Watched TSRTS in 3D at 240 hz....Amazing!

[Wolfman]

Hi folks. Bought one of those Samsung 3D HDTVs last week and decided to watch TSRTS in 3D at 240 hz (aka the refresh rate). Since the movie obviously wasn't filmed in 3D, only certain parts look really amazing. Anything with lots of depth (like the opening crowd shots) look very cool (esp. the corner sidestage shot where you see that big balloon bouncing around or the dry ice flowing before NQ). The crowd shots are the best because you can see people I never noticed way in the back. Some parts don't work but others look fantastic. What I think was even cooler is that at 240 hz, film gets what people call a soap opera effect. That is film looks like video now. That makes the movie even cooler to watch imo because the band looks even more live than before (like if you were watching it live on HBO). The whole experience made feel like I was watching the movie for the first time. I caught myself laughing and cheering. I'm going to try the Zep DVD next. I know this will never happen but I would LOVE to see Jimmy release TSRTS in 3D. It would be a very cool experience for everybody. Peace!

[DropDown]

How did the wolfman look like in 3D? ;-)

[Wolfman]

Lol. Pretty cool. The guy with the pills coming out of his neck looked even better.

[Melcórë]

...That sounds awful.

[pottedplant]

Wolfman: How did Jimmy's "satan eyes" look?

[Wolfman]

Scary.

[Deborah J]

^^ LMAO!! Wolfman, glad you enjoyed it:-) I'm waiting on holograms..

[anodizingstatic]

3D - that sounds really cool. How is it converted? I'm guessing some sort bi-layering of the images to create a stereoscopy. Wikipedia says "This technique is distinguished from 3D displays that display an image in three full dimensions, allowing the observer to increase information about the 3-dimensional objects being displayed by head and eye movements." Are 3D televisons worth it? Might consider one :-}

[FunkyPhantom]

ah i have a similar television. i was hesitant to try to this because i wasn't sure how it would turn out. thanks for the heads up wolfman

[Wolfman]

You do have to mess around with the 3D settings (depth, 3D conversion,etc.) to get it to work but it was fun to experiment with. Like I said, the more depth there is in a scene (like a deep crowd shot), the better the result.

P.S. The 240 hz is actually the cooler part to me. It makes the band seem so much more alive.

[stacilayne]

Hm, I have a 3D TV. Never thought about trying this... good idea!

[anodizingstatic]

You do have to mess around with the 3D settings (depth, 3D conversion,etc.) to get it to work but it was fun to experiment with. Like I said, the more depth there is in a scene (like a deep crowd shot), the better the result.

P.S. The 240 hz is actually the cooler part to me. It makes the band seem so much more alive.

^ +1

Whoa, lemme get this straight my man. You're saying your television refreshes 240 x a second ("hertz") yet all film including TSRTS is shot in 24 fps? Knowing the core basics of upscaling frame rates, it's technically an artificial "240 fps", where 24 of those are actual, 216 are CGI I believe.

Is it a placebo effect or does the experience feel any more exhilarating or smoother (I imagine it would seem more lifelike / saturated?? From my experience in film, I'm telling you - you're tv is pretty sweet ;-}

[Wolfman]

Thanks!

[ksgemini]

3D gives me massive headaches...Avatar nearly killed me and I dont mean the movie itself(which was average at best to me) I pick 2d every time...

[Little Robert Anthony II]

Sounds pretty cool, man. I was really impressed just by watching it on Blu Ray with wireless headphones, it looked and sounded so great. My TV is 120 hz, though. I thought hz mainly just had to do with motion. I've had the same "video" effect with Blu Ray. I actually prefer the way film looks on Blu Ray compared to digital video. You get the same level of definition and clarity, but you still get the cinematic film quality and it doesn't just look like a really high end home video.

[slave to zep]

we have a 3D HD Tv, too. but i am really confused about this HZ thing ..... how do i know if u have it? and what should i expect to see, if i do?

haven't watched TSRTS in aaaages ......

[Melcórë]

I can't believe people like the effect that the high refresh rate imparts.

[juxtiphi]

we have a 3D HD Tv, too. but i am really confused about this HZ thing ..... how do i know if u have it? and what should i expect to see, if i do?

haven't watched TSRTS in aaaages ......

