You know, if cooling times are such a big concern, couldn't BDs be pressed on a half disc like DVD/HD DVD, and then bonded to another half disc blank? It seems like that just isn't worth the trouble.

I'm pretty sure this is not possible based on the technology. One of the reasons Blu-ray is so different is because it requires the 1.1m thick substrate. I read an article as to why it was needed that thick, but can't remember the technical details. If someone has a link, it would be great if you would share. ;)

1. Whatever makes BD discs cool faster, can make HD DVD/DVD cool even faster! After all,the substrate is the same in both. So BD remains at a cost disadvantage regardless.So what? If Blu-ray processes were to allow the cooling rate to equal that of HD DVD today, halving that again for HD DVD wouldn't make enough of a cost difference to matter. Put another way (and using made-up numbers) a 200% BD cost disadvantage at $1 for HD DVD vs $3 for Blu-ray might matter to the studios. A 200% BD cost disadvantage at $0.10 for HD DVD and $0.30 for Blu-ray almost certainly wouldn't.
BD has been in design for close to 8 years now inside Sony/MEI.DL BD-ROM, or BD in its initial form (primarily a writable format)?
At what point do we say enough is enough? How many venture capitalists would continue to fund a company whose ideas have yet to become competitive?BD is far beyond the stage at which VC's typically pull the plug.
Would they have pumped the kind of money MEI/Sony have spent just to have these results? At what point do you go back to Powerpoints which said all is well by now, and admit that progress has been slow for precisely the reason others mentioned?And what part of this description doesn't apply to Toshiba as well? Paying hundreds of millions to the studios to back your format; losing hundreds of millions on player sales because you had to cut prices far faster than the typical ramp of new technology in order to stay competitive?
CDs are similar to BD in using a thick substrate. Yes, BD is patterned after the older CD technology not DVD! Today, the cycle time for DVD is shorter/faster than CD. If the industry hasn’t found a faster way to make CDs after 25+ years, why have belief in BD doing it?It doesn't appear the cycle time of CD's have prevented that from being a profitable business, has it?

Ah I see. So what if I told you the ability to edit out obscene content so my kids can watch films (300 HD DVD) and PiP (300, Bourne ID, Batman, Children of Men, The Good Shepard, Constantine, King Kong, Troy, V for V, and those are just the ones I own) were more important to me than seamless branching?Umm, seamless branching is one of the best ways to provide alternate cuts (i.e. edited for obscenity). What are you talking about, crude uploaded playlists which will edit out whole content rather than providing "safe" alternate content?
Can one of the HD DVD insiders tell me if upping the HD DVD spin rate to 1.5X will increase the peak bandwidth as has been said in the past?Just upping the speed from the disc doesn't mean all the silicon can keep up, especially if it wasn't designed to do so from the outset.

So for example, when Talk made that statement that Blu-ray standalone players had 63% of the market, he should have at the outset been required to disclose how he arrived at that dubious figure? It shouldn't have required a series of followup questions to extract the fact out of him that the misleading statistic was based on revenue not player count. I didn't post the figure, when someone else asked I immediately clarified exactly what was being represented. I also didn't come up with the slide or the idea for how to present the data.

Thanks for misrepresenting my role.

Anybody notice the Blu-ray ad that was here earlier today has disappeared? TypicalHow absurd of you. You really think that someone within whatever organization was sponsoring the ad pulled it on Sunday of a holiday weekend?!? Do you even think AVS Forum would have a business office open today to comply with that request if it were made? Chances are ads are rotated, or the original contract was for so many views and once that was met it was pulled.

For the rest of us, could you clarify? Pirate copies aren't made on fab lines.Are you saying pirate copies are burned, not replicated? Given how long it takes to burn HD media and the cost of the media itself, it's not credible to believe this is a viable option. And BD-ROM isn't an option for pirates since the ROMmark more or less prevents this from being done by an anonymous fab line...

Comparing the two camps on this, HD DVD is in a much better position (from a manufacturing perspective). First, due to the disc thickness, the drying time of the disc making process is 50% shorter.

Thank you for your insight in the disc production process. It's been very interesting.

However, I'm still not sure I understand the significance of the difference in cooling time. Just knowing that it takes twice as long, doesn't really tell me anything, since I have no idea how much time is spent on the rest of the process.

So, just to be clear: Assuming identical yields, if you can manufacture X HD DVDs in 8 hours, would the cooling issue mean that you'll only get half as many Blu-ray discs in the same period?

That's a very good question. Remember, one of the BDA Talking Points is that 50GB will rule the PC/Data market because it's great for backups. Unless BD50's are going to be a dime a dozen -- that simply isn't going to occur in reality. So we're stuck a bit ... if they are a dime a dozen and they are used for backups in PC/Data, then it would make it really easy to pirate.Not in any volume, since burning is far too slow.

The BDA comes out and toots their own horn at every opportunity ... even when they need to spin the facts to do so (ie: 63% market share in revenue)You imply that measuring by total revenue isn't a valid way of measuring the market. It is completely valid; for instance, it's used all the time in the server market, where market share is measured by both units and dollars. It's a reflection of consumers' willingness to spend on a given format. I'm not saying it should be used exclusively, but I any financial analyst will want to see this information as well as unit share.

WOW DAVE. One minute after I posted my displeasure about not being able to get these numbers you came with the goods. THANK YOU. That was a phenemenal post with everything I could have asked for including information about which replicator Paramount was using. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU.

I do find it peculiar that Sony is not only doing the replication for Fox and Disney but that they are helping out their competitors in the replication market. I wonder if this weren't as competitive a market if they would be so generous with their information.

Great posts by Shark and Thrust as well. I have been trying to say what Thrust just said about the importance of yields for a while. Good converstation guys. Lets keep the constructive discussion flowing.

Quantity and Quality of the assistance are unknowns though, and would be important factors. Just enough help to make them useful, but not enough to affect Sony's bottom line business, perhaps?

...I've got no idea what the real yields are, and I frankly don't really care. At this point in time it simply doesn't affect me on a disc-to-disc basis, save for the fact that titles from some exclusive studios (say, Fox) tend to be a bit pricier than those from WB. Now, that said, Blades of Glory was still $15 more than some WB titles on HD DVD, so the whole thing is a bit of a mess.
At this stage it makes no difference in disk price - they are all losing badly

If I may, I'm assuming that it comes down to what you choose as your common terms of reference - clearly if it takes two months of coaster after coaster, 'till finally you get a working line with at least "middling" levels (as opposed to, what, "apocalyptic" levels?), then of course the whole story isn't being told. Looking on Google "yield" is an industry standard, so would I assume the standards for measuring it.

It's all a numbers game - what's at the heart of the matter, I think, is that the scalability of BD replication is being called into question, and even taking the best numbers that have been made available bodes poorly, potentially, for long term replication. Amir has suggested repeatedly that they've had a decade to work out the kinks, and that the limitations are in part due to factors such as substrate cooling times (a fixed issue, naturally), as well as issues of complexity and technical challenge (solutions to which would also improve HD DVD replication, thus making the relative advantage ratio consistant).

However, one could easily visualize that this ratio becomes meaningless, that the difference between one process and another is a question of shorter and shorter periods of time as the technology matures. This may not happen until it is clear that BD wins, and then there is no reason for it to happen. Right now it could be a "decider" as to which technology should survive

What's distressing to me, ............Agree, but it will get back to normal

Thank you for your insight in the disc production process. It's been very interesting.

However, I'm still not sure I understand the significance of the difference in cooling time. Just knowing that it takes twice as long, doesn't really tell me anything, since I have no idea how much time is spent on the rest of the process.

So, just to be clear: Assuming identical yields, if you can manufacture X HD DVDs in 8 hours, would the cooling issue mean that you'll only get half as many Blu-ray discs in the same period?

From my understanding, yes. But I will attempt to get further clarificaion on this.

David Vaughn

So there is at least some improvement in yields right? I'm assuming that they feel that are okay for now, and have the expectation that when demand for HDM increases to a sizeable level, they'll be able to meet it (both in their supply and profit)?

Talkstr8t

Good to see you back, thanks for your continued contributions. :)

Dave,
When you say that BD yields are now approaching 50%, but only when there is less data on the disc, how much less data are we talking about? If it's a BD50 that is at/near capacity then what are the yields?

What's distressing to me, however, is the sheer vitriol that many express about these issues of yield, or bandwidth, or disc size, as if these are all to be considered in isolation.
....

I'm not quite sure how it happened, how this became a team sport. I've never seen this (there weren't enough people to care when the sacd vs. dvd-audio nutbars went at each other). Similarly, I just think the arguments are getting louder, covering similar ground over an over. With many of the BD insiders retreating to an area where they are free from challenges of their peers, but also free from pointed attacks from those with a little ammunition and a lot of chutzpah.
....
So, as more and more of AVS retreats into their respective clubhouses, and AVS breaks further apart into cliques on outside boards, I shake my head and think it was only weeks ago that we saw a flurry of good, open debate amongst the insiders and knowledgeable posters here at AVS. How everything has turned around so quickly and sharply boggles the mind, as departed insiders allow hatred and personal attacks to flourish, while a neutered insiders section continues to grasp for its identification here at AVS... I miss the good old days of mid-August, alas.
Indeed, not since ATI v. nVidia have I seen this polarization. I am, unfortunately coming to the conclusion that BOTH sides have chosen this marketing strategy. With the "previous" rules on the Insiders thread being what they were and one sides' willingness to have their representative post extensively on the opponent's format and that opponent having a different style and/or less latitude to engage at that level, the thread IMO was in effect a viral marketing tool for one side on an ostensibly neutral forum. I expect to be spun and manipulated on a forum called BD.com (or HD-DVD.com if their is one), but not here.

I have met quite a few AVS members on BD.com and their story was pretty much the same as mine; the anti-BD atmosphere became too much for them to bear. I might add that NONE of them are flame-throwing BD fanboys over there. But I doubt that "this thread" will see it that way. Too bad.

David Vaughn

So there is at least some improvement in yields right? I'm assuming that they feel that are okay for now, and have the expectation that when demand for HDM increases to a sizeable level, they'll be able to meet it (both in their supply and profit)?

Russ, while the yields have improved, they haven't gotten much better either. There is some concern that IF demand picks up, there could be some issues. Profit wise though, without subsidies I don't think the business model is working, which gives me reason to think that Paramount went the direction they did (and if there was "promotional" considerations involved, it made the decision that much easier!).

By all accounts, those of us reading between the lines believe it is very possible these very things were a primary factor (if not the primary factor) In P/DW doing what they did.
Reading between the lines allows one to see what one wants to see.

Dave,
When you say that BD yields are now approaching 50%, but only when there is less data on the disc, how much less data are we talking about? If it's a BD50 that is at/near capacity then what are the yields?

David,

I have been told 10-15%, but I will be getting a BD-ROM drive for my computer to verify this information. I'm not sure how many discs have fully needed 50GB though either, which throws a fly in the ointment!

OK…I’ve heard back from a couple of sources, and also was able to hear from a new one as well. Here is where we are:
Numbers that were seemingly impossible to obtain for months on end, are suddenly now available at the drop of a dime? Sorry, but with the track record around here, you wouldn't mind if I preferred to wait for someone on another site to present yield numbers that match these?

How absurd of you. You really think that someone within whatever organization was sponsoring the ad pulled it on Sunday of a holiday weekend?!? Do you even think AVS Forum would have a business office open today to comply with that request if it were made? Chances are ads are rotated, or the original contract was for so many views and once that was met it was pulled.
Paidgeek blew town on Friday. Two day notice in contract?

Put another way (and using made-up numbers) a 200% BD cost disadvantage at $1 for HD DVD vs $3 for Blu-ray might matter to the studios. A 200% BD cost disadvantage at $0.10 for HD DVD and $0.30 for Blu-ray almost certainly wouldn't.

To clarify, are you saying a studio likely wouldn't care about saving 20 cents per disc printed? I think I read that wrong, as on a 5 million print run that would be one million dollars saved.. Er.. what did I miss?

So what? If Blu-ray processes were to allow the cooling rate to equal that of HD DVD today, halving that again for HD DVD wouldn't make enough of a cost difference to matter. Put another way (and using made-up numbers) a 200% BD cost disadvantage at $1 for HD DVD vs $3 for Blu-ray might matter to the studios. A 200% BD cost disadvantage at $0.10 for HD DVD and $0.30 for Blu-ray almost certainly wouldn't.


Doesn't physics play a roll in cooling rates? Also, are you suggesting that Studios won't care about a per disc increase of .30? Considering that DVD will likely ship over 2 billion discs in 2007, doesn't that amount to something like $600 million of lost profit? :confused:


DL BD-ROM, or BD in its initial form (primarily a writable format)?


So you would agree that BD as we have today was 'made to work' for Studio Content versus it's original design?


BD is far beyond the stage at which VC's typically pull the plug.
And what part of this description doesn't apply to Toshiba as well? Paying hundreds of millions to the studios to back your format; losing hundreds of millions on player sales because you had to cut prices far faster than the typical ramp of new technology in order to stay competitive?

Why must you perpetuate things like this? Didn't the BDA pay hundreds of millions to the studios in incentives and subsidies for replication? Didn't Sony just post a $2 billion loss due to PS3 subsidy? Do you have any idea what Toshiba's 'loss' is on players? No, you don't. You are assuming they are taking a loss, yet based on the information shared so far, it seems that Toshiba was likely making money or breaking even on their G2 products. As far as ramping up technology, it just seems that the HD DVD side has done a better job of this than the BDA has. It's not their fault the BDA can't keep up.


It doesn't appear the cycle time of CD's have prevented that from being a profitable business, has it?

CD's are irrelevent. There was no competitive format ... so you were stuck with what was there. Are you suggesting that if there was no HD DVD, then Blu-ray cycle times (and the costs that they incur and would likely be passed on down the chain somehow) wouldn't matter because consumers would just have to deal with it because that's all there is? That's a very comforting thought. :rolleyes:

Not in any volume, since burning is far too slow.

Today ... perhaps ... but there are mastering stations available for DVD that would likely be just as available for Blu-ray.

Numbers that were seemingly impossible to obtain for months on end, are suddenly now available at the drop of a dime? Sorry, but with the track record around here, you wouldn't mind if I preferred to wait for someone on another site to present yield numbers that match these?

dakota,

Did you even read my post? There are four major independent fabricators of BD50's plus Sony, that makes 5. Only 2 out of 5 can get their yields up to 50%, depending on how much data is on the disc. From the looks of it, things have improved. I stated earlier that the data given to me was a little dated and I would be able to get more information this week, which I have done.

I didn't post the figure, when someone else asked I immediately clarified exactly what was being represented. I also didn't come up with the slide or the idea for how to present the data.

Thanks for misrepresenting my role.

Hi Talk,

My sincere apologies for my misstatement. However, in my partial defense you failed to quote the rest of my statement.


However, I do appreciate that he was candid enough to later concede the revenue figure was used for marketing purposes.


By the way, although its obvious that I am an HD DVD supporter, I truly appreciate your continued participation in these Insider threads. I know its not an easy job.

Thanks.

Larry

I have met quite a few AVS members on BD.com and their story was pretty much the same as mine; the anti-BD atmosphere became too much for them to bear. I might add that NONE of them are flame-throwing BD fanboys over there. But I doubt that "this thread" will see it that way. Too bad.
speechless

You imply that measuring by total revenue isn't a valid way of measuring the market. It is completely valid; for instance, it's used all the time in the server market, where market share is measured by both units and dollars. It's a reflection of consumers' willingness to spend on a given format. I'm not saying it should be used exclusively, but I any financial analyst will want to see this information as well as unit share.

Clearly it was deceptive ... it's not even worth me debating that point with you.

Look at the 300 disc sales. The HD DVD release was more expensive, no? Why wasn't that ratio discussed in terms of revenue? Heck, why not talk about it in terms of profits as we now have pretty significant information regarding the cost of Blu-ray. Oh, I know, because that doesn't spin the facts the BDA wants them spun.

If they were consistently using Revenue, that would be fine. But they're not. It's like they are a bunch of statisticians analyzing the data and changing their scope and query to best suit their agenda. If that isn't deceptive, I don't know what is.

Furthermore, if this is the course that they are willing to take on something like this, wouldn't it be safe to assume they would do the same on other things? Especially more important things, like Profiles and Replication costs and yields? It doesn't help their reputation and only tells us that we really can't take the BDA for their word without analyzing the context of what they are discussing. It's unfortunate, and it's deceptive. *shrug*

I'm pretty sure this is not possible based on the technology. One of the reasons Blu-ray is so different is because it requires the 1.1m thick substrate. I read an article as to why it was needed that thick, but can't remember the technical details. If someone has a link, it would be great if you would share. ;)

That would be true of CDs because the laser has to read through the substrate to get to the data. However, since the BD data layers are near the surface I don't see why it would matter if the 1.1mm substrate underneath was solid or bonded together.

Indeed, if TotalHD is in the cards, it would have to be done in much the same way. Maybe TotalHD would have better cycle times due to the half-thickness BD side! :)

I suspect people confuse multi-story seamless branching with multi-angle. The former is what I described above and is the most common. Multi-angle is more challenging since you need to have multiple versions of the movie running concurrently. But just because a system can do this, it doesn't mean you want to do it. After all, dual angle halves your bandwidth and triple forces you to use one third. Yes, BD has more bandwidth but by cutting it in half, you now have less bandwidth than equiv. encode without it in HD DVD. Given the fact that you don't watch both versions of the movie at once, and paucity of demand for this feature, I am not sure it matters one way or the other.

Oh, DVDs may implement multi-story using multi-angle. That leads to really bad performance there which may be the reason people think this feature is tough on the format. But there is no good reason to use multi-angle in HD DVD. We can use alternate playlists and get there efficiently.

I just wanted to clear this up, since that's not quite correct. DVDs have two ways of handling this: seamless branching, and multiple angles. Multiple angles are restricted to having the same runtime and the exact same flagging, which puts severe restrictions on what kind of content you can use. Multiple angles are also restricted to 8mbps PER angle, regardless of the number of angles. You can have up to 9 angles on the same disc and bandwidth isn't halved etc. It's the runtime and flagging restrictions that are the real problem, not bandwidth. You can't have 24p content in one angle and 30i in other, and you also have to make sure that the field orders match up. If the 24p content doesn't have a clean cadence you have to make sure the other 24p stream has the same cadence etc. There's also other technical limitations, but I don't see the need to go into more gritty detail.

Seamless branching (on DVDs) however doesn't have any of these restrictions, but instead you have to be very careful in how you lay out the disc physically, in order to make sure that the optical pickup has time to seek to the new branch before the buffer empties. You can reduce the bitrate prior to a branching so as to give the player more time to seek - if you don't, the branch won't necessarily be seamless anymore.

It is my understanding (please correct me if I'm wrong) that for BD and HD DVD they just made the bitrate reduction mandatory prior to a branch point, rather than optional, so as to avoid having to calculate how much you could get away with based on the seek time and branch length. It eliminates the compatibility issues we've seen on DVDs because they couldn't account for player hardware differences. You're also more limited in that the bandwidth and data rates are so much higher to begin with.

You'd be subject to the same restrictions using a playlist, but the only possible difference I can think of, is that you might be more free to do your own calculations about seek time and buffer size, and so can tweak it better, but of course at the mercy of possible compatibility issues with players that have smaller buffers and slow seek times. Or am I way off base here?

PS. If a mod feels this isn't "questioning" :) enough for this thread, please move it to the tracking one. I would like to know if my assumptions about the BD/HD side is correct though.

Talk, welcome! Ever since I said I was dismayed at AVS the worlds have aligned perfectly. Good to have people on both sides on board.

Talk, I appreciate you hopping on board but I gotta disagree with this:

"a 200% BD cost disadvantage at $1 for HD DVD vs $3 for Blu-ray might matter to the studios"

I don't think I am alone when I say I hope that the cost of HD media comes down to ~$20 (I just got MANY disks at AMazon for ~$13 each) and to say that an additional 10% cost MIGHT matter? Even the 20 cents would represent a larger amount than most artists see for selling each CD. Its too early to fight over pieces of the pie (as the pie hasn't even been baked yet), but rest assured the other studios are concerned about their share.

David,

I have been told 10-15%, but I will be getting a BD-ROM drive for my computer to verify this information. I'm not sure how many discs have fully needed 50GB though either, which throws a fly in the ointment!
If nearing capacity effects the yield, it might explain the number of movies I thought could have been 25s and wound up on 50s.

dakota,
There are four major independent fabricators of BD50's plus Sony, that makes 5. Only 2 out of 5 can get their yields up to 50%, depending on how much data is on the disc. From the looks of it, things have improved. I stated earlier that the data given to me was a little dated and I would be able to get more information this week, which I have done.

Dave,

Many thanks for all this interesting information.

If the yields improve by putting less data, that would be the same situation as Intel down-binning processors.

Doesn't it also mean that the yield numbers are not really for BD50, but really for BD40 or BD45? If the disks do not meet the BD50 capacity spec due to outer layer defects, then wouldn't the true BD50 yield be lower?

As you said, if the space is not needed, this may not matter too much. But as an engineer, the semantics are important.

speechless
"Speechless" would have been no reply.

Well said and I agree. I'm not trying to "bash" one side over the other here, and if it is coming off that way, it wasn't my intention.

...and I never thought it was. My point, I guess, is that the topic of yields is interesting intellectually, no doubt important macroeconomically, but trivial at this stage of the greater push to supplant DVD in the minds of the general consumer. I'm not questioning the desire to know the yields (or bandwidth limitations, or inner workings of BDA/HD forum, or any of the other juicy bits), I'm dismayed how these points are being used to attack or bludgeon the other "side" by =consumers= for the fact of defending/supporting their preferred format.

My point is that even Paid and Amir may agree that they both can be right, from their own perspective, given the fact that they could potentially be coming from two different angles of how to count yields. The debate, then, is which is the best way to count yields! Amir said 10% with a whole heap of caveats, Paid's was a much higher number (I don't have it here). The numbers are themselves meaningless without delving into what exactly they represent from both sides, and I think AVS is best when it comes to doing that delving. Similarly, the comments about market share vs. number of players sold in Europe exposes different ways of doing the accounting, so to speak. This is spin, to be sure, based on a number of assumptions that drive these statistics for the sake of marketing (do you include game units in the number? if not, why not? how do adoption rates work? etc., etc.).

I have seen Talk, Paid, and especially Amir (he spends more time here than most) deconstruct the underlying assumptions of arguments made from their respective opponent's side. THIS is where the discussion gets interesting, when we see how the numbers actually play out, what they reference, what they mean for those involved in high-level decision making. What's unfortunate is that the subtlety is completely abandoned by those trumpeting formats as -fans-.

