HD For Indies

UPDATE: I misread/overreacted in my first skim-in-a-hurry -- this is Sony Pictures talking about how they'll compress their movies, not Sony Electronics altering the spec for Blu Ray, which has always required all three codecs - MPEG-2, VC-1, and H.264. So disregard my paranoid format war ramblings below. Sony is just picking a stable, known tech to deliver their first stuff with. I'm just surprised to hear them say "for the foreseeable future" about MPEG-2. H.264 and VC-1 offer a lot of advantages. This is a signal to me that Sony Pictures is looking for their first Blu Ray discs to be just like regular DVDs, but with more resolution is all.

New high-definition DVDs to use old video technology? | Tech News on ZDNet

Sony is talking about using high bitrate MPEG-2 for Blu Ray, and NOT H.264 or VC-1.

I AM SHOCKED.

I had heard about issues doing interlaced footage with H.264 from Apple folks in the booth at NAB this year, but I figured that was an Apple only thing. I figured they'd do 1080p24 with 3:2 pattern added to make it 1080i60 in hardware during playback.

From the article:

Last week, studio giant Sony Pictures quietly voted for "none of the above," and took a swipe at the new codec formats. The new advanced codecs aren't immediately necessary for discs released in Sony's high-capacity Blu-ray format, Sony Pictures executives said in an interview with CNET News.com, and the studio would instead use the 11-year-old MPEG-2 video codec used on today's DVDs.
"Advanced (formats) don't necessarily improve picture quality," said Don Eklund, Sony Pictures' senior vice president of advanced technology. "Our goal is to present the best picture quality for Blu-ray. Right now, and for the foreseeable future, that's with MPEG-2."


I found this very, very surprising. I had started to write "patently, demonstrably false" but I'm backing off of that. Let's break this down piece by piece -

"Advanced formats don't necessarily improve picture quality" - well, from a broad, blunt perspective, it could be argued this is true. However, at a GIVEN bitrate, this is false. If you have plenty of room, you can get good quality at a higher bitrate of MPEG-2. But that means you can't fit as much stuff on the discs.

I'm just very surprised that Sony is stating that H.264 can't deliver equal quality as MPEG-2 at a bitrate that fits onto the 25GB of a single layer Blu Ray Disc.

Hmm..why? Ostensibly, high bitrate MPEG-2 might be better quality - (and there is a lot of wiggle room to improve a codec within a format, and MPEG-2 is a mature technology that is well optimized)

The cynic in me, after having seen some really good looking H.264 (look at the downloadable HD trailers on Apple's movie trailers site), wonders if there is some other reason for this sudden move - why this late play? Is this a threat to divorce Microsoft from the game, so they have a chip that MS has to "buy back" in negotiations as they push for Mandatory Managed Copy? Or to keep away from the Microsoft/Intel Viiv initiative, keeping Sony in a role to sell more players and not have computers be as friendly a playback device? Is it because they don't want to pay the licensing fees for the other formats to include them in the Blu Ray spec?

Woops, after having written that, I realize that this is Sony Pictures, not the Blu Ray spec Sony electronics group. So disregard all that format war stuff with Microsoft (although that is an interesting thought, too).

Or is it an anti-piracy move, hoping to keep high quality, lower bitrate media out of the hands of the online pirates, making the movies bigger and harder to copy? Or too big to copy onto a 9 GB DVD-R?

The article states that the existing companies involved in DVD production are familiar with MPEG-2 and not with the others - I'd say fine then, leave MPEG-2 is as an option, and oh, I dunno, maybe PLAN FOR THE FUTURE by having support, REQURED, in all the players sold, for the other formats.


"For the first year or so, inertia and familiarity may count more than being more efficient," said Envisioneering analyst Richard Doherty. "The professionals that do this for a living at Technicolor, Disney, Fox, Warner and so on are much more comfortable with MPEG-2."


Warners wants to make a 9GB disc with high def content - ONLY possible with VC-1 or H.264, NOT possible with MPEG-2. It would be produced with existing red laser disc technology, thus cheaper to crank out. H.264 and VC-1 are making entirely suitable HD movies at SD movie bitrates.

This article is really stating that Sony PICTURES likes MPEG-2 - their recent test of Charlie's Angels Full Throttle as a Blu Ray disc was compressed using MPEG-2, and maybe that is what they are happy with.

I'm just hoping this doesn't lead to a threat to the format is all. (Woops, hope I'm not misleading about that).

OK, pardon my misread on all that situation - in a hurry here to get to next meeting - been SWAMPED.