The Fifth Element Remaster was done in AVC with TrueHD on a BD-50... User's reported this was around 35GB of data... One thing I don't quite understand was how HD-DVD (max at 30GB) were able to fit multiple TrueHD encodings and VC-1 encoding under 30GB, while Fifth Element Remaster required more space than the original BD-25 Fifth Element with MPEG-2 and PCM?

Don't forget the uncompressed PCM on the remaster T5E disc, in addition to the DTHD. And be sure to consider the video bitrate used; I'd bet it's much higher on the remastered BD than anything you'll find on HD DVD.

The Fifth Element Remaster was done in AVC with TrueHD on a BD-50... User's reported this was around 35GB of data... One thing I don't quite understand was how HD-DVD (max at 30GB) were able to fit multiple TrueHD encodings and VC-1 encoding under 30GB, while Fifth Element Remaster required more space than the original BD-25 Fifth Element with MPEG-2 and PCM? It's all about quality.

If the encoder (person) knows that the bandwith limitation is 30Mbps (audio and video) and 30GB max, they HAVE to make it fit - taking into consideration any other extras. But how much room is that compared to an encoding job where the bandwith limitation is 54Mbps with a disc space of 50GB?

You can put 24 hours of HD video on both HD-DVD and BD on single discs but it'd look like crap. So it's all about quality.


fuad

i think with hd-dvd, the encoder is given what needs to be on the disc and encodes the video accordingly. whereas with bd, you can pretty much encode how you like and after adding in multiple lossless tracks you'd still have plenty of room left. there's no reason to encode for the purpose of filling all 50gbs on the disc.

what HD-DVD has "multiple" TrueHD recordings?

The Fifth Element Remaster was done in AVC with TrueHD on a BD-50... User's reported this was around 35GB of data... One thing I don't quite understand was how HD-DVD (max at 30GB) were able to fit multiple TrueHD encodings and VC-1 encoding under 30GB, while Fifth Element Remaster required more space than the original BD-25 Fifth Element with MPEG-2 and PCM?There are two good reasons why TFE element was larger with the MPEG-4 AVC encoding than the MPEG-2 encoding and that is because it was of better picture quality and because it included both a 16-bit PCM audio track and a 20-bit Dolby TrueHD audio track. As for HD DVD titles with 2 or more Dolby TrueHD audio tracks I have not yet seen any of them reviewed at High-Def Digest and as such do not know how they would be considered in terms of picture quality.

There is also the question of the amount of effort involved. It is possible that excellent results may be obtained on HD DVD DL30's with a lot of human effort in the encoding process, while the same or better results could be obtained on high-band BD50 with a less labor-intensive effort.

This is perhaps not so critical when a high-profile title that will sell a lot is under consideration but becomes more important when the title is less economically important.

For example, Universal's VC-1 encode of King Kong on HD DVD looks great even though it is a 3 hour movie. But their Spartacus looks very bad. Whether or not these factors are at work on these two titles is a matter of pure speculation and is a question that I have.

There are two good reasons why TFE element was larger with the MPEG-4 AVC encoding than the MPEG-2 encoding and that is because it was of better picture quality and because it included both a 16-bit PCM audio track and a 20-bit Dolby TrueHD audio track. As for HD DVD titles with 2 or more Dolby TrueHD audio tracks I have not yet seen any of them reviewed at High-Def Digest and as such do not know how they would be considered in terms of picture quality.
Although your overall point is valid, the new release of The Fifth Element has a 16-bit TrueHD track. Peter Bracke, as he often does, got the spec information wrong. Paidgeek said in another thread that the original master only has a 16-bit resolution.

So, if it took only 35 gig to give us the very best audio/video presentation, then why didn't Sony use the remaining space to give us ALL of the dvd extras? Can paidgeek answer this question?

double (or triple in this case...) dip down the road....

The Fifth Element Remaster was done in AVC with TrueHD on a BD-50... User's reported this was around 35GB of data... One thing I don't quite understand was how HD-DVD (max at 30GB) were able to fit multiple TrueHD encodings and VC-1 encoding under 30GB, while Fifth Element Remaster required more space than the original BD-25 Fifth Element with MPEG-2 and PCM?

well there is no single HD-DVD with two DolbyTrueHD tracks as fasr as I am aware, and so few releases with DoblyTrueHD.....

as somebody mentioned, with more work I am sure it can fit on 30GB :), but the main problem for HD-DVD is bittrate !!

so I am very very glad they used as much space as they need to make it look spectacular :)

is it confirmed that both tracks PCM and DolbyTrueHD on remastered Fifthe Element are 16bits ?

Marek

is it confirmed that both tracks PCM and DolbyTrueHD on remastered Fifthe Element are 16bits ?

Yes, I can confirm that both are 16-bit. The PCM track's bitrate is 4.6 Mbps. The TrueHD track's bitrate is usually around 2.1 Mbps during quiet passages. This is around 600 kbps more than usual for a 16-bit TrueHD track, because in this case the 640 kbps DD track is interleaved into the encode.

Although your overall point is valid, the new release of The Fifth Element has a 16-bit TrueHD track. Peter Bracke, as he often does, got the spec information wrong. Paidgeek said in another thread that the original master only has a 16-bit resolution.I see, and considering the age of the movie that would make sense. Here is the post (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=10832038&&#post10832038) that paidgeek had made about that and someone might want to email that to Peter Bracke.

The only reason this disc pushes over 30 gb is because it has a redundant PCM and TrueHD audio options. Strip away the PCM and you can easily fit the movie with the same video quality and lossless TrueHD audio into 30 gb.

The extra space used on the Blu-ray is less about "quality" than about simple redundancy for the sake of hardware limitations. Sony couldn't take away the PCM option because half the available Blu-ray players don't support TrueHD. This would not be a problem on HD DVD where all players do support TrueHD.

The bottom line here is that people need to stop worrying about bit rates and just focus on whether the damn movie looks good or not. The remastered Fifth Element looks great. The original Fifth Element didn't. This isn't a format thing. It's a simple matter of whether the studio bothered to put any effort into the transfer or not.

There are plenty of both good and bad looking titles on both formats.

Josh Z: The size of the AVC encode is 35GB, but lets just say that it would fit on 30GB, shouldn't bandwith be considered also?

Josh Z: The size of the AVC encode is 35GB, but lets just say that it would fit on 30GB, shouldn't bandwith be considered also?

As I said in my last post, there are plenty of both good and bad looking titles on both formats. Either format is capable of delivering a high quality video and audio experience if the studio puts the effort into it.