LaserDisc Database
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Picture quality scale by format
https://forum.lddb.com/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=7698
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Author:  dunerider [ 21 Mar 2018, 01:07 ]
Post subject:  Re: Picture quality scale by format

elahrairrah wrote:
UMD video had a resolution of 480x272 if I remember correctly (the exact resolution of the PSP screen.) I've never seen a UMD movie in practice, but since the capacity of UMD was just under 2GB I can't imagine the bitrate on the video was very high if they wanted to put a whole movie on one UMD.

So to put it in perspective, the highest bitrate on DVD-Video is 6Mbps. A 90 minute movie at that data rate would need to just over 4GB storage, and a 2 hour movie would need 5.4GB (which is why dual-layer DVDs were necessary for a lot of movies at the highest bitrate.)

Thus in order to get at least a 90 minute movie on a 1.8GB UMD, the bitrate couldn't be higher than somewhere between 2-3Mbps. Even less than that if they wanted to be sure to be able to put a 2 hour movie on 1 UMD.

So if that were to be put on the list, it would at best be below DVD, but beyond that, wouldn't know where exactly to put it.


Sounds reasonable. According to Wikipedia (and this is not cited, so who knows if its true or not) UMDs were encoded at 720x480, but scaled down for the PSP.

Its been awhile since I watched one, but I remember they looked decent enough. Which is not surprising given the screen size. You could get a TV adapter to play your PSP on a TV.

But I agree that UMD would likely place below DVD.

Author:  elahrairrah [ 21 Mar 2018, 03:40 ]
Post subject:  Re: Picture quality scale by format

They probably used the same transfers as the DVD releases (which were 720x480) for the UMDs, but just downconverted them.

Author:  confederate [ 21 Mar 2018, 14:01 ]
Post subject:  Re: Picture quality scale by format

They even had p0rn on UMD in Japan !

Has anyone ever seen one of those Sony HDVS discs in action ?

@ elahrairrah - Thank you for the very informative post earlier.

Author:  ertoili [ 22 Mar 2018, 05:14 ]
Post subject:  Re: Picture quality scale by format

Audioboyz1973...thanks for the explanation....

A W-Vhs tape from a BD source should look really good....that W-Vhs tape in a 32" CRT tv will "feel" more you know "Imax" than the DVD,but the DVD color resolution and lights would be much better I guess


A very interesting Wikipedia talk;

.-.....ED-Beta's "500" lines of horizontal luminance resolution could only be maintained with super-duper clean heads - after an hour or so of playback, it would start to drop off below 400 until the heads were cleaned again - ED-Beta was INCREDIBLY sensitive to head-clogging. Also, the color resolution of ED-Beta was 40 lines MAX and often much worse

LD's chroma res was the full 120 lines for Orange-Cyan (I-Axis) colors (40 lines for RGB Q-Axis) and later Kurary, Sony DADC, and (finally!) Pioneer LDC mastered/pressed discs had 2 MHz of full RGB (not just I-Axis) chroma bandwidth - which was encoded with Faroudja's SuperNTSC system.

Oh, one other problem with ED-Beta and SuperVHS as compared to LaserDisc - their luma bandwidth is too high for the noise levels of the tape - in other words, they made ED-Beta and SuperVHS sharper so you could see more of the noise... in terms of the 'optimal' resolution level VS noise tradeoff, SuperBeta and Super High-Band Beta-Is were just about optimal. If JVC had set the resolution limit of S-VHS to around 300 lines or so, it would have been a much better 'match' to the noise levels of the format and a better picture would have been the result... it's amazing that neither Sony nor JVC increased the chroma bandwidth... JVC had numerous patents for VHS to expand chroma bandwidth to beyond 100 lines for all 3 colors but in a backwards compatible manner - it worked in a similar manner to the 16-bit, 48kHz digital audio extension to S-VHS that was, sadly, never allowed to be released here in the USA. It was encoded by a depth multiplex 11MHz carrier "under" the video along with the analog AFM audio.

ED Beta color res 40 lines
SVHS color res 30 lines
LD color 120 lines
DVD color >240 lines

In analog output signal terms, typical luma frequency response maintains full amplitude to between 5.0 and 5.5 MHz. This is below the 6.75 MHz native frequency of the MPEG-2

DVD better signal to noise ratio plus component encoding

I love analog but we have a big winner on SD resolution formats the DVD .

Author:  ertoili [ 25 Jun 2018, 19:02 ]
Post subject:  Re: Picture quality scale by format



A perfectly digitalized for youtube broadcast Betacam SP tape advert

we can see clearly two things; the component signal is a huge Sony step up over the S-VHS .
The cinematographer uses a cold color palette but still appreciate that analog Betacam SP is still an under color format
compared to Laserdisc

Author:  elahrairrah [ 26 Jun 2018, 04:06 ]
Post subject:  Re: Picture quality scale by format

Betacam and Betacam SP are NOT color under.

They are component video formats.

Author:  ertoili [ 26 Jun 2018, 17:55 ]
Post subject:  Re: Picture quality scale by format

sorry i meant low chrominance compared to dvd and Laserdisc

Author:  elahrairrah [ 26 Jun 2018, 19:12 ]
Post subject:  Re: Picture quality scale by format

Another thing about that video . . . why are there cross-color artifacts in it? Did this person use a composite connection to capture the video?

Author:  signofzeta [ 26 Jun 2018, 20:25 ]
Post subject:  Re: Picture quality scale by format

elahrairrah wrote:
They probably used the same transfers as the DVD releases (which were 720x480) for the UMDs, but just downconverted them.


