Slashdot Mirror
Toshiba Develops 3-Layer DVD and HD-DVD
morpheus83 writes, "Toshiba, in collaboration with disk manufacturer Memory Tech Japan, has successfully combined a HD-DVD and DVD to a single 3-layer, twin-format disk. The resulting disk conforms to DVD standards so it can be played on DVD players, and also on HD-DVD players after upgrading the firmware. The disk can have either Single Layer DVD (4.7GB) + Dual Layer HD DVD (30GB); or Dual Layer DVD (8.5GB) + Single Layer HD DVD (15GB). There will not be a long wait as the new disk can be produced on the existing HD-DVD mass production line with minor process additions."
Amazing, who would have though that both Sony Stock and Sony Executives would accelarate at the same rate on their way down.
Think of the Children; Sleep with your Sister
...considering that Sony has been touting the 25-ish Gigs of BluRay space as a must-have for next-generation gaming. This will, if I understand TFA correctly, make the gap between DVD and BlueRay considerably smaller, making it easier to fit XBox360 games onto one single disk.
Say for example you're married like I am. You could use the DVD format for kids videos, pictures etc etc and install a DVD only drive on your wife's machine. Your machine however could have a HD-DVD drive and the HD-DVD side could be your porn, and she'd never know. This, by far, will save many marriages that are destroyed by porn.
They came up with this for SACD, and that went all of nowhere. You could use the same disc for CD players and SACD. I think the SACD was just a DVD layer anyway. Thanks probably more to licensing than manufacturing costs.
I think we just figured out who's going to win in HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray...
PS3... Where is the Blu-Ray Advantage now?
I'm not an ubergeek (just a geek) so I don't know technical details of all of this, but what are the implications of this on Blueray?
Can the Blueray camp just create the same thing? I know that the discs are more complicated and harder to produce. Will that hinder a similar approach?
A lot of people have been saying that the format war doesn't offer enough for consumers. It seems to me that if I could buy a DVD now that also had HD version on it then I'd start stock piling my HD library now and wait for the players to become more reasonable. If studios are willing to put out these discs for $20 then this could be the difference maker and push HD-DVD to the finish line to beat out Blueray. This assumes that Blueray can't do the same thing (dunno) and that the movie studios would be willing to put the consumers interests at the forefront (ok, stop laughing).
Oh, no, consumers won't find this confusing at all.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
Does this mean that to burn a movie that will be compatible on both systems, I would have to burn it twice? I certainly hope there is some software out there to do this, but then again...would that mean that it supports upconverting a DVD AND downconverts an HD-DVD, depending on the format of the original media?
Ohhh wait, it's DRM'd...never mind!
Going by the number of stretched video I've seen from users who don't know the difference between widescreen/letterboxed/4:3/16:9/pan-and-scan, (just when you thought "but I don't like the horizontal black bars at the top and bottom" was dying out on 4:3 screens, the very same who now have 16:9 screens are sying things like "I don't like the vertical black bars on the left and right!")...
The dirty little secret of this technology is that it's just a regular DVD, but you can convince yourself that it's HD-DVD when you play it back on an HD-DVD player... on your NTSC display. Or something.
(And if you can't immediately tell the difference, I'm sure there's a guy in a blue shirt who'll be happy to sell you some triple-layer Monster Cables that'll cure what ails ya. "Only triple-layer monster cables are compliant with triple-layer HD, sir, and can we interest you in the extended warranty on your new cables?")
This is cool, sort of. Assuming all readers can read it.
But, think of the children!
Have you read my journal today?
Sacd wasn't really ever a real format though. It's easier for someone to buy a HD-DVD player for their home entertainment system, rather than replace every cd player in their house to have a player that would play the bug-laiden SACD discs. Same with those p.o.s. dual disc things. If the studios made every dvd HD-DVD and DVD for the same price as dvds are now, Format war would be over. People would start buying HD-dvd players as the transition to the new format took place, while they were still releasing most DVD's in standard format, and the higher quality on these new hybrids. Best news the HD camp has had so far.
Whether or not there is some sort of god, I'm not supposed to say/god is a word and the argument ends there-Smog
My guess is that Sony will still win this one, thanks to the Umpteen PS3-installed BluRay players that will eventually fill the market.* Unless HD-DVD players become really cheap really fast, I can't see them matching the installed base that will rumble into place as soon as Sony get their act together.
