1080P or NOT! new user please help

[Jhonny]

When i rent movies, and once the movie has finished downloading, is the movie now on my box or is it live streaming from somewere?

If its love streaming, then does that mean if i try and download a movie while watching another, does it stop downloading and wait till im done watching the movie?

I have a 1080P tv but not 24PS, does that mean I am forced to downgrade to 1080i since my VUDU box only has a choice for 1080p/24ps or 1080I, which is very very frustrating and dissapointing, i spent 3,000$ a year ago for my panasonic plasma to watch 1080P!

thanks folks
Jhonny

[Nded]

Re: 1080P or NOT! new user please help

Hi Jhonny, welcome to the Vudu forum!

When i rent movies, and once the movie has finished downloading, is the movie now on my box or is it live streaming from somewere?

The entire movie would be on your box at that point. You could unplug the ethernet cable and watch a rental for the next 24/48 hours (varies by title). You can watch purchases forever without ever plugging into the internet again (probably not a good idea).

If its live streaming, then does that mean if i try and download a movie while watching another, does it stop downloading and wait till im done watching the movie?

When you have multiple movies "queued", whichever movie you are actively watching is streamed until it is completed downloading, then the Vudu moves on to the next movie in your download queue, even if you are still watching the first. You pretty much have control over the whole process and can always watch what you want to watch first.

I have a 1080P tv but not 24PS, does that mean I am forced to downgrade to 1080i since my VUDU box only has a choice for 1080p/24ps or 1080I, which is very very frustrating and dissapointing, i spent 3,000$ a year ago for my panasonic plasma to watch 1080P!

thanks folks
Jhonny

Many threads already cover this - try this one for starters http://forum.vudu.com/showthread.php?t=2392

Here's the bottom line, from the human eyes perspective 1080i30fps and 1080p60fps are identical - you cannot see the difference - it's beyond the capacity of the mind and eye. Just don't let the numbers distract you from enjoying a great picture - your viewing experience will be fine. Watch a couple HDX movies and you'll be fine.

[Nded]

Re: 1080P or NOT! new user please help

Hey Jhonny,

If you'd like some more details on why watching a 1080p24fps source like the Vudu on a 1080p60 TV will look exactly the same at 1080i30 you can read all the math at http://blog.hometheatermag.com/geoff...061080iv1080p/ .

This should give you a better understanding of why as far as movies are concerned "THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 1080i AND 1080p" (bold content is an exact quote from the referenced article). A google on "difference between 1080i and 1080p will give you a few billion additional articles that will backup this statement.

It sounds like you have a great TV, and your Vudu will look great on it.

[Jhonny]

Re: 1080P or NOT! new user please help

thanks for the prompt responce, so here is my next question, the HDX movies takes aroud 3-4 hours to download while the HD movies takes almost no time, so is there a quality difference on the movie since my TV does not do 24P?

whats the difference between downloading and playing back a HDX movie vs an HD movie if my TV will not do 24P? since I am forced to set the vudu box to 1080I vs 1080P?

thanks again..

[Nded]

Re: 1080P or NOT! new user please help

The main difference between HD and HDX (and even SD) is the amount of compression. Here is my understanding of the process. The original movie is provided to Vudu in a format that is way higher resolution than all of the consumer HD equipment - something like 4320p if you need a relative comparison. At that point Vudu encodes the movie master "in house" into their proprietary DRM managed H.264 format. Depending on the level of compression, the digital copy is then classified as SD/HD/HDX. Any re-mastering is done by the studios before the master is turned over to Vudu for encoding, while the "upscaling" of SD quality content to 1080p24fps is done at the time it is encoded to the 1080p format. When the movie is played back in your home the Vudu player actually downscales it from 1080p24 if your monitor is not able to handle the full image signal (i.e. 1080i, 720p, 480p, or 480i).

My 110" projection system runs at 1080i, and I can see a difference between HD and HDX, but I have to admit that I've become so spoiled with instant viewing that I only get HDX on movies that I plan to watch far in advance and most of the time I stick to SD/HD. I think you'll be surprised how good the SD stuff on Vudu will look on your sweet TV.

The other big difference between HD and HDX is the sound, but you can only appreciate the difference if you have invested in a good surround sound system to match the quality of your monitor.

[NA9D]

Re: 1080P or NOT! new user please help

All Vudu HD movies are on 1080p/24 regardless of HD or HDX. So it makes no difference if your set is 720p, 1080i or 1080p/24. HDX simply has about twice the bit rate of HD. It's completely noticeable.

[jleavens]

Re: 1080P or NOT! new user please help

whats the difference between downloading and playing back a HDX movie vs an HD movie if my TV will not do 24P? since I am forced to set the vudu box to 1080I vs 1080P?

Jon and Ed can correct me if I'm wrong, but I use this analogy:

If you know anything about ripping CDs to your computer, you know that there are different bit rates you can use: from 16kbps to 320kbps. It's a measure of how much detail is being captured, and you're trading off quality for file size. Most people use bit rates in the range of 128-192kbps, but if you're a real audiophile and think that cymbals sounds a little "twangy" at 128kbps, you might use 224k or even 256k. Or if you have unlimited disk space, you could go with a lossless encoding. If you're real picky, you might shy away from iTunes or WMP and use LAME as your encoder, where you can do all kinds of things to make sure your digital versions of music live up to your standards - knowing that it takes extra time and effort (and file size) to produce your files. It doesn't take special equipment to play back, it's just that there's more detail in the digital file.

So to me - HDX is the equivalent of using the LAME file encoder for movies. You're being really picky about the specs, and you're not afraid of large file sizes. But you're trading off download time.

[NA9D]

Re: 1080P or NOT! new user please help

justin is correct. The only thing that the term "HD" is concerned with is a pixel count of greater than 1280 x 720. Vudu's "HD" content is all 1960 x 1280. Now, while you have this number of pixels, this says NOTHING about the quality of the pixels or the accuracy of the color in relation to the original source material.

Depending on the bit rate and level of compression, the quality of an HD piece of content can actually be quite poor. HDX is simply encoding at a higher level of quality.

[Rusdude]

Re: 1080P or NOT! new user please help

justin is correct. The only thing that the term "HD" is concerned with is a pixel count of greater than 1280 x 720. Vudu's "HD" content is all 1960 x 1280. Now, while you have this number of pixels, this says NOTHING about the quality of the pixels or the accuracy of the color in relation to the original source material.

Depending on the bit rate and level of compression, the quality of an HD piece of content can actually be quite poor. HDX is simply encoding at a higher level of quality.

Minor correction: 1080p resolution is actually 1920x1080

[NA9D]

Re: 1080P or NOT! new user please help

Minor correction: 1080p resolution is actually 1920x1080

Yes, you would be correct! My bad.