Industry Insiders Q&A MASTER THREAD [separate thread for Xbox/Add On & PS3] [Text View] - Page 7

benwaggoner

01-25-07, 07:46 PM

According to Disney, Blu-Ray has:

Greater storage capacity
For the moment, although there hasn't been any BD title that has done anything beyond what HD DVD can do with its capacity. We'll see what happens with HD DVD-51.
Full 1080P resolution while HD-DVD only delivers 1080i
Oft asserted, oft debunked. The video is encoded 24p, and PC-based players are already doing 24p playback.
Unparalleled interactivity – using BDMV and DB-Java Technology
HD DVD titles continue to show richer interactivity, with interactivity used in more titles.
Broadest Industry support
Depends on the industry. More majors have declared for BD, but HD DVD is doing better than BD with smaller companies, especially in Europe. I'd say HD DVD has at least caught up with announced manufacturers post-CES.
Stronger disk durability
This is a funny one :). BD need hardcoat, because it's so sensitive to scratches. Of course, hardcoat can be applied to any optical disc, including HD DVD, so if durability becomes a significant concern, HD DVD discs would get hardcoat and then be even more durable than BD. So far disc damage hasn't been a significant factor either way, thank goodness.

Questions:
1) Is there anything on this list which is inaccurate?
Yes :).
2) Do you have any intel on what drove studio A to support one format rather then the other?[/QUOTE]
I'll leave that for others to answer. Any intel I have I can't share, of course.
3) Was there a lobbying effort by both camps which influenced the studios format decision?
I'm told the "6M PS3 in 2006" was a big deal...
4) Since storage capacity is listed first on the Disney list, is storage capacity the most appealing feature of Blu-Ray? If so, why not increase the storage capacity of HD-DVD?
HD DVD-51 is being proposed. We'll hopefully know more soon.
5) What is your view on dual format players and folks who are buying both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray players? Will this mean we can expect both formats continuing for at least another 2 years? Longer?

I think dual format players will help HD DVD in the long run, since it'll lead to high cost dual-format players, and lower cost HD DVD players.

Talkstr8t

01-25-07, 08:09 PM

For the moment, although there hasn't been any BD title that has done anything beyond what HD DVD can do with its capacity. Ben, this doesn't hold water. A majority of Blu-ray titles have lossless sound; a small minority of HD DVD titles do. Is this not capacity-related? And King Kong, a marquis title included as a pack-in, had no lossless and dropped many special features from the DVD version. Is this not capacity-related? Since the format-neutral studios seem to be taking a lowest-common denominator approach on those titles which they release for both formats, so we have to use other data to determine whether capacity is a limiting factor. The relative lack of lossless audio on HD DVD certainly suggests that is the case.

WayneL

01-25-07, 08:15 PM

Same bandwidth limitations between BD25 and BD50. Total bandwidth limit is roughly 50% higher than HD30.
If BD has 50% higher bandwidth, doesn't that make HD30 the equivalent of 45 GB in terms of playing time at full bandwidth?

Talkstr8t

01-25-07, 08:57 PM

If BD has 50% higher bandwidth, doesn't that make HD30 the equivalent of 45 GB in terms of playing time at full bandwidth?. No. Your statement implies that Blu-ray requires 50% more bits to achieve the same thing as HD DVD. BD can support up to 50% higher bandwidth, meaning you can throw more bits per second at the decoder. The same video encoded with the same codec will require the exact same amount of bits on either format. The difference is that Blu-ray allows you to use more bits (if needed in order to improve the picture quality or provide higher quality audio), and even if you were using the higher bitrate all the time (which would never happen) also store more video.

amirm

01-25-07, 09:59 PM

. No. Your statement implies that Blu-ray requires 50% more bits to achieve the same thing as HD DVD. BD can support up to 50% higher bandwidth, meaning you can throw more bits per second at the decoder.
Not if that extra bandwidth is used for things like PCM audio. They will use a constant rate even when there is silence. So his comment is correct that if you use the bandwidth, you have to find a way to pay for it in case of capacity, which puts BD-25 in a difficult spot. Put another way, the effective peak rate of BD-25 is lower because if you utilize it, you will run out of space quickly compared to HD DVD-30.

chinch

01-25-07, 10:29 PM

I would like to weigh in on the issue of HD DVD durability.
I have rented a lot of titles from Netflix and am surprised at the amount of scratches on the discs especially considering their age and assumed low usage.
Some have been unplayable on the A1 but were better on the A2.
IMO, this is a significant issue with rental discs and I for one would like to see hardcoat applied to HD DVD as well.
Right now, the majority of users buy discs or get them for free so the scratching is largely a non-issue
Looking into a possible future where HD DVD & BD rentals are widely available, if customers can't play HD DVD rentals but can play BD rentals this would be a significant factor in consumer acceptance.
Thanks.
i'd like to say with the A1 & Netflix, if i don't really wipe/clean the disc thoroughly there is good chances the disc will skip or freeze. a notable example was Poseidon which i might have gotten the first copy of as it looked pristine.

of course this is a PITA as it takes a long time to eject the disc, restart the disc, watch the absurd trailers and such, etc. real downer that ruins the movie experience.

can any insiders say if they've had NEGATIVE feedback on disc scratching? to be honest i don't see how you haven't.

darklord700

01-25-07, 10:30 PM

Looking into a possible future where HD DVD & BD rentals are widely available, if customers can't play HD DVD rentals but can play BD rentals this would be a significant factor in consumer acceptance.
Thanks.

I have similar experience with rental HD Disc. The fault tolerance is simply too low that any scratches will render the HD disc unplayable.

Nic Rhodes

01-25-07, 10:54 PM

Can I ask more about the BD crowd about the region marking of the discs and what is the policy on it as it is getting confusing for customers. Paidgeek has stated the 12 month region coding and then region ABC. Is this for all of BD or just Sony? At the moment there is a huge variety with region coding with every possible combo, full region coding (Fox, Disney etc), no region coding (Warner / Paramount) and Sony who appear to do both. Then we have discs that are older and marked B but play in region A layers and others that are the same age of film also marked as B and which don't play!! Surely if a disc is region ABC then it should be marked ABC rather than just B or A. At the moment it is confusing and putting me off (and others) purchasing discs for fear of getting 'locked out'. With HD DVD I have no worries due to a common and understandable policy in this area for obvious reasons.

What is the policy on this and are there any plans to 'tighten up' the marking of discs?

Rio

01-25-07, 11:01 PM

Miami Vice? It doesn't get much grainer than that, and we accurately reproduced the master and director's intent there.Thanks. I'll check and compare it with X3.

dialog_gvf

01-25-07, 11:32 PM

This is a funny one :). BD need hardcoat, because it's so sensitive to scratches. Of course, hardcoat can be applied to any optical disc, including HD DVD, so if durability becomes a significant concern, HD DVD discs would get hardcoat and then be even more durable than BD.

But, BD has the hardcoat and HD DVD does not. What would happen if BD were released without and HD DVD with are hypotheticals, and not addressing the reality of the situation.

So far disc damage hasn't been a significant factor either way, thank goodness.

Haven't you been reading about the troubles people are having with rentals? It seems to be very much a factor.

Gary

amirm

01-25-07, 11:37 PM

But, BD has the hardcoat and HD DVD does not.
BD does not have hard coat. It has a protective layer but it is not a true hard coat.

Hard coating has been available for years and is available for DVD/HD DVD (indeed, it was invented for DVD use first). It is just that the studios are not big fans of rental shops and there is not enough consumer noise to make them use it. Indeed, if BD coating is a great benefit, why doesn't Sony apply the same to their DVDs?

dialog_gvf

01-25-07, 11:44 PM

BD does not have hard coat. It has a protective layer but it is not a true hard coat.

What defines whether it can or can't be called a hard coat? It is not Durabis. Now we can't call it a hard coat despite it being a lot harder to scratch than DVD?

Indeed, if BD coating is a great benefit, why doesn't Sony apply the same to their DVDs?

That's a good question. I'm sure many a parent wished Disney offered it. :)

Is there a replicator that can offer it in DVD replication quantities?

I suspect 10 cents of 50 cents looks really bad to the bean counters. While 10 cents on whatever BD costs is small by comparison. Costs will drop over time.

Are you implying it has no benefit beyond the necessary protection of the data layers?

Gary

RobertR1

01-25-07, 11:49 PM

amirm

01-26-07, 12:02 AM

Amir,

We've long heard about HD DVD's cheaper production benefits encompassing: replicators, cycle times, yields for DL, combo media and so on. However, none of these have really been passed onto the consumer. HD30/DVD9 combo discs are generally expensive even if they are more effeicent to produce than BD50 media. Again, Sony could very well be subsidizing these but yet the fact remains, the end user is not effected.

So eliminating the end user benefits, at what point does the above scenario actually take it's toll on BD and major studios start to feel the pinch? Basically, in terms of mainstream studios, when do these replication advantages factor in to their support of the format? or is this more limited to smaller/niche content studios?

Thanks,
Robert.
The replication advantage has already kicked in with independent movie distributors who do not have the clout/leverage of major studios to get access to production/special pricing. So they are going HD DVD exclusively as a result.

I suspect you are asking about major studios. In that situation, it all depends on the length of contracts they have with BD replicators. And the volume. At thousands of units, the disc cost is dwarfed by mastering/marketing costs. But once the volume runs into millions, the disc cost will become significant.

This is just a personal opinion but if BD production does not become widespread and efficient by next year, folks will start to ask some serious questions. Or their shareholders would :).

RobertR1

01-26-07, 12:11 AM

Thanks Amir. And thanks more for getting Universal active on announcing 07 releases. :)

grant7311

01-26-07, 12:42 AM

Amir this was posted by PeterS in another thread and he is hoping someone from Disney sees his reply and gets them to change their FAQ. Maybe you could help answer these statements to us and suggest to a Disney contact that they get the FAQ changed.

On another note thanks for getting Universal to make a statement on future HD DVD releases. I understand MS worked with Disney earlier so maybe your contact at Disney needs to be updated on the BS coming from the Disney site. Too bad they are starting to act like Sony. It's a reputation that Disney should not be following.

What is Disney Smokin?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

According to a FAQ on Disney's site comparing BD to HD-DVD...

http://disney.go.com/disneyvideos/bluray/ After Tinkerbell does her thing, click skip intro, then FAQ's at the top of the page.

According to Disney, Blu-Ray has:

1. Greater storage capacity
2. Full 1080P resolution while HD-DVD only delivers 1080i
3. Unparalleled interactivity – using BDMV and DB-Java Technology
4. Broadest Industry support
5. Stronger disk durability

To answer these MISCONCEPTIONS, see below:

1. Both HD-DVD and BD are new and emerging standards. HD-DVD is currently 30gb, BD is currently 25gb or 50gb. HD-DVD has shown 51gb discs which, it is their intention to use for video delivery. BD has show prototypes of 100gb (possibly greater) however, these are focused on the data storage market and will probably have no bearing on video.

2. Both systems use identical encode formats supporting 1080p/24 for Film.

3. So far there has been no real sign of interactivity in BD titles using BD-Java. Also, BD-Java is not supported on all systems. HD-DVD uses HDi which is showcased in many currently shipping titles, easier to construct interactive content in, and mandated on all players.

4. Yes, currently BD has more studios behind it (not broader industry support as HD-DVD has a lot more PC vendors and Chinese manufacturers behind it). However, this is an odd "benefit" to Disney as if they moved their support to HD-DVD, then the balance would also shift.

5. BD discs are not more durable than HD-DVDs. This is a misnomer. BD discs REQUIRE a strong ant-scratch coating because the data layer is basically on the surface of the disc, and thus more prone to damage. HD-DVDs put the data in the middle of the disc, allowing the optics to focus through most scratches (just like existing DVDs). In the end run, a scratch is fatal to BD, and not to HD-DVD.

I sincerely hope someone from Disney reads this and understands that their reasoning is all full of marketing "hot-air" and that they are doing a disservice to their customers by not releasing on HD-DVD.

Supermans

01-26-07, 01:31 AM

amirm

01-26-07, 01:33 AM

darinp2

01-26-07, 01:45 AM

BD does not have hard coat.
Thanks. I had not seen Peter's post. I will think about appropriate way to get the message to Disney.Are you going to tell Disney that they are wrong when they say that BDs have a special hardcoat layer?

--Darin

paidgeek

01-26-07, 01:46 AM

amirm

01-26-07, 01:53 AM

Amir:

"Rumor Has It" is dual layer?
"16 Blocks" is dual layer?
"Firewall" is dual layer?
"Happy Gilmore" is dual layer?
"Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" is dual layer?
"ATL" is dual layer?
"Animal House" is dual layer?
"Unleashed" is dual layer?
"Good Night, and Good Luck" is dual layer?
"Dazed and Confused" is dual layer?
"Fast Times at Ridgemont High" is dual layer?
"Army of Darkness" is dual layer?
"Waist Deep"is dual layer?
"Land of the Dead" is dual layer?
"Slither" is dual layer?
"An American Werewolf In London" is dual layer?
"National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation" is dual layer?
"How The Grinch Stole Christmas" is dual layer?
"The Breakfast Club" is dual layer?

Just wondering...
Majority of the titles you list above are combos. Technically, I could claim that I am more than right as they are triple layer but I won’t :). But they are certainly another type of disc that BD can not produce.

Combo discs until fall of last year, were limited to having a single layer of one or the other format. But since then, HD DVD-30/DVD-9 combos have been produced so that is no longer the case.

It's safe to say if and when Universal goes BD their titles will have the same SD DVD extras.
When Universal goes BD? That is like me saying when Sony goes HD DVD, they will use VC-1 exclusively :p. Hopefully have seen their strong support of HD DVD in today’s announcement and we can stop spreading invalid rumors like this.

BTW, a kind note. I understand you work for a BDA company. As such, I am not necessarily going to answer your posts here unless I feel others could benefit from it (as is the case here). It is a rule we have here that insiders can ask questions of each other, but we don’t necessarily have to answer them :). I doubly apply that rule to those who don’t volunteer they are an insider :) :).

What'sHD

01-26-07, 04:57 AM

hi THX (or any insider who knows), do you have some sort of inkling on Universal's position or thoughts?

I ask so that I can stop buying HD-dvds if they are going to switch within 2007. If not, then I will continue buying.

High_Def DVD

01-26-07, 06:42 AM

Amirm, thanks for answering on this thread, keep up the good work.

Now, is there in anyway by a chance that a firmware to Toshiba HD-XA1 will get 1080p compatibility, or should i rely on A20 / XA2?

TomsHT

01-26-07, 07:41 AM

@BD Insiders:

With regards to BD50 disc's, does each of the studios have allotments/limits to how many of there titles can be put on 50g discs per year?

If so does it differ between studios?

With limited production which I'm sure has a full schedule how is it decided which titles/studios have priority over the others?

We have heard mention about some sort of deals being made in regards to bd50 costs being subsidized for the first 5 years. Since this info has already been publicly released can you give more detail about this such as by how much are these disc’s being subsidized for this 5 year period?

WriteSimple

01-26-07, 07:53 AM

I seek clarification on this particular response.

Not if that extra bandwidth is used for things like PCM audio. They will use a constant rate even when there is silence. So his comment is correct that if you use the bandwidth, you have to find a way to pay for it in case of capacity, which puts BD-25 in a difficult spot. 30GB at 30Mbps will result in :
30GB x 8 (byte conversion) x 1000 (Mega conversion)/30Mbps = 8000 seconds of audio and video or 133 minutes.

50GB at 48Mbps will result in:
50GB x 8 (byte conversion) x 1000 (Mega conversion)/48Mbps = 8333 seconds of audio and video or 138 minutes.

25GB at 48Mbps will result in:
25GB x 8 (byte conversion) x 1000 (Mega conversion)/48Mbps = 4167 seconds of audio and video or 69 minutes.

So it is true that if a BD25 uses 48Mbps bandwith, there won't be capacity to store over 69 minutes of audio and video. However, BD doesn't have to use the full 48Mbps; it can use 30Mbps as well.

50GB at 30Mbps will result in:
50GB x 8 (byte conversion) x 1000 (Mega conversion)/30Mbps = 13,333 seconds of audio and video or 222 minutes.

25GB at 30Mbps will result in:
25GB x 8 (byte conversion) x 1000 (Mega conversion)/30Mbps = 6666 seconds of audio and video or 111 minutes.

So while BD25 at 30Mbps is short of 22 minutes as compared to HD-DVD30 at the same bitrate, HD-DVD30 is short of 89 minutes as compared to BD50 at the same bitrate isn't it? Or is my math wrong?

And hasn't it been proven that most BD25 releases are great releases, capacity not withstanding?

Let's put it in another way. If HD-DVD has a 48Mbps bandwith, that will result in:
30GB x 8 (byte conversion) x 1000 (Mega conversion)/48Mbps = 5000 seconds of audio and video or 83 minutes.

Put another way, the effective peak rate of BD-25 is lower because if you utilize it, you will run out of space quickly compared to HD DVD-30. So BD25 can't compare with HD-DVD30 at 48Mbps or 30 Mbps. So at what maximum sustained bitrate can BD25 do to achieve 8000 seconds of audio and video?

25GB x 8 (byte conversion) x 1000 (Mega conversion)/ 8000 seconds = 25Mbps

Coming back to the question of using LPCM on BD25, a Dolby TrueHD FAQ stated that 6-channel, 16-bit 48 Hz runs at 4.61 Mbps. So that means a BD25 can have a sustained 20Mbps for video for 133 minutes. That's 20Mbps for MPEG-2, or VC-1 or AVC. Isn't AVC at 20Mbps ain't that bad, paidgeek?

fuad

dialog_gvf

01-26-07, 08:19 AM

Majority of the titles you list above are combos. Technically, I could claim that I am more than right as they are triple layer but I won’t :). But they are certainly another type of disc that BD can not produce.

Wouldn't the Total HD process be able to produce a flippy BD/DVD combo?

Gary

benwaggoner

01-26-07, 08:44 AM

Ben, this doesn't hold water. A majority of Blu-ray titles have lossless sound; a small minority of HD DVD titles do. Is this not capacity-related? And King Kong, a marquis title included as a pack-in, had no lossless and dropped many special features from the DVD version. Is this not capacity-related? Since the format-neutral studios seem to be taking a lowest-common denominator approach on those titles which they release for both formats, so we have to use other data to determine whether capacity is a limiting factor. The relative lack of lossless audio on HD DVD certainly suggests that is the case.
You're making the dichotomy between lossless/lossy, while the real question is the audio experience for the consumer.

BD discs use PCM because its best mandatory compressed codec is AC-3 @ 640 Kbps. DD+ is much more transparent, meaning there isn't an audible difference for movie soundtracks, even for finicky listeners on high-end equipment, between DD+ @ 1.5 Mbps and PCM @ 4.6 Mbps.

