HD-DVD campaign: The Look and Sound of Perfect (1 Viewer)

[Dave Moritz]

This is under HT Software - High Definition: Warner announces first Blu-ray titles!

 

[EricCr]

dvdtown.com is reporting that WB titles will be MPEG-2 on Blu Ray

http://www.dvdtown.com/announcement/...u-raytit/3692/

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Eric,

Forgive me if I am wrong about this....

If Warner will be using MPEG-2 on Blu Ray does that mean that
version will be inferior to the HD-DVD counterpart?

 

[CaptDS9E]

Thats what we are all looking to find out. Finally a comparison between MPEG2 and VC1 from the same studio and the same movies

 

[Steve Tannehill]

It will be until the Sony player before I can spin BD, but I suspect that the discs are going to look similar.

MPEG2 has such a bad rap on the internet, but remember--there are some great looking DVD's out there which use the same codec...

- Steve

 

[Larry Sutliff]

According to several insiders on AVS, only the first batch of Warners BD's will be MPEG2. They'll switch to VC-1 for all future releases.

 

[Harminder]

Personally, until it's officially annouced that future BD releases will infact use VC-1, I take all these "insider comments" with a grain of salt.

Including the 50GB dual-layer BD discs and the 45GB triple-layer HD-DVD discs. There needs to be proof in the pudding!

 

[Pete T C]

Not exactly a head-to-head comparison, though, as the HD DVD versions have more features (Training Day with TrueHD5.1 on HD30, the other three on HD15 with standard DVD versions on the opposing side). What it will likely demonstrate is that HD DVD can offer the same or better video quality with more features.

 

[Ken Burkstrum]

Concerning the "HD Audio" formats. How much audio material in these DVDs actually comes from HD source originals. I don't know much about it, I just remember reading an article that says the source of alot of sounds used in movies is no better than CD Quality. Either way you'd still here people go "awww it sounds soooo good, so much better than DVD sound". Just like you hear people go "my high definition TV looks fantastic, DVD is crap compared to this" when you find out they have it all hooked up with composite cords.

With all this HD business it's hard to get past the BS and get to some facts.

 

[Pete T C]

Well, it is actually true that it is rare that movie masters exceed 20/48 and that one of the new features of "HD Audio" is 24/96. That does not mean there won't be an improvement, however.

The main area you will see an improvement is in compression of that master data. If a master is 6-channel 16bit/48khz lossless PCM it is stored at 4.6mbps. What Standard DVD formats did (DD/DTS) is compress that 4.6mbps down to as little as 0.384mbps (Standard Dolby Digital), throwing away info in the process. As you might know, DTS came out with 0.768mbps and 1.536mbps bitrate formats that most felt sounded better. Now with HD DVD, you are seeing releases with Dolby Digital Plus and Dolby Digital TrueHD. Dolby Digital Plus can offer 0.640mbps-3mbps bitrate (still lossy, but closer to the master than standard DD) while Dolby Digital TrueHD is around 1.5-4mbps but is lossless (identical to the master).

So its not really a case of increased bit resolution and sampling rate, but rather a case of less compression and audio very close to or identical to the original master.

Here are some TrueHD bitrates:

Bit Resolution/Sampling Rate/# channels: 16-bit/48 kHz 6ch
Original PCM Data Rate: 4.61 Mbps
Dolby Digital TrueHD Peak Rate: 3 Mbps
Dolby Digital TrueHD Average Rate: 1.4 Mbps

Bit Resolution/Sampling Rate/# channels: 24-bit/48 kHz 6ch
Original PCM Data Rate: 6.9 Mbps
Dolby Digital TrueHD Peak Rate: 5 Mbps
Dolby Digital TrueHD Average Rate: 3.4 Mbps

Bit Resolution/Sampling Rate/# channels: 16-bit/48 kHz 8ch
Original PCM Data Rate: 6.14 Mbps
Dolby Digital TrueHD Peak Rate: 3.8 Mbps
Dolby Digital TrueHD Average Rate: 1.9 Mbps

Bit Resolution/Sampling Rate/# channels: 24-bit/48 kHz 8ch
Original PCM Data Rate: 9.2 Mbps
Dolby Digital TrueHD Peak Rate: 6.6 Mbps
Dolby Digital TrueHD Average Rate: 4.7 Mbps

 

[RobertR]

Then there's no reason to go beyond that. 24/96 is severe overkill and unneeded IMO.

 

[Ken Burkstrum]

Ah yes I forgot about the bitrate compressions.

I'm one of those guys who can tell the difference between 128-320Kbps MP3s and the 1-1.5Mbps CDs. I can't say I've ever truely been able to hear the difference between Dolby Digital and DTS other then bass definition in DTS and DTS seems to be mixed louder (or maybe I'm just crazy).

