I don't recall asking for interactivity or for audio muxing, and I wouldn't call the muxing high-end audio ;0) Seriously though, I get that uncompressed PCM and TrueHD are bit to bit identical, but there are no requirements to transport it out in it's native decoded format correct?
No, no requirements. And that would be a bad requirement, since there aren't any amps supporting the advanced codecs. The future is PCM over HDMI, but there will be some growing pains until everyone gets a full HDMI end-to-end system in place.

Isn't this how the 360 add-on qualfied as an HD DVD device with it's crippled audio transport? I mean really what is the point of decoding a TrueHD track and transporting it out via toslink encoded at 1.5Mbps, it's like a tease in a box! (I digress, but can you guys fix it).
We're limited to what TOSLink can do. The forthcoming DTS 1.5 Mbps is going to be an upgrade, of course. The Xbox add-on is a great solution for a lot of folks, but it sounds like you'd be better off with a Toshiba player with HDMI.

It's my understanding that one of the primary reason the BDA choose not to make lossless audio mandatory was to allow manufactures more flexibility in players, allowing the consumer to decide what features they want in a player. I appreciate that HD DVD specifications made lossless mandatory for players, and at a lower cost than practically all BD players out now, but that doesn't change the fact that content providers are not required to carry a lossless track correct? So is it really an advantage? Where are all the titles with TrueHD? Perhaps the content providers belive that DD+ is good enough for HTs, that certainly seems to be what your alluding too...
I honestly don't know why the BDA made that decision. I've been surprised that support for them is still not de-facto standard.

Content providers aren't required to use any particular mix of codecs. Someone could do a silent film in MPEG-2 if they wanted :).

The feedback I've had from content creators is they absolutely do think that DD+ at high enough a rate is more than good enough for even high end home theaters given the kind of audio used in movie soundtracks. And I've heard this opinion from folks who felt that AC-3 @ 448 Kbps was not good enough for DVD.

As far as the space issue is concerned, I would not want video compromised for an uncompressed PCM track, I think everyone would agree with this. Yes there are BD25 titles that demonstrate where TrueHD for DTS MA would have been a better option to allow for the best possible video presentation, but the video codecs choosen surely have some play. But with BD50, are you really going to run into a space issue using AVC/VC-1 and uncompressed PCM? Can you think of any BD50 titles that have compromised video in this category?
On BD-50, MPEG-2 + PCM will give you fewer minutes at a given quality level than VC-1 + THD on a HD DVD 30. Once BD moves to advanced codecs? Using PCM definitely erodes some of the space advantage. There are scenarios with multiple audio tracks and higher bit depths/sample rates where it could be eliminated. And if DD+ @ 1.5 Mbps is competitive to PCM, this can happen pretty quickly, especially if you're looking at >16-bit.

Really? Can anyone give some examples on titles available today where DD+ sounds more accurate than their high-bit master and what causes this? Is it the encoding/mastering process, the dialog normalization and DRC that DD applies, some other psychoacoustic process?
Sorry, I may have confused you - DD+ won't ever be more accurate than the master, by definition (although, as you imply, there can be cases where something looks/sounds more pleasing after compression, since it was unpleasant noise that was removed). The scenario I was positing was were a 24-bit master was encoded at 24-bit 1.5 Mbps DD+ and 16-bit PCM.

That may be true, but the paradigm shift still limits the consumer from choosing where they want audio decoded. It's basically forcing enthusiasts to invest more in a quality player that does excellent video AND audio decoding. It is a limitation because the industry is now saying audio decoding for these new formats is the domain of the player, not the receiver, so going forward, in choosing a HD DVD/Blu-ray player, we now have to consider both the audio and video sections, whereas in the DVD world, it didn't matter if you had quailty onboard decoders or not, all you needed was a toslink output, hdmi, or iLink and a quailty pre/pro/receiver to decode. There is really not much else to it, given the pardigm shift I'd just like to see more HD DVD players available from quality CE manufacturers that we know. The Toshiba's are fine players, but not my first CE manufacturer of choice.
I realize it's a big change. I'm going to go back again to the metaphor of doing video decoding/compositing outside of the player. One could imagine using USB2 to connect a HD DVD player to a TV which then does all the decoding and compositing. But what good would that do? No one has the TV, so the player would need to have its own features to do that internally. Better to focus engineering on makiing the internal processing very high quality.

That's what's happened with audio. We can do much more complex things with audio, but they need to happen in the player. And since it's simple processing (not like room EQ) it's easy for a player to do an extremely high quality job of it - outboard processing of that stage wouldn't improve audio quality.

As an added bonus, having video and audio transported together over HDMI makes keeping A/V sync easier, since video or audio processing that introduces latency can resync the other stream to keep it clocked end-to-end.

Being an insider yielded another perk today. I had the chance to spend the afternoon with a TotalHD disc. Without going into detail, I can say that it's real and it works. I played the disc in multiple players and even gave it a spin in the PC with zero issues. It's rather interesting to see the "war" glued together. Wish I could say more....darn NDAs!

Being an insider yielded another perk today. I had the chance to spend the afternoon with a TotalHD disc. Without going into detail, I can say that it's real and it works. I played the disc in multiple players and even gave it a spin in the PC with zero issues. It's rather interesting to see the "war" glued together. Wish I could say more....darn NDAs!


A number of players...would the A1 or A2 be one of those players..?

On BD-50, MPEG-2 + PCM will give you fewer minutes at a given quality level than VC-1 + THD on a HD DVD 30. Once BD moves to advanced codecs? Using PCM definitely erodes some of the space advantage. There are scenarios with multiple audio tracks and higher bit depths/sample rates where it could be eliminated.Can you give us a scenario (with the math) with VC-1, a BD50, and an HD30 where the space advantage of Blu-ray is eliminated because of use of PCM on Blu-ray over TrueHD on HD DVD? Or did you only mean PCM on Blu-ray vs DD+ on HD DVD?
Being an insider yielded another perk today. I had the chance to spend the afternoon with a TotalHD disc. Without going into detail, I can say that it's real and it works. I played the disc in multiple players and even gave it a spin in the PC with zero issues. It's rather interesting to see the "war" glued together. Wish I could say more....darn NDAs!Without crossing any NDA lines, can you tell us 25 or 50?

--Darin

Thanks. Just want to make sure I'm clear. Is it:

BD50: .1mm and .6mm
BD25: .1mm
No this is not correct. ALL the layers for BD format must fit within the .1mm surface layer. The substrate is always 1.1mm for a total of 1.2mm (which is the same as CD/DVD). In case of dual layer BD, the first layer is 25um followed by a spacer and second layer at 75 um from what I recall.

I may have the deeper layer wrong as I don't remember where that one is.

--Darin
Simple way to think about it is that DVD/HDVD have two .6mm halves, but BD always has a 1.1mm with all the layers built on top of that for the same total of 1.2mm.

Oops, didn't realize I was impersonating a BD insider above :). Hope folks on the other side forgive me for that.

Amir/Ben,

What does the HD DVD spec mandate for audio content? Is it different for primary content vs. additional disc content/extras?

Anyone? I'm terribly confused now as to what the HD DVD spec mandates in respect to audio for content encoding, player decoding, and player output/transport.

Paidgeek,

Can you please request from the appropriate parties that Sony no longer position the subtitles on foreign-language films in the lower letterbox bar? This is a real problem for those of us with 2.35:1 Constant Height projection set-ups.

When the disc is encoded like this:

http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/images/reviews/116/1168997669.jpg

This is all that shows up on our screens:

http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/images/reviews/116/1168997677.jpg

(These screen caps were taken from the DVD for convenience. The Blu-ray has them in a nicer font but in the same locations.)

When you see a foreign-language film in a theater, the subtitles appear in the movie image. That's where they should appear on home video as well.

No this is not correct. ALL the layers for BD format must fit within the .1mm surface layer. The substrate is always 1.1mm for a total of 1.2mm (which is the same as CD/DVD). In case of dual layer BD, the first layer is 25um followed by a spacer and second layer at 75 um from what I recall.


I've seen tech documents go both ways (min/max 0.1mm). Can someone confirm?

Opinion: It is max, since the other way means a lens that is already close to the disc gets closer and closer.


Simple way to think about it is that DVD/HDVD have two .6mm halves, but BD always has a 1.1mm with all the layers built on top of that for the same total of 1.2mm.


Simple until True HD comes along and presumably introduces a 0.5mm substrate. Has anyone confirmed the structure of a True HD?

Gary

Anyone? I'm terribly confused now as to what the HD DVD spec mandates in respect to audio for content encoding, player decoding, and player output/transport.
Mandatory codecs are DTS, Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital plus (all in 5.1) and TrueHD in 2.0 (although all shipping players decode 5.1).

On the encode side, all of the above can be used in addition to DTS lossless. But in this case, only the lossy "core layer" of DTS will play.

PCM audio can also be used.

HD DVD spec does not care how you output the bits (nor does BD for that matter). Player companies can put anything from a single stereo headphone jack (say in a portable player) all the way up to 7.1 analog/HDMI output.

Did this answer your question?

amirm:

does bill gates know how much time you spend on this forum? if he finds out, will he lock avsforums out of the ms firewall?

tee hee :p

I agree that 48/24 is ideal, but it does not work well with a number of titles. We are tentatively planning for this year to continue with 16/48 LPCM in the U.S. and 20/48 Dolby THD for Europe.
Paidgeek,

Can you elaborate on this? I'm confused. Will we not see 48/24 then in the US, even if it "works well" with some titles? I would hope for the highest possible audio quality that "works well" on a title by title basis, not a general policy across the board that may hold back quality on something like, Spiderman... :D ;) ;)

Thanks for being here to answer questions.

Best regards!!!

I've seen tech documents go both ways (min/max 0.1mm). Can someone confirm?
From BDA's own white paper:

"In this case, L1 is defined by the L0 plane sandwiched around a 25 μm thick buffer layer, and the
thickness of the cover layer L1 is around 75 μm. This policy is still unchanged today, and the basic
thickness of a Blu-ray layer is 100 μm, a thickness that will be kept if multi-layer is adopted."

So they not only confirm that two layers must fit in .1mm, but that if you add more layers, they also have to fit in the same thickness. Put another way, a single layer takes .1mm. So does dual. Or quad (which is not in the spec but you get my meaning).
Opinion: It is max, since the other way means a lens that is already close to the disc gets closer and closer.
The total thickness of the data layer is always .1mm so the physical spacing never changes to the lens (but distance to the actual pits changes obviously). You just divide that .1mm layer into as many (ultra thin) layers as you need and hence the difficulty of manufacturing BD-50s. Any irregularity in the lower layers telegraphs into other layers, reducing your tolerance more and more to the point where you it becomes impossible to maintain it in real life.

Did I clarify things or where you asking a different question?

amirm:

does bill gates know how much time you spend on this forum? if he finds out, will he lock avsforums out of the ms firewall?

tee hee :p
You know, he might :). Luckily, he makes exceptions for snow days and folks doing things on their own nickle :).

Someone please send us some rain. This snow stuff really confuses us. :D

Paidgeek,

Can you elaborate on this? I'm confused. Will we not see 48/24 then in the US, even if it "works well" with some titles? I would hope for the highest possible audio quality that "works well" on a title by title basis, not a general policy across the board that may hold back quality on something like, Spiderman... :D ;) ;)

Thanks for being here to answer questions.

Best regards!!!
Hi Paidgeek,

You have said that you will be using 48/24 TruHD for EU BD-ROMs, but only 48/16 L-PCM for US BD-ROMs.

But earlier, you said that you will be using the same encodes worldwide - is this a contradiction or are you only talking about the "video" encodes?

From BDA's own white paper:

"In this case, L1 is defined by the L0 plane sandwiched around a 25 μm thick buffer layer, and the
thickness of the cover layer L1 is around 75 μm. This policy is still unchanged today, and the basic
thickness of a Blu-ray layer is 100 μm, a thickness that will be kept if multi-layer is adopted."

So they not only confirm that two layers must fit in .1mm, but that if you add more layers, they also have to fit in the same thickness. Put another way, a single layer takes .1mm. So does dual. Or quad (which is not in the spec but you get my meaning).


Yes, that is one thing I saw. Let me see if I can dig up the one that shows the other way (or whether I was incorrect about what I saw).



The total thickness of the data layer is always .1mm so the physical spacing never changes to the lens (but distance to the actual pits changes obviously). You just divide that .1mm layer into as many (ultra thin) layers as you need and hence the difficulty of manufacturing BD-50s. Any irregularity in the lower layers telegraphs into other layers, reducing your tolerance more and more to the point where you it becomes impossible to maintain it in real life.

Did I clarify things or where you asking a different question?

I was saying that if layers started at 0.1mm and got deeper the lens would have to move closer to the disc to focus deeper. It is already very close (remember some concerns about lenses, hard coat, and laptop drives?) so moving closer would be riskier and riskier. That's why I agree with your assessment. :)

Gary

as per the specs, single layer is at 0.1 and the second layer is positioned closer to the surface...which is what amir is saying and i believe what paidgeek said as well.

this isn't my opinion but what the spec provides.

Paidgeek,

Can you please request from the appropriate parties that Sony no longer position the subtitles on foreign-language films in the lower letterbox bar? This is a real problem for those of us with 2.35:1 Constant Height projection set-ups.

<SNIP>



Amen to that! I would also like to ask all the insiders communicate this back to the people who make these decisions.

Is that a question? :)

Laters,
Jeff

Question to Blu-ray insiders,

From time to time I hear talk about a BD-Audio profile (in addition to BD-Video and BD-Live). Is this a real beast or have I dreamed it up?

If it actually is real (ish) can insiders expand upon it. It intrigues me.

That's all.

Dennis.

There is an audio friendly spec designed to allow audio only players. The main difference being that the content is authored such that you can navigate the disc without a display being required.

Paidgeek,

Thanks again for all of the info you've provided.

Is this how SPHE plans on continuing its selections for which discs to release?

I'm only asking because it seemed, to me, that you were evaluating the aesthetic of the disc rather than its reflection on the source? Is that accurate?

Would you guys consider just evaluating it to its master and deciding if it is a great representation of that, or are you still focusing on great demo pieces?

Some titles, once authored on Blu-ray, may be considered soft, grainy/noisy, or have other issues. Since the consumer has to judge the title without the benefit of the of the master for comparison, they have no way to know if the BD was executed well or not, they have to judge by what the see. Some titles will be released right away to satisfy customer demand, but given the reaction to titles like "House of Flying Daggers", it makes sense to hold certain titles until we are satisfied that they are the best they can be. It also makes sense to allow for those with the most critical eyes to get accustomed to just how varied film quality can be when viewed on the latest displays.

Question to paidgeek,

Has there been any feedback from PAL regions in respect to the usage of 1080p24 formatting (which in the real-world translates to 1080i60 most often). Any complaints (re judder), any compliments (re 4% speedup removal)?

Note, I have been an advocate for the usage of 1080p24 worldwide, I applaud Sony and the BDA for its 24p stance.

I'm just interested to know what the feedback has been. Maybe there has been none.

Dennis.


Yes there has been feedback, with opinions divided. I am continuing to push for 24p only, worldwide, as I think this the best presentation to the customer with a 24p display. Europe has the benefit of being just getting started with HD display purchases so the percentage of HD displays that will be purchased with 24p capability should be high.

In what way would 16/48 not be ideal?

Also, why THD for Europe, but not for other markets? Lower installed base of non-THD players in Europe? but no PS3 there for a couple more months.

16/48 is not perfect, though I will take it over a "perceptually lossless" coder any day of the week. There is enough quantization error in 16 bit signals that most listeners can appreciate that 20 bit sounds different. By the time we start using THD for Europe, the players will be in the market to decode it.


Interestingly a listener may say they prefer the 16 bit in a comparison because the quantization error gives it a slight zip that smooths out in 20 bit (think moving coil cartridge for you old guys)

Amir-

Any updates on the AACS response or the Studio Canal sound issue?
Yea, yea, I'm impatient. :)

Thanks,
Chris

Paidgeek,

Can you please request from the appropriate parties that Sony no longer position the subtitles on foreign-language films in the lower letterbox bar? This is a real problem for those of us with 2.35:1 Constant Height projection set-ups.

When the disc is encoded like this:

http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/images/reviews/116/1168997669.jpg

This is all that shows up on our screens:

http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/images/reviews/116/1168997677.jpg

(These screen caps were taken from the DVD for convenience. The Blu-ray has them in a nicer font but in the same locations.)

When you see a foreign-language film in a theater, the subtitles appear in the movie image. That's where they should appear on home video as well.


This a tough one. would you care to run a survey in the forum to see what percentage of respondents would prefer what placement? The problem is that a precedent has been created with DVD that will generate an uproar if changed. On a positive note, BD allows for rendered subtitles (not used by any discs yet to my knowledge) and these can allow for custom sizing and placement depending on user preference.

Amir-

Any updates on the AACS response or the Studio Canal sound issue?
Yea, yea, I'm impatient. :)

Thanks,
Chris
On AACS, they are taking appropriate action :). They are more focused on that, than issuing press releases...

On Studio canal, they are still investigating. It is a complicated chain.

Paidgeek,

Can you elaborate on this? I'm confused. Will we not see 48/24 then in the US, even if it "works well" with some titles? I would hope for the highest possible audio quality that "works well" on a title by title basis, not a general policy across the board that may hold back quality on something like, Spiderman... :D ;) ;)

Thanks for being here to answer questions.

Best regards!!!

Agreed, on music driven product 24/48 needs to be considered. Apart from that, it is a bandwidth hog at nearly 7Mbps.

Hi Paidgeek,

You have said that you will be using 48/24 TruHD for EU BD-ROMs, but only 48/16 L-PCM for US BD-ROMs.

But earlier, you said that you will be using the same encodes worldwide - is this a contradiction or are you only talking about the "video" encodes?


I was talking about video as this was basis of the question I quoted. For Europe we are testing 20/48 THD, not 24/48. The extra 4 LSB's in a 24bit signal do not add much if anything to the performance.

Oops, didn't realize I was impersonating a BD insider above :). Hope folks on the other side forgive me for that.

Careful, you might get comfortable with that role...

Careful, you might get comfortable with that role...
You mean Sony might take me back? :p

To AMIRM

Have you heard anything about a patch to correct the HD DVD audio sync problems with the XBOX 360 HD DVD addon? Is a software update all it would take to fix this?

This a tough one. would you care to run a survey in the forum to see what percentage of respondents would prefer what placement? The problem is that a precedent has been created with DVD that will generate an uproar if changed. On a positive note, BD allows for rendered subtitles (not used by any discs yet to my knowledge) and these can allow for custom sizing and placement depending on user preference.

Wouldn't THAT be the winning option? :)

Amirm or Paidgeek or dialog_gf

Is this the whitepaper you guys were referring to?

http://www.blu-raydisc.com/assets/downloadablefile/general_bluraydiscformat-12834.pdf


….and is it really is true that the 25 GB capacity came into being because it was just above the minimum to record 2 hours of Japanese HDTV?

In the DVD standard, it was decided that the thickness of cover layer could be as small as 0.6 mm. This thickness could be made by the disc production facilities of those days, because the same mechanical strength as a CD could be obtained by sticking two pieces together. For the purpose of BDs, this thickness was reconsidered with the essential condition to realize a 23 GB capacity, which is necessary to record a bit stream of Japanese BS digital HD broadcast for two hours.http://www.blu-raydisc.com/assets/downloadablefile/general_bluraydiscformat-12834.pdf


In this case, L1 is defined by the L0 plane sandwiched around a 25 μm thick buffer layer, and the thickness of the cover layer L1 is around 75 μm. This policy is still unchanged today, and the basic thickness of a Blu-ray layer is 100 μm, a thickness that will be kept if multi-layer is adopted.http://www.blu-raydisc.com/assets/downloadablefile/general_bluraydiscformat-12834.pdf

I did not know that all the data layers for Blu-ray had to fit on the top of the 1.1 substrate. I assumed that they were using more of the disc depth than that.

