My Dvd's

[The future]

So what happens my dvd collection? Is it worthless to buy anymore dvd's? Is it better to give up buying dvd's and wait for the blue rays instead?

Is this foreplay of cheap dvd's just a rip-off for the ppl who's doesn't have a clue about the blur ray swimming in?

[zombie]

As a consumer it's up to each individual to decide what the answers to those questions are. I sold nearly all of my DVDs almost three years ago in anticipation of BD. I figured that since I had already decided to upgrade to HD discs, I might as well sell my DVDs right away to get what resale value I could... knowing the used value would only continue to plummet.

However, there are a lot of people who think my actions were premature and question whether or not every movie I had on DVD will indeed become available on BD. It remains to be seen just how well BD will take off. I fully expect it to be a big success and for BD, like DVD, to have a large variety of movies available. I also learned a lesson with DVD which is to not buy every movie I like. What good was it for me to own 900+ DVDs if I was only going to watch maybe 200 of them multiple times? When BD comes out I will be picking up only my favorites, and saving myself some money in the long run.

[m00]

> So what happens my dvd collection?

Nothing,

> Is it better to give up buying dvd's and wait for the blue rays instead?

Depends, are you going to adopt Blu-ray quickly or are you planning to wait
a few years until prices drop a lot?

> Is it worthless to buy anymore dvd's?

Depends again, transfering movies to blu-ray will take some time, and some
movies might not be high up on that list, so yet again... how long do you want to wait.


thirdly: initial movies seem to be using mpeg2 instead of mpeg4-avc (h.264)

[Blue]

Originally Posted by m00

> So what happens my dvd collection?

thirdly: initial movies seem to be using mpeg2 instead of mpeg4-avc (h.264)

MPEG2 for DVD and HD although the same method of compression they are different creatures approx 800*600 (PAL) 800*500 (NTSC)
HD 1280*720 or 1920*1080 hence requiring more disk capacity - which is why I suspect BDA are going for 1080p MPEG2 initially.

A 720p or 1080i with MPEG4 uses approx 4GB / 60min. Most Movies are under 150min which means 9.4GB is more than ample for a HD movie - not a good marketing move to get BD going seeing an exisiting DVD structure would work! With all BD Movies for the first few months I will bet they will all be bigger than 15GB and preferably more than 30GB - for no other reason except they can - well one other - it won't fit on HD-DVD. The BD standard allows for MPEG4, well a modification of it, as well as VC1 (Microsoft) and others. That means that a BD player that complies to the standard (which all are supposed to) can play a disk encoded in any of these formats, but they will use MPEG2 as it's the least efficient so requireing much more disk capacity. The TV Series will most probably be MPEG4 as then you can get whole series on one disk. (and it will be over 15GB)

[m00]

"A 720p or 1080i with MPEG4 uses approx 4GB / 60min. Most Movies are under 150min which means 9.4GB is more than ample for a HD movie"

you're not accounting for the extra space used by the newer audio esp lossless,
which if i recall correctly can max at 18mbit/s (dolby hd)

a long movie (ROTK EE 251 mins) will consume quite a bit

as for many longer TV series (roughly 42 mins per episode).
at your projected bitrates (4GB / 60 mins) this won't fit on a single disc
without sacrificing quality to some degree

Lost S01 ....... 24 Eps
Westwing S06 .22 Eps
CSI S05..........25 Eps

~920 to 1050 mins of showtime per season, and that is excluding extra stuff.

[Gorkab]

Originally Posted by m00

"A 720p or 1080i with MPEG4 uses approx 4GB / 60min. Most Movies are under 150min which means 9.4GB is more than ample for a HD movie"

you're not accounting for the extra space used by the newer audio esp lossless,
which if i recall correctly can max at 18mbit/s (dolby hd)

a long movie (ROTK EE 251 mins) will consume quite a bit

as for many longer TV series (roughly 42 mins per episode).
at your projected bitrates (4GB / 60 mins) this won't fit on a single disc
without sacrificing quality to some degree

Lost S01 ....... 24 Eps
Westwing S06 .22 Eps
CSI S05..........25 Eps

~920 to 1050 mins of showtime per season, and that is excluding extra stuff.

So this is how the LOST episodes availables in HR-HDTV are first recorded

[Knight-Errant]

I'd rather they used multiple disks than sacrifice quality if it comes down to it.

I hate DVDs where too much has been squeezed on making the picture suffer.

[Shadowself]

Originally Posted by Blue

MPEG2 for DVD and HD although the same method of compression they are different creatures approx 800*600 (PAL) 800*500 (NTSC) HD 1280*720 or 1920*1080 hence requiring more disk capacity - which is why I suspect BDA are going for 1080p MPEG2 initially.

