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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."
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)?
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).
Humorous signatures are over-rated.
Sigs cause cancer.
MPEG video is encumbered by patents for a few more years, but at least the details are publicly available.
"Guess I'll have to buy the White Album again."
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.
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
I'm glad that Microsoft will support this :)
English is easier said than done.
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.
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...
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.
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.