My ONE and ONLY Reason for Favoring HD DVD  

The avenue for using Blu-Ray's superior storage capacity for personal distribution of HD camcorder footage may be a dead end.

According to SS Scott, moderator at the Roxio forums, what's happening behind the scenes may not be good for us.

There are two types of BD authoring, BDAV (no menus, no interactive) and BDMV (interactive with menus).

BDAV authoring was intended for users to burn their personal HD content like camcorder footage onto BD-R/RE media, and the interactive format BDMV was Hollywood's format intended for BD-ROM. But outside of Hollywood people want to author menus and interactivity just like on DVD, which requires the BDMV structure.

The problem is that an illegal ripped copy from BD-ROM looks the same as legal BDMV authored for BD-R/RE, so under studio pressure, namely Sony, the simple fix is to disable BD-R/RE playback. While some first generation Sony Blu-Ray players added BD-R/RE playback in a firmware update, the newest 2nd generation Sony player the BDP-S300 has eliminated it. Speculation is that future firmware updates may retroactively disable BD-R/RE playback on other players, even the PS3.

It is speculation yes, but it comes from a good source.

Needless to say, it's confusing and disappointing, and puts Blu-Ray authoring onto BD-R/RE media into a state of uncertainty.

http://forums.support.roxio.com/inde...howtopic=25294
http://forums.support.roxio.com/inde...howtopic=23713

I honestly have a problem with Blu-Ray on this point. I'm saying nothing to champion the HD DVD cause, other than to express the reason for my current lean in that direction centers on this issue alone. Blu-Ray is gaining momentum. As your collective voices call out for the death of HD DVD, I beseech the Blu-Ray supporters to insist upon a writable format, lest there be a time you want one and don't have it.

Thanks for the reply.

1.) Anyone can very easily author compliant HD DVD video with interactive menus onto standard DVD5/9 media with any current DVD burner. You don't need HD DVD burners or media. Your project merely needs to fit onto the disk capacity. This is up to about 43 minutes of 25 mbps 1080i60 HDV camcorder video with AC3 5.1 audio on a dual layer DVD disk. These disks play in all HD DVD players.

2.) As for the Hitachi Blu-Ray camcorder, would you not agree that it would be an understatement if the disk it produces do not play from a Blu-Ray player? That's exactly what is at issue, potentially. If to play a BD-R/RE disk from it, you had to connect the camcorder's HDMI cord to the HDTV, it would be no different than a tape based system.

Almost, not exactly...It's not advanced content that is being witheld. There's no way to do that. That genie is already out of the bottle. But because advanced content that you create legally can't be distinguished from advanced content illegally ripped, (both are BDMV file structures) the simple (and onerous fix) can be to simply disable playback of the writable media itself. Do you see?

I'm not debating you on point 1.) I would definitely prefer higher capacity. Blu-Ray clearly ahead, just pointing out that the HD DVD trade off for its limited capacity is functionality and compatibility, right now.

On point 2.) middle of the road possible solution, see point one. The HD DVD is here and now, for Blu-Ray as you say, "it's still too early say" but then not too early to have hardware and software already to market? See the paradox? That's very frustrating for me because on one hand, you have a limited but still perfectly working solution that others could potentially be calling for the death of the HD DVD format because there is expensive hardware, software and media available to buy from Blu-Ray, yet no assurance of compatibility?

Are you saying it's 100% safe bet that a minimalist BD-R/RE will play on a Sony BDP-S300 player? Have you tried this? My understanding is that you cannot play this type of disk, period.

There are two possibilities:

1.) The drive physically can't read the dye layer.
2.) It can physically read it but playback is disabled.

Which is it? Does it even matter? One point is clear. You can definitely burn Blu-Ray disks. The problem is, can you play them back? I would encourage you to visit those links I posted to the Roxio forum and evaluate earnestly the compatibility of BD writable media.

What I'm honestly calling for, is the Blu-Ray supporters to recognize this as fundamental and insist on a writable format that is functional and compatible across all players. I will eagerly adopt Blu-Ray if that happens. But right now, I'm cursing it because we are so engaged in the war, it's a major point of significance that until you've won it, you may not realize or care that you don't have it.

Thanks wreckshop. I hope you're right that I'm jumping the gun. But while BDAV may have no restrictions for playback on any burnable media, it nevertheless becomes a casualty of the mechanism for switching off BDMV, which is to disable BD-R/RE media playback. THAT's the crux of it. No BD-R/RE playback, no BDAV either.

In reading again the Roxio links, what moderator SS Scott seems to be saying is that BDMV can be switched off for BD-R/RE, which holds open the hope that BDAV playback can exist on BD-R/RE as krinkle and wreckshop are saying. Personally, I think that's reasonable. But what remains unacceptable is some players not supporting the writable media, like the Sony BDP-S300.

Thanks rdjam. Is it 100% that all Blu-Ray players will playback BDAV on BD-R/RE? I found several players not stating support for the BD-R/RE media itself.