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Toshiba Going After Blu-ray?
Swifty Nifty has an adventure submitted a link to a story about Toshiba's new High Def Disc Format. No, I'm not kidding — apparently Blu-ray has a new contender. This seems to be intended as a DVD backwards-compatible format, but there's not a lot of detail.
Here's what happened since HD-DVD caved in-
Just thought it worthwhile to take a moment to point out how things actually turned out. It's pretty remarkable, really, but even Blu-ray did better when it had an opponent to fight. After the battle, most just hung up their cares and said "Meh...upscaled DVD is fine".
It's as simple as that. I'll steal content via Bittorrent before I give a penny to Sony. I have a pretty huge DVD collection and was starting to buy HD-DVD. But I REFUSE to pay Sony for their anti-competitive practices and consumer-unfriendly products.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
While I didn't expect Toshiba to be the company to announce the next-next generation format (especially this soon), there are certainly other formats in the wings. The future formats are based on 'holographic memory', with the 'Holographic Versatile Disc (HVD) being one of them. The HVD promises 3.9 TB of storage, but with a price tag of around $15000 for a drive and $180 for a disk, this puts it clearly in range of companies with the needs and the money.
Myself I am just sitting waiting for affordable rewritable versions (this include Blu-Ray) to become available for PCs.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
I've read about this before. What Toshiba is concentrating on is enhancing standard DVD's through various extensions to discs that would still play on regular players. The idea is to take over the low end market where most of the action is by putting this content into regular priced DVD's and giving the consumer the choice of when to upgrade their player.
It's not entirely a bad idea, but I doubt Toshiba is in a position to pull this off at this point.
As robust and durable as a HDD?
I drop cds and dvds all the time. A standard hard drive wouldn't be able to take that kind of punishment. Even portable HDs just aren't all that durable.Personally, I think flash storage may be the best way to store portable data in all formats, if the price can ever get low enough.
China starts lots of projects like this. They serve only to demonstrate to the world how advanced China is, and how they don't need the rest of the world. They spend tons of money to develop far inferior (but domestically developed!) alternatives to easily and cheaply available western technology. It never goes anywhere.
Their EVD (IIRC) format comes to mind. It was based on incompatible use of DVD tech to give a trivial capacity boost, and the (terribly poor performing yet lower quality than MPEG-2) AVS video codec it used. Considering that JPEG is ancient and patent-free tech, and independently re-implementing inter-frame compression is so simple I could do a halfway decent job of it myself in a week, I'm stunned by how little China has achieved despite how much money they have spent. Large retailers in their own country defy the government mandate to carry them, because demand in nil, and the higher performance and non-standard decoding hardware required is far more expensive.
I guess I'd better end this rant here...
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
The interpolation (or however it is called) in the Enhanced Zoom plugin for Compiz almost seems like that 'enhance' technology of the movies. Try it and see how clear 480x640 pictures can be when they fill up a 1680x1050 monitor. I'd really like to know how that works, and being open source, anybody who understands that stuff can.
Lock the wife and the dog in the boot of the car.
Return one hour later.
Who's happy to see you?
Bullocks yourself.
Even an MPEG2 movie at 480 looks fairly spectacular on a large screen. The key difference
here is that you are getting a pristine version of a movie that's been mastered by a pro
and not just some quick hack thrown together with a few default options from some bit of
consumer grade desktop software.
h264 mastered onto a dual layer DVD by the studio would impress all but the most obstinate snob.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Back during the planning, there was a third contender backed by the taiwanese gov't: FVD. It used the plain old red laser and snazzy compression to squeeze 135 minutes of 720p into a double layer disc, which conveniently evaded many DVD patents. It is a shame that the 360 did not use it instead of plain old DVD, we could have cheap FVD players by now :(
I'm Canadian. Our dollar has appreciated some 40% against the greenback in the past year. Old problem is that Blu-ray prices have increased in lockstep.
Yeah, that's not ever happening until there's some serious housecleaning in the marketing department.
