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vudu pricing vs Amazon Unbox

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  • desmond212
    replied
    Re: vudu pricing vs Amazon Unbox

    Originally posted by NA9D View Post
    I'm not sure what HD-DVD and Blu-Ray use.

    But I know for a FACT that the Vudu uses H.264. SD movies are around 1.5 to 2 Gigabytes in size and HD movies are 3 to 4 Gigabytes. How do I know this? I've been testing the product and working with Vudu engineers for 11 months. Yeah, it's a damn good picture for 4 Gigs of size.
    there are other factors such as codec bandwidth that affect file size greatly (BD's use 40Mbs for primary video, another 10 for secondary video and lossless audio).

    Leave a comment:


  • mag12203
    replied
    Re: vudu pricing vs Amazon Unbox

    Originally posted by rstone View Post
    I'm curious how you did that when on their website it clearly says you can only rent Live Free or Die hard for $3.99. Same thing for waitress... says $3.99 for rental... strange...

    http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...RFZRA226TDM4YQ

    http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...RFZRA226TDM4YQ

    Knowing that, Vudu is in line with Amazon... so I have no clue where your getting your facts or numbers from.
    It was under special renting on my Tivo HD and was probably only a weekend special. Oh and I also have the Tivo connected to my network so maybe that makes a difference.

    Leave a comment:


  • redwein
    replied
    Re: vudu pricing vs Amazon Unbox

    It seems to me that HD refers to resolution only. Compression is orthogonal and the more compression you use, the more loss and artifacts can occur.

    Leave a comment:


  • NA9D
    replied
    Re: Who is to say what is truly HD?

    Originally posted by Nded View Post
    The challenge here is that there is no HD authority with quality standards that are enforced on a recording that claims to be HD. At the most simplest of levels, High Definition TeleVision (HDTV) means "a TV that displays 1280x720 pixels or better"
    Bingo. I see pixelation on my HD cable and also on broadcast all the time. It's still considered "HD" as it is 1280x720 or higher.

    Leave a comment:


  • NA9D
    replied
    Re: vudu pricing vs Amazon Unbox

    Originally posted by rstone View Post
    I would say based on that, your avg HD movie in HD-DVD is alot more than 15gb.
    Here's where I got 15 GB from:

    HD DVD-R and HD DVD-RW have a single-layer capacity of 15 GB, a dual-layer capacity of 30 GB

    See the disc structure section in the link...

    My bad then in getting movie sizes wrong. I was talking about the size of the disc - and I hit it on the head for single layer. However, as has been pointed out, do those file sizes you stated consist of only the main title and English tracks or does it include all the secondary info. I would bet that there is GB (not gb, btw ) of data on those discs that is not the movie itself. In fact, given that some of your discs showed upwards of 27 GB, this would indicate dual layer HD-DVD disks and since the dual layer is at most 30 GB, then the movie files would be a lot smaller since there is likely way more than 3 GB of extra stuff on the disc.


    Can you post file sizes for just the main title and none of the extra content?

    Leave a comment:


  • Nded
    replied
    Who is to say what is truly HD?

    Originally posted by rstone View Post
    Well it depends on what your telling people... if your saying its 1080p quality, then thats totally misleading if your degrading the quality. Don't get me wrong, I'll take HD in whatever quality format Vudu is willing to give it, and I am happy they are offering it and hope they offer more. I just think if your going to say its true HD quality, then it should be done without degrading the quality through whatever means is being used.
    The challenge here is that there is no HD authority with quality standards that are enforced on a recording that claims to be HD. At the most simplest of levels, High Definition TeleVision (HDTV) means "a TV that displays 1280x720 pixels or better" (see http://hdguru.com/glossary/), while SDTV (standard definition TV) is 480i, which is approximately the resolution of NTSC and DVDs. When Vudu says something is HD, that means the studio has given them a source that they (the studio) claim is High Definition content. Therefore, when Vudu digitizes and compresses this source they shoot for a file size that can be streamed at 4MB, while SD content is is compressed for playback at 2MB. Now many of these sources are originally recorded on film, which can actually contain images at much higher resolution then the limits of even the best 1080p monitor. Of course, not all films are recorded with the same quality of cameras or equipment, so the actual quality of the sources can vary drastically.

