Is there any advantage to buying SD content on Blu-ray?

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BocoDragon

or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Realize This Assgrab is Delicious
It hasn't really happened much yet. If a TV show is in SD, it makes much more sense to release it on DVD to a larger userbase.... but I feel that eventually they will double-dip these shows on Blu-ray.... things like Star Trek TNG/DS9/Voyager (edited in SD video unlike TOS/Enterprise, as I understand it), Simpsons until this year's season where they switched to HD... basically most TV shows created before the 2000s, if they weren't shot on film.

Will an SD show look better in blu-ray than an upscaled DVD? Will it look cleaner, less pixelated on an HD set, than ancient MPEG2 compression?

Is it safe to buy SD TV shows on DVD for the archive, or will the eventual blu-ray double-dip look.... well.. less shitty? (I understand it won't exactly look GOOD)
 
Something tells me this is going to depend on how it was filmed, recorded, and stored.

That said, I have a hard time mustering the effort to purchase any physical media anymore, especially shows. Netflix instant + other download or streamed services are just cheaper, more convenient.

I think my preferred TV series watching experience is via the Apple TV UI. No messing around with stupid custom BluRay menus either.
 
I imagine any filtering effects they apply to the actual video to get it at 1080p would look better than any on the fly upscaling.
 
Juice said:
That said, I have a hard time mustering the effort to purchase any physical media anymore, especially shows. Netflix instant + other download or streamed services are just cheaper, more convenient.

On the other hand, I have a hard time paying for something I can't put on a shelf. I'll stream/download throwaway entertainment... It's a good replacement for Blockbuster. But if I care enough to buy something for ownership in the first place, usually it's something I want a physical object of. I want to look at it because I like it, and I want my friends be able to opt in when they come over "hey we should watch this". I'm not gonna invite them to browse my computer or a massive netflix database.. it's just not going to happen.
 
BocoDragon said:
On the other hand, I have a hard time paying for something I can't put on a shelf. I'll stream/download throwaway entertainment... It's a good replacement for Blockbuster. But if I care enough to buy something for ownership in the first place, usually it's something I want a physical object of. I want to look at it because I like it, and I want my friends be able to opt in when they come over "hey we should watch this". I'm not gonna invite them to browse my computer or a massive netflix database.. it's just not going to happen.
I'm with ya.

I'd never buy DD movies. I like having the discs, cases, etc, and streaming/DD vids can't hold a candle to BD picture quality.
 
Juice said:
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oh this is so fucking stupid
 
Well, TNG, DS9 and Voyager were all shot on film, so they can remaster all of those shows in HD if they want to, but as for SD content on BD, fuck that noise. That's why I refuse to buy that Yukikaze set on BD.
 
I wish they'd put entire seasons of a show on a single dual layer disc.

Something like Babylon 5.
 
good looking subtitles, ugly fonts and blurry looking fonts have ruined many subtitled anime on dvd for me.
 
gdt5016 said:
I wish they'd put entire seasons of a show on a single dual layer disc.

Something like Babylon 5.
OK I guess that would be cool, a whole fucking season on one disc. As long as it's a whole lot cheaper than the original DVD. Like a whole SD season of B5 for $25.
 
gdt5016 said:
I wish they'd put entire seasons of a show on a single dual layer disc.
I'm hoping they do this as well. And with movies, also, either something like the Stanley Kubrick collection or, even better, an a la carte service where you could purchase individual titles to be pressed on a disk.
 
With DVD for the most part you'd be transmitting 480i (not many DVDs are progressive) content and upscalling it on your player. With Blu-Ray the content has already been blown up, maybe fixed up a bit, and outputs at 1080p, though it may have bars on the left and right(?)

If you play DVDs on a PC, media players can actually soften and resize the image better than some stand alone players.
 
hateradio said:
With DVD for the most part you'd be transmitting 480i (not many DVDs are progressive) content and upscalling it on your player. With Blu-Ray the content has already been blown up, maybe fixed up a bit, and outputs at 1080p, though it may have bars on the left and right(?)

