Its probably cos i viewed some of them on my projector at 104inches, if its not blu ray then quality at that size is shown up, even some blu rays look poorer due to using old outdated masters or getting the "Universal back catalog treatment" my website is based around blu ray film reviews and quality and i do tend to spot issues pretty easy after years of training the eye to look for even minor faults so i can give better reviews, i'm a huge film fan.

Edited by deleted (Thu 03-Nov-11 19:19:15)

104"!!!!

I only use 22" 1920x1080 and even then I scale the playback to 1280x720, i.e black borders around the video for 720p stuff.

Even 1920x1080 or 1920x818 blu-ray is at a lower bit rate that at what your camera shoots (28Mbps) though, isn't it?

Edited by 4M2 (Thu 03-Nov-11 19:57:51)

It all depends on the movie and transfer they give it, for example Vera Cruz, a movie western from 1954, has a bitrate that often hovers between 36/37mbp/s, it needs to as that film is grainy and the encoder can't handle it without a higher bitrate, its ugly looking due to issues with no anti halation backing and poor lab processing but its true to the source.

I like my movies to look like film, that includes preserving film grain as that is what makes up the detail you are seeing and on a projection system the preservation of the film grain makes it look so much like being at the cinema.

Blu ray uses variable bitrates though and some transfers will have peaks in their mid forties while a longer film uses more disc space ( lets say a 4 hour film ) and it may peak at high twenties, how good it looks depends on the skill of the encoder.

VC-1 codec at low bitrate tends to smooth the image, i'm talking 16mbp/s or under, i dislike that and you can find many examples of this smoothing on earlier Warner titles, films like Batman Begins. VC-1 at reasonable bitrates is as good as AVC though.

I sometimes take bitrate readings for my site, heres an example from the classic spy film, Charade.

http://www.darkrealmfox.com/film_reviews/wp-content/...

Note the average bitrate readings.

I should add bitrate is not usually why something can look bad on blu ray, by that i mean its the old adage garbage in and garbage out, the studio could use a very old outdated DVD master, something which has baked in issues and they could encode it at an average bitrate of 35mbp/s and it will still look rubbish, on the other hand a new film shot last year could have a bitrate of 25mbp/s and look just great, so much more to this than just bitrate.

Anyways i'm going on and on now so will stop, i'll just say for me its all about preserving the way the film was shot without them adding artifical "enhancements" which can destroy the look of the movie.

Edited by deleted (Thu 03-Nov-11 20:13:13)

In reply to a post by TALKTALK_SUPPORT:

HI All,

The Follow up call after using the TT Availability Checker is a condition of using the check itself. As most people who check what speed TT can offer are in some way potentially interested in the service, then a follow up call is made.

Disgusting to be honest, there should be some way to stop that happening apart from not inputting your number in the first place.


People may just be looking around and input their number just to check that they can get Talk Talk and to compare with other ISps what speed they may get.

If non customers wish to opt out of any marketing calls they can do so either via email or using the Contact Us form on the TalkTalkMembersForum website (as non customers cannot register for the forum) where opt out can be completed. There is also a written address such requests can be made, in the Code of Practice on the TT Website.

You can opt out after being called, that is a great idea. why not make it easier with a option so that people can opt out of being called when they input their number?

I suppose that is too easy for Talk Talk, how they keep customers or even get customers I don't know.
Pathetic company

Now I know why they grabbed hold of Tiscali, because they are both the same

Well they get customers because they are cheap, thats why i went with them, that and the fact i have not heard any major horror stories about their LLU service ( unlike their IPStream service )

Their phone service is excellent, never had any issues with it in all the years i have had it.

In reply to a post by TalkTalk1969:

Well they get customers because they are cheap, thats why i went with them, that and the fact i have not heard any major horror stories about their LLU service ( unlike their IPStream service )

Their phone service is excellent, never had any issues with it in all the years i have had it.

I can hear Bilbos keyboard going ten to the dozen as i post this.

Thanks for the info - I know very little about commercial encoding (other than using DVD Decryter to copy regular DVD's - at that is of course working with VOB files aka MPEG-2)

Interesting that you say VC-1 (WMV) gives equal results to AVC (H.264) at a reasonable bit rate - I do sometimes use Windows Media Encoder 9 to create WMV files and those files are universally playable on Windows machines whereas H.264 can be a problem if the codecs are not installed on a machine nor QuickTime installed. Generally get very good results from WME 9 although sometimes I get a gamma shift from H.264/AVCHD source files which is not always desirable...

I got switched over today, it was very easy to just put the new username and password within my Netgear router. ( I don't want to use the D-Link they sent me )

I did a speedtest at this site, getting 5.7mbp/s and 0.8mbp/s upload.

With Zen i was typically getting around upto 5.1mbp/s, sometimes slightly faster and sometimes slower, uploads would be about 380kbp/s - give or take some either way - well anyways i am glad to see upload speed is improved, this means i am on LLU.

Uploading a file to my website using CuteFTP and i only got 108kbp/s tops, thats disappointing, maybe its a time of day thing or something to do with the application. ?

When i go into my router setup online it shows this.

DownStream Connection Speed 7014 Kbps
UpStream Connection Speed 961 Kbps
Line Attenuation 35.9 dB 15.9 dB
Noise Margin 10.1 dB 12.1 dB

Anyone care to comment on those figures. ?

Edited by deleted (Fri 18-Nov-11 19:08:45)

Yes, it's syncing too slow; you should be getting about 11 Meg.

Can i fix that at my end and how would i do that. ?