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Blu-ray vs HD DVD

I

ifjake

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jan 19, 2004
563
2
after seeing this article i was wondering what the actual difference between the two formats of the future high definition media. i found this snippet posted by some guy named jimmy at the highdef message boards that explains them concisely and completely.

As most people know the DVD forum has approved HD-DVD. Sony is also devolping a competing technolgy called Blu-Ray. Blu-Ray uses MPEG-2 compression on 50gb discs to hold 4 hours of 1920 x 1080 high definition. HD-DVD uses MPEG-4 compression on 30gb discs to hold 4.5 hours of 1920 x 1080 resolution. The difference is that HD-DVD only requires tweaking of SD-DVD assembly lines while Blu-Ray requires entirely new assembly lines. This makes HD-DVD 20 percent cheaper to make. Obviously HD-DVD is superior in terms of prerecorded media.

In terms of recording HD-DVD uses 20gb discs at MPEG-2 to hold 1.5 hours of 1920 x 1080 while Blu-Ray uses 27 GB discs at MPEG-2 hold 2 hours of 1920 x 1080. This does give Blu-Ray an advantage in terms of recording but since HD-DVD-Rs will be 20 percent cheaper then Blu-Rays that kind of balences.
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i was also reminded of sony's push for blu-ray when they stated that it is going to be in the next playstation.

i think HD DVD is the smarter choice. the technology behind it is both cost concious and more advanced. but i'm afraid Sony might muscle it's way in.
 
That really depends... BluRay tech is backed by more people than HD DVD, and HD DVD is going to be based on the aging MPEG2 standard. It really depends on the standard that bluray pics. There are pleanty of choices that have a better compression ratio and cleaner and accurate color picture. Blu Ray is backed my to many companies. I cant se them wasting money and tim on stuff, granted, sony has a large chunk, but theres Pioneer, Samsung and phillips just to mention a few. so.. I believe bluray will be around for a while.
 
Blu-Ray uses MPEG-2 compression on 50gb discs to hold 4 hours of 1920 x 1080 high definition. HD-DVD uses MPEG-4 compression on 30gb discs to hold 4.5 hours of 1920 x 1080 resolution.
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Actually I was reading an article a week or two ago that said BD was considering the use of the AVC (mpg4 pt 10) for the codec as well. So then you would have the capacity of BD but with the more advanced codec so even more hours could fit on a 50gb+ disc.

I'll take a look for the article - think it was on blu-ray.com though.
 
Hmmm, Sony is trying to push another of it's proprietary formats on the market. This should be fun to watch. It's better be DAMN good, like the Walkman, and not like the HD-WN1 (or whatever that 'iPod killer' thing was called).
 
Blu-Ray is quickly losing flexability in choosing a compression format. Sony is already making Blu-Ray home vtrs in Japan, and any change now will render all those machines instantly obsolete. This would be a death knell for a newborn format.

My money says that they stay with MPEG2, and **maybe** offer a SUPER Blu-Ray version later that does better resolution in MPEG4 PT10. This would be SONY Style.

As far as the difference between the two.... It is much like Beta and VHS. Very little compatibility between the HD DVD and Blu-Ray formats. Even the discs are quite different. I don't have any thoughts on which will win.

Max.
 
Abstract said:
So is Blue-Ray based on MPEG-2 or MPEG-4 compression? There seems to be conflicting info in this thread.
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Theoretically it could be either and it's possible they just haven't decided yet. I'd bet it's going to be based on H.264 though
 
From Blu-ray.com

1.8
What video codecs will Blu-ray support?***UPDATED





The Blu-ray Disc Founders (BDF) still haven't made a final decision about what video codecs will be included, but MPEG-2 is already part of the specification. The BDF has also informed us that they will include at least one, possibly more than one, advanced video codec beyond MPEG-2 in the Blu-ray Disc format. Candidates under discussion include MPEG-4 AVC High Profile (previously called FRExt), and VC-9. They plan to announce which advanced video codecs will be used sometime in September and expect the specification to be finshed by the end of the year.
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MPEG2 **IS** part of the current specification. The Japanese Machines are MPEG2. Later, this format can improve, and may use MPEG4 as well as other formats.

