Why does Blu-Ray look Better in Best buy and not on my TV? - Page 2

24x5=120. 30x4=120. 30x2=60. 24x(ohcraptheresnoeasywaytodothis)=60.

120Hz TVs eliminate motion judder in 24fps sources without compromising 30fps content as, say, a 72Hz set would.

I personally still haven't seen a good demo on the new 120hz displays but I'm in Canada and we're often really behind the times!! From how I understand 120hz is that it has 2 separate purposes. One is to just refresh faster using the special "mode" like "Motion Enhancer" etc... and this can be good for fast action sports viewing. The second purpose is if the display does 120hz and can do proper 5:5 pulldown from a 1080p24 signal directly off of a bluray disc then it can eliminate judder on panning shots that you get from 3:2 pulldown. Now the only 120Hz sets that actually do 5:5 are the Sony A3000 and XBR LCDs so all the other manufacturers aren't providing the second benefit and only provide the first "benefit"/"negative" of "enhancing motion". Most reviews don't like the motion enhancer benefit and I can see from posts on this thread and others that most people find it looks "weird" also and probably couldn't watch a full movie with it on!

THe other point is the only way to get 5:5 pulldown on the sony sets is to turn off "motion enhancer" anyways. For true movie fans the only purpose to look at 120hz is the second benefit. And only Sony has it on 120hz tvs. Other tvs like Pioneer plasmas do a 3:3 process and a lot of projectors do 3:3 or 4:4 and give you the same benefit.

So basically motion enhancing IMHO is useless but 5:5 processing of 1080p24 off of HDM is worth the money...maybe

I own a hda2 the other day i went to cc and in one those rooms where you can close the doors and sit and watch what then have set up.. Well it was blue ray and it was showing Die Hard 4 demo on a sammy dlp i think and said omg that looks great almost made me want to buy a blue ray player but the demo look like it was short with a hand held carmera. And like with most i said something has to be wrong with my set up

That is exactly what I noticed as well. Very clean picture during still shots, but when the camera panned across an area there would be pixelated trails...We actually stood there for about 5 minutes trying to pinpoint what exactly we were seeing. It looked like a home movie version of Spiderman3.
So is this due to refresh rate or "souped up" demo material? The refresh rate seems more logical.

The pixelation you are seeing is real and is an artifact of the interpolated frames that are created to increase the hz to 120. The new frames are not created/displayed fast enough to keep up with the real frames and so the artifacts are displayed. The reviews in the Home Theater magazine noticed the same thing. They stated that during pans it seemed that the motion software "gives up" when it can't keep up. In theory, a 5:5 pull down should not do this. My friend has a rear pro bravia that has the 120hz feature and I immediately noticed these artifacts on the pans. I have been led to believe from posts on these boards that the xbr4/5 lcd's do 5:5 pull down but it seems that they don't. Even before I noticed the pixelation, I had this strange something doesn't look quite right here feeling while watching the movie on his TV. He said it takes a little getting used to. We fiddled with the settings a little and he put the motion enhancer to high and I thought I was going to hurl, literally. The super smooth artificial motion made me queasy. Until any of the sets does 120hz properly, I would stay away from it.

To the OP who responded with his setup, I recommend buying the Blu Ray version of any calibration disc. I think HQV and DVE have one. I think you are seeing unrealistic demo material on the TV at Best Buy, but you should still be getting jaw dropping images from some of your Blu Ray movies.

Question for you experts. I have also seen the amazing PQ from BD at BB. I'd like to get a BD soon but how will the PQ look with a 42" 720p plasma? (Sammy 4254) Noticable diff or cannot discern the diff with that size?

Yes you will see a difference, but how large a difference are you expecting? You will not see as big a difference as the jump from VHS to DVD but it is quite impressive with most movies.

The difference I'm talking about is from 720p to 1080p. Is that what you're referring to as well?

Just like I said to the OP, forget about the resolution of your TV. Unless you are sitting right in front your 42" set you would not be able to tell the difference between 720 and 1080. Your 720p plasma IS an HDTV. I was referring to the difference between DVD and HD DVD/Blu Ray. You WILL see a difference between DVD and HD DVD/Blu Ray on your TV. How far away from your TV do you sit?

