Industry Insiders Q&A MASTER THREAD [separate thread for Xbox/Add On & PS3] - Page 54  

I can't believe you're trying to claim that having 50% more bandwidth can possibly, in any regard, be a disadvantage. It's available for Blu-ray encoders to use. They don't have to use it. They can stick to HD DVD bandwidth limits and have the exact same picture quality. They don't have to use PCM, they can use TrueHD or DTS-HD or plain DD. But under any scenario Blu-ray encoders have 50% more headroom available as one of the many "knobs" they may tweak (other knobs being which audio codec, which video codec, BD25 vs BD50, etc.) to create the best possible product.

BD has greater storage capacity. You can't possibly argue your way around this. Maybe in the future this will change (though it's highly unlikely) but today and for the foreseeable future this statement is categorically correct.

At least six titles have been released with BD-J interactivity. BD-J is supported on all systems.

BD categorically has more vendors. HD DVD announced five Chinese manufacturers (none of whom have publicly shown hardware). Add that to Toshiba and you have six; there are currently BD players released from six vendors, with models having been demonstrated by at least three others. There is also broader PC support on Blu-ray, with BD drives available from more than six vendors (for both PC and Mac), and PC's available from Sony, Dell, Acer, and many smaller companies.

You'd still have more studio support for Blu-ray, with Fox, Lionsgate, and Sony remaining exclusive.

Regardless of why, the fact is Blu-ray discs have proven to be more durable than HD DVD discs according to Netflix renters.

- Talk

Whether or not double-blind tests would bear out a noticeable difference between PCM and DD+ 1.5Mbps, these two facts remain:

1. Blu-ray reviews have received consistently higher praise for audio than HD DVD titles, with many noting that Blu-ray's lossless PCM sounds more dynamic than the equivalent HD DVD TrueHD or DTS track.
2. Consumers will generally consider a title boasting of lossless audio to be more attractive than one which doesn't.

Regardless of whether it is a "hard coat" or a "protective coating", posts here indicate many people dissatisfied with their rental experiences for HD DVD titles, while there is far less evidence that the same problem exists with Blu-ray.

Thanks Amir.

Looks like us geeky AV types will have more disc info to dig into. That is, it is not really enough to say Title-X is using AVC, rather it should be that Title-X is using Company-Y AVC.

So we have Toshiba AVC vs Sony AVC vs Panasonic AVC vs MS VC-1 etc etc.

No flames please

Competition is good.

Dennis.

Talk, what about MS, LG, ONKYO, MERIDIAN and ALPINE.??


And Talk, please comment this statement, by Joone from Digital Playground.

http://gear.ign.com/articles/759/759068p1.html

Excerpt.:

"Joone: There's actually one company that replicates about 95% of all the adult content that's produced in the Valley. They've chosen HD-DVD. So when their customers, who are generally technically illiterate, come to them and say they need to do HD, they'll be told to go with HD-DVD. Everything pretty much points to HD-DVD and adult these days."

Could you please elaborate on this statement? Which titles are available on HD DVD with a lossless audio track that are also available on Blu Ray with a LPCM track?

And then can you explain how a LPCM track could possibly sound any different than a lossless encoding of the same track, assuming identical mix, master, and bit depth?

Perhaps I misunderstood your post? I Apologize if that is the case.

Could one of the HD DVD insiders give us a full summary of the 'resume' feature please, I have had a good search but I can't find a good authorative summary post on how HD DVD does things different to say DVD in this respect. I understand that it needs to 'authored' in the discs like Canal are now doing but many people are getting confused with how HD DVD and DVD differ in this respect and how an X Box may differ from a Toshiba player.

Many thanks

With all this talk of greater storage, why is there only ONE disc of all the BD titles that I'm interested in that manages to fit in all the extras from the SD DVD disc? There is easily 2 dozen discs that I'd buy tomorrow if they had ported over all the features from SD DVD.

I'd sincerely like to know the answer to this because I won't be buying a player until it happens with a majority of titles, like HD DVD.

Of which only MS and LG have even shown hardware. So if you add up all the hardware companies which HD DVD claims have support maybe you are close to the number of Blu-ray companies. When you actually look at the credibility of those companies in the HT space it's not even close.
[quote]And Talk, please comment this statement, by Joone from Digital Playground.
The market won't ignore the 10x greater number of Blu-ray players shipped relative to HD DVD. Sure, it may be faster/easier to have low-volume HD DVD titles replicated, but one or more replicators will surely step forward as adult providers seek to serve the large Blu-ray population.

Also, I consider the comparison with the impact adult titles had on the VHS/Beta war to be incorrect. When VHS/Beta were launched there was no other reasonable mechanism for getting adult video into the home. The situation is clearly very different today given both DVD and download. There will surely be a market for adult content on blue laser, but I don't see any possibility that it will have the impact it may have on the VHS/Beta format battle.

