Okay, So Why Do My SDVDs Look Worse?

[hahndo]

This has been semi-discussed in a previous thread, but I'm curious about this specific question: Why do my DVDs look worse on my HDTV than on my (long gone) CRT television?

Now, understand, I'm not comparing the quality of standard DVDs to Blu Ray (obviously), but my DVDs' performance on my HDTV vs a CRT television.

I've heard some explanations to the effect of the HDTV is now showing the flaws in the lower resolution picture, etc. I can buy this... up to a point. What I'm trying to sort out is why the density of the DVD image and the contrast ratio seems to be far less than on a CRT. Simply, some of my DVDs look like bad broadcast television now.

I clearly don't expect my DVDs to look anywhere near Blu Ray quality--that's a given--but I also don't/didn't expect them to look worse than before, particularly in light of all of this upconversion talk (which, to my eyes--and being an ex cinematographer, I'm a bit anal about picture quality--seems to do next to nothing.)

Anyone here have a technical/accurate explanation to what's happening here? Or am I just the one in a million that doesn't see any improvement (via upconversion, etc.) and, in fact, might even see a step down in DVD performance.

(Incidentally, I have a PS3. Although I used to have the Samsung BD-P1200, with it's supposedly amazing upconverting/DVD display abilities. The DVD performance on both has been identically mediocre.)

[BStecke]

Basically you have a bigger piece of bread with the same amount of peanut butter. You're spreading everything thinner. How's that for technical

[uGLYmE]

Well said.

[jk1138]

Originally Posted by BStecke

Basically you have a bigger piece of bread with the same amount of peanut butter. You're spreading everything thinner. How's that for technical

good example, I have to remeber that one

[Dynamo of Eternia]

Originally Posted by BStecke

Basically you have a bigger piece of bread with the same amount of peanut butter. You're spreading everything thinner. How's that for technical

Yeah, but I see what he's saying, and this peabut butter explanation still doesn't quite cover it. Even when compared to older Big screen SDTVs, the picutre of a lot of DVDs on a Hi-Def set in which the resulting picutre is about the same size still looks worse.

This issue has perplexed me as well. It's too bad there's not some kind of setting to correct this (since obviously 'upconverting' doesn't really do the job).

[BStecke]

The other thing is that the increased resolution is going to amplify flaws or defects in the source. Edge enhancement or the like will be much more apparent than on an SD CRT. To add to that, upconverting will upconvert the flaws as well, and you'll see those to an even greater extent. Which is why some DVD's look better on a progressive scan player than an upconverter.

[Luis_A51]

Upconversion is a sham as far as Im concerned

The reason why your dvds look worse is because the image is being stretched out over a wider screen. Also, make sure your TV is calibrated properly without any excessive sharpness etc.

[hahndo]

Yeah, I get what you're saying... but I'm not buying it. (Sorry! ) I just don't think that this explains it.

It's my gut feeling that there's something inherently at cross purposes between the way the DVD's data was originally designed to be transfered to a CRT and the way HDTV video signals are meant to be transferred/processed. Simple things that should have, at least, stayed at the same quality level are now degraded--contrast ratio, detail, colour levels, for example. Supposedly, these are now improved via upconversion (via the HDTV or the Blu Ray player or in concert) but I'm just not seeing this.

And this is NOT (or at least it shouldn't be) due to the image being 'stretched' over a wider screen--my HDTV 16X9 is smaller than my CRT 16X9 screen that I had earlier. (One of the rare Philps CRT widescreens that was sold in N. America--a standard in Europe.)

The strange thing is, in some ways, the DVDs both look better AND worse at the same time under one circumstance: whenever the picture information/scene in a particular instance is very high/strong from the DVD. A very bright and saturated scene? Picture looks, I have to admit, pretty damn good. But as soon as the DVD puts out a picture/scene that isn't jam-packed with data? That's when it looks like a lousy broadcast t.v. picture.

[BStecke]

Originally Posted by hahndo

Yeah, I get what you're saying... but I'm not buying it. (Sorry! ) I just don't think that this explains it.

It's not necessarily the size that's the issue, it's the resolution of the source/display.

The main thing you have to understand is that the DVD is made with X amount of data. The HDTV is capable of displaying Y amount of data. If Y>X, which in this case it is, the TV has no way of providing the data to fill in the gap between X & Y. This is basically what upconverters do . . . they basically take a pixel and guess what should be next to it, thus creating more pixels, but it's just a guess as to what should actually fill in the missing data. Such sources as HD broadcast or Blu-ray provides the actual data and thus the picture looks better.

