Blu-ray supporters move toward joint license

Too Little, Too Late.

I would like to see Blu-ray take off. I have several blu movies and the quality is top notch. Plus with 50 gigs avail for use on a disk, it really stands out. HD-DVD is great too, but the size wins it over for me. I am no sony lover though...."aka betamax and Rootkit".

rootkit was produced by sony BMG not just SONY.. its a branch off the company. not every product is made by the same 2 dorks.

@lxfactor. You sound like pontious pilot to me!

well...as long as they stop using Mpeg as the codec of choice.....hehehehehehe

Originally posted by bluray79:

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Plus with 50 gigs avail for use on a disk, it really stands out. HD-DVD is great too, but the size wins it over for me.

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- Well the truth is that that sort of size is pretty meaningless (just like the theoretically higher data transfer rate).

It really is just all about making the almost 20yr old MPEG2 codec usable for high def & very little else.

VC-1 shows that that size & transfer rate are simply not needed
(and when you can get transparency with the master & Dolby HD sound with 30gbs or less it truly does prove this point).

We can already see (with the Paramount & Warner VC-1 & AVC movies) that many Blu-ray releases are not going to make any serious use of that potential capacity
(and in any event stacking the disc full of pointless silly games or extras is hardly a great 'selling point').

As a raw data storage media BD may offer some interesting possibilities
(if 100gb & 200gb media & hardware ever come to market at an affordable level) but it really is a 2nd best video media.

I hear that instead of multi-scanning (for things like PiP & the features iHD offers) they simply are shoving in another whole movie track to switch between!
There's your 'need' for 50gb right there!

It really is a clunky system.......

.....with a specification that isn't even finalised yet!

There's a meeting planned for the end of the year to try and decide this and 'freeze' the spec.
Note that there are currently 4 different specs of BD out there right now!

1st & 2nd gen BD buyers beware!
Mind out you don't get left out in the cold!

hughjars
Just say it BLu ray was made for Mpeg 2,but if they can get over them selfs BR offers some nice advancements however no matter how good it is if they refuse to pull their heads out of their ass they will lose and lose badly.

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hughjars
Just say it BLu ray was made for Mpeg 2,but if they can get over them selfs BR offers some nice advancements however no matter how good it is if they refuse to pull their heads out of their ass they will lose and lose badly.

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Blu-Ray offer as many codec's as HD-DVD so whats the point but to make fun of mpeg2 is a huge over look for that codec.Blu-Ray first gen releases really looked bad using mpeg2 but now i don't know what has happen but that is not a issue anymore there are mpeg2 that look better than any VC-1 codec released Tears from the Sun & Crank are just some.What codec's are used is starting to be over blown to much.

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[quote]hughjars
Just say it BLu ray was made for Mpeg 2,but if they can get over them selfs BR offers some nice advancements however no matter how good it is if they refuse to pull their heads out of their ass they will lose and lose badly.

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Blu-Ray offer as many codec's as HD-DVD so whats the point but to make fun of mpeg2 is a huge over look for that codec.Blu-Ray first gen releases really looked bad using mpeg2 but now i don't know what has happen but that is not a issue anymore there are mpeg2 that look better than any VC-1 codec released Tears from the Sun & Crank are just some.What codec's are used is starting to be being over blown to much.[/quote]most of the older BR look horrid and BR still dosent have a better sound codec,in all both are as wonky as each,with HD being alittle better in qaulity wise and BR having more "support".

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BR still dosent have a better sound codec

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Are you sure about this? i will give you time to do research on this because this is not true.

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HD being alittle better in quality wise and BR having more "support".

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The studio set the quality not Blu-ray or HD-DVD FOR EX:The Departed codec was VC-1 when you buy a movie thats offer on Blu-ray & HD-DVD they use the same codec so how can one be better than the other.EX:The Departed offer on both see for yourself.

Blu-Ray

http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/departed.html

HD-DVD

http://hddvd.highdefdigest.com/departed.html

To say that HD-DVD or Blu-ray offer better quality than one another is totally false.Its content & storage that matter when it come to these two that going to matter and right now Blu-ray has it HD-DVD don't.

F.Y.I.

