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Pagey
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Re: UHD playback on PCs DOA?

Sat Jan 28, 2017 11:19 am

techguy wrote:
Pagey wrote:
just brew it! wrote:
We'll see. It sounds like they've taken some pretty extreme measures to protect the decryption code this time around. Pagey (a couple of posts back) has also indicated that the "usual suspects" aren't planning to attempt a crack of AACS 2.0, so if it does happen it'll probably be a while.

Let's also be mindful of Forum Rule #1... we're good as long as we're just discussing hypotheticals.

JBI, just for the sake of clarity, I definitely wasn't attempting, and have no desire to, run afoul of Forum Rule #1.  I was, as you pointed out, just stating for both clarity and the sake of conversation that the makers of some specific/popular "software tools" have stated up front and unambiguously that they have no plans to attempt to circumvent AACS 2.0...and that's fine with me. 

Right.  And when were these comments made?  

I get what you are saying.  Obviously, since time is linear, they were made IN THE PAST.  But I've seen nothing, at least from the team that develops the particular software I am thinking of, which indicates they plan to change their position.  I am not saying there is a blanket statement by every developer out there - that would be false and misleading.  I am also not saying that the developers of the specific software of which I am thinking won't change their position.  There is, however, probably little financial incentive for them to do so, and only greater risk to legal issues should they pursue it.  Now, with a nod to Rule 1, that's all I will say on the matter.  :-)
 
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Re: UHD playback on PCs DOA?

Sat Jan 28, 2017 11:54 am

Pagey wrote:
techguy wrote:
Pagey wrote:
JBI, just for the sake of clarity, I definitely wasn't attempting, and have no desire to, run afoul of Forum Rule #1.  I was, as you pointed out, just stating for both clarity and the sake of conversation that the makers of some specific/popular "software tools" have stated up front and unambiguously that they have no plans to attempt to circumvent AACS 2.0...and that's fine with me. 

Right.  And when were these comments made?  

I get what you are saying.  Obviously, since time is linear, they were made IN THE PAST.  But I've seen nothing, at least from the team that develops the particular software I am thinking of, which indicates they plan to change their position.  I am not saying there is a blanket statement by every developer out there - that would be false and misleading.  I am also not saying that the developers of the specific software of which I am thinking won't change their position.  There is, however, probably little financial incentive for them to do so, and only greater risk to legal issues should they pursue it.  Now, with a nod to Rule 1, that's all I will say on the matter.  :-)

That is because the events that fulfilled the pre-requisites to pursuing AACS 2.0 cracking have just occurred in the past couple days.  Not a lot of time for Redfox or anyone else to come out and say anything.  Also, it could be too early in the game to say anything yet.  Perhaps given Redfox's history they're choosing not to say anything yet so as not to draw undue attention from the MPAA which might get them shut down.  Again.  
 
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Re: UHD playback on PCs DOA?

Sun Jan 29, 2017 2:32 pm

That's why I essentially use the cloud as a "backup of the backup".
The only case in which I'd actually need it would be if somehow both of my drives get compromised.
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Chrispy_
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Re: UHD playback on PCs DOA?

Sun Jan 29, 2017 2:47 pm

As someone who has to manage conference rooms with large 4K televisions in them, I bought 1080p for my own home.

If you're sitting 10 feet away the difference between pixel size matters far less than the quality of the comression used. Hell, a well-encoded high-bitrate 720p video clip can look better at sofa-distance than a 4K blu-ray when the bitrate is equal, and we're bitrate-limited these days, not pixel-limited.

I mean, here's a perfect example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1mSpK2S92s
That's a 40Mb/s stream (at 4K) and the sharpness really isn't even remotely the problem with the image quality. To get rid of the detail artefacting near the camera and the detail loss on the distant water, you'd need to up the bitrate to about 320Mb/s at 4K which means you'd need three 100GB discs for your typical movie. Alternatively, at 720p the 40Mb/s would be enough to give you the detail that's missing and that bitrate would fit a 100-minute movie onto a standard 25GB blu-ray disc.
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whm1974
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Re: UHD playback on PCs DOA?

Sun Jan 29, 2017 4:43 pm

Chrispy_ wrote:
As someone who has to manage conference rooms with large 4K televisions in them, I bought 1080p for my own home.

