HD DVD ... by a Nose

[pseudopseudo]

Ars Technica gives us the latest update in the format war. Now that the inital stages of the war are over, and there are a few titles released in both formats, fair comparisons are more easily made. And who's "in the lead"?

High-Def Digest was one of the first sites to take an in-depth look at Training Day, Rumor Has It..., and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. Their conclusion? The nod goes to HD DVD.
They go further in-depth (http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060801-7399.html) about the slight differences that give HD DVD the one-up so far, citing cropping problems as the main detractor from Blu Ray.

I thought it was an interesting read, and from the sounds of it, a fairly conducted "study".

[Wyrm]

I've been reading stuff as well, sounds like HD-DVD is the way to go.

[Reanimated]

This is the third site this week that I've seen give HDDVD the clear win for visuals.

I can't imagine what kind of an idiot goes out and drops a thousand dollars on a blu ray player with the knowledge that he's paying twice as much for an inferior product.

[fitbabits]

This is the third site this week that I've seen give HDDVD the clear win for visuals.

I can't imagine what kind of an idiot goes out and drops a thousand dollars on a blu ray player with the knowledge that he's paying twice as much for an inferior product.
But he/she should take solace in the fact that they're investing in the fyootyoor! :)

[DirtyChimp]

Its too bad Sony didn't opt to go for VC1 compression like HD DVD did. instead they went with the 10 year old MPEG2. No wonder HD DVD is doing better.

[KidCactus]

Its too bad Sony didn't opt to go for VC1 compression like HD DVD did. instead they went with the 10 year old MPEG2. No wonder HD DVD is doing better.
Blu-ray supports both H.264 and VC-1, but the movies released so far are using MPEG2.

[atariv8]

The only real difference between the two formats is access times and space(and of course production cost). Going with the Mpeg2 option is about the worst decision anyone could make. From what I understand they could compress H.264 or VC-1 with a higher bitrate for Blue Ray than they can with HD-DVD, so why hasn't anyone.

[drakkarim]

I'll care when I can buy a home player for under $50 and the movies cost the same price as DVD's do today.

although on the pc side, i would pay up to $100 for a recorder if the media prices are cheap enough.

i.e. a few years to go before i care about this 'war'.

[bapenguin]

I still can't believe BOTH formats take around 45 seconds to a minute for the movie to BEGIN playing.

blah

[Dag-Sabot]

It would be mildly interesting to see which side the -P-o-r-n- industry decides to back. Perhaps thyve already sent advisors to set up their missile silos in either or both camps! :D Its seems to me it was a factor in the last "war".
Ditto on me not really caring about the new player till its price dips below the ridiculous.

[Serapth]

I still can't believe BOTH formats take around 45 seconds to a minute for the movie to BEGIN playing.

blah


Well, atleast early players are basically PCs. One of them I know actually has a pentium of some form in it. I imagine over time that will improve.

That said, when I turn off ( with the plug ) my PVR, it probrably takes a good minute to get rebooted. I think we are just going to have to get used to this, atleast till the tech behind it evolves more.

[Skytram]

I'll care when I can buy a home player for under $50 and the movies cost the same price as DVD's do today.

although on the pc side, i would pay up to $100 for a recorder if the media prices are cheap enough.

i.e. a few years to go before i care about this 'war'.

Cheers to that. Last time I checked Blu-Ray media cost $20 a disc (for game publishers, at least). :eek:

[absolut taco]

Its too bad Sony didn't opt to go for VC1 compression like HD DVD did. instead they went with the 10 year old MPEG2. No wonder HD DVD is doing better.
Isn't VC1 a Microsoft creation or co-creation?

[Yeti2005]

Blu-ray supports both H.264 and VC-1, but the movies released so far are using MPEG2.

I realize this is true but why haven't the studios released Blu-Ray movies in VC-1 then? Why would a studio release one move in HD-DVD using VC-1 and the same movie in Blu-Ray using mpeg2? That doesn't make sense unless there's something wrong with the way Blu-Ray handles the VC-1 codex.

[Goronmon]

None of this matters at this point. IIRC, DVD was pretty bad to start out and wasn't popular at all. Well, we know how that ended up. I'm still in the "give it a year or so" mindset to see how the players/formats/prices to improve before judging which is the "winner".

