Blu-ray MPEG-4, BD-J tools on the way from Matsushita (Panasonic) [Update 1]
The early impressions of Sony's initial Blu-ray releases are in and as you may have heard, they aren't so good. Many have pointed the blame at Sony's insistence on using MPEG-2 instead of the newer and more easily compressed MPEG-4. One of the reasons they cited for sticking with the older format was their insistence that the MPEG-4 authoring tools available were not of sufficient quality.Whether that is true or not, Matsushita (Panasonic) has announced their own set of MPEG-4 Blu-ray encoder and authoring tools, which support Java (BD-J) for the interactive features Blu-ray is also capable of. According to what we can interpret of the press release, this will be available July 1st in United States yet Panasonic's (US) web site has no mention of it yet. Also no mention of cost or license fees, although this probably won't be on the shelf at CompUSA anytime soon.
Regardless, considering the apparent state of Blu-ray releases, we can't say for sure how much of the problem is the codec but one has to wonder how many discs will be released using the older technology if they continue to get poor reviews. Rumors have indicated the authoring tools made available by Sony support only MPEG-2 and for that reason all the studios have been using them. It will be interesting to see if there is any release date reshuffling of content in the same way some players have slipped, or if the other studios are able to get better results using Sony's own tools.
[Via AV Watch]
[Update] HDTV UK has more information on the MPEG-4 equipment available soon at the Panasonic Hollywood Library in California.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Adam @ Jun 23rd 2006 8:51AM
"more easily compressed MPEG-4."
huh? MPEG-4 demands much more computational power than MPEG-2. it also gets lost in the "art" of tweeking settings to maximize video quality, while simultaneously maximizing the amount of compression to bring the movie down to a manageable level from a delivery standpoint.
studios are not up to speed yet with the art of MPEG-4 compression, whereras a multitude of MPEG-2 studios have mastered it. this will change quickly, but is not true today.
Ben Hobbs @ Jun 23rd 2006 10:17AM
The article is intimating that MPEG4 compresses down further than MPEG2, so the same movie at the same quality can be 10Gb instead of 15Gb.
What this will enable them to do is to minimise compression and thus artifacts, macroblocking etc....
I don't see how you think that no-one has mastered MPEG4 seeing as my digital mini-camcorder records onto it at DVD quality perfectly well.
Both are IMO inferior to VC1 and I don't believe that MPEG2 should have any place in so called 'next generation' technology.
Yo @ Jun 23rd 2006 2:05PM
Sony took the easy way out by using MPEG 2, I think that would be fine for movies like Hitch that comedies, but for action movies Spider-Man I want to see MPEG 4. Also what is with WHV putting out Dukes of Hazzard and Bruce Lee movies? Let put a stupid tv show movie, on HD and take a 30 year old movie and put that on our newest technology. Is it me or are studios really just this dumb!
Kevin M. @ Jun 23rd 2006 2:11PM
People... codec efficiency is not linear. MPEG-4 is more efficient ("looks better") at a lower bit rate, where as MPEG-2 is better at a higher rate. VC-1 is another animal, which is an even higher efficency than MPEG-4, so it's suitable for a 15 GB HD DVD.
In a Blu-ray supporter, but it was a mistake to release this early. I believe the poorly reviewed movies are single-layer, and MPEG-2, which equals poor quality, unfortunately. However, once 50 GB discs are used, it's over Johnny. HD DVD won't be able to stand up to the quality Blu-ray can offer.
I said it before. HD DVD rushed Blu-ray to the market, and its just not ready. Technology takes time to develop, but the market doesn't care. HD DVD is at the top of its game right now, unless the mystical 3-layer actually works out (guess which format already has finished designing a working 200 GB disc...) but Blu-ray is going to improve upon its currently lackluster quality.
siva @ Jun 23rd 2006 3:14PM
Anyone that says VC1 is better than H.264 is nuts. H.264 scales well from cell phone size video to HD and beyond. Have you seen the HD videos of various movie trailers at Apple's site all encoded in H.264. Looks great at 1080p. Of course, it requires a lot of Horsepower to decode these files. I would prefer a technology that was authored and controlled by a group of companies using an open licensing model like MPEG4, rather than Microsoft's VC1. I hope future Bluray movies are in H.264 instead of VC1.