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HD Recorder Can Use Standard DVDs
Stonent1 writes "Early next month Panasonic is going to release a DVD recorder that can store HD content on standard DVDs. The new device is expected to be a boon for the backer of the Blu-ray format; Blu-ray uses discs several times more expensive than standard DVD media. While the DVD discs won't have the capacity of a Blu-ray disc, the content will be of similar visual quality. 'The company said it will start selling three models of new DVD recorders capable of recording full HD programs on conventional DVD discs on November 1. The high-end model with a 500-gigabyte hard disk drive is likely to sell for 130,000 yen, Matsushita said.'" Update: 10/02 16:18 GMT by Z : Rewritten to clarify.
So HD content can be written on plain DVD's....cool..Now we only need DVD players that can read HD content off DVD's
HD-DVD has been supported since the beginning on DVD discs. The format specification explicitly allows for DVD media. I have a dual layer DVD+R disc that contains HD-DVD format video and it plays fine on my PC. I've read on various video forums that those who own HD-DVD players have reported being able to play such discs. The only news here is that BluRay apparently is now supported on DVD discs.
I'm not trying to sound like an old man on the porch, but who cares about all this cruft? Is Higher Def going to make a bad movie better? Does Lower Def make a good movie worse? I can understand the arguments against Pan and Scan, as you literally are not seeing everything. However, I don't see much of a difference between HD and SD.
Someone told me that after watching things in HD for a while, that they can't watch things in SD without noticing a difference. Is that a good thing? Am I going to be in a bar watching a game and be annoyed because it is in SD? Or over at a friends house and decide not to watch a movie cause they don't got the fancy, schmancy HD set up?
I'll probably like it when I get it, but I just don't see what all the fuss is about.
At one time there was a thriving business in the Nile Delta. People gathered up papyrus stalks, flattened them, wove and glued. In the early days, this was the most common data storage medium. Then some bright lad figured out how to grind, bleach, and flatten pulped sawdust mixed with linen. A bitter standards war erupted with both sides claiming theirs was better for reasons ranging from historical use, to long time archival quality.
Finally, the pulp and linen product, dubbed with the new marketing name "Paper" won out. The draw back of paper that this new product had to be artificially rolled into scrolls for storage. Papyrus did this function automatically. Then another bright person came up with the concept of leaving it flat and binding it in a new storage format called "Books". When stored in Libraries the "Book" could hold far more data then the scroll. All over, Library Directors needed to allocate funding. The conversion process required the implementation of new structures called "shelves" which had to supplant the older niche storage for scrolls. These of course required upgrade. Not to mention scriptorium fees for conversion of old data to the new format.....
Nothing, NOTHING is new under the sun...
Let me know when the latest standards war is over so I can feel free to move stuff off my 8 inch floppies...
- Minutus cantorum, minutus balorum, minutus carborata descendum pantorum.
Most HDTV recording options require access to the compressed data. In other words, an ATSC broadcast, unencrypted QAM, or encrypted QAM with a cable card. If this device takes decompressed HDTV (e.g., component inputs) and compresses it in real time, then that's the part of this device that's really interesting.
I see nowhere that states what the data storage capacity is, so I thought I'd check the numbers.
"The one-terabyte hard drive can store up to 381 hours of full HD programs."
So if 1,000 GB is 381 hours, 1 GB is 2.62467191601049868766 hours. Yeah, 2 and a half hours per GB. Hmm... What sounds like that... Oh yeah, xvid.
The trick here is not that they are getting more capacity, it's that they are using a different codec. (Not necessarily xvid, it's just a LOT more compact than mpeg, and made a good example.)
Nothing is actually said of the visual quality at that storage rate, either... It probably has horrid lossy-ness. But it's 1080p! lol Just another marketing trick to fool the unwary.
So even if this device uses a normal laser, it's gonna get 10+ hours per DVD at '1080p'. Using the blue laser is just a gimmick, I'm betting.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
And -- at least in the case of the floppy disk -- can the media spool the data off at a fast enough to rate to play the hi-def content back in real time?
The data transfer rate of a 2MByte 3.5" floppy disk drive is typically 500 kbits/sec. That's significantly slower than broadband internet, and we're not even really streaming HD content over THAT.
Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?
How is a third format going to be a "boon" for Blu-Ray? Wouldn't it just weaken Blu-Ray by providing a cheaper (media-wise) alternative to Blu-Ray?
Just a two-hour movie and a single track of audio, maybe (that's about 8 Mbps for video left over). But that would rule out multiple audio tracks, picture-in-picture, extra content on the disc, etcetera. So while you'd have a better picture than DVD, the experience wouldn't be as complete or interactive as DVD, let alone "real" HD DVD discs.
My video compression blog