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A Triple-Standard Disk

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the blue-plus-red-makes-purple dept.

On the heels of the news of Toshiba's proposed double-standard disk comes word that Warner Brothers engineers have applied for a patent on a triple-standard disk. The new disk would offer HD-DVD and Blu-Ray on one side and standard DVD on the other. From the article: "Warner's plan is to create a disk with a Blu-ray top layer that works like a two-way mirror. This should reflect just enough blue light for a Blu-ray player to read it okay. But it should also let enough light through for HD-DVD players to ignore the Blu-ray recording and find a second HD-DVD layer beneath." See the patent application, filed last month.

37 of 210 comments (clear)

  1. Or they could... by AKAImBatman · · Score: 2, Insightful

    ...include two discs in the Amaray case?

    [...]

    Naaah. That's too easy.

    --
    Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
    1. Re:Or they could... by John.P.Jones · · Score: 5, Insightful

      No, you see then the purchaser could seperate the discs (give one to a friend). Obviously the studios would not like this...

      You aren't thinking nearly evil enough to be a film studio. :)

    2. Re:Or they could... by tomstdenis · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Or they could stop acting like children, sit it down, discuss the technical and logistical merits of both and DECIDE ON ONE STANDARD FOR NOW. ...

      Just saying.

      Tom

      --
      Someday, I'll have a real sig.
    3. Re:Or they could... by triso · · Score: 2, Insightful
      ...include two discs in the Amaray case?
      They would have to charge extra for this since you could give one away. That would cause some revenue loss.
    4. Re:Or they could... by AusIV · · Score: 5, Insightful
      Or they could stop acting like children, sit it down, discuss the technical and logistical merits of both
      In my experience, children are better at compromise than adults who have money invested in something.
    5. Re:Or they could... by kinglink · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Or have a preference. Adults defend worthless stuff to their death. I mean sony has been constantly making bad moves and there's still people who say that they haven't even made the first mistake. Sad

    6. Re:Or they could... by Schraegstrichpunkt · · Score: 2, Funny

      But then somebody would have to settle on a standard that doesn't involve tons of patent royalties to them.

      --
      http://outcampaign.org/
  2. Not buying it. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    HD-DVD and Blu-Ray don't look any better than DVDs on my 27" TV and I'm not spending $2,000 on a TV just so I can drool over PlayStation 3 games. Therefore I would recommend that you not buy this product. Furthermore I haven't met a single person who wants an HD-DVD or Blu-Ray disc player due to the crippling DRM and marginal increase in quality.

  3. let me get this straight by rpax9000 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    They can phase out old DVDs even faster now... you're paying extra for the HD content anyway, so why not buy the HD player? Seems like a new approached to planned obsolescence by Warner.

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    1. Re:let me get this straight by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The cynic in me says these discs are being patented so that they may never be used, thus boosting total sales of regular discs. Want the special super deluxe edition? Only on HD-DVD. How about the extended directors cut? Blu-Ray exclusive. Collect them all, you greedy bastards! Pour your money into the industry in a debauched frenzy of consumerism!! Mwahahaha!!!

      Like I said, cynic speaking.

    2. Re:let me get this straight by rpax9000 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I suppose this is an equally possible flip side.... I feel like any time I see a content provider patent a new tech, I get to thinking about how they are using it to maximize profit. Not that these businesses should have any other motive than profit, I don't guess, but at the same time I think we all need to be wary of any "technological advances" they are kind enough to offer the consumer. Of course, that leaves us with Sony trying to use content to sell us proprietary standards (rather than using a standard to try to sell us content). In any case I just get tired of it. Which makes the iTunes download I'm in the middle of even more ironic.

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  4. Who cares what you think? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I'm not spending $2,000 on a TV just so I can drool over PlayStation 3 games.

    Err, HD capable sets are doing just fine without PS3 and if you're fine with your NTSC signal on your 27" tv, then more power to you. However, just because YOU don't think it's worth it, just because YOU don't see a need to watch HD content doesn't mean squat for the rest of the populace. Fact is, lots of people are plunking money down for new tv's that are capable of playing HD, you the manufs don't really care about.

    BTW, the largest set in my house is a 27", but it gets used maybe 1/10th the amount that our 21" tv is. So I'm just as much a luddite as you. But it's obvious that every passing day, you and I are increasingly the minority.

    1. Re:Who cares what you think? by AuMatar · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Except we're not. Less than 10% of the US has HD. Less than 50% of new TV sales are HD. HD has failed in the marketplace.

      --
      I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
    2. Re:Who cares what you think? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      HD has failed in the marketplace.

