How is the quality of MPEG2 BD's ?

[lightshadow]

Hi,

I can see at
http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/movies.php?id=173

that Enemy of the State have MPEG2 as video codec in 1080p.

Is that because their MASTER of the movie doesn't have high enough bitrate to output a H264 or VC-1 ?

And what does that mean for the quality of the movie? Will I be able to tell from the picture, that it is MPEG-2 ?

[Blue_MiSfit]

It depends.

Some MPEG-2 titles look fantastic (since BluRay has so much bitrate to spare if done properly), others look pretty bad.

MPEG-2 itself is perfectly capable of making a very nice looking 1080p movie for most content at 25-50mbps, provided you do a nice job with a good 2-pass encode etc...

The digital HD master of most movies will be something much better... usually D5-HD, HDCAM(-SR), or some digital mezzanine file, like MJPG or CineForm.

The problem is, sometimes the compressionists are complete morons, and do a terrible job with a perfectly good source :)

~MiSfit

[lightshadow]

That's scary. I got the DVD, so the reason to get the BluRay is really to get the quality up.

If the source media that you mentioned have much higher bitrate, and this is also the case with this movie. Would there be any good reason for them to use MPEG-2 rather than a modern HD format?

[poisondeathray]

Sometimes the studios are set up to do MPEG2, but not for VC-1 or h.264. It costs extra $ both in licensing fees and hardware

Some h.264 blu ray titles are pure crap quality - do a quick search in this forum and you will see many examples; so judging on the format alone might not mean very much...

[lightshadow]

Thanks for the tip. This really makes it hard to judge which DVD's to "upgrade". :)

[Blue_MiSfit]

highdefdigest is usually pretty good about their evaluations, though I sometimes disagree.

Most BluRay discs look great. I find it's the rare exception that isn't a significant upgrade (or in some cases a horrible downgrade!!!)

~MiSfit

[lightshadow]

That is one cool site! I didn't knew it.

They have given Enemy of the State close to perfect, so I guess that proves a MPEG-2 BluRay can be good.

http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/81/enemyofthestate.html

I wouldn't that though that. :)

[kevinsert]

im wondering which format studios and hdtv channels using as a master tape..first they shot on 35mm than transfer it hdcam cineform ?which one is lasts longer and having best PQ ?
if you look at the hdtv channels you can see different broadcast for old movies like star wars lotr..for example for star wars movies premiere had different transfer than sky i guess (im not sure) why dont they transfer it bluray if they had to many masters..

[Blue_MiSfit]

It entirely depends on the studio or media house.

Lots of time, digibeta is used for SD, and HDCAM / HDCAM-SR is used for HD.

Sometimes you get near-lossless files like ProRes / CineForm, which are pretty great! Other times, you get mezzanine quality MPEG-2 at 50-80mbps.

As with most things, there is no "best" :) It all depends on how the folks doing the channel origination are set up. HDCAM-SR is hard to beat, and ProRes is one of the "best" non-linear formats IMO.

As far as Star Wars - who knows ;) I'm sure it's in the works to do a BluRay, but I'm sure there's lots involved getting all the extra content together, and sourcing masters that fit the requirements.

~MiSfit

[kevinsert]

;) thanks blue_shift
while we talking about transfers like i said before we can see different ones..lately indiana jones movies broadcasted on bbhd,sky,c+ film hd and wowow..wowow transfer and others looks compeletely different.so lucas arts did the new transfer and why cant see these on bluray then ?

[Blue_MiSfit]

Who knows... decisions are made for strange reasons.

[Lyris]

Enemy of the State was one of the earlier BD titles, from the days where Sony PHE were still flying the MPEG-2 flag. The format war helped them reverse that decision, I believe.

It's an upgrade over any DVD (are there many BDs that aren't?), but as usual, any issues are the fault of the master, not the encode. It has quite a bit of ringing due to edge enhancement, from what I remember.

