# I broke down and got a Blu-Ray



## LuxLuthor (Nov 20, 2009)

I have been very happy with my Oppo DV-980H upcoding multi-region DVD player, but wanted to get a WiFi setup to pick up my Netflix & other online media, as well as network with my PC server in the other room.

I was looking at the Roku digital video player which has great reviews, and had no plans to get a Blu-Ray. Then I saw the built in WiFi and USB-2 input and other media features & great reviews, so ordered one of these LG BD390 players. It is not region free, but that's ok since I have my Oppo.

I'm not about to duplicate my existing DVD collection, but there are a few classics I will probably end up getting. For starters, I ordered the BBC Planet Earth collection, and BladeRunner Collector edition.

What other HIGH QUALITY, well done BR converted or new titles do you guys recommend? Any other strong candidates besides these that are remarkably better on BR than from upcoding DVD?


Coppola's Godfather Series
Wizard of Oz 70th Anniv.
Matrix Trilogy
The Dark Knight
Star Trek
BlackHawk Down
Quantum of Solace
Casino Royale
The Fifth Element
Thanks


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## Knights of Ni (Nov 20, 2009)

Definitely The Dark Knight especially if you have a good sound system.
Some of the early scenes are filmed on Imax and it looks incredible.
Many will disagree with me but the Transformers blurays are good eye candy whether you like the movie or not, again unreal sound track.
Blu ray picture is great but the sound is spectacular also.
Have fun with it.
Knights of Ni


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## Vinniec5 (Nov 20, 2009)

Seriously BlackHawk Down seriously a must get and a consistant all time Blu-ray top seller

Die Hard (First is the best IMO but first 3 are good 4 was Iffy)
French Connection 1 & 2
Dog Day Afternoon ( excellent xfer & flick) Dirty Harry Series
Predator (not a great xfer but good)
First Blood
One more for any pilot or anyone that likes Fighter Jets "Fighter Pilot: Operation Red Flag" on Blu-ray its awesome the footage is shot from the Pilot's view 
J&R in NYC is having a Blu-ray sale 9.99 for a lot of them Black Hawk Down is $23.99 worth every penny
JR.com


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## LuxLuthor (Nov 20, 2009)

Thanks so far. Let me repeat what I am asking here...so this doesn't become a grab bag of personal choices in movies.

I'm not at all interested in average or "good" transfers, since the Oppo does such a superb job of upcoding. Nor am I interested in obscure (i.e. Fighter Pilot) titles, or places that are running "special BR sales" in this thread. 

I'm mainly looking at which EXTRAORDINARY & CLASSIC MOVIE BR replacements of my existing DVD's are considered really must have because they are so much better than DVD. I do have a great sound system.

I made some of my first round choices from "Must Have BR" links like these:


Squidoo.com
Digital Trends
Blog Critics
Amazon List
CNET Reviews


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## StarHalo (Nov 20, 2009)

"Ehehe, Blondie.."








Also, if you're a Trekkie, even slightly, you'll appreciate the original Star Trek series with William Shatner on Blu-Ray; every rebroadcast of Star Trek you've ever seen on television is a copy of a copy that's been floating around network archives for years, some of these are transfers from decades ago. It turns out that the series was actually filmed with 35mm movie cameras, with resolution and detail so high that no previous television technology could capture it - it's only now with Blu-Ray technology that for the first time the full theater-presentation quality of the original recordings can be fully revealed. It's really mesmerizing to see a small sci-fi production from nearly 40 years ago that looks as high-quality as any current HD television series..


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## geepondy (Nov 20, 2009)

Can they really take an old master such as The Wizard of Oz and improve upon it's DVD offering?


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## da.gee (Nov 21, 2009)

I have the next Oppo in the series, the 983H. It does a superb job of upscaling standard DVDs so I understand your criteria. It would have to be pretty darn good to improve noticeably on the experience. I was inches from getting the Oppo BD player but was hesitant because it would seem difficult for BluRay to be that much better to justify the investment particularly given the commodity pricing of DVD source material. I'm holding out but its on my Christmas list. It better be REALLY better.

I think a PS3 is in my future so that will probably be my BD entry point. I've been no help at all but I'll be interested in the responses.


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## louie (Nov 21, 2009)

I'm using the Oppo BDP83. IMO, DVDs vary wildly in transfer quality, as do Blurays. But any BD is still better than DVD. It seems like you're looking for transfers that are a LOT better, though.

I'm just starting on BDs, but transfer-wise, Bladerunner is quite good, as is Goldfinger. 2001 is a decent improvement over DVD, but Clockwork Orange isn't so much. People have complained about Bullitt on BD, and I concurred it's not a huge improvement over the DVD, but noticeable. I think Bullitt was also just not made as a technical film, but a looser, 60s style. 

I also agree the Star Trek OS sets are grand to watch if you like that. I've been able to compare some of it to a 35mm print, and the BD is very good. You can program the playback to show original special effects, or the recently redone ones.

There's a lot of talk over whether transfer should be made at 2k, 4k or 8k resolution. I understand Bladerunner is 4k. Some of my ordinary DVDs look barely better than 16mm, whereas some look like maybe 80% of a BD on my Oppo.

Geepondy, there are some articles on how much effort was recently put into restoring the Wizard of Oz. I don't have the BD, but reviews have been good for the improvements.


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## LuxLuthor (Nov 21, 2009)

StarHalo, I love Clint in almost every movie acting & directing. Interesting that those lists I posted last time don't have any of the Sergio Leone classics listed as an outstanding transfer.

I am a devout Trekie, but may rent one of the ST-OS BluRay on Netflix to see if it is worth buying. It's hard to imagine as cheesy as their sets, budget, special effects were that it is worth bothering with BR version...but it may be.

da.gee & louie, most people who never got a high quality upcoding Oppo don't realize how nice of a job it does. I'm not convinced that EVERY BR is clearly better than upcoded DVD, although theoretically it should be. It all depends on the original print resolution, and the transfer technique.

I only play games on PC platform, so was not interested in PS. Mainly was looking for an effective networked WiFi interface between my PC and TV, also including Netflix downloads...and this LG model did all that in spades + apparently is a superb BR which was a bonus....so I got sucked into BR as a secondary motivation.

Much of the new blockbuster/action movies are being filmed with BR (& higher resolutions) in mind, so going forward I am more confident in new movie quality giving BR>DVD. It looks like most of the classics (that I already have in DVD) are not worth buying a new BR copy.

I know Bladerunner, Wizard of Oz 75th, Godfather-Copolla Restoration, 2001, Baraka, BBC Earth, Iron Man, Cars, Ratatouille, Pirates-2, Dark Knight, two latest 007's are dramatically better. I'll probably add Kill Bill to the list.


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## 1wrx7 (Nov 21, 2009)

I just went through and did a count. I'm up to 36 BD's, that includes two seasons of TV shows. Out of the ones you listed Lux, I have Black Hawk Down, Casino Royale, The Dark Knight, and the Matrix box set. BHD and the Matrix replaced DVD copies I had for years, and there is a difference. While watching Dark Knight on HBO in HD, I could tell the quality wasn't as good as my BD. 

I'm with you on not running out to replace all my DVD's There are a few I want to replace when the BD's are available... assuming the transfers are worth it. You've obviously done more research on this than I have. Specificly Kill Bill. I love those movies, and I wouldn't have expected the transfers to be too much better. I might have to look into them. One BD I have that has beautiful visuals is The Watchmen, although I have no idea if it's any better than upconverted DVD:shrug:

I noticed they now have Band of Brothers on BD. Have you looked into this one for a quality difference?


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## SCEMan (Nov 21, 2009)

I've been an early adopter since the inception of the Blu-ray and HD-DVD formats and found these sites to have the most comprehensive information
on PQ.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1168342
http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/reviews.html

You may be surprised by the PQ of some older classic titles. Several have image quality approaching the best of the new (non-CGI) releases.


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## louie (Nov 21, 2009)

For sure I'm not running out and replacing every DVD with a BD (if available). For one, it's expensive. Some of my DVDs may never get replaced by BDs, they're just not worth it to me to see them in HD. OTOH, my faves will get replaced by BD.

I also get this feeling that BD transfers will improve over time, just as DVDs did. The conspiracy theory is that they will issue "special editions" and improved transfers to make you buy yet another copy. Some titles may just have a BD version made from the DVD transfer just to get on the bandwagon ASAP. Those aren't going to look as good as a 4k or 8k careful transfer, maybe just a little better than the DVD.

I have looked at the BBC Earth BD set, and most of it is very pretty. Like a picture book. I don't think I'll buy it, though.


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## Patriot (Nov 21, 2009)

Congrats Lux. That's a nice player.

I just ordered and installed this Samsung over at my folk's house and set everything up last night. I'm pretty happy with it so far.



Regarding reference quality material, I always go here first...

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1168342


Cars, I Robot, and Curse of the Black Pearl, have been the most impressive movies I've seen on blu ray. The Patriot and Fantastic 4, are close 2nds

P.S. I watched "Patton" last night and the picture was a 8.5 out of 10! The soundtrack sucked though despite being DTS. It wasn't mixed well so I had to turn up the sound a lot to hear dialog and had to turn it way down for other ambient sounds. Very annoying! Do not purchase...


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## LuxLuthor (Nov 21, 2009)

1wrx7 said:


> While watching Dark Knight on HBO in HD, I could tell the quality wasn't as good as my BD.


 You realize that all High Def via cable/satellite/fiber/Uverse is not real HD, right? Most of the HIGHER quality transmitted HD are at 720P, some 1080i, and it can fluctuate movie/show to show even on the same channel. They are not transmitting at true Blu-Ray HD of 1080p, so you can not compare any transmitted channel HD with BR.



SCEMan said:


> http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1168342
> http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/reviews.html


I have seen those sites, but they are not specifically saying which titles are SIGNIFICANTLY BETTER than a QUALITY UPCODED DVD version. They are only saying which have the best PQ, but in some cases the DVD also has superb quality that is further improved with upcoding. That is part of what I have felt is the "SCAM" of BR, especially when they paid off Toshiba to drop the DVD-HD competition that had more room to improve than BR.

I use the term "SCAM" intentionally, because there is an industry wide conspiracy to try and convince consumers to spend oodles and oodles of money buying a new HD TV's, HD Receiver, HD Sound systems, higher cable/satellite/phone monthy HD fees, HD BR Player, higher priced BR Discs, upgraded PC's, PC-BR burners, PC HDMI Monitors to watch BR movies.

When you check into more and more details, if someone has a high quality upcoding DVD player, there is not a huge reason to upgrade from DVD to BR. It is nothing like the difference moving from VHS resolution to DVD.

So again, I'm looking for what is probably 10-20 existing titles that have been significantly improved for transfer to BR.



Patriot said:


> Congrats Lux. That's a nice player.
> 
> I just ordered and installed this Samsung over at my folk's house and set everything up last night. I'm pretty happy with it so far.
> 
> ...



I looked first at that Samsung model, and read both writeups at CNET, with their giving a number of advantages between the two to the LG. I also wanted the faster WiFi "N" standard and ability to play AAC tunes.

It seems pretty well accepted that the Disney/Pixar animated movies _(No offense to your avatar, but the only one I would think of watching more than once is Ratatouille.)_ and at least Pirates-2 are significantly better. 

What you saw with Patton is exactly why BR is not necessarily worth jumping into the complete setup expense. I also think it is inexcuseable for studios to do crappy transfers for BR. Do they think people who bought Patton BR are then also going to buy a "Director's Edition" of Patton?

It will be interesting to try and objectively compare the upcoding processing of my Oppo vs. this new LG BR.


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## Mjolnir (Nov 21, 2009)

I rented Quantum of Solace on bluray. While the movie itself was not very good (the plot is absolutely horrible), the higher sound quality from the Blu-ray disc was very good, especially with the car chases. However, you obviously need to have a receiver that can support this audio format.

I don't see why any transfer of a movie to HD wouldn't be significantly better than an upcoded 480P dvd. With 480P you simply don't have the added data to make the movie truly at a higher resolution. I have watched numerous upcoded DVDs, and while they are better than dvds played on a non-upcoding DVD player, they are still noticeably lacking when compared to a blu-ray movie. The data simply isn't there to create a true 720P or 1080P picture.
You should probably give Saving Private Ryan a try. Also, Band of Brothers is now out on Blu-Ray, and apparently it is pretty good. 

The Bourne trilogy is also very good in HD with a good sound system (lots of car collisions).


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## Mjolnir (Nov 21, 2009)

LuxLuthor said:


> You realize that all High Def via cable/satellite/fiber/Uverse is not real HD, right? Most of the HIGHER quality transmitted HD are at 720P, some 1080i, and it can fluctuate movie/show to show even on the same channel. They are not transmitting at true Blu-Ray HD of 1080p, so you can not compare any transmitted channel HD with BR.
> 
> 
> I have seen those sites, but they are not specifically saying which titles are SIGNIFICANTLY BETTER than a QUALITY UPCODED DVD version. They are only saying which have the best PQ, but in some cases the DVD also has superb quality that is further improved with upcoding. That is part of what I have felt is the "SCAM" of BR, especially when they paid off Toshiba to drop the DVD-HD competition that had more room to improve than BR.
> ...



I strongly disagree with this... As I said, I have watched upconverted dvds on the exact same system as I have watched blu-ray (both my blu-ray player and my receiver have upconverting capability). Even though one of my TVs is only 720P, I could easily see an improvement with the bluray over the upconverted DVD. You can't magically make an image a higher resolution (sort of like the "image enhancement" that is used on many crimes shows to seemingly magically resolve a license plate number from a grainy low-res security camera video) if there isn't any data there. If you put something originally filmed in HD (or traditional film) down to 480P and then covnert it back up to 1080P, then you still only have the same level of detail as the 480P image, it is just better fit for the 1920 x 1080 resolution. 
I think that calling it a "scam" is kind of paranoid. There most certainly is a difference, but whether or not people feel that difference is worth it is up to them. You might not feel that it is worth it, but that doesn't mean that others do not. You state that the difference in resolutionbetween Blu-ray and DVD is nothing when comapred with DVD and VHS... A VHS "image" would have about 80,000 "pixels" (if VHS had pixels), while a DVD has about 300,000. A Bluray "image" will have _over 2 million pixels_. a 720P image will have about 1 million pixels. Therefore, with a bluray picture you have over 6 times the image data of a DVD, where the difference between DVD and VHS is probably about 4 times. The difference between a 1080P signal and a DVD is therefore more than the difference between DVD and VHS, not less. Even if you upconvert a DVD, you do not get any more data.

Again, that added data might not translate into a benefit to you, but calling HD video a scam is not accurate. I (and many other people) upgraded to HD and Blu-ray capable equipment because I felt that there was a significant difference over DVDs (even upconverted dvds), not because some blu-ray advertisement told me I should.


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## LuxLuthor (Nov 21, 2009)

Mjolnir said:


> I rented Quantum of Solace on bluray. While the movie itself was not very good (the plot is absolutely horrible), the higher sound quality from the Blu-ray disc was very good, especially with the car chases. However, you obviously need to have a receiver that can support this audio format.



As a sequel to Casino Royale within the Bond series, I enjoyed QOS--plot and all. But then I am a die-hard 007 fan....also a Die-Hard Willis fan for that matter. LOL!



Mjolnir said:


> I don't see why any transfer of a movie to HD wouldn't be significantly better than an upcoded 480P dvd. With 480P you simply don't have the added data to make the movie truly at a higher resolution. I have watched numerous upcoded DVDs, and while they are better than dvds played on a non-upcoding DVD player, they are still noticeably lacking when compared to a blu-ray movie. The data simply isn't there to create a true 720P or 1080P picture.


 Same response to your next post.

This is a common misunderstanding. Once you read about the topic which is introduced at this link, you begin to get an idea of the concept. A higher quality upscaling DVD player samples more surrounding pixels to more accurately interpolate (create) new pixels to then be displayed as 720p, 1080i, or 1080p. I also seriously doubt that you have a high quality upcoding DVD player. It matters which cable connection is used, and the quality of the TV connected to.

It is akin to a lossy high quality MP3 _(made with Exact Audio Copy with specific Lame encoder version, in secure mode with error correction, etc.)_ created from a CD. In this comparison, the CD represents a Blu-Ray 1080p, and the MP3 a DVD. When the high quality MP3 is played back, the missing frequency data that was on the CD is interpolated and added to the playback. If done right, only the most extreme audiophiles with the most extreme equipment can actually hear any difference between the two.

Of course, then there is SACD & higher quality multi-input sound recordings that can reproduce to a degree that it sounds like you are in front of the recording artist as they are performing live. Video resolutions have already begun moving way beyond the Blu-Ray 1080p resolutions to compare with SACD & higher audio rates. Example is the QuadHDTV from Silicon Video Inc., 3840 x 2140 @ 30 fps or 4 times the BR standard. 



Mjolnir said:


> You should probably give Saving Private Ryan a try. Also, Band of Brothers is now out on Blu-Ray, and apparently it is pretty good.
> 
> The Bourne trilogy is also very good in HD with a good sound system (lots of car collisions).



I have all those on DVD, and have not yet heard that they are SIGNIFICANTLY BETTER than a quality UPCODED DVD version. Band of Brothers is a wonderful miniseries though.


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## SCEMan (Nov 21, 2009)

Early on in the HD DVD wars upscaling DVD players were a frequent topic as an alternative. But since Blu-ray audio codecs also offer significant enhancements over DVD sound, this is another reason to upgrade if your system supports it.

Personally, I buy very few BDs, mostly concerts and favorites (e.g., Band of Brothers) and prefer to rent. 

I really think you should review the wealth of information available on the AVSforum. The upscaling vs. high definition debate has been discussed definitively there and this forum cannot do it justice.


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## Mjolnir (Nov 21, 2009)

LuxLuthor said:


> As a sequel to Casino Royale within the Bond series, I enjoyed QOS--plot and all. But then I am a die-hard 007 fan....also a Die-Hard Willis fan for that matter. LOL!
> 
> Same response to your next post.
> 
> ...



The reason that I dislike QOS is because I AM a "die hard" james bond fan. I have seen every movie at least twice, and many of them more than that. I felt that quantum of solace simply ditched everything that the 007 movies had in favor of nothing; they basically made it into a Bourne movie without as good of a plot. Additionally, it had no continuity with any other movie (besides Casino Royale). 
I understand that upconverting can extrapolate to get some additional artificial detail, but the fact that the 480P signal has far less data means that it simply cannot match the quality of a true 1080P signal, since the upconverter is essentially guessing as to what the original picture looked like. 
For what it's worth, I have a Pioneer Elite receiver with a Faroudja DCDI chip for upconversion, which is actually the same chip that is in the Oppo 981-HD, the unit that was above the model that you have in oppo's lineup. It seems like many of the upconverters do some form of anti-aliasing, which can make the picture look better. However, aliasing isn't really an issue at higher resolutions, like 1080P. 

If someone already has an HDTV, then they might as well spend their money on a blu-ray drive instead of an upconverting DVD player, since they aren't all that different in price.


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## LuxLuthor (Nov 21, 2009)

SCEMan said:


> Early on in the HD DVD wars upscaling DVD players were a frequent topic as an alternative. But since Blu-ray audio codecs also offer significant enhancements over DVD sound, this is another reason to upgrade if your system supports it.
> 
> Personally, I buy very few BDs, mostly concerts and favorites (e.g., Band of Brothers) and prefer to rent.
> 
> I really think you should review the wealth of information available on the AVSforum. The upscaling vs. high definition debate has been discussed definitively there and this forum cannot do it justice.



I didn't start this topic to devolve into a comprehensive discussion of upcoding DVD's vs. BR, and as in Patriot's Patton example, just having a higher storage capacity does not mean that the original movie production had adequate quality sound and/or video (without restorative manipulation) to always make BR sound significantly better than a quality upcoding DVD player. 

The technology of current HDTV's and Upcoding DVD players has progressed dramatically beyond the early discussion days at AVS Forum.

The whole reason this thread exists is exactly what I am talking about. I wouldn't even begin to consider replacing a DVD with BR if it was not first on their top "GOLD" rating list. It would then need to be an absolute classic, and then have a number of recommendations that this specific title is radically better on BR.

However what they do not do in that thread is compare a given BR title next to a quality upcoding DVD player/TV setup for the same title. Obviously in a number of cases the BR will be better to some degree. I'm only looking for those that are DRAMATICALLY better.


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## da.gee (Nov 22, 2009)

Hey Lux,

I found this list on the Internet so it must be true (Googled "must have blu-ray titles"). Site is a home theater forum. He had some Oppo banners which immediately gives him credibility.  Food for thought at least.

_*Reference Quality 'Must-Have' Blu-ray Discs *_

_Want to see how good home theater can look and sound? Use these discs! They represent the absolute best audio and video quality that 1080p Blu-ray has to offer. Every movie collection must have a handful of these films! To make the list the disc must have a combined audio/video score of at least 9/10. 

