Industry Agrees On Next Gen Unified DVD Standard

scsirob writes "According to this press release the DVD recording industry will end the DVD-RW/DVD+RW/DVD-RAM mess and standardise on a new technology called 'Blue Ray'. Blue lasers are used to record up to 27 GB on each side of the DVD. This initiative is backed by all major players in the industry. The article contains many technical details." Several other people noted that the BBC has coverage as well. Yah for non-company specific industry standards.

Comments

oOooO.. more fodder..

[bo0push3r]

In addition, the adoption of a unique ID written on a Blu-ray Disc realizes high quality copyright protection functions.

wonder how long it'll take for some 15-year-old to be tried as an adult and tossed in the pokey for cracking this one...

15 minutes.. a day maybe? :)

Re:scratches,MPEG2 vs MPEG4

[JoeShmoe]

Because MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 have two very different design purposes.

MPEG-2 was developed for highest quality video. On the consumer end, DVDs use bitrates around 8-10Mbps and on the professional end MPEG-2 4:2:2 is something huge like 45Mbps. The compression makes it more managable but it's really just a cursory thing, throw away redundant frame area, etc.

Now on the other hand MPEG-4 was developed for highest possible compression. Your basic DivX file is around 1Mbps or so and looks pretty darn good. But the compression doesn't ramp up...I think it tops out at around 4Mbps. That's probably sufficient for most consumer applications but the professionals need more.

MPEG-4 will continue to be the format of choice for streaming video or other things where bandwidth cost and availablity is the main issue. But MPEG-2 will continue to be the choice in closed systems like cable networks, tv studios, digital theaters, etc.

- JoeShmoe

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