At Last: a True Blu-ray vs. HD-DVD comparison

[Damion Chaplin]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.highdefdigest.com/feature_blurayvshddvd_firstcomparison.html' target='_blank'>http://www.highdefdigest.com/feature_blurayvshddvd_firstcomparison.html</a><br /><br /></div><i>"With the release today of 'Training Day,' 'Kiss Kiss Bang Bang' and 'Rumor Has It...' on Blu-ray, Warner Home Video has become the the first studio to unleash the same movie titles on both formats, following their debut on HD DVD last month. Finally, after months of apples-to-oranges comparisons between the two formats via different discs from differing studios, a direct head-to-head analysis can now be made using identical source material. As the first Warner Blu-ray titles hit stores, we at High Def Digest are proud to roll out the web's first in-depth comparisons of all three discs. In each review, we take a comprehensive look at how each disc on both formats stacks up, in terms of video and audio quality, depth of supplemental content, and overall ease of use and menu navigation. In some cases, the results were surprising, and sure to generate continued debate. You can read the reviews here: <a href="http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/trainingday.html">'Training Day,'</a> <a href="http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/kisskissbangbang.html">'Kiss Kiss Bang Bang'</a> and <a href="http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/rumorhasit.html">'Rumor Has It....'</a>"</i><br /><br /> <img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/original.jpeg" /> <br /><br />At last we have a head-to-head Blu-ray vs. HD-DVD comparison. High-Def Digest thoroughly compares some of the first movies to be released on both formats. Their tests give HD-DVD the clear victory. A snippet of the Training Day review: <i>"In our first head-to-head comparison, we found the HD DVD to be superior. The unfortunate cropping of the Blu-ray image, coupled with more noticeable compression artifacts and an overall darker cast, can't compete with the more consistently pleasing presentation of the HD DVD."</i> Unfortunately, since the player selections are rather limited at the moment, it's hard to tell whether the format or the player is to blame. So while this may give us our first hard evidence, it's still too early to tell in my opinion. And remember the Betamax lesson: a superior format does not necessarily mean a successful one. :wink:

[Phoenix]

Their tests give HD-DVD the clear victory. A snippet of the Training Day review: "In our first head-to-head comparison, we found the HD DVD to be superior. The unfortunate cropping of the Blu-ray image, coupled with more noticeable compression artifacts and an overall darker cast, can't compete with the more consistently pleasing presentation of the HD DVD."

I know there's more to the show, but so far, this assessment doesn't surprise me. Based on all the info I've come across, I've had my eye on HD-DVD as the better of the two.


...a superior format does not necessarily mean a successful one. :wink:

I think in the case of HiDef DVD's, it will.

[Felix Torres]

The problem that BD faces is that the best files they can possibly encode on a BD-ROM would be VC-1 1080p/60 (which they are pointedly not using). This is exactly what HD-DVD is using *now*.
So barring hardware differences due to the players, the disks themselves are incapable of delivering a better picture than HD-DVD disks.

Kinda hard to justify a 100% price premium when the ideal image quality for both specs is identical. If BD is going to win, it has to win on peripheral issues, like price, user-friendliness, etc. All things at which current BD-products fail to deliver.

Way to early to pick a winner, but BD is running significantly behind HD-DVD for 06. Going with MPEG-2 video and Java has proven to be very bad choices.

[Phoenix]

Felix, you mention VC-1 on BD, but I'm curious as to what your opinion is on MPEG-4 AVC (aka H.264) and its quality based on anything you may know about it. I know of these two formats as well as MPEG2 for HD content, and although I can't comment on this myself, if I'm understanding you, it sounds as if you believe MPEG2 is probably the worst of the bunch...

But since both BD and HD-DVD can support all three compression formats, it makes me think that any of the formats very well may be used on any given movie by the studios, and which could also suggest that this flexibility was bred into these disc technologies for exactly that purpose - flexibility for the studios. So based on this, even though these formats don't produce exactly the same quality, could we ever know (as end consumers) which one is being used from one movie to the next? Not that we'd need to, but it would be interesting to know. (Then again, maybe this info would be listed on the back of the case). This is all assuming that the studios are who determine which of the three compression formats will be used when encoding a movie in HD. Maybe you have some light to shed on this.

I'd also be curious to know which format consistently produces the best results, barring hardware differences.

[Felix Torres]

Yes, both formats support all three codecs but for different reasons.
And the studios can't afford codec proliferation; its not unlike OS migrations. You need new expensive back-end tools, training, etc. Now imagine the versioning control issues of managing multiple versions at different resolutions and different systems of each bit of content. The studios have no experience with that and they'd rather not acquire it if they can help it. Which is why the studious hate the format war and have tried to pick one format if possible. Going format agnostic is *expensive* in dollars and personnel.

This one reason BD was intended as an MPEG-2 only system from its inception. DVDs are MPEG2 and the structures are all in place to support MPEG2 and Sony sought to offset the higher hardware costs of BD with lower content-development costs, which is why they fought tooth and nail in the steering committee to keep it MPEG2-only. Adding VC-1, in particular, was done almost literally "over their dead body" and only because:
1- SMPTE tests had proven conclusively that VC-1 was markedly superior to the other two standards (the only reason SMPTE certified a MS-supplied tech)
2- HD-DVD had already adopted VC-1 as its *primary* codec.

Once VC-1 was on the table, Sony relented and added MPEG4 to try to dilute the VC-1 presence on BD. They were not happy with either addition, though; partly, because VC-1 is a cpu-intensive codec so it added costs to the player, but not as much as the costs added to the use of a JAVA-based menuing system; notice how the reviews point out the slow response of the BD menus? The BD-only studios are trying to save money on their end of the deal and likely ending up with the worst of all worlds, the way things are going.

Over on the other camp, MPEG2 is supported by HD-DVD for backwards compatibility and with the view that companies might want to take multi-dvd sets and condense them into one or two HD-DVDs without having to transcode. We may someday see non-HD TV seasons packaged in dual or triple-layer HD-DVDs.

MPEG4 was added to the HD-DVD spec at the last minute at the insistence of several hardware manufacturers who were uneasy at a spec that was starting to turn almost 100% Microsoft and who already had a lot of money invested in MPEG4 recording hardware. There has also been a lot of talk among the cell-phone vendors on standardizing on MPEG4 for phone-based video so the intent there was to support MPEG for end user-generated content, not for movie distribution. So adding MPEG4 to the spec was good for Apple, indifferent to MS, and bad for DiVX.

H.264 is basically a back-to-the-drawing-board, me-too, stretch of the basic MPEG4 spec to try to match DiVX and WMV (which isn't the same thing as VC-1, though they share common roots). Depending on the display device, H.264 can be pretty good at medium resolutions (VGA/XGA) but it is reportedly a distant fourth in the HD codec wars behind the various MS and DiVX products out there and the theatrical version of Motion JPEG2000.

(And yes, MPEG2 is decidely inferior to the four modern codecs; it doesn't compress as much, its color-space and dynamic range are more limited, and it produces more visible artifacts even at a lower compression rate. Think about it: would there even be an MPEG4, not to say anything about H.264, if MPEG2 were able to compete with DiVX and the MS codecs? MPEG2 was never meant for HD.)

