First Blu Ray Reviews Coming In. The Verdict So Far: Not So Hot

[Reanimated]

Some reviews of the first Blu Ray titles to be released are starting to hit the web. The first players and movie titles have been cropping up at retail around the country, and some enthusiast websites are giving us a first look (http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/fifthelement3.html) . The verdict so far seems to be that Blu Ray does not match the visual quality of HDDVD or broadcast HD:

Okay, here it comes -- the big question. Does Blu-ray deliver the visual goods? Can it match, or even beat rival HD DVD? Of course this is just one title, my first title, so I can't judge the format unequivocally. And, unfortunately, again, I probably picked the wrong disc for my initial Blu-ray test drive, because quite simply 'The Fifth Element' is just not the best HD I've seen, either compared to HD DVD or even-over-the air HD broadcasts. According to some on the AVS forums (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=688793&page=1&pp=20) , the problem has to do with the fact that Blu Ray movies are all MPEG 2, wheras HDDVD films are being encoded with better compression schemes such as h.264.


I'm still not sold on these HD formats. I watched Star Wars Ep 3 on HBOHD last night, and popped in my DVD just to compare. After switching the video feed back and forth several times on the same scenes, I just really could not tell much difference at all in the HD broadcast and my DVD displaying at 480p. Since an upscaling player would obviously make my DVD look even better, I really don't see the reason to start replacing my collection.

[Heretic Machine]

If the picture on the Blu-ray disc wasn't up to par, it is entirely the fault of the people who put it on there. Blu-ray discs are just a larger storage medium, they don't enable better looking picture, they just give you space to store it. You can put an HD movie on a DVD but it has to be shorter because of the lack of space.

At least, that is the way I understand things.

[dojoteef]

Well Reanimated, it would make sense that you can't see a difference. You are watching on a standard definition telelvision. If you were watching the DVD and the broadcast on an HDTV, then you would be better able to judge whether or not there is a quality difference.

[Khash]

Yea, you can put a .jpeg on a blu-ray(or HD-DVD) disc and it's not gonna make it look any better. The picture/sound quality is as good as whatever data is on the disc.

EDIT: or should I say, it's as good as whatever the lowest quality device is in the chain.

[Reanimated]

Well Reanimated, it would make sense that you can't see a difference. You are watching on a standard definition telelvision. If you were watching the DVD and the broadcast on an HDTV, then you would be better able to judge whether or not there is a quality difference.




Can you read? I'm watching HBOHD. That wouldn't be possible on anything other than a HDTV, so OBVIOUSLY I'm watching on one. A very nice one, I might add.

[dojoteef]

I thought you were refering to your TV set as running at 480p. I guess I misread. NO need to be SO DEFENSIVE. ;)

[doubtingthomas]

Can you read? I'm watching HBOHD. That wouldn't be possible on anything other than a HDTV, so OBVIOUSLY I'm watching on one. A very nice one, I might add.

Actually, you can watch High Definition feeds on any television. They obviously look better on a HDTV, but I had Comcast's HD box and channels coming through my old 32" Sony VVEGA and it looked great. Better than the "normal" broadcast feeds, and in widescreen.

[Reanimated]

I thought you were refering to your TV set as running at 480p. I guess I misread. NO need to be SO DEFENSIVE. ;)


I'm watching at 480p because that's the resolution my progressive scan DVD player outputs. Also, a standard def televsion will only display 480i. If you're going to watch anything higher than that, you have to have an HDTV or EDTV.

Here, read up:

http://www.projectorcentral.com/video_signals.htm

[Kamalot]

If the picture on the Blu-ray disc wasn't up to par, it is entirely the fault of the people who put it on there. Blu-ray discs are just a larger storage medium, they don't enable better looking picture, they just give you space to store it. You can put an HD movie on a DVD but it has to be shorter because of the lack of space.

At least, that is the way I understand things.
There could be many things that go wrong. Of course, it could have been a poor original copy, but it could also be any number of shoddy components in the player itself.

Quite a shame actually. If anything could have convinced me of Blurau, it is The Fifth Element.

[Oddmaker]

sony are da doomed

[Reanimated]

Everyone at the AVS forums is saying it's because the blu ray people are being forced to use MPEG2 encoding, while, apparently, most HDDVD content was encoded in h.264, which is a far superior compression scheme.

[Siraris]

Are you JOKING me? One of the biggest Sony flamers on this messageboard is posting news about Blu-Ray? Please do some research Reanimated, you are posting incorrect information. Many people are saying that Samsungs Blu-Ray player is very good, but it's first gen and it needs some fixes. Reviews of Terminator on Blu-Ray have said that it's the best video the reviewers have ever seen on a home screen.

This is just propaganda from a troll. Can anyone take this down?

[fitbabits]

Are you JOKING me? One of the biggest Sony flamers on this messageboard is posting news about Blu-Ray? Please do some research Reanimated, you are posting incorrect information. Many people are saying that Samsungs Blu-Ray player is very good, but it's first gen and it needs some fixes. Reviews of Terminator on Blu-Ray have said that it's the best video the reviewers have ever seen on a home screen.

This is just propaganda from a troll. Can anyone take this down?
A link to refute the claims would be good!

Edit - Complete specs for the High-Def DVD Digest Review Reference System:

Video Displays:
- HP Pavilion MD6580N 65" DLP Rear-Projector
- Toshiba 65H81 65" CRT Rear-Projector

HD DVD Player:
- Toshiba HD-XA1 (via HDMI)

Blu-ray Player:
- Samsung BD-P1000 (via HDMI)

Sound Processors / Amplification:
- Denon AVR-1803 A/V Dolby Digital/DTS Surround Processor

Speakers:
- M&K S-150THX Left, Center, and Right
- M&K SS-150 Left, Right Surrounds
- M&K S-100B EX Center Surround
- M&K MX-200 Subwoofer

Standard DVD Player:
- Panasonic RP91 Progressive Scan (via Component)

DVHS Player:
- JVC HM-DH30000U D-VHS with D-Theater HD VCR

Set-Top Box:
- Dish Network HD-942 High-Definition DVR

Accessories:
- BetterCables Interconnects
Looks like the disc was reviewed on the Samsung model.

[Johan]

None of this means a thing to me until I see an unbiased, professional review (say from Consumer Reports or some such entity)...until then, blah, blah, blah, *white noise*, smoke-and-mirrors, waste of time...blah, blah, blah.

[Kamalot]

This is just propaganda from a troll. Can anyone take this down?
Apparently the site on which the Bluray disc was reviewed is a reputable site. The fact that the article was submitted to Evil Avatar by a troll does not change the fact that the reviewer was not impressed with Bluray.

Just because it isn't good news does not mean it is false.

[Reanimated]

Are you JOKING me? One of the biggest Sony flamers on this messageboard is posting news about Blu-Ray? Please do some research Reanimated, you are posting incorrect information. Many people are saying that Samsungs Blu-Ray player is very good, but it's first gen and it needs some fixes. Reviews of Terminator on Blu-Ray have said that it's the best video the reviewers have ever seen on a home screen.

This is just propaganda from a troll. Can anyone take this down?



How about YOU do some research. Here's something from the AVS forums link that I posted:

1. The BD 5th Element as has been pointed out numerous times is only slightly better than an upconverted DVD disk. Sounds crazy, but true!

2. The Terminator is very good. I believe not as spectacular for PQ as COR or Serenity (HDDVD titles), but still awesome. The audio track on this sounds great. IMHO the PQ was very close to the best HD DVD I have seen. However, based on the two disks I have reviewed so far, HD DVD seems to have more colors or there is some processing that makes it have more of a 3-D effect. Again I am not a videophile, but a video pile so I'll look for more technical expertise elsewhere. OTOH, the more subdued colors make Terminator look more 'film-like' than even Serenity.

3. So far, my first impressions (which validates what I had assumed) are that HD DVD looks more refined in general. I am not sure if the color issue is player or format related. The same applies to audio. Since digital co-ax sounds the same for both formats, I am not sure if the analog difference is format or player related.




The general consensus that I've read from pretty much every AV enthusiast that has bought both a Toshiba HDDVD unit and a blu ray unit is that the HDDVD content thus far looks superior. Sowwy if that hurts your wittle feewings.

[Paranoia]

This is just propaganda from a troll. Can anyone take this down?

You attack the news despite the fact it had a link to High Def movie website which has NOTHING to do with console wars.

Perhaps trolls like you should do a bit of reading instead of reading headlines?

[Wasson_]

ooookay, that's one review.

Lets see some more....and THEN everybody can start arguing.

[Reanimated]

ooookay, that's one review.

Lets see some more.




Actually, it's about 15 or 20. Read the AVS link, mmmmkay.

[Mr.Condescension]

Everyone at the AVS forums is saying it's because the blu ray people are being forced to use MPEG2 encoding, while, apparently, most HDDVD content was encoded in h.264, which is a far superior compression scheme.

Blu-ray drives universally support h.264 encoding. If it isn't being used it is because the studios releasing the movies have chosen not to.

edit: until we actually get to see a review of the same content on both types of disc any comparison will be futile.

[Wasson_]

actually, no thanks. ...I don't really care.

[thecrazyd]

The general consensus that I've read from pretty much every AV enthusiast that has bought both a Toshiba HDDVD unit and a blu ray unit is that the HDDVD content thus far looks superior.
... which is clearly not the fault of the medium.

[Reanimated]

Blu-ray drives universally support h.264 encoding. If it isn't being used it is because the studios releasing the movies have chosen not to.



Yes, I know, and MPEG4. HOWEVER, all of the movies released to date have been MPEG2, thus the quality difference in them and the VC1 & h.264 HDDVD releases.

[Reanimated]

actually, no thanks. ...I don't really care.



Oh, I see, only cared enough to post a hollow quip. Nice work.

[Red Cloak]

Wow this does NOT bode well for Sony. When it rains it floods.....

[rjcc]

The thing is, the fifth element is the only movie people are complaining about the PQ on. it seems to just be a bad transfer.

anyone who actually reads avsforum knows that. That said, most reviews are saing the samsung player is nice, in many ways nicer than the toshiba HD DVD player, but not $500 nicer.

[Reanimated]

... which is clearly not the fault of the medium.



The mediums are just discs. However, at this point, HDDVD releases are being encoded with superior compression schemes, while blu ray releases, for whatever reason (most likely the cost savings because VC1 and h.264 have higher licensing fees), are getting the archaic MPEG2 treatment. So, RIGHT NOW, HDDVD has the better looking content.

[Mason]

... which is clearly not the fault of the medium.
Unless there's a presently unknown reason why they're sticking with ancient old MPEG-2. We need more info here, because it doesn't make sense. I mean, how could they not have access to a h.264 codec? Is licensing a problem, perhaps when combined with the already high per-disc BR costs?

I agree that jumping to conclusions is premature here, but the truth is that until we get an explanation as to why the studio didn't choose to press the "make this movie look good" button, eyebrows can reasonably be raised a notch or two.

[rjcc]

Yes, I know, and MPEG4. HOWEVER, all of the movies released to date have been MPEG2, thus the quality difference in them and the VC1 & h.264 HDDVD releases.

Where are you getting this? I hope people are reading the thread and not your retarded comments, because the actual posters on avs forum aren't saying that at all.

[Reanimated]

Unless there's a presently unknown reason why they're sticking with ancient old MPEG-2. We need more info here, because it doesn't make sense. I mean, how could they not have access to a h.264 codec? Is licensing a problem, perhaps when combined with the already high per-disc BR costs?




They have support built in, but here's the thing - the licensing fees for h.264 and VC1 are higher. Not to mention the fact that VC1 is a Microsoft codec.

[Reanimated]

Where are you getting this? I hope people are reading the thread and not your retarded comments, because the actual posters on avs forum aren't saying that at all.



From the same board, and it's a known fact that all of the blu ray releases are MPEG2. Just ask them... or just continue making "retarded comments"...

[crashedout]

Having had HD cable for a while, there can be a world of difference depending on the quality of the transfer from and the type of the original medium. Furthermore if you were an early adopter of DVD's this is similar, it takes a while for them to get the quality right. Compare some of the older DVD's to the re-issues...they got a lot better.

Also not many HDTV's natively show 480p so you may have been comparing two signals that were being converted by your tv's native scaler. I have compared 480p HBO to 1080i HBO and on some movies it is amazing and others very similar. My theory is some stuff they get is just up-scaled while others is true HD. Grainy movies do not scale well or look all that great in HD.

[Captain Awesome]

http://img220.imageshack.us/img220/7772/doomed6902rk.jpg

[bapenguin]

HBO HD uses a highly compressed format for their HD. Not a good comparison.

Also...HD-DVD has been marred by horrble hardware issues (including a 1 minute "boot" time).

These things are a waste of time and money right now.

[Kamalot]

If studios are putting crappy versions of their movies on Bluray, it is going to be difficult to sell Bluray, especially at this stage in the game. Early adopters are usually better informed than the mass market. Early adopters will read reviews and find out that the Bluray movies don't look as good.

Who would pay $1000 for an HD movie player when the films don't look as good as HD-DVD at half the price?

[Reanimated]

Who says HBOHD is horribly compressed? I've heard that they put out the best HD quality movies of anyone.

[rjcc]

From the same board, and it's a known fact that all of the blu ray releases are MPEG2. Just ask them... or just continue making "retarded comments"...

You are a total moron. I never said the movies weren't mpeg-2 encoded. the problem is you have NO IDEA WHAT THAT MEANS. You're making assumptions off of things you've read and don't get.

Trying to quote things out of context is a serious bitch move. If you think that because aa movie is mpeg-2 encoded it will look worse, then you just don't understnad what you're talking about. the complaints about TFE have been isolated to that movie. You chose one review where someone said they had issues with terminator, while several others said it was the best high def they had ever seen.

Anyone who has actually read the many threads on AVS Forum can tell you are tlaking out of your ass. I'm not saying blu-ray is grea,t nor am I saying thep layer is worth it becuase I think it isn't. But that doesn't stop you from being no better than the village idiot.

