HD-DVD and Blu-Ray Discussion

[Joe Carney]

create AVCHD files, burn them to double layer DVD disks. As to which format, depends on which authoring tool you use to burn them.

And now, with Silverlight, MS is releasing a vc1 encoder.

 

[Stephen Gentle]

As long as we're threadjacking, now HD-DVD and BluRay have a new competitor: HD VMD.

Read about it here:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,136977-c,hometheatersystems/article.html

Players are $150, the discs hold up to 30GB per side, 40mbps rate VC1 or MPEG-2 1080p, and uses the standard DVD red laser instead of the new blue laser (much cheaper). The only thing that sucks is the lack of uncompressed audio.

I don't like the sound of that format at all - it may be cheap, but H.264 support (or lack there of) is what really makes me hope that this doesn't become popular. I hear that VC-1 is a very good codec, but there are problems with licensing or something (although this mainly affects authoring for the web).

Anyway, I hope Blu-Ray wins at this point, as it has much better capacity (20GB extra for dual layer!). In terms of codecs it doesn't matter (being the same and all)...

In the end, I just want one to die out, and the burners to drop to the $100 or less level (like DVD burners - good ones cost AU$40 here).

 

[vsv]

they have superior capabilities with their java-based menu system vs. HD-DVD's XML scripted HDi system.

on the paper :biggrin:

New features of BD players comes only with new generation of their hardware. HDDVD players need only firmware update.
With HDDVD you can download online new playlists, soundtracks, subtitles and more...
BD players dont have web connectivity and price two times more than HDDVD.
Now when anounced chinese CH-DVD based on HD-DVD platform cost of HDDVD players can be $150 for Christmas.

I have seen a lot movies on DVD9 when used only 60-70% space of disc. Same situation with BD50. With good compression tool you can do better job.
18 hours of extras on HDDVD30 with fanastic quality:
http://hddvd.highdefdigest.com/hotfuzz.html

Yields at the Sony plants are around 40% for BD50s. At non-Sony plants, they are around 10%! (David Vaughn
DVD Editor Home Theater Spot)

Sorry, but Sony is a looser...

 

[Christoffer Glans]

PS3 enabled many consumers to get Blu-Ray players before HD film format has even been announced as the next format for film distribution.
People with a Playstation 3 will probably want to have blu ray movies and not HD-DVD. So, I believe that Blu Ray will win the format war, because of this thing. So, I will go for blu-ray, I will go for a Blu-Ray burner for future projects.

 

[vsv]

I believe that Blu Ray will win the format war, because of this thing. So, I will go for blu-ray, I will go for a Blu-Ray burner for future projects.

Do you like rotten discs?

Less thinking - pay more:wink:

Good to be believer...

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

New features of BD players comes only with new generation of their hardware. HDDVD players need only firmware update.

Not sure where you get that, but not true. Plenty of BD players are upgradeable and the Toshiba HD-A1 and XA1 have already been EOL'd as far as features to be enabled.

With HDDVD you can download online new playlists, soundtracks, subtitles and more...

Blu-Ray allows this too. Not all Blu-Ray players are web enabled, but neither are all HD-DVD players. Web-enabled Blu-Ray players are required for use of BD+ and BD-Managed Copy.

Now when anounced chinese CH-DVD based on HD-DVD platform cost of HDDVD players can be $150 for Christmas.

...And what studios will support them? HVD and similar alternative formats have failed to gain any serious momentum due to lack of support from key players in the industry and major studios alike.

I have seen a lot movies on DVD9 when used only 60-70% space of disc. Same situation with BD50. With good compression tool you can do better job.
18 hours of extras on HDDVD30 with fanastic quality:

I already said 30GB on an HD-DVD was plenty... Although, some people are stretching it a bit. 18 hours, no matter how efficient or good the compression, isn't going to happen and still look decent on a large-screen 1080p display or projector system.

Yields at the Sony plants are around 40% for BD50s. At non-Sony plants, they are around 10%! (David Vaughn
DVD Editor Home Theater Spot)

This is complete FUD. I've got some good contacts at disc replication houses and have had a Blu-Ray project of my own authored recently. I've seen the operation first hand, I can assure you that failure rates are less than 5% on pressing DL BD-ROM media.

Sorry, but Sony is a looser...

On this point, I will agree with you. I have a strong dislike for their marketing hype and product development pacing. I actually bought an HD-DVD player over a year ago and only purchased a Blu-Ray player about 4 months ago. I honestly don't really care which format wins this "war". I seriously don't think either format will "win". As I said before, I think that universal players will eliminate the "war" from the consumer's point of view and eventually Blu-Ray will phase out HD-DVD. Blu-Ray will do so only because of it's larger capacity and other data-centric advantages it has over HD-DVD, that will be preferential to IT / data tasks more so than video.

 

[whachusay]

To continue with this thread-jacking....

I wasnt trying to jack the thread. Not my intentions at all. I asked a question in regards to a subject that had been brought up in the thread. Again, that wasn't what I was trying to do -- My bad.

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

I wasnt trying to jack the thread. Not my intentions at all. I asked a question in regards to a subject that had been brought up in the thread. Again, that wasn't what I was trying to do -- My bad.

Don't worry about it -- not your fault. You asked a question and several others jumped all over the opportunity to discuss this. IMO, the other "delay" thread had already run its course -- notice there has been no new posts there since I separated this discussion out.

Carry on, gentlemen...

 

[Stacey Spears]

As my first post, I hope this does not turn into the AVS Forum.

HD-DVD and Blu-Ray support the same video codecs with nearly identical bit-rates for video playback, so image quality is typically the same between the two.

In thoery BD does have the advantage. In practice, it has not really been seen, at least yet.

HD DVD:
Peak video rate is 29.4 Mbps.
Maximum GOP length is .6 seconds (14 frames for 24p)
VBV is 1843200 bytes (peak bitrate buffer)

BD:
Peak video rate is 40 Mbps
Maximum GOP length is 1 second (if bitrate is > 15 Mbps) (24 frames for 24p)
VBV is 3750000 bytes

For what its worth, I work on the VC-1 encoder that is used for HD DVD and BD. I promise I won't try and push one format over the other. I own both formats. (PS3, Panny, A1, A20 and Xbox) I also won't try and push one codec over another. I spend 7 days a week trying to make VC-1 look better, but in the end I hope the compression facility chooses the codec that looks the best since I am one of their primary customers.

I also just placed my Red order, which I sure hope to receive sometime in '08.

What will be interesting is the upcoming Digital Video Essentials HD Basics. I am encoding the HD DVD version while Deluxe is encoding the BD version. The section to look out for is the montage of images near the end.