New Ken Kutaragi interview (1) @ PC Watch

[Titanio]

The announcement of Samsung's Unvisersal player and if it's followed up by other CE manufacturers

Samsung hasn't announced a player, they've said they're considering it, and preparing for the possibility. I've seen a couple of reports on this, one quotes someone from Samsung as saying they'll do it only if HD-DVD is successful. I don't know of any other CE manufacturer's plans in this regard - I think such devices would be in the minority, apparently they're more difficult and more expensive to make.

This hurts Sony the most since the PS3 is now harder to market as an entertainment hub as it can only play a certain media while standalone players need not worry about such limitations.

Most standalone players will, as things are for now, and it's an irrelevant concern if all studios ultimately support Blu-ray. That's almost the case as is, there's only one major studio holding out now, and I doubt that'll last for long.

 

[PiNkY]

Samsung hasn't announced a player, they've said they're considering it, and preparing for the possibility. I've seen a couple of reports on this, one quotes someone from Samsung as saying they'll do it only if HD-DVD is successful. I don't know of any other CE manufacturer's plans in this regard - I think such devices would be in the minority, apparently they're more difficult and more expensive to make.



Most standalone players will, as things are for now, and it's an irrelevant concern if all studios ultimately support Blu-ray. That's almost the case as is, there's only one major studio holding out now, and I doubt that'll last for long.

Well publicly "considering" this on the launch day of your own first bluray player is a bit telling. I am no videophile, but there seems to be a rather unisono opinion on most video-geek forums that HD-DVD's VD1 codec provides better image quality then BluRay's mpeg-2. It remains to be seen if sony's stronger brand can overcome bluray's time to market, price and (perhaps) quality issues.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Well publicly "considering" this on the launch day of your own first bluray player is a bit telling. I am no videophile, but there seems to be a rather unisono opinion on most video-geek forums that HD-DVD's VD1 codec provides better image quality then BluRay's mpeg-2. It remains to be seen if sony's stronger brand can overcome bluray's time to market, price and (perhaps) quality issues.

I thought that was based on comparing one movie, and a different one at that? BRD doesn't have to use MPEG2. The standard supports VC1 and h.264 I believe. Now if BRD doesn't ever use these codecs, or if when it does there's a noticeable difference in quality between platforms, it's fair to say its not as good. But it's WAY too early to judge a system now, rather like judging a console by it's first few games

 

[TheChefO]

I thought that was based on comparing one movie, and a different one at that? BRD doesn't have to use MPEG2. The standard supports VC1 and h.264 I believe. Now if BRD doesn't ever use these codecs, or if when it does there's a noticeable difference in quality between platforms, it's fair to say its not as good. But it's WAY too early to judge a system now, rather like judging a console by it's first few games

Agreed the situation may change. But the reasoning for the quality issue in the first place is what I find rediculous. Appearantly they chose mpeg2 over other formats not for ease of encoding, but for profit. Sony stands to make more off of their mpeg2 patents than off of mpeg4/vc-1. This in combination with the initially smaller discs 25gb v 30gb has led to these obvious quality differences. When you throw a higher price on top of a lower quality product how does that help sell the thing? Quite silly really and in the least Sony should have bit the bullet on the initial stock of single layer bluray movies and encoded them with vc-1 to ensure the movies are at least somewhat on par with the much cheaper hd-dvd players.

Well see what they do from here but in my book that's just not too smart.

 

[rabidrabbit]

If all the BR players support MPEG4 and VC.1, isn't it up to the studios to decide in what format they put the movies on the BD's? What's holding them off?
Are all the movies released thus far Sony/MGM films? Is that why they are all MPEG2?

 

[one]

The most plausible reason I heard about why they're using modest bitrate MPEG2 for initial BD releases is if they use high bitrate MPEG4 to encode a 1080p movie no PC in the world today can play it without stuttering, including VAIO Type A with NVIDIA PureVideo HD.

 

[Acert93]

I thought that was based on comparing one movie, and a different one at that? BRD doesn't have to use MPEG2. The standard supports VC1 and h.264 I believe. Now if BRD doesn't ever use these codecs, or if when it does there's a noticeable difference in quality between platforms, it's fair to say its not as good. But it's WAY too early to judge a system now, rather like judging a console by it's first few games

Hehehe Oh the irony of that last statement! If I did not love my sig Shifty you would be sig-matized!

But you are right. Of course image quality *is* very important to movies whereas graphics in games, while important, is less of a factor (as a number of graphically compitent, but not market leading, consoles has shown). The fact Wii has a realistic chance of outselling the GCN (imo) is a testiment to such.

But in the big picture (punny!) HD movies are going to be weighed on a number of factors. Player cost, media cost, media availability, media quality, DRM, marketing, and X-factors (like the PS3). Just like I did not think (6 months ago) slightly less quality in HD DVD would necessarily kill it, I don't think Blu Ray having lower quality will be in itself extremely detrimental.

IMO Blu Ray has until November to get things in order for the holidays. If there is still a gap come fall I think it could make some early adopters uneasy. This and price disparity could be a serious issue.

