Blu-Ray/Standard DVD Hybrids Planned

An anonymous reader writes "Recently stories about hybrid HD-DVD and regular DVDs were in the news. This was supposed to be an advantage for HD-DVD in its battle with Blu-Ray. But that advantage will not exist, as according to this story on PhysOrg, the same technology will be available for Blu-Ray. And it is even better than the HD-DVD solution, since instead of two sided media, it uses a triple layer structure on one side (one layer of 33.5GB for Blu-Ray, then two layers for 9GB of dual layer DVD data)"

Comments

Behold.

[Blapto]

Now little Timmy can store days of HD porn under the mattress! Oh the march of technology...

Re:Behold.

[mattkinabrewmindspri]

If history has proven anything, it's that:

1. Timmy does have porn.
2. Timmy doesn't care if that porn is illegal.

Forward compatible

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the best feature of this is that regular DVD drives can read the DVD data, no need for early upgrades. This will make a transition to the new media format MUCH easier.

Re:Forward compatible

[nkh]

I don't think the transition will be better: you don't know yet which technology will win. You'll stick to one kind of hybrid DVD and hope that it won't be dropped by manufacturers in the future. Worse, you'll have to upgrade to the format of your DVDs, not the format widely accepted later. Your choice is now, the real choice is later (but it will be too late to change :(

Err, umm, who cares?

[Creepy Crawler]

---And it is even better than the HD-DVD solution, since instead of two sided media, it uses a triple layer structure on one side (one layer of 33.5GB for Blu-Ray, then two layers for 9GB of dual layer DVD data)"

Its not the amount of space you have, but the content on it..

When there's Umpteen Million releases of the same movie, who gives a flying fuck?

Do you wanna buy Lord of the Rings 1?

LOTR 1 stripped no goodies.
LOTR 1 some goodies.
LOTR 1 lots of goodies not found on "some goodies"
LOTR 1 3 disc crammed set of goodies, but not same goodies as "lots of goodies"

(REPEAT LOTR 2, LOTR 3)

LOTR COMPLETE BASIC BOXED SET
LOTR COMPLETE Booklet BOXED SET
LOTR COMPLETE (no booklet) 9 DVD set
LOTR SUPER-COMPLETE 12 DVD set with T-Shirt
LOTR SUPER-DUPER-ABSOLUTELY-COMPLETE Boxed SET
LOTR Extras not found on "SUPER-DUPER-ABSOLUTELY-COMPLETE" Boxed set.

Now tell me.. Will the Blu-disc technology make Movie producers from stop making this many releases to bilk buyers into buying extras after extras?

Some reason, I dont think it will....

Re:Err, umm, who cares?

[John Hasler]

About movies? Not me. However, 33.5G is room enough for all of Debian on one disc.

Re:Err, umm, who cares?

[JKR]

Ahem, high definition, anyone? At a raw bitrate of over 120 MB/s, and _maybe_ halfway decent compressed quality at 8 - 12 MB/s (personally I'd say not but I spent a summer looking at the real thing), bigger optical media are a prerequisite for high definition.

Otherwise, you're looking at maybe 20 MINUTES of footage on a disk, max.

Jon.

China: Only Winner in Format Battle

[Anonymous Coward]

The only winner in the format battle of HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray is China. It does not enforce the claims by foreigners (i.e. non-Chinese) to intellectual property developed anywhere in the West. Many American companies have discovered that their applications for patents in China are purposefully delayed by some bureaucrat. Then, a Chinese company will access that patent application and file another application for the very same patent. The Chinese application will be approved, and Americans (i.e. the original inventors) selling the product using the patent in China will be forced to pay royalties to a Chinese company.

Such is the nature of the evil mind.

This battle between HD-DVD and Blu-Ray has no meaning for Westerners. In China, they will derive no money from the technologies that they have patented for both formats. The situation is a "lose-lose" for the West.

Both sides simultaneously?

[swb]

Do any of these systems plan to have the ability to read/write both sides at the same time? Double-sided media with no cartridge is kind of limited for labeling, but it is a cheap and easy way to double storage without a lot of engineering.

I'd also think a two-sided medium could be faster than single-sided medium if you combined the surfaces together in a RAID-0 kind of striping setup.

Would it really be that much more expensive to put a R/W head on top of the drive in addition to on the bottom?

Re:Both sides simultaneously?

[zakezuke]

I'd also think a two-sided medium could be faster than single-sided medium if you combined the surfaces together in a RAID-0 kind of striping setup.

Downward compatibility. A two sided disk one side at a time assures the fact that it can be read, at least in part, by a single sided drive.

Re:Both sides simultaneously?

