I won't defend Sony........they have done unethical crap in the past. But so has Microsoft, Toshiba and a myriad of other CE companies. You say that it's not about HD DVD or BD technology..........but it is, and we are just now realizing the true potential of BD. All discs will be authored to the highest quality without limitations. (Higher bit rate audio and video) We may even get to see more options for users...........Like the new BD release of Top Gun which will have Dolby True HD and DTS HD MA tracks on it. Heck the more versatility the better. The bottom line is, BD is the better technology. If it wasn't Universal and Paramount wouldn't bother to spend the money to upgrade several titles. (Top Gun, Transformers and the Mummy) Many more to come.
Could VOD be BD biggest threat??
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I won't defend Sony........they have done unethical crap in the past. But so has Microsoft, Toshiba and a myriad of other CE companies. You say that it's not about HD DVD or BD technology..........but it is, and we are just now realizing the true potential of BD. All discs will be authored to the highest quality without limitations. (Higher bit rate audio and video) We may even get to see more options for users...........Like the new BD release of Top Gun which will have Dolby True HD and DTS HD MA tracks on it. Heck the more versatility the better. The bottom line is, BD is the better technology. If it wasn't Universal and Paramount wouldn't bother to spend the money to upgrade several titles. (Top Gun, Transformers and the Mummy) Many more to come.
But it doesn’t pan out to a better HD experience. That’s been proven and conceded many times here if you had been in this forum for the past few years you’d know this. BD has had the extra space, bandwidth and potential for years yet HD DVD wins awards. With all that extra stuff that is always used as talking points it JUST DOESN’T PAN OUT IN THE REAL WORLD!!!! All you get is a bunch of people who claim they see/hear the difference only because you’re determined to.
As far as technology some would argue that HD DVD was the better technology, I tend to agree. BD simply had more space and bandwidth. Is a 9.4GB blank DVD better technology then a 4.7GB blank DVD? Let me answer NO its just more space.
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HD DVD was more inexpensive and the spec was completed from the start. So, yes in some ways it was the more consumer friendly format no doubt. But better technology????? No way. That is the whole point. We know that Warner used the same encode for both HD DVD and BD which was very limiting. Now companies can fill up most of the disc just as Paramount is doing with Top Gun and also with Transformers by adding lossless audio. Universal is doing the same thing as well. (See the Mummy) In the future we will see more studios utilizing most of the 50 GB discs. Well, maybe not Warner, we haven't seen anything too impressive from them yet.
I have been on a couple of much heavier used forums since I bought my HD-A1 back in 2006, so I have read all of the rhetoric you are talking about. Proven? Nothing has been proven...........it's all subjective as you say. Besides the past doesn't matter. HD DVD has lost......it's over. Time to deal with it. What we ended up with is the format with greater potential. If the upcoming releases from Uni and Para are any indication, the future bodes well for the BD format.
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WOW that edit took 7 hours. I take it that you assume BD is better technology because of space. More space is not better technology my son. I think you need to look up the definition of technology. Cute of you to drop the HD DVD is dead talking point again, when I mentioned it I said ‘was’. Oh and I noticed each one of your rebuttals has conveniently not addressed why your great BD technology just doesn’t pan out to a better HD experience.
As far as the future boding well for BD I don’t see any difference. BD has been releasing lossless audio pretty much from day one, and have for a while matched the better video codec’s that HD DVD exhibited. So I take it that was just a feel good statement. If anything things like the horrible debut of BD_Live, the ungodly profiles (including the newest BD-Live Ready), and plenty other things have cast a huge shadow over your beloved BD.
Blu-ray has the potential to be better than HD DVD. However, due to many factors like optional audio codec support, this profile nonsense and so far this God awful BD-J stuff. It's kind of on par. Technologically, Blu-Ray has the higher bit rates and the higher storage capacity per layer. HD DVD had a couple of nice tricks such as combo discs and 3x DVD which were not available to Blu-Ray users. Many enthusiasts dissed combo discs. Unfortunately, the authoring programs never stepped up in time for 3x DVD to be a good thing. The bottom line is that the war between HD DVD and Blu-Ray is over. I'm glad VOD, etc. is helping to kick Blu-Ray into shape. HD DVD helped Blu-Ray a lot. Otherwise, we would still be seeing edge enhanced MPEG2 transfers withouth picture in picture and players would still be the equivalent of 1.0 costing $1500. Now, everything is going to AVC, high-bit rate VC-1 with Dolby TrueHD or DTS-HD MA (PCM for a few select Disney and Lionsgate titles).
