And that while the First-Gen Toshibas will handle HDi and networking, etc now and in the future, the first Gen BD players do not seem so well equipped as to handle the next two BD "specifications", BD-Video and BD-Live (which STILL do not include mandatory decoding of the DD+ and TruHD audio formats).As has already been corrected, there is exactly one BD specification (which contains the BD-Video and BD-Live profiles). Further, all Blu-ray players must decode DTS-HD and TrueHD streams, though not necessarily losslessly. Note that there is no requirement that HD-DVD players provide lossless output of TrueHD streams, either, as evidenced by the Xbox 360 add-on which is incapable of outputting any lossless format (while all Blu-ray players can output lossless PCM, present in many Blu-ray discs).

Possibly, but there's also no commitment from Sony to add those features to the PS3. I think there's a good chance that they can, but they may decide it would erode the market for higher priced stand alone players and not implement them.Don't confuse "no commitment" with "no public statement of support". Sony's got far too much at stake in Blu-ray's success for them to forsake the opportunity to ensure that the vast majority of Blu-ray players are BD-Live capable by not providing such support in the PS-3.

- Talk

More broadly, it's important to understand that WMVHD was an interim effort - HD DVD is now Microsoft's technology of choice for HD content on optical disc.

Two words came to mind when I read this... "Assimilation Complete"... :)

b2b

Don't confuse "no commitment" with "no public statement of support". Sony's got far too much at stake in Blu-ray's success for them to forsake the opportunity to ensure that the vast majority of Blu-ray players are BD-Live capable by not providing such support in the PS-3.

- Talk

I agree with you Talk. They have a lot at stake and you would expect them to do it. This has also been a launch were Sony keeps finding ways to come up short. I will be asking the Sony folks about this at CES. I think it would be a good move for BD if Sony can come out and officially commit to delivering the full BD feature set on PS3.

As has already been corrected, there is exactly one BD specification (which contains the BD-Video and BD-Live profiles).
I think you are taking things too literally here. VC-1 spec is not included in BD specifications. Yet that format requires it. So from dictionary definition point of view, BD spec includes many specifications. As does HD DVD. So your statement is false at absolute and literal level.

However, and this is the point rdjam is making, is that within BDA’s own defined specifications, there are segments which are not required by all players to support. As such, for a player to be compliant with the logo, they must be able to point to a single spec which they fully support. This then, must be different than the entire spec as otherwise, they are not compliant with “the spec” and could be subject to class action suits. Indeed, if there is a consumer suit on this, I suspect the first defense exhibit would be that there was more than one spec. :)


Further, all Blu-ray players must decode DTS-HD and TrueHD streams, though not necessarily losslessly.
That is not technically correct. There is no "decoding" going on. Only de-multiplexing of the core stream from the whole. If they did do the decoding as you claim, they would be subject to patent fees for those technologies. And I am sure BDA folks are careful about that, per your earlier point on why they don't mandate decoding of any lossless codecs in their players to save on royalties.

The proper way to say it is that BDA requires that the core stream in DTS or TrueHD lossless to be played which is the same thing that happens in HD DVD players for DTS lossless (where as TrueHD is properly “decoded” in HD DVD players). Since the core lossy stream has the same quality as the current DVD Format, saying so doesn't win a lot of points with people who in some cases are paying over $1,000 for a player, hence the reason we don’t try to spin it as you are in case of DTS HD lossless.

Note that there is no requirement that HD-DVD players provide lossless output of TrueHD streams, either
Haven't we been here before? It is called freedom to innovate. Neither org mandates such things. Not even the BDA. Someone could build a BD player that only has composite video out and still be compliant. Does that mean that BD format does not require HD video decode then? As a funny example of this, when I was in UK, my brother which does custom installs in cars was in the process of hooking up a PS3 to the in-car LCD. You know the connection he was using? Yup, composite. That is the only input the display has and the customer didn’t care, as long as he could brag that there was a PS3 in that car! So hopefully you are not going to send the quality police after him. :D

You forget that I'm an insider...

That is because you have not declared as such in your sig.

You should contact the mods saying you are an insider and disclose that in your sig. That is the AVS rule and has been repeatedly posted by the mods in the insider thread.

If so than based on that logic would you agree that for many people the Xbox 360 wasn't available until 2006?

Yes, 360 was not available for me to buy in 2005. Infact I could get hold of one only in April (since I didn't try hard enough earlier). Lack of easy/general availability of 360 in 2005 is no secret and we (at MS) have never shied away from aceepting that as such.

As Dr1394 said, BD-Video profile becomes more strict as of 6/07.
There are two concepts - persistent storage (for bookmarks and such) and local storage (for downloaded A/V, updated disc contents, etc.). According to this (http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,128205-page,1/article.html) FAQ, as of 6/07 BD-Video players must have 256MB of local storage while BD-Live players must have 1GB. Note that the PS3's clearly meet this requirement since they have a minimum 20GB hard drive.
Nope. BD-Live players must support all features including PiP.

- Talk

Thanks Talk.

So, any comments about the part of my question asking what the "other" players are called after 6/07? Are they "Less Strict BD-Video?" after that date? What are they today?


So you had said that Net connectivity was the BD-Live requirement. So it is addiditional "Local Storage" as well.

Thanks.

Now that 2006 is coming to an end ... does anyone know the exact #of movies released in HD DVD & BD ? May be we should get a US only count and a WW count ...

My movie release list is certainly subject to error but its the most compiled stats I've found as far as being able to show exactly what has been counted in order for others to point out where a mistake might be or not.

Anyway what I have totaled in the lists as being released at the ending of 2006 is:

HD DVD - 160
Blu-Ray - 133

I will list below what has been counted and anyone is free to point out any mistakes they may see

HD DVD

1 * April 18, 2006 Last Samurai, The
2 * April 20, 2006 Million Dollar Baby
3 * April 18, 2006 Phantom of the Opera, The (2004)
4 * April 18, 2006 Serenity
5 * April 25, 2006 Apollo 13
6 * April 25, 2006 Doom
7 * May 2, 2006 Goodfellas
8 * May 2, 2006 Swordfish
9 * May 9, 2006 Assault On Precinct 13 (2005)
10 * May 9, 2006 Cinderella Man
11 * May 9, 2006 Jarhead
12 * May 9, 2006 Rumor Has It... (Combo)
13 * May 9, 2006 Training Day
14 * May 16, 2006 Full Metal Jacket
15 * May 16, 2006 Unforgiven
16 * May 23, 2006 Blazing Saddles
17 * May 23, 2006 Bourne Supremacy, The
18 * May 23, 2006 Chronicles Of Riddick, The: Unrated Director's Cut
19 * May 23, 2006 Fugitive, The
20 * May 23, 2006 U-571
21 * May 23, 2006 Van Helsing
22 * June 6, 2006 Constantine
23 * June 6, 2006 Firewall (Combo)
24 * June 6, 2006 View From Space
25 * June 6, 2006 Perfect Storm, The
26 * June 13, 2006 16 Blocks (Combo)
27 * June 13, 2006 Happy Gilmore
28 * June 13, 2006 Rundown, The
29 * June 20, 2006 Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (Combo)
30 * June 20, 2006 Syriana
31 * June 27, 2006 Guitarscape Planet
32 * June 27, 2006 Lethal Weapon
33 * July 4, 2006 Best of GetOut Vol. 1
34 * July 4, 2006 Best of GetOut Vol. 2
35 * July 4, 2006 Best of HD W. Rep. Vol 1
36 * July 4, 2006 Best of HD W. Rep. Vol 2
37 * July 4, 2006 World Extreme Cagefighting: Unfinished Business 2
38 * July 11, 2006 Dukes of Hazzard, The
39 * July 11, 2006 Enter the Dragon
40 * July 11, 2006 Friday Night Lights
41 * July 11, 2006 Pitch Black
42 * July 18, 2006 ATL (Combo)
43 * July 25, 2006 Lara Croft: Tomb Raider
44 * July 25, 2006 Sahara
45 * July 25, 2006 Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow
46 * July 25, 2006 Sleepy Hollow
47 * August 1, 2006 Four Brothers
48 * August 1, 2006 Good Night and Good Luck (Combo)
49 * August 1, 2006 Manchurian Candidate, The
50 * August 1, 2006 We Were Soldiers
51 * August 8, 2006 Italian Job, The
52 * August 8, 2006 U2: Rattle & Hum Unleashed (Combo)
53 * August 8, 2006 Aeon Flux
54 * August 15, 2006 Animal House (Combo)
55 * August 15, 2006 Unleashed
56 * August 15, 2006 Ray
57 * August 22, 2006 Bone Collector, The
58 * August 22, 2006 Caddyshack
59 * August 22, 2006 Searchers
60 * August 22, 2006 Spy Game
61 * September 12, 2006 Red Dragon
62 * September 12, 2006 Seabiscuit
63 * September 12, 2006 Traffic
64 * September 12, 2006 House of Wax
65 * September 12, 2006 Space Cowboys
66 * September 12, 2006 Troy
67 * September 12, 2006 Lethal Weapon 2
68 * September 12, 2006 That’s the Way of the World
69 * September 19, 2006 Backdraft
70 * September 19, 2006 Dazed And Confused (Combo)
71 * September 19, 2006 End Of Days
72 * September 19, 2006 Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas
73 * September 26, 2006 2 Fast 2 Furious
74 * September 26, 2006 Fast And The Furious, The
75 * September 26, 2006 Fast and the Furious, The: Tokyo Drift
76 * September 26, 2006 Adventures of Robin Hood, The
77 * September 26, 2006 Dirty Dozen, The
78 * September 26, 2006 Grand Prix
79 * September 26, 2006 Lake House, The 98 min
80 * September 26, 2006 Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines
81 * September 26, 2006 Land of the Dead
82 * September 26, 2006 Sister Street Fighter
83 * October 3, 2006 New Orleans Concert
84 * October 3, 2006 Pat Metheny Goup: Way Up
85 * October 10, 2006 Army of Darkness
86 * October 10, 2006 Batman Begins
87 * October 10, 2006 Charlie & the Chocolate Factory
88 * October 10, 2006 The Corpse Bride
89 * October 10, 2006 Fast Times at Ridgemont
90 * October 10, 2006 Waist Deep
91 * October 10, 2006 Polar Express
92 * October 10, 2006 Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
93 * October 17, 2006 Break-Up, The
94 * October 24, 2006 12 Monkeys
95 * October 24, 2006 Interpreter
96 * October 24, 2006 Out of Sight
97 * October 24, 2006 Slither
98 * October 24, 2006 Thing, The 109 Min
99 * October 24, 2006 Spartacus
100 * October 24, 2006 Nacho Libre
101 * October 30, 2006 Mission: Impossible III – 2 disk collectors edition
102 * October 30, 2006 Mission: Impossible III – Ultimate Missions Collection
103 * October 31, 2006 Antarctica Dreaming
104 * October 31, 2006 Fireplace: Visions of Tr.
105 * October 31, 2006 Visions of the Sea: Expl
106 * October 31, 2006 Exotic Saltwater Aquarium
107 * October 31, 2006 Excalibur
108 * October 31, 2006 Under Siege
109 * October 31, 2006 V for Vendetta
110 * November 1, 2006 One Six Right: The Romance of Flying
111 * November 7, 2006 Barry Manilow Live
112 * November 7, 2006 Chicago & Earth, Wind & Fire
113 * November 7, 2006 Heart: Alive in Seattle
114 * November 7, 2006 Reds
115 * November 14, 2006 Cream: Royal Albert Hall
116 * November 14, 2006 The Eagles
117 * November 14, 2006 King Kong
118 * November 14, 2006 James Taylor: A Musicares Person of the Year
119 * November 14, 2006 Waterworld
120 * November 14, 2006 HD Window - Hawaii
121 * November 14, 2006 HD Window - The Great Southwest
122 * November 14, 2006 Serenity: The Southern Seas
123 * November 14, 2006 Accepted
124 * November 14, 2006 Stained Glass Christmas With Heavenly Carols
125 * November 14, 2006 Casablanca
126 * November 14, 2006 Forbidden Planet
127 * November 14, 2006 Forbidden Planet (Ultimate Collectors Edition)
128 * November 14, 2006 Mutiny on the Bounty
129 * November 21, 2006 Dr. Seuss How the Grinch Stole Christmas
130 * November 21, 2006 You, Me & Dupree
131 * November 28, 2006 An American Werewolf in London
132 * November 28, 2006 Dune
133 * November 28, 2006 Meet the Parents
134 * November 28, 2006 The Mummy
135 * November 28, 2006 Superman: The Movie
136 * November 28, 2006 Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut
137 * November 28, 2006 Superman Returns
138 * November 28, 2006 Smallville Season 5
139 * November 28, 2006 The Ant Bully
140 * November 28, 2006 Chronos
141 * December 5, 2006 Deraild
142 * December 5, 2006 Miami Vice
143 * December 5, 2006 Wolf Creek
144 * December 5, 2006 Scarey Movie 4
145 * December 5, 2006 National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation
146 * December 5, 2006 A Christmas Story
147 * December 5, 2006 The Architect
148 * December 12, 2006 The Hulk
149 * December 12, 2006 Field of Dreams
150 * December 12, 2006 DOA: Dead or Alive
151 * December 12, 2006 World Trade Center
152 * December 15, 2006 Pulse
153 * December 15, 2006 The Matador
154 * December 19, 2006 Casino
155 * December 19, 2006 The Scorpion King
156 * December 19, 2006 Fearless
157 * December 19, 2006 The Lady in the Water
158 * December 19, 2006 The Sopranos: Season Six, Part One
159 * December 26, 2006 The Breakfast Club
160 * December 26, 2006 The Deer Hunter

Blu-Ray

1 20-Jun-06 Terminator
2 20-Jun-06 50 First Dates
3 20-Jun-06 Fifth Element
4 20-Jun-06 Hitch
5 20-Jun-06 House of Flying Daggers
6 20-Jun-06 Underworld: Evolution
7 20-Jun-06 xXx
8 27-Jun-06 Crash
9 27-Jun-06 Lord of War
10 27-Jun-06 Punisher
11 27-Jun-06 Saw
12 27-Jun-06 Terminator 2: Judgment Day
13 27-Jun-06 Last Waltz
14 27-Jun-06 Ultraviolet
15 11-Jul-06 Basic Instinct 2
16 18-Jul-06 A View from Space With Heavenly Music
17 25-Jul-06 Species
18 25-Jul-06 Benchwarmers
19 25-Jul-06 Stealth
20 1-Aug-06 Good Night, and Good Luck
21 1-Aug-06 Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
22 1-Aug-06 Rumor Has It
23 1-Aug-06 Training Day
24 15-Aug-06 Into the Blue
25 15-Aug-06 Memento
26 15-Aug-06 RV
27 22-Aug-06 Silent Hill
28 28-Aug-06 Stir of Echoes
29 29-Aug-06 Devil's Rejects
30 29-Aug-06 Stargate
31 29-Aug-06 Total Recall
32 5-Sep-06 Blazing Saddles
33 5-Sep-06 Firewall
34 5-Sep-06 Full Metal Jacket
35 5-Sep-06 Lethal Weapon
36 19-Sep-06 Dinosaur
37 19-Sep-06 Eight Below
38 19-Sep-06 Great Raid
39 19-Sep-06 Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back
40 19-Sep-06 A Knight's Tale
41 19-Sep-06 Big Hit
42 19-Sep-06 S.W.A.T.
43 19-Sep-06 Tears of the Sun
44 26-Sep-06 Bubble
45 26-Sep-06 Four Brothers
46 26-Sep-06 Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow
47 26-Sep-06 Sleepy Hollow
48 26-Sep-06 Tomb Raider
49 26-Sep-06 Fugitive
50 26-Sep-06 House of Wax
51 26-Sep-06 Lake House
52 26-Sep-06 Lethal Weapon 2
53 26-Sep-06 Space Cowboys
54 26-Sep-06 Swordfish
55 26-Sep-06 Tim Burton's Corpse Bride
56 3-Oct-06 John Legend - Live at the House of Blues
57 3-Oct-06 New Orleans Concert
58 10-Oct-06 Bikini Destinations: Triple Fantasy
59 10-Oct-06 Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room
60 10-Oct-06 HDNet Shuttle Discovery’s Historic Mission
61 10-Oct-06 One Last Thing...
62 10-Oct-06 War Within
63 10-Oct-06 Aeon Flux
64 10-Oct-06 U2: Rattle and Hum
65 10-Oct-06 Click
66 10-Oct-06 16 Blocks
67 10-Oct-06 Syriana
68 17-Oct-06 Brothers Grimm
69 17-Oct-06 Dark Water
70 17-Oct-06 Glory Road
71 17-Oct-06 Gone in 60 Seconds
72 17-Oct-06 Haunted Mansion
73 24-Oct-06 Legends of Jazz: Showcase
74 24-Oct-06 Italian Job
75 24-Oct-06 Nacho Libre
76 24-Oct-06 Sahara
77 24-Oct-06 Monster House
78 30-Oct-06 Mission Impossible III
79 30-Oct-06 Mission Impossible III - Ultimate Collectors Set
80 31-Oct-06 Phantom of the Opera
81 31-Oct-06 Searchers
82 31-Oct-06 Under Siege
83 31-Oct-06 Unforgiven
84 31-Oct-06 Alice Cooper: Live in Montreux 2005
85 7-Nov-06 Reds
86 7-Nov-06 Little Man
87 14-Nov-06 Behind Enemy Lines
88 14-Nov-06 Fantastic Four
89 14-Nov-06 Kingdom of Heaven
90 14-Nov-06 Kiss of the Dragon
91 14-Nov-06 League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
92 14-Nov-06 Omen (666)
93 14-Nov-06 Speed
94 14-Nov-06 Transporter
95 14-Nov-06 Black Hawk Down
96 14-Nov-06 ATL
97 14-Nov-06 Last Samurai
98 14-Nov-06 Million Dollar Baby
99 14-Nov-06 X-Men The Last Stand
100 21-Nov-06 Annapolis
101 21-Nov-06 Enemy of the State
102 21-Nov-06 Goal! The Dream Begins
103 21-Nov-06 Sky High
104 21-Nov-06 Wild
105 21-Nov-06 Ice Age: The Meltdown
106 22-Nov-06 Blood: The Last Vampire
107 28-Nov-06 Windtalkers
108 28-Nov-06 Ant Bully
109 28-Nov-06 Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut
110 28-Nov-06 Superman Returns
111 28-Nov-06 Superman: The Movie
112 29-Nov-06 Guitarscape Planet
113 5-Dec-06 Flight of the Phoenix
114 5-Dec-06 Rising Sun
115 5-Dec-06 Architect
116 5-Dec-06 Bulletproof Monk
117 5-Dec-06 Rocky
118 5-Dec-06 A Christmas Story
119 5-Dec-06 National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation
120 12-Dec-06 Devil Wears Prada
121 12-Dec-06 World Trade Center
122 12-Dec-06 Kung Fu Hustle
123 12-Dec-06 Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby
124 12-Dec-06 Discovery Atlas: China Revealed
125 12-Dec-06 An American Classic
126 19-Dec-06 Invincible
127 19-Dec-06 Pearl Harbor
128 19-Dec-06 Sopranos: Season 6, Part 1
129 19-Dec-06 All the King's Men
130 19-Dec-06 Lady in the Water
131 19-Dec-06 Flightplan
132 26-Dec-06 Transporter 2
133 26-Dec-06 The Descent

OK, time to look back and review sales figures from last year. First of all, please keep in mind that these numbers are estimates. We should have the actual numbers in a few weeks when Microsoft and Sony do their quarterly investor calls.

I am using numbers from http://nexgenwars.com/ and will also reference the numbers from http://www.vgcharts.org/. I've been tracking the nexgenwars numbers longer so I will start with those.

11/16
Xbox360 - Approx. 7,000,000
PS3 - 0

11/29
Xbox360 - 7,715,895
PS3 - 333,283

12/17
Xbox360 - 8,647,082
PS3 - 469,925

1/1
Xbox360 - 9,402,451
PS3 - 846,965
Wii - 2,174,048

Microsoft was predicting 10 million Xbox360's sold by the end of this year. Both sites show them coming up a little short (more so on vgcharts than nexgen). Sony was predicting 2 million PS3s by the end of this year as recently as 12/14/06.

Sony is sticking to its target of shipping 2 million PlayStation 3 consoles by the end of the calendar year

http://www.businessweek.com/ap/tech/D8M0O1D02.htm?chan=search

Both sites show them falling short by significant margins (vgcharts shows 1.21 million PS3s sold in 2006). Here is the stunning element to this miss by Sony. They were not trying to make a sales prediction (as was Microsoft), they were trying to make a manufacturing prediction. PS3 continues to be supply constrained, and Sony continues to sell every box made. Being so wrong in corporate statements to investors regarding manufacturing output of a product for 2006 going into the last two weeks of the year seems like either complete incompetence or dishonesty. I would be surprised not to see legal action by investors against Sony as a result of this.

As for the console war, I've already predicted that the PS3 will not be the dominant console in this round.....here's why. In the period from the PS3 launch to the end of the year, the PS3 sold about 850K or 1.21M units depending on who's numbers you use. During this same critical Christmas buying period, Xbox360 sold 2.5 million or 3 million units, depending on who's numbers you use (the Wii tallied in at a similar 2.2 or 3.5 million number).

The PS2 came early to the party and built up a dominant base in the last round before Xbox and Gamecube came to market. PS3 came a year after the Xbox360 and has to sell in bigger volumes than Xbox360 to catch and pass it. Instead it is selling in smaller quantities. The lead for Xbox360 is growing bigger. The current installed base for Xbox360 according to vgcharts stands at 7.9 million and according to nexgenwars stands at 9.4 million. Either way, this is a big gap to close. To further complicate things for Sony, the blue laser shortage that has been holding back PS3 production is not an easily solved manufacturing problem. At the end of December Sony was claiming again that they had solved their production problems. I continue to be skeptical about this news. Sony has every reason to hide their continued supply constraint on blue lasers, and I believe that is exactly what they're doing.

There are those who feel that the massive numbers of PS2 owners will stay loyal and wait to get their hands on a PS3. I would like to point out that supply constraints and high prices are not a good scenario for migrating your customer base to a new platform. It is in fact a recipe for mass defection to a lower priced and more readily available competing product.

So how bad is the manufacturing constraint? Here are some clues. Whether you've been looking at vg or nexgen, something you may have noticed is that there was a large shipment of PS3s that hit the street right before Christmas. Though the two sites show different overall numbers for PS3, they showed the same jump as a result of this shipment. It was about 350k-400k of units.

I believe that Sony built up inventory ahead of the launch and sent every unit they had out to market. We saw the numbers on both sites spike up at launch and then taper off as they all found homes. About 5 weeks later we see the second pop taking sales numbers to their current level. Based on these numbers, it looks like Sony's PS3 manufacturing capacity is possibly 5 million for 2007. Business week is saying Sony can make 7 million PS3 in 2007.

http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/dec2006/gb20061228_090512.htm

In the following year, Sony will likely ship another 11 million PS2s vs. 7 million PS3s, according to research by rating agency Standard & Poor's (MHP).

I believe Businessweek is overly optimistic, but even if Sony can produce 7 million PS3s this year, it won't be enough to catch Xbox360. I believe it won't be enough to even keep pace with it. If Xbox360 emerges as the next dominant platform, it will experience an acceleration of sales as customers migrate from PS2.

I won't go into all of the details of the numbers in the Japanese market, but there you will see Wii emerge as the next dominant console. VGcharts.org is particularly detailed for sales data in Japan. If you review the numbers, you'll see the story is equally compelling.

I'll post later on how this all translates to impact on the format war.

how many exclusive on bd and how many on hd dvd?

^ Ben good question. The #s vary week to week. Many neutral studios support more of their titles in HD DVD. I believe it's because they can more easily replicate them on HD DVD till BD50 becomes more available for more replicators to produce with reliable yields.
-Robert

how many exclusive on bd and how many on hd dvd?

