i have an opinion of DD+ but we don't need yet another subthread
i would like to know, however, if anyone reading this knows which films on Blu-ray have the DD+ audio track. in my library of about 20 discs, none of them have DD+. the Blu-ray spec mentions that DD+ is optional as well.
It is HD audio, but not in a total lossless format. Just like in the video market, 720p/1080i is considered HD as well as 1080p.
You provided a vendors description of their product, you don't see a problem in doing that?
You are welcome to it, personally I feel it is a major step backwards. Yes 720p and 1080i are still HD video formats, DD+ is more of a compromise to fit slightly higher bitrate audio onto a HD-DVD
Like I say, 720p is 2/3 the size of 1080p. That's not much lower resolution. It's not even the difference between the iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4 screen. The following chart has an indicator of screen size to viewing distance benefits based on 20/20 vision:
Why does everyone pull up a chart that a random person put together based on their thoughts. That image and that article are just what he thinks. There is no proper distance to sit from your TV, you sit where you want, you sit where is comfortable.
Also, can you please provide your calculations to say that 720p is 2/3 the size of 1080p, it is less than 2/3 the size, and also try and remember the bit rate as well.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marvin
So if you have a 40" TV, the difference between 720p and 1080p is visible when you are 5ft away from the screen. 10ft away from a 60" screen and you'd see some benefit in 1080p.
I sit around 3m from my 40" TV, it isn't hard to tell the difference between low bitrate 720p and Blu-ray 1080p.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marvin
I don't know anyone including myself who owns Blu-Ray. They all have XBox 360s.
So they own a DVD player, so does a lot of people, that is one of the reasons why DVD is still the king.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marvin
There's an agreement being worked on to that effect. I can't remember the name of it but there are discussions to allow you to buy a movie on one format and own it on any distribution. I'm not entirely sure how it will work as bandwidth has to be paid for so if you buy a Blu-Ray disc, how would Apple make money if you could also download it for free?
That isn't what I mean. I want to be able to purchase a movie from Apple and play it on my Pioneer player, or purchase a movie from Sony and play it on my AppleTV.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marvin
It doesn't work with dial-up.
I haven't got dial-up, I have 16Mb ADSL.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marvin
It doesn't take 25 seconds for every movie not including inserting/ejecting the disc and putting them in the packet.
If it doesn't take that long, why did you mention it?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marvin
For you it does, that's fine. Not everyone puts picture quality first just like with video games. For me personally it's accessibility, then content, then quality. I can watch movies ok on an iPhone screen and have exclusively watched some movies on an iPhone screen. I wouldn't say it's a great experience at that level but my point is that not everyone sees picture quality as the ultimate deciding factor in the success or failure of a distribution format.
If you give people a choice between watching a movie on a 3" screen, 20" screen or a 40" screen, I think the 3" screen won't be the first choice.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marvin
You are right that Blu-Ray sales grew more than VOD last year:
VOD includes satellite and cable options, not really digital downloads.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marvin
but overall sales are going down. This means that the DVD buyers are moving to Blu-Ray, which you'd expect but overall, that market is dropping to favour VOD, which has now reached over 12% marketshare and grown over 50%.
Yes sales are going down overall, but nothing is picking up those sales, not blu-ray, not digital downloads, nothing.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marvin
You will see more compression artifacts on cable than a VOD service like ATV so you won't be getting a true comparison between just the resolution.
You seem to understand bit-rate here, but you don't seem to understand the bit-rate different between digital downloads (like ATV) and Blu-ray...
What you both misunderstand is that I'm not talking about a zero sum game. Where physical media has to die for digital downloads to thrive.
What I'm saying is that because of the rise of various forms of content distribution that Blu-ray will not reach the popular of DVD. That in the long run digital streaming will be the most popular form of content distribution. But I do believe that physical media will be around for a long time. At point I'm sure it will transition from an optical disc to something else probably ROM SD cards.
Quote:
Originally Posted by womblingfree
What's to debate? Physical media will ultimately die out, but at the moment for the best viewing experience you need a blu-ray player.
"yes, i do forsee a time when entertainment will be predominantly available without the option of physical media. this scenario, however, won't be available anytime soon. CDs, DVDs and Blu-rays will be around for years to come. this will be especially true in places where access to reliable and relatively fast broadband connectivity is cost prohibitive."
Your mind is stuck on one metric of quality. We all understand that BR is the best quality for home entertainment.
We are talking about when people are willing to sacrifice quality for convenience. You cannot accept that many (probably the majority) are willing to sacrifice the visual and audio superiority of BR for the convenience of watching a movie instantly.
As reported by Netflix the growth of its streaming service is outpacing its DVD service.
Quote:
Originally Posted by womblingfree
720p and 1080p images within the same scale can vary enormously. You can download a 720p movie and it'll be vastly inferior in audio and video to another 720p video due to differing compression.
