<small><b>[Moderator's note -- this thread was split off from Qui Gon Jim's HD-DVD and BluRay FAQ, originally based on a since-rephrased entry.]</b></small>

I gotta disagree with this one: "Q: Is HD really a greater increase in picture quality over DVD than DVD was over VHS?"

VHS was more like 240i, and had other issues that made PQ worse like stretching the tape just by using it. DVD to HD is not nearly as dramatic, IMO. PERHAPS I'll change my mind once I see a 1080p TV at 100" with a 1080p source, but that is years off for any of us, really. There's about 3 such TVs available (none under $15K), and zero sources.

I won't. 1080p is a much bigger improvement than VHS-DVD. 1080i/720p D-VHS has most of the negatives of VHS tapes and is also just as big of an improvement. Keith over at AVS posted today that the 1080p material being shown at CES makes 720p look like VHS.

This is about facts. The math of this just does not back up your claims. Even at 1080i the difference is staggering.

So, exactly which part of the math takes into account problems like tape stretch/wear? ;)

I will not deny that this transition is not the paradigm shift that VHS-DVD was. DVD made many watch movies in a completely new way, though the LD faithful would dispute that.

If we are strictly talking picture quality, the increase is bigger.

I'm sorry, but Keith needs to find some new words to express improvement, cause that's just stupid. It's called hyperbole.

It's your FAQ, I won't say more on this even though I disagree on both math and perception.

Well I find it hard for anyone to disagree with math since the specs of VHS/DVD/ and both HD-dvd formats are widely available.

As for Keith, he works for a respectable company, Sigma, and his comment was nothing more but an analogy over the crap people are posting about their being no difference. There is a big difference when you start cutting details out of a picture.

I "perceive" 720p to be much better than dvd. 1080p is even better.

The resolution change certainly is far greater than VHS to DVD, but there were a number of other problems with VHS that DVD solved. These problems won't weigh in in the DVD to HD upgrade. There are also issues like diminishing returns, the physical ability of the average person to even notice change as precision increases, etc. So, while some of the measures of change will be larger than for VHS to DVD, I expect that the perceivable picture quality difference to the "average" viewer will indeed be less.

I promised to stop, but one more quick comment:

Factor in real-world viewing distances and how we use our eyes, changes the math. And makes the math indistinct. (not to mention the % of folks that can afford the equipment to make it worthwhile right now)

I certainly see where you guys are coming from, and it's not a blatant problem for this FAQ, so I'll just keep my opinion to myself. :)

Understood, and your opinions are well respected by many members on this site, including myself, so you don't have to keep them to yourself unless you want to. It's all in good debate.

Viewing distance is key as you say, as I subscribe to the 1.5-2x screen width rule, but HD allows us to sit closer to bigger sets. I have said in the past that HD doesn't matter as much to me on a a 5 inch screen or from too far away.

Well, this is supposed to be a FAQ thread, I would generally try to keep debate elsewhere, that's all.

I sit at about 1.8x, looks great. I tend to consider angle as more important than resolution, at least once resolution is great enough to avoid SDE or other pixel artifacts. For example, the SMPTE board recommends based on angles and brightness, not pixel-peeping. So greater resolution is great, but will have diminishing returns unless you like the tennis-match-head-swivel from sitting close.

The answer to this question is incorrect (not the conclusion, necessarily, but the technical specs of the answer). The only resolution specified in the answer is the vertical resolution, which, for VHS and DVD, is technically identical. Every NTSC television uses 525 scan lines, displayed in two interlaced fields. Every DVD player and VCR outputs the exact same number of scan lines, or no NTSC television would be capable of properly displaying them. It is true that DVDs can have their image stored as 480p, but even a progressive scan DVD player will convert the 480p to (essentially) 525p, to match the scan line resolution of NTSC-compliant progressive scan displays.

The biggest resolution change from VHS to DVD was the horizontal resolution, which changed from 330 "lines of resolution" (which is not the same as pixel resolution, BTW), to 720 pixels of horizontal resolution. In essence, 330 "lines of resolution" equates to around 450 pixels (although there really is no actual technical equivalence), so one could reasonably say that the resolution increased from 450 to 720 pixels going from VHS to DVD.

However, pixel resolution was not the most significant improvement in going from VHS to DVD. VHS had terrible problems with video images, most notable in two areas, chroma noise and time base errors. Both of these problems were easily visible, even to the average "Joe Six-Pack," when viewed on a television larger than 20". DVD overcame these problems, completely eliminating TBE, and substantially reducing chroma noise (and in some cases removing it altogether). And although most people couldn't tell you why, almost everyone could see the difference.

