Blu-ray players with interpolation?

[4K2K]

I don't know if this is the correct place for this - or whether this should go in the players section or what.

Around January/Feb this year one of the insiders said that one day there will be Blu-ray players with interpolation (like the motion plus in 120hz LCDs). Has there been any updates on these? Will they allow interpolation to 60p or 120p or both?

Here's a link to a chip:
http://www.micronas.com/consumer_pro...ion/index.html

Key Applications
- 120 Hz FHD flat-panel display TVs
120 Hz FHD front and rear projectors
HD-DVD / Blu-Ray players with 120 Hz progressive HD output

Are there Blu-ray players which use one of these chips or similar ones or will there be and does anyone know when (is it still a year or two away)? Or are there known Blu-ray models that will be able to do this when released?

EDIT: I've just added this question to the Blu-ray players thread as it's probably more appropriate there. I was going to delete it from here but it doesn't give me the option

[JadedRaverLA]

No current models can do this. No announced models have this as a stated feature. Since every 120hz display has motion interpolation as an option, what would be the point in paying extra to have it done in the player? Also, though HDMI 1.3 has the bandwidth to support the signal, I don't know of any 120hz displays that can accept a 120hz signal.

As far as interpolation to 60hz, it's possible but you have to "throw away" every other frame in the 24fps stream and then create 4 frames between the 12fps you're left with.

Personally, I'm not a fan of motion interpolation anyway, but getting rid of half the frames so you only have 12 TRUE frames per second (and 48 interpolated frames) seems like about the worst idea in history.

In short, if players that can do this are ever released (and yes, companies have tested this), you'll probably never want to turn on the feature anyway.

[Teazle]

Er ... wouldn't that totally screw up the look of the video? Film just wouldn't look like film anymore.

[JadedRaverLA]

Originally Posted by Teazle

Er ... wouldn't that totally screw up the look of the video? Film just wouldn't look like film anymore.

Yep. That's why many... myself included... really dislike it. It makes movies look like they were shot by your cousin on his HD camcorder or something. Some people like it, though, for whatever reason.

Originally Posted by 4K2K

But I like options
and I don't want to buy a whole new TV for a feature which may not be that good, especially when I want other TV features like many locally dimming LED baclights which may not also have 120hz motion plus options. This was why I wanted the 60p and 120hz motion plus options in the player too. Also some players could be better at this than some TVs and you might not want to replace a very expensive big TV for one with this option when you might want a player with this option (and I'd need a new player for Profile 1.1 anyway).

Understandable. But if you are buying an LCD set with local dimming LEDs, it WILL by 120hz and have the motion interpolation options in it. At this point, pretty much all upper-mid level and higher sets are 120hz and offer some form of motion interpolation, while only the very highest end sets have LED backlights and local-dimming. I don't know of a single set currently on the market (or planned) that has LED LD but not 20hz, so I wouldn't worry about it.

As far as for use on existing sets, only the 60p variant would work on most sets, and with only 12 REAL fps to work with I would think the effect would be so bad you would never be able to successfully market a product with the feature. I could be wrong on that, but since companies have looked at the possibility, but no one has released a product with the feature, I'm guessing their tests reached the same conclusion.

[4K2K]

Originally Posted by JadedRaverLA

As far as interpolation to 60hz, it's possible but you have to "throw away" every other frame in the 24fps stream and then create 4 frames between the 12fps you're left with.

I'm sure there could be better ways of doing it than this though.
They probably don't have to throw away frames to get 12fps then try to convert that 12fps to 60fps. They don't even need to have any original frames from the original 24fps movie if you select this option, they could just look at the original 24fps frames, the position of all the objects in those frames, and use that information to create entirely new frames at 60p using the position of the objects in the original 24fps to help create the 60p.

[Clark Kent]

I have not heard any such thing being available yet on any BD player or planned BD player. But the man to ask would be KJACK, the Sigma insider, on his own thread in the Insiders forum. He could give you a definitive answer.

[JadedRaverLA]

So, you want to "throw away" the entire original film now and just recreate the entire thing using CGI or something? You might rethink that position before the masses find this thread and start stoning you or something.

Seriously, though, the most proper way to do motion interpolation from 24fps to 60fps is to use every other frame in the 24fps original stream and interpolate four frames between each of those. You could use the actual frame between the two used frames to help approximate difference data for motion, but you can't display it without it screwing up the entire effect of motion interpolation (as it would technically be frame 2.5 in the five frame sequence). In the end, the concept just doesn't work well given that you are really dealing with 12fps video, which means there is FAR too much motion going on between the frames you actually use. You're pretty much just making up motion and hoping you're in the ballpark at that point.

Think of it this way: with 120hz motion interpolation you have 24 actual frames in every second. No matter how bad the processing's guess is to how to create the surrounding frames, you at least have 24 frames per second that look right. With 60hz motion interpolation, you can only count on 12 fps being "accurate." That's nowhere near full-motion video, and if the processing makes a bad "guess" as to how we got from frame A to frame B, you're going to notice it, and its going to look terrible.

Of course, all this assumes that motion interpolation is a good idea to begin with... which I don't personally believe, but that's beside the point.

Originally Posted by Clark Kent

I have not heard any such thing being available yet on any BD player or planned BD player. But the man to ask would be KJACK, the Sigma insider, on his own thread in the Insiders forum. He could give you a definitive answer.

Kjack is definitely the man to ask on this. A lot of what I'm trying to say is based on a conversation we had on his thread quite awhile ago. I'm hoping he pops in here to correct anything I didn't explain correctly... or if they've discovered a better way to do anything since then. But, unless things have changed since then, they were preparing a 120hz motion interpolation design for some upcoming players, but weren't working on anything for 60hz due to the various problems associated with it.

[4K2K]

Originally Posted by JadedRaverLA

So, you want to "throw away" the entire original film now and just recreate the entire thing using CGI or something? You might rethink that position before the masses find this thread and start stoning you or something.

Seriously, though, the most proper way to do motion interpolation from 24fps to 60fps is to use every other frame in the 24fps original stream and interpolate four frames between each of those.

Here is one thing Kjack said about motion interpolation:

Originally Posted by Kjack

The relationship between input and output frame rate was important when doing simple frame duplication to increase frame rate. With motion interpolation, input frame rate can be easily convereted to any frame rate.

I bet with the best current converters between NTSC (60i) and PAL (50i) there might not be (or there doesn't necessarily have to be) any output frame that is exactly the same as one of the input frames. The same thing could be true of 24p->60p. I suppose if most of their processing is for 24p->120p and not the former, they could just take every 2 frames of their 120p output and blend them together and output 60p that way. Though that won't be as good as converting 24p->60p directly (using motion interpolation) - which I hope they provide an option for (as well as 24p->120p and others).

[4K2K]

Originally Posted by JadedRaverLA

But, unless things have changed since then, they were preparing a 120hz motion interpolation design for some upcoming players, but weren't working on anything for 60hz due to the various problems associated with it.

According to the new posts in the Kjack's insiders thread it seems there may well be 60hz motion interpolation options on players and not 120hz versions, as according to the insiders thread "24p -> 120p would not be supported as that is not supported as a standard input/output format for CE products".

Trouble is these players are taking a long time to come out, and by the time they do a lot more people will have 100/120hz HDTVs which may have better interpolation options than these players which will do 60hz interpolation (though it would still be good for my current TVs). It's a shame they don't design connectors on players and TVs that would handle 120p/240p inputs/outputs (in case interpolation algorithms in the latest players are better than a consumer's current HDTVs). It might also help with 3d and other frame rate stuff.