Will Warner support Blu-ray?

[one]

And a couple of other BD news are rolling in...

http://www.tdk-europe.presscentre.com/corp/Releases/release.asp?ReleaseID=2355&NID=Press Releases

13 December 2005
TDK Starts Shipping "Bare" Type Mass-Production Blu-ray Disc Samples

TDK’s Blu-ray Discs achieve a high capacity of 25GB on a single-layer and 50GB on a dual-layer at 2x recording speed and are protected by TDK’s DURABIS 2 hard coating technology

TDK today announces that is has commenced shipping mass-production samples of its bare-type (cartridge-less) BD-R (write-once type) and BD-RE (rewritable type) Blu-ray Discs.

This news release about Sigma Designs and Pioneer is interesting because it shows one example of a non-Cell ASIC solution for a BD player.

http://home.businesswire.com/portal...d=news_view&newsId=20051212005018&newsLang=en

December 12, 2005 06:30 AM US Eastern Timezone

Sigma Designs to Work on Full-Featured Blu-ray Player with Pioneer; New Player Utilizes Sigma's Industry-Leading SMP8630 Family of Media Processors

MILPITAS, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 12, 2005--Sigma Designs (Nasdaq:SIGM) today announced it will work with Pioneer Corporation (NYSEIO) on the joint development of a full-featured Blu-ray DVD player using Sigma Designs' SMP8630 family of media processors.

...

Availability

Pioneer plans to introduce the new Blu-ray DVD player in the first half of 2006.

About Sigma's SMP8634 Media Processor

Sigma's SMP8634 media processor integrates a complete complement of next-generation capabilities for a single-chip system-on-chip (SOC) solution with powerful multimedia processing, robust content security system, and a full complement of peripherals. Its advanced decoder engines support video decoding of H.264 (MPEG-4 part 10), Windows Media(R) Video 9 (Microsoft's implementation of VC-1, the proposed SMPTE standard), MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 (part 2) with multiple streams, up to the equivalent of two high-definition video streams. High-performance graphics acceleration, multistandard audio decoding, advanced display processing capabilities, and HDMI/HDCP output round out its multimedia core. Powerful content security is ensured through a dedicated secure processor, flash memory, and a range of digital rights management (DRM) engines for high-speed payload decryption. The SMP8634's 300-MIPS host CPU, 3.2 GB/second unified memory controller, Ethernet 10/100 controller, dual USB 2.0 controller, and IDE controller provide for a single-chip solution for most set-top boxes and consumer players.

 

[mckmas8808]

Every month it looks like it becomes more obvious that Blu-ray will be the easy victor in the BD vs. HD-DVD war. I'm certainly glad this thing will come in my PS3.

 

[-tkf-]

http://news.designtechnica.com/featured_article35.html

It was even shown that a DVD-9 layer can be laid down onto a Blu-ray disc to make a true hybrid disc.

 

[Titanio]

Don't think it was posted before, but Panasonic has started mass Blu-ray production, and is preparing pilot production of dual layer, 50GB discs:

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2005/12/06/panasonic_blu_ray_50gb/

 

[mckmas8808]

http://news.designtechnica.com/featured_article35.html

This hybrid Blu-ray disc is huge. No reason for people to not buy it now. Well expect for its higher price, but if you are getting a HDTV within the next year or so why not buy the hybrid disc?

 

[avaya]

http://news.designtechnica.com/featured_article35.html

Disney is still going for iHD from that article.

Could the BDA make a concession on that too? Both Java and iHD are included in the standard? (I'm wondering if that is technically possible).

 

[iknowall]

Lol this news about sony and blu ray disk just confirm how i was right about mpeg2 vs mpeg4 :

http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000293070178

Old habits must really die hard for Sony: once more proving the divisiveness between their content and technology branches, Sony Pictures’ senior vice president of advanced technology Don Eklund apparently said, “Advanced (formats) don’t necessarily improve picture quality. Our goal is to present the best picture quality for Blu-ray. Right now, and for the foreseeable future, that’s with MPEG-2.”

Wharver the site say i think that the sony vicepresident of advanced technology Don Eklund have more clue

 

[wco81]

MPEG2 encoders and authoring tools are more mature.

