Red vs. Blue Lasers Complicate DVD's Future

bnavarro writes: "The EE Times is reporting that the DVD Forum's Steering Committee voted this week to approve the use of low-bit-rate compression for high-definition DVD. The DVD Forum's decision, made at a meeting Tuesday (Feb. 26) in Tokyo, to stick with a red-laser-based scheme but switch to low-bit-rate compression, came only a week after nine of the world's biggest electronics companies agreed to promote a blue-laser-based format for next-generation video and computer optical disks."

Comments

Well thats good...

[Chicane-UK]

The companies do one thing, but the standard commitee approve another?

Perhaps they should try talking to each other.

Just out of curiosity - could the electronics companies just go ahead and use what they want, or would they then be 'not allowed' to use the DVD name because it doesnt conform to the predetermined standards?

Re:Well thats good...

[Anonymous Coward]

The hell with this dvd...
JVinCe is still the ruler with its vhs.

Re:Well thats good...

[hrieke]

No.
It's the same thing as a CD that can not play in a computer. If it does not follow the written spec, then it can not be labeled as the product.
Just out of curiosity - could the electronics companies just go ahead and use what they want, or would they then be 'not allowed' to use the DVD name because it doesnt conform to the predetermined standards?

Re:Well thats good...

[Anonymous Coward]

The reasoning behind a standard is interoperablity of media across different vendor's DVD drive. Without standards, it would suffer a fate like Betamax, microchannel etc.

The other reason is a commonility of parts. If everyone buy the same type of parts, then the lasers, lens, electromechanical assembly, optical assembly, chipset which are common to the design would benefit from the volume curve.

I'm an idiot but...

[chrysalis]

What's the difference between blue, red and green lasers?

Re:I'm an idiot but...

[Anonymous Coward]

The color is different...

Re:I'm an idiot but...

[jimhill]

The color.

Light's color is a function of its frequency, which is inversely proportional to its wavelength. Higher frequency lasers can read pits which are closer together on a disc substrate, allowing them to put more data in the same areal density as lower frequency lasers. Blue is better than red for this purpose.

Alas, it's also harder (read: more expensive) to make blue lasers and the industry has already spent a lot of money on reds, so a blue-laser technology would require the writeoff of existing gear AND the purchase of new. Not an easy sell these days.

Re:I'm an idiot but...

[inferis]

As George Lucas put it: red is for the baddies, blue is for the good ones.

Re:I'm an idiot but...

[tangent3]

TIE fighters shoot green lasers, X-Wings shoot red lasers.

Re:I'm an idiot but...

[duct_tape_n_wd40]

Light's color is a function of its frequency, which is inversely proportional to its wavelength.

...and of course laser frequency is determined by the bandgap of the lasing material. Remember kids, at the end of the day it all comes down to material science.

I agree it was a smart decision to go with red lasers, as they're much more mature. Nakamura's (sp?) work on nitrides notwithstanding, there's a long way to go before the material system is well understood.

P.S. Nakamura and the Nitrides - that sounds like a good name for a band.

Re:I'm an idiot but...

[_Knots]

So... if a blue laser (l = 440nm) has a better sampling resolution than a red one (l = 700nm), why couldn't a blue laser device read a disk burned by a red laser? Or would we have to get to UV lasers and use 350nm light?

TIA.
_Knots

Re:I'm an idiot but...

[cadallin451]

they can, that is, a blue laser CD system would be able to read old skool red lasers with almost no trouble at all. The only difficulty is adding the firmware to read the older data format.

Re:I'm an idiot but...

[Drakula]

Red lasers were very expensive too, before CD players. Once the CD player became relative wide spread, the price dropped. Like most technology, this is the typical cycle. All knew stuff is expensive until the demand increase enough that the production cost can be spread over enough units to bring the single unit cost down. It will happen with blue laser based electronics also.

Re:I'm an idiot but...

[nanojath]

Regarding differences bewteen red and blue lasers... Another issue I haven't seen discussed much (except in bland materials-science articles that only physical science geeks like me and real chemists read) is that the blue laser disks will have to be made with a higher quality and therefore more expensive polymer. As I understand it the blue lasers can operate on a finer scale but are consequently more vulnerable to optical flaws in the medium. AN article I read actually made the presentation that the economies of scale driving higher quality polymers (I believe they're polycarbonates) was actually a bottleneck for moving this technology forward.

Actually I think a transition is inevitable but will be slower than they think. Maybe get started in something like a video game console, where people are used to new, non-compatible machines coming out every few years. And unlike audio CDs (or even DVDs, frankly, unless you own a teevee that cost thousands rather than hundreds of dollars, which some of us think is a pretty stupid thing to own), video games can really use that extra capacity as Moore's law pushes the data-craving boundaries of video game processors.

Re:I'm an idiot but...

[ahfoo]

Sadly, I don't have the link, but I did see a story about Sony previewing a violet laser DVD and according to that article what was supposed to be particularly impressive about this hundred Gig CD sized disk was that the disc itself was made in accordance with DVD standards. So, I'm a bit skeptical as to whether shorter wavelengths really require fundamental changes in the plastic.

Re:I'm an idiot but...

[hikeran]

heh.. the true reason....

The holders of the patent for DVD format get a royalty for each DVD, DvD ROM, (and maybe DVRs). So by changing it they make you purchase another player/drive for comp. Thus making them more money.. oh wait won't ya also have to rebuy those movies?? damn .. more royalties.. Oh ya want a backwards compatible DVD player/drive .. even higher cost!!

I've had the Creative labs dvd kit since when it first came out.. i'm happy with it.. I'm not going to rush out and replace my main DVD player in my living room..

George lucas must be pissed he hasn't released Starwars trilogy (not including ep 1) in dvd format.. it's out.. ya buy it .. format changes .. ya rebuy it.. well ya get the drift...

Re:I'm an idiot but...

[nanojath]

I tracked down the article in Chemical & Engineering News I was thinking of and it was older than I remembered, mainly focused on DVDs, and the issues were not so clean cut... Still it seems at least a couple years ago it was thought to be an issue (that is the optical properties of polycarbonate) in shorter wavellenght layered data on optical disks. I wonder how it's been or being resolved. Incidentally I don't see that "made in accordance with DVD standards" necessarily means the same thing as "made from the same stuff as DVDs." But honestly I don't really know. The article is copied below

BUSINESS

December 20, 1999

Volume 77, Number 51

CENEAR 77 51 pp. 14-15

ISSN 0009-2347

New DVDs Provide Opportunities For Polymers

Alexander Tullo

Polycarbonate has faced challenges from materials such as cycloolefin copolymers and acrylic resin in optical media applications over the years, but it has remained the substrate of choice for the compact disc (CD) and digital versatile disc (DVD) products on the market. Its success in this market stems from polycarbonate's ability to provide suitable properties at an economical cost to disc makers.

But consumer electronics companies like Sony, Philips , and Panasonic are developing formats based on multiple information layers and shorter wavelength lasers that will enable record companies, movie studios, and software makers to cram as much information on the discs as possible. If polycarbonate isn't the best material for these formats, then it may not fend off its rivals much longer.

John O'Sullivan, program leader for GE Plastic's optical media development center in Pittsfield, Mass., examines a disc.
Producers of competing materials are renewing their interest in optical media. In particular, they are positioning themselves for applications in which polycarbonate might have trouble. One such application is high-density DVD, sometimes referred to as blue-laser DVD.

In high-density DVD, the wavelengths of the lasers that read the discs are shorter than the red lasers that scan the DVDs available today. The shorter wavelengths allow DVD players to focus light on a smaller area. As a result, the pits on the DVD--the features that code digital information on the disc--can be made smaller and packed more closely, thereby increasing storage capacity.

Consumer electronics companies are looking at many technologies, and many systems are at various stages of development. Nichia Chemical of Tokushima, Japan, brought an indium gallium nitride-based 405-nm violet-laser diode to the market this year. These diodes will mainly be used for next-generation DVDs and could increase the capacity of these discs by a factor of three compared with red lasers, according to Shuji Nakamura, a researcher at Nichia who is often described as the guru of solid-state lasers. He predicts that DVDs incorporating shorter wavelength lasers will be available soon. "Already, several companies have demonstrated next-generation DVDs, using our violet-laser diodes, at several shows and conferences," Nakamura adds.

Some question the utility of polycarbonate discs for these applications. Polycarbonate may replicate the smaller features necessary for these discs, but only after trading off other physical and optical properties that have been advantageous in current applications. These include toughness and low birefringence--the property of having two different indexes of refraction.

Polymer suppliers are already planning for the eventuality that polycarbonate may have trouble winning these new applications and are positioning alternative materials. Dow Plastic's solution to the problem is polycyclohexylethylene (PCHE), a hydrogenated polystyrene.

"We recognized a few years ago that as the formats go to higher and higher density and requirements become more stringent toward the polymer's optical properties, we needed to develop a resin for future formats," says Henri-Luc Martin, director of antipiracy/PCHE for Dow Plastics, which also makes polycarbonate. "You really can't make polycarbonate better than the molecule that you have today," he says. "There is a point where you can't trade anything off anymore."

According to Martin, Dow has demonstrated that PCHE can be replicated at 15 gigabytes per layer, which makes for a storage capacity of 30 gigabytes for a two-layer disc. And Dow claims that this was done with nearly no birefringence. In addition, Dow says the resin is very transparent to wavelengths as short as 300 nm. "As the technology drives beyond 400 nm to short wavelengths, this is where PCHE really enables the laser technology of future formats," he says.

Martin also says PCHE is a key component of Dow's plan to fight commercial piracy of software and video CDs and DVDs, specifically pit-to-pit replication, in which an illicitly acquired stamper is used to counterfeit CDs and DVDs. Dow has proposed regulating the supply of resin to manufacturers, which would have to account for the resin consumed with a prescribed number of finished discs. An independent legal body would operate the system, Martin says, not Dow, so disc makers wouldn't have to share proprietary information with a supplier.

Dow isn't commercial yet with PCHE, but it has plans to bring a 9,000-metric-ton-per-year reactor onstream in Schkopau, Germany, by the end of 2001. Dow also says it has made provisions to license the technology to other resin suppliers to ensure competition.

