Are Blu-ray Discs 1080p On The Disc?

[AVDrummer]

I'm curious. I've read on the internet that Blu-Ray discs are 1080p. I thought that the Progressive Scan had to do with your display. (Example: An SD DVD is 480i, until you turn on the Progressive Scan output on your DVD player, and you must have a TV that can display a Progressive image.) So is a Blu-Ray disc 1080i on the disc until you display it on a Progressive Scan display? Or are the movies encoded on the disc at 1080p? Does it depend on the video encoding format? Are Interlaced and Progressive somehow different for Blu-Ray?

[J6P]

Originally Posted by AVDrummer

I'm curious. I've read on the internet that Blu-Ray discs are 1080p. I thought that the Progressive Scan had to do with your display. (Example: An SD DVD is 480i, until you turn on the Progressive Scan output on your DVD player, and you must have a TV that can display a Progressive image.) So is a Blu-Ray disc 1080i on the disc until you display it on a Progressive Scan display? Or are the movies encoded on the disc at 1080p? Does it depend on the video encoding format? Are Interlaced and Progressive somehow different for Blu-Ray?

All DVDs are encoded at 480i. You are correct; with DVD you needed both a Progressive Scan DVD player and Progressive Scan-capable display. If you had both, the interlaced signal was reinterlieved before playback.

Blu-ray, however, is a fully progressive source all the way down the chain. Every Blu-ray disc (save for a tiny handfull of 1080i releases) contains a full 1080 lines of information for every rendering pass.

[SpikesBluBlooded]

I know more educated people will provide a more thorough answer, but the short answer is that the disc carries the video at 1080p. There is no "upscaling" being done from the disc to the player and out to the TV...

[fighthefutureofhd]

Originally Posted by J6P

All DVDs are encoded at 480i. You are correct; with DVD you needed both a Progressive Scan DVD player and Progressive Scan-capable display. If you had both, the interlaced signal was reinterlieved before playback.

Blu-ray, however, is a fully progressive source all the way down the chain. Every Blu-ray disc (save for a tiny handfull of 1080i releases) contains a full 1080 lines of information for every rendering pass.

how do you know if you have a progressive scan capable display/television? and what kind of television can do the progressive scan?

[kpkelley]

Originally Posted by fighthefutureofhd

how do you know if you have a progressive scan capable display/television? and what kind of television can do the progressive scan?

Check your manual. If it says native resolution of 1920X1080 or accepts 1080P signals and down converts them to 1080i/720P, then it is capable of accepting 1080p video.

[fighthefutureofhd]

is that what they mean by progressive scan then? cause i wouldn't mind trying that feature out once i think. like to hear what all the fuss is about.

[AVDrummer]

Originally Posted by J6P

Blu-ray, however, is a fully progressive source all the way down the chain. Every Blu-ray disc (save for a tiny handfull of 1080i releases) contains a full 1080 lines of information for every rendering pass.

That pretty much answers my question. Thanks!

[gandley]

Originally Posted by fighthefutureofhd

how do you know if you have a progressive scan capable display/television? and what kind of television can do the progressive scan?

All flat panels are progressive scan. with the exception of old Alis panels and a very few 1080i sets in the early days, but just about every other flat panel TV converts all signals to progressive. its an old feature now.

[cvj]

Originally Posted by J6P

Blu-ray, however, is a fully progressive source all the way down the chain. Every Blu-ray disc (save for a tiny handfull of 1080i releases) contains a full 1080 lines of information for every rendering pass.

I just discovered that the BBC/Discovery Channel PLANET EARTH boxed set of 4 Blu-ray discs is 1080i not 1080P.

Isn't it a bit misleading to label 1080i as Blu-Ray? I would think that most users expect Blu-Ray to be 1080P.

(In fairness, it does say 1080i in miniscule print on the box.)

[geneboi]

Planet Earth IS 1080p....I believe you are mistaken

[BruceWayne]

Originally Posted by geneboi

Planet Earth IS 1080p....I believe you are mistaken

Not the Discovery HD version... the BBC one is 1080p yes, Discovery 1080i

Originally Posted by cvj

I just discovered that the BBC/Discovery Channel PLANET EARTH boxed set of 4 Blu-ray discs is 1080i not 1080P.

Isn't it a bit misleading to label 1080i as Blu-Ray? I would think that most users expect Blu-Ray to be 1080P.

(In fairness, it does say 1080i in miniscule print on the box.)

It's still blu-ray, it's not like they are saying "in glorious 1080p" on the front and the back reads 1080i. bitrates are still better on blu-ray than 1080i cable, so it should still look better than an HD broadcast would

[fighthefutureofhd]

Originally Posted by gandley

All flat panels are progressive scan. with the exception of old Alis panels and a very few 1080i sets in the early days, but just about every other flat panel TV converts all signals to progressive. its an old feature now.

even 780p televisions? thanks.

