The HD News & Technology Thread!

tom2681 · Post by **tom2681** » 15 Oct 2006, 04:22

The first players are arriving in France.

600€ for the Toshiba HD-E1.
1700€ for the Blu-Ray Panasonic.

Bwahahaha !!

Bye-bye Blu-Ray, see you in Hell.

IronMonkey · Post by **IronMonkey** » 15 Oct 2006, 11:09

We got our first BD player in at work on Thursday. Its the Panasonic DMP-BD10 and it is a good machine. Its solidly built & the supplied Fantastic Four BD looked fantastic even though it was an MPEG2 disc.

There is no way I am paying £1299 for it though! I prefer HD DVD anyway, mainly because of price & currently the picture quality is better...

saltysam · Post by **saltysam** » 28 Oct 2006, 23:17

i'm tempted to get the toshiba E-1 £349.99 pre -order at amazon.if it could be made region free for sd discs it'd be a definite.

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 28 Oct 2006, 23:51

IronMonkey wrote:mainly because of price & currently the picture quality is better...

Very much "currently" with Fox's BD discs all being AVC or is it VC-1 I forget.

BD does have a space advantage which when they all move away from MPEG2 (which I can see happening) will help.

tom2681 · Post by **tom2681** » 29 Oct 2006, 01:03

Yep. A 20 gb difference sounds like a lot.
30 gb should be good enough to fit a 4-hour movie with no quality loss, though.

Let's think...

4 hours at 21 mbps of picture and 5mbps of sound...
That's 4 hours at 3,25 mbytes/s.
That's 14400 seconds * 3,25 = 46 800 Mbytes.

That's 45,7 gigabytes.... ah yes, I see the problem.

Let's turn it around:
What bitrate can we obtain for 4 hours with a 30 gb HD-DVD ?

So we've got 30720 mbytes (30gb) for 14400 seconds (4 hours).
30720 / 14400 = 2,13 mbytes/s.
2,13 mbytes/s = 17 mbits/s.

Is 17 mbits/s enough for HD content ? If yes, HD-DVD is fine.
If not, then Blu-Ray has the edge.

--------------

On a sidenote, the first Blu-Ray PC drives have arrived in France.
800€... That's a bit steep, isn't it ?

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 29 Oct 2006, 01:22

Steep yes but average also.

We both know they love to chuck on loads of extras (extras are all bound to be HD too eventually), a couple of dubs and at least 1 lossless soundtrack. That'll bump it all up.

tom2681 · Post by **tom2681** » 05 Nov 2006, 01:17

I've been comparing caps of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Quicktime HD Trailer vs Standard R1 DVD).
The low-bitrate HD trailer wipes the floor with the DVD.

I hope the prices will drop soon.

tom2681 · Post by **tom2681** » 07 Nov 2006, 14:13

Here's a totally unfair and useless comparison for ya

:

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire HD Trailer vs SD DVD (R1)

HD caps are taken from the 1080p Quicktime trailer.
SD caps are taken from the R1 DVD.

HD caps are untouched.
SD caps are upscaled to 1920x1080 to match the HD ones.

Both caps are then cropped to 720x404.

Note1: The HD caps look different because they don't have Digital Colour Grading.
Note2: "True" HD would look even better than that. The Quicktime trailers suffer from low bitrates.

SD:

HD:

SD:

HD:

SD:

HD:

If that's what HD looks like, then I'm all for it. 8)

gasteropod · Post by **gasteropod** » 07 Nov 2006, 17:46

DVD never looks that bad lol.

grim_tales · Post by **grim_tales** » 07 Nov 2006, 17:49

That does seem a bit extreme - look at how bad the winged horse shot looks in SD. But the detail in the "Harry" shot in HD looks amazing.

tom2681 · Post by **tom2681** » 07 Nov 2006, 19:51

Gasteropod wrote:DVD never looks that bad lol.

That's because it's cropped.
I thought about using the full 1920x1080 picture, but it's better if we can compare both formats side by side.

