Recently on the insider's thread, Paidgeek had this (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showpost.php?p=11385145&postcount=2523) to say in response to a discussion about if it were possible to include lossless sound tracks on HD DVD:

To be very specific, what I am saying is that it is using lossless coding on all HD-DVD titles is not practical because it will compromise the picture. Not so on Blu-ray. Period.


Now what I find interesting is that this is an absolute statement. He even spelled out the word "period" for us. The implication is that the additional storage/bandwidth for Blu Ray categorically not compromise the picture. After all, his level of comparison to HD DVD is "all titles".

So lets talk about the disparity for a moment. People like to quote 30 vs 50 gigs, or 30 vs 48 Mbps. And these are concrete differences. But for perspective, let's look at what they are really tackling in order to "not compromise video", the uncompressed video source.

A 1920x1080 pixel frame is 6,220,800 bytes. At 24 frames/sec, that's 149,299,200 bytes a second. For a minute, we are at 8,957,952,000 bytes. At an hour we've reached 537,477,120,000. A two hour movie therefore weighs in at over a terabyte : 1,074,954,240,000 bytes.

So for our first comparison, we are attempting to compress that in to less than either 30 or 50 GB. Thus, the amount of original storage space taken is:

HD DVD= 2.8%
Blu Ray= 4.6%

The storage space difference as compared to the original is slightly less than two percent.

How about bandwidth?

That 149,299,200 bytes a second equals 1,194,393,600 bits a second. Thus the bandwidth numbers are:

HD DVD: 2.5%
Blu Ray: 4.0%

So about one and a half percent difference between the two.

So those are the margins of difference between the two formats, and they have to work sound in to that.

So it's Blu Ray's allegation that the miniscule difference between the two formats is such that when talking about compromised video the story is: "Not so on Blu-ray. Period.", yet that must be the case on HD DVD?

You mean to tell me that 4.6% of the original storage space is juuuuuust right, but heaven forbid they would have only happened to get 4.1%?

Somehow I think not.

I've said that about a beeeeeellion times!

You are a smart dude... and admittedly I've seen some of that previous discussion.

It was paid's absolute statement in the Insider's thread that prompted me to bring the subject up.

You are a smart dude... and admittedly I've seen some of that previous discussion.
Aw shucks...;)

I think you're looking at it in a weird way, personally.

Let's say you have a compression scheme that can achieve 100:1 compression and another that can achieve 500:1 compression (of data, audio, video, whatever).

Relative to the original one will be 1% the size of the original, the other will be 0.2%. So there's only 0.8% difference relative to the original... In reality however, one takes 5 times less space than the other.

So if you have a fixed storage space, you can fit 5 times as much information as with the other even though you're saving less than 1% relative to the original... The difference doesn't seem so trivial anymore, does it? :)

There's that fuzzy math again that makes no sense except to those who cheer HD DVD. 50gb discs offer 67% more space than 30gb discs, not 2% or 1.5%.

It all comes down to how much space is needed for an optimal picture quality. If the space needed is 30gb, then including more audio tracks on a 30gb HD DVD diminishes the video quality to a degree. But there's plenty of room to add many audio tracks of such a movie on a 50gb disc, which is what is being said. That's the true math. But if optimal picture quality is achieved in just 20gb, then stick in on a 30gb HD DVD disc with a good audio track without any regrets.

It's all relative whenever the numbers game is used. I don't know (or care) much about bitrates but look at it this way, 4.6% is 61% more than 2.8%. Also 4% is 63% more than 2.5%. Marketted correctly, BD is 63% better better than HD and that spells the end of the format war.

Now that thats done the 99% of the market see theres no war and rush out to buy $400 players and $40 must have fox films since DVD is so disgusting now

The flaw in this analysis is that no hd movie encoding is compressed directly from some theoretical, utterly uncompressed master. The resulting percentages are simply a play on numbers, entirely dependent on what size/bandwidth "source" you use as an example. If it is a "1 TB" source, then you get very small differences in percentage. If it is a "100 GB" source, then you get very large differences in percentage. Reality will lie somewhere in between.

So about one and a half percent difference between the two.




This is a blu-ray advantage. You give it to them. No need to spin it one way or other.
If you want to say this advantage doesn't matter in the big picture, then it is your opinion.

So this is it? VC-1 and AVC are at their maximum? No improvements possible? No refinements? We have reached the absolute limts using these compression technologies? No way to keep PQ high and gain more space due to more efficency?

More realistically, a losslessly compressed 4:2:2 "master" is more like 250 GB, rather than 1 TB, no?

The premise of this topic is somewhere along the lines of arguing that the difference between earning $40,000/yr and $80,000/yr is minuscule in comparison to what Bill Gates makes. So, might as well be happy with $40k/yr... :o

No thanks. I'll take the 80k, every time.

This is a blu-ray advantage. You give it to them. No need to spin it one way or other.
If you want to say this advantage doesn't matter in the big picture, then it is your opinion.




Any difference you can't see or hear is completely irrelevant. 30 years ago, when first bitten by the audio bug ( video didn't qualify for enthusiasm ), I was something of a spec. whore. I got over it. There are countless posts on this forum claiming that BD's capacity offers advantages, particularly with regards to audio ( I think we can all agree that PQ is equivalent ), and every single one of them, is a matter of opinion. That is, unless you have a convincing body of empirical data you'd like to share with us.

So for our first comparison, we are attempting to compress that in to less than either 30 or 50 GB. Thus, the amount of original storage space taken is:

HD DVD= 2.8%
Blu Ray= 4.6%

The storage space difference as compared to the original is slightly less than two percent.

That 149,299,200 bytes a second equals 1,194,393,600 bits a second. Thus the bandwidth numbers are:

HD DVD: 2.5%
Blu Ray: 4.0%

So about one and a half percent difference between the two.While both formats will have cases where these things matter and cases where they don't (the first being the case most of the time, but the second still being the case some of the time), are you willing to using the same kind of math to compare DVD and HD DVD and use the same logic as far as jumping to a conclusion? If the difference between DVD and HD DVD is in the same ballpark as your 2% for space and 1.5% for bandwidth, would you be happy with just using DL DVD media and the bandwidth limitations DVD had, but for HD? If not, why not? Your math seems to point you in that direction.

Why waste all that money developing new discs for HD DVD if the percentage differences between DVD and it are in the same range you pointed out?

--Darin

Anyone that would say BD doesn't have the numbers advantage is just wrong, it's a fact..........but I question it's relevance to movies. It would be factors in games & storage, where, IMO BD belongs.

We have yet to see much difference when it comes to properly encoded movies, this tells me it's not relevant. I keep hearing "audio tracks" - how feck'n many? You need 1 lossless & 1 lossy. PCM? Oh please take that space hogging dinosaur away with MPEG-2.

The numbers are there but as yet we've seen no real world differences.

More realistically, a losslessly compressed 4:2:2 "master" is more like 250 GB, rather than 1 TB, no?

An uncompressed 10-bit 4:2:2 source is around 1 TB. That's a rough number. The 8-bit 4:2:0 that is fed into the encoder is often around 500 GB. Again, a rough number. Part 1 of the BSG pilot @ 8-bit 4:2:0 is 394 GB while part 2 is 373 GB.

Hey, I said "losslessly compressed", didn't I? :p I know that probably doesn't exist in that stage, but would be fairly consistent with a 500 vs. 250 figure (except for the 4:2:2 part). ;)

This is a blu-ray advantage. You give it to them. No need to spin it one way or other.
If you want to say this advantage doesn't matter in the big picture, then it is your opinion.

A number of replies seem to echo these sentiments. However perhaps my point was unclear. I'm responding to paidgeeks claims that: "To be very specific, what I am saying is that it is using lossless coding on all HD-DVD titles is not practical because it will compromise the picture. Not so on Blu-ray. Period.

He's not stating opinion. He's stating as fact that with BD you simply do not have picture compromises by using lossless audio. PERIOD.

My point is that one format is discarding 97.2% of the original picture information, and the other "only" 95.4% of the picture info.

Somehow that difference is the magical number that means there will never be compromise for a video on BD, PERIOD?

Stating absolutes such as that get you in trouble.

More realistically, a losslessly compressed 4:2:2 "master" is more like 250 GB, rather than 1 TB, no?



Color subsampling is not lossless compression. As a matter of fact there are those here who lamented that we didn't get better then 4:2:2 delivery.

In either case, I think your number is low for a standard length feature.

While both formats will have cases where these things matter and cases where they don't (the first being the case most of the time, but the second still being the case some of the time), are you willing to using the same kind of math to compare DVD and HD DVD and use the same logic as far as jumping to a conclusion? If the difference between DVD and HD DVD is in the same ballpark as your 2% for space and 1.5% for bandwidth, would you be happy with just using DL DVD media and the bandwidth limitations DVD had, but for HD? If not, why not? Your math seems to point you in that direction.

Why waste all that money developing new discs for HD DVD if the percentage differences between DVD and it are in the same range you pointed out?

--Darin

For the argument that I'm trying to make (that it's rediculous to say that one format will never have to make any compromises for video, as paid said), absolutely not.

For the argument that I'm trying to make (that it's rediculous to say that one format will never have to make any compromises for video, as paid said), absolutely not.Okay. Sounds like you and I are in agreement that there will be cases where they have to compromise on both sides. Do I have that right?

--Darin

So this is it? VC-1 and AVC are at their maximum? No improvements possible? No refinements? We have reached the absolute limts using these compression technologies? No way to keep PQ high and gain more space due to more efficency?

So can I get an answer to some of these questions?

OK if bitrate is soooo much more important that extras and other things, why didn't we see more "superbit" DVDs?

Because bitrate doesn't matter! Resolution does. People can see the difference between 480i and 1080p, because there is a big difference. J6P could care less about bitrate and lossless audio, and about 99% of the hardware out there does not even support it.

Why is this thread a sticky? vMy mistake it isn'i.. lol.. It's this new color scheme on this forum..

Color subsampling is not lossless compression. As a matter of fact there are those here who lamented that we didn't get better then 4:2:2 delivery.

This is getting into semantics, again. Essentially, nothing is lossless by the standard of "reality", since there is always a point where bandwidth and s/n ratio need to take on finite numbers in any sort of copying device.

Getting past the technobabble, my remark was simply qualifying the bare minimum file size of a 4:2:2 master with typical run-length encoding. If we are going to compare file sizes and capacities, it makes sense to put some context on what the state of the data is just before it is sent into the encoder (granted, that should be 4:2:0, instead of 4:2:2), rather than some nebulous elemental state derived purely from resolution, bit depth, and fps.

So many intentional losses are involved from that point on, it is no surprise that tiny percentage numbers yield little to no relevance to the actual process. One could then just as easily argue that 2 hrs of "Newtonian reality" can be comfortably represented in 3,736.48 PetaBytes, hence, the percent difference between that 500 GB master and a sub-10 GB dvd encode is minuscule, and thus negligible. It would be a bit silly to suggest that the 2 are exchangeable, wouldn't it?

OK if bitrate is soooo much more important that extras and other things, why didn't we see more "superbit" DVDs?

Because bitrate doesn't matter! Resolution does. People can see the difference between 480i and 1080p, because there is a big difference. J6P could care less about bitrate and lossless audio, and about 99% of the hardware out there does not even support it.
Then why is hi def movies not placed on the cheaper dvd media? How about compress it so much to fit it on a 700mb cd? That would be crazy because the quality would be absolute crap. Conclusion: bitrate *does* matter. The only question is, what difference in bitrate does it have to be before people can detect the drop in quality? :rolleyes:

The irony of Everdog's example is that if the same dvd bitrate and codec was used on that 480i and 1080p sample, people probably wouldn't be able to tell the difference between 480i and 1080p, either (because the material in the 1080p would be softened to the point of being no better than 480). ;) So ironically, his own example depends on bitrate to even make it work.

When all is said and done, all I really care about is what the picture looks like on my display. If it looks good then I couldn't care less what the bitrate is. If it looks bad then someone needed to do some more work on it before releasing it, and I am irritated because I paid for a crappy product.

Quintessential point, benes! I believe that is the basic, intended context of paidgeeks remark.

Okay. Sounds like you and I are in agreement that there will be cases where they have to compromise on both sides. Do I have that right?

--Darin

The the extent the bits are not identical to the source, sure. It's a perceptual codec.

I'd also expect that, given the work put in to this, that it's entirely possible in the "perceptual" realm of human vision, that both formats are sufficient for the vast majority of material.

It's stating that a data reduction of 97% is little-bear's bed Toooo Small, and that a reduction of 95% is Mama Bear Juuust Right is absurd.

Predicted response:

Yeah, but with vc-1 the video is already transparent at low bitrates and... you don't need all that space. It's wasting bits. Also, screenshot comparisons don't count because they're not in motion.

So can I get an answer to some of these questions?

We have already seen improvements, and more are sure to come. Some of what the encoder workflow is being being targetted to be capable of has been broadly hinted at here.

As a matter of fact, I'd bet the efficiency improvements in encoder software alone accounts for a greater degree of difference than the ~2% I highlighted here.

op should be whipped, because his math is pure fud

You have to leave it in context, scaesare. paid's point is that for lossless to be on every titles, either the video bitrate needs to be brought down and/or extras need to be trimmed to fit it all on an HDDVD30. Period.

Now you can make the argument that turning the bitrate a bit on that VC1 encode wouldn't make any perceptual difference... and it might be a good argument, but it's not contrary to the point that paidgeek made.

There is simply no refuting the much larger lossless audio availability on Blu-ray. So you can try to denigrate it as voodoo, which many HDDVD fans like (yet somehow defend the necessity for TrueHD on every Toshiba player,even though it's not mandated on the discs) and can quibble about bit depth (yet conveniently ignoring that most, if not all, of HDDVD's high profile titles are all using 16-bit TrueHD, if any lossless at all)...

This is getting into semantics, again. Essentially, nothing is lossless by the standard of "reality", since there is always a point where bandwidth and s/n ratio need to take on finite numbers in any sort of copying device.

Getting past the technobabble, my remark was simply qualifying the bare minimum file size of a 4:2:2 master with typical run-length encoding. If we are going to compare file sizes and capacities, it makes sense to put some context on what the state of the data is just before it is sent into the encoder (granted, that should be 4:2:0, instead of 4:2:2), rather than some nebulous elemental state derived purely from resolution, bit depth, and fps.

So many intentional losses are involved from that point on, it is no surprise that tiny percentage numbers yield little to no relevance to the actual process. One could then just as easily argue that 2 hrs of "Newtonian reality" can be comfortably represented in 3,736.48 PetaBytes, hence, the percent difference between that 500 GB master and a sub-10 GB dvd encode is minuscule, and thus negligible. It would be a bit silly to suggest that the 2 are exchangeable, wouldn't it?

I hear ya.. .and I don't want to get on to a semantics game either. I agree it's immaterial where the reduction happens... if the chroma is sub sampled in a separate step, is beside te point that 3/4's of the color information is discarded. That's the first step to removing 95+ percent of the data that made up the original picture.

I'm not wanting to quibble with the differences between reality and a digitally sampled representation thereof. I want to make the point that in the Big Picture (pun intended), we are talking about removing the VAST majority of the bits making up the picture for either format. To suggest there's some hard knee point wherein eliminating 95% is OK, and 97% is not is foolish.