The proof of the pudding is in the eating, and the best puddings at the moment are well produced blu-rays. Wont always be that way but that's where we are right now.
I've tried to correct you in this misunderstanding a couple of times. But you seem to continue it.
The consumption of media is increasing. People are watching more movies, television, listening to more music than ever. What is going down are the profits from consumption of media. More media is being consumed but profits are not increasing at the same rate of consumption.
The reason profits are going down is because the media companies were able to gouge people with the what they charged for physical media. The profits from the decline in physical sales are not being made up by the increase in digital streaming/downloading.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jfanning
Yes sales are going down overall, but nothing is picking up those sales, not blu-ray, not digital downloads, nothing.
Why does everyone pull up a chart that a random person put together based on their thoughts. That image and that article are just what he thinks. There is no proper distance to sit from your TV, you sit where you want, you sit where is comfortable.
There are calculations you can make about the convergence of pixels based on 20/20 visual acuity at a certain distance. That's how Apple can call the iPhone display a retina display.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jfanning
Also, can you please provide your calculations to say that 720p is 2/3 the size of 1080p, it is less than 2/3 the size, and also try and remember the bit rate as well.
1080p has more than double the amount of pixels but in terms of picture quality, you're not going to see anywhere near what you'd see in the iPhone 4 vs the 3GS where you get 4x the amount of pixels. When the see the two sizes overlayed, it's clear there's not all that much in it:
I totally agree on bitrate, a lot of services push it way too low, especially cable but there are some that push 720p at over 4Mbits and that should be fine. Apple's service from what I've seen is one of the better ones.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jfanning
So they own a DVD player, so does a lot of people, that is one of the reasons why DVD is still the king.
It would be more accurate to say TV is still king as that's their primary form of entertainment. Guess how that's delivered. Imagine if they had to order every one of the TV shows or movies they watch on Blu-Ray by snail mail.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jfanning
That isn't what I mean. I want to be able to purchase a movie from Apple and play it on my Pioneer player, or purchase a movie from Sony and play it on my AppleTV.
I'm sure that's what they meant. If you purchase from one VOD supplier, you can get the download from any other supplier. I don't know if this means giving the chosen VOD supplier a download fee, after all the user will only get one rental regardless of who they pick.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jfanning
I haven't got dial-up, I have 16Mb ADSL.
So the VOD doesn't buffer every two minutes otherwise you aren't getting the service you're paying for.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jfanning
If it doesn't take that long, why did you mention it?
I was saying it doesn't take 25 seconds for every movie on a streaming box, whereas it does take that long for every Blu-Ray movie plus the time it takes to change the disc.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jfanning
If you give people a choice between watching a movie on a 3" screen, 20" screen or a 40" screen, I think the 3" screen won't be the first choice.
I agree but it'll be interesting to see what happens when cost becomes negligible. Do you think everyone will opt for a 60" TV?
Quote:
Originally Posted by jfanning
Yes sales are going down overall, but nothing is picking up those sales, not blu-ray, not digital downloads, nothing.
Digital sales were up significantly. In the PDF you posted, it says 20%, other sources measure 50% for certain types of VOD. Despite the rise in Blu-Ray, those people are just no longer buying the lower quality DVDs. If you are going to be buying a disc to keep, you may as well get the better one but overall disc sales are down and still, DVD outsells BDR by 10:1.
As I said above, VOD is growing, Blu-Ray is just pulling DVD buyer in but that group overall is dropping and moving to VOD like Netflix.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jfanning
You seem to understand bit-rate here, but you don't seem to understand the bit-rate different between digital downloads (like ATV) and Blu-ray...
Codecs are designed to minimise visual artifacts and there are certain bitrates beyond which, there is no discernible difference from the source. You would for example notice no difference between 20Mbits 720p H.264 and 80Mbits 720p H.264 because the former would have no visual artifacts anyway even in high motion scenes.
I would say the limit for 720p is around 4Mbits assuming you use a decent high profile encoder. Not all streaming services meet that quality bar but some do. The distribution format itself can't be judged by the lowest common denominator.
I sit around 3m from my 40" TV, it isn't hard to tell the difference between low bitrate 720p and Blu-ray 1080p.
The important factor in all this is bitrate. I got some 1080p samples, shrunk them down to 720p, saved and scaled back up to 1080p (essentially what 720p is on a 1080p display). Then both are cropped at 800x800 in the same part of the frame so you can see at a native size what both look like side by side. I mixed them up so I'd like you to guess in both which one, top or bottom is upscaled 720p and which is the original 1080p.
I stand by my statement that 1080p is 'slightly sharper' and it's also why it doesn't matter that Apple went for 720p and not 1080p with the ATV.
So the issue is bitrate and that is solved by hitting a quality bar that will show up absolutely no visual artifacts in any scene in any movie. 4Mbits is the minimum bar so if they stream 8Mbits 720p, then I reckon almost anyone would struggle to see the difference between it and 1080p Blu-Ray.
