BR/HD-DVD Thread

[DudeMiester]

Don't the already have a working prototype for holographic media that can store up to 1.4TB? I think I saw it at Tom's Hardware. I think they're pretty close to being commercially viable. The prototype in the pic wasn't too monsteriously huge, lol.

 

[London Geezer]

Don't the already have a working prototype for holographic media that can store up to 1.4TB? I think I saw it at Tom's Hardware. I think they're pretty close to being commercially viable. The prototype in the pic wasn't too monsteriously huge, lol.

.... Commercially viable? No.

 

[wco81]

Still some uncertainty about whether the Blu-Ray drive in the PS3 will necessarily mean Blu-Ray movie playback.

Is the Cell capable of decoding MPEG4/AVC HP and VC-1 or will the PS3 need dedicated silicon hardware? Or will the nVidia GPU do it?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Still some uncertainty about whether the Blu-Ray drive in the PS3 will necessarily mean Blu-Ray movie playback.

Most definitely. Blu-Ray in PS3 is a quick way to get players into people's living rooms, promoting the format. Decoding could be done in software easily enough.

 

[MfA]

It's such a shame Blueray won the contest, here is another potential pretender we never really heard much about.

 

[cthellis42]

Still some uncertainty about whether the Blu-Ray drive in the PS3 will necessarily mean Blu-Ray movie playback.

I would hazard a guess that the uncertainty would be both microscopically small and not really paying attention. Sony would have to be almost colossally foolish to stick a Blu-Ray drive in there but not include movie playback. And certainly it would not come down to a hardware technicality. If anything, it would come down to licensing costs. (And I'd consider it far more likely we'd get it in "gimped form"--say, missing VC-1--than entirely excluded. There may be some remaining desire to get one codec or another not supported, too (to reduce cost and "be simpler"), and if they see the PS3 as a possible wedge to doing that... <shrug> )

 

[wco81]

As I recall, Sony waited until the last minute before confirming that the PS2 would have DVD movie capability. That is despite the fact that the EE, like every other "media processor" coming out at the time, could decode MPEG2 and AC3.

So the only thing that could have stopped it at the time was political/economic, rather than technical. Yes it wouldn't make sense to put in a costly Blu-Ray drive and not have BR movie playback.

But has Sony always made decisions which made good business sense?

Anyways, some people think there could be other plausible reasons for including a BR drive in a game console besides movie playback, such as eventually, games will be able to use that capacity or that a BR drive offers much greater throughput than DVD drives. IOW, better performance for streaming game data from disc.

 

[cthellis42]

As I recall, Sony waited until the last minute before confirming that the PS2 would have DVD movie capability. That is despite the fact that the EE, like every other "media processor" coming out at the time, could decode MPEG2 and AC3.

Well A) they sometimes want to hold off big news until certain time to steel news cycles, and B) it still may have been under debate what form it would take (as in out-of-the-box as it ended up, or enabled by other means as with the Xbox), rather than "if it would at all or not." And I'm sure there are C's, D's, and other points I don't care to think up right now.

Plus, wasn't DVD movie playback known at E3 1999?

But has Sony always made decisions which made good business sense?

Certainly not. All the more reason I think they would be entirely stupid to not capitalize on this with the PS3. And offhand, even THEY learn from past mistakes and take advantage of past successes.

Anyways, some people think there could be other plausible reasons for including a BR drive in a game console besides movie playback, such as eventually, games will be able to use that capacity or that a BR drive offers much greater throughput than DVD drives. IOW, better performance for streaming game data from disc.

Well sure. I imagine that's certainly what they want it in for to begin with, since running for another 5+ years may get wearing. I'm sure they'd consider it very nice to be on the GOOD side of loading times next generation. Not to mention storage capacity by a huge margin.

Meanwhile, if they can get that AND drive Blu-Ray sales itself with what is clearly their most visable product? I don't think "colossally foolish" would even begin to describe it.

 

[Deepak]

It's such a shame Blueray won the contest, here is another potential pretender we never really heard much about.

Err! What is Indian Embassy doing there? :?

 

[snacky]

I have a bit of an axe to grind on Dvorak's claim that VC-1 is as good as H.264. So:

Satellite operators prefer h.264 over MS's codec

Not that any of this has anything to do with the BR vs HD-DVD argument.

 

[London Geezer]

I have a bit of an axe to grind on Dvorak's claim that VC-1 is as good as H.264. So:

Satellite operators prefer h.264 over MS's codec

Not that any of this has anything to do with the BR vs HD-DVD argument.

... So why post it?

 

[MfA]

Err! What is Indian Embassy doing there? :?

They just keep tabs on interesting technology and publish it, mainly for Indian companies. The original source is neither on the web, nor referenced anywhere else it seems.

