Toshiba HD-DVD Stragety against Blu-Ray [Archive]

Toti

27th May 2007, 17:13

I really don't unnderstand Toshiba HD-DVD stragety. I have been making my backups on Double Layer DVDs but authored as HD-DVD some call this 3X DVD. Most people like myself have a 1080i TV.

This means actual resolution is only 1366X768 or 1280X720. Although the player will project 1080i signals but in reality will scaled them down to the native resolution since it simply doesn't have enough pixels.

Having said that, it is very possible to author a HD-DVD with 1280X720 or 1280X1080 or 1440X1080 (all are supported resolutions in the HD-DVD standard) in Dual Layer DVDs. This will drop the cost of the movies tremendously and will shift the balance towards HD-DVD providing HD Movies at a reasonable cost.

It could offer 1080p versions on HD-DVDs for those with 1920X1080 TVs. However, you will need an HD-DVD player to play these discs.

I guarantee you that customers will buy HD Movies at 720p for $5 more than regular DVD (which it should be the same price) than paying $20 more for a 1080p HD-DVD of the same movie.

Because lets face it customers are price sensitive... ok, cheap.

$15 720p HD Movies = more sales of HD-DVD players, PC Drives.
For those that want the best because have the money to spend can get the same HD-DVD player but buy the $30 movie.

Imagine if you told people buying a new HD Camcorder at Circuit City, Best Buy, etc... that all you need is a software to transfer your movies to dual layer dvds and play them on your HD-DVD player in HD. They can still use the same DVD recorder and buy new DL discs. With 720p movies at $10~$15 and 1080p at $25~$30.

Now imagine a software box sold for $70~$100 one click transfer from camcorder to DVD-DL in HD-DVD format.

Won't this help HD-DVD camp? Just my two cents.

I don't have anything against Blu-ray but I really think HD-DVD is a far more friendly format, less expensive and you don't need 50 Gigs for a two hour movie at 1080p. Specially if you are using VC1 or AVC.

Doom9

27th May 2007, 19:49

than paying $20 more for a 1080p HD-DVD of the same movie.Are you sure you checked some prices before making a statement like that? When looking around at Amazon - and you need to look at recent titles because old titles get a lower price, but when they are re-issued in a HD format the pricing will be based on what the movie cost when it was new - and the premium for a HD edition (be it HD DVD or Blu-ray) over their DVD counterpart is usually somewhere between $3 and $10.

You seem to base your reasoning on the presumtion that the price difference is explained by replication cost. However, this is not the case. Back in march I ran a story on replication costs of both HD formats (http://wesleytech.com/blu-ray-vs-hd-dvd-replication-costs-revealed/111/) . If we compare the costs of a dual layer HD DVD with that of a DVD-9, the former costs about $1 more than the latter. For Blu-ray, it's a bit more (assuming a single layer disc.. I have yet to see numbers for 50GB discs).

So where's the rest of the difference? First there's AACS. Back in April I had a story on the cost of AACS.. it costs quite a bit more than CSS.

Then we have encoding - you need the new encoders anyway since 720p content on DVD-9 is a nogo if we use MPEG-2.

Then there's authoring.. you need the same tools regardless of where your HD content ends up.

The price difference between a DVD and a HD disc is a combination of all those extra costs, plus extra markup since you can sell a higher quality product at a higher price. By going 720p, you only cut a buck away from the total cost, and you introduce yet another version for retailers to keep in stock. DVD, HD DVD and Blu-ray is a pain, add another version just adds to that pain.

And then there's playback.. you can't just do away with the blue laser.. both formats require blue lasers (once again I'm not sure if Blu-ray even supports content on a DVD disc but that's beside the point) - you can't make a HD DVD player that can just read HD content on DVDs.. to get the HD DVD certification your player needs to handle content on HD DVD discs.

And last but not least.. if you have or are going to buy a 1080p screen, why would you then get your content at a lower resolution and scale up? If you still have an SD setup and are looking at going to HD, I doubt many will settle for the 720p stopgap.

Revgen

27th May 2007, 22:07

HD-DVD's are produced in the same factories that produce regular DVD's. The manufacturing cost isn't that prohibitive.

Perhaps Blu-Ray would be better off employing this kind of strategy if DVD's with Blu-Ray content are capable of playing in Blu-Ray players. I don't own Blu-Ray so I'm not sure.

Yet, like Doom9 mentioned, AACS, and VC1 or H.264/AVC encoders would be necessary anyway and since most HD-DVD's use new encoders the cost would come pretty close.

Ichinisan

29th May 2007, 19:37

...stragety...
Are you in any way related to a rabbit named "Bugs"? ;)

Toti

1st June 2007, 17:34

Well, I was talking more about the prices regular people see at their local Best Buy. True, online is different the prices are lower. Amazon, has HD-DVD movies for $19.99 and blurays not too far behind. Sadly, this is not the price customers see in their local stores.

By the way, Toshiba is doing good with their sales after the $100 rebate. Who said people are not price sensitive? Imagine the sales when they drop to $199.99? All I know is that this Holidays season we are going to see some interesting fight in the HD world.

I am not against Blu-ray but Sony has the nasty habit of introducing a new format then leaving it in the dark when is not doing good. It goes to such extent that they completelly remove it from their existance without notice.

Betamax, Minidisc, MD-Data, MD-Data2, MicroMV, SACD, UMD. They have briliant ideas and inventions. However, is their implementation and price prohibited points that kill their formats. Blu-ray seem to have alot of support from the industry and other manufacturers. I have also seen how Sony makes a technology sound so unbeateable and yet it fails and they leave it in the dark.

Remember, the numerous number of ads for MD and the pre-recorded content available on Best Buy? The MD-Data drives for pc and the unforgetable MD Camcorder.

Howabout the latest tiny camcorder that used MicroMV with cassettes 60% smaller than MiniDV?

The latest and greatest SACD and their HUGE library on Sonystyle.com and their massive SACD players that was incorporated on every sony DVD player. They still have SACD players but where are the discs now?

What makes you think that Sony won't drop the Blu-ray that fast when they see their sales loosing little by little over HD-DVD?

Comments are welcome, I want to know how people think.

