1) DL will be even more lowest common denominator and dial up means that movies can't be HD

Not really. It is easier to have more versions for download than in retail.

So... how long have you followed this discussion in lurk mode, in order to say that?

A lot of info from here gets relayed to the BD forum, so I have been following for a while.

A very insightful post, I would just like to ask how distribution over the internet will work when only a small part of the population in the USA are going to be using FiOS. Does the rest of the USA/world have no hope in getting the next generation HD content. I say this because in the UK only 50% of the country are hooked up to cable, which is getting a speed boost to 50Mbit, while the other 50% are stuck on out-dated ADSL2+ lines which are maxing out at 10Mbit.

You know... NetFlix is successful w/ a 3-4 day turnaround time, and deep-dsicountdvd. ships thru the mail, taking a couple of days.

Why does everybody think taking a day-or 2 to download a digital copy is a showstopper?

Lots of people personally attacked Talkstr8t when all he did was trash hddvd's performance.Honestly it is ridiculous that the same people who attack Talkstr8t for his opinions on the format war would praise Amir for his opinions on the format war. From what I have seen the same type of comment can draw either praise or criticism from the same people depending on who posted it.


LG's BH100 hybrid Blu-ray / HD DVD player unable to be sold sans HDi?

http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/01/14/lgs-bh100-hybrid-blu-ray-hd-dvd-player-unable-to-be-sold-sans/As long as the LG universal player does not have a HD DVD logo apparently it is quite legal for them to sell it.

You know... NetFlix is successful w/ a 3-4 day turnaround time, and deep-dsicountdvd. ships thru the mail, taking a couple of days.

Why does everybody think taking a day-or 2 to download a digital copy is a showstopper?

First-off we don't have netflix, but there are equivalents with even shorter turnarounds, and we are talking about 100Mbit+ lines so running at half speed, for a 30GB film, you are looking at about 4-5 hours max. The problem is the number of people with super high-speed internet is limited.

First-off we don't have netflix, but there are equivalents with even shorter turnarounds, and we are talking about 100Mbit+ lines so running at half speed, for a 30GB film, you are looking at about 4-5 hours max. The problem is the number of people with super high-speed internet is limited.

But, given that the overhead to distribute the content may be less (i.e. replication, packaging, shipping, maintaining stock, etc...), it doesn't need to be universal. It simply needs to be profitable.

There's a huge difference between choosing not to use network support and not being able to use network support. But I'm sure you don't agree, since there's no guarantee that any BD player will ever be BD-Live capable.

if there are no live players then what is the problem. Have you been bitching that you can't DL the Swahili audio track for every DVD you own? And if there is live content and you want it then just buy a live player. It is a choice exactly the same as deciding to plug in an HD DVD player that you were forced to pay for that feature that you might not be interested to use.

A lot of info from here gets relayed to the BD forum, so I have been following for a while.

In complete context?

If so, you are a trusting soul to assume that as long as something is stated by an insider, it MUST be true.

So far on this forum there has been clever deception and simple mistakes.

In complete context?

If so, you are a trusting soul to assume that as long as something is stated by an insider, it MUST be true.

So far on this forum there has been clever deception and simple mistakes.

I said earlier that I was just trying to show some double standards employed by many users on this forum, that is all. As for trusting who says what, well lets put it this way, the person with the hardest job has the most to lose, which of the insiders has the hardest job. The person with the most to lose is the person who is going to be most desperate and misrepresent the truth. So it all comes down to who I think has the most to lose out of this, and that is a personal view I would rather not share on a public forum.

The HD downloads for the 360 suck. Too compressed and only 720p. Downloaded content will absolutely try to squeeze things into smaller, more compressed space. Crappy idea for another 10 years.

You know... NetFlix is successful w/ a 3-4 day turnaround time, and deep-dsicountdvd. ships thru the mail, taking a couple of days.

Why does everybody think taking a day-or 2 to download a digital copy is a showstopper?

I agree with you 100%. So here's something I've posed before. All of this looks like a replay of the attempted transition from CD to SACD/DVD-A. Two competing formats wrestling to become the new format standard as a new distribution medium comes on to the scene to steal the show from both of them. Are we seeing a replay here?

I hope not. While I have no doubt downloads will become a popular and profitable business, I think we have decent odds that HD discs may be a vaible business. For those who doubt downloads will become big, let me site a few companies with plans for video downloads.

Blockbuster (?)
Netflix (?)
Microsoft (Xbox360)
Sony (PS3)
Apple (AppleTV)
Cisco (iTV?)
DirecTV (DVR)
Dish (DVR)

These are just the ones right off the top of my head. For anyone who didn't catch the John Chambers keynote at CES, let me summarize the one important point he made in his presentation. The world went from Analog ---> Digital, and now we are making the next transition from Digital ---> Network. The point being that the world is moving away from delivering content on physical material, to delivering through the Internet. The vast majority of consumers want convenience, and a 24 hour download is still a lot faster than Netflix is today.

The one thing that may allow these formats to survive is that the situation is different from the music format transition. For most people the improvement in quality in the newer audio formats was not noticable on the equipment they were using for playback. A 128-192Kb MP3 was good enough for the majority of consumers. In the video format war with the emergence of 1080p sets, I believe consumers will see the difference.

Again, I'm not saying I would prefer low quality downloads, but the convenience factor will absolutely make them popular. Hopefully not popular enough to kill off HD discs though.

I meant tomorrow in ease of deployement. We don't have to fight a 4 year political war with a bunch of comapanies with different interest slowing things down.


Amir, I understand this even less. If CSS was not broken, do you think there would have been as much discussion about an other encryption scheme for the new generation? If a DL format is broken don't you think a new DL format would need the same discussion? Nothing is different between DL or disk. You need to agree on encryption, you need to agree on codecs, you need to agree on menu system, you need to agree on data structure..... well unless you think MS will have full control and all others must use what they decide :) then I guess you won’t have different companies interest slowing things down. But you need all of them to agree to put MS in control first :)

Amir, I understand this even less. If CSS was not broken, do you think there would have been as much discussion about an other encryption scheme for the new generation? If a DL format is broken don't you think a new DL format would need the same discussion? Nothing is different between DL or disk. You need to agree on encryption, you need to agree on codecs, you need to agree on menu system, you need to agree on data structure..... well unless you think MS will have full control and all others must use what they decide :) then I guess you won’t have different companies interest slowing things down. But you need all of them to agree to put MS in control first :)

Why do you think all the different download services would adopt a single standard? I think it is extremely unlikely that they would.

Even if you can get 50gb+ in 24 hours, I get 4 BD's at a time from netflix. That's still a long way to go.

The HD downloads for the 360 suck. Too compressed and only 720p. Downloaded content will absolutely try to squeeze things into smaller, more compressed space. Crappy idea for another 10 years.

Have you watched any of the 360 hd 720p downloads? I own both hd-dvd and bd to compare to and I can say the hd movie/tv downloads on live do not suck. Just go watch a decent 720p trailer if you have access.

Maybe you don't recall how efficient VC-1 is or how fast PCs have gotten with dual core now, going to multi-core.
Not sure how you can get into blu-ray with PS1 or PS2 either . If you are willing to buy a new machine to play these formats, why not upgrade your PC? Besides, PCs get upgraded every four years on the average. So time heals that nicely.
I agree my point was simply that for a DL format to change from (for example) 1080p to 2160p you most likely need new equipment and people moving to it, the same way we need new HW to go from DVD to HD DVD/BD. In essence nothing will change be it an evolution in disk media or DL media.


Not really. We did HD downloads for Xbox 360.
***
:), so you want me to give up 1080 for 720 HD and you are telling me it is not giving up things going with DL.
This is why we are not saying digital downloads should be the exclusive technology here. But still, AACS allows burn to own. So you can download, create an HD DVD (or SD DVD) and take it with you.

I thought AACS did not apply to DL, that it was a disk DRM. I know you did not say DL only, the point is that there tends to be one solution. In t he era of VHS, LD only had some titles, in the era of DVD DVHS only had some titles. There is always just one important distribution format, there can be an old one that is still around, but to get all titles the format must be the dominant. Either way, let’s assume both get all tiltes at the same time. If I am buying DL will I have the disks also? No one will buy on both.

3) I am not interested in renting. DL can be to own, but I think it will end up being renting (DL for 5 days type of thing)

No reason that has to be the case.


agree, I just think with DL that will be the direction it will take. Studios will look at you and say “if someone watches a movie 10x why shouldn’t we get pay for it 10x?” it is a natural progression. With disks that cannot be easily accomplished (and yet it was tried) but with DL it is easier then permanent storage.
Yet you will buy more expensive BD discs? For the price one BD disc or so, you can have an entire month of high-speed internet.
not here. But more importantly with disks when I want to spend money I can spend it, not with an internet package where I need to spend it every month if I DL or not.
Digital downloads can be much faster than a trip to store. but who does trips to the store? You go to the store because you are there, I don’t know about the rest but I don’t go to the store just to shop. If I am at a store with disks I look over them. The only time I go to look for movies is when I go as part of my lunch hour. It is a fun thing to do and a nice way to spend time.


That is not the scenario we are talking about. The scenario is the same experience as a full HD DVD. Same fidelity and same user interface.
look at ***



Really, I am not here to push everyone to use digital downloads. But rather, have a balanced view that each can serve a part of the market effectiviely. Taking the extremes on either side makes no sense in this day and age.
I did not say you were here to push DL. I think that is what MS wants and the reason I think it is that DL works well with PC and can push PCs into the LR much easier then disk. Not that there is anything wrong.

You asked why would anyone not want DL and that is what I tried to answer from my perspective. Why I am not sold on the idea

So this frees you to act anonymously as BD attack dog, while offering whatever industry interest you work for, the benefit of plausible deniability. Got it; your purpose in being here is clear.For better or for worse, I've been cast in the role of the anti-Amir. He has been largely free to post with impugnity here, and until I showed up it was clear that only 1/2 the story was being told. Were I here in an official capacity I'd certainly be more diplomatic, but the bottom line is I believe my presence here and the information and analysis I provide will help bring about a faster end to the format battle. No one (other than perhaps Toshiba and Microsoft) are benefiting from the format battle. For many, many reasons Blu-ray is my technology of choice, and the fact that virtually every major CE vendor and studio has backed it suggests that many more share that opinion than just me. The sooner the marketplace rejects short-term thinking (HD DVD) in favor of a format which actually has the headroom to support optical media for most of the next decade, the better off we all will be.

Feel free to disagree with me or the tone of my posts, but unless I'm posting outright misinformation (which I've never purposely done) I believe my presence here serves a valuable purpose.
Planned obsolescence would seem to be the driving philosophy of the BD camp.Interesting comment, considering most would consider this to describe HD DVD's strategy - build something, tied to legacy DVD technology, which is [barely] good enough to put HD pictures and audio on the screen. But don't build in enough future headroom to support the future capacity requirements of PC's, camcorders, higher-bandwidth A/V, long-form content, future interactivity, etc.
So feature-sets commensurate with different price-points are a bad thing. No, but it's hard to describe a new player from the sole existing manufacturer which breaks no new ground in terms of pricing or features as compelling. All it'll do is take sales from either the low-end or the high-end player, it'll garner no net gain in shelf space, advertising, or consumer awareness.
Anecdotal evidence appears to indicate that the sales momentum for this product is slowing significantly. If this is borne out by hard numbers over the next few months, won't this be troubling for the exclusive studios?I can guarantee PS3 sales will far outpace standalone HD DVD player sales. Add in the many players which will sell during the European launch (and will drive Blu-ray far ahead of HD DVD in Europe), plus the boost you'll have everytime a new must-have PS3 title is released, and you clearly have a formula for driving the format in a way no new format has ever previously been able to leverage.

Not really. It is easier to have more versions for download than in retail.

Nataraj, I dissagree (in part), think about it if a server (be it a studio or virtual netflix) has 2160p, virtual HD DVD, virtual BD,720p, xbox 360, PS3, 480, PSP versions they all take place on the server, the user needs to know what to DL.....

you have just moved the space it takes. Even more importantly look at Cars. The first two days 5M copies where sold. what do you think that would mean for DL (assuming DL to buy)

Talk, can you settle this for us and provide the details of the BD200 test? For example, what was the model of the players used for this test? Will this disc work on any other players besides this model?I can't find the pictures which were posted (the AVS search function seems to be down, I can't imagine the word "Hitachi" hasn't been used in any of the HD Forums in the last week), but see this (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=9462932&&#post9462932) post for my take on it. It may well have been 100GB BD-ROM they were reading, not 200GB. It was on an existing production LG-Hitachi drive with only updated firmware.

As I said in my other post, there is certainly no guarantee this technology will pan out, but it's a promising demonstration.

Even if you can get 50gb+ in 24 hours, I get 4 BD's at a time from netflix. That's still a long way to go.

You're not going to get 50GB+ in 24 hours. These services will use the most efficient codecs available (Mpeg4 and VC1), and squeeze this stuff down into smaller packages. It won't look as good as a physical HD-DVD or BD disc, but it will look better than DVD. While you and I will still want our high def disc in the mail, the majority of consumers will gladly take the download.

Imagine it this way. You've got your Netflix box and your service allows you to have four movies at a time. You've got your que set up and it automatically downloads the next four movies. When you finish watching one of your movies you delete it, which immediately starts the download of the next movie in your que. You still have three movies left to watch. Your next movie shows up before you finish watching the other three, and you didn't need to stop by the mailbox to return any movies. I'm not saying this is how they'll do it, but I believe it's likely.

The folks that are really in a position to capitalize on this are the satellite guys as they already have an installed base of HD DVR customers, and those HD DVRs have network ports. The next step for them is to provide the type of service described above.

I feel lot more comfortable having the discs as long as I want with netflix, and being able to watch as much as I want compared to the one 360 HD download I've done. I don't like the limits on the MS stuff. That takes a lot of control away. It's too much like Divx really.

And I'm sure you have been once again technically correct in your previous references to this (I don't have the time or inclination to go look right now), but the impression certainly was that there was an intention of following the 6/07 drop dead date with an further time table for -Live as well.Sorry, I have never in any way suggested there was any form of deadline around BD-Live. The only deadline is newly-released players must support secondary video and contain 256MB of local storage after 6/07. Why have two profiles if you're forced into supporting BD-Live? One of the reasons for offering two profiles is to allow manufacturers to differentiate. Leaving out network support and upgraded local storage certainly will allow lower price points.

Wow, just wow. It amazes me how people are tending to view CES. Why can't people accept that Amir felt compelled to post/clarify about CES, and Talk responded to Amirs talking points. Why is everything so "personal" around here?

Look, you either believe Amir or you don't. You either believe Talk or you don't. I've seen the reaction from CES, and I know what I think. I also think a lot of people need to take a deep breath, and re-assess why they are supporting one format or the other. Really boil it down to what you want out of a HD optical disc format, and then go from there.
Insight information vs fanboy level information!

Talk, I've been meaning to ask you about your sig. 18+4 = 22 but they're all in the top 20?

What would be the bitrates required for 4K given the constraint that you must achieve the same artifact quality?

Digital downloads will rule. And if people can get their mind around the idea that a download must occur, it will catch on fast.

Here's the idea that sells it

Scenario: A hot new release is due on May 22 (arbitrary date).

Disc: On the day, the store opens at 10:00am. You head down, and hope it is in stock. This is a newish format, not DVD, so it doesn't arrive everywhere on the day and date, despite being supposedly day and date. If you're lucky you get a disc, and you watch it that evening.

Download: 30 days before release, a locked copy starts to download to those who have pre-ordered it. At 12:00am on release day, you have it and can play it.

The download is inconvenient and makes you wait?!

Gary

And if done right, on that day you could also burn it to your HD/BD DVD-R and have a protected copy on shiny disc, for the collectors that wanted the stack on the display shelf.

(after media prices inevitably come down)

- Tom

Why do you think all the different download services would adopt a single standard? I think it is extremely unlikely that they would.
I did not say they will. Look at disks :) there are two imncompatible formats, some things they have in common others no, either way the two formats needed commities and the people to agree. If a DL service wants to convince studios to support it they need their input, even if it is just a check mark. For studios to do that (if there is a choice) the DL fomat needs to show them why it lives up to what they need (DRM....) why people will buy into it.....

services will use the most efficient codecs available (Mpeg4 and VC1), and squeeze this stuff down into smaller packages. It won't look as good as a physical HD-DVD or BD disc, but it will look better than DVD.

2ch that is exactly why I don't want DL I don't want not exactly as good as HD DVD/BD but better then DVD. BD?HD DVD are here now I waited long enough give me something better or don't talk to me about something else. That is what is annoying about BD/HD DVD can go away and DL can take its place.

Talk, I've been meaning to ask you about your sig. 18+4 = 22 but they're all in the top 20?

dual studios :)

dual studios :)

Ahh, I undertsand now, thanks.

I feel lot more comfortable having the discs as long as I want with netflix, and being able to watch as much as I want compared to the one 360 HD download I've done. I don't like the limits on the MS stuff. That takes a lot of control away. It's too much like Divx really.

I see, I thought you meant the PQ sux which it does not. The time limits system does leave something to be desired. I prefer owning movies myself when it's a movie or show that I deem rewatchable, at least in segments.

The current' xbox live d/l program doesnt have an ownership option for movies. I wish they'd implement a rent to own type sytem where you could apply your rental for a discount on the hd-dvd. (Sony could do the same for bd, I almost expect it eventually) In that way the downloads and optical formats could work together rather than be seen as in strict competition to each other.

And if done right, on that day you could also burn it to your HD/BD DVD-R and have a protected copy on shiny disc, for the collectors that wanted the stack on the display shelf.

(after media prices inevitably come down)


Absolutely! I've always pressed the idea of offering the burn option. I hope this is possible with Managed Copy.

The content could be encrypted uniquely for every download, and the licenses stored on a secure USB dongle (and recoverable online). The dongle is as portable as the disc.

Portability, migration and recovery are important considerations. Heck, done right you could sell your license. The online management deletes your copy and sets it up on the purchaser's dongle.

Gary

2ch that is exactly why I don't want DL I don't want not exactly as good as HD DVD/BD but better then DVD. BD?HD DVD are here now I waited long enough give me something better or don't talk to me about something else. That is what is annoying about BD/HD DVD can go away and DL can take its place.