[Reanimated]

But he/she should take solace in the fact that they're investing in the fyootyoor! :)



What is that? Is it like paying for potential?

[Zanzibar]

Blu-ray supports both H.264 and VC-1, but the movies released so far are using MPEG2.
/obvious_question: on
WHY??
/obvious_question: off

[XenonCJ]

I need a TV that supports HDMI 1.3 inputs before I get any of this other crap...

[atariv8]

taco, VC-1 is the Windows Media Codec. VC-1 is the name they gave it in order to make it an official video spec.

[jacktion]

I also don't care about either of these formats. I think the situation in the world is vastly different than when DVD hit. Going from VHS to DVD was really amazing. I don't think most people really remember (or else weren't alive) when that happened. Tapes sucked so bad. And DVD was so slick. These days people are just not going to spend 1000 dollars to see a slightly better looking movie. I certainly won't. I think my DVDs look great on my nice tv.
I am of the opinion that it was a huge mistake for Sony to tie its PS3 to the well-being of yet another proprietary format after so many previous ones did not perform well in the market. That is just my opinion and it is too early to know what will happen. Blueray might take off and bring Sony untold riches. Or it might tank and cost Sony billions of dollars.

What do you think will happen if HD-DVD becomes the primary format (which seems to be happening already) and Blueray goes the way of the betamax? Will it hurt the PS3? Will it not matter? I'm honestly asking.

[Beelzebud]

Ask your non-geek friends or co-workers if they even know what HD-DVD and BluRay is. Try it out. No one has heard of either of these formats, and the ones who have usually peg it spot on: BetaMax vs. VHS

Unless they give people a real reason to get excited about, or want this more expensive stuff, it's all doomed to failure.

[Siraris]

/obvious_question: on
WHY??
/obvious_question: off

Who cares if they are MPEG2 or H.264/VC-1? As long as it's encoded in MPEG2 at a high bit-rate, you won't notice the difference.

As for why, supposedly the authoring tools weren't ready for when Samsung launched their player, which is why Sony and Pioneer and everyone else delayed their players.

[atariv8]

I work all day long trying to make Mpeg2 look good for client DVDs using the highest end hardware encoder and of course at DVD bitrates it looks horrible. But I've also compressed Mpeg2 movies for playback off of hard drives with a more generous bitrate and it still looks like ass. I think the Mpeg codecs are lossy and terrible looking even at the Standard Def resolutions. The HD clips I've compressed using the free microsoft Windows Media encoder look pretty good. So I'd love to see a hardware encoded Windows Media or VC-1 file in person. I've also used the H.264 codec (software encode) and it looked nice too. The problem is that H.264 seemed to need fast hardware to decompress and play smoothly. We'll probably end up buying the newest Sonic hardware encoder for HD as soon as our clients start asking for it. Commercial and coporate work tend to go with the buzz formats sooner than the general public. I remeber doing a 16x9 DVD for mass delivery to low income inner city children about fitness years ago. I had to laugh because I was wondering who in the world would have a wide screen TV to view it on in this demographic (let alone the general public)but that's what the company wanted to do because they just learned about anamorphic widescreen DVDs. And everyone knows how much the general public likes letterbox.

Ultimately I have to agree with the who cares. We're talking about formats that require HDTVs to fully enjoy. Other than my clients, the mass public won't have a set until they're available at a grocery store for $150.

[Goronmon]

Its funny, I own a HDTV, mainly for my 360, and still, I'm not leaping at the chance to get HD-DVD or Blu-Ray. Until prices come down and a clear leader is established, I can deal without picking up either format. Heck, I'll prolly be getting HD cable or over-the-air broadcasts before I settle on fixed format player.

[Zanzibar]

Who cares if they are MPEG2 or H.264/VC-1? As long as it's encoded in MPEG2 at a high bit-rate, you won't notice the difference.

As for why, supposedly the authoring tools weren't ready for when Samsung launched their player, which is why Sony and Pioneer and everyone else delayed their players.

So, wait, were the 3 Blu-Ray versions they reviewed encoded in MPEG2 or VC-1? The guys who wrote the article said:
Occasional compression artifacts and brightness issues also led the site to crown HD DVD the winner. "In our first head-to-head comparison, we found the HD DVD to be superior," wrote Peter Bracke. "The unfortunate cropping of the Blu-ray image, coupled with more noticeable compression artifacts and an overall darker cast, can't compete with the more consistently pleasing presentation of the HD DVD."