Doom9

2nd June 2007, 14:38

Well, if brick and mortar stores charge an additional premium (seeing as the retail space, and logistics cost the same amount regardless of the disk type), you cannot blame that on anyone but the individual retailers. DVDs used to be rather expensive in the beginning to (even without cost adjustment from 199X to today), and brick and mortar stores started to lower prices as the format picked up the pace.

The low price players are indeed a good strategy when you have 3+ million PS3s out there to compete with.. if Toshiba can significantly increase the number of HD DVD capable players out there, it potentially stands to shift the disc sale numbers despite lower studio support.
I guess if it were up to Toshiba, they'd have dual format discs sell for the same price of their DVD counterpart (or even do away with the DVDs completely) so as to get a leg into every home. That might be costly, but getting other there is rather important when you have competing format.

Toti

4th June 2007, 15:06

Bigmango

4th June 2007, 21:58

Over here in Europe the HDDVD and the BR movies are the same price (for the same movie).

Regarding recordables, TDK has already produced 8 layer 200GB blu-ray disks more than 1 year ago, that was in april 2006:
http://www.engadget.com/2006/04/28/t...rdable-blu-ray

And Hitachi has announced 2 weeks ago that they will put 200Gb BR disks on the market in 2 years:
http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/05/19...-disc-in-2009/

The 15Gb HDDVD-R is the same price as the 25Gb BD-R. With BR you get 10Gb more for the same price. They are now both 9,99 € (maybe even less at some of the discount sites). And prices are dropping monthly. It's dropping faster than when the CD-R and DVD-R started out years ago.

For the same price I can put more movies on my disk (or the same amount of movies with a 40% better picture quality -> this is a huge bitrate difference), and the difference will only increase as they add layers. The HDDVD is 60% of the size of the BR. An 8 layer HDDVD would be 120Gb, this is 80 Gb less than the 8 layer BR. And this is supposing that we ever see 8 layer HDDVDs. As I haven't seen anyone talking about them I don't even know if 8 layers are possible on HDVD.

Anyway, with BR we know where we are going. 8 layers have already been produced and announced. I am going with Blu-ray, that's for sure.

Bigmango

4th June 2007, 22:07

Well, it seems that Toshiba must be doing something right. Sony has announced that their entry level Bluray player will drop $100 at launch.

http://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=233

This shows that Sony is not conviced that Blu-ray has already won. It also shows, that it is worried and sales are not whatsoever what they should be. Remember, that Sony has a lot of money invested on the format and they will not likely go out without a very tough fight even if they have to lose money during the HD war.

Even though, Sony's new player is $500 still is about twice as much as the cheapest Toshiba A2 (online price) but is only $100 more than the comparable A20 (retail price) HD-DVD player.

Well, this move it just tells me that HD-DVD is not dead what so ever. It is very much alive and a major threat to Sony's Bluray.

Blu-ray is the superior format, if only for the fact that you can put more movies/quality on 1 disk.

But the war is over already with the dual players. Both formats can live together and the customer can chose what he prefers or even chose both.

CD and DVD live together, the players burners can read/write everything. The same is happening with BR and HDDVD.

Bigmango

4th June 2007, 22:22

I have been making my backups on Double Layer DVDs but authored as HD-DVD some call this 3X DVD.

Blu-ray players can also play HD content authored on DVDs.

This is part of the formats supported by the Sony BDP-S300 blu-ray player:

» plays high-def AVC-HD files on home-burned DVDs

http://forums.highdefdigest.com/showthread.php?p=149847 (http://forums.highdefdigest.com/showthread.php?p=149847)

Trahald

7th June 2007, 17:44

Bigmango

7th June 2007, 18:41

Dual players will be a factor when they are sub $400...

Things being what they are, i don't see that being the solution. People are going to want to have a clear format, especially since no matter how cheap dual players get, they will always cost more than a single format player.

The last couple years show you are wrong. This is not VHS / Betamax anymore.

There is no need for a solution. About 50% purchase HDDVD, the other 50% purchase BR, both live together.

If there was a clear winner we would see it already (look at failures like Betamax, DAT, Minidisc, SACD,...). The reality is that today there is no clear winner. Half of the industry in backing one format, the other half is backing the other; and the customers follow 50/50. Today we see that Blu-ray and HDDVD are both doing fine; and now dual players are arriving.

Many were saying the same thing a few years ago during the DVD war ("People are going to want to have a clear format"). Today we have people who prefer to purchase DVD+R, others prefer DVD-R; both live together, people even purchase CD-R.

Today the DVD players play CD, VCD, SVCD, DVD, DVD-R/, DVD+R, mp3, divx, jpeg,... This is more than "1" format. Some of them cost 30 bucks.

Several of the major chipset manufacturers have already anounced that their chips will support both formats. Dual BD/HDDVD players are already coming out while there is no clear winner. And the prices are dropping extremely fast, just look at the past few months. A player that was 1500$ 6 months ago is now below 500$ (for the better 2nd generation player), even less.

Toti

8th June 2007, 17:03

Bigmango

8th June 2007, 19:58

While its true that Bluray does has an extra 10 Gigs per layer. Does this translate into "better picture quality"?. short answer is no. As a matter of fact when you rip the bluray movie and check for the actual size of the video is about 20 gigs. While it does gives an advantage when use for computer data.

Yes Blu-ray does translate into "better picture quality". If I want to make a 1 disk backup of the Lord of the Rings saga, for example, this is 3 3+ hours movies I get better picture quality on Blu-Ray because the movies are compressed less. I can also backup more movies on Blu-ray than HDDVD. The same goes for my private family AVCHD recordings.

The 8 layers of BD and HD-DVD is not an issue they are simply too far away if there is ever any of them. Current players don't support them and they are not even considering to implemented on current players.

It looks like you haven't been following the industry for much time.

2 years is too far away ? Today we are in 2007, what happened in 2005 is not "too far away".

FYI most of the first generation DVD players did not support DVD +-R, many didn't even support CDs. And these players were much more expensive. Prices drop fast, people who do not purchase HDVD or BR players today will purchase during the coming years and some of the people who purchase today will upgrade in a couple years for better hardware, some even earlier. This is what happenen with DVD, with CD before DVD was here,... Today everyone has a DVD player that plays DVD, DVD+-R, CD and even much more for many.

