Looking back on the format wars... Feature film size / bandwidth

[John Kotches]

I'm not trying to beat the dead horse any more than it's been beaten already... Just an observation I've made as I'm in the progress of ripping my blu-ray collection off to a NAS. More than half of my blu-ray collection fits the feature well within the 30GB limits of HD-DVD. I'll admit I don't often watch extras for films -- it can "ruin" the magic of the experience.

In fairness, I'm stripping these down to bare minimums on audio tracks, subtitles etc so that I can maximize the number of disks I can get onto the NAS.

Am I the only one who'd like to see them add another Mbit or two to the average bit rate for better feature picture quality?

BTW, the biggest feature film I've ripped was around 43GB, Dances with Wolves.

 

[dfergie]

Now they are cramming 2 movies on one disc further reducing the quality also ... I wish they would use the space available for the feature, not the extras.

 

[mike123abc]

Remember when these were specified they were dealing with mostly MPEG-2 and MPEG4/avchd2.64 was a new untested item. Is anything MPEG-2 any more?

 

[John Kotches]

mike:

In my experience, VC-1 (comparable to H.264 in performance) was the prevailing format for HD-DVD. I could do a survey to find out if I can find the right tools but MPEG-2 was rare.

Most of my blu-rays are H.264. Some TV Shows I have are MPEG-2 @ ~20 Mbits/second...

 

[rockymtnhigh]

I find the BDs I buy are such a mixed lot in terms of PQ. Granted sometimes its the filming itself, but there is so much variation in quality. I never could tell much difference at all between HD DVD and BD; I have them both, and still have plenty of red cases.

 

[gadgtfreek]

Im just gonna add I pulled for the winning team lol!

 

[jayn_j]

Almost disliked you Jason.

"yay, you're #1"

 

[gadgtfreek]

LMAO!!!

Boy, those were some bitter times on the forums. People were fighting everywhere, and you had shills galore.

 

[mike123abc]

mike:

In my experience, VC-1 (comparable to H.264 in performance) was the prevailing format for HD-DVD. I could do a survey to find out if I can find the right tools but MPEG-2 was rare.

Most of my blu-rays are H.264. Some TV Shows I have are MPEG-2 @ ~20 Mbits/second...

Yes I think all my reds are VC-1. But, that was also a new standard when they were coming up with the designs.

The BDs that came out at first were single layer, it took them a while to get the yields up to a decent level for the double layer.

 

[rockymtnhigh]

Im just gonna add I pulled for the winning team lol!

LOL -- Toshiba pulled the plug ONE MONTH after I got my first HD DVD player. Just like how Texas Instruments pulled the plug on the TI-994A a month after I got my first computer, a TI-994A.

 

[gadgtfreek]

I gave in Nov of 2007 (I think) and bought the $99 player at Walmart because I was tired of only 50% of the movies on Blu. When WB announced they were going 100% Blu in Jan, I listed the player on ebay that day and got my money back. Not too long after that it was over.

 

[rockymtnhigh]

I actually bought a second HD DVD player, so I could have a backup, and be able to use it in my HT room and living room. Neither get much use anymore.

 

[mike123abc]

I actually bought a second HD DVD player, so I could have a backup, and be able to use it in my HT room and living room. Neither get much use anymore.

I did that too, then I ripped them all, and do not use either player, wrapped in plastic down in the basement...

 

[John Kotches]

I ripped all of my reds with AnyDVD and picked up a lot of stuff for $5 and under.

I ended up trading them in to a local store and having about 400 in store credit for picking up more blurays.

Sent from my MB855 using Tapatalk 2

 

[jayn_j]

I keep two players and the discs, although I am starting to rip them. I have moral issues with not owning the discs if I have them on a server.

 

[dfergie]

I have my players and discs, but usually watch them through media players as my players were only 1080i ...

 

[teachsac]

I rarely use mine, even though it is now in the family room instead of the theater room. I had to pull it out to watch Batman Begins.

S~

 

[rockymtnhigh]

The HD DVD in my living room had its hdmi slot in my Denon receiver pulled, so I'd have the ability to add a Roku box. The player sits there for the day when I need to reconnect it, but right now, its just taking space.

 

[Ramy]

I still use my HD DVD player from time to time. Luckily I have 8 HDMI inputs on my receiver.

 

[jayn_j]

I just added an auto-sense HDMI switch.