Industry Insiders Q&A MASTER THREAD [separate thread for Xbox/Add On & PS3] [Text View] - Page 6

amirm

01-20-07, 11:59 AM

As Amir explained here that Microsoft discouraged the development of consumer-oriented playback software running on XP for security reasons, why wasn't this feature banned from the very beginning?

If XP doesn't provide the required security groundwork, why not simply restrict any kind of BD/HD-DVD playback on secure OSes (Vista, Mac OS X...) through due certification, embed some code that disallows playback on uncertified devices, and above all threaten lawsuits with extreme prejudice to any software house in the world that would try to develop any kind of playback software running on Win XP?
An OS should not be banned because you can create secure implementations on it by using hardware. Think about the extreme case: a complete HD DVD player in hardware (in your graphics card). The PC then simply acts as the UI and controller but everything else happens in that hardware. Dumping the PC memory and such would yield you nothing useful.

It appears of course that the above method was not used but it could, and it can. It won't be easy or cheap to do it this way but it is a possibility.

So instead of dictating what people can use as component technology, AACS mandates how well its secrets need to be safeguarded. This is the same practice used in other copy protection standards. Alas, it is a bit of an honor system and clearly, it can have issues when someone doesn't follow the rules. But we have countermeasures and over time, deploying them makes these implementations more secure.

Of course, an implementer may just move on to Vista or some other OS with more security means to save themselves R&D dollars but ultimately, that is their choice.

The other thing to note that AACS could easily be accused of bias if it were to blacklist certain operating systems. AACS does not have the means to analyze an OS properly and rule on its effectiveness. And even if it did, such judgments can be quite subjective. All of this means that one could by mistake allow or disallow an OS to be used, causing grief and potential liability later.

amirm

01-20-07, 12:01 PM

There are already some full Java titles from Fox, Lion's Gate and soon Disney. SPE is holding back right now until we are satisfied our designs/implementations will work well.
Those titles do not use the type of interactivity used in HD DVD, namely proper Picture in Picture. Without that hardware in BD players, you are going to continue to have trouble reaching parity with HD DVD. And reason some titles take longer to arrive on BD from HD DVD (to answer the question just posed to you).

amirm

01-20-07, 12:04 PM

The glass house analogy is somewhat appropriate. But the real problem is that it is not protecting against burglars but instead trying for a design where the resident of the glass house actually is allowed a key but is not allowed to make a key copy. This is somewhat harder.

- Tom
Well, we are trying to do that with managed copy. But if you recall, there was a camp that was dead set against a year and half ago :). Hopefully, they see the merits of providing such features to allow consumers to legitimately create copies of their discs. Not letting them to that, not only annoys customers, but gives hackers a perfect excuse to try to "liberate" these formats.

joshd2012

01-20-07, 12:10 PM

This is so desirable that BD also attempted to make them but ultimately failed, because the DVD layer below reduces the tolerances too much for BD layers above. So if this was such a bad idea, you also need to take it up with folks who created your favorite format :).

Did they fail, or did they just stop testing once they realized consumers did not want them?

I don't think its just about the money. There was/is plenty of angst for flippers on DVD, so this really isn't a new issue. I will ask my question again: Do you know of any HD DVD studio who will put their film on both formats to test out how the combo is accepted by the public?

jdg345

01-20-07, 12:15 PM

$16 combo disks? I'll take $19.99 even at this point.

Isn't the problem though that there is no deep pocketed supporter with enough vested interest to subsidize Twin/Combo disks the way Sony does for BD50? Why should Hollywood studios do it when they don't have to?

Where would BD50 be and how much would they cost consumers w/o the help of Sony?

On that note, are there any discussions to where DVD Forum would subsidize the cost of HD-DVD so that they could, in effect, drop cost of combo discs to $19.99 while still allowing the studios to make the same $$?

I guess my point is, if there is so much complaining that Sony is subsidizing the costs of the media, why doesn't HD-DVD play the same game?

amirm

01-20-07, 12:18 PM

Will BD+ be able to protect future discs from muslix64's soon to come BackupBluray utility?
Nope. BD+ will do little. And if anything, could make things worse. If someone hacks BD+, they can steal the bits without even hacking AACS! That is because the two systems are cascaded. AACS decrypts its bits and then hands the data to BD+. So if you hack BD+, you are done and do not need to go after AACS. And with AACS not broken in this scenario, none of its countermeasures could be put to use.

To use Ron’s analogy, BD+ does indeed put a second door in front of your house, but forces you to put a large window in the back for light. Break that window and you can walk right in, without bothering with the two front doors. This is why people talk about BD+ closing one door, but opening many windows….

For their sake, I hope BDA really, really thinks through all of this before deploying BD+. Lack of understanding of security measures in software systems may have gotten us here. There is a big difference between theory and practice. Let’s hope folks don’t continue blindly down certain path, with new data in front of them. But if they do, let’s say that they have been put on public notice :).

In reality, I suspect BDA security experts do know that BD+ provides no additional security. Rather, it is a DRM engine to implement other features such as region coding with more robustness against attack than simpler means. For that, it is fine, assuming consumers put up with the variability of the BD DRM system over time, implementing new features they did not bargain for when they invested in the format (and heaven forbid, if HD DVD goes away, and there won’t be a competing system without those measure, to keep folks from becoming too aggressive).

trbarry

01-20-07, 12:24 PM

Well, we are trying to do that with managed copy. But if you recall, there was a camp that was dead set against a year and half ago :). Hopefully, they see the merits of providing such features to allow consumers to legitimately create copies of their discs. Not letting them to that, not only annoys customers, but gives hackers a perfect excuse to try to "liberate" these formats.

What do you mean, a year and a half ago?. Is that what the smiley was for? ;)

I know you can't talk much about AACS proceedings but I thought there was still an entrenched cadre in that group fully opposed to managed copy. And some totally opposed to any PC playback who are going around grumbling "I told you so" recently.

Unless you can comment I suppose we can only speculate on how recent events have affected the time table for final AACS agreement. Do you feel especially candid today?

- Tom

amirm

01-20-07, 12:28 PM

Did they fail, or did they just stop testing once they realized consumers did not want them?
They gave up from technical and manufacturing point of view. There was an interview with a Sony executive saying so last fall. I can try to dig it up if you like.

I don't think its just about the money. There was/is plenty of angst for flippers on DVD, so this really isn't a new issue.
Combo discs do not need to be flippers. Memory-tech announced last year single sided combos although that variation is three layers so one or the other format would need to give up a layer. But over time, they might be able to make the four layer version too.

I will ask my question again: Do you know of any HD DVD studio who will put their film on both formats to test out how the combo is accepted by the public?
No because their combo discs are selling as well as non-combo. So they don't see an issue. Really, the motivation here is to make money from new formats. To the extent consumers pay, then they are happy. Why do you think Fox used such high MSRP for their BD discs, without even the combo feature?

The above is backed by consumer research that Warner did. They polled consumers and they said they would pay $5 extra if they could play their discs in regular DVD players and here we are. If that data proves wrong over time, then the premium may drop or go to zero.

amirm

01-20-07, 12:32 PM

What do you mean, a year and a half ago?. Is that what the smiley was for? ;)
September 2005 when we announced suport for HD DVD because we were assured of managed copy in that format, while BDA was refusing to accept the same.

I know you can't talk much about AACS proceedings but I thought there was still an entrenched cadre in that group fully opposed to managed copy.
Well, the noise was not as much inside AACS as outside.

And some totally opposed to any PC playback who are going around grumbling "I told you so" recently.
No one in AACS took such a position.

Unless you can comment I suppose we can only speculate on how recent events have affected the time table for final AACS agreement. Do you feel especially candid today?

- Tom
All eyes are on the breach management unfortunately so yes, finishing the agreement is delayed probably although some would argue that some of the provisions in that agreement would have been useful to have now. So maybe the work will go faster, once restarted.

efjay

01-20-07, 12:33 PM

Any insider input on this? Why cant bodies like the DVD Forum and BDA get sites like doom9 shutdown? They are openly discussing how to copy and distribute HD movies. I find it hard to believ they are located in a country where such practices are legal.

How does the music industry manage to track down people downloading illegal music which theoretically should be harder to track with the smaller file sizes yet people downloading 20GB files are seemingly untouchable?

Apple seems to be able to pinpoint when a user posts a theme that looks like the iPhone and get it removed, what is the obstacle stopping the movie industry stepping up their efforts against pirates?

trbarry

01-20-07, 12:50 PM

Any insider input on this? Why cant bodies like the DVD Forum and BDA get sites like doom9 shutdown? They are openly discussing how to copy and distribute HD movies. I find it hard to believ they are located in a country where such practices are legal.

...

Actually doom9 policy forbids any discussion of illegally distributing movies.

I believe discussion of copying embraces the possibility (sometimes fiction) that you own the movie and are making a backup or maybe doing it for computer interoperability problems of some sort (say HDMI).

- Tom

Outlaw Z

01-20-07, 01:30 PM

There are already some full Java titles from Fox, Lion's Gate and soon Disney. SPE is holding back right now until we are satisfied our designs/implementations will work well.

Do these Java titles properly support resume?

archibael

01-20-07, 01:39 PM

I dunno. If I were the studios, I might want to keep doom9 alive and active so I wouldn't have to frequent obscure IRC channels and chatrooms. If you shut down doom9, the discussions will still go on, just not as much in the light.

Outlaw Z

01-20-07, 01:45 PM

Combo discs do not need to be flippers. Memory-tech announced last year single sided combos although that variation is three layers so one or the other format would need to give up a layer. But over time, they might be able to make the four layer version too.

Amirm are the Memory-tech 3 layer combo discs part of the spec? How about 4 layer?

If they are part of the spec they we don't have to worry about player incompatibility.

Also WRT to 3 layers, aren't some of Universals titles 15/9?

amirm

01-20-07, 02:06 PM

Amirm are the Memory-tech 3 layer combo discs part of the spec? How about 4 layer?
The three layer is compliant with spec. 4-layer is not proposed yet so until they do, it is not :).

If they are part of the spec they we don't have to worry about player incompatibility.
Absolutely. The three layer discs fully comply with DVD and HD DVD specs for playability in both players.

Also WRT to 3 layers, aren't some of Universals titles 15/9? Hopefully Universal can redo those as twin and do a study to see how well they would sell compared to flippers.
Yes, those types of discs could be replicated using this process with the content all being on one side.

Innerloop

01-20-07, 02:13 PM

Yesterday, the first Blu-ray disks were successfully ripped to a PC for Internet re-distribution. Previously, the disk contents had been copied, but were not playable -- now the contents are decrypted and playable. The individual responsible (muslix64) has indicated that a "BackupBluray" utility will soon be made available.

What steps are studios and their partners taking to salvage AACS?

Edit: Removed link to the thread on the doom9.org as it included a downloadable BD content sample from Lord of War in MPEG-2 .ts format.

Here's something I'd like to know.

So Blu-Ray streams have been copied & decrypted, and can now be played on a PC media player. Could these same streams be burned back onto a BD-ROM and played back on an un-modified BD player? I thought there was supposed to be some sort of watermarking feature built into the players that was supposed to reject an illicit ROM?

I guess this is somewhat theoretical in the case of ROM since no one can exactly stamp a ROM disc at home. But if that feature does work or hasn't yet been defeated, then it would still be difficult to large-scale piracy like the type you see in Asian countries taking off. People would have to modify their players to get pirated discs to work, and as we've seen in Videogames, that's a pretty effective deterrent against the potential "casual" pirates.

Does this feature work at all, or has it already been bypassed by this hack? Does it work differently on BD-ROM vs. BD-R/BD-RW formats that a person might burn a decrypted stream onto?

Ja Phule

01-20-07, 02:21 PM

Absolutely. The three layer discs fully comply with DVD and HD DVD specs for playability in both players.

This is news to me. So these 3 layer discs can be read in all hd dvd players available today? Do these 3 layer hybrids work similar to the proposed 3 layer 51gb HD DVDs also? Do you think we'll see these 3 layer hybrids available this year?

amirm

01-20-07, 02:39 PM

This is news to me. So these 3 layer discs can be read in all hd dvd players available today? Do these 3 layer hybrids work similar to the proposed 3 layer 51gb HD DVDs also? Do you think we'll see these 3 layer hybrids available this year?
Please let me clarify my previous answer first. The technology proposed by Toshiba/Memory-tec is compliant with the specs for DVD and HD DVD. But I don't know yet if the forum has approved it yet. I have asked the question and will post it when I get it.

As to the process being similar to TL-51, it is in some respect, but not in the other. Reading a 17 gigabyte layer is harder than reading a 4.5 gigabyte DVD layer. But it does bode well for the ability to produce the discs just the same.

b2bonez

01-20-07, 03:02 PM

Question from another thread.. http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=9528749&&#post9528749

7. Recording depth at the same 0.6mm as current DVDs, making it possible to have replication lines which can produce both DVDs and HD DVDs. Possible to upgrade existing DVD lines to produce HD DVDs for little cost (~$US150,000 as compared to > $US1,000,000 for new line).

Do you know of any "upgraded" DVD lines that are in current use for production of any major studios (Warner, Paramount, Universal) HD-DVD discs at the current time ?

b2b

amirm

01-20-07, 03:11 PM

Question from another thread.. http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=9528749&&#post9528749

Do you know of any "upgraded" DVD lines that are in current use for production of any major studios (Warner, Paramount, Universal) HD-DVD discs at the current time ?

b2b
If you have a question about what the studios use, you need to ask them. I am not standing in the factory seeing which order of theirs goes into which machine. Nor am I going to disclose which replicators they use here.

If you want to take out that spin, and ask me the question again, I will answer it.

b2bonez

01-20-07, 03:18 PM

If you have a question about what the studios use, you need to ask them. I am not standing in the factory seeing which order of theirs goes into which machine. Nor am I going to disclose which replicators they use here.

If you want to take out that spin, and ask me the question again, I will answer it.
Do you know of any "upgraded" DVD lines that are in current use for retail production of HD-DVD discs at the current time ?

b2b

amirm

01-20-07, 03:19 PM

Do you know of any "upgraded" DVD lines that are in current use for retail production of HD-DVD discs at the current time ?

b2b
Yes I do.

nataraj

01-20-07, 03:36 PM

IMO anyone who publishes a program that is designed solely to circumvent legal safeguards, on such a site as doom9, with full knowledge of how such a program could and now HAS been used AND now declares he is now going to "tackle" Blu-Ray should be held responsible for the illegal distribution of HD films on the internet.

I don't think so. Just as you don't hold NRA responsible for all shooting deaths in the US. BTW, AFAIK, it is only DMCA which makes such circumvention illegal - so if the person is not in the US, it is not illegal. Also, I'm not sure the program he provided actually circumvents any encryption.

John Haghighi

01-20-07, 06:13 PM

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.

What's the precedence on the 360? Decode but don't transport? Decode, re-encode in DD or DTS? That's not what I'd consider a good precedence. What I'd like to see is decode and transport, can you promote that with the 360 and elsewhere?

Can issues with multiplexing audio be avoided with HDMI 1.3 if audio/video sync features were supported and sent as bitstream to an HDMI 1.3 receiver without the mulitplexed audio in the mix? Is it possible?

What about having an option to choose bitstream vs. LPCM without sacrificing degredation of the primary audio track or synchronization issues?

Shouldn't the consumer decide if they want the added mulitplexed audio decoded in the player vs. a time sync video/primary audio presentation handled via bitstream by the receiver/display? We have the option to select bitstream now, but is their a compromise or advantage of doing this with current hardware? If you didn't have to sync multiple audio streams, or have the option of choosing can't this problem be solved with HDMI 1.3 chain player/receiver/display?

nataraj

01-20-07, 09:41 PM

What's the precedence on the 360? Decode but don't transport?

Thats purely because of available outputs ....

amirm

01-20-07, 09:48 PM

What's the precedence on the 360?
The precedence is twofold:

1. That every shipping HD DVD player supports 5.1, so you (the new hardware company) should also do as otherwise it will be noted in reviews and user expectations.

2. That if a $200 HD DVD player can ship with 5.1 decode you (the new hardware company) should too :).

Decode but don't transport? Decode, re-encode in DD or DTS? That's not what I'd consider a good precedence.
Actually, DTS output of Toshiba is very well received. It is the best legacy solution for people who use Toslink/S/PDIF on their receivers. Indeed, Toshiba set a great precedence here by putting a DTS encoder in their gen 1 player. This is lacking in BD products which means when they get interactivity going, any sound generated from that subsystem will not come out of their S/DIF/Toslink ports.

What I'd like to see is decode and transport, can you promote that with the 360 and elsewhere?
People are welcome to buy stand-alone products with that functionality. Our goal for the 360 is not to replace those products.

Can issues with multiplexing audio be avoided with HDMI 1.3 if audio/video sync features were supported and sent as bitstream to an HDMI 1.3 receiver without the mulitplexed audio in the mix? Is it possible?
No. The issues are deep in how the a/v stream was buffered/mixed at encode time (which no player can fix) and how the core decoder in the player syncs the two as their clocks drift with time/temperature, etc. Sending streams to an external device which lacks the synchronization information in the original stream only makes things works wrt to this problem because one device is decoding audio, and then other video.

What about having an option to choose bitstream vs. LPCM without sacrificing degredation of the primary audio track or synchronization issues?
Per above, bitstream output could make things worse as the player no longer is decoding that data and hence lacks the audio clock to tell it where it is in the stream relative to video.