Certainly, any MPEG-2 disc on BD-25 would provide a better overall experience with those 3.7 Mbps (DD+ instead of PCM+AC3) available for video.

robena

01-26-07, 09:15 AM

benwaggoner

01-26-07, 10:09 AM

Can you tell us the average and peak bitrates for Miami Vice?
Sorry, the studios have asked us not to share that kind of information on particular titles.

benwaggoner

01-26-07, 10:13 AM

The VC-1 bitrate numbers quoted in various places in this forum have been decreasing. What is a ballpark figure that is considered reasonable for a mainstream blockbuster type movie in 2007 Q1?
We've recently rolled out some new updated to studios, so we don't have complete feedback on what bitrates they're able to get down to at this point. With efficiency improvements, we're definitely a reduction in the bits needed to hit high quality.

IIRC, some reference quality video on HD DVD may be in the range of about 15 Mbps average. Is say 12 Mbps average feasible for equivalent quality video in the near future, with all the encoder improvements?
There is reference content around ~12 Mbps already.

I know this is a difficult question to answer because of the variability of the source content, but I'm more interested in ballpark estimates than exact numbers. (I'm not that interested in peak numbers actually, but if you had ballpark peak numbers, that'd be a bonus.)
I think 12 Mbps is a reasonable target for most feature film content at this point. But it as always dependent on content, and a moving target as well.

amirm

01-26-07, 10:51 AM

Amirm, thanks for answering on this thread, keep up the good work.

Now, is there in anyway by a chance that a firmware to Toshiba HD-XA1 will get 1080p compatibility, or should i rely on A20 / XA2?
It is very unlikely that you get an update for XA-1 for 1080p. So I would not wait for that, nor does that bother me as my processor does a great job converting 1080i to 1080p from that set anyway. I would put the money toward buying more movies to watch :).

The reason to get the new players is to get faster response time, and better error correction on the drive to deal with disc defects.

Thanks for supporting HD DVD btw :).

paidgeek

01-26-07, 10:54 AM

Wouldn't the Total HD process be able to produce a flippy BD/DVD combo?

Gary

Blu-ray supports hybrid DVD/BD combo discs that can be read from one side. The DVD layer is read through the BD layers. These discs have been demonstrated, but SPE is currently not planning to use them as we currently think the majority of consumers are looking for one format or the other, not both.

amirm

01-26-07, 11:06 AM

Point of order

Working for a company that is a member of the BDA, the DVD Forum or the HD DVD PRG does not make a person a BDA/DVD/HD DVD insider.

Examples:

archibael is not an insider. nataraj is not an insider. They are forum members that happen to work for Intel and Microsoft but their specific jobs are unrelated to hidef disc. (and judging from the number of forum members from Redmond and whereabouts I'd say there's a whole lot of closet Microsofties around ;) )

PeterTHX has said he works on display technology. Same thing.
It is only the same thing if his signature says what Nataraj/Archibael say. But it is not. Why is that important? For two reasons:

1. If he sends me/Keith, etc. a PM asking for not so public info about HD DVD, we would know that there is a chance that info may leak to others at his company and answer appropriately. I think he owes me and others this kind of disclosure. I am sure if Nataraj PMed someone on the BDA side, they would like to know this.

2. He made a statement that none of the other people make. That is, he said, "We at BDA...." That tells me that he was at least in that post, representing his company's position on BD format. Once he crossed that line, in my book, he at least needs to indentify this in his signature so that people who have not kept up with that thread, know about his affiliation.

Anyway, a kind remark that it is probably inappropriate for you to argue such points here. I am sure he can make his own arguments :). And at any rate, I only told him that I might not answer his questions. Not that he should be driven off the site. SBD companies can take the same stance with Nataraj, etc. if they like. So you jumping makes even less sense in that respect. So please Gary, we want to use this thread for Q/A only. I have stopped posting in any other thread beside this one as to let tensions come down. Posts like this are not helpful in that regard.

paidgeek

01-26-07, 11:12 AM

You're making the dichotomy between lossless/lossy, while the real question is the audio experience for the consumer.

BD discs use PCM because its best mandatory compressed codec is AC-3 @ 640 Kbps. DD+ is much more transparent, meaning there isn't an audible difference for movie soundtracks, even for finicky listeners on high-end equipment, between DD+ @ 1.5 Mbps and PCM @ 4.6 Mbps.

Certainly, any MPEG-2 disc on BD-25 would provide a better overall experience with those 3.7 Mbps (DD+ instead of PCM+AC3) available for video.

Ben,

There is a world of sound quality improvement between 16/48 LPCM and any lossy codec. Even Dolby representatives have said as much. Would you care to sight (or maybe host) some double blind testing?

amirm

01-26-07, 11:13 AM

Blu-ray supports hybrid DVD/BD combo discs that can be read from one side. The DVD layer is read through the BD layers. These discs have been demonstrated, but SPE is currently not planning to use them as we currently think the majority of consumers are looking for one format or the other, not both.
That is a surprising comment. Thanks for letting us know that hybrid discs are available to other studios. But are you talking about JVC hybrid proposal? If so, JVC's proposal was on paper and no mass replication process was shown to be practical. The generous tolerances of the DVD layer below completely destroys any leeway left for the BD layer (8 micron accuracy is hard to maintain on a blank BD layer, but nearly impossible on an uneven dual DVD layer below). Indeed, JVC considers BD process itself very difficult (I am sure you remember their negative comments after last CES to the press in this regard) let alone making hybrids with it.

In sharp contrast to above, they had no trouble making combo HD DVD discs for us prior to last CES.

So with that said, can you tell us which replicators can produce these discs for other studios? And whether they can combine them with dual layer BD discs?

efjay

01-26-07, 11:18 AM

BuGsArEtAsTy

01-26-07, 11:19 AM

We've recently rolled out some new updated to studios, so we don't have complete feedback on what bitrates they're able to get down to at this point. With efficiency improvements, we're definitely a reduction in the bits needed to hit high quality.

There is reference content around ~12 Mbps already.

I think 12 Mbps is a reasonable target for most feature film content at this point. But it as always dependent on content, and a moving target as well.
Great to hear, thx.

I guess it's safe to say the target sweet spot for 2007 going forward (with a bit of a cushion) is 12-14 Mbps average then.

amirm

01-26-07, 11:21 AM

Ben,

There is a world of sound quality improvement between 16/48 LPCM and any lossy codec. Even Dolby representatives have said as much. Would you care to sight (or maybe host) some double blind testing?
Ben will have his own views I am sure :). But let me chime in also. We have done double-blind tests at Microsoft with our surround codec, WMA Pro at 760 kbps. Statistically, no one could tell that apart from the original. And this was with people using headphones and such and many were codec testers who know what to listen for.

Now, WMA Pro is much more modern than DD. And I can't quite figure out from Dolby what they think of DD+ at 760 kbps. But double that to 1.5 mbit/sec, and you are golden.

Here is the thing to keep in mind. We are not talking about stereo music. We are talking about multi-channel movie sound. Here, masking effect from other speakers would provide amazing cover for any distortion that might be present. And also keep in mind that 1.5 mbit/sec is equiv to lossless stream at 16/44.1 because that is a bit higher than CD data rate and we all agree that is lossless. So at any one point, the data rate is as good as a very inefficient PCM stream for two channels. Representing the other channels is not hard as such, given the fact that the ear is not looking for fidelity in the rear channel or the sub.

Even if there is a difference, it is not a “world” of difference by any stretch. Have you participated in a double blind study yourself of DD+ at 1.5 mbit/sec and were able to hear such a difference?

amirm

01-26-07, 11:24 AM

amirm, what do you think the chances are of future HD DVD players having on board wireless to access the enhanced network features that are expected in future HD DVD titles? Even though a wired network port is mandatory on all players it is sometimes not convenient/possible to make a wired connection in this case where a constant internet connection is desired.

Apologies if this has been asked before, and thanks for answering this and my last question.
Yes, and I hope it becomes a standard feature. Yes, there are cheap dongles but with the super low cost of wireless, it should be there. I suspect though, they don't do that as regulatory certification gets harder with a transmitter in there. But hey, engineers get paid to solve problems like this :).

BTW, the spec does not mandate a wired connection. It only mandates a connection to the internet. The manufacturer can choose what kind of network port they put on there.

paidgeek

01-26-07, 11:26 AM

That is a surprising comment. Thanks for letting us know that hybrid discs are available to other studios. But are you talking about JVC hybrid proposal? If so, JVC's proposal was on paper and no mass replication process was shown to be practical. The generous tolerances of the DVD layer below completely destroys any leeway left for the BD layer (8 micron accuracy is hard to maintain on a blank BD layer, but nearly impossible on an uneven dual DVD layer below). Indeed, JVC considers BD process itself very difficult (I am sure you remember their negative comments after last CES to the press in this regard) let alone making hybrids with it.

In sharp contrast to above, they had no trouble making combo HD DVD discs for us prior to last CES.

So with that said, can you tell us which replicators can produce these discs for other studios? And whether they can combine them with dual layer BD discs?

As mentioned in my original post, this type of disc was demonstrated some time ago. Did I say the discs were in production or available to other studos? My point is that they are proven to work, and if requested by a studio, can be manufactured.

amirm

01-26-07, 11:41 AM

So while BD25 at 30Mbps is short of 22 minutes as compared to HD-DVD30 at the same bitrate, HD-DVD30 is short of 89 minutes as compared to BD50 at the same bitrate isn't it? Or is my math wrong?
I am too lazy to proof your math :). Maybe someone else can do that. But I don't think we need to prove that BD-25 holds less content than HD DVD-30 at the same rate, do we? The issue is that if you use higher rate, as is the case when you throw in a PCM track, then the capacity deficit becomes higher compared to HD DVD-30. Likewise, the storage gap of BD-50 to HD DVD-30 is diminished as a result, without gaining you any quality advantage over lossless audio. And compared to high rate DD+ (another codec not standard in BD), then you have even a bigger gap.

And hasn't it been proven that most BD25 releases are great releases, capacity not withstanding?
Great meaning what? None of them have Picture in Picture so if you are comparing them to HD DVD titles, well, they left out something that would take out bandwidth and space. And many lack extras that HD DVD counterparts have. Indeed, many HD DVDs have the same extras as the deluxe DVD set.

Coming back to the question of using LPCM on BD25, a Dolby TrueHD FAQ stated that 6-channel, 16-bit 48 Hz runs at 4.61 Mbps. So that means a BD25 can have a sustained 20Mbps for video for 133 minutes. That's 20Mbps for MPEG-2, or VC-1 or AVC. [SIZE=4]Isn't AVC at 20Mbps ain't that bad, paidgeek?
fuad
The fly in the ointment is that TrueHD is not standard in every BD player. And hence the pickle they are in. If they used TrueHD tomorrow on all of their discs, there would a large cry from everyone who bought the Samsung, etc. which can’t play it. They saved a few cents that way, and messed with your suggestion as a result :).

dialog_gvf

01-26-07, 11:50 AM

Blu-ray supports hybrid DVD/BD combo discs that can be read from one side. The DVD layer is read through the BD layers. These discs have been demonstrated, but SPE is currently not planning to use them as we currently think the majority of consumers are looking for one format or the other, not both.

Did SPE do any consumer research on combo interest?

We have ample proof on here that they aren't well received on HD DVD. Although this may be mostly due to the cost differential.

What is the drive by Warner (now abandoning it for Total HD) and now Universal to use primarily the combo form?

Is it to supply the extras in DVD form, thus eliminating the production costs for extras on the HD DVD side?

Is it to boost margin, due to them charging a few bucks more (wholesale - $5 SRP) for a disc that costs them only about 75 cents more to produce?

Gary

TomsHT

01-26-07, 11:50 AM

amirm

01-26-07, 11:54 AM

As mentioned in my original post, this type of disc was demonstrated some time ago. Did I say the discs were in production or available to other studos? My point is that they are proven to work, and if requested by a studio, can be manufactured.
Sorry, but your two bolded statements seem in conflict :). On one hand you say they are not available to studios, on the other you say if a studio asks, they can be made.

Let's ask the question this way. Can Sony Shizuoka plant produce them today if they got an order? If not, which replicator can so that I can call them and verify that? Or can you tell us if Origin or any other replication equipment maker can provide that capability to a replicator?

I hope you agree that getting something to work in a factory, is far, far, harder than a technical paper and "demonstration" of a couple of discs. People have shown multi-level DVDs which even using red laser, can approach the capacity of blue laser discs (by using more than just on/off states for each pit/bit). And demonstration discs were shown as were many technical papers. One of them actually was published jointly by Philips. Yet the companies are bankrupt because creating and verifying such discs were way too difficult. So let's not claim that such demos show that something is "proven." There is a huge gap between the two claims.

amirm

01-26-07, 11:57 AM

Amir, Ben,

At some point, it was posted that AVC encoded HD-DVDs were early encodes, and that since then, studios had switched to VC-1.

There has been several AVC movies on HD-DVD recently, like The Matador and Pulse.

Are these still old encodes, or have some studios decided to use AVC with HD-DVD?

I must say that I don't like how AVC looks (so far) on HD-DVD. It has an edgy look, and completely lacks (on the titles I saw) the way the best VC-1 transfers look, at the same time smooth and sharp.
We certainly don't have a lock on the market if that is what you are asking :). Companies are free to experiment if they like. Some like Warner did their tests once, and enjoy the advantage of picking a codec, training their people to use it the best way and then run with it. Others still play with other codecs and if they see a movie looks good, might not bother to re-encode with VC-1 also and compare before publishing them.

So yes, I expect occasional AVC encodes to still be out there in HD DVD land and that is fine. Competition keeps us on our toes :).

amirm

01-26-07, 12:06 PM

Clarification:

-Can't play the lossless track
-Can play the lossy (DD) core of the TrueHD track
Not a very useful clatification when we are talking about replacing PCM with TrueHD. Or are you saying that good old DD at 640 kbps is a replacement for PCM? In which case, I am going to stand back and let you fight it out with Paid :D.

BTW, there is no "core" in TrueHD. BD simply mandates a companion DD track for TrueHD. Same thing can occur in HD DVD players although there, the author has the choice of using DD+, rather than being forced to also spit out a DD track.

Only DTS lossless has a concept of core plus lossless extension.

efralope

01-26-07, 12:15 PM

hellokeith

01-26-07, 12:18 PM

Amir,

Could you summarize the HD DVD combo and flip disc types available on the market? I would like to put them into my BD / HD DVD specifications thread (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=791245). It is very confusing dealing with single layer, double layer, single side, double side, HD DVD-15, DVD-9, etc. etc.

Could any BD insiders provide the same info for Blu-ray discs?

patrick99

01-26-07, 12:19 PM

This is a question for Amir, or any other Microsoft insider who cares to address it.

How closely involved has Microsoft been with the transfers on recently released Universal HD DVD titles? The PQ on the last two Universal releases I've watched (Mummy Returns and Brokeback Mountain) has not been as impressive as on earlier titles such as Hulk and Scorpion King. Is the explanation simply inferior source material?

quik99

01-26-07, 01:09 PM

we currently think the majority of consumers are looking for one format or the other, not both.

paidgeek

This is obviously not what some of the other studios(paramount &warner?) think because they release hd-dvd/dvd on alot of their disks but only BD on the BD version. Paramount Does the BDA or DVDA stop BD/DVD combos? I tried asking this once before. I just couldnt figure out why a studio think a HD-DVD/DVD is a good idea but then when they make the BD they dont think its a good idea anymore. Trust me I dont like these flippers I'm just curious if its a cost thing for BD or if BDA asks them not to do it?

SamwisetheBrave

01-26-07, 01:11 PM

It is very unlikely that you get an update for XA-1 for 1080p. So I would not wait for that, nor does that bother me as my processor does a great job converting 1080i to 1080p from that set anyway. I would put the money toward buying more movies to watch :).

The reason to get the new players is to get faster response time, and better error correction on the drive to deal with disc defects.

Thanks for supporting HD DVD btw :).
Amir,

I have an A1 and it is a great upconverter. My question is: would the new AX2 with that great new chip do an even better job of upconverting regular DVDs?

kjack

01-26-07, 01:26 PM

Yes, and I hope it becomes a standard feature. Yes, there are cheap dongles but with the super low cost of wireless, it should be there.We have been pushing wireless support, including the ability to easily add it to our reference designs. Now if they just learn to embed the antenna. :) One question I ran into though -- does AACS have to approve the content protection mechanisms used by the various wireless standards before they can allowed?

kjack

01-26-07, 01:33 PM

joshd2012

01-26-07, 01:37 PM

BTW, there is no "core" in TrueHD. BD simply mandates a companion DD track for TrueHD. Same thing can occur in HD DVD players although there, the author has the choice of using DD+, rather than being forced to also spit out a DD track.

Only DTS lossless has a concept of core plus lossless extension.

Amir,

The Dolby white paper states that a Dolby Digital track can accompany a Dolby Digital Plus or Dolby TrueHD track with no addition space requirements:

The high compression efficiencies of Dolby TrueHD and Dolby Digital Plus permit the incorporation of separate lossy and lossless soundtracks with no resulting penalty in disc space compared to other audio coding systems which are required to encode the lossy core and lossless extension as a single bitstream.

I realize this is a white paper, so I wonder if you have seen such things being implemented, since all TrueHD HD DVD titles also include a DD+ track. Is there really no space lost by including both tracks?

John Haghighi

01-26-07, 01:43 PM

Only DTS lossless has a concept of core plus lossless extension.

It seems to me that most everyone is able to decode DTS "core" on current receivers, given that everyone would be able to extract the core extension built into DTS-HD MA, why didn't the DVD forum and BDA choose DTS-HD MA as the mandatory lossless codec?

Were the DTS encoders/decoders not available?

nataraj

01-26-07, 01:45 PM

There is a world of sound quality improvement between 16/48 LPCM and any lossy codec. Even Dolby representatives have said as much. Would you care to sight (or maybe host) some double blind testing?

I asked this question in a slightly different context earlier in the thread. Is there any independant tests that you base your statement on ? If you don't have any tests as your basis, what is the basis of this statement ? As someone interested in audio science, I'd be very interested in your answer.

BuGsArEtAsTy

01-26-07, 01:49 PM

I guess it's safe to say the target sweet spot for 2007 going forward (with a bit of a cushion) is 12-14 Mbps average then.Things like this become important for when you eventually want to stream a managed copy over a wireless network. :)
Oh, yes, thanks. Great point, and one I hadn't considered.

I do note however, that those numbers were averages. I'm guessing (and correct me if I'm wrong) that peak video bitrates will still hit over 20 Mbps, and of course that's not even including other video streams and audio.

Fortunately, 802.11n should be able to handle that over reasonable distances.

