Ask questions to The Digital Bits team (Bill Hunt, Jeff Kleist et.al.)

[4K2K]

Originally Posted by Bobby Henderson

There's no need for Blu-ray players to do so. No movies or TV shows are filmed/videotaped at 120fps. They're produced at 24fps or 30fps. 120Hz is merely a common denominator for both frame rates.

Have you read Phansson's question? (also UK TV shows are produced at 25fps & 50i)

Originally Posted by Phansson

Is there any particular reason that the menus and trailers on Blu Rays are in 60p? For people (like myself) that have a projector/HDTV capable of 24p, it is annoying that everytime the picture switches from 60p/24p, the diplay has to re sync? I know this is a small problem, but it is something that could be addressed easily by the studios. Or maybe a force 24p option on all players.

If people have '24p output' enabled on their player connected to a TV that can accept 24p, if there is 24p and 60i/p content on the same disc, it will take a few seconds while it re-synchs with a "searching for signals" message.

Actually most of the discs I have have the trailers and menus in 24p, but watching the extras - like making of's/featurettes (at 60hz or 50hz) or going back to the 24p menu from the 60hz or 50hz introduces a pause and the "searching for signals" message.

Example: On the Starship Troopers UK Blu-ray, if you are in the menu (which is 24p), and your player is set to enable 24p output, and you select "Featurette: Making of" from the menu (the featurette is in 60hz), it takes about 12.14 seconds for the featurette to start playing on my player/TV combination, partly because of this re-synching to a different output rate thing. If you disable the 24p output in the player (so it always outputs 60hz for 24p/60hz content) it now only takes about 7.23 seconds for the featurette to start after selecting that option in the menu. So the re-synching nearly doubles the time it takes the featurette to start (or adds another approx 5 (or 4.91) seconds of waiting).

If the players always output 120p (whether the content was 24p or 60i/p), it wouldn't have to wait while it re-synched (except for when there was 50i/p content on the disc with 24p content). It would also allow motion plus style options in the player itself (in case those could be made better than the TV). It could also allow more PiP options. It might make it easier for future updates which would allow more frame rates to be encoded on the disc.

[Bobby Henderson]

120p output from a Blu-ray player would require an entirely different HDMI specification. No HDMI equipped devices anywhere support 1080p at 120Hz.

[4K2K]

Originally Posted by Bobby Henderson

120p output from a Blu-ray player would require an entirely different HDMI specification. No HDMI equipped devices anywhere support 1080p at 120Hz.

It might require a new version of HDMI but I'm not sure. According to this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-De...edia_Interface
HDMI 1.0–1.2a supports a video bandwidth of 3.96 Gbit/sec and a res of 1920×1200p60.

For HDMI 1.3+, although the frame rate of 120p isn't listed on that page, it does say that it supports a video bandwidth of 8.16 Gbit/sec. 8.16 Gbit/sec should be more than enough for 1920x1080@120p which is twice as much as 1920x1080@60p.

[Anthony P]

http://www.hdmi.org/learningcenter/kb.aspx#15

Higher speed: Although all previous versions of HDMI have had more than enough bandwidth to support all current HDTV formats, including full, uncompressed 1080p signals, HDMI 1.3 increases its single-link bandwidth to 340 MHz (10.2 Gbps) to support the demands of future HD display devices, such as higher resolutions, Deep Color and high frame rates. In addition, built into the HDMI 1.3 specification is the technical foundation that will let future versions of HDMI reach significantly higher speeds.

http://www.hdmi.org/pdf/whitepaper/S...aperv73(2).pdf

page 5

[4K2K]

Thanks Anthony. So that confirms that the HDMI 1.3 spec already supports 120p
According to page 5 of the document you linked to on hdmi.org:

HDMI 1.3
*Increases bandwidth to 10.2Gbps (340MHz)
* Offers support for 16-bit color, increased refresh rates (ex. 120 Hz), support for 1440p/WQXGA resolutions

Now we just need the player & TV manufacturers to fully support it.
Perhaps they will with newer 1440p and higher res HDTVs that come out.

[Bullseye]

I keep reading that WB have finally gotten the message on HD audio yet they are releasing the fortcoming Wonder Woman animated movie with no HD audio. IF WB have gotten the message when can we expect ALL their releases to have HD Audio. 2010.

[DaViD Boulet]

Originally Posted by Bullseye

I keep reading that WB have finally gotten the message on HD audio yet they are releasing the fortcoming Wonder Woman animated movie with no HD audio. IF WB have gotten the message when can we expect ALL their releases to have HD Audio. 2010.

Incredible. Someone at WB clearly has a vendetta against high-resolution/lossless audio. 25GB media isn't an adequate excuse considering that other studios manage to get lossless on 25GB discs. considering their track record for sub-par audio on DVD, it's just more of the same from the philosophy in their audio dept.

Let's hope that change happens. It might require a change of staff.

[jd213]

Seems that lossy is the default for all their animated features, with a couple exceptions like The Animatrix and overseas versions of Happy Feet.

