I would disagree with that most people can tell the difference at a glance. There's a lot of criteria to consider, most notably the quality of DVD master as well as the quality of the source material. Some of the best mastering houses (Criterion) aren't yet producing HD releases of their content.

 

For a very small selection of movies, the difference is outright obvious (e.g. 1080p Blu-Ray release of Planet Earth). However, for most movies, I have my doubts the average joe can tell the difference.

 

Many people have asked me "Is this HD?" when I play movies on my projector. The answer is: yes, it is (thanks to the projector's upscaling), however the source material is not. Upscaling is enough to give noticeably improved picture quality.

 

I would really like to pit a Criterion master of a DVD on a system with a motion compensating upscaler against a non-Criterion master of a Blu-Ray disc of the same film, and gauge some opinions on which is higher quality.

 

 

Well, you have a point. I admit that it's probably true that not everyone would see the difference even on a well-tuned system. I would like to see that Criterion comparison as well, btw -- interesting idea. But yeah, it's kind of an acquired thing. But I think if you spent more time watching BR titles on your PS3 you'd acquire the taste and begin to look at it differently. That's how it went for me, at first I didn't really see much difference, but over time I gradually found myself switching my Netflix queue movies over to HD DVD, and buying HD DVD titles over regular DVD ones. By now I can tell at a glance whether a movie is HD or not, even if I'm not the one who stuck it in the player.

 

IMO the main benefit of HD is not the increase in pixel resolution, but rather than vast improvement in intensity and color contrast that stem from the four-fold increase in bandwidth. Ironically, the Casablanca example I mentioned above is a great illustration of this. I have the previous "Special Edition" Casablanca release as well (the one that the HD DVD release was based on, including all the same "extras"), and when you do an A-B comparison the difference is really something. If it were just a matter of uprezzing, there shouldn't be much difference -- it's a black-and-white movie, after all. As you mentioned, source material is important, so the cigarette smoke I mentioned, it makes sense that that wouldn't be visible in an uprezzing, but would show up in the HD version. But it's more than that -- the whole picture just seems to acquire this amazing 3d-like immersiveness that's just completely absent from the DVD. It's like going to the theater on Day One of release, before all the dust motes settle on the film and it breaks in the projector a few times. It's just a whole other experience.

 

I agree much of that is lost on the current consumer, but I think this will change over time. I don't think people like watching stretch-o-vision, i think they just tolerate it because the picture looks a little better than the crappy set it replaced, and they just accept it because nobody has explained HD to them yet.

IMO the main benefit of HD is not the increase in pixel resolution, but rather than vast improvement in intensity and color contrast that stem from the four-fold increase in bandwidth.

 

What you're describing sounds like a difference in luminance. What might surprise you is HD discs are encoded with 4 bits of luminance, the same as what DVDs have. The "intensity" is the same for either DVD, HD-DVD, or Blu-Ray. Your typical Blu-Ray disc is subsampled with 4 bits of luminance and 2 bits of chrominance per pixel (i.e. 4:2:0 YCbCr), which is identical to DVD. Most DVD players and Blu-Ray players will upsample this to 4 bits of luminance and 4 of chrominance for output (i.e. 4:2:2 YCbCr).

 

In reality, the only quality improvements HD discs have over DVDs are higher bitrates, better codecs, and higher resolutions. The "dynamic range" (i.e. luminance) is not improved. Scientifically speaking, there's no reasion to expect the "intensity" or "contrast" of HD-DVD or Blu-Ray to be any better than DVD: they use the same amount of bits to store that information. Furthermore, there's a substantial tradeoff with bitrate and resolution: scaling a lower resolution video with a higher bitrate to resolution ratio is typically better than watching a video of higher resolution which is bitrate starved. This isn't typically a problem with HD discs as they generally have an ample bitrate for the resolution, but that's a problem relating directly to how the master was encoded. Personally, I'll take a lower resolution video with adequate bitrate over a higher resolution one which is starved for bits any day.