I'm not arguing with you (for once :) ). I'm posting about what I believe the market direction is. If a company like Netflix or DirecTV offered the type of service I described, my wife would sign up for it immediately, regardless of my opinion. ;)

Nothing is different between DL or disk. You need to agree on encryptionThis brings up an interesting idea for video being purchased and downloaded over the net to an individual user. Could not the online vendor send the particular user an encryption key for a particular order encrypted with the user's public key? The vendor would then encrypt and watermark the video with the unique key previously sent and the user would download that particular encrypted video. Only the user would be able to decrypt the earlier transferred key with their particular (held secret) private key. They then use the decrypted key to decode the purchased video. Watermarks in the video would uniquely identify the video to the particular user who purchased it. The user could do fair use but be liable for abuse of copyright.

Some of us have such public keys registered. PGP can use it with email. Lotus Notes also uses public key cryptography.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public-key_cryptography

I'm posting about what I believe the market direction is

the issue is I agree with you as well. I just don't want that direction. If DL takes roote I see it as the end of true HD, or at least set it back a lot and a long time. That is why I don't get all the DL is a good thing here.

This brings up an interesting idea for video being purchased and downloaded over the net to an individual user. Could not the online vendor send the particular user an encryption key for a particular order encrypted with the user's public key? The vendor would then encrypt and watermark the video with the unique key previously sent and the user would download that particular encrypted video. Only the user would be able to decrypt the earlier transferred key with their particular (held secret) private key. They then use the decrypted key to decode the purchased video. Watermarks in the video would uniquely identify the video to the particular user who purchased it. The user could do fair use but be liable for abuse of copyright.

Some of us have such public keys registered. PGP can use it with email. Lotus Notes also uses public key cryptography.

it can, I always thought for MC (and DL is similar) the best DRM would be one where you have a private key card (think of a SIM in a cell phone) so the encrypted content on disk or HDD will be attached to a card and so it is portable. for example re4corde 5-6 BD movies too a 200GB BD (movie only with one language) and then bring it with you and your card. Or a portable USB HDD with 1TB.... bring the MC/DL content and it is compatible with all players but you need your key card that you used to burn the content

Downloading HD isn't going anywhere. The files are too big and it takes FAR too much computerin' skills for the average Joe to deal with. It will be a specialized niche market for at least ten years. And that niche market is only a primary competitor to the rental market, not the retail market.

For better or for worse, I've been cast in the role of the anti-Amir. He has been largely free to post with impugnity here, and until I showed up it was clear that only 1/2 the story was being told.

C'mon, you and Amir are hardly alone in representing your respective camps.

Were I here in an official capacity I'd certainly be more diplomatic, but the bottom line is I believe my presence here and the information and analysis I provide will help bring about a faster end to the format battle.

I think it's fascinating that corporate interests are waging PR campaigns on a public forum frequented by early adopters. Clearly, some of you are doing so at the behest of your employers.

No one (other than perhaps Toshiba and Microsoft) are benefiting from the format battle.

I completely disagree. Simultaneous competitive pressures on quality, features, and price, benefit the consumer. BD and HD-DVD didn't result from some altruistic quest, so it's TS if competition in the market-place reduces corporate profit margins.

For many, many reasons Blu-ray is my technology of choice, and the fact that virtually every major CE vendor and studio has backed it suggests that many more share that opinion than just me.

I understand the appeal of BD, but was the additional investment in new technology and manufacturing infrastructure necessary to accomplish the goal of providing a follow-on to DVD, capable of garnering universal adoption? If an iron axe can fell a tree just as efficiently as an example produced with titanium alloys.....?

The sooner the marketplace rejects short-term thinking (HD DVD) in favor of a format which actually has the headroom to support optical media for most of the next decade, the better off we all will be.

Sony currently produces hi-def camcorders with a hard-drive capacity of 30GB, yielding a recording time of four hours at the highest quality setting. I strongly suspect that from a studio perspective, 50-200GB of media capacity is as attractive from a product placement standpoint, as it is for the uninterrupted lossless codec playback of five hour epics.

Feel free to disagree with me or the tone of my posts, but unless I'm posting outright misinformation (which I've never purposely done) I believe my presence here serves a valuable purpose.

Well, I certainly hope you don't feel that you're wasting your time. ;)

Interesting comment, considering most would consider this to describe HD DVD's strategy - build something, tied to legacy DVD technology, which is [barely] good enough to put HD pictures and audio on the screen. But don't build in enough future headroom to support the future capacity requirements of PC's, camcorders, higher-bandwidth A/V, long-form content, future interactivity, etc.

New software codecs have largely obviated the need for significant infrastructure investments to increase media capacity; besides, which is the more efficient solution?

No, but it's hard to describe a new player from the sole existing manufacturer which breaks no new ground in terms of pricing or features as compelling. All it'll do is take sales from either the low-end or the high-end player, it'll garner no net gain in shelf space, advertising, or consumer awareness.

Other than PS3, the BD CEs have players with a relatively similar mix of feature sets, at ( list ) price points between $800-$1500. Toshiba will have three models with clearly delineated feature sets listing between $500-$1000. You're trying to tell me that a single CE supporting one optical format will suffer greater harm from model cannibalism than a disparate group of manufacturers, all producing hardware for another?

I can guarantee PS3 sales will far outpace standalone HD DVD player sales. Add in the many players which will sell during the European launch (and will drive Blu-ray far ahead of HD DVD in Europe), plus the boost you'll have everytime a new must-have PS3 title is released, and you clearly have a formula for driving the format in a way no new format has ever previously been able to leverage.

Sony has adopted a very risky strategy which may ultimately pay off......or not, it's simply too early to call. However, at this point, I think it's safe to say that some of the compromises they made for the inclusion of BD have clearly been costly to the once utterly dominant PS brand name.

Downloading HD isn't going anywhere. The files are too big and it takes FAR too much computerin' skills for the average Joe to deal with. It will be a specialized niche market for at least ten years. And that niche market is only a primary competitor to the rental market, not the retail market.

None of these schemes really represent a "product" either. At best, they are all a "service" like cable or satellite TV. If you can't wrap it with a nice bow on top and put it under the "tree" it's not a "real" product. ;)

b2b

Yeah really. How is downloading movies any different really than PPV on Directv or VOD on digital cable?

Same thing really, and they just aren't killing off the DVD market. 10 years is optimistic for high end HD downloading to really kill off optical.

New software codecs have largely obviated the need for significant infrastructure investments to increase media capacity; besides, which is the more efficient solution?


Efficiency is not a function of SW alone. Currently BD provides 50GB of storage that is available at a bandwidth of 48mbps. MS is a SW company so every problem to them looks like a nail that can be solved with one of their SW hammers. ;)

BD is a more efficient HW design that also enhances all uses an advanced optical disc solution can be used for. Not just the ones Microsoft thinks are important... :)

If you want efficient, I have chart for you to look at... ;)

Blu-Ray 48Mbps, 50GB
0.........1.........2....x....3.........4.........50GB
+------------------------|------------------------+
| | |48 Mb/s
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |40
| | |
HD-DVD 30Mbps, 30GB | |
0.........1.........2.........30GB |
+-----------------------------+30 Mb/s |30
| | |
| | |
| | |
| |20 |20
| | |
DVD 10Mbps, 9.4GB | |
0........9.4GB | |
+--------+10 Mb/s |10 |10
| | | |
| | | |
| | | |
| | | |0
+--------+--------------------+-------------------+
Chart is copyright © 2006 & 2007 by b2bonez and MrHanky
All rights reserved with permission to copy and publish without
alteration is hearby granted. Disfigurement or un-authorised
modification is not allowed.
Please respect other peoples work (however humble it is..)


b2b

Efficiency is not a function of SW alone. Currently BD provides 50GB of storage that is available at a bandwidth of 48mbps. MS is a SW company so every problem to them looks like a nail that can be solved with one of their SW hammers. ;)

BD is a more efficient HW design that also enhances all uses an advanced optical disc solution can be used for. Not just the ones Microsoft thinks are important... :)

If you want efficient, I have chart for you to look at... ;)

Blu-Ray 48Mbps, 50GB
0.........1.........2....x....3.........4.........50GB
+------------------------|------------------------+
| | |48 Mb/s
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |40
| | |
HD-DVD 30Mbps, 30GB | |
0.........1.........2.........30GB |
+-----------------------------+30 Mb/s |30
| | |
| | |
| | |
| |20 |20
| | |
DVD 10Mbps, 9.4GB | |
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Chart is copyright © 2006 & 2007 by b2bonez and MrHanky
All rights reserved with permission to copy and publish without
alteration is hearby granted. Disfigurement or un-authorised
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Please respect other peoples work (however humble it is..)


b2b

According to the presentation in the Blu-Ray booth at CES the max bandwidth is 40mbps.

I said earlier that I was just trying to show some double standards employed by many users on this forum, that is all. As for trusting who says what, well lets put it this way, the person with the hardest job has the most to lose, which of the insiders has the hardest job. The person with the most to lose is the person who is going to be most desperate and misrepresent the truth. So it all comes down to who I think has the most to lose out of this, and that is a personal view I would rather not share on a public forum.
Interesting point. Never thought of it that way.

The higher the ledge, the bigger the urge to not fall off and break a bone or two.

Yeah really. How is downloading movies any different really than PPV on Directv or VOD on digital cable?

Same thing really, and they just aren't killing off the DVD market. 10 years is optimistic for high end HD downloading to really kill off optical.
Imagine how massive BD would be as a format in ten years, assuming 4K hasnt come along on a shiny disc to pre-empt it by then.

200 GB BD anyone? I am in. PS5 perhaps

b2bonez, I'm not questioning the theoretical advantages of BD over HD-DVD, simply whether or not there's a meaningful difference in the real-world application of these technologies; their cost/benefit. In a hypothetical vacuum of starting from scratch with a single standard, which would more cheaply, and rapidly be implemented universally? There are a number of ways to measure efficiency.

According to the presentation in the Blu-Ray booth at CES the max bandwidth is 40mbps.

40mbps is the limit for the video portion of the mux stream.

b2b

b2bonez, I'm not questioning the theoretical advantages of BD over HD-DVD, simply whether or not there's a meaningful difference in the real-world application of these technologies; their cost/benefit. In a hypothetical vacuum of starting from scratch with a single standard, which would more cheaply, and rapidly be implemented universally? There are a number of ways to measure efficiency.

There is no "theory" to the advantages BD has over HD-DVD. These are real and current (as in "what you can buy in the store") differences between the formats now. How those advantages of BD are put to use is something the studios are working on right this minute as we speak. ;)

b2b

....theoretical advantages of BD over HD-DVD....Exactly. 30 GB is more than enough. Toshiba won't need to spend time or money researching how to increase the capacity, to say, something like 51 GB. Absolutely no need to do that.

:D

There is no "theory" to the advantages BD has over HD-DVD. These are real and current (as in "what you can buy in the store") differences between the formats now. How those advantages of BD are put to use is something the studios are working on right this minute as we speak. ;)
b2b

I think I've heard that one before.... BD has a theoretical advantage that has the potential to provide a better movie.

Exactly. 30 GB is more than enough. Toshiba won't need to spend time or money researching how to increase the capacity, to say, something like 51 GB. Absolutely no need to do that.

They certainly didn't need to do it in order to equal the presentation quality of BD50. I thought Disney in particular, had a woody for "enhanced content" in the form of cross-promotions, and Toshiba was attempting to both appease them, and counter BD numbers-game marketing.

What brand of CE products are in your home?
I've got a lot more money invested in Canadian than anything else (Paradigm/Anthem) :).

I think, what, 85% of DVD players are made in China now? And there's tons of great stuff coming out of South Korea these days. Japanese companies make great stuff, but other countries' companies do, and will, as well.

You're not going to get 50GB+ in 24 hours. These services will use the most efficient codecs available (Mpeg4 and VC1), and squeeze this stuff down into smaller packages. It won't look as good as a physical HD-DVD or BD disc, but it will look better than DVD. While you and I will still want our high def disc in the mail, the majority of consumers will gladly take the download.
Also, note that there's stuff we can do for compression when we're playing a file off an HD that we don't off optical disc. While both the Xbox downloads and HD DVD use VC-1, HD DVD has a lot more constraints, so we're able to do VC-1 more efficiently when targeting the Xbox.

But those players built in China are often badged with Japanese brands and backed by those companies.

There's a difference between contract manufacturers in China and buying Chinese brands.

There is no "theory" to the advantages BD has over HD-DVD. These are real and current (as in "what you can buy in the store") differences between the formats now. How those advantages of BD are put to use is something the studios are working on right this minute as we speak. ;)

b2b

Thanks for the clairfication on the 40 vs 48 number. Follow up question. In the Blu-Ray presentation they clearly present the Blu-Ray 40mbps number on a bar graph next to the HD-DVD number of 30mbps and the DVD number of 10mbps. Were they mistaken to do this? Was 40 not a direct comparison to the 30?

Now stepping away from the "theoretical" and back to reality (I couldn't resist ;)). While this is all nifty, why should I care? I've seen new VC1 titles that are encoded at 11mbps projected on an 8' wide screen that are just jaw dropping gorgeous. If BD doesn't look better, what's the value of the bandwidth?

I get the importance of all the bandwidth when you've got a commitment to stay with Mpeg2, but when you've moved on to Mpeg4 and VC1 why should a consumer care? Are movies going to become much more difficult to encode in the future? Are these new codecs going to become much less efficient in the next few years?

I can hear Rob Zuber firing something off on TL-51 again. Which by the way, I don't think is of much practical value either, for all of the same reasons stated above. It serves as an interesting political/marketing move in that it removes one sales pitch from the BD folks. Now Sony will have to start stamping BD-100s. Maybe they can encode Dances with Wolves in Mpeg2 at the full 40mbps to chew up all of that disc space.

I've got a lot more money invested in Canadian than anything else (Paradigm/Anthem) :).


Cool. :)


I think, what, 85% of DVD players are made in China now? And there's tons of great stuff coming out of South Korea these days. Japanese companies make great stuff, but other countries' companies do, and will, as well.

I wonder if Stacey could give an estimate of how many of those players have the CUE bug?

HD disc players are a completely different market at this time than mass market gear, and will before for several years more, assuming they do catch on and the masses don't go with services like the Xbox Live thing.

Gary

Nataraj, I dissagree (in part), think about it if a server (be it a studio or virtual netflix) has 2160p, virtual HD DVD, virtual BD,720p, xbox 360, PS3, 480, PSP versions they all take place on the server, the user needs to know what to DL.....

Space on the server is no big deal. XBL already has 480p and 720p. It is easy enough to add 1080p and others (if content owners and xbox team want to). Server storage space here is simply not an issue .... not in the same way as consumer bandwidth etc ...

Industry has done a ton of work on reliable storage solution built around off the shelf hardware.

I can't find the pictures which were posted (the AVS search function seems to be down, I can't imagine the word "Hitachi" hasn't been used in any of the HD Forums in the last week), but see this (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=9462932&&#post9462932) post for my take on it. It may well have been 100GB BD-ROM they were reading, not 200GB. It was on an existing production LG-Hitachi drive with only updated firmware.

As I said in my other post, there is certainly no guarantee this technology will pan out, but it's a promising demonstration.

Nice backtrack. So, you're just guessing essentially; which means the skepticism over the comment was well founded. At the end of the day, there's no guarantee that any of the standalones will play this.

I said earlier that I was just trying to show some double standards employed by many users on this forum, that is all. As for trusting who says what, well lets put it this way, the person with the hardest job has the most to lose, which of the insiders has the hardest job. The person with the most to lose is the person who is going to be most desperate and misrepresent the truth. So it all comes down to who I think has the most to lose out of this, and that is a personal view I would rather not share on a public forum.

So your comment was cynical in that it was trying to show a double standard?

Or are you generalizing to the point that a persons position automatically determines the level of truth in his statement as opposed to his track record?

Seriously, I'm trying to understand the point you are making here, because you ar rather new on this scene, it's not clear what of the extensive history here you are really familiar with, and your statement didn't have much context around it.

if there are no live players then what is the problem. Have you been bitching that you can't DL the Swahili audio track for every DVD you own? And if there is live content and you want it then just buy a live player. It is a choice exactly the same as deciding to plug in an HD DVD player that you were forced to pay for that feature that you might not be interested to use.

Part of the problem is that nobody knows about this now. Giving a choice is fine... foisting an uninformed choice is not.

Thanks for the clairfication on the 40 vs 48 number. Follow up question. In the Blu-Ray presentation they clearly present the Blu-Ray 40mbps number on a bar graph next to the HD-DVD number of 30mbps and the DVD number of 10mbps. Were they mistaken to do this? Was 40 not a direct comparison to the 30?

Now stepping away from the "theoretical" and back to reality (I couldn't resist ;)). While this is all nifty, why should I care? I've seen new VC1 titles that are encoded at 11mbps projected on an 8' wide screen that are just jaw dropping gorgeous. If BD doesn't look better, what's the value of the bandwidth?

I get the importance of all the bandwidth when you've got a commitment to stay with Mpeg2, but when you've moved on to Mpeg4 and VC1 why should a consumer care? Are movies going to become much more difficult to encode in the future? Are these new codecs going to become much less efficient in the next few years?

I can hear Rob Zuber firing something off on TL-51 again. Which by the way, I don't think is of much practical value either, for all of the same reasons stated above. It serves as an interesting political/marketing move in that it removes one sales pitch from the BD folks. Now Sony will have to start stamping BD-100s. Maybe they can encode Dances with Wolves in Mpeg2 at the full 40mbps to chew up all of that disc space.

30mbps for HD-DVD ? That is the max rate for the mux. I'm not sure that HD-DVD has a limit for the video portion of the stream. I guess you could use the entire bandwidth for video if you were willing to give up the audio portion of a movie.. ;)

If you don't value lossless audio or live in the EU where it might be a good option for the studios to give equal billing (as in lossless) for different language tracks or if it's a long movie like Kong and DD+ is just fine, you wouldn't care. But to measure the needs of the entire world based on your limited needs isn't what a format should strive for. The more options for "use" that a format can offer a "world market" with a multitude of "needs" is a better solution than a limited one.

b2b

Feel free to disagree with me or the tone of my posts, but unless I'm posting outright misinformation (which I've never purposely done) I believe my presence here serves a valuable purpose.


And I agree your presence here is beneficial as well.

But make no mistake about it.... you have misled. I don't want to impute bad motives, so we can chalk it up to either inadvertant mistake, or "over-enthusiasm" (if we want to be euphamistically positive), under the guise of "technical correctness".

Downloading HD isn't going anywhere. The files are too big and it takes FAR too much computerin' skills for the average Joe to deal with. It will be a specialized niche market for at least ten years. And that niche market is only a primary competitor to the rental market, not the retail market.