I think there are psychological effects when you know you are watching a lower quality source just as there are when you see a nice tasting food that has a disgusting appearance. I'm not discounting the valid criticisms of low bitrate sources, just that there are additional factors that make it seem worse than it is.
But your test is not so great, as it seems both images are slightly blurry. The focus is not very sharp at any part of either of the images. Choose a different image with sharper details in the original and the difference would be more obvious.
Welcome to the world of video compression. Video is intended to be viewed in motion so you are not likely to find a screen shot as sharp as a still picture.
Quote:
Originally Posted by tonton
But your test is not so great, as it seems both images are slightly blurry. The focus is not very sharp at any part of either of the images. Choose a different image with sharper details in the original and the difference would be more obvious.
Welcome to the world of video compression. Video is intended to be viewed in motion so you are not likely to find a screen shot as sharp as a still picture.
Yes, I'm quite familiar with motion blur. However, there are plenty of scenes in films where there is very little motion, and filmed with a sharp camera at full resolution, it shouldn't be too hard to find a sharp image.
I've tried to correct you in this misunderstanding a couple of times. But you seem to continue it.
The consumption of media is increasing. People are watching more movies, television, listening to more music than ever. What is going down are the profits from consumption of media. More media is being consumed but profits are not increasing at the same rate of consumption.
The reason profits are going down is because the media companies were able to gouge people with the what they charged for physical media. The profits from the decline in physical sales are not being made up by the increase in digital streaming/downloading.
Consumption means nothing to the media companies if they can't make money from it, they are looking at the fact that sales are decreasing
There are calculations you can make about the convergence of pixels based on 20/20 visual acuity at a certain distance. That's how Apple can call the iPhone display a retina display.
Why are you always going on about the iPhone, what does that have to do with sitting distance from your tv?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marvin
1080p has more than double the amount of pixels but in terms of picture quality, you're not going to see anywhere near what you'd see in the iPhone 4 vs the 3GS where you get 4x the amount of pixels. When the see the two sizes overlayed, it's clear there's not all that much in it:
Again, what does an iPhone have to do with sitting distance from your TV?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marvin
I totally agree on bitrate, a lot of services push it way too low, especially cable but there are some that push 720p at over 4Mbits and that should be fine. Apple's service from what I've seen is one of the better ones.
I don't think it is great to be to the best of the worst.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marvin
It would be more accurate to say TV is still king as that's their primary form of entertainment. Guess how that's delivered. Imagine if they had to order every one of the TV shows or movies they watch on Blu-Ray by snail mail.
There are other ways of purchasing movies than just mail order.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marvin
I'm sure that's what they meant. If you purchase from one VOD supplier, you can get the download from any other supplier. I don't know if this means giving the chosen VOD supplier a download fee, after all the user will only get one rental regardless of who they pick.
If you purchase a movie from one supplier, why would you then download it from another supplier? Why can't you just have a common format?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marvin
So the VOD doesn't buffer every two minutes otherwise you aren't getting the service you're paying for.
Maybe it doesn't where you live, but it does for me. Hence one of the reasons I won't purchase or rent a movie on the Apple TV
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marvin
I was saying it doesn't take 25 seconds for every movie on a streaming box, whereas it does take that long for every Blu-Ray movie plus the time it takes to change the disc.
It doesn't take 25 seconds to load a movie on my Blu-ray player, maybe you have a poor model, maybe you need a newer one. I can understand the problem, for example my Apple TV is very slow at most functions it does.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marvin
I agree but it'll be interesting to see what happens when cost becomes negligible. Do you think everyone will opt for a 60" TV?
If you give people a choice of watching a movie on the devices they own, do you really think they will jump at the chance of watching it on the smallest one?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marvin
Digital sales were up significantly. In the PDF you posted, it says 20%, other sources measure 50% for certain types of VOD. Despite the rise in Blu-Ray, those people are just no longer buying the lower quality DVDs. If you are going to be buying a disc to keep, you may as well get the better one but overall disc sales are down and still, DVD outsells BDR by 10:1.
What part of "overall sales are down" don't you seem to understand? Downloads, and Blu-ray are not picking up the drop in DVD sales. Digital down sales are still minimal, they barely register on the sales. The digital downloads figure is mostly made up of VOD.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marvin
As I said above, VOD is growing, Blu-Ray is just pulling DVD buyer in but that group overall is dropping and moving to VOD like Netflix.
are they? DVD sales in the US are $6 billion down on their peek, VOD has picked up US$1.8 billion of that.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marvin
Codecs are designed to minimise visual artifacts and there are certain bitrates beyond which, there is no discernible difference from the source. You would for example notice no difference between 20Mbits 720p H.264 and 80Mbits 720p H.264 because the former would have no visual artifacts anyway even in high motion scenes.
You seem to be all over the place, how does this explain why the Blu-ray movies look so much better than the Apple 720p version?
