W0W!1! SCIENC3!1! Blu-Ray FTW!

[TheBaxter]

I don't know why I'm so anti-Sony. I own a Sony Hi-Def LCD tv AND the 1000 Watt Sony Dream System. Yet I hate the Playstation with a passion and am rooting for HD-DVD to win? Why? I think it's because I want PS3 to fail and if Blu-ray fails maybe it'll drag PS3 down with it. Long live Xbox 360!

it's more likely to be the other way around, if PS3 fails, it will drag blu-ray down with it.

[ThisIsTheGirl]

A friend of mine works in a place that mass-produces promo DVDs for big companies, and he says that in his industry, Blu-Ray have already won the battle. His firm has already ordered a fuckload of Blu-Ray burning equipment. Sadly, this outcome has always seemed inevitable to me.

Oh, and:

At last I'll see Jennifer Anistons blonde arm hair the way it was meant to be seen!

Jesus Christ...

This line made me snot all over my shirt

/that is all

[AtomicHyperbole]

Don't expect me to pay the dry cleaning...



@Baxter - I'm only going with what I've noticed and been told. For the price Samsung deliver top-quality LCD TV's and which include the latest tech, which is why they're the choice for brands like EA when it comes to game shows.

[Starks]

Looks like the 10s of millions spent on encryption schemes for HifDef Movies was worth the money.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060802-7411 .html

Brute force copying of HD DVD and Blu-ray successful

..... The original encryption designed for DVD movies, called CSS, was so easy to break that the programming code required to do so could fit on a t-shirt. Once it became clear that arresting people for wearing t-shirts wasn't practical, the movie industry decided that the next generation of high-definition optical disc formats needed a much tougher encryption scheme, called AACS.

Still, any form of encryption is only as strong as its weakest link. This was made clear earlier this year when the Xbox 360's extremely strong encryption scheme was bypassed by a modification to the firmware in the DVD-ROM drive. Now, according to the German technology magazine c't, it seems as if the strong protection on both HD DVD and Blu-ray movies has been worked around by not attempting to crack it at all.

The solution was surprisingly low-tech: the user simply hit the PrintScreen key. The screen capture feature of the operating system allowed each frame to be digitally captured exactly as it was displayed on-screen. Since it would be impractical to sit around advancing movies frame by frame and hitting PrintScreen all day, a script was used to automate the process. Each frame resulted in a 2 MB image. The computers used were fast enough to capture 30 frames per second, enabling real-time capturing of the movies without dropped frames. For a 90-minute movie, this is 162,000 frames, or approximately 324 GB in total storage, so if you try this, make sure you have lots of free hard disk space! The sound tracks must be captured separately and then re-synched with the video, so this is by no means a trivial process......

[Mrblonde885]

That's actually pretty clever, though I'd say it's rather impractical given the amount of disc space necessary to hold everything. Honestly, who has 324GB of free space just laying around?

[Tyrone_Shoelaces]

Broadcasters are starting to use it.

[papalazeru]

This sort of thing has been around for ages. It used to be a sphere which they tried to write to about 20 years but they could never get it accurate enough.

[sleepflower]

This sort of thing has been around for ages. It used to be a sphere which they tried to write to about 20 years but they could never get it accurate enough.

This looks nothing like a sphere. The 'Discs' are about a quater inch thick and square.

[papalazeru]

I know, I just remember the initial conversation I had about it more than 10 years ago with a science professor.

[sleepflower]

There is nothing like this for capacity and archiving except for tape. This offers speed and capacity advantages.

[sleepflower]

I know, I just remember the initial conversation I had about it more than 10 years ago with a science professor.

Quite a difference though between concepts and a product emerging.

[papalazeru]

I know, I just remember the initial conversation I had about it more than 10 years ago with a science professor.

Quite a difference though between ideas in technology and a product emerging.

Wasn't an idea...its was built so it was a concept.

[guerillakarma]

Sounds great but I can't see it really appealing to the average consumer. If it doesn't look like a dvd disc then they won't buy it.

