What if slysoft can't keep up?

[PrincipalityFusion]

You can only blow up images of a certain resolution so high before they look bad, so the size of the display does seem to matter somewhat. Regular TV ads always seem to look awful up on a movie theatre screen unless they've been reshot. For me, anyway 40" or 42" doesn't constitute "tiny". Not that many years ago, a 32" was considered large, lol. There is such a thing as too big, you know. And unless you're planning to turn your basement into a mini-theatre, 104" seems like a waste; not to mention excessive. The only way to justify it would be spending the rest of your life watching TV.

No, I disagree totally with both points. I'll take the first one about a larger screen being a waste. Maybe you said that because you're trying to justify your purchase, i don't know. But having a large screen (108", 104" viewable) shows the differences in resolution really well. And let me tell you, DVDs look good on my projector, but at that picture size, the difference between SD and HD for QUALITY mastered DVD is very close to VCR vs DVD. At 40 or even 50", the lines of resolution are not far enough apart to make SD DVD look bad let alone HD DVD.
And now point two about justifying price. Well, I bet a now working Transformers HD DVD that I paid less than you for that 40" if its really good quality. Unless you bought your40" from Sams or WalMart, then you paid at least $2500 to $4000 depending on brand and features (HDMI, etc).
Well, my Sanyo PLV-Z5 only set me back $1400 (minus $200 rebate) which help pay for a $400 electric screen. So total viewing cost ($1600). Not a live in your basement to only watch movies justification in any stretch. 1080p projectors are curently only a $800 minimum premium over that. And when I put up my projection screen, you can't even tell I have a projection system. All you see is the stereo equipment. And before you say that you basically have to live in a dark cave to see a good picture, well that's another benefit of HD DVD. The added resolution takes advantage of the projectors properties and the picture is brighter. Not to mention that current good quality projectors are sufficiently bright to give a satisfying picture with a few lamps on in the room. This is not a drawback as many large rear projection televisions "wash out" with ambient light and plasma screens suffer from alot of glare with ambient light.
So I know you meant well, but your assumptions just aren't correct.

 

[TM2-Megatron]

No, I disagree totally with both points. I'll take the first one about a larger screen being a waste. Maybe you said that because you're trying to justify your purchase, i don't know. But having a large screen (108", 104" viewable) shows the differences in resolution really well. And let me tell you, DVDs look good on my projector, but at that picture size, the difference between SD and HD for QUALITY mastered DVD is very close to VCR vs DVD. At 40 or even 50", the lines of resolution are not far enough apart to make SD DVD look bad let alone HD DVD.

I guess our opinions just differ then, but personally I can't watch SD video on a HD screen; to me it just looks terrible. And although I have limited experience with screens exceeding 50", I can't imagine 1280x720 or 1920x1080 on something as large as 100"... either the pixels would be too large for me to stand, or they're be too far apart. Either way, it doesn't seem good. My computer's been at higher resolutions than that for years, and it looks okay on a professional quality 24" CRT, but I think I'd want higher resolution if I were looking at a screen 4X that size. Maybe some people can get around that grainy look that so many lower-quality HDTVs have (not sure about projectors), but I've never cared for it.

When I finally do buy a flat-panel HDTV (probably 46" at the most), I want it to match the quality of the rest of my equipment. My current receiver is a Denon AVR-3808CI, for example, which I bought mostly since it supports stuff like TrueHD and DTS-HD for when I pick up a Blu-Ray player.

And I'm not trying to justify a purchase, just giving my opinion on the screens based on the fair amount of time I spend viewing them in stores, or at work. The only HDTV I have at the moment is a 32" CRT from Samsung, which I only paid about $300 CDN for. It has the advantage, at least, of being able to modify its resolution when playing SD or ED signals... something that really irritates me about fixed-pixel displays.

 

[Nitro_xxx]

You can only blow up images of a certain resolution so high before they look bad, so the size of the display does seem to matter somewhat. Regular TV ads always seem to look awful up on a movie theatre screen unless they've been reshot. For me, anyway 40" or 42" doesn't constitute "tiny". Not that many years ago, a 32" was considered large, lol. There is such a thing as too big, you know. And unless you're planning to turn your basement into a mini-theatre, 104" seems like a waste; not to mention excessive. The only way to justify it would be spending the rest of your life watching TV.

