Major Nelson rips Blu-Ray a new one

I was just amazed to find out that Blu-Ray is being wasted on MPEG2 codec and all the HD-DVD's are using VC1. That alone is my choice for going to HD-DVD. With so many reports of poor video quality of the Samsung Blu-Ray player, it made total sense why the quality was low. Cause all the movie industries that support Blu-Ray are being lazy and wasting the space that Blu-Ray has to offer and using a video codec thats worse that broadcast HDTV. And having downloaded VC1 video on my x360 for the e3, I am totally sold on VC1's video quality. And not just me, my wife was disappointed when we watched a standard DVD, looked soo blurry in comparison. Don't know if I will buy a HD-DVD X360 attachment or the actual stand alone player, but I know I will invest in HD-DVD for sure.

Not to mention have you seen how the latest Blu-Ray discs look, they are all the same looking, with the exception of the title being different. Check out DL.TV for that.

http://gearlog.com/blogs/digitallifetv/archive/2006/06/28/14620.aspx

Just click on the chapter about Samsungs Blu-Ray. Funny thing to mention about the "special" Blu-Ray coating. Defeated by a simple finger print.

But wait isnt PS3 using nothing but Blu-Ray. Yea totally doomed, with just a finger print makin the disc unplayable there will be a lot of unhappy PS3 owners. I think that was one of the nice things about the PS2 disc, you could abuse the hell out of it and it would still read.

I listened to it Sunday night and it got me excited about HD-DVD. Really, the only thing Blu-ray has is more space per layer. The only thing there is that both formats allow for more than 2 layers. A 45 gig 3 layer HD-DVD has already been announced.

I also checked this podcast out earlier this week. It got me excited also, I am just curious how the HD-DVD add on is going to cost. The one point that Amir (sorry if I am butchering your name) one of the guys that Larry interviewed made the point that more studios right now are siding up with Blu-Ray the quality of content that is out there is very unbalanced. He stated that more award winning movies are coming out on HD-DVD then on Blu-Ray. He stopped short of basically saying hey you can get “Ultra-Violent” on Blu-Ray but you can get “Good Fellas” on HD-DVD.

While I really found this very informational, but would like to hear some Blu-Ray experts on to present their side. I do find it funny though that all the stuff I have heard in PodCasts and read on the net does not seem to paint Blu-Ray in a very positive light. Patrick Norton on Twit.tv said that the Blu-Ray disks that they previewed, the quality was not very good at all.

i do believe that both blu-ray and hddvd use a form of the same h.264 codec. so extester better gets his facts straight. do u really think that they'd use the same codec for high definition that they use for sd dvd's?!

the only reason that blu-ray discs are able to play mpeg2 is so that they can be backwards compatible with current dvd's.

ahamsandwich:

It looks like you are the one that needs to get his facts straight. Currently BD are using MPEG2 for their content compression. It would do you well to go to major nelson's site and listen to the podcast. Or at the very least do some actual research of your own on avsforum or hometheaterblog. Don't take something that was hand fed to you by Sony, get out there and educate yourself on the technology before you start spouting off about what you "believe" and then telling someone else to get their facts straight.

Granted the source for Major's interview was biased (who isn't these days) but he did bring up some good facts that anyone can go doublecheck for themselves. One of the best points made was the size of the VC1 compressed files vs. MPEG2 pretty much makes BD's size advantage nill. Also the fact that Sony currently isn't shipping any Dual Layer disk is another thing you won't hear from your trusty sales guy at best buy.

Fantastic podcast actually, really opened my eyes to the next gen format war. Even blogged it yesterday

http://atavisticfunkexhibit.blogspot.com

funkyflea,

That has got to be the coolest name for a blog I have ever seen :)

Blu-Ray needs to fix their problems ASAP. They talk of 50g disks but they can't mass produce them. Right now HD-DVD has the advantage and I bet they will have a 45g disc before Blu-Ray has a 50g.

This really doesn't say much about the long run but HD-DVD is enjoying the good attention. This technology could be adapted pretty quickly. The HD-DVD movies I have seen look awesome. My HDTV needs good source material and so far this is the best option.

