Microsoft Longhorn To Support HD DVD Format

MSDVD writes "Microsoft's Japanese Division reported that its upcoming operating system, code-named Longhorn, will support HD DVD format. HD DVD is an enhanced version of the standard DVD technology. According to online reports, Microsoft is pushing the next-generation blue-laser DVD technology like NEC and Toshiba. Blue-light technology can read and write data much faster and at higher densities, which is needed for high-definition content. Few Japanese companies said they will have HD DVD content based DVDs by next year to support the players."

Comments

Blu-ray

[halo1982]

So with Microsoft throwing its support behind HD-DVD, does this mean that Sony's Blu-ray will go the way of Betamax (and to a lesser extent Minidisc)?

Re:Blu-ray

[rokzy]

maybe if Longhorn was due out in a reasonable amount of time.

given its release is so far away and I expect linux etc. to support whatever is popular anyway, I read this as saying "our support will be limited to this", rather than "our support will include this". sounds like bad news.

Re:Blu-ray

[DarkOx]

Good, Sony is by far the only mega corp that really compeetes with M$ in the evil DRM/vendor lockin space. If the 800 pound gorillas want to step all over each others best laid plans well thats about as good as us little guys can hope for these days.

Re:Blu-ray

[DarkOx]

I would like to add to my own coment. I would have perfered the blue-ray camp win this as at least the technical specs look more like they can be implemented in the OSS world more quickly as its still a form of mpeg 2, it would be just a matter of optimizing playback software for the new data rates and image sizes rather then knock-out a new codec implementation entirely even if it does borrow a great deal from Divix. Lets remember though long before blue-ray mpeg2 disks would have gotten out the door Sony and their gang would have cooked some DRM like system up for it even it was weak like CSS, they were by no streach of the imagination going to allow it to be as open as it might seem at the moment in final release. So its probably a steeper hill vs. steep hill situation and if M$ wins things are really not much worse.

Re:Blu-ray

[Jordy]

Not really. Blu-Ray has a rather large group of companies behind it including Hitachi, JVC, LG, Panasonic, Philips, Pioneer, Samsung, Sharp, Sony, Dell, HP and Zenith.

Microsoft likes HD-DVD because it uses their hacked up MPEG-4 CODEC. Microsoft "supporting" it in Longhorn doesn't mean much as both formats are supposed to start shipping years before Longhorn exists (2005). No doubt any PC drive manufacturers will have to write their own drivers.

The rest of the industry likes Blu-Ray because it has a higher storage capacity (54 GB vs. 30 GB), uses MPEG-2 so movie/television companies don't need to re-encode their HDTV streams and has Sony behind it (movie studio/music label).

Re:Blu-ray

[slittle]

Microsoft likes HD-DVD because it uses their hacked up MPEG-4 CODEC.

What hacked up MPEG-4? You thinking of old versions of DivX?

Re:Blu-ray

[eww]

I think that Sony is going to loose this war.

1. All PC's will support HD DVD
2. Xbox2 will probably support HD DVD

Sony will have PS3 using Blu-Ray

Sony will have to sell their Blu-Ray really cheap to beat out MS. Prices fall fast when companies can sell lots of their products. If you can buy an HD DVD burner really cheap you can bet you can get a player for your TV for not much more....

Considering Xbox is cheap the Xbox 2 is probably going to be cheap too. The PS3 might have to follow suit. Then the Consoles will be the decieding factor in what format win's on peoples TV's

Re:Blu-ray

[Anonymous Coward]

> What hacked up MPEG-4? You thinking of old versions of DivX?

According to the Xvid faq, MS MPEG-4 is not ISO compliant.

Re:Blu-ray

[Anonymous Coward]

Think he actually meant Windows Media 9 which is now an industry standard in its own right.

Re:Blu-ray

[squidinkcalligraphy]

Well, DVD-R, DVD+R, and DVDRAM are all still around, and there are readers and writers for all formats, that also read and write CDs.

More likely is that drives will support all formats before too long.

Re:Blu-ray

[ryanwright]

It's entirely possible. It's also possible that Microsoft's solution will turn out as successful as their poor excuse for a gaming platform.

Re:Blu-ray

[jedrek]

Your post ignores the literally MILLIONS of consumers who have purchased, and will again purchase, Sony DVD players. So what if 1-2mln people get an XBox again? Even more will upgrade their DVDs to a new stand alone Sony model because...

Sony has the movies. Period.

Re:Blu-ray

[pla]

So with Microsoft throwing its support behind HD-DVD, does this mean that Sony's Blu-ray will go the way of Betamax (and to a lesser extent Minidisc)?

Tell me... What do you think it means that Microsoft "supports" HD-DVD in Longhorn?

What do you think that involves?

Let me tell you - For comparison, Linux already supports both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray, as well as the obvious next step of UV-Quad (with a capacity somewhere around 120GB). It might even support RA-Holo, if such a technology gets to market soon enough.

Why, you might ask?

Because all of these drives will just use some variety of ATA or SCSI interface. The actual encoding on the disk, and the physical media itself, do not matter one whit. If an OS can write to CDs an DVDs now, and can read/write from a HDD, it will have the ability to deal with these new media formats without even so much as an upgrade.


Nice PR for Microsoft, to point out they plan to handle it, but it means nothing at all. It means they have a functional generic IDE driver, nothing more.


Now, filesystem support means something entirely different. It also has nothing to do with the underlying medium, though... You can write a RO EXT2 to DVD. You can use FAT32 on a CD. You can use ReiserFS on a TEM lining up individual sodium atoms on a gold plate, for all it matters. But it would really surprise me if HD-DVD and Blu-Ray chose to use something other than UDF or yet-another-variant of ISO-9660.

Re:Blu-ray

[Wesley Felter]

You forget that Dell and HP are on the Blu-ray side. Looks like over 50% of new PCs will not support HD DVD.

No Unique Selling Point

[Sad Loser]

The take up of DVD and CD technologies has been driven by content. However, sales of "CD plus" technology (high resolution CD, DVD-audio) are going nowhere fast, despite the hype.
While these technologies will be nice to have for storage, I can't see that joe average is suddenly going to go out and re-buy their DVD collection.
I believe the average punter has a fairly good feel for what is 'good enough' and it won't take off.

I suspect that this is driven by Hollywood with its hand up Microsoft's bottom pulling the strings, wanting to move away from the CD and DVD debacle as soon as it can. Unfortunately the genie is out of the bag.
(mixed metaphors are the new black).

Re:No Unique Selling Point

[radixvir]

Most average joes i know didnt even get a dvd player because of the additional features or the better picture quality. no it was just because video rental stores started carrying dvds instead of vhs tapes! the moral of the story: if they want to push HDDVD, get blockbuster to buy in.

Re:No Unique Selling Point

[foidulus]

This is especially true when you consider that most people who will use Longhorn for DVD playback will be playing back DVDs on a standard pc monitor/laptop. There are some nice high end HD monitors, but for the most part, the monitors today will waste the capability of an HD DVD. It will be hard to tell the difference between a normal DVD and an HD one.

Re:No Unique Selling Point

[aka-ed]

Seems a hasty prediction, in that "monitors today" are not, in most instances, what will be used with Longhorn.

New Windows OS's mostly grow from new PC sales, rather than upgrades. Assuming it's released on schedule, 16 months from now, what will be the typical monitor accompanying a new system?

Is it entirely unlikely that MS may use the transition to HD TV to leverage the sale of Longhorn-based Media PC's? Seems that this is part of their intention, anyway. What sort of monitor will those systems have?

the point is not to fulfill existing needs; it's to create something that will become a "need" because people want it.

Re:No Unique Selling Point

[real_smiff]

eh? i'm no expert on HD-DVD, but won't monitors be the only thing most people have that *is* capable of showing the full resolution of HD content? i'm confused. even an average monitor today can do 1280x1024, most people only have TVs with about 625 lines if you're lucky (here in England). If i'm right MS' decision makes perfect sense though.. they leverage their position and people need no extra hardware other than the drive (at pretty minimal extra cost).

Re:No Unique Selling Point

[jp10558]

First, I don't think people are in any hurry to upgrade. Second, even if they are, it will most likely take about 5 years from first release for a substantial portion of consumers to have a player. At least, where I live, people didn't start buying DVD players till they averaged $100. That took awhile.

Third, there needs to be a noticable quality improvement. On regular TV's I can see the difference between VHS and DVD. Will I be able to tell the difference between DVD and HD-DVD?

If not, I am betting many won't exactly be rushing out to get new players, and many less to get new players and new TV's - and HDTV's are still in the $1k+ range AFAIK, far from the $100 average for regular TV's.

