Blu-Ray disappointment

SoapSurgeon

SoapSurgeon

SoapSurgeon

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Hi all,

This might be a contentious thread but here goes...

My dad bought a panny 42pz70 last xmas and has enjoyed watching SD content like freeview, upscaled dvds etc. This xmas I thought I would treat him to a BD player and some BDs to really show off his set, so we bought him the Sony 350 player (can't remember the letters but its the ~£150 player). I also picked up the planet earth boxset.

Basically, on xmas day I set it all up and stuck the first episode of planet earth on, expecting to be blown away, but I found the whole experience to be underwhelming :confused:

I just thought it looked like the upscaled DVD version most of the time. I will concede some shots looked a lot better (flying through some mountains at the start) but the majority of the shots were nothing special - anyone walking into the room probably wouldnt have guessed it was high definition.

Oh, and before anyone suggests it - I did connect it via an HDMI cable :p

Putting the lack of 'great' quality down to the type of cameras needed to film wildlife, we stuck on Wall-E (rubbish film btw!) and while the quality was good, again, I wasn't blown away by it.

Has anyone else felt underwhelmed or disappointed by 'high-def', or am I just expecting too much? Perhaps I have become used to playing high def games etc so am no longer amazed by the quality?
 
Whats the viewing distance? At much over 8ft from the screen the difference between 720p and 1080p is marginal to nothing on a 42 inch screen. By 12ft distance even SD looks more or less the same as 720p.

1080p is really intended for big screens and/or close up viewing.

My folks sit 15 ft (5 meters) from their 42inch TV.. HD is completely pointless at this distance, even with 20:20 vision the smallest details are simply to small to be seen.

I believe most of planet earth is filmed in 720p, Its good, and if you sit max 6ft from a 42inch HD screen it has tons of detail in the filming, but the highest detail is really on 1080p movies taken from film stock. Im pretty sure that Planet earth is recorded directly to HD using 720p video cameras, not film cameras.

Viewing distances V screen size is the most important part of the TV/resolution equation.
 
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Im not aware of the PZ70 - but have experienced the PZ80 at first hand so going a little off that as well as "guessing" the generation gap (and the PZ80 was amazing from what I saw)

Planet Earth is a decent BR - but I know there are problems with one or two sections on a couple of discs (I recall from the AVForums thread from a while ago) but in general should show off the BR and screen pretty well, however what really suggests to me that there is a setup issue is that Wall E (while not being everyone's cup of tea) is so full of detail that if seen properly you cant help but be gobsmacked

I would firstly change the input used for the BR player on the telly (I think the PZ70 should have at least two HDMI inputs) and then do a factory reset on the BR player and it will redetect the telly and do an autoconfigure

(also knowing Christmas staff in shops - check that your BD cases have BD's inside them and not plain DVD's :))

Im sure others will be along shortly to give more tips

edit - as above 42" is on the margins of what (at regular viewing distances) would be noticable - but the quality between a BD and a dvd should still be evident imo
 
I know what you mean. The big "wow" i had is going from a 26" square CRT to this 42PZ80. Blu-ray films do look great, but not as big an impact.
 
Thanks for the comments.

Viewing distance is about... 8-9 feet.

I'm not comparing 720p to 1080p here - I'm comparing a dvd vs a blu-ray. I just wasn't feeling the "OMG look at that" or "WOW - that looks amazing" that I thought I would. Maybe it just demonstrates how well the PZ70 handles SD content? I would give WALL-E another go if I wasn't sure I would fall asleep! Perhaps that was a problem? We were all tired (and drunk) when watching WALL-E so probably wasn't a good test.

Setup is fine on the BD player, I checked it at least 3 times. TV shows 1080p signal being received etc. I know they are BDs because it takes an age to load them :p

Sound was being provided by the TV speakers so we are completely missing that side of high def, unfortunately.
 
I tend to buy most of my films on BR now (if the price is right), but I agree with the OP the difference isn't that great.

The PS3 seems to be a pretty good job of upscaling DVD's and BR looks a little better, but probably enough to justify the cost of a BR player or the average price difference between BR and DVD.
 
