Do any official Blu-ray titles have SD video only?

[PuzZLeR]

I understand that blu-ray discs are all about HD playback otherwise we can just use DvD.

However the BD (and even AVCHD) spec does allow SD resolutions at 720x480 NTSC and 720x576 PAL.

Are there any titles that actually use this? If so, is it just available in MPEG-2? And if someone knows further details like display aspect ratios, pixel aspect rations, bitrates, codecs used, etc., I'd be very interested.

One reason I'm curious is because I do eventually want my SD personal, and family, content seeing the light of day on the bigger blu-ray discs. For example, using the H.264/AVC codec (or VC-1), I can burn roughly 40-50 hours of high quality SD video onto one 50GB playback disc and that's very appealing to me for sometime in the future.

Sorry to bold but, could you imagine what this can do if the TV series companies decide to go this route? We can buy several complete seasons on one disc!

Thanks for reading.

(And no, I'm not talking PS3 playback, or pirating, or DivX/Xvid rips, AVI/MKV/MP4, or anything like that...)

[Maxell]

Many special features on blu-rays are in SD.

[PuzZLeR]

Oh, I'm familiar with the PIP features and the like. However, does anybody know if any titles are exclusively only in SD?

Some good commercial examples of this can be: one disc with 10 different concerts, one disc with 5-10 seasons of the Simpsons, one disc with the entire top 250 best music videos of the 80s, etc....

Since much of this source, especially older stuff, may be in SD to begin with, then HD enlargements may be just a waste of space.

[X-Ninja]

Originally Posted by PuzZLeR

Oh, I'm familiar with the PIP features and the like. However, does anybody know if any titles are exclusively only in SD?

Some good commercial examples of this can be: one disc with 10 different concerts, one disc with 5-10 seasons of the Simpsons, one disc with the entire top 250 best music videos of the 80s, etc....

Since much of this source, especially older stuff, may be in SD to begin with, then HD enlargements may be just a waste of space.

Would you rather have every single episode of the simpsons in crappy quality with terrible audio - on one disc.
Or would you rather have a 1080p encode with 5.1 DTS-HD on 6 discs?

Id pick the second option. So would everyone else... That would make a SD BD completely useless since nobody would buy it.
So no, As far as i know- no 100% Standard Definition movies have been made. I cant see it happening ever as well...

Also... All movies are shot with film which is already a higher resolution then 1080p. Even movies made 10 years ago were shot in "HD". ...and yes. Even music videos.
I may be wrong about that though.

[Maxell]

Originally Posted by X-Ninja

Would you rather have every single episode of the simpsons in crappy quality with terrible audio - on one disc.
Or would you rather have a 1080p encode with 5.1 DTS-HD on 6 discs?

Id pick the second option. So would everyone else... That would make a SD BD completely useless since nobody would buy it.
So no, As far as i know- no 100% Standard Definition movies have been made. I cant see it happening ever as well...

Many shows can't be encoded to 1080p because of their old video cameras. I don't think something like "I Love Lucy", "Threes Company" or "Married with Children", etc, can be encoded to 1080p, just upconverted.

[X-Ninja]

Originally Posted by Maxell

Many shows can't be encoded to 1080p because of their old video cameras. I don't think something like "I Love Lucy", "Threes Company" or "Married with Children", etc, can be encoded to 1080p, just upconverted.

...are you shure?

Im pretty sure ive read on here that everything can be 1080p without being upscaled.

Originally Posted by kyle90316

I dont know how the whole progress works but I think they can upconvert it, movies like john wayne blu-rays those obviously werent shot with HD cameras...

Originally Posted by broganreynik

They were shot with film, which has a lot higher resolution than 1080p.

Originally Posted by syncguy

Yes, most films are very high resolution. The chemical grain on the film decides the resolution. However, older 16mm films could be similar or less than 1080p. Also, colours and contrast of older films are not good as newer ones and therefore could appear as low quality on blu-ray.

https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread...80p#post751913

[Maxell]

Originally Posted by X-Ninja

...are you shure?

Im pretty sure ive read on here that everything can be 1080p without being upscaled.








https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread...80p#post751913

You are quoting quotes about old movies. Television is a different story.

[X-Ninja]

Originally Posted by Maxell

You are quoting quotes about old movies. Television is a different story.

yeah, but concerts arent.

He was asking about television, concerts, and music videos.


Hes edited his post to a completely different question now though.

Originally Posted by PuzZLeR

One reason I'm curious is because I do eventually want my SD personal, and family, content seeing the light of day on the bigger blu-ray discs.
That one i can answer:

If you wanna back up your personal stuff, you can easily buy a BD burner and some blank discs. Just burn the SD content to there.

[DetroitSportsFan]

But aren't most older TV shows shot on video, and not film? WIll that make a difference in converting to 1080p?

[Dalese]

Originally Posted by PuzZLeR

...Sorry to bold but, could you imagine what this can do if the TV series companies decide to go this route? We can buy several complete seasons on one disc!

As I recall (too lazy to search for the quote) the question had been asked before and answered by Wicky or one of the insiders that for the time being all Blu-ray releases were going to be 1080 encodes for the near future to prevent consumer confusion. (ex. I bought this Blu-ray title and it's not in high definition)

Down the road it would be nice to see single blu disc releases of what was formerly multi disc DVDs even if they're in SD. I'd much rather see those same sets released in a HD encode if the source material allowed it.