[rjcc]

HBO HD uses a highly compressed format for their HD. Not a good comparison.

Also...HD-DVD has been marred by horrble hardware issues (including a 1 minute "boot" time).

These things are a waste of time and money right now.

Actually they don't, although they do sometimes crop films shown in weird aspect ratios. Now, your satellite or cable provider might horribly compress the signal, but HBO doesn't.

[Kamalot]

Also not many HDTV's natively show 480p so you may have been comparing two signals that were being converted by your tv's native scaler.There are two reviews here. Reanimated's 'review' takes place in 480p. The 'real' review is in the linked article and was reviewed on suitable equipment.


Please don't confuse the two.

[Reanimated]

If studios are putting crappy versions of their movies on Bluray, it is going to be difficult to sell Bluray, especially at this stage in the game. Early adopters are usually better informed than the mass market. Early adopters will read reviews and find out that the Bluray movies don't look as good.

Who would pay $1000 for an HD movie player when the films don't look as good as HD-DVD at half the price?




It kills me that they're using MPEG2 to save money, when they're selling these units for 1500 bucks and the movies for around 30. It's like the whole thing with leaving HDMI out of the PS3. It's a fleecing for anyone actually interested in the best picture quality.

[Kamalot]

Also...HD-DVD has been marred by horrble hardware issues (including a 1 minute "boot" time).

I could afford to wait a minute to boot for saving the $500 price difference between the HD-DVD and Bluray.

Which is worth more, waiting a minute before your movie starts, or sitting through your whole film with a worse picture?

Plus, when you eventually buy another HD-DVD player a few years from now the boot time will be gone and your movie will still look fantastic. Buy another Bluray player years from now and your movie will still be a poor quality.

With a new technology, I can't understand why the companies would do their damnedest to make the experience the best, especially when you are asking for 2X what the competition is asking...

[rjcc]

I'll tell you whats bad: Spending $500 or $1000 on a glorified DVD player and having a poor experience because the manufacturer has cut corners in many ways. tis the life of an early adopter however and the reason i'm not copping blu-ray or HD DVD for quite a while despite my addiction to HD content.

[Kamalot]

Also...HD-DVD has been marred by horrble hardware issues (including a 1 minute "boot" time).

Keep a jar next to your HD-DVD player. Every time you boot it up, but a $1 in there. If you watch 500 movies, you've covered the price difference.

I know I haven't watched 500 DVDs in my DVD player.

[mkelehan]

I don't think anyone here is in danger of buying a $1000 Blu-ray player at this point, when a $600 one is coming out in November that plays a few games on the side. And upconverts my PS1 games to 1080i. That'll be something.

[rjcc]

I don't think anyone here is in danger of buying a $1000 Blu-ray player at this point, when a $600 one is coming out in November that plays a few games on the side. And upconverts my PS1 games to 1080i. That'll be something.


There are serious questions about whether or not the PS3 will match up to the higher priced blu-ray players in terms of its quality.Whether it will or won't, we'll see at launch, but it's far from a sure thing, and not just because the original ps2's sucked ass as dvd players.

[Kamalot]

And upconverts my PS1 games to 1080i. That'll be something.Has that been confirmed?

Last I read the PS3 would not use software emulation but would instead contain the chipset of a slimline PS2. This means that PS1/2 games would play just like they do on the PS2 and not get any graphical update.

[Kamalot]

I don't think anyone here is in danger of buying a $1000 Blu-ray player at this point, when a $600 one is coming out in November that plays a few games on the side.
If Bluray movies are encoded poorly, playing them on a PS3 won't make them better. :( The whole fiasco is such a shame.

[rjcc]

Has that been confirmed?

Last I read the PS3 would not use software emulation but would instead contain the chipset of a slimline PS2. This means that PS1/2 games would play just like they do on the PS2 and not get any graphical update.

This is also not necessarily true. The PS3 could still then upconvert them prior to output, much the way the 360 does with PGR3. It's lame, but it still does what it said they would, and really doesn't make much difference. Without addng some AA the way the 360 does to xbox titles (I haven't heard anything about the ps3 doing that), the jaggies will just be horrible, ask anybody who played GT4 in 1080i.

[rjcc]

If Bluray movies are encoded poorly, playing them on a PS3 won't make them better. :( The whole fiasco is such a shame.

Are you going to link to the reviews of the Warner HD DVD movies that people have complained about horrible PQ and problems with the 1080p encoding on?

[Okamura_Takashi]

If Bluray movies are encoded poorly, playing them on a PS3 won't make them better. :( The whole fiasco is such a shame.

Yeah, the reason some movies suck is because the encoding was done poorly. There is nothing wrong with the MPEG2 codec and using it to encode high-definition content. In fact, it is the codec used for digital television (as far as I know).

Most studios don't spend the time optimizing the transfer because of the time it takes. They just whip it through a program and hope for the best.

[Reanimated]

If Bluray movies are encoded poorly, playing them on a PS3 won't make them better. :( The whole fiasco is such a shame.




Yeah, the whole MPEG2 thing is just ridiculous. I wonder when, if ever, they will start using better compression schemes?

[Wasson_]

Oh, I see, only cared enough to post a hollow quip. Nice work.

Sure, whatever.

My only point (if I even had one at all.) was not for everyone to get all worked up about what could be an isolated incident for something that isn't even really off the lauchpad yet.

I'm sure DVD was plauged with problems at first...quite nearly everything does. Big suprise? No. Therefor - I don't really care that much to go read a bunch of reviews other than the one presented to me here on the forum, espescially when I do not plan on owning any next generation media player until they become much more prolific. Thanks for bringing some info though.

[rjcc]

the early DVD players were HORRIBLE. much worse than the worst hd dvd stories so far, and there was no such thing as upgrading the firmware to fix them.

[overdrivechao]

Oh look. Another dumb thread about how much Sony is going to bite it. Reanimated, you really couldn't find a better use of your time, eh? And then pages of bickering... I think anyone who looks at your sig gets where you are coming from.

[overdrivechao]

Yeah, the whole MPEG2 thing is just ridiculous. I wonder when, if ever, they will start using better compression schemes?

WMV FTW, right? This whole thread reminds me of like 50 others in the last 2 months. Remember the whole "BR DVDs on display are actually DVD-R's!?!?!!" thread? This has been done. I, for one, am disappointed that sony has made it mandatory to utilize bluray... but if you want a format to stick, it seems like a good strategy.

[Darkman]

Thanks for the heads up Reanimated. Can keep my money firmly in my pocket for the time being. 2 points to bring up.

1. Original DVD's were crap. This is a blanket statement and is 99% acurate. Most if not all were NOT in animorphic widescreen and were quick and dirty copies of laser disc versions. We are also still dealing with this problem as Lucas doesn't want to take the time restoring the original trilogy to animorphic but just wants to use the laser disc transfer. Peope are crying foul! The new hi-def formats will also I am sure go through a bad phase till they start making more High Def versions then DVD versions.

2. Also comparing off HD Cable and DVD isn't quite a fair comparison. Movies say like "The Matrix" which I have seen both on DVD and HD Cable are from the same original source. When you upconvert you do get more resolution but it doesn't look much if any better. The only compairsons that are good for this in my experiece are the INHD and INHD2 series "Into the Max" which takes IMAX movies and plays them in HD. I own several of the DVD's which just look awesome but have been blown away by how much more detail was in the HD version then the DVD version. Thats because INHD spent the time to do these right instead of taking a old version and just upconverting it and calling it HD.

[Reanimated]

VC1 is good, but from what I have read, h.264 is the best.

[Goronmon]

What? New technology has problems in the first iteration of its devices? Thats unpossible! :O

[Kamalot]

Are you going to link to the reviews of the Warner HD DVD movies that people have complained about horrible PQ and problems with the 1080p encoding on?
AFAIK, 1st gen HD-DVD players don't support 1080p even though the HD-DVD discs support it. No wonder people have trouble with it.

[rjcc]

AFAIK, 1st gen HD-DVD players don't support 1080p. No wonder people have trouble with it.


That's because you don't know what you are talking about and haven't actually read anything on AVS forum.

Inverse telecine. look it up.

the discs are encoded in 1080p and if you have a 1080p display that deinterlaces properly, you should get 1080p24, not that that you have any fucking idea what that means or how you get that from 1080i60 that the Toshiba is putting out. The problem is some of Warner's HD DVD's are not encoded properly and this doesn't work. If you actually read any reviews there are other issues with the transfers on HD DVD discs, it's not all gravy like you suggest.

If you actually read anything, and/or knew anything, you wouldn't think that people on AVS forum think VC-1 looks better than MPEG-2 by default, so we already know you haven't done your home work.

[Kamalot]

That's because you don't know what you are talking about and haven't actually read anything on AVS forum.

Inverse telecine. look it up.

the discs are encoded in 1080p and if you have a 1080p display that deinterlaces properly, you should get 1080p24, not that that you have any fucking idea what that means or how you get that from 1080i60 that the Toshiba is putting out. The problem is some of Warner's HD DVD's are not encoded properly and this doesn't work. If you actually read any reviews there are other issues with the transfers on HD DVD discs, it's not all gravy like you suggest.

If you actually read anything, and/or knew anything, you wouldn't think that people on AVS forum think VC-1 looks better than MPEG-2 by default, so we already know you haven't done your home work.Thatks for your polite correction. I prefaced my post with an "AFAIK", which is usually understood as "As Far As I Know", which indicates I am not claiming to know everything.

You'll also see in my posts that I don't claim that one compression technique is better than another. You must have my posts confused with someone else's.

[rjcc]

this post title needs to be edited because it's false. anyone who actually reads through the threads on AVS forum can tell that.

[rjcc]

Thatks for your polite correction. I prefaced my post with an "AFAIK", which is usually understood as "As Far As I Know", which indicates I am not claiming to know everything.

You should be claiming to not know anything. You don't know anything about the players or the media on the market, and you don't know about the compression they use, yet you continue to offer your heavily biased opinion.

If you did want to know more, you'd go back to the threads you cited and become educated.

[Reanimated]

AVS:

1. The BD 5th Element as has been pointed out numerous times is only slightly better than an upconverted DVD disk. Sounds crazy, but true!

2. The Terminator is very good. I believe not as spectacular for PQ as COR or Serenity (HDDVD titles), but still awesome. The audio track on this sounds great. IMHO the PQ was very close to the best HD DVD I have seen. However, based on the two disks I have reviewed so far, HD DVD seems to have more colors or there is some processing that makes it have more of a 3-D effect. Again I am not a videophile, but a video pile so I'll look for more technical expertise elsewhere. OTOH, the more subdued colors make Terminator look more 'film-like' than even Serenity.

3. So far, my first impressions (which validates what I had assumed) are that HD DVD looks more refined in general. I am not sure if the color issue is player or format related. The same applies to audio. Since digital co-ax sounds the same for both formats, I am not sure if the analog difference is format or player related.


HD Digest review:

Okay, here it comes -- the big question. Does Blu-ray deliver the visual goods? Can it match, or even beat rival HD DVD? Of course this is just one title, my first title, so I can't judge the format unequivocally. And, unfortunately, again, I probably picked the wrong disc for my initial Blu-ray test drive, because quite simply 'The Fifth Element' is just not the best HD I've seen, either compared to HD DVD or even-over-the air HD broadcasts.

One final note. Unlike Toshiba's first-generation HD DVD players, the Samsung BD-P1000 is capable of outputting full 1080p (at 30 fps only) via its HDMI output. However, again, without the same title available on both Blu-ray and HD DVD, nor a 1080p-capable HD DVD player on the market, it is simply unfair to try and proclaim one format superior to the other. Until we can compare apples to apples, raw technical specs indicate that both formats should be able to deliver the same high level of video quality, at least when the playing field is level.

:rolleyes:

[Zeal]

LMAO Blu-ray uses MPEG2? Fucking over.

By the way, have you ever seen videos encoded in h.264 vs MPEG2? The jump in quality is is so extreme that it's not even arguable.

[Banacek]

I hope both formats die horrible deaths. You don't even have the masses convinced about HDTV, and you're pushing this shit. Good luck.

[Reanimated]

LMAO Blu-ray uses MPEG2? Fucking over.

By the way, have you ever seen videos encoded in h.264 vs MPEG2? The jump in quality is is so extreme that it's not even arguable.



I have, and I would agree.

[Kamalot]

You should be claiming to not know anything. You don't know anything about the players or the media on the market, and you don't know about the compression they use, yet you continue to offer your heavily biased opinion.
I do claim to know what I have read including statements like these. Unlike Toshiba's first-generation HD DVD players, the Samsung BD-P1000 is capable of outputting full 1080p (at 30 fps only)
I won't claim to know everything and I am happy to learn more from those willing to educate me without being assholes.

[Zeal]

I have, and I would agree.
The links in your signature have to be the funniest shit I've ever seen.

[Reanimated]

The links in your signature have to be the funniest shit I've ever seen.




Thanks, I do try. :o

[Johan]

This whole thread reminds me of like 50 others in the last 2 months. Remember the whole "BR DVDs on display are actually DVD-R's!?!?!!" thread? This has been done .

Most of the threads hypothesizing about the PS3 remind me of a quote from Macbeth; "A tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." This is all blah, blah, blah...nobody can say for sure until things have had a chance to shake out over time; until then, it's all white noise, no matter how many 'links' and 'testimonials' we get; only over the course of six months to a year will we know for sure about Bluray and/or the PS3, which is why early adopters are idiots, buying into unproven formats at entry-level prices.

I, for one, am disappointed that sony has made it mandatory to utilize bluray... but if you want a format to stick, it seems like a good strategy.

I agree...that's exactly why they're doing it this way, and it may well work (though they haven't had much success with driving their technological formats to victory in the past).

[Mr.Condescension]

It kills me that they're using MPEG2 to save money, when they're selling these units for 1500 bucks and the movies for around 30. It's like the whole thing with leaving HDMI out of the PS3. It's a fleecing for anyone actually interested in the best picture quality.

