they certainly have. or are you claiming encoding algorithms were more advanced back in the day?!

Development of LAME encoding has served to improve MP3 quality over the methods available when this series of tests took place. Lossy codecs have become ever more sophisticated.

nonsense. book an acoustically sound room, for a couple hundred dollars.

Really? Exactly how would one locate an appropriate, acoustically isolated, treated space ready and waiting to be rented for "a couple hundred dollars?"
Would you start by looking in the yellow pages under: FOR RENT: ACOUSTICALLY ISOLATED AND TREATED SPACES APPROPRIATE FOR DOUBLE BLIND TESTING OF HUMAN PERCEPTION? :D

hire a few hundred folks off the street, and pay them $30 a head.

OK, let's say a reasonably good population cross section of 500 test subjects at $30 a pop...........that comes to $15,000

play tunes to them over half hour doses, and get them to fill in questionaires as they listen. then tabulate the data.

Um.......this really isn't how a scientific procedure would be administered.

Half hour doses for 500 subjects would take 250 hours of straight work to get through, assuming everyone showed up exactly on time. That's over ten days around the clock!
No, you'd need multiple equipment suites, separate, acoustically appropriate environments for each; adequate staffing, etc.

all for less money than a high end audio set up, and no ce's need be inconvenienced in the slightest.

I'm afraid you simply haven't thought this through.

is it possible that all the ce's are trying to sell us snake oil with their latest codecs, receivers, and highdef players? sure. is a study involving 12 participants sufficient evidence to drive this assertion. probably not.

As I posted earlier, scientific data is only suggestive, but the results of a procedure which has been available for scientific peer review over the last seven years, are certainly more persuasive than any individual anecdotal opinion.

no. you quoted wiki as a source, which struck me as imediately questionable. as i asked earlier why use wiki when there are better potatoes in the pan?

As the conclusions I cited are supported by scientific evidence, whatever struck you, is completely irrelevant.

Neo1965, could you expand upon this:

The question of the incremental gain for audio going from 448kbps to 640kbps is not even up for discussion here, I mean, even decoding both and measuring their difference from the original is clear enough of a difference for those without golden ears.

I'm not sure exactly what you're trying to convey.

In case you didn't know DD+ from Dolby's website...

...Accurately reproduces what the director and producer intended.Thanks! If it's in their marketing materials, it must be true!

ROFL ... I never understood that implicit (and often un-challenged) assumption that the porn-format determines the "winner" of a format war. I guess it must be based on what happened in Beta/VHS (and I should note, I am not a pornite ... ), and I am unsure as to what actually did happen on Beta/VHS, and how it impacted the porn wars.

Wayne, or others, are there any good links/posts that can enlighten me?
Do a search and you'll find several threads of uncertain value.

ROFL ... I never understood that implicit (and often un-challenged) assumption that the porn-format determines the "winner" of a format war. I guess it must be based on what happened in Beta/VHS (and I should note, I am not a pornite ... ), and I am unsure as to what actually did happen on Beta/VHS, and how it impacted the porn wars.

Wayne, or others, are there any good links/posts that can enlighten me?

I'll try to hit the high points quickly, and if anyone disagrees I'm sure they'll speak up.

Beta had a little better quality than VHS, while VHS had a little more record time and lower priced players. Both had major studio content with many titles released in both formats. Different form factors and head mechanisms made a universal player very unpractical.

Some consider porn the invisible hand that pushed VHS to victory. Men were believed to have steared more purchases toward VHS because they new porn content was readily available in that format. Others believe that porn was not the significant driving factor and that it was more the lower price of VHS players that won the format war for VHS.

Every format war is different, but again, some people believe porn will be significant and others believe it will be a non factor. If you believe consumers would rather buy all of their content in HD, then this is a positive. If you believe people are satisfied with (or don't want more) detail in their porn, then it's a non factor.

Here's a very good article on the current state of affairs.

IGN Interview: Joone, Digital Playground Founder
http://gear.ign.com/articles/759/759068p1.html

IGN: Marty Gordon issued a statement after yours saying there was no prohibition against adult content. Was that just lip-service?

Joone: I think so. They're in a war, and they don't want to look like they're going to lose on the surface because they don't have everyone on their side, so they'll say anything. It would still be great if someone could point me to one company that's replicating adult on Blu-ray, but we still can't find any. You'd think after all these interviews someone would call me and say 'Hey, wanna do Blu-ray?' But no. They're doing all this PR like there aren't any problems, but then when you call it's a different story.

All of these "Last 1%" performance endeavors tend to be expensive, both in terms of time and effort. Studio's will do whatever minimum they can to appear in the market to be superior. We do have opportunity to provide some feedback here (and I do appreciate that), but let's be real... it all comes down to the bottom line.


scaesare:
agreed more or less with everything except this. That 1% could be 10% could be 90% no one knows. It is also not expensive neither in time nor hours. At least when it comes to audio. That is what is so annoying about all of this.

Really? Exactly how would one locate an appropriate, acoustically isolated, treated space ready and waiting to be rented for "a couple hundred dollars?"
Would you start by looking in the yellow pages under: FOR RENT: ACOUSTICALLY ISOLATED AND TREATED SPACES APPROPRIATE FOR DOUBLE BLIND TESTING OF HUMAN PERCEPTION? :D
if only a perfect room would suffice to hear differences in audio then none of these codecs is worthwhile for a home theatre. it shouldn't be hard to find a room accoustically better than the average home theatre. i can think of a number of halls near me that can be rented for a couple of hundred quid. the standards you are setting are not applicable to the real world and make me suspect you have an accademic rather than practical background.

OK, let's say a reasonably good population cross section of 500 test subjects at $30 a pop...........that comes to $15,000
so your idea of "a few" is 5, very well...

Um.......this really isn't how a scientific procedure would be administered.
the proceedure relies on hearing people's opinions of audio files. by it's nature it's not particularly scientific. as to the experiment as i described it, this compares quite favourably with the test you quoted earlier. or did you miss the part where contestants were allowed to re-listen to the music, and use headphones if they wanted?

Half hour doses for 500 subjects would take 250 hours of straight work to get through, assuming everyone showed up exactly on time. That's over ten days around the clock!
No, you'd need multiple equipment suites, separate, acoustically appropriate environments for each; adequate staffing, etc. I'm afraid you simply haven't thought this through.
why would you have the subjects come in individually and listen to the audio? that makes no sense. in a sufficiently large hall it should be possible to have at least 25 in at any one time. even at your inflated 500 contestant figure that is still only 20 hours. though i feel 200 or so people would be enough for such a test.


As I posted earlier, scientific data is only suggestive, but the results of a procedure which has been available for scientific peer review over the last seven years, are certainly more persuasive than any individual anecdotal opinion.
no they are weighed in the ballence against a plethora of individual anecdotal evidence. a study of 12 individuals is barely above anecdotal itself!

Something like a PSNR measurement or other forms of objective measure of quality. The original digital will be PCM, the 448kbps encode and the 640kbps encode can be both decoded back to PCM and then compared against the original.

PSNR = N/[SUM_{i=1..N} (D(i) - S(i))]

If the decoded PCM S(i) is identical to the source S(i) for all i, then you have infinite PSNR, which would be perfection.

Everything else being equal, with any decent psycho acoustic model used in the encode, the high bitrate will have better PSNR.


What's the audible PSNR threshold?

I'll try to hit the high points quickly, and if anyone disagrees I'm sure they'll speak up.

Beta had a little better quality than VHS, while VHS had a little more record time and lower priced players. Both had major studio content with many titles released in both formats. Different form factors and head mechanisms made a universal player very unpractical.

Some consider porn the invisible hand that pushed VHS to victory. Men were believed to have steared more purchases toward VHS because they new porn content was readily available in that format. Others believe that porn was not the significant driving factor and that it was more the lower price of VHS players that won the format war for VHS.

Every format war is different, but again, some people believe porn will be significant and others believe it will be a non factor. If you believe consumers would rather buy all of their content in HD, then this is a positive. If you believe people are satisfied with (or don't want more) detail in their porn, then it's a non factor.

Here's a very good article on the current state of affairs.

IGN Interview: Joone, Digital Playground Founder
http://gear.ign.com/articles/759/759068p1.html

IGN: Marty Gordon issued a statement after yours saying there was no prohibition against adult content. Was that just lip-service?

Joone: I think so. They're in a war, and they don't want to look like they're going to lose on the surface because they don't have everyone on their side, so they'll say anything. It would still be great if someone could point me to one company that's replicating adult on Blu-ray, but we still can't find any. You'd think after all these interviews someone would call me and say 'Hey, wanna do Blu-ray?' But no. They're doing all this PR like there aren't any problems, but then when you call it's a different story.

OK, so I read your response and the link .. I think I read it before and that was inconclusive.

What percentage of HD DVD-only porn is there today vs. BD porn?

Do we have the equivalent of HD/BD porn sales data?

porn dvds ship around 3000 units to distributers, per flick. looking at the tiny number of mainstream highdef discs being sold (around 10,000 for most of the better flicks compared to a few million dvds) you can see how small highdef porn sales are likely to be.

i believe there are currently around 6 hd dvd porn titles available. bd has a few in japan, and there's an american one due at some point. to quote one of my favourite movies, "it's a side show of a side show." ;)

But there also is no DBT that proves there is a difference either. I think I'm finally understanding your POV and it seems to be that since lossless has more bits, then it must be better, because it has more data ... and more data is always better, right?

jdg345: Not at all


In the beginning there is sound. That sound is taken and digitized and a digital master is created. To digitize sound (the same as filming movement) what you do is take samples the same way a movie is moving pictures.

Now I will tie in that graph to make scaesare happy by going into detail why I posted that pic before

http://www.biomedical-engineering-online.com/content/figures/1475-925X-5-29-1.jpg

now let’s “simplify sound” and work in this parallel universe. Let’s pretend each of those magenta dots represent our digital audio points. Calling out or putting on paper each one of them takes too long (i.e. real world = higher BW) so a CODEC is created (set of decoding rules) that make it simpler to get the point across (i.e. not having to give every point) Let’s say the CODEC only looks strait lines and so two values are needed, the slope and the displacement (i.e. on a strait line y=ax+b a is the slope and b the displacement) now if you look at the dotted line none of the real points are not on it, so the points we get from that line are not the actual values. Now a different CODEC might have more elaborate allowances.

Mathematically with any set of data points a polynomial http://upload.wikimedia.org/math/0/3/4/034c0751a94028e8a367436f66427104.pngcan be created that passes through every point. Now a new CODEC could be created that allows extremely large polynomials.

A lossless codec (like DTHD) for data points would be one where n can be any size and the encoder always creates the polynomial that is the right size to pass the info, a lossy one (like DD+) is one where the equation has a natural limit and where the tech can decide to make it even lower for example our CODEC for the graph could be a poly with n<=5 and the tech chose 1 so we ended up with that dotted line.

The issue is that if DD+ was enough then it would be a lossless codec. The simple fact that it is a lossy one means that there are times when the demand >what it can offer.

There are two questions that arise
1) how often does it happen for a given input (i.e. how often for 1.5mbps and how much for .5mbps and how much for the value used by the tech)
2) should we care when it happens.

For 2, I do, for 1, I don’t know.

The differences are audible, they are audible because during the digitalization the unheard sounds (and some heard sounds) are lost. Everything after that is audible.

If (to go back to the example) a straight line will pass through all the points then that straight line (N=1) is lossless if the codec could do only up to n=5 and an other n=10 the result is the same. The same here if the tech creates a DD+ where .5mbps max is enough for a lossless rendition then DTHD most likely won’t go beyond .5mbps, the issue is that when it needs to go beyond what the tech enters for Max then you have the issue that at those points the rendition is not correct.

There are 2 reasons I want lossless

1) as explained above it is the only way to make sure that nothing is lost
2) that with lossy you never know what you are getting? Does the back say max X min Y? even if one (like RTO wants to believe so he can sleep well at night) assumes 1.5mbps is enough and the bumps of errors are too small to be useful. The issue is you have no way to know if it is 1.5mbps or 1.5kbps until you get it home and hear how bad it sounds.

if only a perfect room would suffice to hear differences in audio then none of these codecs is worthwhile for a home theatre.

Now, this is nonsense. The very people most likely to actually reap some reward from the theoretical benefits of higher data rate encoding, are the relative few who have essentially ideal acoustical listening environments.: purpose built home theaters with excellent acoustical design. It's well understood that a noisy environment can mask the difference between an encoding which is audibly transparent to the source, and one that is not.

it shouldn't be hard to find a room accoustically better than the average home theatre. i can think of a number of halls near me that can be rented for a couple of hundred quid. the standards you are setting are not applicable to the real world and make me suspect you have an accademic rather than practical background.

Experimental Science is an academic pursuit. :confused:

Actually, I don't think all of the relevant variables were sufficiently controlled in the protocol they used. Any pretext for objection to the results could and would be raised by anyone who might have a personal or professional bias against them; for example, the number of participants. ;)

so your idea of "a few" is 5, very well...

More than two, no more than five. My idea of a "couple" would be two, as in "a couple hundred." ;)

the proceedure relies on hearing people's opinions of audio files. by it's nature it's not particularly scientific. as to the experiment as i described it, this compares quite favourably with the test you quoted earlier. or did you miss the part where contestants were allowed to re-listen to the music, and use headphones if they wanted?

In the strictest sense, allowing individuals the option of taking multiple trials comparing the same two stimuli wouldn't be scientifically appropriate, IMO. Ideally, an ABX comparator would be used in an acoustically isolated environment, to effectively remove ambient noise as a possible factor effecting the accuracy of individual trials, or the overall outcome of the procedure. The background noise floor of the testing environment would have to be measured and recorded as a relevant data point.

why would you have the subjects come in individually and listen to the audio?

:confused: Did you somehow miss this:

Half hour doses for 500 subjects would take 250 hours of straight work to get through, assuming everyone showed up exactly on time. That's over ten days around the clock!
No, you'd need multiple equipment suites, separate, acoustically appropriate environments for each; adequate staffing, etc.

that makes no sense. in a sufficiently large hall it should be possible to have at least 25 in at any one time. even at your inflated 500 contestant figure that is still only 20 hours.

25 acoustically isolated spaces, at least 25 test administrators, some level of clerical staffing to record the relevant personal data of 200 participants, 25 sets of equipment, data and statistical analysis, all for 6,200 quid? I think I might be forgiven for finding your scenario ludicrously unrealistic.

though i feel 200 or so people would be enough for such a test.

Why 200?

no they are weighed in the ballence against a plethora of individual anecdotal evidence. a study of 12 individuals is barely above anecdotal itself!

Sorry: argumentum ad populum=fallacious.

OK, so I read your response and the link .. I think I read it before and that was inconclusive.

What percentage of HD DVD-only porn is there today vs. BD porn?

Do we have the equivalent of HD/BD porn sales data?

The one site that looks like a decent resource is adult.dvdempire.com.

They currently show 7 HD-DVD titles for sale. 4 are in stock and 3 are available for pre-order. There is one BD title available for pre-order. This is from Vivid so it is also available for HD-DVD pre-order.

Vivid is releasing in both formats. There are about 6 other porn studios that are releasing only in HD-DVD. They've only just started to release titles so these are some of the first to show up.

I know that the porn producers generate a huge number of titles per year, but I expect that they do very small production runs, in contrast to a mainstream studio that makes a small fraction in quantity of titles but sells a tremendous number of each of those titles on disc.

Personally, I don't believe porn will be as influential as it was with Beta vs VHS. On the other hand I don't think it's insginificant either. Many people could care less that the porn producers are supporting HD-DVD, other people will care. It's a numbers game, each and every vote counts. The more content and the more diversity of content you have, the better.

*************************
I love this thread. Where else can you find a simultaneous mathematics debate and discussion of porn. This is just too funny. :D

Assuming that J6P is 'most' people with HDMI-enabled receivers, right?
jdg345: no, why would you think that?

But it's up to the studios. That other thread seems to indicate that they could fit a TrueHD track on most of the releases if they wanted to.


sometimes yes, sometimes no, I agree sometimes it is a studio decision (like WB not including lossless on Superman even though there were 25-20GB free on the disk)

The problem is when someone says “30 is enough for a X length movie” but the only way it fits is taking away the choice then that statement is not true. I also think that for movies that can fit lossless (be it LPCM or DTHD or DTS HD MA) we should be the ones complaining for it because if we don’t (and I assume most here want quality) then no one will.

That second part is what is most annoying about guys pushing the lossless is not needed BS like RTO.

But this is about you. You're saying that 'many love the extras' ... so should 'many' not get them because you don't care for them? I thought this was about the Best Experience Possible ... not the 'Best Experience Possible [for you]'. I guess my point is that different things are important to different people -- and the majority of the people don't read or care about the forums here. Not only that, but they likely have quite the different set of priorities.

Yes that was about me. The post I quoted was talking about wanting something. If PiP is important for someone then they can buy a player that does PiP. I don’t care about so for me if PiP titles come out with PiP it won’t be the reason I would buy a new player. If there is better processing, new features I want, I will buy a new player, but I only used PiP on one DVD and looked at the extras of a handful of DVDs. It is not something I care about. It is like the HD DVD supporters going BD does not have CD on some players. It is choices. If it is important to you get a player that supports it, if not then don’t look at it as a determining factor.



All information points to BD-J being 'there', but incomplete with most hardware not being able to handle the HDi-equivilent feature sets.
No, it is there and complete, curiosity got me to try the LoEG’s game that is in BD-J, BD-J is the menu system for BD. If it was , like you imply, then those disks would not play on the players. What is missing (at least assumed, since no one knows) that most players out right know don’t have the capacity to decode two distinct video streams. But the player must still deal with it. Which is where BD-J comes in. It just means you won’t see the secondary video


btw, here you say that 'most of us don't care about the extras'. I assume you mean here on AVS? Because in the previous quote you say 'Many love the extras, but I want the movie'.

no to AVS (even though I would guess it is true) but not the general public either someone brought up that some think audio is important and PiP is not, what I said is that it is normal for people that want the movie. It I not just PiP that I (and the others don’t care about) it is most extras. The only things I might watch are deleted scenes and the only interactivity I want is to be able to watch the movie as is or the movie + some deleted scenes integrated in the appropriate place.

And finally, for all the advantages in space and bandwidth -- what is the tangible benefit of BD? When, as 2Channel has posted several times now the reviews are pretty much even (and I think the 'nudge' for AQ has gone to HD-DVD).
I think the advantage is starting to show, for example Gary pointed out that Identy has lossless in several language tracks, so more people can be in bliss. Fox has many DTS HD MA 24/48 WB needed to downgrade their lossless to 16/48. The issue is that as time passes and J6P starts buying and studios shift to more extras to entice him the lower limits of HD DVD will become even more of an issue.

It is a bit like a teen that got his first job at minimum wage and can spend all his $ on dates, going out with friends, music, movies (and what ever else interests him) thinking this is a lot of $ can’t see why anyone needs more $ I have everything I want

That second part is what is most annoying about guys pushing the lossless is not needed BS like RTO.

Show me the data.

Isn't this really just about BD supporters insisting that BD offers perceivably better audio than HD DVD because of the greater GB?

not at all, it is about some HD DVD fanboys deciding that people should not want quality when HD DVD can't give it.

Off topic, but I use apple lossless compression on all the music on my iPod. If you have a 30G (or bigger) iPod you can have thousands of songs stored in a lossless format.

2CH now RTO will think you are a moron for not using the over compressed to fit 10 songs in the same disk space, that wiki article proves it :)

2CH now RTO will think you are a moron for not using the over compressed to fit 10 songs in the same disk space, that wiki article proves it :)

Actually, I don't think 2Channel is a moron. ;)

Anthony, I think you will agree there is some upper limit above which, there is no useful information. My question is how high (frequency or depth). Where are the double blind tests that show us where the limit is that X% can hear any difference? There aren't any tests we know about for better than CD quality. So why worry about lossy or lossless 1.5-6 Mb/s audio, when no one has had the guts to prove it's of any use? It's very much like the legendary middle ages argument of how many angels can fit on the head of a pin.

I think porn will be more important than lossless audio.

- Tom

I heard the claim that porn is a $96 billion industry. More than Hollywood, NFL, etc. combined.

If that's true, how much of it is from packaged media and how much from online? How much from print media?

I think porn will be more important than lossless audio.

- Tom

Tom, those are wise words indeed. ;)

Anthony, I think you will agree there is some upper limit above which, there is no useful information.
WayneL:
not sure what you mean by that.

do you mean
1) the limit where one does not care, or
2) the limit where ones ears can't hear a difference

for 1, there most likely is one, but there should not be and for me 1should =2
for 2, r=the answer is yes but the issue is all peoples hearing is different, so it is not like anyone can give a "value" (and actual limit)




My question is how high (frequency or depth).
frequency and depth have to do with the digital master, and nothing to do with the encoding. If someone makes a 24/192 that is frequency and depth, if someone else does 16/48 then there is less information. The question is once someone decides they do X/Y because that is how high that is needed, should everything in that area of sound come through or should some be corrupted due to over compression during encoding.

Where are the double blind tests that show us where the limit is that X% can hear any difference? There aren't any tests we know about for better than CD quality. So why worry about lossy or lossless 1.5-6 Mb/s audio, when no one has had the guts to prove it's of any use?
Because you are mixing helium and oranges (apples and oranges are both fruits so way more similar then the two things you are comparing).

Do you agree there is 0 proof for the opposite (that it is useless)?

Just do a Pascal’s type wager

Two conjectures are unproven

1) lossless is not better
2) lossless is better

both can’t be true

If we decide to believe 1 is right (and tell studios we don’t want lossless) and it is then we did not gain anything. If it is wrong then we don’t get lossless and we lose

On the other hand if we decide to believe 2 and ask for lossless and get it and 1 is right then nothing is lost or gained, if 2 is right we got lossless and we enjy the movie more.

In essence 1 gives you a stale mate or a major loss 2, gives you a stale mate or a win, why would you want to bet on something where you can only be the loser?


the problem is there is evidence that there is a difference that can be heard

2CH now RTO will think you are a moron for not using the over compressed to fit 10 songs in the same disk space, that wiki article proves it :)

I thought it would be fun to do. ;)

For those interested, I do recommend that you take a CD-R and burn a few songs at multiple MP3 data rates (64/128/192/256/320Kbps) along with the original CD track. Many modern DVD players support MP3 playback. Go through them and really listen. If you want to do a double blind test, have a friend randomly select different version of the same track. It's educational and easy to do at home. You don't even have to rent a special listening room as you will be using your real world environment for your test. :)

the problem is there is evidence that there is a difference that can be heard
There is no evidence

I thought it would be fun to do. ;)

For those interested, I do recommend that you take a CD-R and burn a few songs at multiple MP3 data rates (64/128/192/256/320Kbps) along with the original CD track. Many modern DVD players support MP3 playback. Go through them and really listen. If you want to do a double blind test, have a friend randomly select different version of the same track. It's educational and easy to do at home. You don't even have to rent a special listening room as you will be using your real world environment for your test. :)

Here are the results of just such a test:

http://www.lincomatic.com/mp3/mp3quality.html

I've found the High Quality settings (-V 2 --vbr-new) - ~190kbps - to provide sufficent quality that I find CD's burned from the output to be sonically indistinguishable from the originals.

Here are the results of just such a test:

http://www.lincomatic.com/mp3/mp3quality.html

Yeah that lines up with my own experience. I have a nice 2 channel set up, and I did that experiment for myself. At 192 it gets really hard to tell the difference between it and the original. I thought I might be able to tell a slight difference between 192 and 256, but it was really hit or miss. At 256 or higher I know for sure I was unable to hear a difference. My speakers have good extension (+/- 3dB from 29Hz to 29kHz), so I don't think they were a limiting factor. The rest of my gear goes well beyond that range (seperate amp, pre-amp, etc). It was an interesting test.

You think people are morons and idiots because they don't have the visual acuity or taste in displays that you have? Try fitting in a class on manners while you are at Bezerkly.



Bezerkeley didn't offer any classes on manners - sevaral majors on jumping into discussions and screaming about things you have no idea about (my minor along with Engineering), but nothing on manners.

