View Full Version : HD-DVD and Blu-Ray Discussion
whachusay
09-09-2007, 10:41 PM
Apple is supporting HD-DVD???
Brook Willard
09-09-2007, 10:53 PM
Nope, they announced BD support a while ago.
Graeme Nattress
09-09-2007, 10:53 PM
In a format war, nobody wins. I guess Apple are as cautious about being burned as anyone else? Or just taking their fair old time about it?
Rick Darge
09-09-2007, 11:01 PM
Anyone know whatever happened to Holographic Versatile Disc?
I thought it was supposed to be around by now..
I want by 300GB discs!
Jeremy Neish
09-10-2007, 08:16 AM
I may be using Adobe for Blu-Ray if Apple does not hurry up. I hate the fact that they are supporting hd-dvd - the enemy. <snip> Pick a side... Blu-Ray is the better format...
To continue with this thread-jacking... As somebody who is in the trenches of authoring on both HD and BD for Hollywood titles. I can confidently say that as far as interactive features and capabilities, HD-DVD's and Microsoft's HDi is vastly easier to work with and more capable than BD's interactive layers (This coming from somebody who's license plate reads "MACNTOSH"). More colors, full support for Picture-in-picture, internet and much more. WB's 300 is a perfect example. And even if they eventually re-release a BDJ version, it still won't match the HD version. So I consider Sony and BD to be "the enemy".
But I agree, the format war needs to end. Unfortunately, I personally think it will not, instead players that play both will become the norm, and content will continue to ship in both formats for the foreseeable future. Much like the DVD-R, DVD+R format war.
Paul Leeming
09-10-2007, 08:40 AM
Not siding with either right now, but don't forget that Blu-Ray discs REQUIRE AACS and Region Code, neither of which HD-DVD requires (in fact all HD-DVDs are Region Free by design, thank goodness).
Why is this important? Well, for getting your own title mastered to Blu-Ray, you are looking at roughly US$10,000 in AACS mastering and checking for the glass masters, costs you don't have when mastering to HD-DVD. Info from AVSForum (http://www.avsforum.com/).
HTH
Paul
Jared VanLeuven
09-10-2007, 10:56 AM
DVD Studio Pro supports HD-DVD authoring.
Apple is supporting HD-DVD???
Ken K
09-10-2007, 11:16 AM
As long as we're threadjacking, now HD-DVD and BluRay have a new competitor: HD VMD.
Read about it here:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,136977-c,hometheatersystems/article.html
Players are $150, the discs hold up to 30GB per side, 40mbps rate VC1 or MPEG-2 1080p, and uses the standard DVD red laser instead of the new blue laser (much cheaper). The only thing that sucks is the lack of uncompressed audio.
Häakon
09-10-2007, 11:57 PM
DVD Studio Pro supports HD-DVD authoring.
As far as I know, Apple just supports burning HD material to a regular DVD disc (which can be played on an HD-DVD player, but is not an HD-DVD disc). Adobe Encore does support burning Blu-ray discs on a Mac already, however - even with the footage you've cut in FCP.
Terry Delahunt
09-11-2007, 12:29 AM
As far as I know, Apple just supports burning HD material to a regular DVD disc (which can be played on an HD-DVD player, but is not an HD-DVD disc). Adobe Encore does support burning Blu-ray discs on a Mac already, however - even with the footage you've cut in FCP.
No, you can author HD DVD's with dvdstudiopro 4
and you can select 'red laser' or 'blue laser'(does this mean blu-ray?)
http://www.apple.com/finalcutstudio/dvdstudiopro/specs.html
Häakon
09-11-2007, 12:36 AM
Are there HD-DVD burners readily available? I know there is a decent selection of Blu-ray options out there.
Corey Culp
09-11-2007, 01:10 AM
No, you can author HD DVD's with dvdstudiopro 4
and you can select 'red laser' or 'blue laser'(does this mean blu-ray?)
http://www.apple.com/finalcutstudio/dvdstudiopro/specs.html
HD DVD technically is a blue laser format. There is no Blu-ray support with DVD SP.
Häakon
09-11-2007, 01:45 AM
HD DVD technically is a blue laser format. There is no Blu-ray support with DVD SP.
