Joshua Zyber | High-Def Digest

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20th Century HD Advisor

Thu Jul 02, 2009 at 03:00 PM ET
Tags: HD Advisor, Joshua Zyber (all tags)

Editor's Note: Each Friday, High-Def Digest's own HD Advisor will answer a new round of questions from our readers. If you have home theater questions you need answered, send an email to HDanswers@gmail.com.

If you've already sent a question and don't see it answered yet, please be patient as we work our way through them. To browse through previously answered questions, visit the main HD Advisor page.

Answers by Joshua Zyber

IMAX Digital Theaters

Q: I was extremely disappointed in the IMAX digital showing of the new 'Star Trek'. I went expecting the 70mm experience, and found it was basically a 2-projector digitally produced image. Although I have not compared it to the “standard” theater release, I did some research and found there is a great deal of controversy about the IMAX label being used on something seriously inferior to 70mm IMAX film. How do you weigh in on this?

A: As you've noted, there are two types of IMAX theater out there. The original IMAX configuration consists of huge screens (approximately 72'x53'), and movies projected from 15-perf, 70mm film stock (referred to as IMAX 15/70). IMAX film has a frame size almost 10 times larger than traditional 35mm, and even 3 times larger than standard 65mm stock. Content natively shot on IMAX film, such as the nature documentaries and short subjects that routinely play in IMAX theaters, exhibit breathtaking clarity and detail when projected in their original format.

When Hollywood movies shot on 35mm film are projected in IMAX 15/70 theaters, the image is blown up to the larger film stock through a process known as "DMR," which stands for "Digital Re-Mastering." (Yes, the letters are jumbled, but "DRM" is already an acronym for "Digital Rights Management," which is something else entirely.)

In recent years, the IMAX corporation has shifted to digital projection. Newer IMAX theaters utilize two 2k-resolution DLP projectors. Digital IMAX theaters also usually have much smaller screens, averaging 58'x28'.

Personally, I'm with Aziz Ansari on this. I feel that digital IMAX theaters are essentially false advertising. The company lures audiences in with the IMAX name, which promises a huge screen theatrical experience. What you get instead is a screen barely larger (sometimes not even) than a standard theater, using projectors the same resolution as any other DLP cinema. The company does not distinguish one type of theater from another in its branding. You have to do your research beforehand to find out which type of IMAX you'll be getting at an IMAX theater. Really rubbing salt in the wound, most theaters add a surcharge to IMAX ticket prices.

Furthermore, I have to say that I'm not a fan of the DMR upconversion process, regardless of whether the results are projected in a 15/70 theater or a digital theater. (I have confirmed with IMAX that movies projected in their digital theaters also undergo DMR upconversion.) From their own description of it (emphasis mine):

"The image on a 35mm film frame is comprised of a fine grain structure like that of all photographic images. This grain when projected on to the IMAX screen looks like a TV channel that isn't quite tuned to the station. Removing this grain while preserving the quality of the underlying image is the basis of IMAX DMR.

To create the brightness and clarity that audiences have come to expect from The IMAX Experience®, IMAX uses a proprietary computer program to make the images sharper than they were originally, while colors are adjusted for the unique technically superior characteristics of the IMAX screen."

In other words, to convert 35mm movies to the "IMAX Experience," the company digitizes the footage, applies Digital Noise Reduction to remove grain, and then applies artificial sharpening and Edge Enhancement to sharpen the picture back up. You'll note that, in our Blu-ray reviews here at High-Def Digest, we frequently complain about the negative consequences of DNR and EE in video transfers. As bad as those artifacts look on your HDTV at home, the problems are only magnified on a large theatrical screen.

IMAX will argue that the proprietary computer programs they use for the DMR process are more sophisticated than those used for home video. I beg to disagree. Every IMAX DMR presentation I've seen has exhibited an obvious lack of textural detail and consistent (often severe) edge ringing artifacts.

As a videophile, I do not recommend viewing Hollywood movies in an IMAX theater, except for special cases where portions of the movie were photographed on real IMAX film, such as 'The Dark Knight' or 'Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen'. In those instances, you should seek out an IMAX 15/70 theater. In digital projection, the IMAX sequences are downconverted to the same 2k resolution as the rest of the film. However, be warned that, as good as the IMAX scenes in those movies will look in 15/70, the rest of the 35mm footage will have undergone DMR tinkering.

For my money, I prefer to view 35mm movies in a quality 35mm theater rather than an IMAX theater. If the movie was photographed digitally or utilized a Digital Intermediate during post production, the best option is to find a good (non-IMAX) DLP theater, which will project the original digital file provided to them by the studio, rather than a DMR'ed manipulation of it.

Region-Free Blu-ray Playback

Q: I assume you have region-free Blu-ray capabilities as I've seen you review imports in the past. I've been looking into getting a backup player which is not region locked or at least switchable. The other issue is my trusty old DVD player is dying and preferably any multi-region Blu-ray player would be multi-region for DVD as well... and if it's at all possible, throw decent DVD upscaling into the bargain. Most of my Googling around on this issue has thrown up two options: very cheap and nasty looking south-east Asian units which look like they'll fall apart out of the box, and very expensive professional modifications of brand name players which presumably void the warranty. What other options have you found?

A: I'm only aware of two Blu-ray players that can be made region-free for Blu-ray playback out-of-the-box just by entering special codes on the remote control.

I use an LG BH200 Blu-ray/HD DVD combi player for this purpose. I managed to pick one up at the tail end of the model's life cycle, when it was being blown out at discount prices by the Best Buy chain. With the right sequence of numbers on the remote control, the player can be switched to a designated region. (There is no "all-region" setting, so you may need to change the region depending on the disc being watched.) In addition, the player also has excellent DVD upconversion from the QDEO processing chip. On the other hand, the unit has a number of quirks. If you play a disc with 50 Hz content on it, the player cannot convert it to 60 Hz. You will need to connect the player to a display compatible with 50 Hz signals. Also, the unit has a reputation for being glitchy with many newer Blu-ray discs, and HD DVD discs in general. Unfortunately, the model is long-since discontinued, and LG's firmware support for it is sketchy at best.

Recently, the Momitsu BDP-899 hit the scene, likewise promising region switching with a remote control sequence. From my understanding, it has a similar limitation regarding 50 Hz content. I have not used this player myself, and cannot comment on its quality. Given Momitsu's history, I wouldn't expect much out of its DVD upconversion. Prior Momitsu DVD players were based on poor, flag-reading deinterlacing chips.

The other option is to buy a brand name player that's been hardware modified to remove region restrictions. As you've found, these tend to be very expensive, and the modification voids any manufacturer warranty. Also, depending on the model, you may find that some don't support 50 Hz content at all.

Although I'm not at liberty to post the details (please don't email to ask; I won't respond), I've heard that there is a bootleg firmware available for one recently-released Blu-ray player that will allegedly hack it for region-free playback at no extra expense. I have not actually tried this firmware myself. Again, this modification is not authorized by the manufacturer, and will void the warranty. Attempt it at your own risk.

DTS-HD Master Audio on 'Terminator 2'

Q: I recently purchased the 'Terminator 2: Skynet Edition' Blu-ray. It has a 6.1 DTS Master Audio soundtrack advertised on the box. When playing this Blu-ray, my Denon 3808CI shows 6 channels as being input, so it looks to me like its 6.1 discrete channels. However, there is some discussion in the forums that claim this Blu-ray disc is really a 5.1 soundtrack with a matrixed sixth channel, like some DTS-ES DVDs use. For DTS Master Audio, are all channels always discrete? Or, does the DTS MA spec also allow for matrixed channels, like the DVDs have? And, specifically, does this 'T2' Blu-ray actually have a 6.1 discrete channel soundtrack, or a 5.1 soundtrack with a matrixed sixth channel?

A: The DTS-HD Master Audio spec allows for up to 7.1 discrete channels of audio on Blu-ray. According to this post at the Home Theater Forum by disc producer Van Ling, the Master Audio soundtrack on the Skynet Edition Blu-ray of 'Terminator 2' is a 5.1 track with a matrixed sixth channel.

Homework Assignment: You Be the Advisor

Some questions that the HD Advisor receives are best answered by our readers. If you can help to answer the following question, please post your response in our forum thread linked at the end of this article. Your advice and opinions matter too!

CCFL Backlights in LCD TVs

Q: Why do a lot of modern LCD TVs employ some form of CCFL strobing for adjusting the level of the backlight? For those that are sensitive to this, setting the backlight lower produces a visible rainbow effect in high contrast scenes, not unlike what was seen with DLP displays. Do LED backlights dim via the same method?

Check back next week for another round of answers. Keep those questions coming.

See what people are saying about this story in our forums area, or check out other recent discussions.

K-19: The HD Advisor

Fri Jun 26, 2009 at 03:00 PM ET
Tags: HD Advisor, Joshua Zyber (all tags)

Answers by Joshua Zyber

Overscan

Q: I own a Panasonic 50" TV and have viewed many movies on it over the years. What bothers me is that no matter what the aspect ratio is (whether it be 1.85:1, 1.78:1 or even 1.66:1), the screen never seems to have any black bars below or beside the image (with the exception of course that it's a really wide image like 2.35:1 or a really slim TV show image of 1.33:1). That may be fine for most people, but I can't help but feel like I'm missing some of the picture. After months of searching for an answer I discovered that TVs have something called "overscan" built in where the image is purposely cropped off around the screen image so you can't see the edges. So my question is, if the movie has 1080 lines of resolution and my TV has 1080 lines how can the pixels not line up exactly?

A: As you've noted, almost all consumer televisions have some degree of overscan built in. Overscan means that a small amount of picture information will be cropped from all four edges of the image. The exact amount will vary by model. Around 5% is common, with some particularly bad sets losing up to 10%.

With older CRT televisions, the scan gun sprays the picture across the back of the tube. As seen from the viewer's perspective in front, the television's bezel (the frame around the screen) is built to obscure the edges of the tube. In other words, the gun literally scans the image beyond the parts of the screen that the viewer can see. The picture's there; it's just been blocked from view.

Overscan was initially implemented back in the 1930s due to variations in manufacturing tolerances between different television sets. Covering the edges of the screen with the bezel helped to disguise the curvature of the tube a little bit, and also blocked the viewer from seeing parts of the broadcast signal not intended for their eyes.

Although modern digital televisions have much less need for overscan, the process has continued in order to ensure compatibility with older transmission signals. If you were to watch an analog NTSC broadcast with no overscan on your television, you'd be liable to see signal noise in the blanking intervals around the edges. That noise was actually digital data such as Closed Captioning, time codes, and test signals. Of course, analog NTSC broadcasts officially ceased this month, making this an even less relevant concern. Nonetheless, up until now, it served some purpose.

The way overscan works on a digital TV is different than it worked on analog sets. Digital screens have a native resolution; in the case of a 1080p set, that would be 1920x1080 pixels. Generally, all of those pixels are visible to the viewer's eye, with none obscured by the bezel. If the TV implements overscan, the scaling chip inside the set zooms the picture to crop off the edges. Therefore, a 1080p input signal may not be 1:1 pixel matched to the 1080p screen.

