WHAT?? Another new format?? Toshiba unveils another Blu-ray 'Killer'

[DarrellS]

What I see here is the official support of H264 on DVD-Rs. The market demands that today. Personally, I have many DVD-Rs with H264 burned as data. If I only could author them same way and playback them on my TV using a DVD player, it would be great.

If this is true, this is going to be DVD 2.0. And there is a huge market for it.

If this is true, I'll buy one. That is if it doesn't cost $300. I now have the PC power to create H264 files but as long as I can't burn them to DVD and play them on my TV, I have no reason to even create them. Both my Philips DivX certified DVD players (which I paid less than $50 for) will play my DivX and Xvid files just fine. If I could buy a player that will play all three formats for $100 or less, I'd be all over it.

[PuzZLeR]

@LordSmurf: Good find. However, being the freaks that we are in this forum, we still find merit within mere hypothetical discussion on the topic nevertheless.

@SatStorm: Yes, DivX certification is affordably on almost every DvD player today. The amazing thing about it is that this was achieved as a proprietary codec by "pulling" through demand, not "pushing" through prerequisite compliance as a "standard". It is a "feature", not compulsory - an "unofficial extension" as you called it.

The only proprietary codec that has achieved "standard" AFAIK is WMV with their VC-1. However, the MS parade behind it had to relinquish all control, even ownership. I personally don't think this would be in DivX's interest with the empire they've built, unlike WMV who basically IMO wasn't making any strides in certification anyway and really had nothing to lose.

As for H.264, I find its role is very different - as a replacement to MPEG-2, which also fits certain machine specs, not as a compressed alternative like DivX/Xvid. Machines will play it for sure (BD, AppleTV, iPod), but only under "specs", otherwise you would need a machine with special "features" like "MP4", "MKV", etc. playback.

This is also true for MPEG-2 - does anyone encode to MPEG-2 today without it being DvD compliant? We know we'd need a machine with "features" to support it otherwise.

I believe DivX/Xvid will be the most flexible, and most restriction-free, codecs for machine playback for many more years.

[SatStorm]

Back in 2004, in this same forum, people screamed that DivX never gonna be on DVD standalone players, etc, etc, etc. Today is mainstream.
I bet the same gonna happen with H264.

I bought my Nokia N82 cellphone because it supports H264. On my 8GB memory card, I have - among other things - about 200 music videos + (320x240@288kb/s+96kb mp3 audio on an avi container - yeah avi no mp4!) which I can also watch on any TV with composite in (phone has TV out). I know that MTV USA when started, it had 100 videos only, so I feel like having a music station in my pocket! The picture looks like VCD which for me is acceptable.

I'll get a Popcorn hour to playback direct from my HDD my H264 videos on TV.

There is a place on my house for a DVD player that plays H264 files same way most DVD players playback today DivX/XviD ones.

Regarding DivX/XviD vs H264, I'm H264 to the full! I just fell in love with this codec, something that never happened with DivX (I never liked DivX)
Give me H264 support ! I'll buy it!

[vhelp]

This is also true for MPEG-2 - does anyone encode to MPEG-2 today without it being DvD compliant? We know we'd need a machine with "features" to support it otherwise.

I'm many of us still do to *some* degree, even without knowing it. Never the less.

I believe that there are some allowences, whether intentional, overlooked, or undisclosed in the
designs of todays HD / DVD / BLU-RAY players.

Todays dvd players seem less leanient to the standards. For example, my Polaroid DRM-2001G dvd
recorder allows me to feed a 24p mpeg source with no trouble and plays smooth as butter.
However, my older generation dvd player, Apex AD-1500 does not -- it stutters/skips/etc.

-vhelp 4703

[lordsmurf]

Back in 2004, in this same forum, people screamed that DivX never gonna be on DVD standalone players, etc, etc, etc. Today is mainstream.

Few players or recorders have it. I usually look at new recorders/players in stores. Just tonight, I was looking in Target (major chain here in the USA). None of them had MPEG-4 (Divx/Xvid/WMV) abilities. MPEG-4 is on few models, and always on premium-priced models. Too bad China hasn't discovered MPEG-4 yet, stick it in the $25-30 players, then it really would be mainstream.

