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Disgruntled Head of C-3PO · Oct 9, 2005, 02:02 PM

"October is shaping up to be a cruel month for Toshiba and the rest of the HD DVD gang. Last week Paramount confirmed that they were softening their support for HD DVD and would be releasing movies in both HD DVD and Blu-ray, now a Japanese newspaper reports that Warner Bros., which had been firmly pledged to HD DVD, will announce that they’re going to offer movies on both formats, as well (there was a rumor going around last week that this was in the works). That means there’s only one major studio left — Universal — which is still publicly committed to releasing movies only in HD DVD, and even they’re starting to waver. At this point it’s Blu-ray’s race to lose."

http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-...510080128.html

Eug Wanker · Oct 9, 2005, 02:04 PM

^^^ Yup. Blu-Ray definitely has the advantage. I have no argument with this. I just don't like how they got the advantage, which is by implementing more draconian DRM measures.

goMac · Oct 9, 2005, 03:18 PM

Remember, Microsoft has announced they will only support HD-DVD. That's %90 of the computer market for HD-DVD.

the_glassman · Oct 9, 2005, 03:23 PM

Holographic disc will own all!

TETENAL · Oct 9, 2005, 03:57 PM

Originally Posted by goMac

Remember, Microsoft has announced they will only support HD-DVD. That's %90 of the computer market for HD-DVD.

I don't think that means much. Microsoft doesn't built any PCs. When computer manufacturers built PCs with Blue Ray drives they will of course include the necessary drivers.

goMac · Oct 9, 2005, 04:00 PM

Originally Posted by TETENAL

I don't think that means much. Microsoft doesn't built any PCs. When computer manufacturers built PCs with Blue Ray drives they will of course include the necessary drivers.

Remember Intel has also decided not to support Bluray. This means every PC with built in graphics from Intel will not do Bluray decoding. And there won't be any software decoding from Microsoft. And Microsoft Windows Media Edition will support ripping from HD-DVD but not Bluray.

This leaves manufacturers having to pay extra to give users Bluray support, and leaves Bluray without as much in the way of actual decoding on machines.

Disgruntled Head of C-3PO · Oct 9, 2005, 04:01 PM

Originally Posted by TETENAL

I don't think that means much. Microsoft doesn't built any PCs. When computer manufacturers built PCs with Blue Ray drives they will of course include the necessary drivers.

Exactly, it means NOTHING. I mean how many DVD's with that proprietary MS HD DVD are out there?

I can remember ONE. Terminator 2.

And it has been out for years.

Hawkeye_a · Oct 9, 2005, 08:35 PM

Seriously who cared about ripping a 25-50GB disc in HD ? really.....bu the time we have enough storage and the appropriate codecs, someone would have cracked the format anyway. So thats a pretty stupid reason to back a format. for the first couple of years, HD-DVD/BluRay will live in the homeentertainment center.... for most people.

Im not too worried about ripping movies, cause chances are you'll be able to do that with both eventually.

Cheers

demograph68 · Oct 9, 2005, 08:59 PM

Originally Posted by Hawkeye_a

Seriously who cared about ripping a 25-50GB disc in HD ? really.....bu the time we have enough storage and the appropriate codecs, someone would have cracked the format anyway. So thats a pretty stupid reason to back a format. for the first couple of years, HD-DVD/BluRay will live in the homeentertainment center.... for most people.

Im not too worried about ripping movies, cause chances are you'll be able to do that with both eventually.

Cheers

You might be right. But even if there is a crack made, it still doesn't justify the creation of such a crippling DRM in the first place. This goes beyond piracy, to the way we control media content. It's kind of scary really.

goMac · Oct 9, 2005, 09:14 PM

Originally Posted by Disgruntled Head of C-3PO

Exactly, it means NOTHING. I mean how many DVD's with that proprietary MS HD DVD are out there?

Huh? That was a DVD with a Windows Media 9 file on it.

Nothing at all to do with HD-DVD.

