Monitor: more resolution = more pixelization?

[Kelly Wilbur]

I did a search in the forums for "monitor" (3 pages of posts) and "pixelization" (2 posts) and I still could not find the answer I was looking for.

I have a Mac G5 2.7 GHz with a Dell Ultrasharp 2405FPW 24" LCD monitor. I set the resolution to 1920 x 1200 which is the highest available.

When I purchased this monitor to edit video in FCP, I knew it wouldn't perfectly match the color of a normal TV, but I still thought I could do some decent video editing. However, I seem to have a problem with resolution.

Simply put, video on my 24" LCD has pixelization. The same video on my 65" rear projection TV which clearly has less resolution has no pixelization.

I'm having a problem understanding why more resolution seems to equal more pixelization.

Do I have a setting wrong or is there some logic that I don't understand?

Thanks in advance for any light you guys can shine on the subject.

Thanks,

Kelly

[Kelly Wilbur]

Just to clarify the pixelization problem...

Imagine you are looking at a picture of trees. On the 65" television, you seem smooth action of the leaves blowing in the wind. On the 24" LCD monitor, when the leaves move, it kind of looks like they are moving behind a stained glass window or a frosted shower door.

Although the still picture is stunning, small movements in complicated color patterns create this effect.

I think that probably makes sense. Let me know if I can clarify.

Thanks,

Kelly

[Dan Euritt]

first off, you are probably trying to look at interlaced ntsc video on non-interlaced dell computer monitor... it's never a good idea to use a computer monitor to judge video with.

second, when looking at standard-definition ntsc video(720x480, or 640x480?) on a 1920x1200 monitor, you can see that there is a huge difference in resolution... where do you think that all of the missing picture data is going to come from? something has to happen to make those two sizes match up... i guess that you'd call it visual upsampling, lol... but every little encoding artifact will be blown up to the max.

along those lines, i sent some dv footage to a editor who was going to use it for a monster garage sequence... he called back wanting it in hi-def rez, because the discovery channel, or whoever puts on monster garage, will not allow sd footage to be mixed in with hi-def stuff... as an aside, he was able to sneak in a little bit of hdv stuff for another project.

if you were editing hdv, things would be better because the native hdv rez is going to match up to the dell monitor rez a lot better.

wrt the big rear-project set... the further you get away from the tv, the less resolution you will see... doesn't matter if it's a full-rez hi-def tv displaying a full-rez hi-def signal, you still lose a lot... tv technology has a couple of articles on the subject.

[Nate Ford]

standard def video only looks good on standard def monitors, for the reasons mentioned above. your source material is low-resolution, so the more you try to scale it up, the worse it will look. then there's the interlaced vs progressive problem, again mentioned above. if you're going to be editing video, you should get a small video monitor to watch as you edit. if you're broke (as i would be after buying the 2.7 g5,) even a 13" $150 best buy special is preferable to trying to monitor with your lcd.

[Kelly Wilbur]

Thanks guys.

I think the resolution problem is the true issue.

The interlacing should not be an issue unless I am missing something. The DVD player program has a de-interlacing option which was selected. This should have the exact same effect as using a progressive scan DVD player on a progressive scan television.

Thanks again,

Kelly

[Sergio Perez]

Kelly

I have the same problem as you, and I bought the same computer as you. In old TV's, probably conformed to look good on sd broadcast signals, my dv footage shot on a dvx looks stunning. On a new Toshiba 1080i ready crt 34"with all the 100hz, progressive scanning and all, it looks very bad up close- 1 meter away still not good-

This really trows away your confidence on your footage and edit. Since nowadays every tv comes with 100hz scanning, etc, I'm really not sure my footage will look any better broadcasted/delivered.

Funny thing is, on professinal broadcast monitors, the footage looks great- I've seen my footage on a Panasonic reference monitor- it just looks excelent.

[John Snoddy]

I played with an Apple 30" display at CompUSA (only way I'll ever get to touch one) and while it is great to have all that screen real-estate to display video/audio tracks & all the various controls, it really sucked as a DVD/SD display device. I’m used to projecting DVDs 7 feet wide, so I know about keeping your distance & all, but I was really surprised at how bad the images looked. I suspect if I had stepped a few feet away from the screen, it would have looked great. We sit about 12 feet back from the screen in my HT at home. Any closer & that same situation occurs. Image really looks crappy!

[Dan Euritt]

Originally Posted by Kelly Wilbur

The DVD player program has a de-interlacing option which was selected. This should have the exact same effect as using a progressive scan DVD player on a progressive scan television.

except that you didn't shoot progressive scan to begin with... so no, i don't see how it could appear to be the same at all, you can't really fake the progressive look.

on top of that, there are big differences in the running frequencies(aka refresh rates) of tv's and computers... the tv should be matching the ntsc video frame rate, while the computer doesn't give a hoot about ntsc video frame rates.

[Kelly Wilbur]

Originally Posted by Dan Euritt

except that you didn't shoot progressive scan to begin with... so no, i don't see how it could appear to be the same at all, you can't really fake the progressive look.

The commercial DVD's I have aren't burned as "progressive scan." They are burned as interlaced NTSC format. Progressive scan DVD players de-interlace the image. So in this respect, I would expect the de-interlace feature to work the same on commercial DVDs as it would on my interlaced XL2 footage.

However, I believe you are right about the refresh rates. You can probably add that into the mix with the differences in resolution as contributing to this problem.

Thanks,

Kelly

[Dan Euritt]

you are trying to compare faked progressive scan playback from a software player on a computer with a dedicated hardware dvd player... it's not the same thing at all!! to begin with, progressive scan dvd players use a dedicated chip for the deinterlacing... much better quality, see this faq for more info:

http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/volum...e-10-2000.html

[Kelly Wilbur]

Originally Posted by Dan Euritt

http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/volum...e-10-2000.html

Holy cow. There is a lot that I don't know.