Blue Ray HD DVD Technology maybe Dead

Source

HD (high-definition) video is stalled again. That refrain is familiar to those of us who have waited the better part of a decade to get our HDTV. But this time, high-definition is DVD stuck in the standards conundrum. The situation perfectly illustrates the complexities involved in setting standards for state-of-the-art products—with a global plot twist thrown in for good measure.

The DVD industry’s track record when it comes to standards is far from perfect. Remember when Sony, Philips, and others went against the DVD Forum to establish theDVD+RW format after the Forum shunned the +RW technology in favor of DVD-RAM and DVD-RW? That fight delayed the widespread adoption of DVD recorders for three years.

Now, the industry must address the move toward HDTV-level 1080i (1080-line, interlaced) resolution for DVD content. Consumers who have spent big money on HDTV monitors are waiting.

A product such as DVD involves many standards issues, including factors such as power and interfaces. But two major issues demand the most attention: the recording format and the video-encoding format. Initially, industry players both inside and outside the DVD Forum considered two approaches. The first involved staying with the existing 9-Gbyte format and using more aggressive encoding to pack a feature-length, high-definition movie onto one disc. The DVD Forum, working on what it terms HD-DVD, favored this conservative approach because it would maintain full compatibility with existing discs. Sony, Matsu-
shita, and others favored a move to “Blu-ray” technology. By changing to a “blue”-wavelength laser, Blu-ray would allow a disc to store 25 Gbytes. However, a player would need two lasers—red andblue—to play both old and new discs.


Now, Toshiba and NEC have produced a compromise, which the DVD Forum has endorsed. The duo has developed a blue laser that can provide higher capacity and also read today’s discs. The compromise reduces capacity to 20 Gbytes, 5 Gbytes fewer than Blu-ray.

Of course, the Blu-ray group wants nothing to do with the compromise. This spring, the group formed its own industry body, the BDA (Blu-ray Disc Association). Hey, if you can’t get your way in this industry, just create your own standards body. The game is clearly about getting your own technology embedded into the next standard, so that you can collect royalties on top of the profit that you make selling your own products.

Meanwhile, a battle raged for a while on the encoding side. The BDA initially appeared to be sticking with the MPEG-2 encoding that existing DVDs use. On the DVD Forum side, Microsoft entered the battle, trying to get its Windows Media technology into the next standard. As of press time, a rare outbreak of logical thinking seems to have taken place: Both the BDA and the DVD Forum have announced plans to support MPEG-2, H.264, and Microsoft’s Windows Media 9.

So, for now, we wait. Hollywood hasn’t weighed in with the standard that it prefers. Meanwhile, Sony has proclaimed that its Playstation 3 will use BDA technology. The BDA is also aggressively pursuing datacentric applications in addition to next-generation DVD video. And manufacturers will soon ship expensive, rewritable BDA products.

Enter China. Chinese companies and the Chinese government already had a major dislike for the DVD technology the the rest of the world uses. Specifically, they didn’t like paying royalties to the companies who had key technologies embedded in the DVD standards. And you can bet that Chinese vendors didn’t want to wait for the high-definition conflict in the rest of the world to play out.

So a standards organization of the Chinese government—SAC (Standardisation Administration of China)—rolled out a new spec, EVD (Enhanced Video Disc). The spec is complete, and vendors are shipping early products. North American vendors, such as LSI Logic, are offering EVD chip sets. High-definition Chinese content is trickling into the Chinese market, with some Hollywood content expected next year.

There’s nothing like governments, multiple international standards bodies, and the collaboration of private industry associations to stave off adoption of a compelling new technology.
 
Now what do we do????

Well, after all your talk and hype, praising and complaining with respect to the Blue-Ray standard didn't Pioneer go and invent an optical technology using ultra-violet light (which uses an even shorter wavelength) and now they can fit up to 500GB onto one disc.... yes, you heard... 500GB..