Amirm or Paidgeek or dialog_gf

Is this the whitepaper you guys were referring to?

http://www.blu-raydisc.com/assets/downloadablefile/general_bluraydiscformat-12834.pdf


….and is it really is true that the 25 GB capacity came into being because it was just above the minimum to record 2 hours of Japanese HDTV?
Yes. BD was designed as a recording format and later converted to ROM use.

Interesting to read such old docs, isn't it? Especially when it claims that you can only get 10 gigabytes per layer if you don't use shallow recording:

"At first, it was natural to consider using the same production facilities as DVDs [and HD DVD], that is, to employ a thickness of 0.6 mm. However, the capacity could only reach around 12 GB by changing the wavelength from red (650 nm) to the blue (405 nm)...In this case, the recording capacity is lowered to around 10 GB..."

Must be a surprise to the original author that HD DVDs managed to get 15 per layer. And now 17 in the case of TL-51. There is a lot of innovation in HD DVD that people don't know about...

:)

Must be a surprise to the original author that HD DVDs managed to get 15 per layer. And now 17 in the case of TL-51. There is a lot of innovation in HD DVD that people don't know about...


Is there a good whitepaper available?

Is anyone able to answer this one:

What would happen if the Toshiba PRML technology was applied to the BD structure? What density would be possible then?

Is the equivalent what we're seeing in the TDK six-layer 200GB (33.33GB per layer) prototypes?

Gary

Yes. BD was designed as a recording format and later converted to ROM use.

Interesting to read such old docs, isn't it? Especially when it claims that you can only get 10 gigabytes per layer if you don't use shallow recording:

"At first, it was natural to consider using the same production facilities as DVDs [and HD DVD], that is, to employ a thickness of 0.6 mm. However, the capacity could only reach around 12 GB by changing the wavelength from red (650 nm) to the blue (405 nm)...In this case, the recording capacity is lowered to around 10 GB..."

Must be a surprise to the original author that HD DVDs managed to get 15 per layer. And now 17 in the case of TL-51. There is a lot of innovation in HD DVD that people don't know about...

:)

I hear Toshiba have some amazing PRML tech!

Amir do you have any idea if the X360 is ever going to have HD downloads in the UK, it is very annoying that they get HD programming across the Atlantic while we are stuck with, well nothing :(.

To paidegeek, are Sony looking at a similar offering for the PSP/PS3, it would be awesome as I could use the PS3 as a media server when I finally get one in March.

Amir do you have any idea if the X360 is ever going to have HD downloads in the UK, it is very annoying that they get HD programming across the Atlantic while we are stuck with, well nothing :(.
I think they will broaden the service eventually. But I don't have anything concrete to share.

To paidegeek, are Sony looking at a similar offering for the PSP/PS3, it would be awesome as I could use the PS3 as a media server when I finally get one in March.

There are already many things you can do to serve media to a PSP using network feeds or devices like "Location Free". PS3 has everything in place to do much more. Have you browsed the PS website much? Check out the PS store.

16/48 is not perfect, though I will take it over a "perceptually lossless" coder any day of the week. There is enough quantization error in 16 bit signals that most listeners can appreciate that 20 bit sounds different.

Some of the audio experts here have posted saying 20bit lossy might be better than 16bit lossless. Any thoughts on that ? Lets say 20bit DD+ compared to 16bit LPCM ...

16/48 is not perfect, though I will take it over a "perceptually lossless" coder any day of the week. There is enough quantization error in 16 bit signals that most listeners can appreciate that 20 bit sounds different. By the time we start using THD for Europe, the players will be in the market to decode it.
But 16/48 from a 24/48 master is also a form of "perceptually lossless" encoding - just a remarkably inefficient one. I'm going to hold out for a double-blind test before assuming one or the other would be better, but I think that it's likely that the >16-bit DD+ could be better than 16-bit PCM at least as often as it's worse.

Interestingly a listener may say they prefer the 16 bit in a comparison because the quantization error gives it a slight zip that smooths out in 20 bit (think moving coil cartridge for you old guys)
Fair enough, but I don't think this is quite what the audiophiles keep bugging us for in these formats :).

Can you please request from the appropriate parties that Sony no longer position the subtitles on foreign-language films in the lower letterbox bar? This is a real problem for those of us with 2.35:1 Constant Height projection set-ups.

FWIW, in HD DVD we can script the position of subtitles - I think the Studio Canal "Basic Instict" does this, or at least was used in a demo of it. As part of the general "kindness to constant height users" principle, I've suggested having an easy to select mode to move all the subtitles into the movie region. I prefer not locking them into that area, since for 16:9 projectors, many users (myself included) prefer to have the subtitles in the letterbox and out of the image area.

The other feature I like for 2.35 users is to have all selectable areas of menus be inside the movie's active image rectangle. Basically, treat the 2.35:1 region as title safe.

This a tough one. would you care to run a survey in the forum to see what percentage of respondents would prefer what placement? The problem is that a precedent has been created with DVD that will generate an uproar if changed. On a positive note, BD allows for rendered subtitles (not used by any discs yet to my knowledge) and these can allow for custom sizing and placement depending on user preference.
you don't need a survey to do the right thing here. if the movie is 2.35:1 you gotta respect the 2:35:1 framing and not muck around within the black bars. :)

so my question is... what % support would the "survey" need to get your attention and consider a change. :)

Mandatory codecs are DTS, Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital plus (all in 5.1) and TrueHD in 2.0 (although all shipping players decode 5.1).

On the encode side, all of the above can be used in addition to DTS lossless. But in this case, only the lossy "core layer" of DTS will play.

PCM audio can also be used.

HD DVD spec does not care how you output the bits (nor does BD for that matter). Player companies can put anything from a single stereo headphone jack (say in a portable player) all the way up to 7.1 analog/HDMI output.

Did this answer your question?

Pretty much. I just want to be very clear on what is mandated by the HD DVD spec, though I understand players may go above and beyond that.

What are the max bitrates for DTS, DD, and DD+ mandated for player decode?

What is the max sampling rates/bits for PCM mandated for player decode?

What downconversion or limiting does AACS mandate for audio over digital optical/coaxial? Over analog?

A number of players...would the A1 or A2 be one of those players..?
Yes, actually both would be included in that.
Without crossing any NDA lines, can you tell us 25 or 50?
Sorry, Darin. That part I can't answer.

Jeff,

What is your general impression of the ease (or difficulty) in authoring in either format?

Question to paidgeek,

Has there been any feedback from PAL regions in respect to the usage of 1080p24 formatting (which in the real-world translates to 1080i60 most often). Any complaints (re judder), any compliments (re 4% speedup removal)?
We are getting some flack for judder Dennis. You promised me we wouldn't regret going this way :). We will stay the course but you all need to do more to evanglize 24p in your respective countries for this to stick...

Any irregularity in the lower layers telegraphs into other layers, reducing your tolerance more and more to the point where you it becomes impossible to maintain it in real life.Wasn't this specified so that there would be no tilt margin decreasing as layers get increased by putting more layers away from the disc surface?

I heard that the reason why HD DVD has thinner spacer layer (20μm) for DL disc than DVD which has 50μm was to reduce the distance from the disc surface as possible, because the more the distance gets bigger, the less tilt margin will be. I though if the TL HD DVD would be materialized, all 3 layers would fit within the same 20μm thickness (means there would be only 10μm between layers, much thinner than 25μm DL BD's one), is it correct?

Can you give us a scenario (with the math) with VC-1, a BD50, and an HD30 where the space advantage of Blu-ray is eliminated because of use of PCM on Blu-ray over TrueHD on HD DVD? Or did you only mean PCM on Blu-ray vs DD+ on HD DVD?

I meant THD.

Sure. Three tracks of 48 KHz 24-bit 7.1 should about do it, assuming a 4:1 advantage of THD over PCM for capacity. If the parameter is "give me great 20-bit" DD+ wins even quicker.

Oh, you wanted math :). Fair request, but that'll have to wait until morning.

I meant THD.


Ugh. You realize THD is now short for TrueHD and Total HD?

Some were using DTHD (Dolby TrueHD) as the short form, previously.

Gary

Ugh. You realize THD is now short for TrueHD and Total HD?

Some were using DTHD (Dolby TrueHD) as the short form, previously.

Good point. I wish we had a Dolby insider here who could tell us their preferred nomenclature.

There is an audio friendly spec designed to allow audio only players. The main difference being that the content is authored such that you can navigate the disc without a display being required.

Nice. I'd really love an SACD/DVD-A replacement of sorts.

High-res audio still has a place in this world. Pink Floyd "Dark Side of the Moon", Eagles "Hotel California", etc etc are very nice in high-res.

I'd really love BD-Audio content to become available. Also I assume that PCM will be used and hence all current BD players will play BD-Audio disks, correct?

Dennis.

I meant THD.

Sure. Three tracks of 48 KHz 24-bit 7.1 should about do it, assuming a 4:1 advantage of THD over PCM for capacity. If the parameter is "give me great 20-bit" DD+ wins even quicker.

Oh, you wanted math :). Fair request, but that'll have to wait until morning.I can save you some math. With the audio you just stated I believe the peaks for the audio would take more than 22Mbps (and that might be conservative). Not even counting subtitles or anything else. Do you consider 8Mbps (or less) leftover for video during peak audio on HD DVD to be a reasonable scenario for 1080p movies? 8Mbps for an average would be crazy enough, but 8Mbps or less peaks during tough audio segments just doesn't sound realistic to me. Can you come up with a scenario with PCM vs TrueHD that takes away the 50GB vs 30GB space advantage but isn't unrealistic for video bitrates on HD DVD?

I also didn't think Dolby was even claiming a 4:1 advantage for capacity between TrueHD and PCM. Is 4:1 what you've found or a number they claim?

--Darin

Yes there has been feedback, with opinions divided. I am continuing to push for 24p only, worldwide, as I think this the best presentation to the customer with a 24p display. Europe has the benefit of being just getting started with HD display purchases so the percentage of HD displays that will be purchased with 24p capability should be high.

Paidgeek,

It's absolutely fantastic having you on this forum, supplying this info, I greatly appreciate it.

Interesting, mixed opinions. I implore all content providers to hold the 24p line, it is the correct solution (I'm in Australia which is a PAL/50Hz region). So I beg you to continue the 24p only model, please please no 25p :eek:

Hopefully the next round of Bravias have 24p support (with 120Hz display). Note, currently in the flat-panel world only Pioneer has a 24p solution, hopefully this years Sonys, Panasonics, maybe even Toshibas :) will come with 24p handling.

Cool stuff.

Dennis.

They will be released eventually. We are descriminating what is released based on a number of factors, not the least of which is how we think the title, regardless of bit rate or codec, presents in HD.

Thank you much. :) Not a moment too soon. Great that feedback from consumers has reached the inner sanctums of Sony.

...BD allows for rendered subtitles ... and these can allow for custom sizing and placement depending on user preference.Is this a BD-J capability? Or is it not dependent on BD-J?

Could BD-J (or other BD technology) allow the user to download a new set of movable subtitles for discs they already own?

Yes there has been feedback, with opinions divided. I am continuing to push for 24p only, worldwide, as I think this the best presentation to the customer with a 24p display.
Thank you for pushing 24p. Here in Germany opinions are very much divided, just as you say. But I think the people complaining are mostly those with older displays, which can't do 48/72Hz. I think most people agree that 24p is the better choice in the long term.

This a tough one. would you care to run a survey in the forum to see what percentage of respondents would prefer what placement?
IMO people with 16:9 display will generally prefer to have subtitles in the black bars. While people with a constant height setup will generally prefer to have subtitles in the picture.

Wouldn't it be possible to offer a switch in the player?

Being an insider yielded another perk today. I had the chance to spend the afternoon with a TotalHD disc. Without going into detail, I can say that it's real and it works. I played the disc in multiple players and even gave it a spin in the PC with zero issues. It's rather interesting to see the "war" glued together. Wish I could say more....darn NDAs!
Thank you for that, Jeff. My question is about capacity, maybe you could shed some light on this: are TotalHD discs limited to one layer of data per format? IOW, a TotalHD disc would have a 15GB layer for HD DVD and a 25GB layer for Blu-ray, or does the format allow (or have the technical possibility for), say, a two-layer HD DVD with a single-layer Blu-ray?

My apologies if this has already been covered.

pteittinen, this was covered in the press conference (http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/09/live-coverage-from-the-warner-press-conference):

What is the capacity for each side?
They have the full capacity of both HD DVD and Blu-ray and dual layer on both discs.

Talk, Paidgeek or any other BD insider,

I was disappointed with how PIP commentaries were handled on the two recent Lionsgate releases, Descent and Crank. It seems that two separate versions of the movie were encoded on to the disc, the version without commentary and one with PIP commentary. However, when you select the version with commentary, the menu is disabled and there is no easy way to switch to the version without commentary. You need to stop the disc or fast forward to the end then turn the commentary version off, then chapter skip to where you were on the movie. Then to switch to PIP commentary, you need to repeat the entire sequence. This makes PIP commentary all but useless unless you commit to watching the entire feature with the PIP commentary. I understand that this may have been done since not all 1G players can support advanced interactivity. But, do you know why the menu button is disabled during the PIP commentary version of the movie? It would seem to me that it would be lot easier to allow the viewer to just chapter select the desired version through viable menu option than to cycle through the entire movie to switch between the two versions. Better yet, would it not be possible to let the player toggle between the two versions through a single menu button, even if it means restarting the chapter when switching between the two, or is such scenario not allowed in BD basic mode?

This a tough one. would you care to run a survey in the forum to see what percentage of respondents would prefer what placement? The problem is that a precedent has been created with DVD that will generate an uproar if changed. On a positive note, BD allows for rendered subtitles (not used by any discs yet to my knowledge) and these can allow for custom sizing and placement depending on user preference.

There really has never been a precedent that was in any way standardized on DVD. Some studios have always placed the subtitles in the active image area, and other studios have always put them in the letterbox bar. I've never heard of an uproar from 16:9 users about this. The only uproar has come from 2.35:1 users like myself who cannot watch Sony foreign-language discs on our screens without pillarboxing them into the center of the screen with large black bars on all sides.

I just don't see how Sony's strategy of placing the subtitles half-in/half-out of the image benefits anyone. It's not good for viewers with 2.35:1 screens, and it's not good for viewers with 16:9 screens who prefer the subtitles not intrude into the picture. It's really just the worst of all possible choices for everyone.

If it's possible to enable a feature for moveable subtitles, that would be ideal. Any pressure you can exert toward making that happen would be greatly appreciated.

Talk, Paidgeek or any other BD insider,

I was disappointed with how PIP commentaries were handled on the two recent Lionsgate releases, Descent and Crank. It seems that two separate versions of the movie were encoded on to the disc, the version without commentary and one with PIP commentary. However, when you select the version with commentary, the menu is disabled and there is no easy way to switch to the version without commentary. You need to stop the disc or fast forward to the end then turn the commentary version off, then chapter skip to where you were on the movie. Then to switch to PIP commentary, you need to repeat the entire sequence. This makes PIP commentary all but useless unless you commit to watching the entire feature with the PIP commentary. I understand that this may have been done since not all 1G players can support advanced interactivity. But, do you know why the menu button is disabled during the PIP commentary version of the movie? It would seem to me that it would be lot easier to allow the viewer to just chapter select the desired version through viable menu option than to cycle through the entire movie to switch between the two versions. Better yet, would it not be possible to let the player toggle between the two versions through a single menu button, even if it means restarting the chapter when switching between the two, or is such scenario not allowed in BD basic mode?

I don't know exactly why the disc was authored without an easier way to switch between the PiP and non-PiP version. I will pass on your complaint to the company that authored the disc.

you don't need a survey to do the right thing here. if the movie is 2.35:1 you gotta respect the 2:35:1 framing and not muck around within the black bars. :)

so my question is... what % support would the "survey" need to get your attention and consider a change. :)

I will look for a solution to satisfy both placements, but in the meantime, it would be interesting to see if more that half of the AVS members who respond would prefer to have both lines of text in picture. And what about when there are 3 lines??

Nice. I'd really love an SACD/DVD-A replacement of sorts.

High-res audio still has a place in this world. Pink Floyd "Dark Side of the Moon", Eagles "Hotel California", etc etc are very nice in high-res.
Yeah, and there are a lot of left-over mixes as well.

HD DVD has an equivalent audio-only spec. It basically adds a little metadata to allow display-free operation equivalent to an audio CD player.

Man, could you stick a lot of music in TrueHD on one of those!

And why on earth nobody had the bright idea to allow user placement for subtitles ?
This is in either camp, although I have read Studio Canal (HD-DVD) have some nice things for this.

--Patrice ;)

FWIW, in HD DVD we can script the position of subtitles - I think the Studio Canal "Basic Instict" does this, or at least was used in a demo of it. As part of the general "kindness to constant height users" principle, I've suggested having an easy to select mode to move all the subtitles into the movie region. I prefer not locking them into that area, since for 16:9 projectors, many users (myself included) prefer to have the subtitles in the letterbox and out of the image area.

The other feature I like for 2.35 users is to have all selectable areas of menus be inside the movie's active image rectangle. Basically, treat the 2.35:1 region as title safe.

Ben you sir are my hero! Please continue to push the studios on these matters for those of us with constant height systems.

Oh need a question..If the film is a 1.33, 1.78, or 1.85 ratio the subtitles are going to be in the image area. Why should it be different for a 2.35 film?

Laters,
Jeff

pteittinen, this was covered in the press conference (http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/09/live-coverage-from-the-warner-press-conference):
Thanks Grubert!

Nice. I'd really love an SACD/DVD-A replacement of sorts.

I can see the "another Sony format" comments already :rolleyes:

I do believe that BD-A would be fantastic if it was compatible with all BD players (something that hindered DVD-A) and they need to have a CD layer for compatibility and possibly a SACD layer too. If not all BD-A players need to play SACD's so that current SACD owners aren't left with a dead format

How many BD players play SACD if any? I know the PS3 plays SACD although it needs an external decoder I believe

I can save you some math. With the audio you just stated I believe the peaks for the audio would take more than 22Mbps (and that might be conservative). Not even counting subtitles or anything else. Do you consider 8Mbps (or less) leftover for video during peak audio on HD DVD to be a reasonable scenario for 1080p movies? 8Mbps for an average would be crazy enough, but 8Mbps or less peaks during tough audio segments just doesn't sound realistic to me. Can you come up with a scenario with PCM vs TrueHD that takes away the 50GB vs 30GB space advantage but isn't unrealistic for video bitrates on HD DVD?
I very much doubt the peaks would be as high as you suggest, especially with some new mux technologies that can smooth out those peaks. You'd really only hit that worst case peak if you had white noise in all channels sustained for a couple seconds. And you can certainly drop a few LSBs from white noise without causing any problems :). And as paidgeek suggested, lossless compression becomes more efficient the higher the bit depth and number of channels.

FWIW, the PCM rate @ 48 KHz 24-bit 7.1 would be 9.21 Mbps per channel.

