Blue Ray is looking different

[dcsos]

Right now I noticed that the software tools for formatting a Blue Ray disc for use cost over ten thousand us dollars..
That means to put a file on the disc surface, you need a NEW FILE SYSTEM
as they are not using UDF to format these discs..
http://www.softarch.com/us/press/BLUERAY.html

also there is no mention anywhere, and indeed they haven't yet made a burner that will read anything but a BLU-RAY

(no downward compatibility with DVD let alone -R, as promised)

[lordsmurf]

I have no faith in Blue-Ray, and I don't think it will ever leave the wanna-be stages. Much like FMD.

[dcsos]

what may I ask is FMD?
I thought I knew ACRONYMNS...
also how do you get a LEXMARK printer in Borneo?
from their old parnet IBM borneo?

or is you in Abu Dabi today?

[adam]

I forget what FMD stands for but it was a new optical technology that was in development for years. It supported something ridiculous like 70 gigs per side. It looked just like a regular disk but was totally clear.

I really thing comparing FMD to blue ray is unfair. FMD went bankrupt years ago long before they even came close to putting out a product. Blue ray is fairly close to being finalized and they already have very primitive hardware out now which makes use of what the technology has to offer so far. Blue ray has the financial backing to carry it through, which is something that FMD never had. FMD was absolutely never even close to being considered by the DVD Forum as a potential media for the next DVD standard. Blue ray, or actually just blue laser media in general, is very strongly being taken into consideration by the DVD Forum. If they adobt blue ray, which they very well might, than faith has nothing to do with it, it WILL become part of the next DVD standard and in 10-20 years it will be the technology we will all be using, exclusively.

The DVD Forum is at a crossroads. They are developing a new DVD standard to include HD. They either change the compression format, the medium, or both. If they choose either of the latter options, than you can pretty much bank on being forced to buy into blue laser (ray) in the relatively near future.

@dcsos: I wasn't aware that blue ray ever promised backwards compatibility with dvd. NEC's blue laser format did promise this, and this is another format which is still on the table. Blue laser technology is still in its infancy, and keep in mind that blue ray is just one of the competing blue laser formats out there right now. Any hardware that comes out now, while the format is still being finalized, will obviously be very expensive and very limited. Give it time, the market is not ready for it yet, DVD burners are just now becoming popular.

[obeck]

(no downward compatibility with DVD let alone -R, as promised)

Yeah, but what is "downward compatibility"? Everytime I read this, I think "what idiot made up that phrase" for newer technology. "CAM" over in the newgroups touts this all the time, without ever describing it. Let me tell you what it can mean:

1) It can mean that a BluRay player/burner will play/burn DVD-R
2) It can mean that a BluRay player will play DVD-R
3) It can mean that a BluRay player will play everything a DVD player will play.
4) and so on and so on and so on.

All of this is meaningless. When DVD players and burners first came out, they weren't "backward compatible" to CD/CD-R. Some manufacturers started off putting TWO lasers in every player... one for DVD and one for CD. At the very least, ANY BluRay player can also include a DVD laser for playing *any* DVD format. At the very least, ANY BluRay writer can include a DVD laser for burning any DVD burner. AT THE MOST, it will take an extra $100 (current costs) to make ANY BluRay reader/burner completely "backward compatible" with DVD/DVD+-R/RW, CD-R/RW. By the time that BluRay technology comes to fruition, it is likely to take just $15 to make it 100% compatible.

So, forget all the FUD about backward compatiblity. There is absolutely no issue here, the same way that there is no issue between DVD and CD after the first year of DVD players came out.


As for whether it will be needed... YES. DVD... for all its glory... provides insufficient storage for HDTV quality programming.... much the same way VCD and SVCD are insufficient compared to DVD.

[Metaluna]

As for whether it will be needed... YES. DVD... for all its glory... provides insufficient storage for HDTV quality programming.... much the same way VCD and SVCD are insufficient compared to DVD.

