Originally Posted by
davedelite 
More FI feedback for Epson product management or engineers...though, they likely already know this. So last night I was watching the Holiday Bowl with different modes of FI enabled (Low, Normal, High)....and trying to study to see if I really saw a benefit vs. a LCD side by side for game action. I have still yet to see much benefit here for sports (my poor eyes I guess....or that I am not comparing it to a 120 Hz fpd next to it), but I did notice some very slight benefit in the ESPN ticker scroll at the bottom (the benefit was about the same in all modes). I also did not experience any "jerkiness or stuttering".
However, later I tried again in the post game sportscenter with Mark Schlereth analyzing the firing of Mike Shanahan. Here, I experienced extreme jerkiness of the scrolling ticker and it did not matter which mode I was in .......though, Normal and High did appear to be worse. But, even Low was so noticeable and bad / distracting (kind of like enabling 4-4 on non 24p sources....almost that bad) So, all modes were so bad that I then kept replaying the same clips through the dvr and toggled between them, etc. and then removed them completely. What I saw is rather intuitive. The jerkiness is caused when the algorithm(s) choke on an already existent imperfection (dropped frame(s) or something in the encode / decode of the source content 1080i from Dish HD-DVR...whether live or off disc...of course, everything a HD DVR shows passes through cache). This is to say, I could see with no FI engaged a slight momentary jerk in the original source stream (now this could be something in there that causes even the normal processor in the pj to jump). However, whereas with no FI engaged the jump would occur and settle out so quickly in an episodic manner so that most often viewers would never notice it unless looking for it, when you have FI enabled it is like the jerk or miscue in the original source caused it to get off track and begin a complete ratcheting experience for a long time thereafter....very long.
FWIW it appeared to be that this segment of sportscenter was clearly less sharp then other ESPN content I had viewed that night. It could the that the bit rate was reduced (or high compression used) for the talking head studio type show and that this was part of the cause.
Needless to say, I think I have now viewed my last content type to conclude when and how I will use FI, and will not set it and forget it...or at least until any possible future firmware upgrade is released. Now I will enjoy the pj for what it is......which is everything I had expected it to be and what I really purchased it for...
Bottom line for me:
Blu-Ray with 24p source, I will enable 4-4 and no other FI (nor should one be able to do the latter)
Normal broadcast content in 1080i off Dish Network I will disable creative FI and 4-4
Some very high quality source content with slow moving, highly detailed landscapes and imagery / video (kind of like what you see on CES display booth presentations or when they release all the new TVs and show landscapes or the like)....or, in my case, my new Planet Earth Blu-ray BBC edition in 1080p....so for these, there is a definite benefit to using creative FI (and I think "Low" is good enough)....
In the last case, I have not experienced the jerkiness....though, clearly I have not watched more than a short segment of specific footage and done a lot of side-by-side with that. But, the benefit was clear in that case for sure....
Those are essentially my 3 primary use cases, and the last one is very infrequent. I don't hardly ever watch SDTV any longer, esp through a PJ, and even if I did, I can't imagine why I would even think if creative FI or 4-4.....any value for mucking around there in settings is probably to balance sharpness and noise.
