blue ray on 720p

The media centre I am looking to build would be a freeview recorder + music station + dvd + hd dvd + blu ray player + something to surf the internet with on the couch + maybe play a few games (I have a gaming pc already though).

The total of the above comes to £350.

If the blu ray wasn't worth it on the 720p I probably wouldn't bother and just get a freeview recorder.
 
whitecrook said:
can someone post pics of a
1)standard DVD framegrab,
2) a upscaled DVD framegrab,
3)a bluray frame grab. (obviously of the same scene)
Click to expand...

The problem with that is trying to compare a DVD and upscaled DVD is impossible. If you compare DVD played on SD TV to upscaled on HD TV, then there will be difference in TV electronics quality. If you compare SD and upscaled on HD TV, then technically they will both be upscaled.

Anyone saying that there is no difference between upscaled and HD are either in need of an eye test, or aren't looking in the correct way. It is not so much the in focus foreground which is improved by HD with movie film, but more the out of focus background, or longer range shots, plus colours do have a less washed out palour. For live film (nature or concert type stuff), everything is better and easily noticable.
 
El_Watcher said:
The problem with that is trying to compare a DVD and upscaled DVD is impossible. If you compare DVD played on SD TV to upscaled on HD TV, then there will be difference in TV electronics quality. If you compare SD and upscaled on HD TV, then technically they will both be upscaled.
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I was just talking of a grabbed frame, not actually a picture of a display device.
But you say upscaled will be upscaled on a HDTV? don't quite agree. The point of upscaling prior to input to the tv is to avoid any upscaling on the TV, and to potentially do the upscalling much bette rand with additional ilters also. Unless I misunderstand you.

Anyone saying that there is no difference between upscaled and HD are either in need of an eye test, or aren't looking in the correct way. It is not so much the in focus foreground which is improved by HD with movie film, but more the out of focus background, or longer range shots, plus colours do have a less washed out palour. For live film (nature or concert type stuff), everything is better and easily noticable.
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I quite agree. On page 2 of that link I posted above there are h264 vs dvd grabs. The HD-ness is quite clearly evident. bring that web page up on your screen and walk back until you can't see the difference..

But the biggest benefit of blu ray from what I have read is that on a good transfer there is NO blocking or evidence of 'crapness'. The moving pictures are crystal clear all the tim no matter what the action or colours just due to the high bit rate. This is resolution independant, SO to refer to the op, yes blu-ray is worth it, because it is more than just high-res.
 
whitecrook said:
I was just talking of a grabbed frame, not actually a picture of a display device.
But you say upscaled will be upscaled on a HDTV? don't quite agree. The point of upscaling prior to input to the tv is to avoid any upscaling on the TV, and to potentially do the upscalling much bette rand with additional ilters also. Unless I misunderstand you.
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There's only one problem with that - cant be done on a 720p set. You can send it 720p but the resolution of the panel will be 1366x768 (or even 1024x768 for some plasmas). There will be scaling whatever you do. The question is do you scale sd to 1080p and have the set scale down, or scale the sd to 720p then have the set scale that again to its native resolution? you cant win there.
 
I see what you mean. Although to be honest if one is going to the bother of upscaling in the first place one should do it properly, with an upscaling to the TV's native res, in this case 768 pixels high, using a PC or some other high end scaling hardware. Lets be honest the scalers in most of the DVD players are crap, from what I have seen.(very little control)
 
whitecrook said:
I see what you mean. Although to be honest if one is going to the bother of upscaling in the first place one should do it properly, with an upscaling to the TV's native res, in this case 768 pixels high, using a PC or some other high end scaling hardware. Lets be honest the scalers in most of the DVD players are crap, from what I have seen.
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you cant over hdmi, thats the point. very few tv's accept 1366x768 over hdmi. you'd have to do it over analogue (vga) for that - no thanks, i like everything running through my av amp lol.
 
just to throw a spanner in the works, I also think it makes a difference with the quality of the tv also (even if all the ones you are comparing are 720p)

Just because the resolution is 720p doesnt mean the screen "quality" is as good as it should be

Ie Im trying to differentiate between picture quality and picture resolution

and imo the quality of the samsung sets has gone down in the last couple of years ( I have a Full HD 40" from about 18 months ago which is pretty decent but the picture quality of the "same" set bought today - similar model number and price - isnt as good)

It does also depend on the disc encoding, although most recent and future releases should be pretty decent. The type of film as stated above is also something to consider as well as the only true constant in the whole equation - your eyes :) (james, myself or pseudo may be able to see differences where OP might not on the same setup - especially on a smaller set)

I thought it was worth going from SD to a 32" hdtv (another samsung about 3 or so years ago) - suck it and see Im afraid

just my thoughts/experience to date
 
Im stuck on a 2407WFP for all my BD watching - but considering Im sitting a foot away I can quite easily see/enjoy the differences, but then I could compare SD DVD (I dont think my old PC had any tech that upscaled DVD (PowerDVD 6 + X850XT PE)) to what my PS3 does with BDs (1080p via DVI-HDMI).

If I sat TV viewing distance away I doubt I could really appreciate the difference (probably be some placebo effect to validate BDs superiority) so extending that experience to a 32" kinda puts me at a dilemma.

Now the OPs said that if he doesnt get BD hell just wont get the MCPC but a freeview recorder (~£100?) so adding another £250 to get the BD benefit for me would be too much. I would feel that I would have to validate my purchase rather than it doing it for me...

ps3ud0 :cool:
 
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FrankJH said:
just to throw a spanner in the works, I also think it makes a difference with the quality of the tv also (even if all the ones you are comparing are 720p)
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Yeah I said that above. too many people get hung up on the resolution and not the quality. It's like the digicam - more megapixels does not mean better.
 
Higher resolution mostly helps when it comes to picture size.

A standard def 4:3 aspect 32inch screen, and a 720p 16:9 aspec 40 inch widescreen have a very similar resolution when viewed from the same distance, both looking sharp and detailed from 2.5 meters or greater.

A 1080p would allow a 60inch picture without any loss of apparent resolution at the same viewing distance.

Of course with a projector 1080p is very desireable.
 
For me, HD video is really of most benefit to LCD screens, of any size, and large projected images as SD video, and in particular SDTV, can look particularly poor on these displays.

To answer the OP's question, I would say yes you will see a marked improvement in PQ.
 
wolvers69 said:
For me, HD video is really of most benefit to LCD screens, of any size, and large projected images as SD video, and in particular SDTV, can look particularly poor on these displays.

To answer the OP's question, I would say yes you will see a marked improvement in PQ.
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well, to throw this in to the mix, sd looks far worse on my 1080p panasonic plasma than it did on my 1080p sony lcd :)
 
On a big enough screen the difference between 720p and 1080p is huge.

On a 32" there's no point looking at 720p anyway, unless you sit less than a couple of feet from it.
 
bobert50 said:
Thats really strange! Should def be the other way around, especially as its a particually good plasma set.
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It depends on the type of film I have found, sd animation looks better on a 1080p plasma where as some live action looks better on lcd

(admittedly thats comparing a 50" 9G plasma to a 40" samsung LCD, so its not a direct comparison, but what I have found in my own experimentation TRYING to take the size difference out of the equation)
 
dbmzk1 said:
On a 32" 720p TV I would say no, it's not worth it. You would struggle to find any difference between it and an upscaled DVD unless you were within a meter or two of the screen.
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this is nonsense

720P media looks tons better than DVD, even from the doorframe :D
 
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