If you're sitting 10 feet away the difference between pixel size matters far less than the quality of the comression used. Hell, a well-encoded high-bitrate 720p video clip can look better at sofa-distance than a 4K blu-ray when the bitrate is equal, and we're bitrate-limited these days, not pixel-limited.

I mean, here's a perfect example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1mSpK2S92s
That's a 40Mb/s stream (at 4K) and the sharpness really isn't even remotely the problem with the image quality. To get rid of the detail artefacting near the camera and the detail loss on the distant water, you'd need to up the bitrate to about 320Mb/s at 4K which means you'd need three 100GB discs for your typical movie. Alternatively, at 720p the 40Mb/s would be enough to give you the detail that's missing and that bitrate would fit a 100-minute movie onto a standard 25GB blu-ray disc.

So the resolution alone wouldn't make a video any better, it's other factors that play huge roles in video quality then?
 
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Re: UHD playback on PCs DOA?

Sun Jan 29, 2017 5:28 pm

Well, you have 8x the pixels but only 4x the bits. Something's gotta give.
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sophisticles
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Re: UHD playback on PCs DOA?

Sun Jan 29, 2017 6:59 pm

Krogoth wrote:
Why?

Big media is still bloody clueless and still think that piracy is a massive problem.  :roll:

I can think of one member of "Big Media" this doesn't apply to:
http://variety.com/2016/digital/news/ne ... 201859416/
BTW, I downloaded the 90GB MXF file and let's just say anyone that thinks that quad core cpu's are "fast enough" really needs to try to work with that file.
 
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Re: UHD playback on PCs DOA?

Sun Jan 29, 2017 7:16 pm

Chrispy_ wrote:
That's a 40Mb/s stream (at 4K) and the sharpness really isn't even remotely the problem with the image quality. To get rid of the detail artefacting near the camera and the detail loss on the distant water, you'd need to up the bitrate to about 320Mb/s at 4K which means you'd need three 100GB discs for your typical movie. Alternatively, at 720p the 40Mb/s would be enough to give you the detail that's missing and that bitrate would fit a 100-minute movie onto a standard 25GB blu-ray disc.

Sorry, but you are incorrect; with regards to quality the most important things are the camera lens, aperture settings,  camera, lens filter used, lighting, and acquisition format. These come into play long before anything you see in that video you linked to.
After that you have the debayering (if needed), grading, software filtering and mezzanine format used.
The delivery encoder and bit rate used are much less important than many would have you think; I have seen 6mb/s 1080p encoding with Apple's H264 encoder (which is generally considered one of the worst encoders out there) and the video was crisp, clear and vivid.
Youtube video is generally considered of poor quality and it has to do with the settings used not the bit rate.
I just took the previously referenced open source Meridian video and encoded it to 2160p60 (technically 59.94fps) at 25mb/s with nvenc_hevc via ffmpeg and the encode was pristine and the reason has a lot to do with the quality of the source.
 
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Re: UHD playback on PCs DOA?

Sun Jan 29, 2017 9:30 pm

sophisticles wrote:
Chrispy_ wrote:
That's a 40Mb/s stream (at 4K) and the sharpness really isn't even remotely the problem with the image quality. To get rid of the detail artefacting near the camera and the detail loss on the distant water, you'd need to up the bitrate to about 320Mb/s at 4K which means you'd need three 100GB discs for your typical movie. Alternatively, at 720p the 40Mb/s would be enough to give you the detail that's missing and that bitrate would fit a 100-minute movie onto a standard 25GB blu-ray disc.

Sorry, but you are incorrect; with regards to quality the most important things are the camera lens, aperture settings,  camera, lens filter used, lighting, and acquisition format. These come into play long before anything you see in that video you linked to.
After that you have the debayering (if needed), grading, software filtering and mezzanine format used.
The delivery encoder and bit rate used are much less important than many would have you think; I have seen 6mb/s 1080p encoding with Apple's H264 encoder (which is generally considered one of the worst encoders out there) and the video was crisp, clear and vivid.
Youtube video is generally considered of poor quality and it has to do with the settings used not the bit rate.
I just took the previously referenced open source Meridian video and encoded it to 2160p60 (technically 59.94fps) at 25mb/s with nvenc_hevc via ffmpeg and the encode was pristine and the reason has a lot to do with the quality of the source.

