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PureCinema film mode can reverse telecine 24 fps (frame per second) film material and display it at a native 72 Hz. A Blu-ray player can transmit a movie over HDMI at its original 24 fps and have a Kuro display this at 72 Hz. This is great and it eliminates the effect of 3:2 pull-down induced film judder. So how can it be determined if a Kuro is being fed a source at a 24 fps rate?
The Sony BDP-S350 Blu-ray player has a "24P" blue LED that lights up when 24 fps material is being output. This is a great feature since it is rather tricky to correctly configure the S350 for 24P output. Unfortunately there is not an easy way to query a Kuro's refresh rate. Other than observing the smoothness of motion and pans, there is no way to tell if PureCinema is actively performing reverse telecine. Switching an HDMI source to be a PC input is a trick that will report the input frame rate.
Here are the steps to check the refresh rate of an HDMI source:
- Select HDMI input
- Press Home Menu
- Enter Setup
- Enter Option
- Enter HDMI Input
- Select PC from the Signal Type submenu
- Exit menu
- Press Display to see the refresh rate
- go back to step #1 and change Signal Type back to Video
Unless your source is a PC you probably won't want to keep your HDMI in PC mode since it has a number of picture ramifications that are not good for general TV and film viewing. It would be a really nice feature if Pioneer gave the Kuro a special control panel screen that displayed internal information like frame rate, 720p or 1080i resolution, MPEG2 bit rate, AC3 channels and bit rate, and full
PSIP information.
3 comments:
I actually have a Sony BDP-S350 Blu-ray player, so I know when the BDP is outputting 24 fps. However, I can't seem to see a difference between the PureCinema modes Off and Advance, and I guess there's no way to tell what the current refresh rate of the TV is, i.e., if it's refreshing at 72 Hz. As you said, it sure WOULD be a great thing to be able see things like that.
Sweet Lord Almighty, thank you! I have been killing myself over this issue. I have a new Panasonic BD player and it gives me a 24p icon on-screen, but I was always wondering about the 151FD (which I scored at Tweeter's bankruptcy fire sale!). Thanks a ton for the tip.
I find watching the scrolling credits at the end of a movie to be a great test to see the effects of 24p. With 3:2 pull-down (60 Hz) you'll see a slight jerkiness of the motion a couple times a second. With 24p the scrolling motion will be perfectly smooth.
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