Blood Diamond - Will Warner screw-up the HD DVD Version ?

Have you seen the BD? Let me guess - no. So before you go saying it's "screwed up" how about seeing it first.

By the way, I haven't seen it either, but I'm reserving judgement until I do.

I hope it's a good transfer. I really enjoyed the movie. It surprised me how good Dicaprio could act.

It's not a good transfer, lots of macro-blocking, banding, compression artifacts etc. Warner screwed up the BD version. The HD DVD version probably looks the same, only with True HD and a few extras.

A month delay for the HD DVD edition just might have some differences?

I'm no expert in terms of video compression/encoding on the studio side.

But I was thinking that it may be the VC-1 encoder used may be optimise for HD DVDs' bitrates taking into account the bitrate savings from the TrueHD audio track and IME, etc.

Maybe the same encoder used took into account the CBR L-PCM track and possibly the IME (although IME is non-existent on Blu-ray format yet), thus readjusting the bitrates and maybe just maybe contributed to some of the "problems".

I would not be surprise if HD DVD does not have some of those visual issues... although chances of that happening may be very slim as both transfers tend to be similar.

the only reason i am interested the blood diamond disk is for the "Web-Enabled Content ".

i realise this is not a popular view on avs where every thread revolves around bitrates and pq/aq and studio support. but, it is my area of interest.

IMO movie titles should not be constrained to what is on a shiny disk. the hd dvd format allows all players to enhance disk features by using other sources. there is extra bandwidth outside of the rom that is not being used. IMO it is a more forward-thinking approach (i would call it more technically advanced) then locking all the content in a rom.

the features on the blood diamond disk will be primitive compared with what is possible. but, it is a start.

if you look at how some studios load up roms with movie trailers/previews... what a waste. for example, if the palyer has an ethernet port you could just access them from the internet and get the latest release trailers insstead of trailers for movies that were coming when you bought the disk 2 years before.

IMO the hd dvd supporting studios/microsoft/toshiba need to get this stuff working and shipping. a year has gone by and some of the best features of hd dvd players are still not being used.

IMO hd dvd oweners have been getting screwed because the neutral studios (particularly paramount with its separate encodes) have wasted their time releasing stuff on bd while waiting for bd specs to mature. universal has been too busy cranking out content because they are fighting fox/disney/lionsgate.

the bda studios are really screwing over the hd dvd side. it is very frustrating to keep seeing posts about "inferior technology" and "least common denominator" when IMO it has been and still is bd that is holding everything back.

Ths should be all of out signatures until they fire all the encoders and find ones that will do a good job...

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Warner in High Def....The look and sound of BAD!!!!!!

I hope not becuse I have not purchased the Blu ray version yet... I was just going to wait or this one...

the bd version was "screwed up" before it shipped because the bda cannot get its act together.

how do we know it isn't the vc1 decoder in the bd players that is "screwed up"?

VC1 has 2 1/2 times the compression efficiency of mpeg2. BluRay was designed to fit two hours of the old mpeg2 content on a single disk. Microsoft and Toshiba told the BluRay alliance that a higher capacity media format was not needed for this because of the advanced WMV9 codec and existing red laser technology. They didn't listen! Neither did the fanboys. You can increase the VC1 bitrate to the moon and it isn't going to make a bit of difference for BD. Microsoft proved this with WMV-HD disks that were only 8/mbps. There is nothing wrong with BD just sticking with mpeg2 since there's ample space on the disk for it. VC1 and AVC are higher compression encodes, not something to desire unless you're space starved like HD-DVD. But HD-DVD had the early edge on PQ so the fanboys said "It must be VC1 !" The other side of the process from the encode is the decode, and I frankly think that's where BD has been beaten. So go commiserate your Warner conspiracy theories with the other unhappy PS3 fanboys. If anybody should be complaining about Blood Diamond and Warner it's HD-DVD owners since they don't even get the release for another month. And when it arrives, it will probably look better on the HD-DVD format. So as to VC1 encodes for BD, be careful what you wish for, you just might get it.

this is factually incorrect or just an opinion based upon assigning zero value to the following...

