Prevent HD double dipping (1 Viewer)

[Ed St. Clair]

This thread is to make helpful suggestion to prevent double dipping in our new HD disc world. Feel free to voice your opinions or concerns on stopping double dipping in HD disc formats.

If you feel said suggestions will not prevent you for double dipping on a HD disc title:
DO NOT POST HERE!
Make your own;
"Why to double dip in HD" thread.
Thank you.


1. non-1080p transfer (even though a 1080i transfer will look stunning, you'll 'need' that 1080p version to match the 1080p display thats in you future, if not today)

2. non-lossless audio soundtrack (even if your equipment can not at this time handle lossless audio, you will want this feature in the future when your equipment can)

3. EE or filtering (do not allow the studios to release poorly mastered video AGAIN!)

4. Bare bones edition (for previous released films, we know what extras are out there. HD version must contain all available extras. Or, as we all know, some Ultimate Edition is coming our way)

5. MPEG 2 (this as so falls into the extras category. Newer codecs will have more space. Plus, you can guess a "superbit" will certainly follow a MPEG 2 release)

For me its not 'just' about money. It is, when I could have purchased a new title with those funds. However, it is also very frustrating to have to keep buying the same titles over & over again. Not even getting to enjoy a release, thinking something better is coming down the pipe, at a later date.

Here is to a GREAT future in HD!!!

 

[Aaron_Brez]

Would give #1 a caveat: it's okay to buy a 1080i transfer for things that were actually mastered that way, aka video.

Other than that: yep.

How about:

6. movie released on HD DVD-9 or BJ-9. Do you truly believe movies released on 9GB disks will be any quality other than merely "adequate"?

 

[Glenn Overholt]

This is what is going to stop me from double-dipping. I just don't want to spend the money again! I can see getting the new releases, as that is a no-brainer, and I won't hesitate to buy anything in HD that was previously released in SD only in FF, but the rest, forget it!

I also think that the studios are just about done with their catalog titles. I have over 1,000 disks now, which is way over a hundred a year, and I have plans on buying 5 during the next three months.

I really think that the titles that haven't come out won't, due to rights issues of one sort or another.

Glenn

 

[Eric_B_C]

I always love it in these discussions when someone says:



You don't HAVE to buy anything. The problem with double dipping is exactly that attitude. Unless, with all the legislation they're pushing through, the MPAA now physically send goons around to break your arm if you don't double dip, you do still have a choice. It's your decision as a consumer to reward the studios for screwing you.

How do you prevent double dipping? STOP BUYING THEM! Everyone bitches about the studios, and then goes ahead and rewards them for it by buying the double dipped releases anyway... Then they come on here and complain about it again. That's like complaining someone has shot you in the foot, then grabbing and gun and shooting the other one.

I NEVER double dip. There have been movies, like the recent Mallrats re-release, but I just won't buy it. Same with Kill Bill. I picked up the original releases, knowing there's another one coming. And I don't care what the excuse is. "I didn't know that another edition was coming when I bought the first." That's no excuse, as it happens so often now you must be dumb as a bag of rocks if you fall for it.

It strikes me these ideas are just to assuage the guilt for those who do double dip, because they realise they're the exact reason we get screwed like this. Wouldn't happen if suckers didn't buy them.

 

[Ed St. Clair]

Good 4U, Eric. I blame the studio's, you however...

Good one!
If I may surmise: Only high quality formats (right?)!

 

[Jim Smith]

MPEG-2 don't automatically disqualify a Blu-Ray but they don't help. 90% of movies are less then 2.5 hours. The fact is at 50 gigabits even at MPEG-2 can still fit 90% of cinema at full resolution. A second disc can be provided for extras. I am not supporting MPEG-2 releases just saying they shouldn't automatically disqualify purchase. BD-9s can work if a studio only wants to put a few added extras and for single short television specials. I am scared about any mainstream movies using these. Disney and Fox confirmed full 1080p, lossless audio, no component downconverting, and extras on all initial Blu-Ray releases. Id definutly be willing to purchase a movie even if I like it less for these features.

 

[Aaron_Brez]

Any feature film on BD-9 will not get purchased by me.

MPEG-2... I'm open to, provided the bitrate is high enough that it looks immaculate. But I'm very skeptical.

 

[Jim Smith]

Honestly a BD-9 at VC-1 isn't much worse then a BD-25 at MPEG-2. Sony using single layer BD-25s at MPEG-2 for the majority of the initial releases makes me want to skip Sony completly. While Sony did confirm 1080p video at least but lossless audio and extras are out. Fox and Disney are looking very good right now though I don't know why they would pick certain titles.

