Which HD format to buy Harry Potter movies on ? (1 Viewer)

[Cees Alons]

Dave,

That's a strange conclusion!

Adam argues that you shouldn't listen to PCM lest you have to 'recalculate the waveform' if your system is properly calibrated.
Of course, it's partly tongue-in-cheek, but his point is that it's basically no better than DN, if I understand him well.


Cees

 

[Chuck Anstey]

Dave,
You missed the calculation for HP:OOTP. For Warner to "fake" IME they have two complete movie tracks, one with just the movie and one with the movie overlayed with PiP (assuming PiP thoughout the picture and with Warner that is a reasonable assumption). Since the complete movie is encoded twice, the most a single encode can take up is 1/2 of the total disc size = 50/2 = 25 Gig. Now there still has to be room for an audio track so there is actually less room available than 25 Gig for video. So right there HD-DVD would have an at least an extra 5 Gig for its video track. However the HD-DVD is using TrueHD for its audio track which will occupy less space than uncompressed PCM. Add another 1 or 2 Gig for that. Now to be fair, the IME on HD-DVD will occupy space on the disc but that is usually SD resolution or less for PiP so it shouldn't occupy too much space but in the end it could be a wash, maybe.

The crack about Star Trek was just a parting shot at those who said how much better ST could have looked if it wasn't limited by HD-DVD's lower storage capacity. It did have a smiley face. Funny how bits matter on ST but don't matter on HP.

As I said above, I expect both to be exceptional and indistinguishable to everyone except those that flip images back and forth looking for differences. I guess others took my post seriously because they make those bit count in a vacuum arguments seriously. I don't.

 

[Dave Moritz]

Hey Chuck,

While Blu-ray's capacity may have allowed more HD content. I agree that ST:TOS is going to look just as good as Blu-ray. I would say as long as both formats are using the same video codex and both receiver the same top quality transfer. Then both should look the same and there should be no difference.

I agree that HP should look great on ether format and I can not wait to own HP in HD. I just do not like DN as I do not like how DN recalibrates the volume and then recalculates the waveform. I believe it would have to recode it into Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital Plus or Dolby True HD. IMHO the use of DN on home video formats is not necessary and serves no purpose. Now it may serve a very good purpose in the broadcast arena so that different programs and commercials are at the same volume. But of HT I rather not have it and if I can have an option that does not use it, I prefer it. I realize that DN is not going to greatly degrade audio but there must be some effect when tampering with the wave form. The fact that it has to recalculate the waveform on the fly is enough to say heck no for me. I do not like audio to be tampered with and its the principle of the matter. I have heard Dolby True HD and it sounds very good. I have never like Dolby Digital and Dolby Digital Plus does not do much for me. But I very much enjoy my HD-DVD's that have Dolby True HD on them. I also love my uncompressed PCM tracks as well as they sound really good. I honestly can not wait to compair Dolby True HD, PCM and DTS-HD MA tracks once I get my Denon AVR-3808ci and Denon DVD-2500BT.

But anyway because of WB use of DN I will be buying the Blu-ray version of Harry Potter, also because at least 70% of my HD movie budget will be going to Blu-ray.

 

[Michael Reuben]

So I guess you say "heck no" to moving the volume knob on your receiver? 'Cause it's the same thing.

M.

 

[Dan_Ohio]

For me it is Blu-ray on my PS3 and panasoic player, but you already figured that one out.

 

[Dave Moritz]

Just the same I will stick with buying the Blu-ray version of Harry Potter. And since I do not care about IME there is not reason for me to buy the HD-DVD versions of these films. I do however plan on purchasing other titles on HD-DVD but just not HP.

 

[Michael Reuben]

Off-topic, but Lexicon has been shipping the MC-12 HD for the last 18 months. No shortage of HDMI connectivity, but it doesn't decode any of the hid-def audio formats.

M.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

There's a difference between the analog potentiometer (volume change in the analog domain) and one that is performed by digitally recalculating the waveform via DSP prior to d/a conversion.

Most folks don't realize that the volume control on their "digital reciever" is an analog device. This is because this is still the most transparent way to adjust volume on affordable consumer gear.

Even if your receiver has a digital-db read-out on its LED display, there's a 99% chance that it's still a conventional (better sounding) analog volume potentiometer adjusting the volume goverened by a motorized controller.

High-end devices like Lexicon and Meridian do volume control (fully or partially) via DSP, and those algorithims are carefully tweaked to provide transparency... something that the stock dolby digital chip in your surround receiver isn't doing.