My definition of home theater is to have the largest screen possible in my home. I just replaced my 32" with a 70", although I was considering buying a projector with a screen. Projectors and screen size is not measured in the diagonal as regular TV, but it is measured by the width of the screen. My living room size is 12' wide by 20' long. I was considering getting a 96" wide screen with a projector. I just didn't think it would look right with a projector hanging off the ceiling in the living room, but I do have plans to put a projector in the basement with a large screen. Here is how to justify the cost for the screen size. For example, $5000 for Sony 1080p LCOS projector with a 96 inch screen = $52.08 per inch. The cost of Sony 70" LCOS XBR2 is about $4500 = $64.29 per inch (measured in the diagonal). Projectors also have the advantage of being lighter and you can change the screen size to your rooms dimensions.

More information about the new technology in video processing is available on this site. http://www.hqv.com/technology

What is video processing?

High-definition video is a wonderful thing. Who couldn’t love the beautiful picture and digital surround sound? Who wouldn’t trade their old 27' or 32' CRT for a beautiful new HDTV? It´s time to say goodbye to low resolution and image speckles from poor-quality NTSC signals once and for all. Get that pristine HD image and life will be great, right?

Not so fast. Sure, you can now view HD signals, and they look really great. But what happens when you feel like watching one of your favorite old TV shows that isn’t in HD? All that noise and garbage in the image is not gone; instead, it´s accentuated! Many people are shocked to see that the picture on their new HDTV looks worse than their old TV when watching their favorite shows!

In contrast to conventional CRT televisions, fixed-pixel displays dominate today’s home theater marketplace, from single-chip and three-panel front projectors to large, flat-panel direct-view monitors. There are plenty of acronyms to identify the technologies behind these competing products, including LCD (liquid-crystal display), DLP (Digital Light Processing™), LCoS (liquid crystal on silicon), and PDP (plasma display panel).

Each of these technologies creates electronic images in a different way, but they all share one characteristic: a fixed matrix of imaging pixels. This fixed-pixel structure determines the physical resolution of the display and is typically referred to as the display’s “native resolution.”

In order to convert all incoming video signals to the native resolution of a particular fixed-pixel display, manufacturers must incorporate a video-processing chip inside the display. In addition to scaling the image to fit the native resolution, this video processor is normally designed to enhance the image and remove artifacts caused by the conversion and transmission of video. Surprisingly, the video processor can make a significant difference in overall picture quality, even with true high-definition program content.

Unfortunately, video-processing technology has not kept up with the picture quality of today’s larger and larger HD displays, which magnify the image defects that are caused by poor video processing. And although every high-definition display has a video processor, only the highest-quality processor can retain all of the nuance, detail, and intent of the original source. Since video processors can range from a rudimentary $10 chip used in the lowest-end products to $70,000 refrigerator-sized boxes used in Hollywood production houses, the video processor plays the most significant role in picture quality today.

Nitro

 

[TM2-Megatron]

My definition of home theater is to have the largest screen possible in my home. I just replaced my 32" with a 70", although I was considering buying a projector with a screen. Projectors and screen size is not measured in the diagonal as regular TV, but it is measured by the width of the screen. My living room size is 12' wide by 20' long. I was considering getting a 96" wide screen with a projector. I just didn't think it would look right with a projector hanging off the ceiling in the living room, but I do have plans to put a projector in the basement with a large screen. Here is how to justify the cost for the screen size. For example, $5000 for Sony 1080p LCOS projector with a 96 inch screen = $52.08 per inch. The cost of Sony 70" LCOS XBR2 is about $4500 = $64.29 per inch (measured in the diagonal). Projectors also have the advantage of being lighter and you can change the screen size to your rooms dimensions.

