hoyalawya

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» COLUMBIA GOES HI-DEF


The road to high definition just got its first day-tripper: Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment has pledged to release all of its home video product in the Blu-ray format by the end of 2005. Speaking at a "Digital Hollywood" reception Monday night, CTHE president Ben Feingold praised the merits of the next-generation high-definition format. "Consumers are demanding high definition," he said. "We see Blu-ray as a revenue engine for Hollywood." In emphasizing his commitment to Blu-ray, Feingold said Columbia would release all home video product in the Blu-ray format by the end of 2005.



Blu-ray DVD - supported by a consortium of manufacturers including Sony, Matsushita (Panasonic), LG, Philips, Samsung, JVC, Pioneer, Sharp, Hitachi and Thompson Multimedia - uses a blue laser to read next-generation optical discs. Whereas current DVD technology uses red lasers, blue lasers have a shorter wavelength (405 nanometer) than red lasers (650 nanometer). This allows for a thinner light beam which can read and write smaller bits of information on a disc. Current DVD discs hold 4.7 gigabytes on single-layer discs and 8.5 gigabytes on dual-layer discs; Blu-ray discs can hold 25 gigabytes of data or high definition video on a single-layer disc and 50 gigabytes on a dual-layer disc. Current Blu-ray specs call for discs to come housed in a cartridge, but manufacturers are looking into hard-coating the discs to protect them from dust and fingerprints without requiring a cartridge.



The rival format developed by Toshiba and NEC, with backing from the DVD Forum, is HD-DVD which uses both red and blue rays to read current and next-generation discs. A dual-layer HD-DVD disc can hold 30GB of data, but can use compression to squeeze more video hours of onto a disc. You can learn more about the Blu-ray format at its official site.

fryinpan1

from http://www.thedigitalbits.com/#mytwocents

MY TWO CENTS - 3/31/04 - by Digital Bits editor Bill Hunt

Well... this should come as no surprise to any of you, but Columbia TriStar has officially announced that it plans to support the Blu-ray Disc high-definition format with movie titles. The studio will begin launching all its new titles on Blu-ray Disc (which was co-developed by parent corp Sony) starting in 2006. In addition to this announcement, many of the major Hollywood studios are working behind-the-scenes with the Blu-ray Group on the final details of the format spec, as pertains to prepackaged films and other copyrighted material. Because of this, look for Blu-ray Disc's official launch to happen no sooner than the end of 2005, and probably early 2006. So where does this leave HD-DVD? Well... it looks like we're definitely going to have a format war, but I'll tell you, Blu-ray Disc definitely seems to have the upper hand at the moment. Frankly, I'm not so sure that isn't a bad thing. Blu-ray technology represents a somewhat more advanced approach to presenting high-definition video on disc than HD-DVD, and players for both formats are virtually guaranteed to be able to retroactively play all your existing DVD discs. One thing's for sure - the race is definitely going to heat up as we move through 2004. It'll be interesting to see where it all ends up. You can be sure The Bits will be there to cover it all.

hoyalawya

I am definitely holding off buying any new Superbit titles. Bring on the format war, I don't care. I just want prerecorded HD movies in anything other than the current quickly degradable D-VHS tape and I want it now.

Gore_Hound_X

Hopefully this doesn't effect all of these $40 3-Disc special editions. I love those

Corky Roxbury

this great because there have been reports that PS3 will be using 50 gb blu-ray discs for their next gen games as well, now we have to see what MS has up its sleeve

Cocopugg

I love blu-ray technology simply because it can store more on disc than a regular DVD disc can. However, I'll pass on ever buying a blu-ray DVD player. I love old TV shows and movies, not really into anything new. Watching an old TV show or movie on HD-DVD will make the picture look pretty bad. We see enough clarity on regular DVD to notice scratches, edits and dirt on old film. Imagine how noticeable it'll be on HD? No thanks, I'll stick to regular DVDs. I'll leave HD to the younger generation who want to collect the newer widescreen movies with more clarity than the old stuff.

CP

spainlinx0

Well you should still be able to buy your shows on the old DVD format if you want, so I don't see the issue there.

Pelayu

Well, things are getting started apparently. Way to go, Columbia/Tristar! Blu-ray is our future!

ignition

As long as it plays my normal DVDs, whatever.

ENDContra

I dunno, Charlie's Angels and Hogan's Heroes look fantastic on HDNet.

jough

A lot of TV shows are shot on film and can look amazingly good in HD.

