[RecordablDVDfan]

Yes HD looks good but I've yet to see a picture which looks like what people say 'like looking out of the window' or is this a myth ?!

[Starburst]

It certainly looks far better than anything you would have ever seen on a domestic telly but in reality it isn't like looking out of the window although I suspect if HD panels were used to simulate a full sized big window then they would do a pretty good job making allowances for a flat display.

[probedb]

All depends on the bitrate and stuff as to how sharp it is as well as display and even how it was filmed. Yes it's detailed but you'd need something like UDTV or whatever it's called that the Japanese are working on for it to be truly like you're looking out of the window.

[Razor]

Good HD is pin sharp and in focus. Looks like looking out of a window. Peachy...

[rogeralpine]

What sort of improvement do you reckon we'll see between HDDVD/BluRay and the current broadcasts that are available of films/TV shows that are in the States etc..?

Some stuff I am very impressed with, other stuff looks plain average, and the rest is very good but still a way off what I know HD can achieve.

[TankTopLover]

Originally Posted by rogeralpine

What sort of improvement do you reckon we'll see between HDDVD/BluRay and the current broadcasts that are available of films/TV shows that are in the States etc..?

Some stuff I am very impressed with, other stuff looks plain average, and the rest is very good but still a way off what I know HD can achieve.

As stated previously many times,it all depends on the bit rate/compression etc.If you view an LG/Panasonic demo on a 60" screen it does indeed look pin sharp.

[Rob20]

I would love to see what 1080p50/60 braodcasts of live prem footy matches look like on a 60"+ screen. I can imagine that could look like looking through a window.

[rogeralpine]

Originally Posted by slinkywonka

As stated previously many times,it all depends on the bit rate/compression etc.If you view an LG/Panasonic demo on a 60" screen it does indeed look pin sharp.

...exactly - these demos have obviously been conceived to display the best possible image and I think they're superb - in the real world though sadly the images we watch are not as good due to the obvious constraints etc..

I am more intrigued as to whether HDDVD/BluRay mastered films will look nearly as good as the HD demos doing the rounds due to the fact there are not as many constraints on this format compared with broadcasts of this material? I realise there are many factors that will dictate whether or not a studio mastered BluRay film will look pin sharp, I'm just hoping that in the main the studios take the time and effort to master a decent copy rather that half-heartidly produce something that falls short of what the format can achieve just so that they can line their pockets quickly.

[blakey1]

Originally Posted by rogeralpine

...exactly - these demos have obviously been conceived to display the best possible image and I think they're superb - in the real world though sadly the images we watch are not as good due to the obvious constraints etc..

I am more intrigued as to whether HDDVD/BluRay mastered films will look nearly as good as the HD demos doing the rounds due to the fact there are not as many constraints on this format compared with broadcasts of this material? I realise there are many factors that will dictate whether or not a studio mastered BluRay film will look pin sharp, I'm just hoping that in the main the studios take the time and effort to master a decent copy rather that half-heartidly produce something that falls short of what the format can achieve just so that they can line their pockets quickly.

Ive read one review regarding Blu Ray/HD-DVD from the CES. The reviewer was not that impressed and he said that the picture was Sharper due to the extra pixels but that the jump from 480p to 720p was not that great. I assume we will all have to wait and see for ourselves once Blu Ray etc is launched.

[rogeralpine]

Beauty and the eye of the beholder and all that!!

Possibly my worst fears realised, but as usual I'll wait for more comments and my own personal assessment. Doesn't install me with confidence though - you'd expect a tester product to at least show what the format is capable of.

A long wait ahead then?

[mmace]

Originally Posted by Rob20

I would love to see what 1080p50/60 braodcasts of live prem footy matches look like on a 60"+ screen. I can imagine that could look like looking through a window.

you'll be waiting a few years to see that!

[Miyazaki]

My 50" Sony KDFE is like looking out of a window on some stuff, not quite as good on others.

[RecordablDVDfan]

Originally Posted by slinkywonka

As stated previously many times,it all depends on the bit rate/compression etc.If you view an LG/Panasonic demo on a 60" screen it does indeed look pin sharp.

