VC-1 ever?

[Alan Gordon]

Originally Posted by SHIELD

I did not see that post. I have now though. I'm also inferring by it that the original was full screen and the reissue was anamorphic? would i be correct?

I have the original release in widescreen (anamorphic). I do not remember if they released a Pan & Scan version at that time.

Originally Posted by SHIELD

back to the point, the consensus at AVS seems to be that VC-1 is the better codec for HD (more accurate to the source). I have provided a test by C'T which shows this. Honestly, I wasn't expecting this much opposition to the idea.

There are several people at AVS who work for MS and were involved with the VC-1 codec. They have managed to convince people over the years that VC-1 was better... and for some things it might be, but for some things, AVC is superior. To me and you, there should be very little difference...

~Alan

[BStecke]

Originally Posted by Alan Gordon

I have the original release in widescreen (anamorphic). I do not remember if they released a Pan & Scan version at that time.
~Alan

They did. Widescreen was in a red box, Full Screen was white.

[richard lichtenfelt]

Originally Posted by SHIELD

I go to the theater every saturday & I see grain in maybe one out of 10 movies I see. It becomes more pronounced the more the movie is run (projector heat degrading film). Film today is much better. They're also filming digitally now for many movies. Soon movies will be sent to theaters via satellite in digital form.

Do you not believe that grain is a result of silver halide being in the film itself?
This is not disputable, it is a fact. You notice grain more at home because you view your own movies and equipment with more scrutiny than when you're at the theater. I go to the theater very often and I always notice grain when I look for it.
Grain in HD media recorded directly to disk isn't really grain at all, it is image noise.
I may be wrong about avc and vc-1 being more dependent on the technicians than the code used, but the part about grain is all elemental and not open to interpretation.

Some theaters show digital movies that are on discs and are put into a changer, but beaming movies via satellite sounds highly unlikely in that discs are so inexpensive to produce and transport and satellite clarity is too dependent on the weather.

[Alan Gordon]

Originally Posted by SHIELD

I think youre confusing the encoder with the codec. The codec doesn't change. The encoders improve with *computer power & *quality of transfer. When a movie is encoded it has to do a lot of "if than else" with nearest neighbor pixels.

Let's put it this way, the changes to the encoders means the studios can use the codecs more efficiently. By so doing, the codecs themselves improve... get it?

~Alan

[Alan Gordon]

Originally Posted by richard lichtenfelt

This is not disputable, it is a fact. You notice grain more at home because you view your own movies and equipment with more scrutiny than when you're at the theater. I go to the theater very often and I always notice grain when I look for it.

Yes, "Iron Man" had grain... and I hear "Indiana Jones And The Crystal Skull" did as well!

~Alan

[SHIELD]

Originally Posted by Alan Gordon

I have the original release in widescreen (anamorphic). I do not remember if they released a Pan & Scan version at that time.



There are several people at AVS who work for MS and were involved with the VC-1 codec. They have managed to convince people over the years that VC-1 was better... and for some things it might be, but for some things, AVC is superior. To me and you, there should be very little difference...

~Alan

maybe that is coloring your opinion with bias?

in the C'T comparison I linked to, a computer did the tests

post

C'T comaprison

JND scale explained

[BStecke]

Originally Posted by Alan Gordon

Yes, "Iron Man" had grain... and I hear "Indiana Jones And The Crystal Skull" did as well!

~Alan

It should (and does). As any other Spielberg film it was shot on film (despite George Lucas' protests).

[Alan Gordon]

Originally Posted by SHIELD

maybe that is coloring your opinion with bias?

Not really... as I don't have a codec preference. Disney has done some GREAT encodes with MPEG-2, AVC and VC-1. New Line did a REALLY great job with "Shoot 'Em Up" on Blu-ray using a HIGH-bitrate VC-1 encode and NO DNR.

I admit that MOST of my favorite films for PQ are encoded in AVC, but I think that has MORE to do with the amount of Blu-ray films encoded in AVC than any preference for the codec.