We have been pushing wireless support, including the ability to easily add it to our reference designs. Now if they just learn to embed the antenna. :)
Which wireless? Do you have any plans for 802.11n (draft) in the foreseeable future?

kjack

01-26-07, 02:29 PM

Which wireless? Do you have any plans for 802.11n (draft) in the foreseeable future?While Sigma offers a UWB chipset, we also fully support customers that wish to use 802.11g or 802.11n. There was a SMP8634 + 802.11n streaming demo at CES done by one of our partners. Almost all of our reference designs have a MiniPCI slot to enable adding a wireless (UWB, 802.11g or 802.11n) board.

amirm

01-26-07, 02:47 PM

Amir,

The Dolby white paper states that a Dolby Digital track can accompany a Dolby Digital Plus or Dolby TrueHD track with no addition space requirements:
Are you saying that they claim that you get the lossy layer for free? If so, then that is not my read of it. The lossy layer clearly requires its own bandwidth and storage requirements for TrueHD.

I realize this is a white paper, so I wonder if you have seen such things being implemented, since all TrueHD HD DVD titles also include a DD+ track. Is there really no space lost by including both tracks?
Our recent experience with DTS lossless shows us that they save both bandwidth and actual space by combining the two codecs as opposed to separate encodes. We are actually surprised how well they are able to do this. But please note that this is preliminary data and I have my hands full fighting the video codec battles, and would hate to get in the middle of DTS and Dolby on this :).

amirm

01-26-07, 02:50 PM

It seems to me that most everyone is able to decode DTS "core" on current receivers, given that everyone would be able to extract the core extension built into DTS-HD MA, why didn't the DVD forum and BDA choose DTS-HD MA as the mandatory lossless codec?

Were the DTS encoders/decoders not available?
You mean as a replacement for TrueHD? Maybe backward compatibility with DVD-A/MLP played a role in that given the fact that DVD Forum went that way before. Or that Dolby guys are better at consensus building than DTS :). All I know is that it came up for a vote this way and we said yes, due to strong support from Warner/Disney.

tteich

01-26-07, 02:52 PM

Hello Amir, and other HD-DVD insiders posting here,

I live in Germany (a still less developed country if it comes to HiDef) and own a large Muse HiVision collection. My equipment (HD-TV) is analog only and I'm not interested in buying new expensive HDMI/HDCP enabled gear (btw. the money this saves will be spent for HD-DVD movies exclusively :-). As you can imagine I very much appreciate that HD-DVD players and movies don't limit/downrez analog output of HD content.

Are there any signs that the studios change their minds and make use of the ICT which would render all analog-only HD equipment useless?

If yes, I'd be happy if you forward the message to the studios to not cut-off their analog-only customer base.

Best regards, and keep up your great work :)
Torsten

amirm

01-26-07, 02:53 PM

This is a question for Amir, or any other Microsoft insider who cares to address it.

How closely involved has Microsoft been with the transfers on recently released Universal HD DVD titles?

We are not involved on the transfer side of things. Our job is to provide the best tools to achieve whatever quality there is on the master. Studios don't tell us how to build codecs, we don't tell them how to make masters :).

But yes, when we do see less than perfect results, we gently comment on them. And we do forward feedback from AVS to the studios as appropriate.

paidgeek

01-26-07, 02:56 PM

BD does not have hard coat. It has a protective layer but it is not a true hard coat.

Hard coating has been available for years and is available for DVD/HD DVD (indeed, it was invented for DVD use first). It is just that the studios are not big fans of rental shops and there is not enough consumer noise to make them use it. Indeed, if BD coating is a great benefit, why doesn't Sony apply the same to their DVDs?

Your information is incorrect. I verified today with our replication plant that there IS a hard coating that is applied on top of the 100 micron thick protective cover layer (similar to that used for eyeglasses on request). The same process is used at Technicolor and Cinram. This would help explain why the BD discs seem to be holding up better to abuse.

joshd2012

01-26-07, 02:56 PM

Are you saying that they claim that you get the lossy layer for free? If so, then that is not my read of it. The lossy layer clearly requires its own bandwidth and storage requirements for TrueHD.

Yes. That was my read on it.

Our recent experience with DTS lossless shows us that they save both bandwidth and actual space by combining the two codecs as opposed to separate encodes. We are actually surprised how well they are able to do this. But please note that this is preliminary data and I have my hands full fighting the video codec battles, and would hate to get in the middle of DTS and Dolby on this :).

No problem. I saw you commented on audio, so I decided to ask. A follow-up to anyone:

If TrueHD decoding is mandatory on all HD DVD players, why is a lossy audio track (DD+) included on releases? Is there a problem converting TrueHD to a format which can flow over S/PDIF?

paidgeek

01-26-07, 02:59 PM

paidgeek

This is obviously not what some of the other studios(paramount &warner?) think because they release hd-dvd/dvd on alot of their disks but only BD on the BD version. Paramount Does the BDA or DVDA stop BD/DVD combos? I tried asking this once before. I just couldnt figure out why a studio think a HD-DVD/DVD is a good idea but then when they make the BD they dont think its a good idea anymore. Trust me I dont like these flippers I'm just curious if its a cost thing for BD or if BDA asks them not to do it?

I suspect that JVC did not get a response from the studios that has justified the mass production of these discs.

RobertR1

01-26-07, 03:08 PM

As mentioned in my original post, this type of disc was demonstrated some time ago. Did I say the discs were in production or available to other studos? My point is that they are proven to work, and if requested by a studio, can be manufactured.

Are these discs in the spec? If so, are they limited to BD25/DVD9 or also BD50/DVD9? Also, how are yields and cycle times for a BD25/DVD9 and BD50/DVD9 in comparison to BD50?

My only knock on the combo discs is the generally higher price but I personally like them. It'll be a while before all the players in the house are cycled out for Hi Def players and I rather not buy 2 copies.

Thanks,
Robert.

amirm

01-26-07, 03:38 PM

Will you ask High-Def Digest to correct what looks like misinformation from you here:

http://hddvd.highdefdigest.com/feature_microsofthddvdinterview.html

Peter Bracke: It certainly seems as if the HD DVD-supporting studios are also almost exclusively going with VC-1.

You: The support is exceptionally solid. The only non-VC-1 titles you are seeing now are early titles, where studios were still experimenting with different codecs to see which one worked best.

--Darin
No, I let that balance claims like these, given to the same reporter: http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/feature_visitwithsony.html

"The third issue is production efficiency. To encode in AVC/MPEG-4 or VC-1 – can take two weeks for a single title, because they are highly asymmetrical encoding process. That is not so good for us. Because if you find a mistake, you may have to go back and it may take you another week to re-encode it. "

Wonder how they explain that fact that Sony's AVC encoder is 12 times slower than real time and around 3X slower than VC-1, if what is good for them is speed? And two weeks is too long?

"VC-1 and AVC were both optimized for low bit rate applications, not high bit rate applications. "

Wonder why Sony is using AVC now. I guess you tell people the other thing is no good until you have it?

Or this one: "most of the new HD DVD titles use more than 20 Mbps average bitrate Most of ours are 18 Mbps. "

Most of them use average of over 20 mbit/sec? If so, what is our peak? Above 30?

Have them go and fix these things in Don’s interview and I will ask Peter to clarify my statement. Hopefully that is fair.

P.S. why do I feel I have not left the Format War thread?

amirm

01-26-07, 03:43 PM

tteich

01-26-07, 04:06 PM

I have heard of no recent discussion on the matter. So I would say you are pretty safe in proceeding to invest in HD DVD. And yes, we have and continue to share the feedback to them.

Thanks, you made my day :)

dobyblue

01-26-07, 04:21 PM

Your information is incorrect. I verified today with our replication plant that there IS a hard coating that is applied on top of the 100 micron thick protective cover layer (similar to that used for eyeglasses on request). The same process is used at Technicolor and Cinram. This would help explain why the BD discs seem to be holding up better to abuse.
That is good news.

benwaggoner

01-26-07, 04:28 PM

Ben,

There is a world of sound quality improvement between 16/48 LPCM and any lossy codec. Even Dolby representatives have said as much. Would you care to sight (or maybe host) some double blind testing?
Again, the data point isn't lossly v. lossless, it's what lossy v. what lossless. There's nothing fundamental about lossless algorithms that make them bad, especially for multiple channel movie soundtrack content.

However, I'm reporting what I've been told by multiple studio audio engineers - they just don't feel the difference between DD+ and TrueHD is significant, even in high-end listening environments.

amirm

01-26-07, 04:32 PM

I suspect that JVC did not get a response from the studios that has justified the mass production of these discs.
I don't know why blame is put on other studios for this. Is it fair to say that not all BD discs are BD-50 because studios are not asking for it just the same? If something can’t be made, you can’t claim people didn’t want it.

Besides, the above is inconsistent with interviews given by your employer: http://www.highdefdigest.com/news/show/Hybrid_Discs/Industry_Forecasts/Sony/Sony_Says_No_to_Blu-Ray/DVD_Hybrid_Discs/88:

“However, despite agreement among fellow studio representatives that there is considerable consumer interest for "transitional" disc product capable of playing both high-def and DVD content, vp of international for Sony Pictures Home Entertainment Adrian Alperovich stated that "Sony [has] no plans to put both formats on its Blu-ray discs" in the immediate future.”

If I were not too lazy :), I would search and find the article where Sony executives said the hybrid process simply was too expensive to manufacture.

Bottom line is that BD hybrid process failed to materialize due to difficulty of making such discs, aggravated by the shallow recording layer of BD discs.

hellokeith

01-26-07, 04:39 PM

Bump for the busy Amir ;)

Amir,

Could you summarize the HD DVD combo and flip disc types available on the market? I would like to put them into my BD / HD DVD specifications thread (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=791245). It is very confusing dealing with single layer, double layer, single side, double side, HD DVD-15, DVD-9, etc. etc.

Could any BD insiders provide the same info for Blu-ray discs?

rto

01-26-07, 05:29 PM

However, I'm reporting what I've been told by multiple studio audio engineers - they just don't feel the difference between DD+ and TrueHD is significant, even in high-end listening environments

I'd be very interested to see the results of any carefully controlled experimental procedures designed to make qualitative comparisons between "lossy" and "lossless" audio as adjuncts to video presentation. Does anyone participating in this thread know whether or not such testing has been performed, and if so, exactly how the protocol(s) were designed?

Schlotkins

01-26-07, 05:41 PM

Amir-

Any update on the Studio Canal audio issue? They have a lot of nice titles coming up ...

Thanks,
Chris

gooki

01-26-07, 05:42 PM

For the Microsoft guys.

With more and more smaller studios/distributors looking at the next gen DVD is there any intention to run VC1 encoder/encoding training sessions using your professional tools?

And more specifically would there be any chance of seeing such a session in the south pacific (New Zealand/Australia)?

I'm not directly involved with commercial authoring anymore, but i do get a training allowance and would very much like to put it towards something useful such as the above.

benwaggoner

01-26-07, 06:29 PM

With more and more smaller studios/distributors looking at the next gen DVD is there any intention to run VC1 encoder/encoding training sessions using your professional tools?
We've actually run a number of them already. It's a required part of getting access to the tools. Folks can PM me if they're making HD DVD or BD titles and have a mux tool that can handle .vc1 titles.

And more specifically would there be any chance of seeing such a session in the south pacific (New Zealand/Australia)?
No plans. It's been Hollywood and Paris so far.

I'm not directly involved with commercial authoring anymore, but i do get a training allowance and would very much like to put it towards something useful such as the above.
We've only been providing it to folks involved in commercial products so far. They're not close to refined enough for the hobbyist use yet.

dlb99

01-26-07, 07:52 PM

dlb99

01-26-07, 08:03 PM

Rio

01-26-07, 09:25 PM

Bottom line is that BD hybrid process failed to materialize due to difficulty of making such discs, aggravated by the shallow recording layer of BD discs.Maybe I'd better to ask this someone in the industry.

shore,
Did BD hybrid process fail to materialize, due to its 0.1mm structure?

FrancescoP

01-26-07, 10:38 PM

A question for Amir:

I live in Italy and here in Europe the only HD DVDs with italian audio track are the ones from Universal.

Why? Will this change in the future?

Thx!

benwaggoner

01-26-07, 11:46 PM

Bump for the busy Amir ;)
So for, studios have released in:

HD15/DVD9 (flipper)
HD30/DVD9 (flipper)
HD30 (single sided)

BuGsArEtAsTy

01-26-07, 11:57 PM

So for, studios have released in:

HD15/DVD9 (flipper)
HD30/DVD9 (flipper)
HD30 (single sided)
The Polar Express is 14 009 499 648 bytes (13 GiB), and it is not a combo. So, that would make it:

HD15/DVD9 (flipper)
HD30/DVD9 (flipper)
HD15 (single sided)
HD30 (single sided)

Correct?

angrymonkey

01-27-07, 12:13 AM

BD does not have hard coat. It has a protective layer but it is not a true hard coat.

Your information is incorrect. I verified today with our replication plant that there IS a hard coating that is applied on top of the 100 micron thick protective cover layer (similar to that used for eyeglasses on request). The same process is used at Technicolor and Cinram. This would help explain why the BD discs seem to be holding up better to abuse.

I am very curious to know why amir said what he did.

Anyone else?

amirm

01-27-07, 12:41 AM

I am very curious to know why amir said what he did.

Anyone else?
Here is a bit of history. When BDA originally went public, they quickly promoted the concept of "hardcoat" as defined by TDK. They showed impressive demonstrations of that process, where you could smudge the disc really good with fingerprints, sand the disc, and it would still play. This worked so well for them that in every press release you would find references to this “hard coat” making BD some kind of super disc. If you search back 2 years on AVS, you see BD fans constatly talk about this great “hard coat” and how HD DVD didn’t have it. Never mind that TDK process had been already available for DVD (and hence HD DVD).

Behind the scenes in BDA, there was another story. The TDK Durabis process required some 12 steps, which made it quite expensive to deploy. This was a nasty situation for BD as you had an expensive disc to begin with and the last thing you wanted to do, was a) add another expensive process to it or b) have the many steps for the protective layer reduce yields further. So the TDK process for ROM applications (i.e. movies) was quietly dismissed and instead, BDA simply states the level of abrasion resistance required for the disc. It is left up to the implementor, what they do to achieve this.

It is my understanding that Sony and Panasonic have their own propriatary cover layers. Neither has publicly disclosed the properties of this coating, other than persumably the fact that it is compliant with BD specifications.

Of course, folks still want that association for the cool TDk process so the term “hard coat” is still thrown around. But if you look at the BDA’s own white paper (http://www.blu-raydisc.com/assets/downloadablefile/BD-ROMwhitepaper20051123clean22-13264.pdf), you see this statement in section 4-1:

“To improve scratch resistance, the cover layer can optionally be protected with an additional hard coat layer.”

Notice the word “optionally” (emphasis mine)? So the classic “hard coat” clearly is optional.

Now as to Paid’s comment, he asked a question and reported the answer, but I don’t think he stated it right. Of course there is a protective coating. Without it, the BD disc would not survive a day in real life nor would it comply with BD spec. But that coating is not a “hard coat” but simply, something that keeps the top layer from being scratched easily. That process is cheaper than a true hard coat, but it is also much less durable. It is very doubtful that this coating provides any additional protection overall, comapred to HD DVD/DVD which naturally resist scratches and fingerprints due to laser focusing way past the top layer where they would exist (much like how you can see through your eyeglasses even if they are dirty or scratched).

Make sense?

amirm

01-27-07, 12:55 AM

BTW, I post on the topic of protective layers a while back. Here is a link if you are interested: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=8789094&&#post8789094

Supermans

01-27-07, 01:02 AM

Here is a bit of history. When BDA originally went public, they quickly promoted the concept of "hardcoat" as defined by TDK. They showed impressive demonstrations of that process, where you could smudge the disc really good with fingerprints, sand the disc, and it would still play. This worked so well for them that in every press release you would find references to this “hard coat” making BD some kind of super disc. If you search back 2 years on AVS, you see BD fans constatly talk about this great “hard coat” and how HD DVD didn’t have it. Never mind that TDK process had been already available for DVD (and hence HD DVD).

Behind the scenes in BDA, there was another story. The TDK Durabis process required some 12 steps, which made it quite expensive to deploy. This was a nasty situation for BD as you had an expensive disc to begin with and the last thing you wanted to do, was a) add another expensive process to it or b) have the many steps for the protective layer reduce yields further. So the TDK process for ROM applications (i.e. movies) was quietly dismissed and instead, BDA simply states the level of abrasion resistance required for the disc. It is left up to the implementor, what they do to achieve this.

It is my understanding that Sony and Panasonic have their own propriatary cover layers. Neither has publicly disclosed the properties of this coating, other than persumably the fact that it is compliant with BD specifications.

Of course, folks still want that association for the cool TDk process so the term “hard coat” is still thrown around. But if you look at the BDA’s own white paper (http://www.blu-raydisc.com/assets/downloadablefile/BD-ROMwhitepaper20051123clean22-13264.pdf), you see this statement in section 4-1:

“To improve scratch resistance, the cover layer can optionally be protected with an additional hard coat layer.”

Notice the word “optionally” (emphasis mine)? So the classic “hard coat” clearly is optional.

Now as to Paid’s comment, he asked a question and reported the answer, but I don’t think he stated it right. Of course there is a protective coating. Without it, the BD disc would not survive a day in real life nor would it comply with BD spec. But that coating is not a “hard coat” but simply, something that keeps the top layer from being scratched easily. That process is cheaper than a true hard coat, but it is also much less durable. It is very doubtful that this coating provides any additional protection overall, comapred to HD DVD/DVD which naturally resist scratches and fingerprints due to laser focusing way past the top layer where they would exist (much like how you can see through your eyeglasses even if they are dirty or scratched).

Make sense?

nice summary :)

amirm

01-27-07, 01:07 AM

Question for AVC insiders,

Multiple AVC implementations are appearing, at a minimum Panasonic has an AVC implementation, now Sony has an AVC implementation.

Hypothetical situation.

Say that multiple implementations contain exactly the same feature set. I'm a compressionist, I encode with AVC encoder A (using feature set X and bandwith Y), I then encode with AVC encoder B (using feature set X and bandwith Y). Will the results be similar, or could they vary is much as using a different compression scheme (e.g. MPG2)?

I guess I'm asking will using different AVC implementations produce wildly different results? Or will mulitple AVC implementations result in generally similar output?

Dennis.

Looks like you had no takers :). Hopefully you accept us as a substitute :). We are kind of qualified btw. Dr. Sullivan on my team chaired the standardization of AVC both in ITU and MPEG and was honored as an IEEE fellow as a result (yes, he is a much nicer guy than I am :)). We also hold a number of patents in AVC. We also have to make sure we stay ahead of AVC so we keep pretty good tabs on their progress.

With the above out of the way, the answer most definitely is yes. Different encoders generate different results/quality. What the standards organizations define are the decoder syntax, not encoder. There is usually a reference encoder but it is usually very slow and usually not very good (although the AVC one is pretty decent). So companies either start from scratch, modifying some MPEG-2 encoder with AVC tools, or keep optimizing the reference encoder. Depending on their level of knowledge, resources and experience, they can produce varying quality encoders.