Now, the differences between all four of the top contenders depends more on spec implementation and product limits than the average viewer's ability to discern, but the way I hear it, the current gold standard for absolute video quality is Motion JPEG2000, which is why it was adopted as the primary standard for digital cinema (in an implementation of greater-than HD resolution and very light compression that means each movie takes hundreds on GB of space and outrageous streaming rates--not a consumer product for a long time and that's the way they want it.)
Next up, come VC1 and WMV9 in their various incarnations including the form used in some digital cinema applications. Whether this continues depends on how cheap MotionJPEG2000 implementions can get. Indie movie makers like the low-cost WMV eco-system a lot so the MS spec may remain as a secondary digital cinema standard. It does allow for optical media movie distribution instead of encryted hard drives, after all.

DiVX HD reportedly has a slight edge over H.264 and they have even managed to sneak their codec into a few consumer electronics products but DiVX is probably fated to remain a PC-centric tech.

And then there is H.264 which is expensive to license but broadly supported in the cell-phone and camera arena. It is the codec of choice for those without a high-quality codec of their own, but it looks like it can barely play in the 1080p arena and won't likely stretch into QuadHD or digital cinema like VC-1 and Motion JPEG2000.

One of the reasons HD-DVD got an early start on BD (and could have launched as early as last summer if the DRM spec had been ready) is that it strongly leverages MS back-end mastering software for the creation of HD content. Because MS has long been aggressively courting the digital-theater market, they already had a suite of very high-grade mastering tools ready for VC-1 users on the day the submitted it to SMPTE.

BD, on the other hand, didn't finalize its spec until late this spring and, because Sony had envisioned it as an MPEG2 medium from day one, and in fact sold it on the basis that no new Mastering tools would be needed--just the existing DVD-generation tools, every single BD shipping this year and for the forseable future will be MPEG2. The BD camp simply has no tools with which to master the disks in anything else. Yes, theoretically, they can take a VC-1 file intended for HD-DVD and put it on a BD disk, but the data structures and data rates between the formats are different. And the audio and menu systems are different between the two standards, so it is a non-trivial effort to convert an HD-DVD release to a BD product. Hence the differences between the paired releases in the reviews.

From what I hear, what happened was the the MS folks did a very good job in setting the WMV parameters that produced the VC-1 spec and produced a near-optimal balance of compression, color space, data rate, and dynamic range. And, judging by the reviews I've seen, they hit a homerun in dynamic range so that VC-1 content, all else being equal on the originating source, produces more vivid, clean, lifelike output that is simply better looking to the human eye.

Now, theoretically, BD could come very close to replicating VC-1 quality just by throwing bits at the problem; running MPEG2 or MPEG4 at lower compression ratios, but they are limited by the amount of data they can stream out of the hardware and, worse, by their inability (to date) to produce measurable yields of the dual-layer BD50 discs. The rumor mill says the yield of usable dual-layer BD-ROMs are in the single digits and not too high, at that.

So, while each decision Sony and the BD-camp made in crafting the BD-ROM spec is individually defensible, the aggregate result is a flawed system that is potentially *fatally* flawed as a consumer product if they can't find a way to stamp out BD-50 discs within the next year or so. Getting the tools to produce VC-1 or MPEG releases alone won't do the trick because, without BD-50, HD-DVD would have the long-term edge in capacity (30GB, maybe 45GB vs 25GB), in disc cost (the film used to stamp out the data layer in BD disc is sole sourced, from Sony, of course), and (for now) in player retail pricing. (At $600 the PS3 is no panacea here.) Fixing the image quality problem does nothing to help sell BD because "as good as" is only a selling point if you are cheaper. If BD is going to sell at a premium over HD-DVD, it has to be clearly superior in enough aspects to justify the premium. And that is not in the cards for the first-gen BD-products, so HD-DVD seams to have the field to itself at least through summer 07.

So, as far as 2006-07 goes, the format war has in fact degenerated into an asymmetric race between a fully functioning system (HD-DVD) seeking to bring player prices down to the magic $300 before the competition can get their fundamental product manufacturing flaws fixed. And that doesn't even begin to address the player pricing issues BD faces.

The way it looks now, BD was rushed to market half-baked. If HD-DVD did not exist, we likely would not have seen a BD product hit the market before 07 or even 08.

In the world we live in, though, HD-DVD has a 2006 edge in available titles (400-200 announced by XMAS), cheaper, more responsive players, capacity, image quality, audio flexibility and/or quality, and are winning the hearts and minds of early adopters, especially the golden eyeball home theater crowd.

Its way early in the ballgame, but giving up grandslams in the first inning is not conducent to winning ballgames. BD has a *lot* of catching up to do in 07. And job 1 is getting those BD50 discs out the door. Cause otherwise its game over by 08.

[Phoenix]

I'm going to process all this info for a spell - I'm sure I'll have some other questions - but for now, that was a seriously interesting read.

Although most of that was news to me, again, HD-DVD's lead over BD doesn't surprise me. I've rooted for HD-DVD (and now even more so).

It's interesting to me to think about a company like Sony losing a format war and conceding to release their movies on a format it lost to. This happened in the time of VHS vs. Betamax. That has to be a serious blow to Sony's ego. Whether this happens in this round, of course is nothing short of hypothesis at this point, but I still find this aspect of business intriguing.

[Talkstr8t]

I have to take issue with a number of your assertions here.

Once VC-1 was on the table, Sony relented and added MPEG4 to try to dilute the VC-1 presence on BD. They were not happy with either addition, though; partly, because VC-1 is a cpu-intensive codec so it added costs to the player, but not as much as the costs added to the use of a JAVA-based menuing system; notice how the reviews point out the slow response of the BD menus?Sorry, this is simply incorrect. None of the currently-released BD titles have any BD-J content. Therefore, any sluggishness of the BD-P1000 has nothing to do with Java.
Depending on the display device, H.264 can be pretty good at medium resolutions (VGA/XGA) but it is reportedly a distant fourth in the HD codec wars behind the various MS and DiVX products out there and the theatrical version of Motion JPEG2000.You seem to be pointedly avoiding discussion of H.264 High Profile, which wasn't part of the original tests but is considered by most to be at least as good as and probably capable of better than VC-1, and which is in both specs.
Getting the tools to produce VC-1 or MPEG releases alone won't do the trick because, without BD-50, HD-DVD would have the long-term edge in capacity (30GB, maybe 45GB vs 25GB)Most titles currently-released will fit fine on a 25GB disc if encoded in VC-1 or H.264. Yes, it would be at the cost of either including lossless audio or including lots of HD bonus content, but in the short-term it would definitely solve the comparative PQ issue.
So, as far as 2006-07 goes, the format war has in fact degenerated into an asymmetric race between a fully functioning system (HD-DVD) seeking to bring player prices down to the magic $300 before the competition can get their fundamental product manufacturing flaws fixed. And that doesn't even begin to address the player pricing issues BD faces.You're ignoring the fact that by all credible analyses Toshiba is losing nearly $200 per player, which a)makes the prospect of a $300 player difficult, and b)reduces the incentive for other manufacturers to jump into the market. Further, the fact that Toshiba had to throw a very high-powered CPU into the HD-A1 (a 2.4GHz Pentium 4) further suggests cost reduction will be difficult since typical systems-on-a-chip have far less CPU power.
BD has a *lot* of catching up to do in 07. And job 1 is getting those BD50 discs out the door. Cause otherwise its game over by 08.I don't disagree that feasible manufacturability of BD50 is probably a requirement for BD's success, but you overstate the other issues. There will be at least five major brand BD players on the market within the next few months (Samsung, Pioneer, Philips, Panasonic, Sony) plus the PS3. This equals far more retail availability, more advertising, and more features. The $500 or $600 PS3 certainly does reduce the price gap with HD-DVD, and the number of titles will likely catch up and surpass HD-DVD simply due to the far higher studio support. Yes, BD-50 needs to be available. Otherwise there is no inherent Blu-ray deficiency which six months of product and content development won't cure.

