The Real Difference Between Blu-Ray and DVD

[XboxMySocks]

Megan Fox is still just as fine paused or unpaused.

I was more partial to the slow-mo running scene

 

[neonkru]

right now i only buy dvds. like everyone i would love to watch in bluray but the prices doesn't make it worth unless you have a lot of money. i prefer spending 10$ in a dvd rather than 25/30$ for a bluray movie.

 

[DoFoT9]

It's a bit inaccurate to label just streaming and downloadable media as "digital content" when CDs, DVDs, Blu-ray, etc., are all digital as well. We are well into the digital age. We shoot home movies on digital cameras, we put the finished product on a digital medium, typically a disc, and a growing number of us watch them on digital TVs. In the relatively near future almost everyone will watch them on digital TVs because analog TVs are no longer being made.

hmm ok, so digital is the wrong word. i was more referring to digital being stored on physical hard disk or being downloaded from the internet - what would you call that? "non-optical media"? "online media"?

anyway, it doesnt matter what its called, the fact is that we have yet to tap into its power because of limitations. when the owners of digital cameras can stream their home videos to the TVs of their relatives on the fly without any troubles then thats more of the internet-digital age i was referring to. yes there is youtube and home made websites for that, but highly compressed. im talking uncompressed 1080p movies (or super hi-res) that look GREAT.

I had forgotten about holographic storage. That will be some sweet stuff once it hits the mainstream market. I'm not trying to say that Blu-ray is going to disappear tomorrow just that DVD was the right product and the right time and, IIRC, is one of the most successful, if not the most successful, consumer technologies ever. I mean, DVD turned the home video market, which was pretty much this murky hole that Hollywood didn't care about, into a giant cash cow that basically turned theatrical distribution into a loss leading event to setup DVD sales and rentals.

That's a tough act to follow even if there weren't all these competing technologies, including DVD, for BD to compete w/in the home entertainment market. In some way shape or form I think there will always be physical distribution of media because not every place will be connected tot he net and many people like getting something physical for their money.


Lethal

again, cant fault what you're saying. i dont think holographic storage will be used for movies, otherwise sony/etc would have jumped on it and brought out all of these copyrights and whatnot. looks like they are sticking to BD. i guess holographic is more for plain old storage - and at 16Tb max, its not too bad!

dont forget the pr0n industry - that helped DVDs along too hehe.

Megan Fox is still just as fine paused or unpaused.

oh your not wrong at all there!

I was more partial to the slow-mo running scene

i can post pictures

right now i only buy dvds. like everyone i would love to watch in bluray but the prices doesn't make it worth unless you have a lot of money. i prefer spending 10$ in a dvd rather than 25/30$ for a bluray movie.

im exactly like that too - i would rather the better quality but am a stingey bastard lol. until my brother bought a PS3 and i installed linux onto it. now i pay $3 on cheap tuesdays to hire a few BD movies and i rip them at full quality. im not complaining.

 

[XboxMySocks]

dont forget the pr0n industry - that helped DVDs along too hehe.

Yeah, that was one of the main things that helped BR, porn chose BR over HD-DBDVDBDVDBDVBD

 

[LethalWolfe]

yes there is youtube and home made websites for that, but highly compressed. im talking uncompressed 1080p movies (or super hi-res) that look GREAT.

If uncompressed is what you are waiting for it's going to be a long, long time. 450gigs an hour for uncompressed, 10-Bit 1080p24 requires a fair bit of big, fast storage. And compressed doesn't have to be a four letter word if it's done right. Part of a recent demo by RED showed off their RED 4k player which played back 4k material in their proprietary codec at only 15 Mbit/sec. By comparison HDV and DV are around 25 Mbit/sec.

As far as anything bigger than HD in the consumer space or broadcast in general... I wouldn't hold my breath on that either. Billions of dollars have been spent upgrading the infrastructure to HD and most people don't even have HDTVs yet so jumping up to a bigger standard, and spending all that money again, isn't going to happen in the near future. I might make an exception though if internet based deliveries start to become the norm and broadcast standards are taken out of the picture. Data is data as far as the internet is concerned and the set top box, be it AppleTV, Xbox360, Roku or whatever can easily be upgraded to support new codecs and/or formats (w/in the hardware's limitations of course). Also, to really see the difference you'd need to sit really close to a huge TV.