What paidgeek said is a fact not an opinion. The video bandwidth limit for blu-ray is 40 Mbps. The total bandwidth is 48 Mbps. That means you can have 8 Mbps worth of audio that does not in any way take away from the video bandwidth. Its that simple. That enough for 2 possibly 3 lossless tracks at 16bit.

By contrast HD DVDs video bandwidth is 29.4 Mbps with a total bandwidth of 30.24 Mbps.

Period. End of story. And whatever else you want to say.

I'm not debating weather you have 8Mbps carved out for audio. I'm calling in to question the idea that some magic number is the point at which there will NEVER be compromises to video, and drawling a line in the sand that says that anything less than that will possibly incur such compromise.

(Incidentally, my percentage calcs were based on 48Mpbs... using 40Mpbs for video narrows the gap even more.)

Ironically, I BELIEVE that the bitrate caps where standardized during hte time MPEG2 was the codec planned upon for BR and prior to the advanced codes. So it would be odd that it so ends up that the 40Mpbs happens to be the EXACT cutoff point for no compromise AVC or VC-1 video as well, eh?

Incidentally, love your bitrade threads... perusing them leads me to believe all the more that such absolute claims such as Paidgeek is making are suspect.

op should be whipped, because his math is pure fud

Well that would be me, so let's see your counter point.

If we are going to analyze it from the "last % of data" standpoint, then I would always argue to take as much as you can get, even if it is the last 5%. I would argue that choosing even less than that just because you can is foolish.

It is truly amazing that we can get what we can get with such a relative paltry amount of data, but I don't relish successive feats in doing with even less as technology progresses, because it is utterly unnecessary. Technology progresses, so we can accommodate more data, as well. I would be overjoyed to explore the "last 10% of the data" for a premium video format, rather than the last 3%.

If we are going to analyze it from the "last % of data" standpoint, then I would always argue to take as much as you can get, even if it is the last 5%. I would argue that choosing even less than that just because you can is foolish.

It is truly amazing that we can get what we can get with such a relative paltry amount of data, but I don't relish successive feats in doing with even less as technology progresses, because it is utterly unnecessary. Technology progresses, so we can accommodate more data, as well. I would be overjoyed to explore the "last 10% of the data" for a premium video format, rather than the last 3%.The fact is that no one but you and yours seem to believe that throwing away 97% of a movie is really better than throwing away 95% of a movie. In test after test both codecs have shown to be "transparent to the master" in the low 20s. Maybe you should start looking at movies instead of spec sheets.

Test after test? These weren't tests that "we" from AVS forum were privy, too. So basically you are taking somebody's word for it that the "last 3%" is enough or even "transparent". You are welcome to go down that road, if that suits you. Say hello to digital satellite/cable while you are down there.

I'll keep on with the "more data is better" approach, especially at the end of the range we are sitting at, now.

You have to leave it in context, scaesare. paid's point is that for lossless to be on every titles, either the video bitrate needs to be brought down and/or extras need to be trimmed to fit it all on an HDDVD30. Period.

Now you can make the argument that turning the bitrate a bit on that VC1 encode wouldn't make any perceptual difference... and it might be a good argument, but it's not contrary to the point that paidgeek made.

There is simply no refuting the much larger lossless audio availability on Blu-ray. So you can try to denigrate it as voodoo, which many HDDVD fans like (yet somehow defend the necessity for TrueHD on every Toshiba player,even though it's not mandated on the discs) and can quibble about bit depth (yet conveniently ignoring that most, if not all, of HDDVD's high profile titles are all using 16-bit TrueHD, if any lossless at all)...

Video bitrate needs to be "brought down" from what? That's my point? Is 40Mpbs the arbitrary starting point?

Heck there are discs on BOTH sides that have gotten stellar reviews for PQ that don't come close to maxing out the space or bandwidth of either format.

Who's to say that BR hasn't simply "left their bitrate up" out of convenience?

Take a look benes HD DVD bitrate thread there are a whole bunch of titles of titles have an average video bitrate of 17 or less. Allowing 50% headroom for peaks, you could still get a Dolby TrueHD track on them, yet studios don't in many cases.

So people love to make the argument that the reason studios aren't including lossless is because they can't, when clearly in many cases they choose not to.

Test after test? These weren't tests that "we" from AVS forum were privy, too. So basically you are taking somebody's word for it that the "last 3%" is enough or even "transparent". You are welcome to go down that road, if that suits you. Say hello to digital satellite/cable while you are down there.

I'll keep on with the "more data is better" approach, especially at the end of the range we are sitting at, now.

Forget it. You are just going to ignore anything that you don't agree with anyway. I'm sick of even trying.

If we are going to analyze it from the "last % of data" standpoint, then I would always argue to take as much as you can get, even if it is the last 5%. I would argue that choosing even less than that just because you can is foolish.

It is truly amazing that we can get what we can get with such a relative paltry amount of data, but I don't relish successive feats in doing with even less as technology progresses, because it is utterly unnecessary. Technology progresses, so we can accommodate more data, as well. I would be overjoyed to explore the "last 10% of the data" for a premium video format, rather than the last 3%.

In a vacuum, sure. Bot to pay significantly more for it when there's arguably no visual difference?

However, that opinion aside, my original point stands: when throwing this much data away, it's foolish to say that there will be no compromises given their arbitrary bandwidth choice. Period.

Blu-Ray's higher storage capacity and bandwidth have advantages beyond just improving image quality (seamless branching for starters). Besides, these discs have uses beyond movie delivery and for those purposes 50gb will always be more advantageous than 30g. I don't get people who say lets have BD for those things but HD-DVD for movies. It makes absolutely no sense.

Blu-Ray's higher storage capacity and bandwidth have advantages beyond just improving image quality (seamless branching for starters). Besides, these discs have uses beyond movie delivery and for those purposes 50gb will always be more advantageous than 30g. I don't get people who say lets have BD for those things but HD-DVD for movies. It makes absolutely no sense.

That has nothing to do with the subject of my post regarding a Sony Insider's comments regarding "compromises" in video bitrate.

Blu-Ray's higher storage capacity and bandwidth have advantages beyond just improving image quality (seamless branching for starters). Besides, these discs have uses beyond movie delivery and for those purposes 50gb will always be more advantageous than 30g. I don't get people who say lets have BD for those things but HD-DVD for movies. It makes absolutely no sense.

The subject of these forums is movie playback.

Video bitrate needs to be "brought down" from what? That's my point? Is 40Mpbs the arbitrary starting point?


From where they're at now. King Kong for example does not have the room. It either sacrifices extras or turns down the bitrate on the main picture.


Heck there are discs on BOTH sides that have gotten stellar reviews for PQ that don't come close to maxing out the space or bandwidth of either format.



Sure, but except for what Paramount was doing in optimizing for both, we've seen very little true comparisons. Do your hypothetical examples have lossless? Who's to say that there wouldn't be noticible improvements on say... King Kong done in AVC with a much higher bitrate than the current VC1 encode. As an owner of KK, I can definitely point out a few areas that are less than desirable, as has been beat to death numerous times in various threads (Trex fight for one). Maybe the same problems would be there in an AVC 40Mbps encode... or maybe they wouldn't while also giving the opportunity for a PCM track and 2 or 3 TrueHD tracks... all the while retaining every extra. We may never know....


Who's to say that BR hasn't simply "left their bitrate up" out of convenience?


Are you saying that? If so, corroborate with evidence. You're not expecting anyone to prove something didn't happen did you?

Okay. Sounds like you and I are in agreement that there will be cases where they have to compromise on both sides. Do I have that right?The the extent the bits are not identical to the source, sure. It's a perceptual codec.

I'd also expect that, given the work put in to this, that it's entirely possible in the "perceptual" realm of human vision, that both formats are sufficient for the vast majority of material.Using perceptual is fine with me. Could you please answer my question with respect to perceptual? Do you agree that there will be cases where they have to compromise on both sides, even just using the perceptual model and not whether the bits are identical?
It's stating that a data reduction of 97% is little-bear's bed Toooo Small, and that a reduction of 95% is Mama Bear Juuust Right is absurd.One of the points in your original post was 97.5% is only 1.5% from 96% and that this is a miniscule difference. Do you feel the same way about 99% and 97.5%, because your exact same 1.5% difference applies there, using the mathematical method that you used.

In other words, do you feel that just limiting data reduction to 97.5% is sufficient? If yes, do you feel that limiting data reduction to 99% would be sufficient?

And yes, I understand the problem with "always", but it sure sounds like you are arguing that limiting data reduction to 97.5% is good enough, while you wouldn't agree that limiting it to 99% would be good enough, and at the same time disparage a 1.5% difference as miniscule using the same mathematical rules.
Take a look benes HD DVD bitrate thread there are a whole bunch of titles of titles have an average video bitrate of 17 or less. Allowing 50% headroom for peaks, you could still get a Dolby TrueHD track on them, yet studios don't in many cases.That depends on what other things are included (e.g., subtitles, other audio tracks, PiP). I believe Cjplay said that the video peaks (not averages) were limited to about 19Mbps on some titles which included TrueHD and PiP.

--Darin

From where they're at now. King Kong for example does not have the room. It either sacrifices extras or turns down the bitrate on the main picture.

Sure, but except for what Paramount was doing in optimizing for both, we've seen very little true comparisons. Do your hypothetical examples have lossless? Who's to say that there wouldn't be noticible improvements on say... King Kong done in AVC with a much higher bitrate than the current VC1 encode. As an owner of KK, I can definitely point out a few areas that are less than desirable, as has been beat to death numerous times in various threads (Trex fight for one). Maybe the same problems would be there in an AVC 40Mbps encode... or maybe they wouldn't while also giving the opportunity for a PCM track and 2 or 3 TrueHD tracks... all the while retaining every extra. We may never know....

Look at benes' bitrate threads. Many aren't even close for bitrate. Heck, just look at the BR list and leave HD DVD out of it, and you'll still see that a whole boatload are substantially less than than half the 40Mbps being talked about by Paid as the cutoff point. And of those that are 20 and above, a bunch of those are MPEG2.

That's the point with KK tho.. people keep pointing at it as the evidence that lossless would not have worked. If that's truly the metric, what about the vast majority of other titles where the there ALSO was no lossless, yet there was unused space on the disc?

Could this not indicate a studio decision based on some other factor?



Are you saying that? If so, corroborate with evidence. You're not expecting anyone to prove something didn't happen did you?

No, I'm suggesting that starting with 40 as some arbitrary magic data rate is silly. Well, maybe not if the format was borrowed from a MPEG2 recording medium where broadcast bitrates were already known... but compressed movie delivery with advanced codecs are a different story.

Video bitrate needs to be "brought down" from what? That's my point? Is 40Mpbs the arbitrary starting point?

Is 20 really a number of "significance"? Why not 10? How about going gonzo with single digit bitrates? Will vc-1 look identical across 20/10/<10? It's only mere percentage points difference on the scale of the theoretical 1 TB master, right? Something's wrong when mere percentage points aren't telling the whole story of 6 Mb/s vs. 20 Mb/s vc-1 encoding, don't you think?

What it inevitably comes down to that, when we're talking the last x% points of data spawning some facsimile of the original, twice as much data than that is better, and twice as much as that is even better, and so on... The more demanding the material is, the more strongly this dynamic exists. It may be a difference of mere % points with respect to some arbitrarily large original, but it is still a difference of 100% more data to encode detail.

That has nothing to do with the subject of my post regarding a Sony Insider's comments regarding "compromises" in video bitrate.

You're wasting your time. They will never admit to anything but whatever seems to benefit BD.

Using perceptual is fine with me. Could you please answer my question with respect to perceptual? Do you agree that there will be cases where they have to compromise on both sides, even just using the perceptual model and not whether the bits are identical?
One of the points in your original post was 97.5% is only 1.5% from 96% and that this is a miniscule difference. Do you feel the same way about 99% and 97.5%, because your exact same 1.5% difference applies there, using the mathematical method that you used.

Sure. There will be exceptions on both formats where even perceptually there will have to be some compromise. I expect them to be corner cases though.


In other words, do you feel that just limiting data reduction to 97.5% is sufficient? If yes, do you feel that limiting data reduction to 99% is sufficient?

I don't agree that what I'm stating is reversible the way you are trying to do, Darin. My contention that you cannot catagorically state that 95% data discard will never be insufficient, as opposed to 97% discarded does NOT equate mt stating that 97% will aways be sufficient as opposed to 99%.

Indeed that's the point I'm making... one should NOT state such things.

That depends on what other things are included (e.g., subtitles, other audio tracks, PiP). I believe Cjplay said that the video peaks (not averages) were limited to about 19Mbps on some titles which included TrueHD and PiP.

--Darin

With TrueHD/16 peaking at ~5Mps, and PiP very doable at 2Mps (VC1) and a 256kbps audio channel, carving out 11 Mbps seems a bit much.. I bet they had some MPEG2 PiP they used.

It would seem 22-23 is doable for video peak, leaving 15-ish as average. A good number of movies have done quite well with less than that.

c'mon Dynamux!

Is 20 really a number of "significance"? Why not 10? How about going gonzo with single digit bitrates? Will vc-1 look identical across 20/10/<10? It's only mere percentage points difference on the scale of the theoretical 1 TB master, right? Something's wrong when mere percentage points aren't telling the whole story of 6 Mb/s vs. 20 Mb/s vc-1 encoding, don't you think?

What it inevitably comes down to that, when we're talking the last x% points of data spawning some facsimile of the original, twice as much data than that is better, and twice as much as that is even better, and so on... The more demanding the material is, the more strongly this dynamic exists. It may be a difference of mere % points with respect to some arbitrarily large original, but it is still a difference of 100% more data to encode detail.


Let's take this to it's logical conclusion: PQ on BOTH formats is considered a wash despite being below peak capacity or bandwidth on most titles. So why even make the point to begin with if you are a compression engineer?

Remember, never forget your training from MS/Toshiba. Whatever bitrate HD DVD can do is the end all be all. Granted if we get TL HD DVD's with a higher bitrate we'll send out new training materials to your local shepherd asap :eek:

Remember, never forget your training from MS/Toshiba. Whatever bitrate HD DVD can do is the end all be all. Granted if we get TL HD DVD's with a higher bitrate we'll send out new training materials to your local shepherd asap :eek:I guess there is no reason to even attempt to have a discussion with you guys.

Let's take this to it's logical conclusion: PQ on BOTH formats is considered a wash despite being below peak capacity or bandwidth on most titles. So why even make the point to begin with if you are a compression engineer?I doubt that very many titles on HD DVD don't get within 5% or so of their peak bitrate limitations at some point. And then it might be because they aren't using dynamux and had to be limit the video in case the audio peaked. You seem to be under the impression that most HD DVD titles don't get close to the peak bitrate limitation. Is that right, or am I reading your statement incorrectly? Being below peak capacity makes a lot of sense with titles where the bandwidth is limiting. Much like DVD. And there a multiple ways to get PQ to a wash, including not using lossless audio when it will affect the video or spending more money/time on the video transfer (which may or may not be as common in the future as when there is tough competition between the formats).

--Darin

I doubt that very many titles on HD DVD don't get within 5% or so of their peak bitrate limitations at some point. And then it might be because they aren't using dynamux and had to be limit the video in case the audio peaked. You seem to be under the impression that most HD DVD titles don't get close to the peak bitrate limitation. Is that right, or am I reading your statement incorrectly? Being below peak capacity makes a lot of sense with titles where the bandwidth is limiting. Much like DVD.

--Darin
You don't think the bandwidth is limited on BD?