Yet :-)
Don't forget that Apple is on the Blu-ray consortium. My guess is that DVD SP in particular will offer Blu-ray support after Apple starts selling Blu-ray drives.
Antoine Baumann
09-11-2007, 12:13 PM
I love Amazon but they are fueling the @#$#@ war by supporting both sides like Switzweland in WW2 and like Warner Brothers - shame of you!! The faster the war ends, with Blu Ray winnning the better for everyone...
My view is that the swiss governement was entierly for the Nazi, but try to hide it. The people was not, but then Vichy governments was also for the Nazi, and if you want know English gov let Hilter build a big army thinking he will first strike the Soviet union, despite the fact Staline was trying to make allience with french and english, it ended with the "devil pact". But we could also speak about american history, for exemple how they wiped out native people...
But frankly I don't know what it has to do with DVD or motion pictures.
antoine.
Corey Culp
09-11-2007, 03:03 PM
Yet :-)
Don't forget that Apple is on the Blu-ray consortium. My guess is that DVD SP in particular will offer Blu-ray support after Apple starts selling Blu-ray drives.
I never forgot where Apple stands in this ridiculous format war. They're not doing much for the Blu-ray format by being on the board and not supporting it with their products. I was just pointing out the other poster's "question" about the blue laser option when creating an HD disc. :)
Jeff Kilgroe
09-11-2007, 03:26 PM
Apple doesn't stand anywhere in the format war. They are indeed members of the Blu-Ray consortium, but they are also members of Toshiba's HD-DVD support group as well. They currently support the creation of HD-DVD within DVDSP.
I think DVDSP 5, when released, will have full authoring support for HD-DVD and Blu-Ray. I also think that Apple is waiting on including new optical drives until they can offer ones that support both formats for reading and writing. Currently LG and Samsung both have drives that can read and write Blu-Ray as well as read HD-DVD. LG has announced their next super-multi drive, which will read and write both formats, will be available by the end of the year. So it's coming...
Jonathan L. Bowen
09-11-2007, 04:45 PM
From everything I've read, and DVDFile.com agrees, Blu-Ray is the superior format, much better imaging, much better capacity, but costs more money right now for players. I have always thought HD DVD was incredibly lame, but that's just me. I'm all for Blu-Ray winning that war.
Corey Culp
09-11-2007, 04:56 PM
Apple doesn't stand anywhere in the format war. They are indeed members of the Blu-Ray consortium, but they are also members of Toshiba's HD-DVD support group as well. They currently support the creation of HD-DVD within DVDSP.
I think DVDSP 5, when released, will have full authoring support for HD-DVD and Blu-Ray. I also think that Apple is waiting on including new optical drives until they can offer ones that support both formats for reading and writing. Currently LG and Samsung both have drives that can read and write Blu-Ray as well as read HD-DVD. LG has announced their next super-multi drive, which will read and write both formats, will be available by the end of the year. So it's coming...
Again, Jeff, I wasn't arguing that Apple wasn't playing the field. I wanted to point out that Apple may have one foot planted in each sandbox, but they haven't done anything, via their products, to support Blu-ray, as they have with HD DVD.
I agree all the way around regarding Apple's decisions around the hardware aspects. But I don't feel that those combo burners are going to be as robust as having separate burners for each format.
Jeff Kilgroe
09-11-2007, 05:10 PM
I agree all the way around regarding Apple's decisions around the hardware aspects. But I don't feel that those combo burners are going to be as robust as having separate burners for each format.
I think the combo burners will be just fine. The differences between the two disc formats (HD-DVD and Blu-Ray) are very minimal. Same laser diode, they just require a lens / optics control system with a wider range of adjustment and the necessary software / firmware to control for either disc format.
I suppose time will tell and I'm sure we'll see a lot of quality issues with the first generations of dual-format burners, just as we've seen a handful of issues with the first models of Blu-Ray burners. HD-DVD burners are almost non-existent on the market due to technical difficulties with both media and burners.... IMO, this is the factor that could lead to the demise of HD-DVD, if it doesn't get solved by year's end.
Jeff Kilgroe
09-11-2007, 05:23 PM
From everything I've read, and DVDFile.com agrees, Blu-Ray is the superior format, much better imaging, much better capacity, but costs more money right now for players. I have always thought HD DVD was incredibly lame, but that's just me. I'm all for Blu-Ray winning that war.