Why release movies on a crappy compression technique if they're going to be inferior to the competition?

[F3nyx]

I still can't believe BOTH formats take around 45 seconds to a minute for the movie to BEGIN playing.

blahNot much worse than the minute of unskippable copyright warnings that most DVDs include. VHS quality sucked the big one, but sometimes I long for the days when I could RW/FF whenever I wanted.

[kickmybum]

Why release movies on a crappy compression technique if they're going to be inferior to the competition?

Because ALOT of people don't read reviews...

[atariv8]

It's probably cheaper to upgrade your old Standard Def Mpeg2 rig to a High Def one and most people don't see compression artifacts. I've stopped watching shows due to the high rate of compression on some digital cable channels and the other people in the room have no idea what I'm talking about.

[Eran Hawke]

I'd pay $100 for an HD-DVD player that plugs into my 360.

[cppcrusader]

It would be mildly interesting to see which side the -P-o-r-n- industry decides to back. Perhaps thyve already sent advisors to set up their missile silos in either or both camps! :D Its seems to me it was a factor in the last "war".
Ditto on me not really caring about the new player till its price dips below the ridiculous.

Last I heard Vivid was backing HD-DVD. Though I think remember hearing that Hustler was leaning toward Blu-ray.

[F3nyx]

Last I heard Vivid was backing HD-DVD. Though I think remember hearing that Hustler was leaning toward Blu-ray.Anything with "blue" (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/blue) in the title seems like a better choice for porn.

[Rafer]

Not much worse than the minute of unskippable copyright warnings that most DVDs include. VHS quality sucked the big one, but sometimes I long for the days when I could RW/FF whenever I wanted.

And WTF is up with that, video game don't have those lengthy copyright warnings, neither do music cds. Why are movies the only media that does that? And it's really bad in Canada where I have to sit through the English and French warnings.

Here's an idea, why not when you put in a disc, the movie starts playing, with maybe just a short notice like "Press Menu for extra features". It would be awesome not to have to wait for the menu at the beginning of each film.

[t3g]

Last I heard Vivid was backing HD-DVD. Though I think remember hearing that Hustler was leaning toward Blu-ray.
Someone has too much time on their hands. :-P

At this moment I am leaning towards HD-DVD but I won't think about buying one for many years.

[Metal]

HD-DVD is better. I refuse to play Sony's shove it down your throat game on my movie watching.

[Kamalot]

HD-DVD is better. I refuse to play Sony's shove it down your throat game on my movie watching.
Quoted for truth!

Edit: ...unless you LIKE Sony shoving it down your throat.

[Wolfgang]

If you really don't know anything about VC-1 compared to MPEG 2 then you should just STFU. You should care. It is a better compression that can fit more information into a smaller file size than MPEG2 while maintaining a better picture. That is reason enough to care...

VC-1 achieves clearly superior quality to MPEG-2 at comparable bit rates, and has been judged superior to H.264 in several independent studies.

Measuring the quality of a video codec is not easy, because the reconstructed image is not meant to be identical to the original. Ideally, only information that is perceptually irrelevant will be lost in the compression/decompression process, but what counts as "irrelevant" depends on the viewer's subjective response.

One useful objective metric is the peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) plotted against bit rate. PSNR is the ratio between the maximum value of a signal (255 for 8-bit video) and the quantization noise. A higher PSNR indicates a less noisy signal. For any codec, PSNR is expected to increase at higher bit rates, because higher bit rates translate to less aggressive compression. Thus, a graph that plots PSNR against bit rate shows the performance of the codec over a range of compression settings.

In Microsoft's own internal tests, VC-1 performs 2 to 3 times better than MPEG-2. In other words, to achieve a given PSNR, MPEG-2 requires a bit rate up to 3 times higher than VC-1. These results were measured using both low-motion and high-motion video sequences. Microsoft also compared VC-1 with H.264 and found that both codecs have comparable performance when PSNR is plotted against bit rate.