[setarip_old]

@lightshadow

Hi!This really makes it hard to judge which DVD's to "upgrade".I'd suggest to you that, if you already have an extensive collection of commercial standard DVDs, rather than "upgrading" any of them by purchasing the same titles in BluRay, acquire a DVD (or BluRay/DVD) standalone player that does a good job of upconverting - and use the money to purchase, in BluRay format, titles you don't yet own.

The entire Toshiba line of such standalones perform excellent upconverting...

[Revgen]

BD's were originally designed by Sony to use MPEG-2. That's why they have an absurd amount of discspace at 50gb. Sony only added VC1 and H.264 late in the design process.

HD-DVD's were designed with H.264 and VC1 in mind from the beginning. Hence why they went for a more sensible size of 30gb.

So MPEG-2 should fine as long as the movie isn't super-long like Gone With the Wind. Otherwise using advanced codecs would make more sense.

[Flux]

Blu-ray, like all optical "media" discs, are also used as data discs. Larger space won't go waste, that is sure. I would be more interested about durability, if stored properly.

How much average movie would consume bitrate with H.264, if encoder and its settings are good at 1080p30? Lossless audio.

[thewebchat]

Your "lossless audio" will probably be larger than the video "if encoder and its settings are good at 1080p30."

[Flux]

48000 (Hz) x 2 (16-bit) = 96000
96000 x 6 (5.1 audio) = 576000
576000 / 1024 x 8 = 4500 (kbps)

This is lossless without compression. TrueHD or other lossless compression can cut the size about 30-50% depending from the audio so lossless 5.1 audio track eats about 2250 - 3150 kbps bitrate. Unless I have forgotten something important. 2000 kbps "HD" video is Youtube "HD" and 3000 kbps doesn't make it any better either.

[Dark Shikari]

48000 (Hz) x 2 (16-bit) = 96000
96000 x 6 (5.1 audio) = 576000
576000 / 1024 x 8 = 4500 (kbps)

This is lossless without compression. TrueHD or other lossless compression can cut the size about 30-50% depending from the audio so lossless 5.1 audio track eats about 2250 - 3150 kbps bitrate. Unless I have forgotten something important. 2000 kbps "HD" video is Youtube "HD" and 3000 kbps doesn't make it any better either.24-bit and 96khz can make lossless vastly larger, especially since the extra 8 bits are completely noise and thus don't compress at all.

[Flux]

Well, I don't know, if there is any point to use 24-bit and 96 KHz. Is that standard audio for Blu-ray movies nowadays? Well, then lossless audio can eat about ~ 10 Mbit/s (13.5 Mbit/s without compression)

So ~ 14 Mbit/s video would give "perfect" look for average 1080p30 movie?

[thewebchat]

afaik, 192 kHz, 7.1ch, 24-bit "HYPERPHONIC" (hurf) audio is all the rage these days.

192000 x 3 x 8 / 1024 * 8 = 36.0 Mbps

With that, I'd say 20 Mbps average should give you 100% perfect compression with H.264.

[Blue_MiSfit]

So ~ 14 Mbit/s video would give "perfect" look for average 1080p30 movie?


It all depends on the source. On a fairly clean (not uber grainy) title that was properly transfered (i.e. offset frames or other damage), this should produce quite good results. Of course, there are many crappy encoders, and authoring houses are notorious for unnecessarily applying brutal noise reduction and edge enhancement (Gangs of New York and 40 Year Old Virgin to name a few).

In some cases, to get really transparent (master quality), 40+ mbps is necessary. I've seen a very poor quality SD source (old VHS rip, mangled beyond comprehension) take ~ 65mbps at CRF12.

~MiSfit

[Biggiesized]

As many others have already stated, the quality of MPEG-2 Blu-ray releases varies wildly. Some look very good considering the source, e.g. Black Hawk Down, and others look very good considering the length of the film, e.g. Kingdom of Heaven: Director's Cut.