Yeah, that was one of the main things that helped BR, porn chose BR over HD-DBDVDBDVDBDVBD

That's actually an urban myth. Porn's influence today isn't nearly what it was in 80's when your only options for were home video or a movie theater. Sony said it wouldn't work w/porn producers and while that didn't ban porn from Blu-ray it made it more difficult to work with so HD-DVD got the porn nod for the most part.


Lethal

 

[DoFoT9]

If uncompressed is what you are waiting for it's going to be a long, long time. 450gigs an hour for uncompressed, 10-Bit 1080p24 requires a fair bit of big, fast storage. And compressed doesn't have to be a four letter word if it's done right. Part of a recent demo by RED showed off their RED 4k player which played back 4k material in their proprietary codec at only 15 Mbit/sec. By comparison HDV and DV are around 25 Mbit/sec.

you know what i meant lol. BD streaming, edited digital camera movies (same scenario before) at ~50mb/s or whatever they are. thats not too big to ask in some countries currently. in most its highly unlikely.

As far as anything bigger than HD in the consumer space or broadcast in general... I wouldn't hold my breath on that either. Billions of dollars have been spent upgrading the infrastructure to HD and most people don't even have HDTVs yet so jumping up to a bigger standard, and spending all that money again, isn't going to happen in the near future. I might make an exception though if internet based deliveries start to become the norm and broadcast standards are taken out of the picture. Data is data as far as the internet is concerned and the set top box, be it AppleTV, Xbox360, Roku or whatever can easily be upgraded to support new codecs and/or formats (w/in the hardware's limitations of course). Also, to really see the difference you'd need to sit really close to a huge TV.

true, the majority wont care what the picture looks like - as long as it works. thats why there are people still on analogue, and still on SD digital tuners etc. the amount of people wanting the very best would be quite low.

i wonder what the actual percentage is of people that have digital (HDTV) compared to the others that have analogue or SDTV.

 

[MisterMe]

...

i wonder what the actual percentage is of people that have digital (HDTV) compared to the others that have analogue or SDTV.

To some extent, 100% of US television viewers have digital television. FWIW, digital TV and HDTV are not the same thing—not even close. For over-the-air viewers, nearly 100% of them use digital. The number is not 100% because a few low-power stations are still allowed to broadcast analog signals. Cable is still a bastion of analog, but even there the providers are migrating to digital. Cable companies have a mandate to go 100% digital by 2012. [I would have never guessed that this is the reason why the World will end.] In the meantime, virtually all of television is transmitted to the cable providers and broadcast stations as digital signals irrespective of how they retransmit the signals.

 

[LethalWolfe]

you know what i meant lol.

I work w/video for a living so uncompressed means uncompressed, digital means digital, etc. With literally hundreds of different combinations of all the different codecs, pixel aspect ratios, frame rates, frame sizes, etc., it's difficult enough to communicate clearly w/o having to guess that when someone says "uncompressed" they really mean "a very compressed Blu-ray file."

i wonder what the actual percentage is of people that have digital (HDTV) compared to the others that have analogue or SDTV.

From what I've read HDTV penetration in the US is around 50% of households have at least one HDTV although not everyone w/an HDTV watches, or even receives, HD channels.


Lethal

 

[DoFoT9]

nitty gritty!

To some extent, 100% of US television viewers have digital television.

same situation here in australia. the digital television is available, i.e. being broadcasted. but how many actually have the TV/set top box to decode that?

FWIW, digital TV and HDTV are not the same thing—not even close.

highly aware of that you're not talking to an idiot here - sorry if im making it sound like i am (i do that).

For over-the-air viewers, nearly 100% of them use digital. The number is not 100% because a few low-power stations are still allowed to broadcast analog signals. Cable is still a bastion of analog, but even there the providers are migrating to digital. Cable companies have a mandate to go 100% digital by 2012. [I would have never guessed that this is the reason why the World will end.] In the meantime, virtually all of television is transmitted to the cable providers and broadcast stations as digital signals irrespective of how they retransmit the signals.

for free to air: i would say that 40-60% of users have digital set top boxes or TVs with them built in (be it SD or HD), the others are still on analogue with their CRTs!

for austar (satellite) and foxtel(cable): they are purely digital but only just starting to go HD (satellite is only HD if you pay extra per month).