Now what.. lets face it.. we would all like the idea of a 1/2 TB of data as opposed to a miserable 27 or even 54GB but I reckon we won't be seeing these discs for a good few years and even if they were to come faster, with blue-ray being backed by so many large corporations (the final killer being the fact it's to be on the PS3), we won't be ALLOWED to see it for a while. :cool:
 
Another article on the same issue

Source

Intense Competition Challenges Blu-ray's Performance in the Mass Market
Tuesday November 9, 9:35 am ET


PALO ALTO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 9, 2004--Competition is heating up between the two main optical data storage technologies - blu-ray and high-definition digital versatile discs (HD-DVD) - as they battle it out to become the next standard format for DVDs.
ADVERTISEMENT


"The winner of this conflict could go on to become the biggest data storage medium in the market and early signs in the industry forecast a slight tilt in favor of blu-ray," says Frost & Sullivan Industry Analyst Rajesh Kannan.

Blu-ray is expected to derive its success from the impressive growth in optical data storage systems as the preferred choice for archival storage. With its high-density capabilities, blu-ray is at the vanguard of optical disc recording technologies.

Although this is good news for blu-ray proponents, being positioned as the next-generation optical storage format leaves the technology open to intense competition. Newer technologies touting better capabilities are likely to emerge.

In fact, a number of new data storage devices intended for large capacity archival system applications are already under development. These include holographic optical discs, 3-D fluorescent multi-layer optical media, and near-field optical recording among others.

"Though these technologies are still in embryonic stages of development, blu-ray needs to establish itself quickly in the mass market before the feasibility of a more advanced technology is proven," cautions Kannan.

Storage capacity is an area where blu-ray faces the danger of losing out to competing technologies. This is specifically pertinent for massive corporate storage applications where blu-ray's capacity of 50 gigabytes is considered insufficient.

Even assuming the development of laser diodes operating at 200 nanometers to increase the storage capacity, the difficultly in obtaining low-cost optics limits progress on this front.

Moreover, a variety of alternatives offering better storage capabilities place the bargaining power in the hands of the blu-ray consumers. As of now, prices remain extremely high, creating further doubts regarding blu-ray's acceptance in the mass market.

Sony Corporation's blu-ray DVD recorder released in early 2004 was priced at $4,000 and Matsushita's follow-up was also considerably expensive at $2,780. Since existing generic alternatives start at $100, blu-ray needs to lower the cost of production to enable mass-market uptake.

Despite the competition and technical challenges, blu-ray has been fortunate enough to gain support from industry heavyweights in the field of films and personal computers (PC), placing it in the top slot as the next-generation DVD format.

For example, blu-ray is banking on the support from Dell and Hewlett-Packard to become the next PC DVD format. Meanwhile, Sony's acquisition of MGM studios is playing a crucial role in endorsing the blu-ray format throughout Hollywood.

Citing increasing demand for high definition pay-per-view content on cable and satellite channels such as HBO and Showtime, Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment - a Sony subsidiary - will launch all its new titles on blu-ray disks by early 2006.

"Hopefully, this pent-up demand for high definition content can ensure blu-ray's mass market success from the outset," concludes Kannan.

Advances in Blu-Ray and other Data Storage Technologies surveys the current data storage technology terrain with a heavy emphasis on the blu-ray optical recording format. In addition to analyzing the important drivers and challenges facing blu-ray, the study also examines the prospects of key competitors namely HD-DVD, flash memory, holographic storage, magnetic tape technology, and network storage. Executive summaries and interviews are available to the press.
 
I got this newsletter today (10/31/05)

You may have heard about a new technology garnering a lot of attention lately, Blu-ray Disc. It's the latest in optical disc storage to allow you to maintain personal digital files, and more importantly, archive your favorite high-definition and standard definition content on a single disc.

You'll begin to notice Blu-ray Disc computer drives, players and recorders finding their way to your local retail stores in 2006. At up to 50GB of storage space on one dual layer disc, you'll be able to record and burn the entire season of your favorite one-hour drama (22 episodes in MPEG-4 AVC encoding) rather than the six-disc collection you find at a store. On a practical level, you'll be able to preserve a huge collection of MP3 files, precious home movies or digital images in one place rather than searching through a multitude of discs trying to find the file you need. Yet, these are only a few of the potential applications made possible through Blu-ray Disc.

Keep an eye out for our newsletters throughout the year where we'll let you know about the latest and greatest developments coming your way.
 
