Amir,

Does HD DVD spec have any mandates for output, either as a minimum quality requirement video/audio over a digital hardware output type, or as a maximum quality restriction over an analog hardware output type?

Post deleted. I could not figure out the right link to post.

Since SM3 is coming this year, it is not out of the question...

Thanks.

I have one other, non-related question.

Will there be a firmware update to fix the black and white HDMI clipping issue for the PS3? I cannot get a firm answer on this from anyone.

The link doesn't work.

Take off the %60 at the end, in the new browser window.

I would buy XA2 on the basis that it plays all the wonderful HD DVD content with full set of capabilities.Since you've said that Toshiba supports 1080p24, can we get a statement from them or somebody on the inside (other than a store owner or salesman) about when people thinking of buying the XA2 should expect that feature for an output choice?

Thanks,
Darin

Take off the %60 at the end, in the new browser window.
That's right.

Here it is: http://media.meridian-audio.com/press/CES07-presskit/meridian-hddvd-ces07.pdf

Amir,

The link doesn't work.
Sorry. I cut and paste from AVS and somehow it stuck the extra 60 at the end. I edited the original post.

Amir,

Does HD DVD spec have any mandates for output, either as a minimum quality requirement video/audio over a digital hardware output type, or as a maximum quality restriction over an analog hardware output type?
No it does not. Neither standard dictates such things. If they did, they would take away from product differentiation opportunities from companies. With so many CE companies in both orgs, you can bet this is the way it is going to continue :).

In general, standards mandate how you can decode the content on disc and nothing more.

No it does. Neither standard dictates such things. If they did, they would take away from product differentiation opportunities from companies. With so many CE companies in both orgs, you can bet this is the way it is going to continue :).

In general, standards mandate how you can decode the content on disc and nothing more.

I think you meant to say "No, it does not." :)

On a slightly different subject, I saw mentions of AMD Live, Ocur and CableCard, but nothing on the Microsoft front regarding CableCard on Vista MCE. Should we expect to see CableCard on Vista HTPC's this year? And streaming that high def content either to Xbox 360's or 3rd-party HD extenders?

Yes, that one does although I did not see any availability info. Did I miss that?

(Question to anyone who knows, but I'm assuming Amir has the best shot at it.)

Amir as you mentioned, CES is the Consumer Electronics Show; but I want to emphasize 'Show.' It is definitely the standard for prototypes of announced products to be on display. I can understand you saying the Samsung doesn't have a release date, but it's a little contrarian to get down on it for that when the Chinese-made players you're touting have:

1) No targeted release date

2) No know specs/capabilties

3) No shown prototypes

4) No known model numbers

5) No known price targets

Would you be able to shed light on what some of the above may be?

I figure since MS was a part-announcer of this additional support, you might know some of the answers.

(Question to anyone who knows, but I'm assuming Amir has the best shot at it.)

Amir as you mentioned, CES is the Consumer Electronics Show; but I want to emphasize 'Show.' It is definitely the standard for prototypes of announced products to be on display. I can understand you saying the Samsung doesn't have a release date, but it's a little contrarian to get down on it for that when the Chinese-made players you're touting have:
Fair point :). But I did not position these companies as having products. I positioned them as putting their weight behind HD DVD. BDA used to claim that no one saw any appeal in HD DVD and as proof, offered that all the CE companies where on their side. We have clearly shown that to not be the case. Moreover, their own CE companies are sluggish in bringing out new products. Sony is still shipping Pioneer designed machine with no CD playback. Philips shipping Samsung designed gear with very little promotion. Panasonic declared that their machine had limited quantity and would be replaced with another machine but no replacement was shown. This was my point.

1) No targeted release date

2) No know specs/capabilties

3) No shown prototypes

4) No known model numbers

5) No known price targets

Would you be able to shed light on what some of the above may be?
In front of their competitors, I can not release data like this :). Suffice it to say, with the right CES badge you could see more than what others did :).

I figure since MS was a part-announcer of this additional support, you might know some of the answers.
I do but there is so much that I can share on behalf of other companies. But again, your counterpoint is a fair one that these were announcements and not products ready to ship. So it is the symbolic value of them lending support to HD DVD that is important. Just as BDA positioned all of their CE companies for the last few years, before they shipped their first unit.

dear amirm,

i am very excited to hear about the iptv service for xbox 360 i think its quiet a swell idea, but what about hdmi for xbox 360, iv seen the leaked pics and video of the zepher project or the hdmi capable 360 and i was very disapoonted that microsoft is having to make a new edition of the xbox 360 to support hdmi , but even more dissapointing was the fact that nothing relating to the xbox 360 hdmi solution was stated at ces. do you have any sort of comment on this?

dear amirm,

i am very excited to hear about the iptv service for xbox 360 i think its quiet a swell idea, but what about hdmi for xbox 360, iv seen the leaked pics and video of the zepher project or the hdmi capable 360 and i was very disapoonted that microsoft is having to make a new edition of the xbox 360 to support hdmi , but even more dissapointing was the fact that nothing relating to the xbox 360 hdmi solution was stated at ces. do you have any sort of comment on this?
Thanks for the kind words on support of IPTV on 360.

As to HDMI, I think you know my answer by now :). I can't really say anything about unnannounced products.

AmirM,

I just want to say thank you for your time here! It's great, keep it up mate!

AmirM,

I just want to say thank you for your time here! It's great, keep it up mate!
My pleasure. You have me here all day as we are snowed in. Well, we have 6 inches of it but folks shut down everything above 2 inches. :D It is nice to be chatting with you all on this stuff between conference calls to work.

I think you meant to say "No, it does not." :)

On a slightly different subject, I saw mentions of AMD Live, Ocur and CableCard, but nothing on the Microsoft front regarding CableCard on Vista MCE. Should we expect to see CableCard on Vista HTPC's this year? And streaming that high def content either to Xbox 360's or 3rd-party HD extenders?

CableCard will be supported through the OCUR on Vista HTPCs (the media SKUs such as Ultimate). The interface will protect content and send it over USB from the OCUR tuner to Vista machines. HD content stored on Vista machines may be streamed to extenders such as the Xbox 360.

[edit, clarified what I meant by HTPCs because people are now talking about home media server :)]

Thanks for the kind words on support of IPTV on 360.

As to HDMI, I think you know my answer by now :). I can't really say anything about unnannounced products.

I really feel that this year is going to be a good one for HD DVD....i had the a1 and returned it for the a2.....

Thanks for the kind words on support of IPTV on 360.

As to HDMI, I think you know my answer by now :). I can't really say anything about


_____________________
unnannounced products.
_____________________



what's that i see between the lines? ;)

Amir,

Once again thank you (and by extension your team) for your passion and support. I for one really appreciate reading your posts - your recent rant certainly picked my enthusiasm back up indeed :)

A question I would like to ask is is do you have any idea when the XBox 360 HD DVD add-on is coming to Australia?

No region coding is a great thing, but kind of useless if the audio isn't right on European releases. So far Studio Canal's releases are a bust with the higher pitched audio. Many of us have simply canceled all Studio Canal orders until this is taken care of.

Hope your people are truly looking into it. I had to send HD-DVD's back to Xploited Cinema today. :(

Amir,

Do you know if the development on Warner's TotalHD disks has been exclusively worked on within their own house, or was there any collaboration between other companies during the process?

Thanks for the kind words on support of IPTV on 360.

As to HDMI, I think you know my answer by now :). I can't really say anything about unnannounced products.

Is it fair to assume that you are saving the news for the big splash at E3?? ;)

I know you are going to repeat the "no comments" party line, but a small winkie would just as easily convey things unsaid. ;) ;)

Is it fair to assume that you are saving the news for the big splash at E3?? ;)

I know you are going to repeat the "no comments" party line, but a small winkie would just as easily convey things unsaid. ;) ;)
Remember, E3 is no more. :(

But that is a good thing in this case, because then we'd have to wait until May to learn about this.

Um, I'll put that in the form of a question. Amir, will we learn something before May about a new sku of the 360? :D jk

Amir,

Do you know if the development on Warner's TotalHD disks has been exclusively worked on within their own house, or was there any collaboration between other companies during the process?
Warner does not own replication business so by definition, they worked with others on this.

Amir,

Since you have some free time since you're snowed in, would you mind talking a little bit about the similarities and differences between the help MS gave to Studio Canal when they first got on board with HD-DVD, to the help MS is currently giving Bandai as they get on board with HD-DVD (it sounds extensive according to Bandai's US press release: http://www.bandaivisual.us/pdfs/PressRelease_HD.pdf)?

How do both of those studios differ in level of importance to the format, level of need of assistance or level of assistance ask for/required, and initial level of interest in HD-DVD? Was MS's partnership used as a bartering token in order to get them to support HD-DVD/use VC-1/use HDi? And in general, does MS see these partnerships as a chance to buoy support for HD-DVD? or further market acceptance of VC-1/HDi? It might be all that constructive to separate those two motivating factors, but I'd still be interested to hear what a MS representative had to say on the subject.

Thanks! :)

No region coding is a great thing, but kind of useless if the audio isn't right on European releases. So far Studio Canal's releases are a bust with the higher pitched audio. Many of us have simply canceled all Studio Canal orders until this is taken care of.

Hope your people are truly looking into it. I had to send HD-DVD's back to Xploited Cinema today. :(
I can confirm there is nothing wrong with the audio on La Haine. Please only talk about the releases you yourself have personally heard, as opposed to disparaging them all in one fell swoop.

Amir/some other insider/s - this was asked before a couple pages back - but I was just wondering if you would give us your opinions or take on it...

I'm referring to the issue/idea of whether Universal would ever drop the SD/HD DVD combo atomic bomb. If they might ever start to release titles only in SD/HD DVD combo format at SD DVD prices (while not releasing a stand-alone SD DVD of the film at all).

Just what are your, at least, your vague thoughts on this idea. I know you guys aren't studio reps - but it would still be interesting to hear your take on it.

Why or why not might this be a good idea? What are the barriers that might make this difficult to do from a mass production stand-point? If this might happen - when would be the earliest or most realistic time-frame for it to actually happen? Would any other studio consider or be able to do this? Etc.

Thanks!

A correction (I'll save a rebuttal for the Format Battle thread):
We showed that you could share bookmarks for your favorite movies with your friends through network services. We announced titles such as Freedom series by Bandai which will use these features. Yet no such demonstrations where shown by BD companies.Not true. A demonstration was shown by Fox of a networked trivia game where multiple people competed against each other from separate Blu-ray players. In addition, I will contend that what is demonstrated is largely a function of how much money those companies choose to devote to building demonstrations. There is no question that the HDi demos shown could easily be supported on BD-Live as well. What would have been more significant would be actual titles using these features...

Talk, I don't know if you have the answers to these questions but I figure I'll give it a shot-

When playing the extras on The Descent, I noticed that I can't rewind or fast forward. I also can't exit to the main menu or bring up the pop-up menu during playback of the extra features. Do you know why this is? Does it have anything to do with BD-J? FYI, I am using the PS3 for BD playback.I haven't spent time with The Descent so I can't verify this behavior or whether there might be a method for exiting or bringing up the menu which you didn't discover. There is no fundamental restriction on UI behavior during special features, so it's certainly possible the developers designed it as you report. I'll try to track down a Lionsgate developer at next week's BDA meetings and report back if I can learn anything.

BD on the other hand, mandates region coding and there are discs already region restricted.Note that, as paidgeek reported a few days ago, region coding is substantially weakened in Blu-ray, with, as I recall, fewer regions, mandated expiration of region coding for catalog titles, and relatively little usage of region coding by the studios currently.

Amir,

Again I want to thank you greatly for your (considerable) time spent here talking to us. And let me reinforce that I love movies, and thus by definition, HDDVD :D

But I was quite discouraged after the first CES day when just about every neutral DVD news site posted news of Universal Pictures' silence, with editorials saying how bad that was for HDDVD's future, and they somehow got me feeling too sad about it all. I'm sorry if I sounded in my last post like a fool, I panicked. And now that you've put things in perspective, I see that my fears were GREATLY overstated.

You see, when I say that my investment in HDDVD was big, I'm not kidding. It was equivalent to 2 months' worth of my full salary. And that's only because I was not patient enough to wait for the 360 add-on, I had to have HDDVD sooner rather than later, and I'm not in the least disappointed, quite the contrary.

And I'm format neutral, but not quite... If I had to choose one format to die, it'd be blu-ray. BDA's attitude up until this point has been too bullish, and they haven't delivered half of what HDDVD has, while touting 'superior specs'. Before I'd seen HDDVD, I was convinced it should die a horrible death due to its 'inferior specs'. I'm so glad you all proved me wrong, I can't see a technical flaw in any of the movies I have, and I keep buying more.

No problem at all with two formats coexisting, and if it means more movies being released, bring TOTAL HD discs on. But I'd prefer a separate HDDVD version. I so hate flippers that I asked a friend of mine who is an artist to draw stylized titles on the full-screen side of all my old two-sided DVDs... Do you think that other studios beside Warner (Paramount, specifically) might also begin to use those discs? Do you know if they plan use that design in a plastic HDDVD case with different colors? I don't think those ugly bicolor boxes will fit well with my HDDVD collection...

And (bear with me just a little longer, I know I write in a VERY long winded fashion, but I can't help it, when I'm fascinated by the subject) what are your views on digital playground's announcement? Do you think that porn might really help HDDVD?
I mean, I'm not ashamed to say that I watch porn occasionally, but it is certainly nothing I'd be willing to spend a lot on for 1080p... It's a distraction for which technical quality isn't the top priority... :D Is there any market research on the subject? People so often cite VHS porn support as its reason for success, but it in fact was the first big home video format, so it is not a good comparison. Will porn aficionados pay extra for HD, when DVD is so cheap? And are there any possible iHD interactive features that might attract the porn crowd?

Again thanks for your patience writing here. It is NOT often that a company's spokesperson shows such a level of knowledge and sheer enthusiasm for their products. It's clear that you treat HDDVDs success as an almost personal matter, like Steve Jobs treats the iPhone's success, and this kind of personal touch is what the BDA lacks.

(for the rest of the forum, sorry I can't write a post smaller than a pocket-sized bible :D)

Does anybody know when the current AACS interim agreement expires? I haven't heard any news of progress there for quite some time. Is anything happening?

- Tom

As far as I know however, LG is not going to use the logo so I don't think any of this matters.Amir, recently Alex posted LG has no intention to add HDi to their universal player. If that is true would you still personally consider the LG universal player to the first universal player released?


Will there be a firmware update to fix the black and white HDMI clipping issue for the PS3? I cannot get a firm answer on this from anyone.Stacey tested Blu-ray playback on the PS3 a while ago (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=9152012&&#post9152012) but that was before YCbCr output was added to the PS3 with a firmware update. Stacey, if you are reading this thread would you mind testing the YCbCr output of the PS3?

A correction (I'll save a rebuttal for the Format Battle thread):
Not true. A demonstration was shown by Fox of a networked trivia game where multiple people competed against each other from separate Blu-ray players.
Response here: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=9447519&&#post9447519

Does anybody know when the current AACS interim agreement expires? I haven't heard any news of progress there for quite some time. Is anything happening?

- Tom
It was extended to June this year I think. But this is not material unfortunately as if the final agreement delays, an extension will be almost automatic.

Amir,

Again I want to thank you greatly for your (considerable) time spent here talking to us. And let me reinforce that I love movies, and thus by definition, HDDVD :D
Much appreciated. And let me say that your post was the preverbal straw that broke the camel's back. I had seen so many posts like it that I used your post as an opportunity to set the record straight. But didn't mean at all to make it look like I was unhappy about your post. You correctly identified the general feeling around some corners of AVS.

But I'd prefer a separate HDDVD version. I so hate flippers that I asked a friend of mine who is an artist to draw stylized titles on the full-screen side of all my old two-sided DVDs... Do you think that other studios beside Warner (Paramount, specifically) might also begin to use those discs?
I don't want to speak on behalf of other studios. But I know Universal is not in that camp. :) Unsure about Paramount.

I think your best friend here is that THD discs are difficult to make. So it will take some time for them to be ready, and even then, they may get used occasionally until they refine the process (recall that all the BD difficulties are there, but compounded due to HD DVD being on the other side).