Shouldn't the consumer decide if they want the added mulitplexed audio decoded in the player vs. a time sync video/primary audio presentation handled via bitstream by the receiver/display?
Since all player audio mixing is lost, including director commentary and such, my belief is that mass market products should not do this. Otherwise, content owners get grump because a) you are messing with the experience they worked hard to create and b) they could get product returns because a user turns on commentary in such a mode and nothing comes out. High-end products should sport dedicated output paths without mixing. Their users are more educated about capabilities of such products and due to their lower volume, we don't irk the studios.

Per above though, your dynamic sync may suffer because the player only decodes the video and not audio so it would blindly send out the stream, rather than trying to lock them together.

We have the option to select bitstream now, but is their a compromise or advantage of doing this with current hardware? If you didn't have to sync multiple audio streams, or have the option of choosing can't this problem be solved with HDMI 1.3 chain player/receiver/display?
Again, if you want to forego interactive content and get lucky with A/V sync being perfect, and willing to buy a new receiver with new decoders, yes.

hd90210

01-20-07, 11:45 PM

Amir will Microsoft ever build their own hd-dvd player like what it did with Zune (http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/20/microsoft-made-the-zune-because-partner-hardware-sucks/) ?

amirm

01-20-07, 11:47 PM

Amir will Microsoft ever build their own hd-dvd player like what it did with Zune (http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/20/microsoft-made-the-zune-because-partner-hardware-sucks/) ?
We did. It hooks up to the Xbox :).

Beyond that, no. We have no plans at all. And can't figure out why we would in the future.

Talkstr8t

01-21-07, 12:54 AM

Yesterday, the first Blu-ray disks were successfully ripped to a PC for Internet re-distribution. As I understand it, one disc (Lord of War) was ripped, and Muslix posted that the technique he used won't necessarily work on other discs. It appears the state-of-the-art in Blu-ray hacking isn't quite as advanced as HD DVD hacking...

amirm

01-21-07, 12:57 AM

In all respect, like your BD50 information last summer, I'd leave it to the BD folks to explain what BD+ can and cannot do, because it clearly is something HD DVD cannot do and something Fox and Disney consider important.
Disney does not consider it important. They are a founder of AACS and together with the rest of us, declined the adoption of it there and in DVD Forum. And it is not a matter of "can't" do it, but did not want to pile on more DRM for the sake of consumers.

Any words on this from BD insiders?
I would love to see this too. An overview doc of what BD+ is would be dandy. :)

So it's truly like a Zune, a rebranded Toshiba produced item.
I thought we were going to be more respectful in this thread :(. Maybe you want to think about the origins of the Sony and Philips BD players before saying such things.

Talkstr8t

01-21-07, 12:58 AM

Those titles do not use the type of interactivity used in HD DVD, namely proper Picture in Picture. Without that hardware in BD players, you are going to continue to have trouble reaching parity with HD DVD.Can you explain to us how the user experience for a typical HD DVD PiP title differs from that provided by Lionsgate in The Descent and Crank? I appreciate that using secondary video hardware to implement PiP provides a set of capabilities distinct from that of using secondary encoding to achieve PiP (i.e. user control of where the window is), but to my knowledge few-if-any HD DVD titles are actually making use of this capability. Further, using the method Lionsgate did allows commentary to remain as primary audio, thus permitting full audio support regardless of whether the user is decoding audio in the player or the receiver. Your use of the word "proper" is an unwarranted slur on a perfectly legitimate design decision by Lionsgate.

Talkstr8t

01-21-07, 01:02 AM

So Blu-Ray streams have been copied & decrypted, and can now be played on a PC media player. Could these same streams be burned back onto a BD-ROM and played back on an un-modified BD player? I thought there was supposed to be some sort of watermarking feature built into the players that was supposed to reject an illicit ROM?They could be burned onto a BD-R or BD-RE and played back on an unmodified BD player, but they could not be replicated onto a BD-ROM, as that's where ROMmark comes in (the watermark on BD-ROM format titles intended to protect against pirate replicators). The threat of burning onto BD-R/RE doesn't represent nearly the threat to studios due to the size of the download required and the much longer time required to mass-duplicate discs.

- Talk

Talkstr8t

01-21-07, 01:06 AM

So it's truly like a Zune, a rebranded Toshiba produced item.Maybe you want to think about the origins of the Sony and Philips BD players before saying such things.Peter makes a fair point. The difference is Sony and Philips are CE vendors who already compete with others. Microsoft is presumably a software company who partners with hardware vendors, not one who competes with them.

John Haghighi

01-21-07, 01:18 AM

Per above though, your dynamic sync may suffer because the player only decodes the video and not audio so it would blindly send out the stream, rather than trying to lock them together.

Again, if you want to forego interactive content and get lucky with A/V sync being perfect, and willing to buy a new receiver with new decoders, yes.

Isn't one of the purported benefits of the HDMI 1.3 standard audio/video sync or "lipsync" capability?

Are you saying the an HDMI 1.3 compliant player, receiver, and display that supports the "lipsync" feature would not be able to properly sync audio and video because the decoded video has no timecode sent over HDMI to sync with the bitstream audio?

Maybe someone can explain what the "lipsync" feature of HDMI 1.3 is suppose to do, and how it is or could be implemented in Blu-ray and HD DVD players, because I thought this was suppose to be the savior for all the lipsync issues, it's beginning to sound like marketing fluff, or something only sat/cable boxes can take advantage of...

People are welcome to buy stand-alone products with that functionality. Our goal for the 360 is not to replace those products.

I don't see why Microsoft would not want to produce an HD DVD add-on device that is on par with stand alone HD DVD players or better. For example, the PS3 exceeds many Blu-ray stand alone players and does a great job. I get a kick out of the processing power with 1.5x ff feature with audio, there doesn't seem to be any sync issues at all even at this speed.

You make it sound like Microsoft intentionally left transport of TrueHD and HDMI support out so as not to compete with stand alone players, is this the case?

I keep hearing from MS folks that we are listening to customer feedback for HDMI support, and it's clear many would like it so what's the hold up?

The XBox team is closely monitoring customer requests to determine if there will be HDMI in the future of Xbox.

Does Kevin's statement indicate the current 360 cannot support HDMI? If it's a hardware limitation with the current design please let us know.

And yes the DTS encoding on the Toshiba is nice for legacy support, and while it will also be well received for the 360 (provided the TrueHD decode and re-encode lipsync issues are corrected), it still is not ideal. I'd be content to know that I can never expect to transport TrueHD on the current 360 (no HDMI possible), until then I think many will continue to ask for it.

So what's it going to be Xbox team?

xradman

01-21-07, 02:40 AM

dialog_gvf

01-21-07, 02:56 AM

The above is backed by consumer research that Warner did. They polled consumers and they said they would pay $5 extra if they could play their discs in regular DVD players and here we are. If that data proves wrong over time, then the premium may drop or go to zero.

Were these early adopters? And did they tell them it would be $39 SRP? It seems the scorn being shown on here by posters doesn't match the results of Warner's reasearch. Not even close.

----

On the issue of the software player circumvents, what happens now?

We see people calling for the player to be revoked, but that isn't the process, right? The WinDVD creators are given time to fix it, correct? Will they be fined?

Is there a way the maker of a player can force a software/firmware upgrade to allow a new title to be played?

Gary

Ian_S

01-21-07, 04:15 AM

lrbh

01-21-07, 08:04 AM

As I understand it, one disc (Lord of War) was ripped, and Muslix posted that the technique he used won't necessarily work on other discs. It appears the state-of-the-art in Blu-ray hacking isn't quite as advanced as HD DVD hacking...

Actually he says he used the same basic, but powerfull crypto attack to decrypt both formats.
And there is now a total of 7 Blu-ray movie key's available.

denass

01-21-07, 10:34 AM

could theses files then be transferred to hd-dvd to play on hd-dvd format.This would be a big turnaround.
Talk is wrong again with his facts--bluray discs now getting cracked.

Urian

01-21-07, 11:10 AM

When we are going to be able to purchase HD-DVD/BluRay+Multimedia cards for modest PC computers?

I remember that my first DVD Drive was a Creative Encore 2X bought in 1998 but I never saw the same idea for HD-DVD or BluRay.

amirm

01-21-07, 12:00 PM

To BD insider or amirm,

I just got through watching Flightplan on Blue-ray and was surprised to find that it was encoded in VC-1. The picture looked very nice. The bitrate meter for this feature often got into high 30s during the movie.

Amir, was MS or anyone on your team involved in this transfer?
Thanks for the kind words regarding VC-1 quality on BD. We don't encode the movies in general (for either camp). But we did have to show Disney that our quality can exceed the other choices they had before they would use it. And make sure their favorite post production house to extract the same from their real movies.

Also on Bluescape feature, Jetstream, I noticed that this was also encoded in VC-1. On the PS3 display, the bitrate meter was peaking out at 50Mbps during this featurette. Isn't this beyond the maximum bandwidth of BD? If that's the case, exactly what is bitrate meter on PS3 indicating?
It is hard to do a proper bitrate meter. We have offline tools to do the analysis and even they can be wrong by 5%. The bitrate meter on PS3 is no exception. It seems to lag the actual rate for the scene by a good bit on fast changing material and it is no doubt confused by buffer fullness and such. Same was true of the original bitrate meter on Sony's first DVD player. So I would simply use it as a rough guage and for fun factor, as opposed to exact statistic of what is going on.

amirm

01-21-07, 12:09 PM

As I understand it, HD-DVD has two authoring modes, std which is like a normal DVD but with HD video and audio codec support and advanced which uses HDi to control the experience. A few questions:

Does the HD-DVD spec specify that an advanced disc should play in a standard player?
Of course. Advanced content is mandatory in all players.

Does the spec allow for a player to output the RAW main feature audio stream as an unencoded bitstream or does it insist that in advanced mode audio must be output as mixed by the player??
[/list]
The spec tells someone how to interpret the disc. And that the player must have certain capabilities to do that. How it eventually outputs, is up to implementer. Having said this, there are some unwritten rules in this business. If someone messes too much with the artistic intent of the studio, then you may get flack and potentially less support. In this instance, bypassing the processing in the player means that commentary features will not have working audio. This might make someone unhappy who spent a lot of time creating that presentation.

The above is the reason I said that the top-line, mass market companies, at least for now, may not opt for bypass features. However, specialty companies can be free to do so as their volumes will be low and their audience more educated about the different modes. On the other hand, the format making companies like Toshiba, Sony, Panasonic would be apt to mess with the experience the least because they need the support of the studios the most.

Now you could argue that putting such a menu option there, with the default to not bypass would not raise any eyebrows and that might be right. I am just explaining how the situation works behind the scenes, as to know why it might not be implemented even though it seems like an easy thing to do.

Ian_S

01-21-07, 12:19 PM

Now you could argue that putting such a menu option there, with the default to not bypass would not raise any eyebrows and that might be right. I am just explaining how the situation works behind the scenes, as to know why it might not be implemented even though it seems like an easy thing to do.Thanks Amir,

My reason for asking is that HDMI 1.3 and the ability to decode TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio in a receiver is starting to cause a lot of confusion and debate. Those who prefer their receiver/processor to do the decoding are adamant that the current player mixing is just an interim position until such HDMI 1.3 equipped boxes become more widely available. I personally think player mixed PCM output is the final position...

I think people in both camps need to start addressing this. You can certainly understand the line of thought where people think why would they make such a receiver if it's of no use? Of course these are the same manufacturers who are forcing us to be on the end of a format war... :rolleyes:

Does the Toshiba XA2/XE1 allow raw bitstream output over HDMI of advanced codecs?

Ian.

amirm

01-21-07, 12:25 PM

could theses files then be transferred to hd-dvd to play on hd-dvd format.This would be a big turnaround.

The way they are, no. The files have been formatted for BD which is different than HD DVD. But once they unpack the (elementary) streams and repackage them using an HD DVD authoring tool, they may indeed work (e.g. by eliminating PCM tracks to lower the bandwidth and such). There will be some titles that would be out of spec on video potentially so they may not work in which case, if someone is determined, they can decode and re-encode them to lower rate with some quality loss but with the same effect of poking your finger in the eye of BD-exclusive studios in the news :).

Talk is wrong again with his facts--bluray discs now getting cracked.
It has been disappointing over the last couple of weeks to see some folks who are in the exact same spot the rest of us are, try to position themselves as somehow advantaged.

When you are about to have a head on collision with a truck at 80 miles per hour, whether you have a seatbelt or not, matters little when people scrape you off the hood of said truck :). Talk is harmless in this situation because he is not involved in security matters. My disappointment is much more about BD companies who should know better. They have a responsibility as AACS founders to act properly in this situation and understand what we are dealing with. Fortunately, Andy Parsons, the BDA representative did act properly at CES by not making this a format issue but others have not been as forthcoming as he has. Hopefully that has changed now but sad to see that we need something like this event, to get people to be non-partisan.

amirm

01-21-07, 12:29 PM

Amir,

I wanted to say that all the Blu-ray titles I have watched using VC-1 have looked great and I look forward to many of your upcoming Blu-ray encodes,especially the ones from Disney. I think you guys are doing a GREAT job!!

~Josh
Thank you Josh. I changed my signature long time ago to "VC-1 insider" for both formats. Alas, it took much longer than I expected to get BD studios to adopt VC-1. My hat is off to Disney for realizing that we can work together as much as we can compete in this area. It is not easy for companies to do this.

mystery

01-21-07, 12:41 PM

amirm

01-21-07, 12:48 PM

Thanks Amir,

My reason for asking is that HDMI 1.3 and the ability to decode TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio in a receiver is starting to cause a lot of confusion and debate. Those who prefer their receiver/processor to do the decoding are adamant that the current player mixing is just an interim position until such HDMI 1.3 equipped boxes become more widely available. I personally think player mixed PCM output is the final position...
We fully agree and evangelize the same to everyone. New formats come and go. We can't keep deprecating receiver with amps and such. I have personally suffered a lot here :). Here is what I had to do:

1. Bought a $4,500 Lexicon processor when DVD first came out. Obsolete two years later when DTS came out and I didn't want to shell out $1,000+ to get it added.

2. Bought a $10,000 Lexicon processor to get balanced audio and the above DTS. Also bought a $10,000 Tact room processor. Former now obsolete due to lack of HDMI processing. And the latter barely hanging on if I want to kludge up HDMI audio through it (which I have yet to bother).

3. Anthem D2 which I like to forget how much I spent on it. I am determined to not go and spend money yet again on another expensive processor.

We need to move to decoder in the player and let the receiver/processor stay relevant longer. Soon we will have internet content flowing all of the home. What do we do then? Throw out another generation of boxes again?

I think people in both camps need to start addressing this. You can certainly understand the line of thought where people think why would they make such a receiver if it's of no use? Of course these are the same manufacturers who are forcing us to be on the end of a format war... :rolleyes:
Yes I do understand that they want to sell new receivers. I think BD guys feel more justified in this respect because they don’t support advanced codecs in their players. But just isn’t the right answer when the angry call from a studio exec comes about interactivity sounds not getting out that way.

Does the Toshiba XA2/XE1 allow raw bitstream output over HDMI of advanced codecs?

Ian.
You know, I don’t know. The person who has one on my team is on vacation. I will find out when he comes back.

UxiSXRD

01-21-07, 01:04 PM

It is hard to do a proper bitrate meter. We have offline tools to do the analysis and even they can be wrong by 5%. The bitrate meter on PS3 is no exception. It seems to lag the actual rate for the scene by a good bit on fast changing material and it is no doubt confused by buffer fullness and such. Same was true of the original bitrate meter on Sony's first DVD player. So I would simply use it as a rough guage and for fun factor, as opposed to exact statistic of what is going on.

Is there a better tool that could be used in your opinion, and might it be possible that a future 360 upgrade could add such a fun factor?

My geek meter loves the PS3 bitrate meter and I'd love to see one in the emtpy spaces when I git "info" on my 360 remote that came with the add-on. I'm thinking, towards the bottom letterbox. :D

amirm

01-21-07, 01:09 PM

amirm,

Here's a quote from Dan Hitchman over in the 'Format Neutral' thread:

"The PQ will be the same on both versions so no need to worry. Warner Brothers uses the specs. of HD-DVD to determine their VC-1 file size (GB storage allowed and peak bitrates allowed to stay within that space) and then strips out the 2:3 pull down header flags needed for HD-DVD since Blu-Ray is capable of true progressive video at 24 fps, and uses the same 1080p/24 compression encode for the Blu-Ray version.

Without trying to start a flame war here, one could argue that at least WB is not letting their Blu-Ray version shine since HD-DVD's lesser specs. are holding them back. WB currently has a policy of one encode for each format rather than separate encodes that take into account the strengths/weaknesses of each format. HD-DVD is determining what the Blu-Ray version will look like.

So far WB only uses 16 bit/48 kHz down sampled masters (the actual masters are 24 bit resolution) for TrueHD and LPCM. Using LPCM for Blu-Ray (they could have bought a compatible Dolby TrueHD encoder for their Blu-Ray authoring software) on a 50 GB disc will not impact the PQ. Blu-Ray has a higher mixed and separate Audio/Video stream bitrate allocation and 20 GB more space than a dual layered HD-DVD."

Do you agree with what he's saying here?

Wayne
I agree and disagree. I agree that Warner is striving for one encoding for both formats. I disagree because Warner compresionists spend incredible amount of time/skill optimizing the quality, far more than 2-day encodes that some people use at higher bit rates for other BD titles. And of course, they use advanced codecs uniformly. So unless someone can prove what quality is left on the table, the argument is theoretical and does not carry much weight. It is a bit like not buying a car in America because its top speed is 120 versus 150.