Of course, this is not meant to detract from the huge improvement that HD represents, even over DVD, but I just wanted to make sure that all of the facts were in the FAQ. ;)

I concur. Although the mathematical resolution difference between HD and DVD is greater than the difference between DVD and VHS, the visible difference between VHS and DVD is much greater than between DVD and HD, if for no other reason than the simple fact that VHS is such an obviously poor-quality image. DVD was a tremendous improvement over VHS in a number of areas other than resolution, areas that will see a much more subtle improvement in HD, if at all.

There is a visible difference between DVD and HD, and HD is clearly better, but it may not be a big enough leap in improvement to win over the Joe Sixpacks out there, who mostly believe that DVD is already high-definition until told otherwise.

I think you've summed it up perfectly here. The visible difference is what counts, not the mathematical resolution.

I will not disagree in principal that PQ is subjective. What this thread has done however is changed all the naysayers from saying "the difference isn't that great" to "aside from the number crunchers, the difference isn't that great." I think that what Adam is saying is that for some several thousand dollars is not the value of the better picture, not that the picture isn't better. The intent is being twisted.

Take a look at a DVD of a baseball or football game and then take a look at the 1080 version on HD cable. There is no way if you have a decent set up that you can say the two are close. This gap can only widen when the material is on a pre-recorded media.

Did anyone watching Lost last night in SD notice the "extra info" in the cloud?

Well...I know this is anecdotal, but I have several relatives who couldn't tell the difference between HD and SD (not even DVD, but broadcast television) until I did an A/B comparison, and even then, their reaction was an indifferent "oh, I guess it looks better". I think many people misremember standard definition television as looking much, much better than it really does unless it's staring them in the face.

Another relative has a 57" HDTV, and even though he spends all day in front of it, he can only tell if he's watching HD by the fact that the Dolby Digital audio is "louder" than the SD broadcast. The difference in detail, color saturation, aspect ratio, etc. -- all completely lost on him, even switching back and forth between muddy, bland, pillarboxed (!) SD and sharp, stunning HD. Baffling, but I'm sure he's not the only one.

At the same time, I know other people who've bought HDTVs, watched stretched standard definition programming, assumed it was in HD, and raved about how great the (non-existent) difference was.

As glaring as the difference is to us, I think a very large percentage of consumers either wouldn't be able to readily distinguish one from the other without a direct comparison or, if they can, don't care enough to switch.

The problem is that if you own a HDTV, you aren't looking at SD programming anymore. Every HDTV has a native resolution that the TV will upconvert (or downconvert) to before it displays the image. My TV has a native resolution of 720p, so no matter what the feed is, my TV processes that signal, and converts it to 720p before outputing it on the screen.

Of course, the source of the feed makes a difference in how the image looks, but the TV makes up for some of the difference. For instance, I tried playing GTA: San Andreas on my older 55" Mits whose native resolution is 480i. I couldn't use the map at all, because the image was way too blury to make out anything. I can play that same game on my Sony LCD with 720p native resolution, and the game is much sharper, and I can actually read the map. Same source from the PS2, but the TV upconverts the signal.

My point is, there are many people who are comparing SD to HD, not realizing that their SD signal has already been processed to be greater than what it is (dispite how mediocre the TV handles this). If you were able to set a SDTV next to an HDTV, having the SD signal going to the SDTV, and the HD signal going to the HDTV - for the same programming - you would easily see the gain. Doing an A/B switch on the same TV will not be as noticable.

We have a winner! You said it perfectly, there are about 10 different improvements in VHS to DVD, but only 3 or 4 from DVD to HD.

How much do these HD DVD players go for nowadays, and when will the price drop?

Totally agree as well. Hell, I thought the difference between VHS and LD was even more dramatic than the difference between DVD and HD. Shows you how bad my eyes are. :lol:

Nobody has talked about source material.

HD may very well look better than Dvd with Peter Jackson's "King Kong"
but how different will it look if you were to watch the Fay Wray "King Kong"

How about the studios playing their old tricks of releasing a bad transfer just so a few years later they can sell the "new remastered for HD" disk.

I suspect anything made before 1990 will look no better (excluding a few films on 70mm)

No, as Adam Tyner posted on another thread:

I'm really looking forward to Kane or Strangelove on Blu-ray (among many others).

Any of the major releases over the past 2-3 years are HD-a-go. The DVD is downrezzed from the HD master. Interesting that the "magic year" in your mind is 1990. Any film if handled properly will look better inn HD. HD is a closer approximation of film (though still far off) than DVD.

Kong will 10000000% be better in HD, I am sure it was mastered with the latest and greatest technology. Gone With the Wind, Titanic, Kane, Ben Hur, Kwai, Goodburger you name it, the DVD you are watching is actually probably crippled down from the real version.