I never made the argument that projectors weren't a good value... on the whole, they do seem to be a better deal. But there's the fact that for me, a home theatre doesn't mean having the biggest possible screen. It's more about having the largest screen I can see as being reasonable (without people thinking I'm a TV-obsessed weirdo when I invite them over), with as high-quality sound and video equipment as I can afford. High-quality for me just doesn't always mean a really massive screen. Considering I survived through the 90s and early 2000s with a 29" CRT I was quite happy with, I don't have any complaints about my current 32" HD CRT TV, or the idea of any future 42"-46" flat-panel I may buy.

And however they spin it, as screens get larger there has to be either more space between pixels, larger pixels, or more pixels. And TVs won't have more pixels than current HD standards for a while, so they must be doing one of the former 2 things. And while I'd agree the effect isn't noticeable up to a certain point, it seems we differ on where that point does become noticeable, even for native HD content. And for me, that stops around 50" at most. I'll wait until they've standardized 2160p or something before I go higher.

 

[Nitro_xxx]

I guess our opinions just differ then, but personally I can't watch SD video on a HD screen; to me it just looks terrible. And although I have limited experience with screens exceeding 50", I can't imagine 1280x720 or 1920x1080 on something as large as 100"... either the pixels would be too large for me to stand, or they're be too far apart. Either way, it doesn't seem good. My computer's been at higher resolutions than that for years, and it looks okay on a professional quality 24" CRT, but I think I'd want higher resolution if I were looking at a screen 4X that size. Maybe some people can get around that grainy look that so many lower-quality HDTVs have (not sure about projectors), but I've never cared for it.

When I finally do buy a flat-panel HDTV (probably 46" at the most), I want it to match the quality of the rest of my equipment. My current receiver is a Denon AVR-3808CI, for example, which I bought mostly since it supports stuff like TrueHD and DTS-HD for when I pick up a Blu-Ray player.

And I'm not trying to justify a purchase, just giving my opinion on the screens based on the fair amount of time I spend viewing them in stores, or at work. The only HDTV I have at the moment is a 32" CRT from Samsung, which I only paid about $300 CDN for. It has the advantage, at least, of being able to modify its resolution when playing SD or ED signals... something that really irritates me about fixed-pixel displays.

My previous TV was Mitsubshi 32" CRT, and I owned it for about 12 years. It died, so I had to find a replacement. I am very happy with my Sony LCOS XBR2 70". Although, you might look at Plasma TV's since you want a flat panel. LCD's are just too bright and I still see the pixels. I think that you have been depending on the stores, but it is better to visit a Hi-Fi or home theater store. Typically, you get the best advice from those stores. I recommend getting a pioneer elite. http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/pna/v3/pg/kuro/demo/full/0,,2076_310069651,00.html
The 1150HD is the best out there on the market now. Ambient light is an issue, but it can be controlled by dark curtains and blinds. I have both on my window in my living room.

Nitro

 

[PrincipalityFusion]

Hey Megatron,
Sorry about the justification remark (maybe a bit harsh?). Anyways, you really should visit a Audio/Video specialty store and take a view at a front projection system. I really do think you would be surprised at what you see.

Also, your intuition about pixel spread and resolution and such is partly true. Where I think you are missing it is you are not understanding how the front projector makes it's image (understandable since you say you aren't familiar). To give a quick explanation, the pixel size does not change. Whether the projector is 1280X720 pixels or 1920X1080 pixels, the pixels are the same size. There are just more of them. As far as DVD on large screens, i would agree that some DVDs do look crappy. You don't notice at smaller resolutions because the screen size is to small to resolve the detail. Blow that picture up however and you begin to notice the deficient mastering done. Many older VHS only movies that were transferred to DVD are guilty of this. They look horrible on my 32" television let alone my projector. A quality mastered DVD however (Armaggedon comes to mind) look beautiful on projectors. The reason has two parts why however. First, the DVD is a quality transfer so the picture just looks good. Second, 720 and 1080 projectors upscale the 540 image up to there native resolution. This doesn't add information, it just uses an interpolation algorithm to duplicate the existing lines of resolution. This is why the picture of DVDs on projectors can sometimes look "soft" or grainy in some cases. However, the quality of the processor used to do this in the projector or HD Player determines the level of softness or graininess. Faroudja makes an awesome processor (with an awesome price that many have a difficult time determining when a SD DVD has been upscaled or is true high definition.

