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Well let me put on a Blu bit-counting hat to decide. Well since Blu doesn't support IME, Warner is going to encode the whole movie twice which means at most 25 Gig for the movie. That gives HD-DVD and extra 5 Gig right at the start. But wait, there's still more. Warner is going with uncompressed lossless audio on Blu and compressed lossless audio on HD-DVD. That should be worth another gig or two. Only a bit-counting hypocrite would buy the Blu version when there is a choice.
Aw crap, you know what? I bet Warner is only going to encode the main movie once for both formats so HD-DVD is going to get stuck with a low-bitrate encoding. I really wish studios (only Warner now) would stop making discs to the lowest common denominator HD format that was released before it was ready and incomplete specs. Now I'll be stuck watching "Order of the Phoenix" and wondering how good it could have looked if it wasn't for that other format that should have just given up and never have come to market in the first place.
Well at least my ST:TOS HD-DVD discs weren't affected by limitations in that other format.
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Now I am not one for counting bits and choosing a title based just on that factor alone. I also own both formats and have about the same amount of discs for both formats. But I am not sure how you figure that Blu-ray is the inferior format on data/bits? The HD-DVD player offers 15 gigs / single layer and 30 gigs for a dual layer disc. So if the movie is 25 gigs then the HD-DVD version will have 5 gigs left over after the movie. And while the Dolby True HD track should take up less space compaired to the uncompressed PCM track. The HD-DVD disc will not have to room to spare on it for an uncompressed audio track ether. And this is one of the primary reasons I am going to buy the blu-ray version instead of the HD-DVD version. I hate Dolby's dialog normalization feature and I would rather own the Blu-ray version that will be using an uncompressed PCM track that does not do dialog normalization.
Blu-ray has 25 gigs for 1 layer and 50 gigs on a dual layer disc. It also has a higher data rate than HD-DVD offers so I can handle video/video transfers using higher amounts of data. So actually Blu-ray wins because it has 25 gigs to spare on a dual layer disc and HD-DVD only has 5 gigs to spare on a dual layer disc. HD-DVD is limited by its own format limitations. Bluray theroretically has a max storage of 100 - 200 gigs and HD-DVD has a max storage of 45 gigs from what I understand. So I would say that HD-DVD is the format that has the limitations and not Blu-ray. They are both very good formats and I enjoy watching movies on both sides. But for Harry Potter IMHO Blu-ray is the way to go for this particular title. I am willing to bet that they will both use the same video codex and obviously they will use different audio encoding. I personally do not care about IME and have never used it on any of my HD-DVD titles. All I care about is a flawless 1080p picture and lossless audio when ever I can get it. And while Dolby True HD is a huge leap beyond lossy Dolby Digital. I feel it could have been better without dialog normalization.
Just my take on the subject.
Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, Chuck A.
I would enjoy Harry Potter on what ever HD format you buy it on because it should be awsum no mater what!
As far as "ST:TOS HD-DVD discs weren't affected by limitations in that other format", what limitation would the other format have? Now as long as Paramont does not use dialog normalization for this title. I would seriously consider picking up Star Trek:TOS on HD-DVD! I can not wait to pick up Bourne Ultimatum on HD-DVD this Dec. 11th, this movie should rock in HD.
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Sure someone might be able to use a screen capture to show slight differences they won't be visible while watching the film and not the data.
I understand the bit count alone cannot be used to judge quality (and never should be) unless we are taking about lossless encoding and then we are comparing efficiency, not quality.
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I totally agree!