 

[Glenn Overholt]

I can't back this up, but I believe that all of the HD type titles that have been announced are all releases that were digitally recorded ORIGINALLY!

The next 'phase', if you could call it that, would be titles that have been digitally remastered.

While those are being released, the studios can work on the older/non-remasterd films.

Glenn

 

[Dave H]

Besides purely marketing reasons, there have been legitimate technical reasons for re-releases of many DVDs. Authoring and compressioning techniques greatly improved since 1997. As far as I'm concerned, every DVD I've watched released prior to 2001 needs to be re-released. There will always be a learning curve with a new technology and because of this, I welcome re-releases. Of course, as Eric said, you don't have to buy anything anyway.

 

[GordonL]

You can always sell your old copies. There's really not much you can do to avoid double dipping if you want the latest and greatest. There's always improvements to be made. That's just the way it is.

 

[Jeff Swindoll]

Today's USA Today (1/10) has a comparison between HD & Blu and they state that the first editions will be two sided and have the HD format on one side and a regular DVD on the other. However, they dont say that about BluRay.

http://www.usatoday.com/life/movies/...def-dvds_x.htm

"And the first discs could have an HD DVD version on one side and DVD on the other so that consumers could begin to build a library before buying a player."

 

[Aaron_Brez]

"Could have"

I suspect this will not happen in the Early Adopter Era. If it happens at all, it will occur during the Race for Joe Sixpack's Dollars Years.

It was a clumsily-written article, at any rate. They list "Warner, HBO, and New Line" as HD DVD studios, but only "Warner" as a BD studio, making it look as if HD DVD has more support than they really do. Ditto with HP, which gets listed as an HD DVD supporter but not Blu-ray.

 

[Alistair_M]

A lot of people post about codecs, about how bad mpeg2 is, and how you can't fit a long movie on the disk etc, but I recently saw Ben Hur in OAR 1920x1080 which was encoded in mpeg2, and the total size was only about 12gigs, with many scenes with a bitrate between 8 and 12, and it looked good. Miles better than the dvd, very sharp and detailed. I think we should wait to see the reviews of movies in bluray before we dismiss them for using 'old codecs'.

An advanced codec doesn't add more information, it just compresses more efficiently. I was really surprised about how good mpeg2 could be in high def.

 

[GeorgeM]

Allow me to add this to the list:

The 1080p transfer must be anamorphic. A 2.35:1 source must use all 1080 lines and require the player/scaler or an anamorphic lens to perform a vertical squeeze or a horizontal stretch, respectively. That's far better than to have the source occupy only 817 lines and the rest for black borders.

 

[Alistair_M]

Hi GeorgeM. I think both formats are letterbox only. So the max no of lines for a 2:35 movie in either HD-DVD or Bluray is 817. Since the specifications for both formats is now fixed, there will never be anamporhic formats for either HD-DVD or Bluray.

 

[GordonL]

No surprise to me. OTA HD is Mpeg2 around 9Mbs.

What is the current state of VC-1? Since it is one of the approved codecs, why not use it right off the bat instead of Mpeg2? If the best available codec was used, it would reduce the complaints about double dipping.

 

[Ed St. Clair]

Alistair,
Do you know why no anamorphic?
Specs can change, why not this one?
Thanks.

 

[Aaron_Brez]

There's nothing in the spec to prohibit anamorphically-encoded content in 1080p... but there's no flag in the spec which would indicate to the outside world that it is compressed content. And once you've released a player which doesn't look for and respond to the flag, it becomes harder to retrofit it in: anamorphic content, unflagged, would play back distorted on an "original" player.

On the other hand, putting it in the spec now would require them to add extra downconversion circuitry in hardware or software to deal with anamorphically-encoded 2.35:1 material, and considering there's no real consumer displays for this stuff yet, it's just not worth it for the hardware manufacturers at this point.

 

[Alistair_M]

I think there was a discussion while bluray and HD-Dvd specs were being decided, and they went for letterbox. I can't see them changing anything fundamentally now.

So we've only got letterbox. Good for 1:85 releases, as we'll have 1920x1080 pixels, but only 1920x817 for 2.35:1 movies. For 4:3 material, I think its 1440 x 1080 - so Citizen Kane should look good!

Interestingly, I think OTA movies, which are in mpeg2, are anamorphic.