Its true that Blu-Ray is dropping in price but this is ONLY due to the HD-DVD battle. Do you honestly think that Sony will reduce the price of the Blu-ray when there is no reason to? Sony is not Apple a very aggressive and smart company. Right now, no one specially Sony is paying attention to the Apple TV. Wait and see how Apple TV will turn into a Blu-Ray & HD-DVD competitor. By the way, introductory price is $299.99

Again you are in a single minded view; look at the whole picture.

This is basic economics. Prices will go down. The manufacturing costs are going down and so the selling price is going down to follow the break even and the market.

And first you tell me 8 layer discs that already have been produces and announced are not to take into consideration and now you are telling me that Apple TV is going to take over HDVD and BR. :)

One thing is clear, who ever lose we "the consumers" will win.

The customers will eventually win as they get both formats. The same discussions were all over the forums during the DVD+R/-R war. Today we have both, even though it took much longer until anyone was talking about dual players. Today wiht BR/HDVD we are talking about dual players almost from the start.

50% of the industry is backing 1 format, the other half is backing the other format. This is a lot of investments and you find both products in all the stores. Furthermore, 50% of the customer base is backing 1 format, the other half is backing the other. This is also a huge investment and people will not trow their stuff away.

BR & HDVD are here to stay.

Toti

9th June 2007, 01:52

wow, you sure take this way too serious. I started the post to see what other people think.

You want me to agree with you that:

1. 8 Layers Bluray will be a major factor in the HD war

2. 50 Gig Blurays look better than 30 Gigs HD-DVD of the same movie.

3. Blurays look better because the industry will produce Lord Of The Ring Trilogy in a single Blu-ray Disc

4. that in two years Bluray/HDDVD players will be the common norm.

Even if "Lord Of The Rings" the trilogy will be released on Bluray it will be three separate discs. The industry will never put them on a single disc. The really big question is.... Do you really need 50 Gigs for a single HD Movie while using AVC or VC1? You will know more when you start encoding you own movies.

I think you are really wrong but everyone is entitled on their opinion. I just would like to hear what other people think. By the way, I don't really care who win or loses. All I want is a single format.

Bigmango

9th June 2007, 02:03

Doom9

9th June 2007, 02:05

From personal experience of moving data off a couple hundred CDs and DVDs, I can only snicker about the idea of using X layer blue laser discs as viable data storage. For once, the dual layer DVD example clearly shows us just how far down prices really get.. major brand dual layer discs still cost a bundle and since dual layer is more prone to errors, buying cheaper no name brand shouldn't even be an option (even with CDs.. keep 'em around long enough and you'll notice the difference between major brand and the latest special offer). This'll only get worse if you start stacking layers upon layers.
But even if you compare major brand single layer DVD blanks with today's 400/500 GB HDs, the latter offers a much lower price per gig, and at the same time, is a lot more reliable. If you plug in an external HD just if you need it, with the MTBF we have today, your chances of still being able to use every single byte of data are a lot higher after 5 years than if you resort to DVDs. Whether it'll be Blu-ray or HD DVD, the same applies today and will apply in the future..

2. 50 Gig Blurays look better than 30 Gigs HD-DVD of the same movie.This is an interesting point.. you often hear Blu-ray proponents argue that, and in theory it is of course correct. So far, however, no disc that is available in both formats offers better video quality on Blu-ray. I'd love to get my hands on an uncompressed 1080p source of a bunch of movies and see if there's any difference between a 30GB and 50GB x264 copy. And keep in mind about XviD undersize and quant 1.. it's easy to use up more size.. but at some point a codec saturizes and upping the bitrate won't increase visible and mathematical image quality anymore.. so the question shouldn't be whether 50GB is better, but "where does the best codec saturate for a given movie".

We're really getting off topic though. For some strategy news.. check my frontpage.

kumi

9th June 2007, 02:16

FYI most of the first generation DVD players did not support DVD +-R, many didn't even support CDs. And these players were much more expensive. Prices drop fast, people who do not purchase HDVD or BR players today will purchase during the coming years and some of the people who purchase today will upgrade in a couple years for better hardware, some even earlier. This is what happenen with DVD, with CD before DVD was here,... Today everyone has a DVD player that plays DVD, DVD+-R, CD and even much more for many.I think it's totally misleading to compare the rise of consumer DVD with the rise of HD/BR. The latter was a giant advancement from analog (VHS) to digital. Hi-def is a much more incremental evolution. The adoption rate of either hi-def format will never grow at the rate DVD-Video did, unless media conglomerates get really serious about sacrificing their bottom-line in favor of spreading the technology.

Bigmango

9th June 2007, 02:42

I think it's totally misleading to compare the rise of consumer DVD with the rise of HD/BR. The latter was a giant advancement from analog (VHS) to digital. Hi-def is a much more incremental evolution. The adoption rate of either hi-def format will never grow at the rate DVD-Video did, unless media conglomerates get really serious about sacrificing their bottom-line in favor of spreading the technology.

Yes you are right. But if you read what you have quoted again, you will see that you are missing my point (or maybe I was not clear enough :).

---

To go further into what you are saying: yes the adoption rate is much slower, but an interesting point is that prices and technology are moving much faster, building on existing technology.

When DVD started out, look at how long it took to increase the writing speed. Technology needed to be created. Today Moser baer have already produced 8x BD-R (although we are still waiting for the writers) and TDK have produced 8 layer disks 1 year ago.

Within the first 6 months, the price of a 1500$ has already dropped by 1000$, down to 500$. It is moving much faster (not talking about adoption rate, even though this might result into speeding up the adoption rate somewhat).

Bigmango

9th June 2007, 02:52

This is an interesting point.. you often hear Blu-ray proponents argue that, and in theory it is of course correct. So far, however, no disc that is available in both formats offers better video quality on Blu-ray. I'd love to get my hands on an uncompressed 1080p source of a bunch of movies and see if there's any difference between a 30GB and 50GB x264 copy. And keep in mind about XviD undersize and quant 1.. it's easy to use up more size.. but at some point a codec saturizes and upping the bitrate won't increase visible and mathematical image quality anymore.. so the question shouldn't be whether 50GB is better, but "where does the best codec saturate for a given movie".

Absolutely.