I grant you Amir's rhetoric is often, well, provocative, but to accuse him or any other insider of downright -lying- is beyond the pale. Information can be incorrect or incomplete without it being a conspiracy (see info presented about profiles), or can be presented in a way that demands you look to see that the terms of reference are different depending on who is using the numbers (see yields and their relative importance).

I do hope that Paid comes back, and I'm pleased to see Talk's contribution to these threads indeed. I don't come here for the Amir show (although it IS fun to watch!), I come here to learn a lot about something that means a great deal to me, presenting AV materials in my home. I have no desire at this time to wade into a groupthink forum on either side, despite owning both formats. Here's hoping that this AVS blip can work itself out as others above have suggested.

What's unfortunate, sometimes, is that in this public forum Amir, Talk and Paid can't be entirely open about the limitations of their respective "sides". If we really were a bunch of engineers sitting around attempting to be as objective as possible I think we'd see much more frustration with the slow process of profile adoption and yield improvement, or a recognition that Toshiba's players have been quirky at best, and that without a major injection of additional CE companies the future of the format remains in question. We have to read between the lines often to get these little tidbits out, alas, due to politics, not due to science (or aesthetics).

In other words, keep up the digging Dave, it's much appreciated.

dakota,

Did you even read my post? There are four major independent fabricators of BD50's plus Sony, that makes 5. Only 2 out of 5 can get their yields up to 50%, depending on how much data is on the disc. From the looks of it, things have improved. I stated earlier that the data given to me was a little dated and I would be able to get more information this week, which I have done.

Dave, just to give you a heads up ... since these numbers are not what some people wanted to see (or have seen), you should expect things like:

(1) Being called a non-insider, although the mods have granted you that status.
(2) Provacative and baiting posts from the side that doesn't want the information seen so as to deflect the discussion to something else and hopefully get the information scrolled away and/or get the thread closed.
(3) Suggestions that your information is not valid because [insert silly reason here].

Don't take it personally. :D

"Speechless" would have been no reply.
Speechless applies when words aren't available to address an outlandish statement and there's not any point in even trying.

If independent replicators (1 so far) can get 50% yields now it seems it would not be a show stopper in the format war. Could be better but I'd thought it was worse.

- Tom

Reading between the lines allows one to see what one wants to see.

Maybe. Congrats though, you just defined this forum, and the main component of all the friction around here.

But reading between the lines is mandatory for trying to glean anything from these threads, especially with these new rules.

It's all we have got. And we all have to do it. We'll never have full disclosure of certain facts.

Dave Vaughn,

Amir says he cannot talk about HD DVD combo yields, but have your sources provided any information about these numbers?

Thanks.

Speechless applies when words aren't available to address an outlandish statement and there's not any point in even trying.
Now you know how I and, evidently, quite a few others feel.

Dave Vaughn,

Amir says he cannot talk about HD DVD combo yields, but have your sources provided any information about these numbers?

Thanks.

According to a PPT from a replicator last year, combo was at 75% yields and 5s cycle time.

To clarify, are you saying a studio likely wouldn't care about saving 20 cents per disc printed? I think I read that wrong, as on a 5 million print run that would be one million dollars saved.. Er.. what did I miss?

I think the point is that there are diminishing marginal returns to cost advantages. While no one is going to ignore $1 million, it is safe to say that a (assuming 50 million discs replicated) $10 million advantage using the $0.10 vs. $0.30 comparison (i.e., $5 million vs. $15 million in cost on likely sales of $1 billion ($20/disc x 50 million discs) is a lot less meaningful than $50 million vs. $150 million advantage using the $1.00 vs. $3.00 example. In the first case, a 200% cost to manufacture advantage translates to a 1% gross margin advantage (not chump change, mind you) and in the second example (assuming sales prices remain constant) the 200% cost advantage translates to a 10% gross margin advantage ($3.00 - $1.00 x 50 million discs = $200 million / $1 billion in sales = 20%).

There are diminishing margin returns to having a cost advantage. What is un-known is what the sensitivity points are on the part of the studios. At the incredibly low volumes that HD media is selling at (lets use 2 million discs) and at the $1.00 and $3.00 figure (who knows if that resembles reality?) we're talking about a $4 million hypothetical cost advantage for HD DVD over BD, on total hypothetical sales volume of $50 million, or a gross margin advantage of 8%. Given how small these markets (and dollar figures) are relative to SD DVD, I think we can agree that anyone who is making a choice about which media format to support is not making that choice based upon current revenue / cost data. They're likely making that choice based upon their assessment of the technology in question's ability to become mass-production scalable. Since individual assessments vary widely, it's no surprise that there is disagreement amongst the studios as to which format to support. The only thing that will "cure" this dissent is . . . time. If it become apparent over the next 12-18 months that BD production is mass-production ready, it wouldn't surprise me to see studio shift or reinforce their positions. If, however, yields are in the 80% range in 12-18 months, it wouldn't surprise me at all to see studios go neutral or abandone BD.

One job I would NOT want right now: BD manufacturing engineer. That guy is NOT gonna' get a lot of sleep over the next 12-18 months.

Indeed, not since ATI v. nVidia have I seen this polarization.
...all the while that I used a Matrox card, go figure. I can't say I had anything to do with fora about video cards, but I can extrapolate from your reference that gamers (who else would care about the differences between the two?) created a hostile and vitriolic environment, making competition out of two types of cards that for almost everyone else would be virtually indistinguishable. Yeah, it's not a bad allusion. :)


I might add that NONE of them are flame-throwing BD fanboys over there. But I doubt that "this thread" will see it that way. Too bad.

I think this is a patently inaccurate statement - I =own= BluRay discs and a player and I don't feel welcome there (nor, of course, would I join RDjam and others on some email crusade!). If you could point me to a thread where -real- debate is going on (not just format trumpeting or slagging of AVS (AVMS?), Amir, HD DVD (HD DUD?)) I'd be happy to give it another look. I found shocking personal attacks, bitter almost-insiders, and several very informative posts from Talk and Paid that I really wish could be made here in the light of day rather than interspersed among belligerent fan baiting. For the record, I haven't even -bothered- to search out HD DVD "fan" sites.

I hate to characterize an entire forum, and I can certainly understand the frustration that many feel, but I think from a perspective of neutrality you learn to be a bit more sensitve to zealotry in all its forms.

Petulant format attacks for the sake of pride or vindictiveness are as abhorrent to me as generating lists of those that do not agree with you and banning them for it, regardless of side.

Now you know how I and, evidently, quite a few others feel.
Not really. Here we have a wide open debate on the formats, and learn something, while over there they navel gaze and flame AVS'rs. If you take their anti-HDVD rhetoric as gospel, no wonder you feel that way.

If independent replicators (1 so far) can get 50% yields now it seems it would not be a show stopper in the format war. Could be better but I'd thought it was worse.

- Tom

I'm going to assume that you've never worked a manufacturing job? 50% yield is an absolute deal killer. This was even true in the aerospace industry (where margins were sometimes 200% to 300%), so to think it's not true in an industry/process that is supposed to be commoditized (replication) is inaccurate.

Why is everybody so obsessed with yields of BD50 and to a lesser degree of HD-DVD combo discs? As a consumer, all I really care about is the retail price of the final product and that the disc plays without problems in my player. I have never had any problems playing BD50 discs in my player and the price of them are the same as HD-DVD discs so I couldn't care less if the yields are 20, 50 or 90% as it does not affect me directly.
I am much more concerned about the current quality problems with DVD-18 and combo discs. They may have yields of 80 or even 100% but if I'm unable to play the discs in my player because of whatever reason, it does affect me directly. I've had numerous problems with DVD-18's in the past (and from what I read about combo discs they have similar quality issues) and simply refuse to buy them anymore until these problems are solved.

One other thought to add is this: current yield levels are (while a hot topic) not what I'd be interested in if I were a studio Executive, instead, I'd want to know the rate of improvement of yields. If the rate of improvement of BD25 and BD50 yield was consistent and predictable, it indicates that the process is "in control" and the levers (which inputs to vary to improve output) are well defined, known, and manipulate-able. If the rate of improvement in yields is sporadic, jumpy or otherwise unpredictable, it's a sign that the process is not well understood, defined or improved, and further away from mass-production ready than already commonly believed. It implies that BD25/50 replication needs the proverbial "home run break-through" to become viable -- which wouldn't be encouraging.

I think this is a patently inaccurate statement - I =own= BluRay discs and a player and I don't feel welcome there (nor, of course, would I join RDjam and others on some email crusade!).
My context/statement was that the AVS refugees I've met who went there to escape the anti-BD rhetoric here are not BD fanboys there. Most of them post very little and only stepped forward when they recognized my ID. Clearly, there are fanboys there - and quite a few who have the same extreme, but opposite, view.

I think the point is that there are diminishing marginal returns to cost advantages. While no one is going to ignore $1 million, it is safe to say that a (assuming 50 million discs replicated) $10 million advantage using the $0.10 vs. $0.30 comparison (i.e., $5 million vs. $15 million in cost on likely sales of $1 billion ($20/disc x 50 million discs) is a lot less meaningful than $50 million vs. $150 million advantage using the $1.00 vs. $3.00 example. In the first case, a 200% cost to manufacture advantage translates to a 1% gross margin advantage (not chump change, mind you) and in the second example (assuming sales prices remain constant) the 200% cost advantage translates to a 10% gross margin advantage ($3.00 - $1.00 x 50 million discs = $200 million / $1 billion in sales = 20%).

There are diminishing margin returns to having a cost advantage. What is un-known is what the sensitivity points are on the part of the studios. At the incredibly low volumes that HD media is selling at (lets use 2 million discs) and at the $1.00 and $3.00 figure (who knows if that resembles reality?) we're talking about a $4 million hypothetical cost advantage for HD DVD over BD, on total hypothetical sales volume of $50 million, or a gross margin advantage of 8%. Given how small these markets (and dollar figures) are relative to SD DVD, I think we can agree that anyone who is making a choice about which media format to support is not making that choice based upon current revenue / cost data. They're likely making that choice based upon their assessment of the technology in question's ability to become mass-production scalable. Since individual assessments vary widely, it's no surprise that there is disagreement amongst the studios as to which format to support. The only thing that will "cure" this dissent is . . . time. If it become apparent over the next 12-18 months that BD production is mass-production ready, it wouldn't surprise me to see studio shift or reinforce their positions. If, however, yields are in the 80% range in 12-18 months, it wouldn't surprise me at all to see studios go neutral or abandone BD.

One job I would NOT want right now: BD manufacturing engineer. That guy is NOT gonna' get a lot of sleep over the next 12-18 months.The disks are going to market at a competitive price, and the revenue will be split as percentages of that. Are you saying the cost of manufacture is shared equally, or does that come out of the studio's profit? If the latter, a big difference, and gross margin doesn't apply, does it?

Why is everybody so obsessed with yields of BD50 and to a lesser degree of HD-DVD combo discs? As a consumer, all I really care about is the retail price of the final product and that the disc plays without problems in my player. I have never had any problems playing BD50 discs in my player and the price of them are the same as HD-DVD discs so I couldn't care less if the yields are 20, 50 or 90% as it does not affect me directly.
I am much more concerned about the current quality problems with DVD-18 and combo discs. They may have yields of 80 or even 100% but if I'm unable to play the discs in my player because of whatever reason, it does affect me directly. I've had numerous problems with DVD-18's in the past (and from what I read about combo discs they have similar quality issues) and simply refuse to buy them anymore until these problems are solved.

Then, quite frankly, you're incredibly naive. What do you think will happen to disc production subsidies if BD were to win the format war? Here's a hint: "Poof!". They'd be gone virtually as quickly as the BDA could swing it without resurrecting HD DVD.

Also, keep in mind that YOU don't have to care, the studio that is (or is not) making money on HD media cares for you. They (damn them) want to make money, and as such, will select a format that allows them to do that. Replication costs are a real part of that equation.

While I understand that immediate gratification and "I want it now" are a big part of American Consumerism . . . if you give these topics just a few cursory moments of thought, it's not hard to tell why you should care . . .

Why is everybody so obsessed with yields of BD50 and to a lesser degree of HD-DVD combo discs? As a consumer, all I really care about is the retail price of the final product and that the disc plays without problems in my player. I have never had any problems playing BD50 discs in my player and the price of them are the same as HD-DVD discs so I couldn't care less if the yields are 20, 50 or 90% as it does not affect me directly.
I am much more concerned about the current quality problems with DVD-18 and combo discs. They may have yields of 80 or even 100% but if I'm unable to play the discs in my player because of whatever reason, it does affect me directly. I've had numerous problems with DVD-18's in the past (and from what I read about combo discs they have similar quality issues) and simply refuse to buy them anymore until these problems are solved.
I hate to tell you this - I've never had a problem playing a combo

Not really. Here we have a wide open debate on the formats, and learn something, while over there they navel gaze and flame AVS'rs. If you take their anti-HDVD rhetoric as gospel, no wonder you feel that way.
I take NO rhetoric as gospel. I am uncomfortable when they flame AVS in general, and have a few posts defending this forum. I see very little "debate" here, mostly myopic arguing.

According to a PPT from a replicator last year, combo was at 75% yields and 5s cycle time.

I would prefer more current information if it's available, since combos were hardly in wide usage last year. Thanks.

The disks are going to market at a competitive price, and the revenue will be split as percentages of that. Are you saying the cost of manufacture is shared equally, or does that come out of the studio's profit? If the latter, a big difference, and gross margin doesn't apply, does it?

I'm not sure what your statement ". . . revenue will be split as a percentage of that" means?

What I'm saying is that I'm a studio and I've been publishing in both formats and I understand the relative economics of both manufacturing processes, that a 200% cost advantage means a lot more at $3.00 versus $1.00 (assuming a mass-production volume of 50 million discs and a constant sales price of $20/disc) than a 200% cost advantage of 200% at $0.10 versus $0.30.

I'm not sure what your statement ". . . revenue will be split as a percentage of that" means?

What I'm saying is that I'm a studio and I've been publishing in both formats and I understand the relative economics of both manufacturing processes, that a 200% cost advantage means a lot more at $3.00 versus $1.00 (assuming a mass-production volume of 50 million discs and a constant sales price of $20/disc) than a 200% cost advantage of 200% at $0.10 versus $0.30.
Simpler question than that. Is the cost of production shared by those who get a portion of the revenue, or is it born solely by the studio? If the studios can save a buck in replication do they get that or are the savings shared by all?

There are currently 300 lines able to produce HD-DVD and 20 lines for BD (roughly). At a cost of $4M per line we are talking about 280 X 4M = 1.12B to catch BD up to the infrastructure HD currently has in place (admittedly, the price of producing the lines will go down and this is a high number). Throw in the built in constraints BD has with cooling and low yields and you can see that this is going to be the issue for them moving forward. People can say they don't care what yields are if it doesn't cost them (Danny just did), but eventually there is going to come a point where they have to stand on their own, without subsidies. If they can great, I love the higher specs and the doors it opens down the road. But it appears that Billions upon Billions are going to be needed to be spent to get BD up and running and they are NOT going to be subsidizing all that. What that means Danny, is that you are going to be paying more for those BD disks. A LOT MORE. Presumably efficiencies will improve and the true costs of many of these things will be spread out and hopefully come down but we are talking about processes that have been around for 7-8 years. There isn't going to be some magical panacea where their yields go from 50% to 95% (where the DL HD disks are). There are so many unknowns with BD and so much is known about the HD model. I love the advantages of BD but at what cost?

I think the point is that there are diminishing marginal returns to cost advantages.

All factors being pretty much equal, I just can't see a studio leaving even 1 or 2 million in someone else's pocket. I've worked for companies grossing anually between 40 and 90 million dollars (and with extremely high product margins, net profits were substantial). I saw a guy get fired for running a wrong plastic mix on a product that wasted 40K. I saw the purchasing manager hunt high and low to save a nickel on raw materials. No matter how big the money, companies always try to pinch pennies and maximize profits.

If nothing else, a "modest" one million dollar savings on a DVD run can translate into 2 or 3 nice bonus checks for management.

To be perfectly honest, I think if other factors are equal, a studio would very happily save a nickel per DVD if the opportunity were made available.

Simpler question than that. Is the cost of production shared by those who get a portion of the revenue, or is it born solely by the studio? If the studios can save a buck in replication do they get that or are the savings shared by all?

Ah, ok . . . actually thought this might be what you were asking. Short answer is: I don't know. In the short run, while BD replication is constrained (buying a BD replication line still presents a decent 'barrier to entry' and the technical expertise to run a BD replication line and get economically effective yields would seem not to be a readily available skill set) I would suspect that replicators could pass the additional costs along to their customers. For HD DVD replicators, however, since replication capability is (apparently) not a constraint and barriers to entry (i.e., capital to buy/modify the line and technical know-how) are limited or non-existent, I would suspect that the ability to pass along costs to studios would be limited.

So, in short, I believe that studios are relatively well-positioned to extract low-cost replication from HD DVD replicators, while BD replicators are well-positioned to extract higher prices (absent subsidies from the BDA) to studios that require BD replication. So, I would expect that the cost advantage of HD DVD is very real at the studio level.

What I do not know and am ill-informed about is what are all the steps in the value-chain between replicator and studio . . . maybe that is more along the lines of what you were asking?

All factors being pretty much equal, I just can't see a studio leaving even 1 or 2 million in someone else's pocket. I've worked for companies grossing anually between 40 and 90 million dollars (and with extremely high product margins, net profits were substantial). I saw a guy get fired for running a wrong plastic mix on a product that wasted 40K. I saw the purchasing manager hunt high and low to save a nickel on raw materials. No matter how big the money, companies always try to pinch pennies and maximize profits.

If nothing else, a "modest" one million dollar savings on a DVD run can translate into 2 or 3 nice bonus checks for management.

To be perfectly honest, I think if other factors are equal, a studio would very happily save a nickel per DVD if the opportunity were made available.

Won't argue with that (as I've seen similar behavior), but remember this is not a "cost only" discussion. Each format has other attributes that (potentially) make them more valuable to a studio. For example, if BD+ is actually an anti-piracy advantage (not saying it is, this is purely hypothetical) then if I'm a studio and I can rationalize (or financiall calculate) $x of piracy savings versus $x minus 30% for the additional cost to publish on a given format -- it becomes an easy decision. In my experience, it makes no real difference if the underlying assumption (BD+ provides anti-piracy measures) actually makes a difference if someone has already "hitched their wagon" to a product, vendor or process. People can construct amaaaazing realities to support their choices, especially if a high-paying job is what is at stake.

An interesting side note to this though is the yields on BD25’s, that are much lower than I thought they would be. Right now, the are hovering in the 60-70% range and are in the same scenario as the BD50’s when it comes to the amount of data on the disc. The lower the amount of data, the higher the yields are. At this point in the game, I would have expected the single layer discs to be much higher than they currently are.First, thanks for getting some info from your sources. As far as these yields for BD25s, there are multiple ways to look at this. IIRC, from one disc source, the prices for BD25s and HD30s were equal in high volumes. I know they don't replicate the discs themselves, but since they don't have BD50s as an option and based on what they've said, I'm guessing that they are getting these BD25s from places other than Sony (although I could ask that one). Anyway, if these lower yields are right for their sources then it seems that either the BD25s from them are being subsidized, or there is a good chance BD25 prices will come down if yields go up significantly. If you are already at 95% yields there isn't much room to improve prices through better yields.

--Darin

Anyway, if these lower yields are right for their sources then it seems that either the BD25s from them are being subsidized, or there is a good chance BD25 prices will come down if yields go up significantly. If you are already at 95% yields there isn't much room to improve prices through better yields.

That would assume that there aren't already subsidies for current replication. If there are subsidies that are removed as yields increase, then prices wouldn't necessarily drop.

It does not appear to me, as a consumer, that retail media prices have anything to do with current replication costs and capacities. Studios have set price points, and it does not seem that savings are passed on to the consumer.

After all, if creating an HD DVD is similar in process to creating a DVD, why the $10-$15 difference in price per disc? If BD discs are more expensive, then why the same to slightly lower prices per disc when compared to BD?

It just doesn't seem that standard rules of business and supply and demand are at play here yet.

First, thanks for getting some info from your sources. As far as these yields for BD25s, there are multiple ways to look at this. IIRC, from one disc source, the prices for BD25s and HD30s were equal in high volumes. I know they don't replicate the discs themselves, but since they don't have BD50s as an option and based on what they've said, I'm guessing that they are getting these BD25s from places other than Sony (although I could ask that one). Anyway, if these lower yields are right for their sources then it seems that either the BD25s from them are being subsidized, or there is a good chance BD25 prices will come down if yields go up significantly. If you are already at 95% yields there isn't much room to improve prices through better yields.

--Darin

Darin,

Could it also be that it's being priced to market and HD30 has more 'margin' in it than BD25?

That would assume that there aren't already subsidies for current replication. If there are subsidies that are removed as yields increase, then prices wouldn't necessarily drop.

It does not appear to me, as a consumer, that retail media prices have anything to do with current replication costs and capacities. Studios have set price points, and it does not seem that savings are passed on to the consumer.

After all, if creating an HD DVD is similar in process to creating a DVD, why the $10-$15 difference in price per disc? If BD discs are more expensive, then why the same to slightly lower prices per disc when compared to BD?

It just doesn't seem that standard rules of business and supply and demand are at play here yet.

Again, priced to market perhaps ... with one product having a little more margin than another.

First, thanks for getting some info from your sources. As far as these yields for BD25s, there are multiple ways to look at this. IIRC, from one disc source, the prices for BD25s and HD30s were equal in high volumes. I know they don't replicate the discs themselves, but since they don't have BD50s as an option and based on what they've said, I'm guessing that they are getting these BD25s from places other than Sony (although I could ask that one). Anyway, if these lower yields are right for their sources then it seems that either the BD25s from them are being subsidized, or there is a good chance BD25 prices will come down if yields go up significantly. If you are already at 95% yields there isn't much room to improve prices through better yields.

--Darin
With current volumes of BD-25 and BD-50, I am sure all Blu-ray replication prices are artificial and subsidized by somebody. Didn't Paid say that they have capacity for several million BD-50 per month whereas there's been only 2 million total Blu-ray discs sold to date. Most of those Blu-ray lines are sitting idle and when they are sitting idle, prices given for replication do not come close to covering the cost of supply, labor, and equipment.

Then, quite frankly, you're incredibly naive. What do you think will happen to disc production subsidies if BD were to win the format war? Here's a hint: "Poof!". They'd be gone virtually as quickly as the BDA could swing it without resurrecting HD DVD.