* This does not imply that I believe the PS3 will crush the XBox360 - Microsoft will probably gain marketshare this generation. But Sony will still sell a bucketload of PS3:s, giving them the edge in the HD wars.
So, you either have a good quality HD-DVD with a bad quality DVD copy, or a good quality DVD with a bad quality HD-DVD? I'm not sure if this is really useful.
This is a perfect example of ingenuity that you will rarely see in the Sony camp, thanks to their rabid pursuit of a closed, proprietary-format monopoly. This is something that benefits consumers first and foremost, and reinforces my decision to back HD DVD whenever possible. Even if Sony could do this technologically, I see them killing the idea for marketing reasons.
According to wikipedia (LOL), there are hybrid discs that have a CD layer and a SACD layer.
for those of us stuck with regular DVD. I imagine studios will use the single layer at 4.7 gigs for dvd and the dual layer at 30 gigs for HD-DVD, meaning we'll get lousy picture. As an anime nerd, several of my favorite movies and shows got release on dvd-5 and are almost unwatchable (Nadesico being the worse, what with all the red).
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
But that assumes that PS3 owners are buying (in part) for its Blueray playing capabilities. You must have been speaking to the same people that Sony has, because you all seem to think people are going to buy PS3 not to play games on it.
I am most definitely not trying to troll, but as much as I wish this was useful, I just can't find it to be so. They need to develop a compatible quad-layer DVD, for dual HD-DVD and dual standard DVD support on the same side of a disk. As it stands right now, neither 15GB for HD-DVD or 4.7 GB for standard DVD is sufficient size for an entire movie in their respective formats, meaning that either the DVD version or the HD-DVD version on the disk is going to suffer. If I was in the market for HD right now, I certainly would not be purchasing one of these discs, as I would either be going to suffer *now* because of the compression to a single-layer DVD, or I would suffer *later* because of the compression to a single-layer HD-DVD.
A community-oriented lyrics site
....Blue-Ray Killer
Hi-Def and Regular-Def versions on the same disks. It'd be easy to load higher def textures and movies on the HD Layer. This makes the transition away from dvd easy.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
We'll fight back! Anyways, the physical SACD layer was indeed DVD. The bits on it may have been represented something other than DVD-video!
Well, I guess that plenty of people who get the PS3 early will be just the kind of early-adopter tech geeks who also have HDTV sets. But that's just me. And yes, Sony hasn't excactly been running a tight ship recently, so who knows?
One disc that will go into both old DVD players and new HD-DVD players. That means only one production line, one less UPC on the shelf for retailers. This is a really really good idea. Half the annoyance of selling things in a high tech store is that there are arbitrary differences (I want a black ipod nano!) that cause stock problems. Reducing the number of items on the shelf is going to make retailers very happy //Works at London Drugs in Canada (we sell computers o_O) ///Stealing slashies from Fark FTW
This 3-layer disc is presumably expected to be used in a manner similar to the combo SACD+CD music discs, one layer for regular CDs and another for the hi-def audio.
However, because the DVD part is only single layer, I don't think it will fly. Any movie of normal length that would benefit from HD resolution is going to require a dual-layer DVD to look decent at DVD resolution.
So, where is the market? Videophiles who have purchased HD-DVD players don't care about the DVD part. Videophiles who want to "future-proof" their collection are not going to be happy about getting substandard picture quality on their current systems. Regular Joes who don't see a big improvement from HD-DVD over regular DVD don't care one way or the other.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
34.5 GByte is still MUCH less than 100 GByte TDK Blue Ray's
l ayer_bd/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/05/19/tdk_four-
I want the friggin burner and disc so that I can begin doing backups that do not span 50 odd discs. It would be nice thats all what I am interested in.
It had the same selling point though. Sell a disk with the movie on it in two formats to future proof a purchase and lock in HD-DVD customers before they get the hardware.
All this enhancement does is have more content on each side of the disk. That's not so great considering that you can not put full size versions of a movie in both formats on the same side of the disk. One version or the other would be on half the space with only one layer. And the players would have to be able to ask you which layer you want to view on a given side, the DVD layer(s) or HD-DVD layer(s).
