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A Statistical Comparison of HD DVD & Blu-Ray Reviews
An anonymous reader writes "Gizmodo today posted a statistical comparison of over 300 HD DVD and Blu-ray reviews published at High-Def Digest since the start of the high-def format wars last Spring. Their findings? Overall video quality between the two formats is nearly identical, however Blu-ray titles were slightly, but definitely superior in audio playback, while HD DVD titles had far superior standard def features and moderately superior high-def features."
Both formats have gone beyond the resolution of my eyes (and ears).
No, HD-DVD will win because fewer people misspell it, so more people will be able to Google it properly.
I think I'm going to start a porn site and call it "blue ray." I could make millions!
The article is a total crock of @#$#. Just looking at the charts shows you that the audio "difference" is so incredibly tiny that the actual players probably have far more to do with it than the format.
Quality will not decide this format war - the PS3 will.
Betamax was superior to VHS...and the MacOS was superior to Windows (at least for some time...let's avoid the flame war on the current state of affairs). They were both beaten by superior positioning of technically inferior competitors...and the PS3 has been a huge success for Sony in one regard - it got a lot of BluRay players in the hands of consumers...and the sales of BluRay titles are dwarfing those of HD DVD correspondingly.
Will the trend continue? Who knows, but I'd rather have momentum than not have it...so I'm not betting against Sony yet. The posted article may be interesting for some, but I am disinterested in any discussion of quality or features until the market settles. I do not have the discretionary income to buy an expensive player that will be obsolete before it is useful...regardless of any perceived quality difference. Early adopters may disagree, but Joe Sixpack and I are sticking with our standard DVD players and HD over cable/satellite until we see who wins this war.
Your mileage may vary.
What I got was that the audio in Blu-ray was "better" because of the availability of higher quality audio content, not performance of the particular technology. A little misleading I think, when HD-DVD can simply add higher quality audio content and be equal to Blu-ray in terms of audio performance.
Or is there something else?
Why are so many posts with factual errors modded up?
Agreed, bittorrent is fine when I miss a TV show or am not sure if a movie will be good, but it's not going to be replacing an actual DVD for me. And as I am a sucker and have both an Xbox 360 HD-DVD add-on and a PS3, i'll be sticking to movies in 1920x1080 on my HDTV via HDMI ;-)
Not to say there aren't HD rips out there, but most are usually at lower res than the original BR/HDDVD and if not are redicuosly huge and you still need a way to get it to your TV (yes, I know you can hook your PC to a TV but that just seems like way too much effort and im damn lazy.)
- "Scientia non habet inimicum nisp ignorantem"
It's not even funny.
No, HD-DVD will win because fewer people misspell it, so more people will be able to Google it properly.
What's sad is the parent is rather insightful. Not so much that HD-DVD is easier to spell than Blu-Ray but looking on the package it's painfully clear to your average joe with a HDTV set that the HD-DVD is for HD-TVs. The Blu-Ray disc doesn't in it self say "i'm for your HDTV".
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
Blu-ray titles were slightly, but definitely superior
This post is only slightly, but definitely sarcastic.
Neither format will win. Who won the DVD-A vs. SACD war?
bort.
Free, Anonymous surfing: Pagewash.com.
HD DVD supports both Dolby and DTS. Much like a normal DVD, whether or not it has DTS is entirely up to the studio mastering the disc. Dolby mandatory, and I believe DTS is optional (just as it is with standard def DVD's). HD DVD also supports both Dolby and DTS lossless formats, should the studio master the disc to use it. (Again, Dolby TrueHD decoding is mandatory, DTS-HD is optional)
The reason why Blu-ray is credited with 'sounding better' is because many Blu-ray discs use raw PCM encoding for audio, rather than any sort of compression (lossless or not). Some purists believe they can hear the difference between compressed, lossless and lossy compression.
While many HD DVD titles use lossless compression, not all of them do.
When an HD DVD title does have lossless compression, its audio is ranked as good as Blu-ray's (and it had better, given that the decoder should be seeing an identical bitstream).
To be honest, I'm a believer in lossy compression; at the bitrates used in HD DVD, I seriously doubt anybody could tell the difference between lossless and lossy in a double-blind test on identical equipment; the bitrate is well above the level of transparency.
-- Sometimes you have to turn the lights off in order to see.
Nope, that's not it.