Then folks need to put themselves in Warner's shoes. Do you think it is justified for them to double encode all of their movies and spend even more money creating them, given how small the market is today? It is already very expensive for them to publish on both. Every title costs them more than it cost Disney/Fox, etc. to create the same. As such, how can one demand that they chase some mythical performance gap at even higher expense?

Mind you, once the market develops and becomes much larger, then they might go the separate route. But as enthusiasts, we should not forget the business dynamics the companies are in. I much rather have them use the cost saving to bring us more titles sooner (Matrix anyone?) than to go chase 1% or whatever quality people think is left behind. And indeed, they have already done so with bringing us more top titles than most of the BD studios.

And as I have pointed out, their policy impacts both sides. The VC-1 syntax that plays on BD is more restrictive than HD DVD so we suffer some too on this side of the fence. But you never see me complaining about that. A bit of quality loss there is a perfect price to pay to save so much work. But how about beating up Sony, etc. to fix the BD spec to allow the same stream as HD DVD? They use the same decoders as us so it is just a matter of software change to upgrade their players.

Above all, people should be incredibly thankful that the studio with the most content is publishing in BD in addition to HD DVD. Hammering on them for not doing even more, is not a helpful thing if you want more of their support on BD :).

If BD folks want to be unhappy, it should be about how much quality is left on the table by all of these MPEG-2 encodes. After all, if you believe VC-1 should be used at higher rates still, then why not cry about MPEG-2? We have people defending Sony’s choice here, but all of a sudden, we should come down hard on Warner?

I guarantee you that we can get more quality by having BD studios switch from MPEG-2 to advanced codecs than we can get by pushing the VC-1 data rate above HD DVD. So direct your energy for where it matters the most. Don’t go making Sony feel good by doing 2-day MPEG-2 encodes and then chastise the one studio which is doing more good to BD than just about anyone. If Warner had not pushed for VC-1 in BD, we may still be sitting here with just about every BD content in MPEG-2. Think about that for a moment before throwing mud at Warner.

As to audio, the problem is the BD spec. Have them make TrueHD mandatory and I guarantee you, that you will see that stream in BD titles. Have them make Picture in Picture mandatory in all players (and exchange the ones in the market) and you see IME titles coming out sooner on BD. Don’t put blame on Warner when BDA companies overruled them on these features, when they approved the same for HD DVD months earlier. Maybe they want to teach them a lesson, I don’t know :).

Anyway, sorry about the rant. :) I appreciate follow ups to other threads as I am sure much of what I have said is contentious…..

xradman

01-21-07, 01:17 PM

Can you explain to us how the user experience for a typical HD DVD PiP title differs from that provided by Lionsgate in The Descent and Crank? I appreciate that using secondary video hardware to implement PiP provides a set of capabilities distinct from that of using secondary encoding to achieve PiP (i.e. user control of where the window is), but to my knowledge few-if-any HD DVD titles are actually making use of this capability. Further, using the method Lionsgate did allows commentary to remain as primary audio, thus permitting full audio support regardless of whether the user is decoding audio in the player or the receiver. Your use of the word "proper" is an unwarranted slur on a perfectly legitimate design decision by Lionsgate.
You can't be serious. Have you actually seen Blu-ray version of Descent and Crank? Unless you decide to watch the entire movie with the PiP version and commentary, it's all but unusable. I've never watched the entire movie with the commentary. If there is an interesting part of the movie, and there is a commentary, I would rewind a chapter and rewatch just that segment with commentary on. This is what I have done with SD DVD and HD DVD let's me do that, now with PiP. With current pseudo PiP in BD, I am pretty much stuck, especially since the menu buttons are disabled with the PiP version of the film.

Kosty

01-21-07, 02:23 PM

...
It is hard to do a proper bitrate meter. We have offline tools to do the analysis and even they can be wrong by 5%. The bitrate meter on PS3 is no exception. It seems to lag the actual rate for the scene by a good bit on fast changing material and it is no doubt confused by buffer fullness and such. Same was true of the original bitrate meter on Sony's first DVD player. So I would simply use it as a rough guage and for fun factor, as opposed to exact statistic of what is going on.
I know OT, but I couldn't resist.

Its so sad that a reference to a " bit rate meter" for a video codec for a movie title could be in the same sentence as "fun factor." :D

...and said with a staight face, because some of us will use it that way.

My god, how geeky can you get??? :eek:

Is there a better tool that could be used in your opinion, and might it be possible that a future 360 upgrade could add such a fun factor?

My geek meter loves the PS3 bitrate meter and I'd love to see one in the emtpy spaces when I git "info" on my 360 remote that came with the add-on. I'm thinking, towards the bottom letterbox. Just for the record, I want this too! :) :) :)

UxiSXRD

01-21-07, 02:27 PM

Us geeks get our pleasures in strange ways. :D I annoy the Hell out of my better half by going to the bitrate meter on BD movies all the time. :D

Amir,

In the following article, there seems to be an implication that Microsoft may be producing a player or some type. Could you say if Microsoft was interested in their standalone DVD player?

http://www.twice.com/article/CA6405191.html?q=HD+DVD+

Microsoft may also make players, officials said, but didn’t provide further details.

Or could they be referring to the add-on? Right before CES? :confused:

amirm

01-21-07, 02:39 PM

Amir,

In the following article, there seems to be an implication that Microsoft may be producing a player or some type. Could you say if Microsoft was interested in their standalone DVD player?

http://www.twice.com/article/CA6405191.html?q=HD+DVD+

Or could they be referring to the add-on? Right before CES? :confused:
I can tell you very clearly that we have no interest, nor any plans or even discussions about building stand-alone HD DVD products (i.e. other than 360).

The article is vague anyway as to which "officials" they got their info from.

Maybe they got confused by the fact that we built the software layer for the BRCM reference platform. But that is very different from manufacturing hardware players other than Xbox.

John Haghighi

01-21-07, 04:39 PM

Us geeks get our pleasures in strange ways. :D I annoy the Hell out of my better half by going to the bitrate meter on BD movies all the time. :D

Ditto, but now she asks me why I don't pull up the meter on the 360 ;0) I'd like one too.

But before I ask for a meter, I'd like Amir to address questions about current 360 hardware capabilities posted above.

jdg345

01-21-07, 05:29 PM

Can you explain to us how the user experience for a typical HD DVD PiP title differs from that provided by Lionsgate in The Descent and Crank? I appreciate that using secondary video hardware to implement PiP provides a set of capabilities distinct from that of using secondary encoding to achieve PiP (i.e. user control of where the window is), but to my knowledge few-if-any HD DVD titles are actually making use of this capability. Further, using the method Lionsgate did allows commentary to remain as primary audio, thus permitting full audio support regardless of whether the user is decoding audio in the player or the receiver. Your use of the word "proper" is an unwarranted slur on a perfectly legitimate design decision by Lionsgate.

Were there not difficulties mentioned of bringing up the Menu when watching the PiP of Decent? I believe someone mentioned having to fast forward to the next chapter to be able to get out of the PiP mode and return to normal viewing. Would that simply be a bug? Or a limitation of how they did the PiP?

Innerloop

01-21-07, 08:28 PM

They could be burned onto a BD-R or BD-RE and played back on an unmodified BD player, but they could not be replicated onto a BD-ROM, as that's where ROMmark comes in (the watermark on BD-ROM format titles intended to protect against pirate replicators). The threat of burning onto BD-R/RE doesn't represent nearly the threat to studios due to the size of the download required and the much longer time required to mass-duplicate discs.

- Talk

Thanks for the clear answer. So this strikes me as good news for BD - unless HD-DVD has a similar ROM-watermarking or the BD ROMmark is easily defeated, it will definitely slow down mass-piracy if they can only be distributed on recordable media. At least we won't see the $5 copies being sold on the streets worldwide.

It will be interesting to see if they are able to defeat ROMmark without modifying the player.

Does HD-DVD implement a similar protection against unathorized ROMs?

If Pirates were to simply hijack a BD production line "after hours" would that line happily stamp out valid ROMmark titles for them? Would it allow the discs to be traced back to their source if so?

Cool stuff - good foresight.

What'sHD

01-21-07, 09:30 PM

I would like to say that I, as a lover of high def, rather appreciate the good PQ of Warner's movies.

Having said that, I get the sense that the original question is still unanswered. Or, has it been answered to the effect that what Dan Hitchman said is true and agreed with (albeit unwillingly) by HD-DVD insiders?

P.S. I have been of the same opinion for a while, thus the thread asking for separate BD50 encodes. But, so far, no go. Well, I am a patient man.

Ken H

01-21-07, 10:26 PM

Is there a problem here?

Unless you are an Insider, approved by AVS, this topic is Questions for Insiders only. Comments about replies are not allowed. Follow up questions are allowed.

Outlaw Z

01-21-07, 10:35 PM

Thanks for the clear answer. So this strikes me as good news for BD - unless HD-DVD has a similar ROM-watermarking or the BD ROMmark is easily defeated, it will definitely slow down mass-piracy if they can only be distributed on recordable media. At least we won't see the $5 copies being sold on the streets worldwide.

It will be interesting to see if they are able to defeat ROMmark without modifying the player.

Does HD-DVD implement a similar protection against unathorized ROMs?

If Pirates were to simply hijack a BD production line "after hours" would that line happily stamp out valid ROMmark titles for them? Would it allow the discs to be traced back to their source if so?

Cool stuff - good foresight.
I have a similar question. Why can't mass replicators mark the copies as BD-R?

ROMmark seems cool on paper but in actuality I think it will prove very easy to defeat. If I am pressing a disc can't I press any bits I want?

Also BR requires that ROMs have AACS. Would pirates have already decryped the files and need to press it in a format other than ROM?

WULFER

01-21-07, 10:59 PM

Hey Amirm, I'm having a little problem. I got the HD-DVD add-on drive for Christmas and 5 HD-DVD's. My problem is I'm having a freezing problem with King Kong and it's never in the same place. I have Batman Begins, Superman Returns, Terminator 3, Apollo 13 and King Kong. King Kong is doing random freezing but, none of the other movies freeze (so far). My question is this, do you think this is something firmware or a patch can fix or is my King Kong faulty? I don't think it's my drive but, I would like Kong King to work like it should. What can I do about this? Any ideas?

I love the drive and my movies, I would hate to lose this great device. Please help if you can!

TomsHT

01-21-07, 11:06 PM

Can you explain to us how the user experience for a typical HD DVD PiP title differs from that provided by Lionsgate in The Descent and Crank? I appreciate that using secondary video hardware to implement PiP provides a set of capabilities distinct from that of using secondary encoding to achieve PiP (i.e. user control of where the window is), but to my knowledge few-if-any HD DVD titles are actually making use of this capability. Further, using the method Lionsgate did allows commentary to remain as primary audio, thus permitting full audio support regardless of whether the user is decoding audio in the player or the receiver. Your use of the word "proper" is an unwarranted slur on a perfectly legitimate design decision by Lionsgate.

Talk, you have many posts proclaiming the advantages of Blu-ray being able to play longer running movies due to the extra space a BD50 disc will provide. If this is a perfectly legitimate way to provide extra features such as PIP into movies then could you explain the space differences required for these features? Is it a full second encode of the movie requiring as much space as the actual movie? Will movies that have these extra features be limited to 1.5 hr movies like they are now? What will be the normal and longest run time for movies that use features in this way?

The Descent = 99 minutes
Crank = 87 minutes

amirm

01-21-07, 11:08 PM

Talkstr8t

01-22-07, 02:05 AM

Does HD-DVD implement a similar protection against unathorized ROMs?No. The extra protection of ROMmark is is one of the reasons cited by Fox for being Blu-ray exclusive.
If Pirates were to simply hijack a BD production line "after hours" would that line happily stamp out valid ROMmark titles for them? Would it allow the discs to be traced back to their source if so?Yes, I believe all replicated discs can be traced to the replication site.

Talkstr8t

01-22-07, 02:09 AM

Talk, you have many posts proclaiming the advantages of Blu-ray being able to play longer running movies due to the extra space a BD50 disc will provide. If this is a perfectly legitimate way to provide extra features such as PIP into movies then could you explain the space differences required for these features? Is it a full second encode of the movie requiring as much space as the actual movie?Ignoring variables such as whether the same quality audio is provided on the PiP version, and whether the entire movie has PiP commentary, or only certain segments, yes.
Will movies that have these extra features be limited to 1.5 hr movies like they are now? What will be the normal and longest run time for movies that use features in this way?There are probably too many variables here for me to provide an absolute number (codec used, bitrates, audio codecs supported, etc.), but I doubt it would be suitable for titles over two hours. I haven't claimed this approach is better than secondary video or suitable for all titles, but for a certain class of movies and for a certain set of features it can offer benefits which the use of secondary video can't (and vice versa).

UxiSXRD

01-22-07, 02:45 AM

Any of the Microsoft Insiders, I was watching Hulk again today and trying to switch back to the main 'DVD menu' from the Hulk View back to the menu and got error C667000B.

From my searching, I found this thread on the xbox forums and it looks like this is something known:

http://forums.xbox.com/8690919/ShowPost.aspx

though I didn't have an issue getting there (I did watch the main title first again, then watched the deleted scenes and the documentary thing and then went into Hulk View and had the problem when trying to go BACK to the main menu.

Anyone know if this fix is scheduled yet, and/or if there's a date?

woodspoon

01-22-07, 08:18 AM

Amir, being a fan of VC1 I´d like to know if Disney is happy with it and if they are going to keep using it, specially in big titles (I´m thinking Pirates of the Caribbean...). I know you can´t say anything in particular, but maybe you can hint at something... Thanks

scaesare

01-22-07, 09:23 AM

Ignoring variables such as whether the same quality audio is provided on the PiP version, and whether the entire movie has PiP commentary, or only certain segments, yes.
There are probably too many variables here for me to provide an absolute number (codec used, bitrates, audio codecs supported, etc.), but I doubt it would be suitable for titles over two hours. I haven't claimed this approach is better than secondary video or suitable for all titles, but for a certain class of movies and for a certain set of features it can offer benefits which the use of secondary video can't (and vice versa). (emphasis mine)

Can you provide an example of a benefit that psuedo-PiP offers that real PiP does not?

benwaggoner

01-22-07, 02:22 PM

Currently on HD DVD I can move the PiP around. But I am really waiting for is the option of switching between the feature and the PiP video. Sometimes I may want to focus on the commentary instead of the movie. I could see something like this being useful with a Criteron Release when the commentary if from several people. If actors are involved in the commentary you can get a better feel for how people must have acted on the film set. And then you understand why he was slow to kiss her (assuming here a love story).
A company certainly could author a HD DVD disc with the option of going full-screen with the PIP. I don't know that titles have done that yet. Really, HDi can enable an enormous number of scenarios - it was designed to provide all the interactivity you'd want for a movie.

dobyblue

01-22-07, 02:24 PM

There is a 24/48 stereo track and a 16/48 5.1. Both LPCM...
Any idea when some of the Dave Matthews Band DVD's will see their way to Blu-ray. The Central Park show would be a big seller I'm sure.
Also do you know if they might be re-issuing older titles on BLu-ray mixed into 5.1 or higher with advanced resolution audio that are studio albums, ie - audio only?
I'm very keen on this side of Blu-ray.

kjack

01-22-07, 02:31 PM

A company certainly could author a HD DVD disc with the option of going full-screen with the PIP.Why would authoring have anything to do with it?

RobertR1

01-22-07, 02:31 PM

Amir,

Any word back from Warner on CJplay?

Thanks,
Robert.

rdjam

01-22-07, 03:25 PM

amirm

01-22-07, 04:32 PM

Amir,

Any word back from Warner on CJplay?

Thanks,
Robert.
Unfortunately not. I sent out another communication with the nice thread you all created wanting him back. But I have not heard anything yet. I can easily escalate to high level people but don't want to do that without cjplay's blessing.

I will find another way to ping him on this...

John Williams

01-22-07, 05:01 PM

Amir and Talkstr8t,

Questions for both of you about the *-9 formats:

Both - are each of the HD and BD-9 formats physically identical to their DVD-9 counterparts? I.e. could you, essentially, take a .iso DVD-9 image (or whatever input media they require) that was logically formatted as a H/BD-9 to a replicator and have them stamp out discs for you w/o any other special equipment?

(I know I'm skipping several steps in the replication process, but you understand the root of my question.)

Talk, is ROMmark something that's physically or logically on the disc, and is it required for BD-9? Does this pose a problem for BD-9 replication on an otherwise ordinary DVD line?

Amir, given a fairly clean 1080p24 (say, digitial camera) source and a modest (single) 448 or 640k regular DD track, how long of a feature would you expect to be able to fit on a HD-9 (or BD-9) via VC-1?

Thanks!

-John Williams

Talkstr8t

01-22-07, 06:57 PM

Can you provide an example of a benefit that psuedo-PiP offers that real PiP does not?Sure. Using "pseudo-PiP" all audio would be primary, so you could decode advanced audio in your receiver rather than on your player. Or "pseudo-PiP" would let you arbitrarily blend the two (or more) video streams, as mentioned in this (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=9368733&&#post9368733) post from Keith.

benwaggoner

01-22-07, 07:14 PM

Why would authoring have anything to do with it?
Most titles are authored with the PIP at a fixed size today. So taking PIP to full screen would require the content authors to add that as a mode for the disc.

