Why I think BluRay may be the future for CD-based music and HD video content... (1 Viewer)

[Lee Scoggins]

I agree in part...but it kinda boils down to this: how many households will have the hardware in 2005 and 2006 as the new formats launch to notice the difference between hi-def MP2 and MP4?

I doubt very many.

Of course, I will be lined up to buy those 1080p projectors for sure as I want the best video possible.

After reflecting on the weekend it seems we are maybe in a similar situation with audio...it seems that something else must be offered to drive the adoption extra resolution. Won't many people say hi-def MPEG2 is good enough? Indeed, many Americans might feel DVD is good enough...With hirez it's not a great comparison since the marketing of both formats has sucked. Still, maybe the surround sound feature has a corollary in video.

Maybe it's common data storage?!? Same discs for playing & recording video, same disc format for storing computer data in vast amounts, same disc for a new hirez music launch.

That's why I am enthusiastic...the music/copmuter/film industry has an unprecedented chance to launch (hopefully in a massive fashion) a new standard for storage. Of course, the egos involved and poor management will probably screw it up, but think of the benefits if they don't.

 

[PhilBoy]

Perhaps BluRay may be a unifying medium as opposed to a unifying format.

 

[Michael St. Clair]

So high-def on disc is a format designed to last a couple of years?

I'd like to think that the display quality would be targeted to the displays that buyers will have five to ten years down the road.

Maybe I whould just stick with D-VHS until the real high-def disc format comes out in 2007 or so. :rolleyes

 

[Lee Scoggins]

For early adopters Yes.

The problem it seems to me is that many people (even later adopters) have purchased a high-def reayd screen so their replacement cycle may be a few years away. So if the video quality is a marginal improvement, even though you John, myself and others would prefer the latest and greatest, it could be a difficult sell to the consumer.

I was just thinking about things from a strategy perspective, ie. what's realistic about selling to the consumer.

As a videophile, I would want 1080p with as few a motion artifacts as possible, but we may number just 2-5% of the entire population.

 

[Lee Scoggins]

I read something interesting today in the new issue of Sound & Vision, I think David Ranada's column....it seems one of the advantages of BluRay is the ability to use less expensive plastic on the substrates and covers.

That may help create higher profit margins on the product once the initial pressing lines are in place.

David is predicting a possibly heated format war.

 

[PhilBoy]

An inexpensive medium is a good start...

Perhaps if BluRay players used software decoding much the same as HTPC's we could play whatever format is 'the' format of the moment.

The licensing issues could be charged on the discs and then consumers could choose the format (codec) they prefer as opposed to "Here it is. This is what you are going to get".

Players should be affordable (and upgradable)let them make the royalty $$$ on the 'software' sales.

These days you can buy a cheap DVD player for less than the price of most DVD titles of 5 years ago.

With PC's, the video codec battles are interesting and at least we can choose which one we prefer. There would be quite a few growing pains, but there would be a choice.

Who knows we may even end up with something better in the long run.

 

[Lee Scoggins]

That may be a valid way to do it. Smaller royalty but larger volume and faster adoption rate.

 

[mueller]

I was ahte the cebit.

And I talk to the sony andy pioneer employes.
They have said that the blu-ray recorders are not able to play dvds.

But hd-dvd make it.

And Microsost support the hd-dvd

 

[James Morrow]

To understand the HD-DVD world, it’s useful to ask whatever happened to DVD18s? Standard dual-layer DVD is actually two single layer DVDs stuck back to back with a transparent bonding agent so that they can be read from one side. Whilst this is ok for a "dual-layer" disc, it only supports a single layer per side if you go double-sided. True dual-layer discs such as DVD14s and DVD18s require additional processing stages to stamp the extra data layers required, and although DVD14s and DVD18s have been around for over five years now, they're still rather thin on the ground - indicating that the manufacturers' are still having problems making them.

