SD Blu-ray

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SD Blu-ray disc is a Blu-ray disc on which the main feature is standard-definition video instead of the high-definition video found on typical Blu-ray discs.

This is often due to the highest quality version of the feature content only being available in standard definition. This can include content that was shot on standard definition video, animation produced digitally in standard definition, or a television program that was shot on film but edited onto SD video with the original film subsequently lost or impractical to re-transfer. [1] Standard definition content uses much less disc space than a pre-rendered upscale would, reducing the number of discs required, and the manufacturing costs in turn, for longer titles. [2] The "SD on BD" release of Samurai Pizza Cats , for example, contains all 52 episodes on a single disc rather than the 8 DVDs used for the previous release. [3]

Despite being the same resolution, SD video presented on Blu-ray has the potential to look better than the DVD equivalent due to the availability of superior video codecs and higher bitrates. The AVC and VC-1 codecs available for Blu-ray both offer superior picture quality at a given bitrate than the older MPEG2 codec used on DVD (or comparable quality at lower bitrates). Content that might have been over-compressed on DVD with noticeable compression artifacts need not exhibit those artifacts on Blu-ray, resulting in a more faithful and detailed reproduction of the original source master. However, the playback quality of an SD encode can vary depending on the upscaling quality of the viewer's own equipment and will generally not be as good as a pre-upscaled encoding. [1]

Blu-ray Disc titles can combine standard definition video with high definition audio tracks. [4] [5] Lossless audio is more practical and flexible on Blu-ray than on DVD, which only supports lossless PCM in 48 kHz stereo and requires a relatively large amount of data, leaving less storage space available for the video. In contrast, Blu-ray supports lossless multi-channel audio in multiple formats and the larger storage makes its inclusion much more practical without impacting video quality. Several standard definition concert recordings have been released on Blu-ray to take advantage of the superior sound quality available, despite there being little benefit to the video. [6]

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">DTS (company)</span> Series of multichannel audio technologies

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">DTS-HD Master Audio</span> Lossless audio codec for home theater

DTS-HD Master Audio is a multi-channel, lossless audio codec developed by DTS as an extension of the lossy DTS Coherent Acoustics codec. Rather than being an entirely new coding mechanism, DTS-HD MA encodes an audio master in lossy DTS first, then stores a concurrent stream of supplementary data representing whatever the DTS encoder discarded. This gives DTS-HD MA a lossy "core" able to be played back by devices that cannot decode the more complex lossless audio. DTS-HD MA's primary application is audio storage and playback for Blu-ray Disc media; it competes in this respect with Dolby TrueHD, another lossless surround format. DTS-HD MA has enjoyed the greater share of this market since 2010, with the notable exception of the TrueHD-encoded Dolby Atmos spatial surround format, which is more popular than DTS's competing DTS:X.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Comparison of high-definition optical disc formats</span>

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Blu-ray</span> Digital optical disc format

Blu-ray, is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released worldwide on June 20, 2006. It was designed to supersede the DVD format, capable of storing several hours of high-definition video. The main application of Blu-ray is as a medium for video material such as feature films and for the physical distribution of video games for the PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X. The name "Blu-ray" refers to the blue laser used to read the disc, which allows information to be stored at a greater density than is possible with the longer-wavelength red laser used for DVDs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">HD DVD</span> Obsolete optical disc format

HD DVD is an obsolete high-density optical disc format for storing data and playback of high-definition video. Supported principally by Toshiba, HD DVD was envisioned to be the successor to the standard DVD format.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">DVD-Video</span> Format used to store digital video on DVD discs

DVD-Video is a consumer video format used to store digital video on DVD discs. DVD-Video was the dominant consumer home video format in Asia, North America, Europe, and Australia in the 2000s until it was supplanted by the high-definition Blu-ray Disc. Discs using the DVD-Video specification require a DVD drive and an MPEG-2 decoder. Commercial DVD movies are encoded using a combination of MPEG-2 compressed video and audio of varying formats. Typically, the data rate for DVD movies ranges from 3 to 9.5 Mbit/s, and the bit rate is usually adaptive. DVD-Video was first available in Japan on November 1, 1996, followed by a release on March 24, 1997 in the United States—to line up with the 69th Academy Awards that same day.

AVCREC is a format for recording and playback of high definition video in BDAV format using conventional DVD recordable discs as recording media. Presently, AVCREC is tightly integrated with ISDB broadcast standard and is not marketed outside Japan.

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References

  1. 1 2 Sevakis, Justin (19 September 2018). "Answerman - What Determines Whether An Older Show Should Be Released as SD-BD?". Anime News Network. Retrieved 12 May 2020.
  2. ↑ "Animeigo Sweet Spots". Animeigo. 31 March 2015.
  3. ↑ "Samurai Pizza Cats - 'The Complete Collection SD-on-BD': DVD Quality, But On a Blu-ray Disc". 2016-04-16. Archived from the original on 16 April 2016. Retrieved 12 March 2023.
  4. ↑ "White Paper: Blu-ray Disc Read-Only Format: 2.B Audio Visual Application Format Specifications for BD-ROM Version 2.5" (PDF). Blu-ray Disc Association. July 2011. Archived from the original (PDF) on 28 October 2015. Retrieved 29 July 2015.
  5. ↑ Kauffman, Jeffrey (4 May 2020). "Doctor Who: Sylvester McCoy: Complete Season Three Blu-ray Review". Blu-ray.com. Retrieved 12 May 2020.
  6. ↑ Kauffman, Jeffrey (21 August 2013). "Bee Gees: One Night Only Blu-ray Review". Blu-ray.com. Retrieved 12 May 2020.
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