Viewed BluRay at 1080p!!

[JoeSp]

I am visiting my grandson (5 weeks old) in Atlanta, Ga and my daughter took me by Best Buy. They have a Magnolia room there, happens to be where all the latest HighDef stuff is promo'd.

I asked about HD-DVD and BluRay as I have yet to view first hand. The Best Buy rep takes me over to the Magnolia room and shows me the HD-DVD player running a HD demo disc and at the time is showing a demo of the lattest Riddick movie in HD-DVD . It was very nice. Very good detail as this is a very dark movie and the action sceens showed no pixel dragging and while there was alot of sceen shifting as this was a demo it was very impressive. The player was hooked up to a Mitsubishi 1080p DLP and I would say that this is a very good tandem.

The Best Buy rep then took me to the Samsung BluRay product that was not in the Magnolia Room. Someone told him it was back in the furniture section. As we made our way back there right outside of the Magnolia Room there was a Samsung display and there was Samsung's BluRay player. He tried to get it to work and it would not and then another rep came over and told him to get the demo disc.

Well, this guy did not work for Best Buy -- he worked for Samsung. What a find. He told me that they had moved the display to the back of the HDTV video section but they had just received the new Samsung LN-S4095D LCD and that he insisted that they move this display to the front again. This LCD was 40" and a true 1080p screen. That's 1920x1080p -- oh yeah! This LCD was priced at $3195 and the Samsung rep told me you could only find these at Best Buys that had a Magnolia Room. He also said that they had only been out for 1 week and would only be sold in a 40", 46" and a 50" model (I am not posistive about the 50" but there are only 3 1080p LCDs this year).

The demo I watched was done by NHK of Japan in Sweden about a watch maker. The picture was mind boggeling. Absolutely the best HD picture I have ever seen period-- bar none. He told me that I was watching 1080p output by the BluRay player and 1080p projection by the 40" LCD by Samsung. Bright colors, great definition and when the watch maker put a piece of the watch on his finger you could see the dimples in his finger where the hair was coming out. I would of had to have a magnifing glass to see my own finger that well. You could even see the differance in his skin pigmentation. I wish those of you who are blowing off BluRay could of seen this demo -- it blew away the HD-DVD demo I had just watched. First, NHK knows how to produce a HD product and second, that Samsung LCD was KICKBUT!!

The Samsung rep asked if I was reading the blogs on the internet and after I said yes he meantioned that he feels his company is getting a real bad rep based on some very bad movie BluRay reproductions. After viewing that NHK demo I would say that he was right. My wife, grandson and daughters were waiting and started pushing me towards the door. The last thing the rep and I talked about was a new Samsung product, a 60" DLP that uses no wobbolation to do 1080p. It uses LEDs and can reproduce 100% of the color spectrum with a bulb lifespan of over 20,000 hours. He told me it would be out in 30 to 60 days.

After all the bad reviews and badmouthing Sony and the BluRay camp I decided to see why so many movie studios and manufaturers are backing BluRay. I got my answer. Guys, get yourself to a Best Buy with a Magnolia room and asked them to show you the BluRay with the new Samsung LCD model LN-s4095d running in 1080p. Make sure they show you the NHK demo of the watchmaker. If they do not know what you are talking about find someone who does. If you live in the Atlanta area, the Best Buy I visited was at Barrett Parkway in Kennesaw. Go be a consumer, you will not be disappointed!

 

[vurbano]

76% of all BluRay owners at AVSforum are returning this crap http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/poll.php?do=showresults&pollid=3657

 

[JoeSp]

Vurbano, have you seen the demo I described on the equipment I described?

 

[vurbano]

Yes Ive seen both HD DVD And Bluray demos on the new sammy 40" 1080p LCD at best buy. The same set was used for both demos at different times in the store. I cant believe you dribble all over yourself about a demo. It does NOT look as good as HD DVD. Search my posts Thats the first set I saw HD DVD the first time I ever saw it. Awesome TV. http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=7843854&type=product&productCategoryId=pcmcat95100050025&id=1142298457279

After the BlurrRay player was moved hooked up to the sammy 1080p and the HD-a1 moved to the back and hooked up to a 50" pioneer plasma 1300something x 768 I think, the HD DVD picture was STill BETTER!

 

[JoeSp]

You are telling me that you watched that NHK watch demo in 1080p which demostrates the best that BluRay video can produce and you think the HD-DVD movie demo was better? You need to get your eyes checked.