This wouldn't matter, except that HD-DVD is based on the same structure as DVD, giving it the same problems as DVD - along with the additional ones of getting a blue laser to fit into a red laser format. Using DVD structure limits HD-DVD to 30GB over two layers, although the option of going to 60GB double-sided (dependent upon overcoming the DVD18 issue) exists. Unfortunately, HD-DVD can't support more than two layers without major redesign of the optical system (i.e. effectively re-inventing Blu-ray), so is limited to 30GB or, at best, 60GB.

In contrast, Blu-ray was designed from the outset to support multi-layer and multi-level recording - TDK have already demonstrated 100GB quad-layer single-sided recording on a CD-sized disc and, unlike HD-DVD, going double-sided poses no additional disc engineering problems.

Both HD-DVD and Blu-ray require additional lasers and optics to support CD and DVD, and both have shown single optical heads which can support CD/DVD and HD-DVD/BD.
Although HD-DVD can claim support for this standard and that standard, Blu-ray has been in production for over a year now, with the second generation dual-layer 50GB product due this Summer, and the task it has been used for is recording standard and high definition video in Japan. The broadcast high definition signal currently uses MPeg2 encoding - as does the vast majority of high definition broadcasting at the moment, and so the first Blu-ray machine supports MPeg2 decoding. Sony uses MPeg4 in its CineAlta range of high definition studio recorders, and plans to use it in the PSP, but it is still early days for consumer level high definition MPeg4 encoding/decoding. If all the sources are currently MPeg2 (without going back to the original film or lightly uncompressed digital master) it might make little sense to support MPeg4 early on. ...of course, if HD movies could be compressed using MPeg4 down to, say, 16Mbps and provide similar quality to MPeg2 at 28Mbps (D-Theater) that would leave more space for high resolution audio too. Then again, Sony already produce drives for the Professional Disc for Data [PDD] that support data-rates of 72Mbps, and for XD-Cams that support up to 144Mbps, so maybe a 72Mbps drive coupled with a 50GB disc would give leeway for very high performance audio and video - such as 1080p24 coupled with SACD12.1.

...or for even more portability, putting a double-sided, dual-layer (or single-sided, quad-layer) disc in the minidisc form factor would provide around 24GB - enough for a three hour MPeg4 high definition film with high resolution audio. Obvious name? High Density Minidisc [HDMD]. ...but then I suggested that last year... :rolleyes

 

[Michael St. Clair]

Or simply indicating that two discs is more economical, at least in most cases. This isn't necessarily a 'problem'.

As far as storage 'space', HD-DVD may have actually had the advantage for movies, due to using more efficient codecs (in addition to MPEG2 for DVD and HD broadcast compatibility).

Fortunately, it looks like Sony may be blinking, as they are now evaluating WM9 as an additional codec. Many of us rightly saw limiting support to MPEG-2 as pure folly. Be very glad that HD-DVD was there to force competition, or Sony probably wouldn't have come to its senses.

Those MPEG-2 Blu-Ray machines in Japan will likely become obsolete.

My next hope is that HD-DVD and Blu-Ray merge and we don't have a format war...

 

[James Morrow]

As modern PCs have hard drives of hundreds of gigabytes, 17.04GB recordable DVDs [DVD18s] would be significantly more desirable than 8.52GB DVDs. Additional data layer stamping processes would increase but not double costs - however, yield problems have been reported in the past, and these would easily double costs. I would tend to define yield problems for something as well developed as DVD as a manufacturing difficulty.

Computers need real 'space' on which to store data, for which 50GB will always beat 30GB. Dual-layer 50GB Bu-ray can adopt a more efficient codec than MPeg2 to record more video (ignoring lossless high resolution audio for now). Dual-layer 30GB HD-DVD adopts more efficient codecs than MPeg2 out of necessity, and so have no way of further increasing 'capacity' except by going double-sided - which depends on using DVD18 technology. Quad-layer 100GB Blu-ray can also go double-sided to produce a 200GB disc - great for computer and video-server applications...

Blu-ray involves more than just Sony, and Toshiba are on record as saying that AOD [HD-DVD] is a stepping-stone on the way to Blu-ray. An obsolete codec can be replaced; an obsolete disc structure you're stuck with. The whole point of Blu-ray is that it offers the best performance commercially available with a blue-violet laser, with a roadmap to much higher performance in the future. AOD's roadmap stops at 60GB double-sided and switches to Blu-ray...

