Industry Insiders Q&A MASTER THREAD [separate thread for Xbox/Add On & PS3] [Text View] - Page 13

amirm

03-25-07, 11:09 AM

That is unfortunate. It is one of the main reasons that they are now dealing with "the breach".
Sorry, I don't quite follow. I don't think it is reasonable to tell a studio that anyone can rent a BD/HD DVD disc, then make a permanent copy of it and then return the disc to the store. Do consumers really have the expectation of buying a digital copy of an HD disc for 10% of the retail price when they rent it?

The other, IMO, is the HDCP which makes about as much sense and not allowing analog SD upconversion. Eventually, rentals will be directly onto my TiVo or HTPC. Until then, I suppose people will rely on the breach.

Thanks,

- Rich
Analog upconversion of SD DVDs is governed by an entirely different organization. Indeed, you can upscale SD content on HD DVD/BD discs without this restriction because of this governance difference! Put another way, AACS is actually more relaxed in this way than CSS rules are today. Another example is how HD DVD is region free, but DVD is not.

Note that what I described regarding rental, is the mandatory provisions of such a feature. The discs are allowed to make managed copy in other circumstances. To the extent there is a market which consumers create in paying a reasonable fee for making digital copies of rental discs, the studios could easily allow it as all the technical measures are there just the same. We just didn't want to force that to be the default case when the economics are hard to justify for the content owners.

As an example, let's say you were willing to pay 50% of the retail fee for that digital copy. Some studios many think that is not such a bad deal and provide a managed copy. Others though, may think they are losing an entire sale so they may still offer the copy, but charge you 100% of the retail fee. Others may make the copy free if it makes sense to them (e.g. a training/promotion HD DVD). Net, net, what AACS is trying to do is established unified rights in cases where we can establish is good for consumers and good for content owners. When one or the other gets hard, we wind up letting go.

Esox50

03-25-07, 11:16 AM

I expect they will (as will the PC-based players). By all indications the PS3 is fully capable of supporting BD-Live requirements. But there are risks in being the only player supporting the new profile; there's a much higher level of confidence all around if there are several players (or at least prototypes) which allow the studios to author content making use of the new profile and provide feedback regarding any bugs or inconsistencies.

Talk,

I think what I've bolded above is the key piece of information that I was missing. That really clears it up and makes sense. Can you tell I'm not an engineer and I'm in a "paper" business? :D :D

So basically, the PS3 could do it, but the BDA companies and studios want to make sure everything works on a variety of players, including those to be releases in the coming months. This also jives with what kjack posted elsewhere that people are working 24/7 on this and what paidgeek posted elsewhere as well. It's all clear to me now.

Thanks. Big help. We're "str8t" now. ;) I got it.

amirm

03-25-07, 11:18 AM

Talkstr8t: Can you clear up everything around seamless branching? Some say that HD DVD can´t do it and some say it does, I know you don´t work with HD DVD, but I guess you can give some answers to what BD can do better in this area?
Instead of asking a BD insider HD DVD questions unrelated to his area of expertise, it might be best to search for answer given from the people who create HD DVDs for a living :). In this case, our old friend from Warner had this to say: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=7919140&&#post7919140

"Simple answer, yes HD-DVD does. Unsure about BD, but it'd be bad if it didn't. The big requirements for branching are a low enough mux rate at the point of the branch. With Polar Express, for example, there were several points in the film where scenes showing text (i.e. the tickets, "devoid of life", etc.) were replaced depending on the audio language chosen. These were branches. The laser must be able to jump from the end of one buffer state to the beginning of a whole new buffer state with room in the buffer to accommodate both and seamlessly play 2 different GOPs. Without advanced tools to ensure the functionality and spec compliance, this would be EXTREMLY difficult to pull off. However, those tools are coming to fruition and as soon as they do, you'll see some branching.

Cjplay. "

They key thing to note here (and in any discussion of "bandwidth") is that we have a memory buffer which can handle instantaneous peaks well above what the optical media can handle. That provides fair amount of relief (and is partly responsible for erroneous reading in bitrate meters you see in some products). But yes, overall, in both formats, you have to be conscious of not playing the equiv. of two movies playing at the same time at random points in the movie. You would want to plan your branch point carefully. Fortunately, there is a lot of flexibility here as we are not talking about a case where in any frame of video, you would want to branch. Instead, that is a creative technique that can be planned to work right in either format.

RichB

03-25-07, 11:24 AM

Sorry, I don't quite follow. I don't think it is reasonable to tell a studio that anyone can rent a BD/HD DVD disc, then make a permanent copy of it and then return the disc to the store. Do consumers really have the expectation of buying a digital copy of an HD disc for 10% of the retail price when they rent it?

Of course, they have it now. HD Audio formats closed loopholes, how did that work of for them?

I have do desire to keep a permanent copy nor do I desire to burn it, upload it, or give it to anyone. I just do not always get to it in the time frame I thought. So I wish to keep it until it is convenient for me to watch. I do not want to buy them since I do not tend to watch most movies again and shelf space is at a premium.

My point is there is a desire to pay "a" price for the rental in a convienient way. Using Breach technology, users can acheive their goals with the lesser format. I think other feel like me that the studios are not taking the market place seriously in this regards. The primary reason for the "breach" market is to avoid the limitations of HDCP (which is also rediculous but that is another story) and to place content on media services. Were those provided for in a reasonable way, there would not be such a large market for the breach. I assume that was the original purpose of the MMC technology.

You see that don't you?

- Rich

FrancescoP

03-25-07, 11:37 AM

HD DVD is region free, but not any DVD going with it.
Now, note that just because something is SD in an HD DVD package, it does not mean that it is a "DVD." If the data is formatted as HD DVD, then it will be region free just the same.

Thanks for the answer, but can you be more specific? Will the DVD sides and extra dvd discs on the Matrix Ultimate package be region free or not? More importantly, will the Animatrix dvd be region free?

I assume however, that most people who are worried about region coding on DVD, already have a method to bypass it.

The Xbox 360 is region locked, and I use it to upscale my DVDs. So, it's a problem.

amirm

03-25-07, 11:43 AM

Hi Amir,

Since I am a proud owner of a Toshiba XE1, may I congratulate you and all the HD DVD team in general, for the exceptional image and sound that can be obtained today with this media.
Hello Hugo. Thanks for the kind words. :)

Even though, here in France (Europe) and for the present, we are discovering what judder is, through the actual fixed output in 60Hz...

Anyway, the next firmware upgrade, planned as far as rumor says it, for realease during next Fall, should bring us the long awaited p24 output possibility, thus the cinema like image we all wanted and pushed for... for the Future. ;)

So even if you are not directly concerned, I'm sure you know who to forward this matter to, though my question:

this cinema like p24 image begs for a full 2.35 format screen + projection... and in my case it will be done through an anamorphic lens. So would it be possible to study and release in a next firmware upgrade of the Toshiba XE1 (XA2?) the inclusion for a sort of "Image Vertical Strech" control in the 3 available "picture" memories?

I'm sure many people would be quite happy with this kind of thing.

Many thanks in advance,

Hugo
I will pass on the feedback although I suspect the best hope for such features, is from companies who cater to high-end market. Mass market companies tend to be slow to recognize the need for such features.

amirm

03-25-07, 11:45 AM

Thanks for the answer, but can you be more specific? Will the DVD sides and extra dvd discs on the Matrix Ultimate package be region free or not? More importantly, will the Animatrix dvd be region free?
I can't yet as I don't know the details of what is on each disc. My guess though is that Animatrix will be part of the HD DVD offer and if so, then it is subject to AACS rules.

The Xbox 360 is region locked, and I use it to upscale my DVDs. So, it's a problem.
Ah, that would be an issue. But 50 Euros for another player would solve that, no? Just kidding :). I appreciate the issue but really, there is nothing we can do since DVD-CCA manages those rules.

madshi

03-25-07, 12:00 PM

amirm

03-25-07, 12:02 PM

This question is for HD DVD insiders. I believe I read something where Talkstr8t said that the Space Invaders type game on the "Chicken Little" disc couldn't be done with HDi. Seems like a big enough deal that I would like to see the HD DVD side refute that if they disagree (or stay quiet and let it stand if they don't want to confirm it). So:

Could Disney have done the Space Invaders type game for "Chicken Little" as an extra on an HD DVD release of that movie, if they were releasing on HD DVD?

Thanks,
Darin
Handling this kind of game is not an issue for HDi. Indeed, one of our program managers wrote a prototype space invader game in just two hours (he wrote it last night and sent me a copy when I asked him if he knew something I didn't about Bill's claim.). HDi is great at bitmap blitting, alpha blending, cell animation, bitmap sequence animation, property animation and ECMAScript can handle the state machine and collision detection. No, there are no 3-D primitives but those are not needed in such games, nor is there hardware for them in either platform.

People forget that HDi is not just a browser. It is designed to handle real-time (1080p) graphics as you need the same thing for menus and other UI features of interactivity.

More importantly, we have a very consistent de-facto peformance metric we use for implementations of HDi. We have a minimum peformance floor which makes it easier to write and deploy HDi applications. Without it, you have to have a lot more logic to adapt to different implementations which makes the development job harder. And of course per above, application development is much, much faster in HDi.

Finally, note that we designed HDi with Disney. We used their prototypes, and implemented them fully in HDi before they decided to sign on. And despite being in BD camp, Disney has been part of the entire process and contributed significantly to creation of HD DVD interactivity in DVD Forum. So of all studios, I know for sure they are happy with what HDi can do for them. And mandatory features of HDi are the things they wanted, but did not get in BD format. So all in all, they would be the wrong example to use here to make a counter point :).

amirm

03-25-07, 12:11 PM

Who said anything about 10%? That's your number!

Studios could offer managed copy from rental discs for e.g. 10$ per copy (maybe 15$ for new movies). IMHO that would be a great first step on the way to payed HD movie downloads.
I thought I covered these scenarios in my post :confused: when I talked about different percentages you could pay.

What do you think? Wouldn't that be a nice optional income source for studios? Think about it: We could rent movies we don't know. If there's a movie which we like very much, we could do a managed copy for a price which is attractive for both consumers and studios. No long download times for consumers. No expensive server farms for studios. Sounds like a win-win situation to me.
Well, you are talking to a person who created the entire concept of managed copy in AACS. So I am not the one to sell. :) Instead, you all have to make your case to studios. They have some concerns which have been difficult to get over. Maybe Paid can expand on it.

rover2002

03-25-07, 12:15 PM

Hi Amirm,
Could you shed some light on why HD-DVD has not launched in Hong Kong/Korea/Taiwan, ect?
Is it due to movie distribution rights or something completely different? Hopefully its time for one of your long replys :) as i would love to hear the reasons behind it.
Thx
Will.
Hi Amirm,
Enything on the above?
Ta.

madshi

03-25-07, 12:20 PM

I thought I covered these scenarios in my post :confused: when I talked about different percentages you could pay.
Heh, you're right! I missed that part of your comment. Sorry for the confusion! :o

So, paidgeek, do you have any comments on the rental managed copy topic? Basically what I'm looking for is an easy way to get HD movies to my network storage. I don't need/want to have any discs in my shelfs, anymore. Of course I'd love to have the cost savings (no discs, no distributors/shops) passed on to me. Does Sony already have specific plans for consumers like me?

Thank you!

amirm

03-25-07, 12:21 PM

Hi Amirm,
Enything on the above?
Ta.
Sorry :). Nothing specific other than size of the market. For studios, if they have to creat new discs for that region, there is significant cost in matering and authoring. As the market grows, more regions will get the product of course.

Caurus

03-25-07, 01:22 PM

Amir,

Will the "The Fifth Element" HD DVD, one can see on the http://www.thisishddvd.com/ website (from the bottom left corner it is two rows up and one to the right), be a new VC1 encoding? Is it a european Fox/Pathe release?

amirm

03-25-07, 01:25 PM

Amir,

Will the "The Fifth Element" HD DVD, one can see on the http://www.thisishddvd.com/ website (from the bottom left corner it is three rows up and one to the right), be a new VC1 encoding? Is it a european Fox/Pathe release?
Yes, it is the Europe release. And yes, it is a new VC-1 encode. I have not seen it but have been told it is better than the MPEG-2 BD version.

DaViD Boulet

03-25-07, 01:47 PM

Any news on the Warner Brothers front with regard to Dolby TrueHD on Blu-ray?

We're all waiting. Lots of discussion over at AVS.

Also, as Paidgeek is discovering, audiohiles do not want forced-data-recalculation for lossless codecs (making bit-for-bit output impossible). Will Warner and others stop applying dialog normalization to their lossless Dolby TrueHD tracks?

Also, when will they move to 20 and 24 bit resolution?

These are things we take for granted right now with Disney and Fox lossless titles on BD. It would be nice if WB would provide the same support for bit-for-bit high-resolution lossless on their HD DVD and BD titles. Any news on progress?

firemaster

03-25-07, 01:57 PM

Here are our prices for BD (& HD) replication

http://www.pacificdisc.com/PricingHD-DVD.html

But, From ProactionMedia,the BD SL is cheaper than HD DVD DL, and all cheaper than yours price, why?

http://www.proactionmedia.com/blu-ray_replication.htm

http://www.proactionmedia.com/hd_dvd_replication.htm

WayneL

03-25-07, 02:05 PM

audiohiles do not want forced-data-recalculation for lossless codecs (making bit-for-bit output impossible). Will Warner and others stop applying dialog normalization to their lossless Dolby TrueHD tracks?

Also, when will they move to 20 and 24 bit resolution?

These are things we take for granted right now with Disney and Fox lossless titles on BD. It would be nice if WB would provide the same support for bit-for-bit high-resolution lossless on their HD DVD and BD titles. Any news on progress?
Would an insider confirm that the studios provide audiophile quality movie sound where this would make any difference? Or would it be done just for the sake of doing it?

RDoherty

03-25-07, 02:44 PM

ICT is a flag that could be set on disc, to force the player to display the content at quarter of 1080p resolution (about 30% better than DVD) on analog output.

Due to mass revolt against it from members here and others, studios decided to not use it in either format.

My memory is a bit hazy on this so Richard would have to correct me but I recall the 2012 date being the time after which, you cannot build a player with analog output (i.e. analog "sunset"). It is unrelated to ICT I believe.

Minor clarifications:

If ICT is enabled on a title, it must be clearly labled as such.

There is never a time where enabled ICT becomes mandatory, but to confuse the issue in certain countries studios are not allowed to enable it until after a certain date (2010 I think). The USA is not a country with such a restriction, unfortunately

There is also, as Amir mentions, a seperate sunset on the manufacture of devices with analog outputs. You cannot make a device that outputs AACS protected content on HD analog outputs after 2010, nor one that outputs to any analog output (including SD) after 2012.

RDoherty

03-25-07, 02:54 PM

Studios could offer managed copy from rental discs for e.g. 10$ per copy (maybe 15$ for new movies). IMHO that would be a great first step on the way to payed HD movie downloads.

What do you think? Wouldn't that be a nice optional income source for studios? Think about it: We could rent movies we don't know. If there's a movie which we like very much, we could do a managed copy for a price which is attractive for both consumers and studios. No long download times for consumers. No expensive server farms for studios. Sounds like a win-win situation to me.

The system will certainly support these scenarios, and I believe they will all be enabled. But due to a number of details about the distribution business models it may prove impossible to make the scenario mandatory.

Also, please remember the negotiations are still underway, so specifics are still not fully baked.

amirm

03-25-07, 02:58 PM

Would an insider confirm that the studios provide audiophile quality movie sound where this would make any difference? Or would it be done just for the sake of doing it?
Good question :). With the market dead for high-resolution music where quality matters more than movies to people, you can safely assume that this would be done 90% for marketing and 10% for any real reasons. In a mass market, no movie will sell better because it has 20, 24 or 100 bits of resolution.

I have done extensive tests of 16-bits vs 24-bits on well recorded music. And while I can tell and appreciate the nicer analog quality of 24-bit on my expensive audio system ($15K just for a headphone setup!), I would never be able to convince anyone else around me of the difference and hence, value. It has taken years of audio testing to know what to look for ("quantization noise"). Yet I have also lost my share of double-blind tests in identifying 20-bit signals against 16-bits.

And lest you think people genuinely care about the stuff when setting standards, one of the most contentious votes in DVD Forum was the vote to make DTS-HD-MA/DD TrueHD mandatory in HD DVD. So many companies complained about the extra royalties that I was sure it would not pass. Had it not been because of Disney/Warner getting ready to blow a fuse over it, we would not have lossless audio in either format, let alone high resolution version of it. And oh yeah, BD companies were vocal on this issue too in DVD Forum and they didn't adopt better audio specs until after DVD Forum did so for HD DVD (i.e. put pressure on them to match). After all, the original BD recorders just handled plain old DD coming off air and nothing more.

For those of you who think you can hear the difference above 16-bits, did you know that by just running the video output of your DVD player you stomp on at least 4 bits of resolution? And by leaving the high voltage circuit driving the VL front-panel display, you are destroying more bits, getting your effective resolution to be less than 16-bits (usually down to 12 to 14-bits!). Now you see why it costs so much to experience high-res audio. Preserving those lower bits is very, very hard to do.

This reminds me of the story I always tell when matters of high-resolution audio come up. I was helping the codec team fine tune the WMA encoder years ago. At one point, I insisted that they had regressed in quality when they sent me blind samples to test. The team disagreed but I kept fighting them. To prove their point, they went ahead and gave me two identical files (without telling me) but called them different names. And you know what, I kept thinking the version I liked before still sounded better! Even after they told me the files were identical, I still thought the other version sounded better. Imagine my shock and horror when I did a bit-for-bit comparison, proving they were indeed identical. Armed with this fact, I listened again to both files and by magic, they sounded identical all of a sudden. I haven’t told this part of the story before but to figure out why this happened, I tried convincing myself that the other version now sounded better. What is amazing is that despite knowing the files were identical, and that this was a thought exercise, I actually thought the other version sound better! (smoother, etc.). This is the incredible power of suggestion and that we don’t always hear what we think we hear.

So I can convince myself to fall sleep on the airplane and proceed to do exactly so :). And this may explain why that above exercise worked for me. But you might have the same ability. Make a copy of one of your music files on your computer and then genuinely try to convince yourself one is better. Then listen to the files. I bet you will be able to hear a difference.

So yes, we will deliver high res audio to you because we know we can market it to you. But among friends, let's not get confused about what the real motivation is...

Finally, please note that that I understand other motivations regarding having higher resolution audio. The "give me what is on the master" comes to mind. And of course, there are those who really can hear the difference (on music, though I am not sure if they would on movies). But to your question, none of this is sufficient motivator to create discs this way.

DaViD Boulet

03-25-07, 03:22 PM

Amir,

Disney and Fox are already providing 24 bit lossless as a matter of routine. Apparently, they feel there is a "sufficient motivator" to produce discs this way.

If there's space on the disc, there should be a lossless track, and it should be of the highest resolution possible given the bandwidth available and the source PCM master.

I have yet to hear an argument for *not* providing lossless/high-resolution. Telling me that I can't tell the difference isn't a reason *not* to provide it. The consumer telling the studio that they want it is all that is required. If it costs no more to provide lossless, then why not???

