Blue Ray Stuck With Mpeg2 Because Of Ps3? Options

[KAGE360]

The study finds that Altivec optimized H.264 decoder requires 11~12 times the processing power as an equivalent MPEG2 decoder does.

This kind of processing power is not available to CELL, since single APU barely decodes 1080p, and would have 4 additional APUs to decode H.264 streams.(5 for H.264, 1 for audio).

In other word, studios are stuck with MPEG2 for 1080p titles and H.264 becomes optional for 720p or 1080i titles only.

http://rsim.cs.uiuc.edu/Pubs/sasanka-phd-thesis.pdf

can anyone confirm this to be true? i thought that the Cell was designed to handle high def video/audio streaming applications.

if this is true then does this mean that blue ray is stuck with MPEG2 or if sony desides to use a better format then would this mean that the ps3 not be able to play the movie?

[incognegro]

Although I would love to say "sony is smarter than that", I have a PSP and judging by the stupid mistakes they made with making that a media player device, I wouldn't put it pass them. I wouldn't be surprised if this is correct...

[Reaper527]

if this is true, thats damn ironic. as much as sony is trying to use the ps3 to help blueray by forcing it on everyone, they might be killing it by forcing studios to release crippled movies. great find kage.

[Kira Yamoto]

From what I can read in the quote (I don't have Adobe Reader) the study was based on existing PC hardware, and codecs, as well as nothing but technical specs from the Cell. I would not easily believe that a company like Sony are going to release software that wouldnt operate up to standards if they would release it at all. Sony has VC1, when they get it working and/or use it, it'd be fine.

h.261 would be a great alternative for television shows on bdrom as television shows are broadcasted in 720p. hddvd meanwhile don't have to worry about 1080i/p but they still would do no better than sony releasing tv shows at 720p.

let's not forget people, that toshiba's current hddvd player on the market lacks 1080p output, maybe current hddvd technology can't handle 1080p until new players come out? If so, why are people so bent out of shape for bluray? Movie studios could easily release 1080i content on h.261 and have comparable quality to HDDVD.

[incognegro]

From what I can read in the quote (I don't have Adobe Reader) the study was based on existing PC hardware, and codecs, as well as nothing but technical specs from the Cell. I would not easily believe that a company like Sony are going to release software that wouldnt operate up to standards if they would release it at all. Sony has VC1, when they get it working and/or use it, it'd be fine.

h.261 would be a great alternative for television shows on bdrom as television shows are broadcasted in 720p. hddvd meanwhile don't have to worry about 1080i/p but they still would do no better than sony releasing tv shows at 720p.

let's not forget people, that toshiba's current hddvd player on the market lacks 1080p output, maybe current hddvd technology can't handle 1080p until new players come out? If so, why are people so bent out of shape for bluray? Movie studios could easily release 1080i content on h.261 and have comparable quality to HDDVD.

Nope they are capable of outputing the same res, That is just the fault of the player not hd dvd. Its the codecs that they use make the difference. Blu ray currently uses inferior codecs to hd dvd (VC-1 as compared to Mpeg2). Now sony is hoping that when they get dual layer Blu rays then they can make up for the quality with the extra space but if they continue with mpeg2 then that is questionable.

H.264 is much better than Mpeg2 from what I hear but still not better than VC-1.

This post has been edited by incognegro: Aug 9 2006, 07:57 PM

[Kira Yamoto]

From MS's own site:

VC-1 minimizes the complexity of decoding high definition (HD) content through improved intermediate stage processing and more robust transforms. As a result, VC-1 decodes HD video twice as fast as H.264, while offering two to three times better compression than MPEG-2.

http://www.MS.com/windows/windowsme...B2005/VC-1.aspx
add icrosoft to the URL

That's why I think that if Studios can learn to harness H.264 they can have comparable quality to VC-1 in 720p and 1080i modes, just like what HDDVD is outputting on their machines. I don't know about 1080p according to this article the OP posted, but most people do own 720p/1080i hdtvs.

I think the reason why studios has opted to use MPEG2 is because they have to pay royalties for VC1, which means putting money in the competitors pocket. I don't know how valid that is, so don't take my word for it.

This post has been edited by Kira Yamoto: Aug 9 2006, 09:59 PM

[Kira Yamoto]

Here's whats suspect about both players in question.