Assuming 4:1 for the TrueHD and a three hour movie, the capacity used would be:
TrueHD=9.33 GB
PCM=37.3 GB

So, in the above, the HD DVD 30 would have 8 GB MORE for other assets compared to BD-50.

Now, I don't know how realistic a scenario the above is (it's been cited by format "advocates" but not any insiders I'm aware of).

I also didn't think Dolby was even claiming a 4:1 advantage for capacity between TrueHD and PCM. Is 4:1 what you've found or a number they claim?
Yeah, they say "up to 4:1 for movie soundtracks." Soundtracks are easier, since there's often not much going on in some of the channels lots of the time. Efficiency will go up with the number of channels and number of bits, as long as there isn't some misapplied dithering (in which case >16-bit isn't that useful anyway).

I will look for a solution to satisfy both placements, but in the meantime, it would be interesting to see if more that half of the AVS members who respond would prefer to have both lines of text in picture. And what about when there are 3 lines??

Europe is among the largest consumers of subtitles, and quite frankly the standard pratice is to put them in the black bars (for 2.35 movies).

Last year, I was amazed to learn that the 16:9 TV sets market share in France was less than 20% (that was before the World Cup). Even if this doesn't apply in HD, clearly you must weigh the issue of having tens of million of viewers who are accustomed to having subtitles in the less obstructive area of the screen. If you have to make a decision, you should poll the biggest consumers of subtitles (int'l markets) and act according to their wishes.

That said, I'm also a big supporter of providing viewers with the freedom of absolute positioning of subtitles. I'm actually a bit surprised that nobody has thought about it. It should have been a mandatory feature in both formats. What were you thinking? :)

Paidgeek,

Can you please comment on what went wrong on the authoring for the Click BD? Using the comparison shots posted by AVS member Cliff Stephenson we can see a clear difference in framing and image quality in favor of the theatrical trailer (presented on the BDs of Little Man and Benchwarmers) against the actual BD presentation of the movie.

A severe black crush can be easily spotted. Can you assure us this is no longer happening on the mastering process for future titles?

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=68562
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=68563

Thank you for all your effort to provide us accurate information from inside Sony Pictures ;)

Europe is among the largest consumers of subtitles, and quite frankly the standard pratice is to put them in the black bars (for 2.35 movies).

Last year, I was amazed to learn that the 16:9 TV sets market share in France was less than 20% (that was before the World Cup). Even if this doesn't apply in HD, clearly you must weigh the issue of having tens of million of viewers who are accustomed to having subtitles in the less obstructive area of the screen. If you have to make a decision, you should poll the biggest consumers of subtitles (int'l markets) and act according to their wishes.

That said, I'm also a big supporter of providing viewers with the freedom of absolute positioning of subtitles. I'm actually a bit surprised that nobody has thought about it. It should have been a mandatory feature in both formats. What were you thinking? :)

As pointed out in my earlier post, not only position, but sizing with player rendered fonts has been in the BD spec from the beginning. We will experiment with using this feature on an upcoming title and I will let the forum know when it is identified. A caveat to font based subtitles is that they may not look quite as good as the typical raster based subs. We may provide both on the same disc to accomodate user preference.

Paidgeek,

Can you please comment on what went wrong on the authoring for the Click BD? Using the comparison shots posted by AVS member Cliff Stephenson we can see a clear difference in framing and image quality in favor of the theatrical trailer (presented on the BDs of Little Man and Benchwarmers) against the actual BD presentation of the movie.

A severe black crush can be easily spotted. Can you assure us this is no longer happening on the mastering process for future titles?

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=68562
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=68563

Thank you for all your effort to provide us accurate information from inside Sony Pictures ;)

Nothing went wrong in the authoring. The title was encoded according to the approved master. The trailer and master have different color correction according to the film makers wishes.

paidgeek,
It would be really great to have an insider like yourself visit the Playstation 3 board. I am sure whatever information that can be shared and whatever questions can be answered would be greatly appreciated.
Topping off many people's concerns is the PS3's inability to display 1080p Blurays at 720p on 720p tvs, and in the same breath the inability to display 720p games at 1080i on tvs (like many CRT TVs) that do not display 720p, polls in that forum have shown that more than a few users are affected.
to date the PS3 is the only major HD device that lacks this function and it would be great to have an insider's take on it.
Many THanks

Yeah, they say "up to 4:1 for movie soundtracks." Soundtracks are easier, since there's often not much going on in some of the channels lots of the time. Efficiency will go up with the number of channels and number of bits, as long as there isn't some misapplied dithering (in which case >16-bit isn't that useful anyway).I don't believe the information on the Dolby site lends much credence to some of the assumptions you are making and I have responded in the general discussion thread here (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=9496465&&#post9496465).

--Darin

Paidgeek,

I'm sorry to insist on the point, but it's not just the color timing. The detail on the theatrical trailer is bounds above the retail version (look specially for the trees on the second pictures, and they are reduced about a 1000 time) which also features some noise not present on the trailer. I can't really . There's also the framing which seems to be much better on the trailer (look at the car on the second picture, it's framed perfectly on the trailer but it's oddly cut on the movie).

I'm not arguing that it's the encoding, but maybe the master itself, much like The 5th Element, which had a subpar master. Can you please adress those points?

But 16/48 from a 24/48 master is also a form of "perceptually lossless" encoding - just a remarkably inefficient one. I'm going to hold out for a double-blind test before assuming one or the other would be better, but I think that it's likely that the >16-bit DD+ could be better than 16-bit PCM at least as often as it's worse.

Interestingly a listener may say they prefer the 16 bit in a comparison because the quantization error gives it a slight zip that smooths out in 20 bit (think moving coil cartridge for you old guys)

Fair enough, but I don't think this is quite what the audiophiles keep bugging us for in these formats :).

That "zip" (also referred to commonly as "crispy") is a major contributor to listening fatigue! It's called BAD sound, by anyone who actually cares!

Oh need a question..If the film is a 1.33, 1.78, or 1.85 ratio the subtitles are going to be in the image area. Why should it be different for a 2.35 film?
I prefer this, because it avoids obscuring the image. Also, subtitles can be made more legible over black. So in cases where the letterbox is going to be there anyway...

I very much doubt the peaks would be as high as you suggest, especially with some new mux technologies that can smooth out those peaks. You'd really only hit that worst case peak if you had white noise in all channels sustained for a couple seconds. And you can certainly drop a few LSBs from white noise without causing any problems :). And as paidgeek suggested, lossless compression becomes more efficient the higher the bit depth and number of channels.

FWIW, the PCM rate @ 48 KHz 24-bit 7.1 would be 9.21 Mbps per channel.

Assuming 4:1 for the TrueHD and a three hour movie, the capacity used would be:
TrueHD=9.33 GB
PCM=37.3 GB

So, in the above, the HD DVD 30 would have 8 GB MORE for other assets compared to BD-50.

Now, I don't know how realistic a scenario the above is (it's been cited by format "advocates" but not any insiders I'm aware of).


Yeah, they say "up to 4:1 for movie soundtracks." Soundtracks are easier, since there's often not much going on in some of the channels lots of the time. Efficiency will go up with the number of channels and number of bits, as long as there isn't some misapplied dithering (in which case >16-bit isn't that useful anyway).

Ben,


You don't have to have white noise to have peak bit rate problems. All the soundtracks will get loud and complex at the same time (likely at the same moment the video is getting very dynamic as well)

In real world encodes of Dolby True HD and DTS HD on two different typical films, the encoded file size ranged from a best case of 47% to a worst case of 40%. This puts your assumption off by an order of magnitude.

Working your calculations with a real world best case of 47% data reduction, and ignoring the peak bit rate issue for the sake of the argument, you will have 10GB left for your movie netting a video average bitrate of 7.6 Mbps, not so good...

With the same audio payload on a BD50, we can support a video average bit rate of 22.4 Mbps, more than acceptable...

Calculations


3 Streams X 8 Channels X 48K sample rate * 24b coding * 10800 seconds /8 Conv2bytes * .53 lossless coding /1000000 conv2 megs = 19,782 (audio payload)

50,000 BD50 - 19,782 audio storage = 30,217 for video and other
30,000 HDDVD 30 - 19,782 audio storage = 10,217 for video and other

note: this post was edited to reflect a math error. The original forumula incorrectly multiplied by a lossless coding coefficient of .47 and should have been the difference or .53.

This a tough one. would you care to run a survey in the forum to see what percentage of respondents would prefer what placement? The problem is that a precedent has been created with DVD that will generate an uproar if changed. On a positive note, BD allows for rendered subtitles (not used by any discs yet to my knowledge) and these can allow for custom sizing and placement depending on user preference.Yep, HD DVD allows this too. It's used in a couple of titles. Do BD players have to provide a font? Or is that up to the authors, and if the authors, do you have available fonts that don't have to be licensed for distribution individually? Also, when you render the subtitles, can you do "halo" effects (like current subtitles tend to do) for legibility? Or is it just standard text rendering?
On the fly subtitle rendering _sounds_ like a good idea, but when you actually do it it can introduce all sorts of irritations.

Paidgeek,

I'm sorry to insist on the point, but it's not just the color timing. The detail on the theatrical trailer is bounds above the retail version (look specially for the trees on the second pictures, and they are reduced about a 1000 time) which also features some noise not present on the trailer. I can't really . There's also the framing which seems to be much better on the trailer (look at the car on the second picture, it's framed perfectly on the trailer but it's oddly cut on the movie).

I'm not arguing that it's the encoding, but maybe the master itself, much like The 5th Element, which had a subpar master. Can you please adress those points?

We made similar observations when we recieved the final master, except that the sharpness is only marginally less. It was discussed at length and this is the way the film maker wants it, we have to accept it as it is. I have demonstrated a side by side of this very comparison to others inside and outside the studio, we are very aware of the differences.

Yep, HD DVD allows this too. It's used in a couple of titles. Do BD players have to provide a font? Or is that up to the authors, and if the authors, do you have available fonts that don't have to be licensed for distribution individually? Also, when you render the subtitles, can you do "halo" effects (like current subtitles tend to do) for legibility? Or is it just standard text rendering?
On the fly subtitle rendering _sounds_ like a good idea, but when you actually do it it can introduce all sorts of irritations.

The fonts will be supplied on the disc and licensed. We do not have an outlining or dithering function, hence my earlier comment that the raster based version may be preferable, particularly for the more complex character sets.

I just don't see how Sony's strategy of placing the subtitles half-in/half-out of the image benefits anyone. It's not good for viewers with 2.35:1 screens, and it's not good for viewers with 16:9 screens who prefer the subtitles not intrude into the picture. It's really just the worst of all possible choices for everyone.

For 2.35 movies and a 16:9 display, won't subtitles always need to intrude? Unless we limit only one row of subs, a 2nd line will require the need for subs to be in part of the picture. Making the font smaller to fit in only the black area would make the subs too small. Subs can't be too low into the picture either or they'd be cut off by overscan.

Ideally we should get the option to put subs wherever we want, but I feel the way subs are handled currently for 16:9 set ups are fine.

paidgeek,
It would be really great to have an insider like yourself visit the Playstation 3 board. I am sure whatever information that can be shared and whatever questions can be answered would be greatly appreciated.
Topping off many people's concerns is the PS3's inability to display 1080p Blurays at 720p on 720p tvs, and in the same breath the inability to display 720p games at 1080i on tvs (like many CRT TVs) that do not display 720p, polls in that forum have shown that more than a few users are affected.
to date the PS3 is the only major HD device that lacks this function and it would be great to have an insider's take on it.
Many THanks

Please excuse me for declining. I need to limit my comments to software and a bit about the BD format. The hardware companies don't speak for SPE and we respect their need to disseminate their own information.

Regarding subtitles (both HD DVD and Blue-ray):

For me personally, I think the best solution is to make subtitles height-adjustable in the players. That's how it works on my dvd player (Panasonic S97), and is an excellent feature.

Then you could always leave the subs within the frame, and those who wishes can move the subtitles downwards with the player.

This should be mandatory for all players...in both camps. :)

That "zip" (also referred to commonly as "crispy") is a major contributor to listening fatigue! It's called BAD sound, by anyone who actually cares!

Easy now, 26 years of CD's and my ears are still intact. Yes, 20 bit is better, but not so much better that consumers are willing to pay for it and scrap existing audio systems. As an old audiophile, it is painful to see what is considered passable for audio reproduction these days; MP3 anyone?

I prefer this, because it avoids obscuring the image. Also, subtitles can be made more legible over black. So in cases where the letterbox is going to be there anyway...

Ben,

There's no letterbox on my screen.

http://www.mindspring.com/~zyber/235.jpg

If you put the subtitles in the letterbox, they get cut off. On a foreign-language movie, that means the movie is effectively unwatchable.

I realize that 2.35:1 CIH projection users are a minority of viewers, but the format is gaining popularity among high-end home theater consumers, the very consumers that HD DVD and Blu-ray are supposedly targeted at.

This is Home Theater. Not "Home Oversized TV".

We made similar observations when we recieved the final master, except that the sharpness is only marginally less. It was discussed at length and this is the way the film maker wants it, we have to accept it as it is. I have demonstrated a side by side of this very comparison to others inside and outside the studio, we are very aware of the differences.

Fair enough then, and glad y'all had a discussion about it.

Can you say that the same observations and conclusions were reached about "Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby", trailers vs. main feature? I have the standalone (non-PS3 BD50) release and I noticed that the main feature had a real lack of contrast and color "pop" vs. the trailers, which were really quite vivid. Almost as though the main feature was passed through a ND filter or something.

Was this also the specific artistic intention of the film makers? Personally, given the subject matter, I prefered the look of the more vivid trailers, but IANAF (I Am Not A Filmmaker.)

Thanks again for taking the time to answer our questions here!

-John

We made similar observations when we recieved the final master, except that the sharpness is only marginally less. It was discussed at length and this is the way the film maker wants it, we have to accept it as it is. I have demonstrated a side by side of this very comparison to others inside and outside the studio, we are very aware of the differences.

Thanks for your very candid response to this question, paidgeek. Would you ever consider making the decision simply not to release the title on BD if similar circumstances arose in the future?

I didn't see a response here, so I'll take a stab at it.I keep seeing commentary from people in the press and on the forum here that Blu-ray "requires" AACS... unfortunately, the press gets stuff wrong more than half the time and while this forum is notably better about these things, I don't recall seeing an insider comment on this. So here goes:

1. Does Blu-ray require that the content of ROM disks be protected with AACS?I believe this is correct.
2. Does Blu-ray require that the content of -R and -RE disks be protected with AACS?Definitely not. No AACS is required for duplicated (as opposed to replicated) discs.

- Talk

I was disappointed with how PIP commentaries were handled on the two recent Lionsgate releases, Descent and Crank.
...
But, do you know why the menu button is disabled during the PIP commentary version of the movie?I know of no technical reason why the menu button would be disabled. My guess is that Lionsgate was breaking new ground here with this technique, so the first implementations will have some limitations. If they continue using this technique I imagine they'll improve on the user experience.

Could BD-J (or other BD technology) allow the user to download a new set of movable subtitles for discs they already own?Sure. Using the ability to update an older title you could add a BD-J app which provides its own subtitles.

- Talk

I forgot was the half in ltbx subtitles have to do with 4:3 displays? I *think* remember them shifting when letter boxed mode was enabled in dvd player.

I prefer this, because it avoids obscuring the image. Also, subtitles can be made more legible over black. So in cases where the letterbox is going to be there anyway...

I am with Ben here.

http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/DVDCompare5/2001/20013b.jpg

http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/DVDCompare5/2001/20013a.jpg


Disregarding the colour timing, edge enhancement and shadow detail (phew!), the second subtitle is more readable and intrudes less upon the frame.

IMO.

Fair enough then, and glad y'all had a discussion about it.

Can you say that the same observations and conclusions were reached about "Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby", trailers vs. main feature? I have the standalone (non-PS3 BD50) release and I noticed that the main feature had a real lack of contrast and color "pop" vs. the trailers, which were really quite vivid. Almost as though the main feature was passed through a ND filter or something.

Was this also the specific artistic intention of the film makers? Personally, given the subject matter, I prefered the look of the more vivid trailers, but IANAF (I Am Not A Filmmaker.)

Thanks again for taking the time to answer our questions here!

-John

Trailers are created months ahead of the final film being completed, and they are not necessarily prepared in the same facility or with the same people that work on the final master. In most cases, the final master will be subjectively better, but in any case they will be different.

Thanks for your very candid response to this question, paidgeek. Would you ever consider making the decision simply not to release the title on BD if similar circumstances arose in the future?

It is not for me to decide what can or can't be released, but I do help in screening masters. There are many factors that go into the marketing departments decision of when to release a title, but you can rest assured that how the title presents in HD is a top criteria.

Easy now, 26 years of CD's and my ears are still intact. Yes, 20 bit is better, but not so much better that consumers are willing to pay for it and scrap existing audio systems. As an old audiophile, it is painful to see what is considered passable for audio reproduction these days; MP3 anyone?
Can I get an AMEN?

No doubt - it is deplorable.

There's no letterbox on my screen.

I realize that 2.35:1 CIH projection users are a minority of viewers, but the format is gaining popularity among high-end home theater consumers, the very consumers that HD DVD and Blu-ray are supposedly targeted at.

Oh, certainly. What I'm advocating is that widescreen discs have a "2.35" mode that will make sure all menus and subtitles are moved to the active image area. But I don't think we want to make it required - 16:9 viewers prefer to have the subtitles in the letterbox. It's trivial in HD DVD to just make this a user-controlled toggle.

Since a studio controls their own persitant storage, you could even have all titles from the same studio check for what the setting of the player is, so new movies would pop up in 2.35 mode by default.

Agreed, on music driven product 24/48 needs to be considered. Apart from that, it is a bandwidth hog at nearly 7Mbps.
Would Sony perhaps consider something like DTS-HD MA 24/48 for SM1 and SM2 or PCM with AVC/MPEG-4 to allow for the extra bandwidth the 24-bit audio takes?

I didn't see a response here, so I'll take a stab at it.I believe this is correct.

Thanks for the response, Talk. I didn't want to jump up and down about it, but I'm glad someone took the time.

This is not terrible, although I could imagine that some niche content providers might want to avoid AACS either on principle or for cost reasons.


Definitely not. No AACS is required for duplicated (as opposed to replicated) discs.
- Talk

Again, this makes sense, and it makes me wonder why this myth exists in the media.

Would Sony perhaps consider something like DTS-HD MA 24/48 for SM1 and SM2 or PCM with AVC/MPEG-4 to allow for the extra bandwidth the 24-bit audio takes?

I suspect we will be using 16/48 LPCM for the domestic releases depending on when this title is put on the calendar. Because Spiderman is a special franchise, it could also be considered to pair this with a 20/48 Dolby THD instead of the usual Legacy DD. Would you consider starting a thread on this so we can see get other opinions? I have nothing against DTS HD, but the hardware support is not there to the same extent as Dolby THD (PS3), so I don't think that will happen.

Sure. Using the ability to update an older title you could add a BD-J app which provides its own subtitles.

- Talk
Where would you store it? 64 kbytes doesn't give you much space to update such data.

There are many factors that go into the marketing departments decision of when to release a title, but you can rest assured that how the title presents in HD is a top criteria.

Paidgeek:

First, thank you for your contribution to this forum.

My question is this - in light of the above statement and your previous posts regarding some delayed titles, including CTHD, would it be a fair interpretation that one or more of these titles were delayed because such titles do not "present" well in HD?

If that's the case, are these titles merely being delayed until additional work can be done on them (new master?), or are they off the release calendar indefinitely?

