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Fujifilm Blu-ray & HD DVD Media Mid 2006

Michael writes to tell us TheTechLounge is reporting that Fuji Film has announced the release of Blu-Ray and HD DVD media by mid 2006. From the article: "Consumers are driving demand for interactive gaming and entertainment applications that require enormous storage capacity," noted Steve Solomon, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Recording Media Division, Fuji Photo Film U.S.A. "Fujifilm coating technology will ensure the precision and quality of signal strength in these new media formats. The success of new recording technologies depends on the availability of affordable, reliable media and our scientists are already working to perfect next-generation storage solutions, long before they hit the market."

110 comments

  1. Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    I'll pick up a few when I go out for my copy of Duke Nuken Forever in my rocket car.

    1. Re:Cool by Mattman723 · · Score: 1

      Duke Nuken will definately come out before Duke Nukem

  2. Consumers Driving Demand? by TooMuchEspressoGuy · · Score: 2, Funny
    I'm sure they're *also* demanding the enormous hardware upgrade costs that will inevitably come with a new media standard.

    /sarcasm

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    1. Re:Consumers Driving Demand? by hal2814 · · Score: 1

      Well they can't exactly say that publisher demand is going to force this new format down our throats.

    2. Re:Consumers Driving Demand? by Kjella · · Score: 3, Informative

      I'm sure they're *also* demanding the enormous hardware upgrade costs that will inevitably come with a new media standard. /sarcasm

      2,5 years ago I bought a DVD burner for 2200,- NOK
      Now I bought a much better one for 400,- NOK

      Some of us are willing to pay. Yes, we're quite probably insane. I expect to get a Blu-Ray burner too before most. My 1920x1200 LCD screen doesn't have HDCP though, so well... if they want my money, it's not hard to get. I'm sure there will be other options if they aren't cooperative.

      --
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    3. Re:Consumers Driving Demand? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      2.5 years ago, I bought a dvd burner for $85 CDN

      last week, I bought a DVD burner for $60 CDN

      I think you got screwed.

    4. Re:Consumers Driving Demand? by converge18t · · Score: 1

      What the hell is an "expresso"?

    5. Re:Consumers Driving Demand? by camperslo · · Score: 1

      Blu-ray or HD DVD would be great for backup, if it is cheap enough.
      It might be wise to wait for some credible reports on the life and durability of the media though.

      I have no plans to buy movies in that format, at least not while there is effective DRM.
      If it won't do everything (including rip) that a DVD-R does, I won't pull a DVD-R drive to install Blu-ray.

      For now I'd rather see some cheap dual-layer DVD media. $2 a disc is still too much

      Of course my interest might be perked up a bit if Apple announces a cheap box with PVR, DTV/HDTV tuning, and Blu-ray record capability next week....

        iNtel iNside? Help! The Little Endians are after me!

  3. Cool MEDIA!! by TheDoctorWho · · Score: 2, Funny

    Where's my player/recorder/for $1000+ Alex?

    1. Re:Cool MEDIA!! by thaerin · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Which came first, the media or the hardware? I know they're wanting to get in on the bandwagon and let customers know that there'll be media for the hardware that should be out near or before the same period. Why can't they announce that they'll have some 16X DVD+/-R media sometime soon for the drive that I bought two months ago?

      --
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    2. Re:Cool MEDIA!! by ConsumerOfMany · · Score: 0
      Perhaps you should try Best Buy, Compusa, Circuit City, Radio Shack, CVS, Target, Sears, Pathmark, Footlocker.....

      I burn 16x DVD-R Verbatims and Memorex all the time and get them at the 1st 3 consistently, not to mention any of the online places.

  4. Good thing by JonN · · Score: 4, Informative
    To be honest, even though I have heard a lot of complaining and what not about the new DVD technology, I feel there is one part in TFA that shows that this is a necessary step, regardless of hardware upgrade costs and whatever else:

    With mainstream adoption of high definition (HD) content, television sets and recording devices, consumers and retailers will need new storage technologies to handle ever-expanding digitized files. For example, a two-hour program in HD creates a digital file roughly 15-25 Gigabytes in size, or the equivalent of more than 13 hours of standard-definition TV.

    I got a HDTV for the purpose of watching high definition television. True I can get HDTV cable, satellite, etc. however if I want to watch my favorite documentary, I would prefer it HD then standard, same goes for all the other movies I love to watch.

    --
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    1. Re:Good thing by Artie+Dent · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The only reason that I would be hesitant to buy some of this new technology is the competing features right now. It would be great to have the highest format available, but if the new players aren't mutually compatible (which really shouldn't be that hard to do) than one is likely to get stuck with the digital Betamax tapes. If there's any new technology that supports both formats, this would be extremely valuable and consumers wouldn't end up getting stiffed in the end. A dual-reading HD DVD reader/writer would sell like hotcakes methinks.

    2. Re:Good thing by Jah-Wren+Ryel · · Score: 5, Informative

      For example, a two-hour program in HD creates a digital file roughly 15-25 Gigabytes in size,

      They are lying through exaggeration. When most people talk about HD, they are referring to the ATSC standard which is MPEG2 at roughly 8.5GB/hour, tops - and is often null-padded to maintain a constant-bitrate, making the effective bitrate substsantially less than 8.5GB/hour. So a full 2 hour program is 17GB.

      When you look at the newer HD formats like Europe is going with, ones that implement MPEG4 or even some of the funky things that Microsoft has already released (Terminator2, bunch of IMAX, and some other hollywood/foreign movies in Europe) then it is relatively easy to get 2 hours of "HD content" on a regular single-layer DVD.

      So, if MPEG4 were used to record to permanent storage, regular recordable DVD's would be sufficient.

      --
      When information is power, privacy is freedom.
    3. Re:Good thing by MrBandersnatch · · Score: 3, Informative

      Indeed, I was making just the same point (less eliquently) earlier today.

      In fact, arnt they using H.264 for blu-ray? Id be interested to know how large a file would be for an hours HD content (on average). Roughly 2 GB would be my guess....I may have to actually try it :)

    4. Re:Good thing by goodcow · · Score: 0

      Terminator 2's Windows Media Video HD disc is indeed a double layer disc, and uses 6-7GB. It does not fit on a single layer DVD.

    5. Re:Good thing by Ironsides · · Score: 3, Insightful

      As (always) size depends on bitrate. H.264 is supposed to be able to encode at 1/4 the bit rate for equivalent quality. This is theoretical. It depends a lot on the encoder. Also, for some scenes you want higher bitrate. I have heard that HD DVDs (refering to HD, not the standard) might be up to a 40Mbps or more, even though broadcast HDTV is limited to 20Mbps (19.4 in reality, but I'm rounding). BTW, I have not yet heard of an h.264 encoder that will use the full capabilities of the codec yet and 20Mbps is the absolute minimum you need for HD, you really need more.