As for your link, it was too technical for me... but I've read COUNTLESS discussions about the codecs, and aside from cheerleaders, most agree that there are only SUBTLE differences in the codec.

~Alan

[SHIELD]

Originally Posted by richard lichtenfelt

Do you not believe that grain is a result of silver halide being in the film itself?
This is not disputable, it is a fact. You notice grain more at home because you view your own movies and equipment with more scrutiny than when you're at the theater. I go to the theater very often and I always notice grain when I look for it.
Grain in HD media recorded directly to disk isn't really grain at all, it is image noise.
I may be wrong about avc and vc-1 being more dependent on the technicians than the code used, but the part about grain is all elemental and not open to interpretation.

I didn't say film doesn't have grain. It has grain by it's physical nature. However it is nowhere near what grain was in say the 80s, or even 90s. Film has gotten better. All you have to do is go to an old photo album and compare them with recent pictures.

Originally Posted by Alan Gordon

Yes, "Iron Man" had grain... and I hear "Indiana Jones And The Crystal Skull" did as well!

~Alan

I saw Iron Man and I didn't see any grain. Did you see it on opening night? Im starting to think I need glasses lol.

Anyway this talk about grain has no relevance. VC-1 has FGM (Film Grain Modeling).

[syncguy]

From one of my previous posts:

MPEG4-AVC was developed by ITU and VC-1 is a Microsoft initiative based on their WMV9 codec and has used SMPTE for standardisation. As I understand, ITU put more emphasis to get a better codec and ended up with a complex coding system which require more computational power, In contrast MS was concerned about complexity and made VC-1 simpler to implement even in mobile devices. For example, VC-1 could produce more interpolation errors as it uses fewer pixels for filtering in comparison to AVC. However, due to this reason AVC could be smoother than VC-1. AVC also supports deep colour (10 bits) and 4:2:2/studio 4:4:4 colour profiles to reduce amount of colour compression. (Blu-ray probably doesn’t use 4:2:2 and limited to 4:2:0). Initially, VC-1 didn't support deep colour, it was limited to 8 bits and 4:2:0 colour profile. I am not sure whether VC-1 has fixed this issue.

There are more differences as the focus of these two systems were different. I haven’t seen a perceivable (human factors) quality comparison of these two codecs. It is interesting to find out.

[BStecke]

Iron Man had grain.

[Alan Gordon]

Originally Posted by SHIELD

However it is nowhere near what grain was in say the 80s, or even 90s. Film has gotten better.

Someone with more knowledge about film should REALLY speak up here, as I don't believe the above is entirely correct?!

Originally Posted by SHIELD

I saw Iron Man and I didn't see any grain. Did you see it on opening night? Im starting to think I need glasses lol.

No, I NEVER see movies on "opening" night... but it indeed had a FINE grain structure to the film... and I've heard others who saw the film earlier mention it. Looked GREAT!

Originally Posted by SHIELD

Anyway this talk about grain has no relevance. VC-1 has FGM (Film Grain Modeling).

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but lower bit-rates can't really re-produce grain quite as well, can they?

Also, if I remember correctly, one of the difference between VC-1 and AVC was there handling of "grain", so I think it has a fair amount of relevance, though not in the way it's mostly been discussed on this thread.

~Alan

[ccplant]

Here's a site will good side-by-side comparisons...

http://www.mbmg.de/hd-discs/

They really need to get rid of MPEG-2. I didn't know how bad the noise was until see these pics.

[Anthony P]

Shield you are definitely totally confused and mixed up on many things

1) you are right a CODEC does not change with time -at leas as a generality- then again no one said it does.

2) decoders can change over time but they are not that important

3) encoders can and do change over time. If things where lossless then this would not be true (so I don't think DTHD and DTS HD MA will change) but a lossy transfer means that the encoder needs to decide what information is not important and what happens is that over time the people building encoders say "these artefacts are more objectionable" so they build the encoder to leave less of them and "these artefacts are less objectionable" and so decide to make an encoder that leaves more of them so that even though the bitrate might not change the older encoder will have more of the "more objectionable" artefacts and a later one will have more of the "less objectionable" ones.

