Paramount Rental or Movie-Only BDs With Better PQ

[jscoggins]

Okay, most of us are familiar with Lionsgate putting lossy audio on their rental BDs.

What if a studio did the opposite and made the rental or movie-only version superior to the retail BD?

Paramount has done this at least twice.

Inspired by GenPion's posts in the Super 8 thread, I decided to buy the Walmart movie-only version.

Originally Posted by GenPion

[Show spoiler]Is there someone with the Wal-Mart edition (movie sans extras) who would be willing to do a BD Scan of the disc to see what the details are? The rental version had a higher bitrate PQ and I would like to try and get a copy if possible. If the Wal-Mart version is the same, then that's the easiest route.

Originally Posted by GenPion

[Show spoiler]I disagree. Super 8's transfer was strong on the retail release - but not perfect. Around a 4.5/5. It might seem silly to spend extra just to reach as close to perfection as one can get to some, but Super 8 is one of my favorite movies of the last few years and getting the release with an almost 10 mbps higher bit-rate will ensure that's the best version I'll ever own. So I would like to get either the rental version (if possible) or the Wal-Mart one, if it's the same situation. I have the UK steelbook (with US discs) and will simply take out the US DVD and put the BD inside with the higher bit-rate transfer.

It does indeed have a video encode with higher bit rates.

In the action-heavy sequences, the bit rates are in the 30s for both versions. However, in the dialogue sequences, the bit rate drops into the 20s for the retail version, whereas the movie-only/rental version stays in the 30s. (The audio is identical.)

Retail BD:


Movie-Only/Rental BD:


BD specs posted by Tech-UK: https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.p...postcount=7033

The disc scan even shows that the disc has been labeled as the Rental version ("Darlings" was the movie's codename while in production)!

Walmart Exclusive US Super 8 average video bitrate is 36.08 Mbps.
Standard US Super 8 average video bitrate is 27.68 Mbps.
UK/EU(majority) Super 8 average video bitrate is 23.57 Mbps.

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Mission: Impossible -- Ghost Protocol was another movie where the rental BD got a higher bitrate video encode. This was the same BD that appeared in Best Buy's 3-disc Exclusive (since all of the Extras were moved onto the second disc).





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Back when Blockbuster and Hollywood Video were still in business, Paramount regularly prepared movie-only versions for those rental chains. They had cover art and even barcodes, though the discs didn't have any bonus features. I wonder how many of them had better video encodes? If you bought them from Blockbuster or Hollywood Video, please chime in.

Unverified:
True Grit (2010) (06/07/2011)

Thor (09/13/2011)


Verified:
Super 8 (11/22/2011)

Mission: Impossible -- Ghost Protocol (04/17/2012)

[demonknight]

Walmart does this with DVDs from Fox too. Not to derail the thread, but my friend has a DVD of Rise of the Planet of the Apes with a great cover and no extras, while mine has a boring and bland cover with plentiful extras.

[jscoggins]

Originally Posted by demonknight

Walmart does this with DVDs from Fox too. Not to derail the thread, but my friend has a DVD of Rise of the Planet of the Apes with a great cover and no extras, while mine has a boring and bland cover with plentiful extras.

Yes, Fox still makes movie-only SKUs for Walmart, but has anyone ever checked to see if the video encodes are different?

[RodChester]

Wow. Even with just that screen shot from Super 8 there is a visible increase in the picture quality. I hope this doesn't turn into something that will drive me to purchase extra copies of a few movies. Thankfully the list is quite small so far.

[TripleHBK]

Originally Posted by jscoggins

Okay, most of us are familiar with Lionsgate putting lossy audio on their rental BDs.

What if a studio did the opposite and made the rental or movie-only version superior to the retail BD?

Paramount has done this at least twice.

Inspired by GenPion's posts in the Super 8 thread, I decided to buy the Walmart movie-only version of that movie.





It does indeed have a video encode with higher bit rates.

In the action-heavy sequences, the bit rates are in the 30s for both versions. However, in the dialogue sequences, the bit rate drops into the low 20s for the retail version, whereas the movie-only/rental version stays in the 30s.

Retail BD:


Movie-Only/Rental BD:


Mission: Impossible -- Ghost Protocol was another movie where the rental BD got a better video encode. This was the same BD that appeared in Best Buy's 3-disc Exclusive (since all of the Extras were moved onto the second disc).

Back when Blockbuster and Hollywood Video were still in business, Paramount regularly prepared movie-only versions for those rental chains. They had cover art and even barcodes, though the discs didn't have any bonus features. I wonder how many of them had better video encodes? If you bought them from Blockbuster or Hollywood Video, please chime in.