Then again every PS3 is going to have a Blu Ray player which largely offsets the price issue in many ways. Between Sony's exclusive movie studios and 6M PS3-Blu Ray players being in the market come Spring 2007 I think Toshiba may be a little late to the dance. But the format war is not quite settled yet and I think Toshiba may have a bit of fight left in them. Not that I care personally... wake me when completely digital formats with flexible rights to use on all my various platforms (PC, TV, Portables, etc) is available.

 

[Mmmkay]

Discussions on AVS suggest that there were interoperability issues with BD and VC-1 which Microsoft is working hard on sorting out. With the absence of 50GB BD-ROM's it seems to have forced a lot of studios' hands on which codecs they are going to use. The source suggests that VC-1 movies will be appearing sooner rather than later because of this.

Sony's decision seems pretty much purely on a profit basis. Given all the rumoured price breaks they are giving everyone else in terms of replication and licensing, I find it hard to blame them. All it results in is less than perfect 1G software, and that's surely part of the process with any new technology?

 

[sonyps35]

http://xbitlabs.com/news/multimedia/display/20060621143229.html

Also I had no idea HD-DVD players are freely available everywhere as low as $447 (at least they are in stock at all 11 pricegrabber vendors listed). I had read some FUD that Toshiba had no intention of producing them in numbers because they were losing big money on them. Guess not..

 

[TheChefO]

The most plausible reason I heard about why they're using modest bitrate MPEG2 for initial BD releases is if they use high bitrate MPEG4 to encode a 1080p movie no PC in the world today can play it without stuttering, including VAIO Type A with NVIDIA PureVideo HD.

Hd-dvd using mpeg4/vc-1 and I thought they were also encoding 1080p(i?). This shouldn't be the issue but you may be right that publicly this would be a message they'd send out. Another one I heard is that with mpeg2 they can more accurately reproduce "noise".

 

[London Geezer]

http://xbitlabs.com/news/multimedia/display/20060621143229.html

Also I had no idea HD-DVD players are freely available everywhere as low as $447 (at least they are in stock at all 11 pricegrabber vendors listed). I had read some FUD that Toshiba had no intention of producing them in numbers because they were losing big money on them. Guess not..

Well it all depends on how you define "producing in numbers"... There definitely aren't millions of HDDVD players done, i'd be surprised if Toshiba has produced one million so far, let alone distributing them and then selling them.

 

[sonyps35]

One million is a comparitive ton! What I read was something to the effect they had only produced 10,000..

 

[one]

Hd-dvd using mpeg4/vc-1 and I thought they were also encoding 1080p(i?). This shouldn't be the issue but you may be right that publicly this would be a message they'd send out.

Do you know how these HD DVD can be played on a PC without a decoder chip?

 

[TheChefO]

Do you know how these HD DVD can be played on a PC without a decoder chip?

I have no idea how they intend to play them on a pc but I don't think that's the target player for hd movies at this point.

 

[Titanio]

I am no videophile, but there seems to be a rather unisono opinion on most video-geek forums that HD-DVD's VD1 codec provides better image quality then BluRay's mpeg-2.

I've really only seen complaint about The Fifth Element transfer. I've read impressions of other discs wherein the authors saw those discs as a vindication of the choice to use MPEG2, even if just for the short term.

BTW, as for another potential explanation for why the other codec isn't being used, I thought I'd read that studios were still awaiting software to make it available. But there's no specified compulsion to use MPEG2 only, it's a matter of technicalities for now.

As for price and time to market, in Nov there'll be an equally priced BD player available (i.e. $500), and one that'll sell in the millions, which will make HD-DVD's rather paltry head start irrelevant. In terms of disc prices, they're no more expensive, and cheaper in fact in some cases. You can get Terminator 2 for $12 at Amazon, for example.

 

[TheChefO]

BTW, as for another potential explanation for why the other codec isn't being used, I thought I'd read that studios were still awaiting software to make it available. But there's no specified compulsion to use MPEG2 only, it's a matter of technicalities for now.

But then how did the studios manage to produce mpeg4/vc-1 on hd-dvd?

Speaking of this debate which is - well sort of related to the Ken Kuta interview, there is a great editorial on the subject at Audioholics if anyone is interested.

 

[mckmas8808]

Most people here now what I like and what I will be getting this November. But let me say this one thing. House of Flying Daggers on Blu-ray SUCKS!!!! It looked exactly like an upscaled DVD movie. I expect alot more.

Now Batman Returns on HD-DVD looks really really really good. To me it looked as good as ESPN games (if you can imagine). The clarity was great. Made me wonder if they shot Batman Returns in HD. Does anyone know?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Now Batman Returns on HD-DVD looks really really really good. To me it looked as good as ESPN games (if you can imagine). The clarity was great. Made me wonder if they shot Batman Returns in HD. Does anyone know?

All films are shot in HD, as the useable resolution of 35mm is at least equivalent to 1920x1080

 

[mckmas8808]

All films are shot in HD, as the useable resolution of 35mm is at least equivalent to 1920x1080

So what was the big deal that George Lucas was making about his shoting Star Wars Episode 3? Wasn't he doing something that most people in the industry don't do?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Digital recording.