Major Nelson's podcast on HD DVD vs. Blu-ray
By Richard Lawler 
posted July 17th 2006 8:29AM
posted July 17th 2006 8:29AM
For the second time this year, Xbox Live's Larry Hryb a.k.a. Major Nelson has a high definition expert, actually two, appear on his podcast to extol the virtues of HD DVD. However this time, unlike during the interview with Tyler the HDTV expert on 1080p back in February, Blu-ray and HD DVD are both available and on store shelves at the moment. The two experts appearing this week include Amir M., who many of you are already familiar with due to his frequent posts on AVSForum, and Kevin Collins, both work on Microsoft's efforts promoting iHD, VC-1 and HD DVD.If you're familiar with Microsoft's stated reasoning for supporting HD DVD instead of remaining neutral or supporting Blu-ray there won't be a lot of new info here, but probably enough to make a listen worthwhile. Be warned that if you're a Blu-ray fanboy this isn't exactly the equal-time special, if you're expecting the Blu-ray side of things to be presented you'll need to look elsewhere. However being biased towards the HD DVD side (not mentioning reported issues with HD DVD players and promoting recent firmware upgrades as a benefit and not a side effect of rushing to launch for example) doesn't mean they aren't telling the truth. Their main points are clear, 30GB dual-layer HD DVD over 25GB single-layer Blu-ray, VC-1 HD DVD releases over MPEG-2 Blu-ray releases and already available iHD-enhanced titles over potentially limited BD-J support in current players.
Kevin is especially proud of HD DVD's interactive features and mandatory player requirement of persistent storage, which he believes will result in more studios supporting added functionality such as bookmarking, content downloads etc. on HD DVD as opposed to Blu-ray. They also touch on the subjects of compromise and studio support, they don't expect a compromise, or for either format to go away in the next few years, and that more movie studios will support HD DVD as time goes on. They also think that despite being outnumbered by number of studios, HD DVD will still have many quality titles available from the studios already supporting the format. Amir minimized the differences in transfer rate in the specifications and their potential effect on gaming, and the Xbox 360 vs. Playstation 3 debate.
Of course this doesn't mean they're totally biased, unlike the earlier podcast these guys are movie buffs instead of gamers and both have huge high-def setups at home. In Amir's case, the much-loved Sony VPL-VW100 Ruby projector and a Samsung 1080p plasma with Xbox 360 plugged into a standalone video scaler fill his living room (we have got to get that guy in the HD Beat flickr group) while Kevin has a 100-inch projected image but mentions watching HD DVDs on his 21-inch laptop.
On the whole it is, as one would expect, a very positive outlook on HD DVD with a decidedly pessimistic view on the Blu-ray camp. How you feel about their comments is probably going to be decided on who you favored prior to listening, although I couldn't pick out anything stated as fact that was false as I was listening. At the moment, with more movies, interactive content and higher capacity discs actually available on store shelves they are enjoying some measure of advantage over Blu-ray and definitely feel vindicated as a result. Still the Blu-ray juggernaut is only just beginning to get moving and all of those things could be reversed in a few months.
[Thanks to all who sent this in]
I heard this last night and it's definitely worth a listen. Definitely reinforced some of the background on the format.
Here is another interesting read from another AV site. Very intersting commentary on the current state of Blu-ray.
http://www.projectorcentral.com/blu-ray_2.htm
I don't know what it is (a gut feeling maybe) but I really want to side with HD-DVD. There's something about Blu that I don't like. This isn't a technical argument, I just don't like it.
No doubt what they said was true and at this point it does seem that that Blu-ray hasn't impressed in regards to PQ.
It will be interesting to see how this pans out in a few months. Will Blu-ray be able to deliver 50GB discs? Will other studios use VC1 to overcome the single layer discs?
Will the overwhelming hardware support for Blu-ray be able to overcome the head start that HD DVD has?
During the interview Amir says that he owns a 1080p Samsung plasma. I am unaware of any such model actually shipping here in the USA. What model is it, and what is the picture performance like. I have never been impressed with the picture quality of any Samsung plasma TV and their laughably exaggerated contrast ratios. There is no spec that guarantees a great picture!
I agree that HD DVD really needs to get more CE hardware vendors on board. I just don't see Sanyo or NEC coming put with a player that's going to cause me to want to run out and pick one up. A Sanyo player will probably do fine at Walmart, but I won't be proudly displaying one in my AV rack.
Where do the likes of Denon, Marantz and Yamaha stand on the format war?
"Where do the likes of Denon, Marantz and Yamaha stand on the format war?"
Denon has said before that they won't release anything until the format war is over, but I don't know if they still stand by that. Marantz has very strong ties to Sony and Philips, so they'll most likely go Blu-ray. Yamaha, I haven't heard about, but seeing as how they are part of the BDA but not the HD DVD Promotion Group, it looks like they're going Blu-ray as well.
