International Hey Germany, What's up with SD material on Blu Ray (1 Viewer)

[Bill Waits]

Granted I am not aware of all the releases in various countries, as I have enough to keep up with simply being in the US, but in recent times, I know that Blu Rays of the Major League trilogy, Robocop TV series, and Buck Rogers have been released. However, instead of these releases being in high def, the all simply had SD content thrown on a Blu Ray. Why even bother doing this? Also, when it's done, the promotional material doesn't make it clear that is simply SD content and you don't find out until you have discs in hand or can find a review (not as many discs are reviewed in foreign countries as there are in the US). I hope that these are simply anomalies and this practice doesn't continue. It distorts things for the user who may have expectations of HD when purchasing a Blu Ray and then only getting SD content.

 

[schan1269]

BD was never intended just for HD.

 

[Tony Bensley]

BD was never intended just for HD.

Hi Sam!


Perhaps not, but non HD BD can't even upscale on a Blu-ray Device, correct?


I agree with Bill Waits regarding the inherent frustration of discovering a Blu-ray title is SD after purchasing. In my opinion, any BD title presented as such needs to be labeled appropriately!


CHEERS!


Tony

 

[schan1269]

I've never seen a SD release that wasn't labeled as such.

If anybody buys one without an obvious label...I'd like to see a picture of it.

 

[Mark-P]

Hey USA, what's up with not using the capacity of the Blu-ray format to put lots of SD material on a single disc?

 

[turtledove]

BD was never intended just for HD.

And yet nobody except the Germans have released all SD Bluray titles.


Fortunately only Germany have taken this route. It was most disappointing to see wasted releases like Space 1999 and other tv shows.

Being on Bluray doesn't even guarantee decent quality.

I got the 3 SD movies on one BD release that includes The Forbin Project and This Island Earth and they really were a complete waste of time.


It's good that no other countries have widely adopted this waste of the format.


The UK discs of Life On Mars were advertised as being upscaled ( on the back cover in barely legible text) and they did look a bit better than the dvd's but generally its not something the Bluray format really needs.


When you can fit 6 discs into a case that a single dvd usually fits in saving space becomes a non issue and not one that needs solving by putting sd onto a BD

 

[Bill Waits]

BD was never intended just for HD.

On a technical basis, you are correct. However, from a marketing and promotions, standpoint, those that do fill Blu Ray exclusively with SD content are morons. They loose out on the market for those that simply have just a DVD player, or just a DVD player in part of their environment that they might also play a movie (automobile, laptop, bedroom, etc....)

 

[bigshot]

I have several SD blu-rays and I think they are fantastic. My favorites are the Classic Archive series. They went through Canadian, British and French television archives and gathered together classical music recitals and organized them by disk into types... there is a disk dedicated to great conductors, one for singers, another for chamber music... and each disk has a playing time of 18 hours! This material will never be in HD, because it was shot in SD, but there is a huge advantage to have the equivalent of ten DVDs organized well onto a single disk. I wish I could get entire runs of TV series that way, instead of the doorstop bricks of the TV series on DVD I have to figure out how to store. Another advantage is compression... when there is 50 gigs to work with on a dual layered blu-ray, you don't have to pack it so tightly like DVDs with over three hour running times to hold four hour long episodes.


By the way, blu-ray players are cheap enough and play both formats, I don't know anyone who is still buying DVD players. I don't think many DVD players are being sold any more. We're probably going to see more SD material migrated from DVD box sets to single our double blu-ray sets as time goes by.

 

[Bill Waits]

I not debating the merits of such a setup, as I agree with many of your points. However, like I said, they are loosing out to those without Blu Ray. In addition, the Major League trilogy that I mentioned earlier... NOWHERE on the package does it indicate that it's SD content, so an unsuspecting buyer is basically screwed over.

 

[Tony Bensley]

Regardless of one's view about the inclusion of non HD content on Blu-ray Releases, I do firmly believe any included content that isn't 1080p should come with an appropriate disclaimer. It's only fair!


CHEERS!

 

[Bill Waits]

Regardless of one's view about the inclusion of non HD content on Blu-ray Releases, I do firmly believe any included content that isn't 1080p should come with an appropriate disclaimer. It's only fair!


CHEERS!

I agree!

 

[turtledove]

I have several SD blu-rays and I think they are fantastic. My favorites are the Classic Archive series. They went through Canadian, British and French television archives and gathered together classical music recitals and organized them by disk into types... there is a disk dedicated to great conductors, one for singers, another for chamber music... and each disk has a playing time of 18 hours! This material will never be in HD, because it was shot in SD, but there is a huge advantage to have the equivalent of ten DVDs organized well onto a single disk. I wish I could get entire runs of TV series that way, instead of the doorstop bricks of the TV series on DVD I have to figure out how to store. Another advantage is compression... when there is 50 gigs to work with on a dual layered blu-ray, you don't have to pack it so tightly like DVDs with over three hour running times to hold four hour long episodes.


By the way, blu-ray players are cheap enough and play both formats, I don't know anyone who is still buying DVD players. I don't think many DVD players are being sold any more. We're probably going to see more SD material migrated from DVD box sets to single our double blu-ray sets as time goes by.