Today, there are three are three AVC encoders for HD optical: Toshiba, Thomson, Panasonic, and Sony. Toshiba is obviously only for HD DVD. The last two are for BD. Thomson works with HD DVD but I am not sure about BD. From what we hear from the post houses, the Toshiba AVC encoder is the one to beat. They have been at it the longest, and have been chasing our tail at the lower bit rates for VC-1 encodes (versus higher rates used in BD). No doubt Rio is going to chime in and say the encoder from his employer is best (Panasonic). So I am just going to sit back and let him fight it out with Paid :). I will note however that Panasonic does not seem to want to sell its encoder to others. If you want it, apparently you have to pay Panasonic to do the encode for you too.

laric

01-27-07, 01:48 AM

Question for paidgeek,

Region-A Blu-ray cases are thin (close to half DVD width).
Region-B Blu-ray cases are DVD thickness.

Why the difference (if you know)?
I'd prefer wordwide consistency, I think Region-A cases are nicer.
.
I would second that for HD-DVD as well... It is same here in France some (I hope only a few) cases are DVD Thickness :(

At a point my wife thought they are not proper HD-DVD !

Why changing this ? The "US" thin cases are a lot nicer. and MI3 demonstrate how easy they can hold two disks.

--Patrice

paidgeek

01-27-07, 02:23 AM

Notice the word “optionally” (emphasis mine)? So the classic “hard coat” clearly is optional.

Now as to Paid’s comment, he asked a question and reported the answer, but I don’t think he stated it right. Of course there is a protective coating. Without it, the BD disc would not survive a day in real life nor would it comply with BD spec. But that coating is not a “hard coat” but simply, something that keeps the top layer from being scratched easily. That process is cheaper than a true hard coat, but it is also much less durable. It is very doubtful that this coating provides any additional protection overall, comapred to HD DVD/DVD which naturally resist scratches and fingerprints due to laser focusing way past the top layer where they would exist (much like how you can see through your eyeglasses even if they are dirty or scratched).

Make sense?

Amir, can you be more specific about what I did not state right? I thought the my post was pretty clear. BD specifies a protective layer (uv lacquer or film) that covers the data area (about 100 um). In addition, a "hard coat" can be applied. It is around 4 - 6 um thick and is designed to provide additonal scratch resistance to the disc and all of the BD replicators are using this. "hard coat" is not a trademarked name. Whether we use a TDK process or not does not mean we are not using a "hard coat".

Talkstr8t

01-27-07, 02:46 AM

Not if that extra bandwidth is used for things like PCM audio. They will use a constant rate even when there is silence. So his comment is correct that if you use the bandwidth, you have to find a way to pay for it in case of capacity, which puts BD-25 in a difficult spot. Put another way, the effective peak rate of BD-25 is lower because if you utilize it, you will run out of space quickly compared to HD DVD-30.I can't believe you're trying to claim that having 50% more bandwidth can possibly, in any regard, be a disadvantage. It's available for Blu-ray encoders to use. They don't have to use it. They can stick to HD DVD bandwidth limits and have the exact same picture quality. They don't have to use PCM, they can use TrueHD or DTS-HD or plain DD. But under any scenario Blu-ray encoders have 50% more headroom available as one of the many "knobs" they may tweak (other knobs being which audio codec, which video codec, BD25 vs BD50, etc.) to create the best possible product.

Talkstr8t

01-27-07, 02:54 AM

According to a FAQ on Disney's site comparing BD to HD-DVD.

http://disney.go.com/disneyvideos/bluray/

According to Disney, Blu-Ray has:

1. Greater storage capacity
2. Full 1080P resolution while HD-DVD only delivers 1080i
3. Unparalleled interactivity – using BDMV and DB-Java Technology
4. Broadest Industry support
5. Stronger disk durability

To answer these MISCONCEPTIONS, see below:

1. Both HD-DVD and BD are new and emerging standards. HD-DVD is currently 30gb, BD is currently 25gb or 50gb. HD-DVD has shown 51gb discs which, it is their intention to use for video delivery. BD has show prototypes of 100gb (possibly greater) however, these are focused on the data storage market and will probably have no bearing on video.BD has greater storage capacity. You can't possibly argue your way around this. Maybe in the future this will change (though it's highly unlikely) but today and for the foreseeable future this statement is categorically correct.
3. So far there has been no real sign of interactivity in BD titles using BD-Java. Also, BD-Java is not supported on all systems. HD-DVD uses HDi which is showcased in many currently shipping titles, easier to construct interactive content in, and mandated on all players.At least six titles have been released with BD-J interactivity. BD-J is supported on all systems.
4. Yes, currently BD has more studios behind it (not broader industry support as HD-DVD has a lot more PC vendors and Chinese manufacturers behind it).BD categorically has more vendors. HD DVD announced five Chinese manufacturers (none of whom have publicly shown hardware). Add that to Toshiba and you have six; there are currently BD players released from six vendors, with models having been demonstrated by at least three others. There is also broader PC support on Blu-ray, with BD drives available from more than six vendors (for both PC and Mac), and PC's available from Sony, Dell, Acer, and many smaller companies.
However, this is an odd "benefit" to Disney as if they moved their support to HD-DVD, then the balance would also shift.You'd still have more studio support for Blu-ray, with Fox, Lionsgate, and Sony remaining exclusive.
5. BD discs are not more durable than HD-DVDs. This is a misnomer. BD discs REQUIRE a strong ant-scratch coating because the data layer is basically on the surface of the disc, and thus more prone to damage. HD-DVDs put the data in the middle of the disc, allowing the optics to focus through most scratches (just like existing DVDs). Regardless of why, the fact is Blu-ray discs have proven to be more durable than HD DVD discs according to Netflix renters.

- Talk

Talkstr8t

01-27-07, 02:58 AM

You're making the dichotomy between lossless/lossy, while the real question is the audio experience for the consumer.Whether or not double-blind tests would bear out a noticeable difference between PCM and DD+ 1.5Mbps, these two facts remain:

Blu-ray reviews have received consistently higher praise for audio than HD DVD titles, with many noting that Blu-ray's lossless PCM sounds more dynamic than the equivalent HD DVD TrueHD or DTS track.
Consumers will generally consider a title boasting of lossless audio to be more attractive than one which doesn't.

Talkstr8t

01-27-07, 03:02 AM

It is very doubtful that this coating provides any additional protection overall, comapred to HD DVD/DVD which naturally resist scratches and fingerprints due to laser focusing way past the top layer where they would exist (much like how you can see through your eyeglasses even if they are dirty or scratched).Regardless of whether it is a "hard coat" or a "protective coating", posts here indicate many people dissatisfied with their rental experiences for HD DVD titles, while there is far less evidence that the same problem exists with Blu-ray.

dlb99

01-27-07, 03:06 AM

Today, there are three are three AVC encoders for HD optical: Toshiba, Thomson, Panasonic, and Sony. Toshiba is obviously only for HD DVD. The last two are for BD. Thomson works with HD DVD but I am not sure about BD. From what we hear from the post houses, the Toshiba AVC encoder is the one to beat. They have been at it the longest, and have been chasing our tail at the lower bit rates for VC-1 encodes (versus higher rates used in BD). No doubt Rio is going to chime in and say the encoder from his employer is best (Panasonic). So I am just going to sit back and let him fight it out with Paid :). I will note however that Panasonic does not seem to want to sell its encoder to others. If you want it, apparently you have to pay Panasonic to do the encode for you too.

Thanks Amir.

Looks like us geeky AV types will have more disc info to dig into. That is, it is not really enough to say Title-X is using AVC, rather it should be that Title-X is using Company-Y AVC.

So we have Toshiba AVC vs Sony AVC vs Panasonic AVC vs MS VC-1 etc etc.

No flames please :)

Competition is good.

Dennis.

HighDeff

01-27-07, 03:14 AM

HD DVD announced five Chinese manufacturers (none of whom have publicly shown hardware). Add that to Toshiba and you have six;

Talk, what about MS, LG, ONKYO, MERIDIAN and ALPINE.??

And Talk, please comment this statement, by Joone from Digital Playground.

http://gear.ign.com/articles/759/759068p1.html

Excerpt.:

"Joone: There's actually one company that replicates about 95% of all the adult content that's produced in the Valley. They've chosen HD-DVD. So when their customers, who are generally technically illiterate, come to them and say they need to do HD, they'll be told to go with HD-DVD. Everything pretty much points to HD-DVD and adult these days."

:D :D :D

Sean_O

01-27-07, 03:41 AM

Blu-ray reviews have received consistently higher praise for audio than HD DVD titles, with many noting that Blu-ray's lossless PCM sounds more dynamic than the equivalent HD DVD TrueHD or DTS track.

Could you please elaborate on this statement? Which titles are available on HD DVD with a lossless audio track that are also available on Blu Ray with a LPCM track?

And then can you explain how a LPCM track could possibly sound any different than a lossless encoding of the same track, assuming identical mix, master, and bit depth?

Perhaps I misunderstood your post? I Apologize if that is the case.

Nic Rhodes

01-27-07, 04:10 AM

DigitalfreakNYC

01-27-07, 04:21 AM

BD has greater storage capacity. You can't possibly argue your way around this. Maybe in the future this will change (though it's highly unlikely) but today and for the foreseeable future this statement is categorically correct.
At least six titles have been released with BD-J interactivity. BD-J is supported on all systems.

With all this talk of greater storage, why is there only ONE disc of all the BD titles that I'm interested in that manages to fit in all the extras from the SD DVD disc? There is easily 2 dozen discs that I'd buy tomorrow if they had ported over all the features from SD DVD.

I'd sincerely like to know the answer to this because I won't be buying a player until it happens with a majority of titles, like HD DVD.

Talkstr8t

01-27-07, 04:54 AM

Talk, what about MS, LG, ONKYO, MERIDIAN and ALPINE.Of which only MS and LG have even shown hardware. So if you add up all the hardware companies which HD DVD claims have support maybe you are close to the number of Blu-ray companies. When you actually look at the credibility of those companies in the HT space it's not even close.
And Talk, please comment this statement, by Joone from Digital Playground.[quote]"Joone: There's actually one company that replicates about 95% of all the adult content that's produced in the Valley. They've chosen HD-DVD. So when their customers, who are generally technically illiterate, come to them and say they need to do HD, they'll be told to go with HD-DVD. Everything pretty much points to HD-DVD and adult these days." The market won't ignore the 10x greater number of Blu-ray players shipped relative to HD DVD. Sure, it may be faster/easier to have low-volume HD DVD titles replicated, but one or more replicators will surely step forward as adult providers seek to serve the large Blu-ray population.

Also, I consider the comparison with the impact adult titles had on the VHS/Beta war to be incorrect. When VHS/Beta were launched there was no other reasonable mechanism for getting adult video into the home. The situation is clearly very different today given both DVD and download. There will surely be a market for adult content on blue laser, but I don't see any possibility that it will have the impact it may have on the VHS/Beta format battle.

Talkstr8t

01-27-07, 04:56 AM

With all this talk of greater storage, why is there only ONE disc of all the BD titles that I'm interested in that manages to fit in all the extras from the SD DVD disc?I don't know what you're interested in, but I believe most titles released since BD50 and advanced codec usage became prevalent have had all of the content from the SD DVD release. It's true that most of the BD25 MPEG2 titles did not share all the bonus content from prior releases.

Talkstr8t

01-27-07, 04:59 AM

Could you please elaborate on this statement? Which titles are available on HD DVD with a lossless audio track that are also available on Blu Ray with a LPCM track? Sorry, I probably shouldn't have included TrueHD, as I don't believe there are any titles yet (though Warner will apparently be releasing them this way in the future). Reviews have certainly highlighted Blu-ray LPCM audio as being superb and noticeably better than DD+ or DTS HD DVD audio. Further, the fact that most Blu-ray titles have lossless sound available while only a fraction of HD DVD titles do is relevant here as well.

DigitalfreakNYC

01-27-07, 05:09 AM

I don't know what you're interested in, but I believe most titles released since BD50 and advanced codec usage became prevalent have had all of the content from the SD DVD release. It's true that most of the BD25 MPEG2 titles did not share all the bonus content from prior releases.

Nope. Check again.

The newest casualty is Chicago. A good amount of stuff left off. Almost all Fox titles have most extras left off and the MGM titles are completely barren of extras.

Still not enough room, apparently.

Will this ever change or do BD only studios see this as not a priority?

Azumi

01-27-07, 07:28 AM

I would second that for HD-DVD as well... It is same here in France some (I hope only a few) cases are DVD Thickness :(

At a point my wife thought they are not proper HD-DVD !

Why changing this ? The "US" thin cases are a lot nicer. and MI3 demonstrate how easy they can hold two disks.

--Patrice

Just a little clarification: I own a number of French Blu-ray discs from Sony, Warner and Fox (which are the only companies who released BDs over here so far), and I can certify that the size and thickness of the cases are absolutely IDENTICAL to the region A titles.

The only difference is that Sony Europe is using a case with a latch on the side and the front Blu-ray logo is in 3D -- like the cases used by some Buena Vista titles in the US.

I don't know for HD-DVDs and I can't speak for other regions of the world.

Two additional questions on this subject:

- Do these cases have a generic name (like keep case and snap case for DVDs)?
- Are you aware of new types of cases to be used on future releases -- like digipacks?

BenDover

01-27-07, 10:26 AM

Whether or not double-blind tests would bear out a noticeable difference between PCM and DD+ 1.5Mbps, these two facts remain:

Blu-ray reviews have received consistently higher praise for audio than HD DVD titles, with many noting that Blu-ray's lossless PCM sounds more dynamic than the equivalent HD DVD TrueHD or DTS track.
Consumers will generally consider a title boasting of lossless audio to be more attractive than one which doesn't.

can an insider explain how it can even be remotely possible other than some psychological phenomenon that PCM can sound any different than DD-THD??

my understanding is that the DD-THD results in bit-for-bit identicality with PCM, which is simply where DD-THD starts out before lossless mathematical compression, correct?

or are we getting claims of superiority simply because the source and/or the mix is better/different? i supposed changing levels and the amount of activity in the surround channels can affect a user's perception as well?

but there can be no doubt that DD-THD will provide the same exact PCM as the PCM that could be put down on a BD title, correct?

hellokeith

01-27-07, 11:15 AM

Will Windows Vista have any basic ability to write (file system) to DVD, HD DVD, or BD like XP can write to CDR/RW (with the CD writing wizard)?

amirm

01-27-07, 11:16 AM

Regardless of whether it is a "hard coat" or a "protective coating", posts here indicate many people dissatisfied with their rental experiences for HD DVD titles, while there is far less evidence that the same problem exists with Blu-ray.
Not really. There are many, many people who are satisfied with their HD DVD rental experience. Otherwise, Netflix would be complaining and they are not. There are anecdotal issues on both sides.

And keep in mind because the cover layer in HD DVD is six times thicker than BD (0.6mm versus 0.1mm), it can be polished nicely in existing rental cleaning systems. This is a bit like having a real hardwood floor which you can sand and still have enough wood left to walk on. In contrast, the ultrathin coating on BD discs cannot be polished as doing so, completely wears off the protective layer and you are left with nothing. And if this thin layer does get damaged at all, you are liable to destroy the bits under it as they are sitting so close to it. Again, HD DVD/DVD have a much deeper cover layer so this is far less of an issue for that.

Billions of DVDs cycle through rental experience today. HD DVD follows the same path. If they had issues that you claim, there would be no Netflix or blockbusters today. Would more protection be better? Sure. But BD doesn’t provide it as a whole, and studios are unwilling to spend extra money for discs that go through rental as they don’t make as much money from them, as they do from people who purchase the discs outright.

amirm

01-27-07, 11:28 AM

can an insider explain how it can even be remotely possible other than some psychological phenomenon that PCM can sound any different than DD-THD??
I can create cases where one could, in a very remote way, sound maybe a bit better than the other in certain designs. But I can make the argument in favor of either one and would be equiv. to why one cable might sound better than the other. :) For fun, let's ask Talk/Paid first to see if they can think of why this would be the case and then I will comment.

my understanding is that the DD-THD results in bit-for-bit identicality with PCM, which is simply where DD-THD starts out before lossless mathematical compression, correct?
From the point of view of the data itself, they are identical as you state.

or are we getting claims of superiority simply because the source and/or the mix is better/different? i supposed changing levels and the amount of activity in the surround channels can affect a user's perception as well?
This is really the crux of it. Even Roger from Dolby says this, and pointed out to some Japanese magazine review which claimed the lossy track was better than lossless! Level matching is critical and since studios are trying to create movies, not benchmarks on discs between codecs, it is not a priority for them to match them down to the last fraction of db.

Still, I don’t think we have yet heard from anyone who has listened to TrueHD and PCM of the same thing and says one sounds better than the other. And we are waiting to see what info Paid/Talk have that 1.5 mbit/sec DD+ is vastly inferior to PCM, let alone any claim of it being better than TrueHD or DTS lossless.

amirm

01-27-07, 11:33 AM

Could one of the HD DVD insiders give us a full summary of the 'resume' feature please, I have had a good search but I can't find a good authorative summary post on how HD DVD does things different to say DVD in this respect. I understand that it needs to 'authored' in the discs like Canal are now doing but many people are getting confused with how HD DVD and DVD differ in this respect and how an X Box may differ from a Toshiba player.

Many thanks
Majority of HD DVDs use an HDi programming system for menus and such. This allows us to have much nicer menu systems than DVD with nice goodies like timelines for the movie when you pause it, graphical bookmarks, etc.

If you then turn off the machine, in reality you are turning off a computer so you need to save all of its "state" (memory) or you can't resume it. Think of your laptop computer and what it does when you close the lid or suspend it. Content authors could solve this problem by "trapping" the power button and saving only what needs saving as most of the time, the menu system is not doing anything. But a lot of titles have already come out without it so this is probably not as attractive. So we are looking at other alternatives. I will post our progress on this as we get closer to a good solution.

Rich Peterson

01-27-07, 02:48 PM

Amir,

The following is your quote after someone questioned Meridian's HD-DVD plans way back in this thread:

They clarified this nicely yesterday, saying they are 100% behind HD DVD now and plan to build reference quality players: http://media.meridian-audio.com/press/CES07-presskit/meridian-hddvd-ces07.pdf
I am following up on some CES discussions. I was one of the people at CES who was told by Meridian that they had no plans to release an HD-DVD player. The press release you pointed out came out after CES and says "we are delighted to be working with Microsoft on the development of high-end players" but is sufficiently vague in that it doesn't actually say they are planning to build a player and sell it under the Meridian name nor when they might be complete with that development (2007, 2008, etc).

Since your statement contradicts what I was told and the press release was quite vague, I followed up with an email to them asking them directly if they are planning to build a player and I was told they won't talk about future products. Essentially they would not confirm that they are planning to sell one (but they didn't deny it either). So it appears you are the only real source for me to get clarification from. Thanks for answering.

Does Meridian have plans to build an HD-DVD player and market it under the Meridian name?
Do you know approximately when that might be available?

Thank you.

amirm

01-27-07, 03:32 PM

I am following up on some CES discussions. I was one of the people at CES who was told by Meridian that they had no plans to release an HD-DVD player.
That was an unfortunate communication issue where one of the Meridian people was unaware of this project and stated direction of them supporting HD DVD. So they were saying this at their booth until we figured out what was going on and cleared that out.

