The Unbiased Insider

Here is part one of a multi-part series of articles about the these two formats. All I am going to discuss are facts about both formats. Hopefully you will find them informative.

Part 1: Picture Quality

Since both formats can use the same video codecs (MPEG2, AVC, and VC1) both formats CAN deliver the same picture quality. If a movie is authored in both formats using the same codec (same elementary video stream) the only difference in picture quality that will be seen is hardware based. When a hardware manufacturer is planning HD optical disc product they must choose key devices that will ultimately effect the picture quality of the discs they play.

• Video Decoder - Decodes the video portion of the disc.
• Video Scaler – Allows the user to tailor the output resolution of the player to your particular display.
• Video Processor – Some manufacturers will add a digital video processor after the video decoder to allow for adjustments like color, contrast, brightness, noise reduction, etc…
• Factory Default Picture Settings – Hardware companies choose the default video settings in the player (color, brightness, contract, NR, etc…)

Each one of these items has an effect on the picture quality.

Note: The MPEG2 video codec has gotten a bad wrap lately. I believe this is completely unwarranted. I understand that the first few titles on the Blu-ray format were not reference quality, however the fact that these titles were encoded using MPEG2 is irrelevant. This should be obvious to anyone who has looked at titles such as Momento, Haunted Mansion, Kingdom of Heaven, Tears of the Sun and others. MPEG2 can deliver transparent-to-the-master picture quality. The main difference in the mandatory codecs is their efficiency with compression.

More in the Next Post