I work w/video for a living so uncompressed means uncompressed, digital means digital, etc. With literally hundreds of different combinations of all the different codecs, pixel aspect ratios, frame rates, frame sizes, etc., it's difficult enough to communicate clearly w/o having to guess that when someone says "uncompressed" they really mean "a very compressed Blu-ray file."

mybad. uncompressed to me means literally a ripped 1080p BD movie. and thats what i was referring to. perhaps we should talk in bit-rates? 50mbps!

From what I've read HDTV penetration in the US is around 50% of households have at least one HDTV although not everyone w/an HDTV watches, or even receives, HD channels.


Lethal

interesting. its taking a long time to catch on - most people wouldnt even care i guess.

its funny how over in the US you are comparing SD vs HD percentages. and over here we are comparing analogue vs digital percentages. we really are behind lol.

 

[robains]

Porn drove BluRay to win the battle, where is your data to prove that?

Getting actual revenue numbers from the Porn industry is close to impossible, but from what little data there is, Porn's revenue stream comes from internet web sites, not BD sales. And online HD porn has very little to do with BluRay format specifications.

Besides, if you think BluRay HD spec is good, wait til the next gen of TV's and format specs -- this camera should have you drooling: http://www.red.com/cameras/tech_specs/

Yes, that's 4900 x 2580 upto 120 fps. Good example of a RED camera is in the recent BluRay version of Red Dwarf's Back to Earth. So if you think BluRay HD 1080p is good, we're just scratching the surface and Sony has by NO MEANS captured the future of TV/Movie final output.

Rob.

 

[janstett]

I'm betting you will be waiting for a long time. Super hi-res will require new television sets with a new standard and the broadcasters won't exactly be excited to make a new transition. On top of that, your screen size needs to be ENORMOUS to even notice the difference between Blu-Ray and Super Hi-res.

P-Worm

THIS. I first saw HDTV in a lab at Bellcore in 1990 and the first super-expensive sets first hit the market 10 years later and the only way to get an HD signal was with an over-the-air antennae. It didn't go mainstream for another 5 years. And waiting for a prepackaged media, when did Blu-Ray and HD-DVD come out, 2008? (Technically there was D-VHS but few people probably know it existed)

"Super Hi-Res" (I assume he's talking about 4k), good luck getting the FCC to change broadcast standards for TV yet again, and that whole ball of wax, when HD and Blu-Ray are just at the bottom of mainstream acceptance.

FWIW I hear they do film mastering and telecine transfers at 4K to prepare for the future.

 

[janstett]

Dominant optical format for HD movies? Yes, Will it dominate the market place the same way records, CDs, VHS, DVD, etc. did? Not IMO. Blu-ray has competition that those formats never did in their heydays. DVRs, Hulu, iTunes Store, smart phones, iPods, streaming set-top boxes like the Roku or Xbox 360 are all potentially competing with Blu-ray for movie/TV watching where as DVD never had to face competition like that when it launched.

I also don't think Blu-ray is going to last as long because of how fast technology is changing. I wouldn't be surprised to see movies start coming out on DRM'd, read-only thumb drives eventually. Mechanical, spinning drives and discs are on their way out. It will still be a while for the price/performance of solid state media to reach the sweet spot for main stream adaption but the writing is on the wall.


Lethal

People are always saying this and it never comes true.

Well, you can say it about CDs, but they are being replaced with inferior quality lossy downloads for the most part. Instead of getting better (e.g. 24-bit 48kHz and better) we're taking a step down in quality in trade for the step up in convenience.

The only mainstream example I can think of where solid state media replaced a disc is the recent Beatles 24-bit USB stick and that costs a few hundred dollars.

Worsening the situation for HD video, broadcast HD is MPEG-2 with DD 5.1 whereas Blu-Ray offers 1080p H.264 with Dolby and DTS lossless audio; iTunes so-called "HD" is really just 720p; and cable companies are continually trying to throttle bandwidth as it is now, let alone when you add huge video downloads to everybody's plates.

And as for DRM, a lot of Blu-Rays include a DRM-protected iTunes copy in the box.

neither do lol.

my first was a scene in transformers. the picture looks great whilst moving, but dont pause it otherwise you will be turned off!

