BluRay sometimes barely better than DVD

[2Bdecided]

Most of us here know that some BluRay discs can be disappointing, but this is now getting some mainstream recognition in the UK...

http://www.reghardware.com/2010/11/25/bluray_disc_quality_difference/

Which? magazine in the UK is a completely independent, subscription funded, advertising-free consumer resource. It's been going for several decades. Sometimes its test of tech stuff can be infuriatingly simplistic, though it's improved over the years.

Cheers,
David.

[setarip_old]

Not too surprising, based on what I've observed informally.

However, the article only states that "identical televisions" were used, but doesn't state what standalone players were used. I mention this because, as I've noted prerviously, there are some standalone HD (Blu-ray and HD-DVD) players that perform excellent upconverting of standard DVDs...

[Gavino]

However, the article only states that "identical televisions" were used, but doesn't state what standalone players were used.
Related link (http://www.which.co.uk/technology/tv-and-dvd/guides/blu-ray-disc-quality/which-blu-ray-disc-test/) from 'Which?' website states player used was Sony BDP-S550.
However, it also states that "For comparisons sake we left the 'up-scaling' option off" [on the player].

[setarip_old]

That related article also states that they intentionally did NOT use the upscaling ability of the player when playing the standard DVDs. It's safe to presume that the comparisons would have leaned more toward standard DVDs if this capability had been utilized...

[Lyris]

Unfortunately, Which Magazine and their so-called "expet panel" don't seem to have the first clue about accurate or high quality imaging. Their TV reviews are a joke and hint that they leave their displays running in default "torch mode". I wouldn't be surprised if they compared the DVDs and BDs on screens that were set up to turn everything into mush.

Frankly speaking, I would trust them to comment on film scan and encode quality about as much as I would trust Stevie Wonder to perform an ISF TV calibration.

[setarip_old]

@Lyris

Strictly from the perspective of a properly controlled experiment:

If identical televisions with identical settings were used, and

If identical standalone players with identical settings were used, and

If the 17 viewers were not biased and,

If the opinions of the 17 test viewers were presented without alteration,

What fault could you find with the reported test results?

(The only thing that comes to mind is a biased selection of titles)

[Lyris]

What fault could you find with the reported test results?
If the TVs were running in such a way that they obscured the advantage of BD, then the results would be skewed.

Most DVD video transfers are heavily de-grained and denoised. A TV running in its default "Dynamic" (video-vomit) mode and adding excessive sharpening and temporal filtering to the video won't do as much damage to a DVD as it will to a BD.

In the same mode, a high quality BD will have its film grain excessively sharpened to the point of annoyance; it would then get smeared around by whatever NR filter was running, and excessive in-TV sharpening would likely obscure the additional high frequency detail that BD brings.

A lot of TVs also have Spatial Filtering turned on by default to reduce Digital TV compression artefacts. In fact, I think the Sonys do this, if memory serves. That obviously wouldn't help.

[Ghitulescu]

Maybe this could be used as an example of pixel count vs. optical resolution.
To add an example, the restored Coppola version of The Godfather has a lower optical resolution than eg the Ghost Whisperer series, but 5x more pixels. I don't have the DVD version of Godfather so I cannot directly compare the two, sorry.
I think that people actually see the differences, which are only marginally better, but they expect a bit more - taking into account all the fuzz around HD and aggressive advertising.

[*.mp4 guy]

In case anyone isn't aware, the 40 year old virgin blu ray is terrible (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=144068).

[Chengbin]

Ummm, anyone suspect the size of the TV and how far away they sat? If the TV is 32'', you're not gonna see a marked improvement over DVD. Same thing for distance. I know from 10 feet away on my 50'', I cannot tell the difference between a high quality 720p and 1080p, but from 5 feet away, the difference is quite noticeable. From 15 feet away, I can't tell the difference between a very good widescreen SD show and 720p.

Even the worst Blu-rays are noticeably better than SD (sitting at 5 feet away for me). The good Blu-rays, wooooooooow.

[TinTime]

In case anyone isn't aware, the 40 year old virgin blu ray is terrible (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=144068).

The VC-1 HD DVD of that was rubbish too.

And as for the "Escape From New York" BD...