      So, given that, for HD equivalent, we are talking 5 to 10 Mbps for h.264 for HDTV. 10 Mbps = 4.5GB/hour. So a 2 hour movie in h.264 might fit on a standard DVD, but you wouldn't have room for anything but the video track. You still need to get audio on there which is another Gig (assuming you only have one). Extras and everything else will still need to be on a second disk.

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    6. Re:Good thing by Kjella · · Score: 4, Informative

      They are lying through exaggeration. When most people talk about HD, they are referring to the ATSC standard which is MPEG2 at roughly 8.5GB/hour, tops - and is often null-padded to maintain a constant-bitrate, making the effective bitrate substsantially less than 8.5GB/hour. So a full 2 hour program is 17GB.

      When you look at the newer HD formats like Europe is going with, ones that implement MPEG4 or even some of the funky things that Microsoft has already released (Terminator2, bunch of IMAX, and some other hollywood/foreign movies in Europe) then it is relatively easy to get 2 hours of "HD content" on a regular single-layer DVD.


      While you are correct, the ATSC standard is also quite heavily compressed compared to current DVDs. Notice that 1920x1080 = 6x 720x480. 54GB Blu-Ray = 6x 9GB DVD. If we are going for MPEG4 in Europe, I missed it completely. TV broadcasts in my country are none OTA, none cable, I think one pan-european on satellite. The first people see of HDTV will probably be the PS3. I don't think you can tell the difference between Blu-Ray and a 9GB WMV on a 1280x720 or 1368x768 TV though, and that's what 99% of the marketed HDTVs have. On the other hand, for example Terminator 2 was released 2,5 years ago and Microsoft has completely failed to bring HDTV movies to the mass market.

      Right now I don't think it's about the technology be it HD-DVD, Blu-Ray or WMV DVDs, it is about getting a solid player base deployed. Xbox 360 doesn't have the market share nor HD-DVD, Intel VIIV doesn't have enough consumer appeal, and where the fuck are the WMV DVDs, except a few "proof-of-concepts"? It all depends how long the PS3 will drag out though, they don't want to say anything at CES meaning it's quite a while off. All in all it seems to me they've all dropped the ball.

      --
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    7. Re:Good thing by tokenhillbilly · · Score: 1

      Actually, I believe that most DVD's today use VBR (Variable Bit Rate) "Program Streams" (not to be confused with MPEG-2 Transport Streams used by broadcasters) and therefore do not pad out the content. This is the same technique used for ATSC broadcast. The 19.2 Mbps equals roughly the 8.5 GBph or 20 GB for a movie with extras and multiple audio tracks.

      I saw an article that SONY had decided to stick with MPEG2 initially for HD DVD releases (of course they will use Blu-Ray format). Their thinking was that there is enough room on the disk, and MPEG-2 compression technology is mature compared to H.264 (MPEG-4). The HD DVD players (be they Blu-Ray or HD-DVD or both) will include MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 decoders as well as WM9 so they can change at a later date when the technology catches up.

    8. Re:Good thing by maynard · · Score: 1

      A dual layered disc may have enough storage space, but are you sure that DVD player would have the bandwidth from laser to data bus to pump an MPEG4 stream in real time? --M

    9. Re:Good thing by teh+moges · · Score: 1

      My god! Why hasn't anyone thought of this yet? The main problem is although the two formats are similar (blue lasers etc) they are mainly NOT compatable, and a dual read player would be priced close to the equivilent of buying the two seperate players and sticky-taping them together.

    10. Re:Good thing by glitch23 · · Score: 0

      I use ATI software to record at DVD compliant settings (MPEG2 @ 720x480) and I use a variable bitrate with the target at 6000kbps and a max of 8000kbps for the video bitrate. My audio bitrate is only 96kbps and I use MPEG 1 Audio Layer II (16bit stereo at 24hz sampling). An hour long show is approx. 3 gigabytes and once 18 minutes worth of commercials are removed the resulting file is approx. 1.9 gigabytes. Based on those numbers, switching to HD resolution would require a lot more than 2 gigabytes of data and for most shows you would probably want to up the audio quality as well however that wouldn't be a substantial increase unlike the video storage increase (due to higher resolution).

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    11. Re:Good thing by default+luser · · Score: 1

      Without question. The maximum read speed of DVD is 10Mbit/s.

      You ever see a Superbit DVD? They run the video at almost 9Mbps and use the other ~1Mbps for a DTS (754Kbps) and Dolby 5.1 (384Kbps) stream. There is nothing else on the disc.

      The Terminator 2 HD DVD does something similar: it use WMV9 for the video and audio, meaning much more quality for the same 10Mbit data rate, and the movie is the only thing on the disc. .h264 should improve things even more, once encoders get better.

      --

      Man is the animal that laughs.
      And occasionally whores for Karma.

    12. Re:Good thing by maynard · · Score: 1

      Interesting. I knew the maximum data transfer rate (though I thought it topped out ~9Mbits/sec), but didn't know the newer codecs could actually stream HD in such a tiny pipe. Guess it makes sense if MPEG2 streams in 19Mbits/sec though. Thanks for the reply BTW.

    13. Re:Good thing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're nearly correct. DVD-Video does indeed use multiplexed streams - .vob - typically comprised of a VBR MPEG2 elementary stream, a CBR Dolby AC3 (or two, or three...), several subtitle streams and various other crap. Digital TV broadcast multiplexes several MPEG transport streams within a fixed bandwidth, typically each multiplex will provide for 5+ TV channels with bandwidth assigned to each channel based on a real time analysis of the content of all of the channels (thus a channel showing an antiques show will lose out to a football match on another channel in the same mux. So bitrate IS variable, but with a dynamic (and unpredictable) rather than known ceiling.

      FWIW, Blu-Ray should provide plenty of capacity for 3 hours + of 1080p in EITHER H264 or MPEG2 (there's plenty of life left in the high level MPEG2 profile). Personally, I think Blu-Ray or HD-DVD will be the last physical formats we see, and he home experience should be a real gain over what we currently get at the movies. So much so that I expect the HD distribution of movies like this to SERIOUSLY damage box-office takings. Quite honestly, I don't see a need for much better than 1080p in the home, despite tentative moves toward 4K in production.

  5. I for one.. by doormat · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I, for one, welcome our new DRM overlords.

    --
    The Doormat

    If you're not outraged, then you're not paying attention.
  6. Good god by grasshoppa · · Score: 4, Funny

    That "article" is a press release. Written by Fugifilm, or someone that thinks very very highly of them.