You don't think the bandwidth is limited on BD?I thought I made that clear. I do, but in less situations naturally. Just like HD DVD has less situations where it is limited than if they had ended up with peak bitrates of 25Mbps or 20Mbps.

What is your position? Is it that neither of them are, both of them are, ...?

--Darin

Here is 1 example of more data does not mean better:

30 X 40 =1200
2x3x5x4x5x2=1200
Same result and I would hope most here agree that the top equation is what we strive for.

I don't see how, if the result has the potential to be the same (which so far more data and higher bitrates hasn't proven otherwise) why we would want more data just for bragging rights.

Paidgeek is correct in one aspect only: Blu Ray has more room for mistake(s) than HD DVD for PQ/AQ.

I thought I made that clear. I do, but in less situations naturally. Just like HD DVD has less situations where it is limited than if they had ended up with peak bitrates of 25Mbps or 20Mbps.

What is your position? Is it that neither of them are, both of them are, ...?

--Darin
Do they have 6x the bandwidth for 6x the data that DVD has?

Do they have 6x the bandwidth for 6x the data that DVD has?No, but it seems like you are avoiding the question. Are you going to answer:

"What is your position? Is it that neither of them are, both of them are, ...?"

The 6x doesn't answer the question because it isn't that simple. Do you think DVD wasn't bandwidth limited?

I hope you wouldn't say something like that if they had 6x the bandwidth of DVD they wouldn't be bandwidth limited, but anything less and they are, so I'm not sure why you asked that question.

--Darin

No, but it seems like you are avoiding the question. Are you going to answer:

"What is your position? Is it that neither of them are, both of them are, ...?"

The 6x doesn't answer the question because it isn't that simple. Do you think DVD wasn't bandwidth limited?

--Darin
Everything is bandwidth limited. It's a silly question.

Everything is bandwidth limited. It's a silly question.Is it better to be less bandwidth limited or more bandwidth limited? Do you consider that a silly question, because silly would be trying to argue that everything is bandwidth limited, therefore the amount of bandwidth limitation is irrelevant.

--Darin

I doubt that very many titles on HD DVD don't get within 5% or so of their peak bitrate limitations at some point. And then it might be because they aren't using dynamux and had to be limit the video in case the audio peaked. You seem to be under the impression that most HD DVD titles don't get close to the peak bitrate limitation. Is that right, or am I reading your statement incorrectly? Being below peak capacity makes a lot of sense with titles where the bandwidth is limiting. Much like DVD. And there a multiple ways to get PQ to a wash, including not using lossless audio when it will affect the video or spending more money/time on the video transfer (which may or may not be as common in the future as when there is tough competition between the formats).

--Darin

It seems that compression engineers on both sides have generally agreed that the "50% headroom for peaks" rule is about right. At least I don't recall any strenuous objection when I remember that being brought up.

With that being the case, and there being a number of titles at 16.x Mbps or less average, what leads you to conclude that many titles are near peak?

Is it better to be less bandwidth limited or more bandwidth limited? Do you consider that a silly question, because silly would be trying to argue that everything is bandwidth limited, therefore the amount of bandwidth limitation is irrelevant.

--Darin

Tests have shown that VC-1 and AVC are transparent to the master at the bitrates that HDDVD has. You can argue about more all you want, but those tests also showed that VC-1 and AVC did not show significant improvement at higher bitrates. I guess you are left to argue that seeing specs is more important than what you can see in the video. I bid thee ado.

Here are some hard numbers for your debate, instead of vague percentages:

Max Bandwidth (video+audio):
Blu-Ray disc: 48Mbps
American Terrestrial HD broadcasts: 38Mbps
HD DVD disc: 36Mbps
European Terrestrial HD broadcasts: 31Mbps
SD DVD disc: 10.8Mbps

Max audio bitrates:
*S/PDIF connection: 1.5Mbps
Dolby Digital 5.1: 0.64Mbps
DTS 5.1: 1.5Mbps
Dolby Digital Plus: 3Mbps
Uncompressed 7.1: 8-channel/96kHz/24 PCM: 18.4Mbps

Is it better to be less bandwidth limited or more bandwidth limited? Do you consider that a silly question, because silly would be trying to argue that everything is bandwidth limited, therefore the amount of bandwidth limitation is irrelevant.

--Darin

Or, perhaps an even sillier one is that a bandwidth limited medium is in a position to make no compromises. Period.

Or, perhaps an even sillier one is that a bandwidth limited medium is in a position to make no compromises. Period.Your're still wasting your time.:(

The subject of these forums is movie playback.

I apologize for taking the long view.

That said, the higher bandwidth and storage are definite advantages when it comes to movie playback (seamless branching, higher quality encodes, more soundtracks, etc, etc, etc)

Wow, the things that get argued about. :eek:

For the handful of people who enjoy the highest bitrate and least compressed video, I say fine, buy Blu-Ray and SACD. For the rest of us who live in the real world, I say don't waste your money. I would love to see a real world test, because I already know that most of the people won't be able to tell the difference, and even more will not care.

It drives me crazy when I see people watch SD TV on their HDTVs - when an HD station in playing the same thing!. You can't tell me that these same people will notice a movie that is a little less compressed and has a slightly higher bitrate.

Reality check...which is more popular MP3s or SACD/DVD-A? Why do all the high end receivers have a stupid Ipod adaptor available? (Do tell me that J6P puts lossless audio on his Ipod).

How very limiting and shortsighted.
Take it up with the admins or start your own forum.

Here are some hard numbers for your debate, instead of vague percentages:

Max Bandwidth (video+audio):
Blu-Ray disc: 48Mbps
American Terrestrial HD broadcasts: 38Mbps
HD DVD disc: 36Mbps
European Terrestrial HD broadcasts: 31Mbps
SD DVD disc: 10.8Mbps

Max audio bitrates:
*S/PDIF connection: 1.5Mbps
Dolby Digital 5.1: 0.64Mbps
DTS 5.1: 1.5Mbps
Dolby Digital Plus: 3Mbps
Uncompressed 7.1: 8-channel/96kHz/24 PCM: 18.4Mbps

Which numbers were the basis for the comparisons I'm drawing to the original source material, which is a ratio, not a static number.

Incidentally, while cable using 256 QAM can get an effective bitrate of ~38Mbps out of 6MHZ, typical terrestrial broadcast is half that at ~19Mpbs. And upon each of those carriers is muxed several A/V streams, so it doesn't quite work right to fit it in to you "hierarchy", if that's what yo were trying to represent.

c'mon Dynamux!

LOL. THAT was funny. Period. :D

Where has our dynamux buddy from Montreal been?

It seems that compression engineers on both sides have generally agreed that the "50% headroom for peaks" rule is about right. At least I don't recall any strenuous objection when I remember that being brought up.

With that being the case, and there being a number of titles at 16.x Mbps or less average, what leads you to conclude that many titles are near peak?Multiple things, but it shouldn't surprise you that a title like Batman Begins came in under 13Mbps (after lots of work) when the peak for the video had to be limited to around 19Mbps because of those other things. That even fits the 50% higher rule pretty well. And with a 16Mbps title, 50% higher is 24Mbps. Which would make some sense if other things come to 5Mbps less than those other things on Batman Begins. You are welcome to ask an HD DVD insider what percentage of HD DVD titles don't ever get above 28Mbps for all things combined. There probably are some (like an animation that I think is listed at only around 10Mbps ABR), but I doubt the percentage is very high at all.
Or, perhaps an even sillier one is that a bandwidth limited medium is in a position to make no compromises. Period.I agree. That is, I think there are compromises. Now if the person was referring to the 8Mbps gap that does mean the video bandwidth doesn't get hit as long as the other things stay under that (and space doesn't become an issue, but then more discs can be brought in), then I can understand that meaning. I'm not exactly sure what was meant there though.

--Darin

Tests have shown that VC-1 and AVC are transparent to the master at the bitrates that HDDVD has.What tests are you referring to? Lots of material will be transparent, but there are much more difficult materials and situations also. And not showing "significant improvement" is not the same as the material already being transparent. Unless you have a really messed up definition of "transparent".

--Darin

I would love to see a real world test, because I already know that most of the people won't be able to tell the difference, and even more will not care.

Thank you.

I say it every time the bit rate drum gets beaten, and I'm going to say it again until such a test proves either side conclusive: Prove it.

To scaesare's point, BOTH of these formats have a bitrate ceiling. Claiming one is magically sufficient in all cases when the other one isn't is pretty silly.

Take a title, throw the max bits for the situation within HD DVD's ceiling, then throw more bits at it (past the HD DVD ceiling while remaining within the BD ceiling) and show them side by side. Put it to bed, once and for all.

Real world results show that we can have outstanding PQ with TrueHD on a HD DVD. What is the point of this thread?

Real world results that we've gotten better results on blu-ray than HD DVD due to having higher bandwidth.

"For the handful of people who enjoy the highest bitrate and least compressed video"

sure for those that don't, got watch Youtube or a DVD.

Thank you.

I say it every time the bit rate drum gets beaten, and I'm going to say it again until such a test proves either side conclusive: Prove it.

To scaesare's point, BOTH of these formats have a bitrate ceiling. Claiming one is magically sufficient in all cases when the other one isn't is pretty silly.

Take a title, throw the max bits for the situation within HD DVD's ceiling, then throw more bits at it (past the HD DVD ceiling while remaining within the BD ceiling) and show them side by side. Put it to bed, once and for all.

Around and around and around we go, when will it stop, nobody knows.......on the AV "Science" forum, no less. :rolleyes:

Real world results that we've gotten better results on blu-ray than HD DVD due to having higher bandwidth.

"For the handful of people who enjoy the highest bitrate and least compressed video"

sure for those that don't, got watch Youtube or a DVD.

With all due respect, some of us ( particularly those who have a smattering of understanding about human psychology ) require more than anecdotal evidence to accept even, and perhaps especially, those things which are easy to believe. ;)

Real world results that we've gotten better results on blu-ray than HD DVD due to having higher bandwidth.

"For the handful of people who enjoy the highest bitrate and least compressed video"

sure for those that don't, got watch Youtube or a DVD.

Sadly they will. And sadly, you won't get to see 30 -40% of the movies on HD.

With all due respect, some of us ( particularly those who have a smattering of understanding about human psychology ) require more than anecdotal evidence to accept even, and perhaps especially, those things which are easy to believe. ;)

I agree. Some have to be able to take away their biases (red shades) and blind loyalty to a product they may have purchased as well. It is human nature after all to feel threatened by something superior. For some, they believe life would be more comfortable simply filtering out (keeping the red shades on).

Take a title, throw the max bits for the situation within HD DVD's ceiling, then throw more bits at it (past the HD DVD ceiling while remaining within the BD ceiling) and show them side by side. Put it to bed, once and for all.You seem to actually think it is that simple. What material do you use? Who's encoder? I believe most of these companies that make professional encoders have nondisclosure agreements that preclude doing things like this. And do you have an encoding god (the best person around) do the encoding and the fixing up of things, or do you use more of an average person employed to do encodings? And how much time do you give them, unlimited, or some time limit that corresponds to what they are normally given or what they are given when on a tight schedule? I think the folks at doom9 have tried to setup some encoder comparison, but last I recall benwaggoner said something about their rules not being right.

And the video ceilings change based on how many other things you throw in, so is your proposal to use the worst case ceiling for the video bitrate limitations, the best case, the average case, ...?

And what display do you use? Do you limit yourself to whatever people can buy on the open market today, or consider display devices that can do much higher simultaneous CR or other display devices that are likely to be more revealing of issues than what people can buy today?

--Darin

I agree. Some have to be able to take away their biases (red shades) and blind loyalty to a product they may have purchased as well. It is human nature after all to feel threatened by something superior. For some, they believe life would be more comfortable simply filtering out (keeping the red shades on).

Someone making an affirmative claim, must bear the weight of evidentiary ( empirical ) support. Got milk?

Something tells me if HD-DVD had been built using advanced codecs on DVD-9 there would be people rallying for its adoption using the same arguments (cheap, good enough, etc).

Just a hunch.

Just a hunch.

No, just a strawman.

You seem to actually think it is that simple. What material do you use? Who's encoder? I believe most of these companies that make professional encoders have nondisclosure agreements that preclude doing things like this. And do you have an encoding god (the best person around) do the encoding and the fixing up of things, or do you use more of an average person employed to do encodings? And how much time do you give them, unlimited, or some time limit that corresponds to what they are normally given or what they are given when on a tight schedule? I think the folks at doom9 have tried to setup some encoder comparison, but last I recall benwaggoner said something about their rules not being right.

And the video ceilings change based on how many other things you throw in, so is your proposal to use the worst case ceiling for the video bitrate limitations, the best case, the average case?

--Darin

Use the same talented person to do the encode. Use the same pre-determined title. Use the same codec. Determine a time the encode should take, and make it the same for both. Choose a case for video bitrate: best, worst, avg...and apply it to both.

Obviously, keep the variables the same as best you can. Then show the results.

I'm not saying it's easy, in fact I'm sure there's a ton more to it. I would think, though, with all that's at stake, that it would be a HUGE bulletpoint to either side claiming superiority. One would think tests like this, and their results, would be touted to the high heavens if they proved the PQ/AQ to be perceptually better. But so far, as involved as this test may or may not be, there hasn't been a logical and controlled test proving conclusively (that I know of) this "our PQ/AQ is better because we have more bits" argument.

Like you said, it's the AV Science forum. Use science to prove it.

LOL. THAT was funny. Period. :D

Where has our dynamux buddy from Montreal been?

He left the board.

If you are interested in some of the details of his "farewll thread" before it got yanked, PM me. ;)

With all due respect, some of us ( particularly those who have a smattering of understanding about human psychology ) require more than anecdotal evidence to accept even, and perhaps especially, those things which are easy to believe. ;)

According to the statistics I could find, less than 1 in 5 titles released so far this year on HD-DVD use lossless audio coding of any kind. Lots of assumptions have been made on this thread about what video bit rates are good enough, but the proof is in the 140 or so discs that have actually been released, 112 or so without lossless coding. We have to adjust Blu-ray projects to remove or change audio tracks when the content does not fit. If we had 30GB and 30Mbps to work with, I am quite certain that our percentage of lossless audio would be similarly be less than 20%. If you don't mind lossy audio coding then okay, but the reality of slicing and dicing 30 Mbps when the first 24bit lossless track can easily exceed 6Mbps is inescapable.

Multiple things, but it shouldn't surprise you that a title like Batman Begins came in under 13Mbps (after lots of work) when the peak for the video had to be limited to around 19Mbps because of those other things. That even fits the 50% higher rule pretty well. And with a 16Mbps title, 50% higher is 24Mbps. Which would make some sense if other things come to 5Mbps less than those other things on Batman Begins. You are welcome to ask an HD DVD insider what percentage of HD DVD titles don't ever get above 28Mbps for all things combined. There probably are some (like an animation that I think is listed at only around 10Mbps ABR), but I doubt the percentage is very high at all.

And BB is a pretty darn good disc. Especially given it's vintage with the version of encoder used then. I'd be willing to bet the bitrate could either be better, or more easily obtained, today, likely with better quality (I'm not sure tools like "Region of Interest" encoding existed then).

It has a total bitrate of 18.92, and has several GB left on disc. The video average is 13.87. It has 16bit TrueHD (~3Mbps), secondary audio(640Kbps ) and IME (~4mbps). So that muxes to about 22-ish, assuming no other overhead, so even 21 would indeed seem safe as a video bitrate peak. And it was a 2 hour and 20 minute movie and still didn't fill the disc.