[silentbobafett]

Well the next wave of tech after Blu Ray and HD is already being thought up and worked on. Obviously. But whats annoying about that is that we're being told that HD is the ultimate way to view films. No, wait, sorry that was DVD's. No... sorry its HD... or blu ray? Hang on... if I was told by Sony that the greatest picture quality achievable was going to be DVD... then why do I need to bother with HD. Unless they bullshited me and that surely means that HD is bullshit so what I'll do now is not get HD or bluray, stick with my expansive DVD collection and wait to see what comes around after HD etc

Anyone who didn't jump on the DVD bandwagon is now laughing cos they saved themselves thousands and can now build up a hard core HD collection nwo that the VHS market is truley defunct.

Same as, hopefully, the DVD one will be at the end of HD's life... such a strange cross over.... I, of course, hope they fail fucking miserably!

[Fried Gold]

I think there is a new format likely to be launch in the next couple of years which takes optical discs storage up to about 300GB.

Then in the forseeable future there are hologrammatic formats being developed (which theoretically start to go into Terabyte level capacities.)

And further still you have microbial protein based discs.

There will always be new formats. It's just down to whether consumers decide to take them up. Both of these HD DVD formats may die quite quickly like DVDA/SACD.

[Doc Holliday]

I think there is a new format likely to be launch in the next couple of years which takes optical discs storage up to about 300GB.

Then in the forseeable future there are hologrammatic formats being developed (which theoretically start to go into Terabyte level capacities.)

And further still you have microbial protein based discs.

There will always be new formats. It's just down to whether consumers decide to take them up. Both of these HD DVD formats may die quite quickly like DVDA/SACD.

Makes you wonder where we're headed in the long, long term huh? I remember when holographs were the stuff of dreams and Wookie Chessboards.

Perhaps one day there'll be movies sold as pills that you take and which then leave you with an indelible memory of the film. Or maybe it plays the film in your minds eye whilst you sit at your desk 'working'.

Or maybe I should just smoke less in the morning....

[Chilli]

Ah man, if that pills thing comes to fruition it could mean that watching a really bad Michael Bay film (cough - Pearl Habour - cough) means you ingest the bitter taste of slow-motion husky ass.

[Doc Holliday]

Ah man, if that pills thing comes to fruition it could mean that watching a really bad Michael Bay film (cough - Pearl Habour - cough) means you ingest the bitter taste of slow-motion husky ass.

Or maybe it puts you in the POV of any of the main characters - like you're looking through their eyes. Imagine a Michael Bay film then!

BOOM!

ooh fuck

"KABLAM"

shit...wait a minute...don't run to the edge of the roof...what am I WHOA WHOA WHOAAAAAAAAAA

Bay might not be so bad watched like that!

Fucking Boll however, would be a different story. All the way through you'd have at the back of your mind "I can't believe I let him beat me down on my normal fee, much less agreed to appear in this bunch of toss"

[silentbobafett]

I think a Boll pill would be one bad trip maaan!

[silentbobafett]

BOLL PILL TRIP=

[The Thin Man]

I work in a large IT section and thing this would be ideal as a backup system. Currently we back up to tapes. A full system backup takes 3 x 100Gb tapes and 16 hours to run. Tapes have a limit life, are slow and prone to stretching. I suspect this, along with professional media systems, is where the future of this technology belongs.

[Fried Gold]

I think there is a new format likely to be launch in the next couple of years which takes optical discs storage up to about 300GB.

Then in the forseeable future there are hologrammatic formats being developed (which theoretically start to go into Terabyte level capacities.)

And further still you have microbial protein based discs.

There will always be new formats. It's just down to whether consumers decide to take them up. Both of these HD DVD formats may die quite quickly like DVDA/SACD.

Makes you wonder where we're headed in the long, long term huh? I remember when holographs were the stuff of dreams and Wookie Chessboards.

Perhaps one day there'll be movies sold as pills that you take and which then leave you with an indelible memory of the film. Or maybe it plays the film in your minds eye whilst you sit at your desk 'working'.

Or maybe I should just smoke less in the morning....

Maybe some sort of direct neural connection. Although that might be more about the experience of having seen the film being implanted somewhere in your head.


...


TOTAL RECALL

[doglips]

Reposted for your pleasure!!

