Something VC1 has that MPEG-2 does not...  

Now that's going to be interesting... Thanks benes!!

Wow, first time I've seen a direct comparison go so easily over to MPEG-2. What's the deal here? Did the extras eat into the bitrate for HD DVD?

yep, already seen it with VC1, no point mentioning it though because the HD fanboys will be at your throat, the evidence in this thread is undeniable though, so there can't be much to say

I saw the same thing in King Kong for the record (included in my huge thread that didn't go so well)

never ONCE was this EVER seen a D-Theater releases I shall stress NEVER!

I have the balls to post this in the HD-DVD forum and I just did post it , thanks Benes we have the right to point to flaws of either format in the proper forums, this only makes stuff better in the end

-Gary

I wouldn't write off the transfer so soon though. This is one scene in one movie. Perhaps there are other scenes where the MPEG-2 picture is flawed compared to the VC-1. However, since I haven't seen either disc, that is pure speculation. I'm guessing this comes down to bitrate being eaten away by extras, rather than an inherent VC-1 flaw.

I'm sorry but IMHO that is a very poor attitude, Gary. There may be some hard coated (pun intended) Blu-Ray fans and some hard coated HD-DVD fans. But I don't think anyone can deny actual screenshots. Your King Kong complaint thread only went that bad because you didn't provide any proof and only very few people could reproduce the problem with their setup. Had you provided some useful screenshots/photos together with timecodes, the thread would have run differently.

Anyway, I'm poised to see replies by Amir and/or Ben on this!

if I had PC native screenshot capability I would prove it, otherwise I am up a creek in the proof part

-Gary

benes, I'm glad you were finally able to get captures of these I know you were having problems capturing anything but I-frames earlier...

I am downloading the lossless set as we speak, but like I speculated before it looks like something was messed up in to encode. What is really concerning is the sharp block boundary, which should not be possible with VC1 unless the in loop filter was turned off.

I still think overall MPEG 2 has more faults

Another interesting difference is the large amount of grain in the MPEG-2 shots. I've not seen enough high definition video to be sure, but I really wonder what happened to the grain in the VC-1 version. If the video was filtered, and yet that blocking still remains, there are some major problems with this encode.

Wait Wait, on the insider thread, MS insiders said that VC-1 is transparent to the source!

Neo thanks for the info, let me get those time codes, this is exactly what I saw in KK, very very slight pixelization that was very faint, not this nasty stuff like Dish/Directv HD, I mean very minor and faint, zooming in would show it like the grabs above

-Gary

How do we know that this isnt a decode problem than an encode problem?

I can have strange issue sometimes in the decodingprocess on my computer.

I dunno, looking at ethans thumb it definitely looks like its a bitrate issue. Now the real question is, is this the fault of 30GB max limit or the bitrate limit on HD-DVD's. Or is it a product of VC1 reguardless? My guess is your going to be seeing a lot of this if more people start getting PC Drives and do comparisons.

The lack of grain on the HD-DVD just confirms my thoughts that VC1 has a terrible habbit of smoothing out the pictures, thus removing details :|

OP, Can you do more comparisons for us?

I'd love to see an AVC comparison as well. I've been horrified at the MS insiders and their propaganda of saying that VC-1 is transparent to source at 10mb/sec or whatever they said.

Looks like isnt the same as it is.

VC1 encoding/decoding is more complex than mpeg2 so it should for scientific reason be tested on other system to make sure that its an encoding error.

Of course you could screw up VC1 encoding just as AVC and mpeg2. But the titles i have watched on normal viewing distance hasnt shown any of these problem.

A lot of people have noticed that VC-1 transfer have a.. dinstictive look to them. Smoother. Still good, but a little different from other transfers. MS guys have said that's because it's the only one that's transparent to the source. I highly doubt this.

We're supposed to just believe their words, they offer no proof or images. This thread has some images.

Is this enough to say hddvd with VC-1 sucks? Of course not. But it's probably enough to stop the nonsense saying BD50 with mpeg2 sucks.

I am not sure whether diff in PQ is related to the codec or the player.

Well you cant take one bad screenshot and use thats as an evidence that VC1 encoding doesnt work.

There has been excellent titles with VC1 that looks great.

So the question would be.

Is this encoding error?
Is this decoding error?
Is this limitation of hd dvd?

I would guess on nr1.

I would say it's a limitation of low bitrate VC-1.

As per the smoothing comments, VC1 is based off WMV correct? WMV employs heavy smoothing on videos which eliminates blocks, but also creates a smeared or sloppy look which loses details (also the reason you see less/no grain as its all smoothed out -- something that irks me as its definitely not transparent to the master then). Perhaps thats what some people are seeing (although obviously not to the extent of streaming video)

How about someone with some real expertise answer this issue? These screenshots prove nothing in and of themselves. While we are enthusiats, we are not experts. Let's get real guys.

After downloading both sets of pictures and looking them over at actual size I have come to the following conclusions.

1. Something is not right. Either the software is not decoding VC-1 to spec or the encoder screwed up horribly. Since the in loop filter should be active on these blocks and eliminate any sharp block boundary's (the kind MPEG2 has ). So either the decode is not to spec (as the in loop filter is required for proper decoding). Or the encoder messed up (I wouldn't be surprised with new software), but in this case it should have been caught by QC at Paramount.

2. There is no reason either codec should be bit starved in this scene as it is not horribly complicated, with big blurry blocks of nothing.

3. I really hate how MPEG 2 reproduces grain, but in this case VC-1 looked no better.

How were these screenshots made?

Maybe this is why Paramount now have Sony doing their encodes?
I wouldn't expect too much debate from this from the MS team. They seem to be too busy in the insiders thread avoiding questions and posting nonsense.

This is more of the same confrontational crap that keeps people from using these forums as a source of real information more and more.

When a post was made a while back pointing out the macro blocking in MPEG-2 the OP here had many complaints and questions about the validity of the posts and questioned the integrity and technical competence of the poster there.... yet here this is thrown up here and expected to be accepted.

If I understand Amir correctly - VC-1 is always transparant to the source, and all faults is of the original master.
In this case it's very clear that the master is at fault, and somehow Mpeg-2 is destroying the original master by adding smooth lines to jagged edges.

I can see now the superiority of VC-1.

If you want the insiders to comment you have to post this in the insiders thread.

There are 2 things that I would like to see before the VC-1 bashing begins:

(1) A second person confirming benes' findings.
(2) A grace period of 48 hours to give Amir or Ben a chance to comment.

Well you have missunderstod. He never said VC-1 is "always" transparent to the master.

Then they could release 4hour movies on a DVD. Becaue you could fit that, but it wouldnt be transparent.

VC1 can if encoded right, be transparent or close to, but that doesnt mean it will be in every case. Great compression program doesnt have 1 startbutton only.

I agree and have been saying this from day one(my history would prove it), BD has had more filmlike image in that very small minute grain is intact and is not on HD-DVD which looks more like smooth video, it most certainly doesn't have that slap you in the face film quality of D-Theater, that is certain, BD is closer to that IMHO

-Gary