Buyer beware: "Traffic" HD DVD could be an upconverted DVD master
 

Universal should acknowledge their screw-up with Traffic HD DVD

hd dvd, 720p broadcast, and dvd comparison screencaps

people thinking of getting this title might want to wait and see what studio canal can come up with about a month from now.

edit: a comparison pic between the 720p broadcast and the hd dvd

http://img138.imageshack.us/img138/6...dvs720pje3.png

ive been reading that thread for a few days now and while I agree that the SD upconverted DVD looks exactly like the HD-DVD, what I'm not seeing is this 720p broadcast version looking "A lot better". EVeryone keeps raving about how good the 720p version supposedly looks but to me all 3 look pretty much EXACTLY the same, unless I'm missing something.

That being said, avsforum is such a stttrange place. It's bad enough that people get all worked up about HD vs BD fanboys but they have threads where they break down frames of a movie and accuse eachother of being codec fanboys and all kinds of crazy stuff lol. With the amount of time and effort they put into arguing over there, I don't understand how they have time to ever watch a movie.

Just be glad they've moved on to video. It used to be all audio arguments there. And audio is far less easy to compare than video, so every argument was completely opinion. At least with video you can post a pic of most problems and everyone can see it.

Reformatted the subject line since I have a functioning SHIFT key. :)

Could a moderator please purge this thread entirely? This bullshit FUD is bad enough on AVS. We don't need to bring it here.

Why is that? The 720p version, which should be inferior in detail to the 1080p hd-dvd, is not. The 720p version is superior, and by a margin. So that should be setting off alarms don't you think? People have the right to know they've boughten a upconvert advertised as a HD film.

First of all Z, you use the REPORT link, not a post, to communicate that.

Second, this thread is entirely proper. Since when do you get to decide what information potential information HD-DVD buyers get communicated to them? What you just wrote would be like me saying "can we not post Z reviews? I disagree with all of them and don't think they should be posted".

Honestly, I've known you for awhile and I am quite surprised to see you post something like this, I've never known you to be this way before.

It is not a question of whether the information is accurate or not. The only contents of the OP are two flame-riddled threads on AVS.

Must I click on AVS and deal with that nonsense in order to get this (seemingly) valuable information? Why not post relevant information here?

^ if you want to rehost the relevant pics, attribute them appropriately to codec and capper, and copy/paste what you consider interesting commentary feel free. the guy who works in encoding seems to know what he's talking about, so that might be a place to start.

lazy habbit are difficult to get out of!

Fine, then I'm going to start a thread titled "All Blu-rays Are Upconverted From VHS!". The thread will have as much factual evidence to support this claim as those threads on AVS do, which is to say none at all. Further, as the original poster who starts the thread, I will personally believe the veracity of what I'm writing with as much agenda-free conviction as those people on AVS, which is again to say not at all. Then I'm going to make sure that my friends seed links to the thread on other web sites and pass this shocking new information off as incontrovertibly proven fact.

The purpose of this forum is to discuss useful information about the HD formats, not to scream "Fire!" in a crowded room where there is no fire. Looking at who started this thread, I think we all know which of those his real intention was. If you still aren't sure, his chosen screen-name may even give you a clue.

Feel free to explain what the intention is, and what his screen name means. Forgive me if I'm the only one, but I don't get your rant in this thread. If this is false info, why not just say that?

:shrug:

Josh you are the last person I would expect to talk like this. His screen name has nothing to do with Blu-ray or anything that would connotate it. "Xylon" come on. It seems like you are more pissed because they ripped you to shreds over there about your review. Now I think we all now know that you aren't the least bit objective especially after making a post like that. I don't think I'll bother reading your HD-DVD reviews because it's clear that you're just a format cheerleader and don't know if you're speaking any truth or just gospel for HD-DVD.

See, I don't think that's warranted. Josh has written positive reviews of a number of Blu-ray discs, he's written negative reviews of a number of HD DVD discs, and he gave Traffic a fairly mediocre score and didn't describe it as being much of a step up from the DVD.

I disagree with Josh about this particular thread -- I think Burnt Thru presented the links in a completely uninflammatory way and didn't pass off second-hand speculation as fact -- but I do agree with him that a lot of people on AVS are rushing to judgment. The overwhelming majority of them are putting their faith completely in the screenshots that have been provided, and hardly any of them have actually seen the footage in these different formats with their own eyes.

