09-15-2022, 11:21 AM | #1 | |
Wizard
Posts: 1,778
Karma: 26050790
Join Date: Sep 2017
Device: PW3, Fire HD8 Gen7, Moto G7, Sansa Clip v2, Ruizu X26
|
TV tech
Quote:
My home theater setup is 4K. And 4K movies look good on it. Especially when you add HDR to the mix (that actually makes a much bigger difference than the 4K). But 1080 movies look good as well. And so do 720 movies. And I still watch DVDs on it too (gasp, not even Bluray - although I have that capability - but plain old regular DVDs). What are those, 480 I think? They are fine. Can I tell a difference? Of course, if I walk up close to the screen and examine the pixels. Does it make any difference in enjoyment of a movie? No. I read books to enjoy them. Not to microscopically examine the pixels on my eReader. |
|
09-15-2022, 01:28 PM | #2 | |
the rook, bossing Never.
Posts: 12,248
Karma: 89531599
Join Date: Jun 2017
Location: Ireland
Device: All 4 Kinds: epub eink, Kindle, android eink, NxtPaper11
|
Quote:
I still watch the odd VHS (about 480 line NTSC and 576 lines PAL /SECAM) only about 250 horizontal resolution unless a local S-Video recording (nearly 400). NTSC analogue video/VHS is seriously poorer colour than PAL too, but it was about 16 years earlier! My older HDTVs had component, SCART (RGB or composite), Y/C and composite, VGA and 4x HDMI. Latest TV only has 2 x HDMI, so I have a Yamaha Home Theatre (Theater) with 4x HDMI in and some adaptors for VGA, component, S-Video(=Y/C) and composite. Don't need the RGB one because the Philips BD player plays all regions DVD (but only local BD). I remember the rubbish UK 405 lines (378 visible lines, 625 = 576 and 525 = 480, hence VGA was 480 lines). It rand from 1936 to 1985 with a 1939 to 1946 gap. Political nonsense restarting it in 1946 for only 300 TV sets instead of USA 525 with 50 instead of 60, or waiting 2 years for 625. The USA and several European countries used 441 lines before 625. After WWII Europe used 625, except for France and Belgium (819). The 1080 line visible HD is based on Japan NHK 1125 line hybrid HD (1080 visible). HD is a bigger mess of standards than Analogue TV. It's annoying when a BBC or European DVD recording is mysteriously only "region 0" which is usually NTSC. |
|
Advert | |
|
09-15-2022, 05:16 PM | #3 |
Wizard
Posts: 1,361
Karma: 16297052
Join Date: Sep 2022
Device: Kobo Libra 2
|
The problem with film content on PAL DVD is that it's often just sped up to 25 fps, so not only does the movie become shorter, but sometimes the audio isn't even pitch corrected. It's possible to IVTC NTSC DVDs to restore the progressive frames of the film content, and the gap between 24 fps and 2400/1001 fps is much smaller than the gap between 24 and 25 fps.
|
09-15-2022, 06:05 PM | #4 | |
Resident Curmudgeon
Posts: 75,813
Karma: 134321338
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: Roslindale, Massachusetts
Device: Kobo Libra 2, Kobo Aura H2O, PRS-650, PRS-T1, nook STR, PW3
|
Quote:
|
|
09-15-2022, 06:35 PM | #5 |
Wizard
Posts: 1,361
Karma: 16297052
Join Date: Sep 2022
Device: Kobo Libra 2
|
Of course, you need a UHD player and UHD TV for the UHD Blu-ray to be worth anything. Blu-ray is also quite a bit more trouble if you want to rip your movies for things like NAS access.