Do you know if they plan use that design in a plastic HDDVD case with different colors? I don't think those ugly bicolor boxes will fit well with my HDDVD collection...
I am with you on that one. Currently, I keep all of my BD discs behind the A/V cabinet so that no one sees I have them :D. Now they will be in broad daylight if these discs come to pass...

what are your views on digital playground's announcement? Do you think that porn might really help HDDVD?
It can help in many directions:

1. They validate what we have been saying for a while. Namely, HD DVD can be manufactured by just about anyone. This means they can easily find outfits to replicate them. This will enable the thousands of independent distributors to also use the same capability producing other content you may be interested in.

2. They create business for post houses doing HD DVD, helping the ecosystem expand with new business.

3. They will push the interactivity front given the rich capabilities of HDi and nature of their business which lends itself to this sort of technology.

4. They provide a better product for the people interested in that kind of material.

5. They help spread the word that HD DVD is good through their PR campaigns.

It seems people mostly pick on #4 with internet download being the major reason they think it matters less. I actually agree with them on this. At the same time, these guys do sell almost $4B worth of DVD products from what I hear. So even if PC is eroding that, there is plenty left still to fuel growth of these formats.

Is there any market research on the subject? People so often cite VHS porn support as its reason for success, but it in fact was the first big home video format, so it is not a good comparison. Will porn aficionados pay extra for HD, when DVD is so cheap? And are there any possible iHD interactive features that might attract the porn crowd?
As you know, some titles were created using our older WMV-HD format. There, HD became a strong marketing tool for them, with one of the titles winning an "award" because of that innovation. So as a minimum, HD DVD will provide some marketing value for them.

Again thanks for your patience writing here. It is NOT often that a company's spokesperson shows such a level of knowledge and sheer enthusiasm for their products. It's clear that you treat HDDVDs success as an almost personal matter, like Steve Jobs treats the iPhone's success, and this kind of personal touch is what the BDA lacks.
Thanks again. It is kind praise like this that makes me hang around here...

A question I would like to ask is is do you have any idea when the XBox 360 HD DVD add-on is coming to Australia?
Paul, just letting you know that I have the date but don't know yet if I can share it before I hear from our sub there. Given the time difference, it may take another couple of days. Feel free to remind me if I don't answer it.

Just a quick update on my previous observations regarding displays at CES. There is now a new king in front projectors, the JVC RS-1 (and its brother, HD-1). I will be retiring my Sony Ruby as soon as this poppy ships in Feb. More reflections here: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=9435822&&#post9435822. At $6K list, anyone who seriously wants to enjoy HD DVD/BD, needs to check this PJ out. As an FYI, JVC is majority owned by MEI/Panasonic so I am not saying this to support brother HD DVD company :) (although there appears to be strong rumors of MEI divesting from JVC).

I also had the opportunity to see the new Pioneer Plasma. They definitely seem to have made a breakthrough on black levels here. So much so that you can not tell the display is on even in a dark room! Alas, the unit shown was 768p, not 1080p. And I have my concerns about reflections in family room type applications (my scenario). But nice innovation on behalf of Pioneer.I saw both pieces above and I could not agree more. The HD-1 was in a suite at the back of Caesar's Palace and it was the best PJ I have ever seen that was under $25,000.

Really amazing stuff.

My question to Amirm is speculative.

The new technology Pioneer Plasma display in their booth theater even looked amazing with some ambient light. There seemed to be no reflection showing despite those inky black levels. The demo clip shown had deep shadows and spotlighted lighting (it was a photographer taking pictures of a model in colorful clothing in various backgrounds) yet the colors were so vibrant and the textures so vivid they almost appeared 3D.

Amir, in your experience, have you ever seen a better picture anywhere than theses two products , the JVC HD-1 and the technology demo Pioneer plasma?

And based on your experience, how long do you think it would take to bring this Pioneer technology to market?

My question to Amirm is speculative.

The new technology Pioneer Plasma display in their booth theater even looked amazing with some ambient light. There seemed to be no reflection showing despite those inky black levels. The demo clip shown had deep shadows and spotlighted lighting (it was a photographer taking pictures of a model in colorful clothing in various backgrounds) yet the colors were so vibrant and the textures so vivid they almost appeared 3D.

Amir, in your experience, have you ever seen a better picture anywhere than theses two products , the JVC HD-1 and the technology demo Pioneer demo?
They looked really good. I reserve judgement to test the released products of course and do more side by side tests. But both seem to break new ground for their category.

And based on your experience, how long do you think it would take to bring this Pioneer technology to market?
The unit shown seemed to work pretty well for a prototype. It lacked a video processor so it will take 6 to 9 months to add that probably. So I would say it could be ready for this Xmas season.

Note that the unit shown was 768p. I am sure we all want 1080p sets for our HD DVD/BD players :). And a larger size possibly, both of which will delay the introduction some...

Note that the unit shown was 768p. I am sure we all want 1080p sets for our HD DVD/BD players . And a larger size possibly, both of which will delay the introduction some... I didn't know that. If that set was 768p it blew away the 1080p display right next to it. That's even more impressive to me.

I didn't know that. If that set was 768p it blew away the 1080p display right next to it. That's even more impressive to me.
Actually, they were both 768p :). Yes, it is strange that Pioneer did not show this on their flagship 1080p unit.

But we digress. Back to HD topics :).

this question would be perfect for CJPlay to answer, but alas, he's still prohibited from posting, so...

insiders,

Criterion's Position on HD Optical Media (http://www.criterionco.com/blog/2006_11_01_archive.html#116259362318816373)

Basically, Peter Becker states that Criterion would not release any titles on either format until a 'solution' came from one of the 'bigger players' in the industry.

With the announcement from Warner about TotalHD, has there been any talk (behind doors, of course) from Criterion about releasing anything on TotalHD? Do they even know it exists yet? One comment made by Peter Becker is that they don't want to release two separate versions of one title, due to the problem of keeping two sets of inventory. It would seem that TotalHD could be the best solution for Criterion.


thanks, and keep up the great work!

this question would be perfect for CJPlay to answer, but alas, he's still prohibited from posting, so...

insiders,

Criterion's Position on HD Optical Media (http://www.criterionco.com/blog/2006_11_01_archive.html#116259362318816373)

Basically, Peter Becker states that Criterion would not release any titles on either format until a 'solution' came from one of the 'bigger players' in the industry.

With the announcement from Warner about TotalHD, has there been any talk (behind doors, of course) from Criterion about releasing anything on TotalHD? Do they even know it exists yet? One comment made by Peter Becker is that they don't want to release two separate versions of one title, due to the problem of keeping two sets of inventory. It would seem that TotalHD could be the best solution for Criterion.

thanks, and keep up the great work!
I am pretty sure they didn't know about it because Warner pre-briefed very few companies before CES. I doubt that this news alone would compell them to publish though. Statements like above typically means they have other fish to fry than to invest in HD right now.

Amir,

I was curious as to your opinion regarding TW's TotalHD disc? What concerns me is that Time Warner alluded to charging a premium for TotalHD above the current cost of HD DVDs and Blu-ray discs. It is my belief that this is asking the consumer to subsidize the format war. The consumers did not create the format war -- the studios and CEs did. Why should I pay an extra $5-10 (??) per movie because a consensus could not be reached.

Personally, I won't purchase any Time Warner movies unless they could be had for $20-25. Has Time Warner given any consideration to consumer backlash regarding pricing?


Thanks!


PS: Any ballpark time-frame for the TL51; i.e., a year from now, two-years?? Just curious, that's all.

Amir,

I was curious as to your opinion regarding TW's TotalHD disc?
THD discs are made to make one entity happy: the retailer (because they don't have to stock both types). It is not designed as much to make customers happy or those of us in one camp or the other.

To the extent the retailers now push HD formats more, that is a good thing. To the extent it adds complexity to an already complex format, it may not be a good thing. And I agree, if it increase the retail costs of HD DVD/BD discs, that is not a good thing either.

Man, you guys really force me to go on a limb on these topics :).

PS: Any ballpark time-frame for the TL51; i.e., a year from now, two-years?? Just curious, that's all.
I think standardization will take us most of this year. So any products would be slated for next year.

Amir,

The xbox 360 HD-DVD addon plays 15 and 30GB HD discs flawlessly. When the 17, 34, and 51 GB discs hit, will the 360 HD player be able to, through firmware updates, handle any of these new disc sizes? Is it possible to control the laser through software updates to the extent that reading an additional 3rd layer is even possible?

I am not asking for a solid yes or no; just a question of feasibility.

A question to all insiders.

What is the implication of the Volume Key decryption which has been accomplished for HD-DVD? I understand that the person who did this is now looking for a stand-alone BD-Drive so that he can do the same for BD. Seems like it will be pretty straight-forward based on what has been done so far.

How does this affect HD-DVD and BD?
What are the possible options for both the hardware and software vendors?

Amir,

I am curious about this as well. With the volume keys being posted publicly and movies being ripped, what is the next step in the revocation process?

I mean do they have a little flowchart hung on a cubicle somewhere where they decide who or what is actually at fault before they start killing keys for hardware or software? (software playback exploit in this case)

I guess its just a matter of time at this point before they exploit the same software playback hole for AACS on Blu-Ray media...

-pd

Thank the Makers for that!! Now if you'd like to offer a swap out for a new "Superbit-BD" version of TFE when that comes out, that'd be lovely, appreciated, and a slick PR move.

:D

I was also interested to find out that Casino Royale and Open Season are going to be AVC -- great news there! Can you say at this time if the rest of the Bond films will be released as AVC BDs as well, at some point in the future? Everyone has been raving abou their new releases on DVD but I'm holding off for the future BD boxed set.

Any hints on when that may arrive?

Thanks again!

-John

Please see my earlier post on this idea. A new disc for TFE may be ready in a couple of months.

Sony does not have distribution of the entire Bond catalog. You will have to ask Fox about the other titles.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=9201166#post9201166

Thanks. However it looks like the BDP-S1 firmware update is now generally available for download (see thread in BD Players forum). Do you have a full release notes available for the firmware so we can see everything that got fixed? This firmware update is a move in the right direction for Sony, increases confidence in the player, and would seem to bring it in line with the Pioneer in terms of playability of discs.

Sorry, but I do not have release notes. I am on the road again next week, so I won't be able to provide too much detail on this until I get back.

paidgeek, is the limit for what Sony will handle 'pornography', or is it broader, extending to anything that contains explicit sexual content? Don May Jr's post at Mobius last April relating that Sony refused to handle Thriller and The Image as Blu-ray, for instance, would seem to indicate that the ban is a good deal broader than just pornography? And for that matter why does Sony handle Japanese pornography on Blu-ray? Is this just a Sony US policy?

The company is fairly liberal so long as the title has an MPAA rating. I can't speak for what the Sony Japan plants will handle.

Paidgeek,

Could you please provide your expert comments in this thread?: Something MPEG2 has that VC1 does not (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=781777&page=1&pp=30)

This is about blocking artifacts in MPEG2 on BD movies (all of them, apparently).

Amir and Ben have already contributed [thanks Amir/Ben]. If we had CJPlay here, that would have made it A, B, C! :)

We have a lengthy evaluation agreement with MS that stipulates we cannot discuss the VC1 encoder. That said, all of the available codecs have artifacts and blocking on every title, it is just a matter of whether or not you decide to go frame stepping along to look for them. This is made less obvious on the Toshiba players by the fact they do not support frame stills, at least on the players we have seen.

Thanks.

I have one other, non-related question.

Will there be a firmware update to fix the black and white HDMI clipping issue for the PS3? I cannot get a firm answer on this from anyone.

I do not know of any clipping issues on the PS3, can you provide a link to the source of this information?

Amir: Sorry to annoy you with this again but do you have any updates regarding the DD+ bug with the Xbox360 HD DVD addon?

Amir: Sorry to annoy you with this again but do you have any updates regarding the DD+ bug with the Xbox360 HD DVD addon?
Yes, I have the date now. What I don't have is the permission of the Xbox guys to disclose it. I am hoping to get a hold of someone next week.

Yes, I have the date now. What I don't have is the permission of the Xbox guys to disclose it. I am hoping to get a hold of someone next week.

Thanks for the quick response mate. You are a credit to this forum. :)

It seems that providing full 1920 x 1080 anamorphic formatting of 2.35 content for use with CIH 2.35 systems would be a tremendous opportunity to expand the capabilities of HD. The 35mm cinema format that has the highest image area (anamorphic 35) would have the ability to be the same at home with the use of a high quality anamorphic lens. Does the news that HD-DVD has found a way to expand disc capacity to 51 GB present an opportunty to do this as a layer? One layer would be letterboxed, the other anamorphic. BD has always had more capacity. Certainly the ASC, SOC, and others from the motion picture community would endorse such a capability.

Can it be done? Who can get some traction with this? armirm, what say you? Others?

I do not know of any clipping issues on the PS3, can you provide a link to the source of this information?

Hi paidgeek,

Here is some information which may be pertinent to the issue at hand:

Check out this 24-bit RGB capture from a Sega game, taken from the PS3's HDMI output (as opposed to a dump of the framebuffer).

http://img148.imageshack.us/img148/3369/segalogoko0.th.png (http://img148.imageshack.us/my.php?image=segalogoko0.png)

This background should be pure white. Take this shot into Photoshop and that white is actually RGB 235, rather than RGB 255. If I take the original AVI file into VirtualDub, add a 16-235 to 0-255 levels filter, the entire clip is perfect. If I look at the clip on a histogram, the RGB range is obviously 16-235 rather than 0-255.

So it looks as though the PS3 is outputting video systems RGB rather than computer systems RGB. So as with my capture equipment, on some displays black won't look like pure black, white won't look like pure white.

Of course, as we're talking about an established RGB protocol, this is most likely entirely intentional. But in the real world we may see the phenomena as being similar to the Xbox 360 VGA cable where some monitors look fine, and others do not look so good.

Also as with the Xbox 360, I can see many consumers asking that support for both RGB systems is added to the firmware, assuming I'm right of course :D

I do not know of any clipping issues on the PS3, can you provide a link to the source of this information?Stacey tested the PS3 a while ago (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=757137) in several areas including dynamic range.


This background should be pure white.Actually I believe that is right since the PS3 outputs games based on the video RGB standard. Just to clarify this but when people talk about clipping with the PS3 they are only talking about Blu-ray movies.


Of course, as we're talking about an established RGB protocol, this is most likely entirely intentional. But in the real world we may see the phenomena as being similar to the Xbox 360 VGA cable where some monitors look fine, and others do not look so good.For VGA that can be an issue since it does not really know what to expect, but HDMI actually specifies that all HD resolution output (720p, 1080i and 1080p) be sent using the video RGB standard.

Excellent information, Richard. Thanks for the illumination. That makes the clipping on BD playback all the more mystifying then...

this question would be perfect for CJPlay to answer, but alas, he's still prohibited from posting, so...

insiders,

Criterion's Position on HD Optical Media (http://www.criterionco.com/blog/2006_11_01_archive.html#116259362318816373)

Basically, Peter Becker states that Criterion would not release any titles on either format until a 'solution' came from one of the 'bigger players' in the industry.

With the announcement from Warner about TotalHD, has there been any talk (behind doors, of course) from Criterion about releasing anything on TotalHD? Do they even know it exists yet? One comment made by Peter Becker is that they don't want to release two separate versions of one title, due to the problem of keeping two sets of inventory. It would seem that TotalHD could be the best solution for Criterion.


thanks, and keep up the great work!

The president of Criterion is a personal friend and very excellent customer of mine. I will speak to him again this week and discuss TotalHD.

-Robert

Since you've said that Toshiba supports 1080p24, can we get a statement from them or somebody on the inside (other than a store owner or salesman) about when people thinking of buying the XA2 should expect that feature for an output choice?

Thanks,
Darin
Darin, are you referring to me in your question to Amir, which is quoted above?? You sound a little demeaning.

Sorry if I'm a little sensitive to your statement, but if you are referring to me I would hope you know my business is no just limited to my B&M store.

********************* is a well regarded, volume authorized nationwide retailer and I personally hold business development and engineering consulting agreements to TV Broadcast manufacturers as well as running my multiple business groups. I have enjoyed being selected for several industry speaking engagements, including the DVD Conference earlier this year and again at last weeks CES Show and I am frequently interviewed and quoted by CE trade publications. I am widely considered as an expert in this field. I also have a very close relationship with Toshiba. And although I do consider all of my staff including myself in sales my career is not typically carticartized as a salesman.

