Replacement for DVD unveiled -- News article

[vitualis]

The consumer is being screwed yet again...

Replacement for DVD unveiled
16:50 19 February 02
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99991952
The world's Big Nine electronics companies have swallowed corporate pride and agreed on a single standard and name - Blu-Ray - for the next generation video and computer optical disc. Although good for the consumer, they are putting the future of their fledgling recordable DVD systems in jeopardy.

Blu-Ray is backed by Hitachi, LG, Matsushita (Panasonic), Pioneer, Philips, Samsung, Sharp, Sony and Thomson. Only Toshiba, the main inventor of DVD, and JVC, which has a vested interest in VHS, are missing.

The new format will use a blue laser for recording and playback. A single-sided 12 centimetre Blu-Ray disc stores 27GB of computer data, records 13 hours of broadcast TV or holds 2 hours of High Definition video.

Prototypes already exist, and have been demonstrated by Philips, Sony and Panasonic. Licensing for manufacture begins within a couple of months and the first Blu-Ray recorders could go on sale next year.

Bad news
This could be very bad news for the three rival and incompatible recordable DVD systems, DVD-RAM (Panasonic), DVD-RW (Pioneer) and DVD+RW (Philips), which are just going on sale.

All use a red laser, with 650 nm wavelength, and can only store 4.7 GB on a single sided DVD. TV recording time is only one hour in best quality mode, and two, three or four hours with compromised pictures. Data capacity is inadequate for non-stop backup of a PC hard drive. The data transfer rate, around 10 Mbps, is not fast enough for high quality video.

A blue laser, with a 405 nm wavelength, can focus light more tightly into a smaller spot and so cram more data on a 12 centimetre disc. The data streams at 36 Mbps, which is fast enough for HDTV. As with recordable DVD, the recording is made in a phase change coating. Blu-Ray uses a very thin layer, 0.1 millimetres thick, to stop any tilt of the disc optically distorting the laser beam.

Everything is different
The 27 GB capacity will increase later to 50GB, thanks to dual layer discs, proposed by Panasonic.

The Blu-Ray group is still discussing whether the disc can be naked or must be housed in a protective cartridge.
Existing CD and DVD players and recorders will not be able to use Blu-Ray discs. New Blu-Ray players will need infra-red, red and blue lasers if they are also to play all kinds of CD and DVD recordings.

Speaking from the press launch in Tokyo, Chris Buma of Philips, says: "Except for the size of the disc, everything is different".

Barry Fox

[bigmicka]

how could you expect anything less, from the big money makers!

[Kdiddy]

Well sh!t a brick...just when you think you made it over the hump, you fall right back into the crack of the a$$....I think I'll just wait on "Pink-ray", which will project an 3d holographic image into my room.

[bigcolinp]

Pink Ray ???

Doesn't he own that bar on 2nd street ?



Col

[dvbr]

Hi,

The big companies trying to make more money with upgrades.

The mpeg2 encoding was obsolete at the time of the DVD launch, they knew it, I just find myself dumb spending money on DVD equipment.

I think that any of today DVD recorders will be spread up to have a critical mass that will force they to support in near future.

I was planning to buy a DVD recorder, now I guess it will be a waste of
money.

The HDTV doesn't have a standard well accepted, what they will invent to
record HDTV broadcasts ?

They not want to lose the battle as with mp3 happened.

Regards

[OptimusPrime22]

What battle did MP3 lose?

[dvbr]

The entertainment industry could not block the spread of mp3 files over the internet, or even over other media (CD-R). It become too easy ripping, encoding a CD audio into mp3 and recording it.

[baker]

this was all preplaned by the big companies...

they wanted everyone to move to digital as it is cheaper to make and harder to copy and would make them more dosh.

but to do this they had to make dvd better than tape so they gave it a high res so people would buy it.

now they r making high res tvs which will put us back where we belong.

vhs=dvd-a cheap recordable format with a decent picture.

svhs=blue ray-tv studies use this to make us have a reason for watching tv and not just rent out a load of videos or tape our fav programme and ffw thru the ads.

c what I mean?

vcd and svcd could also be used insted here.