From todays trades (don't under estimate the chinese market)

Yet Another DVD Format Is Launched


Amplifying the babel of high-definition DVD recording languages, China on Wednesday took the wraps off 54 new video players playing discs recorded in the EVD (Enhanced Versatile Disc) format. In a report from Beijing, the Associated Press said that Chinese electronics makers plan to switch completely to EVD by 2008. They predicted that, because of the size of the Chinese market, the switchover will have no impact on manufacturers. They also indicated that they will begin exporting the EVD players abroad next year, although no U.S. studio has yet indicated that it intends to release product in the format. The A.P. report provided no technical specifications of the format, except to say that its promoters boast of "crisper" pictures, larger recording capacity and better anti-piracy features than standard DVD.

Just make cerebral implants and get it over with already!!!
End of format war.
Period.

EVD was made because the Chinese government didn't want to pay licencing fees to all the codecs & encryption softwares used with regular DVD.

It is the same as a DVD, but the compression is more advanced the mpeg methods used on DVD and so is apparently capable of carrying HD pictures on DVD capacity.

[AtomicHyperbole]

I'm currently considering (when it's more widely available) an Xbox HD-DVD player. I've got a 26" Samsung which can only do up to 1080i (running through VGA at the moment) and at that size monitor it's pretty crisp.

Am I going to gain any benefit from HD DVD at this size? Bearing in mind upscaled DVD's look pretty good, but artifacting and the slight fuzz from doing that annoys the crap outta me.

[wonkabar]

http://news.digitaltrends.com/talkback158.html

[AtomicHyperbole]

I honestly think that in the public eye HD DVD, comprised of two acronyms we're now all used to, compared to BluRay, wins by name alone. BluRay sounds like something you'd use to kill an ozzie bushwhacker.

[Fried Gold]

I'm currently considering (when it's more widely available) an Xbox HD-DVD player. I've got a 26" Samsung which can only do up to 1080i (running through VGA at the moment) and at that size monitor it's pretty crisp.

Am I going to gain any benefit from HD DVD at this size? Bearing in mind upscaled DVD's look pretty good, but artifacting and the slight fuzz from doing that annoys the crap outta me.

1080i should look better than upscaled SD.

[AtomicHyperbole]

Noticeably better? £120 better?

[Fried Gold]

Should be.

I can't seem to find out what connectivity the Xbox drive has got. It doesn't appear to have any sort of DV output.

[TheBaxter]

i was pulling for blu-ray (despite the stupid name) for a long time, but now i just don't care. i just want there to be ONE hd format, whether it's blu-ray or hd-dvd. either one is fine, just stop the stupid competition. i think hd-dvd will win out over blu-ray, it's got too many advantages and not enough drawbacks. it's cheaper ($1K for an HD player that doesn't look any better than a $450 one? are you kidding, sony?), it's on-time (how many times has sony delayed blu-ray by now?), it's got a name that makes sense to the average consumer, and though it has less capacity, the end result in PQ is no difference. sure it would've been nice to get a full season of 24 in HD on two discs instead of 4 or 5, but i'll put up with it if we can just get down to one format instead of two.

sony has screwed up their blu-ray strategy so bad, i think it's too late to recover. hd-dvd is going to win that fight, and i'm fine with that. it may be a pyrrhic victory, because soon somebody (maybe apple?) will come up with the movie version of the ipod, and everyone will be able to get their movies online and carry them around with them, keeping a few hundred movies on a device that doesn't take up as much room as a dvd/hd-dvd collection would.

i do think dvd will eventually go away, but it won't matter because by that time hd-dvd players will be as cheap as dvd players are now, and they'll all still play dvds so no one will have to upgrade if they don't want to. they'll play their old dvd's and the new ones they buy will be hd-dvds. and i'm sure there will be plenty of people who do upgrade. the studios already double-dip and triple-dip and quadruple-dip any title they can make a profit on, and they'll continue doing that with hd-dvd as long as the public keeps buying. hd-dvd is a much bigger upgrade from dvd than the typical studio double-dip, so there will be plenty of buyers.

i'm not a collector, i have probably less than 30 movies. i think hd-dvd will be most successful with the collectors who buy hundreds of movies, while the non-physical formats will eventually take over for people like me, with on-demand HD content delivered via the internet or some other high-bandwidth delivery system to a set-top box which will make PPV and movie rentals obsolete. whoever can bring a system like this to market first (apple? netflix? directv? comcast? amazon?) is gonna take over the movie delivery industry.