Other companies with different materials are also angling for the emerging DVD markets. A few years ago, Ticona, the engineering polymers business of Celanese, evaluated its Topas ethylene-norbornene copolymer for CD applications. Although its excellent optical properties and low water uptake made for better discs, Topas had no success in the marketplace because of its higher prices and the slower cycle times during replication, according to Michel Bitritto, global project leader for optical applications in Ticona's Topas group. "The value of a different material was very limited then," she says.

Now, Ticona is reconsidering Topas for optical media in applications where information is stored on multiple layers on each side of a DVD and especially in formats that will be read by short-wavelength lasers. "It is only with great difficulty that people can make polycarbonate work in these applications," Bitritto notes. But Ticona has learned its lesson and doesn't intend to compete directly with polycarbonate. "If polycarbonate does work, it doesn't make sense for Topas to go into those markets," she says.

Ticona is bringing 30,000 metric tons per year of Topas capacity onstream in Oberhausen, Germany, next year, the company's first large-scale production facility for the copolymer. However, not all of this capacity is for optical media substrates. Topas' primary applications include toner binder resin, lenses, pharmaceutical packaging, medical devices, and capacitor films.

Producers of acrylic resins are also renewing their interest in optical media applications. But to make any inroads, they have to shake the image that acrylic--also known as polymethylmethacrylate, or PMMA--is brittle and sensitive to high temperatures and humidity.

Acrylic resin producers tried to enter the CD market years ago, but even though the material offered beneficial optical properties, warpage problems prevented producers from making significant gains, Peter Colburn says. Colburn is technical manager for molding and extrusion compounds for Rockaway, N.J.-based Cyro Industries. "With DVD, the warpage issue is eliminated because the discs are bonded together from two parts, so you have opposing forces there," he explains.

Cyro and Elf Atochem both make products designed for optical media applications. Cryo makes Acrylite DQ501 molding compound, and Elf produces Plexiglas VOD-100. The companies claim that acrylic has advantages over polycarbonate in current DVD formats; they cite improved viscosity, lower cost, superior scratch resistance, and better optical properties. "Those are all givens that we know are inherent with PMMA," says Don Hone, market development manager for the Atoglas division of Elf Atochem North America.

Acrylic resin is already used in the manufacture of DVD 18, a double-sided format with two information layers on each side. But the discs are not actually made of acrylic. According to Colburn, in the process used to make these discs, a metal coating is applied on an acrylic disc that has the surface definition the makers need for the final product. After it takes on this definition, the metal coating is peeled off and applied onto a DVD 18.

Acrylic resin makers say there is an opportunity for use of acrylic as a substrate for short-wavelength DVD discs. "An advantage would be the ability to replicate the smaller features," Hone comments. He notes that acrylic's low birefringence properties are also an advantage.

But polycarbonate will not step aside easily. According to Austin Peppin, president of Chesterfield, Mo.-based consultants Peppin & Associates , the market for polycarbonate used in optical media applications is about 500 million lb per year globally, and it is expanding at double-digit rates. It will continue to be used for growing volumes of CDs and DVDs. Even if the next-generation formats are released in a couple of years, it will take time for disc players to become affordable enough for most people to purchase large quantities of next-generation discs. "We are confident that wherever the physical properties of standard polycarbonate are sufficient, no other polymer in the foreseeable future will have a realistic chance for substituting significant volumes of polycarbonate," says Ramesh Pisipati, optical memory industry manager for Bayer Corp. , a major polycarbonate producer.

GE Plastics, another major polycarbonate producer, is also examining possible future DVD formats. "We have materials that work in those applications, whether they're polycarbonate or not polycarbonate-based," says Blair Souder, global marketing manager for GE Plastics' media programs group.

But Souder also notes that, unless the market dictates otherwise, poly-carbonate has a lot of life left. "Polycarbonate is the benchmark," he says. "And everything else compares itself to polycarbonate with respect to all the requirements. So if current polycarbonate off the shelf has a weakness, media manufacturers will raise their concern and ask for materials that address those particular issues."

LDs, DVDs, MO

[soupforare]

I don't know about you, but I'm still bitter about the movie houses stopping the release of Laserdiscs.
I've got a couple of DVDs, but as a 'Universal' digital media, it falls real short
I wish that high-end MO disks, or DVD-RAM got as popular in the states as it is in Japan.

Re:LDs, DVDs, MO

[Pope]

I hear ya: I was watching the director's cut of "Aliens" on laser last night.
I do, however, like the price of DVD vs. Laserdiscs. New lasers were still running around CAN$70 to 80, whereas a new DVD will be around CAN$20 to 30. DVD's also don't have nasty sidebreaks every 30 minutes like CAV's do/did.
It was nice to see a movie fade to black without nasty compression artifacts/posterizing! Also, DVD's are smaller and lighter and a bit more convenient to carry around from place to place.

However, like with vinyl, I can guarantee there'll be movies on laser that simply never end up on DVD, mainly from studio apathy. I mean how many damn records do I own that are OOP and not available on CD?!

Ah well, at least I'll always have a copy of the original Star Wars trilogy without the crappy "special edition" footage! Mua ha ha!

Re:LDs, DVDs, MO

[HalfFlat]

On MOs ... I'm bitter too.

2.3GB on a 3.5" form factor? Only four times slower than a hard disk, and just as reliable?

And we're still using floppies.

Doesn't this mean

[Anztac]

Doesn't this mean that this is going to take more proscessing power? I mean, I may be a bit off my bonkers, but won't this also be a costly changover? A new decoding chip for every player? Why not make the next shift encompass both technologies?

Re:Doesn't this mean

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you on crack? That might spare those damn consumers an upgrade cycle!

Re:Doesn't this mean

[Mister Transistor]

Yeah, it does mean more CPU cycles wasted on decoding the data stream, but compare a $100 CPU upgrade to a $500-$1500 blue laser based DVD drive.

Also if you have a hardware MPEG decoder on a Video card, you just need to upgrade that. No CPU upgrade, as the outboard hardware handles the new demand.

Re:Doesn't this mean

[JediTrainer]

Why not make the next shift encompass both technologies?

So you're suggesting they use a purple laser instead?

*ducks*

Re:Doesn't this mean

[Snafoo]

No, use x-rays!

I have the *perfect* name for the intensive, open-air six-month live-in training programme....

Re:Doesn't this mean

[JabberWokky]

No, but a blue laser can read the smaller pits in the higher physical density discs, as well as the large pits in DVDs (and CDs)... and if not, then just have a dual laser mechinism (they've been done before, and cheaply too). So the DVD player reads all formats. Hell, that's what they do now - almost all DVD players play VCDs and CDs.

--
Evan

Re:Doesn't this mean

[markmoss]

if not, then just have a dual laser mechinism (they've been done before, and cheaply too).

CD drives use an infrared laser. Cheap single-laser DVD drives can read the stamped CD's with the red laser, but cannot read CD-R or CD-RW. The dyes in CD-R/W go from highly reflective to almost back in infrared when written, but change very little in visible light. (Use about half a CD-R and try to see which part has been used; there is a subtle difference, but not at all enough contrast to read microdots.) Better DVD/CD drives have red and infrared lasers.

Likewise, you could probably read standard CD's and DVD's with a blue laser, but if you want to read the writeable formats, you might have to put three lasers in the system. This gets expensive.

OTOH, because there have been several competing writeable DVD formats, almost everyone has been waiting to see which one would win before buying, and so there isn't that big of an installed base to worry about. Get ONE blue-light writeable format that is capacious enough for hard drive backups, and I'll buy, even if I have to saw a hole in that damned fancy HP Pavilion case to mount it together with the CD-R/W drive...

Re:Doesn't this mean

[JabberWokky]

Get ONE blue-light writeable format that is capacious enough for hard drive backups

Isn't that the point of this new standard - creating a standard for High Density DVD ( to coin a phrase, aka Blue-Ray) that is compatable for HDDVDs, HDDVD-RWs and HDDVD-Rs? Define the standard for all the variations so the players that are made to the spec work on the R and RW variants as they become affordable and widespread.

Oh, and a comment on your .sig - "When one reads Bibles, one is less surprised at what the Deity knows than at what He doesn't know. - Mark Twain" "Man wrote the bible, God wrote the world" - Bob Kanefesky, in the lyrics to "Eternal Flame aka "God Wrote in LISP" (yes, a song about how God had a deadline, so he used Lisp rather than Ada, Basic or C. It's a good example of a filksong, and is available on CD and mp3).

--
Evan

Re:Doesn't this mean

[JabberWokky]

In the time honored tradtion of replying to your own post when you've made a boneheaded blunder, I must say that my filk tapes are in storage, and mp3.com is down, but I'm thinking that quote is actually Julia Ecklar, from "Hand of God", also available at that same URL. I'm also fond of Fish's song "PGP".

--
Evan

MS Involvement?

[MiTEG]

Though the article is lean on details, this would fit suspiciously well into Microsoft's plan to have DVD players support Windows audio/video. I'm not a Microsoft fan, but I've got to admit that idea of downloading a 700 MB .wmv file, burning it to a CD and being able to play it back in my DVD player at DVD quality is quite enticing.

Re:MS Involvement?

[jsarek]

What, you've never heard of SVCD format?

Re:MS Involvement?

[FreeUser]

I'm not a Microsoft fan, but I've got to admit that idea of downloading a 700 MB .wmv file, burning it to a CD and being able to play it back in my DVD player at DVD quality is quite enticing.

And what on earth makes you think Microsoft's patented DRM will ever allow you to do that? If you want to be able to move your content from medium to medium as you see fit, without restriction, your only real long term hope is to use free software. Of course, if the SSSCA is passed theres a good chance free operating systems, such as FreeBSD and GNU/Linux, will be outlawed as a result.

Re:MS Involvement?

[Anonymous Coward]

just hope the file itself wouldn't have to signed by Microsoft before it would play and the player wouldn't want to have an internet connection to microsoft inc.

I prefer to see DiVX and other avi codec while we are going down this path.

Re:MS Involvement?

[Anonymous Coward]

Downloading a 2 GB SVCD set is not the same as downloading a 700 MB wmv movie, thanks.

Re:MS Involvement?

[ncc74656]

What, you've never heard of SVCD format?

I burn them all the time, but you can't fit an entire movie onto one unless you drop to a really low bitrate (=crappy quality)...and even then I don't know if the format would even allow going to such low bitrates.

Re:MS Involvement?

[talonyx]

I'm sorry, but I refuse to believe that Microsoft is capable of producing a DRM system that cannot be cracked. I mean, come on! the Windows XP "Activation" system was cracked before XP was even on store shelves. I'm sure that any DRM functionality would be removeable from Windows Media Player and cousins quite easily.

