The Avatar Blu-ray Release Thread

[Jimmy Smith]

Originally Posted by 42041

I watch a disheartening number of movies, with my own two eyes, that reveal conspicuous compression artifacts. Video compression is a complex thing and you could bring up individual examples all day, but here's the bottom line: higher bitrates will never DEGRADE quality. If how good something 'could' be is not a concern, then let's stop complaining about lossy audio tracks. High bitrate DD and DTS tracks already sound excellent, why waste a few gigabytes you could spend on special features?

But if you think there's nothing wrong with The Hangover, it's obvious we've got completely different ideas of what a good disc is. I won't derail this thread further, I really don't have the patience for debating the obvious.

I never said The Hangover was a great looking disc. Its a good but not great looking disc. However its anything but overstuffed. It had a 108 minute movie with one video commentary and 15 minutes of video extras on a BD-50. What problems exist in The Hangover video and audio transfer are releated entirely to the quality of the studio master and compression work. Thats where the quality of a movie lies not just in bitrates

I never claimed that higher bitrates would degrade quality. Certainly it means higher quality with less work. If a disc looks great Im not going to hate on it because the bit rates are high or low. Bitrate is a meaningless statistic. However I can find countless examples of lower bitrate releases beating the pants off of high bit rate transfers that prove that great HD quality at low bitrates is possible. If a release gives us great HD video at a low average bitrate it should be commended for it not condemned. Which is why thinking that its somehow a good thing that Avatar has no extras (not even menus) is pure maddness.

[Jimmy Smith]

Originally Posted by TTUBatfan2008

It takes an even more special kind of person to post on an Internet message board with poor spelling and grammar while insulting other people's intelligence.

Hoo kars abot spalling

[neo_reloaded]

Originally Posted by 42041

I watch a disheartening number of movies, with my own two eyes, that reveal conspicuous compression artifacts. Video compression is a complex thing and you could bring up individual examples all day, but here's the bottom line: higher bitrates will never DEGRADE quality. If how good something 'could' be is not a concern, then let's stop complaining about lossy audio tracks. High bitrate DD and DTS tracks already sound excellent, why waste a few gigabytes you could spend on special features?

But if you think there's nothing wrong with The Hangover, it's obvious we've got completely different ideas of what a good disc is. I won't derail this thread further, I really don't have the patience for debating the obvious.

Using one particular bad example does not mean it's necessary to devote a whole BD50 to every movie - and even in the case of The Hangover, it's not like the disc is stuffed full, it just seems to be a poor encode for some reason. Same for the lossy audio strawman argument - going to the extreme does not make your claim any more reasonable. Obviously there is a lower threshold where real problems start becoming apparent - but there is clearly wiggle room between 15 mpbs bottom-of-the-barrel encodes and ridiculous 40 mpbs full disc usage ones.

The encoding house Fox uses is not one that has ever put out very low bitrate discs, and they have PLENTY of titles with copious extra features included. And again, if they really feel so strongly about using a whole BD50 for Avatar, ADD A SECOND DISC FOR EXTRAS!

[NL197]

Originally Posted by neo_reloaded

And again, if they really feel so strongly about using a whole BD50 for Avatar, ADD A SECOND DISC FOR EXTRAS!

THEY WILL!!!

(in November so people can buy it again)

[Blu-Malibu2009]

Originally Posted by Jimmy Smith

I never said The Hangover was a great looking disc. Its a good but not great looking disc. However its anything but overstuffed. It had a 108 minute movie with one video commentary and 15 minutes of video extras on a BD-50. What problems exist in The Hangover video and audio transfer are releated entirely to the quality of the studio master and compression work. Thats where the quality of a movie lies not just in bitrates

He was referring to the fact that The Hangover has two encodes, one for the theatrical cut and one for the unrated/extended cut. Since you are an advocate of saving space, would you not agree that WB should have used seemless branching to handle the different versions of the film instead of two completely separate encodes? They could have had a stronger bitrate and saved space overall by using seemless branching.

[Jimmy Smith]

Originally Posted by TTUBatfan2008

He was referring to the fact that The Hangover has two encodes, one for the theatrical cut and one for the unrated/extended cut. Since you are an advocate of saving space, would you not agree that WB should have used seemless branching to handle the different versions of the film instead of two completely separate encodes? They could have had a stronger bitrate and saved space overall by using seemless branching.

Absolutely. Seemless branching should always be used if the alternative is encoding two versions. I think encoding two versions when seemless branching can be used is every bit as wasteful as encoding a 2D movie with bitrates in the 30s. Both are a ridiculous waste of space.

That goes double for Terminator Salvation.

[42041]

Originally Posted by Jimmy Smith

It had a 108 minute movie with one video commentary and 15 minutes of video extras on a BD-50.
Bitrate is a meaningless statistic. However I can find countless examples of lower bitrate releases beating the pants off of high bit rate transfers that prove that great HD quality at low bitrates is possible. If a release gives us great HD video at a low average bitrate it should be commended for it not condemned. Which is why thinking that its somehow a good thing that Avatar has no extras (not even menus) is pure maddness.

It had two completely separate versions of the movie actually, the theatrical and extended cut. Other studios might use seamless branching to not have redundancy, but WB did not extend that effort to their biggest comedy of the year.