 

Ironically, the Casablanca example I mentioned above is a great illustration of this. I have the previous "Special Edition" Casablanca release as well (the one that the HD DVD release was based on, including all the same "extras"), and when you do an A-B comparison the difference is really something. If it were just a matter of uprezzing, there shouldn't be much difference -- it's a black-and-white movie, after all. As you mentioned, source material is important, so the cigarette smoke I mentioned, it makes sense that that wouldn't be visible in an uprezzing, but would show up in the HD version. But it's more than that -- the whole picture just seems to acquire this amazing 3d-like immersiveness that's just completely absent from the DVD. It's like going to the theater on Day One of release, before all the dust motes settle on the film and it breaks in the projector a few times. It's just a whole other experience.

 

I'd really have to see it to believe it. As someone who works with digital video all day every day, I'm really averse to any comparisons that aren't side by side. I can't tell you how many times I've been fooled when asking for quality assessments of video. Often I've been shown the exact same thing, expecting a change, and remarked "That's way better!" only to be told "We didn't change anything." Even worse is when I'm given a set of video samples played side-by-side and choose the one with the lower bitrate.

 

I'm firmly convinced that any relative comparisons of either audio or video, when compared only to what you remember and not what's immediately visible/listenable/tangible, are fraught with error, and even side-by-side comparsions can be. And it doesn't just end with media. If you're firmly convinced that thing X is better than thing Y, a double blind test is really the only way to go. I like subjecting myself to them on a regular basis, and find my opinions of things constantly reformed by absence of confirmation bias.

This isn't about TV, it's about movies. /bonk

 

same applies.

 

I`de sooner listen to the wireless most of the time.

My tv is too old, and so is my monitor. Normal DVD's are finally becoming affordable. I see no reason to even consider buying the newest technology.

 

I think hermanntrude made an excellent remark stating that the cd's and dvd's can get scratched, while a flash can't. I'll wait for the moment that movies are sold on huge flashdisks. The next generation USB can do 4800 Mbit/s (600 MB/s), and is planned to be available in 2009-2010 (see: wikipedia, "usb"). Although I cannot really grasp how fast that is, it means movies can be read directly from a usb at tremendous speeds. I don't see any point of having large cumbersome disks (cd's were once considered small, lol) of any type with this kind of technology available. I think the HD-dvd or blu-ray is like the last generation of steam engines. It's quite cool but not exactly "the new thing".

its not all about data transfer rates but about capacity. there is the HVD's(holographic versatile disc) still in the prototype stage but expected to be able to hold several terabytes per disc. they already exceed HDVD and bluray by an order of magnitude. and flash drives are nowhere near that capacity yet.

 

as for the new usb spec, what is going to be able to fire that much data down the cable, its faster than SATAII and that hasn't been saturated by anything yet. maybe we could daisy chain some external drives?

its not all about data transfer rates but about capacity. there is the HVD's(holographic versatile disc) still in the prototype stage but expected to be able to hold several terabytes per disc. they already exceed HDVD and bluray by an order of magnitude. and flash drives are nowhere near that capacity yet.

 

as for the new usb spec, what is going to be able to fire that much data down the cable, its faster than SATAII and that hasn't been saturated by anything yet. maybe we could daisy chain some external drives?

 

I have no clue what would currently need a usb that fast. But I can imagine a large hub with several "USB 2.0 like" connections saturating the line somehow? I'm positive that given the chance, someone will succeed to make a data storage that wants to push all that data through a cable.

 

Btw, This HVD... That's a fancy disk. Any idea when it comes to the market? Wikipedia doesn't give any estimated time of arrival... although it does list some competition to the HVD. (Reading that makes you completely forget the blu-ray and hd dvd). One little problem: "However, holographic drives are projected to initially cost around US$15,000, and a single disc around US$120–180, although prices are expected to fall steadily(wikipedia)."

 

But eeh... those larger flash drives contain 500 GB, don't they? Granted, they're still a little big, but they're rewritable by default, and getting smaller every day. I can see them catch up with those terabyte disks before those hit the market. Google search for terabyte flash actually already gets a hit. Seems all those disks are too little too late?