The press release you pointed out came out after CES and says "we are delighted to be working with Microsoft on the development of high-end players" but is sufficiently vague in that it doesn't actually say they are planning to build a player and sell it under the Meridian name nor when they might be complete with that development (2007, 2008, etc).
It is clear that they don't want to give a release schedule, nor did we claim one for them. However, other than that, I don't know how you can doubt their statement that way. When has Meridian built players for others?

Since your statement contradicts what I was told and the press release was quite vague, I followed up with an email to them asking them directly if they are planning to build a player and I was told they won't talk about future products. Essentially they would not confirm that they are planning to sell one (but they didn't deny it either). So it appears you are the only real source for me to get clarification from. Thanks for answering.
Please ask if your contact is comfortable with you forwarding that response to me and if so, please PM me with that. I will then be able to comment specifically on it.

Does Meridian have plans to build an HD-DVD player and market it under the Meridian name?
Absolutely yes.

Do you know approximately when that might be available?
I do but cannot share such data on their behalf. All I can tell you is that we are deep in the development of such a product with them. Moreover, Bob Stuart is very excited about this project. We have been in discussion for some time and once they saw the solid progress HD DVD, it was an easy decision for them.

UxiSXRD

01-27-07, 03:52 PM

Does Meridian design and build their own hardware or do they outsource that to a larger CE with their specifications and put their label on it? Could you see how Meridian's development compares with Onkyo and/or the various Chinese vendors?

Speaking of which, is Toshiba and/or Onkyo planning any additional feature sets for their players to distinguish them from the chinese players or will it be brand label alone that differentiates them?

amirm

01-27-07, 04:11 PM

Does Meridian design and build their own hardware or do they outsource that to a larger CE with their specifications and put their label on it?
Of course they do. Otherwise, it is a pretty neat trick to get people to pay so much more for them :).

Yes, there was a time when Meridian was buying CD players from Philips (circa 1983 when I first met Bob Stuart) and then modifying the analog portions to make them sound better. But those days are long gone. Today, it is pretty easy to source the core digital design from the myriads of DVD chip companies and then add value around that. You don't need to go to mass market companies to get such designs. Indeed, the mass market companies take the same chip designs, packaged them with little change and ship them under their names. It is the high-end companies who go back to the drawing board, and find and fix issues with audio clock jitter and such and over build everything at low volume so that they can squeeze the last bit of quality out of the format.

BTW, some high-end companies are going as far as building their own drives and optical pick ups. Mark Levinson comes to mind in this regard (they bought the Thomson optical unit a while back). This enables them to do things like using special motors that “sound smooth and expensive” when they open the drawer! Yes, these things matter when you sell such expensive equipment – kind of like the sound of a V-8 engine in a luxury sports car. I have not asked if Meridian does the same.

Could you see how Meridian's development compares with Onkyo and/or the various Chinese vendors?
They are nicely separated into four categories. Chinese will focus on competent playback of the format, ranking a clear step below Toshiba in overall consumer proposition. Onkyo will strive to build the next step up from Toshiba. Meridian will take this up quite a few notches higher yet, with price no object execution as they have done with their current products. So when it is all said and done, we will have a very nice range for HD DVD products for everyone from budget conscious to someone who wants to know they have bought the best – period.

Speaking of which, is Toshiba and/or Onkyo planning any additional feature sets for their players to distinguish them from the chinese players or will it be brand label alone that differentiates them?
Sure. There is a lot to industrial design, quality of playback of CD/DVD, usability of remote and integration with automation, feel of the machine, the channel and training, on-going support, etc. What they will all share is that they all play HD DVDs, including all the mandatory features, as do all the current DVD players. Beyond that, there is plenty of room for differentiation.

amirm

01-27-07, 04:25 PM

Fuad, kindly note that I will not respond to 12-part arguments here :) And despite the abuse of the rules by us insiders :), we like to stay to Q/A format as much as we can.

So if you have a specific question that you want to ask me, please do that. Otherwise, I leave you in the hands of the mods to decide what to do with your post...

Sean_O

01-27-07, 04:32 PM

WayneL

01-27-07, 04:53 PM

Isn't BD-ROM CLV, so no matter what bitrate is used for a title encode, the playback time is the same, as is the used disk area?

Capek

01-27-07, 05:33 PM

Sorry, I probably shouldn't have included TrueHD, as I don't believe there are any titles yet (though Warner will apparently be releasing them this way in the future). Reviews have certainly highlighted Blu-ray LPCM audio as being superb and noticeably better than DD+ or DTS HD DVD audio. Further, the fact that most Blu-ray titles have lossless sound available while only a fraction of HD DVD titles do is relevant here as well.
Talk,

Why would you use this supposition to say that LPCM tracks on BD are better then DD+ or DTS HD DVD audio? We're talking about different movies with different sound tracks here. How could comparing the soundtracks of different movies possibly lead to any valid conclusions as to the advantage one audio format on a disk could have over another?? :confused:

dlb99

01-27-07, 05:37 PM

Just a little clarification: I own a number of French Blu-ray discs from Sony, Warner and Fox (which are the only companies who released BDs over here so far), and I can certify that the size and thickness of the cases are absolutely IDENTICAL to the region A titles.

This is not the case in Australia, Blu-ray cases are DVD thickness here.
I understand that the UK is also using the chunky Blu-ray case.

We'll see what the insiders say.

I have no comment on HD-DVD cases since I not yet seen any HD-DVD stock down here (launch is yet to occur I believe).

I'd much prefer the thinner cases, sigh, why the change?

Dennis.

paidgeek

01-27-07, 06:10 PM

Would there be any problems in gaining permission from the DVD forum to produce such media, or does Sony not need that?

There is no problem as far as I know. I'll be able to confirm the latest information on BD/DVD hybrids next week.

RobertR1

01-27-07, 06:11 PM

Amir or Ben,

I watched Superman Returns on XBox Live last night. The audio was very impressive! Would you please shed some light on what the audio specs were?

Also, with Superman Returns and Posiden (both HD versions) off marketplace, everything looks good but often blacks and shadows tend to suffer. Is this due to the much lower bitrate? if so, is the Codec being improved in way to minimize this?

Sean_O

01-27-07, 06:13 PM

There is no problem as far as I know. I'll be able to confirm the latest information on BD/DVD hybrids next week.

EDITED to rephrase my response,

I would be interested in learning what you are able to find out. I can not see Sony just being graciously allowed to integrate DVD with Blu Ray without certain members of the DVD forum throwing up a roadblock.

Please post when you know more, and thank you for the reply.

paidgeek

01-27-07, 06:17 PM

Isn't BD-ROM CLV, so no matter what bitrate is used for a title encode, the playback time is the same, as is the used disk area?

BD-ROM is not truly CLV, but it is okay to think of it that way for arguments sake. Since audio, video and other elements of the disc consume data at varying rates, only enough sectors are ready to satisfy the buffer conditions to decode the selected bit streams. Put another way, if we want to encode a disc with a 6 hour runtime, we can do so by keeping the average bitrate at the required limit.

Sean_O

01-27-07, 06:31 PM

This is a question for Amir that stems from a discussion on another thread. Apologies if it has already been asked and answered:

Can current DVD replication lines be converted into "combo" HD DVD production lines?

Going deeper into that, if they can be so converted, is the expense far greater than the standard DVD to HD DVD line conversion process, or is there much additional equipment needed?

In my opinion, getting these combo HD DVD lines up and running should be priority one for the HD DVD group. Perhaps they should consider allocating some of their budget for this purpose if necessary, in order to make it easier for all studios to transition to single SKU combo releases.

Thank you,

laric

01-27-07, 06:37 PM

This is not the case in Australia, Blu-ray cases are DVD thickness here.
I understand that the UK is also using the chunky Blu-ray case.

We'll see what the insiders say.

I have no comment on HD-DVD cases since I not yet seen any HD-DVD stock down here (launch is yet to occur I believe).

I'd much prefer the thinner cases, sigh, why the change?

Dennis.
I would double this (again) and confirm there is many BD and HD-DVD released here (France) and in the UK that do use these very bad DVD thickness boxes.
Note that they are either red or blue and looks like the "regular" ones, but with DVD thickness and also the plastic look seems a lot worst.

eg : KingKong (Included in XBOX add-on) was "normal" (like in US, except the locking mecanism) but the store version is a DVD thickness box... In my local store, about 50% HD-DVD are like this :( and about 4 blu-ray (out of 12 available here)

Any insider comment on this packaging change versus US ones (and also quite some here)... ? any way to buy "regular" cases somewhere ?

--Patrice

amirm

01-27-07, 08:22 PM

Amir or Ben,

I watched Superman Returns on XBox Live last night. The audio was very impressive! Would you please shed some light on what the audio specs were?
I will leave it to Ben to find the exact stats :). But the audio codec is our own WMA Pro.

Also, with Superman Returns and Posiden (both HD versions) off marketplace, everything looks good but often blacks and shadows tend to suffer. Is this due to the much lower bitrate? if so, is the Codec being improved in way to minimize this?
These files are automatically encoded and have no hand tuning. And unfortunately, they do not use our high-performance VC-1 encoder for HD DVD/BD. The current encoder only outputs streams streams suitable for the HD optical authoring tools and not something that is compatible with our current download format. Put another way, some of the improvements we have made in VC-1 are not yet available in the version used for the Xbox marketplace. We hope to remedy that in the future.

amirm

01-27-07, 08:28 PM

This is a question for Amir that stems from a discussion on another thread. Apologies if it has already been asked and answered:

Can current DVD replication lines be converted into "combo" HD DVD production lines?
Yes although the conversion is from a DVD-18 line to HD DVD combo (assuming combo HD DVD-30/DVD-9).

Going deeper into that, if they can be so converted, is the expense far greater than the standard DVD to HD DVD line conversion process, or is there much additional equipment needed?
The lines are a bit more specialized in that they have to be able to make the equiv. of dual sided DVD-18 discs. But since last fall, these lines have been coming online and cost is not a big issue.

In my opinion, getting these combo HD DVD lines up and running should be priority one for the HD DVD group. Perhaps they should consider allocating some of their budget for this purpose if necessary, in order to make it easier for all studios to transition to single SKU combo releases.

Thank you,
And good opinion that is :). Combo lines are little more sophisticated than normal HD DVD lines so if one were to repalce all DVDs with combo, that would not be feasible today. But it is doubtful that every studio would do that tomorrow so current combo capacity would not stand in between studios and going this route.

Sean_O

01-27-07, 10:38 PM

Thank you very much for the response Amir.

Universal should try and make the first move sometime this year with a single SKU combo release of a popular new title. Hopefully, mass production of all new release titles in the combo format will become feasible shortly thereafter.

I am of the opinion that many who complain the loudest about combo discs fear their ultimate purpose and their inevitable effect on the format war.

As long as the combo discs are priced roughly equivalent to standard new release DVDs, I doubt there are many who would not welcome them (Blu Ray camp excluded.)

amirm

01-27-07, 10:40 PM

Combos are indeed a wild card. I put a new poll in the HD DVD section to get some data. Would appreciate HD DVD owners putting in their two cents as I will be forwarding the data to the studios: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=795800

UxiSXRD

01-27-07, 11:55 PM

Would the possibility of a simultaneous release of both a standard HD-DVD and a combo be reasonable?

It would need to be something at least marginally popular for it to be a real test. So far, the only choices we've had are combo or stay with SD,which is a rock or a hard place.

amirm

01-28-07, 12:29 AM

HD DVD insiders:

Is there any word on what happened with independent studios Magnolia and BCI/Brentwood.

There was a press release last April about Magnolia titles hitting HD DVD in May 2006 (never materialized), but instead they made it to Blu-ray. Also, BCI had some titles slated for September of 2006, and now they are indefinitely postponed.
From my quick check, looks like these are titles published from both. I think Magnolia has done 7 titles in HD DVD and Brentwood has done 6. Just did a quick search on Amazon and The Architecture showed up for Magnolia (http://www.amazon.com/The-Architect/dp/B000K4X5YE/sr=8-1/qid=1169961718/ref=sr_1_1/102-3667801-3775321?ie=UTF8&s=dvd). And they show 5 for Brentwood: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_d/102-4375210-4978505?url=search-alias%3Ddvd&field-keywords=brentwood+HD+DVD.

Sean_O

01-28-07, 12:59 AM

IMO, the argument for both standard HD DVD and combo HD DVD in the marketplace becomes irrelevant once combo discs are priced in-line with standard HD DVD or SD DVD releases.

Amir, the studios have to know one thing:

The very first major new title that is released exclusively as a DVD / HD DVD hybrid disc (no stand alone SD DVD, nor stand alone HD DVD release to speak of) would in and of itself be an event.

Such an event would very likely gather massive attention from the mainstream press, and cement the idea in the minds of the general public that indeed, HD DVD will be the successor to DVD. That mindshare is the key to victory.

Not to mention that it would put an HD DVD disc inside nearly every video rental chain and every relevant retail outlet in the Country.

On top of that, (depending on the title) it could potentially be purchased by more people on day one then there are total installed PS3 systems and stand alone Blu Ray players in the World.

Talkstr8t

01-28-07, 03:41 AM

Why would you use this supposition to say that LPCM tracks on BD are better then DD+ or DTS HD DVD audio? We're talking about different movies with different sound tracks here. How could comparing the soundtracks of different movies possibly lead to any valid conclusions as to the advantage one audio format on a disk could have over another?I've seen multiple posts by format-neutral owners and reviewers stating that, taken as a whole, they prefer the audio quality of LPCM Blu-ray titles to the various HD DVD encodings. While this doesn't constitute a scientifically valid objective test on the same material between two different encodings (and even then the equipment would differ, adding another variable), it does indicate a general trend among those contributers and reviewers of higher satisfaction for Blu-ray LPCM audio relative to HD DVD audio.

laric

01-28-07, 04:01 AM

Well, I would say "..contributers and reviewers of higher satisfaction for Blu-ray LPCM audio relative to HD DVD DD+" as DD True HD (loss less) is equal to LPCM after being decompressed...
Although I reckon there is way less DD TrueHD HD-DVD titles than BD LPCM one and that is a real plus on the BD side so far (although I don't understand why they waste LPCM space and don't compress it).

--Patrice.

madshi

01-28-07, 04:04 AM

Talkstr8t

01-28-07, 04:19 AM

Assuming that all players can re-encode the audio using DD or DTS for optical output. Otherwise they'll still need the DD or DTS track since optical can't support higher bandwidth.

tteich

01-28-07, 05:15 AM

Hello studio/industry insiders,

I have a very basic question regarding the frame rate of both HD formats.

1. Does the HD-DVD or Blue Ray spec permit/support a frame rate of 25p in addition to 24p?
2. If not, how will studios handle material which was shot with native 25fps?

My apologies if this has already been covered in earlier discussions. I have joined recently and did not find appropriate information with the search function of this forum.

Background of my question is: I watched an Ufa classic yesterday (it's a real masterpiece of movie history, and technically far ahead of its time, for those who are interested: Münchhausen 1943 (http://amazon.imdb.com/title/tt0036191/) --- btw. I watched the recently by the Murnau foundation restored PAL version of that movie and have no idea how the older NTSC transfer -referred to by above link- looks).

I think all european movies from that time were shot with native 25 frames. Conversion to 24fps would either mean to slow-down the movie by 4%, or to electronically transcoding it to the other time base (don't know if this is technically feasible but it would effectively discard 4% of the movie material with all related quality problems).

Thanks, Torsten

John Haghighi

01-28-07, 06:53 AM

BTW, there is no "core" in TrueHD. BD simply mandates a companion DD track for TrueHD. Same thing can occur in HD DVD players although there, the author has the choice of using DD+, rather than being forced to also spit out a DD track.

Only DTS lossless has a concept of core plus lossless extension.

Amir (and WB insiders),

Roger Dressler of Dolby indicates (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=9220155&&#post9220155) that on BD format Dolby and DTS core lossy and lossless components are carried in the same stream, and from what it sounds like may be more efficent decoding wise (perhaps not space wise)

Why is this different for the HD DVD format?

Would the total bit rate per second be higher if both DD+ and TrueHD streams were combined on the HD DVD format?

He goes on to indicate that TrueHD is identical for both formats and that technically the same file could be used.

If this is the case, do you know why we are seeing TrueHD tracks left off Warner's Blu-ray titles when they are available for the same movie on HD DVD?

WayneL

01-28-07, 07:45 AM

BD-ROM is not truly CLV, but it is okay to think of it that way for arguments sake. Since audio, video and other elements of the disc consume data at varying rates, only enough sectors are ready to satisfy the buffer conditions to decode the selected bit streams. Put another way, if we want to encode a disc with a 6 hour runtime, we can do so by keeping the average bitrate at the required limit.
Thanks Paidgeek. I'm not sure I understand. 1) do you choose a constant disk speed when you master (presumably fast enough to handle the peak BW) or 2) does the disk speed vary according to the instantaneous bandwidth demand? What range is there in disk speed? TIA

MeridianHQ

01-28-07, 09:14 AM

Just to clear this up:

1) Amir's statements at CES regarding Meridian were correct.
2) Meridian's position has been made clear in the release on our media server. (apologies, this BB seems not to want us to put a url since we are 'new'!)
3) Our interest should not be a surprise since Meridian has been deeply involved in the development and standardisation of HD (and BD) specifications, of tool sets and of peripheral technologies, through our work on the lossless coding.
4) We apologise that a member of our CES crew did not have the whole story and made comments that caused confusion.

However, and to stem any ongoing discussion, please note that Meridian has a general policy not to pre-announce specific models, price ranges, availability or feature sets for any of the several product categories we have in regular development.

Kosty

01-28-07, 09:26 AM

send me the URL and I will post it

Thanks:

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

http://media.meridian-audio.com/

Requested link is to PR statement from January 11, 2007 from CES:, previously posted
Meridian Statement on HD-DVD

Clarifying company position on HD disc technology and products

International CES 2007, Las Vegas, NV, January 11, 2007—Leading British audio/video manufacturer Meridian (South Hall 1, Booth 20538) is pleased to make the following statement to clarify the situation regarding reports on its involvement in HD-DVD.

“Meridian is a company renowned for state-of-the-art digital audio and video technology, and we are delighted to be working with Microsoft on the development of high-end players. Meridian has for some time been deeply involved in some of the core audio technology in HD DVD and at CES 2007 we are pleased to announce that we have now joined the HD DVD Promotional Group. “Consistent with Meridian's product development approach, where standards of performance, particularly for audio and video are exceptionally high, product development takes some time, and for that reason we cannot announce any product-specific details at this time."

plazman

01-28-07, 09:29 AM

I've seen multiple posts by format-neutral owners and reviewers stating that, taken as a whole, they prefer the audio quality of LPCM Blu-ray titles to the various HD DVD encodings. While this doesn't constitute a scientifically valid objective test on the same material between two different encodings (and even then the equipment would differ, adding another variable), it does indicate a general trend among those contributers and reviewers of higher satisfaction for Blu-ray LPCM audio relative to HD DVD audio.

