fact, the encoder is allowed to combine fields that are not from the same film frame together, as often that produces better compression, even for inherently interlaced video. In such cases, the encoder is not supposed to set the progressive_frame flag, but again, if it does happen to get set, it will make no difference for normal playback on an interlaced display. And since interlaced displays are the only thing DVD was designed for, sloppiness with flags is more common than you’d think.

The flags on the disc, and the structure of the frames, are purely hints. Interlaced video can be stored on the disc as frames, and progressive frames can be broken into fields. The progressive_frame flag can be there or not. It doesn’t make any difference for interlaced playback. As we will see, though, it can make a big difference for progressive playback.

Some DVD players can detect progressive frame flags better than others, which is why Secrets also has an extensive DVD player test database that specifically test for this:

http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/volu...uide-to-progressive-scan-shootout-1-2003.html


In other words, Marco, you are not imagining things

 

[sportzhead]

:lol the box just keeps getting me. The player doesn't look that big, which is the wierd thing.

Wow! You pay $500 for a huge ass box and get a dvd player as a bonus.

 

[Joe]

looks like blu ray is on it's way and supports 1080p

http://circuitcity.com/ccd/genericC...=JWIN-_-3-_-Coming soon: Blu-ray disc players

those players are a $1,000 each, they better fucking support 1080p. just so you know the hd-dvds are in 1080p, the player for some reason is "only" 1080i.

 

[borghe]

Actually, with animted features, you can appreciate the picture fidelity even better, if the transfer and compression are excellent.

actually on traditional animated features the biggest advantage will hopefully be the elimination of edge enhancement. the biggest problem for me has always been the extreme edge enhancement on the hard black lines of animation. hopefully edge enhancement in general will disappear on ALL HD releases.

 

[.hacked]

1080i up conversion is great

 

[hellfire]

Some DVD players can detect progressive fram flags better than others, which is why Secrets also has an extensive DVD player test database that specifically test for this:

http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/volu...uide-to-progressive-scan-shootout-1-2003.html


In other words, Marco, you are not imagining things

thanks for trimming that

like i said in my other reply, the hd-dvd movies are encoded 1080p24, so we won't have this specific problem (at least, not until TV content comes out).

to clarify klee's comment though: fundamentally, the reason the secrets database exists is because (a) video encoded for dvds are inherently interlaced and (b) dvd authoring tools are fucked up. if everyone set their damn flags correctly, every flag-reading player (i.e. the easiest player to write) would display stuff properly (yes i've helped write one before, hence my bitterness).

instead, you have high profile dvd releases that have interlaced frames marked progressive, so you see occasional combed frames, because a flag reader would say 'hey, disc says its progressive, so i don't need to deinterlace this frame'. great example of this is buffy the vampire slayer season 1 (and probably most of the other seasons). every scene transition was marked progressive because the editing software screwed up, so every time there's a cut, you get combing artifacts.

 

[DJ_Tet]

Sweet pics morph. If you feel like capturing any 1080i upconversions you know the thread that might have an interesting scene or two

 

[karasu]

Is the upconversion really that much better than the upconverting DVD players from before?

 

[Solo]

You bought an HD-DVD player...


... and chose anime as your first title... nothing like showing off the new tech :/

 

[mrklaw]

which is likely to cost reduce quickest? Or will they both end up as single chip solutions for a few dollars anyway?

there is presumably a limit to how long Toshiba can subsidise the box costs isn't there? I guess other manufacturers will be more expensive.

Or will Sony ante-up and take a hit for the team?

 

[.hacked]

Is the upconversion really that much better than the upconverting DVD players from before?

Only other player I have tried that did upconversion was a Sony DVP-NS750H. It did 720p and I hade it hooked up via HDMI. I could barley tell the difference between it and my 480p Sony player. It was only $130 and I returned it 2 days later.

This player does 1080i and the improvement is very noticeable. I tried it with that anime DVD and with Vol 3 of Aqua Teen Hunger Force and the screen jittering I used to see in ATHF was eliminated.


I'll try out some HD DVDs today and take some more pics. If I have the time I'll take some comparison shots of TLS and Serenity SD vs HD.

Sweet pics morph. If you feel like capturing any 1080i upconversions you know the thread that might have an interesting scene or two

I know what you are looking for, I can't grab that stuff in HD or can I?

:lol

 

[.hacked]

You bought an HD-DVD player...


... and chose anime as your first title... nothing like showing off the new tech :/

If it don't make my anime look good it is worthless to me.

 

[CurseoftheGods]

Why the hell is the player so god damn big?

 

[heavy liquid]

This was confirmed to be true over at AVS:

Toshiba HD-A1 User Reports

Edited to add:

I mean it was confirmed to output a 1080i signal over component just fine.

Not exactly true.

From the thread you linked to:

The player is required to obey what the disc says. All the initial HD-DVD discs will allow 720p/1080i output over component, but future discs may not. Copyrighted SD DVD discs cannot be upscaled to 720p/1080i over component, but non-copyrighted ones can.