Finally, and somewhat off topic, how much detail can the average american see or differiantiate between at a range of about 6 ~ 10 feet? My father doesn't see any difference between VHS recorded at EP and DVD. I'm 23 and can, but my eyesight isn't getting any better - how many 50 yr olds can see the difference? Is age a factor?

I'm just asking, it may not be a factor in DVD vs HD-DVD, but eventually the human eye will not be able to distinguish the improvement - this is already happening to the human ear with DVD-A vs CD for many. At that point, how do you convince people to "upgrade" to the latest greatest format?

Re:No Unique Selling Point

[armitage_23]

Seems a hasty prediction, in that "monitors today" are not, in most instances, what will be used with Longhorn.

I don't know about that. Up until late last year, I was using a 20" monitor that I've had since 1997. In Decenber, I finally broke down and bought a pair of 18" LCD monitors - Mostly because a second CRT would not fit on my desk. That's a 7 year lifespan for one component. I went through several PCs without upgrading the display.

I imagine that I'll still be using the same LCD displays in 2 or 3 years. That's why I was comfortable shelling out the cash for them in the first place.

Re:No Unique Selling Point

[steve_bryan]

Since I actually watch HDTV and current DVDs on my PC monitor I can accurately report that HD video is much more impressive. Project a year or more into the future and it can easily be maintained that just about anyone viewing HD DVD on a PC monitor will also be able to see the difference. If your monitor has resolution no more than 640 x 480 I might agree but how many are that limited?

Re:No Unique Selling Point

[Gilmoure]

I'll like more resolution as I'm able to afford a real home theater. I'm planning on having a projection system and when the picture is 8' across, it'll need more resolution to not look totally pixelated.

Re:No Unique Selling Point

[malfunct]

Uh, I might be wrong, but I thought that 1080i was well below the capabilities of most modern computer monitors and video cards. I have a lowly Geforce2 video card and 4 year old sony monitor (it was a nice one back then I admit) and it has no problem with 1920x1080 though I must admit its a "wierd" aspect ratio compared to what I normally use (1600x1200). Maybe if I had a widescreen monitor it would look more normal. My setup goes all the way up to 2048x1536 though you can tell its really pushing the video card at that point. The monitor has no apparent issues with it however except for the 60hz refresh rate.

Re:No Unique Selling Point

[0111 1110]

21" monitors are pretty cheap these days. They can easily display 1080i (1920x1080) resolution. They can typically display up to 2048x1536. They will also have much better dot pitch and color resolution than an HDTV.

It should be easy to tell the difference between a normal 720x480 (NTSC) DVD and a 1920x1080 HD-DVD.

Re:No Unique Selling Point

[evilviper]

Most average joes i know didnt even get a dvd player because of the additional features or the better picture quality.

I think picture quality was a major one, as was the fact that DVDs don't wear out like tape, don't need to be rewound, etc. Then there's the fact that they can be easily copied thanks to computers.

if they want to push HDDVD, get blockbuster to buy in.

Wouldn't work.

A video rental store can't develop critical mass on it's own. Blockbuster helped because many people were ALREADY buying DVDs for numerous different reasons. If anything, Blockbuster is the last obsticle, not the first, and can't push a format people don't already want.

Re:No Unique Selling Point

[Detritus]

The major distributors can kill an old format. That's what they did to the LP record when CDs were introduced and becoming popular. They stopped accepting returns for credit on unsold records. That was enough to kill the mass market for records.

Re:No Unique Selling Point

[Helios1182]

I'm not entirely sure, but wouldn't 1080i be 1080x(something smaller than 1080), much like 720i is 720x480. I could be wrong.

Re:No Unique Selling Point

[fodi]

It's projected you idiot... it won't look pixelated !!!!

Re:No Unique Selling Point

[sarabob]

yes, you are wrong.

1080i is 1920x540x60 - it's an interlaced format so only has 540 lines on each frame and not 1080.720p is 1280x720x60p (less horiz resolution but more lines) and 480p is 640x480x60.

I'm all in favour of progressive scan modes (720p for preference) if we have the choice - interlacing is just a PITA. It compresses badly, stills have mice teeth etc etc. Ugh.

Re:No Unique Selling Point

[devilspgd]

I'm not real familiar with projectors, but ultimately the source has a fixed resolution.

The projector (or any display)'s output will either need to be blurry or pixelated, no?

Re:No Unique Selling Point

[Sukh]

Try getting your computer to play MPEG-4 Video at that sort of resolution. You'll need something close to a 2.8GHz PC with something a bit more powerful than a GeForce 2.

Re:No Unique Selling Point

[Gilmoure]

The projectors I'm looking at are LCD projectors and you can see the individual pixels, especially as you make the image larger. While it is possible to get projectors with higher resolution (1920 by 1200) it don't mean dick if your source is low res.

Re:No Unique Selling Point

[malfunct]

Considering that 2.8ghz pc with Geforce FX video is considered an "economy" computer these days that may not be so far out of line as you seem to think. I don't have any 1080i mpeg4 video to attempt to play here right now or I'd give it a swing on this pc. (Its a dual 1ghz so if you are right the computer will struggle with the video).

DVD going the way of Betamax?

[SIGALRM]

Microsoft's Japanese Division reported that its upcoming operating system, code-named Longhorn, will support HD DVD format

I'm not so sure the DVD format itself will still be around by the time Longhorn eventually ships--after all, we're still waiting for SP2...

Re:DVD going the way of Betamax?

[El-Kelvinator]

By the time Longhorn ships, we will have 0.5" think laptops running at 3Ghz with quad cores, and blu-ray players will be rife in the market.
Not to mention hovercars, antigrav boots, and cloned pets...

Well, 2 out of 3 ain't bad.

Re:DVD going the way of Betamax?

[neil.pearce]

And java apps 'll still be shit slow, memory hogs ...with crap swing GUIs

Avoid proprietary codecs, use Blu-ray

[Eric Smith]

If we want a format that doesn't rely on a proprietary codec, we'd better pray that Sony and the rest of the Blu-ray camp step up their efforts! Blu-ray does not require, or even support, MS proprietary codes; it uses good old MPEG 2 video.

MPEG video is encumbered by patents for a few more years, but at least the details are publicly available.

Re:Avoid proprietary codecs, use Blu-ray

[Dr. Shim]

I don't see the advantage. Either it's a Sony technology (that only works on Sony products), or it's a Microsoft technology (that you can at least get on all PCs).

Re:Avoid proprietary codecs, use Blu-ray

[Eric Smith]

Propritary technology for producing blue lasers is better?

The same technology is used to produce blue lasers for both HD-DVD and Blu-ray. That has NOTHING to do with my stated reason for preferring Blu-ray.

MPEG-2 is patented, but the details are public, and there are existing free software and open source implementations. Due to the patents, there may be legal problems with using that software. The patents will expire in a few more years.

But by comparison, the Microsoft codec is completely proprietary, undocumented, AND covered by patents. Even when the patents expire the codec will still be proprietary.

The HD-DVD standard does not REQUIRE the use of the Microsoft codec; it does also support MPEG 2 and H.26something. But consumers will likely have no way to know when purchasing an HD-DVD disc which codec is used.

Blu-ray discs use MPEG 2, so a consumer would know that it can be played with a non-proprietary codec.

There may be other problems such as DRM preventing play of prerecorded Blu-ray discs using free software, but that's true of HD-DVD as well, and of ordinary DVDs for that matter.

Re:Avoid proprietary codecs, use Blu-ray

[Eric Smith]

But it's not a "Sony technology". It's industry-standard MPEG 2. That's my whole point!

Re:Avoid proprietary codecs, use Blu-ray

[Eric Smith]

Also MPEG-2 is hardly 'non proprietary'. There is a fleet [mpegla.com] of patents that go with that bad boy...

I said that myself. But at the full technical details of MPEG 2 video are published. Free software and open source implementations exist. And when the patents expire in a few years, there will be no more problems with it.

The Windows Media code is secret, AND it is covered by patents. You can't learn everything you need to implement it from the patents, so it is a much worse format from the free software or open source viewpoint.

Re:Avoid proprietary codecs, use Blu-ray

[captaineo]

IMHO Blu-ray is dead in the water. Why? Because it uses a caddy. Consumers will prefer bare optical disks, regardless of the technical differences.

Re:Avoid proprietary codecs, use Blu-ray

[malfunct]

If its patented then its publically documented. You do understand what you need to do to get a patent don't you?

Anyways, I thought HD-DVD was using microsofts implementation of the Mpeg4 standard which is just as open as Mpeg2 and owned by the same organization.