The important factor in all this is bitrate. I got some 1080p samples, shrunk them down to 720p, saved and scaled back up to 1080p (essentially what 720p is on a 1080p display). Then both are cropped at 800x800 in the same part of the frame so you can see at a native size what both look like side by side. I mixed them up so I'd like you to guess in both which one, top or bottom is upscaled 720p and which is the original 1080p.
They are still images, you have selected them on purpose to prove a point. Video is meant to be watched moving, not inspecting a single image for the best clarity.
The fact is, a Blu-ray movie is far superior to the 720p stuff Apple currently delivers, if you are happy to pay more to Apple for a lesser product then that is your choice, but don't try and make it out that everyone wants to.
They are still images, you have selected them on purpose to prove a point. Video is meant to be watched moving, not inspecting a single image for the best clarity.
The fact is, a Blu-ray movie is far superior to the 720p stuff Apple currently delivers, if you are happy to pay more to Apple for a lesser product then that is your choice, but don't try and make it out that everyone wants to.
Not every Blu-ray is superior to 720p stuff. There are poor Blu-ray masters that exist, and there are poorly shot or poorly archived films that won't benefit from full HD resolution.
Why are you always going on about the iPhone, what does that have to do with sitting distance from your tv?
It's all pixels, the same principals apply when it comes to picture sharpness.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jfanning
I don't think it is great to be to the best of the worst.
HD streaming is better quality than DVD so it's not the best of the worst, it's only 2nd to Blu-Ray. Sometimes the silver medal is ok if you can get it while sitting in your armchair.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jfanning
If you purchase a movie from one supplier, why would you then download it from another supplier?
You may only have hardware that allows you to download from certain suppliers at a given time.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jfanning
It doesn't take 25 seconds to load a movie on my Blu-ray player, maybe you have a poor model, maybe you need a newer one.
This is what happens on the most popular Blu-Ray player - the PS3:
If you give people a choice of watching a movie on the devices they own, do you really think they will jump at the chance of watching it on the smallest one?
I think that if people don't have a living space that accommodates a 60" TV then they won't buy a 60" TV.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jfanning
What part of "overall sales are down" don't you seem to understand? Downloads, and Blu-ray are not picking up the drop in DVD sales. Digital down sales are still minimal, they barely register on the sales. The digital downloads figure is mostly made up of VOD.
It's quite simple, overall physical media sales are down but 10% of people used to buying DVDs now buy Blu-Ray. Digital sales have grown since last year. Digital sales aren't dropping to feed Blu-Ray growth, it's DVD sales that are dropping to feed Blu-Ray growth.
You are probably interpreting it to mean that DVD buyers are migrating to both streaming and Blu-Ray and Blu-Ray is growing faster. I don't think that's an accurate interpretation. Those people are coming from abandoning TV subscriptions, it's a different market:
They are still images, you have selected them on purpose to prove a point. Video is meant to be watched moving, not inspecting a single image for the best clarity.
The point is that 1080p vs 720p doesn't matter because if it doesn't matter for stills then it certainly doesn't matter for moving pictures so the issue is bitrate. If streaming services are not good enough quality for you then either they are streaming at too low bitrates or your connection isn't fast enough. For people who have the right setup, they don't see a vast difference between Blu-Ray and HD streaming but note that streaming is faster to switch between the content.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jfanning
The fact is, a Blu-ray movie is far superior to the 720p stuff Apple currently delivers, if you are happy to pay more to Apple for a lesser product then that is your choice, but don't try and make it out that everyone wants to.
Again your problem is with Apple. There are other services with better pricing models. Also you keep saying Blu-Ray is so much better. Review after review says that it's not vastly better than the best streaming services.
Blu-Ray has its place. They just announced Star Wars on Blu-Ray. Would I rather own Star Wars as a streaming pass or on Blu-Ray? My answer would be on Blu-Ray. If I want to watch a new movie though, I would rather stream the movie instantly than get a physical disc. If I like it and want to own it, I'd buy it on Blu-Ray.
Blu-Ray for ownership, streaming for everything else - TV, rentals etc. (the vast majority of media consumption).
They are still images, you have selected them on purpose to prove a point. Video is meant to be watched moving, not inspecting a single image for the best clarity.
Well, in the course of viewing 24 of those images shown in a second, If the still images look indistinguishable, then the 24 frames of them in a second will not be distinguishable, either.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jfanning
The fact is, a Blu-ray movie is far superior to the 720p stuff Apple currently delivers, if you are happy to pay more to Apple for a lesser product then that is your choice, but don't try and make it out that everyone wants to.
In general, no. Only better on the benchmark scale, but in real life, your video gear will determine the degree of improvements you can achieve. Your head needs to be placed within 4 - 5 ft away from the screen on the ~45" screen to really notice. Most people do not follow the viewing specs at home. My computer screen is 37" 1080p viewing 2ft away right now, and 720p vs. 1080p is not noticeable. Have you not seen garbage 1080p video transfers on bluray? And off course, best 720p video content will always be better than the bad 1080p contents. Your claim dismissed.
