THE FRONT LINE: AUGUST 28, 2007
Do You Really Need a BLU-RAY or HD DVD Player?
Good question. Based on some tests I ran in my studio recently, the answer is — maybe not.
As the Blu-ray and HD DVD camps toss press releases and player/disc sales figures back and forth, it just seemed like a good time to try and inject some common sense into the argument.
What argument(s)? Whether you should get rid of your old red laser DVD player in the first place and upgrade to a Blu-ray or HD DVD model. Or, whether you should buy a blue laser player to go with that shiny new 1080p LCD or plasma TV. Or, whether you’d be best off just picking up one of the new high-performance upscaling DVD players and pocketing the savings.
Figure 1. Red laser, blue laser, good thing no one’s invented a green laser DVD yet.
Those of us who are fortunate enough to have spent some time testing both BL disc formats have a pretty good idea by now when you’ll see the difference between red laser and blue laser media, and when you won’t. It all has to do with (1) the size of your HDTV or projection screen, and (2) how far you sit from it when watching HDTV programs and movies.
Even those of us with eagle-eye vision reach a distance where we can’t see small details in an electronic image, such as noise, grain, macroblocks, and edge artifacts. If all else is OK (high contrast, good color saturation, etc), then even a low-resolution image can appear to be high-resolution, when viewed at a certain distance.
For the record, I wear reading glasses (a consequence of too many years of testing displays, maybe) but have excellent far vision — at least, according to my most recent eye exam.
Figures 2a-b. OPPO’s new DV-980H 1080p scaling DVD player (top)
now has component video outputs, too (bottom).
THE TEST
It wasn’t all that complicated, actually. I picked up Blu-ray and HD DVD movies of existing red laser DVDs I already had, and simply cued up the same chapters on an OPPO DV-980H scaling DVD player (MSRP $169.00), Samsung’s BD-P1200 Blu-ray player (MSRP $649.00), and Toshiba’s HD-A2 HD DVD player (MSRP $299.00).
OPPO’s player is brand new and is adapted from the DV-981H. The difference is, the 980H includes the analog component video outputs missing from the 981H, even though it still supports 1080p output as an option. Also, the player has a “fix” for the color space errors the 981H ran into, when connected through an external HDMI switcher.
For fairness’ sake, I set the OPPO and Samsung players to 1080i output, which is all the HD-A2 can do. Why? Because my projector is Mitsubishi’s HC5000, a native 1920x1080 3LCD model that incorporates Silicon Optix’ Reon video processor for both upscaled signals and native 1080i video. That pretty much leveled the playing field in terms of picture quality.
Test clips came from three sources. First, I played back the rotating bars test from the HQV Benchmark DVD, also available in the Blu-ray and HD DVD formats. This test has numerical angle calibrations along the curved edge of the test pattern, and it’s quite easy to see differences in sharpness between each DVD format by looking at these numbers.
The second test involved two chapters from Superman Returns. In chapter 11, Superman rescues the falling jetliner and brings it to a stop on a baseball field in a daytime scene. In Chapter 16, bad guys attempt to rob a bank at night and take out the local cops with a Gatling gun, only to be thwarted by the Man of Steel.
The third test consisted of two chapters from Mission Impossible III. In chapter 4, Tom Cruise, Ving Rhames, and the rest of the IMF attempt to escape the bad guys by flying a helicopter through a wind turbine farm at night, while Chapter 8 details the IMF’s plot to kidnap arms dealer Philip Seymour Hoffman from a reception at the Vatican.
Figure 3. Samsung’s BD-P1200 (top) and
Toshiba’s HD-A2 (bottom) provided the blue laser playback.
In addition to the Mits HC5000 (projecting onto an 82-inch Stewart matte screen), I also ran all clips into Panasonic’s TH-50PF9UK 50-inch 1080p plasma. In each case, I used the player’s HDMI connection through a Radiient 4-port HDMI switcher to select signals.
My tests were simple: I would cycle through the same chapter from each player, watching from what I considered to be a normal viewing distance. For the Mits projector, that was about 10 feet, while I perched 7 feet away from the Panasonic plasma. As I watched each clip, I’d gradually back away until I could no longer see those small picture details and artifacts I mentioned earlier.
RESULTS
Very interesting. Close-up, you can clearly see the differences between the detail in the Realta HQV “jaggies” test when the red laser and blue laser versions are compared. Yet, step backwards a few feet, and the numerical call-outs don’t appear all that different in any format.
The Silicon Optix logo, which appears in the lower left of the screen, looked just slightly softer from red laser. No surprise, as this is white text against a rich black background. High contrast text is much easier to discern than low contrast text and the differences in sharpness, although subtle, are clearly displayed.
At normal distances, close-ups and medium shots in both of my test movies didn’t look all that different in terms of fine detail. So much of Superman Returns is computer generated that it’s hard to see big differences between red laser and blue laser pressings until objects with fine detail (like that Gatling gun and the close-up confrontation between the bad guy and Superman in chapter 16) appear on screen.
At one point in chapter 11, the crippled NASA jet is floating in space and the passengers find themselves surrounded by pens, pads, iPods and other detritus hovering in the air. Lois Lane attempts to grab a pen as it tumbles towards her into focus, before the jet suddenly begins its death spiral towards earth. At the end of this clip, Superman lays the rescued jet down in a baseball stadium, and the thousands of fans in attendance rise to give him a standing ovation.
