Blu-ray, in General

Discuss North American DVDs and Blu-rays or other DVD and Blu-ray-related topics.
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Cinesimilitude
Joined: Tue Jul 09, 2013 12:43 am

#51 Post by Cinesimilitude » Tue Jul 11, 2006 10:15 am

I've seen the demos for both blu-ray and hd-dvd, and I myself preferred the HD-DVD, it looked just as clear as blu-ray, but much less digitized than blu-ray did. they had lots of shots that were dvd transferred on one side and hd transferred on the other, and it was so rediculously better looking. It was being projected onto a 12' by 8' screen, and It looked like it was a film projection when sitting about 15 feet away. I watch criterions on my 43" tv all the time, and I know for a fact, HD is going to do wonders for many of the releases.

also, some company in Japan, Ricoh Technologies, has just recently announced a drive they built, which reads and writes cd/dvd/hd-dvd/blu-ray all with a single laser. so it's going to get a lot more consumer friendly in 2007 to upgrade to both formats.

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kinjitsu
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#52 Post by kinjitsu » Tue Jul 11, 2006 10:22 am

New optical drive reads HD DVD and Blu-ray

Hardware manufacturer Ricoh has developed a new optical drive capable of reading and writing several formats, including HD DVD, Blu-ray, CD, and DVD. The device will be demonstrated at the International Optoelectronics Exhibition later this month, and a read-only version could potentially be available to OEMs by the end of the year. A write-enabled version, which will require a more powerful laser than conventional optical disk recording devices, will hit the market at a later date.

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Gigi M.
Joined: Wed Jul 06, 2005 5:09 pm
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#53 Post by Gigi M. » Thu Jul 13, 2006 8:54 am

$150 million to promote HD-DVD

The backers of HD-DVD will spend more than $150 million this fall promoting the HD-DVD format in North America. Universal Studios Home Entertainment, Warner Home Video, Paramount Home Entertainment, HP, Intel, Microsoft and Toshiba will form a trade organization called North American HD DVD Promotional Group Inc.

The HD-DVD organization will spend more than $150 million this fall promoting the HD-DVD format in northern america. The campaign will cover print, online, television and outdoor media. Also part of the campaign is a road trip called "HD DVD Mobile Experience" which will tour the US.

They have also launched a web site to promote the format.

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kieslowski_67
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#54 Post by kieslowski_67 » Fri Jul 14, 2006 3:52 pm

I wish that they would spend $150 billion instead. That would be a great way to jump start the aging US economy and bankrupt all those companies behind HD DVD and Blue Ray.

And since the beginning of 2006, I have cut my expense on DVDs sharply. The industry would certainly be in a shock if every DVD fanatic spends 7-8k less on their products on a yearly basis.

TedW
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#55 Post by TedW » Tue Jul 18, 2006 9:45 pm

In Sony's defense, there has been some discussion that MPEG2, being a standard and a known quantity, will provide a better experience at this point than the new codecs. Forget MPEG2. This is really a sympton of the problem that war has caused both sides to release systems that weren't ready. I have no doubt that both systems will be stunning -- by the second or third generation. As cineastes, we have no reason to pooh-pooh the endeavor at all. Once the kinks get worked out, you will be buying into whatever side wins and you will be re-buying your library. It's inevitable, no matter how much you bitch. Because you're a cineaste. Because you post on places like this forum. The idea that a bunch of film geeks are crying that "DVD is good enough! Please stop!" is ridiculous.

TedW
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#56 Post by TedW » Tue Jul 18, 2006 10:41 pm

I feel your pain. I do. How many recorded versions of Kind of Blue have I bought over the years (Columbia Records, btw -- aka Sony)? I went through Beta, VHS, LD, DVD, DVD Better, DVD Enhanced, DVD Ultimate Edition, etc. for all of my favorite titles. Now, after going region-free and PAL/NTSC, I haunt DVD Beaver and the like for whatever marginal improvement can be had from buying, say, the French version of whatever. It's a sickness. It's pathetic. But I know that I absolutely will not stop until I own the best version available of whatever title I'm after.

And neither will you.

I'd give Sony a break. It appears they are acting like assholes, but we don't know what's going on behind the scenes, what technological and financial hurdles have to be overcome to bring this thing off. Howard Stringer must not be sleeping at all right now -- pretty much the entire company is staked on the success of Blu-Ray. It's actually one of the boldest corporate gambles ever.

It's funny, though, how despite the size of these companies, they are still made up of human beings and have their own corporate cultures that reflect the people who work there. Sony, as an entity, does obviously possess the kind of arrogance that comes from once having sat atop the heap. And they seem to still be smarting about losing the VHS war a generation ago. And the other side is obviously pissed about not owning a bigger piece of the DVD patent pool (or the CD patent pool, or God knows what else), which is why everybody was so hell-bent on doing their own thing when it came to a hi-def DVD. You'd think it'd just be dollars and cents, but my feeling is that it's actually very personal for the various people who run and are invested in these companies. Respect and "saving face" and all that are still held in high regard in Japanese culture, despite the Westernization.