It sounds like it might be a good idea for a very niche product like that where fewer discs resulting in lower manufacturing costs might make a difference but for mainstream material it seems to be a waste of time and quite unnecessary.


And when you can get an entire series of a couple of hundred episodes into a package 3 inches wide I think the era of doorstep bricks is long gone- even though some studios will do it regardless

 

[schan1269]

I not debating the merits of such a setup, as I agree with many of your points. However, like I said, they are loosing out to those without Blu Ray. In addition, the Major League trilogy that I mentioned earlier... NOWHERE on the package does it indicate that it's SD content, so an unsuspecting buyer is basically screwed over.

1 Google search is all it took(under the German title) and everywhere says Major League trilogy is 576i.

 

[Bill Waits]

1 Google search is all it took(under the German title) and everywhere says Major League trilogy is 576i.

Again, I repeat...NOWHERE on the package, or in the product description of places to buy it does it say that it's SD. If it's not HD, then it should be PROMINENTLY part of the product description (supplied to by the manufacturer) AND on the package. Consumers should not have to Google basic product specs for every item that they want to purchase.

 

[schan1269]

I've been looking for a website for Crest Movies. Not finding one. Means...avoid their products like the plague.

Found out they "might be" the same company as Best Entertainment(also Germany...and, no website).

BR.com has a page featuring all 24 of Crest Movies releases...

None...are worth buying.

 

[schan1269]

And yet nobody except the Germans have released all SD Bluray titles.

Fortunately only Germany have taken this route. It was most disappointing to see wasted releases like Space 1999 and other tv shows.
Being on Bluray doesn't even guarantee decent quality.
I got the 3 SD movies on one BD release that includes The Forbin Project and This Island Earth and they really were a complete waste of time.

It's good that no other countries have widely adopted this waste of the format.

The UK discs of Life On Mars were advertised as being upscaled ( on the back cover in barely legible text) and they did look a bit better than the dvd's but generally its not something the Bluray format really needs.

When you can fit 6 discs into a case that a single dvd usually fits in saving space becomes a non issue and not one that needs solving by putting sd onto a BD

The US has numerous releases.

Several SD video paired with lossless audio concerts.

There is, somewhere on here...not looking for it, a blurb that Ron posted for a 15(maybe 20?) B movie drive-in movie pack* on one SD Blu-ray. Emblazoned as 480i on the bottom right corner.

This very same, tired, debate rang up in that thread as well as people laid claim "it was an abomination".

Every single SD on BD that is ever bought/found...somebody starts a thread about it like...it never happened before.

*in that thread(which Tony here mentioned) people were wondering if a BD player can upscale 480i BD. I have no idea. Not sure if anybody knows. But, you can either...

1. Set your BD player 480i and let your AVR upscale it.

2. If your BD player doesn't support 480i over HDMI, buy an older BD player that still has composite(or s-video) and connect that way.

 

[bigshot]

The time that I got mad at SD content was with one of the Looney Tunes sets. They had plenty of Looney Tunes in HD, and then they stuck a bunch of Tex Avery MGM cartoons on in SD. Uh... I already have DVDs of that stuff. Sell me a blu-ray with HD Tex Avery. I don't mind talking head supplements in SD, but when they put a bonus film on, it should be in HD too.

 

[bigshot]

I just remembered... I have a couple of pro wrestling and ultimate fighting disks that include a lot of SD content. It's because the older matches were shot in SD. The Ultimate Fighting disk at least included more matches and packed the running time well, so it's fine with me.

 

[jcroy]

(On a tangent).


Imho, the only thing that is even worse than entirely SD-only content on a bluray disc that is not labeled as such, is SD resolution content that is "pre upscaled" to 1080p resolution, where this "pre upscaled" fake-hd version is dumped onto bluray discs.


IIRC, famous examples of the latter are the bluray versions of the first several seasons of the revived Doctor Who (with Eccleston/Tennant), and Farscape.


What a waste of time and effort.

 

[turtledove]

The US has numerous releases.

Several SD video paired with lossless audio concerts.

There is, somewhere on here...not looking for it, a blurb that Ron posted for a 15(maybe 20?) B movie drive-in movie pack* on one SD Blu-ray. Emblazoned as 480i on the bottom right corner.

This very same, tired, debate rang up in that thread as well as people laid claim "it was an abomination".

Every single SD on BD that is ever bought/found...somebody starts a thread about it like...it never happened before.

*in that thread(which Tony here mentioned) people were wondering if a BD player can upscale 480i BD. I have no idea. Not sure if anybody knows. But, you can either...

1. Set your BD player 480i and let your AVR upscale it.

2. If your BD player doesn't support 480i over HDMI, buy an older BD player that still has composite(or s-video) and connect that way.

I think the fact nobody knows about them, seems interested in them or they ever get reviewed shows their worth in the Bluray market.


Strangely the PS3 ( the UK one anyway) will upscale dvd's to 1080 but it won't upscale sd material that is on a Bluray disc. All the standard players I've ever had will though