Blu-ray Coming Out On Top?

wh0pper writes "Some interesting information came out at at the latest Blu-ray Disc Association meeting at Twentieth Century Fox Studios. Apparently, 90 percent of the CE industry and seven movie studios now back Blu-ray Disc. And most of the IT industry (except Microsoft) also supports Blu-ray Disc. This has prompted Mr. Parsons, Senior VP of Advanced Products Development for Pioneer Electronics, to say "There's no format war looming because it's not Blu-ray vs. HD DVD. It's simply Blu-ray versus standard definition DVD... Currently, DVD has 50,000 titles presently available, and both formats will co-exist for several years to come with new BD players supporting both formats. BD players make the perfect complement to new HDTVs that are being purchased by consumers." Mr. Parsons then announced that the upcoming CES would be used to launch Blu-ray Disc."

Comments

My DVR doesn't read DVD-RAM discs anymore

[ReformedExCon]

It used to read DVD-RAM discs just fine. Now, it says that the disc is unreadable.

I'm another victim of the DVD format wars.

I'm glad that the industry is standardizing the next generation media now when there are very few (any?) players on the market. It's good to have a standard, even if it is a de facto standard rather than a de jure standard.

Re:My DVR doesn't read DVD-RAM discs anymore

[Docmach]

I agree. Even though I am on the Blu-Ray side I'll just be happy to have one standard. It does seem that there are many technical reasons to use Blu-Ray, though.

Re:My DVR doesn't read DVD-RAM discs anymore

[Craig Davison]

I thought it was just one technical reason: the capacity of the disc. That's really all there was to it, right?
The point HD-DVD had going for it was that the discs and players would have been cheaper to make.

Re:My DVR doesn't read DVD-RAM discs anymore

[Jason1729]

There's plenty of technical reasons to use blu-ray.

There is very invasive DRM measures in blu-ray that make divx look like it would make Richard Stallman proud. You need to get permission every time you play a disc, and your discs are permanently mated to your player. You can't play your disc at a friends house or in another room in your house, and if your player breaks, you lose your whole DVD collection.

The studios love it but the consumers will be totally screwed over by it.

Re:My DVR doesn't read DVD-RAM discs anymore

[16K Ram Pack]

The content industry is going to see a serious backlash if they try this.

They tried region coding, and people over here in the UK just got players chipped and hacked. Everyone I know has a multiregion player so that they can watch unavailable US movies or cheaper far east versions.

Start telling people that they can't lend a movie to a mate, and they'll either boycott, or work out a way around.

Re:My DVR doesn't read DVD-RAM discs anymore

[moro_666]

what a waste of time.

if i have the discplayer, it obviously has output channels to a tv and to a sound system.

so obviously i can rip it off from these same outputs. they can have all the drm they want, a bit divx encoding in there which loses their mighty "identification" spots that have been under discussion here somewhere, and the movies will again be out on the torrent sites. sure it will lose some quality, but i don't really think that downloaders will mind the drop of quality in such tiny amounts. (now camrips and ts's are loss of quality, a clean cablerip is as good as it can be on your tv). if you have a tv/video card with tv-in port, you're the man and the drm people are wasted.

if you really think that drm works, show me a drm that can't be just cableripped or that hasn't been cracked by software already (oh that dvd region joke never expires i guess...).

any measure they make with 3 years will be hacked with 3 months. any big secret about drm that you trust into taiwan hardware makers (hdtv producers for example) will be out soon enough & counter measured to make the whole investment in drm a total waste. and the saddest thing is that taiwan&china produce massive amount of everyday electronics already and the advanced countries can't afford to cut these out of the production system.

don't the movie/soundmakers really understand that the only bloody way to fight piracy is to lower the prices and make the content affordable ? this is the only thing that will ever decrease the piracy.

fight the bloody problem and not the results it creates.

Re:My DVR doesn't read DVD-RAM discs anymore

[Scarblac]

Well, current DVDs already have invasive DRM. Mandatory ads, hard to copy, etc. I guess you refuse to watch them?

Whatever the new standard will be, they're all DRMed out the wazoo. That's just not a choice, seen from the industry.

Re:My DVR doesn't read DVD-RAM discs anymore

[el americano]

Theoretical capacity or capacity-in-a-laboratory is completely irrelevant and is comparable to this press release that claims Blu-ray is what consumers want, even though you can't buy any movies in either format yet. The fact remains that HD movies only require twice the space that a regular movie does, so the first cheap player for cheap discs @ 20GB should be the winner.

Hmmm, let's see... Panasonic's Blu-ray player costs $2780 with $69 for the mythical 50GB disc or $32 for the real-world 25GB disc. Nope, not there yet. Not there in 2006 at all, I think.

