Blu-ray vs. HD DVD Round Two 218
An anonymous reader writes "A second set of four movies are now available on both high-def disc formats, allowing for another set of head-to-head comparisons — and unlike last month's first round comparisons, Blu-ray fared much better this time. In fact, in comparing Warner's four latest Blu-ray disc releases ('Firewall,' 'Lethal Weapon,' 'Blazing Saddles' and 'Full Metal Jacket') to their HD DVD predecessors, High-Def Digest found three of the four titles to be more or less at picture quality parity. The key difference between these titles and Warner's Blu-ray launch titles last month? On all three of the titles receiving high marks, Warner switched from using the MPEG-2 compression codec to VC-1, which the studio has been using from the start on its counterpart HD DVD releases."
Picture quality (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Still waiting for HVD (Score:3, Informative)
Music CDs aren't a good comparison. First, CD quality encoding is high enough that I've only met one, maybe two people who can tell the difference between it and any higher quality of music. Both of the two I know had very good hearing above 20khz. That's why the wav format it uses hasn't been replaced yet. As to the medium of the CD itself. For music at that quality, you don't need anything more for 99.99% of the market. The standard album length is 45 minutes. A music CD will hold 70 standard. Until they start putting other stuff on the disks, the CD will remain.
The one thing I could see hapening is taking one of the newer methods, DVD,HD, Blueray, making a disk that stores about a gig (at most), but has a much smaller diameter, and turning that into the new music format. Basically, think of music CDs that are only two inches in diameter, tops.
Video is much different in that as you scale up the screen size, artifacts and distortion appears. The solution is to up the pixel count (like HD did) which ups the bitrate. The goal, as I understand it, is to eventually have a 2160 line movie at 120fps. At that point, a few TV engineers I've met believe that humans won't be able to tell the difference between TV and seeing with their own eyes.
Re:Yawwwnnn. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Too few movies (Score:3, Informative)
Not if you appreciate the higher resolution video. (Some people do.)
You can get HDTVs for $800 (32" LCD) or less. I think you can get 30" CRT HDTVs for $500 or less. Considering they're all widescreen, they're pretty nice even if you only want to watch DVDs.
Digital Cable here with one HD receiver (plus analog for evey other tv) cost less than the analog package we were previously on for the past six years. A DVR brought up the price by $2.
I don't pay extra HD content -- just the basic digital cable, which costs less than analog did -- and I get the locals, TNT HD, and Discovery HD Theater.
Without the cable box, I was able to get the local channels in HD on my TV.
While high definition video players are expensive, I can get 5 channels of HD content (HDNet, HDNet Movies, InHD, InHD2, and ESPN) for $7/mo extra -- and get lots of HD content. Or, by subscribing to HBO and/or Showtime, you also get the HD versions of either.
HD-DVD and Blu-ray are expensive but getting an HDTV doesn't mean you can't still watch DVDs. With the right software or player, they look better than they would on an SDTV -- Cyberlink PowerDVD is able to make DVDs look pretty good at 1366x768.
Re:compelling (me not to buy) (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I'm not buying either (Score:5, Informative)
But yeah, they should clarify resolution with the same numbers used in computer monitor displays, such as 1280x960. 480p, EDTV, 540p, etcetera does not tell me much and isn't intuitive. But anyone can see 1280x960 is better than 640x480 which is better than 320x240.
480i = 640x480, 704x480, or, in the case of DVD, 720x480, interlaced
480p = 640x480, 704x480, or, in the case of DVD, 720x480, progressive.
540p = 960x540, progressive (1/4 of 1080p)
720p = 1280x720, progressive.
1080i = 1920x1080, interlaced.
1080p = 1920x1080, progressive.
1080p at 60 frames/sec is outside of the ATSC spec, but I think the HDDVD and BD formats support it.... don't quote me. 540p is also outside of the ATSC spec.
Within the ATSC spec, all of the interlaced modes are 30 frames/sec. The progressive modes (except 1080p) can be 24, 30 or 60 frames/sec. 1080p can be 24 or 30 frames/sec.
