DVD Forum Approves HD-DVD Standard 333
An anonymous reader writes "Toshiba Corp. and NEC Corp. said Friday that the DVD Forum, an international association of electronics makers and movie studios, has approved the two Japanese companies' standard for next-generation DVDs. It has
always annoyed me that DVDs are not the same top resolutions as High Definition TV. Maybe this will fix it." Well, better get to work rebuying your entire video collection, again.
DVD (Score:4, Funny)
That'd be terrible! (Score:5, Interesting)
Ironically, if they make the standards open, they can export powerful enough crypto to prevent cracking.
Re:That'd be terrible! (Score:3, Insightful)
err...
Re:That'd be terrible! (Score:2)
Re:That'd be terrible! (Score:5, Informative)
So on a entry level broadband (512kbps) I can dl an almost DVD quality movie in 3 hours (no extras, but extras suck compared to the finished product).
DVDs (DVD-Rs being writable DVDs) can be reduced to VCDs with a few bells and whistles. there is not much scope for size-bloat to prevent size-reduction and pirating.
In HK (used to live there) you could buy _legal_ VCDs (menaing guaranteed quality, recoursability, etc) of the latest DVDs a month after DVDs hit the streets at only US$3/movie. HK has a lot of piracy, but this policy benefitted the legal distro channels and originating studios a lot.
AAC/AC3. (Score:3, Informative)
--grendel drago
Re:That'd be terrible! (Score:3, Informative)
Of course they are - thats why you converted it to MPEG4
People on really highspeed networks trade ISO images of DVD's to burn onto DVD-R
HD-DVD will up the ISO size to almost 25GB per layer.
Re:DVD (Score:2)
Re:DVD (Score:2)
Give me something whose only 'personality' twitch is the shape of the power plug in the country the box is sitting in.
Make it PAL/NTSC/HDTV agnostic, supporting the various major formats for CD and DVD.
What am I quaffing? Absinthe: it makes the tongue grow blond.
Re-buying (Score:5, Informative)
Toshiba/NEC's standard is fully backwards compatible with the existing DVD standard. What this means is, unlike Blu-ray, you can watch your old movies on the new players. No need for re-buying, unless you're bored
Re:Re-buying (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Re-buying (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Re-buying (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Re-buying (Score:5, Funny)
Star Wars: Episode IV: A New Hope: The Super-Hyper Fighting Edition: Directors Cut: XTREME Really Wide Screen High Definition Rerelease ULTRA-EX2
Re:Re-buying (Score:3, Interesting)
And this include Star Wars and practically every other movie that was made before the mid 90s. I look at a number of my DVDs and I can see the film grain on them because of the transfer from the source material, putting these in higher re
Re:Re-buying (Score:3, Funny)
I've heard Greedo shoots at a sensitive, non-violent Han, misses, then chokes to death on a jalapeno popper. Han never has to dirty his hands on a dirty, dirty gun.
Re:Re-buying (Score:5, Funny)
--
Re:Re-buying (Score:5, Insightful)
Then you need to buy the entire remastered original Trilogy in the keepsake collectors box set. Several months later they'll release the entire remastered Star Wars episodes I-VI so you'll need to buy it again. Can't keep up with all these releases. How about just releasing a movie once with all the stuff you want to put in it including commentary without coming back 6 months later and re-releasing a completely new version with new commentary? Damn money whores.
Re:Re-buying (Score:3, Informative)
Sivaram Velauthapillai
This really doesn't make sense though (Score:2)
Why does Blu-ray prevent you from playing other new movies? No matter what the new standard is for the new dvds you still need the old laser to read older dvds as does current dvd players for cds. I know that blu-ray can be more expensive then this standard because production of dvds here can be done with older equipment according to the manufacturers but no mention of the new laser being able to read the dvd f
Re:This really doesn't make sense though (Score:2)
Re:This really doesn't make sense though (Score:2)
I'm really disappointed that it was not selected. DVDs are fragile enough in terms of potential for damage by scratching. HD-DVDs will probably stop being readable if you breathe on them or handle them without wearing protective gloves.