You have posted every negative comment and review you could find on BluRay. That NHK demo blows away anything I watched on the HD-DVD demo. And you are right, it does not look as good -- it looks better -- no doubts about it. Maybe we need someone else to chime in who has looked at both demos. Boy, your hatred of Sony and BluRay must be causing you to loose sight (no pum intended) of objectivity. This demo simply shows that BluRay can deliver outstanding HD video on par with HD-DVD. The movies are not there yet but if this demo is any indication, they soon will be.

Oh and Vurbano, how could you have possibly seen this LCD months ago at Best Buy if it just came out last week?

 

[vurbano]

You are telling me that you watched that NHK watch demo in 1080p which demostrates the best that BluRay video can produce and you think the HD-DVD movie demo was better? You need to get your eyes checked.

You have posted every negative comment and review you could find on BluRay. That NHK demo blows away anything I watched on the HD-DVD demo. And you are right, it does not look as good -- it looks better -- no doubts about it. Maybe we need someone else to chime in who has looked at both demos. Boy, your hatred of Sony and BluRay must be causing you to loose sight (no pum intended) of objectivity. This demo simply shows that BluRay can deliver outstanding HD video on par with HD-DVD. The movies are not there yet but if this demo is any indication, they soon will be.

Oh and Vurbano, how could you have possibly seen this LCD months ago at Best Buy if it just came out last week?

wrong
Rockaway saw it last month http://www.satelliteguys.us/newreply.php?do=newreply&p=616787
and I saw it before then.

PS just when are you going to get it through your head that a good 1080p set will deinterlace 1080i and reconstruct 1080p through inverse telecine to produce a correct 1080p picture and that there will be absolutely NO difference? Why do you refuse to believe that?

After you understand this and see the BluRay problems you will then join the rest of mankind and realize that the sammy is shooting itself in the foot and screwing up its 1080p to 1080i to 1080p conversion. Probably bobbing it.

 

[teamerickson]

You are telling me that you watched that NHK watch demo in 1080p which demostrates the best that BluRay video can produce and you think the HD-DVD movie demo was better?

What codec was being used? Demos don't matter, what you can put in your house does. The demo was probably using an advanced codec which Sony refuses to use for their movies. That should make you upset. So upset the you'll boycot them and go with HDDVD.Insiders have seen advanced codecs on BD clips and they all agree it looks a lot better. Better than HD DVD? Will we ever know? So now it seems again like Sony is trying to sell the "what ifs" with BD. Yes I'm biased, but I hope BD does get better. The competition will up the anty. Still though, if you currently want the best home viewing experiance possible you have to watch HDDVD. Or watch a super demo that probably gives an unfair comparison of their product using a codec they may never put in their movies.

 

[Paradox-SJ]

Ask yourself this, if BD used VC1 just like HDDVD does do you think it would look twice a good?

No aske are you willing to pay twice as much?

 

[vurbano]

Ask yourself this, if BD used VC1 just like HDDVD does do you think it would look twice a good?

No aske are you willing to pay twice as much?

Hell no and if SOny uses VC-1 they basically have an HD DVD player that costs 2-3 times more.

 

[vurbano]

I sure wish I could find that post. I cant even remember which forum it was on. But I remember posting it immediately after I saw the sammy LCD in the store and the HD DVD player playing a Van Helsing demo on it. It was the first day I saw HD DVD and convinced me to buy the movie. In fact I bought the movie before I bought the player.

 

[teamerickson]

The title of this thread is missleading. Should be "Viewed BluRay at 1080p - to 1080i - then back to 1080p!!"

 

[vurbano]

Vurbano, I will agree that the Samsung BluRay player is flawed.

Im still trying to figure out what Joe's position is???

I think Joe should read this http://www.avguide.com/news/2006/07/20/exclusive-early-samsung-blu-ray-players-ship-with-chip-mistake/

