Is everything moving to Blu-Ray??

[potatochobit]

you dont need a Bluray player to see the difference for higher resolution, you can use a good upscaler as well for starters. you can download corel WinDVD9 trial version and turn all2hd on.

 

also if you have a recent graphics card it will have ati avivo or nvidia purevideo. this is basically your GPU upscaling and in PowerDVD6 and above as well as in winDVD9 you can set this to on or off in the options and see the difference. I also hear WMP in windows7 supports pure video but IDK how it works or anything.

 

now keep in mind, bluray is about more than just resolution. supposedly the colors are better and have more depth. also perhaps more sound features such as streaming DTS.

one big problem with bluray, as stated, is that older movies were not originally filmed on media that is up to todays standards. When I say old I am even talking about movies less than 5 years ago.

in my case, being a big anime collector, bluray releases on anime tend to be just upscales. and that is a no-no. though some new bluray shows have been coming out and supposedly there are improvements but I'll have to see.

[greengiant912]

I think we are getting close to BluRay becoming a replacement for DVD. This past holiday season you could pick up a bluray player for as little as $80. Granted you wouldn't get all the features as some of the higher up BR players, but it was still a major step to get the format to eventually replace DVDs.

 

 

I think the PS3 is really the one and only bluray player a person should have, you get a console and a BR player for the price of some of the up scale bluray players and it dose everything they do...

 

 

The one complaint I have w/ Bluray so far is that the movies are so freaking expensive. I went to buy district 9 on Bluray the other day, luckly I had best buy coupons so I took the original $30 for the bluray and w/ coupons bought it for $8.40. Now that is a deal :-P.

 

With Netflix you can rent blurays for an extra $2.00 a month, totally worth it imo. So I have been doing that just renting them and watching them. I wish I had a 1080p television, but they still look damn good on my 720p/1080i setup. Luckily I do have a fairly nice sound system and the sound is amazing on the format.

[Guest_Jim_*]

22" TV? - strike one

720p? - strike two

please tell me you have terrible vision for strike three

 

but seriously, the benefits of blu-ray are ESPECIALLY apparent on larger, 1080p TV's. I would personally say that 37" is the minimum size that really starts to "matter" (if that makes sense) for blu-ray

That's why I stated what my TV specs are, because it is not best for HD. If I had the room for a larger TV I would upgrade, but alas, no.

As far as my vision goes, I do need glasses. With my glasses though I have 20/15 vision and can see the difference between connecting my TV straight to the player and having the video passthrough my receiver. I can also see the effects of the 3:2 pulldown to get the 24Hz Blu-Ray video to my TV's 60Hz.

Pardon my bluntness, but that is a horrible comparison. Yes, comparing the same movie on two different mediums is indeed the most obvious way to compare quality differences, but you used movies that predate both technologies that you're trying to compare. Those movies weren't designed to be viewed in high definition, let alone the quality you get out of DVDs. What you need to do is compare a more recent movie that was shot in high definition, only then can you truly see the difference between DVD and Blu-Ray.

No those movies were original meant to be viewed on movie screens with film the medium. That setup can blow away what we call HD and modern TV's (they do film to digital transfers for Blu-Ray at what, is it 4k or 8k now?). This is why the transfer process is so important.

Your point is extremely valid though, modern movies produced with HDTV's in mind will look very good and provide the best comparisons of the two mediums technical capabilities. However, the majority of the movies have not been made with HD in mind, so while Transformers 2 (have not seen it yet, unfortunately) may stress the possible differences between DVD and Blu-ray, movies such as Star Trek's II and III are a bit more realistic for what are in people's collections of DVD's now and may one day be replaced with Blu-Ray. (More realistic meaning before-HD.)

While I have not compared it to a DVD version, Terminator 2 predates both digital media, but does look fantastic on Blu-Ray. Age of the original film will only matter if the film has degraded past restoration and if directors have been adding more visual content and detail because of the capabilities, Blu-Ray brings to the home market.

I wonder what films will look like, and what kind of internet debates will start, when Blu-Ray is ultimately replaced and 1080p is the new SD.

