Do you think Universal will recycle their VC-1 encodes to Blu-ray? - Blu-ray Forum

blitz6speed · 07-10-2007, 06:56 PM

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

Go read that. Thats a 2007 movie. The site is run by hd-dvd fanboy #1 (i hear he has one of those big foam hand things that says HD-DVD #1), and it got a 1.5 for PQ. Is that the garbage we will end up getting?

nhaase · 07-10-2007, 07:14 PM

It's a 2005 movie, to be honest. Hopefully they'll encode it on AVC and spend more time on it. On the recent releases they've been pumping out like hill-billy babies, the quality has just been horrible, like they're just trying to make good on that "100 HD DVD titles in 2007" promise.

Movie quality aside, PQ like this actually hurts HD DVD, and helps us by comparison, since they've got only one exclusive studio and they're churning out crap by the barrel load.

dillycheeze · 07-10-2007, 07:15 PM

i think so....partly because they will be bitter after having finally realized they picked the wrong side.....and also because they want us to have to buy the movie again at some point......i really think paramount and warner have the same idea here....although its partly hd-dvds fault for forcing them to fit the transfer on a lower capacity disc and we get the copy....but think about it...would anyone here buy POTC again? disney would have to come up with some incredible extras to make me want to shell out for those considering i feel like i have a master copy of both films...i'm glad disney is doing great transfers but something tells me we will continue to get the run-around from a lot of studios...especially universal when they slide over

WickyWoo · 07-10-2007, 07:40 PM

There is absolutely no question they'll recycle

Knight-Errant · 07-10-2007, 07:46 PM

Oh I'd say there's a good chance they'll just port them over yeah.

If the time comes that this starts happening we'll have to get a petition going.

Chad Varnadore · 07-10-2007, 08:16 PM

Universal's lack of support for lossless seems indication on how much they care about maximizing quality. If they even knew what quality was they couldn't make statements implying HD DVD is better in that regard. I have very little faith that we can expect better from them in Blu. But I have even less faith in Bracke's reviews. There have been some extreme disappointments (aka The Grinch), but the quality of many of Universal's masters has looked quite good even when given bit starved encodings.

ReduxInflux · 07-10-2007, 08:55 PM

vc1? avc? what? (sorry) and is this a quality issue?

WickyWoo · 07-10-2007, 09:07 PM

Long story short

The same VC-1 encode can be used on either HD or Blu-Ray

Universal has been shovelling out titles, with less care paid with each passing week to the quality of the mastering and compression.

They're worried that these same encodes will just be ported to BR and similarly shoveled on the market

Amon37 · 07-10-2007, 09:12 PM

I bet the will recycle the video encode but I will hope they can add TrueHD tracks.

hmurchison · 07-10-2007, 09:21 PM

Universal is indeed using more TrueHD on newer releases. However I don't think they'll go and encode differently. There's not enough evidence that going to AVC or higher bitrates is going to really make a significant difference for catalog titles.

KingDeezie · 07-10-2007, 09:24 PM

Who knows when Universal will actually decide to turn around and not be totally ridiculous with this whole format war one sidedness....

Either way, I guess if there really is a movie I want from Universal, like Hot Fuzz coming out this month, I'll just buy it on DVD because it appears that the high defintion transfers from Universal aren't much better.

hmurchison · 07-10-2007, 09:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by KingDeezie

Who knows when Universal will actually decide to turn around and not be totally ridiculous with this whole format war one sidedness....

Either way, I guess if there really is a movie I want from Universal, like Hot Fuzz coming out this month, I'll just buy it on DVD because it appears that the high defintion transfers from Universal aren't much better.

Based on you actually viewing the Universal HD DVD titles?

phloyd · 07-10-2007, 09:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hmurchison

Universal is indeed using more TrueHD on newer releases. However I don't think they'll go and encode differently. There's not enough evidence that going to AVC or higher bitrates is going to really make a significant difference for catalog titles.

People are saying that this disc is an HD15.

I think this could be considered evidence that low bitrate harms image quality.

I hope that if Universal goes Blu-ray, they will run a new encode and target the larger capacity a la Paramount method.