I don't see a lot of market benefit for this. Maybe they can put the "extra" content on the DVD layer while putting the movie in maximum resulution on the HD-DVD layers. It would give their HD-DVD movies that much more disk space not being used up by the extras.
There is nothing so silly as other peoples traditions, and nothing so sacred as our own.
Since the entire net community has proven that 4.7GB DVDs are perfectly acceptable, this paves the way for barebones movies at 4.7GB plus the HD version on dual layer. They'll be marketed as "future proof" and they'll charge you an extra $5-10 for the privledge. And you'll happily pay it becuase you know if you buy the DVD version you'll probably want the HD version eventually, and the initial cost - resale of the DVD will probably be in the $5-10 range.
Of course, if they really wanted HD-DVD to win, they'd _only_ produce the dual version. That way its a value added product, and you don't have to upgrade all the players in the house to get the most benefits. As you drop your DVD in favor of HD, your discs stay the same. Folks who are quality nuts will get an HD box pretty soon anyway, and the other 98% of the population will never know the difference of the lost 1-2GB of space.
It is seriously brilliant. Marketing can still fumble th ball on this, but properly played this could be the difference in who wins the format war.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
It seems to me they don't need to buy the PS3 FOR the BR player.... They just need to buy it, then some time at the store say "Gee, I have this PS3 that says it can play blue-ray, might as well get a few movies and see what it's all about." The barrier to entry is much lower if you already have something that can play the movies.
My question is, where do we go from here? What sort of technology do we want 10-20 years from now? We basically have maxed out our solution for TVs. The next big step is not working on a 2D plane of existence it is 3D. Are we expecting HD be here for 20 years? I sure as hell hope not. We need to be able to manipulate light in a way we can get 3D. If you have seen the 3D monitors that have come out, they suck. You just can't fake 3D on a 2D surface like our present displays we have. We have to move beyond HD and think of 3D space. This could spawn a whole new way of filming movies or media. These are things big companies like Sony, and Microsoft need to start thinking up. Not ways of flooding the market with crap like Blu-ray and HD-DVD. What happen to innovation?
Blu-ray: 50 gigs of data.
1DVD/2HD: 34.7 gigs of data.
Yeah, While compatible, I'd go blu-ray for the sheer volume.
--
# Canmephians for a better Linux Kernel
$Stalag99{"URL"}="http://stalag99.net";
With the single layer DVD and dual layer HD-DVD, this hybrid format would give users the backwards compatibility that made the PS2 a success. If they can convince the movie industry to burn both a SD DVD and a HD-DVD on the same media, I think the consumer may start to favor HD-DVD. In a year or so, the consumer may look at his/her movie collection and realize they have a decent ammount of HD-DVD movies. They would probaly push them towards getting a HD-DVD player.
Brought to you by Team SPAM! where we believe: "Information in the noise!"
Your machine however could have a HD-DVD drive and the HD-DVD side could be your porn, and she'd never know. This, by far, will save many marriages that are destroyed by porn.
Far more importantly, it will save all the porn that is destroyed by marriage.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
The thing is, nobody will have HD-DVD drives for their 360's and the developers can't trust that they eventually will. So while this would permit the notion of a DVD with special HD-DVD extras for those who have a drive, by and large it won't matter.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
Now Do I need a CD-R/DVD+/-RW-DL/HDDVD-SL or a CD-R/DVD+/-RW-SL/HDDVD-DL?
People who think they know everything really piss off those of us that actually do.
I can't believe it - is the Slashdot populated by demented anti-Sony fanbois?
...
...
This "hybrid disc magic" might be considered high-tech and cutting-edge in the HD DVD world, but the exact same "features" was shown and demonstrated live back at last years IFA 2005 in Berlin in the Blu-ray Disc area
http://www.blu-ray.com/ifa2005/
Hybrid discs are actually part of the offcial BD-ROM spec and was one of the selling points last year when all HD DVD came up with was those lame "flippers"
So don't buy into the Slashdot HD DVD hype, just accept the fact that everything you can do with HD DVD you can do better with BD. Storage capacity is 66% higher and the video interactivity is based on Sun's Java (just like the DVB standard).
Guess they can all say thanks to Toshiba for pulling HD DVD way into the lead. With this kind of interoperability, people will be able to use old tech and new tech combined. This needs to be hurried to the market, This kind of support would blow Blu-Ray out of the water. They could begin making all movies in this manner, it would allow everyone to enjoy the best of both worlds. Unless Sony can fire back on this, Blu-Ray will go the way of the Betamax.
