Consumers Must Demand an Increase in Audio Quality for 'HD-DVD', Not Just Video! (1 Viewer)

[David Susilo]

MPEG and opoen standard? I thought MPEG2 and MPEG4 requires licensing. If so, then what's the difference with WM9? As long as we can get the best, why should anybody cares?

 

[ChrisA]

MPEG-4 had an article on EE Times a little while back, in which it stated the licensing chrges for MPEG-4 were fairly expensive and was a problem for MPEG-4 gaining acceptance....

I'm sick of Bill Gates also, but whatever...

 

[Richard Paul]

Roog, when I said that D-Theater could only go up to 576 Kbps for DD, I was referring to JVC's proprietary D-VHS format. D-VHS can go up to 640 Kbps but D-Theater pre-recorded movies are restricted to 576 Kbps in the same way that DVD can't go beyond 448 Kbps. I'm not sure why JVC decided to limit DD to 576 Kbps, but that is the highest that D-Theater D-VHS can go.



David I would be very surprised and happy if WM9 could compress video %400 better than MPEG-2. I've downloaded clips at 720p from Microsofts website for WM9. If you have a 3Ghz computer with a 128 MB video card you can even download clips at 1080p. I see in their 720p video clips that at best they are currently acheving a %200 improvement over MPEG-2.

Though using a new video codec would improve efficiency it would also add on several hundred dollars to Blu-ray. For HDTV to succeed it NEEDS to have a high definition optical format, and sooner is far better than later. I would like for Blu-ray to have a better codec but I would like even more for Blu-ray to be released within the next year. The only thing that would be important enough to add another video codec to Blu-ray is if the added codec could do 1080p at 60fps. The reason is if Blu-ray could do 1080p at 60fps it would greatly help 1080p displays become standard and give 1080p the 60fps rate which is currently restricted to 720p and 480p.

 

[Chris Farmer]

I don't know about pricing issues about MPEG-4 vs WM 9 to be honest. I think MS is putting low pricing on 9 to increse adoption, but I also know that Apple got in a big fight with MPEG LA (the body that controls license fees for MPEG 4) to ensure that fees remained acceptable, even going so far as to delay releasing QuickTime 6 to try to force the issue. If I recall, while not negligible, the final licensing terms that they agreed to were quite reasonable.

Either way, to me it's not a question of fees (when it comes to DVD, the licensing fees for any codec are paid by the studio as a whole and no one individual movie, so if you pay your fees at the beginning of the year, that's it no more no matter how many DVDs you release, and I believe it's capped at $1 million a year anyway), but control. WM 9 is controlled 100% by MS and that's not something I feel comfortable with. MPEG 4 is just about as good (arguably better, arguably worse, I don't know details), same ballpark cost wise, and is controlled by a standards body consisting of multiple companies with a stake in MPEG 4, meaning that no one company can seize control for its own ends, something I definitely want in the next gen DVD technology.

 

[Scott L]

So tell us how could evil "M$" use WM9 to screw over the consumer? We'll have to get serial keys to play our DVDs? A codec is a codec is a codec...

WM9 would be cheaper to license than mpeg-4 last time I heard.

 

[Richard Paul]

Scott, there is reason to be wary of how Microsoft would use their influence if WM9 was used. People mistrust Microsoft because to be blunt Microsoft has shown many times that profit matters far more to them than anything else. Microsoft might use some form of product activation for pre-recorded Blu-ray players. Also Microsoft might make only the Windows "Longhorn" operating system capable of playing pre-recorded Blu-ray on computer systems. Since Longhorn might require Palladium, which protects copyright material through both hardware and software, all current computers would be unable to play pre-recorded Blu-ray. Unlikely as that is it does show why people are wary of WM9 being used for pre-recorded Blu-ray.

I personally wouldn't mind either WM9 or MPEG-4 being used if there were no strings attached, though I wish that if a new codec is chosen that they pick it for the quality of the compression and not for how highly compressed it can go.

