still new to this HD thing, so please bear with me

noticed Charlie's Angels was on HD tonight.. My question which is better quality (assuming both are shown on the same TV).. The HD feed of a movie or the DVD?

It really depends if it's the true hd master,or if it's just an upconverted version.Some hd doesn't look as good as its dvd counterpart.Also,many of the hd channels don't use the oar version when showing movies.

True HD has a higher resolution, so I'd say that one.

That's correct.

so in most cases, DVD... where could I see "True HD"?

DVD 480p = 480 lines = 480x704 = 337,920 pixels
HD 1080i = 1080 lines = 1080x1920 = 2,073,600 pixels

Discovery HD usually has some nice visuals.

Who said that DVD is True HD? DVD is not HD until the new formats are released. HD has a higher resolution than DVD but some HD programing is just up converted from DVD resolution. In this case the only thing that's really better in HD than DVD is the fact that HD has an improved color space since it's broadcast as ATSC rather than DVD's NTSC.

Woops scratch that question above. I read it as:

so in most cases, DVD... where I could see "True HD"?

I agree.

Since there is no such thing as a high definition DVD yet, a true high definition broadcast will be superior to a DVD. When they show a movie as "high definition", it looks good in my theater but it is not true high definition.

Pretty sure 16:9 DVD is 480x720 = 345,600. But the pixels aren't square, so the 16:9 is a physical measurement, other wise it would be 480x853.

35mm film is 3:2 ratio, probably somewhere between 4000x2666 & 5000x3333. (10.6 and 16.6 mp) That's somewhat better than either of the above digital technologies, esp with an anamorphic lens for a 2.35:1 movie. 70mm film would be better than that. 70x70 square Imax film is truly awesome. It's hard to compare since grain is not perfectly arranged like digital film in lines of pixels, and it depends on the particular film used.

So a DVD made from a filmed movie is downrezzed quite a bit. If the HD version of that film is made from the original, it is downrezzed less and should look superior. If it is made from the DVD, it will be uprezzed and not necessarily look better.

HDTV is filmed with digital cameras with HD resolution. Since this is far less resolution than film, when they are transferred to film, ala SW Ep 2, they look poor in comparison. When displayed on proper HD displays, they look stunning. I still have to get out and see SW Ep 3 in a digital theater to see how it compares.

HD (if the transfer is good) should look very noticeably better. 1080i has about 1,728,000 more pixesls than DVDs. Basically, HD has 6X the number of pixels of DVDs.

A good HD transfer should usually blow away a DVD of the same movie. There are ways of making DVDs look much closer to HD though using a PC (ie using FFDshow filter and scaling).

I copy/pasted that from another site, so my apologies if it's inacurate. You get the idea though...