Based on my release calendar it's 93 exclusive titles for HD DVD and 80 for BD:

1. 12 Monkeys
2. 2 Fast 2 Furious
3. Accepted
4. Adventures of Robin Hood
5. American Werewolf in Lon.
6. Animal House
7. Apollo 13
8. Army of Darkness
9. Assault on Precinct 13
10. Backdraft
11. Batman Begins
12. Best of GetOut! Vol. 1
13. Best of GetOut! Vol. 2
14. Best of HD W. Rep. Vol. 1
15. Best of HD W. Rep. Vol. 2
16. Bone Collector
17. Bourne Supremacy
18. Breakfast Club
19. Break-Up
20. Caddyshack
21. Casablanca
22. Casino
23. Charlie & Chocolate Fact
24. Chicago/Earth Wind & Fire
25. Chronicles of Riddick
26. Chronos
27. Cinderella Man
28. Constantine
29. Cream: Royal Albert Hall
30. Dazed and Confused
31. Deer Hunter
32. Derailed
33. Dirty Dozen
34. Doom
35. Dukes of Hazzard
36. Dune
37. Eagles: Farewell Tour 1
38. End of Days
39. Enter the Dragon
40. Excalibur
41. F & F: Tokyo Drift
42. Fast & the Furious
43. Fast Times at Ridgemont
44. Fear & Loathing in Vegas
45. Field of Dreams
46. Forbidden Planet
47. Friday Night Lights
48. Grand Prix
49. Happy Gilmore
50. Heart: Alive in Seattle
51. How the Grinch Stole Xmas
52. Hulk
53. Interpreter
54. James Taylor: Musicares
55. Jarhead
56. Jet Li's Fearless
57. King Kong
58. Land of the Dead
59. Manilow Live!
60. Matador
61. Meet the Parents
62. Miami Vice
63. Mummy (1999)
64. Mutiny on the Bounty
65. One Six Right
66. Out of Sight
67. Perfect Storm
68. Pitch Black
69. Polar Express
70. Ray
71. Red Dragon
72. Rundown
73. Scary Movie 4
74. Scorpion King
75. Seabiscuit
76. Serenity
77. Slither
78. Smallville: Fifth Season
79. Spartacus
80. Spy Game
81. Terminator 3
82. Thing, The
83. Traffic
84. Troy
85. U-571
86. Unleashed
87. V for Vendetta
88. Van Helsing
89. Waist Deep
90. Waterworld
91. Willy Wonka & Chocolate F
92. Wolf Creek
93. You, Me and Dupree

Blu-ray:

1. 50 First Dates
2. All the King's Men
3. Annapolis
4. Basic Instinct 2
5. Behind Enemy Lines
6. Benchwarmers
7. Big Hit
8. Bikini Dest.: Triple F.
9. Black Hawk Down
10. Brothers Grimm
11. Bubble
12. Bulletproof Monk
13. Click
14. Crash
15. Dark Water
16. Descent
17. Devil Wears Prada
18. Devil's Rejects
19. Dinosaur
20. Eight Below
21. Enemy of the State
22. Enron: the Smartest Guys
23. Fantastic Four
24. Flight of the Phoenix
25. Flightplan
26. Glory Road
27. Goal!: The Dream Begins
28. Gone in 60 Seconds
29. Great Raid
30. Haunted Mansion
31. HDNet: Shuttle Discovery
32. Hitch
33. House of Flying Daggers
34. Ice Age: The Meltdown
35. Into the Blue
36. Invincible
37. Jay & Silent Bob Strike B
38. Kingdom of Heaven DC
39. Kiss of the Dragon
40. Knight's Tale
41. Kung Fu Hustle
42. Last Waltz
43. League of Extraordinary G
44. Legends of Jazz Showcase
45. Little Man
46. Lord of War
47. Memento
48. Monster House
49. Omen (666)
50. One Last Thing
51. Pearl Harbor
52. Rising Sun
53. Rocky
54. RV
55. S.W.A.T.
56. Saw
57. Silent Hill
58. Sky High
59. Species
60. Speed
61. Stargate
62. Stealth
63. Stir of Echoes
64. Talladega Nights (U)
65. Tears of the Sun
66. Terminator 2
67. Terminator
68. The Fifth Element
69. The Punisher
70. Tony Bennett:American Cl.
71. Total Recall
72. Transporter 2
73. Transporter
74. Ultraviolet
75. Underworld: Evolution
76. War Within
77. Wild, The
78. Windtalkers
79. X-Men: The Last Stand
80. xXx


'Common' titles:

1. 16 Blocks
2. Aeon Flux
3. Ant Bully
4. Architect
5. ATL, The
6. Blazing Saddles
7. Christmas Story
8. Corpse Bride
9. Firewall
10. Four Brothers
11. Fugitive, The
12. Full Metal Jacket
13. Good Night and Good Luck
14. Goodfellas
15. Guitarscape Planet
16. House of Wax (2005)
17. Italian Job
18. Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang
19. Lady in the Water
20. Lake House
21. Lara Croft: Tomb Raider
22. Last Samurai
23. Lethal Weapon 2
24. Lethal Weapon
25. Manchurian Candidate
26. Million Dollar Baby
27. Mission: Impossible Coll.
28. Mission: Impossible III
29. Nacho Libre
30. Nat. Lampoon's Xmas Vac
31. New Orleans Concert
32. Pat Metheny Group: Way Up
33. Phantom of the Opera
34. Reds
35. Rumor Has It
36. Sahara
37. Searchers
38. Sky Captain & the World
39. Sleepy Hollow
40. Sopranos Season 6 Part 1
41. Space Cowboys
42. Superman II: Donner Cut
43. Superman Returns
44. Superman: The Movie
45. Swordfish
46. Syriana
47. Training Day
48. U2: Rattle and Hum
49. Under Siege
50. Unforgiven
51. View from Space...
52. We Were Soldiers
53. World Trade Center

Note there is a slight inaccuracy on this list as regards 2006 titles, because some titles have launched in 2006 on one format and have been announced on the other for 2007.

Cripe, now I'll have to update my sticky thread again. on the AFI Top 200 and the Top grossing movies of all time :D

great work Grubert.


I am becoming more and more of the opinion that both formats are starting to have enough released movies available, that to most normal people, there will be enough to justify getting into the format.

Cost of entry and availability of the players will be the factors holding back adoption. When both the HD A2 , the Xbox 360 add on and the PS3 are readily in distribution more people will buy them. When the street prices of these and the other standalone players drop more people will buy them.

I think price and availability will quickly mean more to people than movie selection. One or two hundred movies on a shelf can look like a format that has some studio support and most people won't watch that many movies in a year.

2Channel,

There are many people in the PS3 threads that feel supply has now caught up with demand for the PS3. They are saying that, as of the last few days, in most areas of the country there are PS3 sitting on the shelves now. One poster said that itracker, a program which tracks PS3 shipments, indicates about 50% of the stores that carry the PS3 now have one in stock. It had been around 2%-5% before Christmas. Also, it is reported that one can order online from well known sourses such as walmart.com and get one within a week.

While I was initially reluctant to believe it, there is enough evidence building up to suggest that is the case. As Cpanther put it, supply may not have met demand, but it looks like demand is about to meet supply.

2Channel,

There are many people in the PS3 threads that feel supply has now caught up with demand for the PS3. They are saying that, as of the last few days, in most areas of the country there are PS3 sitting on the shelves now. One poster said that itracker, a program which tracks PS3 shipments, indicates about 50% of the stores that carry the PS3 now have one in stock. It had been around 2%-5% before Christmas. Also, it is reported that one can order online from well known sourses such as walmart.com and get one within a week.

While I was initially reluctant to believe it, there is enough evidence building up to suggest that is the case. As Cpanther put it, supply may not have met demand, but it looks like demand is about to meet supply.

I just checked Amazon, Walmart and Target. None of them have the PS3 available at list price. If manufacturing supply stays steady and demand slacks off enough, they may become more readily available, but that would be a large reduction of demand.

While all this is going on, Sony is trying to build up a little excess inventory for the EU launch in March. I believe the rumors are correct and the EU launch will have to be pushed back.

I am becoming more and more of the opinion that both formats are starting to have enough released movies available, that to most normal people, there will be enough to justify getting into the format.


I had the opposite reaction: I was somewhat disappointed. I'd not looked in a while, but just now I counted the must-haves for me on each format: 9 on HD DVD, 6 on Blu-ray (some were on both). Neither number is terribly compelling, let alone sway me to one side or the other, and my decision to wait has never looked smarter (to me). Maybe I'm just too picky; perhaps 2007 will be a good enough year to suck me in.

I had the opposite reaction: I was somewhat disappointed. I'd not looked in a while, but just now I counted the must-haves for me on each format: 9 on HD DVD, 6 on Blu-ray (some were on both). Neither number is terribly compelling, let alone sway me to one side or the other, and my decision to wait has never looked smarter (to me). Maybe I'm just too picky; perhaps 2007 will be a good enough year to suck me in.
That is a fair opinion, standing on the outside, looking in. For those of us who own the thing though, we get amazing satisfaction from movies we never thought we would want to watch. The total experience it seems, goes beyond the storyline and acting. It includes the smile on your face when you see the amazing picture and sound.

Great A/V quality seems to push an average movie into something you want to own. But I am sure not everyone agrees....

I'm not going to watch a movie just because it has good PQ, any more than I will watch CSI crap.

Plus you know most of these early editions are going to be supplanted by "special editions" which might include actual extra content in HD, not to mention better use of new audio formats.

That is a fair opinion, standing on the outside, looking in. For those of us who own the thing though, we get amazing satisfaction from movies we never thought we would want to watch. The total experience it seems, goes beyond the storyline and acting. It includes the smile on your face when you see the amazing picture and sound.

Great A/V quality seems to push an average movie into something you want to own. But I am sure not everyone agrees....

Excellent post and my sentiments exactly. I just sit there with this grin with the video particularly. The improvement in the total experience has jumped significantly for me.

I've been watching HDDVD for over eight months and during that time have enjoyed my theater more than I ever have. The players and titles are cheap in any kind of historic comparison .Waiting just seems like some sort of self imposed exile from the party to me.

Art

The players and titles are cheap in any kind of historic comparison .Waiting just seems like some sort of self imposed exile from the party to me.These types of comments typify how out of touch this community is from the joe six packs out there. The idea of even spending $100 on a player and $20 on movies that might not continue to be supported if the chosen format loses is simply unacceptable to a large portion of the population.

I just checked Amazon, Walmart and Target. None of them have the PS3 available at list price. If manufacturing supply stays steady and demand slacks off enough, they may become more readily available, but that would be a large reduction of demand.

While all this is going on, Sony is trying to build up a little excess inventory for the EU launch in March. I believe the rumors are correct and the EU launch will have to be pushed back.

. Amazon had list price PS3's available for a short time a couple of days back when they received fresh shipment. They are out of stock again. They listed a window of a few hours. I didn't check it during that time personally.
. Walmart and Toys'R'Us are selling bundles (in stock). Although you can't buy consoles alone, I think these are kind of list prices -- albeit without choice.

Other than this, many over other forums have reported seeing PS3's sitting on shelves in several areas.

Don't know if demand has slowed down or the supply has caught up. I guess a bit of both.

Excellent post and my sentiments exactly. I just sit there with this grin with the video particularly. The improvement in the total experience has jumped significantly for me.

I've been watching HDDVD for over eight months and during that time have enjoyed my theater more than I ever have. The players and titles are cheap in any kind of historic comparison .Waiting just seems like some sort of self imposed exile from the party to me.

Art


100% agreement. Since I have jumped on the HD (HD DVD and Blu Ray) bandwagons the theater has been going overtime. Even well loved/viewed titles bring a fresh perspective in HD.

Happy New Year :)

John

These types of comments typify how out of touch this community is from the joe six packs out there. The idea of even spending $100 on a player and $20 on movies that might not continue to be supported if the chosen format loses is simply unacceptable to a large portion of the population.
This wasn't about "joe six pack." It was about people crazy enough about this technology, to spend their new year's day here ;). For them, it makes perfect sense.

My cable bill tips the scale at almost $100/month btw. And I don't get to keep any of that content past the time my DVR gets full. Compared to that, HD DVD is much more permanent and has better A/V quality to boot, regardless of what spin you put its longivity.

These types of comments typify how out of touch this community is from the joe six packs out there. The idea of even spending $100 on a player and $20 on movies that might not continue to be supported if the chosen format loses is simply unacceptable to a large portion of the population.

I think almost nobody who has a HDTV would have a problem spending $100 on a hi-def player, even a player that would be obsolete in a couple of years. Almost all of them have between a minor and a major problem spending $1000+ on a player. As for the cost of movies, there's always Netflix and video rentals, whether or not the format becomes obsolete.

I just checked Amazon, Walmart and Target. None of them have the PS3 available at list price. If manufacturing supply stays steady and demand slacks off enough, they may become more readily available, but that would be a large reduction of demand.

While all this is going on, Sony is trying to build up a little excess inventory for the EU launch in March. I believe the rumors are correct and the EU launch will have to be pushed back.

I was at a Walmart in Methuen, MA yesterday and today and they had a number (i.e., at least 5-10 of EACH, 20gb and 60gb versions)...they also had the blu-ray remote available. They were sitting on the shelf when I was in there yesterday and then when I went back this afternoon they were still sitting there.

I'll be checking around my neighborhoods at work in NYC and at home to see availability in the BB stores. But they certainly seem to be available and surprisingly, at least at that one Walmart, sitting idle on the shelf.

It's been alluded to before - low delivery levels due to a "technical reason" will mask a lack of demand; lower subsidy losses and thus minimize shareholder fury

However, and this is the point rdjam is making, is that within BDA’s own defined specifications, there are segments which are not required by all players to support. As such, for a player to be compliant with the logo, they must be able to point to a single spec which they fully support. This then, must be different than the entire spec as otherwise, they are not compliant with “the spec” and could be subject to class action suits. Indeed, if there is a consumer suit on this, I suspect the first defense exhibit would be that there was more than one spec.

How are HD-DVD "Peformance Levels" going to be any different? And before you answer, talk to Kilroy and find out what HD-DVD Performance Levels really are about, because it seems from your posts that you don't currently.

Ron

. Amazon had list price PS3's available for a short time a couple of days back when they received fresh shipment. They are out of stock again. They listed a window of a few hours. I didn't check it during that time personally.
. Walmart and Toys'R'Us are selling bundles (in stock). Although you can't buy consoles alone, I think these are kind of list prices -- albeit without choice.

Other than this, many over other forums have reported seeing PS3's sitting on shelves in several areas.

Don't know if demand has slowed down or the supply has caught up. I guess a bit of both.

I understand the point you're making, as well as BenDover in regards to certains stores where he's seen them sit on the shelves for days or Amazon getting systems to sell from time to time. Let me try to clarify.

Because stores get units to sell, or units sit on the shelves for days, does not mean that they aren't in tight supply. Distribution is not perfect, and with local brick and mortars it is less so. On line outfits have a national reach and so they serve as a better indicator of the state of availabilty.

Here's a quick example. John in Boston wants a PS3. There are no PS3s available in his area. They come in from time to time, but they sell out quickly and he isn't spending hours on the internet tracking when and where the next shipment is showing up. Some PS3s may show up in a Walmart in Methuen, MA, but John doesn't realize it because there's no easy way for him to know they showed up there. There may not be enough demand for the PS3 right in Methuen to move those units off the shelf immediately, so they hang around a while. Eventually enough people come through Walmart and they sell the units through to happy buyers who may very well be surprised to actually find them there on the shelf.

Let's look at Amazon as a second example. John in Boston can easily pull up Amazon on his browser and see if they have PS3s. So can Tim in Chicago, Steve in Dallas, Bob in LA and Frank in NY. A product with insufficient supply to meet demand will sit on the shelves of Amazon for a much shorter time than a brick and mortar store.

So supply does come in from time to time and you see stores do things as described in the internal Best Buy memo below.

http://www.joystiq.com/2006/12/28/rumor-best-buy-is-sitting-on-your-new-year-ps3/

Or even worse they do mandatory bundles. Every Fry's add I've seen for the PS3 is a mandatory bundle priced at over $1,000. They know the unit is hard to find and they know they're not allowed to mark it up over list, so they'll make you buy a bunch of other stuff with your PS3 to take advantage of its limited availability.

When you can find the PS3 always available at list price on Amazon, you'll know the shortage is over and that supply is sufficient to meet demand.

How are HD-DVD "Peformance Levels" going to be any different? And before you answer, talk to Kilroy and find out what HD-DVD Performance Levels really are about, because it seems from your posts that you don't currently.

Ron

Since you seem to be an expert, why don't you tell us? :rolleyes:

How are HD-DVD "Peformance Levels" going to be any different? And before you answer, talk to Kilroy and find out what HD-DVD Performance Levels really are about, because it seems from your posts that you don't currently.

Ron
I talked to Kilroy in the process of answering this very question on another thread a week ago. Seems like you haven't seen my answer regarding that.

Really Ron, I hope "insiders" can be more respectful than the tone you are using here. Kilroy works for me, and is the DVD Forum rep for us, so of course I talk to him about such things before opening my mouth. Why would you make the assumption of me talking from position of ignorance instead of just asking me about it first?

And what do you mean anyway? You think DVD Forum is going to go back and make networking optional all of a sudden? Or make TrueHD audio decode optional? Or take way mandatory persistent storage? If so, I think Kilroy must have spoken a different language to you than English :). Because these are the things that are mandatory in HD DVD, but a patchwork of future functionality in BD land. And there is no discussion to change them in HD DVD.

But yes, performance levels are being looked at. And if no one in BD land is doing the same, well, that will be another thing they would have to copy from HD DVD then :D. Because last I checked, the Samsung was a hell of a lot slower than PS3. But remember, looking and things happening are two separate thing. In contrast, the profiles in BD were cast in concrete more than a year ago. And did you know there is talk of pushing out the June date? If not, then you need to strengthen your connections in BDA :).

Since you seem to be an expert, why don't you tell us? :rolleyes:He is, actually. :)

He is, actually. :)
In interactivity?

In interactivity?Not comparing. It seemed to me that johnu may not know that Ron is also an insider. Not all insiders are equal, though.

I understand the point your making, ...I was not trying to make any particular point. I am just plain bored sitting next to my son watching Thomas the Tank engine for the 100th time! Just random searches. :)

I talked to Kilroy in the process of answering this very question on another thread a week ago. Seems like you haven't seen my answer regarding that.

Really Ron, I hope "insiders" can be more respectful than the tone you are using here. Kilroy works for me, and is the DVD Forum rep for us, so of course I talk to him about such things before opening my mouth. Why would you make the assumption of me talking from position of ignorance instead of just asking me about it first?

And what do you mean anyway? You think DVD Forum is going to go back and make networking optional all of a sudden? Or make TrueHD audio decode optional? Or take way mandatory persistent storage? If so, I think Kilroy must have spoken a different language to you than English :). Because these are the things that are mandatory in HD DVD, but a patchwork of future functionality in BD land. And there is no discussion to change them in HD DVD.

But yes, performance levels are being looked at. And if no one in BD land is doing the same, well, that will be another thing they would have to copy from HD DVD then :D. Because last I checked, the Samsung was a hell of a lot slower than PS3. But remember, looking and things happening are two separate thing. In contrast, the profiles in BD were cast in concrete more than a year ago. And did you know there is talk of pushing out the June date? If not, then you need to strengthen your connections in BDA :).
You need to talk to him again. You are not up to date on HD-DVD Performance Levels.

Ron

Wow. When Amir posts like that, I know something is up. What are HD-DVD "Performance Levels"?

But yes, performance levels are being looked at. And if no one in BD land is doing the same, well, that will be another thing they would have to copy from HD DVD then :D. Because last I checked, the Samsung was a hell of a lot slower than PS3. But remember, looking and things happening are two separate thing. In contrast, the profiles in BD were cast in concrete more than a year ago. And did you know there is talk of pushing out the June date? If not, then you need to strengthen your connections in BDA :).

Hmm... So HD-DVD is still deciding the "if" and "when" about anything being done about things like 24p support, bandwidth and other "Performance Levels" (and not with the meaning of "speed") ??

BD has "concrete plans" and HD-DVD is making stuff up as they go along and you call that something to "copy" ?? That sounds like poor planning and bad HW engineering to me. I know MS is all about SW where you can just "do it" until it is right, but HW engineering doesn't work that way. ;)

b2b

Wow. When Amir posts like that, I know something is up. What are HD-DVD "Performance Levels"?

From the sound of it, it's not something that is going to work on a vintage A1... ;)

b2b

Wow. When Amir posts like that, I know something is up. What are HD-DVD "Performance Levels"?
Boy Rob, you are losing your touch. You are a couple of weeks late on this. How can you be a BD cheerleader and not have heard about every anti-HD DVD gossip on this forum? I mean really. :)

OK, I feel bad for you. Look at my signature. :) Once you figure it out, tell Ron too. Seems like Kilroy spoke to him in Japanese. :D

Hmm... So HD-DVD is still deciding the "if" and "when" about anything being done about things like 24p support, bandwidth and other "Performance Levels" (and not with the meaning of "speed") ??
Let me know if you said something useful or new here :).

BD has "concrete plans"
Yup. Concrete plans to leave their customers behind.

and HD-DVD is making stuff up as they go along
That is b2b talk, not DVD Forum talk.

and you call that something to "copy" ??
I call it copy, when we announce HDi and HD DVD can do PiP and BDA copies that feature a couple of months later, except they can't figure out how to get it into their product so late, so they make it an optional profile, giving themselves 18 months to get it done.

That sounds like poor planning and bad HW engineering to me.
Poor planning is ignoring your customers who pay > $1,000 for their players, and letting them get upset at you when the first titles come out that don't play on them.

I know MS is all about SW where you can just "do it" until it is right, but HW engineering doesn't work that way. ;)

b2b
Indeed, that is why you want to mandate all hardware features day one. Like networking. Like storage. Like TrueHD decode. All hardware features which BDA didn't think through and now has to deal with their permuations.

Boy Rob, you are losing your touch. You are a couple of weeks late on this. How can you be a BD cheerleader and not have heard about every anti-HD DVD gossip on this forum? I mean really. :)

OK, I feel bad for you. Look at my signature. :) Once you figure it out, tell Ron too. Seems like Kilroy spoke to him in Japanese. :D
I didn't speak to him directly. I read his presentation to the DVD-Forum, which was in english.

Ron

Hmm... So HD-DVD is still deciding the "if" and "when" about anything being done about things like 24p support, bandwidth and other "Performance Levels" (and not with the meaning of "speed") ??

BD has "concrete plans" and HD-DVD is making stuff up as they go along and you call that something to "copy" ?? That sounds like poor planning and bad HW engineering to me. I know MS is all about SW where you can just "do it" until it is right, but HW engineering doesn't work that way. ;)

b2b

How and why does this forum permit you to post crap like this. Honestly b2b you should be ashamed of yourself to spread such silly and unfounded FUD. You don't even know a thing about what you are talking about

Everything you said is just plain silly and untrue.

1080p 24 is a firmware upgrade we will have on the XA2 by February so the player will support 24 Hz and 60 Hz.

-Robert

Hmm... So HD-DVD is still deciding the "if" and "when" about anything being done about things like 24p support, bandwidth and other "Performance Levels" (and not with the meaning of "speed") ??

BD has "concrete plans" and HD-DVD is making stuff up as they go along and you call that something to "copy" ?? That sounds like poor planning and bad HW engineering to me. I know MS is all about SW where you can just "do it" until it is right, but HW engineering doesn't work that way. ;)

b2b


Hmmm b2b.....maybe you need to 'bone' up on your facts... ;)

Let me know if you said something useful or new here :).


Yup. Concrete plans to leave their customers behind.


That is b2b talk, not DVD Forum talk.


I call it copy, when we announce HDi and HD DVD can do PiP and BDA copies that feature a couple of months later, except they can't figure out how to get it into their product so late, so they make it an optional profile, giving themselves 18 months to get it done.


Poor planning is ignoring your customers who pay > $1,000 for their players, and letting them get upset at you when the first titles come out that don't play on them.


Indeed, that is why you want to mandate all hardware features day one. Like networking. Like storage. Like TrueHD decode. All hardware features which BDA didn't think through and now has to deal with their permuations.

So BD has had their plans down for a year (your words) and HD-DVD is still at the "drawing boards" fixing up their format with new "Performance Levels" to address issues that were left out of the original spec. and now you claim BD is behind the curve... ??

That is "Amir talk" at its finest... :)

b2b

^ Give it up. You wasted enough of everyones time and you are not doing yourself or your format choice any good.

-Robert

How and why does this forum permit you to post crap like this. Honestly b2b you should be ashamed of yourself to spread such silly and unfounded FUD. You don't even know a thing about what you are talking about

Everything you said is just plain silly and untrue.

1080p 24 is a firmware upgrade we will have on the XA2 by February so the player will support 24 Hz and 60 Hz.

-Robert

Well, FUD is b2b's specialty. Let's not forget he did post the handbook on FUD back in Novemeber I believe.

Personally, when I see b2b bring the big shovel out I know things are getting difficult in BD land, and with CES just a week away, things are about to get a lot more difficult for them. ;)

Unfortunately, the forum's search feature is returning nothing at the moment. So Amir, since you are always so in favor of the BDA being completely open about things like BD+, could you please describe in detail what HD-DVD "performance levels" refers to? I'm dying to find out.

Well, FUD is b2b's specialty. Let's not forget he did post the handbook on FUD back in Novemeber I believe.

Personally, when I see b2b bring the big shovel out I know things are getting difficult in BD land, and with CES just a week away, things are about to get a lot more difficult for them. ;)

Pot thinks it has met kettle.

How and why does this forum permit you to post crap like this. Honestly b2b you should be ashamed of yourself to spread such silly and unfounded FUD. You don't even know a thing about what you are talking about

Everything you said is just plain silly and untrue.

1080p 24 is a firmware upgrade we will have on the XA2 by February so the player will support 24 Hz and 60 Hz.

-RobertWell that doesn't mean that "performance levels" are silent on the topic of 24p output. Do you know what "performance levels" refers to? Can you say categorically that "performance levels" will have absolutely nothing to say about 24p output?

Unfortunately, the forum's search feature is returning nothing at the moment. So Amir, since you are always so in favor of the BDA being completely open about things like BD+, could you please describe in detail what HD-DVD "performance levels" refers to? I'm dying to find out.

This came up earlier Rob. Here you go.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=9275734&highlight=performance#post9275734

Well that doesn't mean that "performance levels" are silent on the topic of 24p output. Do you know what "performance levels" refers to? Can you say categorically that "performance levels" will have absolutely nothing to say about 24p output?

Hmm.. Folks can go on for days about the evil BD "profiles", but mention the mysterious HD-DVD "Performance Levels" and everyone takes a powder... :)

b2b

This photo made me chuckle.

http://www.kotaku.com/gaming/sony/analyst-ps3-dragging-sony-down-225163.php

1080p 24 is a firmware upgrade we will have on the XA2 by February so the player will support 24 Hz and 60 Hz.Wasn't there previously a rumor that 24p support would be added to the HD-XA2 last month? Of course to be fair a delay for adding such a feature would not be unexpected.

That is a fair opinion, standing on the outside, looking in. For those of us who own the thing though, we get amazing satisfaction from movies we never thought we would want to watch. The total experience it seems, goes beyond the storyline and acting. It includes the smile on your face when you see the amazing picture and sound.

Great A/V quality seems to push an average movie into something you want to own. But I am sure not everyone agrees.... Excellent post and my sentiments exactly. I just sit there with this grin with the video particularly. The improvement in the total experience has jumped significantly for me.

