Industry Insiders Q&A Thread: only Questions to insiders please - Page 64  

Amir,

Apologies if this has been asked already.

It's been said that the discs burned in the Japanese HD DVD recorder will not play in the released players.

What is the reason for this and is it something that could/will be addressed in a future firmware?

Thanks!

The primary storage (disc) can only have those two elements (the movie and PiP). The secondary storage (flash, hard disk, etc.) can have additional streams that could selectively be shown as PiP. In other words, we only have two decoders so we can't ever try to display more than it.

As I have noted, secondary storage max rate is 15 mbit/sec.

There are ways to fake more than one PiP by encoding multiple videos in one stream, putting some color around them, and then using that to only show one of them at a time (think Hollywood Squares game show). But this still counts as one stream and with limits specified.

You know, I have not looked that unit carefully. I now have a unit here in US but not sure it will do anything useful here :(.

Anyway, my quick read of some reviews on it indicates that the unit records programming from Japanese digital transmission and they have a no-copy flag. So the recoder uses a special -VR recording mode to record the content in a way that only plays on the same unit. It does not create a ROM compatible image.

I think the application they are going after is freeing up space on the hard disk. Not as a way of interchanging the recorded programming. I am not sure what their future plans are with the product.

Amir:
Can you give us some words on what I would see as the third major market for HD content, after CE and games consoles, the user generated content?

From a HD DVD Perspective, when would you estimate there will be HD Dvd writers in the marketplace?

How far away are we from being able to take content that we originated, and create using VC-1 a HD DVD that will play in a standalone HD Player?

How far away are we from being bale to take content that we originated, and create using VC-1 a red DVD that will play in a standalone HD player?


I agree with your assessment of the priorities, but I think we are getting to the point where the next major focus on the early adopters, and influencers will be on the growing market of HDV and all the over varients of HD that is being created in the Non Hollywood space. At this point do you have any thoughts on how you see this developing?


Thanks
John

[quote=Cjplay]

Hi Cjplay,

Thanks for your response. I'm afraid I didn't understand your answer to my second question (above). Do you mean that, with HD-DVD or BD, the selection of, e.g., VC-1 advanced, Level 3 effectively completely determines your overall compression ratio (i.e., that you can't adjust compression ratios within a Level)? If so, the only way you could take advantage of higher bandwidth/storage would be to go to a different Level within the codec. Which immediately leads to the question: are there compression Levels in VC-1 or H.264 that 2-layer BD (because of its higher storage capacity and bandwith) could use in encoding a 2-hour 1080p/24fps movie, but that 2-layer HD-DVD could not? If not (and if one cannot take advantage of extra bandwidth, etc. by reducing the compression within a specified Level of a specified codec), then the extra bandwidth/storage offered by BD over HD-DVD is academic wrt PQ. [It could still have an effect, I suppose on how much is left over for audio or special features.]

All I know is, there is very little allowance in the codec compliance for changing the codec as you describe. It's like asking a DVD player to support HP@HL or MP@HL MPEG-2. You've got to keep the spec compliance tight to ensure all the boxes are both easy to manufacture due to part availability and priced reasonably for the consumer.

VC-1 does some advanced codec tweaks while MPEG-2 does BR changes. The VC-1 encoder I use requires no level changes for BD's extra bandwidth. Just a buffer, framerate, and interlaced setting change. Oh and, level changes in AVC allow for increased quality due to use of the DBF and other error correction devices (Ref B Frames and more), but AVC is also locked down to High Profile for HD and BD, so I am far from worried. Levels are for compliance checking only. What are you required to support versus optional. Don't worry about it. We don't have to change anything for the 2 formats, level/profile wise, so you don't have to worry about it unless you're talking about other platforms.

Cjplay.

We can't get PO's for ZZF. Dunno why. Anyway, once it does arrive at a place where we can, I look forward to the tests. Thanks for the links and keep the card links coming, but maybe in the HTPC forum, yes? I've got to hang out there more.

Cjplay.

Hard limits of 4Mbps for VC-1 plus a 192kbps DD+ track for mixing into the feature audio. MPEG-2, as Amir stated is 6Mbps, but no thanks... I get long-winded sometimes. This is for SD. There is an HD PIP with a 937K buffer, but noone's been crazy enough to try it yet on a consumer disc.

You can have as many PIPs as you want up until you fill the max BR of the mux. Just so long as one PIP does not exceed the hard limits for decoding reasons, not to mention disc read speed.

