Pages: 1 [2] 3 4 5   Go Down

Author Topic: Is Blu Ray dying?  (Read 70089 times)

Ray

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 10365
Is Blu Ray dying?
« Reply #20 on: January 10, 2009, 10:40:57 pm »

Quote from: daws
Bingo. For anyone who wonders why Blu Ray isn't hot (and IMO isn't going to be), multiply the above by 100 million, and you have your answer.

Or take me -- a lifelong video/audiophile with shelves of Beta tapes, Beta Hi-Fi tapes, hundreds of LaserDiscs and hundreds of DVD's. After closely watching the corporate greedmongering during the Blu Ray/HD wars, I'm utterly ambivalent to Blu Ray. Not that I no longer lust after higher res, but the marketing macho has killed my enthusiasm to upgrade.

*shrug*

Eh.

It's possible that a new technology, cheaper and better, could supercede Blu-ray before its fully developed and before prices get a chance to come down. Are you aware of any such technology?
Logged

jjj

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 4728
    • http://www.futtfuttfuttphotography.com
Is Blu Ray dying?
« Reply #21 on: January 11, 2009, 09:39:14 am »

Quote from: Ray
The only reasons I can think of for my extraordinary luck, is that I've never bought recordable CDs or DVDs over the internet, but only from local 'bricks & mortar' retailers who presumably have a reputation to protect. I get the impression that on the internet there are a lot of 'fly by night' operators who are out to make a quick buck from batches of recordable media that they acquired very cheaply because the discs did not pass the QC tests in the factory.
I've never bought online, still had failures.
Writing at slowest speed is recommended, but then you'd simply never do it as it takes so long. Which defeats the purpose.
Logged
Tradition is the Backbone of the Spinele

jjj

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 4728
    • http://www.futtfuttfuttphotography.com
Is Blu Ray dying?
« Reply #22 on: January 11, 2009, 10:06:50 am »

Quote from: Ray
Ideally, you should adjust your viewing distance according to the quality of the source, and the same applies to a print on the wall. Broadcast quality in SD varies enormously.
Which is a completely different issue. Image quality and resolution are separate variables. Badly shot crap on HD is still badly shot crap.
Quote
If you were able to adjust your viewing distance beforehand, in accordance with the quality of the broadcast, you would presumably not be aware that the quality had changed, just as you wouldn't see any image quality difference between an enlargement from a 35mm film and MF film from a sufficiently great distance.
Sorry, but that is a very dumb suggestion. I'm to move several sofas back and fore depending on which channel, media source I'm watching!?  Not to mention this daft idea may not even be physically possible. I'm well aware of viewing distances/resolution stuff, but TV is broadcast is many different resolutions and will be unless then stop showing nonHD content - which is not likely for a very long time yet. So where do you sit? A long way away to make your big TV look small enough to not see the badly upscaled SD or position yourself to have a big image and only watch BluRay? Hey if I want to watch a film on a big screen, I go to the cinema.

Quote
I also had a very good quality CRT until recently (a Loewe Calida). I was concerned that even the best LCD TVs would not match the quality of a good CRT, especially with regard to contrast ratio. I thought that I might be satisfied with only the most expensive plasma set, such as one of the 9th generation Pioneer Kuro models.
I was looking at some very expensive kit the other day and the colours and gradation were not as good as my CRT.
In fact quite recently I was in a good high end hifi shop and asked about good tvs and they said nothing they sold was as nice as a CRT.

Quote
But the 11th generation Panasonic plasma sets have been getting very good reviews.
Says the man who doesn't believe anything anyone else says!?! I find that very odd that you believe TV reviews and manufacturers claims of tv kit, yet poo poo everyone and everything regarding pixel peeping in cameras.  
Logged
Tradition is the Backbone of the Spinele

samirkharusi

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 196
    • http://www.geocities.com/samirkharusi/
Is Blu Ray dying?
« Reply #23 on: January 11, 2009, 10:57:56 am »

I think BD could very well die out in the near future as a STORAGE MEDIUM. Hard discs are simply so much more convenient for storing HD home videos and data back-ups. Until very recently it was difficult to get something that would play a wide variety of video codecs up to and including 1080 HD without a PC. Apple TV is still not advertised as fully capable of playing 1080 HD(?), but I have just acquired a Western Digital device (called WD TV) that does an excellent job, including 1080 HD. Previously I used a PS3 to stream from my PC. The WD TV streams directly from a tera-byte hard disc, no link to a PC. Yes, you can also have all your LLVJ on-line. I store everything on 2 hard discs and hopefully I'll never have simultaneous failures, though perhaps in theory possible (power failure during a back-up?). At this moment I am still backing up photos on DVDs until my supply finishes, and thereafter I'll just buy another tera-byte drive to achieve double back-ups. More than a year back I already stopped backing up home videos on DVDs. Just way too cumbersome at 12GB per hour for the highest quality HD.