Captain America: The First Avenger
Mission: Impossible -- Ghost Protocol
Super 8
Thor
True Grit (2010)

Warner Brothers also continues to do the Rental movie only releases. I have the following former Rental exclusives...

-Ender's Game
-A Nightmare on Elmstreet (Remake)
-Saw VII (Theatrical Cut exclusive to Block Buster)
-The Campaign (Theatrical Cut)
-Despicable Me

[TripleHBK]

Originally Posted by RodChester

Wow. Even with just that screen shot from Super 8 there is a visible increase in the picture quality. I hope this doesn't turn into something that will drive me to purchase extra copies of a few movies. Thankfully the list is quite small so far.

Initially I thought that too, however the top picture has been stretched and is larger than the 2nd photo. Look at the White icons in the status bar of that first photo, even those are stretched and blurrier. Until the photos are scaled the same without any tampering, chalk up the idea that the rental versions are better to just speculation. Higher Bit rates don't always translate to visible differences.

[Donat96]

Very interesting.
Tech-UK posted some caps of the Super 8 disc here.

I could try to match them with the US disc, as well as getting caps from the BB Ghost Protocol disc and the retail discs of the others.

Let me know if that could be helpful and I'll start tomorrow.

[jscoggins]

Originally Posted by TripleHBK

Initially I thought that too, however the top picture has been stretched and is larger than the 2nd photo. Look at the White icons in the status bar of that first photo, even those are stretched and blurrier. Until the photos are scaled the same without any tampering, chalk up the idea that the rental versions are better to just speculation. Higher Bit rates don't always translate to visible differences.

I messed up when I initially resized the pictures. They should be the same size now, but the captures are imperfect since I used a camera to take pix of my TV. (I don't have a BD drive on my computer.) The main thing is, I wanted to get a shot of the bitrates.

Originally Posted by Donat96

Very interesting.
Tech-UK posted some caps of the Super 8 disc here.

I could try to match them with the US disc, as well as getting caps from the BB Ghost Protocol disc and the retail discs of the others.

Let me know if that could be helpful and I'll start tomorrow.

That would be awesome if you could actually obtain them. I once had the rental version of Captain America that I got for $1 when Blockbuster was closing. I now wish that I had kept it.

[StingingVelvet]

Bitrates above 20 compared to bitrates above 30 have rarely shown a real difference when watching in normal conditions, in my experience.

[jscoggins]

In the same thread linked by Donat96, Tech-UK posted the disc specs for the Walmart version.

https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.p...postcount=7033

I'll add the info to the OP.

[GenPion]

Originally Posted by StingingVelvet

Bitrates above 20 compared to bitrates above 30 have rarely shown a real difference when watching in normal conditions, in my experience.

What size television are you viewing on? I don't notice as much of a difference when viewing on a 32" or 42", but on my 50" HDTV there is a more apparent difference. It is an appreciable difference in any regard, though... it makes everything a bit more refined and detailed. This is especially helpful for any transfers that show a lot of information/detail in the image to begin with, or transfers that have a lot of film grain... the extra data helps to bring out the best PQ possible.

By the way, keep in mind some people have tried checking this in the past on some titles released (sans extras) only to discover the same encode. Not sure of a concrete list related to this though. I think several releases have not received scans. I too would love it if we could potentially discover other films with superior editions this way.

It might seem moot to some with 4K Blu-ray coming up but I for one don't expect every film to make the switch, and some might not for a long time... it's nice to get as good of an edition as possible.

I'm glad I was able to inspire the creation of this thread. Thanks for taking the effort jscoggins!

[jscoggins]

Originally Posted by GenPion

This is especially helpful for any transfers that show a lot of information/detail in the image to begin with, or transfers that have a lot of film grain... the extra data helps to bring out the best PQ possible.

Applicable to J.J. Abrams since he prefers to shoot with film whenever possible.

[Clark Kent]

Originally Posted by StingingVelvet

Bitrates above 20 compared to bitrates above 30 have rarely shown a real difference when watching in normal conditions, in my experience.

A magnitude of 10 Mbps difference produces substantial differences in my experience, especially on screens larger than 40".

This is a somewhat shocking development. I had known of the Super 8 example, but was unaware of others like it.

I am fairly sure we can cross Warner off from producing different video encodes for rental editions. While they did produce rental-only BDs, their practice was to always re-use the available video encode.

