[adl]

Hi guys I'm new to HD at home I just bought a plasma (Hitachi 42HDS69) and I have Time Warner HD in NYC with a SA HD8300...Movies in 1080i are fantastic SOOOO much better than anything I have ever seen on DVD!

My question (before I invest in a HD player) is there a BIG difference in Picture quality BTW my Cable HD feed and a HD DVD/Blu-Ray Disc?

 

[Ken H]

HD DVD or Blu-ray should be better, depending on the specific title.

 

[NetworkTV]



Quote:
Originally Posted by Ken H /forum/post/0


HD DVD or Blu-ray should be better, depending on the specific title.

Absolutely. My impresssion of the Blu-Ray demo I saw was that I've never seen anything that good on cable or satellite. It's pretty close to stuff I've seen coming out of live truck feeds (a little more compressed, but darned close). Add to that being able to view it on a true 1080p set, and I'm sold if I ever win the lotto....

 

[dwisniski]



Quote:
Originally Posted by adl /forum/post/0


My question (before I invest in a HD player) is there a BIG difference in Picture quality BTW my Cable HD feed and a HD DVD/Blu-Ray Disc?

Absolutely, High Def on cable/satellite is far inferior to HD-DVD/Blu-ray. Of course PQ varies from disc to disc, but for the most part you will see a big difference because of factors like better codec's, less compression, and not to mention Original Aspect Ratio's.

 

[rkunces]

This question is a little off-topic but how do the PS3 and Xbox 360's versions of the Blu-ray and HD-DVD player perform in pq compared to say the $1000 models out right now.

 

[GeorgeLV]



Quote:
Originally Posted by rkunces /forum/post/0


This question is a little off-topic but how do the PS3 and Xbox 360's versions of the Blu-ray and HD-DVD player perform in pq compared to say the $1000 models out right now.

The PS3 is pretty much the best Blu-ray player available if you have an HDMI receiver.


The PQ on the Xbox 360 add-on is fine, but audio is limited to vanilla Dolby Digital.

 

[adl]

Thank you guys for your feedback! I guess I'm in for some more HD "investment"

I just purchased a 500GB external drive for the HD8300 to expand my recording capabilities, I will wait a few months to see if more of the dual HD DVD & Blu-Ray unit are becoming available (or I will just by the LG)

 

[TheRock]

I have a quick question about the HD and Bluray Players that hopefully one of you guys can answer.


I have recorded tons of HD material from various sources. Mostly free OTA programs (CBS, NBC, ABC, FOX, etc...) and also cable HD material before they enabled the 5c in my area (HBO, Showtime, DiscoveryHD, etc...). I have these programs saved on DVD disks in .ts (Transport Stream) format. Will these players be able to play these burned disks? It would be awesome to watch these disks without having to involve a computer. I doubt the Sony PS3 will play them because in past Playstation models they have enabled security that doesn't allow home burned disks to be played without modification. I don't know for sure though because I don't have a PS3. I am sure this info can be found somewhere on this forum but it can be a bit daunting to try and find things in this massive place. Any help is cool.

 

[rkunces]



Quote:
Originally Posted by GeorgeLV /forum/post/0


The PS3 is pretty much the best Blu-ray player available if you have an HDMI receiver.


The PQ on the Xbox 360 add-on is fine, but audio is limited to vanilla Dolby Digital.

Thanks George. I've heard about the audio problems with the Xbox too similar kind of to what happened with the ps2 and its low audio. I wonder if the HDMI 360 versions will get rid of those audio problems.

 

[John Mason]

There's an interesting mix between the effective resolutions (maximum resolvable detail) on this 1024X1080 Hitachi plasma from movies, the 8300HD cable STB with NYC's TWC, and 1080 DVDs.


If movie 1080/24p master tapes are still limited to ~800--1100 lines of horizontal resolution (motion video equivalents) as outlined here earlier, then the plasma seems to cover this range. Resolution numbers aren't abrupt, of course, but gradually fall off, so suspect a higher-resolution display (1366 or 1920 horizontally) might show 'crisper' images--akin to viewing or capturing crisp images through precision high-MTF (modulation transfer function) lenses versus less-crisp images from just-adequate glass or plastic.


NYC's TWC 8300HDs cable converters appear to deliver ~1300 lines, as I'm still measuring with my CRT RPTV; a local 1080p FP owner recently measured 1335 lines . So, unless new measurements show movie master recordings used for both cable and 1080 DVDs are better, cable STBs shouldn't be blocking movie PQ. Since 1080 DVDs, using higher bit rates or more efficient codecs, needn't compress HD video as much, tossing out higher frequencies/resolutions, they should deliver greater PQ than movies via cable where signals may be rate shaped with requantization and decoded/reencoded for statistical multiplexing, then delivered at

 

[dwisniski]



Quote:
Originally Posted by TheRock /forum/post/0


I have a quick question about the HD and Bluray Players that hopefully one of you guys can answer.


I have recorded tons of HD material from various sources. Mostly free OTA programs (CBS, NBC, ABC, FOX, etc...) and also cable HD material before they enabled the 5c in my area (HBO, Showtime, DiscoveryHD, etc...). I have these programs saved on DVD disks in .ts (Transport Stream) format. Will these players be able to play these burned disks? It would be awesome to watch these disks without having to involve a computer. I doubt the Sony PS3 will play them because in past Playstation models they have enabled security that doesn't allow home burned disks to be played without modification. I don't know for sure though because I don't have a PS3. I am sure this info can be found somewhere on this forum but it can be a bit daunting to try and find things in this massive place. Any help is cool.

I'm not 100% sure, but I think you have to transfer them to program files and author them to either format to watch them on a HD-DVD or Blu-ray player. I don't know of any playing just the raw .ts files, but you can always try.

 

[Clarence]



Quote:
Originally Posted by TheRock /forum/post/0


I have these programs saved on DVD disks in .ts (Transport Stream) format. Will these players be able to play these burned disks? It would be awesome to watch these disks without having to involve a computer.


I am sure this info can be found somewhere on this forum but it can be a bit daunting to try and find things in this massive place. Any help is cool.

Sticky: The official AVS Guide to HD DVD Authoring


A PC is required to structure the file into the proper format and then author/burn the DVD-R into HD-DVD format, but the process is not too bad:

- convert TS to mpeg2 using videoredo

- author using ulead moviefactory5

- burn HDDVD format to DVDR using nero7


Works great. Depending on the bitrate of your content, a DVDR can hold 30-40 minutes. A dual-layer DVDR can hold 60-70 minutes.


AFAIK, this is for HD-DVD only (I'm unaware of any similar process for watching .TS on bluray players).

 

[TheRock]

Thanks for the info guys. That is a shame. I literally have hundreds of disks with .ts video files. It would be WAY to much work to convert all of those disks. I guess I could just change the ones I really want to view (favorite movies and shows). Hopefully as time goes by and the technology advances they will offer players that can play these without any further work. Just like you can find some DVD players that can play DIVX, MPEG, AVI, and various other files. I wasn't planning on purchasing a player anytime soon anyway. They are way too expensive still and I would like to see if one format dies. Thanks again for the help.