DVD Forum Approves HD-DVD Standard

An anonymous reader writes "Toshiba Corp. and NEC Corp. said Friday that the DVD Forum, an international association of electronics makers and movie studios, has approved the two Japanese companies' standard for next-generation DVDs. It has always annoyed me that DVDs are not the same top resolutions as High Definition TV. Maybe this will fix it." Well, better get to work rebuying your entire video collection, again.

Comments

Re-buying

[freeweed]

Well, better get to work rebuying your entire video collection, again.

Toshiba/NEC's standard is fully backwards compatible with the existing DVD standard. What this means is, unlike Blu-ray, you can watch your old movies on the new players. No need for re-buying, unless you're bored :)

Re:Re-buying

[Malc]

Don't forget: you will need a new TV too. Otherwise it will just down converting it all to 480i.

DVDs & HD content

[coldmist]

It has always annoyed me that DVDs are not the same top resolutions as High Definition TV. Maybe this will fix it.

DVDs can hold video streams with resolutions that HD uses. They just can't hold 2 hours of it.

This new format of disk could still hold an mpg-2 file, but have enough capacity to hold 2-hours worth of video at HD resolutions.

It's capacity, not format.

Re:DVDs & HD content

[dmoore]

Not exactly true as far as I understand. The firmware on your current DVD player does not know how to decode higher resolution video streams even if the disk contained them. The DVD-video spec only contains a very small number of specific resolutions that need to be decoded, since the players want to be as simple to implement as possible. Furthermore, the composite outputs on any current player can't be driven higher than 480p, at least not on any player I know of. In order to get higher resolution content, you need to amend the DVD-video spec in addition to increasing the capacity.

Re:Just re-process the video

[The Salamander]

Because then you're just watching a 480i movie upscaled to 1080i, instead of a true 1080i transfer.

IMO, Upscaled 1080i is only about 10% better than 480i, as you just can't add detail from nowhere. Its nowhere as good as a real HD image.

Re:That'd be terrible!

[Mod Me God]

DVDs are not too big for broadband. MPEG-2 (DVD) can be converted to MPEG-4 (Xvid, DivX 5x or whatever) more than ^1/4 size but little reduction in video quality (and hey, AAC audio is on many Kazaa'd .AVIs, MP3'd audio is not awful).

So on a entry level broadband (512kbps) I can dl an almost DVD quality movie in 3 hours (no extras, but extras suck compared to the finished product).

DVDs (DVD-Rs being writable DVDs) can be reduced to VCDs with a few bells and whistles. there is not much scope for size-bloat to prevent size-reduction and pirating.

In HK (used to live there) you could buy _legal_ VCDs (menaing guaranteed quality, recoursability, etc) of the latest DVDs a month after DVDs hit the streets at only US$3/movie. HK has a lot of piracy, but this policy benefitted the legal distro channels and originating studios a lot.

no collection replacement for me

[TerraFrost]

Well, better get to work rebuying your entire video collection, again.

i, personally, won't be rebuying my collection. i mean, i bought my collection to *last* me. granted, the media may not last forever nor may the technology to even read them last forever (ie. it may be replaced by something better), but... thanks to DeCSS, the actual content can last forever. i can back it up and transfer it to progressively next generation media for as long as i please, and unlike with analogue copying, these transfers will be the same high quality they were when i purchased them. now, this hd-dvd standard may provide higher quality, but it'll be that much more riddled with copy protection, and blah.

also, for those currious... the name of the discs that the DVD forum approved are advanced optical discs. you can read about it here:
http://www.dvddemystified.com/dvdfaq.html#3.13

More Specs

[cgenman]

More Specs are available here.

"The HD DVD format is a violet laser-based optical disk system with a capacity of 15-20 Gbyte per side using the same disk structure as current DVD disks."

A quick comparison of existing specs here shows that the blue lazer DVD's are well ahead of these higher-density DVD's.

The Blu-ray Disc, supported by nine major makers, including Sony, Panasonic, Philips and Pioneer, could store up to 50 GB of data (more than six times the data capacity of today's DVD) by using a blue laser beam instead of the current red laser. Blu-ray recorders and players could play current DVDs, but Blu-ray discs could not be played on current players.
Advanced Optical Disc, a second blue-laser system proposed by NEC and Toshiba, brings disc capacity to 20 GB. One advantage touted by backers: Today's DVD-making equipment could easily be modified for the new discs.
HD-DVD-9, based on the current DVD format, uses improved software compression to pack 135 minutes of HD video onto the disc. It was developed by Warner Bros.

The most interesting one is the final option... Upgrading the software codec. The MPEG consortium was attempting to get mpeg-4 out the door in time to become a standard for DVD's. They didn't meet that lofty goal, but MPEG4, DIVX, and many other codecs are significantly better at compressing video than MPEG 2. A new codec would require a new decompression chip, but it would cost less than a new laser system, and would provide a platform from which to move up... After all, codecs probably won't see the same growth over the years that hardware will, so using an MPEG4 or other codec could last for many years, at least until Blue laser systems come down in price, at which point you could keep the codec.

Re:Someone will still complain

[pla]

But why would that make your current collection "look like crap"? It's the same DVDs you've been watching (or rather, collecting) since the beginning.

Think of a video game you enjoyed from the early 90's, something that had amazing graphics and you just stared at the eye candy for hours when you played it.

Try playing it now, on a modern PC, after having seen a few modern games. They look like crap, not even worth playing unless they included a great story as well (for me, the original "Unreal" kinda ruined all earlier games, at least as far as appearance goes - Pathetic story line, but so pretty...).

The same goes for TV. Most people still use plain old analog NTSC or PAL TVs. We expect, and automatically filter out, a low level of static, and expect a fairly low resolution image. To prove that to yourself, check out an NTSC screen capture on a modern PC monitor - They look like tiny little pictures with horrible graininess.

So yeah, the picture itself won't change, once we all have real digital HDTV playing capabilities. But our expectations will change, and what we currenly have will seem woefully inadequate, just like that classic video game.

Re:Overkill?

[K8Fan]

Not entirely true. If you have an incredibly large screen it will be very easily noticable, but most people will still have relatively small TVs where the difference is extremely subtle, even if the resolution is much higher.

Respectfully, I disagree. I have a very large TV, true (90" wide projection system). But the difference is clear on the VGA monitor I use for preview and cueing.

Any SVGA or better monitor can display HD depending on the source (one might need a component to VGA transcoder). Conduct a simple experiment: scan something at high res. Make two scaled down versions, one at 640 x 480 (roughly equal to 480P) and one at 1280 x 1024 (again, very roughly equal 1080i). Display each on your PC at native res. On any monitor 15" and above, the difference hardly "subtle". A little experimentation goes a long way to discovering the truth.

I'm not saying there's no difference, or that there's no market for it, but since the difference is so subtle for most people, it will be a luxury item that not many will buy for a long time. Just think about how long VHS remained the standard for home movies, even though beta was available with much higher quality.

The failure of Beta had more to do with Sony's squeemishness and refusal to allow porn titles to be issued on the format. That, and the fact that VHS had 2 hour tapes when Beta was limited to 1. And lastly, Sony chose mediocre licencing partners like Sanyo, diluting the market with crappy Beta machines. Beta didn't become the quality choice until the battle was already lost. Trust me on this...I owned a VCR back in 1979, so I've seen the whole battle.