Curious about HD-DVD and Blu-Ray? Well wait until you hear about HVD... (1 Viewer)

[henry stobbe]

What happens when we get a huge Electro Magnetic Pulse from outter space, or ourselves, and all these storage applications become "ice scrapers"?

Stick to good old paper and pen. It's what archaeologists dig!

Sorry to interrupt, have fun!

Henry

 

[Jim Dalton]

Of course, with all that extra space the studios will still screw us over and give us bare-bones fool screen editions of our favorite movies.

 

[JackKay]

Imagine Citizen Kane on your 80 inch or so screen in 4K.
Along with the current extras maybe more, and maybe all the reviews from the trades and newspapers around the country at the time. But not just the review, maybe the whole newspaper, every page to zoom in and out. Every Tonight Show and talk show Orson Wells was ever on. Every Mercury Theater recording. Lots of space.

 

[John H Ross]

Cool. Y'know what? I'm gonna sit the whole Blu-Ray/HD-DVD thing out, save my pennies, and leap into HVD at the first opportunity.

Splendid.

John

 

[DanielKellmii]

You got it. But that isn't always a bad thing. If it weren't for greed we wouldn't even be looking at HD DVDs in the near future. Optical technology will appear in the consumer market someday, but first we need to buy HD DVD players and use them for a few years. Once that market is considered saturated, a new product will appear so we can replace our still working perfectly HD DVD players for something "so much better." (Is your VCR broken, or just being replace by something "better"?) I don't think that it is a coincidence that at the same time that the DVD market is considered saturated, a new DVD technology is released. I am not subscribing to any kind of vast conspiracy, but just a natural reaction to market forces. Companies need to sell product to make money. Marketers need something to highlight in order to sell the new and improved product. This forces products to get better and better.

I think that this technology or something like it will replace our HD DVD players as soon as that market becomes saturated.

 

[John H Ross]

All this technology... all these wonderful new formats... and they STILL can't get Star Wars right.

Yawn.

 

[Jonathan Kaye]

Just imagine how much data could be lost by a single scratch on the disc.

 

[Nils Luehrmann]

Yes, we really should consider going back to 8" 256kB floppy discs...

Optical discs have proven to be one of the most secure stable forms of media storage, and the protective layers on these discs are so thick that it would take more than a scratch in order to impact the data.

One of the primary uses of HVD for HT consumers will likely be as a digital recorder (eg TiVo). Currently HD-DVD and Blu-Ray would only be able to record about 2hrs and 4hrs of HD respectfully, while a 1TB HVD disc would be able to record more than 80 hours worth of HD material.

Traditional hard drive recorders will also have generous storage capacities, but the advantage to HVD over hard drives will be the ability to easily transport and/or store the recorded material for later viewing as well as being able to play the discs on other HVD players.

From a purely investor standpoint, financially HVD will find its greatest success in the media storage industry, and not as a vehicle for home video releases. This will certainly change however with the inevitable rollout of 4K HV and should HVD mastering costs come down to within competitive reach of Blu-Ray.

Unless something drastic changes over the next couple of years, I like others suspect that the major studios will only support Blu-Ray and/or HD-DVD for at least the next five years and only then will they begin to consider another format. After all, it will be another opportunity for them to re-sell their vast library of film to those who appreciate and want the best possible presentation.

I would not expect to see much in the way of pre-recorded home video products on HVD until after 2010, but I do expect HVD to not only excel, but possibly even be the industry leader as a recorder and as a media storage device before the end of the decade.

 

[Nils Luehrmann]

Here are some recent articles on HVD as well as a small blurb from eWeek regarding InPhase's recently released holographic drive, called Tapestry:

NE Asia: Optware to Standardize, Commercialize HVDs by Summer 2006

ARNnet: Optware seeks U.S. vendors to adopt holographic storage

Linux Insider: Japanese Giants Back Holographic Storage

ZDnet: Move over DVDs, here comes the HVD

eWeek: HVD: Coming to a Storage Device Near You

c/net: Group aims to drastically up disc storage

 

[Craig F]

If you think the studios are going to release content at 4K, think again. We will be lucky to get 1080p from them for HD-DVD and Blu-Ray. It will be 1080i or 720p.

There is a lot of great technology that never made it. I can see HDV as a archiving format, but it will be a long time, if ever, that it will be used for mass media delivery.

 

[Craig F]

They went bankrupt. D Data Inc, bought the IP from them and is trying to pick up the pieces.
http://www.ddatainc.com/page01.html

Another company is working on the same basic technology.
http://www.nmen.net/1.html

 

[Nils Luehrmann]

Yesterday How Stuff Works published a guide to holographic media:

How Holographic Memory Will Work

It's a nice read for those interested. A while back they also published a general guide to Blu-Ray:

How Blu-ray Discs Work

Here is a recent article with an interesting take on the surprise results from the IDC predicting that sales of blue laser burners (HD/BD) will only account for less than 10% of the market by 2012. This is surprising because the IDC is normally very optimistic in their predictions.