Sorry, but even the studios disagree with you. A quote from a Paramount exec........ “We’re so happy to finally bring Michael Bay’s true vision to life with this release,” said Rob Moore, vice chairman of Paramount Pictures. “Because of Blu-ray’s expanded capacity, we are able to elevate the bit rate used for the picture as well as present uncompressed audio in the form of Dolby True HD.” http://www.homemediamagazine.com/news/html/breaking_article.cfm?article_id=12858 NonRev, name one legitimate techonological advantage HD DVD has over BD........or had I should say.
I addressed that on two different posts....you just don't want to hear it. Did I not say that movies like Transformers and the Mummy (and hundreds more in the future) should look and sound a bit better? Go reread my responses. Hot Fuzz with DTS HD MA will be great. If it didn't make for a better experience, why on earth would Paramount and Universal spend the money and resources on new encodes optimized for BD? If there was no difference, they would just re-release the movies using the old HD DVD audio and video encodes. There obviously is a discernable difference or they wouldn't spend the time and money.
Then why did those same Paramount executives drop BD and go exclusive HDDVD??? I’ll tell you why again: there is no difference in the HD experience. I can’t find the link to the press release from the day when they dropped BD but they gave all the reasons why selected HD DVD fully knowing all the talking points and specs you’ve been stating. Once again I’ll put Transformers DD+ soundtrack against any fancy BD TrueHD sound and take my chances. I can’t argue more bits is better but at a certain point more doesn’t equal a better experience. What if another format came along with slightly more disk space and bandwidth than BD, would that be necessary for a better experience? At a given point there is zero sum gain. $ony has a long track record of trying to take a format and increasing its specs and charging consumers a premium for the unneeded overhead. That’s why many of their formats fail, and I think Paramount realized this. $ony won simply because they threw tons of money around behind the scenes and locked up early to many studios and manufactures for HD DVD to over come. By the time HD DVD got into the behind the scenes money game it was an uphill battle. Oh and one last thing in regards to your Paramount exec comments, WB also had scheduled a press conference to announce they had selected HDDVD fully knowing all the BD specs hmmm.
That is exactly it!
And against all odds BD lead by Sony did the impossible and f*cked up this potential by using the "best" codec for the first titles - MPEG-2; by insisting early on that hardware encoders is the way to do it; by putting two versions of the same movie on the disc (we have plenty of space!) with and without PiP; after being the sole survivor of the foramt war for 6 months still not being able to match capabilities of the other format; by creating a multi-tier player profiling system, etc.
Diogen.
Simple. Money and financial incentives. There were zero technical advantages. The only theoretical advantage was the replication costs were somewhat less. However, in time that advantage goes away as well.
Be real, the whole thing was about money. Studios could really care less about the quality if they can make money with a lower quality product. Even if BD puts out a significantely better picture because of the capacity, studios would still go with HDDVD if they could make more money. Now that studios have the extra space of BD they are using it, why? Because they now are competing with DVD and they know to get the extra $10 out of the consumer they need the higher PQ and sound quality.
Amir was quite the shill for VC-1, of course he would say that it did not need more bits, he had an agenda to push HD-DVD for MS. And, at the time 1080p sets were rare and he was right that on the 720p sets that were dominating at the time the extra bits were not really needed. But, BD is supposed to last 10 years. By the time 10 years goes by in display technology the extra bits will be noticable.
Along what lines will display technologies improve over the next 10 years to make the difference between 720p and 1080p presentation of a today's Blu-ray movie more noticable?
What does the bitrate ration and codec using it have to do with TV resolution? You think MPEG-2 was/is better? on 720p or 1080p screen?
Diogen.
For one thing LCDs may finally get to resolve 1080 lines of resolution in motion. Plasma right now can 2/3 to 3/4 of the way there. When most LCDs have moving objects the resolution drops down to 1/3 to 1/2 the set resolution. Look at people's hair when they move, see it blur out then sharpen when the stop. One of the bit saving techniques is to cut the resolution of moving objects way down, having more bits will help keep moving objects at full resolution.
Article on the subject: Will The 2007 HDTV You Choose Give You All Resolution You Expect? » HDGURU.Com
1. I mentioned it already here a couple months ago
http://www.satelliteguys.us/television-sets-projectors/117648-720p-vs-1080p-2.html#post1215840
that when talking about today's best movie material, there is hardly any more information above 1280x720.
2. I'm missing the VC-1 point.
HD/BD movies encoded using VC-1 are all 1080p.