[paulw]

Back in 2004, in this same forum, people screamed that DivX never gonna be on DVD standalone players, etc, etc, etc. Today is mainstream.

Few players or recorders have it. I usually look at new recorders/players in stores. Just tonight, I was looking in Target (major chain here in the USA). None of them had MPEG-4 (Divx/Xvid/WMV) abilities. MPEG-4 is on few models, and always on premium-priced models. Too bad China hasn't discovered MPEG-4 yet, stick it in the $25-30 players, then it really would be mainstream.

Maybe it's a US thing like the lack of DVD recorders . Most DVD players down under are Mp4/divx/xvid capable.

[SatStorm]

Here in Greece, only few DVD standalone players don't have DivX/XviD support.
Rhe 1/3 of them also have a USB port, to watch DivX though USB Sticks.
The same models exist in Germany and Poland that I recently checked myself

Seems like the situation there in USA is different.

[DarrellS]

Walmart has 6 DivX players and a Samsung that says it will play movies downloaded from the internet but doesn't list formats.

Target has two Philips DivX players.

Bestbuy has 11 DivX players.

Here is a list of all DivX certified players...

http://www.divx.com/products/products.php

[raffie]

You'd have to look hard to find a DVD player without Mpeg-4 capabilities here, big brands are always DIVX certified, while the cheap ones just mention Mpeg-4 capable. Just about the same situation for DVD-recorders.
I would imagine the situation will be the same for, let's say 2nd generation blu-ray players, being able to playback (HiDef) AVC Mpeg-4 as well as all simple profile Mpeg-4 being what we know today.

[ejai]

I went to Bestbuy recently and found several DVD players with DivX capabilities. I find the addtion of Divx on newer players growing constantly. Even my Xbox360 has adapted the Divx format, I also hear that the PS3 has as well.

[cracula]

Most of the ones i see play dvix xvid. I have two philips that do and i paid less than 60.00 for each.

[terjeber]

This is the funniest post - so Toshiba is releasing an up-converting DVD player, possibly with DivX or H.264 capabilities... Oh, I am so... yawn! There is nothing new here, move on please.

Oh, and for those who actually believe you can put an HD movie on a DVD-9 disk with any of the newer encoders, please get a grip will you? You can not. The quality of the image would be appalling on any screen larger than 30". Believe me, I have tried. You can even check this your self if you want to from some of the available "trailers" out there.

I downloaded the "Shakira - oral fixation tour" trailer, which is stereo and about 7Mb/s video, which is what you will get on DVD-9 player with most movies (a little more for shorter). I got the Blu-Ray from Netflix. The Blu-Ray is encoded with H.264 VBR, looks like 35Mb/s max, 25MB/s average. The difference between the clips are like night and day. I would never pay money for HD encoded at 7-10Mb/s unless it was only a talking head with a non-moving background.

[DarrellS]

This is the funniest post - so Toshiba is releasing an up-converting DVD player, possibly with DivX or H.264 capabilities... Oh, I am so... yawn! There is nothing new here, move on please.

I'm not aware of any red laser DVD players that will play H-264 files.

If you can fit two or three DivX/XviD movies on a DVD-5 that look decent on a 37" TV then what makes you think that you couldn't fit one H-264 on a DVD-9 and get it to look good on a 50" TV? H-264 compresses a lot better than DivX or XviD.

I would never pay money for HD encoded at 7-10Mb/s unless it was only a talking head with a non-moving background.

Nobody is asking anyone to by any DVDs. We're looking for a player that will play DivX, XviD and H-264 (WMV would be nice also). If they can make a red laser DVD that will hold more data then that would be icing on the cake.

I'd like to take some of these captures that I'm getting from my HD tuner card and be able to burn to disc and watch on my 37" TV. I have no intensions of buying a Bluray burner, a Bluray player and a 50" TV.

[PuzZLeR]

I’m just wondering what would be better:

a) Having H.264 as “standard”, something guaranteed to play on all units as compulsory, but subject to “machine specs” (rez, fps, etc.). This is the case for blu-ray, Apple TV, etc. (and maybe the new Toshiba DvD players(?)).

b) Having H.264 as a “feature”, something NOT guaranteed on every unit yet nevertheless will be flexible as to rez, fps, etc. Currently this is the case for DivX certification and the H.264 breed is esoteric such as a PopcornHour or Ziova.