I don't know what you're interested in, but I believe most titles released since BD50 and advanced codec usage became prevalent have had all of the content from the SD DVD release. It's true that most of the BD25 MPEG2 titles did not share all the bonus content from prior releases.

Sorry, I probably shouldn't have included TrueHD, as I don't believe there are any titles yet (though Warner will apparently be releasing them this way in the future). Reviews have certainly highlighted Blu-ray LPCM audio as being superb and noticeably better than DD+ or DTS HD DVD audio. Further, the fact that most Blu-ray titles have lossless sound available while only a fraction of HD DVD titles do is relevant here as well.

Nope. Check again.

The newest casualty is Chicago. A good amount of stuff left off. Almost all Fox titles have most extras left off and the MGM titles are completely barren of extras.

Still not enough room, apparently.

Will this ever change or do BD only studios see this as not a priority?

Just a little clarification: I own a number of French Blu-ray discs from Sony, Warner and Fox (which are the only companies who released BDs over here so far), and I can certify that the size and thickness of the cases are absolutely IDENTICAL to the region A titles.

The only difference is that Sony Europe is using a case with a latch on the side and the front Blu-ray logo is in 3D -- like the cases used by some Buena Vista titles in the US.

I don't know for HD-DVDs and I can't speak for other regions of the world.

Two additional questions on this subject:

- Do these cases have a generic name (like keep case and snap case for DVDs)?
- Are you aware of new types of cases to be used on future releases -- like digipacks?

can an insider explain how it can even be remotely possible other than some psychological phenomenon that PCM can sound any different than DD-THD??

my understanding is that the DD-THD results in bit-for-bit identicality with PCM, which is simply where DD-THD starts out before lossless mathematical compression, correct?

or are we getting claims of superiority simply because the source and/or the mix is better/different? i supposed changing levels and the amount of activity in the surround channels can affect a user's perception as well?

but there can be no doubt that DD-THD will provide the same exact PCM as the PCM that could be put down on a BD title, correct?

Will Windows Vista have any basic ability to write (file system) to DVD, HD DVD, or BD like XP can write to CDR/RW (with the CD writing wizard)?

Not really. There are many, many people who are satisfied with their HD DVD rental experience. Otherwise, Netflix would be complaining and they are not. There are anecdotal issues on both sides.

And keep in mind because the cover layer in HD DVD is six times thicker than BD (0.6mm versus 0.1mm), it can be polished nicely in existing rental cleaning systems. This is a bit like having a real hardwood floor which you can sand and still have enough wood left to walk on. In contrast, the ultrathin coating on BD discs cannot be polished as doing so, completely wears off the protective layer and you are left with nothing. And if this thin layer does get damaged at all, you are liable to destroy the bits under it as they are sitting so close to it. Again, HD DVD/DVD have a much deeper cover layer so this is far less of an issue for that.

Billions of DVDs cycle through rental experience today. HD DVD follows the same path. If they had issues that you claim, there would be no Netflix or blockbusters today. Would more protection be better? Sure. But BD doesn't provide it as a whole, and studios are unwilling to spend extra money for discs that go through rental as they don't make as much money from them, as they do from people who purchase the discs outright.

I can create cases where one could, in a very remote way, sound maybe a bit better than the other in certain designs. But I can make the argument in favor of either one and would be equiv. to why one cable might sound better than the other. For fun, let's ask Talk/Paid first to see if they can think of why this would be the case and then I will comment.


From the point of view of the data itself, they are identical as you state.


This is really the crux of it. Even Roger from Dolby says this, and pointed out to some Japanese magazine review which claimed the lossy track was better than lossless! Level matching is critical and since studios are trying to create movies, not benchmarks on discs between codecs, it is not a priority for them to match them down to the last fraction of db.

Still, I don't think we have yet heard from anyone who has listened to TrueHD and PCM of the same thing and says one sounds better than the other. And we are waiting to see what info Paid/Talk have that 1.5 mbit/sec DD+ is vastly inferior to PCM, let alone any claim of it being better than TrueHD or DTS lossless.

Majority of HD DVDs use an HDi programming system for menus and such. This allows us to have much nicer menu systems than DVD with nice goodies like timelines for the movie when you pause it, graphical bookmarks, etc.

If you then turn off the machine, in reality you are turning off a computer so you need to save all of its "state" (memory) or you can't resume it. Think of your laptop computer and what it does when you close the lid or suspend it. Content authors could solve this problem by "trapping" the power button and saving only what needs saving as most of the time, the menu system is not doing anything. But a lot of titles have already come out without it so this is probably not as attractive. So we are looking at other alternatives. I will post our progress on this as we get closer to a good solution.

Amir,

The following is your quote after someone questioned Meridian's HD-DVD plans way back in this thread:


I am following up on some CES discussions. I was one of the people at CES who was told by Meridian that they had no plans to release an HD-DVD player. The press release you pointed out came out after CES and says "we are delighted to be working with Microsoft on the development of high-end players" but is sufficiently vague in that it doesn't actually say they are planning to build a player and sell it under the Meridian name nor when they might be complete with that development (2007, 2008, etc).

