8mm Forum: HD DVD or BLU RAY

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Posted by Adrian Simmonds (Member # 581) on June 01, 2006, 02:29 PM:

Am I right in thinking that the Blu Ray high definition dvd system could be dead, before it has even reached these shores.

I know that both formats are now available overseas - unless Sony have put back there release date once again
(and perhaps the members from 'further afield' can let us Brits know how the 2 formats are bearing up)

But it seems to me that, good or bad, the first format released is generally the one that wins a format war.

In this country, it would appear that BLU RAY, will not be available in a 'home cinema' sense until next year (i.e. only in a Playstation 3 format), whereas HD DVD should be available in the next few months.

(Also that Microsoft will be supporting HD DVD and not BLU RAY)

Any thoughts

Kind regards

Adrian

Posted by Barry Attwood (Member # 100) on June 01, 2006, 04:23 PM:

Adrian,

This reminds me of the VHS or Betamax war of the 70's where the inferior format became the standard (although I doubt you would recollect that at your tender age!). A friend of mine who lives in the U.S. has bought a HD-DVD player an some of the early releases, and he is really dissapointed at the early results, he doesn't have a video projector, but does have a large screen plasma set up, and he said that he doesn't think there is a lot of difference with the naked eye between the best normal DVD's and the new system, although he does concede this may be different with a video projector. It's hard to tell without seeing one running, but the extra exspense of having a HD ready TV or video projector, may put a lot of people off initially, and as many people are very happy with the DVD's already coming out, especially the lovers of vintage material, then I do wonder if there will be a serious market for 2 systems, as I do not think any of the HD DVD formats will be as succesful as the makers hope for, but we will just have to wait and see.

Posted by Joerg Polzfusz (Member # 602) on June 01, 2006, 04:41 PM:

Hi,

there's no winner (yet):
a) The HD-DVD-players that are available in the USA at the moment are reported to have several problems. E.g. they sometimes shut down in the middle of a film (heat problem). So even if the BD-players arrive later, they might be of better quality and hence better acceptance.
b) If the PS3 (or any version of the X-Box) comes with a BD- or HD-DVD-player, this might change a lot.
c) The two systems differ in the used codecs (different license costs for the producers of the HD-DVDs and BDs!) and in copy-protection-systems (which is a major factor why different studios prefer different systems). (BTW: Do both systems support Dolby Digital 7.1?)
d) It's still unclear if the studios will release the same number of films for both systems or if one system will win because it has got more / better choice.
e) Last, but not least: "Everyone" who now owns a DV-cam will get a HD-video-cam sooner or later. But AFAIK at the moment there's neither a BD-writer nor a HD-DVD-writer for your PC/Mac available. IF the BD-writers arrive first and/or are cheaper (incl. cheaper media), this still might change a lot!
f) BD and HD-DVD aren't the only HD-video-disc-formats. And there are rumors that the BD and HD-DVD might be merged into a new, "combined" format. Not to mention that both BD and HD-DVDs are using lossy video-codecs. So there's still the chance that the race between BD and HD-DVD might end like the race between Video2000 and Betamax [Wink]

Jörg

Posted by Kevin Faulkner (Member # 6) on June 01, 2006, 04:42 PM:

I have seen a demo of Blu Ray at the Sony Centre in Londons Tot Crt Rd and have to say that the quality on a 6ft wide Plasma was stunning. But yes it was NTSC.

Kev.

Posted by Joerg Polzfusz (Member # 602) on June 01, 2006, 04:50 PM:

addition to f) Here are two of the other discs that can store HDTV-videos:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enhanced_Versatile_Disc
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holographic_Versatile_Disc

Posted by Jan Bister (Member # 332) on June 01, 2006, 09:20 PM:

Bah humbug. Either format is going to seriously suck simply because of all the protection nonsense. "Fair use" rights are already severely impeded by such schemes... I have no love for these formats. Why they couldn't just stick with DVDs and change the codec from MPEG2 to MPEG4, thus reducing the amount of data needed and being able to jack up the resolution, is beyond me. If any of you has ever seen a hi-def XviD movie trailer on a PC, you know what I'm on about. [Cool]

Posted by Stuart Mercer Thorburn (Member # 574) on June 01, 2006, 09:49 PM:

I'm sure I read recently that Apple were going with the Blu Ray format...