Disagree. Everything matters, and assuming a good source, the codec, settings, and bitrate matter more than almost anything else.


For fast action, there's no replacement for a good encoder and bitrate.
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sophisticles
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Re: UHD playback on PCs DOA?

Sun Jan 29, 2017 10:25 pm

Waco wrote:
sophisticles wrote:
Chrispy_ wrote:
That's a 40Mb/s stream (at 4K) and the sharpness really isn't even remotely the problem with the image quality. To get rid of the detail artefacting near the camera and the detail loss on the distant water, you'd need to up the bitrate to about 320Mb/s at 4K which means you'd need three 100GB discs for your typical movie. Alternatively, at 720p the 40Mb/s would be enough to give you the detail that's missing and that bitrate would fit a 100-minute movie onto a standard 25GB blu-ray disc.

Sorry, but you are incorrect; with regards to quality the most important things are the camera lens, aperture settings,  camera, lens filter used, lighting, and acquisition format. These come into play long before anything you see in that video you linked to.
After that you have the debayering (if needed), grading, software filtering and mezzanine format used.
The delivery encoder and bit rate used are much less important than many would have you think; I have seen 6mb/s 1080p encoding with Apple's H264 encoder (which is generally considered one of the worst encoders out there) and the video was crisp, clear and vivid.
Youtube video is generally considered of poor quality and it has to do with the settings used not the bit rate.
I just took the previously referenced open source Meridian video and encoded it to 2160p60 (technically 59.94fps) at 25mb/s with nvenc_hevc via ffmpeg and the encode was pristine and the reason has a lot to do with the quality of the source.

Disagree.  Everything matters, and assuming a good source, the codec, settings, and bitrate matter more than almost anything else.


For fast action, there's no replacement for a good encoder and bitrate.

The encoder and settings used are nearly meaningless if your source is crap, GIGO (Garbage In, Garbage Out). With regards to bit rate, you are semi-correct, pros use segmented encoding, where they'll break up a movie into scenes and encode each scene according to the bit rate needed to eliminate artifacts, then they concatenate the resulting segments into one file.
 
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Re: UHD playback on PCs DOA?

Mon Jan 30, 2017 4:34 am

sophisticles wrote:
The encoder and settings used are nearly meaningless if your source is crap, GIGO (Garbage In, Garbage Out).

Quality of the source is also meaningless if your encoder is crap or the bitrate is too low. Quality is always going to be determined by the weakest link in the chain, whatever that happens to be.
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Chrispy_
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Re: UHD playback on PCs DOA?

Mon Jan 30, 2017 7:07 am

I'm with Waco and JBI here.

That was an example of very obvious compression artefacts ruining the stream. Saying that you've seen excellent quality 6Mbit/s 1080p stream is irrelevant because the complexity of the content matters. I've recorded side-scrolling platformer gameplay at 1440p/60 at 1.5Mbit/s and had better results than BF1 using the same encoder at 20Mbit/s. It's all about how many pixels are changed from the previous frame, and how much of the previous frame's data is useful to the previous frame.

Things that encoders hate are:
  • smoke
  • moving water
  • tree leaves blowing in the wind
  • diffraction or strobing of light
  • film grain
  • zoom and motion simultaneously
Things that encoders love are:
  • large areas of flat colour
  • motion in a single direction like pans
  • straight zooms where everything grows/shrinks relative to a fixed point
  • any situation where areas of the previous frame don't change (fixed cameras).

Essentially, you could encode a fixed-camera TV show at low bitrate and get fantastic results whilst you could encode an action movie at insanely-high bitrate (1TB for a 2H movie) and still see obvious compression artefacts.
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techguy
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Re: UHD playback on PCs DOA?

Mon Jan 30, 2017 8:30 am

I don't think this thread is the right place for a discussion on the merits of 4k Blu-rays, TVs, and related equipment.  If you're one of those people that thinks it's all a gimmick, you're not going to be convinced otherwise by anyone's opinion or factual reference so there's no point to the discussion anyway.  The focus on resolution and complete dismissal of things like HDR/WCG, increased contrast ratios (by way of higher brightness levels/darker "darkness" levels) etc. betrays either intent or ignorance.  
 