 

[Roogs Benoit]

Roog, when I said that D-Theater could only go up to 576 Kbps for DD, I was referring to JVC's proprietary D-VHS format.

Thanks Richard. When people talk about D-Theater I usually think D-Cinema shown in theaters around the world. The difference between theatrical and home digital playback systems is that the theatrical is six channels of un-compressed digital audio and in the home it's AC-3 encoded.
Thanks again I didn't realize you were talking about the consumer format.
Roogs

 

[Aaron Reynolds]

I don't go to commercial theaters expept once in a blue moon... they have lousy sound in comparison to what I have at home

Amen.

As to the LD vs. DVD sound issue raised earlier, while much of the difference can be attributed to different mixes, the difference between the standard PCM track on LDs and the standard audio track on DVDs, which is Dolby Digital, can be quite large. Yes, DVDs can have PCM tracks that are equivalent or better than what LD had, but that does not mean that they do. The vast majority of DVDs do not have PCM tracks, solely for space reasons. If more DVDs had nice PCM tracks I'd be more inclined to purchase more DVDs.

 

[Sean Laughter]

If Blu-Ray goes the way of Playstation3 for Sony then it is going to be the cornerstone of their major push for the "wired living room." With MS competing for that same marketspace with the Xbox family I'd be highly surprised if Sony and its Blu-Ray partners chose a MS codec to drive the video storage of the format.

 

[ChrisA]

Blu Ray 1080p using WM9 running at 24 Mbps and a primary audio track using MLP track using 20/48 for all channels or possibly 24/96 for the front three and 20/48 for remaining...

Output can be downscaled to 768p, 720p, 480p (and I guess 480i or 1080i could be possible for devices requiring those resolutions)

 

[Lewis Besze]

D-VHS can go up to 640 Kbps but D-Theater pre-recorded movies are restricted to 576 Kbps in the same way that DVD can't go beyond 448 Kbps

Incorrect!
I'm not sure about D theatre but DVD ceratainly can support 640kb/s right now.
Delos's hidden track of the 1812 Overture is recorded at 640kb/s[released in '97!] and it was playable on the last 3 DVD players I owned,and decoded by my Denon 3801 and the Outlaw 950 pre/pro. It's simply not a requirement by the current DVD specs, but it's doable right now.

 

[Dan Hitchman]

It's not the fact that 640 kb/sec DD isn't possible with D-Theater it's that they ran into some compatibility issues with receivers and pre-amps that wigged out on the 640 kilobits/sec DD data rate (probably not to spec). 576 seemed to work fine on a variety of machines. With their newest player, D-Theater can support full bitrate (currently 1.5 Megabits/sec) DTS 5.1, DTS-ES 6.1, and DTS 96/24 if the tapes are made.

I'm not for D-Theater as a concept, just trying to explain why.

I too would be leery of Windows Media showing up in a pre-recorded medium. I won't go into it here, but I'm not a fan of MS. As is, I very much doubt Sony would go with MS anyway as explained further back in this thread.

Blu-Ray will more than likely launch with the rollout of the Playstation 3, which is in direct competition with the X Box by MS. That's why I doubt they'd go with anything having to do with MS. They'd have to pay huge royalties to them, and I think Sony is tired of doing that in other instances.

The Blu-Ray group is still considering specs. for their pre-recorded version, so MPEG-2 is not set in stone. Perhaps they're working on their own proprietary codec they can share amongst themselves so no royalties "per se" to the inner members. All I can say is it had better be much improved over the current formats out there.

Would Sony and Philips be so bold as to launch it with DSD in order to hit AOL/Time-Warner (the biggest hold out so far in regards to HD media, and staunch supporter of DVD-Audio) with both barrels? I would hope so! Sony and Philips had a conference in Europe recently with DSD/SACD recording labels that was looking for ways to expand the technology.

Dan

 

[ChrisA]

Another reason we need Blue Ray and not continued bandwidth limitations at 10 Mbit/sec:

All the music DVD's being realesed now, such as Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon...