I actually took several classes on irony and sarcasm. It comes in handy when I want to interject a joke about people being morons and idiots when they don't agree with my display choice right in the middle of an unnecessarily long diatribe on how everybody's opinion on Audio should be respected.

I thought given the context of the overall discussion and my post that the humor (or attempt at least) would be obvious, but I guess I need to include smileys for those who are hiding under bench in the back of the short bus looking for gum.

oh, yeah, here you go :D

thom

ps. no really, :D - it was honestly a joke. I was really trying to come up with some excuse for this entirely stupid argument could end considering it has been going on for two years now with absolutely no new ideas or arguments to be made.

I do find it weird that while this discussion is going on we have an article on the front of AVScience on whether or nto we need HD at all due to visual perception. At this rate someone is going to show up and argue 20" black and white's are really all we need.

Yeah that lines up with my own experience. I have a nice 2 channel set up, and I did that experiment for myself. At 192 it gets really hard to tell the difference between it and the original. I thought I might be able to tell a slight difference between 192 and 256, but it was really hit or miss. At 256 or higher I know for sure I was unable to hear a difference. My speakers have good extension (+/- 3dB from 29Hz to 29kHz), so I don't think they were a limiting factor. The rest of my gear goes well beyond that range (seperate amp, pre-amp, etc). It was an interesting test.

I wondered about your user-name...duh! :D .....figured you had a really nice two channel rig. Things were so much simpler, and resources didn't have to be spread so thin, before this whole damn HT business. I still have a beautiful, higher-end Marantz receiver that I purchased nearly thirty years ago. It operates flawlessly.

Bezerkeley didn't offer any classes on manners - sevaral majors on jumping into discussions and screaming about things you have no idea about (my minor along with Engineering), but nothing on manners.
.
Go Bears!!! :)

I was double engineering major (ChemE and NucE) back in the early 80s at Berzerkeley.

I think porn will be more important than lossless audio.

- Tom

Well, lossless might actually turn out to be bigger than some people believe. Again, (I guess naturally, since this is a US based forum) people only look at the NA market. But if Universal and others keep up the 384Kbit HD DVD soundtracks in Europe, and Blu-ray stick with LPCM/DTS, MANY consumers WILL feel shortchanged by HD DVD releases. Remember, this is a step down of current DVD releases. Thus, I would not be surprised if this could tip the scale in favor for Blu-ray for quite a few consumers. Especially when they read reviews in european magazines, where no doubt this will be pointed out again and again.

(Feel free to minimize this point by saying they should be listening to the english soundtrack, but if you do, you're ignorant of the actual market in major european markets.)

So, lossless vs. not (be it LPCM, TrueHD or Master Audio) could be the factor that makes or breaks Europe for HD DVD. And with Japan already gone, where does that leave HD DVD? IMHO, of course, and YMMV.

What makes you think that the average person is going to use any speakers other than what comes with there TVs. I cant see more than 20% actually having some stereo equipment hooked up to realize any difference in sound. I for one look at this from a mass market point of view. Its more about what the mass market needs to have a pleasant movie experience. The whole process has to be cheap enough that everyone involved can make a profit. The more requirements you place on the format the less money that can be made. There has to be compromise.
I read something yesterday about Sony wanting to sell movies online the same day they get released on DVD. Looks like they want to eliminate the hard copy all together.

Now, this is nonsense. The very people most likely to actually reap some reward from the theoretical benefits of higher data rate encoding, are the relative few who have essentially ideal acoustical listening environments.: purpose built home theaters with excellent acoustical design.
the people who would benefit most are those with home theatres, which can be viewed via photos on this very site. they are almost without exception ordinary rooms, some with lagging, but most simply painted black. gotta love the black! there's no point holding the test to a standard none of the consumers are going to experience. and remember that these represent only a tiny fraction of the available marketplace, and the most perfect conditions within that marketplace. the test is by definition scientifically flawed (asking for opinions, rather than looking at objective evidence) and the addition of a plethora of scientifically rigourous pre-conditions doesn't change that fact. it's simply an effort on your part to make the experiment seem more definintive than it actually is.

as to your insistance on seperate environments for all the listeners: is this the way even high end consumers watch their movies? of course not, they watch in their theatres with a bunch of mates round. silence should of course be enforce during the tests, but since it's only for half hour spells this shouldn't be much of an issue. and if there is occasional background noise, guess what, that will also be a real life condition that home theatre enthusiasts deal with.

clerical staff? have you ever conducted a survey?! the particpants would be asked to fill in a multiple choice form, as with any other test of this kind. the only clerical work is to hand out the forms, provide pencils, and collect completed forms at the end of the test. tabulating the results can be done via computer if the correct forms are used.

scaesare:
agreed more or less with everything except this. That 1% could be 10% could be 90% no one knows. It is also not expensive neither in time nor hours. At least when it comes to audio. That is what is so annoying about all of this.

If you think there's no effort (or expense) involved in maintaining a 24bit signal chain all the way to the consumer that can actually resolve that range, then we disagree. And my point was to relate this to the benefit (perceived or otherwise). At some point diminishing returns kick in.

Incidentally, I've got an audio acquisition card with some pretty well regarded 24bit DAC's. Capture, mix, process and master in 24bit? Certainly.... it allows additional headroom for rounding error and the like to be dithered out. Render in 16bit vs 24bit? I've yet to have anybody be able to tell the difference on a few different near field monitors, decent headphones, and scores of home listening environments. While YMMV, it won't for 99% of the people, and that's good enough for the studios.

I heard the claim that porn is a $96 billion industry. More than Hollywood, NFL, etc. combined.

If that's true, how much of it is from packaged media and how much from online? How much from print media?
$96 billion!?! thats the most ludicrous figure i've ever heard. there is no figure for porn, or for the skin trade as a whole. various estimates have been offered, but they've been without basis, and seem to just be swags.

the figure of 3000 units per dvd release is one discussed with me by a number of producers in the industry. since that is for the most successful media in consumer history, how many do you think are being sold in highdef?

http://www.foxnews.com/video2/player06.html?040307/040307_fr_porn&FOX_Report&Porn%20industry%20pushes%20TV%20tech&acc&Technology&-1&News&122&&&new

Fox news report on adult industry and format war.

The problem is when someone says “30 is enough for a X length movie” but the only way it fits is taking away the choice then that statement is not true. I also think that for movies that can fit lossless (be it LPCM or DTHD or DTS HD MA) we should be the ones complaining for it because if we don’t (and I assume most here want quality) then no one will.


The problem here is that folks have seized upon corner-cases for arguing against this. Any arbitrary amount of data (either 30 or 50) is enough for a specific length presentation. Conversely, any finite amount of data is insufficient for longer presentations.

Therefore the issue becomes "What percentage of presentations will fit on a storage medium". At some point, you reach a sufficient percentage wherein more storage handles an increasingly small number of additional cases.

So King Kong has been touted as an example of a 3+ hour film that can be encoded with excellent PQ on HD DVD. It also has a lossy (but reasonably high bitrate) audio track. But to assume that this movie is representative of the vast majority of movies is fallacious. It might represent 5% of them. The other 95% of movies that have been released could be encoded with lossless audio as well. Anything of greater length may require 2 discs.

For BR, the only thing that changes is the percentage of titles handled. It still won't be presenting a 6-hour miniseries on one disc. So perhaps it can deliver 98% of the movies before going to multiple discs. Are you really arguing for that 3%?

Of course, people are going to state that mux-rate is the additional problem, but that really seems to be a problem primarily if you want lots of additional audio tracks. HD DVD may choose to release differing versions of the discs to different markets, whereas BR may instead have fewer discs. While you may argue against that from an "elegance" standpoint, do you really care as long as you can select the language you are interested in? And in reality, if BR can mux in 6 lossless audio tracks (of which only one can be heard at a time), haven't those additional tracks soaked up much of the storage/bandwidth advantage? So in effect a localized HD DVD offering 1 or 2 languages may provide as much (or more) storage/BW than a BR disc containing 6 or 8.

not at all, it is about some HD DVD fanboys deciding that people should not want quality when HD DVD can't give it.

I'm not sure that HD-DVD can't give it though ... I guess that's my point. I'm thinking that if HD-DVD doesn't include it, it's because the studio didn't want it there ... not because it can't.

Alternatively, when it comes to BD, there are still many things it can't give. Like PiP, for example. And Interactivity. The Studios *want* to put it there, but *cant* ... that's what I see as the difference (Ala Matrix).

You mention BD-J is complete and working, yet there were several articles posted recently that seem to indicate that the majority of the players out there cannot support the full implementation of it. I'll see if I can find links, but we may just need to agree to disagree on this point. ;)

not at all, it is about some HD DVD fanboys deciding that people should not want quality when HD DVD can't give it.

That assumes "quality" is some binary value, rather than a scale.

Of course we all have a personal threshold... but to state that quality must equal lossless is not a universal absolute, except for perhaps a minority.*

I certainly think high-bitrate lossy track can represent excellent quality.

* Incidentally if this holds true, then please explain how both formats delivering non-lossless video can provide a quality video presentation.

Yeah that lines up with my own experience. I have a nice 2 channel set up, and I did that experiment for myself. At 192 it gets really hard to tell the difference between it and the original. I thought I might be able to tell a slight difference between 192 and 256, but it was really hit or miss. At 256 or higher I know for sure I was unable to hear a difference. My speakers have good extension (+/- 3dB from 29Hz to 29kHz), so I don't think they were a limiting factor. The rest of my gear goes well beyond that range (seperate amp, pre-amp, etc). It was an interesting test.

I found 192kbps to be the sweet spot as well (quite some time ago) ... in fact, that's what I use on my iPod. Funny how that works out. :)

WayneL:
not sure what you mean by that.

do you mean
1) the limit where one does not care, or
2) the limit where ones ears can't hear a difference

for 1, there most likely is one, but there should not be and for me 1should =2
for 2, r=the answer is yes but the issue is all peoples hearing is different, so it is not like anyone can give a "value" (and actual limit)

{mucho snippage}



Sigh. Yes. Anthony, you are right with respect #2. All people are different. But what you CAN put a # on is how many test subjects fall in to a category. The issue is, once it becomes a sufficiently small # of people who can distinguish the difference, the studios call it "good enough".

Yes, I know you don't like it. And is a vacuum I wouldn't either. But in the real world of consumer formats, that's the way it is currently.

No, it is there and complete, curiosity got me to try the LoEG’s game that is in BD-J, BD-J is the menu system for BD. If it was , like you imply, then those disks would not play on the players. What is missing (at least assumed, since no one knows) that most players out right know don’t have the capacity to decode two distinct video streams. But the player must still deal with it. Which is where BD-J comes in. It just means you won’t see the secondary video


From this recent news item here: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=10208851&&#post10208851


-- Did someone say Blu-ray interactivity issues? TEG2 has created 800+ amendments to the BD-ROM application spec since its creation to "provide clarity" and "reduce inconsistencies in implementations"...TEG2 will continue updating their Guideline Book every month, with recommendations, sample BD-J code, recipes, Hints from Heloise, etc.


800+ amendments doesn't make it sound very ready to me?

Plus this: http://www.dailytech.com/Bluray+Disc+Specification+Change+Threatens+Current+Players/article6702.htm

"Blu-ray Disc Java is coming this fall, and it may be incompatible with some of today's machines"

“Blu-ray player requirements and BD-Java specifications have been gradually changed over and over again, which has caused a good amount of grief for player manufacturers,” said optical storage analyst Wesley Novack. “


If it's coming this Fall, how is it ready now? :confused:

A discussion on the Insider's group suggested that mux capacity doesn't limit the number or size of alternative HD-DVD audio tracks. They can be downloaded or preloaded from disk as separate files, so there is no limit on language capacity, if this is implemented http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=10183404&&#post10183404

What makes you think that the average person is going to use any speakers other than what comes with there TVs. I cant see more than 20% actually having some stereo equipment hooked up to realize any difference in sound. I for one look at this from a mass market point of view.

...and the truth is you would have to tell most people what lossless even is, to tell them what they theoretically missing.

To illustrate your point you might also want to tell them that all the other sources of audio they enjoy are inferior. It's like telling someone their clothes are out of style, were they better-off before or after?

Look, obviously nobody outside of audiofiles care about this, and I'm beginning to doubt everyone championing this "advantage" are even audiofiles. Some are but I suspect most are just ardent BD supporters who want to be able to make the blanket statement "Blu-ray has better audio," because so far BD doesn't have better anything.

A discussion on the Insider's group suggested that mux capacity doesn't limit the number or size of alternative HD-DVD audio tracks. They can be downloaded or preloaded from disk as separate files, so there is no limit on language capacity, if this is implemented

I understood this was only for persistent items. There was a whole separate mux (14mbps bw?) available for data that was streaming from a secondary source (internet, persistent, etc). :confused:

Does BD do that? Or are they restricted to that 48mbps total?

...and the truth is you would have to tell most people what lossless even is, to tell them what they theoretically missing.

To illustrate your point you might also want to tell them that all the other sources of audio they enjoy are inferior. It's like telling someone their clothes are out of style, were they better-off before or after?

Look, obviously nobody outside of audiofiles care about this, and I'm beginning to doubt everyone championing this "advantage" are even audiofiles. Some are but I suspect most are just ardent BD supporters who want to be able to make the blanket statement "Blu-ray has better audio," because so far BD doesn't have better anything.

Including AQ, considering the averages of the reviews 2Channel posted. :p

...and the truth is you would have to tell most people what lossless even is, to tell them what they theoretically missing.

To illustrate your point you might also want to tell them that all the other sources of audio they enjoy are inferior. It's like telling someone their clothes are out of style, were they better-off before or after?

Look, obviously nobody outside of audiofiles care about this, and I'm beginning to doubt everyone championing this "advantage" are even audiofiles. Some are but I suspect most are just ardent BD supporters who want to be able to make the blanket statement "Blu-ray has better audio," because so far BD doesn't have better anything.
Whatever. Let's just see how this plays out, both in the US and in Europe. It's not like we'll make a difference from here anyways...

Whatever. Let's just see how this plays out, both in the US and in Europe. It's not like we'll make a difference from here anyways...

No, your correct, but IMO some think that are these undecided "floaters" who's format-choice consternation's will cause them to drift onto these boards, and they will see an unopposed view and, gulp, buy the "wrong" format. :eek:

Bezerkeley didn't offer any classes on manners - sevaral majors on jumping into discussions and screaming about things you have no idea about (my minor along with Engineering), but nothing on manners.

I actually took several classes on irony and sarcasm. It comes in handy when I want to interject a joke about people being morons and idiots when they don't agree with my display choice right in the middle of an unnecessarily long diatribe on how everybody's opinion on Audio should be respected.

I thought given the context of the overall discussion and my post that the humor (or attempt at least) would be obvious, but I guess I need to include smileys for those who are hiding under bench in the back of the short bus looking for gum.

oh, yeah, here you go :D

thom

ps. no really, :D - it was honestly a joke. I was really trying to come up with some excuse for this entirely stupid argument could end considering it has been going on for two years now with absolutely no new ideas or arguments to be made.

I do find it weird that while this discussion is going on we have an article on the front of AVScience on whether or nto we need HD at all due to visual perception. At this rate someone is going to show up and argue 20" black and white's are really all we need.
I don't chew gum.

I think porn will be more important than lossless audio.I agree.
So King Kong has been touted as an example of a 3+ hour film that can be encoded with excellent PQ on HD DVD. It also has a lossy (but reasonably high bitrate) audio track. But to assume that this movie is representative of the vast majority of movies is fallacious. It might represent 5% of them.Same with ease of compression per minute. It is so clean for much of it that it could easily be easier to compress per minute than well over half the movies out there.
Of course, people are going to state that mux-rate is the additional problem, but that really seems to be a problem primarily if you want lots of additional audio tracks.I think the issue with seamless brancing and mux-rate might be the bigger one, not even counting that a grainy 1.85:1 movie with IME could be a problem even for a single lossless audio track, even if the movie isn't very long. On the seamless branching issue, I find it interesting how much the Microsoft guys have had to downplay that the studios will even do it for having a theatrical version and another version on the same disc, instead of addressing how they would do it on HD DVD without degradation. When I asked Ben about the LOTR with both versions (the user gets to choose) his first response was that he didn't think that movie would support it because of audio. When I pointed out that they did it on DVD, but it ended up not having the DTS track and one report was that the image quality was poor, I don't remember ever getting a real response as to how they would do that on HD DVD with degradation to PQ or AQ.

When I asked Amir about that one, he also tried to play it off as if the studios wouldn't want to do that. His "logic" makes no sense to me. He claims that the interest in using seamless branching like in the past isn't there. They want to sell these movies to people who have already seen them in the theater, yet including a non-theatrical version along with a theatrical version on the same release and allowing people to choose which one to watch is one way to get both people who saw it in the theater and people who didn't, to buy the disc.

I see nothing to indicate that studios will stop being interested in doing things like the seamlessly branched versions of the LOTR series on DVD or the seamlessly branched DVD of "AVP: Alien vs Predator" that then got a seamlessly branched Blu-ray release of the same movie. If HD DVD hadn't chosen a 1.0x spin rate that made doing things like that difficult without degrading things, I highly doubt that this stuff would be being brushed off as if the studios don't want to do it, when it is one of the things that directly addresses their desire to get people to buy the discs, even if those people have already seen the movie in the theater.

--Darin

A discussion on the Insider's group suggested that mux capacity doesn't limit the number or size of alternative HD-DVD audio tracks. They can be downloaded or preloaded from disk as separate files, so there is no limit on language capacity, if this is implemented http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=10183404&&#post10183404

I think that the discussion is pretty theoretical in nature and I don't think any studio is even planning to do such a thing.

A 1.5 Mbps audio stream uses about 500MB per hour. Lossless audio would be several Gigabytes in size. Roadblock #1 is the size of the persistence storage available on current players. Road block # 2 would be in how the audio info is made available. If you are streaming the audio in real time, you would need a high bandwidth, low latency network from end to end in order to sync the audio with the video. If you are not streaming, then the end user need to download the audio ahead of time for each movie viewed - not very friendly to impulse movie watchers.

I suspect that this feature will mature at the same time that movie download become prevalent.

If you are streaming the audio in real time, you would need a high bandwidth, low latency network from end to end in order to sync the audio with the video.There is also the issue of how to support trick play modes, such as 4x fast forward, reverse, etc.

If you are not streaming, then the end user need to download the audio ahead of time for each movie viewed - not very friendly to impulse movie watchers.The intent is to download it once and store it for current and future use, usually in the player. Of course, unless a HDD is used, you could eventually run out of storage space. Hence the need to periodically purge no-longer-desired content. Both formats support this capability.

I agree.
Same with ease of compression per minute. It is so clean for much of it that it could easily be easier to compress per minute than well over half the movies out there.
I think the issue with seamless brancing and mux-rate might be the bigger one, not even counting that a grainy 1.85:1 movie with IME could be a problem even for a single lossless audio track, even if the movie isn't very long. On the seamless branching issue, I find it interesting how much the Microsoft guys have had to downplay that the studios will even do it for having a theatrical version and another version on the same disc, instead of addressing how they would do it on HD DVD without degradation. When I asked Ben about the LOTR with both versions (the user gets to choose) his first response was that he didn't think that movie would support it because of audio. When I pointed out that they did it on DVD, but it ended up not having the DTS track and one report was that the image quality was poor, I don't remember ever getting a real response as to how they would do that on HD DVD with degradation to PQ or AQ.

When I asked Amir about that one, he also tried to play it off as if the studios wouldn't want to do that. His "logic" makes no sense to me. He claims that the interest in using seamless branching like in the past isn't there. They want to sell these movies to people who have already seen them in the theater, yet including a non-theatrical version along with a theatrical version on the same release and allowing people to choose which one to watch is one way to get both people who saw it in the theater and people who didn't, to buy the disc.

I see nothing to indicate that studios will stop being interested in doing things like the seamlessly branched versions of the LOTR series on DVD or the seamlessly branched DVD of "AVP: Alien vs Predator" that then got a seamlessly branched Blu-ray release of the same movie. If HD DVD hadn't chosen a 1.0x spin rate that made doing things like that difficult without degrading things, I highly doubt that this stuff would be being brushed off as if the studios don't want to do it, when it is one of the things that directly addresses their desire to get people to buy the discs, even if those people have already seen the movie in the theater.

--Darin

I'm not saying there aren't technical limits. I'm suggesting that the container is good enough in a mass-consumer format to cover the vast majority of cases for a given title or studio desire.

Will we get a 3-1/2 hour encode of "Confetti Strobe: The Musical with Alternate Director's Cut" shot on highspeed 8mm using seamless branching and IME, along with 4 lossless tracks and 18 dubs* on a disc? No.

Will we get a darn good presentation of most features released today or in the catalog? Yes. Will some require a solution like 2-discs? Sure. Will some combination of features not be possible due to bandwidth constraints on a single disc? Probably. Will this (likely small) subset of overall titles materially affect the outcome? Hardly likely.

* Title fictional. Any resemblance to an actual title, current or planned, is purely coincidental. Please do not respond to this fabrication with a technical response.

I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm not buying "Confetti Strobe" unless all four lossless tracks are 24/48.

I can't wait to check out the Swahili dub...

...

The intent is to download it once and store it for current and future use, usually in the player. Of course, unless a HDD is used, you could eventually run out of storage space. Hence the need to periodically purge no-longer-desired content. Both formats support this capability.

Anybody know the size of the persistent storage on current devices, excluding the xbox360 or the ps3?

http://www.foxnews.com/video2/player06.html?040307/040307_fr_porn&FOX_Report&Porn%20industry%20pushes%20TV%20tech&acc&Technology&-1&News&122&&&new

Fox news report on adult industry and format war.

Fox news thinks porn will make HD DVD win the format war?

I am now 100% positive that I made the right decision in going with blu-ray.

the people who would benefit most are those with home theatres, which can be viewed via photos on this very site. they are almost without exception ordinary rooms, some with lagging, but most simply painted black. gotta love the black! there's no point holding the test to a standard none of the consumers are going to experience. and remember that these represent only a tiny fraction of the available marketplace, and the most perfect conditions within that marketplace.

Precisely. Only a tiny minority of consumers possess the equipment and space capable of delineating subtle sonic differences.

the test is by definition scientifically flawed (asking for opinions, rather than looking at objective evidence) and the addition of a plethora of scientifically rigourous pre-conditions doesn't change that fact.

You might try telling that to the dozens of scientists investigating human perception. I'm sure they'd be interested to learn that they're experimental procedures are a complete waste of time.

it's simply an effort on your part to make the experiment seem more definintive than it actually is.

You apparently suffer fundamental misunderstandings about the means, methods, and limits of scientific inquiry. Experimental results are never
definitive.

insistance on seperate environments for all the listeners: is this the way even high end consumers watch their movies? of course not, they watch in their theatres with a bunch of mates round. silence should of course be enforce during the tests, but since it's only for half hour spells this shouldn't be much of an issue. and if there is occasional background noise, guess what, that will also be a real life condition that home theatre enthusiasts deal with.

Again, you're only making my point, for me. Real life conditions would make it more unlikely that anyone could identify subtle differences. You're completely missing the point that strict scientific protocols would only tend to benefit your POV!

clerical staff? have you ever conducted a survey?! the particpants would be asked to fill in a multiple choice form, as with any other test of this kind. the only clerical work is to hand out the forms, provide pencils, and collect completed forms at the end of the test. tabulating the results can be done via computer if the correct forms are used.

Tell ya what. If good "science" is so bloody inexpensive, and simplistically straightforward, why don't you actually undertake the procedure you've outlined. Just don't be surprised if you subsequently feel the need to raise legitimate objections about the laxity of your own "protocols." if the results aren't what you expect.

Fox news thinks porn will make HD DVD win the format war?

I am now 100% positive that I made the right decision in going with blu-ray.

I thought Fox was supporting Blu-ray. ;)

Anybody know the size of the persistent storage on current devices, excluding the xbox360 or the ps3?

Here are the minimum requirements. I don't think there's any reason a manufacturer could not go beyond the minimum (as seen in game systems). It would obviously add cost though.

HD DVD
128 MB

BD-Video 1.0
64 KB

BD-Video 1.1
256 MB

BD-Live
1 GB

Here are the minimum requirements. I don't think there's any reason a manufacturer could not go beyond the minimum (as seen in game systems). It would obviously add cost though.