[Crazy_Nate]

On a 40" set it's very noticeable, 50" set it's obvious, and on a 60" set it's impossible not to notice (DVDs almost look bad on such a big screen).

 

I definitely notice on my 32"!

 

It's just not as obvious...but it's definite difference (and I've tried on two 32" 1080p HDTVs)

 

I don't have a DVD collection, so, Netflix it is

 

Oh, and in case somebody hasn't pointed it out before... Blu-ray / 1080p has a standard aspect ratio! I've always been annoyed by the 5 or so various aspect ratios in the DVD format. I can't even keep track of all those...

[pkilway]

It's on the way. Many Blu-Ray movies are now being sold with a digital copy and/or a conventional dvd of the movie. I'd say by the end of this year most movies will be packaged/sold this way.

 

But we are still a few years away from regular dvd systems fading the way of VHS.

[Guest_Jim_*]

Oh, and in case somebody hasn't pointed it out before... Blu-ray / 1080p has a standard aspect ratio! I've always been annoyed by the 5 or so various aspect ratios in the DVD format. I can't even keep track of all those...

No it doesn't. Films use to have a standard aspect ratio of 4x3, but when TV came around and stations started playing movies, films were made at other ratios to keep people going to theaters. The ratio is dependent on the director choosing what they think will work best for their vision. When producing the media they will fit the original image to the offered screen size as best as possible. Directors may be using fewer kinds of cameras and thereby ratios, but that's not from the media. And then there are Blu-Rays such as Dark Knight and one version of Transformers 2 that had 4x3 parts in it (pretty sure it was 4x3, not 16x9 at least), because they were originally on Imax film, and those Imax parts were put back in, not cropped down to 16x9.

I'm pretty sure in Europe you can get TV's with 12x9, 13x9, 14x9 and 15x9 ratios, to help keep 4x3 images from looking too small on 16x9 screens.

Also, just 5 aspect ratios? I've only been able to find 8 on my small collection, but several of the DVD's just say "Enhanced for Widescreen TVs" meaning they're letterboxed and the original ratio is not given. The Blu-Rays primarily don't give a ratio and just say 1080p.

 

Also, the difference between 480p and 720p can be seen, even on my small 22" TV. I just switched between the two and could see it (with a 1080p Blu-Ray for source). Yes, it was an older movie, but that just means what I was looking at was a physical model, if not the real thing (in this case, a tree).

Edited January 13, 2010 by Guest_Jim_*

[tkrow21]

I have a 37" 1080P screen in the living room and a 26" 720P screen in my bedroom and on both sets the difference between SD and HD content is ridiculously high.

[Mikesnow]

No those movies were original meant to be viewed on movie screens with film the medium. That setup can blow away what we call HD and modern TV's (they do film to digital transfers for Blu-Ray at what, is it 4k or 8k now?). This is why the transfer process is so important.

unless I am mistaken most older movies are shot on 35mm film unless it's an Imax camera which are very expensive so not too many movies shoot with those ("The Dark Knight" is last one I am aware of). In the case of the 35mm film there aren't enough pixels to fill a 1920x1080 resolution so as you said it has to be digitaly mastered to that resolution, think they recently did this with "The Wizard of OZ" to blu-ray. If it's Imax then it has more then enough resolution on the raw film. Now that it is becoming more cost effective, a lot of movies are moving away from film and using digital capture like Hard drive Camera's then they copy the digital image to film for the Theaters. In those cases those movies started with better resolutions there for would in fact look better.

 

I could be totaly wrong, thats the understanding I took from it tho.

[Guest_Jim_*]

unless I am mistaken most older movies are shot on 35mm film unless it's an Imax camera which are very expensive so not too many movies shoot with those ("The Dark Knight" is last one I am aware of). In the case of the 35mm film there aren't enough pixels to fill a 1920x1080 resolution so as you said it has to be digitaly mastered to that resolution, think they recently did this with "The Wizard of OZ" to blu-ray. If it's Imax then it has more then enough resolution on the raw film. Now that it is becoming more cost effective, a lot of movies are moving away from film and using digital capture like Hard drive Camera's then they copy the digital image to film for the Theaters. In those cases those movies started with better resolutions there for would in fact look better.