I've been watching HDDVD for over eight months and during that time have enjoyed my theater more than I ever have. The players and titles are cheap in any kind of historic comparison .Waiting just seems like some sort of self imposed exile from the party to me.
Art
Could not agree more. The breath of the HD DVD releases has given me and my friends and family who have watched them a new appreciation for both some new action releases and some old classics we never would have considered watching before.

I mean I never would have picked out Robin Hood, The Searchers and Gran Prix to watch if they hadn't been newly released on HD DVD.

Forbidden Planet, with its amazing for the time special effects, and others of my favorite movies have never looked better.

HD DVD is right now delivering fantastic video and audio quality right into my home. I have more releases lined up to watch, than I have time to watch, and its growing every day.

For those Blu-ray only titles that I need to watch, (like T1 and T2 before T3) for the time being I can accept watching them using my HD DVD player's excellent standard DVD upconversion.

The only thing to me slowing HD DVD adoption now is the still limited availability of teh 2nd generation players and their price. But HD DVD is on a trend to get those prices down to mass adoption levels quicker than Blu-ray is.

HD DVD is currently performing. If you can afford the $399 or less street price, why wait? Blu-ray is catching up. THe best HD you ever had is now available to you, depriving yourself of it to make a point doesn't make sense to me.

My comment was not meant in any way to imply that I was trying to prove a point by not jumping in. My criteria for entry into the market is based on content I want being available, not on "lots" of content being available, irrespective of what I want to watch.

My comment was not meant in any way to imply that I was trying to prove a point by not jumping in. My criteria for entry into the market is based on content I want being available, not on "lots" of content being available, irrespective of what I want to watch.Fair enough, but no matter how you slice it a lot of quality films are coming to HD.

If you look at the sticky "Top 100 AFI movie and top grossing movie" thread http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=715977 you can see some steady movement in releasing some of those films.

And Grubert's recent post on what is available in each format is starting to become a critical mass of titles
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=9329903&&#post9329903

I mean, if all those titles were spread out in a video store and you needed to take one home tonight, couldn't you find some to watch?

Sure. Nine. :)

Different approach to movies: I'm a catalog guy. Most modern movies leave me cold, I'm ashamed to admit. I have only 230 DVDs, so I'm not hardcore.

When it crosses into ~20 per format, or universal drives with a total of 20, then it will get interesting, for me. But the threshold has not yet been crossed. So far most of the movies released have been either ones I have seen and not wanted to see again, or movies I saw trailers for and went, "Ih."

Sure. Nine. :)

Different approach to movies: I'm a catalog guy. Most modern movies leave me cold, I'm ashamed to admit. I have only 230 DVDs, so I'm not hardcore.

When it crosses into ~20 per format, or universal drives with a total of 20, then it will get interesting, for me. But the threshold has not yet been crossed. So far most of the movies released have been either ones I have seen and not wanted to see again, or movies I saw trailers for and went, "Ih." Fair enough. But like I said, watching some of these movies in widescreen HD DVD is an amazing experience that I never thought would happen as soon as it did.

Watching Mutiny on the Bounty with its location shots, or Goodfellas or even 12 Monkeys in HD DVD glory and the HD detail of their backgrounds is a much more intense experience that seeing them before on DVD.

Even for those that aren't the sharpest HD DVD releases, the impact is one that crosses a threshold in perception. You just feel a lot more that you are there, in the picture. And the quality holds up even on a huge display size.

In short, some movies that were so so on DVD are a different experience in HD. HD DVD also has dived deeper into their classic catalog than Blu-ray has to this point.

Hmm.. Folks can go on for days about the evil BD "profiles", but mention the mysterious HD-DVD "Performance Levels" and everyone takes a powder... :)

b2b (edit) Well, as I understand the issue.

The difference is that HD DVD has one consistent mandatory "feature" set that set minimum hardware standards, including ethernet connection, storage space and codec capabilities. That allows for developers to assume a common standard and encourages those features to be used.

That is in comparision to different "profiles" which allow different hardware capabilities and insure that some players cannot do all the things that other players could.

(edit) I assume that the HD DVD Performance Levels proposal attempt not to add features but to standardize various performance standards which the hardware can evolve to. That way as hardware gets faster, manufacturers can use these performance standards to create faster generations of performance and not waste resources on developing hardware that would never be used to its fullest potential.

But all HD DVD players would be still able to perform to a common standard, although the older ones would do it slower than the lastest and greatest.

(edit)per reading Amirm's explanation and previous posts on the subject , this is how I understand this issue.

The difference is that HD DVD has one consistent mandatory "feature" set that set minimum hardware standards, including ethernet connection, storage space and codec capabilities. That allows for developers to assume a common standard and encourages those features to be used.

That is in comparision to different "profiles" which allow different hardware capabilities and insure that some players cannot do all the things that other players could.

The HD DVD Performance Levels proposal attempt not to add features but to standardize various performance standards which the hardware can evolve to. That way as hardware gets faster, manufacturers can use these performance standards to create faster generations of performance and not waste resources on developing hardware that would never be used to its fullest potential.

But all HD DVD players would be still able to perform to a common standard, although the older ones would do it slower than the lastest and greatest.
Stop posting about something you know nothing about.

Ron

OK, I guess we're going to play the semantics game:
I think you are taking things too literally here. VC-1 spec is not included in BD specifications. Yet that format requires it. So from dictionary definition point of view, BD spec includes many specifications. As does HD DVD. So your statement is false at absolute and literal level.No, it isn't. The VC-1 spec is not included in the BD specification, but it is incorporated by reference. So while it isn't physically reprinted in the BD spec (this would be a copyright violation in most cases), the BD spec unambiguously points to additional specifications (e.g. VC-1, AVC, Java ME specifications, etc.) which must also be implemented in order to implement the BD specification. It's still a single BD specification which references other (singular) specifications.
However, and this is the point rdjam is making, is that within BDA’s own defined specifications, there are segments which are not required by all players to support. As such, for a player to be compliant with the logo, they must be able to point to a single spec which they fully support.According to whom? Generically speaking, it's certainly permissable for a specification to include optional components.
Further, all Blu-ray players must decode DTS-HD and TrueHD streams, though not necessarily losslessly.That is not technically correct. There is no "decoding" going on. Only de-multiplexing of the core stream from the whole.Another semantic argument on your part. A studio can put nothing but a single TrueHD stream on a Blu-ray disc and every Blu-ray player will decode that stream and provide, at a minimum, 5.1 Dolby Digital output. Perhaps the internal process is that the stream will be demultiplexed and the core stream then decoded on those players which don't support the TrueHD codec, but that's a meaningless distinction given the fact that every Blu-ray player can still ingest a TrueHD stream and output 5.1 Dolby Digital or better.
The proper way to say it is that BDA requires that the core stream in DTS or TrueHD lossless to be played which is the same thing that happens in HD DVD players for DTS lossless (where as TrueHD is properly “decoded” in HD DVD players).TrueHD is properly decoded in HD DVD players? On the most common HD-DVD device (your Xbox 360 player) the TrueHD stream is "properly decoded", yet it is then re-encoded for output in a lesser, lossy format! I would argue that if you are claiming the Xbox 360 HD DVD Player supports TrueHD you are misleading the consumer, since support of TrueHD implies the ability to play lossless audio, yet the Xbox 360 HD DVD Player is incapable of doing so. At least on Blu-ray players if there is a TrueHD logo it means you can actually hear lossless audio!
Since the core lossy stream has the same quality as the current DVD Format, saying so doesn't win a lot of points with people who in some cases are paying over $1,000 for a player, hence the reason we don’t try to spin it as you are in case of DTS HD lossless.Who's trying to spin? No Blu-ray player will have a TrueHD or DTS-HD MA logo unless they can losslessly output that format. Nonetheless, a studio can put either of those streams on a Blu-ray disc and be assured that all Blu-ray players will provide, at a minimum, DD or DTS 5.1 output. In the case of TrueHD on HD-DVD studios simply cannot make the same assumption, and risk some users not getting 5.1 output if future players only adhere to the minimum HD-DVD spec requirements (2.0). Further, the core lossy stream for TrueHD and DTS-HD MA is virtually always going to have a higher bitrate than on legacy DVD, and therefore be of higher quality.

Amir, you're nitpicking language here, but the fact is a strong case can be made that the BDA has chosen a more transparent and consumer-friendly way of handling audio codec support than has the DVD Forum.

- Talk

So, any comments about the part of my question asking what the "other" players are called after 6/07? Are they "Less Strict BD-Video?" after that date? What are they today?I don't know that there is an "official designation". Consider them Blu-ray players which don't fully support the (post 6/07) BD-Video profile. Going forward BD-Video and BD-Live will clearly designate specific feature support.

Stop posting about something you know nothing about.

Ron No offense Ron, but I thought I understood the issue and amirm's explanation of it.

If I don't get it, please explain to me and others where I am confused or am missing something. I respect your knowledge, but I thought my explanation above was a reasonable summary of the stated intent of the "performance standards" issue, whether or not that was the real reason. I certainly thought I understood it as well as b2b did.

Please educate me. ;)

Previous post above edited to reflect my new agnst on the matter.

No offense Ron, but I thought I understood the issue and amirm's explanation of it.

If I don't get it, please explain to me and others where I am confused or am missing something. I respect your knowledge, but I thought my explanation above was a reasonable summary of the stated intent of the "performance standards" issue, whether or not that was the real reason. I certainly thought I understood it as well as b2b did.

Please educate me. ;)

Previous post above edited to reflect my new agnst on the matter.
I can't give you the details. All I can say is that you don't have the complete and correct information on the issue.

Ron

As for the console war, I've already predicted that the PS3 will not be the dominant console in this round.....here's why. In the period from the PS3 launch to the end of the year, the PS3 sold about 850K or 1.21M units depending on who's numbers you use. During this same critical Christmas buying period, Xbox360 sold 2.5 million or 3 million units, depending on who's numbers you use (the Wii tallied in at a similar 2.2 or 3.5 million number).But this comparison is meaningless, since the PS3 was supply-constrained. Until this is no longer the case we can't predict which console will sell more in a given time period. For all we know the PS3 could have outsold the Xbox 360 5:1 if supplies were available. Since it's reasonable to assume at some point supply will catch up, we may well see the PS3 consistently close the gap.

Further, for the purposes of this forum, total sales are not the most important criteria. Total users for high-def optical media is far more important, since that's what translates to disc sales. Since the PS3 has clearly been equipped as a more general media device (inherent Blu-ray support, HDMI support, advanced codec support, open platform encouraging development of other media applications) we can assume a larger number of PS3's will be sold for primary use as a media center than will Xbox 360's.

- Talk

I can't give you the details. All I can say is that you don't have the complete and correct information on the issue.

Ron Fair enough. I assume the stated reasons for the proposal don't actually match the true motivations for it.

I defer to your insider status on this issue. :)

But this comparison is meaningless, since the PS3 was supply-constrained. Until this is no longer the case we can't predict which console will sell more in a given time period. For all we know the PS3 could have outsold the Xbox 360 5:1 if supplies were available. Since it's reasonable to assume at some point supply will catch up, we may well see the PS3 consistently close the gap.But the supply constraint issue has caused the PS3 to miss a second straight 4th quarter sales period, historically very important for console sales. Its a lot harder to catch up after Xmas.
Further, for the purposes of this forum, total sales are not the most important criteria. Total users for high-def optical media is far more important, since that's what translates to disc sales. Since the PS3 has clearly been equipped as a more general media device (inherent Blu-ray support, HDMI support, advanced codec support, open platform encouraging development of other media applications) we can assume a larger number of PS3's will be sold for primary use as a media center than will Xbox 360's.
- Talk That assumption may not be valid. But in any case, we will have a solid amount of Xbox 360 HD DVD movie player bundles to compete with the PS3's that will be used as Blu-ray players. If a lot of Xbox 360 owners convert to HD for that $199 or less price point, their HD movie buying attach rate also may be higher than those PS3 owners.

It is entirely possible that 5-10% of Xbox owners or more may convert an buy the HD DVD bundle. That number may actually exceed the number of PS3 owners that actively purchase Blu-ray titles, depending on the overall sales of the PS3. A lot of PS3 owners may try one or two Blu-ray titles, but the number who purchase a lot of them is likely to be lower than the cuurent HD DVD attach rates.

Stop posting about something you know nothing about.

Ron

do the performance levels deal with native 24p and surrounding issues?

This came up earlier Rob. Here you go.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=9275734&highlight=performance#post9275734
Timely, informative post 2Channel. Geez, the BD guys are really getting defensive and touchy, aren't they? "Did to!" "Did not!" "Your Mama!" No real substance.

"CES and the temple of BD Doom" must be nearing.;)

Excellent post and my sentiments exactly. I just sit there with this grin with the video particularly. The improvement in the total experience has jumped significantly for me.

I've been watching HDDVD for over eight months and during that time have enjoyed my theater more than I ever have. The players and titles are cheap in any kind of historic comparison .Waiting just seems like some sort of self imposed exile from the party to me.

Art

I agree. My theater has been complete for about 3 months now, and I'm amazed every time I pop a new title in (or even some of the same ones). Between new releases, and some back-catalog titles, it's something to look forward to once a week or so.

While I certainly have some beefs with the format(s), at this point the price for admission is amazing, given that we have a consumer format with quality that easily exceeds most of the commercial venues out there.

do the performance levels deal with native 24p and surrounding issues?from the insider thread

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=9274141&&#post9274141

Let me start by saying that I only have sketchy information on this as these are *new* proposals to DVD Forum regarding HD DVD. And with my folks on vacation, I am not going to pester them much for details (I stopped going to DVD Forum a long time ago so I don't always have up to date info of the not-approved things).

Anyway, as you know, there is a feature axis where HD DVD fully mandates all features. This is called profile 1. All discs and players comply with this profile.

The other proposed profiles aim at standardizing the other axis, namely performance. As you can imagine, there is a huge gulf of performance between a PC and game console, and stand-alone players. The former devices have incredible processing and graphics power to display what amounts to 1080p real-time graphics (think about how many games run at full 1080p resolution and that gives you some perspective on how much performance we are talking about, albeit in 2-D).

Needless to say, there could be infinite variations in device performance as there is today in PCs. Consoles have shown though that this huge variation is not a good thing when it comes to generating reliable performance. In the same vein, these proposals aim to create some steps that devices could try to comply with, so that content owners don’t have to target the full range of device performances.

Again, let me emphasize that these are proposals, not approved specifications. Today, all players must comply with one and only profile, as do discs. Given the close working relationship of companies involved in HD DVD development and software/hardware, the performance axis is being managed as a de-facto system, as we know what to test on, including unreleased products. Moving into the future though, these profiles may be useful, due to factors mentioned above.

Finally, it should be clear that both formats have the same considerations here as the PS3 and Samsung are pretty far away from each other performance wise. Would be interesting to hear from Talk/Paid how they are addressing this. The other thing to note that DVD Forum proceedings a pretty public so you hear about the “soup being made” in the form of proposals like this . As such, I wouldn’t get too excited about anything until it is approved. Indeed, at some point, the entire spec for HD DVD was up for grabs!

These types of comments typify how out of touch this community is from the joe six packs out there. The idea of even spending $100 on a player and $20 on movies that might not continue to be supported if the chosen format loses is simply unacceptable to a large portion of the population.

And I might suggest that the fact that "we" refer to "them" as J6P means that just about everybody here recognizes that we are early adopters and don't claim to represent the average buying public.

Every tech has a high initial "bleeding edge" price (and set of aggrivations). See: VCR's, Walkmans, CD players, MP3 PLayers, etc...

Timely, informative post 2Channel. Geez, the BD guys are really getting defensive and touchy, aren't they? "Did to!" "Did not!" "Your Mama!" No real substance.

"CES and the temple of BD Doom" must be nearing.;)

Tosh and friends are having a big "announcement day" on the 7th.. Maybe they are going put a 1G tradein plan into effect so people can get spanking new A2s for $99 dollars (plus shipping)... :D

b2b

I don't know that there is an "official designation". Consider them Blu-ray players which don't fully support the (post 6/07) BD-Video profile. Going forward BD-Video and BD-Live will clearly designate specific feature support.

Then, once titles utilizing these features start hitting the shelves 6 months form now, is there going to be any way for consumers who bought in the previous year know what "kind" of player they have?

Hmm.. Folks can go on for days about the evil BD "profiles", but mention the mysterious HD-DVD "Performance Levels" and everyone takes a powder... :)

b2b

Ummm, no. I've asked about performance levels as well.

If they are developed in such a manner as to stratify what content and/or features will be avialable on specific players without clear end-user communication, then that's a concern to me every bit as much as BD-J profiles are.

from the insider thread

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=9274141&&#post9274141
Quote:
Originally Posted by amirm
Let me start by saying that I only have sketchy information on this as these are *new* proposals to DVD Forum regarding HD DVD. And with my folks on vacation, I am not going to pester them much for details (I stopped going to DVD Forum a long time ago so I don't always have up to date info of the not-approved things).

Anyway, as you know, there is a feature axis where HD DVD fully mandates all features. This is called profile 1. All discs and players comply with this profile.

The other proposed profiles aim at standardizing the other axis, namely performance. As you can imagine, there is a huge gulf of performance between a PC and game console, and stand-alone players. The former devices have incredible processing and graphics power to display what amounts to 1080p real-time graphics (think about how many games run at full 1080p resolution and that gives you some perspective on how much performance we are talking about, albeit in 2-D).

Needless to say, there could be infinite variations in device performance as there is today in PCs. Consoles have shown though that this huge variation is not a good thing when it comes to generating reliable performance. In the same vein, these proposals aim to create some steps that devices could try to comply with, so that content owners don’t have to target the full range of device performances.

Again, let me emphasize that these are proposals, not approved specifications. Today, all players must comply with one and only profile, as do discs. Given the close working relationship of companies involved in HD DVD development and software/hardware, the performance axis is being managed as a de-facto system, as we know what to test on, including unreleased products. Moving into the future though, these profiles may be useful, due to factors mentioned above.

Finally, it should be clear that both formats have the same considerations here as the PS3 and Samsung are pretty far away from each other performance wise. Would be interesting to hear from Talk/Paid how they are addressing this. The other thing to note that DVD Forum proceedings a pretty public so you hear about the “soup being made” in the form of proposals like this . As such, I wouldn’t get too excited about anything until it is approved. Indeed, at some point, the entire spec for HD DVD was up for grabs!

"the performance axis is being managed as a de-facto system"

I love that quote. That's right up there with the "There are the known unknowns and the unknown unknowns.." ;)

I feel a sig change coming on... :)

Edit: A little deciphering is in order...
de facto standard

Hardware or software that is widely used, but not endorsed by a standards organization. Contrast with de jure standard.

"de facto" is what got us into a lot of the messiness with DVD and now it seems there are plans to do it again with HD-DVD... ?? :confused:

b2b

But this comparison is meaningless, since the PS3 was supply-constrained. Until this is no longer the case we can't predict which console will sell more in a given time period. For all we know the PS3 could have outsold the Xbox 360 5:1 if supplies were available. Since it's reasonable to assume at some point supply will catch up, we may well see the PS3 consistently close the gap.

I do not think the comparison is "meaningless" for several reasons...one of which, many people looking for gaming systems who are not necessarily brand loyalists have been reported before Christmas buying the Xbox 360 due to its availability and the non-availability of the PS3. Also, there have even been reports much closer to Christmas like the one below that might dispute this point (as to the "meaningless" aspect because of supply constraints) a bit:
http://www.tgdaily.com/2006/12/21/ps3_supply_improving/

Further, for the purposes of this forum, total sales are not the most important criteria. Total users for high-def optical media is far more important, since that's what translates to disc sales. Since the PS3 has clearly been equipped as a more general media device (inherent Blu-ray support, HDMI support, advanced codec support, open platform encouraging development of other media applications) we can assume a larger number of PS3's will be sold for primary use as a media center than will Xbox 360's.

I do not buy into the "we can assume" your argument above...proof would have to be that the majority of the buying public views the PS3 as a "general media device"/Blu-ray player instead of primarily a gaming console. That has yet to be proven...and until it is, the general assumption, IMHO, would be the majority of the general buying public would still view "Playstation" 3 for gaming.

Usually a rebranding/transition of a product from gaming console to media center device would have been through a name change also. However, I understand why Sony would still want to capitlize on the "Playstation" name...but there is the rub also, changing the publics view from "gaming console" to "media center console" with the name "Playstation" and at the current price point.

OK, I guess we're going to play the semantics game:...

Amir, you're nitpicking language here,

- Talk
Talk, I just wanted to give you a taste of your own medicine. :) I could not believe that you (and then Ron!) would go after Rdjam and argue "one spec" versus "more than one spec." Did you really think people would run out and buy BD players because you proved this point?

So I showed you that your own posts completely violate that preciseness when you talk about decoding an audio codec, when in reality you just parse the stream, and just like you find the video codec, you find the core lossy stream. And here you come back crying foul on me using your technique on you! Thinking about it, my corrections were at least proper as there is a world of difference between de-mux and decode.

Anyway, hopefully we won't have to play these word games again in the new year...

Talk, I just wanted to give you a taste of your own medicine. :) I could not believe that you (and then Ron!) would go after Rdjam and argue "one spec" versus "more than one spec." Did you really think people would run out and buy BD players because you proved this point?

So I showed you that your own posts completely violate that preciseness when you talk about decoding an audio codec, when in reality you just parse the stream, and just like you find the video codec, you find the core lossy stream. And here you come back crying foul on me using your technique on you! Thinking about it, my corrections were at least proper as there is a world of difference between de-mux and decode.

Anyway, hopefully we won't have to play these word games again in the new year...

Maybe you would like to explain the lunacy in the "de facto" world of HD-DVD that could "decode" DD+ and have a DTS bitsteam come out of Tosh players and a DD bitstream come out of the Xb360 addon...

b2b

Maybe you would like to explain the lunacy in the "de facto" world of HD-DVD that could "decode" DD+ and have a DTS bitsteam come out of Tosh players and a DD bitstream come out of the Xb360 addon...

b2b ehhh...maybe because Toshiba and Microsoft are two different companies that choose to implement DD+ differently?

Or that the Toshiba boxes decoding is hardeare based and the Xbox add on is software based?

The point is they both could handle the DD+ stream and turn it into useable audio, so that only that one track needs to be on the HD DVD disc. Blu-ray can't do that trick.

ehhh...maybe because Toshiba and Microsoft are two different companies that choose to implement DD+ differently?

Or that the Toshiba boxes decoding is hardeare based and the Xbox add on is software based?

The point is they both could handle the DD+ stream and turn it into useable audio, so that only that one track needs to be on the HD DVD disc. Blu-ray can't do that trick.

Well that's the point now isn't it. Two different ways for two different implementations. What happens when company three, four and five comes along... fruit basket turnover ?? (if there ever is a 3,4,5 for HD-DVD.. ;) )

b2b

But the supply constraint issue has caused the PS3 to miss a second straight 4th quarter sales period, historically very important for console sales. Its a lot harder to catch up after Xmas.
That assumption may not be valid. But in any case, we will have a solid amount of Xbox 360 HD DVD movie player bundles to compete with the PS3's that will be used as Blu-ray players. If a lot of Xbox 360 owners convert to HD for that $199 or less price point, their HD movie buying attach rate also may be higher than those PS3 owners.

It is entirely possible that 5-10% of Xbox owners or more may convert an buy the HD DVD bundle. That number may actually exceed the number of PS3 owners that actively purchase Blu-ray titles, depending on the overall sales of the PS3. A lot of PS3 owners may try one or two Blu-ray titles, but the number who purchase a lot of them is likely to be lower than the cuurent HD DVD attach rates.

Well ... I don't think I qualify as a 'hardcore' adopter as compared to many on this forum, but I do try to do a little research into things before I buy them -- especially when it comes to electronics gear (whether it be A/V, or a Game Console, or a Cordless Telephone). Of course, the more expensive the gear, the more I try to research.

I've been on that fence regarding HD Optical Media so I decided to pop in here over the last few months and see what I could learn. In my travels elsewhere, I had never heard of BD Profiles or HD-DVD Performance Levels. From what I've read on these so far, it seems that BD Profiles are something to be more concerned about (assuming that HD-DVD Performance Levels are an attempt to minimize the delta between things like load speed and menu'ing, etc across different CE gear).

That said, I finally decided to jump into HD Optical Media and I chose HD-DVD. The reason I went that route is because, and this is solely my opinion, and some of it is just speculation and my thought process. But I figured I'd chime in as to what a more 'average' (ie: me) consumer is thinking:

(1) Price: I was able to pick up an HD-DVD player for $159 in the Xbox 360 Add-On brand new over the Holiday Season by using discount coupons, etc at a Major Retailer. My option for BD was a $500-600 PS3, but I chose not to go that route as it was easily 3x the cost. Plus, the PS2 DVD player really wasn't that good. Plus, there are a bunch of scaler issues with the PS3 and BR output (like, if I have a 720p TV, I get to watch BR Movies in 480p -- yay?). Plus ... well ... Sony seems to ... uhm ... set really high expectations and then come in way below them ... and then they try to spin it as if they met them ... or they'll blame Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. *shrug* I didn't look at any of the other BR players because they were just way out there in price, and many got poor reviews at that.

(2) Content: The majority of the movies I wanted to watch were on HD-DVD media.

(3) Price of Content: Using discount codes/coupons, etc, I was able to purchase HD-DVD/DVD Combo Discs for Approx $22.00 and regular HD-DVD Discs for about $15.00 ... including Tax and Shipping. As far as Attach Rates are concerned, I've already purchased (4) movies, plus King Kong, plus there are at least (2) more I want to buy. ;)

(4) The hardware seemed to be more standardized. The fact that there was an Ethernet Port, to me, means ease of upgradability. I realize the PS3 has the same ethernet component, but I just don't have the same faith in Sony's promises. It took how long for the Hard Drive to be released for the PS2? How long for the Network Adapter?