HD DVD
128 MB

BD-Video 1.0
64 KB

BD-Video 1.1
256 MB

BD-Live
1 GB

So you'd be pretty hard press to even store a 1.5 Mbps audio stream for one movie.

So you'd be pretty hard press to even store a 1.5 Mbps audio stream for one movie.

Yes, large amounts of persistent storage are only available in the game systems.

If you think there's no effort (or expense) involved in maintaining a 24bit signal chain all the way to the consumer that can actually resolve that range, then we disagree. And my point was to relate this to the benefit (perceived or otherwise). At some point diminishing returns kick in.

Incidentally, I've got an audio acquisition card with some pretty well regarded 24bit DAC's. Capture, mix, process and master in 24bit? Certainly.... it allows additional headroom for rounding error and the like to be dithered out. Render in 16bit vs 24bit? I've yet to have anybody be able to tell the difference on a few different near field monitors, decent headphones, and scores of home listening environments. While YMMV, it won't for 99% of the people, and that's good enough for the studios.

Steve. Can't see what this has to do with the topic. The issue is that some are saying there can never be a sonic difference between between high bandwidth DD+ and DTHD created from the same master.

I'm not sure if everyone caught amillians post on the news thread today. Some very interesting info and funny stuff in there. Here are a couple of my favorites (so hard to choose though).

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=10208851#post10208851

-- The BDA has formally kicked off a new PR campaign called "Phase Hydra"....its purpose is to seed "high profile" forums with Blu-ray advocates and target bloggers to promote Blu-ray to get the word out to the world...the campaign will also focus on "smaller, independent studio issues"...

Picture of the Hydra
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=10213112#post10213112

-- ...when it turns out that they don't even need to test things anymore to get certification?!? The BDA has authorized a new "120 Day Notice Rule"...if a required test tool isn't available when a compliance test is scheduled, instead of delaying the test to wait for the tool, all test items which require the test tool are simply removed from the compliance test...only when the required tool is introduced, applicants must use the tool to test compliance, and then they have 120 days to report their results back to the BDA...so, let's see...do I really want to be the first on my block to have a Profile 1.1 or BD-Live player? Let us all pray to the temple of Firmware Updatability, for it is good...

Buckle your seat belts.....there's some turbulence up ahead..... ;)

The problem here is that folks have seized upon corner-cases for arguing against this. Any arbitrary amount of data (either 30 or 50) is enough for a specific length presentation. Conversely, any finite amount of data is insufficient for longer presentations.

Steve agree in part. What I don't agree is that length is the factor. The factor is amount of content. Content is not only determined by length, look at Serenity. Video created for US soundtracks, then in Europe where they wanted to add audio they reencoded it at lower bitrate and PQ. That is what is so stupid with the Kong proves 3+h fits on a 30GB.

I'm not sure that HD-DVD can't give it though ... I guess that's my point. I'm thinking that if HD-DVD doesn't include it, it's because the studio didn't want it there ... not because it can't.
jdg345: for Kong the Math proves it.

That assumes "quality" is some binary value, rather than a scale.

Of course we all have a personal threshold... but to state that quality must equal lossless is not a universal absolute, except for perhaps a minority.*

I certainly think high-bitrate lossy track can represent excellent quality.

lossless video can't be handled by today’s tech, so there is no use asking for it. If someone came out with a disk with the capacity and BW to give it, I would want that format and would definitely be bitching if it was not offered. Your comment is the equivalent of saying why ask your boss for a 1k$ raise if you are not asking him to pay you 1B$ a year.

Sigh. Yes. Anthony, you are right with respect #2. All people are different. But what you CAN put a # on is how many test subjects fall in to a category. The issue is, once it becomes a sufficiently small # of people who can distinguish the difference, the studios call it "good enough".


do you work for a studio? I don't, we are the enthusiasts we are the ones that should be pushing the studios or their "good enough" will be less and less.

800+ amendments doesn't make it sound very ready to me?


jdg345 : wow, you found paperwork :)

I guess you showed me :rolleyes:

A discussion on the Insider's group suggested that mux capacity doesn't limit the number or size of alternative HD-DVD audio tracks.


WayneL: you are right, now what player comes with 1TB so that we can DL the track for each movie we watch?

Steve. Can't see what this has to do with the topic. The issue is that some are saying there can never be a sonic difference between between high bandwidth DD+ and DTHD created from the same master.

I've never seen that stated as an absolute like that. I've seen lots of argument saying that there isn't a significant enough difference that many could detect it, however.

Care to provide such a quote?

Steve agree in part. What I don't agree is that length is the factor. The factor is amount of content. Content is not only determined by length, look at Serenity. Video created for US soundtracks, then in Europe where they wanted to add audio they reencoded it at lower bitrate and PQ. That is what is so stupid with the Kong proves 3+h fits on a 30GB.

Somehow I doubt many ~2 hour movies (I dunno what Serenity is), are going to have a hard time getting a couple of good AQ tracks on there as well. Can't speak to why that particular title was done that way.

Somehow I doubt many ~2 hour movies (I dunno what Serenity is), are going to have a hard time getting a couple of good AQ tracks on there as well. Can't speak to why that particular title was done that way.

It was a launch title. From what I've read the encoding tools have gone through a lot of changes since then, including the addition of dynamic muxing.

Somehow I doubt many ~2 hour movies (I dunno what Serenity is), are going to have a hard time getting a couple of good AQ tracks on there as well. Can't speak to why that particular title was done that way.


it had 5 in Europe while only 3 in NA. two more languages take up more space. It looks like Universal has changed since then, they still go with more languages but now they are lower then DVD quality.

The problem is the length is almost unimportant for capacity and none at all for BW.

On DVDs was it only long movies that were 2 disk sets? no, some were that way because they had a lot of extras.

I am starting with a simple premis that to me is self evident. The amount of extra (extra defined as anything but the many language and the main video) is no where near what it will be in the future. The reason I consider it self evident is that DVD started with almost none and they just kept on increasing as time went by, also that studios asked for HDi and BD-J and to date I don't consider any title really using it.

lossless video can't be handled by today’s tech, so there is no use asking for it. If someone came out with a disk with the capacity and BW to give it, I would want that format and would definitely be bitching if it was not offered. Your comment is the equivalent of saying why ask your boss for a 1k$ raise if you are not asking him to pay you 1B$ a year.

Ah, so your statement that "people should not want quality when HD DVD can't give it", now is qualifid to mean "and if a given tech can deliver it"?

Why aren't you pushing for Laser-Disc sized BluRay players with 500GB capacities and 10bit 4:4:4 video with 200+Mbps data rates?

Because 1) there is a real-world constraint, and 2) there's a threshold above which our senses can't resolve a whole lot more.

If all else was equal, I'll take uncompressed everything. But all else is anything but equal.

Diminshing returns my man... diminishing returns.

do you work for a studio? I don't, we are the enthusiasts we are the ones that should be pushing the studios or their "good enough" will be less and less.

Nope. But I prefer to pick my battles for something that significant enough that: 1) I can really tell the difference, and 2) I think there's a chance I can win.

Look, I'm not saying not to ask for lossless, if that's what really floats your boat (incidentally have you ever subjected yourself to some unbiased blind-type testing?).

But to suggest that just because a 3-hour movie "only" offered a 1.5Mbps soundtrack (that I suspect most of us would not be able to distinguish from lossless) the other format is doomed is silly.

it had 5 in Europe while only 3 in NA. two more languages take up more space. It looks like Universal has changed since then, they still go with more languages but now they are lower then DVD quality.

The problem is the length is almost unimportant for capacity and none at all for BW.

On DVDs was it only long movies that were 2 disk sets? no, some were that way because they had a lot of extras.

I am starting with a simple premis that to me is self evident. The amount of extra (extra defined as anything but the many language and the main video) is no where near what it will be in the future. The reason I consider it self evident is that DVD started with almost none and they just kept on increasing as time went by, also that studios asked for HDi and BD-J and to date I don't consider any title really using it.

See my response to Darin. If a studio wants to release different versions of their discs to different markets, they can. If a studio wants to save some cash and release only one to as many markets as possible, and it takes 5 audio tracks on HD DVD to screw up PQ, and 9 on Blu Ray, then don't underestimate a studio's ability to screw it up on both formats to satisfy a bean counter somewhere.

Seriously.. didn't I just see a post recetly where somebody listed FOURTEEN language choices for a Disc? Hell that's the entire bit budget for either format and then some.

It was a launch title. From what I've read the encoding tools have gone through a lot of changes since then, including the addition of dynamic muxing.

Good point on the encoder revs.

Are you sure about dynamux though? I had not heard of that actually beng a working encoder feature as of yet, although I'm interested in seeing what it will do, as my good friend Anthony here will attest to. ;)

Ah, so your statement that "people should not want quality when HD DVD can't give it", now is qualifid to mean "and if a given tech can deliver it"?

not a given tech but any tech. No one is offering a LD size BD and even if they did size was enough the BW would not be there.

But to suggest that just because a 3-hour movie "only" offered a 1.5Mbps soundtrack (that I suspect most of us would not be able to distinguish from lossless) the other format is doomed is silly.


where did I say HD DVD is doomed because of audio. I am sayinkgt I want lossless others are saying itr is snake oil and not needed because it does not offer anything and that I got taken in by the hype. HD DVD is doomed because they made some real dumb decisions in late 2004 early 2005. Toshiba could have helped their bottom line when the merger discussions were happening but they let their ego get in the way. The worest part of it is that we could have had something better then BD now if they did join forces.

As for AQ winning the war for any side, I don't think quality ever is the determining factor in a win. I am just happy both are on the same side.

Seriously.. didn't I just see a post recetly where somebody listed FOURTEEN language choices for a Disc? Hell that's the entire bit budget for either format and then some.

I am guessing you mean Identity, 2-3 uncompressed (all the posts talk about French uncompressed but I don't see it on the label) 5 all together (at least on the label), the rest are subs (around 20 of them).

If a studio wants to release different versions of their discs to different markets, they can. If a studio wants to save some cash and release only one to as many markets as possible, and it takes 5 audio tracks on HD DVD to screw up PQ, and 9 on Blu Ray, then don't underestimate a studio's ability to screw it up on both formats to satisfy a bean counter somewhere.


agree and that is why I think we should be pushing for quality, instand of being complacent.

I had not heard of that actually beng a working encoder feature as of yet, although I'm interested in seeing what it will do, as my good friend Anthony here will attest to.

same here

it had 5 in Europe while only 3 in NA. two more languages take up more space. It looks like Universal has changed since then, they still go with more languages but now they are lower then DVD quality.

...

So is anyone concern that if/when Universal supports BD, they would reuse their HD DVD encode ala Warner instead of remastering the movie to the full BD spec?

So is anyone concern that if/when Universal supports BD, they would reuse their HD DVD encode ala Warner instead of remastering the movie to the full BD spec?

So is anyone else concern that if/when Sony support HD DVD, they would reuse their mpeg2 encode instead of remastering the movie to the full HD DVD spec? :p

So is anyone else concern that if/when Sony support HD DVD, they would reuse their mpeg2 encode instead of remastering the movie to the full HD DVD spec? :p

Being a former exclusive HD DVD supporter and former VC-1 fanboy, I can honestly attest that Mpeg 2 transfers can have beautiful results. I've seen so many stunning Mpeg2 transfers, the VC-1 fanboys just blamed the initial bad looking BD releases on Mpeg2 instead of the actual culprit, BD25s just don't have the space to include an uncompressed PCM audio track without noticeably sacrificing PQ.

Well, lossless might actually turn out to be bigger than some people believe. Again, (I guess naturally, since this is a US based forum) people only look at the NA market. But if Universal and others keep up the 384Kbit HD DVD soundtracks in Europe, and Blu-ray stick with LPCM/DTS, MANY consumers WILL feel shortchanged by HD DVD releases.Do you really think the average consumer will even notice what type of audio tracks are on a release? I suspect not. Heck, I'm a pretty informed movie consumer, and the last time I checked the back of a DVD to see what codec it used was... er... never. The only thing I make sure of is anamorphic widescreen, everything else is irrelevant to me. I suspect even the widescreen bit is irrelevant to a large percentage of consumers.

Just after the holidays this year, I was browsing around Blockbuster when I overheard some belligerent guy demanding his money back on rentals because the movies he had rented were "broken". When the clerk asked him how they were broken, he told her that they didn't fill the screen. There were black bars at the top and bottom. (This is a true story... I'm assuming he got a new DVD player for Christmas)

If you're expecting consumers like that to notice the difference between a lossy and lossless track, you'll be sorely disappointed.

Being a former exclusive HD DVD supporter and former VC-1 fanboy, I can honestly attest that Mpeg 2 transfers can have beautiful results. I've seen so many stunning Mpeg2 transfers, the VC-1 fanboys just blamed the initial bad looking BD releases on Mpeg2 instead of the actual culprit, BD25s just don't have the space to include an uncompressed PCM audio track without noticeably sacrificing PQ.

I have to agree, mpeg2 can produce excellent PQ. Initial batch of lousy BD PQ were just the result of neglect at the mastering level and not the encoding process. Just ask Paidgeek.

I don't understand the need for LPCM ? Look at Night at the Museum. BD25 + mepg2 + DTS-HD and 4.5 stars for AQ. You need BD50 just to get LPCM and 5 stars for AQ? Overkill no?

Do you really think the average consumer will even notice what type of audio tracks are on a release? I suspect not. Heck, I'm a pretty informed movie consumer, and the last time I checked the back of a DVD to see what codec it used was... er... never. The only thing I make sure of is anamorphic widescreen, everything else is irrelevant to me. I suspect even the widescreen bit is irrelevant to a large percentage of consumers.

If you're expecting consumers like that to notice the difference between a lossy and lossless track, you'll be sorely disappointed.

A lot of people will notice. Good HT setups are getting more and more common. Remember that the people buying this stuff are the early adopters still. They CARE about both PQ AND AQ. If early adopters don't buy HD DVD because of audio issues in Europe, do you think average Joe will? Average Joe don't on a whim buy HD stuff. They listen to their better informed friends and some even read HT magazines before they buy. HD is still way more expensive than DVD, and they for sure won't buy any of it of noone else are...

Not to mention the power of marketing. If one format is pushing lossless or higher bitrates, and the other is not, which will be percieved better? It matters little then if the consumer will actually notice a difference on his particular setup.

And expect HT magazines to be pushing this like they're pushing Golden Power Cables, transparent optical cables and acoustically dampened racks.

That said, I do not think it is snake oil. I think most people will notice a difference between a 384Kbit track and a lossless track. (What I don't know, is if LPCM is superior over TrueHD or Master Audio.)

And no, I won't be disappointed if people won't notice the difference. Most of them will THINK they notice a difference. :) My ONLY point, is that I think it is a risky business strategy to skimp on audio features (AND interactive features) for Euro customers that don't want to listen to the english soundtrack. Early HD customers are better informed than average Joe, and won't buy inferior products (to what is being sold elsewhere in the world). An no, they won't all just then order from Amazon.)

jdg345: for Kong the Math proves it.

Not necessarily ... the Studio that produced Kong didn't include lossless on other titles they released that would have had the space. I think if the studio wanted to, they could have tweaked the video more to include lossless. Would it have received a lower PQ score? Dunno ... *shrug*

jdg345 : wow, you found paperwork :)

I guess you showed me :rolleyes:

Wasn't trying to "show you" ... you were saying it was done (in response to my post that said it wasn't). I said I saw reference elsewhere that seemed to indicate otherwise and I would post it when I found it. I did. *shrug*

:(

I thought Fox was supporting Blu-ray. ;)

One of Fox's oldest tricks is to report the other side may prevail because they are in league with the devil. Linking HD DVD with porn fires up the faithful to go buy Blu-ray.

A lot of people will notice.

If people were so hung up on audio specs how come MP3 won over SACD/DVD-A ? HiFi Audio should have been a roaring success. I think you need to come down from your ivory tower ...

ps : if you mean by a lot - couple of thousand, ofcourse you would be right.

If people were so hung up on audio specs how come MP3 won over SACD/DVD-A ? HiFi Audio should have been a roaring success. I think you need to come down from your ivory tower ...

ps : if you mean by a lot - couple of thousand, ofcourse you would be right.

There are a number of factors involved in that, the main one being Napster/Morpheus/Kazaa. MP3 was easily downloaded for free at the time when SACD launched, so you could either download this over Napster (free) and get the album in 20mins or go out to a shop and buy the SACD (which on most peoples system will sound the same as a CD anyway) for some amount of money.

This case is completely different as you are already paying for the product, so why not ask for the best available, even if some people can't take advantage of it at this time.

If people were so hung up on audio specs how come MP3 won over SACD/DVD-A ? HiFi Audio should have been a roaring success. I think you need to come down from your ivory tower ...

ps : if you mean by a lot - couple of thousand, ofcourse you would be right.


There was nothing really driving SACD/DVD-A, most consumers have crappy audio playback systems and can't tell the difference (or care about the difference for that matter). The big HDTV push that we're seeing is driving the HD movie format, alot of people have bought into HDTV.

I have to agree, mpeg2 can produce excellent PQ.

Very much agreed.



I don't understand the need for LPCM ? Look at Night at the Museum. BD25 + mepg2 + DTS-HD and 4.5 stars for AQ. You need BD50 just to get LPCM and 5 stars for AQ? Overkill no?

I thought much the same until I got a receiver that could take the PCM tracks from my PS3. Now I wish PCM were a requirement in the BD spec!

There was nothing really driving SACD/DVD-A, most consumers have crappy audio playback systems and can't tell the difference (or care about the difference for that matter). The big HDTV push that we're seeing is driving the HD movie format, alot of people have bought into HDTV.
If most of these consumers "have crappy audio playback systems and can't tell the difference (or care about the difference for that matter,)" what makes you think they'll care about (or even be able to tell the difference between) lossless Vs lossy tracks for movies?

Lossy, lossless, uncompressed - it all sounds the same when you're using a $300 HTIB... :D

I thought much the same until I got a receiver that could take the PCM tracks from my PS3. Now I wish PCM were a requirement in the BD spec!
I think his point was that you could get the same auditory experience using DTHD (or DTS-HD MA) over uncompressed PCM, so why not use the one that uses less space/bandwidth?

That said, I do not think it is snake oil. I think most people will notice a difference between a 384Kbit track and a lossless track. (What I don't know, is if LPCM is superior over TrueHD or Master Audio.)

And no, I won't be disappointed if people won't notice the difference. Most of them will THINK they notice a difference. :) My ONLY point, is that I think it is a risky business strategy to skimp on audio features (AND interactive features) for Euro customers that don't want to listen to the english soundtrack. Early HD customers are better informed than average Joe, and won't buy inferior products (to what is being sold elsewhere in the world). An no, they won't all just then order from Amazon.)
I would like to think I can tell the difference between DTS or Dolby 5.1 implementations and their wider bandwidth brothers, but why has no one done objective testing? Lack of it tells me there is no big difference.

With them, you'll get more language tracks no matter which format.

I think his point was that you could get the same auditory experience using DTHD (or DTS-HD MA) over uncompressed PCM, so why not use the one that uses less space/bandwidth?

which in the video realm is the same point wrt using MPEG-2 vs AVC or VC-1... BD50 is an excuse to be inefficient, which offends the technologist/engineer in me. But the extra capacity is a good thing to have (but apparently not needed for movies if you use the more efficient compression algorithms). Ditto for increased bandwidth.

Even though I think HD DVD is the better format from a bang/buck POV, I can't say I'd be disappointed to see TL51 w/ 1.5x spin-rate become standard for those corner cases where BD theoretically has an edge.

Edit- it was precisely the combination of PCM+MPEG-2+BD-25 coupled to run-time+ master that gives sub-par PQ on early titles. It wasn't just 'mpeg-2 is the debbil and vc-1 is the shiznit', although some liked to spin it that way.

I would like to think I can tell the difference between DTS or Dolby 5.1 implementations and their wider bandwidth brothers, but why has no one done objective testing? Lack of it tells me there is no big difference.

With them, you'll get more language tracks no matter which format.

Exactly. If there was a real-world advantage, you know damn well CEs would publish scads of data to bolster their marketing claims with scientific credibility. The fact that they haven't, and won't, speaks quite clearly for itself. Humans are incredibly adept at convincing themselves to believe anything; we need look no further than Scientology, and similar cults based on other laughably goofy precepts to see illustrative examples. I've been honestly shocked to read posts written by members whose opinions I respect, making so many leaps of faith regarding their sensory discernment capabilities, and those of others, when they have zero objective evidence to support what is really nothing more than hopeful supposition.

Human psychology is simultaneously fascinating, and troubling, because our beliefs are so easily modified and manipulated to ends which can be either selflessly altruistic, or wantonly evil. The same cognitive/emotional flexibility which
has conveyed obvious benefits throughout the development of human civilization, is clearly a dual edged sword. I understand that issues regarding the audible benefit or lack thereof in consumer audio products aren't a matter of life and death, but I think it's an entirely reasonable expectation, that in our modern world, the abandonment of beliefs which are principally indistinguishable from superstition, should be an ideal, universal goal.

I thought much the same until I got a receiver that could take the PCM tracks from my PS3. Now I wish PCM were a requirement in the BD spec!

either loseless codec should sonically give you the same result assuming they came from the same master, so why use the uncompressed BW/space hog when more efficient alternatives exist? To save a few cents in royalty costs (seems to be the BD answer)?

which in the video realm is the same point wrt using MPEG-2 vs AVC or VC-1... BD50 is an excuse to be inefficient, which offends the technologist/engineer in me. But the extra capacity is a good thing to have (but apparently not needed for movies if you use the more efficient compression algorithms). Ditto for increased bandwidth.

Even though I think HD DVD is the better format from a bang/buck POV, I can't say I'd be disappointed to see TL51 w/ 1.5x spin-rate become standard for those corner cases where BD theoretically has an edge.

Edit- it was precisely the combination of PCM+MPEG-2+BD-25 coupled to run-time+ master that gives sub-par PQ on early titles. It wasn't just 'mpeg-2 is the debbil and vc-1 is the shiznit', although some liked to spin it that way.


Hey, you know what your talking about. Thanks for something more tangible for a change.

Hey, you know what your talking about. Thanks for something more tangible for a change.

Sorry to make sense every once in a while. :p

If most of these consumers "have crappy audio playback systems and can't tell the difference (or care about the difference for that matter,)" what makes you think they'll care about (or even be able to tell the difference between) lossless Vs lossy tracks for movies?

Lossy, lossless, uncompressed - it all sounds the same when you're using a $300 HTIB... :D

Exactly! If the segment of consumers who have good enough equipment and can tell the difference is small enough, then that becomes an expendible part of the technology. Not enough voices will be raised in protest to make a difference ( except here). Of course, when I brought this up before, I was passionately excoriated as though I had insulted the holy grail and should ride the short bus. Just reality, IMHO.
:D

BD50 is an excuse to be inefficient, which offends the technologist/engineer in me. But the extra capacity is a good thing to have (but apparently not needed for movies if you use the more efficient compression algorithms). Ditto for increased bandwidth.


:rolleyes:

That's like saying computers with more than 1 MB of RAM is an excuse to write inefficient code.

If you're a technologist, instead of some Luddite, you wouldn't oppose any advances in capacity or greater bandwidth.

Leave it up to the bean counters to complain about costs. It would be one thing if BD50 precluded the use of more efficent codecs but it doesn't, just as computers today with 1 GB of RAM don't preclude people from running little DOS programs written when RAM was at least 10 times as expensive.

The applications of optical discs isn't limited to video distribution either so pretending that less capacity and bandwidth is good enough for the format as a whole is a specious argument. Even if it may be good enough for video, which is debatable, it doesn't mean it's good enough for data storage/distribution, for instance.

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/159/351987125_d10039a5a8.jpg

Amir holding one of his Emmys

I think his point was that you could get the same auditory experience using DTHD (or DTS-HD MA) over uncompressed PCM, so why not use the one that uses less space/bandwidth?

There is the "slight" issue that we don't have any DTS-HD (or DTS-HDMA) decoders present in any player on either side. Nor have we seen any sign that we can expect them anytime soon. Second, PCM has been reputedly reported as much easier to do encodes on.

