Sony 4K and the rest - Page 3

Basically yes.

FWIW I think that my response was enough on topic to have some merit in this 4k thread.

With regard to the rest of my response and your own response to mine, unintended consequences is what I see with the whole AV biz when it comes to the whole thing on Blu-ray discs.

Sony will still get royalties off 4K Blu-ray as creator of blu-ray. 1080p bluray on one side/4K bluray on the other. It just opens another stream of revenue for Sony, selling you another version of Spiderman and new hybrid blu-ray/4K players.


Standardization of the new codecs is set for publication for July 2012.

http://www.vcodex.com/h265.html

If it gets pushed back, Sony loves propriety formats and codecs and would have no trouble forging ahead with their own to make it the standard.

Yep, Sony loves propriety formats and codecs. And they have crashed and burned with all of them.

• BetaMAX
• BetaCam
• Video8
• DAT
• Hi8
• Mini-Disc
• Hi-MD
• Digital BetaCam
• miniDV
• ATRAC
• ATRAC3
• DVCAM
• Memory Stick
• Memory Stick Duo
• Memory Stick Pro Duo
• Memory Stick PRO-HG Duo
• Memory Stick Micro
• Digital8
• Universal Media Disc UMD

Yep, 30 years of setting industry standards...

Looks like all the more reason to believe we will see 4K BD to me.

Art

According to your referenced link, their calender lists January 2013 as "Final Draft International Standard" as a publication date with no date for final ratification.

Yep, the track record would indicate that.

But Sony doesn't exactly have a basket full of winning products at the moment. They haven't made money in TV's in 7 years, the PS3 is getting long in tooth. Most of their small electronics have become me too commodity items. They struggle with their cell phones and the ES line is all but dead. Their computers are expensive with few unique selling points compared to the competition and they haven't been very successful with their new tablets or readers.

It's great to see the new projector but the technology needs to trickle down to a lower price point, quickly, to capture any real market share. Sony has a lot of turn around to do and they need to do it sooner than latter. Otherwise, I'm afraid we'll see a spin off of their electronics group and end up with another Pioneer.

4K on a flat screen less than 50" is not going to WOW a lot of people I'm afraid; and that's what most of the world's BD players are hooked up to.

Kazuo Hirai, the new CEO of Sony, has a big job in front of him. And I wish him the very best luck and success.

In the meantime I'll enjoy my modest HT and hope Hollywood turns out some decent movies this year.

The three formats I picked out were highly successful in the broadcast arena, the most popular was analog Betacam.

What failed were Panasonics attempts into this market niche. Mformat, M2, D3, D5. HDD5 enjoyed some success until HDCAM-SR took over.

Sony did well in professional circles, just not consumer.

You missed Elcaset! It was Reel-to-Reel in a large cassette shell. I got one when it first came out. I think it cost ~$1,000 in 1976!

->[*]BetaCam Especially SP, THE field acquisition standard, for decades.
->[*]DAT Live performance standard over many years
->[*]Hi8 Handycam (yep became somewhat of general designation for handheld consumer camcorders), bigger than VHS-C.
->[*]Digital BetaCam Market standard for primary distribution of high-value content, well including HDCam/HDCam-SR. Digital Media Center here in Amsterdam is only now recovering the taperoom, now tapedelivery has been reduced to one percent or less, having moved the rest to file downloads.
->[*]DVCAM Don't know the alternative, was there any. HDV was the norm till AVC-HD took over, another format Sony was/is backing.

Yes, and people need to keep in mind the demise of these formats was due to technology advance, not because it was a bad format. And Sony did fairly well at preserving legacy formats. For example, Digital Betacam decks could play analog Betacam tapes with an option installed.

Today as one would expect the broadcast market is mostly file based with high end post production close behind. Video tape is mainly only used as an HD archive format. Now LTO tape, that's another story. Most high end 4K work is ultimately archived on LTO tape. Tape still has the lowest cost per byte over any disc format.

P.S. Lets not forget 3/4inch Umatic cassette. This was a Sony invented format that was/is probably the most longest lived video tape format. It even outlasted VHS and was first available in the very early 1970s - long before any consumer accepted format. Betamax was grown out of Umatic. One of the principle reasons Betamax failed was Sony's greedy licensing policy that they got away with for Umatic but Matshusta and JVC were not going to go down that road again.