Comments
i have an opinion of DD+ but we don't need yet another subthread
i would like to know, however, if anyone reading this knows which films on Blu-ray have the DD+ audio track. in my library of about 20 discs, none of them have DD+. the Blu-ray spec mentions that DD+ is optional as well.
According to http://www.blu-raystats.com there are currently zero DD+ Blu-ray movies currently available.
If you look at the Blu-ray DD+ spec compared with TrueHD, and DTS-HDMA you can see why they wouldn't bother.
you can learn about it from dolby.
http://www.dolby.com/consumer/unders...s-details.html
It is HD audio, but not in a total lossless format. Just like in the video market, 720p/1080i is considered HD as well as 1080p.
You provided a vendors description of their product, you don't see a problem in doing that?
You are welcome to it, personally I feel it is a major step backwards. Yes 720p and 1080i are still HD video formats, DD+ is more of a compromise to fit slightly higher bitrate audio onto a HD-DVD
For many people the convenience of watching a movie right now without having to leave my home is worth the compromise in quality.
And we wonder why the world has an obesity problem...
Like I say, 720p is 2/3 the size of 1080p. That's not much lower resolution. It's not even the difference between the iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4 screen. The following chart has an indicator of screen size to viewing distance benefits based on 20/20 vision:
Why does everyone pull up a chart that a random person put together based on their thoughts. That image and that article are just what he thinks. There is no proper distance to sit from your TV, you sit where you want, you sit where is comfortable.
Also, can you please provide your calculations to say that 720p is 2/3 the size of 1080p, it is less than 2/3 the size, and also try and remember the bit rate as well.
So if you have a 40" TV, the difference between 720p and 1080p is visible when you are 5ft away from the screen. 10ft away from a 60" screen and you'd see some benefit in 1080p.
I sit around 3m from my 40" TV, it isn't hard to tell the difference between low bitrate 720p and Blu-ray 1080p.
I don't know anyone including myself who owns Blu-Ray. They all have XBox 360s.
So they own a DVD player, so does a lot of people, that is one of the reasons why DVD is still the king.
There's an agreement being worked on to that effect. I can't remember the name of it but there are discussions to allow you to buy a movie on one format and own it on any distribution. I'm not entirely sure how it will work as bandwidth has to be paid for so if you buy a Blu-Ray disc, how would Apple make money if you could also download it for free?
That isn't what I mean. I want to be able to purchase a movie from Apple and play it on my Pioneer player, or purchase a movie from Sony and play it on my AppleTV.
It doesn't work with dial-up.
I haven't got dial-up, I have 16Mb ADSL.
It doesn't take 25 seconds for every movie not including inserting/ejecting the disc and putting them in the packet.
If it doesn't take that long, why did you mention it?
For you it does, that's fine. Not everyone puts picture quality first just like with video games. For me personally it's accessibility, then content, then quality. I can watch movies ok on an iPhone screen and have exclusively watched some movies on an iPhone screen. I wouldn't say it's a great experience at that level but my point is that not everyone sees picture quality as the ultimate deciding factor in the success or failure of a distribution format.
If you give people a choice between watching a movie on a 3" screen, 20" screen or a 40" screen, I think the 3" screen won't be the first choice.
You are right that Blu-Ray sales grew more than VOD last year:
VOD includes satellite and cable options, not really digital downloads.
but overall sales are going down. This means that the DVD buyers are moving to Blu-Ray, which you'd expect but overall, that market is dropping to favour VOD, which has now reached over 12% marketshare and grown over 50%.
Yes sales are going down overall, but nothing is picking up those sales, not blu-ray, not digital downloads, nothing.
You will see more compression artifacts on cable than a VOD service like ATV so you won't be getting a true comparison between just the resolution.
You seem to understand bit-rate here, but you don't seem to understand the bit-rate different between digital downloads (like ATV) and Blu-ray...
(especially at $24.99+ a pop)
Plenty available around the ten dollar mark.
What I'm saying is that because of the rise of various forms of content distribution that Blu-ray will not reach the popular of DVD. That in the long run digital streaming will be the most popular form of content distribution. But I do believe that physical media will be around for a long time. At point I'm sure it will transition from an optical disc to something else probably ROM SD cards.
What's to debate? Physical media will ultimately die out, but at the moment for the best viewing experience you need a blu-ray player.
debate?! re-read what i said over at http://forums.appleinsider.com/showp...&postcount=255
"yes, i do forsee a time when entertainment will be predominantly available without the option of physical media. this scenario, however, won't be available anytime soon. CDs, DVDs and Blu-rays will be around for years to come. this will be especially true in places where access to reliable and relatively fast broadband connectivity is cost prohibitive."
We are talking about when people are willing to sacrifice quality for convenience. You cannot accept that many (probably the majority) are willing to sacrifice the visual and audio superiority of BR for the convenience of watching a movie instantly.
