The Current State of Blu-ray

[Woochifer]

Bill Hunt of The Digital Bits reported on some of the discussions and market data getting presented at the Blu-Con 2.0 conference. Unlike the jaded tech writers who primarily follow the computer industry and are often ill-informed on home video matters, Hunt sees the market trends for what they are (rather than what he wishes they would be) and actually has a track record for predicting things correctly (right on DVD, DIVX, anamorphic widescreen, and the HD-DVD/Blu-ray format war). He will have a more detailed write up next week, but here's some of the information that he passed along from the conference. A lot of interesting stuff.

http://www.thedigitalbits.com/#mytwocents

Hunt's list is much longer, but here are some highlights that I found most relevant. The link also has some extensive notes on 3D Blu-ray, which is apparently coming very soon.


Expect holiday Blu-ray player prices to be around $99 for profile 1.1 players and $149 for profile 2.0 players. SOME of the 2.0 may be as low as $99. That's considered to be the mass market price needed for sales to really start breaking out in 2010.

For the biggest blockbuster titles, as much as 30% of all disc sales have been on Blu-ray.

Best Buy is expecting 95% U.S. household penetration of HDTVs by 2013. The CEA (Consumer Electronics Association) predicts the 60% penetration by the end of this year.

CEA: Despite popularity, DVRs are still only in about 30% of U.S. households.

Blu-ray player sales are growing faster than any other electronics category, and the initial 4-year period of Blu-ray player sales growth is matching or exceeding that of standard DVD during its first 4 years.

Best Buy expects as many as 10 million BD players to be in U.S. homes by the end of this year, and predictions are that 18.6 million will sell by the end of 2010. (Includes PS3).

Consumer awareness of Blu-ray is a key area the industry needs to work on. Best Buy research shows that only 32% of its consumers are familiar with Blu-ray this year, up from 29% last year and 19% in 2007.

Research indicates that Blu-ray players' backwards compatibility with DVD is a mixed blessing - most people who have purchased Blu-ray players still purchase at least 1/3rd of their movie titles on standard DVD. HOWEVER, as Blu-ray software prices drop, there's no reason to believe that Blu-ray won't be 100% of the mix at some point in the next few years.

Adams Media Research is confident that Blu-ray will eventually take over from DVD as the playback format of choice for home video, but Blu-ray sales will probably not completely offset DVD sales declines.

The Consumer Electronics Association has been tracking Blu-ray sales and says they're exactly where they expect them to be compared to the sales trends for DVD at this same point in that format's life. Year 4 was the breakout year for DVD, and we're just now going into Year 4 for Blu-ray. They believe the hardware price point - under $150 - is exactly where it needs to be for Blu-ray to break fully into the mass market. The expectation is that 2010 WILL be the breakout year, barring additional economic shocks.

CEA: 2.7 million stand-alone Blu-ray players were sold in the U.S. last year. 3.7 have been sold so far this year, and 40-50% of all sales for the year happen in the 4th quarter, so CEA believes we could easily see the final total of BD stand-alone players sold in 2009 hit 6 or 7 million units. The number could go as high as 10 million, depending on supply and retailer aggressiveness.

CEA: PS3 sales were surpassed by stand-alone BD players for the first time in 2009.

Most Blu-ray players that are network-capable STILL aren't connected to the Internet. Convincing people to connect their players to the Net will continue to be a challenge, and must be addressed with wireless modems and a much easier process.

Consumer home video "transactions" were actually up 7% in the 3rd quarter of this year, but actual sales were down 2-3% (reflecting price discounting).

During the studio panel, the studios could not talk in detail about pricing because of anti-trust considerations, BUT... all agreed that software pricing is going to start coming down soon reflecting pressure from both consumers and retailers to get Blu-ray software priced at a more mass market friendly level. This could start happening as soon as the holidays this year.

The rate of catalog releases on Blu-ray is going to increase in 2010 - particularly Universal suggested that they were going to get more aggressive with their catalog release plans on the format in the year ahead.

Regardless, physical product isn't going away. The future is going to be a combination of all three - Blu-ray, VOD and EST - and they should complement each other.

