HD-DVDs. Are there any besides T2? (2 Viewers)

[Andrew_K]

Are there any HD-DVDs besides T2 and the planned new edition of Total Recall?

 

[Doug Schiller]

Artisan's Standing In The Shadow of Motown has a HD version on disk 2.

 

[Nils Luehrmann]

T2 Extreme Edition is not HD-DVD. HD-DVD is one of the two proposed standards for a future HiDef (16x9 1080p) DVD format.

The confusion comes from the marketing where they mention that the DVD is made from a HD 1080p digital telecine transfer. Of course to get it onto DVD it is down converted to 480p.

There are several DVDs that were also mastered from 1080p digital telecine transfers, but to be fair, this is no way a guarantee of a high quality DVD transfer. In the right hands a 1080p digital telecine transfer gives technicians a fantastic opportunity to clean up any artificial artifacts, but in the wrong hands the additional necessary converting (both A/D & Scaling) can in fact add artificial artifacts to the transfer.

 

[Vince Maskeeper]

Actually the confusion comes more from the Windows Media "high def" version on the disc. This is not HD-DVD, and can only be played on a pc.

-Vince

 

[Vincent_P]

I know Don May over at Synapse was trying to get in touch with the folks behind Widnows Media 9 re: putting T2-like HD versions of some of his upcoming DVDs onto disc 2 (I think he was hoping to possibly do this with the upcoming DVDs of LEMORA and STREET TRASH, both of which he mastered in 1080P High-Definition), but they never bothered to get back to him.

Vincent

 

[Will_B]

The straight scoop from the inventor of Phase Change optical recording something or other, reporting from the CES a couple weeks ago. First, his forecast:


Those quotes are extensive but they're also the best insights into what went on behind the scenes at CES as you'll ever get. Since they're just newsgroup rants I believe it is OK to quote them here on Home Theater Forum (I am aware that Home Theater Forum prohibits extensive quotes from website articles).

I personally disagree with his belief that Microsoft is going to win out over all competitors, but then again this is a guy who forsaw and helped invent DVD a million years before it reached our living rooms.

His actual identity is not known. He goes by the handle of dvdrws_godfather. We know he's one of the people who received a copy of Longhorn for feedback from Microsoft.

 

[Wayne Bundrick]

If inexpensive stuff shot on video by individuals was going to replace Hollywood, then it would have happened already. It didn't have to wait for high definition.

And if you remember what Microsoft, Intel, and Compaq (aka the "DTV Team") had in mind for taking over the world of HDTV in 1997, it's hard to trust Microsoft and even harder to believe that they'll do what they predict. Microsoft boasted that they would have 40 million PCs in the field that would do HDTV (or at least their own halfassed vision of first generation HDTV) by the end of 1998.

All the words stressed out with capital letters and the frequent use of "WHORELYWOOD" reduce his credibility. It might as well be some fanatical Linux penguin who keeps writing "Micro$oft Windoze".

And anybody can get hold of the Longhorn preview, either through official channels (such as Microsoft Developer Network) or otherwise.

 

[Will_B]

You should see his rants against the Chinese and against Linux. Nonetheless he tends to know what is going on.

 

[Jeff Adkins]

The only true HD DVD's that I'm aware of are in mainland China. They've only released a handful of titles so far. It's called EVD and it's 1080i.

The players run about $250, the discs run about $9.

Jeff

 

[Dan Hitchman]

Any HD version that makes you dial in to get permission to play it practically every time is not HD to me. More like "pain in the ass definition!"

Besides, at 8 Megabits/sec you really aren't seeing what MS's codec is capable of. Even Standing In The Shadow of Motown wasn't 1920x1080p resolution even though it was close to a 1.78:1 ratio documentary.

Dan

 

[Joe Schwartz]

Which newsgroup does he post in? I couldn't find that name on Google.

