Preparing for Lost on 1080p!
As I told you yesterday, Carlton Cuse emailed me concerning an open ended question in my BuddyTV piece over the Lost Blu-Ray set’s technical specs: will it use the broadcast standard 720p transfers, or include new 1080p transfers. The answer was “I can confirm for you that the blu ray discs will be full-on 1080p.”
In light of that, I’ve received many emails asking “What is this 1080p, and where do I get it.” Since I was in the market for a few items myself, I figured I would share some info with you on how, and why, to make the transition to 1080p.
The why is simple. More pixels, better image. Even if you’re not looking for easter eggs, it’s a whole new viewing experience. Nearly twice the broadcast standard for ABC’s HD programming, at a wider bit rate meaning crystal clear pixel transitions. No digital ‘grain.’
One of the big questions is, how will we do screen caps? You’ll need a Blu Ray equipped computer. There are numerous Blu Ray equipped Lap Tops on the market. Personally, I own the Blu Ray Internal Drive
Getting a TV is another trick. If you’re playing on your PC, make sure you’re monitor can do 1920×1080 at at least 60hz or you won’t be watching full resolution. TV’s are a crazy market. There is a lot of noise over 1080p falling below the $2,000 mark, but there is a lot of noise on those screens too. You have to have a decent refresh rate, preferably below 10ms, to have full motion 1080p on a big screen with no pixel drag. Without a fast refresh, your 1080p screen will be filled with blocks during fast action sequences. Most tv’s artificially soften these blocks, but essentially the problem comes from the tv trying to figure out, really fast, what pixels it can live without in a given quadrant. Our answer, of course, is NONE! We want them all!
DLP might be tempting, but a lot of people still suffer strange perceptual anomalies with those sets. I’m one of them. If I’m watching DLP and look to the left or the right, I see a multi-colored moire pattern in the screen.
You also have to be careful of the 1080p ready/compatible bait and switch. Just because a TV is compatible, doesn’t mean it is capable. Most of the under $2,000 TV’s I looked at that were 1080p ready were 768p, meaning the TV was capable of being fed a 1080p single, but would down sample the image when displaying it. Effectively, chucking the extra pixels in the garbage.
There are a ton of both sneakily labeled 1080p and simply inferior sets on the market right now because the electronics industry has spent that last couple of years trying to produce cost effective 1080p solutions, or at least finding a way to cash in on consumer interest. A good general plan is to buy in person and make sure you see the TV displaying some fast action. Be wary of sets that are showing a screensaver of nice crisp images, demand to see some hi-def video in action.
Doc this is my tv, tell if it’s good, it looks pretty good when I watch it, I’m just trying to figure out what it is in terms of 480i/p 720i/p 1080i/p
Comment by DarthVibbert — August 24, 2007 @ 8:33 pm
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=8250144&type=product&id=1169512290376&ref=06&loc=01&ci_src=17588969&ci_sku=8250144
forgot the link
Comment by DarthVibbert — August 24, 2007 @ 8:35 pm
Your TV is 720i/p.
Comment by BurnZ — August 24, 2007 @ 11:59 pm
You think this TV would be LOST 1080p worthy? I think about buying this one.
Samsung LE37M86B
http://www.dcmelectro.be/product_info.php?products_id=9684
The only thing I’m wondering about is the 8ms refresh rate, but since doc says when its below 10ms it should be ok … :p
Comment by Pali — August 25, 2007 @ 12:21 pm
No such thing as 720i!
Comment by shaun — August 26, 2007 @ 12:24 pm
Hey Pali, I have that TV! Samsung, same LOOK same on Button. Maybe not the exact model. It has 1080 all over it with little stickers when I got it fro 2200 (Canadian , Dec. 26th, 2006) It displayed lost on HD and from my box sets really nice and crisp! Its a Plasma, so it maintains lifelike colors, I love it. Any Sun or kewl lights on it look amazingly real.
