Blu-ray vs. HD DVD (2008) - Page 3

Originally Posted by Cory Bauer

Considering they already look perfect, do you think there'd really be a perceivable improvement in picture quality if they did?

Originally Posted by JLL

They don't always look perfect. Happy Feet has major banding issues, others have other artifacts, and when the movie is too long Warner gives us down to 448k DD - the same as good old DVD.

Wouldn't it be better and more consistent if all movies had the same lossless audio and high bitrate video?

Originally Posted by JLL

They don't always look perfect. Happy Feet has major banding issues, others have other artifacts, and when the movie is too long Warner gives us down to 448k DD - the same as good old DVD.

Wouldn't it be better and more consistent if all movies had the same lossless audio and high bitrate video?

Originally Posted by Cam'ron

They can't, they support two formats. One of which doesn't have enough room for lossless audio on longer movies.

Originally Posted by bitemymac

Despite all the audio decoding options, it just all comes down to the original source material and intensity of audio track for the movie are the combined factors that determine the audio rating at the end. Of course, having the lossless option will help, but not all audio tracks can benefit from lossless audio option.

Originally Posted by bitemymac

I don't think re-encoding 128k mp3 source audio track back to lossless would make it lossless in audio quality.

Originally Posted by JLL

It doesn't matter if you can benefit from it. It's about bringing a consistent experience for the buyer, and many people care just as they care about everything else in the movies. That's why they have invested thousands of dollars on their home cinemas.

Why not please everyone when it's possible? Lossless sound doesn't mean that people with audio equipment not capable of handling lossless are missing anything, but the opposite does.

And no, not all movies are perfect demo material regarding their soundtrack, but at least let that be the deciding factor as to which soundtrack the HD version will get - instead of letting the length and complexity of the movie decide.



What does that have to do with anything? Soundtracks are not originally 128k mp3s.

Originally Posted by mobilesalesman

The content industry should just stamp the discs with blue ray on one side and HD on the other. Then I would buy a combo player right now. Blue ray is technically not as good but they seem to have more content.

Originally Posted by kupan787

True, but it is easier for a person to see a difference rather than hear it. Audiophiles have been tested with 256kbps MP3 compared to CDs and couldn't tell a difference, so how would your average joe compare (hell, they are happy with 128kpbs MP3s...). Plus, how many people have full 7.1 systems in their house (of good quality, not surround in a box)? It has got to be way less than the number of HDTV owners (hell, i'm happy with my 2.1 setup and HDTV).

To me, HD DVD and Blu-Ray is about video quality. All the in store displays are about video quality as well (comparing the footage to DVD). That is what will win people over. Until a movies video quality suffers because of the space on an HD DVD, i'm happy with my purchase.

Originally Posted by OldCodger73

Possible rental: 12/26 Pan's Labyrinth*,

Originally Posted by mdriftmeyer

A critical mass of consumers have 5:1 systems. Channel separation necessary on the extra storage will make a huge difference without having the compression artifacts being a barrier.

Originally Posted by bitemymac

That is the point. There is no point offering Lossless audio track encoding from a 128k mp3 quality source master.

Originally Posted by bitemymac

The way Blu-Ray offers lossless is mostly a PR spin without delivering quality these audio encodes are supposed to bring to the HDM.

Originally Posted by JLL

As I said there are no 128k masters so there is no point in discussing it.

Should we also discuss HD releases of movies recorded in 240x320?

Do you even have a slightest idea of what you're talking about?

Originally Posted by bitemymac

That is the point. There is no point offering Lossless audio track encoding from a 128k mp3 quality source master. Especially for the purpose of brining a consistent experience for the buyer, as you have pointed out, only the limited number of enthusiasts will be able to enjoy lossless audio when properly presented.
Most enthusiasts setups can tell when 128k mp3 quality track is being offered as lossless audio encoding and the lossless option is useless and is just merely a space filler. However, most users will not, even when the audio quality is worthy and presented as lossless.
The way Blu-Ray offers lossless is mostly a PR spin without delivering quality these audio encodes are supposed to bring to the HDM. I'm not saying that this is a bad thing, but it's not something that is worthy of boasting as a blu-ray strength that does not deliver anything extra. I'm sure there are few HDM titles that lossless option is a must, but there are more HDM titles that Lossless is useless. I wish that every HDM audio track released are worthy of the full lossless offering, but that is not the case. I guess, anyone can offer lossless audio track despite being worthy of of the technology.

