Warner dropping VC1 for AVC? - Page 3

VC-1, to my eyes, looks slightly better than AVC. They both look very good though.

Have you compared the same content at low and high bitrates?

It would seem that many Blu-ray studios are going AVC. Of course now that all studios are Blu-ray.......

Blu-ray format seems to favor AVC more and offers better quality over all.

The lack of space and bandwidth on HD DVD was more favorable to VC-1

All the guys at Doom9 rate AVC over VC1, so I welcome the change.

VC1 is the king to me. The model of efficiency and an image that looks silky smooth not edgy or harsh which some will mistake as looking sharper. Example bluray.com gives Troy a 4.5 for PQ and and the video bit rate is an honest 11 mbps average. Yes VC1 is that good.

Titles with low bit rate VC-1 encode (less than 16 Mbps) that looks excellent or utmost good.

1) Troy D.C
2) Aviator
3) 2001: A Space Odyssey
4) The Departed
5) The Shining
6) Happy Feet
7) TMNT
8) Unforgiven
9) Seabiscuit
10) Harry Potter
11) Out of Sight

No. I am referring to the overall feel when watching VC-1 vs AVC content. They're both capable of exceptional quality, but if I had to choose I pick VC-1.

VC-1 has more placebos than AVC.

IMO they're both great at high bitrates with any deblocking/filtering left off.

Well I dont think either AVC or VC1 should leave deblocking etc off. Because the worst thing on HDM is image breakup (if you discount stuff like bad story etc)

It also creates artifacts on its own.


Also I would like to add, as long as the studios uses BD25 they will have bitrate considerations of their own.

If we take as an example a BD25 that have 2 hour movie. That leaves 27,7 mbs as ABR.

Lets say you want a 24bit PCM track and a DD640.

Then we have just slight over 20mbs left for video as an ABR. Not counting if they want to include extras. Of course they can use TrueHD or DTS HD, but not all studios does that. So all in all you will have some great need of the best encoding tools in the market.

What about Extras my dear MovieSwede ? Why pay $27.95 on a movie with minimal to 0 extras encoded using MPEG-2 on BD-25.

Well I try to avoid purchasing overpriced movies.

But yes if you include extras you will have even greater use for an efficient codec.

I have seen some incredible image quality with MPEG2, AVC and VC-1 and codecs do not matter.

You can have 5 star video with any one of them.......

True, but in some cases they dropped the extras. But thats more of a studio thing then a codec thing I would guess.

Then fine. To me it's doesn't matter what video codec the Studios use. But as many videophiles claim that VC-1/AVC are twice efficient than MPEG-2 I expect the Studios to offer higher bit rates while choosing MPEG-2. Whether it will boost the PQ or not is a different story.

Btw I spent $35 on Rounin (Ronin) and realized I was gloriously phucked up by the raging FOX.

But one thing with Fox, Sony and BVHE is they don't starve the bit rates like Warner do especially during dark scenes.

Let me state for the record, I would prefer AVC/VC-1 over MPEG 2 because they take up less space.

Extras are nice but the best possible video and lossless audio are my main concerns.

+1 Hi-Def Digest gave it 5 out of 5 stars for PQ and I'm pretty sure there are a few scenes with a lot of black in them.

Me? I don't care which codec they use so long as they don't screw up the transfer (FOX). Granted I'd prefer if they leave enough room to include loss less audio, but that shouldn't be a problem unless the studios are going to cut corners (FOX) and just use a BD25 for catalog releases.

Just give me good looking movies. I really don't care otherwise.

Wake me up when all these pointless nerd threads are gone

Just turn off the bitrate meter and watch the damn movie guys

I don't know why you keep listing this one when I've shown repeatedly there is noticeable and ugly blocking in HP OotP.

Paramount did a couple of titles both for HD DVD and Blu-ray back when they were neutral using VC-1 for HD DVD and AVC for Blu-ray(I believe one was Flags of Our Fathers). I remember reviewers giving a slight edge to AVC due to sharpness("it does seem that the Blu-ray/AVC encode is the tiniest bit sharper, while the HD DVD/VC-1 is the slightest bit softer."). Of course the VC-1 was encoded on a 30 GB disc and the AVC on a BD-50. I guess we will never know now unless a foreign studio does a Blu-ray title using one codec and a domestic studio using the other ...both using the same master and optimizing/authoring on a BD-50 disc.

It will probably show VC-1 softer but with less grain and AVC sharper with more grain. Grain haters probably prefers VC-1 just like film novices prefers full screens ...without the "dreaded" black bars.

You are wrong. Paramount used MPEG-2 on Blu-ray and VC-1 on HD DVD. None of the MPEG-2 encodes got better reviews for PQ than their VC-1 counterparts.

The only title that Paramount really delivered on Blu-ray is Flags.

HD DVD Flags of Our Fathers - VC1
BD Flags of Our Fathers - AVC/BD50

HD DVD Coming To America - VC1
BD Coming To America - AVC/BD25

HD DVD Trading Places - VC1
BD Trading Places - AVC/BD50

This happened at the tail end of Paramount's neutrality. No, you are wrong. And why bring MPEG-2 into this when the subject matter is VC1/AVC?

Beowulf HD DVD is AVC and it is Tier 0000.

While many companies are developing H.264 tools, VC-1 is managed only by Microsoft, it's pretty clear which can emerge as a better production environment.

Paramount also used VC-1 for Face/Off where Disney used AVC for the Japanese version, which is much cleaner. The US version uses the same HD master but has been filtered, probably to compensate for the lower bitrate & capacity.

Plus the audio is DD+ where the Disney is PCM.

Here's hoping Warner doesn't rely too much on BD25 with AVC.

Is there somewhere on here, or anywhere on the internet, that compares different countries' versions of HD DVDs? (Or Blu-Rays for that matter.) I know there's DVDcompare.net but they have hardly any HD DVD comparisons on there. I don't mean a screenshot comparison, I mean listing the extras and if any cuts have been made or if some versions are the director's cut versions etc. (Although also mentioning PQ would be good too.)

VC-1 is good at certain things but I think AVC is better.

These pissing contests really get old.
Who cares what anyone thinks is "better?" It is an opinion and even the "experts" have opinions on what they prefer. Quoting Richard from RB Films or Maxpower aren't definitive answers on what is better, nor is quoting any other "expert"

What everyone should be concerned with is getting a quality product no matter what encode is used.

And pissing contests get more difficult as we get older.