Anyway, I just want the damn thing to work. I'm hoping for the Sony solution, because, for the first time ever, future expandibility has been built into the system (assuming it can eventually be made to work, of course). HD DVD is just a get-rich-now format due to its limited storage. You folks should be rooting for one of these, seriously. You won't be a poor film student forever (or poor whatever): one day you'll own a big TV or a nice projector and you'll want that HD master of Seven Samurai to look as good as it can be. Not "good enough," but as good as can be done.

Because you're a film geek.

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Antoine Doinel
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#57 Post by Antoine Doinel » Tue Jul 18, 2006 11:34 pm

It should be mentioned that the success of Blu-Ray also largely hinges on the success of the PS3, which will come with backwards compatiable Blu-Ray system build in. Even this is loooking very unsure right now with the surprise success of Nintendo's Wii at E3, and the XBox 360 already coming out of the gates very strong. Also, the rumors have already started that the PS3 is going to be between $500-700 US, which is frankly ridiculous. Isn't the price issue what part of the reason they lost the Beta/VHS war?

If Sony has any chance of winning the format war, they are going to have to bring an affordable product (whether PS3 or standalone Blu-Ray players) to market and one that isn't mired with issues out of the gate.
The PS3 target market (young males, 20-34) are the same people who are going to be determining the next format and if Sony can't get them to embrace their player and technology they will surely be left behind --- again.

TedW
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#58 Post by TedW » Wed Jul 19, 2006 1:12 am

Region coding is essential from their standpoint. Piracy is costing too much damn money not to do something, even if it amounts only to a finger in the dike.

You might be right about the PS3 being delayed -- anything can happen and by all accounts the thing is sickeningly complicated to make work (btw, I saw the PS3 demo at CES and it'll straight blow you away, no joke. They had a first-person shooter-type demo running and it looked like you were in the last act of Saving Private Ryan). But my guess is Howard Stringer would rather shoot his own mother than not have that thing out for Q4, no matter what shape it's in.

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daniel p
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#59 Post by daniel p » Wed Jul 19, 2006 1:39 am

davidhare wrote:Daniel, the Toshiba HD player OR the Samsung Bluray player will both upscale existing SD discs in much the same manner as other current SD only upscaling players - Denon, Panny, Momitsu, Oppo, etc.
Thanks for the reply. I musn't be well educated on this topic. Does this 'upscaling' improve the resolution?

My initial question was in relation to the HD remastering process Criterion implements, which - to my eye - results in better resolution than most other standard def DVDs.

This whole HD-DVD thing is worrying me and my (1200+) collection. I am wondering if i'll be happy watching my criterion dvds on my future HD-DVD player, and HD plasma.

Sorry to hog this space for my personal issues :oops:

TedW
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#60 Post by TedW » Wed Jul 19, 2006 1:45 am

Upscaling doesn't improve resolution, you can't add what's not there. But it may contribute to a perceived smoothness of the picture. IMO, Criterion does good work, but so does Sony, Warners, etc. After almost ten years, DVD is pretty dialed in. I don't find Criterion's transfers to be exceptionally awe-inspiring -- pretty much every name player is doing good work. I find Criterion's title selection to be often awe-inspiring.

And my guess is, you'll be happy watching your DVDs on your future HD player. But you may not be happy watching them on whatever HD capable monitor you own after you see the HD version of the same title. If you're at all worried about your investment, just take the blue pill, lol.

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The Invunche
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#61 Post by The Invunche » Wed Jul 19, 2006 2:15 am

TedW wrote:Upscaling doesn't improve resolution, you can't add what's not there.
Actually you can make an educated guess as to what should have been there. I believe that's what the good upscalers do.

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ellipsis7
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#62 Post by ellipsis7 » Wed Jul 19, 2006 5:36 am

How then do standard DVDs look on an HDDVD player & HD monitor/projector? Any improvement?...

Problem also, as fans of the CC know, while the hardware may be great, mastering arthouse films properly onto DVD, let alone HDDVD, has been consistently achieved by few...

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The Invunche
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#63 Post by The Invunche » Wed Jul 19, 2006 6:04 pm

According to digitalbits their regular Pioneer DVD player has better upscaling quality than the HD DVD player.

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The Invunche
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#64 Post by The Invunche » Wed Jul 19, 2006 7:23 pm

Have a couple of networked players based on Sigma chipsets. Lots of bugs, but generally excellent picture quality.

sherlockjr
Joined: Tue Nov 09, 2004 8:34 pm
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#65 Post by sherlockjr » Thu Jul 20, 2006 11:05 am

The Invunche wrote:
kieslowski_67 wrote:And since the beginning of 2006, I have cut my expense on DVDs sharply.
Me too.
Well, not me. I've waited many years for some of the recent releases (e.g., Late Spring, La bete humaine, The Bad Sleep Well) and can't see waiting years, especially at my age, for enhanced releases that may never come or that may not offer improvements worth the wait .