[AtomicHyperbole]

Should be.

I can't seem to find out what connectivity the Xbox drive has got. It doesn't appear to have any sort of DV output.

No HDMI yet, just VGA. My telly outputs at highest 1080i.

[wonkabar]

i was pulling for blu-ray (despite the stupid name) for a long time, but now i just don't care. i just want there to be ONE hd format, whether it's blu-ray or hd-dvd. either one is fine, just stop the stupid competition. i think hd-dvd will win out over blu-ray, it's got too many advantages and not enough drawbacks. it's cheaper ($1K for an HD player that doesn't look any better than a $450 one? are you kidding, sony?), it's on-time (how many times has sony delayed blu-ray by now?), it's got a name that makes sense to the average consumer, and though it has less capacity, the end result in PQ is no difference. sure it would've been nice to get a full season of 24 in HD on two discs instead of 4 or 5, but i'll put up with it if we can just get down to one format instead of two.

sony has screwed up their blu-ray strategy so bad, i think it's too late to recover. hd-dvd is going to win that fight, and i'm fine with that.

Yup

[Tyrone_Shoelaces]

The initial judgments I heard at the start of the HD-DVD/Blu-Ray fight was that HD-DVD would win in the consumer sector while Blu-Ray would win with the professionals. I'm beginning to agree. I was rooting for Blu-Ray but it does seem that Sony has bollocksed it a bit. B-R is the basis for their XDCAM system so its not a total loss for them. Though I must admit the thought of productions originating on B-R and then delivered to consumers on HD-DVD makes me chuckle. I will not be surprised if the HD disc pissing contest ends in a stalemate with customers annoyed at the stench. I think the next thing in home video will, depending on technology and consumer acceptance, be either solid state or downloading/video on demand. Just wait until 2K and 4K and so on become the standard.

[sleepflower]

I still feel people are rushing this fight. It took DVD ages to settle into peoples homes even though it was the only contender.

There really are enough films being bought to support both in the future, as long as cheap enough systems that will play both arrive.

I can see HD-DVD flourishing on the computer side of things when recordable discs and drives are around, due to the cheaper media cost.

I still think blu-ray will win out on the consumer front, mainly due to the storage. A film and extra features on one disc... evens out the cost a bit if you need 2 HD-DVDs.

[silentbobafett]

Sony Encounters New Blu-ray Glitches


The Sony Blu-ray high-definition version of Lionsgate's horror flick The Descent plays fine on Sony's new PlayStation3 game device, but those who attempt to watch it on an ordinary Sony Blu-ray player will see only a blank screen, according to reports that have emerged over the past few days on several websites devoted to high-definition video formats. A similar problem was reported with Pioneer Blu-ray players. The Descent disc features numerous "extras" produced exclusively for the Blu-ray format, including a picture-in-picture video commentary. And therein lies the problem, according to the HD websites. Lionsgate used BD-Java technology for the extras, which is not compatible with the Sony BDP-S1 and Pioneer Elite Blu-ray players. Sony says it is aware of the problem and is working to provide an update to the operating system of its players by early this year.

[MonkeyM666]

Why Sony?? You have to beat the HD-DVD into the ground. None of this glitchy shit... tut, tut...

[silentbobafett]

Heh heh... can't stand any of this shit... my dvd's look fucking amazing on my new 42" HD plasma... so why would I, a self confessed DVD nut and film geek, want to spend out on one of this players that A) don't seem to work and seem to hype for nothing and B) won't let me copy them, so when I buy one and I want to back it up... I can't! Aren't you allowed to make one back up of everything you buy? I do that with my Alan Partridge DVD's cos they get taken EVERYWHERE I don't want to spend £20 on a dvd and if, god forbid, something should happen, I have to do it again. Especially when all that happens is these big companies tell me that I'M THE EVIL ONE!!! nope... and a big fucking nope to their new systems!

[mistertim]

Aren't you allowed to make one back up of everything you buy?

Not in the Uk you're not. technically you're not allowed to use an iPod either.

(see the UK zoners meetup thread for more ranting on this subject)

[silentbobafett]

Well I don't live in the UK I live in SBFDomain... a land filled with the better things in life...