Try this . . . to use your contrast example. If you take black paint and make a dot with it, say the size of a quarter. Let's say that's all the paint you have to fill up a 5x5 piece of paper, so you have to stretch it out. That black paper isn't going to look as black as that original black dot did.

[DisneyKrayzie]

Originally Posted by BStecke

Basically you have a bigger piece of bread with the same amount of peanut butter. You're spreading everything thinner. How's that for technical

that is a great simple explanation! I love it

[hahndo]

Originally Posted by DisneyKrayzie

that is a great simple explanation! I love it

Except that it's not really what's happening here. (Sorry, again. ) My previous tv was both a 16x9 and larger than my current HDTV--the only difference was it was a CRT. Other than that fact, it was identically anamorphically-based; there should be no issue of having to 'spread' a certain amount of data across a wider area.

And I guess the proof of what I'm getting at is with standard television broadcasts: these look great on my t.v. And, sadly, better than my DVDs. This same 'peanut butter' analogy should affect the television broadcast negatively/similarly, according to the theory, but doesn't.

[Alaskankaijudude]

Originally Posted by BStecke

Basically you have a bigger piece of bread with the same amount of peanut butter. You're spreading everything thinner. How's that for technical

Well said...Bilbo. :-)

[Bobby Henderson]

Standard DVD simply isn't designed to work on the much higher native resolution settings of HDTV monitors.

It's like trying to take a low resolution JPEG image from a little web page and blow it up onto a billboard. While the JPEG image looks fine in the low-res confines of a HTML web page layout, it will look absolutely awful blown up on a billboard. The image doesn't have the native pixel count to spread out over such a large area.

Older CRT-based NTSC television sets are also low resolution devices. Regular DVD looks good on those devices because its 720 X 480 pixel grid more closely fits the pixel grid of a NTSC television set.

CRT guns in old TVs can also adjust to minor differences in resolution between 525 line NTSC and 480p DVD. Flat panel plasma and LCD TVs have fixed native resolutions. Anything that doesn't match their native resolution is going to look at least a tiny bit odd. I have a 1080p resolution TV and even 720p HD broadcasts can look slightly strange, especially if I'm sitting close to the TV. Up-converted DVDs look okay, but not great. They're just soft and wanting in detail because the image is being blown up by 600%.

[BStecke]

Hmmm . . . for some reason I was thinking you're going from a CRT SDTV to a non-CRT HDTV . . . are you going from a CRT HDTV to a non-CRT HDTV?

[hahndo]

Originally Posted by Bobby Henderson

Standard DVD simply isn't designed to work on the much higher native resolution settings of HDTV monitors.

It's like trying to take a low resolution JPEG image from a little web page and blow it up onto a billboard. While the JPEG image looks fine in the low-res confines of a HTML web page layout, it will look absolutely awful blown up on a billboard. The image doesn't have the native pixel count to spread out over such a large area.

Older CRT-based NTSC television sets are also low resolution devices. Regular DVD looks good on those devices because its 720 X 480 pixel grid more closely fits the pixel grid of a NTSC television set.

CRT guns in old TVs can also adjust to minor differences in resolution between 525 line NTSC and 480p DVD. Flat panel plasma and LCD TVs have fixed native resolutions. Anything that doesn't match their native resolution is going to look at least a tiny bit odd. I have a 1080p resolution TV and even 720p HD broadcasts can look slightly strange, especially if I'm sitting close to the TV. Up-converted DVDs look okay, but not great. They're just soft and wanting in detail because the image is being blown up by 600%.

Now THAT'S what I'm getting at! Thanks!

You've put it into language that a cinematographer/photographer can understand.

Although I am still curious as to why my television broadcasts (non-HD broadcasts, mind you) seem to look better than the DVD performance; why wouldn't this explanation (which makes sense, mind you) apply to the broadcast tv image?

Cheers!

[statikcat]

Originally Posted by hahndo

And this is NOT (or at least it shouldn't be) due to the image being 'stretched' over a wider screen--my HDTV 16X9 is smaller than my CRT 16X9 screen that I had earlier. (One of the rare Philps CRT widescreens that was sold in N. America--a standard in Europe.)