Overall home video sales were down in 2009 because of the recession, but not as bad as late 2008. There are signs that the market is slowly starting to recover. 2010 is expected to be still slightly down (but not as bad as 2009) or even flat. 2011 could start seeing stronger recovery. Studios are cautiously optimistic going into the holiday season.

Sony says that 9 million PS3s will be in consumer homes in the U.S. by the end of the year - 27 million worldwide.

1 million PS3 units were sold globally within 3 weeks Sony's price drop.

90% of PS3 owners watch Blu-ray movies, and 55% prefer Blu-ray over DVD. 39% of them always choose Blu-ray over DVD.

Sony is launching its largest advertising campaign ever for the PS3 in late November, which will strongly emphasize its Blu-ray playback capability.

[Invader3k]

Very interesting read. Thanks for posting that.

[Mr Peabody]

I will be glad to see software prices come down. I don't know if I'm average but the software price has been a big henderence to me. If I rent and determine it's worth buying on Blu-ray I'll wait for a sale or try to find it used from Amazon at a price low enough to warrant buying used and paying shipping. I have all but stopped buying DVD. A few things just the kids would use.

I think the fact that you can buy a player like the Panasonic dmp-80 for even under $200.00 is significant. I doubt most even see the significance, a Panasonic, versus some no name Chinese box. And, it's not like this is a new stripped down version of a player to meet a price point, it's the real deal.

To me the big advantages to DVR is not related to download or PPV. The recording, pausing, rewinding and the like is the best to me. Cable offers On Demand which is free content that is nice. Like if you miss the new episode of Dexter you can go in the next day and pick it up at your convenience, that is if you haven't already set the DVR to record new episodes.

[Worf101]

It's funny, you tell me tht BR players are getting cheaper, then I get the latest issue of Audio Advisor and in it they have a Marantz BR/DVD/kitchen sink for 5 GRAND!!!!! Are they on crack? I swear it had absolutely no attributes not found in the Oppo which is litterally 10 times cheaper. Am I going nuts?

Da Worfster

[Mr Peabody]

You answered your own question Worfster, it's a Marantz, need any more be said baby. Hope your sarcasm detector is on :)

[Auricauricle]

Oh, you benighted fools! Where else are you gonna find a DVD player with a "thick bottom plate with machine milled copper feet, sustaining mechanical stability and therefore sound quality"? It's a no brainer!

[Mr Peabody]

Seriously, though, Marantz aren't fools, I wouldn't be surprised if this piece sets the benchmark for Blu-ray quality both audio and video. This is probably the piece Nightflier needs. I'll have to find this unit to see what it does. I'm sure it's an incredible SACD player as well. it may do the same function as the Oppo but hopefully for that price tag it does it a whole lot better.

[blackraven]

Here's a list of some of the top rated BluRay players that just came out in the new Consumer Reports.

#1 Oppo BDP-83........ $500
2.PANNY DMP-BD-80....... $275
3.LG BD390........ $330
4.SAMSUNG BD-P4600....... $350
5.HK BDP 1 .......$450
6.SONY BDP-S360 .......$230
7.SAMSUNG BD-P3600 .......$300
8.PHILIPS BDP5010 ......$200
9.PANASONIC DMP-B15 $700 THIS ONE IS PORTABLE
10.ONKYO DV-BD606 $400

The cheapest one that was in the top 27 was the Magnavox NB530MGX at $130

All 27 got excellent ratings for BluRay playback and all but the bottom 3 got excellent upconverted DVD playback

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

I was at this meeting, good stuff. I hope NF reads this........I feel vindicated;)

Thanks Wooch, Tu hermano te aprecia mucho

[Feanor]

Nice going Blu-ray. Subjectively I'm surprised at the rapidity of the market penetration. Then again, it is year 4.

I'm not the pundit that Sir Terrance and Wooch are, but I was about right on the $150 hardware price, and I'm sticking with the 133% of standard DVD price point for software.