[TinTime]

Unfortunately, Which Magazine and their so-called "expet panel" don't seem to have the first clue about accurate or high quality imaging. Their TV reviews are a joke and hint that they leave their displays running in default "torch mode". I wouldn't be surprised if they compared the DVDs and BDs on screens that were set up to turn everything into mush.

Frankly speaking, I would trust them to comment on film scan and encode quality about as much as I would trust Stevie Wonder to perform an ISF TV calibration.

I'd tend to agree with this but, to be fair to Which?, I don't think we're their target audience. Their advice is aimed squarely at average consumers - people who'll go out, buy an HDTV and a Blu-ray player, plug them in and start watching. No fiddling with settings or anything.

In the past plenty of people will have left their DVD players or set top boxes set to 4x3 composite output because they weren't aware that 16x9 RGB was an option. They just plug stuff in and leave it alone because it basically works.

[2Bdecided]

Ummm, anyone suspect the size of the TV and how far away they sat?If the picture in the report is what actually happened during testing, they were sitting far too close.


I don't entirely trust them though. I've looked at screen shots of some of the "no better than DVD" BluRays on BluRay.com, and at least some have more detail than SD would allow, even if they're not the sharpest HD image ever.


An accurate statement might be that there's a bigger difference between the lesser BluRays and best BluRays than there is between the best DVDs and the lesser BluRays. You might have 5x the number of pixels, but sometimes you've barely got 2x the amount of real detail (or 1.4x in each dimension - a level of improvement which is only just noticeable).


I think Which? magazine is like this: For things you don't know much about, they seem fine and informative. For things you know a lot about, their reviews can sometimes seem quite arbitrary and sometimes miss obvious important things. I guess this means that all their reviews could be somewhat unreliable, but reading them makes you feel better informed!

Cheers,
David.

[Ghitulescu]

I think Which? magazine is like this: For things you don't know much about, they seem fine and informative. For things you know a lot about, their reviews can sometimes seem quite arbitrary and sometimes miss obvious important things. I guess this means that all their reviews could be somewhat unreliable, but reading them makes you feel better informed!
You hit the nail in the head, there are plenty of such magazines all over the world. Sometimes people don't ask that much.

[2Bdecided]

You hit the nail in the head, there are plenty of such magazines all over the world. Sometimes people don't ask that much.Yes - though it's more worrying when the magazine is aimed at a specific area, and it's still clueless.

Lots of hi-fi, video, and technology magazine don't really get beyond "look at this pretty shiny new toy - we like it because <insert manufacturer's press release here>".

Cheers,
David.

[ramicio]

There are different qualities of film out there, so it's not surprising that low-budget movies even from the digital age don't look like they need 1080p. I wish the industry would also try to focus on framerate rather than trying to keep increasing resolution. Resolution can only go so far when you have motion blur from 24 FPS. 60 FPS would be nice with 1080p. This 120hz and 240hz motion interpolation is just crap. You can't build a sharp image (or multiple images) from 2 motion-blurred frames.

[2Bdecided]

There are different qualities of film out there, so it's not surprising that low-budget movies even from the digital age don't look like they need 1080p. I wish the industry would also try to focus on framerate rather than trying to keep increasing resolution. Resolution can only go so far when you have motion blur from 24 FPS. 60 FPS would be nice with 1080p. This 120hz and 240hz motion interpolation is just crap. You can't build a sharp image (or multiple images) from 2 motion-blurred frames.I'm sure we've heard that before!

If so (I'm getting de ja vu), I probably said "James Cameron agrees with you" and posted this link...

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117983864
(see about 2/3rds of the way down)

But let me tell you: the world isn't going this way. All the modern chipsets that do 1080p60 have that capability so that can do 2 * 1080p24 (i.e. 1080p48) to deliver full res 3D. Whether that's what they get used for remains to be seen, but at the moment few people seem to expect to use 1080p60 to deliver actual 1080p60.

Cheers,
David.