I am waiting for a second generation player that is a little prettier to look at.

I'll probably get the HD-DVD player for my 360 since I'm a little on the broke right now. Or I'll just hold out for those holographic drives I read about on Engadget. Even Peter Jackson couldn't fill up one of those bad boys.

ExTester - I'm a little confused. I watched the episode of DL.TV you mentioned and they specifically say that both formats use the same MPEG2 codec. I agree that this would be a big factor in deciding which format to invest in... are you sure about the VC-1 thing?

ahamsandwich:
"better gets his facts straight."
Oh the irony ....

" do u really think that they'd use the same codec for high definition that they use for sd dvd's?!"

Well seeing how this is a product that is coming from Sony..... Yes.

"the only reason that blu-ray discs are able to play mpeg2 is so that they can be backwards compatible with current dvd's"

Wow.. You sure do know what your talking about. Or could it be that Sony was pushing for MPEG2 from the get go and was forced to adopt the H.264 and VC1 codecs. Backwards compatibility has nothing to do with it cause you need two different lense setups for the two formats. Cause Blu-Ray has the data at the same location as a CD does, so they will get damaged much easier. So resurfacing the disc would be pretty risky, if not a last ditch effort. Don't believe me about the discs scratchin easily, just watch the link that I posted earlier. Even Robert H. on the show said that they scratch easily.

And for the record.. HDDVD is using VC1 because its got the best compression of the latest HD compression schemes that were reviewed at the time. Yes better than H.264. Personally I see the difference to.

But what do I know, I dont even have my facts straight.. or do I???

8. Rob.. LISTEN TO MAJOR NELSON's podcast!

The DL.TV was reference to how easily the Blu-Ray disc can be damaged or made unuseable by a single finger-print.

Major Nelson's Podcast covers the formats that are being used by Blu-Ray and HD-DVD.

So in the case of DL.TV when they reviewed the Samsung Player. Sounds like the player is fine, just the video quality is for s#%t, cause its MPEG2.

I do like the Major, but I also take what he says with a grain of salt. He is paid by Microsoft, after all.

Can you imagine Ronald McDonald saying that french fries are bad for you?

My bad... clearly the two formats use different codecs. It is understandable how people are confused though... as I said, even the DL.TV geeks got it completely wrong.

Looks like HD-DVD is definitely the way to go...

More good info:
http://www.hometheaterblog.com/hometheater/2006/06/bluray_vs_hddvd.html

I don't plan on moving on to either anytime soon (despise most movies, shitty tv). But if I ever do, HD-DVD is obviously the better of the two. Also been hearing rumors about Blu-Ray having trouble getting multiple-layered discs to work properly, and 'more space' seems to be the Sony fanboys' only argument.

To quickly clear things up:

HD-DVD and Bluray SUPPORT the same codecs: Mpeg 2, Mpeg 4 (H.264), and VC-1 (Microsoft's Codec)

The difference is what the movies are actually encoded WITH.

All titles so far on HD-DVD have used VC-1.
All titles so far on Bluray have used MPEG 2.

They can achieve the same quality, but the difference is that at any given quality, VC-1's filesize will be FAR smaller than MPEG 2.

The reason why this is of concern, is that, unfortunately for bluray, they have not been successful at mass producing the 50GB disks. In order to fit the movies on a 25GB disk, using MPEG 2, they needed to compress the movies heavier than HD-DVD, with its 30GB disks and VC-1.

The result is that across the board, HD-DVD titles have looked superior to Bluray titles.

Why did Sony use MPEG 2 when the players support VC-1? Probably because they don't want to pay any royalties to Microsoft. Who knows.. it's a pretty boneheaded (and cocky) move, especially since it has bit them in the a$$ since the 25GB disks don't hold enough for the weaker compression of MPEG 2.