Re:Avoid proprietary codecs, use Blu-ray

[Eric Smith]

HD-DVD is a mpeg upgrade. Blu-ray is blue laser.

Wrong, wrong, absolutely brimming over with wrongability, as Rimmer would say.

HD-DVD and Blu-ray are two competing disc formats, both of which use blue lasers.

Blu-ray uses MPEG 2 encoding.

HD-DVD can use MPEG-2, H.264, or Microsoft's VC-9 encoding. While supporting more encodings might at first seem like an advantage, the problem is that the prospective buyer of a particular prerecorded disc is not likely to be able to determine which encoding is actually used. This is potentially a big problem for free software or open source software, though DRM may be an even bigger problem.

However, elsewhere in this thread we were informed that VC-9 actually has been submitted to SMPTE for standardization. If that is successful, it eliminates my main complaint.

Re:Avoid proprietary codecs, use Blu-ray

[Eric Smith]

What makes you think consumers care? It's just a hunk of plastic they insert into a player. In that regard it's no different than a VHS tape, audio cassette, game cartridge, etc.

If the cartridge is successful at preventing damage to discs, consumers may actually prefer it. I've heard numerous people complaining about renting DVDs that were damaged, and I've had that happen myself.

Re:Avoid proprietary codecs, use Blu-ray

[Eric Smith]

If its patented then its publically documented. You do understand what you need to do to get a patent don't you?

Yes, I understand patents quite well. Apparently you do not. There is not a single patent, or even a group of patents, from which you can extract the precise details of how MPEG 2 video bitstreams are encoded. All of the relevant patents cover techniques that are involved in the encoding process. The patents are useful, but not sufficient, to implement an MPEG 2 encoder or decoder. But the standard is published.

For VC-9, there are also relevant patents. But as with MPEG-2, the patents do not tell you everything you need to know to implement VC-9. Because there is not a published VC-9 standard, the possibility of a free software or open source VC-9 decoder has been vanishingly small.

However, as noted elsewhere in this thread, there may actually be a published SMPTE standard for VC-9 in the not-too-distant future.

Anyways, I thought HD-DVD was using microsofts implementation of the Mpeg4 standard which is just as open as Mpeg2 and owned by the same organization.

Microsoft uses MPEG 4, but they use their own codec, VC-9. The fact that MPEG 4 is standardized certainly helps, but it is not sufficient.

Re:Avoid proprietary codecs, use Blu-ray

[great om]

Let me second that. A caddy would be wonderful. I mean does anyone complain about the plastic shell around a 3 1/2 inch floppy? No, because it protects the media and is unobtrusive. If every disc comes in its own (hopefully replaceable) caddy, it would be wonderful

Re:Avoid proprietary codecs, use Blu-ray

[iantri]

The problem is, when you squish 50GB of data into the area of a CD or DVD, all of a sudden a little scratch takes out a lot more data..

Audio CDs, for example, are extremely scratch tolerant.

I have had many DVDs that experience playback issues with only minor scratches.

If it is caddy-less it will need some incredible error correction capability..

Re: Ironic

[bussdriver]

HD DVD is supposed to be MPEG-4 Advanced, and does not require a new physical formatted disc, since it gets HD size at the same rate DVDs are at today.

Seems to me that there are other motives for changing the media format...

Longhorn - Blue Light Special.

[www.sorehands.com]

I can see it now at K-Mart -- "Blue light special on LongHorn in the bed&bath^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^hstereo department.

Or to paraphrase "Men in Black"

[the_skywise]

"Guess I'll have to buy the White Album again."

Re:Or to paraphrase "Men in Black"

[joeljkp]

How are they illegal if you made them yourself from the original records?

Wow

[cubicledrone]

Amazing isn't it? We have all these incredible new technologies for communications, literature and entertainment and our great cultural accomplishments are sequels to Cinderella and Scooby Doo.

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

It's all about the porn, dude. Always has been.

Re:Wow

[Dr. Shim]

This is the first neat comment I've seen here! Too bad it's off-topic. :(

Re:Wow

[fiannaFailMan]

We have all these incredible new technologies for communications, literature and entertainment and our great cultural accomplishments are sequels to Cinderella and Scooby Doo.

Cinderella wasn't written by Disney. It's a children's classic and certainly qualifies as 'literature.' It's a good point about sequels, but to say that these are our greatest cultural achievements is to overstate it a little. Look at Troy, for example, the Illiad for the masses. On the other hand, it was made for people who don't want to hear about Achilles having a bf. Maybe you have something there....

Re:Wow

[cubicledrone]

Cinderella wasn't written by Disney.

The sequel was.

It's a good point about sequels, but to say that these are our greatest cultural achievements is to overstate it a little.

We don't have cultural achievements any more. We have sequels to remakes of movies based on books that might have been cultural achievements.

Re:Wow

[fiannaFailMan]

I dunno. A lot of the great classics that we stand in awe of today were denounced when they were penned. Look at Ulysses for example, it was labelled a load of smut and banned in many countries, most notably in Ireland.

Re:Wow

[sp0rk173]

We don't have cultural achievements any more. We have sequels to remakes of movies based on books that might have been cultural achievements.

This is like saying no good music exists anymore. Good movies, literature, "cultural achievements" are out there if you look for them. I would say films like Dark City, Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death, Pulp Fiction, etc are closer to cultural acheivements than one might think. I'm as cynical as the next guy about pop media/culture, but culture DOES exist. You have to remember, too, that cultural Achievments tend to be judged by other cultures, not the native culture itself. Was the Itallian Renaissance viewed by most people as an extraordinary time, or did western culture label it that decades, if not ceturies, after? Perhaps sometime in the future some professor in some ivy legue college will look back on the turn of the 21st century and say, "Goddamn, that era was FULL of cultural Achievements. I'm going to write a paper on it." And perhaps with that one thesis, current culture's seeming lackluster cultural timeline will be forever looked upon as glorious and revolutionary.

I guess what I'm saying is culture is completely subjective. There's no truth or fact to it. If you don't think we have cultural Achievements, then we don't in your world. Personally I think we're just as clever and have just as much potential as those Itallian guys way back when...and we smell better.

Re:Wow

[evilviper]

our great cultural accomplishments are sequels to Cinderella and Scooby Doo.

I don't see your point... Who ever claimed that Scooby Doo was a great cultural accomplishment? Shall we claim that "The Tortis and the Hare" was a great cultural achievment as well?

Sure, there's Disney fodder for the kids, but there's also plenty of serious movies as well...

Gettysburg/Gods and Generals
Fight Club
Matrix
Jurassic Park
Pulp Fiction
Shawshank Redemption

Varying degrees of importance, but still, fine movies none-the-less. Acting as if Disney movies are the only type ever put out, is completely wrong.

Re:Wow

[archen]

I think the difference between music and movies is that just anyone can make music with a cheap instrament from a pawn shop and a couple friends. Movies (typically) require a lot more thought, cooperation of people, and have much more overhead in order to produce. I mean a minimal movie setup I would imagine would take at least $1000 - and I think that's obserdly conservative. So basically our cultural achivement in movies is often limited to whatever Holywood gives us, while music is not. I think technology may eventually become common enough and cheap enough to lower the entry level, but it's not quite there yet. We can already write books quite cheaply (on a computer anyway) it's just that fewer and fewer people even read, which leads to a downward spiral in writing interest.

Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death
- heh, I love that movie

Re:Wow

[sp0rk173]

$750 - my brother did it, and the movie came out pretty good. Unfortunately my brother can't write an original script for crap, thus the movie was just a cheap knock off of evil dead.

Just Longhorn?

[RonnyJ]

More importantly, will other Microsoft operating systems be updated to support HD-DVD?

Re:Just Longhorn?

[Trejkaz]

More importantly, will any Microsoft operating system ever ship with a DVD player out of the box?

Re:Just Longhorn?

[gl4ss]

surely. it's just a piece of software for a hardware.

why would they even bother announcing something like this.. well, maybe they are bored or something. longhorn is still ways to go and features to drop...

All Considered...

[hunterx11]

I'm glad that Microsoft will support this :)

Re:All Considered...

[VividU]

Can someone please explain what the point of this post is? Exactly what about is "Informative"?

Size of os/service packs

[Salo2112]

It's getting to the point where OSes will need DVD media because the installation routines are so large. XP is huge and Longhorn will make it look lean and mean by comparison. I would imagine by the time it's actually shipping, the service packs will be over a gig. ;-)

Re:Size of os/service packs

[RLiegh]

A new install of windows 95 weighs in at 79, 80 megs. The exe file for SP1 is something like 131 megs.