No doubt the points that Amir was raising were based in truth, but I just get frustrated listening to one-sided debates (as if first gen HD-DVD hasn't had it's share of struggles as well). I'm a regular listener to Major's podcast and I know that he's just "doing his job" as a Microsoft employee. It just bothers me to hear execs at this level talking so obnoxiously, as if I'm not waiting a minute plus to see any display on my friend's Toshiba HD-DVD player.
Major posted a response saying that he would be willing to have a Sony rep on his podcast to talk about BluRay. And while it would be interesting, the sad part is Sony isn't doing their job (on the BluRay front OR on the PS3 front.) Why don't they have someone like Major Nelson making people feel better about BluRay or validate their desire to own a PS3? Total missed opportunity.
At this point in time I can see no reason to buy into blu-ray at twice the price of HD-DVD. As soon as the Chinese player makers decided on which format to sell in the USA we'll which will become more dominant as prices fall to where everyday users can afford a player.
Right now HD-DVD is the winner, but if Blu-ray can deliver on 50GB discs using 20 Mbit/sec VC-1 and 7.1 DD True HD then we will all be singing a different tune. Theoretically, HD-DVD doesn't have the bandwidth (30Mbps vs 54Mbps of Blu-ray) to achieve the same level of quality.
ToshibaHD-DVD was really smart to come out swinging with a subsidized player and movies of superior video quality. I'm sure they were banking on the initial buzzreviews to get more studio's on board and to sway public opinion. It just may have worked.
I'll bet Sony went with MPEG2 because they were expecting to have 50GB disks available at launch. They should have swallowed their pride and worked with Microsoft to use VC-1. The video quality would be the same right now and they wouldn't have major retailers instituting a restocking fee on the Blu-ray players.
Why is everyone thinking that Microsoft's VC-1 is the only alternate to MPEG-2. MPEG4 H.264 AVC is also a mandatory codec for HD-DVD and BD-ROM. It is a standard with several companies contributing to it. DirecTV and Dish Network have standardized on AVC for their next generation satellite broadcasts (including their HD LiL). Sony and other studios could have easily switched to H.264 (AVC), they were just lazy and wanted to stay with the same software tools (with MPEG2).
Super HD-DVD by 2010. Why? Lack of disc space (30gb max) when new higher resolution TVs comes out. You'll need to upgrade to a whole new player again. Now with Blu-ray, it's future-proof for a very long time. 200gb is plenty of space for future upgrades...
I don't think anyone has forgotten about H.264. Most people seem to agree that H.264 has a "slight" advantage over VC-1 in terms of quality, but H.264 also requires more CPU power to decode. H.264 will most likely be the Blu-ray standard in the near future, but with under powered 1st generation HD-DVD and Blu-ray players, VC-1 seems like a decent alternative right now. I'm sure Sony's decision to use MPEG-2 was as much political as it was technical.
I certainly wouldn't expect objectivity from the participants, but it would have been nice if so much of the anti-Blu-ray propaganda hadn't been simply wrong. Here are a few points:
1. Contrary to Kevin's claim, persistent storage is required in all Blu-ray players. Additional storage for audio/video clips is currently optional.
2. Yes, Amir, naked Blu-ray discs are quite susceptible to scratches. But no one is releasing naked Blu-ray discs, they all come with a coating which makes them far more robust than HD-DVD and DVD.
3. The codec shootout Amir refers to where VC-1 beat MPEG-2 and H.264/AVC didn't attempt to benchmark AVC's best quality mode, "high profile". It is highly unlikely the same test done today would yield the same results.
4. Developing content for BD-J doesn't require "expensive Java programmers". That's what authoring tools are for, to provide an environment suited for the skills of the author. Oh, and incidentally, the last time I looked at the tutorials for developing iHD code on Peter Torr's blog, the code looked remarkably similar to Java code, and I doubt your average cheap "web-page designer" would have a clue on how to make use of it.
You owe it to your listeners to at least fairly represent your technology against your competitors.
- Talk
Talkstr8, I totally thought about making an entire post with rebuttals to the lies and misleading comments from this other podcast, but I just think I've let too much time pass already. Needless to say, I firmly believe in letting our readers hear the whole story, and if one format or another is better or has advantages, I want to make sure they are heard. To say otherwise is cheating you guys, and I would love to hear from you if you feel like we aren't being honest with you. Thanks for answering some questions that I'm sure others have had as well.
Major Nelson is a major Microsoft shill. And so is Amir.
They report general facts but leave out context of the competitor which would shed light on the reality of the situation; i.e. big picture.
Now, why would they want to do that? Help their competitor by eliminating their non-sequiturs? Nah...