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...

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....

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?

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.

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

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.

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.