I have a 24/96 recorder that records at up to 9Mbps and I have to say, I can never tell the difference between uncompressed 16/44 and 24/96. The whole subject kinda makes me roll my eyes.

Anyone know what's to low a bitrate for 24/96?

I always envisioned sound reproduction in the future being so realistic that it can and will frighten you. I'm losing faith in that expectation. Every now and then a sound will happen in a movie that will truely truely make me believe it happened in the room, I just wish all sounds comming from a movie did that.

In Bruce Almighty he chucks his shoes off and they land in the rear speakers. Sounded ultra real, thought something landed behind me in the room.

I've been seeing this component ability with the new formats now. Will this let people watch unfooked with 720p and 1080i or will the bitrate still be bottlenecked?

 

[Harminder]

Wow, highly informative Pete, thank you!

 

[Dave Moritz]

This makes no sense to me at all . If Sony's Blu-ray supports VC-1 why would they want WB to release MPEG2 discs? Especially since VC-1 encoded discs where already produced for HD-DVD. If it was just a matter of not having VC-1 encoded masters and they wanted to rush some titles out I can see it to a point. But this is no way to show off how great your HD product is and how much better it is than the competition. Sony just has never been all that good at marketing have they.

I still feel that Blu-ray has the best potential but Toshiba is sure doing a better over all job at marketing and getting high quality titles out. I can't wait to have the money save up for my Toshiba HD-DVD player. Soon I will have a HD precious .

 

[Mark Zimmer]

Warner uses MPEG2: Sony gets royalties.
Warner uses VC-1: Microsoft gets royalties, Sony doesn't.

Now do you see why Sony wants WB to release MPEG2 discs?

 

[Dave Moritz]

While that makes sense and I do not doubt that is why Sony is doing what it is doing. If your Sony why risk your Blu-ray format by using an older codex against a competitor that is using better up to date technology? Toshiba is getting better results with VC-1 and was out to market first. Sony is trying to catch up but seems more interested in getting every cent they can now. Than beating Toshiba's HD-DVD format and becoming the HD format of choice for consumers that want HD content. Sony can claim that MPEG2 is just as good as VC-1 but I am not buying it. I am no big MS fan but even I would rather use VC-1 than the older MPEG2 technology.

Who controls MPEG4? Who gets the royalties from MPEG4?

Sony's Blu-ray supports MPEG4 why don't they use that codex?

Sony should be doing what ever it takes to win this format war and offer a product that delivers its full potnetial. That is just something that you do especially since there compition is using better technology and delivering there product that is delivering its full potential.

SONY, YOUR STUPID !!!!

 

[Mark Zimmer]

I fear the lesson Sony learned from the Betamax war was that the inferior quality format wins.

 

[Dave Moritz]

IMHO Sony has never learned to effectively market products consistently. Sony has made some junk but has made some very well made stuff as well. Sony has the ability to make some great products but is horrible at following through at times. Beta was a prime example of Sony having a superior product but it still ended up loosing. Maybe just maybe Sony should stop trying to be a mega company and focus more on quality and how to effectively support a new format and make it successful.

This is why I am very carefull about any Sony product I buy and there are certain products I will not buy. I own a DVP-S9000 ES DVD/SACD player it used to be a very exspensive peice. This has been a very unreliable unit but when it works it works well. I have owned it for over 4 years now and it ready to be serviced a 3rd time.

I was very excited about Blu-ray, but now I am just waiting to see if there will still be a reason to buy it at the end of the year.

 

[Dan Hitchman]

For one (this is not an excuse for Sony Studios, however, that seems to have its head so far up its own arse to move away from MPEG-2) many of the very first Blu-Ray discs were encoded and mastered before the full suite of mastering software for Blu-Ray was ready and tested. The early stuff they were using was built around MPEG-2.

Warner Brothers made their first batch of Blu-Ray titles using this older software.

It takes four to six months to prep a title for release, and may take a little longer for HD-DVD and Blu-Ray since they're so new. You do the math.

Now, according to rumors, WB will be switching over to VC-1 using the newest Blu-Ray authoring tools. Also, strong hints of Panasonic doing MPEG-4 H.264 encodings for Disney and Fox point towards the reason their titles have been delayed until September and early fourth quarter. If that pans out, these other studios will be far beyond Sony when they launch.

Given the fact that BD50 is behind the eight ball unless that can be found to be a false rumor come X-mas time (when both formats have their BIG promotional pushes), it gives big incentives to Fox and Disney (and maybe Paramount as they haven't released anything yet, and WB) to use the new video codecs right away.

Again, Sony doesn't really give a crap about quality and they haven't for a while now. Must have been a shake up in their video division, and not for the better. I was watching the Superbit of Spider-man, one of their big ticket titles, and it had some major print shimmie during some sequences and it was not a clean IP... not as bad as Capote (that was a terrible looking transfer and using a damaged IP to boot), however.

Dan