Good thing we're going to be getting some fat pipe

Re:Size of os/service packs

[dmaxwell]

I've cut that down to around 40 Megs. You just have an OS and a browser at that point.

Re:Size of os/service packs

[mt v2.7]

'scuse me.. XP pro comes on a 450MB CD. Slackware comes on 3 650MB CDs.

Re:Size of os/service packs

[parksie]

This argument comes up every single time. XP Pro comes on a 450MiB CD. That's XP Pro. Just XP Pro. I don't even think it comes with a DVD player. It definitely doesn't come with a decent web browser, office tools, databases, all the random utilities everybody loves so much.

It's a tired and totally invalid argument.

MS Longhorn also to support...

[Eberlin]

Time travel -- as the OS gets postponed further into the future, efforts are underway to have built in time-travel.

Space travel -- care of Paul Allen. Everyone who can afford to purchase a copy of Longhorn will get vouchers for a free ride on SpaceShip-ME.

OogaBoogle will be built in. This is Microsoft's next generation search engine. Incorporating Yukon into the filesystem, folks will be able to wade through all the metadata they could ever want, and more!

Plug and Play support for the USB 5.0 matter transmogrifier. We don't have a prototype yet, but um...by the time Longhorn is stable, I'm sure we'll have the transmogrifier supported.

IE will be fully xhtml 1.0 and CSS1 compliant.

Lastly, each package will be bundled with Duke Nukem Forever.

Re:MS Longhorn also to support...

[deutschemonte]

IE will be fully xhtml 1.0 and CSS1 compliant.

I wish there was a modifier for "Unbelievable".

See, this is what's wrong with Microsoft...

[rewt66]

In a reasonable world, you wouldn't have to wait for a new OS release to support a new media format, because the video codecs wouldn't be part of the OS...

Re:See, this is what's wrong with Microsoft...

[BCW2]

Nice point. Well said. That is one of the major problems, but only one. The rest of them are well known.

Re:See, this is what's wrong with Microsoft...

[mobby_6kl]

>In a reasonable world, you wouldn't have to wait for a new OS release to support a new media format, because the video codecs wouldn't be part of the OS...

hmmm ok, and where would you get a blue laser drive?
The *hardware* isn't here yet!

Re:See, this is what's wrong with Microsoft...

[drinkypoo]

You already don't have to wait for an OS to support a new media format. Well, beyond supporting the physical media anyway, which is always the case. It's not like the first DVD player for Windows was from Microsoft or anything.

Re:See, this is what's wrong with Microsoft...

[kzadot]

Your an idiot. In an ideal world only interrupt handlers and system calls are built into the OS. Everything else should be in user mode.

And linux encodes and decodes DVDs, and music and other video formats better than windows.

Sonys format is terrible.

[Viewsonic]

They want to release the damn things in cartridges of all things. Remember back in the day when Laserdiscs were in those? And the first CD-Writers? It's a horrible way to store stuff. I prefer having just the discs themselves, and be able to store them in neat, small booklets when I travel. Also, the DVD Consortium does not back Sonys blu-ray, they are backing HD DVD. Blu-Ray is the DIVX, Betamax, etc of the DVD generation. Evil.

Re:Sonys format is terrible.

[DarkOx]

Its a good solution to the problem of DVDs being two layers of plastic can being damaged when flexed. Sure you can avoid it by using sleves instead of center button cases(which most if not all movies are shipped in oddly enough) but there is little you can do other then use care when it comes to the slimline drive in your notebook. Also caddys were only irritating because it was an extra step if they were put into the case like a floopy disk or a minidisk then it would be a non-issue. You easily keep the package then enough that you could still use pages.

Re:Sonys format is terrible.

[real_smiff]

gotta disagree with your there mate. i with they'd put optical media in caddies from the start. the number of discs i've had damaged by poeple.. of course that's considered good for the industry isn't it? for travel i see your point, but my dvd collection doesn't travel, and if it did, i'd rip them to whatever device i was carrying.

Re:Sonys format is terrible.

[drinkypoo]

No, I don't remember laserdiscs in carts. I do, however, remember a laserdisc competitor based on capacitance in a cartridge. Either I missed something important, or you are confused. I honestly would like to know which.

I just read today that someone has come up with a coating for the blu-ray discs which would enable them to be non-cartridge. Forget where though, sorry.

Re:Sonys format is terrible.

[Eric Smith]

They want to release the damn things in cartridges of all things

But that is a GOOD THING (tm). I do a good job of handling discs without getting fingerprints on them, but other people in my household, and other people who have rented discs before me, do not. I've gotten bad rental discs on multiple occasions. The cartridge will largely prevent this.

Obviously consumers are willing to accept a cartridge. And it doesn't necessarily make the media overly expensive. Ordinary Philips audio cassettes and VHS tapes are cartridges, after all. As do 3.5-inch floppy diskettes.

Re:Sonys format is terrible.

[HuguesT]

One of the great things with the CD/DVD format is that you can put a large number in a wallet. Not so with anything that has to come in a cartridge.

Fingerprints don't matter, it's damage to the title part of the CD/DVD that may make it non-playable.

Moreover a cartridge has moving parts and it's also fragile in a different way. I've had countless floppies destroyed by my toddler just by hacking the case (the disk was untouched). Also soon enough production costs go so low that the cost is driven by the substrate. This is largely the case with CD-R right now. A larger, more complex substrate involving a case means the format will never become dirt cheap.

Compare the price of a CD-R and a floppy today for an example of what I mean.

Re:Sonys format is terrible.

[Eric Smith]

Fingerprints don't matter,

In theory, fingerprints and surface scratches don't matter much because the laser is focused on the data layer below the surface of the disc.

In practice, rental DVDs are frequently damaged, and a cartridge would prevent that.

Moreover a cartridge has moving parts and it's also fragile in a different way. I've had countless floppies destroyed by my toddler just by hacking the case (the disk was untouched).

And you think your toddler would be less likely to damage a disc that was not protected by a cartridge?

If the cartridge breaks, you can put the disk in another cartridge, which costs a lot less than a new prerecorded disc.

Re:Sonys format is terrible.

[0111 1110]

Well there were the RCA SelectaVision videodiscs. Those things were like playing a movie on a vinyl LP. I don't recall laserdiscs ever having cartridges either.

Re:Sonys format is terrible.

[Kryxan]

Yes if it is like a mini-disc or floppy then it would be completly viable, even preferred. but can anyone point me to exact specs for how it will be? right now HD-DVD has more in the way of final spec then Blue-Ray. After all isnt that what the industry is really wating on, not the technology, but the specs for the tech, and a clear standard. look at the 56k modem, 2 standards at first, the tech was there, but there was a problem getting it to become viable at first. not getting final specs out to the public is what is hindering them. after all, inquiring minds need to know!
if they said next week that the cartridge was going to be similar to the mini-disk cart then i would give my support to this technology.

Re:Sonys format is terrible.

[HuguesT]

My toddler has yet to destroy a CD or a DVD despite plenty of opportunities. She does like the shiny stuff but I can just give her an AOL disk, she's none the wiser. These disks are unbreakable anyway (for a toddler). We did make the microwave unreachable (for many reasons, not just CDs cooking).

On the other hand once she's broken a floppy (very easily I might add) she wants to move on to the next one immediately. She went through a box of old backups a few months ago.

I don't know if you've tried to rescue a floppy by trying to extract the actual floppy disk and putting it into a new case, but it's nigh on impossible and a damn nuisance to have to do in the first place.

Play HD DVD

[XbeastX]

IS it possible to play HD DVD using a normal DVD player?

Re:Play HD DVD

[rmull]

No.

Re:Play HD DVD

[cthellis]

Is it possible to play DVD's in a CD player?

HD DVD format.

[mikael]

Microsoft's Japanese Division reported that its upcoming operating system, code-named Longhorn, will support HD DVD format.

How else would we be able to download and install all the new features and security patches?

It's years off...

[chevybowtie]

...it will support many things not yet common. So will every other OS at the time.

Anyone think it has something to do with this...

[Jugalator]

Hm?

If they wouldn't support HD-DVD in Longhorn it would be big news though.

- Uhh, yes, we designed a video format that will be used on these discs, but Longhorn won't support them. :-)

I have a wacky idea!

[inkswamp]

Here's a wacky idea: how about getting the friggin' product out the door?

Why does MS do so much talking about what they're going to do instead of actually getting it done? What is the point of all these endless "sneak peeks" and feature announcements and blah blah blah. I'm not just asking this as someone who (admittedly) dislike MS and their products, but rather as someone who just doesn't get why so much blabbing is being done about a product that is supposedly years away from release? One could make the argument that this is potentially harmful to MS in the long-run. They're announcing support for feature X today, but given that feature X may be yesterday's news two years from now, the announcement may actually be harmful to perception of their products. I mean, really: how does this benefit anyone?

