HD - anyone think it is vastly overrated?

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  • wolfticketwolfticket Posts: 913
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    Ginger Nut wrote: »
    The fascinating thing is the number of 20 year old movies that now seem to be in HD. I wonder how many people think they actually are in HD...
    What you see in the cinema has been effectively HD for many years. It is just stored in an analogue format. Usually if you transfer the original film stock onto an HD digital format you have a true HD version of a film, even if the film was shot long before digital HD was invented.
  • youngswedeyoungswede Posts: 2,294
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    doom&gloom wrote: »
    From one cold country full of muslim terrorists to another.

    If that is how you like to put it...

    not a lot to do with HD though
  • Steve_WhelanSteve_Whelan Posts: 1,986
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    The resoution of film is already way beyond current/forseable future HDTV, so comments about 20 year old films are irrelivent.
  • justpootlingjustpootling Posts: 3,117
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    I watched a PL game in HD the other week just after we had our new box delivered, and it gave me terrible eye strain and headaches. The players were continually out of focus every time they moved quickly, the lack of focus and associated blurring exacerbated by the clarity of the rest of the image. I don't get this with SD.
  • doom&gloomdoom&gloom Posts: 9,051
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    I watched a PL game in HD the other week just after we had our new box delivered, and it gave me terrible eye strain and headaches. The players were continually out of focus every time they moved quickly, the lack of focus and associated blurring exacerbated by the clarity of the rest of the image. I don't get this with SD.

    If I have the motion control tecnology switched on it gives me a headache as well, try turning off motionflow/ trumotion or whatever it's called on your TV or alternatively, if it's not switched on try turning it on and see if that helps any.
  • AidanLunnAidanLunn Posts: 5,320
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    Ginger Nut wrote: »
    The fascinating thing is the number of 20 year old movies that now seem to be in HD. I wonder how many people think they actually are in HD. Or really, as long as it is noticeably better quality who really cares.

    They are all actually in HD.

    A TV picture is made up of lines of dots, called pixels (I suspect you already know this), so no matter how many of these pixels there are on the screen, you will never get the *full* picture photographed by a film camera. If a camera is electronic video, whether it be digital or analogue, it will never take all of the image it is taking, as it will only take images using a certain number of pixels.

    As film cameras capture every last detail of the image they see, they will be in HD, provided they've been re-transferred through a HD telecine scanner onto a HD format and broadcast and received using HD equipment.

    Thus 40 year-old films (including TV programmes made entirely on film and not transferred to video) are mable to be broadcast in HD, whereas 40 year-old TV programmes made using electronic video cameras or film transferred to videotape, will be in the highest quality standard that was available at the time, meaning they will have to be upscaled to be deemed acceptable in HD.
  • Face Of JackFace Of Jack Posts: 7,181
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    I've got a nice big LCD HD-ready TV. Good enough picture for me! Why would I need to spend more?
    It seems that (according to previous posts) it is perfect for Football (?) - well I don't watch that anyway, so am not missing anything.:D (saving money though!)
  • BigFoot87BigFoot87 Posts: 9,293
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    HD - anyone think it is vastly overrated?

    Depends on a lot of things.
    • Are you using HDMI instead of SCART?
    • How big is your TV and how far away are you sitting from it?
    • What make is your TV? (If its Samsung, what panel do you have?)
    • What channel are you watching HD on?
    • What content are you watching on that channel?
    • Is your TV calibrated for watching HD content on?
    • Do you actually have a HD broadcast source? A lot of people buy HDTVs and think they're watching HD broadcasts, without realising that they need Sky, Virgin or Freeview HD.
    • Are your DVDs upscaled or are you watching Blu Rays?

    Personally, I think its a definite improvement (especially Blu Rays, well, some of them anyway) but its certainly not life-changing and it won't polish a turd.
  • wild_tywild_ty Posts: 198
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    Ginger Nut wrote: »
    The fascinating thing is the number of 20 year old movies that now seem to be in HD. I wonder how many people think they actually are in HD. Or really, as long as it is noticeably better quality who really cares.
    .

    Someone please feel free to correct me if I am wrong but the age of the film does not dictate whether not they can be produced HD.

    Its to do with the quality of the film used to make the movie in the first place. If it's a certain type of film then it can be turned into full 1080 HD.

    Hopefully this will explain it.