It only makes sense - the encoding costs (especially with the higher bit budget) is not a huge incremental.

hmurchison · 07-10-2007, 09:41 PM

Happy Feet could be fit on a 15GB disc so I think it speaks more to the content being encoded.

Universal "is" cranking out catalog titles and they don't look appreciably better than a well upscaled DVD but for the movies that I like I'm ok with the improved menu and other features.

I guess ultimately it does indeed depend on cost. If the benefit outweights the cost then I could see Universal doing it but my hunch say re-cycle and perhaps new titles get more ambitious encoding.

richteer · 07-10-2007, 09:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hmurchison

Universal "is" cranking out catalog titles and they don't look appreciably better than a well upscaled DVD but for the movies that I like I'm ok with the improved menu and other features.

If the PQ isn't much better than upscaled DVD, what's the point of releasing them in HD in the first place?

Frode · 07-10-2007, 10:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hmurchison

There's not enough evidence that going to AVC or higher bitrates is going to really make a significant difference for catalog titles.

Err.. what's catalog titles got to do with it? If you mean sales then I think it does matter, because even in todays market people are going to have even less incentive to pick up catalog titles that look like crap. They're setting themselves up for failure

Frode · 07-10-2007, 10:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hmurchison

Happy Feet could be fit on a 15GB disc so I think it speaks more to the content being encoded.

And Happy Feet has compression related issues with banding. Your point?

theknub · 07-10-2007, 10:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hmurchison

...snip... There's not enough evidence that going to AVC or higher bitrates is going to really make a significant difference for catalog titles.

here we go again...

are you kidding? not enough evidence? black hawk down, unforgiven, terminator... need i go on? all these catalog titles have received significant upgrades with a remaster and hi def treatment

Chad Varnadore · 07-10-2007, 11:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hmurchison

Universal is indeed using more TrueHD on newer releases. However I don't think they'll go and encode differently. There's not enough evidence that going to AVC or higher bitrates is going to really make a significant difference for catalog titles.

Sure there is. It's always been a case of less is more when it comes to compression. It doesn't take an engineer to figure that out. Microsoft just doesn't want people to use common sense. Not just because it's telling of what they're doing now, but it'll also haunt them with VOD.

hmurchison · 07-11-2007, 12:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by richteer

If the PQ isn't much better than upscaled DVD, what's the point of releasing them in HD in the first place?

With me I bought Goodfellas in HD because I didn't own the DVD. So it made sense. I agree though if the titles aren't much better it's perhaps better to buy the DVD. I'm likely not going to rebuy Equilibrium.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Frode

And Happy Feet has compression related issues with banding. Your point?

I think the banding is caused elsewhere in the chain. The only time I see "banding" issues centers around 3D animated features. Banding usually is seen in issues where the colors don't grade well. I'll do some research but my experience has been compression artifacts don't generally align along a horizontal or vertical plane like banding. Since codecs break things into blocks you're more likely to see "blocking" artifacts than banding is my thought. I'll see what I can find.

Quote:

Originally Posted by theknub

here we go again...

are you kidding? not enough evidence? black hawk down, unforgiven, terminator... need i go on? all these catalog titles have received significant upgrades with a remaster and hi def treatment

Relax...I'm not here to downplay the efficacy of higher bitrates but rather acknowledge that the benefit may not outweight the cost.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chad Varnadore

Sure there is. It's always been a case of less is more when it comes to compression. It doesn't take an engineer to figure that out. Microsoft just doesn't want people to use common sense. Not just because it's telling of what they're doing now, but it'll also haunt them with VOD.

Well bandwith is always finite so hell if you got the space use it but I do believe there's a law of diminishing returns. Even in video production we're seeing that high quality yet high compression codecs are proliferating (Cineform, Avid DNx, Apple ProRes 422)

Of course the content really is the Master here. Do what the content requires should be the mantra.

07-10-2007, 08:55 PM	#7
ReduxInflux Expert Member Member since:Jun 2007 Location:orange county, ca Blu-ray reviews:22 Trading Score:3	um vc1? avc? what? (sorry) and is this a quality issue?