- Talk

[Felix Torres]

I have to take issue with a number of your assertions here.



Been known to happen...

You seem to be pointedly avoiding discussion of H.264 High Profile, which wasn't part of the original tests but is considered by most to be at least as good as and probably capable of better than VC-1, and which is in both specs.


I merely quote what I've seen.
I welcome any creditable source with newer info.
As things stand, all the codec decisions were made and reported 12-18 months ago so they were made based on the data available then.
Is anybody other than the satellite guys using h.264 as an HD commercial content distribution system? Apple has shown interest in it but they haven't done anything meaningful with it yet, right?
I don't think any of the US studios are planning to use it but I can easily imagine some ABM outfit in europe or Asia going with it.
I do doubt it'll have any significant market impact in the format war any time soon. (06-07)

Most titles currently-released will fit fine on a 25GB disc if encoded in VC-1 or H.264. Yes, it would be at the cost of either including lossless audio or including lots of HD bonus content, but in the short-term it would definitely solve the comparative PQ issue.


Of course they would. The hybrid HD-DVD in the review used only one HD-DVD-layer (15GB).
VC-1 can fit an HD movie in 11GB, so 25GB leaves plenty of room for audio and sundries. That is why the use of MPEG2 *combined* with the lack of BD-50 is hurtling the BD cause. If Sony had gotten past their MS-phobia and actually used VC-1 from the start they would at least have equal PQ.
Wouldn't produce a *better* product, though, would it?
I already pointed this out; BD is more expensive--delivering equal quality at a higher price isn't going to work to their advantage. They need to be *better* to justify the higher cost. And they're not going to have a better Codec; the best they can do is equal. So "better" has to come from something else.
And audio is a *big* part of the home theater/golden eyeball arena so don't assume the lack of lossless is not going to cost them high-end sales.
They're running out of places to be "better" without BD-50.

You're ignoring the fact that by all credible analyses Toshiba is losing nearly $200 per player, which a)makes the prospect of a $300 player difficult, and b)reduces the incentive for other manufacturers to jump into the market. Further, the fact that Toshiba had to throw a very high-powered CPU into the HD-A1 (a 2.4GHz Pentium 4) further suggests cost reduction will be difficult since typical systems-on-a-chip have far less CPU power.- Talk

I'm only talking about the near-term, you know.
Everything I discuss is only focused on the 06-07 time period.
And I *have* pointed out that Toshiba needs to move to a true CE architecture for HD-DVD at some point.
The analyses, are as credible (or not) as anything out there, but they have hidden assumptions in them; they assume MS and Intel are actually charging Toshiba full market price. Ditto for other parts suppliers.
But, when you're talking about ramping up a multi-billion dollar standard you hope to milk for 10 years, losing a couple million upfront is not a big deal just the ante to get into the game.
I don't think anybody expect these things to sell by the million, do they?
So far its really only tens of thousands, which is why I said it is way early.
(in other words, Toshiba's "massive" losses are way less than Apple's advertising costs.)
Oh, and the way to cut costs on these things isn't system on-a-chip, but rather though DSPs and fixed-function logic. And those, at the required volumes, will get you there in the 07-08 time frame. Outside the scope of the period I talked about.
(Boundaries matter when you're on the outside, looking in.)
Using P4 is strictly a time-to-market decision.

As for alternate suppliers of players, well, Toshiba has RCA onboard now and they have Cina, Inc ramping up.
Lets's see what CES 07 brings, shall we?

I don't disagree that feasible manufacturability of BD50 is probably a requirement for BD's success, but you overstate the other issues. There will be at least five major brand BD players on the market within the next few months (Samsung, Pioneer, Philips, Panasonic, Sony) plus the PS3. This equals far more retail availability, more advertising, and more features. The $500 or $600 PS3 certainly does reduce the price gap with HD-DVD, and the number of titles will likely catch up and surpass HD-DVD simply due to the far higher studio support. Yes, BD-50 needs to be available. Otherwise there is no inherent Blu-ray deficiency which six months of product and content development won't cure.


None of which will have any impact this year.
More BD players? Yes, but none under $1000.
But the main BD issues are *not* with the players; its the discs,
That's not getting fixed this year.
Not even sure they can backtrack and move to a modern codec before XMAS 07.
In the short-term, which is what I'm talking about, their only option is to get BD-50 out the door.

We just have different ideas of how fast the studios can move from one mastering system to another.
What I've seen and heard says it is a 12-18 month effort.
If Sony decided to swallow their pride and move to VC-1 today, they still couldn't get content using it out before late 07.

Do consider that I said that all of Sony's choices are defensible, *by themselves*.
What is messing them up is the *combination* of factors of an old codec, a manufacturing ramp-up problem, and underestimating the opposition.
Plus, the old Sony stand-bye of *overestimating* themselves.
Sony is very much a NIH house; they are very insular.
They *always* over-promise and under-deliver. Sometimes, they get away with it (PS2, where they FUD'ed Dreamcast with vapor promises that never came to fruition and basically bluffed Sega out of the market) but of late this is really starting to hurt them.

The key difference between HD-DVD and BD is that Toshiba/NEC started out with a goal of making a product that could be developed and manufactured without requiring major "scheduled breakthroughs". So they sacrificed theoretical storage capability for a cheaper to develop and manufacture system that they knew could hit the market by 06 with full capabilities.

Sony chose to push the envelope and trust their engineers to figure out the unknowns and make breakthroughs when needed. They chose to go with higher hardware costs in return for cheaper backend costs. That is how they got studio backing ("no new development tools needed!").
But they over-estimated their ability to deliver on time, as they usually do. (Even the PS3 is running 6 months late, don't forget; the thing was due this past spring.)

Sure, Sony can ship competitive movies on BD25 if they swallow their pride and backtrack on their promises to the studios. (Competitive but not better.) But then their equation collapses. Cause you get the worst of all worlds; higher backend costs for the new development systems, higher manufacturing costs for the discs themselves (which rely on a Sony-exclusive foil that is not cheap), and higher-cost players with lower capacity.

Extra hardware features aren't going to win this war. And neither is the PS3. This war is going to be won the old-fashioned way; win the early-adopters first, build up your reputation, hit $299 first.
BD is lagging in all these areas.