That's done on purpose. A slideshow of perfect still images doesn't look right to the human eye. The SFX houses actually include motion blur on a frame-by-frame basis on purpose (and that's on the film and everything derived from it, DVD or Blu).

Yeah, that was one of the main things that helped BR, porn chose BR over HD-DBDVDBDVDBDVBD

I really don't think that's true; I think during the Blu-Ray/HD-DVD war more pr0n studios chose HD-DVD because they are cheaper to produce. But this is actually a case of downloads making discs obsolete -- everybody gets their pr0n online on teh intranets. You can't swing a dead cat without hitting porn. Who is really making porn on any disc format anymore?

 

[MisterMe]

... iTunes so-called "HD" is really just 720p; ...

There are no grades of HD. It is either HD or it is not. 720p is just as much HD as 1080p.

I do agree that provides cheat on the standard. However, cheating on the standard does not mean that there is no standard.

 

[mstrze]

same situation here in australia. the digital television is available, i.e. being broadcasted. but how many actually have the TV/set top box to decode that?

All US TVs...or they aren't watching TV. There are very few low-power stations that are still SD, but certainly very few of them are major network stations. Almost anyone (99.999%) who gets an over-the air signal has either a digital TV or a set-top box (there was a huge push for that in this country last year). Those that don't and get through cable or sat still, in fact, will have a set-top box.

 

[mstrze]

Porn industry standardises on HD-DVD

Adult Movie Makers Join HD DVD Camp

Why HD-DVD Could Win the High-Def Format War

These...and many others (just search) prove that the porn industry originally backed HD-DVD.

The same reason porn won't drive format wars again is the same reason why BluRay will NEVER have the success of DVD: Too many other sources for the product, especially with broadband internet in many homes.

If BluRay as a viable, supported format lingers to 2020, I will be extremely surprised. I think 2015 might even be a stretch.

I am like many, (and unlike many too) I don't want to collect more discs. If I can get a movie through my AppleTV (or Dish or DirecTV or netflix boxes) and onto my hard drive I am a happy camper. I am currently loading all my DVDs into my Mac and it's great.

With continual broadband improvements and more and more providers offering streaming or downloadable content, it will be foolish to think that a hard-copy disc format will be the main method of delivery for media.


Even with sub-par broadband in some countries, like Australia as in the previous examples, the amount of people who have to depend on a hard copy disc will be such a small market percentage copmpared to DVD it would be almost laughable.

Again, BlueRay will NEVER have the market penetration or success that DVD has.

I'm a tech kind of guy...had LaserDisc, sat radio in 2002, DirecTV in 1995...early adopter. I have no plans to buy a BluRay player. I assume I will get one when our DVD burner finally dies...or when it's made available within my Mac, but I have no need or desire right now.

 

[pilotrtc]

Not a hijack, just a detour

Friends,

While I am new to the digital video scene, I'm not new to the Macrumors Forums pages. I have spent the last year and change in the iPod Touch forum and have noticed a big difference between that forum and this one.

The iPod Touch forum has Guides. The Guides look a LOT like Wikipedia so it is my assumption that those guides were created by the uber-knowledgeable folks of the iPod Touch and its related technologies.

I am finding there are uber-knowledegable folks here in the Digital Video section but I don't see any Guides. I realize that anyone can search for answers that have already been posted via MRoogle and the like but that requires us beginners to sift through a lot of messages to find our answers and, speaking for myself, I'm never confident that I found the right one.

I would love to see Guides on the following topics:

-Acronym Glossary
-Choosing a Digital Video Camcorder
-The difference between .MOV and .MPEG (the "Uber"s can probably come up with a better name but I think you see where I'm going with this one)
-Getting your analog tape to digital output: Mac and PC
-Compression Rates Breakdown
-The Cheapskate's Guide to Creating a Video DVD: Mac and PC (The free and almost fee apps out there that produce great results)
-The way to get the best final product (the "money's no object" way)
-The Final Word on What is HD

These would be a great start. I realize it's a lot of info but I have spent the last month watching questions and answers fly back and forth all hovering around these topics. I also see the same folks answering those questions all the time.

I think if those folks, those uber-knowledgeable members, were to go through all their own responses, I bet they could easily put together the above Guides in no time and even come up with a few more. Then their responses to the "asked for the hundredth time" question can be a link to those guides.

