Sony gets their 50GB dual-layer Blu-ray discs out the door

[demonic]

http://www.engadget.com/2006/08/16/sony-gets-their-50gb-dual-layer-blu-ray-discs-out-the-door/

Nice one for sony. I will be looking forward when...

someone wakes me up when price per gb is more favourable than buying an HD atm.

Not sure when that is, as 1TB drives will be out and thus making either a 320GB or 500GB drive all that inexpensive.

I've just bought a 320GB drive for £53.95 ex tax.

Doing a conversion from $48 which is what the price of a 50GB disc is to £. Its roughly £25.

So to get the same amount of GB.. You'll need to spend £160 roughly.

For just under £160 you can get a 500GB drive!

* Theres also the price point for buying a bluray recorder!

Sony needs a kick in the Nuts ASAP, to bring down drive and dvd burner prices!

 

[Bobbler]

I wonder when the first BD-50 movies will hit the streets...

Kind of odd that BD-50 recordable media will likely be attainable before a BD-50 rom disc.

 

[ERP]

I wonder when the first BD-50 movies will hit the streets...

Kind of odd that BD-50 recordable media will likely be attainable before a BD-50 rom disc.

BD50 media has been practical for a while, it uses a different manufacturing process than "stamped " media.

Unfortunately having BD50 recordable discs available is pretty much no indicator of the cost of a BD50 movie disc.

 

[Bobbler]

BD50 media has been practical for a while, it uses a different manufacturing process than "stamped " media.

Unfortunately having BD50 recordable discs available is pretty much no indicator of the cost of a BD50 movie disc.

Shouldn't the stamped media, in theory, be easier to manufacture?

 

[ERP]

Shouldn't the stamped media, in theory, be easier to manufacture?

Apparently not, your just providong a smooth surface with Writeable media, you have to match the master with stamped media.

 

[nintenho]

How does it cost so much? How much does a single-layer disc cost?

 

[breez]

How does it cost so much?

It is a new recordable medium, they always cost a lot of money in the beginning.

 

[nintenho]

It is a new recordable medium, they always cost a lot of money in the beginning.

How does it cost so much more then single-layer? Don't movies cost around $25?

 

[ERP]

You can't compare writable media costs to movie costs, 25Gb Blu Ray Re-Writable is about $30 right now.

Double layer media is much more expensive because in making it you compund the fail rate. It's currently made by basically making two independant layers and gluing them together.

So if 5% of your discs fail for single layer discs its minimally 10% for dual layer discs, and in reality much worse because you introduce more errors when gluing them together.

 

[Blazkowicz]

I think dual layer Blu-Ray will be for a niche usage, and is mostly about telling "mine is bigger". even dual layer DVD-R aren't worth the trouble now.
Still I think Blu-Ray is nice, because a single layer BR holds almost as much data as a dual layer HD-DVD (and is probably cheaper)

I think though most HD movies people will watch will be 2GB xvid 720p files (fits ISO 9660 limitation and you can put two of these on a 4.3GB DVD.)

 

[Moloch]

I think dual layer Blu-Ray will be for a niche usage, and is mostly about telling "mine is bigger". even dual layer DVD-R aren't worth the trouble now.
Still I think Blu-Ray is nice, because a single layer BR holds almost as much data as a dual layer HD-DVD (and is probably cheaper)

I think though most HD movies people will watch will be 2GB xvid 720p files (fits ISO 9660 limitation and you can put two of these on a 4.3GB DVD.)

That's why you use the UDF format
(I have a 4GB 720P movie, just one big file).

 

[Nappe1]

I think dual layer Blu-Ray will be for a niche usage, and is mostly about telling "mine is bigger". even dual layer DVD-R aren't worth the trouble now.
Still I think Blu-Ray is nice, because a single layer BR holds almost as much data as a dual layer HD-DVD (and is probably cheaper)

I think though most HD movies people will watch will be 2GB xvid 720p files (fits ISO 9660 limitation and you can put two of these on a 4.3GB DVD.)