Forrest Gump Video: 4.5/5 Audio: 4.5/5 
Monsters, Inc. Video: 4.5/5 Audio: 5/5 
The Negotiator Video: 4.5/5 Audio: 4.5/5 
North by Northwest Video: 5/5 Audio: 4.5/5 
Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure Video: 5/5 Audio: 4/5 
Up Video: 5/5 Audio: 5/5 
Monsters vs. Aliens Video: 5/5 Audio: 5/5 
Drag me to Hell Video: 5/5 Audio: 5/5 
The Wizard of Oz: 70th Anniversary Ultimate Collector's Edition Video: 5/5 Audio: 4.5/5 
Dexter: The Complete Third Season Video: 4.5/5 Audio: 4.5/5 
X-Men Origins: Wolverine Video: 4/5 Audio: 5/5 
Braveheart Video: 4.5/5 Audio: 5/5 
Crank 2: High Voltage Video: 4/5 Audio: 5/5 
Let the Right One In (Magnolia) Video: 4.5/5 Audio: 4.5/5 
Lost Season 1 (Buena Vista) Video: 5/5 Audio: 4.5/5 
Coraline (Universal) Video: 5/5 Audio: 5/5 
Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon (Sony) Video: 4/5 Audio: 5/5 
Fast & Furious (Universal) Video: 4.5/5 Audio: 5/5 
Glory (Sony) Video: 4.5/5 Audio: 5/5 
Watchmen: Director's Cut (Warner) Video: 5/5 Audio: 5/5 
Knowing (Summit) Video: 4.5/5 Audio: 5/5 
Generation Kill (HBO) Video: 4/5 Audio: 5/5 
Miracle (Walt Disney) Video: 4.5/5 Audio: 4.5/5 
The Greatest Game Ever Played (Walt Disney) Video: 5/5 Audio: 5/5 
Air Force One Video: 4/5 Audio: 5/5 
A Bug's Life Video: 5/5 Audio: 5/5 
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (Paramount) Video: 5/5 Audio: 5/5 
Seabiscuit (Universal) Video: 4.5/5 Audio: 4.5/5 
Dexter: The Complete Second Season (Paramount) Video: 4.5/5 Audio: 4.5/5 
The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008) (Fox) Video: 5/5 Audio: 5/5 
Sin City (Buena Vista) Video: 5/5 Audio: 5/5 
X-Men: The Last Stand (Special Edition) (Fox) Video: 4/5 Audio: 5/5 
X2: X-Men United (Fox) Video: 4.5/5 Audio: 5/5 
Slumdog Millionare (Fox) Video: 4.5/5 Audio: 5/5 
Quantum of Solace (MGM) Video: 4.5/5 Audio: 5/5 
Transporter 3 (Lionsgate) Video: 4.5/5 Audio: 5/5 
The Fast and the Furious Trilogy (Universal) Video: 4.5/5 Audio: 5/5 
Bolt (Walt Disney) Video: 5/5 Audio: 5/5 
Punisher: War Zone (Lionsgate) Video: 4.5/5 Audio: 5/5 
The Chronicles of Riddick (Universal) Video: 4.5/5 Audio: 4.5/5 
Australia (Fox) Video: 4.5/5 Audio: 4.5/5 
Pinocchio (1940) (Walt Disney) Video: 5/5 Audio: 4.5/5 
Body of Lies (Warner) Video: 4.5/5 Audio: 4.5/5 
Live From Abbey Road: Best Of Season One Video: 5/5 Audio: 4.5/5 
Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa (Paramount) Video: 4.5/5 Audio: 4.5/5 
Rent: Filmed Live on Broadway (Sony) Video: 4.5/5 Audio: 4.5/5 
Dexter: The Complete First Season (Paramount) Video: 5/5 Audio: 5/5 
Zodiac: Director's Cut (Paramount) Video: 5/5 Audio: 4/5 
King Kong (2005) Video: 5/5 Audio: 5/5 
Band of Brothers (HBO) Video: 4/5 Audio: 5/5 
Eagle Eye (Paramount) Video: 4.5/5 Audio: 4.5/5 
The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (Universal) Video: 4.5/5 Audio: 4.5/5 
Baraka Video: 4.5/5 Audio: 4.5/5 
Horton Hears a Who! (2008) Video: 5/5 Audio: 4.5/5 
Wanted (Universal) Video: 4.5/5 Audio: 5/5 
The Dark Knight (Warner) Video: 4.5/5 Audio: 5/5 
Tropic Thunder (DreamWorks) Video: 4.5/5 Audio: 4.5/5 
Wall-E (Walt Disney) Video: 5/5 Audio: 5/5 
Kung Fu Panda (DreamWorks) Video: 5/5 Audio: 5/5 
Tinker Bell (Walt Disney) Video: 5/5 Audio: 5/5 
Sleeping Beauty (Walt Disney) Video: 5/5 Audio: 4.5/5 
The Incredible Hulk (2008) Video: 5/5 Audio: 4.5/5 
The Strangers (2008) (Universal) Video: 4.5/5 Audio: 4.5/5 
The Ultimate Matrix Collection (Warner) Video: 5/5 Audio: 5/5 
Eastern Promises (Universal) Video: 5/5 Audio: 4/5 
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull Video: 4/5 Audio: 5/5 
Shrek the Third Video: 5/5 Audio: 4.5/5 
Kill Bill Vol. 2 Video: 4/5 Audio: 5/5 
Kill Bill Vol. 1 Video: 4/5 Audio: 5/5 
Iron Man (2008) (Paramount) Video: 4.5/5 Audio: 5/5 
Transformers (2007) (Paramount) Video: 4.5/5 Audio: 5/5 
U-571 (Universal) Video: 4.5/5 Audio: 4.5/5 
Beowulf: Director's Cut (2007) (Paramount) Video: 5/5 Audio: 5/5 
Doomsday (Universal) Video: 5/5 Audio: 4/5 
Vantage Point (Sony) Video: 4.5/5 Audio: 5/5 
The Mummy Returns (Universal) Video: 4.5/5 Audio: 5/5 
Batman Begins (Warner) Video: 4.5/5 Audio: 5/5 
John Mayer: Where the Light Is (Sony BMG) Video: 4/5 Audio: 5/5 
Persepolis (Sony) Video: 5/5 Audio: 4.5/5 
Jumper (Fox) Video: 4.5/5 Audio: 4.5/5 
Rambo (Lionsgate) Video: 4.5/5 Audio: 5/5 
Cloverfield (Paramount) Video: 4/5 Audio: 5/5 
Bee Movie (DreamWorks) Video: 5/5 Audio: 4.5/5 
Youth Without Youth (Sony) Video: 4.5/5 Audio: 4.5/5 
Saawariya (Sony) Video: 5/5 Audio: 4/5 
Alien vs. Predator: Requiem (Fox) Video: 4.5/5 Audio: 4.5/5 
The 6th Day (Sony) Video: 4.5/5 Audio: 4.5/5 
Ice Age (Fox) Video: 5/5 Audio: 5/5 
I, Robot (Fox) Video: 4.5/5 Audio: 4.5/5 
I Am Legend (Warner) Video: 5/5 Audio: 5/5 
Enchanted (Walt Disney) Video: 5/5 Audio: 4.5/5 
No Country for Old Men (Walt Disney) Video: 5/5 Audio: 4.5/5 
Shoot 'Em Up Video: 4.5/5 Audio: 5/5 
Live Free or Die Hard Video: 4.5/5 Audio: 5/5 
Ratatouille Video: 5/5 Audio: 5/5 
Cars Video: 5/5 Audio: 5/5 
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End Video: 4/5 Audio: 5/5 
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest Video: 5/5 Audio: 5/5 
Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl Video: 5/5 Audio: 5/5 
Planet Earth: Complete BBC Series Video: 5/5 Audio: 3/5 (Region free) (This 4-disc collection is phenomenal!) 
Blade Runner: Complete Collector's Edition Video: 5/5 Audio: 5/5 
The Fifth Element (Remastered) Video: 4.5/5 Audio: 4.5/5 
Crank Video: 4.5/5 Audio: 5/5 
300 Video: 4/5 Audio: 5/5 
Spider-Man 3 Video: 4.5/5 Audio: 5/5 
Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer Video: 4.5/5 Audio: 4.5/5 
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Warner) Video: 5/5 Audio: 5/5 
Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds: Live at Radio City Video: 5/5 Audio: 5/5 
Meet the Robinsons Video: 4.5/5 Audio: 4.5/5 
Open Season Video: 5/5 Audio: 4/5 
Surf's Up Video: 4/5 Audio: 5/5 
Pan's Labyrinth Video: 4.5/5 Audio: 5/5 
The Patriot (Extended Cut) Video: 4.5/5 Audio: 5/5 
Man on Fire Video: 4.5/5 Audio: 4.5/5 
The Rock Video: 4.5/5 Audio: 4.5/5 
Mr. & Mrs. Smith Video: 4/5 Audio: 5/5 
Cast Away Video: 5/5 Audio: 5/5 
The Host (Magnolia) Video: 4.5/5 Audio: 4.5/5 
Chris Botti Live with Orchestra and Special Guests (Sony BMG) Video: 4.5/5 Audio: 5/5 
Hellboy (Sony) Video: 4.5/5 Audio: 4.5/5 
Primeval (Buena Vista) Video: 4.5/5 Audio: 4.5/5 
Ghost Rider (Sony) Video: 4.5/5 Audio: 5/5 
Black Snake Moan (Paramount) Video: 5/5 Audio: 4/5 
From Hell (Fox) Video: 4.5/5 Audio: 4.5/5 
The Day After Tomorrow (Fox) Video: 4.5/5 Audio: 5/5 
Black Book (Sony) Video: 5/5 Audio: 4.5/5 
Troy: Director's Cut (Warner) Video: 4.5/5 Audio: 4.5/5 
TMNT (Warner) Video: 4.5/5 Audio: 4.5/5 
Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (Sony) Video: 5/5 Audio: 4.5/5 
Remember the Titans (Buena Vista) Video: 5/5 Audio: 4.5/5_


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## LuxLuthor (Nov 22, 2009)

Mjolnir said:


> The reason that I dislike QOS is because I AM a "die hard" james bond fan. I have seen every movie at least twice, and many of them more than that. I felt that quantum of solace simply ditched everything that the 007 movies had in favor of nothing; they basically made it into a Bourne movie without as good of a plot. Additionally, it had no continuity with any other movie (besides Casino Royale).



I don't agree about your opinions on QOS, especially that it ditched everything in favor of nothing, and while it is not in my top 5 Bond films, the continuity with CR made it a valid sequel. In many ways, I saw them as Part 1 & 2, akin to Kill Bill 1 & 2. So we will just have to agree to disagree. :wave:



Mjolnir said:


> I understand that upconverting can extrapolate to get some additional artificial detail, but the fact that the 480P signal has far less data means that it simply cannot match the quality of a true 1080P signal, since the upconverter is essentially guessing as to what the original picture looked like.
> For what it's worth, I have a Pioneer Elite receiver with a Faroudja DCDI chip for upconversion, which is actually the same chip that is in the Oppo 981-HD, the unit that was above the model that you have in oppo's lineup. It seems like many of the upconverters do some form of anti-aliasing, which can make the picture look better. However, aliasing isn't really an issue at higher resolutions, like 1080P.
> 
> If someone already has an HDTV, then they might as well spend their money on a blu-ray drive instead of an upconverting DVD player, since they aren't all that different in price.



I believe you are just learning how the upscaling technology works, but I am confident in my research, and the SCAM characterizations of desperate electronics, media content, media delivery, and retailers needing to come up with major new ideas to drive sales. Many have bought into their hype. Many believe that cable/satellite/phone/fiber transmitted HD is true HD, rather than more typical 720p.

It is quite curious that your earlier equipment


> As I said, I have watched upconverted dvds on the exact same system as I have watched blu-ray (both my blu-ray player and my receiver have upconverting capability). Even though one of my TVs is only 720P


 has now evolved into another new piece of equipment that just happens to be a slight step beyond my Oppo. Color me suspicious, but the fact that you are connecting either a high quality upcoding DVD or BR player to a 720p TV has a detrimental effect on your credibility.

Upcoding players don't extrapolate. They interpolate. The technology of how it works is compared to my CD/MP3 example, and your earlier statements indicate you have not understood the science behind the technology. You might want to think for a minute of the original resolutions of many classic movies sound and video....and how could they get those up to 1080p.

In descriptions of a movie like Casablanca, you can see that they painstakingly did MANUAL RESTORATIVE work and cleanup for the DVD which was then used for 1080p video transfer. However, they did nothing to improve the audio. AVS forum therefore gives the BR version only a 2.25 silver ranking of what many consider the top rated movie of all time. That is a perfect example of why people who have a restored DVD copy should not bother buying a BR version, unless they enjoy being scammed.


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## SCEMan (Nov 22, 2009)

LuxLuthor said:


> However what they do not do in that thread is compare a given BR title next to a quality upcoding DVD player/TV setup for the same title. Obviously in a number of cases the BR will be better to some degree. I'm only looking for those that are DRAMATICALLY better.



I think you are on your own here. The debate of upcoding vs. BD is moot. The consensus being that with comparable equipment & media (there's the rub) BD provides superior IQ and AQ. Now, if a BD is poorly mastered vs. the original DVD, upcoding could be superior. My recommendation would be to rent and compare back-to-back, then decide if the BD is a worthwhile purchase.


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## LuxLuthor (Nov 22, 2009)

SCEMan said:


> I think you are on your own here. The debate of upcoding vs. BD is moot. The consensus being that with comparable equipment & media (there's the rub) BD provides superior IQ and AQ. Now, if a BD is poorly mastered vs. the original DVD, upcoding could be superior. My recommendation would be to rent and compare back-to-back, then decide if the BD is a worthwhile purchase.



I'm not really debating the premise that BR is a better quality. It sure as hell should be for what they expect everyone to pay for the whole new setup & media. It is my assertion that with many classic DVD titles, there is not a sufficient improvement to justify buying a replacement BR copy. I'm just looking for those few that are dramatically better to justify their BD expense. It appears there are only about 10-20 in this category. Going forward, I may be more inclined to buy new movies like Star Trek in BD.

I will get a few duplicates, and then do a true side by side comparison by playing DVD and BD at same time, pause & play scenes while switching TV HDMI inputs between the two devices.


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## Lynx_Arc (Nov 22, 2009)

I don't have any blueray stuff yet and have a good collection of movies. I am waiting for two things to happen, first a 5 dvd blueray changer so I can use it for my non blue ray movies also as I tend to switch between several movies at a whim. Second is the price of blueray is still steep compared to what standard dvds have been selling for years at, when most standard movies sell at $20 new and blue ray sells at $30 new you ask yourself is the quality difference worth that much if you want 100 movies it will cost you $1000 more. Blue ray prices need to come down to earth more or another format will push it off the planet before it can extinct standard dvd format. I am thinking with memory chips getting cheaper one day 32 and 64Gig chips will be $1 each and you will buy movies in cartridges and do away with spinning fragile discs for good.


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## Patriot (Nov 22, 2009)

LuxLuthor said:


> What you saw with Patton is exactly why BR is not necessarily worth jumping into the complete setup expense. I also think it is inexcuseable for studios to do crappy transfers for BR. Do they think people who bought Patton BR are then also going to buy a "Director's Edition" of Patton?
> 
> It will be interesting to try and objectively compare the upcoding processing of my Oppo vs. this new LG BR.





I was pretty skeptical of Patton (my dad purchased it) until I saw the picture and thought to myself 'wow, they did a decent job.' The color was a little bit saturated but the detail was better that some other crappy blu ray copies that I've seen. The movie is a bit slow to get going and also I'm quick to pick up on sound problems, probably even quicker than I'd notice a picture imperfection, it took about 10-15 minutes to realize there was a problem. Since everything was new I spent about 20 minutes running through all the possibilities like, dynamic range control from the player, receiver settings, and anything else I could think of. Finally I realized that although the sound was low compression and mostly clean, the difference in the high and low mixing was atrocious. It honestly ruined the movie for me. What crappy work from the mixing studio! Just thrown together so that they have yet another title to throw into a blue plastic sleeve. :shakehead

I spent a lot of time looking at the up conversion and it really seemed to do a good job and it was probably equal to my PS3 in that regard. I'm a DLP junkie so it was a bit hard to compare since I didn't have the player hooked up to my own tv, but it looked good on their LCD with movies I was well familiar with....the ones I use as my references.


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## Patriot (Nov 22, 2009)

LuxLuthor said:


> I'm not really debating the premise that BR is a better quality. It sure as hell should be for what they expect everyone to pay for the whole new setup & media. It is my assertion that with many classic DVD titles, there is not a sufficient improvement to justify buying a replacement BR copy. I'm just looking for those few that are dramatically better to justify their BD expense. It appears there are only about 10-20 in this category. Going forward, I may be more inclined to buy new movies like Star Trek in BD.
> 
> I will get a few duplicates, and then do a true side by side comparison by playing DVD and BD at same time, pause & play scenes while switching TV HDMI inputs between the two devices.





This is very clear thinking and I never took you to suggest that BR wasn't far superior *when mastered correctly. *I think the some posters may have missed your point there somehow. As you stated, most new releases are going to have very good video and audio. The craps shoot is going to be with new copies of old titles. I would agree that in general, most older titles are not worth replacing with BR, and that if you own the movie in DVD, just keep it and enjoy the upconversion. In some cases, as in the movie I watched last night, "Patton" the BR experience was actually worse that the DVD copy. Yes, the BR pic was better but the sound level mixing sucked! I this case I'll sacrifice the 1080p for 720 and take the better sound mix in DVD. DTS and other low compression/no compression formats are useless if they can't get the sound levels right. To avoid the hit and miss quality of the older titles we simply need to check the reviews before purchasing. If everyone did that the junk BD copies wouldn't sell and they'd have to eat the losses of their crappy copies.



P.S. ....and speaking of conspiracy scams Lux, I arrived at my parent's house to set up the system and found that some punk scammed him into a $75 HDMI cable. I was pretty annoyed that my old man was taken advantage of. I pulled a $15 HDMI cable from my kit and boxed the other one back up so that he could return it. I once compared a $200 Monster to a $9 HDMI purchased on line and there wasn't the slightest bit of difference, not even the slightest. It makes sense of course since it's a digital signal. It either gets there or it doesn't.


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## StarHalo (Nov 22, 2009)

Black Friday alert: Samsung will be offering a $129 Blu-Ray player for the holiday buying season, as they did last year; I didn't get one then because I thought they'd all be that cheap by now..


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## Mjolnir (Nov 22, 2009)

Lux, before I had my receiver before I got my blu-ray player, so I used the upconverting in the receiver with a normal dvd player. I don't really understand what you are saying about Casablanca though... Are you suggesting that "painstaking manual restorative work" is anything like what an upconverting player does in real time? 
Maybe I am missing your point about this "scam." Are you saying that the whole idea of Blu-ray is a scam, and that we don't need anything better than upconverted DVDs, or that getting a blu-ray disc for a pre blu-ray movie is unnecessary? It seemed to me like you were saying the former, which makes no sense, since blu-ray players aren't prohibitively more than normal DVDplayers, and blu-ray dvds aren't either.

I do agree about the cable scam though. There is zero reason to spend $200 on a cable when you can get one for 7 dollars that will do the exact same thing.


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## js (Nov 22, 2009)

Lux,

OMG! I never would have believed you'd buy a BR player! LOL!

Of course, it IS also a DVD player, n'est pas? And has, as you say, WiFi and USB and ethernet inputs.

Too funny.

Oh, and FWIW, that is the _exact_ BR player I have decided on--when I get one. Which will probably be soon, as my DVD player is exhibiting definite signs of near-term death.


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## SCEMan (Nov 22, 2009)

LuxLuthor said:


> I'm not really debating the premise that BR is a better quality. It sure as hell should be for what they expect everyone to pay for the whole new setup & media. It is my assertion that with many classic DVD titles, there is not a sufficient improvement to justify buying a replacement BR copy. I'm just looking for those few that are dramatically better to justify their BD expense. It appears there are only about 10-20 in this category. Going forward, I may be more inclined to buy new movies like Star Trek in BD.
> 
> I will get a few duplicates, and then do a true side by side comparison by playing DVD and BD at same time, pause & play scenes while switching TV HDMI inputs between the two devices.



Sounds like the best strategy. I think you hit the nail on the head regarding classic titles on BD. Regarding the Patton BD, it's widely considered to be symptomatic of what's wrong with Blu-ray:
http://www.thedigitalbits.com/articles/robertharris/harris062408.html
I have the original 2-disc SE Patton DVD and will not be replacing it.

Unfortunately one has to read the BD reviews at videophile sites before deciding on a blind purchase. I typically rent to review before making a decision as I've found that experiencing the BD in your own home theater is what really matters after all...

Best of luck.


