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[Birkborkasson]

Interesting indeed. I need to coment on a few things though. I assume that most of you are americans and that alot of this discussion is concerning legal alternatives to buy/own a BR disc compared with the use of the internet. This however is not actually the real world. Lets first adress the piracy issues and the pricing. Home entertainment in my eyes will very much be possible and available to more or less the masses at simply no cost if you are not counting you momthly ISP charge. This means that we have a generation of people groving up with an understanding and intuitive connection to the internet and filesharing that is miles ahead of the average 30-40 year old consumer today. This new generation has come to see p2p as something totally normal and not even reflected on as something illegal and possibly imoral. This is a fact that will actually have to be taken in to consideration when talking about the future "battle" of the internet and the physical disc. The physical disc has to compete with something that is completley free of charge which essentially leaves it with two arguments to take up the battle on.

1) The quality. In my eyes this is very questionable. The idea presented here is that a HDDVD or BR Disc is so much better in quality than the online alternatives that it is actually a much better buy. But remember this is compared to legal alternatives and the real question is how much better does the quality have to be for us to want to pay say 30$ for the movie instead of zero? Imo the alternatives available at bittorrent trackers arounf the Internet is VERY high quality, and Im talking about the .x264 rips that are out there. On my 40" LCD tv they display fantastically and even though they are not full HD (1080p) they still provide an experience that is just amazing to me. And yes, if I want to there are full rips too. I can go to my favourite tracker and DL movies that are 30gb in size and watch them, and I have done that to compare, and lets just say that I will be sticking to the  smaller rips for the moment.

2) Availability. The Internet is simply not fit for that kind of massive files that we need to download yet. Or is it? The reason I assumed that most of you were americans was that you all talked about FIOS compared to like normal DSL. Well... guess what. I live in Sweden and the standard here is 100 mbit/s, and im not talking about some DSL solution. Im talking about fiber technology that is as common as anything else in the household (at least this is the way in the city the countryside is a little different but they generally have access to 24 mbit/s DSL). With fiber the bandwith simply is not an issue. The reason that we are limited to 100 mbit/s right now is that there has'nt been a need for much more upuntill now. There is no reason that the ISPs can't switch to a 1gbit/s if the market starts to adjust towards that, in fact the transfer rates of the cables is more or less infinite, its the material in the end (the computers, switches, routers) that will have to develope. Now all this is available for very low costs here and in many new apartements its just included in the rent like basic cable tv. I pay about 30$/month for my 100/10 (dl/ul) connection. Many people have allready started to get 100/100 connections for roughly the same price. Now this was a Swedish example and I know that we are not the number one IT country. South Korea already back in 2003 aimed to have established 100 mbit/s connections for all citicens in 2-3 years. I figure they are close to that goal now.

In conclusion. There is no reason what so ever that the internet would not be able to handle big files allready today in many parts of the world. And in the future the distributers of film and music will face a market that simply takes for granted to have the movie/record they want at their computer when they want it.

[joeyddr]

Man people just bitch to bitch and feel the need to tell everyone whats good and why what they like is bad christ  
how bout this believe what you believe and people will still buy what they believe looks good and be happy about it. just stfu

[ThaCrip]

QUOTE(ewok666 @ Jan 20 2008, 05:27 AM)

That's quite right. x264 mkv's look excellent on a 720p display. 1080p is complete nonsense unless you use a projector with a large screen and extremely good source material. Essentially you MUST sit less than two times the screen diagonal away to be able to physically see the difference

I had a look at a number of different material and to spot the difference between 720p and 1080p you need to stop the movie and spend time to actually find the difference on a still frame!

Also agree to the Divx/DVD and x264/HDDVD analogy BUT want to add that you need to look at the displays as well. It's easy to tell Divx from DVD on a large screen but not on a SD TV. It's a lot harder to tell a good MKV rip from HDDVD or Bluray even on a HD display.

I also compared 4.5GB HD rips to DVD copies and the difference is HUGE. The guy who wrote the original article has no idea what he is talking about.

