Panny AE100 not full PAL DVD res?

dunkyboy

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Hi, I'm going to be in the market for a projector (LCD, <£2000) and I'm currently doing my research. I've heard wonderful things about the £1300 Panasonic AE-100, with it's true 16:9 LCDs. However, I was wondering how it looks with PAL DVDs, as its resolution is matched to NTSC 16:9 (i.e. 480 pixels high). I know the difference between that and PAL's 525 (visible) lines isn't much, but surely when viewing a PAL image, it has to be squeezed into the 480 lines somehow - does this not cause unwanted blockiness and jaggies? I would think it would be tricky to fix that sort of problem...

What are people's experiences with the Panny and PAL DVDs? Does it approach the quality of a 1024x768 4:3 LCD? Presumably it's considerably less detailed than 16:9 XGA (~1366x768?)

I ask because I saw the Sony 11HT today at a Sony Centre and it was goooooorgeous. No chicken wire, no blockiness - and this was out of the S-Video from a fairly cheap DVD player! (I can only imagine how it must look coming out of an HTPC on VGA connector...) Contrast this to my experience with the Sony HS1, which produces a fine picture, but whose 800x600 4:3 resolution causes fairly easily noticeable pixellation and jaggies, as well as chicken wire when fairly close to the screen.

So, what's the verdict on the Panny? Is it closer to the 11HT, or the HS1 in picture quality? (Note: if I only spend a bit more than a grand on the pj, I can afford a badass subwoofer to go with it! :p )

Cheers,

Dunc (AVforums newbie)
 
Sorry I have not seen the AE100 so can't comment on it's quality. I can say that NTSC is 525 lines with 480 usually used for picture and that PAL is 625 lines with 576 usually used for picture...so it's possibly worse than you first thought....

Gordon
 
:blush:

Sorry, my mistake - I believe you're right there. And yeah, I think you may also be right about the problem being worse than I thought... 480 lines is a fair bit less than 576!

Dunc
 
Welcome to the world dominated by NTSC. I for one have been openly critical of the difficiency of these DM LCD / DLP panels. There are however PAL aware versions in the wings. If however you look at the needed resolution for PAL you end up with 1024 x 768. Sound familiar to anyone.

The Panny, which I have seen twice now, can look awesome with RGB signal. I remain less convinced by the Sony units, mind you I have always had a problem with them.

I wouldn't get too hung up on 'resolution' of these panels. There is much more important things to worry about first. Colours, contrast / contrast / contrast / sealed optics / bulb life etc....

Ian G was selling his 200DM SIM2 on the classifieds a few days ago. That is really nice, especially at a good second hand price (low hours / well looked after unit). That would be my choice at this sort of money. Quality unit.
 
I, of course, agree.
(says owner of FOR SALE 200DM saving for Sim2 300)

Regards,
Ian Guinan
 
Its not as bad as you think, whilst 'PAL' does have 576 lines of resolution, you'll never see that much. First to stop the image flickering due to the interlace nature of the medium, all film transfers are vertically filtered to remove high frequency vertical detail during transfer, so the actually resolution carried is less than 576 lines.

Secondly, there is the Kell factor on a normal CRT which reduces the amount of information obtainable from the image to 70% at best (still image) and down as far as 50% when things are moving. This is equivalent to 400 lines down to about 288 lines, both less than the 480 resolution of the Panny, so you should theoretically be able to see more detail from a projector with 480 lines res than a PAL CRT (short of a grade 1 monitor)

So rest assured until true progressive 576p (not converted from a DVD) sources are available, the 480 line panel will do fine...

See you earlier,

Steven
 
Originally posted by Nic Rhodes
If however you look at the needed resolution for PAL you end up with 1024 x 768.
:confused: if a PAL TV signal has 576 lines in it, how does a vertical resolution of 768 help any? And, if the theoretical horizontal resolution of DVD is 704 pixels, how does a horizontal resolution on the display device of 1024 help any? By my simple reckoning, a 704x576 panel is exactly right for PAL. Irrespective of whether it is 16x9 or 4x3. Anything else will require scaling.
 
nigel,

Just as 848x480 is an exact fit for anamorphic NTSC DVDs, the optimal resolution for anamorphic PAL is 1024x576 (non anamorphic is close to what you said: 720x576). And 1024x576 is precisely the 16:9 subset of the XGA panel.
 