I wouldn't put too much faith in Microsoft to make an uncrackable implementation of _anything_.... let alone something people care enough about to crack like DRM.

Re:MS Involvement?

[FreeUser]

I wouldn't put too much faith in Microsoft to make an uncrackable implementation of _anything_.... let alone something people care enough about to crack like DRM.

They aren't going to make it uncrackable through technical expertise, they're going to make it uncrackable through legislation. If possession of such a utility is punishable by five years in prison and a $500,000 fine, no one in their right mind is going to have a copy of such a DRM cracking utility lying around. In effect, that makes DRM uncrackable from a practical standpoint, even if the "encryption" is the same as Adobe's laughable rehash of ROT-13.

wavelength

[terradyn]

the wavelengths of different color lasers are different. I believe blue and green are shorter than red and therefore would create much closer spaced pits and grooves on media. It would also therefore be able to read more data from the media.

Re:wavelength

[Anonymous Coward]

No, that's not the reason. Blue is just much more stylish. Everybody loves shiny blue stuff. Red is so nineties, totally out.

Re:wavelength

[Anonymous Coward]

IIRC, blue lasers are also more difficult/expensive to create

Re:wavelength

[eMilkshake]

Heh -- I assume you're not making a Novell vs. Microsoft joke? ;)

Remember, the code name for MS's Novell->MS conversion util was visine b/c it "gets the red out."

Hell is thawing again

[Anonymous Coward]

After a few cold nights with even a little frost, hell's temperature is rising again. What looked like an agreement on the direction of technology used in consumer applications has now turned into the usual competing standards situation.

Re:Hell is thawing again

[Anonymous Coward]

How is this a troll comment?

Re:Hell is thawing again

[/ASCII]

Hehe. This post truly deserves a "+1 Troll" rating.

What's the point?

[hexxx]

What's the point in changing standards when the current one is ok? I mean current DVD technology is good enough for most video uses. This "improvement" can merely scare people from buying that DVD players to replace their VHS systems. It's too early to change standards! I mean VHS lasted for more than ten years and so should the current DVD technology.

Re:What's the point?

[Anonymous Coward]

What's the point in changing standards when the current one is ok? I mean current VHS technology is good enough for most video uses. This "improvement" can merely scare people from buying that VHS players to replace their super8 systems. It's too early to change standards! I mean super8 lasted for more than ten years and so should the current VHS technology.
----
Sorry for the sarcasm, but normal resolution TV looks like crap compared to HDTV - you can buy a nice TV, but getting good source material is still a problem.

Re:What's the point?

[MrScience]

VHS has actually lasted for over 25 years. I think that I'd rather use the cool technology available in 2020 than ancient DVDs.

Re:What's the point?

[cadallin451]

DVD's came at a bad time really, They were an enhancement of the red laser technology to get the highest data capacity possible. The change was so you could shrink a laserdisc down to CD size. The problem is, at about the same time HDTV started getting pushed, and DVD's just don't have the capacity to store higher resolutions with sufficient play time. The industry really needs to decide to have Blu-ray or its equivalent have players that are backwards compatible with DVDs, and make High Definition DVDs just a higher capacity and higher-bitrate extension of DVD.

The result of such a decision would be great for consumers, eg only slightly confusing. You have standard DVD, which can be played in all DVD players and Blu-ray/HD-DVD players, and is low-res; and you have Blu-ray/HD-DVD that works only in Blu-ray/HD-DVD players, but is high-res.

Unfortunately, this would probably break down so that HD-DVD would be the laserdisc to DVD's VHS, which means studios would rape those of us who want the HD releases. Instead of a reasonable premium (+$5 to $10), they would probably charge 2 to 3 times the DVD price for HD titles. Which would drastically slow the market penetration of both. More people would be afraid to get DVD players lest it be discontinued, while very few HD-Players get sold due to higher cost. Generally resulting in lower revenues for the media industry.

It would be nice to beleive the media industry would get a clue and start working on economies of scale based on actual cost of production + reasonable profit, but I don't really believe it would happen.

Size matters

[amorsen]

Right now the major impediment to sharing movies is the storage (and bandwidth, sometimes) requirements. A 150GB hard drive can only hold about 15 DVD's, so sharing of full-quality DVD's is rather expensive. As soon as 9GB+ rewritable disks become cheap or hard drives double in size a few times, DVD sharing will become popular.

Going with a high-bandwidth encoding of HDTV would ensure that only the people buying the HDTV-DVD's would get the best quality. Choosing to go with a low-bandwidth encoding ensures that sharing full-quality HDTV-DVD's will become widespread quite soon.

I expect that Warner Bros will regret this decision in a few years.

Re:Size matters

[Anonymous Coward]

Going with low-capacity instead of moving to higher-capacity media (blue lasers, or better yet, FMV) has another consequence.

The quality (for a given coding method) will be worse, and thus store-bought discs will have less of a quality advantage over infringing downloads. They will also have less of an appeal to the home theater enthusiasts who bought LaserDisc and DVD.

But blue lasers are still expensive

[shoppa]

There are two ways to put more video on the disk:

1. More compression. Needs CPU horsepower somewhere (drive? your desktop CPU?), but CPU horsepower is dirt cheap today.
2. Blue lasers. The shorter your wavelength, the higher your recording density. But red lasers are widespread and cheap, while blue lasers in consumer devices are not all that well understood and there is a very limited supply at the moment.

If you're in the business of selling blue lasers, of course you want to promote method #2 above. But DVD companies are not in the business of selling blue lasers - they're in the business of selling content.

Of course, the decision to not use blue lasers impacts those who use the disks for purposes other than what the DVD companies want. If you want to store data on the disk, the "new" DVD compression doesn't help you any. And if you want to play the new DVD's on your non-DVD-consortium-approved player, the new compression techniques will probably make your attempts more complicated (if not more illegal...)

Re:But blue lasers are still expensive

[SilentChris]

"But DVD companies are not in the business of selling blue lasers - they're in the business of selling content."

Actually, DVD companies are more interested in selling hardware. Better visual quality, better sound - it's the same principle as hardware upgrades for the PC (get the consumer to buy new stuff every 3 years).

The only people who care about content are the content providers like movie studios, and they can care less what color laser you use (or even if there ends up being substantially more room on the disc). They cater to the mainstream (those who don't want to buy new DVD players every so often) and they're having a hard enough time filling the 4.7 GB they're being given now. Plus, it's at some companies advantage to use the limited space to create 2 DVD sets (for example, Star Wars 1) which they can sell for more money.

Re:But blue lasers are still expensive

[shoppa]

When I said "DVD companies" I meant what you call "content providers". Sorry for the confusion.

Not that I have any financial interest in the blue laser companies, but in some respects it's a shame that their proposals (which really *do* pack more bits on a disk) may not be implemented sooner. Blue lasers are expensive right now, but the sure way to make them cheaper is to build them into every DVD player made. And the sooner that happens the sooner we see 20 or 30 or 50 GB DVD-ROM media for cheap prices in the mass market.

Re:But blue lasers are still expensive

[ubergeek]

It seems to me that the only people that want blue laser technology are the people developing it and videophiles. I fall into the latter category, and that's why I'm angry about this decision.
The studios don't want it for two reasons:

• The cost of manufacturing discs will go through the roof. The studios will have to eat a good chunk of that cost if they want the consumer to accept the new format.
• The new format will mean they'll have enough room to store HD content at current compression levels. In their minds, this is a bad thing.

The hardware manufacturers don't mind because they're going to be selling new equipment in either case. I'm sure they'd rather be selling new equipment that uses the blue laser tech they've spent so much money on.

I'm angry because HD-DVD is basically the holy grail of home theater, and they're gonna blow it. This whole "improved" MPEG-2 sounds like crap. Filtering before compression?!? ARGH! What the hell is that? Apparently they have no regard for fidelity. In my mind it's a very simple issue: uncompressed HD content can occupy as much as 3 times the space compared to non-HD content (720p signal versus 480i gives (720*2)/480 = 3 or 1080i vs 480i gives 1080/480 = 2.25).

If they keep red lasers, they're going to have to compress the data three times as much for 720p and 2.25 times for 1080i data (as compared to 480i). I don't care how good MPEG4 is, it isn't good enough to achieve that without throwing out some data. I don't even want to start on what MPEG2 would have to do to the data to fit it in the same space.
So while technically we're getting a lot more resolution, what does it matter when we're throwing away so much data?

Re:But blue lasers are still expensive

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually consumer electronic companies have a much more conservative approach to "upgrades" than computer companies.

For example, DVD is just now becoming a mass-market consumer item. If they throw a new+better shiny round disc format out there now, there's a possiblity that it will cause consumer confusion and kill the golden goose. And as you point out, the content companies don't really care, and their support is critical for any new format.

Re:But blue lasers are still expensive

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe a mechanical engineering professor I had mentioned that the blue lasers do not "live" as long as red lasers.

Re:But blue lasers are still expensive

[Drakula]

That used to be true. Nichia (of Japan) has been sampling bluew lasers with lifetimes of 10000+ hrs., the minimum for most applications. Once they are in use, their cost will come down.

Re:But blue lasers are still expensive

[Anonymous Coward]

Damn....have I been out of school that long?

MPEG4?

[Console]

Warner Bros. and other content-production companies are behind the new DVD Forum proposal, which uses low-bit-rate encoding technology such as MPEG-4 to cram 9 Gbytes of high-definition video content onto a two-layer DVD.

Is it just me, or are the content producers shooting themselves in the foot here? What's next, changing the CD standard so it supports MP3's? ;-)

Re:MPEG4?

[Anonymous Coward]

You would've expected them to want content to be larger on disc, rather than have it more compressable and more able to be sucked down internet pipes.

I guess they're doing this so they can fill up discs with more 'behind the scenes' crap, then whack 50% on the price (I don't think they've actually thought about the piracy angle, I guess they think they're closing that one with some kinda security standard).

Maybe the movie studios should start listening to the techies here - if you want to progress, do it in big steps with quantifiable improvements, not some hammed out crap that confuses people when they're buying the damn things...

Re:MPEG4?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe the execs don't want to release high quality versions of movies? Mpeg-4 gives great compression but at the cost of video quality. For example, things like gradients tend to "dance" and move on screen when the compression is at work.

different coloured lasers is good futureproofing

[FrenZon]

Can you imagine how confusing Starwars would be if everyone's lasers were the same colour?