VideoScan: Overall Blu-ray Disc Sales Now Surpass HD DVD

http://www.highdefdigest.com/news/show/I...pass_HD_DVD/489

I think what is being pointed out is early Blu-ray released used MPEG-2 codec because of limitations of developing software IIRC. That's why a lot of ppl started to award HD DVD for its quality, and at the time it had an earlier launch and it was cheaper (still is). Of course though, two competing formats are going to have specifications that mirror each other and performance that is very similar.

Blu-ray only started outselling HD DVD when the PS3 arrived (as in the UK, latest reports show HD DVD is still outselling Blu-ray, but thats not hard when Xbox 360 HD DVD add-on is £129 and Blu-ray player is hundreds more than that.)

As you might have guessed, I do lean slightly toward HD DVD side because I think it is more appealing to the consumer and I don't like many of Sony's views on the market. I used to be a Blu-ray supporter because of the extra capacity, possibility of being somewhat future proof and yes, at the time, the fact that a PS3 would give me one. Then PS3 price tag blew me away and some of the technical specs of Blu-ray make my spine shiver (0.85 numerical aperture, BD-J, BD+ etc.)

Over time I did realise that for the average consumer, who doesn't know all of this stuff that you and I know, HD DVD was going to be the more friendly option, it's easier on the wallet, it's based heavily on a proven technology (DVD) and of course, it has "DVD" in its name, so naturally consumers see something they can trust.

I also think that Sony is pushing the Blu-ray and PS3 tie too much, it reminds me of iTunes / iPod (though I admit, technically its totally different, but the bundling aspect and what Sony has to gain mirrors it very well) and I don't think everyone sitting on Blu-ray bandwagon right now feels very trusting of Sony. Besides the obvious extra capacity that Blu-ray offers, what else did studios like? PS3 support and extra DRM... that's my bet.

There were obvious hiccups when dual-layer BD discs were delayed, Disney did not like that at all, and then how is it that Pioneer thought 7 million PS3s would ship in 2006? And then of course, where is BD+? With the PS3 delayed and obviously, considering the beliefs of members of BDA, Sony had made some wild estimates early on, would I be wrong in saying that, for now, keeping BD+ away is the best thing that can be done for Blu-ray?

BD+ will probably be opened up pretty quickly too, and AACS some are considering "too easy" - so while AACS is now being cracked here and there, The BDA can tout about better security over and over again even tho BD+ is unproven, unpresent. I don't like feeling that there is possibly wool being pulled over consumers and supporters eyes, of course there is no proof to that effect other than how wrong Sony was on so many things, including its own console launch details and production estimates.

Never-the-less, if Blu-ray wins, so be it, I really don't care when it all comes down to it. I'll own a PS3 and an Xbox 360 HD DVD add-on so I'm covered either way, but I think Sony's claim of victory is ridiculous right now, and HD DVD did kick BDA in the chest with 3X DVD whether anyone will be man enough to admit it or not - people forget that 1080p and 720p mean next to nothing to people who never heard them before, so selling rakes of movies on a red-laser and much cheaper to produce disc, allows HD DVD group and supporters to offer consumers a more affordable way to experience HD content, on a disc that works with all HD DVD hardware. The HD DVD group knows this will be successful with the masses if only it is "used correctly".

Studios look to HD to "preserve" the market they saw with DVD, not to increase on it (of course, they would love to increase on it, but with DVD sales slowing for catalog titles, they know they need something else to fill the gap or their precious extra millions are going to stop pouring in) so if they know whats good for them, they'll offer prices similar to DVD for 3X DVD titles, and sporting HD DVD logo, they'll move incredibly fast if done correctly.

All of the above is really the reason why I went from being a Blu-ray supporter to leaning more toward HD DVD and I say all this not to get involved with any fanboy war or anything, I just decided I'd give my 2 cents on the matter, but in the grand scheme of things, it's just not that important to me personally

Dela
I follow you ,I liked BR for allot of reasons at first but as time went on sony just did not adapt well to what was coming on so many levels then all the PS3 back sliding,I jsut do not think SOny is best suited in this,HDVD has proven to be stable and on track even having the best sound codec of the 2.

In the end it dosent matter who wins but Id rather it not be sony...sony needs not to win and understand that they failed because they believed their own hype....they need to reinvent them selfs over wise they will destroy them selfs begin so anti consumer,its not liek MS is any better but they are remaining a part in HDVD and not derailing them like sony has done.