Yes I did.

None we necessarily "bad" formats.

My point was formats that did not catch on for main stream consumer use; not talking broadcast market. And Sony should have preserved legacy formats. After all, it's their legacy.

I owned a BetaMax. It was superior to VHS in performance. But it had nowhere near the value of a cheap VHS machine when I wanted to rent the latest movie which happened to be on VHS. Apparently I wasn't alone with that thought either.

Even Sony uses SD cards in there cameras now. There is absolutely no convenience in tracking down a Sony Memory Stick.

Out side of market dominance in an area like professional broadcasting, Sony's proprietary formats have died when Sony killed it with a new Sony proprietary format. Sony's success in CE formats has occurred when Sony has introduced a format in collaboration with another company or companies.

Over the years, Sony has had excellent design, technology, and good products. What they haven't done well is push proprietary formats that other companies are willing to support. Subsequently, the proprietary formats are rather short lived, expensive to use, and not always convenient to buy.

EDIT: I would compare and contrast Sony with the old Nakamichi where Nakamichi took an existing format and improved or added value well beyond the formats original design.

You missed their newest one. They could have used normal microsd card but love the propriety formats to create revenue.

Well arrogant they were (still are?). "If we don't make it, you don't need it"

Another tidbit. Sony actually invented the M wrap threading format that became VHS. They thought it was so inferior in terms of tape stress they didn't even bother patenting it. "though shall not have moving tape guides either - interchange will be impossible" After VHS was so successful using moving guides Sony then made a C format broadcast open reel machine around 1982 with moving guides for ease of threading. Tail wags the dog in this case.

Not just on the consumer side either. Here is their new 4K camera memory cartridge. Proprietary of course!
http://www.fdtimes.com/news/sony/son...d-hd-3d-2k-4k/

BTW, that's a 2010 press article. This thing is reality today along with the F65 4K camera.

Is there some proprietary format or connection on the VW1000 that you are concerned about?

If 4K video is added to Blu-ray it will be after HEVC hardware decoders are released. HEVC Level 5 though does look to me like it was made with CE products in mind.



Well if this venture has anything to do with video delivery than it would be a competitor to other video delivery methods.



Amir, back when you were promoting VC-1 you used to say both on this forum and in AV magazines/websites that MPEG-4 AVC was fundamentally flawed due to the in-loop deblocking filter and that it would cause the encodings to be "soft". As such it is a bit strange that you use a connection to someone who worked on MPEG-4 AVC as an argument for your opinion. For anyone who wonders what I mean here is a link to one of the posts that Amir made against MPEG-4 AVC (and a link to one of the posts made as a response).

You'll need to rewind to get the whole context/story. Proprietary format didn't originate with me, I only made the comment that I didn't think Sony was very good as establishing formats by themselves that has industry acceptance or support.

Also forgot

Good grief. You are still here Richard?

There is something profound being said here but it is completely lost in those words .


Folks would still be wondering about your argumentative posts now as they were then. From the link you provided above:

"The ITU initiative, called H.264 (coming after an earlier standard called H.263) was led by Dr. Gary Sullivan who happens to work on my team. Gary is world renowned in the compression/standards circuits and was honored for his work on H.264/AVC with IEEE fellowship award. He has the temperament and skills to drive these things like few have."

Pretty consistent with what I said here and you quoted. Maybe you didn't read the link before you referenced it....

The broadcast "standards" were already mentioned but more relevant to this discussion you forgot to mention the CD (with Phillips), the DVD(with Phillips, Toshiba, and Panasonic) and of course some obscure thing called Blu-ray!

And you sir failed to "rewind" and read for comprehension as I suggested.

What I said, or agreed with the original post was Sony has a propensity to produce proprietary standards. And, that the proprietary standards that Sony produces for the Consumer Electronics market have not been widely accepted by consumers or adopted by other manufactures.

Case in point: Sony brought to market the Memory Stick while the rest of the world was and is still happy to use SD cards. Sony has finally began using the SD cards in some of there products.

I have listed some of those formats, many of which had very short life's over a 30 year span.