Sure they can. If the graphic can fit in a 3Kbps hole in time to load into the buffer.

The likelihood that the Samsung player will be unable to play BD50 discs is approximately equal to the likelihood that Amir will buy all AVSForum readers a PS3 for the holidays.

So you don't know either. . . .intresting. :rolleyes:

I like the confidence :D

Many of us are hanging on BD50, is it real, can it be done, etc.

BD-J question, is it envisiged that BD-J GUI authoring will makes its way all the way down to Joe Blow level?

For example I sometimes use TMPGEnc DVD Author to create custom DVDs.

Talk, do you think a few years down the road there could be a TMPGEnc BD-J Author? Or is the complexity such that is not realistic?

Dennis.

HDV support is a very popular request from player manufacturers for us. You can get some idea how popular HDV is by checking out the licensees on their website:

http://www.hdv-info.org/

So Bill Hunt is correct. Right now the Samsung can't play a BD50 disc satisfactorily.

However, if I am understanding you correctly, by the holidays, either the Samsung or the BD50 discs will be tweaked so as to allow the Samsung to play both BD50s.

Q: Is Microsoft going to supply consumers with an HD DVD playback solution under 32-bit Vista?

It just struck me that leaving it to ISVs to decide doesn't mean it will be decided in our favour. It means it's still up in the air until some party commits to a playback solution for 32-bit Vista.

Gary

Another way of asking: will Windows Media Player support HD-DVD playback on 32-bit Vista out-of-the-box? 64-bit Vista?

Can anyone confirm this? Either a yay or nay.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...&&#post8303895

I was talking about D-Theater transfers. Can those MPEG-2 transfers be used on Blu-Ray or HD-DVD? (I know they're CBR)

Thanks.

Amir,

Would you please explain how "error recovery" in HD DVD and BR works?

I'm asking because of Bill's latest info:
http://thedigitalbits.com/#mytwocents

Mainly this part:
"Samsung didn't have final product 50 GB movie discs to test their firmware with before they launched, so they're having problems getting the players working with these discs now. Sony and Pioneer are also working hard to resolve compatibility issues on their forthcoming hardware. I'm sure that all of these issues are fixable with firmware upgrades, and I have no doubt that the issues WILL be fixed. But up until a couple weeks ago, I was told that Samsung at least was STILL having problems."

My take is that the hardware tolerances are so tight on the OPU's and BD50 media to get proper playback that they have to tweak the software/firmware to do a better job at error recovery to ensure smooth playback? Am I close? (likely not :p)

Thanks,
Robert.

Sorry is this was already answered, but while I usually use the 5.1 analogue outputs, I have checked out the Digital coax and for my Anthem it has said that the bitrate for every HD DVD disk that I have checked is 1536.

Hope that helps.

Cheers,

Richard

Can you do a PO with newegg? They have the same cards in stock.

Can't answer "yay" or "nay" as phrased.

I assume you are asking about the COMPRESSION / ENCODE as opposed to the TRANSFER.

Semantic point: the TRANSFERS per se -- film to data scans or telecines -- are not MPEG of any flavor. They are most likely HD to D-5 or in the best case uncompressed files on hard drive / data tape.

The COMPRESSIONS / ENCODES -- MPEG-2 and/or VC-1 -- are made from the film transfer master.

This now become a "Cjplay" and/or "amirm" question.



-30-

thanks Amir and CJplay.


not sure I understand this , are you saying the buffer itself is limited (I am guessing a lower limit for manufacturers and higher for disks to keep compatibility) has a max load input of 3kbps? so is that also true when the menu is loaded initially (i.e. before the movie)

THANKS Keith
I certainly agree, the question I was trying to get an answer from the insiders was an update on where this all stands? If you look at the numbers today, I think a case could be made that after displays for HD, the whole HDV camcorder CE segment is probably the largest installed base. YET after reading all 61 pages of this thread there seems to be very little information on when and if it will be supported.

I was hoping Amir and your self might be able to shed light on the status of
a work flow for the HDV user to create a HD DVD, and at the same time when the HD players will support HDV.

Sony being well positioned in the HDV camcorder/ Video editing (Vegas Video) and now with BD writers, seems to be starting to address this important CE market, but AFIK there seems to be very little being presented on the HD DVD side.