@Vhelp: I take it you’re a fan of pulldown and the older players don’t read the flag correctly. I’ve recently experimented with H.264 SD content that will play on blu-ray. 24p on SD too is not “standard” however I have yet to find a player that doesn’t play it back super-smooth. It was also encouraging when all were in perfect sync.

I personally think the “standards” are just a common denominator, not the max. However, being the stickler that I am, I very rarely stray. I would hate to knock off even 1% of my 100% "playback guarantee”.

[[_chef_]]

Probably he searched for VMD on the wrong site.............

[ricardouk]

Oh, and for those who actually believe you can put an HD movie on a DVD-9 disk with any of the newer encoders, please get a grip will you? You can not. The quality of the image would be appalling on any screen larger than 30".

30" What? 30 inches is little less than 1 meter, 30 feet are 9 meters. Do you have a 9 meter tv? Have you just watched trailers or have you actually made encodings?

What is the world wide percentage of people that have a 9 meter tv compared to normal sized tvs? On SUPER SIZED BIGGER screens it will loose quality, i can even argue that quality will be worse on 18 meters screens than on a 9 one.


http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=135037

[terjeber]

This is the funniest post - so Toshiba is releasing an up-converting DVD player, possibly with DivX or H.264 capabilities... Oh, I am so... yawn! There is nothing new here, move on please.

I'm not aware of any red laser DVD players that will play H-264 files.

This is a point, but again, there isn't anything revolutionary here. Tosh is releasing a standard up-converting DVD player. As I said - Yawn.

IIf you can fit two or three DivX/XviD movies on a DVD-5 that look decent on a 37" TV then what makes you think that you couldn't fit one H-264 on a DVD-9 and get it to look good on a 50" TV?

Math, and you know what, that is very hard to get around. H.264 compresses very well, but if you compress high-motion HD or other slightly difficult HD video to bitrates below 10Mb/s it doesn't look very good. Take a look at any of the available H.264 "low" bitrate material out there. You will see significant compression artifacts compared to the high-bitrate originals. I gave one example of what is typically very difficult video, namely concert video. There is a lot of contrast, a lot of movement and so on, and it doesn't look good at all until you hit bitrates of 20Mb/s and above. Nows, do the math. 20Mb/s won't fit. Not even close.

Nobody is asking anyone to by any DVDs.

Actually, if Tosh is building a player to do this, that would be exactly what they would be asking. Otherwise what would be the point? Otherwise this wouldn't just be YAWN, it would be ZZZZZZZZZZZ.

I'd like to take some of these captures that I'm getting from my HD tuner card and be able to burn to disc and watch on my 37" TV. I have no intensions of buying a Bluray burner, a Bluray player and a 50" TV.

Why on earth? That's an absurd way of watching TV from stuff you have captured. Who burns stuff like that to disk anymore? If you are going to buy a device that allows you to watch captured video on your TV, why not buy a UPnP enabled device and serve the video up through TVersity. Why on earth would you want to go through the hassle of burning your video to disk to watch on your TV? I mean, is this the 1980s or what? There is a wide variety of UPnP enabled devices out there, none of them particularly expensive. These will give you the ability to not only play anything that is on your PC directly on your TV without the need to go through burning stuff to disk, but they will also, with the help of TVersity, allow you to play any online content that is shared via RSS.

[terjeber]

Oh, and for those who actually believe you can put an HD movie on a DVD-9 disk with any of the newer encoders, please get a grip will you? You can not. The quality of the image would be appalling on any screen larger than 30".

30" What? 30 inches is little less than 1 meter, 30 feet are 9 meters.

Are you on drugs? What are you rambling about? I said 30". Do you not know what that means? 30" means "thirty inches". What are you babbling about feet for? If I meant thirty feet I would have written 30'.

Have you just watched trailers or have you actually made encodings?

Both. I have encoded stuff from my own HDV camcorder, and at bitrates below 15Mb/s quality starts to suffer, below 10 it starts getting really bad, depending on content. There is a wide variety of trailers available on the net, some of them probably encoded with better encoders than us mere mortals have access to. Any of them having high motion, lots of contrast etc, show serious artifacting on any reasonably sized TV.

