Blu-ray Disc DOES NOT mean 1080p

[lexonex]

That’s right. I learned something tonight. I guess I’m kind a slow. I thought Blu-ray guaranteed 1080p as p for progressive scan. NOT SO. The only “consistency” for the term Blu-ray Disc is that is must be played in a Blu-ray player.

I am the proud owner of three (3) Blu-ray Discs that are 1080i as i for interlacing scam. That is scam not scan. PLEASE READ THE FINE PRINT WHEN YOU PURCHASE ANY BLU-RAY DISC. I am not interested in any 1080i format for my Blu-ray player. Period.

I have Blu-ray Disc “Planet Earth”—prepare to see it as never before—Episodes: Pole to Pole, Mountains and Deep Ocean. This is not the entire box set but, I guess you would call it a “teaser”. It does look pretty good but, every time I hit “info” on my HDTV remote it would show “DVD 1080i”. i ? How could that be? I thought it just must be some kind of glitch with my HDTV. Well……..I took out a magnifying glass (I kid you not) and sure enough there it was in the lower right hand corner just under the Widescreen 16:9; 1080i.

Truthfully, at least Discovery HD Theater put the 1080i on the package. I just did not catch it because I don’t normally carry a magnifying glass with me when I go shopping. As in regards to the other two purchases, I bought Blu-ray Disc “Over California”—In High Definition and Blu-ray Disc “Over America”—In High Definition both by TOPICS ENTERTAINMENT. Nowhere on the packaging does it give the video format. These two are both 1080i. Or is it understood that a Blu-ray Disc stating “high definition” really means 1080i and if it would of said “full high definition” that would mean 1080p? To me that is just pure BS. 99.9% of the buying public seeing/buying a Blu-ray Disc thinks it is 1080p or top of the line high def which means 1080p. What a trap to buy something less than what you think it is……….

So, lesson learned. “Blu-ray Disc” DOES NOT MEAN 1080p. BUYER BEWARE!

[arush5268d]

Ummm.....it was common knowledge that the US version of PE is 1080i. That's why pretty much everyone on this forum bought the UK version.

Also notice that the Blu-rays that you mentioned were not movies. They were made for TV shows. Since the best you can get via satellite / HD cable is 1080i there is little point in shooting documentaries in 1080p. In other words...if the source video was shot on a 1080i camera then it will be put on Blu-ray as 1080i.

Try doing some research next time.

[WriteSimply]

Originally Posted by lexonex

That’s right. I learned something tonight. I guess I’m kind a slow.

What you learned is correct.

The difference between broadcast HD and BD is that so far broadcast is maxed on bandwith-limited 1080i with Dolby Digital 5.1 audio, whereas BD maxes out at 1080p24 with Dolby TrueHD/DTS HDMA 7.1 lossless audio. BD can go lower but broadcast can't go any higher.


fuad

[jw]

there are a few 1080i blurays out there.Nothing lower than that on blu-ray that I am aware of.
All the 10.00 EchoBridge releases(beer league,cat 7, etc) are 1080i as well as a few of the Discovery release. but thus far all major blockbuster releases have been 1080p

[JadedRaverLA]

Blu-ray spec only allows for 1080p at 24fps (the standard framerate for film). Material shot on video at 1080i60 or 1080p30 HAS to be stored as 1080i60 on the disc. There's absolutely NOTHING wrong with a disc being 1080i. If it was shot at one of those framerates, it has to be.

I have no idea what you mean by "interlace scam" but either your Blu-ray player or HDTV will deinterlace the 1080i60 video to 1080p60 for display. Assuming you have decent equipment, this is fairly easy to do for your equipment (and is done automatically), and shouldn't result in PQ issues.

1080p24 on the other hand, has to have 3:2 pulldown applied (unless you have a display that can display 1080p24 video at a multiple of 24fps) to produce a 1080p60 video stream that your TV can display. The processing to do that is no less complicated than the deinterlacing of 1080i60 video, and has the added problem of introducing "judder" into the image.

My advice... put away your magnifying glass, and never hit info on your player again. Just enjoy the discs. No one is scamming you -- its just a quirk of the spec and the difference between a film source and a video source.

(Good question, though... if an explanation of this isn't already in the FAQ or a sticky in the newbie section it probably should be, as I know this is a common misconception.)

[4K2K]

Originally Posted by lexonex

I am the proud owner of three (3) Blu-ray Discs that are 1080i as i for interlacing scam. That is scam not scan. PLEASE READ THE FINE PRINT WHEN YOU PURCHASE ANY BLU-RAY DISC. I am not interested in any 1080i format for my Blu-ray player. Period.