Masters of Horror was a series that was 13 1-hour episodes. Each episode was a different anthology-esque tale told by a different horror movie director. Because it was so diverse, not every fan liked the same episodes. But they liked the series overall. The 13th episode was ultra violent, and was either never aired (or heavily censored), creating a huge demand for that episode
The market is primed to release the season on DVD, including the "banned" episode. The fans had pretty much unanimously said that they'd buy it for that episode, plus their two or three "favorite" episodes, and to have the entire season.
Instead, marketing splits it up into single or double episode DVDs, pricing them at over $20 each. And they don't release the "banned" episode (or only release it censored
Fans DON'T buy the DVD, and make their motives clear. They'd have to buy 2-3 discs for $60 just to get the episodes they really want. They were expecting to spend $40-$55 on an entire season of 13 episodes, inline with other shows. The episode they really wanted isn't available. The DVD sales are dismal, and you can find the series in the 2/$5 at most video stores
Here comes the victor in the HD wars. BlueRay. Alright, let's get these movie-quality episodes out in HD. There's still a huge demand for it, after all.
What happens? Season 1 is released in FOUR VOLUMES! 3 episodes per disc, and close to $40 each. And they're again split up in such a way that most fans would have to buy 2 or 3 of them to get all their wanted episodes.
Even putting aside the insanity of releasing in parts when it epic-failed before-- they're putting less than 3 hours of SD quality footage on one high-capacity disc. You can practically HEAR the empty, wasted space. The entire season would have fit handsomely on one or two BlueRay discs, which could have been sold in a single package to the hungry fans. But it didn't happen. The series will go unbought-- and there's 2-3 times as much wasted packaging and plastic hanging around.
So until marketing execs can be convinced that "Season 1 vol 1" is a bankruptable offense, getting "Hellraiser: The Complete Collection" on a single BlueRay ain't happening.
UTF-8: There and Back Again
Yes, it is just a upscaling player. The chip is basically slightly cut down Cell processor.
Technique itself is so called "super resolution based upconversion". It works by taking several, say four temporally consecutive video frames and then looking for features. If image changes only slowly you can get more informatation by combining details from these several frames. This then results to higher resolution image.
BUT there is a big problem, if video stream changes fast (i.e action movie) algorithm simply fails really badly. Overall quality is slightly better than with normal upscaling, but it is still no match at all for high bitrate 1080p video.
This super resolution tech has been in use in astronomy for a long time, so no magic there either.
You can make cheap knockoffs forever, or you can try to take initiative and do R&D. Sometimes it will work, a lot of the times, it will turn out to be rubbish, especially when you're just starting in the industry. So how's the Dragon PC w/ the People's Linux coming along? I don't know, but Lenovo PCs running QQ are all the rage in China. You know, QQ, that tech "win". They should have just used skype. Or purchased from Dell.
Yes, I do. I do it for two reasons. None of them because I need a new Blu-Ray player. Let me explain.
I own a HD camcorder, and I use this to shoot at birthday parties and other family events. Often people ask me about the quality of HD camcorders (not about TVs and players). They wonder if they will actually get good quality. I like shooting and editing, and to show friends and acquaintances what the result can be, I have so far this year created AVCHD disks to show them. They ask me to assist in purchasing a camcorder, and we drop in to a store and talk. That's when they see the AVCHD disk. I have also handed out some disks, but people are interestingly a little shy about asking for permission to view at Circuit City or Best Buy, even though I tell them it has never been an issue for me to get permission.
BTW, this will change in the middle of this month since SCS is releasing their Blu-Ray authoring tool then to match my new Blu-Ray writer.
I always ask nicely and I have so far not received a single negative answer. The closest I have gotten to that was a "You have to ask that other dude". This is also the experience from anyone I have chatted with in the video editing forums I frequent, so I am unsure as to why you think it impossible. Have you tried it and been denied?
If you go back about 12 months and read some of the video editing forums like creativecow or others you will find many curious "editors" doing exactly the same thing.
