Viewed BluRay at 1080p!!

[JoeSp]

Okay Vurbano, I'll bite. You explain the vast improvement of the NHK Demo. I watched other demos on the same disc -- ones of a split screen showing the differance between BluRay and regular DVD did not impress. My Denon 3910 puts out a pretty nice picture and does upconversion to 1080i very nicely and the 3910 PQ would be very close to thr BluRay HD side of the split demos!

It was the NHK demo that stuck out. It blew away the other BluRay demos. And the Samsung rep (he works for Samsung not Best Buy) told me that he wanted me to see it because he felt it really showed what the Samsung BluRay player could do.

The other demos including the split demos did not match the HD-DVD quality period. Close but not there -- not sharp enough. But the NHK demo did. Purpose of me starting this post was to say something positive about the BluRay. And the thing is, any consumer with a Best Buy Magnolia Room near them can go and view it for themselves.

 

[korsjs]

Who me?

i guess i should have quoted joe.

 

[teamerickson]

It was the NHK demo that stuck out. It blew away the other BluRay demos. And the Samsung rep (he works for Samsung not Best Buy) told me that he wanted me to see it because he felt it really showed what the Samsung BluRay player could do.

You should really try and figure out what video codec was being used. If it was MPEG 2 that would really be impressive. If it's something they aren't or won't use then what's the point? Oh I know, to mislead comsumers.

 

[vurbano]

You should really try and figure out what video codec was being used. If it was MPEG 2 that would really be impressive. If it's something they aren't or won't use then what's the point? Oh I know, to mislead comsumers.

I agree. But then again we are dealing with someone who no longer believes the genesis chip is in the machine anymore.

 

[vurbano]

Okay Vurbano, I'll bite. You explain the vast improvement of the NHK Demo. I watched other demos on the same disc -- ones of a split screen showing the differance between BluRay and regular DVD did not impress. My Denon 3910 puts out a pretty nice picture and does upconversion to 1080i very nicely and the 3910 PQ would be very close to thr BluRay HD side of the split demos!

It was the NHK demo that stuck out. It blew away the other BluRay demos. And the Samsung rep (he works for Samsung not Best Buy) told me that he wanted me to see it because he felt it really showed what the Samsung BluRay player could do.

The other demos including the split demos did not match the HD-DVD quality period. Close but not there -- not sharp enough. But the NHK demo did. Purpose of me starting this post was to say something positive about the BluRay. And the thing is, any consumer with a Best Buy Magnolia Room near them can go and view it for themselves.

The last thing I would advise any prospective BD buyer to do is watch a demo. (The term BOSE comes to mind) Watch a real movie instead. Buy what is it not what some think it might be able to become. And also watch a good HD DVD movie on the same set.

 

[Bruce]

What codec was being used? Demos don't matter, what you can put in your house does. The demo was probably using an advanced codec which Sony refuses to use for their movies.

Or they are using MPEG-2 on the video, but since the Demo is only 20-30 min. long they did not have to compress it so much and still filled up the disc.

 

[vurbano]

Or they are using MPEG-2 on the video, but since the Demo is only 20-30 min. long they did not have to compress it so much and still filled up the disc.

yup

 

[JoeSp]

Okay, I read the brochure they have out for the Samsung BluRay. In it it says that the player is capable of passing a 1080p video uncompressed. Does anyone know how much a 15 to 20 minute demo in HD uncompressed would take up? Also, if it does pass the video straight to the monitor could it possibly bypass the Genisis chip since it needs no conversion? These are questions I would of asked if my wife hadden't shot me the evil eye. She did have my grandson so I guess I did have to get a move-on but I sure would of liked about another 10 minutes with that rep!

Also, the HD-DVD demo in the Magnolia Room showing the lastest Riddick movie (about 5 to 10 minutes) was pretty awesome on the Mits 1080p DLP. I can not see where they might of toned down the video. I saw definition that I do not remember when watching the movie at the theaters.

 

[VIPERS-PIT]

Okay, I read the brochure they have out for the Samsung BluRay. In it it says that the player is capable of passing a 1080p video uncompressed. Does anyone know how much a 15 to 20 minute demo in HD uncompressed would take up? Also, if it does pass the video straight to the monitor could it possibly bypass the Genisis chip since it needs no conversion? These are questions I would of asked if my wife hadden't shot me the evil eye. She did have my grandson so I guess I did have to get a move-on but I sure would of liked about another 10 minutes with that rep!

