Quote:
SONY allegedly bribed, er, paid Blockbuster Video $700 MILLION for the no HD DVD policy.


As posted on Hi-Def Forum June 18, 2007 by Marv800
http://forums.highdefdigest.com/showthread.php?t=9804

"I just spoke with a friend of mine who owns a Blockbuster franchise in Waltham, Massachusetts. He was notified about the change this morning by the franchisor. Blockbuster Inc, told him that in order to maintain "uniform offerings that reflect the demands of the customers" he HAD TO carry Blu Ray, and was absolutely prohibited from carrying HD DVD, or risk losing his franchise rights."

"He was told that Blockbuster told him about specific premium store product placement and was also informed of forthcoming marketing collateral being provided to him by corporate. Blockbuster told him to offset some of the costs, he would be provided a stipend of somewhere between $5,000 and $20,000 depending on his store's volume."

"He was very upset about this because he feels that corporate already forces him to do too many things he doesn't want to so he called his franchise rep to object. Apparently, the franchise rep told him that Blockbuster was being paid over $700 million for this exclusive."

"Really though, this isn't so shocking, when you stop to consider how much companies like Frito Lay, Coca Cola, Sara Lee, etc pay large grocery chains for endcap product placements and exclusive contracts."



__________________

Quote:
The cousin of a friend of mine who works in the home video industry told him that right after CES in January, Toshiba and Microsoft paid Universal $750 million to stay with HD DVD and Uni had to meet a monthly quota for how many titles they released, and that's why we're seeing a whole crapload of catalog titles with crappy transfers from Uni.

Quote:
Need I say more (I'm sure I will have to).

Quote:
Quoting stefc:

Quote:
Yeah all those MPEG2 BD transfer are definitely "transparent to the master" aren't they?

Are you referring to the MPEG-2 BD transfer that were on a SINGLE LAYER 25GB disc?  If so, that's wasn't a bright statement at all.  I already said HD DVD has a 30GB limit (which is part of the problem).  Do you think 5GB LESS space on a single layer BD would make it better or worse?  Geez!

Quote:

Quote:
The phrase "transparent to the master" doesn't even make any sense?

Second of all, the directors of movies and studio heads use the phase "transparent to the master", so who are you to say it doesn't make any sense.  What part doesn't make any sense?  Maybe it's the part where you said it didn't make any sense.

Try googling the phase, before speaking about it.  It's good to have your ducks in a row.

Quote:
How come NO HD DVD movie has a 7.1 lossless track?

Quote:
Why would you even mention that I don't understand that TrueHD and DTS-MA are SUPPOSE to be lossless?  The white papers say it's suppose to be 1:1 bit encoded.

Quote:
They're held back titles like V for Vendetta, Batman Begins, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Terminator 3, Caddyshack, The Dukes of Hazzard, Constantine, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Perfect Storm, Troy, etc from HD DVD because it's not a finished platform, right?  Those titles don't look like Warner Bros. was waiting on anything, so you will have to come up with a better excuse than that (that should be directed at Warner Bros.).  I HAVE 3 titles (Dragon's Lair, The Descent, and Crank) that have PiP right now.  How come smaller studios are managing to implement PiP on Blu-ray, but Warner Bros can't seem to figure it out?  It's because Warner Bros. is playing favorites.  That's all to it.

Quote:

Quote:
P.S. LPCM is not a "lossless soundtrack", it is an uncompressed sound format. The word lossless implies compression. If you're going to spout this garbage all day long, you should at least figure out what the words you are typing actually mean.

If it's a perfect copy of the original, it is lossless.  Lossless CAN imply compression, but not always.  Lossless means it's identical in sound to the original.  The means were not dictated.

Quote:
Quoting stefc:

Quote:
Yeah all those MPEG2 BD transfer are definitely "transparent to the master" aren't they?

Are you referring to the MPEG-2 BD transfer that were on a SINGLE LAYER 25GB disc?  If so, that's wasn't a bright statement at all.  I already said HD DVD has a 30GB limit (which is part of the problem).  Do you think 5GB LESS space on a single layer BD would make it better or worse?  Geez!

Quote:
The phrase "transparent to the master" doesn't even make any sense?

First of all, that sentence is a statement.  It shouldn't end with a question mark.
Second of all, the directors of movies and studio heads use the phase "transparent to the master", so who are you to say it doesn't make any sense.  What part doesn't make any sense?  Maybe it's the part where you said it didn't make any sense.

Try googling the phase, before speaking about it.  It's good to have your ducks in a row.

Quote:
And even though HD DVD does have the ability and enough space to hold a 24-bit lossless soundtrack (seems you still don't understand that TrueHD and DTS-MA are lossless), with so few movies being mastered at 24bit/48khz and so few consumers with the hardware to be able to hear the difference between 16bit/48khz and 24bit/48khz, it is really not an issue.

I listed the math formula for people to calculate how much space movie encodes would take up for the video and the audio (the bright ones, seeking the truth, are using it already).

How come NO HD DVD movie has a 7.1 lossless track?  How come NO HD DVD title has a 24-bit lossless track?  I would even settle for a 7.1 lossless track (16 or 24-bit) being announced for HD DVD in the distant future, but that hasn't happened has it?  These things would interfere with the picture quality.

