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When should you upgrade your hi-fi? How to control ‘upgradeitis’
Andrew Everard:Again it assumes the film-maker has had any involvement in the BD transfer.
Blu ray transfers are meant to be the best transfers out there..hence the uproar about Gladiator being under par ..are you saying the Sony S760 improves what is on the disc as the oppo review states that it sends out exactly what is on disc? That would surely mean the image produced by the S760 is arguably even better than the image on the blu ray disc itself??
Blu ray transfers are meant to be the best transfers out there..hence the uproar about Gladiator being under par ..are you saying the Sony S760 improves what is on the disc as the oppo review states that it sends out exactly what is on disc? That would surely mean the image produced by the S760 is arguably even better than the image on the blu ray disc itself??
Clare Newsome: As mentioned a gazillion times, all our reviews are comparative, and the class-leading products often get a direct mention, as well as being referenced in the 'Also consider' panels in-mag and online.
For example, on the opposite page to the Oppo review in the Awards issue is a First Test of the Epson EH-TW2900 projector, which includes the line.."In this regard, Sanyo's same-priced PLV-Z700 edges the Epson, the Sanyo also appearing a little crisper in some scenes".
Now, in isolation, that Epson is stunning, but put it up against the Sanyo and it just gets pipped; hence a four-star review for the superb but not-quite-the-best Epson and five stars (and an Award win) for the Sanyo.,
But for arguments sake, assume the Epson did far more than the Sanyo, although the Sanyo just pipped it on picture, would that mean that despite the extra features, the Epson would be denied 5 stars?
I've read reviews before in WHF where a product dets 5 stars but will make reference to the fact that it may get just pipped in perfromance by x model, but because it has y features it gets full marks.
I know, before you tell me off, not everyone wants those features.
For example, on the opposite page to the Oppo review in the Awards issue is a First Test of the Epson EH-TW2900 projector, which includes the line.."In this regard, Sanyo's same-priced PLV-Z700 edges the Epson, the Sanyo also appearing a little crisper in some scenes".
Now, in isolation, that Epson is stunning, but put it up against the Sanyo and it just gets pipped; hence a four-star review for the superb but not-quite-the-best Epson and five stars (and an Award win) for the Sanyo.,
But for arguments sake, assume the Epson did far more than the Sanyo, although the Sanyo just pipped it on picture, would that mean that despite the extra features, the Epson would be denied 5 stars?
I've read reviews before in WHF where a product dets 5 stars but will make reference to the fact that it may get just pipped in perfromance by x model, but because it has y features it gets full marks.
I know, before you tell me off, not everyone wants those features.
The_Lhc
Well-known member
Ginder:Andrew Everard:Again it assumes the film-maker has had any involvement in the BD transfer.
Blu ray transfers are meant to be the best transfers out there..hence the uproar about Gladiator being under par
Err, I think it would be more accurate to say that Blu-Ray has the potential to give the best transfer, as you've illustrated yourself that won't necessarily stop a bad picture from being produced. None of the is the fault of any player though.
Blu ray transfers are meant to be the best transfers out there..hence the uproar about Gladiator being under par
Err, I think it would be more accurate to say that Blu-Ray has the potential to give the best transfer, as you've illustrated yourself that won't necessarily stop a bad picture from being produced. None of the is the fault of any player though.
Andrew Everard:Again it assumes the film-maker has had any involvement in the BD transfer.
A valid point. But do this justify to modify the picture, and how would the player know in which way to modify the picture?
I think not, but that is again of course only my humble opinion.
A valid point. But do this justify to modify the picture, and how would the player know in which way to modify the picture?
I think not, but that is again of course only my humble opinion.
If we were watching as director intended, it'd be at 24fps in a cinema, with a full suite of speakers.....
By your logic, should a TV or player not upscale to fit the resolution of the screen? Should we still be on 50Hz TVs? It's all processing; if you want to be a purist, you can opt out - and indeed many of our reviews (especially of TVs) recommend turning off or minimising most processing. But sometimes technology does advance our enjoyment!
By your logic, should a TV or player not upscale to fit the resolution of the screen? Should we still be on 50Hz TVs? It's all processing; if you want to be a purist, you can opt out - and indeed many of our reviews (especially of TVs) recommend turning off or minimising most processing. But sometimes technology does advance our enjoyment!
Good points Clare. But then again only valid for SD material in my opinion.
If you have a FullHD TV set and play a blu ray disc, there shouldn't be any scaling needed. You just take the pure 1080p24 signal and project it to your TV. Or would you recommend running the material at 50Hz? I guess not.