Overscan is not and has never been needed (or wanted) during playback of DVD or Blu-ray video. Regardless, if the TV has overscan by default, it may apply it to those as well. Some HDTVs are programmed to automatically disable (or at least lessen) the overscan setting if fed a progressive scan or HD input signal. In that case, the overscan only comes into play with 480i SD content. Unfortunately, other sets are not that smart, and simply apply overscan to everything.

It sounds like your TV is one of the latter. To determine exactly how much picture you're losing to overscan, pick up a calibration disc such as 'Digital Video Essentials' or the 'Spears & Munsil HD Benchmark'. These discs will contain test patterns to measure where your screen cuts off.

24 fps on a 720p Projector

Q: Last year I purchased an Epson EMP-TW700 projector. It is not FullHD, only HD-Ready. According to its manual, it supports the following signals: NTSC / NTSC 4.43 / PAL / M-PAL / N-PAL / PAL60 / SECAM/ 480i / 480p / 526i / 526p / 720p / 1080i / 1080p. Now I would like to purchase a Pioneer 51FD Blu-ray player and connect it via HDMI to this projector. On different forums, I've read that this projector won't be able to properly play Blu-ray discs because of its lack of 24p feature. So, as they write on the forum, in case of this configuration I cannot watch Blu-ray 24p discs without flickering or jumps? Is there any alternative setting in the Pioneer BD player which can fix this problem? It would be lousy if I had to watch High Def Blu rays with continuous jumps.

A: The EMP-TW700 is a 720p projector. Any video content you feed it will be scaled to the projector's native 1280x720 resolution for display. While 720p is obviously inferior to 1080p in terms of resolution, both are considered true high definition formats. The TW700 should be able to play Blu-ray discs just fine. It just scales the 1080p input signal to 720p first.

Some 720p projectors are able to accept a 24 fps signal and display it at an even multiple of that frame rate without 3:2 Pulldown judder. I used to own a Mitsubishi 720p projector that could display Blu-rays at 48 Hz. In my searching, I can't find a conclusive answer as to whether the TW700 will accept a 1080p24 signal. Those specs you cite from the manual would suggest not. A couple of the online reviews I've found state that it will, while a few others say that it doesn't.

In a worst case scenario, you'll still be able to watch Blu-rays at the projector's native 720p resolution and 60 Hz playback rate. The "jumps" you refer to would be the judder introduced by 3:2 Pulldown. However, as I wrote in my What's the Big Deal About 1080p24? article, the difference between 24 fps and 60 Hz is very subtle. Most people don't notice it at all. Since you've owned this projector for a year now, I'm going to assume that you've been watching DVDs and/or TV content on it during that time. If the 60 Hz rate hasn't bothered you with those, then it won't bother you with Blu-ray either.

Color Temperature

Q: I understand that when viewing BD/DVD movies on a player, we should calibrate our HD screens to 6500K (D65) as the disc has been mastered for this color temperature. Does this also apply to HDTV shows (other than movies) we get over the air/sat/cable? What about other material on BD/DVDs such as concerts, documentary, TV series, etc. that are shot on HD video? Are the discs mastered to D65? Comparing the D65 mode to the standard mode on my screen, the D65 mode is less bright, close to what I get in the movie theatres. Viewing a 2 hour movie in this mode (vs. the Standard mode) puts less strain on my eyes! Also, I find that the whites on D65 are kind of yellowish, is this normal? The whites on Standard mode appear purer.

A: I'm going to provide a general answer to this question, but please keep in mind that I'm not a video engineer. To start, know that there is actually a distinction between the terms "D65" and "6500k." I'll be honest, the technical difference is beyond my ability to explain. This page and this page do a better job than I can. (Don't feel bad if some of what's written on those pages goes over your head. Frankly, from an end user's perspective, a lot of that argument is semantics.)

When it comes to HDTV calibration, I believe in the "Set It and Forget It" philosophy. I don't want to be changing my video settings between shows. In practice, I realize that some content has more "pop" when watched at different color temperature settings. Sports, in particular, may look more vivid at higher color temps. Nevertheless, for accuracy, it's better to leave everything calibrated to the same standard. But if you get more enjoyment out of something by switching to a different setting, I'm not going to stop you.

As for why the "D65" mode on your television makes whites look yellowish, be aware that the factory presets in most HDTVs are rarely accurate. In fact, what's labeled as "D65" or "6500k" (or whatever the manufacturer chooses to call it) may be nowhere near that actual measurement. For best results, you should hire a professional calibrator to bring in color analyzer equipment and fine tune your display to mathematical precision (or at least as close as the set's inherent limitations will allow).

Homework Assignment: You Be the Advisor

Some questions that the HD Advisor receives are best answered by a consensus of opinions from our readers. If you can help to answer the following question, please post your response in our forum thread linked at the end of this article. Your advice and opinions matter too!

Toslink Switcher Recommendations

Q: I'm very much in need of an Optical/Toslink audio switcher (not splitter). Researching them on the internet you could imagine my surprise when I found there are barely any trusted, functional ones out there! From what I've seen and read, every one out there is made of cheap bulky plastic that falls apart or begins having issues after 6 months or sooner, at least according to the majority of reviewers. I got my HDMI switcher for around $40 and I was hoping to find an optical audio splitter for about $20-$40 too. I've seen set-top boxes with multiple inputs for HDMI and optical audio cables but those run well upwards of $100. I'm trying to avoid adding a whole other set top box to my system. You'd think there'd be a reputable, reliable switcher on the market by now, is there something I'm missing?

Check back next week for another round of answers. Keep those questions coming.

See what people are saying about this story in our forums area, or check out other recent discussions.

HD Advisor 17 Again (OK, Really 18)

Fri Jun 19, 2009 at 03:00 PM ET
Tags: HD Advisor, Joshua Zyber (all tags)

Answers by Joshua Zyber

Video Bit Rates

Q: What is the difference between higher and lower AVC encode rates? For example, 'Office Space' lists an AVC encode at 33mbps, while 'Quantum of Solace' has an encode of 28mbps. Either movie doesn't seem to trounce the other in video. Looking at different covers for Blu-ray movies, some have specifications listed on the back covers and some don't. So what is the difference between encode rates?

A: In simple terms, video bit rate is a measure of the amount of digital compression used to encode a movie on a Blu-ray disc. A higher average bit rate means that less compression was used. A low average bit rate means that more compression was used.

Video compression, by definition, throws away data from the original digital master in order to conserve file space. Because of this, it's only natural to assume that compression must be a bad thing, and that discs with high average bit rates (i.e. less compression) must have better video quality. However, things are just not that simple. Video compression doesn't work on a linear scale. The amount of compression needed for any given movie will vary depending on the complexity of the content, the codec chosen, the compression tools used, and the skill of the compressionist performing the work. For example, a bright, shiny, and clean CGI animated feature is typically much less of a compression challenge than a grainy 16mm indie movie, and can get away with a lower bit rate.

Because no two movies are exactly alike, you can't compare the bit rates of two separate discs and draw any meaningful conclusions about video quality. Even within a single movie, the amount of compression needed will vary from scene to scene, and even shot to shot. Further, as authoring tools mature and compressionists gain more experience working with them, high-performance codecs like AVC and VC-1 become more efficient over time. A good compressionist should be able to take a movie originally authored back in 2006, re-compress it today using the same codec at a lower bit rate, and derive equal or better results.

I wrote about this topic at some length back in my Specs vs. Reality article. The long and short of it is that, unless you see specific digital artifacts on screen, the bit rate is just a number. It's essentially meaningless to the end viewer. There are many more important factors to rate a good video transfer than just the compression ratio. What's important is how the movie looks to your eye, not how high the bit rate meter spikes. So ignore that number on the packaging, turn off the bit rate meter on your Blu-ray player, and just watch the movie.

PCM Audio over S/PDIF

Q: I have a PS3 and a Denon AVR-3801 receiver. I use HDMI to pass video to a Samsung HL61A-750 and use an Optical link to connect the PS3 to my receiver. I picked up the 'Neil Young Archives' on Blu-ray and the on-screen display from the PS3 shows that it is playing back a Linear PCM signal at 192 kHz. Some forums I have been looking at state that it is not possible over a Toslink connection. My question is, what am I actually hearing, the full 24/192 audio or is it somehow being downsampled but the PS3 doesn't see it?

A: An S/PDIF connection (either Toslink or digital coaxial) is capable of carrying up to 2 channels of PCM audio. Movies with soundtracks in PCM 5.1 format (e.g. most early Blu-rays from Sony or Disney) will be downmixed to 2.0 configuration by the Blu-ray player when using S/PDIF. Fortunately, those Neil Young discs are PCM stereo format, so no downmixing will be required.

Where you might conceivably run into trouble is the fact that the audio on those discs is encoded at 24-bit/192 kHz resolution. While an S/PDIF connection should be capable of carrying that signal, not all audio hardware will support it. You should check your A/V receiver's documentation. If it doesn't support 24/192, either the receiver will downsample the signal to the highest resolution that it does support, or (if you get no audio) you'll have to set the PS3 to do so.

720p vs. 1080p HDTVs

Q: I've been viewing HD content for over 4 years now with my Samsung HLP-6163 HDTV monitor. It's a 720p set in which I've only had to change the bulb once. I have a Sony BDP-S550 Blu-ray player, Toshiba HD-XA1 HD DVD player, JVC D-VHS deck, and a Denon 3910 DVD Player connected to a Denon AVR-4306 receiver. Each unit is connected to the receiver via HDMI at 1080i then sent to my monitor via HDMI. I believe the picture I get looks good; however, with many monitors out in the market boasting 1080p, I'm wondering if I'm missing additional detail. I'm considering the new Mitsubishi 837 series as a replacement if I am going to get a significant benefit in definition and detail. My question is do you think an upgrade is beneficial? My primary viewing position is about 15 feet away from the monitor.

A: I'll be honest, this is a decision that I've struggled with myself when looking for a small HDTV to use in a secondary room. Raw math tells us that a 1080p (1920x1080) display has 125% more resolution than a 720p (1280x720) display. That's a lot of pixels. However, in practical application, the visible difference between 720p and 1080p is much smaller than the difference between either one and standard-def 480i. Once you make the leap to high definition, successive steps in resolution offer diminishing returns.

That's not to say that there isn't a visible difference between 720p and 1080p. There certainly is, especially with larger screen sizes and optimal seating distances. But the improvements are mitigated by smaller screens and more distant seating. Generally speaking, it's going to be very difficult to tell the difference on screens less than 40" no matter where you sit. With larger displays, the rule of thumb is to stay within 1.5x the width of the screen.

In your particular circumstance, I notice that your current HDTV is 61" diagonal, and you're looking at other sets about the same size. A screen over 60" should be more than capable of showing improvements at 1080p. On the other hand, your seating distance of 15' is more than 4 times the screen width away, which means that you'll have a hard time seeing that extra resolution.