Do you have a link from a reliable source that can back up what you are saying? How can an identical lossless track in LPCM sound better than an identical lossless TruHD track? Are you saying TruHD is NOT lossless? Or is your statement comparing DD+ with LPCM?

markrubin

01-28-07, 10:23 AM

dialog_gvf

01-28-07, 10:26 AM

3) Our interest should not be a surprise since Meridian has been deeply involved in the development and standardisation of HD (and BD) specifications, of tool sets and of peripheral technologies, through our work on the lossless coding.

Should we then not be surprised if Meridian subsequently announces interest in releasing a Blu-ray player?

Welcome to the forum!

Gary

Rob Zuber

01-28-07, 10:52 AM

Just to clear this up:

1) Amir's statements at CES regarding Meridian were correct.
2) Meridian's position has been made clear in the release on our media server. (apologies, this BB seems not to want us to put a url since we are 'new'!)
3) Our interest should not be a surprise since Meridian has been deeply involved in the development and standardisation of HD (and BD) specifications, of tool sets and of peripheral technologies, through our work on the lossless coding. The North American HD DVD Promotional Group press release (http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/070107/nysu054.html?.v=1) says:

...and well-known brands such as Meridian and Onkyo will create HD DVD players as well.That sounds like a commitment to bring an actual player to market branded with the Meridian name. Is this what Meridian is announcing?

However, and to stem any ongoing discussion, please note that Meridian has a general policy not to pre-announce specific models, price ranges, availability or feature sets for any of the several product categories we have in regular development.Could you clarify what you mean by "have in regular development"?

obie_fl

01-28-07, 11:14 AM

Will the Chinese HD DVD players support multichannel TrueHD decoding? Does the Microsoft/Broadcom reference platform support that? If so, wouldn't it make sense to change the mandatory feature set of HD DVD to include multichannel TrueHD decoding? Studios could then use TrueHD only and drop the DD+ track.Would really like to hear from a HD DVD insider on this too, especially the first two questions. Would the studios consider offering TrueHD only releases even if full 5.1 TrueHD decoding was only a de facto standard?

msv

01-28-07, 11:16 AM

Hi.

Two Short questions for the Blu-ray Insiders, especially the ones @ Sony/SPHE: ;)

• Will e.g. the first SPHE titles that were released "only" on BD-25 and with MPEG2-Video perhaps get a new AVC/VC-1 treatment sometimes in the future and then be newly re-released?

• And #2: When will Sony Blu-ray players arrive here in Europe/Germany? ... 'cause I don't really like the look of the already available ones from Samsung/Panasonic :)

Up to now I was a strict HD DVD buyer here in Germany, but thanks to this annoying studio exclusivity mainly on the Blu-ray side there seems no way around buying a BR-player and the discs, too ... ;)

Thanks, Malte.

paidgeek

01-28-07, 11:32 AM

rdjam

01-28-07, 11:35 AM

Welcome, Meridian! BTW - when will your MCTi solutions be available, and will any of this functionality be included in your HD player?

paidgeek

01-28-07, 11:36 AM

Thanks Paidgeek. I'm not sure I understand. 1) do you choose a constant disk speed when you master (presumably fast enough to handle the peak BW) or 2) does the disk speed vary according to the instantaneous bandwidth demand? What range is there in disk speed? TIA

BD-ROM drives currently spin at constant 1.5x and can provide a sustained data throughput of 48mbps. This means the disc is always spinning 50% faster than required to acheive the maximum supported data rate.

TomsHT

01-28-07, 11:38 AM

amirm

01-28-07, 11:39 AM

Hello studio/industry insiders,

I have a very basic question regarding the frame rate of both HD formats.

1. Does the HD-DVD or Blue Ray spec permit/support a frame rate of 25p in addition to 24p?
Yes, HD DVD allows both although the Toshiba player requires a firmware upgrade to handle it (due soon). I have been told BD does not support 25p but I have never verified it.

2. If not, how will studios handle material which was shot with native 25fps?
Right now it is a bit of a pain as one is forced to frame rate convert it. But per above, we will have native support for it soon so it should not be a problem. If BD folks don't have 25p, they would have to use flagged 50i and hopefully, progressive coding not interlace.

I think all european movies from that time were shot with native 25 frames. Conversion to 24fps would either mean to slow-down the movie by 4%, or to electronically transcoding it to the other time base (don't know if this is technically feasible but it would effectively discard 4% of the movie material with all related quality problems).

Thanks, Torsten
In this forum, people have been happy about lack of 25p as to force distributors in Europe of US content, in 24p. That has worked so far, but it is causing issues per your note, for native 25p material. It is even causing issues for US material as in some cases, the dubbed track is not available in 24p because they never needed it for DVD (yes, this is part of the issue with some Studio Canal titles).

So in my opinion, we need to support both 24p and 25p and then make sure content owners use the appropriate rate for the source they have. I know there is a ton of European content that won't get unlocked in HD optical if we can't do 25p.

paidgeek

01-28-07, 11:41 AM

Big J

01-28-07, 11:47 AM

From my quick check, looks like these are titles published from both. I think Magnolia has done 7 titles in HD DVD and Brentwood has done 6. Just did a quick search on Amazon and The Architecture showed up for Magnolia (http://www.amazon.com/The-Architect/dp/B000K4X5YE/sr=8-1/qid=1169961718/ref=sr_1_1/102-3667801-3775321?ie=UTF8&s=dvd). And they show 5 for Brentwood: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_d/102-4375210-4978505?url=search-alias%3Ddvd&field-keywords=brentwood+HD+DVD.

Sorry Amir, but none of those Brentwood titles actually happened. They were supposed to come out last years, but were cancelled. Any idea when of even if these will come out? I was a little disappointed. It would be nice if more independant labels put out some HD DVDs.
J

amirm

01-28-07, 11:54 AM

Amir (and WB insiders),

Roger Dressler of Dolby indicates (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=9220155&&#post9220155) that on BD format Dolby and DTS core lossy and lossless components are carried in the same stream, and from what it sounds like may be more efficent decoding wise (perhaps not space wise)

Why is this different for the HD DVD format?
Actually Roger is talking about are two topics at once, leading to some confusion which he then clarifies in the next post. He is saying that the combination of DD/DD+ plus TrueHD is more efficient from decoding point of view because depending on which one you wanted to play, you don't need to decode the other stream. But for DTS, if you want lossless you have to decode both the lossy and lossless extensions (for lossy alone, you obviously don't need to decode the other stream).

The exact same thing happens for both Dolby lossless and DTS lossless in HD DVD. There is nothing different.

What is different is that BD mandates DD with TrueHD. You must have that companion stream or you are not compliant. And sounds like from muxing point of view (i.e. how the streams are stored finally on disc), they assign both streams the same ID and the decoder needs to be smart enough to figure out which one is which. In HD DVD, TrueHD can stand alone, or have a companion of any other audio stream including DD, DD+, DTS, etc. Since the streams are separate, we treat them separate from authoring/mux point of view. So the player software, under user selection, simply pulls the appropriate stream out and plays that.

Note however that technically speaking, there is no difference between BD and HD DVD for TrueHD as Roger notes. You still encode in both TrueHD and DD/DD+ and then have to use the authoring tool to paste them together.

Would the total bit rate per second be higher if both DD+ and TrueHD streams were combined on the HD DVD format?
They are exactly the same as what they are for BD. Again, it is how we indicate the streams on disc that is different. The encoded streams are identical. The bitrate would be no different for either BD or HD DVD.

He goes on to indicate that TrueHD is identical for both formats and that technically the same file could be used.
Proving what I said above is correct :).

Pquote]If this is the case, do you know why we are seeing TrueHD tracks left off Warner's Blu-ray titles when they are available for the same movie on HD DVD?[/QUOTE]
I think we have debated this many, many times :). Just to repeat my previous notes on this, it is potentially two reasons: one, lack of mandatory decoding in all BD players and/or authoring issues with TrueHD on BD (has there been any TrueHD streams from any studio on BD?). I have heard of rumors of them using PCM instead in some future titles.

amirm

01-28-07, 11:56 AM

Sorry Amir, but none of those Brentwood titles actually happened. They were supposed to come out last years, but were cancelled. Any idea when of even if these will come out? I was a little disappointed. It would be nice if more independant labels put out some HD DVDs.
J
Sorry about that :). Let me dig in then and find out what happened on this one.

paidgeek

01-28-07, 12:11 PM

PaidGeek:

Is there a specified limit per studio to how many of there titles can be on bd50 discs per year? If so how does this differ between studios? Also could you give some more details into how the discs are being subsidized for the first five years?

No, there are no specified limits. As with all replication, it is based on supply and demand. We put our plants on notice last fall that we were going to be ramping up use of BD50 and they have responded by installing lines to meet that demand.

I am not aware of any subsidies being paid, but I did hear the same rumors about this several years ago. It does not make much sense that any subsidies could be in place because repication services are being provided by at least 5 different companies and common sense would indicate that they would not all agree to such a subsidy, particular those that support both formats.

rdjam

01-28-07, 12:12 PM

Torsten,

Blu-ray supports 50i encoding at 1080i resolution. This will be compatible with the 25p masters you mention.
I got to ask this.

There was a big thread recently on the issue of a lack of 30p capability in the Bluray specs, causing Nine Inch Nails to release a 30p encode on HD DVD, but a 60i encode on Bluray.

I thought that someone had said that Bluray could do a 30p encode on the disc after all. But your statement here seems to indicate that Bluray can't do 25p on the disc, so you seem to be recommending that Torsten convert this to a 50i encode instead?

Could you elaborate please?

tteich

01-28-07, 12:22 PM

Torsten,

Blu-ray supports 50i encoding at 1080i resolution. This will be compatible with the 25p masters you mention.

Yes, HD DVD allows both although the Toshiba player requires a firmware upgrade to handle it (due soon). I have been told BD does not support 25p but I have never verified it.

Right now it is a bit of a pain as one is forced to frame rate convert it. But per above, we will have native support for it soon so it should not be a problem. If BD folks don't have 25p, they would have to use flagged 50i and hopefully, progressive coding not interlace.

In this forum, people have been happy about lack of 24p as to force distributors in Europe of US content, in 24p. That has worked so far, but it is causing issues per your note, for native 25p material. It is even causing issues for US material as in some cases, the dubbed track is not available in 24p because they never needed it for DVD (yes, this is part of the issue with some Studio Canal titles).

So in my opinion, we need to support both 24p and 25p and then make sure content owners use the appropriate rate for the source they have. I know there is a ton of European content that won't get unlocked in HD optical if we can't do 25p.

paidgeek and Amir,

thank you for your clarification. I guess I will read (in addition to your statements) the specs for HDDVD and BD to make sure I learn more about the technical details of both formats.

For the moment I'm happy that the studios have chosen ONE format (1080/24p) to start with in order to help worldwide exchange and sales. The best would be in my opinion if the discs contain the movie in its original frame rate (24p or 25p) which is put out by the players 1:1, leaving it up to the displaying device to present it properly to the viewer.

Again, thanks for your time to elaborate a bit on this.

TomsHT

01-28-07, 12:25 PM

amirm

01-28-07, 12:45 PM

Amir:

I was on thelookandsoundofperfect website and was watching the HD DVD Interactivity Demo and he was talking about registering somewhere at a Universal site and then being able to download HD DVD trailers & trailers for movies coming soon to theaters.

I'd love to be able to download current movie trailers that are still waiting to come out to movie theaters and play them before watching the HD DVD movie.

Can you give more detail about all this? Can we do this now or is this something that is still being worked on? What website is he referring to go register at, do you have a link?
Indeed, that is the demo that we showed at CES. But this is proof of concept right now (although we showed it on shipping hardware). So no place yet to register :).

Since HD DVD mandates networking and storage, and HDi has full networking functionality, combined with the ability to udpate disc menus, discs can be authored to let you go online, register and then download extras, share bookmarks with your friends of the cool scenes (or compression artifacts :)), update trailers that are stale on disc, etc.

We are working closely with a number of studios on such scenarios for actual shipping discs. But I have no detail or schedules to provide other than confirming the strong interest by Universal and Bandai which showed such demos at CES.

Positive feedback like yours, is the key to get other studios to go this route and on more titles....

amirm

01-28-07, 12:48 PM

paidgeek and Amir,

thank you for your clarification. I guess I will read (in addition to your statements) the specs for HDDVD and BD to make sure I learn more about the technical details of both formats.

For the moment I'm happy that the studios have chosen ONE format (1080/24p) to start with in order to help worldwide exchange and sales. The best would be in my opinion if the discs contain the movie in its original frame rate (24p or 25p) which is put out by the players 1:1, leaving it up to the displaying device to present it properly to the viewer.

Again, thanks for your time to elaborate a bit on this.
Helping out Paid a bit.... :)

BD only supports 50i but if the authoring tool is designed right, one should be able to still code in progressive format on disc but pretend the content is interlace as far as the player is concerned so that we are all compliant. The player would output at 50i however, even in the so called pass through modes, unless there is an override (which should be easy to do).

What you don't want to happen is to encode in interlace mode. That reduces the codec efficiency. NIN was encoded in interlace but we think if someone is very familiar with BD tools, they can encode in progressive for 30p (but with 60i flags).

paidgeek

01-28-07, 12:54 PM

I got to ask this.

There was a big thread recently on the issue of a lack of 30p capability in the Bluray specs, causing Nine Inch Nails to release a 30p encode on HD DVD, but a 60i encode on Bluray.

I thought that someone had said that Bluray could do a 30p encode on the disc after all. But your statement here seems to indicate that Bluray can't do 25p on the disc, so you seem to be recommending that Torsten convert this to a 50i encode instead?

Could you elaborate please?

Blu-ray does not support native 30p or 25p encoding. This should be of no consequence however so long as 60i or 50i encodes properly assemble fields 1 and 2 and compress them as a progressive frame. A more sophisticated process is in common use when a 60i master is provided that is sourced from 24 frame film, i.e. the redundant fields are removed and the remaining fields are assembled into progressive frames for the most efficient encoding. I believe this is also analogous to the hotly debated topic of 24p support on HD-DVD. HD-DVD may encode progressive frames, but the syntax of the bitstream indicates 60i.

rdjam

01-28-07, 01:05 PM

Blu-ray does not support native 30p or 25p encoding. This should be of no consequence however so long as 60i or 50i encodes properly assemble fields 1 and 2 and compress them as a progressive frame.
Wow - thank you for confirming that - very interesting.

Are there any plans to address this, as some would consider this a shortcoming, when one considers tha amount of progressive Video material coming from television studios today?

Also, your second sentence seems to indicate that you feel you can compress interlaced video as a progressive encode. I didn't realize that such a thing is possible?

I thought that an interlace encode is compressed field by field, then re-assembled into frames on playback. Are you saying that an interlaced video file can be encoded as progressive frames, and if this were possible the way you seem to state, wouldn't this just run smack into the same problem you've confirmed that Bluray cannot store a 30p or 25p encode??

jwv651

01-28-07, 01:50 PM

Wesley5

01-28-07, 02:01 PM

The only disc that we have discussed for re-release from the original launch titles is "The Fifth Element" with a new video transfer...

How about re-relaseing "House of Flying Daggers" ? It's such a colorful movie and perfect showcase material for Hidef capability.

tteich

01-28-07, 02:50 PM

Yes, HD DVD allows both although the Toshiba player requires a firmware upgrade to handle it (due soon). ...
This induces the following question:

Does any of the insiders have information about the rollout of the HD-XE1 here in good old europe? To be more specific:

When will Toshiba start to ship units in Germany?
Will the player support PAL and NTSC SD-DVDs?
Will the firmware version support 25p ;)

Thanks.

wickedbob

01-28-07, 04:37 PM

Hi Amir

Do you know if Universal is intending to release "Death Becomes Her" on HD-DVD this year?

FrancescoP

01-28-07, 04:52 PM

A question for Amir:

Why is the HD DVD drive for the 360 in short supply in Europe?

Amazon.co.uk - sold out!
Amazon.de - 5 weeks!
Amazon.fr - 3 weeks!

And this is going on for a month now.

...why? Does the European market have less priority than the US in shipments?

Thank you.

efralope

01-28-07, 06:12 PM

From my quick check, looks like these are titles published from both. I think Magnolia has done 7 titles in HD DVD and Brentwood has done 6. Just did a quick search on Amazon and The Architecture showed up for Magnolia (http://www.amazon.com/The-Architect/dp/B000K4X5YE/sr=8-1/qid=1169961718/ref=sr_1_1/102-3667801-3775321?ie=UTF8&s=dvd). And they show 5 for Brentwood: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_d/102-4375210-4978505?url=search-alias%3Ddvd&field-keywords=brentwood+HD+DVD.
Thanks, I noticed you said somewhere you'd check on the BCI/Brentwood stuff.

I know The Architect was released on Blu-ray and HD DVD, but the rest of the Magnolia titles were only released on Blu-ray (even though artwork was shown for HD DVD as well). There were 10 titles announced I think.

Perhaps you might be able to check with them as well to see if they still have plans to bring them to HD DVD, as it's strange that the titles have been delayed almost 9 months.

Talkstr8t

01-28-07, 06:23 PM

Our interest should not be a surprise since Meridian has been deeply involved in the development and standardisation of HD (and BD) specifications, of tool sets and of peripheral technologies, through our work on the lossless coding.Can you tell us whether Meridian is favoring HD DVD in terms of future plans, or whether you are treating both formats equally?

Talkstr8t

01-28-07, 06:27 PM

Do you have a link from a reliable source that can back up what you are saying? How can an identical lossless track in LPCM sound better than an identical lossless TruHD track? Are you saying TruHD is NOT lossless? Or is your statement comparing DD+ with LPCM?I haven't searched out the specific reviews and posts I've seen, but they would on AVSForum and the usual high-def disc review sites. I'm not suggesting that TrueHD is not lossless, nor that any titles have been released with LPCM on Blu-ray and TrueHD on HD DVD (though upcoming Warner titles may offer this). I'm saying I've seen comments by neutral owners favoring Blu-ray audio treatment vs HD DVD. Further, it seems possible that, while the encoded steam may be lossless in either case, there is no guarantee the equipment decoding it will provide identical fidelity upon decoding. Therefore it is possible that a stream identically encoded for both formats might sound better in one than the other due to equipment differences.

amirm

01-28-07, 07:06 PM

This induces the following question:

Does any of the insiders have information about the rollout of the HD-XE1 here in good old europe? To be more specific:

When will Toshiba start to ship units in Germany?
I don't have this data unfortunately. But can try to find out.

Will the player support PAL and NTSC SD-DVDs?
I assume PAL.

Will the firmware version support 25p ;)

Thanks.
Supposed to but not sure if it does so when first sold.

Boy, I didn't have many answers for you, did I? :) Let me see what else I can find out.