Posted by John Clancy (Member # 49) on June 02, 2006, 02:52 AM:

Keith Wilton put a couple of HD items on his son's 42 inch plasma and one of these items looked incredible. The other was a transfer of a Terminator 2 trailer and appeared to have been a bit of a botch up somehow - still very good but not as good as it should have been.

However, I recently saw the concluding sequence from Spider-Man 2 running off a hard disc (i.e HD recording) and can report that it looked dreadful. It was likely affected by poor setup by in-store staff but I can't get over quite how bad it looked. I thought I was watching the 1970's cartoon series until I identified the clip. On 35mm this sequence is obviously a cartoon but it still has a certain look to it that means the dodgy special effects can be forgiven, but on HD it is just so obvious. The colours are wrong for a start, then I suppose the image is just too clean and manages to lose any semblence of reality.

20 years ago I worked for the IBA and they developed a true high definition system called C-Mac which had 1200 line resolution. So Adrian, I predict C-Mac will win out in the end. But maybe not.

Posted by Joerg Polzfusz (Member # 602) on June 02, 2006, 04:11 AM:

Good point Jan - with the newest DivX-versions (or similar) you can put two hours of HD-video onto a normal DVD-R(W)/+R(W). (Of course it only has got one soundtrack, no subtitles, ... then.)

Nevertheless I forgot one point: Both HD-DVD and BD will be available as a media to hold the back-ups from your computer. A BD will store approx. 25GB per layer (and they've managed to produce BDs with up to 4 layers!), while a single-layer HD-DVD can only store 20GB (double layer = 30GB, there are only 1 or 2 layer-HD-DVDs). This might become a selling point, too.

Posted by Andrew Wilson (Member # 538) on June 02, 2006, 03:20 PM:

im staying well clear of this crap.i will give my reasons.first of all i went for the phillips dvd recorder when it appeared,and at a cost of £1,500,it lasted four months.now here in the uk dvd recorders are less than £70 i will now wait and see.but for now and the furture its super8mm for me.
also im not very happy with the quailty of dvd recordings i've made,not much better than v.h.s.andy.
p.s im sticking with super8.

Posted by Kevin Faulkner (Member # 6) on June 04, 2006, 05:34 PM:

"also im not very happy with the quailty of dvd recordings i've made,not much better than v.h.s"

Andy I have a Philips DVDR610 and I have to say that I cant tell the diff between the original and the DVD when recorded on the 2 or 2.5hr modes. Just a shame the machines reliability has been bad.

John, C-Mac well that took me back to the days of BSB and the squarial for Satalite. They were using a system called D2-Mac and again it gave superior results to what we are now getting from Sky. Funny how a lot of these systems were a head of their time and then got scrapped.
I was watching a prog on ITV2 tonight and I kept thinking how soft the image looked on Sky. I went into the other room and switched on the freeview digital box and the image was superb.
Hate to think what Sky Satalite will look like when they try to squeeze all the HD broadcasts in to the existing bandwidth.

Kev.

Posted by John Clancy (Member # 49) on June 05, 2006, 02:52 AM:

I wonder if the original BSB 6 channel satellite is still up there. If it is then presumably Sky could make use of it for the new (lesser) version of HD broadcasts. Perhaps then those with Sky would be able to receive the good quality broadcasts they should be getting.

Somewhere I still have the IBA television yearbook from 1964 where there is much talk about the new HDTV broadcasts. That was due to the change from the 325 line system to 625. Funny how these acronyms and terms just keep going round and round.