If you play DVDs on a PC, media players can actually soften and resize the image better than some stand alone players.
hateradio, what you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.

but seriously, I don't think I've ever heard of any SD content yet on BRD. I could have missed something, though. And count me in for the "full seasons on one disc" crowd. Be cheaper to buy, and then I wouldn't feel so bad about getting rid of it once I tire of it. Plus it seems to be more eco-friendly, in a way.
 
polyh3dron said:
Well, TNG, DS9 and Voyager were all shot on film, so they can remaster all of those shows in HD if they want to, but as for SD content on BD, fuck that noise. That's why I refuse to buy that Yukikaze set on BD.
I thought they were transferred to videotape for post, and the masters were lost/thrown out?
 
allegate said:
hateradio, what you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.
wha?

As points:

  • DVD by default outputs 480i / not many are progressive scan
  • If SD content is blown up to 1080p it may have black bars on the left and right
  • Playing DVDs on a PC for the most part looks nicer than on a stand alone player (from my experience)
 
allegate said:
hateradio, what you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.

A simple "wrong" would have done just fine.
 
but I like that quote. you've seen Billy Madison, right? It's just a long-winded and humorous way to say what you said.
  • "Although many resolutions and formats are supported, most consumer DVD-Video discs use either 4:3 or anamorphic 16:9 aspect ratio MPEG-2 video, stored at a resolution of 720×480 (NTSC) or 720×576 (PAL) at 29.97, 25, or 23.976 FPS." To put it another way, DVD is by default progressive and the interlaced image is what is shown if you aren't running it in progressive scan. the last mainstream non-anamorphic release was the Star Wars "original editions" because Lucas is a bitch.
  • to be "Mr Internet Nerd Guy" there are actually bars on the tops as well as the sides. The televisions now are at least 720p, not 480, so the remaining 240 lines of resolution on the TV are letterboxed to make the program fit instead of stretching it. You could stretch it, sure, but it would look...well...stretched.
  • Because the program outputs the progressive signal to your monitor instead of interlaced like on any SD television. Or if you don't have the component/DVI cables hooked up. Or if you do have said cables but don't turn the progressive scan on inside the player's menus.
I feel like the xkcd comic, so I'll stop here.

Also feel like ManaByte for some reason. yeah, I'm done.
 
allegate said:
... ... ....
Also feel like ManaByte for some reason. yeah, I'm done.
I see the problem, I was thinking about two things and mixed them into one line in the 480i line.

In any case, with the black bars on the left/right I was referring to just standard 4:3 shows, I know they could be stretched, so yeah...

And I guess lastly, I've used the PS3 with HDMI to upscale a few DVDs, also watched them on my PC connected to the HDTV which was better to me. Subjective, so that's that.
 
thesoapster said:
:lol

I certainly wouldn't have a use for it.

At first i thought the same thing, however thinking it over... I made a database of a list of all my games using MS Access (I used to lend out games left and right, only way to keep track). This seems like a much simpler and easier way (as well as visually more appealing) to keep track of inventory :)

stealth edit: Don't have the program but googled it, seems interesting to say the least.
 
The simple answer is "yes."

I wish I'd kept the images, but there was a nice comparison a while back between the DVD release of Eureka 7 and the BD release.

Eureka 7 is a digitally-created standard-definition cartoon, with no high-resolution film available to re-telecine for BD.

On stills and slow pans, the DVD and BD look basically identical, but on fast action scenes, explosions, stuff with glowing particles flying around, the DVD has compression artifacts all over the place, whereas the BD looks clean. The DVD spec's max bitrate is unfortunately lower than needed to handle all possible scenes. (I've read that if DVD's max bitrate had been set at 15Mbps or so instead of 9, we could have avoided this problem.)
 
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