4) the encoder does not improve with the "quality of transfer" that I am not sure what you mean, it also does not improve with computer power, it improves with newer algorithms that are better at deciding where and when to relax on PQ. A better (easier) master can help (which is why some studios apply DNR before encoding) more Computer power will mean the encode is done faster and could give the tech a bit more time to tweak it more. It is the "if then else" as you put it that determines the PQ and the "if then else" can change over time.

5) grain does not increase with showings. Grain is a natural part of film, it is there in the pic or not, other stuff like scratches and burns increase with each showing, grain increases with each copy made.

6) as for VC-1 vs other CODECs I don't have a horse in this race and as some others have said, "I don't care what they use, as long as they use the best one for the bitrate they have available" and that encoders often change which also means that at one point in time the best encoder is for CODEC X and then some days later it is for Y. Also with the right content and the right PQ level any CODEC could be the best choice (defined as the one that offers that quality but at a lower BW) even MPEG2, so these holy wars about CODEC X should always be used and by everyone because it is best are just dumb.

[SHIELD]

Originally Posted by syncguy

From one of my previous posts:

MPEG4-AVC was developed by ITU and VC-1 is a Microsoft initiative based on their WMV9 codec and has used SMPTE for standardisation. As I understand, ITU put more emphasis to get a better codec and ended up with a complex coding system which require more computational power, In contrast MS was concerned about complexity and made VC-1 simpler to implement even in mobile devices. For example, VC-1 could produce more interpolation errors as it uses fewer pixels for filtering in comparison to AVC. However, due to this reason AVC could be smoother than VC-1. AVC also supports deep colour (10 bits) and 4:2:2/studio 4:4:4 colour profiles to reduce amount of colour compression. (Blu-ray probably doesn’t use 4:2:2 and limited to 4:2:0). Initially, VC-1 didn't support deep colour, it was limited to 8 bits and 4:2:0 colour profile. I am not sure whether VC-1 has fixed this issue.

There are more differences as the focus of these two systems were different. I haven’t seen a perceivable (human factors) quality comparison of these two codecs. It is interesting to find out.

That is all true, but it refers to WMVs internet standard more than VC-1. VC-1 has a different profile for high bitrate.

[BStecke]

Originally Posted by ccplant

They really need to get rid of MPEG-2. I didn't know how bad the noise was until see these pics.

Shooter is MPEG2 and it's fine. It's not the codec, it's how it's used. From your link, World Trade Center shows slightly more detail in the MPEG 2 Blu-ray than the VC-1 HD DVD.

[Alan Gordon]

Originally Posted by Anthony P

Shield you are definitely totally confused and mixed up on many things

EXCELLENT post AP!!

~Alan

[Alan Gordon]

Originally Posted by BStecke

Shooter is MPEG2 and it's fine. It's not the codec, it's how it's used. From your link, World Trade Center shows slightly more detail in the MPEG 2 Blu-ray than the VC-1 HD DVD.

Yes, I'm CONSTANTLY amazed at seeing "Pearl Harbor" on Blu-ray.

If only the film was better...

~Alan

[ccplant]

Originally Posted by BStecke

Shooter is MPEG2 and it's fine. It's not the codec, it's how it's used. From your link, World Trade Center shows slightly more detail in the MPEG 2 Blu-ray than the VC-1 HD DVD.

Dude look at the Underworld MPEG-2 vs VC-1. Everyone needs to check it out. It's depressing.

http://www.mbmg.de/hd-discs/underwor...detail_2x.html

[SHIELD]

Originally Posted by Alan Gordon

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but lower bit-rates can't really re-produce grain quite as well, can they?

Also, if I remember correctly, one of the difference between VC-1 and AVC was there handling of "grain", so I think it has a fair amount of relevance, though not in the way it's mostly been discussed on this thread.

~Alan

Lower bitrates look worse at everything, not just grain. But I'm referring to the same bitrate. BD had more visible grain because it had more space & a higher capable bitrate. But given the same space & bitrate VC-1 should reproduce it without fail.