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Commentary: Year-End Studio Report Cards

Fri Dec 28, 2007 at 03:48 PM ET
Tags: Joshua Zyber (all tags)

Editor's Note: A long-time movie buff and video collector from laserdisc to DVD and beyond, Joshua Zyber is a veteran disc reviewer, and an enthusiastic supporter of all things High Definition. In his twice-monthly High-Def Digest column, Josh discusses a broad range of topics of interest to other early adopters.

By Joshua Zyber

As we move forward into the new year, it's time to look back fondly on all the exciting developments of the past 12 months. In the world of home video, 2007 was certainly a tumultuous year for the ongoing High Definition format war. Despite proclamations at the end of 2006 that the conflict would be wrapped up within a few months, both the HD DVD and Blu-ray camps remain as firmly entrenched in their positions as ever. In fact, if anything, the animosity between the two sides has only grown more bitter and vitriolic.

Big things happened in 2007, some positive and some negative for both sides. Each format saw the release of around 300 additional titles during the calendar year. Some studios made aggressive pushes for High Definition media, unleashing both major day-and-date new releases and prestigious catalog titles. Other studios seemed to back away from the table. One major player shocked the industry with an unexpected decision to drop one format entirely in favor of the other. Meanwhile, a company that was rumored last year to likewise change strategies wound up holding its ground. As if that weren't enough, yet another studio spent the better part of this last quarter mired in rumors that it was planning a shift of its own.

To bid farewell to the year that was, please join me as I look back at all of the major High Definition studios and hand out some year-end report cards, rating each on how well they've supported their chosen formats.

Buena Vista Home Entertainment
Encompassing the various divisions of the Disney empire, from Walt Disney and Pixar animation to the Touchtone and Miramax labels, Buena Vista released a little over 30 titles on Blu-ray in 2007. Among them were some day-and-date hits like Mel Gibson's controversial 'Apocalypto' and the inexplicably successful John Travota/Tim Allen biker comedy 'Wild Hogs', as well as a smattering of other live action catalog titles. As far as Disney's famed animation, all we saw were the recent digital entries 'Chicken Little' and 'Meet the Robinsons', but none of the classic traditional animation that fans are really waiting for.

Undoubtedly, Buena Vista's most important High-Def releases this year were the three 'Pirates of the Caribbean' blockbusters and a trio of Pixar animation discs: 'Cars', 'Ratatouille', and the 'Pixar Short Films Collection'. The studio wraps up the year with the outstanding 'Lost: The Complete Third Season' television series box set and the massively popular 'tweener TV movie 'High School Musical 2', both of which are sure to sell very well.

Buena Vista has a solid track record for quality, favoring AVC MPEG-4 video encoding and uncompressed PCM sound, though they did let a serious framing error slip though in their 'Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl' disc (the studio recently announced a replacement program for affected copies). In the coming year, they should focus on releasing a broader selection of titles. They've got some tremendous movies in their catalog, from Disney and Pixar animation (let's see 'The Lion King' and 'Toy Story', please) to some great independent and foreign films from their various specialty labels. Not to mention that we still need the first two seasons of 'Lost', as well as some of their other great TV properties. Thus far, the studio still seems to be testing the High Definition waters and has been timid to unleash their most important titles. It's time to open that vault.

It would also be nice if they'd stop forcing numerous movie trailers at the start of all their discs. That's just annoying.
Grade: A-

Lionsgate Entertainment
At the end of 2006, rumors circulated that Lionsgate was on the brink of abandoning their Blu-ray exclusivity and releasing on HD DVD as well. That did not come to pass, and a year later the studio seems to be more gung-ho for Blu-ray than ever.

Lionsgate may not be one of the biggest players in Hollywood, but they do have some appealing titles in their catalog, mostly genre and cult fare. In 2007, they released just over 20 Blu-ray discs. Among them were some perennial favorites like 'First Blood', 'Basic Instinct', and 'Reservoir Dogs', as well as two seasons of the popular Showtime TV series 'Weeds' and a couple entries from the seemingly-endless 'Saw' horror franchise. Their biggest Blu-ray hit this year was easily the Jason Statham action flick 'Crank', a movie that lingered near the top of the High-Def sales lists for months.

Lionsgate has been hit-or-miss in video quality, and has spotty support for lossless or uncompressed audio. Some of their discs, like the major catalog release of 'Dirty Dancing', look just awful. In fact, other than 'Crank', I can't think of any other Lionsgate Blu-rays this year that could be described as having exceptional video or audio quality. Improving their video transfer and disc authoring process is absolutely their biggest area for improvement in the coming year.
Grade: C

Magnolia Home Entertainment
One of the few independent studios to embrace High-Def media in a significant way, Magnolia (a division of Mark Cuban's mini media empire) doesn't have a huge catalog, but has been daring enough to release titles on both Blu-ray and HD DVD. They didn't put out much in 2007, their most notable releases being the acclaimed documentary 'Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room' (Blu-ray | HD DVD) and the Korean cult monster movie 'The Host' (Blu-ray | HD DVD). Quality is a hit-or-miss affair, largely dependent on the condition of the material they're working with. They almost never offer lossless or uncompressed audio. However, they did knock out a nice transfer for 'The Host', and included PCM sound on the Blu-ray edition (the HD DVD unfortunately had no comparable lossless audio option). Their releases of the French actioner 'District B13' (Blu-ray | HD DVD) were flawed on both formats, including only English closed captions (spelling out all sound effects) to go along with the original French soundtrack.

Magnolia has been erratic in their support of both formats, sometimes delaying their releases on one side or the other for no discernable reason. They need to straighten out problems like that, and work on improving their quality. A more aggressive release slate would also be nice, but with their limited catalog I don't know how much more they can do in that regard.
Grade: C-

MGM Home Entertainment
I kind of feel bad for MGM. In 2006, the studio's Blu-ray support was tied up with Sony as home video distributor, and the discs they released suffered from the quality problems Sony was having at that time. MGM broke off the distribution deal with Sony at the end of last year and switched to Fox, only to have their Blu-ray slate pulled when Fox mysteriously disappeared from the High Definition format for a large chunk of the year (more on this below). As a result, they released a grand total of five Blu-ray discs in 2007, not counting the fact that their name technically appears on the packaging for 'Casino Royale'. Although that James Bond reboot was one of the biggest High-Def titles of the year, the picture was a co-production with Sony, which holds the distribution rights and takes most of the credit. Of the rest of MGM's titles, three were catalog releases: 'Hart's War', 'Hoosiers', and 'RoboCop', the latter two with middle-of-the-road video transfers. The others were new titles: the bizarre Kevin Costner psycho thriller 'Mr. Brooks' and the Werner Herzog war drama 'Rescue Dawn'. Both were box office disappointments, but at least featured better High-Def video transfers. On the plus side, MGM has provided lossless DTS-HD Master Audio (corresponding with new distributor Fox) on all releases this year.

Where should MGM go in 2008? With their distribution problems sorted out, the studio should begin a more aggressive release slate for titles from their still-impressive back catalog. Lest we forget, MGM still holds the rights to the first 20 James Bond films, among other desirable properties. Please, MGM, give us some of those.
Grade: C-

New Line Home Entertainment
Arriving late to the High Definition game, New Line will officially take the same format-neutral stance as parent company Warner Bros. However, the studio has made the frustrating decision to enforce region coding on Blu-ray and to stagger new releases on HD DVD until several months after the comparable DVD and Blu-ray (catalog titles will be released simultaneously). Their first High-Def title was 'Hairspray' on Blu-ray at the end of November, and they knocked it out of the park with stunning video and audio, plus a bunch of good bonus features. Ending the year are 'Rush Hour 3' on Blu-ray (HD DVD to follow later) and the dual-format bow of catalog release 'Pan's Labyrinth' (Blu-ray | HD DVD).

For 2008, I have four words for New Line: 'Lord of the Rings'. You know that fans are salivating for it. You held out on High-Def media too long. It's time to make a splash by jumping in whole-hog with the full Extended Editions and all the bonus features from those lovely DVD box sets. And drop that nonsense with the staggered format release schedules.
Grade: C (mainly due to lack of content released)

Paramount Home Entertainment and Dreamworks Home Entertainment
In August of 2007, Paramount delivered the most shocking development in the High Definition format war to date by dropping their prior stance of format neutrality to support HD DVD exclusively. Though they reportedly received financial incentives to do so, Paramount maintains that the production costs and infrastructure of both formats were their biggest concerns. In making this decision, they've brought Dreamworks Home Entertainment (whom they own and distribute) with them, and the two studios are so tied together that there's no sense in separating them for this discussion. Technically, the Dreamworks Animation division was spun off into its own separate entity back in 2004, and does not fall under the ownership of parent corporation Viacom; however, their home video products are also distributed by Paramount, and the three companies acted as a united front in 2007.

Before the switch, the studios released a solid but unremarkable assortment of content on both formats. Among them were a few big catalog movies like 'The Untouchables' (Blu-ray | HD DVD), and 'The Warriors' (Blu-ray | HD DVD), plus new releases such as 'Babel' (Blu-ray | HD DVD), 'Black Snake Moan' (Blu-ray | HD DVD), and 'Disturbia' (Blu-ray | HD DVD). All were decent titles but none quite broke any High Definition sales records. It wasn't until after the transition that Paramount and Dreamworks brought out the big guns, namely 'Transformers' and 'Shrek the Third', two of the biggest box office hits of the year, for which Paramount pulled out all the stops in terms of outstanding video, audio, and exclusive bonus features. Also notable is the impressive 10-disc box set release of the "Remastered" first season of 'Star Trek: The Original Series', which is available exclusively in DVD/HD DVD Combo format with no separate DVD-only release.

Paramount has largely done a very good job with the video and audio of their releases, with 'Dreamgirls' (Blu-ray | HD DVD), 'Flags of Our Fathers' (Blu-ray | HD DVD), and 'Shrek the Third' ranking as some of the best-looking High Definition movies of the year. Controversially, the studio has not yet embraced lossless audio to any significant degree, but has regardless pushed the bar for sound quality with high bit rate Dolby Digital Plus. Even without a lossless track, 'Transformers' took the prize for Best Audio Quality at the recent High-Def Disc Awards. At the end of the year, the studio also started a push for interactive picture-in-picture and web-enabled bonus features, something they will hopefully continue into the future.

For 2008: Time to start digging into that rich catalog of yours, Paramount. For a major studio, you barely released a measly 30 titles this year. Where are 'Chinatown', 'Apocalypse Now', and 'Grease', or the 'Godfather' and 'Indiana Jones' franchises? For that matter, where are 'Team America', 'The Truman Show', and 'Lemony Snickett', all of which you used to tease us with during those High Definition promos at the start of your discs? Stop holding back. It's time to up your game.
Grade: B+

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
The award for "Most Improved Studio" of 2007 goes to Sony, who completely turned around all the quality problems they experienced in 2006, and delivered over 70 titles on Blu-ray this year, most of them boasting quite impressive quality. To help make up for past transgressions, the studio even remastered 'The Fifth Element' with a significantly better video transfer, and offered buyers of the original disc a free mail-in exchange program. That's probably the classiest thing any High-Def studio did all year. Kudos to you, Sony.

Admittedly, the quality turnaround is largely attributable to the studio's conscious decision to focus mainly on releasing known "eye candy" titles, movies with attractive photography and high production values that have been recently mastered or remastered. Not all of these are particularly good movies, unfortunately. That's a real shame considering how many great films Sony holds in the Columbia and Sony Pictures Classics catalogs, material that deserves to be treated with the same attention and care they've been lavishing so far on marginal titles like 'Identity', 'The Replacement Killers', or 'Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within'.

The studio did however put out a number of respectable movies, including acclaimed foreign-language films 'The Lives of Others', 'Curse of the Golden Flower', and 'Volver'. But their biggest releases of the year were of course 'Casino Royale' and the 'Spider-Man Trilogy', both sure-fire bestsellers. They've also finished off the year with a splendidly remastered edition of the Steven Spielberg classic 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind', which features every major version of the movie and a bunch of nice bonus material. Hopefully that's a sign that the studio will continue to dig into their catalog and expand beyond the Playstation 3's gamer demographic they've been largely catering to so far.
Grade: A-

Starz Home Entertainment
Formerly known as Anchor Bay Entertainment, Starz had a rather small Blu-ray release slate in 2007, comprised of only nine titles, four of which were volumes of the 'Masters of Horror' Showtime TV series. The other releases were primarily safe bets such as 'Dawn of the Dead' (1978) and 'Evil Dead 2' that the studio had already released, and re-released, and re-re-released innumerable times on DVD to continually bilk fans for every last dollar. The technical quality of those discs was fine, considering the source of the material, but Starz really screwed up 'Halloween' (1978) by using a miscolored video master that undermined many of director John Carpenter's original artistic decisions.

What to do in 2008? Start releasing a better selection of titles (Anchor Bay had a huge catalog of interesting foreign and cult movies) and pay more attention to the quality of the transfers.
Grade: D+

20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
Here we go. The most disappointing High-Def studio of 2007 is unquestionably Fox. For a company sitting on such an amazing catalog of huge movies, major franchises, and outstanding television programming, the studio's Blu-ray support has been quite pathetic, primarily focused on low-interest films the likes of 'Chain Reaction' and 'Men of Honor' that would be lucky to sell a couple dozen copies on Blu-ray. Their habitual problems with announcing titles only to delay or cancel them were the joke of the High-Def community this year. In all, Fox barely released 30 titles in 2007. Their discs are some of the highest-priced in High Definition media, yet rarely carry over many bonus features from the original DVD editions and in too many cases have mediocre video transfers. On the other hand, at least they support lossless DTS-HD Master Audio on all discs.

For no clear reason, Fox completely ceased all Blu-ray releases in April of 2007 and didn't resume until six months later in October. Speculation has it that they were concerned about breaches in the format's AACS security encryption and were waiting for the added layer of BD+, but the company made no official statements about the reason for their shutdown (ironically, BD+ was cracked by hackers almost immediately after implementation -- Whoops!).

To give them credit, Fox returned from their sabbatical stronger than when they left. Their discs started including more bonus features, and they've recently put out some very desirable releases such as the 'Die Hard Collection', 'The Simpsons Movie', and 'Prison Break: Season One'.

Unfortunately, not everything has been peachy keen since their return. The company made two of the most frustrating decisions of the year. First, they've released the blockbuster 'Live Free or Die Hard' on Blu-ray only in its PG-13 theatrical cut, while an unrated edition is available on standard DVD. Even more perplexing than that, one of their most high profile catalog releases was '28 Days Later', a movie that was actually shot on Standard Definition video. The Blu-ray contains an upscaled Standard-Def transfer almost indistinguishable from the old DVD edition, and they have the gall to charge $39.98 for it!

To be blunt, Fox needs to clean up its act in 2008. They made a complete mess of things in 2007.
Grade: C-

Universal Studios Home Entertainment
As the biggest and most vocal HD DVD exclusive studio, Universal released over 80 titles on the format in 2007, which has been both a blessing and a curse. It's a blessing for the obvious reason of putting a lot of content out there in High Definition. They've really run the gamut from blockbuster hits like 'Knocked Up' and 'The Bourne Ultimatum', to major TV properties 'Heroes' and 'Battlestar Galactica', to cult favorites such as 'The Big Lebowski' and 'Being John Malkovich'.

On the flip side of that, they've made a lot of frankly inexplicable choices in what to release. I'm talking about stuff like 'The Watcher' and 'Mercury Rising' that I can't imagine anyone being eager to purchase. Sometimes it really feels like the studio executives pinned a printed list of all their titles to a wall and have been throwing darts at it to decide what comes out on HD DVD next. Seriously, Universal, you're ending the year with 'Timecop'?

The other big problem is that in cranking out so many titles, Universal has been mainly recycling existing High Definition masters that were originally created for DVD downconversion, some of them quite old and nowhere near modern video transfer standards. While day-and-date stuff and those titles recently mastered or remastered usually looked pretty good, too many of the studio's catalog titles featured pronounced edge enhancement or noise reduction artifacts, like those in 'Liar Liar' and 'In Good Company'.