This has been covered accurately in other threads. Robert Dressler's own comments at AVS comport with the manner in which DN opperates that I've described here in contrast with how conventional analog volume adjustment works. This isn't a point of debate. It's already established fact. The only "debate" is whether or not the signature of the DSP used to digitally recalculate the PCM waveform for DN level-adjustment results in audible artifacts. Naturally Dolby says "probably not". However, audio engineers who I've spoken with (who have the luxury of listening to the same soundtracks with/without DN processing applied) feel differently.

BTW, there is at least one high-end audiophile decoder (I can't remember the name) that gives users the option of selecting "analog domain" dialog normalization. It's much more expensive to employ by the manufacturer, but it offeres greater transparency over using the DSP-based volume adjustement on the stock Dolby chip. And yes Adam, if this was the manner in which all Dolby Decoders provided DN level adjustment, I wouldn't have a problem with it (it would then, as you say, be no different than adjusting the volume on your recevier).

Note that the issue of DN isn't an HD DVD/BD issue per-se. WB applies DN to their TrueHD tracks, Sony does not. It's a studio decision, and as such affects "formats" only secondarily based on Studio practices.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Yes,

if we're talking about WB specifically, they use the SAME video encodes for both media, every time, by policy. WB will not allow one format to look better/worse than the other to maintain parity between their titles on HD DVD/BD media.

It's only in the audio-encoding and special-features department that they sometimes differ.

 

[Ken_McAlinden]

I have seen the HD DVD (review up tomorrow, hopefully) of "...Order of the Phoenix". For the sake of clarity, the IME track includes a separate VC1 video stream with picture in picture commentary from various actors who played characters from the film in "Dumbledore's Army". Daniel Radcliffe (Harry), Emma Watson (Hermione), Rupert Grint (Ron), and Alfie Enoch (Dean) appear individually. Others were paired simultaneously including James (Fred) and Oliver (George) Phelps; Katie Leung (Cho) and Matthew Lewis (Neville); and Bonnie Wright (Ginny) and Evanna Lynch (Luna). The IME track also includes pop-up text bits with trivia about the actors.

In addition to the standard IME stuff, there are more than two dozen branching "focus point" behind the scenes featurettes which can be selected "follow the white rabbit"-style at appropriate times during the IME. They are presented in SD MPEG-2 video. All of the "focus point" featurettes are also available independently from the IME via the special features menu, and there is also a "play all" option if you want to watch them back to back.

Internet stuff includes a shareable favorite scenes interface, a "schedule a viewing party" feature, and downloadable cell phone wallpapers and ringtones.

I have not seen the BRD version myself yet, but I understand it has the "Hidden Secrets..." featurette that is on the 2-disc SD DVD version, but absent from the HD DVD. It also reportedly does not have any of the IME commentary material, but it does have all of the "focus point" feaurettes.

Regards,

 

[DaViD Boulet]

How's it look? Give us a hint!

dave

 

[Dave Moritz]

I can not wait to own all 5 HP movies in HD! I only actually purchased one of the movies on DVD so now that they will be out in HD I think I will buy the box set.

 

[Ken_McAlinden]

A hint? Okay. It rhymes with "schmantasic".

Regards,

 

[Adam Barratt]

So digital volume control is a 'bad thing', unless it's done by a 'high-end company' using 'specially tweaked algorithms'? This isn't rocket science we're talking about. The mathematics are black and white, cut and dried, and extremely basic wherever they occur: attentuation via subtraction. These mathematics aren't a problem for any DSP that can decode Dolby Digital (or any other compressed format). Transparency in this sense implies mathematical precision, and this sort of task can be done with total precision (given that DSPs are mathematical calculating devices I'm sure this is of no surprise to any observers).

I can only imagine what a high-end system is doing when it subtracts (for example) 3 from 120 in the digital domain that a lower cost model isn't doing. Polishing the number to make it more elegant, perhaps. Should I be considering buying a high-end computer to see if Windows runs more 'transparently' than on a cheap desktop machine (would it be closer to the artistic intent of the original Microsoft developers?). Perhaps I should buy a better hand-held calculator for more accurate calculations of 2-1; my current one will say 1, but maybe it isn't quite as transparent a more expensive machine could be!