My understanding of mpeg-2 vs. h.264 vs. xvid, etc. etc. is that they are merely compression schemes for video. As in, an MPEG-2 can have the exact same quality as an h.264 clip of the same movie, but it's just larger. Seems to me it wouldn't matter what compression scheme they use as long as they have the disc space for the larger files.

That's my understanding, from watching alot of avi's, mkv's, etc. in divx, xvid, mpg, and h.264, etc. Seems like you can make the quality basically identical but h.264 makes a smaller file.

Does this jive with anyone else?

[rjcc]

mr. condecension, informed discussion of various compression formats is not allowed here, please take that elsewhere. Anyone who tells you"the jump in quality from mpeg-2 to h.264 is so great its laughable" has no fucking clue what they are talking about.

Our good friend reanimated is trying to make us as much of a fool as he is, by comparing a review with the blu-ray title with the worst pq (that has ntohing to do with mpeg-2) against the hd dvd titles with the best PQ.

[rjcc]

I do claim to know what I have read including statements like these.
I won't claim to know everything and I am happy to learn more from those willing to educate me without being assholes.

Yes, and I never said that the Toshiba player output 1080p. I said there were problems with the 1080p formatting on some Warner bros. releases. You can find more information on that in the hd dvd section in avs forum.

[Mr.Condescension]

mr. condecension, informed discussion of various compression formats is not allowed here, please take that elsewhere. Anyone who tells you"the jump in quality from mpeg-2 to h.264 is so great its laughable" has no fucking clue what they are talking about.

Our good friend reanimated is trying to make us as much of a fool as he is, by comparing a review with the blu-ray title with the worst pq (that has ntohing to do with mpeg-2) against the hd dvd titles with the best PQ.

I'll take this as a confirmation that I haven't gone totally insane about compression formats.

Here's the problem I have with the whole "MPEG-2 sucks" thing. MPEG-2 is bad at compression compared to H.264, sure. But why does that matter? It's a 20+ GB format. Why would they be compressing anything? Don't uncompressed h.264 videos and uncompressed MPEG-2 videos look exactly the same?

[Mike Jones]

I know i'm a troll but it raises my self esteem

I didn't even notice :D

[Reanimated]

I'll take this as a confirmation that I haven't gone totally insane about compression formats.

Here's the problem I have with the whole "MPEG-2 sucks" thing. MPEG-2 is bad at compression compared to H.264, sure. But why does that matter? It's a 20+ GB format. Why would they be compressing anything? Don't uncompressed h.264 videos and uncompressed MPEG-2 videos look exactly the same?



Depends on how the video was captured. Celluloid? Pure digital? How was it processed? There are a lot of things that go into video quality.

MPEG2, h.264, MPEG4, VC1, etc. are just different algorithms that compress videos by removing different bits. Now, obviously, nobody here was in on the development of these algorithms and therefore are not qualified to speak on how exactly they work. What I DO know is that h.264 is pretty much universally recognized as the superior scheme. Everything I hear from the AVS forums, to Patrick Norton, to IGNDVD says that it's unquestionably better. I mean obviously newer algorithms are going to be better. That's just how things work.

As for UNCOMPRESSED video? No, you'd need a lot more space for that. Maybe if HVD ever hits the consumer market - which I think it will and will end up being the TRUE next-gen format that replaces DVD. I see HDDVD and blu ray as holdover formats like laser disc and VCD.


There is some interesting info on digital cinematography here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_cinematography

http://www.iee.org/OnComms/Circuit/benefits/Editorials/Features/DigitalCinema.cfm

An uncompressed film captured at 1920x1080 (1080p) would take up over a terabyte uncompressed - that's 1000+ GB.

[Reanimated]

I ran out of intelligent things to say at post 2


Believe me, I DID notice.

[rjcc]

actually reanimated, your statementthat "newer is obviously better" isn't true at all.

the fact is there are many differences even within the various compression schemes themselves, and newer formats haven't been subject to nearly the tweaking that older ones have. The companies behind VC-1, h.264 etc. have previously made a lot of claims about what low bitrates they would be able to achieve without problems and it'sa already been shown that they can't achieve those claims without severe compression artifacts.

There's about a million more levels to it than your claims suggest. I'm not sure if you have money invested in toshiba, but thats the only clear explanation for being such a liar, since no single person could be so stupid.

What I DO know is that you're a complete fucking liar and that h.264 is not "universally" recognized as a "better" compression scheme.

[Reanimated]

No, I think we've already established that you're the complete fucking liar. I've provided plenty of evidence to back everything I've said here. You've provided nothing but your own fucking hot air, most of which was already proven false. You're utterly full of shit, and a complete fucking moron to boot.

[Mr.Condescension]

Tell us how you really feel.

[Reanimated]

Excellent rundown here of newly implemented specific h.264 features that make it superior:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264

[Qoz]

lol. Flashback!
I used to be a geek too for some years - studying weird "soon to be useless" hardware, numbers and facts on the internet. And then using them on the internet to bully poor people who weren't as "educated", so I could like myself a little more. Damn I was pathetic.

[Siraris]

It kills me that they're using MPEG2 to save money, when they're selling these units for 1500 bucks and the movies for around 30. It's like the whole thing with leaving HDMI out of the PS3. It's a fleecing for anyone actually interested in the best picture quality.

Actually, the reason they are not using H.264 or VC-1 is because the authoring tools for producing video to play back on the Blu-Ray players were not available in time for the first batch of video releases. They are not using MPEG2 to save money at all.

Oh and someone asked me to post something to rebute (since I still feel that you are posting utter drivel and it makes me laugh that someone who is not only a raving lunatic but also hates Sony as much as you do would be posting about Blu-Ray). Here you go, from real Blu-Ray owners!

I hooked it up to a Pioneer 4261 plasma, and threw in the sd-dvd version of Batman Begins. This DVD looked awesome upconverted, as good as I have seen a sd-dvd look on any HDTV. Right on par with the Toshiba, if not a little bit better. I have them stacked on top of eachother, so I will do some more direct comparisons when I have time.

Back to PQ, Terminator looks AMAZING. I can honestly say from what I have seen, this is as close to a film reproduction on home media as I have ever seen. No macroblocking, compression artifacts, nothing. I put House of Flying Daggers in next, and while it looks very good, Terminator was straight up amazing.

Ok, Boot time is about 5 seconds from Power Button on, to a Blue Samsung Screen.
With placings disc in drive, and hitting play, took 15 seconds to start Star Wars Episode 3...
DVD drive smooth as Silk....
Image looks on par with my Denon 2910... 1080i Upconvert...
I'm also using a Pionner Elite 50 Inch Plasma Monitor, via HDMI Output.....

Just received my Samsung. I have only played one SD disc so far (don't have any BD discs). My inital impression is good, the upconversion is excellent from what I've seen so far. I tested boot time by pressing the 'Open' button on the front with the player powered off and timed how long it took for the drawer to open (27 seconds), I then time from pushing the 'Close' button to when the first video began to play (25 seconds). This is not bad at all compared to my Tosh. A1 (open to drawer out time of 44 seconds).

For comparisons sake, my SD DVD player is a Krell Showcase which is a SUPERB DVD player, and at 480P it still beats the A1 upconverting, but my initial impression is the Sammy is slightly better than the Krell. Of course all of this is pretty much meaningless until I can get a BD disc in there.

[PopoWRX]

How does VC-1 compare to h.264? And does it matter which compression tool comes out the winner? Does there even need to be a winner?

Say what you will about the crappy ps2 dvd playback, but it did make an excellent backup player!

[rainbowblack]

b-but its a launch blu-ray

[IRONGUSTAV]

sorry folks but reanimated is a troll,he will put any article,( anything he cand find) just to bash aything sony related

remember,this is the same guy who thinks mgs4 grfx are mediocre,and now HD movies looks like dvds..sure dude..sure

[Kelegacy]

No, I think we've already established that you're the complete fucking liar. I've provided plenty of evidence to back everything I've said here. You've provided nothing but your own fucking hot air, most of which was already proven false. You're utterly full of shit, and a complete fucking moron to boot.

You are a pleasant person to read on these forums. You just now had one sentence that didn't have the word "fuck" in it. Maybe Reanimated is going soft?

[bapenguin]

I could afford to wait a minute to boot for saving the $500 price difference between the HD-DVD and Bluray.

Which is worth more, waiting a minute before your movie starts, or sitting through your whole film with a worse picture?


Neither. They are both a waste of money.

[bapenguin]

Who says HBOHD is horribly compressed? I've heard that they put out the best HD quality movies of anyone.

A lot of their stuff is merely upconverts of the DVD instead of remasters.

[rjcc]

You haven't provided evidence of anything, none of the links you have provided, actually state the conclusions you claim, you liar.

[KidCactus]

No difference between HD and DVD? A comparison (http://www.cornbread.org/FOTRCompare/index.html).

[antoniogaud]

Wow, there sure are a lot of people here with emotion invested into HD formats. Do you guys own stock in these companies?

For me, I'm just going with whatever format works. I doubt that even if BluRay 'wins' that the PS3 will be the hardware to get. It doesnt make sense to me that a $600 PS3 BluRay player could look as good as a comparably priced dedicated BluRay player.

One thing that has me swaying to HD-DVD is the DVD and HD-DVD hybrid discs. What does anyone know about those?

[HumpYourWay]

I watch HD feeds over satellite and must say depending on the final master of the movie there is a big difference to a 480p signal. Most people dont see it because either they should let their eyes get checked, have a TV that sucks in the first place or just lie because they cant afford a proper HDTV. The soccer world cup is transferred as a HD feed and man does it look better compared to a 480i signal.

But dont forget we are in a forum. Most folks here are bitter nerds who cant afford anything. So the common teno is of course that "HD sucks".

[Axiom]

Neither. They are both a waste of money.

I saw the HD-DVD and Blu-Ray players for sale at BB yesterday and the early adopter in me was really having a hard time leaving the store empty-handed until I finally realized I don't want any of these first generation players.

[Eran Hawke]

...for being such a liar, since no single person could be so stupid.

What I DO know is that you're a complete fucking liar...
Woah. Both you and reanimated make this forum a miserable place with your name-calling and insulting manner. It is impossible to have a rational discussion when you jump down the throat of anyone sensible, calling them fucking retarted. I hope you get hit with the ban-hammer for being an insult to all of Evil Avatar. :mad:

[rjcc]

So should I lie and say he's not lying? that would certainly be better.

[rjcc]

One thing that has me swaying to HD-DVD is the DVD and HD-DVD hybrid discs. What does anyone know about those?

the problem with those is they cost more than the regular DVD's and the regular HD DVDs (not combined, individually, it's 3-4 bucks more on amazon). not a whole lot of incentive to buy if you're not sure you're gonig to be getting hd dvd later, and if you've got hd dvd, you're paying extra for a dvd version you probably won't use.

plus, the size of the disc is a little less than a regular hd dvd. one of the movies released had a pretty bad pq which some said was overcompression, and one the most recent one, I believe firewall, the PQ is better, but all the extras are only on the DVD side of the disc. a little thing, but annoying.

[antoniogaud]

How is posting links to other people's opinions lying?

[antoniogaud]

the problem with those is they cost more than the regular DVD's and the regular HD DVDs (not combined, individually, it's 3-4 bucks more on amazon). not a whole lot of incentive to buy if you're not sure you're gonig to be getting hd dvd later, and if you've got hd dvd, you're paying extra for a dvd version you probably won't use.

plus, the size of the disc is a little less than a regular hd dvd. one of the movies released had a pretty bad pq which some said was overcompression, and one the most recent one, I believe firewall, the PQ is better, but all the extras are only on the DVD side of the disc. a little thing, but annoying.

This whole generation has me confused BIG TIME. Maybe I'll just stick to watching HD feeds on cable. They look niiiiice :)

[cjrizzo]

Please tell me that you do not rely on Consumer Reports to point out high tech equipment purchases! They are great for many things, but they never touch the high-end equipment and make recommendations that are for "average" fidelity equipment.

[Beelzebud]

rjcc has taught me one thing.

I don't give a shit about either player, because I don't want to have to become a pretentious know-it-all about HD formats.

I don't care about all the little details. When they work good, and I see a clear reason why they are better than my DVD collection, I might jump in.

But right now you seem to have to be a obsessive geek to even understand how the damn formats work.

[Reanimated]

Actually, the reason they are not using H.264 or VC-1 is because the authoring tools for producing video to play back on the Blu-Ray players were not available in time for the first batch of video releases. They are not using MPEG2 to save money at all.

Oh and someone asked me to post something to rebute (since I still feel that you are posting utter drivel and it makes me laugh that someone who is not only a raving lunatic but also hates Sony as much as you do would be posting about Blu-Ray). Here you go, from real Blu-Ray owners!





So, actually, nothing you posted says anything at all about how the image quality compared to HDDVD. Thanks for stopping by though.

And I suppose you have a link to back up your first claim?

[Reanimated]

You haven't provided evidence of anything, none of the links you have provided, actually state the conclusions you claim, you liar.


Actually everything I've posted here is backed up by the links I've provided. You on the other hand have totally failed to provide ANY evidence AT ALL to back up the pile of horse shit you're pedaling here. So, you see, in the REAL WORLD, this makes YOU the fucking liar, kid.

[rjcc]

How is posting links to other people's opinions lying?


actually read the links. the reviews are not nearly as uniform, nor do they reach the conclusions he is claiming they do. posting a link isn't lying, but intentionally misquoting it out of context is.

[rjcc]

Actually everything I've posted here is not backed up by the links I've provided.


fixed that for you.

[rjcc]

This whole generation has me confused BIG TIME. Maybe I'll just stick to watching HD feeds on cable. They look niiiiice :)

That's my plan, at least till mid -07 or so. I don't get a lot of compression problems over my cable, and I'm not the type of person who notices things like a cropped aspect ratio, so it doesn't bother me.

