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DVD a Next-Gen rival?

BlueFalcon7

New member
Is there a limit as to how far you can compress something? Maybe. But I seriously doubt it. There's always these little details we haven't thought of.

Infinite lossless compression is a mathematical impossibility. There are only so many ways that any given value can be represented. While we can abbreviate some values, not all values can be. Now It can be compressed to a level of reasonable quality loss, and then it can be mathematically compressed. You know the drawbacks to both, that both can only go so far.
 

General Plot

Britchie Crazy
Doomulation said:
I don't know... 100 inch? You'll hardly notice any difference on a 19 inch, I'd say.
I'll repeat myself. My monitor is a mere 15 inches in size, and I can notice a significant difference between a DVD and HD-DVD/Blu Ray.
Doomulation said:
That's absurd. Who would store their film in analog format?
All of Hollywood's movies are stored on original analog film reels.;)
Doomulation said:
Format war isn't over yet ;)
Neither is the console one, but you've taken it upon yourself to decide on a winner there.
Doomulation said:
*cough* PS3 anyone? *cough*
No seriously, there will always be stand-alone to take care of the decoding. And remember that decoding is far less intensive than encoding.
Is there a limit as to how far you can compress something? Maybe. But I seriously doubt it. There's always these little details we haven't thought of.
Decoding a 1080p video itself is already a stressful process. Add an extremely compressed codec into the mix, and that will ensure that stand alone players never come down in price by much.;)
Doomulation said:
Point being that if you have a 100 inch TV, you'll want nothing but HD since SD will look awful (it will so washed out!).
I can't stand to watch TV on the 27 inch we have because of how horrible it is.
Doomulation said:
Maybe... maybe not. I believe it's here to stay... for a while. DVD is well-known and cheap to make. Who's to say it won't be as popular as dual layer? The normal user won't know the difference at all, I believe.... They'll probably market it as a HD-player to play HD DVDs (NOT HD-DVD!).
At least until HD-DVD and Blu-ray start to take off. This is what I believe...
Yeah, the cassette was also known very well. And what do people remember it as now? Even when they made DCC, the thought of a cassette scared the masses away from it. Just watch, the same will happen with this desparate attempt to keep an old format alive.;)
 

Cyberman

Moderator
Moderator
Note on compression formats

I know that there has been much ado about new HD formats etc. However some of the compression formats are SCALABLE. Keep that in mind. In particular some have the ability to show detail with the same bit rate from 480P to 1080P.

Genplot you have the issue in hand that is in order to produce 1920x1080x60fps OR 125MPPS there would be some nasty number chrunching going on (think about 10 instructions per pixel or more need to be executed then multiply the number of pixels need and you see how much processing power is needed), this however is an embarassingly parallel problem, so more processors can easily fix the problem (IE it is easy to break up the data between processors). 720P Video makes my 3ghz computer cough furballs. That is with high performance compression. If the HQ high compression is NOT used things are a bit different. Basically the amount of processing goes down because the stream has more 'easy' data to process so a lower power processor can handle it. HD-DVD and BLUE RAY use nothing but MPEG2 streams and thus fit under the catagory of LOW quality compression and high stream bandwidth. In other words they just use more bandwidth and data to increase the resolution instead of better compression.

The only truely scaleable method I'm aware of is a non standard one involving fractal compression which is far more asymetric than any of the MPEG standards. It gives excelent compression (significantly better than MPEG standards using DCT and frame twiddling) and has a theoretical infinite scalability (it doesn't because of the numbers used to represent transformations aren't infinitately acurate). If you want to discuse that in another thread I can explain why it is scaleable.

Cyb
 

t0rek

Wilson's Friend
I'll repeat myself. My monitor is a mere 15 inches in size, and I can notice a significant difference between a DVD and HD-DVD/Blu Ray.

I have prefect sight. What I am missing then? In another of these "HD-DVD vs Blu Ray, Sony quality debate and Plot vs Doom" threads, someone posted a link of a guy giving scientific reasons explaining that the difference between 720p and 1080p is onlly noticed by the human eye with screens bigger than 50". I still have a 15" CRT monitor, so I know that's true. Someone please search one of those threads to look for that article.

About Cyberman post, it makes sense and sounds good, I'm agree with him, but I don' have any idea of what he talks abouts :p
 

General Plot

Britchie Crazy
Cyberman said:
I know that there has been much ado about new HD formats etc. However some of the compression formats are SCALABLE. Keep that in mind. In particular some have the ability to show detail with the same bit rate from 480P to 1080P.