This is'nt the same demo as I saw on the LG 42" in Richer sounds today ? Nice content of course but not pin sharp to me

[Oakleyspatz]

I suppose it's like DVD really. I mean all DVDs have the same potential for a great image but some are stinkers and some look close to HD. As already said, it all depends on the transfer/bitrate etc. of the image. HD displays have the potential for incredible images but the suppliers of those images need to insure they are up to scratch.

They need to clean the window before we can look out of it so to speak!!!

I agree with RecordablDVDFan about the LG demo not being the best (saw it in Dixons). The PV500 Hi-Vision and Sagem HD-D45 demos I have seen in John Lewis truly are stunning though, even if the Sagem was frameskipping!

HDTV demos are quite variable in quality and so are the screens they are demoed on. Hopefully Sky's HD picture will be more consistent.

[RecordablDVDfan]

I presume Comet / Dixons etc will be showing Sky HD live when it finally starts instaed of the demo's ? How will we know just how good or not so good Sky HD is otherwise, perhaps some copyright / contractual reason against this though ?

[Rob20]

Originally Posted by mmace

you'll be waiting a few years to see that!

Yeah, I know. Still one day...

[tryingtimes]

I've been pretty impressed by a lot of the HD demos.
The ones featuring New Zealand seem to be particularly impressive!
The Epson demo is really clean and deep, and the huge Panasonic one where everything flies out of the screen at a woman for about 10 times before you get to the good stuff.

I've got quite a few film clips, they are never as impressive, mainly because they are so stylised. The cinamatographer doesn't want it to look like you're looking out of a window.
Gladiator is probably the exception - just like the DVD is.

Unfortunately, we're probably going to have a wide range of transfer quality, just like we do with DVD.

I'm using a PC into a 720p crt projector.

[Stephen Neal]

The most pin-sharp HD I have seen has been on broadcast quality CRT monitors (Sony), fed by a broadcast VTR (HD-D5). This was both 1080/60i and 1080/50i. I've also seen HDCam in the same situation, and that was also excellent. Content was music and sport. The CRT may technically not have had the best possible resolution performance - but the lack of any other artefacts made up for this, delivering an incredibly natural picture, with no objectionable digital artefacting.

Once you get flat panels like plasmas and LCDs which de-interlace and otherwise process the picture, and add MPEG2 or MPEG4 compression into the mix, the quality is noticably compromised, and whilst still excellent, is not the same "pin sharp" look.

Also - the "looking through a window" effect is only really achieved with 50/60i or p material - whilst a lot of non-sport HD is usually drama, and thus 24/25p, and often processed to look like film (so has a slight intentional softness - though the softness is more sharply defined!)

[tryingtimes]

Originally Posted by Stephen Neal

though the softness is more sharply defined!)

Yes I know what you mean, there is a liquidity to the softness that isn't there with a scaled image. Crystalio I made a similar kind of difference to video content compared with DScaler - I had a hard time describing it - punch/gloss/depth - it's just an extra sparkle

Originally Posted by Stephen Neal

Once you get flat panels like plasmas and LCDs which de-interlace and otherwise process the picture, and add MPEG2 or MPEG4 compression into the mix, the quality is noticably compromised, and whilst still excellent, is not the same "pin sharp" look.

If you do an A-B comparison then compressed video will always look noticeably worse than uncompressed, but the best HD demos do look pin sharp to my eyes. Unfortunately the worst ones look like overcompressed SD! I'm not sure whether the source material or the screen is to blame in these cases.

[tryingtimes]

Are you talking about demos in shops? If so then any number of things could have mucked up the image.

[Stephen Neal]

Originally Posted by Quickbeam

If you do an A-B comparison then compressed video will always look noticeably worse than uncompressed, but the best HD demos do look pin sharp to my eyes. Unfortunately the worst ones look like overcompressed SD! I'm not sure whether the source material or the screen is to blame in these cases.

I think it is difficult to say - as the two interact. Poor display processing may unduly emphasise compression artefacts for example.

Many of the store HD demos I've seen have :

Very optimised source material - lots of saturated video, shot in bright sunlight. Bright sunlight means that the camera can run with a very narrow aperture, so has a huge depth of field - meaning almost everything is in focus, whether it is close to the camera or far away. This means the whole image should be pin-focus sharp. Similarly, high levels of light mean that the camera CCD is running with no gain - or even negative gain - so there is little video noise to worry about.