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## js (Nov 22, 2009)

Patriot said:


> This is very clear thinking and I never took you to suggest that BR wasn't far superior *when mastered correctly. *I think the some posters may have missed your point there somehow. As you stated, most new releases are going to have very good video and audio. The craps shoot is going to be with new copies of old titles. I would agree that in general, most older titles are not worth replacing with BR, and that if you own the movie in DVD, just keep it and enjoy the upconversion. In some cases, as in the movie I watched last night, "Patton" the BR experience was actually worse that the DVD copy. Yes, the BR pic was better but the sound level mixing sucked! I this case I'll sacrifice the 1080p for 720 and take the better sound mix in DVD. DTS and other low compression/no compression formats are useless if they can't get the sound levels right. To avoid the hit and miss quality of the older titles we simply need to check the reviews before purchasing. If everyone did that the junk BD copies wouldn't sell and they'd have to eat the losses of their crappy copies.
> 
> 
> 
> P.S. ....and speaking of conspiracy scams Lux, I arrived at my parent's house to set up the system and found that some punk scammed him into a $75 HDMI cable. I was pretty annoyed that my old man was taken advantage of. I pulled a $15 HDMI cable from my kit and boxed the other one back up so that he could return it. I once compared a $200 Monster to a $9 HDMI purchased on line and there wasn't the slightest bit of difference, not even the slightest. It makes sense of course since it's a digital signal. It either gets there or it doesn't.



Too true. All of it. But especially the super-expensive cable nonsense I've seen so much of. I am willing to pay a bit more for higher quality insulation and connectors and what not. Not all cables are identical! But $75? Come on! What a rip off!


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## Lynx_Arc (Nov 22, 2009)

js said:


> Too true. All of it. But especially the super-expensive cable nonsense I've seen so much of. I am willing to pay a bit more for higher quality insulation and connectors and what not. Not all cables are identical! But $75? Come on! What a rip off!



nope all cables are not identical but there is a point where it has big enough wires and good enough shielding and makes good connection that the fancy thick cables with gold plating and super oxygenated copper whatnot isn't going to make any more difference but to your pocketbook. I have used $5 printer cables from china when best buy tried to sell me a $25 cable with my printer I laughed as their 6 foot cable wasn't as long as my 15 foot one. monster brand is mostly hype IMO. You could get the monoprice cables for $6 and not tell the difference I figure. Cables have a huge markup IMO.... it is so large it is shameful.


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## js (Nov 22, 2009)

Lynx Arc,

Indeed. I think we're saying the same thing here!

But, for example, I bought some nice Tripp Lite FireWire cables from Amazon that weren't the very cheapest FW cables, but which I feel were worth the extra $5 or $10. They are solidly made cables, with nice rugged insulation and nice connectors. It makes a difference in how solidly I feel they connect to my MBP. The really cheap cables that came with my OWC Mercury Elite-AL Pro external drive cases don't give any kind of positive feedback to me that they are fully inserted into my MBP, whereas the Tripp Lite cables do.

However, $15 is one thing, but $75 is quite another. And yes, I have NEVER thought about dropping money on a Monster Cable.

I went into Best Buy at one point looking for a set of component video cables for my DVD player and all they had were expensive monster cables. I was like, you want HOW MUCH for what is basically three RCA cables? Yer outta yer mind! And I went right over to Radio Shack and bought a set of red, white, yellow triplet RCA cable, intended for left audio, right audio, and composite video, which I simply used as if they were red green blue triplet component cable. Someone later gave me (for free) a high quality set of purpose built component cables, and I swapped them in and could not tell the difference. I ended up eventually giving them back because the force required to jam them onto the DVD player was so high that I was worried I would break something! The cheapie radio shack cables, on the other hand, went on fairly easily. I'm still using them.


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## Patriot (Nov 22, 2009)

> Originally Posted by *js*
> 
> 
> _Too true. All of it. But especially the super-expensive cable nonsense I've seen so much of. I am willing to pay a bit more for higher quality insulation and connectors and what not. Not all cables are identical! But $75? Come on! What a rip off!_





Lynx_Arc said:


> nope all cables are not identical but there is a point where it has big enough wires and good enough shielding and makes good connection that the fancy thick cables with gold plating and super oxygenated copper whatnot isn't going to make any more difference but to your pocketbook. I have used $5 printer cables from china when best buy tried to sell me a $25 cable with my printer I laughed as their 6 foot cable wasn't as long as my 15 foot one. monster brand is mostly hype IMO. You could get the monoprice cables for $6 and not tell the difference I figure. Cables have a huge markup IMO.... it is so large it is shameful.




It's important to qualify what we're talking about here and that is digital signal carriers like HDMI, and optical, not analog. Since the this cable is essentially of the same reasonable build quality as this cable this cable the "point" that you speak of is very low on the price scale. They'll carry the identical signal if the bandwidth is the same spec. Any 10.2Gbps cable is going to carry that loss less, full signal whether the cable cost $2 or $200. Yes, a person might be able to justify a better external build if he's an AV set up guy and transporting them on a daily basis, but typically the weak link is the connection point itself. Since HDMI is already a predetermined maximum external dimension all the manufacturers are going to stamp out the same size and thickness insert sleeve. If a person runs into a HDMI bandwidth deficiency it's not going to result in reduced image quality, it's going to result in image catastrophe. It will have a massive stutter, flicker, rolling horizontal lines etc. So, a manufacturer might claim better cord plastics or sleeves but this usually means little unless your kids are jump roping with it. I think Js and I were referring to picture quality alone and sort of ignored the peripheral specs that don't matter in practical use.

CNET is doing all of their high end lab equipment testing on $10, long run cables. 
http://reviews.cnet.com/hdmi-cable/?tag=rb_content;rb_mtx

http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-11276_7-6845988-4.html?tag=rb_content;rb_mtx

AV forums basically states the same theme.


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## Lynx_Arc (Nov 22, 2009)

I heard somewhere that I think walmart may be selling a blueray player (magnavox?) on black friday for under $100 (79?) but you may have to fight the tramplers to get one


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## Onuris (Nov 22, 2009)

LuxLuthor said:


> I'm not really debating the premise that BR is a better quality. It sure as hell should be for what they expect everyone to pay for the whole new setup & media. It is my assertion that with many classic DVD titles, there is not a sufficient improvement to justify buying a replacement BR copy. I'm just looking for those few that are dramatically better to justify their BD expense. It appears there are only about 10-20 in this category. Going forward, I may be more inclined to buy new movies like Star Trek in BD.
> 
> I will get a few duplicates, and then do a true side by side comparison by playing DVD and BD at same time, pause & play scenes while switching TV HDMI inputs between the two devices.



As an owner of a company that installs high-end home theater systems, I have been looking at this thread since you started it, but refrained from jumping in, mostly b/c I have been busy with my kids this weekend.

I will just say that with all Blu-ray movies, there will always be an improvement over standard DVD in one area, and that is pixel count. All other things being equal, with a higher resolution you will get a sharper, clearer, and more defined image. On the audio side, most Blu-ray discs offer true 7.1 surround in digital Dolby TrueHD and lossless DTS-HD. But there are many other factors to consider in the transfer to Blu-ray format. In regards to video that would be such areas as contrast, brightness, color accuracy and saturation, image dimensionality, motion stability/sharpness, etc,etc. With the sound, there are factors such as imaging, spatial details, dynamic range, spl levels, dynamic balance, etc. to consider.

That said, the technicians responsible for all of this know what they are doing, and it is very rare to come across a Blu-ray disc that is inferior in any way to its DVD counterpart. If the movie was not done well in some areas, it is usually on the master copy and shows on both formats.

In a side by side comparison, I have yet to find a Blu-ray disc that was not noticeably superior to its DVD counterpart.

I will have to add that as a technician and audio/videophile, I do tend to strongly critique the picture and audio quality, but if the content of a movie is good enough, I am willing to accept some technical errors for the overall experience. Many A/V geeks are not so forgiving. And personally, I have a penchant for action and special effects.

So here is my list of the best Blu-ray discs. All of these are movies that I have personally watched and critiqued, and that I feel are worth owning in this format. Some are better than others in some areas, some are great overall, and while in no particular order, this is the order they are in on my reference shelf.

Newer titles:

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
Transformers: 2 disc special edition
BBC Planet Earth: The Complete Series
Pirates Of The Caribbean: Curse Of The Black Pearl
Pirates Of The Caribbean: At Worlds End
Ratatouille
Transformers 2: Revenge Of The Fallen
The Golden Compass
i, Robot
Black Hawk Down
The Prestige
Kingdom Of Heaven: Director's Cut
Wall-E
Bee Movie
Bridge To Terabithia
City Of Ember
Terminator: Salvation
Coraline
Up
Monsters vs Aliens
Monsters Inc.
Bolt
Pan's Labyrinth
Watchmen: Director's Cut
The Chronicles Of Narnia: Prince Caspian
Stargate: Continuum
Casino Royale: Deluxe Edition
The International
Sahara
Happy Feet
Meet The Robinsons
The Island (Warner UK)
Serenity
Cloverfield
Spider Man: The High Definition Trillogy
Ironman
Battle For Terra
Cars
Horton Hears A Who
Tim Burton's Corpse Bride
Troy: Director's Cut
Underworld Unrated
Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within
Sunshine
Jumper
Speed Racer
The Departed: 2 disc special edition
Sin City: Unrated, Re-cut & Extended
Kill Bill Vol. 1 & 2
The Bourne Trilogy
National Treasure: Book Of Secrets
National Treasure
Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
Beowulf: Director's Cut
3:10 to Yuma
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
300
IMAX: The Living Sea
Letters From Iwo Jima
The Descent
Ice Age: The Meltdown
The Last Samurai
I Am Legend
Rush: Snakes and Arrows Live

Remastered/Restorations:

Baraka
The Fifth Element
Gattaca
The Adventures of Robin Hood
Blade Runner: The Final Cut
The Godfather: Coppola Restoration
Sleeping Beauty: 50th Anniversary
Casablanca
Wizard Of Oz: 70th Anniversary
Close Encounters Of The Third Kind: Ultimate Edition
Independence Day
2001: A Space Odyssey

Additionally, we have watched the Lord Of The Rings Trilogy at 4k resolution, some of the most incredible video and audio that I have seen, so I expect the Blue-ray to be amazing when it is released.


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## Mjolnir (Nov 22, 2009)

I personally thought that "the Fifth Element" was one of the worst science fiction movies ever (not as bad as Battlefield Earth though). Even though it had a number of famous actors, it was just too weird. It was almost like one of Douglass Adams' books, but without the comedy. 

I can only imagine what LOTR must look like at such a high resolution. Any idea when it will come out on Blu-Ray? Also, there doesn't seem to be any original Star Wars or Indiana Jones out on Blu-Ray yet... Anyone know when/if these are going to appear?


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## LuxLuthor (Nov 22, 2009)

Mjolnir said:


> Lux, before I had my receiver before I got my blu-ray player, so I used the upconverting in the receiver with a normal dvd player. I don't really understand what you are saying about Casablanca though... *Are you suggesting that "painstaking manual restorative work" is anything like what an upconverting player does in real time?*


No. The restoration work is a completely unique process done to improve deficiencies with existing media. In some cases, the existing media is of such poor quality, that displaying the flaws in a higher resolution will be a worse viewing experience. There is a similar interpolation done when a title transferred to 1080p BR resolution started as a lower resolution. 

Regarding the restoration process, it can vary widely, and the quality of the restoration is usually commensurate with a title's popularity. A movie like Casablanca, or The Wizard of Oz, or The Godfather series are to movies what The Beatles are to modern music. That is why it was so shocking to many afficionados that the sound was neglected with the Casablanca restoration.

Restoration takes the best of the existing original tapes/film/digital file and with various equipment and personal attention by highly qualified engineers, the media is cleaned up (dirt/dust/damage removed), tape stretching, film cracking/scratches are fixed. Images are sharpened, colors boosted/adjusted to compensate for fading, etc. An extreme example of restoration is when an original B&W movie is colorized.

Same with sound tracks. Individual instruments, vocals, ranges can be separated and remastered as 5.1 or 7.1 DTS quality. Tape hiss, pops, clicks, crackle, hum, rumble, warbling can be removed. Dynamic properties, separation, loudness, & brilliance can be enhanced to give a richer experience. 

Extensive work was done on enhancing Casablanca's video which you can read about at the earlier links I posted, but not with its audio. Once the painstaking enhancement was done, they encoded it to DVD and BR. To see how much better just the video looks on BR, you would need to do the experiment I suggested where a quality 1080p TV is used with multiple HDMI inputs. One would then switch back and forth between the restored DVD in upcoding player vs. restored BR in BR player.

I am suggesting in this back and forth testing, that the difference between the two videos for most people would be *relatively *minimal. Noticeable, but not living up to the promotional hype that many people buy into. You saw Patriot's disappointment with Patton because of the sound. In many cases the BR version is not worth buying a duplicate disc, not because there isn't some improvement...but rather because the qualitative improvement is not shockingly better than a high quality upcoding DVD player set to 1080p. The over-promotion and characterizing DVD's only playing at 480p vs. BR is what fits with being a scam. 

Most people fail to understand how well a quality upcoder set to display the DVD at 1080p can improve the resolution of a standard DVD. Is it as perfect as the BR version...in most cases, no. Is the upcoded DVD ever better than a BR version? I doubt it. But for all those who have significant DVD collections (which can be the largest expense in their media setup--unless they bought a $4,000+ TV), they would be very happy with a <$200 upcoding DVD player.

In complete contrast to this scenario, there are some past titles and current/future titles that will have dramaticly better video & sound enhancements put into the BR version. Those are the ones I posted the thread about.



Mjolnir said:


> Maybe I am missing your point about this "scam." Are you saying that the whole idea of Blu-ray is a scam, and that we don't need anything better than upconverted DVDs, or that getting a blu-ray disc for a pre blu-ray movie is unnecessary? It seemed to me like you were saying the former, which makes no sense, since blu-ray players aren't prohibitively more than normal DVDplayers, and blu-ray dvds aren't either.


Mjolnir, I'm not saying the whole idea of Blu-Ray is a scam in the pure sense, as stated above since it is a step up with 1080p....but there are many aspects of BR that are hyped beyond reality to produce sales in many electronics and media companies.

Most BR Fanboys were initially trying to win the battle against DVD-HD. After Sony learned the painful lesson of their Betamax failure and bought off Toshiba's DVD-HD platform, the BR advocates have now transferred their "energies" to destroying DVD. 

Unfortunately, most discussions are not doing the comparison with high quality upcoding players switching inputs back and forth on the same exact TV which would minimize the improvement of BR. Rather, they just say that BR is 1080p and DVD's are 480p, and therefore BR is radically better, and DVD sucks. 

There is an element of that promotion that is disingenuous, fueled partly by lack of a proper understanding of what a quality upcoding DVD player can accomplish (or how it works), partly because the new sales are towards all things HD. And yes, in general terms BR is going to be better.

The first requirement is that you have a TV that can do true HD 1080p of decent quality (yes, there are crappy 1080p TV's and computer monitors). Then you have to look at the AVS Forum ratings to see if a particular BR copy has high 5/5 scoring which IMHO, should all be 5/5 quality since BR is more expensive--but many BR titles are substandard.

Then there is the whole other issue that there are already many media sources that have much higher resolution than BR, and which is starting to paint a bad prospect for everyone jumping into BR, and building a big BR library.


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## LuxLuthor (Nov 22, 2009)

Patriot said:


> It's important to qualify what we're talking about here and that is digital signal carriers like HDMI, and optical, not analog. Since the this cable is essentially of the same reasonable build quality as this cable this cable the "point" that you speak of is very low on the price scale. They'll carry the identical signal if the bandwidth is the same spec. Any 10.2Gbps cable is going to carry that loss less, full signal whether the cable cost $2 or $200.



I have heard much the same thing about the HDMI cables. However, look at the image of the whatchmacallits at both ends of the HDMI that came with my Oppo. For whatever reason, I do get a slightly better quality if I use this cable. I don't know what those doohinkies do, but they are on my Canon camera to USB cables also.


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## LuxLuthor (Nov 22, 2009)

Onuris said:


> As an owner of a company that installs high-end home theater systems,...
> 
> In a side by side comparison, I have yet to find a Blu-ray disc that was not noticeably superior to its DVD counterpart.



Hey that's not fair. You are using million dollar setups and the very top end of everything. I'm talking about the proverbial "average peasant consumer." I'm sure the higher the equipment quality, the more difference can be discerned. PS) I'm still jealous from that other thread! 

Again, you guys are missing my point. I'm not saying that BR is not noticeably superior. I'm talking about the degree of qualitative improvement of a QUALITY upcoding DVD player set to 1080p vs. BR with both HDMI connections to the same exact TV switching inputs back and forth. That is the only way to evaluate what I am saying, and I'm primarily going by resources I have read. 

I have not done the actual testing yet, since this will be my first BR purchase. But I will. And if my testing with a couple of titles running side by side on the same TV shows a consistently profoundly radical improvement akin to that of VHS vs. DVD, I will come back and say I was wrong.

In addition to reading, the testing I have done which I am using in part to support my position is when I did side by side DVD's in same TV with my older Pioneer DVR-320 vs. my Oppo upcoding DV-980. When I first hooked up the Oppo, I was so shocked at the upcoding quality that I specifically rented a couple DVD's that I already owned, and did the true side by side input switching of the TV, but using component jacks for both since the Pioneer didn't have HDMI.



Onuris said:


> So here is my list of the best Blu-ray discs. All of these are movies that I have personally watched and critiqued, and that I feel are worth owning in this format. Some are better than others in some areas, some are great overall, and while in no particular order, this is the order they are in on my reference shelf.



Thanks for this list. I see some other candidates. I hope LOTR's is superbly done. That would also likely be one I would consider replacing...especially the 3rd one. I wonder what is going on with Star Wars transfers.


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## Mjolnir (Nov 22, 2009)

I think you are referring to the "ferrite cores," which are used to reduce interference. I have bought very cheap HDMI cables from monoprice, and most have those cores on them. 

I see what you are saying about rebuilding a library. I don't really have much of a "library;" I usually rent movies and watch them once. I usually don't watch movies on media that I own multiple times, since I tend to remember the movie and don't gain much from watching it again (unless it is a particularly good or classic movie). FOr what I do Blu-Ray makes more sense, since it is just as easy for me to rent a blu-ray movie as a regular DVD. 

I bought my plasma before 1080P plasmas were reasonably priced (the were $6,000-8,000). However, even though it is 720P I still feel that blu-ray is worth it for that TV. When you are sitting a moderate distance away from a TV it is harder to tell the difference between 1080P and 720P, and other things like color and contrast are more important. However, for things like video games having a higher resolution is much more noticeable, and more of a benefit to me.


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## LuxLuthor (Nov 22, 2009)

Hmmm, I have 5 HDMI cables, and only the one from Oppo has those ferrite cores. I don't see them on the Amazon links that Patriot gave either. Curious.


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## LuxLuthor (Nov 22, 2009)

SCEMan said:


> Sounds like the best strategy. I think you hit the nail on the head regarding classic titles on BD. Regarding the Patton BD, it's widely considered to be symptomatic of what's wrong with Blu-ray:
> http://www.thedigitalbits.com/articles/robertharris/harris062408.html
> I have the original 2-disc SE Patton DVD and will not be replacing it.
> 
> ...



Thank you sir! That link is an essential read. Just quoting a few comments that again hit that nail on the head:


> *
> *[FONT=arial, helvetica, courier, *]*Fact: The apparent grain structure of Patton is approximately 40% of that of a normal 35mm 4 perf production. It should not need to be touched in preparation of porting it over to Blu-ray.
> 
> Fact: We now have extremely high quality means of extracting an image from a piece of 65mm element, be it scanning in 8k or capturing the image directly to HD.
> ...


[FONT=arial, helvetica, courier, *]** 
[/FONT]


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## Mjolnir (Nov 22, 2009)

Here is a 10 foot cable with 2 ferrite cores and gold plated connectors for under $5:
http://www.monoprice.com/products/p...=10240&cs_id=1024008&p_id=3993&seq=1&format=2
The monoprice cables have perfectly decent build quality, so I see no reason to ever get "Monster" cables. They must make obscene amounts of profit on the sales of those ludicrously expensive cables.


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## Lynx_Arc (Nov 22, 2009)

Mjolnir said:


> I personally thought that "the Fifth Element" was one of the worst science fiction movies ever (not as bad as Battlefield Earth though). Even though it had a number of famous actors, it was just too weird. It was almost like one of Douglass Adams' books, but without the comedy.
> 
> I can only imagine what LOTR must look like at such a high resolution. Any idea when it will come out on Blu-Ray? Also, there doesn't seem to be any original Star Wars or Indiana Jones out on Blu-Ray yet... Anyone know when/if these are going to appear?


LOTR will be out on blueray but they are milking it by only releasing the theatrical version and not the extended, then they will release the extended version and I bet later a version with both on the same set.


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## Onuris (Nov 23, 2009)

Mjolnir said:


> I can only imagine what LOTR must look like at such a high resolution. Any idea when it will come out on Blu-Ray? Also, there doesn't seem to be any original Star Wars or Indiana Jones out on Blu-Ray yet... Anyone know when/if these are going to appear?