The studio also continues to use the DVD/HD DVD Combo format for all day-and-date releases, which is frustrating considering that a significant number of discs in that format wind up having glitchy playback problems. Their support for lossless Dolby TrueHD audio has been spotty, though they've done a pretty good job with high bit-rate Dolby Digital Plus, and have started including TrueHD on more titles toward year-end.

In 2008, Universal needs to put more focus on quality rather than quantity. They should take a closer look at the video masters in their archives before rushing them out to HD DVD, and start remastering titles when needed. I'd also like to see them dig a little deeper into their catalog for movies made prior to 1980. Give us some Hitchcock classics like 'Vertigo' and 'Psycho', please. And enough with the damn Combo discs. Those are more trouble than they're worth.
Grade: B+

Warner Home Video
Warner Bros. started out 2007 with a little movie called 'The Departed' (Blu-ray | HD DVD) that you may have heard of. After that came such low-profile releases as 'Happy Feet' (Blu-ray | HD DVD), '300' (Blu-ray | HD DVD), the 'Planet Earth' (Blu-ray | HD DVD) box set (distributed for BBC Video), 'The Ultimate Matrix Collection', the 'Harry Potter Years 1-5 Gift Set' (Blu-ray | HD DVD), and the 'Blade Runner Ultimate Collector's Edition' (Blu-ray | HD DVD) that has all 5 versions of the movie in High Definition! You know, just a bunch of rinky-dink stuff like that.

The only major studio still releasing on both next-gen formats, Warner issued almost 80 titles on each format in 2007, among them many of the best High Definition discs of the year. They've not only aggressively made High-Def new releases available day-and-date with standard DVD, but have dug deep into their catalog to pull out some fantastic material like 'Dog Day Afternoon' (Blu-ray | HD DVD), 'Rio Bravo' (Blu-ray | HD DVD), and five Stanley Kubrick classics including a beautiful presentation of '2001: A Space Odyssey' (Blu-ray | HD DVD). The studio has consistently strong video quality (favoring VC-1 encoding), almost always carries over all the DVD bonus features to both HD formats, and has pushed for innovation in web-enabled and picture-in-picture interactive content.

I do wish, however, that they'd beef up their audio support. The studio only offers a limited number of titles with either lossless Dolby TrueHD (on HD DVD) or uncompressed PCM (on Blu-ray), and usually defaults to Dolby Digital (BD) or Dolby Digital Plus (HD) at the low 640 kb/s bit rate, which is disappointing to say the least. They still have some titles exclusive to HD DVD (like that 'Matrix' box set) that have yet to make the transition to Blu-ray as well, and insist on using the damned Combo format for all day-and-date releases on HD DVD. These are all things that deserve fixing in the near future, preferably as soon as possible.

Warner has also been experiencing something of a bumpy ride in this last month, during which they've suffered unfortunate production glitches such as packaging HD DVD discs into some copies of the 'Harry Potter' Blu-ray box set, mis-pressing the wrong content onto the final disc in some copies of the 'Blade Runner' collection, and mistakenly encoding the 'Terminator 3' Blu-ray video at 1080i resolution. These were all clearly unintentional errors, and the company has been prompt in responding and taking steps to correct matters, but they are nonetheless a black mark on the firm's reputation.

Even so, in my opinion, Warner Home Video easily qualifies as the best High Definition studio of the year, bar none. Some rumors have recently made the rounds that the company is considering dropping one format and declaring exclusivity to the other. Whether that exclusivity would favor Blu-ray or HD DVD depends on which rumor you believe, but Warner executives have so far denied any such plans. If such a thing were to happen, it would certainly be a tremendous loss to whichever side they abandoned.
Grade: A

The Weinstein Company Home Entertainment
Last and certainly least is The Weinstein Company (distributed via Genius Products), the worst High Definition studio of 2007. Technically HD DVD exclusive, the company released only 7 titles this year, the last back in June. They made no effort to issue new discs day-and-date with DVD and released mostly crappy movies (though I'll admit that 'Feast' is a fun guilty pleasure). They then acted surprised that their discs didn't sell and subsequently pulled up their stakes and vanished. Where are the 'Grindhouse' movies? Where is '1408'? Where's that 'Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair' consolidated edit they've been promising for ages? Nowhere to be found on High-Definition, that's where. Thanks for nothing, Weinstein.
Grade: F

That's it for the major labels. I want to wrap up by offering a shout-out to all the smaller independent studios that dipped their toes into the High Definition waters in 2007: Koch, Concert Hot Spot, and DVD International for all those scenery discs and the 'Digital Video Essentials' calibration tool; Razor Digital for the IMAX documentaries; Eagle Rock, Image, Interscope, and Rhino for the concert videos; FUNimation and Bandai Visual for the anime (though Bandai really needs to rethink its obscenely high prices); Opus Arte for bringing some opera to class up the joint; the porn studios for doing the opposite; and any other indies I've missed for giving it a go in 2007. We're still in the early stages of these High Definition formats, and the breadth of interesting content you bring helps enormously. Here's to more in 2008 and beyond!

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High-Def FAQ: Uncompressed vs. Lossless Audio

Fri Dec 07, 2007 at 06:43 PM ET
Tags: Joshua Zyber (all tags)

Editor's Note: As part of his twice-monthly column here at High-Def Digest, from time to time Josh Zyber answers frequently asked questions related to High-Definition and both Blu-ray on HD DVD. This week: Josh tackles the subjects of whether Uncompressed audio is better than Lossless, and what Dialogue Normalization really does to an audio signal.

By Joshua Zyber

A couple of months ago, I wrote a column called Blu-ray and HD DVD Audio Explained that spelled out the basic functions, features, and differences among the various audio formats available on both High-Def disc types. In it, I explained that uncompressed PCM audio (as found on many Blu-rays) is an exact replication of the studio master, encoded on disc without compression, and that the lossless audio formats Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio are also bit-for-bit identical to the studio master once decoded. Doing the math, that should mean that a lossless track is also identical to an uncompressed track. Indeed, that is the case. However, some confusion remains as to whether an uncompressed track is actually better than a lossless one.

Now that both High-Def formats have been available for over a year, and each has built up a catalog of hundreds of titles, we have several cases where two high-resolution audio tracks (one lossless and one uncompressed) can be directly compared for the same movie. Examples include Warner's dual-format releases of 'The Departed' and 'Troy: Director's Cut', which feature lossless TrueHD on HD DVD and uncompressed PCM on Blu-ray, or Sony's Blu-ray release of 'Ghost Rider' with both PCM and TrueHD on the same disc. Theoretically speaking, playing the same movie's soundtrack in both lossless and uncompressed encodings should sound absolutely identical, shouldn't it? Well, yes, except that sometimes there are extenuating circumstances that come into play, and indeed some listeners have tried comparing the soundtracks and claim to hear a difference between them.

So what would cause a lossless track to not be identical to an uncompressed track? To get to the bottom of this, let's first take a look at the ways in which each audio format is encoded.

Isn't All Compression Bad?

(Note: Please keep in mind that the following examples have been simplified for conceptual purposes, and are not intended to represent the actual mathematical workings of either digital audio encoding or lossless compression, both of which are more complicated than I can explain here. However, this should hopefully serve to illustrate the basic concept of how a digital file can be compressed without losing important data.)

Let's begin with uncompressed audio. A PCM track is an uncompressed digital format that is 100% bit-for-bit identical to the source fed into it. If the studio master is:

101011100100101100010111

Then the PCM track pressed onto the disc would be:

101011100100101100010111

Pretty straightforward, right? The problem when it comes to High-Def discs is that, since the PCM file is totally uncompressed, an entire movie soundtrack takes up a huge amount of disc space. With their greater storage capacity, Blu-ray discs may often have enough room for this, but space is generally more cramped on HD DVD. Even on Blu-ray, some studios prefer to use that extra space for other purposes.

On the other hand, Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio are "lossless" compression formats. Although they're compressed to take up less disc space than a PCM track, once decoded they're also bit-for-bit identical to their sources. Think of this like a ZIP file that holds a PCM track. Once you unZIP the file, you get a 100% identical copy of the original PCM, without compromising any sound quality. What these formats do is drop certain data, and instead use flags to indicate that the empty spaces in the stream are meant to be filled with that data when decoded. As an example, let's pretend that we have a movie that's half sound and half complete silence. A PCM track might look like this:

101011100101000000000000

As you can see, all those 0s at the end are needlessly taking up space on the disc, literally for nothing but complete silence in this hypothetical scenario. To losslessly compress this, a TrueHD or Master Audio track might instead look like this:

1_1_111__1_1____________

By dropping the 0s, the lossless version takes up vastly less room, but when decoded those missing 0s are filled in and it looks like this again:

101011100101000000000000

Voila! A perfect reproduction of the source at less than half the disc space.

(Again, the above is a very simplified example of how lossless compression can be achieved. A real lossless audio algorithm doesn't just drop zeroes, but rather employs complex statistical models to analyze patterns in the data.)

Standard Dolby Digital, DTS, and (to a lesser extent) Dolby Digital Plus and DTS-HD High Resolution are all "lossy" compression formats. In the above scenario, they'd not only drop the 0s, but also drop some of the 1s that are deemed less critical to human hearing, under the belief that most people won't be able to hear the difference. The higher the bit rate, the less data is dropped. DD+ and DTS-HD HR are not only higher bit rate than old DD and DTS, but also more efficient at maintaining more of the data at lower bit rates. Still, they're not a perfect replication of the studio master the way that the PCM or TrueHD and Master Audio formats are.

Comparing Apples to Apples

Now that we've seen how lossless compression works, before we can legitimately compare a lossless track to an uncompressed track, we have to be sure that we're actually comparing the same thing. Over the past year, I've read countless discussion forum postings (and a few editorials from people who ought to know better) in which viewers have tried to compare the soundtracks of different movies to prove a point about one audio format being superior to another. The reasoning usually goes something like this: "The PCM track on 'Black Hawk Down' sounds better than the TrueHD track on 'Batman Begins', therefore PCM must be better than TrueHD."

Unfortunately, this entire argument is based on a huge logical fallacy. You can't compare the soundtracks of completely different movies and draw conclusions about the audio formats used on their video discs. Maybe 'Black Hawk Down' just has a better sound mix than 'Batman Begins'? By the same token, I could argue that the TrueHD track on 'Batman Begins' sounds a lot better than the PCM track on 'The Benchwarmers', so have I just proven that TrueHD is inherently superior to PCM, even though someone else just proved the opposite by picking different titles to compare? Of course not. The entire train of thought is hopelessly flawed.

If a person likes apples better than oranges, does that mean that the crate used to ship the apples is superior to the crate used to ship the oranges? For that matter, does this opinion really mean that apples are better than oranges, or just that this one person happens to prefer them? Likewise, is the 'Black Hawk Down' soundtrack actually superior to the one for 'Batman Begins', or is it just that someone likes that mix better?

To further complicate matters, even when you're trying to compare the same movie's soundtrack in its different formats, you may still not quite be comparing apples to apples if the two tracks aren't encoded at the same bit depth. While both Blu-ray and HD DVD are capable of utilizing lossless and/or uncompressed audio up to 24-bit resolution, studios may choose to encode at 16-bit resolution instead, depending on the bit depth of the original source or concerns about conserving bandwidth. For example, on that copy of 'Ghost Rider' with both TrueHD and PCM on the same disc, the TrueHD track is encoded at 20-bit resolution, while the PCM track is encoded at 16-bits. Even though it's the same movie soundtrack, and technically both audio formats are "bit-for-bit identical" to their respective sources, in this case the studio chose to use a downsampled source for the PCM option, which may affect the final audible outcome in TrueHD's favor.

When making conclusive claims about the technical merits of one audio format over another, it's critical to accurately take all these factors into account.

Dialogue Normalization – Benefit or Menace?

So let's say we pick a single movie with its soundtrack available at the same bit depth resolution in both uncompressed and lossless formats, like the 'Troy: Director's Cut'. Now we should finally have a case where playing the Blu-ray's PCM track and the HD DVD's TrueHD track back-to-back should sound instantly identical, right? Well, almost.

Now there's a new wrinkle to consider. Many Dolby audio tracks are encoded with a function called Dialnorm, which is short for Dialogue Normalization, a feature Dolby offers to set the default playback levels. The idea is to avoid having some discs start very loudly and others start very quietly when a receiver is set for the exact same volume. To do this, Dialnorm sets a default center of the soundtrack at a common average, using dialogue as a baseline. Therefore, the relative loudness of movie dialogue should be the same from one Dialnorm-encoded disc to another without a viewer needing to change the receiver volume from normal preferences.

There's been a certain level of hysteria about Dialnorm from members of the audiophile community, who misunderstand its purpose and functioning, and believe that it fundamentally alters the soundtracks encoded with it. In actuality, Dialnorm does not affect a movie soundtrack any more than raising or lowering the Volume setting on your receiver does. Contrary to common misconception, Dialnorm does not "boost" the dialogue relative to the rest of the sound mix, or in any way alter the track's dynamic range. A Dialnorm-encoded soundtrack has the exact same peaks and valleys as a soundtrack without Dialnorm; it's just that the Dialnorm track will contain an extra flag in the metadata telling the receiver to either increase or decrease its entire volume scale globally before playback, so that all movies start on the same scale. And it only does this once at the start of the movie; it does not cause fluctuations after the movie begins.

At any given volume setting on your receiver, a movie like 'Gosford Park' will deliver dialogue crisply and clearly, but the soundtrack won't get much louder, because that film is practically all dialogue. Switching to 'Jurassic Park' at the same setting, dialogue will come through just the same as it did for the last picture, until the dinosaur roars shake your house to pieces, because that movie has a lot of sound effects that are much louder relative to the dialogue. Dialnorm will not make 'Gosford Park' a house-shaking experience, or make 'Jurassic Park' any less of an auditory powerhouse. It just sets them both so that their dialogue is at the same loudness as one another.

This is relevant to our discussion because a Dolby TrueHD track encoded with Dialnorm may begin at a higher or lower starting volume than a PCM track without this feature, even though it's the same movie's soundtrack and the receiver is left at the same setting. There's a well-known principle in auditory research that has shown that listeners typically perceive a recording played back at a louder volume as better in quality than the same recording at a lower volume. That's because the louder the playback, the more pressure generated by its sound waves. At a difference of just a few decibels, the listener may not necessarily be able to tell that one track is being played louder than the other, but subtle sounds in the recording will suddenly start to vibrate their eardrums more forcefully. The result will be that the louder track seems to have more clarity, breadth, and "impact," when in fact the only real difference is that it's being played a little louder.

In order to properly compare the same soundtrack on two different audio formats, they must first be matched to the exact same volume, and this will require a sound level meter to measure precisely. Once that's been accomplished, the audible differences between an uncompressed encoding and a lossless one vanish. Being set for different starting volumes doesn't make one track better or worse in actual quality than another; they just need different volume settings on your receiver.

Does the Hardware Affect the Results?

One last factor to take into consideration: A lossless audio track is really only bit-for-bit identical to its source if it's been decoded and processed correctly. In my review of the Toshiba HD-XA2 HD DVD player, I noted a bug in its audio section that causes bass management for the multi-channel analog outputs to be applied inaccurately when the "Digital Out SPDIF" control is set for Bitstream rather than PCM. That player also seems to apply Dynamic Range Compression whether you want it or not unless all speakers are set to a Small size. Without the required workaround settings (SPDIF at "PCM" and all speakers Small) all movie soundtracks seem to be lacking bass over those audio connections.

If a viewer weren't aware of this problem, a first inclination might be to assume that the Dolby Digital Plus and Dolby TrueHD audio formats used on HD DVD were poor quality. However, this is actually just a defect in one specific player, and not at all indicative of the audio formats themselves.