Just curious about your attitude though. Did I tear down some religious symbol you have been worshiping?
I don't know why Toshiba would chase this medium, it will be dead much faster than DVD...the next medium is obviously digital downloads and as of now I'd say that Microsoft and Apple both have this market close at heart right now...between iTunes and the Live Marketplace. Once we get a larger proportion of high speed internet coverage (which will probably be a result of wireless coverage [ie Google? Verizon, AT&T]) The biggest beneficiaries of this will be Microsoft and DivX, because of their compression technologies...on the hardware side, Level 3 Communications and anyone with dark fiber will benefit. Sony and Toshiba are chasing an already doomed market...if I were Toshiba I would reevaluate my position and look towards making set-top boxes for such an adaption. If anyone wonders why Microsoft hasn't pushed Blu-Ray into their Xbox line, look no further than the Live marketplace. I'd expect in the next 5 years, HD for downloads will be as common as downloading from iTunes...Blu-Ray? More like Apple TV, TiVo or Xbox.
To anyone who says that we still need a portable medium for market laggards (example: Grandparents)(other portable mediums will probably be flash based/iPod, Zune), I'd expect they'd still be buying DVDs, that market isn't going to die anytime soon...I doubt they will be upgrading to Blu-Ray
The only thing you can do with a console is play games, thus anyone who has one is going to buy games and nothing else. Whereas most PCs never even run a game beyond solitare. Even the home PCs that are used for games are only used that way part time - I think you would be hard pressed to find a PC that was used for games more than it was used for general web-browsing never mind word-processing and other home-pc tasks.
In other words, the competition on PCs is much greater than it is on consoles because not only do you compete with all the other games, you also compete with all the other uses for a PC.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Next, how much time does it take to rip that DVD, convert it to fit on a single layer disc, burn it, label it, etc?
Most of my DVDs I buy used from Hollywood Video or Blockbuster. They pretty much always have a 3 for $25 deal. I'm paying $8 for a movie to own it legally.
Okay, this argument doesn't really work. When you buy used like that, guess who gets 100% of that revenue? Blockbuster and Hollywood Video. Not the publishers. As far as they're concerned, you might as well be pirating the movies. If you search around, you'll find the publishing houses (movies, music, and games) blame their losses on the used market just as much as piracy (example here).
My time is worth far more than $8 an hour, so even if it only takes 1 hour to pirate a DVD, then it really is a huge waste.
If it's taking you more than 5 minutes of your time, you're doing it wrong. Insert DVD, launch ripper app, click "Rip", go do whatever it is that's more "worth your time".
I don't know many folks who actually re-burn DVD rips anymore, especially when the new consoles can play media from a USB drive or even network shares. Even if you did, if it's taking you more than 3 minutes to swap disks, fire up your burning software, start the burn, eject, and scribble a title, you're doing it wrong again. NOTE - If you're sitting there watching the ripping or burning parts, you probably actually aren't worth more than $8/hr.
We're still a few years away from eliminating the discs.
I agree, but what that means in practical terms is that DVD is still the disc to beat. DVD will be around long after BD, cuz BD is going nowhere fast.
It's too bad noone really came out with affordable 480p widescreen TVs - most people never saw what DVD was really capable of before HDTV came out. And really, a large-ish 720p set with source upconverted from DVD is a pretty nice picture, and way more affordable than HD source and 1080 display. The US economy is going to prevent a lot of upgrades, though, so I think DVD is going to be 'the' disc for a few more years, yet, until better more people have true broadband connections, and the infrastructure is upgraded to *feed* those broadband connections. Too many people are paying the cost of a new BD player every month on gas right now to afford new electronic toys.
Reasons for low sales?
Let's see - $20-40 for a BD movie, $500+ for a BD player, or $4-14 for a DVD movie and $30-50 for a DVD Player with a much larger selection (and those would be new movies, btw, not used.)
There's also the issue that for a BD movie to actually be better, you also need a $2K+ TV, which the vast majority does not own. BTW, if you happen to own an older HDTV (prior to HDMI/DVI) odds are that the electronics in it are going to give you a nice upconverted picture without having to buy an upconverting DVD player.
