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."

Comments

Good thing

[JonN]

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.

Re:Good thing

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

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.

Re:Good thing

[Kjella]

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.