Technical question re blue ray technology

[BraveRobot]

Hi. My friend has a nice 52" LCD Sony and a Sony Blu ray player hooked together with an HDMI cable. I watched No Country For Old Men on it. This is the first time I've watched anything on blu ray so I had a couple questions I was hoping you experts could clear up for me.

First, I noticed that sometimes the movement on the screen seemed sped up. It was most noticeable when people would move their hands quickly. It was subtle at first but it was definitely there and it became annoying after a while. What was that?

The second thing I noticed was that watching a movie on such high resolution can sometimes make the movie look wrong. It's possible this is because his TV was calibrated wrong and I wish I could be more descriptive but it's really hard to put my finger on why it looked wrong. Maybe there was too much contrast and it looked fake. I'm not sure. Does anyone know what I'm talking about?

I don't know the models of either his TV or the blu ray player but I think he got them at Best Buy and they're both new. Thanks guys!

[un4gvn94538]

no country was a great looking film. but not all blu rays have great transfers. i would think that the tv wasnt calibrated correctly.

as far as motion being sped up, dont know. motion blur?

[BStecke]

Sounds like your friend has the Motionflow feature (or whatever Sony calls it) turned on. It's not Blu-ray, it's the TV. You can turn that feature off. As far as the colors or whatever, it's very possible he has it calibrated incorrectly, or not calibrated at all.

[donaldheil]

Hi.

You don't give much information, like the model of the TV set. Somebody who owns a particular model of Sony is more qualified to give you an opinion.

I understand that Sony is making a lot of experimentation with image enhancement in order to get the more natural and tridimensional looking picture possible. The results, though, are not always ideal in all circumstances.

Take by example this review about the BRAVIA XDR series on www.cnet.com

"Engaging either of the Sony's two 120Hz modes, Standard or High, had a marked effect on nearly every scene in Flags, but shots with lots of camera movement were the most obvious. When the camera pans over the beach in the middle of Chapter 10, for example, the scene was nearly judder-free and uncannily smooth in Standard, and basically completely smooth, with almost no visible judder, in High. In both cases the camera seemed like it was on rails, the handheld shots moving past the injured soldiers appeared less jerky and much steadier. As with the Toshiba, we found the smoothing effect disconcerting in these scenes and in general throughout the film. Looking at other film-based sources, including the motorcycle chase from Chapter 9 of Ghost Rider (which looked so unnatural and video-game-like we couldn't help laughing) and the pan across the luncheonette at the beginning of The Departed, which again was looked too-smooth for its own good, we've come to the conclusion that for film, judder is mostly a good thing. Subjected to the Sony's processing, most scenes looked like TV instead of film, and we're so used to the latter look that we preferred to leave the Sony's motion enhancer set to Off when watching film-based material.

We also noticed a few artifacts produced by the Sony's processing, particularly in High mode. During Chapter 7 of Flags the camera follows a plane as it takes off quickly, and at a certain point in the pan the entire frame suddenly "locks in" to smooth mode, and a palm tree in the foreground unnaturally becomes solid where before it had evinced judder. We saw that effect in both modes, but in High the plane also evinced a faint, decidedly unnatural "ghost" that followed behind it. Sony's engineers told us they'd designed the set to function primarily in Standard mode, and that some artifacts might arise from the more aggressive smoothing action of High. In a scene from Digital Video Essentials on HD DVD, we also noticed (in both modes again) that the yellow fence behind a pair of frolicking youths suddenly scrambled and broke up, then resumed normal appearance the next instant. Again, the scrambling was more apparent in High mode.

While Hollywood films mostly suffer to our eye from Sony's smooth treatment, one area where we felt the processing was entirely welcome came in nature documentaries, specifically Planet Earth. This spectacular production includes numerous helicopter flyovers of mountains, caves, glaciers and the rest. In all of them judder was quite apparent and, when seen next to the smoother Sony and Toshiba, quite unwelcome. The smoothed-out camera movement and other motion throughout the series looked entirely more natural in 120Hz mode. We attribute this difference to the, ahem, natural setting of the content; we expect nature documentaries to look as realistic as possible, whereas films should look perhaps less so, and more like film. Of course, as we said with the Toshiba, you can disengage these modes at will according to preference, and merely having them is a great option".

The whole review can be found here:

http://reviews.cnet.com/flat-panel-t...-32468193.html

Anyway, we're talking about a special feature of the TV, which in case of trouble, can simply be switched off.

But as I said, this is just a guess. The best thing is to have the exact model and let those who have it have their say.

By the way, I watched NCFOM on a Bravia TV (not the model mentioned) and found no problems like the one you described.

[BraveRobot]

ooo, thanks. I think it's the motionflow thing.. I'll read what you guys wrote and ask my friend about it later.

The main reason I was asking about it was because I was concerned about the technology as a movie buff. I think a little grit and grime can do a movie good. Most of my favorite movies are at least 25 years old and it doesn't really matter the resolution of the screen. Cinematography benefits to a certain extent where screen size, resolution and the fruits of technology are concerned. But most of them I think I could watch on my laptop and be satisfied.

[Petra_Kalbrain]

Originally Posted by BraveRobot

ooo, thanks. I think it's the motionflow thing.. I'll read what you guys wrote and ask my friend about it later.

The main reason I was asking about it was because I was concerned about the technology as a movie buff. I think a little grit and grime can do a movie good. Most of my favorite movies are at least 25 years old and it doesn't really matter the resolution of the screen. Cinematography benefits to a certain extent where screen size, resolution and the fruits of technology are concerned. But most of them I think I could watch on my laptop and be satisfied.

You say that now, but just wait until you see Blu-ray in action properly! And that Motionflow setting is just plain dumb. It definitely enhances the clarity of the image a bit, but the consequence is that there is a slight "visual echo effect" or "tracing effect." That's why I went with a Sony Bravia W3000 instead of an XBR4. No point in paying for something that I'm not going to use anyways.