Both of Toshiba's players cannot output HDDVD in 1080p mode. 1080p mode encodes, here is the main profile used.

L4
135 Mbps
1920 x 1080 @ 60 Hz (1080p)*

yet, Blu-Ray, which has decided to do MPEG2, for reasons not revealed. Their other avenue of codecs besides VC-1, is H.264 AVC. AVC's profile for ntsc/1080p/60hz is

L4
80Mbit/s (roughly translated to 9.76MB/s)
1920x1088@30.1 (4)

This leads me to believe that HDDVD players aren't powerful enough as it should be, and Blu-Ray are suspiciously not using their other avenues for quality. It may be the same reason as HDDVD players, we don't know.

I think when PS3 comes out, and 360 gets its HDDVD players, we'll be in a better spot to see which titles has which codecs, hopefully by then we'll see some VC-1 from blu-ray and 1080p from HDDVD.

[calderra]

Here's what I'm getting, considering this article especially:

BluRay/Cell
-Cell isn't that powerful, at least considering its implementation. It's not the powerhouse that can do anything that Sony hyped it to be.
-Because of Cell (and royalties?), MPEG-2 basically HAD to be used. It's really not up to snuff compared to other formats, but when you're trying to ouput 1080p, better formats require too much processing, and the players couldn't handle that.

HD-DVD
-Standard processors can crank out plenty of power for a fraction of the cost of Cell. HD-DVD's CODECs require a lot of oomph, yet the player costs half to a third (or even a fourth!) as much. Talk about value.
-MS is intelligently working with its partners to launch smart formats, while Sony is standing by a mediocre choice. See announcements like "film grain" technology coming from the HD-DVD camp- everything is about getting better quality with less processing/storage required, to minimize any advantage BluRay might dream of having.

Together
-The reviews are unanimous. HD-DVD movies currently look better than BluRay, the players are a fraction of the cost, and the movies themselves are also generally cheaper. Despite BluRay's capacity promises, there's no sign yet of any bonus features or add-ons for BluRay titles, meaning that until something drastically changes, BluRay means significantly more for less....man, BluRay is screwed.

But at least it's making sense now. This article just kind of put it together. We were all wondering why Sony would WANT to put MPEG-2 in its players. The answer is that they didn't. Ken Kutaragi's crazy ranting about 1080p pushed the processing requirements beyond reasonable limitations, and an older but power-smart CODEC was necessary.

MS on the other hand got a great look at what was coming up, and even though their players have older technology and less theoretical capability (1080p would push disc capacity to the limits), the combination works better than their competition with superior theoretical capability.

Y'know, this sounds a LOT like the current console battle for some reason. One system is promising lots of awesome theoretical stuff, but in side-by-side comparisons, it's not delivering anything substatial compared to its cheaper and "inferior" brother. Hmmmm.....

Lastly... MPEG-2 must take up a friggen' MASSIVE amout of space to store a 1080p movie, plus features, etc. Even when BluRay rolls out their full dual-layer discs, will that extra space matter if it's all wasted by an inefficient CODEC? Considering this article lends some confirmation that Cell isn't really doing anything to push the format power-wise... I don't think BluRay HAS any advantages left. The extra storage is nuked by the inefficiency. Cell's power is wasted on 1080p when only a fraction of people have it. And from reviews seen elsewhere, HD-DVD even delivers better SOUND. Does BluRay have anything to bring?

[Kira Yamoto]

BluRay/Cell

It's basically a friggin specialized 3.2ghz computer for gods sake. That powerful a computer can support 1080p given that you have a monitor/video card that can output for it. This article was made w/o extensive knowledge of the cell, and without actual experience on the system itself. Look at the PS2, the thing runs SMS high quality videos with a 333mhz processor!! Just needed some ingenious coding thats all.

I dont' believe that a console that is made to run in 1080p, can't run 1080p videos in either codec format. Especially when the person that is saying it can't run, don't have the actual machine to test it with. Its all in THEORY, therefore has to be taken with a grain of salt.

HD-DVD

You're talking like HDDVD owns all the codecs. Sony's format supports the exact same formats as HDDVD is. Just for some unknown reason, they aren't using it. Which is leading to a slight disadvantage for Sony. Btw, no one can really justify the MPEG2 usage, its all still in theory WHY they aren't using VC1 or AVC, nothing official has been announced yet.

and the movies themselves are also generally cheaper.

