A quick post about THX video certification

I was surfing channels sometime yesterday evening around 5:00pm, aimlessly shuffling from channel to channel.  I was a little burned out on the NFL draft, which I watched through the first 4 rounds in its entirety.  

Somewhere in the 300s I discovered a program {it might have been on GTV} in which an expert was attempting to explain the whys and wherefores of THX video certification.  I only caught the last 6 or so minutes of the interview, so I didn't get it all.  I was pissed.  It seemed like a good and detailed presentation.

It would seem that the interviewer took a skeptical view of THX video certification, and made the Lucas Labs rep defend the standard.  This is good and righteous.  Based on what I heard from the rep, it would seem that the interviewer had challenged him on the drab, colorless, lifelessness quality of the THX picture.

What I heard from the rep curled my blood.  Then I laughed out loud for several minutes.  What did this THX rep say?

First a slight digression.  Many, many times in the past 2 years, my father, my brother, my mother and I have engaged in conversations about how much better movies look on Blu-Ray + HDTV vis-a-vis the movie theater big screen.  The picture is far brighter, far more colorful, and much sharper than the big screen theater.  This is what we love about it.  This is why we spend money on the technology.  This is why we recommend it to everybody.

Well, it turns out that the THX governors claim we're just plain damn wrong.  You see, the HDTV should look just exactly like the movie theater, according to THX corporation.  That flat, dim, colorless, out of focus image you see in the theater is the correct image.  That is what the original authors of the film intended the movie to look like.  You shouldn't make it more colorful, brighter, sharper, deeper, more detailed, or more in focus.  Doing so makes the presentation in the home different from that of the movie theater, and that is just plain damn wrong.  Ergo, the necessary function of THX laboratories is to show HDTV vendors {like Panasonic & LG} how to dumb-down their mighty technology such that it will look just like the movie theater.

Basically I had several immediate responses:

• Can you not see that the theater is limited by the barbaric nature of its technology?  The drab picture is a function of the obsolete analog projection technology they use.  When DLP projection is used, the picture is improved.  This is not a question of artists intent.  It is a question of primitive, outmoded, outdated technology versus fully modern tech.
  
• What bizarre manner of communist thinking led to this preposterous notion that you must dumb down a superior technology to make it look like an inferior technology?
  
• We human beings sure do get side-tracked with stupid ideologies, don't we?

Then the THX rep said another thing which flipped my on-bit.  The interviewer mentioned that {thus far} only LG and Panasonic have submitted units for THX Video certification, and that acceptance has not been very good for this new logo.  In rebuttal, the THX rep responded that there is an obvious need for such technology and tuning, regardless of whether firms like Samsung and Sony are willing to pay for the help and the testing.  "Even Samsung has introduced what they call Film Mode which is every similar to our THX standard presentation", he said.

Of course, I am breaking in the very latest Samsung HDTV right now.  It is the 55 inch Luxia of the 7000 series.  After just 8 days of ownership, I can't claim I know every last thing about my new HDTV just yet.  Ergo, I immediately grabbed the remote and hit the menu button.  Sure enough, there is a setting under the COLOR header which says "Film Mode".

When activated, Color->Film Mode does indeed produce a drab, colorless, lifeless, unfocused, dim picture very similar in character & quality to what I saw on the Panasonic TC-P50G10 when in THX mode.  I sat there shaking my head in disgust.  Why would you even bother to implement such rubbish?  Why would you waste time & effort trying to figure out how to make your technology look inferior?  Shocking...

Any way, this will not cause me to hate my new HDTV.  Let's remember that Film Mode is strictly optional.  You must opt-in if you want it, and it is easy to opt-out if you don't like it.  This is only one option among several, and not particularly recommended by Samsung.  I simply returned to my prior settings and my new HDTV looked as good as before.

This revelation made me recall the famous saying of Martin Luther: "What strange superstitions bewitch the minds of men?"  The THX Video philosophy is a very strange superstition indeed.

The Panasonic G10 series disappoints tremendously

So it is now time to tie up a couple of loose ends from past blog entries.  As you know, I blogged a week ago back about the advent of the Panasonic G10 series.  I was quite sanguine about the force of Moore's law, and how this HDTV was quite likely a further proof that Moore's law applies forcefully to HDTV technology.

Well... it is time to eat some crow.  Nobody likes to be taken in by the hype.  Nobody likes to fuck up.  Nobody likes to admit that they are wrong about anything.  However, it is time for me to eat some humble pie.

There are three important conclusions I reached after one hour with the G10 series at Magnolia:

1. Technologically, the G10 is nothing special.  It is not even an advance over Panasonic's current line up.  The 850 series is better.  The only positive thing that can be said for it is that it is a low-cost option.  It is substantially cheaper the 800 & 850 series from Panasonic.
   
2. THX mode absolutely stinks.  You will never see a dimmer, darker, flatter, more lifeless color in your entire life.  Those who ballyhoo this technology are absolutely and completely wrong.  They couldn't possibly be more wrong.  The ultimate reason I did not buy the G10 is because THX mode looks just plain terrible.  I had to take it out of THX mode and customize it quite a bit before it began to look reasonably decent.
   
3. David Katzmaier and Bryan Gardiner must be smoking crack together.  That is the only logical conclusion I can reach after reading and viewing their statements about the Panasonic G10.  They both view this unit as the Pioneer Kuro replacement.  Readers will know that I am not a member of the cult of Kuro.  I regard it as a strong performer, but vastly over-rated.  With that said, the G10 is absolutely, categorically not comparable to the Kuro.  The Kuro is a lot better than the G10.  The only thing they share in common is glass and plasma
   

To say that I was not impressed by the G10 would be an understatement at best.  I could have saved some $1,400 by purchasing the G10 rather than the Samsung Luxia.  Believe me, I was very well aware of this fact as I made my decision... in the comfort of my computer room at home.  I had an Excel spreadsheet in front of me, mapping out all the makes, models, vendors, prices, sales taxes, shipping costs, etc.  I self-consciously pulled the trigger on a much more expensive unit.  Why?  Because I did not want to buy the G10.  The quality level was too low to be acceptable, and drastically better options were (ultimately) affordable.  

So don't be carried away with the hype.  The Cult of Kuro is going through grief, as they openly state, because their King has died.  They are casting about, looking for a successor.  This is the first fish to pop out of the lake, and it is a plasma, ergo it must be the new king.  Rubbish!  Balls! Poppycock! Blarney!

So Dave, don't you think you are being a bit unfair to these fine gentlemen of quality and merit?  They do talk about running benchmark tests.  

As I have already stated several times in this blog, such benchmarks are predicated on the faulty proposition that the BT.709 is a perfect thing.  It is not.  If BT.709 is a perfect thing, and cannot be improved upon, the road is clear:  Nail 709 or die.  Such is not the case.  BT.709 is a political standard, assembled by industry giants who wanted to manufacture HDTVs and programming at an affordable price.  There are many ways to improve upon this standard.  Ergo, nailing the BT.709 is not really that important, and may ultimately turn undesirable as technology advances.  Arguments based on nailing BT.709 can be discarded rather easily.

What Bryan Gardiner has to say

What David Katzmaier has to say