Oh noes teh sky is falling!

[alehel]

Originally Posted by img eL

@mywhitenoise, Blu ray movies are not 12GB's. You must be compressing those BD files. Those compressed BD files could look good but not great. Come on compressing Blu ray films is blasphemous!

Actually, I am Legend on blu-ray is between 12 and 13 gb if you ignore all the bonus features and the scenes for the alternative version.

[Musashi]

Originally Posted by krazeyeyez

What about all the blu-rays that have come out on the 25gb discs? not to mention all the HDDVD's.... as i remember storage on the hddvd side of things was directly related to the audio, with the picture in 99% of cases being the same as the blu counterpart. While i don't know the exact numbers a movie takes up i would imagine removing all the excess, especially other audio tracks would save you a great deal of space.

In the cases of Paramount and WB discs that were on both formats, the picture was the same because it had to be encoded to fit on a 30GB disc, and the studios weren't going to pay for a better recompression.

Most BD films made nowadays aren't held back by the limitations of similar but weaker formats.

[mywhitenoise]

Originally Posted by img eL

@mywhitenoise, Blu ray movies are not 12GB's. You must be compressing those BD files. Those compressed BD files could look good but not great. Come on compressing Blu ray films is blasphemous!

Of course it has to be compressed....but it's not like it strips the movie so bad that it looks entirely different.

Take music for example. A 320kbps mp3 is significantly smaller than a lossless file, yet they sound nearly identical.

Many PS3 videogames claim they need the 50GB disc, yet you can download the same game on the network that only uses about 15GBs.

[Musashi]

Originally Posted by mywhitenoise

Of course it has to be compressed....but it's not like it strips the movie so bad that it looks entirely different.

Take music for example. A 320kbps mp3 is significantly smaller than a lossless file, yet they sound nearly identical.

Many PS3 videogames claim they need the 50GB disc, yet you can download the same game on the network that only uses about 15GBs.

What games are like that? Most PS3 games use 25GB discs.

[mywhitenoise]

Originally Posted by Musashi

What games are like that? Most PS3 games use 25GB discs.

Open up PSN, there are dozens.

MAG, Mass Effect 2, Assassin's Creed II, Modnation Racers, Infamous, LittleBigPlanet...

[Psx0005]

Just my $0.02 worth:

Nothing beats showcasing my display cases of media (CDs, DVDs, BD's) in all their shiny glory to friends and family. Which I eventually will have backed up on whatever feasible format is out there that's both cheap and easily-accessible. In other words, both physical and digital media can co-exist-its all up to each individual and what their tastes and situation warrant.

[J6P]

Originally Posted by mywhitenoise

Of course it has to be compressed....but it's not like it strips the movie so bad that it looks entirely different.

Take music for example. A 320kbps mp3 is significantly smaller than a lossless file, yet they sound nearly identical.
Many PS3 videogames claim they need the 50GB disc, yet you can download the same game on the network that only uses about 15GBs.

This is the crux of the matter right here.

There are two issues being discussed in this thread, Home Media Servers and Digital Downloads/Streaming. Mr. Poindexter is talking about ripping bonafide Blus to his RAID system, resulting in a bit-for-bit mirror of the physical disc. This, to me, makes sense. If I had the cash I would do it.

Digital Downloads are an entirely different animal. Compression, dithering, macroblocking -- all of the various compression issues that plague MP3s, plus the streaming issues that plague Video On Demand -- I have zero interest in seeing either of these carried over to the realm of film.

I'm not even particularly tied to the physical media, unlike many here. What I am tied to is the quality of the image and sound. We took a significant step forward in convenience from CD to MP3, but at the same time took a monumental step backwards in quality.

When HD cable and my first 720p television showed up in my house, my DVD purchases dropped to near zero. Because I had all of the movie channels I would wait until movies showed up on HBO or Showtime. The resolution was better on cable than DVD, so I didn't buy. Even then, there was macroblocking to contend with in fast motion scenes, but the higher resolution was worth it to me.

Finally and for the first time we have high resolution (capacity) plus excellent motion performance (bitrate) together in Blu-ray, and I am not interested in taking a step backwards, as we did with music and MP3s.

I still have every CD I've ever purchased, going all the way back to the mid-80's. And they still sound perfect, pristine, and blow any lossy MP3 version out of the water. Not just to my ears, but for anyone who listens to my gear. I almost sold off all of the discs years ago after I loaded them into my first iPod at 320k, and I'd be kicking myself now if I had.

The physical format will surely drift to the background as we move forward, and I could probably make that transition, but I am not prepared to sacrifice a single pixel of quality in the name of convenience. Not again, anyway. When the infrastructure exists to pull off BD quality, we can talk about not producing discs anymore, but not before.

Quality lost out in the CD vs. MP3 battle. Quality lost out in the CD vs. SACD/DVD-A battle. Quality finally has a shaky foothold with BD. All we have to do is recognize the snake oil when we smell it and say "no thanks", until technology and infrastructure make some pretty massive leaps. Some very massive leaps.

[krazeyeyez]

Originally Posted by Musashi

In the cases of Paramount and WB discs that were on both formats, the picture was the same because it had to be encoded to fit on a 30GB disc, and the studios weren't going to pay for a better recompression.

Most BD films made nowadays aren't held back by the limitations of similar but weaker formats.

Some of those early blu/red releases are better transfers then what we get on blu's being released today. Plenty of blu's have been and are continued to be released on single layer discs, does that mean they are weaker transfers?

Originally Posted by J6P

This is the crux of the matter right here.

There are two issues being discussed in this thread, Home Media Servers and Digital Downloads/Streaming. Mr. Poindexter is talking about ripping bonafide Blus to his RAID system, resulting in a bit-for-bit mirror of the physical disc. This, to me, makes sense. If I had the cash I would do it.

Amen to that

[Brad1963]

I think that catalog titles may dwindle in due time. But day/date releases and a certain amount of titles that always sell will continue to be released on Blu ray for some time. There should be somewhat of a market for packaged media even if downloading takes over.

[Anthony P]

Originally Posted by Mr.Poindexter

If you use a RAID system, then the HDD being cheaper isn't a real issue. When you lose a drive, you lose ZERO data. If you use RAID 6, you can lose 2drives and lose ZERO data. That means it is a pretty reliable way to store data.

It is better then nothing, but like you kind of pointed out with raid 5 if a second disk dies before you replace it then you are done and it happens with raid 6 if a third one dies. Plus the ZERO data lost is not actually true if the recovery goes well then you end up with ZERO data lost, but happen while rebuilding. Also running the system with degraded operation (one dead in Raid5 or one or two dead in raid 6) gives the system a serious hit and rebuilding a raid drive (replacing the bad disk) is a ***** and time consuming especially at the sizes we are talking about. Plus let's not forget the over head, with RAID 5 it is the equivalent of one drive (assuming they are all equal, if they are not then they are all equivalent to the smallest drive) and with RAID 6 it is two drives (and as before, assuming they are all the same size).

(for those that don’t know what RAID 5&6 are, for the rest you can skip the rest of the post)

Think of RAID 5 like simple second grade equations, let’s say 2+3=5 if I put 2+3=? you can easily calculate ?=5, on the other hand if I ask 2+?=5 then you can get ?=3 and if it is ?+3=5 then ?=2. Obviously it will work just as easily if I say 1+2+3=6 or 1+2+3+4=10 in these examples what is in front of the = is the data and what is behind it is called the parity bit. And the number of numbers indicated how many drives (i.e. 1+2+3+4=10 would represent a 5 disk array and 2+3=5 a 3 disk array). So for each part of the disks you get equations i.e. if there is (1,3,4,2) on one drive and (2,4,1,1) on the second one then the parity will be (3,7,5,3) or (1+2,3+4,4+1,2+1) and that explains one of the issues brought up earlier (disks being the same size) if disks can be different size then one would look like (1,3,4,2,5,3) and the other (1,2,3,4), so if there is a 500GB drive in the array then adding a 2TB just means you wasted 1.5TB. Now I simplified it a bit, in reality for efficiency reasons the parity bits are not only on one drive. What that means that instead of (1,3,4,2) & (2,4,1,1) & (1+2,3+4,4+1,2+1) it will be more like (1, 3+4,4,2) & (2,4, 4+1,1) & (1+2,3,4,2+1), this is for efficiency (now you can use all three drives, if something happens you are not as screwed –if the parity drive is lost then no issue but if a data drive was lost then each time you need to access that data you would need to calculate it - and it is easier to recover the parity then data –i.e. first you learn how to do 1+2+3+4=? And later1+?+3+4=10.