Posted by Kevin Faulkner (Member # 6) on June 05, 2006, 05:02 AM:

Yes your right how these keep coming round. The BSB sats had their position moved and were sold to the Norwegians I think. As far as I know they are still up there and being used. The quality off the D2-MAC transmissions was really good. I kept with my box for as long as I could but it eventually had to be junked in favour of a Sky box [Frown]

Kev.

Posted by Mike Peckham (Member # 16) on June 05, 2006, 10:19 AM:

John

Was it really only 325 lines before the move to 625? for some reason the figure 405 sticks in my mind. I can remember the big change over to 625, lines indicated by a UHF aerial on the roof, usually strapped to the side of the much larger VHF version, something of a status symbol at the time [Smile]

.

Our first colour television when I was a child was a Philips 'Dual Standard' that had a big changeover switch to switch it between VHF and UHF. At the time I think it was only possible to get BBC2 on UHF.

I can also remember the anouncer saying "the following programme can be viewed in colour or black and white".

Funny to think how we've moved on...

Mike

ps. Adrian, sorry for taking this off topic. [Smile]

Mike

Posted by Kevin Faulkner (Member # 6) on June 06, 2006, 03:32 AM:

Yes that spot on Mike. We were 405 lines and yes I too remember the big clunky switch that changed over to UHF from VHF. Yes it was only BBC2 on UHF to satrt with but slowy they all went over to UHF and colour. My goodness they were the days. Incredible to think that we didnt get colour till the mid 60's but the US had colour right back in the 50's.
How technology has moved on since those days of TV with enough vlaves to warm a house. Even some of the first 8mm projectors had valves for the sound!

Kev.

Posted by Barry Johnson (Member # 84) on June 07, 2006, 12:43 PM:

Well I use a Goodmans DVD recorder and it records,clone like,anything you feed it with.I say clone like because it will replicate the old maxim of 'rubbish in,rubbish out'.If I copy vhs,it will 'copy vhs' exactly the same asa the original.If I feed it with a signal from my cable supplier I defy anyone,BluRay or Stingray to tell the difference!!
All the new ideas are generally improvements only electronic machinery can measure and are practically invisible to the naked eye.
No,its all to keep the market forces and juices flowing.TV will be no good until (HA!) an 1100plus (not line doubled) sustem is utilised.
Long time coming methinks.Enjoy DVD,it really is good you know.

Posted by Kevin Faulkner (Member # 6) on June 07, 2006, 06:05 PM:

Hi Barry,

You are spot on and that reminds me what did happen to the promised 1250 lines they kept on about here in the UK and Europe?

Kev.

Posted by Barry Johnson (Member # 84) on June 08, 2006, 08:08 AM:

Yes indeed Kevin,what a load of jhot air that turned out to be.But actually having witnessed this system of 1250 lines coming off broad band open reel videotape back in the eighties,the image quality was,well stunning,and that was before widescreen TV.
Mind you,the cost was off the planet!

Posted by Joerg Polzfusz (Member # 602) on June 22, 2006, 09:17 AM:

At least you can now throw away all your old HDTV-gadgets: HDMI 1.3 is coming soon [Wink]

http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/74582

Posted by Jan Bister (Member # 332) on June 22, 2006, 09:23 PM:

Actually you can possibly forget HDMI, too - it looks like it's all going to be thrown out in favor of one single connectivity standard for digital A/V, called DisplayPort...

Posted by Paul Adsett (Member # 25) on June 25, 2006, 12:03 PM:

Looks like initial testing of Blu Ray players and discs is extremely disappointing, to say the least:

http://www.projectorcentral.com/blu-ray_initialreport.htm

Posted by Jan Bister (Member # 332) on June 25, 2006, 01:35 PM:

Nobody but the most daring early adopters usually goes for a first-generation product. Poor Samsung, they're setting themselves up for failure by being the first. [Frown]

Was surprised to read that Blu-Ray uses the aging MPEG2 codec for video... I thought they went the same route as HD-DVD and went for an MPEG4-based codec. [Eek!]