The actual picture content is all bright colours - red flowers, colourful dresses, green grass etc. - and this emphasises the component (and constant luminance) of HD.

Most of the stuff I've seen is 50/60 interlaced, or 50/60 progressive, so has the fluid motion that adds to the realism. (i.e. it doesn't have the jerky motion of film or 24/25p video - that drama producers love)

Much of the HD I've seen (apart from the Sagem WMV stuff) has also been very well MPEG2 encoded at what seems to be a very high data rate, well in excess of anything being broadcast in the US. (Only D-VHS approaches it)

This is great for creating the "Wow" factor in shops - but not typical of the HD live TV we may end up with. HD1 off-air in some locations has been far more realistic - though even then a lot of this is opera and ballet - which is often very highly lit, and thus cleaner than a lot of real-world video.

[Stephen Neal]

Originally Posted by tryingtimes

Yes I know what you mean, there is a liquidity to the softness that isn't there with a scaled image. Crystalio I made a similar kind of difference to video content compared with DScaler - I had a hard time describing it - punch/gloss/depth - it's just an extra sparkle

Yep - you see a more detailed blur! (That does make sense)

I think one of the reasons some scalers work better than others is that the best devices will treat a video source not as pixels, but as samples. Once you begin to think of the video as a much higher resolution source that has been sampled, rather than a perfect copy of the image, you start thinking differently about how you treat stuff.

Broadcast video gear usually delivers better looking real-world pictures than IT gear attempting to do the same job. (A lot of IT gear struggles when pixels/samples don't have a 1:1 aspect ratio as well - very annoying...)

[NicolasB]

HD certainly will not be "like looking out of a window". For starters, no display available now or in the near future even gets close to the kind of dynamic range available in genuine daylight. Think about how bright the sun is if you're looking directly at it - until a display can be as bright as that, while (at other times) achieving close to total darkness, it won't look real.

Second, the image is not three dimensional. It always make grind my teeth when people talk about projector images being "three dimensional" - they aren't. There is no stereoscopic 3D (unless you're using a glasses-based system), and no parallax effect (even if you are using glasses).

Third, the screen still isn't big enough. There is a rather interesting effect which kicks in when a display occupies more than a certain viewing angle, and I can never remember what the number is, but it's quite large - 60 degrees, maybe? If the image is that large then suddenly it really does feel like you're looking through a window.

Think about the difference between an Imax screen and a conventional cinema screen: Imax is large enough to achieve this effect (have you ever watched a clip of a roller-coaster - the camera giving a passenger's eye view - on an Imax screen? It makes you fall over!) but a regular cinema screen is too small. Given that a regular cinema screen (35mm film) has a resolution of roughly 4000x2000 we have quite some way to go before we can get resolutions and screen sizes high enough for a home-IMax.

Given that a regular cinema screen (35mm film) has a resolution of roughly 4000x2000 we have quite some way to go before we can get resolutions and screen sizes high enough for a home-IMax.

Film doesn't really have a 'resolution' as such. Unprocessed 35mm does have a very high resolution. However by the time it has been duplicated and projected at the cinema along with all the other variables such as gate weave etc the effective resolution is drastically reduced so much that HD is pretty much on par with it.

in fact HD appears sharper than film because it is much better at reproducing detail along all detail frequencies (one reason why makeup artists sometimes hate working with HD, and actresses complain that it shows up every pock mark.)

HD is overrated somewhat. It is great for large screen sizes at a recommended viewing distance. But below a certain screen size and at the viewing distance some people view their televisions from HD will not really give that much benefit.

That said, when viewed from a decent distance on a decent screen and screen size HD can be pretty amazing. Although I spent part of last week at the Video Forum with high def displays left right and centre. Not all was impressive. In fact I saw one demo of a hardware upconverter that was downcoverting a direct HDCAM feed before upconverting it again for display on an £11k broadcast grade 1 Sony high def CRT. The result was incredible and I wouldn't have known I was watching an SD resolution signal unless I had been told. And remember this was on a monitor that is designed to show up every single flaw in the signal!

At the end of the day high def will give you a slightly more vibrant and defined picture than normal. Under normal viewing conditions it won't really blow you away. There is also the question of compression.