Re:different coloured lasers is good futureproofin

[Anonymous Coward]

You could have them travel at different speeds. The Jedis' lasers would be faster, obviously.

DVD standards are a mess...

[dpbsmith]

...does Joe Six-pack understand the differences between DVD-RW, DVD+RW, DVD-RAM? Do _I_ understand the differences between these formats? Do you? Does the recent el-cheapo DVD player I bought play 2-layer disks? Do I know? WILL I know until I try to put one of them in and find that it won't play?

And now we're going to have TWO competing high-definition DVD formats? And HDTV itself, or do I mean "digital TV," is six or is it eight different formats, which are high-definition, except when they aren't, that is they are high-ER definition but not HIGH definition, only you can't get the high definition, and all the digital TV formats are about to become obsolete...

Anyone who buys ANY HDTV or DVD gear until the dust settles has gotta be nuts.

But you sure have to be amazed at the complexity and ingenuity the industry is using to shoot itself in the foot.

Re:DVD standards are a mess...

[donglekey]

Not necessarily. Everything is comlicated right now and will be for a few years. The TV's themsevles though are the most solid device in the chain. I have a high def TV, and I play 480p dvd's on it and 480p 60 fps Gamecube. It rocks. I can't watch high def TV because I don't get it yet, but I knew that before hand and that isn't why I bought it. I love HDTV and I don't think that I am 'nuts'. There you have a positive story about HDTV.

Re:DVD standards are a mess...

[kaiidth]

Here's a negative story: HDTV itself.

High def. TV looks great with a good signal. Unfortunately, last time I saw one (demo model in an expensive hi-fi shop), whilst the image was crisp and clear and all the rest of it, the signal it was displaying was lousy - it was showing a standard UK digital TV signal, if I recall, a news program. Every moving image displayed compression artifacts that were all too visible on the lovely clear screen.I haven't the least idea what compression/bandwidth it actually was, but it didn't look too good.

Re:DVD standards are a mess...

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's a negative story: HDTV itself.

This sentence has no relevance to the rest of your post.

Re:DVD standards are a mess...

[kesuki]

DVD standards are not a 'mess' compared to HDTV.
DVD is a standard there was some initial problem with first generation products, and many second gen were still shipping region free, but now that we're well past the third generation DVD is pretty solidly hammered out. BTW Dual layer was in the standard long before any drives were EVER built. Each hyphen/plus is an extention to the DVD standard. The extentions get to be a mess but at least DVD-R Tries to stick to the standard and is rewarded with media that will play in most standalone hardware. DVD-R also is DVD standard technology and carries the DVD logo because of that.
My take on the Blu-ray Vs. HD-DVD is that Blu-Ray is intended for use in recorders. HD-DVD seems exclusive to pre-packaged stuff. Afterall the fastest computers out there only recently became capable of real-time mpeg-4 compression. Also, playback doesn't really take that much CPU horse power. The jump to mpeg-4 decoding is more like the jump from mpeg-1 hardware decoders to mpeg-2 hardware decoders. They can fit a mpeg-4 decoder into a chip intended for cell phones nowadays so really there is no technological barrier to adding mpeg-4 decoding support. In fact some existing decoder cards are actually able to hardware accelerate the decoding of mpeg-4 now with some modifications to the software.
Also technically they only have to engineer for the highest resolution HDTV to ensure that they can support any resolution that becomes standard.
However since it's aimed at pre-packaged they can pick a resolution and say everything will be encoded at that resolution, the way they do with MPEG-2 for DVDs now.
I think blue lasers will eventually catch on. the only 'cost' that makes them prohibative is that there hasn't been any development in them. Given a few years on the market they'd be as cheap as red laser is now, but with far greater capacity.
the trick is to make all the DVD recorders blue laser or something that everyone 'has' to have. adding a red laser read diode or two shouldn't add to the cost much so backward compatability can be preserved, and anything capable of encoding mpeg-2 streams from HD sources in real-time should have no problem decoding mpeg-4 either. A properly designed Blue laser DVD recorder should be able to support any industry standard DVD, even the mpeg-4 ones, although first gen units might not have enough time to tack on mpeg-4 decoding due to timing.

Re:DVD standards are a mess...

[Anonymous Coward]

My understanding is that the UK only has standard def DTV over sat, and not HD. So it sounds like you are blaming the set for a low bandwidth signal (2Mbps versus 18 or whatever).

(The US is currently playing around with real HDTV in order to prove politically that there is no market for it, and then we will get back to SD DTV.)

Re:DVD standards are a mess...

[nathanh]

Does the recent el-cheapo DVD player I bought play 2-layer disks?

ALL DVD-V (DVD Video) players must support RSDL discs. It's been part of the specification for a very long time.

Whether the general public understands the details is almost irrelevant. They almost certainly didn't understand the details behind the various CD formats - CD-DA, CD-i, CD-MO, CD-RW, CD Extra, VCD, CD Plus, CD-XA (1 and 2), CD-RFS, CD-UDF - but this didn't stop CD from becoming a hugely popular format. You probably don't know (or care) that your Playstation uses CD-XA while your discman uses CD-DA. You simply buy a Playstation CD for a Playstation and an Audio CD for your discman.

The public knows that "DVD players" will play their "DVDs" from BlockBuster. They don't know or care that it's DVD-V. They just know that "DVDs have movies on them". People interested in the more exotic formats (DVD-A, DVD-RAM) will learn what they need to know. The system will look like chaos to people who know the details, but the general public won't give a flying crap.

Re:DVD standards are a mess...

[kaiidth]

Ah, that could be it. They claimed it to be HDTV, but then again, they didn't seem to know much about it....

Re:DVD standards are a mess...

[King_TJ]

I think "Joe Sixpack" is going to learn just enough to get by, either the "hard way" or by anecdotes from his buddies.

EG. He may not know what all's involved with DVD+RW vs. DVD-RW, but he will quickly get the idea that "DVD-RAM is the older stuff, that is really only good for backing up your files; people still buy it only because the discs come in cartridges that keep them from getting scratched up." He'll also probably buy (and return) either a DVD+RW or DVD-RW drive, once he makes a few movie discs with it and finds out those "darn re-recordable discs don't play in anything besides my computer!"

If he does a little more asking around, he will probably buy a Pioneer DVR-A03 drive that uses DVD-R discs, because his buddies tell him those are the most compatible ones around right now.

Re:DVD standards are a mess...

[gorilla]

Two CD standards became aa hugely popular format, Red Book and ISO-9660. Everything else ended in the dumpster.

Re:DVD standards are a mess...

[nathanh]

Two CD standards became aa hugely popular format, Red Book and ISO-9660. Everything else ended in the dumpster.

Perhaps, but that doesn't invalidate my point. Almost certainly most of the DVD formats will become casualties. We're already seeing the possible death of DVD-A (SACD has had better marketting and now carries more titles). The 3 recordable DVD formats look like they're about to be replaced with a 4th. Only 2 DVD formats seem to be surviving at all: DVD-UDF seems to be doing OK and DVD-V is hugely successful.

And just a minor correction. Playstation popularised the CD-XA format. With over 100 million Playstations I'm willing to bet there's more than 100 million CD-XA discs out there. PhotoCD is still hugely popular in the graphics industry. VideoCD is popular enough considering the niche market it aims at (I can buy VideoCD silvers at my local Target, for example). CD-DA (RedBook) and CD-Data (YellowBook) certainly dominate the CD formats, but they're not the only 2 that made any numbers.

Why is the red being promoted?

[Romancer]

Comparison chart

I don't see a benifit especially in storage space for the red laser format.

Anybody have a reason other than politics?

Re:Why is the red being promoted?

[forged]

Since blue light is more or less 2 x shorter wavelength than red, a blue laser can read 4 x more (2 dimentions) pits from the disc surface than a red can.

That's basically it.

Re:Why is the red being promoted?

[Richard Platt]

>I don't see a benifit especially in storage space >for the red laser format.
>
>Anybody have a reason other than politics?

Blue laser diodes are expensive and have a very short lifetime compared to red ones, at least at the moment.

Re:Why is the red being promoted?

[shoppa]

I don't see a benifit especially in storage space for the red laser format.

Of course not - there is no such benefit. The "new red laser format" doesn't actually put more bits on the disk, it just uses more compression to (supposedly) get more out of each bit.

The benefit is to the companies making DVD disks; red lasers are cheaper so that more folks will buy DVD players and thus buy more DVD disks.

OTOH, the electronics companies benefit from the blue laser format, since blue lasers are still Really Expensive. Guess which format the electronics companies are pushing?

Re:Why is the red being promoted?

[Romancer]

"OTOH, the electronics companies benefit from the blue laser format, since blue lasers are still Really Expensive.Guess which format the electronics companies are pushing?"

But that's the confusion.

If the blue laser is better in doing the job but is more expensive for the manufacturers, then why: "...nine of the world's biggest electronics companies agreed to promote a blue-laser-based format for next-generation video and computer optical disks." The electronics companies are the ones who have to make millions of blue laser readers for all the people to read them, the dvd sellers only have to buy 10 writers to make millions of dvds, more if they have the throughput needs, in which case they have the money.

it would seem to me that it's backwards.

Also:
consumers want inexpensive larg capacity DVD burners. If the cost of the burner is $300 but could store on a 5 dollar disk more than most standard hard drives (50G), I'd buy it. It's like having 50g drives, which, I'm sorry but I only use for archiving anyway. there's no way I access over 50g activly, I compile it and store it, perhaps change around 20 gigs if I'm organizing or cleaning house. Tape drives aren't cheap and they're lame as far as tech and time. searching sucks and dvd is sooo much faster.

Makes perfect sense for HDTV

[forged]

Well, perhaps this new DVD format is just what HDTV needs to start-off. Since you have to buy a new TV set for HDTV, a new DVD format to store high-definition movies makes perfect sense.

I don't know about you, but I am in more favor of a new media with increased capacity, rather than seeing more and more compression on screen. Some DVDs in the likes of Magnolia or Titanic hurt my eyes, because you notice compression artifacts so much.

A new DVD format may take 10 years to become really widespread, but isn't this what happened to DVDs and audio-CDs. I'm ready to accept this change.

Re:Makes perfect sense for HDTV

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know about you, but I am in more favor of a new media with increased capacity, rather than seeing more and more compression on screen.

