Blu-Ray or HD-DVD?

[Sharingan]

Maybe it was just my biased opinion but I thought that the HD DVD releases looked better than their BR counterparts.

That's because many of the early 'multiplatform' releases were 'ported', so to speak, from HD DVD to BR, instead of being produced with BR's better bandwidth and storage capacity in mind. Ports are only going to look identical at best, never better. If one wants to some true BR demo material, look to the exclusive releases like Disney's Ratatouille or Fox's Kingdom of Heaven.

And yes, having a bias is definitely going to make one side of things look better, even if there were no differences at all.

[AlexJ]

I though the same encode was used for most dual releases meaning there shouldn't have been any difference between them. Wouldn't have anything to do with Lionsgate using BR would it LowercaseE

[Harrison]

That could cloud your view by a lot if Lionsgate got mentioned!

As for the video encoding. There are a number of video encoding codecs that the disc authors can choose to use when encoding their video for both formats.

For Blu-Ray and HD-DVD, the player specification mandates certain codec compatibilities for both hardware devices and software. For Video, all players support MPEG-2, H,264/AVC and SMPTE VC-1. So they are level and can output exactly the same quality video.

But differences in the video quality of the two formats is actually down to some technical reasons. So far all HD-DVD's have been encoded in 1080p using the VC-1 codec. In contrast early BD-Rom's were encoded in 720p using the older MPEG2 codec, but more recent releases are now using the same encoding as HD-DVD.

There is a reason for this. Initially MPEG2 encoding was cheaper to do because most authoring studios already had hardware MPEG2 encoders from their DVD authoring. And MPEG2 HD quality encoding typically produces a 22GB file for a 2 hour film, so this easily fits onto a 25GB single layer BD-Rom. But it cannot fit onto a single layer 15GB HD-DVD. So instead they had to use the newer VC-1 codec which typically encoded to the same quality as MPEG2, but at half the size, so a 2 hour film is only about 11GB in size and fits easily onto the single layer 15GB HD-DVD.

So it was all down to speed and expense of encoding that made some initial BD-Rom releases inferior quality, and that is amusingly because BD-Rom offers larger storage space than HD-DVD. Quite mad when you think about it. Initially less storage space equalled better video quality.

But looking to the future, BR beats HD-DVD by quite a margin with the maximum transfer rate it can stream data from the discs. For Blu-Ray Discs, a movie can have a maximum transfer rate of 54 Mbit/s for both audio and video combined, with 40 Mbit's of this dedicated to video data, meaning a lo is left for audio and interactive BD-J content.

In contrast HD-DVD only offers a maximum combined streaming bandwidth of 36.55 Mbit/s. And a big contrast is that HD-DVD only has a maximum video bit rate of 28 Mbit/s, compared to BR's 40 Mbit/s.

And in on going development TDK and Hitachi now have Blu-Ray discs that can stored 7 hours of 32Mbit/s video (HDTV), or 3.5 hours at an amazing 64 Mbit/s video, which is Cinema 4K quality!!!

[Buleste]

To add even more confusion to the debate i found this news story.

The popular Blu-ray format for DVDs may not be as attractive to some users as it became apparent that their machines may not be upgradeable.

The Blu-ray group of distributors have released new features for players like picture in picture options, yet most Blu-ray players do not have the necessary hardware.

To solve some of the problems, users will be able to purchase BD Live, which will allow users to connect to the internet to download related content such as ringtones, trailers and photos. Yet because internet functionality is not a mandatory requirement in current players, none on the market today will be able to access this feature.

Only Sony's PlayStation 3 will be able to access the upgrades, as it comes with the right built-in and online access features.

Frank Simonis, of Philips and the European chairman of the Blu-ray Disc Association, said that the issue of features and upgrades was one of timing.

"We needed to create momentum and get the players on the market," he said.

"If we had postponed launch to add in the hardware for the latest features, we would not be in the situation we have today."

[v85rawdeal]

To add even more confusion to the debate i found this news story.

The popular Blu-ray format for DVDs may not be as attractive to some users as it became apparent that their machines may not be upgradeable.

The Blu-ray group of distributors have released new features for players like picture in picture options, yet most Blu-ray players do not have the necessary hardware.

To solve some of the problems, users will be able to purchase BD Live, which will allow users to connect to the internet to download related content such as ringtones, trailers and photos. Yet because internet functionality is not a mandatory requirement in current players, none on the market today will be able to access this feature.

Only Sony's PlayStation 3 will be able to access the upgrades, as it comes with the right built-in and online access features.

Frank Simonis, of Philips and the European chairman of the Blu-ray Disc Association, said that the issue of features and upgrades was one of timing.

"We needed to create momentum and get the players on the market," he said.

"If we had postponed launch to add in the hardware for the latest features, we would not be in the situation we have today."

I noticed it too, but that's why I got a PS3 All those lovely firmware updates!

[Harrison]

The PS3 is definitely the only Blu-Ray player worth getting at the moment.

[Buleste]

Which makes me even more anti Sony as that means they then dominate two different markets giving the consumer even less choice as to which is the better product and allowing one corporation to influence what we play and what we watch in one very foul swoop.

[Harrison]

In contrast I think it is a great thing. One home multimedia platform to serve all of our entertainment needs. I never agree with the argument that competition always breeds innovation. Instead thinking that a unified single platform is the best solution as developers can then concentrate on content instead of compatibility.

[Buleste]

Unfortunatly competion does not lead to innovation it leads to evolution. With one company dominating music, films, TV, Consoles and hardware manufacture it leads to stagnation and lack of choice plus it allows for a small group of people to dictate what we buy, play, listen to and watch which is never a good thing. As you can tell i'm against any corporation holding too much power such as Sony, Microsoft, BSkyB to name but a few.

[LowercaseE]

Which makes me even more anti Sony as that means they then dominate two different markets giving the consumer even less choice as to which is the better product and allowing one corporation to influence what we play and what we watch in one very foul swoop.

I think you and I will get along well.

As for the whole Lionsgate using BR thing, to be honest, that doesn't have anything to do with me not liking BR. It certainly doesn't HELP the situation but I could actually care less about them using it. I don't even pay attention to them anymore.