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Memory-Tech, Toshiba Develop DVD/HD-DVD Discs
Kralizec writes "PC World reports that Memory-Tech has developed a dual DVD, HD-DVD disc, which stores DVD content on the upper layer and HD-DVD content on the lower. The DVD data can be read by standard DVD players, giving customers the incentive to buy now, and reap future benefits by buying an HD-DVD player at a later time. Blu-ray suffered a heavy blow when HD-DVD gained the support of four major movie studios; could this be the knockout punch?" (The format was developed jointly with Toshiba.)
That this will not be a KO. It will, in fact, be a disqualification on the part of the HD-DVD for ear biting.
The article says "The discs will help popularize the HD-DVD format for consumers and encourage them to purchase HD-DVD players..."
I hope this is referring to the read-only HD-DVDs, not these dual DVD, HD-DVD disc.
If consumers are given choice to buy new movies in HD-/DVD format, it'll only delay the need to purchase HD-DVD players, since it's obvious even to grandmas that all hardware price will drop so much in the first 6-12 months that if you can wait you will.
I start buying DDR memory because my new mainboard only accepts 200pin, and my old one is using 168pin. Same thing goes to my Socket A and Socket 939 CPUs.
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
Really damn smart. But I predict that "compatibility with existing DVD players" will be a relative thing. For no particular reason, I picked up one of those ultra-cheap US$35 DVD players, which not only chokes on home burnt DVD+ and -Rs, but also on a minority of purchased movies.
The knockout punch? No, this is the bunch that turns the 'argument' into a 'fight'. The media format wars are only beginning!
Electrons are free; it is moving them that becomes expensive.
Guess I gotta go buy that White Album again now.
Note that the recently announced support by Universal Studios & others is non-exclusive, so they could still release Blu-Ray titles. This fact is usually omitted from the press. The speculation is that by announcing they got a break on the format royalties.
So I have some more links for y'all.
Technology News' Report and PCWorld's Article on the new disc that will contain a backwards-compatible (4.6 GB) DVD layer and a higher definition (15 GB) HD-DVD layer of which production is planned to begin in October or November of next year.
This seems like this could be a major factor in the format war between HD-DVD and the higher capacity Blu-ray.
It's starting to look like there will be a pretty good format war between the two new HD optical disks in the near future. Both sides are doing an excellent job in aligning themselves with key players that will help them to get their format accepted by the public, and various people on Slashdot have mentioned the benefits of both media.
I have a pretty good hunch that we'll be seeing many drives and players that are dual format (like DVD +/ - R is now). If this does happen, it won't be so bad if there are two dominant media types, and I am sure the competition between the formats can be good for consumers. We shall see!
- HD-DVD is technologically inferior to Blu-Ray.
- Blu-Ray is backed by Sony
I think we can see why HD-DVD would win this format war, judging by the past history of how other wars have played out.Two Roommates and a Boyfriend, updates Monday, Wednesday, and Friday
Can't I just punch a hole in the corner of a regular DVD and turn it over?
An attempt to smoothly transition customers from old to new products without too much hastle is a good sign.
Add the fact that they aren't trying to rip you off by requiring you to re-purchase everything you already own (they're actually doing the opposite) and it seems like they might be trying to please their customers!
Don't look now, but a media company might DO THE RIGHT THING.
If they continue to act appropriately like this (pleasing customers rather than bullying) I will make a note to reward them with a few purchases.
Slashdot Syndrome: the sudden, extreme urge to correct someone in order to validate one's self.
I for one welcome our new dual DVD, HD-DVD overlords...
But seriously, this is a great move. Not because it technologicaly better, but simply because people will buy these disks, perhaps not even knowing they are HD-DVD compatible. Some time later, when shopping for a new DVD player, when the salesman says "and if you have any DVD-HD-DVD disks, you will get better quality from your existing disks!" thus sealing the deal for lots of people...
-- Senior Software Engineer, Attorney appearance services, locallawyerapp.com.
If the DVD/HD-DVD hybrid disc is the same or very close to the DVD-only disc price, people will buy the HD version on the off-chance it will be useful to them in the future. But if it costs significantly more, it'll get completely ignored.
This could be a chance for Toshiba & partners to lock in a good chunk of the market before the market even exists - but they'll never give up their precious new-product premiums. No way will they let their fancy new HD content go for the same price as existing SD content (especially as the hybrid disc will no doubt cost a little more to manufacture).
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
A 4.6 GB DVD layer And a 15 GB HD-DVD Layer
15 GB not even twice a 9 GB standard double layer disk. The few movies released in HD on DVD compressed and using VC9 are not full HD resolution. You think and extra 6 GB is going to get you there all the way???
Blu-Ray starts out with 25 GB single layer and 50 GB for double.
Even with the Mpeg 4 encoding, the makers will be struggling to get true full HD on the disks for 2 hour plus movies and forget the bonus features.
HD-DVD used to have 2/3 the storage of Blu-Ray, now it will have 1/3 (1/12 if Blu-Ray delivers on 8 layer media)
Might as well just release HD on multiple regular double layer DVD and have a tray switch disks when last disk is done.
