Those HD broadcast grabs will probably look quite different from the material played off a Blu-Ray disc. The specs for ATSC HDTV have a much smaller peak bitrate, and the compression process (multi-pass interactive) used in authoring discs is quite different from the approach taken for broadcast. Time will tell!
MPEG-2 VBR at SD DVD bitrates has been verified by Sagittaire at Doom9.org. He re-encoded an HD trailer from the Apple HD site down to MPEG-2 VBR 3.8 mbits/s avg (SD DVD is between 3 and 8 mbits/s), and everyone agrees it looks great. The stream is very nearly constant Q (around 6.5), and Superbit DVDs, which IMHO, are the best encoded MPEG-2 around, are semi-constant Q between 2-6. Most macroblock artifacting occurs in 10 and up.
At the same time, the H.264 pros over there showed me some very low bitrate samples that looked excellent. However, the only encoder to support all professional coding features, including interlacing, is Ateme, at $9000K or "unobtanium" depending on who you ask. So I am looking forward to comparing as Nero did at CES, which is high-bitrate, HD.
At this point, I am a believer in both codecs for different reasons.
Gen Kiyooka
Digigami
Let the hive mind of Engadget get that for you.
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