Personally I would buy a Blu-ray player today vs. a DVD player -- despite that I still don't own an HDTV. And yes, while that situation persists I will by DVDs unless the BR premium is less an 1/3. Frankly I don't seem myself doing VOD perhaps ever. (In Canada, Rogers & Bell are huge price gougers.) As for downloads, well I still buy CDs.

[kexodusc]

Nice going Blu-ray. Subjectively I'm surprised at the rapidity of the market penetration. Then again, it is year 4.

I'm not the pundit that Sir Terrance and Wooch are, but I was about right on the $150 hardware price, and I'm sticking with the 133% of standard DVD price point for software.

Personally I would buy a Blu-ray player today vs. a DVD player -- despite that I still don't own an HDTV. And yes, while that situation persists I will by DVDs unless the BR premium is less an 1/3. Frankly I don't seem myself doing VOD perhaps ever. (In Canada, Rogers & Bell are huge price gougers.) As for downloads, well I still buy CDs.
I went to Futureshop yesterday for the first time in ages and was shocked at some of the BluRay title prices. I've seen them as low as $9.99. Not great films, mind you, but not the typical $9.99 DVD crap either...The kind that if you ever watched twice, you get value for.

But then some recent releases are still $30-$40 which was a downer. Still. I remember DVD was "the greatest consumer electronics device of all time" when it was growing in year 4. Now BluRay is slightly ahead of it. And movie prices on BluRay are cheaper than I remember the early prices of DVD...$9.99 did not exists in 2000-2001, that's for sure. Factor in inflation and a superior product, and I guess I shouldn't be so critical.

If one was so inclined to do a bit of shopping they could get their BluRays at reasonable prices. I just think the last 2 years have been pretty terrible for movie quality coming out of Hollywood, so I don't have many purchase worthy BluRays yet. I prefer to rent films I don't know for sure I will watch a few times...which requires some shrewd price shopping to avoid paying a 20% premium there as well...I suspect Christmas, and post-christmas will provide a big boost as titles get discounted and people start buying movies for their new players.

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

I went to Futureshop yesterday for the first time in ages and was shocked at some of the BluRay title prices. I've seen them as low as $9.99. Not great films, mind you, but not the typical $9.99 DVD crap either...The kind that if you ever watched twice, you get value for.

But then some recent releases are still $30-$40 which was a downer. Still. I remember DVD was "the greatest consumer electronics device of all time" when it was growing in year 4. Now BluRay is slightly ahead of it. And movie prices on BluRay are cheaper than I remember the early prices of DVD...$9.99 did not exists in 2000-2001, that's for sure. Factor in inflation and a superior product, and I guess I shouldn't be so critical.

If one was so inclined to do a bit of shopping they could get their BluRays at reasonable prices. I just think the last 2 years have been pretty terrible for movie quality coming out of Hollywood, so I don't have many purchase worthy BluRays yet. I prefer to rent films I don't know for sure I will watch a few times...which requires some shrewd price shopping to avoid paying a 20% premium there as well...I suspect Christmas, and post-christmas will provide a big boost as titles get discounted and people start buying movies for their new players.

Kex, I completely forgot that Canadians pay more for Blu rays than we do. I look at all of the under $20 catalog titles out there, and I don't realize that you guys probably pay closer to $30 for the same title there. With prices so cheap on catalog titles, I have been replacing my DVD's left and right with Bluray titles. I spent $110 bucks on Amazon the other day, and walked away with 8 titles. I thought that was a great deal

[Woochifer]

I will be glad to see software prices come down. I don't know if I'm average but the software price has been a big henderence to me. If I rent and determine it's worth buying on Blu-ray I'll wait for a sale or try to find it used from Amazon at a price low enough to warrant buying used and paying shipping. I have all but stopped buying DVD. A few things just the kids would use.

I don't think you're alone at all.

I know that because of the higher prices on BDs, I tend to be more selective about which titles I buy compared to my DVD purchases. At $15-$20 on the date of release, I can take a chance on a DVD title. But, for $20-$28 on a Blu-ray, I'll be a lot tighter about which titles I purchase.

At this point, the only DVDs I buy are those releases that don't come out on Blu-ray. Now that I mostly watch HD programs, it's rather jarring going back to the lower resolution of DVDs.


