The BluRay vs HD war... Any fallout from the Holiday season?

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Re: The BluRay vs HD war... Any fallout from the Holiday sea

jeff lebowski said:

Babaganoosh said:
Upscaling is one thing I *don't* need or want. In fact I bought the specific BluRay player I did, exactly for that reason: it *doesn't* upscale. It has a Source Direct option that outputs at the same resolution as whatever is on the disc.

My TV - any HDTV, really - is enough that its upscaling far outclasses anything that a DVD player could possibly do. IMHO, the entire concept of upconverting standard DVDs is a gimmick and a lie, designed to sell more expensive players.

My tv doesn't upscale and my SD-DVD looks like hell unless they are upscaled by my Oppo or PS3, both of which do an excellent job.

*All* TVs upscale. (If not, watching standard def DVDs would show up as a tiny box in the center of the screen.) Some just do it a lot better than others.

 

[jeff lebowski]

Re: The BluRay vs HD war... Any fallout from the Holiday sea

Babaganoosh said:

jeff lebowski said:

Babaganoosh said:
Upscaling is one thing I *don't* need or want. In fact I bought the specific BluRay player I did, exactly for that reason: it *doesn't* upscale. It has a Source Direct option that outputs at the same resolution as whatever is on the disc.

My TV - any HDTV, really - is enough that its upscaling far outclasses anything that a DVD player could possibly do. IMHO, the entire concept of upconverting standard DVDs is a gimmick and a lie, designed to sell more expensive players.

My tv doesn't upscale and my SD-DVD looks like hell unless they are upscaled by my Oppo or PS3, both of which do an excellent job.

*All* TVs upscale. (If not, watching standard def DVDs would show up as a tiny box in the center of the screen.) Some just do it a lot better than others.

Zooming to fit the picture on the screen is NOT upscaling.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Re: The BluRay vs HD war... Any fallout from the Holiday sea

^ On HDTVs, it is.

They operate on 720 or 1080 lines. If you played a 480i picture on them without upscaling, the picture would not fill the screen.

 

[jeff lebowski]

Re: The BluRay vs HD war... Any fallout from the Holiday sea

Babaganoosh said:
^ On HDTVs, it is.

They operate on 720 or 1080 lines. If you played a 480i picture on them without upscaling, the picture would not fill the screen.

Yeah, I guess I misinterpreted what your saying.

What I'm talking about is additonal video processing that goes into some new upscaling DVD players. The Oppo uses the Faroudja chip while the PS3 uses a combination of the RSX and Cell. This may be of no benefit to someone who has a brand new top of the line Sony LCD, but it sure does work wonders with my 4 year old Mitsu HDTV and it's simple video scaler.

 

[Irishman]

Re: The BluRay vs HD war... Any fallout from the Holiday sea

USS KG5 said:

Noname Given said:

Irishman said:
I'm missing something here. What lower-resolution plasma tv is being referred to here?

Generally Plasma HDTVs generally only go up to 720P while LCD and DLP HDTVs will do 1080P (Panasonic is making a few MUCH MORE EXPENSIVE Plasma models that will do 1080P - but you could buy two or three similar LCD HDTVS for what those Plasmas cost).

Additionally, a lot of the cheaper plasma models have a stated pixel resolution of only 1024 x768, and only support as high as 720p through clever engineering.

The pixel resolution is not everything though, and Plasma screens often gain where higher-res LCDs lose.

Not only "cheap" plasmas have that resolution. Pioneer's "720p" plasma panels have always actually been 1024 x 768. Would anyone suggest Pioneer's panels are lacking because of that choice? Could you look at it and tell?

 

[USS KG5]

Re: The BluRay vs HD war... Any fallout from the Holiday sea

Irishman said:

USS KG5 said:

Noname Given said:

Irishman said:
I'm missing something here. What lower-resolution plasma tv is being referred to here?

Generally Plasma HDTVs generally only go up to 720P while LCD and DLP HDTVs will do 1080P (Panasonic is making a few MUCH MORE EXPENSIVE Plasma models that will do 1080P - but you could buy two or three similar LCD HDTVS for what those Plasmas cost).

Additionally, a lot of the cheaper plasma models have a stated pixel resolution of only 1024 x768, and only support as high as 720p through clever engineering.

The pixel resolution is not everything though, and Plasma screens often gain where higher-res LCDs lose.

Not only "cheap" plasmas have that resolution. Pioneer's "720p" plasma panels have always actually been 1024 x 768. Would anyone suggest Pioneer's panels are lacking because of that choice? Could you look at it and tell?

That is sort of my point - though in fact it is extremely difficult at normal viewing distances to tell the difference between a true 1080p picture on an LCD and a 720p one except with very large high-quality screens.

Pixel resolution is not as important as other qualities like contrast and colour depth where traditionally plasma has had the edge. New LCD designs have closed the gap but plasma has its place.

I dont think anyone is going to argue you should buy a TV with much beyond your eyes, practicality and a sane budget.

 

[Irishman]

Re: The BluRay vs HD war... Any fallout from the Holiday sea

You'll get no argument from me on that point.

From normal viewing distances, 1080p on a HDTV of less than 50" (at 6-8 feet) is pointless. You won't see the difference further away. And it's worse if you go smaller. Sony just introduced a 32" and 26" 1080p LCD at CES. You'd have to be a foot away from the screen to see it!.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Re: The BluRay vs HD war... Any fallout from the Holiday sea

Daedalus12 said: The war will go on of course unless Warner switches to BR exclusive which just might kill off HD-DVD by the end of 2008.

Warner did, and it will. :thumbsup: