Are Sony, and others invested in Blu-Ray playing fairly??? (1 Viewer)

[MikeEckman]

I find this all fascinating, but there is still one point that these companies are still overlooking. I'll quote Bill Hunt.


As he said, the upgrade from VHS to DVD was a no brainer, but it still took a good 4 years or so before it REALLY took off. DVD came out in March 1997. I didn't get my first player til spring 2000, and even then DVD still was still "new" to a majority of the general population.

What Im getting at here is when DVD2 (or whatever its going to be called) comes out, there is going to be MUCH less demand by the general mass to want to upgrade. Add to that the million dollar question that your typical consumer is going to ask "Why should I upgrade?" and the fact that so many people are just now building their DVD library, I seriously think it is going to take a LONG time for a demand for a DVD2 will exist.

I personally think that even if one unified DVD2 came out, it would stay a niche product much longer than DVD did, but if there's going to be two, it will be even longer.

 

[Ed St. Clair]

Yes, Sony knew.
So did 'everyone' else.
The product was promoted as High End Statement. Therefore, at the time, two channel. The unit was reviewed as limited to stereo only playback, with full acknowledgement of the coming of multi channel units too follow.
Not underhanded at all.
However, I would not like be the one holding a stereo only SA-CD player at this time. And, I am not!

 

[Brent M]

Bill Hunt's article pretty much summed up how I feel about the impending format war between Blu-Ray and HD-DVD. If there was just one format on the horizon to replace DVD, I think the transition would be a lot smoother. However, if both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray come to market at the same time and compete with certain titles being available on one format and not the other, it's going to be just like DVD-Audio and SACD. The high resolution audio idea has been a HUGE bust and I think the same thing might happen with HD-DVD/Blu-Ray. DVD is the biggest thing to happen to the consumer electronics market since the CD was introduced and I just don't see people flocking to another format in the near future as most of them have just bought into DVD in the last 2-3 years. In my opinion, it's going to be a near-impossible sell to all but the early adopters and hardcore videophiles. I guess we'll see what transpires over the next 2 or 3 years.

 

[Brian-W]

Just a little bit....Sony's had a consumer Blu-Ray recorder on sale since last year in Japan, and Samsung/LG/Panasonic are slated to introduce theirs shortly. Granted it's Japan, and it's not a pre-recorded format, it's way overboard to claim "vaporware" when in fact there is working hardware.

Lieberfarb's going mental.

 

[Ed St. Clair]

DVD is the greatest success story in the history of home electronics. It was the biggest seller in it's first year. The biggest seller in it's second year. The biggest seller in it's third year. The biggest seller in it's fourth year...
""New" to a majority of the general population".
Well... YES!!!
That would be OVER 50% market penetration in under FOUR YEARS!!!
My GOODNESS!!!
Do you know the market penetration for satellite dishes, the previous leader in mp, was in it's first 48 months?
The MP of the VCR, best MP previous too the SD, in 48 months?
DVD ROCKED!
And still ROCK'S, too this day. You can get a DVD player CHEAPER than a VHS player!
I think most here, being videophiles, would be shocked at just how many people when first seeing a DVD, were underwhelmed. Of coarse, we all jumped for joy!
I believe, I have NO data on this, that it was the features of DVD that took the masses by storm. No rewinding. That was a BIG deal. And in the difficult day's of Divx & no Disney, it was an long uphill climb for DVD (as hot as it was, VHS had a multi decade headstart) into the rental marketplace.

 

[MikeEckman]

I wont argue everything you said, but what I meant was, it took DVD a couple years to reach a large audience. I think it was 2001 or 2002 when DVD outsold VHS for the first time. Yes, it was a success in its earliest years, but my point being, is it still took a couple years for DVD to REALLY catch on even though its advantages are obvious. How will DVD2 catch on when the advantages aren't as obvious to the general public?