Posted by Joerg Polzfusz (Member # 602) on June 25, 2006, 04:20 PM:

I don't care whether it's MPEG2 or MPEG4 - in fact I'm more disappointed that they're still using any form of lossy compression [Frown]

Posted by John Cook (Member # 203) on June 25, 2006, 06:43 PM:

Jan

MPEG2 encoding is the norm for hi-def material. If you've tuned in HDTV over the air with a set of rabbit ears you're watching a 19.2Mb/s MPEG2 data stream modulated via 8VSB, or QAM if using cable.

The newer MPEG4 codec is hit and miss. From my experience viewing MPEG4 encoded material on our 106" NEC XG1352LC MPEG4 comes across with much more macro-blocking when compared to a typical MPEG2 encoded stream (either DVD or MPEG4 content of HDTV comarible resolution/quality.) I've yet to have any direct experience with HD-DVD at local A/V dealers on anything other than large 60-80" LCD or Plamsa displays, hardly a large screen experience so I can't honestly say if HD-DVDs MPEG4 quality can compare to HDTV MPEG2 when viewed on a truly large display.

That being said my two experiences demoing Bluray left me concluding either the material isn't encoded correctly (poor master, rushed to release) poor disc player (Samsung) or a little bit of both. Whatever the cause for the initial Blu-Ray problems I can say without a doubt that HD-DVD MPEG4 encoded materials are clearer and sharper than the initial Bluray releases.

What I would like to see is material shot on HDCAM mastered for simultaneous release as MPEG2 and MPEG4 content on both HD-DVD and Bluray. Everything I've seen to date on either format is film source material. An HDCAM material comparison would provide an accurate accounting of what both formats and their respective hardware are capable of.

The best content I've seen to date has been on either DiscoveryHD, Vooms Equator channel (before the switch to Dish) or occasional sports content on OTA HDTV or ESPNHD. All of the aformentioned content is MPEG2 encoded and makes what I've seen on HD-DVD and Bluray to date look as muddy as the Mississippi!

Regards, John

Posted by Jan Bister (Member # 332) on June 25, 2006, 10:15 PM:

I wasn't trying to suggest that MPEG2 is a visually inferior codec vs. MPEG4 - obviously that matter is much more complex and it comes down to the quality of the source material as well as the encoding parameters (and algorithms) used for creating the compressed video stream. [Smile]

However, I understand that in simplified terms, MPEG4 is able to achieve considerably higher compression while maintaining roughly the same video quality. This is evident in the fact that you can "rip" a DVD and transcode it to a DivX or XviD file that is no larger than about 700MB (with audio) and fits on a regular CD - all with minimal quality loss vs. the original DVD.

Joerg, from what I hear, lossless video codecs are in the works but need further development at this point... even lossless audio codecs can only crunch audio down to about half its size, and uncompressed video streams mean HUMONGOUS amounts of data.
Consider the following... a 720x480 image with 24-bit color depth consumes very nearly one megabyte of data. Storing 30 such images per second would bring you up to 30MB for one single second of DVD video, or 30GB (in the neighborhood of Blu-Ray capacity) for less than 20 minutes of video! [Eek!]

Posted by John Cook (Member # 203) on June 26, 2006, 05:40 PM:

"while maintaining roughly the same video quality....- all with minimal quality loss vs. the original DVD."...this is where you and I disagree. I haven't seen any MPEG2 material reencoded to MPEG4 that looked good although the above may be partly true when viewed on a typical computer monitor but when blown up to 106" you'd quickly be reaching for the stop button and the source DVD, I jsit can't stand micro-blocking or what I like to call crawlies.

Prior to HD-DVD nothing on a consumer level had been released in the MPEG4 format authored directly from a high resolution Master (the only notable exceptions being a few half hearted attempts from microsoft such as Terminator2 in XVID-wmv.) So HD-DVD and MPEG4 are in a sense of the word just now cutting new ground.