But as I said previously what is interesting me, an certainly many others like me on these forms (as maybe 50% or more of the discussions over here are about video/audio conversion/compression/how to put better quality and more data on the media) is that BD-R means more movies (also = better quality for the same amount of movies) on 1 disc.

If I use xvid or x264 I can put more movies / better quality on a DVD than on a CD. This is the same for BD-R and HDDVD-R (although the ratio is different, an HDDVD is 60% the size of a BD).

Doom9

9th June 2007, 13:04

If I use xvid or x264 I can put more movies / better quality on a DVD than on a CD. You apparently forgot about my other paragraph.. today HDs offer a better price/GB than single layer DVDs and anything with higher capacity, and on top of that a much higher reliability. Add to that the proliferation of streaming content and USB ports and the harddisk solution makes a lot more sense as storage medium.. not only for price reasons but reliability and storage space as well.

jesperl

9th June 2007, 14:06

You apparently forgot about my other paragraph.. today HDs offer a better price/GB than single layer DVDs [...]

How do you get these figures? I pay about 0.21 EUR per Gb (10^9 bytes) for harddisk space, and 0.07 EUR per Gb DVD-R (or +R) space (Verbatim MCCxxxx or Taiyo Yuden). In practice, the difference is smaller since you waste some space on DVD media, but still...

Bigmango

9th June 2007, 14:35

You apparently forgot about my other paragraph.. today HDs offer a better price/GB than single layer DVDs and anything with higher capacity, and on top of that a much higher reliability. Add to that the proliferation of streaming content and USB ports and the harddisk solution makes a lot more sense as storage medium.. not only for price reasons but reliability and storage space as well.

I did not forget it. :)

I was just focusing my reply on the BD/HDDVD comparison, but I completely agree regarding HDs, this is why I said "absolutely". Although DVDs are so cheap today, but I think you wanted to compare the price/space ratio with BD/HDDVD rather than DVDs.

Bigmango

9th June 2007, 14:51

2. 50 Gig Blurays look better than 30 Gigs HD-DVD of the same movie.

To add some more on this, I was talking about personal movies and personal backups.
But as you are also comparing commercial disks, look at 1 example: The Casino Royale BD.

The casino Royale (AVC encoding) main movie m2ts file is 33Gb on the disk. This is 3 Gb more than the dual layer HDDVD which is 30Gb, and this is not including the menus and the extras. The complete BD is 44Gb (14 Gb more than the 30Gb HDDVD).

So, although you probably won't see any difference on small TV screens, more size = more quality even for a single movie (if it's a long movie).

Bigmango

9th June 2007, 15:10

Even if "Lord Of The Rings" the trilogy will be released on Bluray it will be three separate discs. The industry will never put them on a single disc.

As I told you you are missing the point. I was talking about personal movies and personal backups.

But even with commercial titles, there are for example TV series (X-files, Lost, Magnum PI, Mangas,...) that today on DVD are very low quality as they are most of the time compressed way too much, and even so they a spanning dozens of disks.

The format that can put a complete TV serie on less disks or better quality due to less compression is the better format for me. Today this is Blu-ray.

Doom9

9th June 2007, 15:13

and 0.07 EUR per Gb DVD-R (or +R) space (Verbatim MCCxxxx or Taiyo Yuden).That's 32 Euro cents per disc.. the levies you have to pay on blank media sold in many European countries.

more size = more quality even for a single movie (if it's a long movie).What did I just say about the saturation? There's no place for blind fanboyism here. If you can prove that Casino Royale would look worse on a HD DVD, be my guest but I'm afraid with access to an uncompressed 1080p source, that's going to be somewhat difficult. Without that proof, I will not hear the argument again on this board!

The quality of today's DVDs is also a moot point. Face it: not all studios really care about quality and they'll keep on producing cheap crap. Just because you have more space doesn't mean the result will be better (there's plenty of 25GB BD discs, too). I'm sure if we had a little contest and took 10 movies that came out like crap on DVD and got an uncompressed source to some experienced people, they'd return with a much better looking result.

mr soft

9th June 2007, 17:54

What a great debate
In my lounge alone, I have a minidisc player, scores of minidiscs
An atrac (to be added to your list of failed formats) cd walkman, and a sacd DVD player. This can leave a bitter aftertaste in the consumer format arena.

Add to that the proliferation of streaming content and USB ports and the hard disk solution makes a lot more sense
This is the most important statement regarding transfer/playing of digital media.

There will come a day when man will be judged by his gigs.

Some of the new media players are shipping with 500g or terabyte drives; you can buy 2 terabyte external drives.
Why do we have discs, because they are consumables, scratch and replace. I don’t think I would like to scratch a 50gig or 8 layer 200gig disc.

Next up is the pci sata secure storage cards. While these have yet to reach to the stars in terms of storage it is swaying towards a cd less future .Size wise, a 25 gig or so BD or HD DVD on a terabyte drive Will look the same as a nowadays 2.5 gig avi on a 100 gig drive,
Is there a limit to how much we will spend as to how many pixels the human eye can see?

Pelican9

9th June 2007, 23:24

Bigmango:
I think you will never use 8 layers BD.
The whole disc technology will be extinct before you could buy your favourite 8-layers-disc.

Bigmango

10th June 2007, 03:23

What did I just say about the saturation? There's no place for blind fanboyism here. If you can prove that Casino Royale would look worse on a HD DVD, be my guest but I'm afraid with access to an uncompressed 1080p source, that's going to be somewhat difficult. Without that proof, I will not hear the argument again on this board!

The quality of today's DVDs is also a moot point. Face it: not all studios really care about quality and they'll keep on producing cheap crap. Just because you have more space doesn't mean the result will be better (there's plenty of 25GB BD discs, too). I'm sure if we had a little contest and took 10 movies that came out like crap on DVD and got an uncompressed source to some experienced people, they'd return with a much better looking result.

A handfull of movies are AVC, most of the movies that are still coming out today are in mpeg2. You are telling me that mabe 50 % of the current Blu-ray movies are saturated? This is the reason why it is better to go with the smaller HDDVD?

I don't know where the saturation point is, do you? Without providing any supporting information you are guessing wildly.

