[opendtv] Re: 70th Anniversary Blu-ray and standard DVDs of the Wizard of Oz

  • From: "Stessen, Jeroen" <jeroen.stessen@xxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: "opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Mon, 5 Oct 2009 13:27:10 +0200

Hello,

Cliff Benham wrote:
> I have pretty much reached the end of the road in this search for
> a way to view the Blu-ray disk properly on a 4:3 monitor.
> It cannot be done.

This weekend I have felt sympathy for Cliff. I tried to play "Goofy Movie"
for a bunch of children on the 21:9 TV. I put it in the BluRay player,
whose brand name begins with a "P" and ends in a "c". For some reason it
would only display with white side panels on the left and right. When I
put it in the SACD/DVD player, it would fill the entire screen, and
without too much visible distortion. I haven't yet figured out why this
happened, I just want to admit that it is indeed annoying !

Interestingly, the aspect ratio for this movie is mentioned as 1.66:1
(that's 5:3): http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113198/ , for the negative...


Donald wrote:
> Bert, I have seen that TV once, inpressive looking when placed at eyeheight
> on a storewall, considering it is actually 'only a mere' 56" diagonal.

It is like when 16:9 was introduced: if you don't increase the height
too much, then it won't look overwhelmingly big.
56.0" 64:27, 44.5" 16:9, and 36.3" 4:3 all have the same height (21.8").
Before this I had a 46" 16:9 RPTV, and its screen was necessarily a bit
further from the wall, so I am seeing a lower screen height than before.

> It does look bigger than for instance the 56" CMO panel

I would not say that... (Its height is 26% more.)

> as demonstrated in the Astro 4K monitor. Jeroen, do you still have the
> first gen. of that panel in your lab?

Haven't seen it for a while, it has probably been confiscated by Research.
There's all kinds of neat things you can do with a quad-full-HD panel.

> 4:3 content can not be made to fit on this 21:9 TV, believe it doesn't
> do 1:1 mapping either of 4:3 content just 16:9 (14:9?) stretching.

Yes, we can not make the picture less than 1920 (out of 2560) pixels wide.

> Panel was/is made by Sharp.

They also made the special TCON (timing controller). Strangely, there is
still not a 21:9 Sharp TV on the market. They sure have the right to.

> However it is still an LCD.

With 100 Hz frame rate and scanning backlight, so very good motion portrayal.
And a multi-channel 3-sided Ambilight, which you don't get with projectors.

> Anamorphic horizontal streching has been a standard feature of 16:9
> CRT TVs for a long time,

As well as 16:9 plasma and LCD TVs.

But let's be clear on the terminology: normal stretching has always been
there, so that 4:3 content is seen 4:3 with black side panels, and 16:9
content is seen 16:9 full-screen. Then there has always been the "movie
expand" mode, where letterboxed 16:9 content in a 4:3 signal format is
seen 16:9 full-screen. The 4th mode is "panorama" or "super-wide" mode,
where 4:3 content is non-linearly stretched (plus a bit of vertical
cropping) to be seen 16:9. The method of geometric distortion varies
between TV brands, and we believe that ours is the pleasant variant.

> following the demise of PAL Plus and the introduction of anamorphic
> 16:9 broadcasts. But, there aren no anamorphic blu-rays, so it isn't
> really an issue.

Huh ? There is no good definition of "anamorphic", but I've understood it
to mean that the picture is looking horizontally compressed on a 4:3 TV.
(Unless you squeeze the vertical on such TV, which our CRTs could also do.)
It really applies only to legacy standards (PAL, Secam, NTSC), which are
targeted only at 4:3 screens. A DVD player or settop box needs to know
which screen it is connected to, because it can be 4:3 or 16:9. And the
screen has to know which content it is receiving, because it can be both
too. This is done with the voltage on pin 8 of the Scart (12 V for 4:3,
5 V for 16:9), or with "wide screen signalling bits" in the vertical
blanking interval. And these things will go wrong, of course. In that
sense it is a great simplification that the (HD) output of a BluRay
player is implied to always give the correct geometry on a 16:9 screen.
Be grateful for small favors...


Bert wrote:
> I'm very intrigued by Jeroen's 21:9 TV, except that I'm not sure what can
> ever fill the screen other than a zoomed in image from a 2:35:1 movie,
> transmitted letterboxed *SDTV*. I am not sure if it's possible when the
> letterboxed 2:35:1 is an HD movie transmitted anamorphic??

Any 2.35:1 content that is letterboxed in a 16:9 signal format can be
zoomed to undistorted 21:9 full-screen. SD as well as HD. Of course, the
best quality is with a movie on BluRay, then you have 3/4 * 1080 = 810
lines of vertical resolution. This is more than enough for this screen size.

> I cannot zoom successfully with any anamorphic content, as far as I have
> been able to determine.

Not sure what you mean ? AFAIK I can not connect a PC at 2560x1080
resolution. Some modes are not possible. "Not a use case."

> We need a new anamorphic option standardized, for the full 2.35:1 stretch.
> And it has to be for TV transmission as well as DVDs and BluRay.

Let's not include the SD standards, they should not be changed anymore.
Yes, it might be nice to have a true 1920x810p or even 2560x1080p format
on BluRay, and let the player add the black bars and the subtitles in the
black bars for the 16:9 1080p displays. However, the added value for the
viewers of 21:9 screens would be close to zero, as the picture is already
superb. It's not really worth the effort to add more standards, in MY
(personal) opinion. Such effort is better spent on standards for 3D.


Are you aware that we have shown a 3D prototype of this screen on the
IFA ? It uses a striped retarder (a.k.a. Xpol), for 540 lines per eye.
It is viewed with passive polarizer goggles, same as the RealD 3D cinema.
Just to show what the ultimate home cinematic experience would look like.

Groeten,
-- Jeroen


  Jeroen H. Stessen
  Specialist Picture Quality

  Philips Consumer Lifestyle
  Advanced Technology  (Eindhoven)
  High Tech Campus 37 - room 8.042
  5656 AE Eindhoven - Nederland




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