Consumer Reports Gets It Right - Blu-Ray and HD-DVD are Equal
11-25-07, 10:07 AM
#27
DVD Talk Legend
Originally Posted by Iron_Giant
I do not want to have bad dehavior, but the you cannot compare movies that have come out on both formats. They are both come from the same master, so their is no real difference. BR may be every so slightly better, but no one should be able to tell with the naked eye.
The real test is comparing a movie that is mastered only for BD.
-The movie master can be created up to the 50 gig limit
-Can be sent using 55Mbps bandwith
Everything I have read for "Pirates of the Caribbean movies", Spiderman 3, Cars and Ratatouille are all voted as the best video quality because of the Disk Size and the higher bandwidth.
The real test is comparing a movie that is mastered only for BD.
-The movie master can be created up to the 50 gig limit
-Can be sent using 55Mbps bandwith
Everything I have read for "Pirates of the Caribbean movies", Spiderman 3, Cars and Ratatouille are all voted as the best video quality because of the Disk Size and the higher bandwidth.
As Suprmallet pointed out, Paramount prepared separate video encodes for the same movie on each format, each maximized in bit rate for their respective format. The results? Indistinguishable.
11-25-07, 01:37 PM
#28
Banned by request
Originally Posted by Robert George
Only if you are debating a blind man.
(or someone on blu-ray.com)
(or someone on blu-ray.com)
11-25-07, 02:15 PM
#29
Suspended
Originally Posted by Iron_Giant
I do not want to have bad dehavior, but the you cannot compare movies that have come out on both formats. They are both come from the same master, so their is no real difference. BR may be every so slightly better, but no one should be able to tell with the naked eye.
The real test is comparing a movie that is mastered only for BD.
-The movie master can be created up to the 50 gig limit
-Can be sent using 55Mbps bandwith
Everything I have read for "Pirates of the Caribbean movies", Spiderman 3, Cars and Ratatouille are all voted as the best video quality because of the Disk Size and the higher bandwidth.
I want to buy a PS3 to watch BR Dvds, but the price for HD-DVD Players is so much lower it may win the HD war in my house.
The real test is comparing a movie that is mastered only for BD.
-The movie master can be created up to the 50 gig limit
-Can be sent using 55Mbps bandwith
Everything I have read for "Pirates of the Caribbean movies", Spiderman 3, Cars and Ratatouille are all voted as the best video quality because of the Disk Size and the higher bandwidth.
I want to buy a PS3 to watch BR Dvds, but the price for HD-DVD Players is so much lower it may win the HD war in my house.
11-25-07, 03:33 PM
#30
DVD Talk Legend
I would imagine we will get longer movies on HD DVD or more lossless audio.
I haven't seen any technical docs or links that suggest there will be a significant bump in bandwidth due to TL51, but I may have missed them.
Of course there's still the question of backwards-compatibility with TL51. If there was no question at all about it, I would think Toshiba would be singing it from the rooftops. As it stands, things seem very tentative to me.
Don't get me wrong, I would love for my gen 1 and gen 2 players to handle TL51 flawlessly, but the skeptic in me is assuming it won't be a smooth transition.
I haven't seen any technical docs or links that suggest there will be a significant bump in bandwidth due to TL51, but I may have missed them.
Of course there's still the question of backwards-compatibility with TL51. If there was no question at all about it, I would think Toshiba would be singing it from the rooftops. As it stands, things seem very tentative to me.
Don't get me wrong, I would love for my gen 1 and gen 2 players to handle TL51 flawlessly, but the skeptic in me is assuming it won't be a smooth transition.
11-25-07, 03:50 PM
#31
DVD Talk Reviewer
I'll agree that both formats are equal and both formats certainly can produce flawless image quality that nobody really could bother to complain about. It seems that at times Blu-Ray doesn't really take full advantage and lets some picture quality slide here and there in terms of artifacting or noise, but whatever. I'm an HD man but I think Blu-Ray has a really darn enticing library and I without a doubt intend to go format neutral at some point... after Blu-Ray 1.1 profile players are available and at the $300 range. I think I'll be waiting a while though.
11-25-07, 04:02 PM
#32
DVD Talk Legend
Originally Posted by mzupeman2
I'll agree that both formats are equal and both formats certainly can produce flawless image quality that nobody really could bother to complain about. It seems that at times Blu-Ray doesn't really take full advantage and lets some picture quality slide here and there in terms of artifacting or noise, but whatever. I'm an HD man but I think Blu-Ray has a really darn enticing library and I without a doubt intend to go format neutral at some point... after Blu-Ray 1.1 profile players are available and at the $300 range. I think I'll be waiting a while though.
11-25-07, 04:11 PM
#33
DVD Talk Reviewer
The most recent example would be the first spider-man film from what I've heard. I've heard Spider-man 1 is just 'ok' while the second looks better and the third looks flawless. I couldn't tell you specific titles as again, I don't already own a blu-ray player but there have definitely been titles that were 'less than' compared to what they could have been. But hopefully this doesn't turn into a 'right or wrong' debate, as I again, want to get in on this format someday.