Out of all the reviews I've read so far, that isnt true. I just checked Bestbuy.com and they list training day BDRom and HDDVD as 24.99.

And from reviews seen elsewhere, HD-DVD even delivers better SOUND. Does BluRay have anything to bring?

Neither system delivers the better sound than the other. Here's the thing. It's all up to STUDIOS, not Sony, to deliver the sound in the format that they want to deliver. Sony's Bluray is capable of DD Plus, while its standard on HDDVD, companies still have this capability to deliver it. Also, the Samsung is equipped with a DD Plus decoder, so more movies are going to be releases with it. Its just a matter of time.

Ok yeah, Sony is behind right now, but thats squarely on the faults of the studios that chose to release in mpeg2 just to meet deadlines. I bet if they spent more time they'd have VC1 and H.264 out the door already. Btw, PS3 and standalone players are more than capable of delivering 720p/1080i using H.264 and deliver the exact same quality as VC1 does. Just for some reason they want it at Mpeg2 right now. Maybe it's because they want all their movies to be in 1080p I dunno.

If they get the whole 1080p thing out of their ass they can shut the competition up anytime they wanted to. But they'd lose their main selling point and they can't afford that. The 1080p, which is top of the line.

This post has been edited by Kira Yamoto: Aug 10 2006, 02:15 AM

[incognegro]

yea MS gets some of those royalties *hint, hint*

HD DVD delivers better sound because of the extra space it has over single layer BDs. Higher quality audio streams can fit on the disc while with current BDs there are sacrifices to be made.

[Kira Yamoto]

yea MS gets some of those royalties *hint, hint*

HD DVD delivers better sound because of the extra space it has over single layer BDs. Higher quality audio streams can fit on the disc while with current BDs there are sacrifices to be made.

if Sony wanted, they could do H.264 or VC-1 (still havent officially commented on why movies have not been rolled out on it) and deliver DD+ and DDHD to compete with HDDVD on an even level, but that would get rid of 1080p which is not up to Sony's standards.

While HDDVDs are encoded in 1080p, fact of the matter is, its players cannot decode 1080p content, possibly because the decoder chip isnt fast enough just like what this article said about the Cell. That might be possible for BluRay players too, we don't know for sure. But technically each can output the same thing, so I'd leave the issues with the studios when it comes to lacking anything.

Sony mustv'e realized by now 1080p is holding them back, they're bound to release something in the right formats.

[Kira Yamoto]

I found this interesting bit
http://www.film-talk.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=13501

TrueHD decodes as 2ch Stereo and no DTS-HD capability. That just brings it down to DD+. Looks like HDDVD doesnt have all its eggs in one basket like they would like to lead you to believe.

[incognegro]

I found this interesting bit
http://www.film-talk.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=13501

TrueHD decodes as 2ch Stereo and no DTS-HD capability. That just brings it down to DD+. Looks like HDDVD doesnt have all its eggs in one basket like they would like to lead you to believe.

Yea I heard something like this. Just goes to show, they aren't ready to be taken seriously yet. They still have some growing up to do.

[Kira Yamoto]

I just heard that the Toshiba series for HDDVD houses a Pentium M 2.2ghz processor. I even saw the pics inside the machine (as well as the Samsung BDP) These (Toshiba) machines can't do 1080p, but does this mean, that its only b/c of the low tech players that we're not seeing 1080p on HDDVD and only MPEG2 for BluRay? Could it be that they're awaiting the lower cost technology to unleash thier true capabilities? Time will only tell. Meanwhile, Disney has suspiciously withheld the release of Cars and Pirates of the Carribean 2 on Bluray until next year.

Could it be, that these companies know exactly what's going on here? And that by next year, we will see true quality Bluray titles?

This post has been edited by Kira Yamoto: Aug 10 2006, 11:26 PM

[lex_luther23]

It's a mess and i don't care for ether formate to be honest... I'm happy with dvd and see no reason for blueray or hd-dvd and blueray should not have been part of ps3 sony should had done what MS did and put in a dvd drive and give people the option for a blueray add on all blue ray did to that system is jack the price up and from what i read make games more costly to buy. I promisse you their is going to be more bads then goods with bluray in ps3.

This post has been edited by lex_luther23: Aug 11 2006, 02:05 PM