HDDVD may not make it. I think Sony and Blu Ray may win out. Microsoft is pissed. And of course you would be too if your major competitor's next generation video game was going to be HD and yours is not. Gates is also upset about Sony's copy management scheme not being, necessarily, windows friendly. Everybody other than Microsoft, Intel, Toshiba and NEC appear to be on board with blu ray
 
HP wants the Blu-Ray consortium (namely Sony) to loosen up the copy management scheme, which is interesting in itself. However, with so many studios and hardware manufacturers backing Blu-Ray, it's probably a fairly safe bet that there won't be a format war, which (in this case) wouldn't benefit consumers.

That's the problem with SACD and DVD-A...consumer confusion and completely incompatible formats.
 
There is a huge discussion on the PS3 game boards about a patent Sony just got for copy protection.

The short version is Sony patented a new protection scheme which would marry disks to a specific player. Meaning you could not buy used games or even take your game to a friends house to play on their PS3.

Here is the 1st post about it that I hijacked from ikachii from the IGN PS3 board:

SCE has secured the patent for a new disc technology that, if used, would not allow the PS3 to read used games for that platform. The technology was invented by Kutaragi himself, as well as two others

Details regarding the patent are featured here: http://www.ipdl.ncipi.go.jp/homepg.ipdl

It is indicated specifically that the technology is to prevent the use of used as well as pirated software

The technology involves actually rendering a authentication code originally encrypted on the game disk unreadable to other machines once the disk it is used

This would mean that Net-based and other such games will not be the only ones to be affected by the technology

Naturally third software developers would embrace this technology, and it would ensure sales of the inevitable "Best series" for the PS3, but used games shops would be put out of business if the PS3 were to become the primary platform in the next generation

While information regarding the patent does not specify outright that the technology will be used in the PS3, Kutaragi has gone on record saying that copy management is absolutely necessary in order to endure that no "Napsters" of the game industry create problems in the future
 
While BLU-RAY offers greater storage, most movies (2-3 hours) would never benefit from the capacity of it. The only benefit there would be is buying a season of your favorite TV show that would use 1-2 less disks then HD-DVD. Unfortunatly with recent press about sony rootkits, their strong anti-piracy approach and the new protection patent, it looks like it may not be the most friendly format.

Also don't forget about Microsoft, who will be releasing Vista next year sometime. They stated that it would have high system requirements so technically there is nothing stopping them from releasing it only on HD-DVD (although it's unlikely). But at least Microsoft is realizing that putting less restrictions and making it more comsumer friendly will appeal to many out there.

I picked up a dual format DVDR+/- burner last year, so it looks like i'll be waiting for a BLU-RAY/HD-DVD player X-mas 06. There is no point picking one format over the other since most movies/tv series are most likely going to be split amongst the 2 formats. :down
 
Sony's Blue Ray HD DVD !!!! will Rule ! here is why...

I really hate to disagree with Sean Mota :no and I lived through the era of the superior format Sony Beta Max dying while VHS lived it's life :mad:
Even though I never bought a Beta Max I know the market supported VHS

And Sony learned a very big lesson there. But now Sony Corp. has the Silver Bullet to launch Blue-Ray HD DVD into world wide success as the Dominator
in this rematch of technology ;)

While Microsoft has come out with it's new toy the X-Box 360 with a minority market share , all be it just in time for this Xmas even though romer has it the X-box 360 like to crash like Windows versiosn prior to XP Professional. :shocked

Sony is comming out with it 's Play Station 3 :eureka :hatsoff:
with "Cell" Processor with 2 TF (Terra Flop) Floating point computing level
and a 128 Bit nVidia Video processor with video rendition close to 1.8 Terra Flops ( for those that are interested go to http://www/gamespot.com and find the two hour sony Plays Station 3 tech video..

And every Play Station 3 unit will also come with built in Sony Blue Ray DVD
Player :clap @party

For you HighDef people check out these specs and then compute how many people will upgrade and buy this PS # 3 unit

It’s going to be a doozy, and at least on paper beats the Xbox 360’s performance.

