24 PQ - Do you see what I see?

[Tom Snyder]

I've noticed on 24 in the low light indoor shots that the picture quality looks really lossy...like what happens when you turn a photo into 256 color gif file (see below - not an actual screen cap, but just a photoshop example).  Is it just me? Trying to figure out if it's the TV, the D* box, or the fact that I'm splitting my HDMI output in two.

[SRW1000]

I've noticed on 24 in the low light indoor shots that the picture quality looks really lossy...like what happens when you turn a photo into 256 color gif file (see below - not an actual screen cap, but just a photoshop example).  Is it just me? Trying to figure out if it's the TV, the D* box, or the fact that I'm splitting my HDMI output in two.

I haven't noticed a problem like that, but I'll keep my eye out for it on tonight's episode.

Scott

[tencom]

I believe you are just pointing out one of the flaws with digitally compressed video that is the scaling factor used by MPEG video  thats employed through the DISCRETE COSINE TRANSFORM. And is one tool used to cut the data rate, and has the tendency to shift closely related adjacent picture elements to one enity thereby reducing the data rate instead of each element being described seperately.  It only has to be described through one data set instead of several data sets. This effect is escpecially noticable in dark scenes because the video is being coarsly defined. The term for this coined by MPEG developers is "LOSSY COMPRESSION"

[Bebop]

I noticed clay face on my plasma too when the scene is in low light. Less so with my HD DVD player, because of the higher bit rate.

[markd]

Last night's show looked great over here.  No complaints (TWC > 8300HD > Panny plasma).

[gparris]

Excellent detail, no artifacting, a very clear picture even as I stopped watching the show to study the closeups of everyone's face, even those who were not as interesting, pores and all.
Reference set was a 70" LCD at 11 feet with TWC HD DVR.

[hormy_83]

I didn't notice that - but I had a different problem.  I've got TWC > 8300HD > Sony SXRD - what I've noticed on a lot of the Fox shows is sporadically (sometimes every 5 minutes sometimes only once or twice in an hour) I get white dots all over the screen.  They only show up in the dark areas of the screen - and it seems like a grid pattern spaced 1 inch - 2 inches apart on a 50 inch screen.  They are on there for less than a second and disappear.  Anyone else notice this?

[markd]

I didn't notice that - but I had a different problem.  I've got TWC > 8300HD > Sony SXRD - what I've noticed on a lot of the Fox shows is sporadically (sometimes every 5 minutes sometimes only once or twice in an hour) I get white dots all over the screen.  They only show up in the dark areas of the screen - and it seems like a grid pattern spaced 1 inch - 2 inches apart on a 50 inch screen.  They are on there for less than a second and disappear.  Anyone else notice this?

Yes, I do get that too.  I DVR'd '24' from last week and just watched it yesterday.  I also watched last night's '24' via DVR (starting just before the show ended).  I saw the white dots maybe half a dozen times during last week's two-hour episode and maybe two or three times last night.  I figured it was in the feed or something.  It wasn't enough to bug me though since I was pretty much blown away by the rest of the detail (pores, makeup, etc).

[hormy_83]

Yes, I do get that too.  I DVR'd '24' from last week and just watched it yesterday.  I also watched last night's '24' via DVR (starting just before the show ended).  I saw the white dots maybe half a dozen times during last week's two-hour episode and maybe two or three times last night.  I figured it was in the feed or something.  It wasn't enough to bug me though since I was pretty much blown away by the rest of the detail (pores, makeup, etc).

Yah it didn't bug me too much either.  I figured its been the feed since I haven't noticed it on any other channels but I wanted to make sure I'm not the only one.  I have been noticing it on Fox for almost a month already - I started noticing it on House - and then it started popping up in their other shows.  Either that or I just started noticing it in the other shows.

[Tom Snyder]

Outdoor and brghtly lit shots were awesome.. and I was switching between OTA and the Mpeg4 from D*, and also switching back and forth between HDMI and Component to the TV... all were spectacular.  

But the low-light shots were as I reported above. Edges were crisp, but surfaces (walls, faces) had that lossy look to them.

Too busy noticing that to pay attention to white dots.

[hormy_83]

Here is what I was seeing.  I went back to my recording and snapped a couple pictures of it.  Remember this only is on for less than a second.  I tried getting a picture during real time and I was not able to - even with my DSLR at burst mode.  But I was lucky enough to capture it when I paused the DVR.

[markd]

ouch!  That's *nothing* like what I have been seeing.  The white dots I've seen are smaller and only in a few small clusters in what seems to be random screen locations (if I had to estimate, I might say twenty small dots occuring on only a fraction of the screen).  If I hadn't already deleted my DVR'd '24' from the other night, I'd review it and snap my own pic for comparison but that would probably just be way too nerdy anyway

[hormy_83]

The picture looks different than what I thought it would - in real time it comes and goes so quick it was hard to tell what I really looked like, until I was able to capture the still version.

[Mark Strube]

I've been noticing the "dots" as well, I never noticed it before this new season of 24, and I believe I've seen it on other FOX shows as well. (namely - House)

Could be a local problem, could be a network issue, who knows. Any mentions of this over at AVS?

Speaking of dots... our local NBC's white speckling has gotten much worse lately. The latest episode of Heroes looked just awful, not to mention the continuous audio clicks.

[hormy_83]

Speaking of dots... our local NBC's white speckling has gotten much worse lately. The latest episode of Heroes looked just awful, not to mention the continuous audio clicks.

I haven't noticed the dots on NBC.  Do they look the same as Fox's or are they different?