Will Warner support Blu-ray?

[aaaaa00]

iHD also includes classes, methods, and properties that can be set via JavaScript. It's just that the API is far less flexible.

To be fair iHD is also a lot more lightweight and a lot easier to wrap your head around.

iHD has about 200 methods and 250 properties.
BDJ has roughly 10,000 methods.

That's 10,000 methods that every single player is going to have to implement and test.

We're talking 20x more complexity, for discs which 99.9% of the time are going to show menus. MENUS!

People point to cellphones as a successful space where Java works, but just let me quote John Carmack on this one:

http://www.armadilloaerospace.com/n.x/johnc/Recent Updates

Write-once-run-anywhere. Ha. Hahahahaha. We are only testing on four platforms right now, and not a single pair has the exact same quirks. All the commercial games are tweaked and compiled individually for each (often 100+) platform. Portability is not a justification for the awful performance.

Now do we really want BD authoring to turn into something like Java in the cellphone space?

Cause that's exactly what it's going to turn into if you force all these CE companies to develop and implement such massively complex systems. And the end result will be that the disc authors will have to slowly figure out what tiny subset of the system is actually reasonably stable and works between all of the players out there, and they'll just end up sticking to that small piece that works. And they'll have to maintain huge test labs to exhaustively validate that everything they write works on every single player. Or they'll have to have multiple code paths to work around different bugs. They might even have to supply patches.

But then why not design the system properly in the first place to be lightweight, easily implementable and testable, and focused on what 99.9% of the discs are going to need?

The point is, sure, iHD might not be as powerful as BDJ, but it's also not as hard to implement, not nearly as complex, and it's designed specifically to meet the requirements for what the vast majority of disc authors need. It's not some catch-all set top box standard that's been shoehorned into being a movie title authoring system.

On the spectrum of capability, HDMV << iHD < BDJ.

HDMV is a very basic menuing system. It's basically DVD's menuing system updated for HD and I believe in both the HD DVD and BD specs you have the option of using classic DVD-style menus for authoring. This was done to allow early discs to be quickly authored since all the disc creators already understand DVD menus, that knowledge can be transferred over pretty quickly.

Both BDJ and iHD completely destroy HDMV in terms of sophistication and feature set.

The reason for iHD to exist is that a bunch of the companies involved think HDMV is not enough and BDJ is overkill.

 

[Deepak]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nf/20051021/tc_nf/38822

"In an effort to bridge the gap between the two competing high-definition optical disc formats, and to eliminate confusion among consumers, Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ - news) has appealed to the Blu-Ray Disc Association to change its format so that it is compatible with the rival HD DVD offering.

The company contends that two technologies, Managed Copy and iHD, are needed to address the demand for next-generation DVD content."

 

[mckmas8808]

Deepak you weren't in Aruba about 6 months ago?



j/k I had to say it.

 

[wco81]

This is all you need to know about this format battle:

Meanwhile, just three majors are supporting Toshiba’s rival HD DVD — a format that, ironically, was developed by the consumer electronics giant in response to studio requests for a less-dramatic change from standard DVD.

Never mind that the studio leading the charge for this “requestâ€￾ was none other than Warner, which along with Toshiba developed DVD and shared the patents — and the royalties.

Both companies had a vested interest in keeping DVD alive, hence the fear of Blu-ray, a completely new technology.

http://www.homemediaretailing.com/news/html/buzz_article.cfm?sec_id=buzz

Blu-Ray represents a big jump in capacity, a real innovation.

HD-DVD was just a scheme to maintain patent rights.

But now that Blu-Ray has had to give concessions, you have to wonder if it isn't going to be a messy, more pricier product than it otherwise would have been. For example, if they have to have both BD-J and iHD, just because MS muscled their way in, without risking anywhere near as much as the CE companies and the studios.

 

[Edge]

> "All the commercial games are tweaked and compiled individually for each (often 100+) platform."

That an arguement for JAVA, and not against. Take games written in specific languages, porting them to a 100+ devices would be a nightmare. It would involve more than "tweaks", which is minor changes, and a re-compile. His argument is essentially how great JAVA is in allowing ports to ONLY require some tweaks, and re-compile. I know his original point was a criticism, but I like to hear what he has to say, if he had to port a C program from device to device. It would not happen over 100+ devices. It would be too difficult, and too expensive.

 

[Edge]

> "In an effort to bridge the gap between the two competing high-definition optical disc formats, and to eliminate confusion among consumers, Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ - news) has appealed to the Blu-Ray Disc Association to change its format so that it is compatible with the rival HD DVD offering."

HP will never succeed. They waited too long, and let Blu-ray get too powerful before making this motion. It will easily get voted down, and HP will have no choice but go along with it.