I see sony having a better footing but BR is a mess and more anti consumer than HDVD is HDVD is doing ok and is trying to max out quality all they can.

Hey Dela I have a question for you if S0ny brought out their 100GB disc tomorrow and had it for less than 55% more than the normal disc and it had eaqule read speed to normal BR would that change the game any in you mind?

I am kinda 50/50 on the thought.

Well Blu-ray would use pretty much the same audio as HD DVD, suppoirt it anyway, Dolby Digital AC3, Dolby TrueHD, DTS-HD Master Audio, 7 channel LPCM , Dolby+ etc. so I don't think there's any real advantage to anyone in terms of audio.

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Hey Dela I have a question for you if S0ny brought out their 100GB disc tomorrow and had it for less than 55% more than the normal disc and it had eaqule read speed to normal BR would that change the game any in you mind?

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Well there are problems with this. 100GB on a disc would kick ass but there would be no point at all releasing any content on a 100GB disc. A four layer BD-ROM disc would be very expensive to produce, currently hardware would not support it and who knows what problems would be run into developing the laser diodes that easily read 4 layers of Blu-ray.

It's the same for HD DVD, they can develop a triple layer disc, in fact, they have (48GB), but what use is it to people who are early adopters and why make such a sudden change? Besides, HD DVD is made for movies and HD DVD group believes that with VC-1 and H.264, 30GB is more than sufficient capacity and for now it is (I say for now because who knows the changes that will happen with decoder hardware etc.) I think for me... Blu-ray and movies gives only one major advantage.. you can fit extras and long HD movie on one disc. Then again, I really don't mind if a long, like 3 hour movie comes on one HD DVD disc and another comes loaded with extras, I'm used to that with DVD anyway.

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Well Blu-ray would use pretty much the same audio as HD DVD, suppoirt it anyway, Dolby Digital AC3, Dolby TrueHD, DTS-HD Master Audio, 7 channel LPCM , Dolby+ etc. so I don't think there's any real advantage to anyone in terms of audio.

[quote]Hey Dela I have a question for you if S0ny brought out their 100GB disc tomorrow and had it for less than 55% more than the normal disc and it had eaqule read speed to normal BR would that change the game any in you mind?

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Well there are problems with this. 100GB on a disc would kick ass but there would be no point at all releasing any content on a 100GB disc. A four layer BD-ROM disc would be very expensive to produce, currently hardware would not support it and who knows what problems would be run into developing the laser diodes that easily read 4 layers of Blu-ray.

It's the same for HD DVD, they can develop a triple layer disc, in fact, they have (48GB), but what use is it to people who are early adopters and why make such a sudden change? Besides, HD DVD is made for movies and HD DVD group believes that with VC-1 and H.264, 30GB is more than sufficient capacity and for now it is (I say for now because who knows the changes that will happen with decoder hardware etc.) I think for me... Blu-ray and movies gives only one major advantage.. you can fit extras and long HD movie on one disc. Then again, I really don't mind if a long, like 3 hour movie comes on one HD DVD disc and another comes loaded with extras, I'm used to that with DVD anyway.[/quote]MMMm I thought the 3 layered disc could be read on any HDVD hardware with a frimware update,I guess thats more tricky than it sounds.

As for the audio I thought HDVD was useing more of the the better surround sound codec thus making a bit better,of coarse both sides have so much mixed codecs both are as wonky as each other in the long run*L*

I'm not sure of current HD DVD hardware and triple layer discs to be honest but I still think that a firmware upgrade would probably fall short... in any case.

And I don't know what has been used on Blu-ray to date for audio, I know Dolby+ was used on HD DVD titles I've checked out so I can't really comment on audio of Blu-ray so far.

And btw, off topic, looks like there is a problem with the +quote feature of forums, I just realised that whenever u try to quote somebody who has already quoted in their post, only one quote appears, I'll make sure someone knows about that.

Originally posted by Dela:

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I'm not sure of current HD DVD hardware and triple layer discs to be honest but I still think that a firmware upgrade would probably fall short... in any case.

And I don't know what has been used on Blu-ray to date for audio, I know Dolby+ was used on HD DVD titles I've checked out so I can't really comment on audio of Blu-ray so far.

And btw, off topic, looks like there is a problem with the +quote feature of forums, I just realised that whenever u try to quote somebody who has already quoted in their post, only one quote appears, I'll make sure someone knows about that.