It is also likely that BD could also soon be bypassed for MOVIE SALES. The public seems incredibly tolerant of mediocre video (and audio) quality. It appears that even some posters on this thread. I find it a bit absurd that people on this forum, many lapping up any write-up on 30+MP backs for stills, somehow try to justify sticking to SD! Satellite delivery of movies can also be excellent, though to date the quality is still considerably below BD. If broadband on our PCs gets to, say, 50Mb and above, apparently quite likely soon in many regions, then delivering a 10+GB (close to or equal to BD quality) per movie becomes feasible. Perhaps Apple TV will be the first to sell movies in 1080 HD soon?

Frankly, I feel that even if Sony now drops prices down to DVD levels (blanks, burners, movies) BD would still be eclipsed into nothingness within 2 to 3 years; too expensive for too long. Pity, because it really does deliver on its promises for HiFi in both audio and video.
Logged
Bored? Peruse my website: [url=http://ww

Ray

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 10365
Is Blu Ray dying?
« Reply #24 on: January 11, 2009, 11:44:53 am »

Quote from: jjj
Which is a completely different issue. Image quality and resolution are separate variables. Badly shot crap on HD is still badly shot crap.
Sorry, but that is a very dumb suggestion. I'm to move several sofas back and fore depending on which channel, media source I'm watching!?  Not to mention this daft idea may not even be physically possible. I'm well aware of viewing distances/resolution stuff, but TV is broadcast is many different resolutions and will be unless then stop showing nonHD content - which is not likely for a very long time yet. So where do you sit? A long way away to make your big TV look small enough to not see the badly upscaled SD or position yourself to have a big image and only watch BluRay?

Have you been drinking too much today, jjj? You're not making much sense. If you make the following statement, "Shame that nearly all broadcast TV [SD] will look dreadful on such a large screen", which is the statement I was addressing, it is reasonable to assume that you are referring to the resolution of the broadcast and not the accuracy of the color, the interest of the drama or the lighting techniques of the camera man.

Where do you sit? You sit at a distance sufficiently far from the set so that SD material does not look dreadful, yet close enough so that the higher quality of HD broadcasts can be appreciated. With a 50" screen, I would say about 12ft is a good compromise. Also, it seems to be the case that good HD sets do an excellent job of interpolating SD material. No jaggies, no motion blur, no ghosting, no flicker.

Quote
I was looking at some very expensive kit the other day and the colours and gradation were not as good as my CRT.
In fact quite recently I was in a good high end hifi shop and asked about good tvs and they said nothing they sold was as nice as a CRT.

The phosphors in plasma sets are very similar to the phosphors in CRTs. Were you looking at LCD TVs? I believe they can sometimes be more expensive than plasma sets of the same size. I still use a Sony Triniton CRT monitor to process my images for printing. I believe old-fashioned CRT monitors can still be as good or better than much more expensive LCD monitors, but not regarding resolution. I'm not aware of any full HD CRT TVs. Do they exist?

Quote
Says the man who doesn't believe anything anyone else says!?! I find that very odd that you believe TV reviews and manufacturers claims of tv kit, yet poo poo everyone and everything regarding pixel peeping in cameras.  

What makes you think I believed them? I actually bought this Panasonic plasma set as a Christmas present for my partner who lives in her own house and whom I visit frequently. I wanted to check out the quality and try a few Blu-ray discs from my laptop. I knew if there were any slight deficiencies in image quality which disturbed me, my partner probably wouldn't notice them and would continue to be happy with the set.

It so happens that I'm very impressed with the image quality. The blacks are gorgeous and detailed, the colors vibrant yet subtle, and the resolution a huge step up from my old CRT TV. At its best, with material from a Blu-ray disc which delivers 1080p, the difference is equivalent to upgrading from a 3mp DSLR to an 18mp DSLR. My only disappointment with the set is that it doesn't lend itself to normal calibration procedures with my X-rite colorimeters and software.