Thanks for reading.

 

[TheStrudel]

On compressed video: Most people are unaware of the fact that they've never seen uncompressed video in their lives. It is amusing, though, that they're not aware of the huge compromises present in DVD compression (and Blu-ray, to a far lesser extent). On the other hand, it's just like audio: Who has playback equipment good enough to show them what they've been missing? The expense is incredible.

To add to what others have been saying about porn, it turns out the porn industry is making very little money these days, due to piracy. People can't convince themselves to feel guilty about pirating that kind of content, and indeed, who would buy a disc of it with the internet offering instant gratification they could only dream of in the 80s? That demographic also tends not to be a huge demander of image quality, so I don't think the general movie industry is going the same way.

Discs are still here for a while. Maybe blu-rays will never gain the kind of sales that DVDs had, but they'll do fine for a long time.

 

[LethalWolfe]

People are always saying this and it never comes true.

Well, you can say it about CDs, but they are being replaced with inferior quality lossy downloads for the most part. Instead of getting better (e.g. 24-bit 48kHz and better) we're taking a step down in quality in trade for the step up in convenience.

The only mainstream example I can think of where solid state media replaced a disc is the recent Beatles 24-bit USB stick and that costs a few hundred dollars.

We'll just have to remember to revisit this thread in 2018 or so and see what things have changed and what things haven't.

I'm not saying Blu-ray is going to die in May 2010 and everything thereafter will be delivered on thumb drives. I'm saying, for a number of reasons, Blu-ray will not sell more discs in it's lifetime as a format as DVD will during its lifetime as a format, IMO. I'm also saying that when solid state media reaches the point of having 50 or 100 gigs of storage at a price point that makes them disposable we'll probably see them being used as a distribution medium.


Lethal

 

[janstett]

There are no grades of HD. It is either HD or it is not. 720p is just as much HD as 1080p.

I do agree that provides cheat on the standard. However, cheating on the standard does not mean that there is no standard.

I know what you're saying, but when mainstream people hear "HD" they assume 1080p.

Big difference.

720 belongs on the trash heap. No pre-packaged media comes in 720, and only Fox and ABC broadcast in 720.

 

[janstett]

The same reason porn won't drive format wars again is the same reason why BluRay will NEVER have the success of DVD: Too many other sources for the product, especially with broadband internet in many homes.

If BluRay as a viable, supported format lingers to 2020, I will be extremely surprised. I think 2015 might even be a stretch.

I am like many, (and unlike many too) I don't want to collect more discs. If I can get a movie through my AppleTV (or Dish or DirecTV or netflix boxes) and onto my hard drive I am a happy camper. I am currently loading all my DVDs into my Mac and it's great.

I think part of your problem is not being able to enjoy 1080p movies on your Mac -- I'll go out on a limb and say you don't watch Blu-Rays. Apple's so-called HD iTunes content is very limited and only 720p. What HD content do you have access to?

I will say I've been impressed with some of the streaming content from places like Hulu and I've watched an episode or two of shows like "24" or "Terminator:SCC" or "Dollhouse" when my DVR missed it. But Blu-Ray quality? Nope.

And I'm not some kind of retro disc snob. I have a Home Theater PC connected to my 56" 1080p TV and I have a lot of digital media, and I have watched HD streams as mentioned above on this TV via the PC. But for movies I have to insist on Blu-Ray (and at the time, HD-DVD).

The big problem I see with broadband distribution is that our wonderful ISPs are already trying to throttle traffic and "unlimited" internet access isn't really unlimited (for example I recently got a nastygram from Comcast for exceeding the 250gb monthly cap, so much for unlimited), and they already throttle bittorrent traffic. With the ISPs choking off our bandwidth already, I don't see a pretty picture when we throw HD video onto the fire. Not anytime soon.

Plus, as I already said, Blu-Ray HD is extremely high quality (1080p video, lossless 7.1 audio) whereas any streamed content will be throwaway, lowest-common-denominator.