Re:Re-buying (Score:5, Insightful)
CD is NOT compatibile with DVD (wavelengths, format, etc.) and yet we see practically every DVD player capable of playing CDs.
Re:Re-buying (Score:4, Interesting)
Blue ray disks come in a built in protective plastic case, like 3 1/2 inch floppies. This is because the very small track widths make error correction so much more difficult. Even with DVDs there have been a lot of consumer complaints over how easily they scratch, and hi-def disks (in any format, unless someone comes out with one on a laser-disc size platter) are going to be that much more fragile, so this change is not as boneheaded as it sounds.
Re:Re-buying (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Re-buying (Score:2)
And/or you don't want the HD-DVD Edition of the Alien Series.
Someone will still complain (Score:5, Insightful)
But why would that make your current collection "look like crap"? It's the same DVDs you've been watching (or rather, collecting) since the beginning.
Re:Someone will still complain (Score:4, Informative)
Think of a video game you enjoyed from the early 90's, something that had amazing graphics and you just stared at the eye candy for hours when you played it.
Try playing it now, on a modern PC, after having seen a few modern games. They look like crap, not even worth playing unless they included a great story as well (for me, the original "Unreal" kinda ruined all earlier games, at least as far as appearance goes - Pathetic story line, but so pretty...).
The same goes for TV. Most people still use plain old analog NTSC or PAL TVs. We expect, and automatically filter out, a low level of static, and expect a fairly low resolution image. To prove that to yourself, check out an NTSC screen capture on a modern PC monitor - They look like tiny little pictures with horrible graininess.
So yeah, the picture itself won't change, once we all have real digital HDTV playing capabilities. But our expectations will change, and what we currenly have will seem woefully inadequate, just like that classic video game.
Re:Someone will still complain (Score:3, Informative)
True but NTSC video viewed on analog NTSC monitors isn't that bad. There's some inherent analog antialiasing when the signal is viewed as originally designed.
Viewing such a signal on a computer monitor is a lot like listening to early CD or CDs of early stuff. They have stickers that warn you that "limitations of the original source material may be audible".
Re:Current DVDs don't look like crap at 720p, but. (Score:3, Informative)
What are you talking about? DVDs are all 720x480 resolution. Even on the best player, they're all 480p at best. Your set may upconvert it to 720p if it does that, but just scaling it doesn't make it 720p.
And a real 720p is preferred by many to 1080i, since it lacks 1080's interlacing. AFAICT most anything
Movie rentals (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Movie rentals (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Movie rentals (Score:3, Informative)
Where did you hear this?
That doesn't sound like a particularly good idea on Blockbuster's part, if it's true. Blockbuster rakes in shit-tons of money from their rentals. They buy DVDs in bulk for $1 to $5 each (source: my fiancee, who worked at Blockbuster for a year until last month) and after only ONE rental per DVD, they've already broken even and begun to profit! Then they keep the movies around for years and rake in profit off of those. When the movies move off the New Releases wall to make room for
Re:Movie rentals (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Movie rentals (Score:3, Interesting)
On
Re:Movie rentals (Score:2)
I buy used DVDs at around $10-$15 Canadian, or the price of two to three rentals. So, if I watch the movie more than three times before the media fails, I've saved money, right?
Re:Movie rentals (Score:2, Informative)
That's how I do it.. If I know i'm going to enjoy a movie and watch it a few times, with rentals being damned near 6 bucks now, I'll just buy it, I watch it 3 times and save money...
-matt
Re:Movie rentals (Score:5, Funny)
That's the real value of owning the DVD versus renting it.
4 hours on the can? (Score:5, Funny)
So you decide to watch a movie after spending almost 4 hours taking a dump?
