Do all blu ray player produce same quality? - Page 2

i agree.. my 51fd is on q with the ps3 and functions much better.. i have a real remote and i can use the remote of my sc-05 to control it... dont have to use that goofy game controller..

i dont have to worry about turning on and off the ps3 to get it to handshake all the time either... 51fd is much better..

i do however miss the load times and more control over the disk on the ps 3...

it is always a trade off though...

To a large extent I don't think you can relate cost to performance. As an example the Pioneer BDP-51FD at $99 (close out) will produce 99.99% the same Blu-ray image as the Pioneer BDP-09FD at $1,600. Rather you need to look at features to find which player is best suited for your system. As an example the $249 (at Fry's) LG BD390 offers a Dynamic Contrast setting which can add some pop to the image for projectors lacking in ANSI CR. Many other players will add edge enhancement if you try to do something similar.

Nowadays the high-end seems to be build quality slanted towards esthetics rather than performance.

To the OP...........Have you considered the Sony BDP-CX960 400 disc Blu-Ray player.......I have the PS3...and Im considering buying this to be able to store all my Blu Ray and DvDs......the cost is $799.00 but Im willing to bet it'll drop by the Christmas Holiday......Im waiting for the majical $599.00 and jumping on it..its getting GREAT reviews....just something I thought you might want to consider.

I do think it is generally good advice to avoid discontinued/older bluray players. The pace at which updated features have been implemented (audio decoding, profile updates) and prices have been falling makes older players a poor choice IMO. Further, my definition of 'quality' for a bluray player now most definately includes load time. In comparison to my Oppo, my Sony BDP1 is almost unbearable - even if the video quality is indistingishable.

Thats not true all of the time. My oppo does everything I ask of it and quickly too. It was also cheaper than the Pioneer 51fd I purchased a year ago, works a helluva lot better. Dont get me wrong, I liked the Pio but there were some quirks that bothered me with it (speed,disc error correction,mulit ch support, etc). I gave it to my dad so he could enter the Blu world so all is not lost.

now hold on a sec.. one of the reasons i chose the pioneer 51fd is because of the analog multi-channel support over the oppo... did i miss something ? or did you not mean analog multi ch support when you mentioned the multi ch that bothered you?

Analog is nice... but it is not what the OP intends the player's use for. PQ is qwhat we are talking about - not analog audio.

THe 51/05 has been debated to death and it is a well known entity on this forum - good and bad.

The oppo allows the user to finely tune the mulit out section alot more than the pio does. Sound wise both sound pretty close in quality in multi out.

Chroma resolution does vary slightly from player to player. As mentioned earlier, some manufacturers have tweaked some things to give the image a bit more pop - including chroma. The Pioneer 51FD I once had seemed to have a bit extra contrast even in default mode - although it still looked very good. I've compared several units and there are slight differences, but all looked great at 1080p/24. If you are looking for the most natural and accurate image, I suggest the Oppo.

I've heard the same thing about the Pioneers (and Sonys) from people who work with each brand of player every day, so I wouldn't discount it, although it's good that you've had a positive experience with your players.

The OPPO BDP-83?

Where are you finding that at a lower price than a PS3?

Charles,

Looking at the images you posted on the PS3 thread http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...3#post17350443, I can tell you don't calibrate the brightness and contrast. They are way different in the posted images. The PS3 slim's black level are higher.

Make sure the PS3 is set to Super White on and HDMI format as Y Pb/Cb Pr/Cr. Then hook both player directly to your projector (to avoid AVR chaning HDMI values, clipping) and calibrate them individually. The brightness of the images should match after you do that.

I check each via HD test patterns beforehand.


The PS3 is set as such and my Pioneer SC-07 is HDMI pass-through.

I understand what you are seeing but it's not from different contrast levels. Rather it's ANSI CR levels and the limitation of my camera and my ability to use it. The Pioneer's detail setting boosts the ANSI CR levels so near darks get darker and near lights get lighter which results in the PS3 appearing to have higher black levels.

As a side note Ken Whitcomb calibrated my projector using the PS3.

