At 3:22 PM -0500 12/15/04, Manfredi, Albert E wrote: >Having seen SD in a theater, and how inadequate it >is, I'd love to see the difference between 720 and >1080 line displays on that size screen. Or even on >much smaller screens, like 50". I am certain that there a some theaters in your area that are offering digital screenings, most likely using the TI DLP projectors with 1280 x 1024 chips. Here are two possibilities that may be within easy driving distance. Crown Annapolis Mall 11 2002 Annapolis Mall, Route 450 Annapolis, MD 21401 Tel: 410-224-1145 http://www.crowntheatres.com *NOW PLAYING* Alexander National Amusements Lee Highway Multiplex 8223 Lee Highway Merrifield, VA 22116 Tel: 703-502-4060 http://www.nationalamusements.com *NOW PLAYING* Alexander The Incredibles is also being screened in digital. There are a few theaters that are getting the new 2K dark chip projectors, but I have no way of knowing i=which theaters, where have these new projectors. As for TV displays, just go to any upscale home theater store. But be warned that the source video available may not support your desire to compare formats. >The reality is, only very few years ago everyone >was claiming that 480p was "plenty adequate" for >home use. But we've all seen 480p by now, and >adequate as it might be, 1080i or 720p blows it in >the weeds easily. In consumer gear. True. But 480P is STILL plenty adequate for many applications, and more important, why not improve the quality of ALL TV, not just HDTV? There are many applications for progressive video that is not HDTV. > >> So we should optimize the source for 0.01% of the >> market? > >To "optimize," in the context of this discussion, >is to provide the best quality for a given cost. If >the source material can be encoded, stored (and/or >transmitted) as 1080p for the same cost as 720p, >then *why not*? Because your premise is not accurate. You cannot acquire, or produce in 1080@60P for the same cost as 720@60P today. You may be able to argue that film transfers to 1080@24P are not much more expensive than to 720@24P. But when it comes to emission, there is no way that you are going to fit 1080P into the same bandwidth as 720P (at any comparable frame rate), if the 1080P source actually contains more detail than the 720P source. Bandwidth IS the big cost today. Therefore it makes sense to pick emission formats that deliver the best bang for the buck for the most people. At the moment this means SDTV. > >For example, if a given movie will fit in an HD-DVD >either as 720 at 24p or as 1080 at 24p, why bother >with 720 at 24p? The DVD will cost no less if you >load it with 720p. 1. It is likely that 720P will deliver higher quality samples at the available bit rate; 2. More than 90% of viewers will still be watching the SDTV down conversion; 3. Unless your display is larger than 100 inch diagonal you WILL NOT see any difference. > >Playback devices are not constrained to displaying at >the full quality level. Therefore, in "optimizing" >the system, there's no need to scrimp on the encoding >mode. HUH? IT is not scrimping on encoding to use the format that best preserves the integrity of the samples at a given bit rate. It IS scrimping on quality when you try to push too much detail through the channel and wind up with visible compression artifacts. > >In RF transmission, same argument holds. Unless >there's something else to transmit in a tight >channel, or to store in a DVD, "optimizing" does not >mean to reduce the quality level unnecessarily. By definition, you are not optimizing if you are trying to push the highest format through the pipe, when only a tiny percentage of the audience can use the additional detail. Regards Craig ---------------------------------------------------------------------- You can UNSUBSCRIBE from the OpenDTV list in two ways: - Using the UNSUBSCRIBE command in your user configuration settings at FreeLists.org - By sending a message to: opendtv-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the word unsubscribe in the subject line.