Phuket

Benjy · #36 10-03-2007, 22:40

The PC will oflload some of the processing onto the video card, it obviously can't do this with the USB HD-DVD drive.

Also I would suggest that going from CRT to digital (especially LCOS) is probably mostly what gives it that wow factor, rather than any difference between 720p and 1080p, Analogue CRT is a MUCH softer picture than any digital projector. I have wowed people by going from a 1080i CR picture to the most budget 720p Digital LCD Projector.

The Ruby is a $10,000 projector, which must be the equivelant of a $200,000+ CRT projector from 7-8 years ago, Projectors typically follow a similar rule to computers in that they increase in power or decrease in price by a substantial amount each year. Try putting up a normal TV bought for 10,000 pounds 7 years ago, versus a display you can buy for nowadays 10,000 pounds - you'd probably be talking about a 37" CRT vs a 65" LCD.

ATMwalking · #37 11-03-2007, 10:54

I have heard of Ruby but have yet to actually see one. Where in Phuket or BKK can I have a look? I'm ready to drool.

LivinLOS · #38 11-03-2007, 18:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by Benjy

The PC will oflload some of the processing onto the video card, it obviously can't do this with the USB HD-DVD drive.

I am not following this.. Why does the USB drive not allow offloading the processing to the vid card.. Surely the drive is the data source then piped into the PC for decode and out via the GFX card for display ??

As to the CRT digital comments.. I think it would depend very heavily on the projector AND how well it was set up.. I have seen an (ampro ??) 9500LC 9 inch CRT that was razor sharp once it had warmed up.. PC text etc very crisp.

I would also have to say that in a pitch dark blacked out theater room this was probably the best image I have ever seen.. However I like dual use lounge room with projectors and so need digital brightness..

ATMwalking · #39 20-03-2007, 23:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by LivinLOS

Some of the 'Planet Earth' series through FFDShow filters is shockingly HD like..

Next month this is coming to HD-DVD. Although the kids are now saying Blu-Ray may be better.

LivinLOS · #40 21-03-2007, 08:52

That may actually get me to buy into a HD-DVD drive..

tintin · #41 22-03-2007, 16:02

There are a lot of HDDVD-BD on the newsgroups. So I will wait for a player until the protection is better. X-box plays on a computer, but CPU is skyhigh. Ripped dvd files, even on an external HD, has much lower cpu. This is not the USB control, because then the Cpu would be the same on HD. I think it has to do with the HDCP control on the disc that takes a lot of CPU versus the ripped files!

Quote:

DVD can look (almost) as good as those HD clips with some really good DVD's and post processing IMO..

The difference between 720 p and 1080 i/P is not only digital, but the resolution. On my CRT, I would have said the same. The higher resolution of 1080i/P is realy MUCH higher. All you do with FFDshow that works on a crt, will be magnified and EE (edge enchantement), will come more visible on a 1080 p display. It is not of scaling lines with a scaler or computer where there originaly aren't that will give you a better picture at such a high resolution!

There is lesser HD material, true. But you will have the FULL RESOLUTION anyway! Even a nice Dlp a nec 1100 720 p, will look good, but will be a world of difference with a 1080 P, like the sony's, and the new JVC HD 1.

Now I do not work with HDDVD and BD players. I work with computer only. For TS (sat) material, you have much better internal players, like Theatertek, BS player and KM, where you can choose your filters. For BD and HDDVD, even ripped, we depend on the lesser Powerdvd. Even the latest 7.3 is full of bugs, and need improvement.

I watched a TS file "stick it" with KMplayer last night. Although sat-material, although a bit high compression, this looked stunning. The movie was bad, but who cares with such an image displayed. Watching a dvd, any dvd after that, is very difficult!

ATMwalking · #42 22-03-2007, 17:02

Yep. I have yet to get the new HTPC. So I haven't been able to view any true HD stuff.

I grabbed some of the reencoded HDDVD/BR stuff. It was dropped down to 720p and DVD9 size using x264 codec. Even that rescaled up to my 1080p was shocking compared with most of the broadcast stuff. I know for sure once I can look at true HD there will be a true 3D type pop.

