Toshiba and NEC HD-DVD (AOD) accepted (1 Viewer)

[Brian-W]

Wayne, ultimately we'll see what happens. I know most people in this forum want and expect DTS, but the studios struggle to give people even that, so I'm hard pressed to believe the studios are going for the best quality. If you believe everything you read, it'd seem WM9 is the best right now. But we'll see ultimately what the studios are going to pick.

With all due respect, when it comes to the possibility of Blu-Ray becoming the next format for hi-def, pre-recorded content, Sony IS Blu-Ray. Of course there are other members of Blu-Ray but Sony is the 800-pound gorilla because only it has a movie library.

Sorry, this has little to no bearing. Why? Sony was the 800 pound gorilla the last time there was going to be a format war. Who won that war (if you can call it that)? It certainly wasn't Sony nor Phillips.

You're forgetting something, especially in comparison to the last format war that had brewed - 85% of the largest manufacturers of consumer electronics backed the Toshiba super disc standard. Sony and Phillips (and RCA I believe) were going to go it alone with MMC.

Now the tables are turned - And I beg to differ, Panasonic (Matsushita) and Pioneer are also 800 pound gorillas. Sony's having a film library isn't that big of an impact like you contend.

The movie studios are going to want to go with whoever has the most secure copy protection, and almost as importantly, which format the majority of hardware manufacturers are backing. While I can't speak on the copy protection issue, the major consumer electronics companies are backing Blu-Ray.

Lastly, I've always liked the cartridge idea. I'm tired of getting DVDs in the preferred amaray cases with broken spindles and scratched to **** discs. What does anyone care if the disc is in a cartridge? It's not a toy, you stick it in the DVD player and press play. Funny thing is I know most people hate the Warner snapper case, and ironically those are the ones I've had the least problems with.

 

[Pete Lee]

Brian,

You seem confused. My second post was in response to your initial post cautioning not to use Sony and Blu-Ray interchangeable. I was saying that it's OK to use Sony and Blu-Ray synonymously when we're talking about movies because Sony is the big guy WITHIN the Blu-Ray group when it comes to movie content. The 800-pound gorilla wasn't in reference to Blu-Ray/Sony vs. AOD, where I agree with you that one studio isn't going to make a different. All I was saying is that I don't think using Sony as shorthand for Blu-Ray is wrong when it comes to pre-recorded movie content. In this area, Blu-Ray and Sony are pretty much the same thing.

I don't know which format will win. I've got no special insight. You may be right, many people may like the cartridge. I don't, for the reasons I've cited and also because personally, I haven't had that much trouble with scratched DVDs. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like Blu-Ray will give you the cartridge for movies anyway. As Dan Hitchman stated earlier in this thread, Blu-Ray's plan is to issues pre-recorded content like movies without cartridges. The cartridge will only be used for rewriteable Blu-Ray discs.

 

[Dan Hitchman]

Adam_R,

If you have heard DVD-Audio or SACD high resolution tracks on a fairly good system then you would probably not think DTS and Dolby Digital lossy audio is the cat's meow. They do a lot of things wrong and damage inner detail, imaging, and ultimately fidelity of the original master recordings.

If they'd give me Corona at a steady 15 Megabits/sec
and superior audio then I'm all for that. All the discussions I've read so far about AOD is that 15 Megabits/sec was what they were shooting for the video bitrate with the rest for audio. The bit allocation would be split about half & half.

With DVD's storage space and outdated MPEG-2 we now get pixelized video with major filtering and edge "enhancement" plus less than the best audio. A lose-lose situation.

At least for now, if the DVD Forum plays their cards right, we could have a pretty darn good product in terms of video and audio presentation. Will it be perfect? Probably not. Afterall, there's politics involved... not just who has the best technology. Although, at least the audio situation would be much improved.

Many people have good speakers, amps, and pre-amps (or receivers) and would probably want to get the most out of them (I know I would). DTS and Dolby Digital don't really do that as they throw away audio data.

Meridian Lossless Packing would be used if they do go with the PCM multichannel, high resolution option. At least in the interviews I've read the AOD camp was willing to give us that. The Blu-Ray camp was not since they seem to be sticking with out of date MPEG-2 as their base, which would leave no room for better audio.

Dan

 

[Brian-W]

Pete, fair enough, point taken.

As for cartridges, I have 900+ DVDs, and easily 1/4-1/3 have arrived with broken spindles and scratched to hell discs. That's why I'm in favor of a cartridge, but I too doubt the final product will have a cartridge because it = added cost.

Dan, as for MLP or anything other than Dolby Digital, time will tell. The studios have to support it, but likely won't be required too. Remember, most still aren't supporting DTS. I don't know if MLP requires an additional royalty like DTS, so I can't comment on it. But we'll see.

But you know Dolby Digital will be a given considering the installed base of DD decoders. MLP could be an option as could any other sound format.

All of these discussions and comments (including mine), only time will tell.

