Format Battle General Discussion Thread II: Discuss it here!


This is a continuation of the original thread which starts here:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=9178015&&#post9178015

The original thread had 212 pages/6334 posts, and nealy 150,000 views


This thread is intended for general discussions of the format battle


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Please keep the discussions civil and technical in nature

The insight of some posters who tend to ignore serious short comings of one format that is pervasive is amazing. I love movies on Blu-ray but I am not blind to its disappointments. Maybe we should take a step back and list 10 things wrong with our favorite format rather than shoot down the other guys.

I'll start. I personally favor HD DVD over Blu-ray because I tend to think it has more modern implementation of software and I also like the underdogs. If I had to list 10 things wrong with HD DVD, they would be

1. Lack of studio support from Disney, Fox, Sony, and Lionsgate
2. Some poorly mastered early titles from Warner
3. Higher priced combo titles
4. Lack of artworks on combo titles
5. Lack of lossless audio on many titles
6. Slow response of 1G players
7. Lack of 1080P24 output
8. Audio pitch problems with some Studio Canal discs
9. Lack of anamorphic enhancement of 480i supplement contents
10. Poor advertising and promotion from the HD DVD group

These are just some thoughts I have.

There is considerable discussion about such things as codecs, layer changes, gb, compression, lossless audio, etc. as though they greatly impact the format battle.
Perhaps for the posters of this forum's alternate universe that's true, but for the rest of the world it isn't. It's a plug and play globe out there my friends. I would bet that most DVD players are still connected directly to tvs by composite audio/video cables ( you know those red and white and yellow ones). Toslink to most people implies some kind of breakfast sausage, and coaxial probably relates to an 18 wheeler.

All people want is to buy these devices cheaply (machines and media), plug them in and have them work reliable--pretty much every time.

They really don't care if it's called BD or HD.

The want it cheap. They want lots of disks available on the cheap. And if the machines have the funcionality problems describes herein, god help the guys behind the return counter at Wal-mart.

So price does matter. Available titles does matter. See, both sides are right. Whichever side accomplishes both of these first wins. Oversimplistic? Maybe, maybe not.

P.S.- this in no ways denigrates the enthusiast/early adopter. Without them these things would never get off the ground. ;)

Alternatively: "Blu-ray! The longer you wait, the better it gets."

Who could argue that isn't truth in advertizing?


I see, so that must be why they set the bar so low; genius. ;)

From 1080please,

This just makes me pissed even more at Warners for not just getting their crap together and release those Hdi HD DVD's already, Why the heck are they waiting for this half baked format to have their product finished before we HD DVD buyers can enjoy their releases!
Too bad If the Blu-Ray crowd whine about it!, so let them wait another year along with "Batman Begins".
The HD DVD's are ready to be played so lets roll them out A.S.A.P!
I agree. It's weird, especially since it looks like BD-j might be further delayed. Can't help but wonder if there isn't an ulterior motive, here.

1. Lack of studio support from Disney, Fox, Sony, and Weinstein
2. Some poorly mastered early titles from Warner
3. Higher priced combo titles
4. Lack of artworks on combo titles
5. Lack of lossless audio on many titles
6. Slow response of 1G players
7. Lack of 1080P24 output
8. Audio pitch problems with some Studio Canal discs
9. Lack of anamorphic enhancement of 480i supplement contents
10. Poor advertising and promotion from the HD DVD group

I guess my reaction to your list is that these are arbitrary issues not inherent to the medium itself. It's hard for me to imagine that you really favor the format if things like their ad campaigns and, artwork on combo titles, and the audio pitch of a handful of PAL converted imports are a real burr under the saddle.

Slow response on the A1 I'll give ya, quite frankly I'm amazed by those gutsy (or foolhardy) enough to buy first generation anything over $150, especially when you all knew each camp was rushing like crazy to get their piggies to market. The lossless audio? Man, there's no way I could hear a difference, it seems like more of a difference you see on the box than hear through your speakers.

The insight of some posters who tend to ignore serious short comings of one format that is pervasive is amazing. I love movies on Blu-ray but I am not blind to its disappointments. Maybe we should take a step back and list 10 things wrong with our favorite format rather than shoot down the other guys.

I'll start. I personally favor HD DVD over Blu-ray because I tend to think it has more modern implementation of software and I also like the underdogs. If I had to list 10 things wrong with HD DVD, they would be

1. Lack of studio support from Disney, Fox, Sony, and Weinstein
2. Some poorly mastered early titles from Warner
3. Higher priced combo titles
4. Lack of artworks on combo titles
5. Lack of lossless audio on many titles
6. Slow response of 1G players
7. Lack of 1080P24 output
8. Audio pitch problems with some Studio Canal discs
9. Lack of anamorphic enhancement of 480i supplement contents
10. Poor advertising and promotion from the HD DVD group
I'm in.

Blu-ray:

1. Expensive players (better margin, smart strategy for retailers; bad for consumers)
2. Some poorly mastered early titles, period
3. No BD-j (minor to me, but a shortcoming that has halted releases)
4. PS3, SD scaling and possible 3:2 pulldown issues
5. Only one, expensive player with 1080p24
6. Lies and spin from Sony
7. Possible PS3 HDCP handshake issues
8. Too few BD50s
9. Crappy name relative to HD DVD
10. Lacking support from one studio ;)

I agree. It's weird, especially since it looks like BD-j might be further delayed. Can't help but wonder if there isn't an ulterior motive, here.

I think they are still trying to grapple with the economics of "Total HD" more than they're worried about offending BD support. If that were the case they would be doing more catch-up with the current HD DVD only releases.

I think we all read way too much into the languid pace at which studios are handling all this HD stuff. Because were sweating it out, convinced that every minute that goes by is crucial to outcomes, doesn't mean that they are too; and they are the ones with the real power in this game.

Remember, they were promised a certain level of HD penetration that has not come to pass. Their initial releases were done somewhat in blind faith. Now they probably figure "both camps have 150+ titles to sell new players with, if they can't bring the numbers up, why should we bail them out?" It's no skin off their nose if it forces Sony and Toshiba have to engage in a price war that puts more players in more homes.

I'm in.

Blu-ray:

1. Expensive players (better margin, smart strategy for retailers; bad for consumers)
2. Some poorly mastered early titles, period
3. No BD-j (minor to me, but a shortcoming that has halted releases)
4. PS3, SD scaling and possible 3:2 pulldown issues
5. Only one, expensive player with 1080p24
6. Lies and spin from Sony
7. Possible PS3 HDCP handshake issues
8. Too few BD50s
9. Crappy name relative to HD DVD
10. Lacking support from one studio ;)

I'm so proud of you :)

In what alternate universe is it correct to say "Blu-Ray has no BD-J"?

Why the heck are they waiting for this half baked format...No, the correct question is: Why is Warner screwing over BD customers by limiting some of their BD releases to the bandwidth and capacity barriers of the lesser format?

I'll start. I personally favor HD DVD over Blu-ray because I tend to think it has more modern implementation of software and I also like the underdogs.



The underdog reason is cool, but Blu-Ray has support for VC-1 and AVC is a new codec. As far as the software that the format can support, HD DVD and Blu-Ray are equal.

Maybe you're are assuming the efficiency of VC-1 is what makes VC-1 more 'modern'. When you here people say 'A' encoder is more efficient than 'B' encoder, it doesn't mean the encoder is better; it's more efficient at showing the same image at a lesser cost (size or bitrate). I know in this day and age the word 'efficient' is ubiquitous. Everybody wants more energy efficient cars, houses ,etc, etc. We don't need super efficient codecs when we have discs that can store 50 GB to 1 TB (HVD) and have max transfer rates of 48 Mbits to 1 Gbits (HVD). I understand the argument of eventually distributing these transfers over the internet and keeping sizes/bitrates near what can be handled today, but does anyone think the limiting factor of bandwidth will remain an issue forever?

I believe we'll eventually get to a internet VOD system only, but we are probably 10 years away. Everyone will have to be able to download movies in a reasonable amount of time for mass adoption. Movies consumers live in some small towns. The people with the cheapest internet connections will probably be the largest group of consumers of internet VOD.

I guess if I'm still mostly format neutral I should rant against both sides:

1) Expensive discs
2) Expensive players
3) PC playback still very limited
4) Requires HDMI and other weird, expensive, but ineffective copy protection for assurance of future play at full rez.
5) Looming advent of ICT
6) Many discs not really mastered to get full HD detail
7) No easy inexpensive way to get full digital audio capabilities off the discs.
8) No assurance of what, if anything, will be said in final AACS agreement and how that will affect future playback.
9) No full end to end 1080p chain in most players and TV's so far.
10) Endless bickering format war mostly over IP rights and control of otherwise trivial differences has delayed and imperiled adoption.

There, I feel better now. ;)

- Tom

Discs prices aren't so bad except for Fox on the BD side and Combos on the HDDVD side (though for the combos I also avoid them because they're flippers :mad: ). Until the Amazon sale, that is, I had several titles I wanted that I was avoiding...

I believe we'll eventually get to a internet VOD system only, but we are probably 10 years away. Everyone will have to be able to download movies in a reasonable amount of time for mass adoption. Movies consumers live in some small towns. The people with the cheapest internet connections will probably be the largest group of consumers of internet VOD.

This just isn't going to trump all pressed media, because it has some major setbacks.

The biggest one is economics. I can buy a $40 DVD player, and boom I'm able to buy $8 - $15 DVDs. My yearly income can be well under middle class, yet DVD is still an affordable set-up and I'm part of your buyer base. Not so if need a computer with a butload of power, a burner, and the blanks that I'd need to download a movie. That's a middle-class, under the age of 40 investment.

If ultra cheapo labels can turn a profit on $1-$5 DVDs that tells me that production cost of pressed media must now be tremendously low, so how much of the buying public will studios be willing to shove out of the ring for the savings they pick-up on download-only sales? Besides, DVR is already providing much of this service for many.

Also how do studios market this media with no point-of-purchase sales? TV commercials cost a fortune, and the net is so vast nobody will find you unless they want to, or appreciate "spam-like" methods of advertising.

People like myself also take a rather dim view of burned media's lack of stability.

It's a cute trick for the studios to make us be millions of little factories, but as I have said before, a download doesn't look very impressive under the Christmas tree.

I guess if I'm still mostly format neutral I should rant against both sides:

1) Expensive discs
2) Expensive players
3) PC playback still very limited
4) Requires HDMI and other weird, expensive, but ineffective copy protection for assurance of future play at full rez.
5) Looming advent of ICT
6) Many discs not really mastered to get full HD detail
7) No easy inexpensive way to get full digital audio capabilities off the discs.
8) No assurance of what, if anything, will be said in final AACS agreement and how that will affect future playback.
9) No full end to end 1080p chain in most players and TV's so far.
10) Endless bickering format war mostly over IP rights and control of otherwise trivial differences has delayed and imperiled adoption.

There, I feel better now. ;)

- Tom

I don't, I'm going DVD the wave of the future! :D

Seriously though, I gotta wonder if the red-laser solutions were such a bad idea after-all. Would upconverted 720p look that much different than what were seeing now? Can you imagine how well an HD format who's players were $200 list out of the gate would have sold?

Just being a devil's advocate here.

I think we all read way too much into the languid pace at which studios are handling all this HD stuff. Because were sweating it out, convinced that every minute that goes by is crucial to outcomes, doesn't mean that they are too.....

This should be stickied, IMO.

I don't, I'm going DVD the wave of the future! :D

Seriously though, I gotta wonder if the red-laser solutions were such a bad idea after-all. Would upconverted 720p look that much different than what were seeing now? Can you imagine how well an HD format who's players were $200 list out of the gate would have sold?



Dunno. Has anyone compared the PQ of the red laser WMV/HD (not 720p) version of T2 to the BD version? That should pretty much show up if anything was lost.

- Tom

Dunno. Has anyone compared the PQ of the red laser WMV/HD (not 720p) version of T2 to the BD version? That should pretty much show up if anything was lost.

- Tom

Actually, the WMV/HD T2 version is sharper than the BR version, but it's not a surprise. The first BR titles were just awful.

The European T2 HD-DVD will be out soon, I would wager that it will easily beat the WMV/HD version, and leave the BR one in the dust.

In what alternate universe is it correct to say "Blu-Ray has no BD-J"?

No, the correct question is: Why is Warner screwing over BD customers by limiting some of their BD releases to the bandwidth and capacity barriers of the lesser format?
Good then we can account you as agreeing with me that Warner should just release all the held back HDi movies on HD DVD A.S.A.P.
I mean why should a BD fan want an "inferior" release right?
You and all BD buyers should just stop whining about Warners releasing titles than and stop buying their titles in protest.
You may also want to stop buying Fox titles as well if they don't start paying better attention to the quality of the transfers they put out, since 90% of them have been less than stellar releases.

Come on Warners get those HD DVD titles out, the BD fans said they'll wait.
"Batman Begins" and "V for Vendetta" were awesome releases!! Bring on "The Matrix"! with that great PQ, TrueHD!! and great interactive content.

Good then we can account you as agreeing with me that Warner should just release all the held back HDi movies on HD DVD A.S.A.P.

yes as well as BD. But I think you are wrong on why they are held back. And the reason is to sell them on HDi. It hurts the numbers doing two formats. It makes it harder to release X sold Y copies because 2y/3 are BD and y/3=HD DVD

The $599 player will be a new model with exactly the same features, plus CD playback capability.

Any word on profile capability?

I'm so proud of you :)
Shut up! :p

:)

This should be stickied, IMO.
That was a pretty good one.

Exactly how well do these $600-1500 BD players play the simple CDS?
I'm looking at going format neutral, but I hate my A1, it plays cds pretty well though....... any suggestions on a great BD player at even $15000.00 that plays cds well?

Thanks for the insight!!

Exactly how well do these $600-1500 BD players play the simple CDS?
I'm looking at going format neutral, but I hate my A1, it plays cds pretty well though....... any suggestions on a great BD player at even $15000.00 that plays cds well?

Thanks for the insight!!

I'll sell you a BD player for $15,000.00 that plays CD's really well. Heck, for $15,000 ... I'll even swap discs for you. ;)

In what alternate universe is it correct to say "Blu-Ray has no BD-J"?

No, the correct question is: Why is Warner screwing over BD customers by limiting some of their BD releases to the bandwidth and capacity barriers of the lesser format?


Load of crud. The real question...why on earth are so many studios picking a format that is incomplete and not fully functional?

Load of crud. The real question...why on earth are so many studios picking a format that is incomplete and not fully functional?Easy there! That format will be complete and fully functional ... someday (well, maybe). :p

Load of crud. The real question...why on earth are so many studios picking a format that is incomplete and not fully functional?

Short answer; Greed. They were promised that PS3 was going to make a mega-hit out of BD and vice-versa, along with silly claims that BD could better protect content. Electronics manufactures were promised they would have a new medium, which would put the profit back in player production.

If HD DVD dries up and blows away tomorrow, it won't change the fact that most of the studio's backing BD was and is the wrong choice for the longevity and expedient profitability of HD media. The economics of HD DVD are more sound in a market where very gradual adoption appears be in the cards.

Load of crud. The real question...why on earth are so many studios picking a format that is incomplete and not fully functional?
What?? I've watched many Blu-ray movies and have not missed a thing. Excellent picture and excellent sound. What is incomplete and not fully functional that apparently impairs on my movie watching experience? Please enligthen me!

PS. Mods: Could you "un-sticky" the old thread and "sticky" this one?

What?? I've watched many Blu-ray movies and have not missed a thing. Excellent picture and excellent sound. What is incomplete and not fully functional that apparently impairs on my movie watching experience? Please enligthen me!
I'll give you one, lack of working PIP commentary similar to IME or U-Control on HD DVD.

While watching Constantine on HD DVD, one of the most interesting part was being able to switch to PIP comentaries on the fly on how they did the special effects, bringing comics to movies, comparison between the graphic novel and the movie characters, etc.

Current iteration of BD-J does not have this capability. Pseudo PIP that Lionsgate included in Crank and Descent is of no use unless you want to watch the entire movie with the PIP window. That's because when you are in PIP version of the movie, the menu button is disabled. You are able to chapter skip but to get to the version of the movie without PIP, you have to restart the entire movie from the beginning and chapter skip to where you were. With HD DVD, it's just a matter of turning PIP on or off.

What?? I've watched many Blu-ray movies and have not missed a thing. Excellent picture and excellent sound. What is incomplete and not fully functional that apparently impairs on my movie watching experience? Please enligthen me!

PS. Mods: Could you "un-sticky" the old thread and "sticky" this one?

No need. Nilsp...I didn't say blu-rays were not working. I said that blu-ray capabilites are not all there yet...in other words...the format is not fully functional. At least that is the impression I am getting from the threads I read. I keep hearing about how the capabilties of the features in the blu-ray format are not up to par because they are all waiting for some sort of BD-live update while HD-DVD has all the tools in tact. Never said anything about playback.

I'll give you one, lack of working PIP commentary similar to IME or U-Control on HD DVD.

While watching Constantine on HD DVD, one of the most interesting part was being able to switch to PIP comentaries on the fly on how they did the special effects, bringing comics to movies, comparison between the graphic novel and the movie characters, etc.

Current iteration of BD-J does not have this capability. Pseudo PIP that Lionsgate included in Crank and Descent is of no use unless you want to watch the entire movie with the PIP window. That's because when you are in PIP version of the movie, the menu button is disabled. You are able to chapter skip but to get to the version of the movie without PIP, you have to restart the entire movie from the beginning and chapter skip to where you were. With HD DVD, it's just a matter of turning PIP on or off.
Sure, PIP is currently superior on HD DVD. However, I've not missed it at all. I just don't have the time to watch all the extras, or even any of it. I've got a harddrive full of all kinds of Sci-Fi tv series that I have not watched. So much content, so little time.

Sorry, for me PIP is totally irrelevant, although I willingly admit it is a cool feature. But as mentioned, haven't missed it. PQ/AQ. Simple as that. YMMV.

I think we all read way too much into the languid pace at which studios are handling all this HD stuff. Because were sweating it out, convinced that every minute that goes by is crucial to outcomes, doesn't mean that they are too; and they are the ones with the real power in this game.I think I saw everyone at the beach yesterday and the day before having fun, enjoying life. :)

No need. Nilsp...I didn't say blu-rays were not working. I said that blu-ray capabilites are not all there yet...in other words...the format is not fully functional. At least that is the impression I am getting from the threads I read. I keep hearing about how the capabilties of the features in the blu-ray format are not up to par because they are all waiting for some sort of BD-live update while HD-DVD has all the tools in tact. Never said anything about playback.Ah, get it. So you're saying there is still lots of potential in Blu-ray and HD DVD is already maxed out?? ;)

Kidding aside, sure, there are still a few kinks to work out. Thing is, for most people, I don't think it will matter in their movie watching experience. If you want fantastic picture quality, to match your brand new projector or plasma, you can get it today (from either camp).

Of course, we're still talking ridiculously small numbers of discs sold (http://www.videobusiness.com/article/CA6422898.html). By the time the numbers start to mean something, I expect the Blu-ray engine to finally be firing on all cylinders.

I'm not going to say that it's a great thing that BD-j is not, yet fully supported, BUT...

the fact remains that out of hundreds and hundreds of DVDs, I can count on one hand, the number of times I have given a flying shite about extras. And I suspect I'm in the major majority. It's FARRRR from any kind of deal breaker, I bet for probably 99% of potential HD consumers.

Put it this way:

When you read (O.K., if you read ;)) a novel, do you continually flip back to the publication page or, perhaps the forward to get continual insight as to what so and so thinks about the story or whatever. Or perhaps there's a bibliography. Oh what fun to interrupt the fantasy of being lost in the story so you can find out who's idea it was that the character make a certain, whimsical remark. Woohoo.

I'm sure this issue is important to some of you HD DVD supporters, but if you really think it carries loads of weight (like anything over half an ounce) in this format war, I think you are... mistaken. :)

... Thing is, for most people, I don't think it will matter in their movie watching experience.If most people don't care, why do they try to include it so often? Or delay releases while trying to get it added? ;)

I do think it's kind of funny when people tout the "superiority" of a format because of storage and bandwidth, and how it will provide more extras and/or interactivity...except when the hardware and interactivity layers for that format aren't there yet... then, of course, extra's and PiP interactivity aren't really that important. ;)

If most people don't care, why do they try to include it so often? Or delay releases while trying to get it added? ;)
Well that's the $64 question, isn't it. Possibly to covertly kill HD DVD? ;)

Honestly, there are really few, good reasons for delaying the HD DVD releases.

1. Because they, at least have interest in the survivability of Blu-ray or...

2. They care more about Blu-ray and not so much about HD DVD supporters or...

3. They want HD DVD to go away.

This is not an attempt to upset anyone in the HD DVD camp; merely an observation coupled with speculation. Maybe you have a better notion of why this is.

I do think it's kind of funny when people tout the "superiority" of a format because of storage and bandwidth, and how it will provide more extras and/or interactivity...except when the hardware and interactivity layers for that format aren't there yet... then, of course, extra's and PiP interactivity aren't really that important. ;)
Well, I don't know who said that, but it certainly wasn't me.

Storage and bandwidth, yes. Make the movies as clean as possible with the best sound possible. Put ALL the freakin' extras on a second disc, AFAIC!

Well, I don't know who said that, but it certainly wasn't me.

Storage and bandwidth, yes. Make the movies as clean as possible with the best sound possible. Put ALL the freakin' extras on a second disc, AFAIC!


But thats my point. How can you call it superior when it isn't completely working?!? Furthermore, when it does finally work it will be no different that what HD-DVD is doing now. So again....how is this format "really" superior?

Oh another thing.....why put all the extras on a second disc? I thought part of the blu-ray pitch was that it had more storage space and what not. So why bother with the seocnd disc?

But thats my point. How can you call it superior when it isn't completely working?!? Furthermore, when it does finally work it will be no different that what HD-DVD is doing now. So again....how is this format "really" superior?

Oh another thing.....why put all the extras on a second disc? I thought part of the blu-ray pitch was that it had more storage space and what not. So why bother with the seocnd disc?
O.K., I never said any of this.

1. Never said it was superior. Perhaps someone else did. Technically, BD is presently inferior, though mainly in the extras arena which is of VERY little consequence to consumers. Of course that doesn't diminish the fact that Blu-ray is more poised to win this war than it's competitor.

2. Second disc idea is JMO. Just that much more room and less compression for ANY format. READ MY LIPS... I DON'T GIVE A $HIT ABOUT EXTRAS!!!... and I suspect I'm FAR from alone.

Well that's the $64 question, isn't it. Possibly to covertly kill HD DVD? ;)

Honestly, there are really few, good reasons for delaying the HD DVD releases.