What is the world wide percentage of people that have a 9 meter tv

The only person talking about a 9 meter TV is you, I have talked about larger than (and since you are clearly a little slow, I am spelling it out for you) thirty inches all the time.

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=135037

This is quite an interesting thread, but it doesn't even come close to refuting what I am saying. Some people are happy with the results a 7Mb/s H.264 encode does, and others are not. I have given a concrete example of video that can not possibly be encoded at 7Mb/s and still look good, in fact it has problems looking good at 20Mb/s in the more difficult parts.

If you are happy with artifacting and banding in movies with a lot of contrast and high-motion, 7Mb/s is probably fine for you. On any TV above 30" (that means thirty inches) you will see the compression artifacts all over and banding will be a serious issue. If that doesn't bother you, good for you.

[ricardouk]

Are you on drugs? What are you rambling about? I said 30". Do you not know what that means? 30" means "thirty inches". What are you babbling about feet for? If I meant thirty feet I would have written 30'.

Well smartass if you wrote properly and knew this is a worlwide forum and there are alot of ways of measuring something i wouldnt have to speculate on what "(inches) or ' (feet) bloody means.

So 30"(inches)=1 meter, i dont know how close you watch your movies but on the very few i tried at a friends larger tv 16:9 screen i didnt se a difference, but then again i was sat far from the tv, maybe if i was sat 10"(inches) from the tv i could see some differences

The only person talking about a 9 meter TV is you, I have talked about larger than (and since you are clearly a little slow, I am spelling it out for you) thirty inches all the time.

Well smartass like i said before if you wrote what it meant before i wouldnt have to speculate, since you're alittle slow let me say this again/spell it out for you: this is a WORLDWIDE forum and not everyone uses the same "measures".

Bloody wanker

You are in breach of the forum rules and are being issued with a formal warning.
/ Moderator offline

[SatStorm]

I grab European HDTV mpeg 4 channels from satellite and burn them "as is" on DVD-Rs for archiving. The bitrate is about 8.000 - 15.000 VBR and the picture looks great. And most of them are not 1920 x 1080i. Most of them are 1440 X 1080i.

HDTV is 1080i. The horizontal resolution is not of the same importance. It's like the situation with Half D1 and full D1 on DVD-Rs.
On ~46" and less, 1440 x 1080i looks great. On HD Ready TVs it looks perfect. Of course that is not BD standard, but who talks here about BD?
The bigest problem today is that for most people HD = BD. Well, no, it is not! HD = 720p / 1080i and 1080p. Vertical lines, nobody mention the horizontal ones!
Here we hope for capable DVD player to playback HD material. Of any framesize, encoded in H264. We don't talking about BD.

terjeber, I do that (grab HD satellite channels) about a year (or more). As I said, I don't know the situation there in USA regarding those things, since I'm located in Europe. But 2 Hours of HDTV on DVD9 is possible with a 1440 x 1080i source @ 80000-15000 VBR + AC3 sound.
It is even more possible with 720p material.

[PuzZLeR]

Terjeber is indeed correct with the " symbol for inches. Not sure if they even do still use inches in Europe, but there is no ambiguity in the post about measurement.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20061123112026AAHWQY4
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inch

As for high quality with 2 hours of 1080p on a DvD-9 with H.264, this is completely subjective and very particular to the movie itself.

You only need one example to prove that a theory is wrong in mathematics, even if 99% of them apply correctly.

There are indeed some, but not all and not most, movies that will indeed look awful compressed that low. This kills the theory that DvD-9 is enough for all. You'd probably need a DvD-15 to make sure, which was probably what HD-DvD had in mind as a reasonable minimum, even with a weaker H.264 encoder.

And I'm talking about 1920x1080.

I do agree with SatStorm that HD and BD are not synonymous. However, BD is by far the most common delivery device for playback of HD, which is why most will associate and conform to its specs.

And you'll be happy to know that 1440x1080 is indeed blu-ray standard. It's the only HD rez that doesn't have square pixels in fact. To add to confusion you need a PAR of 4:3 to get an aspect ratio of 16:9 otherwise you'd end up with an aspect ratio of 4:3 with PAR 1:1 and that would not be BD standard.

[thecoalman]

This is a point, but again, there isn't anything revolutionary here. Tosh is releasing a standard up-converting DVD player. As I said - Yawn.