TinTin, making my final decision between Nvidia and Ati. Heard both have problems with Powerdvd. Which are you using?

tintin · #43 22-03-2007, 17:27

Quote:

TinTin, making my final decision between Nvidia and Ati. Heard both have problems with Powerdvd. Which are you using?

That is THE question I don't like to answer. You have people defending furiously one videocard or another, and things changes fast in this matters.

I have an Nvidia 7600 GT, which is HDCP. It is avery good card, with a very good price/quality. Be aware there are versions which seem not to be HCPC.

The 7900 is considered as the best in Nvidia, but if it is worth the difference in price, not sure, maybe for gamers. On the feautures is claims to do Inverse TC, which could be an advantage, but do not know if this is real, as I am not sure this has more to do with the software as the card itself!

Again, I did not follow the latest efforts of ATI. Before their cards were better, but with HD, Nvidia has taken a big step forward, even if their soft is not always the best. I had the top of the not, in ATI before, image was very crisp, but more static then with my NVIDIA now. The 7600 is also an impovement over the 6600, I had on my regular computer, the one using now. My Home theater computer is NEVER connected to internet. Powerdvd, doesn't give me that much problems, but it is not perfect yet. Heard the ATI could be more difficult. A lot of people complain about the blacks being to dark and have lack of detail. In the Nvidia menu, you can if this occur, correct that.

Be aware. You have to take a very good dualcore processor. Intel from 6300 on, but if you can take a bit more horsepower. Athlon works fine too 4200 + dual is the minum, do not go lower.

Take enough virtual memory at least 1028. For the rest it is very important to use good internal players. The most difficult is to find the combination, between the splitter, and the decoder. I have combinations that will perfectly play, let's say on a H 264 file, but not on another! That is why I have configured my 2 main players BD and KM a bit differently, if it doesn't play on the first, it will play on the other.

I would DL (it is free) KM player, that is the easiest one to configurate. Zoomplayer professional is very good too, but a bit more difficult. What is strange, even if you use the same splitters/decoder, result will not be the same. KM player give a bit more punch to the movie, ZP is more neutral.

Good luck with it!

EDIT

Quote:

Yep. I have yet to get the new HTPC

Now for the moment you can try "anydvd". FOR RIPS THIS IS NOT NESSECARY! When the HDVD is rippen on you hard disc, most of the time it will work without HDCP. Only if you use an internal player, or an X box, you will either go around the HDCP with any dvd (works not all the time!), or indeed have another computer. If your computer works fine, and handles ripped HDDVD well, I will not change for the moment.

ATMwalking · #44 22-03-2007, 17:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by tintin

That is THE question I don't like to answer. You have people defending furiously one videocard or another, and things changes fast in this matters.

And that's why I asked it

I am settled on all the other specs. Was waiting for the video card debate to settle down, but it seems to have picked up.

Leaning towards Nvidia right now. Will be going intel for the CPU.

The one thing that concerns me with Nividia is running dual screens (not mirrored) at seperat resolutions. I want to run a HDMI cable into the bedroom to that TV from the second DVI port. It is only 720p but my main screen is 1080p. I've heard that even the newer Nvidia cards have a problem with this. Are you doing this kinda set-up?

tintin · #45 22-03-2007, 18:31

No there I can't help you out! Have just the Ruby connected.

LivinLOS · #46 22-03-2007, 19:30

I have that issue with an older Radeon card I use.. I run VGA out to a LCD TV and DVI to the projector.. It should support dual resolutions but they dont stick for some reason.. So I just send 720p which is native for the projector and the TV takes the 720p as a HD source and scales to the 1365x768 LCD.. I am not bother about the LCD as its just a daytime TV.. I could maye solve this buy doing some driver research but its a low priority.

The other issue that I have never been able to solve is that the overlay can only be sent to one monitor or another.. As dscaler can only use overlay and not VMR9 or other rendering method and as dscaler in essential for TV use its kind of left me stuck.. Not something I am really bothered by as to be honest the LCD TV is simply for the GF to watch Thai soaps in the daytime or me to play xbox on in daylight hours..

