HD Display - Is it supposed to show pixels like this?

[kavika411]

Good morning. I have searched several forums for this topic; I apologize in advance if it's been discussed. (I'd appreciate a link if it has. Thanks.)

I have a 23-inch HD Display. Although I really enjoy it generally, I'm increasingly put off by how it shows the pixels when I play video - any video - in full screen. Whether it is a video I bought from iTunes or a professionally manufactured DVD (such as The Matrix), I sit there and try to convince myself that it looks good. The reality is the pixels show SO MUCH.

I appreciate the answers to any of these questions:
(1) Is this the way it is supposed to look, or am I doing something wrong?
(2) Is this unique to Apple displays; would I have been better off with a non-HD display?
(3) What does HD actually mean in the context of this display? (Because this is definitely NOT HD-looking.)

Thank you for your time.

 

[MRU]

The problem you are having is you are taking an image such as DVD at 720x480 or less and stretching it and pulling it to fill up your screen.

As your screen is 4 x the resolution of the image you are using, all that information between pixels is not there and you see all the artifacts and distortion.

A HD picture at 1080i/p is at the full resolution 1920x1080 and even a 720p pictures is 1280x720p would provide you with a much clearer crisper picture.

Take a picture the size of a stamp and photocopy it. At it's same size it looks ok, blow it up to A3 poster size and it looks terrible and that's what you are doing with video.

Good morning. I have searched several forums for this topic; I apologize in advance if it's been discussed. (I'd appreciate a link if it has. Thanks.)

I have a 23-inch HD Display. Although I really enjoy it generally, I'm increasingly put off by how it shows the pixels when I play video - any video - in full screen. Whether it is a video I bought from iTunes or a professionally manufactured DVD (such as The Matrix), I sit there and try to convince myself that it looks good. The reality is the pixels show SO MUCH.

I appreciate the answers to any of these questions:
(1) Is this the way it is supposed to look, or am I doing something wrong?
(2) Is this unique to Apple displays; would I have been better off with a non-HD display?
(3) What does HD actually mean in the context of this display? (Because this is definitely NOT HD-looking.)

Thank you for your time.

 

[risc]

1) You aren't doing anything wrong you are just viewing low res on a high res screen. Things look horrible upscaled on TFT.
2) No it isn't unique; no you would be better off with better video sources (see below)
3) It means the display can do 1080p which is 1920x1080. The videos you download from iTunes are 320x240 no wonder they look bad. DVD isn't anywhere near HD quality either.

If you want to see proper HD quality get a 1080p H.264 video from http://www.apple.com/quicktime/guide/hd/ and view that. Nothing ever looks good scaled up on TFT.

 

[FireArse]

1)
If you want to see proper HD quality get a 1080p H.264 video from http://www.apple.com/quicktime/guide/hd/ and view that. Nothing ever looks good scaled up on TFT.

He'll only be able to see that IF they've got a Dual 2GHz G5 or above. Someone should encode some HD material to MPEG2 through quicktime and post it up. That way - someone with a G4 can view 'Proper' 1080p video without having to use the CPU intensive H.264.

Rumour has it that Blue-ray and HD-DVD will continue to use MPEG2 to save liscensing costs - they'll have plenty of space to encode HD within MPEG2!

F

 

[risc]

I'm not saying the OP has the hardware to view HD footage but just giving a link to it if required. I hope someone with a 23" monitor might have a powerful machine though.

BTW do you know what makes me laugh I have a Power Mac Dual G5 1.8 GHz with a nVidia 6800 Ultra DDL and it plays H.264 video worse than a 3 GHz Pentium 4 with an ATI X700 I "borrowed" from work. So I really don't buy in to the "CPU" intensive thing I just think Apple have really bad video drivers.

 

[kavika411]

Wow, thanks guys for your quick and more than thorough replies. Though I didn't know the terminology, I was afraid it was something like you guys described. But I have one final question then (which is probably more of a rhetorical question for Apple than this forum):

So, the reality is that even though this is a "23-inch HD Display", I cannot actual display 23 inches of HD? Correct? That totally blows if it's true.

 

[FireArse]

grr @ apple

I'm not saying the OP has the hardware to view HD footage but just giving a link to it if required. I hope someone with a 23" monitor might have a powerful machine though.

BTW do you know what makes me laugh I have a Power Mac Dual G5 1.8 GHz with a nVidia 6800 Ultra DDL and it plays H.264 video worse than a 3 GHz Pentium 4 with an ATI X700 I "borrowed" from work. So I really don't buy in to the "CPU" intensive thing I just think Apple have really bad video drivers.

some have 23" to a mac mini or dual G4. Apple brought out the acrylic 23" but who was able to play HD at that time??