[Wyrm]

My friends and I make movies quite frequently and we've found the h.264 to be an unbelievable leap in quality over everything else. Now, we arent doing major motion pictures here, but speaking from experience, we bought a license to use it and we re-encoded all our stuff. It was freaking magical. The files all dropped to about a third of the original size AND they were 5x better quality than before. Unbelievable.

So, h.264 is definitely the way to go for all this stuff.

More on topic however, anyone who buys either 1) Any High definition video playing product, or 2) A PS3, is getting bent over a chair and fucked in the walet. My advice would be to wait on both until they are well within the bounds of reason. So, I'll probably be waiting until there's a PS4.

[Reanimated]

I'm full of shit.




We all know.

[Reanimated]

My friends and I make movies quite frequently and we've found the h.264 to be an unbelievable leap in quality over everything else. Now, we arent doing major motion pictures here, but speaking from experience, we bought a license to use it and we re-encoded all our stuff. It was freaking magical. The files all dropped to about a third of the original size AND they were 5x better quality than before. Unbelievable.

So, h.264 is definitely the way to go for all this stuff.




Yeah, Patrick Norton is constantly raving about it on the This Week In Tech podcast. He's a guy who's been on the cutting edge of video production for years, so I really trust his opinions.

[overdrivechao]

We all know.

Wow. I would be sure we even HAVE a Troll of the Year trophy before investing so much of your time fighting everyone in the community based pretty exclusively on your hatred of a company. Let me try... God damn ziplock shit! Yellow and blue will not make green!! Here's a link that obviously shows it's an off-green color shade, obviously NOT green! ZIPLOCK FTL!!

Back to topic, you are talking about compression schemes, and while MPEG2 is for sure less compressed that other newer formats, the visual quality of a high bitrate MPEG2 is equivalent to those formats. The whole "uncompressed video taking a terabite" thing was great and all, but MPEG2 is still a good compression scheme. H264 decoding also takes up a lot of resources, and complaining about the price point of the PS3 would be worse if they had to include a separate SPE for H264 decoding, wouldn't it?

[antoniogaud]

Since I got my new HD television I watch anything that is on HD, especially INHD1 and INHD2. I rarely, if ever, watch the normal stations anymore. My wife, not the biggest tech nerd in the world, is now also an HD junkie. She actually wanted me to buy an HD-DVD today when I showed her the comparison images between DVD and HD-DVD.

[absolut taco]

My friends and I make movies quite frequently and we've found the h.264 to be an unbelievable leap in quality over everything else. Now, we arent doing major motion pictures here, but speaking from experience, we bought a license to use it and we re-encoded all our stuff. It was freaking magical. The files all dropped to about a third of the original size AND they were 5x better quality than before. Unbelievable.
Awesome. I'm a bit of a video nut myself. When you say you bought a license for h.264, is that the same thing as buying QuickTime Pro 7 for $30 or is it something more expensive?

[Slack3r78]

Depends on how the video was captured. Celluloid? Pure digital? How was it processed? There are a lot of things that go into video quality.

MPEG2, h.264, MPEG4, VC1, etc. are just different algorithms that compress videos by removing different bits.
Correct so far.

Now, obvious, nobody here was in on the development of these algorithms and therefore are not qualified to speak on how exactly they work. What I DO know is that h.264 is pretty much universally recognized as the superior scheme. Everything I hear from the AVS forums, to Patrick Norton, to IGNDVD says that it's unquestionably better. I mean obviously newer algorithms are going to be better. That's just how things work.
You've left out a very, very important qualifier here. H.264 is a far superior codec than MPEG-2 when encoded at the same bitrate. I haven't read up enough on the subject to know what parity levels between MPEG-2 and H.264 are, but it's also my understanding that HD content will fit on current generation DVD technology (IE: 9GB) when encoded with an MP4 codec like H.264. Taking that and the fact that BRD has a 60% higher storage capacity than HD-DVD and 2.7-5.5 times (depending on whether you're using single or dual layer BRDs) the capacity of a DL DVD, and I don't believe you should have much trouble fitting HD content on a BRD encoded in MPEG-2.

The video codec itself doesn't magically make the video quality better - it makes it better at a given bitrate. If you've got enough capacity available to fit the 'inferior' codec at a higher bitrate on your storage medium, then as far as the viewer is concerned, there should be no real difference.

Keep in mind that most of the H.264 content you're likely to have seen before the introduction of high definition discs began life as MPEG-2 content ripped from DVD and reencoded to H.264. The huge deal that's been made about H.264 isn't the fact that it looks good, it's that it looks so good at such relatively low bitrates.

[Reanimated]

Back to topic, you are talking about compression schemes, and while MPEG2 is for sure less compressed that other newer formats, the visual quality of a high bitrate MPEG2 is equivalent to those formats. The whole "uncompressed video taking a terabite" thing was great and all, but MPEG2 is still a good compression scheme. H264 decoding also takes up a lot of resources, and complaining about the price point of the PS3 would be worse if they had to include a separate SPE for H264 decoding, wouldn't it?



I really don't know what the PS3 has to do with this samsung blu ray player review + the quality of MPEG2 blu ray titles that have been released thus far. We can talk about the relative quality of PS3 playback when it arrives. Why does everything have to be about PS3 with you people?

h.264 takes a lot of resources, ok, I'm not arguing that. So does VC1, because they both require more recources to decode. But, you know what? The HDDVDs that are currently out were encoded with those codecs. So are HDDVD players just more powerful? More powerful AND less than half the price? Does it have to do with disc size and the fact that all of the blu ray movies thus far have shipped on the 25GB version, whereas HDDVD titles are shipping on 30GB discs?

I think the bottom line is that, at least RIGHT NOW, HDDVD is clearly the superior format on the market. They have the larger capacity (for now), they're using the better codecs, they're cheaper, and, according to most of the early reviews, the visual quality is better.

[Reanimated]

Correct so far.


You've left out a very, very important qualifier here. H.264 is a far superior codec than MPEG-2 when encoded at the same bitrate. I haven't read up enough on the subject to know what parity levels between MPEG-2 and H.264 are, but it's also my understanding that HD content will fit on current generation DVD technology (IE: 9GB) when encoded with an MP4 codec like H.264. Taking that and the fact that BRD has a 60% higher storage capacity than HD-DVD and 2.7-5.5 times (depending on whether you're using single or dual layer BRDs) the capacity of a DL DVD, and I don't believe you should have much trouble fitting HD content on a BRD encoded in MPEG-2.

The video codec itself doesn't magically make the video quality better - it makes it better at a given bitrate. If you've got enough capacity available to fit the 'inferior' codec at a higher bitrate on your storage medium, then as far as the viewer is concerned, there should be no real difference.

Keep in mind that most of the H.264 content you're likely to have seen before the introduction of high definition discs began life as MPEG-2 content ripped from DVD and reencoded to H.264. The huge deal that's been made about H.264 isn't the fact that it looks good, it's that it looks so good at such relatively low bitrates.



Given the fact that HDDVDs are shipping on higher capacity discs right now (30 vs 25), I think it's save to assume that they're encoding at the higher bitrate, but no one here can say for certain. That WOULD, however, be another explanation for why HDDVD titles look better thus far.

[Johan]

Well, I've read through this whole thread (why the he** did I do that? I still don't know), and decided I have to slightly modify my previous post in it:

This is pretty much "A tale told by SEVERAL idiots, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." This is all blah, blah, blah

And, again, I reiterate that IMO, early adopters are idiots, buying into unproven formats at entry-level prices. Pay up, then bend over and be happy about it.

While some of the technical info in this thread is somewhat interesting, until it's been a while and the BluRay and HDDVD formats have some time to shake off early wobbles and struggles, nobody will know which one is better or, a different issue, which one wins (Betamax was/is technically superior, but VHS won widespread adoption, for example).

blah, blah, blah.....

[Reanimated]

blah, blah, blah.....




Thanks for the brilliant discussion contribution.

[anakin876]

so....what the heck is PQ? potentiality quotient? Pretty Queen? Point Quality? Is this some new acronym for the HD crowd?

[Reanimated]

picture quality

[Johan]

Thanks for the brilliant discussion contribution.

Trying to flame another poster here? Need another verbal battle to engage in? Dude...your vocabulary has been pockmarked with flame-age, cursing and stupid personal insults; you're not the only one, but get off the high horse and be civil!

And I stand by my opinion.

And, since this thread IS a waste of time...have fun ripping people in it! I'm outta this foolishness.

[Reanimated]

I'm just saying, man. If you're going to take the time to post, how about making a contribution?

"blah blah blah" doesn't exactly add to the discussion. All it does is add more wear and tear to my already beleaguered scroll wheel.

[Slack3r78]

Given the fact that HDDVDs are shipping on higher capacity discs right now (30 vs 25), I think it's save to assume that they're encoding at the higher bitrate, but no one here can say for certain. That WOULD, however, be another explanation for why HDDVD titles look better thus far.
That's certainly true as well. Really, my point was that I think the capacities are high enough that it doesn't really matter whether they're MPEG-2 or H.264 outside of a cost perspective where it might make the difference between a single or dual layer disc.

Even with a better compression scheme like H.264, you're eventually going to hit a point where you hit a ceiling where all increasing bitrate is going to effectively do is increase the size of the file. An example some of you might be familiar with is MP3. MP3 hits its point of diminishing returns somewhere between 160 and 192kbs. Once you cross that threshold you start seeing much smaller quality gains for your increase in needed space.

Again, whether that point is inside the capacity of high definition discs for H.264 relative to MPEG-2 is certainly up for debate, but again, going on the fact that my understanding is that high def content will fit on a DVD9 with H.264, it wouldn't particularly surprise me.

Basically, what I'm saying is that I'm far more willing to chalk this up to a matter of bad/rushed transfers than to any difference in the codecs being used. It's certainly possible, but at the capacities we're talking about, it shouldn't make that much difference.

[Neirin]

Beta Max 4 Lyfe

[nxmehta]

Correct so far.


You've left out a very, very important qualifier here. H.264 is a far superior codec than MPEG-2 when encoded at the same bitrate. I haven't read up enough on the subject to know what parity levels between MPEG-2 and H.264 are, but it's also my understanding that HD content will fit on current generation DVD technology (IE: 9GB) when encoded with an MP4 codec like H.264. Taking that and the fact that BRD has a 60% higher storage capacity than HD-DVD and 2.7-5.5 times (depending on whether you're using single or dual layer BRDs) the capacity of a DL DVD, and I don't believe you should have much trouble fitting HD content on a BRD encoded in MPEG-2.

The video codec itself doesn't magically make the video quality better - it makes it better at a given bitrate. If you've got enough capacity available to fit the 'inferior' codec at a higher bitrate on your storage medium, then as far as the viewer is concerned, there should be no real difference.

Keep in mind that most of the H.264 content you're likely to have seen before the introduction of high definition discs began life as MPEG-2 content ripped from DVD and reencoded to H.264. The huge deal that's been made about H.264 isn't the fact that it looks good, it's that it looks so good at such relatively low bitrates.

Finally we have a post that is actually trying to explain WTF is going on with the encoding difference between Blu-ray and HD-DVD, instead of spreading uncessary FUD.

Again, like Slack3r78 said, comparing the quality of MPEG-2 vs. MPEG-4 makes absolutely no sense unless you know what the bitrates are!. MPEG-2 is not a "bad" codec- it's a great codec and provides very high quality results, but takes more space. You are missing the point of MPEG-4: the point is not that it produces higher quality videos, the point is that it can produce nearly equal quality at much lower bitrates (typically around half). Now, single layer Blu-ray is 25GB, while dual layer HD-DVD is 30GB. So by using MPEG-4 on HD-DVD, Toshiba can eek out better quality in their alloted space. This could be what people are seeing in initial Blu-ray vs. HD-DVD movies. Chances are though, at these high capacities, the codecs aren't making as much of a difference as the transfers. However, if the codec difference turns out to be a serious problem, Sony always has the capability to start releasing more movies encoded with MPEG-4, which is what they were planning on doing in the future anyways.

Now, if you really want to read a discussion on AVSForum about MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 to understand what is going on instead of spreading FUD through quoting random posts (I'm looking at you, Reanimated): http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=631350

[Mr.Condescension]

No difference between HD and DVD? A comparison (http://www.cornbread.org/FOTRCompare/index.html).

I wonder why his HD downsampled files were all so much darker. There was more detail, sure, but what's wrong with his player? He could have at least tried to get them at the same brightness.

[Mr.Condescension]

One thing that has me swaying to HD-DVD is the DVD and HD-DVD hybrid discs. What does anyone know about those?

It's just a dual layer disc pressed with a DVD layer and an HD-DVD layer, if I recall correctly. Only downsides are that they're $10 more and you can't have as many extras because you lose an HD-DVD layer. This is all off the top of my head, so anyone can correct me if things have changed in the last couple months.

[kickmybum]

Actually they don't, although they do sometimes crop films shown in weird aspect ratios. Now, your satellite or cable provider might horribly compress the signal, but HBO doesn't.

From what I've read, cable HD is always dilluted somewhat. Only Satellite HD is "true" HD.

[Mr.Condescension]

So, h.264 is definitely the way to go for all this stuff.


I'm actually surprised with all the licensing fees that no one has adopted Xvid as a format. You can make a basically identical fine as h.264 with about 33% larger file size. It's not quite as good at working darks, and the size is a bit larger, but I think it's completely free, which is why alot of encoders still use it online. The licensing fees must not be that bad if they don't even allow a free codec.

[Slack3r78]

I'm actually surprised with all the licensing fees that no one has adopted Xvid as a format. You can make a basically identical fine as h.264 with about 33% larger file size. It's not quite as good at working darks, and the size is a bit larger, but I think it's completely free, which is why alot of encoders still use it online. The licensing fees must not be that bad if they don't even allow a free codec.
XViD honestly isn't as good as you seem to think it is. I've personally put 1.4GB XViD rips side by side with ~850MB H.264 rips and while XViD had matched it well resolution wise, color definition was much, much better with H.264 every time I've tried it.

