Question about blue ray players.

Not exactly a filmmaking question, but I got my first blue ray player. I already had an HDTV, but just used an SD DVD player before. The SD looked pretty good on HDTV. But the new blue ray player makes my SD movies look a little pixelated I think, especially if characters are in the background. Is this normal? Why would it do this, when it is the same thing as my old DVD player? 480p through a 1080p screen. Same thing yet more pixelated looking.
 
Your blu ray player may be up converting the sd video to hd, before sending it to the tv. Where before your DVD player wasn't, and the HDTV was converting the sd signal to whatever it wanted it to be. Your new blu ray player may not be doing as good a job up converting as your HDTV was doing, so your getting some pixelation. Try going into your settings, of the new blu ray player, and see if there is some way to change your hdmi out put to auto. Then it should send the native signal of whatever is on the DVD or blu ray disk. This may or may not solve the problem.
 
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Unless your old SD DVD player was an "upconvert", you were seeing an analog signal, IE the yellow video RCA cable. That is not a digital signal and there are no pixels per se. With HDMI connections, you are seeing a pixel for pixel transfer, so the upres of SD is more pixelated. You can check the settings in the Blu Ray player to make sure it is outputting true 1080P and also if the upres has special settings.
 
Okay thanks. Yes before it was an RCA cable. However I am suprised. I thought 1080p meant it could fill a big screen. You think that 480p would be big enough for the average size HDTV, otherwise what's the point of SD being common, if it can only fit a smaller than average screen? I thought the point of pixels was that the more pixels, the bigger the screen they fill? Why have 1080p, if size doesn't matter, and you can have pixelation anyway?
 
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Okay thanks. Yes before it was an RCA cable. However I am suprised. I thought 1080p meant it could fill a big screen. You think that 480p would be big enough for the average size HDTV, otherwise what's the point of SD being common, if it can only fit a smaller than average screen? I thought the point of pixels was that the more pixels, the bigger the screen they fill? Why have 1080p, if size doesn't matter, and you can have pixelation anyway?

SD is common because that's the resolution that tvs WERE, not what they are now. Blu-ray is designed to be capable of higher resolution, thus sharper images and larger sizes. DVD is not, because those screens weren't around when DVD players were created. It's technology marching on.

To put it another way, a 1080p SOURCE on a 1080p screen will look sharper than an SD source on, well, anything.
 
Resolution ≠ Size

The higher the resolution to smaller screen size ratio means clearer resultes. Example, a 12" 1080p screen will be way more crisp than a 12' 1080p screen.

That means, the larger the screen, the higher resolution needed to yield "acceptable" results. "Acceptable" is a relative term and can only be defined by each unique user. On a 55" TV, one guy might think SD looks terrible, another might be ok with it. 1080p HD will look much more crisp on that TV to both parties though.

Why does your DVD look worse? The other guys already answered that with some pretty good guesses as to what could be happening.

If you can't tell the difference, then HD probably isn't worth it to you. Almost everybody else I know, ESPECIALLY people really into film and video can appreciate the higher resolution.
 
Well I'm just wondering if 1080p is worth the money, if size doesn't matter.

That's what is weird. You're complaining about 480P looking terrible, but want to blame the TV that is 1080P.

Put in a BLU RAY at 1080P, and tell me if it looks good or not. Putting in an SD DVD at 480P isn't going to look good because it's got a fraction the number of pixels which means no details in the image.

When I play the blu rays to LOST or GAME OF THRONES, or the LORD OF THE RINGS movies or CASINO ROYALE, I cannot image ever watching an SD DVD ever again. 480P looks ridiculous on most new films. KODAK's VISION 3 films stocks are so sharp and grainless that they look amazing. Older films from the 1980's and before generally don't do as well in HD because the film stocks were less clean. Unless the movie gets a frame by frame clean up ala STAR WARS, CITIZEN KANE, or THE GODFATHER - the extra resolution of 1080P scans of the film really sharpen film GRAIN and not DETAILS.
 
Oh okay. So if I want to watch my older SD DVD's I should just stick them in the old player then. Some SD movies look good on the blue ray though. Braveheart still looks pretty good, but For A Few Dollars more for example looks pixelated.

What about movies that were shot in SD originally? I was thinking of buying 28 Days Later on blue ray, but since it was shot in 480p, I am guessing that blue ray will not make a difference?
 
I was thinking of buying 28 Days Later on blue ray, but since it was shot in 480p, I am guessing that blue ray will not make a difference?

Technically it might make a small difference, not only because the final scene were shot in 35mm film. This was uprezzed from the Mini DV PAL SD source and then color corrected at 2K, so while it may not make a huge difference, coming directly off a 2K master will might make it look "better", which is a very subjective term.
 
H44, I think your better off setting the hdmi video output of your blu ray player to auto. Then if you put an sd DVD in the blu ray player, it will send an sd signal over hdmi to your tv, and your tv will up convert that to proper display setting the tv wants. No need to keep both the DVD player and blu ray player hooked up. Your over thinking things. Some sd DVDs are better then others. I have some that almost look as good as blu ray. Some looked like crap playing off a standard DVD player. I've owned front projector systems, CRT rear projection hd tvs, lcd's and plasmas. Your better off letting the processor in the tv convert the signal to what it needs.

Flat screen tvs are like computer monitors, they have pixel counts. You send a 480p signal to it and try and display it pixel for pixel, you'll get a small picture with lots of black all around it. But the tv will Convert that to 1080p, and fill the screen. Some pixelation is standard when converting an sd signal to hd.
 
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