1st is maybe the director's intension

2nd not all, so far we heard some can be software hack/some need hardware hack

waitng for the knowing & 12 rounds BD

the reviews are good

i also waiting knowing...

12 round i waiting ur review..hahaha

actually i already did. borrowed a friend ps3 back then n tested a few movies with my system (using 663 n psb alpha at the time). pq is definitely better than dvd but the hd sound really disappoint me. maybe my expectation to high. i think that's why i lost interest in getting bd until now....but that will change soon very curious to c how my malaz n klip perform with hd sound

but now u got bit stim to ur 6003 ma.... sure sedap taukeh

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Added on June 28, 2009, 10:33 pmthe knowing review :
http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/movies.php?id=5350&show=review

5 bintang PQ SQ

This post has been edited by megatron007: Jun 28 2009, 10:33 PM

new speaker..will be different..
somemore now got BD60..different story already...

i hope so...i hope so...crossing my fingers

if not happy, sell the BD and BD60 cheap cheap to me..
i willing to take all...

those title recommend by forumer wont disappoint you..
so no worry

How good a HD or BD PQ and SQ all boils down to how much effort the owner of the material put "transfering/translating" the source material (the orginal film) to HD formats.

Take 2001 for example, alot of effort were put into transfering that to BD and the end results shows! Even some newer movie cannot compare in terms of PQ and SQ...

This is NOT a new thing. The same applies to DVD. Not all DVD are equal. But, with HD, the end product's PQ and SQ's quality are MORE apparent

actually there is nothing wrong with grainy movie

and new release of BDs movie ( i mean new movie) normally come with excellent PQ n SQ

u wont get far away.... believe me !

This post has been edited by megatron007: Jun 29 2009, 07:30 AM

For 2001: A Space Odissey, it's not just efforts that gave the excellent PQ. The film was shot on a 70mm film, essentially double the resolution of the 35mm normally used today. Nowadays only IMAX format uses 70mm film, you can see the difference between IMAX and anamorphic 35mm Panavision scenes in one same movie, The Dark Knight. The documentary, Baraka also uses 70mm (using some customized camera, not IMAX) and the PQ is simply stunning, one the best PQ on BD out there (scanned at 8k resolution instead of 4k normally, and downconverted to 2k (1080p) for the BD). Predator was given the best transfer but was not cosidered as good PQ with so much grains, but that's just how the film supposed to look.

About grains, they are natural properties of the analogue film stock. Scenes shot in dark will further enhance them, even with digital cameras because of the lighting and camera ISO etc. Actually no one likes grain, but the problem is, when you remove (DNR) the grains you will also lost the details, making the PQ soft. In worst cases with to much DNR, the people will look waxy. Some digitally shot film, like Miami Vice, grains were intentionallly added digitally to give film-like and gritty image. On the other hand, Zodiac, which was also digitally shot using the same Viper camera, has very minimal grain and the PQ is just excellent.

For AQ, mostly is lossless, so it's bit-by-bit identical to the studio master. Normal Dolby Digital on DVD usually stripped to 448kbps, but the Dolby TrueHD of my Celine Dion: A New Day BD maintains 10mbps average with 24-bit/96kHz sampling. When you hear some bad lossless audio, it's the source not the format, so blame the bad sound design mixing/editing by the sound engineers.

The studio masters are usually in big PCM format. In the early days of BD, they just put the whole thing on the disc. That's why you see a lot of old titles using this format. With this, all you need is a DAC to convert to analogue and an amplifier to power the speakers. But, by putting the PCM master on the disc, a lot of space will be taken. That space can be used to maximise the bitrate of the movie itself and/or put some bonus features. This is where DTS-HD Master Audio and Dolby TrueHD come in.