Anyway, this comes as no surprise, since CTS's parent company is Sony, which is the daddy of Blu-Ray.

vivarey

Keep in mind this is approximately the same time frame for HD-DVD as well. This announcement is more for marketing/propaganda than anything else. Sony and partners are trying to get their foot in the door of the big studios, and Sony is using its weight in the industry to raise a few eyebrows and get the ball rolling (presumably in their favor, since HD-DVD is still finalizing their specs).

Digital bits has always been bias towards Blu-ray. It seems like someone over there lacks a solid understanding of HD-DVD technology (e.g. read their CES 2004 Review). That comment about Blu-ray representing a more "advanced approach" doesn't even make sense to me. It was expected that Sony would pull out the guns in favor of their format, so this news isn't a surprise (Sony owns Columbia/TriStar).

The real question is, will the other studios give in to Sony and Blu-ray, even though Blu-ray will require costly upgrades in their DVD production facilities?

In a format war, is the first onto the battlefield always the winner? One thing is for sure: if they want to compete against Blu-ray, the DVD Forum really has to speed things up!

jough

The first is not always the winner, nor is the best always the winner. The best marketing and the best titles will decide which side wins.

Anyway, vivarey, you have posted many many times in favour of HD-DVD over Blu-Ray, so you're obviously biased as well.

How can you berate the Digital Bits about something that you do yourself?

vivarey

I'll admit that I'm biased. But, I don't write an influential column read by thousands of people around the world. At least I understand the fundamental differences between the 2 formats, unlike Bill Hunt, who writes like he has a financial stake in Blu-ray. I know it's an editorial column, but to make blanket statements about Blu-rays superiority, without ANY factual statements to back it up... is just plain wrong. If you are an insider in the industry, start acting like it and get your facts straight. That's just my 2 cents. As you know jough, I'm always happy to debate HD-DVD over Blu-ray. You are at least willing to hear me out and respond to me. I've emailed Bill Hunt in the past about his erroneous statements regarding HD-DVD, and I've never heard back from him. It's sad when a supposed "expert" on DVD technology is spreading false information. But I'm sure he'll make plenty of money selling books about it. Hey, to each his own.

vivarey

I made some strong claims, so I wanted to back them up with some evidence. Here are some Bill Hunt quotes:
When you read that, you immediately get the impression that (1) Blu-ray will be able to hold more content than HD-DVD and (2) HD-DVD video will look inferior to Blu-ray because of higher compression. Wrong! HD-DVD utilizes high efficiency codecs (WM9, MPEG4) that can achieve superior picture quality to Blu-ray (MPEG2) at LOWER bitrates! Like I've said before, comparing the disc capacity of Blu-ray to HD-DVD is like comparing apples to oranges. They utilize different codecs! Blu-ray uses the same ineffiecient codec as our current red-laser DVDs. No wonder they need so much room on their discs. Forget disc capacity! When picture quality is constant, a HD-DVD disc can hold more audio and video than a Blu-ray disc!Wow, you don't have anything at stake here, do you? Keep in mind the Blu-ray camp went out of their way to talk with Bill and show him around. It sounds almost as if he was insulted that he didn't receive the same treatment from Toshiba. Is that reason enough to present an unfair, anecdotal analysis of the ENTIRE format? Because they didn't WOW him with fancy and expensive displays?

Dammit

Well I'm glad the race is heating up. At least that will help speed things along. I won't be buying either until both have been out for a little bit and the real facts regarding both platforms are well established. Until then I hold anything coming out of either camp suspect to a degree.

The PS3 could really end up being Sony's Ace in the hole though. That's like an electronic Trojan Horse.

Tarantino

Now where's my Beta player...

gcribbs

I think Blu-Ray will win by default.

You have almost all the major manufacturers of Dvd players in that camp against Toshiba. Nec is not currently a major Dvd Player manufacturer other than in the computer market.

The studios are going to see this also.

ProfessorEcho

Most Columbia-Tri Star DVDs available now are over priced and have no extras on them. Does anyone think their commitment to this new technology is going to change that? In addition, their roster of titles is hardly stellar. All we need now is for Paramount and Disney to jump all over this and we'll really be in trouble if those three studios begin setting the standard for a new format. I would be more enthusiastic if Warner Brothers was making this announcement.

cruzness

Personally I'll wait for the dust to settle before I invest my hard earned dollars into Blu-Ray or HD-DVD.

