Star Wars HD - HBO vs Cinemax?

[rjruby]

The six Star Wars movies are being broadcast in HD on HBO (6/1/07) and Cinemax (5/25/07).

I want to record them all on my 622 and hopefully archive them in the future onto an external drive........I know I should live so long.

I'm trying to decide which source to use for recording.

Is there any quality difference between HBO and Cinemax?

Are they both MPEG-4 or MPEG-2 disguised as MPEG-4 and what, if any, difference would that make in quality and the storage space required to record these movies on the hard drive?

Thanks for any feedback.

Bob

 

[Ron61250]

I am thinking of doing the same thing.I do not see much difference btwn. the two chs picture wise.Anyone know when the 622 will support an external hard drive? ron

 

[datwell]

I find that the MPEG4 files are smaller and take up less disk space, so if the PQ is ok, go with Cinemax - if not, then HBO is the answer.

And don't count on the external HD - it is now promised for June (hopefully June, 2007), but the track record has been pretty poor in this regard. Believe it when you see it.

---Doug

 

[retorq]

Is Cinemax a full 1920x1080i channel with mpeg4??

 

[abricko]

I'd probably go with the MPEG2 stream. While they have made improvements with their MPEG4 encoders and I'd rather have them this way than the super crap previous MPEG4 they were using.

Overall MPEG4 still just looks soft, like if you do a gaussian blur to a sharp photograph in photoshop to the point where the colors kind of start blurring together. Our CBS HD-LIL looks terrible, so if that's where they came from (MPEG4 wise) to FoodHD or HGTVHD they are improving. But for my taste MPEG2 still looks better.

 

[rjruby]

I find that the MPEG4 files are smaller and take up less disk space, so if the PQ is ok, go with Cinemax - if not, then HBO is the answer.
---Doug

So HBO-HD is MPEG-2 and Cinemax-HD is MPEG-4.

That's good to know.

Thanks.

 

[CKNA]

Is Cinemax a full 1920x1080i channel with mpeg4??

Cinemax HD is 1440x1080i h.264.

 

[rjruby]

Cinemax HD is 1440x1080i h.264.

Is HBO HD the same?

Thanks.

 

[David_Levin]

HBO used to reformat everything to 16:9. Don't know if they still are.

 

[Tom Bombadil]

HBO is 1920x1080 in MPEG2.

So the resolution should be sharper from HBO. Compression artifacts will vary, not only between Cin HD vs HBO HD, but from showing to showing on each channel.

I once recorded the Narnia movie from StarZ HD about 5 times before I got a good quality copy. And I saw differences between the HBO airings of the Star Wars movies the last time around. As these movies have bright colors, sometimes with lots of reds, and dark backgrounds, it is easy to see compression artifacts when they are present.