    "Old movies and most new movies are shot in 35 mm wide negative film (similar to the film used in 35mm still cameras that you can buy in Walgreens). Film negative is a very high resolving medium. Resolution in film is measured in cycles/mm (or line pairs per millimeter one pair consisting of one black line and one white line so one cycle (or one line pair ) could be said to be equivalent to 2 pixels, one black and on white) (It's more complicated than that but that's good enough for the example). Film by itself can commonly resolve from 50 c/mm to 400 c/mm (100 pixels/mm to 800 pixels/mm) depending on emulsion stock. But since the image on film is formed by exposing it through a lens and this lens also has it's own resolution limits, the final resolution on the photographed negative is always less that each component's resolution.
    For example 70.7 c/mm (141.4 pixels per mm) for photographed fine grained film. Now to the film formats. Depending on the year and format a movie was made in, the image can vary on 35mm shot film from as big as 24mm x 36 mm for VistaVision/Technirama 8 perforation cameras (same as 35mm still photo film) going down through 18mm x 24mm for Silent Films or Full Frame 4 perforations cameras to as small as 9mm x 21mm in Academy Sound Aperture cameras modified for the Techniscope 2 perforation format. There's also a few films made with bigger than 35mm cameras, like 70mm films (22mm x 48mm) and the couple of times used used 55mm and CINERAMA.

    So multiplying the four mayor formats dimensions that have been used in 35mm by the pixels per millimeter gives you approx:
    (mm dimensions have been rounded)

    A) Academy Sound (Sound movies before 1955): 15mm x 21mm (1.375) = 2160 x 2970
    B) Academy camera US Widescreen: 11mm x 21mm (1.85) = 1605 x 2970
    C) Current Anamorphic Panavision ('Scope"): 17.5mm x 21mm (2.39) = 2485 x 2970
    D) Super-35 for Anamorphic prints: 10mm x 24mm (2.39) = 1420 x 3390

    Be mindful that these are aproximate numbers and that at those high resolutions the line pairs are almost fading into nothingess.

    In the process of making prints for exhibition this negative is copied onto other film (negative -> interpositive -> internegative -> print) so the resolution gets decimated with each emulsion copying step and when the image passes through a lens (for example, on a projector) it's reduced once more. Sometimes the resolution is reduced down to 1/6th of the original negative's resolution, and that's with doing things correctly.

    So depending on what film element is used for scanning and with what method, the resolution of the image used in the transfer from film can be from less than that of the 1080p x 1920 Blu-ray format to much more. If they use a properly stored and preserved original negative, the BD probably will end up looking better than what you might have seen elsewhere."

    Quote taken from http://forum.blu-ray.com/blu-ray-movies-north-america/5486-how-do-they-make-older-movies-into-blu-ray-discs.html#post28964
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 1,860
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    Theres a big difference in picture quality, the sharpness and detail is just so much better, flick from Sky sports to Sky sports HD and you can see the difference instantly same with the movies, Nat Geo is superb, its a simple decision, if you dont want it then dont pay for it.
    As for what comes up in the ad breaks theres nothing you can do about that, if Sky want to push it, its up to them, personally, I would rather not have a tenor with a crimped tashe shouting at me, no I have not had an "Accident that was not my fault", I dont need a tenner off some lady & I dont want to go on a journey with my bank manager. But theres bugger all you can do about it .
    (theres always the hope Jamie Oliver slips in the fake snow carrying his Sainsburys tat and breaks his leg..."ello, is that national accident helpline?")
  • The TerminatorThe Terminator Posts: 5,312
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    It's vastly overrated by the people selling it, but that's to be expected.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 1,860
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    It's vastly overrated by the people selling it, but that's to be expected.

    Pot noodle's been around since 1979...........
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 453
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    Dunner worry 3D is vastly superior and "the next big thing". ;):D
  • spj20016spj20016 Posts: 144
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    When people talk about HD they always say if you flick between HD and SD you can see the difference. But if the HD picture was that much better you wouldn't need to flick between the two to compare them, I have got Virgin media cable with access to HD and very rarely watch it, especially the fact I watch very little tv live now and HD takes up so much more space on the PVR than SD programmes,
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 1,860
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    Dunner worry 3D is vastly superior and "the next big thing". ;):D

    I was surprised at how quickly Sky jumped on that wagon.
  • AidanLunnAidanLunn Posts: 5,320
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    Dunner worry 3D is vastly superior and "the next big thing". ;):D

    I hope you're joking!
  • The TerminatorThe Terminator Posts: 5,312
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    Nocturne wrote: »
    Pot noodle's been around since 1979...........
    You've lost me :confused:
  • grahamcrowdengrahamcrowden Posts: 1,041
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    I don't have Sky but Digital tv is actually poorer than analogue channels .

    Thats because of the low bitrates British digital uses.
    Look at some German digital tv on Astra 1 and its as good as it can possibly be which is dvd quality.
    Ænima wrote: »
    HD, blu-ray etc… With each new advancement, it becomes more and more difficult to notice any improvement.