I Second that. Video compression is hard to rate because the information which is left out is not what most people pay attention to. Edges are still sharp, colors are still there, there are no jumps in what are supposed to be smooth transitions. But still information is left out and if you compare a good DVD with an MPEG4 of the same scene, you can definitely tell the difference (smoothed away wrinkles, slightly less crisp edges, more problems with random patterns like reflections on rippling water or tv noise, etc). Here's a conspiracy theory for you: By distributing movies in low-bitrate formats instead, studios are pushing the "loss" of their valuable intellectual property further into the future, hoping they can come up with a working DRM scheme before they give us the real deal.

Re:Makes perfect sense for HDTV

[forged]

...studios are pushing the "loss" of their valuable intellectual property...

lol, good analogy :)

Re:Makes perfect sense for HDTV

[Graspee_Leemoor]

I really hope that studios don't look at people's acceptance of divx and say "hey look! people accept the quality of movies that fit into 700MB!", and then start compressing their releases like this.

The reason people accept 700MB divxs is because:

a) they are free
b) the quality is a league ahead of the mpg2 of the same file size

People damn-well want dvd quality if they're paying for it, but most people would prefer free divxs instead. With only mpg2 there were more people who were willing to buy the dvd because the mpg2 encoding that fitted on a cd was sub-optimal quality.

graspee

Re:Makes perfect sense for HDTV

[Anonymous Coward]

Honestly, I would prefer they stick to the compression approach because that means I wouldnt have to replace the dvdrw drive I just bought.

Re:Makes perfect sense for HDTV

[phaze3000]

DVD is mpeg 2. I think you're referring to mpeg 1 (VCD).

Re:Makes perfect sense for HDTV

[Richthofen80]

Actually, people are buying HDTV for DVD players now. Progressive scanning DVD players, that is. 480p is technically a DTV standard and you can only watch 480p on a DTV or HDTV. Most people who buy HDTV (and I sell a lot of HDTV) buy a progressive scanning DVD players. (you can get one for like $170 now)

Also, the 16x9 formats usually have an enhanced mode for widescreen DVDs. So there's a lot of reason to have an HDTV now and use existing DVD technology. 480p is still pretty sharp compared to the crap we watch over cable.

Re:Makes perfect sense for HDTV

[CableModemSniper]

No he's referring to MPEG-4 which is much higher compression but you can definitly tell difference in quality. The thing about MPEG-4 is that a 2 hour movie will take approx. 700MB as opposed to the 4 odd Gigs of a DVD

Re:Makes perfect sense for HDTV

[eplese]

No, I'm sure he's talking about a standard MPEG-2 DVD. I notice the artifacts of compression as well. Once you're engulfed in an interesting movie you don't really notice them too much, hence why he would notice them in Titanic. I've done video editing from my digital camera, and I can tell you that pure uncompressed digital video looks infinitely better than any version of MPEG compression. MPEG-1,2,4 all have clearly visible artifacts, you just have to know what to look for. And unfortunately, once you know what to look for, you will always notice them.

Re:Makes perfect sense for HDTV

[My Third Account]

Of course, the source material on the DVD is not high-definition, but rather plain old 480i. The progressive players merely do some deinterlacing voodoo, which does make it look better.

Re:Makes perfect sense for HDTV

[Graspee_Leemoor]

I was referring to 2 periods of time- each with 2 encoding standards: pirate and studio release.

In each case the studio release is a large mpg2 file or files on a dvd disk, the pirates used to be also mpg2 but downsized to fit on a cd and were horrible quality- now the pirates still fit on a cd but use divx (mpeg4) and look a lot nicer (than mpg2, cd size). Therefore more people are dissuaded from buying dvds because the alternative is nearly as good quality...

Hope that clears everything up.

graspee

PS why does some motherfucker keep slapping offtopic and over-rated on my posts when their not? It's almost like someone out there hates me... sob sob

Re:Makes perfect sense for HDTV

[Anonymous Coward]

oops- should be "they're" not "their" in last line.

graspee

Re:Makes perfect sense for HDTV

[Anonymous Coward]

Souce material on a DVD can be either 480p or 480i or even switch every second. There's a flag in the data stream telling you what you're supposed to be getting next. Interlaced players playing progressive frames split them in the obvious way. Progressive players playing interlaced frames try and find the pulldown to reconstruct them.

Re:Makes perfect sense for HDTV

[Com2Kid]

A good video encoder can start out with a DVD MPEG2 source and end up with a HIGHER quality MPEG4 source.

How?

They run the video stream through A LOT of filters.

This is especialy true if the original DVD video is interlaced (480i). When you are doing your deinterlacing and pulldown on a computer you have a lot more resources to spare, and the fact that you do not have to worry about doing things in real time (VS deinterlacing and pulldown on a DVD player) means that you can go for the highest quality possible. (there are MANY ways to deinterlace film, though I think that when you are dealing with a digital stream that it gets a bit simplier. Not to sure on that part.)

Since indeed a lot of MPEG2 video DOES show noticable compression artifacts, a proper filter set can deal with some of those as well. Not all of the artifacts mind you, but some of them. (You can take a not-so-good-but-not-ruined JPEG image into your favorite fully featured image editor and run it through some filters and image adjusters to prove that DCT compression can be partialy fixed if you want too. Do note though that as it is your first time it may take you a few hours to find out exactly how to do this. :) )

video then recompressed PROPERLY into MPEG4 (which is a lot of work) can then end up having less visable artifacts then its original MPEG2 stream.

Most of the people out there who strive for quality though for for 2*700Megabyte releases. I think that 655 megs is enough really, but hey, what ever. :) (2*700mbyte does of course look better)

Re:What's the point? - HDTV is the point

[dat00ket]

What's the point in changing standards when the current one is ok? I mean current DVD technology is good enough for most video uses. This "improvement" can merely scare people from buying that DVD players to replace their VHS systems. It's too early to change standards! I mean VHS lasted for more than ten years and so should the current DVD technology.

The point is that while DVD looks great on most standard TV's, HDTV's are another matter. Suddenly you can see lots of compression artifacts. This isn't much of an issue now, but it will be soon enough.

I doubt DVD2, or whatever it will be called, will arrive in the next 5 years and if it does it will be in parallell with the current technology and cater mostly to videophiles and gadget freaks. There's a lot of money to be made from early adopters.

I for one think it's a great idea to decide on a standard before companies start producing their own technologies. That has caused problems again and again. Nice to see people are learning from past mistakes.

Waste of bandwidth

[pkplex]

Blue is a colder color than red, therefor blue lasers can be overclocked more than red lasers.

Today is Monday, and right now its 01:40, so you might want to go get your self a generous bowl of coffee and do something more constructive than this :)

Something interesting about green laser pointers..

[seanadams.com]

What's the difference between blue, red and green lasers?

Green laser pointers use an infra-red laser diode, with a yag crystal to double the frequency. Also, they increase the brightness of the beam by turning in on and off at about a 60/40 duty cycle, while driving the diode at a higher current than it could handle at 100% duty. You can actually see this by moving the dot back and forth quickly - it appears as a dashed line.

They're a neat toy if you've got $400 to burn (last I checked).

precision on previous post

[forged]

My argument was obviously to demonstrate blue light superiority in terms of storage capacity.

If your question was, why is red being promoted, then I really can't see a reason other than lobbies.

Not Blue Already???

[tweakt]

Weren't blue lasers supposed to be part of the original DVD spec in the very beginning? 27GB per disc or something like that? Now they basically said, hey! instead of making the discs store more data, we're just gonna compress the hell out of it (it will look like total SH**, completely ruining the whole point of HIGH DEFINITION!!).

Does anyone else think they're just digging a whole here in delaying a larger capacity format?

Re:Not Blue Already???

[Anonymous Coward]

DVD standard was never blue but people wanted it to be. Also from the beginning they supported double sided double layer. At 4.7GB per layer that is nearly 19 GB. Consumers don't like double sided media because they can't tell which side is which. Double layer is harder to verify, in fact some of the older systems could only verify the content on the first layer, to reject bad presses. Double layer is harder to pirate (via DVD-R) though, so studios are trying to go all double layer. Mpeg-4 conversions take a lot of time and CPU power, and at any decent quality they only save 1/2 to 1/4th the space over mpeg 2 compression. Blue laser will enable better quality HD when it becomes available, and will enable incredible capacity when it's finally combined with mpeg-4 compression.
Basically the mpeg-4 HD-DVD will look better on HD than normal DVDs do, but blue laser systems will look better still.

New DVD standard

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm ... another incompatible standard that requires the purchasing of yet another DVD drive. And once the new 'blue' standard has been taken up by the majority of computer users, they will come out with another incompatible standard requiring the purchase of yet another expensive-but-different DVD drive. Ingenious! Why do we fall for it?

Well, I didn't. I still don't have a DVD drive. So hah! I have fooled them all!

BTW, I will not purchase a 'blue' DVD drive either - I am waiting for it's successor.

Re:New DVD standard

[Anonymous Coward]

It would seem that they want you to keep upgrading your DVD drives like your CPU's. With the new 100GB storage proposal from Matsushita Electric Industrial, I wonder why they stopped short of blue light, when they could go with violet. If cost is the main issue, then DVD wouldn't have been made standard because it did cost a lot once.

Seeing how long it takes for something to get standardize, it's beneficial to the majority to do less standards acceptance on a regular basis. Industries just love to make users jump through hoops.

Matsushita Electric Industrial's new 100GB DVD drive.
http://www.eetimes.com/story/OEG20011018S0107

Re:New DVD standard

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I'm waiting for its Successors' Successor. You cant be too careful.

Color is important!

[NWT]

With the wavelength of the laser, the color varies! For example red has a wavelength of 622-780 nm and blue has a wavelenngth of 455-490 nm! Red Has the longest wavelength, followeed by orange, yellow, green, blue and violet which has the shortest wavelength!
Refer to this document for further information ...

Its all about Hollywood and Piracy

[Anonymous Coward]

Hollywood doesn't want high bitrate distribution of its prized material. It wants low bitrate so that there will always be some difference between what you get at home and what you see at the movies. They fear rampant copying of high quality (high bitrate) movies and electronic projection. This is pure nonsense since it is going to happen anyhow. There are many places in the world that don't get the theatrical release of a movie until after the DVD release has been pressed in the states.