Aesthetically, why choose compression if you can avoid it? BD affords that opportunity and I'll quite longingly look for the technology that can give us uncompressed video, as well (Holographic Video Disc... where art thou? :D )...

There is the "slight" issue that we don't have any DTS-HD (or DTS-HDMA) decoders present in any player on either side. Nor have we seen any sign that we can expect them anytime soon. Second, PCM has been reputedly reported as much easier to do encodes on.

Aesthetically, why choose compression if you can avoid it? BD affords that opportunity and I'll quite longingly look for the technology that can give us uncompressed video, as well (Holographic Video Disc... where art thou? :D )...

Am I missing something?

Built-in audio decoders - DTS decoder, Dolby TrueHD, Dolby Digital, DTS-HD decoder, Dolby Digital Plus

http://reviews.cnet.com/Toshiba_HD_XA2/4507-6463_7-32074339.html
http://reviews.cnet.com/Toshiba_HD_A2/4507-6463_7-32074340.html

Am I missing something?

Built-in audio decoders - DTS decoder, Dolby TrueHD, Dolby Digital, DTS-HD decoder, Dolby Digital Plus

http://reviews.cnet.com/Toshiba_HD_XA2/4507-6463_7-32074339.html
http://reviews.cnet.com/Toshiba_HD_A2/4507-6463_7-32074340.html


DTS-HD is not lossless , DTS-HD MA is.

Exactly. If there was a real-world advantage, you know damn well CEs would publish scads of data to bolster their marketing claims with scientific credibility. The fact that they haven't, and won't, speaks quite clearly for itself.I would point out the fact that if you believe that lossless audio codecs aren't really needed you should be objective about it. In other words if you are demanding evidence that lossless audio is better than compressed audio you should also demand proof that 1.5 Mbps DD+ is noticeably better than 640 Kbps DD. A good number of posters believe this and I have actually seen a Dolby employee get personally attacked on this forum just for saying that there wouldn't much of a difference between the two.


Am I missing something?

Built-in audio decoders - DTS decoder, Dolby TrueHD, Dolby Digital, DTS-HD decoder, Dolby Digital Plus

http://reviews.cnet.com/Toshiba_HD_XA2/4507-6463_7-32074339.html
http://reviews.cnet.com/Toshiba_HD_A2/4507-6463_7-32074340.html2Channel, there is a lack of detailed information on newer audio codecs which cause some websites to confuse the issue of being able to accept DTS-HD and the ability to decode it. For instance that same website also lists DTS-HD decoders for the HD-A1 (http://reviews.cnet.com/Toshiba_HD_A1/4507-6463_7-31736203.html?tag=sub) and HD-A2 (http://reviews.cnet.com/Toshiba_HD_A2/4507-6463_7-32074340.html?tag=sub).

I would point out the fact that if you believe that lossless audio codecs aren't really needed you should be objective about it. In other words if you are demanding evidence that lossless audio is better than compressed audio you should also demand proof that 1.5 Mbps DD+ is noticeably better than 640 Kbps DD.

Certainly. I'm actually surprised and disappointed that no one has called me on the fact that I've repeatedly made bald assertions that there is no perceptible difference between 16 bit PCM, and a good quality lossy encoding of the same material.......which really isn't an objective POV. It would be more appropriate to couch my skepticism with more qualifiers. To be perfectly frank, my intent was to draw a reaction from any party who might possess data that countered my assertion, but.........I'm still waiting....

A good number of posters believe this and I have actually seen a Dolby employee get personally attacked on this forum just for saying that there wouldn't much of a difference between the two.

I'm a bit surprised by his candor......sounds like an honest source. Perhaps he doesn't work in marketing. ;) You know they have good data on this.

There was nothing really driving SACD/DVD-A, most consumers have crappy audio playback systems and can't tell the difference (or care about the difference for that matter). The big HDTV push that we're seeing is driving the HD movie format, alot of people have bought into HDTV.

And they come with great audio with a dynamic range of 100dB ?

There are a number of factors involved in that ...

I'm well aware of that (if you see my posts about it in the last 5 years you will agree) - but the bottom line is people are more into convinience than audio quality. In other words people don't know / don't care.

Certainly. I'm actually surprised and disappointed that no one has called me on the fact that I've repeatedly made bald assertions that there is no perceptible difference between 16 bit PCM, and a good quality lossy encoding of the same material.......which really isn't an objective POV. It would be more appropriate to couch my skepticism with more qualifiers. To be perfectly frank, my intent was to draw a reaction from any party who might possess data that countered my assertion, but.........I'm still waiting....


Well, if the source was more than 16 bits then I think there is a a good chance that at the same bit rate the lossy encoding would sound (marginally) better.

- Tom

Well, if the source was more than 16 bits then I think there is a a good chance that at the same bit rate the lossy encoding would sound (marginally) better.

Interesting. Why would that be - don't they first downrez before encoding ?

There is the "slight" issue that we don't have any DTS-HD (or DTS-HDMA) decoders present in any player on either side. Nor have we seen any sign that we can expect them anytime soon.
So use DTHD until DTS-HD MA decoders are the norm.

Second, PCM has been reputedly reported as much easier to do encodes on.
Reported by whom? And why is it that I would care about the ease of an encoder's job?

Aesthetically, why choose compression if you can avoid it? BD affords that opportunity and I'll quite longingly look for the technology that can give us uncompressed video, as well (Holographic Video Disc... where art thou? :D )...
If it's lossless (which is what we're talking about,) it's identical, bit-for-bit, to the master. Aesthetically, there should be absolutely no difference. So why use uncompressed (especially when most releases are on BD-25s) when lossless compression can give the same results using less space and bandwidth? Even if you're talking about BD-50s, why not use lossless so that the space and bandwidth can really be taken advantage of - whether it be by cranking up the PQ bitrate or including tons of HD extras, etc.?

:rolleyes:

That's like saying computers with more than 1 MB of RAM is an excuse to write inefficient code.Actually, I say that all the time. I believe I have expounded to coworkers a number of times that all devs should have 16MB 486 machines as their primary development machine, since they apparently think memory and CPU is infinite and free.

When I worked at a large web based retailer a number of years ago, we discovered that some lazy dev had decided they didn't want to bother with dynamically allocating a table at app startup, so they compiled in a static 256 MB table. Not a huge issue if it only went into a single binary, but it was in a library that got linked into about 20 binaries (19 of which didn't use the table at all), resulting in an extra 4GB of disk space per build, for a nominally faster loading app.

It's always good to be efficient when you can. If none of your users can tell the difference between a 1.5Mb DD+ and lossless, then why bother with the lossless? Just because BD can hit 40Mb video peaks, will every movie do so? Should you even care if they can do the whole movie in half that?

When I got my first DVD player, most movies were pushing the 10Mb boundary, heck, I have a flipper disc of Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves, and it has no extra features. By the beginning of this year, I've noticed most DVDs sitting around the 4-5Mb mark, you can now fit twice as much movie onto a DVD as when I bought in to it, at better quality, what makes you think the efficiency curve of the new codecs will be any different?

Memory management in software is different from codec efficiency. The latter is at least partly driven by hardware advances, isn't it? Or are better encoders delivered purely in software, not even without higher RAM requirements?

Or are you saying better codec algorithms are achieved through better memory management in the software?

Time for another car analogy. If you can achieve better fuel efficiency, why would you not have cars with larger gas tanks to achieve a longer range per tankful? The way gas prices are jumping around, it doesn't hurt to be able to go longer between fillups.

Of and just because you got better fuel efficiency doesn't mean you wouldn't try to improve the fuel injection system to deliver better performance, when you need it either.

So by all means, integrate fuel efficiency designs, like using lighter materials as BMW did for their engine block on their E90 platform, to deliver an engine with higher output but better fuel efficiency than their previous generation engine. I don't know if they put in a smaller tank since they improved fuel efficiency a little bit. Doubtful that they did though.

So use DTHD until DTS-HD MA decoders are the norm.


Reported by whom? And why is it that I would care about the ease of an encoder's job?


If it's lossless (which is what we're talking about,) it's identical, bit-for-bit, to the master. Aesthetically, there should be absolutely no difference. So why use uncompressed (especially when most releases are on BD-25s) when lossless compression can give the same results using less space and bandwidth? Even if you're talking about BD-50s, why not use lossless so that the space and bandwidth can really be taken advantage of - whether it be by cranking up the PQ bitrate or including tons of HD extras, etc.?

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe PCM is free, where as a royalty would have to be paid for TrueHD or other codecs.

In other words if you are demanding evidence that lossless audio is better than compressed audio you should also demand proof that 1.5 Mbps DD+ is noticeably better than 640 Kbps DD. A good number of posters believe this and I have actually seen a Dolby employee get personally attacked on this forum just for saying that there wouldn't much of a difference between the two.
This is exactly the point. After hard questioning he finally said that in-house testing indicated an improvement, but he held his initial position that the advanced codecs had little benefit for a long time. This is good enough reason for me to say there is no demonstrated proof that audio is better at higher bit rates. The point of diminishing return has been met, apparently. Unless proven otherwise.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe PCM is free, where as a royalty would have to be paid for TrueHD or other codecs.
For $25-$35 per title, they can afford to shell out the pennies (or buck) to use DTHD or another codec. It's the cost of doing business.

I'm sure you're right, though - I can't imagine there are any royalty fees involved with using PCM and that's probably why some companies are sticking with it for the time being.

HD DVD Droped in price again to $299 for HD-A2. Man, that is just crazy.

HD DVD Droped in price again to $299 for HD-A2. Man, that is just crazy.

Where? :confused:

Where? :confused:


Amazon

Amazon

I show it as $349.99 still ?

It's weird though, because if you scroll down, it says 78% purchase this item -- and they list a price of $299 ?

Edit: And now after the 78%, it shows $349 again.

Sounds like perhaps they made a boo-boo and fixed it.

I show it as $349.99 still ?

It's weird though, because if you scroll down, it says 78% purchase this item -- and they list a price of $299 ?

Edit: And now after the 78%, it shows $349 again.

Sounds like perhaps they made a boo-boo and fixed it.
The price when buying from Amazon is $349.99. You can buy from "J&R Music and Computer World" through Amazon's checkout and only pay $299.99. Maybe that's what he was seeing.

Shows $299 for me.

AVS wont let me link to the page, but I see it for $299.

Shows $299 for me.

AVS wont let me link to the page, but I see it for $299.

Toshiba HD-A2 HD-DVD Player
Other products by Toshiba
(72 customer reviews) More about this product
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
List Price: $399.99
Price: $349.99 FREE SHIPPING
You Save: $50.00 (13%)


Availability: In Stock. Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. Gift-wrap available.

Make sure that whatever you're looking at says "Ships from and sold by Amazon.com."

Other retailers are jumping into this price war as well.

-Robert

This is exactly the point. After hard questioning he finally said that in-house testing indicated an improvement, but he held his initial position that the advanced codecs had little benefit for a long time. This is good enough reason for me to say there is no demonstrated proof that audio is better at higher bit rates. The point of diminishing return has been met, apparently. Unless proven otherwise.

Right. There is a ton of discussion around this - I suggest anyone claiming otherwise to do a little ABX test themselfs to figure out the truth. hydrogenaudio is a good site for the tools etc needed.

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php

It becomes increasingly difficult to distinguish between 256kb and wav for normal listeners (i.e. people not trained to look for differences). When we look at a 1.5Mb for 5.1 channels - the avg bits per channel is even higher - since most of the time other channels have minimal information. Apart from that 5.1 is much more difficult to figure out differences than 2-ch music.

I'm afraid this whole thing is just a charade - and people parroting some talking points.

Right. There is a ton of discussion around this - I suggest anyone claiming otherwise to do a little ABX test themselfs to figure out the truth. hydrogenaudio is a good site for the tools etc needed.

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php

It becomes increasingly difficult to distinguish between 256kb and wav for normal listeners (i.e. people not trained to look for differences). When we look at a 1.5Mb for 5.1 channels - the avg bits per channel is even higher - since most of the time other channels have minimal information. Apart from that 5.1 is much more difficult to figure out differences than 2-ch music.

I'm afraid this whole thing is just a charade - and people parroting some talking points.

No one has yet offered up the slightest bit of real evidence, that it's anything but FUD.

:rolleyes:

That's like saying computers with more than 1 MB of RAM is an excuse to write inefficient code.

If you're a technologist, instead of some Luddite, you wouldn't oppose any advances in capacity or greater bandwidth.

Leave it up to the bean counters to complain about costs. It would be one thing if BD50 precluded the use of more efficent codecs but it doesn't, just as computers today with 1 GB of RAM don't preclude people from running little DOS programs written when RAM was at least 10 times as expensive.

The applications of optical discs isn't limited to video distribution either so pretending that less capacity and bandwidth is good enough for the format as a whole is a specious argument. Even if it may be good enough for video, which is debatable, it doesn't mean it's good enough for data storage/distribution, for instance.

Firstly I'm an engineer, and so I appreciate an elegant solution to a given problem- in this case putting a movie encoded at 1080p24 onto an optical disk with the highest possible audio and picture quality. In this case you are subject to the constraints of what is feasible to get to the retail/manufacturing channel at an acceptable cost (to drive marketshare) while still maintaining a healthy profit for your investors. It is my belief that HD DVD does a better job at solving the problem of delivering high quality movies on pressed ROM disks. Apparently you disagree. That's OK, too. :)

I agree that BD is superior for data storage (bigger bit bucket), but that has little to do with pressed ROM disks, which is what movie delivery is all about. Although we could argue all day about the relative merits of any optical disk vs magnetic (or even solid state) in storage applications. In point of fact BD was originally developed to capture MPEG-2 streams from HD satellite programming in Japan, and was adapted (with impressive effort) to a pressed ROM solution.

Both are just bit buckets at the end of the day. Yes, they both can use the same codecs (I was even arguing that point), but just because you have a big disk shouldn't excuse you to purposefully use a less efficient codec, regardless of it being in the spec for backwards compatibility and flexibility. The only reason I see for that is saving some costs (which you seem to think we shouldn't worry about in the first place). Why not just use the better codecs and make better use of the space that you have available (in either format)? This happens to also make the BW bit easier as well since you are operating at lower data-rates for the same level of quality. It's a win-win, which why I guess the combination of MPEG-2+uncompressed audio+ a smaller bit bucket rubs me the wrong way (and why PQ suffered as a result). :) Yes, I realize this is mainly a studio issue, but it's germain to the conversation when the ratio of VC-1 HD DVD encoded content vs MPEG-2 is >>1 and when the majority of BD releases are still in MPEG-2 (and BD 25 as BD 50 is inarguably more difficult and expensive to manufacture relative to a HD DVD 30). And when you use the better codec (audio and video really), now you don't need the extra 20gb (or BW) to make the movie look and sound as good as it possibly could (as close to the master as possible given your specifications). Are there corner cases, sure, but that's why I said I would be happy to see increases in capacity and bandwidth, but if it came at the cost of higher media and player costs, then no.

All is compromise since we won't see uncompressed or even losslessly compressed HD video in the consumer space (and certainly not in this format war) in my lifetime. Since you are dealing in compromise, if you have two solutions that both do the same thing, but one does it for significantly cheaper, why support the more expensive alternative? Out of hope for someday having superior performance? That's pretty much what it boils down to at the end of the day in terms of my favoring of HD DVD at this point in time. But I think that the competition has been good for both sides (unlike other folks that seem to think it's the bane of existence) in making both formats better, and cheaper to me at the end of the day than it otherwise would have been (ie I'd be stuck paying first adopter BD prices with releases that look like the crap that was being served last summer).

Hmm, back to the cost advantage argument again, are we?

How is this cost advantage translating to actual prices?

When you go to Amazon, the top seller for both formats is the preorder for Planet Earth. List and Amazon prices for both formats are identical and both editions include 4 discs. Maybe they're using BD-25?

Number 2 on the HD-DVD list is The Good Shepard while number 2 on the Blu-Ray list is Casino Royale. Casino Royale is a buck cheaper, both for list and Amazon price.

There are some overlaps on both lists but several of the items in the HD-DVD lists are combo discs so it ends up being $4 more for the HD-DVD version.

Again, how are lower manufacturing costs affecting the consumer?

Oh HD-DVD has cut-rate hardware prices. But that's another debate, about Toshiba dumping to prop up their format.

Both formats, within less than a year, has playback hardware for less than what DVD players were priced at a comparable time after launch.

Oh and Blu-Ray wasn't developed for HD satellite recording in Japan. That was the first application. They couldn't launch a pressed ROM format earlier because they did still have to develop the manufacturing processes. But more importantly, AACS wasn't ready when those Blu-Ray recorders first came out in Japan. In the end, HD-DVD, despite being a minor evolutionary advance over DVD, only beat Blu-Ray to market by a few months.

These optical disc formats have many applications. One we didn't bring up earlier, but has been brought up many times before in these threads, is recording applications. Recording may not be as important as it was in the Beta vs. VHS days but Blu-Rays greater capacity will be an important differentiation.

Interesting. Why would that be - don't they first downrez before encoding ?

Dunno if they do or not. But they probably shouldn't.

Remember I stipulated at the same bit rate.

Imagine you have a clean 24 bit source and feed it to a good lossy encoder. At high enough bit rates a good lossy encoder should mathematically approach lossless. Meanwhile, even lossless audio encoding can usually compress audio to less than 50% of its original size, with of course zero loss. So you would expect the 24 bit source to compress to a size equivalent to less than 12 bits on average, compared to uncompressed 24 bit LPCM. But if we gave it enough space for 16 bit LCPM then I'd expect it to retain quite a bit more than 16 bit accuracy.

Just an opinion here, and no considerations given to eventual d/a conversions, the rest of the chain, or whether any of us could tell the difference.

- Tom

Dunno if they do or not. But they probably shouldn't.

Remember I stipulated at the same bit rate.

Imagine you have a clean 24 bit source and feed it to a good lossy encoder. At high enough bit rates a good lossy encoder should mathematically approach lossless. Meanwhile, even lossless audio encoding can usually compress audio to less than 50% of its original size, with of course zero loss. So you would expect the 24 bit source to compress to a size equivalent to less than 12 bits on average, compared to uncompressed 24 bit LPCM. But if we gave it enough space for 16 bit LCPM then I'd expect it to retain quite a bit more than 16 bit accuracy.

Just an opinion here, and no considerations given to eventual d/a conversions, the rest of the chain, or whether any of us could tell the difference.

- Tom

Thanks Tom.....makes perfect sense to me, once you explained it.

Firstly I'm an engineer, and so I appreciate an elegant solution to a given problem- in this case putting a movie encoded at 1080p24 onto an optical disk with the highest possible audio and picture quality. In this case you are subject to the constraints of what is feasible to get to the retail/manufacturing channel at an acceptable cost (to drive marketshare) while still maintaining a healthy profit for your investors. It is my belief that HD DVD does a better job at solving the problem of delivering high quality movies on pressed ROM disks. Apparently you disagree. That's OK, too. :)

I agree that BD is superior for data storage (bigger bit bucket), but that has little to do with pressed ROM disks, which is what movie delivery is all about. Although we could argue all day about the relative merits of any optical disk vs magnetic (or even solid state) in storage applications. In point of fact BD was originally developed to capture MPEG-2 streams from HD satellite programming in Japan, and was adapted (with impressive effort) to a pressed ROM solution.

Both are just bit buckets at the end of the day. Yes, they both can use the same codecs (I was even arguing that point), but just because you have a big disk shouldn't excuse you to purposefully use a less efficient codec, regardless of it being in the spec for backwards compatibility and flexibility. The only reason I see for that is saving some costs (which you seem to think we shouldn't worry about in the first place). Why not just use the better codecs and make better use of the space that you have available (in either format)? This happens to also make the BW bit easier as well since you are operating at lower data-rates for the same level of quality. It's a win-win, which why I guess the combination of MPEG-2+uncompressed audio+ a smaller bit bucket rubs me the wrong way (and why PQ suffered as a result). :) Yes, I realize this is mainly a studio issue, but it's germain to the conversation when the ratio of VC-1 HD DVD encoded content vs MPEG-2 is >>1 and when the majority of BD releases are still in MPEG-2 (and BD 25 as BD 50 is inarguably more difficult and expensive to manufacture relative to a HD DVD 30). And when you use the better codec (audio and video really), now you don't need the extra 20gb (or BW) to make the movie look and sound as good as it possibly could (as close to the master as possible given your specifications). Are there corner cases, sure, but that's why I said I would be happy to see increases in capacity and bandwidth, but if it came at the cost of higher media and player costs, then no.

All is compromise since we won't see uncompressed or even losslessly compressed HD video in the consumer space (and certainly not in this format war) in my lifetime. Since you are dealing in compromise, if you have two solutions that both do the same thing, but one does it for significantly cheaper, why support the more expensive alternative? Out of hope for someday having superior performance? That's pretty much what it boils down to at the end of the day in terms of my favoring of HD DVD at this point in time. But I think that the competition has been good for both sides (unlike other folks that seem to think it's the bane of existence) in making both formats better, and cheaper to me at the end of the day than it otherwise would have been (ie I'd be stuck paying first adopter BD prices with releases that look like the crap that was being served last summer).
Agreed. We learned to optimize the solution, not over-build. Anybody can do that.

Kjack posted this article in the news thread today. I found the closing section most interesting.

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/apr2007/tc20070406_288377.htm?campaign_id=alerts

The hybrid approach may ultimately win—if the companies supporting it can develop compatible players and discs for a sufficiently low price. Ultimately, iSuppli's Crotty believes that the dual-format supporters will succeed in the price competition, developing players for a couple hundred more than the single-format players. He notes, "a lot of savvy people will be willing to spend a bit more to get something that is future-proof."

Certainly. I'm actually surprised and disappointed that no one has called me on the fact that I've repeatedly made bald assertions that there is no perceptible difference between 16 bit PCM, and a good quality lossy encoding of the same material.......which really isn't an objective POV.Well you certainly got disagreement on that from several posters, but it somewhat surprising that no one has ever done extensive testing of audio codecs and compression. I would have thought that at least one well made test would be known and available on the internet.


I'm a bit surprised by his candor......sounds like an honest source. Perhaps he doesn't work in marketing. ;) You know they have good data on this.Roger Dressler is quite objective on the various Dolby audio codecs and I think he actually offended a few people (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=8185848&&#post8185848) by giving the opinion that DD+ was not noticeably better than DD. Also his opinion (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=8378154&&#post8378154) that 640 Kbps DD/DD+ would "sound transparent on most material, most of the time, for most users" ended up being disliked by both lossless audio supporters and by those who believed strongly in 1.5 Mbps DD+ as well.


This is exactly the point. After hard questioning he finally said that in-house testing indicated an improvement, but he held his initial position that the advanced codecs had little benefit for a long time.Well he checked with the marketing people at Dolby that were based on "comments gathered from listeners". Also personally I think Roger ended up giving an answer (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=8390472&&#post8390472) that rdjam would accept (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=8383224&&#post8383224) since after 30+ back and forth posts he was probably just getting tired of it.


The point of diminishing return has been met, apparently. Unless proven otherwise.Not quite. The idea of proving something goes both ways and at the moment that would be a personal opinion and not a fact. For instance I think you honestly would have to start testing DD at 384 Kbps and go up from there if you really wanted to start testing diminishing returns in audio compression. Personally I would love to see a well made test on audio compression for all the various audio codecs and for the various levels of PCM audio as well.

Firstly I'm an engineer, and so I appreciate an elegant solution to a given problem- in this case putting a movie encoded at 1080p24 onto an optical disk with the highest possible audio and picture quality.

I agree with your analysis on many levels. The best technological solution to a problem is one which is simplest, most economical, most consistent with existing established technologies. HD DVD builds on DVD. That is its strength. This is reflected in reduced manufacturing costs from hardware to software. There is the benefit of reliability based on "elegance" and simplicity: No extra hard-coating of disks (due to shallow location of data) is necessary. No concern about future rough use of players in cars (distance from lens to disk) will have to be addressed. No large investment in new pressing equipment is required. Smaller manufacturing tolerances of drives and disks are not a problem. There is less waste of disk material. The list can go on and on. Given the same results from two competing technologies, the simpler will always be the most cost-effective and most reliable in the long run. The best technology is the one that hits the target with the least expended money, energy, and engineering.

