HD-Blu-ray

dholmes
dholmes Posts: 1,136
edited June 2006 in Electronics
I got to finally see both of the new players in action, Blu-ray had Underworld 2 playing, Hd had 50 first dates. Both had AA++ pq, hard to tell the difference in the 2. The saleman at Bestbuy said to wait for a universal player, is that in the works? Also I dont think the pq was that much better that my up-converting Denon! How many of you members have bought one of these players? thanks
My HT set-up Panasonic front proj, 120 in ws screen, ATI amp,Integra 9.8 pre-pro, 2 Polk rti150, cp 1000, 4 fx 1000, Pioneer blu-ray 2 SVS sub pb 12-ultra 2, & Paragon popcorn popper. ps 3 Coaster leather HT recliners.
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  • Frank Z
    Frank Z Posts: 5,860
    edited June 2006
    Which Blue-Ray player did they have? I was under the impression that we were going to have to wait a bit longer for BR to hit the street.
    9/11 - WE WILL NEVER FORGET!! (<---<<click)
    2005-06 Club Polk Football Pool Champion!! :D
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  • Gaara
    Gaara Posts: 2,415
    edited June 2006
    Samsung already released their Blu-Ray player, and the media should be out this week.

    Jared
    The Basement HT
    PC Rig
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  • Ron-P
    Ron-P Posts: 8,520
    edited June 2006
    I've owned my A1 (HD-DVD) for over two months now, awesome player with outstanding PQ. The upscaling of 480p material is top-notch, just excellent.
    is that in the works?
    Not really, a couple of makers said they are considering one, but licensing is going to be tough hill to overcome.
    Also I don’t think the pq was that much better that my up-converting Denon!
    The picture quality between 480p upscaled to the 1080i is nothing short of huge. Remember one thing, your at BB, not a place to accurately judge any type of true audio or video demo. There set-ups are a joke plus your in a brightly lit store on a non-calibrated TV.

    I'm staying far away from Blu-ray for a while, most all the comments I've been reading are not good. Poor to average PQ is the biggest gripe, that the Samsung machine sucks at upscaling (very soft) and that most all the BD software is no where near the quality of HD-DVD. The Fifth Element Blu-ray looks worse then the Superbit.
    If...
    Ron dislikes a film = go out and buy it.
    Ron loves a film = don't even rent.
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  • sickicw
    sickicw Posts: 456
    edited June 2006
    some of the initial blu-ray movies are pretty crappy quality. This is only because they are using single layer disks (25 gigs) and old compression (mpeg2). When they start to use duel layer disks (50gigs) the blu ray movies will look much much better. This might not happen anytime soon, however. I know of only 2 movies that are supposed to be release in the fall on duel layer blu-ray.
    Speakers: LSi9 x 2, LSic, LSiFX x 2, Velodyne HGS-15
    Amps & Power: Rockford Fosgate T8004 x 3, Cascade Audio APS-55 power supplies x 5, and 1 farad capacitor.
    Electronics: Denon 3806, Toshiba HD-A1, & Sony KDL46XBR2
    Accessories: Anti-IC interconnects, 8 Mondo Traps from Realtraps, and Salamander furniture.
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  • mantis
    mantis Posts: 17,204
    edited June 2006
    I'm gonna wait awhile until I see whats going on. I would love to buy a new DVD player but I don't think now is the right time to do so. Pioneer Elite is coming out with there new player. If it gives it to me, then I will pick one up.

    Dan
    Dan
    My personal quest is to save to world of bad audio, one thread at a time.
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  • cheddar
    cheddar Posts: 2,390
    edited June 2006
    sickicw wrote:
    some of the initial blu-ray movies are pretty crappy quality. This is only because they are using single layer disks (25 gigs) and old compression (mpeg2). When they start to use duel layer disks (50gigs) the blu ray movies will look much much better. This might not happen anytime soon, however. I know of only 2 movies that are supposed to be release in the fall on duel layer blu-ray.

    Actually, I don't think mpeg2 and mpeg4 are that different in PQ, just how compressed the files are with mpeg4 taking up far less room than an equivalent mpeg2.

    I think the high definition is picking up the low quality of the original flying daggers, 5th element masters. They are both relatively old movies compared to underworld:evolution. A real test between the formats would be when the last star wars movies are released since they were shot in the latest digital video.