From a fast server I can today sustain a download rate of about 3 GB / hour on my normal (non-premium) Cox cable broadband service. That would download an entire HD DVD overnight. And I assume any legal paid-for download service could provide a simple application to do it for me if I weren't a computer nerd anyway.

Face it. The technology is here and won't go away.

- Tom

And I agree your presence here is beneficial as well.

But make no mistake about it.... you have misled. I don't want to impute bad motives, so we can chalk it up to either inadvertant mistake, or "over-enthusiasm" (if we want to be euphamistically positive), under the guise of "technical correctness".


That in essence is the problem with his posting. He claims to be an insider, yet his comments are his own with no need to be accurate as he's not representing any company. So his "over-enthusiastic" comments are taken as truth since he's an "insider", yet the comments are simply his opinion most of the time or are loose in that, as stated above, he doesn't have to worry about being 100% accurate as he's not representing a company.

You're not going to get 50GB+ in 24 hours. These services will use the most efficient codecs available (Mpeg4 and VC1), and squeeze this stuff down into smaller packages. It won't look as good as a physical HD-DVD or BD disc, but it will look better than DVD. While you and I will still want our high def disc in the mail, the majority of consumers will gladly take the download.

Imagine it this way. You've got your Netflix box and your service allows you to have four movies at a time. You've got your que set up and it automatically downloads the next four movies. When you finish watching one of your movies you delete it, which immediately starts the download of the next movie in your que. You still have three movies left to watch. Your next movie shows up before you finish watching the other three, and you didn't need to stop by the mailbox to return any movies. I'm not saying this is how they'll do it, but I believe it's likely.

The folks that are really in a position to capitalize on this are the satellite guys as they already have an installed base of HD DVR customers, and those HD DVRs have network ports. The next step for them is to provide the type of service described above.

I agree that this is a likely scenario, except that I expect that we coulld likely expect to only need to average ~20-25Gb per movie, as opposed to 50. Ben (I believe) has already mentioned that the PC platform has buffer space that allows for things like longer GOP's, leading to better compression efficiencies. HDD's have seek times that could allow you to only down load the audio track/language you want, something like WMA Pro could be used to further reduce audio bitrate for high fidelity audio, you could choose to stream xtra's later only if you want to watch them, etc...

IOW: I think we could easily be looking at a 20GB downlaod that does NOT give up anything in quality from the HD DVD's of today.

Sorry, I have never in any way suggested there was any form of deadline around BD-Live. The only deadline is newly-released players must support secondary video and contain 256MB of local storage after 6/07. Why have two profiles if you're forced into supporting BD-Live? One of the reasons for offering two profiles is to allow manufacturers to differentiate. Leaving out network support and upgraded local storage certainly will allow lower price points.

Once again, I'm sure you are technically correct.

However, perhaps I'm the only one here that was under the impression that there was a follow-on schedule for -Live in the works.

But I don't think so... I think that was the general understanding. Witness the general confusion wherein people assumed that the 6/07 deadline WAS the -Live deadline. And no insiders here sought to clarify that not only was 6/07 only the deadline for PiP+Local Storage, but that no deadline for -Live exists at all.

And it wasn't until Alex posted this did it come to light.

Downloading HD isn't going anywhere. The files are too big and it takes FAR too much computerin' skills for the average Joe to deal with. It will be a specialized niche market for at least ten years. And that niche market is only a primary competitor to the rental market, not the retail market.

What skills would it take other than the same necessary for using iTunes, Urge, buymusic.com, etc...?

Even if you can get 50gb+ in 24 hours, I get 4 BD's at a time from netflix. That's still a long way to go.

In 24 hours?

I turn in discs on Monday, I get another set on Thursday.

And even if it's not workable for everybody, I bet it is for enough of an audience make it a viable business. And bandwidth will only increase....

From a fast server I can today sustain a download rate of about 3 GB / hour on my normal (non-premium) Cox cable broadband service. That would download an entire HD DVD overnight. And I assume any legal paid-for download service could provide a simple application to do it for me if I weren't a computer nerd anyway.

Face it. The technology is here and won't go away.

- Tom

Neither is the physical medium (which is also a technology). I feel that it will remain the preferred option even into the future. High definition downloads must suffer the progress of realtime services, which is at the mercy of both consumer broadband advancements and server bandwidth availability. Imagine the entire movie watching population downloading at 3GB per hour.

The physical medium advances regardless of online infrastructure (until such time that the limits of the eye are reached). The picture will always be better for a good amount of time.

I can't find the pictures which were posted (the AVS search function seems to be down, I can't imagine the word "Hitachi" hasn't been used in any of the HD Forums in the last week), but see this (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=9462932&&#post9462932) post for my take on it. It may well have been 100GB BD-ROM they were reading, not 200GB. It was on an existing production LG-Hitachi drive with only updated firmware.

As I said in my other post, there is certainly no guarantee this technology will pan out, but it's a promising demonstration.

From the article here: http://www.cdrinfo.com/Sections/News/Details.aspx?NewsId=19493


However, the company made some alterations to the firmware and the optical system inside the head, to make the player compatible with four-layer BD playback.


Someone else posted this in the same thread the Hitachi information was linked to originally ... so why are people still thinking this works on current hardware? :confused:

Sorry, I have never in any way suggested there was any form of deadline around BD-Live. The only deadline is newly-released players must support secondary video and contain 256MB of local storage after 6/07. Why have two profiles if you're forced into supporting BD-Live? One of the reasons for offering two profiles is to allow manufacturers to differentiate. Leaving out network support and upgraded local storage certainly will allow lower price points.

But didn't you recently attack HD-DVD's decision to support the Advanced Secondary Video Stream as Optional? But having BD-Live optional is a good thing?

If an Ethernet Port and a few hundred mbps of memory are going to break the bank for all those major CE's backing Blu-Ray ... well ... I think they have much larger problems.

Exactly. 30 GB is more than enough. Toshiba won't need to spend time or money researching how to increase the capacity, to say, something like 51 GB. Absolutely no need to do that.

:D

They're just thinking ahead to 4K ... :p

But didn't you recently attack HD-DVD's decision to support the Advanced Secondary Video Stream as Optional? But having BD-Live optional is a good thing?

If an Ethernet Port and a few hundred mbps of memory are going to break the bank for all those major CE's backing Blu-Ray ... well ... I think they have much larger problems.

I think you missed the point of his posts, being that while HD DVD posters want to post about BD profiles all day, some sort of optionality also exists in the HD DVD specs.

They're just thinking ahead to 4K ... :p

It would seem that they're thinking ahead only enough to match BD.

Nice backtrack. So, you're just guessing essentially; which means the skepticism over the comment was well founded. At the end of the day, there's no guarantee that any of the standalones will play this.

Actually, I posted a link on this ... I think the only player that will be able to do this is the PS3 ... with the Power of the Cell, it will be able to harness the fourth dimension (since it has 4D support ... no scaler, but it has 4D). Anyways, by combining these features, the PS3 will be able to modify the optical hardware to support reading the 200GB Discs.

The hard part, I think, is going to be getting the updated firmware to the player. :p

It would seem that they're thinking ahead only enough to match BD.

Actually, with the efficiencies of VC-1, along with those of HDi, it seems they could do in 1xTL51 what it would take 2xDL50's on BD. There are several movies being released on BD50 on the upcoming schedule that are in the vicinity of 2 hours long.

If BD has all this extra space, then why do HD-DVD Titles have more extras on average? I think realistically, space is a wash today. Though, obviously, the bigger number has more 'marketing' power. If Toshiba succeeds with TL51 on current hardware then that puts them, in essence, ahead.

I think you missed the point of his posts, being that while HD DVD posters want to post about BD profiles all day, some sort of optionality also exists in the HD DVD specs.
Not for any core scenarios studios have defined....

Once again, I'm sure you are technically correct.

However, perhaps I'm the only one here that was under the impression that there was a follow-on schedule for -Live in the works.

But I don't think so... I think that was the general understanding. Witness the general confusion wherein people assumed that the 6/07 deadline WAS the -Live deadline. And no insiders here sought to clarify that not only was 6/07 only the deadline for PiP+Local Storage, but that no deadline for -Live exists at all.I was never confused about BD-Live being optional. I don't know why! :cool: :)

The three BD profiles:


BD Audio-only profile (don't remember the name) : For players that are audio-only players. No need to add video features. Quite understandable.
BD-Video : Base profile for BD players. This should have been enforced from get-go. Cause of confusion because of non-mandatory nature until June.
BD-Live : Enhanced spec compared to BD-Video + Network based interactivity.

Each player can fall in any one of these profiles. Other two, of course, would be optional, right? So, yes, BD-Live is optional. The reason BD-Video will be available in all BD players released after June is because BD-Live is superset of BD-Video profile.

The problem is that BD-Video profile was not enforced fully from the beginning, making PiP optional, for example. For all practical purposes, so-called BD-Video version 1.1, becoming mandatory in June, will replace current version. In other words, this profile will 'evolve' (the part I don't like).

The bigger problem, IMO, was/is that most of the BD players didn't even mention which profile they support (none?). I think that (and of course, that BD-Video is not enforced from get-go) should be the main complaint, not the profiles themselves -- assuming new profiles are not added ad-hoc.

Haven't many people talked about having a choice of paying for features that people want? BD-Video Vs BD-Live, I think is good in that sense. If I don't care about network interactivity, I would just buy a BD-Video (after June) player. What I want is each player to mention clearly what is supports. I don't want BD-Live to become mandatory; that will defeat the purpose of creating the profiles when the Blu-ray spec was created.

And it wasn't until Alex posted this did it come to light.It is good to have him on this forum, isn't it? :)

I think you missed the point of his posts, being that while HD DVD posters want to post about BD profiles all day, some sort of optionality also exists in the HD DVD specs.Exactly.

Not for any core scenarios studios have defined....

Talk will be better equipped than I to explain it.

Though if I'm allowed to state my opinion, I believe that the current disagreements exist on the very definition of "core". I propose that the minimalist profile, BD-Video, already offers the core experience of movie watching, faithfully carrying over the ubiquitous experience of DVD players (at higher fidelity of course). It is already what the majority of the population expects to find in their player.

Perhaps features described for BD-Live will be the expected norm sometime in the future, though while we're still fresh off the DVD generation, anything outside of "watching the damn movie" is just peripheral entertainment. I welcome separating BD-Live as a profile - I do not need it (speaking for myself only).

Actually, with the efficiencies of VC-1, along with those of HDi, it seems they could do in 1xTL51 what it would take 2xDL50's on BD. There are several movies being released on BD50 on the upcoming schedule that are in the vicinity of 2 hours long.

If BD has all this extra space, then why do HD-DVD Titles have more extras on average? I think realistically, space is a wash today. Though, obviously, the bigger number has more 'marketing' power. If Toshiba succeeds with TL51 on current hardware then that puts them, in essence, ahead.

Space is not a mysterious phenomenon.

On Dec 20, the gap between HD DVD and BD sales ranking was 2x (~1500 to ~3000).

Is there a reason to believe the BD rise will stop dead? All those CES announcements, and the forthcoming Warner catchup have yet to go pre-order on Amazon.I doubt those Warner catchups are going to happen any time soon. Until there is a player out that can play PiP, they're probably not going to put out discs with it (unless they're willing to do the Descent PiP cheat). You'll note that most of the Warner titles that are not matched on BD are the ones with an "IME".

No one (other than perhaps Toshiba and Microsoft) are benefiting from the format battle. Incorrect, actually. If there hadn't been this "format war" I doubt there would be a format yet. I doubt that there would hundreds of titles out pushing quality boundaries, and I seriously doubt that you would be able to buy in to a format for under a grand. No matter which format wins, or even if a format wins, the consumer has benefitted (even if they bought into the "losing format"). HD DVD and Blu-ray is competition at it's finest. Two different products constantly improving and competing for your dollars. Embrace this competition, make it yours. Both formats and the consumers who buy them will benefit in the long run.

And, of the titles people actually care about, Blu-ray continues to widen it's already huge lead. What do you say to consumers who ask why 16 of 2006's top 20 best-selling DVD's aren't from studios supporting HD DVD?Um, "There's no accounting for taste?" :)
I've been pretty lucky actually, most of the movies I wanted to watch either came from a HD DVD studio (Serenity, Batman Begins etc). Or they came out on HD DVD in Europe or Japan (Biohazard [Resident Evil], Equilibrium, etc).

Fun fact: the very first HD DVD movie ever released was a Sony movie (Resident Evil).

Actually, with the efficiencies of VC-1, along with those of HDi, it seems they could do in 1xTL51 what it would take 2xDL50's on BD. There are several movies being released on BD50 on the upcoming schedule that are in the vicinity of 2 hours long.

If BD has all this extra space, then why do HD-DVD Titles have more extras on average? I think realistically, space is a wash today. Though, obviously, the bigger number has more 'marketing' power. If Toshiba succeeds with TL51 on current hardware then that puts them, in essence, ahead.Makes me wish BD had included advanced codecs like VC-1 and H.264 AVC; very shortsighted of BDA not to give this option to the studios! Too bad, VC-1 cannot be used on Blu-ray! It is also nice the TL51 works on all the HD-DVD players where there are no profiles! ;)



And to answer your question: Because Sony has only authored in MPEG2 so far. And because BD50 was not widely available initially. With "Open Season", we can look forward to advanced codecs from Sony. Are you excited? :)

On a serious note, it is good to see BD studios finally moving towards advanced codecs, including Sony. This will truly utilize both the bandwith and capacity superiority of Blu-ray. I wish Warner encoded BD VC-1 titles using higher bandwidth possible on Blu-ray.

Makes me wish BD had included advanced codecs like VC-1 and H.264 AVC; very shortsighted of BDA not to give this option to the studios! Too bad, VC-1 cannot be used on Blu-ray! It is also nice the TL51 works on all the HD-DVD players where there are no profiles! ;)

And to answer your question: Because Sony has only authored in MPEG2 so far. And because BD50 was not widely available initially. With "Open Season", we can look forward to advanced codecs from Sony. Are you excited? :)

On a serious note, it is good to see BD studios finally moving towards advanced codecs, including Sony. This will truly utilize both the bandwith and capacity superiority of Blu-ray. I wish Warner encoded BD VC-1 titles using higher bandwidth possible on Blu-ray.

Yes, it's nice to see Sony taking small steps in the right direction. I wonder what motivated them to do this after the interviews where they told us there was no reason to use anything but Mpeg2? This will allow them to go back to releasing titles on BD-25 (like "Open Season").

I've been told by b2b that even with advanced codecs 30GB is simply not enough space (even though I see no evidence of this in the content I've watched). Maybe BD-25 is superior in some other way I fail to understand. ;)

Ah, so you are predicting it won't be a good experience which is not what I asked. My question was whether you would adopt it if it worked as easily and nicely as DVD/HD DVD does. You are still against the concept? If not, give us time. We are not trying to sell you anything now :).Not asked to me directly but...

My personal reason for not wanting downloaded movies is the DRM that goes round them. I see no reason to think that downloaded movies will change from their current restrictions, i.e. once downloaded they're time restricted for viewing and you have to re-download in future to watch again. You never really own the movie it's more a pay-per-view proposition.

I also don't want a permanently on multi-terabyte storage array whirring away in my house. Less still do I want to have to worry about backing up such huge data quantities. How many people actually correctly backup their music today? I suspect 99% of people's iTunes databases and content would be lost if something happened to their PC. Re-downloading an entire library would be hard work.

CD's/DVDs/HD-DVDs/BDs don't require backups as you get that for free with the medium. Accessing one is pretty simple, just pop it in the player, no fancy media server scenario required, or reliable high speed home network (Wireless is not up to HD IMO) and they have the convenience of being able to pick one up whilst shopping and play when you get home.

I also find myself not wanting always on media servers, especially if rammed full of brown spinning stuff, because it's not good for electircity consumption. That may sound odd, but I'd also like new technology to be energy efficient and this stirkes me as not being that. If you have to turn everything you need to play networked DL content on everytime you want to watch something, it'll take much longer than popping a disc in a player and still use much more energy to do it. I work with computer rooms everyday and I do not want a mini version of that in my house. Given that large capacity disc drives are far from silent and need quite a lot of cooling, unless a non-disc drive based solution is found for such storage I don't see it ever taking off as a CE device in the living room. ALL my HD devices thus far without exception are too noisy. I'm hoping this is because we're still early in the lifecycle and that quieter more efficient devices are on the way.

Hey guys... I just answered a question. Which was, whether we are against optical formats because we also invest in digital downloads. Didn't mean to restart the religious discussions on whether the world is going to go the way of downloads or not. The topic is not that related to format war so I hope we can let it go.

I am certainly bailing out of the discussion at this point :).

I doubt those Warner catchups are going to happen any time soon. Until there is a player out that can play PiP, they're probably not going to put out discs with it (unless they're willing to do the Descent PiP cheat). You'll note that most of the Warner titles that are not matched on BD are the ones with an "IME".


Is there some reason to believe the PS/3 can't handle PiP?

Gary

Talk, I've been meaning to ask you about your sig. 18+4 = 22 but they're all in the top 20?Three of the four titles available from HD DVD-supporting studios are from neutral studios. King Kong is the only title from the top 20 available from a studio exclusively committed to HD DVD. I'm also leaving out Dreamworks, which as a Paramount subsidiary could be counted in both camps, but hasn't committed to either, so I'm counting them as not available for either format.

C'mon, you and Amir are hardly alone in representing your respective camps. No, but most of the other Blu-ray partisans (B2B, Richard, others) aren't insiders.
I completely disagree. Simultaneous competitive pressures on quality, features, and price, benefit the consumer. BD and HD-DVD didn't result from some altruistic quest, so it's TS if competition in the market-place reduces corporate profit margins.I don't argue that the format competition has made both better formats, but at this point I believe continued competition is only detrimental to both formats, since it's keeping many consumers on the sidelines.
Other than PS3, the BD CEs have players with a relatively similar mix of feature sets, at ( list ) price points between $800-$1500. Toshiba will have three models with clearly delineated feature sets listing between $500-$1000. You're trying to tell me that a single CE supporting one optical format will suffer greater harm from model cannibalism than a disparate group of manufacturers, all producing hardware for another?Sure. There are many buyers who are partisan to a particular brand. Even if Sony and Pioneer produce identical machines, there are consumers who will only consider one or the other (or who will be unwilling to consider one or the other due to previous negative experiences). Also certain vendors have relationships with certain retailers, so a more diverse range of vendors will produce better retail coverage.
Sony has adopted a very risky strategy which may ultimately pay off......or not, it's simply too early to call. However, at this point, I think it's safe to say that some of the compromises they made for the inclusion of BD have clearly been costly to the once utterly dominant PS brand name.No argument here - inclusion of BD has almost certainly hurt the short-term success of the PS3. Long-term, it may prove to be a boon should developers find ways to leverage the extra capacity or if those who bought as a Blu-ray player end up consuming gaming titles or video downloads (when offered) as well. Of course, should Blu-ray be a market success Sony stands to gain more than most, and the PS3 will be a key reason for Blu-ray's victory.

