More Things I've Learned About HDTV
Introduction:
In my original article I was just making my first steps into the realm of High-Definition Television (HDTV). In this one I plan to address more issues I've run into after having used HDTVs for a few years. Think of this as a more advanced set of "what on Earth is that?" questions I've asked in recent months.
- In retrospect, perhaps that *wasn't* a killer feature...
- What the heck is 1080/24p?
- Is BluRay really THAT much better than DVD?
- BluRay movies are (usually) GREATLY overpriced.
1. In retrospect, perhaps that *wasn't* a killer feature...
As evidenced by my purchase of an HD-DVD player, I have been known to make mistakes when shopping for electronics. Despite my best efforts and exhaustive research (up to and including downloading the user manual for a new gadget and reading it completely before buying), sometimes that "killer feature" just isn't as killer as I thought. I ran into this when I bought a surround sound speaker system.
You have essentially two types of home theater systems: those that come all-in-one (sometimes called home-theater-in-a-box or HTIB) and those that you have to buy separately. The former offers you the convenience of everything you need in one purchase, and is usually reasonably priced. The latter requires significantly more money, but you almost always end up with better quality equipment. At the time I was shopping for it, I was only interested in a HTIB system.
The TV I had at the time, a Vizio L37, was a solid one. It had one major flaw though: only 1 HDMI port. This meant that I could plug in my disc player via HDMI or my cable box via HDMI, but not both. Also, I wanted to be able to pipe the sound from my disc player through the stereo. This lead me to look for a home theater system that had both an HDMI in (for the disc player) and an HDMI out (so I could daisy-chain the disc player into the TV). I also wanted a system with wireless rear speakers.
You'd be amazed how hard it was to find that particular combination. Most HTIB sets I found had HDMI output, but no inputs. I finally picked up the Samsung HT-WX70T, which had everything I needed: HDMI in and out, and wireless rear speakers. It also had something I didn't need, a 5-disc DVD changer, but I figured it wouldn't hurt anything. I received it and proceeded to hook everything up.
The HD-DVD player I had hooked into the surround sound just fine, and the surround sound hooked into the TV. That left a bit of a conundrum on how to hook up our cable box, however. First we tried a splitter. We picked one up from Amazon for around $20USD that had 3 inputs and an output. This worked fine at first.
When we upgraded our cable to include HD channels, however we noticed a rather annoying quirk: whenever we changed from a standard-definition channel to a high-def channel our TV screen would go green and stay that way until we turned the TV and the cable box off and back on. Sometimes the green screen would be replaced by a blue error screen that said, "Your HD content protection has been breached. High-definition content will not be displayed. Please use YPbPr."
YPbPr is another name for component cables, or analog HD. Sure enough, when we plugged the cable box into our stereo using analog cables, all was well. We called our cable provider (Suddenlink) and they replaced our DVR twice. Both gave us the same problems using HDMI. It's worth noting that both DVRs were Motorola, and I've seen evidence that the issue could have been corrected with a firmware update, but no one at Suddenlink had heard of our problem or any updates to their boxes.
The temporary solution? I hooked the cable box up to the TV using component video cables, and hooked the audio up to the stereo. It wasn't a perfect solution, but it worked for the time being. At this point some of you might be asking yourselves why didn't I just hook everything up to the TV, and pipe all the sound coming from the TV into the stereo?
The Vizio L37 also has a strange quirk: it has a dedicated digital optical out plug. What do I mean by that? Well, most televisions (including every Vizio model *after* the L37) allow you to output any sound being sent to the TV through the optical plug and into a stereo. Optical audio plugs can carry surround sound signals, so this is an easy one-plug solution for finicky stereos like ours.
Here's the catch: on the L37 you can only hear audio through the optical plug if you're sending it to the TV through the digital tuner. It's completely shut off from any other inputs. This means that as long as your cable is coming out of the wall using a standard coaxial cable you're fine, but you cannot send sound from any other input through the optical cable.
To watch our cable box we had to set the TV to one input and the stereo to another. To watch a DVD we had another configuration. To play a videogame there was yet another. All the while we were juggling with three remotes and cycling components left and right.
The final solution turned out to be a new TV altogether. With 3 HDMI inputs and a proper digital audio out, all my issues were resolved and the number of cables and amount of remote juggling was reduced to something reasonable. I ended up with one cable going into my surround sound: the digital optical plug. My point in all this? The HDMI input in the stereo receiver really didn't matter.
2. What the heck is 1080/24p?
In November 2008, I purchased a 46" Sony Bravia KDL-46XBR4. This purchase was part of my remedy for the issues I had in section 1. It had 3 HDMI inputs and allowed me to pipe all the audio coming from the TV into the stereo via digital optical out (SPDIF). This was also my first 1080p television, and with it came a curious feature: the ability to play films at their native 24 frames per second.
If you have a BluRay player and a capable TV, this ability will probably be turned on by default. But what is it and why do you care? Let's examine how films are recorded in relation to television shows. Generally television is displayed at 30 frames per second, and film is projected at 24. To get around the difference, films have their frames multiplied at a set interval (3 times, 2 times, 3 times, etc). This is called 3:2 pulldown, or Telecine.
Since the advent of digital media (rather than tapes) the ability to display different framerates on home video has emerged. Some BluRay players and HDTVs support this. Mine, as I found out the first night I used it, are no exception. In the case of my Sony BDP-BX1 and the Bravia, it was an automatic process. I popped in Cars and immediately noticed a difference.
What difference, you say? That's kind of hard to describe. Live action seemed *too* sharp, like the difference between an evening sitcom and a daytime soap-opera. On regular video, fast motion and camera pans cause the picture to have a little bit of motion blur. Over the years my eyes have gotten used to that, and to suddenly have that disappear is a bit of a shock. To see every frame in a pan or quick movement crystal clear gives the picture an almost unreal quality to it.
Something didn't seem right, so I did some research and found out that the effect I was seeing wasn't actually 1080/24p at all. It was a separate feature (enabled by default) on my TV that Sony calls "MotionFlow." Different companies have different names for it, but it basically comes down to inserting another frame in between two frames to smooth out the motion. Sure enough, with that feature turned off movies looked as I expected them to look. I could see the value of MotionFlow for something like sports events, but on a movie it's just distracting.
As for 24p, the difference must be more subtle. I couldn't really tell any significant improvement from my non-24p-compatible HDTV. I'm glad I didn't purchase the TV for that feature alone.
3. Is BluRay really THAT much better than DVD?
The short answer: it depends. While the studios releasing BluRay movies would certainly love for you to go out and re-purchase your entire DVD collection for upwards of $25USD a pop, I would recommend a more reserved approach. The simple reason, aside from money savings, is that not all movies really benefit greatly from an increase in resolution. Here's what I've learned from renting several BluRay movies of different genres from Netflix.
Computer-animated movies benefit the most from high-definition. Movies like Cars, Madagascar and TMNT are noticeably clearer, sharper, and show tiny details you didn't see in the DVD. This is due mostly to the fact that these movies were originally created in digital form in very high-resolution on computers. BluRay transfers require very little conversion since it's essentially straight digital-to-digital at (or near) their original resolution.
Hand-drawn animation is kind of a mixed bag, in my experience. Some newer animations and newer retouchings of animations (such as the newly-remastered Sleeping Beauty) look crystal-clear and show details in the artwork that may have been muddy on the DVD transfer, particularly backgrounds. However due to the nature of the beast, high-definition can also show minor imperfections in the artwork of these features as well. Lines might not be perfectly closed or stray strokes might be seen. If the artwork isn't great to begin with (such as shows meant for Saturday morning TV) the BluRay treatment might actually look worse.
Of the live-action movies I've seen, the ones that stood out in BluRay were fantasy and science-fiction. The reason being, these genres tend to be very heavy on digital effects that take on a new clarity when the picture is sharpened. This can also be a detriment if the CG effects don't blend in well. You end up with a sort of "Scooby Doo effect" where the computer creatures are noticeably detached from the live action, almost like a second layer of film. Transformers and Iron Man are two often-shown demonstrations of high-def sci-fi. Even older films like Hellboy and The Fifth Element held up well on BluRay, although in the case of that last one it took a couple of tries to get it right.
Think back for a moment: when was the last time you remember watching a situation comedy because of its stellar special effects? The eye-popping locales? The vibrant costumes? Think hard. I can wait. My point is, for the most part movies that rely primarily on human interaction aren't going to wow you in HD. Sure, you might be able to see the stubble on Gene Wilder's face in Blazing Saddles, but does that really help the film be any funnier? (Note: That's not a knock on Mel Brooks. I actually find that movie hilarious. My point is that improved visuals have little or no impact on the movie itself.)
The same is true for dramas, but I wouldn't say it's universal. Some dramas are period pieces with elaborate costumes and sets, and these details actually do enhance the story being told. Memoirs of a Geisha or The Last Samurai are good examples.
One genre I'm not exactly an expert on is horror. I've been known to watch the occasional gore-fest, but by and large the style of horror that's popular right now (some have labeled it "torture porn") doesn't really do it for me. I did have the pleasure of watching The Thing in high-definition, but that's arguably more science fiction. If any of you horror buffs out there have an opinion on good high-def horror transfers, I'm all ears.
4. BluRay movies are (usually) GREATLY overpriced.
As I said in the previous section, not all movies are really worth buying on BluRay, especially when you can pick up the DVD in some cases for less money than a rental. However, if you just happen to have a favorite blockbuster that you know will look stellar in high-def, how much is too much to pay for BluRay? When the titles first started coming out it wasn't unusual to see stores charge upwards of $30USD for a single BluRay. You would think after the format had been out for a couple of years those prices would go down. That's not what's on the minds of movie executives, apparently.
The suggested retail price for many BluRay discs is still around $29.99USD. Let's think about this. When in your life have you watched a movie that you thought was so life-changing that you would be willing to pay $30 for a copy of it on home video? Don't all speak up at once. If this sounds insane to you, you're right. Paying $30+ for a disc that costs *at most* twice what a DVD costs to make (and that's a pittance these days) is nuts.
So what can you do? I bargain hunt. Sites like Amazon.com have sales and 2-for-1 deals just about every week, and even brick-and-mortar stores like Best Buy have been known to knock down prices to $15USD. Wal-Mart and Target have a decent selection of movies on BluRay for $20 or less. My personal threshold is $20. If I find a movie I just can't live without such as the case was with Cars I'm willing to go over $20 ($25 to be exact). Otherwise I think long and hard about how many times I'm going to watch it and whether it wouldn't just be better to rent it a few times instead. Until I start seeing BluRay movies at physical stores for $15 or less, BluRay is far, far away from my "impulse-buying" zone.
Another option I use a great deal is renting. Netflix, for instance, lets you rent as many BluRay discs as you want in a month (with the limitation being how many you can have checked out at a time) for $1 a month more than a regular subscription. I can watch the latest and greatest high-definition video without paying "latest-and-greatest" premium prices. Compared to a brick-and-mortar rental chain, renting 3 or 4 movies from Netflix pays itself off.