Industry Insiders Q&A Thread: only Questions to insiders please - Page 84  

Talk,

Having reflected on this more....we're now only in Sept. and with only one BR player on the market. You say that everything is "done" which tells me the BD-Live is ready to go. So if BD-Live was going to be ready this early in the game, why didn't Sun goto Samsung and tell them to include the appropriate hardware into the machine so that it can later be firmware updated for full BD-Live interactivity. Why is Pioneer, who still doesn't not have a player out, going on record stating that even with an ethernet port their player will not be BD-Live compatiable. Are there much more demanding specs to be able to run BD-Live on a stand alone player? Are the CE's waiting for SOC's so they don't have to have beefy/expensive PC hardware in the player to be able to run BD-Live and other features properly?

If BD-Live was going to be "done" this early in the game, who decided and what prompted the 2 seperate specifications over 1 year apart? Surely, Sun was consulted on the timeline and hardware specs needed. At $1000+ for players, how much more expensive can it possibly be to add the appropriate hardware for full BD-J/BD-Live players?

I know that's a lot of questions but there has been a lot of spins and conflicting information about BD-J/BD-Live. For this whole time, it was simply assumed that having an ethernet port would be all you need since as you stated before all the player have the full Java System installed. Now with Pioneer making those comments, one can easily deduce that there are specific hardware requirments (mainly system power) needed to be able to run this spec. Something that was not even hinted at prior.

Ugh... surely it would be better to do framerate conversion of the secondary picture streams to something more sensible. After all we are talking about picture in picture type stuff here. Isn't it a bit daft to go to such extremes as 120 fps just to keep pip video looking nice??

Also that solution is rather US centric and does nothing for any video content that's European based and at 50Hz... Following the same logic train we'd be at a bandwidth challenging 600 fps :eek:

Also doesn't going this route also preclude various display type technologies and manufacturers from implementing specific picture enhancements? There is talk of things such as black frame insertion for example. If the input is coming in at 120 fps, that's either a non-starter at 240 fps, or way too expensive with the required processing.

Isn't it much better for film and video mixes to convert the video to the film rate? At least then individual display types can then process as is best appropriate and at 24fps rates this is likely to be achieveable now rather than in another 5 years when we a) have technology that works at those rates and b) it's filtered down the chain to be affordable to more than 1% of the HT public??

Aren't we losing sight of the fact here that the main thing to get right is the main feature i.e. the film, and that sacrifices to the director/actors waving their arms about is the more realistic and pragmatic approach here?

What do Broadcom/Sigma think of trying to process 120 fps signals? Are there any display manufacturers lurking here with an opinion on this?

Following on from the post above and the questions on BD-Live and BD-J, with HD-DVD and the Toshiba machines, clearly the Broadcom chip, dedicated DSP's and SHARCs handle the video decoding from disc and audio conversion, and the 'PC bit', for want of a better description, handles the mixing, re-encoding etc requirements that presumably are part of iHD.

As I understand it, PiP is a requirement of BD-Live, so will we start to see BD players with beefed up internals like Intel processors to handle BD-Live PiP, or do the newer SoC solutions handle this as well? Is this why 1G BD players don't yet support BD-Live (excluding PS3)? Again, ignoring PS3, are we likely to see any BD-Live players before 2H 2007?

Finally, as a slightly more difficult question, it seems the rumoured Samsung firmware update includes BD-J support... I thought BD-J support was supposed to be mandatory regardless of the supported player profile. Is there a contradiction there?

So if this really is so then why do even the G2 HD-DVD players not support DTS-HD MA decoding - despite the fact that all upcoming European Canal+ releases use this format??? And why is DTS itself "recommending" decoding a DTS-HD (MA) stream within a receiver and not the player? And why does Toshiba provide a HDMI 1.3 interface with their new XA2 players - if it's not for audio then what's the point with this fancy $500.- markup feature (besides the most obvious marketing value) - it sure is not for video ("Deep Color" marketing blah blah or not). Little hint - there is no point besides marketing. The sad part is that people are already falling for it - WOWW, it has HDMI 1.3 with 36bit colors. I'm already looking for the first placebo driven comments like: "This whole HDMI 1.3 thingy made my PQ so much better, and the audio is beyond belief now as well - very much improved. I can clearly see MUCH deeper colors now... " :rolleyes:

benwaggoner, if you are right, and I personally think you are, and audio decoding/mixing within the player itself with HDMI-PCM output is the way to go - the upcoming Toshiba HD-A2 "Marketing Edition" ahem... HD-XA2 has just lost its only potential added value. Wait, doesn't it output fancy 1080p??? Well at least the tricky "J6P 60Hz interlaced decoding->3:2 pulldown->IVTC that any 1080p display device would do on its own just as good" version of it. DUPERY at its best. But I'm glad you confirmed it...

David, before you hold your breath until Toshiba recognizes this demand - why not build yourself a nice HTPC? Or buy one of these new HD-DVD laptops? Or just forget about HD-DVD altogether and buy one of the upcoming BluRay players based on the Sigma decoding chip (eg. Sony, Pioneer)? All this solutions provide native, unaltered 24p output. I wouldn't hold my breath for Toshiba to do so. They seem to be much more concerned lately about what J6P likes to hear (HDMI 1.3, "Deep Color", "1080p", Combo discs,..) than giving videophiles features with REAL value. In the end its J6Ps and marketing features -> that's where the big money and growth potential is. (I must apologize for being so damn angry about all this ;) )

And your questions to the experts are?

Sorry, you got me. But any of my sentences with an "And why does..." at the beginning serves quite well as alibi...

ATSC and digital cable also support the ability to send multiple audio streams that would have to be mixed inside the box. So the trend was there before the new formats came along.

Yes, marketing will be used to try to convice J6P what is important and what to buy, just like it is for everything else. The technology used doesn't mean squat to most of them, they are too busy doing other things than to learn how these things work. Besides, technology is always changing. If you try to sell based on technology, it is good for only a brief moment in time before something comes along and ruins your message.

Look around your house and see what all marketing folks convinced you to buy without getting into the technology involved. Works pretty good, eh? :)

Currently the XBOX360 has 2 forms of Audio out: Optical & Stereo Analog.

There is no HDMI output on the back of the released pictures of the HD-DVD addon for the 360.

So I'm wondering if there is a dongle we don't see that provides 5.1 Analog out.

Because otherwise what you get is Dolby True HD downconverted to Dolby Digital and sent out over the Optical output. That would suck.

If they have a new dongle you can buy or comes with the addon that provides 5.1 Analog out, then for me the HD-DVD addon at the rumored $199 price would be the smartest High Definition solution for me.

It would hold me over until 3rd or 4th generation players finally offer everything HD-DVD has to offer.

Amirm,

How close is the HD DVD player for xbox 360 to completion? almost done or a month or two left? and is the lord of the rings trilogy really coming to HD DVD

I can't tell you that :). What I can tell you is that I am watching HD DVDs and DVDs on it....

As to second, you know I can't answer those questions. But I did see the pre-order on Amazon.

amirm, can you tell me at least if dvds will look better playing through thr HD DVD player?

I don't know how much better anything could look than Toshiba's player. But no, I have not done that kind of testing.

so wait your saying that dvds played through the xbox 360 HD DVD player look just as good as on the toshiba hd-a1 more or less

No, I am saying that the Toshiba does a great job at that so I couldn't figure out why you were looking for something better. And that I have not compared the two to know which one is better.

oh yah and amirm is there a posubility of an analog 5.1 or 7.1ch audio out cable for 360

common amirm all you have to say is yes there is a possibility or no there is not a possibility or just maybe

To Keith and/or Tom (and others in the know)

Are there any Blu-ray SoC based "Stand Alone" recorders on the horizon?

Question for Amir. Don Eklund of Sony has claimed that the average bit rate for many of the early VC-1 releases is 20 Mbps. What is the average bit rate of the early VC-1 releases?

If people have PC-based high def players, can they determine the average bit rate themselves?

Rob,

You already asked and were replied to with this in the other thread:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...&&#post8453239

Try to read the responses........

Thanks Robert. To be clear, Phatom of the Opera ("POTO") was one of the first titles...