The final arbiter of codec quality is the subjective appearance of the decoded video. In subjective tests, the perceived quality of VC-1 equals or exceeds that of H.264. The DVD Forum conducted tests in the winter of 2002 to select codecs for the next-generation red-laser HD-DVD. Viewers from Hollywood film studios and major consumer electronics companies rated video clips on a scale of 1 to 5 for resolution, noise, and overall impression. Multiple codecs were tested, including MPEG-2, VC-1, H.264, and MPEG-4 Advanced Simple Profile. The baselines against which the codecs were compared were D5 masters and D-VHS (24 Mbps). During the tests, viewers were not told which codec was used to encode each of the clips.

On all three measures (resolution, noise, and overall impression), the quality of VC-1 was judged closest to the original D5 master. By comparison, the H.264 codec was rated as comparable only to MPEG-2 on two of the three measures (resolution and overall impression), and was rated somewhat worse than VC-1 on noise.

VC-1 has performed well in other independent subjective quality tests:
DV Magazine found VC-1 to be superior to both MPEG-2 and MPEG-4.
TANDBERG Television found VC-1 produces significantly better quality than MPEG-2 and comparable quality to H.264. These results were presented at the 2003 International Broadcasting Convention (IBC).
C'T Magazine, Germany's premiere audio-video magazine, compared various codecs, including VC-1, H.264, and MPEG-2, and selected VC-1 as producing the best subjective and objective quality for high-definition (HD) video.
The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) found VC-1 had the most consistent quality in tests that compared VC-1, RealMedia V9, the Envivio MPEG-4 encoder, and the Apple MPEG-4 encoder.

Source: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/howto/articles/vc1techoverview.aspx#VC1ComparedtoOtherCodecs

[Wolfgang]

Also listen to this Podcast by Major Nelson if you really care about HD vs Blu-Ray. It is slightly bias for MS, but they have the data to back up what they say.

VC-1 is the standard compression for HD-DVD, MPEG2 is the Standard for Blu-Ray that is why even when the studio releases it in both formats, they use different compressions.

Source: http://www.majornelson.com/archive/2006/07/16/Show-183-The-one-about-HD-DVD.aspx

[Magnanimous Gnome]

I really don't care about either of these formats. They both seem pointless to me. I'll stick with DVD until something truly better comes along - ie not DVD 2.

[cppcrusader]

Someone has too much time on their hands. :-P

Not really. That was information that had been introduced in past threads on EvAv. I can't explain my ability to retain useless obscure information.

[BrainDrain]

Its funny, I own a HDTV, mainly for my 360, and still, I'm not leaping at the chance to get HD-DVD or Blu-Ray. Until prices come down and a clear leader is established, I can deal without picking up either format. Heck, I'll prolly be getting HD cable or over-the-air broadcasts before I settle on fixed format player.

Agreed! I've had my new HDTV since November last year and still have not gotten HD cable for it. I'm a bit lazy to do that, but it's used mainly for 360 gaming. I couldn't give a rat's ass about a new movie format, especially when there are two coming out.

[Kamalot]

Agreed! I've had my new HDTV since November last year and still have not gotten HD cable for it. I'm a bit lazy to do that, but it's used mainly for 360 gaming. I couldn't give a rat's ass about a new movie format, especially when there are two coming out.
Agreed.
I've got my game systems hooked to my HD projector but no TV signal. I used to have OTA HDTV running but found I watched it so little, it wasn't worth it. If I'm not playing games, what's the point?

[Chameleo]

i still havent bought a legitimate DVD.

dont have to deal with copyright warnings when you pirate everything you watch.... - and then TV out your pc to your TV.

[Manzy]

Lolz, put up a flame shield.

[Azrikam]

People have already touched on my opinion. HD-DVD and Blu-Ray are technologies that are being "pushed" to consumers. Nobody--save maybe hi-end technophiles--is actually asking for a new generation of DVDs. Most people are satisfied with what they have. Sure, the studios are going to push for them, because they have brand spanking new (read: not hacked yet) DRM, which won't do anything, but will enable a few businessmen to hack up some bad statistics about how much this technology will save their shareholders from evil movie pirates.

There's a reason SACD and DVDA formats are niche. CDs are fine for 95% of the market. Same goes for DVDs, in my opinion.