In the end, only you can decide what to do with your money. If you decide that now is the right time to buy a new TV, I'd recommend future-proofing yourself by purchasing a 1080p model. Even if you can't discern much difference at your current seating distance, you may adjust that distance in the future. When you do, you'll want those extra pixels. But if you're otherwise happy with your current TV, you can probably hold out with what you have for a while longer.

2k vs. 4k Resolution Revisited

Q: This is somewhat of a further reply to the earlier question about digital video having less resolution than 35mm film. Wouldn't any more resolution than 1080p be a bit superfluous for the home video market? My understanding is that one already has to buy a TV on the larger end of the size spectrum to even see much difference between 720 and 1080 resolution. So I would think while one might see a difference between 2k and 4k resolution on an IMAX screen they would not on a screen small enough to fit in the house.

A: Basically, yes. For home theater purposes, I think 1080p is the sweet spot where video displays will remain for quite some time. As mentioned above, higher resolutions offer diminishing returns at the screen sizes most of us can fit in our homes (even projector owners like myself). I'm sure we'll see some manufacturers experiment with higher resolutions, but by and large I expect 1080p to be the standard for the foreseeable future.

Of course, I'm no psychic. So don't hold me to that.

Homework Assignment: You Be the Advisor

Some questions that the HD Advisor receives are best answered with a consensus of opinions from our readers. If you can help to answer the following question, please post your response in our forum thread linked at the end of this article. Your advice and opinions matter too!

Surround Speaker Placement

Q: Due to the nature of my cinema room, my rear speakers have to sit up high to clear the door on one side, which pretty much means they are ceiling height. They provide good ambient sound but really lack any sort of detail akin to sitting around a friend's house and having the rears just above ear height. They are a pair of Eltax Monitor IIIs which where given to me so I cannot moan about the use I have had out of them. However, I would like to improve my audio experience, are there any tricks I should know about high speaker placement? Failing that, are their speakers designed for such a task?

Check back next week for another round of answers. Keep those questions coming.

See what people are saying about this story in our forums area, or check out other recent discussions.

HD Advisor 17

Fri Jun 12, 2009 at 03:00 PM ET
Tags: HD Advisor, Joshua Zyber (all tags)

Answers by Joshua Zyber

Digitally Photographed Movies

Q: My question is regarding movies shot digitally, such as 'The Curious Case of Benjamin Button' and 'Cloverfield'. Correct me if I'm wrong, but since these movies were primarily filmed using digital video cameras, isn't their maximum resolution rather limited compared to movies shot on film? They may look spectacular now but in 20 years when we have Ultra Supreme High Def (or whatever we'll call it), won't they look crappy because of the limitations of digital cameras while an oldie like 'Casablanca' will look even better?

A: In essence, you're correct. Movies photographed with digital cameras are forever locked into the resolution at which they were shot. Both of the movies you cite were similarly photographed with a mixture of Sony CineAlta F23 and Thomson Viper FilmStream cameras. As a result, they both have native resolutions of 1080p (or close to it, depending on the specific variables of each production). So, as you can see, they're both more or less at the same resolution as Blu-ray.

With that said, digital cinematography has greater color depth and less video compression. The native format of these movies is still superior to Blu-ray in some respects. However, the crux of your point has merit. If the home theater industry were ever to move to a higher-resolution video standard (e.g. 4k), 1080p movies like these would need to be upconverted to that resolution, and would look inferior to newer content shot natively at the higher resolution. Or to 35mm film content scanned at that higher resolution.

Likewise, this limitation also affects many modern movies shot on 35mm film. These days, a Digital Intermediate stage during post production is often used for color correction, visual effects, and whatnot. The movie is digitally scanned, adjusted, and then output back onto film. Sad to say, this DI stage is usually done at 2k resolution, which is very close to 1080p. So, even though the new 'Star Trek' was shot on 35mm, it's forever locked to 2k because that was the resolution of its DI.

On the other hand, film is an analog photochemical medium. Its native resolution cannot be directly expressed in terms of pixels. There has been much debate about exactly what resolution 35mm film would equate to. Depending on whom you believe, a 35mm movie is comparable to anywhere from 4k to 25k. Much of the confusion stems from the difference between 35mm still photos and projected motion pictures, which cannot be measured the same way as one another. Factors such as film stock, lens choice, lighting, and exposure levels will also affect the apparent resolution of any given movie. I'm not going to pretend to know the correct answer to this, but I have a feeling that it's closer to the low end of that range.

In any case, it's safe to say that 35mm film has a theoretical resolution much higher than our current 1080p home theater standard. So long as a movie didn't have a Digital Intermediate that locks it into a specific resolution, it can be rescanned in the future for a higher-resolution transfer. In that case, yes, an old movie like 'Casablanca' has the potential to look a lot better than a newer movie like 'Benjamin Button' on the next generation of home video formats.

DVD Upconversion

Q: From what I hear, the Oppo BDP-83 is supposed to be top-notch in terms of its upconversion capabilities. However, I have a 40-inch LCD display and I'm not sure I'd notice the difference between, say the BDP-83 and Oppo's own DV-980H. It's DVD only as you know, but also highly praised for its upconversion and considerably cheaper. Is there a minimum screen size at which the higher-end upconverters tend to be effective over and above cheaper alternatives?

A: As I'm sure you know, DVD video is encoded at 480i resolution. In order to upconvert this to a higher resolution, that interlaced 480i signal must first be deinterlaced to progressive 480p frames, and then those frames will be scaled to your desired resolution. The scaling process is always based on whole frames, not on interlaced fields.

If we're strictly looking at the DVD upconversion side of things (I'll assume that you get Blu-ray playback from another component), the primary difference between the two models you cite is that the BDP-83 has superior deinterlacing to the DV-980H. Deinterlacing is a very critical step. If not performed correctly, you'll get combing artifacts and jaggies in your video image, either of which will be perfectly visible on a 40" screen.

That's not to say that the DV-980H has bad deinterlacing. When comparing well-authored DVDs transferred from film-based movies with a steady 3:2 cadence, I doubt you'll see much difference between these two players. That type of content is pretty straightforward to deinterlace. However, video-based programming or material with complex mixed cadences can be a much more difficult challenge. Anime content in particular can often be a deinterlacing nightmare.

You'll need to take your own viewing habits into consideration when making this decision. If you exclusively watch big-budget Hollywood movies from the major studios, either one of these players will probably suit your needs just fine. But if you watch a lot of anime, concert videos, documentaries, and other eclectic content, quality deinterlacing will make a lot of difference.

The BDP-83 has essentially been built off the design of Oppo's previous top-end model, the DV-983H (now discontinued), with the new addition of Blu-ray functionality. It uses an Anchor Bay deinterlacing chip that is one of the best in the field for just about any type of content you can throw at it. On top of all that, it's also a great Blu-ray player. If you're looking for an all-in-one solution, it's worth serious consideration.

RS-232 Interface

Q: Despite my strong recommendation that the new projector my company just purchased should have an HDMI port, they decided that the manufacturer's stated contrast ratio was the most important factor. Pioneer will offer a professional level Blu-ray player this fall that supports RS-232, which begs the question: will RS-232 provide the same quality picture that an HDMI connection would? Is it as good as Component, even?

A: In home theater gear, the RS-232 port is generally used for automation purposes (for example, turning on a string of equipment in sequence and adjusting each to the proper settings automatically). It is not used for transmitting video. For that, you will still need to use the Blu-ray player's HDMI or Component video outputs.

If the projector your company bought lacks an HDMI connection, you'll need to use the Component inputs instead, assuming it has some. If that's not the case either, then it most likely will have a VGA input. In that scenario, you'll need to run the Blu-ray player's Component outputs through a Component-to-VGA Converter. Please note, a simple adaptor cable will most likely not work here. A Blu-ray player's Component connection outputs video in YPbPr format. Unless specified otherwise, the projector will almost certainly be expecting an RGB signal over its VGA input. Therefore, you'll need a Converter that can transcode the signal from YPbPr to RGB. This will be more expensive than a basic adaptor cable.

One more note: Because a Blu-ray player's HDMI output is encrypted with HDCP, you also cannot use an HDMI-to-VGA adaptor or converter. The HDCP encryption will prevent the signal from being transmitted. You'll need to stick to Component.

Homework Assignment: You Be the Advisor

Budget A/V Receiver Recommendations

Q: You mentioned previously that the PS3 can only internally decode Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio and send them out as PCM. The only Blu-ray player I use is a PS3. It's just too hard to find "Linear PCM" in the features listing on any web site. Are there any cheaper receivers that can accept uncompressed PCM at these bit-rates without having built-in decoders for the other two codecs?

Check back next week for another round of answers. Keep those questions coming.

See what people are saying about this story in our forums area, or check out other recent discussions.

HD Advisor's Super Sweet 16

Fri Jun 05, 2009 at 03:00 PM ET
Tags: HD Advisor, Joshua Zyber (all tags)

Answers by Joshua Zyber

PS3 vs. Standalone Blu-ray Players

Q: My question concerns the differences between the PS3 for Blu-ray playback versus high-end stand alone models from Pioneer and Marantz. How much better are the Pioneer Elite BDP-09FD and the Marantz BD8002 Blu-ray disc players compared to the Sony PS3? I have a Pioneer Elite SC-07 receiver so I can take advantage of lossless audio via HDMI or multi-channel audio. Will DTS-HD MA sound better coming from the above mentioned players (either hook-up method) than the PS3? If so, does the difference in fidelity make the price tag on the BDP-09FD ($2,200) or the BD8002 ($2,000) worth it? What about the video? Is the video processing that much better?

A: The primary appeal of high-end standalone Blu-ray players is typically their improved audio sections. Specifically, their analog audio sections. The players are able to decode the audio formats on Blu-ray discs to PCM, and then convert that PCM from digital to analog. To take advantage of this, you'll need to connect the Blu-ray player to an amplifier or A/V receiver by the multi-channel analog connections.

The quality of the DAC components is one of the most critical aspects affecting final sound quality. However, if you're connected from the player to your audio receiver by HDMI, then you'll never use the analog section of the Blu-ray player. In that case, you bypass the player's DAC and rely on the receiver to do the work.

If, for example, you had a low-end receiver (or just an amplifier without a processing component), it might be beneficial to buy a high-end disc player with a quality audio section to do the decoding and D-to-A for you, and just use the receiver for amplification. In your case, though, you've got a pretty nice receiver. I think you're better off feeding it a digital signal, in which case you don't much need to buy a Blu-ray player with a fancy audio section.

The other difference between the PS3 and standalones is that standalones can transmit the raw digital bitstreams for Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio straight into your receiver for decoding. On the other hand, the PS3 must decode them internally and transmit them as PCM over HDMI. I'm sure some audiophiles out there might like to argue the point, but as far as I'm concerned, the PS3's audio decoding is just as good as any other component's. The only real difference you'll experience is that the PS3 won't light up a Dolby or DTS logo on your receiver's front panel.