      You're kidding right? HDTV capable set sales are increasing. Less than 10% of the market, of course, you're looking at an item that has massive market penetration, even 10% of that market is HUGE and it keeps getting bigger. Pay more attention at your local Walmart (which is an excellent indicator of what the "regular" folk are buying). More and more sq footage is being taken over by flat panel sets, most of them are HD capable (barring a few of the smaller lcd's or cheaper ED plasmas). It might be form factor that's driving that market, but the fact is more and more HD sets are making their way into households. Anyone can see that that's where the market is moving, it may take several more years to really start hitting critical mass, but anyone who wants to be a player needs to get their ducks lined up now. Why do you think Sony is so hot to push PS3 and BluRay anyway, they know this and this is their plan (whether they can implement it is another story). Your statement is like saying that portable music players had "failed in the market place" the year before the ipod came out. It's where the industry is going, and it _will_ get there.

    3. Re:Who cares what you think? by be-fan · · Score: 2, Informative

      You're on crack. HD penetration has been growing tremendously quickly, to the point where the 10% number, which was accurate just a couple of years ago, has long since become obsolete. By the end of 2005, 17% of TV-owning households owned an HDTV. At this rate, by 2010, 57% of TV-watching US households will have an HDTV. That's less than four years from now.

      As of June, 41% of all TV sales in the US were HDTVs. Moreover, HDTVs accounted for 81% of TV sales by revenue. At a point when a cheap SDTV can be had for $150, and even a cheap HDTV is several times that, 41% numerically is a huge figure.

      There is no definition of "failure" by which you can judge HDTV as having failed in the marketplace. Not when its market penetration growth is over 20-30% year over year!

      --
      A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
    4. Re:Who cares what you think? by DaveWick79 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The real question then, is what percentage of people have actually bought a new TV set during the past 2 years or so. if only 10% of the public bought a new TV set, then only 4% of the public has HD sets. And how many of those sets are 720p? Half? Now you're down to 2%. How many of those customers are in the upper middle class and higher and bought 2 or 3 HD sets. Now you might be down to 1% of households. Sure, it's growing, and will keep growing, especially as people are forced to replace analog sets with digital.

      So where's the market for Bluray and HD-DVD now? DVD looks fabulous at 720p, it already has the resolution for that. Why do I need HD-DVD or Bluray? I think they have plenty of time to work out a resolution for this. If a dual layer disc with both formats is the ticket, fine. Just don't make me pay the freakin' royalties for each format on each disc I buy. I'm not paying $40-50 dollars to buy a movie. And while I'm on the subject of 'not paying for', I don't think the HD players are going to really become sellable until they are under $200 with low end models under $100. If they want to replace DVD they are going to have to make it so that it's not worth it to pay just a little bit less for DVD.

  5. *Blink* *Blink* by jpellino · · Score: 2, Funny

    While working on the road for on The GLOBE Program, I routinely explained to fellow passengers that this was an unprecedented case of hundreds of thousands of kids collecting real environmental data in a dozen areas for use by top scientists, and was a cooperative project between EPA, NSF, NASA, NOAA, Dept of State & Dept of Ed. I soon learned the their universal, blinking amazement was never for the kids/schools/data part, but for the cooperation of 6 gummint agencies.

    This is like that. Someone dare propose that all three systems coexist in a win-win-win scenario? Surely these are the end times.

    --
    "Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
  6. Confusion by corroncho · · Score: 2, Funny

    This one is really going to confuse my Mom!!!
    ______________________________________________
    Free iPods? Its legit. 5 of my friends got theirs. Get yours here!

  7. Should? by CaymanIslandCarpedie · · Score: 4, Insightful

    definition: "Should" - a work that should never be allowed in describing a patent.

    So they really haven't figured out how to do it? So what they file the patent hope they can figure it out and if not hope someone else does so they can sue them?

    --
    "reality has a well-known liberal bias" - Steven Colbert
    1. Re:Should? by kansas1051 · · Score: 4, Informative
      definition: "Should" - a work that should never be allowed in describing a patent.

      Agreed, but its only the submitter who used the word "should" in relation to the benefit of the disclosed technology. The actual application is very clear that the technology produces a layered DVD and only uses the word should once:

      "It should be understood that the discs in the drawings have been simplified for the sake of clarity and that various layers, including glue and resin layers well known to those skilled in the art have been omitted. "

      Patent attorneys rarely use "should" in applications because an invention which only has a prophetic utility does not satisfy the utility requirement of 35 U.S.C. 101.

  8. Curious... by steveo777 · · Score: 3, Funny

    Did anyone else imagine Wile E Coyote in a lab coat at the ACME factory?

    --
    This sig isn't original enough, it's time to come up with something witty...
  9. shifts focus to price of players then by 2ms · · Score: 4, Interesting

    For one thing this probably isnt as perfect a solution as it seems because the disks will obviously be significantly more expensive than even the more expensive of either bluray or hddvd. For example, it will have to have that super expensive surface coating that bluray disks require since the wavelength of laser is so short (to prevent scratching).

