What I like about my High Def Player

[JoeSp]

Okay, I see the reasoning behind this post being in the war zone so here goes:
My setup:

Pioneer 630HD DVI 1080i -calibrated on both 1080 componet inputs (upconverts 720p to 1080i)
Denon 982-AVR 7.1
Sony PS3 (Blu-Ray)
Denon 3910 DVD player
Yamaha 5.1 suround sound speakers
Yamaha 250w Power SubWoofer
Polk Audio Surround Speakers
Dish 622DVR

I chose PS3 BluRay Because:

Compatiblity: I used the componet setup from my PS2 with the PS3 and have had no problems. I used the HDMI to DVI cable from my Denon 3910 to try out the HDMI from the PS3 to the Pioneer and had no problems at all. For picture settings I boosted the White and Black settings about 15% and this movie really improved PQ from the PS3. Currently I am running the optical out from the PS3 to the Denon AVR and the core from the DTSHD on the BluRAy is pretty impressive. The sound from the DD5.1 is also very impressive as it is playing at the full bit rate of 5.1 that the optical connection will allow. I wish that the PS3 had at least 5.1 analog out but I will be solving this shortage this summer.

Upconverting: I use the Denon3910 that I own. I have seen upconverting from the Toshiba HD-DVD player and there is no decernable differance between that and the Denon I currently own. Of course the Denon 3910 is one of the best DVD players out there and definately does upconversion very well. However, that said, upconverting adds absoulutely nothing to PQ of a DVD. You can not add pixels that do not exist. While on some new DVDs - especially those shot with a digital or HD camera you might feel like there is a great improvement there is absolutely no improvement in PQ. In addition a good HDTV that upconverts usually do the upconversion better. A bad DVD PQ upconverted will not look better -- you will just be able to spot the problems areas easier on a larger screen tv.

Price: I paid $530 for my PS3. Signed up for a Target Credit Card and received 10% off the purchase. When the bill came due I paid it in full. Now I can afford and buy any HD player I wanted so this price on the PS3 for a BluRay player was very inticing especially since most standalones were in the $899 to $1199 range. Plus I have been know to play games (I also owned an XBOX and a PS2) I also purchased the $24 Bluetooth remote. While I understand why everyone likes IR or UHF I gotta say that my remote works reguardless of where I am in the room or what direction it is pointed in -- and it works faster then any IR or UHF I have ever owned. I currently use a Universal Automator for the rest of my home theater equipment.

Available HD Titles: Well this is were the burn in the rug is. See the HD-DVD campers keep saying that there really are no titles from the BD camp that they want but in reality every time you see a post about studio support from anyone in the HD-DVD camp they say that Disney is ready to make a change, or Fox is unhappy and that Sony does not have any movies anyone really wants. PLUEEZZZ!! Everyone knows that these studios are invested in BD and are very happy with early returns. I keep reading that HD-DVD has not released any movies in the last 3 months --but they have just not released ones anyone wants to buy -- why? In addition to that, BD only leads HD-DVD by maybe one or two dozen titles in totality so how come BD has been outselling HD-DVD 70% to 30% for the first quarter of this year? Could it be that there are really no titles coming out in the HD-DVD camp that most fans really want. Even though the HD-DVD camp states that they have more standalones the BD camp, BD continues to outsell. The real reason is that there are movies coming out on BD that most people want. And that is the reason for all the HD-DVD FUD about studios switching camps or becoming neutral. However all that FUD backed-up during the 2007 CES when both Fox and Buena Vista (Disney) stated no HD-DVD in their future. So I guess I will enjoy my Pirate movies, Spiderman Movies, Casion Royal movies , Pixar movies only in BD while the HD-DVD camp will be enjoying Smokin Aces. I guess that is about as equal as it is going to get.

