So which BDs are actually better than HD DVD?

[scragham]

this is a hard question to answer because the movies that really take advantage of BD's "theoretical" advantages in bitrate and capacity come from BD-exclusive studios.

namely disney and SPE.

warner's had a bad history of stiffing BD on releases, as has paramount. paramount had -just- started releasing BD-optimized movies, but we all know what happened to that one .

regardless, demo any one of the many outstanding releases from disney/BVHE or SPE if you want to show off how gorgeous BD can be.

edit: oh, you know that already. you're asking for specific titles... pirates 1 and 2 are the obvious ones. don't forget to turn on PCM also. let's see HD DVD attain those bitrates.

[Deciazulado]

Originally Posted by Branden

but what i want to know is which BD movies currently available actually run at a higher bitrate than HD-DVD is capable of?

Well for starters, you could look up ^^ and see benes' Blu-ray Movie Bitrates Here sticky thread.

[Canada]

The Departed

[zombieking]

Originally Posted by Branden

ok, we all know BD is the technically superior format mainly due to the larger disc capacity and higher bitrate. but what i want to know is which BD movies currently available actually run at a higher bitrate than HD-DVD is capable of?
i'm asking because i have a friend that is considering buying into HD-DVD rather than BD, his main reasoning is 'if both mediums have the same quality then i'll get the cheaper one'. he's not stupid and knows the pros and cons of both formats well, but doesn't think blu-rays higher bitrate is actually being utilized, making it only a theoretical advantage.
so what BD movie can i put on the PS3, turn on the info bars, and say "HD-DVD isn't capable of this quality, the bitrate is just too high."?
thanks in advance.

Won't certain titles be a factor for him? A majority of the blockbusters are on blu only.

[TorpedoShockwave]

All Disney’s and FOX’s films are high quality films.

[Anthony P]

I don't mean to be rude, but I think it is a dumb question.

I have not bothered reading anything but the first post so I am sure that most might already be covered.

But here is why it is stupid. If your friend wants to watch Die Hard 4, Spiderman 3, Prates 3.... the comparison is between HD in BD or SD on a DVD. If it is from neutral studio like HP from WB then they will use the same inferior HD DVD video stream but it might have better audio (HP does, 300 does not).

Now if you want a list of exception BDs I am sure the rest will help

PS you can also do like dobyblue and make an analysis of thePQ and AQ of movies as reviewed by all review sites.

PPS for studios I think Disney is a safe bet on PQ, Sony has many stellar ones as well. LG has some good ones and they tend to be cheaper and Fox has good PQ and has played around with other features. I would usualy stay away from WB or Paramount just because neutrality has its cost and unluckily we get it in their transfers that tend to be bad enough to be on HD DVD

Note: there is also the fact that it is in fact stupid to invest in a dying format just because it is on sale and cheaper.

[jorg]

Originally Posted by Branden

ok, we all know BD is the technically superior format mainly due to the larger disc capacity and higher bitrate. but what i want to know is which BD movies currently available actually run at a higher bitrate than HD-DVD is capable of?
i'm asking because i have a friend that is considering buying into HD-DVD rather than BD, his main reasoning is 'if both mediums have the same quality then i'll get the cheaper one'. he's not stupid and knows the pros and cons of both formats well, but doesn't think blu-rays higher bitrate is actually being utilized, making it only a theoretical advantage.
so what BD movie can i put on the PS3, turn on the info bars, and say "HD-DVD isn't capable of this quality, the bitrate is just too high."?
thanks in advance.

no offence but u should inform u friend about all the blu-ray exlcusives like dosent matter i can get a hd dvd player for 5 dollars but if i don`t have any real movies then wtf

[Branden]

thanks everyone, i've always noticed both pirates have exceptional quality but even so the bitrate was normally within hd-dvd range. its hard to take an eye off the movie and onto the info bars, but i did eventually catch this:



needless to say, i've given my friend something to think twice about.
in case anyone wonders, its about 35 minutes into pirates 2 just as jack is running across the rope bridge.

[Papi4baby]

Originally Posted by Matt X

Scorp brought up a good point - are there ANY dual release titles that feature a VC-1 encode on HDDVD and AVC on the BR copy? THAT could be interesting..........................

TMNT but is copy paste no optimisation for BD even thought plenty of room left. Thought is an CGI animated i guess not much you can improve upon.

[Papi4baby]

Originally Posted by Canada

The Departed

Ding Ding Ding, we have a winner. Also shooter.

[buckshot]

what we should have said in this thread initially was that EVERY bd is better than their hd dvd counter parts. thanks to the hard protective coating. even if its a warner title that they just copy and paste onto a bd it still has that protective coating that hd dvd does not have..........and yes no orphaned children's souls were harmed in the making of bd.