 

[Travis Olson]

Here are all the Windows Media HD DVDs currently availible. The way it sounds there is more on the way. Personally I love this format. The quailty is easily the best I've ever seen and if you have a big monitor it's the perfect way to get HD now without buying an HDTV set.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/win...haseHDDVD.aspx

 

[Eric F]

Not HD. It's equivalent to anamoprhic PAL. Still looks quite good.

 

[Len Cheong]

Download the demos on the windows media hd site. They are amazing!!

 

[DaViD Boulet]

it was much better than Pal. I think that the WM9 file was about 1280 x 720 resolution. There was lots of discussion over at AVS about both T2 and the Motown WM9 and they are HD resolution to be sure...though not full 1920 x 1080. They also hold of surprisingly well despite the paltry bit-rate of our current red-laser DVD!

 

[Eric F]

David, Motown WM9 is 1024x576, which is anamorphic PAL.

T2 WM9 is 1440x816.

If Motown looks better to you than the PAL transfer, it's probably has to do more with the encoding than the transfer itself. Both the DVD and WM9 versions use the same transfer.

I am temtped to pick up Motown on D-Theater, but the WM9 verison looks so good it's hard to pony up more for it.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

I thought that PAL was 720 horizontal by 576 vertical?

Granted, 1024 x 575 falls short of the magic "1280 x 720" HD threshold but it still seems a bit more than 720 x 576 PAL.

Does "anamorphic PAL" increase horizontal resolution beyond what PAL DVD is capable of delivering? PAL encoded DVD titles, whether 4x3 or 16x9, offer 720 x 576 resolution.

-dave

 

[Eric F]

Yes. Anamorphic is squashed horizontally 33.3% , so PAL unsquashed is 1024x576. Pretty sure that's right.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Hey Eric,

you clearly know lots about this PAL stuff, but I think you might misunderstand this one aspect of the "anamorphic" thing...at least in reagards to how it applies to the DVD format.

The PAL and NTSC methodology is the same so let me exaplin with NTSC first...

With NTSC-encoded DVDs, they contain exactly 720 x 480 pixels of information whether "4x3" or "16x9". When we refer to anamoprhic DVD...we're just talking about the 16x9 aspect-ratio option. The increase in picture quality (that 33% enhancement) isn't a function of adding more pixels to the 720 x 480 matrix -- rather it's about using the pixels in that 720 x 480 grid more effectively. That's because a WS movie letterboxed in a 4x3 shaped 720 x 480 grid wastes more veritical pixels on masking than would the same image placed into a 16x9-shaped frame (using the same 720 x 480 pixels).

PAL DVDs work the same way. The "anamorphic" PAL signals are just "16x9" PAL instead of "4x3" PAL. In both cases, the image is 720 x 576 pixels...but in the case of 4x3 PAL 33% of the vertical pixels would be wasted on a 1.78:1 WS image...whereas the entire 720 x 576 pixels grid would be utilized for real picture information if we took those same pixels and considered them to describe a 16x9 area.

Just as with "NTSC" discs, you can also "letterbox" movies in a 16x9 window...as we do with 2.35:1 films. But naturally you're still using substantially *more* vertical pixels than you would be in a 4x3 window.

So the final outcome is that the Motown WM9 disc offers the same vertical resolution of a standard PAL signal (progressive), but the horizontal resolution is increased significantly beyond the normal 720 horizontal pixels that PAL signal are afforded on red-book DVDs.

Technically, this still qualifies the Motown disc as a "standard definition" signal, even though it offers more resolution than the usual digital-PAL resolution of 720 x 576.

The reason that 1024 horizontal pixels was chosen for the Motown horizontal resolution is that it describes a 16x9 area with square-shaped pixels. Niether NTSC nor PAL use "square" pixels in their respecitve 720 x 480 and 720 x 576 form.

-dave

 

[Eric F]

They were discussing this on AVSForum a while back and concluded the resolutions were effectively the same. I understand what you're saying and always thought that you couldn't fit more information into space that's not there.

In any event it still looks really good.