Talkstr8t

01-22-07, 07:22 PM

Both - are each of the HD and BD-9 formats physically identical to their DVD-9 counterparts? I.e. could you, essentially, take a .iso DVD-9 image (or whatever input media they require) that was logically formatted as a H/BD-9 to a replicator and have them stamp out discs for you w/o any other special equipment? As far as I know, yes.
Talk, is ROMmark something that's physically or logically on the disc, and is it required for BD-9? Does this pose a problem for BD-9 replication on an otherwise ordinary DVD line?I'm not sure what information about ROMmark is public, so I'll need to refrain from commenting. If anyone can point to publicly available documents which answer this, feel free.

paidgeek

01-22-07, 07:49 PM

Above all, people should be incredibly thankful that the studio with the most content is publishing in BD in addition to HD DVD. Hammering on them for not doing even more, is not a helpful thing if you want more of their support on BD :).

If BD folks want to be unhappy, it should be about how much quality is left on the table by all of these MPEG-2 encodes. After all, if you believe VC-1 should be used at higher rates still, then why not cry about MPEG-2? We have people defending Sony’s choice here, but all of a sudden, we should come down hard on Warner?

I guarantee you that we can get more quality by having BD studios switch from MPEG-2 to advanced codecs than we can get by pushing the VC-1 data rate above HD DVD. So direct your energy for where it matters the most. Don’t go making Sony feel good by doing 2-day MPEG-2 encodes and then chastise the one studio which is doing more good to BD than just about anyone. If Warner had not pushed for VC-1 in BD, we may still be sitting here with just about every BD content in MPEG-2. Think about that for a moment before throwing mud at Warner.
…..

Amir, your guarantee does not make sense based on titles that use both codecs in the market. I respect that you are passionate about VC-1, but continuing to be so adamant regardless of observable results leads me to think this is a religious crusade rather than an objective pursuit for the best possible picture quality.

b2bonez

01-22-07, 07:58 PM

darinp2

01-22-07, 08:00 PM

paidgeek,

Sorry if this has been covered, but I'm wondering about Borat. Amazon lists it for sale on Blu-ray and coming on 3/6/07, but the price and the fact that somebody said that the code for it was a UMD and not a BD make me think that it might be a mistake. Do you have information about whether Borat is getting released on Blu-ray on March 6th or not?

Thanks,
Darin

Phloyd

01-22-07, 08:03 PM

I guarantee you that we can get more quality by having BD studios switch from MPEG-2 to advanced codecs than we can get by pushing the VC-1 data rate above HD DVD.

Can you comment on why the only Disney VC-1 encode so far is at greater bitrate than HD DVD?

They had a choice of bitrate and elected to use one that pushed them over the BD25 limit - one would think that this would increase the replication costs, based on your claims of the expense of BD50 replication. So they must have had good reason to make the bitrate so high?

azmodien

01-22-07, 08:30 PM

benwaggoner

01-22-07, 08:31 PM

Not to mention The Interpreter from Universal...
That was an old title - it just was released a long time after it was encoded.

For the pursuit for the best quality you only have to look at the Chronos thread...
Did you catch the part where he's sending us his source media, and we're going to show him what we can do with the current VC-1 encoder? The stuff he saw before wasn't up to snuff.

Phloyd

01-22-07, 08:38 PM

How about the Weinstein releases? Clerks II seems to have done very good business and Slevin is currently top on the Amazon HD DVD sales. Both very recent releases and follow on from previous AVC releases from this studio...

It will indeed be interesting to see what comes of Chronos. How long do you think Microsoft will have to hand hold every VC-1 encode to ensure that the maximum quality is achieved on a per title basis?

paidgeek

01-22-07, 08:47 PM

Question for Paidgeek on the new Sony AVC encoder.

Does the encoder support the CABAC entropy compression option of AVC ? If it does, is the option being used or planned to be used for titles ??

If you are using it (CABAC) I would be very interested on your opinion as to how it effects encode times and if the compression results are worth the effort and time.

b2b

The Sony encoder does support CABAC, and we use it as a rule. We have not run tests without it, since we consider this the best option for the greatest reduction if file size.

paidgeek

01-22-07, 08:50 PM

crashoveridema0

01-22-07, 09:05 PM

WULFER

01-22-07, 09:42 PM

You know, I would just be guessing here. Have you cleaned KK disc? I would call MS customer service and see if they can send you another copy of the movie to try. The drive seems OK if the other movies play back well.

Amirm, I tried call 1-800-4MY-Xbox spoke to a nice rep named Ryan but, he couldn't help he said I would have to go back to the retailer. Well, my problem with that is my wife got it as a Christmas gift through Amazon since she couldn't find the drive in stores anywhere. I don't want to send the drive back because I think the drive is fine I'm testing all my movies Apollo 13 is the last one to test! I've tested Batman Begins, Superman Returns (a few times) and Terminator 3 (a few times). Apollo 13 is the last one to test if it plays all the way through the movie then I would have to go with it's the King Kong HD-DVD. I can get the HD-DVD resurfaced a friend does this at his business do you think that would be a good idea? I was a little worried about trying this on HD-DVD's... (It's water base resurfacing machine and it works well.) I don't think Amazon will replace King Kong without the drive. So, I might be screwed out of King Kong and that sucks.

scaesare

01-22-07, 09:52 PM

Sure. Using "pseudo-PiP" all audio would be primary, so you could decode advanced audio in your receiver rather than on your player. Or "pseudo-PiP" would let you arbitrarily blend the two (or more) video streams, as mentioned in this (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=9368733&&#post9368733) post from Keith.

Follow up questions, if I may:

1) I don't understand how the audio is an advantage. With PCM touted is a mandated lossless solution for BR, isn't the expectation that you receiver is going to be able to accpet PCM anyway, and thus there is no advantage to, 1))Playing back native PCM, 2) decoding an advanced codec to PCM in the deck, or 3) decoding an advanced codec to PCM in the AVR?

2) If the goal is to do something arbitrary with the video stream (i.e. some blending or other effect), what is the distinction between this being PiP, as opposed to a semaless branch? IOW: at what point is it PiP and at what point is it an alternate video stream that has been branched to?

benwaggoner

01-22-07, 10:22 PM

How long do you think Microsoft will have to hand hold every VC-1 encode to ensure that the maximum quality is achieved on a per title basis?
I'd say about negative nine months.

There's some ramp-up for each new studio, but at this point I'd say we've touched well less than half of the titles out there before they hit market.

amirm

01-22-07, 10:42 PM

Amirm, I tried call 1-800-4MY-Xbox spoke to a nice rep named Ryan but, he couldn't help he said I would have to go back to the retailer. Well, my problem with that is my wife got it as a Christmas gift through Amazon since she couldn't find the drive in stores anywhere. I don't want to send the drive back because I think the drive is fine I'm testing all my movies Apollo 13 is the last one to test! I've tested Batman Begins, Superman Returns (a few times) and Terminator 3 (a few times). Apollo 13 is the last one to test if it plays all the way through the movie then I would have to go with it's the King Kong HD-DVD. I can get the HD-DVD resurfaced a friend does this at his business do you think that would be a good idea? I was a little worried about trying this on HD-DVD's... (It's water base resurfacing machine and it works well.) I don't think Amazon will replace King Kong without the drive. So, I might be screwed out of King Kong and that sucks.
I was talking about simply cleaning with a cloth. So try that and if you still have problems, have it resurfaced. If this doesn't work and makes it worse, PM me and I will send you a copy of KK to see if that fixes the problem.

amirm

01-22-07, 10:43 PM

amirm

01-22-07, 10:52 PM

Amir and Talkstr8t,

Questions for both of you about the *-9 formats:

Both - are each of the HD and BD-9 formats physically identical to their DVD-9 counterparts? I.e. could you, essentially, take a .iso DVD-9 image (or whatever input media they require) that was logically formatted as a H/BD-9 to a replicator and have them stamp out discs for you w/o any other special equipment?
No specific requirement. I believe there are some red laser HD DVDs already out there.

Talk, is ROMmark something that's physically or logically on the disc, and is it required for BD-9? Does this pose a problem for BD-9 replication on an otherwise ordinary DVD line?
There is a rumor that BD-9 also uses RomMark but obviously, it can not be the same wobble-grove mechanism used in BD blue laser discs.

Amir, given a fairly clean 1080p24 (say, digitial camera) source and a modest (single) 448 or 640k regular DD track, how long of a feature would you expect to be able to fit on a HD-9 (or BD-9) via VC-1?

Thanks!

-John Williams
Using 12 Mbit/sec rate (10 mbit/sec average plus 2 mbit/sec for the peaks) for audio/video, you get about 1 hour and 39 minutes. So you can have 90 minutes for such clean material to allow a bit of safety there. This would shrink to 1 hour of more difficult content.

alfbinet

01-22-07, 11:01 PM

Thanks again for your support of HD DVD.

Unfortunately, in front of our competitors I can not disclose our marketing plans. But suffice to say, a lot is planned. Take a look at the HighDef News section for a post from Kosty for a flavor of it.

Amir:

There seems to be a lot of "fishing" going around. I have my confience in HD DVD using marketing dollars in the most sensible way.

DTV TiVo Dealer

01-22-07, 11:06 PM

^ I know you are correct. In addition to Toshiba's and the HD DVD promotions group's money, I expect many authorized dealers, like myself, using our budgets heavily for the Super-bowl special instant rebate offer.

In fact, our aggressive plans include a large advertising budget on the Internet, national and local print and radio plus we are spicing up the offer over and beyond the national Toshiba offer.

Remember, this offer is for any new Toshiba HD DVD player, models A2, XA1 or XA2 combined with any new Toshiba 50" or larger HD DTV purchased at the same time. So if your in the market for another HDTV this would be your golden opportunity.

-Robert

amirm

01-22-07, 11:07 PM

Amir,

I am sure you are tired of hearing it, but Universal needs to make some significant software announcements VERY soon in order to pacify some of the hardcore HD-DVD supporters. At the moment, the top two or three threads in the HD section relate to the lack of new titles. Even though it has been made clear that there are 300-600 titles coming, the lack of hard release dates is troubling to many who are easily influenced by marketing and press releases.
I have seen the threads and commented in one. As I noted there, the machinery for HD DVD is once again in full gear. Some amazing content is being encoded ast I type this. People's patience will be rewarded nicely.

Universal, I'm sure is "taking the high road" and only making announcements of concrete and relevant data as opposed to the BD studios, but the perception of SOME in the community is that Universal is not taking the format war seriously enough. They can make the argument that January is slow for sales, so the release dates are being saved for later months, but were only talking about a consumer base of less than 200,000. (to whom, this model does not apply)

I know you mentioned in an earlier thread that you had already expressed these concerns to the studio, but I think the situation is more in need of attention than they realize. If you know of a phone number or email address of some marketing people that we could contact, it would be appreciated.

Thanks.
Thanks for offering to push Uni. I have already communicated the sentiments of members here to their executives and they understand and will be responsive. This is all I can say with their direct competitors looking on :). But I assure you that they will richly reward the fans of their movies in HD DVD.

There will be incredible number and variety of content in HD DVD this year. We have amazing number of post houses around the world trained with VC-1 and HDi. This is fueling incredible amount of HD DVD production worldwide. This, on top of strong support from Hollywood studios, will mean a banner year for HD DVD.

WULFER

01-22-07, 11:33 PM

I was talking about simply cleaning with a cloth. So try that and if you still have problems, have it resurfaced. If this doesn't work and makes it worse, PM me and I will send you a copy of KK to see if that fixes the problem.

Thanks Amirm, your real class act for doing this I'll try and get my King Kong resurfaced sometime this week. I'll report back to you after I get to test my King Kong again. Thanks for all the support you have a true HD-DVD supporter here.

Oh by the way I tested Apollo 13 tonight, played fine no freezes and it's about to finish in about 10 minutes.

amirm

01-22-07, 11:45 PM

Amir, your guarantee does not make sense based on titles that use both codecs in the market. I respect that you are passionate about VC-1, but continuing to be so adamant regardless of observable results leads me to think this is a religious crusade rather than an objective pursuit for the best possible picture quality.
For a guy who fought a crusade just to see advanced codecs in Blu-ray, I say the results are there to back up such efforts :). But I am happy to explain the logic more.

The key thing that you fail to note is that you are encoding MPEG-2 titles at much higher data rates than VC-1. So if MPEG-2 is a great codec, you should be beating VC-1 in quality, yet at most, you match it, but often come up short. The best example we have are Warner titles which you encoded in MPEGt-2. Here is the review of MPEG-2 Training Day on BD which is a top tier HD DVD title: http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/trainingday.html

"'Training Day' on Blu-ray has a lot to live up to. Had this title been released on the format before it hit HD DVD, it likely would not have come under nearly as much scrutiny. Videophiles have been waiting with bated breath to see not only if 'Training Day' looks great on Blu-ray, but if it tops or at least equals its rival. Surprisingly, the differences between the two versions is substantial in more ways than one -- and unfortunately for the Blu-ray camp, though it is quite a close race, it ultimately doesn't go Blu-ray's way.

To assess picture quality, I did comparisons of three complete scenes on both discs, one after the other, simply by switching between my set's two inputs. I also compared a dozen individual still images, by pausing each deck on identical still frames and switching back and forth. The picture quality differences between the two transfers is often quite apparent. For example, during the very first shot of the film -- a zoom in on a red-hot, rising sun – there was some posterization was visible on the Blu-ray, with the banding of colors obvious as the picture faded in. Looking closely at the HD DVD I could also spot some posterization, but it was not nearly as severe. These type of compression artifacts continued throughout both transfers, and I noticed about three or four shots on the Blu-ray with more polarization on backgrounds or during fades/dissolves, which were either not there on the HD DVD, or greatly lessened. So score one for HD DVD's VC-1 compression codec over the MPEG-2 scheme used for Blu-ray -- at least until that format's larger-capacity BD-50 dual layer discs become commercially viable."

And Rumor Has It: http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/rumorhasit.html

"Compression artifacts, too, are also more distracting. I detected a few patches of what looked like noise or blockiness on such objects as flat, color walls and fabric patterns on the Blu-ray – the HD DVD just looked more consistently cleaner and clearer. Again, none of these drawbacks are monumental, but the discerning eyes of this early adopter left me a tad disappointed with the Blu-ray.”

Note that Rumor Has It is a combo disc with only 15 gigabytes of capacity (newer combos do 30), compared to BD-25. So despite a capacity disadvantage, we came out ahead.

Admittedly, Peter Bracke considers MI3 to look the same on both formats. But the other reviews clearly show that despite having considerable advantage in peak bit rate using MPEG-2, you still did not manage to match our VC-1 quality.

Of course, we also know that Warner switched away from your MPEG-2 encode as fast they could. If life was great in MPEG-2 land, surely they would have continued using it.

Yes, there are some new BD titles that do look very nice. But there is no VC-1 version to compare to. And given your recent statement that you are releasing what looks good in BD, one is left wondering if test encodes are done and if something doesn’t look good, they are put back on the shelf.

So going back to the original question of people wanting even more quality than VC-1 provides in HD DVD, my question remains why one dose not exhaust the quality that could be there by just switching codecs from Sony side. After all, you are the only studio 100% on MPEG-2 today. No other studio has even come close to have the kind of marriage that you have with MPEG-2. All other major studios have released titles in advanced codecs, including others in your camp. Are you really the smartest one of the bunch by staying with MPEG-2 for so long?

And how about only using AVC, when your own encoder is ready. Doesn’t this seem like a coincident that the only time advanced codecs look good is when your own encoder is ready? And your preference to use that when it runs so much slower than our VC-1 encoder? Me thinks your internal directives to use Sony technology overrides the strive to create the absolute best quality. This is clear from studios who don’t build encoders and how free they feel to use advanced codecs.

As I have mentioned before, we gain very little from you using VC-1. People are indeed surprised that help the blu-ray side at all this way. If Warner had not rolled out their titles last year with VC-1 and erase the poor showing of BD format with MPEG-2 prior to that, there is no telling where BD format would be today.

So why do we do it? Believe it or not, it goes back to a promise I made to a Sony executive some 3 years ago. When challenged that we would disadvantage Blu-ray should they allow VC-1 in the format, if we choose to go the HD DVD route, I said they would have our word that would treat them as well as HD DVD studios. So this is why we wrote the BD conversion tool for VC-1. And why make our services fully available to you. To the extent you turn our offer down, my conscious is clear and we can move on to concentrate our efforts to help all the other HD DVD studios get even better quality out of their products….

burbank

01-23-07, 12:36 AM

A company certainly could author a HD DVD disc with the option of going full-screen with the PIP. I don't know that titles have done that yet. Really, HDi can enable an enormous number of scenarios - it was designed to provide all the interactivity you'd want for a movie.

Would it be possible for someone to twist arms? I could really see this as being fun. For example, on Batman Begins it would be nice to be able to switch so that the commentary for SFX scenes could be seen more clearly. Of course that is an example of my geekiness...

Kosty

01-23-07, 12:43 AM

dear amirm,

I am a loyal and avid hd dvd supporter, but latly blu-ray movie sales have started to surpass that of hd dvds and i belive that is due to the fact that blu-ray advertising on t.v. and in electronics stores is more prevalent, what is the hd dvd group planning to counter this? Thanks again for your support of HD DVD.

Unfortunately, in front of our competitors I can not disclose our marketing plans. But suffice to say, a lot is planned. Take a look at the HighDef News section for a post from Kosty for a flavor of it.

Amirm:

Huh? Did you mean the post to the Kevin Collin interview, your HighDefDigest interview or to my porn post in the news thread?

Grubert posted the link to your HDD article originally?
http://hddvd.highdefdigest.com/feature_microsofthddvdinterview.html

My recent posts in the new thread
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=9532898&&#post9532898

Or did you mean the 30GB networking thread?
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=788514

Kosty

01-23-07, 12:47 AM

Amir: Did you mean this post?

(Just saw the first printed ads at a retailer)

New Toshiba Program

Buy a new Toshiba HD TV 42" or larger along with a HD DVD player and receive $200 instant rebate off the bundle .

