Regarding blu-ray...

[Doju]

Why do they need 50GB disks? I can download a 1080p film and it clocks in at around 10GB. What the hell do they use that wastes another 40GB when the movie - the thing you're buying the disk for - only takes up a fifth of that?

Is Blu-Ray higher than 1080p?

 

[mooblie]

.....I can download a 1080p film and it clocks in at around 10GB...

Probably that film is more compressed (for download) than you'll find on a commercially produced Blu-ray. And how long is that film?

I make two-hour HD wedding productions in 1080i, and they take ~25GB.

 

[Doju]

The Dark Knight in 1080p was only ~13GB. I noticed no difference versus when I rented it on Blu-Ray.

 

[yg17]

The Dark Knight in 1080p was only ~13GB. I noticed no difference versus when I rented it on Blu-Ray.

I'm guessing your download didn't include special features, subtitles, or multichannel uncompressed audio in several different languages

 

[0098386]

I downloaded a few Lost episodes in 720p, taking about 3gb each (it was either 2 or 4gb so lets just average the guess out). I guess film releases just have more features/audio content.

It's a shame they don't sell "boxsets" on a single bluray, like the whole Futurama collection in SD on a single bluray. That would be nice. Or if they could get all of Lost (in SD) onto one with an option to play the episodes in different orders.

 

[sammich]

It's similar to compressed music. You may not be able to distinguish between 192 kbps and 320 kbps but it doesn't mean the difference isn't there.

Those copies of BR movies you get off BT are re-encoded to a level which most people will find it acceptable in a picture quality and a file size way. Honestly, sitting 3 metres from my 46" 1080p Bravia, I can't really tell between a 720p copy and a 1080p copy (okay I can, a little, but it's so subtle, and much better than DVD at any rate)

The main title in more BR movies run north of 25mbit/s average (for a 2 hour movie that is about 21 GB).

I downloaded a few Lost episodes in 720p, taking about 3gb each (it was either 2 or 4gb so lets just average the guess out). I guess film releases just have more features/audio content.

3 GB each? Where do you get these? All mine are 1.1 GB apeice.

It's a shame they don't sell "boxsets" on a single bluray, like the whole Futurama collection in SD on a single bluray. That would be nice. Or if they could get all of Lost (in SD) onto one with an option to play the episodes in different orders.

My guess is that if this was sold mainstream, people will probably buy it thinking that the episodes are all in BR quality (1080p) and all they got was DVD junk quality.

 

[FX120]

Most commercially pressed BD disks are still only single layer, meaning a disk capacity of 25GB, not 50GB.

BD is also encoded at higher bitrates with less-lossy compression for the video than what you'll find on a download, and with lossless multi-channel audio at significantly higher sample rates. Add on a few more hours of additional (but more compressed) bonus features and you've got your ~25GB of content.

Of course a longer movie like the Lord of the Rings for example, would require even more space than 25GB and it might require a 50GB dual layer disk.

Either way I am not sure what your point is. Even if they're "wasting" space on the disk, it still has the same cost to produce, and wouldn't have fit on a DL-DVD. Violet laser technology is the next-shortest wavelength after red-orange available from a semiconductor laser without DPSS (which isn't suitable for long-term use in an optical drive), so it's not like there really even a practical option for optical media higher in capacity than DVD, but lower than Blu-Ray.

 

[XNine]

Most commercially pressed BD disks are still only single layer, meaning a disk capacity of 25GB, not 50GB.

BD is also encoded at higher bitrates with less-lossy compression for the video than what you'll find on a download, and with lossless multi-channel audio at significantly higher sample rates. Add on a few more hours of additional (but more compressed) bonus features and you've got your ~25GB of content.

Of course a longer movie like the Lord of the Rings for example, would require even more space than 25GB and it might require a 50GB dual layer disk.

Either way I am not sure what your point is. Even if they're "wasting" space on the disk, it still has the same cost to produce, and wouldn't have fit on a DL-DVD. Violet laser technology is the next-shortest wavelength after red-orange available from a semiconductor laser without DPSS (which isn't suitable for long-term use in an optical drive), so it's not like there really even a practical option for optical media higher in capacity than DVD, but lower than Blu-Ray.

QFT.

Plus, if you look at it from a backup point of view, it would take 5 single layer DVD's to equate the volume of 1 single layer BR disc. And as of right now, the cost of 5 DVD's is about the cost of 1 BR disc. It equates. Now we just need burners/readers to become much faster for the format.