|
Advert | |
|
09-15-2022, 07:11 PM | #6 |
Wizard
Posts: 1,778
Karma: 26050790
Join Date: Sep 2017
Device: PW3, Fire HD8 Gen7, Moto G7, Sansa Clip v2, Ruizu X26
|
My local library also has a ton of DVDs you can check out for free. But no Blurays that I am aware of. Some movies are not worth buying (some aren't even worth the cost to stream them). Older and less popular titles are not always available for streaming, and purchase (if you can find that) can sometimes get expensive. Libraries to the rescue! (at least some of the time)
p.s. - Example: Zorro the Gay Blade with George Hamilton, Lauren Hutton, Brenda Vaccaro, Ron Leibman... Funny movie. Older. Politically incorrect these days, so probably "canceled". I haven't seen it streamable. You can buy it, but it's like $10. Our library has it on DVD though. Last edited by haertig; 09-15-2022 at 07:19 PM. |
09-17-2022, 06:28 AM | #7 | |
Resident Curmudgeon
Posts: 75,813
Karma: 134321338
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: Roslindale, Massachusetts
Device: Kobo Libra 2, Kobo Aura H2O, PRS-650, PRS-T1, nook STR, PW3
|
Quote:
It means that when you do finally get a UHD TV, you are all set and ready to go instead of stuck with an HD Blu-Ray player and HD Blu-Ray. I've tested this on my Panasonic and it dowsclaes and converts HDR to SDR rather well. |
|
09-17-2022, 08:56 PM | #8 | |
Wizard
Posts: 1,778
Karma: 26050790
Join Date: Sep 2017
Device: PW3, Fire HD8 Gen7, Moto G7, Sansa Clip v2, Ruizu X26
|
Quote:
And currently, 4K sets do not cost a whole lot more than 1080 sets. They certainly DID, back when 4K first came out. But they don't now. You're kind of cutting off your nose to spite your face by sticking to purchases of older technology. Once the newer technologies become mainstream and drop in price, there's not much reason to buy old stuff. Once the price advantage has evaporated, what benefits are there? I can certainly see not replacing older stuff that is functioning fine and meeting your needs. I wouldn't replace that myself (says the guy still reading on a PW3). But once the old stuff starts deteriorating or it no longer meets your needs, treat yourself to some newer stuff if it's not going to cost you any more than re-buying old stuff. |
|
09-17-2022, 11:05 PM | #9 | ||
Wizard
Posts: 1,361
Karma: 16297052
Join Date: Sep 2022
Device: Kobo Libra 2
|
Quote:
Quote:
As for the benefits of older tech, the weak DRM on DVD means that you actually do own the movies you bought. BD DRM is significantly more draconian, and UHD BD is even worse still. I'm leery of investing in a format that may cease to work in the future, because a server somewhere is no longer online. I'm not even 100% sold on BD yet, so I'm certainly not going to jump into UHD BD. |
||
09-18-2022, 01:54 AM | #10 |
Wizard
Posts: 1,778
Karma: 26050790
Join Date: Sep 2017
Device: PW3, Fire HD8 Gen7, Moto G7, Sansa Clip v2, Ruizu X26
|
I personally think it's more than "a bit better", but everyone would have to judge for themselves:
|
09-18-2022, 02:03 AM | #11 |
Wizard
Posts: 1,361
Karma: 16297052
Join Date: Sep 2022
Device: Kobo Libra 2
|
Uhh... maybe I'm crazy, but that's not even the same picture, so I don't think it really proves anything.