Re:I have a wacky idea!

[aka-ed]

Why does MS do so much talking about what they're going to do...

You're talking about a statement in Japanese that was put on a website halfway around the world. A better question might be, "why is /. bothering me with this?"

Re:I have a wacky idea!

[BadlyDrawn]

The reason MS, and others, do this is to let shareholders and investors know they are working on something and thinking of future products.

Of course without this type of industry announcements to keep them going marketing and pr depts. could be halved... hang on, I have an idea!

Re:I have a wacky idea!

[neil.pearce]

It's not just going to be harmful to perception of their products, how many fecking malware loving buffer overruns are they gonna introduce in yet more unwanted, unneeded and unremovable crap they're gonna introduce?

Apple's H.264?

[rohan_leader]

Any word on whether Microsoft will be incorporating the highly-touted H.264 video standard like Apple is doing for it's upcoming Tiger?

After all, The Steve did imply that Redmond was going to start their photocopiers? Or, is H.264 integrated with this HD-DVD format?

Re:Apple's H.264?

[Viewsonic]

It's integrated into MPEG4.AVC that HD DVD can use.

I wonder...

[MaestroSartori]

...does this mean they will actively disallow blu-ray drives & drivers from Longhorn somehow? I don't know anything about the technical stuff associated with either standard, but surely connecting the drive to an IDE/SCSI/SATA/whatever port and having a driver would be all you'd need?

Can Microsoft stop blu-ray working on Longhorn completely? More lawsuits to follow if they do, I'm thinking...

Re:I wonder...

[Erwos]

I've never heard of Microsoft actively disallowing hardware to work.

-Erwos

Re:I wonder...

[NineNine]

In case you haven't noticed, but Microsoft consistently has provided the best hardware support in the short history of PC OS's. I've never heard of MS specifically dis-allowing any kind of ahrdware, whatsoever, from any of their OS's. Instead, they are hands-down, the most hardware-inclusive OS's ever made.

Re:I wonder...

[LilJC]

Can Microsoft stop blu-ray working on Longhorn completely? More lawsuits to follow if they do, I'm thinking...

Maybe you're a little rusty on MS business practices. Let me enlighten you with a little story about a company called "Corel" that made a program called "WordPerfect." It was a nice company that made a great little product. So great, in fact, that many people preferred over Word. So many people, in fact, that it threatened to become the dominant word processing software/suite.

So MS says, "We'll just make Windows crash more often when WordPerfect is running. That way people will think WordPerfect is buggy, and use Word instead."

It worked. Lawsuits did ensue, but by the time the battle was won the war was over. It's history now, but recent history. How many people out of the IT world can tell you today about WordPerfect? Some of those who used it... but of those, how many can tell you why their companies don't use it anymore?

okie dokie

[bennini]

forewarning for the possiblility that....Longhorn will be such a huge (resource NOT friendly) OS, it will need to be installed off an HD DVD disc

MS support promised for 2006... irrelevant...

[XavierItzmann]

And this is relevant... how?

Should I assume that Roxio and the Blu-Ray hardware manufacturers will not make drivers?

OT: What's with the IT category?

[RobertB-DC]

I've waited as long as I can... but what's with an "IT" category on Slashdot? Is there *any* story here that doesn't have to do with Information Technology? Or will we soon have a category for the latest on J.Lo and Britney Spears?

(Please don't mod me into oblivion before someone answers my question... thanks...)

The difference between Linux and Windows.

[Stephen Samuel]

Chances are that, by the time Longhorn comes out, Linux will have support for all of those DVD standards. I'ts pretty likely that somebody will write drivers for them for Linux (even if it's the manufacturers).

The result is that consumers and manufacturers have a real choice with Linux, whereas Windows users and OEMs are completely at the mercy of Microsoft's business plan.

Your move.

Given for free

[AllenChristopher]

The big difference is that HD-DVD will be given away for free. Hollywood wants it out there, free DVD players are used to drive the sales of big TVs, the generation of consoles after this one will be blu-ray to fit more game content...

None of this applies to DVD-A. Nobody is really buying the kinds of things you might give away DVD-A capability in. When people drop a huge wad of money on music, it's on playing MP3s. Music has moved beyond the disc.

That's on the market side. On the sensory side, "good enough" will be when the TV picture is indistinguishable from real life.

There's a layman's sense that a CD is "the same" as the song of which it is a recording, even though sure, the acoustics are better at a concert. With someone like Britney Spears, it IS the same as real life... what they're playing on the speakers is a digital recording with some real-time elements.

This sense doesn't exist with TV... you can still "feel" how HD-TV falls short. With standard DVDs, it's painfully clear. We've got a whole 'nother generation of higher-res televisions to sell before it feels "good enough".

Blu-ray not proprietary

[xswl0931]

And how exactly is Blu-ray not proprietary? Even if you use Mpeg2, you do realize that royalties is going somewhere, just not to Microsoft?

Re:Blu-ray not proprietary

[Eric Smith]

Geez, didn't anbody bother to carefully read what I said?

Yes, MPEG-2 is patented, and there are royalties on it. But the documentation is publicly available (for less than $200), and there are existing free software and open source implementations. The patents will expire in a few years, leaving MPEG-2 unencumbered.

WMA will *always* be proprietary. Even when the patents expire, the details will remain a trade secret of Microsoft.

Surely you can see a qualitative difference between the two?

Big deal

[skywolf]

Microsoft decides to support a hardware peripheral... Surely it would do this by default; there's got to be more to this story.

What's the news?

educate me, I don't get it

[nusratt]

"HD" & "BluRay": it seems to me that those are orthogonal categories.
What makes a DVD an "HD" DVD, other than the fact that HD requires more bytes and BluRay's got 'em?
After all, I could store an HD file on paper-tape, if I wanted to.

XBox 2 maybe?

[2nd Post!]

What about MS pull a Sony and bundle a 'free' HD-DVD player with their game console?

In other news...

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft has announced that Longhorn will support Duke Nukem Forever (which will probably ship before Longhorn does).

They just make me laugh. Every day it's something else that will be in Longhorn. Whoo-freakin'-hoo. They're all talk and no action-- this time next year I'll be enjoying Tiger on my Macs and Microsoft will still be talking about more stuff they're adding to Longhorn.

No wonder Windows is such a buggy, insecure piece of shit-- how can anyone be expected to write good code when the feature set is in a constant state of flux through the entire development process? This is just like when they were very far along doing Windows 3.0 and Gates made them go back and add full keyboard navigation capability.

Wrong.

[Anonymous Coward]

HD DVD is a blue laser disc format but the manufacturing techniques are similar to those for red-laser discs.

As explained the main difference is that BluRay places the recording layer 0.1 mm below the surface of the media to maximize data capacity at around 27gb for single and 54 gb for dual layer. This will require disc manufacturers to build new factories because this is completely different from DVD and CD specifications. Because of this the layer of protective plastic will be very thin which some have speculated will initially require either a special layer of protective plastic which has been reported to decrease reliability or it will require the discs to be contained in a cartridge (think magneto-optical). Carts would, of course, increase production costs and REALLY increase end user costs.

HD DVD places the recording layer at 0.6mm below the surface which is currently the standard used by DVD so that DVD manufacturing plants can make either format discs on the same assembly lines. This is at a cost, though, with a reduced capacity at 15gb for single layer and 30 gb for dual layer. And, of course, the existing protective layer will be sufficient as it is the same as the standard DVD.

The actual codecs supported will be the same for both formats. Both will support MPEG-2, MPEG-4, and (probably) Microsoft's WM9 codecs. As part of Microsoft's deal to get WM9 included in the HD DVD spec it was forced to open the specification to allow competitors to make products for encoding and decoding. Their benefit will be a share of the royalties for products that encode or decode HD-DVD content and sales of encoding/decoding software that they produce, but the deal does not include in any way a monopoly on encoder/decoder software.

The main difference, as stated, is the distance for the recording layer from the surface of the media which changes the maximal capacity because of the effect on the intensity of the laser as it passes through the media.

Re:Wrong.

[AbRASiON]

I absoloutely loathe caddies - I sincerely hope blu ray falls on it's ass.

I'd only put up with the inconvienience if it held over a terrabyte......

(no I'm not trolling, this is how I feel) - ICK - waste of space - if people can't look after their stuff it's THEIR problem.

Re:Wrong.

[carnivore302]

Anyone confused with all the different DVD types should really read this book: DVD Production. It presents a great overview of all the types available. Contrary to popular belief, the technology involved doesn't change that fast (cd technology is over 20 years old now.)