Rich4av

03-25-07, 03:29 PM

crashoveridema0

03-25-07, 04:55 PM

dear amirm,

Hi ,great work on the xbox 360 hd dvd player i completly love it and im running it in 1080p over vga and the quality is better than that of my hd-a1, my only gripe is sometimes my projector doesnt sunc the image correctly and part of the movie gets cut off is there any way to fix this problem or is there going to be some sort of hdmi solution because my projector syncs properly over hdmi.

dialog_gvf

03-25-07, 05:00 PM

For those of you who think you can hear the difference above 16-bits, did you know that by just running the video output of your DVD player you stomp on at least 4 bits of resolution? And by leaving the high voltage circuit driving the VL front-panel display, you are destroying more bits, getting your effective resolution to be less than 16-bits (usually down to 12 to 14-bits!). Now you see why it costs so much to experience high-res audio. Preserving those lower bits is very, very hard to do.

OK, I'll risk looking like the fool and admit I'm lost. I presume you're talking noise being introduced into analog audio outputs due to various noise sources in the player?

If the audio stays in the digital domain (optical/coax of DD/DTS on DVD, or HDMI for HD audio on HD DVD/BD) there are no onboard losses, are there?

Gary

qz3fwd

03-25-07, 05:31 PM

This Managec Copy thing seems soo-vaporware. I for one dont ever expect to see it offered by any content owner at a price less than the pice of the physical disc, nor do I expect it to be consumer friendly and will be loaded with tons of DRM-probably more so that either HD DVD/BD. I bet you wont be able to copy the disc to your existing PC/NAS but will be forced to buy new dedicated hardware to store the content, and your existing DMA/player wont be able to playback the content-no youll be forced to buy more hardware.

So-When will we actually see it in the market and what specific requirements are there today for storage and playback?

I have several 2TB Infrants and 2 Toshiba A2's as well as 2 Tvix 5000's and several PC's.

amirm-Will I be able to copy the discs to my existing Infrants and playback the discs with full interactive features using my HD-A2's? Forget the business model/costs. Is this storage/playback functionality currently mandatory. And where can I readup on the specifications for Managed Copy to understand better what is marketing fluff and what is really offered for consumers?

Thank You.

amirm

03-25-07, 05:45 PM

Amir,

Thanks for all the great information you share with us.
My pleasure

Would you please expland on the front panel display part? Should we turn it off when we play movies? Will that improve audio?
If you are using analog output, yes you want to turn it off. If you are using PCM over HDMI, then it might improve a bit there too (in this case, see if you can turn off the display in your receiver). If you are using Coax/Toslink optical, then it should not make a difference as this is a compressed data stream.

The reason is that the display has a high-voltage power supply that drives it (in most technologies anyway). That power supply causes fair amount of spike on the supply voltage, in addition to generating RF noise which can leak into audio circuits. The spikes impact the accuracy of the reference circuits in digital to analog converters. And for PCM output, can cause clock variations which translate into jitter. The jitter reduces the effective resolution of the signal as seen by the receiver/AVR.

To give you a sense of why there is interference, on a 16-bit system, a single bit fluctuation represents 0.00002 votes. As a way of reference, a AA battery puts out 1.4 volts. In a 24-bit system, a single bit is 0.00000008 volts. Slightest amount of power supply spike can easily equal many bits of accuracy. This is in a consumer system. In professional equipment we use higher voltages so they don't suffer as much but we are still talking about very small numbers here.

The video circuits have the same damaging effect. Unfortunately, you can shut them off when watching a movie (hence the reason I am not as much of a purist when it comes to video versus music). But if you are just listening to a CD, then go ahead turn the video circuits off. Again, look for this in the AVR manual if you have a digital path to it.

amirm

03-25-07, 05:56 PM

OK, I'll risk looking like the fool and admit I'm lost. I presume you're talking noise being introduced into analog audio outputs due to various noise sources in the player?

If the audio stays in the digital domain (optical/coax of DD/DTS on DVD, or HDMI for HD audio on HD DVD/BD) there are no onboard losses, are there?

Gary
Ah, it is easy to get lost as we are talking about very esoteric concepts here. But yes, digital can also be impacted although the effect here is not as predictable or as large. The noise/variations in power supply can cause digital circuits to lose accuracy with each spike in the power supply. In technical terms, you are modulating the signal with the noise from the display. This in turn, causes the receiver to extract a different signal at the receiver, effectively reducing resolution. How bad this is, is harder to predict compared to analog output which gets impacted much more directly. I think Arcam published a paper, lamenting the poor jitter performance of audio over HDMI.

Unfortunately, having digital output from the player only serves to shift the problem to AVC/Processor/Receiver and not really eliminate it. As those devices have displays and video processing, you have the same issue there. To make matters worse, the problem is additive. If the player adds a bit of jitter and then sends that to the receiver, and the receiver butchers it some more with its display/video induced error, you have more problems than if you just output the audio from the player directly into an analog amp.

One solution to above is to buy top of the line equipment. I am talking about buying stuff that cost as much as a car :). Often, the big value add in these products comes from better and more isolated circuits and references circuits which are much more immune to noise. Along these lines, the class of equipment we have today for both BD/HD DVD, doesn’t fall into this category. When likes of Meridian coming to play, then we can talk high quality. Until then, even there is extra quality on disc, it is probably not quite heard. But turning extra things you don’t need like displays, is free and should make some difference.

amirm

03-25-07, 06:19 PM

DaViD Boulet

03-25-07, 06:36 PM

Amir,

I hear you on the jitter thing. It's one reason I run my PCM streams (2.0 SPDIF) through two reclocking devices in series prior to my DAC.

I'm wondering if any receiver/decoder manufacturers have thought about implimenting reclocking in their devices to disassociate the receivers clock/DACs from any time-signal coming from the transport with multi-channel audio for HT. That would be a marvelous design feature of high-end preamps/decoders. Just knowing how much improvement I hear with my reclocked stereo, It's not hard to imagine.

BTW, I routinely turn the front LED display "off" on my Pioneer transport (LD player) which disengages all video circutry to help garner a cleaner clock.

Razter

03-25-07, 06:48 PM

Will we ever see movies encoded in xvYCC and "Deep Color"?

Mycroft

03-25-07, 08:50 PM

Unfortunately, having digital output from the player only serves to shift the problem to AVC/Processor/Receiver and not really eliminate it. As those devices have displays and video processing, you have the same issue there. To make matters worse, the problem is additive. If the player adds a bit of jitter and then sends that to the receiver, and the receiver butchers it some more with its display/video induced error, you have more problems than if you just output the audio from the player directly into an analog amp.

I can't say I understand this. Couldn't the receiver just have a buffer, thereby making the clocks independent? Or does that cause syncing problems?

crashoveridema0

03-25-07, 10:10 PM

dear amirm,

Quote:
Originally Posted by crashoveridema0
dear amirm,

Hi ,great work on the xbox 360 hd dvd player i completly love it and im running it in 1080p over vga and the quality is better than that of my hd-a1, my only gripe is sometimes my projector doesnt sunc the image correctly and part of the movie gets cut off is there any way to fix this problem or is there going to be some sort of hdmi solution because my projector syncs properly over hdmi.

Thanks .

Is this happening while you are watching the movie? If so, that is very odd and would seem to me a display problem or a lose cable.

actually its not a loos cable its just some times myprojector thinks the in comiing signal resolution is 1728x1080 in stead of 1920x1080 is there anythin i can do?

darinp2

03-25-07, 10:15 PM

Instead of asking a BD insider HD DVD questions unrelated to his area of expertise, it might be best to search for answer given from the people who create HD DVDs for a living :). In this case, our old friend from Warner had this to say: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=7919140&&#post7919140

"Simple answer, yes HD-DVD does. Unsure about BD, but it'd be bad if it didn't. The big requirements for branching are a low enough mux rate at the point of the branch. With Polar Express, for example, there were several points in the film where scenes showing text (i.e. the tickets, "devoid of life", etc.) were replaced depending on the audio language chosen. These were branches. The laser must be able to jump from the end of one buffer state to the beginning of a whole new buffer state with room in the buffer to accommodate both and seamlessly play 2 different GOPs. Without advanced tools to ensure the functionality and spec compliance, this would be EXTREMLY difficult to pull off. However, those tools are coming to fruition and as soon as they do, you'll see some branching.

Cjplay. "This response makes it looks like "The Polar Express" on HD DVD has this feature. I just checked, and it does not include it. The DVD does. Pick the French language on the DVD and the tickets that Tom Hanks punches show up in French. The HD DVD doesn't even have any languages other than English like the DVD does and turning on the French subtitles didn't change the ticket at all. Do you know of any HD DVDs that actually use seamless branching at this point (MI:3 used seamed branching)?

Also, animations should be easier than live action from a bitrate standpoint in general. Can you tell us how an HD DVD release of both versions of "Lord of the Rings" would use seamless branching to allow the user to select which version they wanted to watch, without compromising the audio or video? If we still got a lossless audio track like the regular or extended versions by themselves, what would the video bitrates have to be (approximately) for branch points? The seamlessly branched DVD release from New Line did not have the DTS audio track and I've been told that the video quality wasn't very impressive (although I haven't looked at it).

--Darin

Electric_Haggis

03-25-07, 10:18 PM

Not sure if this has been asked before, but is it true that the Dolby Digital Plus tracks on all current HD-DVDs thus far are only 640kbps?
Is there a listing of audio bitrates posted anywhere?

amirm

03-25-07, 10:26 PM

I can't say I understand this. Couldn't the receiver just have a buffer, thereby making the clocks independent? Or does that cause syncing problems?
You want the easy answer or the esoteric one? :)

Here is the easy answer. Yes, you can use a buffer and then run an independent clock on the output of the buffer to drive the DAC. But now you buy yourself a new problem. The input clock and output clock are independent of each other and can drift in different direction. Should the output run faster than the input clock, you eventually run out of samples to play! So you wind up interpolating data to stall until you get more input and this can impact audio quality. If the output runs slower than input, then you start accumulating samples as you run behind more and more (think what would happen in a 2 hour movie, even if your clock is very close to input). This means that you can run out of memory if the buffer is too small, forcing you again to do some kind of sample rate conversion which again impacts audio quality. Now, you may be tempted to put a huge buffer in there given cheap memory these days. But then you wind up accumulating latency. If the buffer becomes a few seconds, you will have problems with UI responsiveness to things like pausing audio.

There are adaptive de-jitter circuits which try to deal with above but still, the issue is hard to deal with in absolutes.

Now the esoteric answer. The same LIM (Logic Induced Modulation) distortion which got us started in this topic, applies here the same. The input jitter can cause variations in the power supply circuit which could be transmitted/reflected in the output clock, causing jitter there! Yes, I know, hard to imagine but if you want to have 24-bit noise floor, it is remarkable how little jitter budget one can have to achieve such accuracy.

All of this occurs because we have a real-time system. In data communication circles, we don’t have these problems because the final resting place of the bits is on some storage device. As soon as you require that the output be synchronous, then the problem gets a lot more complicated (and less understood at times as we don’t really know all the audible effects of jitter).

amirm

03-25-07, 10:28 PM

Not sure if this has been asked before, but is it true that the Dolby Digital Plus tracks on all current HD-DVDs thus far are only 640kbps?
Is there a listing of audio bitrates posted anywhere?

Studios have a choice of data rates. Universal usually uses 1.5 mbit/sec DD+. Warner usually uses 640kps. I think Paramount does the same. Of course, they could choose these settings anytime they wish but this is more or less the story today.

I have not seen the list anywhere but someone else might have.

RobertR1

03-25-07, 10:56 PM

amirm

03-25-07, 11:18 PM

Amir,

Since Disney did help design with HDi, what is their take on BD-J 1.1 spec being pushed back and basically, lack of BD-J authored titles where as HDi is being used heavily and with some cool features. To a studio that cared so much about interactivity, surely they can't be too happy with the situation?
I would think "grumpy" would best describe their frame of mind :). And that feeling won’t end anytime soon as even in November, they still have a platform which does not guarantee network/internet connectivity as HD DVD has had since inception. Given how much their care about this feature, I have to believe they continue to be unhappy about some aspects of how BDA works.

It is really ironic that it was Disney who showed us the way with interactivity. Yet it is the competing studios executing ahead of them on the very technology they helped create. That out to be creating some pain for them on top of standardization concerns.

I for one, always put Disney in a different class than other BD companies. They stand out as one of the few BD companies who have taken the participation in DVD Forum and HD DVD format making seriously. They vote on all the issues instead of abstaining. They worked hand in hand with the rest of us to create the HD DVD interactivity spec. They pushed strongly to make those and audio features mandatory. And they gave the best look at VC-1 than any BD studio. We don't see eye to eye when we step out of the forum to be sure in the optical formats, but share a certain level of respect for each other still.

The above is the reason I sincerely thanked them (and Warner) for their special contributions to HD DVD at the keynote for the 10-th anniversary of HD DVD last month. I got a smile from them so I know they appreciate the mutual respect.

joeydoo

03-25-07, 11:42 PM

So why don't they switch to HD DVD amirm? Is this a case of politics rather than the actual specs?

amirm

03-26-07, 12:01 AM

So why don't they switch to HD DVD amirm? Is this a case of politics rather than the actual specs?
It is a long, and complicated answer with a lot of data that cannot be shared publically. (yes, I am saving it all for a book I am writing :D).

Kosty

03-26-07, 03:02 AM

But, From ProactionMedia,the BD SL is cheaper than HD DVD DL, and all cheaper than yours price, why?

http://www.proactionmedia.com/blu-ray_replication.htm

http://www.proactionmedia.com/hd_dvd_replication.htm

Answer:* Additional Setup Fees Apply
call for more info This has been discussed in depth before. Their website has not been updated on that page since last year.

UxiSXRD

03-26-07, 03:05 AM

It is a long, and complicated answer with a lot of data that cannot be shared publically. (yes, I am saving it all for a book I am writing :D).

Do you feel there was anything you personally could have done differently to have helped Disney go to neutrality, if not HDDVD exclusive? Or was the corporate juggernaught too much for any mere mortal to overcome? ;)

I'm asking more as a sense of perspective, so a yes or no would be most interesting rather than attempt to get specifics you're not able / willing to reveal. :)

RobertR1

03-26-07, 03:36 AM

It is a long, and complicated answer with a lot of data that cannot be shared publically. (yes, I am saving it all for a book I am writing :D).

A book detailing the back room deal and politics about this whole "war" would be a really good read. Hope you're serious :)

Talkstr8t

03-26-07, 04:59 AM

So basically, the PS3 could do itJust to be clear, everything we know about the PS3's hardware capabilities points to it being fully capable of BD-Live support. Unless/until Sony announces BD-Live support for the PS3, however, there is always the chance (however small) that it will never appear.

Talkstr8t

03-26-07, 05:06 AM

Since Disney did help design with HDi, what is their take on BD-J 1.1 spec being pushed back and basically, lack of BD-J authored titles where as HDi is being used heavily and with some cool features. To a studio that cared so much about interactivity, surely they can't be too happy with the situation?Looking at the range of HDi and BD-J content which has been released so far, I don't think you can state that as of now one has clearly been more innovative than the other. HDi has shown IME (video commentary and bookmarking) and some extra features like choosing the color of a car in a given scene or seeing a GPS display overlaid on the movie. BD-J has shown a custom playlist app based on keyword/location/actor, multimedia director commentary, and several games, at least one (Chicken Little) of which is by most accounts quite entertaining. Both sides have barely even scratched the surface, but I don't think you can say the range of HDi content has been substantially more compelling than the range of BD-J content.

ColinH

03-26-07, 05:55 AM

Hi Talk,

I know you've stated that you "believe most consumers willing to spend $1K on an unproven format understand the risks", but here in the UK the Sony and Pioneer BD players haven't even been released yet - are you comfortable with the fact UK consumers will be paying $1500 for a BD player in the summer that won't be able to utilize all of the features of new BD releases by October?

firemaster

03-26-07, 06:27 AM

Answer: This has been discussed in depth before. Their website has not been updated on that page since last year.

Thanks :)

xradman

03-26-07, 06:48 AM

Amir,

Do you have any sway at Warner to ensure that Animatrix gets an HD encoding instead of rehashing the same DVD release? It would be a great oversight on Warner's part not to include a HD DVD version of what many consider to be second best Matrix movie.

Thank you,

ColinH

03-26-07, 07:03 AM

Hi Amir,

are you aware of any plans for the XBox 360 to allow playback of hard-disk based DVDs via it's media center capabilities? All my windows PCs can do it, there are countless media players in the market that can do it, even the origianl Xbox can do it (via XBMC).

Thanks.

madshi

03-26-07, 08:22 AM

A question to the Blu-Ray insiders:

Would you consider adding HD trailers (at least 720p) to http://www.blu-raydisc.com/ for all available Blu-Ray discs? Having trailers for all discs available for download would be great, cause it would help choosing which discs to buy. Sure, I could watch those 320x200 trailers on the web. Or maybe those 480p trailers on apple.com, but honestly - these trailers are hurting my eyes. Yes, there are some HD trailers available on apple.com, too, but only for some newer movies. And the encoding seems to be lacking (lots of banding in foggy scenes etc).

Thanks!

P.S: The HD DVD side seems to be on its way for such an offer. There are still lots of trailers missing, but most discs say "trailer coming soon". Looks good!

amirm

03-26-07, 11:09 AM

Do you feel there was anything you personally could have done differently to have helped Disney go to neutrality, if not HDDVD exclusive? Or was the corporate juggernaught too much for any mere mortal to overcome? ;)

I'm asking more as a sense of perspective, so a yes or no would be most interesting rather than attempt to get specifics you're not able / willing to reveal. :)
No personal regrets. We enjoyed a warm and collaborative relationship with Disney. We helped them solve the one big problem they had (interactivity). And we did that to some extent for both formats actually. There really was no "ask" that we turned down. For example, we backed Disney when they asked for mandatory features in HD DVD, even when it was painful (i.e. paying higher royalties for multiple audio codecs).

At a personal level, I had an excellent relationship with one of the top executives who was a key part of the final decision to go BD route. And I know the feeling was mutual per above things we had done for each other. He no longer works there and I think he has a new prespective than he had then.

jimbology

03-26-07, 12:04 PM

markrubin

03-26-07, 12:14 PM

As to more info, here is an embarrassing nugget. The reason the audio dynamic range is not where it should be is that the Dolby Digital/DD+ decoder is permanently stuck in the "night" mode. This is the mode you can set on your DVD player where the dynamics are compressed as to not wake up the others sleeping in the house. Apparently, Dolby certification rules mandate that night mode be on, if there is no UI to turn it on and off. Their assumption is that without such UI, this a portable DVD player and such, driving a TV with its little speaker which may get damaged with full dynamic range!

Anyway, the above is a silly requirement in this situation but I don't want to put the fault on Dolby. We should have caught this and put in the UI and do it right. So the update will have a UI setting with default being full dynamic range. This is why I said earlier that even normal Dolby Digital output will sound better. But per pervious posts, we will also be adding DTS encoding output at its higher rate.

Amir

does this apply only to the add on?

amirm

03-26-07, 01:02 PM

Amir

does this apply only to the add on?
Yes as stand-alone products have a UI for "night mode" so they can defaut to full dynamic range and indeed, are doing exactly that.

Chevron07

03-26-07, 02:20 PM

With the lines between TV movies and gaming being blurred, I hope that I can ask this question here.

Ben and/or Amir,

(Presuming that in the future, Microsoft releases a larger HDD for the XBOX 360...)

