[Moderator's note: Some audio content is needed if this or related
subthreads are to continue. -- deb ]
"Sonnova" wrote in message
On Sun, 16 Dec 2007 07:59:13 -0800, Arny Krueger wrote
(in article ):
"Sonnova" wrote in message
According to industry sources, HD-DVD players outsold
Blu-Ray players in 2007 by a more than 1/3.
... not including the fraction of 5 million Blu Ray
players in PS3s that were
sold in 2007.
As far as
titles are concerned, they are about neck and neck at
about 400 titles each. However, There is four times the
replication capacity online for HD-DVD as there is for
Blu-Ray and Sony has only one replication facility that
can make the 50-gig discs.
http://www.electronista.com/articles...eating.hd.dvd/
"Sales of Blu-Ray movies in 2007 have nearly crushed
those of HD DVD so far, Reuters reports. According to
data from Home Media Research, 2.6 million Blu-Ray
titles were sold between January 1st and September 30th,
while only 1.4 million HD DVD titles were bought in the same
timeframe."
I've read that things have changed since then, But I
cannot find a recent citation. Everything I can find on
the web is at least 3-4 months old.
Blu-Ray authoring is more
difficult, more expensive and more error prone than is
HD-DVD as well.
That is hard to believe, because digital authoring is
largely medium independent.
The tracks for Blu-Ray are smaller and closer together
than HD-DVD. This makes them harder to master.
I guess you don't understand mastering. Mastering is, as I said largely
medium-independent. Any problems due track spacing would relate to
duplication.
It also makes both mastering and playback more error-prone.
No, if anything it makes the discs harder to duplicate.
While both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray use the same wavelength laser,
Sony uses a proprietary lens system to focus the beanm
even sharper and thus makes a smaller track.
There are actually about 5 or more million Blu Ray disc players in the hands
of consumers. Since they exist, there are proof that there are no serious
unresolved significant problems with making Blu Ray disc players.
One of the results of this is that for over a year the Blue-Ray camp
was releasing nothing but MPEG-2 encoded discs at a lower
bit-rate mastered as single layer.
This claim also doesn't hold water. Those most significant disadvantage of
MPEG-2 as compared to more modern codecs, is that it requires more data be
recorded in order to produce a given level of visual quality. If there were
problems with making high-capacity discs, then using more modern coding
techniques than MPEG-2 would be a potential problem solver.
It appears that some early PS-3 players were shipped with down-level
firmware, that did not include a full complement of codecs. Around the
middle of the year there was a downloadable public update to PS-3 firmware
that added more codecs.
Both Dream Works and Paramount have dropped their
support for both formats and have announced that
forthwith, all of their HD releases will be HD-DVD only.
Politics.
Production bottlenecks.
Mere talk.
Allan Bell, Paramount's chief technical officer also
said that while Blu-Ray's higher capacity is better
suited for raw data, movies need "minutes" and due to
the fact that Blu-Ray uses less efficient Codecs such
as MPEG2 video and PCM audio, the potential for greater
capacity is lost.
Wrong. Blu Ray is not limited to MPEG2 video and PCM
audio:
Who said that Blu-Ray was LIMITED to MPEG2 video? They
can both use the same codecs, but for manufacturing yield
issues most Blu-Ray discs sold in 2006/2007 were MPEG2
and single layer.
Mere talk. As shown above, talk that doesn't make sense. I did provide a
reasonable explanation for the early use of MPEG, which I can document.
http://www.blu-ray.com/faq/#bluray_video_codecs
What video codecs will Blu-ray support?
MPEG-2 - enhanced for HD, also used for playback
of DVDs and HDTV recordings.
MPEG-4 AVC - part of the MPEG-4 standard also
known as H.264 (High Profile and Main Profile).
SMPTE VC-1 - standard based on Microsoft's Windows
Media Video (WMV) technology.
What audio codecs will Blu-ray support?
Linear PCM (LPCM) - up to 8 channels of uncompressed
audio. (mandatory) Dolby Digital (DD) - format used for
DVDs, 5.1-channel surround sound. (mandatory)
Dolby Digital Plus (DD+) - extension of Dolby Digital,
7.1-channel surround sound. (optional)
Dolby TrueHD - lossless encoding of up to 8 channels of
audio. (optional) DTS Digital Surround - format used for
DVDs, 5.1-channel surround sound. (mandatory)
DTS-HD High Resolution Audio - extension of DTS,
7.1-channel surround sound. (optional)
DTS-HD Master Audio - lossless encoding of up to 8
channels of audio. (optional)
Confirmed by:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blu-ray_Disc#Codecs
http://www.videohelp.com/hd
etc.
Nobody has said that Blu-Ray doesn't support these
standards.
Actually, I just did say something similar - that a significant number of
the early players did not have a full complement of codecs, but that problem
was addressed about 6 months ago. That was then, this is now.
The fact that they haven't been using anything
other MPEG2 and single layer discs for most of their
releases is mostly due to manufacturing problems, not
lack of standards supports.
According to Bell, using VC-1 or AVC a 30-gig
HD-DVD can provide up to four hours of HD playing time.
Blu Ray supports both codecs - see above.
If one needs more, one simply adds another disc to the
package, and it will still be cheaper and easier than
trying to get a 50-gig Blu-Ray disc out of Sony.
Wrong.
Take it up with Alan Bell of Paramount. I'm merely
reporting here.
You admit that your data is like 4 months out of data. Looks to me like its
more like 6 months out of date.
But one would think that if Sony has only
one facility for producing 50-Gig discs, that this would
be a bottleneck as would the fact that there are 32
replication facilities available to make HD-DVD discs and
only 8 that can make Blue-Ray discs. Seems like a
no-brainer to me.
Read the Alan Bell interview in the latest TPV.
http://www.avguide.com/the-perfect-vision/
I don't chase incomplete URLs. If you've got something that is more complete
and relevant, please post it.
Add to this the price disparity between Blu-Ray players
and HD-DVD players ($499 for Blu-Ray vs $199 for HD-DVD)
This weekend's newspaper flyers show Blu Ray players
being sold this weekend by several retailers at a
regular price of $299. Same lowest price as they are
selling HD DVD players.
About time. However, the Venturer SHD7000 HD-DVD player
(a repackaged Toshiba) LISTS for $199 and is cheaper
than that on the street. ($190 this weekend at Walmart).
Press releases and ads for non-stock items are a dime a dozen.
From the Wal-Mart web site a few seconds ago:
"We found no stores within 100 miles of 48236 that carry this product.
Please try a new search. (In-stock status is approximate and was last
updated on 12/17/2007 at 3:59 AM, E.T.)"
For my own edification, the HD-DVD movies that I have
look better than the Blu-Ray discs that I own and it's
especially telling on movies that I have in BOTH formats.
Might be implementation difficulties that relate to the specific titles that
you have.
In the long run, its the capability of the medium that matters. HD-DVD media
can hold less data. More data, more resolution.
"Ye canna change the laws of physics, laws of physics" said Scotty on the
origional star trek series.
There is, however no specification-driven reason why this
should be so and I suspect that its merely the
aforementioned teething problems on the Blu-Ray side. My
money TODAY is on HD-DVD to be the winning format in this
struggle, though. Tomorrow might change my mind, but for
the here and now, I'll stick with HD-DVD. Whoever wins I
hope its soon.
It looks to me like the market split will not put either side out of
business in the short term.
These two competing camps must realize
that having two incompatible formats for what is,
essentially, the same set of standards, is holding both
back. The High-Definition Digital Disc will only take off
when there is one and only one format.
Now that we can agree on!