These are the same people that said 'we don't like digital projection because it is too real and not true to the art'.

Re:Its all about Hollywood and Piracy

[adrianhensler]

Hollywood doesn't want high bitrate distribution of its prized material. It wants low bitrate...

Hm - that may be partially true; but look at something like DVD-Audio where the entire benefit of the format is very high bandwidth making it thusly hard to make an exact and *portable* (think p2p) copy. If Hollywood starts pumping out low bandwith media then they have done most of the hard work of media sharing for the pira... er, public.

Look at DVD's; more than half the battle of making a easily portable copy is converting the mpeg2 to lower bandwidth mpeg2 or mpeg. I would think there is a good deal to be said for making very high bandwidth items. Personally; I don't find svcd's worth the effort of watching. If I want to own a movie; I want 5.1 audio. I want a nice case. I want the extra features and commentary. I can't make a useful copy of that; so I don't bother downloading pirated movies. I also live about 50 feet from a Blockbuster, so rental is an option.

I have, however; downloaded episodes of TV shows that I missed. The only part of that experience that is different from TV is that the commercials have been removed from the downloaded version. Compared to a converted and shared DVD which would be lower audio and video quality; and missing all of the extras that, for me anyways, make it well worth the purchase of the DVD. Not te mention the frequent aggravation of downloading a really bad or flawed rip; wasting time looking for the movie in the first place; etc. How many people do you know who are proud of thier massive collection of stolen movies.. and yet haven't watched all of them?

Of course, once DVD writers (and media) become mainstream all of this gets turned upside down. Expecially if this blu-ray takes off. You can fit a lot of movies on a 27 gig disc; even a few DVD's in their native format.

Boo friggin hoo

[tomstdenis]

At 9Mbit/sec for video you'd think people would be happy. I mean you can get TV quality video [on a desktop monitor] from 320x240x29.97 at 1.15Mbit/sec.

If 9Mbit/sec is not enough for your 720x480 movies then "boo friggin hoo". I'd rather not be forced to upgrade all my equipment because some videophile wants a crystal clear 1600x1200x60fps picture. Personally I am not that obsessed with TV and movies to really care.

I'm of the league that watching 320x240 movies is considered ok and fun [specially when full screen].

Tom

Advice for a buyer? wait?...

[Ixe]

I've been thinking about getting a DVD-ROM drive (and maybe a DVDRW as well) for my pc for a long time.
For the purposes of mass digital storage (like backing up many gigs) as well as dvd ripping.
What would you guys suggest I do? Wait until the "standards" become standards? How do I know when the right time is?

Should I wait for this fabled 28G on one disc?

Compromise people...

[Anonymous Coward]

Why don't they just compromise on maron?
These industry types... always want their own way

Why bother?

[forgoil]

This feels like a step back towards VHS to be honest. No matter which laser and underlying techique for saving the bits they use, they want to use a lower bitrate, and that will not make for good results. Is this so that we can't enjoy good quality movies at home? The day they start to care about quality, for real, is the last day I will ever download a movie...

Re:Why bother?

[Fourier]

Careful--they're not just changing the bitrate, they're also changing the codec. MPEG-4 yields much lower distortion for a given bitrate than MPEG-2. The tradeoff is in the increased CPU requirements.

Re:Why bother?

[Wackston]

Actually, at higher bit rates and resolutions MPEG 4 rarely delivers more than about 10% compression gains over MPEG-2 when you compare similar profiles. Its no panacea. Most of its advanced features really only bite for subsampled images.

7-Mbps MPEG-4 HDTV will look like your typical 1Mbps DiVX. O.k. for free but hardly Artefact free.

Re:Lossless compression

[Anonymous Coward]

How much compression is the lossy format?

BROADCAST uncompressed video is ~25MB/sec. No BFD.

Just wait. Someone will soon be selling video on 200GB+ disk drives that die after 6 months maximum (IBM has that part done), made "hard" to copy by IDE on a funky connector and legal penalties for thinking about connection adapters.

Re:Advice for a buyer? wait?...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure that the new DVD rewriteable format is a standard yet (not all co's are using DVD*+*RW - some will use DVD*-*RW). Get a big firewire external hard drive. PW has 160GB models for $315USD. And make sure it uses the Oxford 911 chipset. I've read that many people who use other chipsets have many problems.

Re:Lossless compression

[ScooterComputer]

Just to point out...this is 25 mega BITS per second, not mega bytes.
25 Mb/s

Investments

[Vishniac]

The investment in current DVD technology has already been made, just look at your local video store. Any new standard must be developed so that it doesn't make current DVDs and players completely obsolete. Maybe they could release simultaneously blue and red laser discs of a movie, as they release VHS and DVD versions now. People with older red laser systems would by the more familiar discs, and those with the latest blue laser systems could purchase the new DVDs to take full advantage of their HDTV resolution.

At the end of the day, it comes down to the analogous course that music has taken: the record to 8-track to cassette to CD to MP3 trip. How many times do I have to buy the White Album? How many times do I have to buy Top Gun? How many times are consumers willing? You have to space out these changes, with "mandatory" switches no earlier than ten years apart. Any more frequent and people get burned out chasing the technological carrot.

Re:Investments

[Anonymous Coward]

No matter what they pick for HD-DVD, don't expect to be able to play HD-DVD releases in your current DVD player.

Just because your DVD player might have a red laser does not mean that it would understand the new compression scheme, or that its firmware would be upgradable.

More likely, HD-DVD players will have backwards compatibility with DVDs and CDs.

Red vs. Blue M&M's Complicate Candy's Future

[trelaneopn]

The Hershey's Times is reporting that the Colored Coating Forum's Steering Committee voted this week to approve the use of low-sugar-rate coating for high-definition RED M&Ms. The Colored Coating Forum's decision, made at a meeting Tuesday (Feb. 26) in Tokyo, to stick with a red-color-based scheme but switch to low-sugar-rate coating, came only a week after nine of the world's biggest candy companies agreed to promote a blue-coating-based format for next-generation coating and coloring optical appeal.

Re:Lossless compression

[Anonymous Coward]

Just to point out...this is really mega BYTES per second, not mega bits. PAL video: 768*576*25*2=22118400 if you assume 2 Bytes per Pixel, which is approximating the fact that color is shared by two pixels and other bandwith reducing facts. Uncompressed video really is HUGE.

The REAL reason why content providers want red

[eyefish]

I cannot believe these industry "expert" groups. They claim that the main reason for using red lasers is cost. However, they seem to "forget" that using a low-bit rate technology as opposed to a blue laser actually will INCREASE costs since supporting MPEG-4 will require higher processing power, and thus more powerful and more expensive silicon.

BUT most important to consumers is the fact that MPEG-4 compression is just NOT SUITABLE for high-definition content which is meant to be seen on a decently large screen (29 inches and above). MPEG-4 simply produces too many artifacts (even today with low-bit-rate MPEG-2 you can see on cable how dark images in motion seen to leave a "ghost" behind).

So now the REAL REASON why they (the content providers) still want to pursue red-laser: They get to give consumers a low-quality version of the video image!!! By doing this they feel they are protecting their investment, while in reality they are simply giving consumers a low-quality solution.

If and once they provide this stupid red laser approach for high resolution video, what they effectively will have done is invite third parties to come with competing high-quality products (which sadly will probably will never be supported with popular content since there is a monopoly among the content providers and media player producers), OR some hackers will come up with a scheme to rip high-quality video out of HD broadcast (for TV or movie theatres) and distribute it in a competing format themselves over the Internet. In other words, Napster all over again because for the same reason as before: they industry is NOT thinking about what consumers want, and what consumers want is a high-quality display system to match their new TV.

Re:The REAL reason why content providers want red

[mr3038]

BUT most important to consumers is the fact that MPEG-4 compression is just NOT SUITABLE for high-definition content which is meant to be seen on a decently large screen (29 inches and above). MPEG-4 simply produces too many artifacts (even today with low-bit-rate MPEG-2 you can see on cable how dark images in motion seen to leave a "ghost" behind).

I think this HD-DVD standard in question would use bitrates equal to current MPEG2 streams but with MPEG4 content. If your DivX video seems lower quality than MPEG2 DVD it might be that your DivX video has 750kbps bitrate compared to about 5Mbps bitrate of MPEG2 video. If you compare 1600x1200@5Mbps/MPEG4 with 768x576@5Mbps/MPEG2 stream it should be clear that the former one is much better.

And what comes to "ghosts" in low light scenes it's only issue with current encoder software. Basically current encoders are using linear comparision between original and compressed instead of logarithmic and they treat 2 to 4 in intensity like 244 to 246 even though the former one has 100% increase and the latter one has 0.8% increase. Obviously you're going to notice ghosting due to this in darker scenes only.

Though, I have to admit that when you consider the CPU power needed to even decode 1600x1200 resolution MPEG4 stream it might be cheaper to jump to blue laser. Not to speak anything about real-time recording/encoding! If only they could create single RW standard this time.

Re:The REAL reason why content providers want red

[vectus]

Another reason could be that they know how most consumers act. If Joe User finds out his computer can't play the new DVD's because they require too much processing power, chances are he will go out and buy an entirely new computer. With a new computer comes a new OS.. probably Windows XP, or whatever MS is coming out with after that. An operating system that could have all sorts of hidden DRM software, or could be updated with DRM software without the consent of Joe User. (what are the chances that he'll know how to get around the DRM/turn off windows update?)

I guess that's my conspiracy theory of the day

Re:The REAL reason why content providers want red

[markmoss]

MPEG-4 decoding logic is just silicon -- it will become very cheap very fast when it goes into full production, while blue lasers use exotic materials and processes, and probably will remain rather expensive. So red-laser will genuinely have a cost advantage. Blue-laser will have two definite advantages: better picture quality, and the writeable version (when it comes out) will be high enough capacity to do complete computer backups in two to five disks -- red laser writeable DVD is not only snarled in incompatible formats, but with capacities around 5 GB, it's too small compared to modern harddrives.

So now the REAL REASON why they (the content providers) still want to pursue red-laser: They get to give consumers a low-quality version of the video image!!! The content providers have probably already sold you Star Wars (for instance) on VHS and DVD both. If they go straight to proper blue-laser high density, they only get to sell it one more time. If they put out red-laser psuedo-high-density first, they sell it two more times. That's all...

Re:Lossless compression

[ScooterComputer]

You are right. Wow that is big...

Why is something needed so quickly?

