Blu-Ray VS HD-DVD (Head-to-head film comparisons)

[Trenton_Net]

Hey guys,

Has anyone else done head-to-head release comparisons like this?
http://www.highdefdigest.com/feature_blurayvshddvd_firstcomparison.html

Finally it seems people are finally comparing apples to apples, and so far HD-DVD looks like its working out better (without being gimped, and loaded with DRM).

[lordsmurf]

They should compare it to the DVD release too. Played both on a conventional player, and an HD-upscale player. Dimes to dollars says the HD discs are not much better than normal DVDs, especially upscaled ones.

[Trenton_Net]

The Blu-Ray disks must be even worse bang-for-your-buck if thats the case because from what I read from this artical, and others, blu-ray has a much darker, less vivid color and tends to wash out more.

[Marvingj]

Whats really sad between both HD & Bluray , I believe a Reg. DVD looks just as good. I don't see the Magic in either.

[lumis]

Whats really sad between both HD & Bluray , I believe a Reg. DVD looks just as good. I don't see the Magic in either.

Either you have a very small TV or very poor eye sight. I have an uncle with an HDTV, he just likes it because it's big. His eye sight is so poor he can't distinguish between HDTV and SDTV.

[Marvingj]

I have a Sony KDS-R60XBR1 60-inch, I think thats a HDTV, not sure because my eyeballs just fell out.

[dwisniski]

I have a HD-DVD player going into a Panasonic AE900U LCD projector projecting a 16:9 image at about 70" (I have a small living room) and I can say without a doubt there is quite a difference between most DVD's and HD-DVD's. I also have an Oppo upconverting DVD player, and on my screen, HD-DVD has a much sharper, detailed image than even the best upconverted DVD. That's not to say DVD's look bad, cause they don't, but HD-DVD is definitely superior. Can't say anything about Blu-ray, from what I've seen, and the price of the players right now, I definitely wasn't impressed.

[Wile_E]

As long as they captured the sources in high-def resolution for these next gen discs, you should see a difference. I vote for NONE of the above, until there is one standard disc format.

[gotnotime]

Comparison's should include MPEG-4 AVC / H.264 HD formats that can fit 1080p movies on a single DVD-DL disk. Who needs these overpriced so called "new" technology disks anyway. The only diference is that they hold more data. Would you pay 10 to 20 times the price for a bigger hard drive!! Furthermore, our rights will again be tromped on again by DRM and MPAA, by not allowing us to make legal backups of our our own purchased DVD's

I say DEATH to DVD-HD and Blue Ray!!!

[ROF]

Shouldn't equal bitrate recorded and mastered films look the same no matter which player displays it? I would think the comparison is they are the same with all things considered equal.

[ron spencer]

neighbour is rich...been into HD since it started with HD ready TVs...he has gone through 3 HD ready sets and now 5, yes 5 REAL HD TVs....2 LCD, 1 DLP, and 2 plasma...latest is 60" Pioneer Plasma....looks good, but his conclusion:


"42 inch and under in size and you notice no difference between SD and HD unless you sit 6 ft away and/or magnify your screen...you need 60 inches to really reap the benefts of HD. Under that there is no point"


Nice to be rich...and yes I have seen his stuff....60" seems to be a sweet spot.

[Wile_E]

I beg to differ with your neighbor. I can see a difference in SD and HD TV's, even at the small 27" size. HD looks sharper and more detailed. Size is not all that matters. Dot pitch and smaller pitched shadow mask will give a sharper picture. I've seen some SDTV's (Trinitron tube) that show SD material sharper than most HDTV's show SD material.

[adam]

Shouldn't equal bitrate recorded and mastered films look the same no matter which player displays it? I would think the comparison is they are the same with all things considered equal.

HD-DVDs are being released using the VC-1 codec for compression, while blu-ray appears to be holding out on using it until its larger capacity media is put into production. So in the meantime it is still using mpeg2. I don't know anything about the VC-1 codec but just judging by the movies out so far, it seems to be more suited for high definition/bitrate video. I imagine that in a short time blu ray will switch to VC-1, and maybe some of the mastering kinks will be worked out in both camps, and the quality of the two formats will be more on par with each other. But you know what they say about first impressions...

But even still, differences between dvd players can be very noticable even when viewing the exact same disc. That's why some players cost $50 and others $500. But with the HD players they are all pretty high end so you'd expect consistent quality.

