HD-DVD forum rejects Toshiba/NEC Blue Laser format (1 Viewer)

[DaViD Boulet]

Full text here:

http://db.widescreenreview.com/wsrmm...id=40646&-find

If the link becomes inactive let me know and I'll paste some text.

Seems that the vote against the format had a lot to do with Sony, Phillips, and other Blue-Ray supporters being on the board Blue-Ray has not been officially proposed as one of the HD-DVD carriers (yet?) so maybe this is a political move in that direction.

BlueRay has the highest storage/bandwidth capacity of all the proposed formats and also incorporates a protective (and cool-looking) disc-caddy to hold the disc. It's definitely the one format I'd like to see become our defacto HD-DVD format over the next few years, and Sony is ready to roll out production of pre-recorded titles imminently. Should be interesting...

 

[Ed St. Clair]

Suppose Friday the 13th, had anything to do with this?

 

[Ned]

David-

How much bitrate does a 5.1 24/96 MLP track require?

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Ned,

Good question. I'm not sure...but I think that Sony's platform has enough bandwidth for it without necessitating a compromise the way we have to weigh image/sound/extras against each other on SD-DVD.

I think that MLP has about a 50% compression ratio compared to linear 24/96 PCM...anyone have an estimate how much space it would take?

-dave

 

[Aaron_Brez]

Huh. Don't know how I feel about this, exactly. On the one hand, Blu-Ray did seem to me to be the superior format (although I found the caddy idea annoying-- I know I'm probably alone in this).

On the other hand, the Toshiba/NEC solution was the blue-laser format I actually thought had a chance in hell to be adopted by the forum, since it could be manufactured on all the old equipment with little modification, and still improved the bandwidth/capacity to the point where HD-DVD was on par with HD-DVHS, or at least damned close.

My fear is that, now that the Toshiba/NEC solution is out of the running, the red-laser Warner solution "with improved compression" is going to be the frontrunner. And frankly, that's the one format I don't want.

 

[Ned]

David-

I found the info on Meridians UK site

http://www.meridian.co.uk/p_mlp_mix.htm

Without compression, for instance, 96kHz/24-bit audio requires 2.3 megabits per second per channel. That works out to 13.8 Mbps for 6-channel sound

As you mentioned, the average compression for *music* (they claim) is 38-52%. So for discrete 6 channel that would be 7.2-8.6 mbit. However, music is generally much more continuous in signal, where movies often have many quiet or "simple" segments. If we're generous and give them 50-75% compression for movies, that's 3.4-6.9mbit or perhaps an average of ~5.15 mbit.

IIRC, Blu-ray can do upwards of 27-30 mbit total. Giving 1/6th of the space to audio is kind of high (DVD only gives 4-7% per DD/DTS track (384kbit-764kbit of 10mbit peak)).

Looking at the numbers, I think you'd have to be extremely optimistic to see 24/96 MLP 5.1 on Blu-Ray/HD-DVD unless they can come up with a higher density disc. I would love to get a 1080p+MLP format but I think we're yet another generation away from that (sadly).

 

[Bill Burns]

BlueRay has long had, and continues to have, my vote (as a consumer; I'm not on the DVD Forum ) as what seems the best (technology specs + consumer ease of use) of the as yet proposed HD-DVD formats (i.e. high definition video disc, or whatnot, if BlueRay isn't in the running for the "HD-DVD" monicker just yet). So long as the manufacturing/replication plants get their act together as a whole and adopt some of the anti-dust protocols used by microprocessor manufacturers (have you looked at the data side of some of those two-disc Disney animation titles?), a disc which is permanently housed inside a caddy, and exposed only inside the player itself, would certainly ease the pains currently associated with my enthusiasm for DVD. One of the competing ideas (very high compression red laser, as demonstrated on a couple of recent Artisan releases, currently for use with cutting edge computers only) frankly turns my stomach, because it feels wrong (I haven't seen the technology at work; I'm only speaking of the spec). DVD pushed the envelope of what digital technology, and disc replication, could achieve. HD-DVD should do the same, and that means both greater data density at the same disc size, and the greater precision in laser technology necessary to read that data. Robust error correction and durability of construction go without saying. Sony has my support; I hope BlueRay comes out on top.

