Re: [MLUG - DISCUSSION] Warner Backs Blu-ray, Tilting DVD Battle

[Mike Miller <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

On Mon, 7 Jan 2008, Joseph Ondrus wrote:

> I think I have seen those Lost rips you are talking about, I have the 
> same set I believe and those 'HD rips' don't really compare to the 
> standard def. DVD set I own quality wise, the only Lost rip I have seen 
> that looked decent had the SKYHD watermark in the corner.

It depends on how you define "decent."  I grew up watching four channels 
on a 13" b&w tv, so I know what indecent is like!  I also know what my 26" 
Sony Wega set (bought in 2000) looks like, and I would say that it is 
quite good, very decent.  I think the Lost rips also looked pretty good 
but not perfect.  Hey - I just dug one up and figured this out:

Title: Lost.S01E01.HDTV.XviD-LOL
Length: 42:40
Video size: 624 x 352  <-- quite far from HD!
File size: 366,903,296 bytes
Audio codec: MPEG Layer-3 Decoder
Video codec: Nero Video Decoder

There were some artifacts on some of the rips though. Sometimes the audio 
would go out of sync with the video, which can be very annoying, but that 
was probably the fault of the player.

The best video quality I've ever seen was in a Sony outlet store in FL 
last week.  It was a big plasma screen playing a Blu-ray demo disc.  It 
was prtty amazing.  I just wanted to stand and stare at it.  I know better 
than to buy something like that -- I watch too much TV already!  We all 
see plenty of HDTVs demoing stuff in the stores but this was really 
outstanding and better than anything else I've seen.


> x264 is popular with HD rips (h264 I believe is Ahead's [Nero] version), 
> x264.eu is site I might mention for true 1080p and 720p rips. I don't 
> consider downloading an 'HD rip' unless it is around DVD9 (dual layer) 
> size.  Anything less is too far compressed and a loss of quality will be 
> noticed.

I guess DVD9 means more than 4.7 GB and approaching 8.5 GB?  That's 
obviously enormous.  On my nice-but-not-HD TV I have viewed some ripped 
DVDs that were created by taking a dual-layer disc and compressing its 
contents onto a single-layer disc and I couldn't tell the difference.  So 
I guess I'm lucky -- I am blind/deaf enough that I can save money on TV 
and audio equipment!  I'm also OK with most, but not all, 128kbps MP3 
files (I still use VBR 160-224 for mine).

Mike

_______________________________________________
discussion mailing list
EMAIL:PROTECTED
http://mlug.missouri.edu/mailman/listinfo/discussion