Jul 19 / Ozymandias

Blu-ray DOA?

Just seems to be a Blu-ray sort of week. Following up on my earlier posts about Blu-ray disc capacity being irrelevant for games and the potential for dual-format HD-DVD/Blu-ray players in the future, we now have an opinion piece from Projector Central about whether Blu-ray can survive against the current advantages they perceive with HD-DVD.

It’s a good read, although does have a definite pro-HD-DVD bias. Their argument for HD-DVD’s superiority can be summed up with this quote from the article:

“HD-DVD is currently well-positioned to take the lion’s share of the market for one very simple reason: HD-DVD offers a much better value proposition to the consumer. That value proposition comes in the form of three formidable advantages: (1) At this writing, HD-DVD image quality is clearly superior to Blu-ray, (2) HD-DVD player prices are half those of Blu-ray, and (3) HD-DVD has twice as many movie titles on the market as Blu-ray, and that ratio will hold through the end of this critical launch year. In short, HD-DVD is aggressively delivering what the consumer wants today. Meanwhile, Blu-ray is far behind the power curve with overpriced and underperforming products. If it does not turn itself around its survival as a vehicle for home theater movies is questionable.”

I haven’t had a chance to do the in-depth side-by-side analysis Projector Central has, but I have to say the demos I’ve seen so far of Blu-ray have left me somewhat underwhelmed. I do buy the statement the authors make that the quality of Blu-ray movies will likely improve to HD-DVD’s levels in the future as they’re able to take advantage of dual-layer, 50 GB discs (and hence utilize higher-quality codecs). But it remains to be seen whether that will be too late for the format.

I’ve also seen a couple of high-end home theater magazines highlight that for 24 FPS films, there’s no technical difference in playback between a 1080i and 1080p signal. Hence there’s no picture quality advantage to Blu-ray either. To quote the article again:

“At this point we should address what can only be characterized as a hoax—the notion that Blu-ray must be technically superior to HD-DVD because the Samsung player outputs 1080p, whereas the Toshiba player is “only 1080i.” One high-end home theater retailer told me last weekend that the reason you pay $1000 for the Blu-ray player is for the “higher resolution 1080p output.” This is absolute baloney. If you encounter any retail sales rep feeding you this line, keep your wallet in your pocket and leave the store.

The truth is this: The Toshiba HD-DVD player outputs 1080i, and the Samsung Blu-ray player outputs both 1080i and 1080p. What they fail to mention is that it makes absolutely no difference which transmission format you use—feeding 1080i or 1080p into your projector or HDTV will give you the exact same picture. Why? Both disc formats encode film material in progressive scan 1080p at 24 frames per second. It does not matter whether you output this data in 1080i or 1080p since all 1080 lines of information on the disc are fed into your video display either way. The only difference is the order in which they are transmitted. If they are fed in progressive order (1080p), the video display will process them in that order. If they are fed in interlaced format (1080i), the video display simply reassembles them into their original progressive scan order. Either way all 1080 lines per frame that are on the disc make it into the projector or TV. The fact is, if you happen to have the Samsung Blu-ray player and a video display that takes both 1080i and 1080p, you can switch the player back and forth between 1080i and 1080p output and see absolutely no difference in the picture. So this notion that the Blu-ray player is worth more money due to 1080p output is nonsense.”

At the end of the day we’re still caught in a format war. As I said earlier, it’s somewhat irrelevant to me because I’m a audio/video geek and will pick up both (although I admit I’d only get Blu-ray as part of the PS3). My hope is that a dual-format player will come into being sooner rather than later so we can all get on with our lives and start watching HD movies independent of format.

http://www.jasoncross.org JasonC

"I’ve also seen a couple of high-end home theater magazines highlight that for 24 FPS films, there’s no technical difference in playback between a 1080i and 1080p signal. Hence there’s no picture quality advantage to Blu-ray either."

Well, 1080i has nothing to do with HD-DVD as a format, just that Toshiba player. All the HD-DVD discs released so far are 1080p.

The home theater magazines are right only on a conceptual level. In truth, your HD display is going to have to de-interlace that 1080i signal before it goes on the screen, and the quality of the deinterlacers in HDTVs varies wildly – especially on really high res stuff.

