Anamorphic = Difference?

[Bing Fung]

I presented this elsewhere but thought you guys may be interested....

I tried to capture a comparision between anamorphic and non anamorphic on my system. My XBR does the compression if the DVD player is set to 16x9. While the pictures hardly do real justice to the differences, I find in actual viewing situations it is extremely different than a single frame shows. These are images taken from my XBR. They were captured with a Nikon coolpics 990 digital camera. They have been resize to 1280x1024 from the 2048x1536 native resolution of the camera. The difference is greatly dimminished from the down sizing of the resolution. If anyone would like I can send them the full sized images, but be warned they are big 1.3Mb each image.

I also had to crop ala P/S to keep the image size down, not much but it is not OAR now





You be the judge to which is which...

Those picture above do not capture the full gains of doing this compression. A single frame cannot show the motion artifacts that occur during down conversion in a moving picture.




Bing

[JonMarsh]

Just on a scan line difference, it is a 33% difference in vertical resolution. However, in downconverting, some horizontal filtering has to be done also, to reduce twittering and other artifacts.

You didn't mention if your set has an internal line doubler; I assume (perhaps not justifiably) that you aren't using a progressive DVD player yet. You ought to see DVD in progressive format, scaled to 1280X720P. Then, a good disk really shines.
What you are illustrating is one reason, given my limited budget, that my first priority on disk purchases are anamorphic/16X9 enhanced disks. There's a lot more future value there, than in letterboxed disks.

Happy viewing!

Regards,

Jon




Earth First!
_______________________________
We'll screw up the other planets later....

[Huskerduck]

Non anamorphic DVDs that Impress me are "Contact" as well as "Armeggedon"
I wish I could say the same for the Abyss even with Progressive scan




Mark


Ducks Meager Theater

[Jehan]

Correct me if I am wrong but Contact is a 2.35:1 anamorphic transfer.

[Huskerduck]

I think I remember reading several articles last year that Contact was infact missprinted "enhanced for widescreen" but actually isnt.
I myself find this amazing , but Im sure it was Contact that I read about




Mark


Ducks Meager Theater

[Bing Fung]

Correct Jehan, Contact is anamorphic.

Jon, when I compare my DVD output on my PC from my 19" FP950 NEC monitor, the XBR actually doesn't give up much at all to a progressive signal. Now if that signal was P, line doubled.... I'm sure the XBR couldn't compete.

When I got into this hobby, I didn't know or care about anamorphic, I just bought DVDs. Now that I can see the differences, I can't go back to non-anamorphic. Those disks in my collection see little if any playtime now.




Bing

[Matt Broeska]

anamorphic is totally where it's at. top gun and silence of the lambs don't even touch even my worst anamorphic disc on my 16x9 set.

[Bing Fung]

Matt, I take it that TG and SOTL is non-anamorphic?

I really wanted TG at sometime as well, guess not now.

I would have to say my dissapointments would be Abyss, Armaggedon(Criterion)& The Rock. Man, I picked up the Abyss and put it back down more times than I can remember. The only reason I did not buy it was because of NA, I even rented it to see how well I would like it, and though it was a good tranfer for NA, I just couldn't do it.




Bing

[JonMarsh]

Hi Bing,

When you move up in screen size, (beyond a "small" 36" direct view ) then the progressive scan has more impact on perceived clarity and freedom from motion artifacts. Your Sony XBR probably has their DRC, which is a line doubler, but not 3:2 pulldown processing, so it's not a true progressive with film sources.
On the PC, a good test is with a 19" or 21" monitor, scaling WINDVD to 1280X720, with either a Radeon or Geforce type card. This is, in my opinion, as good as DVD gets- and it's pretty dang good! Another resolution that looks quite good (maybe best, overall) is 1440X960, but far fewer displays (projectors, anyway) can support that.

Regards,

Jon




Earth First!
_______________________________
We'll screw up the other planets later....

[Bing Fung]

OK, that puts me in my current station in life....

You don't have to hard sell the progressive to me, I believe it to be better, however, given my limited equipment (read small display) Progressive is wasted on me.

:B :W and all the other required stuff




Bing

[Bing Fung]

Here is a good List of available anamorphic tiles. I know most new releases are now a days, but this helps with the older titles.

Enjoy!




Bing

[Lexman]

Here is what it looks like to me.

Picture two looks to be progressive. Picture one looks to be interlaced. What does this mean? I have no idea. I never said I was a video guy, did I?

Relating to anamorphic vs. not, I say the first pic is anamorphic.

I further, and most importantly say:

Bing has the hots for Gwyneth. :B

Lex





<A HREF="http://www.catcables.com" <IMG SRC="http://www.htguide.com/lexman/other/sm_logo.gif"

[Bing Fung]

Neither are progressive

And Gwyneth doesn't hurt the eyes too badly :B




Bing

[Lexman]

So, when are you announcing the anamorphic?

Nope, Gwyneth isn't to bad at all.

Lex

[Bing Fung]

Sorry, I thought it was known.... :O

The first one is. Look at the detail in Gwyneth's eyes, her lips, that come hither look that... Ahem, notice the beading and intricacies in her outfit, those glowing cheeks, that I'm a nice girl, but bab.... Oh, would you look at the time!




Bing

[Andrew Pratt]

looking at that image really makes me wonder about my plans to buy a 4:3 set that won't do the squeeze. I can't really afford one that will so a large 4:3 is still all I'll be able to do for the time being anyway...damn you Bing ignorance is bliss

[Bing Fung]

Sorry Andrew.... You will make up for it in size factor.

You are right though, you become accustomed to what you have, Ignorance can be Bliss.

Sometimes I wish I could unlearn and just enjoy things at it's simpliest denominator




Bing

[JonMarsh]

Bing,

We have an old saying; this stuff is like a diode; progress goes in one direction, and once you've seen or heard the better stuff, it's pretty hard to go back.

Bing, when you took the pictures, what shutter speed were you using? If you're freeze framing, you're getting a static conversion from interlaced to progressive if your shutter speed is 1/30 of a second or greater.

To really appreciate the differenc, one could watch this movie on my Toshiba SD6100 player on the 50" Toshiba in my daughter's room, then watch it on my NEC at 1280X720P. I can't handle a 50" interlaced image anymore; it's just too distracting with the combing artifacts on motion, and the scan lines twittering about.

Happy weekend, everyone.

-Jon




Earth First!
_______________________________
We'll screw up the other planets later....

[Lexman]

Yes, it's day and night difference in these two shots. Really an extroidinary comparison. Great job Bing.

Lex

[Andrew Pratt]

Jon you have a 50" tosh in your daughters room! Lucky girl

[Bing Fung]

Jon, I seem to have turfed the file that listed the shutter speed. I think it was slower than 1/30 though, as I took the shot with the camera on a tripod in a dark room, with no flash.

Certainly the non anamorphic image is worse than the static picture can emulate, just as you said. I agree, the larger the image, the more pronounced it will be. That is why I bought a direct view over a RPTV. At the time there were not many TV's that could compress, any RPTV that could compress was more than my budget allowed. I really fought long and hard over the size, quality thing in my price range.

Your daughter is a lucky girl, I thought I was over doing it after just installing a 21" TV in my daughter's room...




Bing