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Re: UHD playback on PCs DOA?

Mon Jan 30, 2017 8:39 am

techguy wrote:
I don't think this thread is the right place for a discussion on the merits of 4k Blu-rays, TVs, and related equipment.  If you're one of those people that thinks it's all a gimmick, you're not going to be convinced otherwise by anyone's opinion or factual reference so there's no point to the discussion anyway.  The focus on resolution and complete dismissal of things like HDR/WCG, increased contrast ratios (by way of higher brightness levels/darker "darkness" levels) etc. betrays either intent or ignorance.  

This place is EXACTLY the place to discuss it. What you want to discuss should be in a new thread but this thread is SPECIFICALLY about the ridiculous DRM requirements making UHD playback DOA. Of course it'll be higher bitrate which allows HDR/WCG, but only for those movies that are encoded that way. People will have to change their GPU and display on top of the other ridiculous DRM shenanigans if they want to experience HDR/WCG too.

Don't forget, some Blu-rays are still being mastered and released with Limited RGB (16-235) colour range in 2017. What makes you think for a second that UHD will be anything other than raising the bar that most Blu-ray releases don't even bother trying to clear in the first place.
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Re: UHD playback on PCs DOA?

Mon Jan 30, 2017 8:52 am

I'd be willing to bet most display panels can't take advantage of HDR either due to inherent contrast limitations in the panel itself. Yes, there's potential for significant improvements here, and mainstream display tech will catch up eventually; but by the time most titles are mastered to take advantage of it and most displays are capable of actually making use of the extra information, we'll be on to the "next big thing" anyway. :wink:

It feels to me like the industry is mostly using it as an excuse to move on to new, stronger DRM.
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techguy
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Re: UHD playback on PCs DOA?

Mon Jan 30, 2017 8:52 am

Chrispy_ wrote:
techguy wrote:
I don't think this thread is the right place for a discussion on the merits of 4k Blu-rays, TVs, and related equipment.  If you're one of those people that thinks it's all a gimmick, you're not going to be convinced otherwise by anyone's opinion or factual reference so there's no point to the discussion anyway.  The focus on resolution and complete dismissal of things like HDR/WCG, increased contrast ratios (by way of higher brightness levels/darker "darkness" levels) etc. betrays either intent or ignorance.  

This place is EXACTLY the place to discuss it. What you want to discuss should be in a new thread but this thread is SPECIFICALLY about the ridiculous DRM requirements making UHD playback DOA. Of course it'll be higher bitrate which allows HDR/WCG, but only for those movies that are encoded that way. People will have to change their GPU and display on top of the other ridiculous DRM shenanigans if they want to experience HDR/WCG too.

Don't forget, some Blu-rays are still being mastered and released with Limited RGB (16-235) colour range in 2017. What makes you think for a second that UHD will be anything other than raising the bar that most Blu-ray releases don't even bother trying to clear in the first place.

So I'm the one who's off-topic by discussing the use of UHD Blu-ray drives, playback software, and the prospect of backing one's UHD Blu-rays up once it all gets cracked in a thread titled 
"UHD playback on PCs DOA?"
Seriously?
"Some Blu-rays are still being mastered..." 
Are these Blu-rays or UHD Blu-rays?  Are you even aware that the latter exists and is uniquely distinct from the former?  UHD Blu-rays are:
1) (up to) 100GB, offer bitrates up to 128Mb
2) make use of H.265 which is on average twice as efficient as H.264 (i.e. requires half the bit-rate for same quality image)
3) studios advertise the use of HDR specifically, and prominently on the packaging
perhaps you should do some reading on the matter: https://arstechnica.co.uk/gadgets/2015/05/ultra-hd-blu-ray-spec-confirmed-4k-at-high-frame-rates-10-bit-colour/
These have been for sale since early 2016.  I own about 20 of them.  I've watched several and the differences in brightness, detail in dark scenes, and color accuracy are night and day compared to standard Blu-ray, and that doesn't even account for the resolution increase.  
 
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Re: UHD playback on PCs DOA?

