CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

drice1234 · Joined: 07 Oct 2006 Posts: 1309 Location: Allen, Texas

I have been using a PS3 with my Sony D50. I can see a large difference with the upscaling of DVD's with the PS3 over the other upscaling DVD player I was using but can only tell a slight difference between a BluRay movie and an upscaled DVD. Is it my eye site, the projector or is there not that much difference when viewing at 1080i? I think both look great.
Dan

**Curt Palme** · Posted: Thu Sep 11, 2008 3:57 pm Post subject:

I'm guessing it's the lack of resolution of the D50. I agree, SD DVDs look better on a BR/HD DVD player than an SD DVD player, but there should be a significant difference when playing a BR DVD.

ecrabb · Posted: Thu Sep 11, 2008 4:24 pm Post subject:

Curt's right - it really should be almost night/day. I'd say it's the D50 not quite revealing the differences between the two. How good is your focus?

Even on my old 1271, there was quite a difference between upscaled SD and HD from HD DVD or BD. The differences between the two are much more stark now with the G70, but I was still becoming an HD snob even with the 1271.

Oh... Probably the biggest factor is how far away you sit from the screen. I sit about 10 feet from an 8' wide screen - so everything is right in my face. If you're more like, say, 15 feet from an 8' screen, the difference won't be nearly as much. This is just an example, but if you sat far enough back - say 30 feet from an 8' wide screen, you literally wouldn't be able to tell the difference between scaled DVD and full 1080p - no matter how sharp the projector was.

SC

**kal** · Posted: Thu Sep 11, 2008 7:31 pm Post subject:

Even on my old Barco 800 there was a MASSIVE difference between upscaled SD and hi-def. It's not a subtle difference at all.

So either:

(a) The projector's not set up optimally so that all you're really getting is a little over 480p resolution resolving capability, or
(b) Your eyes just don't see or care about the differerence

or both!

EDIT: SC is perfectly right too about the viewing distance. If I stand at the back of my room (a good 25 feet back) SD looks as sharp as HD. Colours aren't quite as nice but the sharpness is the same on my 8' wide screen. I sit about 10-12 feet back so at that distance the difference in sharpness is *very* noticeable.

Kal

dropzone7 · Joined: 12 Jun 2007 Posts: 1069 Location: Charlotte, NC

drice1234 · Joined: 07 Oct 2006 Posts: 1309 Location: Allen, Texas

I do still have the NEC 6PG but have just completed my HT and want to stop the tweaking for awhile. I will check the dimensions of it though and see if it will fit into the floor cabinet I built for the D50. It might be something to do this winter. Don't get me wrong. I am very happy with the picture from the D50. I was just curious if BluRay disk should look noticeably better. I sit about 12' back from a 110" diagonal screen in a lighting controlled room. I do run the brightness and contrast kinda of high but I have a spare D50 in the attic to use when I wear this one out.
Thanks
Dan

dropzone7 · Joined: 12 Jun 2007 Posts: 1069 Location: Charlotte, NC

Nothing wrong with a D50 at all but I do think it would be a step up in many ways if you went with the Xtra. The NEC's require an exacting setup but the return is a wonderful image with colors that are unmatched by most anything in it's class. If you are running your brightness and contrast too high then that might be part of the problem. If the image is washed out and you are not getting good black levels from having your brightness too high then no amount of resolution from Blu Ray is going to help that. I suspect that by having these things set too high you may be losing the depth of field and lifelike image that you should be seeing with Blu Ray.

rod · Posted: Fri Sep 12, 2008 3:11 am Post subject:

I see big diff when playing BR vs. SD but I use a DVDO to process (upscale). i find the SD DVD better from my Denon ( upscaling turned off) than I do if I play SD thru my PS3 (which is upscaling). it's the only reason I keep the Denon. not exactly sure why but it might be because the image is being "over-processed".

