blu ray movies

[mono01]

why are some movies in coded in mpeg 2 instead of mpeg 4 . i brought a blue ray incoded in mpeg 2 and it looks like crap.i thought that all blue ray movies were in fact mpeg 4 . this is misleading .

[Nicolas554]

Which movie is it ? Kingdom of heaven is encoded in mpeg-2 and it looks great, one of the best BD out there.

[Bruce Morrison]

Originally Posted by mono01

why are some movies in coded in mpeg 2 instead of mpeg 4 . i brought a blue ray incoded in mpeg 2 and it looks like crap.i thought that all blue ray movies were in fact mpeg 4 . this is misleading .

Exactly what misled you? It sounds like you just made an assumption that was incorrect. Actually there are three video codecs used for BDs, namely MPEG-2, MPEG-4 (aka AVC) and VC-1.

MPEG-2 is the oldest of the three, but it was certainly being used quite regularly to re-master titles in HD until some years ago, so it's natural that, in some cases, the studios will make use of these existing HD masters for their BD releases rather than paying out for another re-master in one of the newer codecs.

One disadvantage of MPEG-2 is that it requires more disc capacity than MPEG-4 (aka AVC) or VC-1 for a given bitrate. Titles re-mastered in MPEG-2 and released on a single-layer BD may well not look great - ideally, most movies mastered in MPEG-2 probably need to be released on a dual-layer BD to look good.

[kevinbr100]

ive heard also mpeg2 doesnt do as good a job with color as some of the newer codecs. but still i have seen some great mpeg2 transfers.

[mono01]

the movie i saw was aliens vs predator. and i thank you all for the infomation i thought that all blue rays were mpeg 4.

[Gremal]

Originally Posted by kevinbr100

ive heard also mpeg2 doesnt do as good a job with color as some of the newer codecs. but still i have seen some great mpeg2 transfers.

To me, the differences between MPEG-2 and the newer codecs can be very subtle and often I can't point to any specific difference. If I had to describe the improvement with the newer ones it would be a more holistic, organic presentation overall, but there are so many other factors that go into these transfers (not the least of which is the source material) that it makes little sense to fixate on codec.