This also means that the adoption rate of HD DVD (whether based on Blu-Ray or anything else) will be driven by, and limited by, the adoption of HDTV. This is unlike the current DVD standard which had an immediate market of hundreds of millions (if not billions) of existing TV sets that it was compatible with from the first day it was released. IMHO, Adam had the time scale about right when he talked about it taking 10-20 years for Blu-Ray/HD DVD to become ubiquitous and cheap (maybe 3-5 years for enthusiasts with average incomes). The market just won't be big enough to drive economies of scale for years.

[The village idiot]

I still think my Death Ray format will win

[andkiich]

I figure that blu-ray will take on the role of the new LD. it will be the intermediate step in between DVD and whatever comes after it to the masses. Take that thought and add it to what Metaluna said and you have my thoughts on what will happen.

Just a guess on my part, but sounds just as good as anyone elses theory.

[The village idiot]

I figure that blu-ray will take on the role of the new LD. it will be the intermediate step in between DVD and whatever comes after it to the masses. Take that thought and add it to what Metaluna said and you have my thoughts on what will happen.

Just a guess on my part, but sounds just as good as anyone elses theory.

And at that, you might be the closest to correct.

[MOVIEGEEK]

This is a bit off-topic but I think in the future all movies and data will be stored on a portable cartridge similar to a USB key drive except they would be the size of a 3.5" floppy.All data would be stored as ROM with no moving parts and no worries about a scratched disk.The key drives are currently at 1GB so the technology is very close to DVD quality.Another benefit would be that a distributor can easily add a password protection or CSS like encryption.
This whole idea of polycarbonate media lasting 99 years(what the manufacturers say)is a pipe dream we're lucky to have them last 20 years,sure the disk will be intact but the dye and scratched surface will be unreadable.

[gmatov]

Moviegeek,

As evidenced by the thread where DVDs are dead after a few month, stored in a case in a dark place.

Where the hell DO they get this "hunnerds of years" crap? And, why do "we", meaning the average, gullible consumer keep falling for it?

A format should last at least long enough to resave to the new format, period.

[MOVIEGEEK]

"A format should last at least long enough to resave to the new format, period."

Amen gmatov.

[vitualis]

FMD = fluorescent multi-layer disc.

I believe that the technology was near mature and they were looking for a big player backer (but never got it). It was actually a really cool tech, allowing much more than two layers on an optical disc (?? 8 layers). Furthermore, as data was read by the data bit "fluorescing" rather than reflecting the laser beam, it was "supposed" to be much more robust than (e.g.) DVD. I don't remember the data capacities, but there were quite large (?? 100 or 200 GB).

Sefy might remember this better than me as it was a ??Israeli company that developed this technology.

Regards.

[energy80s]

I figure that blu-ray will take on the role of the new LD. it will be the intermediate step in between DVD and whatever comes after it to the masses.

Funny, I thought that's what DVD-R / DVD+R / DVD-RAM is all about. Just a holding operation until a proper home disc recording and archiving system is available. 4.37Gb just doesn't cut it. At the very least you will need 10-15GB discs to replace VHS in the home. I think this whole talk of High Defination formats is a red herring as very few countries will have access to this for many many years (if ever). What is needed is a proper home recordable disc format that will store 4-6 hours of broadcast quality PAL TV for around £200 a throw. Red laser products aren't suitable, so the only current alternative is blue laser.

Hard discs for timeshifting and Blue Laser discs for archiving.

[belvedere16]

then i can record all my hi def chanels in HD ..and watch them on my sony 65" WS muhaha cause dvd quaility is much much worse than hd channels

cant wait for blue ones they bring out a blue ray player that records tv (like vhs and a few dvd players) its mine *after years of price drop i might add

[Metaluna]

Where the hell DO they get this "hunnerds of years" crap? And, why do "we", meaning the average, gullible consumer keep falling for it?