Actually, with the efficiencies of VC-1, along with those of HDi, it seems they could do in 1xTL51 what it would take 2xDL50's on BD. Huh? BD supports VC-1 as well, of course. How does HDi provide any greater efficiency?

According to a Toshiba rep at Toshiba booth who seemed a drive engineer, their drive (including latest ones which are not shipped yet) are not designed to handle TL discs. He admitted that there is still a possibility that their drives may read TL discs by firmware update to handle shorter track pitch and (more challenging) thinner layer thickness, but he was not sure since they haven't tested.

Maybe this news (http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Ftechon.nikkeibp.co.jp%2Farticle%2FN EWS%2F20070110%2F126242%2F&langpair=ja%7Cen&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&prev=%2Flanguage_tools) would indicate some hints.
----
Hitachi demonstrates playback of Quadruple Layer Blu-ray Disc using "normal drive"

- Demonstration is playing a QL Blu-ray disc, switching layer and showing its signal pattern by an oscilloscope
- Each layer has different frequency signal pattern (L0:3T, L1:4T, L2:5T, L3:6T) to distinguish easily current reading layer from other layers
- Reader is not a special made equipment, it is based on Hitachi's commercial BD drive GBW-H10N with modified firmware and some part of optics


I know this is a few days old, but thought it needed comment.

The implication by Rio is that HD DVD drives can't read TL with only a firmware update and that Bluray drives can.

But if you read this carefully, this premise is false.

The Bluray drives in question not only had a firmware update to do this, but they also had the optics CHANGED. This is the point I have made all along, that existing Bluray drives have their optics preset to such a narrow range, that they will not be able to read anything more than 2 layer.

I believe that this also included the PS3, which will, according to BR people, represent the majority of the BR drives on the market.

However, my understanding is that HD DVD drives in the Xbox player, A2 and XA2 are better equipped to handle Triple-Layer... So the situation may be the opposite.

I know this is a few days old, but thought it needed comment.

The implication by Rio is that HD DVD drives can't read TL with only a firmware update and that Bluray drives can.

But if you read this carefully, this premise is false.

The Bluray drives in question not only had a firmware update to do this, but they also had the optics CHANGED. This is the point I have made all along, that existing Bluray drives have their optics preset to such a narrow range, that they will not be able to read anything more than 2 layer.

I believe that this also included the PS3, which will, according to BR people, represent the majority of the BR drives on the market.

However, my understanding is that HD DVD drives in the Xbox player, A2 and XA2 are better equipped to handle Triple-Layer... So the situation may be the opposite.

Link?

Makes me wish BD had included advanced codecs like VC-1 and H.264 AVC; very shortsighted of BDA not to give this option to the studios! Too bad, VC-1 cannot be used on Blu-ray! It is also nice the TL51 works on all the HD-DVD players where there are no profiles! ;)



And to answer your question: Because Sony has only authored in MPEG2 so far. And because BD50 was not widely available initially. With "Open Season", we can look forward to advanced codecs from Sony. Are you excited? :)

On a serious note, it is good to see BD studios finally moving towards advanced codecs, including Sony. This will truly utilize both the bandwith and capacity superiority of Blu-ray. I wish Warner encoded BD VC-1 titles using higher bandwidth possible on Blu-ray.

Understood, and I'm excited that even Sony is now looking towards using advanced codecs. That said, I still think that for the foreseeable future, Blu-Ray titles are going to require a little more space than HD-DVD titles in order for them to facilitate including some optional features that are backward compatible between players (ala PiP). ;)

I also understand your previous argument (and several others) which state, essentially, "why be forced to buy something I don't need?". And, I agree with that to a degree. What is disconcerting to me is when some of those same people state what a wonderful idea the PS3 was -- for them. Because for many others, Sony was forcing them to buy something they didn't need in a BR Drive. But ... if it's not included, then it's optional ... and optional stuff doesn't get as much support due to the LCD-factor. It was the same argument when the comparisons were made between the Xbox 360 and the PS3. And I get it, really, I do. But I think it's hard to straddle the fence and say, "I don't want all 'options' forced on me." and then in the same breath say, "I want my 'options' to be included as part of the LCD and content publishers/etc to take advantage of them".

If BD-Live is really just an Ethernet Port and some additional memory (I believe it runs to 1GB), I would think, for LCD purposes, it would be best to just include the hardware. Everything else can be made compliant with software updates.

Make no mistake though, this whole mess of BD1.0 and BD1.1 and mandatory in June and BD-Live ... the whole reason we have all of that is because of HD-DVD and forcing the BDA/Sony to play catch up. Like was mentioned, consumers have benefitted from the format war in some sense. If it weren't for VC-1 and HD-DVD, we'd still be getting transfers like TFE and be happy not knowing there was something better. Competition is great for the consumer ... it forces companies to not sit on their laurels and improve. Otherwise, they just maintain the status quo.

Example: EA ... not sure if you play games, but now that they own the licences to NFL, for example, after subsequent madden has ... well ... been like the previous madden with a new roster. Many were upset that the ESPN 2k Franchise was forced to go by the wayside. Now that there's no competition, we get fed slop. And we have to eat it, cause that's all there is if you want to play Football. :(

Is funny to see how the two parts are now in fierce mode trying to outside the other format using any tactic. Are you forgetting that this is a forum and a lot of us never receive money from any of both camps?

From my point of view BluRay is going to win because the support of the industry and movie distributors, but I prefer the HD-DVD to win because the standard is better (the BD-Video 1.0, 1.1 and 2.0 think is something that puts me nervous).

But the reality is that PS3 have distorted everything, a lot of people believes that PS2 was crucial for DVD success, are this people sure or they have fallen in Sony marketing trap? See BluRay movie sales, the ratio of them per player is lower than the HD-DVD ratio and all this because not all the people who wants a PS3 is going to play movies.

If PS2 is the most important piece for DVD success can anybody tell me why all the people that I know with a PS2 in their homes have got a stand-alone DVD player under their TV sets?

The only reason why BluRay is going to win is not because PS3, is because the standards are lower than HD-DVD standards and players outside the drive part are less expansive if you do a 1.0 BluRay Player. Who can stop me of doing a 1.0 BluRay player and market it like this with a lower price than HD-DVD? Who can stop me of making movies for BD-Video 1.0 forgetting the other standards?

From economical point of view of movie studios and distributors, BluRay is better.

Not asked to me directly but...

My personal reason for not wanting downloaded movies is the DRM that goes round them. I see no reason to think that downloaded movies will change from their current restrictions, i.e. once downloaded they're time restricted for viewing and you have to re-download in future to watch again. You never really own the movie it's more a pay-per-view proposition.

I also don't want a permanently on multi-terabyte storage array whirring away in my house. Less still do I want to have to worry about backing up such huge data quantities. How many people actually correctly backup their music today? I suspect 99% of people's iTunes databases and content would be lost if something happened to their PC. Re-downloading an entire library would be hard work.

CD's/DVDs/HD-DVDs/BDs don't require backups as you get that for free with the medium. Accessing one is pretty simple, just pop it in the player, no fancy media server scenario required, or reliable high speed home network (Wireless is not up to HD IMO) and they have the convenience of being able to pick one up whilst shopping and play when you get home.

I also find myself not wanting always on media servers, especially if rammed full of brown spinning stuff, because it's not good for electircity consumption. That may sound odd, but I'd also like new technology to be energy efficient and this stirkes me as not being that. If you have to turn everything you need to play networked DL content on everytime you want to watch something, it'll take much longer than popping a disc in a player and still use much more energy to do it. I work with computer rooms everyday and I do not want a mini version of that in my house. Given that large capacity disc drives are far from silent and need quite a lot of cooling, unless a non-disc drive based solution is found for such storage I don't see it ever taking off as a CE device in the living room. ALL my HD devices thus far without exception are too noisy. I'm hoping this is because we're still early in the lifecycle and that quieter more efficient devices are on the way.

I'm with you on the DRM front ... but I think that in order for it to be successful, it will have to change from its current model -- and I think [I hope] publishers understand that. If you had a home server with a bunch of content on it, all you'd have to refresh is the license. Perhaps there will be a model that says you can watch X different titles per month for $X.95. Once you unlock a title for that month, it's available until the next.

That said, I would also want some way of making the content permanent, even if the cost of the hardware was on me ... just in case I wanna take a movie in the car for a road trip or take to a friend's place because they just got a new [something] and want some reference media.

Where? I spent 90 minutes yesterday afternoon looking for the "new" HDi interactivity. First stop: Microsoft booth. Asked around, finally shown two laptops playing video only from HDi. Second stop: HD DVD booth. Booth rep had no idea what I was talking about, but said maybe it was being shown in the Microsoft press tent in the parking lot, and that Kevin Collins would probably know. Third stop: Toshiba booth. The rep pointed me to the HD IP download video demonstration which had nothing to do with HD DVD.

And, yes, my badge was covered the whole time so no one knew I might be a Blu-ray supporter.
Well then, you should have gone to the HD DVD demo theatre at the Toshiba booth. This is the show in which they demonstrated some new interactive features. I also heard that some was demonstrated at the AVS/HD DVD meeting at the start of the week.

Huh? BD supports VC-1 as well, of course. How does HDi provide any greater efficiency?

Mandatory PiP, for example ... I think we can agree that BD Titles with PiP take considerable more space than HD-DVD titles with PiP. Of course, this may change in the future (June 2007), but that would happen and the cost of the risk of rendering current players semi-obsolete for some functionality.

Perhaps that's why BD-Live is 'optional'? I can't imagine buying a BD1.0 player then finding out I can't take advantage of all features of some titles unless I buy a BD1.1 player. What to do? I'm going to ask, is there anything else in the pipeline before I reinvest money in more hardware? BDA can now say ... "naww ... the other stuff is optional, don't worry". And get me to buy a new player. If BD-Live was mandatory, I think many would wait on the sidelines before buying another player until BD-Live options were made available.

Of course, I wouldn't put it past the BDA/Sony to make BD-Live 'Mandatory' in June 2008 or something. :p

Alex Millions had this to say about the LG player (I guess he's still getting those CED updates) -
It would be nice if you spelled his name accurately, so that no one gets the impression that you are trying to be disrespectul...

Huh? BD supports VC-1 as well, of course. How does HDi provide any greater efficiency?

btw, any comment on the Hitachi drive situation?

The Video distribution with DRM is a delicate thing since it cannot run like iTunes idea.

In iTunes when you are downloading a paid song you receive a m4a (AAC) with DRM file, this file in a computer can only be played in 5 different computers with permission and using iTunes and one trademark of MP3 players, the iPod. But when I burn a CD the DRM disappears.

The industry knows that some people isn´t going to pay for their music, this is why they let to us copy in a burned CD the bought songs, reason? Is simple, they have already received their money.

But in this case the people who uses iTunes is who have got an iPod and they aren´t going to use músic outside the iPod, an iPod-iTunes user forgets about CDs. With movies this is more harder to do.

Movie player standard is the DVD, you cannot make a DRM that says that they can only play their download movies into one type of DVD player, this reduces a lot the market and outcast a lot of people of movie downloading.

Copying iTunes system is the future? Perhaps but the people must know that solutions like iTMS of the downloads for Xbox 360 are based on restrictive DRM around a type of device that aren´t the market standard, iPod is the market standard for músic but iPod video isn´t the most sold iPod, Xbox 360 isn´t the most sold console.

Link?

I posted it on the page before ... and quoted some of the text in fact, very similar to what rdjam posted. Here it is again though:

http://www.cdrinfo.com/Sections/News/Details.aspx?NewsId=19493

:)

I posted it on the page before ... and quoted some of the text in fact, very similar to what rdjam posted. Here it is again though:

http://www.cdrinfo.com/Sections/News/Details.aspx?NewsId=19493

:)

I've seen that :), I meant the link that lends support to current players reading TL51.

Amir was referring to consumers being upset that they hadn't been educated on whether a given Blu-ray player would support a given feature. I believe the way the Xbox 360 HD DVD add-on handles audio presents a similar customer letdown.Xbox 360 owners already know they only have SPDIF Optical and stereo analog ports - what were they supposed to expect.

Also, don't forget that on a PC equipped with HDMI audio out, or with 5.1 analog outputs, the Xbox addon HD DVD player is just fine for TruHD, DTS-HD and DD+ also....

Sorry, that's not good enough. Decoding 1080p VC1 but outputting only via an RF modulator to channel three is an unsatisfactory situation. Eh?... VGA output is not RF encoded, nor to "channel 3" - was this a FUDlike dig, or did I misunderstand something?

Now why doesn't the BDA let customers know that the first-gen Bluray players cannot do BD BD-Video 1.1 and BD-Live 2.0 features such as PiP?

I've seen that :), I meant the link that lends support to current players reading TL51.

Oh ... I was starting to think you had me on ignore. :D

Don't have a link for that, but I'm guessing that's just "wishful thinking" at this point. TL51 hasn't even been submitted yet ... and ... could just go the way of TL45 as it did a couple of years ago.

Unless, the whole reason for the continued research wasn't get get the extra 6GB, but to make for easier compatibility between older hardware? Dunno, all speculation at this point. It'd be disheartening if they left the early adopters out in the cold.

Oh ... I was starting to think you had me on ignore. :D

Don't have a link for that, but I'm guessing that's just "wishful thinking" at this point. TL51 hasn't even been submitted yet ... and ... could just go the way of TL45 as it did a couple of years ago.

Unless, the whole reason for the continued research wasn't get get the extra 6GB, but to make for easier compatibility between older hardware? Dunno, all speculation at this point. It'd be disheartening if they left the early adopters out in the cold.

It would be very unlikely that they would leave the early adopter out, but equally as unlikely is replacing outdated drives if TL51 is eventually released. I don't think it was the smartest move to announce TL51 before it is ratified by the DVD forum, I personally was interested in the HD-A20 until they announced TL51, I don't want to spend £500 and then be told that it won't read new discs. Maybe they will find a way to make it work, but I don't hold out much hope, for me TL51 is in the same boat as BD200/100, and will only be used in recorders if they are ever released.

More FUD - you wouldnt have to "ignore how the disc is encoded", since the disc, as you know, is "encoded" at 24p. The "playback hints" which are ignored for 24p PLAYBACK, are simply attached for the benefit of players which output 60i. The playback hints have no effect on the 24p material encoded to the disc.

Don't HD DVDs have 30i flags on them?

I have a couple questions for this group.

1) While it is clear that the next generation of HD will indeed be a digitial download, especially with VC-1 leading the way with compression rates/quality and high-speed downloading coming to more and more affluent US homes, it is clear as well that there will also still be a need, for some time, to serve non-US, non-high-bandwidth countries with an optical format. Doesn't it make sense that this format will be HD-DVD over BD? I mean if we are talking about the future, where affluent and capable countries will be served by digital download, won't less fortunate markets be served by the less expensive format to replicate?

2) Also, in the entire discussion of HD-DVD vs. BD, I have noticed a trend. HD-DVD proponents respond generally about shipping titles, current quality, current costs and capabilities. I have noticed that almost all of the BD proponents respond with issues like Future capabilities, better specifications, and additional potential. Isn't that what Sony did with the PS3 (which now appears to be a market disaster)? One rule of thumb with electronics "Never buy the promise, Buy the product!" I think this too may also tilt the wind strongly in HD-DVDs favor.

Just my 2 cents.

I am posting this here because B2b made a remark about Tom not being active lately (for those of you who don't know him, he is an insider working at our partner company, Broadcom). I heard this unfortunate news at CES and just got this from him. Here we think format war is what is important to us when things like this happen to someone over Xmas of all times! Really puts things in prespective, doesn't it?

Our deepest prayers go to him and his family.

-------

[Eileen, Peter, etc.; I cannot send Email to some of these lists from
this account so please forward for me, thanks. This is the first time I
have been either technically able to connect from the hospital or
coherent enough to connect at all once home, hence the lack of any
communications before this time.]

After suffering a severe seizure over the XMas holidays I have just been
released from the hospital (yesterday). The seizure resulted in burst
fractures in some of my mid-lower spinal vertebrae in addition to
cracked ribs which I've been told would have led to permanent paralysis
from the waist downward. So they locked me away in an ICU for the last N
weeks.

I am now living in an upper body brace and am pretty heavily drugged
with morphine, vicaden, Librium, and other stuff. I am told that this
was partially due to osteoporosis plus bad diet and too much stress
recently. I'll be pretty used up in physical therapy and drug/dietary
supplements over the next few weeks, and although I expect to be on line
a lot more now, physically I'll be pretty scarce.

My reason for this Email is to apologize to anyone and everyone I may
have let down during the CES lead-in and execution window. I am really
really sorry if I dropped any balls that led to problems for Broadcom,
the HPA, the IBC Council, or any members thereof. Monster people - I am
also really sorry I couldn't make your concert - I tried to fly from the
hospital direct last night but the answer from both my wife and the
doctors was NO. John Ive - I am also very very sorry about our trip.

My profound and sincere apologies. Please let me know what I can do to
help make things up or help in any way during the post CES follow-up
window.

Thank you and please accept my belated apologies - Tom.Thanks for this info, Amir.

Tom is an excellent poster on this site and VERY respected for his input.

This sounds very serious and I pray that he makes a full recovery. Does anyone know if there is anywhere we can email or post or good wishes to Tom?

Regards,

I was never confused about BD-Live being optional. I don't know why! :cool: :)

The three BD profiles:


BD Audio-only profile (don't remember the name) : For players that are audio-only players. No need to add video features. Quite understandable.
BD-Video : Base profile for BD players. This should have been enforced from get-go. Cause of confusion because of non-mandatory nature until June.
BD-Live : Enhanced spec compared to BD-Video + Network based interactivity.

Each player can fall in any one of these profiles. Other two, of course, would be optional, right? So, yes, BD-Live is optional. The reason BD-Video will be available in all BD players released after June is because BD-Live is superset of BD-Video profile.

The problem is that BD-Video profile was not enforced fully from the beginning, making PiP optional, for example. For all practical purposes, so-called BD-Video version 1.1, becoming mandatory in June, will replace current version. In other words, this profile will 'evolve' (the part I don't like).

