Rodolpho,
Whew..I'm glad I apologized before you posted. Obviously you have done more "research"(and writing) on this topic than I could ever do. I do have two points, however: 1) Wikipedia says:
When the DTS audiotrack is encoded at its highest legal bitrate (1.5 MB/s), most technical experts regard DTS as achieving perceptual transparency (i.e. indistinguishable to the uncoded source in a double blind test.)
Although Wikipedia is not unimpeachable, I don't believe that anyone (outside the Dolby Company itself) can realistically claim the same for legacy 5.1 DD; and 2), less than 10% of Blu-ray disks contain the 1.5 mbps DTS legacy soundtrack.
DTS 768Kbps sounded best than DD 384Kbps on the legacy. And of course Dolby tells officially that numbers are just numbers, and add "one should look at quality of sound and efficiencies of the codecs."
Now DD jumped their 384Kbps to 640, while DTS jumped their 768Kbps to 1.5Mbps when they extract their core legacy soundtrack from the hi-bit stored in the disc for backward compatibility using Toslink or coax connections.
It has been and it will be a numbers competition, and now is a naming competition with "mine is preceptually equal to the original" and yours is "just transparent" so I have to make mine "perceptually transparent".
Then is the number of formats within Dolby and within DTS, each designed to compete with the other at each bit rate level.
The hi-bit audio format claims that both make is that they both are equal to the original, "bit-per-bit", etc, when one is maxing at 18 and the other at 24.5, obviously "bit-per-bit" is not actually each bit, so they talk about packing and efficiencies.
So it all comes down to what you hear and what you feel. And I ended up long time ago that although human hearing is probably the most imperfect part of the system , is what I can trust, so I ignore their names and claims. But I can not ignore the specs because they show capacity and potential.
Obviously if there is no hi-bit soundtrack of either kind in the disc there will not be a core within it, unless the content provider records it separately. So is a mixed bag.
Neither Hi-def DVD format has reached their peak of HW, SW, and media, so the current bag is a moving target, and if one needs to make a decision now based on that, then it could be disappointing in the short run when they catch up with each other, and catch up with their own specs, and implement the optional features, especially Blu-ray.
If you are really into this, there is another chapter on the Industry Edition, which I believe I also included in the Consumer Edition (350+ pages, on sale on this magazine), that covers exclusively Hi Def DVD, formats, discs, standards, etc.
It is about 80 pages if my memory does not fail on me. That chapter covers it all, including how certain players (such as Toshiba) have performed deinterlacing to obtain 1080p in a very disappointing way because of the chip they used.
At the end of the chapter I include a complete analysis of the Hi Def DVD subject to facilitate consumer decisions.
Best Regards,
Rodolfo La Maestra
P.S. My name is not Rodolpho, what is your actual name?