Because "we" the consumer keep demanding the cheapest possible product without the slightest regard for quality. If Maxell and Taiyo Yuden announced tomorrow that they would start selling their media for 25 cents a disc, people would call them overpriced crap because they could get Princos for 20 cents. And then on top of that they'd hack their firmware so they could burn them at twice the rated speed. Quality gets punished in the computer world. If you can make the cheapest crap possible you will be rewarded by consumers.

[kirpen]

Yall are smoking crack if you think the movie studios will let you have storage that last that long. Hell at the rate they going they will make future tvs limit how many times a movie can be vewied before it tells the dvd player to shred the disc.

[The village idiot]

Where the hell DO they get this "hunnerds of years" crap? And, why do "we", meaning the average, gullible consumer keep falling for it?

Because "we" the consumer keep demanding the cheapest possible product without the slightest regard for quality. If Maxell and Taiyo Yuden announced tomorrow that they would start selling their media for 25 cents a disc, people would call them overpriced crap because they could get Princos for 20 cents. And then on top of that they'd hack their firmware so they could burn them at twice the rated speed. Quality gets punished in the computer world. If you can make the cheapest crap possible you will be rewarded by consumers.

There are other examples of this that could be put out, but I'll play nice and not mention it. But I did choose something recently based on this very fact. Cheaper is better... for some things

[Gazorgan]

I'd like to state for the record: A DVD laser can't read a CD/CDR/CDRW.

"But my DVD drives reads my CD's?". Correct it does, but it's not using the DVD laser. It has a dual pickup head, in fact 2 lasers in the head assembly.

Based on this, all Blue-Ray has to do is add the dual pickup head to the assembly ( now having at least 3 lasers, assuming you can read with the burning laser ). Very cheap to add this functionality. Who is going to miss out on sales because you can't put an Audio CD in the drive?

Now you all realize Blue-ray will still screw you? They've completely missed the boat. All they are doing is replacing the DVD with Blue-Ray, but going HD instead of NTSC/PAL standard. So while the disk is 4x bigger, you will still only get 2 hours of HD. Well poop, where's the fun in that? So we will still have dual sided and dual layered disks. I think 'they' are doing it on purpose to avoid copying like DVD's are now.

Of course if they go with some form of MPEG4 instead of MPEG2, you could gain back some of that space and hit the mystical 4 hours/layer mark.

[Memo_182]

But wouldn't you be able to have NTSC/PAL on the blue ray and still have great quality and over hours and hours of video? Or are they forcing you to use the HD standard. I'm sure I'm not the only one that would like to have both options of NTSC/PAL or HD.

[freestyler]

Yall are smoking crack if you think the movie studios will let you have storage that last that long. Hell at the rate they going they will make future tvs limit how many times a movie can be vewied before it tells the dvd player to shred the disc.

Funniest post I've read in a while - almost seems OMINOUS.

[tompika]

This is a one year old news and I wonder if this project is still running?

http://www.cdrinfo.com/Sections/News/Details.asp?RelatedID=3129


Anyone?

[Drakng]

What blu-ray? The future belongs to holographic disk to be developed by big brother I.B.M.

[Metaluna]

Yall are smoking crack if you think the movie studios will let you have storage that last that long. Hell at the rate they going they will make future tvs limit how many times a movie can be vewied before it tells the dvd player to shred the disc.

Maybe not that extreme, but many people feel that "pay-per-use" is the ultimate wet dream of the media industry, and the technology development is well under way to enable this, and not just for video. In 50 years even "free" libraries could be little more than coin-operated distribution points for e-books.

[belvedere16]

LOL IBM

[Sailn]

blu-ray may be unnecessary. E-bejing an ON2 tech. are developing the EVD using ON2's codec. The projected number of players is huge 10-20 million for the domestic Chinese market over the next 2 years. What is interesting is that they claim that it is support HDTV. Sony claims to be supporting and as they have considerable content, the formats stands a good chance at wide spread adoption. It is nice to see people sticking it to the mpeg-la, they used to think they where the only game in town, now a small NY company tells them otherwise.