Mon Jan 30, 2017 9:00 am

Quote from the comments section of the recent UHD Blu-ray drive for PC release article:
http://techreport.com/news/31338/pionee ... st=1018831
Chrispy_ wrote:
I'm of the opinion that Blu-ray lovers are just puppets of the MPAA and RIAA.


And that's the end of that discussion.  
 
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Re: UHD playback on PCs DOA?

Mon Jan 30, 2017 9:06 am

@techguy - As far as I'm concerned the issue isn't that you're off-topic (did I miss something where someone accused you of this?), it's that some of your posts in this thread have skated a very thin line WRT Rule #1.
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Re: UHD playback on PCs DOA?

Mon Jan 30, 2017 9:38 am

techguy wrote:
Are you even aware that the latter exists and is uniquely distinct from the former?


Yes; Please don't insult my intelligence, I didn't intend to offend or insult you at any point.

techguy wrote:
UHD Blu-rays are:
1) (up to) 100GB, offer bitrates up to 128Mb


Which is a lower bitrate per pixel than standard Blu-rays when comparing 4K HDR/WCG against standard 1080p Blu-ray, hence why that was being discussed.

techguy wrote:
2) make use of H.265 which is on average twice as efficient as H.264 (i.e. requires half the bit-rate for same quality image)


Depending on content, yes. It's still lossy compression though so although it's better at some content than H.264 that is not guaranteed.

techguy wrote:
3) studios advertise the use of HDR specifically, and prominently on the packaging
perhaps you should do some reading on the matter: https://arstechnica.co.uk/gadgets/2015/05/ultra-hd-blu-ray-spec-confirmed-4k-at-high-frame-rates-10-bit-colour/


Some studios. Standard Blu-ray was supposed to be better than it is but after the initial wave we saw a wash of studio getting lazy and phoning in their mastering for the BD format.

techguy wrote:
I've watched several and the differences in brightness, detail in dark scenes, and color accuracy are night and day compared to standard Blu-ray, and that doesn't even account for the resolution increase.


If you're watching on a 10-bit HDR display with 10-bit HDR support all the way back to the player, I will take you at your word. If you're watching on an 8-bit system then the improvements you are talking about are nothing to do with UHD and simply down to the studio mastering them properly in the first place. There's nothing you can't achieve on a standard Blu-ray that UHD can give you other than higher bitrates unless you have a full-HDR, 10-bit chain from disc to display. Higher bitrates will provide you less artefacting but shouldn't have any impact on the gamut or output ranges. Your display still shows 0,0,0 as black and 255,255,255 as white unless it's a 10-bit display.
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Re: UHD playback on PCs DOA?

Mon Jan 30, 2017 9:41 am

I just want to reiterate (and maybe help bring it back on topic?): the requirements to play UHD BD discs on a PC is very exacting, and I don't see sales (at least initial sales) of the hardware/software components necessary being strong at all.  Now, if after time, I (and/or other users), happen to end up with a PC that just happens to have the DRM/chipset components necessary to play a UHD BD disc, then I might bite.  But given the option of 1.) buying a 4K TV which supports WCG and HDR plus a stand alone UHD BD player or 2.) buying a PC with the necessary DRM/chipset components, a UHD BD-ROM, and an HDR/WCG capable monitor...I'll go with option 1 at this moment in time and for the foreseeable future.

I do believe, based on reading AVS Forum postings, there will be a handful of dedicated, hardcore AV enthusiasts that will jump on this first thing, as nearly every consumer tech has a few early adopters that pay the price and pave the way for the rest of us.  God bless those folks and their wallets.   :D
 
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Re: UHD playback on PCs DOA?

Mon Jan 30, 2017 10:24 am

Pagey wrote:
I just want to reiterate (and maybe help bring it back on topic?): the requirements to play UHD BD discs on a PC is very exacting, and I don't see sales (at least initial sales) of the hardware/software components necessary being strong at all.  Now, if after time, I (and/or other users), happen to end up with a PC that just happens to have the DRM/chipset components necessary to play a UHD BD disc, then I might bite.  But given the option of 1.) buying a 4K TV which supports WCG and HDR plus a stand alone UHD BD player or 2.) buying a PC with the necessary DRM/chipset components, a UHD BD-ROM, and an HDR/WCG capable monitor...I'll go with option 1 at this moment in time and for the foreseeable future.