VC1 could cough up 2MBs back for PiP/IME, and you could get to close to 3 hours worth of movie, more peak bandwidth, or some combo thereof.

Not bad.

I agree. That is, I think there are compromises. Now if the person was referring to the 8Mbps gap that does mean the video bandwidth doesn't get hit as long as the other things stay under that (and space doesn't become an issue, but then more discs can be brought in), then I can understand that meaning. I'm not exactly sure what was meant there though.

--Darin

Agreed.

Real world results show that we can have outstanding PQ with TrueHD on a HD DVD. What is the point of this thread?

Contrary to what seems to be the opinion of those here who post with the idea that a particular bit rate MUST be the magic number, it's the exact opposite. It's to point out the folly of categorically stating that a given video birate automagically means "no compromise video. Period."

I agree. Some have to be able to take away their biases (red shades) and blind loyalty to a product they may have purchased as well. It is human nature after all to feel threatened by something superior. For some, they believe life would be more comfortable simply filtering out (keeping the red shades on).

it's always amusing when you try and call out the biases of other people while choosing to ignore your own.

I also enjoyed this bit of sensationalism:

"For the handful of people who enjoy the highest bitrate and least compressed video"

sure for those that don't, got watch Youtube or a DVD.

so now you are lumping hd-dvd in with youtube? maybe in your fairytale land....

Real world results that we've gotten better results on blu-ray than HD DVD due to having higher bandwidth.

"For the handful of people who enjoy the highest bitrate and least compressed video"

sure for those that don't, got watch Youtube or a DVD.

"Better"? (For whch I take issue with, but I'll play along...)

Why only "better" Shouldn't that be "flawless"? *

*The hyperbole above intended to illustrate the point that all compressed video are compromises, and that an arbitrary bitrate almost two orders of magnitude less than the original is goofiness.

What HD-DVD Dolby TrueHD track is 48khz/24bit? Even if there are some on HD-DVD, Blu-ray seems to have greater abundance of them...one would think because there is plenty of space for them even with long movies and even when uncompressed. None of this even factors in that there aren't any 8 channel tracks yet, which take up even more space.

Even at Blu-ray's maximum video data rate, there is still distortion present in the image that isn't in the master. Neither format has anywhere near the data rates necessary do lossless video compression.

50GB is far more future proof and ensures that even movies over 3 hours have plenty of space for great PQ and full 48khz/24 bit 8 channel sound tracks. The extra 20gb of space can and will be put to good use.

It is one thing if you think we can live without the extra space or it isn't essential for most movies, but this notion that it is near useless or is only a "paper" advantage is complete nonsense.

"Better"? (For whch I take issue with, but I'll play along...)

Why only "better" Shouldn't that be "flawless"? *

*The hyperbole above intended to illustrate the point that all compressed video are compromises, and that an arbitrary bitrate almost two orders of magnitude less than the original is goofiness.

Simply can't get "flawless" with 1080p resolution and other limiting factors as well.....

You seem to actually think it is that simple. What material do you use? Who's encoder? I believe most of these companies that make professional encoders have nondisclosure agreements that preclude doing things like this. And do you have an encoding god (the best person around) do the encoding and the fixing up of things, or do you use more of an average person employed to do encodings? And how much time do you give them, unlimited, or some time limit that corresponds to what they are normally given or what they are given when on a tight schedule? I think the folks at doom9 have tried to setup some encoder comparison, but last I recall benwaggoner said something about their rules not being right.

And the video ceilings change based on how many other things you throw in, so is your proposal to use the worst case ceiling for the video bitrate limitations, the best case, the average case, ...?

And what display do you use? Do you limit yourself to whatever people can buy on the open market today, or consider display devices that can do much higher simultaneous CR or other display devices that are likely to be more revealing of issues than what people can buy today?

--Darin

I do agree that in subjective testing, this is difficult.

But to ILJG's point, if you vary rest of the experiment in unison (range of high end displays, range of skilled personnel, range of software), this is testable, in that you can obviously do a great job within a movie release schedule, and then take that as a baseline and crank up the bitrate.

Heck, I'd bet that just on one reasonable display (a RS-1 or Pearl), and one skilled encoder each for VC1 and AVC (to remove bias) you could demonstrate this pretty readily, given some wide-ranging subject material (say a twenty or so 1-2 minute clips of various complexities).

Conclusive? no. But I'd bet that you'd quickly find: 1) If the greater bitrate argument is readily apparent (blind testing required) for most material, and 2) that there's material for which 40Mbps will still be a compromise. Period.

Something tells me if HD-DVD had been built using advanced codecs on DVD-9 there would be people rallying for its adoption using the same arguments (cheap, good enough, etc).

Just a hunch.

Would you mind reading the original premise of this thread and make your next post relevant?

Thanks.

Simply can't get "flawless" with 1080p resolution, other factors as well..... One can get closer to "flawless" than than the other though.

exactly

"Better"? (For whch I take issue with, but I'll play along...)



this is where he likes to reference that one guy's sig which has compiled reviews where blu ray has some tenth of a point advantage in PQ/AQ and tout it as a night and day difference.

this is where he likes to reference that one guy's sig which has compiled reviews where blu ray has some tenth of a point advantage in PQ/AQ and tout it as a night and day difference.

Our esteemed member Dobyblu

According to the statistics I could find, less than 1 in 5 titles released so far this year on HD-DVD use lossless audio coding of any kind. Lots of assumptions have been made on this thread about what video bit rates are good enough, but the proof is in the 140 or so discs that have actually been released, 112 or so without lossless coding. We have to adjust Blu-ray projects to remove or change audio tracks when the content does not fit. If we had 30GB and 30Mbps to work with, I am quite certain that our percentage of lossless audio would be similarly be less than 20%. If you don't mind lossy audio coding then okay, but the reality of slicing and dicing 30 Mbps when the first 24bit lossless track can easily exceed 6Mbps is inescapable.

Paidgeek, welcome.

There was enough clutter in the insiders thread (read: people ignoring the rules there), that I started this here, based primarily on your comments.

While I'm not sure that the specs I see in the "unofficial bitrate thread" really bear that out for many of the titles you refer to, that's not the primary issue I brought up.

You stated that there would be no compromise on BR for video. Period.

So you maintain that 40Mbps is the magic number for which there will not be a compromise EVER for video on BR? The "Period." portion of your statement seems to deliver that emphatically.

Simply can't get "flawless" with 1080p resolution and other limiting factors as well.....

OK, then within the scope of the maximum resolution. You think Paid was correct when there would be NO compromises?

That's the premise of this discussion.

I can’t believe we as AV enthusiasts are even having this discussion.

When did “good enough” and “okay” factor into HDM? I waited almost 7 years for HDM to arrive and I certainly don’t want a watered down version of it. No amount of statistical shell games is going to convince of the obvious – there is still a 20 gigabyte and higher bandwidth difference between both formats. For me, I don’t want to settle for okay and I am amazed that many of you are. These are the kind of debates I would have with a soccer mom down at Best Buy.

I can’t believe we as AV enthusiasts are even having this discussion.

When did “good enough” and “okay” factor into HDM? I waited almost 7 years for HDM to arrive and I certainly don’t want a watered down version of it. No amount of statistical shell games is going to convince of the obvious – there is still a 20 gigabyte difference between both formats. For me, I don’t want to settle for okay and I am amazed that many of you are. This are the kind of debates I would have with a soccer mom down at Best Buy.

That's great. Look at the test we've proposed, and PROVE the extra 20 GIG is giving you a better PQ/AQ (although you've missed the boat here, we're talking about bandwidth).

No one here wants "OK" or "good enough." We want the one claiming more bits = perceptually better to prove it. BOTH look and sound amazing to me.

According to the statistics I could find, less than 1 in 5 titles released so far this year on HD-DVD use lossless audio coding of any kind. Lots of assumptions have been made on this thread about what video bit rates are good enough, but the proof is in the 140 or so discs that have actually been released, 112 or so without lossless coding. We have to adjust Blu-ray projects to remove or change audio tracks when the content does not fit. If we had 30GB and 30Mbps to work with, I am quite certain that our percentage of lossless audio would be similarly be less than 20%. If you don't mind lossy audio coding then okay, but the reality of slicing and dicing 30 Mbps when the first 24bit lossless track can easily exceed 6Mbps is inescapable.

Exactly what reality is inescapable? Numbers are one objective measure, but where is the body of non-anecdotal evidence to suggest that it's meaningful in terms of human perceptibility?

According to the statistics I could find, less than 1 in 5 titles released so far this year on HD-DVD use lossless audio coding of any kind. Lots of assumptions have been made on this thread about what video bit rates are good enough, but the proof is in the 140 or so discs that have actually been released, 112 or so without lossless coding. We have to adjust Blu-ray projects to remove or change audio tracks when the content does not fit. If we had 30GB and 30Mbps to work with, I am quite certain that our percentage of lossless audio would be similarly be less than 20%. If you don't mind lossy audio coding then okay, but the reality of slicing and dicing 30 Mbps when the first 24bit lossless track can easily exceed 6Mbps is inescapable.
Why do Sony guys hide your identity from us while the MS guys tell us who they are?

I can’t believe we as AV enthusiasts are even having this discussion.

When did “good enough” and “okay” factor into HDM? I waited almost 7 years for HDM to arrive and I certainly don’t want a watered down version of it. No amount of statistical shell games is going to convince of the obvious – there is still a 20 gigabyte difference between both formats. For me, I don’t want to settle for okay and I am amazed that many of you are. This are the kind of debates I would have with a soccer mom down at Best Buy.

My thoughts too, especially since this is almost certainly going to be the last disc based medium we will ever get. Why compromise quality even the slightest bit when it isn't necessary? I don't get it.

My thoughts too, especially since this is almost certainly going to be the last disc based medium we will ever get. Why compromise quality even the slightest bit when it isn't necessary? I don't get it.
You mean like the BD guys all over this board that are saying that they will buy DVDs of things they can't get on HDDVD?

You mean like the BD guys all over this board that are saying that they will buy DVDs of things they can't get on HDDVD?

:rolleyes:

Paidgeek, welcome.

There was enough clutter in the insiders thread (read: people ignoring the rules there), that I started this here, based primarily on your comments.

While I'm not sure that the specs I see in the "unofficial bitrate thread" really bear that out for many of the titles you refer to, that's not the primary issue I brought up.

You stated that there would be no compromise on BR for video. Period.

So you maintain that 40Mbps is the magic number for which there will not be a compromise EVER for video on BR? The "Period." portion of your statement seems to deliver that emphatically.


What I am trying to convey, (unsuccessfully so far as it generated a whole thread on one sentence) is this:

At a max rate of 25 Mbps for video, HD-DVD always has some coding artifacts. At a max rate of 40 Mbps for video Blu-ray always has some coding artifacts (regardless of title). Having 60% more bandwidth for coding a difficult scene means Blu-ray can do a better job on such a scene. This has been demonstrated in months past using Paramount titles. Having said that, when you max out video bit rate on Blu-ray, you still have 8 Mbps to work with and we can put a lossless stream in there. If you have to limit the max rate of and HD-DVD to something south of 20Mbps in order to accommodate lossless audio, sometimes you will get away with it (avoiding obvious picture break-up), and sometimes you won't. This is one of the principle reasons that so few NA HD-DVD titles attempt it and why even fewer will do so for Europe.

Originally Posted by RangerSix
I can’t believe we as AV enthusiasts are even having this discussion.

When did “good enough” and “okay” factor into HDM? I waited almost 7 years for HDM to arrive and I certainly don’t want a watered down version of it. No amount of statistical shell games is going to convince of the obvious – there is still a 20 gigabyte difference between both formats. For me, I don’t want to settle for okay and I am amazed that many of you are. This are the kind of debates I would have with a soccer mom down at Best Buy


My thoughts too, especially since this is almost certainly going to be the last disc based medium we will ever get. Why compromise quality even the slightest bit when it isn't necessary? I don't get it.

Exactly

Why do Sony guys hide your identity from us while the MS guys tell us who they are?


Because my posts here are not sanctioned by the whole of Sony. Either I am anonymous or I don't post. Given the lack of Blu-ray insiders that can take the time or trouble to participate, it seems like a small thing to ask readers to tolerate.

I'd really prefer this not devolve in to a tit-for-tat "I want the most bits possible" argument.

The premise of this thread is that a key Sony Insider has stated that video would not be compromised* at the bitrate BR uses.

Given that absolute, and the empirical evidence and subjective evidence available to us, I maintain:

1) That given the bitrate of either platform relative to it's comparison point (the master) both will have to make some compromises, as each is discarding 95+ percent of the original data.

2) That the implication that anything less than the BR video bitrate(40Mbps) will therefore automatically require compromises, is ridiculous.


If you have something bearing on that issue let's hear it. If you want to cheer-lead, please start your own thread.

Why do Sony guys hide your identity from us while the MS guys tell us who they are?

Please. Not here.

Please. Not here.

+1

I'd really prefer this not devolve in to a tit-for-tat "I want the most bits possible" argument.

The premise of this thread is that a key Sony Insider has stated that video would not be compromised* at the bitrate BR uses.

Given that absolute, and the empirical evidence and subjective evidence available to us, I maintain:

1) That given the bitrate of either platform relative to it's comparison point (the master) both will have to make some compromises, as each is discarding 95+ percent of the original data.

2) That the implication that anything less than the BR video bitrate(40Mbps) will therefore automatically require compromises, is ridiculous.


If you have something bearing on that issue let's hear it. If you want to cheer-lead, please start your own thread.
What do you expect him to say? You has successfully shown that the bitrates and storage spaces of both mediums are such that there is only 3% to 5% of the actual space remaining, and he knows that tests have shown that these amounts of bandwidth/space are sufficient for the tasks at hand. At that point the thread becomes a standoff with no one on the BD side able to admit the truth.

Please. Not here.
You don't feel that someone who claims to be an insider be honest about their identity (though I understand and appreciate PG's position)?

Something tells me if HD-DVD had been built using advanced codecs on DVD-9 there would be people rallying for its adoption using the same arguments (cheap, good enough, etc).

Just a hunch.

This is a good question, actually. Not strawman, not off-topic.

Given the premise of a dvd-9 based hdvd format, is there really any doubt that there would be at least some hdvd fans that would endlessly defend a 10 GB capacity and 10-15 Mb/s bandwidth as "good enough"- nothing further needed when using vc-1? Now the uncomfortable question for the hdvd participants here, if you don't buy it that "10/15" would be enough for a premium hdm format, would you then be in the BR camp?

The former point speaks to the psychology which has, in part, inspired this topic. The latter point speaks to the willingness to consider the possibility that BR can give you something that a dvd-9-based hdvd format cannot, if you really believe that a 20 Mb/s bandwidth is "just right".

I'd expect this to be an awkwardly difficult question for the hdvd folk to answer openly. I'd also imagine there to be an unspoken division within the hdvd folks along the lines of those who would still defend hdvd-9 to the end and those who would deduce that BR is the way to go (in the premise of the absence of hdvd-30).

This is a good question, actually. Not strawman, not off-topic.

Given the premise of a dvd-9 based hdvd format, is there really any doubt that there would be at least some hdvd fans that would endlessly defend a 10 GB capacity and 10-15 Mb/s bandwidth as "good enough"- nothing further needed when using vc-1? Now the uncomfortable question for the hdvd participants here, if you don't buy it that "10/15" would be enough for a premium hdm format, would you then be in the BR camp?