EXCLUSIVE: Early Samsung Blu-ray Players Ship with Chip Mistake

July 20th, 2006 — By editor
A noise-reduction chip mars Samsung’s Blu-ray player’s premiere for early adopters. On picture quality: “This was not dazzling.”
by Scott Wilkinson, The Perfect Vision
July 18 - I’ve been reviewing some Blu-ray titles sent from Sony on Samsung’s BD-P1000, but, like many of the early adopters out there, I’ve been less than impressed.
Sony arranged to have some titles sent to me for the review, and as I went through them, I was surprised at how soft they looked compared with the best HD DVDs I’ve seen. The images simply didn’t “pop;” there was no “wow” factor as there was with HD DVD. I was left with the same impression watching them on a Samsung HL-S5687W 56-inch 1080p DLP RPTV and a Samsung SP-H710AE 720p DLP front projector.
What was going on here? I’ve seen a dozen dazzling Blu-ray demos over the past two years: This was not dazzling. “The Fifth Element,” “Terminator 2,” “House of Flying Daggers,” “Memento,” “Lord of War,” “Crash,” “UltraViolet;” all looked not much better than upconverted DVD. Not only that, “The Fifth Element” had obvious scratches and dirt from using a substandard print in the mastering process.
Don Eklund, executive vice president of advanced technologies at Sony Pictures, noticed that the player’s image did not match the quality of the master tapes from which the Blu-ray titles were encoded. He contacted Samsung, whose engineers determined that the noise-reduction circuit in the player’s Genesis scaler chip was enabled, causing the picture to soften significantly.
According to Jim Sanduski, senior vice president of marketing for Samsung’s Audio and Video Products Group, “Samsung is currently working to revise the default settings on the noise-reduction circuit in the Genesis scaler chip to sharpen the picture. All future Samsung BD-P1000 production will have this revision and we are working to develop a firmware update for existing product.”
An easy fix, but still…
To see the difference for myself, I went to Sony Pictures, where Eklund had set up and calibrated three identical displays (the Samsung LN-S4095D 40-inch 1080p LCD flat panel) driven by an unmodified BD-P1000, a modified player (with the noise reduction turned off), and the master tape from which the Blu-ray disc being played had been encoded.
We looked at two titles, “Memento” and “50 First Dates,” and sure enough, the modified player looked much closer to the master tape and far better than the unmodified player. Disabling the Genesis chip’s noise reduction improved sharpness significantly and reduced the occasional temporal artifacts that were sometimes evident in dark, solid backgrounds on the unmodified player. Also, it allowed the film grain - an intentional form of noise - to become more evident.
To get some sense of the difference between HD DVD and Blu-ray, video guru Joe Kane brought his Toshiba HD-XA1 HD DVD player over to Grayscale Studio, The Perfect Vision’s new video lab. We connected it and the Samsung BD-P1000 to a Gefen HDMI switcher whose output was sent to a Samsung SP-H710AE 720p DLP projector (review in Issue 70 of TPV) firing onto a Stewart GrayHawk RS screen. Granted, it’s not a 1080p display, but its characteristics are well know to both of us, so we could easily see any difference between the two players, which were set to output 1080i. (The Toshiba’s 720p output is poor, so we let the projector do the deinterlacing and scaling.)
We started with HD DVDs, including clips from “Blazing Saddles”, “Apollo 13?, and “Phantom of the Opera”. All were spectacular, sharp as a razor with detail to spare. Then we switched over to Blu-ray, playing clips from “The Fifth Element” and “Terminator 2.” Aside from “The Fifth Element”’s obvious dirt and scratches, both titles looked decidedly soft compared to the HD DVDs. The THX logo on “T2? looked sharper than the movie, which had some significant edge-enhancement as well.
Give Samsung’s player another shot
Unfortunately, I cannot yet draw any definitive conclusions about the Samsung BD-P1000’s video performance. I was able to spend only an hour with a player in which the Genesis noise reduction was disabled, and it did look markedly better than a stock player on the same model of display. But I’ll need to spend more time with one on my own to know for sure how much improvement that modification represents.
It’s not that the images from the original player looked bad; to an untrained eye without direct comparison, they would probably look pretty good. Still, when I showed some clips to a friend without a trained eye, he said, “So, what exactly is high-definition about this?” That just about says it all.
I believe that Blu-ray has the potential to look every bit as good as HD DVD, perhaps even a little better for a number of technical reasons. And it’s not uncommon to encounter some bumps in the launch of any new format. Once Samsung fixes the noise-reduction problem, I have every confidence that Blu-ray will look fabulous.


What do you know? This was written on July 18th and they had the sammy 40" 1080p LCD.

But even since Samsung denies the problem now, And reports at AVS are that the issued firmware fix makes virtually no difference.

Joe obviously you are one of the "untrained" eyes. Let me guess... You just love D*'s HD channels too?

 

[VIPERS-PIT]

It is clear that the HDDVD was set up to look inferior to the bluray as bust buy is pushing blueray like crazy. The blue ray got the better TV and better demo disk, so it better look better. Having the sammy rep in the store should have set of a HUGE red flag in your mind.