Thanks in advance for any information you can provide. I am very interested in any further information especially regarding CTHD as it is one of my all time favorite movies and I would love to see a pristine reference quality HD release of it.

To AACS insiders?
Is AACS mandatory on the replicated HD DVD ROM disc?

Where would you store it? 64 kbytes doesn't give you much space to update such data.No, but 60GB sure does. Title updates don't go in the Application Data Area (persistent storage), they go in local storage.

No, but 60GB sure does. Title updates don't go in the Application Data Area (persistent storage), they go in local storage.
What happens with the standalone players that don't benefit from the PS3's hard drive? Will they be able to hook up an external hard drive to say, the Samsung BDP-1000, and take advantage of the new content? Or would the early adopters (minus the PS3 owners) be SOL in this case?

Do the available players have local storage I'm unaware of?

Paidgeek:

First, thank you for your contribution to this forum.

My question is this - in light of the above statement and your previous posts regarding some delayed titles, including CTHD, would it be a fair interpretation that one or more of these titles were delayed because such titles do not "present" well in HD?

If that's the case, are these titles merely being delayed until additional work can be done on them (new master?), or are they off the release calendar indefinitely?

Thanks in advance for any information you can provide. I am very interested in any further information especially regarding CTHD as it is one of my all time favorite movies and I would love to see a pristine reference quality HD release of it.

Titles get delayed for a number of different reasons, PQ certainly being one of them. I have not reviewed CTHD in quite some time and I do not think PQ has anything to do with its release schedule.

I suspect we will be using 16/48 LPCM for the domestic releases depending on when this title is put on the calendar. Because Spiderman is a special franchise, it could also be considered to pair this with a 20/48 Dolby THD instead of the usual Legacy DD. Would you consider starting a thread on this so we can see get other opinions? I have nothing against DTS HD, but the hardware support is not there to the same extent as Dolby THD (PS3), so I don't think that will happen.

I'm reading into what you stated that the PS3 is not going to get DTS-HD MA via an upgrade?

I'm reading into what you stated that the PS3 is not going to get DTS-HD MA via an upgrade?

I don't know, but if it will, we have not been given a schedule for it.

To AACS insiders?
Is AACS mandatory on the replicated HD DVD ROM disc?
No it is not required. It is needed though for network and persistent storage access.
I keep seeing commentary from people in the press and on the forum here that Blu-ray "requires" AACS... unfortunately, the press gets stuff wrong more than half the time and while this forum is notably better about these things, I don't recall seeing an insider comment on this. So here goes:

1. Does Blu-ray require that the content of ROM disks be protected with AACS?
Talk is correct. Replicated BD-ROM discs do require AACS.
2. Does Blu-ray require that the content of -R and -RE disks be protected with AACS?Definitely not. No AACS is required for duplicated (as opposed to replicated) discs.

- Talk
Well, sometimes. A homemade BD disc, assuming in BDAV format, won't. If the disc is authored in BDMV or BDJ, it's a bit grey. I believe the BD spec says that AACS on BDMV or BDJ, when used on BD-R/RE, is optional. That may have changed though. I can say that not all players handle it one way. Some spit the disc right back out and say that it can't be played, while others have no issues.
Thank you for that, Jeff. My question is about capacity, maybe you could shed some light on this: are TotalHD discs limited to one layer of data per format? IOW, a TotalHD disc would have a 15GB layer for HD DVD and a 25GB layer for Blu-ray, or does the format allow (or have the technical possibility for), say, a two-layer HD DVD with a single-layer Blu-ray?

My apologies if this has already been covered.
To follow up on Grubert reply, the overall goal, without a doubt, is to have maximum capacity for both formats.
What is your general impression of the ease (or difficulty) in authoring in either format
Now there's a loaded question. The short answer; HD is easier than BD. The long answer is much more involved.

On the HD side, standard content authoring is identical to SD authoring. You're really just putting better A/V and menus into the same process. If you move into advanced content, HDi, it's night and day difference from standard content authoring. All the control is moved from preset commands to JavaScript and XML. It's very similar it web based programming, so the transition is a bit easier for most.

On the BD side, there are also two choices also. The simpler of the two, BDMV, has many similarities to SD authoring with different names. It takes some getting use to but makes sense once you're familiar with it. The biggest problem is the graphics for the menus. No images can overlap, so any menu with a curve becomes a hassle to slice up; the images are limited to 8-bit(256 colors); and each "page" of a menu must have an associated palette. The graphics people really find it frustrating.

Now, when moved to BDJ, things move in a whole other direction. It becomes more like an HDi environment where you have the freedom to do what you please. The image constraints from above are no longer an issue. The issue that does arise very quickly is the move to a full-blown Java environment. It no longer becomes an easy task to migrate someone to BDJ, unless they have a programming background. I can see it limiting BDJ to larger facilities than can afford to hire someone if someone is not available in house already. I would image smaller authoring houses sticking to BDMV for quite some time.

The above isn't what made me say HD is easier than BD. What has made me are two very important things; support and testing. Microsoft as a whole; not just Amir, Ben, and others here, has been extremely helpful. Sony, on the other hand, doesn't seem to want to be as helpful. I've tried several times to get the proper communication channels setup to further what I am doing and their own format, but to no avail. And second, I can't get reliable playback with BD. What do I mean by that?

Of course when you are developing anything new, there is a lot testing done. The testing has gone much smoother on the HD side. Microsoft has provided some simple, yet extremely useful tools, to debug HDi. Toshiba also has modified hardware available for the authoring environment. Both greatly increase efficiency. I wish things paralleled on the BD side, specifically BDJ. The code debugging isn't all that bad, but testing the code in a player or emulator is a nightmare. Just today, I tried some pretty basic BDJ in 5 different scenarios. There was one software emulator, one software player, and 3 stand-alone players. One crashed completely; two only processed about half the code, not the same half; and two others handled the code correctly, but were slightly inconsistent. From an authoring standpoint, it's not good to say the least.

I never said the answer would be short or pretty. :)

Amir/Ben,

The Nine Inch Nails are releasing 'Beside You in Time' next month, and they noted:

"Microsoft helped immensely by modifying their VC-1 encoder to better deal with the dynamic HD concert video."

Can either of you talk more about what modifications you made?


Thanks in advance!

Microsoft has provided some simple, yet extremely useless tools, to debug HDi.
I hope you meant "useful" :).

If not, please provide me with some feedback!

Amir/Ben,

The Nine Inch Nails are releasing 'Beside You in Time' next month, and they noted:

"Microsoft helped immensely by modifying their VC-1 encoder to better deal with the dynamic HD concert video."

Can either of you talk more about what modifications you made?

It's so completely awesome, it kills me that I can't yet...

Microsoft has provided some simple, yet extremely useless tools, to debug HDi. Jeff did you mean useless or useful?? Or was it a Freudian slip?

ben/amir,

on the topic of the NIN disc...
Amir mentioned in a different thread that the HD DVD will contain something that no previous HD DVD included. According to nin.com, the Blu Ray has a higher bitrate (both using VC-1), and the alternate angles for three songs can be done on the fly (the HD DVD doesn't have this feature).

So, what can we expect from this release on HD DVD? I'm already excited that I can listen to it in TrueHD on my HD-A1, and I'll be getting a 1080p set very soon. What are you guys hiding? ;) remember... you're dealing with Reznor fans... we can be crazy... (case in point: my NIN CD/Vinyl/Cassette/VHS/DVD collection...)

dear amirm,

will the dts patch for the 360 hd dvd add-on allow 7.1ch hd dvds to be converted to dts es tracks so we dont loose and channels of sound?

I suspect we will be using 16/48 LPCM for the domestic releases depending on when this title is put on the calendar. Because Spiderman is a special franchise, it could also be considered to pair this with a 20/48 Dolby THD instead of the usual Legacy DD. Would you consider starting a thread on this so we can see get other opinions? I have nothing against DTS HD, but the hardware support is not there to the same extent as Dolby THD (PS3), so I don't think that will happen.
paidgeek,

I started a poll for you in the BD software section so you can get a sense of what people are looking for with these highly anticipated releases. Please check it out, and confirm that I didn't screw anything up.

To everyone else, paidgeek is interested in our thoughts so go vote if you're in BD and Spiderman!!!

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=789695

It's so completely awesome, it kills me that I can't yet...

patent application hasn't been filed yet?

I suspect we will be using 16/48 LPCM for the domestic releases depending on when this title is put on the calendar. Because Spiderman is a special franchise, it could also be considered to pair this with a 20/48 Dolby THD instead of the usual Legacy DD. Would you consider starting a thread on this so we can see get other opinions? I have nothing against DTS HD, but the hardware support is not there to the same extent as Dolby THD (PS3), so I don't think that will happen.

when you opt for dd-thd on bd you have to also include a separate dd track in addition to the mlp track...do the totals for bitrate and space consumed when using dd-thd on bd exceed what the bitrate and space consumed would be if using dts-hd ma which employs a core and 'extensions'?

just curious...i gues either way you have compatibility with legacy equipment but if the dts approach with a core and extensions is more efficient to get the same lossless result the engineer in me would say use the dts approach.

To any MICROSOFT insiders.. Amirm or Benwaggoner

Have you heard anything about a patch to correct the HD DVD audio sync problems with the XBOX 360 HD DVD addon? Is a software update all it would take to fix this?

I hope you meant "useful" .

If not, please provide me with some feedback!
Jeff did you mean useless or useful?? Or was it a Freudian slip? Yep, I definitely meant useful. I changed the original. Word needs a thought checker to go along with spelling and grammar.

We are getting some flack for judder Dennis. You promised me we wouldn't regret going this way :). We will stay the course but you all need to do more to evanglize 24p in your respective countries for this to stick...

Sorry for the late response Amir, I've only just read your response now.

No, I knew that 24p in PAL regions would be slightly constroversial. People love to endlessly debate which is worse 3:2 pull down judder or 4% speedup. The debates rage on, been there done that.

I've always stated that people who care passionately can avoid the former (with appropriate 24p players and displays) but can not avoid the latter (speedup can not be undone). That's the main crux of why 24p is the correct worldwide choice.

With 24p players and displays starting to enter the picture things are looking good. Amir, I see Toshiba announced new 120Hz LCDs at CES, do you know, can they accept 24p? 24p ---> 5:5 pulldown ---> 120Hz, it makes sense to me.

Anyway I believe 24p is the only morally correct formatting choice (for 24fps content). I'm over the moon that both Blu-ray and HD-DVD so far are avoiding 25p. Good stuff allround. I implore both crowds to continue this line, pretty please with a cherry on top :)

A few are complaining so it seems. Amir/paidgeek everyone else, please ignore these people (they are the noisy few). And they are wrong, in this upcoming 24p age (its here already infact, Sony Pearl as an example).

Good info allround. What a great thread this is.

Dennis.

Yeah, and there are a lot of left-over mixes as well.

HD DVD has an equivalent audio-only spec. It basically adds a little metadata to allow display-free operation equivalent to an audio CD player.

Man, could you stick a lot of music in TrueHD on one of those!

Good to know Ben.

I really am hoping that high-res music still has a place in this world, be it TrueHD or Master-Audio or PCM. Give me Pink Floyd "Wish You Were Here" in high-res 5.1 audio. That would be very cool.

Unlikely to occur in the real world :(

Dennis.

Oh, certainly. What I'm advocating is that widescreen discs have a "2.35" mode that will make sure all menus and subtitles are moved to the active image area. But I don't think we want to make it required - 16:9 viewers prefer to have the subtitles in the letterbox. It's trivial in HD DVD to just make this a user-controlled toggle.

Since a studio controls their own persitant storage, you could even have all titles from the same studio check for what the setting of the player is, so new movies would pop up in 2.35 mode by default.

For the record I am 100% ok with this. It seems like a great solution.

Laters,
Jeff

Good to know Ben.

I really am hoping that high-res music still has a place in this world, be it TrueHD or Master-Audio or PCM. Give me Pink Floyd "Wish You Were Here" in high-res 5.1 audio. That would be very cool.

Unlikely to occur in the real world :(

Dennis.



Many of us have been enjoying MLP-Audio for years, if the "Dolby" stamp helps hi-res multichannel music take off I'm all for it, even if it means just concert videos....I'd love to see Woodstock remastered...

when you opt for dd-thd on bd you have to also include a separate dd track in addition to the mlp track...do the totals for bitrate and space consumed when using dd-thd on bd exceed what the bitrate and space consumed would be if using dts-hd ma which employs a core and 'extensions'?

just curious...i gues either way you have compatibility with legacy equipment but if the dts approach with a core and extensions is more efficient to get the same lossless result the engineer in me would say use the dts approach.

We have tested this and the Dolby core plus MLP extension is within 5 - 10% of the efficiency of DTS HD. The members here really shouldn't be concerned that the core plus extension data is even separate. It is something we have to allow for in the authoring tools, but it is a transparent function to the consumer.

paidgeek,

I started a poll for you in the BD software section so you can get a sense of what people are looking for with these highly anticipated releases. Please check it out, and confirm that I didn't screw anything up.

To everyone else, paidgeek is interested in our thoughts so go vote if you're in BD and Spiderman!!!

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=789695

Thank you for starting the thread with the poll. The only thing I would add is that we might be able to do both a 20/48 Dolby THD and a 16/48 LPCM on this title. The Dolby THD will be legacy compatible using the core extraction and we will get the benefit of supporting consumers that have Dolby THD decoders and LPCM only. I cannot guarantee this will be happen, but it is worth taking a hard look at internally.

For those following TotalHD as it developments, Sonic is now supporting it.

Sonic Scenarist World’s First Authoring System to Support Warner Bros Total Hi Def Disc (http://www.sonic.com/about/press/news/2007/01/warnerbros.aspx)

Hi, this is for paidgeek I guess. I just saw a leak that Lord of the Rings is in the works on BD. I won't press on dates but would just like to know. Is it in the cue?
will I get it this year?

And this is for anyone...

On my Sony Bravia during changes in scenes the screen sometimes goes black for a second while the audio never faulters. Is there something going on with the coding here? I have only seen it on a couple DVD's from my DVD player and BD on my PS3. I assume since this TV handels all the other signals I thow at it just fine like my DVR and Cable including the PC I'm typing this on that it's not a TV issue but a content issue.

anyone...

Hi, this is for paidgeek I guess. I just saw a leak that Lord of the Rings is in the works on BD. I won't press on dates but would just like to know. Is it in the cue?
will I get it this year?

And this is for anyone...

On my Sony Bravia during changes in scenes the screen sometimes goes black for a second while the audio never faulters. Is there something going on with the coding here? I have only seen it on a couple DVD's from my DVD player and BD on my PS3. I assume since this TV handels all the other signals I thow at it just fine like my DVR and Cable including the PC I'm typing this on that it's not a TV issue but a content issue.

anyone...

I don't have any info for you on LOTR. It is not our title so I can't comment.

Thank you for starting the thread with the poll. The only thing I would add is that we might be able to do both a 20/48 Dolby THD and a 16/48 LPCM on this title. The Dolby THD will be legacy compatible using the core extraction and we will get the benefit of supporting consumers that have Dolby THD decoders and LPCM only. I cannot guarantee this will be happen, but it is worth taking a hard look at internally.

How is the true Pip going? Will we see it in Blu-ray discs this June? or Fall?

I don't have any info for you on LOTR.
And those of us who do, can't say Jack :).

How is the true Pip going? Will we see it in Blu-ray discs this June? or Fall?

We should be getting test results in the next few months. Fall would be likely release timing for a title that uses it with public demonstrations by June or July.

And those of us who do, can't say Jack :).

I hope that they encode it on Mpeg2 for BD and VC 1 for HD DVD...that will be an interesting comparison..... :rolleyes:

Newline is delivering LOTR on Total HD discs, VC1 encoding and 7.1 TruHD.

http://hd-insider.com/2007/01/17/lord-of-the-rings-hd-dvdbluray-details-trickling-out.aspx

I felt that a quick post with this desired info would be OK?


Is it limited to just TotalHD discs?? No HD DVD? or BD?


It does not say for sure whether it will be a TotalHD disc...

Thank you for starting the thread with the poll. The only thing I would add is that we might be able to do both a 20/48 Dolby THD and a 16/48 LPCM on this title. The Dolby THD will be legacy compatible using the core extraction and we will get the benefit of supporting consumers that have Dolby THD decoders and LPCM only. I cannot guarantee this will be happen, but it is worth taking a hard look at internally.Do the tools support 20/48 LPCM? If so, although I haven't done the math I think that 20/48 LPCM + 640k DD would have both bandwidth and space advantages over 20/48 DTHD + 640k DD + 16/48 LPCM and everybody would be able to get audio that is at least as good with the 1st combination as the 2nd combination, but some would get better (those without TrueHD decoding). And 24/48 LPCM might be close to a wash bandwidth wise compared to 16/48 LPCM and 20/48 DTHD (although it looks like it might take a little more space depending on how well the DTHD compresses). Is there a reason to do THD and LPCM instead of LPCM with the same bit depth as the THD would be in the other combination?

--Darin

For HD DVD insiders.

Can you explain exactly what a 'HD DVD' player without HDi would miss in practical terms for an end user please, perhaps hinting at the areas where it is needed, used, essential etc?

Thanks to all insiders fortheir inputs.

Do the tools support 20/48 LPCM? If so, although I haven't done the math I think that 20/48 LPCM + 640k DD would have both bandwidth and space advantages over 20/48 DTHD + 640k DD + 16/48 LPCM and everybody would be able to get audio that is at least as good with the 1st combination as the 2nd combination, but some would get better (those without TrueHD decoding). And 24/48 LPCM might be close to a wash bandwidth wise compared to 16/48 LPCM and 20/48 DTHD (although it looks like it might take a little more space depending on how well the DTHD compresses). Is there a reason to do THD and LPCM instead of LPCM with the same bit depth as the THD would be in the other combination?

--Darin

The authoring tools will support 20/48 LPCM, but because of the way the Blu-ray specifies the audio data to be formatted, it takes up the same amount of space as a 24/48 LPCM file. For another 1 Mbit/ sec or so, we can include both a 16/48 LPCM and a 20/48 Dolby THD stream

Paidgeek,

wouldn't DTS-HD MA 24/48 occupy much less than the option presented above (16/48 LPCM + 20/48 Dolby THD, though this would offer a chance to do an interesting comparison) with a higher quality and still ensure backwards compatibility, because of the DTS 1,5mbps core.

I believe it's the perfect choice in case full 24/48 PCM is not possible.

We have tested this and the Dolby core plus MLP extension is within 5 - 10% of the efficiency of DTS HD. The members here really shouldn't be concerned that the core plus extension data is even separate. It is something we have to allow for in the authoring tools, but it is a transparent function to the consumer.

i agree that in general average users should not be concerned, but we're here to talk about things that others don't care about since we are all geeks :)

so i want clarification b/c you use the terms core and extension in relation to dd-thd but the bd spec, not even sure if dd itself is capable, doesn't utilize dd-thd in this manner but instead has two separate encoded tracks (they are muxed together, i understand that), one standard dd track (not sure of the bitrate) and a separate and distinct mlp track.

can you clarify this?

tia

And those of us who do, can't say Jack :).

Can you tell us if it's likely to be a THD?

For Amir or anyone else who might know:

I read elsewhere that the Saw fils would be coming to HD-DVD via a Spanish release I believe. DO you know if these would be or include the unrated versions? I am big fan of the series, but have yet to pick up the unrated version of part 2 in SD and am trying to decide if I can hold off on the upcoming part 3 SD release. Between the earlier Lionsgate rumors, and now what looks like the possibility of an import, I am trying to make intelligent purchase decisions.