To me the big advantages to DVR is not related to download or PPV. The recording, pausing, rewinding and the like is the best to me. Cable offers On Demand which is free content that is nice. Like if you miss the new episode of Dexter you can go in the next day and pick it up at your convenience, that is if you haven't already set the DVR to record new episodes.

For the downloads/streaming media market to develop, the DVR will have to be a big part of the solution because I just don't see general purpose computers playing a primary role in TV viewing. Gaming consoles are also capable of serving this role, but there's an ingrained resistance on a lot of consumers to using a gaming device as a media center. The DVR is already the nerve center for recorded TV viewing in 30% of households, and perfectly capable of delivering on demand and streaming media. The only resistance here is the monthly charges that cable and satellite companies impose on DVR service.


It's funny, you tell me tht BR players are getting cheaper, then I get the latest issue of Audio Advisor and in it they have a Marantz BR/DVD/kitchen sink for 5 GRAND!!!!! Are they on crack? I swear it had absolutely no attributes not found in the Oppo which is litterally 10 times cheaper. Am I going nuts?

:lol:

I'm sure you can also find a $5,000 interconnect to go with that...

Seriously, there will always be room on the high end for more heavily spec'd optical players, because there's at least some demand there. High end CD players are still on the market. Also, up until recently, Denon was still selling high end DVD players for around that price.

For high end players, it's not the feature list that they're selling, it's everything about the construction, the higher specs on the components used, multiple power supplies, redundancies for different functions, etc.


Nice going Blu-ray. Subjectively I'm surprised at the rapidity of the market penetration. Then again, it is year 4.

I'm not the pundit that Sir Terrance and Wooch are, but I was about right on the $150 hardware price, and I'm sticking with the 133% of standard DVD price point for software.

Personally I would buy a Blu-ray player today vs. a DVD player -- despite that I still don't own an HDTV. And yes, while that situation persists I will by DVDs unless the BR premium is less an 1/3. Frankly I don't seem myself doing VOD perhaps ever. (In Canada, Rogers & Bell are huge price gougers.) As for downloads, well I still buy CDs.

Well, I wouldn't call myself a pundit per se, given that I'm simply relaying info that Bill Hunt of The Digital Bits collected!

That $150 price point puts you right at the average identified in multiple market surveys as the point at which most consumers would seriously consider buying a BD player.

The pricing differences between DVD and Blu-ray on the disc side are a little bit murkier to try and decipher.

Basically, DVD titles have gone downmarket towards the commodity end. In the past, DVD releases would often pack in a slew of bonus features in order to stir demand (and justify a higher list price). Special edition DVD releases are now almost nonexistent. The only special edition DVDs that come out are priced higher and advertised as "limited edition" versions. On the DVD side, you primarily have single-disc releases with limited or no bonus features, coming in at a somewhat lower list price than before.

Blu-ray has taken over that territory where the special edition DVDs used to be. Currently, the list prices on Blu-rays are not all that different from those for the limited number of special edition DVDs that still come out.

The other angle is that retailers are not yet using Blu-ray as a loss leader to drive store traffic. If you look at the date-of-release pricing, the discounts on DVDs are generally steeper than for Blu-rays. Makes sense because if the purpose of loss leader pricing is to get as many people through the store doors as possible, then the DVD is the way to go by virtue of its larger market share. But, I have started seeing more heavy discounting on new release Blu-ray titles. Last week, G.I. Joe was going for less than $20 at Fry's Electronics, and they're selling Up for the same amount this week, and several retailers are also marking Star Trek down below $20 as well.

I agree though that Blu-ray prices need to come down further at some point, otherwise they will continue to hinder adoption.


If one was so inclined to do a bit of shopping they could get their BluRays at reasonable prices. I just think the last 2 years have been pretty terrible for movie quality coming out of Hollywood, so I don't have many purchase worthy BluRays yet. I prefer to rent films I don't know for sure I will watch a few times...which requires some shrewd price shopping to avoid paying a 20% premium there as well...I suspect Christmas, and post-christmas will provide a big boost as titles get discounted and people start buying movies for their new players.