Dealers also receive an inventive.

Dealers must create or use a Toshiba ad or distribute an in-store flyer on the promotion.

Key element is the co-branding element of associating HD DVD with HDTV.

Limited time promotion is to start soon

This might be the best deal for months on getting a HD DVD player, if you are considering buying an 42 or larger HDTV.

The get 3 free HD DVD with HD DVD player purchase incentive is always still in place and can be used with this promotion.

amirm

01-23-07, 12:49 AM

Amirm:

Huh? Did you mean the post to the Kevin Collin interview, your HighDefDigest interview or to my porn post in the news thread?

Grubert posted the link to your HDD article originally?
http://hddvd.highdefdigest.com/feature_microsofthddvdinterview.html

My recent posts in the new thread
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=9532898&&#post9532898

Or did you mean the 30GB networking thread?
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=788514
I meant these on Toshiba's new promotion: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=9522665&&#post9522665

And your update: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=9525775&&#post9525775

AnthonyP

01-23-07, 12:51 AM

They could be burned onto a BD-R or BD-RE and played back on an unmodified BD player, but they could not be replicated onto a BD-ROM, as that's where ROMmark comes in (the watermark on BD-ROM format titles intended to protect against pirate replicators).

I thought AACS encrypted content could only be on a BD-ROM. That is one of the reasons all ROM disks must have AACS

amirm

01-23-07, 01:06 AM

I thought AACS encrypted content could only be on a BD-ROM. That is one of the reasons all ROM disks must have AACS
Why would someone want to AACS protect pirated content?

AnthonyP

01-23-07, 01:16 AM

Why would someone want to AACS protect pirated content?

I thought AACS was not cracked and the content was still encrypted (or has it been cracked now?) and that the title keys plus encrypted content plays of the HDD in an AACS approved player. If so then if the AACS content (with key) was put on BD-r and if what I heard is right, then that BD-r should not play.

wickedbob

01-23-07, 01:28 AM

Thank you for your participation in this forum Amir. You have a clarity and integrity.
I am new to AVS and HD-DVD and have to say that I have learnt alot about HD from this forum alone.

I have noticed a compressed dynamic range in DD+ from the Xbox HD-DVD player.
Unfortunately not every title released by the studios offers TrueHD to get around the issue.

Will this issue be resolved in the next Xbox360 update?
Will this be the fall update (a few months away) or sooner?

Once again, thank you. I am among many who appreciate your time and energy.

Talkstr8t

01-23-07, 01:31 AM

Sorry if this has been covered, but I'm wondering about Borat. Amazon lists it for sale on Blu-ray and coming on 3/6/07, but the price and the fact that somebody said that the code for it was a UMD and not a BD make me think that it might be a mistake. Do you have information about whether Borat is getting released on Blu-ray on March 6th or not?Based on a recent discussion with a Fox exec I don't believe it's scheduled for Blu-ray.

Talkstr8t

01-23-07, 01:37 AM

1) I don't understand how the audio is an advantage. With PCM touted is a mandated lossless solution for BR, isn't the expectation that you receiver is going to be able to accpet PCM anyway, and thus there is no advantage to, 1))Playing back native PCM, 2) decoding an advanced codec to PCM in the deck, or 3) decoding an advanced codec to PCM in the AVR?You may not want to use lossless (PCM or otherwise) for space reasons. Also, if you're using optical you're limited to two channel PCM or sending out DD/DTS 5.1. Yes, you could possibly re-encode in the player to DD/DTS, but it appears this method can create sync and dynamic range issues, and it clearly complicates the design and adds hardware cost.
2) If the goal is to do something arbitrary with the video stream (i.e. some blending or other effect), what is the distinction between this being PiP, as opposed to a semaless branch? IOW: at what point is it PiP and at what point is it an alternate video stream that has been branched to?Defining PiP as a second content window overlaid on the primary window, I'd say it's at whatever point you no longer have two content windows. The point is the encoding mechanism, given enough capacity, provides a degree of creative freedom which secondary video hardware on its own cannot. I'm not trying to justify it as a superior approach in all (or even most) use cases, but there are certainly use cases for which it makes sense.

amirm

01-23-07, 02:07 AM

I'm not trying to justify it as a superior approach in all (or even most) use cases, but there are certainly use cases for which it makes sense.
Sounds to me like you are saying if you drive backward to work, you save wear and tear on your forward gears in your car .... :)

If you really think these benefits are there, how much do you want to bet that LG would never use fake PiP if the real one was there?

benwaggoner

01-23-07, 02:31 AM

Would it be possible for someone to twist arms? I could really see this as being fun. For example, on Batman Begins it would be nice to be able to switch so that the commentary for SFX scenes could be seen more clearly. Of course that is an example of my geekiness...
Well, I'm not much of one for twisting the arms of our partners.

I know some studios have looked at this feature. I'm not sure if it's planned for any forthcoming titles or not.

Phloyd

01-23-07, 03:15 AM

I'd say about negative nine months.

I see.

So when Chronos was encoded 6 months ago (see this thread (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=9512435&&#post9512435)) the encoder had apparently already been doing great encodes for 3 months?

This is very confusing. In an earlier post you said when they encoded Chronos the VC-1 encoder was not up to snuff.

amirm

01-23-07, 03:28 AM

I see.

So when Chronos was encoded 6 months ago (see this thread (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=9512435&&#post9512435)) the encoder had apparently already been doing great encodes for 3 months?

This is very confusing. In an earlier post you said when they encoded Chronos the VC-1 encoder was not up to snuff.
Neither Ben or I have been contacted or heard of them producing this title using MPEG-2 until recently. Many people who evaluate VC-1 on their own, wind up using third-party VC-1 encoders which do not have any of the features or advanced quality settings of our professional encoder.

Rich in that thread never gave information on how they evaluated VC-1. He did say I tried to convince him to use VC-1 months ago (I don't remember) but he was not convinced. I certainly don't remember him contacting me or anyone else at Microsoft for help. If we can convince likes of Disney to use VC-1, you can imagine we are pretty good at this stuff :).

Also remember that titles like the Phantom were encoded in 2005. Yes, 2005, not even 2006. Yet they have amazing quality. There is no doubt in my mind we could have generated superior results than MPEG-2 that he used even 8 months ago. But I am not going to keep arguing with him in that thread.

We have offered to help him with his future titles so you may want to hang tough and see how that goes.

madshi

01-23-07, 04:39 AM

Three questions for both Blu-Ray and HD DVD insiders:

(1) Europe had a later start than US. So obviously movies are coming out later here, too. Will it stay this way? Or will studios catch up with movie releases sooner or later? I understand that new movies day and date releases may come at the same day world wide in the future. But I'm wondering about older movies, too.

(2) Do you see any signs that the recent volume key extraction hacks could slow down studio commitment for Blu-Ray and HD DVD? Is there a danger that studios consider stopping Blu-Ray and HD DVD production because of the hacks? Permanently? Or maybe temporarily until the WinDVD security leak is fixed?

(3) Do you think that the hacks might actually help getting managed copy out of the door sooner now? I mean isn't it in the studios' best interest to give consumers a legal way to make copies of their discs to network storage instead of "forcing" them to use hacks?

As usual, thanks very much for your replies!!

trbarry

01-23-07, 07:58 AM

I thought AACS was not cracked and the content was still encrypted (or has it been cracked now?) and that the title keys plus encrypted content plays of the HDD in an AACS approved player. If so then if the AACS content (with key) was put on BD-r and if what I heard is right, then that BD-r should not play.
That was indeed the case previously but in the last few weeks new developments appear to have allowed regular unencrypted movies to be extracted from both formats and some of this content has started appearing on the Internet. Though there are reportedly still some bugs.

- Tom

joshd2012

01-23-07, 08:25 AM

For a guy who fought a crusade just to see advanced codecs in Blu-ray, I say the results are there to back up such efforts :). But I am happy to explain the logic more.

The key thing that you fail to note is that you are encoding MPEG-2 titles at much higher data rates than VC-1. So if MPEG-2 is a great codec, you should be beating VC-1 in quality, yet at most, you match it, but often come up short. The best example we have are Warner titles which you encoded in MPEGt-2. Here is the review of MPEG-2 Training Day on BD which is a top tier HD DVD title: http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/trainingday.html

-snip-

So why do we do it? Believe it or not, it goes back to a promise I made to a Sony executive some 3 years ago. When challenged that we would disadvantage Blu-ray should they allow VC-1 in the format, if we choose to go the HD DVD route, I said they would have our word that would treat them as well as HD DVD studios. So this is why we wrote the BD conversion tool for VC-1. And why make our services fully available to you. To the extent you turn our offer down, my conscious is clear and we can move on to concentrate our efforts to help all the other HD DVD studios get even better quality out of their products….

Amir,

Would you care to comment how multiple reviews at Home Theater Spot have commented that MPEG-2 encodes look better than their VC-1 counterparts because of softness and filtering added due to VC-1? I know I am talking about more recent titles (something newer than Training Day), so I hope that is okay with you.

Morte66

01-23-07, 09:10 AM

Here is what I can tell you. There are 16,000 DVD titles from what I recall. Compared to that, neither BD nor HD DVD holds a candle.

So, do the industry insiders have any sort of feeling (or wild assed guesses) about how long it will take this gap to close? Are we talking years or decades?

My mail order rental company has about 15000 titles (UK R2 PAL), and I can't get 10-20% of the titles I look for. At the moment there are only about 5 HD titles (either format) I'd buy, 10 I'd rent, and another 10 I'd rent if they were available in Britain.

I'd be pretty happy to pay for HD hardware/software (I saw 223 films in cinemas in 1999), but you industry types have to actually offer the stuff. ;)

BenDover

01-23-07, 09:12 AM

amir/ben,

does ms have any plans/desire to put out an avc encoder? the two codecs are so darn similar it would seem, at least from a somewhat laymen's perspective, that most of the special sauce already developed for the vc-1 encoder could be used to output an avc compliant bitstream.

on another topic, when are we going to see the first title to make use of networking interactivity/streaming?

TIA

scaesare

01-23-07, 10:00 AM

You may not want to use lossless (PCM or otherwise) for space reasons. Also, if you're using optical you're limited to two channel PCM or sending out DD/DTS 5.1. Yes, you could possibly re-encode in the player to DD/DTS, but it appears this method can create sync and dynamic range issues, and it clearly complicates the design and adds hardware cost.

Forgive me then, but I'm really at a loss for how Psuedo-PiP is an advantage in your resonse that "...you could decode advanced audio in your receiver rather than on your player" . I don't understand the player-vs-AVR comment.

Did you mean that real PiP is bandwidth/channel contrained, whereas second stream that is branched to (aka PPiP) would have no such contraints?

TheLion

01-23-07, 10:45 AM

Dear paidgeek,

first of all let me thank you for your participation here - very much appreciated. Discussion here is a little bit more even handed and balanced since your arrival. Thank you very much for that and your employer for sharing you with us ;)

Now on to my question...

I must admit :o that "Legends of the Fall" is perhaps my favourite movie of all time. It just happens that it was also my very first purchased DVD. And much more importantly the movie I watched on the second date with my wife. You see - it has quite a sentimental value to me.

It was announced to be one of the launch titles for Blu-Ray and has now been delayed a several times. I take it from your previous comments that this may be due to getting it remastered - IMHO not even the UK Superbit edition had totally satisfying PQ (I own 4 different DVD editions of this movie...)- so I guess there is quite some potential in doing a brand new master for this release.

Please allow me to ask you

- the specific reason (if you are allowed to share) for the delay?

- when can my wife, I and millions of other freaks who adore this movie expect the release?

- will it be from a new master and/or can I expect to be satisfied with the PQ :)

On another matter - After Sony Pictures has officially announced their first two AVC releases can you think of ANY argument to continue using MPEG2 instead of AVC for some releases in the future OTHER than the (encoding/authoring) time factor? To put it another way - Is the quality of Sony's AVC implementation already up to and beyond to what we have come to expect from your MPEG2 releases? Can we expect pretty much all the upcoming high-profile releases (where encoding time shouldn't matter much...) from Sony Pictures to use AVC or does the whole workflow need more time to mature?

BenDover

01-23-07, 10:56 AM

The Sony encoder does support CABAC, and we use it as a rule. We have not run tests without it, since we consider this the best option for the greatest reduction if file size.

How are the various players and the PS3 game console handling the extra decoding complexity added by CABAC?

paidgeek

01-23-07, 12:08 PM

The key thing that you fail to note is that you are encoding MPEG-2 titles at much higher data rates than VC-1. So if MPEG-2 is a great codec, you should be beating VC-1 in quality, yet at most, you match it, but often come up short. The best example we have are Warner titles which you encoded in MPEGt-2. Here is the review of MPEG-2 Training Day on BD which is a top tier HD DVD title: http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/trainingday.html

So going back to the original question of people wanting even more quality than VC-1 provides in HD DVD, my question remains why one dose not exhaust the quality that could be there by just switching codecs from Sony side. After all, you are the only studio 100% on MPEG-2 today. No other studio has even come close to have the kind of marriage that you have with MPEG-2. All other major studios have released titles in advanced codecs, including others in your camp. Are you really the smartest one of the bunch by staying with MPEG-2 for so long?

And how about only using AVC, when your own encoder is ready. Doesn’t this seem like a coincident that the only time advanced codecs look good is when your own encoder is ready? And your preference to use that when it runs so much slower than our VC-1 encoder? Me thinks your internal directives to use Sony technology overrides the strive to create the absolute best quality. This is clear from studios who don’t build encoders and how free they feel to use advanced codecs.

As I have mentioned before, we gain very little from you using VC-1. People are indeed surprised that help the blu-ray side at all this way. If Warner had not rolled out their titles last year with VC-1 and erase the poor showing of BD format with MPEG-2 prior to that, there is no telling where BD format would be today.

….

Certainly we can argue back and forth using quotes from one reviewer or another as proof that one codec is superior to another in one scene or another. I think this quickly become pointless. I have said it before, but for clarity, each codec can break, or perform well at a given bit rate depending on the source program characteristics. For instance, the MPEG2 encoder is more vulnerable to posterization than the AVC encoder or VC1 encoder, but on the other hand, the MPEG images where both can be directly compared are sharper than those from the VC-1 encoder, in side by side comparisons this can be demonstrated.

In working with the talent that actually makes the film, it quickly becomes apparent than when someone has worked for 2 weeks on a 10 second shot, they know what it is supposed to look like and they want it to look just as it did when it was mastered.

Just as Sony Pictures would not insist that a DP use the 35mm negative film we specify because we got a good deal on it. We will not insist that a Blu-ray disc use the codec of our choosing if they are not totally happy with it. We have long relationships with our film makers that are too important to burden with a codec agenda (even if we had one). Accordingly, if a film maker is impressed by encoder xyz from company abc, we will provide it, period.

It is also worth noting that HD-DVD regularly has max bit rate issues. These are the places where the video entropy is very high and something has to give, regardless of the codec used. When a film maker sees their work on both formats with separate encodes optimized for the high bandwidth in BD, you can expect a reaction and it will probably not be a request to copy the lesser result on HD-DVD to BD to level the two results. I also don't think they want to wait while Redmond takes another pass on it to get a better result.

If you want to continue to argue that MS VC1 is the superior codec and all others are inferior, can we take it to another thread just on this topic? We can all post screen shots or timings of our most notable codec failure until we go blind over there.

TheLion

01-23-07, 12:08 PM

From the highdefdigest interview with Amir:

"What is most fascinating to me is that, after reviewing probably far too many Blu-ray and HD DVD discs over the past few months, I am starting to notice a unique look and feel to each codec, particularly VC-1, which I find quite smooth and natural looking.

Amir: It does have a look to it, what I would call a very loose analog quality. Very film-like. It doesn't have a processed, crisped-up, cooked feel that MPEG-2 and the other codecs do."

If VC-1 really has a distinct look the remaining question is : Is smooth VC-1 or "harsher/sharper" MPEG2/AVC more representative of the original source?

marcx

01-23-07, 12:44 PM

hd90210

01-23-07, 02:12 PM

Question for insiders,

Here is the quote from a recent interview (http://www.cepro.com/news/editorial/17509.html) with David Chaplin, manager of the HD DVD Mobile Experience:

"Selling HD DVD players at a loss -- something that the Blu-ray camp questions the feasibility of -- doesn't seem to phase Chaplin. "That's just the way it is," he said."

Is that a confirmation that most/all of the hd-dvd players on the market today are selling at a loss?

Krobar

01-23-07, 02:35 PM

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.

Hi Amir,

I have a hardware question.

All current I-Link amps are supposed to handle 6 Channel 96KHZ PCM and MLP and I-Link encryption is AACS approved. I like I-Link because I use an outboard Video Processor (So would need 2 HDMI and of course an HDMI amp/preamp). Also I-Link supports daisychaining and control signals.

Have you heard of any I-Link fitted HD-DVD players in the works?

amirm

01-23-07, 02:48 PM

Amir,

Would you care to comment how multiple reviews at Home Theater Spot have commented that MPEG-2 encodes look better than their VC-1 counterparts because of softness and filtering added due to VC-1? I know I am talking about more recent titles (something newer than Training Day), so I hope that is okay with you.

Let me start by saying that I have nothing but respect for people who do these reviews. Having tried to rate a few HD DVDs on which one looks better and going blind and frustrated in the process :), I know how difficult it is to rate content, when you don’t have the original. And that the process is quite subjective and depends on equipment used, level of experience in professional video encoding, etc. So we are bound to find differences in how people view the quality of titles on both sides. With that out of the way, let’s look the situation once more through the eyes of homethaterspot.