Similarly, although Fox Home Entertainment prefers to use DTS-HD Master Audio on its Blu-ray releases, at the present time there isn't much hardware that can decode the full lossless extension to the codec. Most currently-available Blu-ray disc players and A/V receivers instead extract the lossy DTS "core," so the majority of listeners aren't hearing the format to its fullest potential. That's not a knock against Master Audio, but rather a limitation imposed by the playback hardware.

What It Boils Down To

The number of new audio formats on Blu-ray and HD DVD have caused a great deal of consumer confusion, especially with three separate formats (PCM, Dolby TrueHD, and DTS-HD Master Audio) all designed to accomplish the exact same goal -- a perfect replication of the movie's audio master. Apprehensions about lossless compression being inferior to an uncompressed version of the same soundtrack are not borne out by the facts. One methodology may have technical advantages over the other in terms of space savings, but the end result is the same whether the disc you buy has an uncompressed soundtrack or a lossless one. They're both equally good, so sit back and enjoy.

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Joshua Zyber's opinions are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of this site, its owners or employees. To view a complete collection of Josh's commentaries for High-Def Digest, click here.

Commentary: Living in Fear of the Niche

Fri Nov 09, 2007 at 04:30 PM ET
Tags: Joshua Zyber (all tags)

By Joshua Zyber

It should go without saying that we here at High-Def Digest believe that High Definition, in one form or another, is the way of the future. I have no doubt that some day our current classification of "HDTV" will be the minimum quality standard for all television broadcasts and home video products. Infomercials, religious programming, high school kids airing their homemade wrestling videos on obscure Public Access stations in the middle of the night -- everything will be High Definition. As technology moves forward, progress is inevitable. When that time comes, we'll all look back at Standard Definition NTSC or PAL with a sense of nostalgia and perhaps a twinge of embarrassment, the way we think of Black & White TVs now. Our grandkids will have no frame of reference when we tell them stories about watching television in the olden days at the turn of the century. How quaint it will all seem.

But we're not there yet, and it's going to be a while.

In the meantime, we have to deal with the High Definition format war between Blu-ray and HD DVD, each video disc format vying to establish itself as the next-generation successor to DVD. The fastest-growing, most popular consumer electronic product in history has been a tough act to follow, and the competition between these two adversaries has generated an enormous amount of corporate hype, controversy, and bitter infighting, all of which has spread right to the consumer sector. Not only do we have executives from multi-national electronics corporations and major Hollywood movie studios sniping at each other in tersely-worded press releases, now even the public has gotten involved, picking sides like fans of rival sports teams -- cheering on their favorite, organizing web campaigns to proselytize its benefits, and attacking anyone with an opposing viewpoint. It's not enough to buy your favorite movies in High Definition; you have to buy them on the right High Definition disc type. The fact that both formats are virtually identical in terms of quality and features doesn't seem to matter. If you're not a soldier out there fighting for your side in the format war, you must be the enemy.

As far as I'm concerned, the whole thing seems pretty silly. At the end of the day, I just want to watch movies in High Definition. Naturally, it would probably make life a lot easier and less confusing for everyone if all titles could be watched on a single format, but it didn't work out that way. As a result, I bought players of both types so that I can keep up with the broadest selection of content, and I don't regret it for a minute. So long as the movies keep coming, I'm glad to have both. To look at it a different way, the format war has actually been a tremendous benefit to consumers, forcing both sides to increase quality and drive down prices to stay competitive with one another. Imagine where we might be right now if one side had rolled over and played dead at the start of all this; we'd be stuck watching sub-par quality software on players starting at $1,500 MSRP, with nothing pushing that status to change.

Nonetheless, if you listen to the rhetoric, the format war has brought nothing but misery and suffering, and if dragged out any further can only serve to destroy our dreams of a High Definition future. The argument goes something like this: Consumers are so confused by the format war and afraid of picking the "losing" side that they won't buy either one until the whole mess is sorted out. If they don't buy either one, both sides lose, companies stop making them, and High Definition home video dies out entirely. This conclusion seems to be supported by the slow adoption rates both formats are currently facing, and it kind of sounds logical, doesn't it?

The problem is that this argument just doesn't ring true. While the format war has undoubtedly created some measure of concern and reluctance in the marketplace, it is simply not the biggest impediment to High Definition adoption. The real roadblock is consumer apathy. By and large, most people out there are happy with their DVD players, and don't understand all the fuss about High Definition. A significant number of them believe that DVDs are already High Definition and have no concept of why they should buy a new player for discs in different packaging. Yes, it's true that sales of HDTVs have soared over the last few years, but that has more to do with the size of the sets than anything else. Most people are impressed by a big screen, not the resolution or picture quality.

Let me relay a little story here. Recently, my wife and I were visiting some friends who'd bought a new plasma TV and were eager to show it off to us. Their 10 year-old son insisted that we watch 'Pirates of the Caribbean' on DVD with them. The set was a fairly large screen, certainly bigger than anything they'd ever owned before. However, they had not done anything that could remotely be called "calibration" with it. The brightness level was cranked up so high that there was no such thing as the color black on screen, just a milky gray. They'd only had the set for a few months and already developed burn-in marks from the letterbox bars on DVDs, and for some reason the picture pulsed every so often, filling the whole screen with nasty pixelation artifacts. As if that weren't enough, they had their DVD player connected by Composite Video cable, and set for 4:3 aspect ratio mode, so the 2.35:1 movie image on 'Pirates' was squished down into a tiny strip in the middle of the screen.

As a dyed-in-the-wool videophile, I naturally found the whole situation appalling, but as the movie started my wife gave me a dirty look that said, "Not one word. Keep your mouth shut and pretend to enjoy yourself!" Of course, she was right. Our friends were so proud of their new purchase that it would have been unbearably rude of me to criticize. After the seemingly-endless movie, I politely asked to use the DVD player remote for a minute to "tweak" a setting for them, during which I mercifully fixed the aspect ratio setting to 16:9 mode. I quickly checked a scene to verify that the change took, only to be greeted with the response that, "We don't see any difference." Indeed, they never noticed that there was any problem before, and were perfectly happy with the squished, stretched, and obviously distorted picture they'd been watching.

Is there a home theater fan reading this without a similar story? We've all faced it, the blank stare of indifference and the assumption that so long as the TV screen is big that everything on it must be High Definition. Out there in the general populace, there's no great consternation about the HD format war, because the vast majority of people are totally oblivious to it. They don't know the difference between Blu-ray and HD DVD, couldn't tell you what either one offers over standard DVD, and just plain don't care in any case. DVD is perfectly satisfying for them. High Definition is not a priority in their lives, and one side "winning" the format war is not going to drive them to buy it any more than they are now.

It's time to face the fact that we in the High Definition community are a specialized niche market. And honestly, there's nothing wrong with that. I can't tell you the number of times I've heard the complaint that one of these formats had better win quickly and take over the DVD market, or we'll be faced with just another Laserdisc situation all over again. The comment amuses me. Sure, Laserdisc was a niche format that never achieved mass market penetration in its day, but it also lasted for over 20 years as the highest quality home video format available at the time, and saw every major new movie released on it. I wish both Blu-ray and HD DVD that much success.

We've already overcome the biggest obstacle that made movie collecting on Laserdisc so difficult, its high prices. Thanks to the format war, we now have reasonably priced hardware and software on both HD DVD and Blu-ray. With Blu-ray players moving down to the $399 range and HD DVD players below $199, we can buy one of each for less than the price of a decent Laserdisc player back in the day. Although it can be argued that $600 is a lot of money in many aspects of life, the home theater hobby has never been cheap. I have a feeling that most reading this article spent more than that (perhaps significantly more) on their surround sound receiver or speakers.

Outside the confines of the boardrooms of the corporations making these products, what difference does it make to the rest of us as consumers whether these formats achieve mass market penetration? Is the fear that both formats will die if they don't take over from DVD? Even within the movie studios releasing these discs, I doubt anyone expects or wants High-Def media to fully replace DVD. The DVD format is cheap to produce and brings in a lot of money. These days, most movies earn more on DVD than they do in theaters. Why would anyone want to kill that cash cow? No, what the studios really want from High Definition is to supplement DVD income, not to merely replace it. Two revenue streams are better than one. The adoption rates for both Blu-ray and HD DVD have been slow, but they are growing, and it's perfectly conceivable that both will eventually be profitable enough to satisfy the movie studio accountants as to the viability of their investments.

The video game market has survived and thrived for many years despite the presence of multiple formats. Why can't the High Definition market do the same? Peaceful coexistence should be possible. The split in studio support means that neither format will have 100% of movies that any given customer may want, but by the same token each video game console has its own highly-desirable exclusive titles. Hard core gamers buy every console, while casual gamers look at the selection available and pick the format that has more titles appealing to their taste. The same rationale applies here. If you need to have every movie in High Definition, it will be worth your time to buy both Blu-ray and HD DVD players. If that's not an option, look through the following lists and decide which one offers more of what you personally like:

Blu-ray Historical Release List
Blu-ray Upcoming Release List

HD DVD Historical Release List
HD DVD Upcoming Release List

Both formats already have hundreds of titles available, across a wide variety of genres: drama, comedy, action, family, classics, science fiction, Western, horror, and everything in between, with plenty more aggressively slated for future release. Even if you can't necessarily get every single movie you want on one format, surely no matter which one you pick will supply plenty of content to keep you busy. And if that's just not satisfying enough, what's the alternative? Stick with regular DVD and stay limited to blurry Standard Definition forever? Where's the benefit in that?

Loudmouth pundits will whine that the format war has been a miserable disaster that will doom High Definition to remain a niche, a scenario they want you to fear as the worst of all possible outcomes. That's a load of bunk and I don't buy it for a second. If the movies keep coming at reasonable prices (those who feel High-Def media prices are unreasonable clearly never bought a $125 Laserdisc "Special Edition"), why should anyone not specifically employed by one of these companies be upset that their format is just a niche? These products are meant to be enjoyed, not to have their weekly sales statistics scrutinized with ruthless obsession. Are we so insecure that we need mainstream popularity to validate our hobby? Are we in this because we love movies, or because we want to boast of owning the latest "hot" new toy?

I'm in it for the movies, in the best quality I can get them. I believe that High Definition is the future, that it will eventually take over as the default standard for all home video. But that time hasn't come yet, and for now we're in a niche market. Mass popularity or not, High Definition quality is here right now. It's available, it's affordable, and I'll gladly take it on whichever formats give it to me.

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Joshua Zyber's opinions are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of this site, its owners or employees. To view a complete collection of Josh's commentaries for High-Def Digest, click here.

Commentary: Specs vs. Reality

Fri Oct 26, 2007 at 04:22 PM ET
Tags: Joshua Zyber (all tags)

Editor's Note: A long-time movie buff and collector of discs from laserdisc to DVD, Joshua Zyber is a veteran disc reviewer, and an enthusiastic supporter of all things High Definition. In his twice-monthly High-Def Digest column, Josh discusses a broad range of topics of interest to other early adopters.

By Joshua Zyber

One of the inevitable side effects of the High Definition revolution is that the advanced video and audio technology used in the Blu-ray and HD DVD formats tends to bring out the know-it-all tech geek in home theater fans. Sometimes this can be a great benefit, when knowledgeable users band together to analyze specific technical deficiencies that have occurred and share their feedback with the parties responsible, hopefully leading to improvements in the future. We've seen some of this at various points during the format war. Early Blu-ray releases such as 'The Fifth Element' exhibited obvious visual deficiencies due to weak source materials and poor digital compression encoding. Likewise, HD DVD catalog titles from Universal have been hit-or-miss in quality, many of them recycled from dated and problematic video masters (like 'In Good Company', with its ghastly edge enhancement artifacts). Reviews published on this site and others were negative, and buyers voiced their displeasure to the studios, eventually resulting in improved mastering on subsequent releases. 'The Fifth Element' was even remastered in significantly better quality as a direct result of owner feedback. That wouldn't have happened had no one spoken up about it.

Generally speaking, the High Definition studios, knowing the intense scrutiny their work is placed under, have maintained a much higher standard of quality on recent releases (with some notable exceptions, of course). Just imagine what might have happened had the public been apathetic and merely accepted whatever shoddy treatment they were handed. In this case, the voice of the people resulted in a better end product for everyone to enjoy.

Unfortunately, the above example is a best case scenario. On the flip side of that coin, we have countless cases of agenda-driven individuals attempting to use a partial understanding of technical matters as a bludgeon in arguments supposedly "proving" the superiority of one format over the other. Anyone who's spent time browsing home theater discussion forums has suffered through an endless string of debates about how the HD DVD format "sucks" because its discs can only store 30 gb of content, while Blu-ray discs can store up to 50 gb, and therefore must be amazingly superior. Never mind that HD DVD has time and again proven capable of delivering exceptional picture and sound quality, plus copious bonus material, easily equaling even the best available on Blu-ray. At the same time, there are others who point to the occasional Blu-ray encoded with MPEG-2 compression as being "unacceptable", even though MPEG-2 can certainly achieve excellent results when given enough room to breathe (witness 'Black Hawk Down'). To some people, the actual quality presented to them is irrelevant if they don't like the sound of the specs on paper.

This "specs above all else" mentality has reared its ugly head again recently with the release of 'Transformers' on HD DVD, a title that delivers stunning video and audio, as well as a number of innovative interactive features. What could possibly be the problem here? Well, the soundtrack is only encoded in Dolby Digital Plus format, not a lossless codec such as Dolby TrueHD or an uncompressed one like PCM. In his review of the disc for this site, our Peter Bracke gave the DD+ track a perfect "5" for audio quality and said of it that, "Directionality, imaging, accuracy of localized effects, and the sheer depth of the soundfield are all fantastic stuff." Nonetheless, in the minds of many, this disc is a huge failure, and its soundtrack a pathetic disgrace for not including a TrueHD or PCM option.

I should mention at this point that at least one working Hollywood sound mixer has voiced his opinion that, when played back on his professional dubbing stage, well-mastered Dolby Digital Plus soundtracks encoded at the high 1.5 Mb/s bit rate that Paramount uses can be audibly transparent to the studio masters, when tested on movies that he mixed himself and would presumably know better than anyone else. But what use is the informed opinion of an expert in the field when it's easier to just point to the specs list on the back of a disc's packaging to make conclusive statements about matters of quality? In the forum on this site, a number of readers have made proclamations such as, "Compressed audio is just not acceptable these days" and "Whether you can tell the difference or not is irrelevant."

The disc's audio being indistinguishable from its studio master is "irrelevant"? Even with just a Dolby Digital Plus track, the 'Transformers' disc rated the highest score for audio quality that we can give. What more could we demand from it? It's absolutely terrific, but it's just not absolutely terrific enough if the packaging doesn't have a listing for TrueHD or PCM, even when it's likely impossible for human ears to tell the difference? What kind of argument is that?

The lossy compressed audio formats offered by Dolby and DTS use perceptual encoding techniques to filter out data from the studio masters in order to conserve disc space. The intent of perceptual encoding is that the data removed should consist mainly of either frequencies beyond the range of human hearing or frequencies that would normally be masked by other frequencies in the track anyway. With the most heavily compressed formats, including basic Dolby Digital and DTS (the standards on regular DVD), often additional frequencies within the range of hearing are affected, and this has resulted in much variability in sound quality. However, Dolby Digital Plus, especially the 1.5 Mb/s variety found on a disc like the 'Transformers' HD DVD, uses much more efficient encoding techniques at a very high bit rate. The people who actually make these movie soundtracks have found it pretty impressive, and yet average home listeners seem to believe with absolute certainty that the home theater speakers in their living rooms would be capable of resolving with precision the mathematical difference between a high bit rate Dolby Digital Plus track and a lossless one, and that their golden audiophile ears would also be capable of discerning it. Personally, I would like to put these people to a properly-controlled blind test, where all of the audio levels have been carefully matched to the same volume, and then see how well their hearing fares.

