Blu-ray, in General

[Ornette]

This is the latest news that I've heard of: Toshiba Announces Desktop HD DVD Recorder. This drive will only be available to the OEM market to begin with, but even if it was available today to the general market I wouldn't spend money on something like this at such an early stage -- far too slow writing speeds and too much money.

Toshiba also have a read-only model, but I couldn't find any information when it's supposed to be available or pricing.

[exte]

HD Drives? I honestly thought I was looking at one in a desktop model at Best Buy the last time I went... You're saying there aren't any on the market?

[Ornette]

Apparently that's the case, oddly enough.

[Cinesimilitude]

Staples and other places are already selling blank HD-DVDR's and Blank BD-R's, so they should be available soon, if not already.

[Ornette]

Reported from CES:

51GB triple-layer HD DVDs in the pipeline?

Just after Verbatim announces that it's shipping 30GB dual-layer HD DVD-Rs our way, here comes some more news to slightly deflate that bubble. At an HD DVD presentation held at CES, at interesting PowerPoint slide caught our eye, as it (very briefly) described plans to "expand HD DVD disc capacity from 15GB to 17GB per layer, and moreover, to add a third layer as well, eventually resulting in a 51GB HD DVD disc. Aside from upping the ante on Blu-ray's capacity by a measly 1GB (currently, at least), it's also noted that "technical feasibility" has yet to be confirmed, and that standardization wouldn't occur until Q4 of this year at the earliest, but it's a novel idea to say the least. So if you're looking to pick up an HD DVD player right this moment, and can't wait to embrace all the potential compatibility issues with a drive never made to play these newfangled, triple-layered discs, have at it -- of course, all those conflicts rely on this pipedream ever being realized.

They sure ain't making it easy for us.

Also from CES: Blu-ray and HD DVD? LG Does Both!

[The Invunche]

LG crams Blu-ray and HD DVD into one player

[Cinesimilitude]

with the lineups announced by blu-ray camp much more definitive than HD-DVD, I'm slightly worrie and considering sitting out the format war again. I haven't sunk too much in and it might be best to get out early since it looks to be evening out.

[The Invunche]

There's no doubt I'll be sitting it out. That way when it's over I can make fun of all those who got screwed.

[The Invunche]

The BD PR machine is definitely working:

Okay… now on to the news from Monday afternoon, the highlight of which was the Blu-ray Disc Association press conference. Pioneer's Andy Parsons moderated the panel, which featured the home video presidents of Fox, Lionsgate, Paramount, Sony, Warner and Disney. The group issued a promotional booklet at the event featuring the bold blue headline, "Blu-ray Victory Inevitable." Of the research the group presented, the most compelling data by far was a list of the Top 20 Selling DVDs of 2006… indicating that only 4 of the 20 would or could be released on HD-DVD, and only 1 was exclusive to HD-DVD (Universal's King Kong). But of the 20 titles, 19 of them would be available on Blu-ray and 16 of them would be exclusive to Blu-ray. The group cited research by analysis firm GFK indicating that Blu-ray had already won the high-def format war in Japan, with more than 96% dominance of the market. They also reiterated the announcement that Sony had shipped 1 million Blu-ray equipped PS3s to U.S. retailers as of 12/31 (my guess is that they were shipped RIGHT at the end of 2006, in the very last few days of December), and that their survey of 10,000 PS3 owners indicated that 80% planned to purchase Blu-ray movies (after seeing the copy of Talladega Nights included in the package) and that 75% of them planned to use the PS3 as their primary movie viewing device. At an "intend to purchase" rate of 80%, the group calculates an installed base of Blu-ray players in the U.S. of more than 800,000 in the next few weeks alone (provided the million PS3s sell through quickly, which remains to be seen). They also indicated that Blu-ray software sales surpassed HD-DVD sales in December, with a strong surge coinciding with the PS3's November launch (a 700% increase since mid-November), and that they project Blu-ray software sales to outpace HD-DVD sales by a factor of 2 or even 3 to 1 in the first half of 2007.

As a result of these numbers, Fox's Mike Dunn said that his studio believes the format war is "in its final phases." Parson's added that "We think Blu-ray will exercise its content advantage quite successfully in 2007. It's just a question of how soon it becomes apparent to everyone that Blu-ray is taking this game."