The bigger problem, IMO, was/is that most of the BD players didn't even mention which profile they support (none?). I think that (and of course, that BD-Video is not enforced from get-go) should be the main complaint, not the profiles themselves -- assuming new profiles are not added ad-hoc.

Haven't many people talked about having a choice of paying for features that people want? BD-Video Vs BD-Live, I think is good in that sense. If I don't care about network interactivity, I would just buy a BD-Video (after June) player. What I want is each player to mention clearly what is supports. I don't want BD-Live to become mandatory; that will defeat the purpose of creating the profiles when the Blu-ray spec was created.

It is good to have him on this forum, isn't it? :)

Indeed it is.

And I agree that the lack of disclosure is the main complaint, bot necessarily the features themselves.

That having been said, now that the fact that -Live will forever be optional is clear (at least to stupid me), I think it's an interesting break from the previousl optical format where "everything works* and if not, it's a bug".


* Yes, yes... I know things like DTS aren't there on every player, but audio still works... the feature is not absent completely.

More FUD - you wouldnt have to "ignore how the disc is encoded", since the disc, as you know, is "encoded" at 24p. The "playback hints" which are ignored for 24p PLAYBACK, are simply attached for the benefit of players which output 60i. The playback hints have no effect on the 24p material encoded to the disc.

OK, paint the issue with whichever brush you choose... ;) But I ask again...

If it so dang easy, what's the holdup with Toshiba standalone players doing 24p ??

b2b

Wow Talkstr8t... it's snarky attitudes like that, and a complete dismissal of anything positive for HD-DVD that actually drives folks like me away from your format. Amir may say things you do not agree with, but he is level headed, at least. You seem like a pretty angry and defensive person on all of these points.

....

edit: Sell me on your format by being positive, not pissing on your competition. You attract flies with honey.
I agree very much with this sentiment, and the 5 or 6 other posters who expressed similar thoughts...

If it so dang easy, what's the holdup with Toshiba standalone players doing 24p ??



Occam's razor is your friend. ;)

Doesn't it make sense that this format will be HD-DVD over BD? I mean if we are talking about the future, where affluent and capable countries will be served by digital download, won't less fortunate markets be served by the less expensive format to replicate?


I think you'd have to show that when this transition to digital downloads is experiencing mass adoption in the affluent countries, the cost of BD replication won't have dropped to inexpensive levels.

You can't use a perception (we have no real numbers as far as I know) of today, to justify a position 3-4 years from now (and many would argue MUCH farther in the future, on both sides of the debate).



2) Also, in the entire discussion of HD-DVD vs. BD, I have noticed a trend. HD-DVD proponents respond generally about shipping titles, current quality, current costs and capabilities. I have noticed that almost all of the BD proponents respond with issues like Future capabilities, better specifications, and additional potential.

I think maybe you need to read this forum for the last few weeks. I see Blu-ray people talking about nothing but the list of titles coming out on Blu-ray. And the HD DVD people are talking about new players and TL51.

Refer to my sig.

Gary

http://www.redherring.com/Article.aspx?a=20745&hed=PS3+Sales+Could+Fall+Short


“We think management needs to correct as soon as possible the discrepancies we see in the PS3 business model, namely the gap between consumer expectations and the company’s views on the product, and by doing so to bring losses at the games business to a more tolerable level,” wrote Mr. Katayama. As usual, horrible stuff regarding PS3...What were they thinking?

PS3 owner here... I'm loving it.

The way things are shape-ing up in this format war, there's nothing that could convince me HD DVD still has a chance,... They did have a strong start though.


=Brian

PS3 owner here... I'm loving it.

And,.. I didn't realize how quickly it would be "game over" for HD DVD but It's pretty clear now, ... it's all over.

Too bad though as HD DVD had a good run..

=BrianGood luck to you and that proprietary solution. :D

They're both proprietary, aren't they... Just one has more studio and CE support.

Looks like it could be "gameover" for Sony. They're diverting shipments from Japan to NA? Can't even sell it at home? Lose billions or dump it.

Yeah,

I'm sure Sony's rising stock prices are the best indication of their recent problems :)

Keep it real.

-Brian

Xbox 360 owners already know they only have SPDIF Optical and stereo analog ports - what were they supposed to expect.


Most 360 owners also know we're getting our audio gimped over said optical port, to say nothing of the DD+ issue. Hopefully that fix comes out for the spring update.

OK, paint the issue with whichever brush you choose... ;) But I ask again...

If it so dang easy, what's the holdup with Toshiba standalone players doing 24p ??

b2b

Here's my opinion.....

I've been following the G2 players since about the time Robert started his G2 thread. I believe that Toshiba did not see 1080p24 as a big deal becuase there are very few displays in the field that can handle it. The feedback from people on AVS (including myself) was that Robert needed to get the message across to Toshiba that we want 1080p24 output on the XA2. I'm getting ready to buy a new display and it can handle 1080p24 input.

Toshiba got the message and made sure they would be able to implement 1080p24 on the XA2 platform, but weren't able to have the code ready in time for release. From posts I've read it seems that they plan to do it on the $599 HD-A20 as well. Toshiba was very clear at CES that they are committed to releasing this feature. I'm confident that they will.

I'm sure Sony's rising stock prices are the best indication of their recent problems :)


Cue a bunch of analysts "worried" about PS/3 sales.

Total coincidence. :rolleyes:

Gary

Looks like it could be "gameover" for Sony. They're diverting shipments from Japan to NA? Can't even sell it at home? Lose billions or dump it.

And if your chief competitor (Xbox 360 not Wii) is selling next to nothing in your home territory, how worried should you be by slow sales?

Clearly, there is going to be absolutely no problem with getting quantity into the Europe launch.

I'm pretty sure Xbox fans would agree Xbox 360 sales in Japan have no affect on European sales. Right?

Gary

I don't argue that the format competition has made both better formats, but at this point I believe continued competition is only detrimental to both formats, since it's keeping many consumers on the sidelines.


The benefits of market competition vs. the benefits of reaching mainstream volumes. It's a tough choice but yes, at some point these formats need to reach volumes that bring both software and hardware prices down and get the studios to put out many more titles in high def just as they do on dvd.

No argument here - inclusion of BD has almost certainly hurt the short-term success of the PS3. Long-term, it may prove to be a boon should developers find ways to leverage the extra capacity or if those who bought as a Blu-ray player end up consuming gaming titles or video downloads (when offered) as well. Of course, should Blu-ray be a market success Sony stands to gain more than most, and the PS3 will be a key reason for Blu-ray's victory.

You summarize the PS3 gambit very well, and from a BD insider no less. Sacrifice some gamers in the shorterm to take the dvd market in longterm and maybe utlimately take them both anyway.

In theory at least it seems reasonable but depends on how long loyal Playstation gamers and game developers are willing to take the hit for blu-ray...

You're presuming that Sony is taking a hit on PlayStation gamers. PS2 is still selling very well...

Is there some reason to believe the PS/3 can't handle PiP?Not at all, but from all accounts, it currently doesn't. Does anyone have proof to the contrary? Sony doesn't have to provide PiP until the content providers use it, and the content providers probably won't do PiP until they have something to test it on, generally a standalone, but I'm sure a PS3 would do too. It's one of those chicken and egg problems :)

If it so dang easy, what's the holdup with Toshiba standalone players doing 24p ??Why don't the BD standalones do lossless sound formats? Why doesn't the PS3 do PiP when it obviously could (Since the XBox does PiP, and the PS3 couldn't be less powerful, could it?). When releasing CE products, you have a pretty strict timetable, and you're not going to waste time on features that are optional or that can be added later. Generally it's hard enough just making the required features work as well as you can in the time available.

And if your chief competitor (Xbox 360 not Wii) is selling next to nothing in your home territory, how worried should you be by slow sales?

Clearly, there is going to be absolutely no problem with getting quantity into the Europe launch.

I'm pretty sure Xbox fans would agree Xbox 360 sales in Japan have no affect on European sales. Right?

Gary

Agreed. If Sony has actually caught up with demand due to some combination of better supply and dropping demand, the European launch should go off on time, and Europe is its own seperate market.

That doesn't mean that the PS3 is living up to its expectations or that it will achieve market dominance. Mike Morrel posted this link on the news thread.

http://www.redherring.com/Article.aspx?a=20745&hed=PS3+Sales+Could+Fall+Short

But Nomura sees trouble for Sony and cut its target for the number of PS3 consoles shipped during the fiscal year ending in March to 4.5 million. For next year, it’s cutting the forecast to 10 million from 16 million, and for the following year it’s reducing the estimate to 11 million from 18 million.

“We think management needs to correct as soon as possible the discrepancies we see in the PS3 business model, namely the gap between consumer expectations and the company’s views on the product, and by doing so to bring losses at the games business to a more tolerable level,” wrote Mr. Katayama.

As it's shaping up currently, I believe Xbox360 will own NA, Wii will own Japan and we're all waiting to see what happens in Europe.

http://www.eproductwars.com/vg/index.cfm
http://nexgenwars.com/
http://www.vgcharts.org/

bklilian, why does the Tivo Series 3 do some things less, for now, than the Series 2?

I hate to admit it, but sometimes it does take some time for all the features to roll out. I want full pip and HD audio decoding on all BD videos, but it's just not there yet. Like my S3, I think they'll get it there within a reasonable time. I sure hope so.

If BD can't provide the movies, quality, and extras, I'll go to supporting my hddvd addon totally.

Not at all, but from all accounts, it currently doesn't. Does anyone have proof to the contrary? Sony doesn't have to provide PiP until the content providers use it, and the content providers probably won't do PiP until they have something to test it on, generally a standalone, but I'm sure a PS3 would do too. It's one of those chicken and egg problems :)


How would we know without a piece of content that uses it?

Seems odd that anyone is concerned about a few 10K players. But, it might be a political thing. Sony is holding back PiP for the PS/3 until the players that can do it are able to do it? Or perhaps merely discouraging it use on content?

Gary

Or perhaps none of the other studios just aren't bothering since PiP commentary is a decidedly niche gimmick? I'm thinking of angle/multi-angle on DVD...

You're presuming that Sony is taking a hit on PlayStation gamers. PS2 is still selling very well...

On the PS3 they are taking a hit, as Talk himself admitted. PS2 sells to different market because it's much later in the console cycle and thus much cheaper than any of the latest systems.

This cycle of 'next-gen' consoles is selling to the early adopters and more hardcore and avid gamers who won't settle for PS2 quality and features at this point in time. PS2 is selling to price sensitive less tech oriented consumers, apples and oranges.

Developers are still happy to develop for the PS2 as well. Sony already won that cycle and will reap big benefits on that for several years still.

On the next generation of gaming, they are certainly taking a hit with gamers and developers which they basically have put at risk to win the dvd war.

This cycle of 'next-gen' consoles is selling to the early adopters and more hardcore and avid gamers who won't settle for PS2 quality and features at this point in time. PS2 is selling to price sensitive less tech oriented consumers, apples and oranges.


It could be argued that this is the same for the Wii. It isn't selling the hardcore crowd, but a price sensitive audience. And undoubtedly predominaty to be used by kids.

Gary

From posts I've read it seems that they plan to do it on the $599 HD-A20 as well.I'm pretty sure I read a post from Robert saying that the HD-A20 wasn't going to support 1080p24.

--Darin

bklilian, why does the Tivo Series 3 do some things less, for now, than the Series 2?

I hate to admit it, but sometimes it does take some time for all the features to roll out. I want full pip and HD audio decoding on all BD videos, but it's just not there yet. Like my S3, I think they'll get it there within a reasonable time. I sure hope so.

If BD can't provide the movies, quality, and extras, I'll go to supporting my hddvd addon totally.The Tivo Series 3 is a whole new beast entirely. The reason it doesn't do TTG and MRV, or Tivocast etc is simply because anything Tivo provides on the Box that has the potential to affect the content has to get past Cable Labs, which is notoriously hard. They decided to fight their battles one at a time, instead of all at once. I'm expecting things like Tivocast and interface improvements to propagate through, but I don't have much hope for Tivo To Go or Multi Room Viewing to ever appear on the S3.
Doesn't bother me, since I only have one TV in the house, so MRV has never really meant anything to me, and I consider TTG a gimmick. I'm pretty happy with my S3. Whether they arrive or not, it doesn't affect what channels you receive.

BD Features, however need to be authored to by content providers, and they won't do that unless the features are there to be used. A BD player (doesn't matter which one, but it would be good for them if it were a numerous one) needs to add PiP support before the studios will use it. Considering no one announced this functionality at CES, that isn't looking like it's going to happen before it's mandatory, which is fully understandable. Why increase your test matrix when you don't have to?

I'm pretty sure I read a post from Robert saying that the HD-A20 wasn't going to support 1080p24.

--Darin

You're correct Darin. I went back through Robert's posts and found this one.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=9437536#post9437536

What does the $100 (some predict will become $200) buy you over the A2?

What does the $100 (some predict will become $200) buy you over the A2?

1080P60i and maybe the analog outs.... I'm not sure about the analog outs though

It could be argued that this is the same for the Wii. It isn't selling the hardcore crowd, but a price sensitive audience. And undoubtedly predominaty to be used by kids.


Right. And Sony has already got many of the same customers the Wii is targetting with Guitar Hero, DDR, etc. I don't believe it's a zero-sum game, though, and Nintendo & Sony can find some synergy there rather than pure competition. Sony and Nintendo haven't been competing for the same customers since Sony first got into the console game with the PlayStation, IMO.

On the next generation of gaming, they are certainly taking a hit with gamers and developers which they basically have put at risk to win the dvd war.


Only in that the PS3 was delayed, but the additional costs aren't a significant detraction from the types of gamers who want a cutting edge system in it's first year. Besides having heard the same failed argument for both the PS2 when it debuted and the 360 just last year. I'm curious how you think the BD drive has done anything to hinder Developers, though, who seem to be facing the most challenges from the Cell architecture, which is an issue entirely independent of the BD inclusion, though. More capacity never hurts, even unused.

We had already seen the trend of exclusivity breaking down with GTA and others even at the latter stages of the PS2/Xbox fight, and the progression to high def (with the corresponding increases in time needed for textures, etc) certainly didn't slow that trend. That's something both the 360 and PS3 are facing equally, though.

Speaking as a developer, the single largest disadvantage of BD for the PS is the sheer cost of replication. Many of these games require large scale replication - far greater than a single general film (on average). The additional cost of replication of a BD title makes the economics model no longer make sense.

Also, one of the most significant problems of the PS3 is that it is simply underpowered compared to the XBox 360. The memory bandwidth and video processor are not in the same league. While the Cell processor and the three multi-core processors in the Xbox 360 are about equal - with the benefit going to the easier to program 360.

Speaking as a developer, the single largest disadvantage of BD for the PS is the sheer cost of replication. Many of these games require large scale replication - far greater than a single general film (on average). The additional cost of replication of a BD title makes the economics model no longer make sense.

Also, one of the most significant problems of the PS3 is that it is simply underpowered compared to the XBox 360. The memory bandwidth and video processor are not in the same league. While the Cell processor and the three multi-core processors in the Xbox 360 are about equal - with the benefit going to the easier to program 360.

Very interesting post Peter. Good to here from the horses mouth, so to speak about added costs that are largely ignored, or claimed they don't even exsist by many BR supporters.

Maybe we have a different definition of developer, but most coders I know don't give a fig about media replication cost. Besides, many HD-DVD partisans are quick to point out in regards to Sony's financial situation that they're at least partially subsidizing replication...

As the owner of a company which developed video games, let me tell you that replication costs "may" not be in the minds of the coders, but it is squarely in the minds of those paying the coders. It is also a key contributing factor to revenue generation which makes a significant difference in which platforms to invest in.

In other words, if I feel that System A will put more money in my pocket than System B, I won't purchase development systems for System B. If the incremental difference is small enough, I "may" buy some, but my primary development would be for System A, with porting being a primary concern for System B. This is why you see the software market shaping up the way it is.

Sony "may" also be subsidizing costs for its own First Party and Exclusive titles, but not for the majority of the marketplace.

Any yes, while I do support both formats, I do admit to a small HD-DVD bias. This is not due to anything other than some of the business practices and FUD which I have seen coming from Sony (primarily), a company I put in the same boat as companies like Apple, who often make excellent products, but dumb decisions.

I could see that for a smaller game studio,maybe, but if I'm EA, for example, I just can't see them passing on the PS3. The same for Take Two, etc etc. And it would depend on the margins. I just haven't seen anywhere else except your post that BD would be an issue, as opposed to the Cell.

I'm supporting both formats (9 each BD and HD-DVD now that I got the Crank BD- excellent PQ easily in the top 3 on my collection). Seems like I tend to post more to the BD side but mostly because I tend to disagre with HD-DVD partisans more than BD partisans. ;) This is all a sidetrack to my point, though, so I edited that comment out.

Why don't the BD standalones do lossless sound formats?Most do (or have been announced that they will) TrueHD, and at least one will do DTS-HD MA (which is one more than HD DVD players do, AFAIK).
Why doesn't the PS3 do PiP when it obviously couldMy guess is the community is waiting for one or two more players with secondary video support so as to reduce the chance of incompatibilities requiring firmware upgrades. One player doesn't provide a very good test matrix (albeit it's a far simpler one), so if the content folk have in-hand additional players with secondary video support, or know they are forthcoming shortly, they'd likely rather take a bit longer to make sure things run predictably across multiple players. It's not like very many consumers are waiting to buy solely because secondary video isn't yet available, especially given that PiP can be done today (ala Descent).

Most do (or have been announced that they will) TrueHD, and at least one will do DTS-HD MA (which is one more than HD DVD players do, AFAIK).
My guess is the community is waiting for one or two more players with secondary video support so as to reduce the chance of incompatibilities requiring firmware upgrades. One player doesn't provide a very good test matrix (albeit it's a far simpler one), so if the content folk have in-hand additional players with secondary video support, or know they are forthcoming shortly, they'd likely rather take a bit longer to make sure things run predictably across multiple players. It's not like very many consumers are waiting to buy solely because secondary video isn't yet available, especially given that PiP can be done today (ala Descent).

You forgot the "psuedo-", in there, Talk ol' boy!

;)

1080P60i and maybe the analog outs.... I'm not sure about the analog outs though

What is "1080P60i" ?

