Home Entertainment Blog Brought to you by your friendly, opinionated, Home Entertainment and Technology writer, Stephen Dawson Here I report, discuss, whinge about or argue on matters related to high fidelity, home entertainment equipment and the discs and signals that feed them. Since this Blog is hand-coded (I like TextPad), there are no comments facilities. But feel free to email me at scdawson [at] hifi-writer.com. I will try to respond, either personally or by posting here emails I consider of interest. I shall assume that emails sent to me here can be freely posted by me unless you state otherwise.
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Here is a somewhat similar test clip I currently use. Use? Overuse! The clip is 3 minutes and 34.8 seconds long and I've watched bits of it hundreds of times. That's because it is the quickest test of how well a DVD player's (or TV's) deinterlacing circuits work. In the image herewith, one full frame from this clip is at the top, while the three details are the valet's waistcoat, unscaled. The movie is the 1958 romantic comedy Gigi. That's Maurice Chevalier at the left. It is the waistcoat that is useful here. As you can see from the detail to the left, it has fine dark lines running horizontally over a yellowish background. The frames are progressive, but the PAL DVD has the video flagged as interlaced. This often leads to deinterlacing problems as I've previously explained. The correct way to deinterlace this is simply to weave together the two fields to recreate the original frame. DVD players that do this produce a nice stable picture with full detail, such as that on the left. Some DVD players when doing a conversion to progressive scan, and some TVs when faced with 576i inputs, instead use a 'bobbing' deinterlacing technique. That means that instead of weaving together the two fields, they show one of the fields first (scaled up to full screen size and, if a decent quality circuit, with the original 288 horizontal picture lines filled with interpolated lines, created individually in each case from the original line above and the orginal line below it). Then the second field is shown, processed in the same way. Often, this kind of processing is virtually unnoticable. But you can sometimes see a slight loss of picture sharpness, especially in stable parts of the picture. So more advanced deinterlacers combing weaving and bobbing. For the bits of the picture that aren't moving, the perform a weave from the two fields, while those bits of the picture that are moving receive a bob. This is a remarkably effective way of doing it and can yield good picture results. But if the source, like most movie DVDs, is progressive, this is still substandard. And this picture here shows why. This vest is moving. If it is treated as interlaced, rather than progressive, for the purposes of deinterlacing then instead of the fine horizontal lines, you get the course diagonal ones shown in the two details to the right. The middle detail is the same as the left detail, except that I deinterlaced it by discarding the even field and interpolating replacement scan lines. The right detail is also the same, except it was the odd field that was discarded. This I call a moire pattern because it is an artificially created pattern, generated by applying one kind of regular gridded filter to a gridded pattern. You can see, if you look closely, that the pattern differs slightly between the middle and right hand shots. All this was artificially achieved using Photoshop. But I can assure you that these pictures are exactly what you see on screen when video-style deinterlacing is applied to this clip. But those course diagonal patterns roil around, moving to and fro, as though two sheets of a sheer curtain were blowing in a breeze. Some clever deinterlacing circuits include a feature called 'cadence detection'. They examine the content of the picture and attempt to determine whether the video is progressive or interlaced. This particular clip is very challenging, because those horizontal stripes can look a lot like interlaced combing, so virtually all cadence detecting circuits are tricked into thinking that this is interlaced, at least part of the time. That's why I prefer circuits in which you can force film mode.
	HDTV vs SDTV again - Friday, 5 September 2008, 8:45 pm Last night one of the Australian Idol judges, Marcia Hines, was wearing this brilliant jacket. Brilliant, that is, from my point of view. That's because it was white with a strong, very narrow, closely spaced, near horizontal, black stripe. Brilliant test clip, I thought, especially as it's interlaced, so I captured a section of the video from both the HD and SD versions of the broadcast and produced a beaut two minute clip consisting entirely of Marcia's jacket, mostly in close and medium distance shots. I thought that I might as well do a quick comparison, seeing as I had the stuff on my computer. So this is an extreme wide-angle shot. The full frame is at the top with details underneath -- standard definition to the left, high definition to the right. As usual, I used Photoshop to increase the size of the SD version from its original 1,024 by 576 pixels (actually broadcast at 720 by 576 but captured in the correct aspect by my application) to 1,920 by 1,080, because that's what your HD display would do. There are obvious differences of sharpness and clarity, and in the HD version fewer and smaller random noise blotches, which are compression artefacts. Most interesting to me, though, was the group of people seated behind the singer. On the right hand side you can, if you are familiar with this year's show, identify them all. On the left you'd be hard put to identify any.