Quote
Hey if I want to watch a film on a big screen, I go to the cinema.

That's because you don't have a 50" plasma   .

Logged

Ray

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 10365
Is Blu Ray dying?
« Reply #25 on: January 11, 2009, 12:20:57 pm »

Quote from: samirkharusi
I store everything on 2 hard discs and hopefully I'll never have simultaneous failures, though perhaps in theory possible (power failure during a back-up?). At this moment I am still backing up photos on DVDs until my supply finishes, and thereafter I'll just buy another tera-byte drive to achieve double back-ups. More than a year back I already stopped backing up home videos on DVDs. Just way too cumbersome at 12GB per hour for the highest quality HD.

Samir,
Just a few days ago I got an Australia Post junk mail brochure in my letter box advertising a WD 1TB My Book Essential Edition external hard drive for A$219. At current conversion rates that's US$153. I feel perhaps I should buy a couple, but I did once have the terrible experience of losing 300GB of data on a La Cie Big Disk. Fortunately all the data was still on DVD disks that I'd recorded on my laptop during photographic trips.

Quote
Frankly, I feel that even if Sony now drops prices down to DVD levels (blanks, burners, movies) BD would still be eclipsed into nothingness within 2 to 3 years; too expensive for too long. Pity, because it really does deliver on its promises for HiFi in both audio and video.

The potential of the Blu-ray format is 200GB. 5 double-sided, quadruple layer blu-ray discs are a lot lighter and less bulky than a 1TB hard drive. On the other hand, by the time such 200GB discs become available and affordable, we'll probably have 1TB pocket drives running off the power supply of the USB socket.
Logged

Peter McLennan

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 4690
Is Blu Ray dying?
« Reply #26 on: January 11, 2009, 12:57:49 pm »

The simple fact is, for watching movies, standard DVD's are good enough.  Given good source material, a progressive-scan DVD player and an upscaling display, the movie-viewing experience of standard DVDs is excellent.  Not perfect.  Not as good as HD, but excellent.  

It's good enough that very seldom while watching DVD movies at home do I say "I really need more screen resolution".  I have a $100 upscaling DVD player, a 55 inch Sony SXRD rear projector and over 30 years experience shooting movies.

As others have noted, archiving digital images on optical formats is inconvenient and inefficient compared to using hard drives or solid state memory.
Logged

jjj

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 4728
    • http://www.futtfuttfuttphotography.com
Is Blu Ray dying?
« Reply #27 on: January 11, 2009, 01:21:15 pm »

Quote from: samirkharusi
The public seems incredibly tolerant of mediocre video (and audio) quality.
Always have been.

Quote
It appears that even some posters on this thread. I find it a bit absurd that people on this forum, many lapping up any write-up on 30+MP backs for stills, somehow try to justify sticking to SD!
Not a fair comment really as 95% of TV here is SD.  So how would you suggest people not not watch SD?




Logged
Tradition is the Backbone of the Spinele

jjj

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 4728
    • http://www.futtfuttfuttphotography.com
Is Blu Ray dying?
« Reply #28 on: January 11, 2009, 02:11:41 pm »

Quote from: Ray
Have you been drinking too much today, jjj? You're not making much sense. If you make the following statement, "Shame that nearly all broadcast TV [SD] will look dreadful on such a large screen", which is the statement I was addressing, it is reasonable to assume that you are referring to the resolution of the broadcast and not the accuracy of the color, the interest of the drama or the lighting techniques of the camera man.
Don't drink at all thanks. Not impressed by upresing of SD, just like upresing a low res still does not make it a good high res still. Plus, the look of many dramas is most definitely affected by the cruddy LCD screens most people use. The best way I can describe it is that well lit  filmed dramas look like flatly lit video productions from the 70s, like a cheap soap in fact.
A few days back a TV programme that I am very familiar with, was demonstrated for me on all of Sony's top TVs. Even the £5,500 TV was crap compared to my CRT. Shockingly so. Though as the signal was from Sky, that could be part of the problem, but even that wouldn't account for the poor rendering.
There is a reason why cartoon and animations are used to demonstrate flat screen TVs, they hide the flaws that skin tones and real world scenes show up.
Part of the problem could be that the TVs were set with extra contrast, lightness and sharpeness for the shop floor/wall, as quite often the shops set demo TVs on a mode that seems to maximize the flaws of flat screens and demo footage is carefully chosen to hide the problems with the TVs.