 

Strange that most of my furniture is older than those ancient 1.44 floppies, yet those seem prehistoric now.

What you're describing sounds like a difference in luminance. What might surprise you is HD discs are encoded with 4 bits of luminance, the same as what DVDs have. The "intensity" is the same for either DVD, HD-DVD, or Blu-Ray. Your typical Blu-Ray disc is subsampled with 4 bits of luminance and 2 bits of chrominance per pixel (i.e. 4:2:0 YCbCr), which is identical to DVD. Most DVD players and Blu-Ray players will upsample this to 4 bits of luminance and 4 of chrominance for output (i.e. 4:2:2 YCbCr).

 

In reality, the only quality improvements HD discs have over DVDs are higher bitrates, better codecs, and higher resolutions. The "dynamic range" (i.e. luminance) is not improved. Scientifically speaking, there's no reasion to expect the "intensity" or "contrast" of HD-DVD or Blu-Ray to be any better than DVD: they use the same amount of bits to store that information. Furthermore, there's a substantial tradeoff with bitrate and resolution: scaling a lower resolution video with a higher bitrate to resolution ratio is typically better than watching a video of higher resolution which is bitrate starved. This isn't typically a problem with HD discs as they generally have an ample bitrate for the resolution, but that's a problem relating directly to how the master was encoded. Personally, I'll take a lower resolution video with adequate bitrate over a higher resolution one which is starved for bits any day.

 

That's all very interesting on a technical level, but in the end it just confirms what I said above, albeit less technically accurate. As you agreed before, properly done high definition video looks way better than well done regular definition video.

 

In my experience that difference is best seen not so much as a resolution improvement, but in additional color definition and sheer image power. Regular definition video has an overall dullness to it -- I know the moment I throw in a regular DVD that it's a regular DVD. High definition has a major bump in intensity/brightness/power/presence (whatever you want to call it).

 

I do understand the essence of what you're saying and I've had similar arguments myself over the years. When I switched projectors a while back I briefly lamented the loss of the Faroudja processor that was built into the older, lower-resolution PJ I had discarded. With the Faroudja it's DVD output was much superior to the new projector, even though the new projector was HD and the old one had only been ED, because the new PJ was relying on the DVD player for 2:3 pulldown, and it was a dirt-cheap player. I had to change over to much more expensive DVD player to compensate for the loss, and even so I've never felt that the image quality on regular DVD is quite where it used to be.

 

So you're preaching to a very experienced choir when it comes to realistic expectations and exaggerations. I'm no newb.

 

 

I'd really have to see it to believe it. As someone who works with digital video all day every day, I'm really averse to any comparisons that aren't side by side. I can't tell you how many times I've been fooled when asking for quality assessments of video. Often I've been shown the exact same thing, expecting a change, and remarked "That's way better!" only to be told "We didn't change anything." Even worse is when I'm given a set of video samples played side-by-side and choose the one with the lower bitrate.

 

I'm firmly convinced that any relative comparisons of either audio or video, when compared only to what you remember and not what's immediately visible/listenable/tangible, are fraught with error, and even side-by-side comparsions can be. And it doesn't just end with media. If you're firmly convinced that thing X is better than thing Y, a double blind test is really the only way to go. I like subjecting myself to them on a regular basis, and find my opinions of things constantly reformed by absence of confirmation bias.

 

I think if you were to be unable to see the difference between the NTSC Casablanca transfer and the high definition one, you'd have to find another job.

 

its not all about data transfer rates but about capacity

 

No, it's also about transfer rate. All that extra resolution does you no good if you have to throw away 3/4th of your data just to squeeze it through the pipe in the same amount of time as your 1/4-resolution previous-generation image.

i said its not ALL about data rates. anyway, the denser the information is stored the quicker it tends to come through anyway. especially for the type of media we are talking about.

High definition has a major bump in intensity/brightness/power/presence (whatever you want to call it).

 

I'll call it pixels, because that's what's actually different.