My mini review of I Am Legend 1080p

jacmyoung

SatelliteGuys Pro
Original poster
Jun 30, 2007
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Sacramento, CA
After cleaning up some of the scheduled recordings at night three 501 VODs showed up on my 722 this morning. I decided to order it since it was only $2.99. The initial start test took about 5 seconds and the movie started, but my 722 did not synch to my Panasonic 1080p plasma correctly because the picture was only half the screen at the left right corner. I remembered other members reported such issue and went into the HD setting changed the output to 480p then back to 1080i, that fixed it.

I don't have Bluray, but had the Toshiba HDDVR player and watched many rented HD movies then, but after learning the death of HDDVD, I returned my player back to Coscto. Back then I wasn't too much impressed by the HD DVD format, sure it might be of higher resolution and better sound, but the improvement certainly was not worth the money if you want to buy the disks as collection. And I had no intention to upgrade my DD5.1 DTS sound system nor my 720p HT projector to just get the better PQ and sound format either.

With that kind of bias in mind (which I want everyone to know before reading further), this time I simply turned off the sound so I could focus on inspecting the 1080p PQ of this $2.99 VOD from E*.

The PQ was excellent, inline with the best movie PQ I could recall seeing on my Toshiba HDDVD player. So my focus was turned to very close examination of any artifacts related to video compression.

The main artifacts of compression are usually motion related microblocking, lack of layers and depth in dark scenes, and similar effect in very bright scenes with a lot of white peaks.

I could not visibly detect any of the above compression related issues, and I did my inspection from about 3' away from the 50" 1080p screen. The HD PQ was near perfect from a practical standpoint. The reason I say "near perfect" is because this is a film based material. The true test of a 1080p picture quality will be for a video based show when the bandwith will be really in extremely high demand, and in which maybe a 25gig plus Bluray disk will really shine. Because I cannot imagine any HDDVR receivers capable of piping down or storing such large files, whether during a live show, or using VOD for later viewing.

So for 1080p movies at 24fps, from a practical standpoint, it should be as good as a true Blueray version of the same movie. I don't think when the studio agreed to sent E* a copy of its 1080p HD version movie, they would make such 1080p copy any less of a quality than the same Blueray copy used on a Bluray disk. But even if the Bluray folks may insist that the disk must be better because it stores a much bigger file than the DBS 1080p VOD can ever store on their HDDVRs, still your HD viewers will simply not be able to see any difference, at least for the vast majority of us.

Maybe for a few that have the best of the best equipment and watch a Bluray disk on a 120" or larger wide screen in a controlled home theater environment, they may notice something there, but since my HT projector is only 720p native, I did not care to test it, it would not have made any difference.

The only issue I have is the $6.99 price tag with the 24-hour viewing limitation. I cannot justify such expense with the prospect that we may not be able to finish the movie in time. We used to order HDPPVs a lot at $4.99/ea on our DirecTV HDDVR (my 722 was only recently installed) but stopped that after the 24-hour limit was put in place.
 
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I could not visibly detect any of the above compression related issues, and I did my inspection from about 3' away from the 50" 1080p screen. The HD PQ was near perfect from a practical standpoint. The reason I say "near perfect" is because this is a film based material. The true test of a 1080p picture quality will be for a video based show when the bandwith will be really in extremely high demand, and in which maybe a 25gig plus Bluray disk will really shine. Because I cannot imagine any HDDVR receivers capable of piping down or storing such large files, whether during a live show, or using VOD for later viewing.

So for 1080p movies at 24fps, from a practical standpoint, it should be as good as a true Blueray version of the same movie. I don't think when the studio agreed to sent E* a copy of its 1080p HD version movie, they would make such 1080p copy any less of a quality than the same Blueray copy used on a Bluray disk. But even if the Bluray folks may insist that the disk must be better because it stores a much bigger file than the DBS 1080p VOD can ever store on their HDDVRs, still your HD viewers will simply not be able to see any difference, at least for the vast majority of us.
(snip)
The only issue I have is the $6.99 price tag with the 24-hour viewing limitation. I cannot justify such expense with the prospect that we may not be able to finish the movie in time. We used to order HDPPVs a lot at $4.99/ea on our DirecTV HDDVR (my 722 was only recently installed) but stopped that after the 24-hour limit was put in place.

I was hoping to make a similar test. I have I am Legend on HD DVD. I just got my 622 upgraded (finally!) this morning. (I checked yesterday!) The I am Legend promotion is gone. I am now asked if I want to rent College Road Trip for $4.99 for 24 hours. :rolleyes:
 
Film is apples-digital oranges. But a close comparison is film=24 million pixels, HDTV=2 million pixels. Digital cinema is, today, using 8 million pixel projectors/hard drives.:D
 
Is the I AM LEGEND $2.99 promo over? I thought it was for the whole month. I was going to order it and do a comparison myself as well with my Bluray of the movie. Of course I am at the office and can't tell.

I agree about the 24 hr limit. At least give me 48 and preferably 72 hours. That limit is one of the main reasons why I shy away from VODing.
 
I received the upgrade to 610 last night and also received three movies. None was I am Legend. I noticed that none of the VOD show up as HD. Is this correct?
 
I just checked my online guide and the movie "I am Legend" in 1080P is stiill there in my guide. There are nine channnel 501's and it is the third from the bottom. None of the other 8 choices are 1080P. All nine are HD in my guide.
 
I got the upgarde but no I am Legend...have all the others. . but that one... plus I woke up to a new UPN network that is normally in my superstation pkg(I don't have it) but it's there mapped down to channel 38 in our area, now I have 2. . which is odd!
 
I think that they download more movies each night. I started out with two or three and now have nine. They are all listed as VOD HD
I would never rent one, I can wait thwo or three months and get them on HBO, Starz, and 1 cent CMax, which I subscribe to all three.
I subscribe to HD Absolute and get 63 HD channels, not 130, but I am happy with 63. When I bought my 65 inch HDTv back in 2001, I got the Dish HD demo channels and a PBS 4 hour HD loop. I am very happy!
 
I think that they download more movies each night. I started out with two or three and now have nine. They are all listed as VOD HD
I would never rent one, I can wait thwo or three months and get them on HBO, Starz, and 1 cent CMax, which I subscribe to all three.
I received the 6.12 firmware for my 622 this AM. I run a favorites guide so I just pushed 501. Sure enough Legends in 1080p was there. I then changed to the "All" guide and had 17 501's with only the Legends movie showing it was HD. I sub to AEP with all the HD counterparts including locals. Can't wait to see what the guide shows tomorrow!;)
 
My 622 was also upgraded this AM. Channel 501 is finally shown, but none of the offerings is "I Am Legend."

In fact none of the channels shown for 501 is even HD. :confused:
 

Need help with 722 OTA question

SD to HD Upgrade - What to look for?

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