I would not claim that all DD+ tracks are flawless or transparent to their masters; it does take some effort to encode them properly. But to dismiss the format out of hand simply because the soundtrack isn't labeled as lossless or uncompressed demonstrates an ignorance of the technology being used. If the audio codec alone were the only important criteria in sound quality, how could it be that a disc like 'Dinosaur' with a 48 kHz / 24-bit PCM 5.1 track would sound so underwhelming? With specs like those, why isn't that disc a spectacular audio showcase? Somehow I doubt you'll find too many critical listeners who would ever claim that 'Dinosaur' sounds better than 'Transformers', but based on the specs, shouldn't it? Perhaps it's time we all realize that there's more to quality than the specs can tell us.

Yet we see the same thinking applied to matters of video. How many more arguments must there be about the different video compression codecs? Proponents on one side proclaim the infallible superiority of VC-1 above all other options, while those opposed insist that VC-1 is garbage and only AVC MPEG-4 is any good. Both camps attempt to prove their point by capturing screen shots on their computers, which they run through Photoshop to crop, zoom, filter, and distort in all manner of convoluted ways in order to locate individual errant pixels, completely invisible to the naked eye in the normal course of movie watching, and heartily declare their victory in the debate.

The truth of the matter is that all video compression codecs have the same purpose, to accurately represent the source using a fraction of the storage space. In the hands of a good operator, both VC-1 and AVC are more than capable of achieving this goal. Even the dated MPEG-2 codec has been known to deliver excellent results (owners of the now-defunct D-Theater tape format sure didn't seem to have any problem with it). There are plenty of examples of "reference quality" transfers using any of the above, from 'King Kong' (VC-1) to 'Final Fantasy' (AVC) to 'Kingdom of Heaven' (MPEG-2). In all cases, the skill of the compressionist and the quality of the work is more important than the codec used to get there.

It's also more important than the bit rate. As far as I'm concerned, Sony's decision to incorporate a bit rate meter in their PS3 Blu-ray player is one of the worst things to have ever happened to the home theater hobby. Because of that one seemingly-innocuous and frequently-inaccurate data display, now just about anyone, no matter how technologically ignorant, can believe themselves to be experts in the field of video reproduction, based on nothing more than whether their bit rate meters read a high number or a low one -- as if that number were even relevant. The whole point of video compression is to squeeze a High Definition picture into as little space as possible. A compressionist who's maintained a high-quality picture with a low bit rate has done an excellent job, but that's a point lost on most consumers, who assume that a good picture needs a high bit rate, regardless of what they actually see on their TV screens. The bit rate alone is a meaningless statistic and says nothing about the quality of the compression work. It is equally possible to create a lousy video image with a high bit rate, or a great image with a low bit rate, depending on the complexity of the content and how well the work is done. I found it extremely amusing to read complaints about the low bit rate used on 'TMNT', a disc with a razor sharp and amazingly detailed picture that some owners nonetheless decried as "soft" against the evidence their own eyes gave them, for no reason other than an ill-founded assumption that the picture would have been even sharper if the bit rate meter spiked a little higher. How would they know? Have they compared it against the studio master?

This misconception has reached such heights of absurdity that certain viewers have started petitions demanding that Warner Bros. stop using the same video encodes on HD DVD and Blu-ray, and instead "maximize" the bit rates on their Blu-ray releases if the extra disc space is available. But for what purpose? Video compression doesn't work on a linear scale. Using advanced codecs like VC-1 and AVC, there are diminishing returns above a certain point, and throwing more bits at a picture that doesn't require them accomplishes nothing more than to make the meter number go up. As time goes on, compression tools and techniques become more efficient, requiring even less space to achieve visual transparency to the original master. Warner Bros. has many times over demonstrated outstanding results within the 30 gb limit of HD DVD, even on very long films such as the 'Troy: Director's Cut', a movie that runs 3 1/2 hours and yet fits comfortably on a 30 gb disc with beautiful picture quality, despite also squeezing in a lossless Dolby TrueHD audio track and a bunch of supplements. So what if the Blu-ray edition has an extra 20 gb of space available? Are we watching the movie or watching the bit rate meter? If there were no bit rate meter, would anyone have a legitimate basis to complain?

Back when they were supporting both High-Def formats, Paramount actually did what these users are demanding. They authored every movie separately for HD DVD and Blu-ray, each maximized to its format's potential. And what were the results? The same movie looked visibly identical on the bit rate maximized Blu-ray as it did on the lower bit rate HD DVD. Once again, the quality of the compression trumped other considerations regarding tech specs or bit rate.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to imply that all HD DVDs and Blu-rays are perfect now. Video artifacts do occur, and the studios have been known to rest on their laurels and allow shoddy work to slip through. Sometimes disc space really does strain the limits of what a studio wants to include on a High-Def title. It's important to scrutinize their results, lest we return to a state where the original 'Fifth Element' Blu-ray is considered acceptable. But it's equally important to understand what we're actually looking at. Many times, the "artifacts" picked apart by viewers have nothing to do with video compression or encoding whatsoever, but rather are issues found in the source, such as natural film grain, which isn't a flaw at all. Yes, a soft picture can be the result of poor compression or excessive filtering, but it can also be the result of soft focus photography. A heavily-grainy image could be overcompressed, or it could be stylistically intentional. Not every movie is photographed to look exactly the same as every other, and even within a film certain shots or scenes may look different than others. We must understand what a movie is supposed to look like before we can judge how well a video disc reproduces it. Being moderately proficient at manipulating still images in Photoshop does not necessarily qualify someone as an expert in the art of filmmaking.

I'm not suggesting that viewers should relax their standards or accept substandard quality as "good enough" when it's really not, but the technical specs alone simply do not tell the whole story, and over-emphasizing them is a matter of misplaced priorities. We should judge these discs by the actual quality they deliver, not by misleading statistics like the bit rate or the specs listing on the packaging. Surely, that can't be too much to ask.

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High-Def FAQ: Blu-ray and HD DVD Audio Explained

Fri Oct 12, 2007 at 04:37 PM ET
Tags: Joshua Zyber (all tags)

Editor's Note: As part of his twice-monthly column here at High-Def Digest, from time to time, Josh Zyber answers frequently asked questions related to High-Definition and both Blu-ray on HD DVD. This week: Josh provides a comprehensive rundown of all the audio formats currently available on next-gen disc.

Commentary by Joshua Zyber

If there's one request we get here at High-Def Digest more than any other, it's to help readers sort through all the confusion swirling around the new audio formats that come on HD DVD and Blu-ray discs. It seems that most early adopters can easily identify the benefit of a High Definition picture over Standard-Def DVD, but making sense of the difference between Dolby Digital Plus and DTS-HD, or PCM and TrueHD is a lot harder to get a good grasp on. It doesn't help that the companies who designed these sound formats (Dolby and DTS) haven't always been clear in their labeling or naming conventions.

A Quick Recap of the DVD Situation

On Standard-Def DVD, there are essentially only two competing sound formats to choose from: Dolby Digital or DTS. Both can accommodate movie soundtracks from monaural 1.0 to multi-channel 5.1, and in some cases add a matrixed center back channel as well (DTS also offers a discrete 6.1 option on selected titles). A small number of discs (mostly music concerts) may provide 2-channel PCM audio, but those are few and far between. As a rule of thumb, it's Dolby or DTS. The DVD spec requires all discs to contain either a Dolby Digital or PCM soundtrack as the base standard (pretty much everyone uses Dolby), and all DVD players are required to decode both. DTS is optional, and is generally considered (fairly or not) an added-value feature. Though it hasn't always panned out that way in actual practice, there is a perception in the DVD marketplace that DTS is the "better" sound option that will provide greater fidelity to the source. Sometimes that's true and sometimes not, but that's a discussion topic for another day. The reality of the situation is that both Dolby Digital and DTS are capable of delivering very good, sometimes even exceptional sound quality on DVD.

Both Dolby Digital and DTS are "lossy" compression codecs. Before making it to disc, each format selectively filters out data from the studio's digital audio master using perceptual encoding techniques. In theory, the data removed should consist mainly of either frequencies beyond the range of human hearing or frequencies that would normally be masked by other frequencies in the track anyway. If done properly, the end result should sound seamless to the listener. But if done poorly or over-compressed, the audio may lose fidelity.

Standard Dolby Digital can be encoded in a variety of bit rates, the most common being 192 kb/s (reserved for 1.0 or 2.0 soundtracks and generally poor fidelity), 384 kb/s (OK quality), and the maximum 448 kb/s (used on the majority of DVD 5.1 soundtracks). DTS has two bit rate encoding options: the commonly used 754 kb/s or a rarely offered high rate of 1.5 Mb/s. Within each format, the higher the bit rate means the less compression needed and the less data removed from the master. However, it also means that the audio track takes up more disc space, which can eat into the bit rate allocated to video quality. Also note that Dolby and DTS use entirely different compression techniques, and their bit rate numbers are not directly comparable to one another. While a 448 kb/s Dolby track is better than a 384 kb/s Dolby track, a 754 kb/s DTS track is not necessarily better than a 448 kb/s Dolby track just because the number is larger. Dolby uses more efficient compression techniques than DTS and can usually achieve results at 448 kb/s comparable to DTS at 754 kb/s.

Now on to the High-Def Formats

The advent of Blu-ray and HD DVD has brought a dramatic increase in picture quality from Standard Definition to High Definition. Along with that has come an expectation for an attendant boost in audio quality. When there's so much more disc space available on an HD DVD or a Blu-ray, why should we be limited to the heavily-compressed sound formats we got on DVD? High Definition video deserves High Definition audio to go with it.

Jumping into the fray once more are Dolby and DTS. Each company has developed a line-up of brand new sound formats to go with the new disc types, using advanced forms of audio compression to deliver high quality to the home listener, quality sometimes matching that of the studio master itself. On some discs we even have the option of raw PCM with no compression at all. But we haven't just been given one new codec choice per company. No, that would be too simple. Now we have a whole host of confusing new options. To help straighten out this tangled mess, let's break things out by High-Def disc format and take a look at what each supports.

Blu-ray discs can provide their movie soundtracks in any of the following formats:

Dolby Digital
What it is: The audio format familiar from DVD, Dolby Digital (sometimes known as AC-3) is one of the base standards of Blu-ray. It works basically the same way that it worked on DVD in configurations from 1.0 to 5.1, though it does offer a higher maximum bit rate of 640 kb/s (which is considered audibly indistinguishable from Dolby Digital Plus at the same rate).
Level of support: Full support for Dolby Digital is mandatory in all Blu-ray disc players.
Examples of discs that use it: Almost all Blu-ray discs from Sony, Warner Bros., Paramount, and Lionsgate, among others.
How to get it:

Toslink or Coaxial SPDIF - Using an SPDIF connection, the Dolby Digital bitstream is sent directly to your receiver for decoding, converting to analog, and amplifying to your speakers.
HDMI - Depending on the setting chosen in your Blu-ray disc player, the HDMI output can be used to transmit the Dolby Digital bitstream to be decoded in the receiver, or the player itself can perform the decoding to a PCM signal and transmit instead in that form. The receiver will still be needed for digital-to-analog conversion and amplification.
Multi-channel analog - With the analog connections, the player itself must decode the Dolby Digital bitstream and convert it from digital to analog. This will then be passed to the receiver for amplification. In this case, calibration adjustments such as speaker sizes and channel levels should be entered into the Blu-ray disc player's setup menus, not the A/V receiver's. The quality of the resulting sound will vary depending on whether the Digital-to-Analog (DAC) components in the player are as good as those in the receiver. If the receiver has superior DACs, a digital connection (either SPDIF or HDMI) will be preferred.

DTS
What it is: Sometimes referred to as DTS Encore (though DTS themselves don't seem to use that name anymore), this sound format is another familiar holdover from standard DVD. Blu-ray, however, more ably supports the codec at its higher 1.5 Mb/s bit rate.
Level of support: All Blu-ray disc players are required to support the transmission of a DTS bitstream over a digital connection and internal decoding up to at least 2 channels. Most players (other than early models such as the Samsung BD-P1000) will decode internally to 5.1.
Examples of discs that use it: 'Terminator 2', 'Lara Croft: Tomb Raider'.
How to get it:

Toslink or Coaxial SPDIF - The DTS bitstream will be sent to your receiver for decoding and processing.
HDMI - As with Dolby Digital, the HDMI connection can carry the raw DTS bitstream for decoding in the receiver, or the player may decode it to PCM first.
Multi-channel analog - The Blu-ray disc player will decode the DTS bitstream (only 2 channel decoding is required, but most players will do 5.1) and convert it to analog, after which it will be sent to the receiver for amplification. Once again, the final sound quality will depend on how well the audio components in the disc player compare to those in the receiver.

Dolby Digital Plus
What it is: An enhancement over standard Dolby Digital, DD+ offers higher bit rates and more efficient compression, resulting in improved sound quality. It can also support movie soundtracks up to 7.1 discrete channels (though honestly, the vast majority of Hollywood movies are only mixed for 5.1). On Blu-ray, DD+ is encoded as an extension to a "core" Dolby Digital AC-3 track.
Level of support: Unfortunately, DD+ is optional on the Blu-ray format, and not all disc players are required to support it. Many players will simply read the 640 kb/s core and disregard the extension. As a result, most movie studios prefer to use either basic Dolby Digital AC-3 or some of the other advanced formats.
Examples of discs that use it: 'A View from Space with Heavenly Music' claims a DD+ track, assuming that the packaging and menus aren't just mislabeled.
How to get it:

Toslink or Coaxial SPDIF - SPDIF cannot carry a full DD+ signal. If you use this connection method, the player will limit output to the Dolby Digital AC-3 core.
HDMI - If the player does not support DD+, it will simply extract the AC-3 core, in which case see the Dolby Digital listing above. Some players may decode the DD+ to PCM and transmit it over HDMI (any version). Other players will instead choose to transmit the DD+ bitstream to a receiver for decoding, but this requires HDMI 1.3 connections on both ends of the chain.
Multi-channel analog - Either the Blu-ray player will extract and decode the AC-3 core, or (on some models) will decode the full DD+ and convert it to analog.

DTS-HD High Resolution
What it is: Similar to Dolby Digital Plus, DTS-HD High Resolution is an enhancement over standard DTS that offers higher bit rates and better compression. DTS-HD HR is also encoded as an extension to a "core" DTS track. (Note that DTS-HD HR is sometimes referred to as just "DTS-HD", which can be confusing and possibly misleading).
Level of support: Since this codec is also optional on Blu-ray, many players will only extract the 1.5 Mb/s DTS core and ignore the extension.
Examples of discs that use it: 'Basic Instinct', 'Total Recall'.
How to get it:

Toslink or Coaxial SPDIF - Because SPDIF cannot transmit a full DTS-HD HR signal, the player will extract the DTS core and send the bitstream for that instead.
HDMI - If the player does not support DTS-HD HR, it will extract the DTS core, replicating the DTS listing above. Some players may decode the DTS-HD HR to PCM and transmit it over any version of HDMI. Other players will instead transmit the DTS-HD HR bitstream to a receiver for decoding (this requires HDMI 1.3).
Multi-channel analog - Either the Blu-ray player will extract and decode the DTS core, or (on some models) will decode the full DTS-HD HR and convert it to analog.

PCM
What it is: A PCM track is an exact replication of the studio master, encoded on disc without compression. The benefit to this is that it maintains the purity of the source without any loss of fidelity that may come from compression. The downside is that an uncompressed audio track takes up a tremendous amount of disc space, which may (especially on single-layer BD25 discs) negatively affect the video quality of the movie. While the Blu-ray format is capable of utilizing PCM audio up to 24-bit resolution, studios may choose to encode at 16-bit resolution instead, depending on the bit depth of the original source or concerns about conserving bandwidth (downsampling a 24-bit master to 16 bits is technically not the same thing as compression).
Level of support: All Blu-ray disc players are required to support PCM audio.
Examples of discs that use it: Almost all discs from Sony and Disney, as well as selected titles from Lionsgate and other studios.
How to get it:

Toslink or Coaxial SPDIF - SPDIF does not have enough bandwidth to carry a full 5.1 PCM signal, so the audio track will be downgraded to 2 channels only. This is generally an undesirable result.
HDMI - A PCM track can be transmitted in full quality over any version of HDMI and delivered to the receiver for D-to-A conversion and amplification.
Multi-channel analog - In this case, the player converts the PCM to analog and sends it to the receiver for amplification. The quality of the DACs in the player will determine the final audio quality. If the disc player has inferior DACs to the receiver, an HDMI connection is preferred.