UxiSXRD,

If you are an EA, you would not PASS on a new console with potential, such as the PS3. However, you would, as I mentioned, and they are, release only "ports" from your other consoles. In other words, since you know you can make money on System A, all you need is incremental revenue from System B. Thus, your risk/reward profile is lessened. Plus, you gain some development skill with System B, should it ever take off and you decide to do an exclusive title for it.

There are already companies doing "cross-development" platforms which allow you to take programming and assets from the 360 and reuse them on the PS3. This approach almost guarantees "second-run" status to the PS3 for all but the most ardent of PS3 developers.

You're correct Darin. I went back through Robert's posts and found this one.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=9437536#post9437536

Hmm... So Toshiba's "total commitment" to 24p only extends only to the XA2. ;)

What's interesting about that is if the "commitment" will be accomplished via the HQV processor or as rdjam said, to just "ignore the encoding hints".

b2b

Cue a bunch of analysts "worried" about PS/3 sales.

Total coincidence. :rolleyes:

Gary
:D

I kinda pray they succeed in making the hedge funds rich so I can buy some sony stock at a low before BD starts wiping the floor with HD in 2007.

No stopping the ticker at that point, hopefully.

Sony stock is being bought up by a lot of star-struck PS3 buyers. The pros will let them drive it up then take their money.

Sony stock is being bought up by a lot of star-struck PS3 buyers. The pros will let them drive it up then take their money.

What a load of bull, anybody with a bit of economic sense (I remember plazman chiming in with something useful once) knows that the only people who change share prices are institutional shareholders, the likes of us buying 1000 or even 10000 shares makes no difference to a company like Sony/Microsoft or any multinational, the only companies people like us can effect is sports teams, and only if enough fans buy into their chosen football team.

I'm curious how you think the BD drive has done anything to hinder Developers, though, who seem to be facing the most challenges from the Cell architecture, which is an issue entirely independent of the BD inclusion, though. More capacity never hurts, even unused.


I meant the developer as business rather than referring to individual programmers.
I also refer not to the blu-ray drive itself but the fallout from adding the drive. Sony took care of possible speed issues with the drive when they added the built-in harddrive.

1st, delaying the system cannot be ignored because developers working on a single game for years have to project sales based on a projected user base. For instance if you figured to sell PS3 games in Europe for Christmas '06 the delay has real impact.

2nd cost cannot be ignored because the developer's sales projections have to include a lot more than "gamers who want a cutting edge system in it's first year." More developers have to port now from the 360 to the PS3 to cover their bases. The exclusive situation is different because Xbox 1 got PS2 leftovers often getting the big titles like GTA much later than it came out on the PS2 if it got the title at all.

Sony's saving grace may be the fact that it does have the largest 1st party development group in Sony Worldwide Studios. Those developers must put the PS3 1st and have the best chance to put out quality and perhaps system selling titles. They'll also try to maximize the BD drive potential where possible.

Was this quote from last Friday's CNET.com posted yet?

it may join the Sony PS3 in the realm of "tech that looks absolutely amazing but is far too expensive for most people to even consider buying."

Thing with a report like that is the person making it never qualifies the word s "most people".

If PS3s sell more than projected in 2007, he could say "yeah, but there are tons of gamers out there who didnt buy and would have bought if it was cheaper"

If it sells less than projected, he will proclaim his prediction a success.

When numbers are not given in a published article and are replaced by meaningless generalizations, it does not deserve to be used as reference.

I'm pretty sure I read a post from Robert saying that the HD-A20 wasn't going to support 1080p24.

--Darin I talked to Robert DTV Tivo Dealer the day he left Las Vegas. We shared sources. I think I can clarify the situation.

The best information is that the HD A20 will probably support 1080p24 in the future after a firmware upgrade but not at launch. I personally would put the odds at over 90%. For a number of reasons Toshiba is reluctant to say this officially.

I know for a fact that Toshiba is very aware of this issue on the A20 and is contemplating some comment to that effect, but the issue is complicated by legal and corporate culture issues. There is also a "Osborne Effect" consideration against HD A2 and HD XA2 sales. Also right now the 1080p24 support is another reason to upgrade to the HD XA2 besides the Reon processor.

Right now if they add 24fps support to the A20 it is a bonus and extra gravy to the buyers of that unit, but if they announce support and have some delays for whatever reason they are afraid of some unneeded backlash. Better to under promise and over deliver.

It is an absolute that the HD XA2 will support 1080p24. If that capability is important to you then you already have or are planning to buy in the near future a 24fps pr 120fps capable display (cutting edge probably will cost a lot) so the HD XA2's cost would be less of an issue for you.

My best advice is that if you need 24fps now or in the next year, buy a HD XA2. If you are a year or so away from a 24fps native capable display buy a 1080p60 HD A20 or even a 1080i HD A2. I personally think that it is a very good bet that the HD A20 will eventually support 1080p24. but that is not a 100% bet. Toshiba will probably never announce it before it happens, it will be like the 5.1 True HD firmware update to the HD XA1.

You forgot the "psuedo-", in there, Talk ol' boy!If it's good enough for Lionsgate to refer to it as "PiP", who am I to argue? :)

It's truly amazing that there are people who call themselves AV movie enthusiasts, yet care more about PiP than 20 GB of capacity and 18 Mbps of bandwidth. The logic circuits are failing somewhere.

I talked to Robert DTV Tivo Dealer the day he left Las Vegas. We shared sources. I think I can clarify the situation.

The best information is that the HD A20 will probably support 1080p24 in the future after a firmware upgrade but not at launch. I personally would put the odds at over 90%. For a number of reasons Toshiba is reluctant to say this officially.

I know for a fact that Toshiba is very aware of this issue on the A20 and is contemplating some comment to that effect, but the issue is complicated by legal and corporate culture issues. There is also a "Osborne Effect" consideration against HD A2 and HD XA2 sales. Also right now the 1080p24 support is another reason to upgrade to the HD XA22 besides the Reon processor.

Right now if they add 24fps support to the A20 it is a bonus and extra gravy to the buyers of that unit, but if they announce support and have some delays for whatever reason they are afraid of some unneeded backlash. Better to under promise and over deliver.

It is an absolute that the HD XA2 will support 1080p24. If that capability is important to you then you already have or are planning to buy in the near future a 24fps pr 120fps capable display (cutting edge probably will cost a lot) so the HD XA2's cost would be less of an issue for you.

My best advice is that if you need 24fps now or in the next year, buy a HD XA2. If you are a year or so away from a 24fps native capable display buy a 1080p60 HD A20 or even a 1080i HD A2. I personally think that it is a very good bet that the HD A20 will eventually support 1080p24. but that is not a 100% bet. Toshiba will probably never announce it before it happens, it will be like the 5.1 True HD firmware update to the HD XA1.

So the status of 24p on the Toshiba HD-DVD players is unchanged. Still in the "wishing, hoping and guessing" stage.... ;)

b2b

If it's good enough for Lionsgate to refer to it as "PiP", who am I to argue? :)

Bzzzt.

If the BDA refers to the 6/07 deadline for PiP in the "real" sense of the word, then neither you, nor Lionsgate, get to redefine it.

Two wrongs don't make a right.

It's truly amazing that there are people who call themselves AV movie enthusiasts, yet care more about PiP than 20 GB of capacity and 18 Mbps of bandwidth. The logic circuits are failing somewhere.

That's funny, I didn't think being an A/V enthusiast and being an educated consumer were mutually exclusive?

It's also chuckleriffic that months of claims of the superiority of BD-J went by on these boards, and now that there are serious concerns reagarding the ubiqitousness of that capability, I've seen a number of "why all the fuss over advanced features" type of comments.

It's truly amazing that there are people who call themselves AV movie enthusiasts, yet care more about PiP than 20 GB of capacity and 18 Mbps of bandwidth. The logic circuits are failing somewhere.

And to think you had voted saying initial BD releases were better than HD DVD releases at that time. Some AV enthusiast you are :p

If it's good enough for Lionsgate to refer to it as "PiP", who am I to argue? :)

So, you don't actually talk straight ? ;)

And to think you had voted saying initial BD releases were better than HD DVD releases at that time. Some AV enthusiast you are :p

You just reminded me of something funny I saw at CES. One vendor chose to demo a 100+" 1080p flat screen TV by playing The Fifth Element BD on it. I had read all of the reviews that talked about the PQ of this title, but never had the chance to see it for myself. The reviewers were right, it looks just a little better than a SD DVD without a good processor.

And to think you had voted saying initial BD releases were better than HD DVD releases at that time. Some AV enthusiast you are :p

That was then and this is now... ;)
Our sales office gets reports from at least two sources, one of them is a Nielsen company. They can report actual register sales for the formats. And yes, Blu-ray has been ahead as of late December.

b2b

If it's good enough for Lionsgate to refer to it as "PiP", who am I to argue? :)

You'd be one to argue had an HD-DVD only studio did the same thing :)

Cheers...
Duy-Khang Hoang

That was then and this is now... ;)


b2b


Didn't realise Nielsen's sales figures factored PQ and AQ as well...

Cheers...
Duy-Khang Hoang

Didn't realise Nielsen's sales figures factored PQ and AQ as well...

Cheers...
Duy-Khang Hoang

Only the most important "factor" for the studios, "SQ"... Sales Quality. ;)

b2b

So the status of 24p on the Toshiba HD-DVD players is unchanged. Still in the "wishing, hoping and guessing" stage.... ;) I'd call it "science fiction". :D

Just find it curious that though so many Blu-ray bashers attacked the fact that BD-Live is an optional profile that none of them provided any explanation for why that it is such a major negative. For instance no studio can count on 100% of HD DVD players being connected to the internet and in the long term I think it unlikely that you could get even 25% of them connected to the internet. Not everyone will go through the trouble and expense of connecting their HD player to the internet. Considering how many things look great about the BD-Video 1.1 profile I think those that are against Blu-ray are now going after the only thing that won't be made mandatory in it.


If the BDA refers to the 6/07 deadline for PiP in the "real" sense of the word, then neither you, nor Lionsgate, get to redefine it.
scaesare, have you ever heard about any of the PiP commentaries on DVD? Just saying that if you are going to attack Lionsgate for using another video encoding to do PiP than you will also have to attack several other studios as well. Personally speaking I think it is wrong that people are now trying to accuse Lionsgate of deception since I don't see any sign that they tried to deceive anyone.


It's also chuckleriffic that months of claims of the superiority of BD-J went by on these boards, and now that there are serious concerns reagarding the ubiqitousness of that capability, I've seen a number of "why all the fuss over advanced features" type of comments.Personally this is what I see happening. Several of the people who supported HD DVD used to say that interactivity was unimportant to them. Only after HD DVD titles had better interactivity than Blu-ray titles in 2006 did they suddenly start considering it to be an important issue. Call me cynical but once we start seeing Blu-ray titles with better interactivity than HD DVD titles those people will suddenly return to their original view that interactivity is unimportant.


Didn't realise Nielsen's sales figures factored PQ and AQ as well...They don't, but for the last few months Blu-ray has released many great looking titles. Also since you mention video quality I noticed recently this High-Def Digest review of Excalibur (http://hddvd.highdefdigest.com/excalibur.html) which if I am not mistaken is the lowest scoring review of any title reviewed on that website. Just saying that though there are some bad titles on Blu-ray that there are also some bad titles on HD DVD as well.

You just reminded me of something funny I saw at CES. One vendor chose to demo a 100+" 1080p flat screen TV by playing The Fifth Element BD on it. I had read all of the reviews that talked about the PQ of this title, but never had the chance to see it for myself. The reviewers were right, it looks just a little better than a SD DVD without a good processor. You know I saw that too. :D The funny thing was the booth representative standing by it had really thick (I mean butt ugly coke bottle thick) glasses on. I mean it didn't look like he watched a lot of movies or could really tell the difference in a good or bad picture.

Overall though that seemed to be the exception not the rule at CES.

. I thought most displays were showing content that looked better than last year. Most of the HD content, Blu-ray and HD or harddrive feed looked much better than last year. Its like there was some attention to how the pictures were looking this year, as opposed to just size and brightness.

Does HD DVDs mandatory network & persistent storage specs trump BDs disc space?

Discussion here:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=788514

.....They don't, but for the last few months Blu-ray has released many great looking titles. Also since you mention video quality I noticed recently this High-Def Digest review of Excalibur (http://hddvd.highdefdigest.com/excalibur.html) which if I am not mistaken is the lowest scoring review of any title reviewed on that website. Just saying that though there are some bad titles on Blu-ray that there are also some bad titles on HD DVD as well.

Agreed. The reviews are showing that PQ on BD titles has gotten better and more consistent in recent releases. It seems that people are learning to stay away from BD-25 combined with Mpeg2. When we're talking about older titles like Excalibur for example, the review is pretty clear that it was a half-hearted restoration effort.

It looks like the competition is good for all of us. ;)

Agreed. The reviews are showing that PQ on BD titles has gotten better and more consistent in recent releases. It seems that people are learning to stay away from BD-25 combined with Mpeg2. When we're talking about older titles like Excalibur for example, the review is pretty clear that it was a half-hearted restoration effort.

It looks like the competition is good for all of us. ;)

I'd dont know if I'd agree with that, so far the two movies I like most for PQ on blu-ray are Tears of the Sun and The Covenant both are bd25's and MPEG-2.

I think it is a terrible waste of space and negates BRs advantages of extra space and of course there are problems inherient with MPEG2 but again I think the above 2 titles mentioned have better PQ then many of the BD50 releases so far.

Just to calibrate myself, how many Blu-ray releases so far are DL50's?

Just to calibrate myself, how many Blu-ray releases so far are DL50's?

18 out of 138 titles released so far

These are the stats for last year, give or take:

June 0/13
July 0/7
August 0/12
September 0/24
October 3/29
November 5/27
December 5/20

Thanks.. So about 25% or so is the trend the last two months.

Thats more than enough for me to demonstrate the capabilty.

Although if it doesn't trend upward every few months I fear that the economics may keep most releases as SL25.

Thanks.. So about 25% or so is the trend the last two months.

Thats more than enough for me to demonstrate the capabilty.

Although if it doesn't trend upward every few months I fear that the economics may keep most releases as SL25.

And that really should be fine if they stick with VC1 and limited to core extras. I think the problem lies in that if they don't use BD50, then they lose a big part of their marketing ... and if Sony is going to subsidize the cost ... well ... *shrug*

And that really should be fine if they stick with VC1 and limited to core extras. I think the problem lies in that if they don't use BD50, then they lose a big part of their marketing ... and if Sony is going to subsidize the cost ... well ... *shrug*

The new trend seems to be putting shorter running movies on BD50s in order to add PIP type features and extras. (The Decent 99 minutes, Crank 87 minutes)

The new trend seems to be putting shorter running movies on BD50s in order to add PIP type features and extras. (The Decent 99 minutes, Crank 87 minutes)

I've noticed the same ... I guess that means they're sticking to MPEG2 due to Sony's huge capital investment?

Of course, it also allows them to show that they are actually using close to 50GB ... so ... they can show the 'need' for the space in their marketing. :p

Thanks.. So about 25% or so is the trend the last two months.



Math?

Math?

10 of 47 ... he was a little high in his guesstimate ... it's more like 21.276595744680851063829787234043% ... give or take ... for Nov/Dec ... ;)

Math? Well I was rounding up to 25% to make it look better for Blu-ray ;)

Didn't Talkstr8t say before that he estimated that 80% of the Blu-ray movies released would be BD25 and that 20% or so, the movies that woulkd benefit from them, would be released on BD50?

That would make his prediction dead on for the Nov and Dec time frame.

Sony claims 2 million PS3s shipped:

http://www.scei.co.jp/corporate/release/pdf/070116e.pdf

Faster to 2 million than the previous Playstations.

Great article. It's worth reading.

Blu-ray, HD both doomed

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=36942

I've noticed the same ... I guess that means they're sticking to MPEG2 due to Sony's huge capital investment?

Of course, it also allows them to show that they are actually using close to 50GB ... so ... they can show the 'need' for the space in their marketing. :p


Well Casino Royale is supposed to be in AVC. I am really waiting to see some BD in a better codec. It's just plain stupid to claim that BD is superior b/c of space, and then waste all that space because you used an older, less efficient, and to my eyes, lower quality codec.

I am not sure who or if Sony has to pay royalties to use AVC.

Well Casino Royale is supposed to be in AVC. I am really waiting to see some BD in a better codec. It's just plain stupid to claim that BD is superior b/c of space, and then waste all that space because you used an older, less efficient, and to my eyes, lower quality codec.

I am not sure who or if Sony has to pay royalties to use AVC.

According to Amir, yes microsoft holds patents or something like that on AVC and will be collecting money even if they use AVC or VC-1

According to Amir, yes microsoft holds patents or something like that on AVC and will be collecting money even if they use AVC or VC-1

Correct me if I am wrong here. Isn't AVC the same as MPEG-4 and h.264? Which I thought is what apple uses for Quick Time?

Could someone clarify the difference between these three?

Correct me if I am wrong here. Isn't AVC the same as MPEG-4 and h.264? Which I thought is what apple uses for Quick Time?

Could someone clarify the difference between these three?

I believe your correct. Microsoft I believe made VC-1 but he has also mentioned that Microsoft does have something to do with holding patents or something like that for AVC. So I dont think it is totally theres like VC1 but they will profit by its use

Well Casino Royale is supposed to be in AVC. I am really waiting to see some BD in a better codec. It's just plain stupid to claim that BD is superior b/c of space, and then waste all that space because you used an older, less efficient, and to my eyes, lower quality codec.

I am not sure who or if Sony has to pay royalties to use AVC.

Toshiba

Toshiba


Well maybe they can work something out, since I think Toshiba helped develop the CELL processor in the PS3 ;)

So does Apple have to pay Toshiba royaltes for h.264?

Thanks.. So about 25% or so is the trend the last two months.

Thats more than enough for me to demonstrate the capabilty.

Although if it doesn't trend upward every few months I fear that the economics may keep most releases as SL25.Disney's entire launch calendar (or most of it) is BD50.

- Talk

Well maybe they can work something out, since I think Toshiba helped develop the CELL processor in the PS3 ;)

So does Apple have to pay Toshiba royaltes for h.264?The AVC patent pool consists of Columbia University, Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute of Korea (ETRI), France Télécom, Fujitsu, LG Electronics, Matsushita, Mitsubishi, Microsoft, Motorola, Nokia, Philips, Robert Bosch GmbH, Samsung, Sharp, Sony, Toshiba, and Victor Company of Japan (JVC). All of these companies will share in royalties, though those who have more IP (a closely guarded secret) will get a bigger share of the pie. See details here (http://www.mpegla.com/news/n_03-11-17_avc.html). The VC-1 patent pool has a similar list of companies: DAEWOO Electronics Corporation, France Télécom, société anonyme, Fujitsu Limited, Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V., LG Electronics Inc., Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. (Panasonic), Mitsubishi Electric Corporation, Microsoft Corporation, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation (NTT), Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., Sharp Corporation, Sony Corporation, Telenor ASA, Toshiba Corporation, and Victor Company of Japan, Limited (JVC).