The former point speaks to the psychology which has, in part, inspired this post. The latter point speaks to the willingness to consider the possibility that BR can give you something that a dvd-9-based hdvd format cannot, if you really believe that a 20 Mb/s bandwidth is "just right".

I'd expect this to be an awkwardly difficult question for the hdvd folk to answer openly. I'd also imagine there to be an unspoken division within the hdvd folks along the lines of those who would still defend hdvd-9 to the end and those who would deduce that BR is the way to go (in the premise of the absence of hdvd-30).

Well, of course the guy that thinks 16 bit audio is good enough would say that. All of this is really easy. Demonstrate that BD has better VQ than HDDVD.

What I am trying to convey, (unsuccessfully so far as it generated a whole thread on one sentence) is this:

At a max rate of 25 Mbps for video, HD-DVD always has some coding artifacts. At a max rate of 40 Mbps for video Blu-ray always has some coding artifacts (regardless of title). Having 60% more bandwidth for coding a difficult scene means Blu-ray can do a better job on such a scene. This has been demonstrated in months past using Paramount titles. Having said that, when you max out video bit rate on Blu-ray, you still have 8 Mbps to work with and we can put a lossless stream in there. If you have to limit the max rate of and HD-DVD to something south of 20Mbps in order to accommodate lossless audio, sometimes you will get away with it (avoiding obvious picture break-up), and sometimes you won't. This is one of the principle reasons that so few NA HD-DVD titles attempt it and why even fewer will do so for Europe.

Thanks for the expansion.

Given that video quality for both formats is largely considered a wash, to what do you attribute the difference?

Also, it would appear that there are a significant number of HD DVD titles for which the average bitrate is 15-17 (implying a 25.5 peak), there is no IME, no secondary audio, have a 1.5Mbs audio track, and plenty of capacity left on the disc.

Given that a lossless TrueHD trach would have required only1.5Mbps more than the 1.5Mbps track it replaces, and it would appear that there was resources to do so, do you have any insight as to why they would not have?

Forgive me, but the implications of some of your comments imply that this is always a space/bandwidth issue. Other than for some corner cases, it would appear that may not even be the case a majority of the time.

Thanks.

You don't feel that someone who claims to be an insider be honest about their identity (though I understand and appreciate PG's position)?

I do, and it's been vetted in the insider's thread.

I appreciate Paid's contributions (despite the fact I'm currently taking issue with a premise I believe he's making), and would rather have a civil discussion with him about those issues in this thread.

If you feel strongly about it, you may want to consider a PM to the mods, who sanction insider status.

Thanks.

Well, of course the guy that thinks 16 bit audio is good enough would say that. All of this is really easy.

So can you answer the question? Would you still defend an hdvd 10/15 format or would you have to side with Blu to get the "magic" 20? Which conviction do you hold to more?

What I am trying to convey, (unsuccessfully so far as it generated a whole thread on one sentence) is this:

At a max rate of 25 Mbps for video, HD-DVD always has some coding artifacts. At a max rate of 40 Mbps for video Blu-ray always has some coding artifacts (regardless of title). Having 60% more bandwidth for coding a difficult scene means Blu-ray can do a better job on such a scene. This has been demonstrated in months past using Paramount titles. Having said that, when you max out video bit rate on Blu-ray, you still have 8 Mbps to work with and we can put a lossless stream in there. If you have to limit the max rate of and HD-DVD to something south of 20Mbps in order to accommodate lossless audio, sometimes you will get away with it (avoiding obvious picture break-up), and sometimes you won't. This is one of the principle reasons that so few NA HD-DVD titles attempt it and why even fewer will do so for Europe.

Just like to add one thing here. It seems a lot of people see space remaining on the disk and think that implies better quality could have been achieved. This is not necessarily true. On both formats, excluding supplements and too many audio tracks, it is the norm that despite using maximized bitrates (combined) there will still be unused space on the disk for most films. The bitrate ceilings come into play before capacity on both formats in other words. I see a lot of posters in this thread don't realize this.

This is a good question, actually. Not strawman, not off-topic.

Given the premise of a dvd-9 based hdvd format, is there really any doubt that there would be at least some hdvd fans that would endlessly defend a 10 GB capacity and 10-15 Mb/s bandwidth as "good enough"- nothing further needed when using vc-1? Now the uncomfortable question for the hdvd participants here, if you don't buy it that "10/15" would be enough for a premium hdm format, would you then be in the BR camp?

The former point speaks to the psychology which has, in part, inspired this topic. The latter point speaks to the willingness to consider the possibility that BR can give you something that a dvd-9-based hdvd format cannot, if you really believe that a 20 Mb/s bandwidth is "just right".

I'd expect this to be an awkwardly difficult question for the hdvd folk to answer openly. I'd also imagine there to be an unspoken division within the hdvd folks along the lines of those who would still defend hdvd-9 to the end and those who would deduce that BR is the way to go (in the premise of the absence of hdvd-30).

If CodecX was developed that was 10X more efficient then MPEG2, rather than 3X, and the picture was just as stunning, then sure. Why not.

Given that BR adopted advanced codecs after HD DVD did, it would really seem that the bandwidth/storage spec there revolves around being able to record HD at MPEG2 rates/sizes.

Nobody today (not even Sony) really seems to be disputing that AVC is not 2-3X more efficient than MPEG2. So part of my contention is that the bitrate spec for BR using advanced codecs and encoders is rather arbitrary, and certianly it seems odd that that exact MPEG2 derived bit rate has become the bottom line for what good video must be.

The math here doesn't work. Nor do the subjective results.

Just like to add one thing here. It seems a lot of people see space remaining on the disk and think that implies better quality could have been achieved. This is not necessarily true. On both formats, excluding supplements and too many audio tracks, it is the norm that despite using maximized bitrates (combined) there will still be unused space on the disk for most films. The bitrate ceilings come into play before capacity on both formats in other words. I see a lot of posters in this thread don't realize this.

Good point.

Hence I addressed bandwidth in my post #119.

If CodecX was developed that was 10X more efficient then MPEG2, rather than 3X, and the picture was just as stunning, then sure. Why not.

Clever, but I did not open that as a condition of the premise. Vc-1 is vc-1, in either world (hdvd-9 vs. hdvd30). Would you still be championing that a 10/15 format is "good enough", or would you have to side with Blu to get the "20" that you feel to be the "magic" threshold here for vc-1?

I do, and it's been vetted in the insider's thread.

I appreciate Paid's contributions (despite the fact I'm currently taking issue with a premise I believe he's making), and would rather have a civil discussion with him about those issues in this thread.

If you feel strongly about it, you may want to consider a PM to the mods, who sanction insider status.

Thanks.
I accept his reasoned explanation on the matter.

Clever, but I did not open that as a condition of the premise. Vc-1 is vc-1, in either world (hdvd-9 vs. hdvd30). Would you still be championing that a 10/15 format is "good enough", or would you have to side with Blu to get the "20" that you feel to be the "magic" threshold here for vc-1?

I don't have the will to do the math ATM. Please tell us what we can get on a DVD-9 with VC-1@20mbs or so.

Clever, but I did not open that as a condition of the premise. Vc-1 is vc-1, in either world (hdvd-9 vs. hdvd30). Would you still be championing that a 10/15 format is "good enough", or would you have to side with Blu to get the "20" that you feel to be the "magic" threshold here for vc-1?

I actually missed your inclusion of "vc-1" (maybe YOU were the clever one not capitalizing it? ;))... sorry about that.

In any case, I'll fall back on "If the PQ was stunning, then sure". From what I know of the codecs, then I doubt that would work well for feature length movies though.

Didn't the first Fifth Element have high bitrates?

If it was in vc-1 it would be considered astronomical.

If it was in vc-1 it would be considered astronomical.

So do you not know or are you unwilling to answer the question?

I don't have the will to do the math ATM. Please tell us what we can get on a DVD-9 with VC-1@20mbs or so.

That's the point, though- you won't get 20 Mb/s on this "hdvd-9" format. You get 10 GB of capacity and 10-15 Mb/s of bandwidth. At 10 Mb/s, you should get about 2.22 hrs. If you are willing to go into single-digit averages, it's not inconceivable to get a long movie w. DD+ plus some extras on there.

Given that premise, would you then abandon that 20 Mb/s is "just enough" in favor of 10-15, or would you then side with Blu to retain your stance that 20 Mb/s should be available for vc-1 to do a good job?

In any case, I'll fall back on "If the PQ was stunning, then sure". From what I know of the codecs, then I doubt that would work well for feature length movies though.

Given what you know now, do you think vc-1 would be "stunning" with peaks between 10-15 and averages in the single digit range?

That's the point, though- you won't get 20 Mb/s on this "hdvd-9" format. You get 10 GB of capacity and 10-15 Mb/s of bandwidth. At 10 Mb/s, you should get about 2.22 hrs. If you are willing to go into single-digit averages, it's not inconceivable to get a long movie w. DD+ plus some extras on there.

Given that premise, would you then abandon that 20 Mb/s is "just enough" in favor of 10-15, or would you then side with Blu to retain your stance that 20 Mb/s should be available for vc-1 to do a good job?

Talk about not answering the question...

I will answer the question again. All of the tests that I have seen, show that VC-1 is transparent to the master at around 20 mbs.

This is a good question, actually. Not strawman, not off-topic.

Given the premise of a dvd-9 based hdvd format, is there really any doubt that there would be at least some hdvd fans that would endlessly defend a 10 GB capacity and 10-15 Mb/s bandwidth as "good enough"- nothing further needed when using vc-1? Now the uncomfortable question for the hdvd participants here, if you don't buy it that "10/15" would be enough for a premium hdm format, would you then be in the BR camp?

Actually, I believe Warner proposed EXACTLY this DVD-9/HD standard (well except I think the bitrates were still capped at DVD's 10.8Mbit/sec. Yuck)

I'd expect this to be an awkwardly difficult question for the hdvd folk to answer openly. I'd also imagine there to be an unspoken division within the hdvd folks along the lines of those who would still defend hdvd-9 to the end and those who would deduce that BR is the way to go (in the premise of the absence of hdvd-30).

Interested AVS'ers rejected Warner's proposal, for two key reasons: blue-laser formats (Sony's Bluray and NEC/Toshiba's AOD, as HD-DVD was known back then) were already on the horizon. And b), existing (standard-def) DVDs already maxed out with half-bitrate DTS and video containing visible macroblocks. So logically, if a standard-def DVD was already struggling with audio-freedom and extended-cut movies, how could a next-gen format based on the same disc-size do better? (And based on the WMV9-HD discs at the time, it was plainly obvious 9GB discs didn't cut it for a next-generation format, advanced codecs or not.)

I think there's a problem with posing this hypothetical -- everyone knows NOW that the final and current HD-DVD vs Bluray is between 30GB and 50GB. No one is going to be able to answer your question with a truely straight face, because it references a hypothetical baseline far below the MINIMUM (which is HD-DVD/15GB @ 30Mbps.)

A better test would be to pose the hypothetical as HD-DVD/15GB (single-layer.) Objectively, that would still push the audio/video experience into compromise territory. And likely to a point where some people with non-calibrated displays can start to see those compromises. (I.e., disc-producer has to choose between IME, PIP, 1.5Mbps audiotrack or multiple 640Kbps audiotracks, etc.)

For example, I'll be completely honest and say, even at the 15-16Mbps of FOX's MPEG-2 ATSC (Digital-TV 720p) broadcasts, I can still see artifacts when I sit close to the TV, but I really have to concentrate to detect them in random areas. I've watched enough of that channel that I'm biased and simply fixate on known problem scenarios (shift/moving grass on the football/baseball field...haha)

So at the risk of being branded a red-glass wearer, YES, I think a *hypothetical* HD-DVD/15 is a viable next-gen format. It just won't be any better (relatively) than current SD-DVD. Long movies will suffer compromises (or be split across two 15GB discs.) Looking at the success SACD/DVD-Audio vs 128/192Kbps MP3 audio, I'd say it doesn't have to be ... much to the detriment of videophile... :( (Now thank goodness the actual HD-DVD spec is 30GB, and its Bluray competitor is 50GB!)

sjb, So your answer suggests you would side with Blu if the alternative was to be an hdvd-9-ish format that is sub-15 Mb/s?

sjb, So your answer suggests you would side with Blu if the alternative was to be an hdvd-9-ish format that is sub-15 Mb/s?

Well...
I have several 9ish average Mpeg2@1080i that look fabulous. I want movies that look good, instead of movies that meet some kind of target bitrate. I've seen more artifacts and macroblocking on BDs with it hitting 40mbs than I've seen HDDVDs (though I've seen it in both) and the new Fifth Element, while having the same kind of bitrate and 300 having less, look as good as I suspect anything can on these discs. That shows me that there is way more at play than the love of high numbers that you have for video, but strangely not for audio.

Actually, I believe Warner proposed EXACTLY this DVD-9/HD standard (well except I think the bitrates were still capped at DVD's 10.8Mbit/sec. Yuck)

Yes, I'm aware of it. Hence, there is an added reverence to the premise I pose. You are right to acknowledge the face value limitations of such a format. I wanted to poll how the hdvd diehards would respond to this (I think deep down, they realize it, too). It's frequently cited that vc-1 will get even more "efficient" and sometimes suggested that not even 20 Mb/s is a necessity for "stunning" pq. So this premise really puts those convictions to the test, as to how far they can reason to push it, before logic is too overwhelming that siding with Blu would be a more fruitful endeavor. ;)

Well...
I have several 9ish average Mpeg2@1080i that look fabulous. I want movies that look good, instead of movies that meet some kind of target bitrate.

So in this post, you would feel comfortable sticking with an hdvd-9-ish format, as long as it looks "good enough". You would be willing to forgo the "transparency" of 20 Mb/s?

So in this post, you would feel comfortable sticking with an hdvd-9-ish format, as long as it looks "good enough". I would prefer that we stick with the HD formats we have now. Either will be fine. While it is entirely possible that at some point they will learn how to encode for BD in a way that makes a real difference, the other downsides of the format (namely it could never have beaten DVD because of it's piss poor management) make HDDVD the better choice for a consumer AV format. I still wish someone would come along and out do both of them, however.

I would prefer that we stick with the HD formats we have now.

This post suggests an uncomfortable sensation to make any committal comment on the given premise. This is understandable. You suspect you could be happy with an hdvd-9-ish format, but ultimately want to hold out for a 20 Mb/s option, in case "challenging material" comes along. So in an unspoken sense, you would side with Blu in that premise. We just won't be able to get you to explicitly verbalize that here (which is understandable from your position).

Similarly, it should be clearer to you now why holding out for a 40 Mb/s option is no more such a terrible, terrible idea as holding out for a 20 Mb/s option, when you suspect you might be happy with even far less (single digit range).

Also, it would appear that there are a significant number of HD DVD titles for which the average bitrate is 15-17 (implying a 25.5 peak), there is no IME, no secondary audio, have a 1.5Mbs audio track, and plenty of capacity left on the disc.Can you give some examples? I just looked at some in a bitrate thread and an example I see in there is Animal House. Shows no secondary audio, yet when I went to highdefdigest.com to look at the review it shows 3 other language tracks plus 3 subtitle tracks. The next one right beneath it was Apollo 13 and that also shows no secondary audio track, but the review shows 2 other audio tracks plus 4 subtitle tracks. Universal seems to have dropped Spanish from their HD DVDs recently from what I've seen (even when the DVD has it), so that could clear up a little bandwidth.