 

[jaw04005]

Most commercially pressed BD disks are still only single layer, meaning a disk capacity of 25GB, not 50GB.

While I don’t keep up with statistics across the line, practically every Blu-ray I’ve purchased in the last year has been 50GB no matter if the content filled it or not. Whereas, a few years ago everything was 25GB. So there does appear to be a trend to press 50GB no matter what.

Violet laser technology is the next-shortest wavelength after red-orange available from a semiconductor laser without DPSS (which isn't suitable for long-term use in an optical drive), so it's not like there really even a practical option for optical media higher in capacity than DVD, but lower than Blu-Ray.

Well, there was. It was called HD DVD and is dead now.

 

[Doju]

I can tell the difference between different bit-rate audio, though. And DEFINITELY between 720p and 1080p. But I'm downloading 1080p and comparing it to apparently Blu-Ray 1080p and it looks the exact same, but one is five times larger.

I guess special features and all that stuff could take up stuff, but damn, to take 40GB worth of things (80% of the disk) on things that AREN'T the movie, almost seems ridiculous.

And yeah, I agree Blu-Ray could be being used more efficiently. All the episodes of a show on one Blu-Ray disk would make me much more excited about physical media, but for now digital media is the way to go. My 2TB HDD has 40x the capacity of a dual-layer blu-ray disk (80x that of a single layer) so I can store a lot more without having to worry about changing disks so often.

 

[Dany M]

Compression is the reason when you download or stream media that 1080p is only 10gb wehre on a disc it is 20-30gb

 

[wywern209]

the bitrate of the video on BR is far higher than that of the downloads u get. that is why the file sizes are bigger.

 

[Cave Man]

I guess special features and all that stuff could take up stuff, but damn, to take 40GB worth of things (80% of the disk) on things that AREN'T the movie, almost seems ridiculous.

Iron Man Blu-ray is 47 gb in size. The movie itself is 31 gb and about 6 gb of that is the HD audio. It has a variable bit rate that exceeds 40 mbps. It is a very high-quality video. When you transcode down to a lower bit rate, you will lose that quality. And I'm almost dead certain that the audio of the files you are downloading are in DTS or DD, not HD.

 

[jaw04005]

I guess special features and all that stuff could take up stuff, but damn, to take 40GB worth of things (80% of the disk) on things that AREN'T the movie, almost seems ridiculous.

Where do you keep coming up with this 10GB movie statistic? The movies you’re pirating are transcodes of the original Blu-ray encode that has a much higher bit rate.

I haven’t seen a Blu-ray movie yet that the video encode didn’t take up at least 50-60 percent of a 50GB disc. Other than the original Blu-ray discs (circa 2006, early 2007) that were 25GB and usually encoded with MPEG-2 and the first batch of Blu-ray discs after HD DVD’s death (which were nothing but re-authored HD DVD releases), the video encodes have been pretty spectacular (and therefore large in size).

With most properly encoded Blu-ray discs (like Iron Man mentioned above) the video encode takes up the vast majority (60+ percent) of the disc because of the insane bit rate and lossless audio.

My favorite site to see which discs are worth the purchase is http://www.highdefdigest.com/.

Is Blu-Ray higher than 1080p?

This question doesn’t even make sense.

 

[Nermal]

This question doesn’t even make sense.

The question does make sense (at least to me). The answer is no.

 

[Doju]

This question doesn’t even make sense.

Actually, it's a rather basic question. The resolution of the movies I'm downloading are 1080 pixels. I'm asking whether or not Blu-Ray has a higher resolution.

I'd ask you to answer that, but the fellow above me did it without being rude. Cheers.

 

[yg17]

Actually, it's a rather basic question. The resolution of the movies I'm downloading are 1080 pixels. I'm asking whether or not Blu-Ray has a higher resolution.

I'd ask you to answer that, but the fellow above me did it without being rude. Cheers.

No, nothing higher than 1080 yet, but if your video is highly compressed, all 1080 is going to do is make the artifacts even more visible and clearer. High def makes great things look greater, but it also makes bad things look worse.

 

[Cave Man]

My experience is that transcoding Blu-ray to 14 mbps 1080p works very well with even the highest bit rate movies. The big savings in space comes from extraction of the AC3 or DTS cores from the HD audio. For instance, that Iron Man movie can be cut in half (to about 17 gb) and is visually indistinguishable from the original. The audio is True-HD, which becomes Dolby Digital 5.1 in the final. In addition, removal of the other language tracks also reduces the file size.