As the XB360 thread (currently in the wrong forum) but for potential PS3 buyers. What are your intentions regards BRD movies?
I'm with DC here. While encode quality will undoubtedly go up, studios will only get so much free time on their old MPEG-2 investment before people start to really complain that their movies look like shit. Lots of disk space is no excuse to go with a cheaper (in so many ways) CODEC, if output quality is pants.DemoCoder said:Nothing MPEG-2 until BD50, only H.264/VC-1 BD25 or MPEG2 BD50. In other words, Sony's got a big problem. They better swallow the bullet and go with a better codec unless they want to lose the format war.
If you go to a store with BRD vs HD-DVD setting close by, HD-DVD is clearly superior, BRD demos I've seen have MPEG2 artifacts out the wazoo. $1000 BRD player with inferior MPEG-2 BD25 quality vs $500 HD-DVD player.
Sony needs to wake up.
Already own a HD DVD player. Compete on quality and price and I'll get a Blu Ray movies too.
Echoing what Demo said, Mpeg2 on 25gb doesn't cut it. If they want to stick with Mpeg2 I want BD50 on ALL discs, not just the 2 announced with no release dates.
Voted "Own an HDTV, will buy BRD movies ", even though I don't yet own an HDTV, but will buy one in a month or two, before I buy the PS3.
I'll definitely buy a Blu-ray version of a movie (if available) even if it was more expensive.
Even €10 (I think it'll initially be at least that much more here) or so doesn't hurt too much with the 10 or so movies I buy a year.
I might become hesitant to buy DVD's though if there's a chance a Blu-ray version would be available later. Say a Spiderman 3 DVD was released next year, and a BD six months to year later, I'd have hard time deciding whether I'd invest in the DVD version.
Nothing MPEG-2 until BD50, only H.264/VC-1 BD25 or MPEG2 BD50. In other words, Sony's got a big problem. They better swallow the bullet and go with a better codec unless they want to lose the format war.
If you go to a store with BRD vs HD-DVD setting close by, HD-DVD is clearly superior, BRD demos I've seen have MPEG2 artifacts out the wazoo. $1000 BRD player with inferior MPEG-2 BD25 quality vs $500 HD-DVD player.
Sony needs to wake up.
A Broadcom guy who's working on their codec chips for players posted on AVS that it's erroneous to claim one codec is necessarily better or worse, in response to posts blaming MPEG2 as the culprit for the BD picture quality problems. He's done a lot of work on H.264 IIRC.
There's also been accounts that Samsung incorrectly configured some of their silicon to turn on noise reduction, which is supposedly causing a lot of the image problems. Samsung is suppose to have a firmware fix in September FWIW.
Supposedly, the studios have a lot of the MPEG2 infrastructure and MPEG2 is capable of real-time encoding. Panasonic has just started offering H.264 encoding services.
Beyond that, it appears MS has done a lot of handholding to get the first HD-DVD titles to look the best since it showcases VC-1 -- not to mention iHD. The question is, will MS do that for ALL HD-DVD titles or will they later leave HD-DVD studios with more automated processes which may not achieve the same results?