Excellent reviews for the hardware and Serenity, Josh...you presented the format well and gave a good synopsis of the pros/cons.

From what I have read, Robo is correct. They will use 2:3 to get to 1080i60.

Re-read my post.

I never said it was output 12FPS, just that the effect of interlacing results in the equivalent of 12FPS. Its still outputing (AFAIK) 24FPS, but as I mentioned, each frame is only half the total image (that the definition of interlacing). So how long does it take to get the whole image? 1/12th of a second.

It may very well convert to a 60i stream; I am not familiar with the Toshiba player processing. Of course, what you have done here is added the equivalent of 6 frames per second, which still doesn't equal the 1080p24 source. All that work and you still aren't where you started with the original source.

Robo is absolutely correct. There's no such thing as 1080i/24. The 1080p/24 data is output as 1080i/60 and can be converted back by the display with no loss of information.

You are mistaken on both counts. There is no "12fps equivalence" in the result of converting 1080p24 to 1080i60. Claiming that there is such an equivalence implies that every other frame of the original image would be thrown away, which is a patently false claim. The player output is not 24fps. It is 30fps (60 fields per second; OK, so it is actually 59.94 fields per second, but that is mostly a non-significant technical detail).

Also, if I am correct that the image data stream contains a flag to indicate to the TV that the source was 24p (I think I remember reading this, but I can't be certain), the TV could easily recreate the original 24p image, with no loss of information at all. The only downside would be that it took extra processing power in the player and TV to produce the same result. Big deal.

Even in your worst case scenario, you would still have a 1080p30 image as a final result, which would be virtually indistinguishable from the original source.

1080p sets probably won't display it as 1080p/24 either. The flicker would be horrible. You are talking about the difference between viewing it 1080i/60 and 1080p/60 and considering the source material is 1080p/24 the difference will be minor. If you think people are having a hard time telling the difference between HD DVD and DVD wait till they try and spot the difference between those two. Better have a close viewing distance.

Excellent. So that must mean that it takes the 24p source, does a 2-3 pulldown to get 30p, and then interlacing to get 60i. The TV gets the 60i signal, combines the frames to get 30p, and then does reverse 2-3 pulldown to get back to 24p.

Or you start with the 24p source and output the 24p.

Which one do you think is less likely to have errors?

http://www.dvdfile.com/news/special_...2_pulldown.htm

Doh! I was so caught up in the details of 24p vs 60i that I completely forgot to consider this aspect. Excellent point, darkside. I am fairly certain that all 1080p displays are fixed at 1080p60, regardless of the input stream. So in this case, the 1080i60 image from the player is converted to 1080p60 by the TV, not back to 1080p24. And the difference between converting from 1080p24-to-1080p60 and 1080i60-to-1080p60 will be insignificant at best.

Now you're getting it!

Well, unless you have either a) defective hardware, or b) a faulty connection/cable, neither is more likely to have errors. One just takes more processing than the other. But if you do have errors, you probably have other things to worry about anyway, so a repair call will likely be in order.

BTW, read the last paragraph in the article you linked. It points out that with proper 2:3 reversal (in converting to either 24p or 60p) all of the problems inherent with 2:3 pulldown are eliminated. No interlace artifacts remain. Also, bear in mind that the article was written a long time ago, when progressive scan DVD players were still a rarity. Today, these problems have been conquered quite handily.

Then riddle me this Batman, why the push for 1080p? Why does a 1080i image on my Sony LCD gitter but a 720p image not? Why is a 480p image so much smoother than 480i? It is all in my head?

Why the push for 1080p? Well, as a display technology, 1080p is far superior to 1080i, but to take full advantage of it, you would need a 1080p60 input source. I suspect the main reason people want 1080p HDMI connectivity is so that there are fewer conversions of the image before it reaches the display. But in an all-digital domain, that is really not a big issue (certainly not as problematic as going from digital to analog and back). The other reason people probably want it is because they have been conditioned to believe it must be better, despite the lack of any true 1080p60 programming.

As far as your Sony LCD flickering, I really have no idea. I have a Mitsubishi 1080p DLP, and two Philips 720p LCDs, and I don't experience any flicker or jitter on any of them, regardless of the source (even including standard interlaced NTSC broadcast signals).

[Edited to add]
As an aside, I do know that the quality of the scaler in a TV plays a large part in how it handles various sources. I've owned a total of 4 WS HDTVs, and each of them has had a remarkably good scaler. I recall when I got my first decent progressive scan DVD player about 4 years ago, I connected it to a Toshiba 65" CRT RPTV, and found that the scaler in the TV was so good that I could not detect ANY difference between switching the DVD player from interlace to progressive mode.

Well the quality of the display will also be a factor. Not all HDTVs are of the same quality. In general 1080p will look better than 1080i, but the differences are going to be subtle and some may not notice them at all. I probably would, but I'm not spending the outrageous amount of money a true 1080p TV would cost. I would much rather spend those thousands on content and enjoy them on the good 1080i display I already have. The benefits of a better display are not nearly worth the extra cost at this point. Maybe in a couple of years.

BTW, there will probably never be any 1080p/60 content due to the insane amount of bandwith it would have to use. HDTV will remain at 1080i for a long time to come.

The bickering and lack of solid info (or the presense of misinformation?) in this thread really to me exemplifies the poor rollout & marketing of the new formats. This has been addressed in other threads as well... just another reason to sit back and wait for all parties to get their act straight before buying in.

Good review JoshZ, I enjoy reading your posted material.

More good points, darkside. Unless you are a technology OCD like me , it probably isn't worth spending the premium price most 1080p displays command today. In 2 years, it will be a completely different story. But not today.

