LCD/Plasma/CRT/DLP - questions

[amorenod]

[*]Some sort of "interlaced" mode. Now, this is just an idea I had, so I don't know if it would work/how well it would work. As it is now, things like broadcast television are at 50/60Hz. On a CRT, while it's only half-frames, you are seeing 60 updates per-second on the screen. With an LCD, the image is de-interlaced and shown at 30fps. While it is still technically the same amount of full-frames, the way they are delivered is different, and as such, your eye perceives the interlaced images as having smoother motion, as there are more updates/second.

I have two ideas on how to possibly solve this, although perhaps they have already been tried & tested, and do not work. The first, was just to show interlaced images as the are, and black out the "gaps." Unfortunately, as it will then be upscaled, I can see this resulting in rather large scanlines, which would be visible from quite some distance. My second idea is to first properly de-interlace the image, scale it up to the panel's native resolution, and then split the scaled image again, but this time each "scanline" would be every other pixel, meaning it's fine enough to be invisible. This way you are getting 60 different updates per second, and you should perceive things to be much smoother, rather than the current 30 updates/second we see, which results in "blurring" (although it is the way you perceive the image that makes it blur, it actually isn't)

Unfortunately, if the image is not properly de-interlaced in the first place, then this could cause some artefacting, but the advantages may outweigh any disadvantages it might have. Of course, this would have an on/off option if you don't like it. (or allow you to choose between which type of "interlacing" is used.

o/\o

I'd love this, in the same way I always use emulators with scanlines on

[Rossco]

I just got the official 360 VGA cable and I'm not very sure of it with my LG.

Sure the picture seems a good bit sharper but I dont like the colours, Hexic seems so much more washed out and its more difficult to distinguish between the blues and purples!

Put on Kameo and it seemed pretty samey, not much different when I first looked.

And I'll try PGR3 later on.

I know Shakey Jake has changed alot of the settings, in the service menu I think for the LG with VGA on 360 and prefers that to component, so can you share what settings you changed to see if I prefer it.

Also, whats the links to the VGA switch boxes doing the rounds right now? That weird shaped black one looked good but did it have options for phono inputs too?

[Kevvy Metal]

I just got the official 360 VGA cable and I'm not very sure of it with my LG.

Sure the picture seems a good bit sharper but I dont like the colours, Hexic seems so much more washed out and its more difficult to distinguish between the blues and purples!

Put on Kameo and it seemed pretty samey, not much different when I first looked.

And I'll try PGR3 later on.

I know Shakey Jake has changed alot of the settings, in the service menu I think for the LG with VGA on 360 and prefers that to component, so can you share what settings you changed to see if I prefer it.

Also, whats the links to the VGA switch boxes doing the rounds right now? That weird shaped black one looked good but did it have options for phono inputs too?

I would also be interested and appreciate reading Shakeys set up methods for the 360 over VGA.

[Salsa Party Animal]

No matter what you have there is nothing perfect. There will be something everyone unhappy about with their flat screen TV. I am very happy with my TV, I also want better upscaling support from 480p or 480i for old console format or whatever and picture from Sky+

[Lyris]

I posted an LCD wishlist similar to Andrew's over at AVF, I'd love to see manufacturers take some sort of attention to these.

EDIT: Oh, and the Sharp bobs 1080i. (but it's better than the 540p the Samsung gets)

I think you'll find most LCDs still do. My 2004 LCD WEGA bobs it, and I think the new ones do as well. Like you said, it's way better than the "slice out every second line and stretch up" Samsung approach that actually makes 1080i look worse than 720p.

Seeing as these current LCDs cant display 1080 lines of resolution, I don't see this as a big problem seeing as we'll mainly be feeding them 720p video. Blu-Ray players and the like will hopefully have their own scalers to provide the set with downscaled 720p.

Pity about the lack of backlight adjust on the Sharp - another off my list. There's a new JVC range coming out with 2 HDMI in AND a backlight control that looks very tasty. Hopefully the problems it'll have will be nice ones that I can easily ignore - with 2 HDMI inputs it would be hard to hold a grudge against small faults.

[Crisp_Rapper]

No matter what you have there is nothing perfect. There will be something everyone unhappy about with their flat screen TV.

yup, and some people are more picky than others when it comes to picture quality/features/etc. not saying there's anything wrong with that, but most people aren't videophiles which is why there's a stack of people perfectly happy with the 'average' samsung.

my projector is pretty good, it has lag on SD pictures but i let it slide as in HD it's not as noticeable... again, nowhere near as good as some out there but i'm happy with it.

[Lyris]

As it is now, things like broadcast television are at 50/60Hz. On a CRT, while it's only half-frames, you are seeing 60 updates per-second on the screen. With an LCD, the image is de-interlaced and shown at 30fps.

That's actually not true. If the images were only 30fps then they'd be using a Deinterlace method called Ghosting or Blending, where the incoming video is blurred vertically to smudge out the interlace pattern and produce "doubled" frames (a bit like an NTSC to PAL standards conversion).

Interlaced 50hz stuff is shown at 50fps and 60hz at almost 60fps, which is why we get deinterlacing artefacts. If your set has a Freeze mode, freeze the screen next time the credits scroll on a TV show (not a film). You'll see that they're not quite pixel-perfect and have little misplaced blocks and the like.