(5) UMD: I just got to thinking ... UMD ... pushed by Sony for the PSP ... failed ... why didn't they just use 3" DVD's? Oh ... cause then they wouldn't be able to pick up royalties. Now, I understand everyone needs to make money ... but it seems to me that Sony left some of the studio's out to dry on this one ... perhaps that's why they've all but dropped support for UMD Movies. I would think that would have to leave a bad taste in someone's mouth. While I don't think Studio's will drop support for BR ... it is possible they will go Neutral and support both.

(6) Searches on Yahoo/Google/etc and Sites like dvdwars/etc ... they showed that there seems to be a higher adoption rate for HD-DVD. More top sellers, etc. That factored in my decision as well. I'm trying to pick the one that will be around longest. While every PS3 is a BR player, I'm not sure it will be used as one very often. Sure, it might sell a few discs, but ... eh ... like I said, the PS2 DVD player wasn't really that good. The fact that they bundled a rather cut-off-at-the-knees copy of Talledega Nights I just didn't understand. Why not bundle a showcase piece? Searches showed that the attach rates on the Xbox 360 Platform were pretty high. That would lead me to believe that attach rates on the drive will also be in the same neighborhood ... perhaps 4-6.

(7) The fact that the PS3 is an open OS scares me a little bit. It's already easy to put a big ole hard drive in the thing. You can already load Linux on it. You can already RIP Game Images to the Hard Drive. How soon before they can do the same for movies? My thinking that one of the big pushes of Next Generation Optical Media was Copy Protection. I don't think studios are going to be really happy if the PS3 becomes a big piracy device (like, say ... what happened with the PSP and UMD).

(8) Entitlements ... wow ... that scared me ... and it was dropped ... but the fact that it was even brought up reminded me of DIVX discs all over again. Ewwww. It failed miserably over a decade ago ... why bring it up again? Plus, what I found here about BD Profiles ... it's like ... Sony keeps everything ultra uber secret (and then they're not good at it). I just feel like they've overpromised and underdelivered so many times now, it's hard for me to back them on statements and promises. I want to actually see it first.

Now, perhaps my research is flawed, and my information and thought processes are 'wrong' or 'skewed' ... but this is what I was able to dig up that led me to make my decision. Sony's past decisions (in several markets) definitely affected my decision. I realize that the BDA <> Sony necessarily ... but, on many levels, at least to me, it does. Many folks I've spoken to around the water cooler feel the same way I do on many of my points and agreed with my decision.

I realize that some may feel that what Sony did with UMD or with removing ethernet ports from the PS3 or releasing two SKU's (after they badgered Microsoft about doing the same on Xbox 360) has no bearing on how successful BD becomes. However, to me, it shows a trend that they really don't care about the consumer. I think back to Rumble ... they lost a law suit ... wouldn't pay ... pulled it out of the PS3 Controller and said it was because Consumer's Didn't Want It? and because it didn't work with motion sensing? Huh? The Wii did it. Besides, rumble is huge in gaming for the immersion factor. It took (4) years for them to do something about the DRE's on PS2 -- and then only after a class action lawsuit. What does all this have to do with Blu-Ray? Hopefully, nothing. But, in my mind, Sony = Blu-Ray ... and Sony really has left many consumers with a bad taste in their mouth over the years. This hesitation, imo, has led to the slower adoption of BR as people want to 'see it' to 'believe it' ... and the longer HD-DVD stays around, the harder it is for BR.

Besides, I imagine many Studio's were behind BR because they were told 4 Million BR players in Homes by Q12007. I imagine some of those studios are none too happy right about now. Especially with the Neutral Studios raking in Holiday Profits on both sides of the Fence. *shrug*

Just my opinions, and my thoughts ... I'm sure many will disagree ... but in this sea of facts and expert/hardcore opinions, I thought I'd post my 'more casual' thought processes. :)

Recent reviews from High-Def Digest (http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/covenant.html) and Home Theater Spot (http://www.hometheaterspot.com/htsthreads/dvd-review.php?sequence=1792) indicate that "The Covenant" is a reference quality disc. As far as I know this is the first Blu-ray exclusive movie that has been considered reference quality by multiple reviewers.


Thinking about it, my corrections were at least proper as there is a world of difference between de-mux and decode.Sure, but before you go after Talkstr8t to much you should hear this little story. A while back when the HD-A1 was just being released rdjam started arguing with me that the HD-A1 could decode DTS-HD since it said so in the specs. I pointed out that it could only decode the DTS core, which it said in tiny print at the bottom of the web page, but he said that I must be wrong since the specs clearly said that it could decode DTS-HD. I saw this same argument repeated several times on this forum as people proclaimed that the HD-A1 could decode DTS-HD because that is what it said in the specs. As such I do personally disagree with how Talkstr8t is using the word "decode", but last I checked Toshiba did the same thing as well.

Maybe you would like to explain the lunacy in the "de facto" world of HD-DVD that could "decode" DD+ and have a DTS bitsteam come out of Tosh players and a DD bitstream come out of the Xb360 addon...

b2b
I like HD DVD's implementation of transcoding far better than what's been done for PS3. I wish Sony would have implemented something similar into PS3, so that I could take advantage of uncompressed PCM 5.1 tracks that are so prevalent in BD without having to buy a HDMI capable receiver. I imagine PS3 has enough CPU to transcode uncompressed PCM to 1.5Mbps dts stream.

Another semantic argument on your part. A studio can put nothing but a single TrueHD stream on a Blu-ray disc and every Blu-ray player will decode that stream and provide, at a minimum, 5.1 Dolby Digital output. Perhaps the internal process is that the stream will be demultiplexed and the core stream then decoded on those players which don't support the TrueHD codec, but that's a meaningless distinction given the fact that every Blu-ray player can still ingest a TrueHD stream and output 5.1 Dolby Digital or better.
Apples and oranges - from a bit-budget perspective, the BD disc has two streams on it - one TrueHD, one core DD. Sure, they're muxed together, but there's no difference from a consumer perspective or title authoring perspective compared to just including the same content twice.

Maybe you would like to explain the lunacy in the "de facto" world of HD-DVD that could "decode" DD+ and have a DTS bitsteam come out of Tosh players and a DD bitstream come out of the Xb360 addon...

b2b
Actually, we are about to add DTS encode as an option to 360 also. That way, the user has a choice of which encoder to use. ;)

Funny how good cooperation between companies keeps generating positive results for consumers! We see no shame in learning from Toshiba in providing DTS encoding option....

But this comparison is meaningless, since the PS3 was supply-constrained. Until this is no longer the case we can't predict which console will sell more in a given time period. For all we know the PS3 could have outsold the Xbox 360 5:1 if supplies were available. Since it's reasonable to assume at some point supply will catch up, we may well see the PS3 consistently close the gap.

As long as the PS3 is supply constrained it's a pretty safe bet that the Xbox360 will continue to sell more units. Yes, the PS3 could have outsold Xbox360 5:1 for all we know. The trouble is that it was supply constrained, and so we'll never know what could have been. I agree, it is reasonable to assume that at some point PS3 supply will catch up with demand. The question is when? With each passing week, the gap between PS3 and Xbox360 grows bigger. Time is not on Sony's side, and I believe the Xbox360's lead will be insurmountable by the time the blue laser manufacturing issues have been straightened out.

By the way, in your last response to me on this subject you suggested that Sony was forecasting 2 million PS3s by the end of 2006 and they would not be so reckless as to mislead like this. It appear that they have done just that. Any comments or opinions? Do you still believe Sony's forecast of 6 million PS3 by March of 2007? Do you still believe the EU launch of PS3 will happen in March 2007?

Further, for the purposes of this forum, total sales are not the most important criteria. Total users for high-def optical media is far more important, since that's what translates to disc sales. Since the PS3 has clearly been equipped as a more general media device (inherent Blu-ray support, HDMI support, advanced codec support, open platform encouraging development of other media applications) we can assume a larger number of PS3's will be sold for primary use as a media center than will Xbox 360's.

As you suggest above, total sales doesn't tell us the whole story. But total PS3 sales combined with the PS3 BD movie attach rate will allow us to figure out what the impact of Sony's trojan horse really is. That's why I ended my last post with the comment that I would follow up with another post covering the implications to the format war. Stay tuned.....

In the mean time we can continue to check disc sales performance between the two competing formats.

http://www.eproductwars.com/dvd/

Well ... I don't think I qualify as a 'hardcore' adopter as compared to many on this forum, but I do try to do a little research into things before I buy them -- especially when it comes to electronics gear (whether it be A/V, or a Game Console, or a Cordless Telephone). Of course, the more expensive the gear, the more I try to research.....................



Thank you for taking the time to post this. It was a very interesting read, and you echoed many things that shaped my own opinions on the subject.

In the mean time we can continue to check disc sales performance between the two competing formats.

http://www.eproductwars.com/dvd/Or for numbers in more realtime:

http://www.hdgamedb.com/amazon/versus.aspx

where the current numbers are close to 1100 vs 900 with HD DVD in the lead (but with the about smallest gap I've seen since at least June and maybe the smallest gap ever).

Both sites seem to have small issues though. the eproductwars site didn't include "The Descent" from Blu-ray the other day when it was in the top 10 and the hdgamedb site doesn't seem to include "Superman Returns" for HD DVD.

Even besides mistakes on those sites, items selling out on Amazon are likely to cause some issues with the numbers. For instance, "Superman Returns" was sold out on Blu-ray, then I noticed it climbing in the rankings earlier today, saw that it was in stock, and now it is out of stock again. Both sides have some items in their top 10 that are now sold out (although I think Blu-ray has had a higher percentage of their top 10 be sold out). The Blu-ray side is being helped by a title that is scheduled for February 20th ("The Prestige") and we'll have to see if the HD DVD camp announces some titles at CES that get put up for preorder and help their rankings.

--Darin

Or for numbers in more realtime:

http://www.hdgamedb.com/amazon/versus.aspx

where the current numbers are close to 1100 vs 900 with HD DVD in the lead (but with the about smallest gap I've seen since at least June and maybe the smallest gap ever).

Both sites seem to have small issues though. the eproductwars site didn't include "The Descent" from Blu-ray the other day when it was in the top 10 and the hdgamedb site doesn't seem to include "Superman Returns" for HD DVD.

Even besides mistakes on those sites, items selling out on Amazon are likely to cause some issues with the numbers. For instance, "Superman Returns" was sold out on Blu-ray, then I noticed it climbing in the rankings earlier today, saw that it was in stock, and now it is out of stock again. Both sides have some items in their top 10 that are now sold out (although I think Blu-ray has had a higher percentage of their top 10 be sold out). The Blu-ray side is being helped by a title that is scheduled for February 20th ("The Prestige") and we'll have to see if the HD DVD camp announces some titles at CES that get put up for preorder and help their rankings.

--Darin


Thanks Darin. It looks like another very interesting source of data. I went ahead and saved it in my favorites. It's great to be able to quickly see how a dual release title is selling in one format vs. the other.

Congratulations -- nice to hear BDA got at least one out approx. 150+ correct ;) j/k
And on BD-25 no less! Who said you needed extra space to create good quality? :D OK, it is either that or this one was easy to encode...

I should have added that congrulations are in order on getting such great quality title out on BD.

And on BD-25 no less! Who said you needed extra space to create good quality? :D OK, it is either that or this one was easy to encode...
It's a 97 minute film dude.

You think that might be the reason? (rhetorical)

It's a 97 minute film dude.

You think that might be the reason? (rhetorical)
Well.... I did say it was easy to encode. Didn't I? :)

Then, once titles utilizing these features start hitting the shelves 6 months form now, is there going to be any way for consumers who bought in the previous year know what "kind" of player they have?No idea. I'd suggest asking the studio insiders.

I should have added that congrulations are in order on getting such great quality title out on BD.
I would have thought congratulations are deserved by the studio and not the format?

There already are some reference titles on BD dude. Universal isn't the only reference PQ in town, not any more. BHD, KoH etc. but you know that.

Any reference title besides those by Universal is on BD too (aimed at the neutrals that don't know and are likely to get confused by the comment above).

The point is they both could handle the DD+ stream and turn it into useable audio, so that only that one track needs to be on the HD DVD disc. Blu-ray can't do that trick.Wrong. All Blu-ray players will decode the core DD stream in the DD+ stream as 5.1. Bottom line, studios can put any supported audio format (DD, DD+, TrueHD, DTS, DTS-HD, LPCM) and the player will output 5.1 regardless of whether they have onboard support for the advanced codec. HD-DVD can make no such promise, as TrueHD need only be decoded to 2.0.

Apples and oranges - from a bit-budget perspective, the BD disc has two streams on it - one TrueHD, one core DD. Sure, they're muxed together, but there's no difference from a consumer perspective or title authoring perspective compared to just including the same content twice.According to Amir, on Blu-ray the TrueHD secondary stream represents the difference between lossless and the lossy core stream. It therefore stands to reason that the combined streams should require approximately the same space as a single TrueHD stream on HD-DVD, yet affords the ability to decode only the core or the full lossless combination.

Wrong. All Blu-ray players will decode the core DD stream in the DD+ stream as 5.1. Bottom line, studios can put any supported audio format (DD, DD+, TrueHD, DTS, DTS-HD, LPCM) and the player will output 5.1 regardless of whether they have onboard support for the advanced codec. HD-DVD can make no such promise, as TrueHD need only be decoded to 2.0.
Hmmm. So HD DVD can't do that, ha? Can you please explain what happens to a DTS HD Lossless in HD DVD?

Once you answer that, I will gently walk you through the TrueHD side. :)

Well.... I did say it was easy to encode. Didn't I? :)
Fair enough, I thought easy to encode means no tough-to-encode scenes.

So, 'easy to encode' includes being a short film. I will remember that.

According to Amir, on Blu-ray the TrueHD secondary stream represents the difference between lossless and the lossy core stream. It therefore stands to reason that the combined streams should require approximately the same space as a single TrueHD stream on HD-DVD, yet affords the ability to decode only the core or the full lossless combination.
I don't know how you can draw this conclusion Talk. The process is very non-linear and difficult to predict wrt to file sizes. Your conclusion also violates common understanding of layered compression.

A lossy codec can generate a stream that is VERY different than the original, yet SOUND similar. If you subtract the streams from each other, you will see a lot of differences as a result. Coding these differences, especially since they occur around the non-linear portions (e.g. transients), in a lossless manner can be very inefficient. Adding these two streams will surely generate more data, than just encoding the stream in a lossless manner.

In general, layered codecs are much less efficient than a non-layered scheme. For video, difference can be as much as 30%. For audio, I have not seen enough studies but for sure it is less efficient or every audio codec would be layered, yet they are not.

Hi,

My processor decodes MLP & has 2 full sets of 8ch analogs, I have over 300 hires audio discs covering both formats and a 6.1 Totem Acoustic speaker setup using 9 speakers for film.

Until one or both formats releases all films which include a 6.1 lossless audio layer `ll continue to scale my dvd collection and tweak the 2 terrabytes of cable delivered HD fare on my SATA drvs. Averaged cost using an approximate scale of about 10gigs per hr of HD
$6.00 per film.

By the time these fools get their act together hrdwre AV will go the way of the DODO and we`ll be paying $20.00 to dnld and own HIRES video and LOSSLESS audio which will be accessed anytime we like with a mouse click.

The paperless office will still be wishfull thinking however.

Peter M.

Hmmm. So HD DVD can't do that, ha?Not with TrueHD, which is what I clearly referred to.
Can you please explain what happens to a DTS HD Lossless in HD DVD?The same thing as happens with both TrueHD and DTS-HD MA on Blu-ray - the core 5.1 stream is played.
Once you answer that, I will gently walk you through the TrueHD side. :)Let's see if I've got it right. It will be decoded and output as either 2.0 lossless, 5.1 lossy, or 5.1 lossless. Right? Of course, that leaves the studio with the dilemma of whether to only include a TrueHD track, running the risk that some players won't provide any surround channels, or to provide both a lossy and a TrueHD track, thus wasting precious disc capacity.
In general, layered codecs are much less efficient than a non-layered scheme. For video, difference can be as much as 30%. For audio, I have not seen enough studies but for sure it is less efficient or every audio codec would be layered, yet they are not.Sure, but do you acknowledge that a TrueHD track on Blu-ray will require less space than the combination of a Dolby Digital 5.1 track plus a TrueHD track on HD-DVD (both of which are required to ensure all future HD-DVD players will provide 5.1 sound)?

So, I said I would circle back and post about the impact of the console war on the format war. As I've said before, while I think we can call the winners and loosers in the console war, it's still to early to do so in the format war.

Here's what I do see in the information we currently have. The trojan horse strategy has been dealt a serious blow. The plan was for PS3 to outsell all other consoles during the Christmas 2006 season and go on to a commanding dominance in the game arena. Even if BD attach rates were very low, the sheer numbers would be so everwhelming that BD would walk to victory. This is the story that helped garner support for the BD format.

Andy Parsons (Pioneer) interview from 1/17/06
http://www.thedigitalbits.com/articles/ces2006/parsonsinterview.html

"But this is something new. The PS3 is launching right at the forefront of Blu-ray Disc. If Sony ships the kind of numbers we expect them to this year, that will provide a very rapid growth of players out there hungry for titles. We've been hearing between 4 and 7 million units could ship."

This article is from 8/22/06
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060822-7558.html

In a statement, the company reiterated that it is "still on schedule to ship 2 million units for our mid-November 2006 launch and additional 2 million units by the end of the year for a total of 4 million units."

So in late August of 2006 the studios were still hearing that everything was on track, everything is ok. The PS3 will outsell all other consoles and will go on to make BD the dominant HD format by default. The reality did not live up to the sales pitch. Ask yourself this question; when you buy into a big sales pitch and it falls so far short of what you were promissed, what's your reaction? How do you feel about the people who sold you on their pitch?

We now are coming into CES 2007 and HD-DVD is not only still alive, it seems to be doing rather well. BD disc sales have been on the rise but they still trail HD-DVD. A far cry from what was expected to happen post PS3 launch. It's still too early to know the full impact of the 1 million PS3s purchased this Christmas though. We'll have to continue to track the disc sales numbers.

http://www.eproductwars.com/dvd/
http://www.hdgamedb.com/amazon/versus.aspx

The other impact I see is that Xbox360 dominance in North America will be good for HD-DVD. The Xbox add-on provides a low cost entry point ($199) to the world of HD-DVD for nearly 10 million Xbox360 owners. As Xbox360 market share continues to expand, the number of families that are able to make that low cost jump to HD-DVD grows.

That still leaves one very big wild card in the format war, the percentage of PS3 owners who become BD disc buying customers. Here we have a dramatic range of opinions. On one extreme we have Richard Parsons and on the other extreme we have Andy Parsons.

Time-Warner CEO Richard Parsons
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-6141247.html

"Do I think that the game console platform is really going to drive the conversion? I don't think so," he said. "People get those things to play games, not watch movies."

Senior Vice President of Advanced Product Development for Pioneer Electronics
Andy Parsons
http://www.satelliteguys.us/cmps_index.php?page=HDDVD

"Remember, it’s not all or nothing. Anyone buying a PS3 is most likely buying it to play games, but if you take some percentage of that, say 30% of those people will also want to watch Blu-ray movies – that’s still a huge number at the early adoption stage."

I believe Richard Parsons outlook is too pessimistic for PS3, while Andy Parsons is too optimistic. My personal guess (which may be as good or bad as anyone elses) is that about 10% of PS3 buyers will become BD movie watchers. When you break down the numbers on the players being used for movies on both sides you will find that the numbers are very close which also reflects disc sales of the two formats. It continues to be a very tight horse race.

The longer both formats stay alive, the more likely they will both continue to survive (unless both are supplanted by a third option like downloads). I believe all of this leads us to universal players in the future to once and for all eliminate the need for the consumer to choose between the two.

Wasn't there previously a rumor that 24p support would be added to the HD-XA2 last month? Of course to be fair a delay for adding such a feature would not be unexpected.
Dear Richard... how are you... I am fine...

As usual, you mis-state what was said. It was said that the XA2 would be launched at the end of December, and that 24p will be added with a firmware update if it wasn't available at the launch.

I can tell you that 24p will be demonstrated at CES on the XA2 and that if you are a 24p lover, you will be pleased.

However, in your case, I think you'll just find something else to complain about ;)

Time-Warner CEO Richard Parsons
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-6141247.html

"Do I think that the game console platform is really going to drive the conversion? I don't think so," he said. "People get those things to play games, not watch movies."One interesting thing with this comment is that it looks like the HD DVD side would be way behind in the run rate for disc sales if the sales for the XBOX360 add-on weren't counted and Blu-ray would be way behind if the sales for the PS3 weren't counted. From what I can see of the numbers, it looks very likely that for both sides the game players represent more than 50% of the players in use. Of course things could change, but it will be interesting to watch.
My personal guess (which may be as good or bad as anyone elses) is that about 10% of PS3 buyers will become BD movie watchers.I can understand that. My personal guess is closer to 20% a year or two from now if the Blu-ray camp plays their cards right. I just see opportunities to sway people who already own the PS3 with some of the big titles, like "Casino Royale" and "Spiderman 3". Looks like a ripe group to advertise to once they are a big enough group.

--Darin

So, I said I would circle back and post about the impact of the console war on the format war. As I've said before, while I think we can call the winners and loosers in the console war, it's still to early to do so in the format war.

Here's what I do see in the information we currently have. The trojan horse strategy has been dealt a serious blow. The plan was for PS3 to outsell all other consoles during the Christmas 2006 season and go on to a commanding dominance in the game arena. Even if BD attach rates were very low, the sheer numbers would be so everwhelming that BD would walk to victory. This is the story that helped garner support for the BD format.

Andy Parsons (Pioneer) interview from 1/17/06
http://www.thedigitalbits.com/articles/ces2006/parsonsinterview.html

"But this is something new. The PS3 is launching right at the forefront of Blu-ray Disc. If Sony ships the kind of numbers we expect them to this year, that will provide a very rapid growth of players out there hungry for titles. We've been hearing between 4 and 7 million units could ship."

This article is from 8/22/06
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060822-7558.html

In a statement, the company reiterated that it is "still on schedule to ship 2 million units for our mid-November 2006 launch and additional 2 million units by the end of the year for a total of 4 million units."

So in late August of 2006 the studios were still hearing that everything was on track, everything is ok. The PS3 will outsell all other consoles and will go on to make BD the dominant HD format by default. The reality did not live up to the sales pitch. Ask yourself this question; when you buy into a big sales pitch and it falls so far short of what you were promissed, what's your reaction? How do you feel about the people who sold you on their pitch?

We now are coming into CES 2007 and HD-DVD is not only still alive, it seems to be doing rather well. BD disc sales have been on the rise but they still trail HD-DVD. A far cry from what was expected to happen post PS3 launch. It's still too early to know the full impact of the 1 million PS3s purchased this Christmas though. We'll have to continue to track the disc sales numbers.

http://www.eproductwars.com/dvd/
http://www.hdgamedb.com/amazon/versus.aspx

The other impact I see is that Xbox360 dominance in North America will be good for HD-DVD. The Xbox add-on provides a low cost entry point ($199) to the world of HD-DVD for nearly 10 million Xbox360 owners. As Xbox360 market share continues to expand, the number of families that are able to make that low cost jump to HD-DVD grows.

That still leaves one very big wild card in the format war, the percentage of PS3 owners who become BD disc buying customers. Here we have a dramatic range of opinions. On one extreme we have Richard Parsons and on the other extreme we have Andy Parsons.

Time-Warner CEO Richard Parsons
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-6141247.html

"Do I think that the game console platform is really going to drive the conversion? I don't think so," he said. "People get those things to play games, not watch movies."

Senior Vice President of Advanced Product Development for Pioneer Electronics
Andy Parsons
http://www.satelliteguys.us/cmps_index.php?page=HDDVD

"Remember, it’s not all or nothing. Anyone buying a PS3 is most likely buying it to play games, but if you take some percentage of that, say 30% of those people will also want to watch Blu-ray movies – that’s still a huge number at the early adoption stage."

I believe Richard Parsons outlook is too pessimistic for PS3, while Andy Parsons is too optimistic. My personal guess (which may be as good or bad as anyone elses) is that about 10% of PS3 buyers will become BD movie watchers. When you break down the numbers on the players being used for movies on both sides you will find that the numbers are very close which also reflects disc sales of the two formats. It continues to be a very tight horse race.

The longer both formats stay alive, the more likely they will both continue to survive (unless both are supplanted by a third option like downloads). I believe all of this leads us to universal players in the future to once and for all eliminate the need for the consumer to choose between the two.
I think this is a great post, well-argued and all points referenced for context.

The only part I disagree with is "The longer both formats stay alive, the more likely they will both continue to survive". I reckon the studios will drop the first format to fall irrevocably behind. How that is defined is up to the studios and I have no idea, but they will not support two formats if, for example only, BD player penetration reaches mass-market levels first by a clear margin. The "PS3 to sell 75M by 2010" estimate is a report sure to suppress BD jitters about market-penetration or it might be a factual look at the situation. I think it is both true and well-timed.

You forget that I'm an insider, and have actually read the specification. I assure everyone on AVSForum, there is only one BD specification.

Ron
As has already been corrected, there is exactly one BD specification (which contains the BD-Video and BD-Live profiles). Further, all Blu-ray players must decode DTS-HD and TrueHD streams, though not necessarily losslessly.

Time for me to burst the bubble of you and talker8ter.

Here is a quote on the FOUR different Bluray BD-J standards.

The BD-ROM specification defines four profiles of Blu-ray players. All video-based profiles are required to have a full implementation of BD-J. The 1st generation players are based on the Profile 1 (BD-Video) specification that does not require support of certain features such as Picture-in-Picture, secondary audio, local storage, and network connections. Profile 1.1 makes PIP, secondary audio and local storage mandatory. Profile 2 (BD-Live) adds network connectivity to the list of mandatory functions. Profile 3 is meant for an audio-only player and does not require video decoding or BD-J.

