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Topic: Anyone consuming HD or Blu-ray?
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Larry Myers
Master Film Handler
Posts: 371
From: Herndon, VA, USA
Registered: Jan 2001
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posted 02-23-2008 04:18 PM
STATEMENT:
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Consequently, upgrading to Blu-ray or HD-DVD is not going to seem all that big an improvement if you're merely going from 480p DVD to 720p HD. The jump in image quality is nowhere near as dramatic as going from 480p to 1080p. That's a huge difference.
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That's completely crazy. Just on the math alone, the difference between 480p to 720p is 1.5 times better. Then, from 720p to 1080p is another 1.5 times better. In other words, an image that looks good at 15 ft at 480p will look just as good at 10 ft at 720p. Then at 1080p, that same image will look just as good at 6.666 ft vs 10 ft. So the higher the image quality, the closer to the screen you can get.
My projection distance is exactly 9 ft with a 3x7 2.35 wide screen. So with a 3 ft high screen, the view distance is 3 times screen height. I am right at the point, 9 ft view distance, where I see a difference in 480p to 720p but not a big difference between 720p to 1080p.
If I change the view distance or screen size then yes, I will see a difference. If I upgrade to a 1080p projecter, then I am sure I can enlarge the screen to 3.5 x 8 ft. That would most likely cost an extra $2000 right now. Again it seems crazy with all this talk about winners and losers on a $200 HD DVD player.
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 02-23-2008 05:20 PM
quote: Larry Myers
That's completely crazy.
No it isn't.
Bring up all the viewing distance arguments that you want (mainly to make yourself feel better about your 720p based setup). The difference between 480p and 720p is nowhere near the level of difference as that of 480p and 1080p.
480p to 720p = 345600 pixels to 921600 pixels.
That's a 266% increase in detail.
480p to 1080p = 345600 pixels to 2073600 pixels.
That's a 600% increase in detail.
Larry, it sounds like you have been trying to float an argument that 1080p isn't necessary and that 720p is "good enough." If HDTVs were still stuck in mere 720p levels of native resolution I would not have purchased one.
Here's another piece of anecdotal evidence about 720p not being nearly as impressive as 1080p for Blu-ray viewing. This past week one of my coworkers bought a new 40GB PS3 gaming system, which included a Blu-ray copy of Spiderman 3. This fellow isn't a movie tech-head type. His flat panel TV only does 720p. At that level, he didn't see what the big deal was about Blu-ray. On a true 1080p monitor Spiderman 3 has very sharp, impressive video quality (it's just too bad the movie itself isn't all that great).
If you want to keep on arguing this viewing distance hokum, bear in mind that there is NO need at all for people to see a coarse pixel grid at any distance close or far. There really is no valid purpose, other than cost cutting, for any HDTV monitor or video projector to feature anything less than 1080p native resolution.
This situation can be compared to the varying degrees of professionalism (and lack thereof) in print-based publishing. Too many morons out there stupidly and lazily use low resolution digital images of photographs in a publication. They gamble on the image-setter's RIP to hide the coarse pixels, but end up with a laughable looking jaggy image in the finished publication. An image with much higher native resolution is going to have the appearance of smooth, continuous tone and sharp image detail at a variety of viewing distances -not just distances from afar.
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Mike Schindler
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1039
From: Oak Park, IL, USA
Registered: Jun 2002
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posted 02-24-2008 10:34 AM
quote: Larry Myers
For what ever reason, 720p setting looks the best with both standard and HD DVD's using my $1200 720p projector.
quote:
Um, well duh!
While logic might suggest that Larry's statement is an obvious one, the reality of the situation is that it's not. Like I said in my last post, this isn't the case for my system.
Something needs to scale the image from 1080p to 720p. That could be the player or the display. The question is, which will do a better job? In my case, it's the display. So instead of going the intuitive route, I have my Blu-ray player set to 1080p.
As for the 1080p vs 720p argument, Obviously, 1080p looks better than 720p, and the next projetor I buy will be 1080p. But speaking as a 720p owner, there is a substantial improvement over 480p.
I think that part of it is just that these new hi-def transfers are much cleaner than the ones on regular DVD. You don't get all that edge enhancement and stuff.
But also, my projector was in the shop for a while, and I had to borrow my parents' 540p projector. I hooked up the Blu-ray player to that thing, and it looked substantially worse than my 720p unit.