As for the video, in my experience, the quality of video decoding on current-generation Blu-ray players is pretty much a level playing field. The PS3 is as good as any other. Those high-end players may add extra signal processing features such as Noise Reduction, contrast boosting, or edge enhancement, but you should turn all that junk off anyway. The best signal from player to TV will always be the one with the least amount of tampering or tweaking applied to it. Calibration is better performed at the display, not at the disc player.

That's not to say that the PS3 is a "one size fits all" perfect Blu-ray player for everybody. Some people may need a player with analog audio outputs if their receiver doesn't offer HDMI, and the PS3 has none. It also has rather mediocre DVD upconversion. Personally, I'm not too fond of the PS3's awkward form factor (it doesn't fit well in an A/V rack) or incompatibility with IR universal remotes. Each viewer will have their own needs, and should plan their purchasing decisions accordingly.

For Blu-ray purposes, I think the PS3 will fit your needs pretty well. If you'd rather go with a standalone model, there's really no need for you to spend $2,000 on one with a souped-up audio section you'll never use. More appropriate alternatives are available for less money. If DVD upconversion is a critical factor (as it will be for many viewers), the new Oppo BDP-83 is my all-around favorite standalone model. We should have a review of that player on this site in the near future.

PS3 Settings

Q: I recently bought a new HDTV (Samsung LN52A550) and a Playstation 3, which I plan to use mostly for Blu-rays. I understand the importance of calibrating your HDTV, but what about your Playstation/Blu-ray player? I made sure that via HDMI the correct resolution is set and such, but there are some display settings on the PS3 that change the picture and I don’t know what to set them as or what they even do exactly. The two that come imminently to mind is the Y Pb/Cb Pr/Cr Super-White (HDMI) setting and the RGB Full Range which can be set to full, or limited.

A: I know exactly what you mean. Sony wasn't terribly very clear with their labeling or instructions for those settings. These are the video settings I recommend in the PS3 setup menu:

BD/DVD Cinema Conversion: Automatic
BD/DVD Upscaler: Normal
BD/DVD Video Output Format (HDMI): Y Pb/Cb Pr/Cr (if your TV will accept it)
BD 1080p 24 Hz Output (HDMI): On (if your TV will accept it)
RGB Full Range (HDMI): Limited
Y Pb/Cb Pr/Cr Super-White (HDMI): On

The "Limited" option under "Full Range" sets the contrast for Video levels rather than PC levels. Super-White allows the console to pass whiter-than-white information.

DTS vs. DTS-HD

Q: I've noticed that earlier Blu-rays are often simply labeled with having "DTS-HD" tracks, but now they more often say "DTS-HD Master Audio." Are they all Master Audio tracks, or are these slightly different codecs? If they are the same codec, are the ones not labeled "Master Audio" a remastering/reprocessing of the sound rather than the studio master (perhaps a 7.1 track for an originally stereo movie etc.)?

A: As detailed in my Blu-ray Audio Explained article, there are actually three separate DTS formats in use on Blu-ray.

Regular "DTS" is basically the same lossy format used on DVD (albeit the higher 1509 kb/s bit-rate option). "DTS-HD High Resolution" is a new, even higher bit-rate lossy format that's rarely used. Finally, "DTS-HD Master Audio" is the premium lossless codec. These days, most studios that choose DTS primarily use Master Audio. That's a good thing in my book.

When the Blu-ray format first premiered, the DTS company kind of made of mess of things with their naming conventions. Originally, the basic DTS codec was going to be called "DTS Encore" when used on BD. But the company dropped that idea and instead started calling it "DTS-HD" (without any further description). Naturally, this left a lot of consumers confused. Eventually, they fell back to just "DTS" again.

So, if you see an older Blu-ray that claims to have a "DTS-HD" track, it's really just the old DTS format you'll remember from DVD.

Keep in mind that all of these DTS formats (as well as their Dolby equivalents) are merely compression codecs. Some retain more of the original data than others. The lossless formats (DTS-HD Master Audio and Dolby TrueHD) are both bit-for-bit identical to the studio master. In any case, Dolby and DTS don't remix or remaster the soundtrack. The studio does that. Dolby and DTS just compress the results. (Actually, these days, Dolby and DTS create the tools to compress the results, and license them out to the studios to do themselves.)

Homework Assignment: You Be the Advisor

HDTV Recommendations

Q: Can you recommend LCD or Plasma TV between 55” to 63”? Dollar amount $4,800.00 max.

Check back next week for another round of answers. Keep those questions coming.

See what people are saying about this story in our forums area, or check out other recent discussions.

HD Advisor XV

Fri May 29, 2009 at 03:00 PM ET
Tags: HD Advisor, Joshua Zyber (all tags)

Answers by Joshua Zyber

Comparing Blu-ray to DVD

Q: First, let me say that I love your reviews. Not the "Movie Itself" reviews, being subjective as they are, but the "Sizing Up the Picture" and "Rating the Sound." I often base my Blu-ray purchases on those two segments. I, like many other home theater enthusiasts I'm sure, am finding it expensive to update my catalog titles as they come out on Blu-ray. Some are movies that I only own on standard DVD that actually get what seem as bad reviews ('Predator', '28 Days Later', and 'X-Files: Fight the Future'). Would it be too much trouble to simply suggest that, "If you already own it on standard DVD, skip it as this Blu-ray version isn't worth buying the movie again"?

A: I've watched and reviewed hundreds of Blu-ray discs by this point. Honestly, there are very, very few that don't offer at least some appreciable improvement over DVD. Certainly, some are more dramatic upgrades than others. But it's very rare indeed to find a Blu-ray that's no better than the comparable DVD edition of the same movie.

As to whether a specific movie is worth repurchasing if you already own the DVD, that's something only you can answer for yourself. That decision will depend mainly on how big a fan you are of the film. In my own collection, I own several movies with lousy DVD transfers that I know have been released on Blu-ray with vastly superior video and audio quality. But I just don't care enough about those movies to buy them again, regardless of how much better the Blu-rays will be. Likewise, there are other movies that I will gladly repurchase several times over just for the tiniest of incremental improvements, because I love them so much. The purpose of a disc review isn't necessarily to tell you what to buy. A good review will provide enough information for you to make that decision on your own, factoring in your own opinions and circumstances. We have no way of knowing which movies you already own on DVD, what your financial situation may be, or what your priorities are.

Although ideally it might be wonderful if every Blu-ray review could include a direct comparison to the DVD edition, the reality of the situation is that such a thing just isn't practical for the reviewers to provide on every title. We receive our Blu-ray screeners from the movie studios, and those studios rarely send DVD copies to go with them, especially not for catalog titles that were last released on DVD years ago. Even if we did happen to have a DVD of the same movie lying around, you'll need to factor in how much extra time it would take to watch and rate two copies of the film.

There are a few web sites out there that specialize in direct DVD vs. Blu-ray comparisons. We appreciate the extra time (and expense!) they put into those features as much as you do. But that just isn't our focus here. This is High-Def Digest, and frankly most of us here feel that High Definition is the new minimum acceptable quality standard for watching movies on home video. Ultimately, the intent of our reviews is to tell you how well the Blu-ray represents the best that each movie can look, not how much better it is than an inferior DVD copy. As such, we approach and judge each Blu-ray as a Blu-ray.

And one last thing: I can assure you that every reviewer on this site puts just as much hard work into the "Movie Itself" portion of our articles as we do the technical portions. Taste in movies is of course subjective, but I hope that wouldn't prevent you from listening to another person's perspective and insight into a movie, regardless of whether you ultimately agree with his opinions or not.

1080p24

Q: I recently purchased a Pioneer Kuro display that supports 1080p24 and I have a PS3. Are all of the Blu-ray discs 24 frames per second? Looking at the back of my most recent Blu-ray purchases, the back shows nothing that would note 24 frames per second. The TV can display this movie mode without artifacts so I'm really interested if I should make my PS3 output 24 fps all the time instead of keeping that setting on automatic.

A: The vast majority of feature films released on Blu-ray are encoded at 1080p resolution with a 24 fps frame rate. In fact, the Blu-ray format actually doesn't support video encoded at 1080p resolution with a 60 fps rate. It only supports 1080i (at 50 Hz or 60 Hz) or 1080p24. It's safe to say that any reference on this site to a Blu-ray having a "1080p" transfer actually means that the disc is 1080p24. Blu-ray players that output video at 1080p60 do so by applying 3:2 Pulldown after decoding.

With that said, there's a fair amount of material released on Blu-ray at 1080i resolution. Mostly, these are concert videos, scenery discs, or other specialty programs shot natively on video. However, there will also be the rare feature film that a studio just plain screws up and releases on Blu-ray with an old 1080i transfer. ('Short Circuit' suffers this affliction.)

The "BD 1080p 24 Hz Output" setting in the PS3 will only work if the disc is encoded at the 24 fps rate. Even if you turn that function on, when you insert a 1080i disc, the console will output it at 1080i resolution. At present, the PS3 doesn't have the ability to convert 1080i discs to 1080p24. Although it will upconvert standard DVDs to 1080p resolution, it outputs them at 1080p60 and won't adjust their frame rate to 24 fps, no matter what settings you select in the Setup menus.

Note that the "Automatic" option for the 24 Hz setting refers to the PS3 automatically matching its video output to the display you've connected it. That option has nothing to do with the encoding of the disc being played. With "Automatic" selected, the PS3 performs an HDMI handshake to determine whether your HDTV can accept a 24 fps signal. If the handshake is rejected, the PS3 disables 24 fps output altogether, even if the disc is encoded at that rate.

30 fps

Q: As to frames per second (fps), what happens if a movie originates in 30 fps (such as a future HD transfer of the Todd AO 30 fps version of 'Oklahoma' or a movie shot on HD video or HD hard drives that chooses 30p fps rather than 24p fps)?

A: The Blu-ray format doesn't support encoding at 1080p30. Any material originating at that frame rate must be converted to 1080i60 before encoding on disc. This has already happened at least once so far with the 'Nine Inch Nails: Beside You in Time' concert disc.

Ironically, the now-defunct HD DVD format did support 1080p30. The HD DVD edition of that Nine Inch Nails concert was encoded at 1080p30 while the Blu-ray was 1080i60.

In actual practice, the difference between these two resolutions will be minimal, if visible at all. When viewed on a 1080p HDTV, the display will convert both 1080i60 and 1080p30 to 1080p60 before you see anything on screen. In fact, most HDTVs won't accept 1080p30 input, which means that the HD DVD player would have to convert it first anyway.

720p24?

Q: Why can't or why doesn't anyone make a Blu-ray player that produces 720p24 output?

A: Simply put, there isn't much call for it. Very few 720p HD displays will accept a 24 fps input signal. Of those that do, most will accept a full 1080p24 signal and downscale it for you, eliminating the need for the Blu-ray player to do it.

DVD Upconversion

Q: I'm very happy with the upconversion of my Toshiba HD-XA2 HD DVD player and still use it for all my regular DVD watching. The movies are upconverted to 1080p24 via the Silicon Optix Reon HQV processing chip and they look spectacular. Have there been any Blu-ray players which can match or even exceed that level of quality?