    I was surprised at how soft the flying daggers movie looked on a samsung projection TV at CC. But when I got home and watched it on my denon, I immediately noticed the lack of detail and washed out colors when watching it on my denon SD player in comparison. It reminded me of the same experience going from VHS to my dvd player...
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  • Ron-P
    Ron-P Posts: 8,520
    edited June 2006
    When they start to use duel layer disks (50gigs) the blu ray movies will look much much better.
    Why would BD need 50gigs? HD-DVDs are only 25gig and there PQ is fantastic.
    If...
    Ron dislikes a film = go out and buy it.
    Ron loves a film = don't even rent.
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  • F1nut
    F1nut Posts: 50,804
    edited June 2006
    Ron-P wrote:
    Why would BD need 50gigs? HD-DVDs are only 25gig and there PQ is fantastic.


    "......the key features of the Blu-Ray format and that the disc offers features "Beyond High Definition". These include storage up to 100GB on a 4 layer disc and soon up to 200GB on an 8 layer disc, video bit rates up to 48Mbps, 1080p picture output, 8 channels of uncompressed audio, up to 32 streams of audio and a host of interactive features.

    Sony officials noted that they continue to believe that MPEG-2 encoding offers the sharpest and most "artifact free" transfers at the high data rates used by the Blu-Ray disc rather than the competing VC-1 and MPEG-4 encoding options. They also noted that with the 50Mb capacity of dual layer Blu-Ray discs, difficult scenes can use encoding rates of 40Mb/sec rather than the normal 25Mb/sec to further enhance video quality."
    Political Correctness'.........defined

    "A doctrine fostered by a delusional, illogical minority and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a t-u-r-d by the clean end."

    President of Club Polk

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  • Ron-P
    Ron-P Posts: 8,520
    edited June 2006
    That does not answer my question. Disk space like that means nothing when HD-DVD is using the same with stellar results, something that BD should be able to do as well, right now, with it's 25 gigs.
    If...
    Ron dislikes a film = go out and buy it.
    Ron loves a film = don't even rent.
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  • cheddar
    cheddar Posts: 2,390
    edited June 2006
    The PQ is not a space problem, I think. Both formats have put their movies on the disks with room to spare. I really think it's the quality of the original masters or the transfer that is lacking in some BR disks according to the early reports (garbage in, garbage out). But since the Samsung wasn't even supposed to be officially "shipped" until the 25th, maybe later reviews might be more telling.

    In any event, the extra space is for the extras (current disks are rather slim on these), and if I'm reading F1's stuff right, the larger files that will play at a higher bit rate for even better quality.

    Edit: I guess the Samsung could also just be a crappy player. Better to wait until more players are released and reviewers are making more informed reviews with a better choice in software before making any final judgements.
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  • sickicw
    sickicw Posts: 456
    edited June 2006
    Ron-P wrote:
    That does not answer my question. Disk space like that means nothing when HD-DVD is using the same with stellar results, something that BD should be able to do as well, right now, with it's 25 gigs.

    HD-DVD (duel layer) has 30 gigs, but they use mpeg4 compression which reduces the size of the data compared to mpeg2 (which blu-ray uses). For audio, HD-dvd uses dolby encoding compared to blu-ray's uncompressed pcm which takes up much more space. The point is, hd-dvd currently has more disk space and uses much better compression algorithms than blu-ray, therefore hd-dvd's currenty looks better.
    Speakers: LSi9 x 2, LSic, LSiFX x 2, Velodyne HGS-15
    Amps & Power: Rockford Fosgate T8004 x 3, Cascade Audio APS-55 power supplies x 5, and 1 farad capacitor.
    Electronics: Denon 3806, Toshiba HD-A1, & Sony KDL46XBR2
    Accessories: Anti-IC interconnects, 8 Mondo Traps from Realtraps, and Salamander furniture.
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  • cheddar
    cheddar Posts: 2,390
    edited June 2006
    Been reading up on the mpeg4 vs mpeg2 difference on AVS. Seems that bit rate really does matter. At BR25, mpeg2 is just too constrained by space to use bit rates that give it a clear advantage over mpeg4 and possibly put it at a disadvantage. At BR50, mpeg2 is much less constrained to low bit rates and so the picture should look much better at BR50 than BR25 provided they've encoded the movie to take advantage of the extra space.

    Also on the forum, the scuttlebutt was that WB will use VC-1 for their BR movies. So we'll get a chance to see what VC-1 looks like on BR according to AVS.
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  • Demiurge
    Demiurge Posts: 10,874
    edited June 2006
    What do the impartial parties have to say about the two formats? Good to see they are both out there already. I'm going to wait until the dust settles before I upgrade as well. I'm thinking next spring.
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