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Letterbox looks like CRAP on a widescreen HDTV :(

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So, I caved in and bought the "Limited Edition" DVDs even though I already had the 2004 DVD box set. Right now, I am still using a standard CRT TV set at home, so the OOT in letterbox format looks fine.

At work, there is a big widescreen HDTV and an XBox 360. I brought my Star Wars OOT "Bonus Disc" and tried to watch it--arrrgh. I can see why everyone hates the non-anamorphic release now, it looks like a RealPlayer video when you try to zoom out the lback bars However, this is a gigantic television set.

So when I finally buy a plasma widescreen, my OOT "bonus discs" will be pretty much inadequate for me to enjoy SW. Maybe if I get a smaller widescreen, it won't be as bad?


P.S.: would it be considered rude if I gave away my '04 DVDs to friends as Christmas presents? They've only been watched once.
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The thing your forgetting is that most dvd's will look crap on big HDtv's because of the resolution of these sets. regardless of wether the dvd is anamorphic or not they will all have to be upscaled from their native resolution to fill a plasma/lcd HDtv.
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Originally posted by: eros
The thing your forgetting is that most dvd's will look crap on big HDtv's because of the resolution of these sets. regardless of wether the dvd is anamorphic or not they will all have to be upscaled from their native resolution to fill a plasma/lcd HDtv.


Most dvds do not look "like crap" on HDTV or plasma/LCD/non-crt displays. They look downright awesome actually. A well-done, modern anamorphic dvd transfer holds up surprisingly well.
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You mean non-anamorphic looks like CRAP on a widescreen HDTV?
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Exactly why I didn't waste my money on this junk...
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Originally posted by: eros
The thing your forgetting is that most dvd's will look crap on big HDtv's because of the resolution of these sets. regardless of wether the dvd is anamorphic or not they will all have to be upscaled from their native resolution to fill a plasma/lcd HDtv.


Sorry to correct you, but you couldn't be more wrong on this point. The tech explanations have all been given before, so I won't bother with another one. A number of variables determine the end result picture quality on any tv, source quality being one of the most important, player quality, cable quality, and display quality and calibration. In general, most dvds look downright awesome on large HDTVs, and most all dvds are anamorphic.
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I haven't experienced the "pain" of watching these on HD as I'm still in ownership of an 32" CRT TV. I guess that's the reason I bought the limited editions as my setup was still of the `95 variety. Come time for an upgrade however, I'll bet someone here will have something upconverted or we'll have something more official. If not... I don't know how I'll react.
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Originally posted by: cador
it looks like a RealPlayer video when you try to zoom out the black bars

ouch

Originally posted by: cador
would it be considered rude if I gave away my '04 DVDs to friends as Christmas presents? They've only been watched once.


Do you mean the '04 boxset or just just the individual '04 dvds from the new '06 release? Either way I think those discs are pretty well put together despite the fact that they're the SE. Picture and sound quality (ANH issues aside) plus audio commentary make them a pretty good xmas gift I'd say.
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Originally posted by: eros
The thing your forgetting is that most dvd's will look crap on big HDtv's because of the resolution of these sets. regardless of wether the dvd is anamorphic or not they will all have to be upscaled from their native resolution to fill a plasma/lcd HDtv.


You are extremely ignorant on this topic. The DVD is the lead format right now and will be for the next ten years, at least. Why? Because DVD's are made to last. Most, if not all, anamorphic transfers are compatible with hi-def. Anamorphic means they are made for both kinds of TV, and usually work very well in hi-def. You need a DVD player that up converts them to look hi-def on your plasma screen, but that's not hard to come by, (I think the XBOX 360 does this) but hell, even without it DVD's will be fine on hi-def TV's. That's why new formats like HD-DVD and Blu-Ray won't become the next big home format, just a niche product. DVD's will last for a very, very long time, far into the hi-def age, and upgrading your movies to hi-def video formats is pointless unless you really want higher quality. So please, inform yourself before posting.
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Originally posted by: Darth_Evil
Originally posted by: eros
The thing your forgetting is that most dvd's will look crap on big HDtv's because of the resolution of these sets. regardless of wether the dvd is anamorphic or not they will all have to be upscaled from their native resolution to fill a plasma/lcd HDtv.


You are extremely ignorant on this topic. The DVD is the lead format right now and will be for the next ten years, at least. Why? Because DVD's are made to last. Most, if not all, anamorphic transfers are compatible with hi-def. Anamorphic means they are made for both kinds of TV, and usually work very well in hi-def. You need a DVD player that up converts them to look hi-def on your plasma screen, but that's not hard to come by, (I think the XBOX 360 does this) but hell, even without it DVD's will be fine on hi-def TV's. That's why new formats like HD-DVD and Blu-Ray won't become the next big home format, just a niche product. DVD's will last for a very, very long time, far into the hi-def age, and upgrading your movies to hi-def video formats is pointless unless you really want higher quality. So please, inform yourself before posting.


fuck off twat
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cador, generally when you use the zoom function on the TV set, it doesn't look as good as when you use the zoom function in the DVD player (I'm assuming an XBox doesn't have one).