[Mr_Whoopass]

Well, something close was made and produced commercially with the Kenwood label for a couple of years on CD-ROM drives. Zen Research developed what they called "True-X" technology which was their attemp to help debunk all the ridiculous leap-frog marketing of touted drive speeds which we all know was, at the time, less fact than fiction. Very few drives actually reached their advertised speeds and even fewer could actually sustain those claimed speeds over the entire surface of the disc. "True-X" technology developed by Zen research basically took the one laser and split it into multiple beams that would read different tracks of the disc, effectively keeping transfer rates consistent across the entire disc. Having owned several of them, I can testify to the superior speeds they offered over other typical drives of the day, reliability of the units themselves aside. While they still never seemed to actually sustain their advertised speeds either, they were much closer to actual advertised speeds than everything else on the market, and by a long way! Old reviews: http://tech-report.com/reviews/2000q3/kenwood72x/i ndex3.x http://geek.com/hwswrev/hardware/cdrom/kw52xcd.htm Granted all reading and writing was done on one side of the disc, but I wouldn't be surprised if we see that same approach utilized in products in the future since as the ammount of data per disc keeps going up and up, the time taken to read/write that data will as well barring different technical approaches such as your suggested dual head drives. I can speculate at possible reasons why we haven't seen muti-head/sided drives en masse to date, but as I am not in the field, it is just that, speculation. I would imagine that you would effectively almost double the manufacturing costs? I would see split optical methods as a much more realistic and cost effective solution rather than increasing the number of read/write heads. For all I know though, current drives could already be using variations of this method already, but judging from benchmarks of drives I have owned since, that is highly unlikely as the myth of "claimed" drive speeds seems to just be continuing its legacy of hype and half-truths. I am but an egg...

Not such a huge leap forward

[Dr. Spork]

Unlike the poster I actually read the article. The blue layer only stores 25GB, not 33.

I imagine that the extras and interviews wouldn't have to be duplicated in the HD layer, so that's decent amount of space. Still from 9GB to 25GB seems like a pretty small jump. Notice that the jump from CD (700MB) to DVD (9GB)is more than an order of magnitude, which makes sense. Compared to that jump, an improvement from 9 to 25GB is a bit underwhelming. I think it would have been better to wait for a denser format, since there are so few playback devices out there which can display in true HD anyway.

Re:Not such a huge leap forward

[anum]

I don't think the CD->DVD->HD-DVD comparison is valid. Remember, CDs replaced audio casettes and DVDs replaced VHS tapes. A spinning disk was a huge upgrade over reels of tape. Not having to mess with all of that tracking and tape breakage/streching plus having to clean the heads. God, what a nightmare and thank God we're past all that.

I think the media executives have learned the wrong lesson from CDs and DVDs. They now seem to be looking for the next break away format which will convince us to once again replace our entire entertainment collections. To them this is like free money. They think they can get us there by offering something with improved resolution or fidelity.

Most of us however, our reasonably happy with what we have now (just like most of us were reasonably happy with VHS except for the mechanical difficulties noted above). Now us geeks and the hardcore video/audio folks may think HD is a good upgrade but I noticed that very few chose laserdisk when they had the option. Price and convenience is why we moved to CDs and DVDs not better quality, that was just the bonus.

Now I can't think of a more convenient media than spinning disks but what if we could find a way to get rid of the media all together? Why that sounds a lot like an iPod doesn't it? iTunes? iVids?

My prediction: The next big thing for delivering entertainment to the user will be TCP/IP. Shocking I know but there it is.

Re:Not such a huge leap forward

[TractorBarry]

And then you will eventually be locked into pay per view on everything as the content will only be available from streams from the studios. These streams will not be savable.

The studios will have achieved their holy grail.

Excellent

[Deternal]

This completely negates any reason for the movie companies to:

1. Increase prices for the new formats since:
   • They can combine the products and thus will not sell fewer units
   • Consumers will, once again be annoyed if they have to decide which format to buy
2. Try to get consumers to buy the same movie twice, so they can get the BD/HD-DVD enhanced version - it's the same disc, so they will have access to the new parts when they replace their dvd player.

Of course I'm not too optimistic - this will probably cost up to 10 cents extra a disc and the movie companies will of course use this to raise prices - just like they did twice with DVDs.

First they'll raise the prices because it's a new format, and the pr will go because it can have more material, and then, just like with DVD's the usefull extra material will only go on more expensive discs with the tag:

• "Limited Edition"
• "Special Edition"
• "Extended Edition"
• "Deluxe Edition"
• "Directors Cut Edition"
• "We Buttfuck You Edition"

Of course this will be around the same time the MPAA will start blaming all their problems on pirates. Because it's obviously not because theater tickets are 18-30usd and movies are 65-90usd a pop.

Release the god damn standard already!

