Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Pioneer Blu-ray. Results.

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Is it worth waiting for next gen audio formats?

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The next generation audio formats Imo are great, I'm getting mine through HDMI on my receiver with my PS3. I'm replacing my 360 add on with the Toshiba HD XA2 so I can get the new sound formats for HD DVD. The Toshiba is also HDMI 1.3 compatible.
I'm in the HD DVD camp with Nick, although I have both BR as well as HD DVD, there are possible proprietary issues with future BR DVD's that may not be accepted by existing players. With Sony, one never knows what they will do.

I couldn’t care less if there is a format victor or not, just give me High Def video and audio. I love both children equally. And I certainly hope that this thread doesn’t turn into a format war debate. I’m about sick of seeing that crap. But if anyone is really passionate about it, there’s over a million posts on that very topic at AVS.

To comment on the different resolutions….

1080i verses 720P becomes easy to see a difference with Action/Sports or video based content.

720P verses 1080P isn’t that great of a leap unless you like to sit about 3’ away from your display. I couldn’t see any pixel structure on my 96” X 41” screen with 720P until I got about 4’ away from it. With my 1080P projector, I have to get about 12” away from it to see it.

Where I did notice a significant difference between the two projectors was in regards to color, contrast and depth. Whether that improvement was worth the cost is a personal issue. The other benefit going with the 1080P unit is I can send a native 1080P / 24 / 24 (24 frames per minute at 24 Hz) video signal to the projector. This is the same format that is stored on the HD/BR disk and there is no drop down cadence frame manipulation or doubling. It’s a frame for frame reproduction of the data that’s on the disk…..and it looks incredible.

And I'll mimick Michael's comments on the Audio. It's worth it. The difference is like going from low res WMA / MP3 to SACD.

No format war here. You will see an unbias set of comments from both users. More of an anti-Sony thing than anything. But you are right, that is off topic. The resolution situation has been explained, and I think that you brought up another valid point. Quality of the display, regardless of HD resolution, will have a huge impact on the end result image. Colors, tints, brightness, contrast, etc, etc are just as important.

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It hasn't happened to me but one guy just got roasted for saying how excited he was that his new Toshiba HD player would be showing up shortly.

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These are the same type of people that roast Axiom and have never heard the speakers. I just got my Toshiba XA2 all setup after downloading the updates, I was able to watch about 30 minutes of the Happy Feet HD DVD before my 3 year old took his nap, bar none this was the best visual and audio I have ever seen and heard. I'll post a better review later when I get a chance to play around with it some more.

such bulls%%%t,

just a way to do nothing, simplest form movies are 24 frames per second. only P3 outputs videa in 1080p

refreshs are 60 times per second
unless you have a 1320 x 1080 screen you cannot see the difference between 1080i and 1080p ..... do the math and talk to your eye doctor unless you have a bionic eye it is impossible. you will lose more information than you can see.

And Sat, cable will never output 1080p at least for the next 10 - 20 years. They are spending billions now just to convert to 1080i because it is mandated.

Um... no one's mandating 1080i. They're mandating broadcast (ie, antenna) be digital by 2009, but that doesn't necessarily mean HD. And it's got nothing to do with satellite or cable.

Standalone HD-DVD and Blu-Ray players also output in 1080p.

1080p is also ~1900x1080, not 1320x1080.

Sorry got the 1365x768 720p mixed up with 1080

1080i v. 1080p
By Geoffrey Morrison • November, 2006 Less than meets the eye.
The most frequently asked questions I've received this year have been about the difference between 1080i and 1080p. Many people felt—or others erroneously told them—that their brand-new 1080p TVs were actually 1080i, as that was the highest resolution they could accept on any input. I did a blog post on this topic and received excellent questions, which I followed up on. It is an important enough question—and one that creates a significant amount of confusion—that I felt I should address it here, as well.