Bitrate is not a *meaningless* statistic, it directly represents the amount of data the codec has to work with, it's just an incomplete one and the one most readily available for misinterpretation, since there are many ways to utilize or waste that data (compressing noise in deep shadow regions, for instance). I think it's a good thing that Avatar has no extras on the disc. With these 9+ figure box office movies, it won't kill the studios to offer these as multi-disc releases. I think it's a bad thing that they're delaying the other disc until November, but their decision to double dip would probably not change even if they fit Avatar on a BD25 with transparent quality.

[RyRyMcNizzy13]

if it is just the movie with nothing else even menues then i'm game. with this movie i have no intention on watching anything extra on it so it is what it is if it does happen

[Chaotic]

Beautiful coverart. i always found the other poster really ugly.

[Blu-Malibu2009]

Originally Posted by Jimmy Smith

That goes double for Terminator Salvation.

TS also had two encodes? I saw it in the theater and it was bad enough that I've ignored everything about it since then.

[Batman1980]

That Neytiri cover is breathtaking, can'twait to put that sucker on my top shelf!

[neo_reloaded]

Well the Terminator Salvation encodes were on separate discs, so a bit tough to do seamless branching with that... (though the director's cut I believe was seamlessly branched with Maximum Movie Mode segments).

[Jimmy Smith]

Originally Posted by neo_reloaded

Well the Terminator Salvation encodes were on separate discs, so a bit tough to do seamless branching with that... (though the director's cut I believe was seamlessly branched with Maximum Movie Mode segments).

Point was if they used seemless branching it could have been all on a single disc. Its an example of studios being wasteful.

[Suntory_Times]

Originally Posted by Jimmy Smith

Point was if they used seemless branching it could have been all on a single disc. Its an example of studios being wasteful.

They did it on one disc via seemless branching in most countries outside of the us and canada.

[Suntory_Times]

Originally Posted by Jimmy Smith

You will never see a Blu-Ray with video bitrate above 40 mbps. 40 mbps is the formats maximum allowed bitrate.

Not that it matters cause a bitrate that high is completely unessesary for even 3D video. The only reason Blu-Ray has a maximum video bitrate beyond 25 mbps was so studios could choose to still use MPEG-2. With AVC and VC-1 bitrates above 25 megabytes per second is never ever ever ever nessesary for 2D 1080p video. Avatar can be given a gorgous perfect reference quality 2D presentation on Blu-Ray and still have about 20 gigabytes of empty space for extras.

That's odd, the paramount logo (the hd one at the start of all there discs) says it hits over 50 mbps on my system, and above 40 for quite a while. Are you sure?

Could you provide some proof for your further statements as real life seems to counter what your saying is fact. (Not trying to be rude, I am genuinly interested).

Originally Posted by 42041

The movie is nearly 3 hours. It'll be around the low-mid-30s most likely, with the audio tracks factored in.

Grain is the main enemy of compression at these bitrates, and since this is all CGI and digital video, this won't be a compression torture test like a 16mm film. Still, maximizing A/V parameters is never a bad thing.

If you want to see 40mbps, go rent GI Joe.

I own G I Joe (don't laugh, I like it), and it's one of my reference discs, didn't know it averaged over 40 mbps.

[kevin87]

Originally Posted by killowertz

Yes, you are the only one.

Actually, I don't care for it much either. It looks cool, but I still don't like it. If they're going to put her on the cover, at least make it more than half of her face. We'll see what we actually get.

I'm with you on that, it's cool and all but I never understood the half face thing.. if they're doing that they should put the guy on the other side because there was a male promo image a while before the movie was released. and maybe had some scenic stuff from the planet below them at the bottom.. or could've been a transition between human face and the Na'vi face

[neo_reloaded]

Originally Posted by Jimmy Smith

Point was if they used seemless branching it could have been all on a single disc. Its an example of studios being wasteful.

I mean I guess it's wasteful, but honestly the discs themselves are super cheap and I personally don't care if the studio is willing to spend a little extra to increase the bitrate a bit. Like I said before, I'm not AGAINST higher bitrates. I just don't feel it's necessary past a certain point (based on the huge number of discs I've seen, and the reasons why PQ varies from title to title). I'm just against higher bitrates as an EXCUSE for featureless discs, and as a point of contention with people who have no real understanding of the technology.

Funny you mention Terminator Salvation since that was one where people were zooming in on pictures to find tiny macroblocks on the international Sony release. The two were identical in motion.

[Batman1980]

I want a good transfer with Cameron's best AR for this, I think it's the best movie I've seen since Revenge of the Sith for sure. May actually end up being the first film in a long time that I see more than once right after getting it.

[Daredevil666]

It's going to be good :

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/hero...3/avatar-.html

"We went to Fox and told them that, for this movie, we wanted to do something really special and reach for the best presentation of any film in the history of the format," Landau said. "This is a movie that has done the unexpected every step of the way. Fox agreed with us and the result is amazing. Everything that is put on a disc takes up room -- the menus, the extras, the trailers and studio promotions -- and we got rid of all of that so we could give this movie the best picture and sound possible."

[Suntory_Times]

The release date has been officially confirmed.

:cloudni ne: