RadShak1251
Super Member
Oh man don't let that stop you! You'll still have nearly three times as many lines of resolution vs. standard def!
Avatar blu-ray
- Thread starter Tom Brennan
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AngelRa
Active Member
I have several DVD and BD players. For me the relevant difference is not the resolution, it is the artifacts, halos, and faded colors of the DVD. The BD is much cleaner even when seen on a 480P TV.
I did not compared the Avatar DVD vs DB but on other movies the difference is ridiculously noticeable even in an old TV.
For movies, resolution only buys more viewing distance options. 480P requires the most viewing distance, 720P requires a fairly short minimum distance, 1080P the viewing distance is not a constraint.
I did not compared the Avatar DVD vs DB but on other movies the difference is ridiculously noticeable even in an old TV.
For movies, resolution only buys more viewing distance options. 480P requires the most viewing distance, 720P requires a fairly short minimum distance, 1080P the viewing distance is not a constraint.
Blackstone
Active Member
I never had any real intentions of getting blu-ray. I have a 50" 768p plasma. I finally broke down and got one because Walmart had them for $78. Avatar is only my 2nd BD but it gave me an excellent chance to compare the dvd and BD back to back.
On the Avatar movie, BD looks better. Not 10x better, but I can tell the difference from dvd even at 768p. Either way it's still looks great. The thing is the BD looks great no matter how close or far away from the tv I am. I need to stay at the 10 ft mark to keep the dvd looking good.
The surprising difference is sound quality on my surround system. I never knew BD has so much more SQ over dvd. DVD is still great on my system. But the imaging and bass resolution on BD just floored me with this Avatar movie. So even without 1080p, I now see that a decent surround system can benefit from BD.
As such, I don't plan on buying BD's to replace dvd's I already have. But I will now start buying new releases in BD...on action movies anyway.
Mr. Lin
Lunatic Member
Me too, watched it last night. I felt like much of the movie was a little too 'Lion King' for me, a little cheesy.
whoaru99
Epic Member
Afaik, unless you're using the newer lossless/HD audio codecs, it's just plain old Dolby Digital or DTS like on a DVD. Of course, that doesn't mean that some soundtracks aren't better than others in either case.
RadShak1251
Super Member
If this hasn't changed since I last read about all the very similar & various codecs for Blu-ray 
ara:, if a disc is equipped with a Dolby Digital track but it is not selected manually, what comes out of a BD player's optical or coaxial digital output is a DTS version of the discs' lossless PCM track, converted "on the fly" by the player. To be more specific, a 1536kbps DTS stream which is that format's highest data rate, which is approximately equivalent to a 500kbps(!) MP3 file. A lot of Superbit dvds use that data rate - I own two Superbits and they sound excellent (DTS-CDs use the slightly lower 1200kbps rate, and I think they also sound great).
ara:, if a disc is equipped with a Dolby Digital track but it is not selected manually, what comes out of a BD player's optical or coaxial digital output is a DTS version of the discs' lossless PCM track, converted "on the fly" by the player. To be more specific, a 1536kbps DTS stream which is that format's highest data rate, which is approximately equivalent to a 500kbps(!) MP3 file. A lot of Superbit dvds use that data rate - I own two Superbits and they sound excellent (DTS-CDs use the slightly lower 1200kbps rate, and I think they also sound great).Blackstone
Active Member
I'm a BD newbie, admittedly. But there is something going on. I've noticed the same thing with a friends Star Trek BD. There was a scene where the bass seemed to roll across the room. On my system it, using the Star Trek dvd, it didn't. I borrowed his BD and got the rolling bass affect.
Don't get me wrong. Dvd's sound great on my system. But I'm certainly hearing something extra from the BD's I've tried so far.
pioneervato
Lunatic Member
Just watched my copy of it yesterday on my 42" plasma. Looked pretty damn good.
Blackstone
Active Member
If this hasn't changed since I last read about all the very similar & various codecs for Blu-ray
This may be it. I am using the coaxial digital output on by player. The receiver flashes an extra screen (which might say PCM). It then settles on DTS...and whatever else.
Jonesy09
Super Member
That may be true, but I'm just unsophisticated enough to be able to ignore the fact that the lossless may not be responsible for the 'improvement' in sound quality and just file it under "better".
