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Master Vudu discussion - place to talk about your Vudu experience - Page 51

post #1501 of 1887
9/12/11 at 10:32am
Quote:
Originally Posted by michaeltscott View Post

If you select the film and go to the "More Info" tab in its description, you can see what the sound encodings are. Hanna is in DD+ for all quality levels; The Incredible Hulk is in "basic" DD5.1 for HDX and HD and DD2.0 for SD.

I started playing the HDX preview of Hanna (excellent film, by the way) and I did get DD+ from my player (Panasonic DMP-BDT110); as advertised The Incredible Hulk was DD5.1.

Michael,

I appreciate your response. I haven't noticed this information in description, will check when I get home.

Is majority of titles on Vudu encoded as DD or DD+?
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post #1502 of 1887
9/12/11 at 10:56am
Quote:
Originally Posted by joeschmoe007 View Post

Is majority of titles on Vudu encoded as DD or DD+?

Well, I haven't checked all of them . My guess would be that all or most of the newer titles would be in DD+. You should consider switching to a player which can convert DD+ into regular DD5.1 for output over S/PDIF. I'm a bit shocked that your Sony can't--surely it must be able to handle all of the "advanced" audio on BDs and turn them into basic DD5.1 or DTS for S/PDIF output; I'd expect for it to be able to do the same for the audio on its streaming sources. My BDT110 and PS3 can do it (not sure about the PS3, since before I had this AVR it was converting those formats to multi-channel LPCM).

I've come across a couple of weird titles where you got DD+ on the HD encoding but not on the HDX and stuff like that. I can't remember what they were.
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post #1503 of 1887
9/12/11 at 11:14am
Im sorry, I haven't read this thread in a while. Can someone give me a quick rundown of the "cons" to buying a Vudu STB compared to a streaming device that happens to have Vudu?

Considering picking up a used Vudu box.
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post #1504 of 1887
9/12/11 at 12:01pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Blacklac View Post

Im sorry, I haven't read this thread in a while. Can someone give me a quick rundown of the "cons" to buying a Vudu STB compared to a streaming device that happens to have Vudu?

Considering picking up a used Vudu box.

I no longer own a Vudu box, but IIRC:
1. its HDMI 1.2 port could not output DD+ audio, just DD. (Any box with HDMI 1.3 can handle DD+. I am looking at LG's ST-600.)
2. However, this wasn't as bothersome as the pronounced black crush. (The box had no picture controls.)
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post #1505 of 1887
9/12/11 at 12:06pm
So do the Vudu STB's decode DD+ and output PCM? That's what I'd prefer anyway (stupid DVDO Edge bitstream dropouts).

Do they stream and download or only download? (HDX)
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post #1506 of 1887
9/12/11 at 12:32pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Blacklac View Post

So do the Vudu STB's decode DD+ and output PCM? That's what I'd prefer anyway (stupid DVDO Edge bitstream dropouts).

Do they stream and download or only download? (HDX)

I don't think that the VUDU STBs stream at all--they play-while-downloading, or play from a download on their HDDs. They originally wouldn't do play-while-downloading for HDX, which was 10 Mpbs before streaming (9 Mbps 3-bar highest bit rate encoding streamed). From the VUDU User's Guide:
Quote:


Instant playback of standard definition movies requires a bandwidth of 2.0 Mbps (Megabits per second), usually advertised by ISPs as 3.0 Mbps. instant playback of high-definition titles requires 4.0 Mbps. HDX titles require a full download before playback begins.

Looking at that manual, the implication is that they always convert to DD5.1, though the source is DD+ 5.1:
Quote:


Audio Format
Source: Dolby® Digital Plus
Out: Analog Stereo, Stereo PCM, Dolby Digital
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post #1507 of 1887
9/12/11 at 12:48pm
Ok, thanks for the info guys.
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post #1508 of 1887
9/12/11 at 1:23pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by michaeltscott View Post

I don't think that the VUDU STBs stream at all--they play-while-downloading, or play from a download on their HDDs. They originally wouldn't do play-while-downloading for HDX, which was 10 Mpbs before streaming (9 Mbps 3-bar highest bit rate encoding streamed). From the VUDU User's Guide:
Looking at that manual, the implication is that they always convert to DD5.1, though the source is DD+ 5.1:

I have three of the BX100 boxes. The last time i checked they were streaming titles. But it's been many months since I've used them so maybe they switchd back to download only.That would be surprising but I don't know At one point I had to reboot it to one version and I could download titles and then I had to reboot to another version to stream the titles.

