The first step in getting me to accept BD is to start releasing better quality (pic and HD audio) releases with at least ALL special features of the sd dvd.

Second is lower priced players. If true, this is a good sign.

But why sabatage everything with ONE lower priced player. Why would anyone bother with the others, then?

Plus, we still don't know if ANY of these players will play dual-layer movies...should they ever come out.

Again...too many variables for me.

Lower priced players mean nothing to me. I want to see high quality software that I can't get right now on HD DVD. When a BD studio puts out a high quality exclusive disc, I'll buy a BD player.

An awesome uncut version of Kill Bill 1 and 2 on BD with loads of extra features would be great and probably make me take the plunge.

Of course, all this with high quality VC-1 encoding and Dolby TruHD 5.1 sound. Am I asking too much?

That said, there still isnt a decent BD player on the market (even at a high price point).

Stargate sounds like it's pretty impressive. I think that one is exclusive to BD, but not entirely sure. Frankly until this format war I never paid a great deal of attention to which studios produced which movies. There were just movies I liked, and movies I didn't. The studio behind the project was irrelevant.

Isn't the audio on BD at least the equal of HD DVD already, certainly on the Sony and LG releases which feature Lossless. PQ is said to be nearly identical between WB titles accross formats, in spite of the limited use they made of the space on the disc, and their use of the less efficient MPEG2 for their first wave of BDs. I suspect that their next set of BDs (trailed to use VC-1) will be indistinguishable from their HD DVD counterparts. Particularly since some of the HD DVDs were only single layer 15Gb on the HD side.

Stargate is virtually void of special features (except the audio commentary). That is just plain shameful.

Ill stick with my 2 disc Ultimate edition sd dvd.

The Toshiba now can ouput Dolby TruHD 5.1 sound (which is on some of the media releases and many upcoming Troy, T3, HP, Batman Begins, V for Vendetta, Superman Returns and so on).

No BD releases that I know of have this option or something similar. As far as Dolby Digital + versus the lossless PCM versions on BD, I havent heard any BD so I cannot comment. Dolby Digital + on hd-dvd sounds awesome though.

In short, currently, the audio options on hd-dvd are better than BD.

As far as pq, HD-DVD is given the edge in head to head reviews thus far. It remains to be seen if BD versions using vc-1 will be as good as hd-dvd.

The lack of special features is absolutely horrible on bluray's part. If we are going to upgrade, we shouldnt have to sacrifice special features. HD-DVD has taken care of us in this regard. BD has not.

Dolby TruHD can only at best equal the LPCM lossless audio tracks, since they are esentially uncompressed, and are the best quality you can get audio wise. Otherwise it'd be like a photo displaying greater resolution than reality! The advantage of Dolby's solution would be to potentially free up more space on the disc for other data.

While reviews have generally said the HD DVD releases of WB produce better PQ than their BD versions it is generally not by much. I expect the VC-1 releases will be identical.

As to extras, they aren't something which generally interests me these days, so I'll leave getting mad about that to others. It's just on select movies I'm interested in seeing what went on to make the process work. Though sometimes it's fun to hear what inspired a specific moment in a particular movie. For the most part extras seem to be exercises in back-patting, or, worse, promotional material sold to you after you've already purchased/rented the disc!

And your point being??

Currently I only know of Dolby Digital uncompressed PCM audio tracks. Since I dont have a BD player, I have to go by reliable reviewers and they all say that Dolby TruHD is better than what BD is offering. Can the current 1st gen BD players even use LPCM audio?? We know that at least the Samsung cannot play DL discs so it wouldnt be surprising if it had limitations.

From highdefdigest...

What is Dolby TrueHD?

Developed by Dolby Labs, TrueHD is a lossless encoding technology developed exclusively for high-definition, disc-based consumer media. TrueHD is capable of delivering audio that is bit-for-bit identical to the studio master. Utilizing up to 7.1 channels of audio information, the format supports 100 percent lossless audio, encoded up to 24-bit/96 kHz at a maximum bitrate of 18 Mbps. In raw technical terms, that easily outperforms any other audio format currently on the market, including Dolby Digital-Plus, and is about as close as you're going to get to a cinema-level experience outside of buying your own multiplex.

Ill stick with the better quality picture on HD-DVD for now.

Well, many of us want those extras and believe that Sony and BD is shorting us with the possibility to double dip in the future (like The Fifth Element).

I want a comprehensive release (at least up to this point). I dont want to have to keep my sd versions for special features. Its undeniable that BD has faltered in this area.

We already know that the HD-DVD release of MI3 will have more special features on the hd-dvd (not to mention VC-1 encoding instead of MPEG2).

A few questions:

Can both formats do LPCM? Can both do LPCM 6-channel 24-bit/192 kHz and 8-channel 24-bit/96 kHz encoding?