...that the consumer has little hope of making a good decision in this contest if left only to his or her investigations. That is why I have taken a step to end their confusion by leading with my own decision, which, as you have acknowledged, is more informed than that of the general consumer. I have made it entirely on the basis of capacity since all other issues are arguable ad infinitum. The easiest to perceive as a future benefit for Blu-ray is capacity. Dragging in features that have mixed reviews is beclouding more than clarifying. If you are ever to win an argument you must start by winning the clearest single point and proceeding onward from that triumph. Personally, I think the scratch guard coating is a very significant feature, but is it so great as to not be ensnared by other arguments that are not even part of the present discussion, such as the audio argument introduced yesterday? Suddenly, we are trying to balance things with apples and oranges. That requires an interpretive calculator--a judgment system that weighs different values. "Gee, do I like the superior "this" enough to sacrifice superior "that" in the other? The headline everyone can understand (even if they disagree) is "Capacity Is The Winning Hand For Next Gen DVD." We all are sure to agree that both of these contestants are very fine and advanced technology with wonderful performance for the consumers. Once we rid ourselves of individual prejudices (and we all have them; one guy hates Sony, another thinks Toshiba is greedy, etc.) we can see clearly again. Either format is just fine for the consumer. That is the bottom line. The clearest edge for one or the other is capacity. Hell, everything else that we credit to one side or the other can be incorporated or combined into one, including that top coat (should our decision have been HD DVD). But I can't make a headline out of any other differentiation. Oh, suppose I could take the most coveted feature of HD DVD and write this headline: "Cheaper Pressing Cost Makes HD DVD The Winner." If you examine all of the web sites that discuss this contest it all boils down to "capacity" for Blu-ray and cheaper pressing or cheaper cost of entry for HD DVD. That is what the HD DVD group is selling as their main reason d'etre and while that certainly carries weight at the professional level, what does it mean to the public? Nothing is my answer, for the public is willing or not willing to pay the retail price for a movie and the cost of pressing in either format is only a tiny fraction of the selling price. The difference in pressing cost may well vanish once the first generation of Blu Ray pressing equipment is amortized. You are talking about amortizing a machine that cost $150,000 across three to five years and during that time that machine will press 16,000 good disks per day, 7 days a week that sell for $ 1.50 each (which includes amortization, raw material, handling, etc.) Yes, the die master is more costly, but once again, when amortized across millions of disks that difference is meaningless. The small player who wishes to have 100 disks pressed for a give-a-way or a presentation or whatever may feel it. The non-volume buyer of pressed Blu ray disks will bear more cost than with the HD DVD format. But is that forever? Remember my story about the original laser used in the CD development. The man who headed that also headed the European Vision 1250 EU HDTV initiative and he told me that the original laser used for the CD cost $10,000 EACH! But now with manufacturing engineering focused on producing hundreds of millions of those players those lasers are pennies each. So, whatever is costly today may well be the bargain of the century tomorrow. I might add, that this same Philip's executive told me that it would not be patent income that would enrich any patent holders in HDTV technologies. The ones that enrich a huge company like Philips, Sony, Toshiba, etc., are manufacturing process patents. Those today who hold patents on HDTV parameters may enjoy some revenue, yes, but the big money flows when you invent a new cheaper, faster, better way to make what the public wants. If you have a proprietary position in that, you are in the drivers seat. These big issue patents on products like television sets and DVDs are all limited by understanding if not international policy and law. How much can you charge for a patent use that goes into every machine made? It is a tiny sliver, but if you have the secret of the universe in making a display or an integrated circuit cheaper, faster, better, you get what the market will bear. Once a decision is made for one of our two formats, you can bet that every pressure in the world will come to the licensing authorities to get the price down. In consumer electronics every penny that is in the manufacturing process, and thus in the retail price, has a volume impact upon the market. So, no one is going to be in Nirvana patent-wise, not even your hated Sony or Toshiba. Those prices will be negotiated until the market is in harmony with the results.
As an industry we still have a huge uphill battle because a substantial portion of the population find standard DVDs played via an upconverter system to be just fine and dandy. That audience may be won over only by the forces of attrition--an old player breaks and a new one is purchased. The new one is priced near that of the old but is, in fact, a high def version with backwards compatibility.
A decision--any decision -- is better for us than sitting on the fence. While it was true that during the first phase these two contenders were subject to competitive forces which caused both systems to be made better. But that phase is over. The phase we now need to see kick in (if we are to have high def well stocked with programming) is the one where the high powered commodity producers do their powerful manufacturing engineer and get the cost out of the product. I know that some of you think that has already been done because a sub $100 HD DVD player hit the market. "Wow, maybe a million of them, or even two, or even three million of them are about to sweep into the marketplace." you boast with confidence. Those are trivial numbers to the consumer electronics industry. When you start competitively pricing components and assemblies with an annual delivery requirement of 20 to 50 million pieces, you get a whole different price structure than when ordering even a million or two. When market confidence rises the entire world is searched for best pricing and technical know-how that will reliably deliver to spec on time at the lowest price. In emerging nations governments often subsidize these huge manufacturing facilities because the wages earned and spent in that country profit its infrastructure well beyond the cost of the subsidy. So, whatever you believe about the two systems today is very much subject to a major change, at least in terms of costs.