Also, the HD-DVD demo in the Magnolia Room showing the lastest Riddick movie (about 5 to 10 minutes) was pretty awesome on the Mits 1080p DLP. I can not see where they might of toned down the video. I saw definition that I do not remember when watching the movie at the theaters.

Go back and ask the best buy people, im sure they will follow the cue cards the rep left them with after he bought them dinner.

 

[K4LK]

You are telling me that you watched that NHK watch demo in 1080p which demostrates the best that BluRay video can produce and you think the HD-DVD movie demo was better? You need to get your eyes checked.

What the hell good is an awesome demo if they can't produce the real-world software correctly? They still can't make a dual layer BD and they're still using the ancient MPEG2 codec.

 

[Ilya]

Okay, I read the brochure they have out for the Samsung BluRay. In it it says that the player is capable of passing a 1080p video uncompressed.

What they meant to say is that it can output 1080p. The word "passing" is misleading. In fact, it's wrong, as we all know.

Does anyone know how much a 15 to 20 minute demo in HD uncompressed would take up?

It would take up 15-20 Blu-ray discs!
About 1 minute of uncompressed 1080p60 video could theoretically fit on a single-layer BD.
Of course there is no blue laser in existence that would be able to play at such a bit rate!

 

[bigdaddy10]

Okay, I read the brochure they have out for the Samsung BluRay. In it it says that the player is capable of passing a 1080p video uncompressed. Does anyone know how much a 15 to 20 minute demo in HD uncompressed would take up? Also, if it does pass the video straight to the monitor could it possibly bypass the Genisis chip since it needs no conversion? These are questions I would of asked if my wife hadden't shot me the evil eye. She did have my grandson so I guess I did have to get a move-on but I sure would of liked about another 10 minutes with that rep!

Also, the HD-DVD demo in the Magnolia Room showing the lastest Riddick movie (about 5 to 10 minutes) was pretty awesome on the Mits 1080p DLP. I can not see where they might of toned down the video. I saw definition that I do not remember when watching the movie at the theaters.

I believe you are on the correct road to discover the truth behind the Samsung player and how the disc was created. Due to the fact that Sony can not cost effectively produce a dual layer disc they are having to compress the hell out of the movie. VC1 is 2 to 3 times as efficient as mpeg2. What you saw on the demo was 1 clip that had very little compression on it. If you look at clips of the movies on that same disc you will see that they all look like A*S. The only other clip that measures up is the Chicken Little clip.

Listen to this podcast and it will explain everything.

http://www.majornelson.com/archive/2006/07/16/Show-183-The-one-about-HD-DVD.aspx

 

[riffjim4069]

I dropped by the Magnolia (Best Buy) across the street earlier this morning to check out their Blu-Ray and HD DVD demo. Both units were playing a demo disk, both units were side by side, both were attached to the identical make, model, and size set, most Blu-Ray demos looked like crap, many of the HD DVD clips had problems as well. The Blu-Ray was the biggest loser by playing a horrible looking clip from Pirates of the Carrbean. It was almost criminal to display such garbage...can't find words to describe how bad it looked.

Anyway, I certainly didn't see anything compelling about either player (although the Samsung Blu-Ray was clearly the worse looking and more expensive player) that would cause me to change my position. I'm still going to waiting for sub-$200 player that can deliver the goods, as advertised. Until, I'm making good use of my DishHD Platinum and ViP622s. Of course, I may need to reevaluation my position should E* keep rolling out more HD-Lite.

 

[vurbano]

In it it says that the player is capable of passing a 1080p video uncompressed.

That statement in the Brochure is a lie. It doesnt "PASS" anything. The word pass is misleading implying that it doesnt do anything to the data encoded on the disk. Its common knowledge now that it converts the 1080p on the disk to 1080i and then back again to 1080p and does a poor job of it. Its amazing the lengths Sony has gone to here to mislead consumers. And I bet the blue drones at best buy are repeating it word for word. Im not even gonna get into the other part of the lie about "uncompressed". Mpeg2 in itself is a compression routine. As Ilya mentioned it would take 20 disks for that to be true.

 

[JoeSp]

This brochure is from Samsung not Sony. I do not know why the unit has to convert to 1080i to pass a 1080p video if said video is already in 1080p. If the reason is the Genesis chip then Samsung's use of said chip is faulty. Other then using the decoder to decode the video there is no earthly reason to reduce video to 1080i for a 1080p monitor. Maybe the BluRays from Sony, Pioneer and Panasonic will address this problem?