Again: it is way too early to pick a winner.
The HD-DVD crew can still screw-up--but you can't pin all your hopes on that. The race will most likely be settled in the next year or so, so switching codecs is *not* going to save BD. Getting BD-50 out the door will. Maybe.
(We have yet to hear from MS on the hardware front, you know; some of the rumors... :wink: )

It really all does hinge on BD-50 getting here sooner rather than later.
Or else...

PS - Remember I mentioned BD requires a Sony-supplied foil?
Apparently that is sticking in the Eurocrat's craw:
http://news.com.com/European+panel+investigates+DVD-standards+rivalry/2100-1047_3-6103590.html?tag=nefd.top
They seem most concerned about the studios and the disc manufacturers than the player makers, so any antitrust action in this non-existent market is more likely aimed at Sony or MS than Toshiba.

[amirm]

Hello everyone. New to this forum. Was prompted to post something here, by Felix's great post and "Talk's" reply back. First a bit about me, and a bit about Talk.

I manage our HD DVD development at Microsoft which includes our VC-1 video compression among other things. I usually hang out in AVS Forum with the same alias.

"Talk" is Bill Sheppard from Sun Microsystems whose primary and only interest is the BD-J (Java) subsystem in BD format. To best of my knowledge, he has no knowledge of video compression or really video technology. I don't even consider his knowledge to be at enthusiast level let alone expert. So his comments below are quite surprising.

I have to take issue with a number of your assertions here.
Fancy finding you there Bill :)

Sorry, this is simply incorrect. None of the currently-released BD titles have any BD-J content. Therefore, any sluggishness of the BD-P1000 has nothing to do with Java.
True. But I don't know why you would volunteer saying that the BD-J subsystem is not used in BD format, when its competition, iHD is used in every disc from major studios in US for HD DVD. So not only is BD losing out functionality wise here, it also has poor performance with even its basic menu system. If the Samsung can't render simple menus fast, one wonders how it will handle BD-J. Or maybe the performance of BD-J is so poor that studios were told not to use it? One wonders, no? :)

You seem to be pointedly avoiding discussion of H.264 High Profile, which wasn't part of the original tests but is considered by most to be at least as good as and probably capable of better than VC-1, and which is in both specs.
Bill, you know you have no expertise whatsoever in matters of compression formats. So repeating talking points like this doesn't advance the topic. H.264 with HP profile is in use on HD DVD titles in Japan. Yet they universally underperform VC-1 used in US.

The HP profile does improve the quality of AVC/H.264 and that is why it was hastily added to AVC after it lost out VC-1. Indeed, one of its techniques, adaptive block size, was taken from VC-1. The same technique was thought to be ineffective during the standardization of AVC!

As I have posted extensively in AVS Forum, the softening effect of the AVC "loop filter" causes it to have lower effective resolution on HD encode than VC-1. This is the reason all three US studios, after extensive testing, chose VC-1 for their primary codec in HD DVD.

Most titles currently-released will fit fine on a 25GB disc if encoded in VC-1 or H.264. Yes, it would be at the cost of either including lossless audio or including lots of HD bonus content, but in the short-term it would definitely solve the comparative PQ issue.
So now, we have a situation where the format the supposedly had a capacity advantage, is being justified as being "good enough" with lower capacity than HD DVD-30, and at higher cost? Boy, how far BD has come down from the mountain :).


You're ignoring the fact that by all credible analyses Toshiba is losing nearly $200 per player, which a)makes the prospect of a $300 player difficult, and b)reduces the incentive for other manufacturers to jump into the market.
Interesting that BD companies seem to think they have “incentives” to enter that market, when there is a game console with BD playback at $500 but you somehow think that having a player only at that price, is more of an issue in HD DVD. And what are the losses for Sony again here on PS3? Besides, no one really know if Toshiba is losing money or not. That is not a factual statement but a guess form some company with no insight into what the real component costs may be to Toshiba.


Further, the fact that Toshiba had to throw a very high-powered CPU into the HD-A1 (a 2.4GHz Pentium 4) further suggests cost reduction will be difficult since typical systems-on-a-chip have far less CPU power.
The Samsung BD player uses a very similar architecture with a secondary co-processor and lots of RAM. Both designs are as they should be for 1G players: capable of quick modifications rather that cost optimized.

Of course, the Toshiba has far more advanced signal processing at half the price of Samsung. Its cluster of 4 DSPs for example, lets it decode advanced audio codecs such as TrueHD, and DD+ in addition to full base management as compared to very limited version in Samsung BD player. So once again, you pay more for BD and get less in return.


I don't disagree that feasible manufacturability of BD50 is probably a requirement for BD's success
If you want to add to people’s understanding of the situation here, you could volunteer some data on yields and cycle time of BD-50. Since you agree this is key technology for the, your silence here is very telling.

There will be at least five major brand BD players on the market within the next few months (Samsung, Pioneer, Philips, Panasonic, Sony) plus the PS3.
As I have noted, the highest volume players this year by far will be the Toshiba, PS3 and Xbox 360. The other players will be at noise level due to their high cost and currently poor performance. With 75% of people on AVS Forum returning their Samsung and 90% happy with their Toshiba player, there is very good data that my predictions are right so far.


This equals far more retail availability, more advertising, and more features.
Not really. How much do you think these companies will advertise for an expensive player that sells a few thousand units, versus a Plasma/LCD TV that has sales up to 100X higher? Economics will play a strong role here eventually.

The $500 or $600 PS3 certainly does reduce the price gap with HD-DVD
PS3 will have to duke it out with our console :). That should make their hands full. BTW, we just demoed our 360 playing HD DVD content at DVD Forum meeting. To my knowledge, no PS3 has been shown to play actual BD commercial titles. Isn’t that amazing after so much talk about PS3 and BD capability?

and the number of titles will likely catch up and surpass HD-DVD simply due to the far higher studio support.
“like” and “will” are two different things. While all three US HD DVD studios are humming, producing HD DVD titles, BD studios like Fox and Disney are MIA. This has given us a commanding lead in HD DVD that will continue for a long time. In addition, it is not the count that matters, but the quality. HD DVD titles are far more mainstream titles with Academy Award Winners such as The Million Dollar Baby.

Amir

[rdjam]

Just so everyone knows when the HD-DVD promo tour starts they are going to be giving away FREE Xbox HD-DVD drive and Toshiba players. There is a guy over on slashdot that some relatives in the PR business and that the tip they gave him...

Let the good times roll !!

http://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=193503&amp;&amp;mode=thread&amp;pid=15874935#15882162

[Talkstr8t]

First a bit about me, and a bit about Talk.

I manage our HD DVD development at Microsoft which includes our VC-1 video compression among other things. I usually hang out in AVS Forum with the same alias.Amir left out a few points in his bio, such as his prolific use of lies of omission and misleading statements to suggest a reality different than can be supported by facts, or that many of his posts were discredited once a Blu-ray insider appeared at AVS to refute his false claims.

"Talk" is Bill Sheppard from Sun Microsystems whose primary and only interest is the BD-J (Java) subsystem in BD format. To best of my knowledge, he has no knowledge of video compression or really video technology.Says Amir. I've not disclosed my identity because I have no interest in filtering my posts based on what I'm comfortable having attributed to my employer. My name is "Bill"; anything else about my identity is Amir's conjecture and can't be substantiated. And while it's not my primary area of expertise, I have more-than-sufficient knowledge of video technology to add value to this discussion.