There are clearly HD-DVD and Blu-ray "camps" out there and opinions vary about which one will win overall, which one is technically superior, etc. I don’t think any reasonable person can make the argument that the battle is even remotely over, though. In other words, just as HD-DVD’s dominance of the market is unassured, so is blu-rays.

And that’s what gets me about the PS3. For all Sony’s protesting that games really do need all that space, I know…WE know…it’s not true. We’ve seen lots of very clearly next-gen games on the 360 that fit on a single DVD quite easily. It’s there for movies. So Sony’s is forcing an expense on customers for a format that is, at best, "maybe" going to be a good thing to have.
WiNG

I think this kind of format war cannot be really globalized and it will depend a lot on each region. It may look logical from a US view technical discussions such as if one format is 1080i or 1080p or what differences appear among both formats if a TV has to deinterlace the format, but, for example here in south europe, it looks like a lost battle for both. Here on my country we steped from VHS to DVD directly, no intermediate solutions like LaserDisc or CD-I, and we only made the move to DVD relatively recently. I own a relatively big collection for what is normal around here, around 350 DVDs, and I surely won’t be substituting them for HD versions of any format, just as Ozymandias also mentioned on another post, but I don’t see anyone in here that might do it.

Might it work in the rental scenario here? not if needing a 1000€ player for sure. However, and no matter how sad I find it, PS3 could make it work. Simply put so you can guess what is the usual pick in my region, I know 3 guys with a Xbox (me included), 0 with a Xbox360, and 32 with a PS2 with most of them interested in getting a PS3 once its a bit cheaper, and that gives in this posible war a slight advantage to Blue Ray here, but certainly not a big one since still most of our TVs can’t handle HD signals anyway.
brasilcaps

I used to work in Circuit City, and I came to visit my friend a couple of weeks ago trying to get a peek on the HD-DVDs and Blu-rays. I was suprised that they only have the Samsung Blu-ray player on display, apparently that because of the exclusive agreement with Hitachi (and Bestbuy’s with Toshiba), Circuit City can’t have any Toshiba’s product on the floor (although they do sell one in their website)

On top of that, I tried to get some information from the Product Specialists (which I’ve know them for quite awhile) and they have this preconceived notion that HD-DVD is an inferior product because it can’t display 1080p and less disc space. I wish I still work there because they need the training.
Enzo304

I don’t believe their argument on 1080p…. if 1080p is the same as 1080i, then shouldn’t 1080i be better than 720p due to the extra lines? Yet as I’ve understood it, interlaced is much slower and worse than progressive. Looks like it’s time to listen to Major Nelson’s podcast with the HDTV experts at Microsoft (http://majornelson.com/archive/2006/02/20/show-163-the-one-about-hdtv.aspx) again. Oh well, my 50" LCD can only run 1080i/720p, so I don’t care all that much.
http://www.hoyty.com/hoytyweblog Brian Hoyt

One correction about comment "50 GB discs (and hence utilize higher-quality codecs)." The higher quality codecs are actually smaller in disc space. The reason the Blu-Ray discs look worse is for some odd reason they have decided to keep using MPEG-2 instead of H.264 or VC-1. At the same bit rate you can get 20-30% better picture quality with the newer codecs. It will be interesting to see if WB uses the VC-1 content from their HD-DVD discs or re-encodes to MPEG-2 on their Blu-Ray releases.
synaesthesia

The Samsung BD player is actually hobbled by a bit of weird technology. The disc is mastered at 1080p, the player then renders it at 1080i, and then uses a scalar to push it back up to 1080p. Essentially the Samsung BD player (and ONLY the Samsung BD player) is a 1080i device with a scaler.

This is why switching between the resolutions produces no palpable gains in image quality.
aries

i hope they both fail. no matter where i go whether its tv or the internet there is always some kind of war going on…..and they look better than dvd, but 1000 dollars better, no thank u. if the xbox addon is over 150 dollars i wont buy it.
Foobar

Firstly, the author says that Blu-Ray will achieve HD-DVD quality. Secondly, he doesn’t understand the difference between 1080i and 1080p. And, frankly I think that dilutes his conclusions.