 

[Carl B]

HP gets royalties if they do go along with it! I think the shift to iHD was just pressure from Microsoft, to tell you the truth. And they make the plea knowing full well it's unlikely to change.

Anyway I wonder how the royalty pie looks now with Warner onboard and getting some of their tech pushed through. It can't be nearly as profitable for them as HD-DVD was, but I'm sure they tried to get as close as possible. Clearly Sony and the other co-developers of the physical format will be the ones to profit most - but it seems on the software side now everything and the kitchen sink is being put in.

On HD/BD-9: Does this perate on a seperate layer of the disc, or does it take room on the same layer as the standard blue laser content? The whole HD, red-laser push is the aspect I find most baffling.

 

[wco81]

No red laser would be a different type of disc. Just the present DVD with VC-1/H.264 encoded content.

Obviously, Warner would get patent royalties from this. In fact, the legend is that Warner and Toshiba wanted to get HD content by doing this, using the existing physical disc and combine it with newer codecs to stuff HD movies.

But once Sony and the other Blu-Ray companies made it clear they were going to go ahead with a blue-laser product, Warner and Toshiba scrambled to put together AOD, which became HD-DVD. That is why HD-DVD discs are so easy to replicate on existing DVD lines, because the physical disc format isn't that new.

Warner may flood the market with red-laser HD movies at a cut rate price. With their patents, they may make more money on them than BD movies. Or the other possibility is you could have Batman Begins on a BD-ROM and an extras disc on BD-9.

BTW, the word is that Warners demanded and got MMC. Speculation was that Fox didn't want to be forced to allow copying. Even if it's allowed, nobody know the restrictions and pricing for copying to hard disk.

 

[Carl B]

Right, well that Warner interview certainly seems to imply that the managed copy is in there. I guess we'll see soon enough, as the BDA should make an official announcement on it if there has been such a change to the format. Of course I suppose Sony hedged there since they never said it wasn't a part of the format.

So straight-up DVD's and DVD players with HD firmware/codec upgrades, eh? Hope it doesn't cause too much market confusion across the standard DVD and standard HD player lines. Since it's really it's own sub-format anyway however, what does Sony's and the BDA's acceptance of it have to do with anything anyway? It sounds to me as if they could just launch it on their own, since it will be essentially a different disc with different players reading them. Certainly then, the BD-9 spec shouldn't burden the standard blu-ray disc royalty scheme, and the BD-9 discs more or less make use of their own patented technologies as well (like will Sony's claims on physical structure bare any royalty relevance with those re-laser discs since they are essentially DVDs?)

 

[wco81]

No red-laser DVDs with newer codecs wouldn't play on existing DVD player and it would take way more than a firmware upgrade.

The chipset for decoding the much more demanding VC-1 and H.264 will be debuting with Blu-Ray and HD-DVD players (if they come out).

Warners probably figured the PS3 effect would help the installed base of hardware which could potentially play back BD-9 content. If they can get the other studios to buy into this concept, BD-ROM may have a struggle. I can easily see Wal Mart at least giving shelf space to BD-9 discs, maybe at the expense of BD-ROMs, because the way they would be priced would make BD-9 more friendly to Wal Mart shoppers.

Most enthusiasts would look down their noses at BD-9 but most people will see that BD-9 looks a lot better than DVDs on their HDTVs (and if they bought them at Wal Mart, these may be 1024x768 "HDTV" plasmas). So they could just do 720p on these discs and most people would be satisfied. The belief is that DVD succeeded not because of picture quality but because of convenience and form factor.

 

[Carl B]

Ok I see where the BD-9 angle plays into the larger BDA picture now, but it still makes me scratch my head a little because it would imply that all BD players would have to also provide playback capabilities for BD-9; am I right in this assumption? Otherwise I just don't see the meaning of having it written into the BD spec.

As for the DVD player/red laser thing, maybe I wasn't clear. I wasn't implying that current DVD players would be able to play such discs with a firmware upgrade, I was saying that a 'new' generation of DVD players would come out able to do so - but that to the consumer it might be difficult to differentiate between the two... I guess unless they carry the name BD-9 player (or something). But... if it's all wrapped up into BD, then would there be able to be BD-9 players that weren't also blu-ray players to begin with?

I guess my main question lies with understanding why exactly Warner had to get explicit approval from the BDA for the BD-9 spec, unless they're to be fully intertwined anyway; in which case IMO it's almost like, 'why bother?'

But am I right though in thinking the IP-royalty breakdown will be treated seperately for each disc, or will Sony, Panasonic, et al still have some sort of royalty associated with BD-9 since they control the BDA?

 

[wco81]

It's all speculation at this point.

All we have are claims about what features will be available. Only time we'll know for sure is after the actual products.

