Paul.S

LOL.

Lee, bless your heart, but this seems an awfully provincial notion. I think there's a heckuva lotta dealmaking experience around the table--financial and, esp. WRT SPE, legal.

The two of us could prolly go back and forth on this sub-topic for a while longer than other thread participants care to imagine/endure (why no e-mail addy for you--too much "you're a Sony puppet!" harassment?), but I'm sure we've both read in the financial press analogous forms of punditry, including speculative quotes from analysts about the 'good fit' of TW already owning pre-1948 MGM titles and the tax benefits for Kerkorian doing a stock transaction with TW versus cash with SCA. Over the past month, I've adopted a more wait-and-see attitude after thinking for weeks that an SCA-MGM deal was all but a fait accompli.

I wasn't sure. I understand a little better now I think. Multi-laser BD players offering BD, CD and SD DVD read/write complicates the picture (in a positive way) a bit.

If we take the blue pill instead of the red, I really want those players to get affordable quickly so I can do something more than just fondle my Spider-Man 3 BD.

-p

James Morrow

"Full" high definition is 1920 by 1080 pixels, and whilst many current digital cameras only operate at 1440 by 1080 resolution, scaled to 1920 by 1080, telecined material from film can easily be 1920 by 1080. Microsoft claims that the full resolution demos on its website are true 1920 by 1080 pixel resolution, and when using WMV9 and full screen the controls along the bottom fill the rest of a standard 4:3 1920 by 1440 pixel display.

If material is not true 1920 by 1080 but is scaled, first, the compression algorithm is not working as hard as claimed and, second, many of the registration issues relating to motion vector estimation processes within the codec are likely to be at least partially masked by the spatial filtering required to scale 1440 pixels to 1920. As I stated in an earlier posting, to see how well any algorithm handles high definition material we need both true 1920 by 1080 pixel high definition material and an equivalent resolution display, with a one to one mapping between pixels in the recording and pixels on the display.

It\'s time we Blu-it...

imported_Brian-W

1440x1080 is the resolution listed in the MS Windows Explorer window when you click the file....

James Morrow

... surely you don't mean that Microsoft's demonstrations of high definition 1080p24 material - that require a 1920 by 1440 pixel display according to the blurb - are not actually true (1920 by 1080 pixel) high definition, but interpolated 1440 by 1080 pixel video, Brian? That would be misleading, at the very least - particularly as the 720p24 material is the correct 1280 by 720 pixels. :wink:

Misleading because:[list=1][*]WMV is therefore not providing 8Mbps from 1920 by 1080 pixels but from just 1440 by 1080 pixels (the equivalent rate for full definition material is roughly 11Mbps, ceteris paribus)[*]The interpolation required to scale for display from 1440 to 1920 pixels is likely to partially or completely mask the low level registration errors which are probably the most visible artefact of codecs based upon motion vector estimation (such as MPeg4 and WMV)[*]If one wished to examine the advantages of 1080p material over 720p material, instead of having 50% greater horizontal resolution at 1080p the increase in resolution over 720p is just 12.5%[*]The reduced horizontal resolution is one thing, but because the data is also scaled up horizontally by 33% this in itself is likely to add artefacts to which the 720p material is not subjected, and the effective horizontal resolution of the 1080p material is probably less than that of the 720p material![/list=1]
If one was trying to push 720p material and downplay the advantages of (true) 1080p material, whilst at the same time pretending that the demonstrations truly showed a like for like comparison of each format, this would probably be a great way of doing it, but I'm sure that Bill Gates would not misrepresent the abilities of WMV, or allow the deliberate biasing of demonstration material in favour of intermediate definition 1280 by 720p material over high definition 1920 by 1080p material - even if red laser products have a relatively limited capacity compared to blue laser ones when storing 720p material using WMV, let alone full resolution 1080p material...

It\'s time we Blu-it...

James Morrow

... for some other issues regarding the Microsoft WMV demos, check out the postings numbered 265 and 266 in the HD-DVD to use WMV Codec thread.

It\'s time we Blu-it...

Jesper

Disney is supporting MAC/OS now on DVD... Now I am thinking, aren't Apple's codec in use for HD-DVD?

Jesper Nielsen

James Morrow

... and Apple have just released a lossless audio codec for the iPod ...

It\'s time we Blu-it...

John Kotches

Jesper:

The royalty pool for H.264/MPEG-4 has a number of parties. Apple and Microsoft are two of the parties that share in the royalties.

Cheers,

Surround Music Enthusiast / Curmudgeon in Training
Opinions are my own, not representative of the publication I write for.

Lee Scoggins

It looks like HD-DVD got some official support from Microsoft and they are still considering BluRay.

I hate to see another format war...

no fears alone at night she's sailing through the crowd
in her ears the phones are tight and the music's playing loud
~skateaway

Paul.S

Microsoft Says Longhorn to Be HD DVD Compatible

Sony to Make Prototype Blu-Ray DVDs for Hollywood Studios

-p

Lee Scoggins

Paul,

Thanks for the links. Looks like Sony is really trying hard to convince the studios.

I betcha if they get some big studios Microsoft will lean toward BluRay support. That would be a way to hedge their bets.

no fears alone at night she's sailing through the crowd
in her ears the phones are tight and the music's playing loud
~skateaway