DVD_sanchez

01-28-07, 07:09 PM

Paidgeek, is Spiderman 1 and 2 in the works? if so when will they be released?

benwaggoner

01-28-07, 07:27 PM

Amir or Ben,

I watched Superman Returns on XBox Live last night. The audio was very impressive! Would you please shed some light on what the audio specs were?
It would have been Windows Media Audio Pro 5.1 @ 448 Kbps. WMA Pro is an extremely efficient and high quality audio codec, and favorably compares to AC-3 @ 640 Kbps at that bitrate.

Also, with Superman Returns and Posiden (both HD versions) off marketplace, everything looks good but often blacks and shadows tend to suffer. Is this due to the much lower bitrate? if so, is the Codec being improved in way to minimize this?
I haven't watched either of those in the marketplace. Can you give me some more details about what kind of "suffering" you saw?

We've got continuing efforts to improve video efficiency, and you'll see those paying off anywhere WMV9 and VC-1 is used, including the Xbox Live downloads. I'm actually working on the next round of upgrades for that myself.

dlb99

01-28-07, 07:34 PM

In this forum, people have been happy about lack of 24p as to force distributors in Europe of US content, in 24p. That has worked so far, but it is causing issues per your note, for native 25p material. It is even causing issues for US material as in some cases, the dubbed track is not available in 24p because they never needed it for DVD (yes, this is part of the issue with some Studio Canal titles).

So in my opinion, we need to support both 24p and 25p and then make sure content owners use the appropriate rate for the source they have. I know there is a ton of European content that won't get unlocked in HD optical if we can't do 25p.

I'm one of the PALies who is happy about the lack of 25p support in current Toshiba players. Also I'm happy (yes happy) about the lack of 25p storage support in Blu-ray.

I don't want (don't want!!!) 4% speedup at all, ever, ever, ever. I don't trust content owners, will they return to 25p (in PAL regions) if given the choice. That's my grave concern. I like the current situation.

My non-related question, are US Blu-ray players capable of handling 50Hz content (e.g. 1080i50?). My reading of the spec is "yes they must". Hence, would it be legitimate for a company such as the BBC to release a 50Hz version of say "Faulty Towers" in the States (not a converted to 60Hz version)? I'm intrigued.

Dennis.

rdjam

01-28-07, 08:26 PM

Dave Vaughn

01-28-07, 08:43 PM

I believe that The Departed is being release with TrueHD on HD DVD and PCM on BD and I will be able to compare the two at the same time when I review them.

dlb99

01-28-07, 08:51 PM

Does anyone know - apart from the 24p movies, of course, how much of the material produced for TV and Cable in Europe is being filmed at a native 25p HD Video resolution. And also in the US, how much of the material produced for TV and cable is being filmed as native 1080p30?

Most US drama is 24-frame-per-second, e.g Sopranos/Lost/Law-n-Order etc etc.
All in-studio stuff is 60Hz. All sport is 60Hz. I believe there would be little actual 1080p30 material (maybe some concert material?).

Quite a lot of 25p material exists. The new Dr Who is apparently 1080p25. However, this material would not have been shown in a cinema (which are 24fps based), hence would be "made-for-TV" for the majority of cases.

Also note that here in Australia we have 50Hz based high-def with some TVs shows being done in 1080p25, however, this material is sent over the airwaves as 1080i50 (just like Blu-ray). Hence, native 25p is not that big of a deal as paidgeek and Amir can attest to.

I consider 24p handling/production to be far more important. 24p is the world standard, even the BBC (for some programs) is now using 24p I believe.

Dennis (not an insider :))

reincarnate

01-28-07, 09:09 PM

Talkstr8t,
Speaking strictly for yourself do you think the first generation Blu-ray owners will feel remorse when the Blu-ray standards are improved upon?
http://www.hdnowonline.com/Comment_BD_1G_Obsolete.html

WiFi-Spy

01-28-07, 09:45 PM

No, there are no specified limits. As with all replication, it is based on supply and demand. We put our plants on notice last fall that we were going to be ramping up use of BD50 and they have responded by installing lines to meet that demand.

I am not aware of any subsidies being paid, but I did hear the same rumors about this several years ago. It does not make much sense that any subsidies could be in place because repication services are being provided by at least 5 different companies and common sense would indicate that they would not all agree to such a subsidy, particular those that support both formats.

Are 3rd party replicators able to supply BD-50s?

TomsHT

01-28-07, 09:48 PM

Indeed, that is the demo that we showed at CES. But this is proof of concept right now (although we showed it on shipping hardware). So no place yet to register :).

Since HD DVD mandates networking and storage, and HDi has full networking functionality, combined with the ability to udpate disc menus, discs can be authored to let you go online, register and then download extras, share bookmarks with your friends of the cool scenes (or compression artifacts :)), update trailers that are stale on disc, etc.

We are working closely with a number of studios on such scenarios for actual shipping discs. But I have no detail or schedules to provide other than confirming the strong interest by Universal and Bandai which showed such demos at CES.

Positive feedback like yours, is the key to get other studios to go this route and on more titles....

Thank you Amir and yes I'm looking forward to these features very much. I just finished telling the wife about it and she seemed pretty excited to be able to preview current trailers of movies coming soon to theaters. This is something that would be used more then watching deleted scene extras in our house... :)

Richard Paul

01-28-07, 11:00 PM

scaesare

01-28-07, 11:20 PM

BD-ROM drives currently spin at constant 1.5x and can provide a sustained data throughput of 48mbps. This means the disc is always spinning 50% faster than required to acheive the maximum supported data rate.

Why?

shore

01-29-07, 12:06 AM

BD-ROM is not truly CLV, but it is okay to think of it that way for arguments sake.
Actually a BD-ROM disc is very much CLV (4.917 m/s as I recall) and recorded as such. I refer you to your copy of the Blu-ray physical specification if you have any doubts.

An application can play back a CLV specified disc at any rate that it can make the drive perform, including CAV if so desired and supported.

amirm

01-29-07, 01:20 AM

Should we then not be surprised if Meridian subsequently announces interest in releasing a Blu-ray player?
Just FYI that I don't think Meridian folks are coming back to answer more questions. It was bad enough that I had to ask them one more time to come and say what they have said twice.

- Blu-ray in Japan: The true sign of Universal neutral inevitability.
Gary
Hadn't noticed your signature before :). You might want to know that Universal is very committed to HD DVD and based on what we hear, they will only publish in HD DVD in Japan.

Talkstr8t

01-29-07, 02:48 AM

You might want to know that Universal is very committed to HD DVD and based on what we hear, they will only publish in HD DVD in Japan.That would be an interesting business decision, given the widely reported ~95% market share for Blu-ray (and this is not counting PS3's), leaving a very small target market for HD DVD content.

dialog_gvf

01-29-07, 02:56 AM

Hadn't noticed your signature before :). You might want to know that Universal is very committed to HD DVD and based on what we hear, they will only publish in HD DVD in Japan.

Undoubtedly they wish they could do that. We will see if the realities of being in the business of selling discs allows them to stick to that plan.

Gary

Sean_O

01-29-07, 03:03 AM

Undoubtedly they wish they could do that. We will see if the realities of being in the business of selling discs allows them to stick to that plan.

If their sole concern were selling discs I don't think they would have gotten as far as a company.

Talkstr8t

01-29-07, 03:05 AM

Speaking strictly for yourself do you think the first generation Blu-ray owners will feel remorse when the Blu-ray standards are improved upon? I've addressed that webpage's many outright misstatements of facts at length in the past. In brief, it dramatically overstates the extent of incompatibility 1G players may have with future content, and it is my expectation that most buyers of 1G equipment understand that they are paying a premium to be "first on the block", and that replacement models will likely have more features for lower cost. As a result, I don't expect much consumer dissatisfaction in this regard.

onanie

01-29-07, 03:12 AM

Just FYI that I don't think Meridian folks are coming back to answer more questions. It was bad enough that I had to ask them one more time to come and say what they have said twice.

Has Meridian committed to never producing any Blu-ray player in the near and distant future?

Canuck21

01-29-07, 03:33 AM

Regardless of whether it is a "hard coat" or a "protective coating", posts here indicate many people dissatisfied with their rental experiences for HD DVD titles, while there is far less evidence that the same problem exists with Blu-ray.
Well some renters have reported cracks on BD. I've never seen cracks on HD DVD nor DVD.

BioSehnsucht

01-29-07, 04:35 AM

Capek

01-29-07, 04:55 AM

That would be an interesting business decision, given the widely reported ~95% market share for Blu-ray (and this is not counting PS3's), leaving a very small target market for HD DVD content.
Can you please provide some numbers from which you are deriving this 95% market share without PS3 ? Unless people have lined up in droves the past month to drop a grand per player, combined with a sudden uptick in standalone shipments / production, I find this hard to believe. Seems more likely a number if you counted every PS3 as a player, but you said yourself this is not counting PS3s. Please enlighten us mere mortals with your information.
This is one of the, erm, rare cases in which Talk is wrongly applying information he happened to come across at CES, at since he liked it so much, has continued to throw it out there whenever the occasion arises without really checking up on it for himself. The ~95% number he has thrown out quite often claiming that it represents the total market share BD holds in Japan is actually limited to the recorder market share. Of course the fact that some of those BD recorders don't play BD-ROM disks doesn't seem to be a factor to him. It appears that the actual optical disk player sales fall closer to 80-20 in favor of BD:
http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mainichi-msn.co.jp%2Fkeizai%2Fit%2Fcomputing%2Fnews%2F20070126org00m3 00060000c.html&langpair=ja%7Cen&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&prev=%2Flanguage_tools

As to a question to justify this post, hmm, Talk, do you have any software sales figures you can share from Japan? I don't know why you would, but since you aren't shy about playing up the big advantage BD has over HD-DVD in Japan, there has to be something you base that on other then just that one figure that you happened to pick up during CES.

tteich

01-29-07, 04:58 AM

In this forum, people have been happy about lack of 25p as to force distributors in Europe of US content, in 24p. That has worked so far, but it is causing issues per your note, for native 25p material. It is even causing issues for US material as in some cases, the dubbed track is not available in 24p because they never needed it for DVD (yes, this is part of the issue with some Studio Canal titles).
So in my opinion, we need to support both 24p and 25p and then make sure content owners use the appropriate rate for the source they have. I know there is a ton of European content that won't get unlocked in HD optical if we can't do 25p.
I'm one of the PALies who is happy about the lack of 25p support in current Toshiba players. Also I'm happy (yes happy) about the lack of 25p storage support in Blu-ray.
I don't want (don't want!!!) 4% speedup at all, ever, ever, ever. I don't trust content owners, will they return to 25p (in PAL regions) if given the choice. That's my grave concern. I like the current situation.
My non-related question, are US Blu-ray players capable of handling 50Hz content (e.g. 1080i50?). My reading of the spec is "yes they must". Hence, would it be legitimate for a company such as the BBC to release a 50Hz version of say "Faulty Towers" in the States (not a converted to 60Hz version)? I'm intrigued.
Dennis.

I started this whole issue and don't want to leave Dennis' reply uncommented. Although this is an insiders-answers-only thread I hope the readers (and the mods) forgive me for the small remark. Dennis, I fully agree. I don't either want to watch something which was horribly speed up by 4%. But I also don't want to see 25p film slowed down by 4% or otherwise altered due to 25p->24p conversion "experiments". I like film in its unaltered form, exactly the way it was shot and as it meant to be. Therefor, we need a way to correctly display material which was shot natively with 25 pictures per second (and I'm happy that both formats - HDDVD and BD - seem to be able to deliver it somehow // interlaced or progressive I don't care that much). And Amir stated it: there should be a way to make sure that content owners choose the correct parameters for their HD discs.

Now to turn this reply into something which can be answered by a BlueRay insider :-)

I again and again realize that it bothers me to no end that there are region codes used on BD. I'd be w/o question format neutral if BDs would give me the freedom to buy what I want wherever I want. Although studios seem to love regions I consider this as a huge limitation of my freedom and a great disadvantage in the current situation where only a few discs are out on the market anyway. I've seen poor movie-enthusiasts are already creating lists which of the few available titles they're able to play and which they can't.

Are there any discussions under way that BD-supporting studios will abandon region codes?
What would these studios actually recommend to someone (e.g. to me) who would like to purchase/watch US AND European BR-discs?
-> buy two players, $1000 each?
-> wait until someone develops a region hack?
-> don't buy US discs actually as they will all be available very soon as european releases?
Will the upcoming european version of the PS3 implement regions?

Thanks.

Grandmaster

01-29-07, 04:58 AM

It would have been Windows Media Audio Pro 5.1 @ 448 Kbps. WMA Pro is an extremely efficient and high quality audio codec, and favorably compares to AC-3 @ 640 Kbps at that bitrate.

I haven't watched either of those in the marketplace. Can you give me some more details about what kind of "suffering" you saw?

Speaking as an occasional customer for the Live Marketplace's video content, the encoder seems to have a particular weakness for blacks and large expanses of dark colors. The most extreme case I have witnessed is the SD download of Batman Forever. For the most part, the content looks good. However, take a look at the introductory sequence - it is ram-packed with macroblocking and artefacting. On all other content, fades to black exhibit some issues to varying degrees.

If the enhanced VC1 encoder is not used for the Live content, what is used instead? Surely not Windows Media Encoder? Bearing in mind the large bandwidth used on the HD content, surely your new encoder could lower your bandwidth consumption and shorten download times for consumers?

rdjam

01-29-07, 10:15 AM

I've addressed that webpage's many outright misstatements of facts at length in the past. In brief, it dramatically overstates the extent of incompatibility 1G players may have with future content, and it is my expectation that most buyers of 1G equipment understand that they are paying a premium to be "first on the block", and that replacement models will likely have more features for lower cost. As a result, I don't expect much consumer dissatisfaction in this regard.
Hi Talk - could you tell me which 1st gen Bluray players sold to date, besides the PS3, will be compliant with either BD Video 1.1 or BD Live 2.0 on June 31st?

rdjam

01-29-07, 10:19 AM

Because some forum members are still confused about this issue can one of the insiders confirm whether the following is correct?

Blu-ray can compress 1080p30 or 1080p25 using progressive frames as long as the syntax of the video stream is 1080i60 or 1080i50. This is the same way that HD DVD can use progressive frames for 1080p24 as long as the syntax of the video stream is 1080i60. To put it simply Blu-ray can handle 1080p30 and 1080p25 the same way that HD DVD can handle 1080p24.
I would like some clarification from insiders on this also.

I understand the situation as to be opposite to what Richard describes here, in that HD DVD stores 1080p24 with hints for 1080i60 players, whereas Bluray is storing 1080i60 (for 1080p30 sources) with hints that the original source was progressive - same for 1080i50/1080p25.

Could some one please clarify which is correct?

Thank you.

benwaggoner

01-29-07, 11:18 AM

Speaking as an occasional customer for the Live Marketplace's video content, the encoder seems to have a particular weakness for blacks and large expanses of dark colors. The most extreme case I have witnessed is the SD download of Batman Forever. For the most part, the content looks good. However, take a look at the introductory sequence - it is ram-packed with macroblocking and artefacting. On all other content, fades to black exhibit some issues to varying degrees.
Gotcha.

First question - have you calibrated your display against the 360 output? I know what you're describing, but it's generally most obvious when the display is too bright, especially with bright blacks.

If the enhanced VC1 encoder is not used for the Live content, what is used instead? Surely not Windows Media Encoder? Bearing in mind the large bandwidth used on the HD content, surely your new encoder could lower your bandwidth consumption and shorten download times for consumers?
Well, the PEP and WMV encoders aren't completely seperate pieces of technology. Lots of the technological advances we did for HD DVD and BD are now available for any Windows Media encoding tool that uses our current Format SDK, although they aren't all on by default.

And yes, improvements in compression efficiency can be used to provide a mix of improved quality and reduced download time.

benwaggoner

01-29-07, 11:33 AM

I would like some clarification from insiders on this also.

I understand the situation as to be opposite to what Richard describes here, in that HD DVD stores 1080p24 with hints for 1080i60 players, whereas Bluray is storing 1080i60 (for 1080p30 sources) with hints that the original source was progressive - same for 1080i50/1080p25.

Could some one please clarify which is correct?

You're correct for HD DVD - it's 24/1.001 unique progressive frames per second, with 60i hints. And once again, folks should remember that the HD DVD to BD .vc1 conversion tool mainly just strips out the 60i flags - there's no recompression of the video at all.

My understanding of what's going on with BD is analagous to original DVD with 30p, where streams were required to be interlaced, but in an interlaced stream, any frame can be progressive or interlaced. So 30p is a 60i interlaced stream made out of progressive frames.

Will players be able to pick up on that and do the right thing on output? If I have it write, this will be a lot more challenging in practice in BD than in HD DVD with 24p content. This is because 100% of HD DVD titles that show the 24p pattern are 24p throughout. So the player can make the right call when the stream starts playing, and just have to watch out for the possibility of a wrong file. But with 60i, lots of them will start with 30p sequences, since encoders will opportunistically use 30p mode for low motion content, like titles. And lots of movies start off with titles :).

amirm

01-29-07, 11:42 AM

Has Meridian committed to never producing any Blu-ray player in the near and distant future?
To us? No. We have not heard of a word about them producing a BD player. You might want to ask a BD insider if they have info on them producing BD player.

hellokeith

01-29-07, 11:59 AM

Josh Z

01-29-07, 12:30 PM

Question for Amir or the other HD DVD insiders:

The HD DVDs that Toshiba has released in Japan (such as The Brothers Grimm, Finding Neverland, and the copy of Resident Evil bundled with the HD-XA1 player) are labelled on the packaging as "1080i Hi-Def". Can you find out if these discs are genuinely encoded interlaced, or if they're really 1080p24 and simply mislabelled (a la the debate about "Chronos" in this forum)? Thanks.

rdjam

01-29-07, 12:58 PM

You're correct for HD DVD - it's 24/1.001 unique progressive frames per second, with 60i hints. And once again, folks should remember that the HD DVD to BD .vc1 conversion tool mainly just strips out the 60i flags - there's no recompression of the video at all.

My understanding of what's going on with BD is analagous to original DVD with 30p, where streams were required to be interlaced, but in an interlaced stream, any frame can be progressive or interlaced. So 30p is a 60i interlaced stream made out of progressive frames.

Will players be able to pick up on that and do the right thing on output? If I have it write, this will be a lot more challenging in practice in BD than in HD DVD with 24p content. This is because 100% of HD DVD titles that show the 24p pattern are 24p throughout. So the player can make the right call when the stream starts playing, and just have to watch out for the possibility of a wrong file. But with 60i, lots of them will start with 30p sequences, since encoders will opportunistically use 30p mode for low motion content, like titles. And lots of movies start off with titles :).Thank you, Ben - that's what I thought.

benwaggoner

01-29-07, 01:00 PM

On the subject of BD / HD DVD content which is encoded one way but flagged another way..

Do standalone (set top) players have bad edit correction and/or per pixel adaptive modes like Nvidia's PureVideo decoder (which looks for wrongly flagged content and can telecine/pull-down on the fly)?