    I mean, it's nice to know that they predict mid 2006 for the arrival of the media, but that's really the only nugget of news in both the article and /. summary.

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    1. Re:Good god by underpar · · Score: 4, Funny

      Only through leading chemical knowledge and manufacturing expertise can a company produce this precise a product with durability and performance, at a competitive cost.

      That's not marketing speak! That's honest journalism.

    2. Re:Good god by game+kid · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I take it more that mid-2006 will be more the arrival of the HD/BR media blitz than actual goods. I expect Spring (or even that holy, un-commercialized *ahem* day of Easter) to be a season where the media companies persuade people on TV (watch for changes in the Nightly News and TRL commercials!) that their formats, while restrictive to consumers (they won't say that out loud obviously) will be necessary for living.

      I expect something like "Unlike VHS and DVD, you'll be able to see the pimples on your younger brother while he does jump shots. See the threads on your daughter's bridal gown. See the implant scars on your favorite celebrity on the other side of the beach!" on commercials by then.

      --
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  7. WHA? by LividBlivet · · Score: 5, Funny

    "or 8,000 times more data than a human brain retains in a lifetime." Since when did the human brain retain 125GB of data? Anyone know where this comes from or did they just pull it out of their ass?

    1. Re:WHA? by drinkypoo · · Score: 3, Informative
      They just pulled it out of their ass. It looks a lot like the brain has a hologrammatic information storage system based on interference patterns between quantum fluctuations stored in calcium dendrites which are attached to neurons. As such, it is capable of storing representations of basically infinite amounts of information, much as a hologram does - if you remove part of a hologram, then the whole of the image is preserved, but the entire thing loses quality. If you remove part of the human brain, then the whole of memory is preserved, but it is also degraded (to some degree) as a whole.

      The 125 GB thing is as purely bullshit as the 30 Hz vision thing (it's a guideline, not a rule, and vision has nothing to do with scanning rates unless you're a computer) and should be disregarded completely. No one has any fucking idea what the upper limit on human information storage is.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    2. Re:WHA? by TheDoctorWho · · Score: 1

      I too question that the Human brain only 'retains' 125 GB of data. Is 'retain' the key word here? Stoopid.

    3. Re:WHA? by JonN · · Score: 3, Insightful
      http://www.sizes.com/people/brain.htm
      http://www.geocities.com/rnseitz/The_Great_Gray_Ra velled_Knot.htm

      "Robert Birge (Syracuse University) who studies the storage of data in proteins, estimated in 1996 that the memory capacity of the brain was between one and ten terabytes, with a most likely value of 3 terabytes. Such estimates are generally based on counting neurons and assuming each neuron holds 1 bit. Bear in mind that the brain has better algorithms for compressing certain types of information than computers do."

      "The human brain contains about 50 billion to 200 billion neurons (nobody knows how many for sure), each of which interfaces with 1,000 to 100,000 other neurons through 100 trillion (10 14) to 10 quadrillion (10 16) synaptic junctions. Each synapse possesses a variable firing threshold which is reduced as the neuron is repeatedly activated. If we assume that the firing threshold at each synapse can assume 256 distinguishable levels, and if we suppose that there are 20,000 shared synapses per neuron (10,000 per neuron), then the total information storage capacity of the synapses in the cortex would be of the order of 500 to 1,000 terabytes. (Of course, if the brain's storage of information takes place at a molecular level, then I would be afraid to hazard a guess regarding how many bytes can be stored in the brain. One estimate has placed it at about 3.6 X 10 19 bytes.)"

      Both from Google Answers

      --
      do.what.promptcmds
    4. Re:WHA? by Dog+Chapman · · Score: 1


      All the relevant information can be found here.

      --
      Born on a mountain, Raised in a cave!
    5. Re:WHA? by Lugae · · Score: 2, Funny

      Maybe it's stored in .DOC format.

    6. Re:WHA? by Kijori · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The question though isn't the maximum amount the brain can hold, but how much it can hold in a lifetime. Surely the number they quote could be an estimate of the amount the brain takes in in a lifetime, which you could estimate very roughly by recording all of someone's sensory inputs in a day and finding the size of the part they can recall, then extrapolating.
      I'm not saying that 125GB is by any stretch of the imagination accurate, but I don't think it's meant to reflect a maximum capacity.

    7. Re:WHA? by drinkypoo · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It's also a bunch of crap from that standpoint, because no part of the brain or body is digital, except maybe the fingers and toes, ha-ha. Seriously though folks, we have no digital inputs. You can't measure our information process in bits or anything based on bits. It doesn't work. We're not based on powers of two, or powers of ten, we're based on analog values.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    8. Re:WHA? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I call bullshit (in my professional opinion as a biochemist). "Quantum fluctuations stored in calcium dendrites"? Where the hell did you get such crap?

      That doesn't even make sense. But yet I see it has been modded up. Yay for /.

    9. Re:WHA? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, the amount of data that can be thruput by the brain can be measured in GB/s since the protien chains used to transmit the data although analog in nature have the 'same' storage capacity when calculated digitally as when measured in analog... and frankly the human brain has a max thruput more on the order of 50 GB/S so 125GB storage for the humain brain is obscenely low...

    10. Re:WHA? by pierpa · · Score: 1

      Johnny Mnemonic (1995) had a mere 320 GB memory stick in his head.

    11. Re:WHA? by GlassHeart · · Score: 1

      Just because something is inherently analog doesn't mean that you can't use digital units as an approximation. For example, NTSC television is analog, but we can say it's roughly 640x480x24, which is already an overestimate. Now, if you take the human ear as an example, we know roughly what frequencies it can hear, which is how we came up with the so-called CD-quality audio of 16 bit amplitude at 44 KHz. CDs are, of course, a commercial estimate, so a scientific one that satisfies even the most sensitive human ear is probably higher, but the concept remains the same.

    12. Re:WHA? by bhima · · Score: 1

      Obviously these people have never observed my ex-wife and her capacity to remember ancient transgressions or her ability to loose keys.

      --
      Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
    13. Re:WHA? by Shawn+Parr · · Score: 3, Informative
      which is how we came up with the so-called CD-quality audio of 16 bit amplitude at 44 KHz
      Actually 44.1 was choosen as it was originally supposed to be 48KHz, but at that sampling rate with the size of the disc decided upon there was not enough space for the then president of Sony's favorite recording of Beethovin's 9th Symphony to fit on a single disc.

      Sony engineers moved to 44.1KHz to make their president happy. It was as high resolution as they could get with the amount of time they needed. There were also battles to keep it at 16 bits as numerous entities wanted to use 14 bits. Thank goodness they didn't do that as that difference would be much more noticeable to the average listener than dropping from 48k to 44.1.