Before I comment on Chad’s other reviews that you ask about, let’s see what he has said on the two reviews that I post before.
Here is Rumor Has It: http://www.hometheaterspot.com/htsthreads/dvd-review.php?sequence=1484

“The 1.78:1 framed video was surprisingly grainy. This is one area I would have liked to be able to confer with the HD DVD release, as grain tends to be agitated by compression. VC1 has shown marked improvement over DVDs MPEG2 and most of Sony’s early titles on BD. But, I didn’t notice as clear a difference between both format releases of Training Day. More obvious MPEG artifacts, like pixelization, were only observed in a couple richly colored backgrounds during this film as well. All things considered I’m tempted to surmise that the degree of grain is likely innate to the photography. But, I hate to guess.”

And now Training Day: http://www.hometheaterspot.com/htsthreads/dvd-review.php?sequence=1479

“But, going back to how this disc compares to its HD DVD counterpart, when you get down to the nit and gritty, there was a bit of MPEG noise in select backgrounds like the opening sunrise that didn’t appear to be visible on the HD version. But, even that didn’t amount to much and otherwise both releases expressed a cleanliness and clarity that was overwhelmingly congenial and too close to distinguish with any certainty. Chroma did give the illusion of greater depth on the HD release, possibly because of the chroma filtering in the Faroudja chip used by the Samsung BD player. But, even that was a bit difficult to qualify without an optimally setup side by side and all the things that attempting such would entail.”

So he seems to be seeing some of the same issues as Peter, admittedly, to a lesser degree. Like him, I have a Ruby at home and I know that it does not fully resolve 1080p and as such, softens block edges some. The best device in my opinion to find artifacts remains to be an LCD. These things are ruthless in brining out compression artifacts because there is no lens or projections system to soften the video. Mind you, they are not the best devices to enjoy movie, but if you want an “instrument”, they are quite good at it this way :).

Anyway, you are right that Chad has been much more akin to like MPEG-2 encodes better now and indeed has developed a fondness for BD titles in general. And the school of “higher bitrate is better regardless of algorithm used.” As you can imagine, I don’t agree with his observations because they do not match mine. Let’s look at some data points.

Here is what he says on Pearl Harbor:

“Like most I was sold on the benefits, if not the need for the new advanced codecs like AVC and VC1 for high definition. And while both have produced great results, it's releases like this that make me hope the lesser compressed codec, MPEG 2 hangs around a bit longer. I'm no longer sold that heavier compression from VC1 and AVC is the ideal. But that's still too early to qualify. Regardless, I saw no problems with compression, no artificial video noise, no posterization/banding of color transitions or fades. Pearl Harbor looks like 35mm film is supposed to and never hints at being processed.”

He gives it perfect score for video but when I watch this movie, I cannot figure out how he got there. I see a video that clearly suffers from compression artifacts despite high peaks in bitrate. We had a nice thread on this recently: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=781777. That prompted me to go and find my copy of PH and watch it on a 1080p LCD. The display I used was the Samsung which overscans which means it is filtering detail and blocking artifacts. Still, the artifacts were very clear, and as widespread throughout the movie as the poster said in the above link. It was shockingly easy to spot even without pausing, making me wonder how others in that thread, and the many other reviews have missed them.

Yes, yes, many people like the picture quality on PH and I personally found the overall presentation very nice if I sat far enough back so that I could not see the distorted grain. And it is quite unfair to pause the video and expect perfection from either codec/format. But to my eye, the grain simply doesn’t look right nor does detail on some surfaces. Instead of random noise, I see blocks dancing back and forth. This alone should have knocked it down from reference quality. And certainly I would not mention a word about VC-1 in the same breath as we simply do not suffer this way. VC-1 has 4x4 blocks which are much smaller and harder to see even if they do pop up, as compared to 8x6 blocks that MPEG-2 uses.

Indeed, this content is difficult to encode because the entire movie is grainy. Disney used this as one of the benchmarks for codec testing as a matter of fact so perhaps we are too familiar with what can go wrong in encoding it. That is really the issue with MPEG-2. Feed it very clean content and give it a peak rate well above 30 mbit/sec and you are going to get very good to excellent results. But give MPEG-2 something it doesn’t like, and lack of advanced tools in it cause it break up, giving you uneven performance across wide range of titles.

Going back to Chad, what explains his observations then about new codecs? Clearly he is respected member of the community with a good eye and nice equipment. Perhaps this provides a clue? http://www.hometheaterspot.com/htsthreads/dvd-review.php?sequence=1650

“This title does not fail to excite, but there is some slight softness that is more apparent in darker sequences that makes one wonder if VC1 compressionists are being given too much liberty with noise reduction than they should. Recent interviews with Sony and others unbridled by studio politics but more expert in the field than I, lead to me to believe that may be the case. Unforgiven certainly looks to have been heavily cleaned up.”

So sounds like Sony has paid him a visit and put in the good word on VC-1 :). Seriously, as long time readers know, both cjplay (of GDMX/Warner) and I have emphatically said that no filtering is used in creation of Warner titles. So who to believe? I let you ponder that :).

But perhaps a less sinister reasoning is in place and one heaven forbid, is based on science! Here is the situation. You know how the sound of your system gets “bright” when you turn up the volume too high, but not high enough to clip/get super distorted? The brightness comes from high-frequency distortion that the amp puts out when pushed beyond its comfort zone. Indeed, if you keep turning up the volume beyond this point, you blow your tweeter (or its fuse if there is one) in your speaker, proving that harmonic distortion causes artificial high-frequencies to be generated that drive your tweeter beyond its power capabilities.

The equivalent of above occurs in video compression. If the codec causes mild macroblocking, the artificial sharp edges that it creates, gives the illusion of a sharper image. The blocking artifacts act like a very crude sharpening filter because it creates sharp horizontal and vertical lines that add to the amount of high frequency detail in the picture. Just like the audio issue above, if the blocking artifacts increase past a point, then you see them and the result is very unflattering. But prior to that point, unskilled viewers may think they are getting sharper pictures. Or put in reverse, the encode (with VC-1) which lacks such artifacts, is “softer.” In reality, the softer encode is true to its original, as would be an amplifier being driven at 10% of its power output instead of near maximum with lots more distortion. What we strive to do in VC-1 is to preserve the natural, “analog feel” of the movie. If someone wants the source to be sharper, they can, heaven forbid, dial in some sharpening before encoding. It is not our job to do that in the encoder.

You can maybe see a hint of Chad observing the above issue in the Rumor Has It review:
“All things considered I’m tempted to surmise that the degree of grain is likely innate to the photography. But, I hate to guess.”

What he appears to be seeing is grain agitated with blocking artifacts that come and go too quickly to observe them as such. So he thinks there is too much noise there.

Anyway, I hope we don’t have a bunch of argumentative posts back and forth in this thread. I suggest using the PH thread linked above for continued discussion as resolving that paradox, is the key to understanding more about this situation.

DVD_sanchez

01-23-07, 02:51 PM

Amir,

Can I ask you, without attempting to cause any sort of tension. Are Microsoft concerned about Blu-ray in general, is there alot of talk internally?

amirm

01-23-07, 03:08 PM

Amir,

thanks for answering my questions on the Saw films a few pages back but i think you might have missed my follow up questions in post #1246

I am still wondering if these are going to be the unrated versions of these films

(and also wanted to b make sure that english v.0. meant a regular english language track w/o subs)
Sorry, I have actually been chasing the answer and just got it!

"VO" stands for "Version Original." The original soundtrack is English. And there is a dubbed Spanish track.

They tell me they "think" it is the unrated version. But that is the best info I can get :).

amirm

01-23-07, 03:42 PM

Amir,

Can I ask you, without attempting to cause any sort of tension. Are Microsoft concerned about Blu-ray in general, is there alot of talk internally?
Not quite clear as to nature of your question. In what respect are you asking?

amirm

01-23-07, 03:54 PM

Hi Amir,

I have a hardware question.

All current I-Link amps are supposed to handle 6 Channel 96KHZ PCM and MLP and I-Link encryption is AACS approved. I like I-Link because I use an outboard Video Processor (So would need 2 HDMI and of course an HDMI amp/preamp). Also I-Link supports daisychaining and control signals.

Have you heard of any I-Link fitted HD-DVD players in the works?
No I have not. Unfortunately, I-Link has fallen out of fovar quite radically with advent of HDMI.

Having said, this speciality high-end companies might choose to support it if there is enough demand.

captaincelluloid

01-23-07, 04:00 PM

Our pal and industry insider SLASH guru Pete Putman posted this on his website's 2007 CES Overview and I would love to get our AVS HD-DVD and BD insiders to comment in depth.

http://hdtvexpert.com/pages_b/ces2007.html

I quote [ NB; with my comments noted as such; Capn' ]

"And we all wondered why there was a need for a dual-format disc if a dual-format player was available."

"With dual-format packaged blue laser DVDs, the ultimate winner is the company with the cheapest player, regardless of technology" [ NB; at this point HD-DVD; Capn' ]

"With a dual-format player, the trophy goes to the blue laser disc format with the lowest retail prices and widest availability of titles. [ NB; at this point HD-DVD for cost and number of titles BUT ALSO at this point POTENTIALLY could quickly become BD for number of titles due to the number of studios attached; Capn' ]

"Given that the leading proponent of Blu-ray (Sony) also owns a huge library of movies (MGM) and its own studio, hell will probably freeze over before any of those films get pressed onto an HD DVD."

"My money’s on the dual-format players, particularly if any second-tier Asian manufacturers like Onkyo or Oppo start building them."

--- Pete Putman

Your thoughts, Oh Esteemed Industry Insiders?

-30-

benwaggoner

01-23-07, 08:33 PM

does ms have any plans/desire to put out an avc encoder? the two codecs are so darn similar it would seem, at least from a somewhat laymen's perspective, that most of the special sauce already developed for the vc-1 encoder could be used to output an avc compliant bitstream.
Yikes. Well, I'm sure that given a couple of years the team could make the greatest AVC encoder in the world. But it's a lot harder than you think. And it'd really distract from our myriad VC-1 efforts. We've got enough on our plate as it is, handling encoding for everything from WPF/E to mobile devices to source code parters license, etcetera, etcetera. We're already wide enough, and what wins is going deep.

on another topic, when are we going to see the first title to make use of networking interactivity/streaming?

That I don't know. I've seen demos.

Talkstr8t

01-23-07, 08:40 PM

Forgive me then, but I'm really at a loss for how Psuedo-PiP is an advantage in your resonse that "...you could decode advanced audio in your receiver rather than on your player" . I don't understand the player-vs-AVR comment.When using hardware (secondary video) to support PiP the audio is secondary. That means if you're using a codec which isn't supported in your player (i.e. DTS-HD MA) but you're decoding in the receiver, you won't hear the secondary audio. Even if you're decoding in the player (i.e. TrueHD where supported) you're limited at that point to lossless PCM output, which means HDMI, or re-encoding as DD or DTS, which means more complexity, degraded sound, and possible sync issues. Using "pseudo-PiP" the producer can use whatever form of sound they choose without the additional complication of how to mix the primary and secondary audio.

mfuhlendorf

01-23-07, 09:26 PM

scaesare

01-23-07, 09:34 PM

When using hardware (secondary video) to support PiP the audio is secondary. That means if you're using a codec which isn't supported in your player (i.e. DTS-HD MA) but you're decoding in the receiver, you won't hear the secondary audio. Even if you're decoding in the player (i.e. TrueHD where supported) you're limited at that point to lossless PCM output, which means HDMI, or re-encoding as DD or DTS, which means more complexity, degraded sound, and possible sync issues. Using "pseudo-PiP" the producer can use whatever form of sound they choose without the additional complication of how to mix the primary and secondary audio.

Ah, OK. I see what you mean. Thanks.

Actually that brings up another good question... given the interactivity that both formats bring that will include sound mixing, tracks being toggled on and off, etc... it has been a rather accepted that "PCM via HDMI" is the way to go, and that codec decoding in the AVR is becoming somewhat deprecated at this point.

But as I think about it, I seem to only recall that specifically mentioned as a "must" for "Advanced" authored HD DVD discs, where HDi sound mixing is required. Is that the general stand that BDA has as well?

paidgeek

01-23-07, 09:34 PM

paidgeek

01-23-07, 09:36 PM

How are the various players and the PS3 game console handling the extra decoding complexity added by CABAC?

No problems with CABAC. It is mandatory that it be supported. Some software players for the PC may have trouble when using non-accelerated graphics, but other than that, no worries.

paidgeek

01-23-07, 09:53 PM

Three questions for both Blu-Ray and HD DVD insiders:

(1) Europe had a later start than US. So obviously movies are coming out later here, too. Will it stay this way? Or will studios catch up with movie releases sooner or later? I understand that new movies day and date releases may come at the same day world wide in the future. But I'm wondering about older movies, too.

I think we will catch up. It is just a function of having enough hardware in the market to take advantage of the software.

(2) Do you see any signs that the recent volume key extraction hacks could slow down studio commitment for Blu-Ray and HD DVD? Is there a danger that studios consider stopping Blu-Ray and HD DVD production because of the hacks? Permanently? Or maybe temporarily until the WinDVD security leak is fixed?

It depends on how well the AACS response works. We will be keeping a very close watch on how this progresses.

(3) Do you think that the hacks might actually help getting managed copy out of the door sooner now? I mean isn't it in the studios' best interest to give consumers a legal way to make copies of their discs to network storage instead of "forcing" them to use hacks

I don't think that having managed copy would have stopped this hack. Having a legitimate means to copy movies is no substitute for the thrill these people get from hacking a security system.

amirm

01-23-07, 09:54 PM

Hey Amirm,

Great interview on the highdefdigest.com website (here (http://hddvd.highdefdigest.com/feature_microsofthddvdinterview.html)).
If you manage to put that kind of in-depth explanation in a major news outlet, it'd help HDDVD a lot, I think.
Agree :). But it takes a good interviewer to know what to ask. And Peter was great because he had done an interview with BD folks a few weeks back and of course as a reviewer, he is a lot more familiar with the technology than average reported.

On a side note, since you mentioned that almost all HDDVD studios release in VC1 exclusively, why isn't that so with the Weinstein Co.? They are sticking with AVC only. I don't have any of their titles yet, but I'm looking forward to Mrs Henderson Presents, and it's a grainy movie... Do you know if they plan to support VC1 in the future?
The problem we run into is twofold:

1. Everyone thinks the non-Microsoft answer is the right one unless proven otherwise. So this pushes people often toward AVC or MPEG-2. They tell the post house to use that technology and that is what they give them.

2. They don't know how to contact us so they go with ready made solutions like MPEG-2.

Most of the time, once we find out, we go and talk to them and ask them to give us an opportunity to show them what we can do, with their own material. They can get anyone to encode with another codec, and us with VC-1. Often this works as it did with Disney. Sometimes it does not as the person doesn't want to bother.

Of course, we are quite busy these days with the studios who have chosen VC-1 so we can only go so far in chasing new business if folks are reluctant.

As to when/if they are going to use VC-1, I don't have the latest status. Will find out and share if I can.

John Haghighi

01-23-07, 11:05 PM

amirm

01-24-07, 12:47 AM

Amir still waiting for some answers from this post (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=9533780&&#post9533780) , particularly to the comments Kevin Collins made in the HTF chat and current 360 hardware possibility for HDMI.

If you can't answer it here, that's fine just looking for some clarification.
It is not a matter of "can't" answer but rather, the subject matter got too complicated to keep talking about it here. To net it out, I am talking about dynamic sync errors for audio/video that happen in both formats due to difficulty of encoding/playing streams with non-synchronized clocks. Your comments are regarding static sync issues between the two. They are different things. I gave up explaining it, after realizing that people are probably getting more confused than educated about it.

As to your question about Xbox 360, the box is designed to output component. Could it have been designed to output HDMI? Sure. And that is what Kevin is saying.

Krobar

01-24-07, 02:36 AM

Hi Amir,

Whats happening with the Momentum releases of Canal titles in the UK? These guys were meant to be distributing most of the UK Canal releases but we havent seen (Or even heard of) any titles from them yet. (They own Rambos, T2 and lots of others). Are they still due to release in the UK or is it going to be French import only?

Meanwhile Optimum (A much smaller UK distro) are showing support for the Canal titles they have and some owned by Universal in the US too but this just makes me wonder even more if Momentum will release.

What'sHD

01-24-07, 02:56 AM

nilsp

01-24-07, 03:10 AM

My information is that all the trailers are encoded in MPEG2. The actual release for Open Season is AVC. You won't be disappointed.

Thanks, paidgeek, it seems you're telling the truth :): http://www.hometheaterspot.com/htsthreads/dvd-review.php?sequence=1818

When will we see live action titles using AVC?

John Haghighi

01-24-07, 03:57 AM

It is not a matter of "can't" answer but rather, the subject matter got too complicated to keep talking about it here. To net it out, I am talking about dynamic sync errors for audio/video that happen in both formats due to difficulty of encoding/playing streams with non-synchronized clocks. Your comments are regarding static sync issues between the two. They are different things. I gave up explaining it, after realizing that people are probably getting more confused than educated about it.

Fair enough, I'll take this discussion to another thread.

As to your question about Xbox 360, the box is designed to output component. Could it have been designed to output HDMI? Sure. And that is what Kevin is saying.

Thanks for the answer (I think). I take from this there is no possibility the current 360 hardware could simply get an HDMI cable in place of the VGA cable, and hence no possibility that the current 360 hardware will ever transport Dolby TrueHD natively.

Nice interview on hidefdigest (http://hddvd.highdefdigest.com/feature_microsofthddvdinterview.html) ...

