Discussion
Was watching a film earlier on normal tv, it was not in hd, it was awefull, could barely watch it, luckily said film was also on netflix so watched it on that, night and day different, was tv always this bad, tin foil hat, has sd been turned down to make us all pay more for hd, or is hd just that much better and i was used to sd before?
yes, SD really was that bad compared to HD, especially much of the archived stuff used for broadcast that may be over compressed through several generations of transfer from various formats or originally stored on lower quality tape. Some film transfers to TV were also very poorly made.
However, televisions/displays are in general much larger now - watch on a 17inch screen and you wont see as pronounced a difference.
edit to add:
SD in UK is max of 720x576 pixels often less
HD is up to 1920x1080 pixels so about 4xthe resolution.
There is more to it than that when you consider camera and editing quality through the process of making the film and getting it to the TV screen, all of which is now much more 'lossless' so preserving much more of the original quality.
However, as the technical picture and sound quality has improved immensely, this is not matched in the quality of the scripts/storylines/acting/directing which appears to be inversely proportional.
However, televisions/displays are in general much larger now - watch on a 17inch screen and you wont see as pronounced a difference.
edit to add:
SD in UK is max of 720x576 pixels often less
HD is up to 1920x1080 pixels so about 4xthe resolution.
There is more to it than that when you consider camera and editing quality through the process of making the film and getting it to the TV screen, all of which is now much more 'lossless' so preserving much more of the original quality.
However, as the technical picture and sound quality has improved immensely, this is not matched in the quality of the scripts/storylines/acting/directing which appears to be inversely proportional.
Edited by Zaichik on Tuesday 4th March 23:17
Radec said:
Isn't it just the upscaling that modern TVs have to do with SD that makes them look crap compared to HD.
On older TV tech, the SD content probably looked a lot better, however screen sizes will be smaller too.
This, and when I go into John Lewis I see massive 8K TVs for sale. Why on earth would you want one, it's just going to make everything look even crappier.On older TV tech, the SD content probably looked a lot better, however screen sizes will be smaller too.
Surely if you are spending that much on a TV you know what you are buying, it's not a case of people thinking "higher number, must be better" like we used to have with camera phone lenses?
Good quality upscaling can make a huge difference for viewing SD material on a modern set as long as the original material isn't 'noisy'.
I have loads of stuff (digital rips of DVDs and broadcast digital TV services) dating back to the early 2000s in SD that looks very acceptable when I play it back on a 4K OLED using my ShieldTV using the AI upscaling. Also, my old DVDs played back on my PS3 (with the TV doing the upscaling) or the PS5 (with the PS5 doing the upscaling) generally look very decent too. But you can tell they are not HD, there's a definite lack of detail and any noise in the picture is really obvious.
4K material doesn't look all that much better than 1080p to my eyes - the only real advantage is that the 4K source typically will support HDR or Dolby Vision which IMO do make a difference. The best compromise IMO are downscaled 1080p rips of UHD discs that retain the HDR. These look better than original 1080p Blu Rays (I've compared BDs that I own to those kinds of rips) and don't take a massive amount of space to store on a NAS (typically 5-8 gigs).
I have loads of stuff (digital rips of DVDs and broadcast digital TV services) dating back to the early 2000s in SD that looks very acceptable when I play it back on a 4K OLED using my ShieldTV using the AI upscaling. Also, my old DVDs played back on my PS3 (with the TV doing the upscaling) or the PS5 (with the PS5 doing the upscaling) generally look very decent too. But you can tell they are not HD, there's a definite lack of detail and any noise in the picture is really obvious.
4K material doesn't look all that much better than 1080p to my eyes - the only real advantage is that the 4K source typically will support HDR or Dolby Vision which IMO do make a difference. The best compromise IMO are downscaled 1080p rips of UHD discs that retain the HDR. These look better than original 1080p Blu Rays (I've compared BDs that I own to those kinds of rips) and don't take a massive amount of space to store on a NAS (typically 5-8 gigs).
richhead said:
But surely a 10 year old film cant have been that bad quality
Film shot on actual film is generally of superior quality to anything digital because the image isn’t comprised of lines or dots but natural gradients. The cameras and lenses used to shoot film on film are still considered to be superior to modern digital cameras. Many a cinematographer will pay extraordinary amounts for old lenses and even convert old film cameras to use digital censors.The degradation comes when old films are converted for TV and digital playback.