    14. Re:WHA? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      They just pulled it out of their ass.

      Ahh.. the irony. And +5 Informative. Slashdot can be really entertaining sometimes. (See other replies)

    15. Re:WHA? by Gnutte · · Score: 1

      That is totally incorrect! Everybody knows that a human brain can carry 160 GB. And if you do not like your childhood memories, you could go up to 320 GB.

    16. Re:WHA? by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      Well, the amount of data that can be thruput by the brain can be measured in GB/s since the protien chains used to transmit the data although analog in nature have the 'same' storage capacity when calculated digitally as when measured in analog

      This sentence does not evaluate well. Putting a word in quotes (or in this case, ticks) is not valid when the meaning of that word is what has to be established by your sentence!

      If you measure analog storage, then it's time-based and you have to have an idea of the signal loss, which we usually seem to measure in dB and varies with frequency. If you measure digital storage, then it's based on the number of bits. I believe I just explained why you simply cannot use digital measurements - no amount of wishing will make digital equivalent to analog! It doesn't matter if you have enough resolution to go out to the umpteenth decimal place, or if your sampling rate is incredible high, or whatever. The fact is that any digital representation is only a representation. No digitally-sampled signal can be reconstructed into the original analog signal. Period.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  8. What Would Bob Metcalfe Say? by DysenteryInTheRanks · · Score: 5, Funny
    I was at Best Buy and am pretty sure I overheard Bob Metcalfe going off to one of the sales staff about how much _both_ nex-gen DVD formats suck, since neither can handle the forthcoming Video Internet. He suggested that newer DVD formats be developed to take hold in the next few years.

    So I'd, you know, save my money for now. (You'll probably need it for a new operating system anyway, based on some other stuff he was saying.)

    1. Re:What Would Bob Metcalfe Say? by chris_eineke · · Score: 2, Funny

      Ladies and Gentlemen,

      Its gots us a New Meme.

      Sincerely,
          the Slashdot Hive Mind

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    2. Re:What Would Bob Metcalfe Say? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You were there too? Donny Baker was couple aisles over from Bob, telling a salesperson about how getting rid of the Playboy video tapes totally sucked ass, said the guy who made that decision must have rode the short bus in high school. He told him right to his face, I swear to God he did.

  9. Re:Montreal? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So what's the story on the new Yonah Blu-ray mini-book? Is it good or is it whack?

  10. "ensure the precision [...] of signal strength" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Wait, HD-DVD uses analog recording now? Floating point? How exactly do you make a binary signal more "precise"?

    1. Re:"ensure the precision [...] of signal strength" by Jafafa+Hots · · Score: 2, Funny
      "How exactly do you make a binary signal more 'precise'?"

      Green magic marker.

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      This space available.
  11. How about... by grub · · Score: 5, Interesting


    ...giving us reasonably priced dual-layer DVD-R first?

    --
    Trolling is a art,
    1. Re:How about... by slavemowgli · · Score: 2, Informative

      Once double-layer DVD-Rs won't be the "best" (i.e., biggest) media anymore, they'll drop in price pretty quickly.

      --
      quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
    2. Re:How about... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why would anybody do that? You must be a pirate if you are buying DVD media; so it is only natural that the movie industry recover their due, right?

      Of course, they'll be demainding similar usury from the new media, which will be probaby what, $15/disc?

    3. Re:How about... by redfieldp · · Score: 1

      Why would the release of one technology somehow be linked to another completely indpendent technology? Dual Layer DVD-R is part of the old standard of DVD's. Yes, it's nice to have the additional capacity, but it's pretty unrelated to the new standard of HD DVD's. I mean, the release of hybrid cars doesn't make regular cars cheaper - although it is an alternative. Just because two technologies are able to substitute each other doesn't mean that their production costs are linked.

    4. Re:How about... by Kjella · · Score: 1

      ...giving us reasonably priced dual-layer DVD-R first?

      Why? If it's easier to produce single layer discs, bring them on. And if you skip the 54GB Blu-ray DLs too and go straight for single layer UV discs or whatever, I'm fine with that too. The economics of pressed and burned discs are different, and there's no reason why we have to go through exactly the same stages.

      --
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    5. Re:How about... by grub · · Score: 1


      New formats won't play in current DVD players. Dual layer burners are the norm but the media is still far too expensive for everyday use.

      --
      Trolling is a art,
    6. Re:How about... by burndive · · Score: 1

      You, my friend, should never have successfully passed an economics class. We're not talking production cost here; we're talking percieved value, the English word for which is "price."

      In the case of a factory, typically factories operate at a profit in order to recoup the cost of building the factory plus a little more. When the product being produced has a "better" replacement available, the owners of the factory are going to continue to produce until the cost at which they can sell the goods goes below the *marginal* cost, which is the cost to the factory of producing a unit without reference to the initial investment in the factory, and sometimes a bit longer if they don't have anything lined up to do with their money and workers.

      This reduces the wholesale cost of outmoded goods.

      In retail, items are sold at a reduced profit, no profit, or even at a loss all the time. All it takes to trigger this is that the person/store in posession of the goods decides to get as much money as they can out of the goods now in order to invest in more profitable goods.

      This reduces the retail cost of outmoded goods.

      If I have a truckload of Dual Layer DVD Burners in stock that I bought for $50 each, I can sell 90% of them for $40 tomorrow and also draw customers into the store, I can sell half of them over the next week at $50, or I can sell 10% of them over the next month at $60. The operative question is, do I have something better to do with my money right now?

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    7. Re:How about... by redfieldp · · Score: 1

      Your post implies that when a new product comes to market, a series of events occurs that "reduces the wholesale cost of outmoded goods".

      What you completely ignore is that the OP states "How about...giving us reasonably priced dual-layer DVD-R first?" (my emphasis). This implies that they would like market prices of Dual Layer drives to drop BEFORE the advent of HD DVD's, completely circumventing the market forces you describe in your post.

      Given that, the OP does relate to production costs (ie. the cost of making a Dual Layer drive TODAY) and not to the market fluctuations after the new drives have ever been introduced.

      How about next time you make a post using your Econ 101 text book, you actually spend some time reading the OP rather than making condescending academic insults?

    8. Re:How about... by burndive · · Score: 1
      Why would the release of one technology somehow be linked to another completely indpendent technology?

      This is the qustion I was answering. The question was followed by an analogy speculating that the price of regular cars would not be effected by hybrid cars entering the market, which, according to economists, is false.