For LOTR, I have from a very reliable source, March of next year.



LuxLuthor said:


> Hey that's not fair. You are using million dollar setups and the very top end of everything. I'm talking about the proverbial "average peasant consumer." I'm sure the higher the equipment quality, the more difference can be discerned. PS) I'm still jealous from that other thread!
> 
> Again, you guys are missing my point. I'm not saying that BR is not noticeably superior. I'm talking about the degree of qualitative improvement of a QUALITY upcoding DVD player set to 1080p vs. BR with both HDMI connections to the same exact TV switching inputs back and forth. That is the only way to evaluate what I am saying, and I'm primarily going by resources I have read.
> 
> ...



All of these Blu-ray movies I have listed were based on viewing in my more modest theater, not the mil+ theater, although I have seen many of them there at 2k or 4k res. And like I said before, the price increase is not proportional to the quality increase, you get to the point where you are splitting hairs in most respects and compensating for a very large screen and room. With a decent room and proper set-up one can put together a very respectable system for $10k or less in equipment.

I have not been very impressed with most of the upconverting on current mass market DVD players, the built-in scalers are not that great. An outboard processor with a good chipset such as Anchor Bay's VRS is about as good as it gets, but still not up to par with what Blu-ray has to offer. The NTSC video information on a DVD is encoded at 720x480. You just cannot achieve a true HD image from that, no matter how good the upscaler is. Also, an LCD, DLP, or plasma screen with their fixed pixels will do better at resolving the upscaling than will a CRT monitor. For fast moving video, upscaling to 720p (progressive scan) will result in a smoother picture. For video that has less motion, upscaling to 1080i (interlaced) will result in better overall picture detail. A higher native resolution spec does not necessarily guarantee a better image. There are some 720p monitors that outperform many that are 1080p. And the fact is that most people cannot tell the difference between the two at sizes under about 46", at correct viewing distances.

And I will have to say that the optical formats, Blu-ray, DVDs, CDs will eventually go the way of tapes and become extinct. HD digital media belongs on a proper digital storage device such as SSDs.


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## LuxLuthor (Nov 23, 2009)

Onuris said:


> I have not been very impressed with most of the upconverting on current mass market DVD players, the built-in scalers are not that great. An outboard processor with a good chipset such as Anchor Bay's VRS is about as good as it gets, but still not up to par with what Blu-ray has to offer. The NTSC video information on a DVD is encoded at 720x480. You just cannot achieve a true HD image from that, no matter how good the upscaler is. Also, an LCD, DLP, or plasma screen with their fixed pixels will do better at resolving the upscaling than will a CRT monitor. For fast moving video, upscaling to 720p (progressive scan) will result in a smoother picture. For video that has less motion, upscaling to 1080i (interlaced) will result in better overall picture detail. A higher native resolution spec does not necessarily guarantee a better image. There are some 720p monitors that outperform many that are 1080p. And the fact is that most people cannot tell the difference between the two at sizes under about 46", at correct viewing distances.
> 
> And I will have to say that the optical formats, Blu-ray, DVDs, CDs will eventually go the way of tapes and become extinct. HD digital media belongs on a proper digital storage device such as SSDs.



We all need to watch "Cool Hand Luke" to understand that "what we got here is failure to communicate."

For the umpteenth time, I am not saying that a quality upcoding DVD player performs at the same resolution as DVD-HD or BR. I am perfectly aware of the resolution of DVD's. 

What I have said about 10 times now is that with a quality TV, most people would be very happy with the dramatically improved upcoded quality of their DVD's, without having to go to the extraordinary expenses of a BR setup and replacement discs.

The improvement of my upcoding Oppo over my older Pioneer with the same DVD on the same TV was profoundly better. In fact, the Oppo displays a clearly higher quality DVD image than my new AT&T UVerse HD programming which is supposed to be coming through at 720p to 1080i. 

I expect that my new BR & BR Discs will be a *little *better than the same existing DVD through my Oppo. Then there are a small number of BR titles that will be extraordinarily better (some having undergone restoration improvement). The Patton article is an example of a BR failure, and illustrative of no standards having been put in place when transferring existing titles to BR. 

I'll do the side by side when I get it setup this week and see for sure. In no way do I plan on replacing all 65 of the DVD's I already have from your earlier list of quality BR transfers. Even if they are a little better, it's not worth the expense. But I will likely replace 5-10 of them with BR versions.

I agree that all these optical media are almost obsolete now--with the much higher def and cheaper storage currently available. The studios just won't release higher resolution titles until they finish their BR pillage of the masses. Then the next scheme will start--probably be called "Ultra High Def" or some such crap--and the sheep will again follow right in line. 

That is a good reason for most people to skip BR the same way many skipped MS Vista. I started my purchase decision because I wanted a fast WiFi media player that could download from Netflix & Youtube, as well as access my PC media drives. I don't have a high priority for getting a BR player or buying BR discs, and almost bought the Roku streaming box, but this LG BD390 gives me the option for those few, choice BR titles, and had many other additional features over the Roku.


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## Onuris (Nov 23, 2009)

LuxLuthor said:


> What I have said about 10 times now is that with a quality TV, most people would be very happy with the dramatically improved upcoded quality of their DVD's, without having to go to the extraordinary expenses of a BR setup and replacement discs.
> 
> 
> I expect that my new BR & BR Discs will be a *little *better than the same existing DVD through my Oppo. Then there are a small number of BR titles that will be extraordinarily better (some having undergone restoration improvement). The Patton article is an example of a BR failure, and illustrative of no standards having been put in place when transferring existing titles to BR.
> ...



I would have to agree with the first part there, but I have been spoiled by Blu-ray and high-end equipment, so my perception and expectations are probably not the norm.

I have not personally seen the Patton restoration, so I cannot comment on it.

If you would like to see the absolute best of what Blu-ray is capable of, you must see Baraka. It is by far the most amazing video image I have ever seen, absolutely breathtaking, and the soundtrack is equally impressive. Coming in very close to this would be Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest. It is virtually flawless in both the video and soundtrack for the entirety of the movie. Both of the Transformer movies are right up there as well. Also vying for best picture would be the Planet Earth Series, The Golden Compass: Platinum Series, Tim Burton's Corpse Bride and Ratatouille. And some of the best audio is on Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, and Black Hawk Down. You should also check out The Adventures of Robin Hood. The quality of the restoration is such that it looks more like a recent title that was made to look 1938 retro, not the other way around.

And I did not put anything on my list that is not great to watch and listen to, so you should be pleased with anything on it that is to your taste.

There are a few that I have not gotten around to watching yet, such as the Ultimate Matrix Collection, No Country for Old Men, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, There Will Be Blood, Braveheart, Crank, Apocalypto, 10,000 BC, and Wanted.


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## Lynx_Arc (Nov 23, 2009)

I figure in 5-10 years they will have tv sets with 4 times the resolution of todays sets and have a format that can take advantage of that too and we will have the dvd-bd taken to bd-superd. I would like to see lifetime rights to a title across formats vs the endless rebuying the same movie every 10 years or so


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## LuxLuthor (Nov 23, 2009)

Onuris said:


> If you would like to see the absolute best of what Blu-ray is capable of, you must see Baraka.



Yeah, I agree with all those you have listed also being on a number of other's lists that are promoting the best of the best in BR. It was really interesting to read *Roger Ebert'*s review where he said: "*Baraka by itself is sufficient reason to acquire a Blu-ray player.*"

That alone is enough to add it to my list.


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## Onuris (Nov 23, 2009)

Lynx_Arc said:


> I figure in 5-10 years they will have tv sets with 4 times the resolution of todays sets and have a format that can take advantage of that too and we will have the dvd-bd taken to bd-superd. I would like to see lifetime rights to a title across formats vs the endless rebuying the same movie every 10 years or so



I doubt that will ever happen, it will not be long before even Blu-ray discs are in the $5 bin at Wal-Mart. I cannot imagine that the distributors and production companies would be willing to give up the profits they would get from a new format by giving a free copy to someone who previously only paid $5 for that title. It would be a logistical nightmare to properly regulate it as well I would think. Nice idea though.


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## Onuris (Nov 23, 2009)

LuxLuthor said:


> Yeah, I agree with all those you have listed also being on a number of other's lists that are promoting the best of the best in BR. It was really interesting to read *Roger Ebert'*s review where he said: "*Baraka by itself is sufficient reason to acquire a Blu-ray player.*"
> 
> That alone is enough to add it to my list.



Yeah, I look at several reviews of titles and take and compare notes with them when viewing most of the movies. Don't always agree with every single area of other critiques, as set up and equipment differences as well as personal taste can all be taken into account. But for the most part we are all on the same page. And there are movies that I did not put on my list that I personally enjoy due to content and other areas, but would not use as a reference disc b/c they are not pristine enough as far as the overall video and sound quality are concerned. A few that pop into my head right away are American History X, The Mist, Hancock, and The Princess Bride. And there are many titles that are only available on DVD that I will still watch in that format b/c I like them enough. For example, on one of the weekends where we were entertaining this past summer my choice for the outdoor theater was Swing Kids. Great movie.


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## SCEMan (Nov 23, 2009)

LuxLuthor said:


> Yeah, I agree with all those you have listed also being on a number of other's lists that are promoting the best of the best in BR. It was really interesting to read *Roger Ebert'*s review where he said: "*Baraka by itself is sufficient reason to acquire a Blu-ray player.*"
> 
> That alone is enough to add it to my list.


 
And that highlights my issue with the Blu-ray product; IMHO the latest eye candy/CGI mindless films have the optimal image quality. Problem is not only do I not want to own them, it's bad enough sitting through them as rentals. Proper mastering (e.g., Patton) of classic films that I would purchase is unfortunately very sporadic...


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## HarryN (Nov 23, 2009)

My goal is to never own BR - never. That is a goal - who knows reality. The reason is not because I don't think the format is technically better for A/V, it is for other reasons:

a) DVD / BR liftime. 

If you have kids, and they even slightly mishandle DVDs, they scratch, smudge, etc. Rented DVDs are even worse. Too many times I have rented a movie, only to not be able to see the end because of defects in the center of the disc. Yes, I tried repairs - usually didnt work.

IMHO, a BR disc is just going to be that much worse for being frail - no thanks.

b) Fair Use

IMHO, having foreign corporations band together to form monopoly trade orgainizations, bribe US Congressmen, and change the fair use laws is just plain wrong. I do not now, nor plan to ever accept their changes as "right".

When I cannot even use a movie clip legally / easily for personal use by copying a clip of a legally purchased video for my kid's birthday party - something is wrong. With BR - this problem is even more engrained.

c) Repeat Title Buying - no discount

It seems to me that if I already own a movie, then I have already paid for the content. If they want me to buy more or less the same content on a new format, then I should get a discount. It should be a BIG disount if in fact their claim that the big cost is in the production of the content, not in the disc production.

d) Playing from a computer disc

My goal is to have the media on a hard drive and play from there - keep the master DVDs / source safely stored. Anything that blocks this is not interesting to me.

e) Boycotting Sony

For these and other tactics, I personally won't do business with Sony (whenever possible). Yes, sometimes my wife still brings home rented DVDs made by Sony - can't stop it all.

Sony is the main force behind BR - they can just take their BR and ___.


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## StarHalo (Nov 23, 2009)

Some trends/simplifications:

- Anything computer animated from Disney/Pixar/Dreamworks

- Anything Pirates of the Caribbean

- Anything Tarantino

- Anything where Daniel Craig is Bond

- Anything featuring Jason Statham running around a lot

- Anything Bruce Willis has done in the last few years


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## Onuris (Nov 23, 2009)

HarryN said:


> My goal is to never own BR - never. That is a goal - who knows reality. The reason is not because I don't think the format is technically better for A/V, it is for other reasons:
> 
> a) DVD / BR liftime.
> 
> ...



And the painfully sloooooow load times for most players and titles can be added to that as well.


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## Lynx_Arc (Nov 23, 2009)

Onuris said:


> I doubt that will ever happen, it will not be long before even Blu-ray discs are in the $5 bin at Wal-Mart. I cannot imagine that the distributors and production companies would be willing to give up the profits they would get from a new format by giving a free copy to someone who previously only paid $5 for that title. It would be a logistical nightmare to properly regulate it as well I would think. Nice idea though.



I wouldn't mind paying a small fee and trading in my regular dvd format for a bd dvd. let them have a small profit and cut out all the wholesalers and retailers jacking up the price of a ~5 BD dvd to $35. I mostly buy used because of this as I have 33 LPs, 45s, cassette tapes and CDs of the same album and I don't see an end to the reselling of movies unless 1TB memory cards get to $1 each so you can put everything imaginable on one and be done with it... no new versions ever again. 1080P won't be the end of it.. 4200P may not be either and LED/LCD tv sets will be 100 inch diagonal begging for more than 1080P blueray can do in the future.


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## LuxLuthor (Nov 23, 2009)

Onuris said:


> And the painfully sloooooow load times for most players and titles can be added to that as well.


 
Supposedly fast load times are one feature promoted with the LG I will have tomorrow. I'll see how bad it is compared to DVD.



Lynx_Arc said:


> I wouldn't mind paying a small fee and trading in my regular dvd format for a bd dvd.


 
There actually was a good model for doing this when iTunes changed their 128 bit AAC format to the higher 256 bit rate "Plus" titles. They allowed you to upgrade your existing old titles to the higher quality rate for a relatively nominal fee. I gladly upgraded every one of my tunes. Of course, they had complete control of the whole process to avoid abuses.

I could see some entrepreneur setting up an exchange system in existing media stores that would allow credit for DVD/BR replacement. That would likely do more to promote BR than anything I can think of.


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## Patriot (Nov 23, 2009)

Onuris said:


> And the painfully sloooooow load times for most players and titles can be added to that as well.




It really depends on the player. Even my PS3 is reasonably fast but certain models of new players are likely to read even quicker. 






Lux, regarding the ferrite cores, um...I highly doubt that it's responsible for any perceived difference you're speaking of. If you look at the most expensive HDMI cables available, they rarely have ferrite cores. In theory, noise will not matter with digital signals because the reader only recognizes correct digital code and ignores everything else. In other words, the reader can't see the language of noise and then rewrite it to a source like a display. Digital info can drop out, but when it does, so does the entire digital image. Yes, I know this is a difficult area to speak on because little is quantitative and mostly subjective by "us" the little guys with no high tech equipment to verify our claims. I think we have to just do a lot of trusting when it comes to what the pro's say. Most say that there is zero difference as long as the bandwidth is sufficient. 

I'd like to here what Onuris would have to say about the digital cable subject but I recognize that he may not be able to say much since he's in the business. I doubt that he's using $3 HDMI cable in 500K systems but...maybe.





SCEMan, that's for that link!

I'm going to repost it here:

http://www.thedigitalbits.com/articles/robertharris/harris062408.html


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## Lynx_Arc (Nov 23, 2009)

LuxLuthor said:


> Supposedly fast load times are one feature promoted with the LG I will have tomorrow. I'll see how bad it is compared to DVD.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I seriously doubt it will happen.. the studios are used to putting out stripped down versions, coming out with an extended version later, and then an even better one. If you look on amazon at the LOTR blue ray version preorder people have rated it down to close to 1 star due to them coming out with a theatrical cut only for blue ray when they could put both versions and do it right. I figure the studios will try and double dip when they SD are no longer made too.


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## LuxLuthor (Nov 23, 2009)

Patriot, what you say makes sense, but then it is on both of my Canon digital transfer cables also. There must be some theoretical reason they are adding it as it surely adds to the expense.

Lynx, yeah, you are probably right that they would not do something that made such sense. I'm not surprised that Apple is ahead of the curve on that one. I really appreciated being able to upgrade my tunes at a minimal cost. Made me like Apple.

I would not buy BR of LOTR only in theatrical. See, this is more of the same "Stupid Blu-Ray Pet Tricks," that makes discriminating customers hate the inconsistent standard, and especially since I already have the Extended DVD Set here.


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## Lynx_Arc (Nov 23, 2009)

> Lynx, yeah, you are probably right that they would not do something that made such sense. I'm not surprised that Apple is ahead of the curve on that one. I really appreciated being able to upgrade my tunes at a minimal cost. Made me like Apple.
> 
> I would not buy BR of LOTR only in theatrical. See, this is more of the same "Stupid Blu-Ray Pet Tricks," that makes discriminating customers hate the inconsistent standard, and especially since I already have the Extended DVD Set here.



I have that set too, I was a little annoyed they came out with the dual version set (limited editions) but put the movie on both sides of the same dvd. That makes my 5dvd changer cry foul. After taking apart my 5 dvd changer when it died and using parts from two changers to make one I don't see a big reason why a Blue ray 5dvd changer hasn't been made.


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## Mjolnir (Nov 24, 2009)

I got all 3 of the extended editions separately, but it really doesn't matter. ROTK with the extra hour of additional footage is one of my favorite movies of all time.
If it is well done in HD I would probably buy it, but only the extended edition.


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## LuxLuthor (Nov 24, 2009)

Lynx_Arc said:


> I have that set too, I was a little annoyed they came out with the dual version set (limited editions) but put the movie on both sides of the same dvd. That makes my 5dvd changer cry foul. After taking apart my 5 dvd changer when it died and using parts from two changers to make one I don't see a big reason why a Blue ray 5dvd changer hasn't been made.



LOL! I think it is probably wise to get up after watching a whole movie. Then you can also get some exercise bending over to swap discs. :thumbsup:

Seriously, while I can understand multi-CD players, I never saw the point of multi-DVD/BR players.


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## Lynx_Arc (Nov 24, 2009)

LuxLuthor said:


> LOL! I think it is probably wise to get up after watching a whole movie. Then you can also get some exercise bending over to swap discs. :thumbsup:
> 
> Seriously, while I can understand multi-CD players, I never saw the point of multi-DVD/BR players.



I love my 5 dvd changer as I can be in the middle of 5 different things and swap between them. I usually have a mix of action, comedy, animated, family, etc and when I feel like watching something I just go to the 5 choices and play something. I usually play 2-3 movies before I have to start changing dvds. It remembers where I am at on the last 7 dvds I stop at even if I remove them. I have a few movies that span two discs and it is nice to just keep going when you get past part one to part two


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## StarHalo (Nov 24, 2009)

Lynx_Arc said:


> I heard somewhere that I think walmart may be selling a blueray player (magnavox?) on black friday for under $100 (79?) but you may have to fight the tramplers to get one



Didn't believe it until I saw the Black Friday ad scan, and there it is (and yes, it says not applicable to online sales):


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## Onuris (Nov 24, 2009)

LuxLuthor said:


> Supposedly fast load times are one feature promoted with the LG I will have tomorrow. I'll see how bad it is compared to DVD.



LG BD390 ? I've heard it is fast



Patriot said:


> It really depends on the player. Even my PS3 is reasonably fast but certain models of new players are likely to read even quicker.



The PS3 used to be the benchmark for speed and features, but many players have caught up to or surpassed it.

My Denon DVD-A1UDCI in my theater is quite fast, about 20-30 sec to main menu with some titles, can play just about any disc, and has phenomenal video and audio quality. The Denon DPB-4010UDCI in my bedroom is a bit slower, about on par with the PS3. Still, I have yet to see a BR that will load anywhere near as quickly as a standard DVD.



Patriot said:


> I'd like to here what Onuris would have to say about the digital cable subject but I recognize that he may not be able to say much since he's in the business. I doubt that he's using $3 HDMI cable in 500K systems but...maybe.



Well, I will have to say that we do not use $3 cables at all, about $25 for a 6ft cable is our least expensive. For high-end systems the brands we use are Audoquest, Esoteric, Kimber, Cardas, Tara Labs, and Cobalt. For mid to budget systems we use Acoustic Research, Phoenix Gold, Belden, Tartan, and Monster.

In my personal $80k dedicated theater, I am using the top of the line Esoteric e7 cables for HDMI, component video, and speaker connections. I will have to admit that I could have used budget cables and no one, myself included, would be able to tell the difference. On the other hand I could have gone quite a bit more expensive with Audioquest as well. So why the Esoterics? First, for the eye candy factor. There is walk-in access to the back of my equipment rack, and I am often showing this to friends, customers, etc. These expensive cables just look much much nicer. And then there is the whole matter of keeping everything all high-end. With a $14,000 surround processor, $10,000 amp, $20,000 projector and video processor, $4,500 BR player, $3,500 power conditioner, and $32,000 in speakers, it would just be all kinds of wrong to use lower cost cables to hook it all up.

As far as the whole cable cost issue goes, for the most part I do not believe esp. for short runs that there is much of a difference between a cheap cable and an expensive one. But the quality control and construction of an expensive cable I believe is superior. And I know that the high-end manufacturers always use the highest grade of OFC wire. Can't say for that to be true of the cheap cables. The signal current of data is carried on the outside surface of the wire, any corrosion or deterioration can cause degradation of the signal. And the higher end cables are generally hand assembled, here in the USA. So you are paying for American craftsmanship and labor, and not sending as much of your money to China. I do not buy into all of the voodoo that many audio/videophiles seem to get caught up in. Like how placing some vibration damping object on a speaker will magically transform the sound into something substantially better. Give me a break. And anyone who claims that they can see/hear huge differences b/t this brand and that brand of cable is either delusional or on some kind of drug.

