High Definition Video

[bcblair]

V for Vendetta Trailer High DefinitionI was about to buy a laptop and had made a decision(Dell Inspiron 6000), but then saw this trailer that is in Quicktime High Definition. My desktop can't play it and I would like to make sure my laptop will, if this is the coming technology. It says it takes a powerful system and has a link to system requirements, but I don't see them, when I check the link. Can anyone else play this trailer? How good does it look? What do I need to make sure, is on the laptop I buy, to be able to play this type video.

 

[imported_Woody]

Not sure exactly what the requirements would be. A dedicated video card and hardware MPeg decoding along with at least 1080 vertical resolution. I'm sure you can view it at lower resolutions but 1080 is HDTV. WUXGA= (1920 x 1200). Pretty hard to find this resolution on anything but extremely high end laptops like Sager 7629 or 9880, Alienware 7700 or Dell XPS2 with the upgraded display option.

 

[pulsedrive]

Actually NO, HD is not JUST 1080. HD is anything 480P and above, such as 720P, 720i, 1080i, 1080p, etc. 1080 just happens to be the best and and has as it has gone thus far. Really it is a matter of codec for the most part, you probably just need the newest quicktime, because it can play the newest HD standard, forgot what it is called. But even then you still may have dropped frames, if you don't have a hardware assist from the video card.

 

[HeliosUtH]

They don't call it HD TV for nothing 😉 . Through a HD-TV worthy (external or internal) TV-Tunner you can view any HD movie or TV program. Still, I would not try to play HD content on my desktop PC, less on my laptop ... for that I have the big screen TV. 😀

 

[imported_Woody]

I think a PC is a perfect medium for playing HDTV especially with laptops since it assumes you are not in the vicinity of your home HDTV. Obviously the sharper the display and the better the resolution the better the picture quality.

Thanks for the info on HDTV standards pulsedrive....my understanding is that 480p is what you would watch a DVD using a progressive scan DVD player on a HDTV and 1080i is what you would watch HDTV broadcasts in the US. With the upcoming Blueray and HDDVD you will be able to watch DVD videos in the same high resolution standard as HDTV, that is....1080 vertical resolution.

There is a demo of HD media content on Microsofts web site somewhere also. It is very impressive but the content uses a lot of bandwidth. What I would like to be able to do someday is record High Def broadcasts using a digital recorder on my home entertainment system and then be able to view them later using a laptop without losing image quality. Currently there simply isn't enough HD content to make me even want to watch TV that much anymore let alone record it. Once you go High Def you really don't like watching regular TV anymore!!!

 

[Conroy9]

my understanding is that 480p is what you would watch a DVD using a progressive scan DVD player on a HDTV and 1080i is what you would watch HDTV broadcasts in the US

Actually, I think about half the HDTV broadcasts right now are 720p - I'm not sure whether that looks better than 1080 interlaced; they look about the same to me on my 26" tv. It probably depends on what you're watching.

It looks like CBS, NBC and WB use 1080i, and FOX, ESPN and ABC use 720p.

 

[Mike01]

Most people can't tell the difference, resolution wise, between 1080i and 720p, and 720p doesn't flicker. Therefore, most people prefer it. 1080p is a different matter, but that's beyond HDTV standard.

There are very few (if any) tvs in the consumer market that can display 1080i at full resolution. Almost all of the DLP, ILA, and LCD tvs have native 720.

 

[Tostada]

Originally posted by: Mike01
Most people can't tell the difference, resolution wise, between 1080i and 720p, and 720p doesn't flicker. Therefore, most people prefer it. 1080p is a different matter, but that's beyond HDTV standard.

There are very few (if any) tvs in the consumer market that can display 1080i at full resolution. Almost all of the DLP, ILA, and LCD tvs have native 720.

Yeah, but I think that's simply because most TVs are downsampling 1080i to a 720p screen, so you're losing the benefit of the resolution and gaining the major drawback of an interlaced source that's been resized (and resizing interlaced material is a big no-no in video editing).

 

[Mike01]

Nope.

Try this...get your hands on a laptop with a 1900x1200 screen, and one with a 1280x800 screen, and download an HDTV movie in 1080p from bit torrents.

Watch the two side by side, and tell me if you can see a difference. Or better yet, jus look at a jpg image at those two resolutions and see if you can tell a difference. That is...take the same jpg from some digital camera that's at like a ridiculous resolution like 2000 something x 1500 or so, then view the image on both a super high res screen and a normal res screen, and see if you can honestly and instantly spot the difference.

You probably can when you stare at both for a few minutes, but when you're watching tv, you don't stare at a paused image that long unless you're some sort of fanatic.

High res is high res, and 720p isn't that much different than 1080i, at least to the human eye (except of course for the flickering).

You CAN tell the differenece if you try really hard...I just don't think you can in the normal course of watching TV...in other words, if you're watching a show in 1080i on a tv that can handle it, and after commercial the show switches to 720p, you probably won't notice it, except the image will appear smoother and less flickery.