Yes, the player is capable 1080i/720p component output, it is up to the movie titles weather or not such output is allowed (ICT). Most studios are not likely to turn on ICT, for now.

However, AACS, as it stands now, does have a analog sunset provision which will ban players sold then with component output all together starting 2010, which is not really that far:
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060224-6255.html

For this reason, I and many others are boycotting HD-DVD/BD. I hope the sunset provision gets removed in the final AACS spec, if Hollywood gets the message

HD Serenity menu:

Disc comparison:

Is the upconversion really that much better than the upconverting DVD players from before?

From what I've read, its as good as a good upscaling DVD player (like a Panasonic 77S or Momitsu U880), but not necessarily any better.

 

[.hacked]

HD Serenity menu:

Hummana Hummana Hummana

 

[borghe]

Not exactly true.

actually it WAS exactly true from what I asked If you've seen me around these threads before you know I am only interested in HD-DVD 1080i output over component, so he answered exactly what I was looking for. I don't care about DVD at 1080i considering I am watching on a CRT anyway that does native 480p just fine.

 

[DaCocoBrova]

lol @ his knee.

 

[Rabid Wolverine]

Im gonna go nuts when I see Terminator and T2 in High Def.

That serinity pic looks sweet. What kind of TV Setup do you have there?

 

[DopeyFish]

Im gonna go nuts when I see Terminator and T2 in High Def.

That serinity pic looks sweet. What kind of TV Setup do you have there?

you haven't seen terminator 2 extreme DVD? The bonus DVD has a 1080p WMV version of the movie

man it looked sick whenever you got the damn thing to work (which is extremely rare)

 

[heavy liquid]

actually it WAS exactly true from what I asked If you've seen me around these threads before you know I am only interested in HD-DVD 1080i output over component, so he answered exactly what I was looking for. I don't care about DVD at 1080i considering I am watching on a CRT anyway that does native 480p just fine.

Yes, I've seen you around before, borghe.

I bolded the wrong section of the quote. If you're interested in HD-DVD over component, yes, the current HD-DVDs will display over component, but future releases may not.

 

[AgentOtaku]

More impressions of HD/DVD movies please

 

[Rabid Wolverine]

you haven't seen terminator 2 extreme DVD? The bonus DVD has a 1080p WMV version of the movie

man it looked sick whenever you got the damn thing to work (which is extremely rare)

I've had the Extreme DVD for ages but not a powerful enough computer to run it :'(

PC will get updated when Vista comes out. Guess Blue Ray will be first time I experience Hi Def T2.

sobs/\'

 

[borghe]

I bolded the wrong section of the quote. If you're interested in HD-DVD over component, yes, the current HD-DVDs will display over component, but future releases may not.

yeah, I am not worried about that at all.

a) I WILL have an HDMI main TV when I upgrade to a three chip projector next year.
b) I really doubt at any point the studios will add downrezzing to component. worst case scenario for the studios is that something more widespread than WVHS does emerge but even at that point it is still analog and WON'T be a perfect digital copy as it will need to be reencoded. basically all you will end up with is a really good copy of an HD movie.

 

[.hacked]

=/

Best Buy only had TLS and Phantom. Think it is going to be a while till they get on the ball so might be best to order them all online like I do my anime.

Fart I wanted to watch Serenity <throws a tantrum>

 

[truffleshuffle83]

im sure theres another best buy fairly close

 

[.hacked]

im sure theres another best buy fairly close

you are right, waiting for an email conformation for a in store pick at another Best Buy.


I don't like having to run around to different stores but it not like I got anything better to do =p

 

[Solo]

Now if only being in 1080p could make Serenity a good movie.

 

[Kung Fu Jedi]

Now if only being in 1080p could make Serenity a good movie.

Isn't this a bannable offense?

 

[truffleshuffle83]

you are right, waiting for an email conformation for a in store pick at another Best Buy.


I don't like having to run around to different stores but it not like I got anything better to do =p

you didnt have to work today?? :lol :lol :lol :lol

 

[.hacked]

you didnt have to work today?? :lol :lol :lol :lol

I don't have to work.

Anyway all Best Buy in my area don't have Serenity, a dissapaoint but maybe tomorrow...

If any GAFer finds a copy I'll make it worth your while to overnight it to me

edit:

spoke too soon just got a email from Best Buy. WEEEEEEEEEEEE

 

[Midas]

Can someone please tell me when tv sets that supports 1080p will become available for a reasonable amount of money?

Another question for the techies... Is HDMI 1.2 (or was it 1.3) finished? Will it be in the most sets that are produced as we're speaking?

 

[Solo]

How many players are on the market day one?

 

[truffleshuffle83]

I don't have to work.

yes i know this...i was joking....damn i woulda overnighted it to you too

 

[Kung Fu Jedi]

How many players are on the market day one?

Do you mean how many units they shipped or how many different players (ie: Panasonic, Samsung, etc.)?

 

[Solo]

Sorry for my wording. Yeah, how many brands/models.

 

[truffleshuffle83]

just the toshiba from what ive seen

 

[teiresias]

People are estimating they shipped about 10k units.