Ordering Blu-ray Discs? (1 Viewer)

[Robert Crawford]

I just cancelled some BRD orders of Sony controlled Blu-ray discs due to the MPEG-2 issue. Has anybody else done the same? Also, I'm not ordering the initial batch of Warner BRD because of the same issue. I think it's best to wait and see any BRD reviews because of MPEG-2 issues which is really going against the grain for me because generally I don't let reviews affect my disc buying decisions. So I'm a little perturbed that Sony has forced consumers to wait and see before they act on their HD purchases because of consumer concern with the HD presentations of BRD. It really shouldn't be that way and Sony needs to do whatever it takes to ease the concerns of early adoptors like myself. I have a Blu-ray player with only 10 BRD to play.

Has anybody heard which of the upcoming BRD releases will not be in MPEG-2?




Crawdaddy

 

[Cees Alons]

Unfortunately, my first orders of Blu-ray discs had already shipped when I read about the possible problems.
In fact, they have arrived here (both Terminator movies and The Fifth Element), and I don't even own a BD-player (yet).

I cannot send them back easily, so I will keep these three, but like you I stopped ordering BD releases until we know a lot more.


(BTW the first BD disc to arrive was Terminator 2, JD, and it showed a typical problem one might encounter by ordering discs without owning a player: the disc was floating around inside the box. So I had to open it, inspected the disc (no visible permanent scratches) and put it firmly in place (the hub wasn't broken or anything). But I cannot really check if it will play flawlessly.)


Cees

 

[Steve Tannehill]

If the manufacturers are smart, they will be shouting it from the rooftops...

- Steve

 

[Joseph Bolus]

According to these reviews over at High-Def Digest, the first wave of Warner Blu-ray discs are not holding up too well when compared to their HD-DVD counterparts, evidently due to the MPEG-2 issue:

http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/trainingday.html

http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/kisskissbangbang.html

http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/rumorhasit.html

It's especially notable that Warner had to drop the Dolby Digital-Plus tracks on all three of these titles in order to provide higher bit rates for the MPEG2 codec, and still couldn't quite match the video quality of the transfers of their HD-DVD VC-1 codec discs. This is particularly astonishing when one considers that with Rumor Has it and Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang Blu-ray had 25GB of space to work with vs. only 15GB for the HD-DVD counterparts!! (The HD-DVD discs of these two titles were hybrids with a standard DVD transfer on the flip side of the disc; due to that feature they were restricted to single-layer on the HD-DVD side. Most stand-alone HD-DVD titles have 30GB of space to work with.)

 

[Cees Alons]

That's very worrisome indeed.

If
Blu-ray 25 Gb with MPEG-2 < HD DVD 15Gb with VC-1
then
Blu-ray 50 Gb with MPEG-2 < HD DVD 30Gb with VC-1.

Which means: Sony has to abandon the MPEG-2-only policy, or their (!) BDs won't be worth anything more than HD DVD, in fact less.


Cees

 

[Michael TLV]

Greetings

I think I will have to prioritize the film purchases with HD DVD titles coming first and then if I must ... Blu Ray second only if it isn't available on HD.

If title is available on both ... I defer to HD DVD ... why settle for less for the same money?

Regards

 

[Neil Joseph]

I sure hope that the BR decision makers are aware of this type of "feedback" and act on it. I have an initial batch of 6 or 7 BR disks and will hold there also.

 

[Dave Moritz]

I will not buy anymore Blu-ray disc's until VC-1 or MPEG4 discs are available and MPEG2 is a memory. I see no reason to waste money on inferior codex when I can buy the same title on HD-DVD that will look alot better.

Hopefully Sony learns from this mistake and corrects it before its too late!

 

[LarryH]

I have ended up with 8 BD's and don't plan on buying any more unless a title I just can't live without is released. Fortunately, none has been announced as of now. With MPEG-2, single-layer disks and the Samsung noise-reduction snafu vexing me, I will be very reluctant to invest any more in this format until all these get corrected.