I don't remember all the math, but that Cjplay said that with the TrueHD Batman Begins had peaks around 19Mbps for the video. So, you could start there and work backwards (dropping a 3.5Mbps TrueHD on an equivalent title allowing ~22.5Mbps peaks). I'm pretty sure that the TrueHD was 16/48, since it is Warner. And BB had a DD+ track that was 640k, not 1.5Mbps, so a 1.5Mbps instead of a TrueHD + 640k would be back to 22Mbps or less video peaks all else being equal.

As I said quite a ways back:
I doubt that very many titles on HD DVD don't get within 5% or so of their peak bitrate limitations at some point. And then it might be because they aren't using dynamux and had to be limit the video in case the audio peaked.You are welcome to ask an insider if many their HD DVD titles have peaks under 28Mbps or so for everything though.

--Darin

This post suggests an uncomfortable sensation to make any committal comment on the given premise. This is understandable. You suspect you could be happy with an hdvd-9-ish format, but ultimately want to hold out for a 20 Mb/s option, in case "challenging material" comes along. So in an unspoken sense, you would side with Blu in that premise. We just won't be able to get you to explicitly verbalize that here (which is understandable from your position).

Similarly, it should be clearer to you now why holding out for a 40 Mb/s option is no more such a terrible, terrible idea as holding out for a 20 Mb/s option, when you suspect you might be happy with even far less (single digit range).

Well, if you are just going to make my posts for me, there's no reason for me to waste my time with you...again.

Given what you know now, do you think vc-1 would be "stunning" with peaks between 10-15 and averages in the single digit range?

Was "From what I know of the codecs, then I doubt that would work well for feature length movies though." not sufficient?

Can you give some examples? I just looked at some in a bitrate thread and an example I see in there is Animal House. Shows no secondary audio, yet when I went to highdefdigest.com to look at the review it shows 3 other language tracks plus 3 subtitle tracks. The next one right beneath it was Apollo 13 and that also shows no secondary audio track, but the review shows 2 other audio tracks plus 4 subtitle tracks. Universal seems to have dropped Spanish from their HD DVDs recently from what I've seen (even when the DVD has it), so that could clear up a little bandwidth.


-Darin

I'm going by benes info, as I really don't have the time to look each one up. And Incidentally I'm including rates up to 17.x, as Batman Begins avg/peak ratio is actually less than 50%. Here's a few:

EU Doom VC-1 1:52:36 14,307,457,024 18,647,097,632 16.94 13.22 DDPlus 5.1 1536Kbps No
EU Jarhead VC-1 2:02:34 15,485,560,832* 25,397,723,714 16.84 13.51 DDPlus 5.1 768Kbps No
Constantine VC-1 2:00:40 16,428,066,816* 23,577,881,904 18.15 13.55 Dolby TrueHD 5.1 16-bit Yes DDPlus 5.1 640Kbps
Happy Feet VC-1 1:48:25 14,148,732,928* 15,917,706,947 17.4 13.85 Dolby TrueHD 5.1 16-bit No DDPlus 5.1 640Kbps
Batman Begins VC-1 2:19:54 19,857,584,128* 26,635,886,280 18.92 13.87 Dolby TrueHD 5.1 16-bit Yes DDPlus 5.1 640Kbps
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines VC-1 1:48:55 14,781,853,696* 16,870,966,312 18.09 13.97 DDPlus 5.1 640Kbps Yes
The Polar Express VC-1 1:39:50 11,047,522,304* 14,002,312,612 14.75 13.98 DDPlus 5.1 640Kbps No
Syriana VC-1 2:07:37 15,224,848,384* 18,998,633,519 15.9 14.3 DDPlus 5.1 640Kbps No
Clerks II AVC 1:37:26 15,353,753,600* 25,286,788,924 21.01 14.56 Dolby TrueHD 5.1 24-bit No DDPlus 5.1 1536Kbps
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005) VC-1 1:42:36 12,622,839,808 13,253,467,781 16.4 14.61 DDPlus 5.1 640Kbps No
Superman Returns VC-1 2:34:19 21,541,732,352* 29,503,173,909 18.61 15.06 Dolby TrueHD 5.1 16-bit No DDPlus 5.1 640Kbps
The Matrix Reloaded VC-1 2:18:07 20,500,867,072* 26,691,056,502 19.79 15.19 Dolby TrueHD 5.1 16-bit Yes DDPlus 5.1 640Kbps
Million Dollar Baby VC-1 2:12:28 16,501,534,720* 20,112,983,382 16.6 15.2 DDPlus 5.1 640Kbps No
The Thing VC-1 1:48:35 14,438,524,928* 21,196,942,048 17.72 15.26 DDPlus 5.1 1536Kbps No
Poseidon VC-1 1:38:07 14,963,316,736* 19,710,369,691 20.33 15.28 Dolby TrueHD 5.1 16-bit Yes DDPlus 5.1 640Kbps
The Departed VC-1 2:31:10 21,377,927,168* 23,841,698,102 18.85 15.3 Dolby TrueHD 5.1 16-bit No DDPlus 5.1 640Kbps
Harsh Times AVC 1:56:08 18,027,251,712* 24,203,136,522 20.69 15.34 Dolby TrueHD 5.1 24-bit No DDPlus 5.1 1536Kbps
The Matrix Revolutions VC-1 2:09:08 19,347,277,824* 22,853,133,346 19.97 15.37 Dolby TrueHD 5.1 16-bit Yes DDPlus 5.1 640Kbps
A Scanner Darkly VC-1 1:40:17 12,311,480,320* 15,062,399,624 16.36 15.4 DDPlus 5.1 640Kbps No
Animal House VC-1 1:48:39 14,332,364,800 14,571,326,434 17.58 15.57 DDPlus 5.1 1536Kbps No
Twelve Monkeys VC-1 2:09:27 17,307,080,704* 23,531,064,980 17.82 15.61 DDPlus 5.1 1536Kbps No
Waterworld VC-1 2:15:04 18,406,686,720* 18,781,783,273 18.17 15.64 DDPlus 5.1 1536Kbps No
The Good Shepherd (2006) VC-1 2:47:20 24,501,952,512* 26,733,619,674 19.52 15.65 DDPlus 5.1 1536Kbps Yes
Freedom: Volume 1 VC-1 0:24:07 3,625,097,216 7,816,769,079 20.04 15.66 DDPlus 5.1 2046Kbps No LPCM 2.0 2304Kbps 24-bit
Slither (2006) VC-1 1:35:37 13,239,343,104 13,740,909,945 18.46 15.74 DDPlus 5.1 1536Kbps No
The Phantom of the Opera (2004) VC-1 2:20:56 19,773,874,176* 26,721,533,641 18.7 15.79 Dolby TrueHD 5.1 16-bit No DDPlus 5.1 640Kbps
King Kong (2005) (Xbox) VC-1 3:07:11 28,912,744,448* 29,481,049,776 20.59 15.92 DDPlus 5.1 1536Kbps Yes
The Rundown VC-1 1:44:07 15,278,671,872* 20,535,860,175 19.56 16.01 DDPlus 5.1 1536Kbps No
Seabiscuit VC-1 2:20:17 20,575,401,984* 26,610,694,439 19.55 16.06 DDPlus 5.1 1536Kbps No
Alpha Dog VC-1 1:57:38 19,616,337,920* 20,744,773,146 22.23 16.11 Dolby TrueHD 5.1 24-bit Yes DDPlus 5.1 768Kbps
The Matador AVC 1:37:39 13,319,888,896 19,246,592,092 18.18 16.2 DDPlus 5.1 1536Kbps No
The Getaway (1972) VC-1 2:02:42 15,503,067,136* 19,178,508,209 16.84 16.27 DDPlus 1.0 64Kbps No
Out of Sight VC-1 2:02:41 17,386,848,256* 20,427,787,259 18.89 16.3 DDPlus 5.1 1536Kbps No
Unforgiven VC-1 2:10:33 17,283,414,016* 27,655,250,434 17.65 16.3 DDPlus 5.1 640Kbps No
EU King Kong (2005) VC-1 3:07:05 28,711,675,904* 29,628,739,665 20.46 16.36 DDPlus 5.1 1536Kbps No
Army of Darkness VC-1 1:20:48 11,205,373,952 11,818,991,913 18.49 16.41 DDPlus 5.1 1536Kbps No
Dazed and Confused VC-1 1:42:12 14,533,865,472 14,845,626,824 18.96 16.43 DDPlus 5.1 1536Kbps No
Serenity VC-1 1:58:54 17,710,434,304* 21,063,445,952 19.86 16.5 DDPlus 5.1 1536Kbps No
Casino VC-1 2:58:09 25,742,852,096* 29,788,312,353 19.26 16.67 DDPlus 5.1 1536Kbps No
EU Goodfellas VC-1 2:25:18 19,963,387,904* 23,685,737,467 18.31 16.75 DDPlus 5.1 640Kbps No
The Deer Hunter VC-1 3:03:29 26,158,307,328* 27,924,451,335 19 16.8 DDPlus 5.1 1536Kbps No
Children of Men VC-1 1:49:09 16,961,931,264* 19,913,636,537 20.72 16.85 DDPlus 5.1 1536Kbps Yes
Training Day VC-1 2:01:55 18,444,447,744* 21,519,646,331 20.17 16.87 Dolby TrueHD 5.1 16-bit No DDPlus 5.1 640Kbps
Van Helsing VC-1 2:11:29 20,242,731,008* 27,357,761,865 20.52 16.97 DDPlus 5.1 1536Kbps No
The Mummy (1999) VC-1 2:04:45 19,933,059,072* 24,511,127,191 21.3 16.98 DDPlus 5.1 1536Kbps No
EU Ran (no English subtitles or audio) VC-1 2:42:06 25,875,419,136* 26,945,502,015 21.28 16.98 DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 No
Sleepy Hollow VC-1 1:45:24 17,327,089,664* 21,068,582,498 21.91 17.01 DDPlus 5.1 1536Kbps No DTS-HD 5.1 1509Kbps
Apollo 13 VC-1 2:19:42 21,592,080,384* 28,447,283,192 20.6 17.05 DDPlus 5.1 1536Kbps No
Land of the Dead: Director's Cut VC-1 1:36:43 14,307,549,184 14,624,761,713 19.72 17.13 DDPlus 5.1 1536Kbps No
The Chronicles of Riddick: Unrated DC VC-1 2:13:56 22,134,411,264* 26,792,887,743 22.03 17.16 DDPlus 5.1 1536Kbps No DTS-HD 5.1 1509Kbps
EU The Fog (1980) VC-1 1:29:28 14,726,543,360* 15,619,238,714 21.94 17.16 DTS-HD 5.1 1509Kbps No
An American Werewolf in London VC-1 1:37:16 14,098,683,904 14,641,081,652 19.32 17.31 DDPlus 5.1 1536Kbps No
Sahara (2005) VC-1 2:03:53 20,879,970,304* 26,117,123,757 22.47 17.37 DDPlus 5.1 1536Kbps No DTS-HD 5.1 1509Kbps
EU The Pianist (2002) VC-1 2:28:35 23,084,238,848* 24,051,394,106 20.71 17.38 DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 No
EU Rambo: First Blood Part II VC-1 1:35:50 16,294,049,792* 17,071,625,621 22.66 17.39 DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 No
EU First Blood VC-1 1:33:02 15,682,226,176* 16,458,405,647 22.47 17.4 DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 No
Ray VC-1 2:32:10 23,087,785,984* 28,835,850,445 20.23 17.44 DDPlus 5.1 1536Kbps No
EU La Haine VC-1 1:37:26 15,357,558,784* 16,295,117,351 21.01 17.48 DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 No
Letters from Iwo Jima VC-1 2:20:29 20,820,930,560* 27,442,486,437 19.76 17.49 Dolby TrueHD 5.1 16-bit No DDPlus 5.1 640Kbps
300 VC-1 1:56:25 19,736,766,464* 27,914,760,868 22.6 17.55 Dolby TrueHD 5.1 16-bit Yes DDPlus 5.1 640Kbps
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory VC-1 1:55:19 18,639,443,968* 24,594,740,613 21.55 17.59 DDPlus 5.1 640Kbps Yes
The Frighteners: Director's Cut VC-1 2:05:09 18,381,424,640* 27,666,375,313 19.58 17.59 DDPlus 5.1 1536Kbps No
Miami Vice: Unrated VC-1 2:19:04 21,901,807,616* 22,948,652,014 20.99 17.67 DDPlus 5.1 1536Kbps Yes
The Scorpion King VC-1 1:31:25 13,628,526,592 14,163,053,314 19.87 17.7 DDPlus 5.1 1536Kbps No
EU Perfume: The Story of a Murderer VC-1 2:27:25 24,934,309,888 28,181,933,728 22.55 17.72 DTS-HD 5.1 2046Kbps No
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas VC-1 1:58:21 21,253,750,784* 22,917,366,426 23.94 17.74 Dolby TrueHD 5.1 24-bit No DDPlus 5.1 1536Kbps
EU Basic Instinct VC-1 2:08:04 21,686,196,224* 22,762,845,547 22.57 17.76 DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 No
Darkman VC-1 1:35:16 15,842,979,840* 16,340,124,021 22.17 17.81 Dolby TrueHD 5.1 24-bit No DDPlus 5.1 448Kbps
Hot Fuzz VC-1 2:00:45 19,126,618,112* 28,227,081,002 21.11 17.82 DDPlus 5.1 1536Kbps No
The Matrix VC-1 2:16:09 23,014,805,504* 25,954,501,000 22.53 17.93 Dolby TrueHD 5.1 16-bit Yes DDPlus 5.1 640Kbps
Mission: Impossible III VC-1 2:05:16 21,654,652,928* 26,379,510,702 23.04 17.96 DDPlus 5.1 1536Kbps Yes
Excalibur VC-1 2:20:36 20,116,723,712* 20,634,795,469 19.07 17.98 DDPlus 5.1 640Kbps No

Was "From what I know of the codecs, then I doubt that would work well for feature length movies though." not sufficient?

It has nothing to do with the length of the movie, as you can fit all but possibly the lengthiest movies if you compress it far enough. What you are concerned about is the resulting bitrate, and the inherent impact on pq.

Hence, you would have to side with Blu in the premise I posed, even though it pains you to explicitly answer it as so.

It has nothing to do with the length of the movie, as you can fit all but possibly the lengthiest movies if you compress it far enough. What you are concerned about is the resulting bitrate, and the inherent impact on pq.

Hence, you would have to side with Blu in the premise I posed, even though it pains you to explicitly answer it as so.

Pain? Uh no.

Here's what it seems you are explicitly after: I do not feel it likely that bit-rate constrained to the storage and bandwidth of red-laser DVD would be "stellar" for a majority of material.

Better?

That having been said, that isn't the premise of this thread that I've started, either: That ANY arbitrary compressed bit rate is the absolute wherein no compromise video is always achievable.

Incidentally, the reason your hypothetical doesn't have much real bearing IMO is that as 3X HDDVD has shown, drives have far surpassed the 1X speed they were originally introduced at a decade ago. Hence the issue become more of storage capacity, and the reason I therefore suggested that the length of movies would be an issue.

I'll tell you this though, given what XBox Live can do with ~6Mbps encodes (admittedly at 720p), I'd bet that you can do some pretty cool stuff with a DVD9 (or heck 18).... with a lot of optimization and some relaxed constraints (like GOP, Bframe placement, etc...) and content of specific length...