Flave

vivarey -- you claim that Bill Hunt is wrong but nothing you say proves the point. Blu-Ray IS higher capacity than HD-DVD, fact. Blu-Ray DOES use lower compression than HD-DVD, fact. So where is Bill wrong?

The crux of your argument seems to be your claim that MP4 (at higher compression rates) is superior to MP2. Well, that's a very subjective evaluation. In fact, my own preliminary evaluation leads me to conclude the exact opposite. Give me a low-compression MP2 over MP4 or WM9 any day.

And we haven't even touched on computer use of this technology. As a data storage medium, do you also claim that a 30 gig HD-DVD disk is going to be superior to a 50 gig Blu-Ray disk?

As another poster stated, I think you're accusing Bill Hunt of your own sin -- a blind bias to one technology.

Coral

Warner will obviously be supporting HD-DVD, and there's talk of Disney going over also.

Warner itself has some huge franchise sellers, namely LOTR, Matrix and Harry Potter Trilogies.
Disney has the Pixar titles.

People will follow whatever their favorite films are released on.

HD-DVD has the upper hand in big selling titles.

jough

This thread grew quickly.

Okay, vivarey, I concede your point that Bill Hunt is obviously biased towards Blu-Ray and basing his opinion mostly on what Blu-Ray reps told him at a consumer electronics show.

But keep in mind that at that same show, Blu-Ray was demoing actual content that people could view on an HD-TV screen, while the HD-DVD booth Toshiba put up was a plastic mock-up of what they imagine an HD-DVD player might eventually look like. They didn't have a demo, they didn't have a working model, and quite frankly, it was just a little tiny part of the Toshiba booth and didn't really promote the HD-DVD brand in the least. I saw it because I was looking for it, but it was hard to find even for those seeking it out.

There is nothing better about MP4 or WMV than MPEG-2 as far as quality goes inherently - yes, they're more efficient codecs, but that doesn't equal better video quality. It means that the same video quality will take up less disc space.

Ultimately the less compression you use the better the image would be. NONE of the HD compression codecs are lossless. They're all lossy in different ways.

I've seen some MP4 demos on high-end equipment and they've been impressive - but no more so than high bitrate MPEG-2. The real difference is that MPEG-2 encoders are in their tenth generation or so, whereas the MP4 and WMV decoders will be first or second gen by the time HD-DVD is released.

I imagine Blu-Ray discs will be superiour to HD-DVD discs out of the gate - but I'm willing to buy and promote/evangelise EITHER ONE - I have absolutely no stock or claim to either format. I want what's best for me as a home theatre enthusiast.

As far as titles go, so far only WB has publically stated that they'd support HD-DVD - and only two hardware manufacturers have promised hardware support for the format, whereas Blu-Ray has the support of ten different hardware manufacturers.

If Sony can get a few other major studios in line with Blu-Ray, it will win if they are first to market (and they have a bit of a head-start, so that's likely) - especially if by the end of next year we're all using Blu-Ray discs in our computers for backups.

So far Blu-Ray looks more impressive to me - it would be more so if it supported some of the newer codecs - but I have yet to see anything to give HD-DVD an edge over Blu-Ray. We just have yet to see whether that's lamentable or not.

It's exciting either way - one of these formats will win out and we'll be watching movies in a much higher-def format, with all of the advantages of disc-based media, on a player that also plays our current DVDs.

There's really no downside either way.

DVDho78DTS

hmurchison

Well if quality can be normalized for both codecs and what's left over is a two vastly different sizes of data then I would have to say the superior codec would be the smaller of the two.

No not necessarily. AAC is superiour to MP3 at lower bitrates. I think we all want to be able to state that codec size= quality but as compression methodologies get better we simply can't. MPEG2 is a known quantity. 3rd party developers know it well but compression experts aren't really enthused by it's efficiency. Advanced Video Coding(AVC) is seen as the more modern codec of course but it's just not battle tested like MPEG2.

I guess we should ask ourselves should we move forward hobbled by an inefficient codec(MP2) and over-engineer our products(Blu-Ray) or should we look towards a fairly untested codec(AVC) running on smaller, easier to produce, discks(HD-DVD)

Yes BR is superior in size but Sony is adamant about using MPEG2 only which to me negates any size advantage they have. Couple that with increase production costs and I think they have basically stunted the potential of BR and will lose the battle.

I'm looking forward to being able to purchase ANY HD content right now but it's a little sad to see yet another format battle with Sony embroiled in the middle.