Bay HD comments

[Bumblebee1983]

I am pleased to hear that Mr. Bay has chosen to place his films on the HD DVD format, a format whose standalones outsell standalones from the rival Blu-Ray format and whose functionality is far in advance of any Blu-ray standalone player to date.

Having seen the quality of both formats, I have chosen to own both, primarily because I am more concerned about films than types of optical discs.

I have found that there is no discernable difference in either picture or sound between either format despite Blu-ray’s generally higher prices.

Of course, unlike Mr. Bay, I have not had the benefit of seeing either format projected in a screening room.

I have seen both formats projected on screens of well over 100” on several occasions, without any discernable difference between the two. Which makes me wonder, if on the average sized screen (37”-60”), whether it is possible to see a difference between the formats even assuming that a difference existed in the first place.

To all intents and purposes both formats offer the same quality as far as average mainstream buyer is concerned.

With regard to functionality, HD DVD is (at this point in time) far ahead of the rival Blu-ray offering Picture in Picture as well as online connectivity for downloadable content.

This downloadable content is something that gives ‘added value’ to optical disc media and is to be welcomed.

Those behind the production of the Transformers HD DVD are to be congratulated for their sterling efforts:




http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/st...04715957&EDATE=


Although I love Blu-rays picture and sound quality, I am confused as to why the cheapest Blu-ray capable device (Sony PS3) is also the best in terms of response times and future proofing. There are many people who -for whatever reason- would rather own a standalone player than a games machine.

I feel sorry for those who have paid premium prices for their Blu-Ray standalones when they find that either the forthcoming interactive features of future (1.1) Blu-ray titles will either not work on their (1.0) players or they will be painfully slow to operate.

It is also less than ideal that Blu-ray companies have done little to tell consumers of these limitations. This to me smacks of a profits above honesty policy.


Ideally all studios should be neutral, giving the consumer choice of which format to buy. This hasn’t happened, so it’s a little pointless moaning about exclusivity, when both sides are guilty of this.

As regards downloadable films, I understand that Sony is devoting time, effort and large sums of money into creating their own download service.

Surely it is inevitable that in the future a download service will be here? We just have to make sure that it is complimentary to optical disc (of whatever colour) and does not supplant it.

Given my comments above, I am a little puzzled as to why Mr. Bay regards Blu-ray as ‘superior’ and why Microsoft is the villain of the piece?

Regardless, I would like to thank Mr. Bay for both a great film in Transformers and a superb disc in the HD-DVD version.

Forget formats – enjoy the films!

Well said! *claps*

The downloadable features are what I'm looking forward to with the HD!!!

[dobyblue]

From a pure AV quality standpoint saying Blu Ray is vastly superior is VASTLY incorrect especially when you consider that VC-1 only needs 30 mbps on bit rate to provide the best picture possible in 1080p and the rest of the bandwidth can be utilized

STOP!

What "rest of the bandwidth" are you talking about? HD DVD only has 30 Mbps. You must have been thinking of Blu-ray which has 48 Mbps.

[dobyblue]

the only differences are the Maximum data transfer rate for movie playback (Megabits per second) Which HD DVD is = 36mbps and Blu-Ray is 54mbps and the other is the size of the discs themselves.

even if Microsoft loose the format war, they'll still be making money from Blu-Ray as sony uses Microsoft VC-1 (Based on Windows Media Video 9) compression for some of their Blu-Ray Movies.

Sorry that's incorrect.

HD DVD - video max 29 Mbps data max 30.09 Mbps
Blu-ray - video max 40 Mbps data max 48 Mbps

Sony hasn't used VC-1, neither has Fox. Disney has on a handful of titles but prefers using AVC/MPEG-4 encoded by Panasonic, who do Fox's encodes also.

[Bumblebee1983]

My head's about to explode from reading all this.

I have had numerous people praise HD...especially Transformers in HD. I've seen the screenshots and I said I'm getting one of those!! Which I asked for an HD DVD player for Christmas.

As for the TV I'll be watching it on...it's a 52 inch Samsung LCD HDTV. Beautiful picture.

However, I don't know enough about Blu Ray, except that not everyone's going with it...unless you're Warner Brothers and go with all THREE formats. Smart thinking. You don't lose anyone in the format war there. You make everyone happy.