Instead of buying DVDs, you should buy some laxatives or Metamusil or something.
Re:4 hours on the can? (Score:2)
Wireless video transmission! (Score:2)
(b) Exactly what kind of place are you living in that you can't jerk off on the couch or, failing that, in your room? Do you live with your parents? In a dorm, so you don't have your own room? Seriously, jerking off in the bathroom is for fourteen year olds, playing "peek and poke" up in the treehouse.
--grendel drago
Re:4 hours on the can? (Score:2)
Re:Movie rentals (Score:2)
Re:Movie rentals (Score:2)
Except that renting a (new) movie from blockbuster costs about $5, plus, if you're even a few minutes late returning it, they charge you as if you had rented it again. You can buy a DVD from their "previously viewed" section for as low as $10. There are usually tons of new movies in the previously viewed section of the store because they need to buy 40 copies of it when it
I assume we're talking LOTR? (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, this I think goes into the "Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me" category. Early on, probably everyon
Re:I assume we're talking LOTR? (Score:3, Informative)
I think there was even a story on BBC News about it where they explicitly said the extended version would be out later and have extra stuff for bigger fans.
imo unless you never read magazine/internet/TV reviews or watch the news or talk to friends or other fans about it then you don't have any excuse for bein
No No No Please NO (Score:4, Funny)
Dammit it all to hell. I knew getting into this DVD thing was a mistake.
Overkill? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Overkill? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Overkill? (Score:5, Interesting)
I have The Matrix in HD (from Dish Networks via the Dish 5000, the 8VSB modulator and the Panasonic tuner/D-VHS combo)...and I assure you that I'm not closely inspecting Keanu's nose. On the other hand, I am familiar with every crease in Trinity's leather catsuit.
The only problem with watching movies in HD is that you cannot watch a DVD immediately afterwards. Doing so will make your eyes hurt from the strain. The difference is not subtle - my wife and I watched a movie in HD, then I showed her a bit of one of her favorite DVDs and she asked "What happened to the screen?" Nothing happened at all - it was just the difference between 480 x 720 and 1080 x 1920. Even the very best DVD will look sick compared to DVD.
Re:Overkill? (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm not saying there's no difference, or that there's no market for it, but since the difference is so subtle for most people, it will be a luxury item that not many will buy for a long time. Just think about how long VHS remained the standard for home movies, even though beta was avail
Re:Overkill? (Score:4, Informative)
Respectfully, I disagree. I have a very large TV, true (90" wide projection system). But the difference is clear on the VGA monitor I use for preview and cueing.
Any SVGA or better monitor can display HD depending on the source (one might need a component to VGA transcoder). Conduct a simple experiment: scan something at high res. Make two scaled down versions, one at 640 x 480 (roughly equal to 480P) and one at 1280 x 1024 (again, very roughly equal 1080i). Display each on your PC at native res. On any monitor 15" and above, the difference hardly "subtle". A little experimentation goes a long way to discovering the truth.
The failure of Beta had more to do with Sony's squeemishness and refusal to allow porn titles to be issued on the format. That, and the fact that VHS had 2 hour tapes when Beta was limited to 1. And lastly, Sony chose mediocre licencing partners like Sanyo, diluting the market with crappy Beta machines. Beta didn't become the quality choice until the battle was already lost. Trust me on this...I owned a VCR back in 1979, so I've seen the whole battle.Eeek the whole process all over again (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Eeek the whole process all over again (Score:2)
It's not like if you buy a DVD burner tomorrow it's going to stop working all of a sudden. Besides, once this new format is affordable, you'll just be repeating the whining cycle, because there will be an even better, more expensive format out there.
Re:Eeek the whole process all over again (Score:2)
look, if you need something today, go to the store and buy what's available, priced so that you can buy it and fills that need. the latest tech will never be as cheap as 'yesterdays' high tech.