Cheers

QUOTE(Chancer @ Jan 20 2008, 08:11 AM)

http://myhometheater...ml#anchor_13194
 There is a calculator here for finding Optimal viewing distances.

There is a visible difference even on 37" between 720p and 1080p. Quite marked in fact.
For al those who say Bit rate doesn't matter. Yes it does. Yes there are other factors but if you transmit at a lower bit rate the quality suffers.
About a year ago it all kicked of with Sky lowering the Bit rate at off peak viewing times, to save money. the quality drop was shocking.

QUOTE(Artanis @ Jan 20 2008, 08:58 AM)

You must have a 30" sd tv.  The difference between 720p and 1080p on a 42" at 8ft is EASY to see.  Do you not have 20:20 vision?  720 stretched to 1080 provides blurred edges and text, the same image in 1080 source is diamond sharp.  Your engadget chart is for idiots trying to justify their terrible decision to buy a 60" 720p tv.

edit: looking at that chart seems to indicate that yes, 1080p at 8ft on a 42" screen is still noticable.

so it appears the first guy's quote saying overall there aint much difference between 720p and 1080p in general... but the last two quotes are saying theres a clear difference.

so lets just assume the other 2 guys are right which would mean my original thing about the 50+ inch to see any noticeable difference would be wrong then.

my question to you guys is... in real world, how much quality difference is there on the 37" & 42" TV? between 720p and 1080p (assuming source is hd-dvd/blu-ray) ... is there a small but noticeable difference or is it to the point where your like "WOW, thats a big difference" sorta thing?

and also, if your TV is running @ 720p and you watch a 720p video how does that compare to a tv running @ 1080p with a 1080p video? ... if in this case it's close i probably wont worry about it... cause if a tv was running @ 1080p and your watching a 720p video on it i would expect it to look worse cause of the stretching... if that makes sense

i guess all in all i would have to see it for myself to know for sure cause im sorta picky about that stuff but i aint extremely picky like some people are... cause to me if theres a noticeable difference but it's nothing major i probably will just stick with 720p.

[steveju]

QUOTE(Artanis @ Jan 20 2008, 01:58 PM)

The difference between 720p and 1080p on a 42" at 8ft is EASY to see. 720 stretched to 1080 provides blurred edges and text, the same image in 1080 source is diamond sharp.

Ever heard of scalers? Try looking the image at it's native resolution from the optimal viewing distance, there should be close to no differences between 720p and 1080p images. If you still see "blurred edges and text", then your TV sucks. Text shouldn't blur anyways, because it's not hardcoded these days.

[mlmadmax]

What about the fact that NO ONE broadcasts in 1080p? Comcast and satelite and over the air are both 1080i or 720p who the hell cares about 1080p when the only thing that can play it is blu-ray and hd-dvd? Also aren't all the downloadable stuff not 1080p as well?

I only bring this up because the entire article is talking about downloadable or broadcast service right?

[brandogg]

The guy who wrote that article has no idea what he's talking about, and obviously has either invested some money in HD DVD or Blu Ray stock. I have a bunch of WMV HD videos (Terminator 2 "Extreme" DVD in 1080p included, though technically it's 2.85:1 1920x816), and they look absolutely stunning, just as good, or even better than any OTA HDTV broadcast I've ever seen. If these downloads were 1.5MB bitrate videos, using the Blu Ray format, then sure, they would probably look like crap, but they aren't, and they look absolutely fantastic. This article shouldn't even be on xbox-scene.

[slipstream]

everyone is going on about why it can be smaller with a diffirent video codec and all, but noone seems to mention one big perk of hddvd/bluray is the sound quality you can get! Seriously, will these 8.5gb downloads include uncompressed DTS surround sound? And I know, compressed it can still sound great, but with how often I see people talking about lossless formats for their music, i would think is is still a big plus for physical media.