[ramicio]

Yeah, it's a shame the world is going 3D with movies. It just shows movies are become worthless because they need people to focus on looking at perceived depth rather than plot or story. The same could be said about increasing framerate, but at least you don't need to look hard to notice that. I don't think 3D movies will ever look like real life. In real life you can focus on things. For a 3D movie to look real things have to be out of focus in the background. Well in real life you have the freedom to shift focus to the background and ignore the foreground. I've only ever seen one movie in 3D, Jackass. It was distracting because I wear contacts and I have astigmatism, so the 3D didn't have a huge effect. I had to constantly blink or rub my eyes to recenter the contacts on my eyes to make the image clear enough to actually work in 3D. Even so I would focus on certain things' depth rather than the movie itself.

[Ghitulescu]

3D is just a marketing toy. At least how it looks today.

[2Bdecided]

3D is just a marketing toy. At least how it looks today.You think? So far it's an unsuccessful toy in the home, but it seems to be getting quite mainstream in the cinema.

Cheers,
David.

[Ghitulescu]

It's like HD+ in Germany, it's hard to see a non-HD+ SAT-receiver in the shelves, so one would have to buy one even if s/he doesn't need (or wants to avoid it), thus the marketing department keeps saying: over 1 million sets sold (yet only 300k cards paid :)).

Avatar was projected only as 3D in all the cinemas I was able to find it, and people (me included) went there not for 3D but for the intense marketing campaign (super movie, incredible landscapes, latest digital technology, Cameron has waited 10 years for the technology to be available in order to fulfil his ideal) - a bunch of lies, bad movie (I mean extremely overrated), this technology was available during Titanic, too etc. The landscapes could not save the movie, I prefer watching Planet Earth if I want to see such things.

Until the polarisated TV screens won't appear, so people were not forced to wear glasses anymore, 3D can be pushed only by monopol (ie regular 2D TVs and players being replaced by 3D pendants).

The actual 3D technology is an intermediate one, a small step designed to get another buck from the consumer before the real one would come (like 1366x768 HDReady TVs). That's pure marketing.

PS: I refuse to wear 3D glasses. But that's only me.

[kurkosdr]

A TV running in its default "Dynamic" (video-vomit) mode and adding excessive sharpening and temporal filtering to the video won't do as much damage to a DVD as it will to a BD.

A high quality BD will have its film grain excessively sharpened to the point of annoyance.

Couldn't have said it better, thanks Lyris for pointing it out.

I don't understand why all these Average Joes care so much about the resolution of their TVs ("must be ten-eighty-pi") when -99% of the time- the "sharpness" setting is such, that any source with a resolution higher than 704x576 gets practically ruined. Sharp, Samsung and LG are particularly guilty for this, as their TVs have terrible sharpness settings out of the box. This is the result of old engineers who still think that tuning an HD set for SD broadcasts is cool. And this is why I always purchase Philips and Toshiba. Not perfect, but much better out of the box settings that Sharp and Samsung. I don't have the time or money to do calibration, so philips and toshiba is the best i can get, but if you know anything better let me know.

Luckily, all these settings and filters are automatically set back to normal when a PC is detected in the HDMI or D-Sub input. That's why anyone who uses a media center PC connected to a TV, or even a regular PC connected to an ordinary PC monitor (which come always calibrated) can tell the difference between DVD and Bluray.


In a nutshell, these guys from "Which?" used a deeply flawed review process.

Every reviewer worth it's salt knows that you always have a couple of systems that are considered "perfect" and are the best of their kind, and they are called "reference systems". In this case, a reference system would be an ISF calibrated TV, preferably a TV that is ISF calibrated out of the box.
Then, you plug the to-be-reviewed product in the reference system, and you can be sure you are reviewing the actual product and not the TV itself.

If you don't have any "reference system", then you can never be sure whether you are reviewing the to-be-reviewed product, or the TV itself! :rolleyes:

Same for speakers and audio sources.

[Ghitulescu]

I own an ISF calibrated plasma and I can tell the difference. But this is not all, many DVDs are simply bad mastered, especially the "bargains" not only used low-quality masters, but also had an average bitrate of 4-5 or less Mbps, which inherently leads to "low-passing" the image. I also have 8Mbps DVDs and I need to be closer than 1m and actively looking for artefacts (it's the colour the differentiating issue) to correctly identify BD from DVD. CGI animations, like Wall-E, are very hard discernibly from BDs. My BD player has a very good scaler inside (better than the "cheaper" DVDO models).
However, when I'm using the DVD in the DVD player (SCART-RGB) and the BD in the BD player (HDMI), the differences are accentuated and, unless the BD used bad masters, the identification is instant. The TV also has a very good upscaler.