1. Because they, at least have interest in the survivability of Blu-ray or...

2. They care more about Blu-ray and not so much about HD DVD supporters or...

3. They want HD DVD to go away.

This is not an attempt to upset anyone in the HD DVD camp; merely an observation coupled with speculation. Maybe you have a better notion of why this is.


It could be something as prosaic as relative single-unit distribution costs between low and high volume shipments. Isn't the bottom line, what really drives day-and-date simultaneous releases?

Clearly, a great deal of expensive marketing research indicated that average consumers care about added value interactive content, or the CEs and studios wouldn't be so bloody hell bent on providing it.

It could be something as prosaic as relative single-unit distribution costs between low and high volume shipments. Isn't the bottom line, what really drives day-and-date simultaneous releases?

Clearly, a great deal of expensive marketing research indicated that average consumers care about added value interactive content, or the CEs and studios wouldn't be so bloody hell bent on providing it.
I guess.

I guess.

That's all any of us are really doing......... ;)

Clearly, a great deal of expensive marketing research indicated that average consumers care about added value interactive content, or the CEs and studios wouldn't be so bloody hell bent on providing it.I agree. Even if people don't watch it (I'm not saying that don't though), the studios must think that the extras help to sell discs (maybe by being able to list them on the back). The reality is that they are going to put this stuff on discs, so even if a person doesn't care about having extras on there, they should care about the ability to put them on there without affecting things they do care about. Just like I don't care about getting French or Spanish tracks on releases I buy, but care that they can be put on there without affecting the things I want for myself. Extras being mostly SD should go away with these formats with time and the percentage that are HD should go up significantly if either format sticks around.

--Darin

Clearly, a great deal of expensive marketing research indicated that average consumers care about added value interactive content, or the CEs and studios wouldn't be so bloody hell bent on providing it.


It's not my thing either, but I gotta say Emperor BD has no clothes if it's coming down to supporters insisting the extra gig is needed for extras one day, but nobody really wants them the next.

I also think it's funny that pound for pound on DVD Fox and Sony are known for higher prices and lower frills. Again, if this is how they treat you when they need your support, how will it go when they think they have it sewn up?

Competition rules :D

I do think it's kind of funny when people tout the "superiority" of a format because of storage and bandwidth, and how it will provide more extras and/or interactivity...except when the hardware and interactivity layers for that format aren't there yet... then, of course, extra's and PiP interactivity aren't really that important. ;)You can stop at higher storage and bandwidth, 'nuff said.

I'm in.

Blu-ray:

1. Expensive players (better margin, smart strategy for retailers; bad for consumers)
2. Some poorly mastered early titles, period
3. No BD-j (minor to me, but a shortcoming that has halted releases)
4. PS3, SD scaling and possible 3:2 pulldown issues
5. Only one, expensive player with 1080p24
6. Lies and spin from Sony
7. Possible PS3 HDCP handshake issues
8. Too few BD50s
9. Crappy name relative to HD DVD
10. Lacking support from one studio ;)

Sketcha and xradman, you're both stand up guys.

One correction for you. There are two BD players that do 1080p24, the Sony and the Pioneer (both of which use the Sigma chip and are made by Pioneer, if I understand correctly).

One question for you. When you say poorly mastered early titles, can you provide a cut off date for early?

I haven't been to a used DVD store in a few months, but I went to one (CD MAX) today and holly-crap did they have a lot of used BD and HD DVD titles. They had about a 25-30% more used BD, but the sections were at least half as large as new HD sections are at Best Buy.

I was surprised.

Clearly, a great deal of expensive marketing research indicated that average consumers care about added value interactive content, or the CEs and studios wouldn't be so bloody hell bent on providing it.
I sense a lot of ego floating around there, so it could be self-indulgence.

Clearly, a great deal of expensive marketing research indicated that average consumers care about added value interactive content, or the CEs and studios wouldn't be so bloody hell bent on providing it.I bet a lot of marketing research also said the average consumer wants one AND ONLY ONE format. But the CEs and studios sure are hell bent on providing two.

Well, it looks like some of our friends in Europe are glad there is a choice, and if the BD studios don't smarten up it won't be them. Unlikely they will unlock the players.

One correction for you. There are two BD players that do 1080p24, the Sony and the Pioneer (both of which use the Sigma chip and are made by Pioneer, if I understand correctly).
"I did not know that. That's weird, wild stuff."

One question for you. When you say poorly mastered early titles, can you provide a cut off date for early?
Nope. I would have to guess pretty darn early. How's that? :)

I bugged out for awhile back then. Seemed like things began to clear up within a few months, but I would be guessing. An example, off the top of my head would be T2. Seems like 5th Element was not great either. I'm sure just about anyone else is more of an expert than I. I'm just going off my poor memory.

Why? Am I wrong? Might be the first time!!! :)


EDIT: Also bear in mind that I was making an attempt at finding 10 things wrong with Blu-ray! No easy task, IMO. Maybe I was reaching a bit there. ;)

Actually, to be honest, though I can't give you time frames, I can tell you that I do remember the situation pretty clearly. The poor, early transfers are what sparked the whole codec debate which rages on, today.

Fortunately it wasn't too long before VC-1 was found not to be so superior as it was claimed to be back in those good ol', glory days of HD DVD.

I sense a lot of ego floating around there, so it could be self-indulgence.

The "potential" ( gotta love it ) creative uses of expandable persistent storage and a broadband connection could be intriguing, and will have to be, if the studios expect to exploit these features as new avenues for revenue.

Awww, what happened to the "DVDEmpire: HD DVD outsells BD in March" thread?
The Records Department in the Ministry of Truth has determined that it was necessary to scrape clean our history and reinscribe it exactly as they believed it should have happened :)

Sure, PIP is currently superior on HD DVD. However, I've not missed it at all. I just don't have the time to watch all the extras, or even any of it. I've got a harddrive full of all kinds of Sci-Fi tv series that I have not watched. So much content, so little time.

Sorry, for me PIP is totally irrelevant, although I willingly admit it is a cool feature. But as mentioned, haven't missed it. PQ/AQ. Simple as that. YMMV.

Guess I'm not a hardcore enthusist, as I'm the same way. I just watch the movies. I would't bother with the PIP if it was there, nor the extras, which were always included even in dvds.

The only kinda things I like is extra footage and alternate endings.

The interactivity thing is completely bizarre to me. As far as I know, I am not alone in saying that I am not against interactivity as long as it is unobstrusive and I can have a setting to turn off any weird behavior in the player.

Yet everyone seems hell bent to give us these pop up things.

I am not against these things as I can appreciate some people must clearly want it. My first experience with it was Phantom of the Opera's popup menu (HD DVD). PotO suffers from an extremely low volume setting and I have to set the volume on my AVR really high. What happened next seemed like a page from a slapstick comedy. Everyone in the house jumped when I pressed the popup menu button and this loud screeching noise came on.

It was an unbelievable intro to the world of interactivity.

I look at interactivity as a waste of good programming effort, driven by studios who feel they have to make their movies better than the movies themselves in order to convince people to buy highdef disks over normal disks.

I think they forget that the most valuable thing in the disk is actually the movie experience itself, and if their market research is showing them otherwise, then I'd like to draw their attention to Ford's well funded market research that told them the whole world wants a single manual sliding door on their minivans.

-----

If I really like the movie, the history and cinemetography details and cast bios are nice to haves, as are "The making of featurettes". Unfortunately, the extra footage usually are in SD and that ruins the experience --- watching DV footage after BD is is very depressing.

Actually, I can get better content from imdb, so if they have an internet connection, then downloading extras from imdb is not a bad thing.

I do wonder though if the internet connection to the player allows the studios to collect information on all the disks you watch, there's laws against those things right?

Awww, what happened to the "DVDEmpire: HD DVD outsells BD in March" thread?Yeah? I thought HD DVD was leading because of the adult titles. Or are those titles not counted in the ratio? I thought DVD Empire might be the one place where the impact of adult HD DVDs could be measured considering how much their sales gap closed at the end of February.

Yeah? I thought HD DVD was leading because of the adult titles. Or are those titles not counted in the ratio? I thought DVD Empire might be the one place where the impact of adult HD DVDs could be measured considering how much their sales gap closed at the end of February.It looks to me like it was probably an error and HD DVD was never leading for the week starting March 6th. Otherwise the current numbers for the week and month don't make much sense. In other words, if HD DVD had been leading by as much as was listed before for both week and month and then "Casino Royale" shot Blu-ray back to about 60%, I would expect the week and month numbers to be further apart right now.

--Darin

I'm not sure why that one got deleted, but it does seem like something should happen with the thread titled, "51GB HD-DVD is Official Now!" to at least fix the title. Toshiba says that it hasn't been submitted.

--Darin

O.K., I never said any of this.

1. Never said it was superior. Perhaps someone else did. Technically, BD is presently inferior, though mainly in the extras arena which is of VERY little consequence to consumers. Of course that doesn't diminish the fact that Blu-ray is more poised to win this war than it's competitor.

2. Second disc idea is JMO. Just that much more room and less compression for ANY format. READ MY LIPS... I DON'T GIVE A $HIT ABOUT EXTRAS!!!... and I suspect I'm FAR from alone.


1. I never said you said anything. You responded to the guy about the comment he made on superiority. Pay attention to your conversations.

2. People love extras. They may not watch them each and every single time they watch theactual movie....but it is always nice to have them sooo....you are not far from alone...you are more like...FAR and ALONE. (Just messin with ya on that last line by the way.. :D )

I do think it's kind of funny when people tout the "superiority" of a format because of storage and bandwidth, and how it will provide more extras and/or interactivity...except when the hardware and interactivity layers for that format aren't there yet... then, of course, extra's and PiP interactivity aren't really that important.
because BD does have interactivity.

LoEG has a first person shooter (game where you are part of the movie)
can't remember the movie, has a question and answer game
RE:A has dynamic branching so you can pick if you want one or all of the "how did they do this" or deleted scenes to be integrated into the movie..... you can also pick (if I remember correctly) if it plays them or asks you with a pop up.

to me deciding when to turn the PiP on and off because I am either bored from the movie or from the commentaries does not even come close to what I would call interactivity.

But because HD DVD fanboys have nothing. It is all about PiP.

Can you tell me this does any HD DVD have a game where you interact with what is on the screen?

1. I never said you said anything. You responded to the guy about the comment he made on superiority. Pay attention to your conversations.
First off, I don't like your tone. Second, you DID say that...


Originally Posted by FatiusJeebs
But thats my point. How can you call it superior when it isn't completely working?!?
I believe it is YOU who need to pay closer attention. Respond to whomever said that, if you want. That or keep your words in the proper syntax. When you quote someone in the manner in which you did and then, immediately use the word "you," you are speaking to the person of whom you just quoted. You might try something like "How can some Blu-ray supporters..."

Naming the guy with whom you are referring wouldn't be a bad idea either.

2. People love extras. They may not watch them each and every single time they watch theactual movie....but it is always nice to have them sooo....you are not far from alone...you are more like...FAR and ALONE. (Just messin with ya on that last line by the way.. :D )
Now your qualification here, does much to put the tone back on track. Nice work. ;)

I've actually put some more thought to this today. I remember an article, some time ago that spoke of the studios needing to put more extras on DVDs so the consumer would feel more justified in buying DVD over VHS. Now my bet is that, in the early days of DVD, the folks may have been more fascinated with all the bells and whistles; they may have, on average, viewed those extras in much greater frequency than they do now. In the micro, I can say this for myself and I'll bet that honest AVS members would admit the same.

So the studios got the message. There may be a similar message now that extras have found a new form. The early adopters may be more likely to take advantage of this than those at the end, the J6Ps, the Laggards, what have you.

So I'm going to say that maybe, in the early stages, there may be some added demand for BD-j.

HOWEVER...

How many early adopters of HD optical, besides those on forums like AVS, are even aware of these fancy new abilites or lack of? I bet not many. Certainly not enough to make a dent in the format war.

But I guess we'll see. If Blu-ray continues it's roll, despite it's lack of the all important BD-j, then I guess the people have greater interests in mind...

like content.


Disclaimer: "content" = not quantity, but higher quality; more blockbusters, Oscar winners, etc.

I'm not sure why that one got deleted, but it does seem like something should happen with the thread titled, "51GB HD-DVD is Official Now!" to at least fix the title. Toshiba says that it hasn't been submitted.

--Darin
Agreed. If one erroneous topic is deleted for misinformation, the other should be as well. Of course, there are many other examples scattered throughout the forums if so - I'm curious as to why this particular thread was deleted rather than renamed.

I suppose the exceptions I make to extras are those which are features in and of themselves. I have bought at least a half-dozen DVDs just to snag a cartoon or short-subject slapped on as an extra, I like trailers too.

However making-of behind-the-scenes stuff you can keep because IMO it's a boring waste of my time. People seldom talk candidly in these puff-pieces, and one shot of someone in front of blue-screen, or cast-members cracking each-other up, or actors running on at the mouth about what a treat it is to work with so-and-so are interchangeable. It's people doing their jobs, and it's pretty much the same jobs from film to film.

I don't need to see in the kitchen of every restaurant I eat at, and I wouldn't want to if I could.

I suppose the exceptions I make to extras are those which are features in and of themselves. I have bought at least a half-dozen DVDs just to snag a cartoon or short-subject slapped on as an extra, I like trailers too.

However making-of behind-the-scenes stuff you can keep because IMO it's a boring waste of my time. People seldom talk candidly in these puff-pieces, and one shot of someone in front of blue-screen, or cast-members cracking each-other up, or actors running on at the mouth about what a treat it is to work with so-and-so are interchangeable. It's people doing their jobs, and it's pretty much the same jobs from film to film.

I don't need to see in the kitchen of every restaurant I eat at, and I wouldn't want to if I could.

Agree even if i like extras, there is alot of extra that doesnt impress me. But i like when they release an old movie with new material. Like the DVD version of Robin Hood (Errol Flynn) and commenteries track on classic movies like Alien.

But the promotionmaterial is not intresting exept for the trailers (To bad the trailers are better then the movies)

Agree even if i like extras, there is alot of extra that doesnt impress me. But i like when they release an old movie with new material. Like the DVD version of Robin Hood (Errol Flynn) and commenteries track on classic movies like Alien.

But the promotionmaterial is not intresting exept for the trailers (To bad the trailers are better then the movies)

Funny you should mention Robbin Hood, I mean who doesn't want a really good Buggs Bunny cartoon (that references the feature) tossed in to sweeten the pot? Warner has goldmine of cartoons and shorts to deck out these catalog titles with.

Agreed. If one erroneous topic is deleted for misinformation, the other should be as well. Of course, there are many other examples scattered throughout the forums if so - I'm curious as to why this particular thread was deleted rather than renamed. Because 99% of the posts in that thread would not have made sense, since they were all based on the since-corrected information. I tried, but there was no way the thread would read right. FWIW, open discussion of moderation actions is one of those against-the-rules things. You're welcome to PM us if you have a question as to why something was done, however, we're not obligated to answer, especially if it's a) near happy hour or b) the wife is wearing something slinky when we get home.

Doc

Because 99% of the posts in that thread would not have made sense, since they were all based on the since-corrected information. I tried, but there was no way the thread would read right. FWIW, open discussion of moderation actions is one of those against-the-rules things. You're welcome to PM us if you have a question as to why something was done, however, we're not obligated to answer, especially if it's a) near happy hour or b) the wife is wearing something slinky when we get home.

Doc
Fair enough. Thanks for the response. Wasn't aware discussion of this sort was taboo; will avoid it in the future. My apologies.

I am the 800 pound gorilla! It is because of me that you 2 (BD and HD DVD) make an inch's worth of progress, while I grow in leaps and bounds. You offer the consumer one thing and one thing only. . . convinence. I cater to everyone in society; from Joe Average to Richie Rich. It is because of me that your future will remain niche for quite some time.

You are two flea's arguing who owns the dog!


I AM HDTV!


What you offer for $20, or $25, 0r $30 or $40 I give my to customers on a two hour, 12 times a day, 7 days a week.

All my viewers have me . . .only a handful have you. You are an extra expense over my generous price program . . watch 2 HD movies a day, my cost is about $1.00 per movie.

I offer 1920x1080 and DD5.1 and many of my movies are OAR. I appeal to Joe Average . . if he wants me he can have me with NO out of pocket cash outlay. If his equipment breaks, he just gets another one, at no charge. . .any time he wants or needs to.

I have news, sports, movies, nature programs, TV shows, soaps, game shows .. .I have it ALL

If my customer wants to add me to another TV, I will charge him less than $10 per month . . NOT $500 or $700.

Many of your offerring I give my viewers for $3.99 . . .not $29.98.

I am growing and adding programming almost on a monthly basis . . . you there HD DVD . . yes you . . .you have not released a movie in 2 weeks and next week again no releases.

I AM HDTV!

I AM HDTV! And you compete with rentals, not ownership. You don't offer extras, no commentaries. I can't take your content with me to a friend's house or in the car for the kids, etc.

There's a reason people buy DVDs.

What the hell is going on with Fox BD...more delays. :eek:

http://www.highdefdigest.com/news/show/Fox/Disc_Announcements/Fox_Confirms_Mr._&_Mrs._Smith_Delay/516

What the hell is going on with Fox BD...more delays. :eek:

http://www.highdefdigest.com/news/show/Fox/Disc_Announcements/Fox_Confirms_Mr._&_Mrs._Smith_Delay/516


Who can tell, my gut is that it's more economical and political, than it is technical. I know Fox BDs could use some improving, but where is the mystery in achieving this if other studios seem to have licked it?

Campaign promises uttered at CES should be regarded with a pinch of sodium by now, I would think.

BD+ is the most likely culprit to the delays IMO. I mostly am blaming the software players... Maybe software/HTPC players should go on hiatus until they can get their act together?

Who can tell, my gut is that it's more economical and political, than it is technical. I know Fox BDs could use some improving, but where is the mystery in achieving this if other studios seem to have licked it?

Campaign promises uttered at CES should be regarded with a pinch of sodium by now, I would think.

Speculation Warning/Alert: Having been a part of trade shows in the past (entirely different industry), I'm wondering aloud as to whether or not Fox was pressured or just flat out asked to move up their dates for the CES announcements by one of their high-profile partners. Can almost hear the discussion: "Come on . . . if we all announce early it'll be great press and might even sway some people sitting on the fence. We can always recant or adjust schedules later." If so, it wouldn't be the first or last time a marketing person from any company used a trade show to make announcements for the sake of PR value that later didn't materialize.

Speculation Warning/Alert: Having been a part of trade shows in the past (entirely different industry), I'm wondering aloud as to whether or not Fox was pressured or just flat out asked to move up their dates for the CES announcements by one of their high-profile partners. Can almost hear the discussion: "Come on . . . if we all announce early it'll be great press and might even sway some people sitting on the fence. We can always recant or adjust schedules later." If so, it wouldn't be the first or last time a marketing person from any company used a trade show to make announcements for the sake of PR value that later didn't materialize.


It happens in every election, because the promise-makers count on the media that give them the initial free lip-service, not to go back in later a root out weather or not they delivered or ask why.

because BD does have interactivity.

LoEG has a first person shooter (game where you are part of the movie)
can't remember the movie, has a question and answer game
RE:A has dynamic branching so you can pick if you want one or all of the "how did they do this" or deleted scenes to be integrated into the movie..... you can also pick (if I remember correctly) if it plays them or asks you with a pop up.

to me deciding when to turn the PiP on and off because I am either bored from the movie or from the commentaries does not even come close to what I would call interactivity.

But because HD DVD fanboys have nothing. It is all about PiP.

Can you tell me this does any HD DVD have a game where you interact with what is on the screen?Yep. Tokyo drift has a "game" where you design your own racer and it then gets inserted into a scene in the movie. I found it about as much fun as LXG's "shoot them but they don't fall down" "game".
RE:A's "follow the white rabbit" trick doesn't use any of their advanced features at all, it's just an application of standard DVD technology. Multiple DVDs out today do exactly the same thing. There's even a game(!?) out on HD DVD that uses the same technology called "Dragon's Lair" (http://www.digitalleisure.com/contents/HDDVDVideo_games.htm).
The only thing I saw on BD that impressed me was LXG's "search" feature. A very simple feature that just requires a fair amount of grunt work in classifying things, but very effective. The shooting game doesn't add value to the movie at all, the search feature does.

PiP is not all it's about, it's just the most obvious feature that BD lacks and is currently (very successfully) being used in multiple movies on our format. If I were to choose a favourite addition out of all the ones I've seen, it would be the "Progressive Insurance quotes" on Tokyo drift. Not only is it interesting and relevant, but it actually added humour to the movie in places. It sometimes felt like a mastercard thing, "New tires - $800, Winning the race - priceless"

RE:A's "follow the white rabbit" trick doesn't use any of their advanced features at all, it's just an application of standard DVD technology. Multiple DVDs out today do exactly the same thing.

I don't tend to look at extras much (OK, usually not at all) can you give me some examples of DVDS that have that? Branching is an obviously yes, but did not know dynamic branching worked on DVD.

The shooting game doesn't add value to the movie at all, the search feature does.


agree, not the most interesting game either. The point is that some say BD does not have interactivity. And a game (or "changing") a story are interactivity

Perhaps content creators themselves still don't know what is the compelling feature right now. Maybe in the future, crazy DVD producers may finally get some incredible ideas to make their title "truly interactive", but I still doubt that majority of adult people will be crazy about it, and we know the ones who plays movies/games again and again and again are our kids :)

I don't tend to look at extras much (OK, usually not at all) can you give me some examples of DVDS that have that? Branching is an obviously yes, but did not know dynamic branching worked on DVD.The Matrix (Where I got the "Follow the white Rabbit" reference from)
XMen 1.5
Goonies
Timeline
Spiderman Special Edition (Both popups to branch and info popups while the movie is running)
Sinbad (Dreamworks Animation Version) has a branching game, a sort of "choose your own adventure" type thing.

The only wrinkle added by the BD was allowing the user to select beforehand which branches were to be taken, something I could imagine possible in DVD too by using the 16 available registers.

R3 version of Shaolin Soccer also had this. At branching points, you could click on the soccer ball and go to the extended version of that scene seemlessly.

Interactivity has become such a buzzword for both formats that it makes me groan and roll my eyes whenever I read it. I expect to see it from the MS employees, given their perception of this being an advantage for the format MSFT backed, but I am most discouraged when I see the emphasis on it from the Blu-ray side, as well. I thrice-curse the marketing goons whenever I see "interactivity" as a feature for either format.

The new HD formats are the perfect opportunity to give the capacity so that we should be seeing MORE opportunities to integrate in deleted scenes, etc (like in T2: Ultimate/ Extreme!) but instead the providers are taking this as an opportunity to bundle more crap we don't want/need. I shudder when I think of the potential for abuse/exploitation.