Personally, I think consumers are going to be hard to push from good-enough DVDs to over-hyped hi-def anyway. Add to that a ridiculous DRM that requires new TVs and monitors and prohibits copies of media that's likely to be less durable than DVD (especially Blu-ray), then I know I'm going to save a fortune by not buying any of it. Non-DRM dual-layer DVD will be my solution of choice until they offer me something truly better.

Re:My DVR doesn't read DVD-RAM discs anymore

[nutshell42]

You need to get permission every time you play a disc

This would require a mandatory, permanent Internet connection for your BD player and I doubt we'll see stuff like that in consumer electronics in the next 10 years.

and your discs are permanently mated to your player. You can't play your disc at a friends house or in another room in your house, and if your player breaks, you lose your whole DVD collection.

I assume you refer to Sony's patent for such a mechanism. That patent was issued in 1999. They didn't put it in the PS2, they didn't put it in the PSP, now a few months ago it resurfaced and suddenly everyone assumes they'll use it for the PS3. IMHO Sony's too afraid of losing to MS to try something harebrained like that

Re:My DVR doesn't read DVD-RAM discs anymore

[maxwell demon]

I'm unlikely to buy a BluRay or HD-DVD player anytime soon, even if they get cheap. Therefore I personally don't really care how many Movies I'll get on which format. I highly doubt I'd see much of a different on my (non-HDTV) TV anyway (and I'm not going to buy a new TV either). I might, however, buy a burner as soon as they are reasonably cheap. Not for burning movies, but for storing data. And for that, there are basically three benchmarks:

• How much data can I store on it?
• How much data per Euro can I store on it?
• How reliable/durable is my data on them?

In a nutshell, I'd like to have large, cheap and reasonably reliable storage.

Re:My DVR doesn't read DVD-RAM discs anymore

[el americano]

People here might be forced to buy new TVs when the FCC forces broadcasters to transmit in high definition only (Thanks FCC. I had some money saved up, and I was feeling guilty about it.) - but I don't see people buying the players until they're easily affordable with comparably priced media.

As for archival storage, why anticipate investing in an upgrade unless it's an order of magnitude greater than what you have now? I haven't bought every storage option that came down the pike (e.g. I never owned a Zip drive). 30-50GB is a rather pitiful increase for the next generation. Think about it. A 9GB DVD is more than 10 CDs. A CD is more than 200 floppies! These new discs are 3-5 DVDs? Wake me when, and if, Blu-ray hits 200GB - and it better be fast, because holographic storage is likely to have 1.6TB discs by the end of next year.

Make no mistake. Blu-ray/HD-DVD is about entertainment media, not computer storage.

Re:My DVR doesn't read DVD-RAM discs anymore

[yabos]

The FCC isn't forcing broadcasters to transmit in HD only(yet). They're forcing them to transimit in digital only which is very different.

Re:My DVR doesn't read DVD-RAM discs anymore

[poot_rootbeer]

Just because the Blu-Ray spec allows discs to be DRM'ed out the ass doesn't mean that every disc released is going to use those features.

I doubt that the content industry has forgotten about the failure of DIVX already -- they lost money on that, right along with Circuit City, for every movie on DIVX disc that sold for $2 on clearance after the product bombed.

Expect the full set of restrictions to be enabled only for Oscar screeners and things of that nature.

Technology driver

[MyIS]

As usual, the pron industry will decide which format wins.

Re:Technology driver

[ChadN]

I have discovered that DVD has easily more than enough picture clarity for my pron watching needs, and I'm not sure I am really looking forward to HD porn... Maybe I just got used to grainy porn, but the high color fidelity, high contrast, and glisteningly realistic porn of DVD (rather than old school film transfer) is already more than a bit off-putting for me, sometimes.

As for dual angles: I wish they'd pick one angle and stick to it (hey, no pun intended), rather than have a movie edited to constantly switch cameras on me. Whenever it switches to bung-hole cam, I hit the alternate angle button, and by the time it actually switches (a few seconds), the movie cuts back to brown-eye-vision. If they really want to advance the technology, they should build a "hairy, bobbing man-ass" pixelizer right into the DVDs, for us more reserved porn enthusiasts.

Re:Technology driver

[Kjella]

In that case, DVD will win. Seriously, only a few top producers like Hustler, Playboy and such appriciate HDTV, because they got the means to hire real beauties. Your average porn actress does *not* look more attractive in HDTV. The porn industry jumped all over DVD primarily because of random access. No more rewind/forward, easy looping, play at quarter/half speed and so on. Porn does not need to be watched in a linear, start-to-end fashion. What does HDTV bring to porn producers? Honestly, only much higher demands on them. But with HDTV cams at $1600 (Sony HDR-HC1) and dropping, perhaps it'll happen anyway. But I don't think the porn industry will lead it.