To further answer your specific question to Amir, may I point you to my earlier post where I responded to your same question on another thread a few hours ago.
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=9450607&&#post9450607

-Robert

Yes, I have the date now. What I don't have is the permission of the Xbox guys to disclose it. I am hoping to get a hold of someone next week.

I don't suppose you can confirm that the DD+ decoding problem has been, or is going to be fixed, in addition to adding DTS output.

Robert,

Interested in your presentation from this past week.

Is there anywhere we can readup on what you presented?

Amir,

Sorry to bring this up again, but would it be possible to give us an update on the status of work on the audio synchonization issues of the Xbox 360 with HD DVDs? Is a fix for this something we might expect with the DTS audio update, or is it something that may take longer? Also, is a fix for this a global thing, or is it dependent upon every individual problematic disc?

I understand you cannot tell us everything, but I thought it couldn't hurt to ask.

P.S. I echo the thanks for your numerous posts in answer to various other questions. I've learned a lot, not just about individual product issues or features, but also about the industry and product development as well. It's also interesting to hear the stories about industry politics. Nothing is ever simple... :p


Robert,

Interested in your presentation from this past week.

Is there anywhere we can readup on what you presented?
I would like to see this as well.

It seems that providing full 1920 x 1080 anamorphic formatting of 2.35 content for use with CIH 2.35 systems would be a tremendous opportunity to expand the capabilities of HD. The 35mm cinema format that has the highest image area (anamorphic 35) would have the ability to be the same at home with the use of a high quality anamorphic lens. Does the news that HD-DVD has found a way to expand disc capacity to 51 GB present an opportunty to do this as a layer? One layer would be letterboxed, the other anamorphic. BD has always had more capacity. Certainly the ASC, SOC, and others from the motion picture community would endorse such a capability.

Can it be done? Who can get some traction with this? armirm, what say you? Others?
If you just want to have another version of the movie on the same disc, you can simply put it on the side of the disc. It is a little known feature of HD DVD that you can make 60 gigabyte discs by having an HD DVD-30 dual layer structure on each side of the discs (similar to how we make combo HD DVD-30/DVD-9 today).

The only reason to want to have it on the same side is if you want to switch between them quickly which I don't think is needed in your suggestion.

Can anyone from HD-DVD camp shed some light on the issue where people now are copying and "cracking" HD-DVD`S and sharing keys puplic.
How does this affect HD-DVD and customers and potential customers?
And what can be done to fix this without bugging customers too mutch?

source: was not allowed to post. But there is a big thread on doom9 forums :confused:

Edit: Bluray insiders: If this should happen to BD, what then?

I have an A1 and I realize that the resume function is borken because of the way authoring is done. The same thing happens on the 2nd Gen A2 as well.

Can anyone from the HD group confirm that resuming will be included in future HD disc?

Thanks!

Just a quick note on doom9 reports and keys. The official response needs to come from AACS organization. Yes, we are a member company but any response must represent all the companies involved.

AACS is fully aware of the news and takes such developments very seriously. They are acting on it appropriately. Please be patient for the official word from them.

Can anyone from HD-DVD camp shed some light on the issue where people now are copying and "cracking" HD-DVD`S and sharing keys puplic.
How does this affect HD-DVD and customers and potential customers?
And what can be done to fix this without bugging customers too mutch?

source: was not allowed to post. But there is a big thread on doom9 forums :confused:

Edit: Bluray insiders: If this should happen to BD, what then?

I would also be interested, if any insiders are willing to talk about it. I was skeptical at first but it does appear that it is being confirmed by multiple sources for HD DVD, with keys being posted at various places thus allowing further confirmation. I'm not aware of anyone finding any BD keys yet.

- Tom

edit: I had not yet seen Amir's post above mine when I posted.

Just a quick note on doom9 reports and keys. The official response needs to come from AACS organization. Yes, we are a member company but any response must represent all the companies involved.

AACS is fully aware of the news and takes such developments very seriously. They are acting on it appropriately. Please be patient for the official word from them.

Amir-

I know you can't say much at this point on this issue but do you have any idea when they'll have some kind of statement ready?

I'm just keeping my fingers crossed this doesn't end up helping to cut the lives HD videos short.

Chris

This being the weekend after CES, I don't know when they will have an official statement ready.

This being the weekend after CES, I don't know when they will have an official statement ready.

Can you confirm that this is exactly the sort of hole that lead Microsoft to drop the notion of releasing a player for XP for playing HD disc content?

I remember you saying someone might take the risk. Several did. I wonder if they think it was worth it now?

Gary

Can you confirm that this is exactly the sort of hole that lead Microsoft to drop the notion of releasing a player for XP for playing HD disc content?

I remember you saying someone might take the risk. Several did. I wonder if they think it was worth it now?

Gary
I can't comment on what specific hole this is. But your generic comment is correct that we worry about how one safeguards such data in XP through software only measures. Even in Vista such a thing is difficult to do well, but with XP, it is much harder.

Any idea about what kind of consequences leaving the title/volume keys in the clear will have for software player makers besides getting their player keys revoked?

ie, will they be fined or bared from making future players?

Hey you all. Not fair dragging the comments out of me bit by bit :). I really can't comment much further. AACS is the only org that can comment on consequences.

Amir,

The xbox 360 HD-DVD addon plays 15 and 30GB HD discs flawlessly. When the 17, 34, and 51 GB discs hit, will the 360 HD player be able to, through firmware updates, handle any of these new disc sizes? Is it possible to control the laser through software updates to the extent that reading an additional 3rd layer is even possible?

I am not asking for a solid yes or no; just a question of feasibility.Just bumping it off the last page, as I am pretty sure it got glossed over.

Thanks again Amir, for making this site so informative.

Just bumping it off the last page, as I am pretty sure it got glossed over.
Sorry about that. I thought I had answered it. Anyway, there is no way to tell for sure until Toshiba submits the proposal to DVD Forum for evaluation. The key is whether the drive can a) detect the third layer and b) read the third layer reliably through the one next to it. Given the fact that we use the Toshiba/Samsung (TSST) drive, probably improves the odds of it working but I don’t want anyone to think that it does until confirmed 100%.

Thanks again Amir, for making this site so informative.
My pleasure.

Amir,

Can you comment on these unanswered questions/posts of mine? :)

How HD DVD players handle the decode/output of simultaneous mixed encoded content (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=9449825#post9449825)

Vista, CableCard, and HD streaming to Xbox 360 (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=9444845#post9444845)

CES news on HD DVD authoring for PC consumer/prosumer (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=9434140#post9434140)

And one from the infamous Vista Audio thread ;) (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=8711809#post8711809)

Amir/Ben,

Any CES news regarding HD DVD authoring for the PC consumer/prosumer?
I didn't catch any CES news in particular, but a bunch of stuff is in development.

You can pretty much assume that any vendor who makes DVD authoring today is actively working on HD DVD.

Is there something in particular you're looking for you don't have access to today? "Consumer/prosumer" is a very broad range of markets.

I didn't catch any CES news in particular, but a bunch of stuff is in development.

You can pretty much assume that any vendor who makes DVD authoring today is actively working on HD DVD.

Is there something in particular you're looking for you don't have access to today? "Consumer/prosumer" is a very broad range of markets.

Apologies if this is an obvious question. Would such software be a good idea with the current issue with AACS? Obviously there are legitimat uses but wouldnt such software be inviting to those who would copy and sell illegal copies? Or am I making a wrong assumption of what such software could do?

Apologies if this is an obvious question. Would such software be a good idea with the current issue with AACS? Obviously there are legitimat uses but wouldnt such software be inviting to those who would copy and sell illegal copies? Or am I making a wrong assumption of what such software could do?
People who want to pirate HD DVD/BD have next to zero need to make copies of them on expensive writable medie for either format. So no, there is no impact here.

Besides, the specs are open. So if there is no commercial software, someone will write one anyway.

On a slightly different subject, I saw mentions of AMD Live, Ocur and CableCard, but nothing on the Microsoft front regarding CableCard on Vista MCE. Should we expect to see CableCard on Vista HTPC's this year? And streaming that high def content either to Xbox 360's or 3rd-party HD extenders?
I don't have the schedule for cablecard handy but it should be this year.

Amir,

Can you comment on these unanswered questions/posts of mine? :)

How HD DVD players handle the decode/output of simultaneous mixed encoded content (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=9449825#post9449825)

Vista, CableCard, and HD streaming to Xbox 360 (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=9444845#post9444845)

CES news on HD DVD authoring for PC consumer/prosumer (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=9434140#post9434140)

And one from the infamous Vista Audio thread ;) (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=8711809#post8711809)
Boy, you asked tough questions :). I tried commenting on them but don't feel all that great about the answers other than the first. Hopefully they are still useful to you. :)

Amir,

Thanks for your excellent answers. In no way I felt that your first reply to my first deranged post was aggressive, don`t worry. In fact, I feel silly in retrospect, getting so freaked out with some pessimistic news...

Another question for you, since you seem to be able to get information from pretty much every company involved in HDDVD :) :

Do you know if/when Toshiba and the studios plans to start selling and marketing HDDVD in Latin America, Brazil specifically? Or Microsoft with its 360 drive (the Xbox360 was released officially here late last year)?

I`m anxious to be able to buy discs subtitled in portuguese, so that the rest of my family can enjoy them as well. And they`d be cheaper too.

Moreover, since Sony is not releasing the PS3 in these parts due to piracy concerns, the PS3-as-Trojan-Horse for BluRay can`t work here. In my view, HDDVD can gain a lot filling this void: HD LCD and plasma sets are selling like hotcakes here, but since the Japanese ISDB hidef system won`t be operational for another year or so, there are no hidef sources to speak of. People DONT KNOW what hidef is, they think the only advantage of the LCD sets are their slim sizes.

If HDDVD made a small effort to release it here sooner rather than later they`d be able to educate consumers on the benefits of HD, at the same time positioning themselves as the only source of hidef content for at least a full year. I really don`t see any brazilian replicators buying a BD line, but many have indicated they`d be willing to start replicating HDDVDs right away should the demand arise...

Thanks again,

Do you know if/when Toshiba and the studios plans to start selling and marketing HDDVD in Latin America, Brazil specifically? Or Microsoft with its 360 drive (the Xbox360 was released officially here late last year)?
Well, invite me to come and take pictures of your beautiful country and I will bring all the 360 HD DVD drivers folks may want. :D

Seriously, I don't have that data but just asked. Will post what our plans are when I get it.

BTW, isn't there special rules for Brazil where equipment must be "made" locally or it can not imported? Or am gettin my countries mixed up?

Moreover, since Sony is not releasing the PS3 in these parts due to piracy concerns, the PS3-as-Trojan-Horse for BluRay can`t work here. In my view, HDDVD can gain a lot filling this void: HD LCD and plasma sets are selling like hotcakes here, but since the Japanese ISDB hidef system won`t be operational for another year or so, there are no hidef sources to speak of. People DONT KNOW what hidef is, they think the only advantage of the LCD sets are their slim sizes.
Didn't realize there was so much demand for HD there. Thanks for the info.

If HDDVD made a small effort to release it here sooner rather than later they`d be able to educate consumers on the benefits of HD, at the same time positioning themselves as the only source of hidef content for at least a full year. I really don`t see any brazilian replicators buying a BD line, but many have indicated they`d be willing to start replicating HDDVDs right away should the demand arise...

Thanks again,
Very good point. I will be in touch.

Can anyone from HD-DVD camp shed some light on the issue where people now are copying and "cracking" HD-DVD`S and sharing keys puplic.
How does this affect HD-DVD and customers and potential customers?
And what can be done to fix this without bugging customers too mutch?

source: was not allowed to post. But there is a big thread on doom9 forums :confused:

Edit: Bluray insiders: If this should happen to BD, what then?

I read that thread a few days ago and saw nothing to support anybody other than the OP having copied any HD-DVD content to HDD and nothing to support anybody else having got hold of any keys. Are you just speculating or can you point to something specific (as in links to specific posts)?

Thanks!

Just to answer your question, no equipment doesn`t need to be made here to be sold legally. But taxes for imported equipment are high, near 60% (depending on some factors). Most high end equipment are imported anyway, with higher prices, but toshiba has a LARGE plant in Manaus, Amazon state, and I`m sure they could produce units locally.

That`s unlikely, but even imported HDA1s for example, would cost around US$750 counting taxes, and people who have money here are used to paying these prices for new items...

Boy, you asked tough questions :). I tried commenting on them but don't feel all that great about the answers other than the first. Hopefully they are still useful to you. :)

Thanx Amir (and Ben!) for all the discussion. I have to say that you guys put a friendly face on and make a good case for HD DVD. It is reassuring to have insiders/developers available for direct communication and feedback.

BTW, we know what you look like now Amir (http://www.cepro.com/ehx/spring2006/slide/16883.html) ! ;) :D
CES HD DVD press conference slide show (http://www.cepro.com/ehx/spring2006/568.html)

Amir,

Since there is some talk about the RGB output levels on the PS3, I thought I would ask about them on the XBox 360. I have seen many people ask for a setup option to select the output levels of the RGB. Is any work being done to add this feature?

I personally bought a 360 with the intention of hooking it up via VGA to my Samsung 1080p DLP (one of the most popular sets on the market some would argue), along with the XBox VGA cable to get 1080p. I was disappointed when the image was washed out. It turns out my TV only accepts PC level inputs and the 360 only outputs RGB at video level.

Blowing $30+ dollars on a VGA cable that I don't even use (and couldn't return) left me feeling a bit burned. I had also planned on getting rid of my upscaling player, but lost out on that too because of the VGA problem.

So adding an output level selection in the setup, would redeem the 360 a bit in my eyes.

I`m anxious to be able to buy discs subtitled in portuguese, so that the rest of my family can enjoy them as well. And they`d be cheaper too.

And remember, supporting the downloading of subtitles is definitely a networked content scenario. Even if publishers aren't ready to make the Portuguese subtitles yet, you can at least suggest they make sure titles are ready to download subtitles at a later date.

Amir,

Since there is some talk about the RGB output levels on the PS3, I thought I would ask about them on the XBox 360. I have seen many people ask for a setup option to select the output levels of the RGB. Is any work being done to add this feature?

So adding an output level selection in the setup, would redeem the 360 a bit in my eyes.
Fully agree. I have put that request into Xbox team already. I will keep pushing them to deliver :).

I haven't spent time with The Descent so I can't verify this behavior or whether there might be a method for exiting or bringing up the menu which you didn't discover. There is no fundamental restriction on UI behavior during special features, so it's certainly possible the developers designed it as you report. I'll try to track down a Lionsgate developer at next week's BDA meetings and report back if I can learn anything.

I noticed the same thing. Also the PS3 reported 7.1 PCM, is that correct? PCM sound was amazing, if you have the space I don't see why you'd use Dolby TrueHD or DTS MA. More titles with uncompressed PCM are welcome, I prefer to let the receiver do any post processing to LPCM audio.

To all insiders, I don't agree that DD + or DTS HD core sounds comparable, give us more uncompressed PCM or lossless audio tracks on these formats.

I noticed the same thing. Also the PS3 reported 7.1 PCM, is that correct? PCM sound was amazing, if you have the space I don't see why you'd use Dolby TrueHD or DTS MA. More titles with uncompressed PCM are welcome, I prefer to let the receiver do any post processing to LPCM audio.

Yes, I can imagine how your knowlege you're hearing uncompressed over losslessly compressed would help you enjoy the exact same bits ever so much more :).

Receivers won't be doing the post processing to PCM in the future, since that means you 'll only be getting a single audio track, which is what you don't want.

Decompressing audio in the reciever makes just as much sense as decompressing video in the reciever...

Amir,

Since there is some talk about the RGB output levels on the PS3, I thought I would ask about them on the XBox 360. I have seen many people ask for a setup option to select the output levels of the RGB. Is any work being done to add this feature?

I personally bought a 360 with the intention of hooking it up via VGA to my Samsung 1080p DLP (one of the most popular sets on the market some would argue), along with the XBox VGA cable to get 1080p. I was disappointed when the image was washed out. It turns out my TV only accepts PC level inputs and the 360 only outputs RGB at video level.

