Is D-Box compatible with HD-DVD or BD?

This topic was recently covered.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=718273

They are on board with BD. As of two weeks ago I was told they had code for 4 or 5 titles. I did not ask what titles.
I hope they shift their NTSC efforts & knock off more BD titles. Forget NTSC lets go Hi Def

Why do they just support BD? I think that's a big mistake. Why not make the codes for both camps?

I have been trying to get them to get on board with HD-DVD, which I prefer. Can you imagine what the new HD-DVD version of Grand Prix would be like with motion.

They have two BD titles listed on their web site (XXX and Fifth Element) and it requires a firmware upgrade to get them to work, which I don't have yet. Unfortunately, those titles don't look very good, but hopefully the upcoming titles from Fox look better.

Well I will try to bring some light over what's coming in for/from D-BOX. First our intention is to support both format no doubt about that. We have the BD working (and more titles coming soon) and we are working on the HD DVD. The Controller requires a firmware update as Phil mentioned to be able to download BD and HDDVD motion codes. If anyone needs it, I will gladly send it out to you. Our goal here is to set a Motion Standard and Fox is the first one to come on board... The list of upcoming BD with Motion codes is to be release soon.

Hi Yannick, Allow me to be the first to welcome you to the forum.
Thanks for keeping us all updated.

Hello Yannick,

Welcome to the forum. It's always nice to have the source of information.

You might remember me as I wrote you sometime ago about some coding issues.


It's great to hear that you'll be supporting both HD formats, but can you please tell us more about this firmware upgrade? Is it some kind of a board/chip change? And if you have the codes for the standart DVD, do you have to rewrite the whole thing again for the HD version of the same movie or is it a much simpler job?

Also are there any plans to speed up the preparing the Motion Codes? I know that it's a difficult and lenghty job but you know we're all very impatient I usually don't go to movie theaters anymore and prefer to wait for the DVD to come out, so I can watch it with my setup and D-Box. After waiting couple of months or more for the DVD, we usually have to wait at least another month for the codes and I think it's huge wait for us the customers. I know that you made an agreement with one of the studios so that you'll have more time to prepare the codes in advance before the release date. But obviously one studio is not enough.

Sorry for the rant but this waiting is just killing me. But other than that D-Box is the highlight of my not-so-humble HT.

Regards

Murat

Murat, I can answer about the firmware update, since I have it now. It is a simple e-mailable file, that you can burn to a disc, and update your controller yourself.

I agree with you, about the time we have to wait for motion codes. I don't go to the theater anymore either, and the wait for DVD is long. I usually don't have the patience to wait for the motion codes before I watch a movie, so, when they do come out, it is usually the second viewing of the film.

Yannick, can shed more light on this, but I think, much of the delay, has to do with the fact that D-Box has to wait for the movie as well, before they can do the coding, and if the studio's would get them the movie sooner, we would have the codes sooner. That is what is so exciting about the Fox announcement, and hopefully more studio's will come on board with D-Box.

Can't they do it with automatic or manual update of the controllers? What I mean is send the files over internet connection as they do it with the codes and the controller updates its firmware automatically.

I don't think they want to do that, because there are so few people who have Blu-Ray players, and then everyone will be tying up their server, downloading the large Blu-Ray files.

Hello Yannick

I join the others in welcoming you to the forum.

Heres is a question that came across my desk recently. How will D-Box handle Pal for those interested in D-Box in Pal land. I think their concern is with HD DVD and Blue Ray. Will Pal versions be released same time with the NTSC release or will it come at a later time or not at all.

Thank you.
Alan.

Well thanks a lot everyone for the warm welcome .

Murrat I do remember our previous conversation... didn't we meet at CES last year?
We do have to resynchronize the BD as the audio track is changing a little but it's minor. It's like doing the resynchronization for PAL DVD's. (5 hours per movie if no scene are added or changed from the US version otherwise it's adding pretty fast.) It's a labor intensive process, it's really like audio mixing or video mixing the only difference is that right now no movies are thought or done with the motion in mind, but it will come... Then no more waiting...
We have two new guy's coming in Monday, one for resynchronizing the new HD formats (BD at the moment) and one to encode new movie. Needless to say that it will take a few months before they can operate full speed.