Not many spaces left... so don't be expecting to be let in... :_)

[silentbobafett]

Will this never end? Here you go peeps:

End of the Hi-Def DVD Format War?


Warner Home Video may have found a solution to the format war between the Sony-developed Blu-ray and Toshiba's HD DVD high-definition video discs: a hybrid disc that it is calling Total HD. Today's (Thursday) New York Times reported that the one-disc-fits-all development will be announced by Warner Bros. Chairman and CEO Barry Meyer at this year's Consumer Electronics Show, which opens on Monday. In an interview with the Times, Kevin Tsujihara, president of Warner Brothers Home Entertainment Group, described the new disc as an elegant way for studios to make their content available more widely "in a way that is not conceding defeat" for whichever format they have been backing. Initially, the Times observed, the new disc would add a fourth DVD version of every available movie or TV show, but Warner is seeking to find a method for incorporating the standard DVD format on Total HD, thereby combining all formats on a single disc. Meanwhile, South Korea's LG Electronics, said on Wednesday that it plans to unveil a player capable of playing either Blu-ray or HD DVD discs at the CES. The company provided no further details other than that the players will become available during the first quarter of this year.

---------------------------

Silentbobafetts idea: How about we all just stick with DVD!

Wouldn't that be nice!

[MonkeyM666]

And what player are you supose to buy? This will take another five years you get it working right. They haven't even got the current formats working propperly yet. Bloody hell...

[CeeBeeUK]

And what player are you supose to buy? This will take another five years you get it working right. They haven't even got the current formats working propperly yet. Bloody hell...

Don't worry...

The first DVD player to play both rival high definition DVD formats has been announced by South Korean firm LG.

The dual-format player will be able to play the Sony-backed Blu-ray discs and the Toshiba-led HD DVD discs.

from here

[silentbobafett]

Yeah but like I'm gonna trust that! If Blu-Ray can't even play Blu-Ray properly whats the chances of a fucking LG multiplayer got!

Nope... DVD is where my hearts at!

[Tyrone_Shoelaces]

Blu-ray Aims to Oust DVDs

[stereosforgeeks]

Response to Harry's choice can be seen here

[so sorry]

Stereo, we have a thread for this in the EFBR (and that article's already posted there to.

check it out

Fuckin A (Headgeek's HD-DVD Endorsement)

[stereosforgeeks]

woops only searched in dvd

[The Hellboy]

The main problem with DVD/VHS anologies is that most people don't consider that VHS tapes prices were kept ARTIFICIALLY high to support the rental biz. Mega-hit movies were guranteed a VHS release at an affordable price ($15 to $30) but many titles, especially in the early days, could only be purchased for $100 and up by through rental distributors(this is why losing a rented tape would rack up such a high fee)...back catalog titles...classics, cult movies, etc. were even harder to find at the consumer price point. This is why you only had one half of one aisle worth of movies at the local dept store. 2/3 of which would usually be children's movies. The VHS market was tightly controlled to keep the rental guys in business.


When DVD was created, a conscious decision was made throughout the industry to make the software available at a consumer price point across the board...this meant therw as no artificial barrier between a renta release and a more mass-market release(much to thechagrin of the powers at Blockbuster, etc.) Almost instantly, there were several times as many movies of all kinds on DVD than VHS. On top of that, every new release came out on DVD at a low price point ($20-25), even if the VHS conterpart was priced for renatl only ($100).

DVD's appeal to consumers like me in those early days, was not image quality, bit the vast variety of titles available (as well as widescreen formats). Favorite films that could not be bought retail, were suddenly available for $20, new releases could be purchased for home viewing much quicker, without a retail pricing delay to benefit rental stores.

i'd like to add that the big rental chains were afforded the chance to keep the high retail / rental-centric model (ala VHS) for DVD and they PASSED. It may have been the thought that DVD would be a niche format, like LaserDisc. The sell-through model took over and the rest is history.

[Peven]

one big thing DVD has over VHS that appealed to consumers----no rewinding.

[Chairman Kaga]

one big thing DVD has over VHS that appealed to consumers----no rewinding.

Also unlike HD it did not require a new television to take advantage full advantage of the new tech.