So understand you are getting lots of interest, but for instance AFIK there still are no tools to create a BD or HD dvd wtih HDV and be able to play it on either the Samsung or the Toshiba unit, am I correct??

From the Microsoft side of things for Amir, Sony is pushing AVCHD with its new line up, but again is there any information that can be shared re VC-1 HD tools for the HDV user?

THANKS
John

Question for the BD guys.

BD has DD+ with the core DD and Dolby lossless that is a variation on DTHD that has a DD core. Is that how BD will pass the menu and PIP audio? what I mean is we know BD must decode DD, so will the player decode (?) mux a DD PIP/menu and then reattach it to remake the DD+ or DTHD and then send this hybrid to the player

John, I am sorry for the lack of reply. I am ostensibly on vacation and I am trying to pretend that means from both work and AVS Forum :).

Anyway, this forum is mostly about movies and pre-mastered content. So you are liable to get less answers here about personal content. Your questions are good however.

First, on workflow. As we have for DVDs, I expect all the authoring companies to eventually support "one-click" copy of HDV files to HD DVDs. People are having decent luck creating HD red laser content and we had a productive thread on this in the HD DVD software section I believe.

I personally am not a fan of tape based formats. In my opinion, they are backward looking. The future belongs to hard disk based camcorders as they allow faster than real-time transfer to PCs. Alas, the quality of the current crop of products is poor so it will be a generation or two until we have excellent quality HDD based HD camcorders.

Anyway, I hope this answers some of your questions for now...

Without question. Mastering a [red-laser] DVD is inherently complex, but there are lots of tools which hide the vast majority of the complexity. I expect you'll see multiple BD-J authoring toolsets (probably some of them open source) targeting different user skills, from libraries of drag-and-drop components (i.e. menus, PiP, effects) to timeline based editors to fully programmable environments. The first support will probably come from the big names in consumer media packages (i.e. Sonic/Roxio, Intervideo, Cyberlink, Nero), but I expect open source to play a big role here as well due to the very large community of Eclipse and Netbeans developers who rapidly target emerging markets.

- Talk

I'm really at a loss for how you draw that conclusion from what I posted. I'm not in a position to officially confirm or refute for Samsung any claims regarding the BD-P1000's ability to play BD50 discs today. I am willing to confidently state that the BD-P1000 will be capable of playing BD50 discs upon their availability.

Vacation, I thought that just allows you not to physically attend meetings ;-)))

Appreciate your comments, and certainly all the effort you put into answering questions.

I am reasonably familiar with the homebrew HD on standard dvd's. Sony of course with the AVCHD camcorder line of both DVD and HD Camcorders is making this an officially supported BD format. They are offering a via the DVDirect line the one button create the AVCHD dvd.

My concern was the lack of any definitive information on basically HD DVD-r

It has been over a year since TOSHIBA announced it, their CE RD-A1 as you mentioned does not seem to product disks that play in other HD devices.

I agree again with the focus on Hollywood content, but to the "casual observer" it looks like BD is set to win "the hearts and minds" of the consumer HD content generator, basically due to lack of product/information, and this group is large, and considering how much hd camcorders are selling for, has the money to spend.
Currently I think it would be hard to argue that the largest number of HD devices out in the CE market after displays are camcorders.

So I guess my questions were mainly to get some reassurance that this IMO very important factor in the BD/HD decision on the part of a very large base of consumers, was a priority for the HD camp.

Since the HD camp does not AFAIK have a camcorder company in the fold, it is easy to miss the continual input as to just how many millions of these devices are being sold, how high the demand is for a tape or hard drive to Optical media is in this market.

John

AVCHD is almost worthless right now.... no NLEs support it .... also, I know a lot more people with HD DVD players than people with HD camcorders (I have both)

From what I understand, the D-Theater's were under 29Mbps CBR, correct? Like 19Mbps? If the GOP on the tape for the MPEG-2 video stream is under 600ms or 14 Frames for film, 17 Frames for video, then sure it could be used on an HD-DVD or BD Disc. Same with the DD soundtrack, I'd assume.

Thanks for the semantics point, Cap.

Cjplay.

Is this what Samsung has confirmed? Or does their non confirmation mean that they support 50GB (since that is the default expectation). Did Samsung confirm that the noise filter is turned on and hence resulting in a softer picture, as some have opined on these threads and elsewhere? Otherwise, I can also assume that there isn't a problem with that either....

From what I am hearing the current shipping Samsung's have upgrades that the original buyers do not have yet...