Technical Issues and Questions

[Napier]

Try telling the TV to "allow" certain things. It should be under the menu in picture settings. My new TV wasn't picking up 720 and 1080 HD signals. I literally had to "tell" the TV I would be using these resolutions and then it should automatically switch. As far as AR's go, if it's set on 16:9 it picks up everything but 4:3. I always have to manually set that no matter what.

[manicsounds]

I've been trying to access the PIP Commentary on The Hangover, and having some problems.

The PIP comes up, but I can't access the audio commentary. I can only toggle through the 4 language options (English, French, Spanish, Portugese), and I cannot find the audio commentary track.

Subtitles do come up for the commentary track though if I toggle through the subtitles. But I don't want to just lip-read the PIP and read the commentary subtitles.

What am I doing wrong?

I use a Momitsu-899 clone player.

[manicsounds]

OK, figured it out.

According to the instruction manual, using Coax, Optical, or HDMI cables don't allow BonusView audio through for some odd reason.

Changed the output to PCM Stereo, and worked fine.

Phew...

Wonder why this is the case with the Momitsu...

[fdm]

PIP audio likely secondary audio. Fairly sure direct feed of hi-def audio does not support secondary audio. May be some setting to merge the two within your player, but with reduced audio quality. PCM may be only path in the Momitsu to get the secondary audio.

(Don't have one; for Panasonic you either get lossless audio or you can get the two audio streams merged together with reduced quality - but I just use PCM all the time and let the player do the hi-def audio decoding, with secondary audio always turned off. Probably similar for many players, some may be designed differently.)

[nsps]

Try telling the TV to "allow" certain things. It should be under the menu in picture settings. My new TV wasn't picking up 720 and 1080 HD signals. I literally had to "tell" the TV I would be using these resolutions and then it should automatically switch. As far as AR's go, if it's set on 16:9 it picks up everything but 4:3. I always have to manually set that no matter what.

My guess would be that he needs to adjust the player's output. If it's an up-converting HDMI player, he should be able to tell it how to output its up-converted 16x9 and 4x3 signals. My HD DVD player came setup to show everything correctly, and my blu-ray player does now that I've set the TV type to "16x9 pillarbox." However, I have no experience with DVD-only up-converting players or Sony players, so I could be on the wrong track.

[Antoine Doinel]

Thanks for the tips guys, I'll have to do some further digging. Unfortunately, the Sony player doesn't seem to have any user accessible controls so my friend may be stuck with manually adjusting the picture size with each movie which is a drag. I'll try upgrading the firmware in case it's some kind of weird quirk with the player.

[nsps]

Thanks for the tips guys, I'll have to do some further digging. Unfortunately, the Sony player doesn't seem to have any user accessible controls so my friend may be stuck with manually adjusting the picture size with each movie which is a drag. I'll try upgrading the firmware in case it's some kind of weird quirk with the player.

Do you have the model number? Pretty much all players have a "TV type" option in the setup menu, which could just contain "4x3" and "16x9" but may include a few other options regarding how those signals are sent. I'm surprised that it's set up through HDMI, as I'd expect this issue more via analogue connections.

[Antoine Doinel]

Figured it out. The Sony player did have user settings but they weren't intuitive to find (basically, when you into their Menu, Parental Controls come up first and then you kind of have to dig for the User Controls).

The Sony DVD player had a default setting that blows up 4:3 to 16:9. I changed it so it didn't do the the blow-up and I think that should fix things.

Thanks!

[ianthemovie]

Am wondering if anybody can give me some thoughts on this, and I apologize if this is a stupid question--I've only recently started using HDTVs, so I'm still learning about them.

Is it preferable to watch a widescreen movie in 4:3 mode or 16:9 mode? When I watch a widescreen movie in 4:3, it's windowboxed, obviously, but the image is undistorted and everything looks well-proportioned. When I switch to 16:9 mode, the image gets horizontally stretched to meet the left and right sides of the screen, and it looks like this results in a slightly distorted image--very distracting. I would rather watch a smaller, windowboxed 4:3 image in which everything is correctly proportioned than one that fills up more of the screen but in which everyone looks slightly shorter and fatter, even though (as my parents keep insisting) watching a windowboxed widescreen movie seems to defeat the purpose of having a widescreen TV. What do you all recommend in this situation?

[domino harvey]

Check your DVD player's settings. It sounds like you have the player set for a 4X3 letterbox, which you would have used on your old CRT. Your DVD player should be set to 16X9 and your TV should automatically read the signal correctly, which it clearly is not doing now-- it sounds like you're adjusting the TV's aspect ratio instead of the player.

[ianthemovie]

Thanks. That is indeed what I have been doing (adjusting the aspect ratio on the TV). At the risk of sounding like a dumbass, I didn't realize it was possible to switch the aspect ratio on the player itself. Will try this.

[perkizitore]

Pioneer player for 108$

[redbill]

Can someone help me figure out how to properly use bookmarks on a PS3 for CC Blu-rays. I was able to successfully set the bookmark - when I went back in, I went to timeline and saw the green line. Then I used the PS3 pop-up to select green again, because on the Timeline screen it shows a green box next to "To Bookmark", but it didn't do anything. I was able to use the right arrow on the pop-up, and eventually it tabbed over to the bookmark, but there must be a way to jump there? I use the regular ps3 controller, not BD-remote.

thanks

[MyNameCriterionForum]

This question has been bugging me for several years. If the answer is common sense or common knowledge or has been discussed elsewhere previously, please pardon me.