Quote
Where do you sit? You sit at a distance sufficiently far from the set so that SD material does not look dreadful, yet close enough so that the higher quality of HD broadcasts can be appreciated. With a 50" screen, I would say about 12ft is a good compromise. Also, it seems to be the case that good HD sets do an excellent job of interpolating SD material. No jaggies, no motion blur, no ghosting, no flicker.
You witter on about tiny differences of various cameras you don't own and you think HD sets do an excellent job of upscaling. Do they bollocks, They look pants and certainly not sharp.
The whole point of a big TV is one sense is to be, well...bigger, so if you place it further away to let SD look OK, then you may as well buy a smaller TV and sit closer. And save a lot of money in the process. Plus people are usually limited by house sizes as to where they sit, particularly in a crowded country like the UK.
I'll stick to a CRT in lounge for now and go to the cinema for a big screen experience.
Though a flat screen for wall in kitchen may happen simply as a CRT won't work in the space and it will not be a primary viewing spot.


Quote
The phosphors in plasma sets are very similar to the phosphors in CRTs. Were you looking at LCD TVs? I believe they can sometimes be more expensive than plasma sets of the same size.
Both - interestingly, the least worst [not for sharpness, but look/rendering] was the smallest LCD [32"]

Quote
I'm not aware of any full HD CRT TVs. Do they exist?
They did IIRC. Very briefly.


Quote
What makes you think I believed them?
Things you posted recently.

Quote
I actually bought this Panasonic plasma set ........<SNIP>
It so happens that I'm very impressed with the image quality.
A HD set showing BluRay, should look good. Showing normal SD TV is not quite the same however.
If I watched a lot of discs because I lived in the sticks away from cinema, then I might invest in one. Though I'd probably go for a projector and a cinema room instead.


Quote
That's because you don't have a 50" plasma   .
No, I don't have a big TV as I go to the cinema.    Way cheaper too as I have an unlimited pass!  
BTW my local flea has the biggest screen in the country and all screens have good seats, lots of legroom and decent raking of seating. And I sit so that my field of view is nearly filled by the screen, which makes for a more immersive experience. You sit that close to even a HD TV and you can see the pixels.
Though at least you do not have to complain about shoddy focusing/projection with TVs.


Something I notice when visiting friends and relatives that when they had CRTs the picture was usually pretty good, with flat screens it's rarely bearable.
But they don't notice how awful the picture is. Heck, my girlfriend doesn't even notice when the aspect format is completely wrong, we have 6 modes on our TV and programmes are shown in about 4 of them.  She sometimes uses Auto, which somehow manages to show all aspect ratios incorrectly.  


Logged
Tradition is the Backbone of the Spinele

JDClements

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 312
    • http://www.jdanielclements.com
Is Blu Ray dying?
« Reply #29 on: January 11, 2009, 06:27:26 pm »

I have a Samsung Tantus 32" pure flat CRT television, and it looks pretty darn good, especially compared to all the newer "upgrade" stuff I see displayed in the local electronics emporium. When I got it x years ago (can't remember), it was an "HD TV", good for 800 lines, not interlaced. I guess that's not the real HD now, and the connectors changed. (So I am stuck with component video and optical audio.)

Plus, I have something like 200 DVDs here, so poo on Blu Ray.

By the way, I find the optimal distance is 1.5x the height of the screen. That means I can stick my foot out and touch the television, I'm that close. My kids' friends think it is weird we sit that close, but it works and there is no grain visible in the screen. (Although we don't watch any "TV" on it, so I don't know what cable TV is like.)

I think it is conceivable that Blu Ray will not catch on before the world of bits takes over as the delivery method.
Logged

Ray

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 10365
Is Blu Ray dying?
« Reply #30 on: January 11, 2009, 10:01:22 pm »


Quote
You witter on about tiny differences of various cameras you don't own and you think HD sets do an excellent job of upscaling. Do they bollocks, They look pants and certainly not sharp.
The whole point of a big TV is one sense is to be, well...bigger, so if you place it further away to let SD look OK, then you may as well buy a smaller TV and sit closer. And save a lot of money in the process. Plus people are usually limited by house sizes as to where they sit, particularly in a crowded country like the UK.
I'll stick to a CRT in lounge for now and go to the cinema for a big screen experience.
Though a flat screen for wall in kitchen may happen simply as a CRT won't work in the space and it will not be a primary viewing spot.