Here is the explanation you seek.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2379206,00.asp

Pulldown and the Film-Video Dance

To answer these questions, you have to understand two important things about video. First, you can't add detail beyond what is already in the source footage. Second, the source footage is never greater than 60Hz. When you watch a movie on Blu-ray, it's a 1080p picture at 60Hz. The disc displays 60 interlaced or 30 progressive frames at 1,920-by-1,080 resolution per second of video. For movies that were recorded on film, the original footage is actually 24 frames per second, upconverted to 30 frames through a process known as 2:3 pulldown. It distributes the source frames so they can be spread across 30 instead of 24 frames per second. Those frames are then interlaced (combined and shuffled) to 60 "frames" per second to match the 60Hz refresh rate of the vast majority of TVs you can buy today. In the case of 1080p60 televisions, the frames are pulled down to 60 full frames per second, and both the players and HDTVs outright skip any interlacing step.

This is a time-honored tradition, because American TVs have displayed 30 (actually, 29.97) frames per second and functioned at 60Hz since time immemorial. It's not really a problem, because between interlacing and frame pulldown, the process doesn't attempt to add information to the picture. It's simply converting it to function on the TV, because it wouldn't work otherwise. 1080p60 is the current high-end standard for HDTVs, and no commercial media exceeds that resolution or frame rate. In fact, many movies on Blu-ray even turn the frame rate down and display 1080p24, or 1,920-by-1080 video at 24 frames per second, to make the footage look as close to film as possible. The various refresh rate-increasing technologies on HDTVs destroy that effect.

Higher Refresh Rates

Once an HDTV's refresh rate goes above the rate of the content you're watching, it starts performing tricks to produce a higher frame rate. It interpolates new frames between the frames transmitted to the display at 60 frames per second (or processed into 60 frames per second from 24 frames per second for film footage, through the separate pulldown process), and the HDTV fills in the spaces by generating the best "middle" frames to stick in the cracks. These new frames are made by combining and processing the data of the frames surrounding them, generating the images the HDTV thinks it should draw between the images it's told to draw by the media. You're looking at more individual pictures as the screen draws them, but these pictures weren't on the Blu-ray disc or television signal that the screen is receiving; the HDTV is generating those additional pictures itself.

Good for Games

When flat-panel HDTVs were in their infancy, they suffered from motion blur. LCDs in particular, tended to display distinct blurriness during very fast movements because of "ghosting," or the afterimage left after the image on the screen has changed. LCD technology has progressed a great deal over the past several years, and now ghosting and motion blur have been all but eliminated.

Even without blur, you might notice choppiness or "tearing" (the effect of part of the image seeming to hang behind what's on the rest of the screen for a moment). This is especially noticeable in sports and video games, or any content that has a lot of fast, horizontal panning of the camera. For this, higher refresh rate modes can help.

But are Super-Fast Refresh Rates Worth It?

Enhanced refresh rates can go too far. While 120Hz refresh rates seen on most midrange HDTVs can work well, don't expect to see any real performance improvement from 240Hz refresh rates or, for many plasmas, 600Hz. More importantly, you should know when to turn these enhanced refresh rates off, and watch with the "default" 60Hz or 24Hz film mode.

Refresh rates and motion-enhancing modes higher than 60Hz can produce a surreal effect when watching movies and television shows. The additional frames and "smoother" animation looks different from what we're used to with TV and movies, making the footage appear strangely fast. For any sort of content where you watch people interact naturally, like comedies or dramas, this can be unsettling and you should consider turning off the motion enhancing mode and force the screen to display the picture at 60Hz. However, for sports and video games, those added frames can help reduce stuttering and blur, and the action will be easier to track.

As a general rule, if what you're watching involves seeing real peoples' faces as they talk, disable the higher refresh rate so they don't look like creepy dolls (also known as the "soap opera effect"). If what you're watching involves seeing real people run into each other (sports), or fake people attacking each other in an artificial environment (video games), keep the higher refresh rate mode turned on (though set to "low" or "medium" if given the option, because the most zealous motion modes can still make the picture look unreal).

Remember these modes don't add any actual detail to the video, and you might want to disable them when watching every-day, non-action content. A 120Hz refresh rate can be beneficial for certain situations, but a higher refresh rate should not be considered a good reasons to spend more on an HDTV. For most television and movie watching, you'll probably want to keep the refresh rate set to 60Hz, anyway. Just keep the benefits in mind for sports and games, and don't feel the need to push past 120Hz. Anything higher really is more of a gimmick than a truly useful feature.

For more HDTV shopping tips, read How to Buy an HDTV. And for a look at the top televisions we've tested, check out The 10 Best HDTVs.