Knowname wrote:I don't know, I just followed Willen's links and d/led a Tenatious D 1080p trailor. I still can't tell the dif on my 19"lcd. I also have a prestine quality pannasonic HDTV (26lx600 not 1080p though) and switch back and forth between Direct TV and OTA HD (Over the Air) as well. Still not a whole lot of difference.
It may be like DVD where you won't notice the real difference until your so used to it already. And, yes, I can really tell the difference say in a credit role (I actually LOVE to watch NASCAR races in HD -_-)... but who really cares that much about a credit role (or NASCAR)?? Anyway it may be better than DVD, but I don't really care. Only time I DO notice ANY diference is when you can COMPAIR two LIKE images such as switching back and forth from HD to DirectTV (480i), then I care. But that's more of a 'look what I can do?' penis measurement comp. thing.
Like Otohiko, I don't think the world is 'READY' yet. And I don't mean ready as in why he (and I share his 'hatred' for x.264) hates x.264, where most can't play it. Most MAY NOT be able to play it. But except in the odd occasion, such as NASCAR races, they don't CARE either.
I don't see HD takeing over for a few years at least.
Here's the thing. And the industry doesn't say this, but HD is meant for video on big screen TVs/monitors. Sure, your 19" 1280 x 1024 LCD is fairly high-res that it makes text look crisp and shows great detail in photographic images, but at normal viewing distances and playing back moving pictures, it's not going to be noticeably better playing 720p HD content versus 480p SD content. What about 1080p? Remember that your screen will need to downscale the image to 720p to fit the screen.
Truthfully, at normal viewing distances, most people cannot tell the difference between 480p and 720p until you go over 26" (diag.) in size. As for 1080p vs. 720p, the break point is at about 50", give or take a few inches.
I own a 34" CRT HDTV that is capable of 1080i output. I compared the picture quality of the Blu-ray version of Superman Returns with the DVD version, both played back on my PS3. The BD video was output at 1080i, the DVD at 480p (the PS3 doesn't upscale DVDs). Superman Returns is a very clean looking movie in both formats. But the devil is in the details and that is the main difference between the 2 discs--there is more detail in the BD version. Kevin Spacey's (Lex Luthor) white jacket has a subtle texture that is smeared in the DVD, but is distinct on the BD. Kate Bosworth's (Lois Lane) face in the hospital scene has some compression artifacts and
posterization on her face on the DVD, the BD is much better.
On Mission: Impossible 3 (M:i:III), in the scene where Laurence Fishburne is leaning over Tom Cruise in the interrogation room you can see a great more (almost too much) detail in their faces (especially L.F.'s). The DVD has good detail, but is noticeably softer. And in both movies, the credit scrolls are much sharper and more easily readable.
Here's the rub: some of the problems (posterization, macroblocking, etc.) can be solved by using higher bitrate encoding. But, seeing as how the DVD spec MPEG-2 has a functional cap on bitrates of 9.8Mbits/s (
http://dvddemystified.com/dvdfaq.html#3.4) it isn't always wise to go higher. While it is possible to encode a MPEG-2 stream at a higher bitrate and put it on a DVD, some standalone players may choke on the video. Blu-ray ups the maximum video bitrate to 40Mbit/s (
http://www.blu-ray.com/faq/#bluray_vs_dvd_comparison) and HD-DVD offers up to a 28Mbits/s maximum video bitrate (
http://www.blu-ray.com/faq/#bluray_vs_hddvd_comparison).
Now of course, most anime won't have this kind of detail to show, but the higher resolution should make lines smoother (this is dependent on whether the original source has this higher resolution). The higher bitrate will also reduce or eliminate color banding and posterization. And GC anime like Final Fantasy can take advantage of the full benefits.
But, since AMVs are (mostly) digitally distributed and bandwidth issues are a concern, there is a fine line of balancing quality, resolution, and filesize. One part of a solution, obviously, is switching to a more efficient codec like H.264 for encoding. We can also limit the resolution to 1280 x 720p (widescreen) since as mentioned before, most computer monitors will max out at that size and as I've stated above, you'll not see the higher 1920 x 1080p resolution on the relatively smaller computer monitors people will view them on. This still may not get under the 100MB limit for Local uploads for the typical length AMV, though.
If given the choice between HD (BD) or SD (DVD), I'd pick HD any day of the week. Once you've seen enough HD, it's hard to go back to SD. On-air and off.