Tell me about it! My movie purchases have seriously dropped over the past couple of years. Indeed, a lot of the movies coming out just don't do anything for me, but also most of the older movies that I want to own, I already have. I used to have a huge wishlist of catalog titles that I wanted on DVD, but that list got whittled down quite a bit.

My Blu-ray wishlist is considerably shorter. While I love the Blu-ray image quality and sound quality, I don't plan on replacing most of my DVDs -- at least not at current disc prices.

However, I do like that some of the studios are trying to get consumers to upgrade by offering up rebates or coupon deals to people who already own certain movies on DVD. With all the date-of-release discounting (and bundle deals with Up) and Disney's $8 coupon offer, I calculated my net cost for upgrading Monsters, Inc. at $6 if I buy it at Fry's Electronics.

That said, the current and upcoming home video releases of this summer's blockbuster titles will definitely spur a lot of BD player sales. There's no single title out there that will carry the season like The Dark Knight did last year, but it's a pretty steady stream of in-demand titles coming out every week through mid-December.


Kex, I completely forgot that Canadians pay more for Blu rays than we do. I look at all of the under $20 catalog titles out there, and I don't realize that you guys probably pay closer to $30 for the same title there. With prices so cheap on catalog titles, I have been replacing my DVD's left and right with Bluray titles. I spent $110 bucks on Amazon the other day, and walked away with 8 titles. I thought that was a great deal

I hadn't shopped at Fry's in a while, and when I went there last week, I was surprised at how many Blu-ray titles they've moved down into the discount shelves. Fox must have done some major price cuts, because there's a bunch of Blu-rays from them selling for under $12. And it seems that lots of the Warner titles are almost always selling for as low as $10. Still though, most of what they have still goes for $25 to $30, which remains too high for a catalog title.

[Mr Peabody]

Looks like the new Star Trek will be one to buy. What's cool is how many BD's this year have stellar A/V quality. Star Trek reviews report it to be incredible.

I didn't realize until I saw it today that recent DVD's sold to rental stores did not include extras and they are thinking about doing the same for BD. Not here or there to me but I thought it interesting.

[pixelthis]

Heres the best price for Blu so far...free
Buy a Sony "V" television at Sears, get a free Blu player.
Can't beat free.:1:

[Worf101]

I want to be the first to print a correction to my earlier post. I checked the issue if Audio Advisor wherein I "thought" I saw a BluRay player for 5 Grand I was wrong. Upon careful reading I have determined that Marantz is selling us this magnificent piece of hardware for the miniscule price of SIX THOUSAND DOLLARS!!!!! That's right I was a grand shy of the actual price so... this Bluray player is not 10 times as expensive as my Oppo, its' 12 times as expensive... And 6 LARGE is AA price LIST is $6,675 or something similar, I'm not sure... I'd been struck blind by the first figure and hadn't regained my sight yet. Are you chittin' me?

Da Worfster

[Woochifer]

Here's an updated link to Bill Hunt's original post. He moved it off the front page yesterday.

http://www.thedigitalbits.com/mytwocentsa173.html#110509

[Woochifer]

Looks like the new Star Trek will be one to buy. What's cool is how many BD's this year have stellar A/V quality. Star Trek reviews report it to be incredible.

Nearly all of the major studio releases will probably have excellent video and audio quality. Once the studios upgraded their production facilities to use the more efficient MPEG-4 AVC and VC-1 codecs for their video encoding, and began using dual-layered BD50 disc media more frequently, the results have been uniformly stellar (at least for new releases). More bandwidth and more efficient encoding means less processing done with the video, and image quality that inches closer to the master source.

Early BDs used the older less efficient MPEG-2 codec and were pressed onto BD25 discs. This required heavier compression and more heavy handed processing. Also, the earlier releases often used older HD scans that might not have been done very well. Those might have been acceptable as sources for downscaling to DVD resolution, but the flaws become visible at 1080p.


I didn't realize until I saw it today that recent DVD's sold to rental stores did not include extras and they are thinking about doing the same for BD. Not here or there to me but I thought it interesting.