Well that remains to be seen but with a lot of processing power a standard DVD can certainly be "enhanced" quite a bit. If we take this image for example from the link I posted above http://actions.home.att.net/dSLR_Fractal_Sharpen.html :




Anyone that says there isn't significant improvement in the quality of that image has to be blind. It's not as if the technology doesn't exist, the big hurdle is the processing power required to do that. That appears to add detail, quite a bit I might add. I know nothing has really been added however what has been done is the soft edges have been sharpened effectively giving the appearance of more detail. As I mentioned in an earlier post I've seen some examples where they were able to extract detail from multiple fames so you have yet another layer of enhancement. Combine those two with a very effective upscaler and you will have something that appears to approach the quality of HD.

In any event it really doesn't matter what you or I the technophile consider good, the only thing that matters is what the average consumer thinks. If Toshiba markets a DVD player as capable of playing standard DVD at HD quality and can deliver that promise even partially the average consumer is going to eat it up IMO. The most important thing is they already have the media namely the billions of DVD discs in consumer hands.

[DarrellS]

I guess we're both idiots, Satstorm. Why on earth would any of us waste our time on 1980s' DVD technology?

[davidcw]

I guess we're both idiots, Satstorm. Why on earth would any of us waste our time on 1980s' DVD technology?

It will upgrade the huge quantity of existing DVD's, many of which will never be released on Blu-Ray, because of the
MANDATORY AACS costing many thousands of dollars for each individual title.

It also reduce JPG compression artifacts such as halos according to the author.

"An industry first! Possibly the most amazing thing about the dSLR Fractal Sharpen actions is that they can be used to actually REDUCE artifacts! That's right, the unique qualities of fractal algorithms are such that they are insensitive to artificial "digital" artifacts in your images, and "see through" to the actual subject material!"

davidcw

[PuzZLeR]

It is indeed true that you can turn water into wine with Fractal Compression. I think Adobe is already doing this with imaging.

"A lot of processing power" was mentioned. Let me make it even more clear. We are talking astronomical processing power here, which won't be a commonplace reality till 2011 or later. Unless of course you don't mind waiting a few months for each movie to be enhanced during the encoding process. It would be like encoding H.264 with 80s tech. Even in simple playback, I wouldn't think a consumer level DvD player would have that type of grunt. Maybe for still images, but video? I'm skeptical it will be that good today.

But if Toshiba can actually pull this off with the incumbent item, the DvD, which is an established standard in millions and millions of homes then I too would bet the masses would swallow it whole, even if it's only a watered down version of the tech for now.

But the microscopic potential behind Fractal Compression is way beyond the mere "small" canvas of even 1920x1080. I took a graduate level course called Chaos Theory, which studied fractals. Trust me, the scaling we worked with was much bigger compared to what a couple of million pixels of HD video would be.

[offline]

ricardouk & terjeber

If you must argue then take it to PM thanks.

ricardouk, please edit your post.

[rakosnicek]

In any case, Toshiba does have a point. BluRay is not selling even close to what the manufacturers had hoped for even after the demise of HD-DVD, I think primarily because of the persistenly high price of BluRay players. ..

At my local hifi store (that sells Chord and MacIntosh), I asked about Denon's BluRay players ...

They're backordered at around 10 deep and have been all year.

At the local electronics supermarket, they only have 1 BR player left on the shelves out of 4 brands. El-cheapo DVD players are plentiful.

Now even if where I live is atypical, and I'm willing to bet it is, that suggests a limitation of supply, not demand.

[terjeber]

I said 30". Do you not know what that means? 30" means "thirty inches".

Well smartass if you wrote properly and knew this is a worlwide forum

I wrote 100% properly, I know it is an international forum (I am from Norway my self) and there was nothing ambiguous about what I wrote. Double quotes as the designation for inches has been world standard for a very long time, and if you have never seen it before you must be living in a cave. There are 5 or 6 posts in this thread alone using that exact way of saying "inches".

and there are alot of ways of measuring something i wouldnt have to speculate on what "(inches) or ' (feet) bloody means.

Absolutely, and normally I measure in cm and m, but boats I measure in feet and monitors I measure in inches simply because that is what the entire world does. Generally. I am surprised you have never seen it before.