1080i is interlaced, what he misses is that an interlaced frame consists of two fields that are temporaly distinct. 1080p material shown at 1080i will absolutely be degraded. If not, why the hell would anyone bother supporting 1080p ?
Reallynotnick

1080p is better because you don’t get the ‘jagedies’ when fast motion happens. His argument is that you still see all 24frames, which you do just with a screwed up update patern.

The thing is 1080i can only get a full 30fps (which is his argument) while 1080P can get a full 60fps.

Oh yeah and Enzo304 you better check your LCD out because I don’t know of anyone that can display 1080i, chances are it scales it down to 720 and combinds both of the frames to make it progressive.
Reallynotnick

1080p is better because you don’t get the ‘jagedies’ when fast motion happens. His argument is that you still see all 24frames, which you do just with a screwed up update patern.

The thing is 1080i can only get a full 30fps (which is his argument) while 1080P can get a full 60fps.

Oh yeah and Enzo304 you better check your LCD out because I don’t know of anyone that can display 1080i, chances are it scales it down to 720 and combinds both of the frames to make it progressive.
Travis

To build on what Reallynotnick mentioned…

This 1080i/1080p discussion may apply to film material since it is merely 24fps, but it isn’t as though films are the only content available on discs. It is not unreasonable to think that we’ll see 60fps HD footage released on optical media that will suffer when output at 1080i.
TheRocoLoco

umm…. 1080i only shows 540 lines at a time … so umm yeah 1080p is a lot better! I’d even take 720p over 1080i in most cases. 1080i should be called 540i and it would make more since =).
Anta

HAY GUYS! I’m just hear in behalf of some friends saying that this guy is pretty stupid, Ozymandias? what kind of name is that? OH LAWD, well dodn’t belove what he sais kids and PS3 RULES JOO ALL.
Reaktorleak89

The arguments about HD-DVD having better picture quality than Blu-ray are absolutely pointless because they both use the exact same codecs. Mpeg-2, VC-1, and H.264 are all supported on both Blu-ray and HD-DVD players. The only difference between the two formats is Blu-Ray’s slightly higher data transfer rate and how many gigabytes it can store per layer. It’s entirely up to movie studios to decide which compression format they use. Mpeg-2 is being used for Blu-ray movies because not only do they not need to pay royalties to Microsoft (for VC-1), they also get to use Blu-ray’s extra space to use a format that only does very slight compression, thus displaying a better picture. H.264 is a great compressor in that it uses very little space, but it still lossy and loses some of the source material’s quality and requires a LOT of CPU processing power to handle. And with 4-layer and 8-layer Blu-ray discs now being experimented with, there’s going to be less and less need for BD-Rom supporters to worry about space. Mpeg-2 makes sense since movie studios store digital masters of their films in Mpeg-2 anyway. Makes the job easier to just slap it onto blu-ray and save money. A lot of time and money that goes into making DVD movies is to immensely compress the data so that the films actually fit onto a DVD-9. With the large amount of space that dual-layer Blu-ray offers, they don’t have to worry about those limitations. Toshiba is trying to beat its rival format with a triple-layer 45 Gb disc, but as of yet there has been no indication that HD-DVD discs can support more than three layers. Unfortunately, once 100Gb and 200Gb Blu-ray discs arrive, there’ll be no doubt about which format is superior. While there is a difference between 1080i and 1080p, it’s not significant enough that the average consumer is going to notice it. The variables in this format war are going to be the visual quality of the films themselves, how good the player is, and how good a consumer’s HDtv is, regardless of format. In fact, everything might come down to brand recognition and if PS3 consumers end up supporting the Blu-Ray film market.
Mogul218

Anta said:

HAY GUYS! I’m just hear in behalf of some friends saying that this guy is pretty stupid, Ozymandias? what kind of name is that? OH LAWD, well dodn’t belove what he sais kids and PS3 RULES JOO ALL.