Yeah, the studios have been doing this for at least the last couple of years. They're trying to create demand for sell-throughs by stripping out the bonus features on rental copies. Not sure how effective that is, but the premise is valid that the bonus features are an important consideration in DVD and BD purchase decisions.

For Warner's classic movie series and Disney's Platinum/Diamond series titles, they load the discs up with a lot of great features and sell millions of copies while basically charging the same price as a new release. The more stripped down movie-only catalog releases from other studios tend to get relegated to the bargain bins very quickly.


I want to be the first to print a correction to my earlier post. I checked the issue if Audio Advisor wherein I "thought" I saw a BluRay player for 5 Grand I was wrong. Upon careful reading I have determined that Marantz is selling us this magnificent piece of hardware for the miniscule price of SIX THOUSAND DOLLARS!!!!! That's right I was a grand shy of the actual price so... this Bluray player is not 10 times as expensive as my Oppo, its' 12 times as expensive... And 6 LARGE is AA price LIST is $6,675 or something similar, I'm not sure... I'd been struck blind by the first figure and hadn't regained my sight yet. Are you chittin' me?

Yeah, but they've now successfully softened you up for your venture over to the CD player section. That $4,500 Musical Fidelity CD player now looks like an outright bargain. :3:

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

Nearly all of the major studio releases will probably have excellent video and audio quality. Once the studios upgraded their production facilities to use the more efficient MPEG-4 AVC and VC-1 codecs for their video encoding, and began using dual-layered BD50 disc media more frequently, the results have been uniformly stellar (at least for new releases). More bandwidth and more efficient encoding means less processing done with the video, and image quality that inches closer to the master source.

Early BDs used the older less efficient MPEG-2 codec and were pressed onto BD25 discs. This required heavier compression and more heavy handed processing. Also, the earlier releases often used older HD scans that might not have been done very well. Those might have been acceptable as sources for downscaling to DVD resolution, but the flaws become visible at 1080p. :

You can pretty much kiss VC-1 good bye, as Microsoft has stop supporting it, and Warner (the last to really use it) has just ordered a bunch of AVC encoders (where all of the support is). The only reason VC-1 was even used is to create a closed eco system that supported HD-DVD. It along with HDi was used exclusively by HD-DVD, and now that the format is no longer around, everyone has shifted away from its use and headed towards AVC. Most movies you see encoded with VC-1 are old previously encoded work, and Warner does not want to incur the cost of re-encoding the movie, so they port over the old encode to save money. If you look at the bit rate of these encodes, it hovers around 20mbps, a bitrate more optomized for HD-DVD than the Bluray format.

I am not convinced the use of BD-25 disc along with MPEG-2 and PCM audio really had anything to do with the poor results of movies like The House of Flying Daggers, or the Fifth Element. From talking to Sony rep Paidgeek on Bluray.com(no longer active there), it was the fault of poor quality control which allowed a dirty printmaster to be used for encoding. Considering Kung Fu Hustle, Stealth, Ultraviolet, and Blackhawk Down all used BD-25 disc with PCM and MPEG-2 with excellent, the arguement goes back to the quality of the printmaster, not the combination of disc, video codec, or PCM.

[Woochifer]

You can pretty much kiss VC-1 good bye, as Microsoft has stop supporting it, and Warner (the last to really use it) has just ordered a bunch of AVC encoders (where all of the support is). The only reason VC-1 was even used is to create a closed eco system that supported HD-DVD. It along with HDi was used exclusively by HD-DVD, and now that the format is no longer around, everyone has shifted away from its use and headed towards AVC. Most movies you see encoded with VC-1 are old previously encoded work, and Warner does not want to incur the cost of re-encoding the movie, so they port over the old encode to save money. If you look at the bit rate of these encodes, it hovers around 20mbps, a bitrate more optomized for HD-DVD than the Bluray format.