Finally, I will have to say that I am not a huge fan of HDMI, despite all the hype, it is actually an inferior format. The only thing it has going for it is that it is nice and tidy. If those of us who are really into high-end A/V had our way, the standard would be optical and component connections.

I could go on and on about this, but here are some articles that will mostly say the same thing and save me the time.

http://www.bluejeanscable.com/articles/hdmi-cables.htm

http://www.bluejeanscable.com/articles/hdmi-spec-versions.htm

http://www.bluejeanscable.com/articles/how-long-can-hdmi-run.htm

http://www.bluejeanscable.com/articles/speed-rated-hdmi-cables.htm

http://www.bluejeanscable.com/articles/certified-hdmi-cables.htm

http://www.bluejeanscable.com/articles/do-you-get-what-you-pay-for.htm


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## js (Nov 24, 2009)

I'm going to prognosticate here, in a big way.

I say that the 1080p high def is not going to be superceded by a higher resolution. Partly because 1080 is already plenty high res enough, but mostly because _stuff is going to move to hard-drive/computer/watch-instantly on-line_.

In exactly the same way that most people's music has gone from linear CD to compressed AAC or MP3, despite the loss in fidelity, you will see more and more people chosing to buy movies from iTunes (for example) in a format/compression designed for computer use. And, you will see more and more people just watching instantly from Netflix or some other source. Already, an astonishing number of people watch a lot of their TV on hulu, for example.

BR is technically superior. No question. But *50 gigs* (or whatever it is exactly) for a movie? No frigging way. The convenience of having 100 movies (or more) on a single hard drive will outweigh the superior fidelity of BR discs _for most people_.

So the demand for an even _higher_ definition format will NOT materialize in our lifetimes.

That's my prediction.


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## StarHalo (Nov 24, 2009)

js said:


> you will see more and more people chosing to buy movies from iTunes (for example) in a format/compression designed for computer use.



There will always be "convenience people" vs "quality people", but the quality of the convenient sources has always trended upwards. Before Hulu, seeing anything in HD on your computer (without a BD player) was quite the technical challenge, now we take the "HD on" button for granted; Hulu opened in 2008, that's how far we've come in _one year_. 



js said:


> But *50 gigs* (or whatever it is exactly) for a movie? No frigging way. The convenience of having 100 movies (or more) on a single hard drive will outweigh the superior fidelity of BR discs _for most people_.



That would be true if hard drives never got larger - the same Black Friday ad I posted above has a 1TB external hard drive for $79. And note the remarkable number of movies passed among the torrent folk - it's hard to imagine using that much drive space just for movies, yet none of the computers I've owned in the last decade had less than two hard drives (this one has three).

I remember the first time I saw video on a PC, on my 486/66Mhz with a brand new Sony 2x CD reader installed; a "multimedia" Encyclopedia Brittania CD featured an article on the Hindenburg which included a (literally) postage stamp-sized video clip with audio. We all marveled at it at the time, even though it was a bit of a novelty - that video clip was so "large" that you couldn't fit it on a floppy disk, and putting a copy on the 400Mb hard drive wasn't really an option..



js said:


> So the demand for an even _higher_ definition format will NOT materialize in our lifetimes.



I'd agree that the demand won't be there, but the demand for HD at all was never really that great - it's taken quite a while to catch on, and I think a significant portion of BD adopters are because of the PS3. But whoever introduces a 2K set first will get plenty of attention from it, and if you build it, they will come. Plus if the movies are filmed/rendered in 4K, it only makes sense that every copy should be a one-to-one 4K archive.. 

I would like to see more attention paid to the quality of the individual frames before we start upping the resolution of them. I'd gladly forgo 960Hz refresh rates for some 24 bit color or greater.


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## Lynx_Arc (Nov 24, 2009)

StarHalo said:


> Didn't believe it until I saw the Black Friday ad scan, and there it is (and yes, it says not applicable to online sales):
> 
> (picture removed for quoting)



IMO the fact they can sell a BD player for well under $100 even on black friday says next year will be the sub $100 BD player year. I predict that will boost sales a bunch and possibly encourage prices on the disc to drop to more acceptable levels. I saw at some stores black friday sales they had BD dvds for under $10 new which IMO speaks volumes to the overpricing of them to me.


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## StarHalo (Nov 24, 2009)

Lynx_Arc said:


> IMO the fact they can sell a BD player for well under $100 even on black friday says next year will be the sub $100 BD player year.



That's what I said last year when they did the $129 BD player Black Friday special; yet only now that it's Black Friday again do we have players in that price range..


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## js (Nov 24, 2009)

StarHalo said:


> There will always be "convenience people" vs "quality people", but the quality of the convenient sources has always trended upwards. Before Hulu, seeing anything in HD on your computer (without a BD player) was quite the technical challenge, now we take the "HD on" button for granted; Hulu opened in 2008, that's how far we've come in _one year_.



True. But, it will be quite some time before we're ready to stream BR quality movies or video clips! A DVD quality stream will be fine for all but the extreme edge of the curve--for all but really "high quality" people.



> That would be true if hard drives never got larger - the same Black Friday ad I posted above has a 1TB external hard drive for $79. And note the remarkable number of movies passed among the torrent folk - it's hard to imagine using that much drive space just for movies, yet none of the computers I've owned in the last decade had less than two hard drives (this one has three).
> 
> I remember the first time I saw video on a PC, on my 486/66Mhz with a brand new Sony 2x CD reader installed; a "multimedia" Encyclopedia Brittania CD featured an article on the Hindenburg which included a (literally) postage stamp-sized video clip with audio. We all marveled at it at the time, even though it was a bit of a novelty - that video clip was so "large" that you couldn't fit it on a floppy disk, and putting a copy on the 400Mb hard drive wasn't really an option..



But what if we're not talking about hard drives, eh? What about SSD? What if people are watching their movies on their smaller, portable Tablets or phones as often as they are on their laptops or home TV's? At that point, space again becomes an issue! My iPod Touch is only a 16G device, for example! Quite a drastic difference between that and an iPod Classic with a hard drive.

But, yes, we can probably expect that storage capacity will just keep going up. Still, an iTunes HD movie format will be most peoples choice over a direct port of BR onto your hard drive in my opinion, although it suspect it will be a matter of choice, like a lossless audio codex vs. AAC or MP3



> I'd agree that the demand won't be there, but the demand for HD at all was never really that great - it's taken quite a while to catch on, and I think a significant portion of BD adopters are because of the PS3. But whoever introduces a 2K set first will get plenty of attention from it, and if you build it, they will come. Plus if the movies are filmed/rendered in 4K, it only makes sense that every copy should be a one-to-one 4K archive..
> 
> I would like to see more attention paid to the quality of the individual frames before we start upping the resolution of them. I'd gladly forgo 960Hz refresh rates for some 24 bit color or greater.



Plus, there's also the notion of 3D TV sets and 3D encoded movies, too!

But, in any case, I'm just saying that there will be more pressure to make movies available on laptops and home computers and portable devices than there will be to make an even higher definition standard than BR! A LOT more pressure. A lot more interest.

DVD quality is already quite good, in my opinion. And the HD stuff from iTunes is quite good. But, I'm not into super high fidelity home theater stuff. If I want that kind of experience, I just go to the movies. I would like to get an LCD HD TV at some point in the future, and I will get a BR player because it will become the new standard, I suspect, and because it plays regular DVD's and upconverts them, and because it will have an HDMI output as well as component. BUT, I will not be re-buying BR discs of stuff I already have on DVD. Not in general, anyway. I will make a few expections, I'm sure.

So, I think the action will be along the Apple TV / WD TV / TiVO / hulu / iTunes kind of lines and Blu-Ray will be for home theater enthusiasts mostly.

Just my 2 cents. Just one mans opinion and nothing more. YMMV.


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## js (Nov 24, 2009)

StarHalo said:


> That's what I said last year when they did the $129 BD player Black Friday special; yet only now that it's Black Friday again do we have players in that price range..



Agreed. Stuff like this is loss leader stuff. Pull 'em in on that and make money on 'em with all the other stuff they are likely to buy.


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## Patriot (Nov 24, 2009)

Onuris said:


> As far as the whole cable cost issue goes, for the most part I do not believe esp. for short runs that there is much of a difference between a cheap cable and an expensive one. But the quality control and construction of an expensive cable I believe is superior. And I know that the high-end manufacturers always use the highest grade of OFC wire. Can't say for that to be true of the cheap cables. The signal current of data is carried on the outside surface of the wire, any corrosion or deterioration can cause degradation of the signal. And the higher end cables are generally hand assembled, here in the USA. So you are paying for American craftsmanship and labor, and not sending as much of your money to China. I do not buy into all of the voodoo that many audio/videophiles seem to get caught up in. Like how placing some vibration damping object on a speaker will magically transform the sound into something substantially better. Give me a break. And anyone who claims that they can see/hear huge differences b/t this brand and that brand of cable is either delusional or on some kind of drug.
> 
> Finally, I will have to say that I am not a huge fan of HDMI, despite all the hype, it is actually an inferior format. The only thing it has going for it is that it is nice and tidy. If those of us who are really into high-end A/V had our way, the standard would be optical and component connections.
> 
> ...





Thanks Onuris. It makes sense in that arena that you'd run nice everything, including cables, if for nothing more than the eye candy effect. It would be kind of strange to have a generic drug store cable coming out of the back of a Krell, Mcintosh, or similar flavor...lol. It would be like installing a vinyl interior on a Ferrari. 

Regarding the HDMI format, I know it has received a lot of criticism by the industry primarily but on the other hand, someone had to decide upon something. I know that component cables, contrary to some popular info, is in capable of carrying a 1080p signal but as I understand it the RCA connector could be the limiting factor. Is it true that RCA could limit the data transfer rate or that it's at least pushing the rate capabilities now? I guess the industry could have gone with component but they might have been forced to change connector types for future proofing. Plus, if component manufacturers were to use optical again for sound some would want the option of digital coax. I guess what I'm saying is that by not going with the HDMI format, manufacturers would be scrambling to get the correct number of component, optical, and digital coax's just like they did ten years ago, where few consumers were ever perfectly happy. The simplicity is a major advantage to 95+% of the consumer market with absolutely no downside for that same percentage. For those rare situations where sparklies and dropouts occur the owner need only to get a new cable. 

Lastly, I have to ask if any of the high end HDMI cables you're commonly using have ferrite cores attached and if not, why any manufacturer would be using them on digital signal carriers?

Thanks Onuris. 


P.S. Thank you for those links too!


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## da.gee (Nov 24, 2009)

Ferrite cores are supposed to reduce RF interference IIRC. I wouldn't think a decent cable would be affected. They also used to come on VGA cables (computer monitors) and can be purchased separately. I wouldn't worry about it unless you see interference.


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## StarHalo (Nov 24, 2009)

js said:


> Plus, there's also the notion of 3D TV sets and 3D encoded movies, too!



That will definitely be the next big push we see over the coming year, home 3D, not 2K or 24bit or refresh rates..


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## Patriot (Nov 24, 2009)

StarHalo said:


> That will definitely be the next big push we see over the coming year, home 3D, not 2K or 24bit or refresh rates..



For sure. It's already making great headway in the PC gaming world. It seems that many of today's video display technology advancements have been due to the drive for advancements in PC gaming.


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## HoopleHead (Nov 24, 2009)

Didn't read the whole thread, this may have been posted already...

This is my #1 resource for BD movies - 

*The New PQ Tier Thread for Blu-Ray - Rankings*
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1168342


Definitely check it out!

I'm loving BD on my Pioneer Kuro 5020FD plasma. I did the 200 hour break in and the results are great. I'm using D-Nice's Pioneer settings, which seem to be the "standard" - http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1053444 I'm also using a cheap $10 HDMI cable and my picture rocks, so the proof is in the pudding...

I've bought a majority of the top ranked BDs and they all look fantastic.


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## HoopleHead (Nov 24, 2009)

And for the record, LCDs are still inferior to plasmas


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## StarHalo (Nov 25, 2009)

4K stills (click for full-size):


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## LuxLuthor (Nov 25, 2009)

The LG was astonishingly easy to setup, including connecting to my Uverse wireless router. I was playing Youtube clips and streaming movies from Netflix within 15 mins. Longest thing was inputting my 15 character router wireless password. Quality on Netflix streaming is obviously a lesser quality resolution, but I can get used to all this pretty easy.

Startup....I'll have to time it. Is the time from the moment you close the tray to the first time you see the coming attractions, because that didn't take long at all.....seemed like under 20 sec. I rented Ratatouille and it's almost impossible to not get sucked into the movie after just 3-4 mins. It is beautiful quality.

Later today, I'll set up the network share with my PC, but this player is already way more than I hoped it would be so far.


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## js (Nov 25, 2009)

LuxLuthor said:


> The LG was astonishingly easy to setup, including connecting to my Uverse wireless router. I was playing Youtube clips and streaming movies from Netflix within 15 mins. Longest thing was inputting my 15 character router wireless password. Quality on Netflix streaming is obviously a lesser quality resolution, but I can get used to all this pretty easy.
> 
> Startup....I'll have to time it. Is the time from the moment you close the tray to the first time you see the coming attractions, because that didn't take long at all.....seemed like under 20 sec. I rented Ratatouille and it's almost impossible to not get sucked into the movie after just 3-4 mins. It is beautiful quality.
> 
> Later today, I'll set up the network share with my PC, but this player is already way more than I hoped it would be so far.



So, you had said in an earlier thread (the format war thread, IIRC) that you didn't think that a BR or HD DVD was enough of an improvement over DVD to warrant all the fuss. Or, maybe your point was more that the jump from VHS to DVD was much more significant than DVD to BR or HD DVD. And I tend to agree with these, although I have been wowed by various HD TV and BR demos, to be sure.

So, what do you think now? How much better is BR than an upconverted DVD? Is it an obvious difference? Is it noticeable, even if subtle? Does it sink in after a few hours, leaving you with a sort of "Wow! That really is NICE" kind of feeling?

Or is it more "Yeah, it's nice, and I'll jump on the bandwagon since I have no choice--format of the future and all--but upconverted DVD's would have been fine with me"?

Really interested to hear your opinions, Lux. Let us know, if you would.


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## HoopleHead (Nov 25, 2009)

LuxLuthor said:


> I rented Ratatouille and it's almost impossible to not get sucked into the movie after just 3-4 mins. It is beautiful quality.


 

The part when he is kicking back relaxing and enjoying his reward of grapes and cheese at 52:54 looks outstanding. Definitely 3-D popping effect on the grapes.



I've repurchased a lot of my favorite movies on BD, and comparing BD to upscaled DVD (on a PS3, which is pretty good at it) the BD is easily and obviously much higher quality in all aspects IMHO, even with the less than perfect BD conversions.

My BD faves for eyecandy that I own:

Baraka
The Dark Knight
The Descent
Kill Bill 1 & 2
King Kong
Kung Fu Panda
Mad Men 1 & 2 (series)
No Country For Old Men
Pan's Labyrinth
Planet Earth (series)
Ratatouille
Speed Racer
Star Trek
Transformers
Wall-E
Wanted
Watchmen


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## js (Nov 26, 2009)

The best part of Ratatouille for me was the special feature on the Rat. ROTFLMAO! And the movie was also great, of course, but that special feature was freaking INSPIRED.


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## js (Nov 26, 2009)

HoopleHead said:


> . . .
> 
> My BD faves for eyecandy that I own:
> 
> ...



Is Transformers eyecandy due to Megan Fox only, or for all the special effects as well? I've been told it's a not-so-great movie, but I think I may rent it anyway, for the aforementioned reason. LOL!


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## StarHalo (Nov 26, 2009)

js said:


> Is Transformers eyecandy due to Megan Fox only, or for all the special effects as well? I've been told it's a not-so-great movie



That pretty much sums it up, but Megan Fox gets a total of maybe 20 mins screentime in the entire movie. And it doesn't nearly make up for how bad the rest of the movie is; Short Circuit meets American Pie with a whole lot of CGI thrown in, the end.


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## HoopleHead (Nov 27, 2009)

js said:


> Is Transformers eyecandy due to Megan Fox only, or for all the special effects as well? I've been told it's a not-so-great movie, but I think I may rent it anyway, for the aforementioned reason. LOL!


 

Megan eyecandy, battling robot eyecandy, some cool weapons and great sound. 1st one is definitely worth a rental in HD, 2nd one should never be spoken of again for all time.

Well shoot now I gotta go watch the Ratatouille features!


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## js (Nov 27, 2009)

Sorry, I didn't hear what either of you was saying. Distracted with the whole Megan Fox thing. OMG. I love reading interviews with her. She is just such a freaking kick. I get the strong feeling that she loves playing with the interviewers. I think she totally made up her lesbian love interest in the GQ interview, for example. And the GQ interviewer seemed to have bought it hook line and sinker. LOL!


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## da.gee (Nov 27, 2009)

Hey Lux,

Why didn't you go with the Oppo BDP-83? Just curious.


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## LEDninja (Nov 27, 2009)

I would be reluctant to get any of the CGI movies that came out in 3D at the theaters because
Ready To Replace Your Television Once Again? 3D Blu-ray HDTVs Due Out Next Year
Sony Music Explores New 3D Experiences For Blu-ray And iPhone With Forsenses
Sony optimistic on 3-D TVs, in-house display

Time to start saving up for the next generation 3D TV and 3D BR player!


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## js (Nov 27, 2009)

LEDninja said:


> I would be reluctant to get any of the CGI movies that came out in 3D at the theaters because
> Ready To Replace Your Television Once Again? 3D Blu-ray HDTVs Due Out Next Year
> Sony Music Explores New 3D Experiences For Blu-ray And iPhone With Forsenses
> Sony optimistic on 3-D TVs, in-house display
> ...



Nah. Not gonna daa it.

3D won't catch on. Not for a long long time, if ever. That's my strong suspicion.


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## StarHalo (Nov 27, 2009)

js said:


> 3D won't catch on. Not for a long long time, if ever. That's my strong suspicion.



That's what I said about the Nintendo Wii, and I just bought one for my wife who had-to-have-one for the holidays. 

I would agree that I can't see any reason for it to be a success offhand, but recent entertainment tech history shows that small improvements become big deals quickly, and 3D would be a notably big improvement to the average consumer standing around the television section of their local store. If HD could sell itself on picture alone, there isn't much stopping 3D from doing the same..


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## Mjolnir (Nov 27, 2009)

Are we talking about 3D TV's that require some sort of glasses? That technology is already on the market for PC gaming:
http://www.nvidia.com/object/3D_Vision_Overview.html

They basically have glasses with lenses that act as "shutters" that make it so only one eye is viewing the TV at a time. With a 120Hz LCD TV, it renders a game from 2 different angles, each at 60Hz. You can also play some games with a normal monitor and the red and blue "3d glasses," but you will obviously not get good color with that method.


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## LuxLuthor (Nov 27, 2009)

da.gee said:


> Hey Lux,
> 
> Why didn't you go with the Oppo BDP-83? Just curious.





That Oppo is $500 vs. my LG $275. Not enough feature/value to justify that amount.
 

LG has wireless networking, which adds a whole other dimension now that I'm using it.
 

My focus was not on best quality BR performance. Still isn't since most of my movie viewing will be with upcoded DVD's.
 My first impressions of BR vs. upcoded DVD are mixed.

No question that the BR titles I have seen (rented Ratatouille, Apocalypto from Blockbuster; bought BBC Earth series & Bladerunner 5 disc set) are noticebly better visual sharpness, colors, sound. I compared by changing input HDMI on TV between Oppo & LG, and had DVD's of Rat, Apoco, Earth (single DVD), but only had the Blade director's cut on DVD--not final cut which has more restoration which is on BR 5 disc set).

Having said that, the question is how much better is BR with these titles and setup? My gut feeling is that the BR looked and sounded 20% better, but there is no objective way to quantify that. To compare, I would say DVD is about 80-90% better than VHS.

I had some friends up from NYC, one of which is an actor & playwriter for off Broadway productions. He is 1,000 times more "anal" about anything related to movies/media that I am. He considers it criminal for anyone to get up or talk during the closing credits of any movie (even at home), until they are finished 100%.

I decided to play a trick on them with Rat, having loaded the DVD in the BR player and got past where the Disney BR splash video would display and paused it before we sat down to watch it after dinner. He has a BR, and was thrilled to find that I finally jumped into the pool.

So, I played Rat for about 10 mins, making sure to give lots of "Wow this is sooooo amazing....look at how beautiful and how you see all the detailed hair on the mice coats," and noting the sound clarity, and channel separation--to which he said things like: "See, I told you...now you know why I told you to get BR, etc etc."

