Sony Completes First Full-Length Blu-ray Disc

john writes "Sony Pictures Home Entertainment announced that authoring has been completed on the first Blu-ray Disc (BD) to contain a full-length, high-definition feature film. Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle was compressed and authored in MPEG 2 full high-definition (1920 x 1080) and is now being shipped to BD hardware companies for player testing."

Re:Why MPEG2

[beavis88]

FWIW, H.264 = MPEG4 Part 10. Different standards organizations, different names, same end result.

Re:1080p or 1080i

[dada21]

The Blu Ray video format specifies [wikipedia.org] the maximum read capability of 36 megabits/second. The encoding codec used will allow content creators to compress nearly any resolution as long as it won't surpass 36 megabits/second.

I'm guessing we'll see 1080i as that is compatible with almost every HD TV out there. The format [about.com] just specifies what video formats to use, it won't force anyone to stick to those resolutions.

Re:Who is telling the truth?

[el americano]

Among the problems they were claiming was that they could not yet be easily and cheaply mass produced, and that it still hasn't achieved its promised 40+ GB of storage outside of the lab.

A single-layer blue ray disc can fit 23-27GB. A dual-layer disc will be able to hold 46-54GB.

If they burned a single-layer disc, then this doesn't disprove anything, and if it's dual-layer, they should do a print run of a several thousand. This was just a stunt to try to change public perception. Good luck with that, Sony.

BD-ROM

[News for nerds]

The Blu Ray video format specifies the maximum read capability of 36 megabits/second. The encoding codec used will allow content creators to compress nearly any resolution as long as it won't surpass 36 megabits/second.

Actually it's inaccurate.
The transfer rate for BD-ROM video application is 54Mbps (1.5x speed) according to the official BD-ROM physical format whitepaper [blu-raydisc.com]:

3: Data rate
For high-definition movies a much higher data rate is needed than for standard definition.
With the BD format's choices for both NA and wavelength we have been able to realize a
format with 5X higher data rate while only doubling the rotation rate of DVD-ROM discs.
The following numbers offer a comparison:
Data bit length: 111.75 nm (25GB) (267 nm for DVD)
Linear velocity: 7.367 m/s (Movie application) (3.49 m/s for DVD).
User data transfer rate: 53.948 Mbit/s (Movie application) (10.08 Mbps for DVD)
The BD system has the potential for future higher speed drives.

Re:Is this better than 1080i?

[Anonymous Coward]

1080p/24 can be taken from 1080i/60 if the 1080i is originally sourced from 1080p 24frame material. The decoding processing is a lot more intensive than regular SD processing, but it is available.

Now that 1080i material is hitting us, I'll be the first to try 1080p conversion, but I don't have the ability to display it huge, yet. Even so, the technology will be below $5000 any day now, and I can't wait to see it!

24" 1920x1080 LCD monitor, doubling as 1-man TV: 800$ (ACER AL2416W)
Easynews and cable provides the rest (and I'm not even in the US, no HDTV broadcasts here)

The biggest problem is what do to with 1080i source content. I can't do 3:2 pulldown in real time (I don't think anything short of a HW decoder can), so I either have to recompress it (to MPEG2, XviD/MPEG4 is right out because of CPU playback reqs and I have an AMD64 3500+) or watch it in 1080i. Watching 24p movies that have been made into 30i as 30i isn't all that great, because the image fluctuates from very good to annoyingly interlaced. Native 30i is actually less annoying despite being less clear because it is consistent.

Also don't forget that 1080i content over TV is very compressed. A feature film is often 10-15GB (native MPEG2 TS) despite being 6x the pixels of a DVD. To achieve the same quality/pixel as a DVD, it should be ~8*6 = ~50GB large. If you add that to the fact that you have to transcode once to get a 1080p movie, I think it is quite safe to say that a native 1080p disc can look a lot better.

Re:Is this better than 1080i?

[pilardi]

There is a common misconception that there are only 2 HDTV formats (1080i and 720p) there are in fact 6 in the ATSC standard that vary by resolution and framerate:

720p24, 720p30, 720p60, 1080p24, 1080p30, 1080i60.

It is most likely that HD movies will be released in 1080p24, since the source material is 24fps (film). Encoding it at 60fps would be a waste of bandwidth.

See: http://www.hdtvprimer.com/ISSUES/what_is_ATSC.html [hdtvprimer.com]

DVDs are 480i, not 480p

[Phong]

This is a common misconception about DVDs. In actuality, all video DVDs contain interlaced fields, with no exceptions (I remember an old Usenet posting by Chad Fogg that explained why the MPEG 2's progressive-video flag was not supported). Thus, movies are stored as 480i @ 48 fields per second, and, for "normal" TVs, are translated into into 480i @ 60 fields per second for display. A progressive DVD player has to unify the fields for display, and while this is trivial to do for film, the resulting video does not have quite as high of a vertical resolution as true 480p video is capable of because the 480i video was filtered for interlaced display (this removes twitter on interlaced TVs -- e.g. a bright dot on a single line would flicker at 30 updates/sec, so that is not allowed to happen).

So, the difference between 480p@24 and 480i@48 is just a slight loss of vertical resolution (not to be confused with lines), but the difference is there.

Re:DVDs are 480i, not 480p

[DCstewieG]

Actually I think you're both right. Your progressive DVDs are in fact interlaced on the disc...you admitted this. When played on a normal, non-HDTV (or rather, a TV without component video and doesn't support progressive...I think there are non-HD sets that support it), it stays interlaced. It's only when the DVD player is set for progressive mode that it applies 3:2 pulldown, thus returning to a full-res 24p.

So basically, as far as the actual video data is concerned, everything is indeed interlaced. But the end result can be interlaced or progressive.

Re:Well, Blu-Ray is dead.

[Spodie!]

Sony has the largest catalog in Hollywood with the recent acquisition of MGM. BTW, the next Blu-ray disc is going to be House of Flying Daggers.

Re:DVDs are 480i, not 480p

[evilviper]

It's only when the DVD player is set for progressive mode that it applies 3:2 pulldown, thus returning to a full-res 24p.

So, you have absolutely everything the exact opposite of what it really is. Soft-telecined material is stored as 23.976fps progressive, with soft-telecine fields in the video. To play it back at 59.98Hz, the player must perform the 3:2 pulldown process. For progressive display, you just need to ignore those flags, you don't need to rebuild or reverse anything, since it is already a frame.

It's only in the case of hard-telecined material (uncommon on DVDs) that it's stored interlaced, and needs 2:3 pullup (inverse telecine) to be displayed progressive. Hard-telecined is what you get with TV broadcasts, since it need to be broadcast as interlaced fields. There it's really a set of 60 interlaced fields per second, and needs to be reversed for progressive-scan display.