I think what the OP saw was Best Buy's Samsung 4071 120hz display. In my local store they had the Pearl Harbor/ POTC demo running and I know what he is talking about. It is so clear and life-like that it looks fake. But the OMG I gotta have this kind of clear an fake. Looks like there is a puppet show going on inside of a really beautiful cardboard box...just simply breathtaking. But I agree with previous statements that it is more than likely a pumped up demo disc that is completely un-like the actual HDM discs and therefore an unattainable picture no matter what your set-up. A $500,000 TV and the shelf bought Blu-ray disc will still not look as good as that demo-disc. My2cents.

It's NOT a special demo disc. But yeah, he saw the LNT4071 for sure.

Just was curious, for a 32 inch screen, what is the ideal distance to sit from the TV?

agreed. the POTC demo on the Sony XBR TV in Best Buy is what sold me on Blu Ray. I bought it that instant. Also the poker scene in Casino Royale (which I saw at Circuit City). It looked as if I was seeing the event take place at that moment. Live time... the lighting and contrast was extraordinary. The light on the palm trees in POTC looked absolutely real.. as if I was right there.

I have a 1080 Bravia here at home (not XBR) and it looks wonderful, but nuttin like it did in the store. I attributed the difference to the fact that my TV is not a Sony XBR. I was thinking that if that was the dif, then I would move this television in the bedroom and get a Sony Bravia XBR LCD for my living room.

It's because the tv in best buy was 1080p. Everyone says "Oh it only matters on large screens".

Total b.s. I have a 42" 720p Panny and I love it. But when I see BDs at 1080p at both my friends house and at my local BB, it's clearly better.

Makes me want to upgrade to the new 1080p Panny Plasmas.

I was at Circuit City about a month ago and I saw a BDP-S300 playing Curse of the Black Pearl (I know it was the actual movie because I had to start the disc myself since it was stuck on the talking skull menu) and it looked worlds better than CotBP through my PS3 on my Mitsu HD1000U projector. It's an entry level projector, only 720p, and not calibrated, granted, but man, I had no idea why this thing looked like it did...literally like a window it was so clear. An employee stopped and asked if I needed any help and I said I was trying to figure out why it looked so smooth and clear (everything had a slightly sped-up look to it, almost like the difference in a PC game from 30 frames-per-second to 60) and he commented that it was a new 120Hz display.

I figured it was probably just a marketing gimmick or something when I first heard of it, but after seeing it in action, I was blown away by how much better than my projector it looked. I'd still rather have my 136-inch screen, but I'd like to know more about the new refresh rate. It was just a crazy improvement over what I'm currently seeing.

The SAs look and sound better for the most part than the PS3. The reason to buy the PS3 is you're less likely to have to buy another player until this works itself out.

Oh brother, this thread has really gone off the tracks.

Now one Blu-Ray player sounds better than the other?

Pass whatever your smoking!

The guys who paid alot of money for their players hate to admit it but the PS3 is one of the best Blu-Ray players hands down.

I didn't realize that. I always read the PS3 is just as good player as any standalone barring the highest end ones. Maybe I should just recalibrate my projector with the PS3.

I bought what I bought. I get better video and a better network client. You got faster and, well, faster.

The PS3 is better in some ways not in others. There are days when I wish I had bought a PS3 (though I couldn't due to where I have to put it), but my player has better video which is the reason to go HD after all.

I was at BB today and POTC: DMC looked hideous on whatever Samsung they were showcasing it on.

I assure you if you put your Panny back to vivid you'll get some of the same pop but your head will explode after 10 mins.

If it looks like a soap opera, that means it looks video-like instead of film-like like it's supposed to be. Companies know that the unknowing public expect all HD picture to look like a football game, therefore the demo tries its hardest to have a video-like picture.

I have an XBR4, the same used for the demo kiosks in the stores.