Re:Eeek the whole process all over again (Score:2)
The DVD was never close to comparable - single channel, highly compressed and encrypted video with only enough resolution to cover a little bit of your visual field. The DVD is NOT the "final format" for video in the way that CD is for audio.
click (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:click (Score:2)
Re:click (Score:2)
But it's still better than the old days before dual-layer where you had to flip the disc midway through the movie, eh?
Re:click (Score:3, Informative)
DVDs & HD content (Score:5, Informative)
It has always annoyed me that DVDs are not the same top resolutions as High Definition TV. Maybe this will fix it.
DVDs can hold video streams with resolutions that HD uses. They just can't hold 2 hours of it.
This new format of disk could still hold an mpg-2 file, but have enough capacity to hold 2-hours worth of video at HD resolutions.
It's capacity, not format.
Re:DVDs & HD content (Score:5, Informative)
Composite? (Score:3, Informative)
I think you mean component connection [videoessentials.com] (scroll down a bit).
DRM? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Still crackable? Not likely (Score:3, Interesting)
There isn't a damn thing they can do to prevent it if some student takes one of the players into a well sticked college lab, strips the chip, and reads the encryption codes out with a microscope.
That's the difference between encryption and DRM. With proper encryption is is essentially impossible for third parties to ever crack it and get at your data. But with DRM you aren't trying to protect the data from a third party, you are trying to secure the data against a
Just re-process the video (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Just re-process the video (Score:4, Informative)
IMO, Upscaled 1080i is only about 10% better than 480i, as you just can't add detail from nowhere. Its nowhere as good as a real HD image.
Re:Just re-process the video (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Just re-process the video (Score:2)
Fine, then you're watching 480*P* upscaled to 1080i. Yes, ffdshow and dscaler do a fantastic job, but 480 lines of data is still 480 lines of data, even when each line is displayed two or three times.
Re:Just re-process the video (Score:2)
You must not have an HDTV w/ true HDTV sources (DiscoveryHD is nice), or
you're blind to make such a statement.
I have various software scalers w/ a HTPC. I have a liteon-2001 that upscales to 1080i.
Neither one is HD. Like I said, they're about 10% better. Its worth doing with current DVDs, but its nowhere near an HD image.
As for video games, changing the resolution allows the video card to render more pixels. True pixels, not inferred pixels like in upscalin
Re-buying one's collection (Score:5, Interesting)
Even of there is full backward compatibility this is still something to worry about with most formats.
I have several hundred 12 inch LaserDiscs that still deliver a fine image - but if my player ever breaks they become useless. Many of the releases have never been re-released on DVD, and likely never will.
==
Tomas
Re:Re-buying one's collection (Score:2)
This is the whole POINT of backwards compatibility! If your old player breaks, no big deal, because the new player can play them.
The reason your LaserDiscs will eventually become useless is due to LACK of backwards compatibility on modern players.
Re:Re-buying one's collection (Score:2)
Re:Re-buying one's collection (Score:2)
Re:Re-buying one's collection (Score:2)
Re:Re-buying one's collection (Score:2)
"I have several hundred 12 inch LaserDiscs that still deliver a fine image - but if my player ever breaks they become useless."
Yeah, but remember that if the same happens to your DVD's, you can just copy them to your hard disk and watch them on whatever device you want.
If that fucking weren't illegal, that is.
Wankers.
Re:Re-buying one's collection (Score:2)
For recording purposes (Score:2)
Think about the massive amount of storage these guys must go through to store (and later archive) the original cuts of movies. If we can come up with a resiliant, high-capacity, versatile storage, then movie studios will save a killer amount of money. Eventually, this can pass onto home editors, as the technology becomes mainstream (hey, l
Thats nice but ... (Score:3, Funny)
Actual Spec Anywhere? (Score:3, Insightful)
Have ANY technical details of the new standard been published anywhere yet? I can't find any public resources I can link to.
what happened to EVD? (Score:2, Insightful)
Or we could get lots of cheap used DVD's (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Or we could get lots of cheap used DVD's (Score:3, Interesting)
I have a projector with a native 800x600 resolution; at its distance from the screen, I've got a 16:9 (ie, widescreen) picture that's got a 52" diagonal.
