Some BD Details
Ultimate AV has some detaiils about the BD (Blu-ray Disc) format that I found interesting, and may not be common knowledge. I especially appreciate the info on sound formats and movie resolutions. Cool stuff.
- BD will support much more elaborate menus than DVD. Not only that, but many of these menu features will be accessible while watching the movie. So you can go into the menu and change the subtitles or soundtrack or whatever, while the movie is playing or paused, which I think is pretty cool. And as far as I know HD DVD will support this kind of thing as well.
- Sony has confirmed that movies will be encoded on BD discs in 1080p/24. The user sets the player to put the movie out in the format they want for their display, like 1080/30i, 1080/60p, or 720/60p.
- Sony will use MPEG2 as their compression method. Interestingly, “Sony says that they have performed comparative tests between MPEG-2, VC-1 (based on Windows Media Video 9 and formerly known as VC-9) and AVC (often referred to as MPEG-4, MPEG-4 Part 10, or H.264). Sony’s tests reportedly show that VC-1 (Video Codec 1) and AVC (Advanced Video Coding) may surpass MPEG-2 at data rates below 20Mb/sec, but MPEG-2 was superior at the rates Sony plans on using for Blu-ray (variable, but up to a maximum of 30Mb/sec). Sony did concede, however, that future improvements to these other codecs might well allow them to exceed MPEG-2 at all data rates.”
- Worth mentioning again is that Sony has no plans to down-rez HD signals on the analog output to 960 x 540. This is an option studios can use (via the ICT - Image Constraint Token).
- All Sony and MGM titles will use standard DD and DTS soundtracks for now, like those used on DVD discs. That is, they’re not using the new DD+, DD TrueHD, or DTS HD formats.
- However, the Sony and MGM discs will include 5.1 channels of uncompressed PCM audio. Since there’s no way to transport these signals digitally, you’ll have to use 6 analog connections from your BD player to your prepro or receiver to make use of this feature.
Check out our new sister blog on Home Theater, HTBlog.net
March 24th, 2006 at 10:58 am
What no 1080/48i?
I had read somewhere that they could do this to avoid a 3-2 pull down on 1080i only TVs.
March 24th, 2006 at 11:01 am
You’re question whether it stored in 1080/48i, or whether the BD player can put out 1080/48i ?
March 24th, 2006 at 4:14 pm
Whether it can ouput 1080/48i
March 24th, 2006 at 4:15 pm
Well the article only mentioned possible outputs, it didn’t say it was an exhaustive list.
March 27th, 2006 at 2:31 pm
Regarding number “1″, the part about more elaborate menus sounds fine, but isn’t the ability to make menu changes while watching the movie already present on today’s DVDs? I remember many changes where I went back to the menu 10 minutes into a film, changed the subtitle setting, and selected “Resume Film” to continue right from where I left off. Does number “1″ mean anything different from that?
March 27th, 2006 at 2:36 pm
That’s not really “while watching the movie” is it? With a DVD, you’re stopping the movie, making a change, then you’re continuing the movie.
March 27th, 2006 at 2:50 pm
Right, but that’s still functionally equivalent to the “…or paused” scenario explained in number “1″.
Then you’re saying that, with BDs, you’ll be able to make your changes in a floating (or transparent?) window while your movie continues to play behind it. I supposed that’s useful for people who don’t mind missing part of a scene while fiddling with settings.