Sorry, this is simply incorrect. None of the currently-released BD titles have any BD-J content.True. But I don't know why you would volunteer saying that the BD-J subsystem is not used in BD format, when its competition, iHD is used in every disc from major studios in US for HD DVD.Because Felix claimed the Samsung's menu response was due to BD-J. It isn't. And the fact iHD is used on every HD-DVD disc is something of a red herring, because it's the only way to author HD-DVD content. Blu-ray gives you two platform options, HDMV and BD-J. BD-J is more advanced, and hence the initial titles don't make use of its capabilities, just as the initial HD-DVD titles didn't offer any advanced features beyond the menuing system. No one "told" the studios not to use it, as you're well aware.
You know you have no expertise whatsoever in matters of compression formats. So repeating talking points like this doesn't advance the topic. H.264 with HP profile is in use on HD DVD titles in Japan. Yet they universally underperform VC-1 used in US.Readers, here's a great example of AmirTactics. First of all, Amir doesn't know my background or level of video compression expertise. Secondly, the point I posted was correct (the codec tests didn't include the H.264 High Profile, which is capable of substantially better picture quality at a given bandwidth than Main Profile), which he didn't refute. So even if I had no expertise in the subject, the information I provided was correct and clearly added value to the topic.

The HP profile does improve the quality of AVC/H.264 and that is why it was hastily added to AVC after it lost out VC-1. Indeed, one of its techniques, adaptive block size, was taken from VC-1.None of which is relevant to the fact that H.264/AVC is capable of better picture quality than what was tested against VC-1.

As I have posted extensively in AVS Forum, the softening effect of the AVC "loop filter" causes it to have lower effective resolution on HD encode than VC-1. This is the reason all three US studios, after extensive testing, chose VC-1 for their primary codec in HD DVD. Of course, the fact that Microsoft was willing to provide substantial assistance in doing so, while there is no equivalent "sponsor" for H.264, may also have had an impact on these decisions. And there's no evidence that any of the BD-only studios plan to use VC-1, while at least one is known to have selected H.264/AVC.

Perhaps you can tell us why H.264/AVC has been adopted by DirecTV and many other broadcasters worldwide, while VC-1 has seen little if any consumer electronics adoption outside of HD-DVD?

Interesting that BD companies seem to think they have “incentives” to enter that market, when there is a game console with BD playback at $500 but you somehow think that having a player only at that price, is more of an issue in HD DVD.Of course. Few early adopters will be willing to put a game console in their HT rack, especially just to save a few hundred dollars, and it's likely that as a pure BD player most of the standalones will be more convenient to use.

And what are the losses for Sony again here on PS3? This has never been in dispute, but the PS3 (along with the PS2, Xbox, and Xbox 360) all have well-known business models which allow the player to be subsidized due to the royalties earned on games. Unless you've been woefully incorrect on the size of the eventual HD-DVD patent pool, Toshiba can't hope to earn back in movie royalties what Sony (and Microsoft) make from game sales.

Besides, no one really know if Toshiba is losing money or not. That is not a factual statement but a guess form some company with no insight into what the real component costs may be to Toshiba.So how do you explain the quote from Mr. Fujii of Toshiba who acknowledges at http://www.asahi.com/business/topics/TKY200605170087.html that Toshiba would need to sell 600-700K units to break even? If you don't trust the translation which has been provided at AVS Forum, you can access the Google translation and see:

- - In North America for the mass sales store the re-gray fabric was held down approximately 500 dollars (approximately 55,000 Yen), but is profit agreeable?

　“While rivaling with BD, it is the strategic price which adds the price of existence DVD. If loss occurs but, this year in the world 600,000 ~ 700,000 unit can sell with present time, can recover the deficit at 1 year half,”

Of course, I expect you'll refute both the human translation and Google's translation as being ambiguous or open to interpretation.

Of course, the Toshiba has far more advanced signal processing at half the price of Samsung. Its cluster of 4 DSPs for example, lets it decode advanced audio codecs such as TrueHD, and DD+ in addition to full base management as compared to very limited version in Samsung BD player. So once again, you pay more for BD and get less in return.Hence the benefit of an actual competitive market, a prospect which would appear to be woefully distant in the HD-DVD camp. With Philips, Pioneer, Sony, and Panasonic players all coming to market in the next few months, consumers will have lots of choices.

If you want to add to people’s understanding of the situation here, you could volunteer some data on yields and cycle time of BD-50. Since you agree this is key technology for the, your silence here is very telling.What silence? I'm confident BD50 discs will be available this year. I'm not particularly well-versed in disc manufacturability, but I trust what my BD colleagues who are tell me. It's no secret BD50 isn't on the market yet.

As I have noted, the highest volume players this year by far will be the Toshiba, PS3 and Xbox 360. The other players will be at noise level due to their high cost and currently poor performance.Oh, you've used the non-Samsung players and already proclaim them to have poor performance? Interesting. Besides which, what is the importance of your naming the top three players by volume? None of the BD manufacturers expects their first generation player to sell large volumes, that's the nature of pioneering a new market. Regardless, consumers will see Blu-ray coming from most of the top-tier CE vendors, while they'll see HD-DVD coming from one CE vendor. Which do you think will yield more impressions?

With 75% of people on AVS Forum returning their Samsung and 90% happy with their Toshiba player, there is very good data that my predictions are right so far.Oh, so every BD purchaser on AVS Forum participated in the poll, and no HD-DVD supporters voted in that poll in order to make Blu-ray look worse? You're either incredibly gullible or have a very poor handle on polling science and the concept of "self-selection". If you show me a report from Best Buy that 75% of all BD players have been returned you might have some credibility. Regardless, I have never claimed the Samsung player demonstrates all that Blu-ray is capable of.

How much do you think these companies will advertise for an expensive player that sells a few thousand units, versus a Plasma/LCD TV that has sales up to 100X higher? Economics will play a strong role here eventually.Yes, the economics of each of those vendors having spent tens of millions of dollars to build their players. You actually think that they're not going to advertise them? Advertising now is an investment in future sales and brand prestige and equity.

BTW, we just demoed our 360 playing HD DVD content at DVD Forum meeting. To my knowledge, no PS3 has been shown to play actual BD commercial titles. Isn’t that amazing after so much talk about PS3 and BD capability?The PS3 has been demonstrated very sparingly, and the people most interested in seeing what it is capable of care about seeing game titles, not movies. If you're suggesting the PS3 won't actually be able to play Blu-ray discs come out and say so. If not, what's your point?

While all three US HD DVD studios are humming, producing HD DVD titles, BD studios like Fox and Disney are MIA.Considering Paramount has no more releases scheduled this year, I wouldn't call that "humming".

HD DVD titles are far more mainstream titles with Academy Award Winners such as The Million Dollar Baby.Hmm, I guess neither Crash nor Good Night and Good Luck had any Academy Awards.

[The_Real_rdjam]

Just so everyone knows when the HD-DVD promo tour starts they are going to be giving away FREE Xbox HD-DVD drive and Toshiba players. There is a guy over on slashdot that some relatives in the PR business and that the tip they gave him...