      My response does address the OP's question that you have quoted. He is dissappointed that the price of DVD Burners isn't going to be as cheap as he wants them to be *before* a competing format enters the market. Part of the phemonemon I was explaining is that the entrance of a a replacement product into a market drives costs down. I have no idea what the OP would consider to be a reasonable price, but odds are that he would get one sooner with the advent of HD-DVD and Blu-Ray than without it. Market forces will push the price down, which will reduce the profit margins, in turn forcing producers to either innovate more efficient manufacturing techniques or leave the market for greener pastures.

      The OP's question, "How about...giving us reasonably priced dual-layer DVD-R first?" reflects an unreasonable expectation based upon an (apparently) incomplete understanding of the economic principles taught in every Economics class. I don't have any evicence that the OP doesn't understand economics, in fact, I think he does, and his post was simply the venting of frustration with the way things work and their effects on his wallet.

      --
      ...because "hacker" sounds way sexier than "code drone."
    9. Re:How about... by glitch23 · · Score: 0

      New technology should make the DL disc price plummet so you will get the rock bottom price of DL discs and the new blu-ray discs at the same time. What a deal!

      --
      this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom. -- Lincoln, Gettysburg Address
  12. Fuji and the Brain by digitaldc · · Score: 3, Interesting

    "A single terabyte of holographic disc storage is roughly the equivalent of 16 days of continuously running DVD movies, or 8,000 times more data than a human brain retains in a lifetime."

    It's funny that the same human brain that created this breakthrough can't match its capacity, but it is still smart enough to create a device that can.

    --
    He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
    1. Re:Fuji and the Brain by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's not really funny at all if you cna differentiate between knowledge, wisdom, and reasoning. We all have our limits. Unfortunately the storage capacity of our brains that is given in the article is pure crap and goes against all common knowledge as others have already pointed out.

    2. Re:Fuji and the Brain by IAmTheDave · · Score: 2, Interesting
      It's funny that the same human brain that created this breakthrough can't match its capacity, but it is still smart enough to create a device that can.

      This is the entire human/machine paradox wrapped up into one sentence. We posess the innovative genius to eventually create machines which are for all intents and purposes, smarter than we are. Even though these machines are smarter, will they ever match human ingenuity? Are we as a race ready to accept man-made devices that become smarter than the man who created them?

      --
      Excuse my speling.
      Making The Bar Project
    3. Re:Fuji and the Brain by everphilski · · Score: 1

      You can't memorize the entire contents of the national archive, but you could read a good chunk of (the public vaults) in your lifetime. There is a difference between processing and retention (the exact word they used). You read shakespeare and you will remember the plot, and a few good lines. But you couldn't recite it word for word, or remember which line ended which page, etc. The brain has a humungous capacity, someone pegged it once at between 1 and 10 terabytes (whether they are right or not is still to be determined) however we barely scratch the surface. We only use a few percent of that.

      -everphilski-

    4. Re:Fuji and the Brain by digitaldc · · Score: 1

      "Even though these machines are smarter, will they ever match human ingenuity? Are we as a race ready to accept man-made devices that become smarter than the man who created them?"

      Machines will never be as innovative as humans simply for the fact that they can't love, feel pain, or get drunk.
      See? I did learn something from all those years of watching Star Trek.

      --
      He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
    5. Re:Fuji and the Brain by Jerry+Rivers · · Score: 1

      "Machines will never be as innovative as humans simply for the fact that they can't love, feel pain, or get drunk."

      Yet. I'm not sure I want to underestimate human ingenuity that much. I'm not prepared to say "never." If life follows science fiction there will indeed one day be artificial humans that can do those things.

      --
      The pursuit of absolute tolerance leads to the most rigorous and ludicrous intolerance. - REX MURPHY
    6. Re:Fuji and the Brain by digitaldc · · Score: 1

      "Yet. I'm not sure I want to underestimate human ingenuity that much. I'm not prepared to say "never." If life follows science fiction there will indeed one day be artificial humans that can do those things."

      Blade Runner (Director's Cut) fan I see :)

      --
      He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
    7. Re:Fuji and the Brain by GlassHeart · · Score: 1
      It's funny that the same human brain that created this breakthrough can't match its capacity, but it is still smart enough to create a device that can.

      Just like we have nutcrackers that can do what our fingers alone cannot. The more we understand our brains, the less astonishing it would seem to beat it. Remember, we already have cheap machines that can outplay almost every last human at chess, as well as even cheaper machines that can multiple big numbers faster than any human can*.

      * note that human-calculator races tend to compare the speed of mental arithmetic with the speed of pressing buttons, not the speed of electronic calculation itself.

    8. Re:Fuji and the Brain by dal20402 · · Score: 1
      can't love, feel pain, or get drunk

      My Mac OS 9 box had no trouble acting drunk.

    9. Re:Fuji and the Brain by hackstraw · · Score: 1

      We posess the innovative genius to eventually create machines which are for all intents and purposes, smarter than we are.

      So, we've used levers and machines that are much stronger than our weak bodies that can lift hundreds of tons. Even a baseball bat swung by someone is more likely to kill them than their bare fists

      Even though these machines are smarter, will they ever match human ingenuity? Are we as a race ready to accept man-made devices that become smarter than the man who created them?

      Again, the bat does not have the desire to smash a person. It takes a special person for that desire, or a special need :)

      Machines at most can perform repetitive operations and raw logic, but they don't care about being right or wrong, they don't care about dominating the world, they don't do anything that they are not told to do.

      Actually, people don't do anything that they aren't told to do either. I have more problems with people than machines.

    10. Re:Fuji and the Brain by SouthOfHeaven · · Score: 1

      So you say i cannot watch 16 days of DVDs ?? hopefully they will put that on a warning sticker when they come up with the said medium.

      WARNING: Do not attemt to watch this whole disk it will cause you to forget everything you know.

  13. No we aren't by squoozer · · Score: 3, Interesting

    "Consumers are driving demand for interactive gaming and entertainment applications that require enormous storage capacity,"

    Eh? What is this guy going on about? The number of pieces of media, excluding films, that come in DVD format is tiny. I admit that I haven't bought many games recently but I don't own a single one in DVD format and I don't remember seeing any that did. As for music - well enough said. So I ask you: what are there entertainment applications (not it's plural) that require massive storage?

    The other thing I have a problem with is the way they bang on about perfecting the media before it hits the market. Isn't that what's supposed to happen anyway? Perhaps we have all just become used to things not working for the first couple of releases.

    --
    I used to have a better sig but it broke.
    1. Re:No we aren't by nutshell42 · · Score: 1
      Eh? What is this guy going on about? The number of pieces of media, excluding films, that come in DVD format is tiny.