Trust me I know the feeling of waiting, it's killing me to see or hear the movies around the office and not being able to watch them, well I could but it's worth waiting for the Motion codes. We have access to the DVD's a couple days before the release date, we have been fortunate to get King Kong in advance so it was available at the same time. We certainly hope to have more titles in advance in the future.

One studio is not enough you are totally right, be patient

Hope this helps a little, I'll try to be around as much as I can, during the day it's almost impossible, but I'll stop by at night to say hi!

Murrat if you want the upgrade let me know I'll send it out to you with instructions... at the moment like Phil said, it would eat up our bandwith and it's always risky to make a massive update what if something goes wrong... thousands of units send back to factory... it shouldn't happen but what if ...

Cheers,

Thanks Allan

Lucky enough with BD their is only 3 regions. At this stage we will only have our Motion Codes on the US region BD. PAL version will come after just like we do with DVD's.

The main reason why we are not doing it, it's because this update needs to be done in two steps and we would have no way of knowing if the first step was done.

Yannick, thanks for all the replies.

I'll switch to HD when the second generation players start to appear, then I 'll get the update for the D-Box.

Is this update just for the BD or will it work for HD-DVD too?

It will be HD DVD ready as well...

I've seen in another post that you had tried to connect while our sever was down. We have had some ISP problem so we brought most of our stuff back to the office and we do it ourselves now. (best way to keep an eye on it) therefore we should have a more stable network.

Got quite a few Motion codes out yesterday

-MEN 3
POSEIDON
24 season 1 episode 12
INSIDE MAN
BROKEN ARROW (motion codes remix)

they are now releasing the BLuray titles list with the D-BOX Motion Codes on them
I can't post URL yet so I copied it ...


Fox Blu-ray Announcement Blowout; Cover Art Added
November 02, 2006
Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment has formally announced several titles retailers had added as pre-orders over the past week, brought back a pair of delayed titles, and added a slew of new ones that will all arrive on what will be the day to drain your bank accounts on the eve of Valentine's Day.

'Alien vs. Predator (Unrated),' 'Commando,' 'Men of Honor' and 'Courage Under Fire' will all be released January 23 and include DTS-HD Master Audio, 1080p video, and a D-Box Motion Sensor Track.

'The Sentinel' and 'Entrapment' were previously slated for early December but will instead find store shelves on February 13. No additional content appears to be on either disc above what was previously announced, so the reasoning behind the delay remains a mystery (unless they turns out to be a BD-50 discs).

That's just the beginning for what February 13 has in store. Also appearing on that date are a pair of MGM titles: previously unveiled through retailers 'The Usual Suspects' and previously unannounced 'The Princess Bride.' In addition look for 'Broken Arrow,' 'Chain Reaction,' 'Phone Booth' and 'Planet of the Apes (2001).' Of those, only 'Broken Arrow' has been confirmed to include a D-Box Motion Sensor Track; not that many people will be equipped to take advantage of it anyways.

All Fox distributed titles, including the MGM ones, will feature DTS-HD Master Audio and 1080p. Extra features for all titles can be found through the disc details below. Thus far, none of these newly announced titles have been confirmed to be BD-50 discs. Stay tuned for additional information as it becomes available

nice day to all

great news

G'day Yannick... welcome... so are things good to go for us in PAL land? (Australia)

Alan... did you have your meeting with D-box yet?

Gino,

Good to see you
As I mentioned last time most of the Motion Codes we have done for Europe are going to work for you... If you are willing to do what we discussed for the non encoded movies we are ready for the Austrialian market.

Yes Yannick... but weren't you going to give me the software to do this?

Gino,

Sure I can send you one...

I will see which one would be the best for you...

Regards,

hehehe I'm so use to email at work that I continue using the formal stuff ...