I have Blu-ray Disc “Planet Earth”—prepare to see it as never before—Episodes: Pole to Pole, Mountains and Deep Ocean. This is not the entire box set but, I guess you would call it a “teaser”. It does look pretty good but, every time I hit “info” on my HDTV remote it would show “DVD 1080i”. i ? How could that be?

I'd be celebrating the much higher frame/field rates that are on the discs than the vast majority of discs. Also, unlike 24p, 60i discs can be played back on any HDTV without 3:2 pulldown judder (whereas if you only have a 50/60hz compatible HDTV 24p movies will have 3:2 pulldown judder). Though this title was converted from 50hz to 60hz so could have looked even better. If only Blu-ray allowed 1080p50/60 things would be even better. But for titles originally recorded on interlaced cameras at 50i/60i, it doesn't make sense to convert them to 24p as you will lose quality.

[lexonex]

Originally Posted by JadedRaverLA

My advice... put away your magnifying glass, and never hit info on your player again. Just enjoy the discs. No one is scamming you -- its just a quirk of the spec and the difference between a film source and a video source.

Yeah, good advice...I have cooled off some since last night. Alot of "tech" talk in the above posts. I'm not sure if my HDTV is upconverting it to 1080p or deinterlacing.....


From my manual:

Video:
60 Hz: 480i, 480p, 720p, 1080i
24 Hz, 30 Hz, 60 Hz: 1080p

Image Technology
DLP, 0.65” chip, 1920 x 1080 pixels with Smooth Picture™

Special Features of Your TV
Your new high-definition widescreen television has many special features that make it the perfect center of your home entertainment system, including:

1080p High-Definition DLP™ Display System

Your Mitsubishi HDTV uses Texas Instruments Digital Light Processing™ technology for rear-projection TVs to create the picture you see on screen. All images are displayed at 1080p. The TV uses Plush 1080p to convert lower-resolution signals to 1080p for display. The TV can also accept 1080p original signals and maintain them at 1080p through all processing until displayed.

"All images are displayed at 1080p"....What does that mean exactly? I have DISH Network. Why does CNN HD look so much better than other non-HD channels if "all images are displayed at 1080p"? AND why would a BD look better than a DVD IF "all images are displayed at 1080p"?........AND when I put a "regular" DVD in my BDP S300 and start hitting "video format" on my BDP S300 remote and get 720p or 480p or 1080i the "video formats" should look the same because "All images are displayed at 1080p" ???????

[4K2K]

Originally Posted by lexonex

From now on: "BD no say 1080p I no buy."

Don't you think it's good that some things have a higher frame rate than 24fps though? If you never buy anything except things recorded at 1080p24 you'll miss out on most concerts and lots of documentaries. Concerts and documentaries look more real at 60i than 24p.

[lexonex]

Originally Posted by 4K2K

Don't you think it's good that some things have a higher frame rate than 24fps though? If you never buy anything except things recorded at 1080p24 you'll miss out on most concerts and lots of documentaries. Concerts and documentaries look more real at 60i than 24p.

I took it down......still cooling off.......

[aramis109]

Another thing to keep in mind is that Blu-Ray isn't a video spec, it's just a storage medium. Just like burnable cd-r's and dvd-r's, anything can be put on them.

Any broadcast television shows, such as Planet Earth are going to be no higher than 720p/1080i. As you noted, your HDTV is going to de-interlace it and/or upscale it anyway.

The time to be irritated is when movies are in 1080i. I forget which one it was- Terminator 3 I think? that was 1080i. Then we can get out the pitchforks and torches.

[lexonex]

Somebody got to educate me here…..So, I put in a BD that is 1080i. My HDTV then de-interlaces the signal to a 1080p BUT, the 1080p will be displayed at a higher refresh rate of 30 Hz or 60 Hz as opposed to a 24 Hz? Has this 1080p/30Hz or 60Hz lost anything?

AND, the little square box that pops up on my HDTV screen when I push "info" on my Sony BDP S300's remote and states “DVD 1080i” is really only telling me the source of the signal because what I am watching or being displayed on my HDTV screen is 1080p/30Hz or 60Hz?



When I pop in a BD Film that is 1080p/24Hz, that is exactly what is being displayed on my screen? And that is good because?

Why would I not want ALL BD as 1080i if it gets de-interlaced to 1080p/30 Hz or 60Hz? If what is being displayed is ALL 1080p why would I not want 1080p at the higher refresh rate of 30 Hz or 60Hz? There has to be some kind of downside/disadvantage of de-interlacing.