So 30"(inches)=1 meter, i dont know how close you watch your movies but on the very few i tried at a friends larger tv 16:9 screen i didnt se a difference,

Then I'd go talk to an optician.

Well smartass like i said before if you wrote what it meant before i wouldnt have to speculate,

Sorry, didn't know you had lived in a cave all your life.

since you're alittle slow let me say this again/spell it out for you: this is a WORLDWIDE forum and not everyone uses the same "measures".

That is correct, but everyone uses double quotes for inches and single quotes for feet. That has been a standard for a very long time. If you see any discussion anywhere online about TVs, and I am shocked that you never have, then you will see that everybody uses this exact same way of writing inches.

Bloody wanker

Sorry, but I didn't know you were a moron. Oh, and it seems like you are from the UK, am I wrong? If so, you are utterly retarded, this measurement was spread from the UK to the entire world and changes to this only started making a break-through in the 1970s. In the UK, much, much later. One day even the US will follow.

You are in breach of the forum rules and are being issued with a formal warning. offline told you to continue this private.
/ Moderator Baldrick

[terjeber]

terjeber, I do that (grab HD satellite channels) about a year (or more). As I said, I don't know the situation there in USA regarding those things, since I'm located in Europe. But 2 Hours of HDTV on DVD9 is possible with a 1440 x 1080i source @ 80000-15000 VBR + AC3 sound.
It is even more possible with 720p material.

2 hours of 15Mb/s VBR won't fit on a DVD-9, for one, but that's OK, for two hours you top out at about 9Mb/s. I also do realize that HD is a wide variety of resolutions from 480p throuh 720p to 1080p. If you look at most movies today they are shot at a wider aspect ratio than 16:9, meaning that even on an HD screen you get letter boxing. This means that you are losing horizontal scan lines.

Me, I want the best possible visual quality when I watch my movies. I do not want to watch them at about 500 or so scan lines if I can avoid it. That is why I have a reasonably sized TV that supports 1080p, and that is why I am unwilling to spend any money or resources on watching video in any less than 1080p if possible. I still watch a number of DVDs, and since my Blu-Ray player up-converst quite nicely, I am happy with that, but why would I want to watch HD in anything but the absolutely best possible quality?

Again, as I have said a few times, try to get hold of the Shakira concert video trailer, it is a great example on how lower bitrates are completely unable to keep up. Banding issues are all over and there is a serious amount of artifacting. I am not saying it looks bad, compared to a DVD it looks spectacular. Comparet to the original 30-35Mb/s (as low as 6 when there is little on the screen) Blu-Ray it looks like shit.

[terjeber]

This is a point, but again, there isn't anything revolutionary here. Tosh is releasing a standard up-converting DVD player. As I said - Yawn.

Well that remains to be seen but with a lot of processing power a standard DVD can certainly be "enhanced" quite a bit.

Probably my bad for not expressing my self well there. I wasn't trying to imply that up-converting DVDs is "yawn" in and of it self, the fact that Toshiba is releasing an up-converting player is "yawn". There is nothing new here. Toshiba isn't doing anything that Oppo and others haven't been doing for years now. That was my "yawn". To me this smacks of a technically incompetent journalist who doesn't understand what the Toshiba press-release meant.

Anyone that says there isn't significant improvement in the quality of that image has to be blind.

Sharpening is what the consumer wants and sharpening is what he gets. This isn't a big deal and others have been doing it for years. I like it to a degree, but some times the sharpening in up-converting players can make a movie look a lot worse. Sharpening artifacts can some times be jarring. On the other hand, sharpening is what the consumer wants. Oh, and no, nobody is adding detail, this is simply edge enhancements and the appearance of more detail.

Now one thing that an up-converting DVD player can not do is improve color. DVD has a very limited color space, you can particularly see it in reds. HD improves on this significantly, and no matter what up-conversion you do, that can not be improved upon.

Obviously, if you encode into DiVX with a better color space than DVD MPEG-2 you will get the extra color information.

It's not as if the technology doesn't exist,

That is correct, it does exist and it has existed in a wide variety of DVD players, Oppo for example, for years. Hence the "yawn". You are also right, the consumer will decide. They're not going to fall for yet another BS round by Toshiba.