 

[Paul.S]

Ed:

I wrote:
Oh no, baby! I won't be seduced into what is surely a thread-hijacking debate, especially about a topic that has been repeatedly addressed/debated in the "Music" area.

Apologies if this seems like a dodge, but my point was to acknowledge the debate on the issue, not to engage it herein.

-p

 

[Ed St. Clair]

Paul.S,
I UNDERSTAND completely!!!
MikeEckman,
Your RIGHT!!!
HD-DVD will be much, much slower.
Not along the lines of DVD-A/SA-CD, butt close.
700+ DVD collections are NOT disappearing 'overnight' as 700+ LD collections did (no fight, please, just some of the earliest adopters of DVD where LD fans, some of whom "swore" before DVD's release, that they would never even touch one).
HD-DVD will be a niche market for three to five years (IMNotSoHO).
I just did not in any way, want the succuss rate of DVD to be tied too HD-DVD. Cause, DVD was not that bad, and HD-DVD will not be that good. Especially if it's BluRay, because of the manufacturing cost (certainly, at the start).

 

[Dan Rudolph]

On my new HDTV, DVDs are about 30 pixels per inch in the horizontal direction. It's fairly noticeable. I'd like a higher-rez format, but it doesn't look so bad I'm desperate to pay anything. I suspect many others are in the same boat.

 

[Brent M]

Reference DVDs look amazing on my 42" Panasonic plasma and I'm sure they'll look just as great on the 50" Panny HD plasma that I'm getting ready to buy. Personally, I'm in no big rush to upgrade my DVD collection all over again after just converting it from VHS in the past 4 years. I think a lot of consumers will feel exactly the same way and Blu-Ray/HD-DVD will not be successful for quite some time.

 

[PeterTHX]

Well, sorry about te seeming DSD threadjack. Just had to respond to the complaints Sony & Philips were trying to start a format war with DVD-Audio merely for royalties. :b

I think the MAIN reason that Blu-Ray is MPEG2 is because that it is an exact HDTV signal at a higher bitrate. D-VHS on Optical Disc you could say. Technically it means that a player could dump the bitstream to say, a firewire, and have a TV with a built in decoder natively decode it. You couldn't do that with MPEG4/WMV9 (and I'm a BIG supporter of WMV9). I don't think there's anything preventing 1080p playback either. Couldn't a Blu-Ray disc be flagged for 1080 progressive like DVD is now? (480i->480p in player)

 

[Wayne Bundrick]

You've given a good reason why transporting undecoded MPEG to the TV by firewire to be decoded by the TV isn't such a good idea. I think it's better to have the player do the decoding and then send it to the TV using DVI/HDMI. Then it doesn't matter whether the player uses MPEG2, MPEG4, WMV9, or something else.

I think it's ironic that Sony's language regarding going their own way with Blu-Ray apart from the DVD Forum talks about "making a clean break from the technology of DVD" and yet they're not thinking of new codecs. This from the same company that had no qualms about abandoning PCM for DSD. Meanwhile the DVD Forum develops a new disc that doesn't make a clean break from DVD but is willing to embrace new codecs.

Either way, MPEG2 can't be left behind, because current HD broadcasts use it and it would be preferable to record the bitstream as-is. So even HD-DVD will need to decode MPEG2. Not a big deal, since MPEG2 is needed to play DVDs, and the decoding horsepower for WMV9 or MPEG4 will be sufficient to also decode MPEG2. It's just a matter of being willing to license multiple codecs.

Surely Sony's motivation for staying with MPEG2 is because they're thinking about recording. It's noteworthy that the initial Blu-Ray spec was for a recordable disc and they hadn't finished the spec for a manufactured read-only disc.

 

[Paul.S]

Off-topic but hopefully still germane:

Not wanting to get into the also-contested issue of the possible sonic degradation of DSD-to-PCM conversion, just the process.

No disrespect intended, David, but are you sure about the part I underlined in your quoted comments above?

