

 x264 project announces first open source Blu-ray encoder - DarkShikari
http://x264dev.multimedia.cx/?p=328

======
WiseWeasel
I've been using BD Rebuilder and x264 to backup and remove the garbage
(endless copyright notices, trailers, logo screens, etc.) from my purchased
BluRays, and it's been doing a great job. I'm amazed by how far I can compress
them down and still have an incredible picture quality, even all the way down
to DVD-5. Recent builds have even been able to give me this quality with
single-pass video encodes, cutting my processing time drastically. Many thanks
to the x264 project (and for jdobbs's great BD Rebuilder) for all your
impressive work.

~~~
jerf
One of the quiet secrets of the format war is that most people would have been
perfectly content with DVD-9 in conjunction with the new codecs, even for
1080p HD.

Videophiles might have noticed a few things on long, action-packed movies, and
a new format isn't all bad anyhow (I'd love a BD-burner for some backup stuff
that is getting annoying on DVD-5, oh look, DVD-9 media is getting reasonably
priced), but the Great and Terrible Need for a new optical format was somewhat
oversold. 9GB really is a _lot_ of data.

~~~
WiseWeasel
Well, 25GB BD-R blanks are going for around $2 a pop, so the format is still
more expensive per MB than DVD-R. That will hopefully change by the end of
this year. If you're only interested in using it for data, and don't care
about the convenience of consolidation, you might do well to wait just a bit
longer until the blanks and drives come down further in price.

That said, I've been getting great use out of my BluRay burner, and it's
really done a lot to convince me to switch completely from buying DVD movies
to buying BluRay, as I can now make backups and keep them protected.

~~~
jerf
I am planning on waiting anyhow. (I'll get one with my "next laptop", which is
at least a year away most likely, barring accident.) But what I look forward
to with BD is being able to back things up in fewer chunks. At the moment, 1
25GB chunk would cover all my highest-priority "critical" data. I'm clocking
in at 15GB declared "critical" right now, so, not a DVD anymore, thanks to
digital cameras and a baby. I commented on the price of DVD9s because last I
had looked (a while ago!) they were about $4 a piece. Now they are only 2-ish,
same as your cited price for a 25GB BD, and that's getting down to where I
might pay for the convenience.

------
MikeCapone
This post contains two .png (lossless) screenshots from Blu-rays that look
absolutely horrible. I don't have much first-hand experience with Blu-rays,
but I wonder if this kind of bad compression is a common thing?

I suppose the big studios do a decent job at encoding (though I might be
wrong). Is this mostly a problem with smaller companies that might not be able
to hire the proper expertise?

No doubt there will be an industry learning curve like with DVDs (with time
they got better).

~~~
DarkShikari
_I don't have much first-hand experience with Blu-rays, but I wonder if this
kind of bad compression is a common thing?_

Fortunately it's not _too_ common, but it's more common than one would like.
This isn't unique to Blu-rays either; it happened a lot with DVDs. Various
problems that I've seen are:

1\. Improperly done telecine (e.g. telecining two different parts of the frame
at different rates, more common in animation).

2\. Badly done framerate-changing (Robot Chicken DVDs).

3\. Completely borked interlacing (Family Guy first season DVDs).

4\. Bad encoders that can't deal with massive bitrate peaks well (Suzumiya
Haruhi no Yuutsu R1 DVDs, see <http://i43.tinypic.com/105b8rk.png>).

The primary problem with Blu-rays is a lack of source quality, not these kinds
of mistakes: a lot of Blu-rays simply don't have any detail beyond SD because
their source material is horrible (examples: Cowboy Bebop: The Movie, Close
Encounters of the Third Kind).

~~~
mikeytown2
Bad encodes, 1/2 the reason for the "magic" script we both developed
<http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=134078>

Output: <http://i43.tinypic.com/2qd4wvk.png>

------
zokier
My understanding is that Blu-Ray has mandatory encryption, and that those
encryption keys are quite expensive. I'm not even sure that Blu-Ray
Association would allow FOSS BR authoring tools.

~~~
DarkShikari
In theory it requires encryption, but no actual Blu-ray players care, so you
can pretty much ignore that requirement.

------
MikeCapone
Somewhat off topic: Has anyone heard anything about Google and VP8? Weren't
they supposed to be making an announcement about it (or was that just a
rumor)?

~~~
wmf
They're supposed to be making an announcement at the I/O conference next
month.