Sheesh... yet another orphaned format from M$. They seem to have developed the reverse Midas touch over the last few years, and left a lot of their customers dangling (PlaysForSure or MSN Music Store, anyone?). Does this mean that they've also abandoned VC-1 as the encoding format for WMV and Silverlight? Or are they throwing yet another beaucoups bucks turd against the wall with yet another new format and hoping that it sticks this time?

Even though Warner has put out some stellar BDs using VC-1, articles I've read indicate that AVC retains more of the original image integrity. As great as Blade Runner looks, I just wonder if it could look even better using a higher bitrate AVC encode. The image quality on some of the AVC titles I have from Pixar and Disney just jumps off the screen.


I am not convinced the use of BD-25 disc along with MPEG-2 and PCM audio really had anything to do with the poor results of movies like The House of Flying Daggers, or the Fifth Element. From talking to Sony rep Paidgeek on Bluray.com(no longer active there), it was the fault of poor quality control which allowed a dirty printmaster to be used for encoding. Considering Kung Fu Hustle, Stealth, Ultraviolet, and Blackhawk Down all used BD-25 disc with PCM and MPEG-2 with excellent, the arguement goes back to the quality of the printmaster, not the combination of disc, video codec, or PCM.

I would think that issues with the early BDs would also be from higher compression or poorly done processing that created visible artifacts. Reviews I read of some early BD titles seemed to hint that the flaws were more widespread than just a dirty printmaster, unless there were other issues inherent in the original scan (which seems to be the case with the recent Gladiator BD).

Regardless though, it seems that the newer titles have gotten over the early growing pains, and some reference quality BDs are coming out right on time for the holiday shopping season.

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

Sheesh... yet another orphaned format from M$. They seem to have developed the reverse Midas touch over the last few years, and left a lot of their customers dangling (PlaysForSure or MSN Music Store, anyone?). Does this mean that they've also abandoned VC-1 as the encoding format for WMV and Silverlight? Or are they throwing yet another beaucoups bucks turd against the wall with yet another new format and hoping that it sticks this time?

VC-1 and HDi were supposed to be Microsoft's attempt at becoming a Hollywood heavyweight. One of the most exciting verbal brawls I was fortunate enough to see was Bill Gates going at Sir Howard about Sony refusal to even allow a vote on using HDi for the Blu-ray format. Gates almost lost his lunch while Sir Howard remained dignified and non plussed, what a hoot that was. At this point Microsoft is an unspeakable name in Hollywood, as many blame the company for trying to split the industry, and work its way in. They are trying so hard to stretch their tentacles into so many areas, they seem to be thinning themselves out.


Even though Warner has put out some stellar BDs using VC-1, articles I've read indicate that AVC retains more of the original image integrity. As great as Blade Runner looks, I just wonder if it could look even better using a higher bitrate AVC encode. The image quality on some of the AVC titles I have from Pixar and Disney just jumps off the screen.

Not only does it retain more of the image and grain, but it is more efficient as it only requires one to two passes (next to VC-1 3 or 4) to accurately encode the images. Warner saw they could save a lot of time on encoding just by switching to AVC, and they eventually followed the rest of the industry.




I would think that issues with the early BDs would also be from higher compression or poorly done processing that created visible artifacts. Reviews I read of some early BD titles seemed to hint that the flaws were more widespread than just a dirty printmaster, unless there were other issues inherent in the original scan (which seems to be the case with the recent Gladiator BD).

Regardless though, it seems that the newer titles have gotten over the early growing pains, and some reference quality BDs are coming out right on time for the holiday shopping season.

One of the things I learned when I reviewed at Bluray.com is that you cannot always trust a reviewers review. There is a lot of posturing out there as websites compete for traffic. Some do not always look at all they review. Some reviewers have issues with their equipment that actually creates artifacts, and it appears in their reviews. One of the biggest review debacles was the reviewing of Bram Strokers Dracula. Almost every website out there got their reviews completely wrong by comparing previous DVD and laserdisc releases of that movie to the Director approved Bluray release. I was able to see the printmaster that Coppola approved at the Cary Grant Theater at Sony's Culver city studios. The Bluray's images were as close to identical as video can get to film, and Peter Bracke of Highdefdigest was especially wrong in his review of the flick.