BTW, most of the argument about long movie & lacking lossless audio on HD-DVD is just a fanboy talk.

I think the title Troy, over 3 hrs long movie, came with TrueHD lossless audio track on HD-DVD. I think Blu-Ray version did come with extra multi-channel PCM track along with TrueHD audio because not all Blu-Ray players can decode TrueHD track. I can't see this as a strength because HD-DVD players do not require multi-channel PCM tracks to get lossless, but only blu-ray players do. Actually, the main reason for blu-ray to push lossless (mostly in the form of multi-channel PCM) is because many standalone players are not capable of decoding Hidef audio encodes like DD+, TrueHD, and DTS-HD.

Originally Posted by originally written by By Joshua Zyber - High Def Digest

A couple of months ago, I wrote a column called Blu-ray and HD DVD Audio Explained that spelled out the basic functions, features, and differences among the various audio formats available on both High-Def disc types. In it, I explained that uncompressed PCM audio (as found on many Blu-rays) is an exact replication of the studio master, encoded on disc without compression, and that the lossless audio formats Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio are also bit-for-bit identical to the studio master once decoded. Doing the math, that should mean that a lossless track is also identical to an uncompressed track. Indeed, that is the case. However, some confusion remains as to whether an uncompressed track is actually better than a lossless one.
Now that both High-Def formats have been available for over a year, and each has built up a catalog of hundreds of titles, we have several cases where two high-resolution audio tracks (one lossless and one uncompressed) can be directly compared for the same movie. Examples include Warner's dual-format releases of 'The Departed' and 'Troy: Director's Cut', which feature lossless TrueHD on HD DVD and uncompressed PCM on Blu-ray, or Sony's Blu-ray release of 'Ghost Rider' with both PCM and TrueHD on the same disc. Theoretically speaking, playing the same movie's soundtrack in both lossless and uncompressed encodings should sound absolutely identical, shouldn't it? Well, yes, except that sometimes there are extenuating circumstances that come into play, and indeed some listeners have tried comparing the soundtracks and claim to hear a difference between them.
So what would cause a lossless track to not be identical to an uncompressed track? To get to the bottom of this, let's first take a look at the ways in which each audio format is encoded.
Isn't All Compression Bad?
(Note: Please keep in mind that the following examples have been simplified for conceptual purposes, and are not intended to represent the actual mathematical workings of either digital audio encoding or lossless compression, both of which are more complicated than I can explain here. However, this should hopefully serve to illustrate the basic concept of how a digital file can be compressed without losing important data.)
Let's begin with uncompressed audio. A PCM track is an uncompressed digital format that is 100% bit-for-bit identical to the source fed into it. If the studio master is:
101011100100101100010111
Then the PCM track pressed onto the disc would be:
101011100100101100010111
Pretty straightforward, right? The problem when it comes to High-Def discs is that, since the PCM file is totally uncompressed, an entire movie soundtrack takes up a huge amount of disc space. With their greater storage capacity, Blu-ray discs may often have enough room for this, but space is generally more cramped on HD DVD. Even on Blu-ray, some studios prefer to use that extra space for other purposes.
On the other hand, Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio are "lossless" compression formats. Although they're compressed to take up less disc space than a PCM track, once decoded they're also bit-for-bit identical to their sources. Think of this like a ZIP file that holds a PCM track. Once you unZIP the file, you get a 100% identical copy of the original PCM, without compromising any sound quality. What these formats do is drop certain data, and instead use flags to indicate that the empty spaces in the stream are meant to be filled with that data when decoded. As an example, let's pretend that we have a movie that's half sound and half complete silence. A PCM track might look like this:
101011100101000000000000
As you can see, all those 0s at the end are needlessly taking up space on the disc, literally for nothing but complete silence in this hypothetical scenario. To losslessly compress this, a TrueHD or Master Audio track might instead look like this:
1_1_111__1_1____________
By dropping the 0s, the lossless version takes up vastly less room, but when decoded those missing 0s are filled in and it looks like this again:
101011100101000000000000
Voila! A perfect reproduction of the source at less than half the disc space.
(Again, the above is a very simplified example of how lossless compression can be achieved. A real lossless audio algorithm doesn't just drop zeroes, but rather employs complex statistical models to analyze patterns in the data.)
Standard Dolby Digital, DTS, and (to a lesser extent) Dolby Digital Plus and DTS-HD High Resolution are all "lossy" compression formats. In the above scenario, they'd not only drop the 0s, but also drop some of the 1s that are deemed less critical to human hearing, under the belief that most people won't be able to hear the difference. The higher the bit rate, the less data is dropped. DD+ and DTS-HD HR are not only higher bit rate than old DD and DTS, but also more efficient at maintaining more of the data at lower bit rates. Still, they're not a perfect replication of the studio master the way that the PCM or TrueHD and Master Audio formats are.