The upper-end systems do really have image-enhancers processors, the lower-end ones have only "defect-masking" processors. Panasonic uses the colour saturation (from camcorders to TVs via players), almost all LCD manufacturers oversharpen the image, some of them also oversaturate the colours. From what I saw only Sony manufactures balanced LCDs.

In a nutshell, depending on the system, the differences might be immediately visible or not. I mean one can instantly see them (or not). In the second case, why would one invest in the new gear, if the BD is marginally better, yet full of digital restrictions?

That's why I was curios why do they sell BD+DVD combinations .......

[kurkosdr]

I
The upper-end systems do really have image-enhancers processors, the lower-end ones have only "defect-masking" processors. Panasonic uses the colour saturation (from camcorders to TVs via players), almost all LCD manufacturers oversharpen the image, some of them also oversaturate the colours. From what I saw only Sony manufactures balanced LCDs.
.
Don't remind me how some manufacturers out there pump up the blues and the reds of their sets to give you the illusion of higher contrast. Samsung is particularly guilty for this, as their DNIe and Wide Color Enchancer "technologies" do exactly that. I had the misfortune of owning such a set, and in Dynamic mode everything from 60% blue and up was converted to 100% blue, and in Standard mode, everything from 75% blue and up was converted to 100% blue. Pictures looked like abstract art or something. Got rid of it for a toshiba.

As regards Sony, their tv sets and dvd players have an annoying greenish tint (offset to green) in the PAL part of the world. At first i thought i had run across a bad example, but then i noticed other sonys and pioneers had that too. This is because a green offset gives the illusion of higher brightness. No such problems in the NTSC part of the world from what i ve heard. Probably Sony thought that a greenish tint together with NTSCs infamous color shift would make the picture unwatchable.

[kurkosdr]

Their TV reviews are a joke and hint that they leave their displays running in default "torch mode".

If you ask me, this is how reviews should be done.

I never understood the tv manufactuers' right to make sets that have purposely wrong settings that ruin the picture, requiring the consumer to manually calibrate the set from scratch, as if he doesn't have better things to do and spend money on.

Everytime i hear a "reviewer" saying "this is an excellent set if you calibrate it right" (almost always refering to a samsung set), and then goes on to give it a 9.5/10, it makes my blood boil. It's not excellent, it's a fraud.

Can you imagine a computer magazine saying this for a pc monitor? No. That's why such a pc monitor would tank both in reviews and in the market. In fact, pc monitor manufacturers that tried this in the past had their models bashed in the reviews (that's why you will never find a samsung pc monitor with DNIe, lol). But apparently the "-phile" (audiophile, videophile) world has it's own set of reviewing rules. And one of them apparently is tolerance to fraud. *Sigh*

P.S.: Sorry for the charged post, but i once had my fingers burnt from this "purposely wrong default settings" nonsense. Got a set with DNIe that couldn't be disabled, and the picture was such a mess that after many failed attempts to get it into shape, i eventually ended up getting rid of the tv for peanuts, and getting a new one. Then i learnt on avforums that, in order to fully disable DNIe on my set, i had to enter an secret service menu (no joke!). I really don't understand how reviewers think of this as normal...

[Ghitulescu]

It's even simpler than that, the reviewers actually compare 2 lists side-by-side, which lists contain only features and nothing else (like in the Aristotelian era). Only if a device costs say 1000€ or more, they find some figures to "impress" with (102dB, 192kHz, 24b) and so on. In the good old times, not only that a device came with full specifications (including all technical features, like tuner sensitivity and stuff) but also included in the package were the schematics, should the owner ever be in need to repair it. Now, servicing is monopolised, too. Well, the things made in the seventies and eighties function until today, while the owner of a brand new gear is lucky if s/he's use it next year.

[2Bdecided]

You're sounding like a "grumpy old man" Ghitulescu!

You can find the schematics for most devices on-line, but with surface mounted components these won't help most normal people fix their TVs. The days of point-to-point hard wiring, or even single layer PCBs with "real" wired components, are long gone (except in toys, thankfully - very useful to be able to fix those!).