Unless you have a crystal ball you don't know what will happen in the future with yields, production subsidies and consequently disc prices. It's all speculation based on what? And whoever wins this format war, they would be stupid to increase disc prices if they don't want to remain a niche format. The winner still has to compete with low priced standard DVD.

Also, keep in mind that YOU don't have to care, the studio that is (or is not) making money on HD media cares for you. They (damn them) want to make money, and as such, will select a format that allows them to do that. Replication costs are a real part of that equation.

You're absolutely right. Replication costs are not my concern but the studios'. If and when it affects the price of the disc in the shop then it will become my concern. But again, if disc prices go up, even less people then today will be inclined to jump into HD.

While I understand that immediate gratification and "I want it now" are a big part of American Consumerism . . . if you give these topics just a few cursory moments of thought, it's not hard to tell why you should care . . .

I'm a consumer but not American :p.


I hate to tell you this - I've never had a problem playing a combo

There are quite a number of reported problems with combos in the HD-DVD forums. Also I believe Amir said combos are similar to DVD-18 discs and that concerns me very much since I'm certainly not the only person who ever had problems with those. Just google DVD-18 and problems or search any DVD forum on them and you should get concerned as well.
Since I technically ( ;) ) became format neutral a few weeks ago (Paramount :rolleyes:), I am concerned about quality issues with combos. I really want to buy that Star Trek set but the fact that it is coming on combos is giving me doubts.

OK…I’ve heard back from a couple of sources, and also was able to hear from a new one as well. Here is where we are:

Sony’s yields have improved “a bit” this summer and are up to around 50% depending on how much data is on the disc. The more data, the lower the yields, the lower the data, the higher the yield number goes, but 50% is just about max right now (give or take a percentage point or two).

As for independent replicators, there are four “major’s” that are capable of doing BD50’s according to my sources. They are Cinram, Deluxe, Panasonic, & Infodisc. Of these four, one of them (unnamed by the request of my source at that company) is getting yields on BD50’s up there with Sony in the 50% range. The other three can’t get above 10%, but Sony is lending a hand to them to increase their yields. I am assuming they will get things in line based upon the one independent that I referenced above who has been able to increase yields.

An interesting side note to this though is the yields on BD25’s, that are much lower than I thought they would be. Right now, the are hovering in the 60-70% range and are in the same scenario as the BD50’s when it comes to the amount of data on the disc. The lower the amount of data, the higher the yields are. At this point in the game, I would have expected the single layer discs to be much higher than they currently are.
How convenient... So now when Jeff has come up with different data from an independant replicator your "anonymous sources" have suddenly changed their claimed numbers too? All of a sudden they know one independant replicator which is at 50% yields instead of 10% and of course Sony's yields have improved to just match these too (because after all, who would believe that an independent replicator would have better yields than Sony themselves). Sorry but I think your sources are feeding you FUD...

But as you brought up the SL numbers too this is from OTO (http://www.oto-online.com/pdf/oto_download/2006/10/OTO_October_P55-58_EMX.pdf) last October, almost one year ago, and with plenty of time for improvements:

Ed Gehrich, Sony DADC: “In late February we began installing film lines, and once all of our spin lines are installed, the film capacity will represent about 15% or 20% of our total capacity,” Gehrich explained.While the average yield for film was a less than satisfactory 70%, he said, there had not been much process engineering time put into improving that, for a number of reasons.

“We were always going to be limited by the quality of the film that comes to us from the vendor; that’s not to say that we’re not getting good film from the vendor but we don’t have as much influence over the process. In addition, we’ve been busy installing the spin lines and as soon as that project is complete we’ll immediately go towards modifying some of these spin lines for the dual-layer 50 GB disc. Everything that we have so far is single-layer, or 25 GB.”

By contrast, the yield for spin lines is about 80%. “We have some machines running into the 90s, but I’ve tried to show a realistic average yield.There’s a lot of potential to improve the yield on the spin lines.We have real data from our sister plant with similar machines running consistently in the 90s. It’s a matter of getting our process engineers to the floor and doing what they’re good at – conducting experiments and improving and optimising process, rather than installing lines!”

So are we talking BD48, BD46 or BD44 to get 'acceptable' yields?

I think the current br lines will never reach acceptable yields with tweaking.
Substantial upgrades might do it but that can be as costly as a simple HD upgrade for a standard DVD line.

Longer cycle times needs more lines and additional floor space required adds another cost component.

How convenient... So now when Jeff has come up with different data from an independant replicator your "anonymous sources" have suddenly changed their claimed numbers too? All of a sudden they know one independant replicator which is at 50% yields instead of 10% and of course Sony's yields have improved to just match these too (because after all, who would believe that an independent replicator would have better yields than Sony themselves). Sorry but I think your sources are feeding you FUD...

Huh? Dave said 40%, and Jeff said around 50% ... and it seems to depend on how much data is on the disc. It sounds like they're pretty close here. It also seems that there is some agreement with regards to lines only being able to pull 10% yields. And Jeff and Dave both thought that BD25 yields were lower than they would have expected.

Not really sure what your point is ... *shrug*


But as you brought up the SL numbers too this is from OTO (http://www.oto-online.com/pdf/oto_download/2006/10/OTO_October_P55-58_EMX.pdf) last October, almost one year ago, and with plenty of time for improvements:

Ed Gehrich, Sony DADC: “In late February we began installing film lines, and once all of our spin lines are installed, the film capacity will represent about 15% or 20% of our total capacity,” Gehrich explained.While the average yield for film was a less than satisfactory 70%, he said, there had not been much process engineering time put into improving that, for a number of reasons.

“We were always going to be limited by the quality of the film that comes to us from the vendor; that’s not to say that we’re not getting good film from the vendor but we don’t have as much influence over the process. In addition, we’ve been busy installing the spin lines and as soon as that project is complete we’ll immediately go towards modifying some of these spin lines for the dual-layer 50 GB disc. Everything that we have so far is single-layer, or 25 GB.”

By contrast, the yield for spin lines is about 80%. “We have some machines running into the 90s, but I’ve tried to show a realistic average yield.There’s a lot of potential to improve the yield on the spin lines.We have real data from our sister plant with similar machines running consistently in the 90s. It’s a matter of getting our process engineers to the floor and doing what they’re good at – conducting experiments and improving and optimising process, rather than installing lines!”

So he's guessing at an average yield. It sounds to me like this is exactly the practice discussed in the other thread: Measuring yield only when the machine is operating at peak efficiency and completely disregarding all the discs that it spat out prior to that as part of the equation.

That would assume that there aren't already subsidies for current replication. If there are subsidies that are removed as yields increase, then prices wouldn't necessarily drop.It doesn't assume that because even what you quoted said, "... it seems that either the BD25s from them are being subsidized, ...". :)
It does not appear to me, as a consumer, that retail media prices have anything to do with current replication costs and capacities.That does appear to be the case, but costs to consumers are a whole different ballgame. I was referring to costs to get things replicated through the company that PacificDisc (I think that is right) represents.
It just doesn't seem that standard rules of business and supply and demand are at play here yet.For consumers I think they do to a large degree. Just look at CD prices. I doubt studios pay much for CD replication, but prices to consumers are high. Good chance that is because supply and demand allow that, although I'm sure there are accusations of collusion.

As far as CD replication prices, does anybody know what those are approximately? I'm pretty sure those are thicker than BDs, so should have some cooling time issues.

--Darin

But as you brought up the SL numbers too this is from OTO (http://www.oto-online.com/pdf/oto_download/2006/10/OTO_October_P55-58_EMX.pdf) last October, almost one year ago, and with plenty of time for improvements:

Keep in mind that they've had BD50s out since October, and 3/5 lines can't get past 10% and the other two are about 50% yields. It's really easy to say "plenty of time for improvement" without being a part of the system and knowing what the challenges actually are hindering improvement.

Keep in mind that they've had BD50s out since October, and 3/5 lines can't get past 10% and the other two are about 50% yields. It's really easy to say "plenty of time for improvement" without being a part of the system and knowing what the challenges actually are hindering improvement.
Fair enough, just what are the challenges that are hindering improvement?

If the yields improve by putting less data, that would be the same situation as Intel down-binning processors.


Er... sorta. The difference would be that with a CPU, you build it and then test it so see where it bins. If it doesn't hit your target bin, you can sell it downbinned. With a BD-ROM, you build it and if it's not a BD50... it's a coaster. You can't sell it as a BD45 or BD40.

I think the current br lines will never reach acceptable yields with tweaking. Substantial upgrades might do it but that can be as costly as a simple HD upgrade for a standard DVD line.

Longer cycle times needs more lines and additional floor space required adds another cost component.

And you're gathering these insights from where, exactly?

It doesn't assume that because even what you quoted said, "... it seems that either the BD25s from them are being subsidized, ...". :)
That does appear to be the case, but costs to consumers are a whole different ballgame. I was referring to costs to get things replicated through the company that PacificDisc (I think that is right) represents.
For consumers I think they do to a large degree. Just look at CD prices. I doubt studios pay much for CD replication, but prices to consumers are high. Good chance that is because supply and demand allow that, although I'm sure there are accusations of collusion.

As far as CD replication prices, does anybody know what those are approximately? I'm pretty sure those are thicker than BDs, so should have some cooling time issues.

--Darin

I thought BD and CD replication used the same thickness substrate/layer/stuff/whatever it's called (and yes, that's a technical term)?

I think the implication is that as long as production prices are being subsidized that true supply/demand economics can't be in place (almost by definition really). Comparing BD pricing to consumers to CD pricing to consumers is really not apples to apples, mostly because the cost structure that goes into a producing a CD is (I would imagine) vastly different than the cost structure that goes into producing a movie and then also selling a BD. In the first case, while there is live-concert revenue or radio royalties, I'm betting the lion's share of revenue comes from CD sales. In the latter, home video revenue equals (roughly) theater release revenue -- I think.

Er... sorta. The difference would be that with a CPU, you build it and then test it so see where it bins. If it doesn't hit your target bin, you can sell it downbinned. With a BD-ROM, you build it and if it's not a BD50... it's a coaster. You can't sell it as a BD45 or BD40.

Thanks for the clarification, archibael.

This was my point - Dave's report says that some of the yield issues have to do with the edges of the disk.

So, if they avoid using the last x% of sectors near the edges, additional "BD50" disks are usable and not coasters (while nearly 50% are coasters). So the yields improve, but the end product is no longer a BD50 - it is a downgraded BD50 - BD46? BD42?

So, even the 50% number is not as meaningful when the spec for BD50's capacity is relaxed. Again, the wasted storage area may not be needed, but as engineers, the product is not "BD50".

I buy BD50 movies so I wonder how they test them to clear out the coasters... This test step could be expensive.

Fair enough, just what are the challenges that are hindering improvement?

I wouldn't mind knowing this as well if it's something that can be shared. What is it about the BD manufacturing process which is resulting in such low yields on BD25 and BD50? What about filling the disc with data causes a lower yield on BD50s?

And another comment: In the end, is 50GB needed for a 2-3 hour movie with a lossless audio track and interactive features? Shouldn't 25-30GB suffice? What's wrong with one 25GB disc with the main feature, and another 25GB with special features, and the same for HD DVD (30GB and 30GB, or 30GB and 15GB).Sometimes nothing; other times you need all the content on one disc. For example, the three versions of Close Encounters using seamless branching would only be possible on a single disc, not multiple discs. Also if you have some form of independent content which needs access to the main feature's A/V you can't necessarily throw it on a second disc. Sure, "making of" and bloopers can probably be on a second disc, but being force to do so is clearly a limitation for certain content.

UPDATE: And, sadly, you won't get support for the forthcoming update to Blu-ray's minimum player specs that go into effect October 31. Those specs delineate requirements for in-unit storage (256MB for those keeping score)This is incorrect. The requirement is for the capability to support 256MB (or 1GB for BD-Live) of local storage, not that it has to be embedded in the player. It's perfectly allowable for this storage to be supported via SD or USB flash memory, off-board USB hard drive, or networked storage.

To clarify, are you saying a studio likely wouldn't care about saving 20 cents per disc printed? I think I read that wrong, as on a 5 million print run that would be one million dollars saved.. Er.. what did I miss?I'm not saying they wouldn't care if there were no other factors to consider, but a theoretical $0.20 increase in disc production cost can be easily justified by not having to use a second disc on many releases, higher sales due to features and quality enabled by the extra capacity and bandwidth available and greater number of installed players, etc.

As I think this is ultimately the summary of your long post, I'll just quote it. But I think a lot of people disagree with this statement, which is why this horse continues to get beaten, nor will it die.

By all accounts, those of us reading between the lines believe it is very possible these very things were a primary factor (if not the primary factor) In P/DW doing what they did.

Couple this with the fact that it also appears likely that AVS is essentially being censored in discussing this, could possibly prove that this very issue is essentially BD's kryptonite.

Finally, if there is any truth about poor yields; i.e. higher expense, it very well could make other studios reconsider their loyalties sooner rather than later.

So yeah, it can be argued that this war very well could be decided by yields.

It is very clear to me that some folks do not want the truth about yields to get out and that they have tried to muzzle this discussion. I have a feeling that this is a very big issue for any studio whose production will no longer be subsidized by Sony. Sooner or later, Sony will drop all subsidies; and anyone getting work done at Sony's replication plants will get a very big bill from Sony. If Blu-ray cannot solve this problem, that format will remain a niche format no matter how their disc sales go in relation to HD DVD. We could see many more pressings of each movie, but fewer movies overall in the future. I think Paramount realized that even if the number of discs sold for each movie was relatively small, they would be able to publish a greater variety of movies on HD DVD without worrying about production yields and costs. Since the attach rate for HD DVD players is significant, Paramount could count on each HD DVD standalone owner buying many different movies. In other words, if you don't have to have millions of people buying a single blockbuster, you can have hundreds of thousands of people each buying a number of different catalog and other titles. That would mean more titles, fewer copies of each, but a large number of sales for all titles combined. Using HDi and other pre-production cost-savings on each title would allow Paramount and other studios to take less time getting each movie into production. This is where BD-J interactivity issues plus other production costs (some from low yields) really cause problems: It takes too long and costs too much to launch each title on Blu-ray.

One question would be how long this facility has been producing BD50's.

The other question would be: is the equipment evolving to produce better yields.

Singulus has new replication equipment coming imminently for BD50's apparently.

http://cms.singulus.de/en/presse/pressemeldungen/pressemeldung/article/445/7.html?cHash=d4fb11520d

Anyway, the new information from Jeff debunks the previous "insider" info that non-Sony replicators were only getting 10%, and calls into question the other information provided about Sony yields.

Dave confirmed that ONLY one non Sony replicator can compete with Sony interms of yield which is >50% with less data. Meaning the replicator and Sony can get less yield for maximum BD50 data. To increase the yield, data on the BD50 are reduced.

Dave also confirmed that THREE out of four non Sony replicators cant even get their BD50 yields to 10%

He was also shocked by the yield of BD25 which is currently at 50%-60% depending on the siza of the disk data. The smaler the date, the better the yield.

The format "war" won't be won over yields, but it may play a role among the companies that the insiders represent.

hmm dont you agree that studio support plays a big role in a format's survivor. Dont you agree too that disk yields too play a role in studios' decision to support a format ?

This is incorrect. The requirement is for the capability to support 256MB (or 1GB for BD-Live) of local storage, not that it has to be embedded in the player. It's perfectly allowable for this storage to be supported via SD or USB flash memory, off-board USB hard drive, or networked storage.

So persistent storage is not a requirement for any form of Blu-ray, as long as the player allows you to connect storage through another medium?

eighteen months after format launch there isn't a single non-Toshiba HD DVD player on the market.

Well, to be fair there's the add-on (MS, built by Tosh?) and the Onkyo (a redux of the XA2 from what we've seen...) and, well, the LG (no HDi).

I'm clearly hoping that we'll hear tomorrow about some other players entering into the, uh, player game, but I think your central point is granted.

For me it's not a bad thing that Tosh has cheap players, but I'd sure like to see other people enter into the HD fray.

Note that by this criteria Sony didn't really have a standalone player for their first gen (a rebadged Pio, no?), and the silliness regarding profile capability that finds a forthcoming model not being compliant with changing specs. Just points for equal time, after all...

Archibael,

Does dual/quad/multicore CPU architecture negate or lessen the need for dedicated BD / HD DVD acceleration hardware?

Do you forsee a day when the average CPU has everything it needs for perfect 1920x1080p/5.1 playback?

hmm dont you agree that studio support plays a big role in a format's survivor. Dont you agree too that disk yields too play a role in studios' decision to support a format ?

Yields play a role indirectly for the consumer, the debate is about how big and to what extent that directly affects at this stage any of the decisions required to jump on board in a serious way the HDM bandwagon. It's fairly recently that this has come to be a big deal, in part due to these concerns being made explicit by the Paramount deal. It's a new talking point that's been simmering under the surface, just as "incentives" have been long discussed only to have the topic blow up.

Paramount going HD DVD has shaken up a lot, and certainly -not- just because of yields. The question is what role do yields play for consumers directly? Moves like Paramounts it might mean that they need to go format neutral... or to not get into HDM at all, or hope that HD DVD will force BD to fold up their tents.

In the end, I think that content is king, and that it is changes in how you can -get- this content (needing HD DVD for Paramount/Uni, BD for Fox/Sony) are what will sway consumers. They may demand good combo players, making the studio divide moot (anybody choose theatres by Dolby Digital instead of SDDS?). Yield questions may trouble those on the top, or be ignored as they're brought under control as the format grows.

Regardless, this question is several removed from the concerns of the consumer at this stage. With SACD, when the incentives dried up, so to did the titles. Will the same happen with BD? If the chinese players barf all the time on advanced content, and no other brandname manufacturer than Tosh builds standalones, will anybody bother getting a unit?

Tough questions, asked all the time here on AVS without any clear answers, alas.

This is incorrect. The requirement is for the capability to support 256MB (or 1GB for BD-Live) of local storage, not that it has to be embedded in the player. It's perfectly allowable for this storage to be supported via SD or USB flash memory, off-board USB hard drive, or networked storage.

If I purchase a player that has "the capability" to support 256MB or more of PStorage but I don't spend more money to buy another piece for my player and they label the player as 1.1 compliant will it still play ALL 1.1 content? If not then how exactly is the player (as advertised) 1.1 compliant? (If so then Kudos for solid specifications)

Yes, I do. iSuppli posted a teardown of the initial players and the components in current players are well-known. It's not rocket science to derive reasonably accurate estimates of the cost to build current players.
What evidence can you reference which says they are making money on the current players?
What makes HD DVD different than every other comparable new A/V format released in the last twenty years that prices should drop so quickly? Toshiba's rapid price drops have clearly had an extremely negative impact on competitors' willingness to produce standalone HD DVD players, such that eighteen months after format launch there isn't a single non-Toshiba HD DVD player on the market. Meanwhile new player after new player continue to be announced on the Blu-ray side. What other format has ever succeeded with an ecosystem with market presence from so few vendors? If HD DVD were so fundamentally cheaper to build why would all these companies choose to build the more expensive hardware with far more competition?


The plethora of BD stand alones is the most amusing part of this whole format battle. Why in the world would a Pioneer want to build and market a player with at most the opportunity to sell a few thousand players. I don't have a link but there was a posting of European BD SAL players sales, the quantities were microscopic... and even more incredible is that they keep bringing players to market that don't support 1.1 or 2.0. The ony thing I can figure is they are trying to support Broadcoms SOC initiatives and are hoping they will eventually have viable marketable products that will sell in quantities that provide some manufacturing economies of scale.

Right now it is just plain branding, not economics that drive every Japanese CE and Korea CE to keep bringing all these BD SALs to sell to no one.

It doesn't assume that because even what you quoted said, "... it seems that either the BD25s from them are being subsidized, ...". :) --Darin

the last time i checked BD25 replication cost 10K unit is JUST slightly over $2 the same for HD DVD30. If a studio needs subsidi on a $2 cost, it should be closed :D :D :D

Yes, I do. iSuppli posted a teardown of the initial players and the components in current players are well-known. It's not rocket science to derive reasonably accurate estimates of the cost to build current players.
What evidence can you reference which says they are making money on the current players?
What makes HD DVD different than every other comparable new A/V format released in the last twenty years that prices should drop so quickly? Toshiba's rapid price drops have clearly had an extremely negative impact on competitors' willingness to produce standalone HD DVD players, such that eighteen months after format launch there isn't a single non-Toshiba HD DVD player on the market. Meanwhile new player after new player continue to be announced on the Blu-ray side. What other format has ever succeeded with an ecosystem with market presence from so few vendors? If HD DVD were so fundamentally cheaper to build why would all these companies choose to build the more expensive hardware with far more competition?

What makes it sad is that all those Toshiba HD DVD players have more sophisticated hardware and features than other standalone Blu-ray players.
Talk, I respect you as insider and I have enjoyed your posts in insider's thread. But why do you make it look like HD DVD is all bad and Blu-ray is all good?
You said CE companies choose Blu-ray to build players before. Last week in the insider's thread (Which is closed now) you told me Blu-ray and HD DVD players roughly cost same (and you mentioned Toshiba is pricing them less than they should). Ofcourse a CE company chooses Blu-ray; according to you it costs the same, it has less features (ethernet and secondary video decoder) and it is priced HIGHER which means more profit. And they can double dip customers again for profile 1.1 and 2.0 players! But it doesn't stop HD DVD players from providing higher value for money than BD players. HD DVD players provide excellent video and audio quality, offer next generation interactivity and they cost less! Is it something wrong with paying less to get more? Or is it only wrong in this case because the format who offers more value for money appears to be the format you dont support and therefore it's bad!

About the Paramount deal; why do you try so hard to make it look bad for HD DVD? I have no doubt some money changed hands (I don't know how much, who or when and I could care less anyway) but what is wrong with that? Sony buys endcaps @ Target; Sony subsidizes BD replication, Disney says "no comment" when asked about incentives; so What? it is all about business. Business means making deals and having exclusive partners and Sony and Toshiba are doing the exact same thing. How come Sony can do anything they want and it is considered smart (which is smart indeed) but Toshiba makes a deal and all of a sudden it's all about money! Would you say the same thing about Paramount if they became BD exclusive and make fun of BDA paying paramount?

Simply put; All Toshiba, Sony, Microsoft, Panasonic, Phillips and etc. care about is making money! that's the bottom line! You make it look if HD DVD companies are evil mafia corporations while BDA companies are bunch of freedom fighters fighting darkness!

I have no intention of being rude towards you. I value your contribution to this forum and personally I have learned from your posts. But sometimes your hatred for HD DVD is getting too strong; both are shiny pieces of plastic after all!.
cheers,

Right now it is just plain branding, not economics that drive every Japanese CE and Korea CE to keep bringing all these BD SALs to sell to no one.