After the 10 mins, I paused the movie and said how he was right about how good BR really is...and he was again glad I finally saw how much better it is. Then I opened the LG tray, took out the DVD and handed it to him. I told him not to be mad, because I wanted to see an unrehearsed reaction. I wanted to see if he would recognize there was something wrong since it was one of his favorite BR titles that he has played a number of times at home on his uber setup. 

He (and his wife) were flustered, and didn't know what to say, but insisted I now put in the real BR version next, and of course he began a non-stop torrent of profuse adoration for the obvious superiority, claiming he wasn't really watching the upcoded DVD that closely. LOL! It illustrated my case of how I would sum up the differences between the two. BR is better, but it is not so overwhelming that you would know in an instant that I was running a DVD upcoding.

Other thing about BR is I found the loading delays irritating. There is a 20-25 sec delay once you insert the disc. Then the promos play. Then another long delay if you tell it to go to setup menu--before you get to the menu. Then again after you select "PLAY," another 15-25 sec delays. They are hard to get used to as compared to DVD menus, and much more dramatic collectively before you are actually watching a movie.

I am thrilled with this LG wireless player having access to Netflix, Youtube, and various folders on my PC hard drive for showing images while MP3 songs are playing. That alone made me happy I got this setup. I was very surprised at the Netflix free movies on TV quality. Close enough to DVD quality that I wouldn't mind watching a movie this way.

Overall I'm mixed on the BR issue, and have not seen enough movies to give a clear-cut opinion. Like I said, it is noticeably better than upcoded DVD's, but not dramatically better. I'm not disappointed with the BR improved quality...but not blown away by it either. Despite my now having BR disc playing capability, I will not automatically get new movies on BR if more expensive than DVD. Since they have no standards, I will wait until others have reviewed their quality at AVS Forums. The reality of watching a good quality movie is that you get absorbed into the movie after a while, and forget to even notice details that may be better on BR.

I honestly don't think I enjoyed watching Ratatouille more on BR than on DVD upcoded. It is excellent on both, and you get sucked into the movie very quickly, and forget what format you are playing.

On the other hand, the "Final Cut" version of BladeRunner is a quantum leap forward in quality, colors, & sound. I don't have it on DVD to know how much better BR would be, but it is one of the handful of movies that I would just want to have the best quality of in general. I'm sure I will get Avatar in BR, but there may be a new 3D TV technology that may be another version coming out later.


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## js (Nov 28, 2009)

Oh, now that was cruel, Lux! LOL! Damn. Too funny.

Fine differences are always like that though, it seems to me, especially when you get into the "connoisseur" end of the range. It's not something that can be immediately apprehended. It's subtle. Doesn't mean they aren't there, but it does mean that mistakes like that can and do happen even to very experienced people.

Now, if the difference were between a _NON-HD TV and DVD movie_ vs. a _1080p HD TV and BR_ then that would probably be a different story, I suspect, although it would depend on TV sizes and viewing distances and so on. But, all other things being equal, and being at a reasonable viewing distance from the sets, I would feel comfortable betting money on cogniscenti being able to tell the difference between the two setups more or less immediately.

But, as was pointed out in the format wars thread, there is more info on a DVD than a standard television can render, so having an HD TV and upconverting DVD player (or BR player) is a definite step up from a standard TV and DVD player, even if you only ever use DVD's.

As for loading times, even the fastest BR players I've read about still take a damn long time to load. Unavoidable, I suppose, given the 10 fold increase in information-value of the content. But, I'm sure I will find it annoying when I finally buy a BR player. 20, or even 10 seconds can be a long time to wait in these cases.


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## DoctorZ (Nov 28, 2009)

There is really only one BR DVD player I would ever be interested in buying, but the price is a bit prohibitive. You can take a look at it here:

http://www.220-electronics.com/dvd/Panasonic_DMP-BD50K_DMPbd50k_code_free_region_free_dvd_player.htm

I'd be interested in knowing what you think, besides it being expensive....


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## da.gee (Nov 28, 2009)

Thanks for the breakdown Lux. I find it very valuable and appreciate it greatly. 

Waiting would sure get annoying but I suppose you just have to put up with it. One thing I have read about the Oppo unit is it loads very fast relative to other players.

I think the Oppo would make more sense if you didn't already have the 980. You would get all the great DVD upconverting technology of the Oppo, it's fantastic audio playback capabilities, plus what I'm sure is a technically fine BDP made in America. You also get that cool velvet bag!

One question for you all if you have time and inclination: is there a discernible difference in the actual picture quality between a $100 BDP and a $300 BDP or do they all deliver the 1080P goods to the screen because it's a digital thing? There must be some differences.

EDIT: Did a little quick research and it seems Blu-Ray quality will be very close if not indiscernible between BD players regardless of cost. That makes future decisions a bit easier. Slap me if I'm wrong. I didn't do my usual three months of research.


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## Dawg (Nov 28, 2009)

da.gee said:


> Did a little quick research and it seems Blu-Ray quality will be very close if not indiscernible between BD players regardless of cost. That makes future decisions a bit easier. Slap me if I'm wrong. I didn't do my usual three months of research.



Newegg has a deal going on right now... LG BD270 Blu-ray Disc Player for $78.99 with code SNCBLURAY. Shipping is $4.99.

Good deal at $83.98 delivered in 3 days. They are still in stock.


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## Onuris (Nov 29, 2009)

js said:


> I'm going to prognosticate here, in a big way.
> 
> I say that the 1080p high def is not going to be superceded by a higher resolution. Partly because 1080 is already plenty high res enough, but mostly because _stuff is going to move to hard-drive/computer/watch-instantly on-line_.
> 
> ...



According to one of our vendor reps, several manufacturers will be displaying TVs and monitors that have 2048p and 2160p quad HD resolution at the CES next year. It will not be very long after that they will be on the market.

I believe that soon after we will also be seeing A/V media on non-volatile SSDs at those resolutions. In this day and age of ever increasing technology and the demand for it, progress in inevitable.

Most movies these days are produced digitally at 4k resolution, many at 8k, and the manufacturers have the technology and know-how to produce displays at those resolutions- in fact there are some out there right now, just not for mass consumer purchase. The industry only releases advancements at certain increments in relation to what they are capable of, in part due to development costs, and also to guarantee future upgrades and profits.



HoopleHead said:


> Didn't read the whole thread, this may have been posted already...
> 
> This is my #1 resource for BD movies -
> 
> ...



The only issue I have with those lists are that they are based on video quality only, not combined with the audio as well. That said, most top-tier movies will have both, but there are a few on the 0 tier that I would not give a perfect audio score to, and several that are on 1 tier that have such a great audio score that personally I would rate them 0 tier on my list.



js said:


> Nah. Not gonna daa it.
> 
> 3D won't catch on. Not for a long long time, if ever. That's my strong suspicion.



It will, but not with current technology of having to wear glasses to crudely simulate it. There are a few true 3D technologies in the works that while several years away from being in production show great promise.



LuxLuthor said:


> ... Having said that, the question is how much better is BR with these titles and setup? My gut feeling is that the BR looked and sounded 20% better, but there is no objective way to quantify that. To compare, I would say DVD is about 80-90% better than VHS.
> 
> I had some friends up from NYC, one of which is an actor & playwriter for off Broadway productions. He is 1,000 times more "anal" about anything related to movies/media that I am. He considers it criminal for anyone to get up or talk during the closing credits of any movie (even at home), until they are finished 100%.
> 
> ...



LOL, that was a cruel trick there Lux.

As far as not noticing a dramatic difference b/t DVD and BR, I have a question for you- what is the screen size of your TV and what is its resolution? I am assuming based on your posts that it is 1080p. 

For most people, at proper viewing distance, if your TV is under about 40" or so, you will not notice as much of a difference b/t DVD and BR, and even less b/t 720p and 1080p. On some of the larger screens, for instance the 65" plasma in our bedroom or the 104" screen in our theater, I notice quite a difference b/t the two formats. And some of us notice more than others. My gf says that she cannot see a big difference b/t most, to her movie content, or how it moves her emotionally is more important than the picture or audio quality.



DoctorZ said:


> There is really only one BR DVD player I would ever be interested in buying, but the price is a bit prohibitive. You can take a look at it here:
> 
> http://www.220-electronics.com/dvd/Panasonic_DMP-BD50K_DMPbd50k_code_free_region_free_dvd_player.htm
> 
> I'd be interested in knowing what you think, besides it being expensive....



I don't think that its region free feature alone will justify its price. And I question how often one living in the US would even need to use this feature, unless for some reason you have a lot of foreign discs which are not region free. Most of the BR titles from the major US studios are region free, those that are not, you would only have issues with the foreign versions. I have thousands of BR discs, and only a handful that are foreign- Beowulf (Warner UK), The Island (Warner UK), The Descent (Icon AUS), City of Ember (EIV UK), Next (EIV UK), Mr. and Mrs. Smith uncut (Fox FR), The Shawshank Redemption (ITV UK), The Fifth Element (Ufa DE), Kingdom of Heaven (Fox FR), The Last Samurai (Warner HK), The Punisher (Sony UK), Sin City (Geneon JP), Watchmen (Paramount UK), Knowing (E1 Ent. UK), Silent Hill (Concorde DE), Hot Fuzz (Universal UK), Pan's Labyrinth (OHE UK), and Air Force One (Disney UK). All play just fine on any BR player I have put them in.


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## LuxLuthor (Nov 29, 2009)

Onuris, it is the Samsung LN40B630, so it is 40" but full 1080p. We only sit about 8-9 feet away, so that seemed a pretty good size, but now I wish I had a 46." In any case it is right on that edge size you mentioned where it may not be as noticeable. But also I guess for DVD upcoding, that is probably a better size.


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## js (Nov 29, 2009)

Onuris said:


> According to one of our vendor reps, several manufacturers will be displaying TVs and monitors that have 2048p and 2160p quad HD resolution at the CES next year. It will not be very long after that they will be on the market.
> 
> I believe that soon after we will also be seeing A/V media on non-volatile SSDs at those resolutions. In this day and age of ever increasing technology and the demand for it, progress in inevitable.
> 
> ...



Whoop-de-freaking-do! So we will be "seeing" such things at conventions as proof-of-concept? So what? That absolutely does NOT mean that 2048p TV's are just around the bend and that they will become the new standard. Yes, technology is always on the march and standards will, in the long run, get better and better. I agree.

But not any time soon, Onuris. Not any time soon. Not for a decade or more. Heck, it will be another decade before the majority of people have 1080p TV's.

And 4k or 8k? Holy cow! And another format change? SSD?

I think you're underestimating the inertia of the consumer base, and I stand by what I said above, every word. Convenience and ability to be streamed will win hands down over fantastic resolution. 1080p is already too high for that.


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## Onuris (Nov 29, 2009)

Patriot said:


> Thanks Onuris. It makes sense in that arena that you'd run nice everything, including cables, if for nothing more than the eye candy effect. It would be kind of strange to have a generic drug store cable coming out of the back of a Krell, Mcintosh, or similar flavor...lol. It would be like installing a vinyl interior on a Ferrari.
> 
> Regarding the HDMI format, I know it has received a lot of criticism by the industry primarily but on the other hand, someone had to decide upon something. I know that component cables, contrary to some popular info, is in capable of carrying a 1080p signal but as I understand it the RCA connector could be the limiting factor. Is it true that RCA could limit the data transfer rate or that it's at least pushing the rate capabilities now? I guess the industry could have gone with component but they might have been forced to change connector types for future proofing. Plus, if component manufacturers were to use optical again for sound some would want the option of digital coax. I guess what I'm saying is that by not going with the HDMI format, manufacturers would be scrambling to get the correct number of component, optical, and digital coax's just like they did ten years ago, where few consumers were ever perfectly happy. The simplicity is a major advantage to 95+% of the consumer market with absolutely no downside for that same percentage. For those rare situations where sparklies and dropouts occur the owner need only to get a new cable.
> 
> ...



Yes a similar flavor- Lexicon, Legacy, etc. Krell and McIntosh make some really nice stuff, we used a Krell Evo 707 processor and Evo mono amps in the big $1.2 mil install we did. Have seen but not worked with any McIntosh stuff, but I know it is nice. I like their classic retro look as well, we have considered carrying their products.

As far as an RCA connector limiting the data transfer rate I don't believe it would on a cable designed for digital signals. In fact, I believe that having an HD digital coaxial cable using RCA or BNC connectors could be designed to have the same or greater bit rates and pixel clock rates than HDMI and would be far superior to it, esp in the area of carrying a digital signal over longer distances. And while length is also a limiting factor, optical cables are the way to go for true high-end digital signal transmissions between components. I am using HDMI, but the cables b/t the equipment are only 1 meter. The longest run I have is b/t the video processor in my equipment rack and the projector in the ceiling in my theater, and I am using component video for that.

While it is true that an HDMI cable is carrying digital data, it is still using an electrical signal to do so, just instead of a sine wave as with an analog signal, it is a series of pulses that represent the bitstream. So it is susceptible to the same high frequency/radio frequency interference as an analog signal.

Most of the high-end HDMI cables are sufficiently shielded that a ferrite suppressor is probably overkill. Kimber cable is the only high-end manufacturer that I am aware of that uses ferrites in addition to heavy shielding in their cables. Ferrites are mostly used in the lower cost cables b/c they are effective and less costly than heavy shielding.

Oh, and a few hundred bucks for a cable is nothing in the high-end world. Check these out.

http://transparentcable.com/products/pdf/prices/retail_prices_04-2009.pdf



HoopleHead said:


> And for the record, LCDs are still inferior to plasmas



Not necessarily, it depends on the viewing environment and the quality of the component.

In a dark room, top of the line plasma vs top of the line LCD, your statement would be true. But in a well-lit room, the LCD will be capable of a superior picture. As far as overall picture quality, plasmas excel in black levels/contrast, color accuracy and vibrancy, depth perception, motion accuracy/stability, and viewing angle. LCDs typically excel in gray scaling accuracy and brightness.

LCDs also produce a much better static image than a plasma. Compare the two with channels such as Weatherscan or one of the music channels for instance. The plasma image will look jagged, while the LCD would be sharp and well-defined. This is one reason why plasmas are not used for computer monitors. But for moving video, plasma is far superior. Plasmas may also be susceptible to image burn in, where static images are eventually etched into the glass element and remain there even when the signal is no longer there. An example would be the station icons used on the lower right corner. While in the past images could burn in in as little as 15 min, plasmas have gotten much better now, with ghosting that can be removed/washed out by displaying a gray screen to take over an hour, and permanent burn in well over 10 hours. But LCD is immune to this completely. Another reason why computer monitors are LCD. Another area where LCDs are superior is in longevity, although plasmas are getting better, esp. the high-end models. An LCD will last as long as its backlight, and most of those can be replaced. And many new sets use LED backlighting that can last over 100,000 hours. Not so with a plasma, which uses electronic currents to excite a combination of noble gases (xenon, neon, argon) which have a limited life span, about 100,000 hours to their half-life, meaning at that time, the phosphors will glow half as bright as they did when new. There is a long period of time where the phosphors will remain as bright as when first new/broken in, but after that will continue to degrade over time. And there is no way to recharge or replace these gases once that starts to happen. Lastly, LCDs are much more energy efficient, typically their power consumption is about half that of a plasma of the same size.

All that said, as the manufactures continue to improve their products, the differences b/t the two formats are becoming incresingly less noticeable, esp. with LCDs.

The true superior TV/monitor format would have to be Mitsubishi's Laser Vue DLP. As with a front DLP projector you simply cannot get a better picture at this time.


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## Onuris (Nov 29, 2009)

js said:


> Whoop-de-freaking-do! So we will be "seeing" such things at conventions as proof-of-concept? So what? That absolutely does NOT mean that 2048p TV's are just around the bend and that they will become the new standard. Yes, technology is always on the march and standards will, in the long run, get better and better. I agree.
> 
> But not any time soon, Onuris. Not any time soon. Not for a decade or more. Heck, it will be another decade before the majority of people have 1080p TV's.
> 
> ...



Hmm, this is like deja vu all over again, and again. Anytime a new type of tv, resolution or format is revealed, many claim it will be at least 10 or 15 years before we see it. But in reality it always ends up being just a few years, sometimes sooner. Was true of LCDs and plasmas taking over CRT and DLP sales, 720 replacing 480, 1080 replacing 720. I have been in this industry a long time, and have seen the trends. Just a few years ago many were saying that there is no way we will be seeing 1080p anytime soon, that 720p was more than good enough. Now the top selling tvs are 1080p VISIOs. I am willing to bet that within 3-5 years 2048 or 2160 will be as common as 1080 is now, and media on SSDs will share the spotlight alongside BR and eventually replace it. The demand for new technology these days leads to it being marketed at an ever increasing rate. And I am also willing to bet that these new 2k sets will be OLEDs as well.


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## Onuris (Nov 29, 2009)

LuxLuthor said:


> Onuris, it is the Samsung LN40B630, so it is 40" but full 1080p. We only sit about 8-9 feet away, so that seemed a pretty good size, but now I wish I had a 46." In any case it is right on that edge size you mentioned where it may not be as noticeable. But also I guess for DVD upcoding, that is probably a better size.



Those Samsungs are at the top of their class for the price point. Great color accuracy with their color enhancer and nice fast refresh rate and response time. Decent black levels as well. I know how you feel about the size, to me anything under 50' or so seems too small. Yeah, if you are upconverting a DVD signal, the smaller screen will give more detail to the image.


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## LuxLuthor (Nov 29, 2009)

Onuris, if I were to find an excuse to move that 40" up to the bedroom and get a 46-50" for the main family room that would give nice performance in daylight (curains open) and ideal performance in dark room about 15'x15' and under $2K, what would you recommend?

I was looking at the newer *240Hz *models, and wonder if that makes that much more difference for motion performance, such as this Samsung LN46B750 that is $1530

I don't know how much difference going from 46 to 50" makes either.


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## js (Nov 30, 2009)

Onuris said:


> Hmm, this is like deja vu all over again, and again. Anytime a new type of tv, resolution or format is revealed, many claim it will be at least 10 or 15 years before we see it. But in reality it always ends up being just a few years, sometimes sooner. Was true of LCDs and plasmas taking over CRT and DLP sales, 720 replacing 480, 1080 replacing 720. I have been in this industry a long time, and have seen the trends. Just a few years ago many were saying that there is no way we will be seeing 1080p anytime soon, that 720p was more than good enough. Now the top selling tvs are 1080p VISIOs. I am willing to bet that within 3-5 years 2048 or 2160 will be as common as 1080 is now, and media on SSDs will share the spotlight alongside BR and eventually replace it. The demand for new technology these days leads to it being marketed at an ever increasing rate. And I am also willing to bet that these new 2k sets will be OLEDs as well.



Well, you may turn out to be spot on, Onuris! We shall see, n'est pas?

But, I would point out that nearly ALL of the people I know right now have standard definition TV's. Not even 720. So if in 3-5 years 2048 is "as common as" 1080p is right now, it would definitely NOT fit my own definition of mainstream.

What I was predicting was that 1080p will indeed eventually become mainstream--as in the majority of homes having 1080p sets--and probably in only 3-5 years. BUT, I was (and still am) predicting that something like 2048 will not become mainstream for many many years to come, because the source media format will change from discs to _internet streams_ or iTunes type file formats. And unless my calculations are off, not even the most extreme high-end internet connection can stream a BR disc level quality video clip! Even standard DVD quality isn't able to be streamed over most peoples internet connections. But, that's OK. Fewer fps, somewhat lower resolution? Not a big deal down to a certain point, really. But the convenience factor IS a big deal for most people.

Anyway, I'm sure you understand my point so I will stop belaboring it!


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## Onuris (Dec 1, 2009)

LuxLuthor said:


> Onuris, if I were to find an excuse to move that 40" up to the bedroom and get a 46-50" for the main family room that would give nice performance in daylight (curains open) and ideal performance in dark room about 15'x15' and under $2K, what would you recommend?
> 
> I was looking at the newer *240Hz *models, and wonder if that makes that much more difference for motion performance, such as this Samsung LN46B750 that is $1530
> 
> I don't know how much difference going from 46 to 50" makes either.



I don't really see any difference in the 240hz models as compared to those that refresh at 120hz. With either, depending on the source material and the brand or individual set, there still may be some slightly noticeable motion blur.

First a little tech lesson on the whole issue. The main reasons that LCDs suffer from motion blur is due to the fact that they flip from one frame to the next at a rate of 60 frames per second, since that is the frequency of the household current supplied to the set. Part of the blur perception occurs due to the fact that the image for each frame is held frozen on the screen for 1/60th of a second, and then abruptly shifted to the next frame. This is known as "sample and hold". Plasmas and DLPs don't hold the frame like that, but rather pulse more smoothly from one frame to the next with room for some downtime. That downtime is part of what contributes to their ability to have outstanding high contrast/black levels.To compound the issue is the fact that movies are recorded at and shown in theaters at 24 fps (frames per second). But the NTSC standard for TV, DVD, BR, and other formats is 29.97 fps. This creates an issue since there are in effect 5 frames missing in the conversion. To compensate for this, a technique known as 3:2 pulldown is used to fill in the missing frames. These extra frames create a jittery motion artifact know to us video geeks as "judder". Originally all LCDs had a refresh rate of 60hz. Our original source material had a rate of 24 fps, which does not divide into 60 evenly, so the 3:2 pulldown was required to display the information on a set refreshing at 60hz. But 24 does go into 120 and 240 evenly, so if the film is displayed at its native frame rate of 24 fps, which most BR players are capable of, the judder is eliminated. But there is still the issue of the image being held static, and flipped from frame to frame. It does not matter how fast the refresh rate, 240hz, 480hz, or higher, it will still not be as smooth as a plasma or DLP.