Let the good times roll !!

http://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=193503&amp;&amp;mode=thread&amp;pid=15874935#15882162
Now this is just the sort of underhanded behaviour I would expect from Blurray supporters.

How typical that when they are losing the "war" so badly to HD DVD they resort to this sort of personal attack on the more vocal supporters of the competing format.

Needless to say folks - the post captioned above is not from me, who most of you know as rdjam on the AVS FORUM.

I've reported the post, so we'll see what happens - but I'm sure this type of behaviour breaks the forum rules...

Oh - and by the way - now that you've gotten me to register here (whoever you are) I'll be a happy and regular contributor to the format discussions here also :) Congratulations ;)

[The_Real_rdjam]

First a bit about me, and a bit about Talk.

I manage our HD DVD development at Microsoft which includes our VC-1 video compression among other things. I usually hang out in AVS Forum with the same alias.Amir left out a few points in his bio, such as his prolific use of lies of omission and misleading statements to suggest a reality different than can be supported by facts, or that many of his posts were discredited once a Blu-ray insider appeared at AVS to refute his false claims.Bill - Amir does not lie. He is a very respected contributor on AVS and is very open about who he is and what his agenda is. You on the other hand prefer not to be open about your identity and spend loads of time attacking other contributors and their credibilty

"Talk" is Bill Sheppard from Sun Microsystems whose primary and only interest is the BD-J (Java) subsystem in BD format. To best of my knowledge, he has no knowledge of video compression or really video technology.Says Amir. I've not disclosed my identity because I have no interest in filtering my posts based on what I'm comfortable having attributed to my employer. My name is "Bill"; anything else about my identity is Amir's conjecture and can't be substantiated. And while it's not my primary area of expertise, I have more-than-sufficient knowledge of video technology to add value to this discussion.Bill - you have been going up against some pretty big encoding experts lately and claim to know better than them. I think it would be only fair that people know who you are and your "qualifications" in the area. You seem much better at going after the posts and posters than the specific info

Sorry, this is simply incorrect. None of the currently-released BD titles have any BD-J content.True. But I don't know why you would volunteer saying that the BD-J subsystem is not used in BD format, when its competition, iHD is used in every disc from major studios in US for HD DVD.Because Felix claimed the Samsung's menu response was due to BD-J. It isn't. And the fact iHD is used on every HD-DVD disc is something of a red herring, because it's the only way to author HD-DVD content. Blu-ray gives you two platform options, HDMV and BD-J. BD-J is more advanced, and hence the initial titles don't make use of its capabilities, just as the initial HD-DVD titles didn't offer any advanced features beyond the menuing system. No one "told" the studios not to use it, as you're well aware.
You know you have no expertise whatsoever in matters of compression formats. So repeating talking points like this doesn't advance the topic. H.264 with HP profile is in use on HD DVD titles in Japan. Yet they universally underperform VC-1 used in US.Readers, here's a great example of AmirTactics. First of all, Amir doesn't know my background or level of video compression expertise. Forget Amir for a second - how about YOU enlighten US? Secondly, the point I posted was correct (the codec tests didn't include the H.264 High Profile, which is capable of substantially better picture quality at a given bandwidth than Main Profile), which he didn't refute. So even if I had no expertise in the subject, the information I provided was correct and clearly added value to the topic.Semantics - the fact is that the Japanese releases are using said same "High Profile" and are universally acknowledged to fall short on PQ in comparison to VC1

The HP profile does improve the quality of AVC/H.264 and that is why it was hastily added to AVC after it lost out VC-1. Indeed, one of its techniques, adaptive block size, was taken from VC-1.None of which is relevant to the fact that H.264/AVC is capable of better picture quality than what was tested against VC-1.

As I have posted extensively in AVS Forum, the softening effect of the AVC "loop filter" causes it to have lower effective resolution on HD encode than VC-1. This is the reason all three US studios, after extensive testing, chose VC-1 for their primary codec in HD DVD. Of course, the fact that Microsoft was willing to provide substantial assistance in doing so, while there is no equivalent "sponsor" for H.264, may also have had an impact on these decisions. And there's no evidence that any of the BD-only studios plan to use VC-1, while at least one is known to have selected H.264/AVC. As you know (since I'm assuming you read the first page of this thread carefully, since it recaps the same information outlined in other forums) Sony assumed that Mpeg2 would be sufficient, since they thought that they would have Dual Layer BR. In fact, Sony never developed the tools to author VC1 on Blurray, and also ensured that all studios had to depend on the Sony tools for the launch, hence deepening their own problem.

Perhaps you can tell us why H.264/AVC has been adopted by DirecTV and many other broadcasters worldwide, while VC-1 has seen little if any consumer electronics adoption outside of HD-DVD?I'll leave this to AMir, as it's his area - but the way I understood it is that VC1 wasn't in play at the time those decisions were made.

Interesting that BD companies seem to think they have “incentives” to enter that market, when there is a game console with BD playback at $500 but you somehow think that having a player only at that price, is more of an issue in HD DVD.Of course. Few early adopters will be willing to put a game console in their HT rack, especially just to save a few hundred dollars, and it's likely that as a pure BD player most of the standalones will be more convenient to use.

And what are the losses for Sony again here on PS3? This has never been in dispute, but the PS3 (along with the PS2, Xbox, and Xbox 360) all have well-known business models which allow the player to be subsidized due to the royalties earned on games. Unless you've been woefully incorrect on the size of the eventual HD-DVD patent pool, Toshiba can't hope to earn back in movie royalties what Sony (and Microsoft) make from game sales.

Besides, no one really know if Toshiba is losing money or not. That is not a factual statement but a guess form some company with no insight into what the real component costs may be to Toshiba.So how do you explain the quote from Mr. Fujii of Toshiba who acknowledges at http://www.asahi.com/business/topics/TKY200605170087.html that Toshiba would need to sell 600-700K units to break even? If you don't trust the translation which has been provided at AVS Forum, you can access the Google translation and see:

- - In North America for the mass sales store the re-gray fabric was held down approximately 500 dollars (approximately 55,000 Yen), but is profit agreeable?

　“While rivaling with BD, it is the strategic price which adds the price of existence DVD. If loss occurs but, this year in the world 600,000 ~ 700,000 unit can sell with present time, can recover the deficit at 1 year half,”

Of course, I expect you'll refute both the human translation and Google's translation as being ambiguous or open to interpretation. Actually, all I'M refuting is your opinion that this has ANYTHING at all to do with the topic being discussed on the first page. As usual, you are out here shovelling FUD around instead of allowing a balanced conversation about the relevant facts

Of course, the Toshiba has far more advanced signal processing at half the price of Samsung. Its cluster of 4 DSPs for example, lets it decode advanced audio codecs such as TrueHD, and DD+ in addition to full base management as compared to very limited version in Samsung BD player. So once again, you pay more for BD and get less in return.Hence the benefit of an actual competitive market, a prospect which would appear to be woefully distant in the HD-DVD camp. With Philips, Pioneer, Sony, and Panasonic players all coming to market in the next few months, consumers will have lots of choices. HUH? Given a chance, Sony et al would have ensured that there never was an HD DVD format in the first place. Sony was fully committed to giving the consumer Mpeg2 HD for the next 10 years, which would have been a tragedy. Not to mention they thought the minimum standard audio for the next-gen format of the future should be good ol' DD and DTS from the DVD era. The players you speak of are double the price and more of the HD DVD players, yet don't offer many of the standard features of HD DVD. Yes, competition is great, but for the BD camp to somehow attempt to take credit for it is rather funny.

