No 720p support in BluRay
 

We had a presentation from Pioneer yesterday about their position on BluRay. A few interesting and somewhat concerning points came out of it.

1: He said there is no support for 720p, only 1080i and 1080p. With 1080p diplays being pretty rare and not likely standard in homes for many years to come the only way to diplay 720p footage is via converting it to 1080i. If true this seems to be something to be concerned about.
*Edit: Seems this is NOT true, see later post.

2: 1080i/p MPG2@HL for BD-AV is a short GOP format so both 720p and HDV 1080i will require recoding. No direct burn to disk and play support.

3: Consumer/Semi-Pro authoring software may not support authoring anything but MPG2@HL. Apparently these high compression codecs are not seem as ones BluRay want to really see on their media.

Other stuff said to but not related to the 720p issues which relate this post to this forum.

Anyone got any evidence to contradict/correct the comments made to us last night?

PS: Pioneer will be releasing a drive at the end of the year with Dual Layer BR burning support, but are in no hurry as there is really no software to author with yet anyway.

There's nothing wrong with encoding the material at 1080p- it would make a lot more sense than going 1080i. Set-top players will be able to convert to 1080i or 720p on-the-fly during playback if necessary- this is how all HD-DVD and Blu-Ray movies will be handled- the discs themselves are/will be encoded at 1080p 24fps.

Also- I wouldn't worry about having to work with short GOP, remember that you'll be able to work with multi-pass VBR methods when authoring, which should allow plenty of headroom and yield some fantastic results. Also- even though consumer-level software won't see them initially, expect to see VC1 and AVC encoding options showing up as time progresses. You have to bear in mind that the BR/HD-DVD are in their infancy. Much progress will be made with a little passage of time.

It doesn't make a lot of sense to me to:

Capture in 720p
Resample to 1080p for burning
Resample back to 1080i or 720p for playback.

If the formats simply supported 720p all this format conversion wouldn't be required, quality won't be lost or data won't be wasted encoding upsampled video for no good reason. Conversions are nice in theory (just convert from A to B to C to D and your done!) but to doing all these conversion, and some in RT is going to effect the image you see on the display.

Seems like a horses ass aproach to me. Is this just Sony sticking the finger at JVC and 720p. Given HD-DVD doesn't support 1080p (I think), does it support native 720p material?

I don't want to make this a BR vs HD-DVD thread, I am only intersted in looking at it from a workflow and quality of output of material you will have with the JVC cameras. What is the best option going to be in the short and long term (these may be different)?

To not support 720p is bonkers. To force people to upconvert to 1080p just wastes bits, and of course, I bet the 1080p doesn't offer 60p support which is what you'd need for 720p60 upconversions anyway. To convert 720p60 to 1080i60 is a step backwards to the nasty evil land of interlace. What a botch job this HD revolution really is.....

Graeme

Unless there's collusion or it's not in the spec, there will be a Blu-Ray Player manufacturer that will make a player with 720p playback. They will bury the competition if they market it aggressively.

Is this a Sony 1080i conspiracy?

I think we can all rest a bit easier and I need to correct this Pioneer rep:

http://www.blu-raydisc.com/Section-1...627/Index.html

Video highlights
The BD-ROM format for movie distribution supports three highly advanced video codecs, including MPEG-2, so an author can choose the most suitable one for a particular application. All codecs are industry standards, meaning easy integration with existing authoring tools, and choice from wide range of encoding solutions. All consumer video resolutions are available:
- 1920 x 1080 HD (50i, 60i and 24p)
- 1280 x 720 HD (50p, 60p and 24p)
- 720 x 576/480 SD (50i or 60i)

Sorry for the scare.

Thanks Guy! That's good info,

and yes, it's a Sony 1080i (we're still living in the 30s) conspiracy.

Graeme

no SD 50/60p support though :-(

First of all- it's good to hear that 720p will be an encoding option from day one. Having more options is always a good thing.

Beyond that- it's still really not a big deal at all to be up or down sampling between the various HD formats. Displaying 1080p as 1080i on an HDTV (performed either in software during authoring, or live from the player's output or the TV's own video chip) is as simple as adding artificial fields- it won't degrade the image at all because the source is still progressive and there's not going to be any inter-field motion. Also- any HD display or player is going to handle 720p<>1080i conversion very well, which is good because that upconversion will have to be applied on the fly by either the player or the display whenever our 720p-authored discs are viewed on 1080i or 1080p sets.

Being able to work in 720p straight through makes things easier for us as content authorers, but it really won't affect the final quality of the viewed product. If we're going to get hung up over up or down conversion- the only instance where a 'pure' viewing experience would be taking place woulde be when our disc authored at 720p is viewed on a native 720p display.

Just FYI- HD-DVD offers full 1080p on-disc support. All of the current HD-DVD movies on the market are encoded at 1080p 24fps. The early players out now are only offering 1080i output, but there's no limitiation on 1080p as far as the HD-DVD spec itself is concerned.

You can always record over the SD DVD if you need to have your project in progressive. We shall see if the debut of Blu-Ray overshadows HD-DVD. Blu-Ray offers higher resolution, but HD-DVD offers a lower price. I believe (like many others) that waiting to see who the winner of the format war is the best option. SD DVD will most likely continue to be the overall winner for years to come though. The difference in quality and low price of DVD will be the most difficult obstacle for both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD to overcome.

Or maybe the world should ignore HDDVD and BluRay totally and just use ordinary DVD discs and Progressive players with WMVHD or DIVXHD, it's looks great on a 720P LCD screen and serves it's purpose for the end user, I really do wonder why the world really needs BluRay and HDDVD, I mean how long is it till they will be in every house ? a huge number of computers can already run WMVHD and DIVXHD, you can easily buy players for the home that do the same at regular prices, why spend a fortune on a new player that is going to be in a format war, I think Both BluRay and HDDVD could be losers long term if luck is not on there side, by the time they are popular enough to be cheap units people could be begging for 2K in the home.

You guys make some good points, but there are probably better places on the net to have the Blu-Ray vs. HD-DVD vs. DVD debate.

You are right Jake. This could easily set off a format war discussion, but the most important aspect of Blu-Ray and HD DVD for us is not to replace DVD, but to have the ability to show HD recordings on the highest possible quality for mass or minimal distribution.

And Archiving.

HD-DVD supports h.264 which pretty much eliminates the size/storage advantage of BlueRay, which doesn't. H.264 is the future for broadcast HD too.
If you don't have hdcp, you only get half rez from either type. More importantly it will probably be one of the preferred codecs for streaming over the internet. I've seen some 720p stuff from IM.com and though the content sucked, the picture quality was great.

I went and saw true 1080i from a 1080p source (HD-DVD) in an upscale home theater store. It was outstanding. And there is a lot of life left in 1080i, for things like reality shows and such.

I agree waiting until things sort out.