1) MPEG2 is Superior in Quality To H.264 if "Size maters not"

2) VC-1, ACV, H.264. Support MPEG2 But at a Lose of native Quality
Blu-Ray (at least Samson's) player Has MPEG2 Chip Sets
For Native MPEG2 Decoding (Sony Patend MPEG2=Less Overhead)

3) If You know anything about HD-DVD/Blu-Ray You Will Find out that
The Hypothetical Road map On Multiple Layers is 8x
(both use same laser)
A) 25GB per Layer @ 8 Layers = 200GB (TDK Has 4 layer Now)
B) 15GB per Layer @ 8 Layers = 120GB ( Just over TDK's BD-R)

Now You might Say and for good reason That there is no reason
Anyone will NEED 200GB For One HD Movie
(1080p = ~100MB per Min. W/Lossles 7.1 Surround Sound)
(Lord Of The Rings 1-3 = 682Min Extended Edition)
(1080p@100MBpm X 682min =68,200MB or 66.6GB (1024MB)
Thats 11Hr & 22Min you need only
5Layers HD-DVD (Not in production)
3Layers Blu-Ray Yes 4layer in production

You my believe What ever you want but think about this:
-Blu-Ray = Larger compasity
-Blu-Ray will need less Layers than HD-DVD to remain Competitive
-Blu-Ray Has (currently) a Stronger & Thiner Protection Layer
(Note: Player problem, Not Disk damaged by finger print)

The real battle AS All Media battles before Will be:
- Production cost & $$$ Per GB
- Personal burning Speed (Note: BD-R Vs. HD-DVD-R)
- Speed & Quality of re-Producing Classics.

My Opinion is that the latecomer Blu-Ray Will Win the day(Unless they get to greedy to Quick) because the parabolic Cost/Profit arch will Decrease Faster & Further @ a $$$ Per GB price/profit (Placate to customers & Companies Alike)


Note @8Layers Lord of the rings Would fit on One Disk Even Using MPEG2.

Stop taking slanted opinions as Fact.
If you were on PS3 Fanboy site then you will hear the opposite story.
The only Fact here is one format will win and one will lose.
Everybody on the loser side loses too.
If neither becomes standard then everybody loses.
I'm sure I can mess up a HD-DVD with a fingerprint as well.
I'll personally wait till the war has been won so I don't end up with a bunch of "Laser Disc Movies"
Remember those Vinyl Record sized P.O.S.

HD-DVD is significantly superior to Blu-ray for several fundamental reasons:

1. HD-DVD uses the same production facilities that standard DVD's do, whereas Blu-rays require new production facilities. This means that HD-DVD's will always be less expensive to produce than Blu-ray, even though the quality of HD-DVD is superior to Blu-ray. In other words, economy-of-scale production already has given HD-DVD a fundamental advantage that Blu-ray could never make up for.

2. HD-DVD and Blu-ray each hold up to 8 layers of data. The HD-DVD holds 15GB of information per layer, while the Blu-ray holds 25GB of information per layer. Initially, this might seem to be a big advantage for Blu-ray, but that is not the case. Currently, the standard being used is based on dual-layer HD-DVD's that hold 30GB of data, while the standard for Blu-ray is based on a single layer disc that only holds 25GB of data. This means that at this point in time, the HD-DVD format holds more information than the Blu-ray.

3. Sony has a problem of arrogance where they don't want to pay royalties or licensing fees to anyone. JVC and TDK actually did come up with different ways of adding a layer of extra protection to the Blu-ray, but Sony DID NOT take advantage of that technology. The Blu-ray disc itself, not the player, is responsible for the problem, because there is virtually no protection on the disc. Only if a consumer purchases discs made by TDK or JVC do the discs have this protection. Blu-ray game discs made by Sony for the Playstation 3 DO NOT have this protection. Blupray movie discs made by Sony also DO NOT have this protection. A finger print could literally cause skips to occur throughout an entire Blu-ray disc...and a scratch would completely ruin the disc. HD-DVD technology uses the same sort of excellent protection that standard DVD's do...they are virtually indestructible.