And no, you can not find the VC-1 rate using a PC. All you can find is the total size of the multiplexed file which includes audio, and other elements. We have an internal tool that can do this analysis and give out the results but we have not released it. And of course, post houses have the numbers when they encode the file.

That list is not responsive to my question. Of those movies listed, some haven't even been released yet. If I'm counting properly, that list only counts four of the first 37 movies released. This is not the data required to be able to judge Eklund's statement. I'm guessing Eklund is wrong, but I can't objectively tell.

How's this:

"I swear, on all I hold sacred (currently including: The Arctic Monkeys, saffron risotto, and Lawerence of Arabia), that the average of the average bitrates of currently released HD DVD titles' main VC-1 video streams are substantially below 20 Mbps."

So, either I, Ben Waggoner explicitly lying to you, or I'm horribly deluded as to real-world VC-1 compression, or a Sony rep spoke incorrectly about a competing techology.

Not objective I suppose, but I'll let you calculate the balance of probabilities :).


Alternatively, you can probably figure out a ballpark number given the known size of the EVOB, and subtracting the audio tracks, PIP data, etcetera.

Don is a smart guy. And he's got smart people working with him.

But the million dollar question is - DOES SMARTNESS EQUAL TRUTHFULLNESS? [Particularly in the case at point. I don't expect you to answer that in public, but I will give it a shot anyways.]

I think honesty only takes you so far in business, particularly at Sony nowadays. The mantra seems to be "say whatever is needed, do whatever is required to get people's attention."

I'm not lying when I say Ben's right. Our averages since the beginning have been sub-16Mbps (Some went above that in relation to grain, age, etc.) with several at below 13Mbps for upcoming titles and we couldn't be much happier, encoding-wise. To give you the basic numbers to start subtracting with? The DD+ 5.1's are 640Kbps each (CBR). The True HD tracks are about 3Mbps (VBR). The subs come to about 32Kbps per track (VBR). And PIPs/IME come to below 1.5Mbps (VBR). Start subtracting...

Also, on Tom's point, Eklund's not an idiot and I know some of his people. I don't know that he was truly the one behind the scenes wanting this info released, though. Do not forget the corporate interests at work here that will push others out into traffic so that the details, if proven false, can be hit by the oncoming forum posts...

BTW, I am damn happy to finally see Batman Begins on the release schedule!!!! October 10th, baby!

Cjplay.

Same here, very happy to see that. Can you say why it was delayed from the first set of titles launched? I know a lot of us here had that one on reserve with our orders at VE only to see it pushed back a couple of times until this new now formal announcement. Was it for more features to be added instead of just a barebones movie (as I've heard the IME for this is pretty interesting).

SO, as I suspected - More Sony LIES ;)

Done meaning the spec is implementable. Once the spec is implementable you've actually got to implement, test, etc., which can easily add months, depending on the complexity of the spec. The BD-Video spec was done months before BD-Live wsa finished, so BD-Live machines appearing months after BD-Video tracks with this.
You'd have to ask a Sun spokesperson, but the Samsung has no network connection so it's inherently incapable of supporting BD-Live (unless someone invents an HDMI <--> network adapter!).
Perhaps the hardware they're using can't support PiP. Keith, speaking generically, can any chipset capable of supporting Blu-ray also support PiP, or are there chip-specific features required which might not be present in 1G players?
BD-Live definitely isn't going to require "PC hardware", I'm quite sure Sigma and Broadcom SOC solutions currently being designed into players can support BD-Live.
In general, decisions like this are made to allow initial products (albeit with fewer features) to reach the market sooner. If there were no HD-DVD, or if it wasn't expected to be released earlier or at the same time as BD, I suspect there would be no profiles.
Hardware is a relatively small cost here - you need more persistent memory for storing A/V streams, and you need a network port. The cost is the time it takes to build and test the full specification.

- Talk

The contradiction appears to be the Samsung press release. BD-J is required in all profiles, and the Samsung player shipped with BD-J support (it's widely used for testing by the studios). My assumption is that the firmware upgrade improves performance and compatibility of the BD-J implementation (perhaps adding Jazelle VM optimization support, as a separate press release a few weeks ago mentioned).