A: Samsung has released a few Blu-ray players using HQV Reon upconversion, most recently their BD-P2500 model. I've also found the Qdeo upconversion in the (discontinued) LG BH200 player to be comparable to Reon quality.

My personal pick for best DVD upconversion in a Blu-ray player is the new Oppo BDP-83, which uses the same Anchor Bay scaling chip found in the DVDO line of video processors. You can expect a review of that player on this site in the near future.

Homework Assignment: You Be the Advisor

This week's homework question comes direct from the HD Advisor himself.

Streaming Video via PS3

Q: As much as I love my home theater gear, I'll admit that the area of "convergence" between computer and HD display is the biggest gap in my knowledge base. I'm also not much of a computer guy in general, beyond putzing around on the internet.

Lately, I've had it in mind to compile a reel of trailers for viewing before a movie. I know that there are a number of streaming media devices (like the Popcorn Hour A-110) designed for this purpose. But, and here's the key, I want to spend as little money on this as possible. This project isn't important enough to me to buy or install any new hardware. I already have a computer and I already have a PS3. I know that it's possible to stream video from the computer to the PS3. I need someone to walk me though, step-by-step, how to do that.

Once I've decided what trailers I want, what programs do I need to install on my computer to arrange them in order and edit them into the reel? (I don't want to select them individually. I want this to flow smoothly.) Do I need to re-encode them to a different video format, and how? How do I connect the computer to the PS3 and transfer the content? Start from scratch and hand-hold me through the process!

Check back next week for another round of answers. Keep those questions coming.

See what people are saying about this story in our forums area, or check out other recent discussions.

HD Advisor XIV

Fri May 22, 2009 at 02:50 PM ET
Tags: HD Advisor, Joshua Zyber (all tags)

Answers by Joshua Zyber

Broadcast HD Quality

Q: When I watch movies in HD (on HDNet Movies or HBO, for example) on cable or satellite TV, the picture is never even close to that of a Blu-ray disc. I know that because of bandwidth limitations cable and satellite companies cannot send enough information through to make the picture 1080p, but why do so many movies seem to be better watched in standard def? I'm thinking of 'Kramer vs. Kramer' in particular, where there was some horrible effect I can only liken to a computer mouse pointer's trails. This was especially prevalent during the low light scenes.

A: In addition to being transmitted at a lower resolution (most high-def networks are either 720p or 1080i), HD broadcasts are also significantly more compressed than Blu-ray. Pixel breakup is very common on both cable and satellite. As these services add more and more bandwidth-hogging HD channels to their line-ups, they've been reducing the bit-rate to each, thus causing a lessening of detail and increase in artifacts.

The level of compression and the codec used will vary by provider. Some services are now using MPEG-4 to reduce these types of artifacts with low bit-rate transmissions, but many others are still using inefficient MPEG-2. On satellite specifically, you may also have issues with signal reception that can cause a degradation of picture quality.

Remastering Old TV Shows

Q: I recently purchased the complete series DVD set of the 1977-1981 show 'Soap'. It is obviously shot on video, and looking up the technical specs on imdb.com confirms this. However, the back of the case says "Remastered in High Definition." I understand that shows shot on film contained more detail in the film negative than a standard def TV could show, but how is this possible for a show shot on video in 1977? Were television cameras not recording in a 480i resolution when video was used during that era? Could this show, or others such as 'Three's Company', benefit from a Blu-ray release, aside from a higher bit-rate than DVD? I simply don't understand how it was remastered in HD, as I thought 480i was the standard for video recording in the pre-HD era. I understand upscaling, but my DVD player can do that just fine, and I would think there would be a loss of quality if upscaling a 480i image for a master that is going to be converted back to SD for DVD.

A: As far as I know, you're absolutely right. While older television shows that were shot on film (such as the original 'Star Trek') can be remastered from the film elements for a high-definition scan, sit-coms of the '70s and '80s like 'Soap' and 'Three's Company' were shot on NTSC videotape. They exist only in standard definition resolution. Any attempt to "remaster" them in high definition would be a matter of upscaling.

Modern digital tools may be able to clean up some of the old analog videotape artifacts, and perhaps that's what was meant by "remastered." However, it's not possible to draw a high definition level of detail out of those old videotapes, because there just wasn't that much detail captured by the original cameras.

My best guess is that the packaging on that DVD is probably just incorrect, and the studio marketing people who wrote that blurb didn't understand the difference between SD and HD.

HD DVD Players

Q: I have recently bought a lot of HD DVDs from eBay. While they are a format that is no longer used, they are very cheap compared to their Blu-ray brothers (between $4-6). I just need to get a HD DVD player. I have seen a few but they all appear to only play at a maximum output of 720p or 1080i. What brand/model HD DVD players can play at a full 1080p?

A: All HD DVD players can output to at least 1080i resolution, but not all can output to 1080p. There were several models that offered 1080p output, but even among those not all of them provided 1080p24. (See my What's the Big Deal About 1080p24? article for an explanation of the difference.)

If your HDTV can accept a 1080p24 input signal, I would recommend a Toshiba HD-A35 or HD-XA2.

Be aware that when you set an HD DVD player (or a Blu-ray player, for that matter) to the standard "1080p" resolution (which is really 1080p60), the player will decode the video on the disc to 1080i first and then deinterlace it to 1080p. Only by using native 1080p24 output will you avoid this interlacing/deinterlacing process. For that reason, if your HDTV isn't capable of accepting a 1080p24 input signal, you're probably just as well off using 1080i output from the disc player. But, if your TV can accept 1080p24, you definitely want to buy a player that offers it.

Toshiba's first generation of HD DVD players were very glitchy and had a history of playback freeze-ups, especially on Combo format discs. Their hardware got better with successive generations. In my opinion, the HD-XA2 and HD-A35 were the best all-around HD DVD players. No matter which model you get, make sure you update it to the latest firmware (which should be v4.0 in all cases).

To Bose or Not to Bose

Q: I have been researching the Bose Lifestyle V30 system and have become a little confused. This setup would include one of two Blu-ray systems (PS3 or Sony BDP-S550) and Samsung 52" 1080p monitor. I understand the Bose system does not have HD audio capability. But does that matter since both my Blu-rays have on board decoding and they would be hooked up to the Bose system with HDMI? Would I still be able to listen to Dolby TrueHD, DTS-HD MA, and PCM tracks? I am also assuming the video transfer would not be negatively altered (no change to my wonderful 1080p picture since, again, everything is being run via HDMI). I have also been reading a lot of negative comments in general regarding Bose "Home Theater in a Box" systems. Why is there such a backlash? I always thought Bose was considered elite/high-end speaker and audio systems. I guess if you have the same negative slant toward Bose, could you suggest other HTIB systems where I will be getting the most out of the HD Audio/Video experience provided by Blu-ray? Please help! I don't want to be regretting my purchase in 6 months.

A: Your question about audio decoding I have addressed in previous columns. I'll direct you to back to that for the answer. You should also have no problem getting 1080p video out of any Blu-ray player if you buy a 1080p HDTV with an HDMI input. All current-model Blu-ray players can handle that equally well.

I would like to talk about Bose, though. As you've noticed, there's a backlash against the company in many home theater circles. I'll be perfectly honest in that I'm not a big fan of them myself. What this comes down to is that Bose products are overpriced for what they offer. You can buy equal- or better-quality components from other manufacturers for less money. Quite often, significantly less money. Bose (much like Monster Cable) charges premium prices for their brand name itself. They've fostered a reputation as a high-end brand, and price their products accordingly. In terms of raw quality, their products are really no better than anyone else's. And in terms of value-for-money, they're pretty much at the bottom of the pack.

Let me be clear, I'm not trying to slander the company here. I also don't mean to offend any of our readers who own Bose gear. The company's products aren't necessarily bad. They're just overpriced. Way overpriced. Since this is the HD Advisor column, if you want my advice, I'd recommend looking at other brands.

I think you'll also find that you'll get more bang-for-your-buck purchasing separate components rather than a "Home Theater in a Box" system. HTIBs are packaged for maximum convenience, but not necessarily maximum quality or value.

As far as recommendations for what to purchase instead, I'll make that our Homework assignment for the week, and let our readers post their suggestions in the forum thread linked at the bottom of this page. If you can join the thread and post your approximate budget for this purchase, that will help to narrow the options.

Check back next week for another round of answers. Keep those questions coming.

See what people are saying about this story in our forums area, or check out other recent discussions.

HD Advisor Tutorial – 2.35:1 Constant Height Projection

Fri May 15, 2009 at 03:55 PM ET
Tags: HD Advisor, Joshua Zyber (all tags)

Editor's Note: This week, our HD Advisor takes a break from the usual Question & Answer format to provide a guide to Constant Image Height projection. We'll be back next week with more Q&A, so please keep sending your questions to HDanswers@gmail.com. To browse through previously answered questions, visit the main HD Advisor page.

Feemster Home Theater. Image provided by Panamorph, Inc.

No Black Bars EVER!!!
(Well, Almost Never.)

By Joshua Zyber.

Back in my Why Don't the Black Bars Go Away? article, I explained the differences between movie aspect ratios. Some movies are photographed wider or narrower than others. In the early days of cinema, most movies were shot in the Academy Ratio of 1.37:1. Eventually, that ratio was largely phased out from usage in feature films (though it obviously continues to be used for television). Currently, theaters are equipped to project films in our two standard widescreen aspect ratios, either "Flat" 1.85:1 or "Scope" 2.35:1*. Both ratios serve their own artistic purposes, and have continued to be used just about equally for decades. A film's director and cinematographer will choose whichever ratio they feel is most appropriate for the content of their movie.

An HDTV screen has an aspect ratio of 1.78:1. Movies of the 1.85:1 shape should nearly fill that screen. However, any movie with a wider ratio won't fit properly. Obviously, 2.35 is not the same number as 1.78. It's like trying to squeeze a square block into a round hole. (Or, more accurately, a large rectangular block into a smaller rectangular hole.) They're just not the same thing.

The solution to this problem is letterboxing. By shrinking the Scope movie image down in size so that it maintains the same width as the 16:9 screen, it will now fit on that screen. Black bars fill in the empty space above and below the movie picture.

Technically speaking, all high-definition Blu-ray content has the same inherent aspect ratio of 16:9 (1.78:1), matching that of the HDTV screen. Blu-rays are encoded with a resolution of 1920x1080 pixels. Some of those pixels are used for the active movie image, while others may be used for black bars. Nevertheless, as far as the TV can tell, it always receives a 16:9 picture.

Obviously, letterboxing is a compromise. You won't often see black bars in a commercial movie theater. Most theaters (certainly all the good ones) have adjustable screens that can accommodate both 1.85:1 and 2.35:1 movies. Curtains or other forms of masking will be drawn in for one aspect ratio and expanded outwards for the other. When the movie plays, it should fill all of the visible screen. As I'll describe below, that same effect can also be achieved in a home theater with Constant Image Height projection.