[J6P]

Originally Posted by DetroitSportsFan

But aren't most older TV shows shot on video, and not film? WIll that make a difference in converting to 1080p?

Nope. Actually, the vast majority of classic tv shows where shot on film. Everything from Hogan's Heroes to Charlie's Angels to Seinfeld. I Love Lucy was shot on 35mm in 1951. All would benefit from a 1080p transfer and look better than they've ever been viewed before.

[DetroitSportsFan]

Originally Posted by J6P

Nope. Actually, the vast majority of classic tv shows where shot on film. Everything from Hogan's Heroes to Charlie's Angels to Seinfeld. I Love Lucy was shot on 35mm in 1951. All would benefit from a 1080p transfer and look better than they've ever been viewed before.

Good to know. I would love to get some older TV shows on Blu.

[Clark Kent]

Unfortunately there are some television shows that will not look any better on Blu-ray than dvd. Some studios for instance only have the analogue videotape masters for certain shows from the 70's and 80's in particular. It really depends on a show by show basis. Most of the shows prior to the 70's were shot on film so they will benefit as much from Blu-ray as a regular movie.

I do believe once the Blu-ray market becomes big enough you'll see sd compilations on Blu-ray.

[JadedRaverLA]

Originally Posted by J6P

Nope. Actually, the vast majority of classic tv shows where shot on film. Everything from Hogan's Heroes to Charlie's Angels to Seinfeld. I Love Lucy was shot on 35mm in 1951. All would benefit from a 1080p transfer and look better than they've ever been viewed before.

Well, the problem comes in the 70s, 80s, and into the early 90s... where many shows were shot on tape and will forever look like crap. Older and newer shows, however, are far more frequently shot on film.

[PuzZLeR]

Thanks for the feedback. Appreciated the insight so far.

Would you rather have every single episode of the simpsons in crappy quality with terrible audio - on one disc.
Or would you rather have a 1080p encode with 5.1 DTS-HD on 6 discs?

Well SD wouldn't be "crappy quality", just "inferior quality". But yes, I'd rather have the HD version at bigger file sizes... However, my thought process was, maybe not the Simpsons so much but older stuff still, since the old source is probably crap to begin with, the law of diminishing returns may apply to the benefit of enlarging them to HD and wouldn't make a difference other than bloated files. If I'm correct, which I'm not sure, then you may as well get the quantity instead...

If you wanna back up your personal stuff, you can easily buy a BD burner and some blank discs. Just burn the SD content to there.

Of course I could back up all my SD stuff, at least as data. I could take advantage of the bigger BD disc (compared to DvD) and take advantage of more efficient codecs on BD players like H.264/VC-1 (compared to MPEG-2), but do you, or anybody else know, if it will play back as a regular blu-ray disc with these SD resolutions with regular DvD specs, or H.264/VC-1 in SD, or other? (Just a bit curious about this one if anybody's got some details...)

As I recall (too lazy to search for the quote) the question had been asked before and answered by Wicky or one of the insiders that for the time being all Blu-ray releases were going to be 1080 encodes for the near future to prevent consumer confusion. (ex. I bought this Blu-ray title and it's not in high definition)

My excuse is being new, not lazy, but thanks for pointing out the fact that it's been mentioned before. I will do a more thorough search.

And you make a good point about the fact that a consumer may feel ripped off if "it's not HD." However, if SD on BD were to work a good start would be if it is clearly identified as such on the packaging... along with the selling concept of more video on one disc.

[kevinbr100]

Originally Posted by DetroitSportsFan

But aren't most older TV shows shot on video, and not film? WIll that make a difference in converting to 1080p?

most older tv programs are shot on film not video! so yes you could encode old tv shows at 1080p, but it could take a serious amount of work to clean up old prints to make sure it looks good.

[ranma]

Originally Posted by X-Ninja

Would you rather have every single episode of the simpsons in crappy quality with terrible audio - on one disc.
Or would you rather have a 1080p encode with 5.1 DTS-HD on 6 discs?

Id pick the second option. So would everyone else... That would make a SD BD completely useless since nobody would buy it.
So no, As far as i know- no 100% Standard Definition movies have been made. I cant see it happening ever as well...

Also... All movies are shot with film which is already a higher resolution then 1080p. Even movies made 10 years ago were shot in "HD". ...and yes. Even music videos.
I may be wrong about that though.

For The Simpsons Series or South Park, I choose first option. 1080p has great diminish return on low budget 2D anime. SD are really good enough for 2D TV show releases.

[Colglizity]

What about The X-Files??????? what was it filmed on, how would it look in 1080p, and what format (widescreen???) cause the dvd versions were not.

[coolmilo]

If you are asking if any "official" Blu-ray titles look like SD DVD, I thought that Crash has SD DVD video quality. It was horrible on Blu-ray.

[ranma]

Originally Posted by coolmilo

If you are asking if any "official" Blu-ray titles look like SD DVD, I thought that Crash has SD DVD video quality. It was horrible on Blu-ray.

Compared to other lionsgate titles, I thought crash was pretty good.