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you just now noticed???
theres 2 glitches with the quoting system
1 is double quotes or more are not defined right and mess up posts
2 is when links are near a quote it can mess up the tag.

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And I don't know what has been used on Blu-ray to date for audio, I know Dolby+ was used on HD DVD titles I've checked out so I can't really comment on audio of Blu-ray so far.

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BluRay discs with uncompressed 5.1 LPCM audio at 48KHz/24-Bit (The Prestige, The Brothers Grimm, The Guardian, Pearl Harbor, etc) will have the advantage. Lossless compression schemes such as DolbyTru HD can only hope to approach - but not surpass - the quality of uncompressed audio.

What i dont understand is on this site people worry about Blu-ray & HD-DVD having problem post production.This should not be a issue with anyone that dont even own the product.HD-DVD & Blu-ray has had they share of problems but who cares as long as both company are making a effort to fix the problems & dont have it on the market yet.I'm tired of people alway calling Sony name when Blu-ray name comes up.Blu-Ray was developed by Blu-ray Disc Association not just Sony.

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BluRay discs with uncompressed 5.1 LPCM audio at 48KHz/24-Bit (The Prestige, The Brothers Grimm, The Guardian, Pearl Harbor, etc) will have the advantage. Lossless compression schemes such as DolbyTru HD can only hope to approach - but not surpass - the quality of uncompressed audio.

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This was what i was waiting for the truth :P Blueray = HD DVD in video codec, but blueray > HD DVD in audio.

Also

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Blu-ray software sales have now surpassed HD-DVD for the first time the week of December 24 and they did so by an impressive 20 percent. The sales gap is expected to widen further in 2007 based on research conducted by Twentieth Century Fox and Blu-ray is expected to outsell HD-DVD by a 3.5-to-1 ratio by the end of the first quarter.

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BluRay discs with uncompressed 5.1 LPCM audio at 48KHz/24-Bit (The Prestige, The Brothers Grimm, The Guardian, Pearl Harbor, etc) will have the advantage. Lossless compression schemes such as DolbyTru HD can only hope to approach - but not surpass - the quality of uncompressed audio.

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Crank also.

Lossless compression means exactly that, "lossless", its like packing a file into a rar set, either way, it has to be decompressed as exactly the original file - if even one bit of information was missing from an executable file for example, it would be useless, thats how lossless audio compression works too, when decoded it has to be the same as the original uncompressed audio, so besides that the only thing that may make a noticeable difference is the number of channels (assuming of course the audio for lossless wasn't intentionally crippled to make LPCM seem superior).

So basically, lossless audio compression is just like zipping a file, everything is recoverable when decoded. Blu-ray's inclusion of uncompressed audio is sweet though, since I am home theatre nut, I'd love that.

Sony & Matsushita are the main backers of Blu-ray with Sony being the main backer by far. What is annoying people is that Sony executives, including executives of Sony Computer Entertainment in their relative territories, cheer aloud the praises for the Blu-ray format in terms of movies, even though thats not their area. And any Blu-ray fan can deny it but they'd be lying, when the price was first released for PS3, the first words that were always used as justification by Sony execs was "Blu-ray player" - even more so than Cell processor.

"That's" why people get angry with Sony... after all of this they feel like they are being spoon fed Blu-ray when they are just interested in gaming and just as any of you have the right to point out problems with HD DVD, like its lower capacity for example, people who lean toward HD DVD can have their say too, and I know I did say I lean toward HD DVD, but when I write articles on this site I lean no way.... but it may appear like that since Sony bad press lately has been astonishing, I actually was delighted to hear that PS3 was getting a lot of pre-orders in Europe so we'd have a chance to write something good about PS3.... which we hadn't for a long time.

I see a lot of people are mad with Sony on news comments here but if you look back to 2005 and around the time when the launch of both formats was approaching, aD users were really happy about Blu-ray, but even I, having to read every article about this, was put off the format for mainly the reasons I have already said. And of course, I also posted my beliefs that BD+ is really giving the signs of being a farse to ensure to keep studio support during hard times for Sony. And in practice, BD+ puts the ability to block important features such as mandatory managed copy at the hands of movie studios.

