Lost is shot on film at 24 frames per second (from now on, fps = frames per second).

Now when it airs on ABC, it is broadcast at 720p60, which means a resolution of 1280×720 at 59.94 fps. Yes, it is a progressive picture, but as you can see, it's a much higher frame rate than the original 24fps. This is achieved first by scanning the original film @ 23.976 fps and then by duplicating every odd frame once and every even frame twice. E.g, say you have two frames AB, they become AABBB. Also, 59.94/23,976=5/2. On your television set, you won't notice this, but it is a technical issue.

Now, on DVD, the film has to be telecined ( more info http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecine ), which introduces telecine judder when played back at NTSC framerate (29.97 fps).

For people in Europe, this gets even worse, as your TV sets operate at 25fps, the whole film is scanned at 25 fps and in effect is sped up. Not only does this reduce the runtime, eg a 40 minute episode becomes 38 minutes and 24 seconds, but it also gives the audio a higher pitch. However, you don't to deal with telecine judder, since no telecine is performed on most PAL DVDs.

Which gets us back to BluRay; 1080p image, which is 2.25 times greater the area of a 720p image, losless studio sound, whether in PCM format, Dolby TrueHD or DTS-HD Master Audio, which are infinitely much better than their lossy DVD counterparts. Finally, you may ask, why that whole rant? Well, Bluray delivers the picture at 1080p24, which is the original frame rate at which it was shot. So, no telecine, no sped up audio or video.

For arguments' sake, one may say DVDs can store the picture at 23.976 fps, but keep in mind that if you play it back on a SDTV, it will be telecined on most TV sets. Well, you might say, I'll play it on my brand new HDTV, yes, you'll get the very close 23.976 fps framerate, but the image will be upsampled.

So, all things considered, 1080p24 is the best out there that is commercially available.

Lost is shot on film at 24 frames per second (from now on, fps = frames per second).

Now when it airs on ABC, it is broadcast at 720p60, which means a resolution of 1280×720 at 59.94 fps. Yes, it is a progressive picture, but as you can see, it's a much higher frame rate than the original 24fps. This is achieved first by scanning the original film @ 23.976 fps and then by duplicating every odd frame once and every even frame twice. E.g, say you have two frames AB, they become AABBB. Also, 59.94/23,976=5/2. On your television set, you won't notice this, but it is a technical issue.

Now, on DVD, the film has to be telecined ( more info http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecine ), which introduces telecine judder when played back at NTSC framerate (29.97 fps).

For people in Europe, this gets even worse, as your TV sets operate at 25fps, the whole film is scanned at 25 fps and in effect is sped up. Not only does this reduce the runtime, eg a 40 minute episode becomes 38 minutes and 24 seconds, but it also gives the audio a higher pitch. However, you don't to deal with telecine judder, since no telecine is performed on most PAL DVDs.

Which gets us back to BluRay; 1080p image, which is 2.25 times greater the area of a 720p image, losless studio sound, whether in PCM format, Dolby TrueHD or DTS-HD Master Audio, which are infinitely much better than their lossy DVD counterparts. Finally, you may ask, why that whole rant? Well, Bluray delivers the picture at 1080p24, which is the original frame rate at which it was shot. So, no telecine, no sped up audio or video.

For arguments' sake, one may say DVDs can store the picture at 23.976 fps, but keep in mind that if you play it back on a SDTV, it will be telecined on most TV sets. Well, you might say, I'll play it on my brand new HDTV, yes, you'll get the very close 23.976 fps framerate, but the image will be upsampled.

So, all things considered, 1080p24 is the best out there that is commercially available.

But even with the limitations of my TV, Lost looks stunning on Blu-Ray.

But even with the limitations of my TV, Lost looks stunning on Blu-Ray.

The old LG was just bad. I was happy to move on… I have a samsung now for my main set – one of the newer touch of color sets, no more blocks.

I'm guessing you have a surround sound with superior high end response compared to my own. Mine is an older Toshiba, and has never had particularly great highs… which I would assume is where most of that hiss lives.

The old LG was just bad. I was happy to move on… I have a samsung now for my main set – one of the newer touch of color sets, no more blocks.

I’m guessing you have a surround sound with superior high end response compared to my own. Mine is an older Toshiba, and has never had particularly great highs… which I would assume is where most of that hiss lives.

I did a calibration of the user settings (aka not service menu) of my display using Digital Video Essentials on BD and it seems to be as close to standards as I can get it (with user settings). A good example of an over-saturated scene is Charlie's flashback in Liam's backyard in "The Moth", and there are a few jungle scenes in other episodes as well. Other people on avsforum and various reviews noticed over-saturation as well, so I don't think it's my setup causing this. For the audio I have heard worse background distortion in other movies/TV shows, but I did find it somewhat noticeable. "Man of Science, Man of Faith" was particularly distorted in many scenes but the later episodes in season 2 are much better in terms of audio.

Thanks for the additional comments on the set. Personally, I didn't notice oversaturation at any point. How is your set calibrated? Astute note on the audio, although generally true on analog and again may be less noticeable depending depending on your surround sound. My setup has a soft high-end, and I don't get much hiss at all. In this case, I definitely didn't notice it – so it is at worst not obvious.

Thanks for the additional comments on the set. Personally, I didn’t notice oversaturation at any point. How is your set calibrated? Astute note on the audio, although generally true on analog and again may be less noticeable depending depending on your surround sound. My setup has a soft high-end, and I don’t get much hiss at all. In this case, I definitely didn’t notice it – so it is at worst not obvious.

For those curious about the actual image quality of Lost on BD, Season 1 is mostly good but with some dirt or specks in the frame occasionally while Season 2 is much "cleaner" but still not perfect. The audio is lossless (DTS-HD Master Audio, 5.1 channels, 48kHz/16-bit) and in season 1 is great but in season 2 some of the dialog has background hiss, but only for certain characters in certain scenes. (This was likely a recording problem) The video compression is very good, with only one compression artifact that I noticed in all of season 1. (and none in season 2 so far) Colours tend to be a bit oversaturated in season 1 but it's only occasionally distracting.

Both seasons are very worthwhile purchases, especially if you don't already have them on DVD. Here are some screenshots: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showpost.php?p=167…

Band of Brothers, Planet Earth, The Dark Knight, Wanted, Transformers and Ghostbusters.

…ok, so Ghostbusters doesn't look amazing or anything like that, but it was $15 on Amazon, and less expensive than the DVD version. Who could pass up an offer like that?!

Band of Brothers, Planet Earth, The Dark Knight, Wanted, Transformers and Ghostbusters.

…ok, so Ghostbusters doesn’t look amazing or anything like that, but it was $15 on Amazon, and less expensive than the DVD version. Who could pass up an offer like that?!

Of course, I later bought my own last January.