Microsoft Says There Will Be No HD DVD Xbox

[Easy Rhino]

The capacity has nothing to do with it. Blu Ray has some equally terrible looking movies in it's library. It has to do with the Codec those movies use. Some of the encodes still use mpeg2, just like dvd. If they use H264 or VC-1, there is absolutely no quality difference, as no current movies can exploit the full capacity on either format with those codecs.

In short, the shitty looking HD movies (on either format), are due solely to the studio's laziness in encoding, rather than either format's storage capacity.

the capacity has everything to do with it. all of the poor quality blu-ray movies are on 25 gig disks, not the 50 gig ones.

 

[Wile E]

the capacity has everything to do with it. all of the poor quality blu-ray movies are on 25 gig disks, not the 50 gig ones.

No, it has nothing to do with it at all. You can fit a full quality HD movie up to about 4hrs on a 25GB disk or less using H.264 or VC-1 at our current resolutions. Considering a dual layer HD DVD is 30GB, space has nothing to do with it at all. For instance, Transformers looks spectacular on HD DVD. The movie itself only takes up 17GB, iirc. The extras consume the rest of the space. A single layer Blu Ray is 25GB, still well above the space the movie takes up. Using H.264 or VC-1 makes it totally unnecessary to use the space consuming, ultra-high bitrates required to get full quality out of a codec like Mpeg2.

Crappy looking hd movies on any format are due solely to the studios deciding they don't want to take the more time consuming approach of using the 2 more efficient codecs.

And for the record, almost every Mpeg2 encoded HD movie looks like ass compared to their VC-1/H.264 counterparts. It's just an inefficient codec for these purposes. Even if all the crappy looking blu rays are on 25GB disks, that still puts it at a disadvantage to HD-DVD, as almost all HD DVDs are dual layer, including the crappy ones. That gives it a 5GB space advantage over the blu rays.

Again, I have both formats. If you take a movie that is on both formats and compare them side by side, there is ZERO difference. Thus, at our current resolutions, storage space does not matter at all. Both formats offer more than enough. Now, if we start getting into resolutions greater than 1920x1080, Blu Ray will start to pull ahead, but not until then.

 

[Easy Rhino]

resolutions larger than 1920x1080 is what im getting at. and the codecs are only going to get better. a single layer hd-dvd looked like garbage last year compared to a blu-ray. this year things are different since hd-dvd upped their capacity, but they are still behind if you consider how codecs are improving and you can get master audio now. im sure a lot of movies out recently look the same, but that was not the case a year ago. they were using the crappy vc 1 codec and now they use mpeg 4 avc.

 

[Wile E]

resolutions larger than 1920x1080 is what im getting at. and the codecs are only going to get better. a single layer hd-dvd looked like garbage last year compared to a blu-ray. this year things are different since hd-dvd upped their capacity, but they are still behind if you consider how codecs are improving and you can get master audio now. im sure a lot of movies out recently look the same, but that was not the case a year ago. they were using the crappy vc 1 codec and now they use mpeg 4 avc.

Actually, VC-1 isn't a bad codec at all. It's somewhere in between H.264 and Mpeg2. VC-1 movies still fit completely on a dual layer HD DVD or single layer Blu Ray. It's the Mpeg2 mastered disks that look like ass.

But as I said, no content is produced at resolutions greater than 1080p, so there is no disadvantage to HD DVD, nor will there be in the foreseeable future. Besides, HD DVD is about to launch triple layer disks, at a 51GB capacity.

Now don't get me wrong, I have and like both formats, but as far as movies are concerned, the storage argument is moot. Now, throw data into the mix, and it's a different story altogether.

 

[Easy Rhino]

Actually, VC-1 isn't a bad codec at all. It's somewhere in between H.264 and Mpeg2. VC-1 movies still fit completely on a dual layer HD DVD or single layer Blu Ray. It's the Mpeg2 mastered disks that look like ass.

But as I said, no content is produced at resolutions greater than 1080p, so there is no disadvantage to HD DVD, nor will there be in the foreseeable future. Besides, HD DVD is about to launch triple layer disks, at a 51GB capacity.

Now don't get me wrong, I have and like both formats, but as far as movies are concerned, the storage argument is moot. Now, throw data into the mix, and it's a different story altogether.

alright, good to know. and i havnt looked at both formats side by side with the same movie. i guess these days the arguement is moot, but blu-ray must have been using mpeg4 avc before hd-dvd was.