I don't want a MAKING of DVD.... I want a damn 24/96 mutichannel DVD-A of all Pink floyd 'albums/CD's'

I want seriously good music, not fluff. I'm sure some people will find documentaies worthwhile, but I only want seriously good music...

DVD-A Pink Floyd... That's what I want.

Now imagine having Blue Ray: Have your cake and eat it to!

Hell you could have 24/96, 24/192 multichannel and HD-video or whatever.... You can't have that with WARNER BROTHER'S continued use of red laser for HD-DVD (old technology) and just use more/better video compression.

Besides, even if you use WM9 compression for 1080... it is only going to look better at 20 Mbps compared to 7-8 Mbps....

 

[Sean Laughter]

Blu-Ray will more than likely launch with the rollout of the Playstation 3

In the US perhaps, but there are already Blu-Ray decks available in Japan I believe.

 

[Richard Paul]

Dan, Direct Stream Digital (DSD) technology is efficient, but the idea of PCM being replaced seems unnecessary. PCM is the only audio format natively supported over HDMI with up to 8 channels at a maximum of 24-bits at 192 Khz. One of the advantages of HDMI is that any compression on PCM based audio can be used and it will still be playable on HDMI components. I have never heard a good reason why PCM need's to be replaced and until I do I would be against the use of DSD on Blu-ray. That's not to say that I dislike DSD so much as I question the need for PCM to be replaced.

 

[ChrisA]

If you look at the current "Sony" Blu Ray player available, it is a combo Satellite/HTDV set top box and HD-DVD player, which is a great idea... Certainly it eliminates the need for a scaler as well as eliminates the need for a switch box and analog cables.

Just like DVD players now, Blu-Ray players will come in a variety of forms: Transports, Universal Transports that read all audio formats (including MLP and DSD), one box universal solutions with internal processors,.... just like DVD players come in a variety of shapes and sizes...

For instance, Meridian players would simply pop in a new drive transport and do some software upgrades, but would probably not have any HDTV set top component... who knows... up to the manufacturer.

 

[ChrisA]

On a side note, I still can't figure out why current "superbit" DVD's don't use a sinlge higher rate DTS soundtrack, but instead waste bandwidth on a max DD 5.1 track and a 'half-rate' DTS track....

I mean, CMON! How stupid! Either get rid of the 5.1 DD track and put in the minimal DD 2.0 requirement and use a full-rate (or higher rate) DTS track, *OR* don't put in any DTS track and just use a max DD track and put the bandwidth toward a better picture.... It is deisions like that that IRK the hell out of me.... Marketing decisions not LOGICAL decisions... The same people that buy Superbit, are the people who re very educated and know what is best... rediculous. Personally, I'm sick of this small difference in Superbit DVD and will be waiting on Blu-Ray.

 

[David Susilo]

Don't mean to rain on your parade, but differences in PQ on Superbit titles are NOT subtle. Even with a regula 46" 16:9 screen during daytime (with many reflections from the sunlight), my wife and friends can always tell which version I'm playing, and they are the ones who are content with watching VHS and cable TV.

 

[ChrisA]

Subtle is as subtle does.... all things relative, the picture quality increases are subtle, and a welcome subtle improvement... I didn't say insignificant, or I wouldn't have bought/replaced many current DVDs with the superbit version.

Most importantly, it is hard to get enthusiastic about Superbit DVD, because it is still 'MPEG-2, low bandwidth, interlaced, 480, I need a damn scaler' DVD

Anyway, my point was about the stupidity of two primary DD and DTS soundtracks using up bandwidth vs one superior soundtrack. It is clearly a waste of bandwidth and could be better utilized boosting the DTS rate and/or going to video.

Blu-Ray 1080p WM9 at 25(+/-) Mbit/sec

 

[David Susilo]

Using Dolby Digital, at least 2.0 is part of DVD spec, nothing anybody can do about it.

As far as DTS vs DD. Well, let's just say I have "first-hand double-blind test by a third-party" experience... and they are worms everywhere