Warner Brothers seems to be looking at a new disk format that will work in Bluray and HD-DVD drives. C|Net has the scoop.
Quote:
Because of manufacturing complexities, the Total HD disc will not contain a standard format version, said Kevin Tsujihara, the president of Warner Brothers Home Entertainment Group. However, several months ago the company filed patents for a new disc incorporating all three formats, which it could produce in the future.
Tsujihara 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 the format they have been backing.
Tsujihara 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 the format they have been backing.
If all movies are released on a unified disc, then we can just choose the player we like best.
Maybe using price, quality or just simple personal preference as the indicator.
As we all know, movie studios aren't known for taking financial risks, so surely the way to push HD into the world is to create a situation where they don't have to.
I feel like this would make the PS3 (for example) a more viable purchase if you knew that every hi-def disc that was released would play on it, and not just the ones from studios which had chosen to support blu-ray.
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Warner sounds like a little boy trying to play peacemaker while his parents beat the crap out of each other. Unfortunately, everyone can't win.
Does this mean the movie is recorded 3 times on the disc, once in each format? If so, what will that do to manufacturing costs? Naturally, the costs will be passed on to the consumer, to avoid forcing one format to concede defeat.
Not really Borys... It looks like they are going ahead with this.
Quote:
Warner Bros., which helped popularize the DVD more than a decade ago, plans to announce next week a single videodisc that can play films and television programs in both Blu-ray and HD DVD, the rival DVD technologies.
this isn't really going to make a diff in the format war for customers, but it means movie studios can release in both formats without having to put two completely different product lines out there, so it cuts their costs/risk. for customers, it's probably still going to be combo hardware, like the lg player just announced, that's important, because it's unlikely either universal or sony will ever switch formats, not to mention the fact that these dual discs will probably have only single layer capacity.
So, like the news quote said, this was announced a couple months ago. The article linked here actually has less information about them then the original... 0.o
HD-DVD has to win because, simply put, it is better technology. It's behind-the-scenes technology is far superior to Blu-Ray, it uses the superior VC-1 compression by default and all this comes without forcing the manufacturing facilities to revamp their existing DVD production lines (which means less cost). Additionally, since Sony is always the morons who don't want to play nice and force their proprietary formats on the industry, they should be the ones to eat a huge loss on a disastrous Blu-Ray failure.
So, like the news quote said, this was announced a couple months ago
The article is about CES where Warner Brothers will introduce this disc format. The announcement that they 'could' do this was indeed several months ago. The article today is that they 'will' do this.
Quote:
Warner Bros., a division of Time Warner, plans to formally announce the new disc, which it is calling a Total HD disc, at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas on Tuesday.
HD-DVD has to win because, simply put, it is better technology. It's behind-the-scenes technology is far superior to Blu-Ray, it uses the superior VC-1 compression by default and all this comes without forcing the manufacturing facilities to revamp their existing DVD production lines (which means less cost). Additionally, since Sony is always the morons who don't want to play nice and force their proprietary formats on the industry, they should be the ones to eat a huge loss on a disastrous Blu-Ray failure.
VC-1 compression can be used with Blu-ray as well. In fact Flightplan uses it. The highest capacity HD-DVD disc still holds less than the highest capacity Blu-Ray disc so I wouldn't necessary call it superior technology. That being said, the majority of the movies I'd buy are on both formats so for me it would come down to price (since picture quality, sound, etc is the same) and that's where HD-DVD wins.
HD-DVD has to win because, simply put, it is better technology. It's behind-the-scenes technology is far superior to Blu-Ray, it uses the superior VC-1 compression by default and all this comes without forcing the manufacturing facilities to revamp their existing DVD production lines (which means less cost). Additionally, since Sony is always the morons who don't want to play nice and force their proprietary formats on the industry, they should be the ones to eat a huge loss on a disastrous Blu-Ray failure.
From Wikipedia :
Quote:
The primary rival to Blu-ray Disc is HD DVD, championed by Toshiba, NEC Corporation, Microsoft, and Intel. HD DVD has a lower theoretical disc capacity per layer (15 GB vs 25 GB). The Blu-ray Disc version of the Adam Sandler movie Click was released on October 10, 2006 as the first ever dual-layer release. Sony's goal is to use 50 GB dual-layer discs to store up to nine hours of HD video content. Alternatively, studios releasing movies on Blu-ray Disc can choose to use VC-1 or H.264/AVC instead of MPEG-2 as an alternative way to put four hours of high-definition content on a (single layer) BD.
In terms of audio/video compression, Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD are similar on the surface: both support MPEG-2, VC-1, and H.264 for video compression, and Dolby Digital (AC-3), PCM, and DTS for audio compression. The first generation of Blu-ray Disc movies released used MPEG-2 (the standard currently used in DVDs, although encoded at a much higher video resolution and a much higher bit rate than those used on conventional DVDs), while initial HD DVDs releases used the VC-1 codec. Due to greater total disc capacity, the Blu-ray Disc may choose in the future to utilize a higher maximum video bit rate, as well as potentially higher average bit rates . In terms of audio, there are some differences. Blu-ray Disc allows conventional AC-3 audiotracks at 640 kbit/s, which is higher than DVD/HD DVD's maximum, 448 kbit/s. Nevertheless, Dolby Digital Plus support is mandatory for standalone HD DVD players at a maximum of 3 Mbit/s, while optional for BD players and support up to a higher bitrate of 4.736 Mbit/s.[45]
Both HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc support the 24p (traditional movie) frame rate, but technical implementations of this mode are different among the two formats. Blu-ray Disc supports 24p with its native timing, while HD DVD uses 30i timing for 24p (replacing missing frames with "repeat field flags"). Decoders can ignore the “flags” to output 24p.[46] There is no impact on picture resolution or storage space as a result of this, as the HD DVD format uses the exact same video information — it simply adds notational overhead.
From a technical standpoint, Blu-ray seems to be the superior technology, but not by a huge margin. It's all going to come down to which format can gain the most support from the studios that actually matter. One thing that you have to remember is that Sony isn't the only investor in Blu-ray by any stretch of the imagination. You've also got Disney, Dell, Apple, and Panasonic among others backing the format.
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More storage space doesn't equal superior technology. Look at the costs (impacted by the production process) and the content itself. So far HD discs are cheaper and more interesting with respect to extra features than their Blu-ray counterparts. I couldn't care less how much extra storage space I'd have theoretically since I'm not burning data. I'm watching movies and I'm all about bang for my buck. A niftier viewing experience + cheaper cost makes me (so far) an HD-DVD fan. If that changed and suddenly Blu-ray was cheaper and had more features on their discs, I'd flip flop.
bluray costs a shitload more money to make as well. the data is stored in a way that all of the bluray manufacturing machines had to be brand new whereas the hd-dvd machines could use older dvd components. the initial stratup cost and launch of bluray was hurtful on the wallets and passed along to the consumers.
everything i have read puts hd-dvd int he lead by a margin due to the cheaper players and movies.
Now when are we going to see some TV stuff released on HD-DVD/Bluray?
How about some Lost or anything else, as of right now there is no reason to buy any hd player as there is no real "killer application" (Star Wars would be nice).
As far as I know TV series on DVD generate the largest portion of income for the studios.
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