Originally Posted by onlooker

What the h3ll are you talking about? You just pull this crap straight out of your a$$ and start a sh*t smear campaign? WTF?

Originally Posted by bitemymac

Sorry, it wasn't meant for the PS3 crowds. I have mistaken some of you guys as AV enthusiast. What the hell was I thinking....

Originally Posted by onlooker

What the h3ll are you talking about? You just pull this crap straight out of your a$$ and start a sh*t smear campaign? WTF?

Originally Posted by onlooker

Here is a decent explanation of Uncompressed "Lossless" PCM, and TrueHD which are both on Blu-Ray disks. HD-DVD can not fit both due to space constraints.

Originally Posted by bitemymac

You still don't get. All HD-DVD players can decode the advanced lossless HiDef audio encodes, hence multi-channel PCM track would just be a redundant track of TrueHD encodes.

Of course, blu-ray players would need to have multi-channel PCM track because TrueHD encodes can not be decoded on most standalone blu-ray players.

Originally Posted by onlooker

Here is a decent explanation of Uncompressed "Lossless" PCM, and TrueHD which are both on Blu-Ray disks. HD-DVD can not fit both due to space constraints.

Originally Posted by Walter Slocombe

Have you seen PL at all?

I put off watching it because I didn't want to "read" the story, but BOY its on HELL of a film! I have it on my AppleTV but I'll be buying it on BD asap a brilliant brilliant film IMO!

--

Merry xmas to all our readers, hope 2008 is filled with all the releases on all the formats you want!

Originally Posted by kupan787

I like it when the teeny-boppers come out to play:

h3ll
a$$
sh*t

Maybe try growing up? Hell, Ass and Shit. OH noes!!!11!1! My mommy is going to send me to my room now. Then again, you could always refute his post with some logic and reason. But then again, might be too difficult for someone on their Christmas break.

In other news, my brother just bought a PS3 and he is about to get a hand me down RP HDTV. I plan on taking a trip to see him soon. Honest question, what would be a good Blu-ray to rent to show him some HDM? He hasn't seen either format yet, and just the occasional football at the parents house in HD. I'd like something that looks really good.

Originally Posted by onlooker

I think you have that backwards. Blu ray Technically is better, and they have more titles.

Originally Posted by kupan787

Why would you want or need both? If both are lossless, then they are equal. Reread the article, they explain just that. PCM and TrueHD are the same, yet PCM takes up more space. Its like having a Word document and a ZIP file containing said Word document. Your argument is that Blu-Ray is better because it can hold the Word document and the ZIP file, while HD DVD can only hold the ZIP file. Blu-Ray needs to have both files, because not all players can access both file types. However, all HD DVD players can access the ZIP file.