As useful as a larger HDD on the XBOX 360 would be for video downloads, have you guys heard of how it would benefit "gaming"? Has there been any talk of either full retail downloading of games, or managed copy from the optical disc?

Personally, I would be inclined to buy more games if I could access them through the dashboard like my arcade games. Right now, I can do everything from the comfort of my couch except switch retail games. If I get a cross game invite from a friend I rarely get up, go to the equiptment closet, search through my games and switch out the disk.

I'd hate to see games get the short end of the stick on a gaming console.

I'm sure this isn't an aswerable question from an official point of view, but I'd love to hear your thoughts on it from a personal perspective.

benwaggoner

03-26-07, 02:58 PM

As useful as a larger HDD on the XBOX 360 would be for video downloads, have you guys heard of how it would benefit "gaming"? Has there been any talk of either full retail downloading of games, or managed copy from the optical disc?

Personally, I would be inclined to buy more games if I could access them through the dashboard like my arcade games. Right now, I can do everything from the comfort of my couch except switch retail games. If I get a cross game invite from a friend I rarely get up, go to the equiptment closet, search through my games and switch out the disk.

I'd hate to see games get the short end of the stick on a gaming console.

I'm sure this isn't an aswerable question from an official point of view, but I'd love to hear your thoughts on it from a personal perspective.
I'll comment, since I know nothing about future Xbox plans.

I keep my 360 + HD DVD accessory on top of my Anthrocart, on a shelf above my monitors, between my AVM-30 and IO Data player. I can change discs without even looking (although I wish I had more time to play games - the discs I put in are mainly movies or discs of test content I've burned myself).

Seems like a cool idea, though.

scaesare

03-26-07, 03:23 PM

My best guess, look for profile 1.1 discs in the Fall. Profile 2.0 discs possibly by December.

Does this (along with Talks's "2007" comment) imply that the new 10/07 BD-Video 1.1 profile player may also include Netowrk capability as well? Will they likel ybe full -Live players?

benwaggoner

03-26-07, 03:34 PM

Does this (along with Talks's "2007" comment) imply that the new 10/07 BD-Video 1.1 profile player may also include Netowrk capability as well? Will they likel ybe full -Live players?
Bringing up the point that here's no commitment to ship 1.1 players in October 2007 that I saw. It's just that they won't launch any new non-1.1 players after Oct 31st.

Announcing a bunch of new 1.0 spec players for the holiday season in late October seems perfectly compatible with the "update."

Meatpopsicle

03-26-07, 04:43 PM

crashoveridema0

03-26-07, 05:13 PM

dear amirm,

I am very curious, well heres my little problem well ok my 360 is running at 1080p via vga and the picture quaily is excellent espically with hd dvds my only problem is sometimes the picture get cutoff on the left side becuase my projector mistakes the resolution for 1728x1080, see now i think the problem might be that im running the 360 through a vga gender changer could that be causing the problem? also my projector dosnt have a vga port its got a dvi-a which is the same thing but basicly the 360s vga cord goes through a gender changer then to a vga to dvi-a cable and do you think my problem could be caused sinceit running through the gender changer?

PacificDisc

03-26-07, 06:00 PM

To PacificDisc,

Welcome aboard. A couple of questions:

1) Are you allowed to say who some of your customers have been, or at least what general fields they are coming from?

2) What are some basic difference between replicating HD-DVD and Blu-ray, that the average joe might not know about? There is a seemingly large difference on your website between the replication costs - can you break down why this is and whether you expect this to mitigate with time?

We started doing HD DVDs for some larger post-production houses in NYC at the end of last summer. These were used as "pilots" and have since flourished into some steady work, mainly for Fortune100 companies, financial institutions and the such - lots of showreels too (both HD DVD & Blu-ray). We did a bunch of titles from a big "live event" venue who host live concerts etc. We've done a lot of work for European TV outlets, where the HD market seems more mature - at least TV Shows on HD seem to sell better. Right now we're in the middle of converting 200+ features from 35mm film to Blu-ray. NOt so many smaller indie-type customers bellying up to the bar just yet, but we're seeing a lot of interest and expect this trend to change this year.

There are no real differences on the authoring side between the two formats (not meant as a sweeping statement, nor meant to belitte anyone's preference or skill set). The main reason the costs are so different is cost to get in the game. As previously discussed, HD DVDs can be made on modified DVD9 lines. Whereas Blu-rays need new/specialized lines which cost a bazillion dollars. As these costs are recouped, the gap will narrow -- though I suspect they will never be exactly the same price. I also suspect that market demand will effect pricing in the next 12 months -- supply and demand.

So far PacificDisc has done more HD DVDs than Blu-rays, but we've been at HD longer and Blu-ray orders have come online with a vengeance since we announced. Should be an interesting ride.

DaViD Boulet

03-26-07, 06:04 PM

BD insiders,

has there been any discussion about using the high-bandwidth of BD's secondary video stream (which can support full 1080p) for 3-D encoding? Seems to me to be a perfect solution to having *real* 3-D software with both video channels encoded in perfect-fidelity 1080p24. Software support could be worked out via firmware later on how to output the signal (which could be matrixed into a single 1080p48 signal for those with shudder glasses).

p.s. still no "real" word on Warner and Dolby True HD (ie don't tell me that it's because Dolby TrueHD decoding isn't require in BD hardware)?

Technicolor

03-26-07, 06:09 PM

We started doing HD DVDs for some larger post-production houses in NYC at the end of last summer. These were used as "pilots" and have since flourished into some steady work, mainly for Fortune100 companies, financial institutions and the such - lots of showreels too (both HD DVD & Blu-ray). We did a bunch of titles from a big "live event" venue who host live concerts etc. We've done a lot of work for European TV outlets, where the HD market seems more mature - at least TV Shows on HD seem to sell better. Right now we're in the middle of converting 200+ features from 35mm film to Blu-ray. NOt so many smaller indie-type customers bellying up to the bar just yet, but we're seeing a lot of interest and expect this trend to change this year.

There are no real differences on the authoring side between the two formats (not meant as a sweeping statement, nor meant to belitte anyone's preference or skill set). The main reason the costs are so different is cost to get in the game. As previously discussed, HD DVDs can be made on modified DVD9 lines. Whereas Blu-rays need new/specialized lines which cost a bazillion dollars. As these costs are recouped, the gap will narrow -- though I suspect they will never be exactly the same price. I also suspect that market demand will effect pricing in the next 12 months -- supply and demand.

So far PacificDisc has done more HD DVDs than Blu-rays, but we've been at HD longer and Blu-ray orders have come online with a vengeance since we announced. Should be an interesting ride.

Hello, PacificDisc:

Two questions:
1 - Do you do BD50? If yes, is it competitive with HD DVD30?
2 - How is the BD50 adoption going on among other companies in the replication field?

I always thought the format war would be fought based on BD25 and HD DVD30, since BD50 always seemed too expensive/subsidized in order to live on its own feet right now (and for some time to come).

What are your impressions?

thanks.

hellokeith

03-26-07, 06:15 PM

Would any insider care to comment (opinion, not testimony ;)) on the Kaleidescape Systems v. DVD Content Control Association (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,260961,00.html) case? This is seen as possibly the case to determine if Fair Use (copying) applies to protected digital media.

Also, how about Michael Malcolm (CEO of Kaleidescape) comment on Managed Copy: Managed copy is a "model that they sell you the same content over and over for the rest of your life," Malcolm said. "HD DVD and Blu-ray's managed copies are simply a euphemism for charging you for every time you make a copy on the server."

PacificDisc

03-26-07, 06:16 PM

But, From ProactionMedia,the BD SL is cheaper than HD DVD DL, and all cheaper than yours price, why?

http://www.proactionmedia.com/blu-ray_replication.htm

http://www.proactionmedia.com/hd_dvd_replication.htm

It's called competition. We have cheaper advertised prices for HD DVD than they do. True their BD is cheaper online, but they have 4 suspicious words underneath in red... * Additional Setup Fees Apply

Now, I'm not going to get drawn into an argument about who the better replicator is. I've heard decent things about ProAction Media and certainly am not about to pooh pooh them here. But, just like any type of replication work, you need to compare all quotes carefully... I'll give you a glaring example.

We charge $0.69/disc for 1000 bulk DVD5. The "900lb Gorilla" in this market (not ProAction Media) also charges $0.69/disc, but their price is for 3-color silkscreen printed discs (grainy looking discs). Ours is for up to 5-color offset printed discs. "900lb'er" charges an extra $199.00 for 5-color offset!

Bottom line: do your due diligence thoroughly before placing any orders and good luck.

PacificDisc

03-26-07, 06:21 PM

Hello, PacificDisc:

Two questions:
1 - Do you do BD50? If yes, is it competitive with HD DVD30?
2 - How is the BD50 adoption going on among other companies in the replication field?

I always thought the format war would be fought based on BD25 and HD DVD30, since BD50 always seemed too expensive/subsidized in order to live on its own feet right now (and for some time to come).

What are your impressions?

thanks.

We're not tooled up to do BD50 yet and probably won't be until mid-year -- at least that's what I'm hearing from above. Sorry.

BigScreen

03-26-07, 07:04 PM

Handling this kind of game is not an issue for HDi. Indeed, one of our program managers wrote a prototype space invader game in just two hours (he wrote it last night and sent me a copy when I asked him if he knew something I didn't about Bill's claim.). HDi is great at bitmap blitting, alpha blending, cell animation, bitmap sequence animation, property animation and ECMAScript can handle the state machine and collision detection. No, there are no 3-D primitives but those are not needed in such games, nor is there hardware for them in either platform.

Any chance we could get a "downloadable and burnable on a DVD" version of this prototype game?

I think it would be a great demonstration of the capabilities of HDi, and just plain cool, even if it were as crude as ascii-art (well, maybe not that crude).

With the market dead for high-resolution music where quality matters more than movies to people, you can safely assume that this would be done 90% for marketing and 10% for any real reasons. In a mass market, no movie will sell better because it has 20, 24 or 100 bits of resolution.

I have done extensive tests of 16-bits vs 24-bits on well recorded music. And while I can tell and appreciate the nicer analog quality of 24-bit on my expensive audio system ($15K just for a headphone setup!), I would never be able to convince anyone else around me of the difference and hence, value. It has taken years of audio testing to know what to look for ("quantization noise"). Yet I have also lost my share of double-blind tests in identifying 20-bit signals against 16-bits.

While I can agree with the fact that a fair number of people here do not have the systems capable of resolving all the detail and differences between, say, 16 vs. 24 bit right now, I'm hoping that we'll see a good number of years of use out of the HD DVD and Blu-ray titles we're buying right now, and I think that there's a good chance that home theater systems will continue to advance in their quality in those years.

The comparison of hi-rez audio formats (SACD/DVD-A) vs. low bitrate compressed audio (MP3/AAC) is sound, but I would hope that the studios do not fall into the trap of thinking that just because MP3's and iTunes AAC files are popular, that people don't care about audio quality any more. I used to think that 128kbps MP3 files were indistinguishable from CD's, but I've grown in my ability to discern and appreciate the differences. Having just completed a project where I re-ripped my entire CD collection to WMA lossless attests to my desire to get the best quality audio possible from the source.

Please encourage the studios to deliver high definition audio and video on their releases. Fox television used to think that they could upsample 480p and call it Fox Widescreen HD or some nonsense like that. Thankfully, someone there had the wisdom to realize the folly in that position.

Let's not see such bowing to the low-end happen to audio on HD DVD and Blu-ray.

I for one, always put Disney in a different class than other BD companies. They stand out as one of the few BD companies who have taken the participation in DVD Forum and HD DVD format making seriously. They vote on all the issues instead of abstaining. They worked hand in hand with the rest of us to create the HD DVD interactivity spec. They pushed strongly to make those and audio features mandatory. And they gave the best look at VC-1 than any BD studio. We don't see eye to eye when we step out of the forum to be sure in the optical formats, but share a certain level of respect for each other still.

Please pass along our heartfelt invitation to join the ranks of HD DVD-producing studios! :)

It will not be until the upcoming releases of Cars and the Pirates movies that I will truly miss not having a Blu-ray player. Casino Royale was difficult, and I'm glad that Dances with Wolves was delayed, but Cars is going to hurt! I've been trying to keep my purchases to a minimum, but I would buy the Disney/Pixar movies without thinking twice!

I'm sure that they know your position, but please pass along my desire that they begin producing HD DVD titles soon! Thanks...

benwaggoner

03-26-07, 07:20 PM

Can an HD DVD insider please help me understand more about 3X?

My understanding is that it was implemented for a very low cost independent way of making HD movies on a standard DVD-R.

If this is true, can someone explain to me how I can make a 3X disc? Is it as easy as just encoding a file with VC-1 (WMV) and slapping it on a DVD-R? Will that work on any HD DVD player?
3X is HD DVD format on a red-laser disc. You use all the same authoring techniques as HD DVD, but replicate on DVD-5 or DVD-9 instead of HD DVD. This can save a little money on replication for short-form content (although HD DVD is already pretty cost-effective).

So, no it's isn't just a WMV on a DVD-R. Although those work great on an Xbox 360 :).

jpb123

03-26-07, 08:08 PM

We've done a lot of work for European TV outlets, where the HD market seems more mature - at least TV Shows on HD seem to sell better.

Thanks for posting PacificDisc. There are many of us that appreciate insiders taking their time to come here.

Being in Europe I'm a little confused by your statement above. If the HD market in Europe is anything it's anything but mature. And that's on TV. For discs the market so far is almost nonexistent. I'm not aware of a single TV show being released on Blu-ray or HD DVD in Europe which would make it hard for them to sell at all. Are you hinting at future releases?

ckong

03-26-07, 09:24 PM

Can any HD DVD insiders update us on the status of the 51GB TL specs approval process?

PacificDisc

03-26-07, 10:09 PM

Thanks for posting PacificDisc. There are many of us that appreciate insiders taking their time to come here.

Being in Europe I'm a little confused by your statement above. If the HD market in Europe is anything it's anything but mature. And that's on TV. For discs the market so far is almost nonexistent. I'm not aware of a single TV show being released on Blu-ray or HD DVD in Europe which would make it hard for them to sell at all. Are you hinting at future releases?

It's coming.

Not sure where you are, but the German market seems strongest (at least from the production of discs). Don't want to get into specifics (I'd get shot), but we're doing TV shows and some recent sporting events.

amirm

03-26-07, 10:24 PM

Can any HD DVD insiders update us on the status of the 51GB TL specs approval process?
Nothing yet to report.....

asj2006

03-26-07, 10:26 PM

Any Sony people here?

I've seen pretty good looking screenshots of BD-Java games that never seemed to have made it to the actual titles (XXX and Kung Fu Hustle, for example, both of which I believe are BD-25 single layer discs). Is it possible to get a reason for this?

amirm

03-27-07, 12:41 AM

This response makes it looks like "The Polar Express" on HD DVD has this feature....--Darin
I was going to comment on your question regarding branching, and then someone sent me this related link: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=10125991&&#post10125991

This came up a while ago. One of the people who was involved in HD DVD back when they decided their minimum 1.0x spin rate that led to their current bandwidth limitations, and who brags about how the HD DVD camp didn't overdesign their format, didn't understand this and thought that the extra languages not being played didn't affect the bandwidth left for video, other audio, PiP, etc. Along with not understanding what branching was at the time (according to what they said here), I can understand how they wouldn't have had a problem with HD DVD deciding on a 1.0x minimum spin rate instead of a 1.5x minimum spin rate. I wish they had actually understood how things worked back when that decision was made. It may have changed that decision, as they might not have been so smug about how their side wasn't overdesigning things, if they had known how things really work. I have a strong feeling that the decision about spin rate would have been different if they had known then what they know today. --Darin

If this doesn’t make me the classic “village idiot,” I am not sure what does :D. In the middle of all that though, you do bring up some new topics which I have not covered before so I am going to take a shot at commenting on them first. Hope you forgive me for that.

As the sole representative of HD DVD format here, I think sometimes people give us way too much credit for everything going into that format. Yes, we had our finger in a few things (see list below). But nowhere close to level of influence assumed in the post. Please let me provide some needed perspective here.

Microsoft was not involved in the development of either format until later stages. HD DVD was invented by Toshiba and NEC from what I recall, in a similar manner to which BD was designed by Sony/Matsushita. Neither was a committee invention in the way MPEG-2/MPEG-4 are for example. The spec is provided to the forum which then reviews and refines it before approving it.

From a timing perspective, the standardization of the original “AOD” (HD DVD) format was well under way while we were busy making WMV-HD discs and running around making technology for the Internet. We got involved because of two factors: 1) advanced codec testing and 2) to break the logjam in DVD Forum over the new format. On the latter front, the BD companies were blocking the approval of the working group HD DVD physical specification (remember, they have majority vote at the board level). Clever decision was made to add new (then neutral) members leading to Disney and us getting elected to the board. By the time we showed up (or in the previous meeting, I don’t remember), the physical format was already approved. So historically speaking, we had no say or involvement in the creation of the physical specifications, where the data rate, capacity, physical characteristics, etc. came about.

Trust me, I wish I could take credit for this wonderful format called HD DVD, but we just can’t :). The history simply doesn’t allow it. If you want to blame us for bad things in this space, here are the areas you should go after:

1. Pushing for adoption of VC-1 and advanced codecs in general. We did this for both formats.
2. Matters related to copy protection (including region coding) and unification of both formats around a single technology (AACS)
3. Getting both formats to use the same (UDF) file system and (PC drive) interface language.
4. Helping create the original pillars of AACS and its full specifications.
5. HD DVD interactivity.
6. To some extent, mandatory features of HD DVD “logical” (i.e. above physical spec) layers.
7. Creation of authoring tools for VC-1 and to some extent HDi.
8. Helping studios drive state-of-the-art in compression technology/tools.
9. Helping companies like Toshiba ship HD DVD products.

There are probably a few other things we are guilty of but this is all I can remember screwing up so far :). All of this happened after we had a physical specification already approved. And also why people say we added a lot of “software” (logical) layers to HD DVD.

I think your second point is that because I didn’t know everything about everything, somehow the spec wound up being suboptimal. Well, that isn’t so either. I love you all so I spend a lot of time here personally to answer your questions. But that doesn’t mean that I do the same low level work in other areas I manage. Indeed, I have not once set foot in a working group at DVD Forum where all the technical work occurs. So if there is something of concern there, it wasn’t my doing. Heck, if I were involved, there would surely be more areas to criticize :D.

Fortunately, I have people who know more about optical formats than anyone should be allowed to know. These are the people who attend the technical working groups and drive discussions in the forum. I have been in a few board meetings and voted on things but have not done that for two years now. My ignorance of some topics only serves to create embracement for me here and not much else I am afraid :).

The third point you make is that HD DVD is underdesigned due to my ignorance of its applications. I addressed the ignorance part above. But I will not accept that HD DVD is underdesigned. HD DVD has 3X the data rate of DVD. It uses advanced codecs which provide up to 2X the efficiency of MPEG-2 used in DVD. Multiply the two and you get up to 6X improvement over DVD format. 1080p has 6X the resolution of DVD which happens to match this number. But those pixels are highly correlated and we don’t need anywhere close to 6X the bandwidth of DVD. As otherwise, all of those BD MPEG-2 titles would have to have the average data rate of 30 mbit/sec, which we know none do.