    But the more interesting thing is that if these were to go mainstream among the media providers, then success of each format in terms of players sold will be determined much more simply by price relative to the other rather than by a combination of many more factors such as movie catalog/availability, disk cost, what kinds of disks friends have, etc.

    So, which of the two types of player is intrinsically cheaper and by how much? Does HDDVD have a huge advantage in the area of cost to manufacture players?

  10. Not so. by rackhamh · · Score: 4, Informative

    Once again Slashdot shows its abyssmal understanding of patents.

    This patent was not FILED August 10, 2006. It was PUBLISHED August 10, 2006. The actual filing date, shown later in the publication, is December 22, 2005.

    It may seem a trivial, but in the digital media market, eight months can make the difference between being a leader and a follower.

  11. How is this a step in the "right" direction? by HTMLSpinnr · · Score: 2, Interesting

    How is this a step in the right direction - a common, unified standard? While this technology allows end-user technology ambiguity, it's not solving the dual standard dilemma. We need one standard.

    Also, how would a dual-standard drive handle this if one should ever come to exist? Would the drive automagically see the BlueRay disc, the HD-DVD, or simply refuse to play because both are present (really bad design)?

    And of course, will this increase the cost to the end user?

    --
    $ man woman *
    -bash: /usr/bin/man: Argument list too long
  12. These discs may open some doors by slapys · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Now studios can release one disc that is pretty much universally playable. This should go a long way to encourage the adoption of HD-DVD AND Blu-ray. If these discs become prevalent, and people realize that they could upgrade their DVD player to a Blu-ray player, and still play their last 10 movies, but in higher quality on their HDTV, they might actually consider the upgrade. As opposed to now, where people might not upgrade because they must buy NEW movies and start a NEW collection in order to enjoy what they see as "slightly" better picture quality over DVD (as well as massive DRM!).

    If I was a movie studio executive, I would support these triple-layer discs at any cost.

  13. Pertinent text highlighted... by Last_Available_Usern · · Score: 2, Interesting

    "Warner's plan is to..." "This should reflect enough light..." "...to read it okay." "But it should also..." I'm not even sure they believe it'll work either with as much speculative wording as that.

  14. Designing in the margins of a older spec -- NOT! by kclittle · · Score: 3, Insightful

    "Warner's plan is to create a disk with a Blu-ray top layer that works like a two-way mirror. This should reflect just enough blue light for a Blu-ray player to read it okay. But it should also let enough light through for HD-DVD players to ignore the Blu-ray recording and find a second HD-DVD layer beneath."

    Oh, this sounds like just a wunnerful guarantee of problem-free operation on all the drives, Blu-ray or HD-DVD, that were designed and produced with really tight tolerances before this mutant format was conceived. No problems with marginal signals at all, nosireee, we promise.
    -k

    --
    Generally, bash is superior to python in those environments where python is not installed.
  15. Format disagreements and this article by LotsOfPhil · · Score: 2, Informative

    It seems like 2 markets were formed when the companies couldn't agree on one HD disk standard. Some of the same companies that couldn't agree are now going to step in with disks that work in both markets. Kind of lame.
    I guess what I am saying is that if there was only BluRay, there would be no need for a disk that had BluRay, HDdvd and DVD. Convenient.

    --
    This post climbed Mt. Washington.
  16. Fuck Everything, We're Doing Five Platters by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    Would someone tell me how this happened? We were the fucking vanguard of disk drives in this country. The Seagate Cheeta was the disk to own. Then the other guy came out with a two-standard disk. Were we scared? Hell, no. Because we hit back with a little thing called the ST-506. That's two-standards and an extra channel. For speed. But you know what happened next? Shut up, I'm telling you what happened--the bastards went to three standardss. Now we're standing around with our cocks in our hands, selling two platters and an extra channel. Speed or no, suddenly we're the chumps. Well, fuck it. We're going to five platters.

    Sure, we could go to three platters 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 wider channel and call it the Cheeta turbo. 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-side game. Are they the best a man can get? Fuck, no. Seagate is the best a man can get.

    What part of this don't you understand? If two sides is good, and three sides is better, obviously five sides would make us the best fucking disk that ever existed. Comprende? We didn't claw our way to the top of the disk game by clinging to the two-platter industry standard. We got here by taking chances. Well, five platters 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 invent--I tell them. And I'm telling them to stick two more sides in there. I don't care how. Make the platters so thin they're invisible. Put some on the outside. I don't care if they have to cram the fifth platter in perpendicular to the other four, just do it!