The BD-J 1.0 spec, called BD-Video, does NOT require PiP, secondary audio, local storage or network connectivity. THIS is what all the 1st Gen Bluray players have shipped as, inclusing the PS3.

There is a 1.1 version of BD-Video also, which requires everything but the network connectivity. But these 1st gen players DO NOT support 1.1. It's really CUTE, the disinformation and "implications" that BD-Video includes all the 1.1 features, Talker, but it's absolutely misleading, since it is only required of the 1.1 version of BD-Video, not the 1.0 version that these 1st gen players meet.

So version 1.1 BD-Video and version 2.0, BD-Live, will require these, and all BD players after June 07 will be required to comply with 2.0 BD-Live.

But unfortunately, all BD buyers in the interim are "screwed", as the pooch would say, except "potentially" (there's that word again) the PS3 owners - and the Jury ain't been seen yet on that one...

FURTHERMORE - talk, you keep saying that Bluray players are required to decode DD+ and TruHD. This is blatant deception. They are only required to decode DD core streams from DD+ and TruHD BD tracks.

Keep on deceiving the public, amigo. I think consumers should sue for being hoodwinked on these issues.

And on BD-25 no less! Who said you needed extra space to create good quality? OK, it is either that or this one was easy to encode...The movie wasn't very long and had little to no grain so that certainly did help with encoding it. Still something to note is that only three HD movies have received a 5/5 picture quality rating from High-Def Digest. They are King Kong, Hulk, and The Covenant.


According to Amir, on Blu-ray the TrueHD secondary stream represents the difference between lossless and the lossy core stream.I remember Amir saying that (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=8802179&&#post8802179) a few times as well. From what Roger Dressler has said (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=9220155&&#post9220155) though that was wrong and Dolby TrueHD on Blu-ray only needs to decode the lossless part of the audio stream. In fact he even mentioned (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=9221973&&#post9221973) that Dolby TrueHD is the same on both HD formats.


As usual, you mis-state what was said.How could I mis-state something I had never read before? After looking around I eventually discovered that rumor was made by Robert who did state that it might not be possible until some time later (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=9201942&&#post9201942). rdjam, you never bothered to post that little bit of information in your previous posts in this thread so how the heck can you blame me for not knowing that?


I can tell you that 24p will be demonstrated at CES on the XA2 and that if you are a 24p lover, you will be pleased.Where did you hear that from? Seriously rdjam for some reason you don't bother to tell us where you hear these things from when you repeat them.


Here is a quote on the FOUR different Bluray BD-J standards.rdjam, you know quite well that multiple profiles can be in a single specification and you must think we are idiots since you assume that concept will confuse us. Also by now you must know that "Bluray BD-J standards" is wrong so why not cut out the BS and just call them Blu-ray profiles?

Where did you hear that from? Seriously, for some reason you don't bother to tell us where you hear these things from when you repeat them.I don't HAVE to tell you... ;)

you know quite well that multiple profiles can be in a single specification and you must think we are idiots since you assume that concept will confuse us. Oh Richard, your wordsmanship is beyond compare :p

The whole point of this HUGE debate is that there are multiple BD-type-thingies for players to conform to. Call them specs, call them profiles, I don't care.

But the fact is, that there is the BD-Video 1.0 profile that all current 1st gen BD players comply with, that DOESN'T have to do any of the fancy bits like PiP, extra storage, secondary audio and Network connect.

Then there's BD-Live, which DOES require them all. Then there's also the teensy weensy issue of a so called BD-Video 1.1 spec, which requires all features except Network connect.

So when Talker says that BD-Video does everything that BD-Live does, except for networking, he's accurate on one hand (1.1) but telling a bit of a white lie, since he is not pointing out that the current players are all 1.0, and can't do ANY of them...

To save time in future discussions, I've written a little article on this, which I can just link to every time it comes up from now on...

http://www.hdnowonline.com/Comment_BD_1G_Obsolete.html

Thanks Darin. It looks like another very interesting source of data. I went ahead and saved it in my favorites. It's great to be able to quickly see how a dual release title is selling in one format vs. the other.

http://www.hdgamedb.com/amazon/versus.aspx

Nuts. The site only stores 72 hours of data and then it ages off. So we only get 3 day trends only we grab the data offline. A longer data set could tell us how much it varies.

snapshot data isn't as meaningful as trends.

Recent reviews from High-Def Digest (http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/covenant.html) and Home Theater Spot (http://www.hometheaterspot.com/htsthreads/dvd-review.php?sequence=1792) indicate that "The Covenant" is a reference quality disc.

But isn't that impossible, MPEG2 on BD-25, I was told here many times, automatically equals rubbish PQ, doesn't it... :rolleyes:

To Amir and rdjam - doesn't it seem like you keep having to bang your collective heads against the wall when it comes to certain people :rolleyes:

All Blu-ray players will decode the core DD stream in the DD+ stream as 5.1. Bottom line, studios can put any supported audio format (DD, DD+, TrueHD, DTS, DTS-HD, LPCM) and the player will output 5.1 regardless of whether they have onboard support for the advanced codec. HD-DVD can make no such promise, as TrueHD need only be decoded to 2.0.

According to highdefdigest.com Warner has just announced Wicker Man & Beerfest for release on Blu-ray and HD DVD for Jan 30th.

Here is a quote from the article which I think relates to this audio debate and in reality what is actually being released to us consumers

However, in what's become an unfortunate pattern, Warner will again downgrade Blu-ray in the audio department, including a Dolby TrueHD track on the HD DVD version of 'The Wicker Man' only. Why the studio continues to drop TrueHD from its Blu-ray releases remains a puzzling -- and frustrating -- mystery.

With all these advanced Blu-ray audio options that talkst8t keeps telling us about I wonder when my BR Panny is going to start actually using them?

Time for me to burst the bubble of you and talker8ter.

Here is a quote on the FOUR different Bluray BD-J standards.



The BD-J 1.0 spec, called BD-Video, does NOT require PiP, secondary audio, local storage or network connectivity. THIS is what all the 1st Gen Bluray players have shipped as, inclusing the PS3.

There is a 1.1 version of BD-Video also, which requires everything but the network connectivity. But these 1st gen players DO NOT support 1.1. It's really CUTE, the disinformation and "implications" that BD-Video includes all the 1.1 features, Talker, but it's absolutely misleading, since it is only required of the 1.1 version of BD-Video, not the 1.0 version that these 1st gen players meet.

So version 1.1 BD-Video and version 2.0, BD-Live, will require these, and all BD players after June 07 will be required to comply with 2.0 BD-Live.

But unfortunately, all BD buyers in the interim are "screwed", as the pooch would say, except "potentially" (there's that word again) the PS3 owners - and the Jury ain't been seen yet on that one...

FURTHERMORE - talk, you keep saying that Bluray players are required to decode DD+ and TruHD. This is blatant deception. They are only required to decode DD core streams from DD+ and TruHD BD tracks.

Keep on deceiving the public, amigo. I think consumers should sue for being hoodwinked on these issues.

I would guess that a "consumer protection" lawyer would find that all of the defective 1G Toshiba players would make for a better case to pursue. Toshibas records of service calls regarding the skipping and defective audio performance could be subpoenaed for discovery.. :)

b2b

To Amir and rdjam - doesn't it seem like you keep having to bang your collective heads against the wall when it comes to certain people :rolleyes:
If heads are being incessantly banged against walls, I would consider why the mind repeatedly chooses the banging route. But thats me

Let's also remember the 360 lawsuit. My second 360 just froze on me.. portents of a 2nd bricking in 2007 methinks.

Interestingly, my 1st response was to feel the brick and the console.. lukewarm, easily touchable. This one puzzled me. My 1st 360 never froze though it did die peacefully in its sleep.

From the news thread.
HQV Reon review
Quote:
Originally Posted by Grubert
Silicon Optix HQV Video Processing Adopted for Toshiba's New HD DVD Player
http://www.hometheaterblog.com/home..._dvd2930ci.html

Included in this article on this Denon is a review of the first use of the Silicon Optix Reon HQV. It gave the same results as the more expensive Realta HQV in this application.

This should be very good news for the HD XA2 standard definition DVD upconversion capabilities.
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=9340675&&#post9340675

So I guess we know how the XA2 is going to do 24p now don't we.. ;)

b2b

Fair enough, I thought easy to encode means no tough-to-encode scenes.

So, 'easy to encode' includes being a short film. I will remember that.

How "tough to encode" a scene is may depend on your bit-budget. Therefore it stands to reason that your size/time constraint dictates how difficult the job is as well as the complexity of a given scene, no?

Time for me to burst the bubble of you and talker8ter.

Here is a quote on the FOUR different Bluray BD-J standards.

...
So version 1.1 BD-Video and version 2.0, BD-Live, will require these, and all BD players after June 07 will be required to comply with 2.0 BD-Live.

...


It has been maintained here by BD insiders that the 6/07 deadline (with some indication that date may be pushed back) is for including PiP. I've specifically asked if there is an additional later deadline for BD-Live compliance for decks, and none has been mentioned.

Now, perhaps my research is flawed, and my information and thought processes are 'wrong' or 'skewed' ... but this is what I was able to dig up that led me to make my decision.

Thanks for this.. I think it's good insight in to what consumers who are trying to educate themselves may find in terms of information...

How "tough to encode" a scene is may depend on your bit-budget. Therefore it stands to reason that your size/time constraint dictates how difficult the job is as well as the complexity of a given scene, no?

A 25GB disc would allow for a 34mbps ABR for a 97 min movie. That seems like plenty of bandwidth even for MPEG2 + LPCM audio. That's 4mbps more that the max bandwidth for HD-DVD. ;)

b2b

From the news thread.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=9340675&&#post9340675

So I guess we know how the XA2 is going to do 24p now don't we.. ;)

b2b


wow, something that outperforms the realta will be upconverting sd dvd AND outputting sd dvd at the lusted after 24p...i expect many people are going to be gtting very excited over this 2d gen player from tosh...certainly explains the price premium....if this thing can outperform the realta with sd dvd upconversion then maybe i don't need my newly acquired ps3 and can simply buy sd dvds for those titles that don't exist on hd dvd format for the time being ;)

It has been maintained here by BD insiders that the 6/07 deadline (with some indication that date may be pushed back) is for including PiP. I've specifically asked if there is an additional later deadline for BD-Live compliance for decks, and none has been mentioned.

What is funny about all of this noise about BD-J and BD-Live is that it is all coming from die-hard HD-DVD supporters. What you should really be concerned about is all of the mystery surrounding the "Performance Level 2 & 3" for your preferred format HD-DVD. :rolleyes:

b2b

How "tough to encode" a scene is may depend on your bit-budget. Therefore it stands to reason that your size/time constraint dictates how difficult the job is as well as the complexity of a given scene, no?
Yup, I was under the wrong impression that tough-to-encode necessarily meant that some scenes needed a very high bitrate.

Now, I get that tough-to-encode can also mean that the bottleneck is not the bitrate but space on disk. I took too literal an interpretation of 'easy', as in how hard the compressionist has to work.

So, if a really slow-action but looong duration movie is encoded, its considered hard, huh?

A 25GB disc would allow for a 34mbps ABR for a 97 min movie. That seems like plenty of bandwidth even for MPEG2 + LPCM audio. That's 4mbps more that the max bandwidth for HD-DVD. ;)

b2b
I am a little fogged up (its been a long day). b2b, what does the above prove? That the codecs had plenty of breathing space, thus an easy encode?

Even with very high avg bitrate, there was no way this title would run into disk-space as a bottleneck (as you demo'ed above). The only bottleneck it may have come up against was bitrate, but then BD can support upto 48mbps I think. I did like to see the action which would require that kind of insane bitrate. Hopefully 35-40Mbps peak video is transparent even in mpeg2, for the "Die Hardest" movie, heh

wow, something that outperforms the realta will be upconverting sd dvd AND outputting sd dvd at the lusted after 24p...i expect many people are going to be gtting very excited over this 2d gen player from tosh...certainly explains the price premium....if this thing can outperform the realta with sd dvd upconversion then maybe i don't need my newly acquired ps3 and can simply buy sd dvds for those titles that don't exist on hd dvd format for the time being ;)

I am very impressed with the HQV processor being included with XA2. After the debacle of the 1G products, Tosh finally looks like it is trying to deliver a quality piece of HW. ;)

b2b

What is funny about all of this noise...What I find really funny is that a year ago, nobody here wanted any of the advanced stuff like networking, PIP, etc. :rolleyes:

I am a little fogged up (its been a long day). b2b, what does the above prove? That the codecs had plenty of breathing space, thus an easy encode?

Even with very high avg bitrate, there was no way this title would run into disk-space as a bottleneck (as you demo'ed above). The only bottleneck it may have come up against was bitrate, but then BD can support upto 48mbps I think. I did like to see the action which would require that kind of insane bitrate. Hopefully 35-40Mbps peak video is transparent even in mpeg2, for the "Die Hardest" movie, heh

What it "proves" is that "bigger and faster" is better than "smaller and slower". Given that the title was given a 5/5 PQ rating and included LPCM audio, that means that the title could have been 194 minutes long (on a 50GB BD disc) and still deliver a 5/5 PQ rating with LPCM audio. :)

b2b

I would guess that a "consumer protection" lawyer would find that all of the defective 1G Toshiba players would make for a better case to pursue. Toshibas records of service calls regarding the skipping and defective audio performance could be subpoenaed for discovery.. :)

b2b
FUD alert... ;)

It has been maintained here by BD insiders that the 6/07 deadline (with some indication that date may be pushed back) is for including PiP. I've specifically asked if there is an additional later deadline for BD-Live compliance for decks, and none has been mentioned.
Yes, that seems to be the main problem, late in '06 they were maintaining that BD-Live would be mandatory on all BD players shipping from June '07.

Now with all this talk about the 1.1 version of BD-Video, and PiP, who knows.

If they don't start testing BD-Live until Q3 07, then how can they ship BD-Live before they've tested it.

IF ONLY they had planned out one player profile before they launched - but then again, they'd have had to be ready in order to do that...

What is funny about all of this noise about BD-J and BD-Live is that it is all coming from die-hard HD-DVD supporters. What you should really be concerned about is all of the mystery surrounding the "Performance Level 2 & 3" for your preferred format HD-DVD. :rolleyes:

b2b
No, actually what is really funny is all the Bluray fans running around going "SSHHshshshhhh!! Don't tell anyone!" ;)

I think it's pretty disgraceful that most of the consumers who shell out $1,000 and $1,500 for a 1st gen Bluray player aren't being told it won't do all the advanced features that are being so hyped. In fact, they can't even do the things already being shown off by HDi and HD DVD....

So forgive us for trying to let these folks know the truth before they plonk down their hard-earned big ones...

And your comment about mythical multiple profiles in HDi have already been debunked - they don't apply to CE standalone HD DVD players, there is one new profile being discussed for PCs. But you insist on spreading FUD to fight actual facts being "illuminated" on the multiple BD-J profiles being frantically pieced together in the Bluray camp...

What I find really funny is that a year ago, nobody here wanted any of the advanced stuff like networking, PIP, etc. :rolleyes:

There's people who want to push all these things down, some people really want it for some strange reason. I can't stand the stuff, and hate them as much as I hate popups in web browsers.

I hope this doesn't mean that the studios get to sell popup commercial space in their movies for cars or chandeliers without our ability to turn them off.

I don't know who is designing these GUI things that generate weird sounds that are not part of the movie. I first saw this in Phantom of the Opera's popup menu, and that title had very low volumes to start with, making the screeching sound of the menus coming on sound like nails on a blackboard.

The large bitmaps obscuring the movie was bad enough, but that sound mixed into the digital audio output without a means to turn them off in the player is inexcusable.

The popup menu and navigation which was meant to help make the title more friendly made it a nasty problem to avoid. I ended up doing a lot of direct chapter navigation.

BD is not any better, Kungfu Hustle has popup menus with weird sounds coming up from the talking heads, that really makes it unsuitable for turning on movie features. The whole idea of doing this is that you want to change subtitles or audio track with no effect on the picture or flow of the movie.

All these extras are as useful as popups in websites, like internet explorer's invaluable ability to kill all popups, all players should come equipped with the user selectable option to shut the cute sounds off as a bare minimum.

My suggestion : More UI experts should come in and look at the BD and HD-DVD navigation specs and make sure it is of actual use to movie watchers, and not let the PC people and designer of flash animation and websites dictate what the user wants. These review should be done and placed as part of the official specs for both formats to avoid nasty UI taking over the movie experience, the way it almost killed web browsing before popup-killers put a stop to it.

There's people who want to push all these things down, some people really want it for some strange reason. I can't stand the stuff, and hate them as much as I hate popups in web browsers.

I hope this doesn't mean that the studios get to sell popup commercial space in their movies for cars or chandeliers without our ability to turn them off.

I don't know who is designing these GUI things that generate weird sounds that are not part of the movie. I first saw this in Phantom of the Opera's popup menu, and that title had very low volumes to start with, making the screeching sound of the menus coming on sound like nails on a blackboard.

The large bitmaps obscuring the movie was bad enough, but that sound mixed into the digital audio output without a means to turn them off in the player is inexcusable.

The popup menu and navigation which was meant to help make the title more friendly made it a nasty problem to avoid. I ended up doing a lot of direct chapter navigation.

BD is not any better, Kungfu Hustle has popup menus with weird sounds coming up from the talking heads, that really makes it unsuitable for turning on movie features. The whole idea of doing this is that you want to change subtitles or audio track with no effect on the picture or flow of the movie.

All these extras are as useful as popups in websites, like internet explorer's invaluable ability to kill all popups, all players should come equipped with the user selectable option to shut the cute sounds off as a bare minimum.

My suggestion : More UI experts should come in and look at the BD and HD-DVD navigation specs and make sure it is of actual use to movie watchers, and not let the PC people and designer of flash animation and websites dictate what the user wants. These review should be done and placed as part of the official specs for both formats to avoid nasty UI taking over the movie experience, the way it almost killed web browsing before popup-killers put a stop to it.

I so agree. It's all worthless. All I want is the movie.

FUD alert... ;)

Hey it was you and Amir that started all the lawyer talk. All I did was point out is that if you want to sue somebody you have to prove you were damaged. Right now the only people who have suffered loss is the people with defective 1G Toshiba players.
However, and this is the point rdjam is making, is that within BDA’s own defined specifications, there are segments which are not required by all players to support. As such, for a player to be compliant with the logo, they must be able to point to a single spec which they fully support. This then, must be different than the entire spec as otherwise, they are not compliant with “the spec” and could be subject to class action suits. Indeed, if there is a consumer suit on this, I suspect the first defense exhibit would be that there was more than one spec. http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=9328058&&#post9328058

But unfortunately, all BD buyers in the interim are "screwed", as the pooch would say, except "potentially" (there's that word again) the PS3 owners - and the Jury ain't been seen yet on that one...

FURTHERMORE - talk, you keep saying that Bluray players are required to decode DD+ and TruHD. This is blatant deception. They are only required to decode DD core streams from DD+ and TruHD BD tracks.

Keep on deceiving the public, amigo. I think consumers should sue for being hoodwinked on these issues. http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=9340189&&#post9340189

b2b

Not with TrueHD, which is what I clearly referred to.
As Richard rightly mentioned, and I remembered waking up this morning, TrueHD is a standard codec and has no concept of "core" and enhancement layer. More on this below.

The same thing as happens with both TrueHD and DTS-HD MA on Blu-ray - the core 5.1 stream is played.
No it does not. The only scalable codec in either format is DTS where there is a core, plus the enhancement layer to create a lossless stream. TrueHD is just the standard MLP algorithm used in DVD-A with some minor changes for the new formats. It has not be re-written to do what DTS does (for good or bad). So to net out the difference here:

In BD:
TrueHD can not be used stand-alone. It must, must, come with a Dolby Digital stream by BDA edict. This is true whether there is already a compatible DTS stream on the same disc. Or there is DD+. Or there is PCM being re-encoded on the fly to DD/DTS.

So the audio is encoded twice and separately: once in DD and once in TrueHD. They are mux'ed in just like any other audio, or video stream.

So I am afraid your assertion that some "decoding" is done to find the "core" is groundless for TrueHD. The player simply plays the DD stream, as it would any other stream. The TrueHD stream, if used, sits fallow. The proper term is therefore what I used: de-multiplexing, not decoding.

DTS-MA Lossless however, is encoded once as a single audio codec and the decoder has the job of finding the “core” lossy stream and playing it. I would call this parsing the stream, and not decoding. But if you want to call it decoding, fine, but both formats do the same.

In HD DVD:
The author has a choice of what other stream, if any, should go along with TrueHD. They could choose to have DTS, DD, DD+ or nothing. The three former choices of course, put out full 5.1. The latter is important, and why both Toshiba and Microsoft support 5.1 in all of our products and we think others will too. With on-board re-encoding to DD/DTS, content owners can choose to do away with the other lossy tracks if they like as we can created them on the fly and still get “5.1”.

As you know, HD DVD content owners have standardized on DD+ being that companion track, providing the same functionality as BD although they can go to much higher data rates for 5.1 than BD can with its standard DD codec.

Let's see if I've got it right. It will be decoded and output as either 2.0 lossless, 5.1 lossy, or 5.1 lossless. Right? Of course, that leaves the studio with the dilemma of whether to only include a TrueHD track, running the risk that some players won't provide any surround channels, or to provide both a lossy and a TrueHD track, thus wasting precious disc capacity.
Well, we know now that there is no wasting being done. The overhead of having DD/DD+ with TrueHD is the same for both formats. So if anyone wants to emulate BD format in this respect, they can and already are, except that they use DD+ with higher data rate capability. In this way, your argument is also moot on the 2.0 versus 5.1.

So net, net, BD simply is more restrictive in requiring standard DD tracks, yet less innovative by leaving out any capability to decode TrueHD. And while we go out of our way to decode full 5.1 TrueHD, even expensive BD players do not support it – in 2.0 config or 5.1.

Most importantly, content owners are responding by rewarding us with many TrueHD discs, but leaving them out for BD. So if you are right and BD has a better system, you have not made your case to content owners. Otherwise, the case is clearly made, as with interactivity, that if you make things standard in every player, content owners will come. . If you don’t, you have an empty “field of dreams” :).

With this, I think we have bored the hell out of everyone and beat to death a topic known to everyone here inside and out. So let’s move on please. I know I am.

It has been maintained here by BD insiders that the 6/07 deadline (with some indication that date may be pushed back) is for including PiP. I've specifically asked if there is an additional later deadline for BD-Live compliance for decks, and none has been mentioned.

More reports from BD "rumor central" ???
In contrast, the profiles in BD were cast in concrete more than a year ago. And did you know there is talk of pushing out the June date? If not, then you need to strengthen your connections in BDA :).
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=9331886&&#post9331886

Funny how all of these rumors get started and are then spread around now isn't it ?? ;)

b2b

No, actually what is really funny is all the Bluray fans running around going "SSHHshshshhhh!! Don't tell anyone!" ;)

I think it's pretty disgraceful that most of the consumers who shell out $1,000 and $1,500 for a 1st gen Bluray player aren't being told it won't do all the advanced features that are being so hyped. In fact, they can't even do the things already being shown off by HDi and HD DVD....

So forgive us for trying to let these folks know the truth before they plonk down their hard-earned big ones...

And your comment about mythical multiple profiles in HDi have already been debunked - they don't apply to CE standalone HD DVD players, there is one new profile being discussed for PCs. But you insist on spreading FUD to fight actual facts being "illuminated" on the multiple BD-J profiles being frantically pieced together in the Bluray camp...

So do you have some real information about "Performance Level 2 & 3" for HD-DVD that you can share with everyone ???

But didn't Amir tell us that all of the BD stuff was "cast in stone" over a year ago ?? You guys need to get your stories straight... :)

b2b

What I find really funny is that a year ago, nobody here wanted any of the advanced stuff like networking, PIP, etc. :rolleyes:
A year ago, people's imagination was limited to poor interactivity in DVD. Now that it has been shown what can be one in the form of HD DVD, folks are more open minded about the potential.

Of course, no one buys a movie just for interactivity, but I believe the time will come where such a title would come to market (even I did not a year ago). I say this from experience. In our HD DVD AVS Insider tours, we do deep demos of HD DVD interactivity. What we find is that majority of people still have not seen them, and that includes the people who have the disc. Invariably, the demos cause people to go and by titles like Tokyo drift and now Miami Vice.

And yes, the point is made on usability of the menus and such. We give a ton of feedback to content owners both from what we know, and what we hear from users. They incorporate them in future titles.

What I can't figure out, is why Talk is talking down interactivity (I fell of my chair reading his comments before the holiday) and you seem to be joining him with the roll eye at the end of your post. Is the position of BDA to put down interactivity until they can implement it fully? Why is it good for Sigma to chase them this way? Surely extra functionality means extra opportunity for Sigma selling its silicon.

Keith doesn't speak for the BDA.

He's widely recognized here for his impartial, informative posts.

Maybe some others should aim for the same.

But didn't Amir tell us that all of the BD stuff was "cast in stone" over a year ago ?? You guys need to get your stories straight... :)

b2b
Well, I guess that's proof that I don't work for Microsoft, as you sometimes are prone to infer ;)

Why should I worry about future HD DVD profiles? The current profile already exceeds the Bluray stuff available and Bluray won't catchup to these features until the get BD-Live products shipping anyway.

"What me worry?" ;)

talkstr8t - you keep insisting that the PS3 sold a million units and "2 million here we come" etc in your signature.

Would you care to explain Home Media and NPD reporting that the PS3 has only sold 750,000 units, Worldwide, to date?

http://www.homemediamagazine.com/index.cfm?sec_id=2&newsid=10102

huh?

