MPEG2 in Blue Ray Discs?

[symonjfox]

I have just read that it's coming out the new Blue Ray disc, an optical disc that keep up to 23 GB on a single side disc.

http://www.blu-raydisc.info/WhatsBlu-ray/blu-ray.htm

Why they still use MPEG2 to store movies on such discs?
I thought that since we're in 2003, they moved to MPEG 4 (maybe creating a version optimized to High Bitrates and High Resolutions, since that DivX and Xvid are made for low bitrates).

Then they say that a blue ray disc contain 2 hours of video ... 2 hours? There should stay much more using DVD quality.

[Neo Neko]

With increased storrage what is the need for increased compression. At 23Gb apice you could fit aproximatly one hour of lossless Huffyuv at DVD rez. Lossless! No while MPEG4 is technically superior to MPEG2 in every way how is a media release company gonna make use of all that space. How many DVD movies could you fit in 23Gb with excelent quality in MPEG4? 17 or more? They are not gonna go for that. Also there is the dificulty of MPEG4 DSP or related technology to go into current standalones. It is still in it's infancy. So it is no supprise that it has not been included.

[mf]

Originally posted by Neo Neko
With increased storrage what is the need for increased compression. At 23Gb apice you could fit aproximatly one hour of lossless Huffyuv at DVD rez. Lossless! No while MPEG4 is technically superior to MPEG2 in every way how is a media release company gonna make use of all that space. How many DVD movies could you fit in 23Gb with excelent quality in MPEG4? 17 or more? They are not gonna go for that. Also there is the dificulty of MPEG4 DSP or related technology to go into current standalones. It is still in it's infancy. So it is no supprise that it has not been included.
How to use the space ? Simple. Crank up the resolution 2 times and you've got it. What, still space left ? Crank it up 3 times. HDTV can go up to 1280x960, so HD-DVD making use of such resolutions is only logical.

[jonny]

Putting for example lotr extended + all the specials (in MPEG2) will easy fill the space.
23GB are a huge space... but not so huge imo.

[vinouz]

I long for the moment we have 2.35:1 DMD videoprojectors at home with 9+1 (got 8 corners in a room) sound and a resolution of 4700*2000.
Real home cinema.
There's never too much space !

vinouz

[symonjfox]

Originally posted by jonny
Putting for example lotr extended + all the specials (in MPEG2) will easy fill the space.
23GB are a huge space... but not so huge imo.

It's for this I wrote this post.

If they use a vell turned (made for High Bitrates and High Res) MPEG4 codec instead of MPEG2, they should give better quality to the whole disc. I'm not saying about 640x480 DivX with 112 kbs MP3 audio, I'm talkin about HDTV res with 5 sound tracks, subtitles and other stuff.

They could just give a SUPPORT for MPEG4 in their Blue Ray Players, then the Movie Productors will chose which codec to use.

[Atamido]

symonjfox is correct. The specs from Sony for their Blu-Ray recorder say that the disc will only hold 2 hours of High-Definition content. Now mind you, High-Definition is available right now, just not at the higher bitrates that will be used for these discs.

Why would you come out with a new disc that will only hold two hours of video today, but won't become widespread for several years? By the time it comes out, it will be outdated. DVD's actually did something big when they came out, but these seem pretty mediocre by comparison.

Why wouldn't you just leave the option of using either MPEG-2 or MPEG-4 so that you could do a direct record of current HDTV MPEG-2 streams, or be able to produce discs at full HD resolutions, progressive, more sound tracks, AND be able to hold 3-5 hours of video using high-bitrate MPEG-4? I want a HD LOTR on a single disk, and this won't even do that. What a bunch of goobers.

[Sirber]

@Pamel

Buy a DVD recorder and burn LOTR! :D

[RadicalEd]

there was a huge fuss over blu-ray and mpeg 4 vs mpeg 2 in this thread (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=41288&perpage=20&pagenumber=2) :|
Supposedly itll take too much power to decode 30mbps mpeg 4. I dunno, I thought it would be better if they used it though too :\

[Neo Neko]

No one is gonna replace DVD any time soon. If they do there is gonna be major backlash. Consumers just will not stand for it. I call it the Sega effect for obvious reasons. 90% of Americans don't have a TV with anything better than composite or coaxial cable connection. They have yet to see how good DVD can be let alone HDTV. Not the best time for this technology in this area.