All that holds for Raid 6 but in Raid 6 you have two parity bits, a different equation, so mathematically it would be like saying 2+3=5 and 2-3=-1 so in this example -1 is a different parity then 5 and two equations can be used to solve two unknowns, and if I go further we had (1,3,4,2) & (2,4,1,1) & (1+2,3+4,4+1,2+1) now we add (1-2,3-4,4-1,2-1)

[Anthony P]

Originally Posted by krazeyeyez

What about all the blu-rays that have come out on the 25gb discs? not to mention all the HDDVD's.... as i remember storage on the hddvd side of things was directly related to the audio, with the picture in 99% of cases being the same as the blu counterpart. While i don't know the exact numbers a movie takes up i would imagine removing all the excess, especially other audio tracks would save you a great deal of space.

yes on BD25s the file was smaller, but that is why BD50's exist if 25GB or even 30GB was enough we would not have BD50s. As for HD-DVDs that was because some studios where cheap so they would make one transfer that would fit on both. To put it simply before BD there was DVD, right so obviously a film (if you are willing to sacrifice quality) could fit on one or two DVDs, that does not mean nothing was gained by going with BD. Plus how is sacrificing audio a good thing?

[Anthony P]

Originally Posted by mywhitenoise

Of course it has to be compressed....but it's not like it strips the movie so bad that it looks entirely different.

Take music for example. A 320kbps mp3 is significantly smaller than a lossless file, yet they sound nearly identical.

man, not to be mean but you really need your eyes and ears checked if you can't tell the difference. As for looking entirely different, I have no idea what that means. Do you think video quality will change a musical into a horror, obvuiously it will still be the same movie, it was still the same movie (assuming it is old enough) when it was on DVD and VHS and a snowy pictures with bad rabbit ears over TV.

[Mr.Poindexter]

Originally Posted by Anthony P

It is better then nothing, but like you kind of pointed out with raid 5 if a second disk dies before you replace it then you are done and it happens with raid 6 if a third one dies. Plus the ZERO data lost is not actually true if the recovery goes well then you end up with ZERO data lost, but happen while rebuilding. Also running the system with degraded operation (one dead in Raid5 or one or two dead in raid 6) gives the system a serious hit and rebuilding a raid drive (replacing the bad disk) is a ***** and time consuming especially at the sizes we are talking about. Plus let's not forget the over head, with RAID 5 it is the equivalent of one drive (assuming they are all equal, if they are not then they are all equivalent to the smallest drive) and with RAID 6 it is two drives (and as before, assuming they are all the same size).

Well, true if you don't replace failed discs then eventually you will lose your data but really, RAID 6 data loss? How often do you think you would lose 3 drives in a 16 drive array in 24 hours?

I don't know what systems you have used for RAID but for me, replacing a disc takes less than 10 seconds, does not require a power down and it rebuilds automatically. It only takes 22-26 hours to rebuild the array and with a hot spare on my RAID array, the rebuild occurs as soon as the drive is failed by the controller. The overhead is taken care of by the XOR parity chip engine on the controller so no excess server cpu load and I have watched multiple films at the same time during a rebuild. Reads are not hard. Only thing I don't do during a rebuild is import. When I ran a server cluster before I had 2tb drives, I could even import during a rebuild.

Just for the record, I run KRAID which is a variant of RAID 4. It uses one parity disc. That is a small price to pay for redundancy in the system. Really, it is pretty simple, reliable and robust.

[krazeyeyez]

Originally Posted by Anthony P

yes on BD25s the file was smaller, but that is why BD50's exist if 25GB or even 30GB was enough we would not have BD50s. As for HD-DVDs that was because some studios where cheap so they would make one transfer that would fit on both. To put it simply before BD there was DVD, right so obviously a film (if you are willing to sacrifice quality) could fit on one or two DVDs, that does not mean nothing was gained by going with BD. Plus how is sacrificing audio a good thing?

Obviously, my point however was not every movie placed on a 25 blu or 30 hddvd was a sacrifice of quality, at least not on the picture side of things and in many cases the audio either, of course this also mean bare bones or a second disc for extra's. But not having multiple audio tracks, especially in the cases of early discs with uncompressed tracks, can mean a great deal of saved space when it comes to storage.

