HD undermining quality of DVD

[joepic]

There is a very interesting thread over at slysoft regarding the quality of current DVD releases. Are we being sold down the river on the quality of current and future releases of DVD's by the movie industry to give the impression that we must move to HD DVD's?

http://forum.slysoft.com/showthread.php?t=1680

"The quality of recent DVD releases is seriously being undermined by the promise of HD's higher resolution. A quick examination of recent DVD releases (Bandidas, Crank, The Descent) and more, reveals these movies to be less than 3.5 GBs! The quality is noticeably degraded due to the small file size even though movie transfer methods have improved (HD masters etc.).

DVD movie sizes have always been 6 - 7 GBs for a 2 hour movie. What these smaller 3.5 GB files sizes does is degrade the quality of our 480p DVDs.

This leads us to believe that the HD release of a movie to be FAR superior - depending on whether the HD release has been newly remastered from the film negative in HD or simply "up-rezzed" from the 480p master to HD (which is basically what the HD movie channels do on most HD broadcasts via cable and dish).

The latest DVD releases are in an inferior, smaller-than-normal file size that erodes quality.

This is EXACTY what the record companies did in the early 80's when CD's first hit the market, and exactly what happened when DVD started to replace VHS. Prior to CD, vinyl discs and magnetic cassette tapes were at their highest quality - excellent magnetic tape stock and thick vinyl discs. The quality of these went down the toilet when CD came out - low quality magnetic tape with hiss and drop-out, and thin, flimsy vinyl discs that had static crackle and pop and easy to scratch surfaces. The quality of later VHS, even though they were supposed to be from digital masters, was clearly inferior to VHS at its peak - drop-out and quality reduction was abundant due to cheap tape stock and lower quality transfers. I often had to return VHS tapes due to image drop-out.

This gave the impression that DVD was vastly superior to VHS.

The same is happening today with the reduction in DVD movie file sizes.

It gives the impression that HD is vastly superior to DVD.

Why should we accept lower image quality of our recent DVD titles just so we are "persuaded" to purchase, at great cost, HD movies that we have purchased probably twice already on VHS and DVD!"

[jman98]

Well, I don't know what to think. I'd need more evidence than this before I would definitely conclude that this is a conspiracy. I did some research:

Title - Studio - current availability:
Bandidas - 20th Century Fox - only available on DVD
Crank - Lion's Gate - also available on BluRay
The Desent - Lion's Gate - only available on DVD

None of these are what I would call "blockbuster" movies. Bandidas cost $35 million to make and without spending more time than I want to, I am unable to determine what it made, but it did make an uninspiring $17 million total in foreign box office receipts.
Crank and The Descent are "Brit films". I know nothing else about them. I care nothing about either.

What might we conclude from this? Well, 20th Century Fox may just have decided to save money on a big budget film that tanked by putting out a single layer DVD. Then again, it might be a screw up. Are there other 20th Century Fox DVDs of recent films that made good money that are only single layer? Lion's Gate simply may not know what they are doing in making DVDs. Maybe this is a common problem on all their DVDs. I don't know. At this point it is a little suspicious, but we need more evidence before we reach a conclusion.

[oldandinthe way]

I don't watch the most recent movies but the classic and oddball films I watch on DVD often are distributed on a single layer DVD, and many of those which which are on dual layer would fit on a single layer without the useless extras.

Many of the concert DVDs have huge sound files which require dual layer.

I really don't believe the studios are trying to force the HD issue by lowering SD DVD quality. Even they must be aware that market demand for HD is weak - and gimmickry will not enhance it. I keep remembering the fact that over 1/3 of the folks with HD TVs do not have HD input (over the air, cable, or satellite).

[Soopafresh]

As long as the included extras show people walking around the set in jeans and t-shirts, smiling and moving lights around in as high quality as possible, I'm happy. Oh yeah, don't forget the compulsory sycophantic raving about the director by the cast.

