[Link]
Big Wet Asses 34 - review by Captain Jack| Author | Post |
|---|---|
| Allbusiness Deactivated User THE CLOTHED COLOSSUS!! RULER OF FEMALE FLESH!!! 296 Posts 3/12 |  Posted - Sep 19 2012 : 10:16PMIm considering going to blu ray. But from what ive heard up-converted/Up-scaled dvd`s will look just as good. What are anybodies thoughts on this? [Link] |
| JohnW Senior Member 1351 Posts 6/08 | Posted - Sep 25 2012 : 2:52PM [Link] |
Goldstein  All-Star Member "You have sacrificed nothing and no one." 3689 Posts 8/10 | Posted - Sep 25 2012 : 4:59PM No matter how you slice it, 4:3 standard-definition doesn't fit into a 16:9 high-definition box. I was all worried about this when I recently moved to new 1080P 16:9 LED TVs (one 32" and one 42"). This was due, primarily, to Comcast going 100% digital without any support for unscrambled analog channels 02-22 anymore (i.e. without one of their set-top boxes or digital adapters, you can no longer receive anything). Now, watching SD on a larger (32" or larger) HD TV is dreadful (i.e. the picture distortion and not enough resolution for the larger screens to view a clear picture), but our homeowners' association negotiated a contract wherein we all get up to two HD set-top boxes AND up to two digital adapters included at no additional cost. While the HD looks great, blowing-up the SD to fill the screen is virtually unwatchable. Essentially, all your up-scaling is going to do is to blow-up the SD picture (4:3 480) to completely fill the larger HD screens (16:9 1080). In order to get the 4:3 picture to fill a 16:9 screen, the picture will be stretched unevenly, which creates distorted images. Put another way, 4:3 could also be expressed as 16:12. And, the size and shape of a 16:12 image does not fit a 16:9 screen properly. There is a solution, but you need to be careful. After playing with this for awhile, I can say that watching your old stand-definition (SD) DVDs and programming simply looks best if you watch it in its original 4:3 aspect ratio -- even on your HD screens. Yes, the SD picture will not fill the entire screen, but it will be clear -- and undistorted -- as you view it. The being careful part has to do with screen burn-in on LED/LCD screens. When you watch SD programming in 4:3 on your HD TV, the picture will be centered on the screen and surrounded by black bars above, below and to the sides (similar to when you watch wide-screen programs on a 4:3 screen) filling in the space the SD 4:3 programming doesn't fill. If you watch SD 4:3 programming all the time, these black bar borders can (and will) become "burned" into your screen. Solution, be sure to mix-up your viewing with HD 16:9 1080 programming, and/or the blown-up "up-scaled" SD programming, that completely fills the screen. On my Samsung LED 16:9 TVs, they have the ability -- right on the remote, called "P. Size" -- to select what zoom level or just plain old 4:3 you wish to view your programs in. This primarily applies to sources connected via the "composite" or "component" inputs on your TV. HD sources connected via an HDMI input will, typically, automatically default to optimum settings for your TV -- which will fill the entire screen. Now, the HD set-top box from Comcast is providing SD programming as well as HD programming. This is because not all stations are available in HD (among other reasons). Since your HD set-top box, connected via HDMI to your TV, automatically set the screen size by default, the SD programming is blown-up (i.e. "up-scalled") to fill the screen -- and looks like shit. So, by remembering to use the "P. Size" zoom control -- on your TV's original remote -- you can adjust the zoom-level or select 4:3 so that your SD 4:3 programming looks the way you want it to (regardless of how the set-top box automatically configured itself for the TV it's connected to). This has all been a long-winded way of saying buy a Blu-ray player because you want to buy and watch Blu-ray programming on your HD TV set, not because you want it to up-scale your SD programming for you. I'm probably going to buy a Blu-ray player because, now that I have large-screen HD TVs, I want to be able to watch the full 1080 HD movies that Blu-ray titles deliver (and, I will still be able to play back my extensive SD DVD library -- but, I won't be up-scaling it when I do). I may even have to buy some Blu-ray porn  I hope I don't have to buy titles like my Lord of the Rings extended edition box set all over again in Blu-ray, in order to still enjoy them on the new 16:9 1080 TVs. There's definitely a difference between watching Deep Throat This! in 4:3 (its original aspect ratio), versus real theatrical movies  I hope some of this made sense to you. [Link] |
| Use the code below to link to this topic or a specific post. |
| URL of this thread |
| Link to this post with HTML |
| Link to this post with Forum Code |