Video games, etc are generally pointless, but potentially distracting to the main feature as a worst case scenario. Gimmicks like "Follow the White Rabbit" and what not are neat the first few times but they're useless once you've seen them once or maybe twice. U-control and Blu-wizard,etc also go here in the gimmick category. Most extras I'm more than happy to have on a second disc I can ignore or pusue at will. Having it compromise useful extras is extremely irritating, especially when compromises are made on the bitrate(s) of the PQ/AQ of the main feature. Given it's significantly smaller pipe(s) for both PQ and AQ, HDDVD is more likely more succeptible to parasitic loss from things like U-control than Blu-ray is to a less efficient codec like MPEG2.

I used to hope the seemless branching of the T2 Ultimate / Extreme DVDs were a sign of what was to come instead of various different releases of theatrical/extended/director's cuts, etc but implementation of this has been extremely haphazard. Guess the marketing guys win over the utility / creativity types yet again. :(

The only wrinkle added by the BD was allowing the user to select beforehand which branches were to be taken, something I could imagine possible in DVD too by using the 16 available registers.


but that is a big difference. All the features are much better versions but could be done on DVD.

Some DVDs have PiP but it is not two decoders.
On DVD you can callup a menu, now it can be superimposed
On DVD you could have simple games , now you can have interactyive games

Obviously branching is something that exists in DVD, but seamless dynamic branching is something new

I'm not going to say that it's a great thing that BD-j is not, yet fully supported, BUT...

the fact remains that out of hundreds and hundreds of DVDs, I can count on one hand, the number of times I have given a flying shite about extras. And I suspect I'm in the major majority. It's FARRRR from any kind of deal breaker, I bet for probably 99% of potential HD consumers.

Put it this way:

When you read (O.K., if you read ;)) a novel, do you continually flip back to the publication page or, perhaps the forward to get continual insight as to what so and so thinks about the story or whatever. Or perhaps there's a bibliography. Oh what fun to interrupt the fantasy of being lost in the story so you can find out who's idea it was that the character make a certain, whimsical remark. Woohoo.

I'm sure this issue is important to some of you HD DVD supporters, but if you really think it carries loads of weight (like anything over half an ounce) in this format war, I think you are... mistaken. :) If you had the joy of a HD DVD player you would know ;)

I was one who would give not givea damn about extras until I got a HD DVD player. Its just so much easier to use HDi and the extras and subtle clues (com'on just watch that featurette, its only 4;34 in length and you always wanted to know about exploding models didn't yah :D ) that I now almost always watch the HD DVD extras while I hardly ever watched the SD extras.

Its just easier to do so with HD DVD HDi menu system that it overcomes inertia. ANd the PiP inserts that zoom in and out now are just cool, and easy to use.

Well that's the $64 question, isn't it. Possibly to covertly kill HD DVD? ;)

Honestly, there are really few, good reasons for delaying the HD DVD releases.

1. Because they, at least have interest in the survivability of Blu-ray or...

2. They care more about Blu-ray and not so much about HD DVD supporters or...

3. They want HD DVD to go away.

This is not an attempt to upset anyone in the HD DVD camp; merely an observation coupled with speculation. Maybe you have a better notion of why this is. Or they think 1 Qtr DVD and DVD player sales are soft anyway and its no big deal to wait until later in the year?

It looks to me like it was probably an error and HD DVD was never leading for the week starting March 6th. Otherwise the current numbers for the week and month don't make much sense. In other words, if HD DVD had been leading by as much as was listed before for both week and month and then "Casino Royale" shot Blu-ray back to about 60%, I would expect the week and month numbers to be further apart right now.

--Darin or that the volumes are so small that a couple people with large credit card limits changed the ratios. :D

Speculation Warning/Alert: Having been a part of trade shows in the past (entirely different industry), I'm wondering aloud as to whether or not Fox was pressured or just flat out asked to move up their dates for the CES announcements by one of their high-profile partners. Can almost hear the discussion: "Come on . . . if we all announce early it'll be great press and might even sway some people sitting on the fence. We can always recant or adjust schedules later." If so, it wouldn't be the first or last time a marketing person from any company used a trade show to make announcements for the sake of PR value that later didn't materialize. Are you saying that there may have been pressure to announce things that could be adjusted later just to create a better PR buzz for CES?


As a marketing person at heart and in practice, I would consider such happenings to be.... to be..... just .........entirely plausible :D


That is , you would have to make the assumption that there was pressure on Fox to make a better Blu-ray press kit for CES. :rolleyes:

If so, it wouldn't be the first or last time a marketing person from any company used a trade show to make announcements for the sake of PR value that later didn't materialize I of course, (in a past business life) have only been guilty of pitching a software product that the software engineers working on could not finish on schedule, (damn them) and had to explain at the next trade show why this quarter's new press release listed less features than the last quarters old press release. Oops! :o

BTW, Its kinda tough to then run into the one technical publication writer that loved your product line and was writing a new review. I got out of it by saying the application ran faster but we had to drop a couple features.

Trade show press releases, conferences and announcements have many audiences, and a lot of statements in this format war have been, shall we say, been a bit stretched or optimistic? ;)

On the post (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=10030256&&#post10030256) that I made about Amir's MPEG-4 AVC post part 2 (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=10029569&&#post10029569) on the Industry Insiders thread I just want to ask if anyone else finds it fishy that he gave none of the details for how he made those encodings?

On the post (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=10030256&&#post10030256) that I made about Amir's MPEG-4 AVC post part 2 (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=10029569&&#post10029569) on the Industry Insiders thread I just want to ask if anyone else finds it fishy that he gave none of the details for how he made those encodings?Ding, ding! Round two on AVC vs VC-1 :). I finally have some free time to come back to Ron’s defense of AVC loop filter. For those who are joining us now, here is Part 1: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=9931723&&#post9931723 And Part 1(a) is here: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=9941753&&#post9941753


First, I have to thank you Ron on two fronts. One, for thinking of this visual representation to talk about a topic that is very complicated. I was really struggling on how to explain the details behind the complicated logic in AVC filter. Then I saw your simulation using a white pixel in place of a filtered one and that gave me a much better tool to respond. Second, I hope people appreciate what a great forum this is, as to motivate experts in the industry to put aside their day job, and go and modify a decoder and add such logic to it, simply to educate people (OK, so there is ulterior motive to defend one’s opinion but bear with me on this :) ).

Let me start by using words to explain something and then we go to pictures. In compression circles, as Ron did in his response, we use the term “Quantization” or “Qp” as a measure of how much we compress a block of pixels. The encoder dynamically changes Qp as it examines the complexity of the source against the available bit budget. Note that there is simple, “linear” relationship between Qp and visual artifacts (or we would not need humans to optimize these encodes). But Qp is a way to objectively talk about compression of video.

AVC uses a log scale of 1 to 51 for its Qp factor. VC-1, like MPEG-4 Part 2, uses a linear scale of 1 to 31. In both cases, 1 means essentially no compression, and maximum scale means just that, maximum compression. Ron suggested that we look at the case for Qp of 17 for AVC which is not a bad number for the kind of Qp often seen in HD DVD/BD encode so I will do the same. The same Qp roughly corresponds to “2” in VC-1. So we use that there for our codec.

I have gone further than Ron in providing this simulation to you in a few areas:

1. We use a full, 1920x1080 (i.e. 1080p) frame instead of reduced resolution 1440p frame that Ron used. This better reflects the kind of source that is used for HD DVD/BD, as opposed to 1440p which may be sourced from HDCam or fit for lower resolution broadcast.

2. We used the actual frame from movies encoded for HD formats to make this a representative sample. As such, we had to get kind permission of the studio holding the rights to the movies. To make this easier and not pass around a hat for donations (:)), we had to pick a non-descript scene with no actors, etc. The photographer in me is disgusted with the choice of the frame :), but it serves nicely for this purpose.

Since one can easily be accused of hand selecting favorite frames to prove one point or the other, I am showing you two different frames. We have a lot more, and they all reinforce the same point, some even more powerfully than these examples. Of course, if you don’t believe me, then you should not believe Ron either and assume he picked a frame that was favorable to his case :).

3. We changed the simulation to show the effects of a pixel being filtered multiple times, which we believe is maybe a bigger issue than even the larger number of pixels that AVC filters. Here, we use the color of red for a pixel which is being pounded on more than once. White pixels are used when a pixel is only filtered once. So red pixels are worse than whites.

4. We modified our VC-1 decoder to perform the same function. We think it is important to compare the two technologies side-by-side, as opposed to looking at one side, and say, “hey, this is not so bad.” I think it is in this contrast that you see the benefits of VC-1.

5. We also modified the respective decoders to output useful statistics such as number of pixels filtered once, or more. While the picture does prove the point easily, it is still good to have some hard stats to perform some precise comparisons.

OK, with the introductions out of the way, let’s look at the results in the next post. Here's his first post. his second post is even longer. :eek:

I'm kinda at a loss to think of what more detail you want him to provide besides a exact time code and title for the image. Or a selection of a hypothetical numbers of different images.

He did state that there is a studio release issue as a openly identified poster, he has to deal with.

If the image illustrates his point, and is not technically refuted by the other insiders, what else do you expect?

Seems fairly detailed and well explained to me.

I think "providing none of the details" is a bit exaggerated a statement ;)

On the post (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=10030256&&#post10030256) that I made about Amir's MPEG-4 AVC post part 2 (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=10029569&&#post10029569) on the Industry Insiders thread I just want to ask if anyone else finds it fishy that he gave none of the details for how he made those encodings?I don't think it is so important to know the movie, but without which encoder is being used, how the encoding was done, and the bitrates used, I don't think it means a whole lot. I think we all know that both encoders can be setup to do poor jobs of encoding. I understand the part about AVC going deeper into the blocks (e.g. with 8x8 blocks more than half the pixels are off limits to the VC-1 loop filter even if adjusting them would help), but I do find it interesting that there are whole sections where VC-1 filtered no pixels and AVC filtered a lot. That makes it look like lower thresholds before filtering would be applied were used for the AVC example.

My guess is that HD DVD bitrates were used for this and not Blu-ray bitrates, but if Amir refuses to answer questions like that then we will probably never know.

--Darin

I'm kinda at a loss to think of what more detail you want him to provide besides a exact time code and title for the image.
...
Seems fairly detailed and well explained to me.It leaves out some of the most important things, like what bitrates were used for the encoding, whether it was one of the professional AVC encoders used by the studios for these formats, how they did the compression (what kind of parameters were used since these are configurable), etc. Amir is supposed to be a codec guy, so he would know that the bitrates used are very important to the issue and he shouldn't need to be told that.

I'm also curious about how roughly a Qp of 17 for AVC corresponds to "2" in VC-1. Is the 2 for VC-1 higher? I've seen in the past how much this group likes to truncate numbers instead of rounding them to make them look lower, so I won't apologize for being skeptical when somebody has been involved in playing tricks like that in the past.

--Darin

Interactivity has become such a buzzword for both formats that it makes me groan and roll my eyes whenever I read it. I expect to see it from the MS employees, given their perception of this being an advantage for the format MSFT backed, but I am most discouraged when I see the emphasis on it from the Blu-ray side, as well. I thrice-curse the marketing goons whenever I see "interactivity" as a feature for either format.

The new HD formats are the perfect opportunity to give the capacity so that we should be seeing MORE opportunities to integrate in deleted scenes, etc (like in T2: Ultimate/ Extreme!) but instead the providers are taking this as an opportunity to bundle more crap we don't want/need. I shudder when I think of the potential for abuse/exploitation.

Video games, etc are generally pointless, but potentially distracting to the main feature as a worst case scenario. Gimmicks like "Follow the White Rabbit" and what not are neat the first few times but they're useless once you've seen them once or maybe twice. U-control and Blu-wizard,etc also go here in the gimmick category. Most extras I'm more than happy to have on a second disc I can ignore or pusue at will. Having it compromise useful extras is extremely irritating, especially when compromises are made on the bitrate(s) of the PQ/AQ of the main feature. Given it's significantly smaller pipe(s) for both PQ and AQ, HDDVD is more likely more succeptible to parasitic loss from things like U-control than Blu-ray is to a less efficient codec like MPEG2.

I used to hope the seemless branching of the T2 Ultimate / Extreme DVDs were a sign of what was to come instead of various different releases of theatrical/extended/director's cuts, etc but implementation of this has been extremely haphazard. Guess the marketing guys win over the utility / creativity types yet again. :(

I tend to agree if we are limiting ourselves to thinking about:

1) Just an extension of the current "interactive capability" model afforded by the DVD menuing system
2) Interactivity DURING the feature

My hopes are that the vastly more capable HDi/BD-J allow for a compelling set of features to be included on the disc, but that doesn't necessarily mean during the movie (although I will say that IMO the improvements in allowing me to toggle things like U-control on and off is less obtrusive than the strict DVD structure).

I'd love to see an interactive trailer feature at the beginning of the movie I could toggle on and off (i.e., select to watch trailers current at the time of the disc pressing, or DL new ones). Or the ability to get IMDB-style data after the movie. etc...

IOW: I think that the new platforms my re-define what interactivity is, and it might be powerful enough to make it useful rather than annoying this time.

If you had the joy of a HD DVD player you would know ;)

I was one who would give not givea damn about extras until I got a HD DVD player. Its just so much easier to use HDi and the extras and subtle clues (com'on just watch that featurette, its only 4;34 in length and you always wanted to know about exploding models didn't yah :D ) that I now almost always watch the HD DVD extras while I hardly ever watched the SD extras.

Its just easier to do so with HD DVD HDi menu system that it overcomes inertia. ANd the PiP inserts that zoom in and out now are just cool, and easy to use.

I agree. The new systems make it easier to use interactivty if you are interested, or get it out of the way if you aren't.

Incidentally, I applaud the current trend of "Play the Dang Movie", and only present bells and whistles if I want them.

My guess is that HD DVD bitrates were used for this and not Blu-ray bitrates, but if Amir refuses to answer questions like that then we will probably never know.

--Darin


It doesn't really matter, since both codec are in both formats, and given the fact that this is a codec comparison and not a format comparison.

Amir is supposed to be a codec guy, so he would know that the bitrates used are very important to the issue and he shouldn't need to be told that.

--Darin

Once again, if he were comparing formats, that might be relevent. But here, he is comparing codec. No doubt, you could starve the bitrate so bad that neither would look good. And one could probably increase the bitrate so high both would look good. But the question is, what happens inbetween those two points.

or that the volumes are so small that a couple people with large credit card limits changed the ratios. :D

LOL. So now the reason why HD DVD sales are so low compared to Blu-Ray is that one or more Blu-ray fans with lots of money have been buying multiple copies of BDs? I thought I had heard it all. Oh, and BTW, I did notice your smiley face, but I don't give an automatic pass to anything posted, just because it has a smiley.

Once again Amir provides nice hard data and once again the same usual suspects accuse him of the same usual tactics.

I really admire his resolve considering the attacks he continues to receive here.

It doesn't really matter, since both codec are in both formats, and given the fact that this is a codec comparison and not a format comparison.

It does matter since some codecs respond better with higher bitrates than others (MPEG2) than others optimized for lower bitrate (VC1). Blu-ray being capable of much higher bitrate than HD DVD means they could turn this past the maximum threshold for HD DVD.

IOW, say Amir's test shots are at 10-15Mbps. MPEG2 would almost certainly suffer here in comparison but if it was at 30Mbps, it could well be a different story.

Amir definitely makes a strong argument in that post. I would like to see the response of dr1394 or any other equally knowledgable source (I'm sure Amir's counterpart at Sony would be able to provide a compelling argument if he were a member here). Just the same, though, I do hope MS would keep pushing VC1 if Blu-ray wins. More competition and innovation is never bad. ;)

VC-1 v. AVC debates and discussions are great. But, they aren't a format debate. A Fox or Disney title on HD DVD is just as likely to be in AVC on HD DVD as on BD. And a virtual certainty for Sony titles.

Would, after months/years of prodding and praying for neutrality, the HD DVD collective boycott titles unless they were released in VC-1?

Gary

It does matter since some codecs respond better with higher bitrates than others (MPEG2) than others optimized for lower bitrate (VC1). Blu-ray being capable of much higher bitrate than HD DVD means they could turn this past the maximum threshold for HD DVD.



All of the codecs respond the same at higher bit rates - they are visually transparent to the masters. A very useless way to compare codecs would be to give them very high bitrate.

There is no evidence to support your belief that mpeg2 is optimized for higher bit rates, unless you mean that it simply takes more bits to look transparent to the master. But your statement, that "some codecs respond better with higher bitrates than others (MPEG2)" would lead one to believe that you think a high bitrate mpeg2 transfer will look better than a high bitrate VC-1 transfer. I think most people would disagree with you, and say they look the same at high bitrates. They look like their masters at high bitrates.

Whatever point is needed to reach transparency to the master, and whether that point is reached by Blu-ray, HD DVD, or both is an interesting question if you are comparing formats. But it is irrelevant if you are comparing codec. There is no doubt (at least I have no doubt) that they both will look transparent at a high enough bit rate. A very poor codec will do that. The question is, what happens when you start saving space?

LOL. So now the reason why HD DVD sales are so low compared to Blu-Ray is that one or more Blu-ray fans with lots of money have been buying multiple copies of BDs? I thought I had heard it all. Oh, and BTW, I did notice your smiley face, but I don't give an automatic pass to anything posted, just because it has a smiley.

I suspect the strong sales have more to do with the various price incentives that have been offered for buying BD discs. First with the PS3, followed up with the Fry's and then Amazon 2 for 1 offers. Pump up the numbers with sales incentives and claim victory. This is one of the few smart things I've seen the BD marketing folks do.

All of the codecs respond the same at higher bit rates - they are visually transparent to the masters. A very useless way to compare codecs would be to give them very high bitrate.


Not all of the codecs are MEANT for high bitrates. VC1 is optimized for low bit rate use, given it's intended usage (downloads). It's the wrong tool for the job if/when high bitrates are available.



There is no evidence to support your belief that mpeg2 is optimized for higher bit rates, unless you mean that it simply takes more bits to look transparent to the master.


The latter.


But your statement, that "some codecs respond better with higher bitrates than others (MPEG2)" would lead one to believe that you think a high bitrate mpeg2 transfer will look better than a high bitrate VC-1 transfer. I think most people would disagree with you, and say they look the same at high bitrates. They look like their masters at high bitrates.


I don't really expect to see VC1 at arbitrarily high bitrates as one of the most common features trumpeted by it's advocates is it's performance at lower bitrates. I expect to see AVC, if not MPEG2 for that purpose. Releases like Crank, Kingdom of Heaven, MI3 (Blu-ray), etc have shown us that MPEG2 is more than adequete for certain purposes and/or that there is little to nothing to be gained from going to VC1.


Whatever point is needed to reach transparency to the master, and whether that point is reached by Blu-ray, HD DVD, or both is an interesting question if you are comparing formats. But it is irrelevant if you are comparing codec. There is no doubt (at least I have no doubt) that they both will look transparent at a high enough bit rate. A very poor codec will do that. The question is, what happens when you start saving space?

Right, I agree entirely. Codec and format are related in the context of the format war, by the throughput and capacity maximums available to each.

Not all of the codecs are MEANT for high bitrates. VC1 is optimized for low bit rate use, given it's intended usage (downloads). It's the wrong tool for the job if/when high bitrates are available.

The latter.

I don't really expect to see VC1 at arbitrarily high bitrates as one of the most common features trumpeted by it's advocates is it's performance at lower bitrates. I expect to see AVC, if not MPEG2 for that purpose. Releases like Crank, Kingdom of Heaven, MI3 (Blu-ray), etc have shown us that MPEG2 is more than adequete for certain purposes and/or that there is little to nothing to be gained from going to VC1.

Right, I agree entirely. Codec and format are related in the context of the format war, by the throughput and capacity maximums available to each.

Let's take a look at codec performance on the media that can deliver the biggest storage and highest bit rates. BD-50.

Based on Highdefdigest reviews:

Mpeg2 - 24 titles
Avg PQ = 3.96
Lowest scoring title = 2
Highest scoring title = 4.5

AVC - 8 titles
Avg PQ = 4.25
Lowest scoring title = 3.5
Highest scoring title = 5

VC1 - 12 titles
Avg PQ = 4.29
Lowest scoring title = 4
Highest scoring title = 5

Please explain again why VC1 is the "wrong tool for the job."

Not all of the codecs are MEANT for high bitrates. VC1 is optimized for low bit rate use, given it's intended usage (downloads). It's the wrong tool for the job if/when high bitrates are available.

Why would it be the wrong tool, if the results are just as good? In some conditions, (low bit-rates) VC-1 performs better than mpeg2. In some conditions, (high bit rates) they perform the same. There's no reason to describe VC-1 as the "wrong tool for the job" if you have high bit rates. It's at least as capable as mpeg2, and oftern more capable.

Remember, VC1 is a subset of mpeg2, and one can pretty much make it perform exactly like mpeg2 if one wishes to turn off the bells and whistles.

Mpeg-2, at it's best, can only be as good as either VC-1 or AVC. Either of those two codec will always be at least as good as mpeg2, and sometimes much better. So the idea that high bitrate scenes is the wrong job for VC-1 isn't true. At it's worst, it will look as good as mpeg2.

Comparisions between VC-1 and AVC are interesting. We shouldn't even be talking about mpeg-2 along side those two. Certainly at high enough bit rates all codecs look okay, but that's misses the whole point of what compression is about. You can't compare codecs at high bitrates.

Let's take a look at codec performance on the media that can deliver the biggest storage and highest bit rates. BD-50.

Based on Highdefdigest reviews:

Mpeg2 - 24 titles
Avg PQ = 3.96
Lowest scoring title = 2
Highest scoring title = 4.5

AVC - 8 titles
Avg PQ = 4.25
Lowest scoring title = 3.5
Highest scoring title = 5

VC1 - 12 titles
Avg PQ = 4.29
Lowest scoring title = 4
Highest scoring title = 5

Please explain again why VC1 is the "wrong tool for the job."

Because for one, you are being VERY selective in your VC-1 movies. I can find titles that had lower score than 4. Ever heard of Excalibur? It was done in VC-1 and received a PQ rating of 2.

http://hddvd.highdefdigest.com/excalibur.html

Because for one, you are being VERY selective in your VC-1 movies. I can find titles that had lower score than 4. Ever heard of Excalibur? It was done in VC-1 and received a PQ rating of 2.

http://hddvd.highdefdigest.com/excalibur.html

He told about BD i think!

He told about BD i think!

Why just look at BD titles? VC-1 has a far more extensive track record on the HD DVD side.