[Grain]

Talladega Nights was another with a 3.8GB movie size. I wasn't overly impressed with it's vid quality, but The Descent and in particular Crank had very good picture quality IMO. I personally think they are using better compression techniques, although I love a good conspiracy as much as the next guy.

[noki]

Let's put it this way. Check the VIDEO BITRATE for the movies you are watching. If it is above 7 mbps it's good quality for the DVD format. If it is less than 4 it's less than it COULD/SHOULD be.

[JohnnyMalaria]

A quick examination of recent DVD releases (Bandidas, Crank, The Descent) and more, reveals these movies to be less than 3.5 GBs!

Is that just for the main movie? If so, is it because of more pointless shite (the "bonus" material) that gets put on DVDs?

[jman98]

Talladega Nights was another with a 3.8GB movie size. I wasn't overly impressed with it's vid quality, but The Descent and in particular Crank had very good picture quality IMO. I personally think they are using better compression techniques, although I love a good conspiracy as much as the next guy.

Thanks for posting. Now this is some potential evidence that there may be something to these charges after all. Talladega Nights was a big success at the box office. It is also available on BluRay. It's a Sony Pictures movie. Hmm... Sony is a big backer of BluRay. Yes, I certainly do believe that Sony would deliberately release a single layer, lower quality DVD to make their BluRay release look better. If we start seeing more and more successful motion pictures come out on single layer DVD, there definitely is something going on.

[Grain]

The DVD itself for Talladega was a DL, but it was the extras that made it so, the movie only was 3.8GB.

[Guiboche]

I believe there could be truth to this conspiracy.

It began when blu-ray first launch titles simultanously on regular DVD and HD.

Just look at this still captures from the "Superman Returns" dvd. The open logo has artifacting everywhere! Never has I seen such terrible blocking. Not even on the 1997 2.4GB single layer transfer or Dark City! There's also edge halos everywhere thoughout the entire movie itself.

superman-disc.jpg

[bigstusexy]

Here is my two cents. The files may be smaller on some fils and we need to find out why. Before we jump to the conclusion that they are dummning down DVD or HD sales I'd like to pose the possibility that files were possibly needlessly filled with empty bit to make it appear larger so that it would fit on a two layer medium which we all know is still expensive to this day. MFGs have overcome most of the dual layer problems but licensing and pressure for the various controlling houses keep the prices where they are.

There are a lot of sneaky underhanded things that could have and might be done.

[Soopafresh]

Sounds to me like it is due to lack of attention rather than deliberate low bitrate encoding. Studio resources get pulled into many different directions, and the focus now for the guys doing the conversions is to learn HD-DVD creation. Wouldn't surprise me in the least if they're giving the DVD creation tasks to the interns.

[Cornucopia]

Exactly my thoughts, Soopafresh!

Scott

[TheFamilyMan]

If this is true, I'd bet it'd have to due more with ROI, i.e. squeezing out more profit, than anything else. All contemporary products seem to suffer from this: one way to make more money is to lessen to cost to produce (cheapen) the product. It's easy to come up with lots of examples of this. I'd be sad if future comercial DVD's become little better than the VCD/SVCD, etc. I suffered with just a few years ago, just so I could buy them at $15 a copy.

[Rawit]

The same thing is happening with CD's. The mixing is getting worse by the minute, to increase the sales of SACD and DVD-Audio.
The hybrid SACD's have a normal CD layer, containing the same quality mixing as the SACD, but of course within the limits of the CD format. This means they are able to deliver quality mixes on CD, but they only use this on hybrid SACD's. Ordinary CD's get the lower quality mix.
They are just trying to increase the quality gap between the formats, because they know most people can live and be satisfied with the quality that DVD and CD delivers.

[dnix71]

There may be some "spite" involved. The latest MTR (donationware at ripdifferent) came out yesterday. One of the test discs was a new Columbia/Sony release starring Tim Allen called "Zoom".