[donglekey]

I think it would be great if a high-def DVD format came out in the next year, but it probably won't. Why limit things while still using 9GB DVD's? I don't understand the immediate need. DVD's are doing wonderful, and DVD's in progressive scan look great. We can wait 2 years for blue laser players to become a reality, it won't hurt anything to keep DVD's going longer, people are going to be mad about switching anyway.

The solution of the Red laser camp seems to be better compression (good) better post processing (good) but on the same size disc (bad). Switching formats is a hard transition for everyone, why don't they really switch formats and go for something that will be good enough to last for 10 years. Put blue laser discs, Mpeg 4, and good pre and post processing together and you have something that just may stand the test of time, like CD's. CD's are the first technology that I can remember that could possibly be called 'good enough'. I still want DVD-Audio and SACD to do well, but CD's are the first consumer technology that was really limited by how well they were made and the equipment used to play them back then by the format itself. These technology companies have the chance to do that now, with video, but it doesn't look like they are going to take it.

Look back in history to other formats that were just better use of the same space. SVCD, HDCD (20 bit CD) SVHS, the list goes on. They didn't do too well did they? What makes these companies think that 7 Mbit Mpeg 4 is going to look good enough to make people want to switch? There will compression artifacts all over at high resoltuions. Now 1080p 24fps, that is a beautiful thing and will make people drool.

Re:Why is something needed so quickly?

[vil]

"but CD's are the first consumer technology that was really limited by how well they were made and the equipment used to play them back then by the format itself."

Not true: you've forgotten about records. Even today, the LP is the format of choice for serious audiophiles (witness how much people are willing to spend on a good record player!).

Re:Why is something needed so quickly?

[donglekey]

The LP isn't digital, isn't portable. A good D/A converter should be able to match a record player.

Serious audiophiles are a tough group to rely on. They are the people who pay for an $8000 CD player that just has a SPDIF Toslink out. It is digital! A dvd player with optical out will sound the exact fucking same! It is the D/A converter, amp, and speakers that make the difference. That is the thing with digital, the quality is set and it is the analog components that are of varying sound quality, with the exception of post-processing.

Who modded this down? It's true-90% have signed on

[EMIce]

An earlier slashdot article stated that 90% of chipset makers have already signed on to include the low-bitrate MS codec. This post should not have been modded as "Troll".

Racist Lasers

[Anonymous Coward]

What's going to happen when the blue laser decides it doesn't want to sit in the back of the bus anymore?

Sounds like a technology in danger

[jandrese]

To me this sounds a lot like SVHS, superior technology that only the professionals buy because they're the only ones with the equiptment to use it (these new DVDs aren't going to look significantly better on a standard consumer TV). Worse, because only professionals use it the companies have to price it at professional rates, virtually guarenteeing that the average consumer never even sees it. When was the last time you saw an SVHS player at Walmart? How many people even have S Video jacks on their TV? Most of the people I know still hook up their TV through the Coax because that's the only input their TV has.

Why Not Split The Difference?

[Shuh]

Can't we all just get a long and agree on my compromise -- a green DVD laser. Only $50,000 to me for the idea, so it's cheap, does the job, and everybody is happy!

Re:Why Not Split The Difference?

[Anonymous Coward]

Naaaah, go with paisley

MORE choices to confuse me...

[rickthewizkid]

VHS or Beta?
Tape or LaserDisc?
Tape, LaserDisc or DVD?
Tape or DVD?
Letterbox or Pan&Scan (never a problem for me here...)?
Standard or HD?
Red or Blue laser?
480 or 1080?

Wife: I got that copy of _The Matrix_ you wanted...
Husband: Honey, you got the wrong one?
Wide: Whatd'ya mean? It says "The Matrix" right on it!!!

Blue Vs Mpeg4?

[bpd1069]

Why not use both, Blue lasers at 405nm giving approx. 27Gbytes of storage capacity along with MPEG-4 for video compression?

The industry always seems to aim for "Just Enough" technology to get the next planned innovation out the door. It would be nice to see them aim for the moon and just let innovations develop as a result of the technology.

Just imagining a new form of media entertainment, where you watch a movie from the perspective of each character independently. It would be extremely non-linear and very watchable (if well written (think the experimental film "Foor Rooms" but where each character is followed...not just the bellhop)). Just an idea but POSSIBLE if the tech companies would produce technology and let the content providers peddle there wheres on whatever platform exists.

Think about it, Blu Ray (w/ MPEG4)= 25-35 hours of video? Yummy....

Re:Blue Vs Mpeg4?

[Rosonowski]

I've got to be honest, while I (and very likely many other people) would love to see something like this, there is a reason that you wouldn't follow it from each charachter's perspective, namely cost.

Not of hardware, put of production. Imagine the cost of filming a movie and putting it through post. Now do that for 3-6 charachters, and you've effectively made 6 movies at 6 times the cost, if not, more

Re:Blue Vs Mpeg4?

[Anonymous Coward]

See the movie from each character's perspective? You must have A LOT of spare time.

Re:Blue Vs Mpeg4?

[bpd1069]

not from the VIEW point of each character, but have a linear progression of scenes that are relative to the character. Most of the scenes will have more than one "main" character in it so the number of scenes is not as many as you would think... many would be duplicated. Think about it, it would work. In any case.. its just an idea cooked up in 30 sec's while typing in a comment on /. : )

Don't Forget about M$'s New Standards...

[Shuh]

Check out this EE Times article.:

But the world is also full of new ideas for lower-bit-rate encoding, including wavelet, MPEG-4 and such proprietary codecs as Microsoft Corp.'s Corona. The DVD Forum's technical working group has already proved that encoding rates as low as 7 Mbits/s will yield HD video of acceptable quality.

3 points:

1. Microsoft is let off completely by Justice largely due to the requests/lobbying of digital-content-providers.
2. In return for getting off the hook, M$ provides its new codecs to said content-providers, along with its current Digital Rights Management scheme.
3. M$ monopoly is secure as it helps other industry players squeeze the consumer, reduce choice, and further consolidate power in the hands of an incredibly richer and more powerful anointed few.

You could see it another way, but I don't know how you would without willingly choosing to be naive.

Re:Don't Forget about M$'s New Standards...

[Anonymous Coward]

I have to object to that third point - they're not anointed, they cheated their way up the ladder the old fashioned way - crooked.

Re:What's the point? - 3 Reasons

[TFloore]

First, Hollywood is in the business of selling you the same thing over and over and over again. Theatrical release, Original VHS Release, DVD Release, DVD with director's Comments, DVD with Never-Before-Seen Footage, DVD Remastered Specially for Progressive-Scan Output. Oh, and now DVD for HDTV. Probably in 3 different formats, too, released 6 months apart so you'll buy all 3 of them, 480p, 720p, and then 1080i.

Really, how many versions of Star Wars and E.T. do you have???

Second, (I'm taking this on faith, never having seen 1080i HDTV) the current standard is "ok" only by comparison to the crap that is VHS analog playback. Now, whether or not low-bitrate red-laser DVD will be at the quality of 25mbit/sec broadcast HDTV... I dunno. I can hope, but I'm not exactly optimistic.

Third, don't think for a minute that this won't have a whole new collection of Son-of-CSS encryption built-in to prevent unauthorized copying.

Reasons enough?

Pirate copies could be *better* than legal ones

[Thagg]

If blue lasers become common for DVD recorders, but the studios stick with red-laser, low-bit rate encoding for films they release, it will be possible, nay, likely, that pirates will release high-bit-rate movies that will be superior to the studio versions. That would be the ultimate insult -- with video tape, pirate copies were always worse than the originals -- with DVD they could be exactly the same, but if this decision goes through -- they could be better.

Interesting times.

thad

Re:Pirate copies could be *better* than legal ones

[Hodr]

Yeah, ok. just as soon as these super pirates get ahold of the source material (What are the chances of this?).

Re:Pirate copies could be *better* than legal ones

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice idea, but if the pirates are using the red DVDs as source material, how are they going to improve on it? More compression or something? The only improvement I can see is fitting more movies on a disk. Quality will stil be the same.

Re:The REAL reason why content providers - wrong

[j_dot_bomb]

No. I dont think you see it here but the content companies dont want Blu-Ray because they dont want even cheaper large storage. Look at the price of DVD-RAM on pricewatch.com. You can get a recorder for 200 and 4.7gig for $3.6 . This is only 5 times more expensive per meg that CD-R and LESS than TWICE the price of CD-RW in large quantities. This already is going to cause content companies problems. If they used blue-laser, for read-only movies they would support the price reductions and volume in blue-laser technology.

Silicon is cheap, blue lasers are expensive

[Wesley Felter]

Sure MPEG-4 decoding requires more transistors than MPEG-2, but Moore's law will take care of that. The money saved by having only one (cheap) red laser instead of a red laser and an expensive blue laser makes up for more money spent on the decoder chip.

Re:Silicon is cheap, blue lasers are expensive

[Graymalkin]

Moore's law does NOT take car of the transistor problem in devices like DVD players. DVD manufacturers don't throw specially designed chips at DVD decoding, they just throw a larger number of dumber chips at the problem. A more complex CODEC means a much larger increase is silicon required which means more heat and power draw which eventually leads to lower reliability and customer dissatisfaction. You'll notice the manufacturers are the ones pushing for the blue laser, they are the ones eventually eating the cost of adding more complex silicon to DVD players. The content producers wanting to use lower bitrates is just plain cock jockery. They want to bitch slap the consumers more and more by giving them as little as possible in terms of quality. The less video information the consumer gets on the disk the lower quality the image is going to be as it is blown up onto larger monitors. If I fork over the money for a big screen TV that will display progressive scan video I don't want my fancy new DVD to look like shit on it because a cheap ass CODEC is being used.

Re:Silicon is cheap, blue lasers are expensive

[Dahan]

Moore's law does NOT take car of the transistor problem in devices like DVD players. DVD manufacturers don't throw specially designed chips at DVD decoding, they just throw a larger number of dumber chips at the problem.

Moore's law takes care of the transistor problem everywhere. What, you think DVD players do MPEG2 decoding with a truckload of 7400-series logic chips? DVD manufacturers certainly do use specially-designed chips for DVD decoding; my DVD player uses one of ESS Technologies' single-chip DVD solutions. MPEG2, DTS, AC3, and MP3 decoding all on one chip. Plus a MIPS CPU core.

Read the article!