I would like to get some feedback from any of you D-Box users on this following comments? They were brought up to me by a User who brings in a lot of good feedback and I wanted to know if it was shared by some of you.


While I love to watch movies with the D-box, I find it very frustrating how looooong it takes for you to come out with new codes sometimes up to a month after the release.
Motion by far adds the most to blockbuster ACTION movies, yet you continue to put out codes for so many movies and shows that have relatively little action, car chases, fight scenes, etc. in them. A wide variety of movies are great to have, but I think most customers would much prefer to simply have the codes for the major action blockbusters faster even if that sacrificed some variety. I'm not sure how long it takes you to actually code a movie once you start, but if its lengthy, maybe you could divide a segment of a movie project among multiple programmers to reduce the time to completion? Maybe you could put bonus projects like older movies and TV Show DVDs on the back-burner anytime a major new action blockbuster is released and then only return to the auxiliary movies when the major ones are done? Maybe you could hire more programmers? I don't know how many customers you have to support the effort, but if it's a financial issue, I'd be willing to pay a little more for the annual subscription if it meant you could get the major movies out much faster. I suspect others would as well if they could see tangible differences.

Thanks

I think all of his points are valid, and I agree with them. A price increase would have to be accompanied by a significant acceleration of title volume, and expediency though.

By the way, I would also add that my first priority would be for an acceleration of HD titles. Both HDDVD and Blu-Ray. The D-Box system is still a high end product, and it should be shown in its best light. This would be with the very best picture quality available to go with the motion codes.

I also agree, that I am continuing to scratch my head, every time D-box comes out with a TV show, and there are numerous, new release blockbusters that have not been coded. There are even older movie titles, that would be great with motion,that have not been coded, while TV shows, with very little motion, and some that I have never even heard of are released. I have to wonder, who picks these shows for coding? Is there somebody at D-box, who is a big TV fan, because I certainly don't watch a TV show after it has already aired??

Phil,

As funny as it sounds we are doing those series because some have shown interest... You are right for HD title exept at the moment only a very few of our customers have BD and HDDVD will most likely be working in a near future. We are able to resynchronize the HD titles (when already encoded for DVDs) relatively quickly (1 or 2 a day). We will have a bunch out in December, most of which came out of the list you sent us Remember we do titles for Fox now so when they are going to come out on BD the Motion Codes will already be available.

Realistically how long will it take D-Box to code "all" the current tiles that are out now let alone keep up with the new releases. It seams a huge task yet if I were told a year or two that would be a show stopper for me right on the spot. If you want my money and Im seeing you waisting time on DVD that would not satisfy me. If you have 3 coders then put two on Hi Def and 1 on DVD.

Donny

Glad to hear you are considering it We have two Motion Artist team 6 are encoding the movies (we have just hired a new one but it's going to take him a good 4 to 6 months before we see titles coming out from him) and 2 Resync (one of them is brand new as well so it's going to take him some time as well). So we are going to have 2 persons resynchronizing the Motion Codes for HD format. We also have other fields in which our guys allow some of their time (OEM stuff, clips for our Arcade division, etc.) I know we have a delay to get new titles out and that's why I want to know your thoughts on this. Still, if you would buy a system now, you would still have some materials (600 titles) to cover the short delay HD is becoming a priority for us as Phil said we are in a high end market and we have to keep up!

Thanks

Glad to let you know that we have some nice releases available.

MISSION IMPOSSIBLE 3
DAVINCI CODE, THE
UNITED93
CHAINREACTION

But the best of all is that MI 3 is release in BLURAY as well.

We have tried something new today and it worked so we are going to be doing some procedures differently from now on and hopefully going to be able to have titles in both DVD and BD out at the same time. (the blockbusters anyway).

Cheers,

I am thinking about buying a d-box system, especially after reading Yannick's posts on this thread. He gave great info that I wasn't even able to find on the d-box web site. Perhaps Yannick needs to be in charge of d-box's web site :-)

More companies should have an "insider" like Yannick present at forums like this. It would boost their sales.

Yannick, so I've gone ahead with ordering a D-Box... I still havent received that software you promised me