[UFAlien]

Just for the record, not ALL DVDs were 480i. There were, in fact, a good deal of 480p DVD releases where the progressive player and TV didn't need to deinterlace.

[ryoohki]

Originally Posted by UFAlien

Just for the record, not ALL DVDs were 480i. There were, in fact, a good deal of 480p DVD releases where the progressive player and TV didn't need to deinterlace.

Hummm you sure name a few? DVD spec doesn't allow MPEG2 at 480p...

[jibucha]

Hello

All DVD's [Discs] were encoded from the beginning in progressive and not interlaced, which is why 480p was so easily available early on at such reasonable costs, as manufacturers of player's were well aware of, making possible availability early in the development of the technology.

Has anyone a DVD Disc indicating specifically 480i picture quality; I seriously doubt it.

As this seems to be generally unknown based on the previous posts, I highly recommend further research by anyone that wishes to confirm this information using the internet; the information should be available to anyone that commits the required time to confirm.

While it is to be expected that Blu-ray is always 1080p, as DVD was 480p, it is certainly possible for any resolution to be available on Blu-ray; however, why would any studio do so, other than non-movie supplementary material previously available on DVD and otherwise?

Thank You

[UFAlien]

...wait. Crap. I was thinking of videogames on DVD. Never mind XD

[RazorFromHRSnet]

BluRay doesn't mean 1080p video. BluRay is an optical disc format. BluRay video can be encoded in 480i, 480p, 720p, 1080i, or 1080p. I would imagine if older things shot for HDTV in 720p were ever to be made available we would see it released in its original resolution, its not like film where a negative can be rescanned at higher res.

[Jason One]

There's a lot of misinformation here about DVD "always" being 480p. That simply isn't the case. For one thing, all content shot or edited in 480i video will be 480i on DVD. This includes just about every TV sitcom from the '80s and '90s, for example. Own any seasons of The Simpsons? That's native 480i on those discs.

The fact is, DVD was originally designed only to produce interlaced output. It is true that films can be stored on DVD as progressive MPEG-2 frames. However, those frames include instructions in the form of flags that tell the player how to correctly output them as interlaced video.

So, DVD players still have to decode the video first as an interlaced signal. Now, in a progressive or upscaling player, that signal can then be deinterlaced (using "reverse pulldown") to reassemble the interlaced fields into progressive 480p output. The result is indeed 480p, but it is not accurate to call DVD a 480p format.

In contrast, BD players can directly decode progressive video from BDs, and output it to the display without needing to do any deinterlacing at all.

For more info, I recommend this very long article from hometheaterhifi.com.

[welwynnick]

Originally Posted by UFAlien

Just for the record, not ALL DVDs were 480i. There were, in fact, a good deal of 480p DVD releases where the progressive player and TV didn't need to deinterlace.

All DVD's [Discs] were encoded from the beginning in progressive and not interlaced, which is why 480p was so easily available early on at such reasonable costs, as manufacturers of player's were well aware of, making possible availability early in the development of the technology.

Has anyone a DVD Disc indicating specifically 480i picture quality; I seriously doubt it.

As this seems to be generally unknown based on the previous posts, I highly recommend further research by anyone that wishes to confirm this information using the internet; the information should be available to anyone that commits the required time to confirm.

While it is to be expected that Blu-ray is always 1080p, as DVD was 480p, it is certainly possible for any resolution to be available on Blu-ray; however, why would any studio do so, other than non-movie supplementary material previously available on DVD and otherwise?

I rarely jump in with both feet and over-commit myself these days, but those posts are both completely wrong - DVD is interlaced video only (whether its 480i or 576i or a few other obsure formats that were hardly used).

I'd be very interested to know who says they are progressive, because they are wrong. Period.

DVD uses NTSC, PAL and SECAM video formats, all of which are interlaced.

The confusion often comes from the way that DVDs are often coded with field and frame flags, and some later decoders de-interlace the video rather than using a separate processor.

What's on the disc is interlaced though, and there are many authoritative sources to support this.

regards, Nick

[4K2K]

I agree with the above post, that DVDs are 480i / 576i. Though I think 'PAL' and 'SECAM' are the same thing on DVD (both the same frame rate & res). Really NTSC/PAL/SECAM are TV broadcast formats, not dvd formats, but the res/frame rate (and colour space perhaps?) of DVDs in those formats are made to be compatible with TVs of those formats (and 'SECAM' TVs use the 'PAL' DVD standard I believe).