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HD-DVD versus Blu-ray


Tom Adams

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HD DVD has clearly won the first two rounds of the format war. However, it is far from over. Sony and Blur-ray can compete, if they quickly fix their major mistakes. First, Sony needs to use an advanced video codec asap. The advanced codecs are VC-1 (Microsoft) and AVC .264. Sony chose MPEG-2 and then compounded the error by not being able to produce dual layer Blur-ray disks.

There is not enough room to use MPEG-2 and uncompressed L-PCM for audio on a 23 Gb disk. They promised 50 Gb and are maxed at 23 Gb in actual production.

HD movies are all about real, state of the art HD video with the best sound available. HD DVD has met the video goal in spades, but has missed on the audio side. Lossless audio is encoded on a few of the HD DVDs, but the Toshiba with four Sharc audio processors cannot decode 5.1 Dolby True HD sound yet.

Dolby Digital + is required on HD DVD. Universal uses a data rate of 1.5 Mbps and Warner uses a data rate of 640 kbps for audio. These are both better than anything available on SD DVD, but the improvement is subtle.

Bill

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Interesting article....

I was just in CC last week and got the whole $1000 for blu-ray because of the 1080p line... Based on the article, I have several questions:

I am not sure I understand the point behind 1080p if the output is no difference compared to 1080i? Why does 1080p exist?

I have always been a fan of Sony, especially for televisions. However many of thier ideas never make it in the long run. For expample, the MiniDisc and Memory Stick. Both were suppose to be the standard, and now both seem to be rarely used. Will the Blu-ray technology follow in the footsteps?

Finally, I have noticed that more of the higher end DVD players are in Blu-ray, Sony, Samsung, where HD-DVD are more lower end in comparison, Toshiba, RCA. With that said, if one were in the market to purchase a High Definition DVD player which to go with? The better picture quality (based on the article) HD DVD on a lower end DVD Player or spend the extra cash for Blu-ray DVD on a better quality DVD Player?

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1080i (interlaced fields) and 1080p (progressive frames) are totally different. 1080i is functionally the same as 540p because the horizontal lines of resolution need to be overlapped in a temporal domain, therefore, 1080/2=540 lines of horizontal resolution when it is output. 1080p has 1080 lines of discreet horizontal resoulution and is therefore of twice the quality of 1080i. This is my rudimentary understanding of the concept. Others here will likely be able to present more advanced/more accurate descriptions.

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The benefit in 1080p is when the video being displayed has scenes of fast motion such as sports or an action scene. With 1080i there is a chance of getting interlace artifacts of course there are two caveats to this 1. with the greater resolution of the 1080 signal the interlacing artifacts are less noticable 2. if your display is using most anything other than a CRT it is probably converting any interlaced signal into progressive because LCD, Plasma, DLP, etc. are inherently progressive in the nature they refresh their images. Mostly what 1080p does is gives companies a buzzword to sell the latest greatest technology to consumers.

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Actually, on HD-DVD and Blu-Ray, 1080P is actually no different than 1080i, and here's why. Movies are filmed at 24 frames per second, while the 1080P standard is generally 60 frames per second (60hz). Now, if the HD-DVD player is putting out 1080i 60hz and your TV has 3:2 pulldown (which almost all do) that equates to 1080P 30hz, which is still 6 frames more per second than the original master. However, once 1080P broadcasts become available, you can bet there'll be a difference in quality.

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