The Next Generation Starts Here!

During my afternoon off from work yesterday, I went shopping and noticed that Virgin Megastores have finally started selling Blu-Ray films in addition to posters confirming that HD-DVD titles will also soon be available! What's even more impressive is that the films currently on offer were about £5 cheaper than most new DVD releases, although there isn't exactly a very wide range to choose from just yet. The overall lack of extras in comparison to existing DVDs was a little disappointing, though at least there was plenty of room given on the packaging (which isn't half as bad as it looked in some images I'd seen earlier) to mentioning 1080p resolution playback. I've been reliably informed that prices may go up once more titles come out, not to mention the costs you can expect to pay when boxed sets and compilations get into full swing. Still, it's possible the recommended retail figure may be kept low at first to prevent the same initially slow consumer adoption of the format that plagued DVD when it appeared on the market. We shall see...

 

Might pop down to my local and grab a few pictures later - I need to do some shopping anyways :thumbsup:

 

A few things I wonder about the new blue ray/HD thing-

If each can hold so much (what was it, 32 gigs for HD, 60 for Blue Ray, or whatever?) and there's only one movie on it without much extras, then what's in the rest of the space? Does one movie in 1080p resolution take up that much space? Couldn't you say, take the entire Star Wars saga or Lord of the Rings trilogy all on one disc with that much space?

Just seems a bit of a rip off for me to rush out and buy a whole new player for essentially the same media.

 

One movie in 1080p resolution can easily take up 25gb of space. In addition to the higher-resolution video, the audio is often uncompressed, or losslessly compressed, so it takes up quite a bit of space (multiple gigabytes). There is no way that they could fit more than one movie on a disk, unless they over-compressed it, and then what would be the point of buying it on HD-DVD or Blu-Ray?

It is not essentially the same media at all... unless you don't have a HDTV or nice sound system...

 

My best "output" is a VGA screen, and standard prologic II stereo speakers. I do not own a single DVD movie (I only watch most movies just once, since I m very picky when it comes to quality video or games). I am the type of consumer that next-genists probably hate =)

I will however snag an HD-DVD add-on for my 360 if the price allows (as I m a hardware addict)

 

I haven't yet seen Blue Ray/HD running right next to DVD, so I don't know what increase in quality there is. I'm sure the new players look and sound a lot better of course, especially if you have a home theater system. But is there really that much of a difference? Regular DVD looks and sounds pretty good on a High definition TV anyway, does the new standards really look that much better?

 

im still not sure,is blue ray and hd offer the same amount of storage?how much more can both have than a dvd?for some reason ive had it in my head that blue ray is something like four times more than dvds.

 

Went to the local virgin (high street kensington) and nothing there yet - must only be the bigger shops. Next time I'm around oxford st. I'll take a look in HMV and Virgin there. I know for a fact that harrods has Blu-ray players, as I went there a week ago and watched a sony sampler on one connected to (i think) a 63" plasma. :thumbsup:

 

Its a bit more complicated than this, but think of both new formats using a smaller laser, so that more data is able to be written on a disk, since all of the pits that make up the 1's and 0's are smaller. Blu-Ray offers more storage than HD-DVD, 50gb dual layer Blu-Ray vs 30gb dual layer HD-DVD, however, duel layer Blu-Ray releases are rare, since the Blu-Ray manufactoring process is still not that great (high rates of failure creating dual layer discs, so they are mainly sticking with single layer.) HD-DVD doesn't have this problem, so virtually all of its releases are dual layer, in effect having more storage than Blu-Ray.

Early reviews showed HD-DVD as much more high quality than Blu-Ray releases, although Blu-Ray has gained a little ground (its initial releases really were awful), HD-DVD is still on top in PQ due to some technical stuff (it uses mpeg4 while Sony decided to use MPEG2 in its initial releases, although Blu-Ray is indeed capable of MPEG4, Sony made its decision partially based on licensing fees).


So yea.... long read? The PQ is indeed much better than DVD, although its really only noticeable on somewhat large screens. If DVD is good enough, why bother.. =/

 

thats how i feel.it seems rather rushed to be having these new formats not even ten years after dvds came out.at the used place i work at there are still tons of people who dont even own a dvd player and still buy the $1.50 vhs we have.i think it would be cool to be able to fit an entire season of something on one disc but i cant imagine the studios wanting to make it cheaper.if you were to sell say a new season of south park on one disc instead of three can you still charge $35-40 for it?