Thanks for all your time and help around here!

Paidgeek,

wouldn't DTS-HD MA 24/48 occupy much less than the option presented above (16/48 LPCM + 20/48 Dolby THD, though this would offer a chance to do an interesting comparison) with a higher quality and still ensure backwards compatibility, because of the DTS 1,5mbps core.

I believe it's the perfect choice in case full 24/48 PCM is not possible.

DTS-HD is a good codec, but it is not well supported in players. LPCM is supported in all players and Dolby THD is supported in the PS3 with other CE players coming. This the fundamental reason for using LPCM and Dolby THD at this time.

i agree that in general average users should not be concerned, but we're to talk about things that others don't care about since we are all geeks :)

so i want clarification b/c you use the terms core and extension in relation to dd-thd but the bd spec, not even sure if dd itself is capable, doesn't utilize dd-thd in this manner but instead has two separate encoded tracks (they are muxed together, i understand that), one standard dd track (not sure of the bitrate) and a separate and distinct mlp track.

can you clarify this?

tia

You are correct that the DD and MLP files are not dependent on each other for decoding. Logically, they can be thought of as the same file, but as far as the way the data is encoded they are separate. My earlier use of the word extension is unintentionally misleading.

You are correct that the DD and MLP files are not dependent on each other for decoding. Logically, they can be thought of as the same file, but as far as the way the data is encoded they are separate. My earlier use of the word extension is unintentionally misleading.

thanks...looking forward to the spidey trilogy no matter what audio codec is used :D

@Microsoft representatives:
Any news on the xbox DD+ soundbug? Or is this actually not a bug - only an agreement between Toshiba and Microsoft that Microsoft gets cheap supply of HD-DVD drives for the xbox but in exchange Microsoft restricts the audio capabilities of the xbox for a couple month to "the look of perfect and the sound of VHS" (sorry for insulting VHS) so they do not destroy Toshibas market share?

No it is not required. It is needed though for network and persistent storage access.

Talk is correct. Replicated BD-ROM discs do require AACS.


Thanks for the answer. If AACS is not required on HD DVD ROM, does that mean some independent replicator could do HD DVD business without getting license from AACS? If AACS&ROM Mark is mandatory on every bluray disc, does that mean the player would refuse to play the ROM disc if it didn't detect AACS and ROM MARK?

Also any insider could shed some light on the reason for this difference?
Thanks again.

With the announcement that LotR will feature TrueHD 7.1 audio, I have a few questions for any insiders who might know:

- Is this the first 7.1 track to be released?

- I assume both formats support 7.1?

- What players can decode/output 7.1? (The Toshiba site stated "TrueHD5.1" for their decks)?

Thanks.

Paidgeek,

thanks again for the great care and attention you're dedicating to answering our questions. It has substantially increased my interest in Sony titles (you guys already hold many of my all time favorites) ;) .

For now, I'm being extremely selective with my purchases because I have to import everything from either US or Japan (here in Brazil we have an outrageous 60% import fee). So I'm only getting titles with real 24/48 master quality (uncompressed or lossless compressed) and great PQ.

So this leads me to my next question: knowing for a fact that we have one of the largest DVD markets in the world (larger than many European countries combined) when can we expect Sony Pictures start rolling some BDs around here in Brazil?

You are correct that the DD and MLP files are not dependent on each other for decoding. Logically, they can be thought of as the same file, but as far as the way the data is encoded they are separate. My earlier use of the word extension is unintentionally misleading.

This split encoding would probably be a bit less efficient than a combined one. Are there any metrics on this? Really just curious. BD has plenty of capacity and bandwidth to handle any inefficiencies.

Gary

Oh, certainly. What I'm advocating is that widescreen discs have a "2.35" mode that will make sure all menus and subtitles are moved to the active image area. But I don't think we want to make it required - 16:9 viewers prefer to have the subtitles in the letterbox. It's trivial in HD DVD to just make this a user-controlled toggle.

Yes, yes, and yes. To all concerned parties, please make this happen as soon as possible on both formats. I cannot emphasize enough what a pain this is. It's a constant topic of discussion in the 2.35:1 CIH forum on this site.

Thank you.

For Amir or anyone else who might know:

I read elsewhere that the Saw fils would be coming to HD-DVD via a Spanish release I believe. DO you know if these would be or include the unrated versions? I am big fan of the series, but have yet to pick up the unrated version of part 2 in SD and am trying to decide if I can hold off on the upcoming part 3 SD release. Between the earlier Lionsgate rumors, and now what looks like the possibility of an import, I am trying to make intelligent purchase decisions.

Thanks for all your time and help around here!
I don't personally know but have asked our European folks to see if they know the answer and can share.

Is this the first 7.1 track to be released?

I'm not an insider, but no. The first was Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence. The Descent also has 7.1, but they just duplicated the rear surround from the 6.1 master.

Amirm,
You stated that the new FW for G2 models would be out soon any word on when?
AS for the fixes...can you comment on any specific fixes?

Thank You

For HD DVD insiders.

Can you explain exactly what a 'HD DVD' player without HDi would miss in practical terms for an end user please, perhaps hinting at the areas where it is needed, used, essential etc?
Probably best to explain what the player would have to do, and let you decide what that means.

As you know, 95% of the HD DVD used advanced menus and interactivity using HDi. This is a scripting language, akin to what you see on a web page. Any player that wants to play HD DVD, must understand enough of HDi to find the individual clips and chapter points to play the movie. Given the fact that content owners can write very sophisticated interactivity system which may burry the a/v file under a lot of complex logic, some titles may be difficult to parse to find and play the a/v file.

In addition, since HDi is responsible for menu and UI generation, they player has to do this job itself. Needless to say, this means all the menus will be identical since the player can not adapt to each title. Indeed, this is what the LG player does. It has its own static menus that it shows for any HD DVD title regardless of what was on disc.

If you look at the LG screenshots reported here (and verified by me in using the player itself), there are other usability features that get dropped on the floor. For example, the chapter points in LG are just time codes. The player doesn't seem to know how to pick up the bitmaps that show the representative scene for that chapter.

Overall, LG is doing a decent job of finding the video to play. But how good a job they do on future titles they have not yet seen, remains to be seen. Before buying one, I would make sure an assurance of firmware upgrades comes with it :).

Can you tell us if it's likely to be a THD?
No I can't. But do you want to tell me if you want it to be THD given the concerns I have expressed about availability of BD-50 in that form? :)

No I can't. But do you want to tell me if you want it to be THD given the concerns I have expressed about availability of BD-50 in that form? :)

He may mean: Will it have DTHD?

:)

Gary

This split encoding would probably be a bit less efficient than a combined one. Are there any metrics on this?
Range is typically in 10 to 30% depending on how good the algorithm is.

Really just curious. BD has plenty of capacity and bandwidth to handle any inefficiencies.

Gary
Only if they use advanced video codecs. Remember that MPEG-2 degrades much worse than advanced codecs when pushed for bandwidth (hence the fact that it can't always produce good quality). And current BD titles use much higher MPEG-2 data rates in an attempt to match our quality. Take that extra bandwidth away and you might not like what you see with MPEG-2.

He may mean: Will it have DTHD?

:)

Gary
Oh, this is sure getting bad :). We definitely need new terms for this thing then.

And no, I can't answer that either or confirm the rumor site.

No I can't. But do you want to tell me if you want it to be THD given the concerns I have expressed about availability of BD-50 in that form? :)

NO THD LOTR EE sounds to me like a $150-200 box set. NO THX. I LOVE the movies and cant wait for them. But I think THD is gonna be 40-50 a disk for a premium title like LOTR OUCH...

I'm really curious about the question someone asked above. What HD-DVD players support 7.1? can that be output over any HDMI? If more titles start having 7.1 I might have to upgrade my receiver to a HDMI..

@Microsoft representatives:
Any news on the xbox DD+ soundbug?
DD+ is fine on Xbox. The levels may not be right and the team is checking into that but there is nothing broken about it. Issue is that in the process of getting it out of the 360 over optical, we have to convert it back to DD and that impacts the qualtiy. We have the DTS encoder ready but per my previous notes, I don't have a schedule of when that updates goes out but it should be in weeks, rather than months.

Or is this actually not a bug - only an agreement between Toshiba and Microsoft that Microsoft gets cheap supply of HD-DVD drives for the xbox but in exchange Microsoft restricts the audio capabilities of the xbox for a couple month to "the look of perfect and the sound of VHS" (sorry for insulting VHS) so they do not destroy Toshibas market share?
I hope you are joking about this. If we wanted to degrade the experience, we would not have put out 1080p over VGA either. We want and will build the best experience for 360. Just have to remember that Xbox is a major platform for gaming so we can't touch its software quickly without major regression testing to make sure we don't break anything else outside of HD DVD playback (and are at mercy of core Xbox team to do the release for us).

Oh, this is sure getting bad :). We definitely need new terms for this thing then.


Funny thing is, your answer is still valid slightly modified:


No I can't. But do you want to tell me if you want it to be DTHD given the concerns I have expressed about availability of BD-50 in THD?


:D

Cinram does have a BD50 line. So, it's likely by the time LOTR and/or THD comes out, BD50 won't be an issue.

Gary

This split encoding would probably be a bit less efficient than a combined one. Are there any metrics on this? Really just curious. BD has plenty of capacity and bandwidth to handle any inefficiencies.

Gary

As mentioned earlier, the difference between DTS-HD and Dolby THD (including the legacy stream) is from 5 - 10%. Please see actual data below:

Dolby TrueHD
"Click" (1hr 47min) English 5.1 16-bit version is 1.215G, and the 24-bit version is 2.673G.
Including a 640kbps AC3 core, 16-bit version is 1.722G, and the 24-bit version is 3.18G.

"Rent" (2hr 15min) English 5.1 16-bit version is 1.698G, and the 24-bit version is 3.53G.
Including a 640kbps AC3 core, 16-bit version is 2.335G, and the 24-bit version is 4.167G.

DTS-HD
"Click" (1hr 47min) English 5.1 16-bit version is 1.719G, and the 24-bit version is 2.951G.

"Rent" (2hr 15min) English 5.1 16-bit version is 2.28G, and the 24-bit version is 3.927G.

Paidgeek,

thanks again for the great care and attention you're dedicating to answering our questions. It has substantially increased my interest in Sony titles (you guys already hold many of my all time favorites) ;) .

For now, I'm being extremely selective with my purchases because I have to import everything from either US or Japan (here in Brazil we have an outrageous 60% import fee). So I'm only getting titles with real 24/48 master quality (uncompressed or lossless compressed) and great PQ.

So this leads me to my next question: knowing for a fact that we have one of the largest DVD markets in the world (larger than many European countries combined) when can we expect Sony Pictures start rolling some BDs around here?

I will see what I can find out and what I am permitted to disclose. I'm glad to know we have descriminating customers for HD in your market.

Probably best to explain what the player would have to do, and let you decide what that means.

As you know, 95% of the HD DVD used advanced menus and interactivity using HDi. This is a scripting language, akin to what you see on a web page. Any player that wants to play HD DVD, must understand enough of HDi to find the individual clips and chapter points to play the movie. Given the fact that content owners can write very sophisticated interactivity system which may burry the a/v file under a lot of complex logic, some titles may be difficult to parse to find and play the a/v file.

In addition, since HDi is responsible for menu and UI generation, they player has to do this job itself. Needless to say, this means all the menus will be identical since the player can not adapt to each title. Indeed, this is what the LG player does. It has its own static menus that it shows for any HD DVD title regardless of what was on disc.
If you look at the LG screenshots reported here (and verified by me in using the player itself), there are other usability features that get dropped on the floor. For example, the chapter points in LG are just time codes. The player doesn't seem to know how to pick up the bitmaps that show the representative scene for that chapter.

Overall, LG is doing a decent job of finding the video to play. But how good a job they do on future titles they have not yet seen, remains to be seen. Before buying one, I would make sure an assurance of firmware upgrades comes with it :).


If I was a studio, or counsel to a studio, I would start thinking copyright infringement lawsuit(s)...do you know of anyone with such concerns?

Amirm,
You stated that the new FW for G2 models would be out soon any word on when?
AS for the fixes...can you comment on any specific fixes?

Thank You
The release notes I got were very generic ("Improve HD DVD playback"). So I don't know exactly what they fixed unfortunatley other than possiblly what Josh pointed out as they were replying to that query.

Range is typically in 10 to 30% depending on how good the algorithm is.


Only if they use advanced video codecs. Remember that MPEG-2 degrades much worse than advanced codecs when pushed for bandwidth (hence the fact that it can't always produce good quality). And current BD titles use much higher MPEG-2 data rates in an attempt to match our quality. Take that extra bandwidth away and you might not like what you see with MPEG-2.

Please see my post on this. The difference is as little as 5% in some cases and no worse than 10% as measured.

With all due respect, we are not "trying" to match HD-DVD picture quality, in my opinion we often meet or exceed the quality of HD-DVD (when judged on the same title for instance).

We are finding that all the codecs benefit from having maximum available bandwidth, particularly on the most difficult masters.

No I can't. But do you want to tell me if you want it to be THD given the concerns I have expressed about availability of BD-50 in that form? :)

Well, my best guess is, if it is THD, New line (as Warner usually does today to my understanding) will simply use the same encode & file size for both HD DVD and Blu-ray. So, if the BD is 25 gig, that would make it only 5 gig short of the HD DVD limit. The question would become how important are those 5 gig here. Given these are long movies, every gig may count - but I'm sure they'll probably be VC-1 so that should help.

Aside from that, so long as the costs of THD are very close to separate HD DVD and BD, I think I may prefer THD. Why? Because it alleviates my fear of buying discs of a format which may fail. I own a PS3 and HD-A2 and to be honest, I am very learly of buying discs for either format. I'm buying a couple here and there, but resorting to renting for the most part. I don't feel confident in investing in a lot of software right now because of the format war and uncertainty of how things will turn out. With DVD, I would buy with no problems - but it's different this time around. THD gives me more confidence as I would not have to replace the disc with the "other" format one day.

I will see what I can find out and what I am permitted to disclose. I'm glad to know we have descriminating customers for HD in your market.

Please see what you can find out and report back some time. Activity is always very high on the BD & HD-DVD area of our biggest HT forum is lately. Lots of enthusiasts starving for HD stuff, but most people are waiting for an official launch. Toshiba announced today that will be be putting out HD-DVD until june, I believe it would be a real loss not to get the advantage of being first to the market here.



On different note, thanks for the great data on DTS-HD and DTHD. Very interesting to find out that @ real 24 master audio DTS-HD is more efficient than DTHD+DD lossy and the files are not all that big considering BD storage (even BD-25).

Considering that the DTS core has more than twice the bitrate of the DD lossy, and legacy DTS capability is outspread by now. Wouldn't that be the perfect choice for everyone?

The legacy users can still achieve better quality through optical or coaxial outputs and soon we can expect DTS-HD MA full compatibility to increase substantially for the coming months.

To amirm or paidgeek or anyone else who knows:

The star trek films appear to be slated as (initially) an HD-DVD exclusive release. It is rumored to be because of issues with BD-Java. Is this true or is there another reason?

Oh, this is sure getting bad :). We definitely need new terms for this thing then.

And no, I can't answer that either or confirm the rumor site.

Given the post immediately before the original question, he almost certainly meant THD (as in the new Warner format). Which was how Amir interpreted it.

He may mean: Will it have DTHD?



Gary

Oh, this is sure getting bad :). We definitely need new terms for this thing then.

Given the post immediately before the original question, he almost certainly meant THD (as in the new Warner format). Which was how Amir interpreted it.

Observation of people actually in the business is Dolby TrueHD is signified correctly by Dolby THD or DTHD. It looks like the lay tendency to just say THD is just typical lay shortcutting -- the need to be understood being often overlooked.

Too bad we still have the THD (as per Warner) and THD (as in Total Harmonic Distortion) problem. Guess we're stuck with context to separate those two -- though shouldn't be too hard to distinguish fortunately :).

Aside from that, so long as the costs of THD are very close to separate HD DVD and BD, I think I may prefer THD. Why? Because it alleviates my fear of buying discs of a format which may fail. I own a PS3 and HD-A2 and to be honest, I am very learly of buying discs for either format. I'm buying a couple here and there, but resorting to renting for the most part. I don't feel confident in investing in a lot of software right now because of the format war and uncertainty of how things will turn out. With DVD, I would buy with no problems - but it's different this time around. THD gives me more confidence as I would not have to replace the disc with the "other" format one day.

That problem is solved by the dual format player. I think it reasonable to suppose the LG will not be the one and only, more likely the first of a trend.

If I have to pay significantly more for a THD than I would pay for an HD DVD, then I simply won't buy. Doubt I'm the only one either.

paidgeek,

Any chance we'll be seeing Final Fantasy: Spirits Within on Blu-ray in 07?

paidgeek,

Any chance we'll be seeing Final Fantasy: Spirits Within on Blu-ray in 07?

Sorry that I have to continually decline to answer release timing questions... it's just that the marketing department at SPE doesn't want the engineers leaking this kind of information...

paidgeek,

I am not a fan of decoding audio and reencoding in real time into lower bitrate to fit over an digital audio.

Is SPE moving towards Dobly TrueHD for your future disks? If so, I have a question on the nature of BD's TrueHD implementation.

Does the BD version of Dolby TrueHD still have a core DD+ version (at high bitrate) the same way as DTS-HDMA? I am torn between getting the LPCM7.1 HDMI AVRs today and awaiting for the nextgen AVRs that can include the advanced audio codecs.

If I decide to wait, I am more interested in a high quality audio that can go out over the PS3 toslink until I do get the nextgen AVR. If this works, this will allow me to skip one upgrade cycle for AVRs (and speaker rewiring & placement).

paidgeek,

I am not a fan of decoding audio and reencoding in real time into lower bitrate to fit over an digital audio.

Is SPE moving towards Dobly TrueHD for your future disks? If so, I have a question on the nature of BD's TrueHD implementation.

Does the BD version of Dolby TrueHD still have a core DD+ version (at high bitrate) the same way as DTS-HDMA? I am torn between getting the LPCM7.1 HDMI AVRs today and awaiting for the nextgen AVRs that can include the advanced audio codecs.

If I decide to wait, I am more interested in a high quality audio that can go out over the PS3 toslink until I do get the nextgen AVR. If this works, this will allow me to skip one upgrade cycle for AVRs (and speaker rewiring & placement).

I think it you will be well served by using HDMI with an 8ch LPCM signal rather than decode an advanced codec in a new reciever. There have been other posts in this forum detailing why this has advantages, and I think there are few arguments against it. I answer to your first question, I have mentioned in some previous posts that we will likely use Dolby THD for Europe and continue with LPCM in the U.S., at least for the time being.

I think it you will be well served by using HDMI with an 8ch LPCM signal rather than decode an advanced codec in a new reciever. There have been other posts in this forum detailing why this has advantages, and I think there are few arguments against it.
If this is true, why is that so many of the BD players released and set to release lack built-in advanced audio decoders? Even Sony's standalone BD player lacks decoders, right? Why would they leave them out if it's the preferable way to hear the new tracks?

If this is true, why is that so many of the BD players released and set to release lack built-in advanced audio decoders? Even Sony's standalone BD player lacks decoders, right? Why would they leave them out if it's the preferable way to hear the new tracks?