Originally posted by Grubert
nigel,

Just as 848x480 is an exact fit for anamorphic NTSC DVDs, the optimal resolution for anamorphic PAL is 1024x576 (non anamorphic is close to what you said: 720x576). And 1024x576 is precisely the 16:9 subset of the XGA panel.


Can you explain that in a bit more depth please? There's no way that a PAL signal has a horizonal res of 1024 so I don't see how this is the optimum size.


Gav
 
Originally posted by dunkyboy
576 / 9 *16 = 1024

I see - you're assuming square (1:1) pixels.

If the pixels in the panel are themselves a 16:9 ratio, the optimum resolution is either the native DVD res of 768x576 or some multiple of it.


Gav
 
Is that how it works? 16:9 LCD panels are just 768x576 panels with wider pixels?? That seems a bit of a cheat...
 
no, 16:9 panels have 16 pixels across for every9 down. So the PTAE-100 has 856 across and 480 down.

The incoming signal is 4:3 usually, and this is expanded to the width of the panel.

This actually gives you a benefit over trad. CRT, as this will stretch the original image, giving 'wide' pixels, whereas a HCPC can actually create extra pixels inbetween which should give more information.


So rest assured until true progressive 576p (not converted from a DVD) sources are available, the 480 line panel will do fine...

Surely even converted from DVD, you get the full 576p lines, as they are stored on DVD with the full frame information - its just converted to interlaced on output?
 
Originally posted by gavan


I see - you're assuming square (1:1) pixels.

If the pixels in the panel are themselves a 16:9 ratio, the optimum resolution is either the native DVD res of 768x576 or some multiple of it.


Gav
Yes, that is my point. There is nothing in the "rule book" that says that each pixel has to be square. If a 16x9 LCD panel were to be optimised for PAL then it would have 768 x576 pixels, each one being 16x9 in shape.

My maths isn't what it used to be. But, here is my guess at what would be the optimum panel for BOTH NTSC (480 lines and PAL (576 lines):

The horizontal array of each line is the same ie 768.

The vertical array should be a number into which both 480 and 576 will fit exactly. The ratio of 480:576 is exactly 5:6. Therefore the optimum number of vertical pixels is 480x6 (or 576x5) which is 2880.

Hence, the optimum fixel panel is 768 W x 2880 H. Obviously each pixel would need to be an oblong shape.

Or, if each pixel is square, then a fully optimised LCD panel would need to be 5210 x 2880.
 
Surely even converted from DVD, you get the full 576p lines, as they are stored on DVD with the full frame information - its just converted to interlaced on output?

Nope its scanned to 576i and filtered for such. However, a 576i signal and a 576p signal appear the same on disk when scanned from film (as film itself is progressive).

The result being that you are unlikely to get more than 484 lines of info out of a PAL DVD.

Though you probably will get a better image off a higher res panel but mainly for the same reasons you do from an NTSC dvd.

Certainly, I wouldn't be worried about the resolution aspect of the panny with PAL material.

See you earlier,

Steven
 
Originally posted by dunkyboy
Is that how it works? 16:9 LCD panels are just 768x576 panels with wider pixels?? That seems a bit of a cheat...

That's essentially how WS TV works with respect to receiving and displaying 16:9 material. The resolution is exactly the same as a regular screen but the pixels are 'fatter' than on a 4:3 set.


I'm not sure what the practicalities of LCD manufacture dictate though ... For LCD panels, I'd assume that they fabricate these panels in really big sheets and then somehow cut the required smaller panels out of them, not unlike fabricating multiple CPU die on a silicon wafer.

If this is the case, it's likely that all panels use 1:1 pixels as that way you wouldn't need to use a different process for 16:9 and 4:3 panels - you just cut the correct shape out of your master sheet depending on whether you want to make 4:3 or 16:9 panels.

However, IMO the optimum res. for a 16:9 panel should be 768x576 or an even multiple thereof. That said, it would degrade the quality of 4:3 pipctures with sidebars so maybe it's not such a good idea.


Gav
 

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