Should people have done more on the physical spec? Good engineering says you push a design up to a magical line, after which it gets too difficult/expensive to manufacture things. We feel that HD DVD has done exactly that. I am sure people will argue about where that line is and I won’t go into it here. Suffice it to say, for a format to have increased capacity by 3X and yet, allow full backward compatibility with both replication equipment (HD DVD lines can make DVDs) and user equipment (combo/twin disc capability), shows great depth of design. HD DVD also mandates advanced features such as networking and persistent storage -- something competing group decided was too complex to make mandatory. So HD DVD is anything but a conservative design. It is both elegant and complete.

Your key argument above continues to be the need for more audio tracks because ultimately you may run out of bandwidth if you keep adding them. On paper, and with limited vision of where the format is going, one may think you have a point there. But let me explain how we see this.

As I stated previously, HD mandates both networking and storage. This in a nutshell, gives you another source of “bandwidth.” HD DVD allows up to 15 mbit/sec data rate coming from persistent storage because it does not incur any seeks to get to that data. This is above and beyond the bandwidth coming from the optical media. Given this, a much more elegant solution exists than stuffing everything on disc whether someone values it or not. You can put the core experience on the HD DVD, and leave the rest to be downloaded by the user to persistent storage. Given the fact that the video still comes on disc, you don’t have long download times to deal with. You not only gain extra bandwidth this way, but you also let people decide more of what they want, than one size fits all.

No, this doesn’t mean we ship movies without sound :). DD+ at 640kbps outperforms the DVD’s audio quality, yet only takes 2% of the bandwidth. Even 5 languages can be served with just 10% of the total. DD+ at 1.5 mbit/sec rivals lossless audio and yet, it still only takes 5% of our capacity. Lossless take more bandwidth but we can fit one in there as we have shown across multiple titles. And IME on top of that. This means we can still ship a rich package on the HD DVD disc itself.

Yes, it is tempting to think old fashioned and assume everything has to be stuffed on the original shiny disc because that is the way good old DVD worked. But why? We use the internet all the time to add to our multimedia collection. Why design an optical format today, and not have the same capability be there for it just the same? OK, so it makes the system more complicated. But so does 0.1mm recording of the alternative format ;). Someone wants a lossless track for some foreign language? I say let them download it at their convenience. No need to spec a system just for the optical media and stay within those confines. Heck, we could offer dozens of languages this way.

Then there is the home media distribution scenario. Using managed copy, once you rip the content to the server, you can add all the other elements to it with zero regards for bandwidth. After all, even a laptop hard disk has data rates exceeding 2-5X of BD let alone your desktop/server hard disk. You would use the disc for instant gratification but from there on, you can update it in place. No longer are you stuck with a read-only “ROM” format in this vision of the future. You can have 100 audio tracks to really make you feel good :). Given the more frugal encodings of HD DVD, we can store more movies in the same storage space. And stream them around the home much easier with half the peaks of typical MPEG-2 BD movie. Or stream more channels at the same time. Being efficient this way has a lot of value which may not be so obvious to folks thinking these technologies as simple DVD replacement.

So there you have it. While “we didn’t invent HD DVD, we helped make it better." People had no business inviting us into the forum, if all they wanted was another DVD format :D.

darinp2

03-27-07, 01:18 AM

Your key argument above continues to be the need for more audio tracks because ultimately you may run out of bandwidth if you keep adding them.No. That was the discussion there and seems to be what you try to deflect things toward, without addressing the seamless branching questions. Is your answer to seamless branching to not put the things on the discs, but use downloads for those who want them?

--Darin

vancouver

03-27-07, 02:32 AM

Amir,
With all the rumors about Lord of the Rings I was wondering if you can please make comment to a post which I would like further clarification on.

"King Kong (HD DVD) which we know maxes out the capacity of 30GB DL HD DVD and had to drop the TrueHD track to do it, has a running time of 187 minutes.

Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (Extended Edition) has a running time of 208 minutes

Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (Extended Edition) has a running time of 208 minutes

Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (Extended Edition) has a running time of 250 minutes.

How, pray tell, does New Line Cinema fit any of these movies (particularly LotR: RotK) onto a 30GB HD DVD without seriously degrading PQ, hm?"

Is it possibl to fit 250 minutes of HD material like LOTR ROTK with a TrueHD track onto a 30 gig HD DVD?

Frode

03-27-07, 06:06 AM

Amir would you really say it's reasonable to expect consumers wanting an uncompressed audio track to download a 3.1GB data file (16bit 5.1 LPCM 120 mins)? Or the studios to provide them? Even a DD+ track at 1.5mbps would take up 1.2GB, never mind if you want hi-def audio. Just because it is possible to download additional audio tracks doesn't necessarily mean that it's practical due to bandwidth and storage concerns, wouldn't you say? Storage may scale up, but bandwidth and backbone capacity are and will continue to be the problem for years to come.

trbarry

03-27-07, 07:57 AM

To anyone ...

If you have seemless branching and a lot of memory in the player wouln't it be possible to increase your effective peak bandwidth on multiple uncompressed audio tracks by putting separate large clumps of each language on the disc and just skipping over the ones you weren't playing? Or is the disc already spinning at its maximum speed?

- Tom

RichB

03-27-07, 08:24 AM

I have a Lenovo Notebook with plenty of horsepower. Core Duo 2 Gig/ Ati FireGL graphics processor but no HDCP. Is it permitted under AACS to display HD/BD movies on the LCD display and VEGA out, simulaneously or one at a time?

Thanks,

Rich

jpb123

03-27-07, 09:43 AM

It's coming.

Not sure where you are, but the German market seems strongest (at least from the production of discs). Don't want to get into specifics (I'd get shot), but we're doing TV shows and some recent sporting events.

I'm in Scandinavia. Together with UK, Germany/Netherlands and possibly France/Spain I'm pretty sure we are the markets that have the highest potential for HD to succed, at least in the short term.

It's just that so far there have been little enough released in Europe. Sounds very promising to hear that you are working on material. This obviously means that there are production companies/studios here that are willing to spend to get the formats going. Sounds good.

amirm

03-27-07, 10:35 AM

Amir would you really say it's reasonable to expect consumers wanting an uncompressed audio track to download a 3.1GB data file (16bit 5.1 LPCM 120 mins)?
Why use PCM? Oh, you are thinking of BD format :p. Multi-channel audio compresses really well. I think Dolby claims numbers in the region of 3:1 for TrueHD. Using that, the file size will be just over 1 Gigabyte. Do I think this is reasonable amount of data for someone who really cares about the last bit of audio quality to tolerate downloading? Of course. Otherwise, they probably don't value it enough in the first place.

But note that if there is a market to have the lossless track on disc, that is where it would be. My example talked about secondary lossless tracks being downloaded this way, not necessarily the primary track. Darin used to make this argument and that is what I addressed (i.e. dubbed tracks must also be in lossless).

Or the studios to provide them? Even a DD+ track at 1.5mbps would take up 1.2GB, never mind if you want hi-def audio.
For movie sound, 1.5 mbit/sec most definitely qualifies as "hi-def" audio. Despite lamenting the lack of lossless audio, this is what Peter said in his review of King Kong audio:

"Even with the disappointment still ringing in my ears, I can't deny that 'Kong' roars to life from the very first frame. There is nary a scene in the film that you can't whip out to impress your friends -- and that's saying something on a format that currently boasts home runs like 'Batman Begins' in its growing library. Of course, the many bombastic fight scenes and Kong rampages are sonic nirvana. The Kong vs. Dinos scene is a new home theater classic, as is the extended climax on top of the Empire State Building. The 360-degree soundfield that is created is simply flawless and incredibly immersive. As the bi-planes whizzed by poor Kong's head, I kept rewinding, just to hear the fireworks over and over again. Transparency, pans and the sense of detail and realism to the discrete effects is second-to-none -- 'Kong' didn't win the Oscar for Best Sound for nothing. Dynamics are also incredibly powerful, with some of the tightest low bass you'll ever hear, and pitch perfect frequency response across the entire spectrum.

But beyond the big action sequences, what really impresses about 'King Kong' is its attention to fine detail. The sense of atmosphere is simply the best I've heard on home video -- ever. The early scenes with Jack Black and company near the jungle island are alive with ambience and intricate sound effects. And when the crew is first surrounded by the island savages, the wall of sound that envelopes you is a true aural delight. If you have even a half-decent home theater it is hard to imagine you won't be impressed. And despite such over-the-top sound, dialogue is perfectly balanced in the mix. I never once had to adjust my volume control, which is a true rarity for a film like 'King Kong.' I can't think of a more rave review for the audio presentation on this disc other than to say that while I really didn't like 'King Kong' as a movie, I absolutely loved listening to it. "

If this doesn't sound like “hi-def” audio, I am not sure what would qualify. So let’s not confuse what we “want” with what sounds great. There is a reason Dolby claims that at 1.5 mbit/sec, you can have 24-bit audio which rivals lossless audio. At some point, I should write an article on why such codecs do well in movie sound and with multiple channels. We have a lot of help here which people don’t realize as they think of MP3s heard on headphones.

Just because it is possible to download additional audio tracks doesn't necessarily mean that it's practical due to bandwidth and storage concerns, wouldn't you say?
It most definitely is practical to download extra audio tracks. We are handling full HD movies today that way which are larger than the audio tracks above. If my math is right, I can download the track in your example in half hour on my cable modem. Half an hour! If that isn’t practical, then I don’t know what is.

Storage may scale up, but bandwidth and backbone capacity are and will continue to be the problem for years to come.
You are making a bad assumption here. The movie and all the sound tracks for 99.99% of the people will be on disc, including those who want “hi-def” audio. The question is how to serve the pickiest audiophile, who may want a 24-bit, 96Khz track as opposed to what lossless/high rate DD+ track is on disc. For them, using the internet is perfect. They get what they want and given their small number, we have zero scaling problem.

qz3fwd

03-27-07, 10:38 AM

amirm,

2 Questions
1. Do you have any details on the Battlestar Galactica Season 1 set coming out in the fall? VC-1, AVC, Mpeg2? Any new cool use of networking/interactivity the format provides on this box set?

2. Since you mention Managed Copy:
"Using managed copy, once you rip the content to the server, you can add all the other elements to it with zero regards for bandwidth. After all, even a laptop hard disk has data rates exceeding 2-5X of BD let alone your desktop/server hard disk."
Can you provide any details on the Managed copy functionality? Can I "rip" my discs to my existing storage servers or will I have to buy new hardware? The implication above is that it will work with whatever hardware I already have.

Thank You

amirm

03-27-07, 10:55 AM

amirm,

2 Questions
1. Do you have any details on the Battlestar Galactica Season 1 set coming out in the fall? VC-1, AVC, Mpeg2? Any new cool use of networking/interactivity the format provides on this box set?
I don't have personal details on this project. I can get the info of course, but I am pretty sure I could not get permission to share anything before the release comes out. I am sorry about that.

2. Since you mention Managed Copy:
"Using managed copy, once you rip the content to the server, you can add all the other elements to it with zero regards for bandwidth. After all, even a laptop hard disk has data rates exceeding 2-5X of BD let alone your desktop/server hard disk."
Can you provide any details on the Managed copy functionality? Can I "rip" my discs to my existing storage servers or will I have to buy new hardware? The implication above is that it will work with whatever hardware I already have.

Thank You
Managed copy is a strange beast in that AACS does not stipulate how the copy system works. Instead, AACS reviews and approves technologies used to safeguard the copy and that is it. Once there, it is up to the implementer to design the system as they see fit. To give you an example, let's assume our DRM system is used for the managed copy on disc. In this case, the storage can be on your local or remote server. So indeed, you will be able to use the storage hardware you have today. The client machine though which plays the content, must comply with AACS rules as far as video output control. But that is the same situation if you tried to play the disc, rather than its copy.

properbostonian

03-27-07, 11:30 AM

It is really ironic that it was Disney who showed us the way with interactivity. Yet it is the competing studios executing ahead of them on the very technology they helped create. That out to be creating some pain for them on top of standardization concerns.
Amirm,

FYI - Disney is still touting on their website that interactivity as a major advantage that Blu-ray has over HD-DVD. http://disney.go.com/disneyvideos/bluray/

I for one, always put Disney in a different class than other BD companies. They stand out as one of the few BD companies who have taken the participation in DVD Forum and HD DVD format making seriously. They vote on all the issues instead of abstaining. They worked hand in hand with the rest of us to create the HD DVD interactivity spec. They pushed strongly to make those and audio features mandatory. And they gave the best look at VC-1 than any BD studio. We don't see eye to eye when we step out of the forum to be sure in the optical formats, but share a certain level of respect for each other still.
Amrim,

A few other questions related to Disney.

If you were a betting man how would you rate the chances of Disney going format neutral. On a scale form 1 to 10, one being no chance at all and 10 being an absolute certainty.

I am also curious to know if Disney gave the HD-DVD folks a “courtesy call” and said, “We are going with Blu-ray because…” If they did, what reasons did they give? They list storage capacity first on their website as one of the distinct advantages that Blu-ray has over HD-DVD. Was that the primary reason?

One question that continues to perplex me is this (and maybe I am wrong to think this)...Does Disney, and for that matter all of the BD studios excluding Sony, realize that they are directly supporting a competing studio by support BD?

Thanks,
Danny

UxiSXRD

03-27-07, 11:51 AM

There is a reason Dolby claims that at 1.5 mbit/sec, you can have 24-bit audio which rivals lossless audio. At some point, I should write an article on why such codecs do well in movie sound and with multiple channels. We have a lot of help here which people don’t realize as they think of MP3s heard on headphones.

Would you be happy with ALL HDDVDs choosing DD+ at 1.5 and no TrueHD?

benwaggoner

03-27-07, 11:52 AM

Is it possibl to fit 250 minutes of HD material like LOTR ROTK with a TrueHD track onto a 30 gig HD DVD?
Yep, we discussed this at length a couple of months ago.

We could do the full 1080p24 feature with great-looking VC-1, a TrueHD lossless track, and all the commentary from the 2-disc DVD special edition, on the single side of a single disc.

If the extras were in HD, they'd need to be on a second disc.

jimbology

03-27-07, 12:16 PM

Meatpopsicle

03-27-07, 01:01 PM

House

03-27-07, 01:09 PM

Amir,

Could you possibly give us some definitive info about whether or not the Animatrix will be coming in HD with the Ultimate Matrix Collector's set? If not, why? (I believe TNT-HD have shown segments in true HD in the past.) Is there a chance for a seperate HD release?

Any info appreciated.

Meatpopsicle

03-27-07, 02:06 PM

Yep, we discussed this at length a couple of months ago.

We could do the full 1080p24 feature with great-looking VC-1, a TrueHD lossless track, and all the commentary from the 2-disc DVD special edition, on the single side of a single disc.

If the extras were in HD, they'd need to be on a second disc.

Ben, if this is true, why does the Ultimate Matrix Collection have all double sided discs?

I personally don't care about flipper discs, but judging how many people are complaining in every forum about them, maybe you should offer WB some help in making their Matrix collection like you just described above?

Jon_W

03-27-07, 02:09 PM

Ben, when you guys tested the LOTR on one disc was the audio TrueHD 7.1? Also was it 16, 20, or 24bit?

Amir, late last year you mentioned we would see some TrueHD soundtracks on HD DVD with 20 or 24bit fidelity have they come out yet or do you have any details? Thanks.

JBlacklow

03-27-07, 02:17 PM

AlexBC

03-27-07, 02:57 PM

amirm

03-27-07, 03:20 PM

Amir,

I am excited about managed copy. I am wondering why Microsoft doesn't maybe lead by example and implement a type of managed copy for Xbox 360.

I would love to have hard drive copies of my games so that I don't have to get up and swap discs for every game invite.
Well, no one can implement managed copy yet. The interim AACS agreement under which titles and players are created, left this part out because the terms were not ready. Until the final agreement comes out and stipulates this capability, nothing can be done.

Above and beyond this, infrastructure needs to be set up to issue licenses for managed copy and this is going to take a bit of time also.

amirm

03-27-07, 03:27 PM

Would you be happy with ALL HDDVDs choosing DD+ at 1.5 and no TrueHD?
For movies, yes. For music, no. Note that I say this wrt to what my personal way of experience these two types of content. When I listen to music, I close my eyes and really listen and can detect anything that might interfere with that enjoyment. With movies, I am busy following the story, getting rumbled on explosions, and enjoying the great production/acting. As such, I just don't nitpick the soundtrack like I would with music. And 1.5 mbit/sec DD+ sounds just great to me. And if I am satisfied, I know a ton of people are too.

For marketing reasons though, if I were king, I would want to offer lossless on select titles where it would add to the perception of something better being there.

amirm

03-27-07, 03:49 PM

To any insider,
There is a lot of debate currently going on regarding extras and interactivity in the new HD formats. My question is ,what research has been done by the studios, if any, into the desires of the consumer for these features in the new HD formats?
Thanks in advance.
There are two types of research which I am aware of:

1. Research that shows large majority of people who watch a movie in the theater, have no interest in buying it again on DVD. This is untapped market for them with pretty high potential for revenues. To the extent they can make the experience different on physical delivery, then they could benefit greatly here.

2. Consumer interest/usage exists in extras in DVD format, but is small. The hope is that with much extended capability in the form of interactivity such as in HDi for HD DVD, they could change the dynamics.

I have the specifics on both but unfortunately, don't know if we can share it. But suffice it to say, millions of dollars has been spent in researching, spec'ing and development of products to do all of this. So you can imagine, there is some foundation to it :).

Of course, the research could be wrong. But so could bottoms up data from consumers. Many times, consumers don’t have tangible enough test cases in front of them to provide informed opinions. Asking them paper questions is an entirely different matter, than sitting them down, and showing them what Miami Vice on HD DVD is doing for example. We show this title to people and even those who have the HD DVD, are amazed at what is there and walk away wanting to experience it again on their own, and show it off to people.

RichB

03-27-07, 04:06 PM

darinp2

03-27-07, 04:52 PM

Chevron07

03-27-07, 05:09 PM

Well, no one can implement managed copy yet. The interim AACS agreement under which titles and players are created, left this part out because the terms were not ready. Until the final agreement comes out and stipulates this capability, nothing can be done.

Above and beyond this, infrastructure needs to be set up to issue licenses for managed copy and this is going to take a bit of time also.

edit - yeah what darin said ^^ :D

Amir,

Not to beat a dead horse, but I think the previous poster was talking about Microsoft showing the video content owners what can be done with managed copy by blazing the path with their games.

I thought MS had their own security measures that aren't part of AACS, and are not held to agreements made by other companies? The infrastructure should already be in place via the Live network.

Meatpopsicle

03-27-07, 05:12 PM

Do games use AACS? I read the question as asking whether Microsoft would implement managed copy for "Gears of War" and other Microsoft games. Would the delay for AACS keep Microsoft from doing that, and if not, is Microsoft willing to lead by example by providing managed copy for their content?

--Darin

Yes, this is what my question was about. I know AACS is taking forever with managed copy for a myriad of reasons. My logic is, if Microsoft were to stick their foot out, and allow such a thing with games, then maybe consumer demand will amplify, realizing how cool it is and desire the same thing with movies. (Of course, I'm assuming the AACS has no say whatsoever in MSFT doing their own similar thing with games)

I potentially see HD DVD really getting a lot of attention with Managed Copy. However, it's one of those features that really needs to be seen, and used, to realize how valuable it is (much like Tivo).