The other codecs have the potential to go far but it's not clear how much of that potential they've reached.

MS claims VC-1 is up to 3 times as efficient as MPEG2. But even they concede that at a high enough bitrate, MPEG2 looks great. Blu-Ray would need dual-layer space for longer movies to encode at high MPEG2 bitrates.

 

[randycat99]

I'd say getting past 19 Mb/s datarate is pretty well into the territory where mpeg2 can get the job done with quality that exceeds most people's tastes (similarly, the real advantages of mpeg4 don't really come into play until you are at significantly bitrate constrained scenarios). It seems most people are quite convinced of high quality when it comes to OTA HDTV broadcasts at 19 Mb/s, and that is under a realtime encoding scenario. Movie discs typically get even more stringent touching up and optimization for troublespot scenes that would not have been possible in the realtime broadcast scenario.

What would a single-layer BR disc give at 19 Mb/s?...just a tick under the 3 hr mark?

 

[iknowall]

I'd say getting past 19 Mb/s datarate is pretty well into the territory where mpeg2 can get the job done with quality that exceeds most people's tastes (similarly, the real advantages of mpeg4 don't really come into play until you are at significantly bitrate constrained scenarios). It seems most people are quite convinced of high quality when it comes to OTA HDTV broadcasts at 19 Mb/s, and that is under a realtime encoding scenario. Movie discs typically get even more stringent touching up and optimization for troublespot scenes that would not have been possible in the realtime broadcast scenario.

What would a single-layer BR disc give at 19 Mb/s?...just a tick under the 3 hr mark?

Well , if you have ridden the entire tread you know what i talked about the Dcinema mastering used for the digital theater projection that encode the hd uncompressed master into an mpeg2hd with an 80Mbit/sec. bitrate, and it have an outstanding quality.

" The codec currently approved by the major Hollywood studios for digital cinema use is HD MPEG2 at high bit-rates. There are a number of other codecs that are proprietary or have never been approved for major motion picture releases.

Avica - and our interoperability partners - use HD MPEG2 at 80Mb/sec MP@HL."

http://www.avicatech.com/jpeg2000.html#q15

Assuming that 80Mbit/sec give you a professional theater quality , it take about 41Gb for 1 hour of hd video , with a 100gb blu ray disk you can have a professional quality.

If you use half the bitrate, 40Mbit/sec, you can store 2 hour of hd video in a 50Bg blu ray disk with a very high quality also

So i dont think that Sony or other majors will release film on single layer blue ray disks, they will whait at least for the dual layer blue ray disk if they use mpeg2hd.

 

[rabidrabbit]

Well , if you have ridden the entire tread you know what i talked about the Dcinema mastering used for the digital theater projection that encode the hd uncompressed master into an mpeg2hd with an 80Mbit/sec. bitrate, and it have an outstanding quality.

" The codec currently approved by the major Hollywood studios for digital cinema use is HD MPEG2 at high bit-rates. There are a number of other codecs that are proprietary or have never been approved for major motion picture releases.

Avica - and our interoperability partners - use HD MPEG2 at 80Mb/sec MP@HL."

http://www.avicatech.com/jpeg2000.html#q15

Assuming that 80Mbit/sec give you a professional theater quality , it take about 41Gb for 1 hour of hd video , with a 100gb blu ray disk you can have a professional quality.

If you use half the bitrate, 40Mbit/sec, you can store 2 hour of hd video in a 50Bg blu ray disk with a very high quality also

So i dont think that Sony or other majors will release film on single layer blue ray disks, they will whait at least for the dual layer blue ray disk if they use mpeg2hd.

What's the resolution used in digital cinema theatres? 4K?

 

[iknowall]

What's the resolution used in digital cinema theatres? 4K?

Nope, it use a 2k standard resolution.

The barco dcinema projector have a 2048 x 1080 resolution but the movies stored on the server can have a different resolution and aspect ratio.

http://www.barco.com/digitalcinema/en/products/product.asp?element=1721

 

[Gubbi]

MPEG2 encoders and authoring tools are more mature.