Reliablity: Not one hiccup from the PS3. It is quiet (as quiet as my Denon 3910 - quieter when doing disc functions), unbelivably fast, a real workhorse. Has 512k of ram on board and a wireless ethernet connection (I used wired as it is faster and more reliable) came with DolbyTrueHD decoding out of the box (interesting that no current BD studio uses that) PCM thru the HDMI (I am not sure sound can get any better but we shall see) and is completely upgradable to all BD-Java levels. Oh, and the HDMI1.3 is definately future proof providing the PS3 with more options for new HDTVs and AVRs. Sony has hinted at a fall upgrade to add DTSMasterHD and upconversion to the PS3 just in time for the new BD-Java requirements. Would be great if they do that. (My birthday present this year will be a new Denon 3800 series HDMI1.3 receiver)

HD Movie Quality: This is very subjective depending on what you are looking for. Back in August when BD first released Sony did a very bad job of converting movies to BD. Most studios waited until November when the PS3 released. And if you ask folks to be honest, the PS3 has really been driving BD sales. And since November the PQ on BDs has been improving almost monthly. I for one am very happy with this as HD is not cheap nor would I want to waste my money on a poor HD product. At least Sony has admited to their slip in the begining and will be bring out a new 'Fifth Dimension' 50GB and will be trading those with the 25GB who want the new version. It will be very interesting to see if that trade will be a free one.

These are the reasons why I support BD and the PS3.

Having said that I applaud Toshiba going lowball on their older HD-DVD player and pushing it to the $300 mark. Competition is always a good thing and it always drives prices down-- which is always a good thing for the consumer. It also keeps everyone honest and trying to put out the best product possible.

Maybe the second generation BD players will come out at a much lower price point because if it was a choice between a $300 HD-DVD player and a $300 BluRay player it would have to be BluRay because of the movies. Spiderman 3, the new X-Men movie, the new Pirate movie all only on BD. Heck-- one look at Casino Royal on BD on a 1080p HDTV playing that PCM sound track should be all it takes.

 

[berck]

However, that said, upconverting adds absoulutely nothing to PQ of a DVD. You can not add pixels that do not exist. While on some new DVDs - especially those shot with a digital or HD camera you might feel like there is a great improvement there is absolutely no improvement in PQ.

Joe, its apparent you're not an engineer. Adding and subtracting pixels can be done. If you add, it can smooth out the image from any ruff edges that are created with fewer pixels. Mathematical algorithms are used to create the missing information. This happens in HDTV content too.

For example, when 'upconverting' from 720p to 1080i, 180 horizontal pixels lines are removed, and 640 vertical pixel lines (assuming the content is really 1920x1080) are added to each frame image.

When 'upconverting' from 1080i to 720p, 640 vertical pixel lines are removed (assuming the content is really 1920x1080), and 180 horizontal pixel lines are added to each frame image.

Now, I also have an upconverting DVD player. I do see an improvement in the image quality from the standard 480p to 720p or 1080i. Its not great, but it is better than the standard DVD image.

 

[navychop]

"Better?" Well, that's a matter of opinion, and dependent upon the source material. When you add pixels to "smooth out" an image, that's fine. Unless you're doing it to a sharp edge. Then you're blurring the image.

I'd agree, it's generally an improvement. But not always.

 

[berck]

Sure its a matter of opinion but its generally is an improvement. Even a sharp edge can be accounted for do to the algorithms employed to add and subtract pixels.

 

[JoeSp]

You are adding pixels not present in the picture. Which ones are added are up to the conversion chip. Some do an okay job and others do not do a very good job at all. Also smoothing the picture is not the same as improving the picture as I feel that smoothing is the same as softening the PQ. Once again, if you start with a DVD that has just okay video quality all upconversion will do is add to the problems already inherent in the video. This is not to say that if you have a really nice DVD PQ wise that the upconversion will not seem to look better but there is no more picture on your screen in the upconverted product then in the orginal 480 DVD.

Some folks seem to feel that upconverting a 480 DVD to 720p or 1080i is giving them a 720p or 1080i picture and that is not the case. Yes you are looking at a 720p picture but not from a 720p signal -- you are looking at a 480p signal upconverted and it is not the same and in my oppinion not all that differant from a really good 480p DVD reproduction -- why -- because they are of the very same PQ. Adding pixels not in the frame does not make better PQ -- it just makes filler -- and sometimes not very well at all.

Lets see if I can sum this up, those using inexpensive DVD players usually like the upconverted picture. They seem to notice the most differance between their DVD player and the upconverted player. Those using a very nice DVD player usually notice very little if any differance between the 480p picture and the upconverted picture.

I also wanted to point something else out, individuals using a digital screen (LCD, DLP, etc - especially in 720p) would probably notice the most differance in a 480p upconversion to say 720p. I believe that these digital screens probably upconvert the 480p signal anyway to their native 720p and a upconverting player just might do a better job of handling the 480p signal then the above meantioned digital HDTVs.

