PlayStation 3 to feature Blu-Ray disc - Official!

[Deepak]

Blue Ray 1.0 approved

 

[KnightBreed]

Blue Ray 1.0 approved

This is 1.0 of the ROM physical format. More importantly, details about the logical format, like audio and video codecs, will not be decided until September/October.

Current Blu-Ray roadmap

 

[Guden Oden]

Hopefully DTS will be the standard Blu-ray audio codec!

 

[archie4oz]

I'd prefer AAC and HE-AAC... (also an accommodation straight PCM, and perhaps MLP or DSD (I really doubt that latter two would happen))

 

[Johnny Awesome]

What is the resolution going to be for Blu-Ray?

 

[archie4oz]

Resolution for what? Audio? Video? Current Blu-Ray recorders (Sony's, and Panasonics prototype can record 1080i)... I'm sure ultimately it's going to have to support whatever the region it's released in's formats (e.g. NTSC/ASTC, NTSC-J/Hi-Vision,Digital Hi-Vision, PAL/DVB, etc.)...

 

[Johnny Awesome]

My point is: What resolution will the movies be in when you buy them?

 

[Quaz51]

1920x1080 for the BD movies

 

[wco81]

1920x1080 for the BD movies

I want to see this before I believe it. Few displays are capable of displaying all those pixels.

720p seems like the safe bet.

 

[cybamerc]

BRD (and HD-DVD) supports resolutions up to 1080p. It would make no sense to store a movie in 720p. Let a scaler take care of that.

 

[KnightBreed]

Hopefully DTS will be the standard Blu-ray audio codec!

Both DD5.1 and DTS will be included in the spec - for backwards compatibility if for no other reason. The big question is regarding advanced lossless codecs like MLP and number of supported channels.

 

[wco81]

BRD (and HD-DVD) supports resolutions up to 1080p. It would make no sense to store a movie in 720p. Let a scaler take care of that.

Do you have any links?

1080p24 or 1080p30? Or even higher?

They just ratified the spec and didn't decide on VC-9 or AVC codecs yet.

 

[Johnny Awesome]

That's good news if true. I'm thinking of upgrading my TV and going straight to 1080p. Does anyone have any advice?

 

[AlNom]

I would go straight to Projectors... if you're only going to be watching movies or playing games, and you have the right setup (dark room, a free wall to sit in front of).

 

[cybamerc]

wco81:

> Do you have any links?

Not off-hand.

> 1080p24 or 1080p30? Or even higher?

It follows the ATSC/DVB HDTV specs which means up to 1080p at framerates between 24 and 60 fps.

 

[David_South#1]

Hopefully DTS will be the standard Blu-ray audio codec!

Amen.

(Unfortunately, or well as things really are Dolby is the standard for HD home delivery.)
(DTS just seems better quality to me.)

 

[Vince]

Not sure if already posted, but I'll shamelessly post it anyways:

Blu-ray details
If you don't mind, I would like to clarify some information about the Blu-ray disc technology, and possibly dispel some myths:

1. Regarding capacity: Blu-ray disc clearly provides more storage than HD-DVD. I think this is well known, but I'd like to be sure the data is clear. HD-DVD in ROM form provides 15GB for single layer, 30GB for dual layer. Blu-ray disc provides 25GB for single layer, 50GB for dual layer.

2. Regarding video codecs: Blu-ray WILL include at least one advanced video codec beyond MPEG-2. Current candidates include MPEG-4 AVC High profile and VC-9. Rest assured that Blu-ray will simply be able to hold more HD video than any other optical disc format.

Keep in mind, all video codecs introduce artifacts to the picture, and those artifacts typically increase as the bit-rate decreases. With Blu-ray's superior capacity, a content provider has the ability to increase video bitrate to assure whatever quality level they desire, all the way up to the format maximum of 36Mb/s. We do quite a bit of codec evaluation at our lab. We do blind subjective codec testing. I can't tell you all that we learned, but I can tell you that 8Mb/s looks pretty good, and that there are measurable, subjective improvements by moving to 12Mb/s and 15Mb/s for certain advanced codecs.

3. Regarding player cost: Both HD-DVD and Blu-ray require a 405nm blue laser to play back and record on the new media. This, of course, is the expensive bit. The rest of the play back head is insignificant in the cost: several manufacturers (at least 4) have demonstrated triple-heads that playback and record Blu-ray, DVD, and CD. Knowing what I know about Blu-ray, I cannot see how there will be any significant differences in manufacturing cost between a HD-DVD and a Blu-ray player.

However, please do consider that Blu-ray recorders have been on the market for almost a year in Japan, and have already begun their march down the typical price point curve.

4. Backward compatibility: All existing Blu-ray recorders play back DVDs. BTW, the Panasonic recorder also records to DVD-RAM and DVD-R. The idea that any Blu-ray device would not playback DVDs would be product suicide. The concept that there is some technical detail that makes it difficult or more expensive for Blu-ray recorders to play back DVDs is nonsense.