HD-DVD uses MP4 for it's specifications just like Bluray. Except Bluray has a bunch of DRM along with it.

TETENAL · Oct 10, 2005, 01:22 AM

Originally Posted by goMac

HD-DVD uses MP4 for it's specifications just like Bluray. Except Bluray has a bunch of DRM along with it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_Codec_1

VC-1 is the informal name of the draft SMPTE standard describing a video codec based on Windows Media Video version 9. […] Both HD-DVD and Blu-ray Disc have adopted VC-1 as a mandatory codec, meaning all playback-devices will be capable of decoding and playing video-content compressed by VC-1.

goMac · Oct 10, 2005, 01:23 AM

Originally Posted by TETENAL

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_Codec_1

Both also support MP4. There was a big fuss about it when they both announced support.

Gavin · 06:00 AM

Disk space really isn't an issue. Right now you can get a 7 GB DVD movie down to about 1GB with DIVX encoding. HD movie ~ 25GB. So you will be able to have a watchable HD movie at less than 5GB. That's a hundred HD movies on my 500GB drive. In a couple of years we'll see 2TB drives, that means every movie you own ready to go on your home media server. You'll be able to browse and play all your movies, music, photos, etc. from any computer or TV in the house.

But only if you can get the video (that you paid for) off the disk (that you own).

There is a concept called Fair Use. It has been determined by U.S. courts that you have the right to copy your movies, music, etc. for personal use, make backups and even to loan to friends, and excerpt bits for classes and reviews. The idea that it is illegal to make a backup is a lie. Like the cigarette companies saying that cigs don't cause cancer. Don't buy into it.

12 greedy guys in a boardroom in New York do not have the right to take your rights away from you. But they will sure try.

None of this matters anyway because I'm still going to need a big stack of disks to back up my giant friggin hard drive.

Athens · Oct 10, 2005, 08:21 AM

Originally Posted by goMac

Remember, Microsoft has announced they will only support HD-DVD. That's %90 of the computer market for HD-DVD.

So, a company will relase BluRay support and it wont matter what Micosoft supports. Does MS support Xbox emulators on Windows, no, didnt stop it.

Severed Hand of Skywalker · Oct 10, 2005, 01:39 PM

Originally Posted by Eug Wanker

At launch HD-DVD is 30 GB. At launch Blu-Ray is 25 GB.

Actually they are saying it is 25 AND 50 at launch.
"The drives, the first of their kind in the world, will become available for personal computer manufacturers by spring 2006 along with the new non-cartridge BDs (bare disc) with storage capacities of 25 GB and 50 GB."

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20051008-5405.html

goMac · Oct 10, 2005, 03:51 PM

Originally Posted by Athens

So, a company will relase BluRay support and it wont matter what Micosoft supports. Does MS support Xbox emulators on Windows, no, didnt stop it.

You don't get it. Most machines will be missing hardware decoders without Intel's support. This is decoding of HD movies we're talking about. Without hardware decoding, HD movies will be very jerky and basically take down the CPU in software mode.

This means any PC that wants to support Bluray will either have to add another PCI Card with a dedicated decoder, or forgo integrated graphics leaving only the high end PC's with support. Meantime Intel will be throwing hardware decoding on their integrated graphics cards meaning that all PC's will get HD-DVD support.

Yes, you can hack it. But without dedicated hardware doing the decoding it's going to suck.

Person Man · Oct 10, 2005, 04:54 PM

Originally Posted by goMac

You don't get it. Most machines will be missing hardware decoders without Intel's support. This is decoding of HD movies we're talking about. Without hardware decoding, HD movies will be very jerky and basically take down the CPU in software mode.

This means any PC that wants to support Bluray will either have to add another PCI Card with a dedicated decoder, or forgo integrated graphics leaving only the high end PC's with support. Meantime Intel will be throwing hardware decoding on their integrated graphics cards meaning that all PC's will get HD-DVD support.

Yes, you can hack it. But without dedicated hardware doing the decoding it's going to suck.

