I’ve completed a lot of the preparation for Shoot-out II this Saturday at 2 pm, including a 4-hour video calibration session with the AV Driver technician last night. PQ has improved a lot. The tentative plan is as follows:
VIDEO SHOOT-OUT
Players:
1. Panasonic DMP-BD30 Blu-ray player, outputting 1080p native
2. Popcorn DCH-100, upscaled from 720p to 1080p internally
3. Oppo 980, upscaled from 480i to 1080p internally
4. Pioneer DV-696 (very similar to the 600), outputting 480i and then with complete video processing by DVDO Iscan VP50Pro
Material will be “Batman Begins,” basically because we have copies for all types of players, including Popcorn. Besides, pq is very good. We intend to have 3 challenging scenes: dark, bright and action.
All sources will be individually calibrated for brightness and contrast but only the Pio 696 will go through a full video processing by the VP50Pro.
Projector will be a Sony VPL-VW100, 1080p, using a 120” Da-Lite High Power screen. I can assure everyone that the pq will be awesome for ALL sources, but … of course better for some.
The tests will be blind. No one except me and @iiinaslao will know which player is being used. Tentatively, the plan will be for each participant to give a grade to each player for each scene viewed. The tentative criteria are:
1. Detail
2. Jaggies (or lack of it … basically the stair-steps or waves you can see on diagonal lines)
3. Color saturation and accuracy
4. Sharpness, without edge enhancement (this will be explained)
We will determine the rankings of the players per scene, per criterion and overall rankings.
AUDIO SHOOT-OUT
This will be a blind test, comparing Dolby TruHD vs. Dolby Digital. The Panny BD30 will be used and the tentative material will be the following:
1. Blade Runner (sound effects and conversation)
2. Chicago (sound effects, conversation, music)
3. Legends of Jazz (music)
The participants will only be asked to guess which film clip used Dolby TruHD. I can assure everyone that this will be a very challenging test. There is a difference but it’s subtle, depending on the source material.
Any suggestions are most welcome. There are still some available slots so if anyone else wants to participate, he can send me a PM.