If you want to add to people’s understanding of the situation here, you could volunteer some data on yields and cycle time of BD-50. Since you agree this is key technology for the, your silence here is very telling.What silence? I'm confident BD50 discs will be available this year. I'm not particularly well-versed in disc manufacturability, but I trust what my BD colleagues who are tell me. It's no secret BD50 isn't on the market yet. Well at least that's one admission. Now perhaps you could consider admitting that you are not an encoding expert either? ;)

As I have noted, the highest volume players this year by far will be the Toshiba, PS3 and Xbox 360. The other players will be at noise level due to their high cost and currently poor performance.Oh, you've used the non-Samsung players and already proclaim them to have poor performance? Interesting. No he didn't say that - that's your "spin". The real problem that will hurt sales of BD players are the terrible quality of the releases - which will not change until next year Besides which, what is the importance of your naming the top three players by volume? None of the BD manufacturers expects their first generation player to sell large volumes, that's the nature of pioneering a new market. Regardless, consumers will see Blu-ray coming from most of the top-tier CE vendors, while they'll see HD-DVD coming from one CE vendor. Which do you think will yield more impressions? Well it's pretty obvious to most what's happening. An underdog is seeding the market with the better players to gain market dominance, at which point there will be a lot more manufacturers.

With 75% of people on AVS Forum returning their Samsung and 90% happy with their Toshiba player, there is very good data that my predictions are right so far.Oh, so every BD purchaser on AVS Forum participated in the poll, and no HD-DVD supporters voted in that poll in order to make Blu-ray look worse? You're either incredibly gullible or have a very poor handle on polling science and the concept of "self-selection". If you show me a report from Best Buy that 75% of all BD players have been returned you might have some credibility. Regardless, I have never claimed the Samsung player demonstrates all that Blu-ray is capable of. How you could even bother to try to refute these is beyond me. While you can claim anything about either of the polls, they were both subject to the exact same errors. Apples to Apples, people have hated the first BD player. Whereas they have been ecstatic with the HD DVD player. This same pattern is repeated in all the objective and subjective discussion on AVS and other forums also, as it also is by the many reviewers.

How much do you think these companies will advertise for an expensive player that sells a few thousand units, versus a Plasma/LCD TV that has sales up to 100X higher? Economics will play a strong role here eventually.Yes, the economics of each of those vendors having spent tens of millions of dollars to build their players. You actually think that they're not going to advertise them? Advertising now is an investment in future sales and brand prestige and equity.

BTW, we just demoed our 360 playing HD DVD content at DVD Forum meeting. To my knowledge, no PS3 has been shown to play actual BD commercial titles. Isn’t that amazing after so much talk about PS3 and BD capability?The PS3 has been demonstrated very sparingly, and the people most interested in seeing what it is capable of care about seeing game titles, not movies. If you're suggesting the PS3 won't actually be able to play Blu-ray discs come out and say so. If not, what's your point? "very sparingly" is an understatement of the highest order. Even at E3, so close before launch, there was very little in the way of game demos, let alone trying to do anything with Blurray. Instead of complaining when HD DVD companies tout their successes, perhaps Sony should get out and start demonstrating that their stuf actually works - if it really does... THIS is the way most companies with a winning story get the word out. There are scads of EX-Blurray supporters on the forums today who bought into the Blurray promises over the years, only to be let-down horribly - and who now own HD DVD. So far the PS3 has been the subject of LOTS of talk, yet no "walk"

While all three US HD DVD studios are humming, producing HD DVD titles, BD studios like Fox and Disney are MIA.Considering Paramount has no more releases scheduled this year, I wouldn't call that "humming".

HD DVD titles are far more mainstream titles with Academy Award Winners such as The Million Dollar Baby.Hmm, I guess neither Crash nor Good Night and Good Luck had any Academy Awards.Crash was OK, but that's one. And is a "black and white-esque" movie REALLY taking maximum advantage of "beyond high definition" to the customers' satisfaction? Just thought I'd ask :)

[Talkstr8t]

Amir left out a few points in his bio, such as his prolific use of lies of omission and misleading statements to suggest a reality different than can be supported by facts, or that many of his posts were discredited once a Blu-ray insider appeared at AVS to refute his false claims.Amir does not lie. He is a very respected contributor on AVS and is very open about who he is and what his agenda is.
He certainly has his fans on AVS, but his habit of leaving out facts where convenient (lies of omission) are also well-documented, such as the fact that BD-J was ultimately overwhelmingly selected over iHD in the BDA.

You on the other hand prefer not to be open about your identity and spend loads of time attacking other contributors and their credibilty
The relevant part of my identity is I'm a Blu-ray insider, a point I've made abundantly clear. My employer will benefit from the success of Blu-ray. My name or who I work for isn't particularly relevant here; I stand by the quality of the information and opinions I post, not my reputation within the industry. I don't attack contributors credibility, I question the substance of the post or the tactics of the poster, as justified.

You have been going up against some pretty big encoding experts lately and claim to know better than them.
Please provide a single example of where I have posted incorrect or disputed information regarding encoding? Just because there are others with more expertise doesn't automatically invalidate what I've posted. I'd be happy to address any example you care to provide.

Semantics - the fact is that the Japanese releases are using said same "High Profile" and are universally acknowledged to fall short on PQ in comparison to VC1
Which is completely meaningless information. Do you not understand the distinction between the capability of an encoder and the quality of the encoding? The fact that the Japanese releases may fall short on PQ reflects on the encoding job, not the codec. My point stands. The original codec shootout compared VC-1 against a less capable form of AVC than is present in the BD and HD-DVD specs (another lie of omission from Amir, incidentally). Using that shootout to claim AVC is inherently incapable of providing the same PQ as VC1 is simply not valid. Do you disagree with this statement? If not, what's your point?

Perhaps you can tell us why H.264/AVC has been adopted by DirecTV and many other broadcasters worldwide, while VC-1 has seen little if any consumer electronics adoption outside of HD-DVD?I'll leave this to AMir, as it's his area - but the way I understood it is that VC1 wasn't in play at the time those decisions were made.
You understand incorrectly. VC1 was absolutely an option for these providers (and in fact was selected two years ago by USDTV, then quietly abandoned).

Actually, all I'M refuting is your opinion that this has ANYTHING at all to do with the topic being discussed on the first page. As usual, you are out here shovelling FUD around instead of allowing a balanced conversation about the relevant facts How so? Felix brought up pricing in his post:
So, as far as 2006-07 goes, the format war has in fact degenerated into an asymmetric race between a fully functioning system (HD-DVD) seeking to bring player prices down to the magic $300 before the competition can get their fundamental product manufacturing flaws fixed. And that doesn't even begin to address the player pricing issues BD faces.
Upon which Amir called into question the well-documented belief that Toshiba is losing money on the players. Precisely what FUD did I post? I documented my claim with a specific reference. I've not seen you or Amir do the same.