That aside, I'm also fairly sure that XViD does, in fact, have some legal/IP issues that keep it from being entirely legit. The codec itself is free, but I believe there are some issues with it violating patents that would be a showstopper for it.

[Mr.Condescension]

h.264 takes a lot of resources, ok, I'm not arguing that. So does VC1, because they both require more recources to decode. But, you know what? The HDDVDs that are currently out were encoded with those codecs. So are HDDVD players just more powerful?

That's not it at all. All blu-ray players decode H.264 as well....it's mandatory in the Sony spec. Why the companies making blu-ray discs right now haven't decided to use it is anyone's guess. I don't think anything we've seen so far indicates that HD-DVD as a medium is better, or that the players are better. All we know is that some 3rd party companies' discs have worse PQ than others.

[Reanimated]

That's certainly true as well. Really, my point was that I think the capacities are high enough that it doesn't really matter whether they're MPEG-2 or H.264 outside of a cost perspective where it might make the difference between a single or dual layer disc.

Even with a better compression scheme like H.264, you're eventually going to hit a point where you hit a ceiling where all increasing bitrate is going to effectively do is increase the size of the file. An example some of you might be familiar with is MP3. MP3 hits its point of diminishing returns somewhere between 160 and 192kbs. Once you cross that threshold you start seeing much smaller quality gains for your increase in needed space.

Again, whether that point is inside the capacity of high definition discs for H.264 relative to MPEG-2 is certainly up for debate, but again, going on the fact that my understanding is that high def content will fit on a DVD9 with H.264, it wouldn't particularly surprise me.

Basically, what I'm saying is that I'm far more willing to chalk this up to a matter of bad/rushed transfers than to any difference in the codecs being used. It's certainly possible, but at the capacities we're talking about, it shouldn't make that much difference.




Well, from what I've read, the blu ray movies are only occupying 10GB of the discs right now anyway. So I guess the next question would be - why all the bad transfers compared to HDDVD? I mean something has to explain the quality difference. It's either the player, the codec, or the transfer. I certainly hope it's not these overpriced players.

I'm wondering when they're planning on putting movies on 50GB discs. I've read that they'll start this Fall, but with all the delays they've had so far, I really don't put much stock in that. I also wonder if some of these early players will have trouble with those discs.

HDDVD would seem to have the advantage at this point. Higher capacity discs, better looking content, and much cheaper hardware. I mean wasn't the whole argument for blu ray that they had the higher capacity? With that gone, what now is the differentiator?

Another thing I wonder is when the HDDVD guys will start shipping the tri-layer 45GB discs and whether or not their early players will have trouble reading those.

[Reanimated]

That's not it at all. All blu-ray players decode H.264 as well....it's mandatory in the Sony spec. Why the companies making blu-ray discs right now haven't decided to use it is anyone's guess. I don't think anything we've seen so far indicates that HD-DVD as a medium is better, or that the players are better. All we know is that some 3rd party companies' discs have worse PQ than others.



Yes, it's in the spec, but it could be a factor if the HDDVD hardware is more capable of decoding that content, and therefore capable of displaying a higher quality picture from material compressed with that codec. Maybe they're forcing MPEG2 coding because the PS3 will be better suited to decoding that stream?

Who knows, but the player hardware is very much a factor, and I don't think you're quite qualified to say it's not.

[Mr.Condescension]

XViD honestly isn't as good as you seem to think it is. I've personally put 1.4GB XViD rips side by side with ~850MB H.264 rips and while XViD had matched it well resolution wise, color definition was much, much better with H.264 every time I've tried it.

That aside, I'm also fairly sure that XViD does, in fact, have some legal/IP issues that keep it from being entirely legit. The codec itself is free, but I believe there are some issues with it violating patents that would be a showstopper for it.

Cool deal. I collect a ton of anime, so I'm familiar with the codecs and the file sizes they usually take up for good quality, but I've never had an uncompressed source to compare the different codecs to for things like color similarity.

[Mr.Condescension]

Another thing I wonder is when the HDDVD guys will start shipping the tri-layer 45GB discs and whether or not their early players will have trouble reading those.

I read recently that the 2x blu-ray players won't be able to read tri-layer discs, but I don't have a source handy. I assume HD-DVD will have a similar issue. It seems like 3 and 4 layer discs won't have much application outside of data storage for either format.

[Last of the Red Hot Mamas]

Maybe they're forcing MPEG2 coding because the PS3 will be better suited to decoding that stream?

Who are "they"? Sony doesn't control the spec, they're in no position to dictate what codecs studios can and can't use. They can use MPEG2 for their own titles but that doesn't mean they can force anyone else to -- Warner Bros. has already said they'll be using VC-1, for example. And while I have no idea what processor sits inside the Samsung player, I find it hard to believe the PS3 is less capable of decoding H.264 and VC-1 than the rather antiquated Pentium 4Ms being used by the current HD DVD players.

[Reanimated]

I read recently that the 2x blu-ray players won't be able to read tri-layer discs, but I don't have a source handy. I assume HD-DVD will have a similar issue. It seems like 3 and 4 layer discs won't have much application outside of data storage for either format.



I haven't even heard of a 3 layer blu ray disc. I've only seen them talking about 2 & 4 layer discs.

HDDVD is the only ones I've seen that have actually produced and are planning to use 3 layer discs. I don't have any idea whether or not the current HDDVD players have the ability to read 3 layer discs. I would assume yes, if they're planning to put content on 3 layer discs in the future. But who knows, there were some DVD early adopters that got screwed when their 1st gen players were unable to read dual-layer DVDs.

Is it confirmed that blu ray players will have no ability to read more than a dual-layer disc? That would kinda suck, since it would mean that we'll still see multiple disc releases for trilogies and TV shows. I was thinking that an advantage of blu ray being able to scale up to 100 GB discs might be that we'd see whole trilogies and TV seasons on a single disc.

[Reanimated]

Who are "they"? Sony doesn't control the spec, they're in no position to dictate what codecs studios can and can't use. They can use MPEG2 for their own titles but that doesn't mean they can force anyone else to -- Warner Bros. has already said they'll be using VC-1, for example. And while I have no idea what processor sits inside the Samsung player, I find it hard to believe the PS3 is less capable of decoding H.264 and VC-1 than the rather antiquated Pentium 4Ms being used by the current HD DVD players.



I don't know how it all works out on the hardware, but I do know that the stand alone blu ray players (as well as HDDVD) have 1GB of RAM.

[Last of the Red Hot Mamas]

The HD DVD people don't even have a finalized spec for triple-layer discs, so it's extremely unlikely the current-gen players will support them. Same with quad-layer Blu-ray discs.

[Siraris]

So, actually, nothing you posted says anything at all about how the image quality compared to HDDVD. Thanks for stopping by though.

And I suppose you have a link to back up your first claim?

Did you read any of the quotes I posted? Every single one commented on the PQ quality.

[Reanimated]

The HD DVD people don't even have a finalized spec for triple-layer discs, so it's extremely unlikely the current-gen players will support them. Same with quad-layer Blu-ray discs.




That's a bit disappointing. Seems like the rush to market is killing some advantages of moving to these new formats. Just another reason why DVD should continue to dominate until one of the holographic formats (or some other better format) is consumer market ready.

[Watership]

HBO HD uses a highly compressed format for their HD. Not a good comparison.

Also...HD-DVD has been marred by horrble hardware issues (including a 1 minute "boot" time).

These things are a waste of time and money right now.

I read that too. However, there was a firmware update to those first gen players, and most of those issues have been improved or resolved.

http://www.tacp.toshiba.com/hddvd/
under support.

[Siraris]

Who are "they"? Sony doesn't control the spec, they're in no position to dictate what codecs studios can and can't use. They can use MPEG2 for their own titles but that doesn't mean they can force anyone else to -- Warner Bros. has already said they'll be using VC-1, for example. And while I have no idea what processor sits inside the Samsung player, I find it hard to believe the PS3 is less capable of decoding H.264 and VC-1 than the rather antiquated Pentium 4Ms being used by the current HD DVD players.

Toshiba demonstrated that its Cell microprocessor, jointly developed with the Sony Group and IBM Corp., can simultaneously decode 48 SDTV format MPEG-2 streams. At the COOL Chips VIII event held in Yokohama from April 20 to 22, 2005, the company showed a film demonstrating the decoding process.

In the film, 48 MPEG-2 streams stored on a HDD were read, decoded and projected onto a 1,920 x 1,080 resolution display divided into 8 x 6 cells, each of which showed a different video in each cell. The company expects the technology to be used to display thumbnails for a video list. Of the eight synergistic processor elements (SPE) used in the Cell, six are used for decoding 48 MPEG-2 streams and one is used for scaling the screen. The remaining SPE can be used for a completely different processing function.

In the demonstration, Toshiba used an operating system environment it had developed to increase the efficiency of Cell software development. One of the environment's key features is that application software developers can program software without considering which threads will be allotted to each of the different SPEs, because the environment allows the automatically scheduling software to SPEs.

This was done in 2005. I can't find the article, but more recently they demonstrated a Cell and an Nvidia GPU doing 4000 streams (I believe) onto a 3D cube. I can't find the article for the life of me, but it was on Joystiq and a couple other sites I believe.

[KidCactus]

I wonder why his HD downsampled files were all so much darker. There was more detail, sure, but what's wrong with his player? He could have at least tried to get them at the same brightness.
I don't consider plain brightness that big of a factor when it comes to showing difference in picture quality. :)

[Mr.Condescension]

I don't consider plain brightness that big of a factor when it comes to showing difference in picture quality. :)

Nor do I, in particular. It just would have been easier to tell the differences if the picture were they same brightness/contrast.

[easi]

This thread boils down to:

1) reanimated finds something that appears to be anti-sony
2) reanimated submits it, because it's easier than starting a thread based on informed opinions concluded through actual research
3) reanimated proceeds to bombard the thread with out-of-context quotes by people who actually know what they're talking about
4) rjcc shows up and throws a spanner in the works by actually knowing what he's talking about
5) reanimated gets desperate and starts peppering his posts with the FUCK word and acting like a little bitch, realising his propaganda thread is turning into more of a discussion than a sony-bashing free-for-all

Take those links out of your sig if you want people to take you seriously.

[DigiWiz]

First adopters are stupid.

They pay 500% of what average joe will pay in just a year for a technology that has no content worth it.

Thank you, a progressive DVD player is close to 50 bucks these days, it's really funny to see people shell out up to 20x more $ for something that will take a few years (and several rounds of price reductions) to even get content worth it. What improvement could possibly justifying prices like this?

[Kelegacy]

Take those links out of your sig if you want people to take you seriously.

Nah. We still wouldn't.

[Zeal]

There is no logical justification to use MPEG2 over h.264 encoding. It's an inferior and outdated codec that requires more space with less picture quality. What people fail to realize is that the encoding format is far more important than the media itelf.

Therefore, using an inferior encoding for future media makes little sense.

This is a good read for people who want to quickly understand.
http://www.apple.com/quicktime/technologies/h264/

[Mr.Condescension]

First adopters are stupid.

Seems to me that early adopters either have alot of money and like to spend it or are hobbyists who enjoy the latest and greatest. Either way they seem to get alot of enjoyment out of playing with/owning the newest equipment. I don't see anything wrong with doing what you love, and it certainly isn't stupid.

There is no logical justification to use MPEG2 over h.264 encoding.

Well, let's not be overzealous, Zeal. :D

What you say is not entirely true. The cpu overhead for decoding h.264 is quite large compared to other codecs. That is a logical justification for not using h.264 for some tasks. Now, why they're not using it for blu-ray I can't say, but let's not make overly broad statements.

[Reanimated]

There is no logical justification to use MPEG2 over h.264 encoding. It's an inferior and outdated codec that requires more space with less picture quality. What people fail to realize is that the encoding format is far more important than the media itelf.

Therefore, using an inferior encoding for future media makes little sense.

This is a good read for people who want to quickly understand.
http://www.apple.com/quicktime/technologies/h264/




Yeah, I haven't seen any possible explanation for it yet. I'd be interested in hearing what the blu ray group has to say about it.

[Last of the Red Hot Mamas]

Officially, the decision to use MPEG2 was made by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, not the Blu-ray group or even Sony as a whole. SPHE's official explanation is that H.264 and VC-1 are relatively untested and they preferred to stick with a known quantity for the time being. The unofficial non-bullshit explanations are either a) encoding tools for the next-gen codecs weren't ready in time for the first wave of discs or b) SPHE has a bunch of existing HD MPEG2 masters they wanted to use without having to go back and do new masters for VC-1 or H.264 (which would be idiotic if true -- it's just plain stupid to store your HD masters using a lossy codec, be it MPEG2 or anything else -- but you shouldn't rule anything out with SPHE).

[Reanimated]

First adopters are stupid.

They pay 500% of what average joe will pay in just a year for a technology that has no content worth it.

Thank you, a progressive DVD player is close to 50 bucks these days, it's really funny to see people shell out up to 20x more $ for something that will take a few years (and several rounds of price reductions) to even get content worth it. What improvement could possibly justifying prices like this?




Well mabye blu ray adopters. I mean why buy a blu ray machine for 1000 dollars when you could get an HDDVD player for 500 and get better looking movies?

Doesn't make much sense.

[Reanimated]

Officially, the decision to use MPEG2 was made by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, not the Blu-ray group or even Sony as a whole. SPHE's official explanation is that H.264 and VC-1 are relatively untested and they preferred to stick with a known quantity for the time being. The unofficial non-bullshit explanations are either a) encoding tools for the next-gen codecs weren't ready in time for the first wave of discs or b) SPHE has a bunch of existing HD MPEG2 masters they wanted to use without having to go back and do new masters for VC-1 or H.264 (which would be idiotic if true -- it's just plain stupid to store your HD masters using a lossy codec, be it MPEG2 or anything else -- but you shouldn't rule anything out with SPHE).