The end result of the matter for me however is attempting to get the commercial movie theater experience in the home, hence the surround sound and big screen. A front projection system provides that for me and really with hd DVD or Blu-Ray, the quality of the picture is there as well. I watched Transformers last night after AnyDVD got out the fix and I couldn't tell the difference between the quality of the theater picture and my setup, and this at 104".

So i don't know the layout or size of your home. My downstairs area is not huge. All you need is about 12 feet by 15 feet to get a decent setup. I would check a system out however, before you buy your 46 incher. You just might walk out with something different

 

[Nitro_xxx]

And however they spin it, as screens get larger there has to be either more space between pixels, larger pixels, or more pixels. And TVs won't have more pixels than current HD standards for a while, so they must be doing one of the former 2 things. And while I'd agree the effect isn't noticeable up to a certain point, it seems we differ on where that point does become noticeable, even for native HD content. And for me, that stops around 50" at most. I'll wait until they've standardized 2160p or something before I go higher.

Always a difference of opinion. I never watch regular TV anymore, because it is crap. Anyway, I prefer movies and recreating what is shown in theaters in my living room. I am the movie nut!. I doubt if the resolution will change, but there is a Quad HDTV. http://hdtv.engadget.com/2007/01/05/monster-quad-hd-lcd-from-westinghouse-to-demo-at-ces/

Oh, what is your source of your regular TV? Cable recompresses the signal, and so does most small satellites. If you want a real good picture, then go to C-Band with the big ugly dish. This will give you master broadcast quality to your HDTV. Just think of all the TV then you can watch.. Just that it is lot of equipment costs that is associated with it. I was going this route, but probably do the Direct TV. I have on order the Denon 5308CI receiver with Realta chip, so I have to wait and see if the picture quality can be improved in December.

Nitro

 

[TM2-Megatron]

Hey Megatron,
Sorry about the justification remark (maybe a bit harsh?). Anyways, you really should visit a Audio/Video specialty store and take a view at a front projection system. I really do think you would be surprised at what you see.

When I go looking for this type of equipment, those are usually the stores I frequent. Toronto has a particularly good one called Bay Bloor Radio that specializes in gut-wrenchingly expensive hardware. Although I have to admit, were I to buy something today, I'd have to go down to NYC. Canadian retailers have yet to lower their prices in response to our increased dollar value, and I don't feel like paying $2000 CDN for something when I can go south and pay around $1500 USD (which equals a bit under $1500 CDN these days, ironically) instead.

To give a quick explanation, the pixel size does not change. Whether the projector is 1280X720 pixels or 1920X1080 pixels, the pixels are the same size. There are just more of them.

Oh, I do realize there are more pixels between those two resolutions. My point was that the larger the surface (in the case of projectors) an image is displayed on (whether the projector is 1280x720 or 1920x1080), those pixels are being stretched over a larger space. Similarly on flat-panel displays, the larger they get, the more those pixels need to be spaced out or increased in size to fill the screen area. Higher-quality equipment does seem to be able to compensate for it somewhat, though. I've seen a few 50 inchers that have really impressed me, although they usually cost upwards of $5000 or more, which I can't really justify paying for a TV.

That's alot of the reason why I didn't really ever want to pick up one of those massive TVs in the 90s. 640x480 (or whatever they were back then) really shouldn't be implemented on large-screen TVs, from what I saw of them back then.

Oh, what is your source of your regular TV? Cable recompresses the signal, and so does most small satellites. If you want a real good picture, then go to C-Band with the big ugly dish. This will give you master broadcast quality to your HDTV. Just think of all the TV then you can watch..

Right now, I just have regular cable. In Canada, an HD subscription tends to double your cable bill. After buying an HDTV, my aunt and uncle's bill went from around $55/month to a bit over $100. And I only watch 3 or 4 hours of broadcast TV a week, tops. The vast majority of my viewing comes from DVD, and similarly in the future I think most of my viewing will be from whichever HD optical format I choose. The amount of broadcast TV I watch is barely worth subscribing to regular cable, so I can't see myself getting any HD channels until they come in the standard packages I have now.