DiCecco

01-24-07, 07:30 AM

When are the HD-DVD and Blu-Ray hardware makers going to come out with a 400 disc changer. I am so spoiled by my 400 disc changer for sd dvd. I just love never to handle my dvd's again once they are in the changer.

rdjam

01-24-07, 09:05 AM

joshd2012

01-24-07, 10:12 AM

Amir,

This is a VC-1 related question. I just read the review of Open Season (http://www.hometheaterspot.com/htsthreads/dvd-review.php?sequence=1818) over at Home Theater Spot (by Chad). Sony was able to fit a 100 minute feature (using AVC), with all the extras from the SD release (some of them presented in HD) and a PCM audio track on a BD-25.

It appears that nothing was sacrificed (noting the 5/5 PQ and AQ rating: "This is a virtually flawless video encoding.") and they still managed to include a PCM track.

My question is, has AVC surpassed VC-1 in compression or is it an active decision to not include Lossless/Uncompressed audio on HD DVD release? Or possibly, is this a bandwidth issue for HD DVD? It seems to me, if Sony can include all the extras (including some in HD), and present excellent video with PCM audio in 25GB of space, then all Warner releases should have the same capability, even with TrueHD.

This tells me that either AVC compresses better than VC-1, the bandwidth doesn't support the track, or they are actively choosing not to put lossless/uncompressed audio on the releases. Can you comment on which is the likely culprit? I'm sure you can comment on the VC-1 vs AVC and bandwidth issues. Thanks.

TheLion

01-24-07, 10:48 AM

This title is not currently on the release schedule I have seen. I also personally like this title, but I am not thrilled with the sharpness of the master. This title was re-transferred recently and I think our servicing department has done a good job of squeezing everything we can get out of the film elements. I am sure you will be happy with the final Blu-ray, but don't expect it to be as razor sharp as some other titles.

We will continue to use both AVC and MPEG2 selectively on upcoming titles and will continue to consider VC1, particularly if MS announces some further break throughs.

Our choice of the codec really depends on the available bit rate and the nature of the master.

Paidgeek,

thank you VERY much for your kind reply, I really appreciate it.

Please allow for another insider question as you seem to be very familiar with the quality of a lot of master tapes - which in the big picture is still probably the most vitally important factor for the PQ of any given HD transfer/encoding.
Please name your personal top three of the most impressive master tapes (PQ wise) you have laid eyes on - without making any connection or hint about an upcoming BluRay release. Just from your personal working experience - from an enthusiast/geek point of view.

paidgeek

01-24-07, 11:14 AM

hi Paidgeek,

Would it be possible to get some info on the lifetime expectancy of the PS3 drive?

How long is it slated / designed to last at typical home-usage? Any figures for the number of hours?

--------------------------------------------

hi Amir,

Same query re the add-on's and 360's drives. How long are they slated / designed to last at typical home-usage? Any figures for the number of hours?

thanks both for any info.

I have no specific information on the drive/laser life, but in speaking with an engineer recently who works on the optical systems I was told not worry about laser life, there is no problem.

paidgeek

01-24-07, 11:15 AM

Thanks, paidgeek, it seems you're telling the truth :): http://www.hometheaterspot.com/htsthreads/dvd-review.php?sequence=1818

When will we see live action titles using AVC?

We have several in the works. "Casino Royale" has already been announced for release in March.

dialog_gvf

01-24-07, 11:16 AM

Is Open Season coming to HD DVD?

It's a Sony Pictures title.

paidgeek

01-24-07, 11:21 AM

Paidgeek,

thank you VERY much for your kind reply, I really appreciate it.

Please allow for another insider question as you seem to be very familiar with the quality of a lot of master tapes - which in the big picture is still probably the most vitally important factor for the PQ of any given HD transfer/encoding.
Please name your personal top three of the most impressive master tapes (PQ wise) you have laid eyes on - without making any connection or hint about an upcoming BluRay release. Just from your personal working experience - from an enthusiast/geek point of view.

I'm treading on thin ice here, but in recent memory "Stranger Than Fiction" was positively a reference quality master. It is coming next month.

I'll try to give a heads up from time to time when a master really stands out, but excuse me if I don't provide a listing here.

BrynRhys

01-24-07, 11:26 AM

paidgeek,

Could you confirm the specs for Open Season here? I have seen multiple listings that show it as SL-25, but one that shows it as DL-50. What's the offiical word?

Thanks!

TheLion

01-24-07, 11:41 AM

I'll try to give a heads up from time to time when a master really stands out, but excuse me if I don't provide a listing here.

Does Casino Royal come to your mind? :)

paidgeek

01-24-07, 11:53 AM

paidgeek,

Could you confirm the specs for Open Season here? I have seen multiple listings that show it as SL-25, but one that shows it as DL-50. What's the offiical word?

Thanks!

It is a single layer disc, with the typical features of our other titles including LPCM and 640 kbps DD.

paidgeek

01-24-07, 11:55 AM

Does Casino Royal come to your mind? :)

Casino Royale came out very well. If I start nit picking one titles virtues over anothers, there will be no peace in my office, so please don't put me between a rock and a hard place.

BenDover

01-24-07, 11:55 AM

It is a single layer disc, with the typical features of our other titles including LPCM and 640 kbps DD.

it might be asking for too much but do you have any technical numbers you can share with us? ABR/PBR of video, etc. ?

BrynRhys

01-24-07, 11:58 AM

It is a single layer disc, with the typical features of our other titles including LPCM and 640 kbps DD.

In that event, congrats on what looks to be a fantastic quality disc on a SL-25!

benwaggoner

01-24-07, 12:22 PM

This is a VC-1 related question. I just read the review of Open Season (http://www.hometheaterspot.com/htsthreads/dvd-review.php?sequence=1818) over at Home Theater Spot (by Chad). Sony was able to fit a 100 minute feature (using AVC), with all the extras from the SD release (some of them presented in HD) and a PCM audio track on a BD-25.

It appears that nothing was sacrificed (noting the 5/5 PQ and AQ rating: "This is a virtually flawless video encoding.") and they still managed to include a PCM track.

My question is, has AVC surpassed VC-1 in compression or is it an active decision to not include Lossless/Uncompressed audio on HD DVD release? Or possibly, is this a bandwidth issue for HD DVD? It seems to me, if Sony can include all the extras (including some in HD), and present excellent video with PCM audio in 25GB of space, then all Warner releases should have the same capability, even with TrueHD.

This tells me that either AVC compresses better than VC-1, the bandwidth doesn't support the track, or they are actively choosing not to put lossless/uncompressed audio on the releases. Can you comment on which is the likely culprit? I'm sure you can comment on the VC-1 vs AVC and bandwidth issues. Thanks.
Have we seen any numbers for data rate? The movie itself is only 99 minutes according to IMDB, so unless there's a LOT of extras, 25 GB had enough room that average bit rate wasn't a limiting factor.

Also, note that AVC's weak point is film grain, so computer animated sources like this are going to show it in its best possible light.

I'm sure we could have delivered at least as good image quality in VC-1 as with AVC.

benwaggoner

01-24-07, 12:28 PM

Actually that brings up another good question... given the interactivity that both formats bring that will include sound mixing, tracks being toggled on and off, etc... it has been a rather accepted that "PCM via HDMI" is the way to go, and that codec decoding in the AVR is becoming somewhat deprecated at this point.
Correct. My prediction is that advanced codecs decode in reciever isn't going to be used much, since any reciever that can handle the advanced codecs also handles PCM. That's a reason why advanced codecs are mandatory in HD DVD.

I doubt BD users are really going to want to give up interactivity for audio, so owners of legacy players will probably want to switch to using the core AC-3/DTS or PCM streams, albeit with a loss of audio quality.

It's a hard choice I'm pleased that HD DVD doesn't require users to make.

But as I think about it, I seem to only recall that specifically mentioned as a "must" for "Advanced" authored HD DVD discs, where HDi sound mixing is required. Is that the general stand that BDA has as well?
Only if they're deprecating interactivity as a core scenario...

joshd2012

01-24-07, 12:33 PM

Have we seen any numbers for data rate? The movie itself is only 99 minutes according to IMDB, so unless there's a LOT of extras, 25 GB had enough room that average bit rate wasn't a limiting factor.

Also, note that AVC's weak point is film grain, so computer animated sources like this are going to show it in its best possible light.

I'm sure we could have delivered at least as good image quality in VC-1 as with AVC.

Thanks for answering in Amir's stead, Ben.

Listed are the bonus features according to HTS:

-"Boog and Elliot's Midnight Bun Run" short (high definition)
-15 minute making of
-7.5 minute voicing featurette with the cast
-2 unfinished deleted scenes
-Deathray music video "I Wanna Lose Control (Uh Oh)"
-scene specific gag audio commentaries with three of the animals
-director's commentary
-interactive voice swap activity (assign different voices to different characters)(high definition)
-Wheel of Fortune game (high definition)
-interactive scene deconstruction featurette
-3 Ring Tales spots
-3 art galleries (environments, beat boards, characters)(high definition)
-Surf's Up promo section (teaser, sneak peek, meet the characters)
-trailers for Surf's Up and Monster House

The DVD was a single disc release, if that helps. If, as you say, you could have delivered a similar picture with VC-1 using the same disc space, is bandwidth a problem for using lossless/uncompressed audio, or is it simply a studio decision not to include it?

benwaggoner

01-24-07, 12:33 PM

Using "pseudo-PiP" the producer can use whatever form of sound they choose without the additional complication of how to mix the primary and secondary audio.
Is that complicated in BD? E.g., does it require BD-J or something?

It's pretty trivial to do in HD DVD, and the advantage of doing it that way are pretty significant.

nelsona

01-24-07, 12:53 PM

Amir,

Kind of an off-topic question, but do you know if we can expect any HD DVD commercials during the superbowl? That would be a great way to reach a large audience, especially ones that get hi-def for all the sports. Sorry if this has been asked already.

amirm

01-24-07, 02:22 PM

amirm

01-24-07, 02:37 PM

Ben already responded. So just a few more thoughts.

Amir,

This is a VC-1 related question. I just read the review of Open Season (http://www.hometheaterspot.com/htsthreads/dvd-review.php?sequence=1818) over at Home Theater Spot (by Chad). Sony was able to fit a 100 minute feature (using AVC), with all the extras from the SD release (some of them presented in HD) and a PCM audio track on a BD-25.
Agree it is a very positive review so congrats are in order for them. Hopefully Chad is right that the issue around "there was one fade that looked like it was about to break" is a hardware problem. I have not watched the title yet so I can't say I do or do not agree with him on this issue or the overall title quality.

My question is, has AVC surpassed VC-1 in compression or is it an active decision to not include Lossless/Uncompressed audio on HD DVD release?
I am not following the logic of your question. We achieve perfect scores with VC-1 (in HD DVD/BD) while using nearly half the peak rate of AVC that is probably used here. In addition, all you have here is a single title in AVC. One does not prove a case with this one title :). In addition, we are not talking about a normal film with lots of difficult to encode grain. Nor do you have any reference that VC-1 encode of the same would not be sharper yet.

As to uncompressed audio, we absolutely are not a fan of wasting space with PCM. One day, we want to put these movies on hard disk servers and move them around the house and onto our portable devices. On that day, the extra high and constant data rate of PCM is going to come back to hound us. But as long as folks want to save a few pennies in royalties for the codec on their players and as a result, waste space this way, who are we to argue? And yes, this is a friendly jab to counter your advertisement of anything other than Microsoft here :).

It seems to me, if Sony can include all the extras (including some in HD), and present excellent video with PCM audio in 25GB of space, then all Warner releases should have the same capability, even with TrueHD.
It seems to me that is a lot of extrapolation from one computer generated title :). There are already many reference quality titles in HD DVD with TrueHD tracks. And they are not animation titles. So before we talk about BD/AVC doing better, they have to first match the quality of the rest of Warner titles with broader set of content and more of it.

This tells me that either AVC compresses better than VC-1, the bandwidth doesn't support the track, or they are actively choosing not to put lossless/uncompressed audio on the releases. Can you comment on which is the likely culprit? I'm sure you can comment on the VC-1 vs AVC and bandwidth issues.
Culprit for what? Per above, you have no data as to whether VC-1 could not do even better. The bandwidth question is even more puzzling to me since if that is an issue, then the AVC encode here uses more of it than VC-1.

As to why Warner does not use TrueHD, that is clearly not due to bandwidth because identical titles in HD DVD have it. They are concerned about lack of playback support in BD players and possibly authoring tool support.

joshd2012

01-24-07, 02:57 PM

I am not following the logic of your question. We achieve perfect scores with VC-1 (in HD DVD/BD) while using nearly half the peak rate of AVC that is probably used here. In addition, all you have here is a single title in AVC. One does not prove a case with this one title :). In addition, we are not talking about a normal film with lots of difficult to encode grain. Nor do you have any reference that VC-1 encode of the same would not be sharper yet.

As to uncompressed audio, we absolutely are not a fan of wasting space with PCM. One day, we want to put these movies on hard disk servers and move them around the house and onto our portable devices. On that day, the extra high and constant data rate of PCM is going to come back to hound us. But as long as folks want to save a few pennies in royalties for the codec on their players and as a result, waste space this way, who are we to argue? And yes, this is a friendly jab to counter your advertisement of anything other than Microsoft here :).

I agree, that one title doesn't make a rule, but being the first Sony title to use AVC, it makes an interesting test case for future AVC release (like Bond). I don't quite understand the "waste of space" comment. What else could they have added if they compressed the audio? All the extras are on their, and the video looks spectacular - what was held back because of the PCM?

Culprit for what? Per above, you have no data as to whether VC-1 could not do even better. The bandwidth question is even more puzzling to me since if that is an issue, then the AVC encode here uses more of it than VC-1.

As to why Warner does not use TrueHD, that is clearly not due to bandwidth because identical titles in HD DVD have it. They are concerned about lack of playback support in BD players and possibly authoring tool support.

As a general example, why don't all Warner titles on HD DVD-30 include a TrueHD track? I know it is not a perfect science, but to me, if Sony can do AVC+PCM+Extras on a BD-25, then Warner should have no problem with VC-1+TrueHD+Extras on a HD DVD-30. We have seen that this is not the case for the most part. My question is, why? Was it because VC-1 doesn't compress as well as AVC (which you have already said is not the case). Was it because of bandwidth restrictions of HD DVD (no bandwidth available for a TrueHD track)? Or was it a corporate decision?

Phloyd

01-24-07, 03:39 PM

Also, note that AVC's weak point is film grain, so computer animated sources like this are going to show it in its best possible light.

Wasn't U2 Rattle and Hum released as an AVC encode by Paramount because VC-1 did not represent this grainy title as well as AVC?

It would seem that film grain is actually VC-1's weakness...

paidgeek

01-24-07, 04:17 PM

it might be asking for too much but do you have any technical numbers you can share with us? ABR/PBR of video, etc. ?

Here you go:

AVC encode 20.4 avg 33 max
ENG - 448kbps
FRE - 448kbps
ENG LPCM - 4608kbps
Commentary 192kbps

The added value is encoded in MPEG2

restart

01-24-07, 06:04 PM

Paidgeek, does the Sony AVC (h.264) encoder make use of 8x8 spatial transform and Qmatrix options in the h.264 High Profile spec?

hellokeith

01-24-07, 06:05 PM

hdkhang

01-24-07, 06:36 PM

Wasn't U2 Rattle and Hum released as an AVC encode by Paramount because VC-1 did not represent this grainy title as well as AVC?

It would seem that film grain is actually VC-1's weakness...

If you go back and re-read the actual post, it was an admission that the grain was less distracting on the AVC release, not that it was done better, the softening of the image was the major contributor here.

Anycase... on the issue that Josh was raising.

To the insiders (esp Benwaggoner)...

I recall a thread going on at the doom9 forums where some testing was being done on Elephants Dream as it was a HD title that had full uncompressed source available for people to download. The gist of it from what I gathered was that at a low 6Mbps it was very much acceptable, being an animated feature with lots of detail but obviously easy to compress material.

The encoders used for the comparison were AVC via x264, MPEG2, and VC1 via the consumer available encoder from MS (i.e. not the pro encoder that the studios have access to).

Ben do you intend to follow up on that thread, I recall before the thread lost steam that you wanted to put the material through it's paces on the latest versions of the pro encoder and see how it compared.

Cheers...
Duy-Khang Hoang

Azumi

01-24-07, 06:52 PM

Question here for insiders:

How can a title be exclusive to one format in the US, but then outside the US be exclusive to the opposite format or non-exclusive?

This makes it seem (to me) like the studio's relationship with the distributor/promoter is more of an influence on the format selected than the format itself.

I'm not an insider but I know the answer:

Some movies are coproductions between a Major and production entities (Spyglass, Imagine, German financing companies, other countries...). According to the specifics of the deals, these entities may hold the rights for some international markets.

Other movies are Studio pick-ups and aren't financed directly by the Majors. Silent Hill is actually a French-Canadian coproduction, and the Resident Evil have been produced by European entities.

And also, two majors might coproduce a picture to share the costs and the risks. The most classical case is Titanic, which is released by Paramount in the US and by Fox in the rest of the world.

And if we step away from the studio system, you have to understand that non-US movie companies buy homevideo rights for a limited number of years. It happens quite frequently that a film which was released 5 years ago on DVD by company A, may now be re-released by company B, because the first studio no longer holds the rights.

In order to spin this answer into another question, Starship Troopers is released by Sony in the US and Buena Vista in the rest of the world. So who makes the master? Wouldn't it be logical that the two companies shared the same copy and split some of the costs?

benwaggoner

01-24-07, 08:56 PM

To the insiders (esp Benwaggoner)...

