http://www.toshiba.co.jp/about/press/2004_11/pr2901.htm

Blue Ray which is backed by far many more company lost in this war

Up to eight hours with "high quality, high definition" on one disc sounds great. I'll be wanting an HD DVD recorder, now I'm glad I didn't buy a standard DVD recorder.

Don't jump to conclusions. This only means that there will be enough "software" to push this standard towards the customers.
On the other hand the competing Blu Ray standard is strongly supported by Sony which owns some big entertainment companies as well. So it looks like both will be forced upon us Also Blu Ray has good (planned) support in the computer field.

This could mean most consumers will wait till affordable devices will become available that support both standards

If you mean a computer recorder, why are you glad after all? For computer data, the 4.7Gb capacity of DVD seems sufficient for most uses, and the first HD-DVD recorders (or even Blu Ray ones) will certainly be very expensive and quite unnecessary on your machine. Besides, I hope the prices of DVD media and hardware to fall from now on.

Exactly, I bet that we will have the same silly situation as we have now with DVD+R(W), DVD-R(W), and DVD-RAM.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't Blu ray have a much higher capacity and could therefore hold better quality/more content?

AFAIK there are some aspects where HD DVD is better (speed?), and there are some other where Blu Ray is better (capacity?). But it doesn't matter much, it's business and the one who has more money/influence wins, not the one who is better. Take a look at the current DVD formats - is DVD-R(W) superior to DVD+R(W)? It's inferior, but as popular. Is DVD-RAM inferior to DVD-RW or DVD+RW? It's superior, but less popular.

I believe that the largest advantages of HD-DVD are backwards compatability, lower production costs (because they are similar to red-laser based players), and now broader studio support. Thus despite Blu-ray's (slightly) higher capacity I think that they will eventually lose out. Sony's formats always lose out because of their hubris (Betamax, Atrac).

Either way I think the best things about these discs is that they will drive down the costs of DVDs. I suspect (hope?) in 1-2 years the studios will develop a tiered system with feature-packed HD-DVDs selling for $20-30 and featureless DVDs selling for $8-15. Kind of similar to the old tiered system with CDs and cassettes. Since I rarely if ever bother with DVD's special features and won't have a HDTV for a bunch of years I won't miss either of these features. I simply want to watch the movie with good clarity and sound on a standard TV.

I was talkin' bout home DVD recorders, the kind that go with home theaters. I've already got a DVD+RW drive for my PC.

4.7GB of the current DVD format isn't sufficient in my views especially when wanting to record a whole television series that may span several years; examples being Babylon 5, and the various Star Trek series. I want the least amount of discs versus having a never ending stack of them cluttering my AV room.

Especially when you collect bootlegs. You never have enough space.

I wasn't referring to bootlegs -- which for your information has nothing to do with this thread.

industries are EVIL, why don't they just settle down in 1 format, now they should have just stop BluRay since they have a better one!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This could also become an important advantage of HD-DVD:

Dual DVD, HD-DVD Disc Developed.

Blu-Ray ---> (Sony Pictures, Columbia TriStar, MGM, 20th Century Fox, Disney):

http://www.clubic.com/actualite-17632-disn...le-blu-ray.html


bye

Here is an English article:

http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1040_22-5484191.html

Right. The CD format is a great example of Sony failure. Minidisc too.

"For computer data, the 4.7Gb capacity of DVD seems sufficient for most uses"

That's my refference - Which for your information is right above my post. My Bootlegs are data as well, which have everything to do with this thread.

Interesting.

Well, if I understand correctly, a HD-DVD is backwards compatible, and can be read in our regular DVD players. But unless new hardware is acquired, the "lower" part of the disc, which contains the 15GB layer won't be read by our current equipment. So it's like having access to a regular version of the movie, and an High Definition one.
How is it with Blu-ray? Will our current hardware be able to read at least one layer of the disc? If not, that's probably a big problem for Sony. They can't expect consumers to acquire new equipment to be able to read their discs, especially if they're battleing with a similar technology.