    Assuming you know how to setup your own equipment I would suggest an eye test.
    Thats not being funny. Its incredible the number of people who think their sight is perfect when it isn't.
    A lady who works for me was having problems reading some small labels we use and she complained about the size .
    I told her that nobody else had any problems and she needed an eye test.
    Of course I don't was her reply and I daresay she'll struggle on until she figures it out for herself.
    Many people refuse to admit the obvious.
    Ginger Nut wrote: »
    The fascinating thing is the number of 20 year old movies that now seem to be in HD. I wonder how many people think they actually are in HD. Or really, as long as it is noticeably better quality who really cares.

    .

    Yet another forum member who thinks that anything more than few years old cannot be HD because "HD wasn't invented".:rolleyes:

    Its time that websites started started having stickys on this subject to save us explaining it numerous times to the uninformed.
  • RodneyRodney Posts: 4,286
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    Indeed. HD has been available in film formats for over 100 years. Even your old Super 8 home movies are better than 720p HD. Thats why it really p*sses me off when I read people saying that drama originally shot on 16mm film stock isn't suitable for HD transfer when it most certainly is! It will have a totally different "look" to current HD film production, but it will have a higher resolution and better colour reproduction than a standard def equivalent transfer.

    To be honest, I use HD as a way of seeing proper STANDARD DEF pictures these days as 99.999% of ALL UK SD transmissions are utter rubbish and little better than VHS. The grotty picture quality of Freeview and Satellite SD broadcasts is truely appalling. To give you an example, there should be absolutely no difference in picture quality between a TV transmission and a DVD copy of the same programme, yet the tv tx will look like sh*te in comparison. As they both use exactly the same encoding technology, the difference has to come from the very low bitrates that are used for UK digital TV transmissions (roughly about a third of whats actually required). This is especially true if you are watching on a large screen which will magnify visual artifacts at the best of times.
  • m06een00m06een00 Posts: 2,496
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    It's vastly overrated by the people selling it, but that's to be expected.
    And it's vastly overrated by those owning an HD set as they have to try to justify the expense of buying one. To be honest I don't see much improvement over my old analogue 28" tv. And as so much tv is total crap anyway, who honestly cares whether it's in HD or otherwise.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 5,304
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    Rodney wrote: »
    very low bitrates that are used for UK digital TV transmissions (roughly about a third of whats actually required). This is especially true if you are watching on a large screen which will magnify visual artifacts at the best of times.
    Reminds me of ITV4's Tour De France coverage last year. Might as well have been filmed wiv ur mobile.
  • big_satsumabig_satsuma Posts: 387
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    Eden HD and Discovery HD look fantastic on a 42" HD telly.

    Also, watching the X factor (sorry) the amount of detail on the contestants faces when closeup was incredible (if a bit sweaty) :D
  • The TerminatorThe Terminator Posts: 5,312
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    m06een00 wrote: »
    And it's vastly overrated by those owning an HD set as they have to try to justify the expense of buying one. To be honest I don't see much improvement over my old analogue 28" tv. And as so much tv is total crap anyway, who honestly cares whether it's in HD or otherwise.
    I dunno, I don't think I overrate my setup, but it's definitely an improvement over the standard stuff. And I cherry-pick all my TV viewing, so I miss out on most of the crap.
  • ÆnimaÆnima Posts: 38,548
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    Assuming you know how to setup your own equipment I would suggest an eye test.
    Thats not being funny. Its incredible the number of people who think their sight is perfect when it isn't.
    A lady who works for me was having problems reading some small labels we use and she complained about the size .
    I told her that nobody else had any problems and she needed an eye test.
    Of course I don't was her reply and I daresay she'll struggle on until she figures it out for herself.
    Many people refuse to admit the obvious.

    Or maybe I was just pointing out exactly what I stated- that although I see a differance, as technology gets closer to perfection, differances become more difficult to distinguish.
  • grahamcrowdengrahamcrowden Posts: 1,041
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    Rodney wrote: »
    Indeed. HD has been available in film formats for over 100 years. Even your old Super 8 home movies are better than 720p HD. Thats why it really p*sses me off when I read people saying that drama originally shot on 16mm film stock isn't suitable for HD transfer when it most certainly is! It will have a totally different "look" to current HD film production, but it will have a higher resolution and better colour reproduction than a standard def equivalent transfer.

    .

    I know what the spec sheets say but super 8 is barely good enough for sd let alone HD.
    And the 16mm films out there on Bluray show very little improvement over the dvd's.

    Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Evil Dead being just 2 examples.
    Modern super 16 material may be able to improve on sd but compared to things sourced from 35mm and modern hd formats its sadly lacking so not surprising that the BBC refuse to put any 16mm material on BBC HD.
    They reasoned that the HD remastering for Pride & Prejudice simply did not deliver good enough results and that was going back to the original 16mm elements.

    Life On Mars was a con anyway as it was only the sd master upscaled
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