First generation machines often do become obsolete - that's a risk one always takes in coming first, let alone more than a year before any sign of the opposition... A quad-layer (single-sided) minidisc-sized Blu-ray product would provide around 24GB of storage - nearly as much as a dual-layer HD-DVD CD-sized product, but think of the advantages for digital cameras, camcorders, "ipods", portable SACD recorders, portable computer files, etc...

The only advantage HD-DVD has over Blu-ray (assuming they both use modern codecs) is the name, but HD-DVD is rather cumbersome to say whilst BD [Blu-ray Disc] isn't. So perhaps if they take the B from Blu-ray and the D from Digital Versatile Disc, resulting in BD, and use the technology from Blu-ray with the 12cm disc size from HD-DVD (and the 6cm disc size from minidisc) it'll be a satisfactory merger...

 

[James Morrow]

I don't know where Mueller gets his information that Blu-ray recorders can't play DVDs, as even the first ever Blu-ray recorder, the Sony BDZ-S77, is able to play CDs and DVDs, and Sony's new three wavelength head is capable of reading and writing CDs, DVDs and BDs.

Talking of SACD, DVDA and MLP, I know that film studios are enamoured with 48kHz/24bit audio these days, but if Blu-ray has lossless audio I would expect high fidelity - not just slightly better than "state of the ark" 44kHz/16bit. PCM-wise, support for 192kHz/24bit PCM7.1 would be good for audio only discs, although using a 50GB disc, 72Mbps heads and MPeg4 compression, 192/24/7.1 coupled with high definition video would be easily achievable - and brilliant for live concerts, etc... Of course, 384/24/7.1 would be even better again - and using entropic compression appropriately need not involve much more data than 192/24/7.1...

 

[Lee Scoggins]

Aren't there also some problems with WM9 video? I seem to recall reading this recently in Perfect Vision or elsewhere...

I would prefer to not have a format war as well. Another reason Sony may be adding a codec or two is due to legal pressure on the combined team from the Justice Dept.

 

[James Morrow]

I'll have to check out WM9, but I know that object-orientated MPeg4 is much better for consistently handling objects and object motion within a scene. This also has important implications for efficient compression in next generation high frame-rate variants (1080p96 and higher).

The problem with trying to merge Blu-ray and HD-DVD is that the current HD-DVD standard is a compromise which is 100% DVD and 0% blue-violet laser. The only significant change is replacing the 650nm DVD laser with a 405nm blue-violet laser. In contrast, Blu-ray is 100%BD and 0% DVD. But as both require DVD lasers and compatible heads to read DVDs, from a consumer's viewpoint there is no need for a Blu-ray disc to conform to DVD standards - except being 12cm in diameter and 1.2mm thick.

Also, the new paper disc technology, which can easily be applied to either single-sided or double-sided Blu-ray due to its 1.1mm (0r 1.0mm) substrate, brings disc costs below DVD. Unfortunately, with its 0.6mm protection layer, DVD can't make full use of paper technology.

 

[Michael St. Clair]

Huh? By merging blue-ray, I'm not talking about trying to reconcile incompatible physical disc and laser differences. I'm just talking about both sides getting together and settling on a single format. And I could care less what it is called (though I think Blu-Ray is kind of a dumb name...I like BluDisc or HighDisc better).

My only concern with Blu-Ray's physical format is that replication capacity may be restricted (same as SACD versus regular CD...very little SACD capacity compared to CD capacity). But I'm certainly open-minded about it.

HD-DVD includes losslessly compressed high-res multichannel PCM, even during video playback. If there is any kind of 'merger', I'd like to see that in the final spec.


Not that I'm aware of.

 

[James Morrow]

Sounds good - BluDisc could be shortened to BD as already used; HD is harder to say than CD, DVD or BD. 50GB single-sided is just the beginning for BD, whilst 60GB double-sided is the end for AOD - with 1TB computers such as Sony's type X arriving soon we'll need all the capacity we can get for computer-related applications - not to mention HD servers (even 1TB is only around 80 hours of high definition video at 24Mbps).