Aption 'a' wouldn't seem to make much sense since HDDVD movies are encoded in VC1 and h.264. Maybe they don't have a good software decoder for their hardware (to include PS3) and want to hold off on using the newer codecs until they have better decoding ready?

Well, I mean, actually, we can rule out VC1 because MS owns it, so that would easily explain them refusing to use that.

[DigiWiz]

Well mabye blu ray adopters. I mean why buy a blu ray machine for 1000 dollars when you could get an HDDVD player for 500 and get better looking movies?

Doesn't make much sense.

No, I mean all first adopters.

If you are a first adopter you pay A LOT MORE for the first iteration of a product, which WILL have issues, be it Thompson DVD drives, be it overheating power supplies, be it the issues the first generation PS2s had.

First adopters are the test animals for the industry, who manages to make them think their dicks grow by buying cutting edge technology, when in fact they are buying not done technology.

[Reanimated]

HD DVD is a different format with a different toolset.



That's why I raise the possibility of it being a hardware issue with them not having proper decoder software running well on the hardware yet. However, that wouldn't make much sense to me unless it were specifically related to the PS3, because if current hardware had an issue, it would rule out them having quality playback of h.264 encoded titles in the future without a firmware upgrade.

[Reanimated]

No, I mean all first adopters.

If you are a first adopter you pay A LOT MORE for the first iteration of a product, which WILL have issues, be it Thompson DVD drives, be it overheating power supplies, be it the issues the first generation PS2s had.

First adopters are the test animals for the industry, who manages to make them think their dicks grow by buying cutting edge technology, when in fact they are buying not done technology.




Well I mostly agree, but personally I'll be picking up the 360 HDDVD add-on IF it comes in at less than 200 dollars and offers top-quality playback. The only reason I'm buying it is because I've been in the market for an upscaling DVD player anyway, and this would provide that functionality. So it's a wash, because I'd spend 200 on an Oppo upscaling player anyway. I don't intend to purchase more than just a handful of HDDVD titles though. Probably not more than 2 or 3.

[absolut taco]

First adopters are stupid.

They pay 500% of what average joe will pay in just a year for a technology that has no content worth it.

Thank you, a progressive DVD player is close to 50 bucks these days, it's really funny to see people shell out up to 20x more $ for something that will take a few years (and several rounds of price reductions) to even get content worth it. What improvement could possibly justifying prices like this?
Early adopters stupid? You should kiss their asses!
Without them, the technology will die and you won't be able to buy it for cheaper later.

[Zeal]

Well, let's not be overzealous, Zeal. :D

What you say is not entirely true. The cpu overhead for decoding h.264 is quite large compared to other codecs. That is a logical justification for not using h.264 for some tasks. Now, why they're not using it for blu-ray I can't say, but let's not make overly broad statements.
Sorry, but PS3 and Blu-ray players have processors fully capable of decoding h.264. I've even tested it on a 1GHz processor with 512mb RAM and there's no playback issues.

HD-DVD players also come fully ready to decode it, considering it has already been officially adopted as the industry standard for HD, including HDTV broadcasts.

So the future of all HD encoded media is now h.264 at 1080p/16:9.

So sexy...

[Last of the Red Hot Mamas]

Well mabye blu ray adopters. I mean why buy a blu ray machine for 1000 dollars when you could get an HDDVD player for 500 and get better looking movies?

HD DVD isn't exactly batting .1000. Several Warner Bros. titles have been made from 1080i60 masters and improperly converted to 1080p24, resulting in softness and motion artifacting not all that dissimilar from what we're hearing about these early Blu-ray titles (in fact, this may well be at least part of the problem here -- Sony has been doing HD transfers longer than any other studio so it's entirely possible some of their transfers were done before 24p became common). This is to say nothing of the current HD DVD players, which have a fair number of outstanding hardware issues (no 1080p output, no Dolby TrueHD output for more than two channels, DD+ tracks being converted to lossy DTS instead of lossless PCM for devices that can't handle a DD+ signal) that may or may not be addressed by future firmware upgrades.

Aption 'a' wouldn't seem to make much sense since HDDVD movies are encoded in VC1 and h.264.

HD DVD is a different format with a different toolset. I might be wrong, but I think the BD authoring tools are still in beta (or were in beta until very recently), so it's entirely possible H.264 and VC-1 support weren't ready for prime time.

As for the PS3 speculation, it comes down to this: if the PS3 can't decode VC-1 or H.264, the PS3 is not a BD-Video player and cannot be sold as such. That's all there is to it. It doesn't matter if every movie ever released on Blu-ray is encoded as MPEG2 -- the BD-Video spec (the absolute minimum requirements a BD-Video device must meet) mandates VC-1 and H.264 support, just like a PAL DVD player has to support MP2 audio even though hardly any titles use it.

[Reanimated]

Did you just repost your previous posts?

[Siraris]

...


HD DVD is a different format with a different toolset. I might be wrong, but I think the BD authoring tools are still in beta (or were in beta until very recently), so it's entirely possible H.264 and VC-1 support weren't ready for prime time.

As for the PS3 speculation, it comes down to this: if the PS3 can't decode VC-1 or H.264, the PS3 is not a BD-Video player and cannot be sold as such. That's all there is to it. It doesn't matter if every movie ever released on Blu-ray is encoded as MPEG2 -- the BD-Video spec (the absolute minimum requirements a BD-Video device must meet) mandates VC-1 and H.264 support, just like a PAL DVD player has to support MP2 audio even though hardly any titles use it.

I've heard that too. The only reason for MPEG2 for these first movies is that the authoring tools weren't ready for H.264 or VC-1. I believe the next generation of movies will be encoded in VC-1 or H.264.

And yes, the PS3 will be more than capable of decoding H.264. The Cell is known for its ability to cut through hi-def video like a knife through butter. I posted a video demo they did a few pages back, pretty incredible stuff.

[Slack3r78]

There is no logical justification to use MPEG2 over h.264 encoding. It's an inferior and outdated codec that requires more space with less picture quality. What people fail to realize is that the encoding format is far more important than the media itelf.

Therefore, using an inferior encoding for future media makes little sense.

This is a good read for people who want to quickly understand.
http://www.apple.com/quicktime/technologies/h264/
In the red corner we have a very new, immature codec with relatively little support amongst the various authoring tools that shows great promise for the future. In the blue corner, we have a decade old standard that is natively supported in every serious authoring tool available on the market with a higher bandwidth requirement. Both will fit on your brand spanking new high capacity optical drives.

Clearly, there is no logical justification for choosing option number two. Choosing a proven technology that is capable of performing the same task with a comparable level of quality is clearly insanity. :rolleyes:

[Zeal]

In the red corner we have a very new, immature codec with relatively little support amongst the various authoring tools that shows great promise for the future. In the blue corner, we have a decade old standard that is natively supported in every serious authoring tool available on the market with a higher bandwidth requirement. Both will fit on your brand spanking new high capacity optical drives.

Clearly, there is no logical justification for choosing option number two. Choosing a proven technology that is capable of performing the same task with a comparable level of quality is clearly insanity. :rolleyes:
Do you just not read or what.

You do realize that h.264 was created as the next-generation successor to MPEG2, right. Mandatory support in Blu-Ray, HD-DVD and HDTV are all confirmed.

Created by the people that gave us MPEG lol.

Idiot.

[Slack3r78]

Idiot? You'd seem to be one to talk at the moment.

MP4 codecs are certainly the successors to MPEG-2. H.264 is one of these. They are superior at the same bitrate. Every lossy codec has a point of diminishing returns. Everything I have read has suggested that H.264's point of diminishing returns is well within the bounds of both HD-DVD and BRD.

HD content encoded in MPEG-2 is apparently able to fit on a BRD without trouble. MPEG-2 would not have been in use for over a decade in professional use if it provided poor picture quality and could not adequately reproduce a given piece of footage.

Therefore, the decision between the use of MPEG-2 and MP4 is largely a matter of bandwidth. If both codecs will fit on the same medium at comparable quality levels, *THEN* the decision comes down to how comfortable you are with the available authoring tools.

If you tend to be more conservative, you'll choose the tested format that has been in use over a decade since it fits on your media all the same. In time, it makes sense to move to the newer standard, sure. But in the meantime, continuing to use a proven format does not in any way represent a choice with "no logical justification."

If you'd read my previous posts, you'd see my understanding of the technologies involved is a bit deeper than "OMG THIS IS NEWER LOL!!!! ^_^" If all you're interested in is "OMG THIS IS NEWER" good for you. It doesn't mean you understand the differences between the various codecs.

Or would you prefer to continue to speak out of your ass?

[Zeal]

You're right, it is a question of bandwith and that's why h.264 was chosen as the HD standard. It offers identical picture quality at lower bandwith, meaning the codec is more efficent. What does this mean? It means much smaller file sizes with additional space to add more features.

Example:

I just watched the HD-DVD version of The Last Samurai. The HD-DVD version of the film comes in at 2.3gigs, features a ton of extras, supports 1080p, DTS+ and additional extras. The DVD version comes in at over 8gigs and actually has inferior picture quality, inferior sound and no HD resolution.

I can say this because I own both.

Without actually testing the formats yourself, you're just typing.

And by the way, if you ever use an anime-related emoticon in a post relating to me again, I will ignore you without hesitation.

[Demo_Boy]

When did Ev Av get flooded with AV flameboys? Last time I checked it was mostly bitter old game developers taking shots at games and consoles.

Can we go back to that? And where's my free game of the week?

[Slack3r78]

You're right, it is a question of bandwith and that's why h.264 was chosen as the HD standard. It offers identical picture quality at lower bandwith, meaning the codec is more efficent. What does this mean? It means much smaller file sizes with additional space to add more features.

Example:

I just watched the HD-DVD version of The Last Samurai. The HD-DVD version of the film comes in at 2.3gigs, features a ton of extras, supports 1080p, DTS+ and additional extras. The DVD version comes in at over 8gigs and actually has inferior picture quality and no HD support. I can say this because I own both.

Without actually testing the formats yourself, you're just typing.
Read my previous posts. I have compared them side by side.

Does have a ton of empty space on a disc make you feel special? Because that's basically what you're arguing for. Someone else pointed out that none of the available BRDs (which are all encoded in MPEG-2) are really any bigger than 10GB. A single layer BRD is capable of 25GB of storage. That means you have a full 15GB of storage left over. At 2.3GB, you have 22.7GB of unused space on the disc.

Both formats fit on the same disc at comparable quality rates. All you're gaining at this point in time is unused space on the disc. Single layer BRD is 25GB. Period. Using any less than this does not save you any money whatsoever as the cost of a pressed disc is basically fixed, regardless of whether you're using 10% of the disc or 90% of the disc.

Have any other absurdities you'd care to go on about?

[Zeal]

At 2.3GB, you have 22.7GB of unused space on the disc.
Thank you for proving my point. Goodbye.

[Slack3r78]

Thank you for proving my point. Goodbye.
Do you really think you're going to use 23GB of space for extra features if the main feature only occupies less than 3GB? I've repeatedly pointed out that high def will easily fit on a current gen DL DVD with MP4 encoding. My point is MP2 vs MP4 is in no way indicative that HD DVD is in any way superior to BRD. Care to make an actual point?

Sorry, forgot. You're apparently master of the AV universe. GG. No re.

[Last of the Red Hot Mamas]

I just watched the HD-DVD version of The Last Samurai. The HD-DVD version of the film comes in at 2.3gigs, features a ton of extras, supports 1080p, DTS+ and additional extras. The DVD version comes in at over 8gigs and actually has inferior picture quality, inferior sound and no HD resolution.

2.3 GB? Did you accidentally insert a decimal point? I've read several reviews (like these (http://hddvd.highdefdigest.com/lastsamurai.html) two (http://hddvd.highdefdigest.com/lastsamurai.html)) stating that the Last Samurai HD DVD is a dual-layer disc, meaning it has to be at least 15 GB. And it's a minor point, but it isn't an H.264 disc -- every HD DVD released in the U.S. thus far uses VC-1 (some Japanese HD DVDs use H.264 and supposedly they don't look too hot). VC-1 is efficient, but it's not that efficient.

[Slack3r78]

2.3 GB? Did you accidentally insert a decimal point? I've read several reviews (like these (http://hddvd.highdefdigest.com/lastsamurai.html) two (http://hddvd.highdefdigest.com/lastsamurai.html)) stating that the Last Samurai HD DVD is a dual-layer disc, meaning it has to be at least 15 GB. And it's a minor point, but it isn't an H.264 disc -- every HD DVD released in the U.S. thus far uses VC-1 (some Japanese HD DVDs use H.264 and supposedly they don't look too hot). VC-1 is efficient, but it's not that efficient.
Hey, that's sort of what I figured, but apparently Zeal is hot shit tonight and none of us could hope to compete with his prowess. After all, coming into a 14 page thread that's included some intelligent discussion screaming "I'M RIGHT UR WRONG CUZ I SAY SO" makes him correct.

[Zeal]

2.3 GB? Did you accidentally insert a decimal point? I've read several reviews (like these (http://hddvd.highdefdigest.com/lastsamurai.html) two (http://hddvd.highdefdigest.com/lastsamurai.html)) stating that the Last Samurai HD DVD is a dual-layer disc, meaning it has to be at least 15 GB. And it's a minor point, but it isn't an H.264 disc -- every HD DVD released in the U.S. thus far uses VC-1 (some Japanese HD DVDs use H.264 and supposedly they don't look too hot). VC-1 is efficient, but it's not that efficient.
Just the film itself. Downloaded it off a newsgroup.

The extras are actually far larger than the film. Codec reads as h.264.

[Slack3r78]

Just the film itself. Downloaded it off a newsgroup.

The extras are actually far larger than the film. Codec reads as h.264.
Again, do you think the extras, even if they are 'far larger than the film' will consume an additional 23GB of space? Even the 10-15GB of space left over with MPEG-2 encoding is a *huge* amount of space to fill with extras.