So, DVDs have, of course, a higher video resolution than VHS, correct? Then why, invariably, does the subtitling on DVDs (and even BluRays) look so "jaggy" and cheap? Glance at any subtitle frame capture on DVDBeaver and it's plain as day.

I know on VHS, when a film was subtitled, the subtitles were inseparable from the film image. I'm assuming they simply transfered an already subtitled print. And regardless of the print quality, the text looked pretty refined: smooth letterforms, pleasing shapes, etc. Obviously there'd be problems with blown-out whites sometimes obscuring the words, placement of the sentences, and other problems of visibility, etc. I also know that many early or poor quality DVDs were simply similar transfers of a print with subtitles "burnt in".

Now, of course, we take for granted optional subs, even in multiple languages... I assume these are each generated by information on the DVD, which your player then reads or activates. Why then, with all the storage space on discs and processing power of players, aren't newer subs any nicer looking? If this were print, it would be unacceptable. They're unattractive at best, distracting at worst.

[Particle Zoo]

I would guess it is a case of storage space, as subtitles on blurays are far smoother than DVDs.

[MyNameCriterionForum]

Why would a few black & white words, perhaps 1% of screen space, require so much storage space or processing power? There's gotta be a technical explanation.

[PillowRock]

I suspect that the issue is probably a matter of DVD publishers keeping their fonts at a low enough resolution to still be able to show a reasonable number of characters across the screen on older CRT TVs. They would rather have their subs show visible pixelation on higher resolution TVs than have them not fit on the screen (or get subsampled into unreadability) on older lower resolution TVs.

BluRays can use higher resolution fonts because they can assume HDTVs as their display device.

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

The problem isn't just spatial resolution, it's also color depth. DVD subs are limited to four colors, and one of those must be transparent. This is built into the spec and can't be changed, short of doing burned-in subs. Three colors aren't enough for effective anti-aliasing, so you end up with jagginess. To illustrate why you need more colors for more smoothness, here's an example swiped from Wikipedia:



The left side has two colors, while the right side has 13.

I hasten to add I don't actually know why they limited the subs to four colors, although storage space may well have been an issue -- a single DVD subtitle track takes up around 3-5 MB and that can add up if you're gonna have 10+ languages on your disc. There may have been bandwidth issues as well, I dunno. And DVD subs do allow an alpha channel, which can mitigate jagginess but isn't a substitute for proper anti-aliasing.

Admittedly, a lot of discs use unnecessarily ugly and blocky fonts (IMO) and don't bother with an alpha channel at all, but in the main, the problem is with the spec. I think BD allows 256 colors (one transparent), so anti-aliasing is feasible there.

[MyNameCriterionForum]

Thanks to all for the answers.

Just realized this could have gone in the "tech issues" thread -- if the mods think it's worth the effort to move it there.

[manicsounds]

I'm one of the only that doesn't like Bluray subtitles on the most part. With bright white lettering and a very thin border, it's like they are making it difficult to read.

look at the subtitle capture for the Sony "Clash of the Titans"
http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film2/DVDRevie ... lu-ray.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I know Sony uses yellow for DVDs, but at least the bordering makes them readable.

[richast2]

man oh man, am I ever glad that I'm not the only one having this problem. I thought I was just too stupid to set my equipment up correctly!

[TMDaines]

Am I the only one who doesn't really have any hate for yellow subtitles on colour (non-B&W) films? Moreover, there's some cases where yellow is actually the better choice due to the sheer amount of white on screen i.e. any amount film set in a snowy area.

Maybe I need to rethink this but I don't understand why everyone gets so upset by yellow subs on colour films.

[Tommaso]

My grudge against yellow subs comes from the introduction of a new colour into the 'colour composition' that every frame of a colour film is (or should be, at least). It's a distraction for me, whereas white, not being a colour, is far less intrusive and I can easier ignore it, especially if I don't fully need the subs but have them switched-on nevertheless (I do that occasionally with some English language films that either have bad sound or in which the characters speak with a heavy accent that is difficult to understand for a non-native speaker). And with b&w-films I find yellow indefensible, though in these cases you can help it by simply turning the colour settings on the TV to zero. I see your point about films set in the snow, but there are not too many of them, of course.

[vogler]

Snow or other white areas don't matter at all. That's what the black outlines are for. Good white subs with black outlines should be very clear on pure white backgrounds, as long as both the text and the outline are an appropriate size.

[Gregory]

I've only had a hard time seeing subtitles one time, watching Denis' Chocolat on VHS on a smallish TV screen. I don't think the subs had outlines, and/or the screen was turned up too bright. On the projection systems I've used for the last ten years, the subtitles are usually way too large for my tastes -- too easy to read. The developers of Blu-Ray really missed the boat in not making subtitle size adjustable.
I really dislike the yellow ones, like nearly everyone else on the forum it seems (existing thread). I tried once with a DVD of a B&W film to make them white by going in and changing the projector settings, and I couldn't get rid of the color. Anyway, I don't like the idea of changing those around once I've calibrated it.