What you are also implying here is that it is useless to work with uncompressed or DV sources. There are tools today to work with mpeg2 without needing to recompress it while working. Why do you think everyone is not working with mpeg2 sources? Have all the people working with DV lost half their brain, because mpeg2 is already saturated? I am sorry, but what you are saying is not making much sense within the size of optical media.

As I said I agree that you most probably won't see any difference on a small TV screen, but there is more to a source movie than a "TV screen" and for me, as a consumer, the blu-ray is the closest I can get to the source as there is more chance for the movie to be less compressed on Blu-ray than on HDDVD.

Because you have "more" space you do have a "better chance" to get "better" quality. Yes some studios produce crap. This does not mean that all do, and it does not mean that because some produce crap it is stupid to go with Blu-ray.

Shinigami-Sama

10th June 2007, 04:13

A handfull of movies are AVC, most of the movies that are still coming out today are in mpeg2. You are telling me that mabe 50 % of the current Blu-ray movies are saturated? This is the reason why it is better to go with the smaller HDDVD?

I don't know where the saturation point is, do you? Without providing any supporting information you are guessing wildly.

What you are also implying here is that it is useless to work with uncompressed or DV sources. There are tool today to work with mpeg2 without needing to recompress it while working. Why do you think everyone is not working with mpeg2 sources? Have all the people working with DV lost half their brain, because mpeg2 is already saturated? I am sorry, but what you are saying is not making much sense within the size of optical media.

As I said I agree that you most probably won't see any difference on a small TV screen, but there is more to a source movie than a "TV screen" and for me, as a consumer, the blu-ray is the closest I can get to the source as there is more chance for the movie to be less compressed on Blu-ray than on HDDVD.

Because you have "more" space you do have a "better chance" to get "better" quality. Yes some studios produce crap. This does not mean that all do, and it does not mean that because some produce crap it is stupid to go with Blu-ray.

wait wait wait, lemme get this straight you're trying to argue points about codecs and compression the the man that does the yearly Codec Shootout and (mostly) objectively compares their efficiency, speed, and types of material they work well one. If you would like proof of his claims. Theres also many other people such as squid80 and akupengiun to start that can tell you that codecs will saturate, or come close to it at the bitrates we're talking about on these discs; also people like mugfunky that work in these encoding/mastering/production firms will tell you that not everyone cares about quality or the like, they just want their product out there, it already takes more money and time to get a blu-ray on the shelves than HD-DVD, because of the mandatory AACS and more limited production facilities, HD-DVD doesn't have to have AACS so its already ahead of the game in production time, as well as being easier to produce, and cheaper to produce. You have to look at all the factors in play, if all studios and middle men cared about the end product as much as they should - I would have to agree with you, but this is not the case and at the point it is now theres not enough market penetration to attempt to try and find an objective conclusion as we're only getting into the second and possibly third generation players.

Bigmango

10th June 2007, 05:04

wait wait wait, lemme get this straight you're trying to argue points about codecs and compression the the man that does the yearly Codec Shootout and (mostly) objectively compares their efficiency, speed, and types of material they work well one. If you would like proof of his claims. Theres also many other people such as squid80 and akupengiun to start that can tell you that codecs will saturate, or come close to it at the bitrates we're talking about on these discs;

Where did I argue that codecs do saturate?

What I am arguing in this thread is that many "amateurs" are posting nonsense. Just read this thread, you will see things like:

- there are no movies that take more than 20Gb on the disks, so BD is useless
- there is no need for bigger disks as the studios do not use the size they have on the disks. The studios produce crap and never use the space so it is useless.

Then you show them one example of a movie that takes 33gb on a disc and they go on contradicting themselves with:

- 33gb is nonsense, there is saturation, the studios are stupid to do this

(FYI at the same bitrate a 1h30 movie is NOT taking the same size as a 3h+ movie. Casino Royale is 33Gb for 2h25; there are 3h+ movies)

What I am saying in this thread is:

- on Blu-ray I have more room for data, so I can put more movies / better quality (i.ex: larg movies, TV series seasons)
- if I want to backup the above 33Gb movie on recordable media today, I need to shrink it to 25Gb on BD-R or 15Gb on HDDVD-R; the above "amateurs" are telling me that HDDVD is better ?
- and no, people who work with source and DV material do not have half a brain, do you need me to explain to you why?

The "amateurs" in this thread are saying that blu-ray picture quality is not better than HDDVD, so blu-ray is not better. Let me tell you something: It's the same data at the same bitrate. BD/HDDVD picture quality is not better than CD. On a 600Mb CD I can have the same quality you get on an HDDVD or a blu-ray (the only difference is the video length you can put on it).

-> Blu-ray is better because you can put more data on it with the same quality, or you can put the same data with better quality depending on the length. For longer movies or several movies Blu-ray quality is better.

Edit: and what I am also saying is that both formats are here to stay, the war is over (the fight that is still going on is only resulting in price drops, which is good for the consumer). Although I am producing on BD for the above reasons, I am going with both formats with dual players/burners.

Shinigami-Sama

10th June 2007, 06:37

...
This is getting off topic and idiotic

anyways

I'm interested in seeing whats going to happen with the new toshibas, I've certainly been taking a look a them to replace my current laptop, this just gives them one more point for my money

Bigmango

10th June 2007, 06:59

I'm interested in seeing whats going to happen with the new toshibas, I've certainly been taking a look a them to replace my current laptop, this just gives them one more point for my money

What is so special about them ?

Sony and others have already been selling laptops with blu-ray for 1 year, now toshiba is selling laptops with hddvd; how is this a news ?

More marketing spin. The same marketing spins are also making people believe that smaller media size is better. Marketing also resulted in the market adoption of VHS vs the better betamax.

The best option imho is to wait for the dual players.

(In 2002 I made the mistake and purchased a laptop with a DVD-R player. Since 2003 it can't play half of the DVDs)

The positive thing in this news is that it is helping accelerate HD adoption and DVD only players are getting phased out.