But either way it's HDMI version is below HDMI 1.3 so it is incable of streaming the advanced audio codecs.

And actually it's about time i unplug those boxes to lower my power usage. They have been powered up but have not been used since I use teh VUDU application on my Boxee Boxes now.
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post #1509 of 1887
9/13/11 at 7:39pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by michaeltscott View Post

Well, I haven't checked all of them . My guess would be that all or most of the newer titles would be in DD+. You should consider switching to a player which can convert DD+ into regular DD5.1 for output over S/PDIF. I'm a bit shocked that your Sony can't--surely it must be able to handle all of the "advanced" audio on BDs and turn them into basic DD5.1 or DTS for S/PDIF output; I'd expect for it to be able to do the same for the audio on its streaming sources. My BDT110 and PS3 can do it (not sure about the PS3, since before I had this AVR it was converting those formats to multi-channel LPCM).

I've come across a couple of weird titles where you got DD+ on the HD encoding but not on the HDX and stuff like that. I can't remember what they were.

Well, I just checked some of them and you are mostly right. However, there is a lot of newer titles encoded with regular DD 5.1 or even stereo. The older titles are stereo rather often.

As far as upgrading player - I was thinking I need to finally break down and upgrade receiver. But now that I see only some of the titles are encoded as DD+ upgrading just to be able to play them in 5.1 would be irresponsible, so I think I will make do with what I have now.
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post #1510 of 1887
9/13/11 at 7:44pm
I am amazed how good Vudu application is on my Sony BDP-S460 player. Whoever designed/wrote it clearly put a lot of thought into it. It is easily the best if you compare it with Amazon or Netflix applications on this player. Especially the reviews, both from Vudu community and Rotten Tomatoes.

Does anybody know if Vudu app looks the same across all devices/players? What is it written in? All BD players support Java AFAIK so it may be Java.
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post #1511 of 1887
9/14/11 at 2:10am
Quote:
Originally Posted by joeschmoe007 View Post

I am amazed how good Vudu application is on my Sony BDP-S460 player. Whoever designed/wrote it clearly put a lot of thought into it. It is easily the best if you compare it with Amazon or Netflix applications on this player. Especially the reviews, both from Vudu community and Rotten Tomatoes.

Does anybody know if Vudu app looks the same across all devices/players? What is it written in? All BD players support Java AFAIK so it may be Java.

I can't verify every platform, but the VUDU app is identical on both my Panasonic DMP-BDT110 BD player and the PS3. It's their VUDU 2.0 interface which they rolled out in January. I have no idea what it's written in--could well be BD-J.
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post #1512 of 1887
9/14/11 at 5:56am
It looks the same on my PS3, Boxee Box, LG BD player and my VUDU BX100.
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post #1513 of 1887
9/14/11 at 6:30am
Quote:
Originally Posted by michaeltscott View Post

I can't verify every platform, but the VUDU app is identical on both my Panasonic DMP-BDT110 BD player and the PS3. It's their VUDU 2.0 interface which they rolled out in January. I have no idea what it's written in--could well be BD-J.

Quote:
Originally Posted by aaronwt View Post

It looks the same on my PS3, Boxee Box, LG BD player and my VUDU BX100.

Well here is a food for thought: devices other than Blu-ray players probably do not support BD-J. So they probably have to use other SDK-s for those.
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post #1514 of 1887
9/15/11 at 2:18pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by joeschmoe007 View Post
Well here is a food for thought: devices other than Blu-ray players probably do not support BD-J. So they probably have to use other SDK-s for those.
Maybe, but it looks identical on my LG 55LW5600 LCD display as well.
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post #1515 of 1887
9/16/11 at 2:53am
Quote:
Originally Posted by joeschmoe007 View Post

Well here is a food for thought: devices other than Blu-ray players probably do not support BD-J. So they probably have to use other SDK-s for those.

As I understand it, BD-J is a standard used only for Blu-ray discs and has nothing to do with streaming.
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post #1516 of 1887
9/16/11 at 12:21pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by LDBetaGuy View Post

As I understand it, BD-J is a standard used only for Blu-ray discs and has nothing to do with streaming.

It was used to implement the Netflix disc for the PS3 (see this) when a lengthy timed exclusivity agreement with Microsoft prevented native console Netflix players from being introduced to competed with the one on the Xbox 360.

