Help me understand Terminator 2 Extreme's 1080p transfer (1 Viewer)

Hi all,

I'm eagerly anticipating the new release of Terminator 2 with the 1080p transfer.
I'd appreciate it if anyone could explain (hopefully simply, I've been in Japan for 10 years and the English ability has dropped dramatically
what this 1080p transfer means and the benefits that it will have.
Also, should there be any noticeable improvement on the picture if I'm not using a digital TV or will I need to view this on a 1080p capable TV or projector.

Thanks in advance.

Rex,

Just a little confusion....the DVD is mastered from a 1080p HD master. This just boils down to a better, top-notch DVD video transfer. The actual film on DVD is only going to be 480i.

Now, apparently, there's going to be a Windows Media Player 9 HD version packaged in with the DVDs. Nothing official, but you'd need a nice PC to run that on.

Anyway, bottom line is that the new DVD will be light years ahead of any previous versions. No special equipment needed...

Troy

Thanks Troy,

That's along the lines of what I was thinking.
Just wanted to make sure of it.
I still am looking forward to seeing it.

Thanks again.

According to Amazon.com the 1080p WM9 version of the film is official. At least it's listed in the specs on their pre-order page. No word yet on the bitrate, but WM9's HD compression codec is very CPU intesive.

How CPU intensive are we talking here? 1.5Ghz, 2ghz?

From all reports I've read WM9 media containing Microsoft's Corona video compression codec is VERY CPU and RAM intensive.

Some have recommended a Pentium or equivalent processor of 2.8 GHz and above and more than 512 Megabytes of RAM.

If the clips from Microsoft's website are any indication of Corona's potential at low bitrates and the DVD Forum is considering this codec, we are in trouble here folks when it comes to HD-DVD.

Dan

According to IGN's story tongight, it will require a 1.8 GHz Pentium IV or equivelant. Thsi is exactly what I have. Hopefully my 512 MB of memory will be sufficient.

1.8 is the BARE minimum to run it even slightly smoothly. I was able to get that Motown disc running on a 1.5 Ghz at work, but it'd pause every other minute or so. You also need a load of RAM.

I have a sample clip of the WM9 codec (Step Into Liquid trailer - 5.1Mbps, 720p) and it runs super smooth on my p2.4b, 512mb ram. 1080p sounds like a good bit more, but probably comparable bandwidth.

I think anyone with over a 2.2ghz cpu will be ok. If there's slowdown you can always overclock...

I thought they meant there'd be like a 30 second sample or something - why waste space on the disc for something next to noone can use?

Will,
I would not say next to no one. It depends on what the resolution really is but there are people out there that have HTPCs that can handle it. History suggests this to be a good idea because almost nobody could watch DVDs when they were first released and look at them now.
I for one am very excited with my new 2ghz 1gig HTPC and if I have to will overclock or replace the damn processor if need be to get that puppy running on my system!
Marc

We'll just have to wait and see won't we folks.

Who knows...maybe it will demonstrate that we really *can* have full 1080P 24 fps high-quality images on red-laser DVD. We'll just have to wait and see!

dave

There's a lot of folks out there that use HTPC's extensively- in my home, there's two DVD playback systems based on computers (main living room, and my bedroom), and only one using a set top box DVD player (teenage daughter's Toshiba SD9000).

This WM9 release is something anyone with a PC can try out, and obviously, Micro$oft is trying to develop some word of mouth and traction for WM9- they have even submitted it as an encoding/decoding option for HD-DVD.

On my desktop and the HTPC's (all upgraded in the last year, MB's handed down for other applications), the "Step into Liquid" plays quite well, and all though it's not comparable to true transport stream HD (as played through my MyHD card), it's remarkably good for 5 MBs, (with sufficient processor and video power), and generally offers a marked step up in video detail over the high bit rate DVD's- which are running at twice the data rate (thing Superbit releases, or releases like Kevin Costner's WaterWorld, which is typically hovering between 8 and 10 MBits per second). So, I'm very curious to see WM9 at a higher encoded rate; indications from Microsoft are this will be pretty good...

So, this is an interesting bonus they're including, and for that reason alone, I'll buy this release. In fact, this woudl be an interesting clandestine way for Microsoft to build some buzz for WM9, because it's a free download, and anyone with a solid current HTPC could take advantage of it. (this presumes you have the display, too; mine are all 1280X720P capable).

Count me in, I'm jazzed. The HTPC people just don't happen to generally hang out over here, though.

Best regards,

Jon

I'm one of those HTPC people and I couldn't run smoothly the newly encoded 6.9Mbps Liquid clip. I'll be damned if I'm going to upgrade my 1900+ when I can watch software decoded HDTV streams just fine. To my eyes WM9 doesn't even come close.

http://download.microsoft.com/downlo...f/liquid_2.exe

There's the 6.9Mbps encoded clip. It's 120MB.

http://download.microsoft.com/downlo...f/liquid_1.exe

Same clip- 5.5Mbps, 97MB.

Geez, Microsoft is getting involved with everything now.

Hmm- Maybe I'm wrong. I could have sworn this one was shot in 4:3, but I found the studio release promo and it says 16:9 widescreen. I wonder if the DVD is 4:3 letterboxed? We'll see.

http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/Culdesac/Stars/FBdvd.html

At any rate, there is only one DVD version, so I'm sure I'll get the right one from DDD.