      Apart from a few hundred million PS2 and Xbox games sold over the last 5 years.

      I admit that I haven't bought many games recently but I don't own a single one in DVD format and I don't remember seeing any that did.

      Part of the reason could be that you're living in the US. e.g. from what I've heard Civ4 ships on 2 CDs in the US and 1 DVD in Europe (well at least I've got a DVD and I didn't buy some sort of special edition). There are 2 reasons for this:

      a) If there's only one publisher for all of Europe, they don't have to print different editions for different languages.
      b) US customers are morons. Sorry but at least it seems that way. I've read dozens of posts on /. from otherwise reasonable people that ended with "and I've no interest in spending all that money just to be able to play a game" (yes, those $15 are gonna kill you), once someone even brought up the classic "why should I pay $20 to buy a 16x DVD if I can have a 52x CD for the same price" (head, meet wall)

      --
      Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
    2. Re:No we aren't by toleraen · · Score: 1

      The number of pieces of media, excluding films, that come in DVD format is tiny.

      You might want to take a look something called the "video game console" market. The most recent home system devices (read: the last 5 years) release a significant portion of their games on DVD. As a multi-billion dollar business, it could be something worth investigating.

    3. Re:No we aren't by squoozer · · Score: 1

      Nope, I'm in the UK. I hadn't realized that Civ4 shipped on DVD (I was looking at buying it the other day as well). Yes there are a few games that ship on DVD but compared to the number that ship on CD it's tiny. Even when it does ship on DVD I'll bet that it only uses around half the space available. That then brings us round to my original question: what needs all this extra space? If most games now fit easily into 4GB why do we need 40 or more?

      I'm not trying to say 4GB should be enough for anyone forever, that would be stupid, but I can't help feeling that they are trying to whip up support (again) for something that really isn't in demand. It's like bigger hard drives. At around 120GB I just gave up caring because I have never managed to fill a 120 GB drive on a personal machine (on a server it's a different matter).

      --
      I used to have a better sig but it broke.
    4. Re:No we aren't by nutshell42 · · Score: 1
      Sorry, I'm bitter about the DVD thingy because I liked high quality cutscenes in PC games when they still existed. Nowadays the presentation of PC games is shit compared to console games and it's not just the fault of the budgets. Also I'm glad that I no longer (I assume/hope/pray that Civ4 isn't just an exception) have to pay 10 EUR more just to be spared the usually dreadful translation.

      I doubt that aside from a few Japanese RPGs and some very extensive simulations (GT4 iirc was a tight fit and it uses a dual layer DVD) we'll see many games over the next 2-3 years that really needed a Blu-Ray, but texture size is gonna go up drastically with the new consoles and procedural textures mean less cpu time for polygons so unless there's a bandwidth bottleneck as with the PS2 (don't know, haven't done any calculations) developers are going to find ways to use up those 25 Gigs.

      But you're right, I think for some current uses (especially video) BD is necessary (HD needs a lot of space despite the claims by some "experts" on /. how they fit 20 hours of super-high-for-real-definition on a CD with that new age246 thingy; some new games too; TV series are taking up too much shelf space;...) but I think for those uses HD or BD will be what the CD is for music i.e. everything most people will ever need. While I also won't be so stupid and imitate Bill Gates, I think only new forms of content (say 3D, that could blow up movie sizes by an order of magnitude or two; or perhaps visual books - an audio book with machinima for illustration purposes =) will create demand for an eventual successor to BD/HD.

      At around 120GB I just gave up caring because I have never managed to fill a 120 GB drive on a personal machine (on a server it's a different matter).

      "The Next Big Thing" are entertainment centers, a field where you can still use every additional Gig you can get. BD seems to have included mandatory managed copy. Let's say 20Gig a movie, 300MB for a FLAC encoded CD, and suddenly those 500Gig disks come in handy. WinFS will lead to a new approach to storage and you're probably going to delete less and archive more. Of course none of this is necessary and you could save a lot of space with some house (or disk)-cleaning and/or reencoding but why go through the hazzle when you can buy a terabyte for $80.

      --
      Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
  14. Re:Easy way to read by vertinox · · Score: 1

    "or 8,000 times more data than a human brain retains in a lifetime." Since when did the human brain retain 125GB of data? Anyone know where this comes from or did they just pull it out of their ass?

    Step 1: Go to Library Of Congress
    Step 2: Start reading...
    Step 3: Tell us when you are done.

    --
    "I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
    -Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
  15. HVD due Q3 2006... by MrBandersnatch · · Score: 3, Interesting

    According to an article on wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holographic_Versatil e_Disc) a 300GB HVD disk is due Q3 2006 and an 800GB disk in 2007. If the cost of HVD manages to reach a similar price point to Blu-Ray/HD-DVD then both these media are going to end up dead in the water.....

    1. Re:HVD due Q3 2006... by superpulpsicle · · Score: 2, Interesting

      The original holographic storage was supposed to be in the form of a cube. After the 300GB HVD "disk" we are just scratching the surface of what's to come.

    2. Re:HVD due Q3 2006... by Kjella · · Score: 1

      Does it have content? The production lines? Most importantly, how insanely expensive is it? Quote:

      However, an HVD reader currently costs approximately US$15,000 , and a single HVD disk currently costs approximately US$120.

      READER costs 15k? I'm sure burning a holodisc is far more complex than one/two layer discs, so I wouldn't dare to ask how much that costs. Blu-Ray burners have already been shipping in Japan at $5k range for special interest markets. Estimated cost for the PS3 BD-player is $100. HVD is off by a factor of at least 100:1.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    3. Re:HVD due Q3 2006... by LordKronos · · Score: 1

      Reread the numbers in that Wiki entry carefully. That's 300 gigabit and 800 gigabit (or 37.5 gigabyte and 100 gigabyte).

    4. Re:HVD due Q3 2006... by MrBandersnatch · · Score: 1

      The notation there used for the sizes is somewhat confusing, however given the source for that article (I cant find the original press release) refers to uses Terabytes and Tb, I thinks its safe to say that it is as I originally stated, GB (and hopefully GiB).

  16. So what by Saint37 · · Score: 1

    If the industry can't agree on the DRM that will be put in place what does it matter if panasonic has players and fuji has media?

    http://www.stockmarketgarden.com/

  17. first videos to be released on Blu-ray by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    http://www.videobusiness.com/article/CA6296434.htm l

    Rings, Harry and Kong to go high-def
    As studios dish slate news at Consumer Electronics Show
    By Scott Hettrick 1/3/2006

    JAN. 4 | The Mission: Impossible and Lord of the Rings trilogies as well as Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and Peter Jacksons King Kong all will be released on high-definition digital discs this year.

