Multilayer (ML) recording coming up!

[pirata]

Well, I am not really up to date about blu-ray capabilities, but it seems that ML has improved it! Read the first new on

http://www.dvdwriters.co.uk/


I know that ain't fresh news, but are juicy! If somebody knows of any update, please, post it!

Also CDs and red-ray DVDs will benefit of this revolution. In principle we talk about 3x in both speed and capacity, while retaining backward compatibility. Better then Plextor's Gigarec and Sanyo's HDBurning. If you plan on BUYING a new CD-R/W or DVD+-R/W, hold on! A Sanyo chipset is ready for shipping. No manufacturer appointment though.

Comments are look forward, my boyz! :-)

[Gaia]

What's the price? Sure you can get all kind of nice stuff if you're ready to pay enough. Computer hardware and basicly anything.

[SeeMoreDigital]

Don't be too quick to write-off 'red ray' DVD yet. As there's still room to add a bit more technology to it.

As far as I am aware there are no dual layered 2 sided discs in production. Recordable DVD media is still in its infancy. And it is possible to increase the number of layers a red laser can read.

As time goes by more and more DVD players will be able so spin and record straight to Mpeg4. So just imagine how many hours of audio/video you will be able to store on a Digital Versatile Disc?

If you do a quick calculation, if a single layered 1 sided Mpeg2 DVD can hold around 136mins of Audio/Video. A single layered 1 sided Mpeg4 DVD could easily hold 300mins at the same quality (or better), that we all enjoy now....

The main aspect that's driving 'blue ray' is that it will be able to store 'high definition' video using Mpeg2.

But anybody who owns the new verion of Terminator 2, will already know that 'high definition' video is already possible on a std 'red ray' disc.

It's just a shame the 'high def' WMV9 codec was used instead of the 'high def' version of Mpeg4..... But I'm working on it!

[chepe36]

Anyway we can't even burn in 2 layer DVD's (and those exist since the begining of DVD).
I dont think that multilayer writing will be accesible to us anytime soon.

[pirata]

My dear SeeMoreDigital, cool down.

I wasn't writing off DVD, as it is the next mainstream technology. Thinking anything else is just getting too wild. I mentioned blu-ray because the news takled about it.

Said this:

@Gaia: you must read your way into www.calimetrics.com and get more insight in this new technology. It is done with just one chip. Players, writers, manufacturing plants... they all can be upgraded with just changing a chip. Please, understand: you cannot change the chip of your DVD/CD burner, you'll have to buy brand new burner/player, but they should'nt get much more expensive, because they don't have to go through a heavy redesign. Just a different chip and firmware have to be loaded into the device.

So: drives can be more expensive, but not much more.

@SeeMoreDigital: I have been dreaming of HD MPEG4 DVDs coming from the studios (no quality-damaging reencodings at all) from a year or more now, above all because I don't believe in standalone players, which, Kiss 450 aside, rarely can be upgraded to play new compression formats. Anyway, let me ask you something: do you think that, at such high bitrates, MPEG4 can be better than MPEG2? I mean, MPEG4 is a harsh algorithm, intended for low bitrates scenarios (e.g. Internet). I WONDER IF, when used in high bandwidth applications such as DVDs, you could realise that it blurs the image too much (much more than MPEG2 did), or that colors are definitely not so faithful as they were with MPEG2. Yeah, in exchange you would get HD pictures. The question is if it would be worth the quality loss.

As I said, the idea above is just a guess. I am not very sure as to how MPEG4 behaves at high bitrates. Maybe there is the possibility to tweak it to be as accurate in such scenarios as MPEG2 is. I also wonder why MPEG4 wasn't used for the european DVB standard. It was ready to use, and nowadays devices can easily encode/play whatever you want them to...

Back to ML recording: I just rave about the possibility to have 2GB in conventional CDs and much more in DVD+-Rs... Just can't wait to see the new burners...

About DVD recording technology: I'd also like to see DVD burners being able to burn double-layered DVDs, but it seems difficult to achieve though. Double-sided DVDs seem unconfortable to use to me, though.

[Atamido]

Originally posted by pirata
MPEG4 is a harsh algorithm, intended for low bitrates scenarios I don't think that it is more "harsh" than MPEG-2. I think it is just that the MPEG-4 codecs that we currently have available are tuned to lower bitrates. You could certainly get much higher quality video with MPEG-4 at a high bitrate, but you would need an MPEG-4 codec tuned specifically for that.