A year ago, people's imagination was limited to poor interactivity in DVD. Now that it has been shown what can be one in the form of HD DVD, folks are more open minded about the potential.

Of course, no one buys a movie just for interactivity, but I believe the time will come where such a title would come to market (even I did not a year ago). I say this from experience. In our HD DVD AVS Insider tours, we do deep demos of HD DVD interactivity. What we find is that majority of people still have not seen them, and that includes the people who have the disc. Invariably, the demos cause people to go and by titles like Tokyo drift and now Miami Vice.

And yes, the point is made on usability of the menus and such. We give a ton of feedback to content owners both from what we know, and what we hear from users. They incorporate them in future titles.

What I can't figure out, is why Talk is talking down interactivity (I fell of my chair reading his comments before the holiday) and you seem to be joining him with the roll eye at the end of your post. Is the position of BDA to put down interactivity until they can implement it fully? Why is it good for Sigma to chase them this way? Surely extra functionality means extra opportunity for Sigma selling its silicon.

What I can figure out is all of this big "ta do" about BD-J and BD-Live coming from the HD-DVD supporters when the only thing they have to show us is unused network ports on the backs of HD-DVD players. :rolleyes:

If you are going to toot the HDi "network interactivity" horn, at least do something before you act like HD-DVD has re-invented sliced bread... ;)

b2b

A year ago, people's imagination was limited to poor interactivity in DVD. Now that it has been shown what can be one in the form of HD DVD, folks are more open minded about the potential.

Of course, no one buys a movie just for interactivity, but I believe the time will come where such a title would come to market (even I did not a year ago). I say this from experience. In our HD DVD AVS Insider tours, we do deep demos of HD DVD interactivity. What we find is that majority of people still have not seen them, and that includes the people who have the disc. Invariably, the demos cause people to go and by titles like Tokyo drift and now Miami Vice.

And yes, the point is made on usability of the menus and such. We give a ton of feedback to content owners both from what we know, and what we hear from users. They incorporate them in future titles.

What I can't figure out, is why Talk is talking down interactivity (I fell of my chair reading his comments before the holiday) and you seem to be joining him with the roll eye at the end of your post. Is the position of BDA to put down interactivity until they can implement it fully? Why is it good for Sigma to chase them this way? Surely extra functionality means extra opportunity for Sigma selling its silicon.

Interactivity should be optional and usable only by people who want them. I find some popup menus (especially the ones that are not silent and generate loud screeches) to be extremely irritating.

If these new interactivity features are not vented first, then they could end up showing up in areas that are hard to avoid --- and that is inexcusable. Since you can't control studios doing crazy things with iHD, why now mandate that the player must have a button to turn off all extra audio from popup menus?

MSFT IE 6 has many user-friendly features that work because by default they hunt down and kill extra activeX or cute animation that the user doesn't want to see --- this is what the PC world wants, and there's a lot of PC guys to base your human feedback from, the HD-DVD team should spend more time with the ex IE6 guys (but leave the IE7 guys alone, I have no idea what they're thinking with their new GUI).

Interactivity should be optional and usable only by people who want them. I find some popup menus (especially the ones that are not silent and generate loud screeches) to be extremely irritating.

If these new interactivity features are not vented first, then they could end up showing up in areas that are hard to avoid --- and that is inexcusable. Since you can't control studios doing crazy things with iHD, why now mandate that the player must have a button to turn off all extra audio from popup menus?

MSFT IE 6 has many user-friendly features that work because by default they hunt down and kill extra activeX or cute animation that the user doesn't want to see --- this is what the PC world wants, and there's a lot of PC guys to base your human feedback from, the HD-DVD team should spend more time with the ex IE6 guys (but leave the IE7 guys alone, I have no idea what they're thinking with their new GUI).

Neo, I dont understand I thought it was an option. I have never seen any type of pop-up - pip feature - commentary - audio sound etc when I play a movie because I dont have the features turned on

talkstr8t - you keep insisting that the PS3 sold a million units and "2 million here we come" etc in your signature.

Would you care to explain Home Media and NPD reporting that the PS3 has only sold 750,000 units, Worldwide, to date?

http://www.homemediamagazine.com/index.cfm?sec_id=2&newsid=10102

huh?

Because there is not a single mention of "Worldwide" in that article. vgcharts.org seems to have the most reliable numbers. 1.31M worldwide for PS3.

http://www.vgcharts.org/

b2b

Neo, I dont understand I thought it was an option. I have never seen any type of pop-up - pip feature - commentary - audio sound etc when I play a movie because I dont have the features turned on
In PotO, if you pulled up the popup menu, it generates a loud screeching sound as the menus slide in. I'd like popup menus to be more muted, perhaps alpha blended, but mostly they should be small and not obscure the screen.

But even the big bitmaps in the popup are not a big deal compared to the sounds for every button pressed on the remote. There should be a way to turn off that sound. That is what I mean by being unavoidable.

Because there is not a single mention of "Worldwide" in that article. vgcharts.org seems to have the most reliable numbers. 1.31M worldwide for PS3.

http://www.vgcharts.org/

b2b
That site also has irritating popup icons, but at least I didn't pay to look at the chart.

There should be a way to turn off that sound. That is what I mean by being unavoidable.

You can disable button sounds in the audio setup menu of the disc.

In PotO, if you pulled up the popup menu, it generates a loud screeching sound as the menus slide in. I'd like popup menus to be more muted, perhaps alpha blended, but mostly they should be small and not obscure the screen.

But even the big bitmaps in the popup are not a big deal compared to the sounds for every button pressed on the remote. There should be a way to turn off that sound. That is what I mean by being unavoidable.

Welcome to "advanced authoring" for HD-DVD that mandates "button noise" and DD+ that ends up as DTS (SPDIF bitstream) on the Tosh players... ;)

b2b

NPD doesn't track data outside of North America.

Probably not out of the US either.

Plus NPD omits Wal Mart sales.

You can disable button sounds in the audio setup menu of the disc.
I'll look at that again on PotO.

Do I have to do this for every disk or can I do it once in the player? Do they behave like default subtitle language that you can set in the player? The ability to turn off button sounds and popup sounds should be changeable by the user and this setting should be used when playing each disk.

I think this is a great post, well-argued and all points referenced for context.

The only part I disagree with is "The longer both formats stay alive, the more likely they will both continue to survive". I reckon the studios will drop the first format to fall irrevocably behind. How that is defined is up to the studios and I have no idea, but they will not support two formats if, for example only, BD player penetration reaches mass-market levels first by a clear margin. The "PS3 to sell 75M by 2010" estimate is a report sure to suppress BD jitters about market-penetration or it might be a factual look at the situation. I think it is both true and well-timed.

Actually, I saw that somewhere and I thought it was more something to 'calm the shareholders' via some sort of shock campaign ... I believe the report came from an analyst, but I wouldn't be surprised if information like that is planted much like movie reviews and PSP fan blogs :p ...

Besides, for them to meet that goal, Sony is not only going to have to ship, but sell over 22M players per year for the next 3 years ... that's wishful thinking considering the difficulties in simply obtaining the blue laser diodes.

In PotO, if you pulled up the popup menu, it generates a loud screeching sound as the menus slide in. I'd like popup menus to be more muted, perhaps alpha blended, but mostly they should be small and not obscure the screen.

But even the big bitmaps in the popup are not a big deal compared to the sounds for every button pressed on the remote. There should be a way to turn off that sound. That is what I mean by being unavoidable.


That site also has irritating popup icons, but at least I didn't pay to look at the chart.

Sorry, I didn't know about that.. :o I use Firefox popup-blocker and NoScript to dispense with that foolishness. :)

b2b

What I can't figure out, is why Talk is talking down interactivity (I fell of my chair reading his comments before the holiday) and you seem to be joining him with the roll eye at the end of your post.Sorry, you misunderstood why I used the rolling eyes. That's what I get for violating my rule about having 3 cups of coffee before reading this forum. :)

I used the rolling eyes to indicate my amazement at how most people have turned around on their position regarding interactivity in such a relatively short time. From pure hatred to loving it. I personally believe interactivity, when done well, is a fantastic thing and am impatiently waiting for the really great stuff to be implemented.

There are two different viewpoints and strategies on how to execute this stuff. And I have no desire to get in the middle of that discussion. :)

What I can figure out is all of this big "ta do" about BD-J and BD-Live coming from the HD-DVD supporters when the only thing they have to show us is unused network ports on the backs of HD-DVD players. :rolleyes:

If you are going to toot the HDi "network interactivity" horn, at least do something before you act like HD-DVD has re-invented sliced bread... ;)

b2b
You seem to forget that HD DVD movies *right now* are doing PiP commentary and extra features overlaid onto the movie.

They are also doing tricks with HDi like the moving map within "Tokyo drift" during the chase scenes.

The network interactivity is just one of the features among those that Bluray players currently lack.

As more HD DVD titles come along, I expect to see the network studd come into play. In fact, I fully expect to see a demonstration at CES next week.

Because there is not a single mention of "Worldwide" in that article. vgcharts.org seems to have the most reliable numbers. 1.31M worldwide for PS3.

http://www.vgcharts.org/

b2b
Actually, you're correct on the first part - 750,000 for the US.

But wrong on the second - vgcharts is not the most accurate site - only the site that gives the highest estimate for PS3 sales, so loved and adored by PS3 fans... ;)

Welcome to "advanced authoring" for HD-DVD that mandates "button noise" and DD+ that ends up as DTS (SPDIF bitstream) on the Tosh players... ;)

b2b
Another lie ;)

If you use HDMI or Analog, it's "as nature intended" - perfect.

If you're using the older SPDIF connects, then the laws of phyics applies, since SPDIF cannot support 5.1 uncompressed audio. The solution Toshiba used (1.5 mbps DTS) was the best option, in my opinion...

Nice try though, b. Don't you have anything of substance to say instead of just a non-stop stream of FUD today? :confused:

NPD doesn't track data outside of North America.

Probably not out of the US either.

Plus NPD omits Wal Mart sales.
I stand corrected on the first part - yes, this is US only. Thanks! :o

However, their estimate is for the entire market, regardless of which outlets they do or don't track.

I used the rolling eyes to indicate my amazement at how most people have turned around on their position regarding interactivity in such a relatively short time. From pure hatred to loving it.
I think when they started to see it on HD DVD they realized how much they love it :p

Another lie ;)

If you use HDMI or Analog, it's "as nature intended" - perfect.

If you're using the older SPDIF connects, then the laws of phyics applies, since SPDIF cannot support 5.1 uncompressed audio. The solution Toshiba used (1.5 mbps DTS) was the best option, in my opinion...

Nice try though, b. Don't you have anything of substance to say instead of just a non-stop stream of FUD today? :confused:

Good lord... :confused: Your own ignorance to your prefered format is astounding... :rolleyes: RTFM from the A1 owners manual attached... :eek:

b2b

What is funny about all of this noise about BD-J and BD-Live is that it is all coming from die-hard HD-DVD supporters. What you should really be concerned about is all of the mystery surrounding the "Performance Level 2 & 3" for your preferred format HD-DVD. :rolleyes:

b2b

That's a good point ... so far, on that topic ... we have:

Amir stating that it's all about creating standards for performance items like load times/etc between similar pieces of equipment (stand alone players, vs consoles, vs pc's).

Another insider stated (sry, dont remember who), that there was a lot more to it than that.

Now ... for BD-Live/Video/etc ... we know that most players out there today can't support Profile 2.0 due to the lack of the Ethernet Port. We know that Profile 1.1 will support PiP, something that HD-DVD can do today ... but Profile 1.1 isn't mandatory until June 2007, right?

What this sounds like to me is that someone had an "Oh Poopies!" Moment and they had to get stuff out to the consumer since HD-DVD was out already. Get them something now, make it work later.

Now, I realize that might sound a little paranoid or something ... but I'm just basing it on exactly what happened with the PS3 during E3 a few years back when they annouced the Xbox 360. For those unfamiliar, Sony showed up at E3 with a shell, with no innards, with the boomerang controller, with specs noting 7 controller support, multiple ethernet interfaces, built in ethernet switching, multiple usb ports, etc. They then lambasted Microsoft for releasing 2 SKU's saying it would confuse the Consumer. *boggle*

Of course, they also annouced how the PS3 would be available just 1Q after Xbox 360 was ... did they actually believe that? Or was it just a ploy to keep people on the fence? I dunno, but as a consumer, the trend is pretty much intact: Paid Movie Reviewers, PSP 'Fansite' that is run by Sony Employees, 6 Million Consoles for Launch ... no, wait ... 4 Million ... no wait ... 2 million ... no wait, "We're still on track to meet our target of 1 million shipped". Out by Spring 2006, Summer 2006, Fall 2006 -- and Worldwide, mind you. *shrug*

I'd really like to get more information on HD-DVD Performance Levels and understand what it truly means. Of course, I'm not as concerned about this because my HD-DVD player is an Xbox 360 Add-On ... and Microsoft, thusfar, has been great in providing updates to functionality via Internet.

Of course, one could argue that you can do the same with the PS3 or Profile 2.0 BR Players. The difference, however, to me is thus:

(1) Microsoft says the player/console can do 'This'. You open the box, you plug it in, and it can. Later, they release an update, and say, "Hey! Now you can do *THIS* too! Cool!".

As opposed to:

(2) Sony says you can do 'This'. You open the box, you plug it in, and it can't really do it. At least not for everyone -- and in some cases, for no one at all. Later, they release an update and say, "See? Told ya you could do it". The problem is, of course, how much times occurs between you opening the box and that update being released.

Maybe BR will win ... maybe HD-DVD will win ... maybe they'll both be around for 10 years ... I just wish folks, and this goes for both camps, would simply tell it how it is. If you can't do that ... you're in effect lying to the very people you want to come buy your product(s). I dunno about others, but I am less likely to hand money over to people who lie to me. *shrug*.

NPD doesn't track data outside of North America.

Probably not out of the US either.

Plus NPD omits Wal Mart sales.

Correct ... imo, NPD is good for (1) Determining Trending Month-to-Month/etc, and (2) Comparing different data points within the same time period.

ie: Comparing how PS3 Sold in November Compared to December or Comparing How Xbox 360 Sold in Comparison to the Wii.

Since the data is being accumulated from the same sources, you would think that the ratios would be somewhat accurate.

Media Create can be used for establishing the same in the Japanese Market, also imo, of course. ;)

I stand corrected on the first part - yes, this is US only. Thanks! :o

However, their estimate is for the entire market, regardless of which outlets they do or don't track.

Actually, NPD does not track Wal-Mart sales data. Instead, if I remember correctly, they use a sampling of 3 million member consumers to guesstimate data in the retail chain which they do not have access to.

A 25GB disc would allow for a 34mbps ABR for a 97 min movie. That seems like plenty of bandwidth even for MPEG2 + LPCM audio. That's 4mbps more that the max bandwidth for HD-DVD. ;)

b2b

Well, I wasn't making any statements (implied or otherwise) about a format, but about the encoding process.

What this sounds like to me is that someone had an "Oh Poopies!" Moment and they had to get stuff out to the consumer since HD-DVD was out already. Get them something now, make it work later.

Of course, they also annouced how the PS3 would be available just 1Q after Xbox 360 was ... did they actually believe that? Or was it just a ploy to keep people on the fence? I dunno, but as a consumer, the trend is pretty much intact: Paid Movie Reviewers, PSP 'Fansite' that is run by Sony Employees, 6 Million Consoles for Launch ... no, wait ... 4 Million ... no wait ... 2 million ... no wait, "We're still on track to meet our target of 1 million shipped". Out by Spring 2006, Summer 2006, Fall 2006 -- and Worldwide, mind you. *shrug*

I'd really like to get more information on HD-DVD Performance Levels and understand what it truly means. Of course, I'm not as concerned about this because my HD-DVD player is an Xbox 360 Add-On ... and Microsoft, thusfar, has been great in providing updates to functionality via Internet.

Of course, one could argue that you can do the same with the PS3 or Profile 2.0 BR Players. The difference, however, to me is thus:

(1) Microsoft says the player/console can do 'This'. You open the box, you plug it in, and it can. Later, they release an update, and say, "Hey! Now you can do *THIS* too! Cool!".

As opposed to:

(2) Sony says you can do 'This'. You open the box, you plug it in, and it can't really do it. At least not for everyone -- and in some cases, for no one at all. Later, they release an update and say, "See? Told ya you could do it". The problem is, of course, how much times occurs between you opening the box and that update being released.

Maybe BR will win ... maybe HD-DVD will win ... maybe they'll both be around for 10 years ... I just wish folks, and this goes for both camps, would simply tell it how it is. If you can't do that ... you're in effect lying to the very people you want to come buy your product(s). I dunno about others, but I am less likely to hand money over to people who lie to me. *shrug*.

I have to agree with this.... The BD companies are constantly playing catch-up at this point. A lot of fiction comes out of the BD marketing machine, which may become truth somewhere down the line :p . The same seems to be happening now with the BD audio updates for certain manufacturers as well as the obvious shortcomings of the currently released BD players which don't support ethernet connections, advanced audio codecs, CD disc playback and mediocre DVD upscaling for twice the cost of current HDDVD players.

Good lord... :confused: Your own ignorance to your prefered format is astounding... :rolleyes: RTFM from the A1 owners manual attached... :eek:

b2b
b2b, I'm taking a "swerve" on getting into a silly discussion with you.

You stated that all users get is DTS SPDIF from DD+.

I pointed out that is not all they get.

BTW - what do the Bluray players give you over SPDIF - oh yes, only DD 640k or DTS output, even if the disc had LPCM, DTS-HD or TruHD.

Aw shucks - you must be really annoyed with THAT then ;)

What is funny about all of this noise about BD-J and BD-Live is that it is all coming from die-hard HD-DVD supporters. What you should really be concerned about is all of the mystery surrounding the "Performance Level 2 & 3" for your preferred format HD-DVD. :rolleyes:

b2b

I'll assume you are categorizing me here, given your choice to quote me in responding. I'll ask you to not tell me what I should be concerned with, OK?

Perhaps you'd care to look at my post history and tell me if I haven't voiced concern over HD DVD Performance levels and things susch as 24p, before you decide with which brush you'd care to (incorrectly) paint me with.

I am very impressed with the HQV processor being included with XA2. After the debacle of the 1G products, Tosh finally looks like it is trying to deliver a quality piece of HW. ;)

b2b

the upscaling on the 1g products surpassed the thousands of dollars of equipment in my rack ... if that's a debacle, bring em on ;)

I'll assume you are categorizing me here, given your choice to quote me in responding. I'll ask you to not tell me what I should be concerned with, OK?

Perhaps you'd care to look at my post history and tell me if I haven't voiced concern over HD DVD Performance levels and things susch as 24p, before you decide with which brush you'd care to (incorrectly) paint me with.
Indeed, to Steve's credit, he was quick to ask the same questions of HD DVD in the insider thread: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=9265236&&#post9265236. He did so as soon as the noise was created here. And I chimed in, even during the holidays with what I could find out.

Alas, it is not as necessary to probe the HD DVD side anyway as the result of their work is always public. On the other hand, BDA dealings are not, and more than a year after they decided to add these feature profiles, you all are struggling to get answers from them.

So my hat is off to you Steve. Keep it up.

Welcome to "advanced authoring" for HD-DVD that mandates "button noise" and DD+ that ends up as DTS (SPDIF bitstream) on the Tosh players... ;)

b2b Well, the button noise can be turned off.

Oh course if you actually owned an HD DVD player instead of just complaining about them you would know that. :rolleyes:

Because there is not a single mention of "Worldwide" in that article. vgcharts.org seems to have the most reliable numbers. 1.31M worldwide for PS3.

http://www.vgcharts.org/

b2b

It's funny how you label THE ONE chart that gives the PS3 it's highest totals as "The Most Reliable" .......

Sorry, you misunderstood why I used the rolling eyes. That's what I get for violating my rule about having 3 cups of coffee before reading this forum. :)

I used the rolling eyes to indicate my amazement at how most people have turned around on their position regarding interactivity in such a relatively short time. From pure hatred to loving it. I personally believe interactivity, when done well, is a fantastic thing and am impatiently waiting for the really great stuff to be implemented.

There are two different viewpoints and strategies on how to execute this stuff. And I have no desire to get in the middle of that discussion. :)

I'm not so sure that it's necessarily those extremes, Keith. The fact is, as your post here implies, that the really neato whiz-bang stuff is yet to come. Therefore, while I'm more of a "give me the movie first and foremost" type of guy now, I'm also not one to care for falling for a bait & switch style of marketing, which is what it appears is happening with the BDA.

The truth is that there may be some really compelling interactive stuff I want, and if so I'd like to option to use it. If not, then I won't bother selecting it from the menu. What I find irresponisble is that much ado is being made about what BD-J will be able to do , but practically none is being made to disclaim that $1000+ machines less than a year old won't be able to do much of it.

So the BDA can't have it both ways: Market the advantages of advanced interactvity up front to make the sale, and then fall back on a "well people didn't really want it anyway" argument to justify the lack of clear communication about hardware profile compliance after the fact.

So the BDA can't have it both ways: Market the advantages of advanced interactvity up front to make the sale, and then fall back on a "well people didn't really want it anyway" argument to justify the lack of clear communication about hardware profile compliance after the fact.


Apparently they can.... The BDA will decide what you want to have for interactivity and when... Just not now, but maybe later....sometime ;)

Good lord... :confused: Your own ignorance to your prefered format is astounding... :rolleyes: RTFM from the A1 owners manual attached... :eek:

b2b Updated by firmware. Telling someone else about "your ignorance" is pathetic, when it is you who are confused.

Once again if you actually owned one, you would know it.

I don't mind your comments about HD DVD issues or problems with format general items but when you comment on the specific functions and performance of an piece of equipment you don't own, its a bit irritating when you are clueless. I like your give and play, and I am glad you are here and commenting, but you don't have a clue about the total experience of owning a HD DVD you appear silly when you criticise it, or take other peoples comments out of context. There are some issues sure, both most owners love the beast, and are sold on the format

Your credibility on these HD DVD performance issues is zilch.

By the way, do you even own a Blu-ray player yet?

the upscaling on the 1g products surpassed the thousands of dollars of equipment in my rack ... if that's a debacle, bring em on ;) I have now done some HTH comparisons and the HD XA1 upscaling (and the A1) has been superb.

I am just salivating over the chance to have Silicon Optix upscaling in the HD XA2. :D

It seems though that Toshiba and other HD DVD backers are not afraid to have superb upscaling in their HD DVD boxes, unlike, say.....the PS3, where maybe Sony is afraid to put in SD upconversion so that Blu-ray looks better by comparison to the lowly 480i SD DVD playback. ;)

Of course, he doesn't know that Ben, he'd never seen the HD DVD players upconversion capablity, he just complains about it out of spite and blind bias.

What I find really funny is that a year ago, nobody here wanted any of the advanced stuff like networking, PIP, etc. :rolleyes:

Step 1: Determine differences
Step 2: Spend weeks/months pounding on how vital those differences are, and how they clearly favour a preferred format.

Who cares about playing movies on decent players? What a silly waste of time. ;)

Gary

Originally Posted by kjack
What I find really funny is that a year ago, nobody here wanted any of the advanced stuff like networking, PIP, etc. Well, it comes from experience.

I was a firm, movie only guy, but the easy functionality of the extra features menu on HD DVD has gotten me watching a lot more of the extra feature, even on my clunky obsolete slow performing PC based ugly looking dust collecting yardstick kinda motion activated slow booting slow opening HD XA1. :p

Point is, the thing performs well and HD DVD has delivered on useable friendly content and great PQ and AQ so I now want more.

Updated by firmware. Telling someone else about "your ignorance" is pathetic, when it is you who are confused.

Once again if you actually owned one, you would know it.

I don't mind your comments about HD DVD issues or problems with format general items but when you comment on the specific functions and performance of an piece of equipment you don't own, its a bit irritating when you are clueless. I like your give and play, and I am glad you are here and commenting, but you don't have a clue about the total experience of owning a HD DVD you appear silly when you criticise it, or take other peoples comments out of context. There are some issues sure, both most owners love the beast, and are sold on the format

Your credibility on these HD DVD performance issues is zilch.

By the way, do you even own a Blu-ray player yet?

And once again, I don't have to fall headfirst into the honey pot to take other peoples word on the smell of shite... thanks, but no thanks... ;)

Good luck on dumping the XA1 to get the XA2. That looks like it will be a good bit of HW.. :)

b2b

Well, it comes from experience.

I was a firm, movie only guy, but the easy functionality of the extra features menu on HD DVD has gotten me watching a lot more of the extra feature, even on my clunky obsolete slow performing PC based ugly looking dust collecting yardstick kinda motion activated slow booting slow opening HD XA1. :p

Point is, the thing performs well and HD DVD has delivered on useable friendly content and great PQ and AQ so I now want more.

Thank you Kosty! I was just reading through this thread and after all the other stuff, you put a smile on my face. Let's not forget boat anchor and door stop.

I'd much rather own an XA1 then 8 dvd players like some folks. ;)

Well, the button noise can be turned off.

Oh course if you actually owned an HD DVD player instead of just complaining about them you would know that. :rolleyes:

But you still end up with DD+ coming out as DTS across SPDIF (for "advanced authored" content)... ;)

b2b

Thank you Kosty! I was just reading through this thread and after all the other stuff, you put a smile on my face. Let's not forget boat anchor and door stop.

I'd much rather own an XA1 then 8 dvd players like some folks. ;)

Well it's actually 10. ;) But that is still preferable to owning a A(X)1, Xb360 and soon to be XA2 just to keep buying HW till Toshiba or MS gets it right... :)

b2b

What I find irresponisble is that much ado is being made about what BD-J will be able to do , but practically none is being made to disclaim that $1000+ machines less than a year old won't be able to do much of it.BD-J for interactivity and BD-Live are two separate things I believe. Unless I am confused, which would not surprise me. :)

BD-Live, just like the network-based advanced stuff for HD DVD which is not supported yet, requires a whole external infrastructure to be set up and maintained before it can be used. Regardless of format, I would expect any player to require software updates to properly work with it. And true, a player with no network connection cannot support this. So you lose some neat features like downloading new subtitles, downloading new audio tracks, downloading new previews, etc. assuming the player has enough persistent storage to support it.