Death of CD and DVD Greatly Exaggerated

If these figures track accurately, then this will only give HVD even more opportunity to succeeded before Blu-Ray and/or HD-DVD sales have a chance to establish a significant market share.

As alluded to in the article and in the IDC report, red laser DVD will be around for a very long time as it is a very economical solution that will meet most consumer's needs. However the door is open for high capacity storage market for which HVD could easily become the obvious solution both financially and performance wise.

Unfortunately this will leave both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray stuck in the middle between low cost red laser DVD and high performance HVD. If the IDC report is even marginally accurate, and HVD progresses at its current pace, there simply will not be enough market demand to support either blue laser formats let alone both. I would not be shocked to see the interest in blue laser DVDs begin to wane once legitimate HVD products reach the consumer level.

One more article that might be worth pointing out came out last week on IGN:

Ready for HVD?

Nothing really new, but it does mention Constellation 3D's failed attempt at FMD technology as well as InPhase's recently released holographic WORM drives.

 

[Nils Luehrmann]

As mentioned in my post on the Blu-Ray thread, 4K digital media and displays are much closer than many realize.

The New York Times reported today on the announcement from Mark Cuban and Todd Wagner, primary owners of Landmark Theaters and HDnet that they will be installing six of Sony's 4K projectors this summer and have plans to install at least one 4K projector in each of their 58 venues across the country over the next few years.

 

[Nils Luehrmann]

In a recent article from DVD Recorder World regarding Sony's latest hint at a suggested truce between HD DVD & Blu-ray, they speculate that Sony's desire for the format war to end may actually be motivated by the advanced development of HVD.

This is even a bigger issue for Blu-ray's projected market share in the PC and recorder market as it accounts for a far greater percentage of potential sales than standalone players and prerecorded discs.

 

[chris norton]

Hi all,
Here in Melbourne we just had a Home/home entertainment expo. Not much to say except 2 things. Firstly, lots of Halcro amps on show. Who can afford those?
Secondly, Sharp loaned several Aquos HD LCD 1920x1080 45in displays to a few exhibitors. To power one of these I noticed a HVD player. The picture was a promo loop of parts of Asia. Looked fantastic. I tried to find out more info but nobody seemed to understand what they were: typical salesmen. The units were quite slim with HVD in big bold letters, didn't notice a make. Couldn't see what sort of disc was being used. Anyway the picture was true HD (or close to it). Sharp as a tack, it was.

HD is slim pickings offair with no other source available. I hope it's the start of things to come.

moggy,

 

[Nils Luehrmann]

Chris, actually that is a different “HVD”, but the mistake is quite understandable.

You are referring to "High-definition Versatile Disc" one of the many competing formats in China created to circumvent having to pay expensive DVD royalties. Despite being called "High-definition" it is very similar to standard DVD regarding its core technology.

The HVD discussed here is "Holographic Versatile Disc" and except for its size and that it is an optical disc, it shares almost no core technological similarities to any of these other DVD based formats.

The other popular format in China created to avoid paying DVD royalties is EVD (Enhanced Versatile Disc) and now Taiwan is adding to the format war with their upcoming FVD (Forward Versatile Disc).

(Many folks are bent out of shape about just the two format war here between Blu-ray and HD DVD, but in reality the world market is looking at a format war for the next generation of DVD that includes no fewer than six competing formats – none of which come even remotely close the current specs for HVD (Holographic Versatile Disc.)

 

[PaulP]

It would be great having a sports team's entire season on a single disc

 

[chris norton]

Ok. That explains a lot. I couldn't quite figure. I'd read a bit about HVD but not holography, so I assumed it was a future development of it.
I hate all these acronyms. Yes, what I saw here at the show would have been a red laser disc HVD, possibly even a normal DVD with WMV9 or H264 but most likely a taiwanise HVD. It did look good. I hope it takes off with some decent titles, we'll see I guess.

So...this HVD is a 'new' method! I read a lot about FMD and thought it sounded great, hopefully this won't also go the way of FMD, ie. the dodo.
I suspect it may be a niche market though. EVD, HVD, BD-DVD & HD-DVD are probably going to battle it out for the next decade.
We need a holographic crystal ball to know what really is going to happen.
Bye all.

 

[Nils Luehrmann]

I was not able to attend, but apparently, Fujifilm's demonstration of an HVD recorder at NAB last week was a huge success.

Here are a couple links regarding the demonstration:

Fujifilm Introduces 3.9 TB Holographic Storage Technology
(mostly just a press release announcing the planned demonstration)

B&C's 2005 NAB Briefs
(actual report on the demonstration)

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Very cool.

Ahhh...it *would* be nice if such a format were utlized for our high-definition prerecorded movie titles...