Another problem with downloading content is DRM. Look at the people who have lost their iTunes collections after spending thousands of dollars, or the guy on here who had his account suspended (including thousands of dollars in music he legitimately paid for) because he bought a fraudulent iTunes gift card on eBay. Any downloadable videos will have DRM infesting them (and Hollywood is far more paranoid than the record companies, if you can believe it) and you will never truly own what you buy. Blu-Ray may be old-fashioned because it's on a disc, but that also means I can do whatever I want with it and move it from player to player freely. (And there are ripping tools for Blu-Ray, even on the Mac, if you must have a file on a hard disk).

Again, BlueRay will NEVER have the market penetration or success that DVD has.

I'd like to print out this statement and check it in 5 years.

I'd like to point out many people said DVD would never overtake VHS 10 years ago. I doubt Blu-Ray will pass DVD as DVD is cheap, small, and now universal, and "good enough" quality wise. But I think Blu-Ray will be quite successful.

I'm a tech kind of guy...had LaserDisc, sat radio in 2002, DirecTV in 1995...early adopter. I have no plans to buy a BluRay player. I assume I will get one when our DVD burner finally dies...or when it's made available within my Mac, but I have no need or desire right now.

I'm a tech guy too. Had LD, sat rad, pulled in HD signals over the air in 1999 to a VGA monitor. But I went HD a long time ago. Bought an HD-DVD player. I have some of those Microsoft WMA High Def discs.

Do you own an HDTV yet? That's the key. Once you have access to an HDTV, and watch HD programming, DVD won't be good enough. I'm suspecting you don't have HDTV and haven't crossed the HD rubicon. If that's true, and given Apple's reticence with Blu-Ray, you're missing out.

 

[JoeG4]

The DVDs looked fine to me. *****.

 

[basesloaded190]

I know what you're saying, but when mainstream people hear "HD" they assume 1080p.

Big difference.

720 belongs on the trash heap. No pre-packaged media comes in 720, and only Fox and ABC broadcast in 720.

So your telling me that you can notice the difference between ABC's 720p broadcast and NBC's 1080i broadcast? I don't believe you. 720p is here to stay and will for a long time. No one is going to broadcast everything in 1080p for a very long time.

 

[LethalWolfe]

I know what you're saying, but when mainstream people hear "HD" they assume 1080p.

Big difference.

720 belongs on the trash heap. No pre-packaged media comes in 720, and only Fox and ABC broadcast in 720.

$20 says you've watched media that originated in 720p but was ultimately delivered in 1080 w/o even knowing it. 720p many lose the marketing battle in the consumer arena because it doesn't have as many pixels but in the production environment it still has advantages over 1080 which means it's still a valuable tool.


Lethal

 

[TheStrudel]

Most broadcast is 1080i or 720p. They're basically the same in terms of resolution/pixel count.

Nobody is doing 1080p broadcast and nobody will for a while. Largely due to bandwidth issues.

Most of the 720p channels are horribly compressed, too. I see terrible macroblocking and compression artifacts all the time on FiOS. I called FiOS, and according to them they re-encode nothing - they get badly encoded broadcasts from the source.

There is, by the way, a notable difference between channels. HBO seems to do better, for example, but they still can't keep up at some really high motion films.

Then again, HDTV is using MPEG-2 encoding at bitrates definitely far lower than a Blu-ray.

No, Blu-ray offers several tangible advantages. One of them, I must say, is that the user experience is way better than DVDs. Far more responsive (none of that button lag!) and quality that most TVs can't even fully resolve these days. As most people don't have really expensive HDTVs...

 

[polterdice]

right now i only buy dvds. like everyone i would love to watch in bluray but the prices doesn't make it worth unless you have a lot of money. i prefer spending 10$ in a dvd rather than 25/30$ for a bluray movie.

In the last 3 months I've bought a few Blu-Ray movies.

For $8 each I got I Am Legend, The Departed, Young Guns, Ocean's Eleven, Underworld.
For $10 I got The Wedding Singer.
For $13 I got Gladiator, The Matrix.
For $15 I got The Dark Knight.

All on Blu-Ray and all from Best Buy (without coupons or membership).

Meanwhile, my wife bought DVDs for some of her family who are too stubborn to switch to Blu-Ray.

For $20 she got Angels and Demons, Up
For $9 she got Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, Marley & Me

Personally, I prefer my movies but that's why I got them. Not saying all BR movies are cheap but as a whole they're coming down in price. In Best Buy, the DVD section has lost its footing to BR like when DVD pushed VHS to the less traveled sections of the store.