1080p and Blu-ray
Robert Harley -- Mon, 07/31/2006 - 21:42
While on vacation, I had an opportunity to stop by Sony to see a demonstration of the Blu-ray player. It was fantastic. I was watching the demo on a 60" SXRD and talking to the Sony rep, he mentioned that the player was outputting the signal to the set at 1080p via HDMI. I asked him how that was done and he told me that the new 60" SXRD can accept an HDMI 1080p signal! He told me that my 60" was being phased out! (I purchased my 60" SXRD in late May)
He said, "That doesn't mean you cannot use this player with your set, just that the image will lack some of the clarity on your set" as it deinterlaces the player's (apparently selectable) 1080i signal to 1080p. They had the new 60" SXRD connected to the player, so the image was absolutely incredible.
On my drive back, I stopped at the Sony Style store at the Westchester Mall, where they were demonstrating Blu-ray. I asked them to switch the disc to the one I had seen earlier. As it was playing, I told the rep that I had just seen a demo on the same set at Sony, and the image was very noticeably sharper, more depth, almost 3D. Why the difference? He told me that they had not yet received the 60" SXRD that has a 1080p HDMI input.
Should I feel cheated?
Art Ross
I'm a bit confused by your story. You were able to visit Sony headquarters and see a demo? I didn't know they conducted demos for the general public there. In any event, I'd be surprised if they were demonstrating the Samsung BD-P1000 Blu-ray player (the only commercially available player at this time) at Sony; I assume you saw a prototype of Sony's own BDP-S1, which has not yet shipped to the consumer market. I can't imagine they were demonstrating the Samsung player at the Sony Style store, either, but I don't know. If they were, that would explain why it looked noticeably less sharp; the initial Samsung players have a mistaken factory setting that softens the picture considerably.
As for viewing Blu-ray on a display capable of accepting 1080p vs. one that can accept only 1080i, there should be little if any difference between the two, as long as we're talking about 1080p at 60 frames per second, which is designated 1080p/60. In both cases, a 1080i signal must be deinterlaced to 1080p; the only difference is whether the deinterlacing takes place in the player or the set.
On the other hand, if we're talking about 1080p at 24 frames per second (1080p/24), that's a different story. Movies are stored on Blu-ray discs as 1080p/24, which must be converted to 1080i/60 or 1080p/60 for most displays, which cannot accept 1080p/24. This conversion invokes all the problems associated with 3:2 pulldown. If the Sony BDP-S1 can output 1080p/24 and the new SXRD can accept 1080p/24, the result should look significantly better than 1080i or 1080p at 60 frames per second.
Scott Wilkinson
Video Editor, The Perfect Vision
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