 

[Ilya]

I do not know why the unit has to convert to 1080i to pass a 1080p video if said video is already in 1080p. If the reason is the Genesis chip then Samsung's use of said chip is faulty.

It's actually because of the Broadcom chip. Samsung BD-P1000 uses the same Broadcom chip for video decoding as Toshiba HD-A1. And as I understand, this chip is only capable of 1080i. Then they use that Genesis (Faroudja) chip to convert 1080i to 1080p.

Maybe the BluRays from Sony, Pioneer and Panasonic will address this problem?

They most likely will, but there is no problem really. 1080i at 60 frames per second has higher bandwidth (image pixels per second) than the source (1080p) at its 24 frames per second. As explained in another thread, 1080p60 and 1080i60 interfaces are both capable of delivering the exact same image information to the TV set without any loss of quality when the source has only 24 frames per second (wich is the case with virtually all movies), so 1080p output does not offer any real advantages for most TV sets that do reverse 3:2 pulldown correctly. I am sure, Samsung engineers realized that: they simply added the deinterlacer, so that marketing people could make big noise about 1080p.

 

[vurbano]

It's actually because of the Broadcom chip. Samsung BD-P1000 uses the same Broadcom chip for video decoding as Toshiba HD-A1. And as I understand, this chip is only capable of 1080i. Then they use that Genesis (Faroudja) chip to convert 1080i to 1080p.

If they had any sense they would rip that genesis chip out, lower the price and probably improve the BD PQ.

 

[JoeSp]

Observation between Hd-DVD and BluRay at my local BestBuy. Both were hooked up to the Samsung 1080p 40" LCD (They just got it). I viewed the demo disc for both formats.

King Kong on the HD-DVD rocked! Great definition and great colour. I was very impressed. DOOM however was not so hot. Lot's of jaggies and a very soft picture. The Charlie Wonka flick with Johnny Depp also had jaggies very noticable around the faces of the little guys. Colours were once again very nice and depth was very noticable especially during the little swim in chocolate by the little guys. However, I have this title and I am not so sure that this looked that much better then it did on my Denon 3910. There was also some pixelation in the little guys faces.

On the BluRay I watched the demo by Samsung with the guy in the chair watching Samsung products -- this demo was very sharp! Very 3-d and the colours jumped off the screen. Next I watched the Chicken Little demo and that was about as sharp a demo as you could possible want. Great colour and definition. Next was Sahara, this title disappointed greatly. I am sure my Denon did a better job then what I was watching. Way too much grain (they must be putting this in or this must be mosquito noise!). I watched a demo of Kung Fu Hustle and the definition was once again great and the colour was also great. I also watched Hitch and I KNOW that my Denon 3910 did a better job then what I was watching.

My observation here is that the HD-DVD does better with movies and craps out on anything CGI. The CGI seems to show jaggies and also some pixelation. The BluRay does not seem to do very well with movie material however, with CGI the jaggies and pixelation I see on the HD-DVD is not there. However, the Samsung is definately crushing whites and blacks. They have never been able to produce a player that does not do this -- why? I don't know. In the movie Hitch when there is lights around the white from lights blocks out even parts of the characters faces. This does not show up in the DVD on my Denon 3910.

I think that the HD-DVD player has a problem with alaising thus the jaggies and pixelation. This is very evident on static screens where they are giving you info on the next movie. The letters are fuzzy and their are noticable jaggies. The BluRay player on the same type of screens shows the lettering very smoothly and very sharp -- this might explain why the BluRay is doing well with CGI in movies. I also noticed that at times it does seem as though the BluRay movies are dragging. Especially during very fast sceens. Could be the compression technique -- could be the player. This is not a problem I saw on the HD-DVD drive.

At this Best Buy you had to ask to have the HD-DVD player hooked up. I asked why and was told that it sells itself -- that $500 price differance. From what I saw neither product was that great but noway $999 for BluRay. If you want to be an early adopter HD-DVD is definately the way to go however, nothing I saw convinced me that HD-DVD is going to win this. It is just the cheaper technology right now -- that is until the lower priced PS3 comes out. I hope that Sony's BluRay standalone does something differant than Samsung's. And I also hope that Toshiba does something about the alaising. Jaggies and facial pixelation drives me crazy. When you put that on a really big screen it will jump out at you. Both these formats have a way to go before they are ready for primetime.

 

[jgantert]

That might just be the demo disc. I've seen Aeon Flux, and it has as much CGI as you can get, and it is by far the best HD I have ever seen!

-John

 

[teamerickson]

Also, Chronicles of Riddick.