As for copying a DVD - it has nothing to do with piracy, and everything to do with those damn UOPs. I rip my own so I can actually get to the movie instead of watching 4-10m of BS crap you can't forward through. I only do that for the incredibly small set of disks I buy that I will watch more than once in 5 years - namely - disks my kids watch. Also prevents destruction of original disks. A nice bonus.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
"And what, it's your belief that technology is only going to slow down from here?"
I've heard that some people believe the price of gasoline will go up around a dollar every year because of the post peak problem. if energy prices do go up, then technology, which depends on energy, and the availability of cheap energy will slow down. it takes a lot of money to 'research' new technologies, using technology already researched is cheap. for an example, consider modern CPU pricing, multi-core designed processors have allowed cpu vendors to rely on the same basic die technology for their cores, even while following moore's law. this is why a high end quad core costs only $400 while long ago far away in the past a 'brand spanking new' 1 ghz chip cost over $1,200. designing new chips has been hit or miss, the itanium is a perfect example of how redesigning something, doesn't always create a viable product.
the point being, if energy prices go up and up, people will have less disposable income, making technology higher and higher risk. making existing technology work better will always be cheaper and safer, than designing new technology.
to keep energy costs lower(and thus keep technology moving at a rapid pace), there are 3 solutions i can think of, off hand.
1. Under Sea Drilling platforms off both arctic and antarctic coasts (under sea so they don't break when the ice forms every winter) the cons are, that nobody (that i know of) has a working undersea drilling platform that is practical. you could go with a telescoping design only producing oil in summer months, or have undersea pipelines to beyond the icy region where tankers can fill up so the 'undersea platforms' can produce year round, underneath the sea.. and possibly a few ideas i haven't though of, the problem with this is it's still dependence on fossil fuels, and putting more co2 into the environment is the last thing we need to be doing.
2. bio-fuels could start taking up the slack, this is really only feasible if large scale bio-fuel from algae is started, and so far at least one texas energy company is starting a major bio-fuel from algae product cycle. How that company does, might drastically change the face of bio-fuel as an alternative to fossil fuels, if they're successful and profitable.
3. use less energy. it's simple, just push aside the American car safety standards, so vehicles can be lighter, and use cheaper engines, and mandate fuel efficiency. sure, a lighter car is a death trap if you hit a big truck, or a heavy car, but if all the cars on the road have to meet higher fuel economy targets (like they have to in japan and china) then they're only more dangerous when hitting old 'legacy' vehicles.
you can easily design an ultralight car that would get well over 120 mpg(without being a hybrid) these guys did. http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/10/loremo_lives_su.php
i don't know how the car does for safety, in crashes. in general, concept cars that get over 120 mpg tend to be labeled as 'death traps' in a crash with conventional cars, and some use expensive technology that will never scale to the mass market.
cars aren't the only place where we can save energy, but they are a big one, if we'd just say cars can be a lot lighter, even if they're not as safe, just to get better fuel economy. when i owned cars i owned the kind that would have been fatal in any highway collision, yet the type of car accidents i did have, were generally ones involving only me, with 3 exceptions (1 was completely not my fault) and the 3 i did have were at city speeds, not highway.
the point is we could stop the rise in gasoline prices, just by pushing fuel economy.
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
What you have is only obsolete if you want to make it obsolete by always buying the next thing (which may or may not be the best). The same issue occurs with CPUs. You can't buy every single generation of CPU. I usually skip a generation because I don't need every generation nor do I want to spend the money. I don't consider the next generation to make my current generation obsolete unless I have a reason to need that next generation. This is the nature of technology. We are making leaps and bounds. As someone already asked, do you actually think the situation is going to get better? Taken as a whole, the last decade has seen so much innovation in varous fields of research and development compared to the last century that it is mind boggling. Innovation will only continue to speed up from here.
this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom. -- Lincoln, Gettysburg Address