Given the same results from two competing technologies, the simpler will always be the most cost-effective and most reliable in the long run. The best technology is the one that hits the target with the least expended money, energy, and engineering.

That's why the BDA needs advantages that lie beyond the medium itself like studio alliances, Trojan-horses, and a buttload of advertising.

The reason HD DVD persists is because it's users are appreciate the value, efficiency and quality of the medium itself, it's also why it gets preference in a forum populated primarily by video-buffs.

Dunno if they do or not. But they probably shouldn't.

Remember I stipulated at the same bit rate.


I guess I was looking at it differently.

FWIW, the blind tests indicate that dithered down and truncated down 16 bit music (from 24 bit) showed no difference (will have to search for the link).

But indeed it has been said several times here by several experts that even a lossy 20bit track will sound better than a lossless 16bit track.

Well you certainly got disagreement on that from several posters...

Plenty of anecdotal disagreement, but no objective evidence.

...but it somewhat surprising that no one has ever done extensive testing of audio codecs and compression. I would have thought that at least one well made test would be known and available on the internet.

I suspect that the results of quality MP3 encoding of 16 bit PCM material have been suggestive enough for many.

Roger Dressler is quite objective on the various Dolby audio codecs and I think he actually offended a few people (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=8185848&&#post8185848) by giving the opinion that DD+ was not noticeably better than DD. Also his opinion (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=8378154&&#post8378154) that 640 Kbps DD/DD+ would "sound transparent on most material, most of the time, for most users" ended up being disliked by both lossless audio supporters and by those who believed strongly in 1.5 Mbps DD+ as well.

It's hardly surprising that people don't like being told either that marketing assertions with no evidentiary support are empty, or that what they believe to be clear sonic differences, most likely exist only in their imagination. I mentioned Stereo Review comparative testing of cheap vs. very expensive equipment in a previous post. Many reader responses were apoplectic, nearly incoherent rants.


Well he checked with the marketing people at Dolby that were based on "comments gathered from listeners". Also personally I think Roger ended up giving an answer (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=8390472&&#post8390472) that rdjam would accept (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=8383224&&#post8383224) since after 30+ back and forth posts he was probably just getting tired of it.

Can you blame him? I actually think this speaks to excellent work in creating the DD standard.

Not quite. The idea of proving something goes both ways and at the moment that would be a personal opinion and not a fact.

In the strictest, empirical sense, I agree. While extrapolation from one set of data points to another application is lousy "science", as a practical matter, it's all we presently have to go on.

For instance I think you honestly would have to start testing DD at 384 Kbps and go up from there if you really wanted to start testing diminishing returns in audio compression. Personally I would love to see a well made test on audio compression for all the various audio codecs and for the various levels of PCM audio as well.

I would too. However, skepticism regarding affirmative claims in the absence of objective evidence, is entirely appropriate, and properly enjoys the benefit of any doubt.

A lot of people will notice. Good HT setups are getting more and more common. Remember that the people buying this stuff are the early adopters still. They CARE about both PQ AND AQ. If early adopters don't buy HD DVD because of audio issues in Europe, do you think average Joe will? Average Joe don't on a whim buy HD stuff. They listen to their better informed friends and some even read HT magazines before they buy. HD is still way more expensive than DVD, and they for sure won't buy any of it of noone else are...

Not to mention the power of marketing. If one format is pushing lossless or higher bitrates, and the other is not, which will be percieved better? It matters little then if the consumer will actually notice a difference on his particular setup.

And expect HT magazines to be pushing this like they're pushing Golden Power Cables, transparent optical cables and acoustically dampened racks.

That said, I do not think it is snake oil. I think most people will notice a difference between a 384Kbit track and a lossless track. (What I don't know, is if LPCM is superior over TrueHD or Master Audio.)


If we take price out of the equation, you might have a point.

I would really be surprised if 10% of the market even cares about lossless. People care only so far as their wallet will allow them to care. The ubiquity of crappy MP3 encodes proves my point sufficiently I think.

I would really be surprised if 10% of the market even cares about lossless. People care only so far as their wallet will allow them to care. The ubiquity of crappy MP3 encodes proves my point sufficiently I think.
It seems to me that "audiophile" or "videophile" automatically means gear 3 to 10 times the price, so it's not only "don't care" in terms of audible difference, it's also "not worth it", as you say.

It seems to me that "audiophile" or "videophile" automatically means gear 3 to 10 times the price, so it's not only "don't care" in terms of audible difference, it's also "not worth it", as you say.

Yep, "don't care and not worth it" is a nice distillation I think.

I dropped by my local BB store to see what they were doing with HDD. I think in order for HDD to get more mainstream it needs to be commonly sold by these big-box retailers so I was curious what they were doing. Best Buy is based here so the stores probably get a little more attention to following the corporate direction than stores in other cities. I am reporting what I heard and saw. This is obviously anecdotal.

This store has Magnolia inside.

They had the Samsung and Sony BD players prominently displayed running demos on very visible endcaps as you enter the Video department (not in the Magnolia section). Around the corner I saw the Toshiba XA1 and LG combo players on a shelf. I didn't see any other players.

Although I wasn't in the Magnolia room, a Magnolia salesperson came and offered to help me. I asked him to describe my options for purchasing an HD DVD player. He said there are 2 formats and named them. Then he said the primary differences are that BD can do full 1080P while the Toshiba HD-DVD is 1080I and that's why the Toshiba is cheaper. I didn't comment.

He also mentioned each format has different titles. I asked which ones and he brought me to a large display which had about equal numbers of both. It seemed like a pretty impressive selection of both formats to me.

I asked which format most people were buying and he said recently more are buying BD but they are selling both. I asked which would he reccomend I buy and he was pretty noncommittal and said the number of titles available on each format were pretty similar. He said they sell a combo unit so if I am concerned about which format to buy that might be a good option.

Then I saw another Magnolia rep and I stopped him and he joined us. I asked him which format he thought I should buy. He immediately said BD and added "I think they are going to win". (No one had mentioned anything about a competition so that comment surprised me.) He said that in the Magnolia room they have demonstrations of BD players by Pioneer, Panasonic, and (I think) Phillips connected to their own 1080P displays in addition to the endcap displays by Sony and Samsung "and they pay us to do that". Then he added that the Toshiba HD-DVD is not being demoed. He said it just seems like BD has the most momentum. Then he also mentioned the LG combo might be a good choice.

Then I thanked them both and left.

Neither mentioned the PS3 as an option.

It seems that at this point Toshiba's marketing strategy doesn't include as many in-store point of sale kiosks in Best Buy as the BD companies. Maybe that will change?

This format war is a burden on the retailers. They have it tough enough already, with CompUSA having to close many stores due to online competition. Why should retailers have to spend $$$ training their employees to try to explain this ridiculous format war to consumers? Why should they have to use valuable shelf space for both? It's time for Universal to give up, for the benefit of everyone.

This format war is a burden on the retailers. They have it tough enough already, with CompUSA having to close many stores due to online competition. Why should retailers have to spend $$$ training their employees to try to explain this ridiculous format war to consumers? Why should they have to use valuable shelf space for both? It's time for Universal to give up, for the benefit of everyone.

I don't think retailers are spending $$$ for training their employees, more like ¢, and believe me, they can't explain the format war. As for Universal, they have a great line up of HD-DVD movies planned for release this year.

In regard to Best Buy, my local store has the HD-A2 at the new $399 list price. It's displayed next to the Sony BDP-S1. Circuit City has the HD-A2 in their weekly flier. Same price but they include a deal for 4 free movies with the purchase of the player.

Firstly I'm an engineer, and so I appreciate an elegant solution to a given problem- in this case putting a movie encoded at 1080p24 onto an optical disk with the highest possible audio and picture quality. In this case you are subject to the constraints of what is feasible to get to the retail/manufacturing channel at an acceptable cost (to drive marketshare) while still maintaining a healthy profit for your investors. It is my belief that HD DVD does a better job at solving the problem of delivering high quality movies on pressed ROM disks. Apparently you disagree. That's OK, too. :)

I agree that BD is superior for data storage (bigger bit bucket), but that has little to do with pressed ROM disks, which is what movie delivery is all about. Although we could argue all day about the relative merits of any optical disk vs magnetic (or even solid state) in storage applications. In point of fact BD was originally developed to capture MPEG-2 streams from HD satellite programming in Japan, and was adapted (with impressive effort) to a pressed ROM solution.

Both are just bit buckets at the end of the day. Yes, they both can use the same codecs (I was even arguing that point), but just because you have a big disk shouldn't excuse you to purposefully use a less efficient codec, regardless of it being in the spec for backwards compatibility and flexibility. The only reason I see for that is saving some costs (which you seem to think we shouldn't worry about in the first place). Why not just use the better codecs and make better use of the space that you have available (in either format)? This happens to also make the BW bit easier as well since you are operating at lower data-rates for the same level of quality. It's a win-win, which why I guess the combination of MPEG-2+uncompressed audio+ a smaller bit bucket rubs me the wrong way (and why PQ suffered as a result). :) Yes, I realize this is mainly a studio issue, but it's germain to the conversation when the ratio of VC-1 HD DVD encoded content vs MPEG-2 is >>1 and when the majority of BD releases are still in MPEG-2 (and BD 25 as BD 50 is inarguably more difficult and expensive to manufacture relative to a HD DVD 30). And when you use the better codec (audio and video really), now you don't need the extra 20gb (or BW) to make the movie look and sound as good as it possibly could (as close to the master as possible given your specifications). Are there corner cases, sure, but that's why I said I would be happy to see increases in capacity and bandwidth, but if it came at the cost of higher media and player costs, then no.

All is compromise since we won't see uncompressed or even losslessly compressed HD video in the consumer space (and certainly not in this format war) in my lifetime. Since you are dealing in compromise, if you have two solutions that both do the same thing, but one does it for significantly cheaper, why support the more expensive alternative? Out of hope for someday having superior performance? That's pretty much what it boils down to at the end of the day in terms of my favoring of HD DVD at this point in time. But I think that the competition has been good for both sides (unlike other folks that seem to think it's the bane of existence) in making both formats better, and cheaper to me at the end of the day than it otherwise would have been (ie I'd be stuck paying first adopter BD prices with releases that look like the crap that was being served last summer).

Woah, engineer speak saying the same thing as enthusiast speak. I love it. :)
if you have two solutions that both do the same thing, but one does it for significantly cheaper, why support the more expensive alternative? Out of hope for someday having superior performance?

I forget about the Japanese BD-Rom origination of Blu-ry disc and the issues involved in turning it into a ROM disc.

I think that cost and the elegance of the engineering solution to the proble is teh inherent strength of HD DVD. That and manadatory hardware capabilities on every player means it can use software solutions for future improvements that Blu-ray will be limited to do with its hardware advantages.

I agree with your analysis on many levels. The best technological solution to a problem is one which is simplest, most economical, most consistent with existing established technologies. HD DVD builds on DVD. That is its strength. This is reflected in reduced manufacturing costs from hardware to software. There is the benefit of reliability based on "elegance" and simplicity: No extra hard-coating of disks (due to shallow location of data) is necessary. No concern about future rough use of players in cars (distance from lens to disk) will have to be addressed. No large investment in new pressing equipment is required. Smaller manufacturing tolerances of drives and disks are not a problem. There is less waste of disk material. The list can go on and on. Given the same results from two competing technologies, the simpler will always be the most cost-effective and most reliable in the long run. The best technology is the one that hits the target with the least expended money, energy, and engineering. add in mandatory internet connections, dual tuners, mandatory audio codecs, persistent storage and network storage capabilities and you have common platforms developers can use with future expansion not bound by hardware limitations. Storage and content may not be limited to what can fit on the shiny disc.

This format war is a burden on the retailers. They have it tough enough already, with CompUSA having to close many stores due to online competition. Why should retailers have to spend $$$ training their employees to try to explain this ridiculous format war to consumers? Why should they have to use valuable shelf space for both? It's time for Universal to give up, for the benefit of everyone. :D :D :D

waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh :D


Retailers will make money as prices drop to consumer friendly levels and they start selling players and movies at prices consumers will buy.

When I see the same HD DVD at Best Buy for $34.99 that I can buy at Amazon for ($19.99 minus 10% for my HD DVD discount and free shipping) I ain't buying too many from good old BB. They will sell more when their software pricing is more established when volumes increase.

BTW, sales training and seminars are usually paid for by the vendors as a POS marketing cost. The BDA and Samsung did it last year. Toshiba and HD DVD are in the process of doing it now.

Retailers will allocate shelf space or create more if they are making a profit. They would have no problem supporting both if both made money. Its easier on them for one format, but their burden in doing so would be offset by their profits.

And you wish Universal would give up. :p

Doesn't look like it though. Notice their release schedule compared to Fox's lately?

This format war is a burden on the retailers. They have it tough enough already, with CompUSA having to close many stores due to online competition. Why should retailers have to spend $$$ training their employees to try to explain this ridiculous format war to consumers? Why should they have to use valuable shelf space for both? It's time for Universal to give up, for the benefit of everyone.

Rob, apparently you haven't noticed that your favorite record has been skipping for months, in spite of the fact that playing it, seems to offer you no pleasure. Perhaps it's time to turn it over and play the other side.

This format war is a burden on the retailers. They have it tough enough already, with CompUSA having to close many stores due to online competition. Why should retailers have to spend $$$ training their employees to try to explain this ridiculous format war to consumers? Why should they have to use valuable shelf space for both? It's time for Universal to give up, for the benefit of everyone.

That wouldn't benefit me ... I'd have to spend a lot more money. Plus, I'd hate to think what the next batch of transfers would look like if they didn't care anymore.

But, I agree, the format war is ridiculous ... why can't Disney and Sony just give up for the benefit of everyone?

Of course, I don't include Fox because they're not releasing on any Format ... they just say they are. :p

This format war is a burden on the retailers. They have it tough enough already, with CompUSA having to close many stores due to online competition. Why should retailers have to spend $$$ training their employees to try to explain this ridiculous format war to consumers? Why should they have to use valuable shelf space for both? It's time for Universal to give up, for the benefit of everyone.
Rob,even if there was only 1 format available, retailers should still spend $$$ to train their staff so that they could educate their customers. The bottom line is they don't spend much to do this from what I have seen. These are the same retailers that the HD formats are going to depend on to get players into the average consumers home.

This format war is a burden on the retailers. They have it tough enough already, with CompUSA having to close many stores due to online competition. Why should retailers have to spend $$$ training their employees to try to explain this ridiculous format war to consumers? Why should they have to use valuable shelf space for both? It's time for Universal to give up, for the benefit of everyone.

Yeah, many nights I stay up late and can't sleep because of how tough this format war is on the big box retailers. I regularly include them in my thoughts and prayers. I'm thinking of starting a not-for-profit organization to accept donations of food, clothing and cash specifically for Best Buy . . . ;)

Puh-lease. While it is unfortunate that this format war is inconveniencing a lot of people, don't forget that large retailers wield a lot of influence/power . . . and if they didn't see a future (or present) profit in selling this equipment, they woudn't do it.

Worst rational EVER for ending the format war . . . :confused:

Worst rational EVER for ending the format war . . . Tell that to the CompUSA employees out of a job or the Circuit City employees who were laid off.

Oh, and *plonk*

Tell that to the CompUSA employees out of a job or the Circuit City employees who were laid off.

Oh, and *plonk*

You're drawing an extremely tenuous line here. I wouldn't recommend putting much weight on it.

Tell that to the CompUSA employees out of a job or the Circuit City employees who were laid off.

Oh, and *plonk*
Because, as we all know, CompUSA is closing stores and Circuit City is laying off employees because of the format war, right? If BD was the only choice offered, it's obvious they'd be raking in the dough and would be building more stores and hiring more employees. In fact, without the inconveniences involved with the war, they'd probably be donating more money to charities. This format war is costing orphans and disaster victims money!

:rolleyes:


BTW - I've also heard that the format war gave a Best Buy manager cancer, but I haven't confirmed it. Seems likely to me, though.

Why should retailers have to spend $$$ training their employees to try to explain this ridiculous format war to consumers?Do they invest any time or money training their employees on the products they sell as it is now? I was at Best Buy the other day and overheard an employee telling a family how the majority of HD channels are in 720p, but there are a couple airing in 1080i, and there may be more in that resolution in the future as technology improves.

I do agree that retailers are in a much stronger position to end the format war than most people seem to think.

Because, as we all know, CompUSA is closing stores and Circuit City is laying off employees because of the format war, right? If BD was the only choice offered, it's obvious they'd be raking in the dough and would be building more stores and hiring more employees. In fact, without the inconveniences involved with the war, they'd probably be donating more money to charities. This format war is costing orphans and disaster victims money!

:rolleyes:


BTW - I've also heard that the format war gave a Best Buy manager cancer, but I haven't confirmed it. Seems likely to me, though.

I never thought of it like this ... in fact, I just realized that the war in Iraq is most likely due to the format war as well.

Why didn't I realize it sooner! Once Universal gives in and goes neutral, there will be Peace in the Middle East!

Since you are dealing in compromise, if you have two solutions that both do the same thing, but one does it for significantly cheaper, why support the more expensive alternative? Out of hope for someday having superior performance?
I guess we'll never agree, but at least it is nice to see all you HD DVD followers agreeing that you've made the right choice. I've never seen so much "Exactly" and "Me too" in this thread as over the last couple of pages. :)

Why support the more expensive alternative? Because to me it is the better choice, of course. I'd rather get an Audi, instead of a Scion. I'd rather have burgers at Fuddruckers than at McDonalds. I'd rather fly Business Class, than Coach. I'd rather get a Pioneer plasma, than a Hitachi. Always going for the cheapest alternative isn't always the best, you know. (Just examples, I realize there is less of a difference between watching Happy Feet on both platforms, than driving an Audi vs. a Scion... :o Read on.)

In what way is it the most expensive alternative, BTW? From what I can see, the movies are the same price or even lower on BD than on HD DVD. I paid only $599 for my player which I thought was a steal, compared to my first DVD player. :)

On the player side, I do realize Toshiba produce cheap players. (Interpret that as you want...) I actually find it quite interesting how Toshiba, ONE supplier, keeps driving the price of HD players down, in order for its OWN format to win the HD war. I guess it is fine for most of you, but it gives me an uneasy feeling. No wonder no other well known CE brands are jumping on that bandwagon...

As far as listing why I support BD when HD DVD obviously is such a better choice :rolleyes:, well, I just get tired of repeating the same thing over and over again, and getting the same responses from the opposing crowd, over and over again. As I mentioned in the beginning, we most likely will never agree. But, to humor those of you just are joining the discussion, here are my reasons (in no particular order) why I bought into Blu-ray and why I am sticking to my choice, IMHO, of course (please read the follow-up posts, to get the balanced view from the HD DVD followers....):

- Selection of movies (read: Studio support). Simply put, there are more movies that I like from Fox, Sony and Disney than from Universal. And I believe it is more likely that Universal will start publishing on Blu-ray, than Fox and Sony going HD DVD. Should I rate any of the points I make, this would be the most important one.
- Bandwidth. Blu-ray has a 50% higher bandwidth to play with. Meaning you can have higher peaks in video/audio, more soundtracks, seamless branching wherever you want, less tweaking required to achieve transparency to the master, freedom to choose whatever codec fits the source material best, less restrictions on the creative freedom. We’re not even a year into the format, so I’m sure glad we’re not already pushing the limits of Blu-ray.
- Size. 20GB more. The ONLY place I’ve seen people willing to limit the size of any medium (CE/Computers) from the get go, is on this forum and by the HD DVD crowd. How can an extra 20GB be bad? Sure, we’ve not yet seen this utilized to the max yet, but again, we’re not even a year into a brand new formats existence. It is called room to grow. (Just like most initial DVD’s were single layer, now most are dual layer.) On HD DVD there is no room to grow. (Unless you count the TL-51 initiative from Toshiba, which still is uncertain. And WHY would they even propose a 51GB format, if 30GB is enough?)
- More CE support. Toshiba vs. Pioneer, Sony, Panasonic, Philips etc. For a format to succeed in the long run, it obviously better to have as much CE support behind it as possible. ONE company, that happens to also be the one behind HD DVD itself, doesn’t do it for me. And I prefer well known brands as compared to the promised avalanche of Chinese suppliers like Shinco etc.
- Technology. I guess it is the geek/engineer in me, but Blu-ray is just cooler. A Toshiba engineer even said it is an engineering masterpiece. It is a format engineered more or less from scratch, and not designed just to ensure the continued flow of royalty money with as little effort as possible. (Essentially just replacing the red with a blue laser and adding some codec support…)
- Lossless audio. Simply put, just like with video, I want the best possible audio quality on disc. Sure, I might not hear that much of a difference, but again, let that be the limitation of my equipment and my ears, not a studio decision. LPCM, TrueHD or Master Audio doesn’t matter much, just include one of them. From what I’ve seen, lossless audio support so far has been better on Blu-ray. Too many reviews/reviewers have mentioned how LPCM is superior over DD/DTS, for me to consider all of them gullible fanboy believers.
- Interactivity. Although I mostly just watch the movie, I guess I must cover this point. BD-J is better than HDi. There, I said it. (Running for cover from attacks from the dozen or so Microsoft residents at this forum…) I guess I should qualify that statement somewhat. Sure BD-J is more of a challenge to program for, test and make run across all players. But that’s just called a learning curve. I firmly believe while the learning curve is steeper on BD-J than HDi, over time you’ll see some spectacular BD-J stuff that can’t be done in HDi.
- Longevity. When you introduce something brand new, no matter if it is a new disc format, a new gaming platform, a new type of engine or whatever, you never get max performance from the get go. And you don’t limit the design or take shortcuts so that you’re maxed out within a year of its introduction. Both HD DVD and Blu-ray, we must assume, were designed to last at last a decade. As such, there is more potential in Blu-ray. I find the continued criticism from the HD DVD crowd that all we in the Blu-ray camp are doing is waiting for the future laughable. I’m enjoying spectacular HD movies now, with the assurance that in the future it will get even better.
- I like blue covers better than red covers. :)

Am I saying HD DVD is bad? No. I believe you today can have the same HD experience from both platforms. However, as mentioned above, I don’t believe in limiting a brand new format supposed to last a decade from the get go, having maximized it’s potential less than a year into its existence. That might be the case for HD DVD, whereas for Blu-ray, there is plenty of room to grow, with less limits on the creative freedom offered, be it bandwidth, size or interactivity.)

On the various player profiles, I would of course have preferred it only being one. However, we’re talking interactivity features, not movie playback. The movie will still play on early players. If some odd interactivity feature won’t work, so be it. Some will complain, but I don’t think it will be a huge outcry. (I got the PS3 btw, so I’m thinking I’m pretty safe in that regard.)

If this sounds like a fanboys worshipping of the BDA, it is not. Their execution of the launch was horrible, with error after error, with one spokesperson from one company more arrogant than the previous one. “Beyond HD”…. Whatever. But that doesn’t take away from the points listed above. I can’t NOT support a format because some idiots in marketing screwed it all up. (Simplified, I know.)

On final note on the original question: “why support the more expensive alternative?”. The players are more expensive now, but still not THAT expensive. Will it be the same in 1, 2, 5 years? I don’t think so. At least not by much. There is no difference in movie pricing now, so in all, the whole “more expensive” point is rather short sighted, in my view… Especially since in 5 years most people will ask: "HD DVD? What?” :D

Cue HD DVD folks ripping this post apart, unless they fell asleep halfway through this (way to long) post. Why not list the reasons you guys support HD DVD instead?