Re:Wrong.

[Winkhorst]

Inconvenience? Huh? I have a DVD-RAM drive for backups of important photos and data (genealogy) and I prefer the format to jewelboxes. You don't have to fiddle with getting the disc off the hub and there's very little danger of scratching anything. As for saving space, well, I'd trade a little space for added permanence of my irreplaceable data. As for blu-ray, I don't really see the point unless you plan on buying an 80-inch LCD monitor. My 37" looks just fine with regular old DVD. Sometimes I think these guys change standards just because they can. And as Niro Nakamichi points out, a lot of the reality of the DVD experience comes from surround sound speakers and not great big screens.

Re:Wrong.

[AbRASiON]

Fuck off, I've been using it like that for over 6 years.

SP2 is due out early August

[rd_syringe]

In other words, it's scheduled to be released next week.

you mean in HD-WM9+DRM format like T2 DVD?

[GodWasAnAlien]

T2 comes with "HD" media file in the form of WM9 with some extra DRM shit.

Of course they support this type of "HD-DVD", since it would be a lock in to their proprietary format.

-1 Misinformed

[Anonymous Coward]

You are grossly misinformed .

As a condition to Microsoft before it could establish VC-9 as a standard, it had to strip VC-9 of proprietary status, Majidimehr said.

Re:-1 Misinformed

[Eric Smith]

Ah, finally someone posts a useful reply to my posting. Thank you! You're correct that I had not seen this news.

If they really do open it up, I'll be impressed. But given their track record, I'll believe it when I see the actual SMPTE standard published, and the details of the license fees.

In Other News...

[ravenspear]

MIcrosoft's fulfillment department announced that a serious effort will be made to ship the Longhorn operating system before the emerging HD DVD standard becomes obsolete.

Longhorn will need the storage

[nurb432]

Expect it to require the HD DVD just to store the install files...

Office, well that is another HD/DVD... and god help you if you want visual studio 20xx ....

Yes...

[rd_syringe]

Yes, let's ignore all the good, classic films that come out every year just because there were some flash-in-the-pan sequels that got some press for about a month.

It's cool to bitch about ourselves--it makes us enlightened!

NEWS FLASH

[scum-e-bag]

Today developers announced that the upcomming 3D Action game "Duke Nukem" will require a computer with blu-ray enabled technology. "Due to the size of bitmaps and the advancements made in technology lately gamers will need much more storage capacity for the product we are about to deliver" said one enthusiastic developer. The game is due to be released just after the long anticipated next-generation Microsoft operating system codename "Longhorn", which is expected to fully support Duke Nukem.

Uh, you *don't* have to wait

[rd_syringe]

They're just saying it will support it out of the box. I'm sure manufacturers will make their own drivers for previous operating systems.

What exactly is the problem here? I also have to wait for certain features when a new Linux kernel is due out.

And manufacturers won't write drivers for Windows?

[rd_syringe]

Seems Windows has the greater chance of driver and codec support here due to its much, much greater manufacturer support.

This is the second post I've seen that assumes HD-DVD will be the only supported format on Longhorn, that it won't be available for previous versions of Windows, etc. People, they make these things called codecs and drivers. I hear tell you can even install them.

All this news is saying is that HD-DVD will be supported out of the box. You know, how DVDs are supported out of the box for Windows XP? I fail to see the issue here, but I guess it allows a few Slashdotters to get up on a soapbox and bitch about nothing in the name of feeling important, so there you go.

Not "Apple's" H.264

[daveschroeder]

H.264 is an international standard from MPEG and ITU, sometimes known as MPEG-4 Part 10 or MPEG AVC (Advanced Video Codec).

And yes, if they're supporting HD DVD, they will be supporting H.264, since it's one of the required codecs for HD DVD, along with VC-9 and MPEG-2.

Enhanced?

[Lord_Dweomer]

"HD DVD is an enhanced version of the standard DVD technology."

You know, in this day and age with all the crap DRM and copy protection the RIAA is pushing through on its CDs, I can't help but shudder when I see "enhanced" with a product like this. I've come to associate it as a term that either implies superflous marketing speak with no real meaning, or a dysfunctional disc that is crippled by protection.

Any word yet on what kind of "enhancements" these HD DVDs will have?

I should HOPE so!

[catdevnull]

With 'Longhorn' scheduled to ship no earlier than 2007, they've got plenty of time to work on it!

Check the specs: 64 bit DRM regions!

[neil.pearce]

Bad stuff:
8 individual DRM regions not enough any more.
These fuckers are gonna nail it down - not just to your street, or your house, but to a room in your home on a particular day of the week!

Good stuff:
The proposed Sony extension: limiting the colour of pants you can wear whilst over-hearing somebodies brother talk about a work collegue who read an article in another country regarding the disc in question is not expected to make it to the final standard

Phew!

Question--anyone care to answer?

[rd_syringe]

What exactly is the difference between MPEG-2 and MPEG-4? Presumably, one has better compression than the other, so perhaps there's a reason for the decreased space in HD-DVDs.

Other than dislike for something that supports a Microsoft codec as well as the need to re-encode HDTV programs, what is the disadvantage to HD-DVD as opposed to Blu-Ray?

Basically, I just want the LOTR trilogy in the best format possible for home theater entertainment.

Re:Question--anyone care to answer?

[Kryxan]

What difference will the end user see? likely none. im guessing they both hold about the same as far as movie content(anyone want to bother with the math?). yeah the MPEG-4 has the better compression. not only that its my choice because most MPEG-4 codecs can play information that was encoded with another MPEG-4 codec, and I believe that HD-DVDs will have the same functionality. So finally all that anime I have downloaded can be watched on a TV, not just computer. though im not completly certain on this, and im not sure how formats such as Vorbis are handeled, if at all.

as far as the re-encoding debate, well who really cares? its only a few hours for a desktop, and a cluster can do it a whole lot faster. at lease thats what i have experienced with converting MPEG-2 into an MPEG-4 codec, such as XviD

for computers, storage is a big deal, however does that 54 gig actually equal 54gig? just take a look at CDs, as we all know a 700mb disk can hold 800mb of MPEG-2, ok so the same doesnt hold true for DVDs to my knowledge, but what about blue-ray?

Re:Question--anyone care to answer?

[DarkMan]

MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 both, at thier core, operate on the same principles as MPEG-1 (in the video layer).

That is, store only the difference between frames. Do this by spliting it into a series of blocks, and examining each block.

The devil is, as they say, in the details. I admit I'm fuzzy on a number of them, but this should be a respectable overview.

MPEG-2 uses a straightforward system of frames and partial frames (I frames, or key frames in DivX terms), and B and P frames (the two types of partial frames).

MPEG-4 adds a longer group of pictures (more P frames between I frames), additional encoding formats, and motion compensation. That last is the biggie - it means that if you're panning side to side, you just tell the codec to move the block a bit, and then give it the other bits. As compared to having to give it the scene shifted half a block.

MPEG-4 is also much more complex. I belive that any MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 bitstream is a valid MPEG-4 bitstream (or at least, is with a simple header rewrite). MPEG-4 has various additional bits, such as motioncompensation allowed to go out of frame, 1/4 pixel motion comp, B frames, variable sized motion comp blocks, mutlipe frame motion comp and other goodies. I don't think there is an actual codec that supports all of that lot, never mind the rest of the optional parts of the spec yet. That's why there are multiple MPEG-4 codecs - each can use a differnt goodie bag to try to be better than the others.

Other differences are the audio layers used. AAC is part of MPEG-4, in the same way that MP3 was part of MPEG-1.

As far as the best format for a disc goes - neither. In principle, the additional flexability of MPEG-4 should result in better picture / sound for same disk space. In practice, it's all perceptual anyway, so they turn the quality down until someone notices artifacts, and then nudge it up a touch. Sometimes, one might be better, other times the other, but as there is a human tweaking knobs at the backend, you can't tell in advance.

Re:Question--anyone care to answer?

[mark_lybarger]

i thought the mpeg-2 was recorded to the cd in minutes, not MB. i was under the impression that an 80 minute audio cd would also hold 80 minutes of mpeg-2 (vcd) video. that to the cd it's about minutes on the disk and not data on the disk. this just so happens to normally be about an 800 mb file as well.

Re:Question--anyone care to answer?

[jayminer]

Other than better compression, MPEG4 implements scenes. Any object in a scene like two talking man and a ringing phone can be separate. Therefore, any object can be removed or replaced afterwards, like the phone or the two man.

Think about when you shoot LOTR with Aragorn being another guy. After shooting, you can replace him with the guy you want, without actually interacting with other objects in the stream/scene, like replacing the icon on your desktop.