They're building up a market they believe in. None of them have any faith in hd-dvd, hence why they won't support it (not to mention they don't want to bleed money like toshiba does on each player it gives away at a huge loss)

Yes, I do. iSuppli posted a teardown of the initial players and the components in current players are well-known. It's not rocket science to derive reasonably accurate estimates of the cost to build current players.
What evidence can you reference which says they are making money on the current players?
What makes HD DVD different than every other comparable new A/V format released in the last twenty years that prices should drop so quickly? Toshiba's rapid price drops have clearly had an extremely negative impact on competitors' willingness to produce standalone HD DVD players, such that eighteen months after format launch there isn't a single non-Toshiba HD DVD player on the market. Meanwhile new player after new player continue to be announced on the Blu-ray side. What other format has ever succeeded with an ecosystem with market presence from so few vendors? If HD DVD were so fundamentally cheaper to build why would all these companies choose to build the more expensive hardware with far more competition?

First, there are a lot of components which are being made mass now and have had a severe reduction in cost, the Blue-laser diode for example seems to have gone from over $100 to under $10. There are other benefits that come over time as well. Using the iSuppli from the G1 models doesn't mean that the G2 or upcoming G3's will be losing money. BUT it also doesn't mean they're making money.

On the Blu-ray side, new player after new player are announced, but they're still not fully compatible with the format. Setting that aside, why release on Blu-ray and not HD DVD if they did turn out to be cheaper? Simple, Blu-ray retails their players for more expensive than HD DVD, and without all those pesky extra components like storage, ethernet, 2nd video decoders, etc. Less parts, less cost. Higher retail, higher profits. If they wanted to get into HD DVD, they'd have to compete on price in a small market.

This is also the reasoning that I think we'll see more dual-format players pop up after Oct.31st. Blu-ray CE companies will be able to move to the $1,000/player range with a minimal part difference over BD format only.

What makes HD DVD different than every other comparable new A/V format released in the last twenty years that prices should drop so quickly? Toshiba's rapid price drops have clearly had an extremely negative impact on competitors' willingness to produce standalone HD DVD players, such that eighteen months after format launch there isn't a single non-Toshiba HD DVD player on the market. Meanwhile new player after new player continue to be announced on the Blu-ray side. What other format has ever succeeded with an ecosystem with market presence from so few vendors? If HD DVD were so fundamentally cheaper to build why would all these companies choose to build the more expensive hardware with far more competition?

And what part of this description doesn't apply to Toshiba as well? Paying hundreds of millions to the studios to back your format; losing hundreds of millions on player sales because you had to cut prices far faster than the typical ramp of new technology in order to stay competitive?

OK, I am confused. Did someone shred the new rules and I am out of the loop?

Yes, I do. iSuppli posted a teardown of the initial players and the components in current players are well-known. It's not rocket science to derive reasonably accurate estimates of the cost to build current players.

Ahh ... so iSuppli is a definitive source for manufacturing costs? Isn't it possible that the component manufactures are subsidizing the cost to Toshiba, so Toshiba would remain out of the red? Either way, let's pretend we go by their numbers ... if that's the case, isn't Sony losing over $250 per PS3? It looks like Toshiba would be losing a lot less per player and only on 300k players. Sony is losing a lot more on what? 4 Million units? My point is that you're accusing one side of doing exactly what the other side is.


What evidence can you reference which says they are making money on the current players?

What evidence can you reference that says they are losing money on current players?


What makes HD DVD different than every other comparable new A/V format released in the last twenty years that prices should drop so quickly? Toshiba's rapid price drops have clearly had an extremely negative impact on competitors' willingness to produce standalone HD DVD players, such that eighteen months after format launch there isn't a single non-Toshiba HD DVD player on the market. Meanwhile new player after new player continue to be announced on the Blu-ray side. What other format has ever succeeded with an ecosystem with market presence from so few vendors? If HD DVD were so fundamentally cheaper to build why would all these companies choose to build the more expensive hardware with far more competition?

HD DVD is based on proven DVD technology -- that's what makes it different. I also haven't seen many new player announcements from the BDA other than Sony players and Profile 1.0 players that will be essentially obsolete in less than 60 days. Considering that Sony has the two cheapest Blu-ray players on the market, it seems that 'their partners' have had to resign themselves to producing more expensive units and selling less of them to try to make some money. Surely, the fact that both LG and Samsung are making Universal Players shows that they have had to do more to differentiate themselves in that space so they can actually make some money. Perhaps companies chose to stay with Blu-ray based on Sony's promises -- which apparently they aren't coming through with since LG and Samsung have clearly decided that there is room for them to make money in the HD DVD space.

Onkyo and Venturer players have been announced for HD DVD as well, but I'm sure you already knew that. So if we tally, HD DVD would have: Toshiba, Onkyo, LG, Samsung, and Venturer. That's decent support imo, with price points all along the ladder of adoption. Which should probably also include the RCA player that was available for some time.

Furthermore, wasn't Toshiba one of the best selling DVD players at launch? If I remember correctly, there weren't many CE's in that space from Day-1 either.

Speaking of 18 months ... how come there isn't a single Profile 1.1 player on the market? And why are 'so many' Profile 1.0 players being announced a month or two before the mandatory deadline? :confused:

Oh, and I'm very close to no longer responding to your questions, jdg345 Talkstr8t, because they are uniformly derogatory and appear to be intended to stoke the fires of the format war rather than to be informational in nature. :p

Archibael,
Does dual/quad/multicore CPU architecture negate or lessen the need for dedicated BD / HD DVD acceleration hardware?


Sort of. You can already compensate for lack of dedicated hardware by driving the whole thing through software, but it's more a matter of architecture overall than multicore in particular. For instance, a Pentium D (i.e. dual core) of any flavor is underpowered to do unassisted H.264 at high bitrates, and a lot of it gets eaten by VC-1 as well. The Core 2 Duo can do it unassisted at speeds of 2.66 GHz and and up (opinions differ on where this line gets drawn, actually; some are getting good results at 2.4 GHz and lower).


Do you forsee a day when the average CPU has everything it needs for perfect 1920x1080p/5.1 playback?

Yes. Within two years, if I make my guess.

OK, I am confused. Did someone shred the new rules and I am out of the loop?

Yes:)

Now, how about giving us the scoop on BD yields and cost.

What makes HD DVD different than every other comparable new A/V format released in the last twenty years that prices should drop so quickly? Toshiba's rapid price drops have clearly had an extremely negative impact on competitors' willingness to produce standalone HD DVD players, such that eighteen months after format launch [i]there isn't a single non-Toshiba HD DVD player on the market.

wait a minute! wait a minute !! I hope my post wont offend you. Sorry in advance if it does

The Toshiba HD A1 was launched at $499.99. The replacement model is now $299. a drop of $200. Panasonic's BD player was launch at $1299. Their new BD player is no priced at $599. A massive price drop of $700 (more than three times of the HD DVD price drop). The Sony player was launched at $999. A sony BD player is now available for $499. Another massive drop of $500 (more than TWO times of the HD DVD price drop). HD DVD is not the the one with the fasted price drop. BD is! So the question: What makes Blu-ray different than every other comparable new A/V format released in the last twenty years that prices should drop so quickly?

Toshiba's rapid price drops have clearly had an extremely negative impact on competitors' willingness to produce standalone HD DVD players

Onkyo and Venturer are both CEs. They might not be as huge and Pansonic or Sony

such that eighteen months after format launch [i]there isn't a single non-Toshiba HD DVD player on the market.

oh my oh my. RCA ring a bell. the model IS STILL selling at Amazon.com

The plethora of BD stand alones is the most amusing part of this whole format battle. Why in the world would a Pioneer want to build and market a player with at most the opportunity to sell a few thousand players. I don't have a link but there was a posting of European BD SAL players sales, the quantities were microscopic... and even more incredible is that they keep bringing players to market that don't support 1.1 or 2.0. The ony thing I can figure is they are trying to support Broadcoms SOC initiatives and are hoping they will eventually have viable marketable products that will sell in quantities that provide some manufacturing economies of scale.

Right now it is just plain branding, not economics that drive every Japanese CE and Korea CE to keep bringing all these BD SALs to sell to no one.

I believe this may be the link to player sales you were looking for:

http://www.cinemotion.biz/informacion.php?iinfo=285

It shows a 70:30 split in favor of HD DVD based on units sold where the BDA showed a 63:37 split in favor of Blu-ray [based on Revenue].

Why is everybody so obsessed with yields of BD50 and to a lesser degree of HD-DVD combo discs? As a consumer, all I really care about is the retail price of the final product and that the disc plays without problems in my player. I have never had any problems playing BD50 discs in my player and the price of them are the same as HD-DVD discs so I couldn't care less if the yields are 20, 50 or 90% as it does not affect me directly.
I am much more concerned about the current quality problems with DVD-18 and combo discs. They may have yields of 80 or even 100% but if I'm unable to play the discs in my player because of whatever reason, it does affect me directly. I've had numerous problems with DVD-18's in the past (and from what I read about combo discs they have similar quality issues) and simply refuse to buy them anymore until these problems are solved.

This has been asked and responded to several times in several of the stickied threads here... as recently as in the last day or two.

Yes, I do. iSuppli posted a teardown of the initial players and the components in current players are well-known. It's not rocket science to derive reasonably accurate estimates of the cost to build current players.


By all means PLEASE DO TELL! I for one would love to know.

As for no one else besides Toshiba making players, I wonder how Venturer could street an HD player in the 129-149 range if the costs were that high. The subsidized PS3 is still 499. I want desperately to go purple but there aren't any low cost players. Obviously, the BDA is looking to profit from the sale of players while HD is going for more of a video game approach: sell players and people will buy games/movies.

Jdg,

That can't be right. That means that BD players are 3.91X more expensive than HD players... (I hope thats not right...)

Jdg,

That can't be right. That means that BD players are 3.91X more expensive than HD players... (I hope thats not right...)

Sorry ... not sure to what you are referring here. ;)

I'm not saying they wouldn't care if there were no other factors to consider, but a theoretical $0.20 increase in disc production cost can be easily justified by ...higher sales due to ... greater number of installed players, etc.

Great news for Blu Ray in Europe with that ~2:1 advantage in... uh... player.... er .... revenue...

Nevermind.

As I think this is ultimately the summary of your long post, I'll just quote it. But I think a lot of people disagree with this statement, which is why this horse continues to get beaten, nor will it die.

By all accounts, those of us reading between the lines believe it is very possible these very things were a primary factor (if not the primary factor) In P/DW doing what they did.

Couple this with the fact that it also appears likely that AVS is essentially being censored in discussing this, could possibly prove that this very issue is essentially BD's kryptonite.

Finally, if there is any truth about poor yields; i.e. higher expense, it very well could make other studios reconsider their loyalties sooner rather than later.

So yeah, it can be argued that this war very well could be decided by yields.

I agree with the above. To us this may not matter a hill of beans, but to the studios this is very big and it will be a deciding factor (my opinion). While I agree that yield will improve over time it is still an unknown factor as to how much. A small cost increase per disc is millions of dollars when you consider the number of discs that will be sold.

OK, I am confused. Did someone shred the new rules and I am out of the loop?

No, no, you're "taking the high road" :)

One of the definitions of an insider is: anyone with inside (non-public) information.

Dave fits that description and I accept him as an insider. Please note that it is one thing to hide behind a screen name and make posts and it is quite another when you make posts and sign your name to them.

The Toshiba HD A1 was launched at $499.99. The replacement model is now $299. a drop of $200. Panasonic's BD player was launch at $1299. Their new BD player is no priced at $599. A massive price drop of $700 (more than three times of the HD DVD price drop). The Sony player was launched at $999. A sony BD player is now available for $499. Another massive drop of $500 (more than TWO times of the HD DVD price drop). HD DVD is the the one with the fasted price drop. BD does! So the question: What makes Blu-ray different than every other comparable new A/V format released in the last twenty years that prices should drop so quickly?


The majority of BD players launched with recordable drives in them. Once read only drives became available that reduced the cost to manufacture by several hundred dollars. I don't beleive that was the case with HD DVD so I'll leave that out there for confirmation.


Onkyo and Venturer are both CEs. They might not be as huge and Pansonic or Sony

oh my oh my. RCA ring a bell. the model IS STILL selling at Amazon.com


You were doing better with the Onkyo and Venturer, I'm pretty sure that the RCA is a rebadged Toshiba A1.

To be fair, several of the BD companies shared portions of their designs in the early going (Samsung/Philips, Pioneer/Sony) but the majority are moving to their own designs and additional CE's are starting to sell players in the US such as Sharp, Denon and Daewoo.

Ahh ... so iSuppli is a definitive source for manufacturing costs? Isn't it possible that the component manufactures are subsidizing the cost to Toshiba, so Toshiba would remain out of the red? Either way, let's pretend we go by their numbers ... if that's the case, isn't Sony losing over $250 per PS3? It looks like Toshiba would be losing a lot less per player and only on 300k players. Sony is losing a lot more on what? 4 Million units? My point is that you're accusing one side of doing exactly what the other side is.


I don't know how much Sony is losing on the PS3, but as it has been pointed out several times, it is primarily a game console. As such, it is best compared to the Xbox 360 and even in that case it is difficult to compare due to the different strategies that Sony and Microsoft took in regard to including an HD optical drive. But for the sake of comparison, Microsoft is hoping to report their first profits on the Xbox 360 in FY08. If it takes Sony more than 3 years to turn a profit on the PS3 then we'll have a better idea of how well the strategies worked.

Mike

The majority of BD players launched with recordable drives in them. Once read only drives became available that reduced the cost to manufacture by several hundred dollars. I don't beleive that was the case with HD DVD so I'll leave that out there for confirmation.
Mike

so you are saying that the BD writer in the Panasonic cost them $700, cost sony $500?

"It shows a 70:30 split in favor of HD DVD based on units sold where the BDA showed a 63:37 split in favor of Blu-ray [based on Revenue]."

If HD has a 70:30 split for units sold and BD has a 63:37 revenue advantage THAT MEANS THAT BD PLAYERS COST CONSUMERS 3.91 TIMES AS MUCH AS HD PLAYERS. And BD was trumpeting these statistics?? That is perhaps the most damning twist of a statistic I have ever seen.

so you are saying that the BD writer in the Panasonic cost them $700, cost sony $500?

Not necessarily, I'm just pointing out that a significant portion of the price reduction was likely due to dramatically reduced costs for a single component.

The difference in price reduction would be impacted by multiple factors including source and quantity of drives purchased, cost of other player exclusive components, margins, etc.

Mike

And you're gathering these insights from where, exactly?

Engineering 101

Applies to all sorts of technologies especially if the tech is on the limit.
You can't double the power of a race car engine by a mere tweak. If the engine is designed for a specific performance it should be at least at 80% from the get go. If not try again.

A simple tweak doesn't double the power rating of your amplifier.
A fair amount of re-design does.

The current br replication lines do not show signs of any subtantial progress and that's after many months of operating them. That much is revealed by the insider info. Already a fair amount of tweaking and fiddling is required to keep them running at the reported 50% yields.
It's not likely that it will get any better without making a compromise such as BD46 or a substantial redesign of the equipment.

There is also a good chance that it might never be possible to improve beyond a certain level. That it is simply not possible within reasonable limits.

That would not be a problem if a far more efficient alternative wasn't already available.

I have met quite a few AVS members on BD.com and their story was pretty much the same as mine; the anti-BD atmosphere became too much for them to bear. I might add that NONE of them are flame-throwing BD fanboys over there.

Kumbaya . . . . .

Post something thats not positive towards BD. I dare you.

OK, I am confused. Did someone shred the new rules and I am out of the loop?Ah - you didn't read the fine print! If you take a three-day hiatus you get a day to post with impugnity! :)

So persistent storage is not a requirement for any form of Blu-ray, as long as the player allows you to connect storage through another medium?A small amount of persistent storage is always mandatory. The 256MB/1GB of local storage required for BD-Video 1.1 and BD-Live, respectively, can be onboard, offboard, or a combination of the two.

First, thanks for getting some info from your sources. As far as these yields for BD25s, there are multiple ways to look at this. IIRC, from one disc source, the prices for BD25s and HD30s were equal in high volumes. I know they don't replicate the discs themselves, but since they don't have BD50s as an option and based on what they've said, I'm guessing that they are getting these BD25s from places other than Sony (although I could ask that one). Anyway, if these lower yields are right for their sources then it seems that either the BD25s from them are being subsidized, or there is a good chance BD25 prices will come down if yields go up significantly. If you are already at 95% yields there isn't much room to improve prices through better yields.

--DarinForget the yield numbers, simply the cycle times dictate that they'd make more money from a day's run on a HD or DVD line than a BD line. They're choosing to make less money per line per day (on lines that are significantly more expensive), whether you consider that subsidizing or not, I don't know.

I have a question for BD insiders:
Is Sony subsidizing the production of BD discs, and if so how much are they paying out per disc?
And one for HD insiders:
Has their been any discussion on subsidizing combo discs so they can be sold for the same price as standard HD DVD releases?

If I purchase a player that has "the capability" to support 256MB or more of PStorage but I don't spend more money to buy another piece for my player and they label the player as 1.1 compliant will it still play ALL 1.1 content? If not then how exactly is the player (as advertised) 1.1 compliant? (If so then Kudos for solid specifications)I cannot think of any category of 1.1 content which would require much in the way of local storage; this feature is much more likely to be used with 2.0, where downloaded content would be commonplace. Nonetheless, if some 1.1 content does appear which requires local storage and you don't have it available then you'll probably get the same message you'd get if you did have local storage which was full.

Archibael,

Does dual/quad/multicore CPU architecture negate or lessen the need for dedicated BD / HD DVD acceleration hardware?

Do you forsee a day when the average CPU has everything it needs for perfect 1920x1080p/5.1 playback?

Not an Insider but I will respond to this Q.

Faster CPU is always recommended especially when you have some kind of Java or multimedia running at the same time while watching the movie. This is very important when you have Interactive features enabled at the same time.

CPU value will catch up and will become average in performance.

Forget the yield numbers, simply the cycle times dictate that they'd make more money from a day's run on a HD or DVD line than a BD line. They're choosing to make less money per line per day (on lines that are significantly more expensive), whether you consider that subsidizing or not, I don't know.What are the average cycle times for single layer BDs vs dual layer HD DVDs?

--Darin

A small amount of persistent storage is always mandatory. The 256MB/1GB of local storage required for BD-Video 1.1 and BD-Live, respectively, can be onboard, offboard, or a combination of the two.

So any player that's BD1.1 comes with 256mb of memory and BD2.0 with 1gb, just of some type? What's the 'small amount' that's 'always mandatory'?

Last week in the insider's thread (Which is closed now) you told me Blu-ray and HD DVD players roughly cost same (and you mentioned Toshiba is pricing them less than they should). Ofcourse a CE company chooses Blu-ray; according to you it costs the same, it has less features (ethernet and secondary video decoder) and it is priced HIGHER which means more profit. And they can double dip customers again for profile 1.1 and 2.0 players! But it doesn't stop HD DVD players from providing higher value for money than BD players. HD DVD players provide excellent video and audio quality, offer next generation interactivity and they cost less! Is it something wrong with paying less to get more?Whether you're getting more is highly subjective. There are many who post here who consider Blu-ray's capacity, bandwidth, format flexibility (i.e. writability), and studio and vendor support to make it the superior format, well worth a few hundred dollars in initial player cost. For those who place higher value on the generally lower HD DVD player pricing, content from the HD DVD-exclusive studios, or the short-term edge HD DVD has in terms of PiP and downloadable content, HD DVD is probably the right choice.
The Toshiba HD A1 was launched at $499.99. The replacement model is now $299. a drop of $200. Panasonic's BD player was launch at $1299. Their new BD player is no priced at $599. A massive price drop of $700 (more than three times of the HD DVD price drop). The Sony player was launched at $999. A sony BD player is now available for $499. Another massive drop of $500 (more than TWO times of the HD DVD price drop). HD DVD is not the the one with the fasted price drop. BD is! So the question: What makes Blu-ray different than every other comparable new A/V format released in the last twenty years that prices should drop so quickly?You're ignoring the fact that the HD A1 (originally announced at $999) was clearly priced well below cost, presumably to overcome Blu-ray's vendor and PS3 advantage. In return this required Blu-ray vendors to price more aggressively in a way which they likely wouldn't have were there not a format war (just as the HD-A1 would almost certainly not have been initially priced at $499 had there been no format war).
Onkyo and Venturer are both CEs.I said "currently available"; to my knowledge neither of these models are currently available.
RCA ring a bell. the model IS STILL selling at Amazon.comToshiba is the manufacturer of this product, and it's not a current product.

Kumbaya . . . . .

Post something thats not positive towards BD. I dare you.
It sucks that 1.1 and 2.0 players are not available yet when I can see them just . . down . . the road. And "they" have the nerve to continue to release 1.0 players; it's almost an insult to our intelligence.

Lets see the cheapest non Toshiba/Sony players (so we know they aren't subsidized):

HD: Venturer $129-$149
BD: 399. (can't find it but I know its out there just in time for the holidays)

I cannot think of any category of 1.1 content which would require much in the way of local storage; this feature is much more likely to be used with 2.0, where downloaded content would be commonplace. Nonetheless, if some 1.1 content does appear which requires local storage and you don't have it available then you'll probably get the same message you'd get if you did have local storage which was full.

So a 1.1 or 2.0 Specced player does not have to actually meet the spec out of the box but can require that I purchase somethng else to make it compliant am I reading that right?

Ahh ... so iSuppli is a definitive source for manufacturing costs?Of course they are - they're a well-regarded analyst firm whose business is doing exactly this.
Isn't it possible that the component manufactures are subsidizing the cost to Toshiba, so Toshiba would remain out of the red?Highly unlikely, as most of the component manufacturers supply both sides and would have little incentive to subsidize. But even if they were, the point would be irrelevant, as when the subsidies go away the player would get more expensive.
Either way, let's pretend we go by their numbers ... if that's the case, isn't Sony losing over $250 per PS3?Irrelevant to this conversation - game consoles have always had a different business model. No one is pointing to the PS3 and saying its price proves that Blu-ray is cheaper to manufacturer than HD DVD.
HD DVD is based on proven DVD technology -- that's what makes it different.Sorry, HD DVD's optical format is based on "proven DVD technology". The rest of the player shares virtually nothing in common with DVD. In fact, other than the optical drive, Blu-ray players share far more in common with existing products, given that they use mostly use SoC architectures and a software stack which share much in-common with IPTV and cable set-top boxes.
So if we tally, HD DVD would have: Toshiba, Onkyo, LG, Samsung, and Venturer.That you can be shipped today? Onkyo, Samsung, and Venturer aren't shipping, and the LG isn't a licensed HD DVD player. That leaves Toshiba.