The reason I ask is this: there was a heckuva lotta uncertainty in the Pioneer 563A uni player review thread on the issue of whether the player does DSD-to-PCM conversion of SACD and, if so, exactly how it is handled. I think the conclusion is that the conversion happens when you use the player's bass management: when that circuit is engaged, the conversion takes place. A technology columnist for the Hartford Courant (! – hardly an audiophile paper of record I know, but check out the column—it’s good) came to a similar conclusion: http://www.ctnow.com/technology/hc-h...,611510.column

Anyway, the 563A got a lotta flack from some for doing this conversion. Some argued that it was probably necessary in order to bring a universal player to market at such a low price point. (It's going to be very interesting to see how the imminent Tosh SD-4960 and Pio 578A unis handle this issue.)

My point is that your comments intimate that DSD-to-PCM conversion will always be necessary for any DSP. Don’t the uber expensive universal players eschew this downconversion somehow, yet some still do on-board b.m. of m.c. SACD?

-p

 

[AndreGB]

Oh no PeterTHX, please don't support WMV9. Let's just hope HD-DVD supports H.264 (aka AVC - Advanced Video Coding, a MPEG4 spec) that is way better.

 

[Tony Stark]

Actually if the justice department is getting involved this sounds like a good thing -- especially if there was intent by members to subvert and hinder progress so that another format will be come a standard.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Wayne,

no reason why BluRay can't support more than one video codec...MPEG2 for recording and WM9 for pre-recorded software. Why not? Best of both worlds.


To my knowledge, any "processing" of a DSD signal that wouldn't require conversion to PCM would have to be done in the analog domain.

In a sense, a DSD signal *is* analog...the sampling rate is so high that philosphically it's almost using "bits" to represent a continuious waveform. The d/a and a/d architecture for DSD is much purer and "direct" than what is used for PCM protocols...all part of the reason in theory why DSD can sound better (less stuff/processing/filtering between the music you hear and the analog signal that started it all).

In any case, it was my understanding that any bass managament for DSD that didn't require conversion to PCM was realy just engaging an analog equalization in the player. If true, that's not exactly "DSP" and doesn't resolve the myriad of home-theater issues.

 

[Michael St. Clair]

Analog square wave:



Sampled into DSD:



Sampled into 24/192 PCM, at a tiny fraction of the sampling (not bit) rate of DSD:



I'm not claiming that metering is any substitute for listening...ultimately I feel that using your ears and proper blind testing is the only way to compare the transparency of two formats to the original source.

But statements like "In a sense, a DSD signal is analog...the sampling rate is so high that philosphically it's almost using "bits" to represent a continuious waveform." come across as objective. That high sampling rate doesn't seem to represent a continuous waveform any more than PCM does, at least in this case (and shouldn't it in all cases if it is really so analog.

And what's all that fuzzy stuff?

Article at http://www.smr-home-theatre.org/surr.../page_07.shtml

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Well, regardless of how (more or less) accurate the "wave capture" is, the *way* that DSD stores audio data is very analog-like, which is precisly the reason why DSP processing using traditional techniques is not possible (which was really the point I was trying to make).

Interesting photos however. I'm quite surprised that DSD wasn't able to get a better grip on the square wave...

-dave

 

[Michael St. Clair]

There's just no good way to perform math, especially with precision, on 1-bit offset numbers. It's not a strength, it's a limitation. So you convert to absolute numbers, and that requires multiple bits and a common base/origin.

Sony does it with an 8-bit format called DSD-Wide, which some audio engineers think should be called 'PCM narrow'.

Blu-Ray isn't going to use DSD anyway.

 

[Paul.S]

Apologies re wrong intials, Michael. But if I call you "MTS," only you'll know who I'm referring to, as opposed to "MSC" . . .

Do we know this for sure yet? I haven't bothered to read all 5 pages of our buddy Lee Scoggins' "Why I think BluRay may be the future for CD-based music and HD video content..." thread. Should I?

-p