1920 x 1080 HD (50i, 60i and 24p) is what BR supports

[mainman]

1920 x 1080 HD (50i, 60i and 24p)
1280 x 720 HD (50p, 60p and 24p)

What does 50i, 60i, 50p, 60p, 24p mean?
And why doesnt 1080 have 50p and 60p?

Thanks

[ProvenFlipper]

Originally Posted by mainman

What does 50i, 60i, 50p, 60p, 24p mean?

Thanks

Those numbers indicate the frame rate.

[mainman]

Originally Posted by ProvenFlipper

Those numbers indicate the frame rate.

I thought fps was frame rate.

[ProvenFlipper]

Originally Posted by mainman

I thought fps was frame rate.

Yes, fps does stand for Frames Per Second, but when you see some thing like 1080/24p it means 1920x1080 pixel resolution at 24 frames per second progressive.

It's just a shorthand way of writing it.

[mainman]

Originally Posted by ProvenFlipper

Yes, fps does stand for Frames Per Second, but when you see some thing like 1080/24p it means 1920x1080 pixel resolution at 24 frames per second progressive.

It's just a shorthand way of writing it.

What does the i stand for then? 1080/30i and 1080/60i, so that mean these arent 1080p, but 1080i?

[georgir]

i means interleaved
this is an old trick - refresh only the even lines on one frame, then on the next frame refresh only the odd lines. it was a good idea at first, because it saved half the bandwidth, while still giving a smooth motion effect.

tech details aside, you can just think of it like halving either the resolution or the framerate, plus some unconfortable artifacts when it's not processed properly

[mainman]

So the Blu-ray doesn't support 1080/50p and 1080/60p?

Under "Video highlights" it says:

1920 x 1080 HD (60i, 50i and 24p).

Please tell me this is a typo.

[no_wei]

unlike a lot of people on this board, i'm not a completely and utterly badass digital video ninja, so i can't speak to just how attrocious a lack of 1080/50p or 1080/60p would be, if it does, in fact, exist.

i can however tell you that a maximum framerate of 1080/24p might not be as bad as you think.

there's a major argument for 24p potentially being the most superior framerate of the bunch. and that's that all (or at least the super-fantastic overwhelming majority of) motion pictures that are shot on film are shot at 24 frames per second. all cameras (barring high-speed or time lapse cameras, which are used pretty much exclusively for time distorting effects, either slow motion or, as the name suggests, time lapse) capture images at a rate of 24 frames per second and all projectors project images back at 24 frames per second.

it's been this way for a very long time. (during some earlier periods in the history of film, projectors and cameras [especially hand-cranked cameras] didn't always run at consistent or standardized frame rates, this is why most really old cinema looks kind of jumpy or warbly... but i digress)

this particular framerate causes a bit of a headache when transferring film to video, as NTSC runs at 29.97fps and PAL runs at 25fps. In NTSC, a certain number of frames are dropped or averaged out or something (to be honest I don't really know how it works. people tell me and i forget). At any rate (no pun intended) the original framerate and number of frames is more or less mangled. In PAL, because 25 is pretty close to 24, the individual frames aren't actually touched, but rather the whole film is sped up slightly. Some people prefer this method while some others, most notably those with perfect pitch who happened to see the film in the theatre or are a huge fan of the original score, are driven absolutely mad because, i'm told, the audio is increased in pitch by a whole semitone. overall, i personally believe one would have to be pretty finicky to really complain that much either way, but there's no denying that a certain amount of damage has been done to the integrity of the original film by converting to either NTSC or PAL. six of one, a half dozen of the other.

So, i think the main idea behind 24p being adopted as a standard is that it already is the standard.

It doesn't make sense to watch a high-definition-worthy blockbuster like Lord of the Rings in 50 or 60p because there aren't 50 or 60 frames for every second of movie. there are 24, and only 24. so why split them up? it might make a certain amount of sense if there was a 48, 72, or 96p option, because then you would only be multiplying the number of times the same frames are displayed without breaking them up (i'm assuming this might have some advantage from a purely video standpoint, but i really don't know), but at 50 or 60p you need to make changes to either the actual frames, or the rate at which they're displayed. obviously if you sped up a 24fps film to run at 60fps it would be unwatchable. it would be like listening to a 33rpm record on the 78rpm setting.

All of this is not to say that 24fps is some kind of magic rate that was handed down from God. It was just an agreed upon standard that did the job. If you could shoot and project something at 48, 72, or even 1 million frames per second you'd most likely get a better image. to use the record analogy again, it's the difference between a 33 and a 45, or an mp3 that's sampled at 32khz versus one that's sampled at 44khz. So the more times you can "sample" the original scene being acted out, the better. I would hazard to guess that as the film industry, both production and distibution ends, becomes more and more digital we'll start to see films that utilize a higher framerate. not necessarily tomorrow, but eventually. that being said, until we no longer decide to watch the last 100 or so years of cinema, which i think we all hope is a decision that's never made, we'll need to keep the 24fps option open.

and, also, this answer really doesn't address the issue of higher framerates in video games. in one of the other threads someone had mentioned that they thought the ps3 was in fact capable of doing 1080/60p, so I would bet that means blu-ray can do it, too.

anyway, that was a complicated answer to a simple question.

/no

[Psiweaver]

this thread is great.

[JTK]

Originally Posted by Psiweaver

this thread is great.

Indeed, but I think I need to lie down after reading some of these posts.

[Psiweaver]

Lie down on the couch.