I recall a thread going on at the doom9 forums where some testing was being done on Elephants Dream as it was a HD title that had full uncompressed source available for people to download. The gist of it from what I gathered was that at a low 6Mbps it was very much acceptable, being an animated feature with lots of detail but obviously easy to compress material.

The encoders used for the comparison were AVC via x264, MPEG2, and VC1 via the consumer available encoder from MS (i.e. not the pro encoder that the studios have access to).

Ben do you intend to follow up on that thread, I recall before the thread lost steam that you wanted to put the material through it's paces on the latest versions of the pro encoder and see how it compared.

Yeah, the specs for the "shootout" were so ill-definied we really weren't sure what to offer, hence the loss of steam. Basically, they were letting H.264 have a much bigger buffer size, and they were mandating a non-optimal B-frame rate, etcetera.

The .wmv samples are up there, and look pretty darn good by my eye. That's 2-pass only, of course.

Talkstr8t

01-24-07, 08:57 PM

I seem to only recall that specifically mentioned as a "must" for "Advanced" authored HD DVD discs, where HDi sound mixing is required. Is that the general stand that BDA has as well?All BD players must support sound mixing, both from HDMV and from BD-J.

Talkstr8t

01-24-07, 09:01 PM

Using "pseudo-PiP" the producer can use whatever form of sound they choose without the additional complication of how to mix the primary and secondary audio.Would that be considered to be an advantage for the consumer or for the producer?Both. The producer gets to use any level of audio compression they choose, and the consumer gets to hear it, whether decoding in the player or the receiver. With the use of secondary audio you can't decode losslessly in the receiver (since no player can decode, mix, and re-encode losslessly).

benwaggoner

01-24-07, 09:07 PM

Wasn't U2 Rattle and Hum released as an AVC encode by Paramount because VC-1 did not represent this grainy title as well as AVC?
AVC provides some "free" grain removal, which helped with that title. Also, it's very unusual content, and their VC-1 tests were done well over a year ago. We were able to improve our performance with that kind of grainy B&W video quite a while ago, but they'd already encoded in AVC. We could do it in VC-1 today, even better.

It would seem that film grain is actually VC-1's weakness...
Nope. We're the only of the three codecs that can reproduce the grain texture well. MPEG-2 gets block/overly sharp, and AVC just takes it out.

Talkstr8t

01-24-07, 09:08 PM

I doubt BD users are really going to want to give up interactivity for audio, so owners of legacy players will probably want to switch to using the core AC-3/DTS or PCM streams, albeit with a loss of audio quality.

It's a hard choice I'm pleased that HD DVD doesn't require users to make.Huh? In what scenario are BD users sacrificing interactivity for audio?
Is that complicated in BD? E.g., does it require BD-J or something?No, it's just encoding the video twice, once with PiP (and whatever other effects you want) and once without. HDMV or BD-J can provide appropriate control.

amirm

01-24-07, 09:08 PM

Talkstr8t

01-24-07, 09:10 PM

The bandwidth question is even more puzzling to me since if that is an issue, then the AVC encode here uses more of it than VC-1.He's referring to Blu-ray's ~50% higher bandwidth limits. Would the bandwidth used by LPCM have eaten away too much from the maximum allowed to permit encoding everything at sufficient quality level?

amirm

01-24-07, 09:21 PM

I agree, that one title doesn't make a rule, but being the first Sony title to use AVC, it makes an interesting test case for future AVC release (like Bond).
Bond is an entirely different kind of content and may not at all follow anything close to what this title did.

I don't quite understand the "waste of space" comment. What else could they have added if they compressed the audio? All the extras are on their, and the video looks spectacular - what was held back because of the PCM?
Oh, let me think… Maybe use that space/bandwidth for gen-u-ine, authentic, non-fake, US RDA choice, real deal, no imposters allowed, honest to goodness, Picture in Picture? And with some nice UI in the form of IME/U-control? Nah, let’s waste the space with lots of zeros when the sound goes quiet in the back channels. :D

As a general example, why don't all Warner titles on HD DVD-30 include a TrueHD track?
As a general example, why can’t all BD titles be BD-50 so that they don’t have a deficit against HD DVD-30? Is there a manufacturing problem with them? Yield? Cost? Availability? Rationing of title among the studios? :)

Fact is that studios use the feature set of the disc to sell the product. For some titles, they want to appeal to A/V enthusiasts (and people who are easily fooled by these terms) and provide lossless audio. For other titles, they want to position them differently. Ultimately, just like BD studios picking BD-25 over BD-50, they are making a choice to position products differently. After all, we all know Click didn’t need BD-50 but was given one anyway. I am sure they were after the marketing value there, given the poor quality of this title.

amirm

01-24-07, 09:28 PM

Would the bandwidth used by LPCM have eaten away too much from the maximum allowed to permit encoding everything at sufficient quality level?
In my opinion, use of PCM audio is eating into quality of BD MPEG-2 titles. So I agree with you if that is what you are saying. This is why we avoid both MPEG-2 and PCM as a rule in HD DVD. The only advantage of PCM is to save royalties in the player and nothing else. This will cost consumers dearly when we get in the era of home video streaming....

Heck, we have had lossless audio encoding in Windows Media Player for 3-4 years now and Apple and others have it too. How the BD format, and players which support it leave out lossless decoding, is sure puzzling for something that is supposed to be forward looking. But hey, that's just me :).

Kosty

01-24-07, 09:54 PM

No Super-Bowl TV spots during the game, but a lot of print, radio and TV well placed ads.

-Robert

To add information:

Here is a listing of last years Superbowl ads XL ads. Not a lot of consumer electronics and only few new studio releases like MI3 and Cars.

http://video.google.com/superbowl.html

Ad rates for spots this year are 2-3 million and most spots have sold out. No HD format applicable companies have announced spots.

Rio

01-24-07, 09:58 PM

Nope. We're the only of the three codecs that can reproduce the grain texture well. MPEG-2 gets block/overly sharp, and AVC just takes it out.Is there VC-1 title which is very grainy title like X3, still maintains very sharp details? I've never seen such a title on HD DVD. I definitely want to take a look if there is some.

joshd2012

01-24-07, 10:05 PM

Oh, let me think… Maybe use that space/bandwidth for gen-u-ine, authentic, non-fake, US RDA choice, real deal, no imposters allowed, honest to goodness, Picture in Picture? And with some nice UI in the form of IME/U-control? Nah, let’s waste the space with lots of zeros when the sound goes quiet in the back channels. :D

To my knowledge, these features aren't present on all HD DVD titles. So why would you expect similar features on all Blu-ray titles? The typical HD DVD release has VC-1 video, Lossy audio, and all the SD features from the DVD. This disc has provided AVC video, uncompressed audio, and all the SD features from the DVD, including some presented in HD. If you are saying PCM was "wasting space" from not including features only found on a few discs, are you also saying that HD DVD titles are lacking because they do not have these features you mention?

As a general example, why can’t all BD titles be BD-50 so that they don’t have a deficit against HD DVD-30? Is there a manufacturing problem with them? Yield? Cost? Availability? Rationing of title among the studios? :)

Fact is that studios use the feature set of the disc to sell the product. For some titles, they want to appeal to A/V enthusiasts (and people who are easily fooled by these terms) and provide lossless audio. For other titles, they want to position them differently. Ultimately, just like BD studios picking BD-25 over BD-50, they are making a choice to position products differently. After all, we all know Click didn’t need BD-50 but was given one anyway. I am sure they were after the marketing value there, given the poor quality of this title.

If anything, Sony has shown they can provide a better experience on a BD-25 than has been presented on HD DVD-30. So why the need for BD-50 all the time? What I am getting from all this, is that technology is not the problem, but rather a desire not to provide the experience to the consumer at the studio level. Is that something you can agree on?

AnthonyP

01-24-07, 10:21 PM

odd idea that came to me this morning.

BD and HD DVD have persistent memmory, and BD and HD DVD have powerful interactive menus. So can this be done?

can a studio standerdize on variables they use in their movies let's call them

password, maxrating, cursing, gore, sex, profile .....
(up to studios)
So that parents can password protect and customize (rate) films.

for example the studio could slightly varied soundtracks (one with BEEP one with #$$%), use branching for nudity or blood or gore or.......

The parent buys the first disk from X and sets it up PW=1234, maxrating =PG13, cursing=true, nudity=false, gore=false profile=on. When any movie from X is inserted they can use the menu to change the settings by entering the PW (they chose) and tailor the movie to some extent(they are the censor). If rating>maxrating the movie will ask to enter the PW (and won't play if not entered) and using the player you can change the profile to off for that one movie --- or better yet several profiles with the PW determining what is shown

I know, odd idea and a studio would need to see the value in it and put the work behind it in most movies if not all. But just sounded kind of interesting as a concept. We are all individuals and we most likely all have different values of what and how much is acceptable. Also the categories (variables) were just for example they can have more inf or less (i.e. multiple chase for curse words or nudity or even a 0-5 0 = no, 5 = uncensored…)

benwaggoner

01-24-07, 10:41 PM

Huh? In what scenario are BD users sacrificing interactivity for audio?
If they want to use advanced audio codecs native via HDMI.

amirm

01-24-07, 11:16 PM

To my knowledge, these features aren't present on all HD DVD titles. So why would you expect similar features on all Blu-ray titles?
I haven't seen them on a single BD title. So we have quite far to go, before "all" ;). Besides, you asked me for ideas on what to do with the space saving and I gave you some. What does that have to do with HD DVD?

The typical HD DVD release has VC-1 video, Lossy audio, and all the SD features from the DVD.
And typically BD title lacks many of the extras of the DVD releases.

If you are saying PCM was "wasting space" from not including features only found on a few discs, are you also saying that HD DVD titles are lacking because they do not have these features you mention?
HD DVD titles are not wasting space with PCM audio. As such, I can’t fathom what point you are trying to make.

If anything, Sony has shown they can provide a better experience on a BD-25 than has been presented on HD DVD-30.
Where do you get stuff like this? "Better" requires to have a reference. You have the same title in HD DVD in VC-1 so that you can make that claim? No. If you want to count "experience," then please tell me where I find Miami Vice or Tokyo Drift experience on any BD disc.

So why the need for BD-50 all the time?
Maybe you don't. But then please don't demand that Warner give you everything on every title just the same. If BD studios can choose to give you less extras on smaller disc, then you should be OK getting very high quality lossy sound instead of lossless on some HD DVD titles too.

What I am getting from all this, is that technology is not the problem, but rather a desire not to provide the experience to the consumer at the studio level. Is that something you can agree on?
Are you kidding me? There would be no format war if "technology was no problem." BD absolutely has technological problems. Every HD DVD release is dual layer where that is not true of BD. That is not a technological problem in your mind? BD players lack advanced features to enable the "experiences" which people want but can’t be authored because the platform is not consistent with the various profiles. And this is most definitely a technological problem unless you think a BD title can cause your BD player to sprout an Ethernet port on playback.

Anyway Josh, I am not going to respond to your posts of this nature anymore. Not that I have a hard time with them but that you are being argumentative and this is not a thread to argue back and forth. If you want to do that, please continue it elsewhere.

Mike C

01-25-07, 01:15 AM

this is not a thread to argue back and forth. If you want to do that, please continue it elsewhere.

amirm is 100% correct, this is not a debate thread, any post that is argumentative will be deleted.

Mike

Talkstr8t

01-25-07, 01:55 AM

can a studio standerdize on variables they use in their movies let's call them password, maxrating, cursing, gore, sex, profile .....
(up to studios) So that parents can password protect and customize (rate) films.I see nothing in your proposal which couldn't be implemented on either format.

Kosty

01-25-07, 03:01 AM

PeterTHX

01-25-07, 03:31 AM

Amir:
Every HD DVD release is dual layer where that is not true of BD.

"Rumor Has It" is dual layer?
"16 Blocks" is dual layer?
"Firewall" is dual layer?
"Happy Gilmore" is dual layer?
"Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" is dual layer?
"ATL" is dual layer?
"Animal House" is dual layer?
"Unleashed" is dual layer?
"Good Night, and Good Luck" is dual layer?
"Dazed and Confused" is dual layer?
"Fast Times at Ridgemont High" is dual layer?
"Army of Darkness" is dual layer?
"Waist Deep"is dual layer?
"Land of the Dead" is dual layer?
"Slither" is dual layer?
"An American Werewolf In London" is dual layer?
"National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation" is dual layer?
"How The Grinch Stole Christmas" is dual layer?
"The Breakfast Club" is dual layer?

Just wondering...

And typically BD title lacks many of the extras of the DVD releases.

But why when titles go "head to head" (Warner & Paramount) they have the exact same SD DVD extras? It's safe to say if and when Universal goes BD their titles will have the same SD DVD extras.

And where's the SD content on "King Kong"? There was a whole second disc. I loved the "History of Skull Island" segment myself.

rover2002

01-25-07, 04:20 AM

John Haghighi

01-25-07, 06:40 AM

BD players lack advanced features to enable the "experiences" which people want but can’t be authored because the platform is not consistent with the various profiles. And this is most definitely a technological problem unless you think a BD title can cause your BD player to sprout an Ethernet port on playback.

One common theme I keep hearing is these "experiences" that people want. Are your referring to HDi and or BD-J authored content?

It seems to me the average person I've shown HD DVD and Blu-ray like the fact that you can bring the menu up w/playback, and the bookmarking feature of HD DVD. The PiP was interesting for a short period of time, but consensus with my crowd was not something they'd watch regularly, or be a deciding factor in purchasing a title.

It seems to be a marketing practice to resell titles that can't stand on their own. So I'd like to understand where the studios are getting their data from that people are looking for advanced features in content?

Do the BDA and DVD forum share the same data since there seems to be many members on both sides? Or is the the experience we're looking for being decided for us?

TomsHT

01-25-07, 07:57 AM

Gents:

Dances with Wolves is being released by Fox on BD SL 25GB with AVC and the length is being reduced from 236 minutes to 181 minutes,

Why wouldn't this be a perfect candidate for a DL 50GB disc? With branching ? Isn't this the perfect case to justify why DL50s are needed? AVS should have enough space with a 50GB disc to store the full length of it.

I would love to have this in its full version and have the ability to play the shorter cut as well. Seriously this is one of those epic films that I would love to see in true HD.

Any thoughts?

I would also be interested in hearing more about the decision making for these type of films.

I dont quite understand why I see some studios releasing a whole lot of 90 minute movies on BD50's yet others putting movies like this one, that are twice as long on a BD25 disc's.

According to highdefdigest (may be wrong?) there are no extras at all for this title. I guess it could be considered a legitimate decision to not release the full version of this movie but why would it not even put the same extras that the DVD version has on it?

Extras on the DVD version

- 2 commentaries,
- Original Making of Featurette
- music video
- The Creation of an Epic
- Novel To Screen
- Actor Becomes the Director
- The Buffalo Hunt
- The Look and Sound of Dances
- The Art of Composition and The Success of Dances
- a photo montage with an introduction by Ben Glass
- a Poster Gallery
- TV Spots
- and a Theatrical Trailer

Wouldn't it be better to release the full length movie with extras or at least put this cut down version on a BD50 with the extras?

Does each of the studios have a limit to how many of there titles can be on BD50 per year? Does it vary between studio?

BuGsArEtAsTy

01-25-07, 07:59 AM

Not an insider, but I can at least contribute a few numbers:

Every HD DVD release is dual layer where that is not true of BD.
Amir, please correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe that is the case. I started an HD DVD size thread (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=750870) and note that:

Fast Times At Ridgemont High: 13 579 911 168 bytes
The Polar Express: 14 009 499 648 bytes

Thus, wouldn't these both just be HD15? I do realize these are rare exceptions, however.

PeterTHX, I've added a couple of numbers for you:
"Rumor Has It" is dual layer? <-- Reportedly HD30, and yes it's a combo disc. (http://www.ultimateavmag.com/news/050506next/)
"16 Blocks" is dual layer?
"Firewall" is dual layer?
"Happy Gilmore" is dual layer? <-- 16 233 070 592 bytes: 16.2 GB or 15.1 GiB. HD15 would hold ~15 GB or ~14 GiB, so that would mean Happy Gilmore is HD30.
"Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" is dual layer?
"ATL" is dual layer?
"Animal House" is dual layer?
"Unleashed" is dual layer?
"Good Night, and Good Luck" is dual layer?
"Dazed and Confused" is dual layer?
"Fast Times at Ridgemont High" is dual layer? <-- 13 579 911 168 bytes, which would fit on HD15.
"Army of Darkness" is dual layer?
"Waist Deep"is dual layer?
"Land of the Dead" is dual layer?
"Slither" is dual layer?
"An American Werewolf In London" is dual layer?
"National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation" is dual layer?
"How The Grinch Stole Christmas" is dual layer?
"The Breakfast Club" is dual layer?

Just wondering...
I'd provide more numbers if I had the discs, but I don't.

Dances with Wolves is being released by Fox on BD SL 25GB with AVC and the length is being reduced from 236 minutes to 181 minutes,

Why wouldn't this be a perfect candidate for a DL 50GB disc? With branching ? Isn't this the perfect case to justify why DL50s are needed? AVS should have enough space with a 50GB disc to store the full length of it.
Isn't this just a studio release decision similar to what they do with DVDs? I note that 180 minutes is the theatrical cut, so it would make sense to me that that's what they'd release first, and they'd make people pay again for the director's cut a couple of years later.

Similarly, the Lord of the Rings trilogy is getting released as theatrical cuts first (much to my disappointment).