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Toshiba HD-A2 HD DVD Player (Source: Toshiba)
Toshiba HD DVD players to playback at 24 frames per second with new software

HD DVD players currently output its moving images at 30p, though the original source for many films today remains at the classic 24 frames per second, or 24p. Film purists, however, prefer to view movies as faithful to the original source as possible, without the possibility of introducing any image quality-affecting artifacts into the picture.

For owners of second-generation Toshiba HD DVD players, an upcoming firmware update is promised that will add the feature of 24p output to the players. Supported players in the software upgrade are the HD-XA2 and HD-A20, according to High-Def Digest. Toshiba has not said when the updates will be ready for release.

To help bring more of the market to HD DVD, Toshiba has permanently dropped the prices of its players to as low as $299. For 24p support, however, the mid-range $399 HD-A20 will be required.

Toshiba has already provided several updates for its HD DVD players to enable new features. Earlier this month, Toshiba released new firmware for its HD-XA2, HD-A20, HD-A2W and HD-D2 models that enable support for new HD DVD web features for supporting movies, such as Warner Bros’ Blood Diamond. First generation Toshiba HD DVD players HD-XA1, HD-A1 and HD-D1 received a firmware update in early April that also added support for “certain anticipated network delivered content” in future HD DVD discs.

Certain Blu-ray Disc players already support the 24p output scheme. Thanks to version 1.80 firmware for the PlayStation 3, the Sony games console supports 24p output as well as DVD and game upscaling.

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Less frames for more money?
By dude on 7/13/2007 10:03:57 AM , Rating: 2
Ok, so people want the original 24 frames per second because it imitates the original movie theaters?

I don't know about you, but being in the movies is nice, but the low frame rates causes a flicker that is visible to me, and annoying, which made me not like the movie theaters.

I wonder if these same people also under-clock their brand spanking new video cards to 50mhz core and 33mhz memory to make their gameplay playback at 24 frames?




RE: Less frames for more money?
By michal1980 on 7/13/07, Rating: 0
RE: Less frames for more money?
By Dactyl on 7/17/2007 2:36:19 AM , Rating: 2
heres whats even better, Theres almost nothing on the market you can buy that will actually display 24fp (in terms of tvs)

What about LCD TVs and Plasmas?


RE: Less frames for more money?
By omnicronx on 7/13/2007 10:22:25 AM , Rating: 2
Ok first of all just because its 24fps does not mean you would see flicker. The PAL spec is around 24fps which is used essentially anywhere but in north america and i dont see Europeans complaining.

People do not want the original 24fps just because it 'imitates the original movies'. they want 24fps because they want the untouched signal, whereas since movies are in 24fps natively you would have to alter and duplicate frames to get to the needed 30fps which could effect things such as contrast ratio, blurryness etc etc..

On another note a lot of televisions today use line doublers to prevent flicker on both 24fps and 30fps signals


RE: Less frames for more money?
By hubajube on 7/13/2007 11:50:31 AM , Rating: 2
You're not going to get the untouched movie unless you work in the studio that mastered the movie. The end product to the consumer has ALWAYS been compressed, EQ'd, whatever to fit on the disc or achieve a certain look or sound.


RE: Less frames for more money?
By omnicronx on 7/13/2007 12:42:57 PM , Rating: 2
very true, i was just trying to dub it down.
the real advantage of a 24p player and 24p tv is the reduced amount of visible artifacts. I should have said it is the most unaltered you can get, not untouched.


RE: Less frames for more money?
By probedb on 7/13/2007 10:25:01 AM , Rating: 1
Most TVs work at multiples of 24Hz so you usually get 72Hz. Movies are 50/60Hz by default, they're output to do this using the hardware so just outputting the natural frame rate and running the display at a multiple of this means you get rid of nasty artifacts by doing 3:2 scaling and stuff for NTSC plus no need for the silly speedup we get for PAL :) Problem seems to be a lot of TVs that say they support 24Hz don't due to firmware bugs.


RE: Less frames for more money?
By SaltBoy on 7/13/2007 10:51:53 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
Most TVs work at multiples of 24Hz so you usually get 72Hz.
Ummm... wrong.

Please point me to a TV that runs at 72hz and I'll eat my words.


RE: Less frames for more money?
By kkwst2 on 7/13/2007 10:56:44 AM , Rating: 1
There's one ...... that way.


RE: Less frames for more money?
By omnicronx on 7/13/2007 11:12:14 AM , Rating: 2
start eating :)
http://www.plasmatvbuyingguide.com/plasmatv/pionee...

that aside you are basically correct though, almost no lcd/plasma tv's support 72hz, or 24/48hz for that matter although they are much more common than 72hz which can usually only be achieved by 'hacks' via outputting from pc via hdmi.


RE: Less frames for more money?
By soydios on 7/13/2007 3:58:15 PM , Rating: 2
Nah, people just use Vsync to force a framerate cap on their video cards. They underclock for power/heat savings.


RE: Less frames for more money?
By Thmstec on 7/14/2007 10:27:38 PM , Rating: 2
the reason 24 frames is the best is because that is what the cameras that shoot the movie run at. So to see the most un-changed video of a film, a 24 frame playback rate is UNCHANGED from the original master-cut. Now the reason your theater flickers is that they are using film. When you have a digital reproduction, say an lcd, there wont be a flicker, the transition from frame to frame is different.