Since they were only meant to be seen on a PSP (no TV out on series 1000 I think) they knew exactly what screen you’d be using. They were able to work with the PSP’s overly saturated tiny screen with significant image lag instead of against it. I only have a few UMDs that I got for free/cheap but even on that screen you can see the limitations of the format. Still, it would look even worse on a more accurate screen.

UMD movies were amazing to see in action and were a brilliant bit of packaging and design but in the end were a totally stupid bad idea and exactly the sort of thing they shouldn’t have done. It’s hard to imagine what they were thinking. Like, in world where UMD takes off...what does that world look like? Are there standalone UMD players in this Sony utopia of the future of 2005? If so, does that mean everyone is buying things twice? In the middle of the DVD explosion?

They must have figured, “If they buy the UMD we get paid, if they copy the DVD onto the Memory Stick we get paid. Either way we get paid when people watch movies on their PSP!” And then it turned out people would rather play games on it.

Author:  ertoili [ 27 Jun 2018, 01:16 ]
Post subject:  Re: Picture quality scale by format

elahrairrah wrote:
Another thing about that video . . . why are there cross-color artifacts in it? Did this person use a composite connection to capture the video?


My eyes are not that good....it looks really good for me; remember that Betacam SP is component but component on tape!

Author:  rein-o [ 27 Jun 2018, 01:21 ]
Post subject:  Re: Picture quality scale by format

Has this turned into another risk thread :problem:

Author:  ertoili [ 23 Jul 2018, 18:32 ]
Post subject:  Re: Picture quality scale by format

....2:46 min VCD vs VHS by Technology connections channel

He also gives some keys why VCD was so popular in South Asia;.....Humidity ! Space storage ! and cheap.....i understand now !

Author:  signofzeta [ 23 Jul 2018, 20:59 ]
Post subject:  Re: Picture quality scale by format

$0.75 movies might be the main reason VCD was popular.

Author:  ertoili [ 02 Aug 2020, 21:12 ]
Post subject:  Re: Picture quality scale by format

CED (worst)
Video 8
Video 2000
Vhs
Beta
VHD
S-VHS
Super Beta
U-matic
Type C
Video Hi8
Ed-Beta
W-VHS
Betacam SP
Laserdisc
Laserdisc Hi-Vision
35mm (Best)

Author:  rein-o [ 02 Aug 2020, 22:10 ]
Post subject:  Re: Picture quality scale by format

signofzeta wrote:
$0.75 movies might be the main reason VCD was popular.

If VCDs were ever a buck or under new I would have had a house full of them.

Did they say that in the video? Just not true, when VCD was strong the cheapest I could find in the USA was around 8-10 bucks.
Bought a Tetsujin one and thought it was a deal until I played it.

Author:  confederate [ 02 Aug 2020, 22:19 ]
Post subject:  Re: Picture quality scale by format

rein-o wrote:
signofzeta wrote:
$0.75 movies might be the main reason VCD was popular.

If VCDs were ever a buck or under new I would have had a house full of them.

Did they say that in the video? Just not true, when VCD was strong the cheapest I could find in the USA was around 8-10 bucks.
Bought a Tetsujin one and thought it was a deal until I played it.


VCDs were always at least half the price DVDs were in Hong Kong around 15 years ago. There was a huge selection of titles on VCD - old
Hong Kong flicks, music titles, karaoke, strange Thai horror movies, anime, all kinds of stuff. The VCD rental places had thousands of VCDs to
choose from. Yes, the format was not the greatest but back in the days quality was OK if watched on an old 24 inch National TV. Sound was
quite good so it wasn't very terrible.
I liked the selection and I watched hundreds of VCDs. It gave me access to a lot of great films and other stuff back then.
If I remember correctly it cost 10 HK $ ( 1,20 US $ approximatley ) to rent a movie on VCD or even less.

Author:  ertoili [ 02 Aug 2020, 22:28 ]
Post subject:  Re: Picture quality scale by format

With digital vídeo formats is easier.

VCD (shame on you)
S-VCD
DVD
Betacam SX
Digibeta
D1
D-2
D-5
Blu-ray
HDCAM
Blu-ray 4K HDR

Author:  elahrairrah [ 02 Aug 2020, 23:16 ]
Post subject:  Re: Picture quality scale by format

ertoili wrote:
With digital vídeo formats is easier.

VCD (shame on you)
S-VCD
DVD
Betacam SX
Digibeta
D1
D-2
D-5
Blu-ray
HDCAM
Blu-ray 4K HDR

Where would D-VHS/D-Theater fit in there?

Author:  ertoili [ 03 Aug 2020, 12:34 ]
Post subject:  Re: Picture quality scale by format

Thank you....I find the professional Panasonic D-5 ( pinnacle of the standard definition video with possibility of recording 1080i at bitrates of 300 Mbps) better than the D-VHS and D-VHS better than upscaled Digibeta.
Of course these are my conclusions open to discussion.

VCD (shame on you)
S-VCD
DVD
Betacam SX
D-2
D1
Digibeta
D-VHS
D-5
HD-DVD
Blu-ray
HDCAM
Blu-ray 4K HDR (best)

Author:  gypsy [ 03 Aug 2020, 15:40 ]
Post subject:  Re: Picture quality scale by format

Having a good projector now really shows the warts of older formats. I watched a DVD on it recently and after that I only want to watch Blu Rays on it.

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