So the older 60hz sets were notoriously bad in regards to image blur, and going to 120hz, while not completely eliminating it was such a great improvement that it caused the spec to be important. I think the manufacturers are taking advantage of that with the new 240hz specs. While I am sure that it does not hurt to have a 240hz refresh rate and I am sure it will show better performance in a bench test, it is my opinion that this is just one more spec to justify higher prices and make people want to upgrade to what is perceived to be the next best thing. Our eyes really cannot see the difference b/t the two, as we can only really notice differences at about 70hz and under.

That is a good price for the 46" B7500 series set, but you are still paying for the 240hz feature as opposed to screen size. If you really want an LCD or did not want to go too big on the screen size, I would suggest the 55" Samsung LN55B650 or 52" Sony KDL52XB9R over that one, I did a quick search, they are both available at several places for under $2k.

But if you don't think the screen size is too much, my top choice under 2k by far would have to be the 65" Mitsubishi WD-65837 DLP. Much better picture than the LCDs. The only drawbacks are that like an LCD there is a sweet spot, so you don't see as good of a picture off to the sides or at an angle. And there is the fact that in a couple/few years you will have to replace the lamp, at about $120 currently.



js said:


> Well, you may turn out to be spot on, Onuris! We shall see, n'est pas?
> 
> But, I would point out that nearly ALL of the people I know right now have standard definition TV's. Not even 720. So if in 3-5 years 2048 is "as common as" 1080p is right now, it would definitely NOT fit my own definition of mainstream.
> 
> ...



Oui, je vous comprends! When put that way I will have to agree that as far as the 1080p format becoming mainstream where most people will have them, then yes, it will be a few more years I am sure. I was almost going to definitively post that 1080p *is* mainstream right now, who has 720p anymore, but I have to consider that I hang in different circles than most, so my definition of mainstream is a bit higher-end. And I also realized I would be somewhat of a hypocrite, as the 40" Sony in the kid's playroom is still 720p. As far as the 2k formats yes it will be quite some time before they are mainstream, 10 or more years would be about right, but they will be available within the next couple of years for those of us who want them.


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## LuxLuthor (Dec 1, 2009)

Onuris, wonderful and very useful post. Gives me a lot to think about and investigate. Thank you!


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## Flashanator (Dec 1, 2009)

hey Lux! bout time you went Blu.  Come into the light.

some randoms id recommend.

north by north west, looks fantastic,
superman returns 2008 release, its the old warner bros encode from hd-dvd but still looks great. the film is meant to look soft anyway.


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## da.gee (Dec 1, 2009)

Thanks Onuris. I've always wondered what 3:2 pulldown was. Good explanation.

I have had the 52" Sammy 650 for about a year and half and it is a fantastic set. I did a ton of research before purchasing and it was very well regarded in the price range. Very pleased. Plenty of inputs and a great picture. Highly adjustable. You can tweak to your hearts content. Everyone comments on the excellence of the set up. It's well below $2K now. I think I purchased for ~$2,200 in June 2008.

Lux: get the bigger screen if in doubt! I went back and forth between the 46" and 52" and so glad I went with the larger. It seemed huge at first but now just blends in and I'm never sorry I did it. Viewing distance in our world is 8' - 11' and I find my old eyes like the size just fine. Of course, one of my criteria was I had to be able to see the score from the kitchen 20' away so YMMV. One consideration, if you do any gaming that uses split screen for two or more people the extra inches really help.

Right now my audio setup is sorely in need of some upgrading but those funds always seem to get directed at things like food, kid's tuition, gas, electricity, flashlights, etc. I'm limping along with a Yamaha surround system from ten years ago. The receiver has one coax and ONE optical in (I use a three way splitter to it at least), no HDMI, one component in and many other deficiencies. *The horror!!!!* I need a solid mid-range receiver/amp and begin my audio build out from there.


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## LuxLuthor (Dec 2, 2009)

da.gee said:


> Lux: get the bigger screen if in doubt! I went back and forth between the 46" and 52" and so glad I went with the larger. It seemed huge at first but now just blends in and I'm never sorry I did it. Viewing distance in our world is 8' - 11' and I find my old eyes like the size just fine. Of course, one of my criteria was I had to be able to see the score from the kitchen 20' away so YMMV. One consideration, if you do any gaming that uses split screen for two or more people the extra inches really help.



After this thread, I have had the tape measure out a number of times....including while the wife is watching...trying to demonstrate how much more screen space we could have. When asked about getting to the blocked cabinets behind it, I reminded her they are filled with obsolete VHS tapes, and also mentioned how nice this 40" TV would look in the bedroom! LOL!


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## Mjolnir (Dec 3, 2009)

My sitting position is about 7 feet away from my 50 inch plasma, and I still wouldn't mind a larger TV. This is partly because most of the blu-ray movies are not filmed with a 16:9 aspect ratio, so there are bars wasting space on my TV.

Onuris, do you know why are movies only filmed at 24fps? I have never really understood why they use such a low framerate, especially considering it is lower than that of normal television. I know that with a video game, a framerate of 24 FPS is not all that tolerable. 

I haven't really seen LCD TV companies advertising anything about the response times for the panels. Doesn't a slow response time cause more problems than a lower refresh rate?
Also, why aren't the TVs designed with the capability to have a 48Hz refresh rate? Many smaller LCD computer monitors can switch between 60 Hz and 75 Hz, so why can't they do this with an LCD TV?


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## LEDninja (Dec 3, 2009)

Mjolnir said:


> Onuris, do you know why are movies only filmed at 24fps? I have never really understood why they use such a low framerate, especially considering it is lower than that of normal television. I know that with a video game, a framerate of 24 FPS is not all that tolerable.


Many movies are filmed using real film - a piece of celluloid with holes down both sides. Sprockets push the film forward one frame at a time. Then the film stops and the shutter opens to take a still picture. then the film is pushed forward another frame. There is a limit to how fast this start-stop can be done without ripping the film.
In addition to the danger of ripping the film, going to a higher film rate means using more film per minute resulting in bigger cameras. The cost of the film for distribution has to be considered. Going from 24 to 30 fps means adding another 43,200 frames to a 2 hour film. That is the equivalent of 600 rolls of 35mm*36 shots still camera film. Multiply that by 3000 theaters*** and 52 new releases per year and the cost is huge. (*** I am assuming 3000 North American theaters & a similar # of foreign theaters. Where theaters have sufficient security against bootlegging the studios will ship the movie on reusable HDs but for the rest real film is used to prevent high quality bootlegging. Also a lot of movie theaters only have film equipment, have not upgraded to digital projectors)
A few years ago someone developed a film system running at double the frame rate. Roger Ebert was given a demo and reported a smoother motion picture. But the studios nixed it due to cost.

Why 30, 60, 120, 240 Hz? It is 60Hz line frequency only in North America. The rest of the world has 50 Hz. 30, 60, 120, 240 do not divide well into 50. That is why North America had 525i @ 30 Hz NTSC TVs and most of the rest of the world has 625i @ 25 Hz PAL or SECAM TVs.
BTW movies in Europe are filmed at 25 fps which matches the 25 Hz of their TVs exactly.

You have to remember 24 fps was standardized when film was still black and white and people wrote letters with fountain pens. I don't think manual typewriters were invented yet, let alone electric typewriters or word processors or computers or txt-ing cellphones with keyboards.


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## da.gee (Dec 3, 2009)

Um, I still write letters with fountain pens. :nana:


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## blasterman (Dec 3, 2009)

> A few years ago someone developed a film system running at double the frame rate


 
Douglas Trumball developed the system way back in the 80's.

As for movie theaters, almost all in my area have upgraded to DLP. I could care less how many are still using film projectors because they are typically second run houses. I won't pay for a ticket in a film based house because the technology is terrible and always has been, except for maybe 70mm. When watching feature films I used to count the number of emulsion changes used with the interpositive if I was bored with the film.

If anything, it's film based houses holding up motion picture technology. Shooting faster than 24fps really improves quality, particularly with action sequences, but older houses can't display this.

Also, most people I know running HD sets have a maxiumum of 1080i display. Personally I'd rather watch regular DVD in progessive rather than endure 2hours of 1080i strobing and motion artifacts. As soon as an actor walks across the screen or there's a pan shot I get a migraine.


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## Onuris (Dec 4, 2009)

LEDninja said:


> Many movies are filmed using real film - a piece of celluloid with holes down both sides. Sprockets push the film forward one frame at a time. Then the film stops and the shutter opens to take a still picture. then the film is pushed forward another frame. There is a limit to how fast this start-stop can be done without ripping the film.
> In addition to the danger of ripping the film, going to a higher film rate means using more film per minute resulting in bigger cameras. The cost of the film for distribution has to be considered. Going from 24 to 30 fps means adding another 43,200 frames to a 2 hour film. That is the equivalent of 600 rolls of 35mm*36 shots still camera film. Multiply that by 3000 theaters*** and 52 new releases per year and the cost is huge. (*** I am assuming 3000 North American theaters & a similar # of foreign theaters. Where theaters have sufficient security against bootlegging the studios will ship the movie on reusable HDs but for the rest real film is used to prevent high quality bootlegging. Also a lot of movie theaters only have film equipment, have not upgraded to digital projectors)
> A few years ago someone developed a film system running at double the frame rate. Roger Ebert was given a demo and reported a smoother motion picture. But the studios nixed it due to cost.
> 
> ...



Pretty much hit the nail on the head there, I would like to also add that 24fps is the lower limit of where most people do not see any noticable flickering of the film from frame to frame, so that factored into the spec as well.

Some digital HD programs are recorded and broadcast at much higher speeds, such as 180 fps for NASCAR races, and 600 fps for NHRA races. Makes for some very smooth and detailed slow motion playback.

There are cameras capable of recording at 1 million fps. Check this out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfDoQwIAaXg


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## Onuris (Dec 4, 2009)

Mjolnir said:


> I haven't really seen LCD TV companies advertising anything about the response times for the panels. Doesn't a slow response time cause more problems than a lower refresh rate?
> Also, why aren't the TVs designed with the capability to have a 48Hz refresh rate? Many smaller LCD computer monitors can switch between 60 Hz and 75 Hz, so why can't they do this with an LCD TV?



The main reason that response times are not advertised is because there is no industry standard definition for them. Most of the big name manufacturers define it as the time it takes for the pixels to go from full off (black) to full on (white) and back to full off again. Some of the cheaper manufactures use a gray to white to gray measurement, or black to white only or white to black only, which are only half the level to make their sets appear faster than what they actually are. Also many manufacturers will give a value that is only accurate under the most ideal circumstances. It is better to have a set with a good video processor that has a spec of 8ms which is stable holding close to 8ms to 12ms with actual program material, than one that claims to be 4ms, but that will actually vary b/t 8ms to 24ms with program material.

The reason that TVs have refresh rates of 60 hz, 120 hz, 240 hz, is because they are refreshing off of the household power line frequency, which is 60 hz, so the value has to be a multiple of that. Computer monitors on the other hand are refreshing off of the video card, so the refresh rate can be set to whatever value the card supports.

The response times and refresh values do not necessarily mean much anyway. Nothing beats actually sitting down and viewing and comparing. A set can look great on paper, but not look that great when auditioned. And some of the sets that have the best pictures have fairly mediocre specs on paper.


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## LuxLuthor (Dec 5, 2009)

I have known about the lack of standards for defining response time, and find it shocking that a clear defined measurement term has not been established after all this time.

The problem is that the average person cannot get a fair & optimal viewing in most locations. Going to your local Best Buy, Sears, or some other electronics store does not mean they actually setup the display correctly. Then there is the issue of looking at a wall of displays all being fed a signal from whatever splitter switch setup is used.

You almost have to rely on reviews from various websites.


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## Mjolnir (Dec 5, 2009)

LuxLuthor said:


> I have known about the lack of standards for defining response time, and find it shocking that a clear defined measurement term has not been established after all this time.
> 
> The problem is that the average person cannot get a fair & optimal viewing in most locations. Going to your local Best Buy, Sears, or some other electronics store does not mean they actually setup the display correctly. Then there is the issue of looking at a wall of displays all being fed a signal from whatever splitter switch setup is used.
> 
> You almost have to rely on reviews from various websites.



The last time I went to circuit city, even the higher end 1080P panels (both LCD and plasma) had a significantly worse picture than my 720P plasma because the signal was split between over a dozen TVs. 
On top of that, TVs in those stores often have the image settings calibrated completely differently than you would in your home, so it is harder to tell the actual differences in color and contrast between sets.


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## js (Dec 7, 2009)

LuxLuthor said:


> I have known about the lack of standards for defining response time, and find it shocking that a clear defined measurement term has not been established after all this time.
> 
> The problem is that the average person cannot get a fair & optimal viewing in most locations. Going to your local Best Buy, Sears, or some other electronics store does not mean they actually setup the display correctly. Then there is the issue of looking at a wall of displays all being fed a signal from whatever splitter switch setup is used.
> 
> You almost have to rely on reviews from various websites.



Exactly. The funny thing is that some of those reviews/threads recommend that you go to your local Best Buy and compare side-by-side for yourself! LOL!


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## selfbuilt (Jan 13, 2010)

While on the topic on blu-ray restorations, one to add for your consideration: The Prisoner tv series.

I've just posted a few pics in the Patrick McGoohan RIP thread. These are just quick snaps of my plasma screen, but they give a good general idea of the quality of the restoration and remastering. Simply put, the DVDs look like crap in comparison (clearly, they were done from a badly degraded print of the series).

I would agree with the Silver designation for this blu-ray set on the PQ Tier thread. It's not like this is actual HD, but the level of detail is *much* higher than I expected, since the broadcast versions I've seen over the years are no better than the DVDs. Even if you never saw the Prisoner before, I think you would find the blu-ray series quite watchable today (with the restoration, it looks like it was film yesterday instead of over 40 years ago).

Audio quality is also great, and I amazed at how well they spatialized the original mono audio tracks to 5.1 surround. Probably not quite as impressive as the original series Star Trek restoration, but close (the TOS Star Trek blu-rays were also restored from 35mm negatives and with mono audio tracks). In that case, virtually all "artificial" ship sounds have been adjusted (i.e. ship's hum on the back speakers, surround-sound red alert klaxon, etc.), and new CGI special effects added if you want (have the option to watch either version, switch on the fly).

As a side comment, I agree that a lot of modern DVD movies are still quite watchable when upconverted. Yes, I can readily see the difference on my blu-ray titles, but it's not so bad that I won't continue to watch good quality DVDs. Where you really see the difference is in these restored blu-ray sets compared with early DVD releases (especially TV series, but also some movies like 2001: A Space Odyssey, etc. where the DVD quality sucked). 

In fact, the only DVDs in my collection that I have or plan to upgrade to blu-ray are those that are from the early generation of DVDs (like 2001). They've gotten a lot better in recent years at releasing decent quality DVDs, so the replacement upgrade need isn't as great (depends on the title though - modern action flicks are a lot more fun on blu-ray). That being said, I am not likely to be buying too many DVDs from now on, though ...


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## js (Feb 11, 2010)

So . . .

My DVD player finally has gotten so flaky that I decided I would pre-emptively replace it.

The LG BD390 is no longer available at my local stores, nor on Amazon. Not sure why, but since someone mentioned the Oppo BDP-83 I decdied to look into THAT, and I am so glad that I did, because it is right up my alley. $500 is more than I was expecting to spend, though, so I first gave some thought to just buying a cheap DVD player to last me for a couple years until I get a HD LCD TV. So, I went to the local stores to look at DVD players and I have to tell you, they screamed CHEAP CHEAP CHEAP PLASTIC JUNK LANDFILL MATERIAL. I was so not impressed. You could mail one of those things with only a first class postage stamp if they would fit into a legal sized envelope. Plus, what the heck is this new trend with buttons? They are either _tiny tiny tiny_, presumably for use with a stylus only, or the side of your pinky finger fingernail. OR, they are narrow stips of metalized plastic at the exact interface between the front panel and the top!!! What the heck! That means they must be on the top of any stack to be useful (in terms of physical buttons). Which, I guess is somewhat understandable, as there is no way you'd be able to stack anything on them anyway, as they are so small and flimsy.

So, just couldn't do it. Ordered the OPPO BDP-83 and it came a couple days ago.

I LOVE IT! I'm so impressed with the design and build quality. This thing is SOLID! And it has REAL BUTTONS ON IT! For real human fingers! And they're nice! A-freaking-mazing.

I can't comment on the image quality, as I still have just a CRT TV that will only accept a 480i signal through its composite, S-video, or component inputs.

But, what I can tell you is that this thing *loads Blu-ray discs FAST*. Or at least it has loaded all the ones I've used on it so far really fast. I was expecting to have to wait a lot longer than I did with DVD's. I mean, everyone is always talking about long loading times. But, so far, very little waiting.

It's just a nice piece of equipment. Fit and finish is beautiful and the tray action feels high-quality, and not like the normal flimsy trays I've seen. Could be no actual quality difference, but I like the feel of this tray action and sound. Nice.

Plus, the BDP-83 uses the same up-converting circuitry as the Oppo up-converting DVD models, and is unsurpassed in this department, _in addition_ to its blu-ray performance which is also considered to be very very good. At least through the HDMI output. The component output is NOT considered so good, as it uses different chips than the HDMI output, which is where the money was put.

And it came nicely packaged in a re-useable box, and even a carrying/shopping bag. Nice touch.

I actually like that it isn't a Wi-Fi unit. I never really cared much about that in a BR player, and I figured it would just be adding to the cost and taking away from the other stuff.

So, thank you to whoever it was that mentioned the Oppo BDP-83!

Oh, and one other thing, it came with a Spears & Munsil calibration BR disc which is AWESOME! I used it to set my TV's parameters to the best configuration, and it is now noticeably better than it was before. Not a LOT better, but a touch better, which is nice. Another nice touch.

Now I just need an HD TV. *sigh* Not anytime soon, though. But I'm glad I didn't thow money away on a cheapo DVD player.


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## daimleramg (Feb 12, 2010)

LuxLuthor said:


> I have been very happy with my Oppo DV-980H upcoding multi-region DVD player, but wanted to get a WiFi setup to pick up my Netflix & other online media, as well as network with my PC server in the other room.
> 
> I was looking at the Roku digital video player which has great reviews, and had no plans to get a Blu-Ray. Then I saw the built in WiFi and USB-2 input and other media features & great reviews, so ordered one of these LG BD390 players. It is not region free, but that's ok since I have my Oppo.
> 
> ...


 
This is how I would spend $500.00

2x Western Digital 3Gbps 2TB Sata 3.5" hard drives 4TB total
1x Thermaltake Blacx Duet docking station through eSata cables
1x HDMI cable
12 month rapidshare subscription 
(high end laptop needed)


Equates to as many MKV files as you like.


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## da.gee (Feb 12, 2010)

Congrats js.

Jealous of your BDP-83 but I have the Oppo DV-970H DVD player which is awesome (and no longer available) so I have my fix for now. I see Oppo has the BDP-83SE which has an upgraded audio section for $899. Yikes. That's a lot of coin.

Our family got a PS3 for Christmas so my Blu-Ray player yearnings are temporarily abated.


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## js (Feb 12, 2010)

da.gee,

Does the PS3 also play DVD's and upscale them? Just curious. I did think about a PS3, but I decided that I didn't want to go down the video game addiction road! LOL! So I didn't even look into it, but I am curious if it will upscale DVD's well (or at all).


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## louie (Feb 12, 2010)

JS, welcome to the BDP-83 club! Your jaw will drop when you get your HD panel.

You can keep up on the latest BDP-83 news at the AVS Forum BDP83 area, which has several insiders. Oppo releases new firmware when new discs cause problems. They are also very responsive to customers, even answering emails promptly.

There still seem to be users with a few problems of clicks and truncation with SACDs and DVD-Audio discs.


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## da.gee (Feb 12, 2010)

js: Yes it does and allegedly does a good job of it. I've not tested since my Oppo does a superb job (as does yours). Caveat: PS3 only upscales through HDMI connection.

You need to get your flat panel and really get to enjoying your purchase. There are a lot of 16:9 22"-24" computer monitors these days with HDMI connections. $200 +/- and you're good to go until you can get the big panel. When you finally get your big boy panel you swap the monitor to your computer. Check New Egg!