$499 in March. There's really only one player -- a few models, but it's the same guts inside. The only differences are badging and some minor, mostly inconsequential surface changes.

...and even most of the minor ones too, at least from the big studios and forward-thinking smaller houses like Synapse Films.

Voom's Monsters HD acquired the rights to show the original King Kong, so if anyone's curious what it'll look like in high definition, keep an eye on their schedule.

Hell, some in this thread already have me talked out of converting to HD. Damn you all!!!! :D

Hey, we have a new magic year! :)

Nothing different happened in 1990 to make movies "HD-ready". Star Wars, Chinatown, Citizen Kane, and -- yes -- the original King Kong will look significantly better in HD.

They're confusing PQ and when multi-channel (more than stereo) sound formats started becoming the norm. But even with regular surround tracks, uncompressed sound will be LIGHT YEARS better than what you've been hearing on DVD. I've said it before and I'll say it again, I can't wait to get back to the days of laserdisc-like sound quality.

I'd say mathematically, it's indisputably greater.

Whether the difference looks greater to one's eyes will vary from individual to individual.

I think what people mean here is that the original masters of older films aren't in as good of shape as newer films (obviously) so they won't look as good due to having more grain, dirt, scratches etc.

So yes older movies will look much better in HD than in SD, but they won't look as good as newer ones in HD due to the quality/age of the master source.

Honestly, I think most people mean what they say in this sort of case -- that they don't think older movies benefit from HD. I've seen many, many people on many forums say the same thing.

Really? I just rented Birth which is a brand new movie and looked like crap. Doesn't matter.

I agree. There is a great misconception that HDTV somehow equals or surpasses the resolution of the film stock used in "old" movies.

Perhaps for a film shot on really grainy black and white 16mm stock, some case could be made that HDTV is overkill, but for everything else, even run-of-the-mill 35mm film, the resolution will be at least five times greater than that of 1080p HDTV.

Yes, but I think they mean they won't benefit as the flaws in the master will just be more noticeable in HD.

But of course some are just ignorant to film resolution as well.

Of course a new movie can get a crappy transfer.

The point is you take a movie from the 1930's that has dirt and scratches all over the only master available and do an excellent HD transfer of it its not going to look as nice as a 2005 movie that gets the same quality HD transfer as the 2005 film master wil have much fewer dirt, scratches etc. than the 1930's movie in most cases.

So again, yes old movies will look much better on HD than DVD as they'll be higher resolution. But they wont look as good as newer ones that have near flawless masters available to make the HD transfer from.

It's a moot point for me anyway as The Godfather is the oldest film I own and I don't see myself every buying anything older than it as classics just aren't my bag.

Here is where the math numbers can be deceiving. If I have a decent pair of speakers (vhs) and upgrade to lower upper end speakers (dvd) I will be amazed. From there I could go up to top end (HD) which is a larger difference in specs than the decent pair (vhs) to lower upper end (dvd). So the math shows that it is even a bigger difference in my upgrade. However, just because the math shows it to be superior, I still need to have good enough ears to perceive the difference, and I may not. Similarly, the math in PQ makes somes decent assumptions about how we watch. The difference in PQ relies on size of screen, viewing distance, etc. For many people that may make the difference pretty paultry.

Then why are so many J6P clamouring for Plasma screens from Wal-Mart? Cause they make everything look like VHS?

Form factor and prestige value more than picture quality.

Totally. These people will take them home, and have the contrast and brightness all the way up so they look like crap.

People buying a plasma at wal-mart aren't buying it for picture quality most of the time. Or at least not soley for picture quality.

It's really funny how some of the hardcore HD supporters are so convinced that everyone cares so much about HD and are going to jump right in.

It's going to be a long slow process. Most people just don't care much and are still watching basic cable on 10-20 year old tvs.

And you don't think people will want the prestige of an HD format for DVD?

Again...eventually (hopefully) all players sold will include DVD but also be Blu-Ray as well. People will have it already and start buying into it. This isn't like minidisc or laserdisc where you have to have a COMPLETELY different player to play them.

Not really. It's no where near the same as having that nifty, super thin plasma TV Joe Six Pack can hang on his wall and wow his friends with when they come over to watch football with the contrast and brightness all the way up. :D

It's really only attractive for those into HD for the pq and who care know how to have a TV calibrated etc. And that's still a niche.


The stickler will be how long it takes the players, and especially the discs, to sell for current DVD prices. Joe Six Pack isn't going to replace his DVD player with a more expensive one because he probably doesn't care much about PQ on his poorly calibrated wal-mart hdtv (and especially not the majority that will still be watching on 10-20 year old SDTVs). And if they get an HD player somehow, they'll keep on buying the movies on DVD is the HD discs cost more than the DVDs.