I think Blu-Ray could easily support other codecs, but that's up to the steering committee. I bet Blu-Ray will, but maybe not initially. Then again, movie studios may love Blu-Ray and MPEG-2 that way they can sell everyone the same movie again, and later on sell it again on a lossless codec in the future

 

[Dan Hitchman]

Brian,

I wouldn't be surprise if HD-DVD via AOD is handled like DVD-Audio since that format is also under the auspices of the DVD Forum:

The main soundtrack would be MLP compressed PCM (at any channel amount and resolution necessitated by the source material) with Dolby Digital and/or DTS as a backwards compatible necessity. Since all the music groups supporting DVD-Audio know it is a high resolution medium, the PCM track is always there (it is the defacto standard). DVD's have a defacto standard of Dolby Digital, HD-DVD's could have MLP encoded PCM as the defacto standard.

Remember, MLP is licensed by none other than Dolby Labs with the patents and ownership held by Meridian UK. They have a special royalty setup in place for high rez. audio compressed using MLP, especially when combined with Dolby Digital on the same disc. The royalty assessment would probably be the same as DVD-Audio.

Since the royalty and specification rules are handled via the DVD Forum steering committees, it would be easier to blend HD-DVD with DVD-Audio since part of the process is already in place.

Dan

 

[Alistair_M]

I think a wild card in all this is Sony's upcoming Playstation 3 console where the current rumour is that Sony may use Blu-ray to hold the game software. If the playstation 3 uses blu-ray and Sony releases movies onto blu-ray as well, going by sales of the playstation2, Sony can expect to have 50 million players out there within 4 years. That sort of sales could make blu-ray the most popular format capible of playing high def movies out there.

I'm expecting the playstation 3 to be an all-in one multimedia device. There may be several models - a basic gameplayer all the way to a highdef device (for games, hard disk recording and high def movies). The playstation 3 is due at the end of 2005 - a similar time when high def dvd is supposed to be coming to the marketplace.

If you think a game console isn't a proper device to play high def movies - have a look at Sony's PSX which has just been released in Japan - it looks like a flashy dvdplayer (but it plays games too).
Picture here:
http://spong.com/index.asp?art=5830

 

[Sean Laughter]

The earliest you'll be seeing Playstation3 is 2006, and that's talking something like a March release in Japan and an October release in the US.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Assuming both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD/AOD are equally attractive to the consumer, it will depend on who comes up with the most secure copy protection and by extension which the studios will support. Columbia/Tristar's going to support Blu-Ray, atleast initially. Considering that they have had a string of recent hits, Spider-Man among them, this is no small thing. But if Fox, WB, Disney, and Universal are swayed towards the HD-DVD, that's the way the market will swing.
Personally, the cartridges are a nuisance to me. The market pushes towards smaller and smaller storage mediums, and this runs contrary to that. Labtop integration, as has been previously mentioned, would be a challenge.
In regards to video quality, I would be severely disappointed if only half the bitrate of whichever format surives is devoted to video. 15 Mbsp is less than twice the current DVD bitrate. True, we are dealing with much more sophisticated compression schemes, but wer are dealing with much greater resolution as well. While an improvement in audio quality is important, it should remain secondary to picture quality.

 

[Richard Paul]

The Blu-ray Founders decided not to use cartridges on future Blu-ray discs either pre-recorded or recordable. This was decided several months ago and by the time pre-recorded Blu-ray players come out there will be no cartridges on Blu-ray discs. Instead a harder form of plastic called "hard coating" will be used for the protective layer on Blu-ray, which will be far harder than the plastics used for DVD. As such if you want to argue on the properties of a format the issue of cartridges will apply to neither Blu-ray or HD-DVD. I explained it more thoroughly along with other Blu-ray developments on this thread.

Also Blu-ray will be capable of recording on two layers (shown at 50 Gigabytes but capable of 54 GB) that has been shown on several prototypes you can see here. Until I see the DVD Forum even agree on dual layer recording, which it currently hasn't since it's still deciding on a limit of either 35 or 40 GB, I am hesitant to support HD-DVD. Blu-ray will be capable of 54 GB or 6 hours of ATSC while HD-DVD will be capable of 4 hours only if it selects 40 GB.

I'm for Blu-ray at the moment though HD-DVD could certainly change my mind if it is cheaper and capable of dual layer recording at 40 GB. Though Sony has had several market failures it also had several market success's such as the CD, Sony Walkman, and Playstation. Blu-ray with the support of some of the largest consumer manafacturer's on earth may very well become a success. The companies that make up the Blu-ray Forum are Hitachi, LG, Matsushita(Panasonic), Mitsubishi, Pioneer, Philips, Samsung, Sharp, Sony, and Thomson.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

so get AOD for pre-recorded media with its superior picture and sound and use BluRay for recording your own material with its dual-layer recording capacity (despite MPEG2 and DD limitations).

Then, when AOD finally incorporates a dual-layer/higher capacity recording capability you can migrate over...

At any rate, I don't see a need to compromise all your pre-recorded software with an inferior audio and video codec just because you occasionally plan on making a BluRay recording. If that's the issue, then get both.

 

[Brian-W]

so get AOD for pre-recorded media with its superior picture and sound and use BluRay for recording your own material with its dual-layer recording capacity (despite MPEG2 and DD limitations).

If it were only that easy.