I do believe, based on reading AVS Forum postings, there will be a handful of dedicated, hardcore AV enthusiasts that will jump on this first thing, as nearly every consumer tech has a few early adopters that pay the price and pave the way for the rest of us.  God bless those folks and their wallets.   :D

OK from the stuff I've been reading about 4K TV and computer displays over the few years, I'm under the impression that most of them do not have WCG or HDR. Is this true? Not that I'm in the market anytime soon for anything 4K related.
 
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Re: UHD playback on PCs DOA?

Mon Jan 30, 2017 10:35 am

whm1974 wrote:
Pagey wrote:
I just want to reiterate (and maybe help bring it back on topic?): the requirements to play UHD BD discs on a PC is very exacting, and I don't see sales (at least initial sales) of the hardware/software components necessary being strong at all.  Now, if after time, I (and/or other users), happen to end up with a PC that just happens to have the DRM/chipset components necessary to play a UHD BD disc, then I might bite.  But given the option of 1.) buying a 4K TV which supports WCG and HDR plus a stand alone UHD BD player or 2.) buying a PC with the necessary DRM/chipset components, a UHD BD-ROM, and an HDR/WCG capable monitor...I'll go with option 1 at this moment in time and for the foreseeable future.

I do believe, based on reading AVS Forum postings, there will be a handful of dedicated, hardcore AV enthusiasts that will jump on this first thing, as nearly every consumer tech has a few early adopters that pay the price and pave the way for the rest of us.  God bless those folks and their wallets.   :D

OK from the stuff I've been reading about 4K TV and computer displays over the few years, I'm under the impression that most of them do not have WCG or HDR. Is this true? Not that I'm in the market anytime soon for anything 4K related.

Yeah, this stuff (terminology) is all over the map.  For example, the 2016 line up from Samsung has a "SUHD" series that does support HDR10 and features a 10-bit panel for WCG support.  They have a mid-tier line, the "KU7000/7500" series that feature "Active Crystal" display technology and can accept an HDR signal.  However, testing by Rtings.com states that the panels are 8-bit, not 10-bit.  And Samsung doesn't clearly define that "Active Crystal Color" really its (I'm 99% sure it is NOT the Quantum Dot tech featured in the top tier "SUHD" lineup).  So even though the panel can accept an HDR/WCG enabled signal from the source (assume set top UHD BD player), you are likely not getting true HDR and/or WCG.

Sony has an entry level X800D series that features an 8-bit + FRC panel (VA in the 43", IPS in the 49") that simulates 10-bit via dithering.  The panel is their "Triluminous" display, meaning it accepts and displays both HDR and WCG (again, WCG via 8-bit + FRC to simulate 10-bit).

To further complicate matters, some manufacturers only enable 4K HDR/WCG signals on one or two of the HDMI ports (on entry level/mid-tier sets only).  And, even more vexing, depending on the TVs firmware/OS, you may have to enable "Enhanced" mode on that specific HDMI source (or whatever other term the manufacturer chooses to employ).  It's a bit of the wild wild west out there right now in consumer electronics land. 

The good news is that the stuff I saw coming out of CES 2017 is finally starting to standardize on terminology and supported formats (e.g., HDR10 vs Dolby Vision/static HDR metadata vs dynamic HDR metadata, etc.).  If I got a 2016 TV, it would be the Sony X800D series, the Samsung SUHD series, or the LG Super UHD series (starts at model 7700 and goes up).  Otherwise, wait until spring when the 2017 sets appear.

Oh, and both Samsung and LG had PC monitors with Quantum Dot tech on display at CES, so hopefully we'll start seeing more and more monitors that offer this support.
 
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Re: UHD playback on PCs DOA?

Mon Jan 30, 2017 10:41 am

I think I'll keep my current 1080p TV and my Dell U3014 30" 2560x1600 display for the time being. Of course I rarely watch my TV anyway, and I did paid a pretty penny for the monitor, so I'm not in any hurry to upgrade.
 
Glorious
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Re: UHD playback on PCs DOA?

Mon Jan 30, 2017 10:48 am

Chrispy_ wrote:
It's all about how many pixels are changed from the previous frame, and how much of the previous frame's data is useful to the previous frame.


