Category Archives: Codecs

Edge compression effects

Posted on August 22, 2010 by Stephen Dawson

I’m working up a Blu-ray vs DVD comparison for the 2005 version of Pride & Prejudice and noticed something interesting. [Update: the comparison is here.] Virtually all widescreen Blu-ray discs have, in my experience, conformed to a convention where the … Continue reading →

Posted in Blu-ray, Codecs, Compression, Video | 1 Comment

Finding solutions

Posted on August 16, 2010 by Stephen Dawson

One of the fun bits of this job is inventing protocols to unambiguously determine different aspects of performance. While this is now largely a thing of the past (since most Blu-ray players now feature full audio decoding for all codecs), … Continue reading →

Posted in Audio, Blu-ray, Codecs, Giveaway, Testing | 2 Comments

Will MPEG4 AVC become the dominant Blu-ray video codec?

Posted on August 3, 2010 by Stephen Dawson

I’m just wondering because the only Blu-ray 3D codec is MPEG4 MVC, which is an extension of MPEG4 AVC. The likes of Warner Bros which has pretty much entirely used VC1 will have to use MPEG4 MVC for any 3D … Continue reading →

Posted in 3D, Blu-ray, Codecs | 2 Comments

‘I’ frame rate

Posted on March 30, 2010 by Stephen Dawson

MPEG2, VC1 and MPEG4 AVC are all video compression systems that work both intra-frame, and inter-frame. Intra-frame is like JPEG (or like DV for that matter). Each frame of the video is treated as its own independent entity and compressed … Continue reading →

Posted in Blu-ray, Codecs, Compression, How Things Work, Video | 4 Comments

Video bitrates for digital TV stations

Posted on March 25, 2010 by Stephen Dawson

Rather than doing my usual mini-review for The Canberra Times for this coming Monday, I’ve done a piece on digital TV. Primarily, what it now offers. In preparing for it, I’ve gathered and calculated the basic technical specs for the … Continue reading →

Posted in Codecs, DTV, HDTV, Video | 6 Comments

Paranormal Activity and DTS-HD Master Audio

Posted on March 11, 2010 by Stephen Dawson

Icon Film Distribution is releasing Paranormal Activity in Australia on Blu-ray and DVD on 2 April. This is a film that cost about $US15,000 to make and has since done about $US100 million at the box office. Pretty good ROI! … Continue reading →

Posted in Audio, Blu-ray, Codecs, Compression, Disc details | 1 Comment

Efficiency of Audio Codecs

Posted on February 17, 2010 by Stephen Dawson

Elsewhere it was pointed out that in my earlier post I was counting in the bitrate of Dolby TrueHD the standard Dolby Digital core, and that this is strictly not necessary for TrueHD. The reason I do that is that … Continue reading →

Posted in Audio, Codecs, Compression | Leave a comment

Eight channel PCM

Posted on December 11, 2007 by Stephen Dawson

A reader, Michael, has emailed me about a previous post. He says: Another interesting post there. The Dolby email was quite interesting.I have older AVR without HDMI, so I have an interest in the ability of my receiver (RX-V757) to … Continue reading →

Posted in Audio, Blu-ray, Codecs, HDMI | Leave a comment

Decoding, yes, but in which box?

Posted on December 1, 2007 by Stephen Dawson

The other day I emailed Dolby a question concerning where it thinks Dolby TrueHD and Dolby Digital Plus will end up being decoded. I think their views also related to DTS-HD Master Audio and DTS-HD High Resolution, although of course … Continue reading →

Posted in Audio, Blu-ray, Codecs, Equipment | Leave a comment

Digital TV bitrates in Canberra

Posted on November 2, 2004 by Stephen Dawson

Vince writes: Could you place (or give a link) on your blog the local TV stations bit rates that I have variously seen in your articles to the Canberra times? Why not? First, though, I should note that the following … Continue reading →

Posted in Codecs, Compression, DTV, HDTV | Leave a comment