B. HDTV kicks ass over DVDs. Here are the issues in a nutshell: (1) DVDs provide output at regular television resolution;
Not true. DVDs can either output in 4:3 format, Widescreen "letterbox" (2.35:1) which preserves original theatrical presentation, or the "full" Widescreen (no black bars on top and bottom) format of 1.85:1, they can also output at higher than television resolution.
(2) You can only ever recover some of this back with "progressive scan" or "HD upconversion" DVD players;
DVDs can be encoded several different ways. High/Low compression, High/Low bitrate, High/Low resolution etc. etc. depending on whether or not the studio wants the DVD to fit in a single layer, double layer, or have the movie span several discs (I.E. Das Boot. I've got the 6 hour version). HD upconversion and progressive scan DVD players help out with DVDs that are encoded poorly (I.E. Blade Runner. This title was a royal bummer for me until I got a Denon player with HD upconversion). Other DVDs which are encoded from a pure digital format such as the Lord of the Rings trilogy or Toy Story do not benefit from HD upconversion. Also, DVDs which are encoded correctly will not need the added benefit of an HD upconversion.
(3) DVDs are digitized at a TV rate of 60 frames/sec, while cinema is filmed at 24 frames/sec; expanding the latter to fit the former results in additional degradation of your signal;
The NTSC standard television displays 59.94 fields/sec, and a single frame is made up of 2 fields (one field for even lines, one field for odd lines) yielding a frame rate of 29.97 frames/sec. It is also a little known fact that NTSC stands for "Not The Same Color"
DVDs which are encoded correctly (see above) will have a frame rate of 29.97 frames/sec, and will not suffer any loss in quality.
(4) The aspect of DVDs is all wrong; you have to fiddle around with the TV to get a "letterbox" DVD to display properly on your screen, and that's lame. Either that or you have a "pan and scan" which can never use all of your widescreen real estate, which is doubly-lame
It isn't the DVD's fault that the TV doesn't automatically switch to the proper format. If you are connecting using an S-Video cable or a composite (RCA) cable, there is no data which is transmitted to the TV which tells it to switch to the correct format. If you have a composite, DVI, or HDMI connection between your TV and DVD player, the TV will automatically switch to the correct format. Also, if you have a DVD which was encoded in "pan and scan", you purchased the wrong one. Many DVDs come in 2 formats. Sometimes the widescreen and 4:3 "pan and scan" are included on the same disc (like many of the James Bond titles) but some titles sell them completely separate. Watch out for this during your purchase, and always purchase the "Widescreen format" titles.
HDTV on the other hand can be compressed at the source, and decompressed at your box using a lossy format. At worst, these 2 formats are equal.
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3 comments:
Okay Steve, those are good suggestions. One question though: Are you still buying DVDs?
-Derek
I used to purchase DVDs like a madman until recently. HD broadcasts have merely offset the purchasing of DVDs instead of eliminating it. I used to purchase titles that I hadn't even seen, leaving me with a title which was bad.
1. The Simpsons.
2. South Park.
3. Titles which have extras that I'm interested in. Most recently was the Daily Show Indecision 2004 set. This material would most likely never be aired.
4. Titles which I had planned on seeing in the theater, and decided to wait until it was out on DVD because I could OWN the DVD for the same cost of going to see it once with Lisa.
There are other reasons I would buy a DVD, but I can't think of them right now.
One other thing I forgot: Some DVDs now come with 6.1 and 7.1 audio (DTS format), which, in some cases, is a subtle improvement over the 5.1 format which HDTV uses. There currently aren't that many DVDs which have it (Lord of the Rings, Gladiator are two that I have, and the sound is spectacular).
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