The world is not perfect enough, though. Implementing such a scene is a pain, therefore it is not that widely used.

Re:Question--anyone care to answer?

[multi io]

what is the disadvantage to HD-DVD as opposed to Blu-Ray?

Less storage capacity.

Re:Question--anyone care to answer?

[julesh]

A 700mb CD is actually an 800mb disc; the other 100mb is lost to error correction bits when you write data tracks rather than audio/video tracks. To the other poster here -- yes, an 800mb disc holds roughly 80 minutes of standard spec VideoCD data, the same as it does CD audio data, as both formats were designed to be read by single speed CD players.

Re:Question--anyone care to answer?

[TheRaven64]

The most important difference between MPEG4 and MPEG1/2 video is the algorithm used before quantisation. With MPEG1/2 this is a Discreet Cosine Transformation (DTC) which (basically) computes the cosine waves required to create the waveform which represents the differences in intensity as you read along a line (or diagonally across a maco block) of video. The problem with DTC is that it is impossible to represent a square wave with a finite number of cosines. If you have a colour change from black to white (for example) then there will be artefacting around the edge. MPEG4 uses a Discreet Wavelet Transformation (DWT) which is capable of expressing sharp images much better.

Re:Question--anyone care to answer?

[DarkMan]

Ah, thanks for that. *adds to mental list of differences*.

I hope not

[swb]

54GB, while a tad on the small side compared to hard disks, is a meaningful amount of data storage. Dual-layer DVD might have cut it 3 years ago, but not anymore -- it's just a bigger floppy and better movie copy medium.

It'd be nice to see the better data storage medium win this time.

Re:I hope not

[DarthStrydre]

Too late... 1TB disks are available, yet pricey.

Re:Will Windows Media Player support it?

[Mr Pippin]

The Current HD-DVD standard specifies multiple codecs. MS MediaPlayer V9 is one of them.

The question I would wonder about is will microsoft actually support ALL the codecs? Supporting their own is a no-brainer. By that, I mean OUT of the box, and you don't have to pay for the other CODECS.

1 question

[sootman]

I haven't been keeping up that closely on all things HD, but right now, isn't the only HD DVD the most recent edition of Terminator 2, and doesn't the HD part of it only play in WMP?

You forgot one more important thing..

[Kjella]

The rest of the industry likes Blu-Ray because it has a higher storage capacity (54 GB vs. 30 GB), uses MPEG-2 so movie/television companies don't need to re-encode their HDTV streams and has Sony behind it (movie studio/music label).

Being only MPEG2, the common player is not able to play DivX/XviD (MPEG4) content. How it may be preferable for the MPAA not to use an efficient compression, is left as an exercise to the reader. Hint: Security through bloat.

Kjella

Um...

[eomnimedia]

...and in other news, Bill Gates has decided to switch from BVD to Fruit of the Loom.

Whoopee.

A rant about FPS when shooting

[DumbSwede]

It occurs to me that resolution is not the be all and end all for video. I have a NEC 1351 with Quad XGA resolution and it is sweet on DVD and HDTV. DVD is often better than our crappy multiplex theater as it is never out of focus or jittery. HDTV almost always exceeds a Theater going experience. BUT frame rate could be a LOT better. A high speed or medium speed pan sideways looks terrible on film in the theater and on DVD or HDTV. The HDTV standard doesn't support a full 1080x1920 60p (only 60i is specified). Call it a hunch, but I'd bet almost anything shot in true 720x1280 at 60p would look far better than any of the 1080x1920-modes. I dead serious here. Why the commission wimped out on the 1080x1920 format I can't figure, even if it won't fit in a 6meg bandwidth, why not define in it in the standard anyway for use later by satellite, HD-DVD or special 6+meg channels to be approved later. Why all current movies aren't shot at 60 fps I also don't get, it would be the next bump up in real perceived quality. Yes it would take 2.5 times more film, but far less than IMAX, and probably lots of existing equipment could be adapted, or new equipment purchased much cheaper from exiting manufacturing plants that need only a minor retool. Once the Cinemas all go digital the scan rate is at 60 or above, so why so stinging on the frame rates when filming. I just don't get it. Maybe give it some branding name like IMAX-B, since IMAX is already associated with high frame rates and quality.

OK the whole point of my rant here is to alert anyone in the media arena that what will really give a better viewing experience now is to get the FPS rate up during filming. 60p doesn't help when you're just upconverting a 24 fps film source. DVD was a good compromise for resolution and frame rate at the number of bits we had. Now lets start pumping up the frame rate as well as the resolution, now that we have the headroom to do it.

Re:A rant about FPS when shooting

[Detritus]

Many cinematographers believe that 24 fps is a feature. It's part of the "film look" and they don't want it to change. It's too ingrained into the way that movies are made.

Re:A rant about FPS when shooting

[AbRASiON]

I hate to say this but I agree - that "look" helps my brain know I'm watching a movie basically...... any other frame rate looks too ,...... mechanical or something or unrealistic.

Re:A rant about FPS when shooting

[centipetalforce]

Completely correct. 24fps is an advantage. It's not like in video games where smoother is better. HD is the future and WILL be filmed more and more in 60. Native digital 1920x1080 cameras shoot in 60 and do look better than film telecined into HD. Im suprised actually how many uninformed posts here are getting modded up as insightful when they are only partially correct.

Re:A rant about FPS when shooting

[inQ]

I agree~~
Panning scenes in movie theaters hurts my eye.
My eyes try to track the scene, but the scene jumps in steps, and it jumps so fast I can't see clearly the details. Also, I guess motion blur would be good.

Plus...

[qrash]

Duke Nukem Forever

WMV License Fee Details

[Anonymous Coward]

See here.

Microsoft Longhorn will support HD DVD

[Barto]

...in Japan!

You are wrong, at least around here...

[aepervius]

... People started entering the DVD player craze out of two reason : 1) tehre was suddenly a dearth of cheapo 30$ players, and the videothek only had the new Blockbuster in DVD, and rarely as VHS (the change was gradual with more DVD coming out then VHS). And frankly this is what forced me to give up on my VHS recorder to put a DVD player. I am not alone colleague did the same. As for picture/sound quality, I do not see any difference on my TV. It might be true on HDTV but around here HDTV are a RARE occurence. As for the rewind things, people do not seem to care that much (after all you need is push a button, do something else, and when you are ready take the VHS already rewinded out). So I doubt that for the average consummer without a gret equipement the advantage you cited are true. Even worse with DVD I am FORCE FEEDED advertising at the start of the DVD, with the DVD forbidding fast forward. Lately I had to take 15 minutes of ads before the feature. With VHS you can at least use the fast forward button....

Re:You are wrong, at least around here...

[R2.0]

"getting around lamness filter, caps needed to make point
around lamness filter, caps needed to make point"

Don't worry - you are still lame.

Oh, and I'd be careful about throwing around the "moron" label when your post has 8 typos/punctuation errors in 2 lines.

Real News: years to support rewritable anything

[RonBurk]

The real news is just how many years Microsoft will require to finally support any form of rewritable disc. From the first day that recordable CDs appeared, people have dreamed of using them "like a floppy" -- being able to add a file, delete a file, etc., instead of having to use the "one big burn" approach that requires first constructing on hard disk an image of everything that is to appear on the recordable disc. It's like they just don't place much importance on people being able to use discs for backing up data.

Windows XP appears to support rewritable CDs (couldn't get their rewritable DVD act together in time for XP, I guess), but it's really a bundled Roxio "one big burn" solution under the covers.

You can get third-party software that lets you treat DVD+/-RW and CD-RW "like a floppy", but so far reliability has remained suspect, and interoperability between different vendor solutions has been provably A Big Mess.

The re-recordable media problem is especially crucial to Windows backups. With dual-layer re-recordable DVDs coming, DVD could be a plausible Windows backup media for many situations -- if direct O/S support solved the compatibility mess.

I can't believe how many years will pass before Windows has any direct, API-level support for any form of re-writable disc. I also fear that when Longhorn finally ships, it will somehow manage to be one or more steps behind the current technology of that time, leading up to another umpteen-year delay to have decent backup solutions for the casual user.

Will they get Mt. Rainier support in, as promised? Seems like dual-layer RW will be a reality before Longhorn is -- will it support that? I wait with bated breath!

And how is WM9 not publically available?

[xswl0931]

One of the conditions Microsoft had to satisfy to get their codec accepted for HD-DVD was to allow open licensing of their codec. There is still royalties, but there is no restriction on who can license it.

I'm starting to smell a rat...

[EuropeanSwallow]

Wrote this on my blog a while ago...