I think you'll find there's an improvement when you use the zoom function on the DVD player, and yes, it should look better on a smaller widescreen set as well.

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Originally posted by: eros
Originally posted by: Darth_Evil
Originally posted by: eros
The thing your forgetting is that most dvd's will look crap on big HDtv's because of the resolution of these sets. regardless of wether the dvd is anamorphic or not they will all have to be upscaled from their native resolution to fill a plasma/lcd HDtv.


You are extremely ignorant on this topic. The DVD is the lead format right now and will be for the next ten years, at least. Why? Because DVD's are made to last. Most, if not all, anamorphic transfers are compatible with hi-def. Anamorphic means they are made for both kinds of TV, and usually work very well in hi-def. You need a DVD player that up converts them to look hi-def on your plasma screen, but that's not hard to come by, (I think the XBOX 360 does this) but hell, even without it DVD's will be fine on hi-def TV's. That's why new formats like HD-DVD and Blu-Ray won't become the next big home format, just a niche product. DVD's will last for a very, very long time, far into the hi-def age, and upgrading your movies to hi-def video formats is pointless unless you really want higher quality. So please, inform yourself before posting.


fuck off twat


That;s the funniest damn thing I've seen all day! Well, Darth...guess that shoots down your entirely fact-based and truthful argument once and for all.

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I have a normal 27 inch tv and letterbox widescreen looks fine for me i have no complaints with the new dvd release.
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27 inch is toy

I never got the special features discs, (I won't call them the oot or out or Shout or pout) since I think it's just disrespectful to not treat the classics better or at least on the same level as the revised version. They must look good on regular tv though, but HD I'm guessing not. I also think non-anamorphic is truly crap. i should know. I ripped my rocketeer dvd to my hard drive only to discover it was non-anamorphic. I said "wtf" because it looked fine on my little tv just like all my other dvds, even recent ones, but of course as I learned from seeing the little crappy video image with huge black bars in the video formatted to fit a 4:3, this was a huge waste of space, and the video looked like a bad video stream when I blew it up to full screen on my laptop... and it's a damn pain in the ass to resize too. For me anyway.... I'm more used to converting anamorphic dvds to avi and such...

well that's my story. Treat star wars proper, george.
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Just take a good looking anamorphic dvd and try that out on the widescreen tv for comparison. Some of these new tv's are really bad with atrocious black levels, pixelization and motion smearing/video noise. I zoomed in on Star Wars on my family's lcd tv and I thought it looked good on a tv I think is crap. I couldn't see a thing in the opening scene of ET (night in the forest). The same scene on my analog projection tv only looked as washed out if I turned the contrast down to roughly 25%.

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Originally posted by: Knightmessenger
Just take a good looking anamorphic dvd and try that out on the widescreen tv for comparison. Some of these new tv's are really bad with atrocious black levels, pixelization and motion smearing/video noise. 25%.


#1: pixelization is not a real term AFAIK. I see people use it all the time when what they mean is artifacting.

#2: I agree that some widescreen tvs have atrocious looking pictures, but it's usually not the tv's fault. its that people generally don't know how to calibrate them correctly & use the atrocious factory settings.

ok, while typing this, i looked up pixelization, it is real, just people generally use the term incorrectly when they mean "artifacting" from what i've seen.

Pixelization Wiki
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So far, I haven't been blown away by the plasma and lcd TVs I've seen. Until they can match the PQ of a CRT, they can keep 'em. Some of the 30" widescreen CRTs have a beautiful picture- even when not calibrated perfectly. The Sony set in particular has a gorgeous picture. The main drawback of CRTs though, is of course the limited screen size, and the fact that they're so heavy and deep.

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As stated, one of the biggest problems with flat panels is that most folks really don't know how to use them in order to get the most out of them. You don't even need an ISF calibration to get one looking pretty damn fine. You just need to learn how to adjust the picture controls properly, and for god sake, if you've bothered to buy a plasma or an LCD, don't connect your dvd player to it with a composite video cable. LOTS of people make those little mistakes that add up to BIG differences in picture quality and then write the sets off as "lousy". More often than not, it ain't the set, it's the user. I've gotten flat panels that I hate the picture quality of to look pretty damn fantastic. You just need to know what you're adjusting and why. The manuals are your friends. People have to realize that these aren't our parents televisions. We have LOTS of fine tuning ability when it comes to modern televisions. It's really amazing how drastic a difference a good setup can make. But it takes time, patience, and experimentation with room lighting, brightness, contrast, etc. The AVIA setup disc should almost be sold with every HDTV purchase.