Your answer calls for me to speculate on hardware maker decisions and I also don't always understand or agree with them. There are many complications around audio in both formats. I think defacto practices will emerge over time. If you can afford a new receiver that supports decoding advanced audio and you have a player that can do it as well, you will be well covered.

Amir,

Following the Chronos debate can you tell me if HD-DVD requires content to be converted to 1080i prior to being output?

Do HD-DVD players that can output 1080p (PC's with software players and Xbox360) convert to 1080i prior to being output at 1080p?

Thanks

Jeff

Paidgeek, thank you for the info on the "Click" audio. I assume you guys actually bothered to encode in all the formats and looked at the final data?, so as someone else pointed out, DTS-HD is the most efficient at 24 bits (and 24 bits SHOULD be the target for everything). It may not look like a big difference, but if you actually end up going for AVC I guess you can go for 2 lossless languages or even 3 (music), and with DTS-HD all those little bits here and there would be of help. Have you guys done the math for that kind of scenario for Europe? Thanks again to all insiders (amir too, even though I´m more a blu believer myself)

Paidgeek, thank you for the info on the "Click" audio. I assume you guys actually bothered to encode in all the formats and looked at the final data?, so as someone else pointed out, DTS-HD is the most efficient at 24 bits (and 24 bits SHOULD be the target for everything). It may not look like a big difference, but if you actually end up going for AVC I guess you can go for 2 lossless languages or even 3 (music), and with DTS-HD all those little bits here and there would be of help. Have you guys done the math for that kind of scenario for Europe? Thanks again to all insiders (amir too, even though I´m more a blu believer myself)

Yes, these are actual file sizes after encoding.

I am in favor of getting the best quality as efficiently as possible, but as I have pointed out in earlier posts, it does not make too much sense to encode in a format that only a minority of consumers can decode.

paidgeek,

i'm a bit confused now; bd seems to address MLP (meridian lossless packing)...isn't that dvd-audio? did dolby simply change the name?

amir,

this graphic from dolby's site indicates that MLP is mandatory for HD DVD; can i pop a dvd-audio disc into my tosh?

http://www.dolby.com/images/products/dmp/ComparisonTable_800px.jpg

Please see my post on this. The difference is as little as 5% in some cases and no worse than 10% as measured.
My comment was not regarding that. Gary said that you could waste bandwidth in BD because you had plenty of it, in the form of PCM for some, TrueHD for other, etc. I remarked that you did not. With MPEG-2 you need very high peak rate or you are going to suffer. Chopping 6 mbit/sec from MPEG-2 in the form of adding another TrueHD track, is going to cause visible performance degradation.

Also, the range I gave was wrt to layered codecs versus not. Your example was something else altogether different (adding DD to TrueHD).

With all due respect, we are not "trying" to match HD-DVD picture quality, in my opinion we often meet or exceed the quality of HD-DVD (when judged on the same title for instance).
I appreciate that you take pride in your work, as do we. So in that context, I accept your claim. But do note that you use the word "often" above, meaning you don't always succeed in matching our quality :).

We are finding that all the codecs benefit from having maximum available bandwidth, particularly on the most difficult masters.
We are also finding that spending more than two days on an encode, and with better tools and compression technology, you can get even better results. And that insisting on hardware encoders from your own company to get the job done, may not be the right way to go to extract the absolute best quality. To be blunt, to the extent Sony continues to avoid VC-1, shows that other factors than ultimate quality is at work in your decisions here. And I say this not as a personal comment as I know the compressionists at Sony would love to do the best job and we hold you all in high regard. But it seems that they are not always allowed based on the company policy above them.

As to “most difficult masters,” your recent statements seem to indicate that you are avoiding them in order to show better quality with MPEG-2. That is a good business decision given where you have been, but does not impress those of us in the business of dealing with such content on a daily basis. We take noisy and difficult to compress content head on, put our best engineers to work hand in hand with our partner post houses to create good quality work. Slowing down such releases, as tempting as it might be, is not something that we or our studio partners like do.

amir,

this graphic from dolby's site indicates that MLP is mandatory for HD DVD; can i pop a dvd-audio disc into my tosh?

http://www.dolby.com/images/products/dmp/ComparisonTable_800px.jpg
Unfortunately not. Yes, the codec is there. But not the rest of the system code to parse the menus and such on the disc. I also understand the royalties for DVD-A are quite high so some folks avoid it for that reason.

I think you have to wait or high-end companies to build players that handle both, and do a great job while doing it.

To amirm or paidgeek or anyone else who knows:

The star trek films appear to be slated as (initially) an HD-DVD exclusive release. It is rumored to be because of issues with BD-Java. Is this true or is there another reason?
I can only speak on behalf of the TV series. There, CBS has decided to only publish them on HD DVD. I have not asked them why. You may be right on that but I don't know for sure.

Amir,

Following the Chronos debate can you tell me if HD-DVD requires content to be converted to 1080i prior to being output?
No. HD DVD content is progerssive and is encoded that way. Metadata saying how a player can convert it to 1080i, does not change the nature of the stream on disc.

Do HD-DVD players that can output 1080p (PC's with software players and Xbox360) convert to 1080i prior to being output at 1080p?

Thanks

Jeff
The PCs do not. They simply decode and play in progressive. IVT is very expensive to do in the PC at HD rates anyway. HD DVD players with such output are not out yet. So I can't tell you architecturally how they convert to 24p as there are different methods (decoder output of 24p, our 1080i conversion back to 1080p but in lossless manner, etc.).

In the HD DVD truck, we use DVDO VP-50 processor. It takes the 1080i60 from Toshiba, converts it back to 1080p48 which we feed to the Marantz projector. The whole process is lossless as we run test streams through it and it fully resolves 1080p. So putting the same processing inside a DVD player can accomplish the same, and have a high quality de-interlacer for video content (e.g. concerts shot truely at 1080i or DVDs).

I can only speak on behalf of the TV series. There, CBS has decided to only publish them on HD DVD. I have not asked them why. You may be right on that but I don't know for sure.

Paramount, the company which is publishing the discs, has said that they will bring Star Trek to both formats, and that the "exclusive in 2007" line means just that, as it will be a late 2007 release and will be on Blu-ray in early 2008. Do you have additional insight that contradicts that?

Gary said that you could waste bandwidth in BD because you had plenty of it, in the form of PCM for some, TrueHD for other, etc.

I said the bandwidth and capacity of BD allows the inefficiencies of the split TrueHD/DD core form to not be a big issue.

I could also point out that unless a studio wants to risk a stereo-only experience on HD DVD, they are forced to include a legacy DD+ track with the DTHD track.

Wouldn't the BD DTHD be less bits than a separate DD+ and TrueHD on HD DVD?

Gary

Unfortunately not. Yes, the codec is there. But not the rest of the system code to parse the menus and such on the disc. I also understand the royalties for DVD-A are quite high so some folks avoid it for that reason.Are there uses for that codec other than DVD-A? If not, why make it mandatory if full DVD-A support is not?

I think it you will be well served by using HDMI with an 8ch LPCM signal rather than decode an advanced codec in a new reciever. There have been other posts in this forum detailing why this has advantages, and I think there are few arguments against it. I answer to your first question, I have mentioned in some previous posts that we will likely use Dolby THD for Europe and continue with LPCM in the U.S., at least for the time being.

What will us Australians get?

We are in Region B same as Europe, do we get Dolby THD?
We don't need any language support accept English (similar to US), do we get LPCM?

Dennis.

Are there uses for that codec other than DVD-A? If not, why make it mandatory if full DVD-A support is not?

Does TrueHD use MLP in its implementation? Would this be the mandatory codec that the Dolby image is hinting at?

DD+ is fine on Xbox. The levels may not be right and the team is checking into that but there is nothing broken about it.

Sorry amir but I can't and I'm guessing a large majority of 360 add-on users don't agree with you on this one.

DD+ isn't fine... the dynamic range compression has sucked since day 1. It's definetely broken in that sense.

HD DVD is meant to provide the look and sound of perfect.. currently the add-on is not fully providing this.

If the upcoming patch recitifies this, we will all bow at your feet. ;)

Sorry amir but I can't and I'm guessing a large majority of 360 add-on users don't agree with you on this one.

DD+ isn't fine... the dynamic range compression has sucked since day 1. It's definetely broken in that sense.

HD DVD is meant to provide the look and sound of perfect.. currently the add-on is not fully providing this.

If the upcoming patch recitifies this, we will all bow at your feet. ;)
I think we are talking past each other :). DD+ decode in 360 is comformant with Dolby specs or we can not release it. The issue is that we have to convert it to another format before output, because no receiver understands DD+. That conversion is the issue.

So I was not trying to dismiss the fidelity issue. Just that the blame is not in DD+ code.

Are there uses for that codec other than DVD-A? If not, why make it mandatory if full DVD-A support is not?
MLP and TrueHD are one in the same. So by mandating TrueHD in Dolby Digital, implementors get MLP for free.

I said the bandwidth and capacity of BD allows the inefficiencies of the split TrueHD/DD core form to not be a big issue.
Well, in that case I am not sure the question makes sense :). There is no notion of "core" in TrueHD. TrueHD is seperate from DD/DD+ and is not a layered codec as DTS is.


I could also point out that unless a studio wants to risk a stereo-only experience on HD DVD, they are forced to include a legacy DD+ track with the DTHD track.
They risk nothing as 100% of HD DVD players support TrueHD in 5.1.

Wouldn't the BD DTHD be less bits than a separate DD+ and TrueHD on HD DVD?

Gary
TrueHD is identical in both HD DVD and BD. It is packaged differently at the mux level (as are the video codecs), but it is the same codec. So it uses the same bits in both formats. Note that in case of BD, one can not use DD+ at 5.1. So maybe BD would be a hair less efficient by having to code a 5.1 DD+ stream as 7.1. But it would be unfair to make an issue of that :).

I think we are talking past each other :). DD+ decode in 360 is comformant with Dolby specs or we can not release it. The issue is that we have to convert it to another format before output, because no receiver understands DD+. That conversion is the issue.

So I was not trying to dismiss the fidelity issue. Just that the blame is not in DD+ code.

Come'on Amir, pls throw us a bone with regards to the DTS patch. I think I speak for the 100K add-on users here, that we are more than a little anxious to get this patch. :)

Paramount, the company which is publishing the discs, has said that they will bring Star Trek to both formats, and that the "exclusive in 2007" line means just that, as it will be a late 2007 release and will be on Blu-ray in early 2008. Do you have additional insight that contradicts that?
As far as I know, CBS has made no decision on when to publish in BD but of course, announced at CES that they would be publishing the series in HD DVD this year.

Sounds like you are trying to position the two releases as being close by saying the HD DVD will be "late" this year but I see no reason why it would take a year from announcement to release of titles in HD DVD. We work a lot faster than that :). And per above, there is no announcement for BD release at all so it could be well after the time you are assuming.

Anyway, this is one of my favorite series having watched some of the original episodes on black and white TV so it will be a special pleasure to watch them in HD, and using technology that we had something to do with. Childhood dreams do come true some time! :)

Amir,

You had mentioned a while ago about getting someone from the Xbox team on AVS for our feedback on Live and other 360 related items. Is that still a possiblity? I'm quite sure the ever growing population of 360 owners would really appreciate it.

Thanks,
Robert.

amirm: My comment was not regarding that. Gary said that you could waste bandwidth in BD because you had plenty of it, in the form of PCM for some, TrueHD for other, etc. I remarked that you did not. With MPEG-2 you need very high peak rate or you are going to suffer. Chopping 6 mbit/sec from MPEG-2 in the form of adding another TrueHD track, is going to cause visible performance degradation.

Have another look at Gary's post that referenced my post. He was questioning the efficiency of how Dolby THD is handled in BD (in turn referencing my original post).



I appreciate that you take pride in your work, as do we. So in that context, I accept your claim. But do note that you use the word "often" above, meaning you don't always succeed in matching our quality :).

There are few absolutes in picture coding, so I am not so bold as to say we are always better, no matter what my personal opinion is...


We are also finding that spending more than two days on an encode, and with better tools and compression technology, you can get even better results. And that insisting on hardware encoders from your own company to get the job done, may not be the right way to go to extract the absolute best quality. To be blunt, to the extent Sony continues to avoid VC-1, shows that other factors than ultimate quality is at work in your decisions here. And I say this not as a personal comment as I know the compressionists at Sony would love to do the best job and we hold you all in high regard. But it seems that they are not always allowed based on the company policy above them.
We will use any codec that produces the best results and frankly, if a film maker says "use VC1, it's the best" we will not argue... this however, is not the case. We are testing all three codecs, not only for ourselves but for outside clients. Please don't think we won't look beyond Sony resources for our titles, we will and do...


As to “most difficult masters,” your recent statements seem to indicate that you are avoiding them in order to show better quality with MPEG-2. That is a good business decision given where you have been, but does not impress those of us in the business of dealing with such content on a daily basis. We take noisy and difficult to compress content head on, put our best engineers to work hand in hand with our partner post houses to create good quality work. Slowing down such releases, as tempting as it might be, is not something that we or our studio partners like do.

You should not assume that we are holding anything back because it is difficult. BHD, Click, TN, and many other titles we have released are difficult regardless of codec choice. We are simply considering carefully who the first customers are for Blu-ray and what they expect to see. Namely, sharp accurate film transfers that help justify the investment made in their systems.

What will us Australians get?

We are in Region B same as Europe, do we get Dolby THD?
We don't need any language support accept English (similar to US), do we get LPCM?

Dennis.

Yes, we will probably release Dolby THD for your local version, at least starting in a few months. For catalog titles, you will also be able to play the US domestic version if you choose as it will be coded "all region".

Yes, we will probably release Dolby THD for your local version, at least starting in a few months. For catalog titles, you will also be able to play the US domestic version if you choose as it will be coded "all region".

Cool. Hopefully the PS3 (which is THD capable) is still on track for March down here, we are still nervous here that the PS3 will be delayed till Sept.

As an aside may I strongle suggest that the BDA place extreme importance on disk labelling indicating (correctly) what the regionalization of a disk is. This is especially important for titles that pass the 12-month mark (and in turn must be made region free). I assume US "Click" will be region free come this October?

Hopefully all BDA studios and retailers (including internet retailers) indicate this information clearly. Otherwise mass confusion will result. I suspect mass confusion will result :)

Note, nearly all AV related forum readers assume "once a BD title has a region mark attached it is permanent", you have clearly reported a slightly softer stance (but one which could be confusing, example I purchase Click from Amazon this November, will I get Region A or Region A/B/C version?).

Dennis.

DD+ is fine on Xbox. The levels may not be right and the team is checking into that but there is nothing broken about it. Issue is that in the process of getting it out of the 360 over optical, we have to convert it back to DD and that impacts the qualtiy. We have the DTS encoder ready but per my previous notes, I don't have a schedule of when that updates goes out but it should be in weeks, rather than months.

Amir,

If by stating nothing is broken about DD+ you mean the Xbox can properly decode DD+ signals I can understand that. But are you now saying the severe quality loss in the converted audio-stream is due to the conversion process? I would expect the Xbox's 640k DD track (based on a conversion of the DD+ track) to sound at least as good as a regular DD track on a DVD. We did some comparison between regular DVD tracks and HD-DVDs for both King Kong and Batman Begins in a demo, and its not a subtle difference!

I have struggled through all the pages in this thread and the last few weeks the focus seems to be on the DTS out option, but I can't seem to find info about the other 2 issues with HD-DVD playback on the Xbox. Now I know it's probably impossible for you to commit to a date on this forum if we want to continue to enjoy your input in the discussion ;), but so far I can't even seem to find any formal acknowledgement that the reported problems are indeed *problems* and not quality issues due to the limited output capabilities of the Xbox.

1.) Dolby TrueHD streams aren't synced properly. The sound is lagging a good 50ms.
2.) DD+ conversions seem to have an extremely limited dynamic range, even compared to their original DD counterparts on regular DVD.

When I demo Blu-Ray and HD-DVD on the PS3 and Xbox respectively, the Xbox is really falling short in the sound department right now. And I really hope that you will agree that just because not everyone is noticing it, that doesn't mean the problems aren't there. I'm not the only one who has reported this. If you need help debugging to find out if an external variable is causing this in people's setup, I will gladly help. So far I've been putting off watching HD-DVDs because of the sound issues, and I've got a whole pile of them touting "Play Me, Play Me"... :)(though I wonder if I would just remove Harry Potter from the pile if that would shut *all* of them up ;))

Amir,

If by stating nothing is broken about DD+ you mean the Xbox can properly decode DD+ signals I can understand that. But are you now saying the severe quality loss in the converted audio-stream is due to the conversion process? I would expect the Xbox's 640k DD track (based on a conversion of the DD+ track) to sound at least as good as a regular DD track on a DVD. We did some comparison between regular DVD tracks and HD-DVDs for both King Kong and Batman Begins in a demo, and its not a subtle difference!
That comparison is not valid :). The regular DVD audio track is only compressed once. The one on HD DVD is compressed with DD+ and then again with DD so it is a second generation copy. Quality suffers as a result.

1.) Dolby TrueHD streams aren't synced properly. The sound is lagging a good 50ms.
Yes, this is a known problem and is being looked at (I reported on it a while back).

2.) DD+ conversions seem to have an extremely limited dynamic range, even compared to their original DD counterparts on regular DVD.[/quote]
Per above, part of the problem is due to double conversion. By encoding in DTS, we can reduce the degradation on the way out. FYI many Toshiba HD DVD owners are happy with DTS output so we hope to achieve similar results.

And I really hope that you will agree that just because not everyone is noticing it, that doesn't mean the problems aren't there.
I have never said people are imagining such things. I am just explaing where the problem might be.

If you need help debugging to find out if an external variable is causing this in people's setup, I will gladly help.
Appreciate that but these problems are well understood and most of the development to fix it are done. We are just doing release planning now.

Per above, part of the problem is due to double conversion. By encoding in DTS, we can reduce the degradation on the way out. FYI many Toshiba HD DVD owners are happy with DTS output so we hope to achieve similar results.

Looking forward to the results then! :). To be honest though, I'm surprised transcoding a DD+ stream into a 640k DD stream loses so much dynamic range. From the moment I played my first HD-DVD disk on my Xbox360, I was convinced something was "just" goofed up in the playback software.

Yes, this is a known problem and is being looked at (I reported on it a while back).

Cheers! I'm sure my neighbours will love you once that is fixed ;).


I have never said people are imagining such things. I am just explaing where the problem might be.

Sorry, it wasn't my intention to suggest you said that. Sometimes people counter complaints or criticism by saying something along the lines of "but there are hundreds of people *not* complaining, so surely something must be wrong with you". You're obviously not one of those people ;), and I do appreciate your input on this forum.

HD DVD insiders,

I've noticed that on http://www.thelookandsoundofperfect.com/ there are now clips of the HD DVD Conference from CES. Is there a website or server available from where we can watch the whole thing? Microsoft has made available the Bill Gates Keynote Speech, I was hoping an HD DVD company woud do the same for this.

As far as I know, CBS has made no decision on when to publish in BD but of course, announced at CES that they would be publishing the series in HD DVD this year.

Sounds like you are trying to position the two releases as being close by saying the HD DVD will be "late" this year but I see no reason why it would take a year from announcement to release of titles in HD DVD. We work a lot faster than that :). And per above, there is no announcement for BD release at all so it could be well after the time you are assuming.

