Blu-ray and HD DVD Star Rating Breakdown

[Chris Gerhard]

On second thought, the two lossless audio tracks might be nice since my girlfriend doesn't like subtitles, although I would always choose a lossless audio track with subtitles, she might prefer dubbed. The greater capacity could mean something to me, but nothing to the format war now that I think further about it. She is important to me. Maybe time will show MPEG-2 using higher bitrates and requiring greater capacity looks better than AVC-1, who knows? All I have seen so far and all of the reviews I have read make me still believe the technical differences mean nothing to the market and nothing to the format war. AVC-1 with one Dolby TrueHD soundtrack given the 30 Mbps limit and I doubt anybody anywhere can tell the difference between the two formats. I understand having multiple lossless soundtracks would be problematic now for HD DVD so I concede that difference is important. Of course I could take the position I don't want to watch the stupid dubbed version and want a format that can't have both and favor HD DVD, but I won't.

Chris

[Maximus]

Originally Posted by Chris Gerhard

On second thought, the two lossless audio tracks might be nice since my girlfriend doesn't like subtitles, although I would always choose a lossless audio track with subtitles, she might prefer dubbed. The greater capacity could mean something to me, but nothing to the format war now that I think further about it. She is important to me. Maybe time will show MPEG-2 using higher bitrates and requiring greater capacity looks better than AVC-1, who knows? All I have seen so far and all of the reviews I have read make me still believe the technical differences mean nothing to the market and nothing to the format war. AVC-1 with one Dolby TrueHD soundtrack given the 30 Mbps limit and I doubt anybody anywhere can tell the difference between the two formats. I understand having multiple lossless soundtracks would be problematic now for HD DVD so I concede that difference is important. Of course I could take the position I don't want to watch the stupid dubbed version and want a format that can't have both and favor HD DVD, but I won't.

Chris

Wow, imagine if there was such a codec as AVC-1, we wouldn't have MS crapping all over AVSF!

[Chris Gerhard]

Originally Posted by Maxpower1987

Wow, imagine if there was such a codec as AVC-1, we wouldn't have MS crapping all over AVSF!

I assume you mean "never" was such a codec. I like the codec and think a great job was done with it and I assume you mean that Amir guy crapping all over? I like him too but I want Blu-ray to survive and HD DVD to go bye bye and for Blu-ray to use AVC-1 when it is the best option.

Chris

[Maximus]

Originally Posted by Chris Gerhard

I assume you mean "never" was such a codec. I like the codec and think a great job was done with it and I assume you mean that Amir guy crapping all over? I like him too but I want Blu-ray to survive and HD DVD to go bye bye and for Blu-ray to use AVC-1 when it is the best option.

Chris

Well AVC-1 would be the mythical blend of AVC and VC-1, AVC is championed by Panasonic Hollywood and Sony amongst others, while VC-1 is MS through and through.

[Ascended_Saiyan]

Through my eyes, I like going with the side that has put the most thought into creating a format for the future. In the end, Blu-ray is clearly the format with the most thought about the future.

Blu-ray is still going along according to plan. They've had to move faster than they expected, but the process was well thought out. HD DVD would have to make all these changes to their final plans to try to make it work in a futureproofing capacity. Hell, they couldn't even provide King Kong with a lossless audio track due to bandwidth issues and that was within the first couple of months of launch! Then, space is a issue with HD DVD. They can't fit LOTR:RoTK EE on a disc. To be on a side where the creators didn't even see this coming is chilling.

It makes you think about what else HD DVD creators forgot about that hasn't been brought to light, yet.

[Chris Gerhard]

Originally Posted by Maxpower1987

Well AVC-1 would be the mythical blend of AVC and VC-1, AVC is championed by Panasonic Hollywood and Sony amongst others, while VC-1 is MS through and through.

Of course, I meant VC-1, I didn't even notice my mistake the second time. I wish AVC had been called MPEG-4 then I wouldn't have the problem. The problems that come with age.

Chris

[Maximus]

Originally Posted by Chris Gerhard

Of course, I meant VC-1, I didn't even notice my mistake the second time. I wish AVC had been called MPEG-4 then I wouldn't have the problem. The problems that come with age.

Chris

It is infact VC-1 that should have a different name, AVC has been around for much longer.

[GoldenRedux]

Originally Posted by Chris Gerhard

Of course, I meant VC-1, I didn't even notice my mistake the second time. I wish AVC had been called MPEG-4 then I wouldn't have the problem.

Every time I hear or read the name VC-1 I think of the software multimedia player VLC for some reason. The problem with using MPEG-4, I presume, is most people would think it was MPEG-2.

The problems that come with age.

[dialog_gvf]

Originally Posted by Chris Gerhard

On second thought, the two lossless audio tracks might be nice since my girlfriend doesn't like subtitles, although I would always choose a lossless audio track with subtitles, she might prefer dubbed. The greater capacity could mean something to me, but nothing to the format war now that I think further about it. She is important to me. Maybe time will show MPEG-2 using higher bitrates and requiring greater capacity looks better than AVC-1, who knows? All I have seen so far and all of the reviews I have read make me still believe the technical differences mean nothing to the market and nothing to the format war. AVC-1 with one Dolby TrueHD soundtrack given the 30 Mbps limit and I doubt anybody anywhere can tell the difference between the two formats. I understand having multiple lossless soundtracks would be problematic now for HD DVD so I concede that difference is important. Of course I could take the position I don't want to watch the stupid dubbed version and want a format that can't have both and favor HD DVD, but I won't.

We simply can't know about the benefit of the higher bandwidth on PQ until we have a sizeable collection of titles:

(a) Available on BOTH formats
(b) Optimized for each format

So far only Paramount titles can be considered. And as far as I can tell they have reviewed at least as good on Blu-ray as HD DVD. With some examples of reviewers PREFERING the MPEG-2 encodings for Blu-ray.

The differences won't be blindly obvious. It will be a scene here and scene there. And since these are foremost a videophile format that people hope will become mass adopted (which I very much doubt), these subtle differences ARE important for those adopting now.

As you point out the audio issue is the major issue:

- Multiple lossless tracks
- Lossless on most releases
- General audio issues with HD DVD players and Xbox

I think it can be agreed that Blu-ray is kicking HD DVD's ass audio-wise.

Gary