In Reply to: "Please, support Blu-ray." - Why only Blu-ray? posted by Audiophilander on November 7, 2007 at 21:32:18:
...affect PQ/SQ and Warner/Universal/Paramount/Dreamworks could have been better if they weren't constrained by HD DVD's storage and bandwidth limitations ? Theoretically it's a known issue, practically, it's been argued the differences are indistinguisable. I'll point to significant changes in PQ on the longer HD DVD movies (e.g. "Troy", "King Kong") but it might be argued these PQ differences are in the master tape. OTOH, I've noticed the same on 25G Blu-ray discs where storage capacity might have been an issue (e.g. "Night at the Museum").The absence of uncompressed/lossless audio tracks is a pretty clear indicator of HD DVD limitations (e.g. absence of lossless with "King Kong", "Transformers") ; HD DVD proponents have argued 1.5M DD+ is indistinguisable from their lossless/uncompressed counterparts or they argue the vast majority of users cannot take advantage of HD audio (I believe the same arguments could have been made concerning DTS or going from 480p to 720p to 1080p).
Clear examples of the differences are lacking because Warner will not maximize the capabilities of both formats on their releases so we can do meaningful comparisons (e.g. they leave out lossless audio tracks on Blu-ray releases when they don't put them on their HD DVD counterparts). Blu-ray (or HD DVD) releases from overseas might be useful (e.g. "Face/Off" where the Blu-ray version has a PCM soundtrack, the HD DVD has a lossy soundtrack, PQ differences are also discussed).
I've been disappointed with the alleged PQ issues on the Universal releases which is a probable reflection of indifferent encoding/master tape selection prior to release. I can't help but wonder how well they might have turned out using higher default video bitrates on the encoding thus removing a lot of the TLC needed to "smooth out" the more obvious compression artifacts ?
The biggest worry is the possibility of a successful bid by Toshiba to steal the market with barebones hardware/pricing. It would be a big shame if Blu-ray were to lose this battle because it represents the best chance for maintaining the high resolution audio market, even if it is "tainted" with high def video.
Edits: 11/08/07
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Follow Ups
- How about because a lot of us are convinced Bandwidth and storage capacity.... - oscar 05:10:04 11/08/07 (3)
- Then why are the majority of Blu-ray titles on BD-25s? - Jack G 05:39:48 11/08/07 (2)
- Most of the early Blu-rays are on 25G discs... - oscar 06:26:36 11/08/07 (1)
- The ratio is staying the same as time goes on, so 1/2 are still BD-25s - Jack G 07:31:18 11/08/07 (0)