Just a few weeks ago I had created a short 3D sequence and encoded it to Huffyuv, which took up a good amount of space, but it was a lossless encode. I decided to see how much smaller I could get it by maxing out the bitrates for DivX and XviD. The Xvid encode ended up more than twice the size of the DivX encode, but it looked much much better. Essentially, the XviD codec was tuned so that it COULD devote more bits to making a better picture, whereas the DivX codec quickly maxed out no matter what options I chose. Its all a matter of tuning.

[SeeMoreDigital]

I am very lucky because I have a friend who's a film camera man (or should I say, Director of Photography) And because he has an interest in digtal technology I am able to gain access to high resolution film and digital tape. Which I use to keep his 'show reel' up to date.

All you guy's who are lucky enough to live in the world of high def TV can now see how good a 'broadcast' TV picture can be - provided the source is good.

In just a very few years, you've enjoyed an incredible leap in image definition. And HD with it's 1920w x 1080h (2,073,600) pixel frame size provides the only true 1.77:1 (16:9) 'source image background' in the world today.

For many years, over here in europe our PAL images were better than NTSC. At least 20% better infact (as 576 vertical pixels provides 20% more vertical resolution than 480 vertical pixels). Then along came NTSC progressive, which tipped the scales in NTSC's favour. We in europe had to wait a further 3 years for PAL progressive to arrive!

At the end of the day it will all come down to how we watch the images and the screens we use to watch the images on.

So we will have to wait until all plasmas, LCD's, projectors and even CRT's are manufactured in such a way that will allow us to view progressive de-interlaced, images as standard. And in the interim, our PC monitors will continue to be the only way, most of us, can enjoy high resolution, progressive de-interlaced images.

Anyway I've moved slighty off post. I apologise.

So, to answer some of the questions posted. In the very near future I will be obtaining some high definition digital video clips (via hard drive) which I will convert to 1920w x 1080h high res DivX. So we will all be able to see for ourselves just how good Mpeg4 can look! There's no reason why a 'high def' Mpeg4 image @ 5000kbps should not look as good as 'std def' Mpeg2 image @ 5000kbps!

Pirta.
If you are able to get access to the new T2 DVD, you may find the sleeve notes interesting. There's quite a bit of info about how the original film source was digitised and the methods used.

All.
I'll keep you all posted about my high def Mpeg4 clips, soon.

[pirata]

@Pamel: We meet again, Mr Pamel. What's up down there in Texas? :-)

Well! It's the news I was expecting for. So you say that DivX can be tuned for high quality at high bitrates, and that, in fact, XviD is the codec to look at for that task. Well, maybe XviD is not really completely optimized for high quality, as it is intended for all those rippers out there willing to squeeze everything into 2 CDs -at most-, but, at least, there is the possibilty to get a film compressed in MPEG4 without blurring and color mismatch.

I hope studios will keep this into account when they release HD MPEG4 DVDs.

@SeeMoreDigital: I wasn't aware that there is was a 1920x1080 progressive format in ATSC... wow man.

Somebody tell me: how much CPU horsepower is needed for decoding a 1920x1080 MPEG4 video? Can newer CRTs and graphic cards work nicely at that resolutions? What dot pitch do you need!?


So, to answer some of the questions posted. In the very near future I will be obtaining some high definition digital video clips (via hard drive) which I will convert to 1920w x 1080h high res DivX. So we will all be able to see for ourselves just how good Mpeg4 can look! There's no reason why a 'high def' Mpeg4 image @ 5000kbps should not look as good as 'std def' Mpeg2 image @ 5000kbps!

In fact Pamel says that MPEG4 @5000kbps should look much better than MPEG2 at same bitrate, because the MPEG4 algorithm can be tweaked to improve as bitrate increases (even for very high bitrates).

It could be nice if you tell Doom9 about posting those jewels for everybody to download them, even though I don't know where to watch them!

By the way, don't you think you could ask the people at XviD to compile a version of their codec for high quality, high bitrate compressions? We could see MPEG4 at its best!! :D

AND FINALLY: well, I don't think I'll have access to that. No soon, at least, so I'd like to ask you, to make some kind of scan of ONLY the technical part of the T2 sleeve notes. So that we all can share that knowledge.

Well... If you can't do that, a brief summary with the main facts (and some dirty details as well :D ) could be also good to go.

[SeeMoreDigital]

Hi Pirata

There are 4 'sleeve note' pages of interest. I will scan them and email them to you if you like.

Even though they make interesting reading. I don't want to get me or the mods into trouble, by posting copyright info on the forum!

Cheers