[marty]

Unless you have a dekuxe home theatre system with all the bells and whistles to take advantage of HD and Blu-Ray discs, I really don't see the point of investing in these new discs. I also cannot see how they will ever reach the range of titles available now on standard DVD. With today's Apple TV announcement, I am more convinced more than ever that the next best thing will be downloading HD movies into the Apple TV unti directly from the various studios and distributors to display on your plasma or LCD screen. HD and Blu-Ray will soon be forgotten.

[HerrSchreck]

Meanwhile I done bin watchin The Searchers on HD again (not yet if ever available on BD) and I just wish now I had a fucking 50 inch plus 1080p display. The image is like film. really.

So Dave how is the transfer versus what you considered to be horrendous color correction of the 2006 SD SEARCHERS. Assuming of course that the HD has no new corrected transfer, and that the SD disc's transfer was from hi-def telecine which they encoded at HD for the disc you're watching.

The extra details moots all the aggravation with the SD, even if the color is still biased away from the saturated Technicolor expressionism in the orig Ford presentation?

[Antoine Doinel]

Unless you have a dekuxe home theatre system with all the bells and whistles to take advantage of HD and Blu-Ray discs, I really don't see the point of investing in these new discs. I also cannot see how they will ever reach the range of titles available now on standard DVD. With today's Apple TV announcement, I am more convinced more than ever that the next best thing will be downloading HD movies into the Apple TV unti directly from the various studios and distributors to display on your plasma or LCD screen. HD and Blu-Ray will soon be forgotten.

I don't think HD or BluRay will be going away any time soon as most of the electronics manufacturers and studios have a lot of dollars invested in this new format. But I do think we are at least 18 months away from these discs even beginning to crack the sales numbers of regular DVD.

I don't have a home theater system, but it's only a matter of time until plasma displays drop dramatically in price in line with the HD or BluRay players (whichever one eventually comes out on top). That's probably when I'll decide to drop some bucks on a plasma display and a HD or BluRay set up.

And while I love the idea of Apple TV, for it to become a viable competitor for HD and BluRay it will require major cooperation from the studios and willingness on their part to keep pricing low. While the music business nearly bankrupted themselves into a position where Apple could force their hand for 99 cent songs, the film business is still lucrative enough that Warner or Sony can still have a fair say in pricing. And frankly, they will probably be happier selling HD discs at $20 rather than downloads at $12.99 - I would imagine the retail profit margin for the studios is much higher.

Furthermore, don't only half the households in the US even have internet access at all? Until a much larger portion of the country is downloading digital media, physical media is still going to be a big part of the entertainment landscape.

Also, for people in Canada and rest of the world, where rights for films and TV shows change dramatically (and where the iTunes selection in turn, changes dramatically) HD and BluRay will still do phenomenal business. AppleTV will be great for American consumers but the rest of the world is still going to be a big marketplace.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

I'd have to agree with David. My broadband connection is capable of downloading only about 13Gb in 24 hours, so getting a full HD transfer would not be worth the time (not to mention the impact on my download quota). It will be decades before sufficient bandwidth is available in Oz to support this sort of download, unless some miracle occurs and Telstra get their act into gear.

I have both the SD and HD versions of The Searchers. Projected to 86" and with the SD version upscaled to 1080i - same rez as the HD version - the difference is easily noticeable. It's best seen in the backgrounds. In the early indoor homestead scenes the background is noisy, fuzzy and lacking in detail in SD, but crisp and clean in HD. All due to the compression, or lack thereof.

[exte]

Schreck I watched the Searchers thru last nite (in between gins and half eaten dinner) and I have to say they have done a fantastic job on it. A couple of the interiors still have a slightly jaundiced look, but the movie's PQ is overwhelmingly convincing, and very beautiful to look at. There is still depth and balance to skies, sand and fleshtones and indeed the whole viewing experience is quite different to watching the SD. It looks MUCH better.

David, how is the grain? I have to ask because I was really turned off by a recent King Kong demo... I read somewhere that they've artificially added grain to some releases. Now, I'm all for grain and the look of film vs. hd, but I hate seeing heaps of it digitized. The picture looks horrible. I truly wonder how the prequels will look like on hd...

[exte]

Very informative reply, David. Thank you, I'm searching imdb for other vistavision titles. BTW, has anyone compared the HD transfers of HD? From what I gather, there's the windows media version on the UE DVD, and the Blu Ray version. Thanks...