So not talking math, just personal viewing experience, I would say that 720p is a viable choice for people, like myself, with budgetary concerns.
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David Stambaugh
Film God
Posts: 4021
From: Eugene, Oregon
Registered: Jan 2002
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posted 02-24-2008 10:46 AM
link
Viewing Distance vs. Resolution
By Geoffrey Morrison • September, 2006
Or, how I learned to stop worrying and love 720p.
Resolution starts (and ends) with the eye. If you're one of the lucky few with 20/20 vision (corrected or not), your eye can discern one-sixtieth of a degree of arc at 20 feet. Translated to inches, this means that, at 20 feet, your eye can discern objects roughly 0.067 inches wide, as long as there's enough of a contrast difference between the object and the background. This refers only to black-and-white info; your eye doesn't resolve color nearly as well as black-and-white. Also, eyes and contrast are a whole other GearWorks that I'll get to eventually. Lastly, we're going to stick with width for simplicity, although this discussion obviously applies to both width and height. Most people sit about 10 feet from their TVs. At this distance (and everything else being equal), your eye can resolve objects that are 0.033 inches wide.
Talk TV, Smart Guy
The average 42-inch-diagonal, 1,280-by-720 plasma or LCD display has pixels that are roughly 0.029 inches wide. (Of course, each model has different inter-pixel spacing, but, for now, we'll assume they don't.) If the same size display had a resolution of 1,920 by 1,080, the pixels would be 0.019 inches wide. As you can see, in a 42-inch display at a distance of 10 feet, your eye can't discern the resolution available even with 720p. Even more resolution is "wasted" at 1,920 by 1,080.
Now, assuming that you're not going to move your couch but you want a bigger TV, how does this work with a 50-inch set? The pixels in a 1,280-by-720 display are 0.034 inches wide, which is almost exactly what your eye can discern at 10 feet. A 1,920-by-1,080 display has 0.023-inch-wide pixels, smaller than your eye can resolve. A 1,920-by-1,080 display would have to measure more than 70 inches diagonally before you start testing your eyes' limits on the display's resolution (at least at 10 feet). Scan lines are the pixels of the CRT world and, in this case, function similarly. The pixels in some displays are not square, in which case you'll also need to check pixel height.
Hold Up, Math Whiz
That isn't the whole story. High resolution, in and of itself, isn't why the the move was made to HD. Ideally, a screen should fill 30 degrees of your field of view for so-called "optimum viewer enjoyment." This is why kids sit so close to the TV, and movies in the theater were more fun than your old TV. By making the screens wider and letting you sit closer (thanks to the higher resolution), the average TV's field of view went from 11 degrees (in most cases) with NTSC to 33 degrees with an ideal HDTV. Rarely is everything ideal, though. The "3x picture height" rule that's tossed about as the ideal seating distance for HDTV (compared with 7x for NTSC) doesn't take into account that displays and high-definition material aren't perfect (and, until recently, none were really 1,920 by 1,080). Just because you can match or exceed your eye/pixel resolution doesn't mean that the material you're watching has anything close to that level of detail. Video noise, artifacts, and poor-quality low-resolution sources (NTSC cable/satellite feeds) are all too noticeable at close distances.
To split the difference between NTSC and HDTV, I recommend a 5x seating distance as a starting point (even at a loss of field of view). At 5x, your eye can almost exactly resolve 720p, regardless of screen size. Since the original writing, we put this math to the test, with intersting results. You can read that article here.
So, Can I Buy a Cheap TV?
Just because your eye can't resolve the additional resolution doesn't mean that you shouldn't get a higher-resolution set; it just means that you don't necessarily have to. From where most people sit, you don't need 1080p in a 37-42 inch TV. It's arguable that you do in a 50-inch set. The key, then, is moving your seating. If you're sitting more than 5x the picture height away from your TV, then you probably don't need 1080p. If you can move closer, you should get the highest resolution display you can, sit close enough that you can't see the pixels, and enjoy your huge screen.
The Math
(Screen Diagonal x 0.87) / Horizontal Resolution = Pixel Width
(Screen Diagonal x 0.49) / Vertical Resolution = Pixel Height
At a distance of 10 feet, the eye can resolve 1/120 of a degree of arc, which translates to a width of 0.033 inches.
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