Genplot you have the issue in hand that is in order to produce 1920x1080x60fps OR 125MPPS there would be some nasty number chrunching going on (think about 10 instructions per pixel or more need to be executed then multiply the number of pixels need and you see how much processing power is needed), this however is an embarassingly parallel problem, so more processors can easily fix the problem (IE it is easy to break up the data between processors). 720P Video makes my 3ghz computer cough furballs. That is with high performance compression. If the HQ high compression is NOT used things are a bit different. Basically the amount of processing goes down because the stream has more 'easy' data to process so a lower power processor can handle it. HD-DVD and BLUE RAY use nothing but MPEG2 streams and thus fit under the catagory of LOW quality compression and high stream bandwidth. In other words they just use more bandwidth and data to increase the resolution instead of better compression.

The only truely scaleable method I'm aware of is a non standard one involving fractal compression which is far more asymetric than any of the MPEG standards. It gives excelent compression (significantly better than MPEG standards using DCT and frame twiddling) and has a theoretical infinite scalability (it doesn't because of the numbers used to represent transformations aren't infinitately acurate). If you want to discuse that in another thread I can explain why it is scaleable.

Cyb
Indeed. I'm sure the compression scheme behind what HD-DVD and Blu Ray use is definitely as "processor friendly" as possible (to keep the cost of standalone players down), which is why in their case, the more storage, the better, since they will show a loss in quality as the file size goes down. This is also why I think this new hybrid 4 layer DVD, whatever it is with super compression, etc.. won't work. If it relies on a power demanding decoder to be played back, it won't find much support in standalone players.
t0rek said:
I have prefect sight. What I am missing then? In another of these "HD-DVD vs Blu Ray, Sony quality debate and Plot vs Doom" threads, someone posted a link of a guy giving scientific reasons explaining that the difference between 720p and 1080p is onlly noticed by the human eye with screens bigger than 50".
Please take a moment te reread my statement. I clearly said the difference between a standard DVD and a Blu Ray and/or HD-DVD is very substantial. I never compared 720p and 1080p in any of my posts.;)
 

gokuss4

Meh...
t0rek said:
I have prefect sight. What I am missing then? In another of these "HD-DVD vs Blu Ray, Sony quality debate and Plot vs Doom" threads, someone posted a link of a guy giving scientific reasons explaining that the difference between 720p and 1080p is onlly noticed by the human eye with screens bigger than 50". I still have a 15" CRT monitor, so I know that's true. Someone please search one of those threads to look for that article.

Not only does it depend on screen size, but the distance away from your TV. Here's a good link http://www.cnet.com/4520-7874_1-5108580-2.html

I've watched a 1280x720 movie on my computer (Equilibrium), and watched it on DVD on my SDTV here, and I can see a difference in detail on the faces, and clarity. Of course the winner is the higher resolution part. To me the difference in detail is almost mind blowing between DVD and HD-DVD/Blu-ray. I could care less about the compression methods or whether or not quality was actually lost. I just know HD looks a shitload better.

Now Doom, I'm not trying to call you poor, or even try to attempt to make fun of your finances, cause I have no idea, but... if you really had the money, would you honestly get an HD setup? Honestly for me I could've done without it, but my bro likes staying up with technology, and he's 24 and still lives with me and my dad, lol. So really, would you?
 

Cyberman

Moderator
Moderator
Addendum

Those players that say "DVIX" on them support the DIVX HD standard. If they have the progressive scan/component output and can display on an HD display (IE monitor HD-TV et al) at 720P. Special STANDARD sized DVD (IE 1 or 2 layer) can be played in HD (with full detail) with this format. I believe it's 2 hours for 1 layer and 4 for 2 layer.

More details? Try here.

Do note the processor and computational requirements as well not huge, but for consumer appliances high end. I've seen suitable players for about 150 US however. These mostly use DSP's and hardware stream decoders, which reduce the loading significantly. The big cost in HD-DVD and BLU-RAY are the disk and optical systems they use.

Cyb
 

General Plot

Britchie Crazy
Cyberman said:
Those players that say "DVIX" on them support the DIVX HD standard. If they have the progressive scan/component output and can display on an HD display (IE monitor HD-TV et al) at 720P. Special STANDARD sized DVD (IE 1 or 2 layer) can be played in HD (with full detail) with this format. I believe it's 2 hours for 1 layer and 4 for 2 layer.

More details? Try here.

Do note the processor and computational requirements as well not huge, but for consumer appliances high end. I've seen suitable players for about 150 US however. These mostly use DSP's and hardware stream decoders, which reduce the loading significantly. The big cost in HD-DVD and BLU-RAY are the disk and optical systems they use.

Cyb
I don't know why, but that sounds alot like what people did when they were burning Video CD's before DVD burning became a reality. And once burning DVD's was possible, Video CD dropped massively in popularity.
 