As reported by Netflix the growth of its streaming service is outpacing its DVD service.
720p and 1080p images within the same scale can vary enormously. You can download a 720p movie and it'll be vastly inferior in audio and video to another 720p video due to differing compression.
The proof of the pudding is in the eating, and the best puddings at the moment are well produced blu-rays. Wont always be that way but that's where we are right now.
The consumption of media is increasing. People are watching more movies, television, listening to more music than ever. What is going down are the profits from consumption of media. More media is being consumed but profits are not increasing at the same rate of consumption.
The reason profits are going down is because the media companies were able to gouge people with the what they charged for physical media. The profits from the decline in physical sales are not being made up by the increase in digital streaming/downloading.
Yes sales are going down overall, but nothing is picking up those sales, not blu-ray, not digital downloads, nothing.
Why does everyone pull up a chart that a random person put together based on their thoughts. That image and that article are just what he thinks. There is no proper distance to sit from your TV, you sit where you want, you sit where is comfortable.
There are calculations you can make about the convergence of pixels based on 20/20 visual acuity at a certain distance. That's how Apple can call the iPhone display a retina display.
Also, can you please provide your calculations to say that 720p is 2/3 the size of 1080p, it is less than 2/3 the size, and also try and remember the bit rate as well.
1080p has more than double the amount of pixels but in terms of picture quality, you're not going to see anywhere near what you'd see in the iPhone 4 vs the 3GS where you get 4x the amount of pixels. When the see the two sizes overlayed, it's clear there's not all that much in it:
I totally agree on bitrate, a lot of services push it way too low, especially cable but there are some that push 720p at over 4Mbits and that should be fine. Apple's service from what I've seen is one of the better ones.
So they own a DVD player, so does a lot of people, that is one of the reasons why DVD is still the king.
It would be more accurate to say TV is still king as that's their primary form of entertainment. Guess how that's delivered. Imagine if they had to order every one of the TV shows or movies they watch on Blu-Ray by snail mail.
That isn't what I mean. I want to be able to purchase a movie from Apple and play it on my Pioneer player, or purchase a movie from Sony and play it on my AppleTV.
I'm sure that's what they meant. If you purchase from one VOD supplier, you can get the download from any other supplier. I don't know if this means giving the chosen VOD supplier a download fee, after all the user will only get one rental regardless of who they pick.
I haven't got dial-up, I have 16Mb ADSL.
So the VOD doesn't buffer every two minutes otherwise you aren't getting the service you're paying for.
If it doesn't take that long, why did you mention it?
I was saying it doesn't take 25 seconds for every movie on a streaming box, whereas it does take that long for every Blu-Ray movie plus the time it takes to change the disc.
If you give people a choice between watching a movie on a 3" screen, 20" screen or a 40" screen, I think the 3" screen won't be the first choice.
I agree but it'll be interesting to see what happens when cost becomes negligible. Do you think everyone will opt for a 60" TV?
Yes sales are going down overall, but nothing is picking up those sales, not blu-ray, not digital downloads, nothing.
Digital sales were up significantly. In the PDF you posted, it says 20%, other sources measure 50% for certain types of VOD. Despite the rise in Blu-Ray, those people are just no longer buying the lower quality DVDs. If you are going to be buying a disc to keep, you may as well get the better one but overall disc sales are down and still, DVD outsells BDR by 10:1.
As I said above, VOD is growing, Blu-Ray is just pulling DVD buyer in but that group overall is dropping and moving to VOD like Netflix.
You seem to understand bit-rate here, but you don't seem to understand the bit-rate different between digital downloads (like ATV) and Blu-ray...
Codecs are designed to minimise visual artifacts and there are certain bitrates beyond which, there is no discernible difference from the source. You would for example notice no difference between 20Mbits 720p H.264 and 80Mbits 720p H.264 because the former would have no visual artifacts anyway even in high motion scenes.
I would say the limit for 720p is around 4Mbits assuming you use a decent high profile encoder. Not all streaming services meet that quality bar but some do. The distribution format itself can't be judged by the lowest common denominator.
I sit around 3m from my 40" TV, it isn't hard to tell the difference between low bitrate 720p and Blu-ray 1080p.
The important factor in all this is bitrate. I got some 1080p samples, shrunk them down to 720p, saved and scaled back up to 1080p (essentially what 720p is on a 1080p display). Then both are cropped at 800x800 in the same part of the frame so you can see at a native size what both look like side by side. I mixed them up so I'd like you to guess in both which one, top or bottom is upscaled 720p and which is the original 1080p.
I stand by my statement that 1080p is 'slightly sharper' and it's also why it doesn't matter that Apple went for 720p and not 1080p with the ATV.
So the issue is bitrate and that is solved by hitting a quality bar that will show up absolutely no visual artifacts in any scene in any movie. 4Mbits is the minimum bar so if they stream 8Mbits 720p, then I reckon almost anyone would struggle to see the difference between it and 1080p Blu-Ray.
