Blu-ray vs. HD-DVD article, interesting read

[sj001]

http://www.highdefdigest.com/news/sh...._Reality/1096

Is this not once again justifying that HD-DVD is "The look and sound of Good Enough"?

[sj001]

I haven't read any of this guy's other articles, what is his angle? Is he Pro HD-DVD, or Pro HD-DVD posing as neutral?

[DetroitSportsFan]

It's on High Def Digest, 'nuff said.

[domerdel]

I read this article, posted a comment. Definitely seems like he has the approach of wanting to be neutral, but all his examples point to pro-HD-DVD.

[sj001]

Ugh, I hate the, "I'm neutral, but then every friggin' thing being said is biased" mentality.

[aphex]

This guy is a complete idiot.

[Joe Cain]

To be fair, he has called shenanigans on HD-DVD for things like awful flipper combo discs.

[bdrex28]

I agree with Josh in one thing and one thing only; a copy is only as good as the technician who designed it. Meaning even with the best technology, a crappy operator turns out a crappy product.

however, I do find this interesting bit from Josh to be counter to the article linked:

Here are just a few of Josh’s points:

* Zyber’s early reviews of Blu-ray titles were negative because the studios were putting out lousy discs compared to HD DVD. He’d like to think that criticism like his has led to an improvement in Blu-ray quality, both formats are much more directly comparable today.

For some unknown reason, Blu-ray titles would come out in MPEG2 encoding, while the HD DVD version used VC-1.
* Comparing sales numbers between Blu-ray and HD DVD is “like boasting an ant is larger than a flea, just before the big shoe of DVD comes down to smoosh them both into oblivion.”

Josh is referring to the fact that DVD heartily outsells Blu-ray and HD DVD combined, and points out that 300 sold more copies on DVD in one week than both formats have sold of everything combined in 6 months of 2007. One format would have to start selling way better before trying to proclaim itself the winner.
* Business is business and if you’re going to point fingers at the Paramount deal, then don’t be hypocritical about Blu-ray’s deals.

He points out that Disney was a contributor to the HD DVD interactivity features, but “surprisingly,” they don’t even use this stuff because they’re Blu-ray exclusive.
* Both formats are going to be around together for a while, get used to it.

That’s how it has worked for many years in the video game world, and all of the competition forces everyone to make better products (at better prices too).

Link to above quote:
http://www.hddvd.com/go.php/2007/08/

Note he mentions the encoding used as a primary talking point for his reviews of Blu-ray.

Now in his recent article he says it doesn't matter.

Interesting.

[jermwhl]

Originally Posted by bdrex28

I agree with Josh in one thing and one thing only; a copy is only as good as the technician who designed it. Meaning even with the best technology, a crappy operator turns out a crappy product.

however, I do find this interesting bit from Josh to be counter to the article linked:



Link to above quote:
http://www.hddvd.com/go.php/2007/08/

Note he mentions the encoding used as a primary talking point for his reviews of Blu-ray.

Now in his recent article he says it doesn't matter.

Interesting.

Even in the OP's article, he contradicts himself. He seems very knowledgable, but I wonder how much smoke he's blowing in our faces! He surely did seem pro-hd-DVD to me. I'm not a videophile, so i can't confirm or deny alot of his statements.

[goodstuff]

The JoshZ guy is certianly pro-HD DVD. Just check his post histories at AVS and DVDTalk.

And it's funny how all the HD-DVD people keep mentioning HDD's Transformers 5 star audio review, but yet never mention the following paragraph from the same review

Note that although I'm giving this audio mix five stars, that doesn't mean I agree with Paramount's decision to forgo high-res audio on this title. Without a TrueHD or PCM mix to compare this one to, there's no way of telling how much better such a track might have been, but based on the upgrade I've seen with other titles, I'm guessing a high-res mix could well have trounced this one. That's not to take anything away from this truly exceptional mix, but this is one case where I think you truly can improve upon perfection.

Again, HD-DVD: The Look and Sound of Good Enough

[Whytewash]

They will conjur up any idea to save their format!

[oscar_in_fw]

Originally Posted by goodstuff

The JoshZ guy is certianly pro-HD DVD. Just check his post histories at AVS and DVDTalk.

And it's funny how all the HD-DVD people keep mentioning HDD's Transformers 5 star audio review, but yet never mention the following paragraph from the same review



Again, HD-DVD: The Look and Sound of Good Enough

You should post this on on the Hi-def digest commentary thread. I just posted some flamebait over there and I forgot about the reviewer's backdoor criticism of "Transformers' lossless audio track or lack thereof.

Time to break out the asbestos suit.

[SKRUhddvd]

the title specs vs reality is wrong. it should be perception vs reality. he perceives it looks & sounds as good but in reality it doesn't.

[welwynnick]

Originally Posted by aphex

This guy is a complete idiot.

I don't think he's an idiot, he's a very smart guy who can carry a lot of people along with his logic and arguements. He starts off by saying that we should trust our eyes and ears even where specs suggest otherwise, then steers the logic round without obvious gaps or joins to suggest that the Transformers soundtrack could NOT have been improved with a lossless soundtrack. The arguement tends to hinge on Peter Bracke's 5/5 audio assessment, despite which he says it might actaully have been improved with a better codec.

Nick

[Clark Kent]

Originally Posted by goodstuff

The JoshZ guy is certianly pro-HD DVD. Just check his post histories at AVS and DVDTalk.

And it's funny how all the HD-DVD people keep mentioning HDD's Transformers 5 star audio review, but yet never mention the following paragraph from the same review



Again, HD-DVD: The Look and Sound of Good Enough

I'll back this up. Zyber is an intelligent guy but he clearly sides with HD DVD, so he has made a poor choice in this format war. He was a very early adopter of HD DVD and has gone out of his way to push HD DVD over Blu-ray. He's about as neutral as Amir.

[cajmoyper]

Originally Posted by welwynnick

I don't think he's an idiot, he's a very smart guy who can carry a lot of people along with his logic and arguements. He starts off by saying that we should trust our eyes and ears even where specs suggest otherwise, then steers the logic round without obvious gaps or joins to suggest that the Transformers soundtrack could NOT have been improved with a lossless soundtrack. The arguement tends to hinge on Peter Bracke's 5/5 audio assessment, despite which he says it might actaully have been improved with a better codec.

Nick

I was thinking while I was reading this article how much my friends over at bluray.com are going to hate this. It seemed to me that he dissed BD as much as he did duddie but nobody here wants to hear anything bad about BD. We certainly have had our share of poor quality releases and from what I know, everything he said was fact. The way we all talk here, it seems we've made our mind up about a release before we've even seen it just because we see the numbers.

[welwynnick]

It's like politics. Because we are generally disposed to blu here, it's far more likely that we will perceive red bias in other media. Josh has long ago stated his preference for HDDVD, but in general, I would say that High Def Digest was actually pretty neutral. They seem to go to some effort to maintain an equal balance, which is why I got there so often.

In particular, Peter Bracke seems able to steer a good path. Sometimes blu supporters object to something he says against a new blu disc, but I think that is more likely to be a reflection on them, rather than on him.

Do what I did - read a lot of his HDDVD reviews. Now that he has gotten used to the current quality of blu releases, I think overall he finds more to criticise, both on PQ and SQ, with red than he does with Blu.

regards, Nick