Dolby TrueHD
What it is: Dolby TrueHD is a "lossless" compression codec. Although it is compressed to take up less disc space than a PCM track, once decoded it is bit-for-bit identical to the studio master (at either 16-bit or 24-bit resolution, at the discretion of the studio). It may help to think of it like a ZIP file that holds a PCM track. Once you unZIP the file, you get a 100% identical copy of the original PCM, without compromising any sound quality.
Level of support: TrueHD is an optional format on Blu-ray. And since TrueHD is not built in a core+extension configuration, Blu-ray discs that contain a TrueHD track are also required to contain a standard Dolby Digital AC-3 track for compatibility with players that don't support TrueHD.
Examples of discs that use it: 'Ghost Rider', 'The Fifth Element' (Remastered).
How to get it:

Toslink or Coaxial SPDIF - SPDIF cannot carry a TrueHD signal. If using this connection type, the player will automatically revert to playing back the standard Dolby Digital AC-3 track instead.
HDMI - If the player does not support TrueHD, it will revert to the standard Dolby Digital track. Some players may decode the TrueHD to PCM and transmit it over any version of HDMI. Other players will instead transmit the TrueHD bitstream to a receiver for decoding (HDMI 1.3 required).
Multi-channel analog - Either the Blu-ray player will decode the standard Dolby Digital track, or (on some models) will decode the TrueHD and convert it to analog.

DTS-HD Master Audio
What it is: Another lossless audio codec similar to Dolby TrueHD. The difference between the two is that DTS-HD MA is built in a core+extension configuration (just like DTS-HD HR). Although a DTS-HD MA track takes up more disc space than a TrueHD track, it does not require a secondary standard track for backwards compatibility. Since both DTS-HD MA and TrueHD are lossless, they are both 100% identical in quality to the studio master, and hence identical in quality to each other.
Level of support: Like DTS-HD HR, Master Audio is optional on the Blu-ray format. If the player does not support DTS-HD MA, it can extract the standard DTS core.
Examples of discs that use it: Almost all titles from Fox Home Entertainment.
How to get it:

Toslink or Coaxial SPDIF - SPDIF cannot carry a DTS-HD MA signal. When using this connection type, the player will extract the standard DTS core instead and transmit that as a bitstream.
HDMI - If the player does not support DTS-HD MA, it will extract the DTS core. Some players may decode the DTS-HD MA to PCM and transmit it over any version of HDMI. Other players will instead transmit the DTS-HD MA bitstream to a receiver for decoding (HDMI 1.3 required).
Multi-channel analog - Either the Blu-ray player will decode the standard DTS core, or (on some models) will decode the DTS-HD MA and convert it to analog.

At the time of this writing, only one Blu-ray disc player (the Samsung BD-P1400) supports the transmission of a DTS-HD Master Audio bitstream over HDMI 1.3. No current Blu-ray disc players will yet decode the DTS-HD MA track to PCM internally. All other players are limited to extraction of the standard DTS core. This situation is expected to change in the near future as more player models are released, and manufacturers issue firmware updates to existing players.

HD DVD discs can provide their movie soundtracks in any of the following formats:

Dolby Digital
What it is: All HD DVD players are required to support standard Dolby Digital AC-3 up to 448 kb/s (the same maximum bit rate as used on DVD). However, they're also required to support the advanced Dolby Digital Plus (see next listing), and for movie soundtracks that's what almost all studios have gone with instead.
Level of support: Mandatory.
Examples of discs that use it: Dolby Digital is commonly used on the bonus features on most HD DVDs. To my knowledge, no discs have used this format for the feature soundtrack.
How to get it:

Toslink or Coaxial SPDIF - The Dolby Digital bitstream would be transmitted to a receiver for decoding and processing.
HDMI - Depending on the HD DVD player settings, the Dolby Digital can be transmitted as a bitstream or decoded to PCM first.
Multi-channel analog - In this method, the player decodes the Dolby Digital internally and converts it to analog.

DTS
What it is: As with Blu-ray, the legacy DTS format familiar from DVD is available as an option on HD DVD, encoded at the higher 1.5 Mb/s bit rate.
Level of support: All HD DVD players are required to support DTS.
Examples of discs that use it: 'The Chronicles of Riddick', 'Sleepy Hollow'.
How to get it:

Toslink or Coaxial SPDIF - The bitstream is transmitted to a receiver.
HDMI - Either the raw bitstream is sent to the receiver, or the player decodes to PCM first.
Multi-channel analog - The player decodes the DTS internally and converts it to analog.

PCM
What it is: While all HD DVD players support uncompressed multi-channel PCM, and the internal decoding of all Dolby and DTS formats is converted to PCM, movie discs with PCM appear to be limited to 2-channel audio. Whether this is a requirement of the HD DVD format itself or a choice of the disc authors is not clear. In any case, due to the enormous amount of disc space required, PCM is not a very popular option on HD DVD.
Level of support: Mandatory.
Examples of discs that use it: 'Chronos', 'Moonlight Jellyfish' (a Japanese film included as a pack-in item with the Toshiba HD-XA1 player released in that country).
How to get it:

Toslink or Coaxial SPDIF - SPDIF can carry 2-channel PCM just fine and send it to the receiver for D-to-A conversion and amplification, but cannot carry more than 2 channels.
HDMI - HDMI likewise will transmit the PCM to a receiver for D-to-A and amplification.
Multi-channel analog - The PCM will be converted to analog and then sent to the receiver to be amplified.

Dolby Digital Plus
What it is: DD+ is the base standard audio format for HD DVD. Unlike its application on Blu-ray, DD+ on HD DVD does not utilize a core+extension configuration. The format can be encoded at bit rates of 640 kb/s (considered equivalent to Blu-ray's use of standard Dolby Digital at that same rate) or 1.5 Mb/s. However, note that although the latter version of DD+ shares a similar bit rate as standard DTS, this does not mean that these two are equivalent to one another. DD+ uses better encoding and more efficient compression to provide improved quality at the same rate. At least one professional Hollywood sound mixer has described Dolby Digital Plus at 1.5 Mb/s as audibly transparent to the studio master.
Level of support: All players are required to support Dolby Digital Plus.
Examples of discs that use it: Almost all domestic HD DVD releases. Discs from Warner Bros. default to the lower 640 kb/s rate, while those from Universal and Paramount tend to favor the higher 1.5 Mb/s (with some exceptions).
How to get it:

Toslink or Coaxial SPDIF - SPDIF cannot transmit DD+ in full quality. When using this connection method, the player will decode the DD+ and then transcode it to either standard Dolby Digital AC-3 or sometimes even DTS (depending on player model).
HDMI - Almost all HD DVD players decode the DD+ track internally to PCM for transmission over HDMI. Some may transmit the DD+ bitstream to a receiver instead (HDMI 1.3 required).
Multi-channel analog - In this case, the player decodes the DD+ track and converts it to analog. The quality of the DACs in the player will determine the resulting sound quality.

DTS-HD High Resolution
What it is: DTS-HD HR works on HD DVD just as it does on Blu-ray, in a core+extension configuration.
Level of support: DTS-HD HR is optional on HD DVD. Players that don't support it can extract the standard DTS core.
Examples of discs that use it: 'Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow' claims a "DTS-HD" track, which is presumably DTS-HD High Resolution, unless the packaging and menus are mislabeled.
How to get it:

Toslink or Coaxial SPDIF - SPDIF cannot transmit DTS-HD HR in full quality. The player will extract the standard DTS core for transmission as a bitstream.
HDMI - If the player does not support DTS-HD HR, it will extract the DTS core. Some players may decode the DTS-HD HR to PCM and transmit it over any version of HDMI. Other players may instead transmit the DTS-HD HR bitstream to a receiver for decoding (HDMI 1.3 required).
Multi-channel analog - Either the HD DVD player will extract and decode the DTS core, or (on some models) will decode the full DTS-HD HR and convert it to analog.

Dolby TrueHD
What it is: Once decoded, the lossless Dolby TrueHD format is bit-for-bit identical to the studio master (at either 16-bits or 24-bits, at the discretion of the studio).
Level of support: Support for TrueHD up to at least 2 channels is mandatory on all HD DVD players, but the majority will support it all the way to 5.1. Because there are rare cases of disc players that limit TrueHD to 2 channels (such as the LG model BH100), discs with TrueHD tracks must also contain a Dolby Digital Plus track for 5.1 compatibility.
Examples of discs that use it: '300', 'Superman Returns'.
How to get it:

Toslink or Coaxial SPDIF - SPDIF cannot transmit TrueHD in full quality. When using this connection method, the player will decode the TrueHD and then transcode it to either standard Dolby Digital AC-3 or possibly DTS (depending on player model).
HDMI - Almost all HD DVD players decode the TrueHD track internally to PCM for transmission over HDMI. Some may transmit the TrueHD bitstream to a receiver instead (HDMI 1.3 required).
Multi-channel analog - The player will decode the TrueHD track and convert it to analog.

DTS-HD Master Audio
What it is: The other losslessly compressed format, DTS-HD Master Audio is also bit-for-bit identical to the studio master once decoded (and hence identical to Dolby TrueHD, assuming an equal bit depth is used). DTS-HD MA works in a core+extension configuration.
Level of support: Since the DTS-HD MA format is optional on HD DVD, players that don't support it will extract the standard DTS core.
Examples of discs that use it: Almost all HD DVDs released by Studio Canal in Europe.
How to get it:

Toslink or Coaxial SPDIF - SPDIF cannot transmit DTS-HD MA in full quality. The player will extract the standard DTS core for transmission as a bitstream.
HDMI - If the player does not support DTS-HD MA, it will extract the DTS core. Some players may decode the DTS-HD MA to PCM and transmit it over any version of HDMI. Other players may instead transmit the DTS-HD MA bitstream to a receiver for decoding (HDMI 1.3 required).
Multi-channel analog - Either the HD DVD player will extract and decode the DTS core, or (on some models) will decode the full DTS-HD MA and convert it to analog.

At the time of this writing, no HD DVD players will decode either a DTS-HD High Resolution or a DTS-HD Master Audio audio track. The players are limited to extracting the DTS cores, or (on selected player models) may be able to transmit the codec bitstream to a receiver using HDMI 1.3. Support for these DTS formats will hopefully expand with future player models or firmware updates to existing models.

An Exhausting List

I believe that covers all the bases for audio options a viewer is likely to run into on either HD DVD or Blu-ray. The purpose of this list is to explain the basic workings of each sound format offered on High-Def discs. I will save the arguments over whether lossless formats are really as good as uncompressed formats, debates on the importance or relevance of bit rate numbers, concerns about bit depth, and the controversy about Dolby's "Dialog Normalization" function for another day.

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Joshua Zyber's opinions are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of this site, its owners or employees. To view a complete collection of Josh's commentaries for High-Def Digest, click here.

Commentary: Combo Discs - What Went Wrong?

Fri Sep 14, 2007 at 05:49 PM ET
Tags: Joshua Zyber, Combo Discs (all tags)

By Joshua Zyber

Although it may be one of the greater issues of contention among HD DVD buyers, in principle I have no objection to the Combo format, those discs with a primary HD DVD version on one side and a Standard-Def DVD on the other. Some owners think they're great. Many outright hate them. To me, they just seem mostly redundant. In some ways, I like the idea of having the movie in regular DVD format so that I can watch it in a portable DVD player when traveling, or loan it to a friend not yet equipped for High Definition. But realistically, how often do I need the disc for either of those purposes? Hardly ever. Frankly, when I buy an HD DVD, I want to watch it in High Definition on my home theater screen. That's kind of the point, isn't it?

Still, the idea of the Combo disc doesn't offend me as it does some. I mainly just ignore the DVD side. I've heard complaints from people upset that the dual-sided configuration prevents artwork from being screened onto the top surface of the disc. To me, that seems a little silly. The disc is going to spend most of its time either resting inside the HD DVD case or spinning inside an HD DVD player. Opening up the case to look at the disc itself isn't something I'm going to do often. On the other hand, as a collector who has often complained about ugly case cover art (and been called petty for it), I can sympathize with the desire for nit-picky perfection even in so minor a concern.

Of course, that's not the main argument against the Combo format. The larger issue is that the studios that use them (Warner Bros. and Universal) charge extra for them, considering the regular DVD edition on the flip-side of the disc to be a premium feature worthy of a higher price tag. For HD DVD fans, this especially stings in the case of Warner, who will simultaneously release a cheaper Blu-ray edition of the same movie, with the same quality and the same features, just lacking the redundant DVD copy. It feels like they're pushing dual-format owners to buy the Blu-ray version, and sticking a big middle finger in the air to exclusive HD DVD supporters.


A collection of recent HD DVD/DVD Combo releases from Warner and Universal.

The studios will tell you that their marketing research indicates that consumers are very concerned about backwards compatibility and are willing to pay a little extra for that peace of mind. Let's be very clear about this, Combo discs were never really intended as a bonus feature for HD DVD owners. The real point and purpose of a Combo disc is to lure new buyers to the format. The reasoning goes something like this: If you can convince the average movie buyer to "future-proof" their collection by purchasing Combo discs to watch even on their standard DVD players, eventually the person will have enough discs with HD DVD content on them that they'll want an HD DVD player to start using the discs to their fullest potential, and from there will start collecting other HD DVDs as well.

There is some logic in such a "Trojan Horse" strategy, and in fact it's similar to the way Sony markets its Playstation 3 console (if you give video game players Blu-ray capability in the console they were going to buy for games anyway, many will also purchase some Blu-ray movies to watch on it). The ploy has worked to some extent for Blu-ray, yet hasn't had nearly as much success for HD DVD.

In order for a Trojan Horse to work, you have to get the Horse into people's homes in the first place. Sony was clever enough to not give consumers a choice in the matter. Every PS3 has Blu-ray capability. They didn't release a cheaper model without Blu-ray and a more expensive model with it, thus pushing many people to the more affordable option. No, if you want a PS3, you get Blu-ray automatically. That isn't the case for Combo discs. As it stands, average movie collectors are faced with the choice of buying a standard DVD version of the movie that they can watch in their regular DVD players for $20 (street prices, not MSRP), or a Combo disc that includes an extra HD DVD side they can't yet use for $30 or more. It's an easy decision for most.

But what about all that marketing research claiming that people wouldn't mind paying extra to future-proof their movie collections? Frankly, what people say in a focus group isn't always how they act in real life. When presented the option with a series of leading questions, Combo discs probably looked pretty appealing. When standing in a store and seeing the price disparity in action, however, the wallet pulls in another direction.

For the Combo strategy to have any chance with real consumers, the discs would have to be priced the same as regular DVDs, or the studios would have to discontinue DVD-only discs altogether, and only issue Combos for new releases, priced attractively. Now that would certainly get HD DVD into people's homes and start the Trojan Horse effect working. Clearly, that isn't likely to happen anytime soon. For one thing, Combo discs are more expensive to manufacture, both in terms of having to author all of the HD DVD content as well as the physical reproduction of the dual-sided discs. For another, even if a studio were willing to subsidize that cost, the HD DVD and Combo disc production lines are currently not ready to handle the volume necessary to cover the entire DVD run for a new title. More facilities would have to be converted to Combo production, which would again be a big expense. Perhaps an even bigger hurdle, how would you market these Combo-exclusive titles? In standard DVD keepcases and artwork to appeal to DVD buyers, or in HD DVD cases as they're sold now? Would the same disc have to be sold in both types of case? How long would that last? Any of these scenarios would only succeed in confusing and annoying at least one portion of the buying market, not to mention retailers who have to stock the discs on store shelves.