    You're taking the "safety" part of "safety disk" too literally, grandma. Cut the strings and soar. Let's hit it. Let's roll. This is our chance to make disk history. Let's dream big. All you have to do is say that five platters 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- platter disk becomes the storage tool for the U.S. of "this is how we shave 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 Toshiba, working on fucking electrics. Rotary platters, my white ass!

    Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe we should just ride in Sony's wake and make shitty game consoles. Ha! Not on your fucking life! The day I shadow a penny-ante outfit like Sony is the day I leave the disk game for good, and that won't happen until the day I die!

    The market? Listen, we make the market. All we have to do is put her out there with a little jingle. It's as easy as, "Hey, saving with anything less than five plattess is like scraping your beard off with a dull hatchet." Or "You'll be so smooth, I could snort lines off of your ide cable."

    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 Seagate is, always has been, and forever shall be, Amen, five platters, 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 channel on that fucker, too. That's right. Five platters, two channels, and make the second one SCSI. You heard me--the second strip is SCSI. It's a whole new way to think about data storage. Don't question it. Don't say a word. Just key the music, and call the chorus girls, because we're on the edge--the razor's edge--and I feel like dancing.

    1. Re:Fuck Everything, We're Doing Five Platters by cortana · · Score: 4, Informative

      Get it from the source :)

  17. I can't help but wonder by hurfy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Just what the shelf life of these would be. Assuming it works and they figure out how to press the disk it sounds VERY touchy.

    How much of a scratch would it take to mangle the BluRay data that is being read off this semi-transparent layer. I thought those were pretty sensitive to start with.

    How about the stability? Will any of the optical properties change over time of any of the several compononts involved? Will your new Disney disc last til your kid is out of elementary school?

    All sounds like trouble waiting to happen to me.
    Especially as the patent included a lot of SHOULDs to start with :(

    oh well, pretty much a mental exercise as i am not going for either one for quite some time.

  18. Wow by db32 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    So this actually looks like one of the first articles on slashdot that actually covers a real patent. Not some stupid lame one-click, conjugation, whatever other simple and obvious nonsense. This format for these disks actually seems fairly patent worthy.

    --
    The only change I can believe in is what I find in my couch cushions.
  19. All Crap by Xybot · · Score: 2, Interesting

    DVD, CD technology are both crap, I'd say at least 25% of the time I have problems with playing a DVD (especially if children have been near it).

    Surely we can come up with a better medium than these coasters. I have the feeling that 'Big Money' are more interested in built in obsolesence and format lock-in than in longevity and useability.

    I'm still waiting for a digital storage/retrieval medium thats better than a hard-drive, surely that can't be too difficult?

    --
    God was my co-pilot, but then we crashed and I was forced to eat him.
  20. Doesn't that mean paying two royalties? by shotgunefx · · Score: 3, Interesting

    One for BluRay, one for HD-DVD?

    --

    -William Shatner can be neither created nor destroyed.
  21. Pfft, what I'M waiting for is.... by svunt · · Score: 2, Funny

    is a 12" vinyl record..on one side, backed by a laserdisc with an SACD embedded into its centre. When I buy one, it will come with a complimentary sample of the new "minidisc within a betamax" unit. Sweet.

  22. mach 3 more blades = more blood by kemo_by_the_kilo · · Score: 2, Funny

    this reminds me of the whole disposable razor crap.
    then:
    Mach 3 has 3 blades.. then shieck was like: well we have 5 plus one on the back because one blade wasnt that bad.
    now:
    we have DVDs on one side and cda on the back... to we have DVDs and HD dvds to we have HD-DVD-Rays
    are HD-DVD-Rays as bad as X-rays?
    ... okay now im rambling.

  23. shooting self in foot by gsn · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The major studios might have been able to control piracy by phasing out DVDs and using BluRay or HD-DVD with HDCP (and BD+ or whatever they are calling it today) since no one has convincingly broken HDCP yet (not that I think this won't happen). The hardware control and the key revocation actually gave them a fighting chance technologically.

    This move is shooting themselves in the foot - lots of people on /. have said that the quality on DVDs is good enough and they wont upgrade - I won't because I'm a poor grad student who cannot afford to spend a 1000+ bucks on a HDTV because in the end its still a TV. Even if HDCP isn't broken they've left a gaping hole because CSS certainly is and so people can buy these combo discs and still pirate the DVD versions of movies using their DVD-RW drives like they are doing now.

    Ofcourse they are caught between a rock and a hard place - consumers don't want to upgrade from existing equipment that many of them think is good enough and the stuios want consumers to upgrade so that they can sell the same content again in a new format and control piracy more effectively - thus the combo disc. Ultimately the worst case scenario is people like the combo discs so they cant stop piracy and people still choose not to upgrade, and they have to sell these things at prices similar to regular dvds now or people won't buy it. I suspect this will likely happen if they implement this.

    --
    Reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.