You are still not making any sense, jjj. Are you on some other self-medication then? I witter on about small differences in cameras that I don't own in order to find out if they are worth buying and to find out what the circumstances might be that such difference are of practical significance. You should have noticed that my emphasis is on low-noise performance at high ISO. Being able to use a particular camera at, say ISO 3200, and get the same image quality on print that my current camera provides at ISO 1600, would be reason enough to upgrade.

I witter on about the performance of cameras I don't own because I can get no reliable information about their performance (because they are new), or at best, get conflicting reports from so-called experts. The D3 is a case in point. Initial reports from around the world provided no thorough comparisons. It was claimed that the D3's low-noise performance was so good it was almost 2 stops better than any other camera on the market. The only comparison I could find with my own camera, the 5D, were jpegs from Ken Rockwell's site who claimed the D3 was now King of the Block regarding low noise. Yet the 5D images he showed on his website, although noisier, were clearly more detailed than the D3 images. When both images were treated to some noise reduction with Noise Ninja, they looked about the same.

Quote
A HD set showing BluRay, should look good. Showing normal SD TV is not quite the same however.

Of course SD isn't quite the same. HD is much better, whether from Blu-ray or a broadcast. That's the reason for buying a set that can display an HD signal. It's decidedly and clearly better.

Quote
No, I don't have a big TV as I go to the cinema.    Way cheaper too as I have an unlimited pass!  
BTW my local flea has the biggest screen in the country and all screens have good seats, lots of legroom and decent raking of seating. And I sit so that my field of view is nearly filled by the screen, which makes for a more immersive experience. You sit that close to even a HD TV and you can see the pixels.
Though at least you do not have to complain about shoddy focusing/projection with TVs.

So this is the true reason why you don't get yourself a decent HD display. You've got an unlimited cinema pass   . The last time I saw a movie in the cinema was actually quite recently. A guest treated us to a viewing of the new Baz Luhrmann film, "Australia", followed by a meal at a restaurant. We considered the posh cinema (Gold Pass) where the seats recline like Business Class aircraft seats. There's a table between each pair of seats and one can order wine and snacks or even a full meal that is delivered to your table, as in a restaurant. Seats were $37 each. A bottle of wine that would cost $10 in a wine store was about $35 and light snacks were around $20. For the four of us, that would have amounted to $263, sharing just the one bottle of wine. We decided against it and bought the cheaper seats, which in total still amounted to more than the cost of a Blu-ray movie.

This was the first time I'd seen a movie in a cinema for a long time. I was expecting to be enthralled by the immensity of the screen and the tack-sharp realism of the photography. In fact I wasn't. I couldn't help making comparisons with recent experiences watching a 50" plasma. The picture was difinitely bigger, but the quality, on balance, didn't seem as good. Could be a matter of viewing distance, of course.

Quote
Something I notice when visiting friends and relatives that when they had CRTs the picture was usually pretty good, with flat screens it's rarely bearable.
But they don't notice how awful the picture is. Heck, my girlfriend doesn't even notice when the aspect format is completely wrong, we have 6 modes on our TV and programmes are shown in about 4 of them.  She sometimes uses Auto, which somehow manages to show all aspect ratios incorrectly.

I've had similar experiences, except when I visit friends who are still using the old-fashioned CRT TV, their CRT set is out of adjustment just as it is with LCD or Plasma sets. The fact is, most people who are not obsessed with image quality, do not seem to even notice such things as oversaturated skin tones, blocked-up shadows and blown highlights. All displays require some sort of adjustment of contrast, brightness, color saturation, color temperature, hue etc, in order to produce good results. When I first switched on my very expensive Loewe CRT set, which was the best I could find many years ago, I remember being dismayed at the oversaturated skin tones and general image quality straight out of the box with controls set at their factory default. Fortunately, the Loewe set had a tint control which worked with PAL analogue broadcasts. This is a control which is usually found only on NTSC (Never The Same Color) sets. With PAL broadcasts it allowed for very fine tuning to get very accurate skin tones.

If you do decide to avail yourself of the joys of high definition TV, I would recommend a good plasma set. The 9th generation Pioneer Kuro are the best but also the most expensive and not necessarily the best value. I saw their 60" model in a store recently, priced at A$10,000. Too expensive for me, but hopefully the price will be lower by the time my new house is finished   .