Originally Posted by mobilesalesman

I really have seen no real key difference and from reviews it seem that both formats offer great quality.

Originally Posted by onlooker

What part am I not getting again? I just posted an perfect explanation of both formats for one person in particular. I was hoping you would have read it.

And if you have not noticed there has been a firmware update for AFAIK all first generation BR players that enables TrueHD, but the point is moot because they already have one PCM master track anyway.

Originally Posted by bitemymac

Don't just read it. Try to understand the article you are quoting.

BTW, you did kinda answered what you did not understand. You're last couple of sentences explain that.

you're were trying to say "Blu-Ray does not need True-HD because of the multi-channel PCM track"... right?... Now repeat it again by exchaning:

1) Blu-Ray to HD-DVD
2) True-HD to Multi-channel PCM
3) Multichannel PCM to True-HD

You get it now?... sigh....

Originally Posted by onlooker

WTF are you talking about? What I don't get is that your the one who was claiming that PCM audio was a 128 bit encode from an mp3. Get a grip and stop trying to shift the focus off the fact that you were making erroneous claims about Blu Ray audio.

Now do YOU get it!

Originally Posted by onlooker

WTF are you talking about? What I don't get is that your the one who was claiming that PCM audio was a 128 bit encode from an mp3. Get a grip and stop trying to shift the focus off the fact that you were making erroneous claims about Blu Ray audio.

Now do YOU get it!

Originally Posted by bitemymac

That is the point. There is no point offering Lossless audio track encoding from a 128k mp3 quality source master. Especially for the purpose of brining a consistent experience for the buyer, as you have pointed out, only the limited number of enthusiasts will be able to enjoy lossless audio when properly presented.
Most enthusiasts setups can tell when 128k mp3 quality track is being offered as lossless audio encoding and the lossless option is useless and is just merely a space filler. However, most users will not, even when the audio quality is worthy and presented as lossless.
The way Blu-Ray offers lossless is mostly a PR spin without delivering quality these audio encodes are supposed to bring to the HDM. I'm not saying that this is a bad thing, but it's not something that is worthy of boasting as a blu-ray strength that does not deliver anything extra. I'm sure there are few HDM titles that lossless option is a must, but there are more HDM titles that Lossless is useless. I wish that every HDM audio track released are worthy of the full lossless offering, but that is not the case. I guess, anyone can offer lossless audio track despite being worthy of of the technology.

BTW, most of the argument about long movie & lacking lossless audio on HD-DVD is just a fanboy talk.

I think the title Troy, over 3 hrs long movie, came with TrueHD lossless audio track on HD-DVD. I think Blu-Ray version did come with extra multi-channel PCM track along with TrueHD audio because not all Blu-Ray players can decode TrueHD track. I can't see this as a strength because HD-DVD players do not require multi-channel PCM tracks to get lossless, but only blu-ray players do. Actually, the main reason for blu-ray to push lossless (mostly in the form of multi-channel PCM) is because many standalone players are not capable of decoding Hidef audio encodes like DD+, TrueHD, and DTS-HD.

Originally Posted by Guartho

He never said that. He made up one hypothetical example of a much broader point. Yes, he could have picked a better one, one that was actually plausible for instance, but that doesn't change the fact that he never claimed that audio masters are 128bit mp3s.

Originally Posted by Cam'ron

I still don't see how having more audio options is a negative. Some receivers have PCM, but not Dolby True HD some have both. You don't have to upgrade your receiver to hear in Dolby True HD since you have the option to listen to PCM.

Originally Posted by Galley

Early reports indicate that the PS3 has sold a total of 8.4 million units so far. Take that, Toshiba!

Originally Posted by kupan787

I didn't realize that Toshiba was competing in the video game console market? We all know not 100% of PS3 owners are connected to an HDTV, let alone using their device as a HDM player.

It looks like the companies that focused on video games first (Nintendo@18.5 million and Microsoft@15.69 million) are taking it to Sony just fine.