[Sailn]

Take a look at this available NOW

http://on2.com/pdf/vp6_white_paper.pdf

1920 x 1080 progressive 24 fps at 3.5 megabits, and all you need is a 2.5 GHz P4 to decode it. Seems like the need for blu ray is vanishing.

[andkiich]

Funny, I thought that's what DVD-R / DVD+R / DVD-RAM is all about. Just a holding operation until a proper home disc recording and archiving system is available.

Unfortunately, the average consumer is quite fickle. The home movie industry has just now gotten the masses to buy off on DVD as a commercial media. I can't tell you how many times I've heard people say that they won't buy DVD until it can do everything that VHS can. Well technically it can, but with better quality. Now those same people are going out and buying DVD recorders and burners.

You can't introduce a new technology into the market this close to the mass acceptance of the DVD format. Regardless of how good it is, the market will reject it. I'm guessing that DVD and DVD burners will make a good run for another 10 - 15 years. I've seen this phenomenon before. I've worked for years in the video game and console market and the market is similar. There have been companies that bring new consoles into the market shortly after the acceptance of one or 2 major brands. The third either limps along or dies out, then some other upstarts try and get into the fray. Normally only the most hardcore gamers even buy the new stuff, only because they want everything and/or they have the money.
Same thing happened with Laserdisc. It catered more to the audio/videophile in a time when VHS was still king. The problem with Laserdisc was price. The machines cost roughly $400 give or take a few hundred depending on options, and the movies were $30 - $100 each and were difficult to find. At the same time, VCRs were $100 - $300 and the movies could be found everywhere and prices were $5 - $30. Couple that with the fact that the laserdisc did not give the huge jump in quality that the DVD over the VHS.

The established base of people that will be able to take advantage of a resolution higher than full D1 DVD will not be very high for a long time, despite the government regulations and broadcasting standards. I have a TV that was one of the first to have S-Video input. It's at least 11 years old and runs just as good today as it did when it was new. I don't plan on buying anything new until it stops working. Most consumers are the same way.

[g_shocker182]

Blu-ray Disc enables recording, rewriting and playback of up to 27 gigabytes of data on a single-sided single-layer disc that is the same size as standard CDs and DVDs. A Blu-ray disc will record over 2 hours of digital high-definition video and more than 13 hours of standard TV broadcasts

The only thing I care about.

[spectroelectro]

"...Many people feel that `pay-per-use' is the ultimate wet dream of the media industry, and the technology development is well under way to enable this, and not just for video. In 50 years even `free' libraries could be little more than coin-operated distribution points for e-books."

Pay-per-use certainly is the Unholy Grail of the monopolists like Bill Gates. Micropayments to Micro$haft every time you open a Word document! Micropyaments to Time-Warner-Bertelsmann-MCA every time you scan the contents of your holographic video discs to see what you've recorded!
Fortuantely, we have open source to combat the wet dreams of the monopolists.
The Gutenburg Project just announced its 10,000th book made available online. It takes time, but don't underestimate the power of open source. Linux has gotten better and better and OpenOffice now competes with Microsoft Office 2000 quite effectively. As broadband gets broader, dl'ing TV shows from usenet binary newsgroups will get easier and easier, and harder and harder to detect or stop.
Just as Project Gutenburg and "World's Greatest Books" CD-ROMs will grow until they eventually prevent libraries from being "coin-operated distribution points for e-books," usenet binary newsgroups and broadband will grow until they eventually prevent pay-per-use schemes by the monopolists.
Arthur C. Clarke remarked that most people tend to overestimate the effect of technology in the short term and greatly underestimate its impact in the long term. The same applies to open source (OS, video, audio, ad infinitum).