No, this is the perfect example of HD DVD fanbois eating propaganda without filters (like you)!
...
...
This "hybrid disc magic" might be considered high-tech and cutting-edge in the HD DVD world, but the exact same "features" was shown and demonstrated live back at last years IFA 2005 in Berlin in the Blu-ray Disc area
http://www.blu-ray.com/ifa2005/
Hybrid discs are actually part of the offcial BD-ROM spec and was one of the selling points last year when all that HD DVD came up with was those lame "flippers"
This is great news and I'm excited that they are doing it, but they're not quite there yet. They need 4 layers so they can do a dual layer DVD and a dual layer HD-DVD and they will win this thing. Unfortunately the DVD market is already used to getting a dual-layer product so the quality and extra features can't just take a hit on existing players without people noticing. At the same time, 15GB, while it's big for a SD picture, isn't enough room for a HD picture, even without extra features. On the other hand, on a normal sized (let's say "smaller than 42") SD TV, it might be possible to make an acceptable looking picture in a single layer DVD (since everyone with an HD-TV will probably want the HD-DVD anyway). I've pretty much decided on HD-DVD already. I'm tired of Sony formats and especially Sony prices. This is just one more illustration of how new these new formats are, and the fact that they are still discovering features they can add of this magnitude, it really makes me NOT want to be an early adopter. If studios are smart enough to charge the same for one of these new disks as they do for a standard DVD (maybe Toshiba would have to waive some royalty for the first year to make it happen), I think most people would buy the new format if they're going to spend the money on the DVD anyway.
..Gillette, in collaboration with nobody in particular, has successfully combined it's Mach 3 and Mach 2 razor blades to produce its new Mach 5 range of blades. The resulting blade conforms to original razor blade standards so it can be used by anyone who's used a razor blade before.
Assume, for a moment, that standard DVD's go away and we're left with Blu-Ray disks vs. HD-DVD/DVD Hybrids.
The HD-DVD Drive can read DVDs and the HD-DVD layer on the hybrid disks, but not Blu-Ray disks.
The Blu-ray player can read their own proprietary format, PLUS the DVD layer of the hybrid disk. Sony can now market it as the "Only 100% compatible" player, since their movies play fine, AND the HD-DVD/Hybrid movies play as well. Of course that would only be at DVD resolutions, which could be used to point out the inferiority of the HD-DVD/DVD system -- or don't you think marketdroids will confuse the issue for the common user?
Backwards compatibility is a bitch, especially when your competitors can take advantage too.
At only 30s of usable space (That'd be the "porn" side), how am I to convince The Wife that I need 6 copies of the kid's birthday video?
I liked the little encased cd's kinda like I liked the cdroms with those jacketed cartridge load trays (for get what they were called). I just /knew/ that eventually that would catch on and all the cds we would buy would finally end up in those kind of reloadable cartridges so I could quit wiping fingerprints off always. The point being, that, it really doesn't matter if this new format is superior or higher capacity, etc. It will probbaly end up like betamax or minidisc if it's something I decide I want so I didn't read the article.
What's lame is that a year later the movie makers have decided not to use these. Why? Was the Blu Ray version too expensive? Did they just calculate that there wasn't a demand for this type of product? Are they just testing the waters with Blu Ray only dvds? Blu Ray seems to be following Sony's pattern of behavior of promising the world but not fully delivering when the time comes. Perhaps HD DVD is doing that, too. We shall see.
Remember when you could buy UMDs with DVDs, but you'd pay more for it. HD-DVDs are too expensive, making a triple layer disk will just be as expensive as a HD-DVD, plus you'd need the special presser, the special media, and the special system that will do it.
Both formats have failed. Why would someone want a dual HD-DVD with a single DVD? The dvd is inferior. Why would someone want a dual layer dvd with a single layer Hd-dvd, the HD-DVD is nerfed and you're paying way to much for a DVD.
Honestly the Next gen war is still non existant, neither side is going to win this and both sides are going to pump money into it. The only way either side will actually win is by not playing, and backing out now.