Although I'm not a particular "conspiracy theory" freak, I'm starting to smell a rat on the latest moves on the DVD arena. First, the industry tries to play good sport and announces (also here and here, and discussed on Slashdot) out of a sudden it's going to "tolerate" limited copy of DVD, allowing them to be backed up and to transfer content to portable devices. The "gift" is based on technology being developed by a consortium that includes IBM, Microsoft, Intel, Sony, Toshiba, Matsushita, Warner Bros. and Disney, and is being labeled Advanced Access Content System (AACS). Trying the usual PR stunt of passing a consumer right, upheld by most Worldwide copyright laws that for a long time have entitled consumers to private copy (something that has up to now, and as you will see, in the future, been denied), as their "gift" to society, they have just, as usual, forgot to mention some "little details".

The same industry that brought us region encoding, supposedly to avoid the possibility of buying a movie in a given place before it premieres at the cinema, although it is available elsewhere, in practice a cover-up to allow regional pricing of DVD (what else justifies 20, 30, 40 year old movies being region encoded?), has "forgot" to stress that this "feature" will only be available on the upcoming new-generation DVD format, still being cooked up by the DVD Forum, former DVD Consortium. So, to keep it short, they want us to buy all over again our DVD collection, now in a neat DRM crippled format.

After failing miserably with the CSS content encryption of current DVD, quickly cracked by the uber-reverse-engineer DVD Jon, and being at the present time little more than a nuisance, they want to have another go. But this time they are making their homework. Lets take the steps and see.

A little more than one year ago, Microsoft unveiled its plans for a new DRM system, nicknamed Janus. One year later it is confirmed and Microsoft lets out a few more details on the features, licensing and partners. A few weeks later, the DVD Forum announces it is going to include Microsoft WM9 codec in its upcoming HD-DVD specification (as a mandatory requirement). Although it may seem they are going down the same road and bound again to be reverse-engineered and fail miserably all over again, things are now different: of course Microsoft is going to patent its DRM scheme. So, while CSS was qualified as a "trade secret", not allowing the ones who cracked it to be prosecuted, reverse-engineering Microsoft DRM scheme will be violating patent law, and the all-mighty DMCA, what makes it a completely different scenario.

Microsoft has already shown it is very interested in the media turf. After developing its own audio and video codecs and using its dominating position to spread them to the web and hardware devices like portable players and even some standalone players, and after including its Media Player in all current Windows version (earning them the current EU law suit), that will of course support both the WM9 codec and the Janus DRM, we can already see they are trying to broaden their scope. This can be seen on their Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004, and it would not surprise me to see it ported to standalone devices, either on its current packaging or by porting it to Windows CE.

So what can we see as the outcome of this scenario?

Re:I'm starting to smell a rat...

[pandrijeczko]

So, while CSS was qualified as a "trade secret", not allowing the ones who cracked it to be prosecuted, reverse-engineering Microsoft DRM scheme will be violating patent law, and the all-mighty DMCA, what makes it a completely different scenario.

I'm not sure that it's going to be quite that bad.

Although IANAL, the more I read articles about patents and legal cases around them, the more it seems that patent litigation works where one organisation is suing another for patent infringement such that company A can prove that it lost "X" dollars/pounds/Euros/etc. because of company B's patent infringment.

Now take the case of "DVD John" and DeCSS. I don't recall this being a patent infringement but even if it had been, what could have been done to him?

Firstly, he wasn't even in the US (therefore not subject to US law) and secondly, if he's not profited from the experience, what loss of revenue can be proven as a result of reverse engineering a protocol?

Maybe I'm looking at this from too simplistic a "geek" viewpoint but has patent law ever yet been applied to a non-profit-making individual reverse engineering something?

Re:I'm starting to smell a rat...

[hthb]

However, remember USA!=World. In most places in Europe you don't have as stringent a law as the DMCA. Imagine if DVD Jon had been a US citizen? He would most likely be at the mercy of some big bald prisoner would personally like to thank him for all the DVD porn he could watch using Linux.

Re:I'm starting to smell a rat...

[EuropeanSwallow]

You're right, for now, on the US!=World issue. I'm European (Portuguese). The problem is that discussion on our European software patent law is still on the table. The chance of having a strict, not reverse engeneering allowing software patent law is still in sight. Guess who's pushing some big bucks for it to be a reality...

Should this law come to be a reality, any DVD Jon-to-be would be prosecuted for patent infringement this side of the pond and by violating the DMCA in the US.

Re:I'm starting to smell a rat...

[EuropeanSwallow]

As for companies only suing if there is money loss, that simple isn't so. Several companies, like Microsoft, are building huge patent portfolios to simply lock in the market by fear of lawsuits, and then proceed to feed lawyers loads of cash to simply sue anyone who tries to take a cut.

Specially in the Free Software arena, who can stand going to court and fight being sued by Microsoft? For example, should somebody develop a HD-DVD player for Linux, even though no other would exist on the market and Microsoft was not obviously expecting to make one, so "no money was lost by Microsoft", you can bet your socks he would be sued for doing it on patent infringement and the DMCA.

In the case of DVD Jon, you are correct. As I state in my post, CSS is not patented, it's a trade secret. DRM patents are public and enforcible by patent law, and given it is a protection/encryption algorithm, also by the DMCA. Trade secrets, should they gets to the public, are their owner's problem.

As for not being in the US, check out this guy. The problem, although distinct, was also being prosecuted according to the DMCA. This time he was lucky. Perhaps somebody else in the future is not so. Trade agreements can be nasty, you know...

As for loss of profits for reverse engineering a protocol, go ask Microsoft how much they are losing in Windows licenses with Samba...

You can already get VC-9's details

[WARM3CH]

I don't understand what you are talking about. VC-9's details are already available. Take a look at http://www.mpegla.com/pid/vc9/.

So Steve was right

[dJOEK]

When he claimed at WWDC that MacOSX Tiger (10.4) was 'Introducing Longhorn' ;)

Erm, how about "No shit, Sherlock?"

[pandrijeczko]

This sounds like more of a lame Microsoft attempt to keep Longhorn in the public's mind rather than anything of great interest.

I suspect we'll have more "declarations of intent" from MS over the next couple of years so that we don't forget about Longhorn, like:

"Gates says 640GB should be enough memory for anyone running Longhorn"

"Ballmer dresses in a tu-tu and chants 'Longhorn' repeatedly on stage at an MS Developer conference"

"Microsoft say Longhorn will be more secure than Windows"

etc.

I don't know about "Longhorn" but thinking about it just gives me a "floppy"...

MUCH better article here

[nusratt]

Got Those DVD Blues

Really?

[KlausBreuer]

Look, I'm sorry, I really don't mean to troll... but why all this info about Longhorn?
In the past, Microsoft has told us a lot about the next OS. What it'll do. How great it'll be. How safe. How good.

And then, when you had the actual CD(s) in hand, it turned out to be less, to be announced, to be patched, to be in the next version...

I don't care about Longhorn. It's years away. Many years.
When it's promised to show up within the next three months, I'll be interested. And I'll try it out. And I'll look at a lot of reviews. And I'll read the hatred from Slashdot ;)

But not now.

Now all we need is HD-PAL

[EnglishTim]

Maybe someday Europe will get it's act together and actually sort out an HD format...

/mutters

Pointless announcement?

[IWannaBeAnAC]

Ok, so Longhorn, currently scheduled for 2007, but will probably still be vaporware by then, will include HD DVD support.

Linux, on the other hand, will support HD DVD as soon as a kernel hacker gets enough of the spec to implement the driver. Any bets on when exactly that will be?

What is the big news here?

Re:And manufacturers won't write drivers for Windo

[Stephen Samuel]

So LongHorn will have HD-DVD out of the box, and Linux will have support for all of the DVD formats available out of the box long before Longhorn is available in a box. My point still stands, that the Linux universe is much less constrained by some megalomaniac's business model.

Focus

[Mika24]

Shouldn't microsoft should focus it efforts on security rather than dvd formats?

Re:And manufacturers won't write drivers for Windo

[rd_syringe]

What makes you think Windows XP won't have support for those DVD devices as well?

My point still stands--hardware manufacturers develop drivers for Windows on a daily basis. You'll see hardware support for Windows before you'll see it for Linux. And then it just so happens that Longhorn will have out-of-the-box support for HD-DVD (and who's not to say other formats as well).

The "megalomaniac" comment was baseless and silly. Yes, putting out an operating system makes a company a megalomaniac. You need to graduate college and get out of the dorm room into the real world.

Store more stuff, not just more detail

[hackwrench]

more episodes or hours on a single disk.