HD Advisor May 22

[Attebery]

http://www.highdefdigest.com/news/sh...visor_XIV/2826

[kadrik0]

Hi,

As for this post "Q: I recently purchased the complete series DVD set of the 1977-1981 show 'Soap'. It is obviously shot on video, and looking up the technical specs on imdb.com confirms this. However, the back of the case says "Remastered in High Definition." I understand that shows shot on film contained more detail in the film negative than a standard def TV could show, but how is this possible for a show shot on video in 1977? Were television cameras not recording in a 480i resolution when video was used during that era? Could this show, or others such as 'Three's Company', benefit from a Blu-ray release, aside from a higher bit-rate than DVD? I simply don't understand how it was remastered in HD, as I thought 480i was the standard for video recording in the pre-HD era. I understand upscaling, but my DVD player can do that just fine, and I would think there would be a loss of quality if upscaling a 480i image for a master that is going to be converted back to SD for DVD.

A: As far as I know, you're absolutely right. While older television shows that were shot on film (such as the original 'Star Trek') can be remastered from the film elements for a high-definition scan, sit-coms of the '70s and '80s like 'Soap' and 'Three's Company' were shot on NTSC videotape. They exist only in standard definition resolution. Any attempt to "remaster" them in high definition would be a matter of upscaling.

Modern digital tools may be able to clean up some of the old analog videotape artifacts, and perhaps that's what was meant by "remastered." However, it's not possible to draw a high definition level of detail out of those old videotapes, because there just wasn't that much detail captured by the original cameras.

My best guess is that the packaging on that DVD is probably just incorrect, and the studio marketing people who wrote that blurb didn't understand the difference between SD and HD. "

I think what they mean is it was converted to 480p rather than the typical 480i. Some of the more recent anime and dvd video movies say "(re)mastered in high definition", but it is a dvd video and a dvd disk. It is just a progressive scan 480p picture. That is actually a good thing for us HD nuts. Our upscaling equipment can make a 480p source look a bit better than a typical 480i source. It is not 1080p/i or 720p/i picture. They really should say remastered in 480p rather than remastered in high definition. I don't consider 480p high definition, so it is just confusing.

[Josh Z]

Originally Posted by kadrik0

I think what they mean is it was converted to 480p rather than the typical 480i. Some of the more recent anime and dvd video movies say "(re)mastered in high definition", but it is a dvd video and a dvd disk. It is just a progressive scan 480p picture. That is actually a good thing for us HD nuts. Our upscaling equipment can make a 480p source look a bit better than a typical 480i source. It is not 1080p/i or 720p/i picture. They really should say remastered in 480p rather than remastered in high definition. I don't consider 480p high definition, so it is just confusing.

A few points:

All DVDs are 480i. There is no such thing as a 480p DVD. Although discs can be flagged to assist with progressive scan deinterlacing downstream, all DVD video comes out of the player's decoder at 480i.

Typically, when a DVD claims to be "remastered in High Definition", that means that the studio re-scanned the film elements and created a true HD master (720p or higher). But that master must be downconverted back to 480i for DVD.

"High Definition" is officially defined as a resolution of 720p or greater. If a studio is mastering their content at 480p, they can't call it "HD". (Not to say that this hasn't happened, but they're not supposed to.)

Shows like 'All in the Family' were shot at a native 480i resolution. Any deinterlacing or upscaling of that content happens after-the-fact. So, even a 480p master would be artificial.

[crazzeto]

With regard to:

Q: I have recently bought a lot of HD DVDs from eBay. While they are a format that is no longer used, they are very cheap compared to their Blu-ray brothers (between $4-6). I just need to get a HD DVD player. I have seen a few but they all appear to only play at a maximum output of 720p or 1080i. What brand/model HD DVD players can play at a full 1080p?

As far as I know every HD DVD player capable of 1080P is also capable (now) of 1080P@24fps. When Toshiba released the 3rd generation players with 24fps support, they offered a FW to A20 owners which provided 24fps playback compatibility if I remember correctly.

So the following HD DVD players all support 1080P@24fps:

HD-XA2
HD-A20
HD-A30
HD-A35

I believe both the Samsung and LG combo players also support 24fps, the remaining players were all either 1080i or a clone of one of the above mentioned players.

[ack_bak]

As far as the Bose question, Josh gave excellent advice. You can do much better for the money and we would need to know several things to make proper recommendations including:
- budget for the speakers and receiver. The Bose Lifestyle V30 is selling for $2699 at Amazon, for less than that you get get an excellent receiver and speaker setup that will blow Bose away.
- room dimensions (length, width, height)
- how far away you sit from your main speakers
- preference for bookshelf speakers or towers (ie is this mostly for movies/games/HT, or music?)

You have tons of choices. It really comes down to budget and what you want to get out of your setup.

Offhand I would start researching speakers from:
-SVS
-Ascend
-Emotiva
-Hsu
-Axiom
-PSB
-NHT
-Paradigm
-Klipsch

and subs from SVS, Hsu, Elemental Designs, Epik, etc

[FrankRoss]

Regarding BROADCAST HD QUALITY:

With bit rates coming down, and more artifacts appearing all over the place,
should I just go to OTA all together? Do I really need Time-Warner channels
that badly? (NYC)
Is OTA on local channels better quality than (compressed) cable?

Need to make a decision. This way I could spend more on Blu-ray instead of
inferior cable service.

Josh Z: please respond.

[crazzeto]

Originally Posted by FrankRoss

Regarding BROADCAST HD QUALITY:

With bit rates coming down, and more artifacts appearing all over the place,
should I just go to OTA all together? Do I really need Time-Warner channels
that badly? (NYC)
Is OTA on local channels better quality than (compressed) cable?