So where does that leave us now? To whom do Combo discs currently appeal? Average movie buyers have continued to stick with the more affordable DVD-only option, a complete failure of the Trojan Horse plan. HD DVD buyers are upset that they're being forced to pay extra for a "feature" they will rarely (if ever) use. And those who support both HD DVD and Blu-ray would just as soon buy the Blu-ray that's $5 cheaper with the same quality and features. Combo discs put HD DVD in a no-win situation.

Worse than that, the damn discs don't even work half the time! Just the other night, I sat down to watch my recently-purchased HD DVD copy of '300' on my Toshiba HD-XA2 player, and I only made it 45 minutes before the stupid thing froze up and ceased playback. No matter how many times I try to restart the movie, the disc will not play beyond Chapter 14. This is an extremely high-profile release; in fact, it's currently the best-selling title on either the HD DVD or Blu-ray formats, and the disc won't function in a top-of-the-line HD DVD player! Who wants to put up with nonsense like that? I certainly don't.

Let's not kid ourselves that this is an isolated defective disc or a one-time anomaly. Complaints about playback problems on '300' are widespread, and similar compatibility issues have plagued earlier Combo releases such as 'Children of Men', 'The Good Shepherd', 'Happy Feet', 'Superman Returns', and 'The Matrix Reloaded' (copies from the expensive 'Ultimate Matrix Collection' box set which has the bonus features in DVD format on the flip-side of the disc). Some of these will only work properly on second-generation HD DVD players but not first-generation models, and some bizarrely just the opposite. Some function fine on Toshiba's players but not on Microsoft's HD DVD add-on accessory for the XBox 360, and others vice versa. Some don't work right on any player at all.

The excuses are manifold. First we were told that certain titles were authored out of spec for the HD DVD format, but if that were true why would they work on some players but not others (even within the same player model)? Then we were told it was a manufacturing error having to do with the bonding process that seals the two halves of the disc together. Some people believe that there's a filmy residue on the surface of the discs that the player's laser can't read through, and have claimed better results after cleaning or boiling (yes, boiling!) the discs for a few minutes. For what it's worth, I actually tried this boiling trick on a couple of my non-responsive discs, but it didn't do anything to solve my playback errors.

Universal was good enough to offer a mail-in exchange program for "defective" copies of 'Children of Men' and 'The Good Shepherd'. However, many people who received "corrected" copies found them just as problematic. Later, Toshiba issued a firmware update for their players that seemed to clear up most of the problems with these two titles. If it were really a physical manufacturing error on certain copies, how could a firmware change in the player make a difference? And if it were an authoring mistake that a firmware update can work around, why are brand new discs like '300' still not working correctly? Something just isn't right here.

If these DVD/HD DVD Combo discs are having so many issues, why should we expect any differently when (or if) Warner finally unleashes their much-delayed "Total HD" format that seals HD DVD and Blu-ray together onto the same disc? I dread the compatibility nightmares that would almost inevitably come with those.

Personally, I have no idea what's causing these compatibility problems between Combo discs and HD DVD players. I don't know whether it's the studios at fault or the hardware manufacturers, and I honestly don't care. I've lost faith in the Combo format. When presented with an option, I'll avoid it if possible. When it comes to Warner titles, I'll buy the Blu-ray version instead, assuming equal features. The reason I went with the HD DVD edition of '300' was for its highly-touted interactive bonus features that are not available on the Blu-ray, only to find them quite useless if the disc won't play. In some cases, I'll consider importing a non-Combo HD DVD edition of the movie from overseas, as I did for 'Children of Men' (it's available in England that way). Fans of '300' might be interested to know that a non-Combo HD DVD was released in Australia.

Universal's 'Unleashed,' before and after.

Are even the studios starting to realize the predicament? Universal originally issued both new releases and catalog titles in Combo format, but wisely scaled back to only new releases after consumer complaints. Many viewers had already bought these older movies on DVD prior to the introduction of HD DVD, so why should they be forced to re-buy another DVD edition to get the HD side? Recently, the studio has started re-releasing previous Combo titles such as 'Unleashed' and 'Army of Darkness' in HD DVD-only editions for a reduced price. Warner has begun to do the same with 'The Ant Bully', 'The Departed', and others, and also hinted that in the future all Combo releases may be reissued several months afterwards in non-Combo editions. I say, why not just cut to the chase and do away with the Combo discs altogether?

It turns out that backwards compatibility is not quite as appealing as the market research indicated. When DVD premiered back in 1997, did anyone feel the need to package a VHS tape in the box with each movie? These are meant to be next-generation products. We should be looking forward, not backward. As I mentioned at the start of this article, I don't object to the Combo format in principle. However, in execution it just isn't working out. They're priced too highly and a significant percentage of the discs have technical problems. Both failings are causing consumers to lose faith in the HD DVD format.

Quite simply, Combo discs are killing HD DVD. It's time to move past them. Consumers don't need them and certainly don't want to pay extra for them, only to find the discs seizing up in their players when they try to watch their newly-purchased movies. I am hereby officially pleading to the studios to give up this foolish scheme and make all future HD DVDs, whether new releases or catalog titles, just HD DVDs, without the Combo burden. Everyone will truly be better off if you do.

That's my opinion, anyway. I'd like to hear what you think. Join us in the forums to discuss this topic further.

To view a complete collection of Josh's commentaries for High-Def Digest, click here.

Discs mentioned in this article: (Click for specs and reviews)
300 (HD DVD)
Children of Men (HD DVD)
The Good Shepherd (HD DVD)
Happy Feet (Combo Edition) (HD DVD)
Superman Returns (Combo Edition) (HD DVD)
The Ultimate Matrix Collection (HD DVD)
Unleashed (Re-issue) (HD DVD)
Army of Darkness (Re-issue) (HD DVD)
The Ant Bully (Combo Edition) (HD DVD)
The Departed (Combo Edition) (HD DVD)

Commentary: A War of Hype, and Paramount's Big Bombshell

Fri Aug 31, 2007 at 04:57 PM ET
Tags: Joshua Zyber (all tags)

Editor's Note: A long-time movie buff and collector of discs from laserdisc to DVD, Joshua Zyber is a staff reviewer at DVDTalk, and an enthusiastic supporter of all things High Definition. In his twice-monthly High-Def Digest column, Josh discusses a broad range of topics of interest to other early adopters.

By Joshua Zyber

As most readers of this site are by now well aware, the High Definition format war got a whole lot more interesting on Monday, August 20th, 2007. Surprising just about everyone, including many within their own company, Paramount Home Entertainment announced that effective immediately the studio would be dropping support for Blu-ray and releasing High Definition titles exclusively on the HD DVD format. As has been widely reported, this means that some major summer blockbusters including 'Transformers' and 'Shrek the Third' (Paramount also distributes Dreamworks titles) that were hotly-anticipated as future Blu-ray releases will now come out only on HD DVD.

The impact of this cannot be overstated, and goes far beyond a couple of hit movies. In fact, it may just be the single biggest and most shocking development to happen in the format war to date. Prior to this point, Paramount was, alongside Warner Bros., one of the chief proponents of format neutrality, and had released discs equally on both sides. By kicking Blu-ray to the curb, as it were, a major studio with a huge catalog of desirable titles ('The Godfather' trilogy, 'Braveheart', 'Grease', and the entire 'Star Trek' franchise among them) has effectively issued a vote of no confidence for the future prospects of the format.

Making this news all the more startling is the fact that it came despite many recent reports that Blu-ray discs had been outselling HD DVD by a 2:1 margin. Why, in the midst of numerous proclamations that Blu-ray had all but locked up the win in this horse race, would a major studio change its strategy and side exclusively with the "losing" format? If they're already selling more Blu-rays than HD DVDs, aren't they "leaving money on the table," so to speak, by dropping Blu-ray? Industry and web pundits have been abuzz with theories about Paramount's motivations, the most popular being that they were paid off to the tune of up to $150 million, an allegation reported by no less than the venerable New York Times. For their own part, in an interview with Chief Technology Officer Alan Bell, Paramount has cited "manufacturability, the reliability of players, the cost, [and] the infrastructure that's developed to support our creation of titles" as the primary factors behind their decision.

Could these factors really outweigh the widely acknowledged sales advantage that Blu-ray software currently holds over HD DVD? What's really going on here? To get to the heart of this matter we need to cut through all the hype, spin, and outright misinformation that has perpetuated since the start of this format war. We need to take a hard look at that credited 2:1 sales ratio and analyze what it really means in practical terms to the companies involved.

An Important Disclaimer

It seems that any article related to the High Definition format war will inevitably be picked apart and scrutinized for signs for bias (not without good reason in many cases), so before we go any further, I feel that I should address my own position in all of this. I've been covering both High-Def formats since each debuted, and have been described as biased towards HD DVD by some Blu-ray fans, mostly because I gave favorable ratings to early HD DVD hardware and discs, and negative marks to early Blu-ray equipment and software (apparently, the fact that Blu-ray really did have serious quality issues at its start doesn't matter to some people). The less-polite among them have called me a "shill" when it was in the interest of their own arguments to do so. I want to clear that up right now.

Unlike some supposedly objective editorialists covering the format war, I have never received any financial compensation or lucrative gifts from any party on either side of the issue. If offered such, I would reject it to avoid the conflict of interest or appearance of impropriety. I am currently on my second disc player for each format, all of which were purchased immediately upon release and paid for out of my own pocket. I have not attended any lavish Las Vegas parties thrown in my honor by the backers of one format or the other, nor do I write articles (paid or otherwise) for the official promotional web sites on either side. I have no ties to any corporation that would in any way influence my writing on the topic. My opinions are strictly my own, based on my own observations and experience.

I should also note that I have no insider knowledge into the business decisions of the companies discussed here. Everything I say in this article is based on publicly available information.

I am not a format fanboy, or a corporate shill. What I really am is a High Definition fan, so much so that I've gotten to the point where I can no longer watch standard DVDs, finding them blurry to the point of giving me a headache from straining to see detail that isn't there. I want every movie I watch to be in High Definition, mastered in the best quality presentation possible. Whichever format will deliver that to me makes me happy. I don't care whether a movie I like is released on Blu-ray or HD DVD, because I can play both discs.

That said, it's true that I was critical of Blu-ray early on. The fact is that HD DVD launched out of the gate with a more polished and impressive product than Blu-ray did, and at half the price. Over time (I'd like to think due to pressure from both buyers and critics like myself), the Blu-ray manufacturers and studios eventually cleaned up their acts, greatly improving their quality and at least somewhat bringing down their prices. Technical specifications aside, in actual practice the two formats are essentially indistinguishable today, and I consider that a big victory for both. As I said, all I want are great-looking High Definition movies, whatever it takes to get them. Nonetheless, I will still call things as I see them, and to that end I remain greatly annoyed by Blu-ray's lack of interactive features, seeming inability to finalize their format specs, and still exorbitant hardware pricing. At the same time, I am equally frustrated by HD DVD's continual problems with compatibility between Combo-format discs and HD DVD players. Neither format is perfect, but at their best both offer an amazing home theater experience. At less than their best, I have no hesitation about criticizing either one for their mistakes.

That's where I stand.

As I Was Saying…

With all that out of the way, let's look at some real numbers. For months now, we've been inundated with press releases trumpeting the 2:1 sales gap between Blu-ray and HD DVD, but until recently none of them offered the actual number of units sold. We were given ratios and percentages, all of which sounded pretty damning for HD DVD's chances of survival, but had no real figures to back them up. It wasn't until a couple of weeks ago that Home Media Research provided actual sales numbers for the first half of 2007. In that announcement we learned that sales of Blu-ray discs for the first six months of 2007 totaled 1.6 million units, compared with 795,000 HD DVD discs sold in the same time frame.

Indeed, that's twice as many Blu-ray sales as HD DVD. Doesn't that just about wrap up this format war?

Not so fast. The sales lead only sounds impressive when taken out of context. To put those numbers into perspective, during its first week of release alone, the Standard-Def DVD edition of '300' sold 5.10 million copies. That's one single movie on DVD, during just one week of release, moving more than twice as many units as all Blu-rays and HD DVDs combined could manage in 6 months. In fact, that lone DVD in its first week significantly outsold the grand total of all High-Def media from inception in early 2006 to date (3.7 million in all). That's an astounding disparity, and it has only grown in subsequent weeks of that disc's sales life.

Let there be no confusion on this point. DVD is where the studios make their money. High Definition media amounts to barely a blip on the DVD sales radar. Bragging that Blu-ray has outsold HD DVD 2:1 at these volumes is like boasting that an ant is larger than a flea, just before the big shoe of DVD comes down to smoosh them both into oblivion.

These formats are going to have to start moving DVD-sized sales before either one can be called a success, and that isn't going to happen anytime soon. A year into their lives, both are still in their infancy. Another thing you won't read in a Blu-ray Disc Association press release is that Blu-ray is a lot more expensive for the studios than HD DVD. The development costs are higher, the authoring and manufacturing costs are higher, and the licensing fees are higher. If the discs were selling in DVD-sized volumes, none of those problems would be significant, but that isn't happening. We have to consider the possibility that, despite selling more Blu-rays than HD DVDs, at the volumes we're talking about Paramount may have actually been losing more money on Blu-ray than they were losing on HD DVD. Wouldn't that be a kick in the head? Now, that's merely speculation on my part. No hard numbers on that have been released, but Alan Bell's comments above about "manufacturability, the reliability of players, the cost, [and] the infrastructure that's developed to support our creation of titles" sure seem to hint to that effect.

In any case, this notion that Paramount is "leaving money on the table" by dumping Blu-ray is clearly false. If anything, they're letting go of one failing aspect of their business and hoping for the best from another.

A Big Payday?

And what of the claims that Microsoft and/or Toshiba offered Paramount a $150 million incentive package to drop Blu-ray? A public relations firm employed by BDA member Sony has reportedly been making hay of this story in an (arguably successful) attempt to undermine the public perception of Paramount's decision. Microsoft denies participating in anything of the sort, and none of the other companies involved have officially acknowledged such a package, but for the sake of argument let's say that it's true and there was some sort of compensation involved.

Frankly, who cares? It's a business deal. They happen every day, and I find it tremendously hypocritical to denounce Paramount for accepting an incentive package from the HD DVD camp without considering the possibility that at least one of the Blu-ray studios may have done the same at the start of the format war. For the record, when directly confronted with the question this week, Fox, MGM, and Sony each denied that any "sweeteners" influenced their decisions, while Disney would only issue a mysterious "No comment" statement.

So consider this: Disney has long claimed that interactivity was one of their biggest concerns in choosing a High-Def disc format, even to the extent of actively participating in the design of the HDi specification used in HD DVD. Yet despite that, they release titles exclusively on the competing format that currently still can't implement simple picture-in-picture functionality and is at least a year and a half behind HD DVD's progress in the area Disney claims is of critical importance to them. Early last year, CEO Robert Iger stated that the company would "probably publish in both formats", yet that never came to pass.

Where was the outrage last year when the Blu-ray exclusive studios declined format neutrality? Would it have been considered scandalous if Paramount had chosen Blu-ray exclusivity last week rather than HD DVD?

Likewise, when Sony recently locked down a promotional arrangement with Target, in which the manufacturer will pay for an endcap display in Target stores and the national retailer will not carry any other stand-alone High-Def disc players, where were the cries of "payoff" then? Aren't consumer choices being limited to further a corporate agenda?

Business is business. Whether Paramount or any of the studios are really receiving anything in return for supporting their chosen formats, I can't say, but transactions of this nature happen all the time between huge multi-national corporations. There's nothing illegal or unethical about them. Let's not kid ourselves into believing that companies in the BDA haven't tried to entice Warner and Universal into dumping HD DVD and going Blu-ray exclusive with similar offers; Personally, I have no doubt that they're continuing to do so right at this very minute.

The Future Is Not Set. There Is No Fate But What We Make for Ourselves.