And I know that lots of people like to use the "zoom" functions on these sets, but honestly, if you want the picture to look its absolute best, I beg you, DON'T. Aside from switching between 4:3 and normal widescreen mode, any other setting will do little more than fuck up your image quality and magnify any flaws in the source material while distorting the picture's geometry. A few of my friends are in love with these "zoom" modes, and I honestly can't stand looking at their televisions. They think it looks great, and that it's better to have the whole scree filled in. Why? Why? Buying a tv like that and setting it up that way is like going to a four star gourmet restaurant and ordering a Big Mac. With displays like this quality should be favored over quantity.

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Believe me, I play around with the settings on the LCD all the time and it never looks good. "Picture" I assume that means contrast is at 100% too. I can use an auto exposure setting which helps but that makes the brightness flicker up and down at times. It does give more detail in blacks with that setting but the gain (brightness of the whites, right?) is muted.
The thing is, CRT and projection look decent at factory setting. They can look great when I adjust them. The LCD tv looks TERRIBLE out of the box and with a ton of adjusting and fooling around, might look ok.
As for pixelization and artifacting, I think it has both. Standard channels also being broadcast in HD tend to look bad, particularly ESPN which is equivalent to the 4 hour setting on a dvd recorder. Some videos on youtube look better. What should have been solid red colors showed tiny moving black dots during the Arizona Cardinals Monday night football game. I want a tv to display a moving picture, not a bunch of tiny flashing dots.
Does HD really have more clarity? It has more resolution but clarity I think should mean lack of anything that makes a picture less than pristine. Digital compression means less clarity.

Take back the trilogy. Execute Order '77

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What kind of LCD do you have? I'm curious. The most recent LCD that I've come across that looks like absolute shitte out of the box is the Toshiba REGA line. I dealt with 32", 42" and a 47" REGZA panels and they all look like crap out of the box. Darker than all hell. Even once properly adjusted they're visibly darker than other sets in the same category. It took some extensive noodling with the contrast, brightness, backlight, Dynamic Contrast, DNR, Digital Noise Reduction Modes, and their advanced color menu to get the sets to look decent. Up close there is still lots of noise and compression artifacting visible. At a distance of five feet or more they look okay, and better in a dark room, but they still suck for the money. And FYI for anyone considering one of these....they're advertised as 1080p displays, but there's a kick. While the panel itself does have a the native 1080p resolution, the sets CANNOT accept a 1080p signal through their HDMI or component inputs. That's straight from Toshiba's tech support. The sets will scale an incoming signal to 1080p (they say), but will not accept a 1080p feed. Go figure.
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I finally did a DVI hookup of my Momitsu DVD to my 56" DLP, and I must say the picture quality looks awesome at the custom 1080 DVI setting -- except for the OOT bonusdiscs. They still look bad, actually worse than before the DVI hokup I think.
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That's the core of the issue. Digital video connections (DVI or HDMI) will render more apparent any substantial flaws in the source material. LFL. knew this and simply choose to thumb their noses at us. They made these discs so that they would look passable, not even very good, but simply passable on an "old" television. But playing these discs on an HDTV is kind of like looking at shit under a microscope.
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Originally posted by: ESHBG
Exactly why I didn't waste my money on this junk...


Yes, but will we ever see the OOT again?

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Sony Wega LCD. I looked at a tv store and the Pioneer plasma's looked pretty good, about 80% there to CRT contrast. Very little video noise too. Panasonic looked alright too but when you got in to the sharp and LG, it was cloudy. They had the same wega tv on display and it looked pretty mediocre. The projection tv is from Mitsubishi.

Take back the trilogy. Execute Order '77

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Hmm. I'm surprised. A buddy of mine has a WEGA LCD, I think it actually is the 32", and the thing looks gorgeous. And, I'm a plasma guy over LCD any day of the week. But that set looks almost as nice as I would want an LCD to look. Anything on dvd or HD TV looks incredible. As you would expect, broadcast tv is pretty touch and go. I'll be thankful when everything is digital and HD. Standard channels don't help convert anyone to a flat panel believer.

You also have to be careful when comparing sets in store like that . Rarely are sets calibrated equally. I've seen sets that I know are gorgeous because I've worked with them myself, and yet, on the wall at these stores...they look like shit...cloudy, no contrast, etc. Sometimes they will deliberately make one set look bad in order to sell another one by making it look better in comparison. Those places and most of those guys are full of shit. Never take anything they tell you as truth. I've had these guys use words to explain these tvs to me that don't exist, and flat out make things up as they went along. You really have to be careful.