I also feel that LG's "hybrid player" - which is does not deserve the title of - intentionally puts HD DVD at a disadvantage by not supporting iHD (or HDi or whatever). Considering that the first BD players shipped with problems with BD-J and iHD never had such problems, there really is no reason to have to leave it out and build a "custom" ugly menu for any HD DVD disc that is inserted. LG Electronics sits on Blu-ray bandwagon, not HD DVD.

Now I'm not shouting conspiracy from the rooftops because the major backers of both formats do not want a hybrid player, they want to win the war at this stage on their own and take the whole market, so LG's story could be a lack of co-operation when they told HD DVD backers about their hybrid player - but, morally, and you all know this as much as I do, LG's player does not deserve "hybrid" status, it seems more like a Blu-ray player hacked to play HD DVD lol It should not be marketed and sold as such a player.

Dela

well said ^^

I think the Dual players will be full functional by this time next year,most first gen players can have issues,why they want to sell it as a dual player and it not playing all of HDVD dosent compute to me...

Interesting thoughts Dela but I have to say I've yet to encounter any dual owners on the avforums who prefer to be without HD Dolby.

I also don't think your comments about triple layer are quite accurate, it've posted the link here before but both formats originally began with TL as part of the original spec.

It's true HD-DVD has moved from 3 X 15gb ( = 45gb TL disc, obviously) to a new 3 x 17gb ( = 51gb disc).
We await news as to how that will be implemented and whether it will work with existing players.

The codec issue is pretty straight-forward.
For licencing reasons Sony will stick with the almost 20yr old Mpeg2 come hell or high water, everyone else is abandoning it for Mpeg4 AVC or VC-1.

I fully agree that HD-DVD is the format specifically & absolutely designed for video.

.....and as for the disc capacity debate?

Everybody knows if you need 2 discs then so much the better, survey after survey shows very clearly that the regular punter feels they are getting something extra when they get a multi-disc release.
Those that bash HD-DVD's slightly smaller size in this are really missing the point to make a non-point IMO.

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I also don't think your comments about triple layer are quite accurate, it've posted the link here before but both formats originally began with TL as part of the original spec.

It's true HD-DVD has moved from 3 X 15gb ( = 45gb TL disc, obviously) to a new 3 x 17gb ( = 51gb disc).
We await news as to how that will be implemented and whether it will work with existing players.

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Ye I'll actually be writing something about Toshiba introducing 51GB HD DVD and they will be submitting its specification and hoping to release something by the end of the year.

My 48GB figure, I'm not sure where I am getyting that but IIRC reading article about a company who tweaked the HD DVD layers and came up with a triple layer 48GB disc? I could have dreamt it too, wouldn't be the first time ;-)

And yes, I agree with what you are saying, and I personally believe that in terms of movies, if you look really closely at both formats, HD DVD offers more to the consumer and once again, you will see an article from me about a SCE boss in Australia talking PS3 price and of course saying the same things, "PS3 is in a league of its own 2 - "Wii is a games console and PS3 is an entertainment hub" and of course "Blu-ray Blu-ray Blu-ray Blu-ray"

Nice discussion on lossless audio...

Here's a review with a direct apples-to-apples comparison between uncompressed LPCM (BluRay) and Dolby TruHD (HD-DVD) in the same film - The Departed:

http://hddvd.highdefdigest.com/departed.html

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Now, how do the PCM and TrueHD tracks compare? Given this historic opportunity, I decided to conduct a little experiment. I invited a friend over, who is a big movie and music buff, but not particularly technical. He knows good audio when he hears it, yet doesn't know a PCM from an RPM from R.E.M. In other words, he's Joe Six-Pack with a great ear. Anyway, together we conducted a "blind" audio test -- we select ten short sequences from the film, and listened to a compare of each. We took turns firing up each scene, and selecting which one sounded better, with no knowledge of which sample was the Blu-ray and which the HD DVD.

After writing down our answers on little scraps of paper (note that we didn't throw them into a hat -- we aren't that dorky), the results were interesting. Out of the twenty comparisons (ten for him, ten for me), we could only detect differences on four scenes total. But of those four, we both always preferred the PCM track, if only a smidgeon. For example, there is a scene in involving an attempted trade bust between the Costello character and a Chinese gang. There is a sound of a gun firing that we went back over a few times, and as silly as it sounds, the force and impact of the sounds was a shade more realistic in PCM. Also a beneficiary of the uncompressed mix is the music, as this is a film brimming with rock songs. The first scene we picked featured the Rolling Stone's "Gimme Shelter," and again the PCM track boasted a slightly more spacious feel to the music in all channels -- as if the very highest end of the frequency range was more palpable.