Yes Warners could have tried to get CE companies to put out red laser DVD players with support for the new codecs. But as an alternate format, it wasn't going to get a big push. Blu-Ray has most of the name-brand hardware companies behind them.

So the best way to propagate this red-laser HD spec. would be to get in on the Blu-Ray spec.

Maybe if BD-9 disc sales are good, some manufacturers will be persuaded to put out cheap red-laser-only players instead of more costly Blu-Ray players.

 

[MechanizedDeath]

I don't see BD-9 being a big issue at all. It seems like a fallback plan more than anything. The premium pricing of a BD catalog should present greater profit potential, should the format take off, than a bunch of low-priced BD-9's for an unknown userbase. I assume BD-9 support will not be mandatory for all BD players, right? PEACE.

 

[PC-Engine]

Fixed.

Both HD DVD and BR have big companies in favor of one or the other not so with BD-J vs iHD.

The story is, when it became clear Sony and the other Blu-Ray companies wanted to develop what has become the Blu-Ray format, Warners asked Toshiba to deliver an alternate blue-laser platform which would preserve their patents.

Story is full of holes considering NEC was developing their own blue laser optical format based on DVD structure independent of Toshiba or TW. In fact Toshiba experimented with .1mm cover layer blue laser discs before they decided that .6mm is easier, cheape, and faster to develop.

“You can’t really compare this to VHS and Beta, because that was a different model where the recorder was out many years before we had prerecorded material on it,â€￾ said King.

Actually you can because BR started out as a recording format and you can get BR recorders that won't be able to read BD-ROM movies.

 

[JF_Aidan_Pryde]

After Paramount, I see no reason why Sony should even compromise, even to Warner.

If there is a format war, then PS3's launch will make a Hiroshima out of HD DVD. There is fighting it. Which consumer is going to buy a HD-DVD player in late 2006 with no movies from Sony or Fox? No Spiderman. No Star Wars. No Alien series. Forget it.

Twenty years ago, when Sony's old man Akio Morita wanted a movie studio, he knew what it was about. This is what's about.

This war is over with or without Warner's half effort. Hardware will be won solidly with the launch of the PS3. Software will be won by majority. BR has the majority.

If I were Sony, I'd make no more concessions.

 

[PC-Engine]

Anyone know who will make red laser BD-9 players?

 

[NavNucST3]

After Paramount, I see no reason why Sony should even compromise, even to Warner.

If there is a format war, then PS3's launch will make a Hiroshima out of HD DVD. There is fighting it. Which consumer is going to buy a HD-DVD player in late 2006 with no movies from Sony or Fox? No Spiderman. No Star Wars. No Alien series. Forget it.

Twenty years ago, when Sony's old man Akio Morita wanted a movie studio, he knew what it was about. This is what's about.

This war is over with or without Warner's half effort. Hardware will be won solidly with the launch of the PS3. Software will be won by majority. BR has the majority.

If I were Sony, I'd make no more concessions.

You would make no concessions for the likes of Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings? I somehow see both of those franchises trumping Alien and Aliens and Star Wars, and as far as Star Wars goes, I don't see Star Wars (the real ones) being released for years (as usual) and the prequels, well who gives a damn about those sorry excuses...

 

[Carl B]

You would make no concessions for the likes of Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings? I somehow see both of those franchises trumping Alien and Aliens and Star Wars, and as far as Star Wars goes, I don't see Star Wars (the real ones) being released for years (as usual) and the prequels, well who gives a damn about those sorry excuses...

Well, I agree that Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter are format adopting kinds of IPs, but still I wonder if Sony gave too much. I mean, for one of Warners top shareholders to be pushing for Warner's adoption of blu-ray... that's kind of a big deal.

Still, it was important to have Warner on board as they are really the only company that was outside of the BDA able to muster massive DVD sales through a couple key properties. Either way it seems we'll know soon enought what exactly the new BD spec will look like.

By the way, the shareholder thing comes from this post/translation:

http://forums.e-mpire.com/showpost.php?p=832269&postcount=225

(credit to Rukawa)

PS - Star Wars *does* still trump LotR though overall IMO, at least as far as high-def sales potential goes. Not in which is better per se.

 

[one]

Why Warner decided to back BD is because they have to earn some money. Sooner than they expected at the sight of the falling DVD revenue. They realized Blu-ray and PS3 would bring more income than HD-DVD so announced the backing. Making a too bold claim against the format and delaying the PS3 launch only to spoil their own decision is not their option.

 

[Mefisutoferesu]

That rumor about HD-DVD starting out as just a new codec makes sense if you think about it it one sense. What's the point of allowing managed copying for 15-30Gbyte files?? It's insane. HOWEVER, managed copying for standard DVDs ranging in 4-9Gbytes isn't too bad. Mah, I'm probably reaching, but it does make sense to me.