If VC-1 is only good when presented on "castrated" resolutions and today's display technologies are masking its inferiority,
then at least a direct comparison of stills should easily prove AVC's superiority. And all Xylon comparisons could not do that.
Preprocessing, as explained by Spears, has a much bigger effect.
Diogen.
http://www.satelliteguys.us/television-sets-projectors/117648-720p-vs-1080p-2.html#post1215840
that when talking about today's best movie material, there is hardly any more information above 1280x720.
2. I'm missing the VC-1 point.
HD/BD movies encoded using VC-1 are all 1080p.
If VC-1 is only good when presented on "castrated" resolutions and today's display technologies are masking its inferiority,
then at least a direct comparison of stills should easily prove AVC's superiority. And all Xylon comparisons could not do that.
Preprocessing, as explained by Spears, has a much bigger effect.
Diogen.
I've watched a lot of VC-1 and AVC stuff. In the porn world, the AVC stuff looks the best not because of the codec but because of the source material. Digital Playground actually uses studio quality Panasonic cameras not handycam crap. They are now starting to use RED cameras while the other adult studios continue to use prosumer grade stuff. The source, not the codec or the format makes the biggest difference with PQ.
Back on topic--VOD/PPV is nothing to sneeze about. Traditionally, PPV was hampered by the 3 month delay between the DVD release and the PPV premiere. Often the PPV premiered a month or less before the movie appeared on premium channels.
That is no longer the case with Warner movies. Warner has already made rumblings about expanding VOD and PPV.
Back on topic--VOD/PPV is nothing to sneeze about. Traditionally, PPV was hampered by the 3 month delay between the DVD release and the PPV premiere. Often the PPV premiered a month or less before the movie appeared on premium channels.
That is no longer the case with Warner movies. Warner has already made rumblings about expanding VOD and PPV.Didn't Warner pick BD to end the war and help HDM??? Now this move surely will undercut HDM hmmm. Anyway HD VOD will grow when WB move kicks in, and the other studio's will soon follow. If the numbers play out the way I think they will the studio's will make more money at $5 a pop HD VOD with tens of millions of customers then they will earn at $25 a pop with HDM at barely 100,000 in sales(and thats for blockbuster movies).Back on topic--VOD/PPV is nothing to sneeze about. Traditionally, PPV was hampered by the 3 month delay between the DVD release and the PPV premiere. Often the PPV premiered a month or less before the movie appeared on premium channels.
I just watched my frist PPV (VOD) movie in HD on Cox Cable, Stardust, the other night. The only reason was because they gave me a coupon to get a free movie (selection was GF's choice). HD movies normally cost $5.99. The movie was not shown OAR, a la HBO HD, and there were a number of problems with macroblocking and artifacts throughout the film, especially during scenes that had a lot of motion, a la HBO HD. It was bad enough that sitting 12 feet away from a 34" CRT TV, I still saw it. The 5.1 DD AQ was adequate. Since it was free, I have no complaints, but if I were to ever to pay $6 to rent a movie for its HD quality, it will be a BD from Blockbuster or Hollywood video. PPV/VOD (at least from my cable co., which is generally pretty good in most areas) has a ways to go to entice consumers who care about PQ.
I can't see VOD being threanting to BD. My Block Buster subscription in $15.00 a month. For that I can take out 3 dvd's out at a time (not 3 per month no late fees). When Im done I take them to the Block Buster store and exchange them for 3 different moives. Then they send me the next 3 movies in my Que. Every month I get 2 extra passes to rent 2 extra movies or video games. I watch an average of 15-16 movies a month. That's averages $1 a movie. Much cheaper than the $ 4.95 to $6.95 per movie from my local cable provider. Granted the only advantage VOD has is you don't have to worry about bringing back the movie or incurring late fees.
This is not about you or me. This is about Joe6Pack who hates black bars and will watch on a 27" LCD and think it looks wonderful. He won't see HD-lite. He will think that I don't have to drive to the video store, wait for Netflix, etc. I don't have to deal with stupid firmware updates on my Blu-Ray player, etc. etc.
Now, anyone who thinks the average person gives a sh*t about lossless audio needs to go sit down until that thought passes. Almost everyone I know with a HDTV (rear projection, plasma, LCD) listens to music from their TV speakers, does stereo with two mains (rare) or does 5.1 surround via Toslink or coax.
Now, anyone who thinks the average person gives a sh*t about lossless audio needs to go sit down until that thought passes. Almost everyone I know with a HDTV (rear projection, plasma, LCD) listens to music from their TV speakers, does stereo with two mains (rare) or does 5.1 surround via Toslink or coax.
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