Wilbert

10th June 2007, 14:37

The "amateurs" in this thread are saying that blu-ray picture quality is not better than HDDVD, so blu-ray is not better. Let me tell you something: It's the same data at the same bitrate. BD/HDDVD picture quality is not better than CD. On a 600Mb CD I can have the same quality you get on an HDDVD or a blu-ray (the only difference is the video length you can put on it).
I think that you are not reading properly what other people are trying to say. Part of the problem is that you are also not expressing yourself clearly (ie saying what you actually mean to say). To give an example:

Yes Blu-ray does translate into "better picture quality". If I want to make a 1 disk backup of the Lord of the Rings saga, for example, this is 3 3+ hours movies I get better picture quality on Blu-Ray because the movies are compressed less. I can also backup more movies on Blu-ray than HDDVD. The same goes for my private family AVCHD recordings.
What you actually mean is the following (i'm sure you will correct me, if i'm misunderstanding you):

Yes Blu-ray does translate into "better picture quality" than HD-DVD IF both are encoded in the same format, the same encoder is used, etc ... Provided there is no saturation (ie encoding long movies). But that's not what you were saying above.

Of course this conclusion changes if both are encoded in a different format (mpeg-2 versus AVC for example).

Because you have "more" space you do have a "better chance" to get "better" quality. Yes some studios produce crap. This does not mean that all do, and it does not mean that because some produce crap it is stupid to go with Blu-ray.
I think we all agree to this.

About this saturation point (quoting Doom9):

This is an interesting point.. you often hear Blu-ray proponents argue that, and in theory it is of course correct. So far, however, no disc that is available in both formats offers better video quality on Blu-ray. I'd love to get my hands on an uncompressed 1080p source of a bunch of movies and see if there's any difference between a 30GB and 50GB x264 copy. And keep in mind about XviD undersize and quant 1.. it's easy to use up more size.. but at some point a codec saturizes and upping the bitrate won't increase visible and mathematical image quality anymore.. so the question shouldn't be whether 50GB is better, but "where does the best codec saturate for a given movie".

It's a bit easy to say this without more facts and discussion. I don't have BD or HD-DVDs, so what bitrates are we talking about here? And at what point is there saturation? Besides, we all know that MPEG-4 could result in better quality than MPEG-2 at low bitrates and MPEG-4 AVC in better than MPEG-4 ASP at lower bitrates, provided the encoding is done "properly". So, the question is not (at least not only) "where does the best codec saturate for a given movie", but does MPEG-2 50GB result in better quality than AVC 30 GB, for short and long (say +2 hours) movies and good quality encodings. I think this is a pretty interesting question and deserves discussion and research.

Doom9

10th June 2007, 14:59

Sony and others have already been selling laptops with blu-ray for 1 year, now toshiba is selling laptops with hddvd; how is this a news ?There's a difference between selling selected models that are HD equipped, and all models. The high end models generally don't sell a lot.
It's the same as selling a HD DVD addon for the Xbox 360 versus swapping the DVD drive in each box with a HD DVD model.

Bigmango

10th June 2007, 17:18

@ Wilbert

Yes I agree that what I said got a bit "complicated" :)

To sum it up, imho:

1. You can fairly say that if you purchase 1 movie disks BD and HDDVD are both the same (data is the same, only disk format is different), there is no better format in this case.

2. BD-R is 25Gb, HDDVD-R is 15Gb. I, and I think many others also on these forums, do more with the media than watching purchased movies. I produce personal video with my cam and I also backup movies (also DVDs), so on BD I can put more movies or the same amount of movies with a higher bitrate (= better quality if you fill the disk).

3. With episodic series (i.ex TV series) BD will use up less disks.

So overall, for my use BD is the better format. But I agree that if you only purchase movies in the stores both are "the same".

@ Doom

I said this as an answer to the OP who said: "I've certainly been taking a look a them to replace my current laptop, this just gives them one more point for my money". BD laptops have been available for 1 year (same for HDDVD).

But yes I do agree with you; this news is a major move for HDDVD adoption (and overall HD adoption, including Blu-ray, it will help accelerate everything).

foxyshadis

10th June 2007, 20:52

Usually saturation isn't the limiting factor for quality, just the opposite, vbv limitations. (Although that could be seen as another form of saturation.) Saturation bitrates can be pretty enormous for unfiltered 1080p, I've seen some that required 80Mbps in h.264. Although you can raise the quality in areas you might not be able to see it, once you hit vbv on scenes you're stuck no matter how bad it looks, though; if you can improve 90% of the video a little bit, but the 2% that looks jarringly bad on hd-dvd looks the same on bd, have you really gained anything?

Of course many people making their own don't need all the grit and grain and sharp detail, would be willing drop a bit in exchange for half the bitrate, so VBV rarely shows up and it comes down to how many you want to fit on one disc (full star wars saga + lotr, or just star wars? :p).

Bigmango

10th June 2007, 21:46

Saturation bitrates can be pretty enormous for unfiltered 1080p, I've seen some that required 80Mbps in h.264.

This is interesting, as BD max video rate is 40 Mb/s (54 Mb/s max total) vs HDDVD max video rate 29 Mb/s (36.5 Mb/s max total).

foxyshadis

11th June 2007, 03:46

Bigmango

11th June 2007, 05:21

Ah, sorry, I meant 80 Megabytes per second, or 640Mbps, accidentally used the wrong notation.

(This figure came from tests with x264 with slow settings at q 1, since lossless doesn't really count. Others might define saturation as being something like q10, which is where x264 normally sets the floor, for which the same test came out to only 290Mbps.)

Sorry, you are confusing me :)

You mean that one of your files required a rate of 80 Mb/s (640Mbps), which is double the max BD rate ?

But other files are saturated at x264 q10 290Mbps, which would be 36,3 Mb/s ?

So this would mean that as HDDVD only supports a max video rate of 29 Mb/s we are losing more quality with HDDVD than BD. In other words, HDDVD is losing quality on both files, whereas BD is only losing quality on the first file (which is saturated after double the max BD video rate (BD max video 40 Mb/s)) ?

Do I understand you right ?

Edit: If I understand you right, this is very interesting. Furthermore, mpeg2 should saturate at a much higher rate than h264.

Shinigami-Sama

11th June 2007, 05:36

Theres also a wall of diminishing returns, Foxy's example was 640mbps, which is 16 times the BR limit, chances are you cut that down to 1/32 and not notice the difference as thats a nearly losses example

foxyshadis

11th June 2007, 10:29

Sorry, you are confusing me :)

You mean that one of your files required a rate of 80 Mb/s (640Mbps), which is double the max BD rate ?