I do like the fake scanlines a lot like some emulators do - it's been something I've wanted for old games on my LCD for awhile.

[andrewfee]

That's actually not true. If the images were only 30fps then they'd be using a Deinterlace method called Ghosting or Blending, where the incoming video is blurred vertically to smudge out the interlace pattern and produce "doubled" frames (a bit like an NTSC to PAL standards conversion).

Interlaced 50hz stuff is shown at 50fps and 60hz at almost 60fps, which is why we get deinterlacing artefacts. If your set has a Freeze mode, freeze the screen next time the credits scroll on a TV show (not a film). You'll see that they're not quite pixel-perfect and have little misplaced blocks and the like.

I do like the fake scanlines a lot like some emulators do - it's been something I've wanted for old games on my LCD for awhile.

It's my understanding that to show, for example, 30 progressive frames (forget de-interlacing for a minute) at 60Hz, each frame is displayed twice.

This means that it's 60Hz, but only 30 unique frames.

If a 60Hz interlaced broadcast is de-interlaced, it becomes 30 progressive frames, which then need to be displayed twice to get shown at 60Hz.

If you show a 60Hz interlaced broadcast without de-interlacing, you have 60 unique frames. Yes, they're the same image, and the same framerate, but your eye is seeing 60 different images a second.

With the progressive images your eye is seeing 30, so it has a longer "exposure" time and means that it's longer before you see the next image. This means that while it is the same framerate, you do not perceive it to be as smooth, and you can see "blurring" which does not actually exist on the set. (a lot of people confuse this with response time issues)

This is the LCD "sample and hold" effect, which Philips is trying to get rid of with its ClearLCD displays. They plan to accompalish this by flashing the backlight on and off rapidly (they use HCFL refreshing at 75Hz, iirc) rather than using a typical CCFL backlight, which refreshes at 1000Hz+.

This effectively inserts whole black "frames" into the image, and gets you to perceive it as smoother motion, as the progressive image doesn't stay on your eye for as long. It also helps hide any trailing caused by response time issues, as the screen is "off" during the transition period, however response really isn't an issue with the latest panels anyway.

Doing it by effectively re-creating an interlaced image on a progressive display, by adding "scanlines" to the image should, in theory, have the same effect, but I imagine it would not cause the same amount of eyestrain.

Perhaps rather than adding full black scanlines, by dimming every odd, then even, scanline 25% or so would be enough to have the same effect, but with less of a flicker.



I believe emulators just draw a lot of lines over the whole image, I don't think they actually alternate them every frame, so that would not be the same effect. (although it can look good)

[Lyris]

It's my understanding that to show, for example, 30 progressive frames (forget de-interlacing for a minute) at 60Hz, each frame is displayed twice.

This means that it's 60Hz, but only 30 unique frames.

With you up to there, but:

If a 60Hz interlaced broadcast is de-interlaced, it becomes 30 progressive frames, which then need to be displayed twice to get shown at 60Hz.

I always thought these 60 interlaced frames were converted to 60 progressive ones, using parts of the frames before and after to "fill in the gaps". The fact that some deinterlacing systems use the frames after the "current" one explains why deinterlacing can produce a very slight lag.

The "unique frames" thing is something I haven't given much thought though, something vital could be going way over my head. I'm positive that 60 interlaced frames are converted to 60 unique ones for video content - otherwise you just wouldn't get the same fluidity of motion.

[MJ]

While I was in my LE32R41BD's Service Menu I hit Reset by accident (the right key selects the highlighted menu in addition to the Enter key), not a big problem to adjust my custom settings again, but I'm annoyed it reset the total viewing time figure.

[Lyris]

You can even reset that? Wow, talk about a bonus for potentially selling the thing on later!

[AlwaysAce]

If the Sony V had a VGA input that accepted 1360x768, I'd probably run out and buy one tomorrow, for example. As it stands, I wouldn't buy it, especially at the inflated price it goes for. I still can't believe they dropped it on the "high-end" model.

You'll probably think i'm full of it for saying this, but................ in my local sony shop the v series looked inferior to the s silver(cheaper) bravia range when displaying hd material. it stood out like a sore thumb too.

both v and s series screens i looked at were 40" lcd's and the s series looked smooth and sharp with beautiful colour rendition and really decent black levels, while the v series looked er.........overly processed if that makes any sense?

its worth pointing out that the models lower than 40" in the s series were not as good as i've descried, but then neither were the v series.

[MJ]

You can even reset that? Wow, talk about a bonus for potentially selling the thing on later!

I was quite surprised that it reset this figure and personally I think Samsung should have disabled this figure from being reset, you can't reset your car's total mileage back to zero by a simple button press.

I know I just need to add 20 hours to the total, but I'm particular about things like this and would prefer the figure it displays to be the actual viewing time.

[Leon Retro]

Pity about the lack of backlight adjust on the Sharp - another off my list. There's a new JVC range coming out with 2 HDMI in AND a backlight control that looks very tasty. Hopefully the problems it'll have will be nice ones that I can easily ignore - with 2 HDMI inputs it would be hard to hold a grudge against small faults.

Are they also bringing-out a new 37" model?

[MJ]

Are they also bringing-out a new 37" model?

Toshiba's WLT58 range come in 32", 37" and 42" sizes, have two HDMI inputs, digital tuner and backlight control, among other things.