Because for one, you are being VERY selective in your VC-1 movies. I can find titles that had lower score than 4. Ever heard of Excalibur? It was done in VC-1 and received a PQ rating of 2.

http://hddvd.highdefdigest.com/excalibur.html

Army of Darkness anybody?

He specifically said he was using titles released on BD-50. Was I the only one who read his post?

This is what he said:Let's take a look at codec performance on the media that can deliver the biggest storage and highest bit rates. BD-50.

Army of Darkness anybody?
I heard the source print was bad.
VC-1 is a great codec where It preserves what you feed it.
Give it gabage and get garbage.
Give it quality and you get quality ;)
"Army of Darkness" and "Excalibur" are also two films that were release last year in the beginning of HD DVD.
Granted these two films should have been mastered from better transfers, but I guess they had a Sony moment. :D


Lets look at newer films shall we?
Please don't point out any Weinstien titles either since they use AVC :D

Once again my post (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=10030256&&#post10030256) on the Industry Insiders thread was edited. Apparently making a statement is not allowed when responding to any of Amir's posts unless that statement agrees with him. And no I am not really kidding about that since that is something I have noticed over the last few months. I have seen many statements made against what other insiders have stated in the Industry Insiders thread but that seems to be the kiss of death when ever it is done with Amir. For anyone curious to see the offending material here it is:


Hopefully, I have shown that AVC loop filter is anything but “light touch.”Amir, to be accurate the only thing you have shown is that in a certain case, with a certain encoder, set to certain parameters one can get the AVC loop filter to be heavy handed. For instance if somebody showed you a bad example of a VC-1 encoded frame but didn't tell you any of the details of how they got it wouldn't you be a bit skeptical? Personally speaking I would like to know what MPEG-4 AVC encoder you used, whether it was main profile or high profile encoding, whether it used 8x8 blocks or 4x4 blocks, how many passes the encoder was set to, the bit rates settings used, how much video was encoded overall to get that encoded frame, and any other relevant details.


I first described the algorithm at high level, and now we have empirical data to back the same.Wouldn't even better empirical data be from professionally done MPEG-4 AVC encodings released on Blu-ray such as Open Season (http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/openseason.html), Reign of Fire (http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/reignoffire.html), Casino Royale (http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/casinoroyale.html), The Pursuit of Happyness (http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/pursuitofhappyness.html), or The Prestige (http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/prestige.html)?


I have removed all statements from my original post and will see if that will make any difference (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=10038127&&#post10038127):


Hopefully, I have shown that AVC loop filter is anything but “light touch.”Amir, would you consider two encoded frames from a VC-1 encoding with no details given on how that encoding was made to be a good representation of VC-1? In other words if somebody showed you a bad example of two VC-1 encoded frames but didn't tell you any of the details of how they got it would you accept that there was a problem with the entire VC-1 codec?

Also would you mind telling us which MPEG-4 AVC encoder you used, whether it was main profile or high profile encoding, whether it used 8x8 blocks or 4x4 blocks, how many passes the encoder was set to, the bit rates settings used, how much video was encoded overall to get those two encoded frames, along with any other relevant details of how the encoding was made?


I first described the algorithm at high level, and now we have empirical data to back the same.Wouldn't even better empirical data be from professionally made MPEG-4 AVC encodings that have actually been released on Blu-ray such as Open Season (http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/openseason.html), Reign of Fire (http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/reignoffire.html), Casino Royale (http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/casinoroyale.html), The Pursuit of Happyness (http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/pursuitofhappyness.html), or The Prestige (http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/prestige.html)?

Once again Amir provides nice hard data and once again the same usual suspects accuse him of the same usual tactics.

I really admire his resolve considering the attacks he continues to receive here.

Nice Hard Questionable Data

Let's take a look at codec performance on the media that can deliver the biggest storage and highest bit rates. BD-50.

Based on Highdefdigest reviews:

Mpeg2 - 24 titles
Avg PQ = 3.96
Lowest scoring title = 2
Highest scoring title = 4.5

AVC - 8 titles
Avg PQ = 4.25
Lowest scoring title = 3.5
Highest scoring title = 5

VC1 - 12 titles
Avg PQ = 4.29
Lowest scoring title = 4
Highest scoring title = 5

Please explain again why VC1 is the "wrong tool for the job."


Good question.

Here's my personal speculation: Amir and Microsoft see the writing on the wall and now know that HD DVD is going to fail. So they've regrouped and are going to focus on the "Codec Wars", in an attempt to at least win that.

So Amir retreats to the insider thread and focuses enormous time and energy into pushing VC-1.

... Would, after months/years of prodding and praying for neutrality, the HD DVD collective boycott titles unless they were released in VC-1
Gary

Some of the hard-cores here would, of course.

As have been evidenced by many threads, sometimes (but not always), a particular codec provides the best picture (capacity, bandwidth, aside). VC-1 is a superb codec as is AVC (given constrained bandwidth), and old MPEG-2 can do a superb job also (given more capacity/bandwidth). Why peeps continue to argue over a codec vs. format choice is beyond me, unless your format is constrained.

If VC-1 were only available on Blu-ray, would we be have such a posting con-flab?

Anyone get the sense that Blu-Ray is spending a lot more in advertising?

I see way more, "Available in DVD and Blu-Ray" and don't really recall, "Available in DVD and HD-DVD."

Not saying there aren't any, just an unscientific observation.

This is in TV commercials. It may be different for print ad or web ads.

Once again my post (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=10030256&&#post10030256) on the Industry Insiders thread was edited. Apparently making a statement is not allowed when responding to any of Amir's posts unless that statement agrees with him.


Your post was edited because you wanted to argue with Amir in the insiders thread. What is so hard to understand about that? You are not allowed to argue in the insiders thread. We ask questions, they answer, and you can take it down here if you want to debate about it. It's really a very simple rule, I don't understand why you can't seem to grasp it.

Here's my personal speculation: Amir and Microsoft see the writing on the wall and now know that HD DVD is going to fail. So they've regrouped and are going to focus on the "Codec Wars", in an attempt to at least win that.

So Amir retreats to the insider thread and focuses enormous time and energy into pushing VC-1.

I picked the new "Codec War" a while ago, as soon as BD had taken the no 1 position, it was pretty obvious that MS were now going to focus on getting their codec used on BD before the studios become proficient with AVC.

Once again my post (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=10030256&&#post10030256) on the Industry Insiders thread was edited. Apparently making a statement is not allowed when responding to any of Amir's posts unless that statement agrees with him. And no I am not really kidding about that since that is something I have noticed over the last few months. I have seen many statements made against what other insiders have stated in the Industry Insiders thread but that seems to be the kiss of death when ever it is done with Amir.

Apparently you still have problems following the rules of that forum. They should have just deleted your entire post if you don't follow the rules.

As for Amir getting special treatment, he gets 100 (or put in your own estimate) times the cr*p from the BD posse who don't follow or abuse the posting rules than anyone else posting there, so it's statistically reasonable that more of those posts are edited or deleted becaue there are 100 times as many of them.

I have just as big a problem with some of the BD insiders who post there as you probably do with Amir but I just let them slide, because that is not the place where it should be done. The fact that they are labeled as insiders should be the all the caveat emptor anybody needs to be aware.

As I tell my friend Rush, take a pill, chill :D

I'm kinda at a loss to think of what more detail you want him to provide besides a exact time code and title for the image.Aren't you even a bit curious to know the type of encoder used, whether it was a MP or HP encoder, whether it used 8x8 blocks or 4x4 blocks, how many passes the encoder was set to, the bit rates settings used, how much video was encoded overall to get those two encoded frames, and the other relevant details?


Or a selection of a hypothetical numbers of different images.Come now you should know that when putting something down most people pick the worst case examples they can get.


If the image illustrates his point, and is not technically refuted by the other insiders, what else do you expect?Well besides the fact that two encoded frames proves nothing about an entire video codec how would anyone even be capable of confirming or refuting his examples when we have no idea how he got them?


Seems fairly detailed and well explained to me.Amir does explain very well what he believes but than again so do many of the people who believe in the moon landing conspiracy and if you didn't know the facts you might very well think that they are being "fairly detailed" as well. Honestly Kosty try digging a bit deeper on this issue and you might see that though Amir said a lot he provided none of the important details in how he got those encoded frames.

If someone wants to refute Amir, it is reasonable to ask they present counter examples, not just ask him to prove himself wrong.

I also observe it is the pro-BD types trying to prove VC-1 is inferior. This part is hard to understand since it is also used in BD - unless it is simply an anti-MS POV.

Amir is going to defend his baby no matter who is winning, and he's done a great job doing it.

If someone wants to refute Amir, it is reasonable to ask they present counter examples, not just ask him to prove himself wrong.

I also observe it is the pro-BD types trying to prove VC-1 is inferior. This part is hard to understand since it is also used in BD - unless it is simply an anti-MS POV.

Amir is going to defend his baby no matter who is winning, and he's done a great job doing it.

Well it doesn't help that VC-1 has become synonymous with HD DVD, helped in part by Amir.

Also, VC-1 is basically an MS product offered by only MS, AVC comes from a miltitude of companies, and products from a bunch of them two, so if you don't like one you can use another. Also Sony and Panasonic have a lot of experience in this even compared to MS.

Codec Wars

I think that this is the status of the Codec Wars so far. Corrections are welcome.

DVD - MPEG2
Broadcast - MPEG2
Satellite - AVC
Cable - undecided
HD DVD - probably VC1
BD - probably AVC
IPTV over DSL - undecided
IPTV over FIOS - undecided

Comparisions between VC-1 and AVC are interesting. We shouldn't even be talking about mpeg-2 along side those two. Certainly at high enough bit rates all codecs look okay, but that's misses the whole point of what compression is about. You can't compare codecs at high bitrates.

Indeed, my ultimate goal would be uncompressed video, just like we've now achieved it on the audio side.

let's wait for the HVD's to come to market in the next format war? :eek: :D

Your post was edited because you wanted to argue with Amir in the insiders thread.Come on skogan you know that it was more about the fact that I disagreed with Amir in that post than the fact that I made a few statements. I can easily show you many a post in the Industry Insiders thread that contains statements (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=10000468&&#post10000468) and some posts that don't even contain a question (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=10022695&&#post10022695). From what I can see making statements in the Industry Insider thread tends to only become an issue if you happen to make a statement that disagrees with Amir.


Apparently you still have problems following the rules of that forum.Technically speaking it is a thread that is part of this forum. Also since you brought up the issue of rules I would point out that it is supposed to be against the forum rules to use AVS to bash your competition.


If someone wants to refute Amir, it is reasonable to ask they present counter examples, not just ask him to prove himself wrong.Let me get this straight. If Amir was to answer my questions (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=10038127&&#post10038127) about how he got those encoded frames you think he would prove himself wrong?


I also observe it is the pro-BD types trying to prove VC-1 is inferior.Do you also notice that it tends to be pro-HD DVD types who attack MPEG-4 AVC?


This part is hard to understand since it is also used in BD - unless it is simply an anti-MS POV.There are some things that truly don't make sense in this world but I can sum this issue up rather easily. At the moment VC-1 is more important to HD DVD than MPEG-4 AVC is and MPEG-4 AVC is more important to Blu-ray than VC-1 is. Because of this if you want to make a broad attack against one of the HD formats than it makes sense, logically speaking, to attack either MPEG-4 AVC or VC-1.

Let me get this straight. If Amir was to answer my questions (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=10038127&&#post10038127) about how he got those encoded frames you think he would prove himself wrong?Great question. :D Keep up the great work.

Big increase in the number of BD items that Amazon is stocking:

http://www.eproductwars.com/dvd/graphs/quantity-1-1-All.jpg

He specifically said he was using titles released on BD-50. Was I the only one who read his post?

This is what he said:

Thanks for pointing that out. Some folks seem to have missed the point. Uxi said that VC1 was the wrong tool for the job when working in a high bandwidth high storage capacity environment. BD-50 is the highest storage highest bandwidth media available, so it seems like a reasonable place to review how the various codecs actually perform.

Personally I believe that VC1 and AVC are good codecs which work well with 25 and 30GB discs. I've been tracking this data for some time because an argument had been made earlier by BD supporters that the future is all 50GB discs and they will be double plus good compared to the current 25 and 30 GB discs. In my mind this is central to the whole BD argument of format superiority. That bright shiny future just beyond our reach. Better not to focus on the here and now....

In any case I made one mistake in my earlier tally. There are actually 13 BD-50 titles encoded with VC1. Updated list below.

Based on Highdefdigest reviews:

Mpeg2 - 24 titles
Avg PQ = 3.96
Lowest scoring title = 2
Highest scoring title = 4.5

AVC - 8 titles
Avg PQ = 4.25
Lowest scoring title = 3.5
Highest scoring title = 5

VC1 - 13 titles
Avg PQ = 4.31
Lowest scoring title = 4
Highest scoring title = 5

Some news about PS3 sales. For Feb these are the US sales figures.

http://www.vgcharts.org/aconscomps.php?name1=PS3&name2=X360&type=0&align=0

Wii : 379,250
360 : 257,500
PS3 : 133,750

Doesn't look too rosy for PS3.

PS2 still sold 323,500 (not bad at all for such an old console, especially considering it's a better match for the Wii in price, graphics, and gameplay - hello Guitar Hero!), so I'd say Sony probably isn't too concerned, since their combined console total is 581,000 or so. Plus the 189,500 PSP...

How rosy do you think it looks for the 360, which is in 3rd place? This dip in PS3 sales has been expected. FWIW, I don't think the 360 should be especially concerned, either. ;)

Just curious, but any predictions on what the March and April numbers will look like for the Euro launch and the spate of new games and features to be released?

PS2 still sold 323,500 (not bad at all for such an old console, especially considering it's a better match for the Wii in price, graphics, and gameplay - hello Guitar Hero!), so I'd say Sony probably isn't too concerned, since their combined console total is 581,000 or so.

Nice spin.

You going to answer the questions or not? :)

I'll give you the time I'm going to work on 2Channel's reply. :p

PS2 still sold 323,500 (not bad at all for such an old console, especially considering it's a better match for the Wii in price, graphics, and gameplay - hello Guitar Hero!), so I'd say Sony probably isn't too concerned, since their combined console total is 581,000 or so. Plus the 189,500 PSP...

How rosy do you think it looks for the 360, which is in 3rd place? This dip in PS3 sales has been expected. FWIW, I don't think the 360 should be especially concerned, either. ;)

Just curious, but any predictions on what the March and April numbers will look like for the Euro launch and the spate of new games and features to be released?

March and April? I'd guess about 400K for each month, then falling back below Xbox360 level after that.

Funny you should mention Guitar Hero. Apparently it doesn't work with the Euro PS3, at least currently.

European Playstation 3 not so backwards compatible
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=38191

The list of games tested are claimed by Cynamite to be the top-twelve PS2 software titles, and are listed as followed:

God of War
MGS 2: Sons of Liberty
MGS 3: Snake Eater
Shadow of the Colossus
Guitar Hero 2
Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones
Okami
GTA: Liberty City Stories
Eragon
Final Fantasy X-2
Ratchet & Clank 3
Lumines Plus

Its reported that only ONE of these twelve games operates properly - Eragon. All other titles refused to run, and referred the user to future software updates and the Sony Website to read the downward compatibility list.

It's possible that this console hasn't received the latest firmware patch destined for European consoles on release (it was reported to be running 1.50), but if it is the case that the PS3 backwards compatibility will be performing as badly as this, then European gamers will be in uproar.

Maybe that 400K number was overly generous......

Big increase in the number of BD items that Amazon is stocking:


Yeah, they just shipped the copy of Memento I had ordered eight days ago. Now I only need a Blu-ray player... :p

Back to Hannover, Heise (http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/86827) is not too impressed with the HD DVD PRG press conference.

They say it was largely a rehash of the HD DVD CES conference of last January.

New information on the HD-EP10 (Euro version of the A20): 1080p, HDMI 1.2a, no analog audio outputs, €699.

They made a faux pas when they demoed the U-Control feature using the American edition of Miami Vice - when the German edition of that movie has no U-Control (questions as to the reason why that extra had been dropped went unanswered).

Here's my personal speculation: Amir and Microsoft see the writing on the wall and now know that HD DVD is going to fail. So they've regrouped and are going to focus on the "Codec Wars", in an attempt to at least win that.

So Amir retreats to the insider thread and focuses enormous time and energy into pushing VC-1.

That's my read as well.

March and April? I'd guess about 400K for each month, then falling back below Xbox360 level after that.

Funny you should mention Guitar Hero. Apparently it doesn't work with the Euro PS3, at least currently.

European Playstation 3 not so backwards compatible
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=38191

The list of games tested are claimed by Cynamite to be the top-twelve PS2 software titles, and are listed as followed:

God of War
MGS 2: Sons of Liberty
MGS 3: Snake Eater
Shadow of the Colossus
Guitar Hero 2
Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones
Okami
GTA: Liberty City Stories
Eragon
Final Fantasy X-2
Ratchet & Clank 3
Lumines Plus

Its reported that only ONE of these twelve games operates properly - Eragon. All other titles refused to run, and referred the user to future software updates and the Sony Website to read the downward compatibility list.

It's possible that this console hasn't received the latest firmware patch destined for European consoles on release (it was reported to be running 1.50), but if it is the case that the PS3 backwards compatibility will be performing as badly as this, then European gamers will be in uproar.

Maybe that 400K number was overly generous......

If you had bothered to read the numerous posts about this since then, you would have found that they were running fw 1.54, but the emulator is activated in the as yet unreleased fw 1.6, so the fact that they managed to get even one game working shows that there is a mistake in there somewhere.

Also the source is The Inquirer, so you should never take what they write as serious as their reporting is always riddled with errors.

How rosy do you think it looks for the 360, which is in 3rd place? This dip in PS3 sales has been expected. FWIW, I don't think the 360 should be especially concerned, either. ;)



The MS numbers were pretty good. But who would have expected the low PS3 numbers? (Wait, I see you say that you expected them.) I certainly thought the PS3 would have more sales than that.

You say that a dip in PS3 sales was expected, but I have to ask why? With their supply constraints lifted, one would think they would have sold plenty. Do you think there just isn't much demand for it at that price point, or what do you think is happening?

Not all of the codecs are MEANT for high bitrates. VC1 is optimized for low bit rate use, given it's intended usage (downloads). It's the wrong tool for the job if/when high bitrates are available.

{SNIP}



How do you reconcile this with the facts stated that indicate that VC-1 was specifically engineered to treat SD-and-below resolutions differently than HD in order to handle internet/low-bandwidth situations?

The decisions it makes at HD resolutions (and their attendant bitrates) use a different set of optimizations.

What evidence do you have that it doesn't make effective usage of the bitrate given it up tot he point it's met the Q targets you've specified?

Come on skogan you know that it was more about the fact that I disagreed with Amir in that post than the fact that I made a few statements. I can easily show you many a post in the Industry Insiders thread that contains statements (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=10000468&&#post10000468) and some posts that don't even contain a question (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=10022695&&#post10022695). From what I can see making statements in the Industry Insider thread tends to only become an issue if you happen to make a statement that disagrees with Amir.



Or... drop the whole " I was just...", "Or only my opinion, but...", or "Jut to point out..." posts you make in that thread that go on to challange the Insider in question and start a debate. Recognize the purpose of the thread. And it's rules.

Do some posts get thru that may be non-questions? Apparently so.. but the mods are volunteers who only have so much time, and they are going to snip an inflammatory post over an innocently nuetral one in order to keep the peace there.

What's so hard about copying the points in question and then bringing it here? Everybody elese seems to recgonize the rules. And, as several others have pointed out, can see how you aren't playing along.

Then you can stop with the persecution complex you have in the Insider's thread.

I'll give you the time I'm going to work on 2Channel's reply. :p

Just like I won't bother with what fauxnews says, I won't bother about answering your questions. I only answer serious posts - not fanboy posts anymore.

Here's my personal speculation: Amir and Microsoft see the writing on the wall and now know that HD DVD is going to fail. So they've regrouped and are going to focus on the "Codec Wars", in an attempt to at least win that.

So Amir retreats to the insider thread and focuses enormous time and energy into pushing VC-1.

Going to fall ? Didn't you get the talking points ? BD has already won the war. Infact HD DVD was dead in the water in '05 itself. Moreover you are the one of the few who voted that initial BD titles were better than the initial HD DVD titles ! So I'd take your speculation with a bag of salt ...

several posts deleted

move on please

Just like I won't bother with what fauxnews says, I won't bother about answering your questions. I only answer serious posts - not fanboy posts anymore.

Your argument might have had some integrity if you hadn't responded to say you weren't going to respond. :rolleyes:

Even though you're an obvious outright HDDVD partisan, I've usually respected your arguments before, though maybe that was giving you the benefit of doubt you didn't deserve. So I guess you do have no response to MS/360/HDDVD being in 3rd place. Figures. :o

Your argument might have had some integrity if you hadn't responded to say you weren't going to respond. :rolleyes:

Even though you're an obvious outright HDDVD partisan, I've usually respected your arguments before, though maybe that was giving you the benefit of doubt you didn't deserve. So I guess you do have no response to MS/360/HDDVD being in 3rd place. Figures. :o
But I responded to you... and you didn't respond to my response, so where does that leave us? :)

The MS numbers were pretty good. But who would have expected the low PS3 numbers? (Wait, I see you say that you expected them.) I certainly thought the PS3 would have more sales than that.

You say that a dip in PS3 sales was expected, but I have to ask why? With their supply constraints lifted, one would think they would have sold plenty. Do you think there just isn't much demand for it at that price point, or what do you think is happening?

The PS3 did was predicted for the last two months given the gap in the game release schedule, which ends (not coinicdentally) with the Euro launch (and looks like it will stay strong through summer.

Incidentally, if you use nataraj's link and adjust for PS2 aligned since launch you'd see near an eerily similar drop with the PS2 in it's 3 month since launch period, followed by a large upswing with a giant surge towards the November December mark...


Thanks for pointing that out. Some folks seem to have missed the point. Uxi said that VC1 was the wrong tool for the job when working in a high bandwidth high storage capacity environment.


I did say that but a more... nuanced... verbage for my thoughts are that it's not the right tool for the job (not quite the same as being the wrong tool) since the benefits of it just aren't necessary in many cases (as many high quality MPEG2 releases have shown us). I certainly don't think VC1 is a bad codec at all. Tthough i would be most interested in a cost/benefit analysis that takes into account any additional training for compressionists, etc that would go to MSFT. Especially if the whole RB Films/Chronos incident is at all representative of what the smaller independent studios experience. The larger studios are going to be so wrapped up in politics as to render the actual merits of any codec moot (see the constant harping against MPEG2 and the so-called common wisdom of the HDDVD partisans despite the clear evidence of numerous GREAT PQ MPEG2 titles).