So, let me repeat my thesis: We need to make a clear decision on one or the other. I lend my weight to the advantage of capacity -- something that carried the VHS tape recorder into the winner's circle. Not everyone will be happy with this decision until it all pays off, i.e., when the mainstream consumer jumps into an affordable market. Trust me, all rivalry will be forgotten soon. These contest of wills happen every time there is a new product "species" introduced and there always is a winner or, sadly, there is a disaster always attributed to the absence of a marketplace decision. Mark Knox, who represented (perhaps still does) Toshiba's interest, and was the chief spokesperson for HD DVD, told me in our first interview that Toshiba is not resting on its laurels. It is a company thinking well beyond the high definition DVD and, if they are not successful with their format, the company will not shrivel up and wither away. We are not dealing with children who will be scarred for life because you took away their candy or they got an F on a test. These are big, powerful, resourceful, highly intelligent and mature companies who have calculated all risks and understand that a decision can be made that is not always in their favor. Sure, they fight for it in the open marketplace with zeal and passion, but it is not the end of their world if they are not entirely victorious. Let's do them a favor and make a decision. I favor capacity. It's my only card to play. I won't enter into the features argument because we are not talking about a universal appeal with them--some like all or some of the features and some never set the blinking clock (please accept my metaphor). But capacity is a universal thing. Everyone can understand it even if they don't use it. It's like horsepower in your car. When you want to step on it, it's there to serve you, but in normal use you may draw upon no more than 10 per cent of your engine's capacity. When we make a decision the world will focus upon that decision and all that can be, will be in the format of our choice, including all of the unique goodies that may or may not be appealing to you. There is nothing to prohibit any of that incorporation other than our willingness to pay for it.
So, once again, my decision is for Blu-ray based entirely on the attribute of capacity and the knowledge that we actually sacrifice nothing but the grief caused by our collective indecision. Early adopters are crucial to every new introduction. In this case since the industry was not able to provide one solution to one problem we have to do that even if there is some minor cost to us in doing so. That is our duty as early adopters. We do a great deal to shape the future and the benefit to us will be the satisfaction of leading and doing something of value with your resources. If the manufacturers hear of our decision -- and they should -- they will not dare to overcharge us for they know that we can also revolt in ways which will confound the markets for years. It's time for all of us to cooperate--early adopters and their followers and the manufacturers and their retailers--so that we settle this issue before it gets too tiresome to worry over at all.
I have struggled with trying to research and decipher all the information out there on both HD disc offerings.
It is somewhat comforting to me that my personal conclusion shares an end view point that corresponds to the view of people like yourself and Rodolfo.
I think it is important that people with your background provide your viewpoints on this subject and I appreciate your diligence in dealing with all of our responses and replies. There certainly is a LOT of passion displayed by many people in the various forums I have researched on this subject, so it is great to see opinions from industry experts.
Thanks for taking a position and I'm sure we will all be watching with interest this next year or so to see how it all plays out. I'm just hoping that whatever format survives, or if they both survive, we will still have access to this sort of HD programming source, as there is no other delivery methodology yet that can rival it's capabilities.
Being involved with the telecommunication field since moving out of the computer hardware arena, I don't see how we'll ever be able to deliver the sorts of bit rates that can be provided by either of these media in any practical fashion. I know others feel otherwise, but there is just huge bandwidth requirements needed and even if it can be accommodated in high density areas, those outside of the main corridors would be shut out otherwise. IMO there is just no better way to get huge data files in a consumers hands, than have it delivered on a compact physical media.