Mute issue i guess though as the only way this would ever come into play for me is if i was sporting the kind of theater like pointdexter with the ability to send bit for bit my disc to all areas of the house. Just think in that scenario being able to trim the fat so to speak would result in a lot of extra space on many discs. Especially imports with multiple language tracks since most people either enjoy the original language or the joys of incompetent dubbing.

Just don't think hddvd being a "weaker" format lol as whoever it was so elegantly put it, had anything to do with why some movies were able to be on those evil red discs and why movies continue to be released in excellent quality on bd25's. Blu bloods die hard i guess

[Cevolution]

Speaking of hard disk drives and data storage, the hdd in my Sony dvd/hdd recorder stopped working today (strange noises were coming from it, and a 'hdd error' message flashed up on the recorders display screen) after 4 and a half years, and I lost all my recorded shows (about 100gb's of unwatched content) which were on it. I've unscrewed it and removed the hard drive (Sony used a WB drive) and I'm going to buy a new 1 tomorrow, it's a bit of an inconvenience though.

[Zoodles95]

Here is why I do not stream and also why I do not want to replace my physical discs.



This is an external 2TB drive hooked up to my PVR. These are not Blu-ray quality but they are better than DVD. If I was to try to replace my Blus digitally I would almost be out of room already.

I see this as one of my entertainment options. I have my Blus, DVDs, and a selection of movies backed up onto this harddrvive until I get these movies on Blu.

[mywhitenoise]

Originally Posted by J6P

This is the crux of the matter right here.

There are two issues being discussed in this thread, Home Media Servers and Digital Downloads/Streaming. Mr. Poindexter is talking about ripping bonafide Blus to his RAID system, resulting in a bit-for-bit mirror of the physical disc. This, to me, makes sense. If I had the cash I would do it.

Digital Downloads are an entirely different animal. Compression, dithering, macroblocking -- all of the various compression issues that plague MP3s, plus the streaming issues that plague Video On Demand -- I have zero interest in seeing either of these carried over to the realm of film.

I'm not even particularly tied to the physical media, unlike many here. What I am tied to is the quality of the image and sound. We took a significant step forward in convenience from CD to MP3, but at the same time took a monumental step backwards in quality.

When HD cable and my first 720p television showed up in my house, my DVD purchases dropped to near zero. Because I had all of the movie channels I would wait until movies showed up on HBO or Showtime. The resolution was better on cable than DVD, so I didn't buy. Even then, there was macroblocking to contend with in fast motion scenes, but the higher resolution was worth it to me.

Finally and for the first time we have high resolution (capacity) plus excellent motion performance (bitrate) together in Blu-ray, and I am not interested in taking a step backwards, as we did with music and MP3s.

I still have every CD I've ever purchased, going all the way back to the mid-80's. And they still sound perfect, pristine, and blow any lossy MP3 version out of the water. Not just to my ears, but for anyone who listens to my gear. I almost sold off all of the discs years ago after I loaded them into my first iPod at 320k, and I'd be kicking myself now if I had.

The physical format will surely drift to the background as we move forward, and I could probably make that transition, but I am not prepared to sacrifice a single pixel of quality in the name of convenience. Not again, anyway. When the infrastructure exists to pull off BD quality, we can talk about not producing discs anymore, but not before.

Quality lost out in the CD vs. MP3 battle. Quality lost out in the CD vs. SACD/DVD-A battle. Quality finally has a shaky foothold with BD. All we have to do is recognize the snake oil when we smell it and say "no thanks", until technology and infrastructure make some pretty massive leaps. Some very massive leaps.

I agree with everything you said, however I was just using the 320kbps mp3s as an example. I'm downloading FLAC from here on out.

I'm upset about SACD/DVD-A not taking off (and blu-ray audio will die even quicker). If we're leading towards a digital future for music, I wish more artist would release their music in 24bit FLAC files.

[Anthony P]

Originally Posted by krazeyeyez

Obviously, my point however was not every movie placed on a 25 blu or 30 hddvd was a sacrifice of quality, at least not on the picture side of things and in many cases the audio either, of course this also mean bare bones or a second disc for extra's. But not having multiple audio tracks, especially in the cases of early discs with uncompressed tracks, can mean a great deal of saved space when it comes to storage.