I don't know what you guys are talking about. I find it hard to sit through a SD DVD anymore after watching nothing but 1080p movies for the past few weeks. Once you get used to watching movies at 1080p, the quality of SD movies really shows itself. Ugly.

The sound you'll get with BD's is what you'll enjoy more than the picture, thats only if you invested in a decent 5.1 set-up.

Just look at the difference in LOTR SD vs HD - http://www.cornbread.org/FOTRCompare/index.html . LOTR isn't even out on blu-ray yet, so, it can still look better.
 
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Katoom said:
I know what you mean. The big "wow" i had is going from a 26" square CRT to this 42PZ80. Blu-ray films do look great, but not as big an impact.
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Yeah he went from a 28" CRT to this and that jump was amazing - but I always thought that the jump to HD content would blow me away, just left feeling disappointed really :(
 
Robert1986 said:
I don't know what you guys are talking about. I find it hard to sit through a SD DVD anymore after watching nothing but 1080p movies for the past few weeks. Once you get used to watching movies at 1080p, the quality of SD movies really shows itself. Ugly.

The sound you'll get with BD's is what you'll enjoy more than the picture, thats only if you invested in a decent 5.1 set-up.
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I guess after a while they will be able to pick out the differences, once they have watched 20 or so BDs then watch SD content. You know it's not what you were expecting when your mum asks you if the 'HD' is switched on!

Sound is unfortunately a no go. My dad is dead against 5.1 due to the style of the room... although a huge 42" plasma was out of the question a while ago!
 
Robert1986 said:
Have you even calibrated your tv set? The amount of improvement in picture quality you can get but just changing a few settings is huge.
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I remember doing it when he first got the set - followed a few recommendations from avforums. However, it is possible he has changed them. Don't get me wrong - they do look good (BDs) but I thought upscaled DVDs looked really good too. I didn't really do a side by side comparison, but tbh, who wants to do that??
 
8-9ft from a 42inch should show some improvement at 720p or better V SD, but to be honest the difference is quite small. Thats the viewing distance I have, and to be honest, I wish I had the money to swap out my 42inch for a 60. Pull the viewing distances in to 5-6ft, and HD on a 42inch looks stunning (to me anyway).

Basically with a 42inch from 0-5.5ft you'll a person with 20:20 vision will see all the detail of 1080p, extend that to 8ft, and 720p is the effective resolution, beyond that the details will continue to be lost. By 10ft 576 line PAL is just as good, and at 12.5ft 480 line NTSC is sufficient.

At 9ft viewing distance, your already getting very close to the point where SD/PAL is providing all the resolution required for someone with perfect vision.
 
IRON MAN and THE DARK KNIGHT are fine examples of what HD is all about. These pics are in 720p. Also, you're missing out on %70 of the experience without surround sound, probably the reason for the let down.

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and Pans Labyrinth looks stunning in 1080p
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The viewing distance may even be greater than 8 feet. I was just guessing. Perhaps this is the reason! I just wish I had known that, would have stopped the sense of disappointment.

At least I'm not alone in the 'it's good... but not amazing' camp.
 
Robert1986 said:
To justify buying an HD tv and BD player? or to atleast see the amount of difference you get with HD content.
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Ok, it is something that I would want to do. But my dad? Nah, he just wants to watch a film. If HD made that film look twice (just making that number up to make a point :p) as good then he would be chuffed, but IMO it didnt, it only made it look marginally better. Perhaps, if we watched WALL-E in SD after we watched it in HD we would all be exclaiming about how poor the quality is, but that would be boring!

Maybe in time he will be able to notice the finer points of BD and pick faults with SD but on xmas day, playing the first BD (planet earth), the general feeling was underwhelming.
 
Katoom said:
Could you get a quality stereo system? or 2.1, 3.1?
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Yes, this is something we spoke about yesterday and he conceded the TV speakers were poor. He probably doesn't want to spend a fortune though. If anyone can pick out a nice system from RS - he is going there on Tuesday so I may be able to persuade him to pickup a 2.0 or 2.1 system then.
 
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