What seems like an advance is really just going to make certain the majority of HD-DVD content will be over compressed and crappy compared to Blu-Ray. Plus it is unclear the HD layer will not be overly affected by interference from the regular DVD layer (I am assuming larger standard DVD pits might create more optical interference for the lower layer than if an HD-DVD layer were above), thus more prone to failure and damage.
The sad thing is I can't deny the marketing genius of it.
Letter To Iran
Most DVDs use the dual layer capacity of current DVDs. Using this technique it would be nessesary to split many movies onto two discs. If your going to do that, why not just package one DVD and one HD-DVD.
In America we are imprisoned by our fear of them.
so now the consumer has to pay royalties to both format licensors!
brilliant!
It could be twice the price, say maybe 10cents per unit, retail $20.
hell they only loose a coupld of cents.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
I dont know anybody who owns a HD TV, and I cant even get the best out of my current dvds (no progressive scan). Why on earth would I want a new format when I cant even max out the current one...just so companies can sell me the same movies I own now slight increase in resoultion....Dvds look pretty good why do we need to upgrade?
Anyone who thinks this is a good idea is on CRACK...unless you stand to profit from the sale of HD-DVD's
Ok, a little background. DVD's, when they first started, were primarily 1 layer, not two, per disc. To start they didn't use two layers but it was part of the spec that they eventually could. Now, transfer technology back then wasnt as refined as it is today, so one of the reasons rereleased discs look better is due to the better restoration techniques and transfering technology
HOWEVER, the other HUGE reason is the addition of the second layer. By doubling the space available, you get soooo much more space and higher bit rates ensue, thus you get far better picture with less compression.
What Toshiba is saying is "lets get rid of that second layer, and provide you with whole movie on only one layer again!" Indeed transfer tech has improved, but not THAT much. The video will be so much more compressed and less detailed than if they had just put out the DVD as a dual layered disc. I see only two reasons to even pursue this.
The first is that it will SOUND better to the stupidity of the average consumer, who would rather have the convience, even though they are buying an inferior DVD (and as I will mention, and inferior HD-DVD). This isn't a big issue for one reason. That is, if you are buying this disc, you might reason that youll have a lesser copy now, but when HDDVD comes out, you'll never watch that DVD copy again, so if you put up with it till then, you'll have a nice HDDVD copy to watch.
Problem is, your HD copy is going to look like crap compared to one which was dual layered, 30GB of space for the movie. Infact, given sony has 50, 100 and soon 200 GB discs, the HD-DVD disc cant compare compression-wise. No matter what, a normal HD-DVD will be more compressed than a Blu-ray, but this still begs the question of whether or not the 30gb will be sufficient that there will be little difference from a 50gb copy, to your eye anyways.
Doing some quick math
Animorphic DVD: 720x480 resolution = 345,600 pixels per image
HDDVD at 1080p (why p later and not i) = 20,736,00
thats a difference per image of 6 times (exactly) as much information
So, assuming that you want your HD-DVD copy to have just about the same compression as your DVD copy had (why would you want more?) then a dual layerd, 9.2gb dvd would need 55.2 GB to store this
However, MPEG-4 is far more efficient than the MPEG-2 compression used in DVD's today, and would easily break under 50GB to store that, and possibly even 30. However, it is not good enough to create a HD-DVD copy of the same movie, with the same amount of clarity and compression, in 15GB of space.
Here is my take:
Toshiba knows this marketing might work, and the HD-DVD layer will look OK at first, worth noting that the original DVDs looked good for their day too. But when people have adopted the player, guess what? The Dual layered, HD ONLY discs will destroy the hybrids ones, and that collection of dvd/hddvd you bought is now obsolete. That's right, they do it with full knowledge that they are selling you inferiority to get you to double dip, as they do often today with DVDs
to comment on why hddvd is 1080p, where as HDTV is only 1080i: Its pretty obvious that the plan with HDTV from the start was to sell the 1080i to the rich, and then to the consumer, and then put out 1080p which wouldnt work for broadcast, just as 480p doesnt today, unless they update the spec, but it would look damn good for hddvds. DVD is stored in progressive, there is no reason not to store HDDVD progressive. Just as between 480p tvs and hdtv, they sold edtv with 720i and etc, to the rich, only to get them to buy the newer ones, they are milking HDTV
Anyways, my take is that toshiba is going to try to screw the consumer, but unless this is patented and somehow Sony can't do the same idea, I think this would be GREAT for Blu-ray. If sony can take the 4 layer discs they got, place 2 layer
Things like this give HD-DVD an even bigger advantage. What's the initial advantage? Naming.
Consumers absolutely know what a DVD is. They understand what HD is (although some may not be aware that the DVD format isn't already HD). Thus, it's a simple leap to comprehend HD-DVD - it's a DVD that shows prettier pictures. Consumers have no clue what a BluRay is, though marketing dollars will try to change that.
Seen any BadMarketing lately?
Are you comparing HD DVD players against Blu-ray recorders by any chance? Hardly fair. And it's all vaporware anyway, so prices could change.
Well, HD-DVD coming doesn't mean BluRay may not come, too, at a later time. I guess the dream of the content marketers is:
* First, sell the content on DVD (this is what currently is done).
* Then, sell the same content again on HD-DVD.
* Then, sell the same content again on BluRay.
That's three times the revenue, instead of two times when going directly to BluRay.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.