Paramounts excuses begin....... (HD DVD)
Posted: Tue Oct 16, 2007 5:40 pmQuote from here:
http://hddvd.highdefdigest.com/1110/transformers.html
When audio specs for 'Transformers' were announced, there was a collective sigh of disappointment from early adopters when we learned that there would be no high-res audio tracks included on this disc. Given that this is such a flagship title for the studio, the decision was quite the head-scratcher.
Indeed, I had the opportunity to attend a special 'Transformers' media event with Paramount late last week, and the question was asked almost immediately -- why no Dolby TrueHD or uncompressed PCM? The studio's answer was that due to space limitations on the disc, the decision was made to limit the audio to Dolby Digital-Plus 5.1 Surround only (here at 1.5mbps). Unfortunately, this confirms the long-held theory that the 30Gb capacity of an HD-30 dual-layer HD DVD disc has forced studios to choose between offering a robust supplements package (as they've done here) and the very best in audio quality.
Picture and audio quality are paramount (excuse the pun) for the High Def format - the interactive features are nice to have extras. When people have spent £1000 on a plasma screen, £500 on a surround system - not to mention the high def player and DVD itself - the studio compromising on either of these is unforgivable.
What was it Bay said about being blown away by HD-DVD - about it being the best format. Me thinks there is more to his about turn than meets the eye (LOL - did you see what I did there - did ya!)
http://hddvd.highdefdigest.com/1110/transformers.html
When audio specs for 'Transformers' were announced, there was a collective sigh of disappointment from early adopters when we learned that there would be no high-res audio tracks included on this disc. Given that this is such a flagship title for the studio, the decision was quite the head-scratcher.
Indeed, I had the opportunity to attend a special 'Transformers' media event with Paramount late last week, and the question was asked almost immediately -- why no Dolby TrueHD or uncompressed PCM? The studio's answer was that due to space limitations on the disc, the decision was made to limit the audio to Dolby Digital-Plus 5.1 Surround only (here at 1.5mbps). Unfortunately, this confirms the long-held theory that the 30Gb capacity of an HD-30 dual-layer HD DVD disc has forced studios to choose between offering a robust supplements package (as they've done here) and the very best in audio quality.
Picture and audio quality are paramount (excuse the pun) for the High Def format - the interactive features are nice to have extras. When people have spent £1000 on a plasma screen, £500 on a surround system - not to mention the high def player and DVD itself - the studio compromising on either of these is unforgivable.
What was it Bay said about being blown away by HD-DVD - about it being the best format. Me thinks there is more to his about turn than meets the eye (LOL - did you see what I did there - did ya!)
). However the point is how long will it be before they start compromising on picture quality too (i.e. higher compression rate)- in order to squeeze more gimmicky extras on the disk - this is highlighted by this line in the above quote:
excusively to HD-DVD has had to compromise (no matter how little) on quality - because of the limited capacity of the HD-DVD disk.