It's an A-A-A-A-World

[debo]

could someone set up a link to the discussion with amir please?

[dko1971]

Well, I guess Sept 11th is the day we see if MS is right about low bitrates for VC-1. Hate to think R&B Films wasted all that time on two separate encodes when only 10-12Mbps was needed. Unless Richard, you want to come in here and clarify the need to have such high bitrates and what you've actually seen with your eyes (as opposed to the mathematics of an exponentially decreasing quality improvement curve)...

Amir's response why Blu Ray cannot deliver better quality than HD DVD:

Originally Posted by amirm

Reality is that both formats are transparent enough to show far more flaws in the source, than anything resulting from the distribution medium. The weakest links now are your display, your eyes/ears, and the source.

Why is the above the case you ask? Because you are once again fighting the laws of nature. Only this time, we are talking mathematics, not physics. The curve for compression quality is highly exponential. Advanced codecs achieve majority of their quality (for 1080p) by the time you reach 10 mbit/sec. From there on, it is a slow journey when it comes to any improvement. And by the time you reach double that bit rate, you are at the part of the curve that is essentially horizontal. Keep going to the right and the incremental quality improvements if any, simply are not perceptible. Again, 250+ titles show this to be the case.

Originally Posted by chefboy1

Amir, not sure if you ventured out of the Insider's Thread to see this post from R&B Films.

Nature's Journey (~67mins)
SL15 HD DVD - VC-1 Encode at 26 Mbps
SL25 Blu Ray - VC-1 Encode at 37 Mbps

This is the first instance I'm aware of that a studio has optimized an HD title separately for both formats (and using the same video codec.) Richard Casey had posted that he used the max bandwith and capacity each format offered.

In your opinion, wiill there be a perceptible difference between the two? Or did R&B films just waste their time and money and should've stuck with a VC-1 encode at 10Mbps for both releases?

Originally Posted by benwaggoner

At those bitrates, properly encoded, there should be no visible difference between them, even in a paused-and-zoomed stress test.

As for 10 Mbps, I haven't seen that source (we offered to do some test encodes, but haven't recieved a tape) so I wouldn't want to say if that would be sufficient for that particular content. His posts claimed 1080i source (1080i30?) which requires somewhat higher bitrates than 24p, but overkill was going to be well south of 26 even there.

[whippersnapper]

What Amir is saying is that ANYTHING with the slightest degree of less quality (as defined by Amir) than what he's spouting is worthless. Anything that has more quality than he's spouting is UNNECESSARY. In other words, what Amir promotes he defines as PERFECTION itself. Anything of lesser or greater quality is to be avoided. And a lot of clowns believe this spinner and BS'er.

[dialog_gvf]

Originally Posted by amirm

Reality is that both formats are transparent enough to show far more flaws in the source, than anything resulting from the distribution medium. The weakest links now are your display, your eyes/ears, and the source.

If most Warner titles with lossless audio weren't clearly inferior visuals to Blu-ray, he'd have a chance of supporting that argument.

The reality is that if you're satisfied with lossy audio, then both are transparent enough. If you demand the FULL experience, HD DVD simply doesn't have the bandwidth.

Originally Posted by benwaggoner

At those bitrates, properly encoded, there should be no visible difference between them, even in a paused-and-zoomed stress test.

There's a convenient circular argument: Presumably every encoding that shows a difference wasn't properly done?

Seems that what they are saying by the claims is that VC-1 doesn't aggrade well (opposite of degrade). It can't use the bandwidth properly when it's given to it.

Taken together, what happens if a state of the art 4K master is used, or a direct digital HD camera and you use one the best displays now or in the future? Simple: blame your eyes and ears.

They're always ready with the excuses.

Gary