The next-gen DVD war means nothing to me, save how it will affect PS3 and 360 sales. But I honestly don't think people are buying a PS3 to save money on a Blu-ray player. Everyone knows that the PS2 and XBox were shitty DVD players. (even compared to cheap standalone DVD players) Why are people expecting HD-DVD and Blu-Ray playing on game systems to be any better? I think people are actually using this to justify purchasing a PS3, in the same way people justified buying XBox and PS2. ("But honey, if we buy this game system, we can watch your copy of Fried Green Tomatoes every night!")

You can write your own joke about the similarities between Technophiles and Necrophiles.

[Jack B]

It would be mildly interesting to see which side the -P-o-r-n- industry decides to back. Perhaps thyve already sent advisors to set up their missile silos in either or both camps! :D Its seems to me it was a factor in the last "war".
Ditto on me not really caring about the new player till its price dips below the ridiculous.

Not that I would know, but don't people just email and download porn these days?

My friends say they just download it. What do your friends say they do? :D

[Jack B]

Agreed! I've had my new HDTV since November last year and still have not gotten HD cable for it. I'm a bit lazy to do that, but it's used mainly for 360 gaming. I couldn't give a rat's ass about a new movie format, especially when there are two coming out.

WOW! Now, it's certainly your call to get a cable or not, but to me that's like owning a 911 Turbo Carerra for 8 months and never shifting past 2nd gear... :) I think they are about $30 now for the cheaper ones.

I've got to believe you will be floored by the different in quality you'll get out of your HDTV. The 360 comes with HD component cables, so I'm not sure if you mean you don't have an HD cable for your TV watching on cable etc, or that you haven't hooked up your 360 via the component cables. I expect it's TV.

It's interesting though to note the difference in HD quality. A good example is with Chromehounds that have all of these damage indicators for Cockpit, armor, generator ect. I can read all the words below each bar, but I was online with someone who had HD and couldn't. I would certainly imagine anyone using 480i couldn't read the words, but I would have expected a newer HDTV would be able too.

Hopefully, you'll see a massive upgrade in quality when you connect via the component cables for your TV or Cable box. If you get an HD signal, depending on the channel it's a beautiful thing. Good luck! :)

[Jack B]

I work all day long trying to make Mpeg2 look good for client DVDs using the highest end hardware encoder and of course at DVD bitrates it looks horrible. But I've also compressed Mpeg2 movies for playback off of hard drives with a more generous bitrate and it still looks like ass. I think the Mpeg codecs are lossy and terrible looking even at the Standard Def resolutions. The HD clips I've compressed using the free microsoft Windows Media encoder look pretty good. So I'd love to see a hardware encoded Windows Media or VC-1 file in person. I've also used the H.264 codec (software encode) and it looked nice too. The problem is that H.264 seemed to need fast hardware to decompress and play smoothly. We'll probably end up buying the newest Sonic hardware encoder for HD as soon as our clients start asking for it. Commercial and coporate work tend to go with the buzz formats sooner than the general public. I remeber doing a 16x9 DVD for mass delivery to low income inner city children about fitness years ago. I had to laugh because I was wondering who in the world would have a wide screen TV to view it on in this demographic (let alone the general public)but that's what the company wanted to do because they just learned about anamorphic widescreen DVDs. And everyone knows how much the general public likes letterbox.

Ultimately I have to agree with the who cares. We're talking about formats that require HDTVs to fully enjoy. Other than my clients, the mass public won't have a set until they're available at a grocery store for $150.

I'd bet you're dead on.

I'm no expert, but I've always understand the algorhythms used in compression schemes are all different. A higher bit rate will give you a better picture using the same compression scheme, but each one will give you a different picture, because they use different algorhythms to both compress and then uncompress. All compression algorhythms are designed for a certain amount of processing power. Given a developer more processor power and he/she will change their algorhythm to compress even further. This is why as processing power gets greater, we'll have better compression which will help our ever increasing internet bandwidth deliver better and better streamed or downloaded images. It's a race on 3 fronts. Processing power, internet bandwidth and compression schemes.

Example: 2 identical file sizes for the same compressed images will look different on each of the different compression methods. In fact, the image type even matters, since each compression scheme is trying to be smarter about compressing and uncompressing images, so they may be good with one frame of an image and not as good with another because of the way the pixels are laid out for a given frame.

Anyway, that's about as much as I know about compression. :)