HUH? Given a chance, Sony et al would have ensured that there never was an HD DVD format in the first place.
Which is no different than Toshiba and Microsoft trying to ensure there's not Blu-ray. The difference is that the overwhelming majority of the CE, PC, and content community back Blu-ray, while HD-DVD has essentially devolved to a Toshiba/Microsoft niche product. So which camp has a competitive environment?

Well at least that's one admission. Now perhaps you could consider admitting that you are not an encoding expert either?
Absolutely. I'm not an encoding expert. Yet I'm well-versed in the technology and am fully capable of assimiliating information gleaned elsewhere and forming my own insights and opinions. I'm still waiting for you to show a single instance where I have posted something clearly wrong, misguided, or unsupportable conjecture.

The real problem that will hurt sales of BD players are the terrible quality of the releases - which will not change until next year
Can you provide a single piece of evidence to support your conclusion? It's been widely reported that more than one studio will release Blu-ray titles on advance codecs this year. The Samsung has been reported (by a Microsoft employee, no less) to provide identical PQ to the Toshiba player when provided an identical VC-1 clip. So how do you possibly conclude that "all releases this year will have terrible quality"?

How you could even bother to try to refute these is beyond me. While you can claim anything about either of the polls, they were both subject to the exact same errors.
My point is the numbers Amir quoted are scientificially meaningless. No one is claiming the Samsung has the same level of customer satisfaction as the Toshiba, but claiming a 75% Blu-ray return rate based on a fully non-scientific poll is absurd.

"very sparingly" is an understatement of the highest order. Even at E3, so close before launch, there was very little in the way of game demos, let alone trying to do anything with Blu-ray. Instead of complaining when HD DVD companies tout their successes, perhaps Sony should get out and start demonstrating that their stuf actually works - if it really does... THIS is the way most companies with a winning story get the word out.
And this is the exact same road to market the PS2 took, yet it has been perhaps the single most successful CE product ever released.

Crash was OK, but that's one. And is a "black and white-esque" movie REALLY taking maximum advantage of "beyond high definition" to the customers' satisfaction?Then you clearly haven't seen it. The black and white cinematography adds an incredible 3D aspect to the image, and reviews have broadly noted that to be the case.

- Talk

[Phoenix]

Long live HD-DVD! :D :P

[The_Real_rdjam]

I don't attack contributors credibility, I question the substance of the post or the tactics of the poster, as justified.You mean like calling Amir a liar in each post?

Semantics - the fact is that the Japanese releases are using said same "High Profile" and are universally acknowledged to fall short on PQ in comparison to VC1 Which is completely meaningless information... Using that shootout to claim AVC is inherently incapable of providing the same PQ as VC1 is simply not valid. Do you disagree with this statement? If not, what's your point? My point was just as stated - in the HERE and NOW, AVC releases have not yet matched the quality of VC1 releases - nothing to do with the shootout you keep mentioning. So yes, I disagree.


Actually, all I'M refuting is your opinion that this has ANYTHING at all to do with the topic being discussed on the first page. As usual, you are out here shovelling FUD around instead of allowing a balanced conversation about the relevant facts How so? Felix brought up pricing in his post:
So, as far as 2006-07 goes, the format war has in fact degenerated into an asymmetric race between a fully functioning system (HD-DVD) seeking to bring player prices down to the magic $300 before the competition can get their fundamental product manufacturing flaws fixed. And that doesn't even begin to address the player pricing issues BD faces.
Upon which Amir called into question the well-documented belief that Toshiba is losing money on the players. Precisely what FUD did I post? I documented my claim with a specific reference. I've not seen you or Amir do the same.Amir did not bring the irrelevant issue of "rumoured" player loss-selling into the discussion he merely replied to it. The shovelling of that FUD into the conversation was what I was referring to...

HUH? Given a chance, Sony et al would have ensured that there never was an HD DVD format in the first place.
Which is no different than Toshiba and Microsoft trying to ensure there's not Blu-ray. The difference is that the overwhelming majority of the CE, PC, and content community back Blu-ray, while HD-DVD has essentially devolved to a Toshiba/Microsoft niche product. So which camp has a competitive environment?There's a diference to killing in the womb versus killing on the battlefield...

Well at least that's one admission. Now perhaps you could consider admitting that you are not an encoding expert either?
Absolutely. I'm not an encoding expert. Yet I'm well-versed in the technology ..etc etcThank you.

The real problem that will hurt sales of BD players are the terrible quality of the releases - which will not change until next year
Can you provide a single piece of evidence to support your conclusion? It's been widely reported that more than one studio will release Blu-ray titles on advance codecs this year. The Samsung has been reported (by a Microsoft employee, no less) to provide identical PQ to the Toshiba player when provided an identical VC-1 clip. So how do you possibly conclude that "all releases this year will have terrible quality"?That's a surprising request - there are scores of "prior blur-aid supporters on AVS Forum whom I would "cite" as evidence that the awfull quality of Blur-aid releases is hurting player sales. Do you actually disagree with my stating that they have made those feelings eminently clear? Or will only an Arthur Anderson study fill that crack in your belly?

How you could even bother to try to refute these is beyond me. While you can claim anything about either of the polls, they were both subject to the exact same errors.
My point is the numbers Amir quoted are scientificially meaningless. No one is claiming the Samsung has the same level of customer satisfaction as the Toshiba, but claiming a 75% Blu-ray return rate based on a fully non-scientific poll is absurd.to you... not to those on AVS who participated. But yes, the overall rate at storefronts may have been closer to 60%, who knows...

"very sparingly" is an understatement of the highest order. Even at E3, so close before launch, there was very little in the way of game demos, let alone trying to do anything with Blu-ray. Instead of complaining when HD DVD companies tout their successes, perhaps Sony should get out and start demonstrating that their stuf actually works - if it really does... THIS is the way most companies with a winning story get the word out.
And this is the exact same road to market the PS2 took, yet it has been perhaps the single most successful CE product ever released.The PS2 was half the price

Crash was OK, but that's one. And is a "black and white-esque" movie REALLY taking maximum advantage of "beyond high definition" to the customers' satisfaction?Then you clearly haven't seen it. The black and white cinematography adds an incredible 3D aspect to the image, and reviews have broadly noted that to be the case.

- Talkuh huh..

[Jason Dunn]

This has been a very interesting thread to read. In all my years of running forums, I've never seen a "war" like this transplant itself so quickly into another forum with established personalities "warping" over from another forum. Very fascinating from a sociological point of view. :-)

In terms of the actual discussion (it was a great read, though the overkill quoting was a bit much), my opinion is that HD-DVD is going to be the victor, hands down. In the past 30 days I've gone from being essentially a highly disgruntled agnostic who was refusing to buy EITHER format until the format war was over...to being a rather enthusiastic HD-DVD supporter that will likely buy a Toshiba player before the end of the year and start to build up an HD-DVD collection.

[The_Real_rdjam]

I agree Jason. It was a pleasure "warping over" for the chat :D

I'll subscribe to some of the threads over here and have a good read!

Best regards to all.