basaro

This has possibly been covered somewhere in one of the comparison threads, if so, please point me in the right direction and close this. My head hurts trying to find evidence of this.

I was just reading a few BD reviews (The Devils Rejects, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang) on this site. The reviewer makes no mention of the crappy video quality that plagued the early releases like Fifth Element or XXX. Has this been resolved in recent releases, BD isn't using VC1 compression now, are they?

Please don't turn this into a HD-DVD is better or vise-versa thread. I don't have a preference to either one. I just want to know if BD is getting on the right track, maybe something to look forward to? (I know they are still only using 1 layer, that is not a concern of this thread.)

maingon

They seem to be getting better, Some new Disney Releases are suppose to look great. But from what I read the best looking video from either format is suppose to be Aeon Flux on HD-DVD not sure how true that is since I have only a HD-DVD player right now

wewantflair

The harsh reality of the situation is that there are few, if any, first-hand accounts of Blu Ray quality because so few early adopters, especially those of us here on DVD Talk, own BD players.

Josh Z

Warner Bros. has put out some nice Blu-rays that are equal or nearly equal to the quality of their HD DVDs. Their first batch of discs used MPEG2 but still looked pretty good (they weren't wasting disc space with PCM audio). Their most recent discs use VC-1 and are for all intents identical to the same release on HD DVD.

Disney just put out a handful of discs using a mix of MPEG2 and MPEG4, and early reports are positive for both.

Sony is still intent on using MPEG2 and PCM, but they've finally had one (just one) positively reviewed title with Tears of the Sun.

In a best case scenario, within a few months the quality differences between the two formats may be minimized and the two left on essentially equal footing, except of course for the vast price disparity in their hardware.

joshd2012

There are bad discs for both formats. Blu-Ray has had more, but recently pretty much every disc has been solid. The upcoming Disney releases are being reviewed very favorably, and I think one would be hard pressed to find an HD DVD that surpassed them.

darkside

The trouble for Blu-ray is you would be hard pressed to find a title that surpassed HD DVD. If it ends up being dead even that doesn't help the Blu-ray cause much. I'm waiting on the reviews for the first BD50 discs to see if they can finally surpass HD DVD. That has been the promise from the start.

joshd2012

Doesn't Dinosaur surpass any HD DVD? The video has been called perfect (as it is from a digital master) and the audio is presented in 48/24 PCM. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think any HD DVD title has presented audio at such high quality. That would make it surpass HD DVD.

digitalfreaknyc

And if you care about extras, you're SOL with BD. When they get the transfer right, it's probably at the expense of extras.

joshd2012

Dinosaur comes with the exclusive HD Blu-Scape feature. If I'm not mistaken, these Disney discs are the first to feature exclusive high def extras on either format.

digitalfreaknyc

At the expense of which OTHER extras?

Edit: Looks like A LOT considering the SD DVD was 2 discs. Again, "woo hoo" for getting quality right but everything else is still lacking.

PornoStar

I have no clue about Dinosaur but I do know that animated films look better and are easier to make look almost transparant than live action films. I fully expect every single HD-DVD and Blu-Ray animated feature film to look absolutly stunning regardless of which compression model they use. Live acion is a different story.

PS..

jmaxlow

Dinosaur used CGI characters with live action backgrounds.

Maxflier

Although I haven't gotten around to watching my copy yet, I hear Seabiscuit has set the bar for PQ even higher.

PornoStar

CGI is basically the same as animated characters. They are modeled and animated on a computer. the live backgrounds obviously dont fit what I was talking about but the actual dinosaurs pretty much are the same thing.

PS...

PornoStar

Its not surprising that Seabiscuit has an amazing transfer. They used the vision2 family of films and its a very clean unfiltered, except tungston conversion, picture. Wether it passes the clarity of Aeon Flux I havent heard that it does but until I hear more ill keep my mind open to the possibility. I should get my copy from Amazon by thursday. Either way its another solid transfer on a great film. All good news.

PS...

Mr. Cinema

It's good to know the pic quality is improving, but I just don't want to spend a $1000 to find out. And I really won't feel like searching for a PS3 when it launches.

speedyray

What exactly are the bad disc on HD-DVD?

All the reviews I am reading are saying movies are on par with HD-DVD. For twice the price, they better be noticably better.

Any HD-DVD with In-Movie Experience has new exclusive extras since it is new feature only available on HD-DVD.

As for the sound HD-DVD has Dolby TrueHD - I can live without PCM.

As has already been pointed out the old extras are being ported over on HD-DVD but not BD in gerneral although Warner seems to be breaking that trend. I have Dinosaur and I would not buy the BD disc unless it carried over all the features of my 2 disc set.

I still have not seen enough to interest me in adopting BD in addition to let alone instead of HD-DVD.

digitalfreaknyc

Are you talking about new reviews? I'm not sure where you're looking.

Adam Tyner

A Perfect Storm and Full Metal Jacket, to name a couple.

I would assume so. Seems as if Sony is the only one really struggling with picture quality anymore, although Tears of the Sun got some good notices.

Drexl

The distinction between the "bad" discs though, is that the Blu-Ray discs' problems seem to be from subpar compression, while the HD-DVDs' problems stem from subpar masters. So, there are BD titles that should look better, while the HD-DVDs are limited by their masters. Bad compression can make a good master look bad, but good compression can't make a bad master look good.

joshd2012

Perfect PQ from a digital master, outrageous audio fidelity at 48/24 PCM, and exclusive HD bonus content... and you're worried about SD features?

Me thinks you are in the wrong forum.

joshd2012

In addition to what Adam mentioned, more recent releases like Troy and Traffic have gotten mixed reviews.

DthRdrX

The only problems I have seen with over 50 Hd-dvd titles are the bobbed releases and the early audio problems. Troy and Traffic are very curious as many people are stating that they looked the same way theatrically and, as some reviews such as hddigest point out, may have that look intentionally. I don't have Traffic but Troy looks fine to me. It's not as good as Aeon Flux or The Searchers but it's better than 95% of what Sony has released.

Mr. Cinema

So...4 HD DVDs out of what, 50 have gotten bad reviews? That's a great %.

HD Beat says the scenes they saw of King Kong on HD are the best looking they have seen. And that's an exclusive...

http://www.hdbeat.com/2006/09/14/hd-...motional-tour/

joshd2012

The only point I was making is that it hasn't been all roses on both sides. Some would believe that HD DVD can do no wrong, and that this wrong attitude to take when comparing software (which this thread was created to do).