[Zeal]

Again, do you think the extras, even if they are 'far larger than the film' will consume an additional 23GB of space? Even the 10-15GB of space left over with MPEG-2 encoding is a *huge* amount of space to fill with extras.
How the fuck does this dude keep missing the point? It's not the question of what you're going to do with the extra space, it's the fact that you have it. It's the efficiency of the codec.

h.264 allows identical picture at a much lower bitrate. It's simply newer and more efficient. It has been adopted as the new standard. These are all facts.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264

My arguement is that the codec is BETTER, which it is. That's it.

This ain't complex.

[Last of the Red Hot Mamas]

Just the film itself. Downloaded it off a newsgroup.

According to guys on the AVS group, the Last Samurai HD DVD weighs in at about 20GB for the main feature and another 7GB for the extras. It's also VC-1-encoded. Pretty sure what you've got there is an HD-rip.

[Zeal]

According to guys on the AVS group, the Last Samurai HD DVD weighs in at about 20GB for the main feature and another 7GB for the extras. It's also VC-1-encoded. Pretty sure what you've got there is an HD-rip.
Yeah, I actually believe it is a rip of the film reencoded with 264. It looks freaking fantastic.

Looked good enough to actually burn, and that's rare.

By the way, I love the AVS forum, so I have no idea why people slam it. I've been posting there for years.

Also, if this codec can preserve the quality of such a high bitrate at a much lower one, it's even more reason to see why it was chosen. I expect it to become the standard within the piracy scene, which we're already seeing.

Indistinguishable quality at under half the file sizes. Oh hell yeah...

[Slack3r78]

How the fuck does this dude keep missing the point? It's not the question of what you're going to do with the extra space, it's the fact that you have it. It's the efficiency of the codec.

h.264 allows identical picture at a much lower bitrate. It's simply newer and more efficient. It has been adopted as the new standard. These are all facts.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264

My arguement is that the codec is BETTER, which it is. That's it.

This ain't complex.
Where have I said anything other than that the H.264 codec is better at an equal bitrate? Seriously, point out any of my posts where I've said anything different. I'm simply saying the fact the H.264 is more efficient likely *does not matter* at this point in the game. Is that really this hard to understand?

[dragntyr]

Yeah I was wondering, just what the fuck does any of this have to do with videogames. Shit Reanimated, its as if you find any reason, no matter how obscure, or remotely related, to bash Sony and praise Microsoft. By no means am I going to buy a PS3, 600 bones is way to expensive for me, in fact I will probably buy a Wii. Moving on to the point though, why on earth are you so gay for Gates man?

[Dracula-X]

I think I can now sum up the thread nicely:

Reanimated likes to eat Johnny Cakes and Zeal thinks HD-DVD movies weigh in at a mere 2.3 gigs.

LOLOCAUST.

[Zeal]

Zeal thinks HD-DVD movies weigh in at a mere 2.3 gigs.
Really? That's news to me, considering I said it was a rip reencoded with h.264.

My only arguement in this thread was based on a codec, which I was right about.

PS- Sony suck.

[Siraris]

How the fuck does this dude keep missing the point? It's not the question of what you're going to do with the extra space, it's the fact that you have it. It's the efficiency of the codec.

h.264 allows identical picture at a much lower bitrate. It's simply newer and more efficient. It has been adopted as the new standard. These are all facts.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264

My arguement is that the codec is BETTER, which it is. That's it.

This ain't complex.

Zeal, you need to calm down. What Slacker is trying to say is that 23 gigs of additional space is unecessary. We know how good h.264 is, it's a fantastic codec, but what is the point of using it if you have all that extra space? All h.264 does is allow you to encode a movie so that it uses the same bit-rate, but has a much smaller file-size. H.264 doesn't increase the quality of the picture, it doesn't make it look better, it just allows for smaller media.

[Zeal]

What Slacker is trying to say is that 23 gigs of additional space is unecessary.

While I don't think it's unecessary, I do think it proves that Blu-ray has no benefits over HD-DVD. Once all the studios start encoding with this format, Blu-ray's so-called space advantage becomes irrelevant.

Do you people really want a Sony developed media to become the standard? I sure as heck don't.

I hope it goes the way of Betamax.

Matter of fact, I'd like to bypass both formats and just go straight to digital download.

[Siraris]

While I don't think it's unecessary, I do think it proves that Blu-ray has no benefits over HD-DVD. Once all the studios start encoding with this format, Blu-ray's so-called space advantage becomes irrelevant.

Do you people really want a Sony developed media to become the standard? I sure as heck don't.

I hope it goes the way of Betamax.

Matter of fact, I'd like to bypass both formats and just go straight to digital download.

I know you aren't trolling and that you actually have some of an idea of what you are talking about, but, saying things like "I hope it goes the way of Betamax" will not make anyone respect your views, so I'd consider not saying stuff like that.

I think that right now, Blu-Rays space advantage is irrelevant, just like HD-DVD's. I think that in a year or so, they don't be irrelevant, and that's the point. They are forward thinking media formats, and we are looking way too soon.

Down the line, whichever format survives will be used for more than just movies. I'd love to have a disc that holds 50 gigs of space so that I could do backups onto one disc. I'd love to have a format that could fit an entire season of a show onto 1 or 2 discs instead of 7 or 8 like we have now. I also think High-Definition video is the best thing since sliced bread, so anything that will give me 1080i/p quality videos on my TV is OK in my book.

[the1bullet]

This thread boils down to:

1) reanimated finds something that appears to be anti-sony
2) reanimated submits it, because it's easier than starting a thread based on informed opinions concluded through actual research
3) reanimated proceeds to bombard the thread with out-of-context quotes by people who actually know what they're talking about
4) rjcc shows up and throws a spanner in the works by actually knowing what he's talking about
5) reanimated gets desperate and starts peppering his posts with the FUCK word and acting like a little bitch, realising his propaganda thread is turning into more of a discussion than a sony-bashing free-for-all

Take those links out of your sig if you want people to take you seriously.

I read through this post because I got caught up in the drama, like a soap opera. I disagree with your summary here. I think reanimated posted a link to some information in good faith (with some glee, however, as it wasn't good news for Sony) and got some details wrong in the subsequent posts. Rather than civilly correcting him, a red hot poker was shoved up his butt and half the class turned into four-year-olds.

[DigiWiz]

Early adopters stupid? You should kiss their asses!
Without them, the technology will die and you won't be able to buy it for cheaper later.

That doesn't make them smart.

[KidCactus]

and Zeal thinks HD-DVD movies weigh in at a mere 2.3 gigs.

Really? That's news to me, considering I said it was a rip reencoded with h.264.

I just watched the HD-DVD version of The Last Samurai. The HD-DVD version of the film comes in at 2.3gigs
You pointed that our after people telling you it wasn't a HD-DVD release.

[Durandal-217]

You pointed that our after people telling you it wasn't a HD-DVD release.

Stop trying to intentionally stir an argument. The guy realized it was a rip, ok?


I watched VHD : Bloodlust encoded with H264 and the quality was beautiful. It was also a DVD encode and only 600MB. His point is well taken.

[KidCactus]

Stop trying to intentionally stir an argument. The guy realized it was a rip, ok?
Yes he did, but he acts like that was the case all along.

[KidCactus]

I watched VHD : Bloodlust encoded with H264 and the quality was beautiful. It was also a DVD encode and only 600MB. His point is well taken.
But what point are you making?

You watched a 600 MB DVD-rip, encoded with a H.264 codec? And it looked good? Ok, and you point is?

[Durandal-217]

See, now you're just attempting to troll. Nice double-post, jack ass.

The point is that it looked just as good as the DVD, while having a very small filesize. This means his claims about the codec were true and that's all he was saying.

I'm not even going to bother...influx of noobs.

[Slack3r78]

I think that right now, Blu-Rays space advantage is irrelevant, just like HD-DVD's. I think that in a year or so, they don't be irrelevant, and that's the point. They are forward thinking media formats, and we are looking way too soon.

Down the line, whichever format survives will be used for more than just movies. I'd love to have a disc that holds 50 gigs of space so that I could do backups onto one disc. I'd love to have a format that could fit an entire season of a show onto 1 or 2 discs instead of 7 or 8 like we have now. I also think High-Definition video is the best thing since sliced bread, so anything that will give me 1080i/p quality videos on my TV is OK in my book.
Bingo. Somebody gets it. This is about more than just movies, and there's a reason almost everyone in the IT sector is backing BluRay (excluding MS, who seems to be backing HD DVD simply to spite Sony). Wishing ill of a format simply because Sony developed it, when it's no more encumbered or proprietary than the alternative, is just childish and pointless.

Let me say it again, if you encode HD content with H.264, it appears it will generally fit on a current gen DVD9. This makes *BOTH* new formats very near unneeded if your only consideration is movies. This means that whether a movie is encoded in MPEG-2 or MP4 is nothing more than a simple cost benefit analysis, with Sony's movie division apparently leaning toward the more conservative option at this time.

Suggesting that the 60% per layer storage advantage of BRD over HD DVD makes no difference is myopic at best. I'm still not personally convinced that either format will really catch on before holographic media becomes commonplace, but given the choice, I'll certainly pick the media with better capacity.

So, to sum it up, I've yet to see an argument in this thread demonstrating BRD to be truly inferior to HD DVD outside of some childish and irrational distaste for the format simply because Sony had a hand in its development and promotion.

[Slack3r78]

See, now you're just attempting to troll. Nice double-post, jack ass.

The point is that it looked just as good as the DVD, while having a very small filesize. This means his claims about the codec were true and that's all he was saying.
I don't see how his comment was irrelevent. We know that H.264 looks good. Nobody has tried to debate such. What's been at issue is the fact that some people around here seem incapable of understanding that it's entirely possible for the "old, obsolete" MPEG-2 standard to look just as good given high enough bandwidth availability.

It's all well and fine that H.264's bandwidth requirements enable you guys to go pirate movies in less time than it used to take with DiVX/XViD, but with a physical media, it just plain doesn't matter so long as it'll fit on the disc. You get the same 25GB of storage capacity regardless of how much you use.

EDIT: Yes, I did double post. On purpose. Because if you're going to flame over something that stupid, you deserve to be annoyed.

[KidCactus]

Oh no, a double post!!!

Durandal-217: Do you often encode movies yourself, so you actually know what you're talking about? Even though you're being a complete ass, I'll try to reply.

I totally understand that you think that (animated) movie looked good, and I'm sure I'd think the same. But, I don't see how that's relevant in this discussion. No one has claimed that H.264 isn't a great codec, and that it doesn't deliver great quality with less bitrate/file size than MPEG2.

But again, with the amount of space available on both Blu-ray and HD-DVD, that doesn't really matter.

[Zeal]

The HVD reader currently costs approximately US$15,000, and a single disc currently costs approximately US$120, and by 2010, will cost about US$100. The market for this format is currently not the common consumer, but is instead for those with very large storage needs. Source is Wikipedia

There is no question that Holographic Versatile Disc is the future, but as you can see, it's a little TOO future.

Personally, I expect reliable, solid-state flash drives to replace optical discs as the storage medium of choice. They'll store terabytes of data, be cheap to manufacture, and have little or no moving parts.

Oh and to the cactus kid, grow up and take that shit back to the desert.

[KidCactus]

Oh and to the cactus kid, grow up and take that shit back to the desert.
Huh?

Was that post about HVD aimed at me?

[Slack3r78]

Source is Wikipedia

There is no question that Holographic Versatile Disc is the future, but as you can see, it's a little TOO future.
HVD definitely appears to be the future. Like I said, I'm just not sure there's a big enough gap between now and it becoming feasible from a cost perspective for HD-DVD/BRD to have a chance at a full adoption cycle.

DVD has been around for a decade now, and it really only started to see serious consumer adoption after it had been kicking around a good 4-6 years. We're certainly getting close to the point where people are chomping at the bit for higher capacities - many of my clients can no longer fit a backup of their PC on a single DVD anymore. I just really don't know if the current high capacity optical disc solutions have a large enough time frame to become accepted before HVD comes in and blows the doors off of them. In the meantime, however, more capacity is more capacity.

Personally, I expect reliable, solid-state flash drives to replace optical discs as the storage medium of choice. They'll store terabytes of data, be cheap to manufacture, and have little or no moving parts.
I wouldn't hold out too much hope for that. Dollar for dollar, optical media is still a much better proposition than solid state and I can't see that changing any time soon. Chip fab space is expensive and the higher you go with data densities, the lower your yield is going to be. While I'm impressed as hell that I was just able to buy a 2GB Sandisk flash drive for $65 a few weeks back, that's still a pretty poor value compared to a $0.35US DVD-R that holds 4.3GB in comparison.

[absolut taco]

That doesn't make them smart.
I didn't say they were smart. But the way you attacked them was fucking weak.

[51|RandoM]

Our good friend reanimated is trying to make us as much of a fool as he is, by comparing a review with the blu-ray title with the worst pq (that has ntohing to do with mpeg-2) against the hd dvd titles with the best PQ.

He'll be posting screenshots from both real soon. Oh wait, that is just for ps3 bashing.

Don't judge a new format by a first gen player.
Don't judge ANY format by viewing what is obviously a bad transfer.

I expect output from both formats to be nearly the same, if they have the same transfer---excluding any serious flaws in the individual players.

Think back to the release of DVD. Think about all of the shovelware titles that first came out. Yes, that is right, almost all of them got "enhanced" "special editions" later on, which were actually done the right way, instead of the quick and cheap way.

[Citizen Philip]

Reanimated! The professor called: The Time Machine is working again, we can now send you back to the 1700s to continue your job as the head Inquistor for the Spanish Inquistion. You'll have to drop this whole "the devil is in Sony" and go back to burning heretics who aren't Christian: or better, not Christian enough.