Dale wrote:I have made it entirely on the basis of capacity since all other issues are arguable ad infinitum. The easiest to perceive as a future benefit for Blu-ray is capacity. Dragging in features that have mixed reviews is beclouding more than clarifying.
You seem to be trying to trivialize all other differences so that the only thing left is capacity. I think, and many agree with me, that the biggest advantage Blu-ray has is in it's partners (manufacturers and studios), and NOT capacity, but you mention nothing of that.
Dale wrote:As an industry we still have a huge uphill battle because a substantial portion of the population find standard DVDs played via an upconverter system to be just fine and dandy.
Yet another unsubstantiated statement. Please please please provide a reference for this "fact".
I can see that you are not interested in answering my questions nor providing the reasoning I request for some of your other statements. I will therefore greacefully bow out of this discussion, unsatisfied.
Hopefully your next article will be more motivating ...
By elevating one attribute to the level of the supreme I am in effect "trivializing" all other features. So, you are very right in making that observation. I might rather say that features are of a lesser significance in making a choice rather than "trivialized", but the term you elect to use is still descriptive, though a tad pejorative sounding to me. All features individually or when mounted up collectively are trumped by the value of "capacity" in my VERY personal assessment, and, in making my statement, I have consciously positioned those features beneath "capacity" so that they won't stick up and confuse the clearer basis for my decision. Again, I am not trying to say any feature is insignificant nor unwanted, all I am doing is lending my weight to Blu-ray by making a reasonably well informed decision on the chief issue. If no one agrees with me, that is fine. If half agree with me we are in no worse shape than we presently find ourselves. And if people see that we are tipping towards one which they can also back without coming to harm, then we have done something to help ourselves out of a technical dilemma. _Dale Cripps
Although I chose Blu-ray, it was not for the reasons expressed by Dale.
When I meant capacity and potential I was not talking about storage only, which is Dale's position, but I also mentioned many factual factors, technical and otherwise, which for my purpose Blu-ray and Sony have responded better than HD DVD and Toshiba since their introduction, especially regarding vision and quality recognizing since day one the importance of 1080p and 24fps, a must have for my HT.
Having acccess to advanced information directly from the manufacturers, not from opinionated Internet forums, I cover ample ground on my work and analysis from all the angles on the Hi-def DVD subject 5 years before its introduction, as you might see on my reports since 2002 covering early prototypes.
And as I said, I do not discuss personal choices on any forum. Which ever format wins, Blu-ray's vision for immediate quality provided me what I needed for my HT application, and that is all it counts with me; storage capacity was not even a factor on my list.
I just do not want my reasons to be misinterpreted to coincide with Dale's.
We owe a great debt of gratitude to Rodolfo for keeping the industry's feet to the fire and his unrelenting encouragement to embrace these higher quality elements in their respective standards. Why I choose capacity as my leading attribute is because it is the one universal value which all owners of Blu Ray players will have as a usable, or at least potential, benefit. This disk format will be under challenge by it's successor before the entire world is outfitted with equipment that can take advantage of the higher features to which Rodolfo lays emphasis. The combination of our views, however, should make our choice as invincible as reason itself can provide. Of course, the highly elastic issue of cost/price will continue to haunt our decision, but the history of this industry with ever-declining prices will surely support our decision for the life of that format. _Dale Cripps
Last edited by Dale on Thu Nov 08, 2007 10:34 am, edited 1 time in total.
miller wrote:What I was asking for were articles, studies or research indicating how much of an advantage this (scratch resistance) was. An ideal figure to have would be the number of Blu-ray discs returned to Netflix due to excessive damage compared to HD DVD and Standard DVD.
Hi Miller,
Your request prompted me to place a call to Netflix. According the them, there is no appreciable difference in the number of returns for either format. So based on this single point of data, HD DVD is no more damage-prone than Blu-ray.
If anyone else has other data from other sources, please point me in the proper direction.
Thanks,
- Shane
Publisher, HDTV Magazine Your Guide to High Definition Television
