'Enron' - High-Def Digest review

[jed]

Kenneth's review of 'Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room' is up. Like its previously-released Blu-ray counterpart, Kenneth says this HD DVD boasts good picture and audio quality (particularly for a documentary), and falters only in the supplements category, which lacks many of the bonus features available on the standard def DVD.

Full review here:
http://hddvd.highdefdigest.com/enron...intheroom.html

[timbobarry]

Now if Netflix will ever get this in which still says Unknown release date, I can watch this.

[Patsfan123]

HD DVD cannot do Dolby Digital @ 640kbit, its in the spec and the Dolby insider at AVS confirmed it. Thats why they made DD+, so that they could get past the limitation. I don't know the details but its the same reason why DVDs couldn't do 640kbit. The max HD DVD in legacy Dolby Digital is 504kbit.

[Ken Brown]

Originally Posted by Patsfan123

HD DVD cannot do Dolby Digital @ 640kbit, its in the spec and the Dolby insider at AVS confirmed it. Thats why they made DD+, so that they could get past the limitation. I don't know the details but its the same reason why DVDs couldn't do 640kbit. The max HD DVD in legacy Dolby Digital is 504kbit.

We're always interested in keeping things as accurate as possible -- could you post the link to this information? The studios and information from the involved formats have previously informed us that a typical HD DVD Dolby Digital track is 640 kbps standard.

Unfortunately, we would need more than an insider's word to change this information, but I would still be curious to research the issue.

Thanks for posting!

[Josh Z]

Originally Posted by Ken Brown

We're always interested in keeping things as accurate as possible -- could you post the link to this information? The studios and information from the involved formats have previously informed us that a typical HD DVD Dolby Digital track is 640 kbps standard.

Ken, HD DVDs use Dolby Digital Plus as their base standard, not standard Dolby Digital. DD+ can be 640 kb/s (most Warner titles) or 1.5 mb/s (most Universal and Paramount titles).

Blu-ray, on the other hand, uses standard Dolby Digital at 640 kb/s. DD cannot go higher than 640. Beyond that, they'd have to use DD+ or TrueHD.

[Blurry]

Originally Posted by Ken Brown

We're always interested in keeping things as accurate as possible -- could you post the link to this information? The studios and information from the involved formats have previously informed us that a typical HD DVD Dolby Digital track is 640 kbps standard.

Unfortunately, we would need more than an insider's word to change this information, but I would still be curious to research the issue.

Thanks for posting!

DD+ has no problem being at 640Kbit and can go up to 1.5Mbps, normal DD is not relevant since HD DVD generally does not use it.

[Ken Brown]

Originally Posted by Josh Z

Ken, HD DVDs use Dolby Digital Plus as their base standard, not standard Dolby Digital. DD+ can be 640 kb/s (most Warner titles) or 1.5 mb/s (most Universal and Paramount titles).

Blu-ray, on the other hand, uses standard Dolby Digital at 640 kb/s. DD cannot go higher than 640. Beyond that, they'd have to use DD+ or TrueHD.

Sorry if I wasn't clear, but I knew all that. If you read my review, 'Enron' comes with three options -- a regular Dolby Digital track, a Dolby Digital-Plus track, and a DTS-HD track.

I was pointing out that I had been led to believe that a standard Dolby Digital track on HD DVD (as is included on this release of 'Enron') is 640 kbps -- and that a Plus track is typically 1.5 Mbps.

Thanks for the explanation, but I wasn't asking a question about the basics, just about this specific release. Again, sorry if I seemed confused about the fundementals -- I was not.

[Ken Brown]

Originally Posted by Blurry

DD+ has no problem being at 640Kbit and can go up to 1.5Mbps, normal DD is not relevant since HD DVD generally does not use it.

I appreciate where you're coming from -- but it's not irrelevant in this case because this HD DVD release of 'Enron' does have a standard Dolby Digital track as well as a Digital-Plus track.

I must not inspire much confidence in you two -- everyone's trying to teach me the basics haha. Thanks again for posting, but I'm still looking for an answer to my actual question.

The original poster wrote that a Dolby Digital mix can't achieve 640 kbps on HD DVD without using a Plus track. I'm asking where he got that specific technical information since he quoted an "insider".

[timbobarry]

Dolby Digital has a max bitrate of 448kbps on HD DVD. Also since it was brought up about the max Dolby Digital Plus bitrate, it is not 1.5mbps but can be up to 3mbps on HD DVD.

From http://www.dolby.com/images/professi...rt02_800px.jpg

[Ken Brown]

Originally Posted by timbobarry

Dolby Digital has a max bitrate of 448kbps on HD DVD. Also since it was brought up about the max Dolby Digital Plus bitrate, it is not 1.5mbps but can be up to 3mbps on HD DVD.

Thank you sir!

Good reference chart -- to clarify, the typical Plus bitrate is 1.5 Mbps but it is capable of more. However, when studios want the bitrate higher, they usually use a TrueHD track.

Thanks again for posting.

[Patsfan123]

Originally Posted by Ken Brown

We're always interested in keeping things as accurate as possible -- could you post the link to this information? The studios and information from the involved formats have previously informed us that a typical HD DVD Dolby Digital track is 640 kbps standard.

Unfortunately, we would need more than an insider's word to change this information, but I would still be curious to research the issue.

Thanks for posting!

Here's a link to the technical information of why 640k DD is not possible on HD DVD.

[SnaggS]

Didn't even realise this had been released on HD-DVD.. Fantastic! Lets see some more Doco's to HD. They are really things you tend to watch over and over again.

Daniel

[Arkadin]

Yeah me neither. They must have really slipped this one out. I had no idea.