WanMan · Joined: 19 Mar 2006 Posts: 10270

You folks have to keep in mind it could be the movie itself in terms of a bad transfer. Did not Sony have to re-issue the Blu-ray version of The Fifth Element because the original was poor?

Of course, it is much more likely to be the person, projector, video transport, and setup/configuration.

DB Cooper · Posted: Sat Sep 13, 2008 7:44 pm Post subject:

I'd also have to say a 110" screen for a D50 is a little to big for it.

**AnalogRocks** · Posted: Sun Sep 14, 2008 1:06 am Post subject:

ecrabb · Posted: Sun Sep 14, 2008 3:19 am Post subject:

My 1271 was on a 110" 16:9 screen (96x54), and it looked awesome (especially for a 7" ES machine). Guests in my theater were all blown away, and HD DVD and Blu-Ray looked great. Like I said - not night/day, but definitely a VERY noticeable difference. I definitely wouldn't have traded my 96x54 for a 100" 87x49 just to eek a couple clicks of sharpness.

In my front row (9' to screen), there was a clear difference between DVD and HD/BD. In the back row (15' to screen), the difference was still noticeable, but much less so.

SC

MYoung · Joined: 24 Feb 2007 Posts: 369 Location: Madison, WI

I have a D50 with good tubes and I find that it's too soft for high def content. I have my 1292Q to blame for my discontent. I can tell a difference between DVD and HD DVD/Blu-ray, but it's very slight. I've heard that the D50's 7" tubes can resolve perhaps 500p at best. That's only slightly better than DVD. Of course, I'd run 720p to it as I don't care for 1080i @ 60Hz. 720p makes it even more soft due to scanline overlap. The D50 is still a good projector for DVD and gaming on current generation video game consoles (considering most video console games still aren't natively 720p/1080i/1080p, but are instead lower resolutions that are upscaled to high def because the consoles still aren't powerful enough to handle very complex 3D graphics in true high def).

I'm actually considering upgrading to an NEC PG6 Xtra myself! It's not a 9"er, nor is it LC, but the extra inch in tube size and the EM focus will be nice. The extra brightness will also be welcome on my almost 8' wide screen. The D50 is bright, but smaller screens are better for it as I've heard that if you really crank up on the contrast on a D50, the tubes are going to get worn faster than you might expect.

ecrabb · Posted: Mon Oct 20, 2008 7:26 pm Post subject:

Mike, why don't you care for 1080i? Obviously, the scan lines would be nasty on your 1292, but on the D50, if it's as soft as you say, then you should barely even be able to even see the scan lines.

720p would be a double-whammy with the D50, IMHO... You start with nearly 50% of the spatial resolution (compared to 1080i) and then you have scan line overlap on top of that.

Try 1080i - it looked awesome on my old 12xx's. The optics were just soft enough that it almost completely obscured the 1080i scan lines. Still, it gave a really nice film-like, sort of "over-sampled" HD image. The optics were the problem, since I could clearly see 1080i scan lines on the phosphor. The lenses just weren't sharp enough. Still, HD looked FAR better than DVD.

I can't believe the D50 is that much worse than a 12xx, unless of course it had a ton of hours on it. What sort of shape is your D50 in?

SC

winduptoy · Posted: Sat Nov 08, 2008 2:21 am Post subject:

A subject like this needs some examples...

Top photo in pairs: DVD
Bottom photo in pairs: Blu-ray

Zebu Fellenz · Joined: 21 Dec 2006 Posts: 2567

Are those screens from the 800 or the G70? I would have expected a larger difference but you may need larger pictures to show it, your shots are only 1000 pixels wide or about 1/2 of the HD resolution, what do YOU see on the screen?

Erik

winduptoy · Posted: Sat Nov 08, 2008 3:15 am Post subject:

The screenshots are from the G70. This is the only movie I have right now in both formats. I'll have to see if I can borrow a few DVDs with more telling content. On screen the difference is huge when there are fine details in the background.