I didn't know who to quote from, but this seemed to be a good synopsis of a very important point that several people were making: It's not just how you encode it, but what you are encoding!

And, overarching that good specific point is the very important general point JBI made:

JBI wrote:
Quality is always going to be determined by the weakest link in the chain, whatever that happens to be.


techguy wrote:
2) make use of H.265 which is on average twice as efficient as H.264 (i.e. requires half the bit-rate for same quality image)


Sure, but you have to realize that virtually all of that improvement is from psycho-visual modeling. That is, the "efficiency" is almost entirely derived from lossy compression that's designed to lose information in ways that 1) the human mind-eye doesn't appreciate or notice but mostly 2) doing that while also -NOT- introducing artifacts that we -do- notice. Most notably, things like macroblocking, banding, and moire.


JBI wrote:
It feels to me like the industry is mostly using it as an excuse to move on to new, stronger DRM.


Yeah, definitely. I'm surprised it took them this long. I figured they'd have cut out software players ages ago:

Glorious wrote:
Again, you're missing the point. I'm not talking about "current" anything. I'm saying that in another couple of years its very possible that they'll simply revoke the keys for software players and thus all movies released from that point on won't be playable on computers. That, obviously, has nothing to do with winning the war currently.
 
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Re: UHD playback on PCs DOA?

Mon Jan 30, 2017 11:48 am

Chrispy:
Your argument that there is no tangible benefit derived from the use of UHD Blu-ray is based on a false premise.  You have stated numerous times now that UHD Blu-rays have fewer bits per pixel than standard Blu-ray.
This is demonstrably false.
Blu-ray has a maximum bit-rate of 40Mb, with the average (based on my analysis of ~1000 discs I own) being in the 25-30Mb range.  Very rarely does a video exceed 30Mb, let alone approach the maximum bitrate allowed.  
UHD Blu-ray has a maximum bit-rate of 128Mb, as I have stated already.  Even tossing aside your claims about codec efficiency, a simple calculation shows that 128 can be divided by either 25 or 30 by more than 4x.  Since 4k is 4x the pixel count of 1080p, your claim is now disproven.
Now, as for the vague claim that H265 does not contribute to more efficiency (i.e. better visual quality for the same file size/same quality for lesser file size), this is also easily debunked.  Without delving into an extreme level of detail, H265 has more granularity in its ability to group pixels together into blocks.  It can go down to areas as small as a 4x4 block of pixels and up to 64x64.  H264 on the other hand can only describe blocks of pixels up to 16x16, with the same minimum block size as H265.  More granularity = more options = more efficiency.  
 
Glorious
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Re: UHD playback on PCs DOA?

Mon Jan 30, 2017 12:22 pm

techguy wrote:
Blu-ray has a maximum bit-rate of 40Mb, with the average (based on my analysis of ~1000 discs I own) being in the 25-30Mb range. Very rarely does a video exceed 30Mb, let alone approach the maximum bitrate allowed.
UHD Blu-ray has a maximum bit-rate of 128Mb, as I have stated already. Even tossing aside your claims about codec efficiency, a simple calculation shows that 128 can be divided by either 25 or 30 by more than 4x. Since 4k is 4x the pixel count of 1080p, your claim is now disproven.


No, it isn't.

You are comparing the actual bitrate of the previous generation with the maximum bitrate of the new generation.

You must see the problem with this, as you've already stated it in reference to the previous generation!

techguy wrote:
Now, as for the vague claim that H265 does not contribute to more efficiency (i.e. better visual quality for the same file size/same quality for lesser file size), this is also easily debunked. Without delving into an extreme level of detail, H265 has more granularity in its ability to group pixels together into blocks. It can go down to areas as small as a 4x4 block of pixels and up to 64x64. H264 on the other hand can only describe blocks of pixels up to 16x16, with the same minimum block size as H265. More granularity = more options = more efficiency.


That's not what he was saying. He said it depends on content.

It does. It also depends on your subjective experience.

Compression isn't magic. The "better" visual quality is almost entirely provided by the psychovisual choices. To boil it down, humans notice the lack of fine detail much less than annoying artifacts. It's actually more important to avoid those artifacts than it is to cram more actual information into the frame.
 
