Folks,

Help an old guy out here. I'm confused. We've all heard about HDMI 1.3 and the expanded or wide color gamut it can pass. I thought the discussions here were that both BD and HD DVD (and the three codecs available on each) were only capable of providing 8-bit color.

Yet, I read a press release for a new BD player, and I see:
Sony said the player will support forthcoming AVC-HD discs encoded with xvYCC technology that expands the available color gamut 1.8 times.

So, I'm confused now. Will there truly be wide gamut color 10-bit video available for both formats via AVC? It's no secret that Sony has TVs coming capable of reproducing the wide color gamut as well.

What's the real deal here guys? Is this going to be like "upscaling" DVDs, or will the source and new AVC-HD encoded discs truly have more colors, etc? Or am I totally off base here?

Thanks.

Whoops, forgot the "r" in color. :D

VERY interesting. Link?

Lion-

It's on TWICE.com. But you won't find any more information other than what I quoted directly from the press release in the OP.

What's the real deal here guys? Is this going to be like "upscaling" DVDs, or will the source and new AVC-HD encoded discs truly have more colors, etc? Or am I totally off base here?

Thanks.

Go with the first assumption. The original material is 8bit 4:2:0. Its not going to improve much beyond that regardless of whether you attempt to map it into a larger colourspace or not. Reminds me of Sony's DRC stuff ...fancy fluffy talk for essentially a pretty primitive scaling process. I'd prefer my 8bit 4:2:0 not messed about with thanks very much.

The AVCHD disc format is different from the Blu-Ray and HD-DVD format.
It is a format that is being pushed by Sony and Panasonic for HD (camcorders) home video recordings.

Back in January, Sony announced they are releasing two new AVCHD camcorders that can record in xvYCC. The models are HDR-UX7E and HDR-UX3E.

I wondered about this myself. Thanks videora - that makes good sense and clears that mystery up.

The AVCHD disc format is different from the Blu-Ray and HD-DVD format.
It is a format that is being pushed by Sony and Panasonic for HD (camcorders) home video recordings.

Back in January, Sony announced they are releasing two new AVCHD camcorders that can record in xvYCC. The models are HDR-UX7E and HDR-UX3E.
Thanks for the post. This makes total sense now. The BD player will play discs people make in the video recorders and the AVCHD really has nothing to do with BD (other than you can play your home video discs on the forthcoming BD player).