Granted, these are very slight differences and subjective preferences. Had we not blindfolded each other (figuratively speaking, of course) and been flipping back and forth between discs like one of those old Coke-Pepsi commercials, such deviations likely would have been imperceptible. It is also certain that the average listener wouldn't be able to tell the difference without possessing the ears of a dog. Still, in this case I give a slight edge to the PCM track, though a comparison between a single title hardly qualifies as the final word. If nothing else, it made me realize that if all the studios dumped this dueling audio format business and went all-PCM, I can't say I would be likely to complain...

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[quote]I also don't think your comments about triple layer are quite accurate, it've posted the link here before but both formats originally began with TL as part of the original spec.

It's true HD-DVD has moved from 3 X 15gb ( = 45gb TL disc, obviously) to a new 3 x 17gb ( = 51gb disc).
We await news as to how that will be implemented and whether it will work with existing players.

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Ye I'll actually be writing something about Toshiba introducing 51GB HD DVD and they will be submitting its specification and hoping to release something by the end of the year.

My 48GB figure, I'm not sure where I am getyting that but IIRC reading article about a company who tweaked the HD DVD layers and came up with a triple layer 48GB disc? I could have dreamt it too, wouldn't be the first time ;-)

And yes, I agree with what you are saying, and I personally believe that in terms of movies, if you look really closely at both formats, HD DVD offers more to the consumer and once again, you will see an article from me about a SCE boss in Australia talking PS3 price and of course saying the same things, "PS3 is in a league of its own 2 - "Wii is a games console and PS3 is an entertainment hub" and of course "Blu-ray Blu-ray Blu-ray Blu-ray"[/quote]DOnt you get odd sizes when you format stuff?

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Nice discussion on lossless audio...

Here's a review with a direct apples-to-apples comparison between uncompressed LPCM (BluRay) and Dolby TruHD (HD-DVD) in the same film - The Departed:

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- That's a nice article.

Audiophiles will chew over the minutia forevermore and sometimes they too seem to 'disappear up their own drain-pipe' cos the human ear - it's just like with the 720p/1080i/1080p discussion you have to bear in mind that the human eyeball - has its physical limitations; some so-called 'improvements' actually can not be heard (or seen) - by anybody!

Just as the human eyeball cannot discern detail, no matter what the screen resolution, if the screen is not large enough or is not viewed from close enough so some sounds are beyond the human ears physical ability to actually hear.

It's also worth bearing in mind that as far as general public is overwhelmingly concerned the moment you brought 'vanilla' 5.1 Dolby Digital into this you went way beyond what most regular people will ever bother with, never mind what lies beyond that.

Originally posted by Dela:

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Ye I'll actually be writing something about Toshiba introducing 51GB HD DVD and they will be submitting its specification and hoping to release something by the end of the year.

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- I'll look forward to reading that Dela, thanks for the heads up.

I've just been reading that Toshiba are about to try and get the 51gb TL disc formally registered at the DVD Forum.

http://hdtvorg.co.uk/news/articles/2007022601.htm

Correct me if I'm wrong but it's my understanding that they're very strict about this stuff & that in order to be able to be registered under the label as 'HD DVD' the TL 51gb disc would have to demonstrate it's ability to be used with existing HD DVD hardware (presumably with a firmware update for the earliest hardware)?

Originally posted by zippy:

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DOnt you get odd sizes when you format stuff?

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- You do indeed, zippy.

You should also see what happens to ripped BDs, almost all of them I've heard of so far are under 23.5gbs in size (one made it as an exception all the way to 30gbs).
I wonder what nasties they're stuffing the rest of the space with?