The situation with DL BR is a bit different than with DVD DL... while DVD SL was already major media when DL came, BR SL isn't yet arrived to stores when DL is already released.

I think it's up to media makers, if they want to push BR DL as standard. after beginning, they could push pricing for SL or DL. eventually it just does not make a big difference from their side.

 

[SPM]

I wonder when the first BD-50 movies will hit the streets...

Kind of odd that BD-50 recordable media will likely be attainable before a BD-50 rom disc.

Not really odd. It does underline the fact that the shortage of BD-50 roms is not due to technical issues though.

There was no perceived need for BD-50 roms since BD-25 roms are all that is required for a single movie encoded with VC-1 or h.264 (MPEG4). BD-50 roms and above will always be a rarity since they are only likely to be used for movie compendiums and the like. Therefore all the BD media manufacturers are concentrating on BD-25 rom production to meet the accute shortfall expected due to the fact that it is a new medium that requires retooling from scratch to manufacture.

With BD-50 R and above on the other hand you can always make use of the extra space to store more data.

 

[nintenho]

You can't compare writable media costs to movie costs, 25Gb Blu Ray Re-Writable is about $30 right now.

Double layer media is much more expensive because in making it you compund the fail rate. It's currently made by basically making two independant layers and gluing them together.

So if 5% of your discs fail for single layer discs its minimally 10% for dual layer discs, and in reality much worse because you introduce more errors when gluing them together.

oh.

 

[RobertR1]

Not really odd. It does underline the fact that the shortage of BD-50 roms is not due to technical issues though.

There was no perceived need for BD-50 roms since BD-25 roms are all that is required for a single movie encoded with VC-1 or h.264 (MPEG4). BD-50 roms and above will always be a rarity since they are only likely to be used for movie compendiums and the like. Therefore all the BD media manufacturers are concentrating on BD-25 rom production to meet the accute shortfall expected due to the fact that it is a new medium that requires retooling from scratch to manufacture.

With BD-50 R and above on the other hand you can always make use of the extra space to store more data.

Actually the current crop/crap of Sony LGF titles could have benefited from BD50 as they continue to run with Mpeg2. Hopefully the neutral studios will be smarter and use VC-1 while the BR only world waits for Panasonic's AVC HP encoder. As for the advanced codecs, there was no VC-1 or AVC HP in the BR specs since 2005 and Sony fought hard to keep it that way. Luckily for them, it's there now. You can thank the studios for that.

We'll certainly see BD50 movies by the end of the year. To which capacity? minimal is my guess. BD50 has been thrown around for many years now. If they continue to stock pile BD50 ROM media at high cost per disc, unless it's subsidized for studios, you won't see it being used much. Since the manufacturing process has been set and yeilds are such, what do you see upcoming that could radically change this?

Will they re design machine architecture? because they certainly can't change the BD50 media or laser density and risk making current players becoming obselete. So what is it exactly that will help BD50 improve dramatically and used in 80%+ of the titles so that I'm actually getting value for my money?

 

[Blazkowicz]

Actually the current crop/crap of Sony LGF titles could have benefited from BD50 as they continue to run with Mpeg2.

but storage capacity isn't the only consideration, if you double bitrate you also double the required sustained transfer rate (and it better be reliable and silent on first gen players)

about codecs, I think what we have sucks a bit, MPEG2 is outdated (but is useful to have, TV content is often MPEG2), VC1 is microsoft and H264 is too power/CPU hungry. Why no "old MPEG4" (Part 2)

but, thread is about writable media. I don't like the idea of dual layer writable disks, they are pricy and look unreliable to me. Burnable disks aren't extremely reliable to begin with, that layer stuff is an additional thing that can fail.

 

[SPM]

Actually the current crop/crap of Sony LGF titles could have benefited from BD50 as they continue to run with Mpeg2. Hopefully the neutral studios will be smarter and use VC-1 while the BR only world waits for Panasonic's AVC HP encoder. As for the advanced codecs, there was no VC-1 or AVC HP in the BR specs since 2005 and Sony fought hard to keep it that way. Luckily for them, it's there now. You can thank the studios for that.