I think there are psychological effects when you know you are watching a lower quality source just as there are when you see a nice tasting food that has a disgusting appearance. I'm not discounting the valid criticisms of low bitrate sources, just that there are additional factors that make it seem worse than it is.
But your test is not so great, as it seems both images are slightly blurry. The focus is not very sharp at any part of either of the images. Choose a different image with sharper details in the original and the difference would be more obvious.
But your test is not so great, as it seems both images are slightly blurry. The focus is not very sharp at any part of either of the images. Choose a different image with sharper details in the original and the difference would be more obvious.
Welcome to the world of video compression. Video is intended to be viewed in motion so you are not likely to find a screen shot as sharp as a still picture.
Yes, I'm quite familiar with motion blur. However, there are plenty of scenes in films where there is very little motion, and filmed with a sharp camera at full resolution, it shouldn't be too hard to find a sharp image.
I've tried to correct you in this misunderstanding a couple of times. But you seem to continue it.
The consumption of media is increasing. People are watching more movies, television, listening to more music than ever. What is going down are the profits from consumption of media. More media is being consumed but profits are not increasing at the same rate of consumption.
The reason profits are going down is because the media companies were able to gouge people with the what they charged for physical media. The profits from the decline in physical sales are not being made up by the increase in digital streaming/downloading.
Consumption means nothing to the media companies if they can't make money from it, they are looking at the fact that sales are decreasing
There are calculations you can make about the convergence of pixels based on 20/20 visual acuity at a certain distance. That's how Apple can call the iPhone display a retina display.
Why are you always going on about the iPhone, what does that have to do with sitting distance from your tv?
1080p has more than double the amount of pixels but in terms of picture quality, you're not going to see anywhere near what you'd see in the iPhone 4 vs the 3GS where you get 4x the amount of pixels. When the see the two sizes overlayed, it's clear there's not all that much in it:
Again, what does an iPhone have to do with sitting distance from your TV?
I totally agree on bitrate, a lot of services push it way too low, especially cable but there are some that push 720p at over 4Mbits and that should be fine. Apple's service from what I've seen is one of the better ones.
I don't think it is great to be to the best of the worst.
It would be more accurate to say TV is still king as that's their primary form of entertainment. Guess how that's delivered. Imagine if they had to order every one of the TV shows or movies they watch on Blu-Ray by snail mail.
There are other ways of purchasing movies than just mail order.
I'm sure that's what they meant. If you purchase from one VOD supplier, you can get the download from any other supplier. I don't know if this means giving the chosen VOD supplier a download fee, after all the user will only get one rental regardless of who they pick.
If you purchase a movie from one supplier, why would you then download it from another supplier? Why can't you just have a common format?
So the VOD doesn't buffer every two minutes otherwise you aren't getting the service you're paying for.
Maybe it doesn't where you live, but it does for me. Hence one of the reasons I won't purchase or rent a movie on the Apple TV
I was saying it doesn't take 25 seconds for every movie on a streaming box, whereas it does take that long for every Blu-Ray movie plus the time it takes to change the disc.
It doesn't take 25 seconds to load a movie on my Blu-ray player, maybe you have a poor model, maybe you need a newer one. I can understand the problem, for example my Apple TV is very slow at most functions it does.
I agree but it'll be interesting to see what happens when cost becomes negligible. Do you think everyone will opt for a 60" TV?
If you give people a choice of watching a movie on the devices they own, do you really think they will jump at the chance of watching it on the smallest one?
Digital sales were up significantly. In the PDF you posted, it says 20%, other sources measure 50% for certain types of VOD. Despite the rise in Blu-Ray, those people are just no longer buying the lower quality DVDs. If you are going to be buying a disc to keep, you may as well get the better one but overall disc sales are down and still, DVD outsells BDR by 10:1.
What part of "overall sales are down" don't you seem to understand? Downloads, and Blu-ray are not picking up the drop in DVD sales. Digital down sales are still minimal, they barely register on the sales. The digital downloads figure is mostly made up of VOD.
As I said above, VOD is growing, Blu-Ray is just pulling DVD buyer in but that group overall is dropping and moving to VOD like Netflix.
are they? DVD sales in the US are $6 billion down on their peek, VOD has picked up US$1.8 billion of that.
Codecs are designed to minimise visual artifacts and there are certain bitrates beyond which, there is no discernible difference from the source. You would for example notice no difference between 20Mbits 720p H.264 and 80Mbits 720p H.264 because the former would have no visual artifacts anyway even in high motion scenes.
You seem to be all over the place, how does this explain why the Blu-ray movies look so much better than the Apple 720p version?
The important factor in all this is bitrate. I got some 1080p samples, shrunk them down to 720p, saved and scaled back up to 1080p (essentially what 720p is on a 1080p display). Then both are cropped at 800x800 in the same part of the frame so you can see at a native size what both look like side by side. I mixed them up so I'd like you to guess in both which one, top or bottom is upscaled 720p and which is the original 1080p.