    At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week, almost every studio is expected to announce the first slate of high-def digital disc titles coming to market in 2006. More than 75 new and old movies and TV shows are expected with the introduction of the first DVD player, with dozens and maybe hundreds more by the end of the year.

    Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, the studio with the most at stake in its Blu-ray Disc format, is being the most aggressive with plans to introduce the upcoming theatrical release Underworld Evolution day-and-date with the DVD in late spring/early summer. The studio will have 20 Sony and MGM titles including XXX and Robocop ready to go even earlier, when players are expected to be released as early as March.

    Sony also will release four catalog titles each month beginning this summer, every new theatrical release day-and-date on DVD and Blu-ray Disc and the first high-def version of a TV series to be announced so far from a major studio, Stargate: Atlantis.

    Additionally, Sony is going out on a limb and committing to the debut of two titles--Bridge on the River Kwai and Black Hawk Down--using the 50GB dual-layer Blu-ray Disc, which has been running behind development time from the standard 25GB single-layer disc.

    The studio also is announcing plans Wednesday for summer titles featuring advanced interactive gaming using the BD Java software, which has sparked some dissension from Hewlett-Packard within the Blu-ray Disc camp. SPHE president Ben Feingold said the process is too far along now to turn back and not use BD Java.

    As for the 50GB dual-layer disc, Feingold said both movies have long running times as well as hours of bonus features that the studio has produced but been unable to release on DVD because they take up too much space.

    Sony also will take advantage of the enormous additional capacity to use uncompressed audio on some of its Blu-ray Disc titles, including two Sony/MGM titles in the first wave--The Fifth Element and The Last Waltz. Sony execs say that even movie theaters do not offer uncompressed digital audio.

    Feingold said he expects to ship 50,000 to 100,000 units of each of the first titles, as compared to the 60,000 or so units for each of the first five movies shipped for PSP.

    Other Blu-ray Disc backers, 20th Century Fox, Lionsgate and Paramount, announced their lineup of titles as well. Disney will announce its titles and other plans at a Blu-ray Disc media event at CES on Thursday evening.

    20th Century Fox Home Entertainment president Mike Dunn said the studio will have five titles, including Fantastic Four and Ice Age, in stores two weeks prior to the release of the first Blu-ray Disc player by any manufacturer. Fox will release 20 titles by summer, also debuting most new theatrical titles day-and-date on DVD and Blu-ray.

    Each title will have at least one feature unique to the new format and will include 10% to 20% of the bonus features from previously released or new DVDs and 80% new bonus elements, such as advanced branching and menus and including added value programming accessed through connections to other devices such as the Internet.

    Fox also is preparing two sci-fi titles to be announced later that will take advantage of the extra capacity of the 50GB dual-layer disc.

    We have material that we set aside a long time ago for these, Dunn said. Weve been working up to this and cataloging content for two years.

    Lionsgate will release its traditional new-format driver Terminator 2 among its fir

  18. See ya in '08 by RyoShin · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Perhaps I'm one of the few that prefer riding the middle of the wave of technology, or the fact that I'm relatively non-wealthy prohibits me from buying the latest and greatest, but I'm going to wait a while for this to work itself out.

    Balancing between DVD+ and DVD- is a pain enough as it is; having worked at both Best Buy and Wal-mart (in Electronics) for a short amount of time, the most asked question about writable media is "What's the difference between + and -?" followed by "Which one should I get?". It helps that most DVD burners are dual-format, so there isn't much of a worry about which one to buy, so after the initial explanation it isn't that much of a problem. (DVD Recorders, for TVs, tend to stick to one format for the cheaper ones, though I've found that some can record both even if they only list one.)

    If HD DVD and Blu-ray are a format war, I'm living in Switzerland. Unless they create at least a reader that can read both formats (I haven't heard of one, yet), one will come out on top. In the mean time, I am not going to spend my money on media and a player that may quickly go defunct, especially if the various Hollywood studios split on which format to use (assuming they don't do both.)

    I can see this being a big headache for stores- so many ill-informed (or just ignorant) consumers are going to buy one of the new discs, take it home, and be utterly miffed that it won't play on their player. They'll take it back, throw a tantrum, then pick out a different movie to exchange- and it will be in the same format as the one they just returned.

    I figure it will take about two years for one of these formats to come out the winner. Unfortunatly, Sony's Blu-ray will probably take the cake, as it's being incorporated in the PS3, which could sell like the PS2 at its release. Hello, Mr. DRM!

    In the mean time, since most companies will probably be wary over the format war, most movies/series will still be released on regular DVD, to the delight of myself and most consumers. It works great. The quality of DVDs are fine, in my opinion, and I don't have to worry about buying a new player (or three).

    The best ending would be that both formats fail, and I don't think this is out of the question. While the "hipsters" out there may want bigger and better, middle America is a-ok with DVDs, and will probably still be by 2008. With both formats failed, either the various companies will realize that they need one standard and work together on that, or we'll just replay the whole thing over again.

    1. Re:See ya in '08 by MrP-(at+work) · · Score: 1

      This is why HD-DVD should win.

      If HD-DVD wins, you don't need buy a new player. Just play the HD-DVDs in your current DVD player. Then in 2008 when the HD-DVD players are cheap, you can buy a new HD-DVD player and you'll already have a nice collection of HD-DVDs.

      Blu-Ray REQUIRES a new player, HD-DVD is backwards compatible (it contains a non-HD-DVD layer)

      --
      [an error occurred while processing this directive]
    2. Re:See ya in '08 by spacefight · · Score: 1, Funny
      If HD DVD and Blu-ray are a format war, I'm living in Switzerland.
      Welcome to Switzerland :)
    3. Re:See ya in '08 by Txiasaeia · · Score: 1

      Link? Proof?

      --
      Condemnant quod non intellegunt.
    4. Re:See ya in '08 by mamer-retrogamer · · Score: 1
      Unless they create at least a reader that can read both formats (I haven't heard of one, yet), one will come out on top.
      Not necessarily. See DVD-Audio vs. SACD.
      --
      Schrödinger's cat is not amused—maybe.
    5. Re:See ya in '08 by 16K+Ram+Pack · · Score: 1
      DVD offered a performance benefit to everyone. HD-DVD/Blu-Ray don't.

      Right now, the TV equipment is similar to the broadcast/media quality. To enjoy HD-DVD/Blu-Ray, you'll need a new TV.

      Some gadget freaks will pay up, but most people won't want to put down a grand just to watch films in higher quality. They'll wait until their TV dies and then get a new one.

      I don't think the takeup is going to be like DVD was.