Say what? Sony had a major input into h.264 (AVC). VC-1 and h.264 are part of the BD specs. It is the studios not Sony who decide the format of the media that goes onto BD media.

MPEG2 is only an interim solution and the reason for this is studios are going for it is due to the fact that studios and broadcasters are avoiding VC-1 in favour of h.264.

We'll certainly see BD50 movies by the end of the year. To which capacity? minimal is my guess.

Say what?

BD50 has been thrown around for many years now. If they continue to stock pile BD50 ROM media at high cost per disc, unless it's subsidized for studios, you won't see it being used much.

Do you actually know how much BD50 roms cost?

Since the manufacturing process has been set and yeilds are such, what do you see upcoming that could radically change this?

You obviously have no understanding of market economics - supply vs demand - and improving yields as production processes have bugs ironed out. Just look at what happened to CD and DVD media prices and yields.

Will they re design machine architecture? because they certainly can't change the BD50 media or laser density and risk making current players becoming obselete. So what is it exactly that will help BD50 improve dramatically and used in 80%+ of the titles so that I'm actually getting value for my money?

Err what exactly are you smoking?

 

[RobertR1]

but storage capacity isn't the only consideration, if you double bitrate you also double the required sustained transfer rate (and it better be reliable and silent on first gen players)

about codecs, I think what we have sucks a bit, MPEG2 is outdated (but is useful to have, TV content is often MPEG2), VC1 is microsoft and H264 is too power/CPU hungry. Why no "old MPEG4" (Part 2)

but, thread is about writable media. I don't like the idea of dual layer writable disks, they are pricy and look unreliable to me. Burnable disks aren't extremely reliable to begin with, that layer stuff is an additional thing that can fail.

Mpeg2 is certainly useful to have. Smaller studios with content in Mpeg2 already don't have to spend time/labor on re-encoding. Shorter movies will also be fine because they can jack up the bit rate and still be OK on space. Mpeg2 is also good for extra's as the studios can simply drag them over from the standard DVD encode.

I personally don't see a good reason for re-writeable media from either camp. I don't think they'll be able to compete with flash and portables HDD's. Sure, there will be a niche for them but I believe the overall demand will be quite low.

Flash drives are very popular in business and consulting. Where the data gets beyond that you get into FTP or portable HDD's. I can't remember the last time I had someone bring me a burned CD/DVD. Then, you like stated, there is the issue of reliability.

 

[pcchen]

There's a demand for recordable media: video recording. In TV program recording, harddrive based recorders are taking over. However, as camcorders gaining popularity, people still need a way to put their video in some forms which are easy to play on TV.

Of course, for this usage DVD-R is probably good enough. All we need is an H.264 or VC-1 based "HD DVD" format for DVD-R, similar to the discs AVC HD camcorders records. A single layer DVD-R is good enough for about 40 minutes video of 15Mbps VC-1/H.264. Sony said that their players (including PS3) will be able to play AVC HD discs directly (I'm not sure about 12cm variety though). There's a HD-DVD 9 proposal from HD-DVD camp, but I don't know how well it goes.

 

[SPM]

Unfortunately what demonic and RobertR1 can't seen to grasp is that early adopter prices are very high, and then drop rapidly. This is true of HDTV, BD/HD-DVD, and BD/HD-DVD media. It was true of CD, DVD, VHS etc players and media.

Why don't people use HDD to store movies? Well apart from the fact that it is cumbersome, there is a huge difference in price.
Current DVD media price per Gb for 4.7GB = £0.05 = $0.07
Current HDD price per GB for 40GB = £0.52 = $0.77

When DVD-R and CD-R disks were first introduced, the price per bit was about the same.

In the case of HD-DVD I would expect a lower early adopter price than BD because it uses the same technology as DVD and hence only requires partial re-tooling.

DVD payers started selling at about $400 initially and you can now get one for $40