"Toshiba's HD-DVD going the way of Betamax"

[Viper007Bond]

That's the risk one takes when they chose to do it.

[essentialatom]

Originally Posted by Shawn

What I don't get is why would you need as much space as a Bluray disc provides? A one hour 720p rip is about 1 gig, and HD-DVDs hold 15 or 30 gigs, right? That should be more than enough for a few hours of 1080 footage and various bonus features and languages.

That's when you encode to drop the bitrate. Raw films, ripped directly drom a Blu-ray or HD-DVD disc, can be anything from 20-26GB (depending on the film, of course).

On topic: I'm quite pleased about this. Not only because I own a PS3, but because I predicted from the start that Blu-ray would be victorious and it's more or less the case now. I know that seems quite petty but it's not just because I've been proven right, it's also because I made that prediction based on several factors and it's good to think that I was on target. At the end of the day there's little difference between the two formats (of course there are some, but generally they're interchangeable, certainly to the casual consumer) and I'm glad that the games console I paid for will be the one that can use the winning next generation HD format.

P.S. I know there are a few uses of words such as 'win' and 'victorious' in that post, and it implies perhaps too childish a level of comptition to the format war, but they were the first words that sprang to mind and they do work, so I'm leaving them there.

[Viper007Bond]

Originally Posted by Shawn

What I don't get is why would you need as much space as a Bluray disc provides? A one hour 720p rip is about 1 gig, and HD-DVDs hold 15 or 30 gigs, right? That should be more than enough for a few hours of 1080 footage and various bonus features and languages.

Same reason DVDs are 4.3GB rather than 700MB or 1.4GB -- compression rates.

The video on a DVD is compressed via MPEG2 (identical pixels from frame to frame are only stored once to cut down on size). It's about 1/5 or something the size of the original video, but it allows for a weak processor to decode it on the fly and that's the important part.

Have you ever tried to play a 1080p x264 video on your PC? Well if you have, you know it requires a heavy duty Core 2 Duo or better to do it.

In order for a Blu-Ray player to play back the video without costing an arm and a leg for the processor alone, the compression is kept light. This is a compromise and results in the movie being 20-40GB.

[Shawn]

^ I see, thanks for the info. Although I do play x264 on a rather old Athlon64 3500+ without problems, mainly 720p but I played the 1080 polar rip of Top Gear as well.

So I'm guessing Blu-ray movies aren't encoded with x264, and are rather encoded with regular H264 which doesn't compress as much? Sorry for the noob and offtopic questions, I just can't ever wrap my head around all these video formats and codecs.

[Viper007Bond]

Originally Posted by Shawn

^ I see, thanks for the info. Although I do play x264 on a rather old Athlon64 3500+ without problems, mainly 720p but I played the 1080 polar rip of Top Gear as well.

I said 1080p, not 720p.

720p is relatively easy to play. 1080p is not. Take my old P4 3GHz for example. It'd play 720p as smooth as butter, but the audio would lag behind on 1080p rips, including the TG Polar Special.

Originally Posted by Shawn

So I'm guessing Blu-ray movies aren't encoded with x264, and are rather encoded with regular H264 which doesn't compress as much? Sorry for the noob and offtopic questions, I just can't ever wrap my head around all these video format and codecs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blu-ray_Disc

Encoding: MPEG-2, MPEG-4 AVC (H.264), and VC-1

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compari...l_disc_formats

[essentialatom]

Originally Posted by Shawn

^ I see, thanks for the info. Although I do play x264 on a rather old Athlon64 3500+ without problems, mainly 720p but I played the 1080 polar rip of Top Gear as well.

Really? I have an Athlon64 4000+ and that struggles with 1080p video. What graphics card/memory do you have? It's one of the main reasons I'm building a new PC.

[Shawn]

^ I have a gig of RAM and a 256mb ATI Radeon 9800 Pro. I looked and the HD rip of Top Gear that I have is just the 720p version.

I'm also looking at building a new PC, specifically an HTPC, which is the reason I'm so curious about this kind of stuff.

[the Interceptor]

Originally Posted by Shawn

I'm also looking at building a new PC, specifically an HTPC, which is the reason I'm so curious about this kind of stuff.

You should emphasize on a quick CPU and a graphics card that supports HDTV playback. I've played many different HDTV formats on my current daily-PC, which has an Athlon 64 4000+ and onboard graphics (the board is the AsRock ALive NF7G-HDReady and has a nVidia chipset).

720p runs smoothly, but 1080p makes some trouble in action scenes. Overclocking the CPU from 2100 to 2750 MHz did help a bit, but it still doesn't run smoothly. So if you make a HTPC, get a good 2D graphics card with HDTV support, such as this one:

http://www.gigabyte.de/Products/VGA/...e=GV-RX24T256H

[Shawn]

^ I'm hopefully not going to be on a limited budget. I'm thinking of a faster C2D, maybe quad-core?