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07-10-2007, 06:56 PM	#1
blitz6speed Blu-ray Guru Member since:Oct 2006 Location:Anaheim Hills, CA Trading Score:8	Do you think Universal will recycle their VC-1 encodes to Blu-ray? http://hddvd.highdefdigest.com/weddingdate.html Go read that. Thats a 2007 movie. The site is run by hd-dvd fanboy #1 (i hear he has one of those big foam hand things that says HD-DVD #1), and it got a 1.5 for PQ. Is that the garbage we will end up getting?

07-10-2007, 07:14 PM	#2
nhaase Special Member Member since:Mar 2007 Trading Score:2	It's a 2005 movie, to be honest. Hopefully they'll encode it on AVC and spend more time on it. On the recent releases they've been pumping out like hill-billy babies, the quality has just been horrible, like they're just trying to make good on that "100 HD DVD titles in 2007" promise. Movie quality aside, PQ like this actually hurts HD DVD, and helps us by comparison, since they've got only one exclusive studio and they're churning out crap by the barrel load.

07-10-2007, 07:15 PM	#3
dillycheeze Active Member Member since:May 2007 Blu-ray reviews:1	i think so....partly because they will be bitter after having finally realized they picked the wrong side.....and also because they want us to have to buy the movie again at some point......i really think paramount and warner have the same idea here....although its partly hd-dvds fault for forcing them to fit the transfer on a lower capacity disc and we get the copy....but think about it...would anyone here buy POTC again? disney would have to come up with some incredible extras to make me want to shell out for those considering i feel like i have a master copy of both films...i'm glad disney is doing great transfers but something tells me we will continue to get the run-around from a lot of studios...especially universal when they slide over

07-10-2007, 07:40 PM	#4
WickyWoo Blu-ray Champion Member since:May 2007 Trading Score:2	There is absolutely no question they'll recycle

07-10-2007, 07:46 PM	#5
Knight-Errant Power Member Member since:Aug 2005 Location:Sheffield, UK	Oh I'd say there's a good chance they'll just port them over yeah. If the time comes that this starts happening we'll have to get a petition going.

07-10-2007, 08:16 PM	#6
Chad Varnadore Senior Member Member since:Aug 2006 Location:Salisbury, NC Home Theater Gallery:5 Blu-ray collection:349 Blu-ray reviews:19	Universal's lack of support for lossless seems indication on how much they care about maximizing quality. If they even knew what quality was they couldn't make statements implying HD DVD is better in that regard. I have very little faith that we can expect better from them in Blu. But I have even less faith in Bracke's reviews. There have been some extreme disappointments (aka The Grinch), but the quality of many of Universal's masters has looked quite good even when given bit starved encodings.

07-10-2007, 09:07 PM	#8
WickyWoo Blu-ray Champion Member since:May 2007 Trading Score:2	Long story short The same VC-1 encode can be used on either HD or Blu-Ray Universal has been shovelling out titles, with less care paid with each passing week to the quality of the mastering and compression. They're worried that these same encodes will just be ported to BR and similarly shoveled on the market

07-10-2007, 09:12 PM	#9
Amon37 Power Member Member since:Jan 2007 Location:USA,Arizona PSNetwork: Amon37	I bet the will recycle the video encode but I will hope they can add TrueHD tracks.

07-10-2007, 09:21 PM	#10
hmurchison Banned Member since:Aug 2004 Location:Seaattle	Universal is indeed using more TrueHD on newer releases. However I don't think they'll go and encode differently. There's not enough evidence that going to AVC or higher bitrates is going to really make a significant difference for catalog titles.

07-10-2007, 09:24 PM	#11
KingDeezie Active Member Member since:Mar 2007	Who knows when Universal will actually decide to turn around and not be totally ridiculous with this whole format war one sidedness.... Either way, I guess if there really is a movie I want from Universal, like Hot Fuzz coming out this month, I'll just buy it on DVD because it appears that the high defintion transfers from Universal aren't much better.

07-10-2007, 09:41 PM	#14
hmurchison Banned Member since:Aug 2004 Location:Seaattle	Happy Feet could be fit on a 15GB disc so I think it speaks more to the content being encoded. Universal "is" cranking out catalog titles and they don't look appreciably better than a well upscaled DVD but for the movies that I like I'm ok with the improved menu and other features. I guess ultimately it does indeed depend on cost. If the benefit outweights the cost then I could see Universal doing it but my hunch say re-cycle and perhaps new titles get more ambitious encoding.

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