4. Sony can't even figure out how to develop a dual layer 50GB Blu-ray disc without the a very high rate of production defect problems occurring. The cost of dual-layer Blu-ray discs is also significantly higher than single-layer discs. This is the reason why the standard currently in place for Blu-rays is now 25GB single-layer discs, rather than the dual-layer standard that was originally planned. The number of defective discs is absolutely WAY TOO HIGH to release them at this point in time. We will not see 8-layer Blu-ray discs released to the mass market for a very LONG time. Plus, cost is an issue: 8-layer discs will cost SIGNIFICANTLY more than single layer ones--it will be like paying $50 for a Genesis game or $200 for a Neo Geo game, just because of the increase in data! You would be better off buying an HVD if you needed to store that much data; HVD’s hold 3.9 Terabytes, and Maxell already has shown them to the public.

5. Even if we did reach a point in time where there was a need for storage that an 8-layer Blu-ray disc could provide, we would have reached a point in time where a company like Microsoft would have developed a superior form of compression technology that would make it so an HD-DVD could also hold the same file. Plus, if there was a continual need for that sort of HUGE file, then the new format called HVD--Holographic Versatile Disc--would be used. HVD holds up to 3.9 Terabytes of information, which 160 times more than the current Blu-ray discs that Sony uses.

6. Blu-ray movies released at this point in time can't even pack the Special Features that standard DVD's do, because of the lack of size that the single layer Blu-ray movies hold. The compression code being used by Sony is outdated compared to what Toshiba is using. Sony simply doesn't want to pay royalties to Microsoft or any other company, but the bottom line is that Sony is making a BIG mistake! Toshiba and HD-DVD have a FAR SUPERIOR compression code than Blu-ray! HD-DVD is much better! Think of it like this: Rather than making an MP3 player that could use MP3 and WMA, Sony originally tried to create their own digital format, just because they didn't want to pay royalties to Microsoft or anyone else. This was a BIG mistake.

7. You won't see any long movies on Blu-ray or movies with Special Features on Blu-ray until Sony can figure out how to mass produce dual-layer Blu-ray discs for a reasonable price without defects. At that point in time, the dual layer 50GB Blu-ray will be competing with the three-layer 45GB HD-DVD. However, because of the superior compression code in the HD-DVD, there will actually be MORE STOREAGE SPACE on the HD-DVD!!!

8. Those are important factors to remember. Sony tries to only show the "potential" things about Blu-ray, and they never acknowledge the huge number of flaws. But now that a $1,000 Blu-ray player has been released, and we have seen that its quality isn't as good as the HD-DVD player that Toshiba and RCA make, we can see that economies-of-scale make a HUGE difference in regards to the balance of software cost, hardware cost, software performance, and hardware quality. All of these factors prove that HD-DVD is the best format to watch High Definition movies.

Im rich im buying both. So it dosnt realy matter. Who knows it could be like the laser and video disk thibg of the early 90's. I wonder how much a laser disk holds. Must not be very much cause it takes 2 huge 2 sided disk to watch pulp fiction. Isnt there a new disk like 10 times better than hd dvd and Blu Ray?

Fallout.

You will never see 8 layer DVD's just as there were DVD's that supported more than 3 layers when DVD's came out. Think it supports up to 27 Gigs.

Has it been produced, no.. Why, its really expensive and the yeild was low, kinda like with the cell processor. Not to mention the videophiles would notice video quality loss the futher you went in the disc.. ie.. layer 2 - 3.

The max that you generally see now a day's is a DVD9. Your 8 layer arguement is just the same as justifying the price of the PS3. It works great in the Sony Fanboy mentality, but in the real world we are not going to see 8 layers. Especially when a fingre print makes the media unusable. And I am not even gonna argue you ludicrous how Blu-Ray is in 3 layer production, especially when the Blu-Ray disc is being produced in layer 1 scheme.

And sorry MPEG-2 is not better than H.264.. ITS A COMPRESSION SCEME. Size is the whole point behind compression schemes. If size didnt matter, lets just have Blu-Ray have all the video in Raw DV. You wouldn't cause it would be like 1 gig a second.

Scott Krueger.

Yea I would have to agree with you about the HD-DVD and fingerprints as well. Its exactly what Robert H. from DL.TV said. My point is that Blu-Ray is PS3 primary and only media type for games. Which will really suck later down the road with heavy usage.