Full specs :

CPU: Cell Processor
PowerPC-base Core @3.2GHz
1 VMX vector unit per core
512KB L2 cache
7 x SPE @3.2GHz
7 x 128b 128 SIMD GPRs
7 x 256KB SRAM for SPE
* 1 of 8 SPEs reserved for edundancy
total floating point performance: 218 GFLOPS

GPU: RSX @550MHz
1.8 TFLOPS floating point performance
Full HD (up to 1080p) x 2 channels
Multi-way programmable parallel floating point shader pipelines

Sound: Dolby 5.1ch, DTS, LPCM, etc. (Cell-base processing)

Memory:
256MB XDR Main RAM @3.2GHz
256MB GDDR3 VRAM @700MHz

System Bandwidth:
Main RAM 25.6GB/s
VRAM: 22.4GB/s
RSX: 20GB/s (write) + 15GB/s (read)
SB: 2.5GB/s (write) + 2.5GB/s (read)

System Floating Point Performance: 2 TFLOPS

Storage: HDD - Detachable 2.5” HDD slot x 1

I/O: USB: Front x 4, Rear x 2 (USB2.0)

Memory Stick: standard/Duo, PRO x 1
SD: standard/mini x 1
CompactFlash: (Type I, II) x 1

Communication: Ethernet - 10BASE-T, 100BASE-TX, 1000BASE-T) x 3 (input x 1 + output x 2)

Wi-Fi: IEEE 802.11 b/g

Bluetooth: Bluetooth 2.0 (EDR)

Controller:
Bluetooth (up to 7)
USB2.0 (wired)
Wi-Fi (PSP)
Network (over IP)

AV Output
Screen size: 480i, 480p, 720p, 1080i, 1080p :p
HDMI: HDMI out x 2 :hatsoff: :cool:
Analog: AV MULTI OUT x 1
Digital audio DIGITAL OUT (OPTICAL) x 1 :music

Disc media: CD, PlayStation CD-ROM, PlayStation2 CD-ROM, CD-DA, CD-DA (ROM), CD-R,CD-RW, SACD, SACD Hybrid (CD layer), SACD HD, DualDisc, DualDisc (audio side), DualDisc (DVD side), PlayStation2 DVD-ROM, PLAYSTATION3 DVD-ROM, DVD-Video, DVD-ROM, DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+R, DVD+RW

Blu-ray Disc: PLAYSTATION3 BD-ROM, BD-Video, BD-ROM, BD-R, BD-RE

And Yes my new Philips LCD HDTV as two HDMI inputs and second on is reserved for the Sony Play Station 3 on sale world wide in March 2006 !!! :smug

The Voomster :rainbow
 
If Microsoft starts including the HD DVD in the Xbox 360 next month, then Game Over, HD DVD Wins.

But since it does not sound like it will be an add on option and becuase for sure the PS3 will have Blue Ray and project sales of 10 Million in the first Year, lets face it, with 10 Million Blue rays out there you know Blue ray will win. Thats why sony is quoted as saying they will be heavily subsidising the PS3 for the first year- they want there Blue ray out there.

Blue ray will win, is my prediction.
 
Voomster said:
I really hate to disagree with Sean Mota :no and I lived through the era of the superior format Sony Beta Max dying while VHS lived it's life :mad:
Even though I never bought a Beta Max I know the market supported VHS

And Sony learned a very big lesson there. But now Sony Corp. has the Silver Bullet to launch Blue-Ray HD DVD into world wide success as the Dominator
in this rematch of technology ;)

Keep on dreaming. :D
Sony lost its market leadership on EVERY SINGLE MARKET in electronics they used to not only lead but invent things - now they are barely following others.
Why?
Exactly because of theat arrogant stupidity you're praising here: stubborn, arorgant attitude, when they thought they still can dictate the market, everybody will go with their retarded proprietary things (rememeber that ridiculous ATRAC and music players from Sony without mp3 support? Hah, that was hilarious - they just didn't get it.)