[mischa316]

I forgot I also did a test on 300. That one was pretty much the same as well. Once I rent a few more I will test them. There are a few that I got on HD before I had my PS3 like Superman 1&2 plus returns, Enter The Dragon, We Were Soldiers. I wont bother with Tomb Raider god that was just utter crap. I would not waste my time on that one again. Shooter I might try dont know yet. Once I do I'll report back.
Mischa.

[lokus]

Does a high bitrate value really matter? Some of the HD-DVD companies are using different codecs which don't require such a high bitstream for the movies but produce video quality equal to that of Blu-ray. Is Blu-ray really that superior to HD-DVD when it comes down to bitrate? Sure we have a high bitrate if we ever need it but with some of the codecs available such high bitrates aren't required. Your thoughts?

[Papi4baby]

Originally Posted by mischa316

I forgot I also did a test on 300. That one was pretty much the same as well. Once I rent a few more I will test them. There are a few that I got on HD before I had my PS3 like Superman 1&2 plus returns, Enter The Dragon, We Were Soldiers. I wont bother with Tomb Raider god that was just utter crap. I would not waste my time on that one again. Shooter I might try dont know yet. Once I do I'll report back.
Mischa.

I recomend you rent shooter see if you like it, then buy it. To me it was rental only.

[Papi4baby]

Originally Posted by lokus

Does a high bitrate value really matter? Some of the HD-DVD companies are using different codecs which don't require such a high bitstream for the movies but produce video quality equal to that of Blu-ray. Is Blu-ray really that superior to HD-DVD when it comes down to bitrate? Sure we have a high bitrate if we ever need it but with some of the codecs available such high bitrates aren't required. Your thoughts?

Remember the technology still new and early on development. While right now small differences can be seen, think about the future. Once the next big update comes we might not have to get a new medium since BD has alot of bandwith and space for storage. That's my biggest thing. HDDVD just came out and is already being max out. Blu ray has plenty left to exploite it, something to keep on the back of you mind folks.

[Branden]

Originally Posted by Papi4baby

Remember the technology still new and early on development. While right now small differences can be seen, think about the future. Once the next big update comes we might not have to get a new medium since BD has alot of bandwith and space for storage. That's my biggest thing. HDDVD just came out and is already being max out. Blu ray has plenty left to exploite it, something to keep on the back of you mind folks.

i'm glad you pointed that out. it didn't occur to me even though i use the same argument for 360 vs PS3. i hear rumour that GoW pushes the 360 to 80% (this is also right around when RRoD started popping up) whereas nothing yet pushes PS3 beyond 20%.

[Frode]

Originally Posted by Matt X

Scorp brought up a good point - are there ANY dual release titles that feature a VC-1 encode on HDDVD and AVC on the BR copy? THAT could be interesting..........................

Bandai Visual's release of Wings of Honneamise. The BD is AVC on BD50, and the HD DVD VC1 on HD30. Mind you I wouldn't want to be the one forking over $100+ in order to compare the two (never mind forking out the money for a HD DVD player - and one that can do 1080p >_<).

There's also: https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=10957

[mischa316]

Originally Posted by Papi4baby

I recomend you rent shooter see if you like it, then buy it. To me it was rental only.

I rented it on SD DVD. Since it didn't come out on HD & Blu Ray until a month after. I saw it maybe as I said I have more in my Netflix queue right now that are more of a priority ya know. Once those are done I might try it then.
Mischa.

[jkcheng122]

high bitrate doesnt matter all that much, but bandwidth does. there are already titles on hd dvd that can't include a lossless track like dolby truehd b/c the they couldnt fit it in w/o killing video.

if we are only talking about titles released on both formats, here's what i know so far:
1. 300 (extra uncompressed pcm track a few reviewers had said sounded more robust than the truehd track, though this could be due to warner's use of dialog normalization. regardless it's better)
2. Nature's Journey (hd dvd had to settle for dd+ instead of truehd b/c of bandwidth limits and the encoder did not want to lower the pq bitrate. bd has dts-ma and still able to achieve a much higher bitrate for video)
3. The Host (2 uncompressed pcm tracks vs hd dvd's 0)

[jkcheng122]

Originally Posted by Frode

Bandai Visual's release of Wings of Honneamise. The BD is AVC on BD50, and the HD DVD VC1 on HD30. Mind you I wouldn't want to be the one forking over $100+ in order to compare the two (never mind forking out the money for a HD DVD player - and one that can do 1080p >_<).

There's also: https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=10957

i think for a 1080p hd dvd player you're looking to shell out $500+ for the xa2/3, b/c i read that the a20/30 is basically a2/a3 with an unconverter to 1080p rather than natively 1080p. so it's actually 1080p output as 1080i/720p then converted to 1080p.