[melted]

Jesus Christ, they've been talking about this shit for years and yet there's not a single recorder/player available. Do what Apple does - don't talk about shit until it's ready.

the jump

[way2trivial]

from 'standard' consumer equipment is
700 mb to 4.5 gb..

the 9gb DVD is 2nd generation DVD burning.. want to guess what second gen blu/hdvd will bring?

Re:the jump

[cybertears]

CDs didn't always hold 700mb either. IIRC, 650mb -> 700mb and i've even seen 900mb CDs.

Something is wrong here

[Helpadingoatemybaby]

The 33.5G capacity of these disks (or the 58G capacity of the future) competition is too small for typical backups in comparison to current hard drive capacities.

By the time these penetrate the market to a significant extent hard drives will be typically over 400 or 500 gigabytes. And yes they hopefully will come out with higher capacity disks for computing, but the reason that the CD and DVD drives price point was so advantageous was that they were massed produced for consumer and computing needs.

One of the reasons for the success of CD's was that they were 640M, which was a pretty good ratio for drive backups at the time. Huge, in fact. But this ratio of disk/HD space is too small.

So in conclusion, we'll need a 640 Gigabyte disk to really grab our attention.

Re:Something is wrong here

[solios]

Hard disk capacities have been outstripping backup media by orders of magnitude for years. 40g drives were already common when DVD-R hit, and now that it's developed, 120-160g drives are common and 40s are on their way out- and good luck finding 9g DVD-R media. Have fun backing up 300g of data to 4.5g DVD-Rs.

2g and 4g drives were commonplace by the time CD burners became consumer-viable- you still needed multiple disks to backup a full drive.

Everyone's missing the point

[l33t-gu3lph1t3]

The advantage of this hybrid BluRay/DVD-9 disc is that the studios can begin releasing hybrids instead of having a slow painful transition from DVD to the new BluRay or HD-DVD format. These hybrid discs are better than the HD/DVD hybrids because the vanilla DVD part is a full 2 layers - 9GB. This compares favorably to the HD/DVD hybrids which have only ONE layer of DVD. Most DVDs these days are 2-layered DVD-9s.

Why flame LotR?

[Kjella]

They've been very clear from the start that there'll be two versions, one plain and one with extra everything. So far, that is exactly it. The collected series is nothing but those combined, there is no "extra-extra".

I'd much rather you go after the movies that have
a) normal version
b) extended version
c) director's cut
d) remastered edition
e) special edition
f) ultimate edition
etc etc.

They typically told noone that their movie was so crappy they needed a dozen releases to get it right. Or that they had another 3 minutes of bonus material to add. Those should all burn and die.

Now, we shall see if they add something new in addition to making the LotR films HDTV-resolution. If they do, then you may complain. So far, I've seen no reason to complain about them.

Optical media is moving faster than HDDs now...

[Kjella]

...HDDs have been very slow. Most of the disk producers pretty much paused at 250GB (3x83). The 400GB Hitachi didn't improve that at all (5x80). Some have gotten 100GB platters out the door, Seagate is leadning the pack with 133GB/platter. But I don't see any major things happening that'd give us 2TB disks instead of 200GB.

Where as optical media with DVDs, DL DVDs, HD DVD, Blue-Ray etc. seems to have a lot more going on to catch up. Of course this is due to them being extremely long behind. Before I got my DVD drive I would need ~300 CDs to back up my HDD. Now with DVDs it's down to ~100 DVDs. Give it dual layer (and add a disk I might buy), and it is maybe ~70 DL DVDs. By the time Blue-Ray recorders become reasonable I expect to have maybe 1TB of space. But at 25GB each, it'd take only ~40 BDs.

I'd say the ratio is going in favor of optical media, for the first time in a very long time.

Kjella

Expect 3 formats: DVD and two kinds of Blu-ray

[DumbSwede]

This should be an ideal transitional format (assuming it's not to prone to damage). I applaud the fact that this should beat back HD-DVD once and for all. However, movies will likely be released in 3 formats now: standard DVD, hybrid Blu-Ray/DVD (more expensive), Full Blu-Ray (more expensive still). The Full Blu-Ray being released months or years later with added features and improved HD definition. Until about 30 or 40 percent of people have Blu-Ray players, rental stores will not stock many titles (only a few blockbusters), and HD enthusiasts will have to buy disks at higher sell through prices.

This probably speeds the adoption of Blu-Ray players and while not a complete panacea in the interim, it is probably better than a protracted war between Full Blu-Ray and the crippled HD-DVD/DVD hybrid.