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Re: UHD playback on PCs DOA?

Mon Jan 30, 2017 12:25 pm

Glorious wrote:
techguy wrote:
Blu-ray has a maximum bit-rate of 40Mb, with the average (based on my analysis of ~1000 discs I own) being in the 25-30Mb range.  Very rarely does a video exceed 30Mb, let alone approach the maximum bitrate allowed.  
UHD Blu-ray has a maximum bit-rate of 128Mb, as I have stated already.  Even tossing aside your claims about codec efficiency, a simple calculation shows that 128 can be divided by either 25 or 30 by more than 4x.  Since 4k is 4x the pixel count of 1080p, your claim is now disproven.


No, it isn't.

You are comparing the actual bitrate of the previous generation with the maximum bitrate of the new generation.

You must see the problem with this, as you've already stated it in reference to the previous generation!

techguy wrote:
Now, as for the vague claim that H265 does not contribute to more efficiency (i.e. better visual quality for the same file size/same quality for lesser file size), this is also easily debunked.  Without delving into an extreme level of detail, H265 has more granularity in its ability to group pixels together into blocks.  It can go down to areas as small as a 4x4 block of pixels and up to 64x64.  H264 on the other hand can only describe blocks of pixels up to 16x16, with the same minimum block size as H265.  More granularity = more options = more efficiency.


That's not what he was saying. He said it depends on content.

It does. It also depends on your subjective experience.

Compression isn't magic. The "better" visual quality is almost entirely provided by the psychovisual choices. To boil it down, humans notice the lack of fine detail much less than annoying artifacts. It's actually more important to avoid those artifacts than it is to cram more actual information into the frame.

Not sure how you think your opinion defeats the argument of math but have fun with that.  
 
Glorious
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Re: UHD playback on PCs DOA?

Mon Jan 30, 2017 12:32 pm

techguy wrote:
Not sure how you think your opinion defeats the argument of math but have fun with that.


The opinion of "you are comparing apples and oranges" does indeed defeat the "argument of math".

But have fun with your smoothie. I'm sure it tastes great and has "vibrant" color just like your TV. :wink:
 
techguy
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Re: UHD playback on PCs DOA?

Mon Jan 30, 2017 12:37 pm

Glorious wrote:
techguy wrote:
Not sure how you think your opinion defeats the argument of math but have fun with that.


The opinion of "you are comparing apples and oranges" does indeed defeat the "argument of math".

But have fun with your smoothie. I'm sure it tastes great and has "vibrant" color just like your TV.  :wink:

Keep telling yourself that, anything to walk away from an argument and think "I'm right, that other guy doesn't know what he's talking about" right?  What's your experience here?  Do you own any of these devices?  Have you even seen them in person?
I've done blind tests with UHD Blu-ray using subjects that had only experienced Blu-ray up until that point and every single person:
1) noticed the difference
2) was blown away
I have a 70" 4k HDR tv and 10-bit color through the whole display chain.  It absolutely looks better than both HD and non-HDR content.  But I don't need to justify my purchase to some random person on the internet, it's my money and I'm very satisfied with my purchases.  
 
Glorious
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Re: UHD playback on PCs DOA?

Mon Jan 30, 2017 12:42 pm

Anyway, (one of) chrispy_'s ultimate point(s) here was about the actual information: If the frames encoded consist of a lot of rapidly changing pixels in a way that is easily perceived by the human mind-eye, yeah, bitrate gonna bitrate.

These frames exist. The example you gave, having a larger maximum CU size, can't help you in that situation. There isn't much that can.

Luckily, this isn't a common situation. Unluckily, it is still a very real one.

Lossless compression has diminishing returns. Climbing the brutal curve completely successfully (lol) and you -still- arrive at the ur-info. The place from which there is nowhere else for you to go: You're summitted the peak on the backs of untold cycles but there is now nothing but air above you.

From there you can only cheat by going lossy, and we've been cheating like that for a long-time. So long, in fact, we've gotten better at it. We now know how to cheat in most hands in a way that only the very wary can even notice. But, even then, only for some hands, and only for some players.

That's the game.
Last edited by Glorious on Mon Jan 30, 2017 12:44 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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