- if the encode takes more disk space on the rom maybe that is ok if it stays on the rom. but, for a future with mmc, media servers, and downloaded enhancements to the content, porky encodes are just a waste of bits for no good reason other than the people doing the encodes are not looking forward to future applications.

- hardware resources on the player are required to support the bandwidth even though it doesn't do anything useful. those resources are therefore not available for other things like pulling things in from a network or local storage,

i totally agree with the assessment about codec fanboys claiming pq differences in either direction. what people don't get is that pq is mostly determined by the compressionist and the source material. all codecs must be capable of reproducing content that looks good to the majority of viewers or the codec would not be used. the primary difference between codecs is getting the content to look good with less bits.

what looks good is totally a matter of opinion so every time a new release comes out 10 new threads start .... see my codec is beater then yours....yadda yadda.

Did any of you see the standard DVD that was released? It was awful. There were posts on the HTF about it being one of the worst 16:9 transfers for a "new" movie anyone had ever seen. It was THAT bad.

Oh yes it is.

Nope.

Nope.

Very slight and occassional. My guess is most people won't notice them.

Like hell.

The only extras the HD DVD version is getting that the BD isn't is internet capability, probably just an active link to the WB website or some other marketing thing.

All the IME material is available in a play all series of full screen featurettes which most people will probably prefer anyway. Imagine watching the whole 2 1/2 hour movie again only to see 46 minutes of video. Wouldn't it be nice to just watch the videa?

The BD looks very good folks. It has excellent detail and depth. Amazing 3D throughout. Looks similar to Children of Men.

Don't believe the FUD!

One month to the HD DVD release, Warner could get enough bad feedback about the Blu-Ray version and end up re-encoding for HD DVDs release

GREAT TO HEAR! I was so diappointed by that review. This movie is the best thing to come out of Hollywood in awhile. I liked it much better than "The Departed"

If it's as good as Children of Men, then I won't complain at all.

that would suck. why do the bd guys get all the cool compression artifacts? damn warner.

Don't believe any of the reviews that have been released so far, including home theater spot and hi-def digest? Also, ignore the technical fact that it's encoded at a bitrate of around 7.9Mbps, which would introduce all sorts of video artifacts due to such drastic compression?

I'll reserve judgement until more people receive the disc and we can get a more broad range of reviews.

The famous "7.9 mbps" is just for one scene! There is no way that is the average, it would be like putting The Matrix in and see "ohh!! these one intro scene is 5 mbps!" well heck credits are lower than 5 mbps.

Every time I checked it was around 20 mbps. But with VC-1 it's pretty meaningless anyway since Batman Begins was encoded at an average of 13 mbps.

And isn't King Kong ~15 mbps?

high def digest is wrong most of the time. I haven't read home theater spot, but you have to realize a lot of online reviewers cannibalise each other to not seem out of the mainstream and in case they missed something.

If you have not seen the BD, then you frankly don't know what you're talking about. I have. It looks terrific.

I like their reviews but they do give ratings which are inconsistent. They gave Superman Returns 4.5 stars for video, Blood Diamond got 3. From what I hear from you Blood Diamond is much better than the reviewers are leading the consumers to believe.

Fet: Why are they going ape s**t over at the BD software side? I believe they are doing a write in campaign to Warner over this title.

Yeah, it must be awesome to constantly hear them talk about and refer to specific movie scenes while you can't actually see those movie scenes. D'OH!

That's a puzzler. Some people have convinced themselves that WB just sucks at PQ. I frankly don't understand it. Maybe they should face off with the Matrix fanbois and resolve it West Side Story style.

I only watched the first clip and it wasn't like that. I can't vouch for the rest of it, but even if they do refer to specific scenes without mentioning them, I'm sure it isn't too hard to figure out. that's just speculation as of right now though.

IME is cool, but I have to admit seeing the video windowboxed instead of in a tiny window is preferable so far.

i agree with you. some people just don't get the ime concept. this is why we need hd dvd around because it offeres things that some people like that aren't available otherwise. makes me sad that people are dead set on killing off one format or the other. lets keep them both and let people pick their flavor.

Are you suggesting they delayed it a month to add a hyperlink? I hope it's more than that. It's meant to take advantage of the network port on standalones, not if you pop it into your computer. Considering these players dont have web browsers I think it'll be something more.