I think if Microsoft released an update to the 360 allowing this with games (we all know the 120 gig hard drives are less than a month away, even if Amir can't comment) it would, perhaps, put a fire under the whole movement for Managed Copy. Especially with studios that may be reluctant about it. I have confidence that Microsoft could show the studios/AACS that if Microsoft, being the software powerhouse they are, could implement a robust version of their own, proving to AACS/studios that it's not so scary or hard.

stoked

03-27-07, 06:40 PM

The question is how to serve the pickiest audiophile, who may want a 24-bit, 96Khz track as opposed to what lossless/high rate DD+ track is on disc. For them, using the internet is perfect. They get what they want and given their small number, we have zero scaling problem.

Having alternate higher quality soundtracks available for download sounds great but is this something we'll actually get or are you describing technology solutions that will likely never be implemented? What is the likelihood this will see the light of day?

robena

03-27-07, 07:38 PM

Meet Joe Black has been announced for May 26.

The D-Theater version was very bad, almost looking as an upconvert due to a very poor master.

Will the HD-DVD version use a new transfer, or can we expect the same DVD like (lack of) quality?

benwaggoner

03-27-07, 07:51 PM

Is this purely from a space perspective, or are you including bandwidth concerns as well?
Yes, considering both space and bandwidth. Wouldn't even need statmux.

dialog_gvf

03-27-07, 08:45 PM

Ah, it is easy to get lost as we are talking about very esoteric concepts here. But yes, digital can also be impacted although the effect here is not as predictable or as large.

If relatively low frequency analog audio is so affected, what about the analog video outputs?

Gary

polyh3dron

03-27-07, 08:50 PM

Amir: Do you know why Universal, HD DVD's 2nd biggest non-Toshiba cheerleader doesn't get any new releases in their studio store on the lot? I work on the lot and there's a big HD DVD poster ad right next to one advertising Children of Men on DVD and HD DVD, and when I go into the store the newest Universal HD DVD movie they have in there is Seabiscuit I think. No Hulk, no Tokyo Drift, no Miami Vice and no Children of Men. They're not sold out either, they just never got them. Maybe you're the wrong person to ask about this but it's bugging me because the main reason I got the 360 add-on was for Universal movies and the fact that I would be able to get them for cheap at the Studio Store. Do you know why this is happening?

It also doesn't get the best message across about their commitment to HD DVD.

amirm

03-27-07, 10:01 PM

If relatively low frequency analog audio is so affected, what about the analog video outputs?

Gary
Very different situation. Here we are talking about 8-bit signals, not 16 or 24-bits. And compared to your ear, your eye is as dumb as it gets when it comes to perceiving distortion :).

To give you some sense, the ear may be able to detect 200 picosecond worth of timing jitter. This is 200 out of a billion seconds worth of variation! In contrast, I can shift the tint on your TV by 10% and you may not even notice! Thankfully, the ear also has pretty nice blind spots and we take advantage of to compress audio. But still, this is one darn complex organ which we don’t fully understand.

amirm

03-27-07, 11:07 PM

Do games use AACS? I read the question as asking whether Microsoft would implement managed copy for "Gears of War" and other Microsoft games. Would the delay for AACS keep Microsoft from doing that, and if not, is Microsoft willing to lead by example by providing managed copy for their content?

--Darin
No, AACS is not used for games by us or Sony. Recall that we shipped our 360 console well before AACS was even ready. But putting that aside, AACS is designed for A/V content. There are specifications on how to bind it to HD DVD and BD specs. There are no provisions for using it with binary games.

On top of technical issues, there are matters of governance. Studios in AACS have power over licensees who implement it in their product. It makes no sense to have them have the same privilege over games as that is not their content. AACS is licensed separately for movie discs and players. Consoles however, are not as they are often sold at zero to negative profit. As such, the hardware owner must have some control over software distributed on it and make profits there. AACS has no provision to allow for this. And companies who put their patents in AACS, did so under the context of movie distribution, not games.

I can go on but really, but these are just separate animals designed for different applications.

amirm

03-27-07, 11:09 PM

amirm

03-27-07, 11:10 PM

I have listened to many sound tracks DD+, True-HD, and LPCM (BD) and I find that I have preferred the LPCM. I am playing on a HTPC with PowerDVD and an X-FI XtremeMusic and X-Meridian. Is it possible, that the decoders/drivers are coming into play here and that better software could improve them or is it more likely the difficulty in comparing different sources?

- Rich
Yes, there can be issues with decoders. But a much bigger problem is that the levels are not the same for any of this. They could be off by as much as 4db or more (i.e. twice as loud). This can make a huge difference in perception of audio "quality."

Put another way, studios are not interested in creating simple benchmark discs for you all to do this kind of comparison. I wish Dobly would provide some data but they have not either.

amirm

03-27-07, 11:36 PM

No. That was the discussion there and seems to be what you try to deflect things toward, without addressing the seamless branching questions. Is your answer to seamless branching to not put the things on the discs, but use downloads for those who want them?

--Darin
Sorry, I thought you were only making a statement with your question, and not really asking anything. So here it goes.

HD DVD absolutely can handle seamless branching and has specifications to back the capability. You asked if I know of more titles than MI3 that do it, presumably implying that the capability is not there due to lack of titles. I don't know but then again, I am not a walking encyclopedia of 300 titles out there. :) But I would not be surprised to hear it is the only one. To understand why, you have to step back and think of what this feature is really about.

The big problem studios have is that when someone goes to a movie, they are so much less likely to buy the same movie on DVD. So they want to do anything in their power to make the DVD experience different. Branching is one technique where they could show you a different version of the movie and in the process, making you think you are buying something new. It takes more work to create such a title and of course, you need to have the other segments to patch up. Hence the reason very few DVDs have it.

In HD DVD, we have a much wider palette of interactivity to build on. We have full application language, dual video decode, real-time 1080p graphics, animations, video scaling under program control, internet connectivity, etc., etc. All of this has gotten the creative types far more excited than trying to recreate the DVD experience with branching (which requires having more of the movie to stitch up). And by using techniques not in DVD, they get to entice you to buy even DVDs you already own. All of this explains why the interest in seamless branching in the classic sense is not there.

I said “classic” for a reason as we are working on developing tools to make it much easier to handle seamless branching. Why? Because it will be used for a completely different application. I can’t say what it is but I will say that you will not know it is even there! It won’t be used to advertise a feature to you, but will help reduce the cost of producing titles. And fortunately for us, the issue of making sure the data rate at the splice point is managed, is a totally non-issue for this application. The request has come from a major studio btw.

FYI, and to partially answer Tom’s question earlier, HD DVD requires a 64 mbit sector buffer which can essentially buffer any seeks across the disc. The drive runs faster than real-time and as such, is able to fill the buffer after a short while, letting us read out of the buffer while the drive seeks to another sector. So we don’t need to deal with kludges such as using “angles” and such to manage seamless branches. One simply makes a playlists and jumps to it as soon as the buffer is filled.

amirm

03-27-07, 11:53 PM

"King Kong (HD DVD) which we know maxes out the capacity of 30GB DL HD DVD and had to drop the TrueHD track to do it, has a running time of 187 minutes.
Nothing was ever dropped from King Kong. This is a myth propegated by BD fans/companies which has never been grounded on facts. Next time someone mentions it to you, ask them which Universal titles used lossless before that. They won't find much. Hey, ask them if they know who encoded the title. I bet they don't know that either, let alone have any knowledge of what decisions went to this superb, reference quality A/V encode.

If people want to compain that they didn't get everything they were due on on this HD DVD disc, then they should complain about every title out there....

RobertR1

03-28-07, 12:09 AM

JRad

03-28-07, 12:48 AM

Amir,

One of my favorite things on HD DVD are the music discs. They look and sound awesome. With that being said, has there been any talk of possibly bringing VH1's Storyteller series or MTV's Unplugged series to HD DVD? It would be a perfect fit. I have seen few lately in HD that would be big sellers if transferred to HD DVD. Thank you for the time and effort you put into this forum, I am addicted to it, much to my wife's chagrin. :)

Thanks,
JRad

mentho

03-28-07, 01:14 AM

Amir,

Now that the Xbox 360 Elite is official http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2007/mar07/03-27Xbox360ElitePR.mspx

How will audio be handled on HD DVD. Will there be an option for TruHD 5.1 be decoded internally and sent over as PCM to the receiver?

Also, one of the tech sites a month or two back did a DVD test on the 360. Now I understand that the 360 is not primarily a DVD player. However the site found a few playback video quality issues which they stated could easily be fixed with software updates if MS choose to do so. Has MS chosen to address those issues?

Thanks,
Robert.

I would like to know the answer to this question too. Also will the Elite upscale regular DVDs to 1080p over HDMI (the press release made it sound like it would)?

John Haghighi

03-28-07, 01:31 AM

Amir,

Now that the Xbox 360 Elite is official http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2007/mar07/03-27Xbox360ElitePR.mspx

How will audio be handled on HD DVD. Will there be an option for TruHD 5.1 be decoded internally and sent over as PCM to the receiver?

Also, one of the tech sites a month or two back did a DVD test on the 360. Now I understand that the 360 is not primarily a DVD player. However the site found a few playback video quality issues which they stated could easily be fixed with software updates if MS choose to do so. Has MS chosen to address those issues?

Thanks,
Robert.

Other questions regarding the audio and video:

-Will it decode and transport DTS-HD MA over HDMI

-Will the lipsync issues be resolved

-Will there be on option to choose IRE settings 7.5 vs. 0

-Will there be an option to select YCBCR or RGB over HDMI, will RGB

-Will it support WMV-HD playback!

-Will there be a Blu-ray drive add-on (just curious ;0)

bkilian

03-28-07, 01:48 AM

-Will it support WMV-HD playback!I have no idea about any of your other questions, but I asked this same question when I first joined the HD DVD team (which also contained a number of people who worked on WMV-HD), and it was explained to me that WMV-HD would most probably never be supported on the XBox 360, due to the way they do security on the discs.

benwaggoner

03-28-07, 01:57 AM

Ben, when you guys tested the LOTR on one disc was the audio TrueHD 7.1? Also was it 16, 20, or 24bit?

I think we were talking about 7.1 20-bit 48 KHz.

John Haghighi

03-28-07, 01:57 AM

I have no idea about any of your other questions, but I asked this same question when I first joined the HD DVD team (which also contained a number of people who worked on WMV-HD), and it was explained to me that WMV-HD would most probably never be supported on the XBox 360, due to the way they do security on the discs.

Well it requires a network connection, if they are not going to support it w/360, I'd like to see the same IMAX titles out on HD DVD format with a swap program. I am sure Amir can convince them to do VC-1 encodes...

By the way you can actually get some WMV-HD's to play on the 360 using WMC, but it's painful to navigate...

Ian_S

03-28-07, 02:25 AM

For movies, yes. For music, no. Note that I say this wrt to what my personal way of experience these two types of content. When I listen to music, I close my eyes and really listen and can detect anything that might interfere with that enjoyment. With movies, I am busy following the story, getting rumbled on explosions, and enjoying the great production/acting. As such, I just don't nitpick the soundtrack like I would with music. And 1.5 mbit/sec DD+ sounds just great to me. And if I am satisfied, I know a ton of people are too.

For marketing reasons though, if I were king, I would want to offer lossless on select titles where it would add to the perception of something better being there.No offence intended Amir, having met you I think you're a very likeable guy, with a very good (almost Woody Allen-esque) way of telling stuff, however, I'm not sure I can take any comments on SQ that seriously from the team that gave us a DD+ decoder stuck in night mode.

To those of us who bought the Xbox HD-DVD player on launch (over 4 months ago now :eek: ), it was apparent that something was wrong from day one. We've heard various excuses including from yourself that part of the problem was due to downsampling to DD. None of that was particularly believable when good old fashioned DD at 448kbps on DVD sounded much better. Even broadcast DD 5.1 in the UK on SkyHD sounds better and I hate to think what starved bitrate they're using.

It is completely unacceptable for something so simple to fix, that a fix has STILL NOT been provided. My patience (and many others) is now wearing extremely thin as quite frankly, as it stands, the device is not fit for purpose. We need a date for the update NOW please, and I think the time has come where if MS were serious about HD-DVD and their customers that some sort of compensation should be offered to owners by way of an apology. A free HD-DVD would be a good start. I know I am not alone when I say that because the SQ is so un-enjoyable on the majority of discs, I have not been buying them, and those I have do not get played much because the sound is so flat.

No more excuses please.

As for DD+ 1.5Mbps for films, I have one question. Does DD+ limit you to 16bits?

ckong

03-28-07, 02:52 AM

I am with Ian on this one. I am not sure what the 'quality matrix' status on your end but the quality matrix on our end is pretty bad. :)

Spring is already upon us, please just release the DD+ fix.

Wolfcastle

03-28-07, 03:28 AM

I am with Ian on this one. I am not sure what the 'quality matrix' status on your end but the quality matrix on our end is pretty bad. :)

Spring is already upon us, please just release the DD+ fix.
Perhaps the delay was in getting TrueHD and DTS-HD MA decoding lumped into the update so that the Elite can get these at launch? Amir, care to comment on my speculation?:D

a.holck

03-28-07, 03:32 AM

As for DD+ 1.5Mbps for films, I have one question. Does DD+ limit you to 16bits?

No, up to 24 bits

deebeenine

03-28-07, 04:30 AM

Hello Amir!

Will the Xbox 360 Elite have a HDMI 1.3 Output and use HDMI to transport PCM-Multichannel and Bitstream Audio?

paidgeek

03-28-07, 05:58 AM

Paidgeek,

are you still around?

With the recent announcement of Meatballs on BD, will it carry the original audio in uncompressed or lossless form? I'd be glad if you could comment on Revenge as well, since it went un-answered.

Thanks

Alex,

I am not in the office, but the information forwarded to me shows that "Meatballs" has a 5.1 LPCM 16/48, 5.1 DD 640Kbps, and 2ch DD 192Kbps.

"Revenge" has a 5.1 LPCM 16/48 and 5.1 DD 640Kbps. It shows the 5.1 as being an orignal version, so without doing any further research, this should not be a conversion.

FrancescoP

03-28-07, 06:07 AM

A question for Amir:

Will the Xbox 360 Elite upscale DVD movies via HDMI to 1080p? Or is the upscaling still limited to VGA output?

And there will be a 24hz option for HD DVD output via HDMI?

paidgeek

03-28-07, 06:09 AM

Yes, there can be issues with decoders. But a much bigger problem is that the levels are not the same for any of this. They could be off by as much as 4db or more (i.e. twice as loud). This can make a huge difference in perception of audio "quality."

Put another way, studios are not interested in creating simple benchmark discs for you all to do this kind of comparison. I wish Dobly would provide some data but they have not either.

Look for a couple of Sony Pictures titles to have both LPCM 16/48 and DD THD 20bit (dial norm off) to experiment with. The first disc out will be "Stomp the Yard", others to follow.

rover2002

03-28-07, 06:24 AM

Look for a couple of Sony Pictures titles to have both LPCM 16/48 and DD THD 20bit (dial norm off) to experiment with. The first disc out will be "Stomp the Yard", others to follow.
Which current BR players will decode DD THD?
Ta.

paidgeek

03-28-07, 06:25 AM

Which current BR players will decode DD THD?
Ta.

PS3, Others to follow soon..

rover2002

03-28-07, 06:29 AM

PS3, Others to follow soon..
In that case why has W Bros not included DD THD on there BR titles?
Ta.

Grandmaster

03-28-07, 06:56 AM

Amir,

Some additional Xbox 360 Elite questions in addition to the ones already posed, if you don't mind!

1. Is HDCP enabled for gameplay as well as HD DVD playback?

2. What type of HDMI output is used: YPrPb 4:2:2, YPrPb 4:4:4 or 24-bit RGB?

3. What resolutions are supported with the HDMI output?

The reason I ask is that Microsoft has always strongly supported all types of LCD and plasma monitor with the 360. HDCP off for gameplay, combined with a 24-bit RGB output would ensure compatibility with millions of conventional DVI monitors out there, in addition to the HDMI displays. The same selectable resolutions as offered with VGA (plus 1080i) would also be valuable in offering 1:1 pixel mapping on the majority of displays out there.

PS3 offers none of these things, being HDCP-enabled all the time, and only offering 480p, 720p, 1080i and 1080p resolutions.

SiggiG

03-28-07, 07:09 AM

Also what kind of audio formats will the HDMI support? 16, 20, 24bit? upto 192KHz ? In the PS3 you can set what audio resolution (and number of speakers) your receiver can handle.

aaronwt

03-28-07, 08:11 AM

Will the new 360 Elite still be able to have a VGA output? I would use HDMI for watching some movies and VGA for playing games since my TV doesn't produce any lag when using the VGA input.

Schlotkins

03-28-07, 08:23 AM

PS3, Others to follow soon..

Paidgeek-

With the current Sony player be upgraded to TrueHD?

Thanks,
Chris

nightvet

03-28-07, 08:30 AM

Amir,

Now that the 360 Elite is official, did you really suggest that early adopters that have been screwed over should just buy ANOTHER 360 to have the functionality of the Elite? I can only begin to describe how offensive that is. Since I assume the HDMI functionality is a hardware change, does MS really have no intention of offering an upgrade path beyond buy another one? What makes this so egregious is the fact that MS had outright stated there would be no HDMI on 360. So much for trusting what MS states publicly.

mburnstein

03-28-07, 08:34 AM

Amir,
The King Kong displays 1080i source from my XBOX 360 component connection into my 1080p monitor. Is this a function of the xbox 360 or the HD-DVD add on vs. the disc itself? My monitor receives 1080p games from xbox setting, so xbox 360 does output 1080p component. Will HD DVD add on with xbox 360 output any 1080p HD DVD's, and which ones are 1080p? And does this XBOX 360 Elite have a built in HD-DVD player, or still needs the HD-DVD add on???
Thanks

aaronwt

03-28-07, 08:52 AM

HD DVD is limited to 1080i over component. Limited by AACS(Advanced Access Content System).

mobius

03-28-07, 09:12 AM

Amir, Ben, et al...

I'm also interested in knowing if the 360 Elite's HDMI will allow any of the following: DTS-HD, TrueHD, and/or DD+ output.

Thanks

BuGsArEtAsTy

03-28-07, 09:17 AM

I think we were talking about 7.1 20-bit 48 KHz.
So, just to clarify:

Was this the 4+ hour LOTR: ROTK extended version with TrueHD 7.1 20/48? Somebody had mentioned that a few pages back. If that's really the one, that's very impressive, and essentially makes triple-layer HD DVD moot. Any other audio tracks?

P.S. What was the average bitrate for the TrueHD track, something like 3 Mbps? I'm guessing that because of the pic below.

http://fioswatch.com/downloads/TrueHD.png

paidgeek

03-28-07, 10:02 AM

Paidgeek-

With the current Sony player be upgraded to TrueHD?

Thanks,
Chris

It is not out of the question, but I really don't know....

Kampf kobold

03-28-07, 10:10 AM

As a HD-DVD supporter, why Microsoft didn`t include a HD-DVD drive in the Xbox360 Elite version? The first sign Microsoft to support Blu-ray in the future?

DaViD Boulet

03-28-07, 10:15 AM

Nothing was ever dropped from King Kong. This is a myth propegated by BD fans/companies which has never been grounded on facts. Next time someone mentions it to you, ask them which Universal titles used lossless before that. They won't find much. Hey, ask them if they know who encoded the title. I bet they don't know that either, let alone have any knowledge of what decisions went to this superb, reference quality A/V encode.