Logged

jjj

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 4728
    • http://www.futtfuttfuttphotography.com
Is Blu Ray dying?
« Reply #31 on: January 12, 2009, 02:42:43 am »

Quote from: Ray
You are still not making any sense, jjj. Are you on some other self-medication then? I witter on about small differences in cameras that I don't own in order to find out if they are worth buying and to find out what the circumstances might be that such difference are of practical significance. You should have noticed that my emphasis is on low-noise performance at high ISO. Being able to use a particular camera at, say ISO 3200, and get the same image quality on print that my current camera provides at ISO 1600, would be reason enough to upgrade.

I witter on about the performance of cameras I don't own because I can get no reliable information about their performance (because they are new), or at best, get conflicting reports from so-called experts. The D3 is a case in point. Initial reports from around the world provided no thorough comparisons. It was claimed that the D3's low-noise performance was so good it was almost 2 stops better than any other camera on the market. The only comparison I could find with my own camera, the 5D, were jpegs from Ken Rockwell's site who claimed the D3 was now King of the Block regarding low noise. Yet the 5D images he showed on his website, although noisier, were clearly more detailed than the D3 images. When both images were treated to some noise reduction with Noise Ninja, they looked about the same.
Missed point entirely - upscaling! I do know why you witter on.



Quote
Of course SD isn't quite the same. HD is much better, whether from Blu-ray or a broadcast. That's the reason for buying a set that can display an HD signal. It's decidedly and clearly better.
Shame the signal going in back of TV isn't rarely HD.  


Quote
So this is the true reason why you don't get yourself a decent HD display. You've got an unlimited cinema pass   .
Nope. I have an unlimited pass as it saves me money, due to the fact I like to go to the cinema.


Quote
This was the first time I'd seen a movie in a cinema for a long time. I was expecting to be enthralled by the immensity of the screen and the tack-sharp realism of the photography. In fact I wasn't. I couldn't help making comparisons with recent experiences watching a 50" plasma. The picture was difinitely bigger, but the quality, on balance, didn't seem as good. Could be a matter of viewing distance, of course.
Or the film wasn't that sharp. Films vary in quality/sharpness immensely as they are all shot differently, just like photographs made by professionals do. It's a stylistic thing a lot of the time. Assuming projectionist was competant.
Also my local has two screens with digital projectors. I'd like to see you compare your measely 50" to those screens!  


Quote
I've had similar experiences, except when I visit friends who are still using the old-fashioned CRT TV, their CRT set is out of adjustment just as it is with LCD or Plasma sets.
I don't ever recall seeing CRTs as bad as many of the LCDs screens I've seen.

Quote
If you do decide to avail yourself of the joys of high definition TV, I would recommend a good plasma set.
The plasmas are indeed better, but seeing as most TV isn't HD, it's a waste of money for now. If my current CRT was any bigger, I'd start to see the pixels on SD.
« Last Edit: January 12, 2009, 02:43:34 am by jjj »
Logged
Tradition is the Backbone of the Spinele

Ray

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 10365
Is Blu Ray dying?
« Reply #32 on: January 12, 2009, 04:57:25 am »

Quote from: jjj
I don't ever recall seeing CRTs as bad as many of the LCDs screens I've seen.

That's probably because modern LCD and Plasma TVs usually have a greater range of controls than the old-fashioned CRT. It's so easy to get things spectacularly wrong; a bit like photomatix and tone mapping. The Panasonic set that I bought has an 'Eco' mode which attempts to compensate for different lighting conditions, such as fluorescent lighting in the showroom, bright daylight in one's living room etc. I admit the results can be pretty awful. I rarely use it. I would suspect that this feature is probably responsible for the awful image quality one sometimes sees in the showrooms.

Quote
The plasmas are indeed better, but seeing as most TV isn't HD, it's a waste of money for now. If my current CRT was any bigger, I'd start to see the pixels on SD.