Lossless audio. Simply put, just like with video, I want the best possible audio quality on disc. Sure, I might not hear that much of a difference, but again, let that be the limitation of my equipment and my ears, not a studio decision. LPCM, TrueHD or Master Audio doesn’t matter much, just include one of them. From what I’ve seen, lossless audio support so far has been better on Blu-ray. Too many reviews/reviewers have mentioned how LPCM is superior over DD/DTS, for me to consider all of them gullible fanboy believers.
- Interactivity. Although I mostly just watch the movie, I guess I must cover this point. BD-J is better than HDi. There, I said it. (Running for cover from attacks from the dozen or so Microsoft residents at this forum…) I guess I should qualify that statement somewhat. Sure BD-J is more of a challenge to program for, test and make run across all players. But that’s just called a learning curve. I firmly believe while the learning curve is steeper on BD-J than HDi, over time you’ll see some spectacular BD-J stuff that can’t be done in HDi.
- Longevity. When you introduce something brand new, no matter if it is a new disc format, a new gaming platform, a new type of engine or whatever, you never get max performance from the get go. And you don’t limit the design or take shortcuts so that you’re maxed out within a year of its introduction. Both HD DVD and Blu-ray, we must assume, were designed to last at last a decade. As such, there is more potential in Blu-ray. I find the continued criticism from the HD DVD crowd that all we in the Blu-ray camp are doing is waiting for the future laughable. I’m enjoying spectacular HD movies now, with the assurance that in the future it will get even better.


Will not rip your post apart, will just give another angle on these 3 points.

Losseless audio sure it will sound fine, but myself that dont have a HDMI reciver will not have very much benefit from this format. Have tears of the sun comming in the mail, and it will only have losseless wich means i will be stuck with 2channel Dolby Surround. HD DVD camp seems to have i much more thought of solution.

As for BD-J, even if it is better on paper, it still must show that in the real world. Right now the BD alternative for PIP is to encode the movie twice. Sure it have other solution, but we need proof that it work in a practical way. The more advanced the more reasons for error there will be. And for watching movies i dont really need that much mumbo yumbo. Just give me great PQ and AQ the rest is more like a bonus (including PIP).

As for longetivity, what will come in the future that we will have advantage of in the BD spec? We must change player anyway to incoporate the new stuff.


As what I like better with HD DVD.

1. No region coding

2. As for PQ and AQ HD DVD has already proven that 30GB is enough. So no need chasing the extra 20gb.

I see were still talking about the potential miracles which going to bloom out of that 20GB, this argument gets sillier with every passing day, let BD catch up to HD DVD, then you can tell me what it's technically going to do to surpass it.

Four years ago I bought a 50GB hard-drive and thought I had it all, that is until I started dumping songs and video on it. This year I picked up an extra 200 GB HD and had to give serious thought as to how I would divide it up.

It may sound like I'm making the case for the extra 20GB, actually I'm making the case that 20GD is todays extra storage and tomorrows chicken-feed. By the time they work out how they are going to utilize it in any meaningful way (other than supporting outmoded encoding) it will seem immaterial.

HD DVD is doing exactly what it was designed to to do, give an excellent-quality HD viewing experience, with the perk of more advanced interactive features. Just as importantly it was designed with an eye to the future, in that it can utilize current DVD production facilities. It's economic model is more sound and hardware more affordable. Blu-ray is just waisting time, and offering nothing real in return.

If Universal went BD, HD DVD would die, but for no reason connected to the format itself. However, even if Sony stayed BD only and the others all went neutral, I have no doubt HD DVD would win in a matter of months, and it would be decided at the consumer level based on value and performance, not who signed what when.

I see were still talking about the potential miracles which going to bloom out of that 20GB
considering hd dvd is only 20gb larger than dvd this is a fairly humourous argument on your part. perhaps you should be arguing that wmv-dvd is good enough, and the space saving qualities of vc-1 negate the need for toshiba's format. audio? that doesn't seem to be a priority for some on here.

the main reason for these new formats is to increase the capacity and bandwidth. otherwise we'd have stuck with dvd. to argue that a larger capacity isn't important in this format dispute is silly, particularly when considering the likely recordable applications.

HD DVD is doing exactly what it was designed to to do, give an excellent-quality HD viewing experience, with the perk of more advanced interactive features. Just as importantly it was designed with an eye to the future, in that it can utilize current DVD production facilities. It's economic model is more sound and hardware more affordable. Blu-ray is just waisting time, and offering nothing real in return.
please stop repeating this marketing material from microsoft without engaging your brain first. what dvd lines are being used to manufacture hd dvds? and remember if they aren't even being used now at the start, why on earth would they take the time to convert lines down the road when overall production costs should have dropped. as to hd dvd hardware being more affordable, i presume you're refering to price and not cost. price less cost is where the profit lies, and it's notable that nobody but toshiba is putting out players in their format...

What I find funny about this whole "WAR", is that Sony's PS3 is getting it's ass kicked by a 480p gaming machine. Nintendo is wiping the mat with the PS3 and they aren't even in the same "league", as far as graphics are concerned. Not even the advantage of having a BR player in it can compete with the Wii. I see PS3's sitting on the shelves of ALL the major retailers, while the Wii sells out as soon as they get to the stores. I think Sony has lost most of it's credibility, that's what will kill BR, not HD-DVD.

considering hd dvd is only 20gb larger than dvd this is a fairly humourous argument on your part.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diminishing_returns :)

I'm not arguing that the (potential) 20 gig difference between Blu-ray and HD DVD is inherently worthless, but there is a very significant difference between that 20 gigs and that between DVD and HD DVD.

considering hd dvd is only 20gb larger than dvd this is a fairly humourous argument on your part. perhaps you should be arguing that wmv-dvd is good enough, and the space saving qualities of vc-1 negate the need for toshiba's format. audio? that doesn't seem to be a priority for some on here.

HD DVD is 400% larger than SD, BD 40% larger than HD DVD, funny thing is that BD doesn't look better, sound better, or have more features. Diminishing returns.:rolleyes:


please stop repeating this marketing material from microsoft without engaging your brain first. what dvd lines are being used to manufacture hd dvds? and remember if they aren't even being used now at the start, why on earth would they take the time to convert lines down the road when overall production costs should have dropped. as to hd dvd hardware being more affordable, i presume you're refering to price and not cost. price less cost is where the profit lies, and it's notable that nobody but toshiba is putting out players in their format...

From the financial times,


A HD-DVD replication line costs about €800,000 ($1m) and you can make 40,000 discs a day on it. A Blu-Ray replication line costs €1.7m or €1.8m and you can make 10,000 to 15,000 discs a day," says Laurent Villaume, chief executive of Qol, a French DVD replication company. "The risk is just not the same."

If Universal went BD, HD DVD would die, but for no reason connected to the format itself.You do realize that studio support is one of the main factors in whether a video format becomes successful or not? After all EVD would probably be doing far better in China if it had most of the major movie studios releasing major movies on it.


However, even if Sony stayed BD only and the others all went neutral, I have no doubt HD DVD would win in a matter of months, and it would be decided at the consumer level based on value and performance, not who signed what when.Besides this being mostly opinion have you ever wondered why the cheapest non-Toshiba HD DVD player costs 3x more than the cheapest Toshiba HD DVD player?

... and it's notable that nobody but toshiba is putting out players in their format...
<cough>HD DVD add-on...<cough>
Besides this being mostly opinion have you ever wondered why the cheapest non-Toshiba HD DVD player costs 3x more than the cheapest Toshiba HD DVD player?
The HD DVD add-on plus XBOX 360 Core is 3X more than the A2?

You do realize that studio support is one of the main factors in whether a video format becomes successful or not? After all EVD would probably be doing far better in China if it had most of the major movie studios releasing major movies on it.


Besides this being mostly opinion have you ever wondered why the cheapest non-Toshiba HD DVD player costs 3x more than the cheapest Toshiba HD DVD player?


There is no way to test my challenge as things stand now, and by saying Universal going BD would be a win for BD, I'm admitting studio-support is indeed a factor. However what I am also saying is that ifall studios went neutral but Sony, I'd bet my a$$ that HD DVD would win. It's already holding it's own against the odds, I don't think it's a grand leap-of-faith to believe a shift in support would put it over, particularly with cheaper players.

The disparity between SD and HD players makes sense to me, these machines are getting less motors and lasers to being computers with motors and lasers. Also, HD wasn't launched for "the good of home video,"it was to inject profitability into a stagnating market.

The HD DVD add-on plus XBOX 360 Core is 3X more than the A2?[/QUOTE]

OK, I didn't get the question first time around.

They probably don't see a lot of profit at this point, but I'm not sure most will see anything but price-tags. Once a price goes down it can't go back up.

Isn't it pretty-much a given that Sony is croaking the PS3 20GB, because they didn't want their cheapest BD player to be the one that lost the most money for them? They favored PS3 like crazy over their pricey stand-alone, and now they have an under-performing game console, and even lower stand-alone prospects. Add to this BD-J making some players partially obsolete, and it seems like they are gearing up for a do-over, rather than a take-over.

My guess is that at this point they are begging their partners to see X-mass 07 through with them.

OK, I didn't get the question first time around.
I was responding to Richard's claim that the cheapest non-Toshiba HD DVD player costs 3x more than the cheapest Toshiba HD DVD player. Unless he's claiming the A2 is selling for significantly less than $200, I can't see how that's true, considering you could buy an XBOX 360 Core and an add-on drive for $500 or less.

Of course, I don't include Fox because they're not releasing on any Format ... they just say they are. :p

What are you talking about? Sales of their unreleased disks are skyrocketing! Haven't you seen the Fox charts? ;)

Hmm, back to the cost advantage argument again, are we?

How is this cost advantage translating to actual prices?

When you go to Amazon, the top seller for both formats is the preorder for Planet Earth. List and Amazon prices for both formats are identical and both editions include 4 discs. Maybe they're using BD-25?

Number 2 on the HD-DVD list is The Good Shepard while number 2 on the Blu-Ray list is Casino Royale. Casino Royale is a buck cheaper, both for list and Amazon price.

There are some overlaps on both lists but several of the items in the HD-DVD lists are combo discs so it ends up being $4 more for the HD-DVD version.

Again, how are lower manufacturing costs affecting the consumer?

Oh HD-DVD has cut-rate hardware prices. But that's another debate, about Toshiba dumping to prop up their format.

Both formats, within less than a year, has playback hardware for less than what DVD players were priced at a comparable time after launch.

Oh and Blu-Ray wasn't developed for HD satellite recording in Japan. That was the first application. They couldn't launch a pressed ROM format earlier because they did still have to develop the manufacturing processes. But more importantly, AACS wasn't ready when those Blu-Ray recorders first came out in Japan. In the end, HD-DVD, despite being a minor evolutionary advance over DVD, only beat Blu-Ray to market by a few months.

These optical disc formats have many applications. One we didn't bring up earlier, but has been brought up many times before in these threads, is recording applications. Recording may not be as important as it was in the Beta vs. VHS days but Blu-Rays greater capacity will be an important differentiation.

wrt media costs- they are pretty much a wash and yes, differences in the short terms are hidden and time (volume) is on BD's side as to where the ultimate delta between the two lies, but at the end of the day BD is still going to be more all else being equal (yield, cycle time) due to the mandatory scratch-resistant coating. comparing combo disks (or any HD DVD really) to BD is hardly a fair comparison though, since the costs being charged don't reflect the costs to manufacture and in the case of combos (even though I don't really care) you are getting more for your $$ (namely the DVD side). Pricing of combos is also a studio decision- much like FOX's $40 MSRP on their bare-bones BD titles...

In the low-volume stage these don't matter so much (and as you rightly point out to the end consumer we really don't care at all) but when volumes are large, I guarantee you that a few pennies per disk (with billions of disks printed per year) one way or the other will sway decisions. It's the reason that the current crop of DVDs don't have a scratch resistant coating (no need and extra costs no one wants to pay).

wrt hardware costs- simply put HD DVD pricing is cheaper and more aggressive than BD. To the early adopter this is a good thing, to the fence sitters- also a good thing since the cheaper it gets, the less the fence-sitting argument makes sense (especially with the proliferation of netflix etc. as your outlay to get in the game is pretty trivial even if your format dies out). Where it might not be a good thing is to a CE corporation's bottom line, but I'm not going to lose sleep over that. If they didn't think they were going to make money on me, they wouldn't offer the product in the first place (or take the gamble to anyway). Getting to the mass adoption price point first is a huge advantage. And be careful about slinging accusations of dumping product when the BD player with 90% marketshare is a game console sold at significant loss, let alone that this 'trojan horse' strategy was trumpeted loudly and often before a single title from either side was ever released for consumption. And it's still more expensive than the HD DVD counterpart (but you do get a game player for free :p ).

You do realize that studio support is one of the main factors in whether a video format becomes successful or not? After all EVD would probably be doing far better in China if it had most of the major movie studios releasing major movies on it.


I agree that people won't buy a format that doesn't have anything to watch, but how long do you really think that hollywood (not sony since they own a studio) is going to ignore millions of players of potential revenue sources?

Or to ask it in a different way, how many HD DVD players do you think there needs to be before BD supporting studios go neutral? I guess you could ask the same about Universal, and the answer is I don't know, but maybe they are more like Sony in this fight, but for HD DVD. I'm sure they have their reasons, but I'd love to know what they are. I'd rather that all studios released in both formats and then let the chips fall where they may. But we all know that won't happen in the short-term...

What I find funny about this whole "WAR", is that Sony's PS3 is getting it's ass kicked by a 480p gaming machine. Nintendo is wiping the mat with the PS3 and they aren't even in the same "league", as far as graphics are concerned. Not even the advantage of having a BR player in it can compete with the Wii. I see PS3's sitting on the shelves of ALL the major retailers, while the Wii sells out as soon as they get to the stores. I think Sony has lost most of it's credibility, that's what will kill BR, not HD-DVD.

Uh... Did anyone in this thread ever doubt that Nintendo would sell more machines than Sony? The battle between Sony and Nintendo is insiginificant in the format war. Unless you somehow can come up with some evidence that Wii customers are buying it to view HD content...

There is nothing next-gen about the Wii, except the novelty of new controls. It just happened to be released when the two next gen machines were. Some people will (incorrectly, IMHO) label it the winner of the next gen war, but I believe that is a battle solely between Sony and Microsoft. Of course, while they battle it out, Nintendo will rake in the $$$ with cheap HW that sells in the millions. Genius strategy. :)

The whole scratch-coat as "advantage" kills me, though it is creative to market it as advantage.

SD doesn't have scratch-coat, because it doesn't need it. BD data rides so close to the surface, it needs a slimmer disk and a coating to protect it, also BD has narrower data-pits than HD-DVD, it's simply more complicated to produce a BD disk. Before hard-coat Sony was even considering a cartridge?!

Differences like this are what makes the utilization of DVD production machinery useless to BD.

Again, all this hocus-pocus to get a format that still has no appreciable advantage over it's competitor.

quote]either loseless codec should sonically give you the same result assuming they came from the same master, so why use the uncompressed BW/space hog when more efficient alternatives exist? To save a few cents in royalty costs (seems to be the BD answer)? [/quote]

orogogus: even though I am not asking for PCM (Lossless is OK) what ytou are saying is not right. You are forgetting that with any encode you have two week points that you don't with PCM.

1) an encoder
2) a decoder

just because all the information is there to get back a lossless rendition does not mean it will happen. For example (reason) the processor might not be powerful enough and it messes up on decoding. Have you ever had a PC where while watching something/playing a game it slows down or stops?

Just look at the guys that did a review between the BD and HD DVD and heard some differences between the two.

The reason I don't care as much (PCM or other lossless) is that if the data can be recompiled it is up to the buyer to get a machine that does it right.

Again, all this hocus-pocus to get a format that still has no appreciable advantage over it's competitor.


Just 20gb and higher bandwidth. But 640k is enough for any OS, right?

I guess we'll never agree, but at least it is nice to see all you HD DVD followers agreeing that you've made the right choice. I've never seen so much "Exactly" and "Me too" in this thread as over the last couple of pages. :)

Heh, nice post nilsp. Arguing about how many angels will fit on the head of a pin is entertainment for those of us posting on our lunch break (or slightly after :) )

Forgive me for breaking it down RichP style.

Why support the more expensive alternative? Because to me it is the better choice, of course. I'd rather get an Audi, instead of a Scion. I'd rather have burgers at Fuddruckers than at McDonalds. I'd rather fly Business Class, than Coach. I'd rather get a Pioneer plasma, than a Hitachi. Always going for the cheapest alternative isn't always the best, you know. (Just examples, I realize there is less of a difference between watching Happy Feet on both platforms, than driving an Audi vs. a Scion... :o Read on.)

Indeed as would I, but with BD are you really getting the premium experience? Is the PQ better? AQ better? Interactive layer better? Price better? At best they are a wash, and in most cases worse than the cheaper alternative. Yes, you usually get what you pay for, but that doesn't mean that Porsches aren't overpriced to begin with.

In what way is it the most expensive alternative, BTW? From what I can see, the movies are the same price or even lower on BD than on HD DVD. I paid only $599 for my player which I thought was a steal, compared to my first DVD player. :)

On the player side, I do realize Toshiba produce cheap players. (Interpret that as you want...) I actually find it quite interesting how Toshiba, ONE supplier, keeps driving the price of HD players down, in order for its OWN format to win the HD war. I guess it is fine for most of you, but it gives me an uneasy feeling. No wonder no other well known CE brands are jumping on that bandwagon...

Media costs I think we can all agree don't really reflect manufacturing costs in the low volume era and are highly variable depending on studio (I'm looking at you FOX) and vendor (Amazon vs B&M store). As to if this will continue in the long term... I guess we'll just have to wait and see, but I can hazard a guess as to which will be cheaper when billions of disks a year are being pressed.

The overwhelming majority of the BD players on the market are acknowledge trojan horses, no? What position does that put Sony's BD partners in given that HD DVD exists (at an even lower price point)?


(snip)

here are my reasons (in no particular order) why I bought into Blu-ray and why I am sticking to my choice, IMHO, of course (please read the follow-up posts, to get the balanced view from the HD DVD followers....):

- Selection of movies (read: Studio support). Simply put, there are more movies that I like from Fox, Sony and Disney than from Universal. And I believe it is more likely that Universal will start publishing on Blu-ray, than Fox and Sony going HD DVD. Should I rate any of the points I make, this would be the most important one.

Perfectly valid reason. And as time goes on BD will probably have more total movies available. Right now it's pretty much a wash in total number of titles and exclusives. Of course we all hope that once a critical mass of potential players are in the hands of end-users, the studios won't be able to resist the revenue stream. There are titles on BD I'd like to see, and I'm sure one day I'll either have a PS3 and/or a dual format player. I'm OK with DVD until then though for those titles that aren't multi-format (or that I can't get as an import). In my mind, the jury is still out on this one and it really isn't a format related issue (as studio allegiance is flexible).


- Bandwidth. Blu-ray has a 50% higher bandwidth to play with. Meaning you can have higher peaks in video/audio, more soundtracks, seamless branching wherever you want, less tweaking required to achieve transparency to the master, freedom to choose whatever codec fits the source material best, less restrictions on the creative freedom. We’re not even a year into the format, so I’m sure glad we’re not already pushing the limits of Blu-ray.

- Size. 20GB more. The ONLY place I’ve seen people willing to limit the size of any medium (CE/Computers) from the get go, is on this forum and by the HD DVD crowd. How can an extra 20GB be bad? Sure, we’ve not yet seen this utilized to the max yet, but again, we’re not even a year into a brand new formats existence. It is called room to grow. (Just like most initial DVD’s were single layer, now most are dual layer.) On HD DVD there is no room to grow. (Unless you count the TL-51 initiative from Toshiba, which still is uncertain. And WHY would they even propose a 51GB format, if 30GB is enough?)

I agree but am a bit less enamored with the 'this one goes to 11' mindset on BD wrt bandwidth and footprint. Yes it does potentially enable more things, but the BW/capacity of HD DVD is demonstrably sufficient. A question of paying for potential (I really don't care about making the compressionist's job easier). Also, you bump up against studio related intrascience to using efficient codecs. I firmly believe that BD was designed with the footprint and BW cap of what it would take for quality on MPEG-2/PCM in mind and not next-generation compression schemes. As much as I wish the law of diminishing returns didn't exist, much like gravity, it's still there even when I try to wish it away. Although I guess you could argue that we are at a point where one might benefit from an increased data rate. I'd ask you to demonstrate that to me, because so far I haven't seen that (ie make a BD50 that smokes the HD DVD 30 presentation).

Pressed ROM is not like storage, it's a delivery format. Movies are not going to get appreciably longer and unless you go to higher resolution (where even 50GB isn't enough) the data size is pretty well fixed. Not to mention that as time goes on and all digital paths are taken in the movie making business the data rates will continue to go nowhere but down and not up. I'd love to hear why you think the main feature is suddenly going to take up more space beyond where we are at now? Do you find faults with the current PQ/AQ that aren't related to the master quality or a sloppy encode?

I agree BD is a better optical format for storage, but I still think magnetic (digital delivery) trumps optical in the long term if you wan to go there. And in that arena, compression efficiency is also a good thing. Smaller footprint and data rates are condusive to streaming and storage.

I think we can all pretty much agree that TL51 is a marketing piece, but it might help to pick up the corner cases or studios that really want it. If they could make it work and not charge 1st gen BD stand alone prices for it, that's fine by me otherwise I don't see the need for the added expense.


- More CE support. Toshiba vs. Pioneer, Sony, Panasonic, Philips etc. For a format to succeed in the long run, it obviously better to have as much CE support behind it as possible. ONE company, that happens to also be the one behind HD DVD itself, doesn’t do it for me. And I prefer well known brands as compared to the promised avalanche of Chinese suppliers like Shinco etc.

Overrated. Choice is nice I agree, but given time they will come around. Pretty much like the studios in this regard. As long as you have quality players available (and toshiba hit the ball out of the park in that regard with their 1st gen units, with more designs to come) I don't really see this as an issue for HD DVD. Or at least one that won't work itself out in the long run in the market.

Oh yea, and there is the HD DVD player for the 360 that you didn't consider here (not that I think it changes your analysis or mine).


- Technology. I guess it is the geek/engineer in me, but Blu-ray is just cooler. A Toshiba engineer even said it is an engineering masterpiece. It is a format engineered more or less from scratch, and not designed just to ensure the continued flow of royalty money with as little effort as possible. (Essentially just replacing the red with a blue laser and adding some codec support…)

I suppose, but they each have their elegance. I see BD as a recording format shoehorned into a ROM delivery format. HD DVD just seems like it hasn't been as over-engineered (and expensive) and definitely has been better executed (wrt quality of encodes, use of advanced codecs and interactivity).


- Lossless audio. Simply put, just like with video, I want the best possible audio quality on disc. Sure, I might not hear that much of a difference, but again, let that be the limitation of my equipment and my ears, not a studio decision. LPCM, TrueHD or Master Audio doesn’t matter much, just include one of them. From what I’ve seen, lossless audio support so far has been better on Blu-ray. Too many reviews/reviewers have mentioned how LPCM is superior over DD/DTS, for me to consider all of them gullible fanboy believers.

Certainly putting uncompressed/loseless has been more consistent on BD (I won't even debate the sonic benefits as I don't have audiophile grade gear or ears), but to me seems to have been spawned as a result of cost-savings in speccing the format than any sort of altruistic gesture on the studios' part. No mandatory lossless decoders in the spec means LPCM and a DD core for backwards compatibility (or you do like FOX and encode in loseless audio that no one can hear yet). This seems wasteful to me, especially if you don't have the BD 50 situation under control. If you want to complain about the lack of extra languages (or the quality that the audio is delivered in) on HD DVD because of the hit to BW, but you don't want to complain about the potential of LPCM eating in the video quality because the bit bucket is too small... well to me that seems hypocritical.


- Interactivity. Although I mostly just watch the movie, I guess I must cover this point. BD-J is better than HDi. There, I said it. (Running for cover from attacks from the dozen or so Microsoft residents at this forum…) I guess I should qualify that statement somewhat. Sure BD-J is more of a challenge to program for, test and make run across all players. But that’s just called a learning curve. I firmly believe while the learning curve is steeper on BD-J than HDi, over time you’ll see some spectacular BD-J stuff that can’t be done in HDi.

:) I'm in the same boat wrt extras/interactivity. That being said, HDi seems to be delivering on more of its promises than BD-J. The difficulty of BD-J (and profile confusion) certainly isn't helping things along in this area. I'm interested as to the basis of your opinion as to why BD-J is more capable than HDi? I really don't have much of a stake here, but in the 'show me the money' department it looks to me like BD is again lacking.

