I was reading about Sony's BR troubles today and it occured to me that when they started working on the format mpeg2 was still the main compression format for movies and so they would have devised the required capacity for the disks from that. But with H.264 now available to make the same quality but much smaller files, doesn't that mean that the extra capacity of Blu-Ray over HD-DVD is no longer needed? And with HD-DVD costing so much less, why would you get Blu-Ray?
It's actually a codec developed by Microsoft specifically for HD optical media, called VC-1, that has made the size advantage of BD superfluous. Basically all HD-DVDs are encoded in VC-1, which is nearly 3x more efficient then mpeg2, and also more mature then AVC, or h.264. You can prove the point objectively by going over the reviews for both HD-DVDs and BDs and averaging them out. On average, HD-DVDs have better PQ (though BD is getting more consistent), and they have about equal AQ reviews. But just as important in making this point, HD-DVD absolutely TROUNCES BD when it comes to including the extras. I don't think there is one BD title that contains all of the extras that are on the SD version of the film, and a large majority of BD titles are bare bones, or just a notch or two above. While with HD-DVD, there are a significant number of titles that contain every extra that was included on the special addition of the SD-DVD. So judging from the content on the disks, you'd have to conclude that HD-DVD has the high capacity. Which actually, on average, it does. Because only a small percentage of BD titles are on DL disks, while the majority of HD-DVDs are DL. So the average HD-DVD has 30 gigs of capacity, while the average BD has 25 gigs. So after reading that, you'll have to make up your own mind about the answer to your last question.
The only reason blu-ray is still alive is because Sony has the marketing budget of a small country. LOL. But really, HD-DVD is a much better deal but most people that walk into a Best Buy or Circuit Crappy (please excuse my bias) see blu-ray first. On top of that, the presentation of blu-ray and its movies are amazing. Meanwhile HD-DVD is sitting on a shelf in a corner with regular tag. Toshiba has a good thing going (better hardware and software sells, better looking movies, better customer service, ect...) but they need to put HD-DVD right in the face of consumers if they hope to come out on top. Ced
sony realised that their h264 codec suck. with the greatness x264 showing now, you can fit a 1080p movie on a dvd or dvd9, depends on the content. i'm not too worried whose gonna win, by the time i'll buy one it would've been decided, and prices gone cheap like dvds now. in the mean time i'll use dvd like i used cd when dvd was too expensive. remember svcd, xsvcd?
[bold]Seven of the eight major movie studios also back Blu-ray[/bold], including Lion's Gate, MGM, Paramount, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Twentieth Century Fox, Walt Disney Studios, and Warner Brothers. Of those studios, only Paramount and Warner are actively supporting both Blu-ray Disc and competitor HD DVD. (Also in HD DVD's camp: Universal Studios, the lone major not part of the Blu-ray camp.) This is the major problem with HD-DVD.But i think they are just about on Par with each other far as visual but content HD-DVD offer more.Now i see HD-DVD is offering the DVD ver on the backside off the HD-DVD disc which i think was a damm good idea.
I did a little research and it appears that h.264 can be used on HD-DVD and is used on some commercial HD-DVDs in Japan. Comparisons of Chronicles of Riddick on the US (VC-1) and Japan versions favor the VC-1 release. It also appears that the h.264 codec requires more CPU horspower but offers lower bitrates than VC-1. Also, h.264 is open-source while VC-1 is Microsoft owned/controlled. Enough about the codecs, I'm really more interested in disk capacity myself. HD-DVD is 15GB single layer, 30GB dual layer. Blue Ray is 25GB single layer, and 50GB dual layer. Just on disk capacity I will opt for Blue Ray. Codecs and the like can be improved in the future. There's also no real reason why you can't use VC-1 on Blue Ray except Microsoft won't let you. That's my two cents Regars; Lardzor
A few BluRay releases already use VC-1: http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/supermanreturns.html http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/phantomoftheopera2004.html http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/milliondollarbaby.html http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/atl.html http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/unforgiven.html ETC.
All codecs can be used on both formats, though Warner is the only studio using VC-1 on BD, because they're just porting over their HD-DVD encodes for their BD releases. And capacity has proved to be meaningless where it counts, in the real world. With the number of HD-DVD releases that are 2+ hrs long, have lossless or high bitrate audio, have tons of extras, and outstanding PQ, 30 gigs has proven to be more then enough capacity for an optical movie disk. And Lardzor, you're wrong on another count. There are several independent post houses that offer VC-1 encoding. So it is not solely owned/controlled by MS.
Oops, VC-1 is a standard released by SMPTE. Sorry about that, I'm just used to thinking of MS as evil.
