Which HD format to buy Harry Potter movies on ? (1 Viewer)

[Douglas Monce]

Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix seems to be the only one of the films to have the extras in HD on blu-ray, and then it says only partly 1080i or 1080P. This is understandable as I doubt anyone was shooting HD extras on the earlier films.

Doug

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Dialog Normalization has been covered in many other threads (do a search to get details). It's something that affects virtually all DD tracks on SD DVD as well as HD DVD and BD (except Sony TrueHD tracks). It's basically a flag that instructs the Dolby Digital decoder in your receiver/player how much to reduce the volume of the audio signal to match a theoretical bench-mark. In theory, this would make all your digital cable TV stations sound the same loudness when you change channels.

The problem with high-end-audio applications is that in order to change the volume of the sound, the Dolby Decoder digitally re-caluclates (re-processes) the entire waveform. Think of it like "downscaling" the audio waveform. Anytime you process an audio signal like this it's possible for sonic degredation to occur. If you have a program on your PC that can adjust volume (like the "normlize" feature of many CD creation applications), compare the before/after of the sound from a direct CD wav-file to the "level changed" wav file.

Because of this manner of changing the level after decoding, no "Dolby TrueHD" audio signal coming out of the decoder to the DAC is bit-for-bit identical to the master if DN has been applied.

Sony has stated they will not apply DN to the Dolby TrueHD tracks they put on Blu-ray to appeal to audiophile listeners. Warner does it to every single Dolby TrueHD track.

Note: PCM and DTS-HD MA don't have any "dialog normalization" feature and are therefore true bit-for-bit accurate to the master unless you manually chose to alter the signal with additional DSP.

 

[troy evans]

It's getting processed and rescaled when it shouldn't be. We should be getting it bit for bit completely unaltered. At least that was my understanding of it. Even though it's still better than plain old DD or DTS, it could be even more so without that little Dial Norm BS. EDIT: Sorry David. We must have been responding at the same time.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

no problem. You said it in just two scentences!

dave

 

[Chuck Anstey]

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.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Chuck,

WB will probably do what they did for T3... the PIP comentary wasn't full-time... it came and went. For T3, my understanding is that they only included new video segements for those actual PIP moments, and they were inserted into the feature film via branching. So this didn't affect bandwidth, and the BD 50 had plenty of room. If it doesn't affect bandwidth, then it doesn't hurt anything since the BD has an extra 20GB to hold the PIP segments with no problem.

In other words, the BD won't be compromising any image or sound quality (or forcing them to compromise the video file for HD DVD) to accomplish the PIP via branching, even though it's not doing it with profile 1.1 if it's not full-time PIP.

If the PIP *is* full time, then yes, they'd do two separate encodes of the feature film which would mean the 30GB HD DVD was using a 25GB movie file. That's such a slight reduction it probably won't make any difference: even many 30GB HD DVDs use authored files that don't use the full 30GB because MS like to compress as much as they can even when they have room to spare. Anyone know for sure which it is?


Whether or not the HD DVD encode needs to fit 25GB versus 30GB is not yet known. And it's Warner's decision... they could easily drop the PIP from the BD or utilize actual 1.1 spec to do real PIP on BD instead... they just want to wait a while longer to get more 1.1 players in the field first.

 

[Dan Hinson]

Yep. The "Order of the Phoenix" UK HD-DVD is a two disc "non-combo" set, with the special features on disc 2 being in HD. I ordered mine a few days ago. Gotta love HD-DVD being region free... (I wish, as consumers, we could force the studios to abandon region coding altogether, but that's a discussion for another day...)

 

[Dave Moritz]

I will be buying the Blu-ray for sure and I doubt I will have any regeats with uncompressed PCM track. I am willing to be that the PCM track is going to sound awsume! I can not wait to get my Denon AVR-3808ci and watch all 5 Harry Potter discs in HD over one of my weekends. I have now decided to only buy movies in Dolby True HD on WB HD-DVD only when I have to. Meaning only if the title is not available on the Blu-ray format and will buy the Blu-ray version especially if it has PCM and the HD-DVD version has DT-HD, especially when WB is involved. Or when ever DN is used I will be buying the title using a non Dialog Normalized codex.

2 more days to go till HP is out in high def!

 

[HDnuts100]

Well if that's the case, then I'm getting BD version since I love PCM tracks. I don't care for the IME crap.