The thing to note is that except for the 480 modes, the pixels are square. For this reason, you can use the Y value (540, 720, 1080) and multiply it by 16/9 (the aspect ratio of the screen) to get the X value.
Now, my challenge to you: Which is higher resolution, 1920x1080 or 1600x1200? You may not use a calculator.
By comparison, which is higher resolution, 1080p or 720p? You won't need a calculator.
Re:Why VC-1? (Score:4, Informative)
While VC-1 (formerly known as VC-9, the Windows Media 9 (WMV3) codec) has been submitted to SMPTE, VC-1 is still not open, and must still go through the patent pool process, which itself is being administered by MPEG LA [mpegla.com].
While WMV3 is an arguably good codec, Microsoft worked hard to get it into things like Blu-ray and HD-DVD, so that it could be in a position to get people to use it as the codec for HD content. Since VC-1 is nothing more than Windows Media Video 9, I guess I don't blame them for wanting it to be everywhere. Then all of a sudden, the same content can easily be repurposed for other things, and work extremely well with other Microsoft- and Windows Media-based products. Genius, on their part.
For what it's worth, H.264 is generally [wisc.edu] seen as similar in quality and functionality (and better in some ways) than VC-1; it's the official next-generation successor to the MPEG family of video codecs.
And no, to reiterate what's been said elsewhere, H.264 is NOT "Apple's codec". Apple uses and promotes it, but it's hardly "Apple's codec". It's an open international standard that is already heavily used in DTV/HDTV and satellite TV, and is being deployed in more industrial and commercial video equipment every day. Why? Because it's open, and didn't stem from one company. (If anything, Apple's involvement was to pressure MPEG LA to actually have reasonable [com.com] licensing [com.com], so that it would also be able to actually be useful to individual users instead of just commercial users and equipment OEMs, which was positive for everyone involved.)
If people are switching to VC-1 instead of H.264, given that it's not open and came 100% out of Microsoft (and indeed is nothing more than WMV3 plus Windows Media Audio (WMA), you can believe Microsoft has likely had involvement. Every VC-1 user is a huge win for Microsoft and a blow to already-open MPEG standards.
Except that Hollywood can do that (Score:3, Informative)
XP users can use hardware decoding, but that requires a copy protection-compliant video card and monitor.
Melissa
Re:Here's an idea... (Score:3, Informative)
Not quite so. Most of them were shot to negative at 1.37:1 (which is 4.11:3) on 35mm, typically with an Arriflex camera. This was a fairly popular format (and camera). The negative image was then cropped to print at 1.66:1 (5:3), wider than 4:3 but not quite "wide screen". The relatively light weight of the Arriflex made it easier to get some of the unique shots that Kubrick was known for.
At least two of his biggest productions -- "Spartacus" and "2001: A Space Odyssey" -- were shot at 2.20:1 on 70mm film (and in Cinerama for "2001"). The 35mm prints of Spartacus were cropped to 2.35:1.
Re:War is still over part 2 (Score:2, Informative)
It's a pity that 50Gb Blu-Ray discs aren't working, then.
"One content will cost the same as the other but provide a game console with it. Nice..."
Microsoft are bundling a 360 and the add-on HD-DVD drive in November, for less than the PS3.
"One content has all the content providers lined up."
All the major ones, anyway (most of the minor guys have been seduced by the vastly lower production costs on HD-DVD). For now. All bar Sony (well, duh) have either already gone dual-format, or told their shareholders that they're watching the situation closely, ready to jump ship in the new year if PS3 doesn't blow everyone away.
"One content provides 1080P out of the gate."
Both formats store 1080p on the disc. Toshiba's 2nd-gen models (out before the PS3, or any Blu-Ray player other than the horrid Samsung) will send it to the screen. And it's all completely irrelevant, unless your TV is really quite phenomenally shite at deinterlacing.
If I had to call a winner, I'd say it's probably Blu-Ray. But I very much expect us to see the same situation as DVD-R, DVD+R; i.e. eventually drives will read both.