Are Blue Ray images sharper than HD images? ?

Question

I was comparing Blue Ray images to HD telecasts in an electronics store. Both technologies were being shown on HD capable TVs. It appeared the Blue Ray images were even sharper than the HD images. Is that right? How and why is that the case (if it is indeed the case)?

Answer 1

Blu-ray has the bandwidth for up to 40 Mbps 1080p video and it also uses more efficient video codecs, like VC-1 and AVC/MPEG-4.

HD broadcast has about 19 Mbps for 1080i video, which it also has to fit the audio in. In addition it is always MPEG-2 video, which requires more bandwidth to look good.

Blu-ray has an additional 8 Mbps bandwidth for additional audio space, which is why the TrueHD, PCM and dts-ma tracks found on Blu-ray are roughly 6 times the fidelity of a Dolby Digital 5.1 track found on HD sources.

With more than double the bandwidth, more efficient video codecs and using progressive scan to avoid the artifacting that interlaced video (1080i) often causes, Blu-ray will usually look much sharper than HD broadcasts.

Answer 2

The quality of HD images is variable.  You will see differences on different programs, and also differences between different blu-ray DVDs,  Quality will depend on the way the program originates (film or video), and the processing quality.   That being said, blu-ray has the potential for higher quality than broadcast because it can output the full bitrate needed for an HDTV picture, while most broadcasters and cable and satellite providers use a reduced bitrate to conserve bandwidth.  That will affect picture sharpness.