[tryingtimes]

Originally Posted by NicolasB

HD certainly will not be "like looking out of a window". For starters, no display available now or in the near future even gets close to the kind of dynamic range available in genuine daylight. Think about how bright the sun is if you're looking directly at it - until a display can be as bright as that, while (at other times) achieving close to total darkness, it won't look real.

Second, the image is not three dimensional. It always make grind my teeth when people talk about projector images being "three dimensional" - they aren't. There is no stereoscopic 3D (unless you're using a glasses-based system), and no parallax effect (even if you are using glasses).

Third, the screen still isn't big enough. There is a rather interesting effect which kicks in when a display occupies more than a certain viewing angle, and I can never remember what the number is, but it's quite large - 60 degrees, maybe? If the image is that large then suddenly it really does feel like you're looking through a window.

Think about the difference between an Imax screen and a conventional cinema screen: Imax is large enough to achieve this effect (have you ever watched a clip of a roller-coaster - the camera giving a passenger's eye view - on an Imax screen? It makes you fall over!) but a regular cinema screen is too small. Given that a regular cinema screen (35mm film) has a resolution of roughly 4000x2000 we have quite some way to go before we can get resolutions and screen sizes high enough for a home-IMax.

Nobody said it was like a BIG window
I think you're mixing all sorts of effects up here.

Firstly - some projectors can get super-bright and super-dark, but that doesn't complete the illusion.
Secondly I don't have to squint when I do normal everyday activities, my eye's iris takes care of that. I don't think it's necessary to do what you're asking to be able to appear window-like.

Then there's the fact that the brain can be deceived very easily by motion if there are no reference points - those 360-degree cinemas at fairgrounds don't have much resolution or dynamic range, they just remove all frames of reference.

Also - the lack of stereovision doesn't really effect that much when you're looking at mid-far objects.

When we get all the things you're asking, we'll definitely be better off, but I don't think they're all necessary to achieve the window effect.

[Roger G Cam]

Originally Posted by SimonMW

HD is overrated somewhat. It is great for large screen sizes at a recommended viewing distance. But below a certain screen size and at the viewing distance some people view their televisions from HD will not really give that much benefit.

That said, when viewed from a decent distance on a decent screen and screen size HD can be pretty amazing.

This is my fear. My living room is a small box - symptomatic of the lack of land available for building in the UK. My budget is also - measured. I would like a 32" but might opt for a 26".

The question hanging in the back of my mind is - will it actually make any difference? Would I actually have a better picture if I just kept my now aging CRT Widescreen - 28" so the equivalent of the LCD 26".

I will certainly be asking a local retailer to display Sky Sports - and also to display it in SD.

But - is 26" too small? Or is a living room about the size of a shoe box too small for HD?

(Now - if the Beeb broadcast the Open in HD over Satellite and then Sky do the Ryder cup....)

Roger

[blakey1]

Originally Posted by Roger G Cam

This is my fear. My living room is a small box - symptomatic of the lack of land available for building in the UK. My budget is also - measured. I would like a 32" but might opt for a 26".

The question hanging in the back of my mind is - will it actually make any difference? Would I actually have a better picture if I just kept my now aging CRT Widescreen - 28" so the equivalent of the LCD 26".

I will certainly be asking a local retailer to display Sky Sports - and also to display it in SD.

But - is 26" too small? Or is a living room about the size of a shoe box too small for HD?

(Now - if the Beeb broadcast the Open in HD over Satellite and then Sky do the Ryder cup....)

Roger

Research from the BBC suggests that from the average viewing distance many will see little benefit from HD alone on a screen under 42 inches. This though will depend on how good your vision is. With HDTV and Blu Ray/HD-DVD you will have to take into account bit rates etc which are likely to be alot higher than on SD stuff so combining the 2 the difference on smaller screens maybe noticeable.

There are a fair few on here who have suggested that they have seen a big difference between HD and SD on their 32 inch screens but I assume most will have to view and decide for themselves.

It depends. If you can't currently see the line structure on your current TV you will be unlikely to get much benefit.

Basically HD was designed for an optimum viewing distance of 3 screen heights compared to 5-7 of SD. So you could have a larger TV set and be closer to it without seeing line structure, and hence become more immersed in the programme.

I think you probably would notice a difference with a 32" set if you were close enough. Problem with HD is that it has become a bit of a buzzword. Skys new HD service will probably benefit pubs with large screens showing the football more than most peoples homes.