Why bother with this convoluted effort when you could just produce a flipper? One side could be dual-layer DVD. The other size an HD-DVD or even a BD. Double-sided, dual layer DVDs are already possible so the flipper could be a refinement of that technique.
http://www.blu-ray.com/images/ifa2005/toshiba_08.j pg they had the image of a single side, dual format disc that you said they didn't do last year on the SAME site you refernce to prove your point. check the whole article out next time....
HD-DVD pretty much requires a dual-layer disc (15 GB x 2 = 30 GB) to store a feature length 1080p movie (especially when the 50 GB Blu-Ray discs launch in November, HD-DVD will need all the capacity possible). By the same token, a dual-layer DVD disc (DVD9) is required to store a feature length movie on DVD. Yet, there are only offering 3 layers.
This limits the configurations to the following:
It's not really that great of a solution. Once they can get 4 layers (2 hd-dvd & 2 dvd) then we'll be cooking with gas. Or even better (for me) successfully manufacture a 3 or 4 layer disc and use all layers for HD-DVD. Either way, if I have an HD-DVD player I don't have a compelling reason to by a hybrid disc. If I have DVD player and plan on upgrading to HD-DVD, the hybrid discs could be more enticing. But at what cost? Does the average consumer really think that far ahead? I'd tend to assume not.
n/t
Can we get 3 15 gig layers?, or 4?, or 12?
They're saying the DVD layer will conform to DVD standards, this means it'll use CSS. Now, as a Linux user, I feel the need to do the happy dance.. but.. it seems almost too good to be true. This doesn't sound like The Industry we know, who seem intent to completely destroy our fair use rights and call it "copyright protection". Would they really go for this? Part of the reason they're pushing these new formats seems to be for the sake of putting an end to piracy (and our rights); by allowing this new format to include the standards of DVD, they're pretty much allowing things to remain as they are, where movies are easy to copy. Sure, maybe in ten years time, everyone will have switched to HD, but the movies could still be ripped from the DVD layer. Unless, of course, this is part of some elaborate plan to get everyone to buy this new format, at which point this wonderful idea will be phased out (once everyone goes HD) and we'll only have HD-DVDs, thus saving people money by giving them a nice collection of movies that can be played on the next-gen systems in the future and their current systems right now. I hope I'm wrong though, because this is a wonderful idea.
for all those that would be turned off by the prospect of not being able to play their hddvds in their car/plane whatever this is the solution. it makes the decision on whether to buy hddvd much easier since it doesn't mean u'll be cut off from all the functionality/convenience of dvd anywhere we have these days. parents like to playback dvds for kids now in cars, its becoming rather standard, atleast cheap. portable dvd players are less than 150 dollars these days. and well, theres no hd solution/replacement that will be generally viable fora long time. so this takes away the problem of an hd adopter having to face double buying films or sacrificing hd quality for portability. 3 layers should be standard. 2 layers of hddvd + 1 dvd for portable functionality.
Don't want to burst your bubble, but... this technology already exists for Blu-ray. See here and here.
Good thing that everything else seems to be going Sony's way these days. Oh, wait...
(On a personal note, I was never a Sony fanboy like so many. In the early days of personal casette players, I found the Sony Walkman, like most, actually kinda sucked, and would track poorly on tapes as the unit was moved around. I found an amazing Panasonic unit, which blew it out of the water. And on a side, side, node, I've found *anything* Panasonic to be utterly amazing; truly the most underrated brand; kinda ironic. Anyhow, on the Sony front, I also bought a fiarly high end CD player/speaker unit for my wife. It was really total crap. And it refused to play anything CD-R, due to Sony's media ties. It was the last Sony unit I've bought, and ever will.)
Toshiba is another brand I generally like; I've been bitten by one serious lemon of a Toshiba Satellite (non-pro, I guess the Pro are far better, and not that more expensive). And these days, I spend most of my time on a Toshiba Libretto U-100, so glad they resurrected their brand after their amazing Libreatto 110CT days. Go Toshiba!
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
Actually, 15 GB is plenty for a lot of movies now. The VC-1 codec (I'm involved in that at Microsoft) has made some big improvements lately, with many movies now being able to encode at less than 10 Mbps at very high quality. You can get a lot of that in 15 GB! Certainly, movies under 2.5 hours without a lot of extras should be fine. LOTR:ROTK:EE with lossless audio should fit nicely on a 30 GB disc, as a counterexample.