By the by.....are these region friendly or not?

These I mean Blu Ray and HD DVD.

But the fact of the matter is that, yes, Sony's evil and yes, Microsoft is evil (even though I work on a Mac at work and a PC at home...I won't go into detail about the differences, but I'm starting to like Macs better. That's another topic.) Hell, even Dell is evil. (I won't go there either. ) All corporations want is money...and with this war, they'll do anything they can to get it.

[dobyblue]

I believe Mr Bay should do a little more research on this format war before making these types of statements.
Here are some facts that can be readily searched online.

The DVD Forum was a group of manufacturers that got together to pick the next Hi-Def video format. Sony ,Toshiba, Nec and many others were all members. They all agreed it was better to pick one format to not confuse consumers. When all the companies voted they chose the Toshiba/Nec format HD-DVD as the new Hi-Def format. It was done for many reasons. Most notably that picture quality and sound were basically identical. Both formats would have multiple layers so storage was not a problem. HDDVD's could be made at the same existing DVD plants with marginal changes to existing equipment. This was the deciding factor. Blu-Ray needed completely new plants. Sony was furious that Blu-Ray was not chosen and left the DVD Forum Group. They decided to launch Blu-Ray anyway and started the Blu-Ray Association.
Sony has a history for this type of behavior. Sony does not want to pay anyone royalties unless it is absolutely necessary. Sony always wants their format and no one elses. We all remember VHS and Beta. VHS-C and 8MM, Mini Disc, UMD and the list goes on.

get informed - it really helps!!
The Blu-ray Disc Founders was formed in 2001. It was comprised of all the major CE companies that were founding members of the DVD Forum...except Toshiba.

DVD Forum founding members:

• HItachi
• Matsushita
• Mitsubishi
• Pioneer
• Philips
• Sony
• Thomson
• Time Warner
• Toshiba
• Victor Company of Japan (JVC)

Blu-ray Disc Founders

• Hitachi Ltd.
• LG Electronics Inc.
• Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.
• Pioneer Corporation
• Royal Philips Electronics
• Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.
• Sharp Corporation
• Sony Corporation
• Thomson Multimedia.

For those who don't know Matsushita = Panasonic.

Sony doesn't "own" Blu-ray Disc technology. 17 companies have patents in it.

http://www.mpegla.com/pid/bluray/

• CyberLink Corporation;
• Dell Inc.;
• Hewlett-Packard Company;
• Hitachi Ltd.;
• Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V.;
• LG Electronics Inc.;
• Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. (Panasonic);
• Mitsubishi Electric Corporation;
• Pioneer Corporation;
• Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.;
• Sanyo Electric Co., Ltd.;
• Sharp Corporation;
• Sonic Solutions;
• Sony Corporation;
• TDK Corporation;
• Victor Company of Japan, Ltd.;
• Warner Home Video Inc.

All the BD companies abstained from voting through HD DVD out of respect for Toshiba. The "DVD Forum approved" rubbish is Toshiba's greed to want to not move forward with technology, but stay with one that they get massive royalties from.

[dobyblue]

My head's about to explode from reading all this.

I have had numerous people praise HD...especially Transformers in HD. I've seen the screenshots and I said I'm getting one of those!! Which I asked for an HD DVD player for Christmas.

As for the TV I'll be watching it on...it's a 52 inch Samsung LCD HDTV. Beautiful picture.

However, I don't know enough about Blu Ray, except that not everyone's going with it...unless you're Warner Brothers and go with all THREE formats. Smart thinking. You don't lose anyone in the format war there. You make everyone happy.

By the by.....are these region friendly or not?

These I mean Blu Ray and HD DVD.

But the fact of the matter is that, yes, Sony's evil and yes, Microsoft is evil (even though I work on a Mac at work and a PC at home...I won't go into detail about the differences, but I'm starting to like Macs better. That's another topic.) Hell, even Dell is evil. (I won't go there either. ) All corporations want is money...and with this war, they'll do anything they can to get it.

HD DVD is region free
Blu-ray region coding is optional (two regions of note)

http://bluray.liesinc.net will show you which titles are region coded and which aren't.
Warner will not be releasing on both formats come this time next year. They know one needs to win in order to make the studio money. Blu-ray leads everywhere in the world from between 2:1 right up to 9:1. Which do you think they'll go with? "300" on BLu-ray is the biggest selling HD disc of the year, moving over 1/4 million units, twice as many as hte HD DVD version.