(*One semantic note: The theatrical standard for "Scope" projection is actually now closer to 2.40:1. Nonetheless, most people in the film industry continue to call it "2.35:1" out of habit. Such movies may wind up transferred to home video at either a mathematical 2.35:1 or 2.40:1 ratio depending on the studio and the calibration of the telecine used during the film-to-video transfer. The difference between these two numbers is negligible and not worth worrying about. This article will refer to Scope projection as 2.35:1 for clarity.)

Wider is Better

When CinemaScope was invented in the early 1950s, the intent of the process was to provide a wider and more immersive movie image than the standard Academy Ratio movies of the time. Although CinemaScope itself (which had a 2.55:1 ratio) eventually went defunct, other widescreen formats took its place. We still refer to 2.35:1 productions as "Scope" for shorthand. By and large, most filmmakers who choose Scope shooting formats do so for the same purpose, to create a movie image that will be projected larger than Flat 1.85:1 movies. That's why so many "epic" blockbuster-type movies (think 'Lord of the Rings') are composed for 2.35:1, because the directors want to dazzle the audience with wide picturesque landscapes and huge crowd scenes. (That is, of course, not the only artistic criteria for using the 2.35:1 ratio, but it is a very common reason.)

The majority of commercial theaters are designed in what is known as a Constant Image Height (CIH) configuration. Movies of both the 1.85:1 and 2.35:1 ratios maintain the same top and bottom boundaries on the screen. When Scope movies are projected, curtains will open to expand the image width. Thus, Scope movies are displayed larger than Flat movies. The process of letterboxing on an HDTV actually has the opposite of the desired effect. Scope movies are now smaller than Flat movies when viewed at home.

But that doesn't have to be the case. Unfortunately, if you have a standard HDTV, you're pretty much locked into one screen ratio. However, viewers with front projection systems have a lot more flexibility. A growing population of projector owners are installing 2.35:1 screens and implementing Constant Image Height in their home theaters.

On a proper CIH set-up, movies and TV shows with aspect ratios less than 2.35:1 should be pillarboxed onto the center of the screen. If you find the empty space on the sides of the picture bothersome, curtains or masking may be applied to cover it up and absorb any excess light.

4:3 content on a Scope screen. Image provided by ScottJ0007.

As your video content expands from 4:3 to 16:9 to 2.35:1, adjust the masking to expose more of the screen.

1.85:1 content on a Scope screen. Image provided by ScottJ0007.

Scope movies will occupy more screen space than narrower ratios, as originally intended. The effect can be very impressive.

2.35:1 content on a Scope screen. Image provided by ScottJ0007.

CIH may be more complicated, and often more expensive, than just using a traditional 16:9 screen, but it arguably (or not so arguably, if you ask me) comes much closer to the true intent of home theater, to replicate the theatrical experience at home.

So, how do we do it?

The Zoom Method

The simplest and least expensive way to fill a 2.35:1 screen is to adjust the projector's zoom so that the sides of the movie image fit the sides of the screen. Any black letterbox bars should spill over the top and bottom of the screen. For narrower content, reduce the zoom so that the top and bottom of the image fill the height of the screen, then draw in the side masking. No special hardware or equipment is needed.

This "Zoom Method" does have a few downsides, though. For one, light spill from the letterbox bars above and below the screen may be visible or distracting. To solve this, add dark masking material around the screen to absorb that excess light.

Of more concern is the fact that enlarging the image size, with the same light output from the projector, will result in a corresponding reduction in brightness on the screen. Wider movies will appear dimmer than narrower movies, because you're spreading the same amount of light around a larger area. Depending on the size of the screen and the room environment, this may or may not be very noticeable. Some viewers will compensate for this by switching their projectors from standard lamp power (in 16:9 mode) to high lamp power (in 2.35:1 mode). Using high power will reduce the lamp's lifespan. Also, viewers with large screens, long throw distances, or aging bulbs may already need the high lamp mode just for 16:9 content, in which case there's nowhere up to go.

The zoom lens on a projector is a simple optical magnification. By increasing the zoom, you increase the size of the pixels in the image, as well as the distance between those pixels. Although Blu-rays are encoded with 1920x1080 resolution, a 2.35:1 movie only uses approximately 1920x815 of those pixels for active picture content. The rest are essentially wasted on letterbox bars. Zooming may lead to visible pixel structure in the picture (an artifact known as "Screen Door Effect"). Again, the severity of this will depend on the size of the screen, the room environment, and the projector.

Anamorphic Lenses – Horizontal & Vertical

As an alternative to the Zoom Method, a CIH user may place an anamorphic lens in front of the projector. This lens will convert the 16:9 video output from an HD projector into a Scope shape. Anamorphic lenses are divided into two categories: horizontal expansion or vertical compression. Both types achieve the same desired result, just using different methods.

A horizontal expansion lens will stretch the 16:9 picture sideways into the proper shape, while a vertical compression lens will squeeze it from top to bottom. The choice of lens will be determined by the projector's distance from the screen and native throw ratio. Different installations will have different requirements. Regardless of how you get there, you wind up with the same picture geometry. For illustrative purposes, all of the following examples will demonstrate the horizontal expansion method.

Naturally, you can't simply stretch or squeeze a projector's output and expect it to look correct on the screen. In this example from 'Batman Begins', we'll start with the 2.35:1 letterboxed image as it's encoded on the Blu-ray:

Next we add the horizontal expansion lens, which will optically stretch the picture to fill the Scope screen. The result still has letterbox bars, and the movie picture is geometrically distorted. No one would want to watch the movie this way.

Finally, we scale the image to electronically stretch it vertically. This will restore the proper picture geometry and crop off any letterbox bars.

The combination of an anamorphic lens and scaling has several advantages. First, cropping off the letterbox bars eliminates any light spill above and below the screen. This method also utilizes the entire 1920x1080 pixel panel of a 1080p projector, thus maintaining high brightness and compact pixel density.

The biggest negative to this process is that anamorphic lenses are usually very expensive. A proper home theater lens requires precision optics to avoid problems like focus issues, pincushion or barrel roll distortion, vignetting, and chromatic aberration. Any sacrifice in the quality of the optics can lead directly to a sacrifice in image quality, which will be all the more obvious on a large projection screen. At an MSRP of $3,495, the Panamorph UH480 is one of the more affordable anamorphic lenses for home theater. The UH480 is a physically bulky object to place in front of a projector, but I can personally testify that it's a very high quality lens. Competing products from companies like Schneider Optics and ISCO offer smaller form factors at even higher prices.

The act of scaling the 1920x815 portion of a Blu-ray's video to use the entire 1920x1080 pixel grid won't add any real picture detail to the image. The increased resolution is created by interpolation (copying portions of existing pixels to create new composite pixels). Some will argue that the scaling process may add artifacts or soften the image. The lens itself may also slightly soften the image, by virtue of the fact that you're adding more layers of glass into the light path. However, in my experience, these aren't significant concerns. With a good scaler and a good lens, you should be able to project a very sharp and pleasing picture.

What Else Do I Need to Buy?

As if the projector, screen, and anamorphic lens weren't already enough of an investment, you should now consider adding a video processor to your signal chain. As I just mentioned above, when you use an anamorphic lens, you'll need to compensate for the optical stretch by electronically scaling the video back to its proper proportions. These days, many newer projectors offer special 2.35:1 scaling modes that will perform this vertical stretch for CIH. However, if your projector lacks that feature, you'll need to do the scaling externally.

In fact, even if the projector comes with a CIH scaling option, you'll likely still want to add a video processor. The next few sections of this article will describe a host of complications that Scope screen owners will encounter when watching movies on home video. In order to prepare for any eventuality, CIH viewers need comprehensive aspect ratio control -- the ability to zoom, shrink, or reposition a movie image around the frame to fit on their screens. It's extremely unlikely that any projector (nor DVD/Blu-ray player, nor A/V receiver) will offer that much custom aspect ratio manipulation built-in standard.

I've been using the DVDO line of processors from Anchor Bay Electronics for years. Frankly, I can't imagine living without my current iScan VP50PRO unit. At a $3,499 MSRP, this is another expensive piece of hardware, but it adds an invaluable amount of control and flexibility to a CIH installation. (Unfortunately, the company's newer, more affordable Edge processor has a less comprehensive aspect ratio feature set.)

A good VP will also bring other benefits to a home theater, such as high quality deinterlacing and upconversion of standard-def content, but those fall outside the scope of this article.

Although I'm partial to the DVDO line, Lumagen sells comparable products that have an equally strong reputation.

How to Handle Narrower Content

With an anamorphic lens in place for CIH, there are a few possibilities for dealing with video content less than 2.35:1 in shape. In the first, you may remove the lens from the projector's light path and turn off any scaling. That sounds easy enough, unless you ceiling mount your projector. In that case, you'll have to attach the lens to a slide mount. In a really fancy installation, the slide mount can be automated to move the lens off to the side as soon as you enter an appropriate aspect ratio command into a video processor.

Projector with anamorphic lens on slide mount. Images provided by c-not-k.

It's also possible to buy an anamorphic lens with a "passthrough" mode for 16:9 material, which will reposition the angle of the glass to effectively turn on or off the optical stretch. However, such lenses may sacrifice image quality at both aspect ratios, in comparison to fixed lenses. As you can imagine, attempting to optimize the optics for multiple stretch settings tends to introduce some measure of compromise to each.

The final option is to leave the lens in place at all times, and scale the video to occupy a smaller portion of the screen. Here's a frame from the TV series 'Firefly', which has a 16:9 aspect ratio:

With a horizontal expansion lens in place, the picture will be optically stretched to fill the Scope screen. Not pretty.

Electronic scaling can restore the correct picture geometry, with pillarbox bars on the sides of the frame.

Doing so, you've reduced the resolution of the active 16:9 portion of the image from 1920x1080 to 1440x1080. This is a compromise and obviously isn't ideal. Fortunately, our vision is more attuned to vertical resolution than horizontal resolution. Most viewers will probably not find this too objectionable.

The same basic concept applies to other material with aspect ratios less than 2.35:1. The goal is to maintain static top and bottom frame lines. Movies like '2001: A Space Odyssey' and 'Patton', which have a 2.2:1 ratio, should appear with very small pillarbox bars on the sides.

Movies that Don't Fit

We've seen how to tackle material narrower than 2.35:1. Every once in a while, you'll also encounter movies with oddball aspect ratios that don't quite fit onto a Scope screen no matter what you do.

The Blu-ray edition of 'How the West Was Won' includes two separate transfers for the Cinerama film. The standard letterbox transfer has an aspect ratio of 2.89:1. Some die-hard home theater owners may build ultra-wide screens specifically to accommodate rare examples like this, but most will simply project it onto their 2.35:1 screens and live with the small letterboxing.

Letterbox transfer for 'How the West Was Won' on a Scope screen. Screen shot by Xylon.

