Nature's Journey - BD & HD DVD *PIX* + Reviews

[Xylon]

I will try something different. I will edit the OP as soon we are finished with this experiment. BTW I would also like AVS members participation in choosing the scenes to cap. Put in the timestamp and I will do my best to post it.

Blu-ray 18.40 GB VC-1

HD DVD 12.80 GB VC-1

Like many other AVS enthusiasts I have been looking forward to this release because of obvious reasons. I ask myself how well VC-1 performs in various bitrates and if using its maximum capability will result in more perceptible PQ.

I have been reading numerous threads from various forums to gain some basic insight in the making of this release. Two things is apparent and might result in less than perfect screenshots.

One - Every shot is artifially processed to create a "look" preferred by the producer. I have nothing against that but when you look at other nature shows at Discovery HD like Sunrise Earth or Destination HD its sorely lacking in detail and sharpness. This is NOT a criticism to the makers. This just my personal preference when watching this kind of programming.

Two - Interlaced 1080i - This is one really gave a pause. How can I grab a frame if my Haali renderer and spliiter can't deinterlace while frame capturing? This one I'm stuck with if you guys can help me here Otherwise while in motion MPC plays it back fine. Everyone is welcome to share their toughts on this one. If only this is 1080p it would be much easier and preferred for this kind of experiment.

Even then people will scoff at this attempt so we should put a shout out to those poeple who has high-end HT setups that next time they do a AVS meet. BD and HD DVD playing at the same time blind testing. Look if you can confidently pick which one is which.

YES! this will be a blind test.

Guess which one is BD or HD DVD. Use this format:

Post #
Left - BD or HD DVD
Right - BD or HD DVD

Please use DVI or HDMI connection viewing this pictures. This UHQ images won't be the same if your are seeing this thru analog connections.

************************************************************ **************
Update:

Blind test answers:

Post #2
C1 = BD
D1 = HD DVD

Post #3
Q1 = BD
R1 = HD DVD

Post #4
M3 = BD
N3 = HD DVD

Post #5
I4 = HD DVD
H4 = BD

Post #6
T5 = HD DVD
U5 = BD

Post #7
E6 = HD DVD
F6 = BD

[Xylon]

[Xylon]

[Xylon]

[Xylon]

[Xylon]

[Xylon]

[Xylon]

Reserved.

[Supermans]

Thank you House for the mouseovers Hope we can get some screencaps of leaves (closeups) from the Fall part of the discs as those would be even better for comparison.

http://www.mbmg.de/hd-discs/

[Wesley5]

How about a blind test? That's surely a simple way to keep fan boys at bay.

[MidnightWatcher]

I cannot see any difference. I think we'll need a mouseover for comparison.

[Highjinx]

RHS images appear more detailed and sharper to me.

[gsw]

#2 Left HDDVD Right Bluray
#3 Right Bluray Left HDDVD

[arfster]

Originally Posted by Xylon

Two - Interlaced 1080i - This is one really gave a pause. How can I grab a frame if my Haali renderer and spliiter can't deinterlace while frame capturing?

Several possibles:

1) In Vista you can screengrab stuff with EVR, even after it's gone through hardware deinterlacing (to my surprise, as you couldn't do this in XP). Only problem is you need an ATI 2600/2900, or Nvidia 8600/8800, as the lower models can't do vector/motion adaptive deinterlacing on VC1/h264. Problem is you need to know about all the crappy little ins and outs, bugs and foibles of whatever driver/card/filterchain/player combo you choose (see my sig!). Here's an example of this:



Click on it to see, note the CPU use and dxva/nv12 showing the hw acceleration/deinterlacing. That's some 20mbit 1080i50 h264 off BBC HD, so it definitely needs the acceleration (yes I know it's levels expanded, that's deliberate for PC playback).

Best point about this method is you have an exactly equal level of deinterlacing on both discs - this isn't the case when you compare Bluray to HDDVD set top boxes side by side, as the deinterlacing quality can really vary. It also gives you an accurate reflection of what the viewer would actually see.


2) Demux the m2ts and evo files, and use PowerDVD to play the resulting raw video. Go into config/video, turn off hw acceleration, goto advanced, specify bitstream analysis and pixeladaptive (note you'll probably need an o/ced c2d or quadore for this). Because you're now in file mode rather than (protected) disc mode, the capture frame button now becomes available (and in settings you can make it so that this dumps the full frame minus scaling, but after other postprocessing like deinterlacing). Note I haven't tested all this, and there are anumber of things that could go wrong!


3) By far the easiest: wait until you've got a frame with zero motion, and set the decoder to weave. This gets you max resolution without combing artifacts, and because it can be done in software you can screengrab regardless of your hardware setup. Does kinda exclude all those nice waterfalls though.



Good thread btw!

[Khoi Pham]

first pict (water fall) left Blu-ray, right HD-DVD

second pict (lake) left Blu-ray, right HD-DVD

Blu-ray is sharper and more details in the dark, if I'm wrong then I guess I need and eye check.

[luclin999]

They look the same to me.

[jkcheng122]

hm i'm seeing the pics as top and bottom so i'll assume the top one is left.

#2:
Left: HD DVD
Right: Blu-ray

[Khoi Pham]

Originally Posted by jkcheng122

hm i'm seeing the pics as top and bottom so i'll assume the top one is left.