    Where does this get us in regards to whether or not something is HD vs whether or not something looks great? For example, if you spend a $1.99 and watch the pilot for Arrested Development, you will see some really great looking images that are Standard Definition content. I was surprised at how much better they looked compared to my recordings of the same episodes from my cable service. The source material was really good, so the output looks really good, even though it is not considered to be HD content. On the other hand, I won't be a bit surprised if we see some titles in the future that have the HD label, but don't look as good as a great SD recording. This is because the company that produced the content did a poor job producing the content.

    To me the bottom line is I don't care if the label says HD or not, I care if it looks good. With that in mind, go back and watch the Bourne HD content and ask yourself if you find it acceptable. Those movies reflect the quality of HD on the Vudu that has the potential to be streamed to users with a fast enough internet connection. I don't know what the native resolution is of those recordings, I just know they look darn good to me. If you aren't satisified with them, then the Vudu may not be right for you. It sure is right for me.

    Leave a comment:


  • gazzie4
    replied
    Re: vudu pricing vs Amazon Unbox

    Maybe they could consider 2 qualities, a watch it now quality, the current, and a watch it later, or download for later viewing which has a higher bit rate so you don't sacrifice the quality especially on purchases over rentals.

    Leave a comment:


  • rstone
    replied
    Re: vudu pricing vs Amazon Unbox

    Originally posted by NA9D View Post
    But if HD is able to be streamed - is it worth a slightly less good picture to have instant availability w/o physical media?
    Well it depends on what your telling people... if your saying its 1080p quality, then thats totally misleading if your degrading the quality. Don't get me wrong, I'll take HD in whatever quality format Vudu is willing to give it, and I am happy they are offering it and hope they offer more. I just think if your going to say its true HD quality, then it should be done without degrading the quality through whatever means is being used.

    Leave a comment:


  • rstone
    replied
    Re: vudu pricing vs Amazon Unbox

    Originally posted by NA9D View Post
    I think the average Blu-Ray/HD-DVD disc is around 15 Gigabytes - so say 3 to 4 times more than Vudu. Is there a sacrifice? Perhaps - people have complained of banding on the Bourne movies. But if HD is able to be streamed - is it worth a slightly less good picture to have instant availability w/o physical media?
    I'm not sure where your getting your numbers, but here is the list I found for HD-DVD movies.