Apple's H.264 implementation blows. when I'm encoding H.264 in QT pro - 200% isn;t used. I sit there twiddling my thumbs - just like the G5's. WTF apple - x264 has a near FULL H.264 implementation and maxes out the G5's. sort it out!

I think they need to offload H.264 encoding/decoding to the GPU more. ATi are doing this on wintel. I guess the drivers need working on!!

F

 

[risc]

I cannot actual display 23 inches of HD? Correct?

What does that actually mean? You have a 23" monitor that has no problem displaying 1080p HD video if your computer can handle it and you can actually find some 1080p video. So incorrect I guess. Also I can't see how this is a rhetorical question. Are you complaining because you don't have any HD footage to play?

 

[kavika411]

I see your point, Risc. I didn't phrase my question/comment correctly. What I was trying to say was that I have a 23 inch HD monitor, just as I have a 32 inch HD television. Whereas DVD playback looks fantastic on my TV, it looks jagged on the monitor. Moreover, I don't know where to actually get 23 inch HD content for my monitor, aside from the occasional HD movie trailer from quicktime. To be succinct, when I think 23 inch HD monitor, I think (1) playback of DVDs will look at least as good as on an HD TV (or even a regular non-HD TV) and, at a minimum, (2) that I can find HD content that will fill all 23 inches of the monitor. I guess I was naive.

 

[Eidorian]

I see your point, Risc. I didn't phrase my question/comment correctly. What I was trying to say was that I have a 23 inch HD monitor, just as I have a 32 inch HD television. Whereas DVD playback looks fantastic on my TV, it looks jagged on the monitor. Moreover, I don't know where to actually get 23 inch HD content for my monitor, aside from the occasional HD movie trailer from quicktime. To be succinct, when I think 23 inch HD monitor, I think (1) playback of DVDs will look at least as good as on an HD TV (or even a regular non-HD TV) and, at a minimum, (2) that I can find HD content that will fill all 23 inches of the monitor. I guess I was naive.

What kind of HDTV is it? That and what kind of DVD player are you using?

 

[Revlimit Punk]

I see your point, Risc. I didn't phrase my question/comment correctly. What I was trying to say was that I have a 23 inch HD monitor, just as I have a 32 inch HD television. Whereas DVD playback looks fantastic on my TV, it looks jagged on the monitor. Moreover, I don't know where to actually get 23 inch HD content for my monitor, aside from the occasional HD movie trailer from quicktime. To be succinct, when I think 23 inch HD monitor, I think (1) playback of DVDs will look at least as good as on an HD TV (or even a regular non-HD TV) and, at a minimum, (2) that I can find HD content that will fill all 23 inches of the monitor. I guess I was naive.

I think that most HDTVs have built in circuitry to enhance the perceived picture quality of standard resolution signals.

 

[risc]

(1) playback of DVDs will look at least as good as on an HD TV (or even a regular non-HD TV) and, at a minimum

(2) that I can find HD content that will fill all 23 inches of the monitor. I guess I was naive.

1) Never going to happen you are comparing hardware based dvd playback to software based on the Mac.

2) You bought a monitor capable of 1080p DVD is 480p, HDTV is mainly 720p. 1080p sources are very rare you can get some HD hybrid movie discs but most of them are WMV HD. Until HD-DVD or Blu-Ray movies become standard I think you are out of luck here, sorry.

I have a LCD HDTV here myself and nothing looks as good on the monitor as it does on the TV. I'll be honest though even DVD looks crap on HDTV when compared to 720p HD TV.

If you bought the monitor thinking the HD actually meant something I'm sorry to hear that. All it actually means is you can work with or display HD sources when they are available to you. There is nothing the monitor can do to make standard definition and low res sources any better. You could try watching your videos through VLC or MPlayer and applying deinterlacing and post processing (this wont help with DVDs though only XviD avis, etc).

 

[eXan]

He'll only be able to see that IF they've got a Dual 2GHz G5 or above.

Dual 1.8 should be fine. I think single 2.5 or 2.7 (if they made such Macs) should be able to decode HD H.264 at full speed

 

[kavika411]

Thanks, guys, especially risc. I have a lot to learn about HD displays and available content. Maybe bluray or HDDVD will solve some of this.

 

[FireArse]

yea...

Thanks, guys, especially risc. I have a lot to learn about HD displays and available content. Maybe bluray or HDDVD will solve some of this.

When it comes to providing HD content, yes they will. About bloody time too.