Blowing $30+ dollars on a VGA cable that I don't even use (and couldn't return) left me feeling a bit burned. I had also planned on getting rid of my upscaling player, but lost out on that too because of the VGA problem.

So adding an output level selection in the setup, would redeem the 360 a bit in my eyes.


It turns out the 360 VGA still does not work at 1080p with Sony SXRD XBR2 RPTV's. Can we expect this update with the DD/DTS update as well?

I've also viewed the VGA output on several displays and the picture does seem washed out on most. I would be dissapointed to get 1080P output and not be be able to select video output levels.

Please get the team Xbox team to fix the VGA output.

Yes, I can imagine how your knowlege you're hearing uncompressed over losslessly compressed would help you enjoy the exact same bits ever so much more :).

Receivers won't be doing the post processing to PCM in the future, since that means you 'll only be getting a single audio track, which is what you don't want.

Decompressing audio in the reciever makes just as much sense as decompressing video in the reciever...

Think you misunderstood, for me, the Pioneer Elite receivers apply THX post processing, speaker eq, and room correction on LPCM just fine, so I don't mind not getting all the benefits of TrueHD 5.1 dialog normalization or dynamic range control. I don't see why you think receivers won't be supporting this in the future, this is a highly desired feature, just take a look at this Amp/Receiver forum thread (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=8690911&&#post8690911) . TrueHD is pointless anyhow on the 360 today as we can't transport the decoded TrueHD (any plans on changing that!?).

BD has the space for uncompressed PCM, so why should they encode with TrueHD or DTS MA, regardless if it is bit for bit the same (I get that, been listening to MLP audio for years)? What other reasons are there besides space?

I am sure BD titles are saving some pennies on royalties using PCM, and given the reported higher replications costs I am sure it helps.

There is an audible difference with the same DD track@640kpbs and uncompressed PCM at 4+ Mbps. Even a non enthusiast can tell the difference at the same SPL levels.

In general I think audio was poorly planned for the new formats with the CE manufacturers. Having to mix software menu audio (and whatever else BD-J or iHD features) in the player creates this limitation of having to decode in the player.

This was not the industry standard for DVD except early on. I see a similar trend with the new HD formats, but what you are suggesting, and what has been reported thus far is that if you want all audio options, decoding in the player will continue to be the case as these format matures. I don't like having that limitation forced on me.

But it seems the industry believes most people actually watch all the extras today, and will buy the same titles with interactive features tomorrow that requiring mixing in the player.

I agree, I would not want a receiver decompressing video but I wouldn't put video in the same category as audio, as most receivers are built primarily for audio decoding and video switching. Furthermore, if my receivers components where better than the players, wouldn't you want to decompress in the receiver?

With that said, I'd take bitsream audio over iLink any day from a transport device to a receiver.

I just want the best video and audio presentation "."

No frills.

Perhaps next time the HD DVD trailer rolls into town a demo can be done of DD/DD+ and uncompressed PCM from the same sountrack. It doesn't sound the same to me.

Admir thanks for all your timely feedback and your passionate recap of what HD DVD has done and plans to do. It helped some of us HD owners who are feeling somewhat apprehensive about where we are going. I wish Universal had your passion that could be seen on the AVS forum and came to speak with the members here.

A lot of the apprehensive us HD DVD owners have not only came from the Universal no show but from the effort owners put in over the pass 4-5 months emailing non HD DVD major studios to support the format and allow us consumers to decide the winner. The effort we put in I don’t believe was recognized by these studios, nor did they recognize the momentum and strong number of users we have to date. So our only hope at this time is the strategy the HD members have laid out at CES. If we don’t have a large enough base of HD DVD owners in place by 2007 Xmas to persuade these non HD DVD studios over, than other options need to be considered providing it’s not too late.

Admir I’m not sure if someone has asked or if you can give an opinion on this but it might be time for MS to consider the impact of owning a studio and competing with Sony/Blu-Ray on an equal footing. Would this move be something that MS would consider or even possible? Please get Disney and if you can afford it buy Fox as well. :D

ONKYO's AV product isn't cheap.But the Blu-ray's entironment is more better than HD DVD.I think a costly HD DVD player will be difficult to sale.

So, why ONKYO support HD DVD? Anybody know that?

ONKYO's AV product isn't cheap.But the Blu-ray's entironment is more better than HD DVD.I think a costly HD DVD player will be difficult to sale.

So, why ONKYO support HD DVD? Anybody know that?
There are SD DVD players that cost 10 to 20 times more than BD players. If someone can charge so much for a DVD player, why do you think they can't do the same for HD DVD?

Reasons which motivate these companies are:

1. HD DVD's reputation for a/v quality. Yes, BD has improved but HD DVD has nailed this. Indeed, many of the above companies sell their expensive SD DVD players by showing that they can upsample The Fifth Element and have a better picture than BD version of the same movie! After such demos, it would be hard for them to turn around and sell BD players :).

2. Ease of building HD DVD players. As you know, many of these high-end companies innovate above the core DVD stack. With HD DVD/BD being far more complex, and their volumes comparably low, it is very hard for them to get into market without help. And help they got in the form of Microsoft+Broadcom reference platform. We do the basic functionality, letting them innovate above that.

3. We are keen on helping them as we don't see them as competitor. There is no equiv. company to us in BDA.

4. Open arms. Frankly, we work much harder to bring people to HD DVD, than BDA. We know high-end products as enthusiasts and that matters to these companies.

I could go on but hopefully you get the picture.

Is Onkyo actually going to build a player or just joined the HD DVD group?

They are also members of the BDA (and also have no product to show for it)

They are building a player...

Amirm, humor me for a minute...lets just say that we had a truce and everyone decided to put thier films on HD DVD and thier games on Bd....would this not be a fiscally sound and attractive solution for the principles involved?? I am asking your opinion here....not if this has been ever talked about..or has it?

Amirm, humor me for a minute...lets just say that we had a truce and everyone decided to put thier films on HD DVD and thier games on Bd....would this not be a fiscally sound and attractive solution for the principles involved?? I am asking your opinion here....not if this has been ever talked about..or has it?
Hey, I am game. Where do I sign?

Really, the strength of HD DVD is in movie mastering. If we standardize on that, then we are cool with BD being used for recording and proprietary things like PS3 games....

For those interested, see my (perhaps politically-incorrect) response to Amir's earlier "all's well with HD DVD post" in the Format Battle thread here (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=9459540&&#post9459540).

They are building a player...

Is it perhaps intended to be a universal/dual format player?

For those interested, see my (perhaps politically-incorrect) response to Amir's earlier "all's well with HD DVD post" in the Format Battle thread

you said "Hitachi showing 200GB BD-ROM discs playing back on current hardware#

Do you mean Blu-ray movie players?
Can current players play that or would it require firmware upgrade.
Does this mean that in the future we can\will? see movies on disks bigger than 50GB. Imagine Lotr with a seamless branching :)

More infomation would be welcome.

you said "Hitachi showing 200GB BD-ROM discs playing back on current hardware#

Do you mean Blu-ray movie players?
Can current players play that or would it require firmware upgrade.
Does this mean that in the future we can\will? see movies on disks bigger than 50GB. Imagine Lotr with a seamless branching :)

More infomation would be welcome.

Didn't the hitachi have a modified laser/hardware component as well? If I remember right, that was the unit that was shown in the plexiglass shell with the display above it indicating what Layer it was reading?

Think you misunderstood, for me, the Pioneer Elite receivers apply THX post processing, speaker eq, and room correction on LPCM just fine, so I don't mind not getting all the benefits of TrueHD 5.1 dialog normalization or dynamic range control. I don't see why you think receivers won't be supporting this in the future, this is a highly desired feature, just take a look at this Amp/Receiver forum thread (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=8690911&&#post8690911) . TrueHD is pointless anyhow on the 360 today as we can't transport the decoded TrueHD (any plans on changing that!?).
I think you're conflating the issue of codec and transport (which is pretty common - HD DVD and BD have a very different high-end audio mode than DVD).

The output of a player is going to be identical between a PCM and a TrueHD track - they both get decoded to the exact same bits in the player, and (ideally) transported out via PCM, or if if there isn't HDMI, through what the player does support.

BD has the space for uncompressed PCM, so why should they encode with TrueHD or DTS MA, regardless if it is bit for bit the same (I get that, been listening to MLP audio for years)? What other reasons are there besides space?
BD uses PCM because it doesn't have a mandatory lossless audio codec, not because there's an actual difference in audio output between lossless and PCM. Lots of BD titles have had compromised video quality due to space constraints.

There is an audible difference with the same DD track@640kpbs and uncompressed PCM at 4+ Mbps. Even a non enthusiast can tell the difference at the same SPL levels.
Well, yes, but there's a wide range of options on HD DVD between DD @ 640 and PCM. You have TrueHD, of course. And DD+ @ 1.5 Mbps is extremely high quality, supporting >16-bit for example. There are certainly scenarios where DD+ will provide a more accurate version of a high-bit master than PCM @ 16-bit would.

In general I think audio was poorly planned for the new formats with the CE manufacturers. Having to mix software menu audio (and whatever else BD-J or iHD features) in the player creates this limitation of having to decode in the player.
It's a paradigm shift, not a limitation :). We decode audio in the player for the same reason we decode video in the player - no-latency compositing. It's the simplest, offers the most flexibility, and the most predictible quality.

This was not the industry standard for DVD except early on. I see a similar trend with the new HD formats, but what you are suggesting, and what has been reported thus far is that if you want all audio options, decoding in the player will continue to be the case as these format matures. I don't like having that limitation forced on me.
Can you proivde some more clarity on what limitations you're getting on that?

And can you contrast that to the limitations having the video decoded in the player doesn't cause?

But it seems the industry believes most people actually watch all the extras today, and will buy the same titles with interactive features tomorrow that requiring mixing in the player.

I agree, I would not want a receiver decompressing video but I wouldn't put video in the same category as audio, as most receivers are built primarily for audio decoding and video switching. Furthermore, if my receivers components where better than the players, wouldn't you want to decompress in the receiver?
decompression is decompression - there's really only one correct way to do it. Now, audio processing (like room correction) - that's the domain of the receiver, and that's where it ought remain. But there's no problem applying it to the muxed audio output from the player.

It's a paradigm shift, not a limitation :). We decode audio in the player for the same reason we decode video in the player - no-latency compositing. It's the simplest, offers the most flexibility, and the most predictible quality.

It would have been nice if the capability to decode was done before the paradigm was shifted. ;)

We've seen with both formats that decoding isn't done at all or added incrementally via firmware (2ch TrueHD originally for the A1/XA1, increased to 5.1 later via firmware, neither format currently does DTS-HDMA, the 360 add-on will never get these formats out, etc). That both formats are behaving similarly makes me wonder if there is some ulterior motive to this (if not collusion). This could have been a great talking point against the other side except both sides suspiciously embraced the same paradigm shift for their own format.

If I take my tinfoil hat off, I don't see that both formats are all that far apart, though, but it still makes me do a Spock-style eyebrow raise.




But it seems the industry believes most people actually watch all the extras today, and will buy the same titles with interactive features tomorrow that requiring mixing in the player.



Heh, sounds like some of these industry people are trying to justify their work (& continued existence). Speaking for myself, the deleted scenes are what I use the most, though I would prefer if all/most could employ seemless branching for integrating them in the main title (I understand this is made difficult by the necessity to rescore, etc, though). A good commentary track with the primary actors and director/creative types is my most personally desired feature, though. Everything is far distant in use, if not desire. I hope there will be an off button and/or that I can readily ignore most of this interactivity, as I currently do with IME/U-Control/Blu-wizard/etc after maybe the first full main title viewing (when I play around with special features).

The implications of this interactivity is either far more ominious (especially if I'm wearing my tinfoil hat) or annoyingly irrelevent (especially given all the emphasis). Are the primary purposes really customer enjoyment or instead are these interactivity features aimed at advertising and/or microtransactions of some sort, if not an incentive to couple an abstracted additional layer of DRM?

Is it possible some folks are thinking of changing the trailers at the beginning of a title (unskippable for some studios, and not succeptible to the same DVD-style tricks to skip them) to current releases, for example?

It would have been nice if the capability to decode was done before the paradigm was shifted. ;)

We've seen with both formats that decoding isn't done at all or added incrementally via firmware (2ch TrueHD originally for the A1/XA1, increased to 5.1 later via firmware, neither format currently does DTS-HDMA, the 360 add-on will never get these formats out, etc). That both formats are behaving similarly makes me wonder if there is some ulterior motive to this (if not collusion). This could have been a great talking point against the other side except both sides suspiciously embraced the same paradigm shift for their own format.

If I take my tinfoil hat off, I don't see that both formats are all that far apart, though, but it still makes me do a Spock-style eyebrow raise.
Occam's Razor would suggest that these are new formats, with codecs being added incrementally :). And for the 360, it's got TOSLink out. And, again, audio decode support and audio transport support are completely different axes. You can get PCM convered to AC-3, or AC-3 converted to PCM. They're two different line items on the feature lists, and ought not to be confused or conflated.

I'm not sure what the ulterior motive would even be hear. The advantages of getting audio decode and mixing into the players are obvious, and the disadvantages theoretical edge cases at best.

Perhaps someone who disagrees with this approach could suggest what their alternative would be? Any other way to do it I've thought of is dramatically worse.

Heh, sounds like some of these industry people are trying to justify their work (& continued existence). Speaking for myself, the deleted scenes are what I use the most, though I would prefer if all/most could employ seemless branching for integrating them in the main title (I understand this is made difficult by the necessity to rescore, etc, though). A good commentary track with the primary actors and director/creative types is my most personally desired feature, though. Everything is far distant in use, if not desire. I hope there will be an off button and/or that I can readily ignore most of this interactivity, as I currently do with IME/U-Control/Blu-wizard/etc after maybe the first full main title viewing (when I play around with special features).
Ah! There you go. Commentary tracks win huge with the new audio paradigm. Before, you got a pause between switching commentary on/off - now it's seamless. Before, the background audio in the commantaries was much worse than without it - now they're the same. Before, lots of bits had to be used on commentaries so that the background audio would sound better - now they don't. So, it'd be completely feasible to add a dozen commentary tracks to a movie, with fewer bits than 2-3 would have taken before, with a much higher quality audio experience.

The implications of this interactivity is either far more ominious (especially if I'm wearing my tinfoil hat) or annoyingly irrelevent (especially given all the emphasis). Are the primary purposes really customer enjoyment or instead are these interactivity features aimed at advertising and/or microtransactions of some sort, if not an incentive to couple an abstracted additional layer of DRM?
Commentary is a type of interactivity. Live menus are a type of interactivity. It's all the same code underneath. It's like building a web site - just because banner adds are possible, doesn't mean that HTML was designed purely to deliver banner adds.

We've got hundereds of HD DVD titles on the market now, and every one from a major studio is using the "HDi" advanced interactive features for user interaction, and there hasn't been any overbearing advertising stuff like you talk about above, which is a pretty definitive proof in my mind that it's there to make a better movie experience.

Is it possible some folks are thinking of changing the trailers at the beginning of a title (unskippable for some studios, and not succeptible to the same DVD-style tricks to skip them) to current releases, for example?
As as consumer, you should tell them not to do unskippable trailers, if that's important to you.

.



As as consumer, you should tell them not to do unskippable trailers, if that's important to you.

How is that communication supposed to take place?

I wonder if the insiders might comment on this article (I know, I know, it's Charlie on the Inquirer): I'm not allowed to post the link (too few posts), but if you go to theInquirer (dot) net, there is an article titled "Blu-ray, HD both doomed as pr0n industry twiddles thumbs".

Specifically:

Is it true that Sony or the BDA can revoke a license because of content? How about the DVD Forum?

Charlie makes some claims about prod/master/replication costs. Are these even close to accurate?

(Of less importance) Is it true that Disney pressured Sony on the whole porn thing and BR?

Thanks,
Mike

Ah! There you go. Commentary tracks win huge with the new audio paradigm. Before, you got a pause between switching commentary on/off - now it's seamless. Before, the background audio in the commantaries was much worse than without it - now they're the same. Before, lots of bits had to be used on commentaries so that the background audio would sound better - now they don't. So, it'd be completely feasible to add a dozen commentary tracks to a movie, with fewer bits than 2-3 would have taken before, with a much higher quality audio experience.