Ultimately, my main point was one I've already alluded to: I eventually desire uncompressed video, just like we've now managed to achieve that on the audio side. Unfortunately, I don't expect either format to deliver THAT.



In any case I made one mistake in my earlier tally. There are actually 13 BD-50 titles encoded with VC1. Updated list below.

Hmm... I've been compiling the reviews into a spreadsheet for an analysis, but I had to really dig to find an BD with a PQ rating of 2 (Full Metal Jacket). Even The Fifth Element and House of Flying Daggers scored a 3... :eek:

Anyways, does anyone already have a spreadsheet compiled?

Hmm... I've been compiling the reviews into a spreadsheet for an analysis, but I had to really dig to find an BD with a PQ rating of 2 (Full Metal Jacket). Even The Fifth Element and House of Flying Daggers scored a 3... :eek:

Anyways, does anyone already have a spreadsheet compiled?

Also "Excalibur' received a PQ of 2. The lowest is 'A View from Space with Heavenly Music" ...it just received a PQ of 1 from HDD. The BD version received a 1.5 PQ.

My little snark comment raised such hackles?

Here's my personal speculation: Amir and Microsoft see the writing on the wall and now know that HD DVD is going to fail. So they've regrouped and are going to focus on the "Codec Wars", in an attempt to at least win that.

So Amir retreats to the insider thread and focuses enormous time and energy into pushing VC-1.

Rob, why don't you end your speculation and ask Amir why he only posts in the insider forum, or do a search on the forums and find out his reason ? The answer may not satisfy you but at least you won't be speculating. Just for the record I have HD DVD now but I have no problem going Blu if there are compelling reasons for me to do so.

HD DVD ad in latest Home Media Magazine (http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/questex/hom031807/index.php?startpage=6)

There are now 240 HD DVD titles.

Interesting. It's "grown" from 300 titles at the end of 2006 to 240 titles now. Only 360 to go this year to hit 600. ;)

Gary

Some news about PS3 sales. For Feb these are the US sales figures.

http://www.vgcharts.org/aconscomps.php?name1=PS3&name2=X360&type=0&align=0

Wii : 379,250
360 : 257,500
PS3 : 133,750

Doesn't look too rosy for PS3.

Doesn't look too rosy for Xbox 360 either , and it is the one with over 100 titles available.

What will be the spin if the Wii roars past the Xbox 360 in total sales?

Gary

Also "Excalibur' received a PQ of 2. The lowest is 'A View from Space with Heavenly Music" ...it just received a PQ of 1 from HDD. The BD version received a 1.5 PQ.
the only reason that the BD version of "A View from Space with Heavenly Music" received a slight higher ratting is because the HD DVD version contains 3 extra minutes of footage that has whats the worst quality of the disc, they had edited this footage out for the BD version.

a shockingly inferior HD image that's overrun with source noise and other major issues. This HD DVD release is three minutes longer than its Blu-ray counterpart (which was released several months later)

http://hddvd.highdefdigest.com/viewfromspace.html

Hmm... I've been compiling the reviews into a spreadsheet for an analysis, but I had to really dig to find an BD with a PQ rating of 2 (Full Metal Jacket). Even The Fifth Element and House of Flying Daggers scored a 3... :eek:


Why don't you list all the 3 star rattings BD discs received then? (Based on HDD reviews)
There seems to be a lot!, not much digging there :D

Edit:
I found a 1 star ratting for BD "Kiss of the Dragon"
http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/kissofthedragon.html

The PS3 did was predicted for the last two months given the gap in the game release schedule, which ends (not coinicdentally) with the Euro launch (and looks like it will stay strong through summer.

Incidentally, if you use nataraj's link and adjust for PS2 aligned since launch you'd see near an eerily similar drop with the PS2 in it's 3 month since launch period, followed by a large upswing with a giant surge towards the November December mark...


Yes, the PS3 is right on target. 6 Million units by the end of this month I've heard. Despite the one year head start for the Xbox360, I'm sure the PS3 will catch up real soon.


I did say that but a more... nuanced... verbage for my thoughts are that it's not the right tool for the job (not quite the same as being the wrong tool) since the benefits of it just aren't necessary in many cases (as many high quality MPEG2 releases have shown us). I certainly don't think VC1 is a bad codec at all. Tthough i would be most interested in a cost/benefit analysis that takes into account any additional training for compressionists, etc that would go to MSFT. Especially if the whole RB Films/Chronos incident is at all representative of what the smaller independent studios experience. The larger studios are going to be so wrapped up in politics as to render the actual merits of any codec moot (see the constant harping against MPEG2 and the so-called common wisdom of the HDDVD partisans despite the clear evidence of numerous GREAT PQ MPEG2 titles).

Ultimately, my main point was one I've already alluded to: I eventually desire uncompressed video, just like we've now managed to achieve that on the audio side. Unfortunately, I don't expect either format to deliver THAT.


So it's not that it's the wrong tool (as you previously stated), it's just not the right tool?

Hmmm, sounds kind of like.....I'm not breaking up with you because you're wrong for me, it's that I'm wrong for you.

As for uncompressed, I don't know if we'll ever see that, as I expect the market to transtion to on line content delivery after this generation of optical media.



Hmm... I've been compiling the reviews into a spreadsheet for an analysis, but I had to really dig to find an BD with a PQ rating of 2 (Full Metal Jacket). Even The Fifth Element and House of Flying Daggers scored a 3... :eek:

Anyways, does anyone already have a spreadsheet compiled?

According to my spreadsheet, Full Metal Jacket is BD-25. Keep in mind, I'm looking at the results of the three codecs on the highest capacity highest bandwidth media available, BD-50. The 2 star title was Talladega Nights. Incidentally The Sentinel was 2.5 stars and also happens to be Mpeg2.

Yes, the PS3 is right on target. 6 Million units by the end of this month I've heard. Despite the one year head start for the Xbox360, I'm sure the PS3 will catch up real soon.

Your kidding me right? The 360 sold around 100k more consoles than the PS3 last month..... How can they catch up with sales like that?

Your kidding me right? The 360 sold around 100k more consoles than the PS3 last month..... How can they catch up with sales like that?

You are assuming sale will stay the same. With more games coming out, the PS3 sale will improve along with it. Content is king and right now, the PS3 has no game content to speak of.

Your kidding me right? The 360 sold around 100k more consoles than the PS3 last month..... How can they catch up with sales like that?

That would be Sony that's kidding you. I'm just repeating what they're promissing their investors and the studios.

How can they catch up? That is a great question. When PS3 sales have been consistently less than Xbox360 sales, how will the PS3 catch up?

http://www.vgcharts.org/aconscomps.php?name1=X360&name2=PS3&type=2&align=1

I find it very amusing that BD supporters constantly brag about how the Blu-Ray is much more advanced in PQ than HD DVD.
They mention bandwidth and it's bigger storage Is It's key to success, but I have yet to have seen a review show this.
They will argue that BD has better sound with PCM.. sure a slight difference, but Is this the reason for a 50GB disc? HD DVD can contain lossless as well just as good using less storage.

The reviews that I've seen on a lot of BD discs compared to HD DVD are less than sellar. so where's the real beef?
They will cry out "Well we got studio support!", ok but does that studio really support it?
FOX releases some bad quality discs with an audio codec that many can't experience to cancelling releases that they promote at CES, a convention that is usually just hardware announcements.
They state HD DVD will be dead by the end of March (This month :eek: ), and they cancel movies, one the day before it's release!
Now back too PQ, you would think that all these studios would make sure all their releases were or are treated with high quality results, so they can show off how BD can preform better than HD DVD.
They can't!!

HD DVD had a couple of dud releases but,
Not wanting to going back and mention Sony's sorry attempt to wow folks with their first slew of horrible transfers ("Fifth Element". "Silent Hill" , "Rocky" etc..), it continues..
When I see rattings like 3.0 pop up all over this to me says, "We as a powerful studio don't care, we will win and always screw you over"
I can watch a Sony, MGM and FOX film upconverted from a SD DVD and not feel that I'm missing much.
Blu-Ray is not convincing me that It Is worth my money at all.
Sure the title announcements are eye candy to some, but I won't be too happy when after one comes out and I spend $20 or more on a disc, and I view them and say hmmmm I notice a slight difference in PQ compared to my $5 SD DVD version, like "Hoosiers", whats the big deal?.
Mind you I am not saying that BD isn't capable of delivering the goods, they can, but aren't.

The Blu-Ray was released unfinished, since It's missing interactivity features like HD DVD has. You just hear "BD-J Is coming soon"!, ok :rolleyes:
HD DVD to me has shown how a new format can differ from SD DVD and so,
HD DVD gets more respect from me as a consumer.
I hope It can stay alive and get more studio support, Disney 1st, since they show that they care about how their discs look.
If HD DVD dies than It dies, but I doubt Blu-Ray will be the next one and only format, or Sony's got ya by the nuts :eek:

I find it very amusing that BD supporters constantly brag about how the Blu-Ray is much more advanced in PQ than HD DVD.
They mention bandwidth and it's bigger storage Is It's key to success, but I have yet to have seen a review show this.

Few say that. What they are saying is there is an hypothesis that higher bandwidth can lead to better PQ. That this isn't obvious TODAY in reviews doesn't disprove the hypothesis.

It does allow less effort to be required in authoring titles which can lead to more titles being created.

Also, what about TL51? I don't see a lot of people howling outrage at the confusion that will cause. If bandwidth and capacity truelly don't matter, there should be a heck of a lot of angry HD DVD supporters that TL51 is even being considered.


They will argue that BD has better sound with PCM.. sure a slight difference, but Is this the reason for a 50GB disc? HD DVD can contain lossless as well just as good using less storage.

Some reviewers have said this, but it's probably a selection effect.

The key is that it easy to add LPCM. It doesn't incur a codec cost. It's cheaper computationally to process. And the BD bandwidth and capacity easily allow for it.

Why are so few HD DVD titles supplied with lossless? When faced with that question the debate usually tends to drift toward the position that HD DVD DD+ is sufficient or superior.

Gary

Also, what about TL51? I don't see a lot of people howling outrage at the confusion that will cause. If bandwidth and capacity truelly don't matter, there should be a heck of a lot of angry HD DVD supporters that TL51 is even being considered.
What sort of confusion are you assuming TL-51 discs will cause? Are you basing this on the assumption that they won't play on certain players or something else?

Few say that. What they are saying is there is an hypothesis that higher bandwidth can lead to better PQ. That this isn't obvious TODAY in reviews doesn't disprove the hypothesis.

It does allow less effort to be required in authoring titles which can lead to more titles being created.

Also, what about TL51? I don't see a lot of people howling outrage at the confusion that will cause. If bandwidth and capacity truelly don't matter, there should be a heck of a lot of angry HD DVD supporters that TL51 is even being considered.



Some reviewers have said this, but it's probably a selection effect.

The key is that it easy to add LPCM. It doesn't incur a codec cost. It's cheaper computationally to process. And the BD bandwidth and capacity easily allow for it.

Why are so few HD DVD titles supplied with lossless? When faced with that question the debate usually tends to drift toward the position that HD DVD DD+ is sufficient or superior.

Gary
So it's is said that the higher bandwidth can achive a better PQ, so again where is the beef? :rolleyes: Not yet? when? after HD DVD dies?

Don't you think the BD studios should have been showing how great this format is from the start?
Reviews, you say?
If we can get a studio to release the same movie on both formats using their best codec then we can compare reviews on PQ.
I see alot of BD movies with 3.0 rattings, so I guess that same title would be 2.5 on HD DVD?( because of PQ not sound )hmmmm I don't know about this.

VC-1 seems to be doing a great job in PQ over whats being seen with BD codecs used.
Did you see "King Kong"? how about "The Hulk"?

The tl-51 is being developed to shut BD up thats all. Maybe Disney stated that they would go neutral if it was available...
I don't care.


Well I for one don't have the equipment to benefit to hear lossless yet, so this could be a factor with a lot of folks, Maybe the studios felt the same.
More titles will be coming out with lossless to HD DVD, like "Happy Feet" while for some odd reason is null on the BD version.
Universal is starting to wake up to this as well and will start paying more attention to lossless on their titles.
My major complaint is not sound it is PQ..
Sure I can get a great sounding BD disc but with a not so great PQ.
I buy HD movies for PQ, so how does saying HD DVD has less titles with lossless at this time mean, when It should be the PQ 1st before the audio.
HD DVD is capable of lossless so their isn't anything here that BD can do that HD DVD can't.
People are buying HD TVs 1st not receivers that can handle lossless audio before, getting a better picture.

Technically speaking it is a thread that is part of this forum. Also since you brought up the issue of rules I would point out that it is supposed to be against the forum rules to use AVS to bash your competition.


If you think that bringing up the verified "fact" that your posts were deleted and edited because they were against the forum rules is bashing, then I'm sorry you are overly sensitive.

I have yet to have seen a review show thisCjplay, a compressionist who did work for Warner releases, clearly stated that HD DVD should make it a priority to increase their bandwidth. The compressionists have to work harder (and take more time and money) to get a quality picture with less bandwidth. With BD, they don't have to work as hard (take as much time, money). When volume production starts, this will be critical.

Because BD is here, with more bandwidth, more capacity and more studio support, there is absolutely no logical reason to support HD DVD. Why settle for less when more is here, today?

Cjplay, a compressionist who did work for Warner releases, clearly stated that HD DVD should make it a priority to increase their bandwidth. The compressionists have to work harder (and take more time and money) to get a quality picture with less bandwidth. With BD, they don't have to work as hard (take as much time, money). When volume production starts, this will be critical.

Because BD is here, with more bandwidth, more capacity and more studio support, there is absolutely no logical reason to support HD DVD. Why settle for less when more is here, today?

Ok then why so many crappy releases on BD?

My point is thrown down to a spin response.. the same response we hear all the time from BD fans but where's the proof?
Studios keep releasing these bare bone catalog films with less than stellar PQ and I get the Bandwidth and storage size advantage.


I rarely see a 5.0 ratting for a BD disc.

If this format is great than studios should show it off, not make you feel ..."Oh well I guess I have to wait for the remasted re-release special edition.

Especially a NEW format!

European Playstation 3 not so backwards compatible
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=381912Channel, there are so many ifs and buts in that article that I don't think anyone can use that to talk about backward compatibility on the PS3. Just wait another week and than you can have your fun pointing out what PS2/1 games don't work on the PS3. Though personally I don't see how that really relates to the HD format war.


I certainly thought the PS3 would have more sales than that.If those sales are accurate it didn't sell that well in February but than again few PS3 games were released in that month and most consoles have a few slow months the spring after they are released. Also think about this. If the PS3 is having such an effect on the format war selling even in a month like February what do you think will happen when the PS3 really starts selling?


Do some posts get thru that may be non-questions? Apparently so.. but the mods are volunteers who only have so much time, and they are going to snip an inflammatory post over an innocently nuetral one in order to keep the peace there.True, but do you know what really makes up an inflammatory post on a forum? It isn't necessarily the tone, it isn't even the content, in the end it really is just about how many people get pissed off enough about the post to report it. For some reason a lot of posters get angry when anyone disagrees with Amir effectively making it hard to even criticize him. That is true even outside of the Industry Insiders thread.


If you think that bringing up the verified "fact" that your posts were deleted and edited because they were against the forum rules is bashing, then I'm sorry you are overly sensitive.johnu, no offense but you didn't understand my post. Read my post (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=10039458&&#post10039458) again and you will see that that I was actually referring to Amir's activities in the Industry Insiders thread which are against MPEG-4 AVC. That is why I referred to the forum rule about industry insiders using AVS to bash their competition. Their really is a forum rule against that (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=7324533&&#post7324533). I personally think that claiming that "MPEG-4 AVC is incapable of encoding fine detail" is bashing especially when there are so many movies that refute that claim.

2Channel, there are so many ifs and buts in that article that I don't think anyone can use that to talk about backward compatibility on the PS3. Just wait another week and than you can have your fun pointing out what PS2/1 games don't work on the PS3. Though personally I don't see how that really relates to the HD format war.
snip.....


Ok Richard. That's a reasonable point. And it's such a target rich environment that there's no need to jump the gun.

Blu-ray backers plan to pass DVD in 3 years
http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/03/16/blu-ray-backers-plan-to-pass-dvd-in-3-years/

After asserting themselves as victor over rival format HD DVD, there was only one suitable target for the Blu-ray Disc Association left: DVD. The European chairman of the BDA proclaimed at CEBIT that it will supplant DVD as the format of choice within three years.

You can't make this stuff up. Wait...I guess you can make this stuff up.

Cjplay, a compressionist who did work for Warner releases, clearly stated that HD DVD should make it a priority to increase their bandwidth. The compressionists have to work harder (and take more time and money) to get a quality picture with less bandwidth. With BD, they don't have to work as hard (take as much time, money). When volume production starts, this will be critical.

Because BD is here, with more bandwidth, more capacity and more studio support, there is absolutely no logical reason to support HD DVD. Why settle for less when more is here, today?

I agree completely. Why settle for BD-Video 1.0, when.......

After asserting themselves as victor over rival format HD DVD, there was only one suitable target for the Blu-ray Disc Association left: DVD. The European chairman of the BDA proclaimed at CEBIT that it will supplant DVD as the format of choice within three years.

You can't make this stuff up. Wait...I guess you can make this stuff up.

Probably won't happen. But a lot of people believe DVD may have peaked a year ago. I think Dreamworks had to take back returns on some unsold copies of Shrek2 at that time.

That may be why studios are releasing on both of these formats at a much earlier point in the lives of these formats than on DVD.

We've talked about HDTV sales and consoles driving the adoption of one or both formats. Or availability of content or price of the players. But what about computer drive sales?

What is the status of writers in either format? Is HD-DVD supporting dual layer writes? Is Blu-Ray media still prohibitive? How many vendors are producing writers in either format?

When writers are the same price as DVD dual-layer writers now, you figure they will go on every computer as well as people doing a lot of upgrades. Not just to view movies but to back up all the pictures, videos and music people are starting to accumulate.

You see more and more storage/backup devices starting to target the consumer market. Not everyone is going to buy terabyte NASes for their homes. But a lot of people are collecting thousands of pictures taken with $400 8-Megapixel cameras.

In addition to backing up all these pics, there might be interest in using something better than a DVD to distribute or share media for playback and sharing. Send relatives a slideshow of pics which support HDTV resolutions instead of SD as in the case with DVD-based slide shows.

Since there were a few interesting comments that Amir made in his response (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=10039910&&#post10039910) to my questions here is my response:


You could replace VC-1 with AVC and everything you said applies to Ron’s posting yet I didn’t see you object then :).Well did I ever mention Ron's post on that encoded frame in any of my posts or even comment on it one way or the other? No, and I certainly couldn't have done that in the Industry Insiders thread considering how well that usually goes. Since you mention it though I wouldn't have accepted a single encoded frame as a representation of a video codec anymore than I would have accepted two encoded frames.


What Ron and I were arguing about was NOT which codec is better.If you say so though considering some of your general comments against MPEG-4 AVC in that post and the fact that you claimed MPEG-4 AVC was incapable of very fine detail it certainly seemed to have had a few video codec comments in it.


There was also the big question of which frame he picked and why. After all, there are thousands of frames in that video. So even if one had the VC-1 version, there would be no way to prove that you are fair when you pick one frame out of the whole movie.True, though that would also be true of how you picked your two encoded frames as well.


As an FYI, 8x8 blocks would not materially change the behavior of the loop filter.You may be right that it would not significantly change the behavior of the loop filter with that encoder, but that leaves out a very important detail. Using 8x8 blocks would have greatly reduced the amount of filtering done to the image.


And are only interested in the loop filter, and not how efficiently the codec is operating. We used the default setting for both codecs btw.Okay, but your using the MPEG reference AVC encoder which is not even the best consumer MPEG-4 AVC encoder that is available. As such call me skeptical that it is a good representation of how the loop filters behave with the professional MPEG-4 AVC encoders now being used.

Sorry if this has already been posted, but it almost sounds like Microsoft is giving up on the HD DVD addon.



It wasn't immediately clear how many external HD DVD players for 360 were sold in Feb. "There are a lot of things that we're seeing," [Xbox Product Management Dir. David Hufford] told us: "First, what we're seeing is that there is an insatiable appetite for high definition content. A lot of people are opting to just download [HD content] directly from Xbox Live Marketplace. And secondly when you ask people if they want to spend 200 bucks on HD DVD they're kind of opting not to spend their 200 bucks that way. I think they'd rather take that money and buy 4 games as opposed to buying a high definition movie player. So, we feel very good about the bet we made that HD DVD would be better as an accessory than as something that was built into the box." The NPD data "is starting to prove that out," he said, adding, looking at the 127,000 PS3s sold in Feb., "A lot of that can be attributed to the high price point -- obviously Blu-ray is buried in that high price point -- and as well the lack of quality content." But asked if Microsoft ruled out shipping a new 360 SKU with a built-in HD DVD player, he said "we haven't ruled anything out; we keep all of our options open but we haven't announced anything just yet."

I don't read it that way at all, from what I gather they are defending their strategy of providing the add on as a option vs making everyone that buys a game machine pay for an HD DVD player.

I don't read it that way at all, from what I gather they are defending their strategy of providing the add on as a option vs making everyone that buys a game machine pay for an HD DVD player.

Yep, and of probably continuing to do it that way instead of making it mandatory in future boxes.

- Tom

Yep, and of probably continuing to do it that way instead of making it mandatory in future boxes.

- Tom

I'm not so sure. I think I represent a certain substantial demographic that would likely buy the new SKU, if it had the expected HDMI, HDD and (preferred) built-in HD DVD player. I've been waiting for it for several months now ... am I alone?

No, you are not alone, but the numbers who agree with you do not justify the tolloing and design work necessary to implement this feature. If the adoption rate of the addon has really only been 2%, it doesn't take much to extrapolate that if you made it internal the sales rate of that model would be about the same.

Sony put it in all of them, take it or leave it. If MS only put it in some, thus guaranteeing it will never be used for games, they would be taking a risk of leaving a lot of these sitting on shelves. Along with being a waste of money, that would look rather bad for them and HD-DVD.

Nothing against the 360 or HD-DVD in that statement, if Sony had made a $300 or $350 version of the PS3 I imagine they would have sold very few of the PS3's with BD inside; based on the number of 360 Addon's sold, it may have been only 2%. So putting it inside has decreased the overall sales of the PS3, but greatly increased the percentage of BD adoption.

I'm not so sure. I think I represent a certain substantial demographic that would likely buy the new SKU, if it had the expected HDMI, HDD and (preferred) built-in HD DVD player. I've been waiting for it for several months now ... am I alone?

