Posted by Jeff Rife on 04/10/06 16:41

Harlo Peterson (me@privacy.net) wrote in alt.tv.tech.hdtv:
> > Because of this, a 25GB disc is more than enough for a 2-hour movie,
> > and anything more is just going to be filled with lots of useless SD
> > extras.
>
> There are movies longer than 2 hours.
> I would like to be able to see them in
> HD quality without having to use multiple disks.

At 30GB, an HD-DVD can easily hold a 3 hour movie with an average bitrate
of 20Mbps. For a multi-pass compressor, this should be more than enough
for very high quality MPEG-2 for movie-sourced (i.e., 24fps) material.

With alternate compression methods, it wouldn't be hard to imagine that
five hours of movie would look just fine.

> Also HD TV series will fit
> on fewer disks with higher capacity disks.

Although I absolutely love watching TV in HD, I think you'll find that
most series won't benefit enough to make it worthwhile to release them
in full HD. I could see 1280x720/24p as a common format, which would
allow a full season of an hour-long show to fit on two HD-DVD discs.

And, if they re-package SD releases onto larger capacity discs, you'd
easily be able to fit a full season plus lots of extras on two discs.
Surprisingly, though, you won't be able to fit a season onto one disc,
since the requirements for quality 720x480/60i aren't much below that of
1280x720/24p.

--
Jeff Rife |
| http://www.nabs.net/Cartoons/OverTheHedge/HDTV.gif

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