Proprietary:

• One that possesses, owns, or holds exclusive right to something.
• Something that is used, produced, or marketed under exclusive legal right of the inventor or maker.

I did not reference Broadcast Standards where Sony has had a market dominance; again I referenced CE products.

I did not "forget" CD, DVD, or Blu-ray. In fact I said:

• "Sony's success in CE formats has occurred when Sony has introduced a format in collaboration with another company or companies."
• "Over the years, Sony has had excellent design, technology, and good products. What they haven't done well is push proprietary formats that other companies are willing to support. Subsequently, the proprietary formats are rather short lived, expensive to use, and not always convenient to buy."

Of course and I noticed this thread since someone asked about your posts in this 4K thread.



I am merely pointing out some facts and expressing an opinion. And my opinion on the video codecs has always been that both MPEG-4 AVC and VC-1 are capable of reference quality encodings on Blu-ray. Also just to mention this but based on the information from the blu-raystats website (which has detailed information on most Blu-ray titles released by the major studios) over 90% of Blu-ray titles released in the United States last year were encoded with MPEG-4 AVC.



That Dr. Gary Sullivan used to work on your team isn't what I was referring to. It is just my opinion but what I find a bit strange is that you point out that he worked on your team when someone questions you on HEVC but that I remember that you had the opinion that MPEG-4 AVC was fundamentally flawed. Of course those posts were made several years ago and opinions can change with time.

From what I heard, Microsoft disbanded the group that was advancing the professional VC-1 encoder which post houses were using after I left. Without support, companies gave up on using it and shifted to the only option available to them with was AVC.


Nothing strange about it. It shows that we knew quite well the capabilities of MPEG-4 AVC as we were developing VC-1. Indeed, Gary reported to the same team that developed VC-1. And the VC-1 team created technology that became part of MPEG-4 AVC. Importantly, Microsoft became a patent holder as a result, and benefited from its broad adoption.


My opinion has not changed. And you left out the last chapter in that discussion where I showed with full blown simulations that Ron was wrong. Saving others from reading all that, the debate was around the de-blocking filter in both codecs and how they could soften video. I said AVC did a lot of that and Ron said that was not the case in the response Richard provided. What Richard left out was my super detailed response from me back to Ron's post:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...9#post10029559

And the post after it: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...9#post10029569

Both showed that what Ron said was incorrect. That the MPEG-4 AVC did indeed overfilter pixels and hence, produced softer images:

"VC-1 pixels filtered: 54234 (3%)
AVC pixels filtered: 326148 (16%)
VC-1 pixels filtered more than once: 54 (0.00%)
AVC pixels filtered more than once: 115181 (5.51%)
Ratio of AVC to VC-1 pixels being filtered: 6.01:1
AVC pixels touched twice: 102594
AVC pixels touched three times: 10686
AVC pixels touched four times: 1901
Ratio of AVC pixels touched more than once compared to VC-1: 2133:1"

I can't find Ron's (dr1394's) answer now but I distinctly remember him putting down his sword saying he could not counter because he lacked the analysis tools we used to see what is going on in the two codecs.

Anyway, you are helping me with the argument relative to this thread. If folks follow those links, you can see that if I am uninformed about video compression, I sure know how to write a few books about it here .

You may also want to know Richard that post leaving Microsoft, I have had countless meetings and cordial discussions with the blu-ray studios. So while you may have trouble letting go of the format war, none of us in the industry have that issue.

What I heard was a bit different. I heard that the studios simply had less reason to choose VC-1 for their Blu-ray titles after Microsoft stopped developing their VC-1 encoder implementation and providing free support for it.



Well everyone has their own opinions.



I remember that the MPEG-4 AVC discussion in that thread involved several people and continued on for many pages.



I have no interest in any Blu-ray/HD DVD format war discussion and I have had enough of that for two lifetimes.

The Blu Ray vs HD DVD arguments that pervaded this site were some of the most hilarious times ever here at AVS. It was the reason AVS changed the way threads could be posted in the player forums, the methods of moderating and the whole penalty system. Classic! It was like going into the octagon when you entered the player forums. Classic personal attacks, many getting suspended or banned and post counts just skyrocketing all day long. There were far fewer moderators and so many people posting so often. Just fantastic times. Great memories. It was basically a AV whorehouse of fun!

