@kn:

I know exactly what you mean with the whole film vs. daytime TV analogy, which mainly results from the type of cameras and film used. The original film materials used to produce theatrical prints are also used for home video (in compressed form, of course), so the image style is not likely to change dramatically from the original presentation (though some studios do seem to like such things as edge enhancement and occasionally do a poor job on color adjustment). After viewing a fair amount of HD content on both types of displays, I definitely see plasma as being able to produce a more "film-like" image that is more natural and more true to the source material.

WEWdeadeye - Its a combination of things that affect the change in look.

First off is the format it is shot on, soaps are generally shot on a digital format (not HD) while movies use film. The equipment used, such as lenses and filters are also considerably higher quality and the level of skill used in the lighting is much higher than the typical flat lit look of a soap.

There are also processes in post production, such as colour grading and colour correction which will have a significant effect on the look. Last but one of the most important factors is the skill of the crew and the time and planning put into each shot.

That's just a very brief explanation of what the difference is but hopefully it clears a few things up.

Regardless of the differences I would say the HD films I saw today looked VERY much like "a soap opera" rather than film. It was just downright weird to see a high budget film like "batman begins" look like a soap.

 That's right... I forgot about the early mpeg2 vs. h.264 stuff.  Isn't everything in the last 6 months or newer pretty much all h.264?  I remember reading about some of the early BR films looking like garbage...

This thread is funny, as someone who works with this stuff everyday it's amusing to see people spout off facts that they have no clue about. ;)

I'm not trying to offend you guys.  I guess I'm just being a jerk for no reason.  Sorry if I offended you. 

The resolutions you expect will not come to the home television market anytime soon.  You'd need a screen that's over 100 inches to notice a difference when compared to 1080p.  The highest resolution we'll see during BluRay or HDDVD's market years is 1080p.  You can't yet broadcast 1080p signals cost effectively without majour compression.  The compression tech that's out there right now to broadcast 1080p removes all of the chroma from the picture, leaving the image looking very dull and flat.  

Disc based media has far less relevance.  It's days are numbered.  

@kn: I know exactly what you mean, and have experienced this for a few years now.

Around 4(5?) years ago, I picked up a new funky CRT-TV - that runs in 100hz, and supports Natural Motion (a Samsung set) - a frame interpolation system, that actually updates the picture image (rather than just the refresh rate - basically upsamples the frame rate) to 100x / sec by using various software trickery.

The difference is astounding (much bigger than resolution improvements IMO). Shows go from looking like "TV" to "real" - its like looking in a mirror. I have had numerous friends come over and "complain" - it just looked real odd to them.

One obvious result is that any "cheap" show you watch - looks terrible (real cheap, fake) on this TV. Its really odd actually. Most TV dramas, and sitcoms... bleh. You tend to become more disconnected from the show, and lose interest more quickly.

Only a few shows look *significantly* better - I have a strong memory of watching The Chronicles of Riddick - and it looked absolutely amazing.

Some games look astounding on this thing as well - things like Fzero (GC) - now running in "effective" (true) 100fps. Wow. Its fast enough as it is normally - but with this TV, it feels scary.

(you can also turn the effect on/off at will, and its astounding the difference it makes - sometimes we turned it OFF to watch a show - to turn it back into a "normal" TV...)

@DarkNight_DS:

That wasn't what the thread was supposed to be about; leave it to ssj12 to immediately derail a thread with ranting about 200GB Blu-ray discs without bothering to consider the intent of the original post.

 That is precisely what I'm talking about.  I'm guessing it has something to do with a)the quality of the image -- being HD and b)the image on the TV not having an blur or flicker from CRT-Like scanning.  One of the TVs I was watching was the one I ordered from sears when they had a pre-black friday sale.  It is a 1080p 5ms LCD from LG.  The player was a blu-ray playing batman.  The scene was him driving his funky car around and there were multiple closeups of the cops faces in their patrol cars.  When they showed the cops face I was like "what the hell?!?"  It looked totally soap opera and the high quality of the image made the whole thing look cheap even though I'm certain it wasn't.  Really, really odd... 

I'm going to sit on the sidelines just a while  longer and get an upscaling dvd player so I can still get all the content I want.  Dreamworks+Pixar FTW.  Isn't happening in the current war...