OP get the OPPO if you can afford it and be done with it. The Pio 23 and slim comparison that CharlesR did and prolly the OPPO will all look the same when we're talking about video quality. I'd just get the cheapest of the 3 though, its all good. Now Enjoy your new player and Movie

Geez, the differences are so miniscule to me and if you getting only one player you won't know the difference between them. But on the down side with only one of these players on hand will always be that it could be that the grass is greener on the other side.

There is no room in the Bluray standard used on the movies you are showing. Only 8bits per channel with valid levels being 16-253. The player can't extend the whitest white or blackest black. After you calibrate, 16 will be absolute black and 253 will be absolute white. You can make more shade in the middle with some special algorithm to map to x.v.Color color space. Until Bluray discs are authored with x.v.Color the contrast range of Bluray will be fixed (Probably will never happen).

Make sure you change the Video output of your Pioneer BDP-23FD to Professional (Because you have your display calibrated.) Then make sure all the video settings like gamma and such are off.

Professional - With this setting, video signal
processing is restrained. Select this when connected
to a professional monitor.

Verify that you can increase you displays brightness and see the blacker then black bars and the decrease your contrast to see that you can see the whiter then white bars on your calibration Bluray disc.

And then recompare.

Sorry I'm not explaining very well. I have never addressed the contrast level rather ANSI CR (which is completely different). As an example if you look at the posted Pioneer image (in the PS3 thread) and study his watch I think you'll find the dark highlights are darker than the PS3's and the light highlights are lighter than the PS3's. This is what I mean by increasing the ANSI CR... taking it closer to the black and white levels.

If overdone it introduces harshness to the image and crushes both ends (to some extent).


If you go into the service menu you'll find the Professional setting is just as tainted as the other settings.

ANSI CR is just measuring contrast with black and white checker board on the screen. This prevented ealier displays from having really high artificial measured static contrast ratios.

Nothing in a player can effect measured ANSI CR any different than static CONTRAST RATIO.

A feature that I hate, dynamic gamma, can increase the perceived contrast you are seeing by lowering the darkest color on the screen to black. This is not viewing the image as intended and is changing the intended shadow detail.

I see in the other thread that you are changing the detail setting of the Pioneer, so any comparison doesn't really matter. I buy Bluray so I don't have to image process the video (like up-conversion of SD DVD). If you like it that way (with boosted detail), then by all means leave it.

Did you calibrate with your original PS3 or the slim? I bet your original PS3.

Thanks for posting the images.

I presume you won't buy a new display if it has a higher ANSI CR... since the detail would be boosted. Oh and by the way since default isn't pass-through... as posted by an insider how do you know for a fact it's boosted? You have no way of knowing whatever setting the player or you pick is delivering the image as intended.

What is the intended ANSI CR... 500:1, 600:1, 1,000:1? It's certainly not solely determined by the source.

You are not understanding contrast ratio.

ANSI CR is the light measurement of the brightest white on the screen divided by the light measurement of the darkest black on the screen.

Contrast ratio is a display measurement not a source measurement. I would buy the display with the highest ANSI CR that I could afford (unless in the future there are displays so bright they will burn your eye like a welder).

The HDMI spec doesn't send a signal as ANSI CR but sends video as either RGB or Y Pb/Cb Pr/Cr. If you are using standard color space (8bit per channel from Bluray) you map 16 to black and 253 to white. The ANSI CR is just a measurement of how dark your display's black is versus how bright its white is. And by the way Deep Color and x.v.Color don't change the contrast limits either and only add finer steps between the displays limits. When displays have larger ANSI CR using Deep Color is more important to make the brightness steps less coarse.

Since all Bluray players tested/reviewed so far displays BTB (<16) and WTW (>253) when setup correctly, that mean that no manufacture is boosting or decreasing these color space values (not when properly setup).

The setting that is called Detail on your player is called sharpness in a lot of other displays and players and is not boosting anything but applying filtering and EE. Don't feel bad about using them (Detail boost), many old timers like to set their colors on their TVs to over saturated levels and unnatural and a lot of people like to run their HDTV's in the super bright mode the show rooms use.