No.....DVD uses red laser and HD-DVD & BluRay both use Blue Laser, I don't think current red laser can read a blue laser disc.Therefore it's not backward compatible

I feel aggravated at this claim. I truely belive CD format is no failure, it is indeed the most successfull data carrier ever invented. The only bad thing is that it is driven to shit by everyone.
All other data carriers or formats are based on the very first, the same principle like CD digital audio is. DVD for example is nothing more than just a more dense CD and thus it has higher capacity.

It's quite sad we're heading for another format war.

One of the key reasons DVD video is more successful (in terms of growth and sales) than any technology before or since is because there was no format war - all interested parties agreed on this one format (in the West at least!).

The other two reasons are a clear quality advantage over the format it replaces, and dirt cheap players from China.

To repeat the success of DVD, next generation DVD has got to repeat this formula - but it's not going to be cheap, and it's only going to have a clear quality advantage on HDTVs. These two factors will slow the growth compared to the DVD explosion - the last thing that's needed is a format war to slow things down even further!

I suppose we'll see players that can handle both. But then, we have players that can handle both SACD and DVD-A - and look how successful those formats are! Could next generation DVD be heading the same way?

Cheers,
David.

I always thought that Philips was the one who did most of the work for CDs.

The Minidisc was a failure. I know hundreds of people with walkmans, cd players, and mp3 players and exactly one person with a minidisc (and that's because he is Japanese). It may do well in Japan but in the US (and I believe the rest of the world) it was a total flop.

He agrees with you. He's being his usual sarcastic self. Considering that he associated the successful CD with the unsuccessful minidisc though I can see where your confusion came from.

That's not how I understood the article.
The way I understood it was that we'll have to buy HD-DVD Players in order to playback an HD-DVD, and the same HD-DVD Player will be able to play the older DVD version.

HD-DVD brings something else to mind. Just image how elaborate, or expansive DVD based video games "may" become, although I haven't seen any PS2 titles as of yet that use more than half the disc capacity.

Err, Sony is the one who came up with the 3.5" floopy, and Atrac is not dead yet.

Blu-ray will live on, at least on the PS3. If HD-DVD takes on, blu-ray will be like Memory stick, it's in the market, but only Sony products use it. Seeing that Sony is the first who came up with dual format (+/-R) DVD burner for the PC, maybe they'll come up with a drive that support both blu-ray and HD-DVD. Hey, even their portable audio players are supporting both Atrac and MP3 now.

I was being ironic.



It's hard to tell, but I would believe both did about the same.



Well, I know countless people with minidiscs. Time to leave mommy's basement, eh?



Good point, thanks for reminding me.



True. Several hardware players support this format (some of them not even from Sony), and now we have a music store selling Atrac3.

Please learn to read English. As I said explicitly, I know hundreds of people with alternative music players and exactly one with a minidisc. Can you count past 3? Maybe you have dumb friends (who the hell would buy an expensive player that totally sucks).

I stand by my word that While Sony has had a couple of successful formats it seems that they have a greater share of media format failures where they are the only company who supports it, such as the aforementioned MemoryStick. A lot of their technologies just seem to fracture the market rather than add to it.

With over 6,000 posts maybe its you who needs to get out of you mommy's basement.



Keyword some, which is probably a few. And does Sony using their own format in their own music store really count as a success? I guess you just have standards.

Or maybe they have other priorities than you.

I won't judge them. You, on the other hand, judges them without even knowing. Congratulations.



By "totally sucks", you already showed how knowledgeable and worthy of arguing you are.

Anyway, dunno. Ask the millions of iPod owners.



Well, at least I don't seem to have any obvious bias against Sony. You, OTOH...



Still, even with Sony pushing the format mostly alone, it is more popular than Vorbis (no music store, much fewer hardware players) and Musepack, formats that people around this forum hold in very high regard.

If it wasn't for Apple alone, I'm pretty sure Atrac would be more popular than AAC too.




But let's bring this subject back to it's tracks, after you poisoned it with anti-Sony zealotry, shall we?

Disney recently announced they would go for Blu-Ray. So matters are now more equilibrated: Paramount, Universal, Warner and New Line are planning to go with HD-DVD and Sony, MGM and Disney (and possibly Fox) are with Blu-Ray.


Edit: oops, PoisonDan already mentioned it (although not in his post)

MD was only a relative failure in North America.

It's still going strong in Japan and doing quite well in the UK (and Europe I guess) though of course mp3 players have made it less desirable. For many, it filled the gap between cassettes and the iPod - and still does some things that neither can.