Baker

[House de Kris]

Actually, I feel this is good news. I've been holding off on buying a DVD writer, waiting for the price to fall. With something bigger and better on the horizon, that will expedite the price fall of DVD writers.

And, I don't know what dvbr is talking about when something like "The HDTV doesn't have a standard well accepted, what they will invent to
record HDTV broadcasts ?" is written. HDTV standard is well known. JVC makes and sells an HDTV VHS-ish recorder now.

[tigerwolf]

I had heard about this techinology about a year or so ago, at the time it was suppose to be a see through disc, otherwise the same specs apply.

Its like I mentioned to a buddy of mine, Lucas wants to wait til 2006 to release his movies on dvd? DVD might not even be around then, with the way technology moves today.

they're pinky and the brain, brain, brain.

[Anonymous65]

Just like VHS should be long gone and replaced by more modern technology, when you sell millions of them for $100, it ends up in almost every home and will stay for a long, long time. The same is now the case for DVD players, selling for less than $100. DVD players will stay around for many, many years to come, so will music CD's. 10-15 years from now DVD players will look like todays VHS VCR's, but they will still be in the store.
As for HDTV, there is no consumer need for it, and it will take a long time before it takes over. HDTV would be dead if it wasn't for the mandated update by law. If people could get 720x480 digital video in their living rooms, it would be more quality than what the everage consumer wants.

[dvbr]

And, I don't know what dvbr is talking about when something like "The HDTV doesn't have a standard well accepted, what they will invent to record HDTV broadcasts ?" is written. HDTV standard is well known. JVC makes and sells an HDTV VHS-ish recorder now.

I was talking about a disc media like DVD. I know about the DVHS, it is very expensive (maybe more than a DVD recorder), has a big cartridge (VHS size).
And about HDTV, it is not a wordlwide standard (like DVD is). There are the American, Japanese, European standards. I'm not talking about resolution and frame rate as PAL and NTSC DVDs are different. In these three HDTV, the basic stream are different.

[mcorpse]

Things like this REALLY piss me off. They no sooner finish a new format, and they're already starting on another one. It scares me that it may be so quick as to replace DVD in less than 5 years. Gawd, VHS ruled as most common/best format of its class (home video as opposed to enthusiast video - LD) for more than 10 years, heck, 15. Personally, although I have a DVD player, I still have a strange love for VHS tapes...perhaps because of the cost and availability problem, still, of DVD ($5 CAN as opposed to $0.50-2 for a week, and most older movies not available - I guess I like being able to get lost in, and wade through piles of crap to find a good movie to rent...)

The DVD Army - "Screw Blu-Ray"

Maybe I'll make that my signature...

[Mpegman1986]

Remember two year ago when the only formate for TV recording was VHS, god thoes days were simple. Now we have Tivo, Replay, D and S VHS, capture cards, DVD-R and BluRay. I wouldn't buy a new 'vcr' unless you need a new one. Thier isn't going to be one formate standard like with vhs for a couple of years.

Tom

[sean madison]

well there is 1 bright side though
When we can afford blu-ray, we will be able to encode at VERY high quality bitrates and still fit more than 1 movie onto a cd.

[Mirror_Image]

How dare they keep developing new products!

Like that damn light bulb, they had to go and invent it when people had already put a lot of money into candlesticks and stuff.

Damn them!

[EricB]

Well... my first tape recorder actually recorded on wire! While I still have reel-to-reel, cassette, VHS, VHS-C, Hi8, Digital8, I must say that the content is more important than the media. Except for the wire recording, I can still access all of these.

The frustrating thing about all the tapes, is that actually using the product causes both the recording machine and the media to degrade. Now that we have optical recording, I can watch all this stuff without worrying about an old dry tape breaking, jamming, or other damaging events.

The AVERAGE guy, hasn't even burned a CD, let alone made a VCD. And we're already worried about DVD becoming obsolete?

Man, life is good. I can afford optical recording of my video stuff, and soon will be up to DVD quality. Bring on the new formats!

[AntnyMD]

Digital media will continue to advance. You guys griping about it make you all sound like throwbacks to the 20th century when people bitched about having to buy new turntables because Columbia started making 33 1/3rpm LP records instead of chunky fragile 78rpm records! Before the LP, an album would arrive on 6 or 8 discs! At least we dont have to buy one movie on 6 SVCDs to get the same DVD quality.