..Good luck on dumping the XA1 to get the XA2. That looks like it will be a good bit of HW.. :)
b2b Just to be clear. If I do upgrade to the HD XA2, it will be because the superior picture quality, audio quality and functionality I personally witnessed by owning the HD XA1 has convinced me that HD DVD can deliver a amazing home theater experience at a reasonable price. That's what I purchased a HD player for, and it has incredibly exceeded my expectations.

The additional firmware updates that solved some of the early performance issues as well as adding things I didn't expect like Dolby TrueHD 5.1 support are a model of consumer support.

I expect ergonomic or twitchy first generation hardware issues, but they in reality were far less than I was expecting. The player has some quirks, but it has given me months of amazing performance and satisfaction. I have learned to work around the remote response and player startup times, and the audio sync/drop out or disc skipping issues that I and others have reported are rare and pale in significance to the players performance.

If I upgrade to the HD XA2, and I probably will now, with the promise of the Silicon Optix Reon DVD upconversion, its because I want and can afford the latest and greatest and the prior performance of the HD XA1 has convinced me that HD DVD is a viable HD format and Toshiba and the other HD DVD proponents have earned my business and my trust.

Rest assured my HD XA1 will continue its useful life somewhere else where it doubtless will be appreciated.

If you actually owned one , you know all that. Oh did I already say that?

Well it's actually 10. ;) But that is still preferable to owning a A(X)1, Xb360 and soon to be XA2 just to keep buying HW till Toshiba or MS gets it right... :)

b2b Just the HD XA1 and maybe the XA2. Don't have the Xbox 360 add on. Considering the PS3 60GB if I can find one.

BTW, I think they got it right to begin with, even if it wasn't perfect, I'd rather have the enjoyment I got out of the first generation model, than sit around getting and waiting for a first generation player to get released at twice the cost.

I enjoy watching movies, and my HD XA1 has delivered the best quality movies I have ever seen. You know, maybe if you tried a HD XA2??????

Just to be clear. If I do upgrade to the HD XA2, it will be because the superior picture quality, audio quality and functionality I personally witnessed by owning the HD XA1 has convinced me that HD DVD can deliver a amazing home theater experience at a reasonable price. That's what I purchased a HD player for, and it has incredibly exceeded my expectations.

The additional firmware updates that solved some of the early performance issues as well as adding things I didn't expect like Dolby TrueHD 5.1 support are a model of consumer support.

I expect ergonomic or twitchy first generation hardware issues, but they in reality were far less than I was expecting. The player has some quirks, but it has given me months of amazing performance and satisfaction. I have learned to work around the remote response and player startup times, and the audio sync/drop out or disc skipping issues that I and others have reported are rare and pale in significance to the players performance.

If I upgrade to the HD XA2, and I probably will now, with the promise of the Silicon Optix Reon DVD upconversion, its because I want and can afford the latest and greatest and the prior performance of the HD XA1 has convinced me that HD DVD is a viable HD format and Toshiba and the other HD DVD proponents have earned my business and my trust.

Rest assured my HD XA1 will continue its useful life somewhere else where it doubtless will be appreciated.

If you actually owned one , you know all that. Oh did I already say that?

Sounds like HD-DVD is like one of those Chinese finger puzzles. Or maybe one of those monkey traps where the little guy sticks his hand into the gourd but is too greedy to let go of the rice... ;)

b2b

I have now done some HTH comparisons and the HD XA1 upscaling (and the A1) has been superb.

I am just salivating over the chance to have Silicon Optix upscaling in the HD XA2. :D

It seems though that Toshiba and other HD DVD backers are not afraid to have superb upscaling in their HD DVD boxes, unlike, say.....the PS3, where maybe Sony is afraid to put in SD upconversion so that Blu-ray looks better by comparison to the lowly 480i SD DVD playback. ;)

Of course, he doesn't know that Ben, he'd never seen the HD DVD players upconversion capablity, he just complains about it out of spite and blind bias.

i am now an owner of a ps3 :(

Step 1: Determine differences
Step 2: Spend weeks/months pounding on how vital those differences are, and how they clearly favour a preferred format.

Who cares about playing movies on decent players? What a silly waste of time. ;)

Gary

The real problem for me is that instead of wasting all that time doing these interactive features, it would be so easy for Toshiba to have a FW upgrade with an extra checkbox/setting to have a disabling of mixing audio mode for popup menu sounds and keyclicks and that would make the popus much more usable.

But instead of spending all the 200 engineers to build these iHD or BD-J, just take one programmer from that 200 and code up a one line button/option in the setup screen for 1 day to do this, QA it for a week. Whether it is 199 sw engineers doing iHD or BD-J or 200 engineers makes little difference in their schedule, but that one single feature that would be really useful for people who want to watch movies is not in the player. :)

I sincerely hope all the designers of highdef players and stakeholders in both specs take this into consideration before letting the flash-animation world dictate how the movie watchers really want to watch movies.

You want to spend engineering resources pushing these funky stuff in the spec, fine, that strategic gamble in product direction is up to you, but make sure there are buttons to turn them all off in the player, because a significant segment of the population will find them very irritating.

With all these advanced Blu-ray audio options that talkst8t keeps telling us about I wonder when my BR Panny is going to start actually using them?A far higher percentage of Blu-ray releases include lossless audio than do HD-DVD releases, and the vast majority of those work with all Blu-ray players, not just those with TrueHD support. Your beef should be with Warner, not with Blu-ray.

So in late August of 2006 the studios were still hearing that everything was on track, everything is ok. The PS3 will outsell all other consoles and will go on to make BD the dominant HD format by default. The reality did not live up to the sales pitch. Ask yourself this question; when you buy into a big sales pitch and it falls so far short of what you were promissed, what's your reaction? How do you feel about the people who sold you on their pitch?You paint a picture suggesting Sony and partners are the vendor and the studios are the customer, as if the studios bought a car from the CE vendors and now the car only goes 60MPH when they were promised it would do 155. I can assure you the studios are not sitting back waiting for the CE vendors to "deliver". The studios are actively working to make the format a success. Whether the number of PS3's (and hence Blu-ray players) hits 5M at the end of 2006 or the middle of 2007 is not a make-or-break issue. Launching a new format takes years, and by any measure the number of Blu-ray players in the market today vastly exceeds the number of DVD players available at the same point in its launch, and will only (exponentially) increase over the next two years. As long as BD player and disc sales is on the right trend, the studios aren't going to abandon the format.
We now are coming into CES 2007 and HD-DVD is not only still alive, it seems to be doing rather well.We'll see. Without new studio or major CE player announcements for HD-DVD at CES, the perception will be the format is stagnant.
It's still too early to know the full impact of the 1 million PS3s purchased this Christmas though.Don't forget, it's not as if the 1.x million PS3's sold in 2006 are the end of the road. Millions more will likely be sold in the next six months; I strongly doubt the Xbox 360 will maintain anywhere near the sales rate the PS3 will in 2007.
The other impact I see is that Xbox360 dominance in North America will be good for HD-DVD. The Xbox add-on provides a low cost entry point ($199) to the world of HD-DVD for nearly 10 million Xbox360 owners. As Xbox360 market share continues to expand, the number of families that are able to make that low cost jump to HD-DVD grows.Clearly the more Xbox 360's the more potential low-barrier HD-DVD households. However, if you're a HT fan without a strong interest in gaming, the Xbox 360 is in no way a compelling product, with clunky packaging, high fan noise, no HDMI, and poor audio options. While the PS3 has clearly generated interest as a standalone BD player, I've seen no similar indication that the Xbox 360 can attract non-gamers to HD-DVD.

So version 1.1 BD-Video and version 2.0, BD-Live, will require these, and all BD players after June 07 will be required to comply with 2.0 BD-Live.RDJam, it's truly tragic how misinformed you are. Your website is so rife with factual errors it pains me to read it, especially since you position it as an objective source of information on the format war. BD-Live is not required as of June 07. BD-J does not have profiles. There is no BD-J 1.0 and BD-J 2.0. BD-Live is not mandatory after June 07 (BD-Video 1.1 is mandatory, BD-Live is optional). PiP is available on all Blu-ray players (see The Descent), though not necessarily using the API's provided by BD-Video 1.1.
But unfortunately, all BD buyers in the interim are "screwed", as the pooch would say, except "potentially" (there's that word again) the PS3 ownersHow do you define screwed? Most people, especially early adopters, are buying either format primarily for PQ and AQ, not for interactivity. No one buys a 1G product without understanding that follow-on products will have new capabilities. More importantly, the number of 1G products not capable of full BD-Video 1.1 capabilities will be a tiny percentage of total players in the market by the end of this year (I would estimate a few percent at most). You can paint that to be a huge issue, but that doesn't make it so, especially given how frequently early adopters tend to upgrade equipment. Yes, I'm counting the PS3 as being BD-Video 1.1 capable. I'm in a far better position to know whether this will be the case than you are.
FURTHERMORE - talk, you keep saying that Bluray players are required to decode DD+ and TruHD. This is blatant deception. They are only required to decode DD core streams from DD+ and TruHD BD tracks.Stick a Blu-ray Disc with DD+, DTS, or TrueHD in any Blu-ray player and you'll get, at a minimum, lossy 5.1. Stick an HD-DVD Disc with DD+, DTS, or TrueHD in any HD-DVD player and you'll get, at a minimum, lossy 5.1. What's the difference? As I said, it's a far bigger misrepresentation for the Xbox 360 add-on to claim TrueHD compliance when it is physically incapable of outputting lossless sound than it is for Blu-ray players, which don't claim TrueHD support unless they can losslessly output it, to provide lossy 5.1 output from discs with TrueHD. Do you dispute this? Of what value is HD-DVD TrueHD support if you can't hear lossless sound??? Why are you avoiding this issue?

Sounds like HD-DVD is like one of those Chinese finger puzzles. Or maybe one of those monkey traps where the little guy sticks his hand into the gourd but is too greedy to let go of the rice... ;)

b2b Ok, I admit it, I am a happy little monkey when I am watching superb looking HD content in my home theater on my 110 inch screen being delivered by my HD XA1.

Oh the pain is so intense, I subject myself to it daily. ;) Maybe even twice daily. :D

You see because there are starting to be more HD DVD movies out there that I want to watch, than I have time to watch. :cool:

I am waiting for Blu-ray to get its act together so I can increase this form of medieval torture.

BD-J for interactivity and BD-Live are two separate things I believe. Unless I am confused, which would not surprise me. :)

BD-Live, just like the network-based advanced stuff for HD DVD which is not supported yet, requires a whole external infrastructure to be set up and maintained before it can be used. Regardless of format, I would expect any player to require software updates to properly work with it. And true, a player with no network connection cannot support this. So you lose some neat features like downloading new subtitles, downloading new audio tracks, downloading new previews, etc. assuming the player has enough persistent storage to support it.

Well, speaking from the consumer standopint, they are being promised something today that manufactures have no intention of delivering.

As an example: at the local BB, they are playing BR demo disc (in a Panny player) that shows a video of people getting live video feeds of an actor interview in a window. That's what people are going to expect. Here are the kickers:

- The only current BR CE deck with a net jack is the Pioneer (and NOT the Panny playing the disc :confused: )
- That store didn't even sell the Pio (only Samsung, Panny, and Sony)
- The Pio manual states that the net jack is not for interactive use anyway

So again, my point is that saying in effect "Well, people were just clamoring for the movie anyway" as rather disengenuous given the marketing around what else BD-J is promising.

You can maybe make an argument that people "should" know that if it doesn't have a net jack, then they shouldn't expect a live netowrk feed(but honestly that's rather thin). But where's the external indicator of PiP support? of the additional persistent storage?

I have no problem with those things not being included... but then don't advertise that capability in the preset tense.

But you still end up with DD+ coming out as DTS across SPDIF (for "advanced authored" contentThis is a very strange and hard to follow comment. I just now read you today comments in this thread and I do not understand the context for your statement. Are you talking only about the 360 HD DVD player add on? Otherwise what about decoded linear PCM HDMI audio or 5.1 analog audio outputs? As to the HD-A2, well it can't do 5.1 analog -- just like the PS3 -- same price eh.

I have now done some HTH comparisons and the HD XA1 upscaling (and the A1) has been superb.

I am just salivating over the chance to have Silicon Optix upscaling in the HD XA2. :D

It seems though that Toshiba and other HD DVD backers are not afraid to have superb upscaling in their HD DVD boxes, unlike, say.....the PS3, where maybe Sony is afraid to put in SD upconversion so that Blu-ray looks better by comparison to the lowly 480i SD DVD playback. ;)

Of course, he doesn't know that Ben, he'd never seen the HD DVD players upconversion capablity, he just complains about it out of spite and blind bias.

Actually, the issue with the PS3 is it is lacking a scaler altogether as I understand it. That's why Blu-Ray movies end up output at 480p if you have a 720p-only TV, and 720p Games end up output at 480p if you have a 1080i-only TV (yes, even those Branded by Sony).

But, that's okay ... Consumers didn't want a scaler.

As an example: at the local BB, they are playing BR demo disc (in a Panny player) that shows a video of people getting live video feeds of an actor interview in a window. That's what people are going to expect.Sorry, Steve, I understand you're a stickler for detail, but this is called marketing. When I see an ad for a given car it's probably going to show a nav system, but that doesn't mean all models include a nav system. The disc you're referring to is advertising what the format is capable of. That doesn't imply every player supports every feature, any more than an advertisement for Windows Vista showing the Aero interface doesn't imply every PC can support that interface. The consumer has some responsibility to educate themselves just as a consumer who purchases a 720P TV bears some responsibility for the fact that they won't have access to the full fidelity of 1080 content. I've already acknowledged that the BDA hasn't made profile information abundantly clear. Nonetheless, a demo disc showing format capabilities is not inherently misleading anyone.

This is a very strange and hard to follow comment. I just now read you today comments in this thread and I do not understand the context for your statement. Are you talking only about the 360 HD DVD player add on? Otherwise what about decoded linear PCM HDMI audio or 5.1 analog audio outputs? As to the HD-A2, well it can't do 5.1 analog -- just like the PS3 -- same price eh.

Well here are the "audio" tables for the Tosh A1. And yes they are strange and hard to follow. See attached...

b2b

And once again, I don't have to fall headfirst into the honey pot to take other peoples word on the smell of shite... thanks, but no thanks... ;)

Good luck on dumping the XA1 to get the XA2. That looks like it will be a good bit of HW.. :)

b2b

at some point, you have to "put your money where your mouth is..."

i now own both formats as i said i would long ago...your much-touted/ballyhooed PS3, in fact...

But you still end up with DD+ coming out as DTS across SPDIF (for "advanced authored" content)... ;)

b2b

Sorry, what is SPDIF? Someone mentioned something about firmware fix as well?

Sorry, what is SPDIF? Someone mentioned something about firmware fix as well?

Toslink (optical) and coax (RCA) like you have on DVD players..

b2b

But you still end up with DD+ coming out as DTS across SPDIF (for "advanced authored" content)... ;)

b2b
Sorry, my head is too sore from banging it against what is obviously a brick wall :p

Let me try another tactic - what would you have preferred to get over SPDIF if the source track was DD+?

Hmm?

Well here are the "audio" tables for the Tosh A1. And yes they are strange and hard to follow. See attached...Sigh! If you had a 1st gen Toshiba or RCA HD DVD player you would know that as of firmware 2.0 (many months ago -- August IIRC -- edit just checked 8/23/06) that 5.1 Dolby TrueHD can go out as decoded 5.1 linear PCM over HDMI or as 5.1 analog audio. The second table you posted has not been updated to the 2.0 firmware capabilities (yes only 2 chan Dolby TrueHD at the April launch). Why do your posts contain such wrong/dated info? :rolleyes: Such posts seem to be stuck in July 2006.

Edit: first normal (AVS ;) ) user with 2.0 firmware:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=8267275&&#post8267275

Toslink (optical) and coax (RCA) like you have on DVD players..

b2b

Thank you! ;)

This would be opposed to the HDMI connection then, right? I guess the audio that comes out of the HDMI is 'better' or 'more complete'? I'm asking cause I don't know, I'm not trying to be sarcastic or anything. :)

A far higher percentage of Blu-ray releases include lossless audio than do HD-DVD releases, and the vast majority of those work with all Blu-ray players, not just those with TrueHD support. Your beef should be with Warner, not with Blu-ray.
48/24-bit audio, dithered to 48/16-bit audio is not exactly lossless, for either format.

However, I suspect that HD DVD TruHD or DTS-HD lossless compression will have the advantage over Bluray L-PCM when the time comes that the studios start supplying 48/20 and 48/24 soundtracks.


And on another topic. I am STOKED by the XA2. Last year, the Denon 5910 with HQV processing was the talk of the town.

Now we get the XA2 with HQV processing too! Talk about class-leading performance!

I wonder what the Bluray boys are putting in their players for upscaling? Do you think they have a tiger in the tank too, or an aardvark?

Sorry, Steve, I understand you're a stickler for detail, but this is called marketing. When I see an ad for a given car it's probably going to show a nav system, but that doesn't mean all models include a nav system. The disc you're referring to is advertising what the format is capable of. That doesn't imply every player supports every feature, any more than an advertisement for Windows Vista showing the Aero interface doesn't imply every PC can support that interface. The consumer has some responsibility to educate themselves just as a consumer who purchases a 720P TV bears some responsibility for the fact that they won't have access to the full fidelity of 1080 content. I've already acknowledged that the BDA hasn't made profile information abundantly clear. Nonetheless, a demo disc showing format capabilities is not inherently misleading anyone.

Understood... however I was responding primarily to kjack's gerneral assertion that people weren't interested in the extras, and now were harping on BR for not making it avialable. (rough paraphrase mine).

My clarification is that lack of avaialability is not the problem per se. It's that lack of giving the customer the info to make the choice. You have, to your credit, acknowldeged this is a problem today, and we have both seen amillian's reference to a document that's being authored that will hopefully help resolve this when it's eventually released for public consumption (in whatever form).

But I maintain that if you are going to tout the features (and the BDA certainly is), then it's a bit disconcerting to see another insider not get the point about disclosure.

And incidentally: I agree with the issue of marketing. What is lacking is that there is no equivalent to the price sheet in the dealer showroom that explains what I'm going to get on my model car. Perhaps you've seen my other posts where I've talked to something like a dozen people at B&M stores now asking about these issues... you know what? The People SELLING them don't have correct answers. Nor do just about any A/V enthusiasts I know outside of this forum.

When I see you saying "people have a responsability to educate themselves", and kjack saying "I thought it was all about the movie", I'm disappointed. I don't like to be treated that way. Nor do most people I know who happen to not have accidentally stumbled across the few internet forums that have this info.

I suspect that these decisions are going to alienate customer base. Rather than (for the most part) accepting that customer feedback, people (including insiders), are acting liek I have an axe to grind. I don't get it. I WANT to see Casino Royale in HD, which likely means a BR player. But I can't get a straight answer of what a player in it's first year of existence is going to be capable of. You are all making it hard for me to give you my money. :confused:

This would be opposed to the HDMI connection then, right? I guess the audio that comes out of the HDMI is 'better' or 'more complete'? I'm asking cause I don't know, I'm not trying to be sarcastic or anything. :)
Yes linear PCM over HDMI is "better". Please don't use b2b as a reference source -- instead go to this thread:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=640949

These type of questions should only be posted on the HD DVD Players forum.

Sorry, my head is too sore from banging it against what is obviously a brick wall :p

Let me try another tactic - what would you have preferred to get over SPDIF if the source track was DD+?

Hmm?

DD 640kbs would be fine. That's all that SPDIF supports for DD. Roger Dressler went into all of that in these positings..

Quote:
Originally Posted by lchiu7
Roger - perhaps you can then clarify the following. I read the Toshiba HD DVD player outputs the DD+ track either as PCM or as a converted DTS 5.1 track over optical/coax because current receivers cannot decode a DD+ signal yet.
----
Yes, almost. The issue of what comes out of HD DVD players is primarily due to movie discs being authored in Advanced mode, which means all audio is decoded in the player. It can therefore come out as analog via DACs, PCM via HDMI, or encoded to DTS for S/PDIF or HDMI. This is the same for any and all soundtracks regardless of codec.

If someday a disc is authored in Basic mode, then streaming will be allowed. DD and DD+ tracks will come out S/PDIF as DD.
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=8192957&&#post8192957

There is another of Rogers postings that states that every DD+ decoder includes the ability to convert it to DD 640kbs 5.1 also. If I can find it I will post the link.

b2b

....As an example: at the local BB, they are playing BR demo disc (in a Panny player) that shows a video of people getting live video feeds of an actor interview in a window. That's what people are going to expect.

Sorry, Steve, I understand you're a stickler for detail, but that's called lying to the custumer marketing. Everybody does it, and it usually works.

Imagine a sucker customer at a showroom looking at the new 2007 Hoyota. We take that sucker customer and show them a video of what the 2008 Hoyota can really do. Let me tell you, it's an exciting video. The new models have Nav systems with real time traffic info for fastest path routing and a whole host of other cool features. Now if the sucker customer doesn't understand that the 2007 Hoyota we just sold him has the older Nav system that doesn't have any of the cool new features well, that's not our fault. The sucker customer should understand by now that they're responsible to educate themselves. I don't think showing them a demo of what Hoyota can do is misleading. ;)

Yes linear PCM over HDMI is "better". Please don't use b2b as a reference source -- instead go to this thread:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=640949

These type of questions should only be posted on the HD DVD Players forum.

Well actually I use Roger Dresslers postings for reference. If you know someone better please tell us.

b2b

The whole point of this HUGE debate is that there are multiple BD-type-thingies for players to conform to. Call them specs, call them profiles, I don't care.rdjam, if you really didn't care what you called them you would simply call them Blu-ray profiles and save yourself the corrections brought on by other posters. Instead you try to confuse people about Blu-ray player profiles and BD-J which I really don't understand. After all it is quite possible to attack something while being technically accurate about it.


To save time in future discussions, I've written a little article on this, which I can just link to every time it comes up from now on...

http://www.hdnowonline.com/Comment_BD_1G_Obsolete.htmlrdjam, I don't mind you telling people about the various players profiles in Blu-ray, though I notice you leave out most of the details, but it would be nice if you gave up with this obsession with trying to confuse people about Blu-ray player profiles and BD-J.


And your comment about mythical multiple profiles in HDi have already been debunked - they don't apply to CE standalone HD DVD players, there is one new profile being discussed for PCs.Do you believe that the two additional Performance levels for HD DVD wouldn't apply to stand alone players? If so why exactly do you believe that?

Man,


The spin around here on both sides rivals that of national elections! I'll tell you what, which ever side loses, you all still have a bright future in political double speak!

Now that I own both, you can all just spin away, spin away, spin away! :rolleyes:

Well actually I use Roger Dresslers postings for reference. If you know someone better please tell us.A very weak comeback IMHO. :rolleyes:

Roger is great for Dolby unique info. The context is HD DVD player audio setup -- then the "Answers to HD-A1 and HD-XA1 Audio Questions" is a far better place to go -- many people contributed.

BD-Live is not required as of June 07. BD-J does not have profiles. There is no BD-J 1.0 and BD-J 2.0. BD-Live is not mandatory after June 07 (BD-Video 1.1 is mandatory, BD-Live is optional). PiP is available on all Blu-ray players (see The Descent), though not necessarily using the API's provided by BD-Video 1.1.
Hmmm....

1) So you are saying that all existing Bluray player are compatible with BD-Video 1.1? According to what I've read, they are only having to do BD-Video 1.0 at this time.

2) The Descent won't play on the Sony BDSP1 player from what I read - why? If it were BD-Video 1.1 compliant, surely it wouldn't have a problem?

3) Are your denying the existence of the BD-Video 1.0 profile, which does not require PiP, local storage and secondary audio decoding?

4) When you say that PiP is available on all BD players, I take it you mean that you can encode a video track that already has PiP pre-rendered into it and encoded, versus playing a separate stream without a pre-rendered PiP window - as opposed to the "conventional" meaning of PiP, which is on-the-fly decoding of two video streams and combining them in real-time?

How do you define screwed? Most people, especially early adopters, are buying either format primarily for PQ and AQ, not for interactivity. No one buys a 1G product without understanding that follow-on products will have new capabilities.But these "fancy" features have been touted to customer from almost every marketing "street corner" - do you not think that some of them may have an expectation that this is what they'll get when they buy one of these BD players??

More importantly, the number of 1G products not capable of full BD-Video 1.1 capabilities will be a tiny percentage of total players in the market by the end of this year (I would estimate a few percent at most). I would call this a "hollow truth" - if most Bluray players at the end of the year are PS3's (which is what I suspect you mean) and all the 1st Gen standalone players are not compatible, then you would "pooh pooh" this as an issue? Particularly when one considers that these owners paid TWICE or THREE times the price for these players than the PS3 owners?

You can paint that to be a huge issue, but that doesn't make it so, especially given how frequently early adopters tend to upgrade equipment.So why not just put a sticker on the boxes that says "Hey, we know you're an early adopter so we expect that you won't MIND that this player won't do what you thought it will, because we figure you're "good for it" and will buy ANOTHER one later if you want to do what you thought you could do..." Yeh?

Yes, I'm counting the PS3 as being BD-Video 1.1 capable. I'm in a far better position to know whether this will be the case than you are.Hang on a mo'? I thought the discussion was that the PS3 would do BD-LIVE, not only BD-Video? Have you moved the goalpost here?