It sucks that 1.1 and 2.0 players are not available yet when I can see them just . . down . . the road. And "they" have the nerve to continue to release 1.0 players; it's almost an insult to our intelligence.

Nice try.

Not here. Over there. Make sure not just one post like that. Cmon! you can do better.

Start with Transformers . . . . .

As for no one else besides Toshiba making players, I wonder how Venturer could street an HD player in the 129-149 range if the costs were that high.Interesting how the player isn't even out yet and it's already down to $129!

So a 1.1 or 2.0 Specced player does not have to actually meet the spec out of the box but can require that I purchase somethng else to make it compliant am I reading that right?
It seems that you may need to buy a flash drive for full compliance with the storage standard. A fairly cheap purchase and it could give you a lot of extra space for very little money.

So any player that's BD1.1 comes with 256mb of memory and BD2.0 with 1gb, just of some type?No. Any 1.1 [2.0] player must have the capability to support a minimum of 256MB [1GB] of local storage (whether or not it ships with it).
What's the 'small amount' that's 'always mandatory'?64KB.
So a 1.1 or 2.0 Specced player does not have to actually meet the spec out of the box but can require that I purchase somethng else to make it compliant am I reading that right?The spec requires the capability of supporting a minimum of 256MB [1GB] of local storage. The spec does not require 256MB [1GB] of onboard storage. If it supports the capability of 256MB [1GB] of local storage it meets the spec, regardless of whether the local storage is actually present.

No. Any 1.1 [2.0] player must have the capability to support a minimum of 256MB [1GB] of local storage (whether or not it ships with it).
64KB.
The spec requires the capability of supporting a minimum of 256MB [1GB] of local storage. The spec does not require 256MB [1GB] of onboard storage. If it supports the capability of 256MB [1GB] of local storage it meets the spec, regardless of whether the local storage is actually present.
I have no issue with that, but don't you think it might prove to be burdensome to the average guy or gal?

I don't know how much Sony is losing on the PS3, but as it has been pointed out several times, it is primarily a game console. As such, it is best compared to the Xbox 360 and even in that case it is difficult to compare due to the different strategies that Sony and Microsoft took in regard to including an HD optical drive. But for the sake of comparison, Microsoft is hoping to report their first profits on the Xbox 360 in FY08. If it takes Sony more than 3 years to turn a profit on the PS3 then we'll have a better idea of how well the strategies worked.

Mike

I happened to run across this on iSuppli's site:

PlayStation 3 costs

The combined materials and manufacturing cost of the PlayStation 3 is $805.85 for the model equipped with a 20Gbyte Hard Disk Drive (HDD), and $840.35 for the 60Gbyte HDD version, according to iSuppli’s Teardown Analysis service’s preliminary estimate of expenses in the fourth quarter. This total doesn’t include additional costs for elements including the controller, cables and packaging.

At these costs, Sony is taking a considerable loss on each PlayStation 3 sold. Materials and manufacturing costs for the 20Gbyte model exceed the suggested retail price of $499 by a total of $306.85, iSuppli’s Teardown Analysis service estimates. For the 60Gbyte version, costs exceed the $599 price by $241.35.

With Sony taking a smaller loss on the higher-end model, it’s not a surprise the company is steering customers to the 60Gbyte version.

In contrast, the HDD-equipped Xbox 360 has a manufacturing and materials total of $323.30, based on an updated estimate using costs in the fourth quarter of 2006. This total is $75.70 less than the $399 suggested retail price of the Xbox 360.

Table 2 below presents a comparison of costs between the PlayStation 3 models and the Xbox 360.

It’s common for video-game console makers to lose money on hardware, and make up for the loss via video game-title sales. Still, the size of Sony’s loss per unit is remarkable, even for the video-game console business.

http://www.isuppli.com/news/default.asp?id=6919

That was posted last November and they mention updated estimates which I would assume would mean the costs posted there have also gone down some for both since last November.

Talk,

I'll make you a bet. I bet I can send you a link or ad that allows you to buy the Venturer for less than $130 (shipping not included) before XMas. I'll also bet you that you cannot send me a link or ad before XMas for a new (non B-stock, refurb) BD player for less than $260 (double). I'll take one or both bets for $10 each. And I'll do you one better, you take the second one and win and I WILL EVEN BUY THE BD PLAYER.

I do like to talk in broad generalities but I do so in order to ascertain the ballpark we are playing in. For you to say that "Onkyo, Samsung, and Venturer aren't shipping, and the LG isn't a licensed HD DVD player. That leaves Toshiba." while factual is generally misleading. It shows that while once companies did not believe they could profit from selling HD hardware, they now believe they can, at some pretty low prices. While you like to talk in fact, you like to play around the edges of what is fact and what those facts mean. I'm not saying you are wrong on any point but it IS spin. Which is why I threw the bet out there ;)

Why is everybody so obsessed with yields of BD50 and to a lesser degree of HD-DVD combo discs?
As a consumer, all I really care about is the retail price of the final product and that the disc plays without problems in my player.Why is everybody so obsessed with energy conservation?
As a consumer, all I really care about is to have enough power plugs in my house and that the light turns on when I flip the switch.

:)

Diogen.

Amir, any word on managed copy in Vista?

Paid or Talk, same question with our without Vista?

No. Any 1.1 [2.0] player must have the capability to support a minimum of 256MB [1GB] of local storage (whether or not it ships with it).
64KB.
The spec requires the capability of supporting a minimum of 256MB [1GB] of local storage. The spec does not require 256MB [1GB] of onboard storage. If it supports the capability of 256MB [1GB] of local storage it meets the spec, regardless of whether the local storage is actually present.

Well I guess that helps bring down prices when you dont provide the user with the necessary devices that they say they do out of the box. Guess we can expect the NEW Sony player to be $199.00 Has everything you need! Just add a BD Drive (sold seperatly) and a memory stick (Also Sold Seperatly). Hey! We put 64K of Ram in there, an ethernet port and a memory stick slot! It's BD Live compliant!

Whether you're getting more is highly subjective. There are many who post here who consider Blu-ray's capacity, bandwidth, format flexibility (i.e. writability), and studio and vendor support to make it the superior format, well worth a few hundred dollars in initial player cost. For those who place higher value on the generally lower HD DVD player pricing, content from the HD DVD-exclusive studios, or the short-term edge HD DVD has in terms of PiP and downloadable content, HD DVD is probably the right choice.


your answer raises few questions;

1)As you said, it is worth spending extra to get a BD player that doesn't support interactive features. If someone wants those features, he has to yet get another player. Meanwhile he can get a HD DVD player for $299 which has all these features already built in and he doesn't need to double dip to enjoy the extra features. By what logic those Blu-ray players provide better value?

2) you mentioned capacity as being a reason for better value. How does that translate to better value when customers are getting reference quality material on HD DVD? I assume we are talking about general public who I don't believe really knows what bandwidth or bitrate is. The picture and sound on HD DVD is superb (same with Blu-ray anyway) either by enthusiast's standard or general public's standard (who I think is less picky about quality than enthusiasts). So how does capacity and bandwidth make a better value for few hundreds more?

3) You mentioned writability. Blu-ray no doubt has the edge in this area as of now and I wish HD DVD would have done the same(although people can author HD DVDs on DVD-5 and DVD-9). BDA touts BD as a great medium for data backup (which indeed is). You read those burned backups BD-Rs on a PC/Mac drive not a BD standalone player! Again how does that translate into something worth few hundreds more? How many people in general public do you believe burn BD-R's now? Do you think market penetration for BD burners and making homemade BD movies is big enough that writability could be considered a bonus now? (this is not a rhetorical question. I'm asking since I have no data showing marketshare of burners)

Talk, you mention PiP and internet interactivity as short term advantages for HD DVD. When it comes to BD; you talk as if writability is only for BD and it never appears on HD DVD (as we know burners and discs are slowly coming out). Isn't writability a short term advantage also for BD (if you ever consider it as important as PiP and internet connectivity and considering all HD DVD players will play HD DVD-Rs)?

I cannot think of any category of 1.1 content which would require much in the way of local storage; this feature is much more likely to be used with 2.0, where downloaded content would be commonplace. Nonetheless, if some 1.1 content does appear which requires local storage and you don't have it available then you'll probably get the same message you'd get if you did have local storage which was full.

So when I asked "So persistent storage is not a requirement for any form of Blu-ray, as long as the player allows you to connect storage through another medium?" the answer was infact, yes. Persistant storage is not a requirement for any BD Profile. The ability to have it is, but not the memory itself.

As to the bolded above, what in BD1.1 requires the storage, and how much? They added it for a reason, so what is it?

"It shows a 70:30 split in favor of HD DVD based on units sold where the BDA showed a 63:37 split in favor of Blu-ray [based on Revenue]."

If HD has a 70:30 split for units sold and BD has a 63:37 revenue advantage THAT MEANS THAT BD PLAYERS COST CONSUMERS 3.91 TIMES AS MUCH AS HD PLAYERS. And BD was trumpeting these statistics?? That is perhaps the most damning twist of a statistic I have ever seen.

Well, we know what the BDA said in their statement at IFA (63% of the Market was Blu-ray). Take a look at the numbers in the link for the totals (it's at the bottom). There's 1% in there for the Universal Player as well. ;)

A small amount of persistent storage is always mandatory. The 256MB/1GB of local storage required for BD-Video 1.1 and BD-Live, respectively, can be onboard, offboard, or a combination of the two.

What is the small amount that is mandatory?

EDIT: Talkstr8t answered this already: 64KB :confused:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=11521466#post11521466

Nice try.

Not here. Over there. Make sure not just one post like that. Cmon! you can do better.

Start with Transformers . . . . .
I know that what I post there makes it here or is at least read by some here. I just assumed the reverse was true. :)

I saw Transformers in the theater. It was absolutely jaw-dropping. In fact it was so jaw-dropping that I was unable to really focus on the movie. I doubt that I would buy it myself.

BTW, my complaint about BD is exactly why I do not own one.

It sucks that 1.1 and 2.0 players are not available yet when I can see them just . . down . . the road. And "they" have the nerve to continue to release 1.0 players; it's almost an insult to our intelligence.

I believe he meant for you to post it over there. :p

What is the small amount that is mandatory?
64KB.

Answered.

Of course they are - they're a well-regarded analyst firm whose business is doing exactly this.


Ah, I see. So the numbers on the PS3 losses would stand. We'll get to that more later.


Highly unlikely, as most of the component manufacturers supply both sides and would have little incentive to subsidize. But even if they were, the point would be irrelevant, as when the subsidies go away the player would get more expensive.

Aha! Interesting point you make. So, when the BDA subsidies for disc replication go away, the discs will become more expensive to the studios, right? Do you expect the studios to eat that cost or pass it on down?


Irrelevant to this conversation - game consoles have always had a different business model. No one is pointing to the PS3 and saying its price proves that Blu-ray is cheaper to manufacturer than HD DVD.

Bzzzt. Sorry! You can't have it both ways. The PS3, like it or not, is a Blu-ray player. As soon as Sony forced it down the throats of some gamers, that is what it became. The PS3, until recently, was the most inexpensive Blu-ray player as well. If you feel it is irrelevent to the conversation, then I would ask that at the next BDA meeting, you request that some percentage of software sales be removed from the tally when computing the disc sales ratio since the PS3 is 'irrelevent'.


Sorry, HD DVD's optical format is based on "proven DVD technology". The rest of the player shares virtually nothing in common with DVD. In fact, other than the optical drive, Blu-ray players share far more in common with existing products, given that they use mostly use SoC architectures and a software stack which share much in-common with IPTV and cable set-top boxes.

Ohhhh ... I see ... so SoC architectures and software stacks are what are making the differences in replication cycle times and yields? I think not. The Optical drive is one of the most important issues here, don't you think? I mean ... we're talking about an OPTICAL format, no? Furthermore, if you're going to use SoC architectures as a talking point for commonality with existing products, then how come we had to wait 18 months for an SoC that could handle PiP? SD PiP, for that matter, which HD DVD could do 18 months prior?


That you can be shipped today? Onkyo, Samsung, and Venturer aren't shipping, and the LG isn't a licensed HD DVD player. That leaves Toshiba.

Oh boy, this is a stretch for an argument and you know it. For someone who consistently tells us about all the things that Blu-ray and BD-J will be able to do [some day], I find it ironic that you suddenly want to talk about what is available 'today'. :rolleyes:

No. Any 1.1 [2.0] player must have the capability to support a minimum of 256MB [1GB] of local storage (whether or not it ships with it).

Certainly not what I understood after reviewing the profile breakdowns listed here in the past.


64KB.

KB? or MB? If the former, then HD DVD has a higher mandatory requirement.


The spec requires the capability of supporting a minimum of 256MB [1GB] of local storage. The spec does not require 256MB [1GB] of onboard storage. If it supports the capability of 256MB [1GB] of local storage it meets the spec, regardless of whether the local storage is actually present.

How does this work exactly? With technology today, most 'things' that have the capability to access any storage aren't limited to how much storage they can access. Basically, if they can access that storage, they can access it, regardless of its capacity. Am I missing something? Is there a case were an SoC or a BD-J VM will crash if there is too much free space? I fail to see the point of the spec. It seems completely meaningless. :confused:

Answered.

Editted ;)

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showpost.php?p=11522412&postcount=640

Interesting how the player isn't even out yet and it's already down to $129!Hey, you stole my line! :) Every time I see a price on the forum for this thing, it goes down $10. Some serious deflation going on here. I hope folks aren't setting themselves up for disappointment with these unsubstantiated price speculations.

Hey, you stole my line! :) Every time I see a price on the forum for this thing, it goes down $10. Some serious deflation going on here. I hope folks aren't setting themselves up for disappointment with these unsubstantiated price speculations.

I figure that with an MSRP of $199, we'll see it on 'special' for $149-179 during the Holidays. Perhaps less than that as part of a retail bundle (buy 2-3 discs or an HDTV or something).

Know what would be cool? Buy 5 discs and get a Free HD DVD player to watch them on -- the current promo in reverse. Though, I guess the marketing types already figured out that my way doesn't work as well. ;)

Why is everybody so obsessed with yields of BD50 and to a lesser degree of HD-DVD combo discs? As a consumer, all I really care about is the retail price of the final product and that the disc plays without problems in my player. I have never had any problems playing BD50 discs in my player and the price of them are the same as HD-DVD discs so I couldn't care less if the yields are 20, 50 or 90% as it does not affect me directly.
I am much more concerned about the current quality problems with DVD-18 and combo discs. They may have yields of 80 or even 100% but if I'm unable to play the discs in my player because of whatever reason, it does affect me directly. I've had numerous problems with DVD-18's in the past (and from what I read about combo discs they have similar quality issues) and simply refuse to buy them anymore until these problems are solved.

Because the yield is one of the factors that will determine the cost of the final product. Right now it does not matter a whole lot, but if one side wins then the costs of the discs will be what it actually costs, rather than what the current subsidized cost is.

KB? or MB? If the former, then HD DVD has a higher mandatory requirement.
From previous post on Insider thread: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showpost.php?p=9918674&postcount=2521


Paidgeek, I believe you are incorrect. There are two types of non-volatile memory ("local storage") defined in the Blu-ray spec - the Application Data Area (known as "Persistent Storage" in MHP) for preferences, bookmarks, and such, and the Binding Unit Data Area for storage of A/V clips. All Blu-ray players must support the Application Data Area, albeit not a huge amount. All BD-Video 1.1 and BD-Live players must also support the Binding Unit Data Area (256MB for BD-Video and 1GB for BD-Live).

Which was followed by this reponse from Paid: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showpost.php?p=9919531&postcount=2528

"Talk,

Strictly speaking, you are correct, but since the question was with regard to version 1.0 players and only 64KB is required, I rounded to zero...."

So to translate, the amount that is mandatory in BD players is 64kb but according to Sony, it is useless. It also seems that the extra memory was eliminated from the profile some time after the above posts.

Do folks still think they shouldn't see the actual profile specs so that you can determine what is in, and what is out?

One other thought to add is this: current yield levels are (while a hot topic) not what I'd be interested in if I were a studio Executive, instead, I'd want to know the rate of improvement of yields. If the rate of improvement of BD25 and BD50 yield was consistent and predictable, it indicates that the process is "in control" and the levers (which inputs to vary to improve output) are well defined, known, and manipulate-able. If the rate of improvement in yields is sporadic, jumpy or otherwise unpredictable, it's a sign that the process is not well understood, defined or improved, and further away from mass-production ready than already commonly believed. It implies that BD25/50 replication needs the proverbial "home run break-through" to become viable -- which wouldn't be encouraging.

You would need to know both the current rate and the rate of improvement. In fact you would probably want the starting rate and all points where the yield improved over the life of the product and what caused the improvement.

KB? or MB? If the former, then HD DVD has a higher mandatory requirement.Doesn't matter if it's KB or MB, either way HD DVD has a higher mandatory storage requirement. Heck, we also have the concept of "Additional Persistent Storage", which can be any size (note the USB slots on the Toshiba players)

From previous post on Insider thread: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showpost.php?p=9918674&postcount=2521



Which was followed by this reponse from Paid: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showpost.php?p=9919531&postcount=2528



So to translate, the amount that is mandatory in BD players is 64kb but according to Sony, it is useless. It also seems that the extra memory was eliminated from the profile some time after the above posts.

Do folks still think they shouldn't see the actual profile specs so that you can determine what is in, and what is out?

Does it even matter? The Profiles seem to be a moving target! No wonder the BDA doesn't want the information to get out. It's much easier to change things when no one knows they've changed. :rolleyes:

Doesn't matter if it's KB or MB, either way HD DVD has a higher mandatory storage requirement. Heck, we also have the concept of "Additional Persistent Storage", which can be any size (note the USB slots on the Toshiba players)

So again ... I have to ask ... why exactly are consumers having to wait 18 months to get their hands on a Profile 1.1 player that still does LESS than what an HD DVD player could do since Day-1?

The only reason I can think of is that the BDA is trying to double-dip on players like they do on Movies. :rolleyes:

Do folks still think they shouldn't see the actual profile specs so that you can determine what is in, and what is out?

Personally I think it's irresponsible of organizations to accept standards which aren't actually, well, standard. What's the point in saying "The player MUST be able to get access to at LEAST 256mb of storage, BUT actually including that storage is completely optional." Where's the standard?

Talk, thank-you for answering the question, but trying to brush-off that the memory itself isn't required by saying "some" is, but not saying that the "some" is only 64kb seems to be intended to mislead not inform. Please keep this in mind when answering below.

So to Amir and Talk, what about the Profile 1.1 spec uses/needs the memory? If nothing, why is it even in the spec? If something, why isn't the memory itself standard?

So to Amir and Talk, what about the Profile 1.1 spec uses/needs the memory? If nothing, why is it even in the spec? If something, why isn't the memory itself standard?
They have to answer for profile 1.1 :). For HD DVD, every title creates a directory there where it keeps things like bookmarks, clips, etc. In addition, they can update the disc menus there. And allow the user to add subtitles, and low-rate audio (say in other languages). Trailers can also be loaded but obviously need to be recycled over time (which would be a good thing).

64 Kbytes is really nothing. You couldn't rely on it for example for all of your bookmarks let alone anything else. We have >3000X more storage standard in every HD DVD player!

I know this is thread is about HD DVD and Blu-ray, but I have question that sort of relates and it may have been answered already (sorry if so).

With the BD lines, do the same lines make both BD-25 movies and BD-25 games for the PS3? If so that means that not only are they heavily subsidizing the million(s) of movies but all of the games as well.

Also if this is the case considering the poor yields that have been reported here for both BD-25 and BD-50, could games being produced tie up the BD-25 lines and make movies be produced on BD-50, because they have no other choice, in turn costing the BDA more money. Why else would they put something on BD-50 if they honestly didn't have too. The touting their horn for greater capacity doesn't make since especially when profits should be priority #1.

It sounds crazy, but maybe just maybe.........Thanks

Personally I think it's irresponsible of organizations to accept standards which aren't actually, well, standard. What's the point in saying "The player MUST be able to get access to at LEAST 256mb of storage, BUT actually including that storage is completely optional." Where's the standard?

Talk, thank-you for answering the question, but trying to brush-off that the memory itself isn't required by saying "some" is, but not saying that the "some" is only 64kb seems to be intended to mislead not inform. Please keep this in mind when answering below.

So to Amir and Talk, what about the Profile 1.1 spec uses/needs the memory? If nothing, why is it even in the spec? If something, why isn't the memory itself standard?

You should have seen the raging that Talk did 6 months ago about how much persistant storage HD DVD had and how miserable it was all the while dancing around the 64KB thing andfor the most part denying it. Now we find that the ONLY persistant storage MANDATORY in ANY profile is 64K to actually be there. And we wonder why that cool menu he touted as how BD-J was superior wasn't used. Maybe it need 68K of PStorage to run the VM :)

IWith the BD lines, do the same lines make both BD-25 movies and BD-25 games for the PS3? If so that means that not only are they heavily subsidizing the million(s) of movies but all of the games as well.
I am 99% sure only Sony can do that because of the special copy protection and formatting of BD discs for PS3 games.

Hey, you stole my line! :) Every time I see a price on the forum for this thing, it goes down $10. Some serious deflation going on here. I hope folks aren't setting themselves up for disappointment with these unsubstantiated price speculations.Don't underestimate the impact of Black Friday. While I wouldn't expect to see a sub $150 HD DVD player available each and every day from fall until Christmas, It wouldn't be surprising for a retailer to offer a limited-time and limited-quantity special. $129 does not seem impossible or totally unreasonable in that case.

Scott

Don't underestimate the impact of Black Friday. While I wouldn't expect to see a sub $150 HD DVD player available each and every day from fall until Christmas, It wouldn't be surprising for a retailer to offer a limited-time and limited-quantity special. $129 does not seem impossible or totally unreasonable in that case.

Scott

So Black Friday sales only apply to HD DVD? I wonder how much Toshiba paid for those exclusive rights :D

So Black Friday sales only apply to HD DVD? I wonder how much Toshiba paid for those exclusive rights :D

Well... lets just say that many a Toshiba employee will not be raising their first born. :D

So Black Friday sales only apply to HD DVD? I wonder how much Toshiba paid for those exclusive rights :D

http://www.nrf.com/content/default.asp?folder=press/release2006&file=blackfriday2006.htm
Not exclusive (obviously) but price is still an issue. Average spending for men is $420.37, it's more likely we'll see a HDTV + HD DVD Player + Movies for under $420. Especially with Transformers out then. It should be a good opportunity for Sony to push if they really wanted to with the S300.