Though it's there primarily for implementing fancy menus for video discs, nothing prevents the environment from being used for other purposes.
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post #1517 of 1887
9/21/11 at 10:51am
Anyone know which BD players support Vudu 3D titles? I see on Vudu's site that the most expensive LG and an older Sharp are listed, but I expect this can't be up to date since the other models in the LG family are basically the same without the hard drive. Also, some tech postings on the Vudu forums are answering questions about a Samsung player and 3D titles and there is no Samsung listed.
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post #1518 of 1887
9/21/11 at 12:37pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by joeschmoe007 View Post

I am amazed how good Vudu application is on my Sony BDP-S460 player. Whoever designed/wrote it clearly put a lot of thought into it. It is easily the best if you compare it with Amazon or Netflix applications on this player. Especially the reviews, both from Vudu community and Rotten Tomatoes.

Does anybody know if Vudu app looks the same across all devices/players? What is it written in? All BD players support Java AFAIK so it may be Java.

My understanding is that VUDU writes the app themselves for all of the boxes that they run on. Hence the consistent look and feel across multiple devices.

NF on the other hand makes the hardware manufacturer responsible for writing the app with the manufacturer selecting one of several APIs that NF supplies. NF does certify the app that the manufacturer writes. Hence the different UI across devices for NF. NF is switching to HTML5 as the common denominator to build upon so in the future the UI for NF should become more consistent over the next few years.
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post #1519 of 1887
9/21/11 at 12:37pm
Is Boxee the best stand-alone box that supports Vudu at this point? Any other options?
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post #1520 of 1887
10/18/11 at 4:30pm
Vudu announced today that they will begin streaming in 7.1 surround.
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post #1521 of 1887
10/18/11 at 5:12pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by eddster25 View Post

Vudu announced today that they will begin streaming in 7.1 surround.

Sort of: select movies will stream with Dolby's bandwidth-friendly Dolby Digital Plus 7.1 audio.


Why can't they just do Dolby True HD and/or DTS HD. Its still not lossless if its "dolby digital plus", no matter how many channels.
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post #1522 of 1887
10/18/11 at 5:37pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by caesar1 View Post

Why can't they just do Dolby True HD and/or DTS HD. Its still not lossless if its "dolby digital plus", no matter how many channels.

Because the lossless encodings aren't scaleable like DD+. For instance, Netflix 5.1 sound is 384 Kbps DD+ and it sounds pretty sharp and a lot better than their stereo. DD+ on BDs is typically encoded at 1.5 Mbps. The lowest bit rate 5.1 True HD encoding I see listed at blu-raystats.com is 926 Kbps (16-bit, 48 KHz sample); all the rest are 1100 kbps and up. The lowest bit rate 5.1 DTS-HD MA track that I see is 1500+ kpbs, also 16 bit, 48 KHz. The bit rate of a lossless encoding is going to depend upon the quality and complexity of the source and get very high (fairly commonly 2-4 Mbps and higher, generally not affordable in a streaming encoding.

I dunno--maybe VUDU's already spending a lot of bits on their DD+, but I doubt it.
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post #1523 of 1887
10/18/11 at 8:12pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by eddster25 View Post

Vudu announced today that they will begin streaming in 7.1 surround.

I guess I need to dig a couple more speakers out of my garage.
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post #1524 of 1887
10/19/11 at 9:52am
Quote:
Originally Posted by michaeltscott View Post

Because the lossless encodings aren't scaleable like DD+. For instance, Netflix 5.1 sound is 384 Kbps DD+ and it sounds pretty sharp and a lot better than their stereo. DD+ on BDs is typically encoded at 1.5 Mbps. The lowest bit rate 5.1 True HD encoding I see listed at blu-raystats.com is 926 Kbps (16-bit, 48 KHz sample); all the rest are 1100 kbps and up. The lowest bit rate 5.1 DTS-HD MA track that I see is 1500+ kpbs, also 16 bit, 48 KHz. The bit rate of a lossless encoding is going to depend upon the quality and complexity of the source and get very high (fairly commonly 2-4 Mbps and higher, generally not affordable in a streaming encoding.

I dunno--maybe VUDU's already spending a lot of bits on their DD+, but I doubt it.

They're not. I could show you an analysis of a couple of 5.1 movies that I downloaded. It's definitely NOT 384. It's lower. I'd say its about 256...maybe 192.
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post #1525 of 1887
10/19/11 at 10:48am
Quote:
Originally Posted by DigitalfreakNYC View Post

They're not. I could show you an analysis of a couple of 5.1 movies that I downloaded. It's definitely NOT 384. It's lower. I'd say its about 256...maybe 192.