The disc is 8gb dual layer, but only 3gb is usable after removing all the junk files designed to make copying difficult. Maybe their attitude is 'yeah, go ahead and crack it, what you get won't be worth owning".

Kind of like with iTunes. So what if you can make an audio cd legally from it. It's still a crappy 128kbs rip to begin with. Telesync and over the air radio now have about the same quality as what you actually have to pay for.

[hgh]

I wouldn't take anything for granted regarding enforced format upgrades due to dubious quality from previous formats. MPEG4 has been around for a long time. Monopolies have waited until they had a controlled and expensive MPEG4 format before they began to release product. MS Vista is an attempt to implement forced DRM. HD-DVD and Blue ray are overly expensive and only exist as a new medium to extract more dollars from people whom are earning less and less every year. The entire system of usage, distribution and charging people is out of control. The powers that be only want to create systems that are skewed to benefit their mafia at the expense of the user. It wouldn't surprise me in the least that companies would deliberately make an inferior product to push users to accept a more expensive product. They are all in it together.

[rhegedus]

Here is my two cents. The files may be smaller on some fils and we need to find out why. Before we jump to the conclusion that they are dummning down DVD or HD sales I'd like to pose the possibility that files were possibly needlessly filled with empty bit to make it appear larger so that it would fit on a two layer medium which we all know is still expensive to this day. MFGs have overcome most of the dual layer problems but licensing and pressure for the various controlling houses keep the prices where they are.

There are a lot of sneaky underhanded things that could have and might be done.

True - a lot of my classic collection like Bullit is a single layer but perfectly watchable.

[FulciLives]

Sounds to me like it is due to lack of attention rather than deliberate low bitrate encoding. Studio resources get pulled into many different directions, and the focus now for the guys doing the conversions is to learn HD-DVD creation. Wouldn't surprise me in the least if they're giving the DVD creation tasks to the interns.

How about this thought ... the interns are purposefully making the main feature fit at or under 4.37GB because they are geeks like us (probably read and maybe even post here) and figure they just want to do their best for the "community" so that when we (the consumer) get the final dual layer DVD with extras we can go ahead and just cut out or blank out the extras and make a back-up (on a single layer DVD of course) of the feature without having to use any compression.

Actually it is a very nice thought from them ... don't you agree?

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[turk690]

I had to smile at that one, FulciLives.

[yoda313]

We need a much much wider movie sample than this. A handful doesn't make a trend.

What we should do is compile the stats on major movies over the last year. Start with the company that made it and there allegiance in the bluray/hddvd battle.

Then we need a bit rate comparison on all of the movies. List how many extras are included, how many commentary tracks, is it a single disc? Is it a double disc set? Single layer? Dual Layer?

Also - are they still making SUPER BIT DVDS???? Have they stopped making them?? If they kill SUPERBIT that is supposed to crank the bitrate and have DTS surround than this argument may start to have merit. But it could also mean simply that the demand for SUPERBIT may be dwindling with the expansion of bluray/hddvd.

Also you need to pay serious attention to the inclusion or lack of a DTS track. That takes up some serious space.

The other need is to track trends of how well the movie did versus the bitrate/content of the dvd release. My gut feeling is the loser movies get the surface treatment of a 384 dd5.1 track with a handful of bonuses like trailers and what not but little of anything else. Plus the bombs would probably be more likely to get shafted on a single layer than a dual layer.....


How about we do a test with something like SUPERMAN RETURNS which is available on DVD, and at least one of the hd formats - I don't know if outs for both....

I do have superman returns but no hdtv. It looks to be an excellent transfer and not apparently suffering any bitrate stripping. Now if this were a vast conspiracy wouldn't they want to cut it way down to make you go - gee this looks like crap I have to buy hd now???

I thnk we should do our own debunking of this myth.......

[FulciLives]

How about we do a test with something like SUPERMAN RETURNS which is available on DVD, and at least one of the hd formats - I don't know if outs for both....