But a quick question in parting, with the coming of HD, will regular DVD pricing drift downward?

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Gigi M.
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#66 Post by Gigi M. » Thu Jul 20, 2006 11:25 am

sherlockjr wrote:But a quick question in parting, with the coming of HD, will regular DVD pricing drift downward?
Good question. It appears that is not going to happen very soon. My guess in a few years when HD-DVD/BLUE RAY becomes more accessible to people, SDVD prices might drop significantly.

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kieslowski_67
Joined: Fri Jun 17, 2005 5:39 pm
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#67 Post by kieslowski_67 » Mon Jul 24, 2006 11:33 am

Well, I am not quiting on DVD. I am just cutting my expenses on DVD, period. I used to purchase 2-3 versions of these masterworks. Not any more. I am close to totally stop buying the crap from current Hollywood since I cannot sit through over 90% of them anyway.

Artois
Joined: Tue Apr 11, 2006 9:03 pm

#68 Post by Artois » Tue Jul 25, 2006 9:24 am

has anyone caught the HD version of 2001? It looks awful.

It's from the same master as the DVD and is riddled with edge enhancement artefacts. Comparing it to the the DVD (zooming in) you can see those same artefacts are still present in the DVD just that they are masked by the lower detail level of SD, but now become glaringly obvious in HD.

I think this could have implications for Criterion and their HD masters as they frequently push the filtering to the max for the 'perfect' DVD image - which it appears results in an over-enhanced HD image. Does anyone know if they keep 'clean' masters before any digital processing and only apply their filtering during the encoding?

2001 HD / 2001 DVD

2001 HD / 2001 DVD

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Matt
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 12:58 pm

#69 Post by Matt » Tue Jul 25, 2006 10:37 am

Artois wrote:has anyone caught the HD version of 2001? It looks awful.
That's pretty shocking. I'm sure it looks better than the DVD on a HD display, but it's certainly not at the level that one would expect. Jeez, and this film was pretty much the reason I would have upgraded to HD.

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The Invunche
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#70 Post by The Invunche » Tue Jul 25, 2006 1:18 pm

What's the source of those captures, HD TV? If yes then it's MPEG2 and the bitrate isn't as high as either Blu-ray or HD DVD.

Maybe it'll look better in the vastly superior AVC/H.264.

Artois
Joined: Tue Apr 11, 2006 9:03 pm

#71 Post by Artois » Tue Jul 25, 2006 4:52 pm

Compared to an upscaled DVD it still looks amazing on my 32" HD display, and aside from the EE artefacts the transfer is great, colours, black levels etc are all superb.

It is captured from HDTV in MPEG-2, average bitrate is 17.5Mbps though, so that's pretty much exactly how it will look on Blu-Ray if it were released now, although likely it won't be released until after the Blu-Ray camp sort out the problems mastering with the advanced codecs.

HD-DVD will no doubt look better with the extra bitrate and the more advanced VC-1 codec, but unless they make a new transfer (I suppose they would, if it's VC-1) those horrible artefacts will still be there.

One final shot. Look at their suits, it looks like they have an aura #-o

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denti alligator
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#72 Post by denti alligator » Tue Jul 25, 2006 7:13 pm

davidhare wrote:That IS totally appalling! More jaggies than a bad Kino! I assume the disc was HD-DVD format, not BluRay?
Most (all?) of the jaggies disappear once you view the pic in its full size.

Artois
Joined: Tue Apr 11, 2006 9:03 pm

#73 Post by Artois » Tue Jul 25, 2006 7:16 pm

davidhare wrote:That IS totally appalling! More jaggies than a bad Kino! I assume the disc was HD-DVD format, not BluRay?
Why would you assume that, david?

It's from an HDTV broadcast (HDnet).

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barrym71
Joined: Mon Nov 29, 2004 2:52 pm
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#74 Post by barrym71 » Wed Jul 26, 2006 8:35 am

StudioCanal are indeed releasing to HD DVD using VC-1 encoding. Not only that, but the first batch of Toshiba players do not have HD DVD region restrictions. I think that Mulholland Drive, The Elephant Man, Brotherhood of the Wolf, Army of Shadows, The Deer Hunter, Terminator 2, City of Lost Children and Le Cercle Rouge are all planned releases (along with that art-house fave, Basic Instinct). The Deer Hunter should also see a domestic release on HD DVD only. I believe that the release dates for the Studio Canal HD DVDs will come with the European product launch in September.

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Gordon
Joined: Thu Nov 11, 2004 8:03 am

#75 Post by Gordon » Tue Aug 08, 2006 3:06 am

barrym71 wrote:(along with that art-house fave, Basic Instinct)
I can think of one good reason to own that film in HD! :wink:

I need the detail.

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