What looks good on an HDTV
Call me terribly old-fashioned, but the first thing I tested out my new HDTV with was a DVD. I know, I know. That’s not true high definition. Heck, on a 1080p TV, a DVD is puny, weighing in at a fraction of the resolution. But with the help of an upconverting DVD player, it’s really a fun way to test a new TV using video you’re familiar with.
And, sure enough, the first thing I popped in was THE ROCK. I’ve always used that car chase scene as my demo disc. While it looked fine on the new TV, I was blown away when I skipped ahead a bit. Go to the scene where the military men — led by Goodspeed with the aid of Sean Connery — come out of the water and enter Alcatraz. It’s a relatively dark scene, with some bright flares of flaming light. It blew me away. The images were as clear as could be. The widescreen aspect ratio looked huge on the widescreen television set. It was as close to the movie theater experience at home as I’ve ever been able to muster.
What didn’t look nearly as good was the STAR WARS DVDs. I plunked in Episode 2 to check out a couple of scenes. I skipped straight to the action scene through the busy skyways of Coruscant. Everything was so crisp and clear that it looked like a cheap kiddy movie, filmed with actors looking silly in front of green screens. There was no separation between the two, and everything wound up looking like, well, a green-screened CGI movie. Sad, really.
I watched a couple of scenes from X-MEN 2, as well, which looked nice. As did KILL BILL Part One. Nothing overwhelming, but very nice.
Last night, we sat down to watch a complete movie. One of the things that should be in everyone’s home theater demo kit is a PIXAR movie. There’s magic in those images. Between the clear animation, the bright colors, and the subtle gradations, reflections, textures, etc., it gives your TV the chance to shine. While CARS is a moderately decent movie, suffering from being about a half hour longer than it really needed to be, it’s a great demo disc. It fills the screen up and has enough landscape shots to really wow you. There’s one shot of the open road about an hour and five minutes into the movie — just when Lightning briefly considers breaking for it after Sally filled up his gas tank — that I had to rewind back to. It’s such a beautiful shot that you could easily mistake it for reality. Every shadow, every shade, every texture works together beautifully. PIXAR spent some time on other large scale landscape angles, and they’re all worth a viewing. Take a look at the scene where Sally takes Lightning out for a drive. Just great to look at.
HDTV is a thing of beauty. By the time I had everything set up on Friday night, I was able to catch the Yankees game, which was on the west coast and so beautifully timed. I’ve seen high def golf and baseball and football before. Seeing it in your own home, though — it’s really cool. It took my eyes a couple of minutes to adjust to having everything looking that sharp — and, yes, I did turn down the sharpness a tad from the factory settings — but it all looked amazing after that.
I also laid eyes on TNT HD, National Geographic HD, Discovery HD, and the major networks. Beautiful stuff, all around, though there’s still a frustrating lack of HD content on the major networks outside of prime time. Even worse, all the good HD shows I’d like to watch don’t come back until January — LOST, 24, and AMERICAN IDOL. It’ll be a long wait.
On the sad side, TiVo looks like crap. Nothing you can do there. Just record everything at highest quality and hope for the best. In the meantime, I’ll record as much as possible on the HD DVR from the cable company. The interface sucks, but you can’t argue with the video quality. TiVo will work well for when three things are on at the same time, or for recording shows where video quality isn’t all that important.
Right now, I’m hoping the format war and the price points shake out in time for Christmas so I can push this TV with true high def DVD content.
June 24th, 2007 at 4:55 pm
Sounds great, those upconverting players are a real wonder. I will say that while the cost is high, a good friend has the HD Tivo and it’s just ridiculously nice. He got the cards installed by the cable company so he doesn’t need an HD cable box at all and the quality and features are perfect. All-in-all when I upgrade later this year, I’ll start saving up for the Tivo and stay out of the Blu-Ray/HD-DVD wars for as long as possible. Congrats on the new system.
June 24th, 2007 at 9:05 pm
Augie, I think you’ll find that there are very few SD shows (Galactica, Shield, Rescue Me) that are worth watching on a HDef TV. I rarely watch anything on Standard Def anymore. You’ll also love the HDef HBO, Cinemax, etc. Even though I have a DVD of Serenity, I watch it on HDef Startz everytime it’s on. I have an upconverting player, but it’s not the same.
Now, I think you may see the actual purpose of Blue-Ray or HD-DVD disks. I just wish one format could win so I could buy a player already
June 24th, 2007 at 9:49 pm
Rob - Thanks! And, sadly, the TiVo3 is just a dream at this point. It’s way too expensive for my taste, plus a monthly fee afterwards. UGH
Mark - Heck, I caught myself watching bits of some movies I don’t care about on TNT HD, just because they looked so nice. I assume that they’re edited for TV, though, right? I haven’t watched enough of one to catch any bad overdubs of swear words yet.
