[mythtv-users] [OT] - VUDU - On-Demand 1080p movies

[Robert McNamara]

On Tue, Feb 24, 2009 at 11:28 AM, Mark Knecht <markknecht at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Feb 24, 2009 at 10:58 AM, Robert McNamara
> <robert.mcnamara at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Tue, Feb 24, 2009 at 10:51 AM, Mark Knecht <markknecht at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> This just in on a list I subscribe to:
>>>
>>> [QUOTE]
>>>
>>> VUDU, Inc., a leading provider of digital on-demand entertainment
>>> products and services, today announced it has achieved another
>>> industry milestone by becoming the first on-demand service to offer
>>> high definition  movies for download to own on its popular 1080p
>>> Internet Movie Player. HD movies are available for purchase today to
>>> all Vudu owners.
>>>
>>> [QUOTE]
>>>
>>> I wonder what that would do to my Comcast bandwidth budget? ;-)
>>>
>>> Cheers,
>>> Mark
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>>> mythtv-users mailing list
>>> mythtv-users at mythtv.org
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>>>
>>
>> Don't worry, if they hit even 25% of blu-ray bitrate I'll eat my hat.
>> :)
>
> I'm not worried. Just passing along the message. I don't use VUDU and
> our NetFlix Instant Watch usage isn't going to hit my 250GB limit.
>
>> They focus on the flashy term (1080p) but not on the metrics that
>> actually tells you whether it'll be worth watching (codec, bitrate,
>> and encoding options).
>
> Absolutely. 1080p of a black screen probably isn't many packets. ;-)
>
>>
>> I'll guess it'll be h.264, but probably 4-8 Mbit.  Probably acceptable
>> for the average person but I'll hand on to my 40+ Mbit Blu ray disks
>> for now.  ;)
>>
>
> Are you enjoying BluRay? We've talked about getting one but haven't
> bothered yet as we don't have a 1080p TV.
>
> - Mark
>
>> Robert
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>>
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>

I like it a lot.  My downstairs Myth setup is a large projection
screen, which is where it really shines.  I rip my Blu ray disks in
AnyDVD HD in a VM, and move the main movie file into MythVideo.  Most
of the HD audio codecs are at least partially handled in libavcodec
now.  The one glaring omission in DTS-HD which, while the information
exists to parse out the DTS "core", is still unimplemented in
libavcodec.  It mostly works fantastically, albeit with accordingly
increased processor needs.  Upstairs on the 32" screen, the advantages
are less obvious, but it's still quite good looking.

Previously my "Wow!" standard for Blu Ray has been Planet Earth, but
recently the Blu Ray of The Dark Knight joined it.  Some disks have
so-so masters, but these are the disks in my collection that made the
purchase worthwhile.

I have a PS3 for the few disks I have that have DTS-HD only audio
tracks, but those items are already in MythVideo waiting for the day
DTS-HD parsing becomes available.

On a related note, the Internal player plays authentic Blu-ray movie
files (read: not internetty-downloady-stuff) soooooooooooooo much
better than any external player, which invariably requires manually
setting the demuxer and the audio PIDs.  In Internal, It all plays
immediately and if the audio track autodetects wrong, it's just an
M->Audio Track->Select away from being right.  Very very smooth and my
preferred way to watch the material.  All the devs, but particularly
Janne should be proud of how well this all works.

Take care,

Robert