According to recent reports in Perfect Vision, while it is generally very stable and artifact-free, WM9 loses some of the transparency and three-dimensionality of off-air broadcasts for 1080p at 8Mbps, but a 50GB BD has space for four hours at 24Mbps or, using 72Mbps heads and discs, three hours at 32Mbps. As BD is up to it, why not benefit from the higher capacity and data-rates it supports to get a more transparent system?

The Blu-ray Disc with the range of options supported by both BD and HD-DVD, including high resolution (192kHz/24bit or higher) 7.1 or greater lossless PCM, DSD7.1 and ideally a very high quality "stereo" mode for archiving LPs and tapes on to BD. It should be able to support both high definition audio and video together, not the compromise we have had with SACD (audio only), DVD (mid quality audio) and DVDA (high quality stereo audio, reduced quality multi-channel and limited video).

 

[Lee Scoggins]

I thought I read something in Perfect Vision.

 

[Lee Scoggins]

By the way, I did speak with Michael Smith, head of consumer electronics for Sony North America, at HE2004. He says that he does not see BluRay supporting DSD at this time. When I asked him about this, he stated that he says BluRay as a separate video-oriented product distinct from Sony's music world.

Interesting, no?

It seems Sony may be blowing an opportunity for convergence between video and music here on one player.

 

[James Morrow]

Sounds like Michael is suffering from less than perfect vision too... As the film world is heavily PCM-based - even Sony's CineAlta range of HD recorders has basic 48kHz/24bit audio tracks - and BD is a video product, whereas SACD is an audio-only product, DSD will probably be keeping a low profile as it would send a confused message to the mass market. However, it would be rather strange if a BD player that was backwards-compatible with CD and DVD couldn't play SACD and DVDA - Sony's first universal player might even be a BD machine!

...and if a BD machine had the electronics to decode SACD and DVDA, it wouldn't take that much in future to add SACD or DVDA192 quality soundtracks to music concerts, etc.. Maybe even 7.1 in order to be consistent with the cinema setup. Of course, Digital Theater Systems [DTS] have been working on lossless audio compression up to 96/24/7.1 in cinemas for some time now, and Intel's new PC audio standard supports up to 192/32/7.1 audio, so DVDA192/7.1 support at least makes sense, whilst of course it would be even better to have SACD7.1 too...

 

[John Milton]

What a refreshing change to see someone new who supports one format over another and has studied up on the format of their choice and can provide detailed information and thought about it. Congrats James Morrow and welcome to the forum. Great sig too! I too am hoping Blu-ray becomes the successor to DVD. However, since I'm a movie lover before I'm a format follower, I'll be buying first generation Blu-ray and HD-DVD players. I can only hope that a Universal player will be made within a couple of years of each format launch so as to protect the lifespan of each format. I'd have no real issue with both formats surviving but I don't know how likely that will be. Only time will tell. Consumers will play a big part but IMO the studios will dictate even more so which format will succeed. Warner was a strong promoter of DVD so I'd assume they'll do the same for HD-DVD. I have to give them a lot of credit as I believe they almost single handedly made DVD a success. Is Sony up to the task with Blu-ray? They'll need help and should take a cue from Warner and their partners who offered five free DVDs by mail with most DVD player purchases for at least a year or so.

Offtopic a bit but did Sony acquire MGM's library or not? I remember reading that they were in discussions a month or two ago but I haven't heard anything since. If Sony does buy MGM, a free Bond Blu-ray would make a nice incentive towards consumers purchasing their product. I mean if Lost In Space worked as a freebie incentive for early DVD players purchases, a Bond film should help a bit more. All I know is that I'm excited about these upcoming HD disc formats and can't wait to finally start building a collection again. I sold off nearly every DVD movie I once had... over 900 of them. I realize it'll take some time for a wide variety of movies to be available on BD or HD-DVD discs but the wait should well be worth it. I hope to build and cherish my HD disc collections for many many years to come.