[HotKnife420]

Some interesting reads, here. I didn't know that BD offered 2 more mbps than HD did. Either way, the main point is that downloaded movies are ripoffs (in the OP's opinion). Let's consider the following:

• HD films on optical disc will deliver 1080p
• Optical discs offer extra content (Behind the scenes/outtakes/games/potpouri)
• Optical discs are convienent to the average consumer (drive to store/credit card/etc)
• Many online retailers ship optical discs expeditiously (save money/low wait)
• HD Downloads generally cost $5-$6, then expire. I haven't spent more than $15 on a shrinkwrapped BD yet

 HD downloads are good quality, but I know they don't look as good as an optical disc source on any sets I've seen them on.

[toytown]

QUOTE

The x264 codec is really good,

There is no such codec, X264 is an encoder, one that creates H264/AVC compliant video streams, the same type of video streams that are used on HDDVD/BluRay.

QUOTE

If these downloads were 1.5MB bitrate videos, using the Blu Ray format,

What format are you on about?  BluRay like HDDVD supports MPEG2/VC1/H264AVC as its video "formats".  


If some of you people actually did your own encoding then you would probably know the difference, as it stands it would appear that most people who have mentioned x264, simply download their movies from torrents.

[brandogg]

I meant as in 1.5MB/sec, with uncompressed video and sound. I don't use torrents...for anything.

[ewok666]

QUOTE(Chancer @ Jan 20 2008, 02:11 PM)

http://myhometheater.homestead.com/viewing...ml#anchor_13194
 There is a calculator here for finding Optimal viewing distances.

There is a visible difference even on 37" between 720p and 1080p. Quite marked in fact.
For al those who say Bit rate doesn't matter. Yes it does. Yes there are other factors but if you transmit at a lower bit rate the quality suffers.
About a year ago it all kicked of with Sky lowering the Bit rate at off peak viewing times, to save money. the quality drop was shocking.

How far away are you sitting from that 27" screen?

[Chancer]

QUOTE(ewok666 @ Jan 20 2008, 09:40 PM)

How far away are you sitting from that 27" screen?

6 To 8 feet. depending on which chair I choose. Screen is 37 not 27

This post has been edited by Chancer: Jan 20 2008, 10:53 PM

[flashfreak]

QUOTE(sgr215 @ Jan 20 2008, 07:27 PM)

For example, Comcast's cap is around 250GB a month in some areas.

FFS, that is massive! Here in australia, a plan considered with a high download limit would be about 20gig. Im on 12, u can get 40 and slowly bigger plans are coming in, some say 'unlimited' but shape u at about 50. We're still so far behind, but 250gig would be impossible to use for me.

Even if u did have a 360 and were downloading 50gig movies as u said (they'd surely get compressed to a LOT less than that), you'd only fit 2 of those size movies on ur 360 HDD.

Though apparently the next xbox will have a 4TB hard drive (IMG:style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif) For those of you who saw that article.

[Mowgli]

QUOTE(Muzzakus @ Jan 21 2008, 12:43 AM)

Movies are not 60fps.  They have 24 unique frames in a second.  To acheive 25fps for pal movies, they play slighly faster.  To acheive 30fps for NTSC - frames are repeated.  Repeated frames compess 100%

No matter what you always have 24 discreet images in a second of viewing.  All bitrate calculations on 60fps are grosely innacurate.

Thank you! I was just about to make the same point.

Also, as others have pointed out, bitrate is NOT a direct indication of quality. A "high" bitrate movie using the 10 year old MPEG2 codec does not automatically make it "high" quality.

What an idiot this guy is, pretending to be the consumers friend and expose downloadable video, when he makes ignorant, misleading comments like that.

[ewok666]

QUOTE(Chancer @ Jan 20 2008, 10:52 PM)

6 To 8 feet. depending on which chair I choose. Screen is 37 not 27

To spot a difference on 37" at that distance you would have to have exceptionally good eyes....assuming the 720p and 1080p are otherwise of equal quality.

In movies I struggle to find differences from 1-2ft away from my laptop 17" wuxga screen.