On DVD, your 5.1 audio codecs are DTS or Dolby Digital up to 448 Kbps. HD DVD supports Dolby Digital Plus up to 1.5 Mbps. Even professional film mixers tell me they feel that DD+ north of 1.2 Mbps is pretty much transparent to them.
Note that Blu-ray doesn't make DD+ mandatory, nor does it require players to have built-in compression for TOSLink output, which is why the Sony discs use AC-3 @ 640 Kbps (the BD max) AND PCM 5.1 48 KHz 16-bit simultaneously. So it takes more than 5 Mbps to provide the audio experience that HD DVD does in 1.5 Mbps.
My video compression blog
Which format looks best once converted to Xvid? :)
This is true, but I think that if somebody cares enough to drop $1000 on a high-def player they're going to at least take a cursory glance at what the technology is which would usually result in them becoming aware of blu-ray if they weren't before. I mean, even if $1,000 is nothing to you, if you go into best buy and tell the clerk you want an HD-DVD player he'll likely point out the blu-ray players as well.
Ummm... I diagree. Those early adopters of HDTVs often bought them without tuners, and without HD support from the cable company.
Always bet on stupid. Even the clerks are stupid, you say an HD DVD player, odds are you'll get HD-DVD.
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
BluRay: Has better audio, probably because of the larger capacity and better support for advanced codecs. Bonus features should catch up once more BD-Java tools are developed.
Blu-ray doesn't have better support for advanced codecs. In terms of 'optinal' formats, it's a wash; both support the same list. In terms of mandatory codecs, HD DVD gets the win. HD DVD requires many codecs that are merely optional for BD. The (lossless) Dolby TrueHD or DTS-HD codecs are optional, not mandatory, on Blu-ray. TrueHD decoding is mandatory on HD DVD.
That being said, I can see how an audiophile would say that Blu-ray has better sound. Since TrueHD isn't mandatory, most BD discs target compatibility by using raw uncompressed PCM. (BD also uses Dolby Digital & optionally DTS, as does HD DVD). So the 'better' sound comes down to the old argument between uncompressed/lossless vs high-bitrate lossy sound. (HD DVD titles with TrueHD soundtracks rank on the same level as BD's raw PCM).
The bitrate of the lossy Dolby codecs on HD DVD is 1.5 Mb/s. This is well above the transparency level of 1.2 Mb/s for the codec. I wonder if it's a case of subconsciously thinking "this one is lossy, so it can't sound as good," and that a double-blind test would have different results.
BD-J is also an optional extention to Blu-ray; it's not a mandatory part of the spec. While BD-J has the possibility of giving excellent interactivity, the end result may be far below the potential. The reason: HDi is not much more complex than editing HTML, whereas BD-J requires Java skills. Ease of development counts, and BD-J doesn't appear to have it.
-- Sometimes you have to turn the lights off in order to see.
Any differences that actually do exist are more likely attributable to the player or the mastering software than the disc it came from.
Audiophile: Somebody who listens to the equipment rather than the music.
Looks like this one is rapidly being translated into the video domain.
Don't tell me to get a life. I had one once. It sucked.
So, basically, this is a review of a review? When are the reviews of reviews of reviews coming out?
Joshua J. Kugler
I think I'm going to start a porn site and call it "blue ray."
Let me guess... Is your name Ray?
Hundreds of people die every year from autoerotic asphyxiation, you insensitive clod!
;)
Being the Asshole that I am, I decided to check on Piratebay. HD-DVD's winning. and porn, too. Porn Always wins.
"No freeman shall ever be debarred the use of arms." -- Thomas Jefferson
I guess you haven't seen the 720p or 1080p x264 (H.264/AVC - same codec that many of the HD-DVD/Blu-Ray movies are using) rips on private bittorrent trackers or Usenet. A standard two hour movie will fit on a DVD5 at 720p with 6 channel AC3 audio and a bitrate of 4.5-6 mbit/sec. While this wouldn't look great using xvid, H.264/AVC High profile can create great quality. x264 using Sharktooth's HQ-Slowest profile is very impressive. A 2 hour movie can fit on a DVD9 at 1080p at 7-8 mbit/sec, again with very good quality.
Hell, I've seen some 2 CD sized x264 rips from 1080p sources that blow DVD out of the water. Forget about the MPEG-4 ASP codecs like Xvid and Divx. Now that we have H.264/AVC, we can achieve excellent results at 720p and 1080p down to DVD5/9 sizes.