While Microsoft has come out with it's new toy the X-Box 360 with a minority market share ,

Wow, tiny? Well, in case you live in a bubble, let me tell you preorders were so large that threre's no hope they can be fulfilled before next year.
So much for your tiny marketshare... :D

all be it just in time for this Xmas even though romer has it the X-box 360 like to crash like Windows versiosn prior to XP Professional. :shocked

Ah, c'mon - this is just another completely false childish accusation. How many of them you have used, how many of those XP Pro workstations are under your command?
I oversee few hundreds and I'm saying the following:

1. XP Pro is NOT crashing at all - since you're obviously outsider, let me tell you XP Pro is just as stable as anything since SP2 - in fact my OS X on my dual G5 is a piece of sh*t compared to my XP Pro on my dual-core Athlon not only in performance (G5 is pretty lame compared to Athlons) but in stability as well.
2. I have seen frozen Pplaystations and Playstation 2s many times - sh*t happens, electronics fail, nothing new here.
In fact Sony just recalled some ~4 million ACadaptors which could caue injury, overheating or fire. Bang, so much for your trustworthy Sony electronics.

Sony is comming out with it 's Play Station 3 :eureka :hatsoff:
with "Cell" Processor with 2 TF (Terra Flop) Floating point computing level
and a 128 Bit nVidia Video processor with video rendition close to 1.8 Terra Flops ( for those that are interested go to http://www/gamespot.com and find the two hour sony Plays Station 3 tech video..

Please, cut these empty marketing fluffs here - nobody buys these 'teraflop' and similar idiocies anywhere, only silly fanboys. :)

And every Play Station 3 unit will also come with built in Sony Blue Ray DVD
Player :clap @party

Hahaha, isn't this a little early to party? No PS3 has ever been made. So keep your hat on until it arrives.

For you HighDef people check out these specs and then compute how many people will upgrade and buy this PS # 3 unit

These specs doesn't say anything about HD-related things and completely irrelevant how many people will upgrade/buy.

You apparently fell for the usual Sony PR BSing - ask some older folks here, everybody will remember when Sony said the same "magical" and "unbelievable" things about Playstation or Playstation 2.

Mr Kutaragi is a well-known liar nad showman at Sony - nobody believes him a word without evidence anymore.
He's so outrageous that they first tried to sell those E3 animations as real-time rendered ones - hahaha, the same day when a news outlet published the intwreview with the animation studio who was working on that for 9 months... Sony, as usually, been proved of lying.

It’s going to be a doozy, and at least on paper beats the Xbox 360’s performance.

If you'd understand anything from these specs, you'd know it's far from the truth.
In fact, most developers already said it's much easier to develop for X360 than PS3 - latter is a pain in the ass, as some of the put it (Perhaps Carmack).

And Yes my new Philips LCD HDTV as two HDMI inputs and second on is reserved for the Sony Play Station 3 on sale world wide in March 2006 !!! :smug

The Voomster :rainbow

Good advice: put down the pink eyeglasses and look around, check the facts before you buy anything.
(But first and foremost, please, stop this childish Sony promotion.)

First: shipping is irrational. Sony's gfx chip, designed by Nvidia, was under design by the end of the Summer - which means, according to chip industry schedules, no way it'll be ready for PS3 before the end of the year. Which means no way it'll ship by March.

Second: Blu-Ray has to catch up with HD-DVD first. (Nota bene: it's Blu-Ray only, not Blu-Ray HD-DVD - there are Blu-Ray and HD-DVD, two competing standards) is well behind HD-DVD in coming close to produce anything market-ready product.
Just one example: have you seen a laptop-sized slim drive from BDA? Because I have seen it from HD-DVD, I held it about a month ago or so in NYC in a show.

Third: did you notice that Blu-Ray is clearly favoring the studios - heck, Sony IS a studio! - against YOU, the CUSTOMER AND YOUR RIGHTS??
There's no *EDIT: managed, not >mandatory<* copy in Blu-Ray standard - unlike HD-DVD which has this as a mandatory option, to allow you to transfer your disc's content to your, say, PocketDish. I really hope Blu-Ray will lose.

Fourth: physical durability. Blu-Ray dropped the cartridge - this is really []bad when Blu-Ray's protective layer is .1mm versus the DVD and HD-DVD standard .6 mm[/b] This means - another favor for the studios icl. Sony - you'll scratch it easily, so you'll buy more copies. The rumoured and promised 'better coating' is still paperware.

Fifth: Sony's BMG and studio divisions are evil. It's not an exaggerated statement: see the latest rootkit scandal and their arrogant, @sshole reactions! Even when they finally backed, they did not say a word about apologizing for overstepping their authority, their illegal, secret hacking of your computer.