Excellent Post Dela sounded very unbiased even though you said yourself you lean towards the HD-DVD camp. I will have to disagree with you on the whole Ipod/Itune thing though. I dont think Apple gives a rats ass about the online music store because they and more importantly the artist make nothing on each sale bc the RIAA is run by money grubbing whores. If apple shut down shop there's still be plenty of way to put music on your ipod and it will be DRM free to boot :)

I must state this again that True HD, DTS MA, or many of other next gen audio codecs are exactly byte for byte the same as LPCM. They will not sound any different and anyone that says they do is a liar thats a fact. They only reason LCPM is being used by Sony and the rest of the BDA croonies is bc Sony help codified PCM in the 70s. Sony along with Phillip standardized CD-A which they both own a stake in it. Doesn't this sound strangely familiar to the reason why the byte hungry 20+ year MPEG-2 codec is still being used. Sony is just being cheap. Just like the reason for the lack rumble in the Ps3 due to Immersion patent, Sony doesn't want to fork over the cash to Dolby Lab or DTS for the use of their advance codecs, theres nothing to it. Blu-ray is suppose to be cutting edge, yet its uses archaic technology that wastes space just for the sake of wasting space and for what a disc that hard to produce and cost more. I dont know why people and the studio always spout out about the space issue. If you need more space grab another disc and do it at your own expense why would any pay more for something that fits on 30gb disc and is cheaper is mind-blogging.Im not even going to get in to the ridiculously high priced hardware minus the Ps3(imagine a doctor or lawyer hell any non gamer picking this thing up, very unlikely).

Funny thing is I was big blu supporter. I even had the Samsung Blu-ray BDP-1000 an absolutely terrible machine that produced an absolutely obscene picture. I somehow managed to get the worst of launch titles as well (They all sucked but these sucked worst) 5th Element and House of Flying Daggers. Lets just say Ive seen better HD on TNT. So I returned it and brought the A1. Couldn't be happy. Now not all is bad with blu ray thanks to the guys at doom9 I able to play blu ray movie via software and I must say Ice Age 2 looks pretty good (it was free to boot), would I spend 1000+ on a player, hells no, would I even spend the the 30 bucks on blu ray disc most likely never.

I dunno why people keep going on about Sony using MPEG2, isnt it up to the studios which codec is used? and arent all newer BD movies now in either MPEG4 or VC-1?

The problem is Sony themselves are a studio. Also hughjars I'll post a pic on how ice age file format looks like when I get home. Quite different from HD-DVD.

Yeah i remembered that just after i posted, but have other studios released movies in MPEG2?
Definitely post that pic though ive been wondering what format/layout these discs have.

Originally posted by Andrew691:

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but have other studios released movies in MPEG2?

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- Yeah but who knows what sort of deal(s) the studios make or get when it comes to replication & disc authoring?

You're also into the complex labyrinth of shared rights to publishing, production and manufacture.

Just as this sometimes can be seen to work in HD-DVD's favour
(where certain supposedly 'Blu-ray exclusive movies in the USA can in fact show up on HD-DVD in Europe - Underworld Evolution being a prime example)
so it may well be that a deal or connection somewhere along the line, perhaps as a co-investor or producing partner, might give Sony a say in which methods Paramount or Warner can use.

sorry this is late I just learn my uncle died but here are the pics
http://img80.imageshack.us/img80/3835/mainfolderswl3.jpg
http://img341.imageshack.us/img341/2240/mainfolder2vk7.jpg
http://img216.imageshack.us/img216/4684/mainvideofoldertv1.jpg

Ive actually seen the m2ts container before at work it comes from Sony HD cams.

The structure of a HD DVD is much closer to DVD's in that u get 2 folder one called ADV_OBJ that contain the AACS files, IME(interactive stuff), and more important the VPLST000 that contain timecodes, sub codes, etc. The HDDVD TS folder has evo files that are just like vobs and corresponding map file that act like the ifo files on dvd. Wish I had more time to chat but I have family stuff to deal with.

Originally posted by plutonash:

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sorry this is late I just learn my uncle died but here are the pics
http://img80.imageshack.us/img80/3835/mainfolderswl3.jpg
http://img341.imageshack.us/img341/2240/mainfolder2vk7.jpg
http://img216.imageshack.us/img216/4684/mainvideofoldertv1.jpg

Ive actually seen the m2ts container before at work it comes from Sony HD cams.

The structure of a HD DVD is much closer to DVD's in that u get 2 folder one called ADV_OBJ that contain the AACS files, IME(interactive stuff), and more important the VPLST000 that contain timecodes, sub codes, etc. The HDDVD TS folder has evo files that are just like vobs and corresponding map file that act like the ifo files on dvd. Wish I had more time to chat but I have family stuff to deal with.

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plutonash
my condolsenses ,and thank you for your post.