[4K2K]

Originally Posted by lexonex

Why would I not want ALL BD as 1080i if it gets de-interlaced to 1080p/30 Hz or 60Hz? If what is being displayed is ALL 1080p why would I not want 1080p at the higher refresh rate of 30 Hz or 60Hz? There has to be some kind of downside/disadvantage of de-interlacing.

Well most movies are 24 frames per second, and for people with the newest HDTVs that can receive a 24p signal and display it at a multiple of 24 frames per second (actually it's changed to something like 23.976 fps), encoding movies like this is better as you won't get the 3:2 pulldown judder that you will get with a 24p movie encoded as 60i.

In the UK most movies on DVD were encoded at 50i, this could work for Blu-ray too and you wouldn't have pulldown judder, but the disadvantage is the movie would be sped up with possible pitch/incorrect timing. So again it will be better when all TVs are properly compatible with 24fps (and until then the players can output 24p movies at 60i/p with pulldown judder but if you have the newest TV they will look better).

But for some things, like concerts and documentaries which are recorded at higher frame/field rates it's good that they can be encoded at higher rates. Though not all de-interlacers are created equally. It's a shame we can't have higher frame rates at full HD encoded progressively (eg. 1080p50).

Surely new Blu-ray players and TVs could, as well as being made compatible with 24p, why not also let them read and display many other frame rates at HD resolution so we can get rid of interlaced for new content. But I still think 1080p30/1080i60 is better for some content than 1080p24.

[4K2K]

Originally Posted by lexonex

Somebody got to educate me here…..So, I put in a BD that is 1080i. My HDTV then de-interlaces the signal to a 1080p BUT, the 1080p will be displayed at a higher refresh rate of 30 Hz or 60 Hz as opposed to a 24 Hz? Has this 1080p/30Hz or 60Hz lost anything?

It won't have lost anything if that documentary or concert was originally recorded at that rate. If that content was originally 60i and was converted to 24fps when the encoders put it on disc, it will loose something (quality, and motion rendition). A concert recorded at 1080p50/60 might be even better than one at 1080i50/1080i60 but Blu-ray can't do that.

If the content is a 24fps film but the people doing the encoding encoded it as 60i instead of 24fps, and your TV and player is fully compatible with 24fps (eg. the TV can display at 24fps multiples and the player can output at 24p) then you will have lost something by them encoding the 24fps movie at 60i I think and it would have been better quality if they had encoded it as 24p.

[Deciazulado]

Originally Posted by lexonex

I am the proud owner of three (3) Blu-ray Discs that are 1080i as i for interlacing scam. That is scam not scan. PLEASE READ THE FINE PRINT WHEN YOU PURCHASE ANY BLU-RAY DISC. I am not interested in any 1080i format for my Blu-ray player. Period.

You just learned that there are other 1080 formats besides 1080p24. Those programs you listed are recorded in 1080i60 (60 fields per second) which has actually more motion information than 1080p24 (and that's why they look shot "live", like for example TV broadcasts), so the Blu-ray Disc is just giving you the original format. Blu-ray Disc is a container where you can store motion picture images up to 1080 x 1920 60i with up to 7.1 lossless channels of audio, etc. For example, you could have a Blu-ray Disc program with 720p60 mono if that was the original format of the program.
In general, most movies and filmed documentaries are 1080p24, most concerts and hdtv documentaries might be 1080i60, etc etc.

[Deciazulado]

Originally Posted by 4K2K

It won't have lost anything if that documentary or concert was originally recorded at that rate. If that content was originally 60i and was converted to 24fps when the encoders put it on disc, it will loose something (quality, and motion rendition). A concert recorded at 1080p50/60 might be even better than one at 1080i50/1080i60 but Blu-ray can't do that.

If the content is a 24fps film but the people doing the encoding encoded it as 60i instead of 24fps, and your TV and player is fully compatible with 24fps (eg. the TV can display at 24fps multiples and the player can output at 24p) then you will have lost something by them encoding the 24fps movie at 60i I think and it would have been better quality if they had encoded it as 24p.

First I don't think anything recorded in 60i will be converted to 24p for a main feature


And 24p format could be encoded as 60i (like mostly anything encoded into NTSC for half a century was) and if your equipment can take 60i encoded input and display it as 24p by deinterlacing it correctly (3:2 inverse telecine and weaved fields) theoretically you wouldn't lose quality if everything was done properly. (Which is of course the real question, but just doing 24p -> 60i -> 24p digitally doesn't imply something automatically would be lost)

[4K2K]

Originally Posted by Deciazulado

First I don't think anything recorded in 60i will be converted to 24p for a main feature

Here's one (and it's a sampler of others):
https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/movies.php?id=576

Here's another:
https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/movies.php?id=577
(note "Video resolution: 1080p" (yet it was recorded at 1080i60))