I do have superman returns but no hdtv. It looks to be an excellent transfer and not apparently suffering any bitrate stripping. Now if this were a vast conspiracy wouldn't they want to cut it way down to make you go - gee this looks like crap I have to buy hd now???

I thnk we should do our own debunking of this myth.......

One thing I found surprising about SUPERMAN RETURNS on DVD Video is that the 5.1 AC-3 audio track uses a bitrate of 384kbps instead of 448kbps. Now I've seen other movies use 384kbps for 5.1 AC-3 but by far 448kbps is the more common bitrate used and on such a "major motion picture" I am surprised they wouldn't go "all out" and use 448kbps instead of 384kbps.

Of course I would never have known this had I not RIPPED the DVD in order to make a MPEG-4 back-up. I often use autoGK to make an XviD back-up and I always use the original AC-3 audio file. So like I said this is how I found out the bitrate of the 5.1 AC-3 audio track.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[vico1]

How about this thought ... the interns are purposefully making the main feature fit at or under 4.37GB because they are geeks like us (probably read and maybe even post here) and figure they just want to do their best for the "community"

Now...Wouldn't that be a HOOT!...

[MOVIEGEEK]

How about this thought ... the interns are purposefully making the main feature fit at or under 4.37GB because they are geeks like us

Speak for yourself...I'm no geek! :P

As for the extras:the studios can keep them,I would rather have SUPERBIT video and DTS audio.

[yoda313]

Of course I would never have known this had I not RIPPED the DVD in order to make a MPEG-4 back-up.

If I remember right powerdvd has a live bitrate viewer that shows the video and audio bitrate as your playing a commercial dvd.

Regarding Superman Returns I didn't know they went with the lower Dolby. Sounds pretty loud as it is I think the Back to the Future trilogy used 384.... But your right fulci 448 is more common for dd 5.1.

[Squash]

I rented "Bandidas" from Netflix about a month ago. It was an unusual disc in that it was the first "flipper" I'd seen in quite a while. It had 4:3 "fullscreen" on one side, 16:9 (2.35) on the other. Why they did it that way I have no idea, but it suggests that the lower-than-usual filesize may have been related to something other than undermining the current DVD format.

[guns1inger]

While there are customers that demand 4:3 versions of widescreen films as a right, instead of the favour it is, quality will be compromised on dual format versions. Whether you put it on a flipper or on one side of a DL disc, file sizes will be reduced.

[Wile_E]

They are not trying very hard to make HI-DEF on Blu-Ray/HD-DVD look better than DVD. I watched several HD-DVD movies this weekend at a friends house on a 56" JVC D-ILA screen. Waterworld and a few other HD-DVD's looked like crap. The studios did not clean up the films. There were scratches, spots, hair, and dust on the transfer. This is a shoddy job and personally I will NEVER pay for a movie that looks like that! I've had enough of poor quality DVD transfers.

I knew it would eventually happen to these hi-def transfers of older films. The studios are rushing them to market and not spending time to get a clean transfer. Sure, it looks hi-resolution, but with all the scratches spots, it makes it look like crap. If us amateurs can use software tools to take away spots, Hollywood should be able to also.

[guns1inger]

The Fifth Element is often cited as a reference quality DVD for trialling new kit over here. The BluRay version was released over and is substantially worse that the DVD version. Higher resolution on bigger screens = more obvious flaws.

The more I see, the less inclined I am to go out and buy a large screen HDTV.

[FulciLives]

I saw WATERWORLD in the movie theater for free (thanks to a friend that had a pass) and when it was over I wanted to be paid for my time lost.

Biggest steaming pile of shit that movie was

I don't yet own HD-DVD nor Blu-Ray but I saw a HD-DVD sample at a BEST BUY and it was on some sort of large screen TV (DLP I think ... not sure) and it looked pretty f'ing incredible. It was a demo disc that had short movie snippets and trailers on it etc.

Only thing holding me back is lack of money

- John "FulciLives" Coleman