 

[korsjs]

i now understand why tk2 is giving you a hard time.

 

[vurbano]

i now understand why tk2 is giving you a hard time.

I was wondering where he was. I guess I have him on ignore.

 

[vurbano]

You have posted every negative comment and review you could find on BluRay.

Im sorry but every negative review also was unbiased. The few positive reviews are very suspect when even Sony's people admit the video isnt up to par. Sometimes you must live in the real world, not the, "gee I think it might get better" world. Buyers of this current piece of junk are not going to recieve a new player in the mail. They are going to be screwed out of 1K-1.2k dollars for an inferior product. You BluRay fanboys need to face reality. This machine will not survive at this price point and video PQ when HD DVD could be 400 dollars by xmas with flawless PQ.

 

[JoeSp]

Sorry Guys, I had tech dificulties on this side, my internet connection went down. First, in Raleigh there have been no 1080p LCDs that actually have 1980x1080 pixels. So this is the first LCD that I have looked at that does 1080p at the correct resollution. According to the Samsung rep these LCD's are only at the stores with Magnolia rooms. There are no BestBuys in my area with a Magnolia room and there are 5 BestBuys.

Second, the Samsumg rep told me that what I was viewing was the 1080p recorded on the BluRay disc outputed directly from the BluRay player without any conversion in the player to the LCD in 1080p. I asked about the 1080p to 1080i to 1080p and he said that that was not what was happening and that the HDMI in the player was allowing the 1080p to 1080p viewing. He also said that the video I was watching was uncompressed. My wife and daughters intervined before I could press the issue.

Is it possible that what I was watching was a short uncompressed HD demo made by Samsung to avert the bad rep its player has been getting? I don't know but I suspect that it is. Either way, the NHK demo I watched was every bit as good as the best OTA-HD I have seen. That is my take and I would hope others would be able to see this demo too and make up their minds for themselves.

As for Sony, if this is a new compression that no one is talking about they need to get off their collective buts and start doing there HD movies right. The crap that they have been putting out does not even come close to the demo I watched. And what side I am on -- neither. I want both formats to succeed. When there is only one format there is no competition to make things better, provide better reproductions nor bring the price down. I also belive Samsung is out of their collective minds asking $1000 for their BluRay player. Anything over $400 for a Samsung DVD player would never get my money and I do not care how good it looks. I have had one and it was a pain. Crushed both sides of the video spectrum, output was always dark and PQ was not much better than my PS2.

Currently neither would get my money. The Toshiba can not provide lossless audio except thru their analog ports. Thereby, without a audio receiver that can decode the lossless codecs you have no control. They have promised full support on their next product -- how much is that going to cost? BluRay is out about six months too early and if Sony believes they are making good HD reproductions they are living in a fish bowl. If the Samsung rep is concerned about what we read and say don't you think Sony should be? And if not they are just as crazy as Microsoft for making the decision not to allow DirectXX for XP but only for Vista. If that is not forcing folks to pony up some dollars what is -- but this could be another post somewhere else.

Bottom line, PQ on the Toshiba's HD player is better than the PQ from the Samsung from current movies out for both versions. However, after viewing the NHK demo I am not so sure the problem lies directly with Samsung (other than the rediculous price). I think the movie conversions for BluRay is what is really driving the problems for BluRay and that lies directly at Sony's feet -- the ones they obviously have been dragging.

 

[vurbano]

Sorry Guys, I had tech dificulties on this side, my internet connection went down.

The Samsumg rep told me that what I was viewing was the 1080p recorded on the BluRay disc output directly from the BluRay player without any conversion in the player to the LCD in 1080p. I asked about the 1080p to 1080i to 1080p and he said that that was not what was happening and that the HDMI in the player was allowing the 1080p to 1080p viewing. He also said that the video I was watching was uncompressed. My wife and daughters intervined before I could press the issue.

Is it possible that what I was watching was a short uncompressed HD demo made by Samsung to avert the bad rep its player has been getting? I don't know but I suspect that it is. Either way, the NHK demo I watched was every bit as good as the best OTA-HD I have seen. That is my take and I would hope others would be able to see this demo too.

As for Sony, if this is a new compression that no one is talking about they need to get off their collective buts and start doing there HD movies right. The crap that they have been putting out does not even come close to the demo I watched.

Geez, that rep was lying.

 

[jgags6]

never believe anything someone at best buy tells you, half the time they dont know what they are talking about.

 

[VIPERS-PIT]

i now understand why tk2 is giving you a hard time.

Who me?