ATMwalking · #47 22-03-2007, 19:37

So I am leaning more towards ATI now

Thougth this coudl be of use. From abhdtv.net

Quote:

On ATI versus nVidia, there's a big discussion in the thread I linked to in my earlier post, and in the VMR9 vs Overlay thread. I have strong views because by the end of 2006 I became so disappointed with my nVidia card (7600GS) that I bought an ATI X1950 Pro just to have better-looking video. (I now have a spare 7600GS, passively cooled, if anybody wants it - would need to ship within Europe only I guess.)

Here's my take on the debate:
* for MPEG2 and h264, my experience is there is a worse 'base level' of color banding on nVidia cards - meaning banding at default settings without doing any level conversion - on nVidia at default settings I could even see color banding in my desktop wallpaper
* if you are doing a video->PC level conversion, or if you are using the 'color correction controls' at all, then nVidia banding becomes worse - while the output of ATI color controls has essentially no banding even at non-default settings
* nVidia base setup for brightness and gamma is different from ATI - ATI is fractionally darker than nVidia - and the default color controls mean different things for the two manufacturers - even the basic implementation of "brightness" and "contrast" controls is different. Seems to me that nVidia defaults are more "attractive" out of the box, and ATI, which is more muted, is probably "purer". Depending on the material, ATI becomes more attractive to my eyes if you push up (Overlay) gamma level to around 75, contrast to 1150 and brightness to 950 - that makes ATI look like nVidia, but without the color banding issues. If nVidia is applying a little bit of processing for its default levels (?), that could explain why nVidia has banding issues even when color correction controls are at default levels.
* nVidia drivers do not support hardware Gamma correction in Overlay (neither card supports it in VMR9)
* as a broad generalisation, ATI tends to produce its smoothest and best-looking video output in Overlay (for example it is sharper), and nVidia in VMR9
* nVidia recent drivers have been buggy for 2D video (for example, couldn't zoom any part of the video window off the screen), I gave up at around version 91.30 though
* for h264 video specifically, the popular combo of ATI hardware acceleration with PowerDVD codec used to have downconversion ("SVCD look") or deinterlacing issues with some caps (e.g. SkyHD caps from the UK), but this is fixed in the latest PowerDVD - and if you are using CoreAVC then this will not matter for you anyhow
* for MPEG2 video hardware acceleration, deinterlacing, IVTC etc, nVidia and ATI are not really very different from each other, you can get different behaviours for specific test streams or specific flag sequences (HDQ, anybody?) both are pretty good now, but for my money the modded DScaler5 software decoder is probably the best anyhow for 99% of abhdtv files
* There may be sharpness/resolution issues on nVidia, which seems to be a driver/card specific issue - I've never noticed it anyhow
* ATI cards have a convenience factor: if you're doing anything l33t like setting up keyboard shortcuts for changing resolutions or switching between displays, then it is easier to set this up in ATI drivers, and more reliable. (When I used to use nVidia, driver 84.56 which was supposed to be a stable one, this crashed probably once a fortnight; and it would crash any video player if you change nVidia resolutions while the player is active.)

To summarise, a lot of my issues with nVidia are color banding issues, which seems connected to the color correction controls/level conversion. I do agree that nVidia default color controls are more attractive and would look better than ATI if it were not for the banding - but ATI can get to the same position by tweaking the color controls. If you are not doing a level conversion at all (i.e. your PC is outputting video levels) or if your connection to your display is analogue (e.g. CRT projector) then these nVidia color banding issues, will not be an issue for you

- that could be why different people have very different opinions.

I am 100% happy with my ATI X1950 Pro. My setup is: PC level output via DVI to a digital projector, video playback in Overlay mode, and (in Zoom Player) the tweaks to default brightness, contrast and gamma that I mentioned already.

tintin · #48 22-03-2007, 19:58

Be aware that you can find oposite views on the same forum and others. Others have also problem on ATI......

Anyway, if you buy a good card from any of these company's, in PC there is always some luck! Could be a tweaking, a set up, one of these cards do not like to cause problems. For the moment my computer is working fine, I am happy and that is a lot if you use these machines.