Anyway, this is one of my favorite series having watched some of the original episodes on black and white TV so it will be a special pleasure to watch them in HD, and using technology that we had something to do with. Childhood dreams do come true some time! :)

Amir,

With all due respect, being released a year after announcement is not totally out of the norm. As was previously mentioned during CES, many of the titles "announced" for HD DVD came straight from the CES 2006 announced titles list - so assuming it would take a year to get on a disc is not totally out of the question.

Bill Hunt has already mentioned that he predicts it will be a late 2007 release. The High Def Digest (http://www.highdefdigest.com/news/show/Star_Trek/CBS/TV_on_HD/Disc_Announcements/CBS_Forms_Blu-ray/HD_DVD/DVD_TV_Unit_Classic_Star_Trek_to_Lead_Title_Brigade/442) news report says they will be released the second half of 2007. Paramount has gone on record with both of them to say that they support both formats equally, including CBS properties.

But as a deep rooted member of HD DVD, I thought you might have some information beyond what Paramount and news organizations have mentioned. Are you saying Paramount is wrong? Your statement hints that this title would only take a few months to get out - are you saying you expect it before the official "second half of the year" statement?

Cool. Hopefully the PS3 (which is THD capable) is still on track for March down here, we are still nervous here that the PS3 will be delayed till Sept.

As an aside may I strongle suggest that the BDA place extreme importance on disk labelling indicating (correctly) what the regionalization of a disk is. This is especially important for titles that pass the 12-month mark (and in turn must be made region free). I assume US "Click" will be region free come this October?

Hopefully all BDA studios and retailers (including internet retailers) indicate this information clearly. Otherwise mass confusion will result. I suspect mass confusion will result :)

Note, nearly all AV related forum readers assume "once a BD title has a region mark attached it is permanent", you have clearly reported a slightly softer stance (but one which could be confusing, example I purchase Click from Amazon this November, will I get Region A or Region A/B/C version?).

Dennis.

Thanks for the feedback. I understand the issue about the labeling, and I am told this has been corrected. When you buy "Click", it should be properly labeled ABC region.

Thanks for the feedback. I understand the issue about the labeling, and I am told this has been corrected. When you buy "Click", it should be properly labeled ABC region.

Thank you Paidgeek. I hope you'll give the same guidance to your overseas
branches. All the Sony BD titles released in Europe had the B logo in the back cover, even if nearly all of them (except RV, I think) have no region coding at all.

May I suggest that you try to use the same standard consistency throughout all the BDA Studios? For instance, Warner writes nothing at all in the back cover, and a lambda consumer will be left alone wondering if it can be read or not by his player. Not everyone reads AVS unfortunately. :)

The Recent Announcement (http://www.cdrinfo.com/Sections/News/Details.aspx?NewsId=19526) that Sony will begin doing AVC encoding for BluRay states that "The system offers real time encoding of both video and audio...".

Questions for any insiders that can shed some light on this:

- Given that there has been much discussion of the significantly greater encode cycles necessary for AVC over MPEG2, and even VC-1, is this really real-time?

- If so, is it a massively parallel software encoder, or an accelerated hardare encoder?

- Does this imply single-pass? Or are they seriously claiming that they can do 2+ passes in the spae of the length of the movie?

- Any insight as to features (segment reincoding, sub-picture bit allocation, etc...)?

- Have any released titles used this encoder?

With all the discussion of the complexity of AVC, this announcement seems odd.

Thanks as always!

Thanks for the feedback. I understand the issue about the labeling, and I am told this has been corrected. When you buy "Click", it should be properly labeled ABC region.

I think I need clarification here, paidgeek. Does that mean that Sony discs replicated after a year from release date will be ABC region, or that discs will become ABC region a year from release date?

Thanks!

The Recent Announcement (http://www.cdrinfo.com/Sections/News/Details.aspx?NewsId=19526) that Sony will begin doing AVC encoding for BluRay states that "The system offers real time encoding of both video and audio...".

Questions for any insiders that can shed some light on this:

- Given that there has been much discussion of the significantly greater encode cycles necessary for AVC over MPEG2, and even VC-1, is this really real-time?

- If so, is it a massively parallel software encoder, or an accelerated hardare encoder?

- Does this imply single-pass? Or are they seriously claiming that they can do 2+ passes in the spae of the length of the movie?

- Any insight as to features (segment reincoding, sub-picture bit allocation, etc...)?

- Have any released titles used this encoder?

With all the discussion of the complexity of AVC, this announcement seems odd.

Thanks as always!

It's a mis-print...

Our AVC encoder runs at about 12X with 10 dual core CPUs running the software.

The first title out that uses this encoder will be "Open Season"

I think I need clarification here, paidgeek. Does that mean that Sony discs replicated after a year from release date will be ABC region, or that discs will become ABC region a year from release date?

Thanks!

Catalog titles will all be region ABC from the start. In most cases, new theatrical titles (still showing in theaters around the world), will be coded for the region they are sold in. After 12 months, any new replication of that theatrical version will be re-coded to version ABC.

After 12 months, any new replication of that theatrical version will be re-coded to version ABC.

And this change will be reflected on the package? What if there is no new replicaton? Also, someone might think this is a new kind of double dipping...

Catalog titles will all be region ABC from the start. In most cases, new theatrical titles (still showing in theaters around the world), will be coded for the region they are sold in. After 12 months, any new replication of that theatrical version will be re-coded to version ABC.

Didn't you state previously that if *anything* changes on the disc, then technically they can apply region coding again...ie, if it isn't *identical* (e.g., add new language audio, etc.), then the 1yr clock gets reset?

And this change will be reflected on the package? What if there is no new replicaton? Also, someone might think this is a new kind of double dipping...

Better that than what Fox is doing ATM - region coding new releases and catalog titles. Ugh.

Paidgeek,

what audio sampling rate will be used on the upcoming Destiny's Child BD? Can we expect 24/48 on Sony music titles?

And this change will be reflected on the package? What if there is no new replicaton? Also, someone might think this is a new kind of double dipping...

Yes, the change would be reflected on the packaging. If there is no new replication, the existing discs can be sold off, but keep in mind that the studios hate holding inventory, so re-orders for product are common.

Didn't you state previously that if *anything* changes on the disc, then technically they can apply region coding again...ie, if it isn't *identical* (e.g., add new language audio, etc.), then the 1yr clock gets reset?

Technically it is true that a special edition or other change would allow the disc to be region coded, but we have already said we are not region coding catalog product, so from SPE this is a non-issue for the consumer.

How likely is it that Warner will use the BD hardcoat on the HD DVD side of a Total HD?

It seems crazy to release a disc that is protected only on one side. It would drive the rental companies mad.

Gary

Catalog titles will all be region ABC from the start. In most cases, new theatrical titles (still showing in theaters around the world), will be coded for the region they are sold in. After 12 months, any new replication of that theatrical version will be re-coded to version ABC.

Would it be possible to use BD-J/BD+ to manage a window, if the unit had access to a network?

Gary

Would it be possible to use BD-J/BD+ to manage a window, if the unit had access to a network?

Gary

It's possible, but difficult. I'm not sure that consumers would value this highly enough to justify the work required to do it. After all, if they bought the disc in the first place, they must be able to play it. It shouldn't be of much consequence to them if there disc could suddenly be played in network connected players from other regions.

Amir,

With all due respect, being released a year after announcement is not totally out of the norm. As was previously mentioned during CES, many of the titles "announced" for HD DVD came straight from the CES 2006 announced titles list - so assuming it would take a year to get on a disc is not totally out of the question.
No product had launched at CES of last year and the number of people who could author and encode them then is very different than the situation today. So you can’t quite extrapolate from that. Of course, your point is valid that studios could choose at any time, to delay a title release to opportune time. This I am sure applies equally to all the studios though as we have seen with Warner and Harry Potter. So if you want to be non-partisan, you should apply the same logic to Fox/Disney/Sony titles just the same.

Bill Hunt has already mentioned that he predicts it will be a late 2007 release. The High Def Digest (http://www.highdefdigest.com/news/show/Star_Trek/CBS/TV_on_HD/Disc_Announcements/CBS_Forms_Blu-ray/HD_DVD/DVD_TV_Unit_Classic_Star_Trek_to_Lead_Title_Brigade/442) news report says they will be released the second half of 2007. Paramount has gone on record with both of them to say that they support both formats equally, including CBS properties.
A few things:

1. CBS makes these decisions, not Paramount. Paramount has distribution rights but CBS makes the decisions. So you need to see statements from CBS executives to be sure of the exact stance.

2. The article says "second half" and you translated that to "late 2007." I hope you agree there is a big difference between the two and hence my reaction to your last post biasing the news in your favor. In addition, there is no quote about the “second half” in the article so I don’t take that as factual proof that a schedule has been given.

3. There is no quote about BD either, only some backroom chat with no attribution. Why wasn’t that comment on the record where they have another quote from Paramount?

But as a deep rooted member of HD DVD, I thought you might have some information beyond what Paramount and news organizations have mentioned. Are you saying Paramount is wrong? Your statement hints that this title would only take a few months to get out - are you saying you expect it before the official "second half of the year" statement?
It is not my job to speak on behalf of CBS outside of what is public. So I am not going to give you the time frame of the release. But I did, per above and previous post, correct any spins to diminish the importance of this release coming out on HD DVD with no BD plans announced. And provide some insight to who is making the decisions and not. That is a lot more than others are willing to provide on behalf of other companies. But you are welcome to ignore my comments if you like. But please, let’s not be argumentative about it :).

Amir,

Thank you for the answer. I will not ask you to comment about it further as you have done a great job answering my question. I do have another one for you:

Back in November you made the following comment about the soon to be released Nine Inch Nails: Beside You in Time release:

As to BD being better off, in one respect it is not. And that is a unique issue to this title. Link (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=8846910&&#post8846910)

I have read the FAQ (http://halo22.nin.com/hdfaq.html) which Kris Deering assisted creating over on the NIN site, and all the advantages appear to be in Blu-ray's favor (higher bit rate VC-1 encode, real time switching of alternate angles, etc). I was wondering if now that the details of this title have been made public, you can comment on what you spoke about before but could not elaborate on? What advantage does the HD DVD have over the Blu-ray for this title?

One question on TL51 for HD DVD: Is it confirmed that TL51 is 1.5X, or is the 17 GB x 3 proposal still for 1.0X?

This interests me since 1.0X TL51/TL45 seems potentially more technically feasible on current hardware than 1.5X TL51.


DD+ is fine on Xbox. The levels may not be right and the team is checking into that but there is nothing broken about it. Issue is that in the process of getting it out of the 360 over optical, we have to convert it back to DD and that impacts the qualtiy. We have the DTS encoder ready but per my previous notes, I don't have a schedule of when that updates goes out but it should be in weeks, rather than months.

Per above, part of the problem is due to double conversion. By encoding in DTS, we can reduce the degradation on the way out. FYI many Toshiba HD DVD owners are happy with DTS output so we hope to achieve similar results.
Thanks for the update. That is encouraging, as you seem to reaffirm here that the DTS option will solve the problem, even if the DD option may or may not initially (because of the DD+ to DD conversion).


1.) Dolby TrueHD streams aren't synced properly. The sound is lagging a good 50ms.Yes, this is a known problem and is being looked at (I reported on it a while back).
Thanks for this update as well. Hopefully this is something that can and will be fixed sooner rather than later.

However, do you know of any discs that are themselves problematic, or is this strictly a compatibility issue with certain hardware? The reason I ask is because some Toshiba players (at least the first gen) exhibit the same issue, and because the problem is not seen with all discs.


They risk nothing as 100% of HD DVD players support TrueHD in 5.1.
Are you suggesting that going forward this will continue to be the case? I note that only 2.0 TrueHD is mandatory, at least under the initial spec.

Paidgeek,

Isn't it possible on BR players to encode audio losslessly in dts-MA or Dolby TrueHD, and then have the player decompress and output as LPCM?

Back in November you made the following comment about the soon to be released Nine Inch Nails: Beside You in Time release:

Link (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=8846910&&#post8846910)

I have read the FAQ (http://halo22.nin.com/hdfaq.html) which Kris Deering assisted creating over on the NIN site, and all the advantages appear to be in Blu-ray's favor (higher bit rate VC-1 encode, real time switching of alternate angles, etc). I was wondering if now that the details of this title have been made public, you can comment on what you spoke about before but could not elaborate on? What advantage does the HD DVD have over the Blu-ray for this title?
This was made public by rdjam already. That is, the title is shot at 30p and BD does not support such frame rate natively. So it was probably encoded at 60i on BD.

The FAQ seems nice although I spotted one error in it in my quick glance (HD DVD discs can be backward compatible unlike BD if combo technology is used). Aside from that, let's wait for the title to come out as I have not seen it to comment one way or the other quality. Remember that VC-1 quality vs data rate is very exponential with a lot of the gain coming at lower data rates. Seems like this is acknowledged by Kris (or whoever wrote the Faq) also: "For all intents and purposes, no - the video will look every bit as good on either version."

One question on TL51 for HD DVD: Is it confirmed that TL51 is 1.5X, or is the 17 GB x 3 proposal still for 1.0X?
The only data has come from my conversation with Toshiba, saying the spec calls for 1.5X uplift in bandwidth. But until we see the actual proposal to DVD Forum, one can not be 100% sure one way or the other.

This interests me since 1.0X TL51/TL45 seems potentially more technically feasible on current hardware than 1.5X TL51.
Such issues will be the kind of thing that will get debated in DVD Forum. So if that is the only thing that stands between having it compatible or not, the spec may be changed in the working group to make it so. But then again, maybe not :). All depends on standardization process.

However, do you know of any discs that are themselves problematic, or is this strictly a compatibility issue with certain hardware? The reason I ask is because some Toshiba players (at least the first gen) exhibit the same issue, and because the problem is not seen with all discs.
Good question. We have indeed analyzed sync issues on multiple players. And problems exist in all the players we tested including BD. My Panasonic BD player for example, gets out of sync in some scenes and if you go back over them, sometimes they are in sync again (or better) or not.

Here is the dark secret here. With audio/video encoded separately and them "multiplexed together", a lot of black art goes into getting the two to match at playback time due to variations in decoder clocks, bugs in buffer management (both encode and decode), etc. When these anomalies occur, the player attempts to slow down or speed up one stream to catch. I suspect over time this situation gets better but for now, one cannot expect to see broadcast quality sync between audio/video in either format.

Having said all of this, we are trying to make things better in 360. But as I type this, I am still waiting on verification of which release contains such fixes.


Are you suggesting that going forward this will continue to be the case? I note that only 2.0 TrueHD is mandatory, at least under the initial spec.
With even low cost Toshiba HD DVD players and 360 supporting 5.1 TrueHD decode, I think we have set a very strong precedence for anyone to follow :). We hope this means that as a de-facto measure, all players will support 5.1. We will certainly evangelize that 5.1 be supported in all HD DVD players.

This was made public by rdjam already. That is, the title is shot at 30p and BD does not support such frame rate natively. So it was probably encoded at 60i on BD.

Ok. I didn't see you confirm this, so I decided to go to the source.

The FAQ seems nice although I spotted one error in it in my quick glance (HD DVD discs can be backward compatible unlike BD if combo technology is used). Aside from that, let's wait for the title to come out as I have not seen it to comment one way or the other quality. Remember that VC-1 quality vs data rate is very exponential with a lot of the gain coming at lower data rates. Seems like this is acknowledged by Kris (or whoever wrote the Faq) also: "For all intents and purposes, no - the video will look every bit as good on either version."

That is a statement I think we both disagree with. First off, why would they go through the effort to re-encode at a higher bit rate if there was no gain in picture quality? And how could 30p be better than 60i (as you said) if that statement holds true (that you can see no difference between the two formats)? I think we both know that advantages can be had with higher bit rate and progressive encoding. Maybe the higher bit rate was used match the progressive quality?

Paidgeek,

Isn't it possible on BR players to encode audio losslessly in dts-MA or Dolby TrueHD, and then have the player decompress and output as LPCM?
The problem they have is that BDA does not mandate decoding of either in the player. So content owner cannot be assured that what you say, happens in the player. Indeed, no stand-alone BD player today decodes any lossless audio.

Note that HD DVD does not mandate DTS-MA lossless either but TrueHD 5.1 is supported in all the players (and 2.0 is mandate which paved the way to having 5.1).

That is a statement I think we both disagree with. First off, why would they go through the effort to re-encode at a higher bit rate if there was no gain in picture quality?
Per my note, the same encode could not be used because BD does not support the same frame rate. And if you are going to re-encode, might as well give it the BD rate to start, rather than HD DVD.

And how could 30p be better than 60i (as you said) if that statement holds true (that you can see no difference between the two formats)?
Encoding at the native rate of the source is always better in my opinion. I hope you agree :). Future displays/players can display it at the native rate that way, without conversion.

I think we both know that advantages can be had with higher bit rate and progressive encoding.
No one disputes that. What is disputed is whether you can see the difference and whether that is worth the cost and complexity of blu-ray format. On the progressive bit, one could dispute that depending on how the frame rate was handled on the BD side.

Maybe the higher bit rate was used match the progressive quality?
That could be one reason but without confirmation that 60i was used in BD I didn't want to say that could be the motivation.

That comparison is not valid :). The regular DVD audio track is only compressed once. The one on HD DVD is compressed with DD+ and then again with DD so it is a second generation copy. Quality suffers as a result.


Yes, this is a known problem and is being looked at (I reported on it a while back).

2.) DD+ conversions seem to have an extremely limited dynamic range, even compared to their original DD counterparts on regular DVD.
Per above, part of the problem is due to double conversion. By encoding in DTS, we can reduce the degradation on the way out. FYI many Toshiba HD DVD owners are happy with DTS output so we hope to achieve similar results.


I have never said people are imagining such things. I am just explaing where the problem might be.


Appreciate that but these problems are well understood and most of the development to fix it are done. We are just doing release planning now.

Amir,

There is something about your comments regarding the DD+ problems on the XBox 360 that just don't make sense to me. Can you please clarify for me?

My confusion comes from the fact that XBox games are DD encoded. The 360 then decodes the game sounds, adds button/system sounds, and then reencodes it to a DD to output via optical connector. Is this not the same as a 2nd compression?

In the case of a DD+ movie, you have a much less lossy DD+ output. The 360 decodes this DD+ signal (at this point, shouldn't the game signal and HD-DVD signal be the same for all intents, except the HD-DVD signal is more accurate to the original source?), adds button/system sounds, and then re-encodes to DD for optical output, correct?


It seems like the same process, so I'm not sure why you say a DVD track is only compressed once. So you have a lossy DD signal that is decoded and then re-encoded by the 360, correct? On the 360 isn't it also decoded, system/button sounds added, and then re-encoded the same as HD-DVD?

It seems like almost everything is compressed twice. It seems that if you took an already compressed signal, added new sounds/dynamics to it, that it would have to be recompressed to be output again as a DD signal. I also don't understand why the output levels would be so dramatically different either, unless it was some bug in the code.

amir/ben,

wrt star trek, was microsoft involved in the encoding of the xbox live content available for download?

The FAQ seems nice although I spotted one error in it in my quick glance (HD DVD discs can be backward compatible unlike BD if combo technology is used). Aside from that, let's wait for the title to come out as I have not seen it to comment one way or the other quality. Remember that VC-1 quality vs data rate is very exponential with a lot of the gain coming at lower data rates. Seems like this is acknowledged by Kris (or whoever wrote the Faq) also: "For all intents and purposes, no - the video will look every bit as good on either version."

That was not an error. The part about HD DVD not being backward compatible was in reference to this release specifically. I am well aware of the combo disc format, but BYIT is not a combo disc and this is addressing concerns of people buying this disc specifically.

