>"Neuman - Ruether" <d_ruether@hotmail.com> wrote in message

>news:3e71732a.9813038@newsstand.cit.cornell.edu...

>> OK, I've expressed here my reservations about HDTV, at

>> least as demonstrated at the local Sears and Best Buy

>> stores, where rows of mediocre pictures can be seen on

>> various HDTV models, with soft, "globby" images and

>> poor text-sharpness passed off as an improvement over

>> my sharp-looking old 27" and 20" TVs (with one 50"

>> Pioneer plasma HDTV being about the only exception),

>> and I've assumed that the lower-than-Mini-DV data-rate

>> of broadcast HDTV had a lot to do with this, and that if

>> SD Mini-DV shows "painful" artifacting, that the much

>> greater data density (and resultant much higher

>> compression ratio) of HDTV would look worse. I've

>> also assumed that the SD-DV I've produced would look

>> at least OK displayed in the middle of an HDTV

>> display...

>> Well, the "light" struck recently when a friend invited

>> me over to see his new HDTV theater system. I expected

>> his relatively-inexpensive LCD projector (a $2000

>> Panasonic 1/2-1080i resolution one) to show the usual

>> "chain-link fence" pattern I had seen before, or the

>> weak color, mushy definition, low d-max etc. that I

>> had also seen. We started with a DVD of Star Wars II,

>> which looked much better than I expected on the 8'x4.5'

>> grey-painted screen, viewed at about 9' - with surprising

>> detail (though this looks good on my 27", even off a

>> VHS tape...), good color, weak blacks (viewed in the dark),

>> and very low level of compression-artifacting. Next we

>> looked at a dish-received [HDTV] broadcast of a "flight

>> over British Columbia". The detail was nothing short of

>> AMAZING!!! To the corners of the close-viewed 8' screen

>> (where, BTW, the 16x9 looked "right", and I now withdraw

>> my "Bandaid-view" and "slot-view" comments about 16:9...;-),

>> one could see not only distant trees on hillsides

>> crisply-rendered, but the branches! Rock-detail, fences,

>> distant signs, etc. all looked crisp on this BIG screen!

>> All was good but the blacks, so I asked if we could

>> adjust settings (which had been centered). Maxing

>> the contrast and minimizing the brightness on this

>> PT-L300U Panasonic projector (total cost of the visual

>> parts of this system were about $2500 - with a really

>> good [NOT standard-commercial!] sound-system added...)

>> about satisfied me for image brilliance, and I enjoyed

>> flying around BC...!;-) Notable was the COMPLETE LACK

>> of visible compression and motion artifacting...

>> We next watched a small Mini-DV production I had made,

>> using highest-quality 3-CCD "handycam-style" camcorders.

>> I had hoped that in a future HDTV era that all my work

>> in SD DV would look good enough centered on good

>> HDTV displays. It looked terrible, with annoying

>> artifacting galore! Color was excellent, but it did

>> not look sharp (except for the annoying stair-stepping,

>> "scan-line flapping", etc. I was VERY disappointed.

>> It may be that the conversion from 480 lines to 540

>> lines may have been a problem, and it may be that with

>> line-doubling and interpolation that a useful output can

>> be saved, but......, this was very disheartening. I have

>> seen this material look good on large SD displays,

>> though, so maybe there is hope...;-)

>> Next we tried a bit of SD CNN. It looked soft, with

>> considerable variation in the sharpness of included

>> video clips (running from soft to mush), but there was

>> little artifacting (even 340-lines max. looked better

>> than the 500-lines or so of the best of the SD DV...).

>> Finally, we watched a dish-received HDTV-broadcast

>> movie (Ocean's Eleven). By now, I was used to the

>> VERY-close-to-projected-35mm-look of HDTV, so it was

>> not a surprise that I was more aware of the film grain

>> in the original film than I was of the tiny DV pixels

>> (generally evident only at the edges of diagonal parts

>> of white text against black...).

>> Latter I saw an HDTV broadcast of a Spanish street

>> festival. Moving close to this big screen, the detail

>> held surprisingly well - I could see stitching in

>> clothing, read the text on a microphone someone was

>> holding, look down and see (and be able to identify

>> some of) the litter in the gutter, etc. This was

>> SHARP!!! This was FAR BETTER than my Mini-DV efforts.

>> This is GOOD (but now, what all that effort and money

>> put into Mini-DV.....?).

>> Sigh...!

>> Well, I learned a few things....

>> David Ruether

On Fri, 07 Mar 2003 18:18:50 GMT, "Jim Harvey" <jharvey3@o3ptonline.net> wrote:

>Ir David R[ue]ther says he LIKED it, then chances are normal mortals will

>faint at the experience. David, you're scarin' me! ( I agree wholeheartedly

>with your assessment of Best Buy and Sears displays, like I'm going to be

>convinced to part with 10 large for a TV that doesn't look all that great,

>even with the "Special" programming that they pump through it for the rubes.

Amazing how bad it looks...;-)

>Nice to see that you had an epiphany Dave.

>

>Jim Harvey

>JHV Digital

Happins e'ry once inna whyle...;-)

"HDTV very, very good; SDTV not very good;

SD-DV very, very bad" - at least as seen on

this very, very good display...;-)