There Is No Difference Between 1080p and 1080i
My bold-printed, big-lettered breaker above is a little sensationalistic, but, as far as movies are concerned, this is basically true. Here's why. Movies (and most TV shows) are shot at 24 frames per second (either on film or on 24-frame-per-second HD cameras). Every TV sold in the United States has a refresh rate of 60 hertz. This means that the screen refreshes 60 times per second. In order to display 24-frame-per-second content on a display that essentially shows 60 frames per second, you need to make up or create new frames. This is accomplished by a method called 3:2 pulldown (or, more accurately, 2:3 pulldown). It doubles the first frame of film, triples the second frame, doubles the third frame, and so on, creating a 2-3-2-3-2-3 sequence. (Check out Figure 1 for a more colorful depiction.) So, the new frames don't have new information; they are just duplicates of the original film frames. This process converts 24-frame-per-second film to be displayed on a 60-Hz display.

It's Deinterlacing, Not Scaling
HD DVD and Blu-ray content is 1080p/24. If your player outputs a 60-Hz signal (that is, one that your TV can display), the player is adding (creating) the 3:2 sequence. So, whether you output 1080i or 1080p, it is still inherently the same information. The only difference is in whether the player interlaces it and your TV deinterlaces it, or if the player just sends out the 1080p signal directly. If the TV correctly deinterlaces 1080i, then there should be no visible difference between deinterlaced 1080i and direct 1080p (even with that extra step). There is no new information—nor is there more resolution, as some people think. This is because, as you can see in Figure 1, there is no new information with the progressive signal. It's all based on the same original 24 frames per second.

In the case of Samsung's BD-P1000 Blu-ray player, the player interlaces the image and then deinterlaces it to create 1080p. So, you get that step regardless.

Two caveats: Other Blu-ray players can output 1080p/24. If your TV can accept 1080p/24, then it is adding the 3:2 sequence, unless it is one of the very few TVs that can change its refresh rate. Pioneer plasmas can change their refresh rate to 72 Hz, and they do a simple 3:3 pulldown (showing each film frame three times). This looks slightly less jerky.

If you're a gamer, then there is a difference, as 1080p/60 from a computer can be 60 different frames per second (instead of 24 different frames per second doubled and tripled, as with movie content). It is unlikely that native 1080p/60 content will ever be broadcast or distributed in wide numbers. The reasons for this are too numerous to get into here, but I list them in my follow-up blog.

So Don't Worry (Or Only Worry a Little)
Without question, it would be better if all TVs accepted a 1080p input. (Read that again before you start sending your e-mails.) What I hope this article points out is that, if you have a 1080p TV that only accepts 1080i, you're not missing any resolution from the Blu-ray or HD DVD source.

"The truth is this: The Toshiba HD-DVD player outputs 1080i, and the Samsung Blu-ray player outputs both 1080i and 1080p. What they fail to mention is that it makes absolutely no difference which transmission format you use—feeding 1080i or 1080p into your projector or HDTV will give you the exact same picture. Why? Both disc formats encode film material in progressive scan 1080p at 24 frames per second. It does not matter whether you output this data in 1080i or 1080p since all 1080 lines of information on the disc are fed into your video display either way. The only difference is the order in which they are transmitted. If they are fed in progressive order (1080p), the video display will process them in that order. If they are fed in interlaced format (1080i), the video display simply reassembles them into their original progressive scan order. Either way all 1080 lines per frame that are on the disc make it into the projector or TV. The fact is, if you happen to have the Samsung Blu-ray player and a video display that takes both 1080i and 1080p, you can switch the player back and forth between 1080i and 1080p output and see absolutely no difference in the picture. So this notion that the Blu-ray player is worth more money due to 1080p output is nonsense."

At 28 minutes, Happy Feet stops playing on my player. When I see that time come up, I have to skip forward to the next chapter or it dies, and I have to turn it off and try again. The Children of Men HD DVD has also given me a lot of grief. I'm kind of getting sick of the combo discs. I'm paying more for them even though I only care about the high-def side, and they seem to be causing issues for a lot of people.