	Juno 'Digital Copy', let's dig deeper - Friday, 5 September 2008, 11:23 am Let's dig a little deeper into this whole 'Digital Copy' (DC) thing, discussed in the previous post. My brother, presently holidaying in Austria, has written to me suggesting that I 'should install a Firefox or Maxthon browser and set up a proxy server to access the DC movies.' I'm prepared to go to reasonable lengths to find out the information that I need, or to explore the intricacies of some interesting piece of technology. But when it comes to using consumer orientated hardware and software, I play dumb. I try to follow the instructions as best I can. What more can you reasonably ask of the consumer? So I persevere with Internet Explorer. I don't use proxy servers. Anyway, I've already seen this wonderful movie ... twice! On Blu-ray. I highly recommend the movie to readers. But I have no desire to see it on a portable device. I just want to find out if a consumer can if he or she wishes to. Now, what is this 'Digital Copy'? The disc it is on is not a DVD-Video, but a DVD ROM. That is, all it contains is a set of computer files and folders. The disc is single layer and carries 2.71GB of data. In its root directory is an 'Autorun.inf' file which Windows automatically runs on inserting the disc. This in turn invokes a program called 'Menu.exe', a 3MB program which brings the menu up on your screen and manages the installation process. The actual video data resides in the DVDROM/Media folder. There appear to be three copies there: Juno_PC_NTSC.wmv 1.09GB -- this appears to be the Windows Media format version intended for PC viewing. Juno_PORT_NTSC.wmv 0.498GB -- this appears to be the Windows Media format version intended for portable device viewing. FeatureMovie 1.11GB -- this file has no extension, but it's so big it is also likely to be a video file, presumably in some format compatible with iTunes and the iPod. iTunes doesn't pay too much attention to file names in general, so it isn't surprising that this file doesn't have a recognisable media extension on it. Since I was digging around in the contents of the disc anyway, I decided to double click on the first of these. Windows Media Player came up and sought my permission to download some necessary extensions to play the file. I granted permission. Downloads and installations occurred, and then: I have altered that screen shot only to white out the serial number. Presumably this means that you're only allowed to get permission to use the material on a given serial number a certain number of times, and somehow in my playing around I've exceeded that. But I did try to play the thing in an unconventional way, so let me restart: I Autoplay the DVD ROM to bring up the menu, then click on 'Transfer Digital Copy': In the box that pops up I click 'TRANSFER TO WINDOWS MEDIA PLAYER': In the next box that pops up: I enter the serial number and tick the licence agreement box, then click 'NEXT': Okay, see the added line of text (once again, I've blanked out the serial number, not that it appears to be of much use to anyone)? It says: 'This asset has already been licensed.' Which I presume means, like the other one, that I've used up the total number of licensings allowed. So how many licenses are allowed? If only one, then I suppose my first attempt, which led to the apparent wrong-country-denial, counted as an access. What if you want to load it onto both your computer and your iPod? I shall have to ask. This continues my long tradition of coming unstuck on digital rights management. Of course, discs sold in Australia should never come a-cropper with the wrong country thing in the first place.