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 07 Nov 2006, 20:13

Please also a normal cap too, so you can see how it looks on your TV. It doesn't have to be 1920x1080 to achieve this.

tom2681 · Post by **tom2681** » 07 Nov 2006, 20:51

Please also a normal cap too,

You're gonna have to explain to me what a "normal" cap is.

tom2681 · Post by **tom2681** » 17 Nov 2006, 02:57

I was wondering:
Would the old Star Wars films look better in high-definition than on DVD ?
(The 2004 SE DVD is already quite sharp, isn't it ?)

So here's a microscopic comparison (I usually don't post these, but in this case it's interesting IMO).

-High definition 720p WMV9 trailer of the DVD release of the Star Wars trilogy.
vs
-The 2004 SE DVD.

DVD cap is upscaled to 1280x720 to match the HD cap.
Both caps are then cropped to 720x540.

SD DVD:

HD Trailer:

Based on this:
Yes, even a old 1983 sci-fi film can/will look better in HD.

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 17 Nov 2006, 18:35

Why did you up scale the SD DVD? It wouldn't be better downscale the HD source.

Even so yes it looks better.

tom2681 · Post by **tom2681** » 17 Nov 2006, 19:34

It wouldn't be better downscale the HD source.

Of course not.

Downscale -> Loss of detail.
Upscale -> No loss of detail.

If you take a 1920x1080 picture, resize it to 720x405 and compare it to a DVD, both will look the same.

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 17 Nov 2006, 21:24

Maybe, as it's a film I'll let you off but generally with photographs it's bad.

EvaUnit02 · Post by **EvaUnit02** » 20 Nov 2006, 06:56

The Xbox 360 HD-DVD addon has an RRP of $250AU. That's really really cheap man. I need some combos.

tom2681 · Post by **tom2681** » 20 Nov 2006, 21:57

Here's another of my world-famous (yeah, right

) HD vs SD comparisons.

Serenity 1080p HD trailer vs R2UK SD-DVD.

As usual, the smaller cap is resized to match the bigger cap.

SD-DVD:

HD:

And for those who think the difference can't be that big, here are the uncropped full-size shots:

Upscaled SD:
https://www.bulletsnbabesdvd.com/forums/ ... R1FULL.jpg

HD:
https://www.bulletsnbabesdvd.com/forums/ ... R1FULL.jpg

SD:

HD:

Full SD:
https://www.bulletsnbabesdvd.com/forums/ ... R2FULL.jpg

Full HD:
https://www.bulletsnbabesdvd.com/forums/ ... R2FULL.jpg

tom2681 · Post by **tom2681** » 31 Dec 2006, 14:42

The first hybrid players have arrived.

Now, you too can play HD-DVD and Blu-Ray discs with just one hardware player for...

$3,499.00

http://www.vidabox.com/shop/index.php?m ... cPath=1_16

Ouch.

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 31 Dec 2006, 14:45

Sweet I knew they'd come. No doubt it's the Blu-ray part bumping that price up.

Still I'm in no rush Summer 07 or Autumn 07 I'm sure they'll be to a reasonable price (which is £300-400/$587/783). Then again those are media centres not standalone players.

EvaUnit02 · Post by **EvaUnit02** » 01 Jan 2007, 05:51

*Clicks link*
Those hybrid players look HUGE.

(Naturally later models will become smaller and smaller as time goes by). Probably using off-the-self PC parts rather than integrated boards.

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 09 Jan 2007, 19:03

No ceasefire in DVD format battle (BD looks likely to win):

"Currently there is an even number of titles available for both formats but most analysts predict there will be more content available for Blu-ray than HD-DVD next year.

Seven of the eight major US film studios back Blu-ray and five of them are exclusive to the format. In an ominous sign for HD-DVD, the backers of Blu-ray revealed that of the 20 biggest selling DVDs of 2006 the vast majority were from film studios supporting Blu-ray."

Read the rest of the article here (it makes for an interesting read): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6243383.stm

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 09 Jan 2007, 19:07

HD-DVD goes beyond 50GB with new disc: http://www.dvdtown.com/news/hddvdgoesbe ... wdisc/4260

Source: http://www.theimportforums.com/viewtopic.php?t=7631

Lourdes · Post by **Lourdes** » 09 Jan 2007, 19:11

It has already won in Japan.
Since the PS3 release it's only just behind HD-DVD in the US.
More backing.
Better specs.
And the recent HD-DVD AACS compromise may push studios towards BD even more.