- Talk

The new trend seems to be putting shorter running movies on BD50s in order to add PIP type features and extras. (The Decent 99 minutes, Crank 87 minutes)Lionsgate is the only studio to use this method to provide PiP. There's no indication the other studios have any intent of doing this, nor that the average running time of upcoming BD50 movies is related to PiP in any way.

Didn't Talkstr8t say before that he estimated that 80% of the Blu-ray movies released would be BD25 and that 20% or so, the movies that woulkd benefit from them, would be released on BD50?I did, but this was my personal estimte. Direct studio quotes have since shown me to have woefully underestimated. Sony says they expect 75-80% of titles will be BD50, and Disney's launch calendar suggests a similar ratio.

I did, but this was my personal estimte. Direct studio quotes have since shown me to have woefully underestimated. Sony says they expect 75-80% of titles will be BD50, and Disney's launch calendar suggests a similar ratio. That would be good news for HD content if it comes to pass.

Right now it looks like 21% for the past couple months. I would expect that to steadily increase then as timegoes on.

There's no indication the other studios have any intent of doing this, nor that the average running time of upcoming BD50 movies is related to PiP in any way.

Obviously, there's no official indication of such. However, that does not preclude reasonable inferences from being made.

It's truly amazing that there are people who call themselves AV movie enthusiasts, yet care more about PiP than 20 GB of capacity and 18 Mbps of bandwidth. The logic circuits are failing somewhere.

Three reasons why.

1. If we needed the capacity I would care, but VC1 encoding makes in a non issue.

2. I never cared about PiP and now that I have experienced HDi I can tell you it's fabulous and make the movie far more interesting to see the directory comments and behind the scenes fascinating facts. If like me you never tried Pip and the eother rich features and benefits of HDi give it a whirl and you will begin enjoying a fund and interesting new movie experience.

3. HD DVD's TL 51 GB discs will be adopted shortly

-Robert

1. If we needed the capacity I would care, but VC1 encoding makes in a non issue.

3. HD DVD's TL 51 GB discs will be adopted shortly


Why 3 if 1?

Gary

Why 3 if 1?

Gary
Because it makes all the spec boys wild. :rolleyes:

Is that your final answer? :D

Why 3 if 1?

Gary

IIRC, Amir has carefully said words to the effect that no current HD DVD studio is asking for TL. Reading between the lines, my conclusion is that a BD studio is asking for TL.

IIRC, Amir has carefully said words to the effect that no current HD DVD studio is asking for TL. Reading between the lines, my conclusion is that a BD studio is asking for TL.

I think something that could be debated is whether they asked, or whether they were asked "What would be needed for you to consider...?" and were told 50GB + 54Mbps.

Even if given the opportunity, they might not take it. But, that will be ("probably") debated. ;)

Seems unlikely if they were the one going cap in hand that Toshiba would have spent the R&D money, or anyone would have risked the issues this raises.

Gary

IIRC, Amir has carefully said words to the effect that no current HD DVD studio is asking for TL. Reading between the lines, my conclusion is that a BD studio is asking for TL.

Prolly Disney since rumor has it most of their upcoming releases will be on BD50 ... :confused:

Just find it curious that though so many Blu-ray bashers attacked the fact that BD-Live is an optional profile that none of them provided any explanation for why that it is such a major negative. For instance no studio can count on 100% of HD DVD players being connected to the internet and in the long term I think it unlikely that you could get even 25% of them connected to the internet. Not everyone will go through the trouble and expense of connecting their HD player to the internet. Considering how many things look great about the BD-Video 1.1 profile I think those that are against Blu-ray are now going after the only thing that won't be made mandatory in it.

They don't, but for the last few months Blu-ray has released many great looking titles. Also since you mention video quality I noticed recently this High-Def Digest review of Excalibur (http://hddvd.highdefdigest.com/excalibur.html) which if I am not mistaken is the lowest scoring review of any title reviewed on that website. Just saying that though there are some bad titles on Blu-ray that there are also some bad titles on HD DVD as well.

I find it curious that you still persist in ignoring people's answers, people have already explained why they don't like the BD profiles (or whatever you want to call it)... namely because the average consumer is unaware of the differences. It can all be rectified if this information is readily available, via logos or what not. Also, can you please stop with the party line that a feature may not be used by many as a reason to downplay the importance of having something mandatory... it's two completely different things to mandate a network port vs. someone making use of the network port. I guess if BD made cars with optional profile support for airbags and HD-DVD made airbags mandatory for all cars you'd also be arguing "what the likely percentage of users are likely to crash their cars to make use of the airbags" as a counter to their not being mandated in BD cars. In other words, just because you don't agree, don't make it out like everyone else is being pedantic.

Second of all, what is the need to respond to my Nielson's quip? It was in response to B2B making a silly correlation to the Nielson's numbers as being proof that the PQ & AQ of BD is superior. Makes no sense whatsoever.

Cheers...
Duy-Khang Hoang

The Best of the Best: Ultimate AV's 2006 Top Ten Product of the Year Awards

Disc Player of the Year - HD-A1
Honorable Mention - PS3

http://www.ultimateavmag.com/features/107poty/index2.html

3. HD DVD's TL 51 GB discs will be adopted shortly

-Robert
Hi Robert - I read this morning that this has been submitted now, is this correct, or was the story I read jumping ahead of themselves?

Am I somehow missing something? It seems like everyone in this debate just misses the big picture. Thinking ahead even just a year or two from now... Why won't capacity be the sole factor why Blu-ray becomes the standard?

If I'm adding a writable optical drive to my new computer, why wouldn't I get the one that can hold (and backup) more data? The one I can fit more of my music on... etc, etc.

Wasn't capacity the real reason that VHS beat out Beta? All the A/V experts here might forget that the masses don't necessarily focus on ever little spec (or even image quality) the way you do... (And aren't the two formats about equal there anyway?).

Why isn't this just an obvious conclusion? (I don't claim to know... I'm asking)

As prices for the players go down, whether they be for blu-ray, HD-DVD or combo players I wouldn't be surprised if most computers had the ability to playback any format... But what will they be writing to? The one with the most space on it. Right?

And then won't users want the ability to pop those discs into their player in their living room to listen to music or browse their pictures, etc, etc...

Correct me if I am wrong here. Isn't AVC the same as MPEG-4 and h.264? Which I thought is what apple uses for Quick Time?

Could someone clarify the difference between these three?
Ooh, flashbacks :)!

MPEG-4 Part 10==AVC==H.264

Same standard, different names.

MPEG-4 Part 10 is just that part of the standard. The "original flavor" MPEG-4 codec was Part 2.

H.264 is the ITU name.

It's also sometimes called JVT since it was the Joint Video Team of ITU/MPEG that made the standard.

AVC=Advanced Video Coding. The "neutral" (not MPEG or ITU specific) name for the codec.

And it was also code-named H.26L early in its development.

The reviews are showing that PQ on BD titles has gotten better and more consistent in recent releases. It seems that people are learning to stay away from BD-25 combined with Mpeg2.There are many Blu-ray movies that show that to be an exaggeration though personally I do believe in the use of advanced video codecs because of their greater efficiency.


When we're talking about older titles like Excalibur for example, the review is pretty clear that it was a half-hearted restoration effort.Certainly, but many of the people that attacked The Fifth Element never bothered to mention that the master that the movie was encoded from was pretty poor. It just seems to me that certain posters have obvious double standards in that they are quick to attack any Blu-ray movie even when the main problem is the master that the movie was encoded from, but are quick to defend HD DVD from movies encoded from poor quality masters.


3. HD DVD's TL 51 GB discs will be adopted shortlyToshiba doesn't even plan to standarize on TL-51 until sometime late this year. Until they standarize on the specs for it they won't even be able to test to see if any of the current HD DVD players will be capable of it. Honestly I would love for this to happen, but my cynical side is saying that this is nothing more than a marketing ploy to keep HD DVD afloat.


I find it curious that you still persist in ignoring people's answers, people have already explained why they don't like the BD profiles (or whatever you want to call it)...Actually I am against those that are claiming that Blu-ray has a major problem because BD-Live is an optional profile. I already know quite well that certain posters hate the Blu-ray profiles in general and it is rather hard to forget that since they post on the subject several times per week.


Also, can you please stop with the party line that a feature may not be used by many as a reason to downplay the importance of having something mandatory...I have never been a fan of the idea of internet features and that was true even before I knew about Blu-ray profiles. I have always questioned the value of something which may literally be here today and gone tomorrow. Also if you want to see someone downplay a feature that their format doesn't support you really should read the debate that Amir and Talkstr8t had over the issue of HD PiP.


it's two completely different things to mandate a network port vs. someone making use of the network port.That is true in theory, but in terms of the end result what difference is there between someone that has internet connectivity on their HD player and doesn't connect it up and one who doesn't have internet connectivity on their HD player? Just pointing out that even mandating a network connection on a HD player doesn't guarantee that a majority of people will actually use it.

Ooh, flashbacks :)!

MPEG-4 Part 10==AVC==H.264

Same standard, different names.

MPEG-4 Part 10 is just that part of the standard. The "original flavor" MPEG-4 codec was Part 2.

H.264 is the ITU name.

It's also sometimes called JVT since it was the Joint Video Team of ITU/MPEG that made the standard.

AVC=Advanced Video Coding. The "neutral" (not MPEG or ITU specific) name for the codec.

And it was also code-named H.26L early in its development.


Excellent post :)

Actually,

I'll be a bit mad if they DO adopt HD TL discs. That's all that we need....another "version" of an HD format that may not play on certain players. Yeah, b/c that won't confuse consumers :rolleyes:


HD DVD does not need the extra capacity. I think it is a dumb move designed to make the 50 vs. 30 gig issue moot...but instead it just adds confusion.

I'd feel the same way if 100 gb bd discs started being produced and none of the gen 1 or 2 players could play them.


It's BAD ENOUGH we have two formats....we don't need several versions of those formats to make it certain NEITHER of them will make it.

Am I somehow missing something? It seems like everyone in this debate just misses the big picture. Thinking ahead even just a year or two from now... Why won't capacity be the sole factor why Blu-ray becomes the standard?

If I'm adding a writable optical drive to my new computer, why wouldn't I get the one that can hold (and backup) more data? The one I can fit more of my music on... etc, etc.

Wasn't capacity the real reason that VHS beat out Beta? All the A/V experts here might forget that the masses don't necessarily focus on ever little spec (or even image quality) the way you do... (And aren't the two formats about equal there anyway?).

Why isn't this just an obvious conclusion? (I don't claim to know... I'm asking)

As prices for the players go down, whether they be for blu-ray, HD-DVD or combo players I wouldn't be surprised if most computers had the ability to playback any format... But what will they be writing to? The one with the most space on it. Right?

And then won't users want the ability to pop those discs into their player in their living room to listen to music or browse their pictures, etc, etc...

What if that BR burner only supports MPEG-2? Then what good is it. In a couple years harddrives will be so cheap and large 50 or even 100 gb will be trivial. Hell, it already is if you look at the price of the burner and the dl BR disks compared to the current price of 250 gb harddrives.

That is true in theory, but in terms of the end result what difference is there between someone that has internet connectivity on their HD player and doesn't connect it up and one who doesn't have internet connectivity on their HD player? Just pointing out that even mandating a network connection on a HD player doesn't guarantee that a majority of people will actually use it.

Mandated feature means that the studios have a common baseline to work on.
Mandated features increases the likelihood of something being put on to make use of it.
Not everyone has to connect today, but if they chose to connect tomorrow or a year down the road, having it available is a lot easier than having to buy a new player.
Many times people justify paying less for not having a feature as a means to save money, well in this case you are usually paying more for not having the feature yet that is all hunky dory?

Also, nowhere has anyone claimed that a mandated feature == majority of people will use it. Never ever has it been said, so why persist with this argument in order to justify BluRay's exclusion of it?

I suppose Apple Inc. should charge people for a net aware iTunes software because lets face it, most music on iPods aren't iTunes bought anyway right? Let them rip their music from CDs instead. Having a useful feature (provided it does not impede on costs/complexity in the life of the product) is always seen as an advantage for those that have it.

Cheers...
Duy-Khang Hoang

Am I somehow missing something? It seems like everyone in this debate just misses the big picture. Thinking ahead even just a year or two from now... Why won't capacity be the sole factor why Blu-ray becomes the standard?

If I'm adding a writable optical drive to my new computer, why wouldn't I get the one that can hold (and backup) more data? The one I can fit more of my music on... etc, etc.

Wasn't capacity the real reason that VHS beat out Beta? All the A/V experts here might forget that the masses don't necessarily focus on ever little spec (or even image quality) the way you do... (And aren't the two formats about equal there anyway?).

Why isn't this just an obvious conclusion? (I don't claim to know... I'm asking)

As prices for the players go down, whether they be for blu-ray, HD-DVD or combo players I wouldn't be surprised if most computers had the ability to playback any format... But what will they be writing to? The one with the most space on it. Right?

And then won't users want the ability to pop those discs into their player in their living room to listen to music or browse their pictures, etc, etc...

What happens in the PC space and CE space aren't always directly correlated, there is some overlap.

Also, why do you think that single layer DVD is still the predominant optical backup medium despite dual layer DVDs are out? Not everyone is crying out for more space to back up onto optical discs, most of the things people look to backing up can be split over multiple discs. If Dual Layer DVD costed less per GB than Single Layer, if it was compatible in more drives than Single Layer (or enough drives to matter) then it'd be a no brainer, but right now people still have to weigh up their needs vs value. In time things will head towards more as it always does, but for now:

How many photos can you take on your digital camera that fits on a SL-DVD? How often does this happen? Say I use up a 1gig card each time I take the camera out, after 4 outings, I've enough to burn off onto DVD for archival. Some people can't imagine waiting for 50gigs worth of photos before archiving, the hard drive might experience a failure in the meantime and there goes the irreplaceable photos. Sure BD-RE is a good alternative, but well, it's not the only solution. In time then yes. But for this generation, optical backups has been less important even though it should still be. This is in part thanks to the proliferation of RAID arrays and the impending Windows Home Server among other backup means.

How much music can you buy before you fill up a SL-DVD, if you save as WAV for peace of mind, that's still about 7 Audio CDs bought for each SL-DVD to back up. How often will you be buying 35 Audio CDs in order to need BD for backing them up? Will you wait til you find 35 Audio CDs that you like are available before you back them up? What about if you compress to lossless flac? What about to 128kbps MP3/OGG/AAC etc.?

Cheers...
Duy-Khang Hoang

Who's winning the battle, I hear HDDVD is more reliable, and looks better, while B-R looks better on paper, but the quality is not there yet.

Who's winning the battle, I hear HDDVD is more reliable, and looks better, while B-R looks better on paper, but the quality is not there yet.

I don't know whether I'd characterize the formats the way you have ... but neither format is making a dent in the dvd sales. The movie sales have been smaller than some expected, so are stand alone player sales.

Who's winning the battle, I hear HDDVD is more reliable, and looks better, while B-R looks better on paper, but the quality is not there yet.

Hi Tool Shed. Welcome to the format battle thread. In case you haven't read any of the previous posts here, this is a relatively polarized thread with supporter on either side making the case for the format they support. Kind of like watching a debate take place.

I won't try to provide a summary of all of our arguments. If you're interested you can always go back and read through some of them. I think there's some good info in there as well as a bunch of useless banter.

In short, there is no simple answer to your question. I think you'll need to review the information for yourself and make your own decision. Or you can adopt both formats, as some of the regulars on this thread have already done.

I find it curious that you still persist in ignoring people's answers, people have already explained why they don't like the BD profiles (or whatever you want to call it)...

Actually I am against those that are claiming that Blu-ray has a major problem because BD-Live is an optional profile. I already know quite well that certain posters hate the Blu-ray profiles in general and it is rather hard to forget that since they post on the subject several times per week.

So, we have to explain one more time, then... since you don't take hdkhang's word for it...

We are against the fact that Bluray has THREE standalone player profiles (simply because they could only get a basic profile working in time to hit the market) and that they don't come clean to prospective customers about these profiles and the fact that the first gen BR players will likely NOT be able to comply with the "newer" two profiles coming by June.

Note that these THREE BR player profiles stand as opposed to one advanced profile in HD DVD - which includes all the key things the three BD profiles include, such as Networking, PiP, etc - right from the first HD DVD player shipped...

What if that BR burner only supports MPEG-2? Then what good is it. In a couple years harddrives will be so cheap and large 50 or even 100 gb will be trivial. Hell, it already is if you look at the price of the burner and the dl BR disks compared to the current price of 250 gb harddrives.

How can a burner support or refuse a codec?

The burner records data. It doesn't know or care what those bits are.

Gary

Mandated feature means that the studios have a common baseline to work on.Something like an internet connection though requires more to actually use. After all simply having an internet connector on a HD player does not mean must unless it is connected to the internet.


Mandated features increases the likelihood of something being put on to make use of it.I agree with that.


Many times people justify paying less for not having a feature as a means to save money, well in this case you are usually paying more for not having the feature yet that is all hunky dory?Well besides the whole issue of subsidization by Toshiba even BD-Video 1.0 players had higher requirements in several areas than HD DVD players.


Also, nowhere has anyone claimed that a mandated feature == majority of people will use it. Never ever has it been said, so why persist with this argument in order to justify BluRay's exclusion of it?Look what I see is several Blu-ray bashers implying that since BD-Live is optional that we will not see internet features on Blu-ray discs. That is what I am disagreeing with.

Speaking as a developer, the single largest disadvantage of BD for the PS is the sheer cost of replication

what is the repplication cost?

Look what I see is several Blu-ray bashers implying that since BD-Live is optional that we will not see internet features on Blu-ray discs. That is what I am disagreeing with.
I haven't seen much of that - mostly what I see is people wondering why studios would put TruHD on BR titles, when most player won't decode it - even paidgeek tonight on the insider thread stated that US releases will be mostly 48/16 L-PCM...

There's no question, tho, that if something is required on ALL players, then the discs are going to be more likely to support it.

We had debates like this over the audio issues in the "old days" last year, and have been proven right by time...