Cheers,
David.

[Lyris]

And as for the "Escape From New York" BD...

Yes, it was garbage. They re-pressed it with a very good quality scan.

[Ghitulescu]

You're sounding like a "grumpy old man" Ghitulescu!

You can find the schematics for most devices on-line, but with surface mounted components these won't help most normal people fix their TVs. The days of point-to-point hard wiring, or even single layer PCBs with "real" wired components, are long gone (except in toys, thankfully - very useful to be able to fix those!).

Cheers,
David.
My point was not that Averageson Joe could repair himself that gear, it was that should it be the case of a repairement one could do it in an independent repairing shop.

Concerning the availability of service manuals and / or schematics, well, sorry, these are hard to get, if you look carefully at their IP address, you'd notice countries like RU, BG, UA and so on, countries like UK, US, DE charge you the equivalent of 15euro.

Your point is also a good one, today it's simpler, easier and cheaper to buy another product than to repair an old one, unles the older one has "something" you don't wanna loose.

[Lyris]

If you ask me, this is how reviews should be done.

I never understood the tv manufactuers' right to make sets that have purposely wrong settings that ruin the picture, requiring the consumer to manually calibrate the set from scratch, as if he doesn't have better things to do and spend money on.
I see your point, but that's a bit like (to use a cliched analogy) getting an expensive sports car and only using it to drive to the grocery store.

I do agree though, it's insane that the picture should look like crap out of the box. Things are getting better, for example THX-Certified displays which try to get accurate colour, gamma and white point with a simple picture preset. Unfortunately, that's not the default picture mode, though.

[FlimsyFeet]

At the bottom of the pile was Ghostbusters (1984) ... the level of grainy ‘picture noise’ way too high for a full HD disc.
So, an accurate reproduction of authentic 1980s film grain is a bad thing?

[Ghitulescu]

Sometimes yes.

[ramicio]

That's the most insane thing ever. People got too used to DVD resolution not showing film grain, and now people bitch because HD makes a more accurate representation of the movie. It's not like grain is loss of resolution, it's just noise. People don't bitch about film grain in the theaters. I'd rather watch a grainy movie in HD than one where they reworked it to remove grain because it's how the movie was. It's stupid to go re-edit movies like Lucas does all the damn time to remove or add stuff and totally remove the originals from the market. Part of a movie is the time it came out. It's stupid to update an old movie with new state of the art effects. Part of the art is trying to make those effects without future technology.

[Ghitulescu]

That's the most insane thing ever. People got too used to DVD resolution not showing film grain, and now people bitch because HD makes a more accurate representation of the movie.

While you're generally right about the whole idea, I think you're wrong about this one. People are not complaining about the noise, or film grain or or or, they expect the best. It's not their fault, either. The aggressive marketing they're subject to, made this happen. Most of them invested say up to 10.000€ in a whole new set of gear (player, AVR, TV, etc.) and they want results.

Besides, there's a lot of confusion about details <> noise <> film grain. I don't use film nor ever used one, but I worked in analog photography, and I assume that 99% would also be true for the film.

Noise can be eliminated (quite easy, even if time expensive). Film grain can be eliminated, too, but it's even more time expensive. I mean, all these without adversely affect the details.

[henryho_hk]

For those Blu-ray being "remarkably" better than the DVD version, might it be possible that the DVD encoding is not remarkably good?

(I own an Avatar DVD.... it's rather blocky.................)

[smok3]

if we concetrate only on production chain;

so, there is this new guy called bluejeans (or is it bluray?) in town, how should we resale our stuff?

a. dunno, there is this digibeta master, can we upsize? nope, there is no money to get the rescan, that comes with all the cc costs again, to complicated
b. see what they have in the grading machine, oversaturate some colors and done.
c. lets start over, rescan everything.
d. we know about blujeans, since our movie was shot after 200x and the entire production chain was aware of that.
e. ect
f. ect

[Ghitulescu]

so, there is this new guy called bluejeans (or is it bluray?) in town, how should we resale our stuff?

That's what Disney does - they sold Mickey Mouse on 8 media (all cinema formats count as one :)), if I'm not mistaken, and still under copyright (in the US, mostly).