The actual video codecs will be the same.

goMac · Oct 10, 2005, 05:07 PM

Originally Posted by Person Man

The actual video codecs will be the same.

Yes, but without a hardware decoder most machines won't have the horsepower to decode Bluray, no matter what the codec is.

TETENAL · Oct 10, 2005, 05:12 PM

Originally Posted by goMac

Yes, but without a hardware decoder most machines won't have the horsepower to decode Bluray, no matter what the codec is.

Then they won't have the horsepower to decode HD-DVD too. The codecs used on both disc formats are exactly the same. MPEG2, MPEG4 H.264 and VC-1 on both.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blu-ray_Disc#Codecs
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HD_DVD#Overview

goMac · Oct 10, 2005, 05:18 PM

Originally Posted by TETENAL

Then they won't have the horsepower to decode HD-DVD too. The codecs used on both disc formats are exactly the same. MPEG2, MPEG4 H.264 and VC-1 on both.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blu-ray_Disc#Codecs
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HD_DVD#Overview

You're missing the point. Intel is supporting HD-DVD. Therefore every single computer with Intel Integrated Graphics (which is pretty much all of them) will support hardware decoding of HD-DVD. They're even supplying the chipsets to let you copy HD-DVD movies over to your machine.

Severed Hand of Skywalker · Oct 10, 2005, 05:19 PM

Originally Posted by goMac

You're missing the point. Intel is supporting HD-DVD. Therefore every single computer with Intel Integrated Graphics (which is pretty much all of them) will support hardware decoding of HD-DVD. They're even supplying the chipsets to let you copy HD-DVD movies over to your machine.

Bla bla bla. Do you just like being on the losing side?

Sorry, going to lose side.

goMac · Oct 10, 2005, 05:21 PM

Originally Posted by Severed Hand of Skywalker

Bla bla bla. Do you just like being on the losing side?

Sorry, going to lose side.

Are you in Kindergarten yet or still in Pre-School?

HD-DVD still have more support than Bluray last I checked. But have it your way.

TETENAL · Oct 10, 2005, 05:23 PM

Originally Posted by goMac

You're missing the point. Intel is supporting HD-DVD. Therefore every single computer with Intel Integrated Graphics (which is pretty much all of them) will support hardware decoding of HD-DVD.

I think you are missing the point. The graphics chips don't "decode the disk". Whatever DRM there is in the disks it will be "decoded" by the CPU and it certainly won't be demanding for the CPU. The graphics chips support the decoding of the video. And since both disks use the exact same video codecs there won't be any difference. The graphics chip doesn't know or care whether a H.264 stream comes from a Blue-Ray or HD-DVD or the hard disk or whatever.

goMac · Oct 10, 2005, 05:26 PM

Originally Posted by TETENAL

I think you are missing the point. The graphics chips don't "decode the disk". Whatever DRM there is in the disks it will be "decoded" by the CPU and it certainly won't be demanding for the CPU. The graphics chips support the decoding of the video. And since both disks use the exact same video codecs there won't be any difference. The graphics chip doesn't know or care whether a H.264 stream comes from a Blue-Ray or HD-DVD or the hard disk or whatever.

This would be the case with classical DVD. With Bluray, they have enough control that they control the decoding.

And guess who's designing the chipsets that will do content management and DRM controls? I'll give you a clue, it starts with an I and ends with an L.

If Bluray doesn't work with the standard DRM systems on PC's, Bluray will always be a second class citizen.

TETENAL · Oct 10, 2005, 06:16 PM

Originally Posted by goMac

If Bluray doesn't work with the standard DRM systems on PC's, Bluray will always be a second class citizen.

Blueray works with todays computers and it will continue to work with future computers (with Intel chipsets or not).

Severed Hand of Skywalker · Oct 10, 2005, 06:19 PM

Originally Posted by TETENAL

Blueray works with todays computers and it will continue to work with future computers (with Intel chipsets or not).

More computer manufacturers have announced support for blu-ray... without Microsoft or Intels support.