The other codecs have the potential to go far but it's not clear how much of that potential they've reached.

MS claims VC-1 is up to 3 times as efficient as MPEG2. But even they concede that at a high enough bitrate, MPEG2 looks great.

Errh, yeah, they conceded that given 3 x the bitrate MPEG2 will look as good.

It really is a cost issue. Do you spend money on silicon to cope with the higher bit-rates, or do you spend money on silicon to deal with the more complex codec and which of these costs will diminish the most over time.

Just comparing bit-rates (and media capacity) for BR vs HD-DVD is pointless (at least for movies).

Cheers
Gubbi

 

[iknowall]

Errh, yeah, they conceded that given 3 x the bitrate MPEG2 will look as good.

It don't look just as good, it will look always better in mpeg2 because the video is less compressed and the Vc1 is not a lossless codec.

A lossless codec can compress the video without lose quality, but a real lossless compression codec give around a 2:1 or 3:1 compression ratio at max.

Vc1 is not a lossless codec because compress a lot more than 3:1 it compress something like 50:1 so you lose a lot of quality.

Like the sony vicepresident of advanced technology Don Eklund said "Advanced (formats) don’t necessarily improve picture quality. Our goal is to present the best picture quality for Blu-ray " .

It really is a cost issue. Do you spend money on silicon to cope with the higher bit-rates, or do you spend money on silicon to deal with the more complex codec and which of these costs will diminish the most over time.

More compressed is the video more power you need to decode it and more it cost.

For example a vc1 hw decoder is a lot more xpansive than a mpeg2 hd decoder.

Just comparing bit-rates (and media capacity) for BR vs HD-DVD is pointless (at least for movies).

Cheers
Gubbi

No it is not. Given the fact that the original uncompressed hd master have a bitrate of
1.485Gbits per second and given the fact that when you compress more than 3 : 1 it start to lose quality, you can understand that a 20 : 1 compression with mpeg2 preserve more the image quality than a 50 :1 compression with Vc1 .

 

[Gubbi]

It don't look just as good, it will look always better in mpeg2 because the video is less compressed and the Vc1 is not a lossless codec.

A lossless codec can compress the video without lose quality, but a real lossless compression codecs give around a 2:1 or 3:1 compression ratio at max.

Are you for real ? VC-9 and H.264 are not loss less. MPEG-2 is not loss-less.

VC-9 and H.264 gets the same visual fidelity as MPEG-2 at 2-4 times the compression ratios.

This dicussion is pointless since Blue Ray players will support advanced codecs anyway.

Cheers
Gubbi

 

[iknowall]

Are you for real ? VC-9 and H.264 are not loss less. MPEG-2 is not loss-less.

You can't read can you ?

I said " a real lossless compression codec give around a 2:1 or 3:1 compression ratio at max "

Do mpeg2 compress more than 3 : 1 ? Yes , so obviously it is not a lossless codec. Same for VC-9 and mpeg4.

Please get a clue, really :

"About the comparison of lossless codecs :

The name of this video codec category declares full quality losses absence - the decompressed video stream should be completely identical to original. Output quality is same for all codecs. Absolute absence of losses is a very strong requirement, therefore it is often hard to achieve compression ratios above 3:1. Some of the tested codecs have an opportunity of work in "lossy" mode; it allows to reach considerably higher compression degree with rather small losses of quality. However, only "fully lossless" mode is considered in the current comparison. The only parameter of comparison is the compression level.

http://www.compression.ru/video/codec_comparison/lossless_codecs_en.html

VC-9 and H.264 gets the same visual fidelity as MPEG-2 at 2-4 times the compression ratios.

Only a loseless codec give the same visual fidelity with more compression. VC-9 and H.264 are NOT loseless, you seems to miss this point.

This dicussion is pointless since Blue Ray players will support advanced codecs anyway.

Cheers
Gubbi

Codecs that will not be used like sony vice president of advanced technology Don Eklund apparently said " Right now, and for the foreseeable future, that’s with MPEG-2.”

He know that he is talking about beleave me it is his work.

 

[Gubbi]

You can't read can you ?