I highly doubt that AOD and Blu-Ray are going to co-exist with each other (like DVD-A and SACD). We've seen what happens when everyone joins the bandwagon (DVD) and what happens when people go their separate ways (SACD vs. DVD-A).

The bandwagon does well, while the separate groups struggle. And I think SACD has shown that you don't need a 'forum' to be successful. What was panned as Sony's attempt to control more patents and royalties (and still true), SACD has become very successful given the dark cloud it emerged with. That's not saying SACD is successful and DVD-A is not (and I'm not going to get into the 'quality' differences here), but technically SACD should have failed, as it had little support. Now it has fairly widespread support (especially given how it started out), and depending on who you talk to or what you read, more widespread support.

Every store I've been into has always had more SACDs than DVD-As for sale. My point? If Blu-Ray goes it alone and AOD moves forward, that's not saying one will succeed while the other will falter.

While copy protection is a major issue, at the end of the day, I think it will rely on software support from the studios. Hell, the studios could tell both to go f* themselves, and pick the new Chinese HD DVD standard (highly unlikely, but this has Hollywood scared).

I'm betting that while Warner and likely Fox (since Fox is petitioning to join the steering committee of the DVD Forum) will back AOD, while Columbia and perhaps other studios will back Blu-Ray. Additionally, I'm also betting the studios will back the format with the most hardware support, and right now that is Blu-Ray.

Lastly, I've read more about how AOD 'won' the DVD Forum approval - the Steering Committee decided to change the voting rules so that any absentee or abstaining ballots would be thrown out. Thus, a new vote never occurred, the absentee/abstaining ballots were thrown out and thus AOD won by default. Not encouraging for a forum committee.

Alas, time will tell, and I'll bet CES will have the largest rumblings, and that's why I'm going.

 

[Dan Hitchman]

Yeah, I'd assume CES will have some new wiff of news on what we're likely to expect from both formats.

You would think anyway because the date when the AOD camp wants to be up and running and producing discs in small quantities (and low error yield) is only about a year away (and you also need players too), with Blu-Ray not far behind.

I'm crossing my fingers for the best audio and video possible (and I feel audio is just as important as video... I do agree with George Lucas on that point), but you never know...

Dan

 

[Brian-W]

My guess is CES will be an big eye opener on which format (AOD vs. Blu-Ray) has the momentum. CES might even be the springboard for studios announcing support of specific formats. I've never known the VSDA to be the place where format commitments take place.

Well, I'm sure CES will be where war is declared, with plenty of shots (press releases) will be fired in favor of (insert format).

 

[Adam_R]

Dan Hitchman,

I agree about DD and DTS having plenty of room for improvement. I have a pretty nice system, and have heard SACD and DVD-Audio, but I still feel video quality and clarity on DVD is far inferior to the current audio quality and clarity. I would much rather have higher resolution video than higher resolution audio if I had to choose right now.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

While copy protection is a major issue, at the end of the day, I think it will rely on software support from the studios. Hell, the studios could tell both to go f* themselves, and pick the new Chinese HD DVD standard (highly unlikely, but this has Hollywood scared).

I'm betting that while Warner and likely Fox (since Fox is petitioning to join the steering committee of the DVD Forum) will back AOD, while Columbia and perhaps other studios will back Blu-Ray. Additionally, I'm also betting the studios will back the format with the most hardware support, and right now that is Blu-Ray.

What you don't seem to get is that copy protection and software support are one in the same. While greater hardware support is an advantage, if AOD comes along with better copy-protection, that's who the remainder of the studios are siding with.

 

[Robert Franklin]

It seems to me that the forum to change the rules that abstaining doesn't constitute as a "NO" seems suspect to me. So, that means that if they don't get the answers, or votes that they want, "Let's just change the rules". This doesn't seem right to me. I don't have stock with either camp, but I was hoping to see the Blu-Ray come to the market. I believe the the capabilties compared to the AOD, was almost a "Non-comparison". But, I'm not in the panel. My only thing is: let's make sure that we get the best picture and sound possible. Whatever, that may be.

 

[Wayne Bundrick]

Robert, does it seem right to you for Sony and the other Blu-Ray backers to stay on the DVD steering committee and deliberately sabotage all votes on AOD, instead of leaving the committee altogether?

 

[Joshua Clinard]

Especially since Sony REFUSED to submit blu-ray as a consideration for the standard. They did the right thing by changing the rules.

 

[JimmyK]

Although having 1080p would be great, what would we watch it on? As I understand it, most consumer HDTV sets aren't even capable of displaying full 1080i resolution, much less 1080p.

JimmyK

 

[Dan Hitchman]

For one thing, the player would probably have a built in scaler that could downconvert 1080p to 1080i, 720p, 480p, and 480i. That would cover most people who don't have an HD set yet, or are stuck with 1080i or 720p for the time being.

Also, there is a big move underway to phase out CRT based product (especially for projection systems) and move to digital fixed panel displays. Sony, Hitachi, JVC, and others have developed the first full 1920x1080p panels (Two LCoS like products & D-ILA, with Texas Instruments now considering a 1080p DLP panel in order to stay competitive) and they will only get better and cheaper from there.

Dan