Disc 2 of the set contains a unique "Smilebox" transfer designed to emulate the movie's appearance on a curved Cinerama theater screen. From highest point to lowest, the image measures approximately 1.95:1. This is what it looks like when reduced in size for Constant Image Height.

Smilebox transfer for 'How the West Was Won', shrunken to fit on a Scope screen. Screen shot by Xylon.

You can fit the entire Smilebox picture onto the screen this way, though the reduced size loses some of the immersive quality intended by the Cinerama process. As a compromise, some viewers may decide to zoom the picture to fit the width of the Scope screen, with a bit of image loss in the corners.

Smilebox transfer for 'How the West Was Won' cropped to fit on a Scope screen with some image loss.

'The Dark Knight' is another big challenge for CIH viewers. On Blu-ray, the movie's aspect ratio varies from Scope 2.35:1 (the majority of the film) to full-frame 16:9 for those scenes shot with IMAX cameras. The transitions are very abrupt and sometimes only last a few seconds in length. The only way to see the entire picture is to watch the disc in 16:9 mode. Sadly, that will greatly diminish the impact of the 2.35:1 footage.

The 35mm theatrical prints for 'The Dark Knight' were projected at a consistent 2.35:1 with no shifts in aspect ratio. (The image size only expanded in IMAX theaters.) Director Christopher Nolan composed all of the IMAX footage loosely so that it might be cropped on the top and bottom for those prints. The DVD edition follows the 35mm model and has no changes in ratio. As such, Scope screen owners should be safe to do the same with the Blu-ray. They can enlarge the 2.35:1 portion of the frame to fill their screen widths, and cut off anything above or below. The resulting composition may look tighter than the IMAX framing, but shouldn't lose any important picture information.

Aspect ratio differences in 'The Dark Knight'. Yellow lines represent the 2.35:1 framing.

At least, it should be safe for viewers using an anamorphic lens configuration. Those using the Zoom Method will find portions of the movie image projected onto their walls above and below the screen, where normally they would only have to deal with black letterbox bars. In this case, some form of electronic blanking (either in the projector or a video processor) will be needed to black out those parts of the projected picture.

The Subtitle Dilemma

By far the biggest obstacle to Constant Image Height enjoyment comes as the result of complete ignorance and apathy by the home video studios issuing their movies on DVD and Blu-ray. Imagine the frustration of sitting down to watch a foreign-language film and discovering that you can't read the subtitles, because only the top line of text in any given scene is visible. This happens time and time again when disc authors position their subtitles in the lower letterbox bars of Scope movies.

Scope movie with subtitles in the letterbox bar.

The above scene from 'Letters from Iwo Jima' is perfectly fine on a 16:9 HDTV. But look what happens when you zoom the Scope image to fill a CIH projection screen.

Scope movie with subtitles cut off on a CIH screen.

Now the movie is unwatchable. Thanks a lot.

With standard-def DVD, there are a few DVD player options (mostly software-based) that can reposition subtitles higher in the frame. Sadly, that isn't possible on Blu-ray, which has a protected video path.

So, how do you watch the movie? You can shrink the picture down to 16:9 mode and watch it windowboxed into the center of the 2.35:1 screen, but that's hardly an acceptable solution.

Scope movie windowboxed into the center of a CIH screen to read subtitles.

The best available compromise will require a video processor. The first step is to reduce the picture to somewhere between 2.15:1 to 2.20:1 size on the screen. Next, shift the image upwards so that the top of the movie is flush with the top of the screen. This will leave you with small black bars on three sides of the frame. Draw your curtains or masking in to hide the bars on the left and right. The lower bar should be just large enough to fit the subtitle text.

Best compromise for subtitles on a CIH screen. Movie image has been shrunken in size and repositioned upwards until the subtitles are readable.

The exact size of the image will vary depending on the movie's precise aspect ratio and the subtitle font, so some experimenting may be necessary with each disc. It's not an ideal solution, but it's the only way to maintain a large movie picture and still have readable subtitles.

Some studios (like Universal) are usually pretty good about authoring their discs with CIH-friendly subtitles inside the movie picture. Others (like Sony and Warner) consistently place their subtitles in the letterbox bar. Fox's release of 'Day Watch' actually has subtitles in both the lower and upper letterbox bars for no good reason whatsoever. I find this whole situation absolutely infuriating. All it would take is a few clicks of the mouse for the disc authors to shift the subtitle positions into the picture and eliminate this problem forever.

The Future of CIH

The question is often asked whether hardware manufacturers will ever make displays with native 2.35:1 pixel panels, to avoid the need for anamorphic lenses. Thus far, there hasn't been any progress on that front for projectors, even though it seems like a logical next step for a high-end brand.

On the other hand, Philips has taken the bold step of producing the world's first Scope-format LCD HDTV, which they're calling Cinema 21:9.

The set is scheduled to debut in Europe later this year, but there's been no word of an American release. It's certainly an interesting concept, but I have to think that the Scope format will be rather impractical for a TV. The pillarbox bars will be quite significant on 4:3 content. You can get away with that in front projection due to the size of the image, but it will be very distracting on a smaller screen. We'll just have to wait to see how successful the product launch is.

The Bottom Line

Some viewers will find the Zoom Method to be the most practical and cost-effective option for implementing a CIH system. Others will find benefit in adding an anamorphic lens. The specific conditions of each person's room environment and equipment chain will dictate the appropriate choice.

Make no mistake, Constant Image Height projection is not for everyone. It's a complicated and frequently expensive process, with a number of potential stumbling blocks. Yet, when it's done right, there's simply no better way to capture the true spirit of the home theater hobby.

Joshua Zyber's opinions are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of this site, its owners or employees.

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HD Advisor the 13th

Fri May 08, 2009 at 03:50 PM ET
Tags: HD Advisor, Joshua Zyber (all tags)

Answers by Joshua Zyber

Older TV Shows on Blu-ray

Q: What is the feasibility of old popular television shows, whose special effects shots were mastered in SD, possibly seeing a Blu-ray release? I'm a huge 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' fan and would love to see an eventual Blu-ray release, as the DVDs are quite grainy and unpleasant-looking on an HDTV. I realized the show's special effects were created in SD to save money, so I was wondering if there is any chance at all if we'd see some of these older television series receive a Blu-ray release?

A: The Blu-ray release of 'Firefly' is perhaps the textbook example of what you're asking. Just like 'Buffy', 'Firefly' was shot on film, but had all visual effects rendered in standard-def resolution due to budgetary issues. On the Blu-ray, all of the live action shots without VFX are presented in true 1080p high-def. However, as soon as a CGI element enters a scene, the entire shot containing it drops to upconverted SD quality. Throughout the show, the video jumps from HD to upconverted SD and back over and over again. It's certainly not ideal, but it is possible to release the show on Blu-ray.

With that said, other factors will come into play. Although the 'Firefly' VFX were only rendered in SD, the rest of the show was edited and post-produced in an HD environment. So, an HD resolution master existed for the final product. That isn't necessarily the case for some older shows. For example, 'Star Trek: The Next Generation' was also shot on film, but was post-produced on SD video. Its final master exists only in standard-def form. In order to prepare a new HD master for the series, the studio would have to dig up the original film elements and completely re-edit and post-produce every single episode from scratch. It's a time-consuming and expensive process. Reportedly, Paramount is currently investigating the feasibility of doing that for 'Star Trek: TNG', because they know that the show has an enormous fan base. I wouldn't expect that kind of commitment for many series.

Regarding 'Buffy' specifically, the first two seasons were shot on grainy 16mm film stock. The show had a budget increase and a switch to 35mm film in its third season. I'm not certain how post production was handled, but it wouldn't surprise me if it was done in SD. The spin-off series 'Angel' was actually broadcast in HD during its final season. (Just like 'Firefly', the video dropped to SD during VFX shots.) Unfortunately, I have a feeling that's probably the only season of the Buffyverse that exists in HD form.

Grrrrrr... Arrggghhh... indeed, right?

Power Conditioning vs. More Power

Q: My current receiver, a Technics, is 10-years-old now, and it's beginning to have serious issues. It overheats and shuts down, which I know is hard on my speakers. I believe this is related to the upgrades I've made in my system. I think it's because the receiver is underpowered to push my newer speakers. Even though it's supposed to be 125 watts into 5 channels with an 8-ohm load, it's seems to be struggling to keep up. And I like to watch movies at "theater" volume. Will buying a nice power conditioner help? I'm looking at the offerings from Panamax and Monster. I'm thinking about this with an eye toward the near future: I'm also looking hard at Onkyo receivers to replace the Technics. I know Onkyos are generally beefy, and I want to be able to push my stuff adequately. I also want to be able to take full advantage of cutting-edge soundtracks, and strip out lossless audio from Blu-ray.

A: I don't want to downplay the value of having a power conditioner in your equipment chain. Speaking as someone who used to regularly suffer from electrical brownouts in my neighborhood, power conditioners and battery backups saved my home theater gear from stress and damage on many occasions.

However, I don't think a power conditioner will solve the problem you're having. It sounds to me like your current receiver is simply inadequate to drive your speakers, or is malfunctioning. If you were thinking of upgrading to a new receiver anyway (in order to take advantage of lossless audio), that will probably fix this issue as well.

HD Audio Decoding

Q: I have a PS3 and a Harmon Kardon AVR 245 receiver. I understand that I can't receive DTS-HD Master Audio from the PS3. If I was to buy a standalone Blu-ray that decodes the Master Audio sound, would my receiver play Master Audio?

A: The PS3 is fully capable of decoding DTS-HD Master Audio soundtracks itself. You don't need a new Blu-ray player for that. When the PS3 does this, it converts to Master Audio codec to multi-channel PCM with no loss of quality. However, in order to take advantage of that, you'll need to connect the PS3 to an A/V receiver by HDMI.

According to the specs I looked up, although your AVR 245 receiver has HMDI inputs, it uses them only for video switching. The receiver cannot accept audio over HDMI. In that case, you're restricted to a Digital Coax or Toslink Optical connection, neither of which can carry more than 2 channels of PCM audio.

Long story short: If you want lossless multi-channel audio, you need to buy a new A/V receiver. Please see my Blu-ray Audio Explained article for more details.

Where to Perform Upconversion?

Q: I have a question regarding inputs on a receiver versus the TV itself for upscaling. I have a Sony STR-DG910 receiver with three HDMI inputs I bought last year to use with an old 32" Olevia that only had one HDMI input. But soon I will be upgrading to a Sony KDL-52V4100 52" TV with 4 HDMI inputs on its own. I know that to get the highest resolution audio I'll need to run my PS3 through the receiver via HDMI, but is there any reason to run older devices (such as a Wii which only uses component) through the stereo instead of straight to the TV? Maybe I'm naive, but in my assumption the TV would do a better job upscaling than the receiver, although maybe I'm wrong. What are your thoughts?

A: Honestly, this could go either way. It depends entirely on which component has the better upconversion hardware, the receiver or the TV. Unfortunately, I don't have direct experience with either of those models. If you've already made your decision that the KDL-52V4100 is the TV you're going to buy (and I assume you don't plan to change receivers), you might as well try it both ways and see for yourself.