	Brilliant Idea, Dumb Name - Thursday, 4 September 2008, 9:28 pm Well, here I am live-blogging at the Republican National Convention where ... okay, hang on, I'm not doing that at all. Instead I'm semi-live-blogging as I attempt to grapple for the first time with a 'Digital Copy'. In my title my reference to a dumb name is a reference to 'Digital Copy'. But it is a brilliant idea. Here's the thing: you buy a movie on a DVD or Blu-ray. You can watch it on your home theatre system, or on your portable DVD player, or on your notebook computer. But you can't watch it on your video iPod or other portable video device. Well, actually you can but only by using various naughty tools to rip the movie from the disc and transform it to a suitable format. 'Digital Copy' eliminates this need. You get an extra copy of the movie in a format suitable for running on your portable video device. It's brilliant for several reasons. First, if widely adopted by the industry it will cut the ground from underneath developers of the aforementioned naughty tools. Second, it's a useful extra for those who want to be able to view their movies portably. Third, it fits in with the popular sense that once you've purchased a DVD, you should be able to enjoy the movie in any format that suits you, the purchaser. Finally, digital rights management is included in this copy, so it's easier to control than proliferating ripped copies. But the name is stunningly dumb. 'Digital Copy'? That's what the DVD is! How about 'Movie to Go' or some such that actually differentiates this feature from a normal DVD. Anyway, this feature has been available in the US for a while, and will be appearing on some Twentieth Century Fox titles in Australia in the near future: specifically in What Happens In Vegas (22 October 2008) and Shine a Light (5 November). However, as an advance preview of how it works, I (and I assume various Australian journalists) received a copy of the Juno DVD in the mail today. But not the Australian one; the US one. This has a second disc which contains the 'Digital Copy'. So what I am about to do is semi-live-blog (this won't be uploaded until I've finished, or my mission fails) of loading the 'Digital Copy' (hereinafter referred to as DC). So here goes. I open the box. It has one of those stickers across the top that are always on US DVDs, but never on Australian ones. I take Disc One and put it in my computer's (Windows XP SP2) DVD-ROM drive. It whirs and asks me whether I want to run CyberLink PowerDVD. While it was whirring, I glanced at the box and discovered that the DC was on Disc 2. I load Disc 2 and pretty rapidly a panel appears asking me whether I want to load the DC, quit or get help. Choosing the latter brings up a web page with some instructions. I choose 'Transfer Digital Copy'. A new panel pops up and asks if I want the iTunes or the Windows Media versions. Since I have an iPod, I choose the former. Then I wait. iTunes has always been horribly slow to load on my computers. Apple ought to get its act together on that. Finally it does, though, and Juno appears as a device. I click on that and the right hand pane of iTunes shows a nice Juno graphic at the top, and underneath tells me to type into the box the code on the 'Juno DVD insert'. Juno DVD insert? Oh, there it is: a slip hidden underneath another, larger, slip advertising a different movie. On the back is a 16 digit, three hyphen code number along with some instructions. I type that it and click on 'Redeem'. Up pops a box which says: 'Sign in to redeem your code.' It asks for my Apple ID and password. Do I even have an Apple ID? Did I get one when I installed iTunes? Should I click on Create Account, or Forgot Password? I try the latter, just in case. Hey, I do have an account! I answer the security questions, correctly, and change my password. Then I return to iTunes, but now it tells me I've timed out. Probably not a good idea to live blog and screw things up all at the same time. So I go back and click again on 'Transfer Digital Copy'. That didn't do anything, so I eject the disc and really go back to the beginning. I click the appropriate selections as previously outlined. I type in that damned 16 digit code again. This is complicated (as it was the first time, but I forgot to mention it) by the fact that each character I type causes the previous one to become indecipherable. So I have to type very carefully. This is what it looks like: I click the 'Redeem' button and the iTunes website is opened up where I am asked to confirm my information (apparently I've never done this before) and accept their terms and conditions. I insouciantly do same, as usual not reading them. Does anyone ever actually do that? iTunes tells me it's communicating with something, and then the following appears: I take this to mean that the devious thing has worked out that I'm in Australia, so I'm screwed. Well, I may try the Windows Media version later, but for the time being testing out 'Disc Copy' is going to have to wait.
	DVD Dominance - Tuesday, 26 August 2008, 2:44 pm Yesterday Warner Bros sent me the three Dirty Harry sequels on Blu-ray, along with the 'Limited Edition Giftset' Blu-ray for Batman Begins. I watched the latter last night and it was glorious. Great movie to begin with, and superb picture quality on the disc. I shall do a proper review for publication in due course. But one thing I ought to mention is that it will not shelve well with your other Blu-ray discs. The reason for this is that two of the extras are booklets with comic book and script elements. Pretty decent productions in their own rights, they are clearly sized for packaging with a DVD. So the stylish Blu-ray cardboad outer box is also sized for the DVD. Since Blu-ray disc boxes are shorter than those for DVDs and cardboard spacer sits underneath the plastic disc box. This kind of thing will change once Blu-ray gains a sufficiently large market, I suppose.