Need to make a decision. This way I could spend more on Blu-ray instead of
inferior cable service.

Receiving OTA channels via antenna as opposed to via TWC will yeild no improvement in quality. Cable providers are required by law to rebroadcast OTA signals on their networks as is, unchanged. So basically what you get via antenna is what you get via TWC, the only question is whether TWC is more reliable than an antenna. My guess is that it likely is. As for whether or not you need TWC's channels, only you can answer that. I know how painful it can be dealing with TWC, I've had to deal with the BBB twice now because of them. But at the end of the day I need my cable channels for more hockey support, as well as sci-fi amongst others.

[vooswing]

Originally Posted by crazzeto

Receiving OTA channels via antenna as opposed to via TWC will yeild no improvement in quality. Cable providers are required by law to rebroadcast OTA signals on their networks as is, unchanged. So basically what you get via antenna is what you get via TWC, the only question is whether TWC is more reliable than an antenna. My guess is that it likely is. As for whether or not you need TWC's channels, only you can answer that. I know how painful it can be dealing with TWC, I've had to deal with the BBB twice now because of them. But at the end of the day I need my cable channels for more hockey support, as well as sci-fi amongst others.

This may be a good question for the advisor...

I've always heard OTA HD should be much better than Cable or Satellite, in theory at least.

My understanding is that cable companies receive an uncompressed signal via their satellite dishes, they then compress the signal prior to sending it out via cable, with OTA they are rebroadcasting it before any compression, which should be noticably better.

Of course once you add in other factors like distance to transmitter, signal strength, etc it may be worse. Even if it is better you may end up with a 1080i vs 1080p scenario were it's debatable whether the difference is even noticable between the two. Like I said I may be wrong but that's what I've come to believe off of articles I've read on the subject.

[crazzeto]

Originally Posted by vooswing

This may be a good question for the advisor...

I've always heard OTA HD should be much better than Cable or Satellite, in theory at least.

My understanding is that cable companies receive an uncompressed signal via their satellite dishes, they then compress the signal prior to sending it out via cable, with OTA they are rebroadcasting it before any compression, which should be noticably better.

Of course once you add in other factors like distance to transmitter, signal strength, etc it may be worse. Even if it is better you may end up with a 1080i vs 1080p scenario were it's debatable whether the difference is even noticable between the two. Like I said I may be wrong but that's what I've come to believe off of articles I've read on the subject.

If you receive the channel at all it won't be worse, or at least it won't be in the way you're thinking. There won't be any loss of sharpness or audio fedelity, the worst thing that will happen is you'll experience dropped frames and maybe audio, or possibly artifacts due to weak signal which are visible in a variety of ways. But you won't lose sharpness or anything like that, and in most cases you can adjust your antenna to compensate for weaker signals.

What you've heard about cable and OTA is false though. Cable providers absolutely can not manipulate the signal they get from the local air broadcasters. It's a regulatory statute designed to keep things fair for the local air broadcaster.

Satallite providers are not bound by this law as far as I know however, nor would fiber providers as far as I know. It's a cable industry regulation.

[FrankRoss]

Crazzeto,

You may be right. I played with the OTA idea a while back. I had to jump up and down for an hour re-setting the antenna because of dropped pictures.
Now I remember it well. After all, I'd have to do away with CNN, YES, SNY, . . .oh well . . . . they win. OTA is free . . . .but it has to be just right
100% of the time. It might work on one channel perfectly and that's it.

To the library it is for Bluray . . . (soon)

BTW, you really love the REON in the Samsung? It's unreal, isn't it?
It's worth the extra bucks (I think). I love mine. For fun, put the Samsung on
sharpness:Max. . . If the TV can handle it, it'll blow your mind .(games&blu)

[will]

With Cable companies, at least the one I work for local channels remain intact. All the other HD channels are on a 3 to 1 compresion ratio

[damonous]

"No Highs/No Lows: must be Bose!"

Many years back, I started working as a salesperson in a small electronics store. All green and wet-behind the ear, I came in spewing all the marketing crap that companies like Bose were selling. After 2 years of working there (actually, within weeks) and actually being able to listen to the different types of components available, I found myself choosing that same motto the salesmen told to me, as my life-slogan.

I once attended a special "Bose demonstration event" (before they had the stores, they'd invite people to hotel ballrooms for 'special screenings'). They had the old "big speaker silent" trick, with the big drapes over the tiny cubes ....and everyone would be awed. Funny thing was, they gave away the same demo CD they used in that presentation to the people there, myself included. When I got the disc home and listened to it on my own (MUCH lower-priced) bookshelf speakers, I was floored that the orchestral movements that had the 'big bang' were actually obviously dynamic-range-limited. I think my Police Synchronicity CD had lower bass notes than what was on the Bose disc.

You want some real speakers for a good value: lookup Infinity or Boston. Don't play with the Bose 'mystery cubes' if you really want to hear a full-range soundtrack. If you like tinny reverberation sounds, then by all means sacrifice your wallet on the altar of the price-fixed Bose brand.

[metalhead4]

Regarding what Home Theater system to purchase...this is ALL you need:

Go to a Best Buy, ask for the Klipsch Quintet 3, Sub 10, and Yamaha 465 package...you would walk out for right at $1,000 with a system that would crush anything else in the price range. Even though the 465 isn't high current, to someone who doesn't know the difference it is a ridiculous bargain. If you want a better receiver, the 665 is amazing as well.

[metalhead4]

Oh, and I've always used the term for Bose:

BOSE = B-uy O-ther S-ound E-quipment

[MrBig]

Onkyo and BIC Acoustech, great stuff.

www.acoustechspeakers.com