 

[Nitro_xxx]

Hey Megatron,
Sorry about the justification remark (maybe a bit harsh?).

That is the best way to justify the cost to the wife, and to your pocketbook.

Faroudja makes an awesome processor (with an awesome price that many have a difficult time determining when a SD DVD has been upscaled or is true high definition.

Actually, Megatron's Denon AVR-3808 has the Faroudja processing chip in it. I am upgrading my Yamaha DSP-A1 to a Denon AVR-5308CI receiver, but I considered the Denon AVR-3808 and the Denon AVR-4308, but it doesn't have the new Silicon Optix Realta chip. One thing that is nice about the audio-video store is that are allowing me to test the new Denon AVR-5308 on my speakers. I can return the unit, if it is not up to my satisfaction.

 

[Nitro_xxx]

[/QUOTE] Right now, I just have regular cable. In Canada, an HD subscription tends to double your cable bill. After buying an HDTV, my aunt and uncle's bill went from around $55/month to a bit over $100. And I only watch 3 or 4 hours of broadcast TV a week, tops. The vast majority of my viewing comes from DVD, and similarly in the future I think most of my viewing will be from whichever HD optical format I choose. The amount of broadcast TV I watch is barely worth subscribing to regular cable, so I can't see myself getting any HD channels until they come in the standard packages I have now.[/QUOTE]

I think that StarChoice is available in Canada. http://www.starchoice.com/english/default.asp
Looks like it is less than cable.

Nitro

 

[PrincipalityFusion]

Home Theater Stuff

Denon is a great brand. I have at AVR-2701CI myself. I know, it doesn't have HD Dolby digital, but it does downsample pretty well. It's being fed a high definition signal from my home theater SPDIF and i can hear the increase in dynamic range and overall sound quality compared to a standard dvd.

I was looking at the specks for that AVR-3808. That is one impressive reciever. A 150" screen would go perfect with that beast

 

[TM2-Megatron]

I think that StarChoice is available in Canada. http://www.starchoice.com/english/default.asp
Looks like it is less than cable.

Nitro

I'll have to look into it. There are certain channels I have to get... since I watch so little on broadcast these days, it's kind of essential that I get the few channels I do watch, lol.

Most shows I just end up buying on DVD, so seeing them during airing isn't essential. Since most of TV seems to be reality programs (which I hate), I tend to avoid it now aside from the few programs I like (ie. The Office, 30 Rock, Monk, Heroes, Medium).

 

[joeyooser]

I already own transformers HD DVD, in fact I waited out front of Best Buy to get it and hosted a party the night of the 16th.

What I said about HD DVD quality absolutely stands. A really good DVD upconverted with my Toshiba HD-A2 looks "pretty darn good", just looks softer and you can see more edge compression artifacts (any sharp edges, such as on-screen text have compression fuzz). This is only obvious on my 104" screen however.

I'll bet J6P with his 42" screen would struggle to tell the difference if you flipped back and forth an upconverted DVD to a HD DVD of the same movie without telling him which is which.

I can't rave enough about the HD-A2 as a DVD player. I have inserted movies in there that are unreadable in any other DVD player, even unreadable in my laptop, and the A2 plays without a single hiccup.

Sitting and arguing about this doesn't make much sense - if people were totally blown away by HD-DVD as compared to the same movie on DVD, they'd be buying more of them.

It's only really obvious to those of who have really big screens and high-end hardware.

 

[Adbear]

Have to disagree, even on a 42" or 50" screen most people can easily see the difference between upsampled and native HD DVD. I know all my friends can easily see the difference, Upsampled stuff always looks blurry and soft and tends to have blocking. As it has to interpolate the missing pixels. I work with this stuff every day, showing people the difference, and you show them the upsampled DVD of a film then switch to the Full HD version and they instantly notice. We often get people who come in and see the screens which have an upsampled film on it and ask why bother buying as it doesn't look much better than standard DVD. You then put in the full res disk and they suddenly want to buy Full HD

 

[Paul H]

Hi Adbear,

I realise this thread is now along way from the copy protection issues. But just as complications abound in this feild, so it is with the black art of digital mastering, upscaling, down scaling, resolution etc. I have a 92" wide Stuart Firehawk screen, a three chip DLP 720p projector and an HTPC. There are some standard def DVD's that look astonishingly good at this size and not at all soft. The Island is one that comes to mind, the Revenge of the Sith is another, Training Day another and there are many others. Close up shots can look almost as good as HD. Its when you go to middle distance or long shots that HD comes into its own. The second area seems to be picture noise. HD produces a more stable clean picture.