I said " a real lossless compression codec give around a 2:1 or 3:1 compression ratio at max "

Do mpeg2 compress more than 3 : 1 ? Yes , so obviously it is not a lossless codec.

Then why the fsck are you draggin loss less into this?? I thought you implied MPEG-2 to be loss less.

<snip>
you seems to miss this point.

Definately!

Your point is ?

Codecs that will not be used like sony vice president of advanced technology Don Eklund apparently said " Right now, and for the foreseeable future, that’s with MPEG-2.”

But you see the advanced codecs are mandatory in the BR specs, so the players will have to support them. That means you are paying for them. So now that you've paid for them, you'd probably like to watch movies encoded in these formats since they offer better fidelity.

SONY are pushing MPEG-2 because they have the storage capacity to support it at HD resolutions. It also gives them a marketing edge for the uninformed: "SONY BR players play back movies @ 27Mbit/s vs. 9Mbit/s for HD DVD, w00t!!"

Cheers
Gubbi

 

[iknowall]

They why the fsck are you draggin loss less into this??

Because you act like mpeg4 and vc1 are loseless.

I thought you implied MPEG-2 to be loss less.

Only a person with no clue about what a lossless codec is can though this .

I stated that a codec wich use a compression ratio higher than 3:1 is not loseless, i also stated that mpeg2hd use a 20:1 compressiona ratio , so it is clear mpeg2 is not loselss.

Definately!

Your point is ?

This :

"VC-9 and H.264 gets the same visual fidelity as MPEG-2 at 2-4 times the compression ratios."


and this :

"they conceded that given 3 x the bitrate MPEG2 will look as good."


Are false statement because VC-9 and H.264 are not loseless.

You can't have 2-4 times the compression ratios and have the same visual fidelity.

When the compression ratio in higher than 3:1 the visual fidelty start to decreases.


You wont beleave me ? No problem, i gave you a link about it :

"Absolute absence of losses is a very strong requirement, therefore it is often hard to achieve compression ratios above 3:1. "

http://www.compression.ru/video/codec_comparison/lossless_codecs_en.html

But you see the advanced codecs are mandatory in the BR specs, so the players will have to support them. That means you are paying for them. So now that you've paid for them, you'd probably like to watch movies encoded in these formats since they offer better fidelity.

The poin is, Sony Pictures’ senior vice president of advanced technology Don Eklund think Otherwise “Advanced (formats) don’t necessarily improve picture quality."

Advanced video format don't give better fidelty .

Are you really expecting to know more than him about video fidelty ?

And no i would not like to see a movie with a more compressed codec than mpeg2 with a worse quality just because the player support it.

SONY are pushing MPEG-2 because they have the storage capacity to support it at HD resolutions. It also gives them a marketing edge for the uninformed: "SONY BR players play back movies @ 27Mbit/s vs. 9Mbit/s for HD DVD, w00t!!"

Cheers
Gubbi

If they can use a less compressed video it is thanks to the bigger space.
the movies will look better with blu ray disk .

 

[PeterT]

Only a loseless codec give the same visual fidelity with more compression.

So what you're saying is that it's impossible to make a lossy codec that's more efficient than another lossy codec? That's just complete nonsense. (a good example to the contrary would be the discussed MPEG2 vs. H.264)

 

[iknowall]

So what you're saying is that it's impossible to make a lossy codec that's more efficient than another lossy codec? That's just complete nonsense.

You can't read can you ?

I am talking about a loseless codec with more compression, not a lossy codec with more compresssion.

Only a loseless codec give the same visual fidelity with more compression

I am saying it is not possible for a lossy codec dont lose quality with more compression, because only a loseless codec can do this.

More efficient mean with and higher compression ratio, but do not means he don't lose quality with the compression, because only a loseless codec dont lose quality with the compression.

what i say is confirmed here :

"Absolute absence of losses is a very strong requirement, therefore it is often hard to achieve compression ratios above 3:1. "

http://www.compression.ru/video/codec_comparison/lossless_codecs_en.html

(a good example to the contrary would be the discussed MPEG2 vs. H.264)

Again, you have no clue since not mpeg2 nor H.264 are loseless.