EDIT: actually I may be a bit mistaken about the above two. Although the first one was recorded partially at 60i and the 2nd one totally recorded at 60i, it says in the specs that it's authored on Blu-ray at 1080p at a frame rate of 29.97fps not 24p. Though exactly how that works I don't know as don't you have to encode 30p content as 60i? - I suppose they did that and flagged it somehow as progressive. I don't have a Blu-ray player that shows the frame/field rate to confirm, though I don't know why they wouldn't have left it at the original rate it was recorded at, other than so they can advertise that it is apparently "1080p" (even though it isn't really if it was recorded on a Sony 730 HDCAM at 1080i60 with each field from a different point in time). And if they've converted it from 60i to 30p they'll have lost a lot of that motion that they recorded in the first place.

[4K2K]

Originally Posted by Deciazulado

And 24p format could be encoded as 60i (like mostly anything encoded into NTSC for half a century was) and if your equipment can take 60i encoded input and display it as 24p by deinterlacing it correctly (3:2 inverse telecine and weaved fields) theoretically you wouldn't lose quality if everything was done properly. (Which is of course the real question, but just doing 24p -> 60i -> 24p digitally doesn't imply something automatically would be lost)

Well if you encoded a 24p movie as 60i, even if you really could de-interlace it properly to 24p in the player or TV, it would be less efficient and you'd need a higher bitrate. So in a way you would lose something - either picture quality or disc space or need a higher bandwidth for the same content (also, what if I wanted to see the individual frames that made up a movie, so I used a frame advance button - if the 24p movie was encoded as 60i wouldn't frame advance advance 1/30th of a second instead of 1 frame (1/24th of a second) - and might the still frames show picture information from more than one frame)?

Though I think I might have read somewhere that internally some of the chips do actually use interlacing/de-interlacing, even for content that is progressive - though I'm really not sure about that.

But I'm sure one of the people who makes some of the best de-interlacers (might have been Faroudja) once stood up at a conference and said something to the effect of "proper de-interlacing is not possible" (or something like that) - I don't have a link to the quote, but I think he too was suggesting that, for new content it would be better to have progressive (including high frame rate progressive) than interlacing because de-interlacing isn't always perfect. So a concert at 1080p60 should be better than one at 1080i60 - if it was recorded at 1080p60 and it had sufficient bandwidth etc.

[lexonex]

When I pop in a BD Film that is 1080p/24Hz, that is exactly what is being displayed on my screen? And that is good because? Because that is what they filmed it at. 1080p/60Hz would be better but, nobdy shoots/films in that format too big to store.

Why would I not want ALL BD FILMS as 1080i if it gets de-interlaced by my HDTV to 1080p 60Hz? If what is being displayed on my HDTV is ALL 1080p why would I not want 1080p at the higher refresh rate of 60Hz? AS a consumer, would the BD 1080i be the better selection over a BD 1080p/24Hz?

What is the advantage FOR CONSUMERS of BD movies going with 1080p/24Hz ?

Using my HDTV, BD 1080i which is de-interlaced to 1080p/60Hz Better or not than a BD 1080p/24Hz ?

[richieb1971]

This thread makes no sense. If PE was filmed in 1080i then how does the UK have 1080p? Upconversion?

I have a USA version (the telephone number and BBC address gives it away) and its most definitely 24p on my TV as I've checked it many times.

[4K2K]

Originally Posted by lexonex

Why would I not want ALL BD FILMS as 1080i if it gets de-interlaced by my HDTV to 1080p 60Hz? If what is being displayed on my HDTV is ALL 1080p why would I not want 1080p at the higher refresh rate of 60Hz? AS a consumer, would the BD 1080i be the better selection over a BD 1080p/24Hz?

What is the advantage FOR CONSUMERS of BD movies going with 1080p/24Hz ?

Using my HDTV, BD 1080i which is de-interlaced to 1080p/60Hz Better or not than a BD 1080p/24Hz ?

If your TV is a 60hz only one, and is not one of the newer ones that can receive a 24p input and display it at a multiple of 24, then having movies encoded at 24p rather than 60i isn't making much difference to you currently, as you will still have 3:2 pulldown judder - unless your TV has a mode which make it appear better (some 60hz TVs have a "film mode" when receiving an interlaced signal which can attempt to make it back to a 24fps film - but I don't see how that can work properly or as good as one of the TVs that can output at a 24p multiple like 120hz as 60hz isn't an exact multiple of 24).

If you one day get a new HDTV that can receive 24p and display it at a 24p multiple you will be glad that all the 24p movies you bought were encoded at 24p as you will have them at their best quality and without the 3:2 pulldown judder.