Intel and Microsoft don't matter. The announcement did more harm that good for them.

Severed Hand of Skywalker · Oct 10, 2005, 06:24 PM

Portable DVD players don't need Intel chips or Microsoft, nor will any Blu-ray player. Even Blu-rays menu's are in Java. HD DVD runs some microsoft crap, so if anything you'll have a harder time to play HD on your Mac.

P.S. Apple announced support for Blu-ray only.

DeathMan · Oct 10, 2005, 06:36 PM

Where can I compare the two? How do I know which side to root for?

Eug Wanker · Oct 10, 2005, 06:58 PM

Originally Posted by DeathMan

Where can I compare the two? How do I know which side to root for?

Heh. It seems from this thread that Sony's PR guys have won the battle of convincing geeks who to root for, despite the fact that Blu-Ray has a worse DRM framework.

In any case I think:

Blu-Ray: Wins on overall capacity
HD-DVD: Wins on cost and implementation, and time to market.
HD-DVD: Wins on DRM (cuz it has less)

However, the real winner is who has the content providers, and right now it looks like Blu-Ray has the most support, specifically because of its DRM characteristics. That, and the fact that Toshiba kinda dropped the ball. While HD-DVD will still beat Blu-Ray to market, it won't make it to market in the USA in Q4 2005 like originally planned. Had it been able to do that, then things would look much rosier for HD-DVD, esp. in terms of support from the content providers.

goMac · Oct 10, 2005, 07:08 PM

Originally Posted by Severed Hand of Skywalker

Portable DVD players don't need Intel chips or Microsoft, nor will any Blu-ray player. Even Blu-rays menu's are in Java. HD DVD runs some microsoft crap, so if anything you'll have a harder time to play HD on your Mac.

P.S. Apple announced support for Blu-ray only.

Apple can change their minds. And HD-DVD still has majority support. And no one uses portable DVD players. And the way Bluray is designed, no one will be able to watch Bluray on their PSP's anyway.

goMac · Oct 10, 2005, 07:10 PM

Originally Posted by TETENAL

Blueray works with todays computers and it will continue to work with future computers (with Intel chipsets or not).

There are no hardware decoders. Either you have an extremely high end processor on your machine to run Bluray, or your movie is stutter city.

Just because you have a Bluray drive doesn't mean you can play Bluray movies. When you play a DVD you still have a separate chip on the machine that decodes it. It hasn't been necessary for years, but it's still there.

goMac · Oct 10, 2005, 07:11 PM

Originally Posted by Eug Wanker

However, the real winner is who has the content providers, and right now it looks like Blu-Ray has the most support, specifically because of its DRM characteristics. That, and the fact that Toshiba kinda dropped the ball. While HD-DVD will still beat Blu-Ray to market, it won't make it to market in the USA in Q4 2005 like originally planned. Had it been able to do that, then things would look much rosier for HD-DVD, esp. in terms of support from the content providers.

If you look at it, HD-DVD still has more support. HD-DVD has Microsoft, Intel, Nintendo, and all the movie studios except for Sony.

DeathMan · Oct 10, 2005, 07:56 PM

So whats all this about needing to buy a new tv?

TETENAL · Oct 10, 2005, 08:04 PM

Originally Posted by goMac

There are no hardware decoders. Either you have an extremely high end processor on your machine to run Bluray, or your movie is stutter city.

You have no idea what you are talking about. Blueray and HD-DVD use the exact same codecs. So then why should it be harder to decode Blueray?

Severed Hand of Skywalker · Oct 15, 2005, 05:16 PM

http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000843063502/

Athens · Oct 16, 2005, 06:00 AM

Originally Posted by goMac

You don't get it. Most machines will be missing hardware decoders without Intel's support. This is decoding of HD movies we're talking about. Without hardware decoding, HD movies will be very jerky and basically take down the CPU in software mode.

This means any PC that wants to support Bluray will either have to add another PCI Card with a dedicated decoder, or forgo integrated graphics leaving only the high end PC's with support. Meantime Intel will be throwing hardware decoding on their integrated graphics cards meaning that all PC's will get HD-DVD support.

Yes, you can hack it. But without dedicated hardware doing the decoding it's going to suck.

Software will get around the DRM to use the hardware to decode it and copy it anyways, again your point is well pointless.

Athens · Oct 16, 2005, 06:05 AM

Originally Posted by goMac

You're missing the point. Intel is supporting HD-DVD. Therefore every single computer with Intel Integrated Graphics (which is pretty much all of them) will support hardware decoding of HD-DVD. They're even supplying the chipsets to let you copy HD-DVD movies over to your machine.

What you dont get is HD-DVD and BluRay are MEDIA formats, the movies on them will still be MPEG2, MPEG4 H.264 and VC-1 which can be decoded already by the hardware. What is different is the ability to read from FROM the media, be it HD-DVD or BluRay. The only thing your going to need to buy is a HD-DVD or BluRay Disc Drive which will be able to read the media. The videos containted within the "Media" be it DVD, HD-DVD, BluRay will be the same MPEG2, MPEG4 H.264 and VC-1 standards which is what the hardware decoding will be decoding.

Athens · Oct 16, 2005, 06:11 AM

Originally Posted by goMac

There are no hardware decoders. Either you have an extremely high end processor on your machine to run Bluray, or your movie is stutter city.

Just because you have a Bluray drive doesn't mean you can play Bluray movies. When you play a DVD you still have a separate chip on the machine that decodes it. It hasn't been necessary for years, but it's still there.

The separate chip on the video card is called a MPEG decoder which is the format the video on the DVD disk uses, again DVD is a media that holds a movie under a format, which in the case of DVDs is MPEG, the same will be true for HD-DVD and BluRay, the media will hold a movie in a format, the format will be a standard format which computers today already have the hardware ability to Accelerate/Decode.

Gator Lager · Oct 20, 2005, 12:31 PM

Looks like the war is not over just yet. Toshiba strikes back.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/10/20/business/dvd.php

goMac · Oct 20, 2005, 08:08 PM

HP today also has requested the Bluray DVD group needs to use the HD-DVD format instead of the Bluray one. In other words, HP, who is in the Bluray group, wants Bluray to basically be HD-DVD on Bluray media.

"HP has determined that Managed Copy and iHD will address the fundamental technical needs of the PC and help create a seamless experience throughout the digitally connected home:

Managed Copy: Unlike with today's conventional DVDs, this feature allows consumers to make legitimate copies of their HD movies and enjoy this content around the home or across their networks. Making this feature mandatory will ensure a consistent consumer experience across all next-generation DVD content.
iHD: Next-generation HD movies will provide a level of interactive experience well beyond that of today's conventional DVDs. iHD technology provides a broad foundation to enable new interactivity with standards-based development tools and technologies. It will provide consumers with enhanced content, navigation and functionality for HD films. Furthermore, Microsoft plans to implement iHD support in its Windows(R) Vista operating system, which will help ease implementation and provide a cost-effective solution for consumers."

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20051019-5457.html

Severed Hand of Skywalker · Oct 21, 2005, 02:31 PM

Blu-Ray winner in DVD war: industry group:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051019/...blu_ray_dvd_dc

Titanium Man · Oct 21, 2005, 10:13 PM

And another HD-DVD supporter defects. Warner has announced support for both formats just as Paramount did last month. The final major studio holdout, Universal, is expected to follow soon. That means everybody will be releasing movies on Blu-Ray with a handful also doing it on HD-DVD. If you were a consumer, would you buy an expensive player for the format that gets all the movie releases, or the one that gets only some releases? Stick a fork in HD-DVD, it's done.

Scandalous Ion Cannon · Oct 21, 2005, 10:22 PM

Originally Posted by Titanium Man

And another HD-DVD supporter defects. Warner has announced support for both formats just as Paramount did last month. The final major studio holdout, Universal, is expected to follow soon. That means everybody will be releasing movies on Blu-Ray with a handful also doing it on HD-DVD. If you were a consumer, would you buy an expensive player for the format that gets all the movie releases, or the one that gets only some releases? Stick a fork in HD-DVD, it's done.

For some unknown reason people here want HD-DVD to win and actually think it might.

Eug Wanker · Oct 21, 2005, 10:54 PM

Originally Posted by Severed Hand of Skywalker

Blu-Ray winner in DVD war: industry group:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051019/...blu_ray_dvd_dc

Actually, the "DVD" war has been won by... DVD.

IMO, the winner of the HD war will be still secondary to DVD for a very long time to come.

Originally Posted by Titanium Man

And another HD-DVD supporter defects. Warner has announced support for both formats just as Paramount did last month. The final major studio holdout, Universal, is expected to follow soon. That means everybody will be releasing movies on Blu-Ray with a handful also doing it on HD-DVD. If you were a consumer, would you buy an expensive player for the format that gets all the movie releases, or the one that gets only some releases? Stick a fork in HD-DVD, it's done.

Yeah, things aren't looking good for HD-DVD.

However, I'm definitely not rushing and buying anything. And I'm generally an early(ish) adopter. DVD is enough for me for most usage, and there are only a very few movies that I HAVE to have on HD. Thus, I probably won't be buying for a while.

goMac · Oct 22, 2005, 03:22 AM

I think in the end we'll end up with Bluray discs running the HD-DVD formats, like what HP wants. Best of both worlds.

goMac · Oct 22, 2005, 03:23 AM

Originally Posted by Titanium Man

That means everybody will be releasing movies on Blu-Ray with a handful also doing it on HD-DVD.

Um no. Everyone will be released on HD-DVD and Bluray.

Hawkeye_a · Oct 22, 2005, 10:06 PM

Seriously, who cares who wins a format war ? Are either of you working for or stand to gain something from this argument by taking such a hard stance in a particular camp ? Jeeeze, let it go.....you can argue about it till ur blue in the face, but there's only one certainty in a format war, a winner will emerge in due time, and it DOSNT MATTER WHICH ONE WINS, cause chances are both of you will end up buying movies on the winning format just like EVERYBODY else.

Sheesh.

moonmonkey · Oct 22, 2005, 10:30 PM

Originally Posted by goMac

I think in the end we'll end up with Bluray discs running the HD-DVD formats, like what HP wants. Best of both worlds.

The way I understand it, HP has asked for some of the features (primarily managed copies) to be added to the Blu-Ray specs.

I get the feeling Microsoft/Intel has something to do with this request.

Whoever is whispering into the ear of HP, its good new for us.

Scandalous Ion Cannon · Oct 23, 2005, 02:03 AM

Originally Posted by Hawkeye_a

Seriously, who cares who wins a format war ? Are either of you working for or stand to gain something from this argument by taking such a hard stance in a particular camp ?
Sheesh.

Says the guy in the PSP thread 24/7.

At any rate those of use with HDTV's (not you) and who want the most space the moment the format comes out so we can have the highest quality video and audio available without it having to span on multiple disks. That's who.

Titanium Man · Oct 23, 2005, 02:05 AM

Originally Posted by goMac

Um no. Everyone will be released on HD-DVD and Bluray.

Funny, you keep writing that, but can't seem to come up with any proof. How about this nice, little article from Ars Technica? Note especially where it says:
"Sony, Disney, and now News Corp's Twentieth Century Fox have all committed to Blu-ray, and have no plans to sell HD DVD products."

That's three major studios which won't be part of "everyone" as you claim. Meanwhile, only one major studio, Universal Pictures, remains committed exclusively to HD-DVD but is expected to swing both ways soon, following in the footsteps of both Paramount and Warner, who were previously pure HD-DVD backers. Not a big step, especially when you consider corporate siblings Universal Music Group and Vivendi Universal Games have already signed on with Blu-ray.