Don't forget also that MS has clear intentions to implement IPTV functionality as well. I'd like to see hd-dvd drive built in as well, however I can also see how a corresponding increase in price point may not be worth it.

Having an addon now as well as a PS3 I also do appreiciate a certain convenience factor of being able to have 2 types of media loaded in the system at the same time.

What I will say though is that if MS does indeed deliver a black AV centric 360 then where is the BLACK version of the HD-DVD addon? After all the current white hd-dvd addon paired with a black 360 in a high end AV center? No. :)

So, we feel very good about the bet we made that HD DVD would be better as an accessory than as something that was built into the box." The NPD data "is starting to prove that out," he said, adding, looking at the 127,000 PS3s sold in Feb., "A lot of that can be attributed to the high price point -- obviously Blu-ray is buried in that high price point -- and as well the lack of quality content."

But asked if Microsoft ruled out shipping a new 360 SKU with a built-in HD DVD player, he said "we haven't ruled anything out; we keep all of our options open but we haven't announced anything just yet."

They seem to be simply saying that they believe the numbers show a lower price point and focus on better games appears to be more important for most consumers than packing in hd movies as a built-in feature.

Of course one can argue that as the PS3 closes the difference in gaming content and price point then perhaps other features like hd movies could be a differentiator?

Interesting that don't flat rule out a built-in hd-dvd though. Guess they'd like to keep the competition guessing as much as possible...

....they are defending their strategy of providing the add on as a option vs making everyone that buys a game machine pay for an HD DVD player.That isn't their "strategy". That is their spin. Due to HD DVD being so late, they were unable to integrate HD DVD into their machine. They got stuck having to sell it as a clunky addon that is an extra piece of hardware with its own power supply. The buyer ends up paying for two optical disc drives. If the main optical drive was a user-replaceable component, they could have sold the addon as a replacement for it (plus also sell machines with it already in there).

The only "strategy" here was an ad-hoc attempt to deal with the onslaught of the PS3. They needed to do something. So you get two optical disk drives, two pieces of hardware, two power supplies and no HDMI. It's a kludge.

So putting it inside has decreased the overall sales of the PS3, but greatly increased the percentage of BD adoption

Exactly, Sony sacrificed the PS3 ,presumably only in the short-term, to win the format war for BD.

It seems for quite a while most of their corporate energy went into BD even allowing PS3 and gaming software to slip in schedule.

They've also indicated they believe they'll catch back up and make up that sacrifice in the long term. That remains to be seen, but it's a strategy...
Now we see a lot of evidence that Sony is more focused again on PS3 gaming (recent Home online and game development deals for instance)

I don't read it that way at all, from what I gather they are defending their strategy of providing the add on as a option vs making everyone that buys a game machine pay for an HD DVD player.

Yes, but what I mean is the way he is defending their strategy. He is saying that its a good thing they didn't include it, because people don't seem interested in buying it (at least not for $200)

That isn't their "strategy". That is their spin. Due to HD DVD being so late, they were unable to integrate HD DVD into their machine. They got stuck having to sell it as a clunky addon that is an extra piece of hardware with its own power supply. The buyer ends up paying for two optical disc drives. If the main optical drive was a user-replaceable component, they could have sold the addon as a replacement for it (plus also sell machines with it already in there).

The only "strategy" here was an ad-hoc attempt to deal with the onslaught of the PS3. They needed to do something. So you get two optical disk drives, two pieces of hardware, two power supplies and no HDMI. It's a kludge.
It would be a kludge if it were needed for games. It's just an add-on for those who want HD, unlike the Trojan Horse PS3 where all gamers are paying for unnecessary BD.

So it's not that it's the wrong tool (as you previously stated), it's just not the right tool?

Ok, now finish reading the rest... I know you can do it... Then you'll get the point. Hopefully. :o


As for uncompressed, I don't know if we'll ever see that, as I expect the market to transtion to on line content delivery after this generation of optical media.

I'm sure Microsoft hopes so! Unfortunately the broadband infrastructure in the US is not nearly up to par, nor will it be for some time, and that's where the meat and potatoes of the market are. Population density is far too low in most regions and the geographical area is immense for this to be practical. The path to fiber is taking an extremely long time, even though the backbone infrastucture is largely in place, getting it to the MPOE requires permits, digging conduit, etc which is VERY expensive.

Even if / when online HD is practical, you will still have people who want hard copies and you will still have hard copy distribution...

You don't have a copy of this spreadsheet you'd be willing to share, would you?


Your kidding me right? The 360 sold around 100k more consoles than the PS3 last month..... How can they catch up with sales like that?

I think your sarcasm detector needs maintenance. ;) Like I said, though, you'll see a dip of the EXACT same proportions in the 3 month mark for the PS2 and we all know how well that turned out (it's STILL ahead of the Xbox, just like it's always been). Who wants to wager a Ben Franklin to their favorite charity that the PS3 WON'T outsell the 360 for December 07?

Yes, but what I mean is the way he is defending their strategy. He is saying that its a good thing they didn't include it, because people don't seem interested in buying it (at least not for $200)

Seems to me, they're going the direction they ALWAYS intended to... Xbox Live downloads. HD DVD was a means to an end for them...

Making a user replacable (if not authorized service center replacable) optical drive for 'Zephyr' shouldn't cost TOO much more than the currents setup and would sure as hell be a preferred solution to a separate drive. Besides, it's not like Microsoft ever intended the Xbox to be profitable, did they? :D Did they ever recoup the expense on the original Xbox?

I will kick my current 360 SKU to ebay faster than you can blink if there was an internal HDDVD drive SKU. AS it is, I'm contemplating playing frankenstein and trying to shoehorn my add-on contents in there (only waiting for Zephyr is keeping me from this end - and even then I still contemplate getting an second-hand XA1 to play frankenstein with my add-on's drive for).

That isn't their "strategy". That is their spin. MS's "strategy" was to kick Sony out of their dominant position in game consoles. In that regard I think they have succeeded. Sony sells 127k in US for Feb and they continue to fall further and further and further behind, guaranteeing only PS3 ports of innovative 360 titles.

Due to HD DVD being so late, they were unable to integrate HD DVD into their machine. They CHOSE not to include HD DVD because blue laser diode tech was an unnecessary expense at the time. Everything else was ready to go. And compression technology assured them of plenty of disc space for years.

They got stuck having to sell it as a clunky addon that is an extra piece of hardware with its own power supply. Clunky??? Mine works great and offers me HD splendor for a low entry price. Not one glitch.

The buyer ends up paying for two optical disc drives. If the main optical drive was a user-replaceable component, they could have sold the addon as a replacement for it (plus also sell machines with it already in there).XBox 360 users are not complaining here, only you.

The only "strategy" here was an ad-hoc attempt to deal with the onslaught of the PS3. They needed to do something. So you get two optical disk drives, two pieces of hardware, two power supplies and no HDMI. It's a kludge.Every PS3 fanboy here thinks BD has a slam dunk, but does not figure on what is in the pipeline on the HD DVD side.

MS's "strategy" was to kick Sony out of their dominant position in game consoles. In that regard I think they have succeeded. Sony sells 127k in US for Feb and they continue to fall further and further and further behind, guaranteeing only PS3 ports of innovative 360 titles.


They didn't kick Sony out of Jack and Shiznit. And Jack left. PS2 still outsold 360 and combined PS2 and PS3 outsell everything else significantly.


Clunky??? Mine works great and offers me HD splendor for a low entry price. Not one glitch.


Eh? Can YOU start U-Control or Hulk Vision on any title without getting error C667000B? I used to like my add-on much more but I'm becomming increasingly disatisfied with the gimped audio, especially compared to the glorious LPCM I get from PS3 since switching to an HDMI receiver.




XBox 360 users are not complaining here, only you.


Eh, I own in and the ergonomics of the add-on leave MUCH to be desired. There are MANY of us who wanted integrated HDDVD drive, quieter fan, and HDMI...


Every PS3 fanboy here thinks BD has a slam dunk, but does not figure on what is in the pipeline on the HD DVD side.

They have a pipeline? :p :D

The way I see it now Sony's got some major conundrums right now, that have to be irking the BDA members who put all their eggs in that basket.

They are selling something like 15% of their projected PS3 sales aren't they? I know sales projections are bloated but, the contrast between 125K and a million per month is staggering. Even if Euro sales raise that x2, and these are slow months for electronics sales, there is no way I can see them even average half of those projections by years end.

Add to that the low, low stand-alone sales, and you have Sony running around like a scalded dog not knowing where to focus. Either way this equals very premature price slashing, which means they start undercutting fellow BD electronics manufacturers who signed on to produce, hopefully a lot more players at a higher price-point.

I don't see how they can deliver anything they promised to those who have sided with them for a long, long time if at all. Certainly not with plan A, or B, or even C.

So when I hear them declaring victory, and even more outrageously say DVD is going to crumble under their might, I gotta ask, what might?

I'm sure none of this is lost on the HD DVD camp who admittedly are way under-performing, but if Sony's flaming out all on it's own, I don't see why they would even dream of thinking this was a done deal.

Amir does explain very well what he believes but than again so do many of the people who believe in the moon landing conspiracy and if you didn't know the facts you might very well think that they are being "fairly detailed" as well. Honestly Kosty try digging a bit deeper on this issue and you might see that though Amir said a lot he provided none of the important details in how he got those encoded frames Darinp and Richard Paul and UniSXRD:

I brought your concerns up to Amirm and I saw he made an attempt to address them in his followup posts in the insider thread.

Did he address your concerns to your satisfaction?

HD DVD ad in latest Home Media Magazine (http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/questex/hom031807/index.php?startpage=6)

There are now 240 HD DVD titles.

Interesting. It's "grown" from 300 titles at the end of 2006 to 240 titles now. Only 360 to go this year to hit 600. ;)

Gary Same ad placed on two seperate pages of the April issue of Popular Mechanics.

further discussion here:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=10054617#post10054617

I find it very amusing that BD supporters constantly brag about how the Blu-Ray is much more advanced in PQ than HD DVD.
They mention bandwidth and it's bigger storage Is It's key to success, but I have yet to have seen a review show this.
They will argue that BD has better sound with PCM.. sure a slight difference, but Is this the reason for a 50GB disc? HD DVD can contain lossless as well just as good using less storage.

The reviews that I've seen on a lot of BD discs compared to HD DVD are less than sellar. so where's the real beef?
They will cry out "Well we got studio support!", ok but does that studio really support it?
FOX releases some bad quality discs with an audio codec that many can't experience to cancelling releases that they promote at CES, a convention that is usually just hardware announcements.
They state HD DVD will be dead by the end of March (This month :eek: ), and they cancel movies, one the day before it's release!
Now back too PQ, you would think that all these studios would make sure all their releases were or are treated with high quality results, so they can show off how BD can preform better than HD DVD.
They can't!!

HD DVD had a couple of dud releases but,
Not wanting to going back and mention Sony's sorry attempt to wow folks with their first slew of horrible transfers ("Fifth Element". "Silent Hill" , "Rocky" etc..), it continues..
When I see rattings like 3.0 pop up all over this to me says, "We as a powerful studio don't care, we will win and always screw you over"
I can watch a Sony, MGM and FOX film upconverted from a SD DVD and not feel that I'm missing much.
Blu-Ray is not convincing me that It Is worth my money at all.
Sure the title announcements are eye candy to some, but I won't be too happy when after one comes out and I spend $20 or more on a disc, and I view them and say hmmmm I notice a slight difference in PQ compared to my $5 SD DVD version, like "Hoosiers", whats the big deal?.
Mind you I am not saying that BD isn't capable of delivering the goods, they can, but aren't.

The Blu-Ray was released unfinished, since It's missing interactivity features like HD DVD has. You just hear "BD-J Is coming soon"!, ok :rolleyes:
HD DVD to me has shown how a new format can differ from SD DVD and so,
HD DVD gets more respect from me as a consumer.
I hope It can stay alive and get more studio support, Disney 1st, since they show that they care about how their discs look.
If HD DVD dies than It dies, but I doubt Blu-Ray will be the next one and only format, or Sony's got ya by the nuts :eek:The HD DVD fanboys are the ones who thump their chests and crow about their format's PQ compared to Blu-ray's early titles on BD25 discs. However, they can't deny that greater bandwidth and BD50's bigger disc size allows for better video and audio quality than HD DVD can possibly provide. If maximum file sizes didn't matter we could just stick with red laser and DVD9s.

How important is picture and audio quality to J6P? I'm not gonna buy The Pursuit of Happyness just because the HD transfer looks and sounds perfect. But I did buy The Fifth Element, even tho I already own 2 different DVD sets and after reading about how bad the Blu-ray transfer was. TFE is a cool sci-fi flick and I enjoy watching it.

I'm glad Blu-ray's transfer quality has improved to the point we are getting 'perfect' scores and reference quality material like Open Season and The Pursuit of Happyness, but what matters to me more is we are actually getting material to watch.

I brought your concerns up to Amirm and I saw he made an attempt to address them in his followup posts in the insider thread.

Did he address your concerns to your satisfaction?Not really, but he did provide a reasonable amount of detail on how he got those two encoded frames. Also personally I remain skeptical of Amir's claims against the MPEG-4 AVC video codec which I explain in the last two responses made in this post (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=10050323&&#post10050323).

The HD DVD fanboys are the ones who thump their chests and crow ...Do you consider yourself a blu-ray fanboy? Beacause you meet every single qualification.

Not really, but he did provide a reasonable amount of detail on how he got those two encoded frames. Also personally I remain skeptical of Amir's claims against the MPEG-4 AVC video codec which I explain in the last two responses made in this post (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=10050323&&#post10050323). I thought he did also.

I do understand your remaining concerns, but I still disagree with your opinion that they would have any material affect on the results.

Your comments though help to show the limits of his statements. I don't think though that his tests could be conducted with your guidelines and his methodology is a valid one despite the limitations that you pointed out.

I am glad that you all commented on his posts and that he responded to some degree to those comments.

The HD DVD fanboys are the ones who thump their chests and crow about their format's PQ compared to Blu-ray's early titles on BD25 discs. However, they can't deny that greater bandwidth and BD50's bigger disc size allows for better video and audio quality than HD DVD can possibly provide. If maximum file sizes didn't matter we could just stick with red laser and DVD9s.

How important is picture and audio quality to J6P? I'm not gonna buy The Pursuit of Happyness just because the HD transfer looks and sounds perfect. But I did buy The Fifth Element, even tho I already own 2 different DVD sets and after reading about how bad the Blu-ray transfer was. TFE is a cool sci-fi flick and I enjoy watching it.

I'm glad Blu-ray's transfer quality has improved to the point we are getting 'perfect' scores and reference quality material like Open Season and The Pursuit of Happyness, but what matters to me more is we are actually getting material to watch.

Isn't that the issue though? That even with greater bandwidth and disc sizes, the PQ is just as good, if not worse?

I do understand your remaining concerns, but I still disagree with your opinion that they would have any material affect on the results.Even ignoring the issue of different video encoders for MPEG-4 AVC I honestly don't see how the use of 8x8 blocks could not greatly change the amount of filtering done to the images. As such would you mind explaining why you believe it would have had little effect whether 8x8 blocks or 4x4 blocks were used?


Your comments though help to show the limits of his statements. I don't think though that his tests could be conducted with your guidelines and his methodology is a valid one despite the limitations that you pointed out.His methodology was only useful if someone was curious to know how the loop filter with the MPEG reference AVC encoder would behave. Which is as useful in testing the MPEG-4 AVC video codec as would the testing of the very first MPEG-2 encoder. Remember that one of the main reasons encoding with a video codec improves over time is because better designed video encoders are made. As such to make a broad judgement against the MPEG-4 AVC video codec based on the first video encoder made is in my opinion very illogical.

I'm glad Blu-ray's transfer quality has improved to the point we are getting 'perfect' scores and reference quality material like Open Season and The Pursuit of Happyness, but what matters to me more is we are actually getting material to watch.

"Open Season" Is on a BD-25 disc and Is amazing so I can bet on a HD DVD HD30 it would have been equal in PQ. Not to mention HDi content along with a TrueHD track.

Did you ever sit down and watch a good HD DVD?
"King Kong" and "The Hulk" both are amazing with those "Perfect Scores" you speak of so where do you prove that the higher bandwidth on BD produces a better PQ than HD DVD??

Do you consider yourself a blu-ray fanboy? Beacause you meet every single qualification.I am a movie fan and highdef fan and want at least one of these HD formats to succeed. As discussed many times over, I don't think they can both succeed.

On top of that, as many tech writers and bloggers have pointed out, I believe the format war is delaying mass adoption of HD discs which means we aren't seeing as many titles as we would be if the formats were to hit critical mass. Had Paramount and Warner stayed with HD DVD I'd have supported both formats. But that didn't happen.

Blu-ray has much better marketing and I think they are reaching more people than HD DVD has. People hear HD DVD and they think, "Oh those are those blue discs right?" Or that is has something to do with dvd upscaling.

As it is now, Blu-ray has the overwhelming studio support and I don't see that changing any time soon. And it seems to me that Universal is wavering. Some people thought that Fox and Disney were going to announce at CES that they were going neutral. But that didn't happen. Therefore, I have both feet in the Blu-ray camp and do consider myself a Blu-ray fanboy.

When people are uncertain about which format they should buy and look for recommendations online they invariably come across AVS forums. They also come here when they want info on HDTVs and HD programming which later leads to HD player purchases down the road. That's what happened to me.

Therefore my posts and responses, which may seem like Blu-ray cheerleading to you, will hopefully take off all the negative spin put on by HD DVD fanboys and help newbies to choose Blu-ray based on the format's merits. I don't think I can change any minds in the HD DVD camp and Blu-ray fanboys don't need to be cheered up. It's HD DVD with its long face that needs the rallying cries and talking points.

I am a movie fan and highdef fan and want at least one of these HD formats to succeed. As discussed many times over, I don't think they can both succeed.

On top of that, as many tech writers and bloggers have pointed out, I believe the format war is delaying mass adoption of HD discs which means we aren't seeing as many titles as we would be if the formats were to hit critical mass. Had Paramount and Warner stayed with HD DVD I'd have supported both formats. But that didn't happen.

Blu-ray has much better marketing and I think they are reaching more people than HD DVD has. People hear HD DVD and they think, "Oh those are those blue discs right?" Or that is has something to do with dvd upscaling.

As it is now, Blu-ray has the overwhelming studio support and I don't see that changing any time soon. And it seems to me that Universal is wavering. Some people thought that Fox and Disney were going to announce at CES that they were going neutral. But that didn't happen. Therefore, I have both feet in the Blu-ray camp and do consider myself a Blu-ray fanboy.

When people are uncertain about which format they should buy and look for recommendations online they invariably come across AVS forums. They also come here when they want info on HDTVs and HD programming which later leads to HD player purchases down the road. That's what happened to me.

Therefore my posts and responses, which may seem like Blu-ray cheerleading to you, will hopefully take off all the negative spin put on by HD DVD fanboys and help newbies to choose Blu-ray based on the format's merits. I don't think I can change any minds in the HD DVD camp and Blu-ray fanboys don't need to be cheered up. It's HD DVD with its long face that needs the rallying cries and talking points.

Do you like to also spread FUD?
How is "Universal is wavering"? They are so into HD DVD didn't you know?
They are eger to advance the qualities of the format. Look at their upcoming releases of "Children of Men" and "Smoking Aces"... these two titles have advanced Hdi interactive content! here read : http://www.videobusiness.com/article/CA6425092.html?nid=2838
Not to mention more titles slated to be released this year with online interactive content, and you think they are wavering? Is this how you sell BD to you friends?
BD doesn't even know when they will have any type features.

You want to talk about a studio wavering lets look at FOX than.
What have they done for Blu-Ray? besides cancel releases, one a day before release!

Talk about Blu-Ray marketing "We will conquer SD DVD within 3 years!!"
DID you hear that? WTF is this? It's called FUD. http://www.worldscreen.com/newscurrent.php?filename=bluray031607.htm


You can continue all the preaching you want but It won't change my mind.
You won't get me selling Blu-Roses at the airport for the Blu-Ray gods.

Isn't that the issue though? That even with greater bandwidth and disc sizes, the PQ is just as good, if not worse?"Open Season" Is on a BD-25 disc and Is amazing so I can bet on a HD DVD HD30 it would have been equal in PQ. Not to mention HDi content along with a TrueHD track.

Did you ever sit down and watch a good HD DVD?
"King Kong" and "The Hulk" both are amazing with those "Perfect Scores" you speak of so where do you prove that the higher bandwidth on BD produces a better PQ than HD DVD??The only HD DVDs I've seen were in stores. I haven't seen either Kong or Hulk. The reason I brought up 'prefect' scores is that HD DVD supporters like to fondly point out that without HD DVD pushing Blu-ray, Blu-ray's PQ would still suck like all the early mpeg-2 releases. So Blu-ray fanboys should be glad that HD DVD is still around.

The issue with greater bandwith and picture quality is that no matter what codec a compressionist uses he won't have to throttle the bitrate with Blu-ray as much as with HD DVD resulting in a better Blu-ray picture. Unfortunately, it seems that Warner and Paramount are producing transfers for HD DVD and porting those over to the Blu-ray version. If their compressionists optimized the transfers for each format I believe the PQ of the Blu-ray versions would win hands down.

The only HD DVDs I've seen were in stores. I haven't seen either Kong or Hulk. The reason I brought up 'prefect' scores is that HD DVD supporters like to fondly point out that without HD DVD pushing Blu-ray, Blu-ray's PQ would still suck like all the early mpeg-2 releases. So Blu-ray fanboys should be glad that HD DVD is still around.

The issue with greater bandwith and picture quality is that no matter what codec a compressionist uses he won't have to throttle the bitrate with Blu-ray as much as with HD DVD resulting in a better Blu-ray picture. Unfortunately, it seems that Warner and Paramount are producing transfers for HD DVD and porting those over to the Blu-ray version. If their compressionists optimized the transfers for each format I believe the PQ of the Blu-ray versions would win hands down.
Well then we have no evidence that this higher bandwidth can produce a better PQ than HD DVD.. do we?
Yet even though BD can have a very good PQ, you will still see new releases come out with a bad ratting like classics such as "hoosiers" http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/hoosiers.html
And with this title alone this Is my point about BD!
If if is such a better format than the studios should make sure they show It.
They don't
There isn't anything I've seen that proves BD is better, sorry.
We can just be comfortable with the fact If BD wins we can look forward to Ok releases?
Especially with Sony's releases, they will have all control.
Do you think they really care about you the customer??? Yeah just your money. :eek:

Well then we have no evidence that this higher bandwidth can produce a better PQ than HD DVD.. do we?
Yet even though BD can have a very good PQ, you will still see new releases come out with a bad ratting like classics such as "hoosiers" http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/hoosiers.html
And with this title alone this Is my point about BD!
If if is such a better format than the studios should make sure they show It.
They don't
There isn't anything I've seen that proves BD is better, sorry.
We can just be comfortable with the fact If BD wins we can look forward to Ok releases?
Especially with Sony's releases, they will have all control.
Do you think they really care about you the customer??? Yeah just your money. :eek:

No company cares about the customers in the caring compassionate way. They will do whatever it takes to pad their managers/stockholders wallets. If this means offering better service or content to drive greater sales, they will.