The reason things look so much better on the demo kiosk is probably because they have Vivid Mode on and MotionEnhancer turned up to high. The Vivid mode actually reduces detail, but the brightness hides this, and it burns the retinas when you get the tv in your house, but the ME does wonders. The ME creates transitional frames between each frame while in 24fps mode (120hz), giving films a much more fluid look. The only problem with this is that the "new" images the tv creates often artifact, especially on fast moving scenes. For example, when the camera pans over the Rohirrim army in LotR: the Rotk just as they begin to charge into the Orcs at the battle of the Pelennor field, the edges of the screen have major ghosting, and the middle of the image hs lot's of artifacting. However, slower moving scenes look truly 3d, especially on PotC.

Yes, I know LotR is an SD film, but it does wonders even for SD, making the battle of Osgiliath (the night ambush), for instance, look truly 3 dimensional.

The majority of the time I keep ME off as the artifacting bugs the crap out of my eyes. However, my friends love the stuff, and beg me to turn it on whenever they come over.

I've seen that CotBP display on the 120 Hz Samsung, as well, and the effect of the motion smoothing processing is striking. The characteristic stutter of 24 fps film is reduced to nill, leaving unadulterated detail in smooth motion in the scene. It really does look like it is a sharp hd video footage (almost "too perfect"), instead of a "film" movie. The improvement in motion rendering and maintaining detail under motion is simply amazing. It's to the point where it seems to work "too well", and I think that is the effect that a lot of people complain about when they say it no longer looks like a movie. It's really a bizarre sensation. I have no doubt the technology will be improved even further so that it doesn't look so out of place in a "film" world, but maintaining the awesome potential of motion-interpolated 24 fps. I can see how this development would get panned at this stage, but I think they are really on to something good.

That's exactly what the MotionEnhancer on the XBR4 does. I turned it on for my friend during the Kraken scene at the end of PotC: DMC, and he started freakin' out, lol. He kept asking me what the hell I did, and why everything was gong so fast. I kept telling him it was at the same speed, but he wouldn't believe me.

He's used to it now, and always asks me to turn the ME on whenever he comes over, because it truly gives the films a 3D-like affect, though it does have it's drawbacks, as I mentioned in my post above.

Yeah, it was interesting to look at. Things like closeups and other still shots looked absolutely incredible (I specifically remember watching Jack Sparrow's intro scene in CotBP and how the flags on his boat looked like they were moving ten times faster than I was used to), but I noticed an almost halo-like effect in that only certain areas of the picture had that 3d effect and others seemed really flat by comparison. I'm guessing it was the ghosting that was mentioned.

In other off-topic news, I turned the RGB range on my PS3 to FULL instead of LIMITED and it made a pretty big difference in the picture. Good times.

There are multiple issues with 120Hz (and 100Hz in Europe) TVs.

1. Some models, in some viewing modes, will try to interpolate new frames from film sourced material - like movie DVDs, and TV drama - giving it a much more fluid motion look - a bit like traditional video (soaps, news, entertainment). However as this is interpolation (effectively informed guess work), it can go horribly wrong. Some displays allow this processing to be inhibited - or scaled down (Sony's high-end Bravias in the UK do - though the menu is not obvious - it is in setup not picture settings) Other models don't allow it to be switched off.

Whilst some people like this interpolated effect - others hate it. I'm not a fan - I like film to look like film, and video to look like video. (And I realise there is 24Hz video so I mean 50/60Hz video when I talk about video...)

2. Some 120Hz displays ALSO allow 5:5 pulldown of 24Hz sources - so they display without 3:2 judder, but with the normal 24Hz motion artefacts. (In conversation with guys at Sony, this is what 24p True Cinema can mean I believe)

Often 2. is the result when the processing in 1. is inhibited.

I believe sponsored by laudry detergent in the days of "radio" novellas.

Yeah its only the Sony's that can do #2 and you have to turn off motion enhancer as you mentioned. I think getting rid of 3:2 judder may be worth the purchase but I've yet to see the demo's of the motion enhancer feature so I really can't comment on it but it seems its just not natural or what the director intended.