As for scaling of DVD's, the Oppo is rated at the very top of the game by almost any source I have come across thanks to the Anchor Bay chip.
I might be we are moving towards UltraHD in the coming years, but that is another discussion, and then we - once again - need new equipment...
If you have a FullHD TV set and play a blu ray disc, there shouldn't be any scaling needed. You just take the pure 1080p24 signal and project it to your TV. Or would you recommend running the material at 50Hz? I guess not.
As for scaling of DVD's, the Oppo is rated at the very top of the game by almost any source I have come across thanks to the Anchor Bay chip.
I might be we are moving towards UltraHD in the coming years, but that is another discussion, and then we - once again - need new equipment...
TKratz:
Good points Clare. But then again only valid for SD material in my opinion.
If you have a FullHD TV set and play a blu ray disc, there shouldn't be any scaling needed. You just take the pure 1080p24 signal and project it to your TV. Or would you recommend running the material at 50Hz? I guess not.
But as Clare pointed out this is not how the director intended the film to be watched.
Good points Clare. But then again only valid for SD material in my opinion.
If you have a FullHD TV set and play a blu ray disc, there shouldn't be any scaling needed. You just take the pure 1080p24 signal and project it to your TV. Or would you recommend running the material at 50Hz? I guess not.
But as Clare pointed out this is not how the director intended the film to be watched.
DocK:TKratz:
Good points Clare. But then again only valid for SD material in my opinion.
If you have a FullHD TV set and play a blu ray disc, there shouldn't be any scaling needed. You just take the pure 1080p24 signal and project it to your TV. Or would you recommend running the material at 50Hz? I guess not.
But as Clare pointed out this is not how the director intended the film to be watched.
That is exactly my point! You should take the raw 1080p24 output from the disc without any processing of the picture.
Good points Clare. But then again only valid for SD material in my opinion.
If you have a FullHD TV set and play a blu ray disc, there shouldn't be any scaling needed. You just take the pure 1080p24 signal and project it to your TV. Or would you recommend running the material at 50Hz? I guess not.
But as Clare pointed out this is not how the director intended the film to be watched.
That is exactly my point! You should take the raw 1080p24 output from the disc without any processing of the picture.
AndrewH13
Well-known member
I dont know, What Hi-Fi jumping the gun with the Oppo!
Glad I bought mine months ago, would have been such a waste waiting.
Glad I bought mine months ago, would have been such a waste waiting.
Far from jumping the gun, we held back our review for several months until Oppo gave us what we were assured was a firm launch date.
Jumping the gun??? Oh that's rich, considering the hectoring nature of this thread for us to review the damn thing....
When we went to press on our Awards issue - complete with Oppo BDP-831 review - it was early October, when we were assured the release was 'imminent'. Ditto when we published the online review on 19th October!
Ah well, Oppo removed from Buyer's Guide in mag; review will remain online with a note (already there) re the European version's non-appearance, plus a continued statement re the US version (always in the review).
When we went to press on our Awards issue - complete with Oppo BDP-831 review - it was early October, when we were assured the release was 'imminent'. Ditto when we published the online review on 19th October!
Ah well, Oppo removed from Buyer's Guide in mag; review will remain online with a note (already there) re the European version's non-appearance, plus a continued statement re the US version (always in the review).
Jonathan Evans
Well-known member
I'm fairly sure that AndrewH's jumping the gun comment was made with tongue firmly embedded in cheek, chaps.
That's how I read it anyway.
(Nice button pushing, though AndrewH...
)
That's how I read it anyway.
(Nice button pushing, though AndrewH...
Jonathan Evans
Well-known member
Could go one way or the other, Mr E.
Fret not, sanguine can flip to blood-boiling at any moment. I think I'm about ready to transmogrify now
Fret not, sanguine can flip to blood-boiling at any moment. I think I'm about ready to transmogrify now
John Duncan
Well-known member
Jonathan Evans
Well-known member
Might be there by closing time, given a fair following wind and no more oppo-tunities for, er, fun...
Ginder:
Andrew Everard:Again it assumes the film-maker has had any involvement in the BD transfer.
Blu ray transfers are meant to be the best transfers out there..hence the uproar about Gladiator being under par ..are you saying the Sony S760 improves what is on the disc as the oppo review states that it sends out exactly what is on disc? That would surely mean the image produced by the S760 is arguably even better than the image on the blu ray disc itself??