No doubt, they could do some interesting stuff on dvd-9. The big dilemma is would you be content to still promote an hdvd-9-ish format based on it (and its lower specs in capacity and bitrate), or would you side with Blu just for the added piece of mind of having large capacity and high bitrate ready to burn? That seems to be the big predicament for the hdvd supporters who are brave enough to answer. So far, the answers given can be generalized that they suspect it could work out "good enough", but they are unwilling to commit to it outright because the alternative that can support a number of "20" just feels safer.

I'm going by benes info, as I really don't have the time to look each one up. And Incidentally I'm including rates up to 17.x, as Batman Begins avg/peak ratio is actually less than 50%. Here's a few:It seems like you completely ignored that just because the list doesn't list anything for secondary audio doesn't mean there weren't more audio tracks or subtitles taking up bandwidth. You even listed one that I used in my example and that you quoted. Again:
The next one right beneath it was Apollo 13 and that also shows no secondary audio track, but the review shows 2 other audio tracks plus 4 subtitle tracks.His list not spelling out all the audio tracks and subtitles doesn't mean there weren't any.

Is it still your position that you don't think these things are getting close to the peak bitrates for HD DVD? Work backwards from what Cjplay said for bitrates and I think you will find that your position is very likely wrong. And as I said, you are welcome to ask an insider.

--Darin

It seems like you completely ignored that just because the list doesn't list anything for secondary audio doesn't mean there weren't more audio tracks or subtitles taking up bandwidth. You even listed one that I used in my example and that you quoted. Again:
His list not spelling out all the audio tracks and subtitles doesn't mean there weren't any.

Is it still your position that you don't think these things are getting close to the peak bitrates for HD DVD? Work backwards from what Cjplay said for bitrates and I think you will find that your position is very likely wrong. And as I said, you are welcome to ask an insider.

--Darin

I don't know how to be much clearer: "I'm going by benes info, as I really don't have the time to look each one up.

I provided the list you asked for, as I did have the time to do that.

But I'll run thru this exercise for this title.

Benes list DOES specify the total bitrate for Apollo 13 as 20.6Mbps. It has a calculated bitrate for the Video evob of 17.06Mbps. This means it as accounting for the additional audio tracks, although he doesn't call them out separately.

That leaves ~3.5 MBps left over, of which we know ~1.5Mbps is the primary DD+ track. That leads me to believe the French and Spanish tracks are likely 640Kbs each, and there are several subtitle tracks to fill out the rest.

Now, if your number of 19 for video peak on BB is correct, and we know the video average was 13.87, the ratio of average-to-peak is 1:1.37. Applying that same ratio the the Apollo 13 average of 17 results in an estimated peak of ~23Mbps. Add the 2Mbps for the foreign tracks and subtitles, and we are at ~25. Add 3Mbps for a TrueHD track, and you are still below the peak of HD DVD's 30 Mbps mux by 2Mbps.

There you have it: An almost 2-1/2 hour movie with lossless audio and multiple additional audio tracks plus subtitles on a single disc. Using numbers well in excess of what more recent encodes have done with more recent toolsets. Oh, and there's already an hour of extras on the disc too.

For grins and giggles, Film Mixer, Roger Dressler,Bob Meridian and some other people in the know have suggested that a lossy 20 bit likely sounds BETTER than a 16 bit lossless, so you could gain a couple of MBps there and add some PiP just for fun. And I still bet you've got room to get the avg rate down from 17 to 13-14avg/20 peak, and put lossless 24-bit on there instead. Or better yet: 3 tracks of lossy 20 bit and more IME.

I leave it as an exercise to the reader to determine if the "lossless won't fit" argument for many discs is an absolute.

Can we get off this tangent now?

Now, if your number of 19 for video peak on BB is correct, and we know the video average was 13.87, the ratio of average-to-peak is 1:1.37. Applying that same ratio the the Apollo 13 average of 17 results in an estimated peak of ~23Mbps.Why would you apply the same ratio to Apollo 13? You were fine with using 1.5x before, but now for some reason you decide to use the ratio from BB, despite that we've been told that it took a lot of work to encode. The 1.37:1 for BB would make sense if they were bandwidth limited and the average bitrate ended up being higher than the 2/3rds the peak bitrate rull of thumb because of that forced low ceiling.
Can we get off this tangent now?I'm still not sure why you want to act like a lot of these discs don't come close to hitting the peak bandwidth limitation of HD DVD despite having to do things like above where you changed the 50% rule of thumb you mentioned earlier to 37%. We can move on, but I seriously hope you won't walk away with some delusion that a good percentage of these titles have enough room left in their bitrates as they are to just add a TrueHD track.

--Darin

Why would you apply the same ratio to Apollo 13? You were fine with using 1.5x before, but now for some reason you decide to use the ratio from BB, despite that we've been told that it took a lot of work to encode. The 1.37:1 for BB would make sense if they were bandwidth limited and the average bitrate ended up being higher than the 2/3rds the peak bitrate rull of thumb because of that forced low ceiling.
I'm still not sure why you want to act like a lot of these discs don't come close to hitting the peak bandwidth limitation of HD DVD despite having to do things like above where you changed the 50% rule of thumb you mentioned earlier to 37%. We can move on, but I seriously hope you won't walk away with some delusion that a good percentage of these titles have enough room left in their bitrates as they are to just add a TrueHD track.

--Darin

Because 50% was brandished about as a round number used as an estimate, and until this discussion I'd not done the math to refine it for an example.

You want to press me Darin, and I'll use the best info available. The best hard(-ish) numbers we (I?) have for peak-vs-avg bitrate are BB becase the average can be determined, and the peak was supplied to you by a compressionist. Therefore I thought it best to work with numbers that we have and results we can see.

Additionally if the numbers work for that title, I don't think it unreasonable to assume that a disc encoded over a year and a half later would benefit from the advanced toolsets available today, likely dropping the average some, as I also already noted.

I maintain that a 2-1/2+ hour movie with multiple high-bit depth lossless tracks, or at least one lossless track and additional lossy tracks, along with extras and/or IME/PiP is doable on HD DVD with today's tools. Heck, it was doable with yesterday's tools.

Furthermore I'm not suggesting that the majority "as they are" might contain a lossless track. I'm suggesting that given that a lossless track is likely to work in a number of scenarios, that the lack of one is not evidence it couldn't be done.

Do you really think Shaun of the Dead needs ~21Mbps avg while Terminator 3only needed 14 and got a BETTER PQ score? Or is it possible that the level of optimization effort may be tied to what decisions are made regarding what other assets to include?

So I hope you don't walk away thinking that just because some particular bitrates were found insufficient to include lossless that it implies lossless tracks could not necessarily have been included.

Talk about not answering the question...

I will answer the question again. All of the tests that I have seen, show that VC-1 is transparent to the master at around 20 mbs.

Yes, but 20 is average and you need as high peak as possible and that's why Blu-ray has an advantage and can look overall better than HD DVD.

Furthermore I'm not suggesting that the majority "as they are" might contain a lossless track. I'm suggesting that given that a lossless track is likely to work in a number of scenarios, that the lack of one is not evidence it couldn't be done.

Do you really think Shaun of the Dead needs ~21Mbps avg while Terminator 3only needed 14 and got a BETTER PQ score? Or is it possible that the level of optimization effort may be tied to what decisions are made regarding what other assets to include?

So I hope you don't walk away thinking that just because some particular bitrates were found insufficient to include lossless that it implies lossless tracks could not necessarily have been included.I thought you were defending:
Also, it would appear that there are a significant number of HD DVD titles for which the average bitrate is 15-17 (implying a 25.5 peak), there is no IME, no secondary audio, have a 1.5Mbs audio track, and plenty of capacity left on the disc.

Given that a lossless TrueHD trach would have required only 3.5Mbps more than the 1.5Mbps track it could have replaces, and it would appear that there was resources to do so, do you have any insight as to why they would not have?which looks to me like you were basing it on how they are. Whether they could encode at lower peak bitrates is another question and with a newer encoder or possibly more work and time they probably could. There are of course multiple factors like how the video is as far as compressability, 2.35:1 vs 16:9 (free black pixels that are easy on compression with 2.35:1), etc. I would expect some of the stuff with the highest video scores to be more likely to be the easiest than the hardest.

And BTW: There is some Microsoft literature (a slide posted here a long time ago) that says Batman Begins was 12Mbps. Those bitrates in benes' list may be different than they calculate, but Microsoft may also truncate bitrates if that makes them sound better.

--Darin

I thought you were defending:
which looks to me like you were basing it on how they are. Whether they could encode at lower peak bitrates is another question and with a newer encoder or possibly more work and time they probably could. There are of course multiple factors like how the video is as far as compressability, 2.35:1 vs 16:9 (free black pixels that are easy on compression with 2.35:1), etc. I would expect some of the stuff with the highest video scores to be more likely to be the easiest than the hardest.


For the third time: I'm using bene's list. I don't have the time to cross check 100 titles against the online listings to determine if he has every title accurately listed for additional tracks, etc. However it does appear that his total bitrate calculation includes them.

So for what I said, namely: "Also, it would appear that there are a significant number of HD DVD titles for which the average bitrate is 15-17 (implying a 25.5 peak), there is no IME, no secondary audio, have a 1.5Mbs audio track, and plenty of capacity left on the disc." there's no reason why it wouldn't be plausible to include lossless right off the bat.

For the example you cited which DID have extra audio tracks, I also demonstrated where the numbers would have allowed lossless to fit almost exactly and retain both the additional track and extra's on the disc.

So given those examples, you tell me if the conclusion that "lossless is not included because it must not fit" is necessarily a valid one.

My final example of re-working the bit rates was to address the "as they are" comment you made. I contend the disc may indeed be "as they are" because the decision was made to not include a lossless track prior. (Indeed one description of workflow by an insider hear suggest such assets are laid out and planned before compression ever starts.). Given the advancements of the tools, and other titles that demonstrate those are reasonable assumptions for bitrate numbers I think it at least give pause to the "lossless don't fit" folks.



And BTW: There is some Microsoft literature (a slide posted here a long time ago) that says Batman Begins was 12Mbps. Those bitrates in benes' list may be different than they calculate, but Microsoft may also truncate bitrates if that makes them sound better.

--Darin


I admit that there's at least 1Mbps of "slop" in he calcs, and benes has said similar. His calcs are derived, and you can see where there's obviously some other small factors in the format. Regardless, benes is posting a higher value for BB, and that's what I used, even if it doesn't sound as good. And honestly, at a18+ months ago, I'm sure it's gotten at least a little better.

Yes, but 20 is average and you need as high peak as possible and that's why Blu-ray has an advantage and can look overall better than HD DVD.OK. Prove it.

For the example you cited which DID have extra audio tracks, I also demonstrated where the numbers would have allowed lossless to fit almost exactly and retain both the additional track and extra's on the disc.It sounds like you are claiming that you demonstrated that a lossless track would have fit as is, but you didn't. The numbers might support that they probably could have done an encode with lossless if they had wanted to, but then I'm not sure why you would say "almost exactly" when they can compress even more if they want to. Even the 1.37:1 you used doesn't really match up with what Microsoft said the ABR was on BB and what Cjplay said the PBR was. 19/12 are the numbers we got there, which would be 1.58:1, although it depends on how exact those are.
So given those examples, you tell me if the conclusion that "lossless is not included because it must not fit" is necessarily a valid one.It isn't necessarily a valid one and I have said that before. They could have put different constraints on the person doing the encode, so it is much more complicated. As far as whether they could slap one on there without changing the video encode, for that somebody would just have to look at the peak bitrates themselves to see, but whether they could have done a different encode, they could have. Whether they would have gotten the same image quality (like whether the person doing the encoding would have missed something at a lower bitrate) isn't so easy to know.
I contend the disc may indeed be "as they are" because the decision was made to not include a lossless track prior.Of course. The person doing the encoding should be given the contraints before they encode (or at least before they finalize things).
Given the advancements of the tools, and other titles that demonstrate those are reasonable assumptions for bitrate numbers I think it at least give pause to the "lossless don't fit" folks.Lossless should fit with a different encode on just about anything. But the amount of work required and/or risks to the video are things that should go into the decision and even if they could have done it, the bandwidth could still be a reason they didn't. For that, I would say that looking at how common lossless is over a lot of titles should give some idea as to whether it is limiting how many of the titles get lossless. But of course that is complicated as those deciding what things go on each disc have multiple factors to consider.
I admit that there's at least 1Mbps of "slop" in he calcs, and benes has said similar. His calcs are derived, and you can see where there's obviously some other small factors in the format. Regardless, benes is posting a higher value for BB, and that's what I used, even if it doesn't sound as good. And honestly, at a18+ months ago, I'm sure it's gotten at least a little better.I'm not sure when they finished the encode, but it actually wasn't released until last October (less than 11 months ago). I had been thinking it was earlier because it was supposed to be a launch title. Not sure why it was delayed, but I would be surprised if they didn't put at least around a couple hundred hours into that title (it was obviously an important one to Warner). Your point still stands though.

--Darin

So in my mental musings this evening, I realized that when I've referred in this thread to being able to accommodate a 16bit lossless TrueHD track, I've been quoting 5Mbps for that, and using that in my calcs.

That's incorrect. It's only 3MBPS peak. Even 5.1 PCM @16bit is only ~4.6Mbps.

So this means any of the following:

1) There's actually 2Mbps of additional "breathing room' in my examples

2) You could accommodate a 24 bit lossless track in the places where I suggested it would only be 16bit

3) You have room for 3 more 640kb audio tracks

4) You can have another high-bitrate DD+ track

5) VC1 based PiP whre there was none

6) larger video peaks (Hi Darin!)

Corrections in progress.... :o

I had thought that my calculations seemed much tighter than I had remembered when mentally calculating things previously....

Isn't the peak-to-average rating contingent upon the availability of dynamic muxing function in the encoder? Otherwise, you would still need to plan for the peak rating as a cbr of lossless audio, anyway, or risk blowing the whole encode outside of spec.

I'm an idiotI have those "Duh" moments were I feel the same way about myself. We all make mistakes.
So in my mental musings this evening, I realized that when I've referred in this thread to being able to accommodate a 16bit lossless TrueHD track, I've been quoting 5Mbps for that, and using that in my calcs.

That's incorrect. It's only 3MBPS peak. Even 5.1 PCM @16bit is only ~4.6Mbps.Is 3 right? As you can see, I used 3.5Mbps in my example here:
I don't remember all the math, but that Cjplay said that with the TrueHD Batman Begins had peaks around 19Mbps for the video. So, you could start there and work backwards (dropping a 3.5Mbps TrueHD on an equivalent title allowing ~22.5Mbps peaks).But maybe 3Mbps is closer. That would make it ~22Mbps peaks (then taking PiP away lets that go up whatever amount that takes up). Guess I would have to look back for the list from Dolby, but being VBR the peaks can vary. Is that where you got the 3Mbps?

--Darin

It sounds like you are claiming that you demonstrated that a lossless track would have fit as is, but you didn't. The numbers might support that they probably could have done an encode with lossless if they had wanted to, but then I'm not sure why you would say "almost exactly" when they can compress even more if they want to. Even the 1.37:1 you used doesn't really match up with what Microsoft said the ABR was on BB and what Cjplay said the PBR was. 19/12 are the numbers we got there, which would be 1.58:1, although it depends on how exact those are.