As to why they did not use MPEG4. That is simple. There are no DSP that implement anything more than simple profile on the market. And none in development that cover a large enough part of the spec to make it feesable. There is also the fact that there are no standards for how to store the video defined yet. Yes you can put it in MP4. But what rez and bitrate? In the future it will be an option with high market apeal. But for now it is simply a niche market. So many people are still learning how to make MPEG1 VCD or XVCD and are like "wow neato!".

[mf]

Originally posted by Neo Neko
No one is gonna replace DVD any time soon. If they do there is gonna be major backlash. Consumers just will not stand for it. I call it the Sega effect for obvious reasons. 90% of Americans don't have a TV with anything better than composite or coaxial cable connection. They have yet to see how good DVD can be let alone HDTV. Not the best time for this technology in this area.

As to why they did not use MPEG4. That is simple. There are no DSP that implement anything more than simple profile on the market. And none in development that cover a large enough part of the spec to make it feesable. There is also the fact that there are no standards for how to store the video defined yet. Yes you can put it in MP4. But what rez and bitrate? In the future it will be an option with high market apeal. But for now it is simply a niche market. So many people are still learning how to make MPEG1 VCD or XVCD and are like "wow neato!".
No excuses, I want the latest hollywood movie in 3840x2880! Right now! And if I don't have my way I'll steal the film reel and steal a digital telecine device.

[vinouz]

I'm yours, man !
Where do we go get it now ?

Vince.

(P.S. : I mind the cluster, you mind the videoprojector, ok ?)

[Atamido]

Originally posted by Neo Neko
No one is gonna replace DVD any time soon. If they do there is gonna be major backlash. Consumers just will not stand for it.

I agree. Its taken 10 years for DVDs to become mainstream, and changing to another format anytime soon just isn't going to happen.

I call it the Sega effect for obvious reasons.
I don't get it.

90% of Americans don't have a TV with anything better than composite or coaxial cable connection. They have yet to see how good DVD can be let alone HDTV. Not the best time for this technology in this area.

I'm a little dubious of this figure, but no, most people don't realize the benefits. Once people try out a DVD, they usually see the benefits right away and are hooked. And nowadays a DVD player costs about the same as a VCR, so it makes sense to upgrade in most cases.

But, nobody is going to see the benefit of a disk that shows HD content without a HD TV. And convincing people to upgrade their TV's is going to be slow because its a gradual step up rather than a whole new system like DVDs were. Also, HDTV's cost a lot more. I may not be the norm in the US, but I still can't afford to plop down $$$ for a new HDTV. It will take a long time for the general populace to convert to HDTV's and then to upgrade to Blu-Ray.

As to why they did not use MPEG4. That is simple. There are no DSP that implement anything more than simple profile on the market. And none in development that cover a large enough part of the spec to make it feesable.

One of the reasons for this is that there isn't a demand yet. But given the amount of time it will take for these new disks to come to market, it should be a viable option. If the new Sony player costs $4000, what is the big deal of using a $300 MPEG-4 DSP? Given the time frame that they are looking at, they should have settled on MPEG-4 as by the time it is really introduced, it will be feasible.

There is also the fact that there are no standards for how to store the video defined yet. Yes you can put it in MP4. But what rez and bitrate?

Use the same rez and equivalent bitrate as has been defined for MPEG-2. The reason it hasn't been define is because they decided not to use it. If you want to see some potential specs you could probably check what Warner Bros. (http://www.hddvd.org/hddvd/formats/) wants to do with the old DVD format.

Yes, I realize it isn't an issue at the moment, or even for the next couple of years. I just think they're dopes for not preparing for the future.

[iwod]

sorry but i have a question which is bothering me...... Music can be compress losslessly. But how can this be done with video??

[symonjfox]

The best Lossless compression I have ever tried is MJPEG 2000 giving Lossless compression in the proprieties.

It compresses much more than Hffyuv but it's VERY VERY SLOW.

[mf]

I'm preparing for the future as well :D.

http://mf.onthanet.com/s-dvd.html

:p :D :cool:


Haven't updated the page for months though.

[iwod]

Originally posted by symonjfox
The best Lossless compression I have ever tried is MJPEG 2000 giving Lossless compression in the proprieties.

It compresses much more than Hffyuv but it's VERY VERY SLOW.

Where can i get more info on jepg 2000 and more information about lossless compraion??

[Sirber]

http://www.aware.com/products/compression/jpeg2000.html

There is the video codec freely avalible (if I remember well).