 

[berck]

I agree with most of what you say, but the concept of pixel 'addition' is no different in things that have been going on for years in the signal processing field, except its called image processing for this case. Same concepts and very similiar algorithms.

The algorithms used for the pixels are very complex, but can clean up the images very well. Including by adding pixels to the image that once were not there. Does it always improve it? no, but many times it can.

Upconverting a 480 DVD does give you a 720p or 1080i image. Its just that its not a true 720p or 1080i image in the sense of PQ. I would never argue that 480 DVD upconverted image is on par with a true 720p or 1080i image, but the pixel 'faking' done in the up converstion will generally produce a better image than that of the old 480 DVD.

 

[CochiseGuy]

I appreciated reading teachsac's setup with the Panasonic BD player, it sounds to me like the best BD player so far. I look forward to hearing about other BD owner's setups and thoughts.

Anyone wanna comment on their high def disks? As far as audio & video quality, from reviews I read for the Warner & Paramount releases in both formats, the video quality seems the be equal. Warner uses the same VC-1 encodes for both Blu-ray & HD DVD releases, so they should be equal. But Warner often "short changes" the BD release on audio by giving it only a Dolby Digital 640kbps encode, while the HD DVD release gets TrueHD at 1.5mbps, such as with "Happy Feet". Interestingly, Paramount's Dreamgirls released today gets VC-1 while Blu-ray gets mpeg2 video, but HighDefDigest rated them equally at 5/5 stars. The HD DVD gets Dolby Digital-Plus 5.1 Surround @1.5mbps while the Blu-ray gets only Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround @640kbps, yet the both receive 4/5 stars for audio quality. The reason for the audio disparity is the lack of HD audio decoders on most BD players, while HD DVD requires then on all players. BD only studios get around this by encoding with uncompressed PCM, which generally gets high marks.

For my HD DVD's, I'd rate the animated "Happy Feet" as by far the best display I've ever seen on my HDTV. King Kong, The Hulk, and A Scanner Darkly are also top tier.

And there's a lot of smaller features I really like. I like Universal's titles the best - they have "swooshing" menus that come out form the side. And if you press menu during playback, the movies still plays while the menus swoosh out from the side. And if press pause at any point, a timeline pops up from the bottom showing exactly where you are in the movie. And after 60 seconds of pause, a screensaver automatically takes over - very useful for those bathroom or kitchen breaks.

Universal's "U-Control" feature is pretty cool. When activated a small icon is in the lower right of the screen. At points in the movie you can press it for Director / Actor commentary, or special features like "Assassin Tracker" in Smokin' Aces. Press it and it shows where all the bad guys out to get Aces are at any time. Tokyo Drift was even more ambitious - you could customize a vehicle and actually have it drive it in a scene from the movie, and a"GPS mapping" function , which will give you various stats on the cars in the film. And this information is also dynamic -- for example, you can track a car's "damage estimates" as the film progresses, and it is all generated on the fly by the player. Fun, cool stuff.

So, what do the Blu-ray disks have that you guys like?

 

[navychop]

I read a review of an HD DVD player where the reviewer said if you pressed STOP the disc would only start from the beginning again, not from the stop point. This supposedly applies to all HD DVD players. Does this sound right?

And I suppose if you press PAUSE it will resume where you stopped. I guess there's a benefit to stopping a movie and turning off the unit, and restarting at that same point later. Can you bookmark?

 

[CochiseGuy]

I read a review of an HD DVD player where the reviewer said if you pressed STOP the disc would only start from the beginning again, not from the stop point. This supposedly applies to all HD DVD players. Does this sound right?

Yes. I don't quite get what the STOP button is for. The movie just starts over from the beginning. If I want to finish watching a movie on another day, I just use "Eject" or "Off".

And I suppose if you press PAUSE it will resume where you stopped. I guess there's a benefit to stopping a movie and turning off the unit, and restarting at that same point later. Can you bookmark?

Yes, the PAUSE is handy for long breaks with the screen saver - you just press PLAY and the movie resumes from the point you paused. Yes, you can bookmark - bookmarks are saved in the required "persistent memory".

 

[navychop]

Well, if I can bookmark where I stopped, turn it off, and come back another day and resume the movie at the same spot, that's all I need. Maybe STOP should just automatically bookmark it.