Considering the real facts of the matter, presumptions that the High-Def format war could be won by either side anytime soon were seriously misguided. The truth is that both Blu-ray and HD DVD are losing the real battle, which is to supplant DVD as the next mainstream optical disc standard. They're just losing it to different degrees.

But we're still very early in the game. Releasing movies on High Definition media is an investment in future potential. Everyone involved is betting that there will eventually be real money to be made from one format or both. In making the decision of which to support, a company like Paramount must weigh not just current sales results (which are still insignificant at present volumes), but also the long-term business strategies on both sides.

According to their August 20th announcement, Paramount believes that HD DVD has more potential for growth. Why might they feel that way? For one thing, the Blu-ray format has based a large part of its sales plan around the Playstation 3, which is by far the best selling and most popular Blu-ray playback device on the market. Unfortunately, the PS3 hasn't met expectations in the video game arena, trailing behind the XBox 360 and Nintendo Wii in popularity among gamers. While there are enough PS3 consoles in active use right now to lead to the 2:1 disc sales advantage over HD DVD as discussed above, perhaps Paramount doesn't feel that this is a sustainable business model. HD DVD has consistently sold more dedicated stand-alone disc players than Blu-ray, and stand-alone players have a much higher attach rate of discs sold (PS3 owners are more likely to buy the unit for games than for Blu-ray movies). Taking the long view, if this trend continues, HD DVD could have a growth surge that eventually surpasses Blu-ray.

The BDA has been using all the muscle of their promotional machine to maintain the perception of winning the format war, expecting that hype will eventually become reality. In truth, all they've managed to gain so far is a larger slice of a tiny pie, which wins them nothing more than temporary bragging rights. Has either side made a real profit yet?

What Am I Getting At?

If the tone of this article seems overly negative or critical of Blu-ray, note that I am making no judgments about one format being superior to the other, nor am I predicting which of the two will eventually win out over the other, if that should happen at all. As I explained earlier, I own both formats, and I just want movies in High Definition, however I can get them.

All I hope is to present an alternate viewpoint to the widely held presumption that prior to Paramount's announcement, Blu-ray had all but locked up their victory in this format war, a notion I don't believe is supported by the facts. Are there opposing perspectives on last week's events? Of course there are, and no doubt you're hearing them loud and clear all over the web. Hysteria over the format war has reached a fever pitch, with fans of both sides treating the spectacle like a sports rivalry, each hoping for the utter domination of their team over the other. This isn't helped at all by the media, crawling as it is with pundits weighing in with ill-informed opinions based on misleading statistics, each screaming louder than the next to make their sound bite heard over the din.

I think it's time we all took a step back and tried to look at this from a more balanced perspective. If the video game market can survive with multiple formats, each offering their own exclusive releases, how is the High Definition market any different? Personally, I foresee both HD DVD and Blu-ray coexisting for a long time, and potentially both thriving. If competition between the two formats continues to result in improved quality, lower prices, and a steady stream of movies in High Definition, that's a good thing in my book.

Should anyone still think that I'm playing favorites, know that my next column will take aim at HD DVD for their many Combo disc compatibility problems, which aggravate me to no end.

That's my take. I'd like to hear what you think. Join us in the forums to discuss this topic further.

Josh Zyber's opinions are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of this site, its owners or employees. To view a complete collection of Josh's commentaries for High-Def Digest, click here.

Memo to the Studios Revisited: Our Readers Speak Out

Fri Jul 27, 2007 at 04:02 PM ET
Tags: Joshua Zyber (all tags)

Editor's Note: A long-time movie buff and collector of video discs from laserdisc to DVD, Josh is a staff reviewer at DVDTalk, and an enthusiastic supporter of all things High Definition. In his twice-monthly column here at High-Def Digest, Josh discusses a broad range of topics of interest to other early adopters.

Commentary by Joshua Zyber

In my first commentary for High-Def Digest several weeks ago, I wrote a Memo to the Studios with a list of ten small suggestions that I believe can help make discs on both the Blu-ray and HD DVD formats better. The focus of the article was not on broad, sweeping, or expensive changes that would be a burden to implement, but rather little things that could use some tweaking to make the disc releases more user-friendly and appealing to consumers. At the end of the piece, I asked our readers for their feedback, and to weigh in with their own pet peeves and suggestions for change.

We received some tremendous feedback both on our forums and by email. So much so, in fact, that I've decided to dedicate today's column to your thoughts.

Quite a lot of people voiced their agreement with my complaints about the hideous swooshy cover art that some studios are inflicting on High Definition discs of either format, and those annoying beeping and clicking noises used in too many disc menus. Not everyone agreed, of course. There were a few who liked the swooshes and the beeps. And there were some people who thought I was being petty to even notice such things in the first place. So be it. I certainly don't expect to speak for every early adopter. But I do have to ask if there is there anyone who would actually be upset if the swooshy cover art and menu beeps went away? Anyone at all? I really doubt it, and I think that there are enough people bothered by these things that it would benefit the disc releases to just get rid of them.

By far the biggest point of disagreement voiced over my article was the suggestion that every disc should start with a setup menu before the movie. It seems there are a lot of people who prefer the movie to just start automatically with no menu, as releases from Warner Bros. and Disney do. I made a case for why I find this problematic, especially on Blu-ray discs where pop-up menus don't work when the movie is paused, forcing the viewer to make their audio and subtitle selections as the movie begins, and then skip back to replay the movie again afterwards. Again, I truly find that a terrible user experience. Still, even though main disc menus have been a standard feature of the DVD format for a decade now, there are some people who really just want the movie to start automatically. So how's this for a compromise: instead of forcing a setup menu, why not have the disc open with the choice of going right to the movie or going to a dedicated setup menu instead? If no selection is made, the movie would just start after a predetermined amount of time. I've seen a few discs designed this way, such as 'Dirty Dancing' from Lionsgate, and it seems like a pretty reasonable middle ground.

So now we come to the list of reader pet peeves and additional suggestions for High-Def discs of both formats. There were a lot of them, some that I wish I'd thought of myself. Let's get right to it:

1.	Previews should always be skippable with the MENU command. Personally, I find trailers and promos before the disc menu or movie just obnoxious, and it seems a lot of people share my opinion. So studios, if you really must put these advertisements at the start of your discs, please allow us to skip them with the MENU button. Right now there doesn't seem to be any standardization for this. On some discs MENU works, on others we have to SKIP past each ad, on really annoying ones we're forced to FF through the spot, and on the worst discs there's just no getting past them by any means. Using the MENU button to bypass the trailers is a good idea that your customers will appreciate. Please make this standard. Or better yet, just put the trailers in the supplement section of the disc where they belong, not forced at the start of playback every time.
2.	Forced anti-piracy ads are insulting to honest customers. Hey, Mr. Studio Executive, you may not be aware of this, but not everyone on Earth is a thief. Most of us pay for your movies with our hard-earned dollars, and treating us like criminals is insulting. Here's a tip: real criminals don't watch your ads. When they strip all your precious copy-protection and rip the data off the disc, they dump those files, and then they laugh at you for putting them on there in the first place. The only people actually forced to watch the ads are those of us who have no intention of bootlegging your movie in the first place. Stop treating us like we, the people who support your business, are objects of contempt. We don't appreciate it.
3.	Make the security stickers less intrusive. As if the anti-piracy ads aren't obnoxious enough, before we can even get to them we have to pry the disc out from its cocoon of 12 dozen security stickers. Isn't this overkill? At the very least, could you stay away from the glues that leave a nasty tacky residue all over the case?
4.	Enable the "Resume" function on all High-Def discs. On standard DVD, the ability to stop playback and later resume from the place where we left off was a regular feature on almost all DVD players, yet on HD DVD and Blu-ray that function must be actively enabled in the disc authoring itself. For whatever reason, it often gets forgotten, and it's really annoying to viewers. This is a big step backwards in convenience from what we're used to with DVD, so please put some effort into including this feature from now on.
5.	Give us the Unrated/Extended/Director's Cut when available. You know what's irritating? Going to buy a movie you like and finding the longer, funnier, raunchier, more action-packed, whatever version available only on standard DVD, and the High Definition release getting the shaft. Why does that happen? Ideally we want both cuts. You can put them on separate releases if you need to, but don't leave us HD buyers out in the cold.
6.	Make interactive and picture-in-picture features also available for separate playback. Hey, we all think the fancy U-Control, In Movie Experience, etc. advanced features on High-Def discs are pretty nifty, but sometimes rewatching the entire movie just to see what amounts to half an hour or so of behind-the-scenes content isn't what we're in the mood for. How about also making that content available for separate playback in the supplements section of the disc?
7.	Don't waste our time with interactive features if they suck. I don't have much to add to this reader-submitted suggestion, but it struck a chord with me, and I suspect with others as well. We're all for innovation, but don't bother putting some overly complicated feature on a disc if you're not going to put enough thought or effort into it. What comes to mind for this is Universal's U-Control implementation, which forces a viewer to constantly push buttons on the remote to bring up picture-in-picture content for no particular reason. Either we're going to want to watch the PiP content or we're not. Making us push a lot of needless buttons just for the sake of calling the feature "interactive" is really pointless and frustrating.
8.	Don't be cheapskates with your disc art. Here I'm not talking about the keepcase, but artwork screened onto the top of the disc itself. Sure, if it's a double-sided disc that's not an option, no problem. But what's with the generic blue design on most Sony Blu-rays? These High-Def formats are supposed to look fancy and high-end, not like a public domain cheapie pulled out of the bargain bin. Don't cheap out on us. Make it look nice. It can't be that hard.
9.	The more subtitle options the better. Both High-Def disc formats brag about their greatly expanded storage capacity in comparison to DVD. Well, how about using some of that extra room to squeeze in extra subtitles for viewers who don't speak the language of the movie? It seems that English, French, and Spanish are pretty standard, but there are a lot more languages spoken in this country, let alone worldwide. We've even been told about the possibility of downloading extra subtitle tracks into the player that will sync up during movie playback. Innovations like that would be very welcome.
10.	When releasing on both formats, give them the same specs. For the studios releasing on both Blu-ray and HD DVD, it does not seem fair to buyers when the same movie on one format gets lossless audio or nifty bonus features that the other doesn't. Half your customer base now feels slighted by your decision. We realize both formats have their technical limitations, but whenever possible please try to keep your disc specs even and fair.
11.	Be better about day-and-date releasing. Considering how often High-Def discs are delayed for weeks or months beyond the release of the standard DVD version of the same movie, we in the High Definition market often feel like an afterthought. Try to get the HD version out at the same time as the DVD. And this applies as much to catalog title reissues as it does to new releases.
12.	Don't be so secretive about your release calendar. If you want to lure new buyers to your formats, you've got to entice them with titles available and those coming soon. When DVD announcements are made months in advance, why is it that so many studios are tight-lipped about their High-Def plans? Sometimes we don't even know a title is coming until it pops up on retailer shelves. That's no way to build excitement.
13.	Make sure catalog titles have been recently remastered. I debated whether or not to say something about this in my original list, simply because I feel that matters of audio and video quality are best addressed in reviews of the individual titles rather than in blanket lists of suggestions, but the complaint keeps coming up so I feel compelled to mention it here. Unfortunately, High-Def buyers are finding that certain studios (yes, Universal, this means you -- but no, everyone else, it doesn't only mean them) have been dumping catalog titles onto High-Def discs using video masters that are clearly several years old and don't hold up to modern video transfer standards. There's no excuse for a High Definition disc to be plagued with edge enhancement or excessive filtering, yet that's what we're seeing on a lot of older movies. If remastered under current standards, these same movies would no doubt look a lot better. I certainly don't want to discourage studios from digging into their back catalogs, but could you at least take a closer look at some of these older masters before deciding what makes it onto your release calendars, and put the effort into a decent remaster when appropriate?

There you have it, the voice of the people. A baker's dozen of new suggestions to add to my last list. Once more I'll offer the disclaimer to any studio execs who may be reading this: I can't guarantee that following these suggestions will help your format win the war, but doing so will certainly improve your products, and should make High-Def discs more appealing to your target customers.

This is surely not the end of this topic. There will always be things to improve and more to say, so please join us in the forums to continue the discussion.

Earlier on High-Def Digest:
Memo to the Studios: Ten Easy Ways to Improve High-Def Discs (Jun 29, 2007)

High-Def FAQ: Why Don't the Black Bars Go Away?

Fri Jul 13, 2007 at 03:25 PM ET
Tags: Joshua Zyber, High-Def FAQ (all tags)

Editor's Note: As part of his new bi-monthly column here at High-Def Digest, from time to time, Josh Zyber will be answering frequently asked questions related to High-Definition and both HD DVD and Blu-ray. First up: Josh's illustrated answer to one of the most common questions asked by newcomers to the wonders of High-Def.

By Joshua Zyber

It's been a good decade since the DVD revolution first started. In that time, the fastest-growing, most popular home video format on Earth has been overwhelmingly supportive of the concept of Original Aspect Ratio. In laymen's terms, that means displaying movies in the proper shape in which they were originally presented theatrically. Boiled down to its simplest explanation, not all movies are photographed to look the same as one another, and that's why some will fill a TV screen while others are encoded with black bars. The new generation of High Definition video discs have likewise carried on with this mission. And yet, despite 10 years of getting used to the idea, a common misconception still persists that the black bars are a flaw of the DVD format, or some sort of incompatibility with older televisions, and that upgrading to an HDTV and either the HD DVD or Blu-ray formats will somehow "fix" this problem.

To this day, a great many people, upon buying their first HDTV, believe that since the set is "widescreen" that now all movies should automatically fill that screen. When that doesn't happen, some then assume that the issue is caused by the lower resolution DVD format. Now that we're watching movies in "High Definition," shouldn't Blu-ray or HD DVD rectify this by perfectly matching up with a High Definition television? Again, that turns out to not be the case. High Definition in fact has nothing at all to do with the shape of the movie.

To clear up this matter once and for all, I'd like to offer the following visual explanation for why movies are the shape that they are, and why the black bars will not and should not ever go away.

In the Beginning...

At the dawn of the motion picture era, there was no single standardized aspect ratio for silent films. Depending on the camera used, some were a little wider or a little narrower than others, but all were roughly squarish in appearance. Eventually, a standard emerged, known as Academy Ratio. Films of this type measured at an aspect ratio of 1.37:1, which means that the picture was 1.37 times wider than it was tall.

All things considered, this still looks basically square. When television came along, it emulated the movies and gave us a screen with an aspect ratio of 1.33:1 (also expressed as 4:3). The difference between 1.37:1 and 1.33:1 was insignificant, and generally speaking this made for a pretty good fit.

Keep in mind that the explanation I'm giving here has been simplified to its most basic concept. Reality is of course more complicated. Almost all consumer televisions have some degree of overscan, causing the edges of the picture to be masked behind the frame of the screen. For the time being, let's just stick to the general principle.

The Birth of Widescreen

The cinema being a highly creative art form, the notion of a standardized frame ratio didn't stop filmmakers from experimenting with different screen shapes. As early as 1927, Abel Gance shot portions of his epic 'Napoleon' with the intention of projecting three strips of 35mm film side by side, for a ratio of approximately 4:1. Jumping forward to the 1950s, competition from television drove the film industry to begin the move away from Academy Ratio in favor of new, wider screen sizes in order to give audiences a larger, grander experience than they could get at home. Since human peripheral vision sees more on the left and right than on the top and bottom, a wider frame allowed movies to become more immersive, especially on very large theater screens.

Rather than settling on a single new standard, two very different aspect ratios came to dominate movie theaters. Although a number of variations have also appeared over the years, theaters to this day are equipped to project in the following two shapes, with adjustable width or height masking to accommodate both when alternating between movies of each type.

The basic "Flat" widescreen ratio measures 1.85:1, as in this scene from 'The Godfather.'

However, many movies are shot in a "Scope" widescreen ratio of 2.35:1, like this scene from 'Once Upon a Time in the West.'

This has worked out fine in movie theaters, but clearly causes a dilemma when the films come to television or home video.