You calling someone stupid is like the pot calling the kettle black. I mean just look at your grammar. What are you, like 8 years old?
bean

Ozymandius – Which will be faster at loading games, the 360′s DVDx12 or the PS3′s BRx2?
sublime78

Personally I can’t tell a big difference between interlaced and progressive video. And yes, technically I know what the difference is because I’m a telecommunication and film student. But it is important to note, to the person saying 1080i only shows 540 lines at any given time… that your eyes can’t tell. Hense the reason when you watch interlaced tv you "see" the whole image as it is meant to be. Its not like your sitting there going "damn, I only see half the screen at one time. I’m with what was said earlier, I just bought an HDTV a year ago, its not 1080p, I could care less if the PS3 or Blue Ray is. 1080i looks just damn fine and dandy to me, and that’s on a 57′ TV so no its not a question of my TV being too small to notice. I will note that between choosing 720p or 1080i for my 360 games I go with 1080i, it seems sharper and in no way to I see these "defects" and "blurs" that people speak of.
ALX-D

It will be interesting to see how the PS3 changes the situation. I for one plan to get a PS3 mainly for the Blue Ray player that is included. If Microsoft releases the HD DVD player for the 360 before PS3 gets released, then I may not purchase the PS3. I think if Microsoft gets the HD DVD add on player out quick and pushes it real aggresively, then Blue Ray will have a tough time catching up.
Ranger7722

Excuse my elementary educatoin in the high-definition format wars, but how could a picture of 1080p and 1080i be the same? Progressive and interlaced formats have two completely different styles of transmitting images to your video screen. As we all know, progressive is the much greater of the two formats and allows for better picture quality over interlaced, which is only showing half of the total pixels at any given time. Despite the fact that both would be operating at 24fps, how could both a 1080p player and a 1080i player be showing the same picture?
Reaktorleak89

From:http://www.cdfreaks.com/article/186/4

"compared to current DVDs, Blu-ray provides a five times higher data rate while only doubling the rotation speed of current DVD-ROMs." This is in relation to 1x drives. DVD 12x drives have a slightly higher Peak data transfer rate than 2x BD, but that’s only for peak unfortunately. DVD drives can’t sustain their peak speads for very long while BD drives and sustain peak speed indefinitely. BD drives have a higher video bit rate.

While the 360 can get short bursts of data slightly faster than the PS3, the PS3 will end up transfering more data during streaming since dvd drives can’t keep up after a few seconds of peak data transfer. Short burts- 360 wins. Longer bursts- PS3 wins.

PS3 however as an overall advantage in this arena because of the HDD drive, which comes standard. Since every PS3 comes with it, developers can rely on it for chaching in order to have faster load times than the 360. (At E3, games like Resistance and Heavenly Sword were loading within 4~6 seconds).

Unfortunately for 360 developers, Micrsoft didn’t make their HDD standard and thus developers can’t rely on it since not every gamer will have it. If it was standard, that would’ve put both consoles on an even playing field in terms of load times. It’s hard to say why Microsoft chose to do this since Xbox1′s hdd drive helped developers the first time around, other than they were afraid that consumers would not buy their console at $399. Sadly for them, it didn’t turn out that way.
Ozymandias

"Ozymandius – Which will be faster at loading games, the 360′s DVDx12 or the PS3′s BRx2?"

At this point it’s hard to say… the 360′s DVD-12 can transfer data more quickly, but the above poster does have a point in that having a hard drive to cache can make up for a lack of overall data transfer speed of blu-ray. This may well be why Sony chose to include the added cost of a hard drive in every box – to try and compensate for slow data transfers off the blu-ray drive.

All that said, I can’t call this one, especially since 360 games can use the hard drive if they wish, and we don’t know how efficient Sony’s game development tools are for packing data on the disc itself. We’ll have to revisit post-launch.
Enzo304

Reallynotnick– my LCD can run 1080i… it might not be completely native and a little bit of upscaling, but yes, it does run in 1080i.

Don’t be hating me just because I have a sexy TV .
Teph

Good point, Ozymandius. I was gonna say the same thing.

I don’t think people realize that most games DO use the harddrive for caching on the X360, if the drive’s there.