If anything, the 4.7 GB DVD layer was more of a runtime restriction than the 15 GB HD layer. With DL DVD + SL HD DVD, you can have a no-compromises SD experience, and a great HD version of the movie for when consumers upgrade to an HD player.
My video compression blog
Oh what joy, just wait til they also hybrid Blu-Ray onto the same disk and make it rewritable. My new drive will have more characters in it than an MS serial number: 52XCD32XCD-R16XCD-RW16XDVD8XDVD-R4XDVD-RW4XHDDVD2X HDDVD-R1XHDDVD-RW4XBRDVD2XBRDVD-R1XBRDVD-RW
Come to Australia so we can strip search you and rob you of your internets, pr0n, rights and freedoms.
I can't be the only person not buying a Blu-Ray player because it's $1000, and the PS3 is coming out for $600 which plays the movies and games.
Would someone tell me how this happened? We were the fucking vanguard of DVD in this country. The Sony was the DVD to own. Then the other guy came out with a HD-DVD. Were we scared? Hell, no. Because we hit back with a little thing called the BluRay. That's a DVD with a blue laser. For resolution. But you know what happened next? Shut up, I'm telling you what happenedthe bastards went to three layers. Now we're standing around with our cocks in our hands, selling two layers and a blue laser beam. resolution or no, suddenly we're the chumps. Well, fuck it. We're going to five layers. Sure, we could go to four layers next, like the competition. That seems like the logical thing to do. After all, three worked out pretty well, and four is the next number after three. So let's play it safe. Let's make a thicker aloe strip and call it the SontSuperBluRay. Why innovate when we can follow? Oh, I know why: Because we're a business, that's why! You think it's crazy? It is crazy. But I don't give a shit. From now on, we're the ones who have the edge in the multi-layer game. Are they the best a DVD can get? Fuck, no. Sony is the best a DVD can get. What part of this don't you understand? If two layers is good, and three layers is better, obviously five layers would make us the best fucking DVD that ever existed. Comprende? We didn't claw our way to the top of the DVD game by clinging to the two-layer industry standard. We got here by taking chances. Well, five layers is the biggest chance of all. Here's the report from Engineering. Someone put it in the bathroom: I want to wipe my ass with it. They don't tell me what to inventI tell them. And I'm telling them to stick two more layers in there. I don't care how. Make the layers so thin they're invisible. Put some on the hole in the middle. I don't care if they have to cram the fifth layer in perpendicular to the other four, just do it! You're taking the "next generation" part of " next generation DVD" too literally, grandma. Cut the strings and soar. Let's hit it. Let's roll. This is our chance to make DVD history. Let's dream big. All you have to do is say that five layers can happen, and it will happen. If you aren't on board, then fuck you. And if you're on the board, then fuck you and your father. Hey, if I'm the only one who'll take risks, I'm sure as hell happy to hog all the glory when the five-layer DVD becomes the viewing tool for the U.S. of "this is how we watch movies now" A. People said we couldn't go to three. It'll cost a fortune to manufacture, they said. Well, we did it. Now some egghead in a lab is screaming "Five's crazy?" Well, perhaps he'd be more comfortable in the labs at Panasonic, working on fucking electrics. Rotary layers, my white ass! Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe we should just ride in Motorola's wake and make cellphone. Ha! Not on your fucking life! The day I shadow a penny-ante outfit like Motorola is the day I leave the DVD game for good, and that won't happen until the day I die! I know what you're thinking now: What'll people say? Mew mew mew. Oh, no, what will people say?! Grow the fuck up. When you're on top, people talk. That's the price you pay for being on top. Which Sony is, always has been, and forever shall be, Amen, five layers, sweet Jesus in heaven. Stop. I just had a stroke of genius. Are you ready? Open your mouth, baby birds, cause Mama's about to drop you one sweet, fat nightcrawler. Here she comes: Put another blue laser on that fucker, too. That's right. Five layers, two blue lasers, and make the second one strobe. You heard methe second strip strobes. It's a whole new way to think about watching DVDs. Don't question it. Don't say a word. Just key the music, and call the chorus girls, because we're on the edgethe DVD's edgeand I feel like dancing.