And I do think we will eventually see 1080p60 programming, but not any time during the next decade or two.

Easily the best review of the product so far. Answered alot of my questions. Even though I am a Blu-Ray backer I am excited about the quality and if Blu-Ray didn't exsist I would buy HD-DVD in a heartbeat.

The reason we want 1080p is because progressive is inherently better. And, specifically for HD-DVD/BD, since the majority of discs will be stored progressive, it will be better to not have to interlace and then de-interlace just to get it on your TV.

Besides, the digital TV formats like LCD and DLP are progressive-only. CRT (with interlaced output) will continue to fade and progressive will be a standard format for most people. Shouldn't be any reason to have a player or TV that can't fully handle 1080p.

Exactly.

This post only serves to prove exactly what I was saying above. As a display technology (LCD, DLP, plasma, etc.), progressive is inherently better. As a digital interconnect mechanism (HDMI) it makes no difference at all. As long as the image gets to the display in identical condition, why should anyone care what it looks like along the way?

My feeling is that you've been conditioned to believe that there must be a "problem" if the image is interlaced/de-interlaced in the process of getting it to the display. I would be willing to bet that in a test, two players could be set up, one with 1080i HDMI, and another with 1080p HDMI, both displayed on 1080p displays, and you would be hard pressed to pick out the progressive connection by looking at the screen.

Now, all things being equal, there is nothing at all wrong with having 1080p HDMI. However, dismissing a player solely because it lacks that feature makes no sense to me. Especially given the amazing film-like quality I have seen with my own eyes.

Did you read the section of my review that addresses this? Of course 1080p is the ideal for the display. The question is whether you really need a 1080p input signal or whether a 1080i signal deinterlaced accomplishes the same thing.

As explained pretty thoroughly in the quote I excerpted in my review, the traditional problems with deinterlacing have been the result of interlaced capture, in which each field is taken from a later point in time than the last. Since material on HD-DVD is stored progressively, both interlaced fields are from the exact same point in time and merely need to be matched up together. This should avoid the issues with deinterlacing that we see with other sources.

Much like the audio issue of whether it's truly better to transmit the DD+ bitstream by HDMI 1.3 or if converting to uncompressed PCM first and transmitting over HDMI 1.1 is just as good, the difference between 1080i and 1080p transmission to a 1080p display comes down to simply different methods of achieving the same end result.

I'm curious... how does 1080p24 (the disc's content) get processed (by the display) to get on 1080p60 the display?

If the TV recieves a 1080p24 signal, and its display resolution is 1080p60, then it will do 2-3 pulldown to get to 1080p30, then double the frames to 1080p60 (so that frame 1 and 2 are the same, 3 and 4 are the same, etc).

If the TV recieves a 1080i60, it will combine the frames (1 and 2 combine, 3 and 4 combine) to get to 1080p30, then double the that to get 1080p60 similar to how it did for the 1080p24 content.

Here is my understanding of how it works.

If the input is 1080p24, the 2:3 process is quite a bit simpler than if it is interlaced (the one place where 1080p HDMI really wins ). If you look at it from a mathmatical perspective, there are 2.5 times as many frames in one second of 60p as there are in 24p. That means that every frame must be held for 2 frames, but also every other frame must be held for an additional 3rd frame.

If the input is 1080i60, the ideal solution is to reverse the 2:3 pulldown already in effect (see the pulldown article that was already linked for a good description of 2:3 pulldown), while applying the simplified model described above. To accomplish this, the TV would have to combine fields A1 and A2, then hold for 3 frames. While this is held, the extra A1 field would be discarded, and fields B2 and B1 would be combined, and held for 2 frames. Then fields C2 and C1 would be combined and held for 3 frames (with the extra C2 field discarded), and finally fields D1 and D2 would be combined and held for 2 frames.

You are saying that interlacing (from 24p film) with pulldown, storing on DVD, then eventually de-interlacing is going to be worse than interlacing, then de-interlacing again seconds later. Why? That doesn't make any sense, not with the 24p to 60i conversion happening somewhere along the way one way or the other. Storage shouldn't matter. Why is the process different?

I'll go reread your review for clarification.

Hmm. Are you talking about TV shows in your technical portion? Film comes from film, which is not captured interlaced, but 24p. That is why 1080p24 should be great, it simply de-rezzes film, no interlacing needed.

Give me "To Catch A Thief" and I will pick them out no problem. Unless there is no frequency change in the conversion. But there will be, so 2:3 pulldown will show up and give artifacts. If there isn't a change, it will be because it is a slow, flickering 24p TV. I don't think that will ever be made, I'm certainly not real interested in that, either. I can barely stand 60Hz. They ought to have gone to 72Hz or higher when making the HD spec, but they are going for "good enough", as usual.

Most TVs still do a D-to-A-back-to-D conversion, after receiving a DVI/HDMI signal. I'm still waiting for all digital. Don't know that it is possible, with all the conversions that have to happen.

I've summarily dismissed all the announced players on things like this. Price, output resolution, audio output, SD-DVD output, etc. Sorry if you disagree. There are a small number of DVD players that have been worth my time. I own one of them right now. I foresee a small number of HDDVD or BD players that will be worth my time, as well.

I might add that I want both technologies. I just don't like the specs on any of the first-run players, esp with the higher price for lower specs. And Toshiba's are a little worse than the Sony or Pioneer BD players, but this is not an indictment of HD-DVD overall. I didn't jump onto Sony's first $1000 DVD player, either.

I have read that Samsung DLP is an all digital signal (with no analog conversion). I'd jump all over it, but I'm a gamer and can't deal with the lag. Though, I hear with the new versions you can turn off the signal correction function which causes the lag in "Game Mode". I'll be interested to see how that works out.