 

Sony demoed their BluRay player in Ginza while I was there. They had Lawrence of Arabia running both in HD and standard resolution. Even my friend who's not really into AV stuff (he plays his 360 on 28" 4:3 TV w/ composite leads) said the difference was massive. Which it was.

However, the demo was done on a high-end LCD, so on a lower quality screen the difference might not be that pronounced.

 

Have you tried watching DVD's on a big plasma or TFT? It's not a pretty sight. If i exxagerate i could say the movie looks like its been made out of lego; MPEG-blocks everywhere. So in that respect its not early or rushed.

I did read that blu-ray itself is rushed. The discs dont have extras yet because the standard isnt quite worked out completely and doesnt support that kindof stuff (yet).

 

the benefits of DVD over VHS and VCD were obvious beyond just the picture quality. The new formats' benefits are more advertised than they are real however. Besides the HD picture, no real advantages as to storage (considering the length of each picture is the same, taking up more space), extras, re-playability quality (which magnetic formats seem to suffer from),chapters etc are presented. They are too similar to DVDs, and as such I expect a very slow penetration (although the industry will eventually shove it down consumer's throats).

With DVD players, cheap units were out there a short time (relatively) after the initial release. The picture of even cheap units was sharper than VHS on a standard TV, enough for the average Joe to go for it. Unless they somehow give away free players (which cost prohibits), I don't see why people would even bother diving in, buying or renting the new format.

Finally, the fact that there are two sides , HD-DVD and Blu-ray, won't make penetration any easier, considering both are mostly useless to most users around the globe, that do no own nor can they afford a hi-end piece of TV.

 

Heres the lowdown. The reason why blu ray uses that much space, is cause most titles use mpeg 2 which is considered ancient in compression.

Imagine the compression of mpeg 1 to dvd mpeg 2. With mpeg 1 the quality was lower and used up a ton of space compared to mpeg 2. When these movies are made for dvd or any hd format, uncompressed they take up a ridicules amount of space, probably even a tb depending on the film.

Now HD DVD uses a more advance codec that has higher quality and takes up less space, so there discs dont even need to be high as blu ray. However HD dvd can go do tripple layer discs can up to 90gb(double sided, single 45gb).

What make blu ray diffcult to make is that blu ray is manufactured like a cd is where all the data is on the surface of the disc. Which is why they are having issuses at the moment getting dual layer to work on the format.

Now HD DVD is made like dvds where all the data is in the center of the disc as microsoft reps for hd dvd would refer to as " a sandwhich".

In all honesty these formats were made just for HD TV's that display at 1080p to provide a closer look to film. With blu ray i noticed most titles tend to have alot of film grain present.

I have compared side by side with demonstartions shown at best buy. I can easily say hd dvd has a sharper cleaner look to it. As well HD DVD has abilities like live audio commentaries for some movies when useing the Ehternet port on the back of any player.

Other include a new menu interfereance that makes accessing every part of the hd dvd easier. Also HD dvd can hold both a HD DVD and regular dvd version of the film on one disc.

I would say wait till theres a firm all out winner in this format war and until you get a big screen hd tv that supports 1080p. For now a regular dvd player will do fine on most titles.

 

Another issue in regards to DVD vs. HD-DVD/Blu-Ray is that a lot of the currently released titles for the latter is catalog titles that were shot with film stock or pre-HD digital. Remastering ISN'T the end-all solution as there is still limitations as to how much better a movie can look. Movies shot in HD Digital will be more suited for HD-DVD or Blu-Ray, but the older titles should stay on standard DVD IMO.

 

imagine some bastard remastering all your favourite SNES games in HD. Now imagine your favourite movie remastered in HD.

 

I definetly agree with evil ways on this. Unlike an snes game that can be converted to hd by adding more pixals and filters and such, old flicks can only be enhance to certain point depending on film stock and how the orginal negatives were transfered digitaly.

Movies like episode 3 that were shot in hd, will definetly benefit. I'm suprised that caddy shack and animal house were released on hd dvd. Anyone been able to see if these versions look better then the dvd ones?

 

Yeah, I was wondering about that old films bit as well. However, like I said in my earlier post, Lawrence of Arabia (circa 1962) looked damn good in HD. How's that possible then?

 

So my question is what is the codec that HD and blue ray use compared to Mpeg2?

 

h.264/mpeg4 for the most part. There is the possibility of using VC-1, but I believe most releases are h.264/mpeg 4 or mpeg2 at the moment