 

[gumpaholic]

For me, I am going with the Blu versions. I have both but in comparing the 2, I think Blu-ray is alot better (Heck, I have about 54 Blu-ray movies and only 12 HD-DVDs)! Also, I prefer the PCM track over the TrueHD one.

 

[brap]

With all video codecs there is point when adding the extra bitrate will produce negligible results. Blu-ray is fantastic by having the extra space and bandwidth, but encoding the movie larger than HD DVD size is unnecessary. The extra bits will just be a waste. The leftover room should be properly used for extras. Good examples are Kubrick HD-DVD and Blu-Ray. It's the same encode with the same extras, but the Blu-Ray has it all on 1 disc.

 

[Jeff Whitford]

HDDVD for me. My Lexicon doesnt have HDMI and my PS3 doesnt have analog outs. Dolby True HD beats standard DD

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Does Lex plan to offer an upgrade for HDMI? My buddy has a Lex system too and it's frustrating given all the lossless high-res audio on HDMI these days. He goes analog in with SACD, but then the Lex re-digitizes (another a/d/a cycle) for processing. HDMI-equipped Lex would be so sweet.

Just kicked the B&K to the curb to get a Marantz SR8002 with HDMI to upgrade to lossless-digital-multichannel myself. WOW. One thought: if you found an HDMI receiver/decoder with decent DACS for cheap, you could put it between your HD DVD/BD sources (feeding HDMI) and feed the lex. Then again, in a few months a BD player with analog output (Panny) might cost less anyway.

In any case... I feel your HDMI pain. It took me a while to convince myself to upgrade the audio chain to HDMI. Hopefully Lexicon won't charge $$$ to add the interface.

 

[Jeff Whitford]

They brought out a new MV5 which is $3000 but it's HDMI 1.1 so no 1080P. Pretty retarded to bring out a $3000 piece that can't do what a $600 receiver can do. I cant afford an MC12HD. I know of no upgrade for an MC8

 

[DaViD Boulet]

does it really not pass 1080p60 or is it just not listed in the specs? I thought that some 1.1 gear worked wtih 1080p60 though it wasn't "officially" always noted.

 

[Chuck Anstey]

Well I guess the hyperbole and tongue-in-check of my post using statements from Blu folks in other threads with a slight change in favor of HD-DVD was lost on a few. I am impressed though that some of the Blu folks are impervious to their own arguments. Bit count matters when it favors them and is irrelevant or barely makes a difference when it doesn't.

Personally I am sure that both versions will be exceptional and indistinguishable from each other while watching the movie and that would be assuming they didn't use the same video encoding. 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.

 

[Dave Moritz]

I totally agree!

 

[Jaxon's Dad]

I'm going Blu, because the alternatives are HD-DVD/DVD combos.

 

[Adam Barratt]

Indeed. this is a topic that's been doing to rounds for a while, and one that people continue to misunderstand. Dialog Normalization reduces the volume. That's it. It doesn't reduce sound quality, or do anything that twisting the volume dial on your receiver or pre-amp wouldn't do. If you don't like the effect, turn the volume up. Simple as that.

If you've ever calibrated you system with a DVD such as AVIA or Video Essentials then your audio calibration is also based on a signal using -27dBFS Dialog Normalization. The PCM Potter soundtracks will therefore be 4dB too hot. You could of course reduce the volume on your receiver to compensate, but then you would be 'recalculating the waveform'!

As for Harry Potter, I will probably be be getting the HD DVDs, simply because the user-experience (menus, navigation) is generally so much nicer than on Blu-ray. Otherwise I imagine picture and audio will be the same, and it would be down to price and availability.

Adam

 

[Dave Moritz]

Hello Adam Barratt,

I just want to start off by saying I hope you had a nice Thanksgiving Day and I hope you and your family have a Merry Christmas as well.


That is why I do not like dialog normalization! I have read the other posts and have actually heard a interview on a web site with Dolby. While I do not see it having a huge impact on the audio. The fact that it has to apply the dialog normaliztion then recalulate the waveform. I feel slightly tampers with the absolute purity of the audio.

But I agree that both HD presentations should be awsume and basically indistinqishable from one another. I would most likely be totally happy with ether HD release but its a matter of principle and I also have chosen to buy more Blu-ray than HD-DVD's as well. I may be being a little overly picky but I just do not beleive in DN with Dolby. I do however feel Dolby True HD is a huge improvement over lossy DD as I have never liked DD, just ask others here at the forum.

Anyway that is just my take on the situation.

Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year