[Reanimated]

*yawn*

You sony viral marketers are all the same - when you have no argument, you simply resort to the "omg u am t3h suq" posts. Bravo, you've dazzled us all with your flood of contradicting information... oh wait... there isn't any. Well good work being viral marketers anyway. Funny how this post had ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with SCEI or the PS3, yet you twits flooded in here anyway firing up the Sony Automated Defense System.

The situation is what it is, so I'm afraid you're just going to have to get over it. HDDVD has visually superior content at this point. Regardless of what factors may or may not play a role in this issue, the fact remains that people who own both are, across the board, giving the nod to the visual quality of HDDVD. Not only that, but HDDVD is shipping the higher capacity discs right now. So, in essence, anyone that buys a blu ray player today is paying twice the price for an inferior product. Sad.

[Citizen Philip]

Sir! The Time Machine! You must hurry! Otherwise you will be trapped in the 2000s and won't be able to return to the grand empire and your glorious role!

[Reanimated]

Seriously guy, the 5th grade wit is getting you nowhere.

[Kelegacy]

*yawn*

You sony viral marketers are all the same - when you have no argument, you simply resort to the "omg u am t3h suq" posts. Bravo, you've dazzled us all with your flood of contradicting information... oh wait... there isn't any. Well good work being viral marketers anyway. Funny how this post had ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with SCEI or the PS3, yet you twits flooded in here anyway firing up the Sony Automated Defense System.



This thread bores me, but you are the biggest goddamn hypocrite these boards harbor.

when you have no argument, you simply resort to the "omg u am t3h suq" posts. Bravo, you've dazzled us all with your flood of contradicting information

Says the guy who generously sprinkles the words "fuck" and "retard" into most of his posts, especially when he has lost the upper hand and has no constructive argument or retort.

You sony viral marketers are all the same

Are Sony viralists that much different from what you do on these boards? Didn't you just give the "pot, meet kettle" slam to someone ELSE the other day? Come on.

Funny how this post had ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with SCEI or the PS3 You aren't that great an illusionist, Reanimated.

[Slack3r78]

*yawn*

You sony viral marketers are all the same - when you have no argument, you simply resort to the "omg u am t3h suq" posts. Bravo, you've dazzled us all with your flood of contradicting information... oh wait... there isn't any. Well good work being viral marketers anyway. Funny how this post had ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with SCEI or the PS3, yet you twits flooded in here anyway firing up the Sony Automated Defense System.

The situation is what it is, so I'm afraid you're just going to have to get over it. HDDVD has visually superior content at this point. Regardless of what factors may or may not play a role in this issue, the fact remains that people who own both are, across the board, giving the nod to the visual quality of HDDVD. Not only that, but HDDVD is shipping the higher capacity discs right now. So, in essence, anyone that buys a blu ray player today is paying twice the price for an inferior product. Sad.
Are you a complete paranoid? People that disagree with you are Sony viral marketers? You point to a single data that everyone says is suffering from poor picture quality and this is your 'proof' that BRD is somehow inferior? And when people call you on it you start accusing them of being in bed with Sony somehow? Seriously. Reality's calling. It'd be nice if you came back down.

[Reanimated]

This thread bores me, but you are the biggest goddamn hypocrite these boards harbor.



I'm guessing you mean aside from yourself - see below.



Says the guy who generously sprinkles the words "fuck" and "retard" into most of his posts, especially when he has lost the upper hand and has no constructive argument or retort.





Says the guy who does largely the same. Not to mention the pathetic coat tail haning you do when you have absolutely nothing of substance to say. Try getting an original thought. Oh wait, you've already proven that to be utterly impossible. Well, I'll go one better - remove yourself from the gene pool.





Are Sony viralists that much different from what you do on these boards? Didn't you just give the "pot, meet kettle" slam to someone ELSE the other day? Come on.




Yeah, wasn't it to you, Pot?





You aren't that great an illusionist, Reanimated.




Please explain what the quality of blu ray playback on a Samsung blu ray player has to do with SCEI or the PS3? I even said earlier in this thread that it wouldn't be wise to comment on the quality of PS3 playback until we see a PS3 producing a picture. Idiots like yourself are the ones that get it twisted in your little fanboy minds.

[dragntyr]

*yawn*

You sony viral marketers are all the same - when you have no argument, you simply resort to the "omg u am t3h suq" posts. Bravo, you've dazzled us all with your flood of contradicting information... oh wait... there isn't any. Well good work being viral marketers anyway. Funny how this post had ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with SCEI or the PS3, yet you twits flooded in here anyway firing up the Sony Automated Defense System.

The situation is what it is, so I'm afraid you're just going to have to get over it. HDDVD has visually superior content at this point. Regardless of what factors may or may not play a role in this issue, the fact remains that people who own both are, across the board, giving the nod to the visual quality of HDDVD. Not only that, but HDDVD is shipping the higher capacity discs right now. So, in essence, anyone that buys a blu ray player today is paying twice the price for an inferior product. Sad.

Then why is this on EvAv, this is a forum dedicated to VIDEO GAMES, shouldn't this be on digg or slashdot. As for everyone that disagrees with you being a PS3 viral marketer, I think you are the viral marketer.

[Jack B]

Are you JOKING me? One of the biggest Sony flamers on this messageboard is posting news about Blu-Ray? Please do some research Reanimated, you are posting incorrect information. Many people are saying that Samsungs Blu-Ray player is very good, but it's first gen and it needs some fixes. Reviews of Terminator on Blu-Ray have said that it's the best video the reviewers have ever seen on a home screen.

This is just propaganda from a troll. Can anyone take this down?

Siraris,

Calm down. Deep breaths.... :)

I love reading your posts, because you are so predictable.

Did you actually read the AVS Forums URL. I did. Interesting stuff. After 7 pages of comments, I came to the conclusion, that Reanimated couldn't have possibly written all that stuff, nor influenced any of those people. This was a legitimate news thread with URL's.

Go on www.avsforums.com and do battle with people who live for Hi-End Video like we do for games.

They are much more critical than the average consumer and they are very torn in the HD-DVD vs Blu-Ray debate. I know it's hard for you to believe intelligent people actually disagree with you, but Yep. It's true.

It's not just Reanimated... You panic everytime you see anything, that could be construed as anti-Sony.

Relax. I seriously doubt the mods on Evil Avatar are going to pull this thread. Deep breaths... :D

[Jack B]

Matter of fact, I'd like to bypass both formats and just go straight to digital download.

Zeal,

Yep, I thought i was the only one, that wanted to go straight to Digital download.

I get about 11 HD channels with Comcast and have an HD-DVR. I record a ton of HD movies and watch others live and a limited few I get from On-Demand.

I'm just waiting for the Netflix libraries via digital download and the old fashioned "going to a Blockbuster" or Netflix for that matter will be ancient history.

I believe Digital download will slow the adoption of both HD-DVD and BLU-Ray. Enough to doom the format war? Not sure, but it is an option for some that will get better every year.

I think about the Wii downloading overnight and think, him what about Cable box doing the same thing with HD movies and saving them to my 200gb Cable set top box hard drive or my 360 or my PS3 or my media PC?

Why do I need physical discs?

[Pumped'Up]

who give a shit. HD-DVD or BR - bring it on already sheesh. But I'm slightly on the wagon with Samsung on BR.

[Jack B]

All h.264 does is allow you to encode a movie so that it uses the same bit-rate, but has a much smaller file-size. H.264 doesn't increase the quality of the picture, it doesn't make it look better, it just allows for smaller media.

Siraris,

All video codecs are different. There are tons of them. I'm no expert, but I do know, that file size is not the only difference. Quality is as well.

Creating a code that made an incredibly small file size is the easy part. It's doing that while not sacrificing image quality, that is the trick. And you must factor in the processor power available as well.

If your codec requires lots of processing power it might only work on very high end hardware as more processor power allows you more options as well. The digital video codec of tomorrow might not run on the processors typically available today. That's why there have been so many changes over the years and it will continue for some time to come.

Like I said, I'm no expert, but video codecs have to trade off between file compression and file size.

That's video codec 101. Here's some basic stuff on Wikipedia on H.264/MPEG-4 AVC and Digital Video Codecs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264)

[Mr.Condescension]

Like I said, I'm no expert, but video codecs have to trade off between file compression and file size.

Yes. The main difference between h.264 is that it can maintain the same quality as mpeg-2 with smaller file sizes, exactly as Siraris, Slacker, etc. have been saying. There are of course minor differences in color and other processing features, but the main difference is the file size. It is a fact that an mpeg-2 encoded vid can look just as good as an h.264 one. It's merely a matter of sampling at a high enough bitrate.

[Siraris]

Siraris,

All video codecs are different. There are tons of them. I'm no expert, but I do know, that file size is not the only difference. Quality is as well.

Creating a code that made an incredibly small file size is the easy part. It's doing that while not sacrificing image quality, that is the trick. And you must factor in the processor power available as well.

If you're codec requires lots of processing power it might only work on very high end hardware as more processor power allows you more options as well. The digital video codec of tomorrow might not run on the processors typically available today. That's why there have been so many changes over the years and it will continue for some time to come.

Like I said, I'm no expert, but video codecs have to trade off between file compression and file size.

That's video codec 101. Here's some basic stuff on Wikipedia on H.264/MPEG-4 AVC and Digital Video Codecs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264)

I just noticed that you removed the "You're wrong!" part of your comment, I'm glad. I don't know every intricacy of H.264 or MPEG2 or any codec for that matter, but I'm pretty sure that there isn't any quality difference between an MPEG2 stream at a specific bitrate (let's use 10200 kbps) and a H.264 stream at a specific bitrate (10200 kbps).

H.264 is a super-set of MPEG2, which means it still relies on mpeg2 blocks, but it does some fancier stuff. I'm not certain if there is an exact mpeg2 stream in that, say, a DVD player could still decode at a lower quality. H.264 has a better picture quality for the number of bits. It compresses better than divx or xvid.

[Jack B]

I don't know every intricacy of H.264 or MPEG2 or any codec for that matter, but I'm pretty sure that there isn't any quality difference between an MPEG2 stream at a specific bitrate (let's use 10200 kbps) and a H.264 stream at a specific bitrate (10200 kbps).

Once again, I'm not well versed in this topic, but I understand some very high level basics of compression.

With bitmaps (every pixel has a value, not like 3d objects) compression trys to eliminate certain pixels or series of pixels and store them as an algorithm(s).

The decoding processor then reads the compression algorithm and rebuilds the image. The compression scheme looks for patterns and turns them into algorithms, that can be decoded and rebuilt on the fly.

The more processing power you have the more complex the algorithm's can be. Thus, the processor really does matter. Also, each compression scheme can be dramatically different behind the scenes. The end result may look very similar, but the math could be totally different.

That's why there are so many and they evolve so much. Also, some are better than others at solving different image types (problems...).

Here is the definition of bitrate from Wikipedia's digital multimedia bitrate definition (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bit_rate)

"In digital multimedia, bitrate is the number of bits used per unit of time to represent a continuous medium such as audio or video. It is quantified using the bit per second (bit/s) unit or some derivative such as Mbit/s."

As you can see the bitrate has little to do with a comparison of "quality" of one compression scheme over another. Just more of how many bits are being "transfered". All things being equal, more is typically better... Sort of.

I did some work on digital film recorders in the 80's and learned the basics.

If I remember correctly, you're juggling 3 things.

1. Trying to compress the image into a smaller size.
2. Trying to maintain some reasonable level of quality for your audience (ie it's generally accepted that your compression will degrade the quality of the source image). It doesn't have to but the trade off is worth it.
3. Building a algorithms, that your hardware has enough power to decompress on the fly.

You can make the image as small as you'd like, but your image quality will drop as you do. You can also create incredibly complex algorithm's, that would require a supercomputer to process, but who has a supercomputer... The faster processor's allow less degradation of the image and while still achieving a smaller size.

Thus in the end, it's a give and take and as the processor's get faster, you can change your algorithm's to take advantage.

The codecs get better all the time and they're all different. At least that's the way, I've always understood it.

This is why we won't need as much bandwidth in the future to transfer digital distribution of HD movies, because the setup boxes, PC's, Consoles, will have higher powered processors, that can decode more complex algorithm's on the fly, which will allow for more compressed images... Phew.

[overdrivechao]

Why does everything have to be about PS3 with you people?

Because the only reason you are even talking about this is because you pray for PS3's failure. I'm sorry, but your motives are a little transparent.

[Reanimated]

Dude, I don't have to pray for the PS3 to fail. At 600 dollars, that machine is a relative failure before it even hits the street.

[51|RandoM]

Look, it is the boy who cried wolf.

[Zechs01]

Dude, I don't have to pray for the PS3 to fail. At 600 dollars, that machine is a relative failure before it even hits the street.
Are your really that stupid? how can you make comments like that and not be thought of as an idiot *** fanboy?

[absolut taco]

Are your really that stupid? how can you make comments like that and not be thought of as an idiot *** fanboy?
"idiot *** fanboy" is actually his middle name, hence the comments like that.

[Zechs01]

Oo that explains it.

[Zeal]

FIVEEEEE-HUNDREDDD---AND-NINETYYYYY-NINE---US---
--DOLLARZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

[Zechs01]

Ya its $599 that doesnt mean its going to fail i mean playstation has a huge fan base so im sure people are just going to buy it because they really liked the PS2

[judesalmon]

I have read most of this thread and I can't believe some of the comments posted here.

The reviews cited are in no way indicitive of the quality of Blu-ray as a format, especially when you consider that technically, it's superior to HD-DVD. The only reason for the negative reception of certain discs is down to the transfer done by the studio, not the compression format, the discs or the players. Put the same Fifth Element transfer on HD-DVD and it will look identical to the BD version.

BD and HD-DVD are just storage media, so the quality is totally dependent on what people put on them.

[Kamalot]

Ya its $599 that doesnt mean its going to fail i mean playstation has a huge fan base so im sure people are just going to buy it because they really liked the PS2
I believe Nintendo had a HUGE fan base of people who enjoyed the NES and Super Nintendo. What happened to them?

A large fan base helps, but does not ensure a console generational win.