Using the same method could this be applied to give us multiple languages on the same disk at little cost in bandwidth.

ie. have a high quality track of the music and other language independent features, and then mix it in with the appropriate language track that only has dialog...

How many audio tracks can you decode at once :D

I wonder if the insiders might comment on this article (I know, I know, it's Charlie on the Inquirer): I'm not allowed to post the link (too few posts), but if you go to theInquirer (dot) net, there is an article titled "Blu-ray, HD both doomed as pr0n industry twiddles thumbs".
Is this the article? http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=36942

If so, seems like he did pretty good research. And this is high praise, coming from us who usually get beat up good by Inquirer :).

Is it true that Sony or the BDA can revoke a license because of content? How about the DVD Forum?
We (DVD Forum) certain do not. And I am sure BDA would say the same thing. DVD Forum has RAND provisions for its technology which stands for Reasonable And Non-Discriminatory licensing. So one can not withhold a license for this use.

Charlie makes some claims about prod/master/replication costs. Are these even close to accurate?
Pretty close.

(Of less importance) Is it true that Disney pressured Sony on the whole porn thing and BR?
We have also heard that rumor. At the same time, we have also heard of core BDA companies chasing this business and offering free equipment and such in the past. So it is hard to rectify the two rumors. Maybe one won over the other in recent times.

What is not hard to rectify is that brand name companies will not replicate such content. Today’s alternative content on DVD is produced by specialty replicators. The same firms can easily upgrade their lines to do HD DVD and produce such content at very reasonable cost since no price subsidy is necessary for HD DVD. All of these forces are driving non-adult content creation, especially in Europe for HD DVD.

Commentary is a type of interactivity. Live menus are a type of interactivity. It's all the same code underneath. It's like building a web site - just because banner adds are possible, doesn't mean that HTML was designed purely to deliver banner adds.

Good point, but banner ads, tracking cookies, spyware and adware are what we ended up with. Is it feasable to have a sort of "HDi firewall" to get the stuff we want and not the stuff that we don't? The intent seems quite nice, but we've seen seemingly innocuous intent turned to advertising purposes before...

One area I do think HD-DVD leads on significantly is the "smooth" factor of their menus (sliding up/down, etc). With BD they're more abrupt and "pop" in or out. It's a small thing, but something I do appreciate on my HD-DVD's. So kudos to everyone involved with HDi for that.


As as consumer, you should tell them not to do unskippable trailers, if that's important to you.


I'd love to. How?

As I mentioned, it would be the case of the content owner not having the rights to give you the managed copy. An example Warner used on the panel at CES was if a talent/producer/etc. considers managed copy video on demand as opposed to optical distribution and have a carve out in their contract for the former. Or very old content which unclear contract rights with no way to re-negotiated it.

Cool, they all make sense. Is there a mandated time parameter (for example studios must offer MC for at least 2 years from production-firsts shipment)? I can imagine a small indy studio that might be OK with MC, but the idea of keeping the service available 5 years down the road for a movie that sold 10k might be a bit much. If there is a mandated period, how long is it?

I'd love to. How?
Right here, if I am succesful in getting cjplay back. Hopefully one day, we get reps from other studios too beside Sony.

For now, rest assured that the Microsoft insiders who answer questions here do push the studios on your behalf on such points. We don't pretend to know their business mind you :). But we do speak on your behalf to them.

Cool, they all make sense. Is there a mandated time parameter (for example studios must offer MC for at least 2 years from production-firsts shipment)? I can imagine a small indy studio that might be OK with MC, but the idea of keeping the service available 5 years down the road for a movie that sold 10k might be a bit much. If there is a mandated period, how long is it?
You know I don't know for sure. Regardless, there may be "clearing house"/service organizations that pop up to provide such support for smaller companies. And they can provide such support long term.

OK, this has been bugging me :D

When did "iHD" become "HDi", and why?

To Talkstr8t

I'm new here, and I've been reading yours and Amir's and Ben's posts. What I don't get is your signature. If you are a Blu-Ray Insider why dont you speak for the BDA?

Moreover, I would not advertise that particular post as it makes you look churlish and combative over Blu-Ray, which you say you aren't speaking for but are an insider of?

you said "Hitachi showing 200GB BD-ROM discs playing back on current hardware#

Do you mean Blu-ray movie players? Yes.
Can current players play that or would it require firmware upgrade.They said there demo was done only by upgrading drive firmware, no change in hardware (lens, optics, etc.). This certainly doesn't imply it will be feasible for production, backward compatible to all current drives, etc., but I'd say it represents very promising research. Even if 200GB isn't feasible on current equipment, perhaps 100GB would be.
Does this mean that in the future we can\will? see movies on disks bigger than 50GB. Imagine Lotr with a seamless branchingBased on this demonstration, consider it a possibility, but certainly not a probability.
More infomation would be welcome.I imagine more will be shared at upcoming BDA seminars and such (unless they run into an insurmountable hurdle, in which case you'll probably never hear about it again!).

- Talk

How is that communication supposed to take place?
Write them letters? Don't buy discs that do that?

Unskippable trailers aren't a technical question (any optical format can implement that), but a "how much do we want to annoy our customers" question. It's completely orthogonal the question of enhanced interactivity (if anything, enhanced interactivity would offer better alternatives to forcing a trailer play every time). And not in the way they imagined whey they bought that ad!

In my personal experience, I'm still pretty ticked off about the non-skippable Pillsburghy Dough Boy commercial on the front of the Rudolph The Red Nose Reindeer DVD. To the degree that I'm reminded of it every time I see their logo.

There's no technical solution to bad taste :).

I'm new here, and I've been reading yours and Amir's and Ben's posts. What I don't get is your signature. If you are a Blu-Ray Insider why dont you speak for the BDA? Because speaking for the BDA implies having been designated a spokesperson, and more importantly, having far less leeway to post personal opinions.
Moreover, I would not advertise that particular post as it makes you look churlish and combative over Blu-Ray, which you say you aren't speaking for but are an insider of?There are lots of insiders here who speak only for their company (i.e. paidgeek) or themselves (dr1394). I appreciate that post was more combative than most, but the Format Battle thread is an appropriate home for such posts. This thread is not.

Someone asked me a few days aga if Bandai content is for US distribution and if so, does it have English subtitles. The answer to both is yes! The subtitles will use HDi and can be dynamically turned on and off.

This is the reason we announced the partnership here, rather than Japan.

Someone asked me a few days aga if Bandai content is for US distribution and if so, does it have English subtitles. The answer to both is yes! The subtitles will use HDi and can be dynamically turned on and off.

This is the reason we announced the partnership here, rather than Japan.
This is excellent news. I am very much looking forward to getting Ghost In The Shell (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_in_the_Shell) on HD DVD.


P.S. Just in case you missed it:
Amir,

Sorry to bring this up again, but would it be possible to give us an update on the status of work on the audio synchonization issues of the Xbox 360 with HD DVDs? Is a fix for this something we might expect with the DTS audio update, or is it something that may take longer? Also, is a fix for this a global thing, or is it dependent upon every individual problematic disc?

I understand you cannot tell us everything, but I thought it couldn't hurt to ask.

Amir-

Have you hear anything about the audio issues coming from Studio Canal? I'd love to pick up the Graduate and the Prestige (edit: I know this is a Warner title) from Europe in March, but don't want screwy audio.

I know it's said a million times, but I really thank you for your endless time on these forums.

Oh, and BTW, if you ever talk to Warner, tell them to get the Christopher Guest movies out! :)

Cheers,
Chris

Amir,

As per this report: http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/01/13/new-xbox-360-due-for-late-07-to-handle-iptv/ will the IPTV streaming functionality from the 360 require a new, revised 360 or will current models be firmware updated for full support?

Thanks,
Robert.

Amir:

Regarding the joint MS/Broadcom PR statement. Has the Chipset been completed? Are chinese vendors already working on prototypes? when can I expect to purchase one of these players using this chipset at say, walmart?

Amir-

Have you hear anything about the audio issues coming from Studio Canal? I'd love to pick up the Graduate and the Prestige (edit: I know this is a Warner title) from Europe in March, but don't want screwy audio.

I know it's said a million times, but I really thank you for your endless time on these forums.

Oh, and BTW, if you ever talk to Warner, tell them to get the Christopher Guest movies out! :)

Cheers,
Chris

Please count me as a customer for all of the Christopher Guest movies as well. :)

Amir:

Regarding the joint MS/Broadcom PR statement. Has the Chipset been completed? Are chinese vendors already working on prototypes? when can I expect to purchase one of these players using this chipset at say, walmart?
You know, I am not sure what BRCM has announced so I have to check on that before giving you a firm answer on the first part.

But per my post in another thread just now, we showed working BRCM platform with our Windows CE playing HD DVD discs at CES in our private suite. Not saying we are ready to ship today but this should give you sense of how far along we are. We have had a MIPS implementation of HDi for quite some time and since that is the core that BRCM uses, it was pretty strightforward to get it working on that platform.

As far as time frame, I will just say "this year" as I don't want to pre-announce things on behalf of other companies.

When I saw Intel join up with the HD DVD promotion group, I thought they might do some mobo's or chipsets enhanced for HD DVD. But I can't seem to find anything other than Viiv which seems to be format agnostic. Would Amir or Talk give an update of what Intel is doing for the respective formats?

Thank you both very much for supporting us everyday users. Its refreshing and makes my choice of formats even more enjoyable.

All Toshiba HD-DVD players are Intel Inside.

When I saw Intel join up with the HD DVD promotion group, I thought they might do some mobo's or chipsets enhanced for HD DVD. But I can't seem to find anything other than Viiv which seems to be format agnostic. Would Amir or Talk give an update of what Intel is doing for the respective formats? I've seen no indication of much engagement for either format by Intel.

- Talk

When I saw Intel join up with the HD DVD promotion group, I thought they might do some mobo's or chipsets enhanced for HD DVD. But I can't seem to find anything other than Viiv which seems to be format agnostic. Would Amir or Talk give an update of what Intel is doing for the respective formats?

Thank you both very much for supporting us everyday users. Its refreshing and makes my choice of formats even more enjoyable.
They are more active behind the scenese and contribute to HD DVD marketing for example. And of course, are a founder of AACS.

All Toshiba HD-DVD players are Intel Inside.
Thanks. But I don't believe the Pentium was enhanced for this purpose any more than putting it in a clone pc. I would like to know details though if that is true or Intel made special chipset.

I've seen no indication of much engagement for either format by Intel.

- Talk
Thank you. I haven't either. The joint announcement by MS and Intel was big news though.

They are more active behind the scenese and contribute to HD DVD marketing for example. And of course, are a founder of AACS.
Microsoft and Intel Back HD DVD as Next-Generation High-Definition DVD Format of Choice. Companies cite key criteria for consumer and industry success, join HD DVD Promotion Group.

SANTA CLARA, Calif., and REDMOND, Wash., Sept. 26, 2005
Brendan Traw, Intel Fellow and chief technology officer of Intel’s Digital Home Group. “Intel has determined that HD DVD best meets the needs of consumers and the requirements for the respective consumer electronics, computer and entertainment industries for delivering a high-definition, interactive experience to the home on optical media.”

Behind seems to be the key word. :) As a systems integrator, Microsoft Partner and HD DVD adopter, I was looking forward to some spiffy video or audio support from them built in to a PC. So my follow up question is: If Intel is busy creating marketing material (nothing to do with you or Microsoft but I thought they would do more), what is going on in the computer side to lower the cost of burners and make the mobo's more HD DVD friendly? If its not anything its ok. I just wanted a lead for something to keep track of. Thank you very much.

Talk, on a related note, I was wondering on the nature of involvement of Apple within the BDA.

Apple is notoriously a secretive company, and we haven't heard much on their implication in the format -- other that some Blu-ray equipped computers might soon be released (according to rumor websites), and that 3rd party vendors like Roxio and LaCie have started supporting the format with their newer products.

Is there anything you can say on the matter?

To Sony insiders, would it be possible to come up with a USB dongle containing analog audio out? It seems that this would be a relatively cheap and easy solution for letting PS3 users without HDMI capable receiver to use uncompressed PCM that's so prevalent on most BDs.

When I saw Intel join up with the HD DVD promotion group, I thought they might do some mobo's or chipsets enhanced for HD DVD. But I can't seem to find anything other than Viiv which seems to be format agnostic.
HD DVD doesn't require much in the way of specific optimization. Core 2 Duo is a great processor for playback (and encoding as well). And VC-1 was designed for efficient decoding on Intel architecture PCs among other things.

Anyone care to take a stab at this?



Ah! There you go. Commentary tracks win huge with the new audio paradigm. Before, you got a pause between switching commentary on/off - now it's seamless. Before, the background audio in the commantaries was much worse than without it - now they're the same. Before, lots of bits had to be used on commentaries so that the background audio would sound better - now they don't. So, it'd be completely feasible to add a dozen commentary tracks to a movie, with fewer bits than 2-3 would have taken before, with a much higher quality audio experience.

Using the same method could this be applied to give us multiple languages on the same disk at little cost in bandwidth.

ie. have a high quality track of the music and other language independent features, and then mix it in with the appropriate language track that only has dialog...

How many audio tracks can you decode at once :D

amir, i realize you aren't toshiba but i was wondering whether you get some details or provide them with some feedback regarding their latest approach to audio encoded in advanced content mode on the gen 2 systems; specifically, whereas in the past the player would reencode using dts at 1.5k, they now appear to be reencoding dolby source (whether it be dd+ or dd-thd) to dd at 640k for output over s/pdif.

given the obvious higher resolution for dd-thd and that some encode using dd+ at 1.5k ( i understand universal does; not sure whether paramount uses dd+ above 640 but apparently warner does dd+ at 640k), i would much prefer the option of choosing myself whether to output using reencode to dts at 1.5k or dd at 640k (is dd at 640k the max that can be output over s/pdif?)...it never bothered me that i saw audio specs stating dd+ on disc and seeing dts on my receiver as it did others since the sound was always great over s/pdif.

do you know if toshiba will provide dts reencode as an option?

Amir, going along with what Ben was just talking about, do you know if it's feasible to firmware upgrade the first gen Toshibas to allow a choice of DTS or DD re-encode over SP/DIF? I actually need that as an option because I am one of the unfortunate few who have a Sony receiver that can't read the full bitrate DTS stream. I get crackling audio and have to change output to PCM, which throws me into 2 channel mode! :(

Amir, going along with what Ben was just talking about, do you know if it's feasible to firmware upgrade the first gen Toshibas to allow a choice of DTS or DD re-encode over SP/DIF? I actually need that as an option because I am one of the unfortunate few who have a Sony receiver that can't read the full bitrate DTS stream. I get crackling audio and have to change output to PCM, which throws me into 2 channel mode! :(
You too, ha? :) I handed out my old Lexicon with DD only processor which I paid $4,500 for in 1997 to my son...

Alas, no, I don't expect Toshiba to go back and add DD to first gen product. As you know, your box and mine amount to negligible market share for the people who jump into HD right now. HDMI receivers are getting very cheap. So it might make sense to bite the bullet and upgrade now...

Using the same method could this be applied to give us multiple languages on the same disk at little cost in bandwidth.

ie. have a high quality track of the music and other language independent features, and then mix it in with the appropriate language track that only has dialog...

How many audio tracks can you decode at once :D

There is an important difference between mixing a commentary track and attempting to create a complete foreign language version using the same methods. If you experiment with a dubbed audio track, you will find that the dialog is mixed in any of the 5 channels at any given moment. For instance if an actor is speaking in a room with hard surfaces, a good audio engineer will mix the audio such that the room reflections of the actors voice come from the surrounds as well as the LCR. Suffice it to say that a considerable amount of work goes into creating the dubbed audio version that cannot be duplicated with any current metadata.

The company is fairly liberal so long as the title has an MPAA rating...

So are you saying this means the end of the "Unrated" video release that has become so common on DVD (especially with horror titles)? Are we going to be forevermore stuck with edited R-rated versions of movies like HIGH TENSION and THE HILLS HAVE EYES as opposed to the uncensored unrated director's cuts should Blu-ray become the next standard???

Vincent

Anyone care to take a stab at this?

Using the same method could this be applied to give us multiple languages on the same disk at little cost in bandwidth.

ie. have a high quality track of the music and other language independent features, and then mix it in with the appropriate language track that only has dialog...