[Ranger]

Does anyone out here want to challenge what I feel suits my films better in terms of look. I see every frame of my films over a hundred times before it is ever released. I know the lighting conditions I shot it and the result on the DI. I know the range. I know what the final product should look like - Blu Ray suits my films better. But that said - I don't a care about this format war because I have both formats in my screening room - I'm just filling you in on what people deep in the film industry feel ultimately is going on -

Transformers looks great even in DVD!!

Michael, I currently have an HD DVD player, but plan on picking up a Blu-ray player at some point, as this format war is likely to continue for a lot longer. I'm not willing to buy one though, until it has all of the same types of functionality as my HD DVD player. Is there a model out there that supports all the same types of features used on the Transformers HD DVD?

By the way, what about Blu-ray suits your films better?

[dobyblue]

No disrespect intended, but.. are you for real? Have you honestly bought into the Bluray discussion point that MS is evil and is secretly trying to destroy HDM even though they have invested so MUCH in it?? And it has already been shown that MS did not pay Paramount or Dreamworks, yet you continue to repeat this mantra?

It's really disappointing to see these sorts of chants from you and your webmaster, Michael.

It's the type of loathing that one hears from ardent fanboys, not from a significant member of the film community.

rdjam - one of the biggest fountains of misinformation on the internet nad one of the loudest voices behind the HD DVD propaganda campaign.

Here is rdjam's website - judge for yourself - www.campaignhd.com

All MS said is they "didn't write any cheques" - hardly a denial of offering $150 million in incentives.

Bay knows far more than you do rdjam - he knows how much better Blu-ray is and apprently so does hte majority of this planet. Nowhere on Earth does HD DVD outsell Blu-ray, despite Toshiba's desperation price cuts.

[dobyblue]

Unfortunately, it's not even close to being an accurate account of what really happened...

You're right - Blu-ray has the backing of the DVD Forum's founding members from December 2001, much earlier than the article states.

[Ranger]

HD DVD is region free
Blu-ray region coding is optional (two regions of note)

http://bluray.liesinc.net will show you which titles are region coded and which aren't.

Warner will not be releasing on both formats come this time next year. They know one needs to win in order to make the studio money. Blu-ray leads everywhere in the world from between 2:1 right up to 9:1. Which do you think they'll go with? "300" on BLu-ray is the biggest selling HD disc of the year, moving over 1/4 million units, twice as many as hte HD DVD version.

We heard all of the same arguments about disc sales before Paramount and Dreamworks stopped publishing in Blu-ray. What makes you think Warner will make a different choice than they did? This is where you bring up the $150m from Toshiba. My response to that is do you believe that Paramount and Dreamworks couldn't have gotten the same or more money from the BDA if they would have rather gone Blu-ray exclusive?

Universal, Paramount and Warner were all HD DVD backers early on. The BDA convinced Paramount and Warner to go neutral. Paramount has gone back to their original position and collected cash in the process. I wouldn't bet too heavy on Warner going Blu-ray exclusive.

[dobyblue]

Does anyone out here want to challenge what I feel suits my films better in terms of look. I see every frame of my films over a hundred times before it is ever released. I know the lighting conditions I shot it and the result on the DI. I know the range. I know what the final product should look like - Blu Ray suits my films better. But that said - I don't a care about this format war because I have both formats in my screening room - I'm just filling you in on what people deep in the film industry feel ultimately is going on -

Transformers looks great even in DVD!!

Yup - that seems to be why Panasonic can screen their AVC encode of Fox's Fantastic Four Silver Surfer on a 100" screen using the 2K master and the Blu-ray version playing on the DMP-BD30 and no-one can tell where the split screen is - 50 prominent HD media members couldn't see the line.

That's how good Blu-ray is. HD DVD could not and would definitely not attempt this sort of demonstration.

Blu-ray is better for your movies. I'm looking forward to the Disney released coming out early next year, particularly The Rock.

[nelson]

By the way, what about Blu-ray suits your films better?

I assume he means the code MPEG...and the higher bitrate...all which affect the color space/range.