One thing is for sure, the problems were not as widespread as some would have you believe. Remember, we were in the throngs of a format war, and alot of websites picked sides, often giving titles on HD DVD better scores than the Bluray releases of the same title. This is problematic since the same video master and audio codec was used on both.

Gladiator was a prime case of a dirty printmaster and massive doses of DNR to get rid of the grain. When the images became soft because of the DNR, they used edge enhancement in an attempt to sharpen it up. That just created more problems, as you could plainly see its effect as noticeable traces around edges.

[Woochifer]

VC-1 and HDi were supposed to be Microsoft's attempt at becoming a Hollywood heavyweight. One of the most exciting verbal brawls I was fortunate enough to see was Bill Gates going at Sir Howard about Sony refusal to even allow a vote on using HDi for the Blu-ray format. Gates almost lost his lunch while Sir Howard remained dignified and non plussed, what a hoot that was. At this point Microsoft is an unspeakable name in Hollywood, as many blame the company for trying to split the industry, and work its way in. They are trying so hard to stretch their tentacles into so many areas, they seem to be thinning themselves out.

Yup, I don't see how it would have benefited Blu-ray to support HDi.

I don't know if the blame goes to Gates or Steve Ballmer, but MS just seems totally adrift right now, trying to buy their way into one market after another. Their media initiatives have been nothing more than their usual practice of tying everything back to their Windows monopoly.

Now, they're just trying to copy Apple and its success in the media player and smartphone market, with no coherent strategy for making it all work from what I can see. To compete with the iPod, they first tried to replicate the desktop PC model by enlisting a bunch of hardware partners and building the player around Windows-centric formats. Then when that approach didn't work, they screwed their partners by abandoning PlaysForSure and trying to create their own closed media ecosystem with the Zune. Might have once been a good idea, but the media player market is maturing with declining margins and flat unit sales. MS is trying to catch up with a ship that's already headed back to port. In the smartphone market, where much of the action is nowadays, they're also rapidly losing ground.


Not only does it retain more of the image and grain, but it is more efficient as it only requires one to two passes (next to VC-1 3 or 4) to accurately encode the images. Warner saw they could save a lot of time on encoding just by switching to AVC, and they eventually followed the rest of the industry.

My understanding is that it also that VC-1 requires more processing power on the playback side. Not an issue, given that I would assume that the SOC processors built into Blu-ray players are more than powerful enough to handle VC-1.


One of the things I learned when I reviewed at Bluray.com is that you cannot always trust a reviewers review. There is a lot of posturing out there as websites compete for traffic. Some do not always look at all they review. Some reviewers have issues with their equipment that actually creates artifacts, and it appears in their reviews. One of the biggest review debacles was the reviewing of Bram Strokers Dracula. Almost every website out there got their reviews completely wrong by comparing previous DVD and laserdisc releases of that movie to the Director approved Bluray release. I was able to see the printmaster that Coppola approved at the Cary Grant Theater at Sony's Culver city studios. The Bluray's images were as close to identical as video can get to film, and Peter Bracke of Highdefdigest was especially wrong in his review of the flick.

One of the constants in the era of digital video -- the never ending pissing matches about film grain! One of the great revelations since I upgraded to Blu-ray has been the presence of the film grain in the viewing image. Blade Runner was one of my first BD purchases, and when that opening sequence popped up on the TV, it was jawdropping because it instantly reminded me of the many times I'd seen that movie in theaters (mostly projected in 70mm). The image was clean, but preserved the film grain. It was an organic look, very much like good film projection.

On a HDTV, the flaws with DVDs are readily apparent. They will either look excessively scrubbed, or introduce all sorts of artifacts. With Blu-ray, it seems that the process is more straight forward, because more of the original film resolution can get transferred without needing to balance between edge enhancement, noise reduction, and other processing.

Interesting comment about Bracke's review, because he's been one of the more reliable reviewers out there IMO (at least for assessing AV quality) since his days at dvdfile.com.

[frahengeo]

Yet another update on blu-ray 3D specs from The Bits

http://www.thedigitalbits.com/#mytwocents