End of Format War? (HD)

[Mehen]

http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/ptech/09/26/dvd.formats.reut/index.html

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (Reuters) -- The format war around next generation DVDs may be over before it has begun, thanks to a breakthrough from a British media technology company.

Britain-based New Medium Enterprises (NME) said on Tuesday it had solved a technical production problem that makes it possible to produce a cheap multiple-layer DVD disk containing one film in different, competing formats.

"Current technologies to create multiple layer disks mostly don't work. We've created a technology for mass production of multiple layers that does not suffer from the well known problem of low yields," said NME Chief Technology Officer Eugene Levich.

By putting the same film on a single disk in the two competing formats, movie studios can save money and consumers do not have to worry if they are buying the right disk for their player.

Now lets hope the movie studios actually do this (or that Sony etc. will let them), and that this tech actually works like they say it does

[Dr Mordrid]

An extremely similar 'breakthrough' was ann ounced by Warner last week. It would allow DVD-Video on one side and BR/HD DVD in two layers on the other side.

http://forums.murc.ws/showthread.php?t=58597

[Mehen]

Warner just patented the idea, they have not developed it yet or patented the actual technology.

[Fluff]

I still think it's a big waste of time. Everyone should just go blu ray. Then they can start sortign out SACD playback on pc's

[KvHagedorn]

What a waste of space. If you have that much space, why not just fill it with a higher bitrate picture and DTS-ES sound?

[Mehen]

Why go blu-ray? Their insistance in using MPEG2 combined with not being able to get beyond 1 layer makes it MUCH WORSE than HD DVD right now. HD is at 30gb total (DL), bluray at 25 total. If they move beyond those two faults, which they eventually will (hopefully) then they would be an option, but if I had to declare a winner right now it would be HD DVD without question.

A universal disc with HD, Blu, and standard DVD would be awesome imo.

[Wombat]

Awesomely expensive. All those license fees, plus they'd stop selling cheap DVDs in favor of expensive super-discs.

[Wombat]

An extremely similar 'breakthrough' was ann ounced by Warner last week. It would allow DVD-Video on one side and BR/HD DVD in two layers on the other side.

http://forums.murc.ws/showthread.php?t=58597

Not similar, complimentary. Warner patented how to use it. NME covers how to make it.

[Jammrock]

Why go blu-ray? Their insistance in using MPEG2 combined with not being able to get beyond 1 layer makes it MUCH WORSE than HD DVD right now. HD is at 30gb total (DL), bluray at 25 total. If they move beyond those two faults, which they eventually will (hopefully) then they would be an option, but if I had to declare a winner right now it would be HD DVD without question.

A universal disc with HD, Blu, and standard DVD would be awesome imo.

They already have the ability to make multi-layer blu-ray discs. The dual layer consumer burnable media has been pressing for a while now and will be out early next year, putting HD-DVD at the disadvantage until they can make quad-layer dsic (and that's assuming TDK and crew don't have a quad layer out, too (which they do in prototype), which would put Blu-ray at 100 GB, which HD-DVD can'e match until they reach (if they can reach) 7-layers):

http://www.amazon.com/TDK-BD-RE-Rewritable-Dual-Layer-Blu-ray/dp/B000FL5Y2S

http://www.cdrinfo.com/Sections/News/Details.aspx?NewsId=18028

The compression scheme a studio uses is up to the studio. There are three mandatory video compression schemes to choose from: MPEG2, MPEG4 and MS VC-1. So far they have used MPEG2 because the mastering tools are already out there, inexpensive and readily available. Plus the MPEG2 hardware is very mature and cheaper for higher end parts. Further more, the current crop of movies don't need 50 GB of data, so no need to spend the extra cash to press a dual layer disc.

Currently the blu-ray player out right now, namely the Samsung, is not very good. But neither was the Toshiba HD-DVD player when it first came out. A firmware update or two later and the Toshiba HD-DVD player is suddenly what people hoped a HD media would be. People speculate that Samsung will do something similar soon, as the decode hardware between the two are practically identical (all of the mandatory CODECs are the same for both HD-DVD and Blu-ray). People who have seen the gen 2 Blu-ray player demos at trade shows report that it blows away HD-DVD (mainly because of the maturity of mastering the media and the shift to dual-layer which means lower compression).

Though I will admit that HD-DVD has the advantage out of the gate, but ultimately it means little. Only the enthusists and people with money to burn have players right now, as they cost a grand no matter what format you support. What will matter is which format people choose when the players drop below $250 when the average consumer starts to get in on the action. Another 2 years or so and the format war will be decided, either by a clear winner between the two current formats, or by neither of them winning because they were trumped by a new tech (or merged, but that's highly unlikely at this point in the game).

Jammrock

[Jessterw]

I have a sneaking suspicion that a newer technology will arrive before they have a chance to fully mature and/or negate each other.

[Dr Mordrid]

Blu-Ray w/MPEG-2 looks horrid compared to H.264 AVC or MS VC-1, so IMO this put it in a hole from the get-go. That added to its high costs, lack of availability and generation 2 of the HD DVD decks coming out already could well end this war early.

You can have the greatest product since sliced bread, but if you can't get it to market at a competitive price and with competitive features it's all over. Sony should have known this from their Beta vs. VHS experience, but corporate amnesia seems to be their speciality these days.

My take is that MPEG-2 should never been put into either HD standard. It's just nowhere near as efficient, lower in quality and requires too many resources for playback compared to the MPEG-4 formats.

This is also why I think AVCHD, or something much like it, will surpass HDV as the next commonly used camcorder format.

[dZeus]

there are disks that look superb with blu-ray too using MPEG2. It mostly comes down to the quality of the transfer and encoding. It's true that MPEG4 AVC will allow for similar quality, but I don't believe that with high enough bitrate (that BluRay allows for) MPEG2 can't look superb either.

Remember that HDTV through ATSC in the states uses MPEG2 compression, and some of the aired stuff looks superb too

[Dr Mordrid]

I see it every day, and AVC looks better.

[lecter]

Instead of creating "super-disks", why can't they just concentrate on creating affordable multiple-format players? That's how the whole DVD+RW/-RW/RAM issue got solved, and in a very satisfying way for the consumer, I might add.

[Jammrock]

I see it every day, and AVC looks better.

I wish I could find the article I read about gen2 Blu-ray. I think it was stereophile of UltimateAV, but the writer saw a tech demo of a gen2 Blu-ray player using an AVC disc, and said it was amazing. Essentially Samsung is the only company that released a gen1 player, everyone else is basically starting with a gen2 player later this year.

Even if HD-DVD wins, I still hope Blu-ray will survive, even if it's just in the computer world so people can access the 50+ GB of space for (eventually) cheap backups.