But other files are saturated at x264 q10 290Mbps, which would be 36,3 Mb/s ?

So this would mean that as HDDVD only supports a max video rate of 29 Mb/s we are losing more quality with HDDVD than BD. In other words, HDDVD is losing quality on both files, whereas BD is only losing quality on the first file (which is saturated after double the max BD video rate (BD max video 40 Mb/s)) ?

Do I understand you right ?

Edit: If I understand you right, this is very interesting. Furthermore, mpeg2 should saturate at a much higher rate than h264.

Now you're the one getting confused by units. :p

40Mbps is only 5MBps (megabytes/sec). Mbps and Mb/s are the same thing! It's capitalization that makes the difference.

So my examples of 1080p50 recorded files are far far above any sort of saturation point, 10 to 20 times the max rate depending on which you look at; there's no danger that'll happen with most movies, especially since transparency is well below saturation. (At 24 fps the bitrate numbers would be about 2/3, give or take.) And yes, MPEG-2 tops out even higher, though not as much as you'd think, since the quality gap narrows as the bitrates rise.

I found out that BD does allow a larger vbv, which could translate into a little more quality on those rough scenes if studios take advantage of it. I also notice most of them use so much audio bitrate that they probably don't have the space to use peak video rate on either format (which means BD would probably have more advantage if it came down to that). All that is theoretical, I've never had actual encoded streams to find out how real-world BD/HDD encoders allocate bits.

DarkNite

11th June 2007, 11:27

The laptops from Toshiba coming next year do not excite me because of the HD DVD drive (I already have two of those at home, but a mobile player would be great) they really get my attention by using NAND based flash drives. After getting my grubby mitts on a 32GB version of SanDisk's solid state drive I can't wait for these to saturate the laptop market in larger capacities, and in laptops that are not over $2500.

Overall I think Toshiba has a fairly solid strategy in place that puts them in a good position by expanding their user base. Sooner or later Sony is bound to answer with their own announcements in this area. Whether or not the price points will be agreeable with the public is yet to be seen on either side.

Furthermore, mpeg2 should saturate at a much higher rate than h264.

Yes, but it also needs a much higher bitrate to maintain anything resembling high quality, and has IMO more experience damaging artifacts than the other codecs when it doesn't hit it's needed bitrate.

Bigmango

11th June 2007, 15:47

@ foxyshadis

Ah ok, I was talking Mbits/s an you (I) then introduced MBytes/s into my equation. :)

Wow, I knew that the saturation point was above the current HD media limits, but I didn't expect it to be that high.

@Shinigami

Yes of course you won't see any difference on a screen. But if I want to store my files to work on them later I will see less degradation over time (if I modify, re-encode,...) if the video contains more data (=more details even if you don't see these details).

@DarkNite

Yes the NAND flash drives is an awesome news; been waiting for years for this to happen.

The current time wave is pretty interesting; almost like the move from analog to digital media a few years ago.

We are now moving to:

- HD media (BD, HDDVD), DVD is starting to get phased out (will of course maintain compatibility with HD players)
- HD TVs, with digital tuners
- analog tuners are phased out. In several European countries like Switzerland, there will be no more analog broadcasts starting from next year (2008), in others like France starting from 2010. So if you don't have any digital hardware (i.ex DVB-T tuners) you won't be able to watch TV anymore.
- and now NAND flash drives.

Toti

11th June 2007, 16:17

I am glad that people have liked this thread but it is really getting out of topic.

It is true that all is based on the quality of the finish product. In this case the quality of the movie.

First of all, both Bluray disc and HD-DVD are both medium of video. They can be used as data drives but their primary target is to replace today's DVD while providing High Definition video quality. Studios will always release one movie per disc. There will not be multiple movies per disc.

Since Bluray and HD-DVD supports all three formats. It will make sense to use AVC or VC1 as your codecs. Don't use MPEG2 at all (if you have a choice of using codecs). It is beyond me why would Sony keep using the old MPEG2. For anyone that has encoded on MPEG2, AVC or VC1 would know that they are so efficient when compared to MPEG2 that you can drop the bitrate considerably while keeping the same quality.

The only reason that comes to mind why would Sony use MPEG2 is for royalties purposes. I would never see Columbia, Tristar or Sony pictures encoding on VC1 simply because its Microsoft. Which it makes me think is Sony really looking to provide the best quality to me (a consumer)? or they are just doing all this for Sony's benefit (money)? It wouldn't surprise me coming from Sony.

Sony's wild move to add Blu-ray to all the PS3 and the Cell processor is what makes the PS3 so expensive. It figures since they did the same with SACD forcing it on all Sony DVD products as well as forcing the ATRAC on everything that has audio including the CD players.

Yes, its true that Bluray drives where included on their Hi-end PCs but did you see the MSRP on those? VGC-RC310G $3200 or the AR270 Laptop.... Lets take a look shall we?

http://news.com.com/Sonys+Blu-ray+notebook+arriving+next+week/2100-1041_3-6082914.html

http://reviews.cnet.com/4531-10921_7-6538978.html

I almost forgot to include the Digital Living System.

http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10551&storeId=10151&langId=-1&productId=8198552921665089909

Sony sells all Bluray PCs at a modest Suggest Retail Price of $3000 at least. Lets see how much are the Toshiba with HD-DVD drive going to cost. Wait, let me guess! Bluray PCs will drop in price due to Toshiba HD-DVD PCs.

Have you seen the official comment of why the price drop of the new bluray player? "reason for the price drop is because production costs have decreased and there is a growing demand for Blu-ray." here is the link

http://www.cinemablend.com/technology/Sony-BDP-S300-Price-Drop-Summer-Blu-ray-Cheaper-Than-We-Thought-4547.html

To me it sounds more like, we are affraid to lose market share due to Toshiba's agreesive price point.

Trahald

11th June 2007, 16:46

I have always given the nod to bluray as definately the better format (based strictly on its capacity.) The problem is sonys history of failing 'better' formats. One can say, this is not betamax any more.. but that was said with sacd, umd etc.