384 Kbps is what Netflix says that they're using for 5.1 tracks (64 or 192 for stereo, depending upon available bandwidth--see the postscript at the end of this Netflix blog entry). I haven't heard any exact figures on what rate VUDU encodes their surround sound at.
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post #1526 of 1887
10/19/11 at 4:10pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by michaeltscott View Post

384 Kbps is what Netflix says that they're using for 5.1 tracks (64 or 192 for stereo, depending upon available bandwidth--see the postscript at the end of this Netflix blog entry). I haven't heard any exact figures on what rate VUDU encodes their surround sound at.


But there stereo tracks are pcm which is uncompressed which is much worse at 64 or 192kbs than using DD+ lossy compression at that bitrate.
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post #1527 of 1887
10/19/11 at 7:05pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by aaronwt View Post

But there stereo tracks are pcm which is uncompressed which is much worse at 64 or 192kbs than using DD+ lossy compression at that bitrate.

The stereo tracks that I've encountered on Vudu are MUCH better than the 5.1. I'll show some analysis when I have a second.
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post #1528 of 1887
10/19/11 at 10:07pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by aaronwt View Post

But there stereo tracks are pcm which is uncompressed which is much worse at 64 or 192kbs than using DD+ lossy compression at that bitrate.

I find it impossible to believe that 64 Kbps stereo PCM would be at all listenable and 64 Kbps sound is all the PC ever gets. It emerges from the players as PCM, but I think that the players convert it. Three years ago, when they published the "Encoding for streaming" blog entry, they were using stereo WMA; certainly all of the players would have to decode that into PCM or DD:
Quote:


Today, we cannot use WMDRM to deliver AC3 or DD+ audio, which means that only stereo (delivered via WMA) is available. PCs and Macs decode the WMA, and CE players also transcode to PCM for digital connections to receivers.

The disc-based PS3 player responded to the DISPLAY button with the same overlay that you'd get for most other video from the PS3 and it said that the sound was DD2.0. Of course, most AVRs and televisions can deal with bitstreamed DD2.0, but they may choose to output it as PCM over digital audio connections anyway.

TiVo and Xbox output Dolby for Netflix stereo but I'm sure that they're both still getting stereo WMA. My PC outputs it as DD, but it could probably convert PCM into that.
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post #1529 of 1887
10/20/11 at 7:03am
Quote:
Originally Posted by michaeltscott View Post

I find it impossible to believe that 64 Kbps stereo PCM would be at all listenable and 64 Kbps sound is all the PC ever gets. It emerges from the players as PCM, but I think that the players convert it. Three years ago, when they published the "Encoding for streaming" blog entry, they were using stereo WMA; certainly all of the players would have to decode that into PCM or DD:
The disc-based PS3 player responded to the DISPLAY button with the same overlay that you'd get for most other video from the PS3 and it said that the sound was DD2.0. Of course, most AVRs and televisions can deal with bitstreamed DD2.0, but they may choose to output it as PCM over digital audio connections anyway.

TiVo and Xbox output Dolby for Netflix stereo but I'm sure that they're both still getting stereo WMA. My PC outputs it as DD, but it could probably convert PCM into that.

My TiVos have always output PCM for Netflix(which is only available in stereo on TiVo). For Amazon they will output DD for 5.1 titles and pcm for stereo titles. My roku2 outputs pcm for the stereo content on Netflix and DD+ for the 5.1 content.
I figure if it's in DD for the stereo content then it should stay in DD if it's also bitstreaming the 5.1 DD+.

I did notice recently that every channel on FiOS is using DD. FOr stereo , mono, music channels etc. At one point they were using pcm for the SD channels but maybe they switched to DD to save some bandwidth over the hundreds of SD channels they have.

EDIT: I checked my 360s. They also output PCM from Netflix. Netflix is only stereo on the 360. The 360 dashboard audio is in DD though.
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post #1530 of 1887
10/20/11 at 9:51am
Quote:
Originally Posted by aaronwt View Post

EDIT: I checked my 360s. They also output PCM from Netflix. Netflix is only stereo on the 360. The 360 dashboard audio is in DD though.

Yeah, you're right--I hadn't checked when I said that. It's also true that TiVo outputs PCM. Still, I can't believe that 64Kbps stereo PCM would be listenable (the only thing you can get on the PC) and it actually sounds decent. They were sending WMA sound to TiVo and everything else in the beginning and AFAICT TiVo and Xbox are still using that same set of encodings, inasmuch as the peaks in their bandwidth usage curves are identical and unlike everything else that I have. I don't see any reason why they would have changed from using encoded sound to PCM, when it could only affect a great decrease in sound quality.
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