Well that's a problem that you are more familiar with than I am. We've had HD broadcasts for several years in Australia; ever since the introduction of digital broadcast which were initially mostly SD but are now mostly HD.
Logged

jjj

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 4728
    • http://www.futtfuttfuttphotography.com
Is Blu Ray dying?
« Reply #33 on: January 12, 2009, 08:39:12 am »

Quote from: Ray
That's probably because modern LCD and Plasma TVs usually have a greater range of controls than the old-fashioned CRT. It's so easy to get things spectacularly wrong; a bit like photomatix and tone mapping. The Panasonic set that I bought has an 'Eco' mode which attempts to compensate for different lighting conditions, such as fluorescent lighting in the showroom, bright daylight in one's living room etc. I admit the results can be pretty awful. I rarely use it. I would suspect that this feature is probably responsible for the awful image quality one sometimes sees in the showrooms.
Don't think that is the issue as most people won't even touch picture controls and my CRT has as much if not more than the LCDs I've tried to sort out. My sisters is beyond making acceptable look via the menus. It looks crap as it's an LCD, nothing more complex than that.
Logged
Tradition is the Backbone of the Spinele

Ray

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 10365
Is Blu Ray dying?
« Reply #34 on: January 12, 2009, 06:35:56 pm »

Quote from: jjj
Don't think that is the issue as most people won't even touch picture controls and my CRT has as much if not more than the LCDs I've tried to sort out. My sisters is beyond making acceptable look via the menus. It looks crap as it's an LCD, nothing more complex than that.

That may be the case. It's been know for years that LCDs do not match the quality of CRTs. It's why I still use a CRT for my image processing and why I have never considered getting an LCD TV to replace my CRT TV.

However, plasma displays are in another ball park. They seem to have all the advantages of the CRT in the sense that each pixel has its own illumination, but none of the disadvantages of CRT in respect of line scanning and flicker. I've never come across any description or explanation as to what image properties a CRT might have that are not equalled or surpassed by a modern, good quality plasma set. Have you?

Comparing sets that have not been adjusted to obtain the best possible picture quality serves little purpose. When I've asked salesmen in the TV showrooms why the shop didn't employ someone to at least make an attempt to adjust each display to the same standard. The answer is usually, there'd be little point because customers often want to play with the remote and try out their own adjustments before buying a set; or, the bright fluorescent lighting in the showroom is not an ideal environment for the best picture quality; or, different customers prefer different settings. What looks good to one customer may not look good to another.
Logged

Ray

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 10365
Is Blu Ray dying?
« Reply #35 on: January 12, 2009, 08:48:34 pm »

Quote from: Peter McLennan
The simple fact is, for watching movies, standard DVD's are good enough.  Given good source material, a progressive-scan DVD player and an upscaling display, the movie-viewing experience of standard DVDs is excellent.  Not perfect.  Not as good as HD, but excellent.  

It's good enough that very seldom while watching DVD movies at home do I say "I really need more screen resolution".  I have a $100 upscaling DVD player, a 55 inch Sony SXRD rear projector and over 30 years experience shooting movies.

Don't you think that's a very odd effect you are describing? I don't know what cameras you use, but I suspect that when making a print the size of your TV screen, you would probably want to use at least 16mp and preferrably 24mp. Yet when the picture is moving, you're quite satisfied with a resolution consisting of less than 1/2 a megapixel. If the half megapixel looks better than you would predict, that's probably because professional videocams employ 3 CCDs, so we have a quality similar to the Foveon type sensor. Let's call it a 1mp image (Bayer type).

As a photographer, how can you be satisfied with such low resolution?
Logged

Robert Roaldi

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 4763
    • Robert's Photos
Is Blu Ray dying?
« Reply #36 on: January 13, 2009, 07:33:01 am »

Quote from: Ray
Don't you think that's a very odd effect you are describing? I don't know what cameras you use, but I suspect that when making a print the size of your TV screen, you would probably want to use at least 16mp and preferrably 24mp. Yet when the picture is moving, you're quite satisfied with a resolution consisting of less than 1/2 a megapixel. If the half megapixel looks better than you would predict, that's probably because professional videocams employ 3 CCDs, so we have a quality similar to the Foveon type sensor. Let's call it a 1mp image (Bayer type).

As a photographer, how can you be satisfied with such low resolution?

The very best resolution of an HD frame is about 2 mpix, isn't it? Not so hot, really, in the context of modern digicams. But we don't make A3-sized prints of video stills and examine the dots with a loop, so I don't see that it matters. There has always existed wildly different viewing standards, at least in terms of per frame resolution, for prints and films.