Here is the main issue . Ultimately you have 2 formats that support the same resolution. One has lower capacity and lower max bitrate. Max bitrate issues may flare up on high motion scenes (althought the examples ive seen of hddvds on high bitrate scenes showed no apparent issues.) You can say on a 27" tv you cant tell the difference and that extra capacity will shine on a huge 1080p widescreen. but that assumes all the reviewers cant afford real tvs. They are touting the formats as perceptually equal and some hddvds as better. but lets just say that they were reviewed as equal. That only gets your foot in the door of hardcores. The format war will not be won by hardcore buyers.

Some hardcore buyers will buy an $1k sony (back when it was $1k cause hardcore buyers dont wait) based strictly on bluray being 'bigger' and set it on their entertainment unit with their sacd collection. some hardcores that read reviews will buy based on software (bluray wins there) and other reasons. they will be more likely to wait and buy an lg dual (1.2k eek) or just make a hard decision and get a hddvd or bluray player. There are even more levels to this and there are lots of people that are enthusiasts that arent as well off that will by a ps3 or less expensive unit bluray or hddvd unit. at these levels i think bluray will get more buyers. (well they are). enough cant be said about sonys dominance in film.. they own like everyother movie and that with the other studios has given them the edge software wise. if they were to convince Universal that all hope is lost and to switch to bluray then hddvd would really be in trouble.

However... The 'war' will be won by the next level. not exactly joe six pack. but the people with a tad bit more discretionary money that are sitting and watching. not reviews of hddvds and bluray disks, but prices. If in a year hddvd is still offering players for a lower price (and if the walmart deal comes to fruition) that is going to have a big impact. sub $300 players that ARE NOT loosing money for the manufacturer will be a big deal. these of course will be to play mainly on their 24"+ hd tvs they also bought at walmart.

ultimately this will be sony's best shot to buck the trend and they definately learned from alot of their past mistakes. Better/more Software and larger support base (studios), ps3, willingness to take a hit on price. But if in a year or so , its still cheaper to get a hddvd player then that is going to be a big decider.

Re: original post
Toshiba would have no interest in dvd-9. for the reason of selling a new format. what toshiba would gain in going back to dvd, they would lose *at least they would think so* in going away from aacs and also the perception of an inferior product. They are already fighting that with blurays larger size as it is, that would only make it worse.

Bigmango

11th June 2007, 17:02

Studios will always release one movie per disc. There will not be multiple movies per disc.

Yes there are. I can go out to my local store right now and show you dozens of episodic series/movies boxes.

I have purchased several myself, some are using 2, some 5,... some 10 DVD or more disks (the same happened with VCD before DVD); they put from 2 to about 5 series/movies per disk and this too often results in very poor mpeg2 quality, with blockyness all over.

I have spend my money several times and was disappointed too often. So if BD can give me a chance to get better quality with less compression, or even the same quality but less disks to juggle with, I am interested.

It is beyond me why would Sony keep using the old MPEG2. For anyone that has encoded on MPEG2, AVC or VC1 would know that they are so efficient when compared to MPEG2 that you can drop the bitrate considerably while keeping the same quality.

The only reason that comes to mind why would Sony use MPEG2 is for royalties purposes. I would never see Columbia, Tristar or Sony pictures encoding on VC1 simply because its Microsoft. Which it makes me think is Sony really looking to provide the best quality to me (a consumer)? or they are just doing all this for Sony's benefit (money)? It wouldn't surprise me coming from Sony.

If you search the web or go to some enthusiast sites like hddvd.org you will see that it is a well known fact that BD had a bad start. It was not ready when it came out.

So for at least the first 6 months, people were shouting all over the web forums about how BD quality was much worse than HDDVD. BD was still using mpeg2 while HDDVD was using VC1. (people were shouting about low quality all over the web, but in this thread people were posting previously that this is not possible because of saturation limits being much lower than the media. Interesting).

But after the first few months BD has finally caught up and the studios are now also using the h264 encoders.

Sony sells all Bluray PCs at a modest Suggest Retail Price of $3000 at least. Lets see how much are the Toshiba with HD-DVD drive going to cost. Wait, let me guess! Bluray PCs will drop in price due to Toshiba HD-DVD PCs.
...

Yes this is not surprising and to be expected, it would happen the same in the other way also. Here BD has the higher manufacturing costs because it is new technology, HDDVD is not, its the same old DVD.

Wow, you are still caught up in your war :)

The fight we are seeing now is good as it is accelerating the price drops. So yes, when there is concurrence there are fights. But as for the "war", I tell you the war is over already.

Look at the dual players and the Warner Total-HD disks. Warner is putting HDDVD and BD on the same disk using 2 layers. (Warner is not charging any royalties, so other studios can follow).

http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/09/warner-officially-announces-total-hi-def-hybrid-disc/ (http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/09/warner-officially-announces-total-hi-def-hybrid-disc/)

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,128494/article.html (http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,128494/article.html)

Have you seen the official comment of why the price drop of the new bluray player? "reason for the price drop is because production costs have decreased and there is a growing demand for Blu-ray." here is the link

To me it sounds more like, we are affraid to lose market share due to Toshiba's agreesive price point.

Nothing surprising here; it is due to both reasons together. This is to be expected with "any" product in a free market. This is business as usual.

Bigmango

11th June 2007, 18:47

Some more (today) news for your entertainment :) :

HD DVD player sales reach all time high
http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/06/11/hd-dvd-player-sales-reach-all-time-high/

Toshiba's HD-A2 HD DVD player going for a mere $199
http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/06/11/toshibas-hd--a2-hd-dvd-player-going-for-a-mere-199/

Edit: don't miss the interesting comments on both pages

Manao

11th June 2007, 20:28

Just a remark on VBV size.

You'd better think of VBV as a buffer having a duration = VBV size / VBV maxrate.

VBV are usually too small to be used over a whole movie. A VBV usually lasts half a second ( as long as a GOP ). It's meant to absorb :
- intra frames, since the GOP is short
- short complexity spikes ( no more than a GOP long )

So, actually, the VBV is mostly used to handle intra frames, since most complicated scenes last more than a second.

And I guess the duration is the same for both HD-DVD and Bluray. What this means is that when reaching the maximum bitrate, both will react in the same way, except that Bluray will use a 1.33x higher bitrate. That amounts to -2 in quantizers.

As for disc capacity for archiving purposes, if the 25 GB disc is 1.4x times costier than the 15 GB, I see no differences, excepted that I would prefer not to buy sony's :p