Sorry, but you aren't understanding the topic at hand (at all).


I wasn't addressing how other players work. But if you care to the LG BD390 has a similar feature called Dynamic Contrast along with a separate setting called Sharpness which are clearly two different features. With that I'll try to give one clear example and then bow out since I can't explain the principle any better.

Let's only look at the watch in the two posted images (in the PS3 thread) and my numbers are simply examples of the principle not actual figures.

Again using a pure guess let's say with the detail setting set to default (which may not be pass-through) the darkest part of the image is 40 and the brightest is 150 (within the 16 - 253 possible range). When you increase the setting the darkest part now becomes 38 and the brightest becomes 152. Increasing the setting more and it becomes 36 and 154. Lower the setting below default and it becomes 42 and 148.

Which means you are raising or lowering the ANSI CR of the watch as you adjust the setting (which I have clearly viewed on a pixel by pixel level).

Sounds like it's really a gamma control.

Close but not really (to my understanding) since it moves in both directions at once. Also there is a separate gamma option.

I think ansi cr is measure of internal reflections (standing light scatter) that spoils the overall contrast in mixed (contains both hi and low) frame within the optical path of the pj. Higher the numbers better it controls the scatter by design.
Perhaps the detail control in this case actually changes the gamma, gain and sharpness and/or sub contrast of signal. Ansi CR for a pj cannot be improved by signal manipulations AFAIK.

Yes it does a lot of the above and it will introduce EE if taken to extremes (its highest setting). Of course it can't change the projector's ANSI CR but it can change the ANSI CR of the watch it displays as long as the watch isn't at the projector's maximum ANSI CR to begin with.

by "last gen sony and pioneers" are you including the sony 350 and 550's? What's wrong with them? Seem like solid enough players to me, and don't have the horrendously slow load times of the earliest models. I've seen the last of the 350's discounted as low as $159 which seems like a steal given they were $300. I've recommended them to people who say they need to buy a new dvd player as giving them bluray for not much more than a run of the mill dvd player. I have one in the bedroom and have them at work and never a problem yet with one.

That is exactly what a dynamic gamma control or filter does. You are lowering the black level and expanding the white level.

If the detail setting does what your example shows, then 6 of the black levels are clipped of the image (Loss of shadow detail) and 6 of the whitest levels are clipped (for scenes that have those levels). A dynamic gamma control does this intelligently so no clipping occurs. But you don't see the intended image that is on the disc.

Like I said, if you like it keep using it. I would never want to lose any detail.

ANSI CR is not a measurement per scene in a video but a measurement when the input signal is a special test pattern, the is a checker board of pure black and white. Detail and and other filters will never improve the ANSI CR measured for the test pattern.

Only if in fact those levels are present in the image and as noted the feature doesn't tail off at both ends. Which is exactly what I verified with test patterns (5 IRE is still visible).


You have no reference to say what was intended. It's easy to make the case it's closer to the intended image by restoring the image's intended ANSI CR with perhaps a little crushing if implemented badly.


You still aren't understanding the topic. ANSI CR can be measured for any image. In this example the watch part of the image is having its ANSI CR altered.

Which is the intended image?

1. Projector with 200:1 ANSI CR - the watch ANSI CR is 120:1
2. Projector with 1000:1 ANSI CR - the watch ANSI CR is 600:1

If you answer both than the projector with 200:1 increasing the watch to 140:1 is just as valid (intended).

Give it up, you have no idea what you are talking about.

ANSI CR is only a measurement when the black and white checker board pattern is present. Read here: http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/techn...y-devices.html

There is no such thing as saying the watch has a higher ANSI CR.

Your Detail control is scaling the gamma in a non-linear way. The low is lower and high is higher. That means that all the values in the middle are now not linearly scaled any longer. Your gamma scale is now off and can't be corrected. Information is now lost that can't be restored.

I will say it again. The source only sends the range of brightness/color levels and doesn't have any expectation of how bright the white is or black the black is. You question at the end about which is the intended display contrast ratio doesn't make sense. The display with a better CR is going to look better.

ANSI CR is only a way to evaluate which display is better.