Optimising Blue ray with HD ready projector

Posted by: Simon Matthews on 01 June 2009

I purchased an Optima (themescene) DLP projector (HD ready) earlier this year. Last week I took the plunge and purchased a panasonic blue ray player and a decent HDMI lead.

Images right from the word go have been really impressive and the move up to blue ray has been quite a revelation.

I have played with the extensive set up opportunities of the projector and have a picture that appears pretty well optimised.

My only issue is that picture movement appears marginally staggered and slightly lacking in fluidity, especially during fast tracking shots. The problem is only minor but I am wondering if there is any trick I am missing?

Is there anything I need to do paricularly as the blue ray image is full HD feeding into HD ready only.

Any advice much appreciated.
Posted on: 01 June 2009 by Allan Probin
Sounds like the 24fps (frames per second) video signal stored on the disk is being frame-rate converted to 60 or 50Hz. Set the output of the blu-ray player to 1080p/24fps and that will by-pass the frame rate conversion step inside the player.

Might be a good precaution to check the manual for the projector first to make sure it can accept 1080p/24fps video on it's HDMI input before changing anything.
Posted on: 02 June 2009 by Simon Matthews
Alan

great advice. Thanks so much.

I will report back!
Posted on: 03 June 2009 by Simon Matthews
Allan.

Spot on! Tha panasonic blue ray players default settings is to have the 24fps turned off. My understanding is that this setting suits dvds best. It appears that it is necessary to change this setting to 24fps for optimising blue ray disks only.

This info is pushed to the back of the manual. I am sure there must be a lot of blue ray users out there who are not running on 24fps correctly and leave there machines on default settings.
Posted on: 03 June 2009 by winkyincanada
I had similar issue with DVDs through my Blu-ray player. I never thought of the frame-rate incompatibility. In any case I now run a separate (mutli-region) DVD player for DVDs so I have stepped around the problem.
Posted on: 03 June 2009 by Flame
Hi Simon;

What you are experiencing sounds similar to what I have. I have the Optoma HD65 and I am guessing you have the same. I think we are experiencing the normal image of the projector. There was a post on hometheatermag.com talking about this staggering as one of the disapointments with 24fps. That's life!

Regards...
Posted on: 04 June 2009 by Simon Matthews
Flame

I do indeed have the HD65. Is my understanding correct that:

For DVD's I turn the 24fps off.

For Blue Ray I turn it on.

This is a bit of a pain as it is easy to forget and the menu can only be accessed when the disk is not playing. I can see a slightly more fluid image when the 24fps is selected although it still staggers slightly.
Posted on: 04 June 2009 by Flame
I have everything running in native form. I believe that the more conversions take place the more the image will suffer. The projector is good and I'm happy with it. But let's not forget that it is a very entry level one. The staggering when the camera pans sideways across a shot is not going to go away no matter what you do Smile

Regards...
Posted on: 04 June 2009 by Simon Matthews
Flame

Sorry to be a bit daft but when you say 'in native form' what exactly do you mean?

Putting things into perspective my overall picture is really amazing, especially considering the money involved, just want to squeeze the last ounce out!

Out of interest did you find the 'cinema' option on the Optima to give you the best picture across BR/dvd and broadcast?
Posted on: 04 June 2009 by Flame
Simon;

"Native" is when the material (video or audio) it played from the disk and through the whole electronic chain as it was recorded. For example, if I listen to a DVD where the audio was recorded in stereo I make sure that my DVD player is outputting the sound in stereo and that my AV receiver is not trying to convert the sound into pseudo-surround.

The same applies to video; At the back of the DVD/bluray box the video format is mentioned in terms of aspect ratio and refresh rate. Don't let your player upconvert or downconvert anything. Also, don't change the aspect ration. At the projector end let the video signal go unprocessesed. 24 fps is displayed as 24 fps and 60 fps is displayed as 60 fps. This preserves the quality as much as possible. Since the HD 65 is only 720p then all 1080i/p videos will be downconverted, resulting in some loss of quality.

Maybe to some it up in a simple way, "native" reffers to a situation where every single pixel recorded on the disc in a particular frame is presented on the screen as a single pixel within that frame. Smile

Regards...