[Wesley Felter]

"Given the strong representation of consumer electronics companies on the steering committee roster, the door is likely closed to proprietary schemes like Microsoft's Windows Media codec, code-named Corona."

Off topic

[Xamdam_us]

Dose anyone know a good place to get Laser Disks online? I still have my old player. The only reason I've kept it is because I have the special Akira disk set.

Re:Off topic

[FunkSoulBrother]

ebay.

Article chart incorrect...

[nedron]

There is a glaring problem with the chart included in the article.

According to the chart, DVD+RW is a DVD recordable format. This is incorrect, as the DVD Forum has not accepted DVD+RW into the DVD family of formats. At most, DVD+RW can only be described as a recordable format using media similar to standard DVDs.

The DVD+RW manufacturers are being disingenuous and misleading the unwashed by including the "DVD" in the format name when they know full well that discs produced in this format cannot legally be called DVDs.

SVCD, HDCD, and SVHS

[yerricde]

Look back in history to other formats that were just better use of the same space. SVCD, HDCD (20 bit CD) SVHS, the list goes on. They didn't do too well did they?

SVCD did well, but not in the United States.

HDCD was not a new format but merely a mastering technique. The label made sure that the master data had at least 20 bits of precision, then they quantized to 16-bit in such a way as to shove all the dither noise into the 16-22 kHz band where humans can't hear very well.

SVHS and Betacam SP are still used in professional television equipment.

Re:SVCD, HDCD, and SVHS

[donglekey]

HDCD was not a new format but merely a mastering technique. The label made sure that the master data had at least 20 bits of precision, then they quantized to 16-bit in such a way as to shove all the dither noise into the 16-22 kHz band where humans can't hear very well.

It still doesn't hide the fact that it isn't widely accepted.

SVHS may be used elsewhere but it isn't really a consumer technology in that movies are not distributed in SVHS.

SVCD is probably the closest parallel and it isn't really relevant to the United States since its predecessor did so poorly too. I still don't think HD-DVD's using simply Mpeg 4 will do well, but it looks like I can't back it up with history.

Re:SVCD, HDCD, and SVHS

[Anonymous Coward]

SVHS isn't really used professionally to my knowledge, except maybe to read submitted VHS tapes.

It is used for amateur video, but most of the market seems to be people dubbing LD/DVD or taping TV. (I just bought a SVHS deck for $120, if that tells you anything.)

What about form factor?

[anarkhos]

The standard CD size is too large for many applications.

ratios are higher than that\

[Chris Carollo]

In my mind it's a very simple issue: uncompressed HD content can occupy as much as 3 times the space compared to non-HD content (720p signal versus 480i gives (720*2)/480 = 3 or 1080i vs 480i gives 1080/480 = 2.25).

HD content can occupy as much as 6.75 times as much space as SD content (1920x1080 / 640x480). 720p is slightly less than that (6x).

Re:What's the point? - HDTV is the point

[Chris Carollo]

The point is that while DVD looks great on most standard TV's, HDTV's are another matter. Suddenly you can see lots of compression artifacts.

I'd suggest you get a better DVD player. On anything but a poorly transfered non-anamorphic DVD, I see no artifacts. And I'm using a calibrated JVC G15 projector to display a 110" wide image using a HTPC and the Cinemaster video decoder. It's clearly softer than HD (particularly good HD), but it's very smooth and artifact-free.

Don't get me wrong; I'm all for HD-DVD, but the reason should be sharpness -- you shouldn't be seeing artifacts now.

Re:Red vs. Blue M&M's Complicate Candy's Futur

[user32.ExitWindowsEx]

Whoever modded the parent 'offtopic' has never heard of the concept of a parody. Shame on them.
Should be modded 'funny.'

HDCD is widely used

[yerricde]

HDCD is one label's trademark for noise-shaped mastering of 20-bit audio data to a 16-bit CD.

It still doesn't hide the fact that [noise-shaped mastering] isn't widely accepted.

Ever look at your CDs through Cool Edit's spectrograph? If, during quiet parts, you see a lot of noise (up to -40 dB) in the 16-22 kHz band, that's noise-shaping. (I see this on lots of albums.) If during a song's fade-out, the audio remains relatively clear even down to -70 or -80 dB, that's noise-shaping. (I'm still impressed by how clean the fade-outs on Genesis - Turn It On Again The Hits sound.) About half of the CDs that my family has bought and ripped recently had been mastered with a noise-shaping technology.

SVHS may be used elsewhere but it isn't really a consumer technology in that movies are not distributed in SVHS.

Likewise, hard drives may be used elsewhere but it isn't really a consumer technology in that movies are not (legitimately) distributed on hard drives.

Re:HDCD is widely used

[donglekey]

But we are talking about distributing movies, and SVHS is not used for it.

tech., or technology

[hanno_barikai]

I believe the information overload shakes will start very soon. I am starting to agree that RAH said it best in Stranger In a Strangeland (paraphrased): Technology hit its peak with the Ford Model T and since then it has become decadent. Whatever happened to survival of the fittest in business?

Actually:

[flimflam]

NTSC content is 720x480 (not counting blanking lines), not 640x480.

1080i is, as you said, 1920x1080. 720p is 1280x720, but progressive (obviously). Once the blanking lines are added in, 720p and 1080i use exactly the same bandwidth, which is very close to 6x that of NTSC.

Re:Actually:

[ubergeek]

If the numbers you've provided are correct, then 1080i requires the highest bit-rate by a large margin. 1080i requires exactly 6 times the bandwidth of NTSC. 720p requires only 2.667 times the bandwidth of NTSC. Whatever the case may be, HDTV clearly requires many times the bandwidth of an "equivalent" NTSC signal. None of this changes my original assertion: a red laser (9GB/side) DVD cannot possibly provide enough storage for full-length HD movie. Unless of course you destroy the image fidelity with excessive compression or filtering. So basically the DVD Forum has destroyed any promise HD-DVD might have had. This makes me very unhappy.

- NTSC -
((480/2)*720) = 172800 pixels/field
172800 pixels/field * 60 fields/sec = 10.368e6 pixels/sec

- HDTV 1080i -
((1080/2)*1920) = 1036800 pixels/field
1036800 pixels/field * 60 fields/sec = 62.208e6 pixels/sec (= 6 * 10.368e6)

- HDTV 720p -
(720*1280) = 921600 pixels/frame
921600 pixels/frame * 30 frames/sec = 27.648e6 pixels/sec (= 2.666667 * 10.368e6)

Re:Actually:

[psergiu]

yeah ...

- PAL -
((576/2)*768) = 221184 pixels/field
221184 pixels/field * 50 fields/sec = 11059200 pixels/sec

But nooo, the americans loove their NTSC ...
Get a PAL tv & DVD doodes... A PAL disk looks way better than the NTSC version.

Re:Actually:

[flimflam]

720p goes at 60fps, not 30. And there's a bunch of extra lines in all of these formats (I don't have my reference book here so I can't tell you the exact numbers), but suffice it to say that the bandwidth used between 1080i and 720p is exactly the same.

Re:Advice for a buyer? wait?...

[Ixe]

Big hard drive... I like that idea... However I don't have a FireWire interface. I know I could buy a pci card to add it but since I have USB isn't that as good?
Also how hard is it to use a removable hard drive in linux? I've heard it's not so bad but I don't know how to do it (though I've never really tried)

Re:Something interesting about green laser pointer

[merlin_jim]

Quick corrections (I'm a laser specialist)...

Most of what you said was true a couple years ago, but it's been changing, mostly due to the entertainment industry (get to that in a second...)

Green DPSS lasers (frequency doubled solid-state, as opposed to dye or ion gas lasers) use a very powerful infra-red (either 800 nm or 1.3 um) laser diode, usually 250 mW or higher... fire that at a Yag crystal or rod. The Yag crystal absorbs the infra-red light and lases at 1048 nm. For those who don't know frequencies, 400 is a deep blue, 550 is green, and 650 is deep red. You can see a powerful enough 750 nm beam, but most of the light is invisible.

Anyways, the Yag crystal lases at 1048 and a KDP crystal in the optic resonator doubles the frequency, giving a wavelength of 524 nm. Though there are some loses in the KDP, this is more then made up for by the efficiency of the resonating cavity itself; one of the mirrors is totally reflective to 1048 nm, but totally transparent to 524 nm... any green light passes straight through it.

Most DPSS solutions these days are made for entertainment. Someone figured out that there was a way to take DPSS and make it Continuous Wave (CW), thereby making it suitable for laser light shows. This was more expensive than ion gas lasers at the time (though that's not true any more), but was still attractive because its a much simpler design, has no moving parts, does not require expensive and difficult to maintain cooling, and can be housed in a much smaller box.

As far as cost... if one looks carefully, one can usually find a 5 mW model for between $100-$200. Watts per dollar goes up sharply, I think hitting a peak at 60 mW somewhere around $400-500.

If anyone reading this wants to know more, or acquire one of these... e-mail me at merlin_jim on hotmail.

MPAA & RIAA

[WyldOne]

The longer they can hold it, the more money they will try to squeeze from us.

Did you notice they did not even put the single layer capacity on the chart (it would be 4.7 gb approx)

The 'it's harder to make/more expensive' is not a reason. All new tech is expensive, but that changes.

I think they are afraid of 'we the people' using the HUGE size of the blue format to roll our own.

Just imagine, in Div-X format a single blu-laser disk could hold 84 hours of video.(assuming a 2hr movie fits on a CD-R) That would be the entire 42 volume Robotech series (about) on one disk.

Microwaves and X-rays already!

[WyldOne]

Given that Microwaves and X-rays are even smaller tha blue lasers (spectrum)
Why not skip-to-the-end so to speak. I know they have x-ray lasers. And Microwave technology is pretty well known by now. Seems kinda silly to be in the visible spectrum at all anymore.

Re:Microwaves and X-rays already!

[Caractacus Potts]

That chart you're looking at is incorrect. Microwaves are around 0.1 mm, somewhere between the infrared and radio waves. Microwave lasers (masers) have been around since the 50's. X-ray lasers currently require a nuclear explosion to operate. If someone ever figures out how to get x-rays to reflect efficiently, maybe then we'll have an x-ray laser.

Re: your .sig

[maddogsparky]

Shouldn't there be some type of parsing punctuation between each number, since they are multi-character representations? Do Roman numerals have a fractional representation? This way, pi in the eye of the beholder...