Amir,

perhaps the better way to address this question is to clarify if a 16, 20, or 24-bit Dolby True HD track (48 kHz) *could* have been authored on the King Kong HD DVD. If there's room... then great, we've just got a studio not making audiophile decisions and we need to let them know we want lossless audio (as we should get with every HD DVD or BD title... PERIOD).

If there's *not* room to accomodate the lossless track, then regardless of Universal's pattern of providing or not providing lossless, or their intentions with this particular title, that's an important consideration given the limitations of the format.

Any information you can share? Is there space on the King Kong HD DVD to accomodate a lossless audio track in Dolby TrueHD? And at what resolution?

It's so frustrating that so many of the studios producing oustanding HD DVDs seem so reluctant to provide lossless audio.

Also, please echo our sentiment to any studio contact you have to leave Dialog Normalization set to off (-31 db) for all lossless encodings. It's counterproductive to encode a bit-for-bit copy of the master and then force data-recaluclation from the output of your Dolby Decoder so you can never achieve bit-for-bit accuracy. Also, 16-bit encodes from 20 and 24 bit masters are not "lossless", they merely avoid psychoacoustic data compression artifacting. Lossless is a comprehensive term that should mean "bit for bit". Anything less than a bit-for-bit copy of that original PCM master is NOT Lossless.

madshi

03-28-07, 10:22 AM

@paidgeek, would you mind checking this question of mine (from a few pages ago) out?

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=10127475&&#post10127475

DaViD Boulet

03-28-07, 10:30 AM

I second the desire to see high-definition trailers. For a chance, I would *enjoy* previews instead of do my best to avoid them.

Paidgeek,

thanks for taking to heart our request for no dialog-normalization with your Dolby TrueHD encodes!

Question, when you get a chance, could you comment on the possibility for using the 2nd video stream on Blu-ray for 3-D capability? It seems to me that since BD can provide full 1080p24 quality on the 2nd video stream (and has the bandwidth to do a fine compression of both primary and secondary video streams that share the same "pipe"), it would be an incredible way to get high-fidelity 3-D encoding because you could support both 1080p24 streams side-by-side on the disc. A firmware-updated BD player could matrix them into a single 1080p48 stream for output for those with synchonrized LCD shutter glasses, or possibly a high-end BD player with dual HDMI output could power two projector devices for high-end 3-D projection.

In any case, have you heard of any source consider this application for 3-D encoding? I realize Sony may not have the world's largest library of 3-D movies, but I'm wondering if you've heard conversation about this or ever considered it as a possibility for the format in general.

thanks!

benwaggoner

03-28-07, 10:52 AM

So, just to clarify:

Was this the 4+ hour LOTR: ROTK extended version with TrueHD 7.1 20/48? Somebody had mentioned that a few pages back. If that's really the one, that's very impressive, and essentially makes triple-layer HD DVD moot. Any other audio tracks?
Yes, that was the above. We also assumed carrying over all the other commentary tracks from the original 4-disc set. Basically, the goal is to provide the complete experience of the first two discs of that set, on one side of one disc, in great HD.

P.S. What was the average bitrate for the TrueHD track, something like 3 Mbps? I'm guessing that because of the pic below.

http://fioswatch.com/downloads/TrueHD.png
That's probably ballpark right, but you can't precisely predict average MLP bandwidth in advance, since it's intrinsically VBR.

mcrexx

03-28-07, 12:01 PM

hi Amir.

Will current XBOX360 owners (like myself) be able to purchase a compatible HDMI cable for use with our 360's or will those who want HDMI be forced to pay for a whole new 360?

Thank you for you time.

DaViD Boulet

03-28-07, 12:34 PM

And here comes my usual question which is still awaiting a satifactory answer...

BD and HD DVD insiders... why is WB still omitting Dolby TrueHD lossless tracks on BD titles when those lossless tracks are provided on corresponding HD DVD titles? Telling me that Dolby TrueHD decoding isn't required in BD hardware isn't a real answer and is a redherring since all BD players can provide a listenable 640 kbps DD core from a Dolby TrueHD stream (not to mention that the PS3 has decoding and so will most other BD players shortly).

From the sidelines it looks like WB is leveraging this short-changing of their BD titles to boost HD DVD sales of affected titles. Any thoughts? Is this going to change?

roma_victor

03-28-07, 12:34 PM

To any BD insiders:
I am currently a HD DVD owner but am considering buying a PS3 primarily for BD; can you tell me if after Oct. PS3s will be required to support 1.1?
The reason I ask is that, if I remember right, BD insider Talk mentioned in another thread that CEs can't make new models that don't support 1.1 after the cutoff, but are still allowed to continue manufacturing EXISTING models that don't support 1.1 after the cutoff;
assuming the PS3 counts as an existing model, is the PS3 grandfathered in with respect to not being required to support 1.1? Thanks.

Meatpopsicle

03-28-07, 12:35 PM

Amir,

What makes this so egregious is the fact that MS had outright stated there would be no HDMI on 360. So much for trusting what MS states publicly.

Absolutely not true. What Microsoft said was that HDMI could not be added to the current Xbox. It's physically impossible. So they did the only thing they could do.

I really feel bad for Amir logging into AVSforum today having all these Xbox questions and he doesn't even work in the Xbox division! :)

Benwaggoner, I am very intrigued by your statements regarding LOTR: EE being possible on one side. I am still wondering why, then, WB wants to use flippers for Matrix.

I am very curious how this works in the encode. It is my impression that you can use the full capacity of a disc in an encode, but that doesn't mean you couldn't shrink it down considerably without quality loss given the right tools and effort, is that correct?

To help me understand better.... If you were given the job of encoding King Kong with your most current tools, how much smaller than it's current 29GB size do you think you could make it without any loss in PQ?

captaincelluloid

03-28-07, 12:36 PM

Amir a/o Ben

The Universal CHILDREN OF MEN combo disc does not play in HD on my G1 firmware.
First, GREAT film. I'm glad to have it but . . . . I want HD.
My questions:

1 -- For what reasons does the old firmware NOT play this disc.
2 -- What is the rationale for the COMBO disc in general?

To wit;

It plays the Universal logo so why not play the movie . . . I have no problems with the PIP on U-571 and THE BOURNE WHATEVER and TERMINATOR THREE What is it about these CHILDREN OF MEN interactive extras that does not play.

. . . . and then why doesn't the LADY IN THE WATER disc with NO interactive content play on G1 firmware.

Being able to upgrade firmware is a good thing - - being FORCED to upgrade is NOT such a good thing.

What market segment is the combo disc aimed at?

A combo does NOT do us any favors in terms of price . . so what's the reason for it. -- $ 20 for BATMAN BEGINS, $ 36 for CHILDREN OF MEN combo $ 38 for KISS KISS BANG BANG combo. Where is the logic in that?

AND when considered with the release of a separate FULL SCREEN version
the combo makes even less sense RE: the multiple inventory argument . . .

If they want to release a combo disc for what reason do they not just release
ONLY the combo disc. Seems logical and helpful to inventories.

For the record -- I, for one of many, am imore nterested in GOOD content than INTERACTIVE content . . . . and thus far I am underwhelmed . . . . and annoyed that some discs don't play on a 6 month old player . . .

I know I'm running the initial firmware for my HD-A1 [ upgrading as soon as I get the disc] but still . . . . six months and new discs don't play . . . at all.

Not great.

I know you're not marketing guys but I have appreciated your insights into marketing.

best,

--

BuGsArEtAsTy

03-28-07, 12:54 PM

Yes, that was the above. We also assumed carrying over all the other commentary tracks from the original 4-disc set. Basically, the goal is to provide the complete experience of the first two discs of that set, on one side of one disc, in great HD.

That's probably ballpark right, but you can't precisely predict average MLP bandwidth in advance, since it's intrinsically VBR.
Sweet. Great to hear. :)

So basically this is the nail the coffin for triple-layer? ;)

Amir,

perhaps the better way to address this question is to clarify if a 16, 20, or 24-bit Dolby True HD track (48 kHz) *could* have been authored on the King Kong HD DVD. If there's room... then great, we've just got a studio not making audiophile decisions and we need to let them know we want lossless audio (as we should get with every HD DVD or BD title... PERIOD).

If there's *not* room to accomodate the lossless track, then regardless of Universal's pattern of providing or not providing lossless, or their intentions with this particular title, that's an important consideration given the limitations of the format.

Any information you can share? Is there space on the King Kong HD DVD to accomodate a lossless audio track in Dolby TrueHD? And at what resolution?
To expand on that question... Is it confirmed that King Kong has a 1.5 Mbps Dolby Digital Plus track? If so, is it safe to say that it likely would have been possible to have a Dolby TrueHD track at 1.4 Mbps average at 5.1 16/48 (although there'd also be a secondary English DD+ track, say at 448 Kbps).

To put it another way, marketing concerns aside, do you feel that the need for TrueHD 5.1 16/48 is overblown, when 1.5 Mbps DD+ is available?

And one last technical question which I think I asked before but if I did, I've forgotten the answer...

Under the mandatory specs of HD DVD, TrueHD 2.0 is required. What does that mean with a TrueHD 5.1 track? I know that all current players fully decode TrueHD 5.1. However, if say a low end HD DVD manufacturer were to include only the bare minimum TrueHD 2.0 support on a player this year, does that mean the player would not recognize a TrueHD 5.1 track at all? Or does it mean that it can somehow partially deal with a TrueHD 5.1 track?

For the sake of disc space, it'd be nice to have the scenario that the only original language track would be TrueHD, instead of having to have both TrueHD and a Dolby Digital Plus track. (I'm suspecting that bare minimum spec players would not understand TrueHD 5.1 at all, since every disc I've ever seen with TrueHD has also had an accompanying Dolby Digital Plus track.)

jimbology

03-28-07, 01:45 PM

Ben or Amir,
There was a statement in another thread saying the disc authors for the Nine Inch Nails HD-DVD could not do seamless branching on that HD-DVD due to limitations of the format. Since Amir stated that HD-DVD could seamless branching do you have any comments/insight into this issue ?
Thanks in advance

Nick Graham

03-28-07, 02:10 PM

Amir,

Now that it's official and I assume you are free to talk about it, any chance whatsoever an upgrade program will be offered to existing 360 Premium owners?
I think there are more than a few folks who would gladly pay a reasonable fee for an upgrade.

Also, will the Elite model decode TrueHD into PCM, and then pass the PCM through the HDMI port like my HD-A1 does?

cyberbri

03-28-07, 02:11 PM

Absolutely not true. What Microsoft said was that HDMI could not be added to the current Xbox. It's physically impossible. So they did the only thing they could do.

To add to that, here is basically official confirmation from another MS insider (from his blog):

http://ozymandias.com/archive/2007/03/28/Elite-Xbox-360-SKU-Announced.aspx#comments

Will there be an HDMI cable released for us early adopters? If not that kinda sucks. Also, can one buy the new bigger HD?
Unfortunately there will not be an HDMI adapter released for the original 360. The HDMI spec is basically a 2-way street and requires the specific port on both sides to be enabled. This is why we had to change the box.
Yes, we did announce that you'll be able to buy the bigger HD for $179 at retail.

scaesare

03-28-07, 02:33 PM

For anybody in the know regarding HD DVD audio formats (Ben?, Amir?):

In a seperate thread, benes made this post (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=10125989&&#post10125989) regarding some data he's extrapolated from disc analysis:

Lossless audio uses a variable bitrate. But the 16bit tracks usually average out to about 1.5Mbps and the 24bit are around 4Mbps.

To which I squinted my eyes, frowned, and replied (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=10138820&&#post10138820):

That's odd. Even if there was unique audible data out to the LSB, I'd expect only 50% greater data rate for 50% greater bits. In other words if 16bit = 1.5Mb then 24bit = 2.25Mb. Reality suggests that the lower bits might be even more compressible than that worst-case scenario.

Why do your numbers suggest 50% more bits generates 166% greater bitrate?

What am I missing?

We haven't seemed to be able to come up with a good answer for this. Can anybody shed some insight on this? Is our math screwed up? Or are the assumptions about what's in the tracks and their file sizes incorrect?

Thanks.

JBlacklow

03-28-07, 02:35 PM

Amir, Ben, et al...

I'm also interested in knowing if the 360 Elite's HDMI will allow any of the following: DTS-HD, TrueHD, and/or DD+ output.

ThanksI just wanted to expand on this: Will the 360 Elite be able to decode any of the advanced codecs? If not, is the 360 Elite HDMI v1.3, in order to pass the bitstream?

Ian_S

03-28-07, 02:58 PM

Amir,

perhaps the better way to address this question is to clarify if a 16, 20, or 24-bit Dolby True HD track (48 kHz) *could* have been authored on the King Kong HD DVD. If there's room... then great, we've just got a studio not making audiophile decisions and we need to let them know we want lossless audio (as we should get with every HD DVD or BD title... PERIOD).

If there's *not* room to accomodate the lossless track, then regardless of Universal's pattern of providing or not providing lossless, or their intentions with this particular title, that's an important consideration given the limitations of the format.

Any information you can share? Is there space on the King Kong HD DVD to accomodate a lossless audio track in Dolby TrueHD? And at what resolution?

It's so frustrating that so many of the studios producing oustanding HD DVDs seem so reluctant to provide lossless audio.

Also, please echo our sentiment to any studio contact you have to leave Dialog Normalization set to off (-31 db) for all lossless encodings. It's counterproductive to encode a bit-for-bit copy of the master and then force data-recaluclation from the output of your Dolby Decoder so you can never achieve bit-for-bit accuracy. Also, 16-bit encodes from 20 and 24 bit masters are not "lossless", they merely avoid psychoacoustic data compression artifacting. Lossless is a comprehensive term that should mean "bit for bit". Anything less than a bit-for-bit copy of that original PCM master is NOT Lossless.Using the HD-DVD of Kong given away with the HD-DVD drive in the UK...

Total disc size in bytes is 29,939,531,776. Very close to 30,000,000,000 which in the storage world is usually the number taken to be the capacity of 30GB, which is not the binary number for 30GB...

PowerDVD reports the main soundtrack as being 1536kbps, which at 188mins run time gives 2,169,990KB or thereabouts as the number of KB for the English soundtrack in constant bitrate DD+. The main HD-DVD folder contains two large files, one 14,131,165,185 bytes, the other 14,580,510,720 bytes, giving a total of 28,711,675,905 bytes.

Ther are five non-English soundtracks that are a whopping(!) 384kbps DD+ each, short changed or what, that would amount for another 2,707,200KB. I gues you're just unlucky if you don't speak English and are into sound quality.

This disc contains no extras, and the subtitle MAP files are very small a few MB in total.

If you said a TrueHD track was 3.0Mbps average then if you chop any other languages you might fit it on. Of course if you wanted French, German, Italian, Spanish and Japanese people to experience even 1.5Mbps DD+ then you would appear to have a problem.

Perhaps the HD-DVD insiders can tell us how longer films with better soundtracks AND IME will pan out here.

amirm

03-28-07, 03:06 PM

mentho

03-28-07, 03:35 PM

Amir,

Now that it's official and I assume you are free to talk about it, any chance whatsoever an upgrade program will be offered to existing 360 Premium owners?
I think there are more than a few folks who would gladly pay a reasonable fee for an upgrade.

No Microsoft-sponsored upgrade path confirmed here: http://www.majornelson.com/archive/2007/03/27/the-one-about-the-xbox-360-elite.aspx

briankmonkey

03-28-07, 03:41 PM

You all asked for HDMI on 360. So we offered it.

I think many of the people that asked for it are owners of the CURRENT 360 (some of the 10 million of us). So are you saying MS will not be offering us this choice for our systems? Many of us want to buy the HD-DVD add-on but will not do so unless it gives us lossles surround audio as well (still not clear if the Elite will offer this either).

mentho

03-28-07, 03:45 PM

If you bought an HD DVD drive for the 360, your investment is fully protected as that drive will work just as nicely with Elite.

It'll work nicely, but will we get lossless sound over HDMI? Or will it even support sending the high-def encoded audio as in the 1.3 spec?

casper77

03-28-07, 05:15 PM

the hdmi spec for the Elite is 1.2a. (so I read somewhere), So TrueHD and DTS-HD MA is not possible. The question is. Can it pass uncompress LPCM like Toshiba?

mentho

03-28-07, 05:19 PM

the hdmi spec for the Elite is 1.2a.

Source?

dobyblue

03-28-07, 05:48 PM

Amir, with your set-up at home (the main speaker set-up, not the 15k headphones) what is the best aural experience you've had with Blu-ray and what is the best aural experience you've had with HD DVD?

paidgeek

03-28-07, 06:12 PM

casper77

03-28-07, 06:12 PM

Source?

the info can be found on page 2 of this link.

http://editorials.teamxbox.com/xbox/1938/Xbox-360-Elite-System-New-Partners-Announced/p1/

paidgeek

03-28-07, 06:22 PM

DVD_sanchez

03-28-07, 06:28 PM

Any BD Insiders care to explain what wrong with FOX? Are they reconsidering their Blu-ray support?

puddy77

03-28-07, 06:32 PM

Ben, or any insider,

What is the size difference between a 480 mpeg2 transfer, and a 720 vc1 (or avc) transfer? Going by Xbox Live 720 transfers, they seem roughly equivalent. Is there a great difference in cost?

If they are close, could 720 be a fair compromise for extras on a disc (if the source allows)?

I am thinking of High Def Digest's review of Children of Men (http://hddvd.highdefdigest.com/childrenofmen.html#Section5):
Sadly, all of the supplemental material is presented in standard definition and looks exactly like the extras on the standard-def side of the disc. Encoded with the MPEG-2 codec, nothing has been done to enhance the look of this content, and it simply seems lazy on the part of the studio. There's a reason we're paying more for this edition -- I wish that value extended to the extras on the disc.I am also thinking of the furor over the announcement by Warner that all of the extras on The Ultimate Matrix Collection will be 480. If they really want use regular dvds for extras to reduce costs, couldn't the same material fit using advanced codecs at 720?

paidgeek

03-28-07, 06:46 PM

Any BD Insiders care to explain what wrong with FOX? Are they reconsidering their Blu-ray support?

They are working extremely hard to resolve the security issues that have stalled some of their releases.

Kris Deering

03-28-07, 06:58 PM

They are working extremely hard to resolve the security issues that have stalled some of their releases.

So it has to do with the AACS issues?

paidgeek

03-28-07, 07:01 PM

So it has to do with the AACS issues?

AACS and BD+

joeydoo

03-28-07, 07:02 PM

They are working extremely hard to resolve the security issues that have stalled some of their releases.

Is this because of the HDDVD and Blu-Ray disc rips which are out and about on P2P networks? Are a lot of studios having to put a lot of work into fixing this? Is that the main reason for various delays?
I ask because if it's that much effort and time to update the security; surely this is going to have to be done on a constant basis. Are we going to get studios having a month delay every time the content protection is broken?
I know why they are doing it but to be honest I can see it as a entirely pointless 'money sucking' exercise. It's going to be broken every time.

roma_victor

03-28-07, 07:07 PM

They are working extremely hard to resolve the security issues that have stalled some of their releases.

paidgeek:

Thanks for your contributions here.