I would love to spend a weekend with an HD-DVD player and a handful of discs. Considering Best Buys liberal return policy I could borrow one of their players for the weekend...did I just say that! [Roll Eyes]

An HD-DVD drive for use in a HTPC (home theater computer) would be the way to go.

Even though I am a fan of Sony video products and display devices Bluray had better start making a better showing of themselves or yes, I believe their horse will be stalled at the gate.

Posted by John Cook (Member # 203) on June 27, 2006, 10:24 PM:

Jan,

What no reply? I purposely disagreed with you just to see if you're as tenacious as my dog!

My dog, Mrs Piggy, is the white bull terrier. General George Patton was right, these dogs are ferocious! [Roll Eyes]

Posted by Jan Bister (Member # 332) on June 28, 2006, 09:22 PM:

Ohh, impatient, are we [Big Grin]

Well, all I can say is that maybe (just maybe) you haven't seen a good MPEG4 - that is, DivX or XviD - movie file... perhaps you watched badly decoded video, for when it comes to MPEG4, a good decoder is almost as important as a good encoder. Deblocking algorithms are particularly effective in eliminating the macro blocking you mention. I've done a few of my own encodes from DVDs and they came out mighty good. Also... I dare say that my monitor, which was a $2,000 high-end display in its day (1996-1997) and currently runs 1280x1024 at an 85Hz refresh rate with 32-bit color depth, is a pretty decent tool for judging the quality of both MPEG2 (DVD) and MPEG4 (.avi file) video streams. Therefore I stand by what I've said. [Wink]

That wasn't too tenacious, was it? [Razz]

Posted by John Cook (Member # 203) on June 28, 2006, 09:43 PM:

Bill over at the digital bits had this to say about the new Blu-Ray hardware just hitting the market...

quote:
Those of you who are interested in how Blu-ray displays VC1 material will be pleased to know that it looks absolutely spectacular. Unfortunately, I can't talk about the specific clips we saw, but it wouldn't be fair to compare Blu-ray's VC1 quality to that of HD-DVD at this point anyway, especially not from a single short clip. I will tell you, however, that one specific piece of test footage we looked at (in MPEG-2) was hands-down the single most stunning high-def video I've ever seen. I've seen a lot of HD video in my day, but NOTHING this good in terms of detail, color, contrast and lack of compression artifacting. I have no doubt that both HD-DVD and Blu-ray Disc are capable of delivering video quality of this level eventually, but I'm betting full-length movie discs this good won't start hitting store shelves until mid-to-late next year... when the authoring and compression folks have had enough time to really hone their wizardry with these formats.

There's plenty more of this article to read on his site thedigitalbits.com, after reading this latest update to his ongoing Blu-ray review my interest has been raised a notch. I'm hoping his PS3 review will have a similar outcome.

John

Posted by Jan Bister (Member # 332) on June 29, 2006, 12:27 AM:

Sounds very promising! For once, the two formats warring for consumer acceptance and eventual supremacy appear to be very close in terms of quality and features (potentially, at least). Not so much like VHS vs. Betamax, where Betamax should have been the clear winner. It seems that whether Blu-Ray wins or HD-DVD wins, we'll all be happy either way.

Posted by Kevin Faulkner (Member # 6) on June 29, 2006, 08:13 AM:

or to put it another way....its all down to who does the better marketing job. This was where Sony fell down with Betamax years ago. Al the rental outlets in the UK were renting out VHS machines and tapes which is why the consumer in the UK went VHS.

Try and find a Rental company in the UK which had a Betamax machine until Sanyo came out with their cheap machines and let them go into the Renatl market unfortunateky the damage was done by then and VHS ruled the roost. I dare say this was similar in most other countries.

As I said in an earlier post...the Sony Demo I have seen here in the UK was absolutely stunning and I too didnt see any artifacts which is so common with all forms of lossy compresion.
The Demo was using NTSC materail as they said it would be another year before we saw a PAL version! But where is it? Its now nearly 18 months since seeing that Demo.

