Is it just me? I watched the season premiere tonight and the whole thing looked super soft through cablevision onto an SA8300. Really disappointing as I spend the entire week watching season 6 on blu-ray and the PQ was super detailed. Anybody else notice this?

Also sound was super compressed as well. I get so much more bass in the opening theme song on the blu-ray set.

Oh well....

wow really i didnt know hd-dvd and blu ray are superior to direct tv,dishnetwork,local cable.

thats something new to me thanks for the info

Not sure if you are being sarcastic there. I'm just saying that at times HD content on TV such as what i've seen on the discovery channel and even shows like CSI or Heroes look absolutely fantastic at nearly the same quality as hd-dvd or blu-ray. The sopranos on HBO-HD tonight looked almost like an upscalled dvd rather than HD content. That is what i was trying to say. Looked much softer than i was expecting.

It doesn't surprise me in the least. However, HBO still needs to do better film transfers for The Sopranos' HD masters. They're still not that great, though better than the bitstarved HBO-HD broadcast versions. Even though I don't have PCM 5.1 capabilities yet, I did watch the Sopranos Blu-ray set in PCM 2.0 with Dolby ProLogic II engaged. Thank heaven HBO decided to one up their HD-DVD counterpart!

Dan

wow really i didnt know hd-dvd and blu ray are superior to direct tv,dishnetwork,local cable.
Wow, there's no need to be an ass. Try reading the title of the thread and if you aren't interested move along.

I've been saying all along that the Blu-Ray release looks better than original airings on HBO.

heh, I found out about 12 days ago that the premiere was tonight, and I had made plans to re-watch the 6 seasons before hand... was quite a slog, but I managed to do it on time...:)

having gone through them in SD, I was quite pleased with the look... now, I'm not saying the BD/HD-DVD version isn't -better-, but there's something to be said about going back to SD, even "upconverted" SD, and then watching HD of similar material... for the flashback of the arrest of Johnny Sack in particular I was pleased with the difference from my DVDs.

I'm ulikely to pick up all seasons of Sopranos all over again in HD - they're certainly some amazing shows, but I don't necessarily need the Bing Babe's in that high definition (wait, let me rethink this...:) )

Rome, however, might require another dip...

It doesn't surprise me in the least. However, HBO still needs to do better film transfers for The Sopranos' HD masters. They're still not that great, though better than the bitstarved HBO-HD broadcast versions. Even though I don't have PCM 5.1 capabilities yet, I did watch the Sopranos Blu-ray set in PCM 2.0 with Dolby ProLogic II engaged. Thank heaven HBO decided to one up their HD-DVD counterpart!

Dan

Sopranos has been shot using digital video since season 3.

Sopranos has been shot using digital video since season 3.
Are you sure? I was under the impression they used film.

Edit - according to IMDB, they shoot on 35mm and then print to HD tape.

...Rome, however, might require another dip...

Word, I'd gladly shell out the $180 for both seasons on HD-DVD/Blu-Ray. Sadly I never catch it when the show is on HBO-HD so I have to go off of the onDemand SD feeds. Its brutal on the eyes.

Is it just me? I watched the season premiere tonight and the whole thing looked super soft through cablevision onto an SA8300. Really disappointing as I spend the entire week watching season 6 on blu-ray and the PQ was super detailed. Anybody else notice this?



Does this really surprise you? Are you aware of what the movie providers like HBO do in terms of resolution and bit rates?

Frank:

No I do not. I've noticed that in general the movies aspect ratio get fixed to 1.78 to 1 and in general they look just OK but i'd love to know the specs if possible.

Word, I'd gladly shell out the $180 for both seasons on HD-DVD/Blu-Ray. Sadly I never catch it when the show is on HBO-HD so I have to go off of the onDemand SD feeds. Its brutal on the eyes.

Yeah, it's purdy all to hell...

Just started season 3 of entourage on DVD, it looks pretty good actually, nice and glossy. Still, not quite HD...:)

From here on out it is HD or nothing for me! ;)

No I do not. I've noticed that in general the movies aspect ratio get fixed to 1.78 to 1 and in general they look just OK but i'd love to know the specs if possible.

Besides zooming 2.35:1 movies to 1.78:1, which is bad enough, the bitrates on satellite HBO-HD and cable HBO-HD are very poor (especially satellite). The end result is that it looks like you are watching a zoomed upconverted standard def DVD at best.

BluRay/HD DVD, with the far higher bitrates, absolutely crushes broadcast HD in picture quality, without question. Not to mention the lossless audio!

One has to first always distinguish between CABLE HD vs SAT HD (with its HD lite issues) - so the sacasm above really wasn't warranted

Not sure about cable vision, but Comcast HD can sometimes look very very close to HD-DVD and other times even better - e.g with new HD material on Comcast HD vs lets say a poorly transferred movie like Lethal Weapon 1

So the original poster by saying the "Sopranos on HBO doesn't look as good as the blu-ray release imo" is not necessarily out in left field, although contradictory to the general rule

It's common sense that a BR movie will look better than what is on TV. When something goes through cable/sat, it is compressed. When it plays from your BR player to your TV, it isn't compressed. Well not nearly as much.

BoSoxMole:

Naturally. However, i wasn't expecting such a huge loss in picture quality. I'm telling you, watching Discovery HD, CBS primetime, Some Fox shows like House, Heroes, etc look absolutely incredible on Cablevision. Not quite Blu-Ray as there is still macroblocking but it looks really good. I just wasn't expecting it to look so poor. I mean, even my upconverted DVD's through my toshiba player look better imo....