How many audio tracks can you decode at once?

You can decode three audio tracks at once - typically main, commentary, and menu sounds.

What you're talking about is certainly feasible, but as paidgeek suggets, there aren't a lot of movies out there correctly mixed for this right now. But were the content avalable, reasonably easy to do in HD DVD.

Talk, on a related note, I was wondering on the nature of involvement of Apple within the BDA.

Apple is notoriously a secretive company, and we haven't heard much on their implication in the format -- other that some Blu-ray equipped computers might soon be released (according to rumor websites), and that 3rd party vendors like Roxio and LaCie have started supporting the format with their newer products.

Is there anything you can say on the matter?Would love to be able to say something, but I can't.

So are you saying this means the end of the "Unrated" video release that has become so common on DVD (especially with horror titles)? Are we going to be forevermore stuck with edited R-rated versions of movies like HIGH TENSION and THE HILLS HAVE EYES as opposed to the uncensored unrated director's cuts should Blu-ray become the next standard???

Vincent

Vincent, Sony has released in continental Europe the BD of Hostel unrated, and I guarantee that you'll have some trouble to watch a certain scene concerning a poor Japanese girl! :) And BTW, this BD has no region code (hint, hint).

IMO there a huge difference between the policies of Sony Pictures and Sony replications facilities. Sony Pictures doesn't care less on the artistic content of other studios' pictures -- and the exemple of Hostel tells us they'll go as far as the filmmakers want to, if a unrated version presents a commercial opportunity. Sony Replication, on the other hand, states "no porn" in their plants, because they have a set of family values that must have to pass a national scrutiny. But the same porn can easily be mass-replicated elsewhere.

There's been a great deal of chatter on porn lately, but I have the feeling that we're missing an important piece of the story. We all know that Sony subsidizes companies that are producing Blu-ray. But if you're a porn producer and can't use the Sony plant, are you still entitled to be subsidized? ;)

And if you were Joone, wouldn't you try to be vocal and get the support from some of your peers in order to get the BDA's attention, so you can hopefully negociate something that doesn't need to be made public? :)

You can decode three audio tracks at once - typically main, commentary, and menu sounds.

Ben, for HDDVD how many channels can the commentary track use? and what bitrate limitations are there?

We all know that Sony subsidizes companies that are producing Blu-ray.

I didn't know that?

What kind of companies?

I didn't know that?

What kind of companies?

It has already been discussed here (probably on the previous thread), and I've read it on quite a number of industry papers.

From my recollections, early financial breakdowns stated that the initial replication costs for Blu-ray discs would be more expensive than HD-DVDs, until economies of scale kick in. In order to keep the Studios happy, Sony and the BDA conceded that they would subsidize the BD's manufacturing costs during a limited timeframe in order to match HD-DVD's costs.

I guess that the financial details are confidential, but I'd assume that it's safe to say that BD Studios (BVHE, Fox, Lionsgate, Sony, Warner...) are the first beneficiaries of this initiative, and that post-prod facilities and disc replication plants must also have some incentives if they wish to upgrade to Blu-ray.

This leads to the original question I was asking -- is the porn industry entitled to the same financial incentives even if they cannot use Sony's plants? If that's the case, censorship isn't an issue, it's just a financial negociation... :D

It has already been discussed here (probably on the previous thread), and I've read it on quite a number of industry papers.

From my recollections, early financial breakdowns stated that the initial replication costs for Blu-ray discs would be more expensive than HD-DVDs, until economies of scale kick in. In order to keep the Studios happy, Sony and the BDA conceded that they would subsidize the BD's manufacturing costs during a limited timeframe in order to match HD-DVD's costs.

I guess that the financial details are confidential, but I'd assume that it's safe to say that BD Studios (BVHE, Fox, Lionsgate, Sony, Warner...) are the first beneficiaries of this initiative, and that post-prod facilities and disc replication plants must also have some incentives if they wish to upgrade to Blu-ray.

This leads to the original question I was asking -- is the porn industry entitled to the same financial incentives even if they cannot use Sony's plants? If that's the case, censorship isn't an issue, it's just a financial negociation... :D

And will the results of that finanancial negotiation vary arbitrarily depending upon whether Sony approves of what you want to master? This might be important for studios competing with Sony.

- Tom

So are you saying this means the end of the "Unrated" video release that has become so common on DVD (especially with horror titles)? Are we going to be forevermore stuck with edited R-rated versions of movies like HIGH TENSION and THE HILLS HAVE EYES as opposed to the uncensored unrated director's cuts should Blu-ray become the next standard???

Vincent

What I meant was that any title which has been rated by the MPAA or is clearly not an adult title would be fine. Our practices for DVD will be continued for Blu-ray.

At first I suspected that I just had a faulty unit, but I've now found corroboration from other users that the Toshiba HD-XA2 has a problem with juddery video when watching certain HD DVD and regular DVD discs. This issue is not present on the HD-A1 playing the same discs. The following thread lists examples:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=787340

Can one of the insiders in contact with Toshiba find out if they are aware of this problem and have any plans to address it? This seems to be similar to the issue that the Samsung Blu-ray player initially had when watching BD discs with DTS soundtracks. Samsung eventually fixed the issue with firmware, so I am confident that Toshiba can do the same. However, I don't know how long I'd be willing to wait for that, without at least some assurance from Toshiba that they're working on it.

I would also like Toshiba to address the issue of the XA2's poor sound quality over the analog audio outputs. Bass seems to be suppressed an additional 10db over even the HD-A1's low bass, but only when decoding Dolby Digital Plus tracks (standard DD 5.1 and DTS on DVDs are not affected).

For a $1,000 second-generation player, I find these problems greatly disappointing.

Thanks for the report Josh. We will surely pass it on to Toshiba.

Amir,

Any chance that MS will offer some sort of connection between Xbox live D/L and hd-dvd's. Perhaps working with a retailer(s) go offer a discount for D/L users that might want to purchase the hd-dvd after an hd rental?

I notice a high correlation between the movies on Xbox Live marketplace and the movies that are available for hd-dvd. Coincidence?

Amir,

As per this report: http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/01/13/new-xbox-360-due-for-late-07-to-handle-iptv/ will the IPTV streaming functionality from the 360 require a new, revised 360 or will current models be firmware updated for full support?

Thanks,
Robert.

Amir,

When you get a chance would you please check with the Xbox team and let us know whether we'll need Revision 2 360's to use the IPTV functionality or not? I'm ofcourse hoping that all of our current 360's can be firmware upgraded.

Thanks,
Robert.

I think you're conflating the issue of codec and transport (which is pretty common - HD DVD and BD have a very different high-end audio mode than DVD).

The output of a player is going to be identical between a PCM and a TrueHD track - they both get decoded to the exact same bits in the player, and (ideally) transported out via PCM, or if if there isn't HDMI, through what the player does support.


BD uses PCM because it doesn't have a mandatory lossless audio codec, not because there's an actual difference in audio output between lossless and PCM. Lots of BD titles have had compromised video quality due to space constraints.

I don't recall asking for interactivity or for audio muxing, and I wouldn't call the muxing high-end audio ;0) Seriously though, I get that uncompressed PCM and TrueHD are bit to bit identical, but there are no requirements to transport it out in it's native decoded format correct?

Isn't this how the 360 add-on qualfied as an HD DVD device with it's crippled audio transport? I mean really what is the point of decoding a TrueHD track and transporting it out via toslink encoded at 1.5Mbps, it's like a tease in a box! (I digress, but can you guys fix it).

It's my understanding that one of the primary reason the BDA choose not to make lossless audio mandatory was to allow manufactures more flexibility in players, allowing the consumer to decide what features they want in a player. I appreciate that HD DVD specifications made lossless mandatory for players, and at a lower cost than practically all BD players out now, but that doesn't change the fact that content providers are not required to carry a lossless track correct? So is it really an advantage? Where are all the titles with TrueHD? Perhaps the content providers belive that DD+ is good enough for HTs, that certainly seems to be what your alluding too...

As far as the space issue is concerned, I would not want video compromised for an uncompressed PCM track, I think everyone would agree with this. Yes there are BD25 titles that demonstrate where TrueHD for DTS MA would have been a better option to allow for the best possible video presentation, but the video codecs choosen surely have some play. But with BD50, are you really going to run into a space issue using AVC/VC-1 and uncompressed PCM? Can you think of any BD50 titles that have compromised video in this category?

Well, yes, but there's a wide range of options on HD DVD between DD @ 640 and PCM. You have TrueHD, of course. And DD+ @ 1.5 Mbps is extremely high quality, supporting >16-bit for example. There are certainly scenarios where DD+ will provide a more accurate version of a high-bit master than PCM @ 16-bit would.

Really? Can anyone give some examples on titles available today where DD+ sounds more accurate than their high-bit master and what causes this? Is it the encoding/mastering process, the dialog normalization and DRC that DD applies, some other psychoacoustic process?

It's a paradigm shift, not a limitation :). We decode audio in the player for the same reason we decode video in the player - no-latency compositing. It's the simplest, offers the most flexibility, and the most predictible quality.


Can you proivde some more clarity on what limitations you're getting on that?

And can you contrast that to the limitations having the video decoded in the player doesn't cause?


That may be true, but the paradigm shift still limits the consumer from choosing where they want audio decoded. It's basically forcing enthusiasts to invest more in a quality player that does excellent video AND audio decoding. It is a limitation because the industry is now saying audio decoding for these new formats is the domain of the player, not the receiver, so going forward, in choosing a HD DVD/Blu-ray player, we now have to consider both the audio and video sections, whereas in the DVD world, it didn't matter if you had quailty onboard decoders or not, all you needed was a toslink output, hdmi, or iLink and a quailty pre/pro/receiver to decode. There is really not much else to it, given the pardigm shift I'd just like to see more HD DVD players available from quality CE manufacturers that we know. The Toshiba's are fine players, but not my first CE manufacturer of choice.

The copy must be permanent. So it can not expire. Studios however, can provide you other options above and beyond which could expire, etc. But the standad offer can not be temporary or have count limits.

Just how managed is managed? I mean, OK it has to be permanent- but what about options to back it up, move it around, or transcode it?

Will the backend servers know that I bought rights to copy, so if my HDD crashes I can reburn it? I'm worried about data integrity and transportability and would feel much better about the whole affair if these are the primary concerns (instead of primarily how to secure hollywood another revenue stream for something I can do for free with DVD- DCMA aside).

To any Sony or Blu-ray insiders:

We found something really weird on both the Kingdom of Heaven blu-ray (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=9460711&&#post9460711) and DVD (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=9464973&&#post9464973) .

Any idea what this is? Seems like it would be in the master if its on both the BD and DVD.

Just how managed is managed? I mean, OK it has to be permanent- but what about options to back it up, move it around, or transcode it?


One at a time please. :) If you want to move it around, optical is your friend already. As for transcode, they could offer portable MC if there is enough interest.
3-5 hours of transcoding is never a mainstream thing.


Will the backend servers know that I bought rights to copy, so if my HDD crashes I can reburn it?

If your DVD collection is destroyed, could you ask for a new copy? Of course, I do agree MMC license backup could be useful during a HDD/Raid disater.

My question to insider: Could I back up MMC license instead of the MMC movie?

To any Sony or Blu-ray insiders:

We found something really weird on both the Kingdom of Heaven blu-ray (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=9460711&&#post9460711) and DVD (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=9464973&&#post9464973) .

Any idea what this is? Seems like it would be in the master if its on both the BD and DVD.

We will see what we can find out about this. It looks like it may have been related to a "power window" left inadvertently during the original color correction.

Links to sound clips comparing the messed up sound of TOTAL RECALL to the correct sound were posted in another thread a few days ago. These are sound clips for use in showing BASIC INSTINCT's higher pitch sound.

No matter what, it is now confirmed that BASIC INSTINCT, ELEPHANT MAN, all three RAMBO films and TOTAL RECALL have higher pitched soundtracks. :(

Here is the Caralco logo music from BASIC INSTINCT's NTSC releases. (http://media.putfile.com/BasicInstinct-Caralcologo-DVD)

Here is the same music taken from the HD-DVD. (http://media.putfile.com/BasicInstinct-Caralcologo-hddvd)

Here is a scene from the movie, taken from the SD DVD. (http://media.putfile.com/BasicInstinct-dvd-scene)

Here is the same exact scene taken from the HD-DVD. (http://media.putfile.com/BasicInstinct-hddvd-scene)

Amir, you have not said anything on this subject for days. I hope that is simply because you are awaiting word from the folks in Europe. Please, make sure this is fixed.

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Once again please follow these rules

Thanks for the report Josh. We will surely pass it on to Toshiba.

Thank you, Amir. The XA2 also has poor audio sync over all output types. Can you please pass that on as well?

Open question to industry insiders. How is movie sales calculated on both formats? What constitutes a HD DVD sale in software or a Blu-ray sales in software?

Links to sound clips comparing the messed up sound of TOTAL RECALL to the correct sound were posted in another thread a few days ago. These are sound clips for use in showing BASIC INSTINCT's higher pitch sound.

No matter what, it is now confirmed that BASIC INSTINCT, ELEPHANT MAN, all three RAMBO films and TOTAL RECALL have higher pitched soundtracks. :(

Here is the Caralco logo music from BASIC INSTINCT's NTSC releases. (http://media.putfile.com/BasicInstinct-Caralcologo-DVD)

Here is the same music taken from the HD-DVD. (http://media.putfile.com/BasicInstinct-Caralcologo-hddvd)

Here is a scene from the movie, taken from the SD DVD. (http://media.putfile.com/BasicInstinct-dvd-scene)

Here is the same exact scene taken from the HD-DVD. (http://media.putfile.com/BasicInstinct-hddvd-scene)

Amir, you have not said anything on this subject for days. I hope that is simply because you are awaiting word from the folks in Europe. Please, make sure this is fixed.

well, as I said from the beginning, the problem is far exaggerated. I didn't hear a single Chipmunk or person on helium in the example.

To be truthful, it is now confirmed that on three or four peoples individual hardware setups reproduce the sound this way. So is it an issue of incompatibility with certain equipment and import discs, or is it a problem with the disc authoring?

Darn it Amir, it's been like four days, and two of them were weekends where you had all day to figure this out. Why haven't you gotten to the bottom of this yet?! :rolleyes:

Thank you, Amir. The XA2 also has poor audio sync over all output types. Can you please pass that on as well?
Yes, and we should get our XA2 shortly so we can try to repro.

Links to sound clips comparing the messed up sound of TOTAL RECALL to the correct sound were posted in another thread a few days ago. These are sound clips for use in showing BASIC INSTINCT's higher pitch sound.

No matter what, it is now confirmed that BASIC INSTINCT, ELEPHANT MAN, all three RAMBO films and TOTAL RECALL have higher pitched soundtracks. :(

Here is the Caralco logo music from BASIC INSTINCT's NTSC releases. (http://media.putfile.com/BasicInstinct-Caralcologo-DVD)

Here is the same music taken from the HD-DVD. (http://media.putfile.com/BasicInstinct-Caralcologo-hddvd)

Here is a scene from the movie, taken from the SD DVD. (http://media.putfile.com/BasicInstinct-dvd-scene)

Here is the same exact scene taken from the HD-DVD. (http://media.putfile.com/BasicInstinct-hddvd-scene)
Agree these don't sound right.

Amir, you have not said anything on this subject for days. I hope that is simply because you are awaiting word from the folks in Europe. Please, make sure this is fixed.
I got an explanation but didn't understand it enough to post it here :). So I have asked for a clarification. These samples help me better figure out what is going on.

Agree these don't sound right.


I got an explanation but didn't understand it enough to post it here :). So I have asked for a clarification. These samples help me better figure out what is going on.

I guess the important question is: Can they fix it? :)

Thanks,
Chris

Open question to industry insiders. How is movie sales calculated on both formats? What constitutes a HD DVD sale in software or a Blu-ray sales in software?Companies like Nielsen Videoscan use point of sale data (meaning reported sales are in consumers' hands). Note, however, that some press releases have referred to "discs shipped", as opposed to "discs sold", meaning discs somewhere in the distribution channel, including on store shelves, and possibly greatly larger than the actual number in consumers' hands.