For those holding out for a Tera-byte disk of some sort with Ultra-HD, I think 25-50Gig standard HD is just about good enough, and should be around for awhile. My HD experience at home is already superior to going to our local Cineplex. Given that Blu-Ray can vary its bit rate on the fly all the way up to about double broadcast HD, and using better codecs to boot, this should make for some truly stunning Blu-Ray releases in the future. The digital release in theaters of Star-Wars were not (in pixel count) better than HD (about 1 mega-pixel for Phantom Menace and 2 mega-pixel for Attack of the Clones). Ultra HD would be what they call a 4k scan (about 4 thousand horizontal lines, 8 meg-pixel). Expect this to be what theaters start releasing in soon. A good HD (2k) scan will look virtually identical unless you have REALLY expensive equipment and a 10-foot wide screen. Many people can't tell the difference between a good upconverted DVD and HD on a good system. Knowing what a good HD source looks like, I'm pretty sure UHD finally gets us to the point of diminishing returns. Not that UHD won't ever catch on, just don't expect as rapid adoption as DVD or Blu-Ray/HD-DVD. With HD specs already set in stone by the FCC, a custom higher format will have quite the battle to catch on.

I expect to have a Blu-Ray in my Computer by 2006. I may even start trying to sell off my DVD collection in 2005 before they become completely worthless. Given that most were purchased used on Amazon, it won't be that big a loss.

We are talking HD here

[Sycraft-fu]

There is goo dreason to want more space for higher quality. Yes, you technicly can get 1080p at DVD rates (7mbps) using newer, better codecs. You can see it with T2 extreme editon. If you have a Windows PC with about a 3+ghz P4 (or equal Athlon), you can watch a DVD that contains an HD version of the movie. It's damn impressive and a whole lot better than SD-DVD, but you can see artifacting on a good monitor.

Thus what we'd like to be able to do for HD-DVD is scale the data rate up a bit. Double would be nice, more would be better. It would also allow for the realistic use of MPEG-2 for HD content instead of use MPEG-4 or VC-1.

Consider that MiniDV, the consumer DV format is 25mbps and only captures SD video with about the same quality as Betacam SP.

Re:Error correction and detection

[tepples]

because of this special coating, the cartridge was deemed unnecessary and will most likely not be found in any future drives.

What about a future 8cm BD standard for use in handheld devices? Carrying and switching discs on those would seem to introduce more wear than one gets in a typical DVD library. This is part of why the Sony PSP's UMD media have cartridges.

Re:lol Beta!

[Zorilla]

I believe one of the main factors besides the manufacturing cockblock Sony put on their format was that the discs could only store 1 hour's worth of video and there was no technically feasible way to fit in more video without losing quality or changing the form factor. At least not at first, but they snoozed and lost because it took them too long to find a solution.

12” No, but 7” might have worked (in the

[DumbSwede]

Having a back collection of about 100 12" laser discs I can tell you this is not the way to go.

Sure they would have the storage, but the disks are THICK and HEAVY. They take time to spin up and stabilize. I suspect the wobble would be hard to deal with at the kind of track pitches DVD have, so you are only using a fraction of the area you could. They were expensive to produce even at the end, probably like 10 to 15 dollars to manufacturer, instead of 10 to 15 cents for DVDs. With Blu-Ray in sight there is just no need. Teleport us back 5-10 years and release something short of HD but better than DVD on 7" like an old 45rpm record, now your talking. 7" media can still be fairly thin and light, but still sturdy. I always liked the size, and can imagine the 7" jackets looking better than the stupid rectangle boxes DVDs come in. Probably would take up the same space or less in a storage rack.

To Rant on about DVD holders a moment longer, I guess they wanted to be sure you didn't mistake them for CD crystal cases (which admittedly are crap for holding up). Disney's early cases took the cake for being monstrously large, and wouldn't fit in standard DVD racks. I guess also the industry wants a standard case the can take two disks for extra long movies or the special features disks. Still what a waste of physical storage space if you want to keep your covers with the DVDs. I personally wish they would include a 5" square slick back flier so I could keep every thing in a CD valet (which I do for my travelling collection).

One final complaint about DVD cases, WHY can't they standardize on a release button that works, and works well, for all cases. While I'm always able to get the DVD out, there have been times I worried I might crack it in the process. I'm sure there are a lot of senior citizens that can't get them out at all from some cases.

Red vs. Blue

[The Bubble]

This is something that I have not understood from the get-go: The way it was explained to me, while blu-ray is based on the combination of today's video compression technology with an advancement in optical technology (blue lasers), hd-dvd is based on the combination of today's optical technology (perhaps incrementally improved, I'm not sure) with an advancement in video compression (mpeg-4). My question, then, is why is there this unnecessary competition? Why not combine these two standards bring to the table, using mpeg-4 on blue-laser optical media. Of course, hd-dvd still has the benefit of being an easy manufacturing transition, but that didn't keep us from converting our tapes to cd's.