 

I could be totaly wrong, thats the understanding I took from it tho.

Film has an advantage over digital light sensors, such as CCD and CMOS, because the grain of the film is finer than the pixels in modern sensors. You can't really talk about pixels when dealing with film.

The Wizard of Oz I believe was transfered at 8k, in its most recent restoration. This means that they scanned each frame of the film at a resolution of 8192x6144. But that is not the highest digital resolution once could achieve from the film, just the highest I've heard of anyone trying.

The remastering process would involve the digitizing, color correcting, as the film will degrade over time, and correcting for the slight shift of each frame, amongst other things. Digital does one one advantage of film in that being solid state there are no moving parts. As the film goes through a camera or projector each frame will be slightly off from the previous.

Because IMax film is larger it will have more grains there, and more detail because of that. Also, there are more film standards than 35mm, it is just among the most common.

As far as some films being done purely digital, that may very well depend on the budget of the film. Digital cameras, with reusable hard drives only need to be bought once and then powered. Film cameras need to be bought as does the film for them and they then still need to be powered. Digital cameras also allow immediate review and tweaking, which film does not. However, they are building film cameras with digital cameras in them to get the best of both worlds. Looking at the technical specifications for Transformers 2, it appears to have all been done with film and a digital intermediate, which would facilitate the color correction and editing and just making dailies of the film amongst other things. Same thing for The Dark Knight and both of these films were given a rather large budget weren't they? Avatar, whose budget no doubt surpassed all of these movies, I don't think was done with any film, but that decision may have hinged on that fact that the mechanics of a film camera take up a lot more room than those of a digital camera. Since they wanted a 3D effect they used a camera with two sets of optics and two points of recording. Combining two film cameras for that would have resulted in a rather large camera.

Also, keep this in mind; 35mm is about 1 and 3/8 inches while the image sensors in most digital cameras are under 1 inch. Just like IMax film having more area than 35mm, 35mm has more area than most digital cameras, and those grains in the 35mm are going to be smaller than circuits in something man made.

[Waco]

In the case of the 35mm film there aren't enough pixels to fill a 1920x1080 resolution

Actually it's quite the opposite. According to the link to the right, 35mm film has an apparent resolution something north of 2400x1400. Ref: http://www.filmschooldirect.com/sample_les..._HD_vs_35mm.htm

 

Most films can be converted relatively easily to give a very good 1080p output. Digitally remastering them makes them look a lot better as well - so for now, at least, the film is good enough for HD transfers.

Edited January 14, 2010 by Waco

[Guest_Jim_*]

Actually it's quite the opposite. According to the link to the right, 35mm film has an apparent resolution something north of 2400x1400. Ref: http://www.filmschooldirect.com/sample_les..._HD_vs_35mm.htm

 

Most films can be converted relatively easily to give a very good 1080p output. Digitally remastering them makes them look a lot better as well - so for now, at least, the film is good enough for HD transfers.

There is actually a huge debate amongst movie makers about which is better, film or digital, so something like resolution is hard to determine. I just found another article stating that the best quality 35mm will get up to 20 million pixels, 10 times more than 1080p has.

There is also the issue of colors in digital and film photography. Film, being analog, will store more color information than a digital camera.

Really what it boils down to is that film is more than adequate to be converted to HD on Blu-Ray, especially when remastered properly. The choice of film or digital is dependent on budget and which the director feels works best with their vision (film is art after all). The fact that film has been used for many modern blockbusters shows that just because a movie is on film does not mean it cannot look good on Blu-Ray compared to modern films which may better show off the technical capabilities of Blu-Ray.

[psycho_terror]

Really what it boils down to is that film is more than adequate to be converted to HD on Blu-Ray, especially when remastered properly.

the most important thing to consider is that in a few years when the standard resolution increases, films shot on 35mm and especially 70mm will actually benefit from much higher quality than those shot in 1080p. we're never going to be able to do transfers of films shot in 1080p that result in any more than 2 megapixels on screen, whereas film still has more detail than we're using currently.