At that size, DVD resolution (720x480) seems entirely adequate. I get some jaggies on poorly-done title screens, but I use those to help me focus the projector.
No, wait, I can: it was when I had the DVD player do letterboxing with th
NetFlix (Score:2)
no collection replacement for me (Score:5, Informative)
i, personally, won't be rebuying my collection. i mean, i bought my collection to *last* me. granted, the media may not last forever nor may the technology to even read them last forever (ie. it may be replaced by something better), but... thanks to DeCSS, the actual content can last forever. i can back it up and transfer it to progressively next generation media for as long as i please, and unlike with analogue copying, these transfers will be the same high quality they were when i purchased them. now, this hd-dvd standard may provide higher quality, but it'll be that much more riddled with copy protection, and blah.
also, for those currious... the name of the discs that the DVD forum approved are advanced optical discs. you can read about it here:
http://www.dvddemystified.com/dvdfaq.html#3.13 [dvddemystified.com]
Never started much of a collection: Thanks Netflix (Score:2, Informative)
Why they don't have a universal video standard ... (Score:2)
Why they don't have a universal digital video standard has often puzzled me. It would basically be a digital stream that provided means to specify the pixel width and height, pixel size ratio, scanning method, scanning rate, color plane depths ... and thus support a digitization of everything from standard film frame rates and traditional video standards to high definition TV, and anything in between that anyone wanted to use (and video display devices can convert and/or display quite a wide range of stand
What Irks Me about the DVDs (Score:2, Insightful)
In a time when our economy is becoming ever more global, we are full of market segmentation anyway. If these new DVDs don't get rid of the regional settings it will cost the American consumer a lot.
well, this does make sense (Score:3, Interesting)
Take a look at your DVDs, though, and freeze some frames: for a lot of movies, it probably doesn't make much sense to get HD-DVDs because the quality of the original isn't all that high to begin with. You can already see plenty of film grain, fuzziness, and other film-related artifacts even with regular DVD resolutions and compression. Motion picture film just isn't all that great.
Attempts to create new audio disc formats, on the other hand, don't make much sense for the user: audio CDs really capture audio better than most stereos can reproduce it and most people can perceive it. Furthermore, the next "format" for audio is likely going to be the Internet. So, new audio formats are just an attempt at making lots of money with no real benefit to the customer.
Storage Amount (Score:2, Insightful)
Blu Ray? (Score:2)
In other words, high def DVDs may very well still be in for some format wars. The irony, of course, is that format wars never helped anyone and that a unified format is what launched DVD so strongly in the first place. And so
is it still mpg2? (Score:2)
More Specs (Score:5, Informative)
"The HD DVD format is a violet laser-based optical disk system with a capacity of 15-20 Gbyte per side using the same disk structure as current DVD disks."
A quick comparison of existing specs here [usatoday.com] shows that the blue lazer DVD's are well ahead of these higher-density DVD's.
The Blu-ray Disc, supported by nine major makers, including Sony, Panasonic, Philips and Pioneer, could store up to 50 GB of data (more than six times the data capacity of today's DVD) by using a blue laser beam instead of the current red laser. Blu-ray recorders and players could play current DVDs, but Blu-ray discs could not be played on current players.
Advanced Optical Disc, a second blue-laser system proposed by NEC and Toshiba, brings disc capacity to 20 GB. One advantage touted by backers: Today's DVD-making equipment could easily be modified for the new discs.
HD-DVD-9, based on the current DVD format, uses improved software compression to pack 135 minutes of HD video onto the disc. It was developed by Warner Bros.
