HD movies OD

[yorkshireborn]

Friday i watched alice in wonderland in HD with the kids thru movies on demand i paid £4.99 way overpriced if you ask.
as i was watching it i was thinking the picture ain't that great for HD, last night i was looking for a film to watch at my local video rental shop and the little one wanted to watch Alice again so after a lil nagging i got it on blu-ray only cost 2.99 for the night.
whilst watching it i was amazed at the quality of the picture far far better than HD from virgin.

my question is wot are virgin transmitting its films at because it def not 1080p.

i will not be buying the HD version again from movies on demand.

[Stuart]

It's not 1080p because (I believe) the max the boxes are capable of is 1080i.

The main concern with HD footage is the bitrate. Higher bit rate = better picture and sound quality.

Blu Ray carries data at around 25-40 meg per second. There is no way on earth ANY digital TV system can match that. They don't have the bandwidth available.

However, it is a case of swings and roundabouts. While the film quality may not be as good as a DVD or Blu Ray rented from shop or website, you can rent it 24 hours a day (so, you could wake up at 3am and rent a film if you wanted). You do not have to travel anywhere to get it (as you would with a rental shop) and you do not have to wait (as you would with both a website and shop).

[peterjcat]

For film-based material there is no difference between 1080i and 1080p. As Stuart says, the difference is in bitrate, the compression used and also in the quality of the transfer. The Virgin broadcast will suffer a bit from lower bitrates and also less efficient compression compared to Blu-ray (MPEG-2 vs H.264), plus Virgin may have got hold of a less-than-optimal transfer for whatever reason (studios/distributors often mess things up).

I think that paying these prices for VOD only makes sense in marginal cases, like it's 3am or you just have to see a film right now. If it's going to become the way most people watch most films at home then it has to get either cheaper or better.

[dazed&confused]

You could always open an account with LoveFilm
minimum of £3.99 lets you rent 2 movies a month - cheaper than VOD
and you can keep a dvd as long as you like so you could watch Alice every day for a week !! (perish the thought) other packages and downloads available.
Hope it helps