They are still images, you have selected them on purpose to prove a point. Video is meant to be watched moving, not inspecting a single image for the best clarity.
The fact is, a Blu-ray movie is far superior to the 720p stuff Apple currently delivers, if you are happy to pay more to Apple for a lesser product then that is your choice, but don't try and make it out that everyone wants to.
They are still images, you have selected them on purpose to prove a point. Video is meant to be watched moving, not inspecting a single image for the best clarity.
The fact is, a Blu-ray movie is far superior to the 720p stuff Apple currently delivers, if you are happy to pay more to Apple for a lesser product then that is your choice, but don't try and make it out that everyone wants to.
Not every Blu-ray is superior to 720p stuff. There are poor Blu-ray masters that exist, and there are poorly shot or poorly archived films that won't benefit from full HD resolution.
But for the most part, you are correct.
Why are you always going on about the iPhone, what does that have to do with sitting distance from your tv?
It's all pixels, the same principals apply when it comes to picture sharpness.
I don't think it is great to be to the best of the worst.
HD streaming is better quality than DVD so it's not the best of the worst, it's only 2nd to Blu-Ray. Sometimes the silver medal is ok if you can get it while sitting in your armchair.
If you purchase a movie from one supplier, why would you then download it from another supplier?
You may only have hardware that allows you to download from certain suppliers at a given time.
It doesn't take 25 seconds to load a movie on my Blu-ray player, maybe you have a poor model, maybe you need a newer one.
This is what happens on the most popular Blu-Ray player - the PS3:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbV8vf7nuMA
Both actually took at least 20 seconds.
If you give people a choice of watching a movie on the devices they own, do you really think they will jump at the chance of watching it on the smallest one?
I think that if people don't have a living space that accommodates a 60" TV then they won't buy a 60" TV.
What part of "overall sales are down" don't you seem to understand? Downloads, and Blu-ray are not picking up the drop in DVD sales. Digital down sales are still minimal, they barely register on the sales. The digital downloads figure is mostly made up of VOD.
It's quite simple, overall physical media sales are down but 10% of people used to buying DVDs now buy Blu-Ray. Digital sales have grown since last year. Digital sales aren't dropping to feed Blu-Ray growth, it's DVD sales that are dropping to feed Blu-Ray growth.
You are probably interpreting it to mean that DVD buyers are migrating to both streaming and Blu-Ray and Blu-Ray is growing faster. I don't think that's an accurate interpretation. Those people are coming from abandoning TV subscriptions, it's a different market:
http://www.chieftain.com/business/lo...cc4c002e0.html
They are still images, you have selected them on purpose to prove a point. Video is meant to be watched moving, not inspecting a single image for the best clarity.
The point is that 1080p vs 720p doesn't matter because if it doesn't matter for stills then it certainly doesn't matter for moving pictures so the issue is bitrate. If streaming services are not good enough quality for you then either they are streaming at too low bitrates or your connection isn't fast enough. For people who have the right setup, they don't see a vast difference between Blu-Ray and HD streaming but note that streaming is faster to switch between the content.
The fact is, a Blu-ray movie is far superior to the 720p stuff Apple currently delivers, if you are happy to pay more to Apple for a lesser product then that is your choice, but don't try and make it out that everyone wants to.
Again your problem is with Apple. There are other services with better pricing models. Also you keep saying Blu-Ray is so much better. Review after review says that it's not vastly better than the best streaming services.
Blu-Ray has its place. They just announced Star Wars on Blu-Ray. Would I rather own Star Wars as a streaming pass or on Blu-Ray? My answer would be on Blu-Ray. If I want to watch a new movie though, I would rather stream the movie instantly than get a physical disc. If I like it and want to own it, I'd buy it on Blu-Ray.
Blu-Ray for ownership, streaming for everything else - TV, rentals etc. (the vast majority of media consumption).
They are still images, you have selected them on purpose to prove a point. Video is meant to be watched moving, not inspecting a single image for the best clarity.
Well, in the course of viewing 24 of those images shown in a second, If the still images look indistinguishable, then the 24 frames of them in a second will not be distinguishable, either.
The fact is, a Blu-ray movie is far superior to the 720p stuff Apple currently delivers, if you are happy to pay more to Apple for a lesser product then that is your choice, but don't try and make it out that everyone wants to.
In general, no. Only better on the benchmark scale, but in real life, your video gear will determine the degree of improvements you can achieve. Your head needs to be placed within 4 - 5 ft away from the screen on the ~45" screen to really notice. Most people do not follow the viewing specs at home. My computer screen is 37" 1080p viewing 2ft away right now, and 720p vs. 1080p is not noticeable. Have you not seen garbage 1080p video transfers on bluray? And off course, best 720p video content will always be better than the bad 1080p contents. Your claim dismissed.