How come these security issues have not stalled releases from other BD studios? Is this a case of Fox being more conservative than other BD studios? Any information you can provide would be greatly appreciated.

abr27440

03-28-07, 08:26 PM

AACS and BD+

Are you saying that FOX is not going to release any more titles until they can get BD+ working? That might be a while..

rover2002

03-28-07, 08:48 PM

paidgeek:

Thanks for your contributions here.

How come these security issues have not stalled releases from other BD studios? Is this a case of Fox being more conservative than other BD studios? Any information you can provide would be greatly appreciated.
Id like to echo this good question. Do other studios not care or are you not giving the whole story when you say they are stalling due to AACS/BD+?

jdg345

03-28-07, 09:02 PM

As a HD-DVD supporter, why Microsoft didn`t include a HD-DVD drive in the Xbox360 Elite version? The first sign Microsoft to support Blu-ray in the future?

I'm more concerned that it is not being offered in 'Black' like some of the other accessories (Play and Charge, Controller, etc). Are they just giving up on it? It would seem they'd offer it in black since the Elite has HDMI. I'd think the add-on would benefit most from the new connection. :confused:

EDIT: To be clear, my question is: Why isn't the HD-DVD Add-On being released in black? Or is it ... just not yet?

jdg345

03-28-07, 09:11 PM

Source?

Yes please ... ? Can someone confirm the HDMI version for the elite? It would seem silly if it was anything but v1.3.

paidgeek

03-28-07, 09:41 PM

Is this because of the HDDVD and Blu-Ray disc rips which are out and about on P2P networks? Are a lot of studios having to put a lot of work into fixing this? Is that the main reason for various delays?
I ask because if it's that much effort and time to update the security; surely this is going to have to be done on a constant basis. Are we going to get studios having a month delay every time the content protection is broken?
I know why they are doing it but to be honest I can see it as a entirely pointless 'money sucking' exercise. It's going to be broken every time.

The work that Fox is doing will benefit all the BD studios including SPE. The time required to get new keys and BD+ sorted out are the result of working the kinks out of the systems and therefore should not be used to gauge future updates.

Content security is always a game of cat and mouse, we never expected more than that.

I cannot comment on Fox's release adjustments, I can barely keep up with our own...

hellokeith

03-28-07, 09:42 PM

AACS and BD+

Paid,

Do you have an opinion on the studios (FOX or other) level of reaction and type of response to the AACS breach? I find it hard to believe they would be so surprised, unless the breaches just came way sooner than expected. But even then, it would seem someone at the studio would already have a basic plan collecting dust on the shelf for when the breach did eventually happen.

benwaggoner

03-29-07, 01:05 AM

To help me understand better.... If you were given the job of encoding King Kong with your most current tools, how much smaller than it's current 29GB size do you think you could make it without any loss in PQ?
10%? It's hard to say without trying it. King Kong wasn't that long ago. Although with the version of PEP we're working on now :).

benwaggoner

03-29-07, 01:19 AM

We haven't seemed to be able to come up with a good answer for this. Can anybody shed some insight on this? Is our math screwed up? Or are the assumptions about what's in the tracks and their file sizes incorrect?

My guess is that the 8 LSB are much more random than the high 16 bits, so they take more bits to encode losslessly.

Again suggesting that 24-bit lossless probably isn't quite as useful as many assume :).

benwaggoner

03-29-07, 01:19 AM

I just wanted to expand on this: Will the 360 Elite be able to decode any of the advanced codecs? If not, is the 360 Elite HDMI v1.3, in order to pass the bitstream?
Yes, any compliant HD DVD player needs to decode all the mandatory audio codecs for in-player mixing.

benwaggoner

03-29-07, 02:01 AM

benwaggoner

03-29-07, 02:03 AM

What is the size difference between a 480 mpeg2 transfer, and a 720 vc1 (or avc) transfer? Going by Xbox Live 720 transfers, they seem roughly equivalent. Is there a great difference in cost?
Cost in what sense? Bitrate?

If they are close, could 720 be a fair compromise for extras on a disc (if the source allows)?
The trend we've seen is to just do extras in the frame size they were authored in.

I am also thinking of the furor over the announcement by Warner that all of the extras on The Ultimate Matrix Collection will be 480. If they really want use regular dvds for extras to reduce costs, couldn't the same material fit using advanced codecs at 720?
I imagine the extras were largely produced in 480 originally. Correct me if I'm wrong.

BuGsArEtAsTy

03-29-07, 09:55 AM

I think it has been mentioned before, but I can't seem to find it.

What is the comparative thickness of combo HD DVD/DVD discs, vs. other optical media? I had thought it was pretty much the same but I just want to make sure. The reason I ask is my slot-load drives are very sensitive to disc thickness.

A friend of mine put an adhesive label on a single-layer DVD-R he gave me and its thickness caused problems for both of my computers with slot-load drives.

Also, will Warner's TotalHD discs be the same thickness as well?

alfbinet

03-29-07, 10:41 AM

Paidgeek:

Question about movie releases. Do you think we will see the release of Bram Stoker's Dracula on BD this year? Also, the LD of this title had some pretty cool extras on it that never made it to the DVD release. Do you know if we will see these extras on the BD title?

Also, not sure if Sony owns this one or not but do you know anything about the "Guns of Navarone?" I know it is BD exclusive but just not sure which studio is responsible for distribution. I would love to see this title this year as well.

Thanks...you seem to be a pretty up front.

DrDon

03-29-07, 12:02 PM

Ok, it's starting to sound like a courtroom, again. Opinions masquerading as questions, non-question posts and non-insider answers have been removed. Didn't get 'em all and probably got some that I didn't need to.

If you feel your post was removed in error, PM me and I'll have another look. Do NOT repost.

Doc

DigitalfreakNYC

03-29-07, 12:37 PM

The trend we've seen is to just do extras in the frame size they were authored in.

I know I had asked Amir this in the past but is there any chance that we'll start seeing 480i/p extras being done in VC-1 to save space?

TomsHT

03-29-07, 12:48 PM

Ben, what ever happened to the HBO titles that were previously announced and have since dissappeared? I was really looking forward to "The Band of Brothers" ever since they first posted it on thelookandsoundofperfect as coming soon

bobgpsr

03-29-07, 01:43 PM

Brian, Ben or Amir,

Will the Xbox 360 Elite with the HD DVD player add on use multichannel linear PCM over HDMI for output of decoded DD+ and Dolby TrueHD audio?

Thanks,
Bob

DrDon

03-29-07, 02:28 PM

A couple of "Me, too" posts removed. Do not post "Good Question" or "I want to know that, too." The question has been asked. Doesn't need amplification.

Doc

casper77

03-29-07, 04:13 PM

Yes, any compliant HD DVD player needs to decode all the mandatory audio codecs for in-player mixing.

Thanks for that answer, but I have another one from this one. How is the HDMI going to pass the audio portion? Will it be DD or will it do it like the toshiba's to LPCM? Thanks

paidgeek

03-29-07, 07:09 PM

Id like to echo this good question. Do other studios not care or are you not giving the whole story when you say they are stalling due to AACS/BD+?

All of the studios care, but they each have a different level of concern based on the size of the market. If there was no solution on the horizon things might be different, but with new keys coming, I think the response you are seeing is appropriate. It is a very complex system to choose, compress, author, replicate, package, and ship product, and not trivial to stop and restart the process.

paidgeek

03-29-07, 07:11 PM

benwaggoner

03-29-07, 08:49 PM

I know I had asked Amir this in the past but is there any chance that we'll start seeing 480i/p extras being done in VC-1 to save space?
Yes, absolutely. This will be seen in forthcoming discs.

wildchild22

03-29-07, 09:03 PM

benwaggoner thanks ofr helping everyone . My question is will the new elite xbox pass lpcm from the hd-dvd add-on? Or will it be the same sound as with the old xbox
360 except it will be on the hdmi instead of the optical?

Ghent has said the new xbox elite cannot pass or pass the decoded advanced audio any different then the old xbox.

Steeb

03-30-07, 12:35 AM

As a follow-up, if the XBOX 360 Elite version can not pass the full resolution DTHD as PCM over HDMI, what was the point of creating a version of the 360 with the HDMI connection? Is this something that can be changed via software update, or are the add-on owners just SOL when it comes to getting lossless (regardless of which version of the 360 they get?)

Richard Paul

03-30-07, 04:53 AM

Will the Xbox 360 Elite be able to output PCM audio over HDMI for Xbox 360 games?

Big J

03-30-07, 07:36 AM

Ben,
Whatever happened to the BCI titles that were supposed to come out on HD DVD?
J

Dahlsim

03-30-07, 09:37 AM

Quick note you all. I am on my way to a 2-day meeting with almost no time to access the net. If I can squeeze in a few minutes I will. But otherwise, I will be checking back in on the weekend.

For now, a few comment. You all asked for HDMI on 360. So we offered it. Folks asked for larger storage for their movie downloads. You have that too. I hardly know of anyone who asked us to make a super expensive console with a built-in blue-laser drive that far fewer people would want to buy :). So we didn't do that. Today’s announces adds another playback platform for HD DVD given our customers more choices on this front also.

If you bought an HD DVD drive for the 360, your investment is fully protected as that drive will work just as nicely with Elite.

And yes, both Elite (and the spring update of the console) will have video settings to dial in PC or "video" levels for VGA output.

On HDMI cable for current box, I have always poured cold water on anyone suggesting this. Search back here and you see that in numerous places. So if there were expectations set on this, it was not because of me :). Analog output from current 360 is still a superb way to get HD gaming/video out of the box. Don’t let people make you think you have to have HDMI just for the sake of it.

Last but not least, our commitment to HD DVD remains stronger than ever. As is the case with studios who publish on HD DVD (exclusive or otherwise). No one should read anything into this announcement on Elite, other than us moving forward to offer even broader set of playback solutions for our customers. And even better multimedia performance for people who wanted digital output and more storage.

Got to run….

Thanks for that update Amir. @Amir or @Ben or other hd-dvd insider:

The addition of video levels option for VGA is a significant update that I think MS should emphasize more in it's marketing. VGA offers upscaling of DVD's and in some cases slightly better PQ in general I've found. VGA makes the 360 HD ready for millions of PC monitors and many people own these monitors that don't even own HDTV's!

I've often asked 360 owners that don't yet have an hdtv do you have a computer monitor? If they have a newer widescreen style lcd it's even better. My queston is does MS have any intention of promoting and marketing it's advantage in supporting VGA more, esp. in light of this new update that should imporove the option for HDTV's with VGA?

Question 2, not to simply echo but to add weight to other posters question, why not release a black version hd-dvd addon drive?

It seems very shortsighted on MS part not to release a black hd-dvd addon drive to pair with elite. Just consider how much better it would look on show room floors in electronic retailers that might want to display the elite and addon the way many currently display the (black AV looking) PS3 with HDTV's.

ack_bk

03-30-07, 10:31 AM

Paidgeek,

Thank you for your contributions to this forum. I recently went neutral and bought a Blu-Ray player (also own the 360 add-on). I am extremely happy with the player and was blown off my couch when I listened to the PCM soundtrack on Casino Royale. In fact, I have not watched another HD DVD since I purchased my Bu-Ray player less than two weeks ago because the lossless sound is so much of an improvement over the 360's AQ.

Here is my question. There are rumors that Blu-Ray may stop putting PCM tracks on their discs in the future (1 year or less) and will move towards TrueHD or DTS HD-MA to save space. Can you shed some light (if possible) on the future of PCM tracks for Blu-Ray?

Thanks.

titus pullo

03-30-07, 02:07 PM

amir, so in the spring update for the 360 we'll be able to change video and pc levels for the vga output? i think that's the best news i've heard all day. my mits 65732 only allows pc levels and it's looks so bad with the vga cable. i think this will help me alot.

bjonni

03-30-07, 02:19 PM

paidgeek,

Any chance of either the first Resident Evil or the extended cut of the first Underworld being released this year? While they can't be compared to Lawrence of Arabia they are both more enjoyable than the sequels that have already been released on BD... :)

Nox

03-30-07, 03:29 PM

On HDMI cable for current box, I have always poured cold water on anyone suggesting this. Search back here and you see that in numerous places. So if there were expectations set on this, it was not because of me :). Analog output from current 360 is still a superb way to get HD gaming/video out of the box. Don’t let people make you think you have to have HDMI just for the sake of it.

Amir,

Video on the 360 has never been the reason for me wanting HDMI. It's the sound.

I don't know the internal workings of the 360, but would it be possible for Microsoft to release a component cable and VGA cable with 5.1 analog outputs?

Instead of an optical output at the base of the cord, in it's place would be a connector to a breakout box (http://www.pcper.com/images/reviews/209/cables_stack.jpg) similar in design as Ati had done with their AIW cards. These could then be connected to the 5.1 inputs to current receivers.

Current owners of the 360, like myself, would then have the option of being able to enjoy TrueHD and other advanced audio streams offered by HD-DVD without the need of another $400 purchase to get HDMI.

RobertR1

03-30-07, 03:47 PM

Amir or Ben,

Can we please get some confirmation from NewLine regarding LOTR. It's been rumored that the BD will be the extended version where as the HD DVD version will be the theaterical cut. Si or no?

Thanks,
Robert.

ctiq21

03-30-07, 05:06 PM

Amir,

I recently received Relentless Enemies from Amazon and it would not play in my HD DVD add on. Apparently a lot of other people can't play it unless they have the A1.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=823981
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=826140

Anyway, in your opinion should I return the disk or do you think it is fixable by an update to the 360. From what I have been reading it doesn't seem like a bad allotment of disks, it just won't play in certain players.

Thanks...

qz3fwd

03-30-07, 05:43 PM

paidgeek,

When will we be able to buy (affordable) non-burner BD PC drives for our HTPC's?
I wont shell out 600-1000 for a dedicated player and prices will not drop below 450 for some time for dedicated players and the only drives out are 700+ burners which is a no go for me and BD. I will buy a PC ROM drive though but NONE exist which i can find. Why are there none avaliable and when will they be avaliable and at what price point?
In the meantime I continue to enjoy my HD-DVD's.

Thank You

DavidHir

03-30-07, 06:08 PM

Paidgeek,

Would you happen to know when Sony will release Men in Black, The Mask of Zorro, and Hudson Hawk on BD? Thanks.

StevenZ

03-30-07, 08:15 PM

@BD insiders-

Just before CES, a flurry (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=9266029&highlight=profile+2#post9266029) of BD profile questions got asked & answered. Since then, I haven't heard of any players that have been announced as being "Profile 2" or "BD-Live" (though speculators point to PS3). So here are my questions:

1. Is "BD-Live" the final, sanctioned name for the network-connectable feature? If not, any idea of what it will be, or when it will be announced?

2. Will Profile 1.1 get a name?
[Please, no jokes about BD-Dead, -Zombie, etc. :D ]

3. If Profile 1.1 is mandatory for players after 31 Oct 07, will Profile 2 be mandatory at some point (perhaps with exclusions for portable players or other device classes)? If not, do you think Profile 2 will always be a step-up feature, or will it just become normal?

4. If (as Talk suggests (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=10108418&&highlight=fox&#post10108418)) Fox intends to release discs that use Profile-2 features in 2007, my guess is that there will be one or two P2 players to test against, or maybe to buy, by the end of the year. What will kick off the big push for Profile 2 players? CES 2008?

Thanks in advance, and for your continued help.

benwaggoner

03-30-07, 08:29 PM

Can we please get some confirmation from NewLine regarding LOTR. It's been rumored that the BD will be the extended version where as the HD DVD version will be the theaterical cut. Si or no?

When it comes to rumors, we can only comment with explicit studio permission.

But, as previously discussed, a film of that length and quality could get a great technical presentation on HD DVD. As a general matter, I'd be startled to see a BD get a longer edit, given HD DVD's proven capacity to handle very long content, and ability to use its capacity more efficiently via more advanced mandatory audio cdoecs.

paidgeek

03-31-07, 01:04 AM

paidgeek

03-31-07, 01:06 AM

paidgeek

03-31-07, 01:09 AM

paidgeek

03-31-07, 01:11 AM

Paidgeek,

Would you happen to know when Sony will release Men in Black, The Mask of Zorro, and Hudson Hawk on BD? Thanks.

I don't see these on the schedule, but it is always subject to change.

H9K_

03-31-07, 02:56 AM

We have not finalized our long term plans for Europe, but we do not currently plan to delete LPCM for NA releases because people like you have given such good feedback on them.

Please dont treat us europeans any worse. We love pcm just as mutch as everyone else.

What timeframe do you expect to have the europe plans finalized?

Sony releases Curse of the Golden Flower soon. What position will the subtitles be on screen?

Caurus

03-31-07, 08:50 AM

Question to Mircrosoft insiders:

Is your xbox team currently looking on the problems with the Children of Men HD DVD? Will the problems be fixed with the update that comes with the dynamic compression bugfix?

Question to Sony insiders:

Is it true that Sony announced that they sold 52.000 PS3 units in the first two days to (retail) customers in Scandinavia? I am wondering because the PS3 distributor for Scandinavia Nordisk Film reported that they shipped only 40.000 PS3 units (http://www.n4g.com/industrynews/News-28715.aspx).

atagert

03-31-07, 11:08 AM

I have enjoyed reading this thread and the previous one. Thank-you to the insiders who participate since you really don't need to be here.

My question is what was the orginal reasoning behind the decision to prevent DVDs from being upscaled without HDCP. I'm not trying to make a political statement, just curioius.

Thanks.

Adam

amirm

03-31-07, 11:42 AM

Hello everyone. Sorry for the late response. As I posted before, I was at a 2-day offsite with no net access (or time to use it!). Trying to catch up with all the questions asked.

Xbox 360 Elite supports HDMI 1.2 profile. For audio, you can select DD, DTS (at 1.5 Mbps), and WMA-Pro (Microsoft high fidelity multi-channel codec supported in some AVRs such as Pioneer). Since it is not based on 1.3, it will not support output of DD+ or TrueHD (even if it did, mixing would have been turned off).

PCM output is available but only for 2-channels (not 5.1). Please, please, don’t say you don’t like this. There is nothing you are going to say which we don’t know :). Our goal was to provide a digital connection for video which people wanted for some of their TVs. And of course, single cable A/V connection. So if having analog video bothered you before, you can now use digital. If you lacked component/VGA on your TV, you are in business with Xbox 360 Elite.

Keep in mind that the spring software update for HD DVD substantially improves audio fidelity. Per above, you now have a choice of no less than three output formats.

If you are keen on having 5.1 PCM output, I recommend purchasing the Toshiba A2 player which after the price drop, will be much cheaper than Elite.

Answering other questions, both Xbox 360 Elite and current Xbox 360 units will have a spring (console) update which adds support for different video levels for VGA output (“7.5 IRE vs 0”). And as someone mentioned, using this setting you should be able to use computer monitors in addition to TVs with resolutions all the way up to 1080p with high fidelity and no issues with HDCP handshaking. So for current users, I highly recommend trying this update with your VGA connection to see if it does the job for you. Note that this is a console update and will work for both games and of course, HD DVD. The HD DVD software update is separate from this (and will be available on both Xbox Live and xbox.com).

On output video format, Xbox 360 Elite will perform a handshake and select the appropriate RGB/YUV settings over HDMI. You cannot select it yourself.

The spring HD DVD software update will fix all the lip sync issues that have been reported/we know of.