|
09-18-2022, 02:13 AM | #12 | |
Wizard
Posts: 1,778
Karma: 26050790
Join Date: Sep 2017
Device: PW3, Fire HD8 Gen7, Moto G7, Sansa Clip v2, Ruizu X26
|
Quote:
I think it is somewhat akin to taking multiple captures of an image, each using different exposure settings, and then combining those images taking the best from each and coming up with a composite. Something like that, in basic terms. p.s. - The above description is my understanding of the process as it was originally done with still photos. I believe the techniques to come up with an HDR output in video are implemented differently. For one, I believe the control information in an HDR video stream instructs the backlighting of the display device to change for different parts of the image. But just like in regular photography, if parts of the image are blown out to pure white, or so underexposed that they are pure black, no amount of processing is going to bring detail to areas that simply have none. Hence, you need a camera (still or video) that captures different parts of the image at different exposures. I don't think this can be done with one single capture, but I'm not an expert on the implementation. I just like the results! Last edited by haertig; 09-18-2022 at 02:20 AM. |
|
09-18-2022, 02:36 AM | #13 |
Wizard
Posts: 1,778
Karma: 26050790
Join Date: Sep 2017
Device: PW3, Fire HD8 Gen7, Moto G7, Sansa Clip v2, Ruizu X26
|
p.p.s. - My TV does HDR, however, it was one of the first that did it, and it does not display on the screen "Hey, you are looking at an HDR video stream" like the newer sets do. But you can tell the difference, and not by just eyeballing the result and declaring "it must be HDR because it looks so good". On TV sets, you can adjust the intensity of the backlight in settings. Normally you set that at far less than 100% intensity. I can't remember the exact number I have mine set at, but lets just say it was 65% for this discussion. You would never set your backlight at 100% intensity ... the resulting picture would be horrible. Anyway, when playing SDR content, I can go to settings while the film is playing and observe that my backlight intensity is 65%. That indicates SDR. But when I am playing HDR content, I can go to settings and I find my backlight has been turned up to 100%. This is because the control info in the HDR content subsequently instructs the backlight to alter its intensity for different parts of the image. As soon as the HDR content stops and things revert back to SDR, then I can observe in my settings that the backlight is once again set to 65%. This is how I can verify I am looking at HDR content objectively, not subjectively. Sometimes a scene in a movie is intentionally dark and low contrast, because that's the way the director wanted it. HDR does not automatically brighten that to make midnight look like noon. The control info in the HDR stream instructs the TV to display the parts it wants as "dark, and the viewer shouldn't be able to make out details". Because of this, you can't just look at any scene in any film and deduce, "This is HDR content". Some scenes you are not meant to be able to see well.
|
09-18-2022, 04:17 AM | #14 | ||
Resident Curmudgeon
Posts: 75,813
Karma: 134321338
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: Roslindale, Massachusetts
Device: Kobo Libra 2, Kobo Aura H2O, PRS-650, PRS-T1, nook STR, PW3
|
Quote:
Quote:
|
||
09-18-2022, 04:32 AM | #15 | |||
Wizard
Posts: 1,361
Karma: 16297052
Join Date: Sep 2022
Device: Kobo Libra 2
|
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
The luma (Y) and chroma (UV) are commonly arranged in a planar format (meaning Y and UV are stored separately, rather than interleaved) called YV12. This is much more efficient than RGB, and the quality degradation is hardly noticeable, leading to a big compression efficiency increase, but there's a problem: how do you convert back to RGB, so you can actually display the image on your TV? There are multiple standards for this, and this is where SDR vs HDR comes in. Regular Blu-ray uses Rec.709 to define the rules of the conversion, whereas UHD Blu-ray uses Rec.2100 for things like Dolby Vision. The main thing to note on each Wikipedia page is the spectrum area covered by the black triangle: Rec.2100 (and Rec.2020, which Rec.2100 was extended from) cover a much higher percentage of all possible visible colours than Rec.709 does by specifying different conversion formulas for how to move between YUV and RGB. Rec.2020 covers the same wide gamut as Rec.2100, but it doesn't support HDR. As long as you record the original footage in HDR, you can convert to SDR by doing a YUV -> RGB conversion using Rec.2100, and then converting RGB -> YUV using Rec.709 (or Rec.601, if you want SD resolution). The move from 8 bits per pixel to 10-12 bits per pixel is also somewhat relevant, but this is mostly useful from a compression perspective: the banding artifacts caused by using 8 bpp reduce compression so badly that using 10 bpp (4x more precision) actually improves compression, despite the need to represent more information. Hopefully I haven't mucked this up too badly. Video encoding is a complex subject, and I'm only a hobbyist, not an expert. |
|||
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
IQ tech.problems, HELP. | Stevereader | PocketBook | 9 | 10-08-2011 07:17 AM |
Tech Savy | jbcohen | General Discussions | 70 | 05-03-2011 06:46 AM |
Considering ereader tech | jbcohen | General Discussions | 12 | 10-28-2010 11:20 AM |
Gen3 Rookie needs tech help | Katiesue | Bookeen | 2 | 09-21-2010 06:18 AM |