Back in the day, the most common method was to film the film. You’d have a box with a video camera at one end and a screen on which the film was projected at the other. So the quality was determined by the camera being used.
The worst examples you’ll see today are simply digitised versions of video that was originally captured using this means.
When HD was introduced in 2006, it accentuated the difference in quality. Modern film scanners helped but upscaling transformed the process. But this can only go so far before the films starts to look ‘too real’ – more like a soap opera than a film.
There’s big business in remastering. There’s different approaches to this but the best is when they go back to the original prints, and digitise the whole thing, frame by frame. Because the original doesn’t use lines or dots, theoretically, it’s possible to remaster a film into any modern resolution but 4k is considered the optimal resolution.
There’s some interesting Ai stuff coming online for this. I’m currently using a programme called Topaz, upscaling old VHS home movies shot in the 80s that are coming out looking like I filmed them last week on my pro digital film camera.
The biggest challenge with remastering is the time it takes which has limited the number of films that have been done. But I think Ai will accelerate the process so we’ll probably see an increasing number of films available that look as good on your TV as they did in the cinema when they were released.
Lucas Ayde said:
4K material doesn't look all that much better than 1080p to my eyes
Not just your eyes! Well shot HD content can look just as good as 4k. And many forget that to watch 4k you need a 4k device and screen which lots of people don't have.
4k is exceptionally useful in the production of content because of the crop you're able to apply when creating something that will ultimately be output as HD.
4k does produce lovely images but for 90% of applications, it's not the be all and end all that many think.
All of the mega resolutions (6k and above) are really only accommodating the gaming market where ultra-realism is the name of the game (literally). Coupled with super-high frame rates (60fps to 150fps) you get these incredibly immersive and realistic images that would look odd and distracting in dramatic film.
Nezquick said:
I had this conversation the other night with my wife when watching the FA Cup match on ITV4 (or whatever it was on). It was almost unwatchable. I think sport really suffers if it's not in at least HD. 4K is perfect for any sport if you can get it.
ITV4 if streamed through ITVX is pretty good, I actually commented how good a picture it was during the football.Their broadcast SD I agree is awful.
The Freeview channels suffer because of the need to stuff an impossible number of channels into the bandwidth availble for each channel multiplex. The bandwidth allocated to each channel isn't fixed - it varies depending on the motion content of each frame (or set of frames) not only of that channel but also of all the other channels in that mux (statitistical mulpiplexing). If you have a very busy channel - & sport is busy - then it steals bandwidth from the less busy channels - like a film. So the films look rubbish & eventually the sport channel hits it's hard bitrate ceiling & looks poor as well.
If we got rid of all the dross shopping channels we could have semi-decent terrestrial television quality.
If we got rid of all the dross shopping channels we could have semi-decent terrestrial television quality.
StevieBee said:
Well shot HD content can look just as good as 4k. And many forget that to watch 4k you need a 4k device and screen which lots of people don't have.
no it cant if viewed raw but it can if your watching heavily compressed steamed content
watch a film on 4k raw vs 4k blueray vs 4k stream you will see a difference
the level bitrate difference is huge between them and the lower the bitrate the more content has been lost to compression waste bin
raw 1080p 24fps 10 bit 4:4:4 1.4Gbit/s
bluray 1080p 24fps 40Mbits/s
youtube 180p 60fps 6.8Mbit/s
Mr Pointy said:
The Freeview channels suffer because of the need to stuff an impossible number of channels into the bandwidth availble for each channel multiplex. The bandwidth allocated to each channel isn't fixed - it varies depending on the motion content of each frame (or set of frames) not only of that channel but also of all the other channels in that mux (statitistical mulpiplexing). If you have a very busy channel - & sport is busy - then it steals bandwidth from the less busy channels - like a film. So the films look rubbish & eventually the sport channel hits it's hard bitrate ceiling & looks poor as well.
If we got rid of all the dross shopping channels we could have semi-decent terrestrial television quality.
That does sound very likely, doesnt explain why the adds look better than the film tho.If we got rid of all the dross shopping channels we could have semi-decent terrestrial television quality.
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