You should have seen the raging that Talk did 6 months ago about how much persistant storage HD DVD had and how miserable it was all the while dancing around the 64KB thing andfor the most part denying it. Now we find that the ONLY persistant storage MANDATORY in ANY profile is 64K to actually be there. And we wonder why that cool menu he touted as how BD-J was superior wasn't used. Maybe it need 68K of PStorage to run the VM :)

hey now, i could do lots of cool stuff on my trs-80 and it only had 32k! :p

Talk or Amir,

Is persistant storage made up of NAND or NOR Flash memory?

I can't figure out how you can source 64K chips, especially if it is NAND Flash. Higher density chips (into MBs) are only a few dollars. I can't believe that CE manufacturers must cut down these few dollars and eliminate the persistant storage....

Don't underestimate the impact of Black Friday. While I wouldn't expect to see a sub $150 HD DVD player available each and every day from fall until Christmas, It wouldn't be surprising for a retailer to offer a limited-time and limited-quantity special. $129 does not seem impossible or totally unreasonable in that case.

Scott

sure it's within the realm of the possible, but it carries as much weight as every statement on the bd side that starts with "WHEN universal goes bd-exclusive."

it's ok to let one side have a monopoly on unsubstantiated and ridiculously optimistic speculation.

No. Any 1.1 [2.0] player must have the capability to support a minimum of 256MB [1GB] of local storage (whether or not it ships with it).
64KB.
The spec requires the capability of supporting a minimum of 256MB [1GB] of local storage. The spec does not require 256MB [1GB] of onboard storage. If it supports the capability of 256MB [1GB] of local storage it meets the spec, regardless of whether the local storage is actually present.

Thanks very much -- I definitely hadn't realized that. I guess then the question is how do you find out if the player is capable of supporting those amounts of memory. I'm guessing the answer is the spec'd Profile that it has when sold (if that isn't on the external box, then it definitely should be.)

So, if one were to purchase a Samsung 2400 and it doesn't contain 1GB, but does contain dual audio/video decoders and a USB port, but is spec'd as BD 1.0, then one shouldn't imagine it is actually capable of supporting anything more than BD 1.0.

sure it's within the realm of the possible, but it carries as much weight as every statement on the bd side that starts with "WHEN universal goes bd-exclusive."

it's ok to let one side have a monopoly on unsubstantiated and ridiculously optimistic speculation.I'm not saying they will hit $129. I'm just saying that it's not unreasonable to see a retailer offer them for that price.

Based on past Black Friday deals, that price point is not ridiculously optimistic for a limited time and quantity special.

Scott

I find it interesting that Bill Gates still catches hell all these decades later for saying something to the effect of "You'll never need more than 640k" back in the 80's. Yet BDA has the nerve to tell consumers in 2006 that we'll never need more than 10x less than that in a next-gen media format? :eek:


:rolleyes:

So Black Friday sales only apply to HD DVD? I wonder how much Toshiba paid for those exclusive rights :DAs far as I know, no money has changed hands making Black Friday deals exclusive to Toshiba, despite what rumors you may have seen on this forum or others. :D

My comment was in reference to others discussing pricing of the Venturer player (not Toshiba), and there could be similar deals on Blu-ray players (percentage-discount-wise, anyway). I did not imply that deals will only be available to one format.

Scott

By Blu-Ray standards, all 10,000,000 Xbox 360s are HD DVD players. After all, they all have the ability to "access" an HD DVD drive. :rolleyes:

Talk or Amir,

Is persistant storage made up of NAND or NOR Flash memory?

I can't figure out how you can source 64K chips, especially if it is NAND Flash. Higher density chips (into MBs) are only a few dollars. I can't believe that CE manufacturers must cut down these few dollars and eliminate the persistant storage....

I don't know where they would get such small NVRAM either. My guess is that their front panel display controller/MCU has this much flash memory embedded in it or some RTC (real-time clock).

Boy, how fast times change. My old Apple II computer had a complete add-on card for just 16 kbytes of RAM!

I am 99% sure only Sony can do that because of the special copy protection and formatting of BD discs for PS3 games.

Wow I guess Sony is doing it all. They make the movie, generate a new format to play the movie, make the disc, and also make the player. I wonder if they also drill for the oil to make the plastics used.

It looks like the news leaked early on the Combo format player that I hinted about this past weekend:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=902956

It is from LG and looks extremely promising.

I have no issue with that, but don't you think it might prove to be burdensome to the average guy or gal?I have no reason to believe that most players won't ship with the 256MB/1GB which the spec requires, but for any players which don't ship with this memory onboard I don't consider it particularly burdensome to pick up a 1GB flash card for $10.

Amir, any word on managed copy in Vista?

Paid or Talk, same question with our without Vista?Managed copy has to be finalized by AACS; it's not a BDA or DVD Forum issue. I'm not aware of any status updates.

As you said, it is worth spending extra to get a BD player that doesn't support interactive features. If someone wants those features, he has to yet get another player. All BD players support interactive features. Features related to secondary audio/video require Profile 1.1, while features requiring network connectivity require Profile 2.0. There are many, many forms of interactivity which require neither of these.
you mentioned capacity as being a reason for better value. How does that translate to better value when customers are getting reference quality material on HD DVD? I assume we are talking about general public who I don't believe really knows what bandwidth or bitrate is. The picture and sound on HD DVD is superb (same with Blu-ray anyway) either by enthusiast's standard or general public's standard (who I think is less picky about quality than enthusiasts). So how does capacity and bandwidth make a better value for few hundreds more?HD DVD has many fine releases. Nonetheless, Blu-ray's higher capacity and bandwidth will always allow for more content, higher quality content, or some combination of the two. The higher bandwidth will allow more and/or higher quality audio tracks than would otherwise be possible (especially important outside the US) and makes seamless branching more feasible. I'm also confident many other uses will be found for the additional 20GB of available space, such as bundling iPod versions of the video content, companion videos, or the like.
You mentioned writability. Blu-ray no doubt has the edge in this area as of now and I wish HD DVD would have done the same. BDA touts BD as a great medium for data backup (which indeed is). You read those burned backups BD-Rs on a PC/Mac drive not a BD standalone player! Again how does that translate into something worth few hundreds more?Only two current standalone models don't support BD-R, and at least one of those is expected to get a firmware update re-enabling support.
How many people in general public do you believe burn BD-R's now? Do you think market penetration for BD burners and making homemade BD movies is big enough that writability could be considered a bonus now? (this is not a rhetorical question. I'm asking since I have no data showing marketshare of burners)Today the number is obviously very small, as it was when DVD burning first appeared. The release of Hitachi's Blu-ray camcorder and the many PC burners available suggests the industry believes there is a clear market for burning 50GB discs (and probably higher in the future).
[quote]Talk, you mention PiP and internet interactivity as short term advantages for HD DVD. When it comes to BD; you talk as if writability is only for BD and it never appears on HD DVD (as we know burners and discs are slowly coming out). Isn't writability a short term advantage also for BD (if you ever consider it as important as PiP and internet connectivity and considering all HD DVD players will play HD DVD-Rs)?[/QUOTE

It looks like the news leaked early on the Combo format player that I hinted about this past weekend:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=902956

It is from LG and looks extremely promising.

Wow, I thought it was going to be the Samsung BDUP-5000. How does the LG player compare with the Samsung?

Samsung supposedly does

Full Blu-ray and HD DVD compatibility
1080P24 with both Blu-ray and HD DVD
BD profile 1 and 2 compatible
7.1 analog out
HDMI 1.3 compatible
Supports all advanced audio including dtsHD MA (with promised FW upgrade)
MSRP of $1049 w/ street price ~$800

Thanks,

It looks like the news leaked early on the Combo format player that I hinted about this past weekend:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=902956

It is from LG and looks extremely promising.

http://www.electronichouse.com/article/lg_dual_high_def_dvd_player_coming_next_month/C157
That only mentions 1080p/60, it better also support 1080p/24 otherwise it isn't as promising.

So when I asked "So persistent storage is not a requirement for any form of Blu-ray, as long as the player allows you to connect storage through another medium?" the answer was infact, yes. Persistant storage is not a requirement for any BD Profile. The ability to have it is, but not the memory itself.A minimum of 64KB of onboard persistent memory is always required.
As to the bolded above, what in BD1.1 requires the storage, and how much? They added it for a reason, so what is it?It would provide additional space for bookmarks, preferences, data storage which might be required for other interactive content. It could also be used for title updates (a studio could deliver updates to older discs via newer releases).

Aha! Interesting point you make. So, when the BDA subsidies for disc replication go away, the discs will become more expensive to the studios, right? Do you expect the studios to eat that cost or pass it on down?I expect replication costs will continue to drop. I doubt any studio expected subsidies would continue indefinitely.
Ohhhh ... I see ... so SoC architectures and software stacks are what are making the differences in replication cycle times and yields?Your point was that HD DVD player costs are lower. Replication cycle times and yields have no bearing on player costs.

Personally I think it's irresponsible of organizations to accept standards which aren't actually, well, standard. What's the point in saying "The player MUST be able to get access to at LEAST 256mb of storage, BUT actually including that storage is completely optional." Where's the standard?It ensures that every player will be able to support the content (albeit it might require a $10 memory card if the player doesn't ship with onboard memory). I also have every reason to believe that most players will ship with the profile minimums onboard, since it would obviously be a selling point and would be more customer-friendly, but I'm providing full disclosure here that it isn't required to be onboard (and this means that some 1.0 players may in fact be upgradeable to 1.1 even if they don't contain sufficient onboard local storage).

Is persistant storage made up of NAND or NOR Flash memory?I have no idea.
I can't figure out how you can source 64K chips, especially if it is NAND Flash. Higher density chips (into MBs) are only a few dollars. I can't believe that CE manufacturers must cut down these few dollars and eliminate the persistant storage....The minimum required is 64K. It's very likely that many or most players contain far more than that.

Wow, I thought it was going to be the Samsung BDUP-5000. How does the LG player compare with the Samsung?

Samsung supposedly does

Full Blu-ray and HD DVD compatibility
1080P24 with both Blu-ray and HD DVD
BD profile 1 and 2 compatible
7.1 analog out
HDMI 1.3 compatible
Supports all advanced audio including dtsHD MA (with promised FW upgrade)
MSRP of $1049 w/ street price ~$800

Thanks,

I was told it would do 1080p/24. As for the Samsung, I was personally under the impression that it was NOT profile 1.1 compliant, have they updated it recently and I missed it?

Thanks very much -- I definitely hadn't realized that. I guess then the question is how do you find out if the player is capable of supporting those amounts of memory. I'm guessing the answer is the spec'd Profile that it has when sold (if that isn't on the external box, then it definitely should be.)I'm sure players will clearly advertise that they support 1.1 or 2.0 profiles.
So, if one were to purchase a Samsung 2400 and it doesn't contain 1GB, but does contain dual audio/video decoders and a USB port, but is spec'd as BD 1.0, then one shouldn't imagine it is actually capable of supporting anything more than BD 1.0.The 2400 will have USB, so it could in theory support off-board local storage.

I find it interesting that Bill Gates still catches hell all these decades later for saying something to the effect of "You'll never need more than 640k" back in the 80's. Yet BDA has the nerve to tell consumers in 2006 that we'll never need more than 10x less than that in a next-gen media format? The BDA spec'ed minimum storage. It's up to individual player vendors to include support for the amount of storage they see fit. I fail to see how this equates to your analogy.

Your point was that HD DVD player costs are lower. Replication cycle times and yields have no bearing on player costs.
But the design of BD format clearly impacts player costs. Another member has done better justice to this topic than I ever could :): http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=11309976&&#post11309976

To expand on what Lee said the big difference is in the optics.

DVD and CD have a numerical aperture (NA) of 0.60. To maintain compatibility HD DVD uses a NA of 0.65 which is close enough that the same lens can be used to focus the infared light (CD), red light (DVD), and blue light (HD). The NA or numerical aperture of a lens in simply a value that corresponds to the maximum angle of light that can enter the lens. To keep it simple a higher NA will have a larger incident angle and as a result a higher the optical resolution, lower focal length and lower depth of field. The limit of a lens in air is an NA of 1.0.

The "problem" with keeping the NA similar to CD/DVD is that moving from red to blue only increases the capacity by a factor of 3x while the jump from 480p to 1080p is a 6x jump in pixels. At the time the only codec was mpeg2 and there simply wasn't enough capacity. Toshiba flirted with the idea of going mpeg2 and 720p. Microsoft showing VC-1 could enabled a 2:1 compression over mpeg2 allowed HD DVD to gain support of the DVD Forum. By using an NA of 0.65 HD DVD allows the use of existing DVD lines. For all intents and purposes an HD DVD is simply a DVD with smaller pits. By using a single lens HD DVD also allows for cheaper optical pickup units.

BD on the other hand was original designed as an mpeg2 system. 3 years prior to it's release as a prerecorded playback system it was being sold in Japan as an HD recorder. Using mpeg2 BD needed a capacity of 25 & 50 GB. The numbers were chosen because at the bitrates used for HDTV in Japan 25GB would record slightly more than one hour (TV) and 50GB would record slightly more than 2 hours (movies).

Now BD and HD DVD use the exact same 405nm blue-violet diode as a laser source. So how does BD gain 2/3 more capacity? Sony changed the NA from 0.6 to 0.85. This creates as focus point closer to the laser source (and hence closer to the top of the disc). This one small change has radical effects on the material science involved.
1) The light spot is now smaller allowing the pits to be placed closer together = higher capacity and bandwidth.
2) The data layer is now located only 0.1mm away from the surface as opposed to 0.6mm for CD, DVD, HD DVD.
3) The same lens can NOT be used for other formats (CD/DVD/HD DVD) because it would be out of focus when looking at a data layer 0.6mm from disc surface.
4) The ultra thin top layer necessitated a harder top coat.
5) The BD discs can not be made on DVD stampers, and other replication equipment.

How do BD players playback DVD & CD?
Two lenses are used (or a floating lens on the PS3). The light from the infrared and red diodes are directed through a 0.6NA lens to allow proper focus at the 0.6mm data layer. The light from the blue diode is directed through a 0.85NA lens to allow proper focus at the 0.1mm data layer.

The interesting fact is that a BD drive that can playback CD and/or DVD essentially has everything it needs (at the optical level) to playback HD DVD also. This does not mean that any BD drive can playback HD DVD because they can't. It means that with little modification and cost a design for a CD/DVD/BD drive could be converted into a CD/DVD/BD/HD DVD drive. The actual material cost in adding HD DVD support to a BD drive would be minimal*. The blue diode light needs to be redirected (via a splitter) through the 0.65NA vs the 0.85NA lens used by BD.

The reverse is not true. A HD DVD only drive will still cost substantially more to build in BD playback. An HD DVD drive would need the additional and higher cost 0.85NA lens and the higher grade actuators to enable the smaller movements necessary to track the smaller BD tracks. While diodes get all the press it is the 0.85NA lens that greatly increases the complexity and cost of the BD optical pickup. While 0.60 NA lenses on CD and DVD can now be mass produced out of plastic the 0.85NA lens in BD drives is a high precision glass optic. The higher NA means the lens has a very small depth of field. If the lens is out of tolerance even slightly it will be either near sighted or far sighted and miss the data layer.

*One potential issue with lower cost of combo drives is that both technologies are proprietary and would need to be licensed. In effect the licensing cost is now doubled.

Emphasis mine.

The BDA spec'ed minimum storage. It's up to individual player vendors to include support for the amount of storage they see fit. I fail to see how this equates to your analogy.

So, if we were to do the same with HD DVD, and added a USB 500-1000 gigabyte drive, we could then have unlimited capacity through digital distribution. Correct? One could download additional audio tracks which would have their own bandwidth budget for example. People who want the extra tracks get it, folks who don't, well, don't :).

Put another way, once you sign up for user adding storage to make the system complete, HD DVD with mandatory networking gets incredible capabilities here to limitless capacity.

I was told it would do 1080p/24. As for the Samsung, I was personally under the impression that it was NOT profile 1.1 compliant, have they updated it recently and I missed it?
Discussion in the Dual Format forum is that because it is powered by Broadcom BCM7440 chip that it will support both profile 1.0 and 2.0 (and by default 1.1). If that's true, I think this will be my next player.

If independent replicators (1 so far) can get 50% yields now it seems it would not be a show stopper in the format war. Could be better but I'd thought it was worse.

- Tom


What are considered 'good' yields in the disk replication business? Given that we're dealing with new technology, let us assume some mythical average with DVD replication yield as a comparator or baseline. I think anything below 70-80%* yield in the semiconductor business is considered as losing money so I'd be surprised to learn that 50% yields are very heartening. Of course, they may've come a long way since inception, which may be cause for hope.


*I remember reading this figure quoted somewhere but can't find the link. I think it may have been somewhere on this site: http://smithsonianchips.si.edu/index2.htm

Indeed, not since ATI v. nVidia have I seen this polarization. I am, unfortunately coming to the conclusion that BOTH sides have chosen this marketing strategy. With the "previous" rules on the Insiders thread being what they were and one sides' willingness to have their representative post extensively on the opponent's format and that opponent having a different style and/or less latitude to engage at that level, the thread IMO was in effect a viral marketing tool for one side on an ostensibly neutral forum. I expect to be spun and manipulated on a forum called BD.com (or HD-DVD.com if their is one), but not here.

I have met quite a few AVS members on BD.com and their story was pretty much the same as mine; the anti-BD atmosphere became too much for them to bear. I might add that NONE of them are flame-throwing BD fanboys over there. But I doubt that "this thread" will see it that way. Too bad.


So because one side is seemingly less capable of dishing the dirt, we should limit discourse? The Insider's Thread is/was open to all. If Talk, kjack, paid, or Penton can sling it then let them. The open discourse between insiders and questions asked by non-insiders should be sufficient for anyone to glean what is true, and what is BS.

BTW, viral marketing? :LOL: Given the possibilities, I'd much rather know whose post I'm reading than not. If you don't feel confident enough in your ability to separate the wheat from the chaff then that's your problem. Please don't make it everyone else's.

...now that it's at least more than just hinted at, can anybody further comment upon the combo unit from LG. Did MS, for example, participate in any testing of HDi for certification? Any hands on with the unit that we should know about?

Disappointing that it's not also 2.0, at least with the prelim info that we've got so far.

Dave, you have anything to add? I mean, we -did- suffer with your endless teasing, no? :)

Guess it's not a Sony combo... sigh...

The BDA spec'ed minimum storage. It's up to individual player vendors to include support for the amount of storage they see fit. I fail to see how this equates to your analogy.

Minimum storage almost always becomes the standard for development when it comes to consumer electronics.

Sony or MS could come out with an expansion memory module for the PS3 or 360 for game developers to take advantage of. But I'd wager it would get little or no support. I don't see why it's any different for a movie disc player.

Sure, storage for just storing content is a bit different. But studios are much less likely to be pro-active about developing for such, when such a useless "bare-minimum" is owned by the majority of consumers. Unless you want to argue that Studios have true faith in J6P to buy expandable storage to take advantage of upcoming features.

Talk,

If you feel comfortable enought to say this:

Blu-ray will "always allow for more content, higher quality content, or some combination of the two."

Are you trying to bait Amir? I don't know how he can let this one go by. Should you not be putting down the competing technology?

Well, to be fair to Talk Blu-Ray has many more titles with lossless audio tracks on them. 171 titles for Blu-Ray contain lossless tracks, whereas HD DVD currently has 45 titles that have lossless. Is this due to more capacity? More bandwidth? Or perhaps a combination of both depending on the title?

Well, to be fair to Talk Blu-Ray has many more titles with lossless audio tracks on them. 171 titles for Blu-Ray contain lossless tracks, whereas HD DVD currently has 45 titles that have lossless. Is this due to more capacity? More bandwidth? Or perhaps a combination of both depending on the title?
It's due to Sony and Buena Vista's audio preference.

The two neutral studios (when one now) didn't use much lossless audio until more recently. Same goes for Universal.

It's due to Sony and Buena Vista's audio preference.

The two neutral studios (when one now) didn't use much lossless audio until more recently. Same goes for Universal.

It does appear that both Warner and Universal are including more lossless tracks on certain titles, but the end result is that Blu-Ray has an advantage. I suspect there are titles on HD30 discs that simply did not have room for TrueHD tracks (especially 20/24 bit tracks that we see from Disney and Sony is starting to put out).

My question was more about Talk saying that blu-ray "always" has better quality content.

Personally, given the same master, I think both can look the same, as Warner has shown. I don't think one can look better if the same master is processed by an experienced encoder.

I suspect there are titles on HD30 discs that simply did not have room for TrueHD tracks (especially 20/24 bit tracks that we see from Disney and Sony is starting to put out).
Once more, there is no such thing as "24-bit" track. You have 4-bits of noise*length of the movie filling the disc. I am pretty sure even at 20-bits there is some amount of noise rather than real audio on those discs.

My question was more about Talk saying that blu-ray "always" has better quality content.

Personally, given the same master, I think both can look the same, as Warner has shown. I don't think one can look better if the same master is processed by an experienced encoder.

As an owner of both formats I don't disagree with you (PQ for both is excellent), but I don't think Warner has really pushed the boundaries of their BD releases. It seems to me that they use the same encodes at the same bitrates on both (can't blame them).

That said, I think Warner could easily add a 24bit TrueHD track to their BD titles while also maximizing the bitrate for PQ and still have plenty of space left over even on a long movie (3+ hours). While they could add a TrueHD track for HD DVD, most likely PQ would start to suffer, especially once you start throwing in all of the IME and HD extras.

All the same, I think the rest of Talk's post had some interesting information:

The higher bandwidth will allow more and/or higher quality audio tracks than would otherwise be possible (especially important outside the US) and makes seamless branching more feasible. I'm also confident many other uses will be found for the additional 20GB of available space, such as bundling iPod versions of the video content, companion videos, or the like.

@Talk, I love the idea of iPod versions of the movie. Please pass my vote for this to the BDA. I am loving my iPhone, and this would be icing on the cake :)

...and to be further fair to Talk, it's an opinion, couched with a positive comment about HD DVD that you conveniently omitted. I'm not saying you should agree with it, and you should certainly read his comments as critically as those from any insider, but there's indeed something to be said about the =potential= advantage of larger storage.

I think question of minimum persistent storage amounts is also being spun a bit hard - it's a question about minimum specs vs. actual implementation. While I'm not sure why they chose 64k (I honestly thought he was kidding, making a backhanded Bill Gates reference), the point remains that in actual implementation BD players are likely to have far more RAM available than the min.

