Blades of Glory/Face Off - BD HD differences (1 Viewer)

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Turn about's fair play.

Weird - on Top Gun, the Blu-Ray gets PCM, and the HD gets TrueHD, however there are no extras on that release (!), so it would appear to be a space issue. These are the days when format neutrality is really paying off.

This is a clear indicator that capacity is a consideration for HD releases. Also, don't be fooled, format neutrality will only delay or eliminate the adoption and normalization of HD optical media for the mass consumer.

Yes, it is a clear indicator from Blu-ray.com.

- Walter.

Lack of interest is what will eliminate the adoption of HD media for the mass consumer.

If this 'report' is true, I'm not sure capacity has much to do with it. Troy has a running time of 2 hours, 42 minutes and has a rather powerful Dolby True HD track.

Face/Off in both HD DVD and BD will be 2 disc sets. Space is not an issue.

It's true. Troy didn't have space-hogging, all-HD extras like Blades of Glory does, just SD.

HD-DVD cover



Blu-ray cover

I wanted to order Face/Off in HD-DVD but based on
the article, just preordered it in Blu-Ray.

Here's hoping this starts a trend with bonus material in HD, this is something the studios should have been doing from the start.

Agreed. Folks, don't believe everything you read from a propaganda site like Blu-ray.com (just look at their other articles for unabashed cheerleading filled with misinformation).

If HD-DVD can't keep up take a look at KING KONG, a 3-hour movie that's VC-1 encoded and looks as good as anything in either format IMO.

But it lacks a space and bandwidth hogging TrueHD sound track. Would it have impacted the video quality? There's no sure answer, so it's not the best example to use. Also King Kong has no HD extras, which again makes it a bad example. If you really want to prove HD-DVD has no space issues, you really need an example of a feature length movie with TrueHD and HD extras on the disc while still maintaining a high level of video quality. Your King Kong example is a best case scenario for an encode: a movie with no TrueHD soundtrack that also lacks a significant amount of extras taking up space.

Using King Kong as an example for HD-DVD would be the equivalent of using Pirate of the Carribean: Dead Man's Chest as an example of a Blu-Ray. Both are best case scenarios with the entire disc dedicated to the movie as opposed to having the main disc loaded up with HD special features and other space hogs.

Then what's the reason for the omission of the lossless track from the Blades of Glory HD-DVD? Content is exactly the same on both format except for the lossless.

Dave,

King Kong did NOT have room for a lossless audio track. It's ironic that this title keeps being used by some enthusiasts as a proving ground for "HD DVD has enough space/bandwidth" when it doesn't even have room for lossless audio.



Paramount has been providing (what they feel are superior) video encodes for BD for a while. It's nice to see the higher bandwidth/space also being used now for lossless audio.

Each title has it's own unique issues with required video bandwidth, audio soundtrack options, and the availablitity of high-def bonus material. While HD bonus material could always be moved to a second HD DVD if absolute space on a 30GB platter was a limiting factor (though I much prefer 1-disc when possible without any image/sound compromise to the feature film), the difficulty with lossless audio is that it has to stream simultaneously with the feature film, so it both competes for disc space *and* bandwidth during movie-play.

BD has enough bandwidth it should never be a problem. Chicago on BD not only had a 24-bit lossless English track (5.1), but there was even enough space for Disney to provide a lossless Spanish track (2.0) as well (plus lossy 640 kbps Dolby tracks in other languages). Using Dolby TrueHD or DTS-HD MA versus PCM would bring even more lossless language options or leave room for peak-video bit-rate for difficult to compress scenes in films with lots of entropy.

David, tell us again how Paramount has been using "superior' video encodes for BD for awhile now?

I don't think anyone has proved that KK didn't have room for a lossless audio track. The fact of the matter is that until about 2 months ago Universal wasn't putting lossless audio on ANY of their releases as a matter of policy. Who says that it couldn't accommodate a True HD track.

Superman Returns has True HD and its not exactly a short movie, and it looks fantastic. Batman Begins is another fairly long movie with a True HD track, and it also includes the in-movie feature.

Doug

Personally, I don't see any difference between their HD DVD and BD encodes, but when I asked a paramount rep why they were using different video codecs on BD versus HD DVD, the answer was that BD had more space so they "didn't have to use VC1".

Strange actually, considering how good VC1 looks even on their own HD DVDs. So, what I'm saying is that the rationale that the Parmount rep offered was that they were using different codecs on BD versus HD DVD becuase they had more space to work with on BD and preferred that choice.

It could also be that someone at the studio just wanted to get experience with a variety of codecs to see how they perform, and naturally went with MPEG2 on BD where the bit-rate allows it to work more transparently than it could on HD DVD. I can only tell you what the rep said.

I haven't bought a paramount BD lately: does anyone know what they're doing now? Are they still doing different encodes for HD DVD/BD? Using AVC on BD or still MPEG2?

True. There's no confirmed proof that it wouldn't have fit had Universal chosen to include it (I don't have the figures about the consumed disc-space and bandwidth on the 30GB HD DVD). However, the fact remains that the title did not provide TrueHD, so it still makes no sense to hold up that particular HD DVD as a icon of how the HD DVD format can deliver the ultimate AV quality.

The Past 7 Paramount HD Media Offerings (back to mid May 2007) Highdefdigest source of reviews...

Shooter:
BD got MPEG 2
HD DVD got AVC MPEG 4
results were indentical

The Warriors:
BD & HD DVD both got AVC MPEG 4

The Untouchables:
BD got AVC MPEG 4
HD DVD got VC-1
Results were identical

Coming to America:
BD got AVC MPEG 4
HD DVD got VC-1 "richer colors-sharper details"

Trading Places:
BD & HD DVD both got AVC MPEG 4

Flags Of Our Fathers:
BD got AVC MPEG 4 "tiniest bit sharper but reviewer states neither gives an advantage"
HD DVD got VC-1

Freedom Writers:
BD & HD DVD both got AVC MPEG 4
both looked identical....


David can you tell us what were the "superior" video encodes for Blu-ray offered by Paramount Studios???

*In nearly all of these the Audio tracks are superior on the HD DVD versions.

Tim, see above. The "better" isn't my personal opinion, but that of what the Paramount rep was telling me when I asked him why his studio used different encodes on the BD/HD DVD counterparts.

However, from the looks of things from your list above, it appears more to my eyes like the studio merely wants to experiment with various codecs and compression techniques and is taking advantage of the dual-format releases to explore that. If we start to see Paramount move towards single-video-encodes going forward, or to start to use the same codec on both formats, that will be a sign. Curious, in cases where the same video codec appears on both formats, can anyone confirm if it's literally the same encode (ala Warner) or a different encode using the same codec?