However, for films like LOTR ROTK EE an MPEG-2 version won't fit. Even the first iteration codec of MPEG-4 won't fit. It will take MPEG-4 Part 10 (aka H.264 or AVC) to fit a 1080p/60 version on a 50 GB Blu-ray disk.

Originally Posted by Blue

A 720p or 1080i with MPEG4 uses approx 4GB / 60min.

Actually it's slightly more than that, but for MPEG-4 Part 10 using 4 GB per hour for 720p or 1080i is a great "rule of thumb". Never thought of that before. (Now don't I feel dumb!)

Originally Posted by Blue

Most Movies are under 150min which means 9.4GB is more than ample for a HD movie - not a good marketing move to get BD going seeing an exisiting DVD structure would work!

Well since a dual layer DVD is actually 8.5 GB there's really not that issue. (True, a single layer is 4.7 GB but the second layer does not hold as much information as the first.) Even using your great rule of thumb of 4 GB per hour, an 8.5 GB DVD holds only about 127 minutes of 720p or 1080i. While most films are less than this, once you add on all the previews and other crap stuck onto the beginning of DVDs today you start running into the limit rapidly.

Originally Posted by Blue

The BD standard allows for MPEG4, well a modification of it, as well as VC1 (Microsoft) and others.

I assume you are referring to the MPEG-4 Part 10 codecs which have been added as part of MPEG-4 but were not part of the initially proposed specification. Most people think of Part 10 (aka H.264 or AVC) when they think of MPEG-4 and don't ever even think about the earlier, less efficient, versions which are still offically part of MPEG-4 too.

Originally Posted by Blue

That means that a BD player that complies to the standard (which all are supposed to) can play a disk encoded in any of these formats,...

Yes, as I understand it, for any system/player to be 100% compliant with the Blu-ray Disk standards must be able to play back anything encoded with
a. MPEG-2
b. MPEG-4 Part 10
c. VC1

I believe the average consumer won't care what his stuff is encoded with so long as it plays.

[m00]

"I assume you are referring to the MPEG-4 Part 10 codecs which have been added as part of MPEG-4 but were not part of the initially proposed specification. Most people think of Part 10 (aka H.264 or AVC) when they think of MPEG-4 and don't ever even think about the earlier, less efficient, versions which are still offically part of MPEG-4 too."

Actually, I think you might be off on this one, most people hasn't seen
an h.264 encode, but almost everyone has seen good ol' 3.11 and xvids

[Shadowself]

Originally Posted by m00

"I assume you are referring to the MPEG-4 Part 10 codecs which have been added as part of MPEG-4 but were not part of the initially proposed specification. Most people think of Part 10 (aka H.264 or AVC) when they think of MPEG-4 and don't ever even think about the earlier, less efficient, versions which are still offically part of MPEG-4 too."

Actually, I think you might be off on this one, most people hasn't seen
an h.264 encode, but almost everyone has seen good ol' 3.11 and xvids

You might be right on this one.

However, Apple has tried to popularize the H.264 standard as part of their iChat software and as part of Quicktime. I also believe the iTunes video stuff people are buying and puting on their iPods is also H.264 encoded.

All those Apple nuts (I use the term affectionately, whether they be Mac or iPod users -- and there are a LOT of Windows based iPod users [even at Redmond!]) out there certainly only think of MPEG-4 as only H.264.

[zombie]

Originally Posted by Knight-Errant

I'd rather they used multiple disks than sacrifice quality if it comes down to it.

I hate DVDs where too much has been squeezed on making the picture suffer.

Amen!

[Gorkab]

Well, the topic's name is our DVDs, so here they are :

A View To A Kill
Alias Season 1 (First Edition with plastic cases)
Escape From L.A.
Final Fantasy The Spirits Within (Plastic Digipack)
For Your Eyes Only
Gangs of New York (Old Digipack Collector's Edition)
Gattaca (DVD 10 Double-sided edition)
Hackers
Honey, I Blew Up the Kid
Interstella 5555 (Digipack with Daft Club CD)
Interview With a Vampire
L'Année des guignols 2000-2001
L'Année des guignols 2001-2002
L'Année des guignols 2002-2003
L'Année des guignols 2003-2004
Matrix Reloaded
Moonraker
Muse - Butterflies & Hurricanes Video Clip
Octopussy
Resident Evil
Starship Troopers
The Nightmare Before Christmas
The Ring
The World Is Not Enough
Tomorrow Never Dies
Tron (Digipack Collector's Edition)
Ultimate Matrix Collection (Plastic Case)