Personally I think Super-RENS was the superior technology for this generation, but it lost out because of other reasons (for instance because it was too cheap with too many companies owning patents ... instant low margins). Of course I might be wrong and it might just have had issues preventing the prototypes from being commercialized such as durability/stability/etc (They only have a very rudimentary understanding about how it works.)

 

[wco81]

http://money.cnn.com/2005/01/26/technology/personaltech/dvd_format/

Sony and the other BR companies have spent a billion developing Blu-Ray already?

And I'm not sure about the argument that Blu-Ray is better suited for games than HD-DVD just because of greater capacity.

Maybe if it had better throughput...

 

[cthellis42]

And I'm not sure about the argument that Blu-Ray is better suited for games than HD-DVD just because of greater capacity.

I'm not sure what CNN thinks, but I think another reason comes from easier development towards multiple layers on one side, so games and other media can access all the content at once without having to flip the disk (or develop a dual-head device).

I doubt they were talking about anything but the "more storage" point, though. And that the PS3 will use it and PC-side companies are looking that way. I've found their examinations to usually be pretty shallow. We tend to have talked well past their analysis by the time a good article shows up. They do feed us another data point from time to time, though.

There might be a point on throughput, but I have no idea what speed drives to expect from BR or HD-DVD yet, nor how cheap/easy they will be to produce, nor at what point they'd be on the market.

 

[one]

http://www.mpegla.com/news.cfm
http://www.mpegla.com/news/n_05-01-27_avc.pdf

MPEG LA to Expand AVC Patent Portfolio License Coverage
Royalty rates to remain the same

(Denver, Colorado, US – 27 January 2005) – In order to meet emerging marketplace needs, MPEG LA,
LLC today announced that it plans to expand the AVC Patent Portfolio License to include coverage of
AVC Fidelity Range Extensions (“FRExt/AVCâ€), which were recently added to the AVC/H.264 video
standard (ISO/IEC IS14496-10). For the convenience of licensees, the current royalty rates provided
under the AVC Patent Portfolio License would remain the same and would continue to apply whether one
or more AVC profiles (including FRExt/AVC) is used. The amended license, expected to issue in March
2005, would cover both existing and future licensees.

The AVC Patent Portfolio License is offered for the convenience of AVC users enabling them to obtain
coverage under essential patents owned by multiple patent holders in a single license as an alternative to
negotiating separate licenses with each of them. It is MPEG LA’s objective to include in the AVC Patent
Portfolio License as much essential intellectual property as possible for the benefit of licensees.
Therefore, any party that believes it has a patent which is essential to FRExt/AVC or other parts of the
AVC/H.264 standard (as currently described in ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 29/WG 11 N 6539 “Text of ISO/IEC
14496 10/FDAM1 AVC Fidelity Range Extensions†and ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 29/WG 11 N 6540 “Text of ISO/IEC 14496-10 Advanced Video Coding 3rd Edition†July 2004) and would like to participate in the
AVC Patent Portfolio License is invited to submit its patent(s) for an evaluation of essentiality by MPEG
LA’s patent experts and inclusion in the License if determined to be essential. Interested parties may
request a copy of the terms and procedures governing patent submissions by going to
http://www.mpegla.com/avc/avc-licensors.cfm.

Current holders of essential patents in the AVC Patent Portfolio License include Columbia Innovation
Enterprises, Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI), France Télécom, société
anonyme, Fujitsu Limited, Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V., Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.,
Microsoft Corporation, Mitsubishi Electric Corporation, Robert Bosch GmbH, Samsung Electronics Co.,
Ltd., Sharp Kabushiki Kaisha, Sony Corporation, Toshiba Corporation, and Victor Company of Japan,
Ltd. (JVC).

MPEG-4 AVC FRExt (High Profile) is one of the standard codecs adopted in Blu-ray.

 

[one]

http://www.rethinkresearch.biz/page_view.asp?crypt=%B3%9C%C2%97%8B%80%86%AF%BC%C2%88%97otw%8D

Microsoft codec has 12 companies claiming essential patents
Published: Tuesday 25 January, 2005

The MPEG LA has had 12 separate companies claiming that they have essential patents in the pool it is developing for the licensing of Microsoft’s video codec, dubbed VC 1 under the SMPTE standard (Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers).

The fact that 12 separate companies, possibly more, will decide the fate of the technology has implications for if and how much Microsoft must charge for the codec.

Larry Horn, spokesman for the MPEG LA said to Faultline, “When MPEG 2 was created we only had 8 companies in the pool for essential patents, now we have 24. Some companies hadn’t been issued with their patents at the time, some sat on the side lines perhaps thinking they would handle licensing themselves, but usually we end up with more companies providing the technology, rather than less.†So the 12 that are claiming essential patents for VC1 is likely to rise, not go down.