Good news! Toshiba has updated software for both A2 and XA2 which is supposed to release today or tomorrow. They seem to think it fixes the problem you reported Josh but the release notes are not specific enough for me to be sure.

Good news! Toshiba has updated software for both A2 and XA2 which is supposed to release today or tomorrow. They seem to think it fixes the problem you reported Josh but the release notes are not specific enough for me to be sure.


amirm:
Will I be able to dl from there website directly for burning to cd??

amirm:
Will I be able to dl from there website directly for burning to cd??
I am sure someone will post the image as has been before. Just keep an eye on the HD DVD player section for it....

And yes, we have asked them to officially post the image on their web site so hopefully they do that too.

Good news! Toshiba has updated software for both A2 and XA2 which is supposed to release today or tomorrow. They seem to think it fixes the problem you reported Josh but the release notes are not specific enough for me to be sure.

Amir, any chance the Xbox Team will let you annouce the release date for the DTS patch? :)

I am sure someone will post the image as has been before. Just keep an eye on the HD DVD player section for it....

And yes, we have asked them to officially post the image on their web site so hopefully they do that too.

So no official date and time??

Also, ty for posting here and letting us know.....

Amir, any chance the Xbox Team will let you annouce the release date for the DTS patch? :)
Not yet but I hope to be able to share *something* on it so you have some idea on it.

Not yet but I hope to be able to share *something* on it so you have some idea on it.

Amir, could you please coerce some details on possible FW updates for the HD-A1/XA-1 from those Tosh folks?

Amir, could you please coerce some details on possible FW updates for the HD-A1/XA-1 from those Tosh folks?
It is coming. They had to focus on Gen 2 serious but now that the product is out, I believe they are going to do more maintenance updates for G1. But please don't hold me to it. I don't work for Toshiba :).

Open question to industry insiders. How is movie sales calculated on both formats? What constitutes a HD DVD sale in software or a Blu-ray sales in software?

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

Our sales office gets reports from at least two sources, one of them is a Nielsen company. They can report actual register sales for the formats. And yes, Blu-ray has been ahead as of late December.
So it would be fair to say you were behind the entire time until last week of December?

So it would be fair to say you were behind the entire time until last week of December?

Yes, right up to the point that all the new players came out... No real surprise there.

To any HD-DVD/Microsoft insiders.

Is there any work being done to correct the audio sync issues with some of the HD-DVD's on the Xbox 360 HD-DVD addon? Is a software update all it would take to fix this problem?

Yes, right up to the point that all the new players came out... No real surprise there.
So the total number of titles HD DVD sold was well ahead of BD then for all of last year then. Correct?

It is coming. They had to focus on Gen 2 serious but now that the product is out, I believe they are going to do more maintenance updates for G1. But please don't hold me to it. I don't work for Toshiba :).

I wont hold you to it...

But if you could find out from any of your contacts from Toshiba if a new firmware for G1 players is planned/in the works it would be appreciated.

So it would be fair to say you were behind the entire time until last week of December? Yes, right up to the point that all the new players came out... No real surprise there. But has that rise in Blu-ray disc sales sustained itself?

My understanding is that sales indeed spiked for Blu-ray discs for the week showing the greatest PS3 holiday sales. No surprise there. That would also correspond to the gap period where there no HD A1's available in inventory and the second generation HD A2s were delayed.

PS3 launch and no HD DVD players except the Xbox HD DVD bundle would give a big sales advantage to to Blu-ray that might not be sustainable with the second generation HD DVD players becoming available in consumer friendly quantities.

It looks like the HD DVD sales have rebounded on the Amazon sales data charts and from some other early reports.

Do you insiders have any different data?

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

I know you probably can't repeat numbers, but what about a rough percentage. Were BD sales 10% ahead in December? More? Less?

Does any insider have any thoughts on this paradigm?

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

Discussion thread and my longer post explaining my thoughts on the subject here:

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

Does any insider have any thoughts on this paradigm?

Does HD DVDs mandatory network & persistent storage specs trump BDs disc space? This is really a stretch. First of all, the percentage of people who are likely to have a fairly sophisticated configuration supporting network attached storage is very, very small. Even getting people to attach a network is tough; asking them to configure storage on the network is nearly impossible. You also ignore whether network speeds will be sufficient for seamless A/V (many people will use wifi; in practice wifi speeds are almost always much slower than required for streaming HD audio/video).

Finally, there's a good possibility that the percentage of Blu-ray owners who with working network connections will be higher than HD DVD owners even though network support is not mandatory for Blu-ray. Why? Because PS3 owners are far more likely than standalone owners to attach to the network, given all the value provided by a networked PS3.

Keep grasping at straws, but Blu-ray has a clear and compelling capacity advantage which is going to be very difficult to overcome.

Keep grasping at straws, but Blu-ray has a clear and compelling capacity advantage which is going to be very difficult to overcome.

Do you seriously believe that if HD DVD were to introduce their TL51 with 1.5x spin rate that BD would have nothing to offer over HD DVD?

Well, Talk, you personally started a survey that found 61% of HD DVD owners had their players connected and 19% had a internet connection nearby. Do you disagree that that was 80% of HD DVD owners then saying they had a ready network connection?

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=703704

Well I don't think it would be that much of a stretch, in that a product could simply plug into the jack on HD DVD player and then into the network.

If you have ethernet speeds that could be plenty fast to move the content around.

To not crosstalk in this thread can you please continue the discussion in the discussion thread here?

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

http://www.hdtvblogger.com/?p=39

This just in: Possible Blu-ray title/volume key exploit found on PS3

Any comment on that? I'm interested in:

(1) Can you insiders please try to find out whether this is a true exploit or not?
(2) If this exploit is true, is it likely that the PS3 in its current form (e.g. firmware) will be blacklisted by AACS for future Blu-Ray discs?
(3) If the PS3 gets blacklisted, would the blacklisting be limited to the current firmware revision so that a new firmware would "undo" the AACS blacklisting?
(4) Can a firmware update be forced on the PS3 against the will of the customer?
(5) Would BD+ help in this situation?

Thanks!

Paidgeek,

when are we going to start seeing 48/24 tracks on Sony's BDs?

Cassino Royale and Open Season would be a perfect chance to start that trend. They are BD-50s AVC enconded, so I guess there should be enough space.

Good news! Toshiba has updated software for both A2 and XA2 which is supposed to release today or tomorrow. They seem to think it fixes the problem you reported Josh but the release notes are not specific enough for me to be sure.


Guess us A1 users are sh*&t out of luck again :(

Not yet but I hope to be able to share *something* on it so you have some idea on it.

how about sharing any news on 1st gen updates that would fix colorspace issues over dvi and black crush? :)

we've all been pretty paitient and it's frustrating to say the least that the 2nd gen players have been out for, what, a month and they're getting a fix for the same issues that have plauged us 1st gen owners since last summer.

it's really starting to piss me off.

Guess us A1 users are sh*&t out of luck again :(

Josh said the A1 doesn't have the problem. :confused:

http://www.hdtvblogger.com/?p=39



Any comment on that? I'm interested in:

(1) Can you insiders please try to find out whether this is a true exploit or not?
(2) If this exploit is true, is it likely that the PS3 in its current form (e.g. firmware) will be blacklisted by AACS for future Blu-Ray discs?
(3) If the PS3 gets blacklisted, would the blacklisting be limited to the current firmware revision so that a new firmware would "undo" the AACS blacklisting?
(4) Can a firmware update be forced on the PS3 against the will of the customer?
(5) Would BD+ help in this situation?

Thanks!

We will keep a close watch on this, but the link you provided does not provide any detail, just one of those someone heard what someone heard situations. Let's hope it is rubbish.

how about sharing any news on 1st gen updates that would fix colorspace issues over dvi and black crush? :)

we've all been pretty paitient and it's frustrating to say the least that the 2nd gen players have been out for, what, a month and they're getting a fix for the same issues that have plauged us 1st gen owners since last summer.

it's really starting to piss me off.

My understanding of the DVI issue is this:

The colorspace for HDMI is currently correct out of the A1/XA1 players....DVI uses computer based levels and therefore, you will need to adjust these parameters in your monitor. If the levels are fixed for the HDMI-DVI interface, then the levels will be incorrect for those using HDMI-HDMI connections.

If your DVD collection is destroyed, could you ask for a new copy? Of course, I do agree MMC license backup could be useful during a HDD/Raid disater.

My question to insider: Could I back up MMC license instead of the MMC movie?
Can anyone confirm the replacement policy of each studio? I remember Disney use to allow you to exchange a scratched/cracked/broken dvd for a new copy of the same movie (for a minimal S&H charge). Will this 'kid-friendly' policy be extended to HD DVD and BR as well by all studios?

Can anyone confirm the replacement policy of each studio? I remember Disney use to allow you to exchange a scratched/cracked/broken dvd for a new copy of the same movie (for a minimal S&H charge). Will this 'kid-friendly' policy be extended to HD DVD and BR as well by all studios?

If a disc is not playable, our studio will try to make the customer happy. Usually with a replacement disc.

Paidgeek,

when are we going to start seeing 48/24 tracks on Sony's BDs?

Cassino Royale and Open Season would be a perfect chance to start that trend. They are BD-50s AVC enconded, so I guess there should be enough space.

I agree that 48/24 is ideal, but it does not work well with a number of titles. We are tentatively planning for this year to continue with 16/48 LPCM in the U.S. and 20/48 Dolby THD for Europe.

So the total number of titles HD DVD sold was well ahead of BD then for all of last year then. Correct?

I do not have a week by week breakdown, but I presume so. What are you driving at. Isn't this old news?

A special thanks to Amir for responding to my post with the clips and agreeing that the sound is wrong. I hope that the "explanation" you were given can be clarified.

Amir, did they say something like, "the sound was given an increase in pitch to more accurately match how prior PAL releases sounded in Europe?" That is one going theory.

No matter what, no excuses are needed. A FIX is needed. These releases are flawed and all future releases that have a higher pitch will be flawed as well. :(


well, as I said from the beginning, the problem is far exaggerated. I didn't hear a single Chipmunk or person on helium in the example.

To be truthful, it is now confirmed that on three or four peoples individual hardware setups reproduce the sound this way. So is it an issue of incompatibility with certain equipment and import discs, or is it a problem with the disc authoring?

Darn it Amir, it's been like four days, and two of them were weekends where you had all day to figure this out. Why haven't you gotten to the bottom of this yet?! :rolleyes:

The only :rolleyes: needed is in regard to your insulting posts and bad attitude. Not to mention your complete disregard to the truth. You sir, shall be put in the ignore list. I have no time to read messages from someone who is just trying to start a fight.

So the total number of titles HD DVD sold was well ahead of BD then for all of last year then. Correct?

amir, you should read the competition's press releases from time to time. Apart from the entertainment value, could even prove useful eventually:

Fox PR (http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20070108005980&newsLang=en)

[...]Blu-ray sales performance surpassed HD-DVD for the first time the week of December 24 [...]

It follows that before the week of December 24 (that is, most of last year), HD DVD sales performance surpassed Blu-ray.

Last week's news.

To any Sony or Blu-ray insiders:

We found something really weird on both the Kingdom of Heaven blu-ray (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=9460711&&#post9460711) and DVD (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=9464973&&#post9464973) .

Any idea what this is? Seems like it would be in the master if its on both the BD and DVD.

We confirmed today that this is in the source. I'll check with Fox to see if we can learn more about what might have caused it.

Paidgeek:

Sony has only announced BD titles (actual dates) for calendar Q1. Is this policy, or was a concious decision made to allow the other studios the stage?

Gary

Paidgeek:

Sony has only announced BD titles (actual dates) for calendar Q1. Is this policy, or was a concious decision made to allow the other studios the stage?

Gary

Title release timing is kept as flexible as possible so we can adjust for any reason. I our launch announcement is consistent with this. A large number of titles though... With all versions totalled we are going to be very busy....

Paidgeek, Sony has annonced in Europe the Blu-ray release (early March) of Hellboy (cool!). Do you know if it's the theatrical or the director's cut?

Paidgeek, Sony has annonced in Europe the Blu-ray release (early March) of Hellboy (cool!). Do you know if it's the theatrical or the director's cut?

It will be the Directors Cut world wide...

To any BD insider:

Can we get a few questions answered about porn please.

1. Does the BDA prohibit replication of Porn to all it's licensed authoring and replication partners?
2. Is there anything in the license that states that a replicator cannot produce porn titles or the license can be pulled for such content?
3. Why are American Porn studios saying that they can't get their porn titles on BR where as there is BR porn is Japan?
4. Could the porn studios pool their resources and get a license for authoring and replication of BR porn content? Would they be turned down?

Anything else you can add to clarify the BDA stance on porn authoring and replication would be grateful.

Thanks,
Robert.

Amir-

I was just thinking about the Toshiba 1.5x speed upgrade to the standard. I'm sure they aren't that slow, but make sure they update all 3 disc types to 1.5x from 1x if they are going to change the standard. I mean, the drives would have to spin at that speed anyway, so why have different bandwidths depending on disc size. (Of course, I can see a bandwidth vs. capacity mismatch, but...)

Thanks,
Chris

Before it gets lost, could any other insider respond to this issue in the thread listed below?

How practicable is network storage acting as extra capacity adn bandwidth for HD DVD and Blu-ray?

Does HD DVD’s 30 GB w/ home network storage have more future capacity than BD's 50GB?

Does any insider have any thoughts on this paradigm?

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

Discussion thread and my longer post explaining my thoughts on the subject here:

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

Amir,

I am a budget conscious HD owner who is still trying to optimize my HD experience. I own a Toshiba 56HM66 (1080i) DLP HDTV. I also own the Xbox 360 HD-DVD add-on and a 4-year old Sony receiver (sorry, I don't have the model number handy). I have been told that for video cables:

HDMI>Component (RGB)>S-Video>Composite (RCA)

and for audio cables:

HDMI>Digital Optical>Composite (RCA)

I'm sure all of this will ultimately depend on all of the various specs of each piece of equipment, but as a general rule, this is what I've been told.

If this is the case, why does the Xbox 360/HD-DVD not have an HDMI output? Will this be a possible upgrade/fix in the future? Is the (currently) best possible connection for the Xbox 360/HD-DVD to use the component video into my HDTV and the digital optical directly into my receiver?

This may be more of a troubleshooting question better suited for a different venue, but I figure you would be more knowledgeable than anyone else I get on a 800-number line, so I'll ask you anyway. I frequently lose all audio (zero sound for a second or two) during high activity moments (lots of gunfire, explosions, etc.) while playing Halo 2 on the Xbox 360. I have not noticed anything like this any time else (watching HD-DVDs, TV, CDs, etc). What is the likely cause of this problem: old receiver/speakers, faulty optical cable between the 360 and receiver, or simply a glitch with Halo 2? I would like to figure out the most likely culprit without spending hundreds of dollars to replace an old (but otherwise perfectly functional) receiver.

Thank you.

To any BD insider:

Can we get a few questions answered about porn please.

1. Does the BDA prohibit replication of Porn to all it's licensed authoring and replication partners?
2. Is there anything in the license that states that a replicator cannot produce porn titles or the license can be pulled for such content?
3. Why are American Porn studios saying that they can't get their porn titles on BR where as there is BR porn is Japan?
4. Could the porn studios pool their resources and get a license for authoring and replication of BR porn content? Would they be turned down?

Anything else you can add to clarify the BDA stance on porn authoring and replication would be grateful.

Thanks,
Robert.

Robert,

These questions have been addressed in other posts, but for clarity:


1. Does the BDA prohibit replication of Porn to all it's licensed authoring and replication partners?
No


2. Is there anything in the license that states that a replicator cannot produce porn titles or the license can be pulled for such content?
No

3. Why are American Porn studios saying that they can't get their porn titles on BR where as there is BR porn is Japan?
This is a business policy decision on the part of the replicators being approached.


4. Could the porn studios pool their resources and get a license for authoring and replication of BR porn content? Would they be turned down?
I think there are enough authoring companies out there that one or more of them will handle this work. If a given adult entertainment company wants to buy Blu-print from us, we will sell it to them. Replication is another matter because even as big as the adult industry is, it is not likely to have the resources to buy or build a replication plant. My advice to them is to outsource the replication overseas where plants may be more relaxed about handling this kind of product.