I think Blu Ray is winning the next gen war. They have more studio support at this point, and that’s what’s going to win it all. I just hope it happens soon so the prices can come down. $300 for a Blu Ray player is still too rich for me right now, though it is what I paid for my original DVD player back in the day. (Christmas 1998. I had a DVD player in my computer the July before that, though. I used to watch widescreen movies on a 15″ computer monitor and think it was the coolest thing ever. ::sigh::)
June 24th, 2007 at 11:28 pm
For Star Wars’ 30th, a friend had a viewing of Episode IV recorded in HD on his HD DVR. Holy crap. I’ve never seen so much detail in the movie. Almost too much when seeing reflections off of 3PO in the Tatooine sun.
Before that, he showed us a baseball game in HD. Wow. It just made my jaw drop, probably how yours did. I almost bought one just because of that.
I’d be interested to see how FINDING NEMO looks in HD (still haven’t seen CARS). I love that movie so much, and it looks beautiful on DVD. I waver between that and THE INCREDIBLES for my most favorite PIXAR movie. Toy Story used to be it until Nemo.
June 25th, 2007 at 7:17 am
What I think that may hurt adoption of EITHER format is the HD pay channels (HBO, etc). I’ve stopped buying DVD’s anymore as I’d just as soon wait and watch the HD version on HBO. Although if the PS3 comes down in price enough by the holidays, I may go ahead and take the plunge (even though I own a XBOX 360). I mean I bought the PS2 just for Final Fantasy
Just wait until you watch a football game on HD…Even better than baseball :)
June 25th, 2007 at 7:49 am
HD + Blu-Ray = True Love
Seriously though, I’ve found BSG (the mini series, not the actual show) to be nearly unwatchable at times with a DVD on HD
June 25th, 2007 at 8:55 am
I currently have an older projection HDTV and the PQ is becoming miserable as it gets older. The convergence feature does absolutely nothing, so this year I’ll be upgrading to new LCD HDTV. I currently have a PS3 which looks pretty good considering the current TV. I haven’t watched too many Blu-ray discs, but what I have watched has been great. Of course the audio is another reason I haven’t watched too many. My current receiver is one of the few that doesn’t like to get along with Blu-ray, so I can only watch the few movies that have a particular audio track. Funny thing is my receiver is a Sony.
So, this year will hopefully be a home theater upgrade for me. I think the receiver is going to be first so I can at least get the full surround out of my PS3. And I am already circling a new 1080P LCD TV, which hopefully will come by Christmas.
June 25th, 2007 at 11:08 am
Congrats on making the HD move! One thing you haven’t mentioned (I don’t think) that you might want to consider is a universal remote (the “wife approval factor” on this thing is VERY high). I think the Harmony remotes (I have the H659 but the 880 is the latest and greatest) by Logitech are amongst the most satisfying pieces of entertainment equipment you can buy. Easily allows you to dump the remotes for the tv, receiver, cable box, tivo, dvd player, etc. Just a thought…I’m sure there are other remotes out there just as good, but definitely consider a Harmony!
June 25th, 2007 at 3:13 pm
Peter, I agree withyou on the Harmony remotes. I was telling Augie about them in the comments on the other HDTV section. I own one and my parents own two of them and we all swear by them.
June 25th, 2007 at 7:31 pm
You have to watch planet earth from the fine folks at discovery channel. It looks amazing on my big screen so I can only imagine what it would look like on a proper HD set.
June 25th, 2007 at 9:51 pm
Lennon - I’ve caught about five minutes of it so far and, yes, it’s beautiful. I want to set the DVR up to record it next time it airs. Everyone says it’s the ultimate HDTV show-off show.
Peter - Thanks to everyone’s tips here in recent days, the universal remote is next on deck. I plan on picking one up through Amazon with some reward points off my credit card, the next time they come in. When that day comes closer I’ll be digging for more opinions to distinguish between the different styles.
Josh - Good luck for the Christmas present in waiting. By then, there ought to be even more choices and even lower prices. Plus, you won’t have to wait so long for all the new cool shows to air in HD in January.
Six Gun - I almost went for the deal Best Buy was offering where they’d throw in a PS3 for $250 more, but it was a budget breaker. I’m still questioning my sanity on that one.
Mark - I saw the Super Bowl a couple of years ago in HD and it was glorious. But that was a much inferior set by today’s comparisons. ;-) I’ll be watching the Giants on Sunday afternoon come September now, for sure.
Phil - FINDING NEMO was just on ABC-HD last weekend. Don’t know if it was a full HD feed of the movie or not. And I was too busy watching CARS on DVD to remember to record it to find out. Next time. . .