[Neo Neko]

Originally posted by Pamel
I don't get it.

I call it the Sega effect because of how Sega released and marketed it's hardware. Once sega released the Genesis they tried to release a sucessor almost every six months. 32x, Sega CD, Saturn, and the Dreamcast at the end of the line. Not one of these systems was given propper time to mature and build up a library.

[trbarry]

How to use the space ? Simple. Crank up the resolution 2 times and you've got it. What, still space left ? Crank it up 3 times. HDTV can go up to 1280x960, so HD-DVD making use of such resolutions is only logical.

In the USA HDTV is typically 1920x1080i or 1280x720p @ 60 fps though some others are allowed. But at least with MPEG-2 this can use up bits pretty fast. And Blu-Ray is definitely targeted at HDTV to compete with the current D-Theater 1080i movie tapes now out.

- Tom

[Atamido]

Hmmmmm....lets do a little math.

Personally, I think that mass produced disks will use
1920x1080p @ 24fps as that is the highest resolution, and the framerate that movies are actually filmed at.

An excellent superbit DVD, for all intents and puposes, has
720x480p @ 24fps at a peak ~10mbps

So, it could take a peak of 12mpbs to output 345,600 pixels @ 24fps progressive. Leaving 8GB on a dual layer DVD, after Audio and other items, you have about 1.8 hours of video at 10mbps.

My listed HD resolution would need to produce 2,073,600 pixels @ 24fps progressive, or six times the number of pixels/sec than the standard DVD resolution. A BluRay disc holds 23GB of data, or a little less than 2.4 times that of a standard DVD.

Does anyone see where I'm going with this yet?

If you were going to maintain the number of mbps/pixel as a high-bitrate DVD, then you would need to to store around 48GB of data Hmmmm.... Anyone else see a problem?

But wait! I know you're thinking that if you were in a tech forum planning the disk of the future, surely you would create a new format that both held more data, AND used it more efficiently. To quote a man how found himself in a similar situation, "They did it, they finally did it. Damn them, damn them all...!" -Charlton Heston

Note: I am quite tired and would be appreciative if someone could check my numbers and see if they make any sense.

[Rash]

Well, Pamel. Maybe BluRay can hold 23Gbs on one "layer". If it's designed dual-layer as DVD, then we get to your 46Gbs of data. ;)

[RadicalEd]

Actually Blu-ray seems to be almost exactly the same as DVD except scaled to 1920x1080 (6x 720x480). A single layer DVD holds 2 hours at about 5mbps, a single layer blu-ray holds 2 hours at about 30mbps.

[Rash]

That makes sense!! :)

[Lyron]

*drool*
But I want it now! :mad:

[mf]

Originally posted by Pamel
An excellent superbit DVD, for all intents and puposes, has
720x480p @ 24fps at a peak ~10mbps
The absolute bitrate limit of DVD is 8mbit/s. A 1x DVD player will have a maximum reading speed of 8mbit/s.

[Atamido]

Originally posted by mf
The absolute bitrate limit of DVD is 8mbit/s. A 1x DVD player will have a maximum reading speed of 8mbit/s.
This has been bothering me for the past week. I cannot track down any DVD specs documents that comments on this. However, the DVD FAQ (http://www.dvddemystified.com/dvdfaq.html#3.4) says in section 3.4:
Maximum video bit rate is 9.8 Mbps. The "average" video bit rate is 3.5 but depends entirely on the length, quality, amount of audio, etc. This is a 36:1 reduction from uncompressed 124 Mbps video source (or a 28:1 reduction from 100 Mbps film source). Raw channel data is read off the disc at a constant 26.16 Mbps. After 8/16 demodulation it's down to 13.08 Mbps. After error correction the user data stream goes into the track buffer at a constant 11.08 Mbps. The track buffer feeds system stream data out at a variable rate of up to 10.08 Mbps. After system overhead, the maximum rate of combined elementary streams (audio + video + subpicture) is 10.08. MPEG-1 video rate is limited to 1.856 Mbps with a typical rate of 1.15 Mbps.Does anyone have any idea where the documents are that describe the DVD specs?

Note: In this, Mbps is "Millions of bits per second", not "Mega-bits per second". See Section 7.2 (http://www.dvddemystified.com/dvdfaq.html#7.2) for details.

[RadicalEd]

I was always under the impression that the average bitrate was 5mbps, as DVD was designed to hold 2hrs avg. Not sure where I picked that up from though.