TOSHIBA HD-A20 is really a 1080I player with problems. BLU-RAY is better quality

[HDTV1080P]

According to page 88 and 89 of the August 2007 Home Theater magazine the Toshiba HD-A20 HD DVD player does not have a real 1080P output and it also does not deinterlace 1080I correctly.

Home Theater Quote number 1 page 88 August 2007.
“With the deinterlace test from silicon Optix HQF HD DVD, the HD-A20 does not correctly deinterlace 1080I. Worse, it doesn’t detect the 3:2 sequence from film based 1080I material. At first glance, this shouldn’t matter. All HD DVDs are natively 1080p/24 on the disc. But nearly all (some accounts say all), next generation players convert the 1080p/24 on the disc to 1080I first, then back to progressive if desired. Done right, this isn’t a big deal; but, done wrong, it is. If that is what the HD-A20 is doing, then it seems that it’s not performing the last stage correctly. Unfortunately, there is no specific test available to verify this either way.”

Home Theater Quote number 2page 89 August 2007.

“If you want real 1080p, you’ll have to save up for the excellent HD-XA2, which has some of the best processing and scaling of any disc player on the market. Of course, it’s 63 percent more expensive.”

So when comparing second generation HD-DVD players to second generation BLU-RAY players there is only one model of HD-DVD player that has a true 1080P/60 output. The Toshiba HD-XA2 is the only true 1080P/60 HD-DVD player. Perhaps a firmware update this fall to the HD-A20 and the HD-XA2 will offer true 1080P/24 output. BLU-RAY standalone players have had true 1080P/24 output since December 2006. Currently 1080P/24 is not found on any HD-DVD player yet.

[hmurchison]

It's still all for naught unless you have 24p output and a display system capable of input at a factor of 24 for judder free playback.

I'm less concerned about 1080i vs p output and more concerned about the de-interlacing. The disc content is p so really the only thing to worry about is the transfer to display.

[HDTV1080P]

Since the Toshiba HD-A20 does not deinterlace 1080I correctly then half the resolution is discarded.

[phloyd]

The HD DVD specification really didn't consider 24p at all. They barely even considered 1080p 60.

So none of this comes as any surprise - you get what you pay for.

[haushausman]

Just when I thought you couldn't stack more sh*t on top of sh*t...

[hmurchison]

Originally Posted by phloyd

The HD DVD specification really didn't consider 24p at all. They barely even considered 1080p 60.

So none of this comes as any surprise - you get what you pay for.

That was a gaffe on their part. If you wish to see what the director intends then you certainly don't want to add more judder than what is already native to 24p film.

[theknub]

Originally Posted by hmurchison

That was a gaffe on their part. If you wish to see what the director intends then you certainly don't want to add more judder than what is already native to 24p film.

but as the op said, there is a problem with 24 fps

[Jack Torrance]

HDTV: This is big news... as wasn't this front and centre of Toshiba's most recent little desperate firesale promotion? And those that bought into it have a dud on their hands (an HD-DUD as it were).

Sad.

[dialog_gvf]

Originally Posted by hmurchison

That was a gaffe on their part. If you wish to see what the director intends then you certainly don't want to add more judder than what is already native to 24p film.

I believe there is a proposal before the DVD forum to fix this gaffe.

Gary

[phloyd]

Oh noes! They aren't going to change the standard are they?

All the 'mandatory since day one' arguments are key to the success of HD DVD!!1!one!1one!

[theknub]

Ohs Nose Tehs Skyz Is Fallin!

[desmond]

does anyone know why has toshiba had problems getting 1080p/24 done? if t is stored natively firmware fix should be straight forward...

[phloyd]

Part of the problem, as noted earlier with no clarification, is that the HD DVD standard does not support 24 (or 23.976) 1920x1080 progressive. It supports 29.97 fps interlaced. That is all.

HOWEVER, it should be noted that the files on the discs are stored using progressive frames, but with special flags that indicate how those frames should be converted to interlaced 30 fps pictures. This way the decoder will output the correct 29.97 1080i as required by the standard.

If you look at the header of one of the files (I have done this with AVC HD DVD files) the frame rate is specified at 29.97 fps.

So, for the player to not mess with the 24 fps encoding, the decoder would have to violate the standard and ignore the flags that instruct it to create interlaced frames at 29.97 fps and create progressive frames at 23.976 fps instead. This would require the decoder as well as the rest of the system to actually be able to go into the stream and determine if the underlying data is really progressive or interlaced, and change what it does based on this. All of the information that the headers have indicates that the streams are interlaced, as this is what the HD DVD standard requires.

This information was first revealed (iirc) by Rich at RBFilms when he encoded Chronos.

[desmond]

Originally Posted by phloyd

Part of the problem, as noted earlier with no clarification, is that the HD DVD standard does not support 24 (or 23.976) 1920x1080 progressive. It supports 29.97 fps interlaced. That is all.

HOWEVER, it should be noted that the files on the discs are stored using progressive frames, but with special flags that indicate how those frames should be converted to interlaced 30 fps pictures. This way the decoder will output the correct 29.97 1080i as required by the standard.

If you look at the header of one of the files (I have done this with AVC HD DVD files) the frame rate is specified at 29.97 fps.

So, for the player to not mess with the 24 fps encoding, the decoder would have to violate the standard and ignore the flags that instruct it to create interlaced frames at 29.97 fps and create progressive frames at 23.976 fps instead. This would require the decoder as well as the rest of the system to actually be able to go into the stream and determine if the underlying data is really progressive or interlaced, and change what it does based on this. All of the information that the headers have indicates that the streams are interlaced, as this is what the HD DVD standard requires.

This information was first revealed (iirc) by Rich at RBFilms when he encoded Chronos.

i am well aware of that hence i asked amir if vc-1 encodes were portable across formats and he replied yes (though his definition of meta data is very lax). vc-1 works at 24 fps on my ps3...