I have not seen this release yet but Rob Sheridan (the person who did the FAQ) has seen most of it and said they could barely make out differences between the two. I think it would be prudent to wait until comparisons are made by people with playback systems that can actually resolve differences before coming to conclusions about what should "technically" be better. I think one thing has been abundantly clear over the last few years, "technically" doesn't mean crap.

Amir,

There is something about your comments regarding the DD+ problems on the XBox 360 that just don't make sense to me. Can you please clarify for me?

My confusion comes from the fact that XBox games are DD encoded. The 360 then decodes the game sounds, adds button/system sounds, and then reencodes it to a DD to output via optical connector. Is this not the same as a 2nd compression?
Not quite. If the sound is generated in real-time, then you are only getting one compression to DD on the way out. If the sound is pre-rendered and compressed, then persumably the author has played it on 360 and tuned the original compression so that the double conversion still produces good quality.

Again, please note that beside double conversion, it is possible that levels are lowered in the way HD DVD conversion of DD+ is done to DD which would not exist in the game pipeline (since there is no DD+)

In the case of a DD+ movie, you have a much less lossy DD+ output. The 360 decodes this DD+ signal (at this point, shouldn't the game signal and HD-DVD signal be the same for all intents, except the HD-DVD signal is more accurate to the original source?), adds button/system sounds, and then re-encodes to DD for optical output, correct?
I am not quite following your description :). But yes, we have to decode DD+, add other sounds in real-time, and recompress into DD to output over optical output.

BTW, you all can reduce one compression step by choosing TrueHD sound track if it exists. That stream is lossless so you would only go through one level of compression on the way out.

It seems like the same process, so I'm not sure why you say a DVD track is only compressed once.
When you play a DVD, the original bitstream is output over optical port without change. So the original soundtrack only gets compressed once before going on disc and that is it.

So you have a lossy DD signal that is decoded and then re-encoded by the 360, correct? On the 360 isn't it also decoded, system/button sounds added, and then re-encoded the same as HD-DVD?
No because DVD playback does not include audio mixing in the player. What you hear, is what is on disc.

It seems like almost everything is compressed twice. It seems that if you took an already compressed signal, added new sounds/dynamics to it, that it would have to be recompressed to be output again as a DD signal. I also don't understand why the output levels would be so dramatically different either, unless it was some bug in the code.
Issues here are:

1. DD+ is not backward compatible with DD. If it were, one could just output the original stream but we can not.

2. HD DVD does allow real-time mixing of audio at playback so we must decode and mix and then re-encode.

3. There may be level issues here as mixing requires reserving headroom so that you don't digitally clip. Again, the team is looking into issues related to this and wheather we cna improve it.

By using DTS, we can get around key degradation from much lower data rate DD used on 360. Toshiba player does this today and people are happy with it. So we hope to replicate the same result.

It's possible, but difficult. I'm not sure that consumers would value this highly enough to justify the work required to do it. After all, if they bought the disc in the first place, they must be able to play it. It shouldn't be of much consequence to them if there disc could suddenly be played in network connected players from other regions.

It might be helpful for the studios. The windows could be tighter than is feasible for an updated replication run. For example, what if you wanted to delay use of a NA release in Europe for one month?

People would delay purchase, but at least they could know a true date when the title did become unlocked for their region, and could plan the purchase. Versus being unsure when the title will be released to their region. Or whether it will be of the same specs.

Seems it could be especially useful for indie titles which could get some economies of scale going with a single replication for NA/UK/Australia + NZ.

Gary

That was not an error. The part about HD DVD not being backward compatible was in reference to this release specifically. I am well aware of the combo disc format, but BYIT is not a combo disc and this is addressing concerns of people buying this disc specifically.
Thanks Kris. But would be good to clarify this then as poeple are reading this as a general FAQ on formats in general:

"How can I watch HD DVD or Blu-ray discs?

HD DVD discs can only be played in HD DVD players. Blu-ray discs can only be played in Blu-ray players. NEITHER FORMAT CAN BE PLAYED IN A REGULAR DVD PLAYER, OR IN YOUR COMPUTER'S DVD DRIVE. If you have an Xbox 360, an HD DVD add-on is available for approximately $200. Sony's Playstation 3 plays Blu-ray discs natively."

It would be great if you could change the above and say "while HD DVD discs can be created to be backward compatible with normal DVD players, this title is not."

I have not seen this release yet but Rob Sheridan (the person who did the FAQ) has seen most of it and said they could barely make out differences between the two. I think it would be prudent to wait until comparisons are made by people with playback systems that can actually resolve differences before coming to conclusions about what should "technically" be better. I think one thing has been abundantly clear over the last few years, "technically" doesn't mean crap.
Agreed :).

I will bring it up with Rob and see what he says. It is his FAQ, I just helped with the technical points and explanations.

Not quite. If the sound is generated in real-time, then you are only getting one compression to DD on the way out. If the sound is pre-rendered and compressed, then persumably the author has played it on 360 and tuned the original compression so that the double conversion still produces good quality.

Again, please note that beside double conversion, it is possible that levels are lowered in the way HD DVD conversion of DD+ is done to DD which would not exist in the game pipeline (since there is no DD+)


I am not quite following your description :). But yes, we have to decode DD+, add other sounds in real-time, and recompress into DD to output over optical output.

BTW, you all can reduce one compression step by choosing TrueHD sound track if it exists. That stream is lossless so you would only go through one level of compression on the way out.


When you play a DVD, the original bitstream is output over optical port without change. So the original soundtrack only gets compressed once before going on disc and that is it.


No because DVD playback does not include audio mixing in the player. What you hear, is what is on disc.


Issues here are:

1. DD+ is not backward compatible with DD. If it were, one could just output the original stream but we can not.

2. HD DVD does allow real-time mixing of audio at playback so we must decode and mix and then re-encode.

3. There may be level issues here as mixing requires reserving headroom so that you don't digitally clip. Again, the team is looking into issues related to this and wheather we cna improve it.

By using DTS, we can get around key degradation from much lower data rate DD used on 360. Toshiba player does this today and people are happy with it. So we hope to replicate the same result.

I didn't realize there was that much room to tune a 640 Kbs compressed signal to make it sound so different to accomodate a 2nd compression. So apparently, when I get a game trailer on a DVD, they have made that demo using one soundtrack, but when they distrubte that same demo over Live or on a game disc, they've mastered a different soundtrack specifically for the 360 (to handle double compression)? Seems like a lot of extra work just to accomodate the 360.

I also could have sworn that I heard system sounds when playing back a regular DVD (message alerts and such). I guess I'll double check that tonight just to satisfy my curiousity. Maybe it muted the movie sound and I just didn't realize. I don't watch too many regular DVD's on the 360 since I aborted the VGA cables because its output levels aren't compatible with my Samsung DLP VGA input.

If the DTS update fixes both problems (level and compression) then that is fine with me as my receiver handles both. However, this does lead me to another series of questions. If game developers must plan on a 2nd compression using DD for non-realtime sounds, will old trailers sound messed up if DTS is selected as your output format? All existing trailers would have planned for two DD compressions. With DTS, you will have one DD compression and one DTS compression (in this case going from a 640 Kbs stream to a 1.5 Mbs stream). Or is the DTS output just something the addon will use automatically, and it won't be selectable in the system menu? Or will there be some kind of auto switching where realtime streams that are only compressed once will use DTS, but other streams will still use DD?

IIf the DTS update fixes both problems (level and compression) then that is fine with me as my receiver handles both. However, this does lead me to another series of questions. If game developers must plan on a 2nd compression using DD for non-realtime sounds, will old trailers sound messed up if DTS is selected as your output format? All existing trailers would have planned for two DD compressions. With DTS, you will have one DD compression and one DTS compression (in this case going from a 640 Kbs stream to a 1.5 Mbs stream). Or is the DTS output just something the addon will use automatically, and it won't be selectable in the system menu? Or will there be some kind of auto switching where realtime streams that are only compressed once will use DTS, but other streams will still use DD?
Currently the DTS output is slated to be in use only for HD DVD playback. So games are not affected.

Question to BD (Fox) insiders:

Alien Vs. Predator offers both the rated and unrated versions, with seamless branching between the two.

Is this really seamless branching, or do we have in fact one separate encode for each version, as we do with the current PiP BD movies?

Not quite. If the sound is generated in real-time, then you are only getting one compression to DD on the way out. If the sound is pre-rendered and compressed, then persumably the author has played it on 360 and tuned the original compression so that the double conversion still produces good quality.

Again, please note that beside double conversion, it is possible that levels are lowered in the way HD DVD conversion of DD+ is done to DD which would not exist in the game pipeline (since there is no DD+)

Sorry Amir, but I'm with wnorris on this one (unless I've missed a post by you), but your answers just don't add up.

Could you then please explain the large different in sound quality on the 360 today between DD+ and DTS tracks, or between DD+ and DTHD tracks? DTS and DTHD converted to AC3 sound fine, DD+ is the only one that has the issue.

And please, don't try to tell me it's because it's DD is a "downgrade", while true in the case of DTHD. From what I've heard, the problem cannot be explained by the DD codec as there's no way DD normally sounds like that. DTHD->DD doesn't sound like that, DTS->DD doesn't sound like that, Game Audio->DD doesn't sound like that.

So if the problem is the DD encoder, why doesn't it affect DTHD, DTS, and game audio equally?

Correct me if I'm wrong but the DD+ is not converted directly to DD (nor is DTHD or DTS), it's decoded to PCM, then mixed with any other applicable audio streams, and then piped to the DD encoder.

In such case, it would seem DD+, DTHD, DTS and Game Audio would all go through the same DD encoder, and I fail to see how the source (be it DD+ or DTHD, DTS, etc) could have any effect on the way the encoder operates, since all it sees is PCM.

Further, there is no way DD+ sounds as bad normally as it does on the 360. It's by far the worst sound format you can select when using the 360, but by all rights should be second only to lossless.


I am not quite following your description :). But yes, we have to decode DD+, add other sounds in real-time, and recompress into DD to output over optical output.

So then the DD encoder is always operating on PCM audio correct? Is the same encoder used for everything on the 360 (DD+, DTHD, DTS, and game audio)? With the same parameters?

BTW, you all can reduce one compression step by choosing TrueHD sound track if it exists. That stream is lossless so you would only go through one level of compression on the way out.

True, it should be better, but there's no way that the extra compression stage can explain the problems with DD+ on the 360. If it were, DTS would be the same way, but DTS is a major improvement.

If DTS were really that much better than DD, there would be NO debate about which one is better. However most data suggests DD is the better codec, and in practicality, it's a tossup as to which is better. They both produce very good sound, on par with one another.

I cannot believe the issue with DD+ can be explained by "It's because it's converted to DD"...

Unless you tell me DD+ goes through a special DD encoder that nothing else does.

Issues here are:

1. DD+ is not backward compatible with DD. If it were, one could just output the original stream but we can not.

I fail to see how that matters, it's not backwards compatible with DTS either, but the Toshiba player doesn't have any obvious DD+ problems.

2. HD DVD does allow real-time mixing of audio at playback so we must decode and mix and then re-encode.

Of course.

3. There may be level issues here as mixing requires reserving headroom so that you don't digitally clip. Again, the team is looking into issues related to this and wheather we cna improve it.

This is the most plausible answer I've seen. However this still doesn't jive with me, if it were true, how come DTS doesn't suffer the same level issue, or DTHD?

We're talking drastically different results here with DD+ and DTS, where they should at least be comparable.

By using DTS, we can get around key degradation from much lower data rate DD used on 360.

Sorry Amir, but you know better than that. This is exactly the argument used by MPEG-2 propoments, and how many times have you argued that VC-1 is better than MPEG-2 despite requiring a lower bitrate?

:rolleyes:

Toshiba player does this today and people are happy with it. So we hope to replicate the same result.

And that's great, and if you can replicate the result, I think all (most at least) 360 HD DVD owners will be happy. But I have serious concerns that there's something much larger going on going on with the 360's DD+ handling.

I've been more than happy to give MS the benefit of the doubt, that the silence on the DD+ issue was due to the holidays and people being away. I knew there was a possibility that MS was just going to slap a DTS encoder on there and hope people were happy, without really fixing the problem, but I've been assuming/hoping (so far) that the lack of an explicit comment was just a lack of communication.

However what I've heard here from you has just increased my concerns that nothing has been, or is being done about the DD+ issue, that you're just going to slap DTS on there and hope it works. Well, based on what I've heard from the 360, and what you've said (regarding how encoding/mixing is handled), I have no doubt that DTS alone will not fix the problem.

Please, please look into the DD+ decoding, it sound very much like dynamic range compression is being (errantly) applied to DD+ tracks, and I don't think many 360 owners will give MS a second chance to get this right, especially not with the time MS is taking to fix this (and FWIW, I don't fault MS for taking it's time, I expect it, but a 3-month+ fix better work right).

For Amir or anyone else who might know:

I read elsewhere that the Saw fils would be coming to HD-DVD via a Spanish release I believe. DO you know if these would be or include the unrated versions? I am big fan of the series, but have yet to pick up the unrated version of part 2 in SD and am trying to decide if I can hold off on the upcoming part 3 SD release. Between the earlier Lionsgate rumors, and now what looks like the possibility of an import, I am trying to make intelligent purchase decisions.

Thanks for all your time and help around here!
Sorry for the late reply. Wanted to get permission to disclose the info. So here it is:

Title will be release by DeaPLANETA
Release:April-07
No English subtitles,(They don’t have the rights for English subtitles)
Languages: Spanish (Castilian) and V.O English.

Hope this helps in your decision.

I didn't realize there was that much room to tune a 640 Kbs compressed signal to make it sound so different to accomodate a 2nd compression. So apparently, when I get a game trailer on a DVD, they have made that demo using one soundtrack, but when they distrubte that same demo over Live or on a game disc, they've mastered a different soundtrack specifically for the 360 (to handle double compression)? Seems like a lot of extra work just to accomodate the 360.
If you're downloading videos from the marketplace, they're encoded with WMA or WMA Pro.

If the DTS update fixes both problems (level and compression) then that is fine with me as my receiver handles both. However, this does lead me to another series of questions. If game developers must plan on a 2nd compression using DD for non-realtime sounds, will old trailers sound messed up if DTS is selected as your output format? All existing trailers would have planned for two DD compressions. With DTS, you will have one DD compression and one DTS compression (in this case going from a 640 Kbs stream to a 1.5 Mbs stream). Or is the DTS output just something the addon will use automatically, and it won't be selectable in the system menu? Or will there be some kind of auto switching where realtime streams that are only compressed once will use DTS, but other streams will still use DD?
If you select DTS out for HD DVD, you'll get DTS out for any HD DVD disc.

This was made public by rdjam already. That is, the title is shot at 30p and BD does not support such frame rate natively. So it was probably encoded at 60i on BD.Since 1080i60 and 1080p60 can be losslessly interchanged, and 1080p60 implies twice the framerate of 1080p30, why would 1080p30 framerate provide better PQ than 1080i60?

- Talk

Sorry for the late reply. Wanted to get permission to disclose the info. So here it is:

Title will be release by DeaPLANETA
Release:April-07
No English subtitles,(They don’t have the rights for English subtitles)
Languages: Spanish (Castilian) and V.O English.

Hope this helps in your decision.

Thanks for checking on this...

2 follow up questions...

Any word on if they are the unrated versions? And what does V.O english mean exactly?

Thankas again for checking!

Indeed, no stand-alone BD player today decodes any lossless audio.This is only true if you apply to absurdly narrow definitions here:

Lossless PCM need not be decoded
The PS3 is not a standalone player
Every BD player supports lossless PCM, and a far higher percentage of Blu-ray discs support lossless audio than do HD DVD discs. Further, of what importance is whether the PS3 is standalone or not to your argument? If most BD players are PS3's, and PS3's support 7.1 TrueHD (something no HD DVD player supports), why use the "standalone" qualifier you did, other than the fact it allows you to make an anti-BD statement to the casual reader?

But would be good to clarify this then as poeple are reading this as a general FAQ on formats in general:

"How can I watch HD DVD or Blu-ray discs?

HD DVD discs can only be played in HD DVD players. Blu-ray discs can only be played in Blu-ray players. NEITHER FORMAT CAN BE PLAYED IN A REGULAR DVD PLAYER, OR IN YOUR COMPUTER'S DVD DRIVE. If you have an Xbox 360, an HD DVD add-on is available for approximately $200. Sony's Playstation 3 plays Blu-ray discs natively."

It would be great if you could change the above and say "while HD DVD discs can be created to be backward compatible with normal DVD players, this title is not."Since (based on your previous post) you appear to be inclined to use very narrow definitions, what is listed in the FAQ is correct. An HD DVD disc can only be played in an HD DVD player. (Well, actually, it can also be played in LG's non-HD DVD player, but that's neither here nor there.) A combo disc can be played in a legacy player, but an HD DVD disc does not equal a combo disc. I see no reason why this particular FAQ ought be used to advertise a type of disc which has no relevance to the product the FAQ is describing.

Thank you Paidgeek. I hope you'll give the same guidance to your overseas branches. All the Sony BD titles released in Europe had the B logo in the back cover, even if nearly all of them (except RV, I think) have no region coding at all.

May I suggest that you try to use the same standard consistency throughout all the BDA Studios? For instance, Warner writes nothing at all in the back cover, and a lambda consumer will be left alone wondering if it can be read or not by his player. Not everyone reads AVS unfortunately. :)

Paidgeek,

Azumi makes a point I strongly agree with, clear/consistent labelling worldwide for all studios would help consumers weave themselves through the regions maze. I'm sorry to be hammering that point, I won't make it anymore, ok maybe one more time "Labelling is important!!" :)

Catalog titles will all be region ABC from the start. In most cases, new theatrical titles (still showing in theaters around the world), will be coded for the region they are sold in. After 12 months, any new replication of that theatrical version will be re-coded to version ABC.

Just confirming this 12-month policy, this is a BDA forced policy as against an SPE only policy? The example being Fox/Disney who are both encoding all their titles as Region A only (in the States), will Fox/Disney be forced to release all-region versions of their movies 12-months after initial Region-A release?

My interpretation of previous statements was "yes", all BD titles need to be made region free (for new version of these disks) after 12 months. Just re-confirming.

Dennis.

BTW, you all can reduce one compression step by choosing TrueHD sound track if it exists. That stream is lossless so you would only go through one level of compression on the way out.


The problem with this is that it doesn't appear that most movies are using TrueHD. I have a Netflix subscription and since I bought my HD-DVD Add-on, I have gone through about 20+ HD-DVD movies and only a handful offer up TrueHD; therefore, the remainder of them we are stuck with DD+.

I fully understand and follow your statements about DD+ and the technology side of what is happening, but I don't care about the tech side, I care about what I hear (or don't hear). It's weak, and everyone can vouch that it is weak.

Onto another question, although no one appears to be able to give a solid Yay or Nay on the HDMI cable question (is it or is it not possible on the first gen 360's), I am not looking to HDMI for the video (my projector only supports up to VGA). What I want is 5.1 analog audio, and the support for this from the 360. My receiver accepts 5.1 analog audio, but is the 360 capable of doing the lossless audio format or not?

If you're downloading videos from the marketplace, they're encoded with WMA or WMA Pro.

How do you get the 360 to output WMA Pro? I have the menu selection set for DD and WMA Pro. I'm only getting DD when playing the trailers downloaded from the marketplace. I'd be interested in buying the Superman Returns download for evaluation if I thought I could get a WMA Pro soundtrack.