	3DTV - Tuesday, 26 August 2008, 9:00 am Back in the early 1970s I entered a $100 bet with a school friend to the effect that before we died some form of effective, commercial 3D TV would be available. A hundred dollars seemed like a lot in those days. On the face of it, his bet (against the proposition) was safer than mine (for it). Our TVs were all CRTs. The only programming was free to air analogue: VHS had not yet arrived, let alone DVD or Blu-ray. He was more technologically knowledgeable. I had no idea at all how the technology might work. But I bet on this advance on general principles. If we assumed that we had, say, fifty more years to live then we had a timescale by which to judge likely technological progress. Casting back fifty years would have taken us to the first half of the 1920s. Say, around the time that Philo Farnsworth was inventing the idea of using scan lines as a system for television. Certainly well before magnetic tape was invented. As far as I could see, if things moved that far and fast in the previous five decades, they could move just as far and fast in the next five. So here we are 35 years later. Late last month Samsung announced that the 'World's first 3-D Plasma Is Here!' (Link to come). Basically, this is a eye-glasses based system, I think with polarising shutter filters. What's special about the TV is that it incorporates picture processing technology from Perth-based DDD (Dynamic Digital Depth) that allegedly turns 2D into 3D. I'm supposed to be looking at this TV in a few days. It also seems to support dedicated 3D material delivered via computer. Today I received a press release from Philips indicating that it is demonstrating its 3D system at the Berlin IFA consumer electronics show. What's interesting here is that in addition to various displays, the company will have a demonstration Blu-ray product. Its approach is called '2D plus depth', which is different to the more common stereoscopic approach. The Philips system uses a regular image, but there's a second depth map delivered as well which can be applied or ignored, depending on the capabilities of the equipment. It's analogous to the introduction of colour to TV, where the black and white image remained the same for backwards compatibility, and the colour overlay could be ignored by black and white TVs. Presumably we will need a HDMI v1.4 to support this signal. I'm certainly not claiming (yet) to have won that schoolboy bet, but things are moving in the right direction. It will be interesting to see how well this stuff works. Is it realistic? Does it work for a number of people in the room? At different viewing angles? And if this technology becomes available, will 3D movie production become as ubiquitous as colour?
	VHS Weirdness - Friday, 22 August 2008, 6:12 pm Well, there you go. It looks like I don't have too many readers after all! Or none, anyway, that have any spare VHS tapes. Happily charity came to the rescue. More to the point, I went to the Salvation Army and St Vincent de Paul's op shops today and found some prerecorded VHS tapes. Brilliant! What I found were Independence Day and Entrapment. I have the first on Blu-ray already and am seeking the latter. These cost me the princely sum of $5 in total. I also purchased The Untouchables because I thought this also was available on Blu-ray, but I was in error. So I plugged the output of the VCR into the composite video input of my video capture card (no point trying to do this with a DVD recorder because it's almost certain that the VHS tapes are macrovision encoded) and started recording. I did a little test, first, on a random section of video just to make sure it was all working okay. It was, sort of, but there was heavy interlacing. There was no good reason for that. Except that I remembered that the first DVD release of Independence Day had exactly the same problem. For confirmation I recorded on my computer snippets from each of the other two tapes I purchased, and neither had this problem. That's going to slow things up. I am not aiming to compare any specific VHS with DVD and Blu-ray, but rather to do a more general format comparison. That's why I am also seeking Entrapment on Blu-ray. That means I need to present VHS at its best. So I have to extract the opposite fields from adjacent VHS frames and weave them together myself. Damn. Even then, as you can see from the weave I've done here, there's still a slight misalignment, that being the nature of VHS. Interframe stability isn't very high. I tried sliding the two fields a little left and right, but it generally made things worse. That picture has a detail from an original VHS frame to the left, the same section from the next VHS frame in the middle, followed by my manual weaving together of the matching two fields from those frames. What is amusing is that at the start of this tape is a boast contained in the following two frames: UPDATE (Friday, 22 August 2008, 9:56 pm): The plot thickens. If you read closely my coverage of the interlacing problems with the Independence Day DVD, you will see the following: Interestingly, unlike the next two movies we shall look at, Independence Day does not have this problem all the way through. It appears in perhaps half of the movie, but there are plenty of scenes recorded properly. For example, most of the airfight scenes look okay. And the scenes featuring Will Smith at his girlfriend's house before he notices the spaceship are magnificently recorded. So I get to the section of the movie on VHS featuring Will Smith at his girlfriend's house, and what do you know? No interlacing! What does this tell us? Well, nothing for certain, but it does seem very likely indeed that the original PAL DVD and the PAL VHS were derived from the same telecine of the film. The masking for the different aspect ratios of presentation (the VHS is in 1.33:1 while the DVD is 2.35:1) must have been conducted after whatever it was that caused the field reversal for large chunks of the movie.