- Longevity. When you introduce something brand new, no matter if it is a new disc format, a new gaming platform, a new type of engine or whatever, you never get max performance from the get go. And you don’t limit the design or take shortcuts so that you’re maxed out within a year of its introduction. Both HD DVD and Blu-ray, we must assume, were designed to last at last a decade. As such, there is more potential in Blu-ray. I find the continued criticism from the HD DVD crowd that all we in the Blu-ray camp are doing is waiting for the future laughable. I’m enjoying spectacular HD movies now, with the assurance that in the future it will get even better.
- I like blue covers better than red covers. :)


I guess I don't understand why you think the same isn't true for HD DVD. I don't see the format being 'maxed out' now and as time goes on tweaks and better masters will make the things that push the limits today, easy as cake tomorrow. The difference being, I don't have to wait longer for promises to be delivered on, and I don't have to pay more for the priveldge. I too am enjoying great HD today. I wish more folks that were sitting on the fence would jump in, that's better for all of us at the end of the day. I don't understand why they are denying themselves to be honest, it doesn't make sense to me.

I like the red cases better than the blue. :p

Am I saying HD DVD is bad? No. I believe you today can have the same HD experience from both platforms. However, as mentioned above, I don’t believe in limiting a brand new format supposed to last a decade from the get go, having maximized it’s potential less than a year into its existence. That might be the case for HD DVD, whereas for Blu-ray, there is plenty of room to grow, with less limits on the creative freedom offered, be it bandwidth, size or interactivity.)

On the various player profiles, I would of course have preferred it only being one. However, we’re talking interactivity features, not movie playback. The movie will still play on early players. If some odd interactivity feature won’t work, so be it. Some will complain, but I don’t think it will be a huge outcry. (I got the PS3 btw, so I’m thinking I’m pretty safe in that regard.)

Might be the case for HD DVD. Might be. That's worth paying more money and waiting more time to you? Especially when you acknowledge that both are performing more or less the same (with regard to the main feature)??

I agree that the PS3 is likely the platform least likely to suffer from being left behind in the BD profile shuffle. The strength of a software-based format is apparent. I can't say that I'm happy about the lack of a $0.50 IR port on the PS3 though.

If this sounds like a fanboys worshipping of the BDA, it is not. Their execution of the launch was horrible, with error after error, with one spokesperson from one company more arrogant than the previous one. “Beyond HD”…. Whatever. But that doesn’t take away from the points listed above. I can’t NOT support a format because some idiots in marketing screwed it all up. (Simplified, I know.)

Well here we agree, the BD lauch was beyond atrocious for what we all assumed in October '05 to be the defacto winner going into CES.

On final note on the original question: “why support the more expensive alternative?”. The players are more expensive now, but still not THAT expensive. Will it be the same in 1, 2, 5 years? I don’t think so. At least not by much. There is no difference in movie pricing now, so in all, the whole “more expensive” point is rather short sighted, in my view… Especially since in 5 years most people will ask: "HD DVD? What?” :D


I can see the cause for potential, but to me that doesn't justify paying more now (you know us Americans are cheap after all!! :p ). If I can get primarily what I want (great PQ/AQ) today, I'll buy that and we'll see what we see in 5 years. If BD is better then, no sweat of my nose to buy in at the later price point and feature set. It's just been less than stellar up til now in the bang for the buck department. Plucky little HD DVD is the format that could, and everyone knows that we Americans love us an underdog. :p

There is nothing next-gen about the Wii, except the novelty of new controls. It just happened to be released when the two next gen machines were. Some people will (incorrectly, IMHO) label it the winner of the next gen war, but I believe that is a battle solely between Sony and Microsoft. Of course, while they battle it out, Nintendo will rake in the $$$ with cheap HW that sells in the millions. Genius strategy. :)

Yup. And Sony must be laughing whenever that argument comes up given PS2 sales.


Again, all this hocus-pocus to get a format that still has no appreciable advantage over it's competitor.

Apparently, you don't have kids and are not a renter or you might feel a bit different. If they had offered hard coats as an optional SKU for DVD, I'd have bought them for a couple bucks extra!

quote]either loseless codec should sonically give you the same result assuming they came from the same master, so why use the uncompressed BW/space hog when more efficient alternatives exist? To save a few cents in royalty costs (seems to be the BD answer)?

orogogus: even though I am not asking for PCM (Lossless is OK) what ytou are saying is not right. You are forgetting that with any encode you have two week points that you don't with PCM.

1) an encoder
2) a decoder

just because all the information is there to get back a lossless rendition does not mean it will happen. For example (reason) the processor might not be powerful enough and it messes up on decoding. Have you ever had a PC where while watching something/playing a game it slows down or stops?

Just look at the guys that did a review between the BD and HD DVD and heard some differences between the two.

The reason I don't care as much (PCM or other lossless) is that if the data can be recompiled it is up to the buyer to get a machine that does it right.


Isn't that a problem of the SoC/platform designers and not something, me as a consumer would care about?? How does that invalidate the point?

[
I agree that people won't buy a format that doesn't have anything to watch, but how long do you really think that hollywood (not sony since they own a studio) is going to ignore millions of players of potential revenue sources?

what millions of players? and who are those dumb people that bought a player that don’t have content?

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/products/2007-04-08-3d-movies_N.htm

Isn't that a problem of the SoC/platform designers and not something, me as a consumer would care about?? How does that invalidate the point?
1) do you agree with what I said? (if not then the rest is useless)
2) I thought your point is PCM=decoded losless, so why would someone prefer to have PCM. My point was that in theory that it should be = but in practice there are many reasons it might not be. That is one of the reasons that I don't want my player to take care of my audio and would rather have a receiver take care of it.
3) I don't understand the distinction. Why is it the designers issue. You will need to live with it, if you buy it. It is not as if a test can be done to see decoding X for video and Y for Audio will work, and it passes the test for all A/V combinations. It is for the consumer to care if the player has the “features he wants”.
4) like I said before, I don’t see it as a big issue, I am sure there will be product that does it correctly and all it means is for me to buy the right product and for someone that is less demanding let them live with what they bought. Since in theory it can = and I will do my duty to look for stuff that is important for m, I find lossless “good enough”

Indeed as would I, but with BD are you really getting the premium experience? Is the PQ better? AQ better? Interactive layer better? Price better?


With BD PS3/HDMI/PCM, I am most definitely getting superior AQ than from my 360/toslink/Dolby Digital HDDVD. Same end result to my account balances at the end of the day.



Media costs I think we can all agree don't really reflect manufacturing costs in the low volume era and are highly variable depending on studio (I'm looking at you FOX) and vendor (Amazon vs B&M store).

There are as many Fox BD I want (a couple less since the Amazon sale ;) ) as HDDVD combos.


The overwhelming majority of the BD players on the market are acknowledge trojan horses, no? What position does that put Sony's BD partners in given that HD DVD exists (at an even lower price point)?


Given that Robert at VE said that his margins for standalone BD players were far better than his Tosh HDDVD, I am inclined to think that the pricing strategy for BD standalones has been deliberate and artificially high as the CE conceded the low ground to the PS3. That looks to achieve parity in MSRP for the G2 Sony and G2 Samsung at the very least. Street prices are likely to be much more favorable. By G3, BD standalones will likely be significantly cheaper (though the PS3 also has some more price elasticity that common wisdom suggests).


I agree but am a bit less enamored with the 'this one goes to 11' mindset on BD wrt bandwidth and footprint. Yes it does potentially enable more things, but the BW/capacity of HD DVD is demonstrably sufficient. A question of paying for potential (I really don't care about making the compressionist's job easier).

Sufficient for now. Both formats are in the very nascent steps and while both are at parity now, Blu-ray has a far higher ceiling. DVD, for example, was maxed very near it's release and while HDDVD has some flexibility for evolution, it's going to take far more creativity than Blu-ray to really stretch it's legs as it matures.


Also, you bump up against studio related intrascience to using efficient codecs. I firmly believe that BD was designed with the footprint and BW cap of what it would take for quality on MPEG-2/PCM in mind and not next-generation compression schemes.

I really wish I could have more MPEG2/PCM if they're anything like Crank, Black Hawk Down, or Kingdom of Heaven. I would LOOOOOVE to "settle" for Star Wars, for example, in comparably glorious HD!



Oh yea, and there is the HD DVD player for the 360 that you didn't consider here (not that I think it changes your analysis or mine).


You may find yourself as disatisfied as me (especially on the audio side), if you try it. :( The only thing that keeps me from getting a Tosh is that everytime I'm about ready to jump, the deals get better. I would HATE the buyers remorse I'd now have if I had finally splurged on an XA1 for $500 when they're available for $350 now with 5 free discs (and the much faster/improved A2 is available for 50 less than that!). The jump to an HDMI AVR consigned the analog output advantage of the older unit to the recycle bin... The prospects of a frankenstein is still appealing to me, though, considering that I like the aesthetic design of XA1 better than the A2 (even if it's a huge beast, the XA1 is certainly puuurty. And at least partially silver.. :p ).




Certainly putting uncompressed/loseless has been more consistent on BD (I won't even debate the sonic benefits as I don't have audiophile grade gear or ears), but to me seems to have been spawned as a result of cost-savings in speccing the format than any sort of altruistic gesture on the studios' part. No mandatory lossless decoders in the spec means LPCM and a DD core for backwards compatibility (or you do like FOX and encode in loseless audio that no one can hear yet).


I don't expect altruism from anyone I'm paying hundreds of dollars to. Once I heard some LPCM tracks after finally getting my HDMI Denon AVR, I was hooked. I wish PCM was mandatory on Blu-ray! Given the whole advanced content/authoring/required decoding in the players bit, LPCM output is the logical next step anyways.


This seems wasteful to me, especially if you don't have the BD 50 situation under control. If you want to complain about the lack of extra languages (or the quality that the audio is delivered in) on HD DVD because of the hit to BW, but you don't want to complain about the potential of LPCM eating in the video quality because the bit bucket is too small... well to me that seems hypocritical.


I was ambivalent about it until I heard it. I'll take my extras on the second disc, thanks, where I can safely ignore them or pursue as I so choose.. The marketing goons prefer multiple discs anyways so I'd much prefer my HD masterpiece to be more reminiscent of Superbit than a normal DVD.



:) I'm in the same boat wrt extras/interactivity. That being said, HDi seems to be delivering on more of it's promises than BD-J. The difficulty of BD-J (and profile confusion) certainly isn't helping things along in this area. I'm interested as to the basis of your opinion as to why BD-J is more capable than HDi? I really don't have much of a stake here, but in the 'show me the money' department it looks to me like BD is again lacking.


Eh? I see Jason Statham in my Crank BD just like I see Tom Cruise in my MI3 HDDVD and neither looks to be in higher resolution than the other. I have yet to watch either one after the first time, either... much the same as the Google Earth bits on Miami Vice (if they don't send my 360 into an error that requires going back to the blade interface, that is). :eek:

Neither side has really revealed what they're REALLY up to yet, when they indulge in that buzz-word. In a word: advertising, if not the up-sell.


I like the red cases better than the blue. :p


They both look rather pleasing next to each other. I prefer the uniformity of their relative adjoining sections to the hodgepodge mismatch of my various DVDs, in any case.


I agree that the PS3 is likely the platform least likely to suffer from being left behind in the BD profile shuffle. The strength of a software-based format is apparent. I can't say that I'm happy about the lack of a $0.50 IR port on the PS3 though.


While it was a perplexing choice to leave IR off, I'm expecting Harmony, if not Sony themselves to take care of this, for those interested in such. I've generally shunned universal remotes anyway (I use the 360 remote for the HDDVD and would use a Tosh remote for any replacement, just like I use the Sony bluetooth BD remote for the PS3 and I use my Denon remote for everything else).



Plucky little HD DVD is the format that could, and everyone knows that we Americans love us an underdog. :p

You better hope so, since NA is about the only hope HDDVD has left since it's DOA in Japan and has an even cheaper competitor in China. Sales in Europe were pathetic for both... or rather they were before the PS3 launched. ;)

Keith. your link made me think of a question.

Could someone create a BD (or HD DVD player for that matter) where the secondary decoder (PiP) is used for a second stream of 3D.

What I mean is without really changing the specs create a player with dual outputs special polarized displays (or what ever is needed) and get the same 3D at home?

(obviously this far in the future)

I mean where it is not a new format but a feature (i.e. watch the movie 2D, watch it 3D if player supports it

Just 20gb and higher bandwidth. But 640k is enough for any OS, right?

He did say 'appreciable' :rolleyes:

20GB, more BW ... yet, on the average, same or worse PQ scores, same or worse AQ scores, and definitely worse scores when it comes to interactive content.

Perhaps it'll take a Quad-Layer BR Disc at 200GB to finally show up the quality of HD-DVD ... kinda like it's taking 10x the amount of Blu-Ray players to maintain the BR disc sales leads. :p

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/products/2007-04-08-3d-movies_N.htm

Oh no. We now have 3-D format war :D

Dolby Laboratories recently unveiled plans to market its own 3-D technology that would work with existing movie screens.

(obviously this far in the future)


Anthony, not to worry. That far in the future - you know everything is streamed ;)

HD DVD is 400% larger than SD, BD 40% larger than HD DVD
this must be the new maths, because 30gb is only about 200% larger than 9gb, while 50gb is about 80% larger than 30gb.



From the financial times,
A HD-DVD replication line costs about €800,000 ($1m) and you can make 40,000 discs a day on it. A Blu-Ray replication line costs €1.7m or €1.8m and you can make 10,000 to 15,000 discs a day," says Laurent Villaume, chief executive of Qol, a French DVD replication company. "The risk is just not the same."

HD DVD is doing exactly what it was designed to to do, give an excellent-quality HD viewing experience, with the perk of more advanced interactive features. Just as importantly it was designed with an eye to the future, in that it can utilize current DVD production facilities.
your quote from a french replicator is interesting but has nothing to do with re-using dvd lines, as you stated. or are you now trying to shift the argument?


<cough>HD DVD add-on...<cough>
manufactured by toshiba isn't it...?

Keith. your link made me think of a question.Uh oh...

Could someone create a BD (or HD DVD player for that matter) where the secondary decoder (PiP) is used for a second stream of 3D. What I mean is without really changing the specs create a player with dual outputs special polarized displays (or what ever is needed) and get the same 3D at home?Possible. But that would mean giving up PiP, which would upset a lot of people. Unless you want to support decoding four video bitstreams... :)

Uh oh...

know what you mean, you don’t know how much trouble thinking has caused me, sometimes I wish I was like most HD DVD supporter, life would be simpler :)



Possible. But that would mean giving up PiP, which would upset a lot of people. Unless you want to support decoding four video bitstreams...

True, but wouldn’t that just be 3 (don’t need 3D PiP :)) but a studio could do like HD DVD and have a reduced rate PiP (i.e. 18 (left/main), 18 (right), 4(PiP) and just have 2/3 at any time) from what I heard some think it is a lot more important to see and hear the director say “yup this is a boring part in the movie, and there is nothing more I can say about it, it was as boring for us to film as for you to watch but we wanted the movie to be a bit longer and so we included this useless clip”, instead of the movie.

True, but wouldn’t that just be 3 (don’t need 3D PiP :)) But that would look rather funny, don't you think? Sorta like a giant, flat hole in the middle of the experience. And in your example, I could see the director wanting to swat you in the back of the head for not paying attention to what he/she is saying. :)

If this is leading to a conclusion that a 50GB disk can support 3D, and it is a practical possibility, you are just killing future sales of both formats. Neither format can or will do 3D.

If this is leading to a conclusion that a 50GB disk can support 3D, and it is a practical possibility, you are just killing future sales of both formats. Neither format can or will do 3D.Killjoy :)

this must be the new maths, because 30gb is only about 200% larger than 9gb, while 50gb is about 80% larger than 30gb.


Huh, 30/8.5= 3.53 or 353% (pretty close to 4x or 400%) you might want to check the batteries in the calculator :p

this must be the new maths, because 30gb is only about 200% larger than 9gb, while 50gb is about 80% larger than 30gb.

Your right, I forgot that a dual-layer DVD was double the GB. I screwed up my figures.

So I'll say 9 GB clearly isn't enough, 30 GB is plenty, and 50 GB is needed if your too stubborn to use a new encoding, think lossless provides some advantage, and want a few GB leftover to go boldly where no disk has gone before.

It's just a pi$$ing contest if you software doesn't give any more bang for your buck.

Uh... Did anyone in this thread ever doubt that Nintendo would sell more machines than Sony? The battle between Sony and Nintendo is insiginificant in the format war. Unless you somehow can come up with some evidence that Wii customers are buying it to view HD content...


I quite disagree about Nintendos impact.

Actually I'd say the Wii very much affects the hd disk format war. When you consider that Sony's projections and plans have been based on the trojan horse strategy where gamers buy PS3's for gaming and a blu-ray player is part of the deal by default, then to the extent that Wii replaces sales to people that would have bought a PS3 (or a 360) then there are less hd players in the hands of of gamers.

Essentially a certain % of the Nintendo sales are replacing what would normally be Playstation sales to general gaming public so that there are less trojans being carried in on the horse. So for instance where Sony projected 6 million PS3's acting as blu-ray player trojan horses at this point, we instead have less than 1/2 that and some of those sales have went to Nintendo Wii.

If this is leading to a conclusion that a 50GB disk can support 3D, and it is a practical possibility, you are just killing future sales of both formats. Neither format can or will do 3D.


A lot more goes into 3-D than what you do with a disk. Polarization requires literal filtering of layered images. It ain't gonna be either format that delivers this.

I quite disagree about Nintendos impact.

Actually I'd say the Wii very much affects the hd disk format war. When you consider that Sony's projections and plans have been based on the trojan horse strategy where gamers buy PS3's for gaming and a blu-ray player is part of the deal by default, then to the extent that Wii replaces sales to people that would have bought a PS3 (or a 360) then there are less hd players in the hands of of gamers.

Essentially a certain % of the Nintendo sales are replacing what would normally be Playstation sales to general gaming public so that there are less trojans being carried in on the horse. So for instance where Sony projected 6 million PS3's acting as blu-ray player trojan horses at this point, we instead have less than 1/2 that and some of those sales have went to Nintendo Wii.

It's not just that ... it's the sheer volume of sales of the Wii and how the average consumer has embraced the product -- at 480p. To me, it shows that the mass market user probably isn't ready for HD -- at least not at these pricepoints.

And yes, I think Sony was originally surprised that the Wii outsold the PS3. ;)

this must be the new maths, because 30gb is only about 200% larger than 9gb, while 50gb is about 80% larger than 30gb. Actually, 30GB is 233% larger than 9GB, and 50GB is only 67% larger than 30GB ;)
manufactured by toshiba isn't it...?Nope. It just includes a Toshiba-Samsung drive unit. Future versions may include a different drive unit. the Toshiba HD-A1 uses a NEC drive unit, does that mean it wasn't manufactured by Toshiba?

Huh, 30/8.5= 3.53 or 353% (pretty close to 4x or 400%) you might want to check the batteries in the calculator :p
you forgot to take off 1 (100%)

The HD DVD add-on plus XBOX 360 Core is 3X more than the A2?Good point, and I will rephrase that question since I did not make it clear enough. Have you ever wondered why the cheapest stand alone HD DVD player not made by Toshiba is 3 times more expensive than the cheapest stand alone HD DVD player made by Toshiba?


I agree that people won't buy a format that doesn't have anything to watch, but how long do you really think that hollywood (not sony since they own a studio) is going to ignore millions of players of potential revenue sources?Well I think that depends on the individual studio and how optimistic they are about the future of that HD format. Of course this applies to studios supporting both HD formats and we only need one major studio (Universal) to go neutral for Blu-ray to win this format war.

Good point, and I will rephrase that question since I did not make it clear enough. Have you ever wondered why the cheapest stand alone HD DVD player not made by Toshiba is 3 times more expensive than the cheapest stand alone HD DVD player made by Toshiba?
I assume you're talking about the LG combo player, right? Technically, that's not even an HD DVD player. Well, it is, but it didn't get the logo because it didn't fully comply with the specs.

It will be interesting to see what they end up charging for a non-Toshiba standalone (that isn't a combo.) Of course, that's assuming we'll ever see one, and there's no guarantee of that. Supposedly Onkyo and Meridian are working on players, but I haven't heard anything about them since CES...

Good point, and I will rephrase that question since I did not make it clear enough. Have you ever wondered why the cheapest stand alone HD DVD player not made by Toshiba is 3 times more expensive than the cheapest stand alone HD DVD player made by Toshiba?
snip........


Which player? Are you talking about the LG universal player?

I quite disagree about Nintendos impact.

Actually I'd say the Wii very much affects the hd disk format war. When you consider that Sony's projections and plans have been based on the trojan horse strategy where gamers buy PS3's for gaming and a blu-ray player is part of the deal by default, then to the extent that Wii replaces sales to people that would have bought a PS3 (or a 360) then there are less hd players in the hands of of gamers.

Essentially a certain % of the Nintendo sales are replacing what would normally be Playstation sales to general gaming public so that there are less trojans being carried in on the horse. So for instance where Sony projected 6 million PS3's acting as blu-ray player trojan horses at this point, we instead have less than 1/2 that and some of those sales have went to Nintendo Wii.

Finally, someone with some sense. I agree 100%. I like your name BTW, are you a skinny Indian fellow?

Uh... Did anyone in this thread ever doubt that Nintendo would sell more machines than Sony? The battle between Sony and Nintendo is insiginificant in the format war. Unless you somehow can come up with some evidence that Wii customers are buying it to view HD content...

There is nothing next-gen about the Wii, except the novelty of new controls. It just happened to be released when the two next gen machines were. Some people will (incorrectly, IMHO) label it the winner of the next gen war, but I believe that is a battle solely between Sony and Microsoft. Of course, while they battle it out, Nintendo will rake in the $$$ with cheap HW that sells in the millions. Genius strategy. :)

I never said the Wii was next gen, to the contrary, I said Nintendo is kicking a next gen (PS3) console's ass, with graphics that are not HD and never will be. It's pretty sad, if you ask me. Sony has a flop on it's hands, it's too expensive and difficult to program games for, it's a lot cheaper for 3rd party game developers to go with the X-Box 360. I could have bought a PS3, but I chose the Wii, because it's about the gameplay. It's not about some game that looks like a movie, but the gameplay fun factor is surpassed by Pong. Not to mention how screwed up the PS3's are, I haven't seen one that hasn't been frozen at the in store display.

Gamers are getting back to their roots...also known as Nintendo. It's also pretty sad that Sony's last gen console (PS2) is currently outselling their next gen console (Ps3), that there proves it's a flop.

This is the wrong forum for discussion about the gaming console market. What's relevant is that HD DVD supporters kept saying the PS3 wouldn't help BD. Then it came out and it did.

...

please stop repeating this marketing material from microsoft without engaging your brain first. what dvd lines are being used to manufacture hd dvds? and remember if they aren't even being used now at the start, why on earth would they take the time to convert lines down the road when overall production costs should have dropped. as to hd dvd hardware being more affordable, i presume you're refering to price and not cost. price less cost is where the profit lies, and it's notable that nobody but toshiba is putting out players in their format... The Pacific Disc insider has stated clearly that their HD DVD production lines are upgraded DVD lines and are being used for dual use. That is one reason that their HD DVD replication quotes are cheaper than for Blu-ray.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=10095378&&#post10095378

You're talking to the monkey, not the organ grinder. But I expect that this is due to machinery costs. As you all know, HD DVDs can be made on modified equipment we already own. Blu-ray lines cost an arm-and-a-leg and we'll be trying to recoup those costs quickly.

Suspect that later this year, when we've made back some of the investment, we'll be dropping the price -- as will most other replicators.
Here are our prices for BD (& HD) replication

http://www.pacificdisc.com/PricingHD-DVD.html

Uh... Did anyone in this thread ever doubt that Nintendo would sell more machines than Sony? The battle between Sony and Nintendo is insiginificant in the format war. Unless you somehow can come up with some evidence that Wii customers are buying it to view HD content...

There is nothing next-gen about the Wii, except the novelty of new controls. It just happened to be released when the two next gen machines were. Some people will (incorrectly, IMHO) label it the winner of the next gen war, but I believe that is a battle solely between Sony and Microsoft. Of course, while they battle it out, Nintendo will rake in the $$$ with cheap HW that sells in the millions. Genius strategy. :) Except that Wii sales may have undercut PS3 sales.