A good friend of mine has a significantly larger screen, 10ft wide. He uses the same projector and a Playstation 3. We compared £10,000 US player, a £2000 Arcam DVD player and the PS3. Disc after stand dvd disc revealed that the PS3 gave the best image overall. Quite astonishing. In fact many of the older DVD's such as Revenge of the Pink Panther looked very good indeed on the PS3. Blu-ray of course took image quality to the next level and looked incredible. But with DVD's polished to this extent, it does shave some of the 'wow' of HD sources. Incidentally, if a 1080p master is transferred to disc in a poor way, you will get a poor image. If a 720p master is lovingly encoded and transferred, the image will look better although I believe masters encoded in this way are few and far between. Incidentally, if you have a 1080i feed, it can be losslessly converted to true 1080p by a machine with good upscaling. There are many ingredients that go into the image you end with and a problem at any stage can royally screw things up for the end product.

A final note, I have also compared a 1080p image with the 720p image of my projector on my screen. The only real difference was determined by distance. Sit closer than 1.5 screen widths and the pixels start to become notieable in my system. At 1.5 widths, the 1080p projected image was still as smooth as silk. At 1.8 distance, I personally preferred my projecter due to higher brightness and its ability to produce deep black. At this distance, detail reteival from both the 1080p projector and my 720p model seemed similar which came as a great surprise. Anyway, I applaud Slysofts efforts to protect our rights to back up our collections and I give them my full support.

Best Regards,

Paul H

 

[DonCarlos]

I think this Tread is way of its title. Lets bring it back.....

I have no doubts that Slysoft will crack every protection which comes on the market.

There are other questions which comes to my mind why took it this time a little bit longer to crack MKB v4?(MKB v3 was cracked in lets say 3days) Did they take a different way to crack it? Will this way make it easier to crack MKB v5(which will come) or did they even manage to crack AACS completely?
(I know it is a bit unrealistic but you can hope )

 

[Peer]

I think this Tread is way of its title. Lets bring it back.....

I have no doubts that Slysoft will crack every protection which comes on the market.

There are other questions which comes to my mind why took it this time a little bit longer to crack MKB v4?(MKB v3 was cracked in lets say 3days) Did they take a different way to crack it? Will this way make it easier to crack MKB v5(which will come) or did they even manage to crack AACS completely?
(I know it is a bit unrealistic but you can hope )

First of all the thread title: what a silly question?!

Thread off topic: indeed, my finger was lingering over the "close" button.

Why it took so long? For various reasons:

a) this time even player software that could handle v4 was released after the discs hit the shelves. This bought them apx 1 or 2 weeks (and made a lot of customers unhappy - sitting with expensive HD-DVDs/BDs that wouldn't play).
b) I have to admit, I was late on the subject this time, I was busy with the AI scanner...
c) they put tremendous effort into hiding keys this time - it was actually very fascinating, nice ideas, you just gotta love it (from what you can read, AACS worked together with player manufacturers, from what I was told, a company specialising on security matters was hired to help doing it).
This bought them another week or so

 

[trw_mavrik]

This bought them another week or so

Classic quote! Thanks for all the hard work guys!

Regards

T

 

[IAM4UK]

If they couldn't keep up (which they can), I'd be even more upset with the studios and Cyberlink. I've purchased special HDCP-compliant equipment, but still cannot watch some of the new bD releases I own or rent.

 

[devil869]

c) they put tremendous effort into hiding keys this time - it was actually very fascinating, nice ideas, you just gotta love it (from what you can read, AACS worked together with player manufacturers, from what I was told, a company specialising on security matters was hired to help doing it).
This bought them another week or so

So why there is no version of AnyDVD HD that decrypts all disks. Instead there is a version that has a database with volume keys...