[dobyblue]

We heard all of the same arguments about disc sales before Paramount and Dreamworks stopped publishing in Blu-ray. What makes you think Warner will make a different choice than they did? This is where you bring up the $150m from Toshiba. My response to that is do you believe that Paramount and Dreamworks couldn't have gotten the same or more money from the BDA if they would have rather gone Blu-ray exclusive?

Universal, Paramount and Warner were all HD DVD backers early on. The BDA convinced Paramount and Warner to go neutral. Paramount has gone back to their original position and collected cash in the process. I wouldn't bet too heavy on Warner going Blu-ray exclusive.

I would. Neither Viacom nor Paramount sit on the BDA's board of directors - Warner does.

[dobyblue]

By the way, what about Blu-ray suits your films better?

Most likely the 60% more bandwidth.

[Trigger Mike]

Does anyone out here want to challenge what I feel suits my films better in terms of look. I see every frame of my films over a hundred times before it is ever released. I know the lighting conditions I shot it and the result on the DI. I know the range. I know what the final product should look like - Blu Ray suits my films better. But that said - I don't a care about this format war because I have both formats in my screening room - I'm just filling you in on what people deep in the film industry feel ultimately is going on -

Transformers looks great even in DVD!!

There it is, from the man himself.

End of argument in my opinion.

[Bumblebee1983]

HD DVD is region free
Blu-ray region coding is optional (two regions of note)

http://bluray.liesinc.net will show you which titles are region coded and which aren't.
Warner will not be releasing on both formats come this time next year. They know one needs to win in order to make the studio money. Blu-ray leads everywhere in the world from between 2:1 right up to 9:1. Which do you think they'll go with? "300" on BLu-ray is the biggest selling HD disc of the year, moving over 1/4 million units, twice as many as hte HD DVD version.

Ahhh hmmm....okay...HD is region free. Interesting....

But it all comes down to marketing. That's how VHS won. Beta was still in use with television news stations (at least with the one I was interning with). However, they've all mostly gone HD.

[Drongo]

This thread and possibly this forum does not seem to me to be the appropriate place to discuss ‘geeky’ things like 1080p vs 1080i or bit rate differences.

However as these things have been mentioned, the assumption that 1080p is inherently 'better' than 1080i is incorrect.

The assumption that all Blu-ray players output 1080p/24 without an intermediate 1080i/60 stage is wrong – some do.

The assumption that Blu-Rays higher bit rate will result in a visible difference is wrong.

I suggest that people stop read specifications and assuming that what is ‘better’ on paper means that it must be better in real life.

If you want to prove that one format is ‘better’ than the other, I suggest this.

Ask five or ten or fifty people who have High Definition displays (regardless of size, make or cost) who have zero interest in the technology to evaluate both formats with discs of their choice to see which they believe to be better.

Their feedback would be far more conclusive than any specification.

And just for the hell of it, let them all compare ‘Natures Journey’ on both formats to see if anyone notices a difference between them

[dobyblue]

Ahhh hmmm....okay...HD is region free. Interesting....

But it all comes down to marketing. That's how VHS won. Beta was still in use with television news stations (at least with the one I was interning with). However, they've all mostly gone HD.

That's not how VHS won.

Longer running time, porn.

One is now Blu-ray's favour, the other is irrelevant thanks to the internet.

[dobyblue]

This thread and possibly this forum does not seem to me to be the appropriate place to discuss ‘geeky’ things like 1080p vs 1080i or bit rate differences.

However as these things have been mentioned, the assumption that 1080p is inherently 'better' than 1080i is incorrect.

The assumption that all Blu-ray players output 1080p/24 without an intermediate 1080i/60 stage is wrong – some do.

The assumption that Blu-Rays higher bit rate will result in a visible difference is wrong.

I suggest that people stop read specifications and assuming that what is ‘better’ on paper means that it must be better in real life.

If you want to prove that one format is ‘better’ than the other, I suggest this.

Ask five or ten or fifty people who have High Definition displays (regardless of size, make or cost) who have zero interest in the technology to evaluate both formats with discs of their choice to see which they believe to be better.

Their feedback would be far more conclusive than any specification.

And just for the hell of it, let them all compare ‘Natures Journey’ on both formats to see if anyone notices a difference between them

All of the models you can currently buy do 1080p24 output with no 1080i60 stage.