More marketing hype!
By bhmInOhio on 7/13/2007 11:06:41 AM , Rating: 4
Just marketing hype!

Most TVs can't output 24/p -- 1080p@24fps has to get changed for the majority of sets to 1080p/60 using 2:3 pulldown. If the DVD player doesn't do it, the TV (if it can) will. Unless you have one of the newer sets that run @ 120hz or 72hz (both multiples of 24) then you won't get much advantage (if any) from a 24p signal. Either the player or the TV will have to convert the signal to 60hz.




RE: More marketing hype!
By Netscorer on 7/13/2007 11:59:33 AM , Rating: 2
I have Samsung HLS-5687 DLP TV which, even though marketed as 1080px60Hz is actually working at 1080ix120Hz.
So the question is would this TV paired with updated Toshiba HD-A20 (which I also have) produce an undistorted 24p signal?
Thanks in advance.


RE: More marketing hype!
By omnicronx on 7/13/2007 12:39:32 PM , Rating: 3
the chances are your answer is probably no, it looks like your tv supports 1080p/24hz input but it converts it to 60hz then probably doubled before its displayed to reduce flicker.

dont take my word on this 100% but i think if this was a feature samsung would have advertised as it would be a great selling point.


RE: More marketing hype!
By Netscorer on 7/13/2007 12:50:23 PM , Rating: 2
Yeah,

I guess you are right. The TV does not allow to specify input, such as 24fps, 30fps, 60fps, etc. and that means that even if DVD output would be at 24fps, it would stil automatically convert it to 60fps and then display at double frequency to present full 1080p signal.


RE: More marketing hype!
By npham on 7/13/2007 2:32:04 PM , Rating: 2
However, the newest Sony's, ie D3000's are able to do 24p.

http://www.sonystyle.ca/commerce/servlet/ProductDe...


RE: More marketing hype!
By omnicronx on 7/13/2007 2:36:56 PM , Rating: 2
thats why he said most :)
most new high end lcd's will support it, as the HD-DVD/BD market gets bigger (both of which now support it)


RE: More marketing hype!
By Zorlac on 7/13/2007 4:57:25 PM , Rating: 2
Freaking figures...that display claims 24p capable, but did you notice the native resolution? 1366 x 768! So Sony give you 24FPS and takes away 1080p LOL! I hate the electronics industry sometimes...they will never give you all features! The carrot is always just two steps ahead of you!!!

...oh, and no mention of HDMI 1.3 either, but we will save that for another time :)


think about it
By 8steve8 on 7/14/2007 3:45:35 AM , Rating: 2
if the source is 24fps how would you display 30fps without either displaying cirtain frames twice or generating some sort of interpolated image of what you guess would be there if it was 30fps.
either way outputting 30fps of a 24fps source is going to use images that are essentially fabricated, or it will distort the motion by keeping some images on screen for longer than desired, and some for shorter than desired.

obviously outputting at native framerate is ideal. and no, everyone should be well aware... framerate does not equal refresh rate, for those concerned with flickering.




RE: think about it
By 8steve8 on 7/14/2007 4:06:04 AM , Rating: 2
by the way

sony's new line of lcd hdtvs do 24p.
comming out this month.


RE: think about it
By Alexvrb on 7/15/2007 2:03:48 PM , Rating: 2
Are those the same ones that another poster above pointed out don't have full 1080p resolution? Because if they are, what's the point? You're still not getting the original image on the disc unmolested. One step forward, two steps back.


By EclipsedAurora on 7/14/2007 4:13:30 PM , Rating: 4
As the original PAL/NTSC system were designed for 50Hz/60Hz interlanced. It had been for over half century TV and video signal use 25/50 and 30/60 frame rate.

However, film based content are filmed at 24fps. So in order to display on ur TV, it need to be converted to either 25/50 or 30/60 frame rate. Even DVD/HD-DVD/BluRay player will do this for you before outputing the signal to TV. That's why ur TV even with frame doubler wil not display 72 fps, but 100 or 120 only.

However, as neither 25/50 or 30/60 is a interger multiple of 24. The 24 to 25/50 or 30/60 conversion suffer from jitter errors. None of the conversion algorithm today provide exact solution to this problem. It has no difference that 44.1KHz CD audio converted to 48KHz and suffer from the same signal distortion.

To be exact speaking and whole don't have digital signal background, jitter basically is a timing error in the signal.

More frame or pixels doesn't mean a better final quality. A common and obvious phenomenon is that 720p will have better pictures than 1080i (except CRT). Because LCD, Plasma and projectors need the conversion of interlanced video signal to progression (i to p) inorder to display the picture. However the time base of each frame in 1080i are different from the ground, resulting even the best i to p conversion algorithm can't recover truly native 1920x1080 picture. The error introduced during the conversion outweighted the resolution advantage, resulting even poorer video quality against even the less pixels 720p. Hopefully CRTs can be a exceptional, since she can natively display interlanced signals.

The situation will be changed with the support of 24p output in certain BluRay and HD-DVD player. So no more signal loss or error will be introduced during the 25/50 or 30/60 conversion.




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