In short, Blu-Ray in America may be both MPEG2 and 4 compatible. Then again, DIVX may come into play..

Max.
 
yeah i believe the source for my first post was erronious. both HD-DVD and Blu-ray are using the MPEG2 H.264/AVC. the one that Jobs was touting as part of the new quicktime once tiger comes out. other formats are up for discussion. Blu-ray looks a little better now to me. we'll see how it goes.
 
So when can we expect to see an HD-DVD format player/media come out? I just bought an HDTV a few weeks ago and I have to say, the only time I can see what it can do is when I watch one of the five or six HD channels that Time Warner has and only three of them are in full 16x9 1080i as far as I know. Besides that, DVDs look really low res and grainy and standard cable looks pretty bad considering it is pretty bad on a regular TV. A few Xbox and PS2 games look pretty good, but for the most part it seems like my TV isn't good for much until HD starts to become an accepted standard.
 
My goodnes there is a lot of confusion here.

Ok lets clear up some misconceptions here. Too much confusion going on.

Blu Ray

Just announced the BD-ROM specification 1. This will offer MPEG2 of course but it also will have either VC-9(open version of WMV) or AVC "FRext" (Fidelity Range Extension). My guess is Blu Ray chooses AVC. Microsoft failed to provide VC-9 for additional testing and Sony seems high on AVC FRext. Also not how Microsoft has suddenly come out publically backing HD-DVD. I think they already know they lost Blu Ray to AVC.

BD-ROM has 25GB per layer. The spec 1 supports up to 2 layers for 50GB total space. Eventually Blu Ray may go to 4 layers for around 100GB support! Now you can see why HP,DELL, Samsung and others are more excited about Blu Ray. It offers a chance to hit it big in computing.

HD-DVD

Will support MPEG2, AVC and VC-9. The discs are 15GB per layer up to two layers. HD-DVD is blue laser like Blu Ray but it's close enough to DVD production making it cheaper to produce.


Who wins?

Whoever gets the most major studio support. Blu Ray looks enticing because of the PC vendors supporting it but Hollywood doesn't give a damn about HP or Dell's needs. Hollywood is the one who needs to be wooed here. They want to make sure that the DRM is rock solid and that production costs are low. Technically Blu Ray is superior and Sony really has improved its chances for success by adding a high efficiency codec. Toshiba/NEC are really going to have to pull out all the stops to fend off Blu Ray. It matches them in everything but production costs but since it holds more data this may not even last. The Playstation 3 is going to have a Blu Ray drive in it as well. HD-DVD has a chance but really that chance is based on being cheaper. If Blu Ray is close then I think HD-DVD loses.
 
H.264, MPEG-4 and AVC

This is probably a real dumb question, but... how are H.264, MPEG-4 and AVC related? I believe I heard that Apple will be adding support for the H.264 codec to the next version of Quicktime. This seems like a good thing since it appears both HD DVD and BluRay will support it. Does this mean that *both* of these formats/disks will be playable on a Mac (or PC for that matter) using Quicktime?
 
H.264 is an implementation of MPEG-4.

M$ is backing HD-DVD (basically second generation of DVD's, designed to hold enough data to store a High Def. DVD, thus HD-DVD) though i can't remember if they have an actual hand in designing the codecs etc. if they do, this could get ugly fast.

Blu-Ray DVD is more of a consortium of supporters with some huge big wig's pushing it (namely Sony for it's PS-3 as well as blu-ray dvd recorders in japan etc). They come in cartridges which has both pro's and cons, as does no cartridge.

My vote is for Blu-Ray as it has more headroom. HD-DVD seems like a far more short-sighted vision, basically trying to plug the gap in home entertainment and HD content availability. As someone said, his HDTV can't show it's capabilities, because he has no quality source content. This is why I've avoided the HDTV craze, because although your TV may have the capability, you really have very little to play, yet you're paying out the nose for the new tech. By 2006 I think all cable channels must have an HDTV feed thanks to the FCC. Blu-Ray would be able to handle an increase in resolution over current HDTV channels (which when you think about it, aren't all that high res.) while HD-DVD would need to be upgraded to HD-DVD2 or something.
 
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