People I work with are all talking about HD-DVD never a mention of Blu Ray [Frown]

Have the other camp perhaps got it right from the start by calling it HD DVD.

Kev.

Posted by Joerg Polzfusz (Member # 602) on June 29, 2006, 09:53 AM:

VHS also won over Video2000 simply because Video2000 didn't allow pornos to be produced/released in this format [Wink]

Posted by Jan Bister (Member # 332) on June 29, 2006, 09:51 PM:

Eh...?

Um, nevermind that. Anyway, I was going to say it's not surprising people talk about HD-DVD... everybody knows DVDs and knows right from the start that "HD-DVD" is the logical next step... the average consumer hears that term and thinks "Ah, the new high-definition format. Cool" whereas he/she might hear about Blu-Ray and wonder what the heck that is - or who thought it would be cool to spell "blue" without an "e." [Roll Eyes]

On another note, I don't understand why the distinction between PAL and NTSC is still being made with these hi-def formats? One would think it was time to start fresh with one worldwide set of standard resolutions and refresh rates, but apparently not. (Sigh) Not to mention the actual definitions of the terms PAL and NTSC really have little to do with the video format, but rather with the way its signals are encoded (particularly the color information) so they can be transferred through a single composite video cable. (For example, there is PAL60 which uses PAL color encoding but displays the same resolution and frame rate as NTSC...525 lines at 60 fields per second.)

Posted by John Cook (Member # 203) on June 30, 2006, 12:34 AM:

Kevin

I agree with your comment about name recognition of "DVD" in HD-DVD is a trump card in Toshiba's hand.

Jan,

You're right, HD-DVD and Bluray are not NTSC. They are in fact a subrate of a totally new format called ATSC. NTSC was a 525 line field (480 line field viewable,) interlaced at a vertical refresh rate of 60fields or 30frames/second. The ATSC standard is much more than that, 24/30/60f/s as well as 480i/480p/720p/1080i/1080p and not to mention all the combinations of each of the previous with either a 4:3 or 16:9 aspect ratio. NTSC was a single format standard, ATSC which includes HDTV is comprised of 18 different video frame rate standards. Only the 720P, 1080i and 1080P (1080P is becoming more prevalent here in the US) qualify as HDTV formats (exceeds of 1 Megapixel.) You can't compare old apples to fresh oranges. ATSC is primarily an MPEG2 format, the newer MPEG4 codecs used in HD-DVD and Bluray are not ATSC specific but the new disc formats do conform to the ATSC refresh rates, display aspect ratios and pixel counts. New encoding scheme, same underlying ATSC frame format. HDTV capable, 1080p capable, oh hell yes. No other consumer format on the planet (including PAL) comes close!

With regards to VHS vs Beta wars the prominent deciding factor in the US was the long play speed (4 hour) introduced by JVC and the eventual straw that broke the camels back extended long play (6 hour recoding time) introduced by Matsushita (Panasonic.)

The 2/4/6 hour VHS recording times vs the 1.5/3/4.5 Beta recording time per tape, at a time when video tape was quite expensive, was the deciding factor here in the US.

This time around, all other criteria being reasonably equal between the two formats, it appears that Sony has the longer recording time albeit at a higher cost.

Current score looks to be a tie! Could the Sony Play Station 3 w/integrated Bluray be the tie breaker? I'm anxiously waiting Bill Hunts review over on the bits.

John

Posted by Jan Bister (Member # 332) on June 30, 2006, 07:20 PM:

I forgot there was a name to the whole setup: ATSC. Thanks for reminding me. [Smile]

Now my question is, is ATSC going to be adopted globally or have people in PAL-land already come up with their own HDTV set of standards? I hope not, because I still think having PAL and NTSC (or their HDTV counterparts) is just plain silly when other things like cassettes and CDs (and of course film) work anywhere in the world.

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