How many transfers are going from 24 film --> 60i masters, before the encode ever happens?
All of the VC-1 HD DVD titles certainly are 24p native when the source is 24p.

The issue of incorrect flagging was much bigger with DVD, since you couldn't really encode 24 unique frames per second, but had to use field_repeat tags to get 48 unique fields per second. Plus there were lots of encdoers that got the flagging wrong in the early days of the format.

wnorris

01-29-07, 01:07 PM

Speaking as an occasional customer for the Live Marketplace's video content, the encoder seems to have a particular weakness for blacks and large expanses of dark colors. The most extreme case I have witnessed is the SD download of Batman Forever. For the most part, the content looks good. However, take a look at the introductory sequence - it is ram-packed with macroblocking and artefacting. On all other content, fades to black exhibit some issues to varying degrees.

If the enhanced VC1 encoder is not used for the Live content, what is used instead? Surely not Windows Media Encoder? Bearing in mind the large bandwidth used on the HD content, surely your new encoder could lower your bandwidth consumption and shorten download times for consumers?

Not an insider, but I believe the XBox Live encodes do alter the black levels. You may want to read the following link, which is a comparison of HD-DVD to Xbox Live HD. This is a comparison of HD to HD, so it may be different for SD material.

http://www.jakeludington.com/hddvd/20061204_xbox_video_marketplace_and_hddvd_comparison.html

WayneL

01-29-07, 01:11 PM

DavidHir

01-29-07, 02:12 PM

Paidgeek,

What are the chances of Sony releasing Bram Stroker's Dracula and Mary Shelley's Franskenstein on BD this year?

amirm

01-29-07, 02:13 PM

benwaggoner

01-29-07, 02:17 PM

Not an insider, but I believe the XBox Live encodes do alter the black levels.
The black levels are correct in the files, I'm sure (nominal black at 16). I think what he's talking about is how Y' and RGB luma levels are translated in the hardware. I'll try to find out more about what's going on there.

amirm

01-29-07, 02:22 PM

Undoubtedly they wish they could do that. We will see if the realities of being in the business of selling discs allows them to stick to that plan.

Gary
I think the "realities" are that this battle is fought and settled outside of Japan. Just look at slate of titles in either format in Japan. Or look at BD ads in Japan which are consistently focused on taking HD camcorder content and moving it to BD (as if grandma actually has a BD player to watch them on it :)), as opposed to movie playback. The battle there is about recordables and even that is going to go slow given the expensive media, and the era of YouTube.

But yes, BD is doing well in Japan, in the constrained context of the market dynamics there.

Anyway, didn't mean to create an argument here. Just thought you should know that Universal, knowing everything they know, are 100% behind HD DVD there too.

onanie

01-29-07, 03:34 PM

To us? No. We have not heard of a word about them producing a BD player. You might want to ask a BD insider if they have info on them producing BD player.

Thanks, Amir.

paidgeek

01-29-07, 03:46 PM

Paidgeek,

What are the chances of Sony releasing Bram Stroker's Dracula and Mary Shelley's Franskenstein on BD this year?

They are not in prodution at this moment. I don't know if they will be coming later this year.

paidgeek

01-29-07, 03:48 PM

Because some forum members are still confused about this issue can one of the insiders confirm whether the following is correct?

Blu-ray can compress 1080p30 or 1080p25 using progressive frames as long as the syntax of the video stream is 1080i60 or 1080i50. This is the same way that HD DVD can use progressive frames for 1080p24 as long as the syntax of the video stream is 1080i60. To put it simply Blu-ray can handle 1080p30 and 1080p25 the same way that HD DVD can handle 1080p24.

This is correct. Blu-ray encoding allows the encoding of frames from progressive sources as frames not fields. The same is true of 24p handling in DVD, HD-DVD and so on.

paidgeek

01-29-07, 03:52 PM

Actually a BD-ROM disc is very much CLV (4.917 m/s as I recall) and recorded as such. I refer you to your copy of the Blu-ray physical specification if you have any doubts.

An application can play back a CLV specified disc at any rate that it can make the drive perform, including CAV if so desired and supported.

I think the term CLV is a antiquated as it was used to define how LD, and CED read analog video data from a disc. In consider this term a misnomer since we are not reading data from the disc in real time, but rather picking up packets of data at faster than real time.

paidgeek

01-29-07, 03:58 PM

paidgeek

01-29-07, 04:00 PM

Wow - thank you for confirming that - very interesting.

Are there any plans to address this, as some would consider this a shortcoming, when one considers tha amount of progressive Video material coming from television studios today?

Also, your second sentence seems to indicate that you feel you can compress interlaced video as a progressive encode. I didn't realize that such a thing is possible?

I thought that an interlace encode is compressed field by field, then re-assembled into frames on playback. Are you saying that an interlaced video file can be encoded as progressive frames, and if this were possible the way you seem to state, wouldn't this just run smack into the same problem you've confirmed that Bluray cannot store a 30p or 25p encode??

Please let me know of any 25/30fps progressive material coming from a TV studio. I am not aware of any.

rdjam

01-29-07, 04:00 PM

This is correct. Blu-ray encoding allows the encoding of frames from progressive sources as frames not fields. The same is true of 24p handling in DVD, HD-DVD and so on.
Could an insider please reconcile the apparent lack of corelation between Ben's answer and Paidgeek's? http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=9618046&&#post9618046

It seems that paidgeek is saying that Bluray handles (or doesnt) 1080p25 the same way that HD DVD handles 1080p24. But yet previous answers have indicated that this is not the case? And paidgeek's advice to Torsten a few posts back was to encode his 1080p25 as 1080i50? http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=9608405&&#post9608405

Anyone?

paidgeek

01-29-07, 04:03 PM

Are 3rd party replicators able to supply BD-50s?

I am told that one or two are close, but I have not confirmed recently. I'll see if I can get more information on this.

paidgeek

01-29-07, 04:09 PM

How about re-relaseing "House of Flying Daggers" ? It's such a colorful movie and perfect showcase material for Hidef capability.

It certainly is colorful, but it is also very soft. There is nothing we can gain by remastering this title. Please enjoy it as it is.

amirm

01-29-07, 04:10 PM

Could an insider please reconcile the apparent "lack of corelation" between Ben's answer and Paidgeek's? http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=9618046&&#post9618046

It seems that paidgeek is saying that Bluray handles (or doesnt) 1080p25 the same way that HD DVD handles 1080p24. But yet previous answers have indicated that this is not the case? And paidgeek's advice to Torsten a few posts back was to encode his 1080p25 as 1080i50? http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=9608405&&#post9608405

Anyone?
This is what I know. While it is clear to anyone encoding HD DVDs, that 24p material can be flagged and as such, encoded in progressive mode, such is not the case with at least some BD content creators. To wit, I believe NIN was encoded in true interlace mode (60i) as opposed to progressive for BD. While I do believe what Paid is saying is true, it might be that how you do this in their authoring tool is less than clear.

Net, net, we are both in the same boat depending on what frame rate we are talking about, and assuming a bit more education on the part of Sony. So I hope no one continues to say HD DVD is "1080i" when BD has to resort to same techniques to handle 25p and 30p sourced video :).

paidgeek

01-29-07, 04:11 PM

Paidgeek, is Spiderman 1 and 2 in the works? if so when will they be released?

They are being evaluated. No date as been set yet for release.

amirm

01-29-07, 04:12 PM

Please let me know of any 25/30fps progressive material coming from a TV studio. I am not aware of any.
There is plenty of 25p content in Europe so I assume by above you mean US.

rdjam

01-29-07, 04:15 PM

Please let me know of any 25/30fps progressive material coming from a TV studio. I am not aware of any.
No probs - an earlier post here outlined some of it http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=9613151&&#post9613151

The data compression from a 30p source can be encoded as 30p but will have 60i syntax, just as with 24p and HD-DVD. If the data is from a 60i source it will be encoded 60i with 60i syntax. If the player outputs the data as 60i, the monitor will, in almost all cases, recognize that it is from a progressive frame and reconstruct it as such. The same cases hold true for 25/50.So was the "Nine Inch Nails" Bluray disc encoded as 1080p30 with a 60i syntax, or was it encoded as 1080i60 with a 60i syntax? If the former, do you know why?

tteich

01-29-07, 04:21 PM

Please let me know of any 25/30fps progressive material coming from a TV studio. I am not aware of any.

I'm not aware how TV studios actually handle this. I would guess that in the PAL hemisphere a lot of productions have been made in 25p, probably mainly movies which were intended for both TV and cinema.

My original question came up when I realized that Ufa (and later on after-WWII film studios in Germany and Eastern Europe) shot 25 pictures per second film material. If this can be flagged as progressive and output in 50i by the player, then a processor or display will be able to perfectly restore the original 25fps.

By the way I'm wondering whether the movie "Das Perfum" (http://www.amazon.de/gp/product//B000MMN6Z2/028-6292029-7440522) was shot in 24 or 25frames?

DVD_sanchez

01-29-07, 05:23 PM

They are being evaluated. No date as been set yet for release.

Sorry Paidgeek, I don't want to turn this into a "when is this coming out" thread. However, if you could just answer me this for a less "high profile" release. Is Sony planning Starship Troopers and Bad Boys soon? Starship troopers already has a planned release in japan by the distributiing studio there so just wondered.

Your replies are very much appreciated.

dkny75

01-29-07, 05:39 PM

Amir, have you heard anything else about Magnolia and BCI on their delayed HD DVD releases? It just seems odd that all of the HDNet stuff is already out on HD DVD but almost all of the Magnolia stuff is out on Blu-ray. I'm looking forward to seeing some great movies like War Within, One Last Thing, World's Fastest Indian, etc on HD DVD.

That being said please give Magnolia a big thumbs up when you talk to them for adding a TrueHD soundtrack to the HD DVD version of the Architect.

Also for insiders on both sides, have any of you heard interest in some other smaller studios for releasing on either format (Palm Pictures, Tartan, Anchor Bay, etc.)?

UxiSXRD

01-29-07, 05:44 PM

They are being evaluated. No date as been set yet for release.

Does that mean it's pretty much ready and just waiting the word for mass production (IOW, to avoid a PR/review debacle as in The Fifth Element), or the idea of the project itself is being evaluated?

I can't wait for these myself, and indeed have passed up buying Spidey 2 on DVD on more than a couple occassions since I don't buy DVD anymore.

UxiSXRD

01-29-07, 05:47 PM

To us? No. We have not heard of a word about them producing a BD player. You might want to ask a BD insider if they have info on them producing BD player.

Would they revealed and/or would you (or folks in your team perhaps) have been in a position to know if they were producing a combo player rather than an HD-DVD (and separate BD) standalone?

AntShaw

01-29-07, 05:53 PM

Hi Ben/Amir:

Can you give us any updates yet on the modifications you made to VC1 to help the NIN with their new DVD??

Also, have any other studios used this as well?

On that note, pre-order for both the HD-DVD version and Blu-Ray is available on Amazon for $17.45. Wish more media was priced accordingly.

Finally, pretty dissapointed no DTS wasn't included on the Blu-Ray or HD-DVD. My receiver can't handle True-HD and it sucks to have to settle for DD.

Thanks in advance,
Tony

TwisTz

01-29-07, 06:14 PM

Amir: Have you got word back from the Xbox team about disclosing the date for the DTS patch for the HD DVD add-on?

A date would really shut me up :) ... well probably not.

amirm

01-29-07, 06:26 PM

Would they revealed and/or would you (or folks in your team perhaps) have been in a position to know if they were producing a combo player rather than an HD-DVD (and separate BD) standalone?
It would be improper for me to claim to know everything about everything in that regard :). But this is a small world. For example, we knew about LG producing a dual format player for a long, long time. We are certainly in the know for anyone building a combo player becaue they come and ask us for advice and help on HD DVD side. So chances of them working on a combo, and us not knowing about it is as close to zero as you can imagine.

amirm

01-29-07, 06:28 PM

Hi Ben/Amir:

Can you give us any updates yet on the modifications you made to VC1 to help the NIN with their new DVD??
You know I am very open with you guys in answering questions like this :). But the team feels that what we did for them is quite neat and prefer to not teach our competitors about the techniques. So we need to leave it at that.

Also, have any other studios used this as well?
The enhancements are in our standard encode so the techniques can be applied to content from other studios.

Finally, pretty dissapointed no DTS was included on the Blu-Ray or HD-DVD. My receiver can't handle True-HD and it sucks to have to settle for DD.

Thanks in advance,
Tony
Sorry, I don't know the reason for that.

amirm

01-29-07, 06:30 PM

Amir: Have you got word back from the Xbox team about disclosing the date for the DTS patch for the HD DVD add-on?

A date would really shut me up :) ... well probably not.
:).

I am still working the issue. I wish the console business was not so competitive...

But I do know how much you all want to know the answer so as soon as I am free to disclose it, wink or whatever, I will.

AntShaw

01-29-07, 06:39 PM

You know I am very open with you guys in answering questions like this :). But the team feels that what we did for them is quite neat and prefer to not teach our competitors about the techniques. So we need to leave it at that.

Yes you are always open and I(we) appreciate it. When I asked before my thoughts were that it was due to a time issue/NDA. Didn't think it was for the reason you described. With that said, fair enough! :)

The enhancements are in our standard encode so the techniques can be applied to content from other studios.

Good news indeed! I am very excited to hear that the improvements aren't limited to strictly the NIN release. I am excited to see some other concert releases as well. Personally, these types or releases can really benefit from the new generation of media!

admonish

01-29-07, 06:48 PM

amirm

01-29-07, 07:04 PM

should i assume that any hi-def disc i purchase will support managed copies (paid or unpaid copies) or will i need to look on the back of the disc for a unique logo?

does managed copies only apply to the major studios or would small independent studio be allowed to have managed copies?

thanks,
andré
There is no requirements for the content owners to provide managed copy under the interim license. Fortunately, I understand HD DVD studios like Warner are putting in the right hooks on their discs to enable this scenario when it becomes available under final license. I don't have any data on BD.

As to logo, we hope to make the provision mandatory for the bulk of HD optical content out there. So only the exception would be noted.

And yes, the provision applies to everyonem regardless of size.

jwv651

01-29-07, 07:20 PM

Paidgeek....When is there going to be a DTS-MA firmware upgrade for the PS3..this will happen right.

Morte66

01-29-07, 07:21 PM

You're correct for HD DVD - it's 24/1.001 unique progressive frames per second, with 60i hints.

Oh, so it's actually 23.976fps and not true 24fps?

At the moment I use a software SD DVD player in WinXP and re-rate 23.976 to 24 with ReClock (which takes over as DirectShow audio renderer and syncs the video stream to the display whilst resampling the audio). I get smoother playback on my fixed-refresh LCD that way. Can you tell me whether this is permitted within the DRM mechanisms of Vista HD DVD playback?

nharmon91

01-29-07, 08:25 PM

Paidgeek....When is there going to be a DTS-MA firmware upgrade for the PS3..this will happen right.
I think its in the major March patch, though Im not an insider.

shore

01-29-07, 08:35 PM

I think the term CLV is a antiquated as it was used to define how LD, and CED read analog video data from a disc. In consider this term a misnomer since we are not reading data from the disc in real time, but rather picking up packets of data at faster than real time.
CLV was never intended to refer to the rate an application consumed data from the disc. Constant Linear Velocity deals with velocity, and velocity is a physical quantity of an object's motion. In this case the relative velocity of pits in a plastic substrate relative to a optical pickup unit.

Therefore CLV refers to the relationship of the channel bits on the disc and the activity of the drive when reading these bits. Even modern Blu-ray drives read discs at a constant velocity, no matter what rate the video application requests data. In other words, the rate you request data (packets or not) does not generally change the disc velocity the drive uses to to retrieve that data. This is true if the drive reads the disc in CLV or CAV mode.

I guarantee that a Blu-ray disc is manufactured to a precise CLV specification. This manufacturing takes no account of the rate the application will consume the data.

CLV is not the only type of velocity used on optical discs. Constant Angular Velocity (CAV) recording may be seen near the inner hub as human readable text and machine readable barcodes. (Indeed, the BCA barcode is important for BD-ROM video discs.) Zoned Constant Angular Velocity recording may be seen in formats that are designed for very fast random access such as DVD-RAM, HD DVD-RAM, UDO, MO, and hard drives.

rdjam

01-29-07, 08:36 PM

nataraj

01-29-07, 09:09 PM

That would be an interesting business decision, given the widely reported ~95% market share for Blu-ray (and this is not counting PS3's), leaving a very small target market for HD DVD content.

Talk, do you have any rough figures on software sales in Japan so that we can compare what dollars Universal is leaving on the table in Japan ? Ofcourse if someone else can chip in on what companies are leaving on the table in ROW, that would be great too.

My impression is the amounts currently are too small for any company to really bother - it is more of a strategic initiative rather than a revenue stream. Is this correct ?

jwv651

01-29-07, 09:45 PM

I think its in the major March patch, though Im not an insider.Major update??? Interesting...I wonder if there will be a fix for the upconversion problem of the PS3 also. :confused:

hellokeith

01-29-07, 09:45 PM

Note that we have a high-quality MPEG-2 decoder available to our OEMs now (used in Media Center editions of Vista)

Amir/Ben,

Now that Vista is in the wild, can we get some details on this decoder?

Is it included in the retail and available-to-public oem versions of Vista, and if so, which ones?

Does it work for third-party app playback (outside of Media Center / WMP)?

Does it have any kind of hardware acceleration for 720 & 1080 HD MPEG-2 content?

How does it handle the audio portion of the content, or is it just a video decoder?

amirm

01-29-07, 10:07 PM

This question is to Amir or Ben at Microsoft.

Someone has posted in the battle thread a statement that Microsoft's encoder actually only outputs to Bluray first, then a MS utlity is used to convert that Bluray encode to a HD DVD encode. http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=9621642&&#post9621642

This goes opposite to what I have seen described by Microsft insiders in the past.

As far as I know:

1) The early versions of the Microsoft VC1 encoder only produced HD DVD output
2) A utility was written by Microsoft to allow the studios to take this HD DVD "wrappered" encode and reformat it for Bluray
3) Microsoft promised that they would update the encoder so that the studio could choose to output directly to either format without having to go through the HD DVD step - this new version may be in circulation now.

Based on my knowledge as described above, what Ron is describing is impossible, and Microsoft has not written a utility to convert their Bluray output to HD DVD. My reply - http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=9624154&&#post9624154

Could someone shed somelight on this? Which way round is correct?
Your understanding is correct.

Our VC-1 encoder can generate streams compatible with either HD DVD or BD. For HD DVD, it will progressively encode codec and include the necessary flags. For BD it is just the stream.

For companies who want to convert HD DVD streams for BD, we have a utility to strip off the flags. We have not gotten requests for conversion in reverse so we have no utility to insert flags from a BD stream.

Given Ron's expertise in general encoding technology, I suspect he was making an educated guess as what we are doing. But it doesn't reflect how we have designed our toolset.