Both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray support the same video codecs with nearly identical bit-rates for video playback, so image quality is typically the same between the two. Assuming studios do a good job of authoring a disc. It's true that Blu-Ray has higher capacity, but even the 30GB of HD-DVD is more than plenty for a very high bit-rate transfer of a 3 hour feature plus a good selection of extras.
Blu-Ray does however support a few more audio options and they have superior capabilities with their java-based menu system vs. HD-DVD's XML scripted HDi system.
As much as I dislike Sony's marketing tactics and this whole lame format "war". I would prefer Blu-Ray be the winning format. Simply because it's superior from a data-centric point of view. It has more room for future expansion of the standard (theoretically up to 12 layers on a single disc, 4 per side was demoed in a lab earlier this year). Blu-Ray also has superior dynamic copy protection and dynamic production process abilities where individual discs can be serialized or altered. We're far more likely to see a more widespread use of "managed copy" practices and legal (and consumer friendly) use of Blu-Ray with home media servers than we are with HD-DVD.
In the end, Hollywood is still divided pretty evenly and HD-DVD gained some momentum with the recent Paramount and Dreamworks announcements. I truly think that when this war is over, it will be due to universal players and not one format defeating another. I think in a few more years after players are all universal anyway, Blu-Ray will eventually phase-out HD-DVD. I could be wrong, but I think this is what's going to happen... There's already two universal players on the market with three more due within the next two months -- two of them are second gen units to replace the ones on shelves now.
Joe Carney
09-11-2007, 05:43 PM
create AVCHD files, burn them to double layer DVD disks. As to which format, depends on which authoring tool you use to burn them.
And now, with Silverlight, MS is releasing a vc1 encoder.
Stephen Gentle
09-11-2007, 10:16 PM
As long as we're threadjacking, now HD-DVD and BluRay have a new competitor: HD VMD.
Read about it here:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,136977-c,hometheatersystems/article.html
Players are $150, the discs hold up to 30GB per side, 40mbps rate VC1 or MPEG-2 1080p, and uses the standard DVD red laser instead of the new blue laser (much cheaper). The only thing that sucks is the lack of uncompressed audio.
I don't like the sound of that format at all - it may be cheap, but H.264 support (or lack there of) is what really makes me hope that this doesn't become popular. I hear that VC-1 is a very good codec, but there are problems with licensing or something (although this mainly affects authoring for the web).
Anyway, I hope Blu-Ray wins at this point, as it has much better capacity (20GB extra for dual layer!). In terms of codecs it doesn't matter (being the same and all)...
In the end, I just want one to die out, and the burners to drop to the $100 or less level (like DVD burners - good ones cost AU$40 here).
they have superior capabilities with their java-based menu system vs. HD-DVD's XML scripted HDi system.
on the paper :biggrin:
New features of BD players comes only with new generation of their hardware. HDDVD players need only firmware update.
With HDDVD you can download online new playlists, soundtracks, subtitles and more...
BD players dont have web connectivity and price two times more than HDDVD.
Now when anounced chinese CH-DVD based on HD-DVD platform cost of HDDVD players can be $150 for Christmas.
I have seen a lot movies on DVD9 when used only 60-70% space of disc. Same situation with BD50. With good compression tool you can do better job.
18 hours of extras on HDDVD30 with fanastic quality:
http://hddvd.highdefdigest.com/hotfuzz.html
Yields at the Sony plants are around 40% for BD50s. At non-Sony plants, they are around 10%! (David Vaughn
DVD Editor Home Theater Spot)
Sorry, but Sony is a looser...
Christoffer Glans
09-12-2007, 01:55 PM
PS3 enabled many consumers to get Blu-Ray players before HD film format has even been announced as the next format for film distribution.
People with a Playstation 3 will probably want to have blu ray movies and not HD-DVD. So, I believe that Blu Ray will win the format war, because of this thing. So, I will go for blu-ray, I will go for a Blu-Ray burner for future projects.
I believe that Blu Ray will win the format war, because of this thing. So, I will go for blu-ray, I will go for a Blu-Ray burner for future projects.
Do you like rotten discs (http://news.softpedia.com/news/Blu-ray-Discs-are-Rotten-No-Really-the-Literally-039-Rot-039-57510.shtml)?
Less thinking - pay more:wink:
Good to be believer...
Jeff Kilgroe
09-12-2007, 04:47 PM
New features of BD players comes only with new generation of their hardware. HDDVD players need only firmware update.
Not sure where you get that, but not true. Plenty of BD players are upgradeable and the Toshiba HD-A1 and XA1 have already been EOL'd as far as features to be enabled.
With HDDVD you can download online new playlists, soundtracks, subtitles and more...
Blu-Ray allows this too. Not all Blu-Ray players are web enabled, but neither are all HD-DVD players. Web-enabled Blu-Ray players are required for use of BD+ and BD-Managed Copy.
Now when anounced chinese CH-DVD based on HD-DVD platform cost of HDDVD players can be $150 for Christmas.
...And what studios will support them? HVD and similar alternative formats have failed to gain any serious momentum due to lack of support from key players in the industry and major studios alike.
I have seen a lot movies on DVD9 when used only 60-70% space of disc. Same situation with BD50. With good compression tool you can do better job.
18 hours of extras on HDDVD30 with fanastic quality:
I already said 30GB on an HD-DVD was plenty... Although, some people are stretching it a bit. 18 hours, no matter how efficient or good the compression, isn't going to happen and still look decent on a large-screen 1080p display or projector system.
Yields at the Sony plants are around 40% for BD50s. At non-Sony plants, they are around 10%! (David Vaughn
DVD Editor Home Theater Spot)
This is complete FUD. I've got some good contacts at disc replication houses and have had a Blu-Ray project of my own authored recently. I've seen the operation first hand, I can assure you that failure rates are less than 5% on pressing DL BD-ROM media.
Sorry, but Sony is a looser...
On this point, I will agree with you. I have a strong dislike for their marketing hype and product development pacing. I actually bought an HD-DVD player over a year ago and only purchased a Blu-Ray player about 4 months ago. I honestly don't really care which format wins this "war". I seriously don't think either format will "win". As I said before, I think that universal players will eliminate the "war" from the consumer's point of view and eventually Blu-Ray will phase out HD-DVD. Blu-Ray will do so only because of it's larger capacity and other data-centric advantages it has over HD-DVD, that will be preferential to IT / data tasks more so than video.
whachusay
09-13-2007, 04:30 AM
To continue with this thread-jacking.... I wasnt trying to jack the thread. Not my intentions at all. I asked a question in regards to a subject that had been brought up in the thread. Again, that wasn't what I was trying to do -- My bad.
Jeff Kilgroe
09-13-2007, 07:28 AM
I wasnt trying to jack the thread. Not my intentions at all. I asked a question in regards to a subject that had been brought up in the thread. Again, that wasn't what I was trying to do -- My bad.
Don't worry about it -- not your fault. You asked a question and several others jumped all over the opportunity to discuss this. IMO, the other "delay" thread had already run its course -- notice there has been no new posts there since I separated this discussion out.
Carry on, gentlemen...
Stacey Spears
09-15-2007, 12:11 AM
As my first post, I hope this does not turn into the AVS Forum. :)
HD-DVD and Blu-Ray support the same video codecs with nearly identical bit-rates for video playback, so image quality is typically the same between the two.
In thoery BD does have the advantage. In practice, it has not really been seen, at least yet.
HD DVD:
Peak video rate is 29.4 Mbps.
Maximum GOP length is .6 seconds (14 frames for 24p)
VBV is 1843200 bytes (peak bitrate buffer)
BD:
Peak video rate is 40 Mbps
Maximum GOP length is 1 second (if bitrate is > 15 Mbps) (24 frames for 24p)
VBV is 3750000 bytes
For what its worth, I work on the VC-1 encoder that is used for HD DVD and BD. I promise I won't try and push one format over the other. I own both formats. (PS3, Panny, A1, A20 and Xbox) I also won't try and push one codec over another. I spend 7 days a week trying to make VC-1 look better, but in the end I hope the compression facility chooses the codec that looks the best since I am one of their primary customers.
I also just placed my Red order, which I sure hope to receive sometime in '08.
What will be interesting is the upcoming Digital Video Essentials HD Basics. I am encoding the HD DVD version while Deluxe is encoding the BD version. The section to look out for is the montage of images near the end.