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## js (Feb 13, 2010)

louie,

Thanks! And thanks for the link. And yes, I've already experienced the superb oppo customer service. They responded to one of my email queries within an hour and were very helpful and detailed in their response.

da.gee,

I do need to get a flat panel! No question. And, honestly, this whole 3D thing is getting me worried. I really like the idea of the Samsung 8500 series LED backlit HDTV's. The 46 incher is $2,300 on Amazon right now. And the 6000 series are all on sale at Best Buy, with the 46 incher about a thousand dollars off ($1,500 sale price). The 6000 has its LED backlighting on the _sides_, though, so local dimming for better contrast can't be done like it can be on the 8500 series screens. Or so I've read. I haven't actually seen the 8500 in person, only the 8000, 7000 and 6000 ones. Which I think are all fantastic. I am really tempted to drop the 1.5k on the 46" 6000 series LED HDTV. It's thin and light and has a pretty good picture from what I saw, although I don't suppose you can really tell what it's capable of until you tweak all the parameters.

Anyway, I'm losing my train of thought here. The point is that I've heard rumors that Samsung will be dropping the 8500 series from their lineup. They aren't on their website anymore, in fact. Which will mean that all the LED HDTV's of the new lineup will be edge-lit.

Whatever, though. It's moot, since I just can *not* drop that much money on a new TV right now. No way, no how. If our TV died today, I might be able to convince my wife to spend the money. Maybe. But she'd say we could just get the less expensive non-LED backlit Samsung. (And she'd be right).

Anyway, . . . 

Now you come along and mention this 16:9 _computer monitor_ idea! I think that's a _fantastic idea!_ I'm going to look into it. I might be able to swing two or three hundred.

I have concerns about color quality and image stability, though. I don't imagine a $300 24" TN panel will have either. Also, I assume I'd need to invest in speakers as well. So, add another $50.

Great idea, though. Hmmmm. I'll look into it.


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## da.gee (Feb 14, 2010)

You'll be hard pressed to go over $300 all the way up to 24" or so. Majority will have built in speakers but they will suck (but they are speakers). Headphone jack might be there too and perhaps even two HDMI inputs. That's nice if you're a gamer.

Of course the monitor won't be as nice as the Sammys you're considering but I'm betting they'll make you happy for awhile. I have a 52" Samsung LN650 which was close to top of the line a couple years ago. Picture is beautiful. I waited for many years for the price point vs. quality/expandability to be there.

When you do get the money to purchase don't compromise. Get bigger or better based on what you think that is. My theory was I wasn't going to be buying another for a long time so, for example, the few hundred dollars of incremental cost to go from a 46" to a 52" over the long haul was not worth the "I shouldas".


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## calebra (Feb 15, 2010)

i have one, not a stand alone but one built into my PC. a Pioneer, cost about $180 new. i watch via cyberlink on a flat panel LCD...


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## js (Feb 16, 2010)

So, I was VERY temped to get a Samsung UN46B8500 LED back lit LCD HDTV. Amazon has it right now for a very large discount off of list. I was also tempted by the Sony Bravia XBR KDL46XBR8 which Amazon also has at a huge discount. Both of these sets have local dimming of the LED backlight to increase the contrast, but the Samsung is 41 lbs instead of 77 (the sony) and takes about 130 watts instead of 350 (the sony). On the other hand, the built in speakers in the Sony are reportedly "decent", so if I went with that one, I could wait on getting a sound system for it.

As far as I can tell, both of these sets are discountinued, and no other local dimming set lineup will take their place for 2010.

But *WHY?*

Can this be true? People say its true, and there's nothing to gainsay it, but why would both Samsung and Sony abandon sets that reviewers raved about, saying how they were as good as Plasma, etc. etc.

In any case, I just can't drop two grand right now, and moreover, I *can* totally enjoy movies and TV shows on my 480i CRT set. Don't get me wrong! A high def flatscreen would be AWESOME, and it's on my list for the future. But, I don't need that level of fidelity to enjoy my shows and movies. Not right now, anyway. Maybe after I've lived with the high def experience I'll be unable to go back.

As for the computer monitor set, the biggest problems is inputs. My satellite receiver outputs composite or S-Video. No HDMI, no component. So that'd be a hastle. And then there's the VCR to contend with. Upgrading the TV at this point would cascade into a lot of other upgrades, which I just don't want to pay for at the moment.

And, also, $250 or so is still significant, and I'd rather put it towards a future HDTV LCD. Still a great idea, though!

On another note, I went into Radio Shack (or "The Shack") the other day, and they have apparently decided to stop carrying low cost cables. The cheapest set of RCA audio cables was $14, if I remember correctly. And they now have AUVIO high cost cables, and another brand, and their own higher cost sets in some cases. What a rip-off. And they've gone to molded RCA plugs that are about 30 percent larger in diameter at their largest point, which can be a problem on some components which have their RCA's close together.

That's actually my biggest complaint about the high cost stuff. For some reason, they feel the need to make the plugs HUGE, and to make them so that they require 150 lbs of force to fit onto your components. CRAZY! Why do they do this? Stupid. And man, can you drop a lot of money on interconnect cables these days. What a racket.


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## da.gee (Feb 16, 2010)

I understand your reasoning. $250 is $250. 

Tip: you should never spend big bucks on cables. Go to Monoprice.com or PCHcables.com.


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## Random Guy (Feb 16, 2010)

da.gee said:


> I understand your reasoning. $250 is $250.
> 
> Tip: you should never spend big bucks on cables. Go to Monoprice.com or PCHcables.com.


+1. Monoprice=WIN!


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## js (Feb 17, 2010)

da.gee,

I never do spend big bucks on cables. That's why I mentioned that Radio Shack is no longer an option. So that leaves only online, which is where most of my cables have come from.


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## LuxLuthor (Mar 13, 2010)

One thing I found that I have been using for about a month is this *Hawking HWREN1 Range Extende*r which boosts your router signal. My UVerse router is on one side of the house, and TV & LG BD-390 wireless Blu-Ray player through about 6 walls on the other side. I was only getting 1/5 wireless bars in that part of the house and wasn't using the movie access through my Netflix account, or YouTube videos.

This range extender really worked incredibly well, and put my www.speedtest.net readings back up to 560 Mbps download (direct LAN cable is 610Mbps), and gives the full capability of the wireless LG BD390. It preserves your WPA2 security settings. Took no more than 2 minutes to setup.


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## StarHalo (Nov 19, 2011)

Black Friday, Best Buy, Toshiba Smart Blu-Ray player, *$40*


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## js (Feb 4, 2012)

So, I finally got a Hi-Def TV set!. I've had it since a bit before early June now.

And, I have to say, it's rather ironic that when I finally did buy a high def flat screen TV that I ended up with this TV: a 3D, glossy set. Honestly, I could not care less about 3D in the home. I think it's a fad. I think it's annoying to have to wear glasses, and I think it's even more annoying that you can't change your focus while watching 3D content--i.e. if the scene is filmed to bring the foreground in focus, you can't take a quick look at the background (and vice versa). So, when I first experienced this TV at a local store, it was set up as a 3D demo, and I wasn't very impressed. Yes, it was nifty, but it wasn't for me. I also prefer, all other things being equal, a matte screen.

So, back in May, 2011, or so, I was killing time and wandered into the local Best Buy and was looking around at the various HDTV's. I keep up on the state of things in the HDTV world, and check out the stores periodically just in case there is some really good deal. And I was walking along, and, WOW! this set just really appealed to me. Why? Well, it was no longer the latest and greatest 3D Samsung and so had been taken off 3D demo and relegated to the area shared by all the other LCD sets. And, also . . . and this is very important . . . one or more of the sales people liked this set and knew how to adjust it, and they did NOT have it in the STUPID "demo" mode where it is freaking MAXED out in contrast and brightness and has the highest "smart LED" setting and all that. (The maxed out mode is called "Dynamic" in the picture settings, by the way.) No. They had it set to "Movie" mode. And, OMG! What a picture! And it was an incredible deal. Really really good because it was last years model and was a demo, already opened item. (Got it for $1099 !!!) I talked myself out of it that day. Didn't need it. Shouldn't really spend the money right then. Etc. But, I kept thinking about it and went back the next day and marveled once again at the incredible picture. I also LOVED that the bezel was bushed stainless steel (or has that look, anyway). Some people hate this. I love it. YMMV. I also loved that it was .9 inches thick and only 50 pounds or so. I did not love the glossy screen, and was worried about reflections in my living room, but even so, I also noted that this TV could really crank out the backlight brightness. Didn't buy it that day either. But I couldn't stop feeling that this was THE set for me, and that I would regret it if I didn't buy it. 

So I went back the day after that and bought it. And let me tell you, after I tweaked the Movie settings a bit, I was just BLOWN AWAY by how awesome the picture was. I am very, very happy with the picture quality of this TV. I continue to marvel at it even months later. The one minor downside in this area is that the viewing angles aren't the best, as has been noted in professional reviews. However, the thing is that it depends on what you mean by good viewing angles! If what you want is a totally stable picture which shows absolutely NO change as you change your viewing angle, then, yes, this set has about a 45 degree range. However, if you want to know over what range you still get a really good picture, that number is more like 90 degrees--i.e. you can be off axis by as much as 45 degrees and still have a picture which is every bit as good as perfectly on axis--or at least this has been my experience, and I just double checked it a minute ago. The differences between reviewers may have a lot to do with how high the backlight is set. The higher it is set, the less you will notice differences as you move across the viewing angles. I still wish it were better in terms of viewing angle, but in practice, I never have ANY issues in this area, and our seating ranges as much as 45 degrees off axis. The other thing that is mentioned in at least one professional review is that you "can't turn off" the smart LED / precision dimming--that even when you set the setting to "off" that this feature is still active to some degree. Well, I think they must have changed the firmware since then such that OFF really does mean OFF. My Oppo BPD-83 Blu-Ray player has a screen saver where the word "Oppo" bounces around on a black screen, and it is perfect for seeing just how much the smart LED is dimming down the backlight in columns of the screen without any bright pixels. (This is what precision dimming does, by the way, and it does it top to bottom entirely, instead of, like the B8500, completely locally, around the bright object. I think they changed this in order to avoid the "halo effect"; of course, now you have the "waterfall effect" LOL! I suspect that is preferable, however.) And, when I turn OFF the smart LED, I don't see any difference from the blacks around the "Oppo" and the blacks elsewhere. Personally, I find the smart LED to be a plus, in moderation. I have mine set to standard, and yes, during credits or the screen saver, I do notice the waterfall effect, but during any actual scene, I never notice any artifacts from it and find that it improves the picture somewhat. But, really, turn the thing completely off if you want--the picture will still be freaking incredible. The people at Samsung may think that they need to crank everything up into "Dynamic" in order to WOW! and impress people in the store, but for me, the opposite is true. I'm not impressed with stupidly vivid and unrealistic colors and contrasts. Not at all. If you DO like this, then this set will blow you away. Just don't use the settings I'm going to list below. Put it in standard or dynamic mode and play with the settings--there are a lot of settings to play with! 

Anyway, the point is, that I have yet to see any other LCD HDTV with a picture I like better than this Samsung. It is, quite simply, breathtaking. I love it. 

Now . . . the internet applications stuff in this set leave a LOT to be desired. I was NOT impressed. Streaming Netflix to the TV made me fill slightly ill due to the camcorder effect. And I could not find any way to fix this in the settings, although I must admit that I didn't try very hard, because the internet stuff was glitchy as hell and seemed to destabilize the entire firmware! I swear, the TV started acting up in all sorts of ways the second I hooked it up to the internet. It would turn on, the picture would come on, and then it would turn completely off, and turn on again before it was happy, finally--and all this without me even thinking about pressing the internet button! And turning on the internet was the same way. I would turn it on, select Netflix, and it would start loading, and then crash out and I'd have to do it again. Finally, I was like, screw this. Not worth it. Perhaps streaming video from Amazon would have worked better. I don't know. Maybe some day I'll try it again, but I doubt it. 

I mounted my set to the wall using the Samsung WMN1000B Fixed Low-Profile Wall Mount for Select Samsung 40-Inch to 55-Inch Displays and it is AWESOME. I balked at the price at first, but then figured that I would pay it, but as luck would have it, it went on sale the very day I bought this set, so that was great. The mount is literally a picture frame mount. Two discs mount to the wall and then you attach two discs with a metal cable between them to the back of your Samsung, and two other discs at the lower left and right, and then you pick the set up and hang it on the wall exactly like a picture frame. It is the COOLEST THING EVER, I have to tell you! LOL! Is the mount set up overpriced? Yeah, probably. Is it worth it anyway? Yeah, I think so. 

OK. Here are the settings that I have found are best for the most natural and faithful picture. I arrived at these both by trial and error, and by using a Spears and Munsil calibration Blu-Ray disc and the very helpful RGB modes in Advanced Settings. The backlight setting is something I adjust depending on whether it is day or night, hence the range of numbers. Here they are: 

Mode: Movie 
Backlight: 13-20 
Contrast: 95 
Brightness: 42 
Sharpness: 0 
Color: 48 
Tint: G50/R50 
Eco Solution: Off/Off/Off 
Auto Adjustment: N/A (grayed out) 
Screen: N/A 
Advanced Settings 
Black Tone: Off 
Dynamic Contrast: Off 
Gamma: 0 
Expert Pattern: Off 
RGB Only Mode: Off 
Color Space: Auto 
White Balance: 25/25/25/25/25/25 
10p White Balance: Off 
Flesh Tone: Off 
Edge Enhancement: Off 
xvYcc: N/A 
LED Motion Plus: Cinema 
Picture Options 
Color Tone: Warm2 
Size: 16:9 
Digital Noise Filter: Off 
MPEG Noise Filter: Off 
HDMI Black Level: N/A (Low) 
Film Mode: N/A (Off) 
Auto Motion Plus: Off 
Auto Protection Timer: 2 hours 
Smart LED: Standard 

So, in short, I can highly recommend this set and I'm sure it's successor is every bit as good, although I haven't looked at reviews. It has a few downsides, but for me the 2D picture quality more than makes up for these.

Also, I have to agree with the Lux that an upscaled DVD looks pretty damned good (or at least it does with my Oppo) and I have only upgraded to Blu-rays for the stuff I really, really love, or which I felt were such that they would really show off the difference. Honestly . . . for me . . . I notice the SOUND improvement more than the video. Am I strange, or does anyone else feel this way?


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## Lite_me (Feb 4, 2012)

Nice write-up. 

I too, purchased a new Sony flat panel, actually two of them, last year. A 46 & 55in. Not my first, but they are definitely better in picture quality than the ones they replaced. I was also quite blown away by the picture. Still am. 

I didn't see, or could tell from your settings whether or not you adjusted the pixel mapping. It's sometimes called different things by mfrs. 1:1 pixel mapping, full pixel.., but whatever, you want to turn off overscan. I feel it's important to do so. This eliminates any unnecessary scaling which would lead to loss of detail in the picture. I can tell a difference.

Based on your thorough write-up tho, you may already know this. Just thought I'd mention it. 

Though you've had it awhile, congrats just the same. 

Enjoy!


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## js (Feb 4, 2012)

Yes. It's in the "size" setting. AFAIK 16:9 is 1:1 and "screen fit" is the scaling one, but I should double check this to make absolutely sure! Thanks for the advice!


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## march.brown (Feb 5, 2012)

About HDMI cables and prices.

I bought two (one metre long) for £12-95 including postage from Neetcables on Ebay.

The cables have a lifetime warranty and have gold plated connectors ... They are the version 1.4 with the audio return channel and are rated up to 15.2 Gbps ... They use 28AWG oxygen-free cabling.

Can't see the point in spending more than this on a couple of digital cables ... There are cheaper available , but these are beautifully made.
.


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## StarHalo (Feb 5, 2012)

march.brown said:


> I bought two (one metre long) for £12-95 including postage from Neetcables on Ebay.



And you got screwed - it's a cable that just sends 1s and 0s, so the gold plating and other gimmickry does nothing but increase the price. 1m HDMI cables are £1.60 over on Monoprice, there's no reason for them to be more than that.


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## blasterman (Feb 5, 2012)

Another cool thing about Samsung (my favorite set BTW) is that their external USB ports tend to play about any type of movie and audio format available. I've ripped movies onto thumbdrives that you simply cannot tell apart from BR, and the load times and other annoyances are significantly reduced. This is especially handy when I make my own movies from my 60D given they play cleanly at 720p after editing without having to burn to disk.

The *best* picture I've seen is the Mitsi LaserVue my old man got about a year ago. However, it took me *hours* to get the thing calibrated properly, and this process was not for the faint of heart. This thing makes plasmas seem dull when set up right, but the calibration process was absurdly difficult and the price is ridiculous.


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## The_Driver (Feb 6, 2012)

Last April I got a Philips 32PFL9705/K02. It's a rather expensive 32-inch model from 2010, but it's the only 32-incher with a direct/full-led backlight with local dimming. The contrast is amazing even after all this time. Although the technology does have its downsides (the tv is a littler thicker than some other sets and when there is very small bright object in front of a very dark background you can see a halo from the backlight), but the picture is just soo much better than most other tvs. The only thing better are plasma and in a few years oled displays.


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## js (Feb 6, 2012)

So actually, 16:9 WAS overscanning, and screenfit is the one that is 1:1. Good thing I checked! So, that list above should have screen-fit for size, IF your Blu-ray or Cable box is set to output 16:9, so that it adds the black bars when appropriate.

StarHalo,

It's not quite as simple as you suggest. First gold plating is good for resisting oxidation, so it's not like it's useless! Second, the more data you squeeze through a cable, the better the construction needs to be. This relates to the dialectric/sheathing, and most of all, to the tightness and evenness of the twist of the wires inside the cable. The 1's and 0's you speak of are actually SIGNALS down the cable. Push the data-rate too high, and these signals can't be resolved into 1's and 0's because of dispersion, cross-talk, and other interferences. Third, I've purchased some cheap crappy cables (cat5e ethernet) and while they WORKED, they STUNK. Like, literally. Really bad. God what an odor! I was trying to save a few bucks and it was only 50 feet, and I was like, HA!, Amazon has a 50' cat5e for $12 (or whatever it was). But I wasted that money--or rather, I had to go to the bother of returning it. And I ended up buying a more expensive cable that I knew didn't smell bad. Some of the more expensive cables just FEEL better--the insulation is more supple, doesn't stink, has a better color, or whatever.

I agree that it's stupid to spend a lot of money on cables, but I disagree that there is NO reason to spend more than the minimum. And I also suspect that full 1080p 3D blu-ray content may actually push the data-rate up to where SOME of the really cheap cables MAY start to experience data loss. But maybe I'm wrong. Don't know. Personally, if I were buying another HDMI cable, I'd get one of the ones from Amazon for $10 and I wouldn't worry. I would NOT get one of the $50 ones from Best Buy, though! LOL! OK. Well, just my $0.02.


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## blasterman (Feb 6, 2012)

More expensive HDMI cables simply have better termination, but that's about it. There are common industry specifications for these things, and one does not re-write the specification because you are selling a higher mark-up cable. As it is, 1080p HD does not approach the transmission levels of generic CAT5 ethernet cable, and we know how cheap that junk is. If a specific HDMI cable failed the RFC specification at 1080p it's because that cable was not made to specification. Audio and video philes have tried to push their nonsense into the digital realm for years (cheap cables introduce jitter) but it falls flat.


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## march.brown (Feb 7, 2012)

blasterman said:


> More expensive HDMI cables simply have better termination, but that's about it. There are common industry specifications for these things, and one does not re-write the specification because you are selling a higher mark-up cable. As it is, 1080p HD does not approach the transmission levels of generic CAT5 ethernet cable, and we know how cheap that junk is. If a specific HDMI cable failed the RFC specification at 1080p it's because that cable was not made to specification. Audio and video philes have tried to push their nonsense into the digital realm for years (cheap cables introduce jitter) but it falls flat.


I'm happy with my "expensive" gold-plated , lifetime warranty HDMI leads ... I found that the non-gold-plated ones needed to be waggled about occasionally to make better contact ... It does seem strange though that some Hi-Fi magazine equipment-reviewers report that they can definitely detect a visual and/or audible difference between the different digital interconnects ... In theory , as long as all the 0's and 1's get through the cable correctly and at the same time , there should be no difference between the different HDMI leads (cheap or expensive) ... This is assuming that the cables have identical characteristic impedance and bandwidth and are the same length and have the same shielding as each other ... But I'm still happy with my purchase as they are so much better in build quality than the freebies and cheapies that I have now given away.
.


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## Lite_me (Feb 7, 2012)

js said:


> So actually, 16:9 WAS overscanning, and screenfit is the one that is 1:1. Good thing I checked! So, that list above should have screen-fit for size, IF your Blu-ray or Cable box is set to output 16:9, so that it adds the black bars when appropriate.


Great! Glad you straightened it out. When overscanning is set correctly, at least as far as picture quality goes, you'll sometimes see white dashes across the top of the screen. Mostly on 4:3 content but occasionally on 16:9 also. It's information embedded in the video. Probably closed captioning but could be other things. Actually, I don't mind it as it isn't all that often, and it reminds me that I have my TV set correctly for optimum detail.


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