Re:Technology driver

[Ztream]

Yeah, but does anyone actually buy porn on a disc anymore? It would seem to me that the porn industry is already way beyond that, having offered downloadable and streaming content for years.

A reich that will last a thousand years!

[Siguy]

From the bottom of the article: But the bottom-line is that this is an exciting time to be developing next-generation high definition digital TV products that will take us well into the third millennium. ...Right. It's not like we all read news reports last week saying that Blu-Ray and HD-DVD would be replaced with HVDs within 10 years.

Re:A reich that will last a thousand years!

[Siguy]

I don't see how 10 years can be considered "well into" a thousand years.

If I'm saving up a million dollars to buy a date with Charlize Theron and I save 100 dollars, I'm not really that close, am I?
Sigh, not very close at all.

More info....

[Cherita Chen]

Everything you ever wanted to know about Blue Ray... http://www.blu-ray.com/

HD-DVD will win

[skyman8081]

I think that HD-DVD will win the end, simply because it is the inferior format. Which is usually is the one that wins in the end.

But Greedo shooting first must be nice at 1080p, either way.

This is great

[Depris]

I love it when major corporations fight large battles against each other instead of the consumer. ...Oh wait.

One question I have

[Hao Wu]

The pits on HD are 6-times the length of those on Blu-ray. So shouldn't there be less degradation, meaning a longer lifespan for the disk? (One would think that marks only 1/6 the size would deteriorate faster, no?)

Re:One question I have

[jZnat]

I guess you didn't notice, but the point behind Sony's tactics here is to provide an extremely fragile media so that you'll both not be able to back up your videos due to draconian DRM and you'll end up rebuying your videos every time they fuck up.

What about HD-DVD?

[Nermal6693]

OK, so 90 percent support Blu-Ray, but what percentage support HD-DVD? It won't be 10 % because some companies (eg. Apple) support both formats, and others probably don't support either of them.

Re:Blu Ray is lame technology

[wo1verin3]

>> instead of some incremental advance on blu-ray that gives us 100 GB or something lame like that.

* wolv looks at spindle of 100 DVD-R
* wolv looks at 5-pack of 100GB discs

Yes... damn them and they better not give us those lame 100 GB discs.

Re:Skip Blu-Ray - Go To 300GB Holographic Discs

[Tekoneiric]

I think this is going to be the view of a lot of people including myself. I just don't know how successful a new movie disk format will be given the time for general adoption by the masses vs speed of Internet connections. About the time it hits it's stride in the mass market, faster Internet connections and better on-demand video services will be available.
It took DVDs years to be accepted by the market. They'll have to offer much more with the movies to get the public to want to buy new copies of what they have. With DVD, it was all the extras and the supposedly non-degrading format. Since the consumer already has that with DVD, Blu-ray can't push that so they'll have to push the higher resolution but the general public doesn't really understand that much so it's something really abstract to them. Are they going to sell their soul (DRM) and empty their pocket book to replace their current movies? I doubt it.

The PS3

[wyldeone]

It has seemed pretty clear to me that Blue-ray will win, because thanks to the PS3, it defeats the chicken-and-egg problem of any new media, which is that no one will spend hundreds of dollars on a player for a new format when there are no movies, and no studio will produce movies if no players exist. Because the PS3 will put millions of blueray players in homes, compared with the meagre amount of early-adopters who will have hddvd players, studios will by neccessity go with blueray.

(Analog) HDTV... I will need HDMI??

[green pizza]

From what I gather, neither BluRay nor HDDVD will suport full HD resolution via component video, instead consumers will have to use HDMI for its HDCP copy protection.

Well, this is fine if I had a new TV... but instead I have a beautiful 3 year old rear projection HDTV that uses analog component inputs. This is currently connected to a HD DirecTV reciever and my DVD player. The DVD player is of course 480p but I do get as high as 1080i with some of the DirecTV channels.

So now what am I going to do when BluRay or HDDVD comes out and I want to view the full resolution siginal? What are the odds Sony will sell me new electronics to add HDCP digital to my TV? Will I have to use an illegal device to convert the digital stream to component for my TV?

DVD will win

[Aceticon]

In that case, DVD will win. Seriously, only a few top producers like Hustler, Playboy and such appriciate HDTV, because they got the means to hire real beauties. Your average porn actress does *not* look more attractive in HDTV. The porn industry jumped all over DVD primarily because of random access. No more rewind/forward, easy looping, play at quarter/half speed and so on. Porn does not need to be watched in a linear, start-to-end fashion. What does HDTV bring to porn producers? Honestly, only much higher demands on them. But with HDTV cams at $1600 (Sony HDR-HC1) and dropping, perhaps it'll happen anyway. But I don't think the porn industry will lead it

I have to agree on this one.

