Video Asylum

Posted by Joe Murphy Jr (A) on June 24, 2006 at 12:25:40

In Reply to: I'm waiting... posted by Jack G on June 24, 2006 at 04:45:17:

Regarding the Samsung, it has problems. Samsung is a crap company when it comes to consumer electronics if you are a videophile. Then again so is Toshiba, but if you are an early adopter you don't have any choice if you want HD DVD. At least Blu-ray will have more companies involved on the hardware side. And just so every knows, the Samsung takes the 1080p24 encode, reinterlaces to 1080i60 (the Broadcom chip -- also in the Toshiba, I believe -- can't handle 1080p24) and then deinterlaces to 1080p60. It doesn't take a genius to see that there's a problem with the flow of this stream. By the way, this route locks in film judder (1080p24 --> 1080p60 or 1080p24 --> anything --> 1080p60). You need 1080p24 shown as is (1080p24) or refreshed to 1080p48 or 1080p72 for proper display.

The reason they're using MPEG2 has to do with Sony's equipment. They've had trouble incorporating VC-1 into their Blu-ray stream of authoring hardware. I've heard conflicting reports from people who actually do VC-1 encoding for movies as to when this will be worked out. The MPEG2 standard is what Sony is using right now (lots to do with royalties along with the VC-1 problem) and the over-a-decade-old technology, even in its current form, really can't compete with a newer codec like VC-1 or H264 (MPEG4 Advanced Profile).

Another problem with Sony's encoder is that it is currently clipping the video. Below black and peak white signals are not being encoded at all. That is unacceptable: in this day and age, I actually find it reprehensible. Unless they can fix it or use a different encoder (like the one from Sonic Solutions), I would never buy a Blu-ray disc that had been encoded by the current Sony encoder. If the disc is encoded correctly, but the player clips, a better player will reveal the correct encode -- encoded clipping, however, cannot ever be fixed.

As for 50GB discs, you'll have to wait until late fall 2006 or early spring 2007 before these will be used in any quantities to be worth talking about. As of today, the yields are just not there. At that point, the encodes of MPEG2 vs VC-1 would be very close in quality (more space for data than HD DVD, thus lowering the compression threshold for MPEG2 at 1920x1080p24). Of course, I would rather VC-1 or H264 be used instead of MPEG2 because I know the studios can't wait to give us 15 - 20GB of worthless extra crap on our shiny new discs. That's one of the main reasons most DVDs don't look as good as they should -- worthless crap takes up valuable space.

The PS3 will incorporate HDMI v1.3, but it is not known whether any standalone players will have it in 2006. Silicon Image says "in quantity" 2007, but large CE companies (Sony, Panasonic) can take the just released specs and make their own chips sooner. For video, v1.3 won't be that big a deal for most people. However, there are some audio features that may be worth waiting for as long as you have or will be getting an HDMI v1.3 receiver/processor. Generation 2 players will certainly get you more from either format, so getting a standalone player now may bring mucho buyer's remorse when G2 players are released unless you can afford to be an early adopter.