[PeterTHX]

considering their track record for sub-par audio on DVD

?

[coolmilo]

Originally Posted by Bullseye

I keep reading that WB have finally gotten the message on HD audio yet they are releasing the fortcoming Wonder Woman animated movie with no HD audio. IF WB have gotten the message when can we expect ALL their releases to have HD Audio. 2010.

The lossless audio problem is one thing, but the other problem is many of Warner releases have a low bitrate encode. It’s too bad they don’t get the HD market because many of their movies are excellent.

It seems like a hopeless situation too.

[Jeff Kleist]

You can throw bits at the DNR'd transfers all day long, and it won't help.

Anyway, if people could think on my question I'd greatly appreciate it

[WhiteBuffalo]

After the Digital Copy is downloaded to the PC, is there a way to send that .wmv file to DVD? It would seem this would be far more useful than sending it to "portable media." I tried a couple programs to test this out, but each program said that it was an unrecognizable format. Is that copy protection kicking in?

[Nathan P]

[QUOTE=Jeff Kleist;1329493]Not technical questions.

Think consumer interests, psychology, why something sells here and not there and viceversa. Some unique gadget you'd heard about, etc. Some device you'd love to get a better look at, that sort of thing

Japan are on their 2nd generation of blu ray recorders - when are they going to appear in europe - i'm contemplating a new dvd recorder but don't want to push the button if blu ray recorders are on their way

[Jeff Kleist]

Japan are on their 2nd generation of blu ray recorders - when are they going to appear in europe - i'm contemplating a new dvd recorder but don't want to push the button if blu ray recorders are on their way

About Japan, only Japan, in Japan

There is a method to my madness, I promise

[Bobby Henderson]

How popular are DVRs in Europe? Here in "the colonies" it seems like the DVR is by far the preferred choice for recording TV shows now. Some will allow you to transfer your recordings to external hard discs. Obviously, there's drawbacks to relying on hard discs. But they don't consume and clutter up a living space like stacks of optical discs.

[Nathan P]

Originally Posted by Bobby Henderson

How popular are DVRs in Europe? Here in "the colonies" it seems like the DVR is by far the preferred choice for recording TV shows now. Some will allow you to transfer your recordings to external hard discs. Obviously, there's drawbacks to relying on hard discs. But they don't consume and clutter up a living space like stacks of optical discs.

In the UK quite popular, Max might even have some numbers if we ask him nicely , Our local satellite provider (sky)offers 2 different dvr set top boxes, one SD and one HD (only 720p though - i think, can someone verify??) I use mine all the time and they do have outputs to connect to various recorders - not sure on external hdd's though.

[DaViD Boulet]

Originally Posted by PeterTHX

?

yes Peter.

Not withstanding their pathetic attempt to test the waters with DTS on DVDs that you needed a microscope to see the DTS logo (I'll leave the DTS versus DD issue out of my argument),

Warner was the LAST studio to abandon 384 kbps in favor of 448 long after other studios had heard improvment with the higher bitrate and adapted their disc production standards accordingly.

Warner's track record with muddling with historic mixes, applying overzealous noise reduction and remixing practices that destroy the integrity of historic sound mixes, is reason enough alone to levy criticism towards them regarding their history with DVD audio. Their insistence on holding onto 384 kbps long after other studios had progressed to higher bit-rate Dolby encodings leaves no room for defense. This is all reason enough even without a DTS debate.

Even now, on Blu-ray, Warner seems content to restrict stereo and mono films to a pathetic 192 kbps bit-rate. It baffles the mind... considering how superior the PCM on laserdisc of these same titles sounds in comparison. There's no excuse. Someone in their audio department is either tone deaf, incompetent, or both.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

Here's a question for all of you:
.................................................
................................................
Please keep it tasteful and constructive, no porn,geishas, panties in a vending machine etc.

Sheesh, in one fell swoop you’ve ruled out all the questions I was interested in asking about in the first place.

You never know when an extra set of panties will come in handy.

[DaViD Boulet]

Originally Posted by coolmilo

The lossless audio problem is one thing, but the other problem is many of Warner releases have a low bitrate encode. It’s too bad they don’t get the HD market because many of their movies are excellent.

It seems like a hopeless situation too.

Exactly. Considering how superior my (PCM) laserdiscs sound in comparison to their DVD counterparts with older stereo/mono films, one would have hoped that Warner would AT LEAST devote 640 kbps lossy at a minimum.

Oh no... we see their trademark 192 kbps Dolby bit-rate on mono/stereo Blu-ray just as often as we do on DVD. Clearly, someone at Warner has a problem.

[aygie]

Originally Posted by Nathan P

In the UK quite popular, Max might even have some numbers if we ask him nicely , Our local satellite provider (sky)offers 2 different dvr set top boxes, one SD and one HD (only 720p though - i think, can someone verify??) I use mine all the time and they do have outputs to connect to various recorders - not sure on external hdd's though.

Mostly 720p but some 1080i shows.