OP
Doomulation

Doomulation

?????????????????????????
Infinite lossless compression is a mathematical impossibility. There are only so many ways that any given value can be represented. While we can abbreviate some values, not all values can be. Now It can be compressed to a level of reasonable quality loss, and then it can be mathematically compressed. You know the drawbacks to both, that both can only go so far.
Yes, until we find another way to do it. Meth is a complex matter and not all ways yields results. However, another way may yield a result where the previous one couldn't.
It's almost endless possibilities I say.

I'll repeat myself. My monitor is a mere 15 inches in size, and I can notice a significant difference between a DVD and HD-DVD/Blu Ray.
DVDs look perfect to me. Unfortunately, I have no HD movies to compare to. When comparing images, one in SD and one in HD, yes the HD is superior.

All of Hollywood's movies are stored on original analog film reels.;)
Prepostrous. I don't see how they can do that. The storage will eventually fade away and degrade quality.

Neither is the console one, but you've taken it upon yourself to decide on a winner there.
I haven't declared a winner yet. Obviously right now, Nintendo is winning, and Sony is doing poor, but my logic tells me Sony isn't dead yet. They'll be back later.

Decoding a 1080p video itself is already a stressful process. Add an extremely compressed codec into the mix, and that will ensure that stand alone players never come down in price by much.;)
A GPU @ 600 MHz can decode H264 1080p, so tell me how it's so hard? Our problem these days are that CPUs are not very good at number crunching. we need GPU-type of processors for that. But GPUs aren't very good at performing general-task work, so we need a CPU for that.
Anyway, the Cell is just an example of what future processors will look like. And with cores rampaging plus GPUs becoming more general purpose we'll have more crunching power than we've ever dreamed of in the future.

I can't stand to watch TV on the 27 inch we have because of how horrible it is.
So you see my point there ;)

Yeah, the cassette was also known very well. And what do people remember it as now? Even when they made DCC, the thought of a cassette scared the masses away from it. Just watch, the same will happen with this desparate attempt to keep an old format alive.;)
Well then, let's just watch and see on that, shall we?

7HD-DVD and BLUE RAY use nothing but MPEG2 streams and thus fit under the catagory of LOW quality compression and high stream bandwidth. In other words they just use more bandwidth and data to increase the resolution instead of better compression.
That's just not true... HD-DVD and Blu-ray now uses H264 compression. That's the most advanced lossy compression today AFAIK. Container and compression is not the same thing.
Blu-ray DID use MPEG2 for a while, but now they're using H264 as well. And as far as calculation methods go, I did prove that there's no way to put a HD movie on a disc about 20-25 GB without the use of H264 (MPEG2 quality wouldn't be near the quality of today's DVD if they had to use it).

Indeed. I'm sure the compression scheme behind what HD-DVD and Blu Ray use is definitely as "processor friendly" as possible (to keep the cost of standalone players down)...
I doubt it. They use the most advanced compression available today AFAIK and they really need it because of the small storage of the discs today.

...which is why in their case, the more storage, the better, since they will show a loss in quality as the file size goes down. This is also why I think this new hybrid 4 layer DVD, whatever it is with super compression, etc.. won't work. If it relies on a power demanding decoder to be played back, it won't find much support in standalone players.
Again, I must argue that 4-layer DVD has about the same storage as HD-DVD, which means they use the same compression method: H264. In other words, it's a demanding system - for all 3 discs.
But hold on - potentially more layers will be added in the future to match the size of BD and HD-DVD, so there's little compelling reason to go with those discs. DVD is still the cheapest.

Now Doom, I'm not trying to call you poor, or even try to attempt to make fun of your finances, cause I have no idea, but... if you really had the money, would you honestly get an HD setup? Honestly for me I could've done without it, but my bro likes staying up with technology, and he's 24 and still lives with me and my dad, lol. So really, would you?
Yeah, I would... that means a bigger TV to boot! So yes, it would be awesome. When I cover such costs.

But so again, when we're talking about specific hardware, you find specialized processors in them. Slap in a few processors in there and the hardware will be incredibly expensive. I wonder why we aren't seeing typical DVD players at at a minumum of $200. Cyberman has a point there.
And as far as I know, the HD players are just incredibly expensive because they're new. Lots of effort has gone into researching and designing these players. Not the actual cost of the material. HD-DVDs are not much more expensive than DVDs to produce.
 