With the recent video of T2 from Germany on the HD DVD side, and hints of BD-J implementation on the video linked (and sadly not implemented), it yet again shows how soon we are into stretching the capabilities of authoring interesting content on -both- formats. Once again we're in agreement that both of these formats are significantly better than HD, and with the release of a seemingly competent combo player in a competive price range at least speaks to the =possibilty= that those that are neutral will soon win the day.

Once more, there is no such thing as "24-bit" track. You have 4-bits of noise*length of the movie filling the disc. I am pretty sure even at 20-bits there is some amount of noise rather than real audio on those discs.

Correct me if I am wrong but I thought the audio experts around here stated that lossless really shines once you have 20 and 24bit tracks (versus 16 bit)?

Correct me if I am wrong but I thought the audio experts around here stated that lossless really shines once you have 20 and 24bit tracks (versus 16 bit)?
Well, this audiophile has said otherwise :).

I have talked about this at length. Here is a good start: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showpost.php?p=11397746&postcount=2657

As you see there, audio experts as in Bob Stuard of Meridian show mathematical proof that even 14-bits of audio sounds superb, if properly dithered. And that there is no case that anything >20-bits can be justified as having any audible value. Please see the paper linked above. And then have people who claim otherwise, show their math.

This is the key part again from above post:

Here is Bob’s paper again: http://www.meridian-audio.com/w_paper/Coding2.PDF. And the conclusion at the end:

“This article has reviewed the issues surrounding the transmission of high-resolution digital audio. It is
suggested that a channel that attains audible transparency will be equivalent to a PCM channel that
uses:
•58kHz sampling rate, and
•14-bit representation with appropriate noise shaping, or
•20-bit representation in a flat noise floor, i.e. a ‘rectangular’ channel”

Well, this audiophile has said otherwise :).

I have talked about this at length. Here is a good start: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showpost.php?p=11397746&postcount=2657

As you see there, audio experts as in Bob Stuard of Meridian show mathematical proof that even 14-bits of audio sounds superb, if properly dithered. And that there is no case that anything >20-bits can be justified as having any audible value. Please see the paper linked above. And then have people who claim otherwise, show their math.

This is the key part again from above post:

Here is Bob’s paper again: http://www.meridian-audio.com/w_paper/Coding2.PDF. And the conclusion at the end:

“This article has reviewed the issues surrounding the transmission of high-resolution digital audio. It is
suggested that a channel that attains audible transparency will be equivalent to a PCM channel that
uses:
•?58kHz sampling rate, and
•?14-bit representation with appropriate noise shaping, or
•?20-bit representation in a flat noise floor, i.e. a ‘rectangular’ channel”

Amir,

Thank you for the information. I am a little too bleary eyed to read it tonight but I will surely read it after I have had some sleep :)

This is why I come to the Insiders thread. To learn and hear the opinions of folks like yourself, Talk, Paid, and a host of others. I appreciate the time and effort you folks spend here talking with us.

That's what I would have thought; but Sammy announced their player (both previously and at IFA) with no mention of profiles. Maybe they are holding back for a CEDIA announcement where they will point the the fact that it's firmware upgradable. There pdf doc on the player makes no such claim; and in fact specifically says "PiP for HD DVD", or something to that effect.

Still, there aren't many other likely candidates. Unless it's a new, updated design from LG (now that's something I hadn't thought of).Well, looks like I called it :D. LG BH-200 (http://www.electronichouse.com/article/lg_dual_high_def_dvd_player_coming_next_month/).

Yup, but we'll have to wait for specs as no mention of 1080P/24, TrueHD or DTS-HD MA or scaler chip. Upside is that it appears to be BD 1.1/2.0

From previous post on Insider thread: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showpost.php?p=9918674&postcount=2521

Which was followed by this reponse from Paid: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showpost.php?p=9919531&postcount=2528

So to translate, the amount that is mandatory in BD players is 64kb but according to Sony, it is useless. It also seems that the extra memory was eliminated from the profile some time after the above posts.

Do folks still think they shouldn't see the actual profile specs so that you can determine what is in, and what is out?

Amir you should stop teaching BD insiders about their own format. Its getting embarrassing :D :D

Wow, I thought it was going to be the Samsung BDUP-5000. How does the LG player compare with the Samsung?

Samsung supposedly does

Full Blu-ray and HD DVD compatibility
1080P24 with both Blu-ray and HD DVD
BD profile 1 and 2 compatible
7.1 analog out
HDMI 1.3 compatible
Supports all advanced audio including dtsHD MA (with promised FW upgrade)
MSRP of $1049 w/ street price ~$800


http://blogs.pcworld.com/staffblog/archives/004989.html

UPDATE: And, sadly, you won't get support for the forthcoming update to Blu-ray's minimum player specs that go into effect October 31. Those specs delineate requirements for in-unit storage (256MB for those keeping score), picture-in-picture via a secondary audio and video decode, and ethernet-enabled interactivity. Samsung's own initial press release, distributed earlier today, noted the player will have local storage and picture-in-picture--however, it did not specify that those features would be strictly for HD DVD discs (the company has since updated their info). Later in the day I met with Samsung's Maria Colon, marketing manager, and Reid Sullivan, vice president of marketing; they clarified that the BD-UP5000's storage and picture-in-picture would only work or HD DVD discs, not Blu-ray Discs. Sullivan also said that Samsung would not have a Blu-ray player with the updated specs until 2008.

I'm sure players will clearly advertise that they support 1.1 or 2.0 profiles.


Talk, firstly thanks for the full disclosure about the memory support issue with 1.1 profile players. I tend to agree with you and suspect that most players will indeed simply have the memory on board, and that this will likely be a non issue. However I wish the spec had been written differently and the memory required to be present. I hope any decks NOT including the memory disclose "Some discs may require USB storage.", or some such.

In any case, I've hammered on you about BDA disclosure in the past, and I appreciate your insight here, especially in light of recent tone here.

My question has to do with your comment above. Can you speak to the rationale of players clearly advertising their profile compliance for 1.1/2.0 decks when previous decks have had anything but "clear" marking thereof?

On the surface it seems like two possible implications here:

1) Deck manufacturers are now advertising 1.1 decks so as to spur sales of newer decks with this as an additional selling point. They did not previously disclose 1.0 conformance for fear of freezing the market until 1.1 decks arrived.

2) Manufacturers are comfortable now advertising 1.1 decks even though the 2.0 profile exists. This implies that: A) 2.0 is so far off that they aren't afraid of freezing the market now, or B) They really don't plan on mentioning that 2.0 is coming, or C) just about every 1.1 deck is 2.0-ready as well.

Thoughts?

Talk-

Given your use of the same word ("support") to describe memory requirements in this post: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showpost.php?p=9918674&postcount=2521, does this imply that 2.0 players will likewise not necessarily have 1GB on board?

Well, looks like I called it :D. LG BH-200 (http://www.electronichouse.com/article/lg_dual_high_def_dvd_player_coming_next_month/).NOt news. Everyone knew they were updating their player.

As you see there, audio experts as in Bob Stuard of Meridian show mathematical proof that even 14-bits of audio sounds superb, if properly dithered. And that there is no case that anything >20-bits can be justified as having any audible value.
I've some follow up questions on this:

(1) Do you know whether studios are doing "proper dithering" to get 16bit masters for lossless compression?
(2) I think your comment is not entirely clear about whether you think that more than 16bit are useful or not. Could you please clarify?
(3) What is your opinion about FilmMixer saying that he finds 20bit to sound noticably better compared to 16bit?
(4) Do you think TrueHD 20bit would be worthwhile?

Thanks!

The most recent rule change was flowed down to us moderators
Could you please report back to "the top" that many of us hate the new rules?

Just a theoretical example why the new rules are stupid: Let's say the Blu-Ray insiders get information that HD DVD discs when being watched slowly transform the viewer into a zombie over time. The HD DVD insiders wouldn't mention this, naturally. And the Blu-Ray insiders would not be allowed to mention this due to the new rules. So nobody would tell the news to us AVSForum members and all of us who watch HD DVDs would slowly turn into zombies.

How can an information forum block certain (legitimate) information from being posted?

It looks like the news leaked early on the Combo format player that I hinted about this past weekend:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=902956

It is from LG and looks extremely promising.

Yey I was right :D

I've some follow up questions on this:

(1) Do you know whether studios are doing "proper dithering" to get 16bit masters for lossless compression?
No I don't and I suspect not. But it is a very simple process so adding it is a hell of a lot easier than learning HDi, BD-J, BD+, VC-1/AVC encoding, etc. Any well recorded CD would use such a dither so if we care about audio fidelity, we must push the studios to use proper dither, than have them waste space for nothing.

(2) I think your comment is not entirely clear about whether you think that more than 16bit are useful or not. Could you please clarify?
The math shows that 16-bit PCM with proper dither has infinite resolution. The noise floor would be a bit higher than undithered PCM however, such a noise floor is below audible threshold in any listening room.

So yes, I do believe we are wasting bits with > 16-bits.

(3) What is your opinion about FilmMixer saying that he finds 20bit to sound noticably better compared to 16bit?
You should ask him if he has dithered the 16-bit with the dither algorithm suggested by John Dawson.
(4) Do you think TrueHD 20bit would be worthwhile?
No, I think that is still wasteful. Because the low order bits are essentially noise, the TrueHD efficiency goes down when you encode at > 16-bits. So you not only carry more noise, but also reduce how well you are able to encode. And with no audible improvement per above.

According to Dolby’s own document (http://www.dolby.com/assets/pdf//tech_library/TrueHD_FAQ_10925_Final.pdf), the efficiency of TrueHD goes down from 3:1 to 2:1 when you move from 16-bits to 24-bits! Why? Because pure noise cannot be compressed. The shows that low-order bits are really noise, making an otherwise compressable signal, not.

As a way of analogy, using more bits than is needed is like buying higher octane gas for a car without a knock sensor. You simply pay more but your car doesn’t perform any better. Even with a knock sensor, I doubt anyone notices that their car accelerates faster because they used higher octane.

Thanks!
My pleasure. If you follow the link in the insider thread past the link I gave you, you see useful follow up, including one from Paid who lashes at Meridian as being a sour competitor yet provides no scientific data to counter the data in the paper.

I expect replication costs will continue to drop. I doubt any studio expected subsidies would continue indefinitely.
Your point was that HD DVD player costs are lower. Replication cycle times and yields have no bearing on player costs.

Who is subsidizing the Venturer player then? It looks like it will MSRP for $199 ... so are we to assume they are taking a major loss on this player? If they can produce something for $199 and make money on it ... why can't Toshiba do the same?

No I don't and I suspect not. But it is a very simple process so adding it is a hell of a lot easier than learning HDi, BD-J, BD+, VC-1/AVC encoding, etc. Any well recorded CD would use such a dither so if we care about audio fidelity, we must push the studios to use proper dither, than have them waste space for nothing.
I have a 24bit PCM English track from Pirates of the Caribbean from the US Blu-Ray release and a 16bit PCM English track of the same movie from the European Blu-Ray release. I'll try to find out if any kind of dithering was used (opposed to truncating or rounding).

The math shows that 16-bit PCM with proper dither has infinite resolution. The noise floor would be a bit higher than undithered PCM however, such a noise floor is below audible threshold in any listening room.
What is your opinion about this article? I stumbled about it and am quite confused now:

http://www.stereophile.com/features/705dither/index.html

If you follow the link in the insider thread past the link I gave you, you see useful follow up, including one from Paid who lashes at Meridian as being a sour competitor yet provides no scientific data to counter the data in the paper.
I have already read all that. Actually John Dawson's mention of TPDF dither was a reply to one of my questions... :)

I have no reason to believe that most players won't ship with the 256MB/1GB which the spec requires, but for any players which don't ship with this memory onboard I don't consider it particularly burdensome to pick up a 1GB flash card for $10.

Ahhh ... but once the consumer is required to add his/her own space, doesn't the benefit of a mandatory Network Interface really shine? After all, that user doesn't have to go and buy a Flash Card, they can just attach to local network storage. Or, if we're going to put the onus on the consumer, attach a 250GB USB drive to their player and have it download all sorts of goodies via the internet and in the background. They could download TrueHD soundtracks of the movie in 27 different languages and still have space left over.

It just doesn't make sense. If it costs a consumer $10 for a packaged retail 1GB Flash Card, how many pennies did CE's save by not including the embedded storage? You seemed to indicate that Studios would not care about a .20 or .30 difference on discs that could sell in the billions, but suddenly a CE that might sell a few hundred thousand players is worried about pennies? :confused:

http://blogs.pcworld.com/staffblog/archives/004989.html

I think what the poster you quoted was trying to say is that the Broadcom 7440 chip is "compatible" with BD 1.1 and 2.0. Of course that has no relation to whether the Samsung will actually satisfy the specs. As long as it's got DTS-HD MA I couldn't care less, but it's a shame as that would have completed the checklist for the player as the do everything unit to go for.

As an owner of both formats I don't disagree with you (PQ for both is excellent), but I don't think Warner has really pushed the boundaries of their BD releases. It seems to me that they use the same encodes at the same bitrates on both (can't blame them).

That said, I think Warner could easily add a 24bit TrueHD track to their BD titles while also maximizing the bitrate for PQ and still have plenty of space left over even on a long movie (3+ hours). While they could add a TrueHD track for HD DVD, most likely PQ would start to suffer, especially once you start throwing in all of the IME and HD extras.

I don't think studios are big on pushing TrueHD on Blu-ray releases since it's not a mandatory codec in the player(s).

It ensures that every player will be able to support the content (albeit it might require a $10 memory card if the player doesn't ship with onboard memory). I also have every reason to believe that most players will ship with the profile minimums onboard, since it would obviously be a selling point and would be more customer-friendly, but I'm providing full disclosure here that it isn't required to be onboard (and this means that some 1.0 players may in fact be upgradeable to 1.1 even if they don't contain sufficient onboard local storage).

I appreciate your answering these questions here. As one who is waiting for 2.0 players in order to seriously consider purchasing a BD player, this is disappointing news. Hopefully, all players will actually ship with the storage space. If consumers are expected to add external memory in order to have full functionality, I'd have concerns about studios actually producing content that takes advantage of the 2.0 features, especially with 2.0 being optional to begin with.

We will see...soon I hope.

Well, this audiophile has said otherwise :).

I have talked about this at length. Here is a good start: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showpost.php?p=11397746&postcount=2657

As you see there, audio experts as in Bob Stuard of Meridian show mathematical proof that even 14-bits of audio sounds superb, if properly dithered. And that there is no case that anything >20-bits can be justified as having any audible value. Please see the paper linked above. And then have people who claim otherwise, show their math.

This is the key part again from above post:

Here is Bob’s paper again: http://www.meridian-audio.com/w_paper/Coding2.PDF. And the conclusion at the end:

“This article has reviewed the issues surrounding the transmission of high-resolution digital audio. It is
suggested that a channel that attains audible transparency will be equivalent to a PCM channel that
uses:
•58kHz sampling rate, and
•14-bit representation with appropriate noise shaping, or
•20-bit representation in a flat noise floor, i.e. a ‘rectangular’ channel”

Isn't the depth also more important with Audio/Music than it is with a Movie Soundtrack? I thought there were several references that indicated DD+ did an outstanding job of handing movie soundtracks.

If we're talking an Opera or something, that's one thing. But how much better resolution is TrueHD at 16 bit (or 20 or 24 bit) going to give me than DD+ when we we're talking about dialog, a few gunshots, and a car and building exploding? :confused:

I think what the poster you quoted was trying to say is that the Broadcom 7440 chip is "compatible" with BD 1.1 and 2.0. Of course that has no relation to whether the Samsung will actually satisfy the specs. As long as it's got DTS-HD MA I couldn't care less, but it's a shame as that would have completed the checklist for the player as the do everything unit to go for.

I, for one, was disappointed with the lack of PiP and BD accessible storage on the Samsung unit. I really would like to see a BD-Live player released, since that is what I'll be interested in purchasing. Although the extras are not the reason I buy a movie, I don't want a situation where I can't access all of the features on a disc. Still waiting, but hopefully not for long.

Yup, but we'll have to wait for specs as no mention of 1080P/24, TrueHD or DTS-HD MA or scaler chip. Upside is that it appears to be BD 1.1/2.0

As an HD DVD logo'd player, it would have to support TrueHD, no?

As an HD DVD logo'd player, it would have to support TrueHD, no?

One would have thought but even the press release doesn't mention THD.

I, for one, was disappointed with the lack of PiP and BD accessible storage on the Samsung unit. I really would like to see a BD-Live player released, since that is what I'll be interested in purchasing. Although the extras are not the reason I buy a movie, I don't want a situation where I can't access all of the features on a disc. Still waiting, but hopefully not for long.

I don't disagree, it would definitely be nice to have but for me the movie is the thing, everything else is just icing on the cake. In that regard, top PQ and lossless audio are required. For example, I picked up 300 on BD despite the better HD DVD disc for two reasons: (1) combos suck and (2) I'm not paying more for a release which is identical in PQ and audio as the BR release. But those are my priorities and for others I can fully understand that the lack of profile 1.1 and/or 2.0 will cause them to scratch the player off the wish list.

I don't think studios are big on pushing TrueHD on Blu-ray releases since it's not a mandatory codec in the player(s).

See the Spiderman boxset (Spiderman 1+2 are TrueHD only, no PCM. Spiderman 2+3 ar 24bit TrueHD). I also believe that Close Encouters is TrueHD and DTS-HD-MA only (24bit). The only BD standalone players that I am aware of that don't currently support TrueHD (I believe upcoming players will) are the Samsung players. Just because something is not in the specs does not mean it won't be adopted by the majority :)

What is your opinion about this article? I stumbled about it and am quite confused now:

http://www.stereophile.com/features/705dither/index.html
First, let me explain in layman terms what Keith is saying and experimenting with in this article. He starts off by articulating the fact that dithered simply raises the noise floor but is the proper means to get rid of quantization noise (conversion of 24-bit to 16-bit). In actual experimentation though, he finds that he likes the dithered 16-bit signal less than undithered 16-bit. He then goes on to figure out why.

His finding is that the signal itself, is pre-dithred with noise! That is, the source material possesses enough noise as not require further dithering. And that doing so, brings up the noise floor more and potentially changes the sound because you are summing two dither functions.

In simpler terms, he is saying and correctly so, that his sources were not really 24-bits and that much of the extra resolution there was noise. And since the signal was already noisy, you didn’t need to add more noise to it to get rid of the distortion in going from 24-bits to 16-bits. Here is the key sentence repeated twice in the article:

“Although it is understandable, given typical levels of microphone self-noise, it is still disconcerting to find that many commercial audiophile 24-bit recordings achieve no better than 16-bit noise performance.”

Quite amazing isn’t it? His experiment shows that his super high-end recordings have no more resolution than 16-bits! He proves this by analyzing the source and extracting its inherent noise level. Such tools have been run on movie soundtracks. Do you know what they show? That many soundtracks have no more than 11-bits of true resolution! No, I am not saying every movie is like this. But if audiophile recordings don’t have more than 16-bits of resolution, what hope is there for movie tracks?

Keep in mind that even a simple mix of two signals requires dither if you are to do the job well. So by the time you are doing with mixing many elements of a movie, you have applied dithered and other types of noise processing in the production chain. As such, even if the original sound was of highest quality and had > 16-bits of resolution, chances of any of that resolution reaching the output is next to nil.

Now, it would be fair to point out another important point. What sounds good, is not what is accurate! Let me repeat again. Just because you think something sounds better, it doesn’t mean you are hearing a higher fidelity representation of it. When I really want to enjoy music, I listen to it with my tube headphone system. I also have its transistor based equiv and the tube easily outperforms it in warmth and overall enjoyment it provides to me. Yet, I know if I measured the performance of the two, the tube will have tons more distortion. That distortion happens to sound better to me, but I am clearly further away from the source in the areas that the sound is getting distorted.

Here is an analogy in home theater. Your sub woofer probably uses a digital amplifier which has tons of distortion when coupled with the large driver. Take two different subs and you might pick the one that rattles the floor more, even though it might have 5X the distortion. You like it better because you like the energy it generates where in reality, it might be much more distorted base.


Bob’s paper also talks about other non-intuitive things like above. For example, he makes a case that higher sampling rate might sound worse because your DAC may perform worse there. But someone may think that sound is better than lower sampling rates to their ears.

So all in all, the article shines good light on the subject at hand. And makes people ponder even more, whether there is anything but marketing in “24-bit” audio even in audiophile recordings. I hope everyone agrees that we want to only use up disc storage/bandwidth that the source signal requires and not a bit more. As doing otherwise, simply wastes resources and doesn’t gain us anything.

So because one side is seemingly less capable of dishing the dirt, we should limit discourse? The Insider's Thread is/was open to all. If Talk, kjack, paid, or Penton can sling it then let them. The open discourse between insiders and questions asked by non-insiders should be sufficient for anyone to glean what is true, and what is BS.
Apparently, I grossly underestimated fanboy appetite for dirt on the opposing format. :rolleyes:

Amir,

Since you seem to be on a role regarding audio questions and this is tangentially related to the above discussion (which has been extremely informative) can you please respond to the below (even if it's an I have no idea response):

Is it accurate that due to AACS, no matter the actual audio encode of a HDDVD or BR disc, if I'm outputting 2-channel PCM audio via coax digital to an external DAC then it would be limited to no better than 48/16 but if I were to use the analog RCA 2 channel out on the player there would be no such limit on the output?

Thanks.

See the Spiderman boxset (Spiderman 1+2 are TrueHD only, no PCM. Spiderman 2+3 ar 24bit TrueHD). I also believe that Close Encouters is TrueHD and DTS-HD-MA only (24bit). The only BD standalone players that I am aware of that don't currently support TrueHD (I believe upcoming players will) are the Samsung players. Just because something is not in the specs does not mean it won't be adopted by the majority :)
If they all mean to include TrueHD, why did they make it optional in the format? We know there is no royalty cost for it....

Amir,

Since you seem to be on a role regarding audio questions and this is tangentially related to the above discussion (which has been extremely informative) can you please respond to the below (even if it's an I have no idea response):

Is it accurate that due to AACS, no matter the actual audio encode of a HDDVD or BR disc, if I'm outputting 2-channel PCM audio via coax digital to an external DAC then it would be limited to no better than 48/16 but if I were to use the analog RCA 2 channel out on the player there would be no such limit on the output?

Thanks.

As far as I know, that is true. If the output is in the clear, then the resolution cannot be more than that. I put in the language from AACS in the insider thread.