[Cinesimilitude]

Very informative reply, David. Thank you, I'm searching imdb for other vistavision titles. BTW, has anyone compared the HD transfers of HD? From what I gather, there's the windows media version on the UE DVD, and the Blu Ray version. Thanks...

you mean the difference between a movie on blu-ray and HD-DVD? as far as I've read and seen, HD-DVD looks much smoother, less digitized, and overall better than blu-ray, in every comparison so far.

[Cinesimilitude]

BTW, Here's something you might be interested in seeing...

I took these shots on my 43" Samsung DLP using the 360 HD Player, and the color setting on my TV is normal, with slightly upped color and contrast, which I believe is amplified in these shots a bit. I took them at about 3800 x 2500 pixels, but exported the shots to 1080 height, since it's still massive and the HD can't really look better than that.

Here's the title card.

Zoomed in.

Zoomed even more.

Here's a terrible shot...

But more importantly the same shot zoomed to 8x.

Here's Monument Valley with the new color correction.

Here's Another shot with the new color correction, and showing that my color tone is normal.

Here's the same shot, showing that my color tone is cool. This removes the yellow from the sky, but I'm guesing that something that simple is worse with how yellow it makes the ground look. The blue saturation on the mountains is not visible as it is in this picture.

[exte]

No, I meant the extreme edition of T2 on regular DVD. It includes a Windows Media 9 HD version of T2. Has anyone compared that with the newer edition(s)?

[davebert]

Its a shame to hear about the faux grain being a negative because that was honestly one of the things about these new formats that really intrigued me--the possibility of a more natural look to older films that certain restoration processes seem to erase. It's one of the final frontiers in terms of home viewing matching the revivals at the local arthouse theater.

I'll also be sitting this one out until the dust settles, which is too bad, because HD companies would probably love my spending habits.

[Cinesimilitude]

I haven't done anything to my tv in terms of calibration, I just adjust it on a film to film basis to what I like to watch. Hell, sometimes I watch a color film in B+W. I did that with saving private ryan just a few weeks ago. It's actually really cool to watch that way for some color films. I think the strong red and blue is slightly more vivid through my camera, as all I did was point at the screen and click, so it's not a direct representation of the color, although Wayne's shirt is certainly red on my display. And the ghosty edging in all the shots is from my camera, when zoomed into 8x there are no edges on the image when i actually view them, my camera just receives light a little slow when I'm shooting in the dark Like I was, so the sutter is open a little longer and since I wasn't using a tripod It gives the ghostly effect. If you wanted to take some pictures and email them to me (sdm@beyondneat.com) I could definitely resize them and get them up on imageshack for you.

[davebert]

Snc, don't you use the Xbox HD-DVD drive though? Is that even HDMI (until Xbox 360 .201, at least)? I'm just trying to understand what the various sides are dealing with--and the 360 add-on is the drive I'd likely get as a next-gen stop-gap before going for a full $1000 player.

[Cinesimilitude]

It shouldnt be a problem. If you have a tripod that will yield great results, or if you can just have the camera sitting somewhere solid. also, if you go into the menu and set the quality to medium, on a 6mp the medium size should have a greater height than 1080. As long as you can attach the files, I'll be able to receive them.

Yes Dave, The 360 hd goes through USB 2.0 to the 360, and the cables I'm using are the HD component cables that came in the box. I'm also running it at 1080i, my tv doesnt support the p. The weird thing is, My friends tv which supports 720p upscales his SD dvds, where as my tv, which only supports 480p and 1080i (oddly enough) doesnt upscale at all. Regardless, the HD-DVD add on player is totally worth the 200$ for now, but I'm more worried post CES then I was before about the state of the format war.

[davebert]

Well the other thing about the BR PR machine Invunche mentioned up towards the top of this page is that sales numbers and BR exclusives is that having the top-sellers on Blu-Ray may be a financial win for the format but doesn't do much for actually converting me. Here's why: although so many out of the Top 20 may be BR exclusives, how many of us honestly want to own anything in the Top 20? Are you dying for your Talledega Nights, Devil Wears Prada, etc. etc.? I am personally much more interested in who the classic and niche companies support. And naturally this may come down to where the installed bases are, economic feasibility of releases etc., but for now it seems to be somewhat arbitrary (or favoring HD-DVD, at that).

[Cinesimilitude]

Oh yay, no we get to pay a "little" more and get the fucking ugliest logo and packaging I've ever seen in my life? Can't we all just get along

[Cinesimilitude]

I know, It's just that I could design a better logo with my hands in my pants, is all...