Furthermore, as i see it, the only possible benefict that moving to a new format can give to the porn industry is "high definition content". This might be a real benefict for the part of the industry that concentrates on showing naked physically perfect women - aka softcore - (or maybe not if they rely on the technology to disguise the imperfections) but what value does it add to the part of the industry that concentrates on the action - aka hardcore. After all, most hardcore movies are hardly known for the grandeur of the scenarios (or the depth of the stories, or the quality of the acting of their casting)

If you think back to the change from videotapes to DVDs, you can see clear beneficts to the industry:

• A DVD (in a standaard DVD box) will use 1/2 the space of a videotape. This means you can store and transport twice the number of DVDs than videotapes.
• Manufacturing of DVDs is cheaper and more reliable. It can be easilly outsourced and also scales up more easilly (pay another 200$, get 1000 DVDs more)
• DVDs (as long as packed in DVD boxes) are less likelly to get damaged on transport, especially due to external factors such as strong magnetic fields
• Lets also not forget that resistance to damage on transport and size (and weight) are also relevant for mail delivery

As i see it, none of these new technologies seems to bring any comparable beneficts for a business model such as the one from the porn industry.

Obvious beneficts for the traditional film industry, such as getting their customers to (again) buy their personal film library in another format, are hardly applicable to the porn industry - there is hardly a hot market for a new edition of "Debbie Does Dalas"

Consumers will return them

[tekrat]

Think about it. Joe Consumer sees the Blu_ray at "The Wiz" or "Best Buy", and drools "Wow, what a sharp picture!!!". He buys the unit, takes it home, pops in a standard DVD on his standard TV set, and then wonders where all the extra resolution is.

You think I'm kidding but I'm not. I deal with people who hook their DVD into the VHS machine and then wonder why they can't see the DVD's play -- because the VHS machine is still set to "tuner", when it needs to be changed to "Aux" or "line in".

Believe me. People will return these things like mad when they don't get the same quality of image they saw in the store. They are not being told that they have to buy new DVDs and New TVs as well as the new player. It's like saying "This new stereo requires that you throw away your old speakers and buy new speakers too, plus, you can't play your old CD's in it either!"

I predict phantom warehouses of returned merchandise to keep it off the books so the stocks don't tumble.

Trust me on this. People are stupid.

Obligitory /. comment

[StaticFish]

1. Invent a new, mostly unneeded format 2. DRM it to hell 3. ??? 4. Profit!

Totally missing the point

[droopycom]

You are totally missing the point.

The point of Blu-Ray is High Definition. So your analog video and audio outputs are not going to get you HD. You are not going to plug your HDTV to your DVD player using analog if you want HiDef.

The purpose of the DRM in Blu Ray is to block you from ripping the decrypted, compressed bitsream. If all you can do with BluRay is capture the analog, then we can already do better with regular DVD, so it would be a huge success for BluRay DRMs.

And if you know about what kind of DRM they are talking about, you would realize that its not going to be simple to permanently hack, even a software implementation.

Even if you are able to get the uncompressed HD image by hijacking your display device, watermark detection will make sure that your BluRay player keys will be revoked and wont be able to play new content.

The design of BluRay's DRMs has really been though out, and covers a lot of scenarios. Off course the implementations will have problems, bugs and exploits, but what it really comes down to is how well BluRay will keep track of compromised players, and how bad they are willing to perform key revocation.

Each player is supposed to have an unique ID, but I can see it from here: some manufacturer (cheap chinese for example) will mess up and produce 1000s of player with the same ID. When one of this player his compromised, 1000s of players will stop working with new releases if the studios revoke this key. 1000s of people will complain.

In the best case the manufacturer (contractually at fault for producing clones) will change the players.
In the worst case there will be lawsuits flying around between Studios, BluRay authorities, OEM, silicon vendors and consumers.

The good thing for the Japanese: the barrier of entry for cheap Chinese and Taiwanese manufacturer will be high. There will be the need to put in place "secure" production lines , making sure that keys are not leaked and that no clone are produced. The huge liabilities that the OEM will face if they screw up will be enough to give Pioneer, Sony etc.. time to make a buck on BluRay.

Re:Totally missing the point

[Tony Hoyle]

No, just that they won't transmit HD over it.

This is in the specs. All analogue outputs will be SD only.

What's in it for me?

[bhima]

So what's so great about Blu-Ray? Let's review the "Features"...

Somewhat higher capacity but not as much as initially promised
New and Improved Onerous DRM
Ancient encoding schema
Macrovision
Region encoding
Prohibited user operations
Language & subtitle choices which are limited to region

Can someone remind me why we want this?