Guess us A1 users are sh*&t out of luck again :(

We just have to wait our turn. We had no reason to expect an update ramping up to the A2 release, and no reason to expect one immediately following it given the likelihood of firmware correctable issues coupled with the upcoming release of the XA2. Now that both those are out, we can still expect some crimping in light of the forthcoming A20, though that one should be mostly a hardware change, plus anything that pops up with the XA2.

I wouldn't hold your breath just yet for a G1 update -- I reckon it could be another three months:).

Amir,

I am a budget conscious HD owner who is still trying to optimize my HD experience. I own a Toshiba 56HM66 (1080i) DLP HDTV. I also own the Xbox 360 HD-DVD add-on and a 4-year old Sony receiver (sorry, I don't have the model number handy). I have been told that for video cables:

HDMI>Component (RGB)>S-Video>Composite (RCA)
Correct except that the difference between HDMI and Component is very, very close. Component signals for example are routinely used in broadcast world (HDMI is not although there is the equiv. SDI standard).

and for audio cables:

HDMI>Digital Optical>Composite (RCA)
Correct although there is also the option of analog interface which works again, pretty close to HDMI (and depending on the audio path in your receiver and the quality of the box, may actually outperform HDMI but we won't go there :))
If this is the case, why does the Xbox 360/HD-DVD not have an HDMI output?
Per above, component (and VGA) are able to produce absolutely top notch picture quality. Every HDTV already has component input and with no handshaking problems, component can be an excellent alternative to HDMI for HD output.

The HD DVD option uses the 360 output which is VGA (for 1080p) and Component (for 1080i). So that is the explanation for that.

Now, I am not saying it is bad to have HDMI. I personally wish the 360 had it. But I don’t run that P&L and the Xbox folks are pragmatic and go where the market is (which last year when the box launched, clearly had more component connections in the installed base than HDMI).

Will this be a possible upgrade/fix in the future?
If you own a 360, then component/VGA outputs are your only option. Per above, there is little that needs fixing in this scenario. We have driven the 360 with HD DVD test discs and can fully resolve 1080p signals on appropriate displays. So you are not losing anything as far as quality. And if you have a TV with a single HDMI, you can save that for something else and use the component for 360.


Is the (currently) best possible connection for the Xbox 360/HD-DVD to use the component video into my HDTV and the digital optical directly into my receiver?
Correct. Note that you have two options here: VGA and component so you may want to play with that to see what gives you the best picture as this is dependent on the display you use.

I frequently lose all audio (zero sound for a second or two) during high activity moments (lots of gunfire, explosions, etc.) while playing Halo 2 on the Xbox 360. I have not noticed anything like this any time else (watching HD-DVDs, TV, CDs, etc). What is the likely cause of this problem: old receiver/speakers, faulty optical cable between the 360 and receiver, or simply a glitch with Halo 2? I would like to figure out the most likely culprit without spending hundreds of dollars to replace an old (but otherwise perfectly functional) receiver.
Is you amplifier by any chance shutting off the output due to clipping? Turn the volume down on it and see if it still happens and listen for a clicking sound which is the relay shutting off the output to your speakers. Synthetic sounds could go very loud, causing your receiver to clip/and or generate “too much DC-offset” resulting in the protection circuit shutting off the sound. Of course, I am just guessing but try reducing the volume and see if that helps. If it does, then it is time to buy a new receiver if you want to enjoy things at that level :).

Paid,

Thank you very much for the summary. Much appreciated :)

To any BD insider:

Can we get a few questions answered about porn please.

1. Does the BDA prohibit replication of Porn to all it's licensed authoring and replication partners?
2. Is there anything in the license that states that a replicator cannot produce porn titles or the license can be pulled for such content?
3. Why are American Porn studios saying that they can't get their porn titles on BR where as there is BR porn is Japan?
4. Could the porn studios pool their resources and get a license for authoring and replication of BR porn content? Would they be turned down?

Anything else you can add to clarify the BDA stance on porn authoring and replication would be grateful.Paidgeek responded authoritatively, but I'd just like to add that, based on the most recent press (http://www.tvpredictions.com/debbie011207.htm) I've seen (last Friday), Vivid still anticipates a new release of Debbie Does Dallas on Blu-ray, which would certainly suggest it can be done. Further, I have to think the (over-18) PS3 demographic will be far too compelling for the porn industry not to find a solution for Blu-ray replication. I can think of few industries more adept at finding free market solutions than they are...

Paidgeek, I'd just like to provide my compliments on the information you've been providing here. While you're presumably part of Sony Pictures, you've been able to find timely information from SCEI and even Fox (Kingdom of Heaven), which has greatly increased the quantity and quality of Blu-ray input here.

- Talk

Our sales office gets reports from at least two sources, one of them is a Nielsen company. They can report actual register sales for the formats. And yes, Blu-ray has been ahead as of late December.
Blu-ray software (movie only) sales? Blu-ray stand alone player sales? I presume you're lumping the PS3 in there as well? As for software sales (movies), are you including the number you've bundled with the PS3 and Sony standalone? Are you including recordable Blu-ray media in there? PS3 games?

Blu-ray software (movie only) sales? Blu-ray stand alone player sales? I presume you're lumping the PS3 in there as well? As for software sales (movies), are you including the number you've bundled with the PS3 and Sony standalone? Are you including recordable Blu-ray media in there? PS3 games?

My comments are only on BD movie disc sales.

I keep seeing commentary from people in the press and on the forum here that Blu-ray "requires" AACS... unfortunately, the press gets stuff wrong more than half the time and while this forum is notably better about these things, I don't recall seeing an insider comment on this. So here goes:

1. Does Blu-ray require that the content of ROM disks be protected with AACS?
2. Does Blu-ray require that the content of -R and -RE disks be protected with AACS? If so, how does this work for user-generated disks?

This is in the context of an Inquirer article someone referenced which dissed BD in several ways, but one of them was that you could easily burn data to an HD DVD disk, or even a DVD-9, but could not do the same with BD-9. Don't get me wrong: Charlie "I Heard a Rumor" Demerjian has a questionable track record, and it seems counter-intuitive to me that this would be the case, but I've heard it enough times I want to ask for definitive answers.

My comments are only on BD movie disc sales.
Including those that have been bundled and sold with players?

Paidgeek, I'd like to ask if this is more of a personal choice to come on here and answer questions or is it a business decision sactioned by your company? Thanks in advance

I decided to start posting based on my own observation that more available, accurate, BD information would good for us (SPE) and the format and on the recommendation of other posters like Penton-man. My employer is aware of this and supportive (at least so far...). My problem is that I cannot always devote the time to sift through the questions that come up. I would be grateful to get a PM if I miss one.

Including those that have been bundled and sold with players?

No, based on retail sell-through.

paidgeek,
Will video encodes be uniform across territories? Or will Europe have a different encode then the US?

Amir/Ben,

This is why HD DVD players encode advanced audio codecs in the player. That way, any HDMI receiver or one with analog multi-channel can be used without compromise.

Did you mean to say "decode"?

What does the HD DVD spec mandate for audio content? Is it different for primary content vs. additional disc content/extras?

Including those that have been bundled and sold with players?

Nielson Videoscan is the source of that information. It is for sell through BD movies only. From the copy of the numbers I've seen, the statement that BD outsold HD-DVD for that one week is correct. However, I don't believe it has kept the lead since then.

Currently, I think the two formats are at parity. A big CES release list from Sony may make sales jump a bit, and BD wins that week. But then a new release week with several new HD-DVD's sway it back to HD-DVD's side. Back and forth...Back and Forth. Can insiders with better access to Nielson confirm this?

No, based on retail sell-through.
Thank you, but I am curious where is this information? I could not find it. In my opinion this should be stated explicitely. All I could find was:

"'Blu-ray sales performance surpassed HD-DVD for the first time the week of Dec. 24 and did so by an impressive 20%,' said Mike Dunn, worldwide president of 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment. He said by the end of the first quarter of 2007, 'our research shows Blu-ray outselling HD DVD by a 3.5-to-1 ratio.'"

This does not suggest that it was softwares sales only, based on retail sell-through. It all seems to be vaguely worded without giving specifics. Can you please provide a link to something that shows this referring to specific Blu-ray movie title sales only?

paidgeek,
Will video encodes be uniform across territories? Or will Europe have a different encode then the US?

Unlike the case of DVD, we will almost always use the same encode worldwide so long as the title in question has no censorship issues.

paidgeek, thanks for your contribution here. Can you tell me why Crouching Tiger, Marie Antoinette, and Glory have been delayed indefinitely?

At first I suspected that I just had a faulty unit, but I've now found corroboration from other users that the Toshiba HD-XA2 has a problem with juddery video when watching certain HD DVD and regular DVD discs. This issue is not present on the HD-A1 playing the same discs. The following thread lists examples:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=787340

Can one of the insiders in contact with Toshiba find out if they are aware of this problem and have any plans to address it? This seems to be similar to the issue that the Samsung Blu-ray player initially had when watching BD discs with DTS soundtracks. Samsung eventually fixed the issue with firmware, so I am confident that Toshiba can do the same. However, I don't know how long I'd be willing to wait for that, without at least some assurance from Toshiba that they're working on it.

I would also like Toshiba to address the issue of the XA2's poor sound quality over the analog audio outputs. Bass seems to be suppressed an additional 10db over even the HD-A1's low bass, but only when decoding Dolby Digital Plus tracks (standard DD 5.1 and DTS on DVDs are not affected).

For a $1,000 second-generation player, I find these problems greatly disappointing.



Amir responded:

"Good news! Toshiba has updated software for both A2 and XA2 which is supposed to release today or tomorrow. They seem to think it fixes the problem you reported Josh but the release notes are not specific enough for me to be sure.

__________________
Amir
Microsoft (HD DVD insider)
VC-1 video codec insider in BD/HD DVD
Ask me questions about HD DVD here "




Amir,

Which problem(s) the video judder or the 5.1 analog out LFE/related issue?

Regards
Frank

paidgeek,

I also wish to extend my sincere thanks for the time you're taking and for your valuable input. I hope that it would set an example and will hopefully bring other Studio reps to this forum.

Besides Hellboy, Sony also has Tim Burton's Big Fish scheduled for a March release here in Europe. This suggests me a broader question: how do the big name directors value these HD video releases? Are they interested or willing to go back to the editing floor to rerecord new documentaires or to remaster deleted scenes from better sources?

Thanks again for your time.

paidgeek, thanks for your contribution here. Can you tell me why Crouching Tiger, Marie Antoinette, and Glory have been delayed indefinitely?

They will be released eventually. We are descriminating what is released based on a number of factors, not the least of which is how we think the title, regardless of bit rate or codec, presents in HD.

I see. Based on what I've read, the only conclusion I can come to is that this December 24 Blu-ray performance announcement "surpassing" HD DVD lumped in not just movie sales, but likely hardware sales as well. I believe that if this was indeed relegated to solely Blu-ray movie sales then it would have been stated explicitly, and announcements would have been made specifically relating to both movie and hardware sales. It looks to me like the PS3 console is playing a significant part in this "performance" measure.Paidgeek explicitly clarified this: Retail sell-through of movies. What other info are you missing? Please start a new thread if you want to debate this or question the info paidgeek provided so that it doesn't clutter this thread (no offense).


---
My question to HD-DVD insiders: Is HD-DVD's storage format same/similar to DVD's as far are progressive encoding is concerned (flags, for 60i in particular)? Can someone explain how it differs from DVD? I am having trouble locating where I read about this and my memory is playing tricks. [This is in relation to the 60i generation]

They will be released eventually. We are descriminating what is released based on a number of factors, not the least of which is how we think the title, regardless of bit rate or codec, presents in HD.
I have no doubt they will be released eventually. My question is that Sony gave out release dates on these titles only to pull them off the release calander. Do you know why they were yanked? i.e. BD-J problems, BD-50 availability, etc.? Hopefully they will look and sound stunning, especially Crouching Tiger. Hopefully you'll release more Sony Classics films on HD also. Are there any plans regarding those films that you know of?

Ben, for HDDVD how many channels can the commentary track use? and what bitrate limitations are there?
Here's the word from one of our scripting experts:

Sub Audio is stereo or mono up to 48kHz, but you can do real-time mixing into the center / surround channels if you like. Also, since it is mixed with the Main Audio, you still get the full surround-sound audio of the main movie.

Effect audio is also mono- or stereo-only, and must be in the WAV format. It supports 12, 24, or 48 kHz at with 8 or 16 bit samples. It can also be dynamically mixed through the surrounds to give panoramic effects.

I have no doubt they will be released eventually. My question is that Sony gave out release dates on these titles only to pull them off the release calander. Do you know why they were yanked? i.e. BD-J problems, BD-50 availability, etc.? Hopefully they will look and sound stunning, especially Crouching Tiger. Hopefully you'll release more Sony Classics films on HD also. Are there any plans regarding those films that you know of?

Excuse me for not expanding on this further. Please read my prior post carefully, I think it is explicit enough.

@paidgeek, do you have info regarding the content on the demo disc used in the BDP-S1?

i happened to be in a BB today and played around with the sony bd player briefly; it was connected to a bravia lcd and was playing a sony bd demo disc.

are all the trailers encoded using the same codec? if so, which codec?

while playing a trailer and pressing the "display" button i was only presented with bitrates but nothing about the codec.

i am asking b/c the trailer clip for open season looked very, very good...i think if the movie is as good as the trailer on that demo there will be a new reference disc...imo

@paidgeek, do you have info regarding the content on the demo disc used in the BDP-S1?

My information is that all the trailers are encoded in MPEG2. The actual release for Open Season is AVC. You won't be disappointed.

paidgeek,

Is there any possibility that future movie titles will auto update BD-J to the minimum required version?

Probably a simple question (and might have already been covered, but I missed it).

For BD25s, is the depth of the layer the same as the shallower layer for BD50s, the deeper layer (or something else)? In other words, do BD25s have a layer that is as close to the surface as BD50s do?

Thanks,
Darin

Probably a simple question (and might have already been covered, but I missed it).

For BD25s, is the depth of the layer the same as the shallower layer for BD50s, the deeper layer (or something else)? In other words, do BD25s have a layer that is as close to the surface as BD50s do?

Thanks,
Darin

Yes, this is done because optical drives attempt to focus on a data layer that should be within a close fixed range.

paidgeek,

Is there any possibility that future movie titles will auto update BD-J to the minimum required version?

If you mean update the player firmware, probably not. We have discussed something like this, but it presents problems if you cannot downrev the player if something goes wrong with the update or earlier discs are adversely affected by the new version.

Question to Blu-ray insiders,

From time to time I hear talk about a BD-Audio profile (in addition to BD-Video and BD-Live). Is this a real beast or have I dreamed it up?

If it actually is real (ish) can insiders expand upon it. It intrigues me.

That's all.

Dennis.

They will be released eventually. We are descriminating what is released based on a number of factors, not the least of which is how we think the title, regardless of bit rate or codec, presents in HD.

Paidgeek,

Thanks again for all of the info you've provided.

Is this how SPHE plans on continuing its selections for which discs to release?

I'm only asking because it seemed, to me, that you were evaluating the aesthetic of the disc rather than its reflection on the source? Is that accurate?

Would you guys consider just evaluating it to its master and deciding if it is a great representation of that, or are you still focusing on great demo pieces?

Question to paidgeek,

Has there been any feedback from PAL regions in respect to the usage of 1080p24 formatting (which in the real-world translates to 1080i60 most often). Any complaints (re judder), any compliments (re 4% speedup removal)?

Note, I have been an advocate for the usage of 1080p24 worldwide, I applaud Sony and the BDA for its 24p stance.

I'm just interested to know what the feedback has been. Maybe there has been none.

Dennis.

I agree that 48/24 is ideal, but it does not work well with a number of titles. We are tentatively planning for this year to continue with 16/48 LPCM in the U.S. and 20/48 Dolby THD for Europe.
In what way would 16/48 not be ideal?

Also, why THD for Europe, but not for other markets? Lower installed base of non-THD players in Europe? but no PS3 there for a couple more months.

Yes, this is done because optical drives attempt to focus on a data layer that should be within a close fixed range.Thanks. Just want to make sure I'm clear. Is it:

BD50: .1mm and .6mm
BD25: .1mm

I may have the deeper layer wrong as I don't remember where that one is.

--Darin