No Blu-ray Exclusivity on 24-fps Video Output, HD DVD Retorts

The rebuttal addressed statements by Don Eklund, Sony Pictures exec. vp-advanced technologies, at a London news conference Fri. He told reporters Blu-ray had an option for dedicated 24-fps output to TV displays with the appropriate input and scan rate, and said “To my knowledge, this is not possible with HD DVD.”

Eklund’s raising the 24-fps issue likely was meant to appeal to viewers in Europe, where the scan rate for broadcasts and TVs is 25 fps. When 24-fps content is displayed there, the video and audio are sped-up 4%. Although the effect on video is negligible to most, the rise in audio pitch is discernable by some. “With BD [Blu-ray], European releases will no longer need a pitch shift,” Eklund said.

In fact, all content that originates from film is mastered at 24 fps for DVDs, Blu-ray discs and HD DVDs. In markets where TV operates at 30 fps, such as the U.S. and Japan, the 24-fps programming undergoes 3:2 conversion or “pulldown” to create a seamless progressive display at 60 fps with no change in speed or pitch, although some critics contend the processing produces visible artefacts. “Europe is not used to seeing the motion artefacts from 3:2 pulldown that the U.S. has gotten used to over the years,” Eklund told reporters. “TV manufacturers will soon start offering 24-fps inputs,” and although the option isn’t mandatory, Panasonic, Pioneer and Sony will implement it in their Blu-ray players, he said.

Eklund’s claims of unique 24-fps capabilities for Blu- ray vs. HD DVD are “incorrect and quite confusing,” said HD DVD’s representative, Kevin Collins, Microsoft dir.-HD DVD. Collins also serves as spokesman for the HD DVD Promotional Group. “The ability to playback content at the native 24 fps is not something that is unique to either format,” he said. “All movie film content is encoded at 1080p/24fps. This is not something that is unique to Blu-ray, ask anyone from the studios that are agnostic. “In fact, the HD DVD Mobile Experience demos are running at 24 fps or a derivative such as 48 fps using the HD-AX1 Toshiba player” and a display with multiscan capability, he said, referring to HD DVD’s U.S. road tour in an 18-wheel trailer.

Elaborating on the Collins comments -- and addressing Eklund’s -- was Mark Knox, spokesman for Toshiba’s HD DVD Promotion Group, not to be confused with the HD DVD Promotional Group that Collins represents. He agreed neither format has a unique capability for 24-fps output and display, and said it’s a stretch for each to claim otherwise.

“Those TVs with 24-fps display are a pretty limited group,” Knox told us. Even only Sony’s SXRD front projectors can do that, and Pioneer’s top plasma panel smooths out a player’s 60p output to 72-fps, which is a derivative of 24 fps.” Current HDTVs from Mitsubishi, Sharp and Toshiba don’t display 24 fps natively, although those companies are working on sets that deal with multiples of 24 fps, such as 72- or even 120-fps, Knox said. “It takes quite a bit to accomplish, and at some point you're playing with the limitations of the HDMI connector.”

Toshiba’s forthcoming top-shelf HD-AX2 player won’t output 24 fps natively, Knox confirmed. For that matter, Sony’s first-generation Blu-ray player doesn’t either, Eklund said Fri. Until Blu-ray players can, they'll automatically perform 3:2 pulldown from 24 fps discs. Panasonic’s player might be an exception. The company is “expected” to enable its current player for 24 fps through a firmware upgrade, Eklund said.

Separately, HD DVD took issue with another claim of Blu- ray’s superiority over HD DVD for the European market, where discs would need soundtracks in multiple languages. “With multiple languages on some titles you soon run out of disc space -- 30 gigabytes is just not adequate for European market,” Eklund told reporters Fri., alluding to HD DVD’s current top-capacity but not addressing Blu-ray’s existing 25 GB limitation.

But Blu-ray’s claims that 30 GB isn’t sufficient for all the languages European discs will require are false, Collins told us. “As a case in point, the King Kong international version will be one of the longest movies on either format, it will include reference quality video and audio, and it has numerous language options fitting quite nicely on a HD DVD disc,” he said. “That’s not to mention that HD DVD is the only format that offers combo discs - a disc with both HD DVD and DVD versions of the movie on it,” he said. HD DVD’s “combo” is a 2-sided disc with HD and SD versions of the content on either side -- possibly because of the formats DVD-like structure of 2 substrates of 0.6-mm thickness bonded back to back. Blu-ray to date has a single-sided structure with its substrate at a depth of 1.1-mm below a 0.1-mm protective layer.