I recommend purchasing a copy of the 'HQV Benchmark DVD', which provides a battery of test patterns that will help you to determine whether the receiver or TV is better at standard-def upconversion. Be sure to set your DVD player for 480i output, with any progressive scan or upconversion disabled. (At any other resolution, the tests will only tell you how the DVD player performs, but you want to test processing outside the DVD player.)

Lossless Audio and Headphones

Q: I have a Panasonic DMP-BD30 bitstreaming HD audio to my Onkyo TX-SR605 receiver via HDMI. My brother and I don't always like the same movies, and he complains because no matter how low a volume I watch a movie at, it more or less shoots through his bedroom door. I'm thinking about getting a pair of Sennheiser RS130 wireless headphones. When bitstreaming a TrueHD track to my 605, will I get audio through the headphones? I know that lossless tracks aren't designed to be listened to through headphones. Do I have to give up lossless to use the headphones?

A: When you transmit any audio codec (whether lossy or lossless) to your receiver in native bitstream form, the receiver has to decode that bitstream to PCM, then convert the signal to analog and amplify it to your speakers. After the decoding and D-to-A are done, the receiver can send the sound signal to a pair of headphones just as easily as it can to speakers. You will get audio from the headphones, but it's unlikely that any pair of headphones will be able to reproduce the full dynamic range of a good lossless track. You'll definitely hear the soundtrack, but probably won't be able to tell any difference between lossy or lossless.

Homework Assignment: You Be the Advisor

Flash Card Recommendations

Q: Can you recommend a reliable (and compatible, since I don't have any SDHC cards) MS Pro Duo adaptor for an SDHC card? I have a Sony camcorder HDR-UX20. I would like to view the movies we shoot through our Panasonic Blu-Ray DMP-BD55 using the SDHC card.

Check back next week for another round of answers. Keep those questions coming.

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HD Advisors by the Dozen

Fri May 01, 2009 at 03:00 PM ET
Tags: HD Advisor, Joshua Zyber (all tags)

Answers by Joshua Zyber

Dynamic Contrast

Q: What is the difference between native contrast and dynamic contrast? I know enough that they are overblown and kind of a cheat. Also, since now that most companies just post the dynamic contrast ratio, is there any way to find out what a TV's true ratio is?

A: The contrast ratio is the difference between the brightest and darkest points in a video image. The higher the contrast ratio, the more range that the display has between those two points. Displays with a low contrast ratio will have milky black levels and poor definition of details in shadow areas. A high contrast ratio will not only address those aspects, but will also greatly improve the sense of depth in the picture.

Contrast is still one of the biggest obstacles faced by digital displays. Although modern HDTVs boast higher and higher contrast ratios every year, I have yet to see any digital display (LCD, DLP, LCoS, or even Plasma) that can achieve the inky, almost total darkness generated by an analog CRT display with a pure black frame on screen. Plasmas come the closest (especially the Pioneer KURO line), but you'll always see some light output. In the worst cases (many LCDs), blacks are really just dark gray.

Of course, digital displays have other advantages over CRT. A set with a high contrast ratio will look great in most movie scenes, even if it can't achieve absolute black in the darkest scenes.

As you noted, there's a difference between a digital display's native contrast ratio and dynamic contrast ratio. Native contrast is the measured difference between bright and dark achieved by the pixel panel, assuming that the light source is a constant intensity at all times. However, many newer HD displays attempt to cheat the contrast by raising and lowering the intensity of the light source depending on the content of the image. The most common method to achieve this is to place a dynamic iris in front of the lamp that clamps down to dim light output in dark scenes, and opens up to increase light output in bright scenes. Some dynamic contrast implementations may also modulate power to the lamp, electronically manipulate the gamma curve, or combinations of all these methods.

The effect of dynamic contrast is that darks are darker and brights are brighter. Sounds great, doesn't it? Unfortunately, when the light output drops during dark scenes, bright points in those scenes (like a small lamp in the background of a darkened room) are also dimmed. Likewise, dark points in bright scenes will be washed out. In either case, light output is adjusted across the board. This is especially problematic in dark scenes with changing light sources, which can cause a visible "pumping" of the contrast as the algorithm attempts to adjust between bright and dark.

My torture test for dynamic contrast is the opening scene in 'Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope'. After the prologue scroll, we see a dark star field. As the Imperial Destroyer flies over the camera, it occupies a larger and larger portion of the screen, thus raising the average brightness level. A dynamic contrast implementation will react to this by raising the light level. As it does, you can see the blackness of space in the background turn grayer and grayer.

Dynamic contrast can be very effective if implemented well. You may never notice it in the majority of movie scenes. But it is a compromise and does have trade-offs.

Additionally, you must take any contrast ratios published by the manufacturers (whether native or dynamic) with a grain of salt. The circumstances used to measure those ratios in the factory are usually not achievable at home, certainly not after the set has been properly calibrated for movie and TV viewing. Your best bet is to find a trustworthy hardware review publication that uses professional instruments to measure the contrast at calibrated settings.

DTS-HD Master Audio on 'Die Hard 2'

Q: I noticed that in your review of 'Die Hard 2', you never mentioned that there is no DTS-HD track. I noticed that the other two movies, 'Die Hard' and 'Die Hard with a Vengeance', do have DTS-HD tracks. 'Die Hard 2' only has a DTS 5.1 track. I spoke to Fox Home Video, they are aware of this issue but nothing has been done about it. How come you guys didn't notice it, and if Fox is aware of the problem why aren't they doing something about it?

A: While I didn't review this title myself, I do have a copy of the disc and have read up on the issues with it. From what I've gathered, all four of the movies in the 'Die Hard Collection' are indeed encoded with DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 soundtracks. However, there's an authoring issue with the 'Die Hard 2' disc that cuts off the Master Audio extension when the soundtrack's native bitstream is transmitted from a Blu-ray player to a compatible receiver. Instead, only the standard DTS core is sent. On the other hand, some players that decode their audio internally are able to read the MA extension and decode it to PCM.

I tested the disc in two Blu-ray players today. My Panasonic DMP-BD50 is set to transmit audio in native bitstream form. When I play 'Die Hard 2', my receiver only reflects accepting a standard DTS 5.1 track. Meanwhile, when I try the disc in my Playstation 3, the console's Display screen clearly shows that it's decoding DTS-HD MA 5.1. Reviewers watching 'Die Hard 2' on a PS3 would have no indication that anything was wrong with the disc.

As for why Fox hasn't corrected and issued replacements for the disc yet, you'll have to take that up with the studio.

HDMI Switchers

Q:I have an older LCD TV that only has one HDMI jack on the back. As I have several high-def devices (Blu-ray player, PS3, Blu-ray laptop), I'd like to be able to hook them up to the TV. I was told I could purchase an HDMI switcher (I believe that what it's called), but have seen many different price ranges, from $40 to over $300. Is there any difference in the quality of these? Is the price difference justified?

A: In my column from a few weeks ago, I wrote about the differences between HDMI switchers and HDMI splitters. To recap, a switcher allows you to connect multiple video sources to one screen, while a splitter will take the output of one source and amplify it to multiple displays. Because the HDMI signal only travels in one direction, the two devices cannot be substituted for one another. What you need is an HDMI switcher.

Due to the complexities of the HDMI and HDCP encryption protocols, HDMI repeater devices are often prone to handshaking errors. My experience with HDMI splitters was problematic. I had to try several products to find one that worked reliably; of course, it was one of the more expensive options. For whatever reason, switchers are generally less glitchy. Nonetheless, you take your chances when you buy a cheap HDMI switcher. If you're on a budget and want to try inexpensive switchers, make sure you do so at a retailer with a good return/exchange policy.

If you aren't in the mood to experiment, the Oppo HM-31 is a very good 3x1 switcher for a reasonable $99. There may be other, less expensive options that will also fit your needs, but this is one I'm fairly confident in.

Film-to-Video Transfers

Q: Can you explain the process of how studios go about creating a master from a film and then the steps involved to transfer that to Blu-ray? Additionally, when/why/how various tinkering goes on, both necessary and unnecessary, such as digitally cleanup, adding edge enhancement, contrast/color boosting, etc.? How often does this result in a positive result rather than just altering something because they can (i.e. would things appear closer to as intended if less post processing was done)?

A: In order to transfer a movie from film to video, the film elements must be digitally scanned in a device called a telecine. After the movie has been digitized, the transfer operators have various tools to adjust the picture attributes. Among these are color correction, contrast enhancement, dirt and scratch removal, Digital Noise Reduction, and Edge Enhancement. After they've completed these steps, the files are archived to a digital master, usually at either 2k or 4k resolution. That HD master will then be used as the basis for all subsequent video editions. The master will be scaled to 1080p for Blu-ray or downconverted to standard-def for DVD.

All those tools at the studio's disposal are a mixed blessing. In a worst case scenario, too much tinkering will eradicate the original film textures and leave the image looking unnaturally electronic and "digital." In the days before Blu-ray, it was common for studios to wipe away any trace of film grain with DNR, because grain is difficult to compress using MPEG-2 at DVD's compression ratios. When that left the picture soft, they'd try to "sharpen it back up" with Edge Enhancement. We picky DVD reviewers may have complained about the process at the time, but average viewers watching on 20" tube sets thought it looked terrific.

Now that we're in the age of Blu-ray and large HD displays, those digital artifacts are downright painful to see. Unfortunately, in far too many cases, studios have simply recycled old outdated masters plagued with DNR and Edge Enhancement for their catalog titles. When they do, we try to call them on it in our reviews here at High-Def Digest.

With that said, digital tweaking has its place as well. When used correctly and in moderation, these tools can help to clean up or correct imperfections in the source material. For example, Fox's stunning Blu-ray transfer for 'The Sand Pebbles' was based on an extensive restoration effort performed entirely in the digital realm. The results look perfectly natural and film-like. The tools themselves are neither inherently good nor inherently evil. The skill and intent of the person operating them makes all the difference.

Dust Blobs & Stuck Pixels

Q: I have a 3 year-old HD LCD projector. About two years ago, two green spots appeared on the screen. I am pretty certain that it has nothing to do with the lens. Do you have any idea what could cause this?

A: There are a couple possible causes for this. If dust particles have gotten into the light path of your projector between the lamp and the lens, they may be obscuring part of the image. Remove the lamp and try (carefully) cleaning the insides of the projector with compressed air.

Another possibility is that your projector's LCD panel may have some stuck pixels. When that happens, the pixels are unable to refresh with new picture information even though rest of the screen is actively changing from frame to frame. Unfortunately, I don't believe there's a fix for this on a projector. In that event, perhaps this is the excuse you need to upgrade to a newer model.

Homework Assignment: You Be the Advisor

Blu-ray Burner Recommendations

Q: Is there a BD burner for a PC that will burn 1080p from my Canon EOS 5D Mark II that will play on a Playstation 3?

Check back next week for another round of answers. Keep those questions coming.

See what people are saying about this story in our forums area, or check out other recent discussions.

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