Like those shape toys we all played with as toddlers, a rectangular block just doesn't fit into a square hole. Something has to give. Unfortunately, the solution most commonly used for decades was to simply slice off the sides the movie image in a process known as "pan & scan," and cram what was left onto the TV screen. This can have a devastating effect on the film's photography, especially on Scope pictures. Close to half of the original image was lost, frequently making scenes difficult to follow.

In this example from 'Once Upon a Time in the West,' we've lost two whole characters from the shot. This was far from an acceptable result, yet the practice of pan & scan persisted for many years as movies were presented on broadcast television and VHS. Thankfully, during the laserdisc heyday of the late '80s and early '90s, an alternative was developed. In the process known as "letterboxing", the wider movie picture was reduced in size until the entire width fit on a squarish TV screen, and the empty space above and below was filled in with black bars.

Contrary to common misperception, the black bars are not covering up part of the movie. They simply fill in the unused space on the TV screen. Obviously, this is a compromise and has a drawback, in that the picture is now smaller and less detailed. Still, at least now the entire image is there. If we have to compromise, this was certainly a better trade-off than pan & scan, and we are all fortunate that DVD (and now Blu-ray and HD DVD) followed suit and also widely adopted letterboxing to preserve the Original Aspect Ratio of each movie we watch.

The HDTV Era

A new century is upon us, and the way we watch television has evolved from the boxy sets of old to shiny new High Definition TVs, which not only provide a better quality picture but are also designed in a widescreen aspect ratio. The 1.78:1 (aka 16:9) shape of an HDTV set is a very close match to the Flat theatrical ratio of 1.85:1. The difference between these two ratios amounts to only a few scan lines, which are usually hidden by the overscan on most consumer TVs anyway.

Now we have a nicer option of watching movies in their Original Aspect Ratio with a bigger picture and without so much wasted screen space. But we're left with the problem of Scope films, which means that letterboxing is still needed for some movies even in High Definition. Fortunately, the compromise is much less severe on an HDTV, so the 2.35:1 movie image is larger and has smaller black bars.

Interestingly, the move to widescreen HDTV has left us with a new dilemma about what to do with old Academy Ratio movies that weren't shot in widescreen. The solution in this case is called "pillarboxing" and involves black bars placed on the sides of the movie image rather than the top and bottom.

Why Do We Need More Than One Aspect Ratio?

A frequent question of new HDTV buyers is why we have so many aspect ratios in the first place. Why doesn't the film community simply unite behind using the Flat ratio of 1.85:1, which will nicely fill an HDTV screen so that we don't ever have to deal with black bars again? The answer, to be blunt, is that movies are made to be seen in movie theaters, not on TV. The choice of aspect ratio is an artistic decision made by each filmmaker. Some movies are better composed for 1.85:1 and others for 2.35:1. You might as well ask why all painters don't use the same size canvas or why all music isn't played in the same key.

Consider two films by Steven Spielberg. The director shot 'Jaws' at 2.35:1 to showcase the vast expanses of open water in the ocean. Yet he shot 'Jurassic Park' at the narrower 1.85:1 ratio to emphasize the height of the dinosaurs. These were two different movies with two different artistic goals, requiring the use of separate aspect ratios.

Is Cropping to 16:9 Really So Bad?

At this point, you may be wondering how movies broadcast on the High Definition cable and satellite channels manage to fill an HDTV without letterboxing. The answer is that Scope movies are typically either cropped through the pan & scan process or presented "open matte" (more on this below).

As we can see from the examples above, chopping a 2.35:1 Scope picture to 4:3 loses almost half the original picture. But cropping from 2.35:1 to 16:9 is a much smaller change. Is that really such a big deal, many will ask. Isn't all of the "important" picture still visible?

Looking at 'Once Upon a Time in the West' again, sure some picture is missing, but we can still tell that there are two guys in the background. Isn't the guy in the middle supposed to be the focus? And how many movies really place "important" picture information at the far edges anyway? Most of the picture is there. Isn't that good enough?

Frankly, no. Photographic composition is an art form. The filmmaker and his Director of Photography use the entire frame and the position of characters or objects within it to create a sense of balance and perspective. The notion that some parts of the picture are more important than others is a fallacy.

In this famous shot from 'Lawrence of Arabia' (photographed in 65mm at an aspect ratio of 2.2:1), you might say that there's a lot of empty room on the left that we don't need to see, but that would miss the point of the shot. Director David Lean carefully uses negative space throughout the frame (on the sides, in the expanse of sky above the characters, and at the horizon in the deep background) to place his characters in proper perspective against their environment. Losing even an inch of this would destroy the intentions of the shot.

The Issue of "Open Matte"

To further complicate matters, adjusting an aspect ratio doesn't always require cropping picture off the sides. Sometimes it involves the exposure of additional picture on the top and bottom of the frame. Many movies are photographed in a manner wherein the entire 1.37:1 film negative is exposed to light, with the intention that parts of the top and bottom of the frame will later be masked off with mattes to achieve the desired theatrical aspect ratio. Usually in these cases, the "full screen" (4:3) video transfer for television or DVD, or the 16:9 transfer aired on networks like HBO-HD, will remove the mattes and fill in the screen with extraneous picture that we didn't see theatrically. So is this a good compromise? We get to see everything the director wanted, plus more. Isn't more always better?

Again, no. We come back to the issue of how the frame was meant to be composed. Adding extra picture can be just as harmful to the balance of a shot as taking some away. For example, here is a frame from the theatrical 2.35:1 release of 'Dark City.'

In this shot, director Alex Proyas has carefully positioned his characters at opposite ends of the frame, and uses the windows between them to form a precise geometrical symmetry. But here is what was actually photographed on the camera negative.

The shot is now vastly different. We can see empty space above and below the theatrical area, as well as some benches that weren't visible before. This change in perspective has an immediate effect of making the characters seem further away from the viewer yet closer to each other, altering the psychological impact of the scene. Unlike the 'Lawrence of Arabia' example above, Proyas wasn't trying to use negative space in his shot. He wants to fill the frame with pertinent visual information. Opening the mattes ruins that. Even a compromise 16:9 framing still shows too much picture that we weren't meant to see, and loses much of the dynamic tension of the original composition.

More is not always better. Usually it's best to just leave things the way they were meant to be.

A Question of Priorities

Filmmakers tend to frame their shots at a desired aspect ratio for a reason, because they have an artistic aesthetic that they're trying to achieve with it. The desire on the part of the home viewer to fill their TV screen is a matter of misplaced priorities. A television, even an expensive HDTV, is just a box. The purpose of the box is to display a movie image, much like a picture frame holds a photograph. If you have a frame that's too big for a photo, you use mattes to hold the picture in place and fill the empty space around it. That's exactly what the black bars do, no more and no less. In the final analysis, it comes down to a decision of which is more important, the picture or the frame. A TV screen doesn't need to be filled to perform its duty properly. The black letterbox or pillarbox bars help it to achieve its purpose.

Black bars are not the enemy. They should not be feared. Even in High Definition, the black bars will never entirely go away, nor should they.

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Memo to the Studios: Ten Easy Ways to Improve High-Def Discs

Fri Jun 29, 2007 at 03:28 PM ET
Tags: Joshua Zyber (all tags)

Editor's Note: With this article, we're pleased to welcome Joshua Zyber as a regular columnist here at High-Def Digest. A long-time movie buff and collector of discs from laserdisc to DVD, Josh is a staff reviewer at DVD Talk, and an enthusiastic supporter of all things High Definition. In this new twice-monthly column, Josh will be discussing a broad range of topics of interest to other early adopters.

Commentary by Joshua Zyber

One year into the great High Definition format war, it's easy to get caught up in the partisan bickering, obsessing over sales statistics and the increasingly antagonistic press releases from each side. To do so, however, one loses sight of the true point and purpose of the Blu-ray and HD DVD formats, which is to provide a quality High Definition product for the end user to enjoy.

Of course, this site and others provide thorough reviews of the video, audio, and content of the latest releases from each format, but sometimes lost are the incidental details that make up the complete experience of owning a High-Def format, from retail store shelves to the finish of disc playback at home.

With that in mind, I humbly offer the following list of generally inexpensive (and completely format-neutral) suggestions to the studios that produce High-Def content. To any studio execs who may be reading this: I can't guarantee that following my advice will help your format win the war, but doing so will certainly improve your products, and should make High-Def discs more appealing to your target customers.

Stop ruining movie cover art with ugly banners and borders.
Yes, we understand that these are new formats and you want to visually distinguish them from DVDs on store shelves, but isn't that what the new case sizes and colors are for? Aren't the "HD DVD" and "Blu-ray" logos at the top of the case enough of a clue for people to figure it out? Do we really need ugly borders intruding into the cover art? High-Def disc buyers are by nature movie fans and collectors. The physical attractiveness of the product on our movie shelves is important to us -- marring that with hideous swooshes and slogans that obscure the poster art is really unappealing.

No more promos for your format before the disc menus.
There is nothing more irritating than firing up a disc in anticipation of watching a movie, only to suffer through a commercial first. We paid for this product, so please don't insult us with advertising, especially when it's an ad for the format we're currently using. Here's a tip: If we're watching a High Definition disc, we don't need a promo telling us how great High Definition is. We already know. You're preaching to the converted, and we just want to get to the movie we paid for.

All discs should have a setup menu before the movie.
I realize this may sound like a contradiction to my last point about getting straight to the movie, but the fact of the matter is that High-Def discs usually have a number of audio, subtitle, and other setup choices to dig through before you can finally sit down to watch the movie. I appreciate the sentiment of studios like Warner and Disney who start their movies up automatically without a lot of obnoxious animated menus, but it's a real nuisance to have to stop the movie after it's started in order to adjust settings, and then restart the movie. This is especially problematic on Blu-ray discs, where pop-up menus usually don't work if the movie is paused. On a typical Disney disc, you have no choice but to navigate through all the menus while the beginning of the movie plays beneath, and then skip back to the start when you're done. That's an absolutely terrible user experience. We don't need (or necessarily want) anything fancy -- just a simple menu page where we can check off our settings and start the movie when we're actually ready for it.

Enough already with the menu clicks and beeps.
On the subject of menus, all those grating beeps, clicks, and cheesy sound effects when you highlight or enter a selection have got to stop. They're nothing but an irritant. Yes, some discs offer the ability to turn them off, but only after you've navigated through a bunch of beeping or clicking menu options to find them. How about if all discs default to menu noises off, and users can turn them on manually if they want them, rather than the other way around? Or even better, just get rid of them altogether.

One last menu request: Simpler is better.
This is a problem that has plagued many standard DVD releases, but it's now unfortunately intruding into the next-gen formats as well. Just because the technology can render fancy 3D animated menus with elaborate graphics dancing all over the screen whenever you make a selection, doesn't mean it should. Nor should a user have to dig through page after page of menus just to find a simple option. The most effective menus are those that are simple, well-organized, and easy to navigate. That applies to the interactive pop-up menus every bit as much as it does the traditional menu pages. I don't know what the studios are doing differently in their disc authoring, but the menus on several recent Blu-ray releases like 'Dirty Dancing' and 'The Messengers' slowed my Blu-ray player down to a crawl, and highlighting a selection doesn't seem to guarantee that the correct action will be taken. The 'Dirty Dancing' menus are especially infuriating. Next time, please remember that complicated does not automatically equal better.

Make adjustable subtitle positioning a standard feature.
I understand that at this point in time nobody is giving a whole lot of thought to the concerns of home projection owners, many of whom are now investing in dedicated 2.35:1 Constant Image Height screens, but it's time to start -- this is a growing segment of your user base. A 2.35:1 CIH screen allows the viewer to watch "scope" movies filling the entire wide screen without letterbox bars, and it works great, except on discs where you need subtitles, which are usually authored to appear in those letterbox bars.

If you take a disc with subtitles encoded to look like the above and watch it on a 2.35:1 screen, you wind up with an image like this:

Thanks a lot. Now the movie is unwatchable, unless you switch to a 16:9 pillarbox mode which leaves you with a much smaller picture surrounded by black bars on all sides.

That's hardly an acceptable solution, but fortunately both formats are capable of better. A number of HD DVDs from Studio Canal in Europe allow viewers to manually adjust the size and position of all subtitles so that those who want the subs entirely inside the movie picture can have them there, while those who want them entirely in the black letterbox bar can put them there instead. Meanwhile, Sony recently announced plans here in the US to include a similar function on their upcoming Blu-ray release of 'Immortal Beloved'. It's great to see this functionality beginning to be used. Projection users would be very happy if every studio could implement this for all 2.35:1 aspect ratio releases as soon as possible.

Always provide the movie's original sound mix.
We live in an age when modern movies have razzle dazzle 5.1 soundtracks or better. That's certainly terrific, but the obsession with "updating" older movies with simpler mono or stereo mixes to 5.1 standards is troubling to film purists, especially when it involves gimmicky artificial pans or the replacement of original sound effects with newly recorded substitutes. I'm sorry, but the butchery that happened to 'The Terminator' was a travesty. If you want to do something like that as an option for people who want it, that's perfectly fine -- just include the original mix, as well. If disc space is an issue, drop one of the dub tracks that are already eating up room anyway.

Include all of the bonus features found on the standard DVD.
Most High-Def consumers buy movie discs with the intention of replacing their old DVDs. They don't want to keep two copies of the same movie sitting around. If the DVD had featurettes, deleted scenes, or a commentary, it's an insult to drop them from the High-Def version. The new formats are supposed to offer everything DVD did and more, not just a few of the things DVD had, selectively chosen when they're convenient.

Don't advertise titles you have no current plans to release.
Every time I put in a Paramount disc and am greeted by their annoying promo with clips from 'The Truman Show', 'Team America', and 'Lemony Snicket', I wonder when those discs are coming out. Likewise, the promo at the start of Sony discs has multiple clips from 'Spider-Man', 'Lawrence of Arabia', and 'Bad Boys II'. How many Warner discs have come packaged with printed inserts promising 'The Shawshank Redemption'? Yet I look on the studio release calendars and not a single one of these titles is currently scheduled. Don't tease us with something you have no immediate plans to deliver. It's misleading and upsetting, and doesn't exactly engender customer loyalty.

10.

Combo discs do not justify premium prices.
This is one specifically for the HD DVD studios, if only for the fact that Blu-ray doesn't have Combo discs. If a High Definition fan is buying an HD DVD, they're buying it for the HD DVD. The standard DVD version on the flip side is not a "bonus" worthy of a premium price, and rationalizations about making the disc more portable aren't fooling anyone. Combos a marketing ploy designed to lure average DVD customers to the new format with promises of backwards compatibility. And that would be fine, if only the strategy were working. As is, the high prices for Combos are scaring away standard DVD buyers who would rather stick with the less expensive DVD-only releases, and are only upsetting HD DVD buyers who are forced to pay extra for a "feature" they rarely want or need. Combos should, at the very least, be priced in accordance with other HD DVDs.

The same general principle applies to most of Fox's Blu-ray releases, which (up until they stopped releasing new discs altogether in April) have usually come deprived of special features, yet are priced higher than discs from fellow Blu-ray studios. Who exactly is that supposed to appeal to?

I feel better getting that off my chest, and I genuinely believe that these suggestions can help improve both formats. Now it's your turn: what would you ask the studios to change about their High-Def disc releases? We've set up a dedicated thread in our forums area for discussion of this topic. Let's hear what matters to you!

Commentary: Year-End Studio Report Cards

High-Def FAQ: Uncompressed vs. Lossless Audio

Commentary: Living in Fear of the Niche

Commentary: Specs vs. Reality

High-Def FAQ: Blu-ray and HD DVD Audio Explained

Commentary: Combo Discs - What Went Wrong?

Commentary: A War of Hype, and Paramount's Big Bombshell

Memo to the Studios Revisited: Our Readers Speak Out

High-Def FAQ: Why Don't the Black Bars Go Away?

Memo to the Studios: Ten Easy Ways to Improve High-Def Discs

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