Why is it that people keep hammering on that the data contained on a Blu-ray disk can be simply output from any deck with no signal processing? It is physically impossible seeing as the contents of a BD (just as they are on DVD) are encoded in a compressed format and the player has to unpack the data before transmitting the fully uncompressed video stream out of the HDMI. The only disc based formats that can transport data directly from the disc to a digital output are audio discs such as CDs and SACDs. If you read the specifics on any of the BD decks that offer a "Source Direct" mode it relates purely to the bypassing on the scaling circuitry in the player that can adjust the image from one resolution to another and any secondary picture enhancement technologies. It will not bypass the primary picture decoding circuitry as this would render the machine unable to output any compressed image information at all. With respect to this all deck are not created equal and some have far better decoding hardware in them than others. I haven't seen the Oppo to compare but I have seen the difference in picture qualities directly compared between a PS3 (using its software decoder) a Panasonic BD30, and a Denon 2500. Albeit that with BD the differences get smaller, but they still exist to be seen and this can very much be attributed to the decoder used in each of the machines. Now I personally am leaning heavily towards upgrading my BD30 to the Oppo for the universal player benefits, but even if it's video performance is "very good" as opposed to class leading I'd be willing to make that compromise for the feature set.
Andrew Everard:Again it assumes the film-maker has had any involvement in the BD transfer.
Blu ray transfers are meant to be the best transfers out there..hence the uproar about Gladiator being under par ..are you saying the Sony S760 improves what is on the disc as the oppo review states that it sends out exactly what is on disc? That would surely mean the image produced by the S760 is arguably even better than the image on the blu ray disc itself??
Why is it that people keep hammering on that the data contained on a Blu-ray disk can be simply output from any deck with no signal processing? It is physically impossible seeing as the contents of a BD (just as they are on DVD) are encoded in a compressed format and the player has to unpack the data before transmitting the fully uncompressed video stream out of the HDMI. The only disc based formats that can transport data directly from the disc to a digital output are audio discs such as CDs and SACDs. If you read the specifics on any of the BD decks that offer a "Source Direct" mode it relates purely to the bypassing on the scaling circuitry in the player that can adjust the image from one resolution to another and any secondary picture enhancement technologies. It will not bypass the primary picture decoding circuitry as this would render the machine unable to output any compressed image information at all. With respect to this all deck are not created equal and some have far better decoding hardware in them than others. I haven't seen the Oppo to compare but I have seen the difference in picture qualities directly compared between a PS3 (using its software decoder) a Panasonic BD30, and a Denon 2500. Albeit that with BD the differences get smaller, but they still exist to be seen and this can very much be attributed to the decoder used in each of the machines. Now I personally am leaning heavily towards upgrading my BD30 to the Oppo for the universal player benefits, but even if it's video performance is "very good" as opposed to class leading I'd be willing to make that compromise for the feature set.
John Duncan
Well-known member
Tom Moreno:I personally am leaning heavily towards upgrading my BD30 to the Oppo for the universal player benefits
I wouldn't bother if I were you.
I wouldn't bother if I were you.
Clare Newsome:
If we were watching as director intended, it'd be at 24fps in a cinema, with a full suite of speakers.....
By your logic, should a TV or player not upscale to fit the resolution of the screen? Should we still be on 50Hz TVs? It's all processing; if you want to be a purist, you can opt out - and indeed many of our reviews (especially of TVs) recommend turning off or minimising most processing. But sometimes technology does advance our enjoyment!
Most of us do go to the cinema but, isnt that what "home cinema" is about? Trying to recreate the viewing experiece of what we enjoyed at the cinema even though its on a smaller screen? Hence why ppl wnat projectors, 60 inch tvs, 5.1 and even 7.1 surround etc etc...why do we fuss when a movie says it is HD but then turns out not to be 1080p??
The arguement is not about whether or not we want to be purists..however the arguement is how does the Sony produce a better picture than the one on the disc itself? Surely in the perfect world a player should not do anything to enhance the picture but instead deliver exactly what is on disc?? Doesnt smoothing out a picture mean losing some detail? The reason i ask all this is because i am like other people looking to upgrade from my s350 and have a budget of 400-500 quid. The reason im interested in the oppo is the various file formats it can play including divx, however if the blu ray picture is that much better through hdmi on the sony s760 then i can just stick to watching my divx files etc on my laptop connected to the tv.
If we were watching as director intended, it'd be at 24fps in a cinema, with a full suite of speakers.....
By your logic, should a TV or player not upscale to fit the resolution of the screen? Should we still be on 50Hz TVs? It's all processing; if you want to be a purist, you can opt out - and indeed many of our reviews (especially of TVs) recommend turning off or minimising most processing. But sometimes technology does advance our enjoyment!