Why would you even mention that I don't understand that TrueHD and DTS-MA are SUPPOSE to be lossless?  The white papers say it's suppose to be 1:1 bit encoded.

I guess all the 24bit/48kHz tracks are done by Disney and that's why there are NO HD DVD movies with these tracks, right?  I guess there are NO 7.1 surround soundtracks on HD DVD because they have space for it on a 2+ hour movie plus great PQ (that stands for picture quality for those that missed my earlier class), right?  What about 96kHz/24bit?

I really like this line..."...so few consumers with the hardware to be able to hear the difference between 16bit/48khz and 24bit/48khz, it is really not an issue."  So, basically, the others will have to suffer because some people either don't have the hardware or can't hear the difference?  Boy, that's restricting the other's enjoyment.  I'm glad my format of choice is roomy and is made for the future.

Quote:
Neutral studios holding back major content because BD is not a finished platform is an issue though.

They're held back titles like V for Vendetta, Batman Begins, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Terminator 3, Caddyshack, The Dukes of Hazzard, Constantine, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Perfect Storm, Troy, etc from HD DVD because it's not a finished platform, right?  Those titles don't look like Warner Bros. was waiting on anything, so you will have to come up with a better excuse than that (that should be directed at Warner Bros.).  I HAVE 3 titles (Dragon's Lair, The Descent, and Crank) that have PiP right now.  How come smaller studios are managing to implement PiP on Blu-ray, but Warner Bros can't seem to figure it out?  It's because Warner Bros. is playing favorites.  That's all to it.

What about Blu-ray's picture and sound quality being held back on some titles due to HD DVD's bandwidth and space limitations?  THAT'S a problem.

Quote:
There is no reason that the Matrix trilogy shouldn't have been released on BD simultaneously other than lethargy and complacency in the BD camp.

There was no reason that the Matrix Trilogy shouldn't have been released on BD simultaneously except that Warner Bros. is playing favorites.  That's why only 2 or 3 of their Blu-ray releases have lossless sound.  You should have been able to figure that one out.  I guess you bought into Warner Bros. BS.

Quote:
P.S. LPCM is not a "lossless soundtrack", it is an uncompressed sound format. The word lossless implies compression. If you're going to spout this garbage all day long, you should at least figure out what the words you are typing actually mean.

If it's a perfect copy of the original, it is lossless.  Lossless CAN imply compression, but not always.  Lossless means it's identical in sound to the original.  The means were not dictated.

In other words, YOU should figure out what the words you are typing actually means.

Some people... 

Quote:
Quoting Erik:

Quote:
Quoting Ascended_Saiyan:

Quote:
HD DVD has NO movies with a 24-bit lossless track.

Chronos, Harsh Times, Black Christmas, Terminator 2, basically any Studio Canal release and other non-US titles with DTS-HD MA.

Not sure what all the lossless TrueHD tracks come in at.

- - -

"Simply said, there isn't space to provide "completely lossless audio, with no compression" on most disks. Completely lossless audio for all modern films is 24-bit, 48kHz. But there isn't space for that on most disks used today. So what do studios do? They "downres" the 24-bit, 48kHz LPCM master track to 16-bit, 48kHz LPCM. It's still uncompressed audio, but it's no longer lossless compared to the master. It's lossy.

TrueHD and DTS-HD MA are lossless compression codecs -- like zip files -- which are used to "zip" the 24-bit, 48kHz LPCM so it can fit on every disk. That eliminates the need to "downres" the audio to lower / lossy resolution."

- - -

Blu-ray's with 16-bit (L)PCM tracks?  Ghost Rider, Identity, Stomp the Yard, Hellboy, Reign of Fire, Deja Vu, Brothers Grimm, Eight Below, Catch & Release, The Queen, The Holiday, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, Dirty Dancing, Sky High, Flightplan, Casino Royale, Goal, Invincible, Curse of the Golden Flower, Dark Water, Volver, Daddy's Little Girls, etc.

Anyway...

Harsh Times is 16-bit

Chronos is not a movie and it's a lossy version of a 96kHz/24bit track.  It's presented at 2,046kbps.  To show you what I mean...a 48kHz/16-bit uncompressed lossless track is at 4.6Mbps.  A 48kHz/16bit TrueHD track peaks at 3Mbps.

That's why the Blu-ray version of Chronos got a higher audio rating than the HD DVD version (BANDWIDTH and or SPACE limitations).

Black Christmas is 48kHz/16bit.

Terminator 2 - the French import HD DVD movie is in DTS-HD MA, but it is not know what sample it was encoded from.  Most likely it was from a 48kHz/16-bit master.  Just because the track is DTS-HD MA does not mean it was done at 48kHz/24bit.

As for the rest of that, I probably know more about the lossless audio codecs than most here.

Quote:
The Last Starfighter.

Quote:
Have any of you seen this?

http://www.tvpredictions.com/bluray062007.htm

Quote:
The winner will be decided by the one who will bring Back to the Future to the high def scene