[StingingVelvet]

Originally Posted by GenPion

What size television are you viewing on? I don't notice as much of a difference when viewing on a 32" or 42", but on my 50" HDTV there is a more apparent difference. It is an appreciable difference in any regard, though... it makes everything a bit more refined and detailed. This is especially helpful for any transfers that show a lot of information/detail in the image to begin with, or transfers that have a lot of film grain... the extra data helps to bring out the best PQ possible.

I have a 50". In the Ghostbusters thread it was commonly said the new SE looked exactly the same in motion. I was unaware some valued the difference.

[jscoggins]

Originally Posted by StingingVelvet

I have a 50". In the Ghostbusters thread it was commonly said the new SE looked exactly the same in motion. I was unaware some valued the difference.

That's not really an apples-to-apples comparison, though. Those discs were created roughly five years apart using different masters. If people can't see the difference, they must have vision problems.

(My comments are no longer necessary given GenPion's post below mine.)

Here, we're talking about a movie where the same master was used to create at least three different encodes. I just watched a couple of sequences from both US versions, and the difference is noticeable.

Originally Posted by Clark Kent

A magnitude of 10 Mbps difference produces substantial differences in my experience, especially on screens larger than 40".

This is a somewhat shocking development. I had known of the Super 8 example, but was unaware of others like it.

I am fairly sure we can cross Warner off from producing different video encodes for rental editions. While they did produce rental-only BDs, their practice was to always re-use the available video encode.

Now we gotta find someone to volunteer to buy both Fox's standard and movie-only versions at Walmart on release day to check to see if the encodes are different.

Edit: I just checked several Fox titles in the database with back covers uploaded. It appears that Fox uses the same video encodes for their rental/movie-only versions.

[GenPion]

I think they were referring to the difference between the MI4K Standalone Ghostbusters and the MI4K in the digibook. The standalone release was a little better PQ wise. Of course, some could argue the audio was better in the re-release (DTS-HD MA vs. Dolby TrueHD). I myself prefer DTS, which has a higher bit-rate core.

Of course, I haven't been able to bring myself to sell the separate edition as the PQ is a slightly better encode. I guess it just depends on Ghostbusters. The earlier release (the first edition) was obviously vastly inferior, though.

[jscoggins]

Originally Posted by GenPion

I think they were referring to the difference between the MI4K Standalone Ghostbusters and the MI4K in the digibook. The standalone release was a little better PQ wise. Of course, some could argue the audio was better in the re-release (DTS-HD MA vs. Dolby TrueHD). I myself prefer DTS, which has a higher bit-rate core.

Of course, I haven't been able to bring myself to sell the separate edition as the PQ is a slightly better encode. I guess it just depends on Ghostbusters. The earlier release (the first edition) was obviously vastly inferior, though.

They really released two different Mi4K versions of Ghostbusters?

[Geoff D]

Hmmm. Alls I know is, when I was watching the two Mi4K versions of Ghostbusters on my 55" set - it's an intensely grainy film and does have a 10 Mb/s difference in bitrate between the two BDs - I simply couldn't tell them apart. That may not be the case with comparing Super 8 because the encoding was not quite as efficient then as it is now (three years is a long time in the life of a video codec) but I watched the UK disc a few months back and didn't notice anything amiss. In motion the grain looked like grain, not video noise. YMMV.

[Donat96]

Originally Posted by jscoggins

That would be awesome if you could actually obtain them. I once had the rental version of Captain America that I got for $1 when Blockbuster was closing. I now wish that I had kept it.

I meant that I could take caps from the retail versions, not the rental editions. I'll be hunting for them on Ebay and other places, but they might be a bit hard to find.

I got the Super 8 screenshots. I might hold off on the others until someone gets the disc for analysis. These were done using MPC-HC's Save Image feature and are from the US retail edition:

[Show spoiler]

I made sure that they match with Tech-UK's screenshots.

[Geoff D]

Aside from the slight colour differences (I think one of you isn't capturing the images in Rec.709) there isn't much between the US retail and the US rental at all, even though there's an average of 8.4 Mb/s between them. Proof if ever it were needed that diminishing returns are alive and well, at least up to a difference of 10 Mb/s - presuming you're starting with something as chunky as 27 Mb/s in the first place!

The UK version DOES admittedly have a noisier-looking encode in Tech's caps, and that's where the bitrate comes into play because it's damned near 12.5 Mb/s lower than the US rental on average. That said, encoding's come a fair way since then; Paramount's IMAX version of Star Trek Into Darkness has an average bitrate of about 21 Mb/s (lower than even the UK Super 8) and it looks STUNNING.