Most of us do go to the cinema but, isnt that what "home cinema" is about? Trying to recreate the viewing experiece of what we enjoyed at the cinema even though its on a smaller screen? Hence why ppl wnat projectors, 60 inch tvs, 5.1 and even 7.1 surround etc etc...why do we fuss when a movie says it is HD but then turns out not to be 1080p??
The arguement is not about whether or not we want to be purists..however the arguement is how does the Sony produce a better picture than the one on the disc itself? Surely in the perfect world a player should not do anything to enhance the picture but instead deliver exactly what is on disc?? Doesnt smoothing out a picture mean losing some detail? The reason i ask all this is because i am like other people looking to upgrade from my s350 and have a budget of 400-500 quid. The reason im interested in the oppo is the various file formats it can play including divx, however if the blu ray picture is that much better through hdmi on the sony s760 then i can just stick to watching my divx files etc on my laptop connected to the tv.
Ginder:Clare Newsome:
If we were watching as director intended, it'd be at 24fps in a cinema, with a full suite of speakers.....
By your logic, should a TV or player not upscale to fit the resolution of the screen? Should we still be on 50Hz TVs? It's all processing; if you want to be a purist, you can opt out - and indeed many of our reviews (especially of TVs) recommend turning off or minimising most processing. But sometimes technology does advance our enjoyment!
Most of us do go to the cinema but, isnt that what "home cinema" is about? Trying to recreate the viewing experiece of what we enjoyed at the cinema even though its on a smaller screen? Hence why ppl wnat projectors, 60 inch tvs, 5.1 and even 7.1 surround etc etc...why do we fuss when a movie says it is HD but then turns out not to be 1080p??
The arguement is not about whether or not we want to be purists..however the arguement is how does the Sony produce a better picture than the one on the disc itself? Surely in the perfect world a player should not do anything to enhance the picture but instead deliver exactly what is on disc?? Doesnt smoothing out a picture mean losing some detail? The reason i ask all this is because i am like other people looking to upgrade from my s350 and have a budget of 400-500 quid. The reason im interested in the oppo is the various file formats it can play including divx, however if the blu ray picture is that much better through hdmi on the sony s760 then i can just stick to watching my divx files etc on my laptop connected to the tv.
Have you not seen, the Oppo 831 is not going to happen.
If we were watching as director intended, it'd be at 24fps in a cinema, with a full suite of speakers.....
By your logic, should a TV or player not upscale to fit the resolution of the screen? Should we still be on 50Hz TVs? It's all processing; if you want to be a purist, you can opt out - and indeed many of our reviews (especially of TVs) recommend turning off or minimising most processing. But sometimes technology does advance our enjoyment!
Most of us do go to the cinema but, isnt that what "home cinema" is about? Trying to recreate the viewing experiece of what we enjoyed at the cinema even though its on a smaller screen? Hence why ppl wnat projectors, 60 inch tvs, 5.1 and even 7.1 surround etc etc...why do we fuss when a movie says it is HD but then turns out not to be 1080p??
The arguement is not about whether or not we want to be purists..however the arguement is how does the Sony produce a better picture than the one on the disc itself? Surely in the perfect world a player should not do anything to enhance the picture but instead deliver exactly what is on disc?? Doesnt smoothing out a picture mean losing some detail? The reason i ask all this is because i am like other people looking to upgrade from my s350 and have a budget of 400-500 quid. The reason im interested in the oppo is the various file formats it can play including divx, however if the blu ray picture is that much better through hdmi on the sony s760 then i can just stick to watching my divx files etc on my laptop connected to the tv.
Have you not seen, the Oppo 831 is not going to happen.
JohnDuncan:Tom Moreno:I personally am leaning heavily towards upgrading my BD30 to the Oppo for the universal player benefitsI wouldn't bother if I were you.
Well considering it's been postponed indefinitely now I don't have to make the decision!
The disappointment is that I really do want a universal player and now it looks as though the entry level option in the UK will be either the Marantz or Denon decks or the Cambridge Audio one whenever we get some more info on that.
Well considering it's been postponed indefinitely now I don't have to make the decision!
The disappointment is that I really do want a universal player and now it looks as though the entry level option in the UK will be either the Marantz or Denon decks or the Cambridge Audio one whenever we get some more info on that.
Tom Moreno:
The bummer is that I really do want a universal player and now it looks as though the entry level option in the UK will be either the Marantz or Denon decks or the Cambridge Audio one whenever we get some more info on that.
Due to see CA on November 10th - hope to get more info then.
The bummer is that I really do want a universal player and now it looks as though the entry level option in the UK will be either the Marantz or Denon decks or the Cambridge Audio one whenever we get some more info on that.
Due to see CA on November 10th - hope to get more info then.
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