Also, in response to some discussions about capacity, the are R&D labs that have demonstrated 4-layer Blu-ray discs. This is not currently part of the format specification, but can give a suggestion that Blu-ray has a lot of room for growth even beyond the existing large capacity.

I hope this didn't come off sounding like a product sales pitch or anything, but I wanted to clear up some misconceptions that come up frequently in this and other forums.

__________________
Richard E. Doherty
Managing Director for Blu-ray at the Panasonic Hollywood Labs

 

[Wunderchu]

Not sure if already posted, but I'll shamelessly post it anyways:

Blu-ray details
If you don't mind, I would like to clarify some information about the Blu-ray disc technology, and possibly dispel some myths:

1. Regarding capacity: Blu-ray disc clearly provides more storage than HD-DVD. I think this is well known, but I'd like to be sure the data is clear. HD-DVD in ROM form provides 15GB for single layer, 30GB for dual layer. Blu-ray disc provides 25GB for single layer, 50GB for dual layer.

2. Regarding video codecs: Blu-ray WILL include at least one advanced video codec beyond MPEG-2. Current candidates include MPEG-4 AVC High profile and VC-9. Rest assured that Blu-ray will simply be able to hold more HD video than any other optical disc format.

Keep in mind, all video codecs introduce artifacts to the picture, and those artifacts typically increase as the bit-rate decreases. With Blu-ray's superior capacity, a content provider has the ability to increase video bitrate to assure whatever quality level they desire, all the way up to the format maximum of 36Mb/s. We do quite a bit of codec evaluation at our lab. We do blind subjective codec testing. I can't tell you all that we learned, but I can tell you that 8Mb/s looks pretty good, and that there are measurable, subjective improvements by moving to 12Mb/s and 15Mb/s for certain advanced codecs.

3. Regarding player cost: Both HD-DVD and Blu-ray require a 405nm blue laser to play back and record on the new media. This, of course, is the expensive bit. The rest of the play back head is insignificant in the cost: several manufacturers (at least 4) have demonstrated triple-heads that playback and record Blu-ray, DVD, and CD. Knowing what I know about Blu-ray, I cannot see how there will be any significant differences in manufacturing cost between a HD-DVD and a Blu-ray player.

However, please do consider that Blu-ray recorders have been on the market for almost a year in Japan, and have already begun their march down the typical price point curve.

4. Backward compatibility: All existing Blu-ray recorders play back DVDs. BTW, the Panasonic recorder also records to DVD-RAM and DVD-R. The idea that any Blu-ray device would not playback DVDs would be product suicide. The concept that there is some technical detail that makes it difficult or more expensive for Blu-ray recorders to play back DVDs is nonsense.

Also, in response to some discussions about capacity, the are R&D labs that have demonstrated 4-layer Blu-ray discs. This is not currently part of the format specification, but can give a suggestion that Blu-ray has a lot of room for growth even beyond the existing large capacity.

I hope this didn't come off sounding like a product sales pitch or anything, but I wanted to clear up some misconceptions that come up frequently in this and other forums.

__________________
Richard E. Doherty
Managing Director for Blu-ray at the Panasonic Hollywood Labs

thanx Vince ....

I was basically sitting on the fence w/ requards to Blu-ray vs HD-DVD

.... but thanx to that statement (which I had never read before you posted it), I am now a Blu-ray supporter






(I am not being sarcastic)

 

[archie4oz]

2. Regarding video codecs: Blu-ray WILL include at least one advanced video codec beyond MPEG-2. Current candidates include MPEG-4 AVC High profile and VC-9.

I'm placing my bet on H.264... It's already up and running with patent license while IIRC the MPEG LA members are still combing over the VC-9 source with a fine-tooth comb...

 

[wco81]

What's interesting is the Panasonic guy's statement that even with the better codecs, at low bit rates, the video quality deteriorates. To hear some WMV advocates tell it, VC-9 at 8 Mbps was better than MPEG2 at any bit rate.

Now, 36 Mbps does imply 1080p, since we're getting 1080i at 19 Mbps or less (some stations jamming it into 15 Mbps). By my rough calculation, if the full 36 Mbps was dedicated to video, you'd get about 92 minutes on a 25 GB layer?

But you should be able to get good video quality and audio somewhere less than that bitrate and fit in a typical 2-hour movie with extras. Could save money by keeping releases to single layer, wouldn't they?

Some of the news report said you could fit a Sopranos box set onto a single disc. But that would be at SD resolution. HBO has been broadcasting the last couple of seasons at least at HDTV resolutions so why would they want to jam all those into one disc? And it's not as if they'd charge 1/5 the price since they're using 1/5 the media.