The PS3 is selling well below expectations. The Wii is selling higher than expectations. Its not unreasonable to assume that many people bought the Wii as an alternative to the PS3.

The success of the Wii certainly did not help PS3 sales. :D

This is the wrong forum for discussion about the gaming console market. What's relevant is that HD DVD supporters kept saying the PS3 wouldn't help BD. Then it came out and it did. Not true there hero.

i don't know of any HD DVD supporter or neutral person who said the PS3 would not help Blu-ray sales. Its obvious that it would to some degree just bassed on the volume of units that were going to be sold. Even with its disapointing sales, the PS3 is still going to move millions of units.

Wha people did say was that the PS3 would not be enough to kill off HD DVD and to win the format war by itself.

Now that the PS3 launch has passed and HD DVD sales are picking up with more HD DVD players being sold and more HD DVD releases coming this quarter, its clear that the PS3 didn't kill off HD DVD in the first quarter, despite the BDA shouting about disc sale ratios.

The PS3 obviously is helping BD. Just not enough to kill off HD DVD.

Meanwhile HD DVD players are getting cheaper and gaining further market penetration.



First format to $199 players wins.* ( * 70% market share)

http://www.oto-online.com/pdf/oto_download/2007/04/OTO_Apr07_P33-36_Equipment.pdf

from One ot One: a Replication Industry Trade Journal

ODC Nimbus’ Helfrecht agrees. He also sees used equipment as a factor in equipment purchase decisions. To counter this,“we make sure our accounts realise we are constantly improving our equipment,” Helfrecht says, citing key improvements made in the LaserWave II mastering system over previous versions.“It’s 50% faster, costs less to operate and can be upgraded to HD DVD, just to mention a few.Evatone’s Franzen says that vendors are not even making much effort to sell next-generation equipment.“I have talked with a number of equipment vendors; I don’t believe they are pushing equipment for the same reason we are not looking for equipment, and that is the uncertainty of the market,” he says. “No matter what the format, no one right now wants to invest capital until we all have a better idea where the market is going... they are spending more time talking with us about what we see. They want to be ready with whatever equipment is going to make it to the independent manufacturers.”

From Franzen’s perspective, it is a sad state of affairs. “This is the crux of the problem with us middle- and lower-tier replicators; we are sitting on the sidelines waiting for Sony, Philips, Toshiba and so on to make a decision for us,” he says.

Franzen would like to see replicators take a more proactive stance, and start to push back in the opposite direction a bit. He unabashedly feels that HD DVD is the direction to move.“Why are we not telling the equipment manufacturers what format we are going to produce? Our customers are now asking for HD format products. As soon as Best Buy, Circuit City and Radio Shack start offering consumer HD video recorders, consumers [will begin] buying big-screen HD TVs, and they are going to want to produce their product in HD.

So, what do we – the middle- to lower-tier independent manufacturers – say to our customers when they ask us what format would be best for them: HD DVD or Blu-ray? I have to and will tell them HD DVD.Why? Because it is the most cost-effective way for me to provide HD product to my client base, not to mention that if they want Blu-ray, they can only get it from Sony.

If I wanted to buy Blu-ray replication equipment, I would have to buy it from Sony, if they would sell it.Why? Because no other manufacturer has been able to perfect the equipment.

“I think it is time for us – the independent middle- and lower-tier replicators – to take charge of our future and the future of our customers and back HD DVD now,” Franzen continues.“We as a group have the ability to make a change, to educate our customer base, to provide an HD product at a lower cost to our customer base and have the ability to do it now.

Why do we sit and wait for Sony and others to direct what we as a group should or can provide to our customers? There is so much equipment out there, at low prices, auctions really aren’t needed.”Once again HD DVD shows another advantage when it comes to small replicators and niche content providers.

I assume you're talking about the LG combo player, right? Technically, that's not even an HD DVD player. Well, it is, but it didn't get the logo because it didn't fully comply with the specs.I was trying to be fair to HD DVD by including the LG universal player since technically it can play HD DVD movies. If we don't include it because it isn't a compliant HD DVD player what is the cheapest stand alone HD DVD player not made by Toshiba?


Gamers are getting back to their roots...also known as Nintendo. It's also pretty sad that Sony's last gen console (PS2) is currently outselling their next gen console (Ps3), that there proves it's a flop.I would point out that the PS1 outsold the PS2 for a while as well. Also no offense but can you move this type of discussion to the Nintendo section of the forum? It really isn't needed, or wanted, in this thread.

I was trying to be fair to HD DVD by including the LG universal player since technically it can play HD DVD movies. If we don't include it because it isn't a compliant HD DVD player what is the cheapest stand alone HD DVD player not made by Toshiba?
Gotcha. I just wanted to be sure we were talking about the same player. As to your question, as far as I know there are no other standalone players other than those made by Toshiba. There are PC drives and the add-on for the 360 of course, but those aren't standalone.

Like I said, it should be interesting to see what they end up charging for the first standalone HD DVD-only player not made by Toshiba.

Did you guys see the report of HD A2's being available for $349 on the shelf at Costco?

Costco online - Toshiba HD A2 available for $349 (http://www.costco.com/Browse/Product.aspx?Prodid=11175950&search=HD%20A2&Sp=S&Mo=42&cm_re=1-_-Top_Left_Nav-_-Top_search&Nr=P_CatalogName:BC&Ns=P_Price|1||P_SignDesc1&N=0&whse=BC&Dx=mode+matchallpartial&Ntk=All&Dr=P_CatalogName:BC&Ne=4000000&D=HD%20A2&Ntt=HD%20A2&No=13&Ntx=mode+matchallpartial&Nty=1&topnav=&s=1)

Quote:
Originally Posted by kevink109
My costco has a pile of Hd-D2 players for $349.99 and they are highlighting the 5 free movies from toshiba-

Also- if you check out the scene in casino Royale when bond breaks into the security office in the bahamas- all of the players are sony blu-ray units :O) That's the first report of a discounted price at Costco or Sam's club I have seen for the HD A2.

That's a huge step.

Did they have the buy one and get 5 free movies signage?

either loseless codec should sonically give you the same result assuming they came from the same master, so why use the uncompressed BW/space hog when more efficient alternatives exist? To save a few cents in royalty costs (seems to be the BD answer)?

orogogus: even though I am not asking for PCM (Lossless is OK) what ytou are saying is not right. You are forgetting that with any encode you have two week points that you don't with PCM.

1) an encoder
2) a decoder

just because all the information is there to get back a lossless rendition does not mean it will happen. For example (reason) the processor might not be powerful enough and it messes up on decoding. Have you ever had a PC where while watching something/playing a game it slows down or stops?

Just look at the guys that did a review between the BD and HD DVD and heard some differences between the two.

The reason I don't care as much (PCM or other lossless) is that if the data can be recompiled it is up to the buyer to get a machine that does it right.

Firstly, the encoders for a disc are off-line (i.e. non-real time), so either a lossless encoder produces the correct bitstream, or it is non compliant. Non-issue.

So, are you seriously implying (within the context of our discussion of HD hardware and software here), that we should be concerned about the decoder chips have been so insufficiently tested with the maximum audio specifications so as to be non-deterministic with their behavior?

That's grasping.

Just 20gb and higher bandwidth. But 640k is enough for any OS, right?

http://www.wired.com/politics/law/news/1997/01/1484

50GB is only 67% larger than 30GB
For simplicity lets say 50 GB holds 10 hours of programming, then 30 GB holds 6 hours, the difference is 4 hours, or 40% of the content. That's the difference between 30 and 50 GB. 67% would mean the 50 GB disk magically holds nearly 13 hours.

For simplicity lets say 50 GB holds 10 hours of programming, then 30 GB holds 6 hours, the difference is 4 hours, or 40% of the content. That's the difference between 30 and 50 GB. 67% would mean the 50 GB disk magically holds nearly 13 hours.
67% would be accurate, though. You can play with the numbers all you want, but 50 is 67% more than 30.

Indeed as would I, but with BD are you really getting the premium experience? Is the PQ better? AQ better? Interactive layer better? Price better?
With BD PS3/HDMI/PCM, I am most definitely getting superior AQ than from my 360/toslink/Dolby Digital HDDVD. Same end result to my account balances at the end of the day.

You are answering a format-wide question with an implementation specific answer. Later in your own post you admit to not having a deck capable of TrueHD/HDMI simply because you hope to save more money, not because the format isn't capable of it.

you're working your percentages back to front, wayne, in the context of the orriginal statement - "HD DVD is 400% larger than SD, BD 40% larger than HD DVD". in your example if bd holds 10hrs and hd holds 6hrs then bd is (10-6)/6 X 100% times larger than hd. this is correct since a size of 12hrs for bd would result in the format being 100% larger than hd, which would be right if that was the length of programing on the disc (all else being equal). 12 is 100% larger than 6.

Actually, 30GB is 233% larger than 9GB, and 50GB is only 67% larger than 30GB ;)
hence "about", though my figures were a factor of tim's for a very good reason...

Nope. It just includes a Toshiba-Samsung drive unit. Future versions may include a different drive unit. the Toshiba HD-A1 uses a NEC drive unit, does that mean it wasn't manufactured by Toshiba?
thank you for confirming that microsoft don't infact manufacture the add-on drive for the 360, regardless of what may or may not become the case in the future. not sure what point you're trying to make with regard to the discontinued a1, since that was a full player, and not just a drive like the add-on.

The Pacific Disc insider has stated clearly that their HD DVD production lines are upgraded DVD lines and are being used for dual use. That is one reason that their HD DVD replication quotes are cheaper than for Blu-ray.
was there more to that exchange than just that post because it's a little ambiguous - "As you all know, HD DVDs can be made on modified equipment we already own." does that mean they modified the equipment or that they bought the modified dvd/hd dvd lines now for sale? though the fella sounds less than certain of his company's activites in this area - "i expect" isn't a solid basis for stating knowledge.

it would be fascinating if true, but we'll need more than one ambiguous and uncertain post on an internet message forum to provide confirmation.

Read the rest of his posts using the search function on the members list or Find More Posts drop down menu.

It would be more likly they modified the equipment they already owned. I know that affects your worldview, but its seems clear to me that is what he meant.

They have a ongoing DVD replication business, so it would not make sense to install used modified equipment if their existing lines could be modified.

67% would be accurate, though. You can play with the numbers all you want, but 50 is 67% more than 30.
Numbers are used to put things in perspective. At this level of discussion, for 10 hours of program time BD has 40% more capacity. The 67% number is meaningless.

was there more to that exchange than just that post because it's a little ambiguous - "As you all know, HD DVDs can be made on modified equipment we already own." does that mean they modified the equipment or that they bought the modified dvd/hd dvd lines now for sale?
He specifically said "equipment we already own." Seems pretty clear to me. They modified equipment that they owned already. I've never even heard of companies selling modified DVD lines - isn't the point of modification for those replicators that already have the DVD lines installed?
though the fella sounds less than certain of his company's activites in this area - "i expect" isn't a solid basis for stating knowledge.

it would be fascinating if true, but we'll need more than one ambiguous and uncertain post on an internet message forum to provide confirmation.
Doing a quick search through his posts, I found another mention (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=10132695&&#post10132695) of the modified lines.There are no real differences on the authoring side between the two formats (not meant as a sweeping statement, nor meant to belitte anyone's preference or skill set). The main reason the costs are so different is cost to get in the game. As previously discussed, HD DVDs can be made on modified DVD9 lines. Whereas Blu-rays need new/specialized lines which cost a bazillion dollars. As these costs are recouped, the gap will narrow -- though I suspect they will never be exactly the same price. I also suspect that market demand will effect pricing in the next 12 months -- supply and demand.

Numbers are used to put things in perspective. At this level of discussion, for 10 hours of program time BD has 40% more capacity. The 67% number is meaningless.
Yeah, but you're arbitrarily assigning 10 hours to 50GB and 6 hours to 30GB - which really makes your numbers meaningless. Raw storage is the only fair measure - both formats are capable of using the exact same compression schemes, so the only real difference is the storage capacity.

Again, math is not on your side here. 50 is 67% more than 30, no matter how you try to "cook the books."

They have a ongoing DVD replication business, so it would not make sense to install used modified equipment if their existing lines could be modified.
who said anything about used equipment, the hybrid dvd/hd dvd lines are being sold new. it's entirely possible his company bought one of these a while back and have now started to use it for hd dvd production. of course it's also possible he's just assuming re-tooling may have taken place, since that was one of the key arguments hd dvd extolled in their favour pre-launch. note that the poster in question doesn't sound particulary certain what is being done at his company - "You're talking to the monkey, not the organ grinder. But I expect that this is due to machinery costs."

He specifically said "equipment we already own." Seems pretty clear to me. They modified equipment that they owned already. I've never even heard of companies selling modified DVD lines - isn't the point of modification for those replicators that already have the DVD lines installed?
well, he said "modified equipment we already own", which is certainly ambiguous, though the second quote you found is not.

Doing a quick search through his posts, I found another mention (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=10132695&&#post10132695) of the modified lines.
missed that one, just saw the no porn, and the dual sided no no. it's unclear if the member is speaking from knowledge of the practice his company has carried out, or just of his expectation from the propaganda he's read. i'll pm him and see if he could talk to his replication department to find out if they have in fact modified their existing dvd lines to manufacture hd dvd also.

Yeah, but you're arbitrarily assigning 10 hours to 50GB and 6 hours to 30GB - which really makes your numbers meaningless. Raw storage is the only fair measure - both formats are capable of using the exact same compression schemes, so the only real difference is the storage capacity.

Again, math is not on your side here. 50 is 67% more than 30, no matter how you try to "cook the books."

Look, the problem is how these numbers are viewed. I know the % is correct for calculating the difference in size, but it doesn't tell you the difference in data recording capacity. So you take a standard, like a given number of hours of content and you will find HD holds 60 units, BD 100 units, a difference of 40 units, or 40%

It's like saying this gas tank is 60% larger than that one, when you really want to know what is the difference in gallons (liters)

Did you guys see the report of HD A2's being available for $349 on the shelf at Costco?

Costco online - Toshiba HD A2 available for $349 (http://www.costco.com/Browse/Product.aspx?Prodid=11175950&search=HD%20A2&Sp=S&Mo=42&cm_re=1-_-Top_Left_Nav-_-Top_search&Nr=P_CatalogName:BC&Ns=P_Price|1||P_SignDesc1&N=0&whse=BC&Dx=mode+matchallpartial&Ntk=All&Dr=P_CatalogName:BC&Ne=4000000&D=HD%20A2&Ntt=HD%20A2&No=13&Ntx=mode+matchallpartial&Nty=1&topnav=&s=1)


Don't forget, that also comes with 5 free movies from Toshiba. That's over a $150 value, so in reality, you're getting the player for less than $200.

Look, the problem is how these numbers are viewed. I know the % is correct for calculating the difference in size, but it doesn't tell you the difference in data recording capacity. So you take a standard, like a given number of hours of content and you will find HD holds 60 units, BD 100 units, a difference of 40 units, or 40%

It's like saying this gas tank is 60% larger than that one, when you really want to know what is the difference in gallons (liters)
Unless you're suggesting that HD DVD can hold more hours/GB than BD, you're wrong. You can't just attach arbitrary times to each disc's capacity and then use them to get to your 40%. It doesn't work that way. This is simple math and nothing more.

By the way, you might want to check your math, there. Even in your own example, 40 units does not equal 40%. 100 is 67% more than 60, not 40%. The method you're using to calculate the percentages is flawed and that's why you're coming to a flawed conclusion.

50-30=20 20/30=.67=67%
100-60-40 40/60=.67=67%

Look, the problem is how these numbers are viewed. I know the % is correct for calculating the difference in size, but it doesn't tell you the difference in data recording capacity. So you take a standard, like a given number of hours of content and you will find HD holds 60 units, BD 100 units, a difference of 40 units, or 40%
no, it is 40/60 which is 67%, division not subtraction is the operation here. bd holds 67% more data than hd, no mater how many times you multiply the capacities by various factors you will always come back to that.

50-30/50x100=40% I prefer my way of looking at it :)

Don't forget, that also comes with 5 free movies from Toshiba. That's over a $150 value, so in reality, you're getting the player for less than $200.

It's funny to me that people would even pay $349 when Amazon has be at $290 with the five movie deal and free shipping. I guess I just assumed if your buying HD, your probably used to net-shopping. Though IMO you can't subtract the full value price of the free disks from the player unless your selection was not restricted to a small pool of titles.

You kind of have to be a net-shopper anyway when you start buying movies if you want any selection.

50-30/50x100=40% I prefer my way of looking at it :)
Your way of looking at it is incorrect. The discussion is how much more can a BD-50 hold over an HD-30. The answer is 67%. Period.


What, exactly, are you hoping to calculate by taking the result of 50-30 (20) and dividing it by 50?

It's funny to me that people would even pay $349 when Amazon has be at $290 with the five movie deal and free shipping. I guess I just assumed if your buying HD, your probably used to net-shopping. Though IMO you can't subtract the full value price of the free disks from the player unless your selection was not restricted to a small pool of titles.

You kind of have to be a net-shopper anyway when you start buying movies if you want any selection. Impulse buying.

That's what membership stores and B & M stores do in general. I can touch it, I can read the box, I can take it home now.

I see it, I want it now.

Gee , its $349, but I get 5 free discs that's worth $150, so my real cost is only $199.

And that HD DVD player will go well with my my new HDTV I just bought here.



First format ot $199 players wins* (* 70% market share) ;)

50-30/50x100=40% I prefer my way of looking at it :)

There are three valid ways of looking at it:
1. How much larger is BD than HD-DVD? Answer: 67%
2. How much smaller is BD-DVD than BD? Answer: 40%
3. What is the percent difference in BD and HD-DVD capacity? Answer: 50%
( % diff is defined as (A-B)/((A+B)/2)*100 )

You cannot claim BD is 40% larger than HD-DVD, nor can you claim HD-DVD is 67% smaller than BD; both of these are mathematically erroneous statements.

Now can we put this to rest?

You are answering a format-wide question with an implementation specific answer. Later in your own post you admit to not having a deck capable of TrueHD/HDMI simply because you hope to save more money, not because the format isn't capable of it.

Context = My specific situation. There were no A2 available when I purchased the add-on. A1 was still $499 from VE, in fact with free shipping and 2 free movies IIRC.

I can get a dirt cheap price on a BDP-S1000 right now. $700 for a BDP-S1 from a quick search just now.

Impulse buying.


Hmm. I guess I've found it quite easy to impulse buy on the net, in fact too easy.

I don't have to drive to the store, pick up the box, stand in line, pull out my wallet and do the deed. It may sound like I'm just speaking of convenience, but all those steps have room for common sense to creep on in and make me chicken-out.

At home, at night, when I'm half asleep, and I log into a site that already has my credit info, it just requires the press of a button.

Hmm. I guess I've found it quite easy to impulse buy on the net, in fact too easy.

I don't have to drive to the store, pick up the box, stand in line, pull out my wallet and do the deed. It may sound like I'm just speaking of convenience, but all those steps have room for common sense to creep on in and make me chicken-out.

At home, at night, when I'm half asleep, and I log into a site that already has my credit info, it just requires the press of a button.

I never buy stuff like this in real stores.

There are three valid ways of looking at it:
1. How much larger is BD than HD-DVD? Answer: 67%
2. How much smaller is BD-DVD than BD? Answer: 40%
3. What is the percent difference in BD and HD-DVD capacity? Answer: 50%
( % diff is defined as (A-B)/((A+B)/2)*100 )

You cannot claim BD is 40% larger than HD-DVD, nor can you claim HD-DVD is 67% smaller than BD; both of these are mathematically erroneous statements.

Now can we put this to rest?
Um, I don't see how 2 or 3 can be correct. In fact, number 1 and 2 contradict each other.

For #2, HD DVD has 67% less capacity than BD. Not 40%. This is just another way of saying that BD has 67% more capacity than HD DVD.
For #3, it's not a 50% difference between BD's capacity and HD DVD's. The difference is 67%.

How can there be three different answers? This is math we're talking about. It's not fluid - it's rigid. 1 + 1 always equals 2. Phrase it any way you'd like and you still get the same answer.

I never buy stuff like this in real stores.



I would rather buy at a store, if it breaks, the return is simpler and faster. I don't want to be without a projector, or DVD player for 2-6weeks, or even longer.

I would rather buy at a store, if it breaks, the return is simpler and faster. I don't want to be without a projector, or DVD player for 2-6weeks, or even longer.

I meant the discs, not the hardware.

Nevermind then lol

I meant the discs, not the hardware.
Kosty was talking about hardware, not software. You responded to Timothy, who was responding to Kosty.

Kosty was talking about hardware, not software. You responded to Timothy, who was responding to Kosty.

You're right. My mistake.

However, I should add that I recently bought the Samsung BD-P1200 online.

Um, I don't see how 2 or 3 can be correct. In fact, number 1 and 2 contradict each other.
No they don't, read on.
For #2, HD DVD has 33% less capacity than BD. Not 40%. This is just another way of saying that BD has 67% more capacity than HD DVD.
No, when you say HD-DVD has X% less capacity than BD, you are specifying BD as the basis. That means that BD is considered to be 100%. Therefore, HD-DVD has 40% less capacity than BD, mathematically 100*(30-50)/50 = -40%, or 40% smaller.

When you say BD has X% more capacity than HD-DVD, your are specifying HD-DVD as the basis. That means that HD-DVD is considered to be 100%. Therefore, BD has 67% more capacity than BD, mathematically 100*(50-30)/30 = +67%, or 67% larger.

When you use percent difference you specify neither to be the basis, and you use an average.
How can there be three different answers? This is math we're talking about. It's not fluid - it's rigid. 1 + 1 always equals 2. Phrase it any way you'd like and you still get the same answer.
There aren't three different answers. There are three different questions, each assuming a different basis. The calculations aren't the source of the confusion, it is the way in which they are stated.

Think about this statement regarding buckets: "Bucket X holds 150% more than bucket Y." Does that mean Y contains 150% less than X? No, that is impossible because 100% less would be nothing.

Context = My specific situation. There were no A2 available when I purchased the add-on. A1 was still $499 from VE, in fact with free shipping and 2 free movies IIRC.

I can get a dirt cheap price on a BDP-S1000 right now. $700 for a BDP-S1 from a quick search just now.


OK, well you answered a question that was talking about the platform. Specifically orogogus said:


Indeed as would I, but with BD are you really getting the premium experience? Is the PQ better? AQ better? Interactive layer better? Price better? At best they are a wash, and in most cases worse than the cheaper alternative. Yes, you usually get what you pay for, but that doesn't mean that Porsches aren't overpriced to begin with.

Given his comments about what price you are choosing to pay, he is clearly not singling out specific hardware cases.

So your choice to not get lossless audio from HD DVD despite being able to do so for LESS money than a BD solution isn't exactly a good counter to the point he was making. As a matter of fact, I can't figure out what it is a good argument for, given lossless has been cheaper on HD DVD both in the A1 time frame as well as now.

So your choice to not get lossless audio from HD DVD despite being able to do so for LESS money than a BD solution isn't exactly a good counter to the point he was making. As a matter of fact, I can't figure out what it is a good argument for, given lossless has been cheaper on HD DVD both in the A1 time frame as well as now.


:confused: At the timeframe I purchased, a 20GB PS3 would have been the same price as an A1.

Yes, now I could get it cheaper on both sides. I'll bet my AVR is cheaper than when I bought it a couple months ago, too. I know my HDTV is. Nature of the beast...

My inclination is indeed to embrace lossless for HDDVD... I just don't want to experience some severe buyers remorse. Despite its flaws, I don't have any such remorse for my add-on, even if I am not satisfied with it as a long term HDDVD solution. Getting an A2 and seeing it a hundred dollars cheaper next month would not be a good experience, however.

However, I should add that I recently bought the Samsung BD-P1200 online.
Are you using HDMI for the audio? If so, how's the PCM output? I think I read on another thread that someone was having an issue with low output via PCM on that new player.

How do you like it overall? You upgraded from the first Sammy, right?