ExTester & Michael Zoran

Your Arguments Thou Vivacious and Wordy (Repetitious I know) are Flawed

1-Blu-Ray & HD-DVD USE The Same Codec And even if they did not The Player will... DivX/XviD/AVi/MPG was Not supported till more Recently by DVD Player manufactures. Eventually the only thing that will mater will be:

1) Quality or Distractibility i.e.
Life/Years/Kids tossing it about the house
2) Production Speed (Movies & Blank-Media)
3) Size
4) Cost * Last on list for a reason.

1) Size to Cost Ratio i.e. ExTester makes an excellent point Multi-Layer is more expensive. (SEE 2-layer DVD argument)

2) Finger print Please... That is the Player. Read More about Predictive processing and you will find that the reason why the finger print failed is because the player did not except code errors or missing 0,& 1's.
IF You use a fingerprint to argue Media Durability you are ignorant.

Fact: Blu-Ray has a very durable thiner layer of protection. That is not to say that HD-DVD will Get it because the Blu-Ray team is leasing the technology.
SEE:http://www.engadget.com/2005/09/19/blu-ray-vs-hd-dvd-state-of-the-s-union-s-division/
Sep. 2005
OR
SEE:http://www.cdfreaks.com/article/186/

"When we take a look to the specifications above, we immediately see that the capacity is a most important difference. Blu-ray offers a significantly higher storage capacity. The reason for this is the disc itself: while HD-DVD uses a similar disc to the DVD (0.6 mm disc with 0.6 mm protective coating), Blu-ray steps away from the DVD norm and uses a 1.1 mm disc with a protective layer of only 0.1 mm. The recording layer is therefore very close to the surface of the disc. The advantage is that the laser has less material to read through, which allows a higher NA, a lower track pitch, a smaller pit length and therefore more storage compared to HD-DVD."
&
Hybrid Discs

Here we can find an advantage for Blu-ray, resulting from the new structure of the disc. Since the recording layer for Blu-ray data is only 0.1 mm away from the surface of the disc there is enough space below to integrate a complete 8.5 GB DVD DL disc. JVC has already managed to develop such a single-sided disc by using a for red laser transparent Blu-ray layer.

DVD9/HD-DVD is also possible, but not on a single-sided disc. Cinram, one of the HD-DVD backing companies has developed a hybrid disk with two sides. The first consists of a dual-layer DVD that can store up to 8.4GB of data, while the other side is a HD-DVD capable of storing up to 15GB. Memory-Tech and Toshiba has also developed single-sided hybrid discs that contain a 15GB HD-DVD layer and a 4.7GB DVD layer.

Was that Repetitious Words or Should I Go On.

http://www.sonystyle.com/is-bin/INTERSHOP.enfinity/eCS/Store/en/-/USD/SY_ViewStatic-Start;sid=Y351LvTDP-F1zLB81ix_JbvM5sIukZ6HQjo=?page=%2fstatic%2fstores%2fsy_stores%2eisml

These are stores running Sony's Blu-Ray player. Don't beilive the Major Nelson hype untill you've actually seen Sony's Blu-Ray player not Samsung's, because last time I checked Sony devloped the PS3 not Samsung. As for content on Blu-Ray Major Nelson would be wrong their are plenty of good movies out on Blu-Ray.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp;jsessionid=00EQNHKXXVYZ5KC4D3FVAFI?id=cat12085&type=page&sc=ALL&qs=blu-ray&cp=1&sp=Relevance&mipp=25&uq=Blu-Ray&_requestid=45654

If you look at the current offerings and the ones set to drop when the PS3 and the BDP-S1 ships there will be more and better offerings.

Michael Zoran - GO OUTSIDE !!!

Fallout - I know you're trying to sound like you know what you're talking about - which you may very well - but since you can barely put together a comprehensible sentence, I just can't take you seriously.

Fallout - I know you're trying to sound like you know what you're talking about - which you may very well - but since you can barely put together a comprehensible sentence, I just can't take you seriously.