At normal viewing distances, the close-up shots of faces and floating objects, as well as Superman’s face and the Gatling gun, appeared to have near-equal detail and texture, a testament to the quality of the video scaling engine in the DV-980H. Objects somewhat farther away were slightly softer in red laser, while there were clear differences between the red and blue laser pressings when it came to showing fine details of the baseball fans.
Figure 4. The Realta HQV “jaggies” test as seen on Panasonic’s TH-50PF9UK.
Those differences became less apparent as I relocated 10 feet away from the Panasonic plasma and 16 feet from the projection screen. In fact, at those points, the red and blue laser pressings seemed nearly equal in overall sharpness, except with shots with lots of background detail were seen.
Similar results were seen around 16 feet from the projected image. Doing some quick math, the ratio of screen diagonal to viewing distance worked out to 2.35:1 for the Panasonic plasma and 2.34:1 for the Mits/Stewart combination. Coincidence, maybe?
Chapter 8 from MI III was an excellent clip choice for this test. It opens with a sweeping panorama of a wide staircase as two cardinals descend and the camera tilts down to reveal the reception. The staircase exhibited a moiré pattern when viewed from the 980H, but was clean as a whistle in both blue laser formats.
The camera then selectively pans and trucks through the crowd of guests, using shallow focus to draw attention to covert operative Maggie Quiqley, Hoffman, and his bodyguard Jeff Chase. As the plot to kidnap Hoffman unfolds, we see several close-ups of Rhames, Cruise, and the life-mask Cruise is preparing so he can masquerade as Hoffman and escape the Vatican.
There’s lots of detail to be seen in the life-mask, not to mention the electronic displays in use by the team. Once again, all of these details, when seen in close-up, appeared to have the same amount of texture from red and blue laser when viewed at normal distances. (The moiré across the Vatican stairs was a dead giveaway that the red laser version was playing.)
The crowds at the reception, when seen in longer shots, were distinctly softer in red laser. So was some of the detail in Quigley’s bracelet and camera/compact. But at the 2.35x diagonal viewing distance, it was hard to tell much of a difference.
In Chapter 4, the team makes a daring escape through a wind farm by flying between the blades of a rotating turbine. All the while, Cruise is trying to defuse a mini-bomb planted in the head of fellow IMF operative Keri Russell.
Close-ups of the medical scanner screen and cockpit instrumentation were similar in detail, and the long shots of the helicopter chase weren’t substantially different, perhaps because of all the motion blurring. Once again, applying the viewing distance factor of 2.35x the diagonal image essentially equalized picture quality between the two formats — at least, to my eyes.
WHAT IT ALL MEANS
First off, let me offer the caveat that “your results will vary”, as Hugh Downs used to say in those gasoline mileage commercials from the 1970s. Depending on your visual acuity, you may still see differences between red laser and blue laser formats, even at larger viewing distances. Conversely, you may not have to move away very much before the two formats appear identical in quality.
Second, scaling DVD players offer great performance at a value price. In fact, the OPPO DV-980H and its predecessor, the DV-981H, work exceptionally well at what amounts to turning a sow’s ear into a silk purse. There’s only so much detail in a standard definition pressing of a DVD, and to have it scale so crisply to 1080p resolution takes some serious number crunching.
Third, there is a definite difference in picture quality between red and blue laser when you are sitting at 2x the screen diagonal, or closer. Blu-ray and HD DVD definitely improve fine detail around small objects, particularly things and people seen in medium and long shots.
Fourth, I could see absolutely no difference in image quality between the HD DVD and Blu-ray pressings of Superman Returns and Mission Impossible, even sitting as close as three feet from each screen. They were identical, as far as I could see. If anything, some scenes in Superman (mission control in chapter 11) and MIII (the below-ground shots in Chapter 8) appeared just a tad softer in Blu-ray. (Perhaps it was the encoding?)
The reason I mention this is that Disney Studios recently announced it would begin releasing its classic animated films on Blu-ray starting in 2008. Robert Chapek, president of Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment, was quoted as saying "…these platinum titles are the crown jewels of the Disney Studios, and we do not take releasing them lightly on any format."
Well, if image quality is that big an issue, I think Mr. Chapek can sleep soundly at night if Disney ever makes Bambi and Pinocchio available on HD DVD.
FUN WITH MATH
Blue laser isn’t for everyone yet. Most of the players are still too expensive when compared to a scaling DVD player. Given the size of the average room and how far American sit from their TVs, upscaling DVD players (like the 980H) will save you a few $$ and work just dandy with smaller screens. You can avoid having to choose sides in the Blu-ray — HD DVD wars for the time being and still be able to watch any movie from any studio at any time.
What, if anything, does my 2.35x fudge factor mean to you? If your eyes are anything like mine and you are contemplating a 42-inch flat panel HDTV, you probably won’t see much difference between a standard DVD and a blue laser version of that same movie if you sit eight feet or more from that screen. With a 40-inch LCD, that distance drops to 7.8 feet, and with a 37-inch LCD TV, it works out to about 7.3 feet.
Eventually, Blu-ray and HD DVD player prices — both of which also play red laser discs - will drop low enough that this discussion will become moot. One of the contenders will eventually throw in the towel, although it’s still too early to pick a winner. (My mantra remains the same: The BL format with the lowest-priced players and most software titles will be the winner…)