I can't really figure out video cards. Very few have HDMI outputs (none that I can buy here), but I understand DVI-D goes up to HD resolutions so all I'd need is a DVI -> HDMI converter to hook it up to an LCD. But then I'd need to have a separate cable for the sound, and then I guess I would need a sound card that would work with my TV or receiver.

[the Interceptor]

Originally Posted by Shawn

^ I'm hopefully not going to be on a limited budget. I'm thinking of a faster C2D, maybe quad-core?

There are bargains from Intel as well, such as this one:

http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/09/...ium_dual_core/

Originally Posted by Shawn

I can't really figure out video cards. Very few have HDMI outputs (none that I can buy here), but I understand DVI-D goes up to HD resolutions so all I'd need is a DVI -> HDMI converter to hook it up to an LCD. But then I'd need to have a separate cable for the sound, and then I guess I would need a sound card that would work with my TV or receiver.

I'm not sure if even the graphics cards with HDMI output also offer sound. The interface surely could manage it, but usually graphics cards don't deal with sound. Therefore, I'd transfer sound digitally by S/P-DIF.

[Shawn]

^ I dunno about HDMI, but I know ATI's solutions come with a converter which also takes the sound internally and transfers it via the DVI -> HDMI conversion. But I'm mainly interested in an nVidia chipset, so I'll probably have to go the solution you suggest.

[Viper007Bond]

Originally Posted by Shawn

^ I have a gig of RAM and a 256mb ATI Radeon 9800 Pro. I looked and the HD rip of Top Gear that I have is just the 720p version.

Ah, okay, I was gonna say 'cause the 1080p requires a really beefy computer and video card.

[Hidden_Hunter]

Originally Posted by cdbob

Well I can say I predicted this one correctly I knew that the companies would go for technology with more space, to make it harder to burn and with more technology on it to (try to) stop pirating. I am happy its over, sad to see whats going to happen to the companies that supported it, they are going to lose a lot of money.

at least your region isn't quite so much the losers out of it

[Redliner]

I am glad we have a winner, so now the industry can focus in only one format.
I must confess I also was hoping Blue-ray was victorious because I want a PS3

[Speedtouch]

Originally Posted by essentialatom

Really? I have an Athlon64 4000+ and that struggles with 1080p video. What graphics card/memory do you have? It's one of the main reasons I'm building a new PC.

Same! I have the 4000+ as well! And I also have problems with it. It runs smoothly as long as I'm not doing anything else. And the audio still lags behind slightly.

[POWERRR!!]

I might get a PS3 by the end of the year. GT5 is enough reason for me to get one, Blu-Ray just makes it an even better deal. I'm also hoping that stand-alone players break the $99 barrier sooner rather than later.

[essentialatom]

Originally Posted by Speedtouch

Same! I have the 4000+ as well! And I also have problems with it. It runs smoothly as long as I'm not doing anything else. And the audio still lags behind slightly.

I'm building a very decent PC at the moment, which will be able to handle it (along with a few other things, mentioning no names *whispers* Crysis), saying goodbye to AMD because their latest CPUs just can't keep up with Intel's offerings. The CPU I want hasn't actually been released yet, I'm still waiting

Originally Posted by Shawn

^ I'm hopefully not going to be on a limited budget. I'm thinking of a faster C2D, maybe quad-core?

I can't really figure out video cards. Very few have HDMI outputs (none that I can buy here), but I understand DVI-D goes up to HD resolutions so all I'd need is a DVI -> HDMI converter to hook it up to an LCD. But then I'd need to have a separate cable for the sound, and then I guess I would need a sound card that would work with my TV or receiver.

I'm opting for quad-core, the reasons being: by all accounts dual-core systems just don't deal with operations with the smoothness and unflappability of quads; for the overclocking potential; superb multitasking, and awesome single-operation speed too; a certain amount of future-proofing; and, come on, how cool is the word 'quad'?

I believe that Sapphire make some of the latest ATI Radeon cards with HDMI outputs if that's what you're going for. Personally I've opted to buy an nVidia GeForce 8800GT (which has DVI outputs), and use a seperate 5.1 system plugged into my PC/PS3 for sound. The difference between HDMI and DVI video is negligible, but if you're looking to use Blu-ray or HD-DVDs in your computer it might be worth going for HDMI - I'm not sure about the implementation of HDCP (High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection) in PCs, and you may need to use HDMI. Best to ask someone else about that or research it elsewhere on the internet.

Remember, always research as thoroughly as you can before buying new electronic equipment, because confusion between port types, content protection, all that kind of stuff, can really bite you in the ass, or at least piss you off. I realise that's what you're doing here, of course

If you're set on HDMI compatibility, check out www.sapphiretech.com, and shop around for graphics cards with HDMI ports.

And, er... I think it could be time to split this discussion into its own thread. ¬_¬