ATMwalking · #49 20-04-2007, 10:57

I've entered into a self-imposed ban on buying new hard drives.

That's ok as there has been a flood of DVD5 and DVD9 sized reencodes of HDDVDs. Mostly they are x264 with some xbox compatible wmv. The quality is quite good on the DVD9s but they drop the resolution to 720p generally. I am using these to review various titles and will go for the full HDDVD/BluRay on titles I really like. Upside is they aren't too CPU intensive as I still have yet to get a dedicated HTPC. Also any player will play them compared with the screwing around for the full disc.

There must be close to 100 reencodes out now mostly living in the a.b.hdtv.x264 group. A good way to wet your feet with the new formats.

Benjy · #50 21-04-2007, 01:15

I would be very interested in getting my hands on some WMV movies made from HD-DVD or BluRay, My new place is going to use xbox360's exclusively as extenders so any high def WMV content is very high up on my list.

If anyone can do this (HD DVD to WMV) I'd be happy to supply original HD-DVD movies for the task.

tintin · #51 24-04-2007, 16:27

It is certain that these full HDDVD/BD takes a lot of space.
I agree that for non-favourites and viewing -one time only, those x 264 and wmv, can be pretty good too, at least better then a dvd.

I do prefer for some good movies, or spectacular one´s picture-wise, like MI 3, Casino Royale to have the original file. It is sharper but most of all there is much less noise and the 3d effect, depth of image is intact.

I have 2 external drives and two internal (I have a second computer-homecinema only), and will buy one ñore to stock only real HDDVD/BD I want to keep.

But the x264 thing doesn´t solve everything! Indeed, as they take less DL time, you just DL....more of them!

ATMwalking · #52 24-04-2007, 18:02

True, but they are dead easy to burn out and archive on DVDs. Like the other night I thought I would give Smokin' Aces a whirl. Poped in the DVD and played the .mkv. Ok wanna be movie. Glad I only used 5 gigs and one DVD on it.

But if it came to something like MI3, The Matrix (very soon), or something like that, then it is the original file all the way!

Whichever way you go, there really is a flood of them out there now. Just wish there was a sub $500 dual burner out there. Then I wouldn't care so much. Or back to the thread title...go looking for some pony ones.

LIL, Planet Earth is out this week.

ATMwalking · #53 25-04-2007, 07:53

Quote:

and, simply put, this disc delivers the kind of breathless demo material that early adopters have been craving. Far superior to the broadcast version, both next-gen editions boast wonderfully stable video, no obvious compression noise, and certainly no pixel break-up

HD DVD Review: Planet Earth: The Complete Series | High-Def Digest

No reviews yet on how it compares with the original BBC HD broadcast.

ATMwalking · #54 10-05-2007, 12:18

I missed this anouncement.

It will now play h.264 using ATI's codec. Seems the h.264 tops out at 15 Mbps which is a little low. 20 would have been better. I guess with streaming you can bypass and container issues and not have to transcode. sweet. I haven't played with Media Player 11 yet so it is all a theory right now. But almost everything i watch is h.264 so this could be very sweet. the dudes say WMP 11 is acceptable so just need to update my filters and codecs Combined Community Codec Pack
Saves by a new HTPC if true. Still have more to read.

Also hoping it fixes the 1080p component sony xbr problem.

LivinLOS · #55 10-05-2007, 12:35

Yeah it also has a new backup disc detection (so flashed box users dont update).. Theres already better firmware that beats the spring update for samsung drive'd 360's...

ATMwalking · #56 10-05-2007, 13:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by LivinLOS

Yeah it also has a new backup disc detection (so flashed box users dont update).. Theres already better firmware that beats the spring update for samsung drive'd 360's...

So I guess I can't update mine then. Does the lotus guy have the firmware? Have you done it yet?

LivinLOS · #57 10-05-2007, 15:39

The firmware is out.. Xtreme 5.3 has a stealth for backup detection.. Prasit said his guy can update, just have to be bothered to do it..