The real question is that if hd-dvd dies, will the blu-ray group have monopolistic powers and be able to exercise them. If you feel that standard dvds are a good alternative to hd-formats for the general consumer, then no the blu-ray group will not be able to do whatever they want & charge whatever they want (similarly to the stragegies employed by MS with windows). People will just say **** this ****, and stick with their dvds. Therefore, they will work to keep prices low and quality high, even if they aren't being "poked in the butt" by hd-dvd. There is competition among hardware manufacturers & studios. If sony releases utter crap & disney titles are gold, people will buy the sony titles on dvd & disney on blu-ray.

If they release crap at high prices, this does not prevent others from coming in with a better player/format. Of course, cost of entry to the market is rather high, which would deter a new format from emerging if hd-dvd dies off.

Cjplay, a compressionist who did work for Warner releases, clearly stated that HD DVD should make it a priority to increase their bandwidth. The compressionists have to work harder (and take more time and money) to get a quality picture with less bandwidth. With BD, they don't have to work as hard (take as much time, money). When volume production starts, this will be critical.

Because BD is here, with more bandwidth, more capacity and more studio support, there is absolutely no logical reason to support HD DVD. Why settle for less when more is here, today?

It's a value proposition, Rob ol' buddy.

I can get get a picture and audio on par to the competition, for cheaper.

Seems logical.

Also, what about TL51? I don't see a lot of people howling outrage at the confusion that will cause. If bandwidth and capacity truelly don't matter, there should be a heck of a lot of angry HD DVD supporters that TL51 is even being considered.

Gary

Well, because we don't know how it will play out yet. If media and players are cleary ID'ed so as not to cause confusion, then no uproar.

If current machines can play the new disks, then bonus!

If no disclosure of media/player incompatability and/or missing features, then uproar.

True, but do you know what really makes up an inflammatory post on a forum? It isn't necessarily the tone, it isn't even the content, in the end it really is just about how many people get pissed off enough about the post to report it. For some reason a lot of posters get angry when anyone disagrees with Amir effectively making it hard to even criticize him. That is true even outside of the Industry Insiders thread.



Wait. The fact that a post proves that it is inflammatory when it ... umm.... "inflames" a bunch of people, is news to you?

Uh... yeah.

Do you like to also spread FUD?
How is "Universal is wavering"?LOL! :p This has already been discussed in many different threads so I won't go into details here. Feel free to check out those threads for yourself. Paramount and Warner were both exclusive to HD DVD but have gone neutral. Has a Blu-ray studio gone neutral? Anyway, I said they seem to be wavering. Are you actually trying to tell me my opinion is not really my opinion at all? :eek: That I really think that Universal will never release on Blu-ray but I'm just saying they will to push Blu-ray? Maybe you should type up the rest of my replies as well. :rolleyes:
They are so into HD DVD didn't you know? They are eger to advance the qualities of the format. Look at their upcoming releases of "Children of Men" and "Smoking Aces"... these two titles have advanced Hdi interactive content! here read : http://www.videobusiness.com/article/CA6425092.html?nid=2838
Not to mention more titles slated to be released this year with online interactive content, and you think they are wavering? Is this how you sell BD to you friends? BD doesn't even know when they will have any type features.Oooooo....and I really buy HIGH DEFINITION movies for the online features.......NOT! Interactive online features won't sell a movie. People are not gonna buy Children of Men just so they can get clickable ads. People go to movies so they DON"T HAVE TO WATCH COMMERCIALS during the show! Nice feature.... :rolleyes:

You want to talk about a studio wavering lets look at FOX than. What have they done for Blu-Ray? besides cancel releases, one a day before release!We looked at Fox before and after CES. Did they make a release annoucement at CES? Yes. Do they have any HD DVD releases? No. Are they participating in the Amazon sale? Yes. Did they have a shakeup of company executives? No.

Talk about Blu-Ray marketing "We will conquer SD DVD within 3 years!!"
DID you hear that? WTF is this? It's called FUD. http://www.worldscreen.com/newscurrent.php?filename=bluray031607.htm
It's a marketing strategy. Might turn out to be FUD but it still works. Both sides do it. Blu-ray simply does it best.

You can continue all the preaching you want but It won't change my mind.
You won't get me selling Blu-Roses at the airport for the Blu-Ray gods.Kumbayah. I already said it wouldn't change any minds in the HD DVD camp.

LOL! :p This has already been discussed in many different threads so I won't go into details here. Feel free to check out those threads for yourself. Paramount and Warner were both exclusive to HD DVD but have gone neutral. Has a Blu-ray studio gone neutral? Anyway, I said they seem to be wavering. Are you actually trying to tell me my opinion is not really my opinion at all? :eek: That I really think that Universal will never release on Blu-ray but I'm just saying they will to push Blu-ray? Maybe you should type up the rest of my replies as well. :rolleyes:
Oooooo....and I really buy HIGH DEFINITION movies for the online features.......NOT! Interactive online features won't sell a movie. People are not gonna buy Children of Men just so they can get clickable ads. People go to movies so they DON"T HAVE TO WATCH COMMERCIALS during the show! Nice feature.... :rolleyes:

We looked at Fox before and after CES. Did they make a release annoucement at CES? Yes. Do they have any HD DVD releases? No. Are they participating in the Amazon sale? Yes. Did they have a shakeup of company executives? No.


It's a marketing strategy. Might turn out to be FUD but it still works. Both sides do it. Blu-ray simply does it best.

Kumbayah. I already said it wouldn't change any minds in the HD DVD camp.

The above reply just shows you a BD fanboy in full throttle who answers back with nothing new to bring to the table.

He just seems so upset, I mean so so very upset... It's just scary.

Did he prove anyting about BD producing a better PQ than HD DVD.... No.
So we move on because He will just continue to garble.

The above reply just shows you a BD fanboy in full throttle who answers back with nothing new to bring to the table.

He just seems so upset, I mean so so very upset... It's just scary.

Did he prove anyting about BD producing a better PQ than HD DVD.... No.
So we move on because He will just continue to garble.Don't believe me? That's okay...Would you believe Microsoft's HD DVD Program Manager, Sage Schreiner (http://www.audioholics.com/news/trade-show-coverage/2006-consumer-electronics-show-ces/hd-dvd-interview-with-microsoft).

The primary issues around encode quality are: quality of the source, encode method used, and bit rate. Modern codecs, like VC1, are capable of delivering a better quality encode at a more moderate bitrate than MPEG2. The primary limitation you will see with 1st generation movies in either format is the use of MPEG2 to encode, even at high bit rates. On a quality 1920x1080p display, MPEG2 will not look as good as VC1 (or H.264). Most (if not all) of what was on display in the HD DVD booths was VC1. You may want to investigate the actual encoding method of a given movie to really get a handle on its likely quality.

What was that again?

Quality of the source,
Encode method, and
BIT RATE

Feel free to rip him a new one...

Don't believe me? That's okay...Would you believe Microsoft's HD DVD Program Manager, Sage Schreiner (http://www.audioholics.com/news/trade-show-coverage/2006-consumer-electronics-show-ces/hd-dvd-interview-with-microsoft).



What was that again?

Quality of the source,
Encode method, and
BIT RATE

Feel free to rip him a new one...


You can't comprehend? can you....

"You are the weakest link goodbye"

reading comprehension test:

The primary limitation you will see with 1st generation movies in either format is the use of MPEG2 to encode, even at high bit rates.
Q: What is the primary limitation according to the quoted passage again from the Microsoft HD Program Manager?



Hint: its not bit rate. :p

and ....err..... which format again is still primarily using MPEG-2?

You can't comprehend? can you....

"You are the weakest link goodbye"
"Is there no beginning to your knowledge?" - Anne Robinson

WARNING TROLL ALERT!!!!!

Of course no one can definitively prove with absolute certainty that higher bit rates have made Blu-ray's picture quality better because Blu-ray studios using higher bit rates are not releasing HD DVD versions. And the neutral studios are using the same transfer on both formats.

reading comprehension test:

The primary limitation you will see with 1st generation movies in either format is the use of MPEG2 to encode, even at high bit rates.
Q: What is the primary limitation according to the quoted passage again from the Microsoft HD Program Manager?

Hint: its not bit rate. :p

and ....err..... which format again is still primarily using MPEG-2?We're well past the first generation of movies.

"Is there no beginning to your knowledge?" - Anne Robinson

WARNING TROLL ALERT!!!!!

Of course no one can definitively prove with absolute certainty that higher bit rates have made Blu-ray's picture quality better because Blu-ray studios using higher codecs are not releasing HD DVD versions. And the neutral studios are using the same transfer on both formats.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_troll
In Internet terminology, a troll is a person who enters an established community such as an online discussion forum and intentionally tries to cause disruption, often in the form of posting messages that are inflammatory, insulting, incorrect, inaccurate, absurd, or off-topic, with the intent of provoking a reaction from others.

Now how can I add these persons to my ignore list?

We're well past the first generation of movies.
Shhhhhhh one more time :rolleyes:
"Hoosiers" Street Date: March 13, 2007
http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/hoosiers.html

You were trying to use that quote to support your bit rate point. I was just pointing out that it didn't say that bit rate was the primary limitation.

What was that again?

Quality of the source,
Encode method, and
BIT RATE

Feel free to rip him a new one... ....highlighting BITRATE is a selective misquote out of context of the entire paragraph.

Since we are only into the first couple hundred movies released on either format out of 10,000s available its not unreasonable to think that we may still be considered to be in the first generation of HD releases.

You choose to highlight bitrate as the major quality issue while the more complete quote seems to clearly state that the quoted person thinks the use of MPEG-2 is the more significant issue and is implying that MPEG-2 (with a insufficient bit rate) is the real issue.

The entire quote just doesn't support your point.

You were trying to use that quote to support your bit rate point. I was just pointing out that it didn't say that bit rate was the primary limitation.

What was that again?

....highlighting BITRATE is a selective misquote out of context of the entire paragraph.

Since we are only into the first couple hundred movies released on either format out of 10,000s available its not unreasonable to think that we may still be considered to be in the first generation of HD releases.

You choose to highlight bitrate as the major quality issue while the more complete quote seems to clearly state that the quoted person thinks the use of MPEG-2 is the more significant issue and is implying that MPEG-2 (with a insufficient bit rate) is the real issue.

The entire quote just doesn't support your point.I highlighted bit rate to show that it is a factor in picture quality. One of only three factors. In fact, it is the only thing seperating Blu-ray and HD DVD's potential picture quality as both can use the same codecs and have the same source material. Therefore, bit rate will be the determining factor (since the other two factors are equal for both formats.) Would Hoosiers look better, the same or worse on HD DVD? When was it encoded? Look at the source material. Now look at Sony's Casino Royale and Pursuit of Happyness they both use AVC not Mpeg-2.

http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/pursuitofhappyness.html

Would a higher bit rate transfer look better, the same, or worse than a lower bit rate transfer, given that the codecs are the same and the source is the same?

My answer is the higher bit rate transfer would look better.

Now I can't PROVE it. But do you really need proof of that?

In fact, it is the only thing separating Blu-ray and HD DVD's potential picture quality as both can use the same codecs and have the same source material But potential does not equal performance.

If Sony and other Blu-ray studios continue to use the older MPEG-2 especially on BD25s and use insufficient bit rates, then that potential is wasted in real life.

If VC-1 has more than enough bit rate available on a 30GB disc then it may not need the extra space to deliver transparent to the master HD video/audio at a cheaper to manufacture price.

But the issue was bit rate as the limiting factor. Apparently its not for HD DVD and its only a facto when using MPEG-2. And since only Blu-ray is currently using MPEG-2 , your point is???

Politics and choice of the codecs in practice are also comparison points. If Sony can use VC-1 but never does and sticks to MPEG-2, then potential or possible use of VC-1 means nothing.

My answer is the higher bit rate transfer would look better To many people you reach a point that an encoding gains little with more bits. Each codec reaches that point at different points. Once you are effectively transparent to the master then adding bits may not gain that much marginal gain. It may look better with more bits, but those bit may be better used for something else.

Right now we are at the point that VC-1 reaches that point at a lower bit rate than MPEG-2 does because of the effectiveness of the codec in compression. A MPEG-2 may show a huge difference between 15-20 Mbps while you may hardly be able to tell the difference with a VC-1 encoding between 12 Mbps and 15 and 20 Mbps shows little improvement.

http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/pursuitofhappyness.html

Would a higher bit rate transfer look better, the same, or worse than a lower bit rate transfer, given that the codecs are the same and the source is the same?

My answer is the higher bit rate transfer would look better.

Now I can't you PROVE it. But do you really need proof of that?
Ok so we go back once again to where it started.

Did you ever sit down and watch a good HD DVD?
"King Kong" and "The Hulk" both are amazing with those "Perfect Scores" you speak of so where do you prove that the higher bandwidth on BD produces a better PQ than HD DVD??

They both got the highest ratting for PQ full 5 stars! audio 4.5
http://hddvd.highdefdigest.com/hulk.html
http://hddvd.highdefdigest.com/kingkong2005.html

I would rather compare a title that is avalible on both formats where they utilize their favorite codec, but we can't.

For fun... :p
Incidentally these two got a full 5 star ratting on HD DVD... "Pursuit of Happyness" 4.5 PQ and 4.0 audio on BD :D

Wait. The fact that a post proves that it is inflammatory when it ... umm.... "inflames" a bunch of people, is news to you?scaesare, do not mock with such frivolity and if you had looked deeper at my post you would have seen that I was pointing out is that you don't need to make a rude post or a factually incorrect post to piss people off. Sometimes all you have to do is tell people something that they don't want to hear. On the other hand the opposite case is where a poster can make very rude and factually wrong posts and get away with it simply because most people don't care enough to report it.

For example look at what just happened in this thread. mikemorel makes an uncalled for personal comment against RustyC by calling him a "blu-ray fanboy" and when RustyC explains his opinions on the HD format war 1080please jumps in to attack them. 1080please than continues with some derogatory comments made against both RustyC and Blu-ray supporters in general. I can understand that people disagree but a lot of people seem more interested in insulting and mocking those that disagree with them than in rational debate.


Shhhhhhh one more time :rolleyes:
"Hoosiers" Street Date: March 13, 2007
http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/hoosiers.htmlThat would be an average looking movie and not a bad looking one. Also I take if you have never heard about the video quality of the HD DVD releases of Excalibur (http://hddvd.highdefdigest.com/excalibur.html) and National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (http://hddvd.highdefdigest.com/christmasvacation.html)? A poor restoration of an old movie won't look good regardless of which HD format it is released on.

"Open Season" Is on a BD-25 disc and Is amazing so I can bet on a HD DVD HD30 it would have been equal in PQ. Not to mention HDi content along with a TrueHD track.

Did you ever sit down and watch a good HD DVD?
"King Kong" and "The Hulk" both are amazing with those "Perfect Scores" you speak of so where do you prove that the higher bandwidth on BD produces a better PQ than HD DVD??


I don't get this either, to provide a better picture, you have to be able to see a better picture. That's not what I'm hearing people say, all I'm hearing is 50GB has to provide better PQ. It's always presented as a foregone conclusion.

BD advocates always say were talking about ancient history when quality control issues get raised, but I've read bad notices for more recent titles like Planet of the Apes and American Psycho too. I don't own either, but since I come across unflattering reviews, I never will.

It's foolish for anyone to "cover" for bad transfers in either camp, because it's the same thing as condoning them. It may not even have anything to do with the GB, but it does seem to have a lot to do with who produces them. If Fox and Sony put out HD DVD tomorrow, I wouldn't buy them blindly without hearing how they look first, Disney I wouldn't think twice about.

To many people you reach a point that an encoding gains little with more bits. Each codec reaches that point at different points.There is a bit more to it than that. The video material itself greatly determines what bit rate is required (average and peak), than there is of course the encoder that is used, the amount of time given to encode the movie, and finally the skill of those in charge of the encoding. As such there is far more to a video encoding than simply bit rate though that is one of the factors involved.

I wouldn't buy them blindly without hearing how they look first, Disney I wouldn't think twice about.
I do find It funny that In fact Disney of all studios Is showing that they care about how their product looks, so I do give them a big kudos for that and wish just for this reason that they would become neutral over the others.

Disney shows more care than Sony does IMO.

There is a bit more to it than that. The video material itself greatly determines what bit rate is required (average and peak), than there is of course the encoder that is used, the amount of time given to encode the movie, and finally the skill of those in charge of the encoding. As such there is far more to a video encoding than simply bit rate though that is one of the factors involved. I agree with you completely here.

I do find It funny that In fact Disney of all studios Is showing that they care about how their product looks, so I do give them a big kudos for that and wish just for this reason that they would become neutral over the others.

Disney shows more care than Sony does IMO.


I've had pretty good luck with Disney DVD, some of their "Disney Treasure" tins feature cartoons that are too tightly cropped, and some of the Silly Symphonies only looked OK, but I was glad to get them. Since they yanked the plug on this line due to "lack of consumer response" I doubt they will see BD.

The only Disney features I really want are Pinocchio, Snow White, Fantasia, and oddly enough Return To Oz.

But potential does not equal performance.

If Sony and other Blu-ray studios continue to use the older MPEG-2 especially on BD25s and use insufficient bit rates, then that potential is wasted in real life.

If VC-1 has more than enough bit rate available on a 30GB disc then it may not need the extra space to deliver transparent to the master HD video/audio at a cheaper to manufacture price.

But the issue was bit rate as the limiting factor. Apparently its not for HD DVD and its only a facto when using MPEG-2. And since only Blu-ray is currently using MPEG-2 , your point is???

Politics and choice of the codecs in practice are also comparison points. If Sony can use VC-1 but never does and sticks to MPEG-2, then potential or possible use of VC-1 means nothing.Ah, but you admit the potential is there.

My point has been that HD DVD supporters like to harp on their superior PQ over early Blu-ray releases. However, recent Blu-ray titles have been highly reviewed as well. And Blu-ray has the potential, there's that word again, for better transfers.

Have I ever knocked HD DVD's PQ or AQ, ever? I haven't even watched more than a few minutes of any HD DVD at one time. And I've only seen them in stores.

But I have seen pics of Amir's transfers that show where the differences are between the source and the compressed frame using VC-1 and AVC. As Amir pointed out, the VC-1 had way less pixels touched but it was still far from 'transparent to the master'. Could a higher bit rate help?

Is which codec a studio uses a format issue? In other words, if Blu-ray goes away will all the studios switch to VC-1? If Blu-ray wins will all studios switch to Mpeg-2?

I'd like to see how well the extended editions of LOTR do on HD DVD if New Line does separate transfers for the formats.

Frankly, I'd rather have a good transfer of Legend (I know it's an HD DVD exclusive film - but it's one of my favorites) than a perfect transfer of The Pursuit of Happyness.

Even ignoring the issue of different video encoders for MPEG-4 AVC I honestly don't see how the use of 8x8 blocks could not greatly change the amount of filtering done to the images. As such would you mind explaining why you believe it would have had little effect whether 8x8 blocks or 4x4 blocks were used?


His methodology was only useful if someone was curious to know how the loop filter with the MPEG reference AVC encoder would behave. Which is as useful in testing the MPEG-4 AVC video codec as would the testing of the very first MPEG-2 encoder. Remember that one of the main reasons encoding with a video codec improves over time is because better designed video encoders are made. As such to make a broad judgement against the MPEG-4 AVC video codec based on the first video encoder made is in my opinion very illogical.

Well, 8x8 blocks should certainly affect which pixels were filtered more than once, since the justification for this claim was the small 4x4 blocks caused filter overlap.

I'm also a little surprised a couple other points weren't challenged more but we are really not supposed to debate in the insider thread. But the main determinents of loop filtering are the filter options and the amount of stress the codec is under. Meanwhile, the amount of encoder stress for any given material will depend upon how good the encoder is compared to what bit rate it has to use. So we had AVC reference encoder used with default options for block size and filtering with an unspecified bit rate to determine the amount of stress.

A good commercial grade encoder with lots of bit rate to work with might need less filtering. And I believe the filtering wouldn't overlap as much with 8x8 blocks. I'm not an AVC encoder expert but I believe in Ron's first try at a visual demo of this on a BD movie he found the loop filter was not even active and he had to switch to a different source.

- Tom

...
Talk about Blu-Ray marketing "We will conquer SD DVD within 3 years!!"
DID you hear that? WTF is this? It's called FUD. http://www.worldscreen.com/newscurrent.php?filename=bluray031607.htm
...

Talk about MS marketing. "CeBIT: HD DVD beats Blu-ray on all counts"
DID you hear that? WTF is this? It's called FUD. http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/news/index.cfm?newsid=8701

This from the cabal that has:

- 1 major CE vendor, vs. several for Blu-ray;
- 1 major exclusive studio, vs. 3 for Blu-ray;
- less players sold;
- less disks sold, and Blu-ray now outselling 2+:1.

Conclusion? They're both spinning and FUDding. One major difference though is that the Neilsen/Videscan numbers have gotten worldwide press.

Ah, but you admit the potential is there.

My point has been that HD DVD supporters like to harp on their superior PQ over early Blu-ray releases. However, recent Blu-ray titles have been highly reviewed as well. And Blu-ray has the potential, there's that word again, for better transfers.

Have I ever knocked HD DVD's PQ or AQ, ever? I haven't even watched more than a few minutes of any HD DVD at one time. And I've only seen them in stores.

But I have seen pics of Amir's transfers that show where the differences are between the source and the compressed frame using VC-1 and AVC. As Amir pointed out, the VC-1 had way less pixels touched but it was still far from 'transparent to the master'. Could a higher bit rate help?

Is which codec a studio uses a format issue? In other words, if Blu-ray goes away will all the studios switch to VC-1? If Blu-ray wins will all studios switch to Mpeg-2?

[/I].

The problem I'm having with your logic are all the "ifs." If potential were executed over politics, we wouldn't have two formats we'd have one that utilized the best elements of both. That Sony and Fox are the biggest proponents of BD yet have the gall to release the weakest disks says something about where to place your trust.