It is smaller in size but NOT resolution. Your HDtv regardless of physical size has a resolution around at least 2x that of a DVD. Thus your picture is being stretched 2-3x. Your larger CRT has a native resolution at or closer to the DVD (assuming its not an HDCRT)

DVD looked funny on my LCD as well when I first got it. Older DVD especially. Newer DVD look fine for the most part. I honestly think part of it is just letting your eyes adjust to the LCD screen.. it took me a few weeks.

[hahndo]

Originally Posted by BStecke

Hmmm . . . for some reason I was thinking you're going from a CRT SDTV to a non-CRT HDTV . . . are you going from a CRT HDTV to a non-CRT HDTV?

Actually, it was a widescreen SDTV CRT (a Philips--sort of the standard in Europe/the UK) to a widescreen HDTV.

(Wow, this is getting confusing! )

[JadedRaverLA]

Originally Posted by hahndo

This has been semi-discussed in a previous thread, but I'm curious about this specific question: Why do my DVDs look worse on my HDTV than on my (long gone) CRT television?

Now, understand, I'm not comparing the quality of standard DVDs to Blu Ray (obviously), but my DVDs' performance on my HDTV vs a CRT television.

I've heard some explanations to the effect of the HDTV is now showing the flaws in the lower resolution picture, etc. I can buy this... up to a point. What I'm trying to sort out is why the density of the DVD image and the contrast ratio seems to be far less than on a CRT. Simply, some of my DVDs look like bad broadcast television now.

You never said what kind of monitor you use now, but it doesn't matter too much. The dirty little secret of the electronics industry is that CRT displays (which have gone the way of the dodo) had some MAJOR advantages over fixed pixel displays. They had mich better black levels and contrast ratio, and weren't limited to displaying a single fixed resolution.

Everything you feed into your new display is being converted to match the panel's resolution. This really isn't ideal, and why "upconverting" DVD players, etc. have become the norm. Hopefully, the upconverting DVD player you use does a better job of this scaling than the monitor... though, in some cases they don't. In any event, SD signals (from TV, DVD, etc.) tend to look worse on an HDTV set than they did on a quality older CRT set. Welcome to progress!

Originally Posted by hahndo

I clearly don't expect my DVDs to look anywhere near Blu Ray quality--that's a given--but I also don't/didn't expect them to look worse than before, particularly in light of all of this upconversion talk (which, to my eyes--and being an ex cinematographer, I'm a bit anal about picture quality--seems to do next to nothing.)

Anyone here have a technical/accurate explanation to what's happening here? Or am I just the one in a million that doesn't see any improvement (via upconversion, etc.) and, in fact, might even see a step down in DVD performance.

(Incidentally, I have a PS3. Although I used to have the Samsung BD-P1200, with it's supposedly amazing upconverting/DVD display abilities. The DVD performance on both has been identically mediocre.)

I don't think you're one in a million -- nor do I generally believe the hype with "amazing" upscaling claims. The Realta and Reon processor are much better than most scaling chips but they can't really create detail that isn't there... they still just fill in "missing" pixels with a guess as to what should be there. It may smooth out lines better than another scaler, but there's really no additional detail being created.

Having your monitor properly calibrated can make a BIG difference in the image quality on both HD and SD material. Also, ensuring that you sharpness and most image manipulation options (edge enhancement, noise reduction, etc) are turned OFF or set to low in your TVs menu options can help a lot too. But at the end of the day... certain deficiencies exist in all the new technologies -- and there's not much you can do about that. Some of the upcoming technologies, such as OLED, fix most of the problems with current display technologies (no need for a backlight, great contrast ratio, etc) but are still fixed pixel displays and will require everything to be scaled to that resolution.

[hahndo]

Wow, thanks for the great responses!

Although I wasn't in search of a 'solution' here, I was curious as to what the heck was going on. (The geeky photographer in me coming out, I suppose.)

Your responses have really filled in the gaps... er, or should I say pixels?

Cheers!

[ryoohki]

It the same thing as.. why Xbox game look nice on a CRT and Really crappy on a HDTV... HDTV have way more pixel and precision. Precision kill the 'apparence of greatness' of CRT 480i TV

This resolution was designed back in the 50's for TV up to 27inch, witch didn't exist until just recently (in the TV world) in that time a 27inch TV was Uber HUGE and they didn't think it would get bigger than this..