If they do, then besides the size, the only other thing I can see is that TrueHD can do this: "Supports extensive metadata including dialogue normalization and dynamic range control." ^[?]

I honestly don't see it making a huge difference.

Uncompressed 6 channel sound will take up a huge amount of space which is currently BD's problem. That is space that could be used for PQ. A lossless codec is one solution to this. Best of both worlds. That is what HD DVD has.

I don't think there's such a thing as a DD or DD+ uncompressed track. That's like saying there's an uncompressed MP3. I believe every release on Blu-Ray so far has had lossless LPCM 5.1 audio. As of this point, it's not possible to do a direct HD-DVD TrueHD vs. Blu-Ray LPCM audio comparison. The only film with TrueHD that was released on Blu-Ray had the plain old Dolby Digital soundtrack.

That's because BD doesn't have enough room. It's WB's decision on that.

You get better video quality than typical BD using mpeg2 but you're still not matching HD DVD...and you're losing the high-quality sound options.

Something has to give (right now) with BD. They just don't have enough room to do great picture AND sound.

Ok im confused now. Is PCM audio lossless or not??

This is from the Bluray website...

What audio codecs will Blu-ray support?

Linear PCM (LPCM) - offers up to 8 channels of uncompressed audio.
Dolby Digital (DD) - format used for DVDs also known as AC3, offers 5.1-channel surround sound.
Dolby Digital Plus (DD+) - extension of DD, offers increased bitrates and 7.1-channel surround sound.
Dolby TrueHD - extension of MLP Lossless, offers lossless encoding of up to 8 channels of audio.
DTS Digital Surround - format used for DVDs, offers 5.1-channel surround sound.
DTS-HD - extension of DTS, offers increased bitrates and up to 8 channels of audio.

Please note that this simply means that all Blu-ray players and recorders will have to support playback of these audio codecs, it will still be up to the movie studios to decide which audio codec(s) they use for their releases.

I thought that TruHD was the first lossless option on hd-dvd or bd.

PCM is lossless.

You said Dolby Digital PCM. There's no such thing.

duh....I knew what PCM was....I didnt know why I typed that.

That problem is resolved for BD when their first 50GB disc hits, as long as 45GB HD-DVDs don't appear and have more extras.

The problem is also lessened, theoretically, once BD uses VC-1, as they'll get better results in the video department.

Most realistically, I see the lack of mandated Dolby TrueHD support as something that washes out some of the advantage of the additional 20GB of storage.

The big thing to me is still that more discs = more features. Hopefully, with extremely long films, HD-DVD can still maintain the movie on one disc. But, as we move towards more extras mastered in HD, we will start to see more films (like Mission Impossible III), use a 2nd disc or more for the extras. More extras are more expensive, and there needs to be a way to communicate that to the consumer. Would someone really pay $40 or $50 for Pearl Harbor: Vista Series, if it came in a regular case and had one disc? How many times have we seen DVDs that have "features" on the 2nd disc that are nothing more than a 20-minute featurette from HBO, a gag reel, an EPK, and some trailers?

The only way Blu-ray could get around this is with a simultaneous release on DVD, HD-DVD, and Blu-ray. The DVD has 3 discs, the HD-DVD has 2 discs, and the Blu-Ray has everything on the other releases, but all on one disc. That might happen twice a year, at most.

So, going back to this... What advantage, besides the size, is there for TrueHD? (Or for PCM)?

I think people would still buy the one with more discs because they see it as a better value.

Oddly enough a look at the files sizes on the WB Blu-ray discs doesn't support that conclussion. Looking at some of the discs WB has released on HD DVD the file size is even smaller (less than 15Gb for the hybrid discs), and these are some of the titles most widely praised for their PQ. I suspect that once they're released on BD, and in VC-1, there'll be plenty of room for all the extras and an LPCM audio track. Assuming Warners start using LPCM.

That one i have no answer to

WB already said everything will be identical on both formats except for BD, which will lose features due to space. There won't be any LPCM tracks on their releases, i don't think.

Isn't Stargate a title that will be coming to HD DVD via Studio Canal? In any event, I was talking about blowaway movies like Pixar stuff, Lawrence of Arabia, Spider-Man, T-2 in acceptable quality, etc. I actually pre-ordered T-2 in anticipation of buying the Samsung, but didn't buy the player after viewing it in action.

Stargate and T2 are both being released on HD DVD overseas.

The #'s change so often that I can't even keep up. Did we discuss this already?

http://www.engadget.com/2006/08/30/s...o-two-million/

Oh believe me, I know that . I've been buying HD DVD's faster than my mailman can keep up at this point. I am completely in love with this format based on the quality entertainment being delivered on a consistent basis.