There is no support for the WMV-HD disc format but of course, you can put WMV files on discs and Xbox 360 will play them.

amirm

03-31-07, 11:43 AM

Question to Mircrosoft insiders:

Is your xbox team currently looking on the problems with the Children of Men HD DVD? Will the problems be fixed with the update that comes with the dynamic compression bugfix?
We are investigating this title. So far, it plays for some people so it may be hard to troubleshoot but we are after it....

amirm

03-31-07, 11:52 AM

My guess is that the 8 LSB are much more random than the high 16 bits, so they take more bits to encode losslessly.

Again suggesting that 24-bit lossless probably isn't quite as useful as many assume :).
Ben is right and our data matches the observation posted. Lossless compression relies on long "filters" which attempt to find patterns in audio which they can pair together to achieve efficiency (think of lining up all the "a"s , "b"s, etc. in this post together and then compressing their frequency). The more random the bits, the harder it is to find any patterns in them.

Fortunately, DolbyTHD like MLP before it, allows any bit resolution so one can for example, can dial in, 18, 19, or 20-bits of resolution and compress at that that depth unlike PCM which usually jumps in 4-bit increments. There is a tool which can analyze movie source and tell the operator what the true depth of the source is so that there is no guessing involved. The tool is not in use yet but when it comes to play, it should provide much more efficiency. Suffice it to say, if you a fan of "give me 24-bits or death," you don't want to know what it is saying about the resolution of the movies it has already run on :p.

amirm

03-31-07, 12:01 PM

Thanks for that update Amir. @Amir or @Ben or other hd-dvd insider:

The addition of video levels option for VGA is a significant update that I think MS should emphasize more in it's marketing. VGA offers upscaling of DVD's and in some cases slightly better PQ in general I've found. VGA makes the 360 HD ready for millions of PC monitors and many people own these monitors that don't even own HDTV's!

I've often asked 360 owners that don't yet have an hdtv do you have a computer monitor? If they have a newer widescreen style lcd it's even better. My queston is does MS have any intention of promoting and marketing it's advantage in supporting VGA more, esp. in light of this new update that should imporove the option for HDTV's with VGA?
Yes indeed. As I noted, HDMI is not necessary for most people. VGA is actually more flexible in that it has no copy protection and as you say it is supported on computer monitors which for gaming applications, is quite nice as many people like to use their consoles in bedroom and such. We have tried to get this message out but the other side keeps saying everyone needs HDMI (persumably to convince people to also go and buy a new TV/AVR). So we went ahead and provided that option too even though it doesn't provide a better picture experience for 99% of the people out there.

Question 2, not to simply echo but to add weight to other posters question, why not release a black version hd-dvd addon drive?

It seems very shortsighted on MS part not to release a black hd-dvd addon drive to pair with elite. Just consider how much better it would look on show room floors in electronic retailers that might want to display the elite and addon the way many currently display the (black AV looking) PS3 with HDTV's.
It is just a matter of cost both for us and retailers. As soon as you have two colors, you have to then forecast the need for each type and if you make wrong guess, you wind up with too many of one, and not enough of the other. And of course retailers would not want to carry two version of something if one would do.

Fortunately, offering other colors is not difficult and if there is enough demand, I am sure our Xbox team would consider that feedback.

bobgpsr

03-31-07, 12:31 PM

...The more random the bits, the harder it is to find any patterns in them...
The tool is not in use yet but when it comes to play, it should provide much more efficiency. Suffice it to say, if you a fan of "give me 24-bits or death," you don't want to know what it is saying about the resolution of the movies it has already run on.So it seems that once the bit depth starts reaching down to the levels where totaly random thermal and popcorn noise are starting to be a significant part of the encode then the compression efficiency of a lossless audio codec suffers greatly? Is the criteria for movie watching to give up on the "ambiance" ;) of this very low level noise and live with a 18 or 20 bit deep conversion depth to avoid needless waste of bitrate/space that could be better used for other things on the title?

amirm

03-31-07, 12:39 PM

So it seems that once the bit depth starts reaching down to the levels where totaly random thermal and popcorn noise are starting to be a significant part of the encode then the compression efficiency of a lossless audio codec suffers greatly? Is the criteria for movie watching to give up on the "ambiance" ;) of this very low level noise and live with a 18 or 20 bit deep conversion depth to avoid needless waste of bitrate/space that could be better used for other things on the title?
"ambience" is not noise. Ambience is often the decaying resonances which still have patterns of the original signal and are compressable (think of a piano note going to silence). We would want to preserve these but since they are much easier to encode than noise, we can indeed do that.

I think you are saying this but to be clear, there is no reason to encode noise in the source when your player can just as nicely add it in by itself due to its inability to reproduce 24-bit signals.

But yes, we absolutely want to only pack what is necessary on disc, and use the rest for something else people can touch and feel.

teddyc23

03-31-07, 01:17 PM

Thanks Amir for you answers to some of the Elite questions. I have actually sold my Premium XBOX and will be getting the Elite. The Hard Drive space I don’t care about so much, but the HDMI is really cool. I have a unique reason for HDMI, my TV (Toshiba 51HX93) seems to have a problem with 1080i over component where there are interference like wavy lines. It seems to be any 1080i source. HDMI and DVI are unaffected. So it’s a big deal for me. For the moment I have been using the XBOX at 720P and letting my TV upconvert. Its looks good with HD-DVDs but I feel it could look better.

I know you are going to get flack for HDMI on the Elite not offering 5.1 LPCM. I do understand your point though. You have provided 3 high quality audio options. There was a post I was reading on the avsforum the other day where someone had done a blind test with friends comparing the DTS Downconvert to the Analog Outs on the Toshiba HD-DVD. It seemed overall it was hard for the majority to notice a difference. I know you have said again and again Amir that DTS is quite good compared to PCM. So given the choice I think the DTS update will benefit more people way more than HDMI 5.1 LPCM. The problem is people are expecting it to be like a PS3. Which has some of this stuff. I think that’s where the expectation came from. Your suggestion to get a stand alone player for this feature is right on. After all the XBOX is a game machine. Sorry for the long post, just a few quick questions:

1. Above you mentioned 3 audio options. DD, DTS and WMA Pro. Were you referring to HD-DVD, DVDs, XBOX Live Movies or games?

2. My TV has a DVI-HDCP connection. You mentioned the XBOX will autodetect the setting RGB etc. Will I have to worry about Black Crush going from HDMI-DVI? Similar to the problems I have heard with the Toshiba HD-DVD players.

3. I have been assuming the Elite will upscale DVDs over HDMI. Is this a fair assumption?

Thank you for all your insight Amir on this forum.

Teddy

John Haghighi

03-31-07, 01:27 PM

When it comes to rumors, we can only comment with explicit studio permission.

But, as previously discussed, a film of that length and quality could get a great technical presentation on HD DVD. As a general matter, I'd be startled to see a BD get a longer edit, given HD DVD's proven capacity to handle very long content, and ability to use its capacity more efficiently via more advanced mandatory audio cdoecs.

So if there is a TrueHD or DTS HD MA stream on the BD version, wouldn't it be fair to say the BD version has the abiility to use it's capacity more efficiently than a comparable HD DVD version?

darinp2

03-31-07, 01:33 PM

As I stated previously, HD mandates both networking and storage. This in a nutshell, gives you another source of “bandwidth.” HD DVD allows up to 15 mbit/sec data rate coming from persistent storage because it does not incur any seeks to get to that data. This is above and beyond the bandwidth coming from the optical media. Given this, a much more elegant solution exists than stuffing everything on disc whether someone values it or not. You can put the core experience on the HD DVD, and leave the rest to be downloaded by the user to persistent storage. Given the fact that the video still comes on disc, you don’t have long download times to deal with.Does the HD-A1 include enough persistent storage for one TrueHD track at 1.4Mbps average for a 2 hour movie? If not, how about the other Toshiba players?
You asked if I know of more titles than MI3 that do it, presumably implying that the capability is not there due to lack of titles. I don't know but then again, I am not a walking encyclopedia of 300 titles out there. :) But I would not be surprised to hear it is the only one.To clarify my question, I asked if any HD DVDs use seamless branching now and mentioned that the MI3 branching I saw was seamed (which is much easier than seamless branching) so it wouldn't erroneously be claimed as one with it.

--Darin

Meatpopsicle

03-31-07, 01:46 PM

Since it is not based on 1.3, it will not support output of DD+ or TrueHD (even if it did, mixing would have been turned off).

Amir, I'm curious as to why mixing would have been turned off? Is this suggesting the 360 simply doesn't have the processing power to mix those audio streams on the fly? Or does this have something to do with the software being too time consuming/expensive to custom program?

Ja Phule

03-31-07, 01:47 PM

Amir,

Would 360 owners be able to get lossless sound when converting the advanced audio formats (dd+/truehd) to wma pro lossless via optical and/or hdmi?

efjay

03-31-07, 01:50 PM

It is just a matter of cost both for us and retailers. As soon as you have two colors, you have to then forecast the need for each type and if you make wrong guess, you wind up with too many of one, and not enough of the other. And of course retailers would not want to carry two version of something if one would do.

Would this argument not also apply to the Elite for those who dont want HDMI? How about an initial run to guage interest? If as was stated in the press release the Elite is a permanent new SKU why not have the option to match it to a black addon?

John Haghighi

03-31-07, 01:54 PM

So for current users, I highly recommend trying this update with your VGA connection to see if it does the job for you. Note that this is a console update and will work for both games and of course, HD DVD. The HD DVD software update is separate from this (and will be available on both Xbox Live and xbox.com).

On output video format, Xbox 360 Elite will perform a handshake and select the appropriate RGB/YUV settings over HDMI. You cannot select it yourself.

The spring HD DVD software update will fix all the lip sync issues that have been reported/we know of.

There is no support for the WMV-HD disc format but of course, you can put WMV files on discs and Xbox 360 will play them.

Ok Amir, I won't tell you how dissapointed many of us are because you already know ;0)

Based on this info I will be waiting for the Spring update for the 360 as there really is no audio improvements here on the 360 elite if the Spring update allows conversion to DTS 1.5 via optical, is that correct or is 2.0 TrueHD possible over LPCM HDMI?

Does the 360 team feel that this elite effort is good enough to compete with the PS3's HD optical disc playback capabilities?

Would it have been a major redesign to allow 7.1 LPCM over HDMI and support the 1.3 profile? Was this an issue with processing power available, chipset, or just a business decision?

Is there an Xbox 360 Media AV version in the works that provides all the desired audio/video features?

Why is MS pushing customers to purchase stand alone players when most are asking for MS to make a comparable HD playback device like the PS3 that supports the best video and audio playback?

The remaining question I have is will the 360 Spring Update correct the VGA output for the Sony SXRD XBR2 RPTV's to allow correct output of 1080P? Can we finally get a confirmation on this? If you don't know I would prefer an answer to this, so I can close out the 3 cases I have with Xbox Support and consider purchasing a standalone (how I sneak a standalone into the AV rack is going to be hard...i was hoping the elite would be a quick swap with the 360...I could have easily claimed it was a new faceplate)

benwaggoner

03-31-07, 01:59 PM

So if there is a TrueHD or DTS HD MA stream on the BD version, wouldn't it be fair to say the BD version has the abiility to use it's capacity more efficiently than a comparable HD DVD version?
No, since neither lossless codec is mandatory or de-factor standard in BD players.

So even if a lossless track is included, lossy tracks must also be included.

For example, many BD discs include an AC-3 @ 640 and a PCM track, while a HD DVD version of that same title could include a 1.5 Mbps DD+ track for an equivalent or superior experience at less than 25% of the bitrate.

John Haghighi

03-31-07, 02:01 PM

Would this argument not also apply to the Elite for those who dont want HDMI? How about an initial run to guage interest? If as was stated in the press release the Elite is a permanent new SKU why not have the option to match it to a black addon?

How about a direct buy option for a black HD DVD add-on from the MS store? Or perhaps a coupon with the Elite to Home Depot for a can of spray paint ;0)...it could work.

John Haghighi

03-31-07, 02:13 PM

No, since neither lossless codec is mandatory or de-factor standard in BD players.

So even if a lossless track is included, lossy tracks must also be included.

For example, many BD discs include an AC-3 @ 640 and a PCM track, while a HD DVD version of that same title could include a 1.5 Mbps DD+ track for an equivalent or superior experience at less than 25% of the bitrate.

They also have 20GB extra to work with correct? How much space would AC-3 @ 640 take?

Also on BD wouldn't the AC-3 stream be extracted from the core of the TrueHD stream?

If this is correct, is that not more efficient than including a AC-3 stream and TrueHD stream on HD DVD? (even though it's not necessary as players are required to decode but not output/transport the advanced codecs like the 360 and forthcoming 360 elite)..

crashoveridema0

03-31-07, 02:16 PM

dear amirm,

great work on the xobx 360 hd dvd player and the 360 elite i will be purchasing a 360 elite very soon but i have three questions that i need to ask first.

1. will the spring dashboard update convert game audio to dts 1.5 if you select or will id remain DD

2.on the 360 elite will i be able to chose what resolution i run my 360 at over hdmi

3. i am mainly buying a 360 elite bc i have had some syncing issues with my current 360 running at 1080p over vga , will the spring dashboard update correct these problems?

thank you again

RobertR1

03-31-07, 02:19 PM

Amir,

Would you please check with the Xbox team and let us know if the new Elite uses a quieter DVD drive? That's really the decision maker for me.

Thanks,
Robert.

amirm

03-31-07, 02:23 PM

Amir, I'm curious as to why mixing would have been turned off? Is this suggesting the 360 simply doesn't have the processing power to mix those audio streams on the fly? Or does this have something to do with the software being too time consuming/expensive to custom program?
No, that was not a statement specific to Xbox. As you know, the interactivity audio is mixed over movie track. To do that, you must decode, mix and re-encode. I simply said that if anyone wants the native audio encodes on disc, they would have to give up on mixing in the player. This would reduce the work the player has to do, not the other way around. So there are no architectural issues here.

The bigger issue is causing return problems with the studios and more importantly, locking horns with the creative community. By turning off audio mixing, someone may return a disc because they forget they are in pass-through mode and wonder why none of the commentary, etc. has audio. And creative types may get upset that a player is bypassing the experience they intended for you to have. So while there is no law against bypassing the mixer, folks would have to think about these considerations.

amirm

03-31-07, 02:33 PM

Based on this info I will be waiting for the Spring update for the 360 as there really is no audio improvements here on the 360 elite if the Spring update allows conversion to DTS 1.5 via optical, is that correct or is 2.0 TrueHD possible over LPCM HDMI?
I assume so since PCM 2-ch does work.

Does the 360 team feel that this elite effort is good enough to compete with the PS3's HD optical disc playback capabilities?
For a gaming platform? Of course. How many people are there with HDMI receivers? Most people are not like us, buying new gear. I am on my third processor now, forced to move up once for DTS, and now HDMI (Anthem D2). Average person just doesn't upgrade the AVR. Indeed, when the Toshiba HD DVD player came out, I venture to guess that 95% of the people were using DTS output and still raving about audio.

Would it have been a major redesign to allow 7.1 LPCM over HDMI and support the 1.3 profile? Was this an issue with processing power available, chipset, or just a business decision?
The 1.3 profile was not possible because we started the design before 1.3 was finalized and we did not have access to the on-going spec work there. 7.1 LPCM is a high rate audio signal and would require more circuit redesign than we wanted to have in this new addition. But at high level, this stuff is not too hard to do compared to all the other electronics in the box. And certainly not an issue of processing power. We are only talking about audio data paths being wide enough.

Is there an Xbox 360 Media AV version in the works that provides all the desired audio/video features?
You know I can't comment on future products :).

Why is MS pushing customers to purchase stand alone players when most are asking for MS to make a comparable HD playback device like the PS3 that supports the best video and audio playback?
We are not pushing people to buy stand-alone player. Xbox 360 (Elite or otherwise) provide a superb HD experience. But we simply don't want to say that we have built a replacement product for stand-alone, player. That was not our goal and if that is what people want, they should go and buy those players.

Recall that in HD DVD, the price of a stand-alone player is already well below that of our game console. The other guys are not so fortunate so if they want to create a mass market, they have to stuff everything in the console. So in some way, they didn't have much choice here. In addition, they are in the business of promoting new TVs and new AVRs with HDMI, we are not. If customers go and buy such equipment, we will support them, as we just showed with HDMI. But in advance of a market, we are not in as much hurry as they might be in.

The remaining question I have is will the 360 Spring Update correct the VGA output for the Sony SXRD XBR2 RPTV's to allow correct output of 1080P? Can we finally get a confirmation on this? If you don't know I would prefer an answer to this, so I can close out the 3 cases I have with Xbox Support and consider purchasing a standalone (how I sneak a standalone into the AV rack is going to be hard...i was hoping the elite would be a quick swap with the 360...I could have easily claimed it was a new faceplate)
I don't personally know even though I realize this has been a pain point for some users. I personally pushed the team to invetigate this issue so I know it got worked on. The problem from what I recall was the timing signal and how different companies interpret them. If I find out more, I will report back.

amirm

03-31-07, 02:41 PM

Thanks Amir for you answers to some of the Elite questions. I have actually sold my Premium XBOX and will be getting the Elite. The Hard Drive space I don’t care about so much, but the HDMI is really cool. I have a unique reason for HDMI, my TV (Toshiba 51HX93) seems to have a problem with 1080i over component where there are interference like wavy lines. It seems to be any 1080i source. HDMI and DVI are unaffected. So it’s a big deal for me. For the moment I have been using the XBOX at 720P and letting my TV upconvert. Its looks good with HD-DVDs but I feel it could look better.

I know you are going to get flack for HDMI on the Elite not offering 5.1 LPCM. I do understand your point though. You have provided 3 high quality audio options. There was a post I was reading on the avsforum the other day where someone had done a blind test with friends comparing the DTS Downconvert to the Analog Outs on the Toshiba HD-DVD. It seemed overall it was hard for the majority to notice a difference. I know you have said again and again Amir that DTS is quite good compared to PCM. So given the choice I think the DTS update will benefit more people way more than HDMI 5.1 LPCM. The problem is people are expecting it to be like a PS3. Which has some of this stuff. I think that’s where the expectation came from. Your suggestion to get a stand alone player for this feature is right on. After all the XBOX is a game machine. Sorry for the long post, just a few quick questions:
Very well said. Indeed, 99% of the requests I got for HDMI here was about pure video connectivity.

1. Above you mentioned 3 audio options. DD, DTS and WMA Pro. Were you referring to HD-DVD, DVDs, XBOX Live Movies or games?
Only HD DVD. Messing with gaming is harder because they have a strict MIPS budget for the console itself while the game is running. So we can't just throw in new encoders and expect the games to stay compatible.

2. My TV has a DVI-HDCP connection. You mentioned the XBOX will autodetect the setting RGB etc. Will I have to worry about Black Crush going from HDMI-DVI? Similar to the problems I have heard with the Toshiba HD-DVD players.
I am hoping it works well. If it does not, you know where to find me :). The system is very different than Toshiba so I would not use that as good history to predict what will happen here. Unfortunately, HDMI/DVI are really messy interfaces and problems are just going to be there with some combinations no matter who makes the equipment.

3. I have been assuming the Elite will upscale DVDs over HDMI. Is this a fair assumption?
I believe the answer is YES, but I am double checking.

Thank you for all your insight Amir on this forum.

Teddy
My pleasure and thanks for the reasonable post and good questions!