I agree with Peter. For watching TV shows and movies at home, current DVDs are perfectly fine. Sure we can do better, but so what. We can always do better but don't always need to. As an editorial aside, what's most memorable about movies and TV programs is their content, not their pixel resolution. I own a VHS copy of To Kill a Mockingbird and I don't think that a Blu-Ray version will improve the viewing experience much. But as I said in an earlier post, if I could have the improvement for little to no cost, sure why not, but if I have to spend money for something I don't think I need, then I balk. But everyone has their own criteria and I admit to becoming a late adopter. I still buy CDs, don't own an MP3 player, and have never downloaded music so there's not a entertainment company on earth that cares what I think.

What irritates me is that one medium will replace the other and people will be forced to upgrade, but I am getting used to it. My movie rental place has more kiddie computer games, soft drinks, popcorn and candy bars than it has movies to rent.
« Last Edit: January 13, 2009, 10:00:19 am by Robert Roaldi »
Logged
--
Robert

samirkharusi

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 196
    • http://www.geocities.com/samirkharusi/
Is Blu Ray dying?
« Reply #37 on: January 13, 2009, 09:53:28 am »

Quote from: Robert Roaldi
The very best resolution of an HD frame is about 2 mpix, isn't it? Not so hot, really, in the context of modern digicams. But we don't make A3-sized prints of video stills and examine the dots with a loop, so I don't see that it matters. There has always existed wildly different viewing standards, at least in terms of per frame resolution, for prints and films.
I have always found this facet fascinating. Way back in the 1950s my Dad upgraded from 8mm to 16mm home movies. Anyway, even though I was still a kid, I used the movie stuff (and still camera) more than he did. I never could figure out exactly why the 16mm Kodachrome movies projected onto an 8ft wide screen (we did have a large house) looked more or less the same quality as 35mm slides projected onto the same screen. OK, recall that I was still a kid at grade school! But I concluded that a lot had to do with the fact that the movie was moving... Same effect applies to a 2MP HD video on a 70" screen. There is no way that stills taken by the SAME videocam at 5MP look anywhere as good as the HD video. The stills look rather gritty and with harsh tonality. Stills taken by a DSLR look as good, but not astoundingly better, than the HD video, primarily because we sit some 140" away. The tonality from a 1Ds is visibly better than that of a $1000 HD videocam. Two MP moving images do a very good job at that distance res-wise (limit of 6/6 human vision). In any case the screen is only 2MP anyway, so things do get levelled out by viewing distance and screen resolution, like looking at 4x6" prints from 35mm and from MF. But agreed, moving images definitely seem to require much fewer pixels than stills.
Logged
Bored? Peruse my website: [url=http://ww

Ray

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 10365
Is Blu Ray dying?
« Reply #38 on: January 13, 2009, 12:01:05 pm »

Quote from: samirkharusi
Two MP moving images do a very good job at that distance res-wise (limit of 6/6 human vision). In any case the screen is only 2MP anyway, so things do get levelled out by viewing distance and screen resolution, like looking at 4x6" prints from 35mm and from MF. But agreed, moving images definitely seem to require much fewer pixels than stills.

Two MP still images also do a very good job at that distance. It so happens I have a 22"x35" print on the wall immediately above my 50" Plasma set. The image was taken with my 5D and interpolated to around 200MB for printing on my Epson 7600. I took the same file from which I made the print, downsampled it with bicubic sharper to around 5MB, converted it to sRGB, transferred the image to an SD card and displayed it on the plasma screen.

Guess what! The image on the plasma display looked better, viewing both images from approximately the same distance of 12-15ft. From that distance, neither appeared to be sharper or have greater subtlety of tonality than the other. The image on the plasma display looked better because of the transmissive nature of the screen. The contrast range was handled perfectly, and in fact the shadows seemed even more vibrant and natural than on the print.

Of course, you could argue that I must have done a lousy job making the print, but I don't believe so   .
Logged

Wally

  • Jr. Member
  • **
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 64
Is Blu Ray dying?
« Reply #39 on: January 13, 2009, 01:16:34 pm »

for me there is just no advantage to Blu Ray worth the extra costs. I have a large TV, and an upsampling DVD player. I can buy $5-$15 DVDs that look great to my eyes or I can drop $40+ for a Blu Ray disk I think not.

The jump from VHS to DVD was far more than just a better picture and sound. You also did not have to rewind and fast forward and DVDs were much smaller to store.

The only advantage for the average consumer with Blu Ray is that you can get a better picture but most of us just don't care.
Logged
Pages: 1 [2] 3 4 5   Go Up