Not only did my numbers fit "about exactly", but:

1) I quoted 5Mbps for TrueHD in error, it should have been 3Mbps

2) I used a higher bitrates for both peak and average by a significant amount, and it still worked, even without my error above.

3) I said "almost exactly" because I didn't have the number to the right of the decimal place for HD DVD's peak AV-Mux handy. But it's something like 30.26, and what I got was almost right on that. As you point out, do you really think squeezing 0.10 additional out of the encode if I'm off by 100Kbps makes a difference?


It isn't necessarily a valid one and I have said that before. They could have put different constraints on the person doing the encode, so it is much more complicated. As far as whether they could slap one on there without changing the video encode, for that somebody would just have to look at the peak bitrates themselves to see, but whether they could have done a different encode, they could have. Whether they would have gotten the same image quality (like whether the person doing the encoding would have missed something at a lower bitrate) isn't so easy to know.

For every case, correct. But your contention seems to be that lossless likely would not work for a great number of existing discs, and lack thereof is evidence to support that. As we've already discussed perhaps "as they are", yes. But that conclusion is based on the assumption that they were trying to do it and couldn't make it happen.

We have clear indications that's a faulty assumption for many cases.


Of course. The person doing the encoding should be given the contraints before they encode (or at least before they finalize things).
Lossless should fit with a different encode on just about anything. But the amount of work required and/or risks to the video are things that should go into the decision and even if they could have done it, the bandwidth could still be a reason they didn't. For that, I would say that looking at how common lossless is over a lot of titles should give some idea as to whether it is limiting how many of the titles get lossless. But of course that is complicated as those deciding what things go on each disc have multiple factors to consider.

I disagree with the premise of the conclusion. It assumes that capability is the primary factor for studios. I don't assume that it is.

I'm not sure when they finished the encode, but it actually wasn't released until last October (less than 11 months ago). I had been thinking it was earlier because it was supposed to be a launch title. Not sure why it was delayed, but I would be surprised if they didn't put at least around a couple hundred hours into that title (it was obviously an important one to Warner). Your point still stands though.

--Darin

And Ben has clearly stated that putting more automated tools and IQ in to the encoder has been where much of the work has gone in to the encoder.

But since when was this about anything other than what the format was capable of. Should I dismiss a BD-J application that takes 6 man-weeks to develop, test, and debug?

I have those "Duh" moments were I feel the same way about myself. We all make mistakes.
Is 3 right? As you can see, I used 3.5Mbps in my example here:
But maybe 3Mbps is closer. That would make it ~22Mbps peaks (then taking PiP away lets that go up whatever amount that takes up). Guess I would have to look back for the list from Dolby, but being VBR the peaks can vary. Is that where you got the 3Mbps?

--Darin

http://www.dolby.com/assets/pdf//tech_library/TrueHD_FAQ_10925_Final.pdf

See example table on page 2 for 16bit/48Khz 5.1.

And altho the rate varies, the peak is carved out of the mux... at least until dynamux, no?

http://www.dolby.com/assets/pdf//tech_library/TrueHD_FAQ_10925_Final.pdf

See example table on page 2 for 16bit/48Khz 5.1.

And altho the rate varies, the peak is carved out of the mux... at least until dynamux, no?

That's the way I understood it when someone (CJPlay?) explained it.

Dynamux! Sacre bleu! ;)

Not only did my numbers fit "about exactly", but:Looks to me like you are still using 1.37:1 as your ratio, even though Microsoft and Amir have both stated that Batman Begins was 12Mbps ABR and Cjplay has said that it was 19Mbps peak. Even just the 1Mbps you mentioned as a possible error could take the 13.87 to 12.87 and the ratio to 1.48:1, and I don't know if that 1Mbps is always on the high side (so can be subracted from the Apollo 13 one also).
3) I said "almost exactly" because I didn't have the number to the right of the decimal place for HD DVD's peak AV-Mux handy. But it's something like 30.26, and what I got was almost right on that. As you point out, do you really think squeezing 0.10 additional out of the encode if I'm off by 100Kbps makes a difference?Looks like you got all that by using 1.37:1 though.

I'm also not sure about just using benes' overall average and video average. For BB his are 18.92 overall and 13.87 video ABR. That is 5.05 difference, but 19Mbps is 11Mbps away from 30Mbps, not 5.05Mbps away. Probably because of the TrueHD and the PiP, but I'm not sure the subtitles are CBR.
For every case, correct. But your contention seems to be that lossless likely would not work for a great number of existing discs, and lack thereof is evidence to support that. As we've already discussed perhaps "as they are", yes. But that conclusion is based on the assumption that they were trying to do it and couldn't make it happen.No it isn't, and I'm not sure why you claim that. It costs money to try to do something and then have to go back. It doesn't cost money to decide ahead of time not to try. If it looks like things might be tight ahead of time they can decide to not even try to put a lossless track on there. If the title is big enough to justify it, probably more chance they will try to make it fit even if it looks like it might be tight. Just seem like normal business decisions to me.

EDIT: And to be clear, my contention wasn't that it would not work. They could make it work as long as you are talking about doing the encode for those parameters. Given enough time and money. And/or the possibility for more artifacts (I'm including softness not in the master as an artifact).
We have clear indications that's a faulty assumption for many cases.What clear indications are those? Your math with 1.37:1? Even 50% isn't set in stone. It was a rule of thumb.
But since when was this about anything other than what the format was capable of. Should I dismiss a BD-J application that takes 6 man-weeks to develop, test, and debug?If it was like what we are talking about here where they can just give the guys 2 weeks and it will work, but maybe just not as well, I would say that you should take that into account. With encoding they can just give the people a set amount of time and however things look at the end of that is how it looks (unless there is some really gross error). That is somewhat different than writing an application, although there are some similarities.

I am definitely not in the camp who feels that all that matters is what they are capable of if everything is done right or goes right. Even Amir has said that we don't pay the encoding people enough to catch every problem. Some will slip through. If the companies put a lot of money into the encoding to give the guys extra time because it is a big name title or because they have some incentive to make sure it looks it best (like being in a war), then they should be able to minimize the number of things that slip through. But the time and money won't always be spent.

What is your theory as to why HD DVD has such a low percentage of lossless (counting PCM) audio tracks compared to Blu-ray (especially from studios that were exclusive and so only mastering discs for one side)?

--Darin

Isn't the peak-to-average rating contingent upon the availability of dynamic muxing function in the encoder? Otherwise, you would still need to plan for the peak rating as a cbr of lossless audio, anyway, or risk blowing the whole encode outside of spec.

Yeah it is. I used the peak rates in my calcs to "reserve" that bandwidth for the aduio track(s).

Looks to me like you are still using 1.37:1 as your ratio, even though Microsoft and Amir have both stated that Batman Begins was 12Mbps ABR and Cjplay has said that it was 19Mbps peak. Even just the 1Mbps you mentioned as a possible error could take the 13.87 to 12.87 and the ratio to 1.48:1, and I don't know if that 1Mbps is always on the high side (so can be subracted from the Apollo 13 one also).
Looks like you got all that by using 1.37:1 though.

I'm also not sure about just using benes' overall average and video average. For BB his are 18.92 overall and 13.87 video ABR. That is 5.05 difference, but 19Mbps is 11Mbps away from 30Mbps, not 5.05Mbps away. Probably because of the TrueHD and the PiP, but I'm not sure the subtitles are CBR.
No it isn't, and I'm not sure why you claim that. It costs money to try to do something and then have to go back. It doesn't cost money to decide ahead of time not to try. If it looks like things might be tight ahead of time they can decide to not even try to put a lossless track on there. If the title is big enough to justify it, probably more chance they will try to make it fit even if it looks like it might be tight. Just seem like normal business decisions to me .
What clear indications are those? Your math with 1.37:1? Even 50% isn't set in stone. It was a rule of thumb.
If it was like what we are talking about here where they can just give the guys 2 weeks and it will work, but maybe just not as well, I would say that you should take that into account. With encoding they can just give the people a set amount of time and however things look at the end of that is how it looks (unless there is some really gross error). That is somewhat different than writing an application, although there are some similarities.

Well as I explained before, I'm using the (seeming) best info I have. Given that the .evob is broken out separately, and thus video bitrate is able to be calculated directly for it only, it would seem to be pretty accurate.

Given that there's an additional 3.55Mbps above the .evob's bitrate of Apollo13, of which only 2.8Mpbs can be accounted for by audio tracks, and I sincerely doubt subtitles take 705Kbps in their own, that would seem to be where the "overhead" might be.

But for grins-n-giggles, take the 2Mbps from my TrueHD screw-up and apply it to the peak bitrate to make 21, and with the .evob average of 13.87 you have slightly greater than 1.5:1 ratio. Better?

I am definitely not in the camp who feels that all that matters is what they are capable of if everything is done right or goes right. Even Amir has said that we don't pay the encoding people enough to catch every problem. Some will slip through. If the companies put a lot of money into the encoding to give the guys extra time because it is a big name title or because they have some incentive to make sure it looks it best (like being in a war), then they should be able to minimize the number of things that slip through. But the time and money won't always be spent.

What is your theory as to why HD DVD has such a low percentage of lossless (counting PCM) audio tracks compared to Blu-ray (especially from studios that were exclusive and so only mastering discs for one side)?

--Darin

Believe it or not, I'm in your camp of "this all has to be practical too". My previous statement contained a little hyperbole to make the point.

My theory is that HD DVD has all along gone for the superior software capability to make a more practical medium shine. Given that DD+1.5Mbps probably exceeds 95+ percent of the population's ability to differentiate from lossless, that was what was adopted.

Whereas the comments from whatever BDA management-droid to the effect of "people will really be impressed when they see the numbers this new bitrate meter hits!!" make me believe that they are spec-whores to some degree. Some of the marketechture surrounding the superiority of "uncompressed" audio, with significant implications over lossless just reinforces that.

But for grins-n-giggles, take the 2Mbps from my TrueHD screw-up and apply it to the peak bitrate to make 21, and with the .evob average of 13.87 you have slightly greater than 1.5:1 ratio. Better?You lost me. Are you referring to Batman Begins or Apollo 13 above? The 21/13.87 is for BB, right? What would your ratio be for Apollo 13?

--Darin

You lost me. Are you referring to Batman Begins or Apollo 13 above? The 21/13.87 is for BB, right? What would your ratio be for Apollo 13?

--Darin


Again, you get 2Mbps back from my screwup. That gives you 25/17, which is 1.47:1. Close enough? Given that 1.50:1 was an estimate and we have evidence of lesser ratios in practice (from OLD encodes), I think that 0.03 is OK, don't you? ;)

OK. Prove it.

I've prooved that for myself dooing many tests.
Some scenes need much more than 30Mbs to avoid macroblocking and that's why I don't like 30Mbs HD DVD mux limit :)

20Mbs average gives very good overall quality, but as I said, you need much more for peaks.

If you have to put video (difficult opera stuff) + 5.1 and 2.0 24bits DolbyTrueHD tracks than it is not easy with HD DVD (+ sometimes it's 4 hours + extras). The biggest problem is the 30Mbit mux limit- Blu-ray, no problems:)

Andrew

I've prooved that for myself dooing many tests.
Some scenes need much more than 30Mbs to avoid macroblocking and that's why I don't like 30Mbs HD DVD mux limit :)

20Mbs average gives very good overall quality, but as I said, you need much more for peaks.

If you have to put video (difficult opera stuff) + 5.1 and 2.0 24bits DolbyTrueHD tracks than it is not easy with HD DVD (+ sometimes it's 4 hours + extras). The biggest problem is the 30Mbit mux limit- Blu-ray, no problems:)

Andrew


Was there supposed to be some proof somewhere in there?

...It's frequently cited that vc-1 will get even more "efficient" and sometimes suggested that not even 20 Mb/s is a necessity for "stunning" pq. So this premise really puts those convictions to the test, as to how far they can reason to push it, before logic is too overwhelming that siding with Blu would be a more fruitful endeavor. ;)

That's a tough call! If Bluray had never existed, the HD-DVD studios might have simply decided that HD-DVD/15 was "the best we'll ever need" -- and premiere/tier-1 releases get a dreaded combo-disc (triple-layer DVD-9/HD-15) treatment, while 'lesser' titles get the DVD-9/HD treatment... For sure, regular length movies would probably exhibit "routine" compression artifacts, analogous to how current DVD-9's exhibit them (and some more than others, I might add.)

Perhaps I should go rent "Rumor Has It (HD-DVD/15)", then imagine what this alternate-universe would look like?

Honestly, JVC's D-Theatre was limited to 28Mbps (peak bitrate) MPEG-2, and owners were (overall) satisfied. I would guess 20Mbps VC-1 (peak) would outperform 28Mbps MPEG-2 peak, but that doesn't really answer your quetsion. Expectations seem to keep pace (or sometimes run ahead) of technology.

Whereas the comments from whatever BDA management-droid to the effect of "people will really be impressed when they see the numbers this new bitrate meter hits!!" make me believe that they are spec-whores to some degree. Some of the marketechture surrounding the superiority of "uncompressed" audio, with significant implications over lossless just reinforces that.

Marketing logic dictates that you emphasize what you got (and your competitor doesn't), and downplay the opposite. So of course, BDA will boast better lossless audio, 1080p on every player, etc., while the HD-DVD camp champions their 'interactivity' layer.

Both HD-DVD and Bluray are so much better than broadcast/satellite/cable, that it's a shame to see bitter fighting over two competing products that will probably end up being the best home-video format consumers will ever see. (My assumption: once video-on-demand goes mainstream, it's all downhill from there...:()

My assumption: once video-on-demand goes mainstream, it's all downhill from there...:(

Ain't that da GD truth! :mad:

Marketing logic dictates that you emphasize what you got (and your competitor doesn't), and downplay the opposite. So of course, BDA will boast better lossless audio, 1080p on every player, etc., while the HD-DVD camp champions their 'interactivity' layer.

(just for clarification, the second (non-attributed) quote was mine, not Mr. Hanky's, to whom the first quote ws attributed to)

Sure... and that's great for commercials, and in-store displays. But my comments were an answer to Darin's question of "why does BR favor lossless tracks when HD DVD does not". In that context, I don't believe marketing stats should be what enthusiasts on places like AVS should be focusing on.

People are automatically deciding that the bitrate on HD DVD must be too low, or that DD+ tracks are being included only because it would not have been possible to include lossless or PCM.

Yet, let's face it, the PQ and AQ on the formats is practically a draw, with the folks in the know admitting that film masters and skill of the compressionist make a much larger difference than any other.

Why would those who profess to be after the best PQ and AQ be judging by anything other than... well PQ and AQ? I don't judge the winner of a race by looking a the tach... I judge it by who crosses the finish line faster.

Both HD-DVD and Bluray are so much better than broadcast/satellite/cable, that it's a shame to see bitter fighting over two competing products that will probably end up being the best home-video format consumers will ever see. (My assumption: once video-on-demand goes mainstream, it's all downhill from there...:()

I do agree. Although I will say that XBox Live demonstrates an important point: modern codecs have the ability to scale their capability to a great degree. Things like GOP lengths, numbers of B and I frames allowed, buffer space, etc... can allow the same codec to gain quite a bit of efficiency on the same material.

While not 1080p material, the XBL encodes are pretty amazing for 6Mbps-ish.

Was there supposed to be some proof somewhere in there?

There will be soon :)

You will be able compare directly HD DVD and Blu-ray (only difference will be bitrate used for encoding)

Andrew