1080p does make a difference - one need only look at all the sets that fail deinterlacing and 3:2 tests to know this.

http://www.hometheatermag.com/hookmeup/1106hook/
http://www.hometheatermag.com/hookmeup/1107hook2/

[superdynamite]

What you don't understand is corporate politics. Microsoft wants both formats to fail so they can be heroes and make the world move to digital downloads. That is the dirty secret no one is talking about. That is why Microsoft is handing out $100 million dollar checks to studios just embrace the HD DVD and not the leading, and superior Blu Ray. They want confusion in the market until they perfect the digital downloads. Time will tell and you will see the truth.

Bay

I agree with M.Bay to a certain extent. To the extent that digital downloads will definitely be a percentage of the market. For instance, people that went Blu-Ray will TiVo Transformers in HiDEF from Pay-Per-View. The restraints against every single movie being a download is HDD space and accessibility to what you've downloaded. Discs are portable and are self contained in regard to memory.

Regardless of what you're downloading to, whether it be XBox360, PS3 or PC/Laptop, you will never be able to hold an entire collection of 1080p/Master Audio 7.1 movies with all the bonus and extra footage that would normally fill a 50+GB Blu Disc or 30GB HDD. I mean, how many could you hold? 2 - 4 movies Tops. Not 20 or 30. Are you going to have a stack of Hard Drives?

I think Michael Bay is very bitter about the Paramount deal because he has no control where as Spielberg has control. Spielberg just said, "Not my films!". Bay doesn't have that power or control yet. I believe he will though. Bay has too much talent and respect for him not to one day attain "Spielberg type Status". Aslo, Mike stuck to his guns in all this so his stock rose tremendously.

Check out "The Universal Loss" on MichaelBay.com SEE Here: http://www.shootfortheedit.com/forum/showthread.php?t=604

[Drongo]

The talk of Blu-ray sales lead over HD-DVD is largely irrelevant.

The only market where any ‘significant’ volume of HD media has been sold is North America – and that is paltry in comparison to standard definition DVD.

The North American market is where both camps are focusing their energies, and the one most subject to dynamic change.

The effects of the price reduced PS3 and the highly price competitive HD DVD standalones will have to be evaluated in the months to come.

Only a fool would assume that things cannot change for better or worse for either format.

As to the rest of the world, Blu-ray has a sales advantage over HD-DVD.

The ratios look impressive, but in truth volumes are so small, that they are meaningless.

The BDA recently announced the millionth Blu-ray film had been sold in Europe.

What they didn’t announce was the sales volumes for titles languishing at the bottom of the sales chart.

In the UK some of those poorer selling titles, volumes can be measured in the tens of units sold – yes that’s tens of units sold i.e. sub one hundred sales.

Nothing is set in stone as yet.

[Ranger]

And does the fact that he loves Apple products make his opinion less valid? He does stick with the facts.

The fact is that Blu-ray is the most technically superior format. But, that's just part of the story. VC-1 is a horrible codec with limited colorspace. I've encoded HD footage in both mpeg and VC-1 codec and the color space seems to be wider in MPEG.

Actually he doesn't stick with the facts. He's repeating Bill Hunt's version of the facts as he doesn't really know much about HDM or the history of the format war himself. Bill Hunt posted many of the same conspiracy theories on his own web site 9 days before Daniel posted his story. The rest of his site is focused mostly on Microsoft vs. Apple and is focused on the PC realm. If I have time, I'll go through his post and point out a number of issues.

Ok, so you don't like VC-1. The Transformers HD DVD is encoded in AVC/Mpeg4. You have the same codec choices in both formats. What is it that you prefer about Blu-ray specifically? BD+? Region Coding?

[No1fan]

The talk of Blu-ray sales lead over HD-DVD is largely irrelevant.

The only market where any ‘significant’ volume of HD media has been sold is North America – and that is paltry in comparison to standard definition DVD.

The North American market is where both camps are focusing their energies, and the one most subject to dynamic change.

The effects of the price reduced PS3 and the highly price competitive HD DVD standalones will have to be evaluated in the months to come.

Only a fool would assume that things cannot change for better or worse for either format.

As to the rest of the world, Blu-ray has a sales advantage over HD-DVD.

The ratios look impressive, but in truth volumes are so small, that they are meaningless.