Mute issue i guess though as the only way this would ever come into play for me is if i was sporting the kind of theater like pointdexter with the ability to send bit for bit my disc to all areas of the house. Just think in that scenario being able to trim the fat so to speak would result in a lot of extra space on many discs. Especially imports with multiple language tracks since most people either enjoy the original language or the joys of incompetent dubbing.

Just don't think hddvd being a "weaker" format lol as whoever it was so elegantly put it, had anything to do with why some movies were able to be on those evil red discs and why movies continue to be released in excellent quality on bd25's. Blu bloods die hard i guess

It has nothing to do with formats. It is simple math. The more you compress the more data you lose and the farther you are from actual 1080p (and yes BD is far from it to start off). You asked why some BDs had the exact same look as some HD DEVDs and we gave the answer. The studios created what would work for HDDVD. As for the question of capacity. Yes for some content a 25GB or a 30GB or a 15GB can fit it, right if I have a 10minut short it will obviously not need as much as a 4H movie even if it is at the same capacity. The more you try and compress something the farther you are from what it should look like, unless it is a lossless compression. Luckily for us we can have lossless audio but for video we are no where near that. As for languages, yes a few BDs have several, but audio is extremely small and most don't have more then 3 and some just 1, that is why when the BDA made the specs and they had 48mbps to work with they decided to give 40mbps for the video and only 8mbs for all languages, lossless audio takes a bit more, but think about it 48mbps total, 40mbps for video, lossless <6mbps (for 7.1), DTS was 1.5 mbps, DD can do 640kbps, and DD on DVD was 448 kbps.

[krazeyeyez]

Originally Posted by Anthony P

It has nothing to do with formats. It is simple math. The more you compress the more data you lose and the farther you are from actual 1080p (and yes BD is far from it to start off). You asked why some BDs had the exact same look as some HD DEVDs and we gave the answer. The studios created what would work for HDDVD. As for the question of capacity. Yes for some content a 25GB or a 30GB or a 15GB can fit it, right if I have a 10minut short it will obviously not need as much as a 4H movie even if it is at the same capacity. The more you try and compress something the farther you are from what it should look like, unless it is a lossless compression. Luckily for us we can have lossless audio but for video we are no where near that. As for languages, yes a few BDs have several, but audio is extremely small and most don't have more then 3 and some just 1, that is why when the BDA made the specs and they had 48mbps to work with they decided to give 40mbps for the video and only 8mbs for all languages, lossless audio takes a bit more, but think about it 48mbps total, 40mbps for video, lossless <6mbps (for 7.1), DTS was 1.5 mbps, DD can do 640kbps, and DD on DVD was 448 kbps.

Don't think you are following what i was saying, NOT EVERY movie needs the 50 worth of space, and not every movie on a dual layer uses it all. Not every movie on a single layer blu or hddvd was a sacrifice in the quality department, i am sure most people on here own many and don't even realize it. They do not just crank up the compression to make it fit unless they are taking a page out of the pirates books.

My whole point for the original comment was that while i doubt 12gb file would be enough for a blu without quality loss, when backing up those blu's digitally if it was possible to remove the excess you don't want or use you could save a great deal of space having just the bit for bit movie and one audio track, or do you not agree.

[Anthony P]

Originally Posted by krazeyeyez

Don't think you are following what i was saying, NOT EVERY movie needs the 50 worth of space, and not every movie on a dual layer uses it all. Not every movie on a single layer blu or hddvd was a sacrifice in the quality department, i am sure most people on here own many and don't even realize it. They do not just crank up the compression to make it fit unless they are taking a page out of the pirates books.

My whole point for the original comment was that while i doubt 12gb file would be enough for a blu without quality loss, when backing up those blu's digitally if it was possible to remove the excess you don't want or use you could save a great deal of space having just the bit for bit movie and one audio track, or do you not agree.

Obviously no BD will be exactly 50GB. And obviously some are BD25 (but unlike you I am not willing to assume it did not hurt the quality). If one removes the extras (I mean real extras by this) then for some BDs that will get rid of some of the GBs that are used. But on some the extras are on an other disk and others they have very little or no extras. Like I said before. 1mbps means less then.0.45GBph. I think there is a handful of titles with a secondary lossless track, but in the end for the vast majority it does not happen. Now let’s take a 2h film with two DTS 1.5mbps tracks that means 3mbps and under 3GB total, if it is DD at 640kbps then two tracks will be just over 1GB. You need to add a lot of secondary tracks to make a big difference to the size of the film.