It's a good point that the most successful formats have been uncontested: there was nothing new to compete with CD, and there was nothing new to compete with DVD.

It's not just about the technology - cynics would say it has nothing to do with the technology, but I reckon things are successful when the technology is more than good enough for most people.

Cheers,
David.

No, I just didn't have the idea rjamorim could have meant it ironically.

MiniDisc is greatly successfull. It was the very first digital disc that could be recorded (beginning in1993). I remember philips releasing the world's very first CD recorder in about 1996, PC writers came a bit earlier, but after MD.
MD is a good choice for everyone who wants to have relatively high quality (the best lossy codec I think), usable for home archieving, and a good portable format at the same time. MD is much much better for portable use than CD (very vulnerable, unhandy, big) is and also than the other players. (strict lossy codecs, fixed capacity, vulnerable memory cards, dependency on unreliable PC,...)

For me MD was like magic when I came from cassette. In the middle and late 90s (hifi-home-) MD recorders became the dominating recorders among the recorders offered in the hifi-stores - overwhelming tapes, CDR, DAT and DCC. The last two are true failures-it is really hard to find any DAT cassette sold today. I have never seen any DCC recorder in stores - this format was from philips and lasted only a very short time period. One could record digitally on a normal cassette (the format was lossy).

What are you saying here? I think I can name a few lossy codecs which I think are better than ATRAC: Mp3, Vorbis, MPC, AAC etc. What makes ATRAC better than the HA-statis quo? Or perhaps I don't fully understand your meaning.

I think HD-DVD's great strengths are that it does away with MPEG2 & AC3. At this stage it looks like AVC and DTS will be the standards for HD-DVD, whilst Blue Ray (i think?) will still be using MPEG2 for video (not sure what for audio).

Plus there's the previously mentioned cheap manafacturing costs, ability to convert current factories, etc.

Blue Ray definately has the support of far more companies then HD DVD, and I think that will ultimately decide it's fate. I'm not looking forward to a Betamax/VHS war (btw, Betamax kicked VHS's arse, but we all know who won).

Have you ever held a MD in your hand ?
What you mean is ATRAC3 (I think it is now ATRAC3+ or so). It has nothing to do with MD-ATRAC. MD-ATRAC is now "ATRAC DSP type S" and is higher than any other lossy codec. MD-ATRAC is only available for MD, and MD only with MD-ATRAC.

Yes and the sound quality was bad, but that was probably due to the source files (I imagine that they were mp3s d/l from Kazaa or something.

What do you mean by "is higher than any lossy codec?" Do you mean higher quality? If so, why isn't it used elsewhere? I wouldn't think that the highest quality lossy codec out there would be limited to one type of portable device only. Do you have any proof to back your claims? How about some form of ABX test?

edit: missed a word

I meant higher quality.
The format is restricted to MD by Sony. Why ? I don't know the real reason. License ?
For me the main use of MD have never been the portables - I've been using it for home-recording with my standalone MD-recorders.

Uh, now I'm in danger of violating rule #8.
The reason why I think it is very high quality (maybe lame -insane or so is better) is that my early blind tests (blind tests, not ABX tests) showed no difference, while I was able to ABX mp3@160kbps CBR later. I used CEP's mp3 encoder for this test and the highest_quality_available settings, except the bitrate.
Also, I once read that MD-ATRAC's bitrate is about 290kbps (SP, of course)-very high compared to mp3. Additionally, MD-ATRAC causes no cutoff at 16kHz like lossy codecs usually do - I can't distinguish the frequency content above 16kHz from a lossless source by looking at or analyzing the waveform.

292, actually.

So, yes, it's valid to claim quality is high. A psychoacoustic codec would need to be very shitty to not be able to produce good quality at such bitrate.

Pre-recorded blu-ray discs will be avc or vc1 and that will effectively render contemporary BD recorders obsolete. See http://www.blu-raydisc.info/press/press.htm

I thought I heard they changed it, but I couldn't remeber, thanks.

As I recall, ATRAC (at least the one used for MD, so many now it's confusing) had serious problems with pre-echo, but I don't have one on hand to test. I'm sure ABX tests have been done though.