    6. Re:See ya in '08 by WuphonsReach · · Score: 1

      IIRC, there was also talk of adding a DVD layer to BluRay disks. So they would have the same capability as the HD-DVD discs in that regards.

      Was a story here a few months ago where the "DVD compatible layer" idea was discussed...

      --
      Wolde you bothe eate your cake, and have your cake?
  19. DRM and The BluRay by eliminated · · Score: 1

    I agree with the other person, I also enjoy the DRM warlords *wink wink* The sole purpose of DRM is to prevent us from so-called pirating movies/games/television shows. Well here comes a new contender, BluRay with its storage capacity to fit HD TV and movies on; well since DRM is a total POS, what's the point of Panasonic ever coming out with a BluRay writer if Microsoft and Sony *one of the primary sources of funding for BluRay* has complete control over it. Its another horrible attempt at controlling the market by Sony, just like with their UMD disks that came out with the PSP. With this, I am still buying a PlayStation 3, because the 360 just doesn't cut it.

  20. Exaggeration? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Grandparent Post:

    For example, a two-hour program in HD creates a digital file roughly 15-25 Gigabytes in size

    Parent Reply:

    They are lying through exaggeration ... So a full 2 hour program is 17GB


    Uh, last I checked 17GB was indeed between 15-25GB. And in any case it's more than a normal dvdr can hold anyway, so your point is hardly insightful or informative. Plus there is the issue of whenever (if ever) we start seeing a reasonable amount of 1080p content at high bitrates. Joe avg consumer is already happy with DVD, so the current target isn't someone who can compress the hell out of their HD content to make it fit the existing standard, it's those who want to push the envelope. Heck, we're not even talking about all the additional content that comes with videos these days. Both consumers and manufacturers would love to have a movie in 720/1080p with all the extra good bits and have to deal with only a single disc.

  21. Ram Doubler by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    The Human Brain can take up 125 gb of starage unless you get a ram doubler, this will enable a maximum starage capacity of 300gb, but you have to watch out for memory leakage if you dont offload it in 24hours

  22. Your sig by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    "The Internet treats censorship as a malfunction and routes around it." ~ John Perry Barlow

    Actually, that quote is from John Gilmore. In his piece Censorship 2000, John Perry Barlow himself attributes it to Gilmore speaking at the Second Computers Freedom and Privacy Conference.

  23. more waiting? by ShaneThePain · · Score: 0

    last year they kept telling us we would have blu-ray stuff by the end of the year. why is this taking so long?

    --
    Fascism is the greatest political ideology ever conceived. Sorry.
  24. Whoa, what's that you say? by kripkenstein · · Score: 2, Informative

    Disclaimer: I am a doctoral student in a computational neuroscience program.

    1) "quantum fluctuations" - there is no sizeable portion of the neuroscience community that believe this. Quantum effects are considered negligible for neuronal behavior.

    2) "calcium dendrites which are attached to neurons" - dendrites are PARTS of neurons (the part that gets input from other neurons), not something attached to them. Yes, certain dendrites are sensitive to calcium. But other neurotransmittors are just as important.


    But the end seems about right. We have no good idea of the limits of human memory. But also, we have next to no idea of how the brain stores memories. What you mention here is a wildly speculative theory.

  25. I wonder. by millennial · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Nero Burning ROM 7 supposedly has support for Blu-Ray discs (you can select it as a disc type when burning a disc image). I wonder if it actually supports them, or if it's just a placeholder for future functionality?

    --
    I am scientifically inaccurate.
  26. Worthwhile by Gogo0 · · Score: 1

    So does anyone else with an HDTV not care about these HD formats?

    I have a very nice home theatre and a huge HDTV, but I am not going to pay out the nose for something JUST because it will be in HD (*coughXbox2*).

    First off, these first gen players are going to suck. First gen DVD players? They dont upscale, they dont have any advanced features, you wont find any with DVI or HDMI, and the PQ is sorely lacking in comparison to even a cheap DVD player today. It WILL be the same with these new HD players.

    Secondly, how much content do we have that is 100% digital?
    Star Wars prequels, LotR, and a few other big-name flicks are the only movies that are going to take any advantage of HD. The odds that studios are going to dig out the masters for all these old movies like they did for DVD are slim -theyre just going to re-release their old movies and claim that they are HD (which technically they will be, but never were to begin with), and these wont look any better than they do now on a good tv with a good upscaling DVD player. I'm not going to rebuy all my DVDs just because they were upscaled to 720p/1080i/1080p in a studio rather than by my DVD player.

    I will get a HDDVD/Blu Ray player eventually, but even as a videophile, audiophile, and someone who spends way too much money on all that crap, I dont see any reason to have an HD format replace DVD at this time, much less spend more than $300 on a first to fourth gen product.

    1. Re:Worthwhile by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wow, how wrong can one post be?

      The first players WILL exploit your extant HDTV better than anything else; they WILL have HDMI or DVI (players, TVs, amps are already on the market with such abilities) content IS available (clue: movies shot on 35mm film have more than enough information content to exceed 1080p scanning, post and distribution - it'll be a good long time before digital cameras displace 35mm). 4K scanning is already in use for some projects.

      You'll buy an HD disc player as soon as you see your pet film in better-than-cinema quality for 25 bucks.

  27. truth...? by dartarrow · · Score: 1

    I work with one of the founding company of BluRay. For both business and technological reasons we will not begin production on end consumer blu-ray til '07 which means it will probably begin popularity in '08 provided all else goes very well. Shift from DVD has not started, in fact we have *just* started production on a next generation DVD-RW which comes with 400 gb HDD. A batch of 700 gb HDDs arrived coupla months ago for testing but never passed for production. However prototypes on bluray has been around since 2003. We have one of the first models sitting on display somewhere around.

    My point is: even the big companies (at least the one i'm in) are doubtfull of a proper strategy with BluRay. I dont think the following model works.
    1. Make BluRay
    2. ????
    3. PROFIT!!!

    --
    I love humanity, it is people I hate
    1. Re:truth...? by ShaneThePain · · Score: 0

      i dont believe you. (its been 18 seconds since you hit "reply") blah blah blah. waiting waiting waiting...

      --
      Fascism is the greatest political ideology ever conceived. Sorry.
  28. Not true by ElephanTS · · Score: 2, Interesting

    44.1kHz was chosen because it's a sub-carrier of the PAL frequency used to broadcast TV in Europe/Asia. There are two types even: pro and consumer (44100 and 44109 I think but I forget the details). It was to make the broadcast of digital sound (Like NICAM) easier to do over analogue pictures. Nobody predicted digital pictures at that time, just digital sound. What you've said is an urban myth.

    --
    spoonerize "magic trackpad"