I hope Sony, as it is now, collapse very soon.

So far during the last decade with the exception of consoles (ie PSP) I haven't seen ANYTHING at least interesting concept from Sony, let alone inventing something.

Sony is clearly falling and that new arrogant @ss CEO won't stop it with his now famous "people doesn't know what's a rootkit, so they don't care" cold-cut criminal mentality.
 
I guess we will all know come Jan 5th at CES, will Sat Guys have someone there?

Sony is going to have the largest both, I bet we will get more info then.
 
ScottChez said:
I guess we will all know come Jan 5th at CES, will Sat Guys have someone there?

Sony is going to have the largest both, I bet we will get more info then.

Yep. And I'm telling you if they won't have a fully working at full speed, everything running at shipping default prototype on display, that means Sony is in deep sh*t and won't ship anything before next Summer (as I'm predicting).
 
T2k said:
Yep. And I'm telling you if they won't have a fully working at full speed, everything running at shipping default prototype on display, that means Sony is in deep sh*t and won't ship anything before next Summer (as I'm predicting).

Everything I have ever read regarding Blu-ray has always stated mid/late 06 as their launch date in the US, so no big news there.
 
But the longer they wait, the longer it will be until they can finalize their PS3 specs. Music to Microsoft's ears as they try to give their XBox 360 a headstart on grabbing market share.....
 
So should I geet an Xbox 360 now fro Xmas or wait for the PS3 and call it xmas in July or something, I will be getting best buy gift cards for xmas.

What would you do? Im big on HD so I like the idea of getting a subsidized blue ray HDTV DVD player thrown in.
 
charper1 said:
Everything I have ever read regarding Blu-ray has always stated mid/late 06 as their launch date in the US, so no big news there.


Well, for me and you but apprently most of the Sony fans are really being fed up with all the crap Kutaragi spits out after popping some hallu-pills and snorting some coke on top of them. :cool:
 
ScottChez said:
So should I geet an Xbox 360 now fro Xmas or wait for the PS3 and call it xmas in July or something, I will be getting best buy gift cards for xmas.

Well, it's kinda weird -would you wait 4-5 months at least? That doesn't sound like you want to actually get a console... :D

OTOH you can bet MS will counterattack Sony when it's about to release PS3 - which means X 360 will be cheaper and/or get an HD-DVD upgrade.
It's your call. ;)

What would you do? Im big on HD so I like the idea of getting a subsidized blue ray HDTV DVD player thrown in.

You can't get X360 *now*, unless you're ready to drop a significant amount of cash, close to twice as much as it would cost normally.
As we're getting close to Xmas you'll probably be able to get it for its normal price, so if I were you, I'd wait a couple of weeks.

However I play games on my PC, so a console for me is a kinda low-level gaming - I wouldn't buy any console at all. I tried all of them, mostly soon after they've been released: PS2 lasted a day, Xbox maybe 2 days, Gamecube has been lost somewhere in my storage (I just found it last Sunday 'cause I'm moving this week :)).

No console for me - they just suck, compared to my PC. With the exception of X360 everything looks really crappy, low-rez 640x480 on consoles and they are useless for games I play like FPS (often) or strategy (rarely). I have a dual-core Athlon 4400+ and even with my aging Radeon X800XT PE VGA it just runs fine almost everything in 1920x1200 w/ 2xAA+16xQAF.

PS: if you're really into HD, then buy an HTPC or a standalone HD and upconverting networked DVD player and a Usenet access and forget consoles. ;) Ah and keep an eye on Holographic Versatile Disc: http://www.satelliteguys.us/showthread.php?p=796474#post796474
 
They are still in short supply, but batches are being released to stores on a weekly basis, so keep trying. The problem is that speculators are grabbing them up and flipping them on EBay for huge profits. Once XMas passes this phenomena will cease and several should become in available in 1Q06.

If you have HD AND a surround sound setup, fight to get one. You'll be blown away. If you are just a casual gamer, then feel free to wait until the craziness passes.
 

Cost questions dog Blu-ray DVD's lead

New high-definition DVDs to use old video technology?

Users Who Are Viewing This Thread (Total: 0, Members: 0, Guests: 0)

Who Read This Thread (Total Members: 1)