Stick a Blu-ray Disc with DD+, DTS, or TrueHD in any Blu-ray player and you'll get, at a minimum, lossy 5.1. Stick an HD-DVD Disc with DD+, DTS, or TrueHD in any HD-DVD player and you'll get, at a minimum, lossy 5.1. What's the difference? I would respectfully point out that that is a false comparison. If you stick a TruHD or DD+ disc into an HD DVD player, you will ALWAYS be able to get the maximum audio if you want, whether that be lossless truHD or the maximum DD+. Do the same with Bluray players and you won't be able to guarantee the same thing, as the specs don't require it, leaving you with ONLY a guarantee of regular DD or DTS.

As I said, it's a far bigger misrepresentation for the Xbox 360 add-on to claim TrueHD compliance when it is physically incapable of outputting lossless sound than it is for Blu-ray players, which don't claim TrueHD support unless they can losslessly output it, to provide lossy 5.1 output from discs with TrueHD. Do you dispute this?Yes I do. Because the Xbox 360 in question actually DOES decode the TruHD, unlike the typical Bluray player, which is actually only capable of decoding a legacy DD core. The only difference is that the Xbox will re-encode to DTS 1.5 mbps (on next update) or 640k DD, whereas the Bluray player never had the TruHD to begin with and only gives you the DD.

Of what value is HD-DVD TrueHD support if you can't hear lossless sound??? Why are you avoiding this issue?Audio support has always been my favourite issue in this format war, so I think you have me confused ;) Are you trying to say that I cannot hear the difference or appreciate lossless audio?

Sigh! If you had a 1st gen Toshiba or RCA HD DVD player you would know that as of firmware 2.0 (many months ago -- August IIRC -- edit just checked 8/23/06) that 5.1 Dolby TrueHD can go out as decoded 5.1 linear PCM over HDMI or as 5.1 analog audio. The second table you posted has not been updated to the 2.0 firmware capabilities (yes only 2 chan Dolby TrueHD at the April launch). Why do your posts contain such wrong/dated info? :rolleyes: Such posts seem to be stuck in July 2006.

Edit: first normal (AVS ;) ) user with 2.0 firmware:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=8267275&&#post8267275

The subject was SPDIF output, nothing else. The tables are right out of the Tosh owners manual. If you have updated tables showing the changes for the TrueHD FW, please post them.

b2b

The real problem for me is that instead of wasting all that time doing these interactive features, it would be so easy for Toshiba to have a FW upgrade with an extra checkbox/setting to have a disabling of mixing audio mode for popup menu sounds and keyclicks and that would make the popus much more usable.


Exactly. Get the base functionality people need working right before strapping on a ton of other stuff that may or may not work right. Getting the sound working right before worrying about PiP would seem to be a sensible approach to me.

Gary

The spin around here on both sides rivals that of national elections! I'll tell you what, which ever side loses, you all still have a bright future in political double speak!

Now that I own both, you can all just spin away, spin away, spin away! :rolleyes:

I'm sure both sides will figure out a way of arguing how neutrality actually favours their side. :D

Gary

Sorry, Steve, I understand you're a stickler for detail, but this is called marketing. When I see an ad for a given car it's probably going to show a nav system, but that doesn't mean all models include a nav system. The disc you're referring to is advertising what the format is capable of. That doesn't imply every player supports every feature, any more than an advertisement for Windows Vista showing the Aero interface doesn't imply every PC can support that interface. Yes, but in the car ads, the Automakers are expected to put a disclaimer on the screen "optional equipment shown" so as not to mislead the consumer. Do these "all singing all dancing" Bluray ads have a disclaimer saying "no Bluray players on sale can actually DO this stuff yet..."?

The consumer has some responsibility to educate themselvesTell it to the judge when all the Bluray material has been hyping it up.. :p

I've already acknowledged that the BDA hasn't made profile information abundantly clear. Nonetheless, a demo disc showing format capabilities is not inherently misleading anyone....IF it tells the consumer that they won't get those features with the purchase they are expected to make after watching that video in the store...

Well here are the "audio" tables for the Tosh A1. And yes they are strange and hard to follow. See attached...

b2b
I'm sorry that you still find them difficult after all of your time here and continuous debating. One would have assumed that all of this time was spent educating yourself on the specifications being discussed - EVEN THO you don't have a player :)

The subject was SPDIF output, nothing else. The tables are right out of the Tosh owners manual. If you have updated tables showing the changes for the TrueHD FW, please post them.
1. There is a lot going on with S/PDIF output -- Toshiba unique player thingy's -- Why not benefit from many user's knowledge and experience. Since it re-encodes the advanced audio codecs to 1.5 Mbps dts, then Roger might not be the only person you want to use as a reference on this.

2. Updated manuals (from last March?) hmmm, well the Toshiba website: http://www.tacp.com/dvd/product.asp?model=hd-a1
says:
Audio
Built-in Dolby® Digital, Dolby® TrueHD, Dolby® Digital Plus, DTS®, and DTS® HD (core only)

Dolby True HD Compatible (2 Channel, 5.1 channel enabled via firmware update)

Advanced high-performance 32-bit SHARC® Digital Signal Processing

Multi-Channel 24-bit/192kHz Audio DACs

HDMI Audio support up to 5.1 L-PCM

Multi-Channel Signal Management

Dynamic Range Control

WMA & MP3 Playback
and in firmware update FAQ (same site):
Q2. What are the added Dolby True HD features?

A2. Support for Dolby True HD is extended from two channels to 5.1, which will be available in full resolution on the HDMI and analog 5.1 outputs and down-mixed to a DTS bit stream on the SPDIF output.

But the manual is still dated 2/15/2006 -- so sorry :o

A year ago, people's imagination was limited to poor interactivity in DVD. Now that it has been shown what can be one in the form of HD DVD, folks are more open minded about the potential.Come on Amir I remember you once saying in a debate about whether BD-J would be more versatile than HDi that interactivity wasn't very important. That people wouldn't want to play simple games on HD players.


Amir stating that it's all about creating standards for performance items like load times/etc between similar pieces of equipment (stand alone players, vs consoles, vs pc's).Could the interactivity experience on HD DVD discs change based on the Performance level of the player? That is the question that most people are curious about.


(1) Microsoft says the player/console can do 'This'. You open the box, you plug it in, and it can. Later, they release an update, and say, "Hey! Now you can do *THIS* too! Cool!".Personally I think the Xbox 360 is a good game console and I am planning to eventually get one. I would point out though that Microsoft has been less than open about the fact that it can't output an HDMI signal. In fact they have a history of being vague on the issue and recently I saw an article in the January 2007 issue of PC Magazine which said that the Xbox 360 was capable of HDMI. Think about that for just a second. Even a year after the Xbox 360 was launched major publications still believe that it can output an HDMI signal.


(2) Sony says you can do 'This'. You open the box, you plug it in, and it can't really do it.I own a PS3 and I don't know what you are talking about.

A very weak comeback IMHO. :rolleyes:

Roger is great for Dolby unique info. The context is HD DVD player audio setup -- then the "Answers to HD-A1 and HD-XA1 Audio Questions" is a far better place to go -- many people contributed.

If you consider Mr. Dressler's comments weak, then maybe your advice is not so good either... ;)

b2b

DD 640kbs would be fine. That's all that SPDIF supports for DD. Roger Dressler went into all of that in these positings..You got to be kidding - after all of your mouthing off about 1.5 megabit per second DTS, you now say that "DD 640 k is good enough"?! :eek:

You really need to get out and buy one of these players and start using it before you come with stuff like that. I suppose you'd prefer a 15" TV to a 45" TV also? (scratches head)

There is another of Rogers postings that states that every DD+ decoder includes the ability to convert it to DD 640kbs 5.1 also. If I can find it I will post the link.

b2bWrong.

You've gotten two separate things confused here.

(1) DD+ only has a legacy DD core in Bluray's implementation. This was not required in the HD DVD implementation, since the HD DVD player spec mandates full DD+ decoding capability.

(2) There is a "transform" that Roger spoke of to get DD from a DD+ stream, but not "every DD+ decoder" has a capability to perform this.

Man,


The spin around here on both sides rivals that of national elections! I'll tell you what, which ever side loses, you all still have a bright future in political double speak!

Now that I own both, you can all just spin away, spin away, spin away! :rolleyes:
:)

Two hopefully constructive advice, to cut down on some of the traffic here:

1. Talk, you must have spent days, wait, maybe months defending and/or hyping BD interactivity features. How about spending a fraction of it, writing a proper document that BDA lets you release to settle once and for all what is there and when it comes to people. If BDA does not give you permission to do so, come and tell us and we know the right conclusions to draw from that.

2. Not everything that b2b says needs an answer guys. Indeed, most of what he says may not merit an answer :). Not saying B2b is not smart and all. He is probably one of the smartest around. Just that he loves to claw at the feet of HD DVD folks for attention and when you give it to him, he gets excited and does more of it. I doubt that anyone watching this movie is impressed or learns much from the back and forth. And b2b is sure not going to back off -- ever. If he happens to make a new point, then it is worth commenting on. Otherwise, let's let him be by himself most of the time.

Just my two cents. :)

You got to be kidding - after all of your mouthing off about 1.5 megabit per second DTS, you now say that "DD 640 k is good enough"?! :eek:

You really need to get out and buy one of these players and start using it before you come with stuff like that. I suppose you'd prefer a 15" TV to a 45" TV also? (scratches head)

Wrong.

You've gotten two separate things confused here.

(1) DD+ only has a legacy DD core in Bluray's implementation. This was not required in the HD DVD implementation, since the HD DVD player spec mandates full DD+ decoding capability.

(2) There is a "transform" that Roger spoke of to get DD from a DD+ stream, but not "every DD+ decoder" has a capability to perform this.
Again your lack of persistant storage precedes you...

Quote:
Originally Posted by rdjam
DD+ on HD DVD sounds so much better than old-style DD that there is Nothing that a measly extra 192k can do to help it.
>>Roger--co-opting Amir's line<< So you know something about Dolby coding that I don't?

Quote:
DD+ is a better codec than DD and it is running at up to 3,000 k, compared to 640 k DD on Blurray.

Sorry to burst the bubble on that one.
Bubble fully intact. Myth exploded. No one is using 3 Mbps, and the maximum datarate capability has no bearing on how it sounds at a lower bitrate, like 640 kbps for example.

Quote:
IMO, The only reason Sony decided on this ridiculous 640 k DD thing was so that the Blurray players wouldn't have to include next-gen decoders, and so would be cheaper to build.
Due to the way HD DVD structures audio data in packets, the only way to offer advanced capabilities--higher quality sound and option for more channels--was to adopt a different codec than DD, which was locked at 5.1 and 448 kbps, same as DVD. DD+ was specifically designed to address HD DVD's structure--the DD+ coding frames become progressively shorter (from 6 to 3 or 2) to allow more of them to pass thru the framing structure in a given time, thereby raising the data thruput.

Blu-ray, on the other hand, has no such packet constraint. That allows DD to be used in its full 6-block frame for maximum coding efficiency (efficiency drops slightly as the frame size is reduced), and to use its full 640 kbps capability for the very first time on optical media, thereby bringing higher quality.

If you look at the DD+ structure when delivering a 7.1 program (someday), you will see a 2-frame pairing. The first frame is the usual complete 5.1 mix. The second frame has the new channels for the 7.1 mix. The second frame also has all the new metadata and channel management DD+ info needed to control the overall reconstruction process. This explanation is identical for HD DVD and BD. The only difference is that both frames in HD DVD are DD+ because they must have a shorter frame duration, whereas in BD the first frame is standard DD because it does not have to be shorter. Both frames in the BD pair are full 6-blocks, highest efficiency mode.

Furthermore, while HD DVD discs generally do not let you stream the DD+ to an output without going thru the mixer (and yes, the Toshiba player has the DD+ to DD640 converter, FWIW), BD does allow that option. So you have a chance to get the 640 DD stream right off the disc and into your AVR via S/PDIF. One might prefer that option to DD+ transcoded to DTS.

Given distinctly different circumstances, Dolby was able to adapt its coding technologies to bring improved quality and more channels to both formats. The goal was not to make the end results different, but the same in spite of the situation.

__________________
Roger

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=8185848&&#post8185848

b2b

rdjam, if you really didn't care what you called them you would simply call them Blu-ray profiles and save yourself the corrections brought on by other posters. Instead you try to confuse people about Blu-ray player profiles and BD-J which I really don't understand. After all it is quite possible to attack something while being technically accurate about it.no, you're just arguing semantics and English to distract from the real issue being raised.


rdjam, I don't mind you telling people about the various profiles in Blu-ray, though I notice you leave out most of the details, but it would be nice if you gave up with this obsession about with trying to confuse people about Blu-ray player profiles and BD-J.I love a healthy discussion. Is it your nature or nurture to repeatedly put your opponents' names at the beginning of every sentence? ;) I haven't left out the details at all - in fact the biggest argument here have been about "details".


Do you believe that the two additional Performance levels for HD DVD wouldn't apply to stand alone players? If so why exactly do you believe that? "THE two additional performance levels"? - the FUD is strong with you my son. While you are establishing this as "FACT" with your use of "THE", why don't you elaborate on these "performance levels" for us??

The subject was SPDIF output, nothing else. The tables are right out of the Tosh owners manual. If you have updated tables showing the changes for the TrueHD FW, please post them.

b2b
But you said yourself that you are confused by them - so if I were you, I would refrain from attempting to give others advice if you don't understand them....

Would you care to explain Home Media and NPD reporting that the PS3 has only sold 750,000 units, Worldwide, to date?Yes, easy to explain. Like so many other "facts" you have shared here and on your HDNot website, you got it wrong.

If you consider Mr. Dressler's comments weakNo. I never said that. There you go again putting words in other's posts that are not there. :mad: I said:
A very weak comeback IMHO.

Roger is great for Dolby unique info. Your "comeback" was weak -- not anything said by Roger. The point was that saying we could only use Roger's posts for S/PDIF on the Toshiba player was weak. Roger and many others posted in the thread I referenced. Any "advice" posted in that thread by me is swamped out by all the others great inputs to that thread.

Exactly. Get the base functionality people need working right before strapping on a ton of other stuff that may or may not work right.

Gary
Translation: Well, because Bluray doesn't actually have this stuff working yet, can we just talk about the movies? We don't need all that interactive cr*p - afterall, we'll only really need it in the second half of 2007 when Bluray can do it! :p

If you consider Mr. Dressler's comments weak, then maybe your advice is not so good either... ;)

b2b
That's not what Bob said and you know it. (oh damn! I went and answered you again :mad: ) :p

If he happens to make a new point, then it is worth commenting on. Otherwise, let's let him be by himself most of the time.Yes I lose a lot of fun with this place when I put him on ignore (suppose I need to do it again). Just so hard to let WRONG information to slide by :o .

Again your lack of knowledge precedes you...

b2b
Personal, personal.

I forgot stuff over lunch, about the audio on these formats, that you haven't picked up yet ;)

Save your quotes, there's about 2,000 copies of that quatrain on this forum already... :p

getting close to a time out....

Yes, easy to explain. Like so many other "facts" you have shared here and on your HDNot website, you got it wrong.
Heh :o I already acknowledged that these were USA numbers a few hours ago :) Nevertheless, yes, that is correct.

(but I'll hold my ground on the other stuff) :p

(Deep breath, AAUuummmmmh...)

So where's the format excitement going to be at CES, everyone? Any demos of BD-Live going to happen?

I would respectfully point out that that is a false comparison. If you stick a TruHD or DD+ disc into an HD DVD player, you will ALWAYS be able to get the maximum audio if you want, whether that be lossless truHD or the maximum DD+.This isn't true for 2 reasons. With the XBOX360 you cannot always get the maximum audio. The player might be able to at some point internally, but you can't get it in most cases. The player degrades it to DD (and DTS in the future) before you get it. Your wording here as if people can actually get it is about as misleading as Amir's claims in the past that like Toshiba, they go beyond what is required and support 5.1 TrueHD with the XBOX360 addon. They don't support 5.1 TrueHD unless you have a pretty limited definition of "support". They support starting with 5.1 TrueHD and degrading it. So, they support decoding it, people just can't actually get it.
Do the same with Bluray players and you won't be able to guarantee the same thing, as the specs don't require it, leaving you with ONLY a guarantee of regular DD or DTS.The mandatory support required for HD DVD players does not guarantee that they can even decode the maximum audio from a TrueHD track. Only 2.0 is required. It is nice that Toshiba has gone beyond that, much like it is nice that the PS3 has gone beyond what is required by supporting TrueHD, but if we are talking about what is mandatory, 2.0 TrueHD does not mean that people can always get the maximum audio.

If HD DVD gives you a guarantee of more than regular DD or DTS, then how do you explain the XBOX360 having those as the top audio outputs (even after their update for DTS)? You don't need to answer if your answer is that they can start with the other track and in realtime reencode it to DD or DTS.

--Darin

No. I never said that. There you go again putting words in other's posts that are not there. :mad: I said:
Your "comeback" was weak -- not anything said by Roger. The point was that saying we could only use Roger's posts for S/PDIF on the Toshiba player was weak. Roger and many others posted in the thread I referenced. Any "advice" posted in that thread by me is swamped out by all the others great inputs to that thread.

Timeout from me per the request of our gracious Mod... :)

b2b

Yes linear PCM over HDMI is "better". Please don't use b2b as a reference source -- instead go to this thread:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=640949

These type of questions should only be posted on the HD DVD Players forum.

Thanks! Just trying to learn! ;)

no, you're just arguing semantics and English to distract from the real issue being raised.If you don't think that it is an issue why not just call Blu-ray player profiles by their actual names than? If you really don't mean to confuse people about Blu-ray player profiles and BD-J why not do that?


I'm starting to find your patronising use of rdjam at the start of every sentence rather irritating but I suppose it's not your fault,Nothing personal is meant by that and it just a habit I have when posting.


"THE two additional performance levels"? - the FUD is strong with you my son. While you are establishing this as "FACT" with your use of "THE", why don't you elaborate on these "performance levels" for us??Well we know that there are two additional Performance level proposals (Performance level 2 and 3) being made for HD DVD so what was wrong with my question? I was simply curious about why you believed that these Performance levels would not apply to stand alone HD DVD players.


I haven't left out the details at all - in fact the biggest argument here have been about "details".rdjam, if you want details I will give you information on what I have heard about Blu-ray profiles. Not all of it I can prove but based on what I have read on this forum I believe this information is accurate. There is one Blu-ray spec and four profiles in it including an audio only profile. Excluding that there are three profiles for video playback. For the sake of comparison I will include the requirements for HD DVD as well:

HD DVD:

144 MB of persistent memory required
SD PiP decoding required
secondary audio decoding required
internet support required

BD-Video 1.0 (allowed until June of 2007):

64 KB of persistent memory required
no SD/HD PiP decoding required
no secondary audio decoding required
no internet support required

BD-Video 1.1:

256 MB of persistent memory required
SD/HD PiP support required
secondary audio decoding required
no internet support required

BD-Live:

1 GB of persistent memory required
SD/HD PiP support required
secondary audio decoding required
internet support required

As Richard rightly mentioned, and I remembered waking up this morning, TrueHD is a standard codec and has no concept of "core" and enhancement layer.My apologies - I was relying on your explanation in this (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=8743092&&#post8743092) post where you clearly describe a core stream and what you call an "enhancement layer" representing the error signal (differential between lossless and DD). Are you now saying the information you posted there was incorrect?
Most importantly, content owners are responding by rewarding us with many TrueHD discs, but leaving them out for BD.Yet there are many more discs with lossless audio on Blu-ray than HD-DVD, so clearly there is more at play than simply mandating TrueHD support.

This isn't true (snip)

--Darin
Talk to the hand... :)

I've already explained it.

Your wording here as if people can actually get it is about as misleading as Amir's claims in the past that like Toshiba, they go beyond what is required and support 5.1 TrueHD with the XBOX360 addon.
Since you keep repeating this with my name on it, I will take a shot at commenting on it.

Here is the situation. HD DVD specification *requires* that all players decode TrueHD. This is mandatory. The requirement says 2.0 channels. We decode the full 5.1, not just two channels. This is all we have said. We have never said that the final output is lossless. We said we decode all six channels. This is factual, and correct.

Here is our web page on 360: http://www.xbox.com/en-US/hardware/x/xbox360hddvdplayer/. As you see, it does not hype lossless audio in any way.

So yes, like Toshiba, we go beyond what the spec says. It took extra development time to optimize, test and ship TrueHD at 5.1. We could have stopped at 2.0 but did not. By doing so, people get somewhat better audio quality because they can choose TrueHD for conversion over Toslink and reduce one compression step. And content owners can count on people hearing 5.1 TrueHD tracks even if that is the only track on disc. This is of value to them and is liable to increase the volume of TrueHD discs in general.

Just as important, we have set a precedence for others to follow. If Toshiba and we can do it, they should too. I am sure you agree that if others follow us with full 5.1 decode, regardless of price, the world will be a much better place.

So, they support decoding it, people just can't actually get it.
Well, you are not considering the other benefits I mention above. The impact on content owners longer term and on other CE companies is quite significant.

We are happy to recommend that people who want the absolute best audio, get a stand-alone player. We have no motivation to steer people to our machine this way.

So you are saying that all existing Bluray player are compatible with BD-Video 1.1? According to what I've read, they are only having to do BD-Video 1.0 at this time.Where did I say that? You are well aware that the 1.1 mandate applies to players released after June 2007, given your unending mantra that all players released before then are "obsolete".
The Descent won't play on the Sony BDSP1 player from what I readThe Descent does play w/PiP on the PS3, Panasonic, Philips, and Samsung players, all of which you term "obsolete" and incapable of PiP. How do you explain that?
I thought the discussion was that the PS3 would do BD-LIVE, not only BD-Video? Have you moved the goalpost here? :confused: I fully expect the PS3 will be fully BD-Live capable, which also implies it fully supports the BD-Video profile.
I would respectfully point out that that is a false comparison. If you stick a TruHD or DD+ disc into an HD DVD player, you will ALWAYS be able to get the maximum audio if you want, whether that be lossless truHD or the maximum DD+.That's simply incorrect. There is no possible way to output lossless sound from the Xbox 360 HD-DVD player. None. Can't be done. Not only that, but you've added an extra decode and encode steps (decoding TrueHD, then re-encoding to DD), which adds complexity, reduces fidelity, and perhaps complicates A/V sync. That's a better solution than simply decoding the original DD track?
Do the same with Bluray players and you won't be able to guarantee the same thing, as the specs don't require it, leaving you with ONLY a guarantee of regular DD or DTS.All you can guarantee is that if I buy an Xbox 360 HD-DVD Player all I'm going to get is DD or DTS.
Yes I do. Because the Xbox 360 in question actually DOES decode the TruHD, unlike the typical Bluray player, which is actually only capable of decoding a legacy DD core.Please explain again, what's the value of decoding the TrueHD if you can't output it? The PS3 is the typical BD player, and it decodes TrueHD natively.
Are you trying to say that I cannot hear the difference or appreciate lossless audio?No, I'm saying any claim that the Xbox 360 HD-DVD Player supports TrueHD is misleading at best and fraudulent in practice. What is the value in decoding lossless audio if it can't actually be emitted from the player? It's exactly like claiming a 720p television is actually 1080i because it can accept a 1080 input.

Personal, personal.

I forgot stuff over lunch, about the audio on these formats, that you haven't picked up yet ;)

Save your quotes, there's about 2,000 copies of that quatrain on this forum already... :p

Ok I'll rephrase...

Your lack of persistant storage precedes you... ;)

b2b

Since you keep repeating this with my name on it, I will take a shot at commenting on it.

Here is the situation. HD DVD specification *requires* that all players decode TrueHD. This is mandatory. The requirement says 2.0 channels. We decode the full 5.1, not just two channels. This is all we have said. We have never said that the final output is lossless. We said we decode all six channels. This is factual, and correct.You and I both know what it does and what you said in one place was what I described. I pointed it out there so that people didn't come away with the impression that they could actually get TrueHD. If you had spelled out the decoding part in the place I am talking about instead of saying that you support 5.1 for TrueHD there then I probably wouldn't even have commented. Fortunately, it was cleared up with my response so that people wouldn't think that the support for TrueHD in the XBOX360 is the same as the support for TrueHD in the Toshiba players (where one is only support for decoding and the other is support so people can actually get it). And I never said that you claimed that the output was lossless. You left that part ambiguous with your claim of "support".

Much like here where rdjam claims that "... you will ALWAYS be able to get the maximum audio if you want...". I take it you don't agree that people will always be able to get the maximum audio from the XBOX360 add-on as rdjam's claim might make new readers think.

--Darin

rdjam and b2bonez

you guys once again have gone over the top and attracted several reports and mods attention

this is unacceptable :(

rdjam and b2bonez

you guys once again have gone over the top and attracted several reports and mods attention

this is unacceptable :(

Time out for me... :)

b2b

Actually, I saw that somewhere and I thought it was more something to 'calm the shareholders' via some sort of shock campaign ... I believe the report came from an analyst, but I wouldn't be surprised if information like that is planted much like movie reviews and PSP fan blogs :p ...

Besides, for them to meet that goal, Sony is not only going to have to ship, but sell over 22M players per year for the next 3 years ... that's wishful thinking considering the difficulties in simply obtaining the blue laser diodes.
Its 75M by end of 2010 guys. So, about 18M a year, no mean feat still though.

I have noticed this mistake twice already and corrected it but it seems to be spreading.

No one in their right mind can believe that a player costing $500-600 is gonna sell that many players in the next three years. If the player gets to $199 then we may see that type of sales level.

No one in their right mind can believe that a player costing $500-600 is gonna sell that many players in the next three years. If the player gets to $199 then we may see that type of sales level.
Next FOUR years.. good Lord. Am I typing in russian?

2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010.. one finger left. So, thats four.