DTS-HD MA/Dolby TrueHD works like a ZIP tool, they losslessly compress (encode) the PCM and save a lot of space on the disc. Then it's up to the player or AV receiver to "unzip" (decode) the format to get the uncompressed PCM. If the player does the "unzipping", it will send the uncompressed PCM via HDMI to the receiver which will convert to analogue (i.e. BD60). Some players (except PS3) has it's own DAC, converting to analogue itself before sending it to receivers via the multi-channel analogue outs, very handy for older receivers without HDMI (i.e. BD80). Almost all players (except PS3) can send the DTS-HD MA/Dolby TrueHD untouched (still "zipped", HDMI only) to the receiver, this method is called bitstream. This way the receiver will do the "unzipping", DAC, and amplify. If the receiver uses better decoding chip (PS3 uses software decoding, not hardware), you should hear some difference in the AQ.

This post has been edited by aiman04: Jun 29 2009, 09:12 AM

If they maintain to put the PCM format into the disc...I presume there's no need to buy new av amp with hd decoding..isn't life is more simple for us...

You don't need a new amp even with DTS-HD MA and Dolby TrueHD. Just get a player with multi-channel analogue outs, like BD80 or your own BD55. These players MUST have their own decoding capability in order to get the PCM, convert it to analogue (DAC) and sends out using the multi-channel analogue outs to older amps.

Actually PCM itself on the disc can be worse for owners of PS3 or players without multi-channel outs (like BD60) conneting to older amp, because they will have to use the optical/coaxial connection that can't carry the high bitrate multi-channel PCM track (bandwidth limitation). Using optical/coaxial will downmix the multi-channel PCM track to stereo! But with DTS-HD MA and Dolby TrueHD, inside the codec there is a backup track of normal DTS (1.5mbps) and Dolby Digital (640kbps) that will be bitstreamed to your amp via the optical/coaxial, so you'll still get multi-channel audio, only not lossless.

This post has been edited by aiman04: Jun 29 2009, 08:46 AM

Some may argue that bitstream to avr is better but I think it's quite subjective..

Of course it's subjective. Some even argued that the lossy DTS/Dolby Digital audio is better than lossless. There's someone here even started a thread about it.

If two different machines uses different chip to decode, it's possible that you'll hear some difference, like I did when I compare between my PS3 (software internal decoding) and my receiver (hardware decoding bitstreamed from BD35). But if you use PS3, you have no choice but to let the PS3 do the decoding because it can;t bitstream.

Thanks for all the feedback about 'grains' in pictures. Can I conclude that:-

1) 'Older' films tend to be more grainy.

2) Newer ones will have lesser grains unless intentional

3) There is no way to remove grains all together? Only minimising it?

However, I only notice 'grains' when watching HD and not at lower resolutions. Why is that? Is it because HD (ie. higher resolutions) tend to enhance 'flaws'?

1) Not really. All films shot on analogue film stock will have grains. But on 70mm film the grains will be much finer, so the grains aren't that obvious and no need to DNR (DNR will remove grains but it also removes details and sharpness).

2) Same as above. Only digitally shot film should have lesser grains (dark scenes). Majority of theatrical movies now still uses analogue film.

3) Yes you can. But like I said, it will make the PQ seems flat, soft and fleshtones looks like they're made of wax. Lowry Digital (now owned by DTS Labs) is very good job in cleaning noise (dirt, specks, etc) but they won't simply remove the grain if it compromises the PQ.

Of course, at higher resolution you'll see more details, even the grains. That's why you don't see them on DVDs. This why HD is so wonderful.

This post has been edited by aiman04: Jun 29 2009, 12:51 PM

by the way, the movie Knowing....story line...kinda crappy.

crappy hero also what to do

sure?
get good review on it...

Alex Proyas is one of my favorite director. Watched Dark City BD again yesterday. Still amazed. The director's cut is much better with the removal of the opening narration (as he originally intended), keeping the mystery even more interesting.

So I have this Knowing pre-ordered. A blind buy for me. I'll keep an open mind watching it, hopefully it will not suck.

Dark City was trashed by critics when it was theatrically released (except for Roger Ebert, he's pretty much alone at that time). Now it's a classic.