The most interesting one is the final option... Upgrading the software codec. The MPEG consortium was attempting to get mpeg-4 out the door in time to become a standard for DVD's. They didn't meet that lofty goal, but MPEG4, DIVX, and many other codecs are significantly better at compressing video than MPEG 2. A new codec would require a new decompression chip, but it would cost less than a new laser system, and would provide a platform from which to move up... After all, codecs probably won't see the same growth over the years that hardware will, so using an MPEG4 or other codec could last for many years, at least until Blue laser systems come down in price, at which point you could keep the codec.
New Enhanced DVD CSS Cracked... (Score:5, Funny)
by Norwegian 9 year-old within 4 minutes of first EDVD release.
Norwegian 9 year old sentenced to 140 years in prison in Guantanamo.
Norwegian 9 year old: "P-P-Please I just wanted to make a back up!"
Rebuying (Score:2)
If it wasn't originally created/taped in HD video, what's the point of rebuying it?
Why?! (Score:4, Interesting)
The thing I like about Blu-Ray when compared to HD-DVD is that it houses more capable space. It also uses blue-lasers. A writing format is also included so that if you want to archive your p0rn of the 'net you can do that without worrying about multi-archival discs.
Information will continue to expand and grow. This applies to video as well. When DVD first came out, it can house a lot of film content. But then, things start to get tricky. Movie companies are placing an entire movie on one disc and all their extras on a separate discs. Not only does this provide more room for the movie but it also preserves more quality to the film itself. And with the talk of high-definition movies going around, you're going to need much more space than before. What then? That old DVD will not contain your 1080p 2 hour film on a single-side dual-layered DVD, unless you want to compromise video quality which none of us wants.
HD-DVD may remedy this but what then? Blu-Ray can still house more space. That means for the hardcore geeks and nerds, it may be possible to fit all 3 extended version of the Lord of the Rings trilogy into a single disc and have the film in 1080p with no compromise in film quality. And you may also be able to fit all the extras into that same disc. As movies get larger in resolution for distribution, the more space the disc will need to fit with little to no compromise in quality. Blu-Ray would simply benefit in the future run of movies.
While I do not know of the technical limitation of Blu-Ray such as compatibility in playing today's DVDs, are companies that stingy on cost that they do not want to handle Blu-Ray discs? It may be expensive now. But at least one doesn't have to worry about a different format for a long while. HD-DVD, with its smaller capacity, would have a shorter technicalogical lifespan than Blu-Ray would. How much information you can pact into a single disc matters a lot when you consider that digital video is the most consuming piece of information than any other medium. The more space available, the better film studios and viewers will be when they, in some unknown future, view the movie in insane high resolution with hardly any loss in video quality.
HD-DVD may be the next-gen standard now. But I wonder how many would still back Blu-Ray because of the possibilities and the fact that it houses more information than HD-DVD. Cost-effective? Yeah. But you're only delaying the inevitable. Technology moves fast. I doubt it'll slow down for HD-DVD.
Finally! (Score:4, Funny)
Not gonna happen with me... (Score:3, Interesting)
DVD gave me that video format, and gives me a picture better than that of a TV signal. Sure, the future format may bring higher resolutions, but I would have been perfectly happy with VHS had it been digital, radom access, etc., so quality really isn't that huge of a deal. Even in DVD format, it's not easy to find very good movies that I want to see in the first place, and a higher resolution will only nominally improve the experience.
I say, screw 'em. I'm not upgrading, and I'd be willing to bet that it is MUCH too soon for most other people to consider that either. DVDs are STILL an over-priced format, so what kind of prices are they going to put on this next format??? $50 for a brand-new movie? $20, if you're lucky, after it's a few years old? People have paid extra to get DVDs, but I don't think they're going to pay twice as much for something that won't even look any better to 99% of the viewing public, who are still happy with their standard-res TVs.
Re:Are Michael's trollish comments necessary? (Score:2, Troll)
Re:what about cd's? (Score:2)