Thank you very much for the response, much appreciated as always.

Isn't the depth also more important with Audio/Music than it is with a Movie Soundtrack?
Absolutely. Good music recodings are subjected to far less processing and as such, have a better chance of having higher resolution.

I thought there were several references that indicated DD+ did an outstanding job of handing movie soundtracks.
They do and hence the reason I am a fan of lossless for music/musicals, but don't care one way or the other for movies.

If we're talking an Opera or something, that's one thing. But how much better resolution is TrueHD at 16 bit (or 20 or 24 bit) going to give me than DD+ when we we're talking about dialog, a few gunshots, and a car and building exploding? :confused:
Your chair will rattle just the same whether it is DD+ or TrueHD :).

To be fair though, I do not think 640kbps and lower is enough for a lossy codec to achieve the proper level of fidelity. I like to see > 1 mbit/sec to feel good about lossy performance.

Does anyone know when reviewers will have the BH200 Super Blu Player?

Amir: Your post above on 16-bit/24-bit is EXCELLENT and makes a complex and deep subject easy (easier?) to grok for the non-technical among us.

If they all mean to include TrueHD, why did they make it optional in the format? We know there is no royalty cost for it....

Good question. Having recently sold my Samsung BD-P1000 for a PS3 (TrueHD was one of the factors) I really wish they would make TrueHD decoding mandatory just as HD DVD has.

I am waiting on the news from CEDIA, but I was very disappointed with all the new 1.0 profile players that were announced at IFA from BD CE's. Even though I am not one to really take advantage of PiP and some of the web enabled IME features currently found on quite a few HD DVD's, I know that other folks do care, and lack of these features may be keeping folks on the fence.

I do applaud HD DVD for having better defined specs and better execution on bringing these players to the market since day 1. It is comforting to know that my $249 A2 player will play all of the new interactive features from Universal, Warner, and Paramount (see Transformers).

So all in all, the article shines good light on the subject at hand. And makes people ponder even more, whether there is anything but marketing in “24-bit” audio even in audiophile recordings. I hope everyone agrees that we want to only use up disc storage/bandwidth that the source signal requires and not a bit more. As doing otherwise, simply wastes resources and doesn’t gain us anything.

To the audio insiders,

I think one of the Bob's we referenced prior in these audio-related discussions suggested that high quality 16 bit recording hardware was better than average 24 bit recording hardware. Can you flesh this out some?

Is there a correct way to record material at 24 bit so that it at least has the capability of higher resolution than at 16 bit?

Can/should dither be applied during the initial recording? If so, would this be better accomplished by adding analog noise prior to ADC or digital noise after ADC?

Has there been any studies which show that a particular sample rate (44.1, 48, 88.2, 96, 192, etc etc) performs better and/or has some correlation to the bits used (like a harmonic effect for example, or a direct relationship between the sample rate & bit rate)?

I’ve received a lot of flack the past few days from people wanting me to reveal my sources in regard to the yield rates on both BD50’s and BD25’s. I will NOT list the company in order to protect the employee.

Here is where it all started. In doing HD DVD and BD reviews, talking to encoders helps A LOT in understanding how the process works. I have two such people that I have spoken to who have provided me with technical advice for quite some time. They are:

Independent DVD/HD DVD/BD Encoder who does work for both BD and HD DVD studios
Independent DVD/BD Encoder who does work for two BD studios
Also, a third source in this is a Studio Employee

The studio employee tipped me off that yields weren’t up to what was being published so I asked the encoders if they had heard the same and they concurred. Both stated that when they were doing encodes on BD disc (single layer), they had to try and keep the total file system to under 23 GB because when they went over that data amount, yields dropped precipitously. So essentially a 25 GB disc was really only a 22-23 GB disc for it to be manufactured with any efficiency.

As for BD50 yields, the same applies with them as well when it comes to the data on the disc. They try and keep the data 10-15% below the max space (42-45 GB) for the same reasons, but the overall yields on the BD50’s weren’t that good, but they couldn’t supply actual numbers to me. So as with BD25’s, the actual space on BD50’s is in the neighborhood of 42-45GB, which is still a ton of data, but also isn’t 50GB either.

In discussions with one of these encoders, they stated that Sony was originally doing all of the manufacturing of the BD discs for them because their normal supplier couldn’t get yields above 10% on BD50’s since installing their lines.

So, with this information, I started to ask some more questions such as who is doing your manufacturing for you, do you know anyone I can talk to etc. Well, it turns out that one of the people was able to get me in contact with someone at a replication facility, so here is my next contact:

Employee at Independent replication facility

What he told me is that his company couldn’t do the BD50’s above a 10% yield so all of their work was sent out to a third party company (independent as well) who could do the work. He let me know who this company was and it turned out that I was able to get a contact there. Which leads to my next contact:

Another Employee at separate Independent replication facility

This person goes on to tell me much of the same things that I have been hearing from those above, that yields are very low when a lot of data is on the disc (both BD25’s and BD50’s), but the average yields on BD25’s are in the 60-70% range, and at 50% for BD50’s. He then told me that Sony had helped them in their processing and that their yields were consistent with what Sony was getting in their facilities. He also stated that he knows that other facilities are having some serious issues because they receive BD images from other fabricators all the time to do their manufacturing of these discs for them.

Some new news to report on this though is that I was contacted last night by someone that just happens to work at the same facility as my last source above and that the BD25 numbers that were given to me were a bit low, and that 80% was more in line to what they are seeing today, but the BD50 number was accurate. He also confirmed that my information was correct when the disc is close to capacity that the yields drop fast because of the way the clear coat reacts around the edges of the discs.

Examining all of this in hindsight, I guess the only thing I would change would be stating the numbers given to me about Sony’s plants, since it came from only one person (second hand at that). But in light of what was sent to me last night, I think it is fair to say that if Sony states that are getting in the neighborhood of 85% yields, then I can take them at their word on that, at least on BD25’s. But based upon what my sources are telling me, they aren’t 25 GB discs, they are more along the lines of 23GB discs.

Hopefully this placates any doubters out there as to the legitimacy of my sources.

I’ve received a lot of flack the past few days from people wanting me to reveal my sources in regard to the yield rates on both BD50’s and BD25’s. I will NOT list the company in order to protect the employee.

Dave,

Thank you for the reporting. You should write this up for an investigative report and win the Pulitzer Prize!

He also confirmed that my information was correct when the disc is close to capacity that the yields drop fast because of the way the clear coat reacts around the edges of the discs.
Someone asked about this issue earlier and I forgot to explain it. So here it is.

When BD was designed, they could not figure out how to create an economical "cover layer." So they initially used film. The film was used for other industrial applications and usage of it for optical media meant really high expenses and potentially poor yields. But it was all that could be made to work so Sony launched with it last year, even though they thought it was only a prototype process.

The replacement is what is called "spin coating." The process is pretty easy to understand if you watch it in person. It simply involves spinning the disc and then putting a drop of resin on the inner circle of the disc and letting the centrifugal force carry it smoothly across the disc to the outer edge. Panasonic was behind this technique and went as far as creating the test lab in LA to finish the research and commercialize the process.

Now the above works in theory but in practice you have a problem. As the material spins and moves out to the outside, when it gets to the edge, it starts to “pool” there and becomes thicker as it has no place to go. And likewise, it thins out on the inner circle as the material is pulled away by centrifugal force.

To compensate, one can simply choose to not use the outer portion of the disc where the specs are violated as far as thickness with resulting reduced capacity.

BTW, what Dave says is very consistent with the same data we gather but unfortunately, we have been unable to get anyone to go on record and say it. So it is great to see it come out through neutral channels but I hope at some point, people feel free to express issues they see here. On our side, we can’t hide a thing as HD DVD production is done by independent companies with no relationship to us, Toshiba, etc.

I’ve received a lot of flack the past few days from people wanting me to reveal my sources in regard to the yield rates on both BD50’s and BD25’s. I will NOT list the company in order to protect the employee.

Here is where it all started. In doing HD DVD and BD reviews, talking to encoders helps A LOT in understanding how the process works. I have two such people that I have spoken to who have provided me with technical advice for quite some time. They are:

Independent DVD/HD DVD/BD Encoder who does work for both BD and HD DVD studios
Independent DVD/BD Encoder who does work for two BD studios
Also, a third source in this is a Studio Employee

The studio employee tipped me off that yields weren’t up to what was being published so I asked the encoders if they had heard the same and they concurred. Both stated that when they were doing encodes on BD disc (single layer), they had to try and keep the total file system to under 23 GB because when they went over that data amount, yields dropped precipitously. So essentially a 25 GB disc was really only a 22-23 GB disc for it to be manufactured with any efficiency.

As for BD50 yields, the same applies with them as well when it comes to the data on the disc. They try and keep the data 10-15% below the max space (42-45 GB) for the same reasons, but the overall yields on the BD50’s weren’t that good, but they couldn’t supply actual numbers to me. So as with BD25’s, the actual space on BD50’s is in the neighborhood of 42-45GB, which is still a ton of data, but also isn’t 50GB either.

In discussions with one of these encoders, they stated that Sony was originally doing all of the manufacturing of the BD discs for them because their normal supplier couldn’t get yields above 10% on BD50’s since installing their lines.

So, with this information, I started to ask some more questions such as who is doing your manufacturing for you, do you know anyone I can talk to etc. Well, it turns out that one of the people was able to get me in contact with someone at a replication facility, so here is my next contact:

Employee at Independent replication facility

What he told me is that his company couldn’t do the BD50’s above a 10% yield so all of their work was sent out to a third party company (independent as well) who could do the work. He let me know who this company was and it turned out that I was able to get a contact there. Which leads to my next contact:

Another Employee at separate Independent replication facility

This person goes on to tell me much of the same things that I have been hearing from those above, that yields are very low when a lot of data is on the disc (both BD25’s and BD50’s), but the average yields on BD25’s are in the 60-70% range, and at 50% for BD50’s. He then told me that Sony had helped them in their processing and that their yields were consistent with what Sony was getting in their facilities. He also stated that he knows that other facilities are having some serious issues because they receive BD images from other fabricators all the time to do their manufacturing of these discs for them.

Some new news to report on this though is that I was contacted last night by someone that just happens to work at the same facility as my last source above and that the BD25 numbers that were given to me were a bit low, and that 80% was more in line to what they are seeing today, but the BD50 number was accurate. He also confirmed that my information was correct when the disc is close to capacity that the yields drop fast because of the way the clear coat reacts around the edges of the discs.

Examining all of this in hindsight, I guess the only thing I would change would be stating the numbers given to me about Sony’s plants, since it came from only one person (second hand at that). But in light of what was sent to me last night, I think it is fair to say that if Sony states that are getting in the neighborhood of 85% yields, then I can take them at their word on that, at least on BD25’s. But based upon what my sources are telling me, they aren’t 25 GB discs, they are more along the lines of 23GB discs.

Hopefully this placates any doubters out there as to the legitimacy of my sources.


Dave, thank you for your participation here. I agree that not alienating the source is the right thing to do if we are interested in getting further info.

And incidentakky, that "not filling the disc to improve yields" thing was alleged some time back... interesting to get some independant confirmation of it. Thanks.

. . .yields are very low when a lot of data is on the disc (both BD25’s and BD50’s), but the average yields on BD25’s are in the 60-70% range, and at 50% for BD50’s. He then told me that Sony had helped them in their processing and that their yields were consistent with what Sony was getting in their facilities. He also stated that he knows that other facilities are having some serious issues because they receive BD images from other fabricators all the time to do their manufacturing of these discs for them.
When a disc is defective (right word?), what specifically is wrong with it? In a part I did not quote above you mentioned the clear coat "reacting" around the edges; what fault does that cause?

edit: pls disregard my last question as I see Amir has addressed it. Of course, if you can expand or fill in anything, that would be appreciated.

I have a 24bit PCM English track from Pirates of the Caribbean from the US Blu-Ray release and a 16bit PCM English track of the same movie from the European Blu-Ray release. I'll try to find out if any kind of dithering was used (opposed to truncating or rounding).


What is your opinion about this article? I stumbled about it and am quite confused now:

http://www.stereophile.com/features/705dither/index.html


I have already read all that. Actually John Dawson's mention of TPDF dither was a reply to one of my questions... :)


Keith is a very bright guy and both a journalist and a trained engineer (he does cars as well as audio by the way). He is also the former editor of a "subjectivist" audio magazine (Hi-Fi Answers, now defunct) and has long been interested in shining lights on aspects of the digital audio debate.

Amir has answered the question already in some detail, so I don't need to repeat that. And indeed many good recordings don't have a dynamic range much beyond 14 -16 bits. However it is still a good idea to keep noise floors as low as possible especially in discrete multichannel material where sound from one direction may not mask artifacts coming from another and listening levels (think THX plus a few dBs) can mean you can hear significantly beyond 16 bits in the upper midband in a good listening room. THX's own noise spec for residual noise in multichannel power amplifiers is more like 19 bits below full power for example, for the very good reason that on sensitive speakers you might otherwise hear the background noise in a channel when all else is quiet. So if low to medium frequency signals aren't properly dithered during studio mixing etc you may then hear some unpleasant albeit low level artefacts in the upper mid band where the ear is really sensitive. I speculate that this may be exacerbated if you use some of the upcoming smart processing algorithms which lift up quieter sounds when more modest listening levels are used.

Overall I definitely think there's a case for more than 16 bits in audio at the point of delivery, but the last 4 or 5 bits of those 24-bit signals are always going to be noise....there's no point in encoding that in real life, whether or not storage space is constrained. And this does mean that compression algorithms such as DTS or DD+ running at say 1.5 Mbits/sec are for the most part going to be very hard to distinguish from lossless audio.

Food for thought :-)

John Dawson (Arcam)
Industry Insider

Keith is a very bright guy and both a journalist and a trained engineer (he does cars as well as audio by the way). He is also the former editor of a "subjectivist" audio magazine (Hi-Fi Answers, now defunct) and has long been interested in shining lights on aspects of the digital audio debate.

Amir has answered the question already in some detail, so I don't need to repeat that. And indeed many good recordings don't have a dynamic range much beyond 14 -16 bits. However it is still a good idea to keep noise floors as low as possible especially in discrete multichannel material where sound from one direction may not mask artifacts coming from another and listening levels (think THX plus a few dBs) can mean you can hear significantly beyond 16 bits in the upper midband in a good listening room. THX's own noise spec for residual noise in multichannel power amplifiers is more like 19 bits below full power for example, for the very good reason that on sensitive speakers you might otherwise hear the background noise in a channel when all else is quiet. So if low to medium frequency signals aren't properly dithered during studio mixing etc you may then hear some unpleasant albeit low level artefacts in the upper mid band where the ear is really sensitive. I speculate that this may be exacerbated if you use some of the upcoming smart processing algorithms which lift up quieter sounds when more modest listening levels are used.

Overall I definitely think there's a case for more than 16 bits in audio at the point of delivery, but the last 4 or 5 bits of those 24-bit signals are always going to be noise....there's no point in encoding that in real life, whether or not storage space is constrained. And this does mean that compression algorithms such as DTS or DD+ running at say 1.5 Mbits/sec are for the most part going to be very hard to distinguish from lossless audio.

Food for thought :-)

John Dawson (Arcam)
Industry Insider

Much appreciated (particularly from audio guys. Loved your old ring dac fmj player :))

http://blog.ultimateavmag.com/cedia2007/90507lg/

Here is Shanes Blog in regard to the LG player:

I'd say that LG got CEDIA 2007 off to a fast start, but the truth is that LG bent time and space by making an impact on CEDIA before CEDIA actually occurred. The press release for this player came to me a week ago under "embargo," which means I've been biting my virtual tongue for a week!
The essential truth is this: LG is releasing the BH200 "Super Blu," its second-gen combi Blu-ray/HD DVD player. And for all appearances it's one of the most advanced next-gen players yet released on either side. It will cost $999 and be available in mid-October. But unlike a few BD players hitting the market in that time frame this one isn't sneaking in to get out of offering advanced interactivity.

While the "Super Blu" name is an "e" short of inspiring thoughts of HD DVD, LG is claiming that this player is fully compliant with both HD DVD's HDi interactivity layer and upcoming "BD Live" network enabled Blu-ray advanced interactivity features. My understanding is that the latter would require the player's hardware to be BD-ROM Profile 2, which could well be an industry first for a standalone player. Further bolstering this claim is that the player's press release states that the Ethernet port is compatible with "network interactivity" and not just firmware updates.

The player is spec'd for 1080p output at 24, 30 and 60 frames-per-second (fps), HDMI 1.3 and decoding of Dolby Digital Plus and DTS-HD. LG will be exhibiting here at the CEDIA Expo and I'll get to the booth as soon as possible (Thursday is when the show floor opens) to try and discern if Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio decoding are on the menu as well.

LG's first-gen combi player missed the boat by not offering HDi interactivity, which severely lmimted its ability to navigate HD DVDs and play back their advanced interactivity, and it also was limited in its audio decoding and transmission capabilities. This new player looks like it solves many if not all of these issues. Stay tuned for more as the show floor opens Thursday.

I’ve received a lot of flack the past few days from people wanting me to reveal my sources in regard to the yield rates on both BD50’s and BD25’s...Thank you, Dave. Your information seems very credible and we all appreciate your efforts at keeping us in touch with what is going on.

No, I think that is still wasteful. Because the low order bits are essentially noise, the TrueHD efficiency goes down when you encode at > 16-bits. So you not only carry more noise, but also reduce how well you are able to encode. And with no audible improvement per above.

According to Dolby’s own document (http://www.dolby.com/assets/pdf//tech_library/TrueHD_FAQ_10925_Final.pdf), the efficiency of TrueHD goes down from 3:1 to 2:1 when you move from 16-bits to 24-bits! Why? Because pure noise cannot be compressed. The shows that low-order bits are really noise, making an otherwise compressable signal, not.

Not to disagree . . but to clarify.

Is your point that only 24 bit True HD is wasteful ? or that True HD at ANY bit depth is wasteful? and wasteful relative to what?

Do you feel there are instances where True HD is an improvement?

To my musician / audiophile ears the True HD I have heard indeed sounds better -- more transient power and more low level detail giving a more spacious sound field.

BUT, am I listening to 16bit or 20 bit or 24 bit True HD???

To wit; the True HD tracks on THE MATRIX HD-DVD are in my humble yet informed opinion vastly superior to the DD Plus track . . . do you know
what True HD bit depth is on these tracks?

PLUS I am listening to True HD via the DTS over Toslink chain which I assume means I am limited to 1.5 Mbs . . . . and lossy at that.

. . . . but it still sounds better . . . .

. . . . and I'm not confusing louder for better . . . . and my cat and my tone deaf decidedly NON audiophile cousins agree [ my cat runs from the room with True HD and sits purring on my lap with level matched DD Plus. ]

Now to be sure DD plus at 1.5 Mbs sounds really good too -- MISSION IMPOSSIBLE III sounds very good.


Again, I appreciate your style and your contribution to these sundry
rule shifting forums.

PS: System notes

B&W 801 Matrix mains -- NO subs thank you very much
B&W center and surrounds
Levinson Amps -- balanced feed
Lexicon MC-1
Creek CD player -- analog direct to Levinson Pre Amp
Oracle Delphi w/ Shure SME 5

Toshiba X-1
HD LEEZA
Marque 9500 LC Ultra


-30-

Dave,

An interesting question to ask the replicator that is getting 50% yields for BD50, what they feel is the ceiling? What I mean by that is, can BD50 reach 95%> yields or is there a technical limitation in manufacturing that would perhaps seem them hovering around 70% (or whatever number) in a best case scenario?

Thanks for all your contributions Dave,
Robert.

Not to disagree . . but to clarify.

Is your point that only 24 bit True HD is wasteful ? or that True HD at ANY bit depth is wasteful? and wasteful relative to what?
Oh, the topic was about 24-bit. Not about TrueHD.

But on TrueHD, I believe that for exceptionally well recorded content such as music, it is a must. For movies, it is not if high rate DD+ is available.

Do you feel there are instances where True HD is an improvement?
Yes. Guitar or piano music for example.

To my musician / audiophile ears the True HD I have heard indeed sounds better -- more transient power and more low level detail giving a more spacious sound field.
I am with you on this. Sharp transients can be muddled if low bit rate lossy compression is applied to them (due to "pre-echo"). But this is not evident in movie tracks where transients are described as rattling the room with 1000% distortion :). Also, hearing such artifacts even when present, requires skilled ears which you and I might have, but 99% of the people who claim to need lossless, do not.

To wit; the True HD tracks on THE MATRIX HD-DVD are in my humble yet informed opinion vastly superior to the DD Plus track . . . do you know
what True HD bit depth is on these tracks?
I think they are 16-bits.
PLUS I am listening to True HD via the DTS over Toslink chain which I assume means I am limited to 1.5 Mbs . . . . and lossy at that.

. . . . but it still sounds better . . . .
How did you listen to DD+ track? After conversion to DTS on the way out? If so, then you are hearing double lossy compression for DD+, as compared to single lossy compression for TrueHD. So that is not a fair comparison of lossless versus lossy.

In the above scenario, someone with good ears that can hear compression artifacts, would indeed hear a difference. Such is not the case with DD+ at 1.5mit/sec compared to TrueHD without any other compression applied on output.

How did you listen to DD+ track? After conversion to DTS on the way out? If so, then you are hearing double lossy compression for DD+, as compared to single lossy compression for TrueHD. So that is not a fair comparison of lossless versus lossy.

That's the only reason I prefer TrueHD tracks, because it's being compressed again, but even then a good DD+ track still sounds amazing even if it's double compressed.

[...]
How did you listen to DD+ track? After conversion to DTS on the way out? If so, then you are hearing double lossy compression for DD+, as compared to single lossy compression for TrueHD. So that is not a fair comparison of lossless versus lossy.

In the above scenario, someone with good ears that can hear compression artifacts, would indeed hear a difference. Such is not the case with DD+ at 1.5mit/sec compared to TrueHD without any other compression applied on output.

I'm going to guess x360 with its output set to all-DTS all-the-time :D

For any Insiders:

The question about HD DVD Performance levels was brought up again in another thread and I was curious as to whether there were any additional details available? I understand that there are Performance Levels 0,1,2, and 3 at this time.

Additional questions:

(1) Are these PL's part of the spec? or are they still in a proposal status?
(2) Most importantly, is the HD DVD PRG announcing or marketing features supported by these PL's that cannot be performed by today's shipping players?

Question from the other thread. Currently, there are two performance levels. Here's a rundown:

http://www.emedialive.com/articles/readarticle.aspx?articleid=11631#iii

It will be interesting to see how/if the HD DVD folks communicate these to the consumer.