Comment by Ken — August 27, 2007 @ 8:58 am
Doc, as I told you in the other thread, it’s mastered in 1080p, and that’s what it would be presented in. That’s also why we’re getting Season 3 before any of the others. Seasons 1 and 2 are mastered on film with 720p broadcast transfers, so they’ll have to do new transfers from the film masters for 1080p. Season 3 was directly mastered in 1080p/24.
I still have no word on the special features, but it appears they will either be a mix of SD and HD, or strictly SD.
Comment by GodBlessTexas — August 27, 2007 @ 9:36 am
Good job on your post Doc. Here’s some additional info on resolutions and 1080p in particular.
First, regardless of what the salesman or packaging says, look up the TV’s technical specs for it’s "native resolution" . As Doc said, they may claim to be 1080p but are really upconverting the 1080i or 720p signal they get. This takes time and consequently skews your response time, possibly resulting in screen artifacts.
Now, some reasons to save money and buy 1080i or 720p sets.
Although Blu Ray and HD-DVD are 1080p sources, there are no 1080p broadcast sources (ie: antenna, cable or satellite) and it looks like there won’t be for a while. When it does finally become available, todays 1080p TV’s may not be equipped for the frame rate they decide on. (see Wiki excerpt below).
So, just like Blu Ray and HD-DVD, 1080p at the current frame rates may be the new milleniums version of Betamax.
Currently HD programming is served to us at 1080i or 720p, with the bulk of it coming in at 720p. The i and the p stand for interlaced (painting the screen twice, half the lines each time, to show you a single frame) and progressive (painting the screen once with all the lines). Unlike tube TV’s, fixed pixel TV’s like Plasma, LCD and DLP are progressive in nature. If you feed it a 1080i signal it converts the interlaced signal to progressive, and shows you 1080p.
Confused yet? Here’s a real world example:
I have a great top of the line HDTV but I have both it and my cable box set for 720p and here’s why. The networks are sending out 720p for the most part, so having your cable box set to deliver a 1080i signal means you are asking the box to upconvert the signal for you. It does this by repeating sections of the lines it does get to make up the difference. This takes time and slows down your response time. If you change this setting on your cable box you need to also set your TV to 720p, otherwise the TV will upconveft the signal. While most TV’s are better and quicker at upconverting than most cable boxes, it still can slow you up just enough to cause problems. My problems were minute but I wanted perfection so I tried every possible setting and the 720p straight through delivers best. I was seeing digital noise when I watched football when there was a shot of a wide reciever streaking down the sideline with the stadium signage as a backdrop. This cured the noise problem and did not detract from the image quality at all as it’s a 720p broadcast to begin with.
Here’s the excerpt from Wikipedia on 1080p:
Due to bandwidth limitations of broadcast frequencies, the ATSC and DVB have standardized only the frame rates of 24, 25, and 30 frames per second (1080p24, 1080p25, 1080p30). Higher frame rates, such as 1080p50 and 1080p60, could only be sent over normal-bandwidth channels if a more advanced codec (such as H.264/MPEG-4 AVC) were to be used. Higher frame rates such as 1080p50 and 1080p60 are foreseen as the future broadcasting standard for production.[3]
In the United States, the ATSC is considering amending its standard to allow the incorporation of the newer codecs for optional usage like the DVB Project consortium already has done with DVB-S2.[citation needed] However, doing so is not expected to result in widespread consumer availability of broadcast 1080p programming, since most of the existing digital television sets or external digital receivers in use in the United States would still only be capable of decoding the older, less-efficient MPEG-2 codec, while the bandwidth limitations do not allow for broadcasting two simultaneous streams on the same broadcast channel (e.g. both a 1080i MPEG-2 stream alongside a 1080p MPEG-4 stream).
Comment by berryjooks — August 27, 2007 @ 12:47 pm
Well said!
Keep up the good work,
berry
Comment by berryjooks — August 29, 2007 @ 7:58 pm