#2:
Left: HD DVD
Right: Blu-ray

You need to scroll your screen left and right to compare, there are 4 pict total.

[jkcheng122]

Originally Posted by Khoi Pham

You need to scroll your screen left and right to compare, there are 4 pict total.

per post? i see two screens on post 2 and another two on post 3. work computer is only 1280x1024.

[arfster]

By the way, these pics are levels expanded (probably Haali renderer is set to TV>PC conversion). Maybe better to present them unprocessed, so there's less to quibble about.

[Wesley5]

Thanks for the captures, Xylon.

This is what works best for me. Save pictures to my PC, display picture full screen (24" 1920*1200 native resolution LCD) using ACDSee, then do rapid page up/page down, this is the way astronomers detecting motions among stars, human eyes are very sensitive to subtle changes this way.

I saw no change at all (#2/#3) at 2-3 feet away.

[trondmm]

After staring on the screen for several minutes, while switching images, I was finally able to detect some extremely tiny differences between them. But, I'm having a really, really hard time trying to decide which of the pictures that is "better" than the other, and therefore more likely to be the Blu-ray-image.

Anyway - my conclusion so far is:

Post 2: Top (left?): BD, Bottom (right?): HD DVD
Post 3: Top: BD, Bottom: HD DVD

[R Johnson]

Downloaded, compared in Photoshop.
#2 No difference noticed
#3 No difference noticed

[TheLion]

All this confirms is that (sadly) Nature's Journey is a far cry from being reference for PQ. This release is softer and less detailed (-> due to the used "prosumer" cameras) than even mediocre 35mm sourced content. This is watching it on a 10 feet wide Studiothek, native 1080p Sharp Z20k, 1.5 screen widths seating distance.

Xylon's screencaps clearly support this verdict.

No enconding in the world is helping (or making it worse for that matter ) here... Even 12Mbit/s - 15Mbit/s VC-1 should be PLENTY for this level of "detail".

Verdict: Probably the most overhyped release since Planet Earth (while planet earth definitely has it's (few) moments of true HD glory ) - mediocre PQ at best - soft without any real definition and detail (other than some rendered shots and elements). Sourced from "cheap prosumer" cameras (with fancy lenses...), and it REALLY shows.

[sperron]

I would assume that the picture with more detail has to be the higher bitrate one, otherwise thier encoder isn't functioning properly.

If you compare C1 and D1, you can look through the arch and see the tiny stars. D1 has more tiny stars, especially directly above the hill's night horizon. If you flip back and forth between then, the stars actually just vanish in C1. So I would assume D1 is the higher bitrate Blu-Ray pic.

Between Q1 and R1, look at the water. Q1 has more definition in the water's surface. R1 looks way more smoothed out and Q1 looks more detailed. If you actually flip back and forth between them, you can actually watch the detail just vanish. So again, I would again assume that the higher bitrate encoding has more detail and therefor Q1 is the Blu-Ray.

[Khoi Pham]

Originally Posted by sperron

I would assume that the picture with more detail has to be the higher bitrate one, otherwise thier encoder isn't functioning properly.

If you compare C1 and D1, you can look through the arch and see the tiny stars. D1 has more tiny stars, especially directly above the hill's night horizon. If you flip back and forth between then, the stars actually just vanish in C1. So I would assume D1 is the higher bitrate Blu-Ray pic.

Between Q1 and R1, look at the water. Q1 has more definition in the water's surface. R1 looks way more smoothed out and Q1 looks more detailed. If you actually flip back and forth between them, you can actually watch the detail just vanish. So again, I would again assume that the higher bitrate encoding has more detail and therefor Q1 is the Blu-Ray.

Yep I see the same thing you are seeing, the stars are less in one than the other and on the other picture there are more details in the dirt but all I see is left and right picture, where do you get the Q1 and R1 from?

[Khoi Pham]

Originally Posted by TheLion

All this confirms is that (sadly) Nature's Journey is a far cry from being reference for PQ. This release is softer and less detailed (-> due to the used "prosumer" cameras) than even mediocre 35mm sourced content. This is watching it on a 10 feet wide Studiothek, native 1080p Sharp Z20k, 1.5 screen widths seating distance.

Xylon's screencaps clearly support this verdict.

No enconding in the world is helping (or making it worse for that matter ) here... Even 12Mbit/s - 15Mbit/s VC-1 should be PLENTY for this level of "detail".

Verdict: Probably the most overhyped release since Planet Earth (while planet earth definitely has it's (few) moments of true HD glory ) - mediocre PQ at best - soft without any real definition and detail (other than some rendered shots and elements). Sourced from "cheap prosumer" cameras (with fancy lenses...), and it REALLY shows.

I must have missed the post about what camera they were using, so what is the camera that you said that is a prosumer camera?

[sperron]

where do you get the Q1 and R1 from?

If you save the pictures, they are labeled as C1.png, D1.png, Q1.png and R1.png.

[thebland]

Originally Posted by gsw

#2 Left HDDVD Right Bluray
#3 Right Bluray Left HDDVD

Ditto... I hope I'm right or I gotta eat crow (or get a new computer monitor)

EDIT: I thought the difference was pretty easy to discern in #2 but it was a toss up in #3.

[Michael Mullis]

I can't see a difference.