There is nothing different about what you are saying and what I said. Other than the "bit" of spin you are putting on some nefarious reason at the end as if other companies don't fall over themselves to get the studios to use their encoding tools.


This is the second profound statement you have made. With a few more lessons like this and we would all qualify for honorary degrees in philosophy from some major medical school.


I just looked and the only person who tried to put up an argument was you and you didn't get anywhere and everyone moved on. But maybe you are referring to this?

"Amir,

Very well done! Any time we can remove "subjective" metrics from the discussion, is a good thing.

The bar just got raised. "



You say that to yourself but doing the opposite. No one was arguing here over the codec here before you showed up. We were having a forward looking discussion about the future of 4K. I said nothing about VC-1 playing a role. Poster said I didn't appreciate the advancement regarding codecs and I simply put forward that the person co-chairing the activities n this area used to work for me. That should have been enough to deal with that issue. But you go spend a lot of time finding those old threads, post them here with a spin of yours that I had not answered the challenge where I had done the exact opposite, and you say you not reliving that era by fighting me over any and all things?

Your scars from the format war run deep Richard to jump back in and want to continue a fight that no one cares to fight anymore. Defending BD is one thing but going to your grave fighting over it makes no sense. The world has moved on Richard. Both technically and otherwise. Who do you think started the standardization of digital distribution on the Internet? http://techcrunch.com/2012/01/17/an-...orribly-right/

"Our readers are probably familiar in passing with UltraViolet, a new content rights management system that is supposed to unify the rights architecture on the web, allowing cross-platform sharing and authentication of movies and TV.....

It was with this in mind that we spoke to Mitch Singer, President of DECE (UltraViolet’s creator and controller) and CTO of Sony Pictures, at CES...."

So if Sony has moved on from fighting the Blu-ray fight to death, how come you can't do the same? Take a deep breath. Recognize that we are years later and worlds away from that era. And put things in perspective.

Now Amir,

Lets be honest here.

You do know that you and Kevin were spotted last week drumming up business for HD DVD? Fun times.
http://vimeo.com/36979701

Man, we both look half drugged. Didn't realize anyone had recorded it.

It was *great* fun. That was our first ever event of that type. If you recall, it was such a hot day. I think it hit 105 degrees or so. We had no idea what to expect. Whether one person would show up or more. I think we had 40 people come! Shows how much passion we all had in getting good video into our homes.

It was great getting permission to show unreleased content at every event. I think we did 10 to 12 of them.

Funny story. We did one at Vancouver, Canada which is just three hours north of us so Kevin and I drove up in our cars separately. He usually gets there before me to set things up.

I get to the border crossing and boy, was I in for a surprise. Usually the Canadian folks are very friendly. Not that day. I was asked what I was doing there. I said I am visiting customers. He asked who I worked for. I said Microsoft. He asked and I am honest, "you have customers in Canada?" I said, "yes, Microsoft has customers all over the world." He gets annoyed and throws the passport in my face and says, "go."

I drive up to the house of the person who was hosting the event and there is still no sign of Kevin. I call and he is not answering his cell. So I keep calling. Eventually he answers with the softest "hello?" as if he is whispering. I ask, "where are you?" He says "I am at border crossing" and bam, hangs up! I call again, no answer.

An hour goes by and still no sign of Kevin. Half hour later he finally shows up. I asked what the heck happened to him? He said he was detained at the border crossing by the Canadian agents! I asked him why? He said they asked him what he was doing and he told them he was meeting AVS Fourm people about HD DVD! Predictably, they had no idea what he was saying and proceeded to grill him on the ins and outs of forum, HD DVD, etc. They then drag him to the building where he is supposed to wait to talk to an agent. My call came in while he was waiting and apparently you are not supposed to use cell phones. They catch him answering my call and now he is even in more hot water!

Strange thing is that the Canadian side was always the more pleasant compared to returning to US and dealing with US agents. This time, it was completely the other way around with the US agent giving me the biggest smile and warmest welcome back!

I'm still hoping for a future blu ray player that's able to play HD DVD's as well