 

[Marc_Sulinski]

I think the idea of a caddy is great. There have been so many times when I have bought a DVD or set (Buffy, etc) where some of the discs are off the spindle and scratched.

BTW, referring to the format as "Blu-Ray" (its correct name) may help ease some confusion about the differences bewtween this format and the blue laser format.

 

[Douglas*A*R]

Someone over at AVSforum mentioned that Sony is working on increasing the durability of the disc coating so that the caddy won't be necessary.


Edited to say that I agree with Marc. I would prefer a caddy for the reasons he cited, plus the protection they'd give to rented discs.

 

[Paul McElligott]

As long as backwards-compatibility with SD-DVD is maintained, I think this will be good news.

 

[Joseph Bolus]

How would "backward compatibility" with DVD be maintained if they were to adopt the Sony format?

Would there need to be a separate pickup with a ruby red laser and an "adapter caddy" to house the DVD?

 

[Jeff Kleist]

Same way as LD. Probably a tray within a tray

Sony is working on eliminating the caddy because of the extra expense. Frankly I want them to keep it

 

[Aaron_Brez]

I could live with the caddy, it just puts me in mind of 3.5" floppies instead of sexy DVDs.

Like I said before, Blu-Ray looked superior, but my fear is Warner will saddle us with red laser compressed to hell.

And I'd be *very* surprised if that turned out to be something worth buying.

 

[GlennH]

 

[Dan Rudolph]

How much woudl the caddy really add to the cost? I'd think it would be a few cents, tops.

 

[Aaron Smith]

I'm anti-caddy. I use mega-changers and don't want a six foot cubed box as a mega-changer.

 

[Neil S. Bulk]

I like the caddy idea, but then CED was the first video format I ever owned.

Neil

 

[Kristoffer]

I will add my support for Sony Blu-Ray and the Caddy!
No more cleaning of disc's!

1080P, 96khz/24 bit, DVI/HDMI, and maybe and new Dolby or dts system,,,with a height channel!
Hopefully we wiill see some titles released soon from Columbia...

 

[DaViD Boulet]

C'mon folks...that caddy looks SWWEEAAT!!!

Like I said before, Blu-Ray looked superior, but my fear is Warner will saddle us with red laser compressed to hell

Aron, keep the faith. This is actually a move by sony *towards* their Blu-Ray disc as the defacto HD-DVD format...not away and *definitely* not any closer to WB red-laser.

In fact, Warners Red laser actually wasn't "good enough" for the forum which is why Warner tried to incorporate their red laser and codec into Toshiba/NEC's blue-laser format as an "option" for content providers...they knew it couldn't make it as a proposal by itself but could only have validity as an "option" as part of a superior total format proposal.

Here's what's going to happen. The same blu-Ray supporting members of the forum who just down-voted Toshiba's blue-laser disc are not about to vote-in WB red-laser . Sony will release blu-Ray precorded titles this year without the forum's official blessing. At first Columbia will be the only studio offering titles. Blu-Ray HD-DVD players/recorders will also playback SD-DVDs and probably scale them to HD resolution (hopefully DVI output too). Then the forum will approve Blu-Ray as the offical HD-DVD carrier. Then other studios (or possibly even before the offical sanction) will begin releasing HD-DVD titles on BluRay as well.

 

[Joel Fontenot]

I'd think of it more as a "cartridge" instead of a "caddy". When everyone said caddy, I thought of that thing I used to have to put my cd's in to stick them in my old Plextor CD-Rom drive, and then take back out when I was done. I thought: "how does that help? You still have to handle the darned disc to but it in the caddy - because that's what caddies were"

Then I saw the picture and the descriptions of what it really is.

"Oh, it's a cartridge".

I'm fine with it, but imagine what a multi-disc changer would look like - you know if Blu-Ray is successful, and it stays in a cartridge format, that someone's gonna have to make one some day.

Joel