The MPEG LA cannot discuss the individual companies involved until they have reached agreement on royalty terms for the collective license to operate under, but we can probably make some educated guesses, and we have assumed that there is some overlap between the ideas behind a codec like VC 1 and behind the other standard codecs put together by the MPEG standards organization

If that is so then operations such as the industrial offshoot of Columbia University, France Télécom, Fujitsu, Matsushita, Philips, Robert Bosch, Samsung, Sharp, Sony, Toshiba, and Victor Company of Japan, which all have patents in both of these prior MPEG video codecs, might well appear on the list, which makes 11 plus, of course, Microsoft. But that’s only guesswork.

What is interesting is that whatever the terms of the license, if Microsoft takes such a license for its use of VC1 in Windows Media 9 and 10, it too will have to pay royalties, even if it gets some back in return.

“In a way the VC 9 codec that Microsoft uses will just be a particular implementation of the VC 1 standard. Other companies will be able to license the technology and make their own versions,†pointed out Horn.

The license never instructs companies on how they must build their product, only on what technologies they may use and how interfaces must perform.

But Horn also explained that the group, once they have all agreed that their intellectual property is vital to the standard, will need to negotiate to see who gets the lion’s share of the royalty stream, and set rules for licensing. The MPEG LA only takes non-exclusive licenses, and each of the patent holders are free to license each other under different terms, but each transaction must then be carried out separately. But Microsoft cannot put the genie back in the bottle. Now these 11 can see that their intellectual property is being used, they can charge for it.

So if Microsoft wants to continue to give away its codec within WM10, it may find itself having to pay for each copy it distributes. The only way around this is either to set an upper limit on the license, as was done in MPEG 4 Level 10 AVC (H.264) or not take a license to the technology through MPEG LA, and negotiate each one separately.

Since Microsoft has never acknowledged any other technology suppliers in its literature on VC 9, it is unlikely that it is currently paying royalties on its current distribution. But it will need to.

MPEG 2 for instance has a flat rate royalty of $2.50 on each copy, while MPEG 4/H.264 is free up to 100,000 units, then costs 20 cents per unit, falling to 10 cents a unit, capped at $3.5 million per year, rising with inflation.

An MPEG 2 style license would not suit Microsoft, while an MPEG 4/H.264 license would be of minimal cost.

But that doesn’t mean that the other 11 companies will feel obliged to give Microsoft what it wants, and they are sure to be bristling at the thought that their Intellectual Property has been “given away†by Microsoft for years now without them realizing it.

Once the royalty terms are set, revenue is allocated 50% where a unit is made and 50% where a unit is sold, against the patents that each patent holder has in each territory. If other patent holders join the pool later, MPEG LA leaves the license at the same level and just shares the payments over greater number of licensees.

So not only could Microsoft find itself with only a small part of the license fees, but this could be further diluted if other companies join the patent pool later.

Last week MPEG LA announced its licensing for the patents included in the digital rights management pool for the Open Mobile Alliance’s DRM 1.0 standard. While Horn said he thought that Faultline’s suggestion that some operators had expected it to be royalty free, was not one he had heard, he did confirm that a few voices had been raised suggesting that it was an expensive set of royalties.

Faultline calculated that the royalty for OMA’s DRM would eventually amount to $1 billions, which was certainly unanticipated by mobile operators.

“But then again,†he said, “we always hear that our licenses are expensive, so we’re used to that.â€

Digital Home Technology
Blu-ray hits 100 members, taking in game makers and tech firms
Since the CES show the Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA) has grown its membership from 70 to over 100 adding names such as Sun Microsystems, Texas Instruments and Japanese Anime developer Bandai and has now announced that two of the world’s top games companies Electronic Arts and Vivendi Universal Games have joined the BDA as members.

This doesn’t mean for sure that they will all ONLY support Blu-ray, but the vote now is very much split in numbers between the two camps, Blu-ray and the HD DVD standard from the DVD Forum, with Blu-ray owning most of the high volume DVD player manufacturers.

 

[wco81]

Why does MPEGLA get to determine who owns patents in VC9/VC-1?

Didn't MS submit VC9 only to SMPTE?

What is the relationship between those organizations?

 

[one]

Why does MPEGLA get to determine who owns patents in VC9/VC-1?

Didn't MS submit VC9 only to SMPTE?

What is the relationship between those organizations?

Dunno about the relationship, but it seems MS and other patent holders in VC-1 (almost the same guys in H.264 FRExt, including Sony and Toshiba) agreed under the table that they would join into the patent pool rather than suing Microsoft for royalties. After MS submitted the source code of VC-1 to SMPTE, I bet everyone knew what's actually inside the WMV-a-hacked-MPEG4-codec-to-run-faster-in-some-machines.

MPEG LA's VC1 page: http://www.mpegla.com/pid/vc1/

 

[Wunderchu]

http://www.dvdreview.com/html/new_format_war.html











(I first found out about that article from: http://forum.teamxbox.com/showthread.php?t=325097 )

 

[PC-Engine]

That guy got paid pretty well.