ChrisA
Second Unit
- Joined
- Nov 25, 1999
- Messages
- 478
Yep, that is exactly why a format war is going to be hurtful. Anything other than a full force combined effort is going to significantly hurt the success of HD-DVD/Blu-Ray. (It's too bad that Sony/Blu-Ray can't drive the nail in the coffin by simply supporting VC-9/H.264 and lossless audio).
If we had one format, full support from every studio, day and date releases from the start, well then that would be an entire different story: there would be so much momentum no doubt one hand would feed the other: everyone who has an HDTV would buy an 'HD-DVD' player within the first year of release, and those who didn't have an HDTV, would likely pursue an affordable one. For those who may not be as aware, there is going to be a bunch of VERY affordable HDTV's coming out next year based on the inexpensive LCOS hi-def chips (Sony's SXRD, etc...) You are going to see very affordable HDTV's very soon. It is a shame that ONE FORMAT cannot be achieved, for it would make a huge difference for the entire industry in my opinion.
On the other hand, I never was big supporter of the ONE FORMAT petition because I am always looking for the best format: competition can be a good thing. If it wasn't for competition between at least two big groups, what would push either format to be its best? REMEMBER, WARNER BROTHERS WANTED TO GIVE YOU HD-DVD BASED ON STANDARD DVD WITH HARSHLY COMPRESSED VIDEO AND NO IMPROVEMENT IN AUDIO. If it wasn't for Blu Ray, the DVD/HD-DVD forum would have been glad to serve you a bogus HD-DVD format using existing DVD players which would have been a very compromised HD-DVD format for audio and video quality. Warner's proposal was rejected, thankfully.
The best format would be Blu-Ray that supported MPEG-2, VC-9/H.264 and lossless audio compression for pre-recorded hollywood movies. This is what the HD-DVD group claims they are going to provide. Microsoft has acknowledged on AVS Forum, particularly Coral Reef thread, that one primary lossless compressed audio track would be present on HD-DVD movies. DD would be present for legacy/other tracks. Certainly DTS could be present also, but I'm starting to see a lack of usefulness for DTS in the near future, particularly when much more efficient lossless compression methods are available. 24/96 DTS is really a bunch of BS marketing... lossy perceptual coding combined with a 96 kHz sampling rate is an oxymoron. I am a fan of 'full bitrate' DTS vs standard DD, but not 'half-bitrate' DTS vs DD. Then you have 24/96 DTS which is rather a joke... That is VERY LOSSY! Think of how much bitrate is required for multichannel 24/96. That is DVD-Audio. Then DTS provides 24/96, but at what expense? Major perceptual lossy compression! Marketing Gimmick. Hollywood movies, soundtracks, foley effects are recorded these days in 24/48. You want something identical to the master? lossless compressed 24/48 audio for HD-DVD, proposed by Microsoft and the HD-DVD forum. DD and DTS for backward compatability. Problem is how much bandwidth and storage do you want to waste on mutiple audio tracks? Certainly it isn't as big of a deal with HD-DVD or Blu-Ray, but I'd like to see lossless compression for the primary track, and full bitrate DD for backward compatability, as well as DD for accessory tracks such as commentary, other languages, etc... It really doesn't make any sense to have DTS when you have lossless compression.