I'm not going to say that the HD DVD is an upconvert until I see it myself. I'm not going to say that this 720p version of the movie looks better than the HD DVD until I'm in a position to make that comparison myself. All of that could very well be the case, but at least for the moment, it's all speculation.

I just did not expect this kind of thing from Josh, but when he makes a post like that it makes you wonder what his motives are. I mean if he's ripping every BD, his bias would be obvious.

Burnt Thru hasn't been posting threads that would show him as a format cheerleader like digifreaknyc used too. He's just saying "hey take a look at Traffic because it doesn't look like they did a good job with it and it's probably a good idea to wait." To me, I don't see anything wrong with that and I think he was unfairly trounced on by Josh.

If the people on AVS are saying that every single HD-DVD was a upconvert, I could understand but this is just one movie where there are doubts about its source. And it's a valid concern.

Those pics look the same too me. I think I'm in the majority here when I say that you can't judge video quality from screen caps.

I prefer the HD-DVD to the Criterion and original USA films release (I own all three), even though it's not a big improvement. The scene that I used was "Ruiz in the hospital", you can see more detail in the actors' faces and the DVDs had more noise, but overall you aren't going to find much detail due to the production. I haven't seen the 720p version, so I can't comment on that. Overall the HD-DVD is medicore at best, but I don't think Universal did anything wrong.

I was talking about the person who started this thread, not the thread on AVS. I made a comment about yelling "Fire!"... his name is "Burnt Thru"... see, I was making a funny.

Pretty sure I did, but just to reiterate, the info is false. The people pertuating it on AVS know that it's false and continue to make their claims anyway. And now it's spread into this forum like an infection.

You're not familiar with his posting history here then, I guess.

Josh, as a fellow long-time poster, would you please do me the courtesy of posting a brief summation of why it is false and the facts supporting. For me.

The claim that's been made is that the Traffic HD DVD is just an SD master upconverted, and comparison screenshots to a marginally better 720p HD broadcast of the movie supposedly prove this assertion. It proves nothing of the sort. The existence of a better transfer doesn't prove that the Universal disc is SD. It just demonstrates that it's not the best HD it might be.

The quality of those 720p screenshots has been ridiculously exaggerated to the point where people act like they're gorgeous HD nirvana, when in fact they're barely distinguishable from the HD DVD screenshots until you crop and magnify portions of the frame to do pixel-level comparisons. In real-world viewing, a small difference might be noticeable but I seriously doubt anyone dissatisfied with the HD DVD would suddenly be satisfied with the other.

I find the usage of screen captures to do such a comparison dubious in the first place. Depending on the hardware used, the process of taking the captures can often color the results. The choice of frames to use will also skew the comparison. I'm sure if I hunted, I could find specific frames (or specific parts of specific frames) on the HD DVD that look better than the 720p transfer, and many others that look nearly identical.

I mean, honestly, does one of these look "vastly better" than the other?

http://www.mindspring.com/~lizap/Traffic4_720p.png

http://www.mindspring.com/~lizap/Traffic4_hddvd.png

Screen shots like these don't prove that the one transfer is upconverted SD and the other is HD. They don't prove anything at all, other than that some people have way too much time on their hands to be making such a huge mountain out of such a tiny molehill.

Welcome to the internet.

Those two pictures don't even look remotely similar in grain/artifacts. And I agree, it is so hard to determine things based on a couple of screen captures, with a few exceptions, because there is no standard in obtaining and displaying the captures.

I often wonder that too. And I wonder how they can enjoy the movies they actually watch when everything is gone over with a fine tooth comb. :lol: Remember the old VHS days when we were just happy to actually watch a movie at home. :)

Well I probably have a better eye than most but the top picture looks better. Vastly? Well no, they are both pretty crappy looking, but the top pic looks sharper and with less "noise".

Honestly, I come to the same conclusion as you - it's a shitty HD transfer.

Thanks for taking the time Z. You rule.

The 720p picture has way more blocking artifacts on the car trunk. The HD DVD picture has more grain. Neither looks 'good', and the level of detail is hardly different at all (notice the illegilble Ford logo on both).

The transfer could probably be marginally improved, but the movie is what it is. It's never going to look 'good'.

added a comparison pic between the 720p source and the hd dvd. bear in mind that the 720p broadcast is almost certainly at a lower bitrate, and is of course only at 720p resolution, while the hd dvd is at 1080p and most likely a higher variable bitrate. it's gotta be hoped that the studio canal hd dvd release (at 1080p and decent bitrate) will be a significant improvement over the 720 version, just as the 720p is clearly an improvement over the uni (hd) dvd.