11-25-07, 05:34 PM
#34
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Originally Posted by mzupeman2
It seems that at times Blu-Ray doesn't really take full advantage and lets some picture quality slide here and there in terms of artifacting or noise, but whatever.
11-25-07, 05:51 PM
#35
DVD Talk Reviewer
I understand that. There's a higher inconsistancy on Blu-Ray I feel though, although most of those issues are in the past. And that may also be because they release many more titles on blu-ray than on HD, or so it seems to me. But again, in the end I don't care, all I know is that I want blu-ray so I can watch the rest of the high def catalogue I can't currently see.
11-25-07, 06:20 PM
#36
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Originally Posted by mzupeman2
There's a higher inconsistancy on Blu-Ray I feel though, although most of those issues are in the past. And that may also be because they release many more titles on blu-ray than on HD, or so it seems to me.
The title counts on both formats are fairly close, although HD DVD has a much larger percentage of catalog titles, while Blu-ray is more focused on day-and-date releases.Universal's mediocre waves of catalog titles far outnumber the poorly mastered Blu-ray titles from early in the format's life.
11-25-07, 06:21 PM
#37
DVD Talk Legend
Originally Posted by Adam Tyner
There are plenty of HD DVD catalog titles that don't look that great either. Both formats have had their ups and downs.
Uni catalog titles come to mind. I just watched Meet The Fockers the other night, and I was checking my settings for 10 minutes before I realized the disc just looked bad.
WRT Spidey 1, that is most likely a source issue, as the first film has always looked, for lack of a better term, "rougher".
11-25-07, 07:06 PM
#39
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Originally Posted by PopcornTreeCt
Isn't the MPEG-2 encode inferior to the VC-1 encode? Or is this just a myth?
11-25-07, 07:17 PM
#40
MPEG-2 would be inferior if you compared the same capacities. In other words, give MPEG-2 more space, and it should look just as good. But you need a lot more space for it. So, space-for-space, VC-1 wins, but MPEG-2 just needs more space to equal VC-1 quality.
11-25-07, 07:23 PM
#41
DVD Talk Legend
Originally Posted by DVD Polizei
MPEG-2 would be inferior if you compared the same capacities. In other words, give MPEG-2 more space, and it should look just as good. But you need a lot more space for it. So, space-for-space, VC-1 wins, but MPEG-2 just needs more space to equal VC-1 quality.
It would certainly explain why Fox's Kingdom Of Heaven DC Blu-Ray was near bare-bones. With a film running time over 3 hours, I'm sure they needed almost every byte to make it look as good as it does.
Personally I think Fox missed their opportunity to make it a 2 disc set, but it was one of their early releases, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised.
11-26-07, 09:42 AM
#42
DVD Talk Gold Edition
i'm not sure about the encoding tools used in vc-1, and whether certain settings are mandatory, but there seems to be a degree of "smoothing out" which occurs with fine detail with this codec. presumably this is a crucial part of the algorythm's ability to compress data down into such small packets, however it does not reproduce the source material as accurately as a larger mpeg-2 encode at the same resolution. perhaps at higher bit-rates this tool can be switched off and details will again achieve their natural appearance. whether avc uses a similar method of "smoothing" im not sure.
11-26-07, 10:44 AM
#43
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i'm not sure about the encoding tools used in vc-1, and whether certain settings are mandatory, but there seems to be a degree of "smoothing out" which occurs with fine detail with this codec. presumably this is a crucial part of the algorythm's ability to compress data down into such small packets, however it does not reproduce the source material as accurately as a larger mpeg-2 encode at the same resolution. perhaps at higher bit-rates this tool can be switched off and details will again achieve their natural appearance. whether avc uses a similar method of "smoothing" im not sure.
11-26-07, 12:11 PM
#44
DVD Talk Gold Edition
this is not the experience of comparing the vc-1 nd mpeg2 paramount encodes as has been conducted on avs. the detail was smoothed out in the vc-1 caps compared with the mpeg2 versions. i realise amir talked about the ability of the codec to accurately reproduce fine details while simultaneously achieving low bitrates, but the proof of the pudding is in the eating... as to block size avc and vc-1 are identical in this respect so i'm not clear where that would be a difference between the two codecs. a loop filter appears to be optional on avc, though i'm not clear if this is the case with vc-1.
11-26-07, 12:42 PM
#45
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There are too many variables to consider for me to think that'd necessarily be an ideal comparison either. Is it a problem with VC-1 or the way the codec was used for a certain disc or discs? Is the difference noticeable when you're not zooming in 500% on a still image? Is it possible to create a perfect image in either case, but the effort involved could still be unrealistic to expect a compressionist to pull off day in, day out?
There's something potentially flawed with just about any conceivable scenario.
There's something potentially flawed with just about any conceivable scenario.
11-26-07, 02:50 PM
#46
Well, eventually we'll have higher capacity HD media discs which will probably reach 100GB or more in the near future, so we may have a different "level" of VC-1. Right now, according to Microsoft's website, we're between Level 2 and Level 3 of their bitrate encode quality. Level 4 is 135 Mbps, which I would imagine is a hell of a lot of information flowing, leading to an exceptional picture, and more than likely, very much free from compression artifacts.