Suggestions that one type of digital attenuation is better or sounds more 'transparent' than another, or that one type of digital attenuation is better than another, verges very close to 'green felt tip' territory,

I know that a lot of people like to argue about this subject using nebulous, audiophile terminology that makes definitive statements easy to avoid (and that there are a lot of 'established facts' based on not much), but this simply isn't the case here. This is simply a matter of numbers, as much as people want to turn this into a magical, ethereal art.

Adam

 

[Matthew J]

This info just made me switch my choice to the HD set, that and the fact that Goblet of Fire also has an IME track. The A&E doc was fluff to me.

 

[Stephen_J_H]

Ah, this brings back memories of the late 80s, along with acid wash, neon, and New Kids on the Block [shudder].

The smartest comment I ever heard on the 'green felt tip' argument was from a friend who ran an independent music store: "If a green felt tip is going to make that much difference, why don't they just change the colour of the laser or the read side of the disc?"

FTR, the funniest audiophile story I ever heard was the story of the VHS/Beta Hi-Fi release of Yentl. The audio engineer who mastered the track on the video version was meticulous, even fixing errors that Streisand herself approved for the film's release. When the track was played for Streisand, she loved it, with one minor caveat: she want the volume level of the entire track raised by 1/2 decibel. Do I need to state that 1 decibel is the smallest difference human hearing can detect, or is that commonly accepted wisdom?

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Adjusting the level of a digital waveform is no different than scaling digital video from one resoution to another. Just like there are different rounding-techniques and wave-prediction models which can be used for video, same with audio. Some DSP models even go so far as to use sine-wave prediction patterns in order to adjust for quantization inaccuracies in the original signal before making any adjustments off of the datapoints.

I'll wouldn't be so convinced except the digital-volume adjustment on my CD-creation software for my PC causes such a noticably brightess in the highs that I finally stopped "normalizing" CDs to match record-level for mix discs and just left everything bit-for-bit alone even if it meant having to turn up/down the music to keep volume constant. According to a few recording engineers I spoke with, even at the 16-bit level (of CD), there are more audiophile-friendly programs available for digital level control than what comes bundled with my CD-creator.

 

[Cees Alons]

That's absolutely not true in practice, David!
It's even a very wrong comparison.

Resolution scaling of video involves two operations: averaging pixel content (or interpolating) and determining the ordinals (horizontally and vertically) of the "new" pixel. The former doesn't pose so many problems, it's mainly the latter. That's because of the resulting value the lowest bit will count: flipping it will move the pixel data to the adjacent pixel (horizontally and/or vertically). Because in practice the pixels are supposed to be in the magnitude of movements visible to the watching eye, that's a significant difference.

The first operation (averaging or extrapolation) combines values of two or more pixels and helps destroying the quality of the image at a more modest magnitude. In practice small errors within the approx. 8-bit domain of colour values appear to be hardly noticeable, although not to be dismissed totally.

Changing the loudness of a digital audio signal doesn't involve determining a new "place" in the sampled signal, or the combining of two adjacent values: just the sampled value at hand is adjusted. All that's involved are individual signal values (more comparable to colour or brightness, video wise). If computations on these are done in the 24-bit domain (like in TrueHD decoders), it could affect the lowest bit(s) indeed. But affecting the lowest bits is hardly significant at all!

In fact, more than the 3 lowest bits of any 24-bit value will take no part in the waveform that will eventually reach the ears of a home HiFi-enthusiast (given a properly scaled signal as well as the noise and harmonic distortion levels of even the best non-professional HiFi-equipment on the market.)

Example: halving the value of the signal involves shifting the whole 24-bit word 1 bit down. The lowest bit will disappear, but that bit-value wasn't to be trusted in the first place! The resultant 23 bits (completed with an upper 0) will still represent all audible data.


Cees

 

[tlavely]

So I looked on Amazon.uk and couldn't find a two disc version of OOP; the HD version was a single disc.

Bluray only has the two disc set? I looked in the wrong place?

Thanks for answers. tony

 

[Duncan Harvey]

I have the UK HD-DVD of OOP and its a 2 discer. Have briefly checked out the end of the film - ie the big battle and it looked and sounded superb in Tru HD on my 100 inch screen (Mitsubishi HC5000 1080p projector).

I dont really care about IME but in this case I decided to go for the HD-DVD as it had this. My UK Goblet of Fire HD-DVD also has IME.

I bought the UK version of the first film as I wanted the correct title - ie Philosopher's Stone, but have the US Blu-rays on pre-order for HP 2+3