Since your statement contradicts what I was told and the press release was quite vague, I followed up with an email to them asking them directly if they are planning to build a player and I was told they won't talk about future products. Essentially they would not confirm that they are planning to sell one (but they didn't deny it either). So it appears you are the only real source for me to get clarification from. Thanks for answering.

Does Meridian have plans to build an HD-DVD player and market it under the Meridian name?
Do you know approximately when that might be available?

Thank you.

That was an unfortunate communication issue where one of the Meridian people was unaware of this project and stated direction of them supporting HD DVD. So they were saying this at their booth until we figured out what was going on and cleared that out.


It is clear that they don't want to give a release schedule, nor did we claim one for them. However, other than that, I don't know how you can doubt their statement that way. When has Meridian built players for others?


Please ask if your contact is comfortable with you forwarding that response to me and if so, please PM me with that. I will then be able to comment specifically on it.


Absolutely yes.


I do but cannot share such data on their behalf. All I can tell you is that we are deep in the development of such a product with them. Moreover, Bob Stuart is very excited about this project. We have been in discussion for some time and once they saw the solid progress HD DVD, it was an easy decision for them.

Does Meridian design and build their own hardware or do they outsource that to a larger CE with their specifications and put their label on it? Could you see how Meridian's development compares with Onkyo and/or the various Chinese vendors?

Speaking of which, is Toshiba and/or Onkyo planning any additional feature sets for their players to distinguish them from the chinese players or will it be brand label alone that differentiates them?

Of course they do. Otherwise, it is a pretty neat trick to get people to pay so much more for them .

Yes, there was a time when Meridian was buying CD players from Philips (circa 1983 when I first met Bob Stuart) and then modifying the analog portions to make them sound better. But those days are long gone. Today, it is pretty easy to source the core digital design from the myriads of DVD chip companies and then add value around that. You don't need to go to mass market companies to get such designs. Indeed, the mass market companies take the same chip designs, packaged them with little change and ship them under their names. It is the high-end companies who go back to the drawing board, and find and fix issues with audio clock jitter and such and over build everything at low volume so that they can squeeze the last bit of quality out of the format.

BTW, some high-end companies are going as far as building their own drives and optical pick ups. Mark Levinson comes to mind in this regard (they bought the Thomson optical unit a while back). This enables them to do things like using special motors that sound smooth and expensive when they open the drawer! Yes, these things matter when you sell such expensive equipment - kind of like the sound of a V-8 engine in a luxury sports car. I have not asked if Meridian does the same.


They are nicely separated into four categories. Chinese will focus on competent playback of the format, ranking a clear step below Toshiba in overall consumer proposition. Onkyo will strive to build the next step up from Toshiba. Meridian will take this up quite a few notches higher yet, with price no object execution as they have done with their current products. So when it is all said and done, we will have a very nice range for HD DVD products for everyone from budget conscious to someone who wants to know they have bought the best - period.


Sure. There is a lot to industrial design, quality of playback of CD/DVD, usability of remote and integration with automation, feel of the machine, the channel and training, on-going support, etc. What they will all share is that they all play HD DVDs, including all the mandatory features, as do all the current DVD players. Beyond that, there is plenty of room for differentiation.

Fuad, kindly note that I will not respond to 12-part arguments here And despite the abuse of the rules by us insiders , we like to stay to Q/A format as much as we can.

So if you have a specific question that you want to ask me, please do that. Otherwise, I leave you in the hands of the mods to decide what to do with your post...

Would there be any problems in gaining permission from the DVD forum to produce such media, or does Sony not need that?

Isn't BD-ROM CLV, so no matter what bitrate is used for a title encode, the playback time is the same, as is the used disk area?

Talk,

Why would you use this supposition to say that LPCM tracks on BD are better then DD+ or DTS HD DVD audio? We're talking about different movies with different sound tracks here. How could comparing the soundtracks of different movies possibly lead to any valid conclusions as to the advantage one audio format on a disk could have over another??

This is not the case in Australia, Blu-ray cases are DVD thickness here.
I understand that the UK is also using the chunky Blu-ray case.

We'll see what the insiders say.

I have no comment on HD-DVD cases since I not yet seen any HD-DVD stock down here (launch is yet to occur I believe).

I'd much prefer the thinner cases, sigh, why the change?

Dennis.

There is no problem as far as I know. I'll be able to confirm the latest information on BD/DVD hybrids next week.

Amir or Ben,

I watched Superman Returns on XBox Live last night. The audio was very impressive! Would you please shed some light on what the audio specs were?

Also, with Superman Returns and Posiden (both HD versions) off marketplace, everything looks good but often blacks and shadows tend to suffer. Is this due to the much lower bitrate? if so, is the Codec being improved in way to minimize this?