General Plot

Britchie Crazy
Doomulation said:
DVDs look perfect to me. Unfortunately, I have no HD movies to compare to.
When you finally do see one, you will notice the difference IMMEDIATELY. I guarantee it.;)
Doomulation said:
Prepostrous. I don't see how they can do that. The storage will eventually fade away and degrade quality.
Is that a fact? Do some reading on the subject.
In the film workflow, the cut list that describes the film-based answer print is used to cut the original colour negative (OCN) and create a colour timed copy called the colour master positive or interpositive print. For all subsequent steps this effectively becomes the master copy. The next step is to create a one-light copy called the colour duplicate negative or internegative. It is from this that many copies of the final theatrical release print are made. Copying from the internegative is much simpler than copying from the interpositive directly because it is a one-light process; it also reduces wear-and-tear on the interpositive print.
Doomulation said:
A GPU @ 600 MHz can decode H264 1080p, so tell me how it's so hard? Our problem these days are that CPUs are not very good at number crunching. we need GPU-type of processors for that. But GPUs aren't very good at performing general-task work, so we need a CPU for that.
Anyway, the Cell is just an example of what future processors will look like. And with cores rampaging plus GPUs becoming more general purpose we'll have more crunching power than we've ever dreamed of in the future.
My overclocked Core 2 is steadily under 30-40% load while watching a Blu Ray movie. If the GPU could really take that much stress off, I'm inclined to believe that with my 7900GTX (with 512 MB video memory by the way), that's a rather high load. I think there's more processing requirement than you realize. And keep in mind, the PS3 may have a Cell processor, but standalone players are not going to come with as much horsepower as a next gen game console.;)
 
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OP
Doomulation

Doomulation

?????????????????????????
When you finally do see one, you will notice the difference IMMEDIATELY. I guarantee it.;)
Well, it's a long way off, but if I do see two films, one in SD and one in HD, I will tell you what I think. I *have* seen HD movies (on the computer), but I wasn't perticularly impressed. And I did not have any SD clip to compare to.

My overclocked Core 2 is steadily under 30-40% load while watching a Blu Ray movie. If the GPU could really take that much stress off, I'm inclined to believe that with my 7900GTX (with 512 MB video memory by the way), that's a rather high load. I think there's more processing requirement than you realize.
Actually, the Geforce 8800 GTS has a 500 MHz clock speed and will fully decode any HD movies. The reason your CPU load is 30-40% is that 7900GTX does not fully decode the whole movie. Why? Because the drivers (and the card firmware) doesn't support it! It can only accelerate specified proportions. All this is AFAIK. Even if that does not ring true, the Geforce 8XXX series will fully decode H264 with only 500 MHz core speed.

And keep in mind, the PS3 may have a Cell processor, but standalone players are not going to come with as much horsepower as a next gen game console.;)

Maybe you haven't heard? But the Cell processor was designed in mind for media applications and Sony (and other companies AFAIK) is already putting the Cell processor into their HD players.
 

YourNobody

New member
Okay, some of you are getting a little bit too hot over this and you're becoming irrational. I'll sort through some of this.

Issue #1: HD-DVD/BD offers nothing new in quality on a standard TV.
This is true. If you have a normal TV, don't bother with either of the "next-gen" formats. You will feel ripped off. If you have an HDTV, then okay. I would still recommend waiting a while before investing in one, though. Why? For the same reason you wait after a new console comes out. Let them weed out the bugs and glitches first.

Issue #2: Neither HD-DVD or BD offer lossless support.
Where the hell did you hear this? Of course they do!

My own thoughts:
To be honest, I will not be rushing out to buy any new player any time soon. The DVD has plenty life in it yet and I don't see HD going standard any time soon, either. I own a regular TV and I'm plenty happy with my DVD player. I don't need to go out blowing my money on a player that may not pan out in the long-run.

The differences between DVD and both BD and HD-DVD are not enough to warrant spending so much money on. Look at how much better DVD was compared to VHS. The difference was huge! Most people do not and will never notice a difference, unless they own an HDTV. In most cases, they don't.

Maybe in five years, enough people will own HDTV's that it'll become standard. By then a better format than BD or HD-DVD will be out. My own conclusion, save your money. Neither player is worth it. In the long-run, you'll be wishing you hadn't bought them.
 

Toasty

Sony battery
Issue #2: Neither HD-DVD or BD offer lossless support.
Where the hell did you hear this? Of course they do!
They both support lossless audio, but AFAIK neither specification supports lossless video. (There is a way to have lossless H.264 video, but I don't think Blu-ray or HD-DVD specifications support that encoding profile. Correct me if I'm wrong on this.) Not a big letdown though, as a losslessly encoded HD movie would never fit on either medium with current compression techniques.
 
OP
Doomulation

Doomulation

?????????????????????????
...Not a big letdown though, as a losslessly encoded HD movie would never fit on either medium with current compression techniques.

Nail on the head I think. Lossless is huge and neither format has enough space to fit one. Maybe when they go up in space, they'll have enough space for lossless SD in H264, but never HD.
 

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