The Best of the Best: Ultimate AV's 2006 Top Ten Product of the Year Awards

Disc Player of the Year - HD-A1
Honorable Mention - PS3

http://www.ultimateavmag.com/features/107poty/index2.html

Good find there 2Channel....Great for Toshiba and also good for Sony's PS3. :)\

BTW, I own the HD-A1. :)

I haven't seen much of that - mostly what I see is people wondering why studios would put TruHD on BR titles, when most player won't decode it - even paidgeek tonight on the insider thread stated that US releases will be mostly 48/16 L-PCM...

There's no question, tho, that if something is required on ALL players, then the discs are going to be more likely to support it.

We had debates like this over the audio issues in the "old days" last year, and have been proven right by time...

I agree. By virtue of the fact the BD-Live is optional, it's much less likely to be used. The only way I think BD-Live will get used is if Sony is able to update the PS3 to include BD-Live. Even though only a percentage of PS3 buyers are using them for BD playback, this number still dwarfs the stand alone sales, so this kind of enhancement would make BD-Live wide spread in the customer base.

rdjam, last I checked DTS-HD MA is used on both HD formats when there are no players that can decode it. Also considering you said that lossless audio codecs would not be used on Blu-ray I have to wonder how you can state that you have been proven right when it looks to me like you were wrong.


I agree. By virtue of the fact the BD-Live is optional, it's much less likely to be used.Just curious but how do you know it is much less likely instead of somewhat less likely? Also note that SD/HD PiP, secondary audio decoding, and 256 MB of persistent memory are required with BD-Video 1.1 so the main feature exclusive to BD-Live is internet capability.


The only way I think BD-Live will get used is if Sony is able to update the PS3 to include BD-Live.That is certainly a question mark at the moment.

rdjam, last I checked DTS-HD MA is used on both HD formats when there are no players that can decode it. The A2, A20, XA2 and Xbox player (and on the PC) will decode DTS-HD, so I'm not sure what your talking about, as you know this, I think...

Also considering you said that lossless audio codecs would not be used on Blu-ray I have to wonder how you can state that you have been proven right when it looks to me like you were wrong.I never said that there would never be any, as that would clearly be a stupid thing to say. I said that Bluray releases would be less likely to have DD+ and TruHD soundtracks since the players weren't required to decode them, and to a large extent, I have been shown to be generally correct on this. Your changing the words around indicates you understand this also.

Just curious but how do you know it is much less likely instead of somewhat less likely? I am assuming that 2channel is referring to the same principle...

Who's winning the battle, I hear HDDVD is more reliable, and looks better, while B-R looks better on paper, but the quality is not there yet.That's pure propaganda. BD is better both on paper and in real life.

rjdam, the only one changing words is you but if you want to pretend that you never said what you said so be it. As for your statement about DTS-HD MA decoding on current HD DVD players I won't even try to argue that. You are either playing games or you really don't know in which case I will leave it to one of the HD DVD supporters to explain to you about DTS-HD MA decoding.

That's pure propaganda. BD is better both on paper and in real life.
Well you've certainly got the hypocrite market cornered. lol

Well you've certainly got the hypocrite market cornered.

Speaking of hypocrites, wasn't HD DVD supporters trumpeting the 2005 lineup (which never materialized & when Warner and Paramount were still exclusive) and 2006 announcements as a blow to Blu-ray which announced relatively little.

Now the roles are reversed in 2007 and title announcements "no longer matter" at CES, never mind the fact that it is software that sells hardware.

That for MONTHS HD DVD fanboys were talking about the number of titles, etc. Now it "doesn't matter". When BD folks talked about upcoming players and the PS3 and BD50, HD DVDers scoffed "Blu-ray is all about the future, HD DVD is now", again: roles are reversed. More BD players on the market, more titles, BD50, etc and HD DVD folk talk about possible players from China, TL51 and future titles.

Oh, not to mention that is now the HD DVD side that doesn't allow combo players!

Hypocrisy: thy name is HD DVD.

Oh, not to mention that is now the HD DVD side that doesn't allow combo players!

Hypocrisy: thy name is HD DVD.


Are you speaking about the LG combo??
If you are well It Is not because they don't allow combo players.
It's because this combo player doesn't play HDi interactive features, It will just play the movie..
So the HD-DVD forum is rejecting it's release.

rjdam, the only one changing words is you but if you want to pretend that you never said what you said so be it. As for your statement about DTS-HD MA decoding on current HD DVD players I won't even try to argue that. You are either playing games or you really don't know in which case I will leave it to one of the HD DVD supporters to explain to you about DTS-HD MA decoding.
Nope.

I know exactly what I said on the matter, and I said it many, many times, so there'll be PAGES of quotes you can supply here.

Perhaps it would be better admitting you are wrong?

And as for DTS-HD MA, you know full well that the new players will be getting full DTS-HD MA 5.1 decoding in their next formware update, and this has been confirmed by Toshiba - so I suggest the only person "playing games" here is transparently apparent...

I think that all this talk about TL51 may be hurting HD DVD player sales. Everybody has to wonder whether some existing players will become obsolete. The same for BD live, HDMI 3, and some other features missing in players from both sides.

Early adopters know they pay big bugs for new stuff sometimes missing some features. But they don't alway like it.

- Tom

That for MONTHS HD DVD fanboys were talking about the number of titles, etc. Now it "doesn't matter". BR should always have had more titles, given the studios touted, so we found it hilarious that for all of last year, HD DVD had so many more (and better quality) titles.

When BD folks talked about upcoming players and the PS3 and BD50, HD DVDers scoffed "Blu-ray is all about the future, HD DVD is now", It was, and still is - BR still talk about the potential of "this" and the future of "that" - just look at this ridiculous situation with BD-Java profiles for later this year, and the continuing talk about what percentage of BD releases "will" be 50 Gig, or how many BD titles "will" have TruHD tracks, or when REAL PiP "will" start appearing...

again: roles are reversed. More BD players on the market, So? Most of them STILL don't match the features in their HD DVD counterparts. Having a lot more of something that is more expensive and with less features doesn't count as an advantage in my book.

more titles, BD50, etc Yes, BD "will" have a few extra titles over HD DVD "real soon now", but as of today there are still 18 titles more that can be ordered on HD DVD - thanks for making that point for us.

and HD DVD folk talk about possible players from China, Didn't know you were interested. Even better, these are available for licensing and branding.

TL51 Now THAT's worried a few BD fans

and future titles.But isn't that what it's all about?

Oh, not to mention that is now the HD DVD side that doesn't allow combo players!

Hypocrisy: thy name is HD DVD.If a player doesn't meet the demanding specifications to be an HD DVD player, then it can't be called one. No one's banning it from sale, they just can't sell it as an "HD DVD" player because it can't yet do the job.

Unlike over there at the BD camp, where they just create another less stringent "basic" spec or two while they figure the rest of it out. ;)

In fact, I think that some of the Bluray manufacturers may have gotten too used to shipping players that really don't have to do everything they should... :p

I think that all this talk about TL51 may be hurting HD DVD player sales. Everybody has to wonder whether some existing players will become obsolete. The same for BD live, HDMI 3, and some other features missing in players from both sides.

Early adopters know they pay big bugs for new stuff sometimes missing some features. But they don't alway like it.

- Tom
I know one thing that I am not buying anymore of anytime soon and that is Universal flicks. My add-on might rot but I dont have a choice there. No more titles until the TL51 saga is worked out.

My gut says that hd-dvd might die before they get the extra space and b/w approved and released in players and titles. Lets see.

I know one thing that I am not buying anymore of anytime soon and that is Universal flicks. My add-on might rot but I dont have a choice there. No more titles until the TL51 saga is worked out.

My gut says that hd-dvd might die before they get the extra space and b/w approved and released in players and titles. Lets see.

Aren't you on the BR bandwagon anyway?

Since I am yet to see any improvements with BD 50 over HD DVD 30, I am not sure why we need TL 51 at all! Unless HDDVD wants to go in the direction of mpeg 2 and LPCM....

Why drive up unneccesary costs?

Since I am yet to see any improvements with BD 50 over HD DVD 30, I am not sure why we need TL 51 at all! Unless HDDVD wants to go in the direction of mpeg 2 and LPCM....

Why drive up unneccesary costs?

I thought the "unstated" purpose for TL51 was to lure Disney to be format neutral.

I know one thing that I am not buying anymore of anytime soon and that is Universal flicks. My add-on might rot but I dont have a choice there. No more titles until the TL51 saga is worked out.

My gut says that hd-dvd might die before they get the extra space and b/w approved and released in players and titles. Lets see.

Sure, you were rushing to cancel all of your HD-DVD disc orders. It must have taken hours. ;)

I'm going to go cancel all my Blu-Ray disc orders now. Oops, already done.

3. HD DVD's TL 51 GB discs will be adopted shortly

-Robert

Unless something has changed in the last week, shortly equals ~November/December for ratification. So... has something changed? Unless explictly stated as such, 'shortly' is going to have to be interpreted very loosely, and the existing timeline assumed to be the case; especially since that timeline has had explicit commentary as to its state of being.

Speaking as a developer, the single largest disadvantage of BD for the PS is the sheer cost of replication. Many of these games require large scale replication - far greater than a single general film (on average). The additional cost of replication of a BD title makes the economics model no longer make sense.

Also, one of the most significant problems of the PS3 is that it is simply underpowered compared to the XBox 360. The memory bandwidth and video processor are not in the same league. While the Cell processor and the three multi-core processors in the Xbox 360 are about equal - with the benefit going to the easier to program 360.

We're talking about replication costs that are absorbed many times over by the $10 price hike in games this generation, so the effect is certainly relative.

Peter as for the other fallacies here, without derailing the thread completely I'd be happy to set up a thread on this matter on another forum where we'd be able to hash it out. But you frankly are either knowingly spinning the situation, or you don't know what you're talking about in terms of the system architectures as they relate to one another.

I did, but this was my personal estimte. Direct studio quotes have since shown me to have woefully underestimated. Sony says they expect 75-80% of titles will be BD50, and Disney's launch calendar suggests a similar ratio.

I recall your answer to that in the insiders thread (I asked). If the BD50 is used significantly rather than as a paper tiger, that will be good news for hd. At the same time hopefully it isn't canceled out by the use of less effiencient, capacity wasting codec (mpeg2).

Hopefully we see more things like extras that are in HD to actually make good use of the additional capacity.

Since I am yet to see any improvements with BD 50 over HD DVD 30, I am not sure why we need TL 51 at all! Unless HDDVD wants to go in the direction of mpeg 2 and LPCM....

Why drive up unneccesary costs?

So if hypothetically any BD studios wanted to transfer their BD50's to HD-DVD how would you want them to do it?

This is a continuation of a discussion about bitrates and space with benwaggoner from the insider's thread here (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=9494711&&#post9494711).
I very much doubt the peaks would be as high as you suggest, especially with some new mux technologies that can smooth out those peaks. You'd really only hit that worst case peak if you had white noise in all channels sustained for a couple seconds.I had a friend check the bitrates for the scene in "Batman Begins" where Bruce Wayne goes down into the batcave for the first time with his XBOX360 add-on connected to a laptop and he reported that the audio stayed pretty much peaked at about 3Mbps (this was 5.1 24/48 TrueHD) and so did the video, for one section there. Since you claim my peaks were too high, what do you believe the peaks would be for each of the 3 7.1 24/48 tracks?
And you can certainly drop a few LSBs from white noise without causing any problems :).You would have them go to something less than 24/48? If so, they shouldn't put 24/48 on the box or hope they don't get caught. Some studios are more nervous about claims they put on boxes after some lawsuit situations.
Yeah, they say "up to 4:1 for movie soundtracks." Soundtracks are easier, since there's often not much going on in some of the channels lots of the time. Efficiency will go up with the number of channels and number of bits, as long as there isn't some misapplied dithering (in which case >16-bit isn't that useful anyway).A whitepaper on the dolby site here:

http://www.dolby.com/assets/pdf/tech_library/DPlus_TrueHD_whitepaper.pdf

says:
Depending on the complexity of the original soundtrack and the sample rate and word lengths of the digital master, Dolby TrueHD achieves compression ratios in the rang of 2:1 to almost 4:1...
An example table on the dolbylabs site here:

http://www.dolbylabs.com/assets/pdf//tech_library/TrueHD_FAQ_10925_Final.pdf

that says, "Some example data rates from real-world content are provided in the table above" has the following for "Movie sound, eight-channel 24-bit/48kHz":

Source Data Rate: 9.2Mbps
Peak Rate: 6.6 Mbps
Average Rate: 4.7Mbps
Compression Ratio: 2:1

That table of real movie material shows 3:1 compression ratio for the 16/48 cases and 2:1 compression ratio for 24/48 cases. Are you using 4:1 because you read that it is "up to 4:1" or have you ever seen that high a compression with real material? You also seem to assume that the compression ratio will go up going from 16/48 to 24/48, while their table would seem to contradict that for their real world material. Why do you believe that the compression ratio would go up with real world movie soundtracks when the examples they showed seem to disagree? Even if there was some extra noise with 24 bit that wouldn't show that some of the bits above 16 weren't useful. If you want to argue that going above 16 isn't useful with real world soundtracks because it looks like the efficiency probably goes down, then you would have to change your stance about 24/48 DD+ at 1.5Mbps having the advantage over 16/48 lossless because of the extra bit depth.

--Darin

Since I am yet to see any improvements with BD 50 over HD DVD 30, I am not sure why we need TL 51 at all! Unless HDDVD wants to go in the direction of mpeg 2 and LPCM....

Why drive up unneccesary costs?

Maybe Disney, Fox and Lionsgate have indicated that this flexibility would be mandatory for them to consider support.

Disc production costs will fall over time. But a royalty for a lossless codec is a real cost that is likely to remain consistent.

It seems inconceivable that this move isn't related to gaining studio support.

Gary

MikeMorel posted this in the news thread: http://news.com.com/Sonys+brave+Sir+Howard/2008-1041_3-6150661.html?tag=st.num

"News.com: When do you hit a break-even point with the cost of the console?
Stringer: Well, I think Kutaragi-san (PlayStation chief Ken Kutaragi) said that it would be break-even by the end of the year, at the end of '07. PS2 was not profitable in the first year. You make it up on the content as the content gathers momentum, the licensees from that and so forth. But the current understanding is that it will be break-even by the end of '07."

Who is with him? Sounds too optimistic. But then I don't know the actual cost of PS3.

I thought the "unstated" purpose for TL51 was to lure Disney to be format neutral.

Could be. Will make it easier for them to port their BD titles over to HD DVD, if that is the aim. However, isn't there other issues beyond size such as bit rates, encryption etc?

I guess as long as Disney does not come out and say that space is the reason they are not supporting HD DVD, I am not sure we can make any inferences.

In the end, only thing that matters is IF the studios feel that the HD DVD market is attractive or necessary to their business strategy. Why should studios care about TL 51 GB or whatever? These are secondary things....JMHO.

Since I am yet to see any improvements with BD 50 over HD DVD 30, I am not sure why we need TL 51 at all! Unless HDDVD wants to go in the direction of mpeg 2 and LPCM....

One of the advantages constantly quoted by BD supporters is capacity - more is better. It doesn't matter if it's not being utilized today - it will be someday. It's hard to argue with that. If TL51 ever becomes reality, it eliminates that advantage. Nothing wrong with that...

I know one thing that I am not buying anymore of anytime soon and that is Universal flicks. My add-on might rot but I dont have a choice there. No more titles until the TL51 saga is worked out.

My gut says that hd-dvd might die before they get the extra space and b/w approved and released in players and titles. Lets see.
What's HD - you are a pretty consistent Bluray supporter here, so I'm really wondering a bit about your post. Is it supposed to sound like a disappointed HD DVD fan? ;)

And why would you refuse to buy Universal "until Triple Layer 51" discs are out - yet continue to buy other studios? (Scratches head...)?

I think you need to work on this campaign a little better - the presentation is a little muddled to say the least :)


Since I am yet to see any improvements with BD 50 over HD DVD 30, I am not sure why we need TL 51 at all! Unless HDDVD wants to go in the direction of mpeg 2 and LPCM....

Why drive up unneccesary costs?

I agree that it's not essential, but if they get it over with quickly at least it'll be available as needed or desired by various entities.

Unless something has changed in the last week, shortly equals ~November/December for ratification. So... has something changed? Unless explictly stated as such, 'shortly' is going to have to be interpreted very loosely, and the existing timeline assumed to be the case; especially since that timeline has had explicit commentary as to its state of being.
Hmm, opinion stated as fact? ;)

What's HD - you are a pretty consistent Bluray supporter here, so I'm really wondering a bit about your post. Is it supposed to sound like a disappointed HD DVD fan? ;)

Rdjam, why don't you give him some tips on how to sound like a faux format fan - afterall no reason to keep your wisdom on the matter all to yourself!

Hmm, opinion stated as fact? ;)

I'm not sure what you mean.

But Toshiba indicated they are looking to submit for ratification in the fourth quarter, and Amir has backed this up as well.

HD-DVD vs Blu-Ray vs Scalers

http://www.tgdaily.com/2007/01/17/hd_dvd_blu_ray_scalars_analysis/


From a standpoint of the facts, HD-DVD ended the year as the clear leader. And, with an apparently increasing cost advantage, this scenario is unlikely to change.

Over on Amazon's Product Wars, which provides some clues how HD media sales are developing, HD DVD had the clear lead in most categories, though Blu-ray did close the gap for a short time towards the end of last month.

Blu-ray declares victory

We are used to rather strange and unexpected announcements in the HD industry. And here is another one: The numbers didn't keep the Blu-ray camp from declaring victory at CES. Using some questionable statistics sourced from one of the Blu-ray exclusive studios (Fox), they came out with a brilliant PR effort that reminded me a lot of textbook campaigns in politics.

I'll be a bit mad if they DO adopt HD TL discs. That's all that we need....another "version" of an HD format that may not play on certain players. Yeah, b/c that won't confuse consumers :rolleyes:

HD DVD does not need the extra capacity. I think it is a dumb move designed to make the 50 vs. 30 gig issue moot...but instead it just adds confusion.
It also does nothing for the other half of the equation, recordable. While it doesn't get much discussion here recordability matters, both for PC-based video and data storage and for camcorders and similar devices. Given how much trouble the DVD Forum is having with recordability of the current DL standard, it's almost inconceivable that TL51 would be recordable. So you'll have BD with fully-compatible 50GB ROM and -R/-RE (with a roadmap to 200GB -R/-RE), while HD will have non-compatible 51GB and maybe 30GB -R/-RW.