The BDA recently announced the millionth Blu-ray film had been sold in Europe.

What they didn’t announce was the sales volumes for titles languishing at the bottom of the sales chart.

In the UK some of those poorer selling titles, volumes can be measured in the tens of units sold – yes that’s tens of units sold i.e. sub one hundred sales.

Nothing is set in stone as yet.

Only a fool would be so dismissve of the world market outside of the US, and to back a format that is only staying in the game thanks to firesale standalone sales and dubious deals buying studio format exclusivity.

I am from the UK, the market only kicked in when the PS3 launched in March, to move 1m discs so far, before Christmas, shows how the format is taking hold.

UK stores are dedicating increasing amounts shelf space to Blu-ray, HD-DVD is increasingly looking like a flash in the pan format, in the UK at least, like Philips CDI, Video CD etc.

HD-DVD have alrady played all their cars in the US, cheaper standalones, buying off Paramount etc., they have nothing left. In the process they have killed any potenial new CE's joining the HD-DVD camp, great stategy!

In spite of this, they still lose week after week by a 2-1+ ratio, it really does appear as if A2/A3 firesale has been countered and more by the PS3, with Blu-ray still having cheaper standalones to come in 2008.

[roadrash]

I couldn't see any difference in picture quality between blueray & HD-DVD when i comaping them in a shop. It was a good comparison because they were both playing the same thing on the same brand of tv. I bought the HD-DVD in the end because it cost me £170 and the blue ray was over £400. Seeing as there was no difference in picture quality it was the best choice. No just that I also thought well in the long term I'd rather loose £170 than loose £400+ if i end up with the loosing format. I will still get to see a lot i good I def stuff in the meantime.
I think price will have a large part to play in getting HI Def DVD players into the mass market to replace current DVD players.
I like the online features abilty of the HD-DVD player and especially the abilty to add new features & improve over time by downloading of firmaware updates via broadband or from CD. This is something I understand blue ray doesn't do but something they are looking at except that it will only apply to blue ray players in the future and not for existing ones.
anyway I'm loving the HI Def movies & gonna be watching Transformers soon with the lights off and my Yamaha surround sound cranked up. lol

[Drongo]

All of the models you can currently buy do 1080p24 output with no 1080i60 stage.

1080p does make a difference - one need only look at all the sets that fail deinterlacing and 3:2 tests to know this.

http://www.hometheatermag.com/hookmeup/1106hook/
http://www.hometheatermag.com/hookmeup/1107hook2/

Ah, but 'models you can currently buy' is not the same thing as all Blu-ray players and no guarantee that future players will not be effected by this.

http://www.bigscreen.com/about/help.php?id=47

Both HD DVD and Blu-ray store movie-based video on the discs in 1080p at 24 frames per second (fps). Some players do not output 1080p, but rather 1080i due to the circuitry implemented in the player for cost-savings or product maturity reasons.
Most displays are not capable of accepting a 1080p signal at 24 frames per second. More than likely, they need a 1080p signal at 60 frames per second (if they can take 1080p at all), so the conversion from 24 fps to 60 fps still needs to happen somewhere (this conversion is called 3:2, or 2:3, pulldown). The fact that most TV's cannot handle 1080p24 is why most HD DVD players and Blu-ray players alike output 1920x1080 at 60 fps in either interlaced or progressive fashion.
Does this mean that you're losing picture quality if your player is outputting 1080i, or your TV is only capable of accepting 1080i? As long as your TV is capable of displaying 1920x1080 pixels on the screen, and its internal circuitry was designed properly, there won't be any difference between a 1080i and 1080p input. The HDTV will deinterlace the 1080i signal, create a 1080p signal from it, and then display it to you. Unlike in the old days of analog video, there is no information lost or artifacts introduced as a result of the deinterlacing process. All the information is there, it just has to be reassembled.

http://blog.hometheatermag.com/geoff...061080iv1080p/

Short Version
What this all means is this:
• When it comes to movies (as in HD DVD and Blu-ray) there will be no visible difference between the 1080i signal and the 1080p signal, as long as your TV correctly de-interlaces 1080i. So even if you could input 1080p, you wouldn't see a difference (because there is none).

Still we're getting geeky here.

As I say, put both formats into the average consumers home and see if they can tell the two apart.