The developers do have to make sure the game can run without the HDD, but when comparing load times in this senario I think it’s only sensible to compare both units with a harddisk.

And since they’re the relatively same speed, won’t the load times on the ps3 be more (or at the least the same) since it’s loading more content? (remember, all that AWESOME (*sarcasm*) extra disc space you’re paying for SHOULD mean more content that pushes the 8.5gb barrier.)

More content + same speed = longer load times

Yes, I know the above argument is fairly hypothetical.. but still. I think you’ll find whatever extra filler crap the devs fill the BR discs with won’t make your experiance more enjoyable. You’re either paying for waisted space or extra crap on a disc that still doesn’t make it look any better than what’s available on a DVD-9.

/rant

Cheers!

-Teph
bean

Ozymandius – Thanks. I’m looking forward to the revisit. :)

Reaktorleak – I was at E3 too. The reason they loaded so fast was that they were loading off computers. There wasn’t a working PS3 anywhere at E3.
TheVideoGuy

The difference between 1080i vs 1080p is not worth boasting and I think Sony is making a big mistake pushing 1080p since probably a lot of their games won’t run native 1080p anyways. Unfortuantely at this point, it’s hard to upsell Blue Ray vs HD DVD on any other feature since, besides the disc capacity, it’s lagerly the same thing to most consumers… "better picture than DVD".

The format war could also be decided through PC hardware, and so far, Pioneer and Sony have blue ray burners and media availabe. With Microsoft pushing HD DVD, it will be interesting to see if manfacutrers/Microsoft start pushing HD-DVD burners computers. Blue Ray is not DOA just yet…
mylostsphincter

I was just at a Sonystyle store last night and saw that they had a Blu-Ray player for $750. I was quite suprised because everyone has been saying that these players were going to be well over $1000.
mylostsphincter

I stand corrected. I just called the Sony store and they said in fact it will be sold at the $999 price and won’t be avaiable until October. I could’ve sworn I saw a price tag on it in the $750 mark.

My apologies.
booger2000

sure, 1080p IS technically superior to 1080i, but when you see the two running side by side, there is no noticeable difference, i sh*t you not.

and also, the argument that 1080p is better because it eliminates fast motion jaggies is absurd. these are video artifacts that are caused by compression, NOT resolution. this happens a lot when watching HD shows on digital cable, because the compression must compensate for the bandwidth constraint. if you go check out an HD-DVD movie, there’s absolutely NONE of this. so it has nothing to do with 1080p.

in addition, mpeg-2 is without a doubt inferior to VC-1. from some of the things said here so far, one would think that because blu-ray has more capacity, it allows for less compression by the codec–thus preserving the video integrity. actually, it’s the other way around. sony opted to use mpeg-2 (most likely not to pay MS royalties on VC-1 and for this reason alone) which has an inferior compression ratio, therefore REQUIRING the extra space found on a blu-ray disc.

blu-ray video isn’t being "compressed less" because of the huge capacity found on the disc. the compression found in mpeg-2 is INEFFICIENT compared to VC-1…so it’s a good thing that blu-ray is huge, because it’s gonna NEED all that space. this kind of nullifies the "mpeg-2 > VC-1 because of compression rate" argument.

besides, the final test of all this is to see it with your own eyes. in that case, HD-DVD clearly wins over blu-ray.

it’s also been said (by sony) that 4 hours of 1080 HD content can be stored on a single 50gb blu-ray disc. thanks to VC-1, the same can be stored on a 30gb HD-DVD disc…which, unlike the 50gb BD, is out on the market right now.

sony has got a lot of work (marketing) cut out for themselves. it’s only a matter of time before consumers learn the truth between the two technologies.
OpTiMuS NYC

HD-DVD all the way for me I’ve seen enough comparisons and feedback from blu ray purchasers and HD-DVD purchasers to know what the real deal is.

Plus I refuse to pay $1000 for ANYTHING that I can get of equal or superior value as I’m finding out for cheaper. Blu Ray to me was a no go the moment I knew its price.

The only way I’d purchase blu ray is if I was rotten rich and seeing as how that probably wont happen for awhile if ever HD-DVD it is for me.
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