Taco Bell in collaboration with disk manufacturer Memory Tech Japan, has successfully integrated their seven layer burrito technology with the HD-DVD and DVD standards, creating the industry's first "seven plus three" format. Initial reports hail the format as having "crystal clear audio, flawless picture and a zesty festive flavor".
Good God, I hope it's better than that brown-ray technology they've been pushing for years.
> So, where is the market? Videophiles who have purchased HD-DVD players don't care about the DVD part.
I already posted a longer piece a bit up from here, but just had another thought. I know who will buy it.
TV shows on DVD. Put the same dual layer DVD with four episodes along with an HiDef (BD or HD-DVD) layer. One layer is more than enough for the same four episodes of a TV show using a modern codec. It IS just TV after all, even new shows shot on HiDef or on film will be just fine. TV shows ain't CinemaScope spectacles with lots of action scenes that chew through bits.
This lets you buy with confidence NOW and even once you make the HD jump you still like it because your laptop might not be HD yet and the DVD rig in your SUV almost certainly isn't going to be for a few years.
Democrat delenda est
As a data format, this sucks.
To get all the data off, you have to flip it over in the middle.
It's fine as a movie format I guess, unless you want to view content off both sides.
It's no match for a real 3-layer disc, like a BluRay may be someday.
This isn't any more exciting than the flippie DVD-A/CDs. Those were huge bust-outs, and there's no reason to think this will be any different.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
Mod me down, I deserve it, I didn't RTFA.
But before you flame me, know I already now realize it's not a flippy.
This could be cool.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
I just bought the Star Wars DVDs. Now i'll have to buy two more layers for HD >:(
Czech language for absolute beginners
Why can't Sony just make a two sided disk like we have now for widescreen and standard? Blue-ray on one side and DVD on the other?
I know I'm going to hell, I'm just trying to get good seats.
The HD DVD "twin format" was just vapourware at last years IFA - they just announced it, and had a nice disc with logos on display. JVC actually demonstrated hybrid disks using BD and regular DVD equipment. The "twin format" was later left out of the final HD DVD spesification, while hybrid discs was included in BD-ROM.
now I read many comments saying that both, the HD-DVD and the DVD part will suffer because they steal disk space from each other, but this isn't neccessarily so...
you know you could use the same motion-data for both of them (you'd have to put them on the dvd-layer) and put key-frames with higher resolutions on the HD-DVD layers...
infact you might only need to put additional information in there (like gif files that start blurry and increase resolution later on in the loading process, since the pixels aren't stored sequentially
now this is very technical stuff, but it quite surely would work - you just have to read the different layers simultaneously and mix the data back together... I think I'll suggest that to toshiba, since I hate sony (those rootkit and DRM freaks) and want them to lose the HD-war...
this way you could have DVD and HD-DVD compatible discs, without much loss of disc space...
The MAFIAA is a bunch of mindless jerks who will be the first up against the wall when the revolution comes
Are you that spoon boy from The Matrix?
You can't handle the truth.
Truecrypt
Do it device level on a separate hard drive. Won't even show up on a windows machine. Of course, you shouldn't write the key down, lest someone find it.
Just don't...forget...
...shit
Qualitas edurus commercium, nullus penitus net rimor, nullus deus beneficium
First off, Blu-ray already has this and I believe it has been incorporated into the specs. Not to mention that with the Blu-ray 3-layer disk you get 25GB BD and 8.5GB DVD. Enough space for all the quality you need.
Second off, the reason most people hate blu-ray is because "sony owns it." but sony DOESN'T own the BD format. They are advocating it and they are on the blu-ray comittee but they do not own the format.
Third, the only realy difference between HDDVD and Bluray is the capacity. HDDVD can hold 15GB of data per layer while Blu-ray can hold 25GB per layer.
Fourth, the reason Toshiba is pushing HDDVD is because the specs state a requirement (I forget exactly what it is, a kind slashdotter might be able to help) that requires royalites to be paid to them. I'm rather surprised that people are jumping down Sony's throat while Toshiba is doing this. Oh but Sony released a rootkit! _ last time I checked they used someone else's software. Was it stupid not to check it... yes. Does anybody ever really check software that you buy from someone... no. Even then the Sony that makes audio cds doesn't hold too much of a relation to the Sony that makes Playstation. So get off their backs and look at this from a technical view, not like some lame n00b who holds a grudge for a petty reason.
Bury this comment, I don't care, but you know it's true.