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Dolby ups TrueHD lossless audio on Blu-ray to 96k, says every upsampled bit is amazing (video)
Just because your home theater can handle lossless audio doesn't mean the sound is as good as it could be. Dolby is now giving Blu-ray producers using Dolby Media Producer Encoder v2 the choice of premastering TrueHD surround sound at an upsampled 96k. Along with just squeezing the most possible clarity and depth out of 48kHz audio, the encoding purportedly eliminates some of the harshness of digital sound through an apodizing (signal altering) filter. At least three projects have already been given the 96k treatment, and authoring firms like Technicolor have upgrades in place to give that noticeable boost to your next Blu-ray movie.
IslandofRhodes.org hides God of War 2' 'HD Mode' and countdown
We admit it. We were disappointed to learn there wasn't an announcement attached to the super-secret God of War-themed IslandofRhodes.org viral site we first spotted last month. Turns out, first impressions can be deceiving. Through beating the site's puzzles, dedicated gamers (like the ones at GameFAQs) can find out how to enable the ditched-at-the-last-minute "HD mode" on God of War 2. Note: "this is NOT 720p. Its actually 480p with FULL SIZE buffers, in other words 640*448 resolution." We're not really sure what "full size buffers" are either, but a brief test using a PS3 and an HD monitor didn't provide a very noticeable increase (except in page tearing). If you want to test for yourself, follow the instructions pasted after the break. Also hidden at the site was yet another countdown! This one is set to go off in just over eleven days time. What's going to happen then? We imagine it'll be something besides a developer commentary site and the little sliver above seems to hint at a phrase beginning with "G." Gout of War, anybody?[Thanks, Wreckhart & ranova; via Kotaku]
Newly resized iTS video content just a bad upsample?
It seems like not all larger iTunes Store videos are actually worth their new dimensions. Reader Paul did some investigating on the newly resized videos (i.e. - ones that were 320 x 240 before the new store, and are now 640 x 480), as a few seemed suspiciously like bad upsamples, rather than truly re-encoded masterpieces of H264 quality.Unfortunately, for this investigation Paul had to reveal he is an Anastacia fan, but that isn't important right now (just kiddin' with you Paul). Engadget has put together a good post with example screenshots (like the one above) of upsampled content that looks worse than its smaller predecessors. Some of the videos look great - like Paul's Anastacia examples, but others like Madonna's and Elton John's vids ultimately take the more jagged route.The thing I'm wondering is: who does the encoding? Apple, or the studios? This page at Apple's site for music labels interested in getting onto the store offers software called iTunes Producer to allow them to do the encoding, which makes me suspect this video upsampling issue could be the fault of the labels mistakenly assigning the video encoding and re-encoding work to some rookie intern.This is about all we know for now; Apple I'm sure is unavailable for comment, but check out Engadget's post for more screenshots and details of what's going on here.