[Trenton_Net]

Personally I consider Blu-Ray an off-shoot of the original format, like DVD+R was. Companies just wanted to add more DRM and get more royalties so they market a format for that sake alone. Like another user said, why pay so much more, just for a bigger hard drive? To me, I see a diffrence with HD-DVD, and at least it won't terribly brake your bank (like blu-ray), and is backwards compatable with regular DVD players. So at least when the time is right, you can be HD ready with the purchase of a complient player.

[dvdguy4]

Heres some picks of what Blu-Ray looks like against Hd-DVD.

http://www.thedigitalbits.com/articles/ces2006/gallery04.html

[Trenton_Net]

Wasn't much comparison. More product promotion than anything else. I wonder what video cap software you can use to take screenshots of HD material. I'd be intrested in seeing some head-to-head shots of movies.

[Krispy Kritter]

It's still too early to compare the two formats. The current Blu-Ray discs are using the new codecs yet.

For those that don't want HD content, I don't understand what all of the complaining is about. Standard DVD will be around for years yet and HD content should help lower standard DVD hardware and disc costs. You don't have to upgrade. HD hardware costs will fall once the production and hardware bugs are worked out.

Hell, I remember paying $300 for my first DVD player and there was only a dozen movies at the time.

[edDV]

What are you comparing?

1920x1080/24p HD movies will look better than 720x480/24p SD DVD movies if your display is good enough and/or large enough. No brainer there.

As for BD vs HD the main difference to the consumer is 15GB/side for HD DVD vs. 25GB/side for BD DVD. The approved codecs are the same. BD can run higher bitrates or longer time per layer. If you compare a two layer HD DVD to a single layer BD, then the HD DVD has more capacity.

Current BD DVD movie discs use MPeg2 encoding at up to 25Mb/s video bitrates with 19Mb/s typical. Other approved codecs are H.264 and VC-1 that get similar quality at half the bitrate.

Current HD DVD movie discs use VC-1 @ ~8-16Mb/s*. Other approved codecs are H.264 and MPeg2. MPeg2 is less likely to be used on HD DVD because of the more limited disc capacity. The quality of a particular movie depends on how it was encoded.


Ref: DVD Forum HD DVD technical introduction.


* actual bitrates per release are not being disclosed and it seems the HD DVD players lack a bitrate indicator.

[MeDiCo_BrUjO]

Blu-Ray is on the PS3, so that's where my money will be.

Damn!, I should be a poet!!!

[Wile_E]

VC-1 codec is the same as Windows Media Video 9 which is more lossy than MPEG-2. Why not stick with MPEG-2 for HD? Not enough disc space?

What about remastering of older movies to remove the spots, hair, and dust on the frames? So many films were transferred to DVD so hurriedly that they contained those flaws. Hopefully they will take the time to clean the films better before transferring to HD-DVD/Blu-Ray.

[edDV]

VC-1 codec is the same as Windows Media Video 9 which is more lossy than MPEG-2. Why not stick with MPEG-2 for HD? Not enough disc space?

What about remastering of older movies to remove the spots, hair, and dust on the frames? So many films were transferred to DVD so hurriedly that they contained those flaws. Hopefully they will take the time to clean the films better before transferring to HD-DVD/Blu-Ray.

As tested, the VC-1 codec (in SMPTE 421M form) has won most comparisons vs MPeg2 at double the bitrate. VC-1 is winning against H.264 as well but development is still proceeding. Keep in mind that these bitrates are considerably higher than what we are used to with WM 9.

Broadcasters will be using VC-1 at up to 45Mb/s internally for 1080i and 1080p/24. VC-1 fits their need for interlace as well. 480i uses 10Mb/s or ~58 min on a DVD-5.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VC-1
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/forpros/events/NAB2005/VC-1.aspx

[Homebrew101]

neighbour is rich...been into HD since it started with HD ready TVs...he has gone through 3 HD ready sets and now 5, yes 5 REAL HD TVs....2 LCD, 1 DLP, and 2 plasma...latest is 60" Pioneer Plasma....looks good, but his conclusion:


"42 inch and under in size and you notice no difference between SD and HD unless you sit 6 ft away and/or magnify your screen...you need 60 inches to really reap the benefts of HD. Under that there is no point"


Nice to be rich...and yes I have seen his stuff....60" seems to be a sweet spot.

forgive me if I misunderstood your message but it sounds like your neighbor is half-blind! Who can't tell a major difference between a SD-TV and a HD-TV on ANY size set must be blind. We have only a 30 inch HDTV and at 5, 10 or 15 feet the difference is obvious.
I haven't seen HD-DVD or Blu-Ray but from what I've heard (see avsforum.com) the difference on even 10 year old movies is significant and the upconverting of SD-DVD discs is supposedly also very noticeable.