    12 Monkeys: 21.9 GiB - 23 532 732 416 bytes
    2 Fast 2 Furious: 21.2 GiB - 22 857 646 080 bytes
    The Adventures Of Robin Hood: 27.2 GB - 29 238 362 112 bytes
    Apollo 13: 27.6 GiB - 29 643 898 880 bytes
    Batman Begins: 24.8 GiB - 26 637 697 024 bytes
    Blazing Saddles: 25.4 GiB - 27 279 753 216 bytes
    Caddyshack: 19.7 GiB - 19 315 032 064 bytes
    Casablanca: 22.4 GiB - 24 411 897 856 bytes
    Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: 26.6 GiB - 28 594 405 376 bytes
    Chronicles of Riddick: 26.3 GiB - 28 246 081 536
    Constantine: 21.9 GiB - 23 585 423 360 bytes
    Corpse Bride: 19.0 GiB - 20 497 760 256 bytes
    The Dirty Dozen: 27.6 GiB - 29 692 461 056 bytes
    End Of Days: 27.7 GiB - 29 766 647 808 bytes
    Excalibur: 19.2 GiB - 20 639 776 768 bytes
    Fast Times At Ridgemont High: 12.6 GiB - 13 579 911 168 bytes
    The Fast And The Furious: 27.5 GiB - 29 612 965 888 bytes
    Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas: 22.6 GiB - 24 271 781 888 bytes
    The Frighteners: 25.7GiB - 27 640 059 904 bytes (Documentary 7.62 GiB, Main Feature 17.1 GiB)
    The Fugitive: 18.2 GiB - 19 560 988 672 bytes
    Grand Prix: 22.3 GiB - 23 962 320 896 bytes
    Happy Feet: 14.8 GiB - 15 912 293 191 bytes
    Happy Gilmore: 15.1 GiB - 16 233 070 592 bytes
    The Italian Job: 24.1 GiB - 25 893 535 744 bytes
    Jarhead: 24.7 GiB - 26 563 248 128 bytes.
    King Kong: 27.4 GiB - 29 482 090 496 bytes
    The Last Samurai: 27.3 GiB - 29 348 200 448 bytes
    The Manchurian Candidate: 27.0 GiB - 29 061 021 696 bytes
    Mission Impossible: III Disk 1: 26.7 GiB - 28 771 549 184 bytes
    Mission Impossible: III Disk 2: 22.6 GiB - 24 372 641 792 bytes
    Pitch Black: 21.3 GiB - 22 956 670 976 bytes
    The Polar Express: 13.0 GiB - 14 009 499 648 bytes
    Ray: 27.0 GiB - 29 091 430 400 bytes
    Seabiscuit: 25.3 GiB - 27 192 066 048 bytes
    The Searchers: 27.8 GiB - 29 869 342 720 bytes
    Serenity: 19.6 GiB - 21 070 675 968 bytes
    Spartacus: 27.6 GiB - 29 655 302 144 bytes
    Swordfish: 18.4 GiB - 19 812 646 912 bytes
    The Thing: 25.6 GiB - 27 549 171 712 bytes
    Tomb Raider: 26.0 GiB - 27 938 652 160 bytes
    Training Day: 22.5 GiB - 24 214 634 496 bytes
    Troy: 22.6 GB - 24 311 234 560 bytes
    U2 - Rattle & Hum: 17.2 GiB - 18 567 331 840 bytes
    U-571: 23.2 GiB - 24 999 755 766 bytes
    Under Siege: 17.4 GiB - 18 735 300 608 bytes
    Unforgiven: 25.7 GiB - 27 656 454 144 bytes
    Van Helsing: 25.4 GiB - 27 365 212 160 bytes
    We Were Soldiers: 27.1 GiB - 29 150 216 192 bytes

    I would say based on that, your avg HD movie in HD-DVD is alot more than 15gb.

    Leave a comment:


  • skeeterfood
    replied
    Re: vudu pricing vs Amazon Unbox

    But does that 15GB include the main title with multiple audio tracks and the extras, or just the Main Title with English audio track, which is a more valid comparison point?

    In the end though, what really matters is do you see artifacts when you watch the movie? From what I've watched so far, most of the SD encodings look great upscaled to 1080i on my TV. Oceans 13 is one exception. It looked like crap in multiple places. The Bourne movies look even better.

    -John

    Leave a comment:


  • NA9D
    replied
    Re: vudu pricing vs Amazon Unbox

    I think the average Blu-Ray/HD-DVD disc is around 15 Gigabytes - so say 3 to 4 times more than Vudu. Is there a sacrifice? Perhaps - people have complained of banding on the Bourne movies. But if HD is able to be streamed - is it worth a slightly less good picture to have instant availability w/o physical media?

    Leave a comment:


  • skeeterfood
    replied
    Re: vudu pricing vs Amazon Unbox

    To set things straight:

    All HD DVD and Blu-ray players must support the following codecs:
    MPEG-2
    H.264/AVC
    SMPTE VC-1

    Most of the discs out there are in either VC-1 or H.264/AVC. So they're taking advantage of the same "new" H.264 technology. The only remaining question is how much space the average HD-DVD/Blue-Ray movie takes up and how that compares to the Vudu's 4-5Gb per HD movie.

    -John

    Leave a comment:


  • Nded
    replied
    Re: vudu pricing vs Amazon Unbox

    The animated dead horse was meant to be a humorous item folks. I guess I should have included a bunch of smilies after it. Please don't take everything so seriously. The concern about HD files being too big to stream is an "old media" problem that doesn't affect the Vudu experience.

    Leave a comment:


  • gazzie4
    replied
    Re: vudu pricing vs Amazon Unbox

    HD DVD uses the MPEG 4 AVC compression. Blu Ray uses Mpeg 2

    Leave a comment:


  • gazzie4
    replied
    Re: vudu pricing vs Amazon Unbox

    No, as if you use divx to compress a dvd to divx, it uses mpeg4 and shrinks the dvd from 9 gig to around 1 gig with little to no loss.

    Leave a comment:

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