Dont fret about technology ... just keep up with it, or be left behind!

[sean madison]

oh man, he's right.

It's like when cds came out when people were still usin tapes.

or any other anology u can think of cuz thats a bad one,

You know how some of our grandparents reject technology cuz they think it looks so advanced, its pointless to have.

We are turning into them!!! ahhhh!!

Let em bring in the new stuff.
IF it was going to destroy the market of dvd burner\players, companies such as pioneer would be losing a ton load of money of just now making the dvd burners.

I know they cant be that stupid.

[leebo]

"this was all preplaned by the big companies... "

So who was the second shooter of Kennedy?

[Mirror_Image]

So who was the second shooter of Kennedy?

Very clever. The fact that you even know there was a second shooter clearly shows that you know very well who the #2 man (or should I say woman, comrade) was! Of course, you act like you "don't know", which is to be expected...

---------------------------

Unnecessary Logic Construct

The following text was generated by the rudimentary Rhetorical Device "RAWTIFACTS" running with low Tortuosity and a minimal knowledge base. The intuitive plausibility of the OutValid conclusion is rated as 6.43 Fusions on the Gawp-Lenient Scale (see references).

PREMISE

There is a barber in a village who shaves everyone that does not shave themself.

CONCLUSION

The barber is in the employ of the Illuminati.

REASONING

1.. If the barber shaves himself, he is not shaved by the barber.
2.. If the barber doesn't shave himself, he is shaved by the barber.
3.. Therefore he can't be shaved.
4.. Therefore the barber has a beard.
5.. Introduction of Unnecessary data - Edicts against beards:
_a.. Alexander the Great ordered that the whole of his army be closely shaved to deny handholds by enemy troops.
_b.. Peter the Great ordered one hundred ruble "beard tax" (except for priests and serfs - one kopeck every time they passed the gate of a city).
_c.. King of Bavaria (Aug 1838) - civilians forbidden to have moustaches - offending parties to be arrested and shaved.
6.. If the barber lived in Bavaria in late 1838, he was breaking the law.
7.. He would have had to remain inconspicuous.
8.. Therefore, it is likely that if he was there at that time, no evidence would exist of his presence.
9.. Therefore, there can be no evidence that the barber was in Bavaria in late 1838.
10.. Therefore, evidence about the barber's whereabouts must always be inconclusive. Lack of evidence guarantees nothing. Evidence can always be faked and is therefore not evidence.
11.. Therefore, there can be no evidence that the barber was not in Bavaria in late 1838.
12.. Therefore he was.
13.. The barber must have had a reason to be in Bavaria.
14.. Visible results of the reason would be evidence for the barber's presence.
15.. There are no visible results.
16.. This is typical of Bavarian Illuminati operations.
17.. Therefore, the reason was linked with plans of the Illuminati.
18.. Therfore, the barber was in the employ of the Illuminati (whether he knew it or not).
19.. QED

-

[shardison]

This could be very bad news for the three rival and incompatible recordable DVD systems, DVD-RAM (Panasonic), DVD-RW (Pioneer) and DVD+RW (Philips), which are just going on sale.

(speaking of + & -RW burners)
I just don't get this line of reasoning. For one thing, how are they incompatible? For sharing files? Somewhat, but you can still share. For burning and watching movies on a DVD player? Not at all. They're not incompatible, they just use different methods to an end.... making a DVD disc that can be read on a DVD player. The next generation will probably write both + and -RW. Thank you manufacturers; we can finally create a video disc that retains nearly all the quality of the original source.

DVD is good enough to record all of our present video content. If the manufacturers sat back and and did nothing to provide us with a way to record High Definition TV when it came along, would we be happier? Hell no. Some of us here would say we were "screwed" because the manufacturers where too lazy and cheap, counting their money instead of investing in new tech for our video future. Bring on Blue Ray. In the meantime I'm enjoying burning DVD's.

(DVD-RAM isn't even an issue here as it can't make a DVD that plays on a DVD player, and therefore it is dead for my purposes. CD burners are incompatible with DVD burners too, for that matter.)