I did it for years as I hunted down DTS copies of regular DVD's when DD was perfectly acceptable with the volume turned up a bit.
Even if it's just a 6db bump, that may be enough for me to get off my ass and make the jump. It's my understanding you can get the new codecs even if you don't have a pre/pro that decodes them as long as your player has anaolg outs, yes?
I did it for years as I hunted down DTS copies of regular DVD's when DD was perfectly acceptable with the volume turned up a bit.
Even if it's just a 6db bump, that may be enough for me to get off my ass and make the jump. It's my understanding you can get the new codecs even if you don't have a pre/pro that decodes them as long as your player has anaolg outs, yes?
RadShak1251
Super Member
That's also how I understand it, though supposedly the number of BD players that include multichannel analog outputs is decreasing.
dpastern
Well-Known Member
Absolutely agreed. On my parents 54" plasma, anything closer than 5m is just not doing it justice. There's a sweet spot where it's OMG! Too close and...
As good as blu-ray and full HD is, it's still *low* res imho (1920 * 1200 pixels). It equates to a 2mp DSLR. And as people said then, "low res". When we start hitting higher resolutions, then things will get better.
blu-ray has some incredibly annoying problems that should be fixed. Mouse support is SHOCKING. The vast majority movies don't recognise a mouse. WTF!?!?!? This is the 21st century for crying out loud. Resume? Far too many movies don't support that either. Cost? Far too expensive. It's still a niche area imho.
I primarily invested in blu-ray (on the PC) because of dual layer discs storage capacity of 50GB (cut down on DVDs!). Yes, it's better than DVD, but hey, DVDs are really based on 25 year old technology.
Dave
whoaru99
Epic Member
If this hasn't changed since I last read about all the very similar & various codecs for Blu-ray
I've seen one player, a Samsung I think, that tried to convert everything to DTS. Fine and dandy if your receiver/processor decodes DTS, but the problem is that many early units didn't, and that ended up being a problem for the owner.
Anyway, a BD is "required" to include the core codecs along with any high res stuff. So, for example, if the BD has DTS-HD MA, it must also include plain old DTS to facilitate backwards compatibility for older gear without the new decoding capabilities. Same holds true on the Dolby side.
So, I'm not sure there is any general policy/standard that dictates DTS is the preferred playback over Dolby. I think what happens for most people is merely the default soundtrack is played. The default soundtrack for Avatar is DTS-HD MA so if your system can't use that, it will/should default to plain old DTS. Had the default soundtrack been Dolby TrueHD and the system couldn't work with that, then plain old Dolby Digital will come out in most cases.
EDIT: As an experiment, I took The Fifth Element BD which has multichannel LPCM track and a Dolby TrueHD track, and intentionally selected the LPCM track. Using the coaxial digital connection, my processor stayed on Dolby Pro Logic IIx, indicating to me the player automatically downconverted the multichannel LPCM to 2-ch LPCM (basically, downmixed it to stereo). However, if I select the Dolby TrueHD track, then the processor does indicate plain old Dolby Digital because TrueHD cannot be carried by coaxial (nor optical) digital connection. I don't know if my player strictly adheres to the BD standards, but it is a profile 2 player, fwiw.
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whoaru99
Epic Member
Yes, multichannel analog outputs, and assuming the player decodes the ones you want/need. Haven't checked lately because I have a player, but at least when I was looking not all players with mch analog outputs decoded all high res formats, particularly DTS-HD MA, because of the horsepower required.
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Cobaltturbo
Member
Not sure what set you have but either my Panasonic pro series or Fujitsu plasmavision 768p looks incredible no matter what distance 1 foot or 30 feet crystal clear I am sitting 12 feet back from my panasonic and I don't think i will ever need a better picture maybe large one day but not better.
BTW doesn't the oppo automatically update the firmware? My Marrantz player does I am surprised the oppo doesn't.
DougMac
Super Member
BD Problems
Perhaps you'd have better luck if you concentrated on the Disney catalog.
Mouse? Resume? Please explain Dave, I don't know what you're talking about.
DonQuixote99
just give me some truth
Is it not possible that even if a processor converts BD output to DTS or DD, the result will be of different quality than that provided by a DVD source?
