Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Restaurant at the End of Universe Hitchhikers - Meridian Equipment Blu-ray Benchmark Disc

I hope I don't get into trouble for this. I figure we could all have something new to look at while we wait for JK to post his QA from January. Perhaps by CEDIA?

For the last few years I have spent most of my time working on a video encoder. I still poke my head in here to see what is going on, but not much posting. The encoder is used on all WHV Blu-ray titles as well as many Universal titles. There are a lot of little controls I put into the encoder because I knew I would want to use it for my disc at some point.

Don and I finished our disc up late last year and it is finally on sale. We have put a quick site in place for the disc and are planning a much bigger site with a new series of technical articles as time goes by.

www.spearsandmunsil.com

Let me start by posting a few screen shots of the disc menus. The first four images are from the menus. The fifth image is from the on-screen help. For each clip we have help you can pop up with example images.











I will do my best to answer any questions you may have.

Since this is a Meridian forum, I will talk a bit about the TrueHD on the disc. First, I encoded all audio and video with the exception of the audio on the TrueHD trailer and the audio and video on the DTS-HD MA trailers.

The montage is available with PCM, TrueHD and DTS-HD MA audio. I encoded TrueHD with DialNorm set to -31 instead of -27. This results in matched levels between all three. I believe it to be the first apples-to-apples comparison. The audio is 16/48. I had 24/48, but I could not mux because I used all the available video bitrate. My goal was to get the video bitrate as high as possible. The PS3 will show peaks as high as 50 Mbps for video thanks to the VBV buffer.

If you add up the file size of the TrueHD + the DD 640kb, it is still smaller than the the DTS-HD MA. Note that I did us the 1.5 Mbps core for DTS. I would have offered a high bitrate DD if it were allowed.

I shot the 3-minute montage on the RED ONE at 4096x2048. I have posted a link to the original 16-bit 4k TIFF as well as the 1080p source frame and encoded/decoded frame so you can compare.

If Meridian every wants to show some real 4k on their display, I have the TIFFs ready to go.

Original 4k TIFF: (48 MB) 4k TIFF

Source:


Encoded:

Stacy-

The disc is excellent and fairly comprehensive. I still struggle with the navigation but, considering the standard set by DVE, yours is a piece of cake!

Kal

Kal,

Have you used the left and right arrows to navigate while on a pattern? The up and down for help?

this disc is awesome, simple as that, in fact I used it for testing my 4xSPDIF mods on the Edge

wonderful job

Nope. I was trying the usual disc command buttons. Thanks for the clue.

Kal

Once you are playing a pattern, the left and right arrows will go to the previous and next patterns. The up and down arrows will turn help on and off. The goal was to use the disc without repositioning your hand.

We use hidden buttons to make this work, which blocks us from using the chapter next, previous and pop-up menu buttons.

There is also a hidden title, 127, which includes static SD patterns.

I hope to put my Dune BD Prime player through it's paces with this disc ASAP. Stacy, what patterns do you think will prove most challenging for players?

I would first use the PLUGE and contrast patterns to set the image. Then I would use the image cropping pattern to see if you are getting the full 1920x1080 image. I would use the luma and chroma bursts to make sure nothing is wrong. In fact, I use the chroma MB to find out which output is best, if you have a choice. e.g. 4:2:2, 4:4:4 or RGB. You can use the far right burst on the 2nd and 4th rows. The 2nd row is the horizontal resolution while the 4th row is vertical resolution.

Be sure to also check the clipping pattern when deciding on 4:2:2, 4:4:4 or RGB.

Also check the chroma alignment pattern. Previous YC delay patterns have actually had delay in the pattern itself. This one is 100% accurate. Its created directly in 4:2:0 to ensure it.

A product like the DVDO VP50Pro has YC delay that is subpixel and can really dial in chroma alignment if you are off.

Stacey,

Nice to see you poke your head back in here, your new benchmark disc sounds terrific!

And, since you touched upon the topic in one of your posts and clearly know what you're talking about, I'll pose a quick question on the new lossless codec's on Bluray.

I'm currently using the PS3 for Bluray and a 568.1 for my processor, as such, I am necessarily limited to using the optical digital out of the PS3 for my audio. This all works perfectly fine, but as an engineer, there's a nagging question always lurking in the back of my head...

When I'm playing back a lossless codec Bluray on my PS3, say DTS-HD MA, and my 568.1 is receiving a 5.1 DTS lossy bitstream, what is the source of this lossy bitstream? That is, does the DTS-HD MA audio contain and already encoded lossy DTS track, which is being extracted and sourced onto the optical digital out? Or, is the PS3 decoding the DTS-HD MA bitstream and reencoding to lossy DTS "on-the-fly"?

I suspect it's the former rather than the latter, but I've yet to track down the answer definitively.

Thanks and good to see you 'round these parts!

Dan W.

Dan,

When you encode DTS-HD MA, it first encodes the 5.1 lossy audio. It then encodes the delta between the original lossless and the lossy as an extension layer. For TrueHD, both TrueHD and Dolby Digital are encoded. At muxing time, you must feed both to the mux. The PS3 will then playback the Dolby Digital audio if you are using the optical output.

I have a similar setup at the moment, except I pass the Dolby Digital, or DTS, bitstream over HDMI. The DVDO VP50Pro has an SPDIF output that I feed into the 861. Its one less cable to worry about.

I am waiting for the HD621. I hope it does not perform any color conversion on the video and is simply a pass through.