I've never though a TL51 was needed (I still don't), But the likleyhood of companies as arrogant and stubborn as Sony and Fox utilizing anything from the format they erroneously trash as inferior makes the TL51 look like a sure thing in comparison.

So back at ya, if were gonna argue "potential" HD DVD has it all over BD again.

The problem I'm having with your logic are all the "ifs." If potential were executed over politics, we wouldn't have two formats we'd have one that utilized the best elements of both. That Sony and Fox are the biggest proponents of BD yet have the gall to release the weakest disks says something about where to place your trust.

I've never though a TL51 was needed (I still don't), But the likleyhood of companies as arrogant and stubborn as Sony and Fox utilizing anything from the format they erroneously trash as inferior makes the TL51 look like a sure thing in comparison.

So back at ya, if were gonna argue "potential" HD DVD has it all over BD again. We have two formats because of 'potential' profits not politics. In my view, Toshiba was unwilling to concede any profits from their DVD licenses that will be lost to the next-gen format. The studios don't care as much about which format has the better picture quality as they do about which format has the higher 'potential' profits for them.

As Kosty said earlier, "To many people you reach a point that an encoding gains little with more bits. Each codec reaches that point at different points. Once you are effectively transparent to the master then adding bits may not gain that much marginal gain. It may look better with more bits, but those bit may be better used for something else."

H.264/MPEG-4 AVC is an open video compression standard jointly developed by the International Telecommunication Union and MPEG members. AVC is able to provide 'perfect' transfers. So why should studios PAY to use VC-1 when they've already reached the point of marginal gain?

If Microsoft feels that VC-1 is so great and they want the BDA studios to use it they should make it an open standard and do away with any license fees.

We have two formats because of 'potential' profits not politics. In my view, Toshiba was unwilling to concede any profits from their DVD licenses that will be lost to the next-gen format.


If Microsoft feels that VC-1 is so great and they want the BDA studios to use it they should make it an open standard and do away with any license fees.

Come on now, to assign greed and license exclusivity to Toshiba and MS without a mention of Sony's motivations is fan-boyism. That's pretty-much why they backed out of the last round of format negations isn't? There is plenty of greed to go around here.

People say that TL51 is a mere marketing ploy, but I don't think that Sony is truly fighting for their extra GB and compression techniques that require it, nearly so much out of concern for the quality it delivers, as they are just going with what they developed to maintain exclusivity. Were the opposite true they would have made a better effort translating promises of advantage to measurable differences.

If they give all BD has to offer too soon, and it still have no apparent advantage to HD DVD, then they have lost one of their major selling points. So they are probably in no hurry to do so.

Come on now, to assign greed and license exclusivity to Toshiba and MS without a mention of Sony's motivations is fan-boyism. That's pretty-much why they backed out of the last round of format negations isn't? There is plenty of greed to go around here.Toshiba built HD DVD upon their DVD to "save costs" (more like save profits). Blu-ray was built from the ground up. If I was rebuilding my house I wouldn't limit myself to using the old foundation. Sony wanted to increase its share of the pie, certainly. My point was that the two formats exist not for political reasons as much as for profits for their patent holders.

Microsoft used their power and Toshiba's weakness to push their HDi standard onto HD DVD and tried to do the same with Blu-ray (they succeeded with VC-1 and failed with HDi). Even if Blu-ray had adopted HDi, we would still have this format war except Microsoft would still be a neutral party.

AVC is an open standard, VC-1 is not. Again, if Blu-ray faded away, would the studios switch to using VC-1? I don't think they would. This is not a format issue; it is a codec issue.

People say that TL51 is a mere marketing ploy, but I don't think that Sony is truly fighting for their extra GB and compression techniques that require it, nearly so much out of concern for the quality it delivers, as they are just going with what they developed to maintain exclusivity. Were the opposite true they would have made a better effort translating promises of advantage to measurable differences. The extra bandwidth will let the compressionists do less work on the transfers. Meaning same quality as before but less time spent encoding. Less time spent per film means more films can be encoded in the same amount of time as before. Meaning more HD movies for us.

If they give all BD has to offer too soon, and it still have no apparent advantage to HD DVD, then they have lost one of their major selling points. So they are probably in no hurry to do so.BD offers more blockbusters. That is its advantage and selling point.

The extra bandwidth will let the compressionists do less work on the transfers. Meaning same quality as before but less time spent encoding. Less time spent per film means more films can be encoded in the same amount of time as before. Meaning more HD movies for us.
.

How much hard data do you have on that assertion?



BD offers more blockbusters. That is its advantage and selling point.

Not to me I assure you.

Toshiba built HD DVD upon their DVD to "save costs" (more like save profits).
No. HD DVD is based on DVD to provide a cheap upgrade path for replicators and content publishers, using mostly proven technology.

Blu-ray was built from the ground up.
Not exactly. The disc structure has a lot in common with CD. Also, Blu-ray was initially designed as a recordable media, so Japanese consumers would have something to record HDTV broadcasts on. That original format is incompatible with current players.

...

H.264/MPEG-4 AVC is an open video compression standard jointly developed by the International Telecommunication Union and MPEG members. AVC is able to provide 'perfect' transfers. So why should studios PAY to use VC-1 when they've already reached the point of marginal gain?

If Microsoft feels that VC-1 is so great and they want the BDA studios to use it they should make it an open standard and do away with any license fees.

VC-1 is an international standard. MS changed WMV9 to VC1 and submitted to the SMPTE for standardization. The SMPTE approved.

Neither MPEG2, AVC, or VC1 is free. There is a agency set up to collect & distribute the money to all right holders.

"Is there no beginning to your knowledge?" - Anne Robinson

WARNING TROLL ALERT!!!!!

Of course no one can definitively prove with absolute certainty that higher bit rates have made Blu-ray's picture quality better because Blu-ray studios using higher bit rates are not releasing HD DVD versions. And the neutral studios are using the same transfer on both formats.

But even using same/similar transfers, don't the HD-DVD versions tend to get slightly better PQ ratings? Wouldn't that mean that Blu-Ray needs that extra bitrate and capacity to equal [not improve upon] what HD-DVD can do today?

As far as the Blu-Ray exclusive studios that use higher bit rates ... why then aren't all the BR releases rated 4.5+ and reference quality? :confused:

But even using same/similar transfers, don't the HD-DVD versions tend to get slightly better PQ ratings? Wouldn't that mean that Blu-Ray needs that extra bitrate and capacity to equal [not improve upon] what HD-DVD can do today?

Never, if they have the same transfer they will get the same mark. They are the same, it is as simple as that, any reviewer who says that any either version is superior needs to check his equipment or have his eyes tested.

Anyone care to comment on Gruberts posts a few pages back? (To lazy to look it up.) Where a U-control feature is dropped on the Euro release of a HD DVD? (They even demo'ed the US version of the disc WITH the feature, essentially lying to the poor euro consumers.)

Is it a space issue due to more languages? Is it a sign of things to come? May it be that 30GB only ain't so cool in europe? Is THAT why they're tyring to get 51GB up and running?

Talk about MS marketing. "CeBIT: HD DVD beats Blu-ray on all counts"
DID you hear that? WTF is this? It's called FUD. http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/news/index.cfm?newsid=8701

This from the cabal that has:

- 1 major CE vendor, vs. several for Blu-ray;
- 1 major exclusive studio, vs. 3 for Blu-ray;
- less players sold;
- less disks sold, and Blu-ray now outselling 2+:1.

Conclusion? They're both spinning and FUDding. One major difference though is that the Neilsen/Videscan numbers have gotten worldwide press.

Yep, they are. A sad commentary on the business, really, and disappointing from both camps.

But even using same/similar transfers, don't the HD-DVD versions tend to get slightly better PQ ratings? What a sad state of affairs it is that a question like this even gets asked. HD DVD propaganda is so aggressive, that people somehow think one bitbucket is better than another bitbucket, even with the same bits.

I can't wait for HD DVD to die so we don't have to deal with this nonsense anymore. May that day come soon.

What a sad state of affairs it is that a question like this even gets asked. HD DVD propaganda is so aggressive, that people somehow think one bitbucket is better than another bitbucket, even with the same bits.

I can't wait for HD DVD to die so we don't have to deal with this nonsense anymore. May that day come soon.

Perhaps if you made a committed, monastic, lifelong study of Voodoo, and/or Santeria, your curses might have more real effect. ;)

BD offers more blockbusters.
Really? Since when? I must not have gotten the memo. ;)

--Jerome

Really? Since when? I must not have gotten the memo. ;)

--Jerome

Jeez, Jerome! How could you miss "Rocky Balboa"? :D

Trust me when I say it wasn't due to an accidental oversight. :)

--Jerome

What a sad state of affairs it is that a question like this even gets asked. HD DVD propaganda is so aggressive, that people somehow think one bitbucket is better than another bitbucket, even with the same bits.

I can't wait for HD DVD to die so we don't have to deal with this nonsense anymore. May that day come soon.

nuts to that noise.

It is possible for a player to better PQ than another player? It's true of DVD, why not HD?

I'm sure you comment that frames "HD DVD propaganda" as "so aggressive" is unleashing a collective :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: to any who have been tracking the propaganda from the BDA.

What a sad state of affairs it is that a question like this even gets asked. HD DVD propaganda is so aggressive, that people somehow think one bitbucket is better than another bitbucket, even with the same bits.

I can't wait for HD DVD to die so we don't have to deal with this nonsense anymore. May that day come soon. Blu-ray propaganda isn't as aggressive? :D

Time for you to take off the blue colored glasses, oh yea great unbiased one :rolleyes:

I'm also a little surprised a couple other points weren't challenged more but we are really not supposed to debate in the insider thread.Well you can always post your thoughts in this thread on the posts made in the Industry Insiders thread.


I've never though a TL51 was needed (I still don't), But the likleyhood of companies as arrogant and stubborn as Sony and Fox utilizing anything from the format they erroneously trash as inferior makes the TL51 look like a sure thing in comparison.Maybe you don't know about this but Toshiba has promised triple layer HD DVD discs before and it turned out to be nothing more than hot air. As such there is good reason why many people are skeptical of TL51 since it might very well turn out to be the same.


But even using same/similar transfers, don't the HD-DVD versions tend to get slightly better PQ ratings?If your using the same encoding on both Blu-ray and HD DVD there are only three reasons why someone would see any difference. A difference in the quality of the Blu-ray/HD DVD player's video output, a difference in the quality of the display, or the strong desire to believe that there is a difference. Logically speaking the same encoding done on both HD formats will look exactly the same excluding other variables.


As far as the Blu-Ray exclusive studios that use higher bit rates ... why then aren't all the BR releases rated 4.5+ and reference quality? :confused:jdg345, one could easily ask that same question about HD DVD especially since you believe (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=9646600&&#post9646600) that 30 GB is enough for any video encoding. One factor that is often overlooked is the source material since even when transparently encoded some movies simply won't look that good. As such you are going to occasionally end up with poor looking movies such as Excalibur (http://hddvd.highdefdigest.com/excalibur.html) and National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (http://hddvd.highdefdigest.com/christmasvacation.html) on both HD formats along with a good number of average looking movies. Also jdg345 but you really shouldn't play ignorant when asking questions since you have repeatedly posted against Blu-ray and the PS3 in the past (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=9688531&&#post9688531).


Blu-ray propaganda isn't as aggressive?Well on this forum I would say that we have more HD DVD partisans than we do Blu-ray partisans. I have actually seen people on this forum say that they would copy Fox DVDs simply because Fox is exclusively supporting Blu-ray. I think that some HD DVD supporters truly hate the companies that support Blu-ray. Personally I think that is very illogical and is a case of tribalism in action.

Maybe you don't know about this but Toshiba has promised triple layer HD DVD discs before and it turned out to be nothing more than hot air. As such there is good reason why many people are skeptical of TL51 since it might very well turn out to be the same.

Well on this forum I would say that we have more HD DVD partisans than we do Blu-ray partisans. I have actually seen people on this forum say that they would copy Fox DVDs simply because Fox is exclusively supporting Blu-ray. I think that some HD DVD supporters truly hate the companies that support Blu-ray. Personally I think that is very illogical and is a case of tribalism in action.

I see no reason to doubt that TL51 is in development, but as nothing a crucially hangs on it's release, it's no great surprise that it has yet to be submitted for approval. If it never comes to be, oh well, but it's a little silly to act as if it will never happen. If VMD is claiming they've nailed 4 and 8 layer disks, I have no real reason to doubt Toshiba can whip out a three. I also don't doubt that Sony eventually can make a 200GB disk for that matter either, I just don't think it has much use other than for data storage.

To say there is more HD DVD partisanship strikes me as patently absurd, just gaze down the list of threads (which haven't been yanked), and tell me how many appear to have been created by and large for BD chest-thumping.

What a sad state of affairs it is that a question like this even gets asked. HD DVD propaganda is so aggressive, that people somehow think one bitbucket is better than another bitbucket, even with the same bits.

I can't wait for HD DVD to die so we don't have to deal with this nonsense anymore. May that day come soon.

Typical post from you Rob. There is a difference between players. If you don't believe so try reading some of the reviews, for a change. I have owned two different BR players. There is a big difference in the quality between the two BR players playing the same exact disk.

If you make a comparison of the same codec on BR vrs HD DVD there is just as likely to be a difference as well. What matters is the overall quality, not just the codec used. I could care less about the codec used. I care about what the film looks like coming out of my setup, period. People often dismiss the players in this process. Big mistake. Without quality players the disks will look good at best but not great. Some wil argue that it's digitial and that the players don't matter. I say bullsh$t. I have owned two different BR players and three different HD DVD players. There is a difference, even if people don't want to except it.

Both formats have great, good and bad transfers. That fact does not make me want one or the other to die a quick death. As you so often comment. So far the so called war has been a great benefit to both sides by forcing both to up the quality of movies and players and reduce pricing at the same time, How on earth can that be bad at this early point?

The only people that give a crap about HD disks are people like us on forums like this. It will be another year before anyone in the general public even gives HD disks a second thought. And thats only if prices come down to an exceptable level and then we will see who comes out ahead, maybe.

I believe both will be around for a very long time for one simple reason. There is to much money at stake for either to give up in just a couple of years.

The truth is, we need both formats right now for there to be any chance of HD disks getting to a price that most can afford and are willing to pay. IF not, we have LD all over again only smaller.

I see no reason to doubt that TL51 is in development, but as nothing a crucially hangs on it's release, it's no great surprise that it has yet to be submitted for approval. If it never comes to be, oh well, but it's a little silly to act as if it will never happen.I don't think it is silly to be skeptical of TL51 considering what happened with TL45 back in 2005. I think it is just common sense. Also I believe many HD DVD supporters show a lack of concern about TL51 partly because of the fact that no one knows for sure if Toshiba really intends to add TL51 to the HD DVD specs.


If VMD is claiming they've nailed 4 and 8 layer disks, I have no real reason to doubt Toshiba can whip out a three.I have no doubt at all that TL51 could eventually be made by Toshiba. The question has never been whether it it possible but instead if it can be added to the HD DVD specs without causing problems with both current and upcoming HD DVD players/drives.


To say there is more HD DVD partisanship strikes me as patently absurd, just gaze down the list of threads (which haven't been yanked), and tell me how many appear to have been created by and large for BD chest-thumping.I think is a major difference in how you and I view the idea of partisanship. I personally don't consider someone a partisan simply for promoting their own format as long as they remain factually accurate and don't post such news in the other format's sections of the forum. In my opinion what makes someone a partisan in this format war is when they spend much of their time attacking the other format, or its supporters.

The extra bandwidth will let the compressionists do less work on the transfers. Meaning same quality as before but less time spent encoding. Less time spent per film means more films can be encoded in the same amount of time as before. Meaning more HD movies for us.How much hard data do you have on that assertion?
I don't have hard data, but Cjplay did elude to the time/bandwidth connection in some of his posts.

"...the time it takes to get the quality out would take months to make "the most efficient" encode of a title." - Cjplay

More bandwidth means compressionists can be less efficient. Although, he also mentioned that bitrate was becoming less relevant.

"...The PBR's of those sequences must take into account the buffer state that allows for peaks above the stated PBR. For example, a 24Mbit PBR could have very brief spikes into 29/30Mbits if you were to add the framesizes together, but the buffer allows for these spikes with extra room to keep the disc datarate below the spec mux rate. POTO's exploding Opera House is a good example of spikes in the PBR. We're seeing these spikes less often now than we did then, but they still happen a lot and are annoying to code around. I'd say the range is about 17-30Mbit spikes with PBRs in the 19-27 range. It all depends on what the studio wants to do on a title..." - Cjplay

Higher bandwidth would mean Blu-ray compressionists wouldn't have to code around as many spikes if those spikes would be over HD DVD's max but under Blu-ray's max bandwidth. Meaning less time spent by the compressionist coding on that particular title.

Maybe someone could ask the compressionists on the insider's thread which format's maximum bandwidth they prefer and why.

I don't have hard data, but Cjplay did elude to the time/bandwidth connection in some of his posts.

"...the time it takes to get the quality out would take months to make "the most efficient" encode of a title." - Cjplay

More bandwidth means compressionists can be less efficient. Although, he also mentioned that bitrate was becoming less relevant.

"...The PBR's of those sequences must take into account the buffer state that allows for peaks above the stated PBR. For example, a 24Mbit PBR could have very brief spikes into 29/30Mbits if you were to add the framesizes together, but the buffer allows for these spikes with extra room to keep the disc datarate below the spec mux rate. POTO's exploding Opera House is a good example of spikes in the PBR. We're seeing these spikes less often now than we did then, but they still happen a lot and are annoying to code around. I'd say the range is about 17-30Mbit spikes with PBRs in the 19-27 range. It all depends on what the studio wants to do on a title..." - Cjplay

Higher bandwidth would mean Blu-ray compressionists wouldn't have to code around as many spikes if those spikes would be over HD DVD's max but under Blu-ray's max bandwidth. Meaning less time spent by the compressionist coding on that particular title.

Maybe someone could ask the compressionists on the insider's thread which format's maximum bandwidth they prefer and why.





Mpeg2 needs that higher bandwidth in order for it to produce a good picture but you see that's an old codec,
Now we have more 2 more advanced ones,VC-1 and AVC both good codecs that need less bandwidth to produce a excellent picture.

We have a VC-1 V.S. AVC, and from what I see VC-1 has more edge in quality.

Sony's large chunk of titles are Mpeg2, one reason needing a bd-50 size disc.

Their new release of "Big Fish" a very nice 4.5 ratting for it's PQ but no extras at all and on a BD-50 size disc..hmmm why, maybe because Mpeg2 is used here??

"Open Season" a very nice 5.0 ratting on PQ,w/extras on a BD-25 size disc.. AVC was used here.

"King Kong" a 5.0 ratting for PQ on hd dvd VC-1 used here.
Now this disc happeneds to be my favorite in it's PQ.

So HD DVD and Blu-Ray can produce the same greatness in PQ . Though It helps If the studio makes sure the damn end result shines.

So you can talk untill your are blu-in the face (he he) but,
The Bandwidth/Disc size issue is not an issue at all, cause we can't prove it, since we can't see it.

Blu-Ray hasn't sold me.

All they did were show me thay have a gimmick with a unfinshed product(BD-J),
And are using PS3 gamers to sell it :D

Also that blue box color hurts my eyes too LOL :eek: :D

H.264/MPEG-4 AVC is an open video compression standard jointly developed by the International Telecommunication Union and MPEG members. AVC is able to provide 'perfect' transfers. So why should studios PAY to use VC-1 when they've already reached the point of marginal gain?



You enclose 'perfect' in quotes. Why?

And does your comment account for the contraints of optical media?

Mpeg2 needs that higher bandwidth in order for it to produce a good picture but you see that's an old codec,
Now we have more 2 more advanced ones,VC-1 and AVC both good codecs that need less bandwidth to produce a excellent picture.

We have a VC-1 V.S. AVC, and from what I see VC-1 has more edge in quality.

Sony's large chunk of titles are Mpeg2, one reason needing a bd-50 size disc.

Their new release of "Big Fish" a very nice 4.5 ratting for it's PQ but no extras at all and on a BD-50 size disc..hmmm why, maybe because Mpeg2 is used here??

"Open Season" a very nice 5.0 ratting on PQ,w/extras on a BD-25 size disc.. AVC was used here.

"King Kong" a 5.0 ratting for PQ on hd dvd VC-1 used here.
Now this disc happeneds to be my favorite in it's PQ.


So HD DVD and Blu-Ray can produce the same greatness in PQ . Though It helps If the studio makes sure the damn end result shines.

So you can talk untill your are blu-in the face (he he) but,
The Bandwidth/Disc size issue is not an issue at all, cause we can't prove it, since we can't see it.

Blu-Ray hasn't sold me.

All they did were show me thay have a gimmick with a unfinshed product(BD-J),
And are using PS3 gamers to sell it :D

Also that blue box color hurts my eyes too LOL :eek: :D

Your argument that bandwidth and disc size fail to note that even the Blu-ray discs released with advanced codecs such as "Open Season", "Casino Royale", and "Pursuit of Happyness" use similar bit rates to our MPEG 2 titles. AVC and VC1 can better manage certain types of masters, but they still need significant bandwidth to the most out of them. Add to that the burden of uncompressed or lossless audio and you will find the studios would like to have a 75 or 100GB format.

PS. You should read some of the other posts on the forum about the compression on KK.

Your argument that bandwidth and disc size fail to note that even the Blu-ray discs released with advanced codecs such as "Open Season", "Casino Royale", and "Pursuit of Happyness" use similar bit rates to our MPEG 2 titles. AVC and VC1 can better manage certain types of masters, but they still need significant bandwidth to the most out of them. Add to that the burden of uncompressed or lossless audio and you will find the studios would like to have a 75 or 100GB format.

PS. You should read some of the other posts on the forum about the compression on KK. I think most here clearly agree that the concerns about MPEG-2 are somewhat overstated if BD50 is the norm and can be reliably mass produced in DVD release type quantities.

Isn't true that a studio would always wanted unlimited space for a release?

The advantage of the more advanced codecs is that they can achieve more than MPEG-2 within the constraints of economically replaceable 25, 30 or 50 GB shiny discs.

Plus Blu-ray requires more space to get the same result because of the now normal use of PCM audio tracks and/or MPEG-2.

Never, if they have the same transfer they will get the same mark. They are the same, it is as simple as that, any reviewer who says that any either version is superior needs to check his equipment or have his eyes tested.

I thought some reflagging had to be done from one format to another that could affect the way the picture was displayed? I don't remember details on it very well though ... I'll see what I can dig up.

I guess the differences either way would likely amount to the same differences between lossless and TrueHD/etc audio tho ... where it might just be the marketing bias that sways the reviewers. :confused: