I have to admit I'm a bit clueless on all the specs and basic design of these new discs but I was just curious how much can these new discs hold? In terms of television series, can more episodes fit onto a single disc than the current incarnations of non-HiDef DVD's.

I believe they start at 50 gb.

No it's 30GB for HD DVD dual and 50 GB for Blu Ray Dual.

so essentially all films on HiDef DVD will not have a layer change (?)

From what I've been able to gather:

Blu-Ray capacity (pre-recorded playback storage):
Single layer: 23.3GB, 25GB, or 27GB
Dual layer: 46.6GB, 50GB or 54GB.

In addition, since the layers are thinner than HD-DVD, in theory more layers can be added to reach capacities of: 100GB-200GB (25GB per layer).

HD-DVD capacity (pre-recorded playback storage):
Single layer: 15GB
Dual layer: 30GB

The other question as to how much you can fit on a disc depends. If the TV show is stored at high-def I don't think it will reduce the number of discs much, but from the Blu-Ray website:

Also check out this web site: Blu-Ray and HD-DVD

Blu-Ray and HD-DVD use different compression types though. So a 2 hour movie will take around 18gb on BluRay and 9GB on HD-DVD.

The 50GB BluRay disks wont be available for a while so they'll top out at 25gb. I'm not sure if HD-DVD will launch with 30gb disks.

So even though HD-DVD's are smaller, they have the potential to hold more HD video.
D

And they can use different compression levels on them, just like DVD. So those numbers can vary.

Expect a layer change, just like DVDs now.

What? Blu-Ray and HD-DVD both support VC-1, MPEG-4, and MPEG-2.

Yeah I was curious as well, how long is the program content, approximately? Same as DVD or longer? That is, will LOTR: EE and others be split over two discs again?

Correct me if I'm wrong here... but...

The numbers won't change since that is the actual physical capacity that the disc is capable of holding.

What you're saying is that compression effectively doubles/triples/etc. the amount of video stored, right? So, it still would be MUCH better to have a higher capacity disc so that you can put uncompressed (or "less" compressed) audio/video, right? Compression causes loss of PQ, also.

I think that's what BR is doing with The Fifth Element -- they're able to put uncompressed audio on it because the disc capacity is so much bigger than HD-DVD.

Also Black Hawk Down and The Bridge on the River Kwai will be available on 50 GB, dual-layer Blu-ray Discs Summer 2006.

The compression levels can vary, that's the numbers I meant. They could use different forms of compression at different bitrates. DVDs are also compressed and have varying bitrates. A 50GB disc should have plenty of space for most movies to have great video, great sound and extras. That is quite a bit of space.

I think if they use MPEG-4 or VC-1 compression, a Blu-Ray disc could easily get around 4-5 hours on a single dual-layer disc for 1080p video plus Dolby Digital DX/DTS-ES soundtrack.

Unfortunately, initial Blu-Ray titles will only use MPEG2 compression.

I remember reading on AVS that that applied to (at least some of) Sony's releases, but has it been confirmed that the same holds true for everyone releasing on BD?

Yes, its' confirmed. Sony basically told all of the content manufacturers that they have to use Mpeg2 for the forseeable future. Since Sony owns the patents to Mpeg2, it's not a huge surprise.

Seems like they're shooting themselves in the foot but if things get too dicey, they can always switch to Mpeg4.

D

A quote from Stacy Spears, one of the muckity-mucks at Microsoft and someone who ought to be in a position to know:

Can you link me to an article indicating otherwise? I can find plenty of references to Sony sticking with MPEG-2 and references from analysts who suggest Fox and Disney might use MPEG-2 out of comfort, but nothing indicating that there's a mandate from Sony that everyone must use MPEG-2.

Here's the Article http://www.videobusiness.com/article...text=sony+mpeg .

D

That only says Sony will use MPEG-2. The other studios can use that codec, or VC-1 or H.264 as they see fit. Indeed, Warners had said they intended to use VC-1.

Here is the Blu-ray video spec as of March 2005:

Quite curious why Sony is using MPEG 2 off the start, but I have a feeling they will continue to do so until MS stops backing Hd-dvd. They do seem convinced it is the right codec to work with right now anyway.

If I was to guess I'd say Disney will use VC1, as they seem to care about storage space more than anyone for extra features. From various articles I have read Disney execs seems convinced that they will have a hard time selling a lot of their children friendly titles over again without loads of games and bonus features.

Who knows what Fox will do. Very dissapointed in their release list so far. Many of their release titles are the same ones that they released to d-vhs, so I'd guess mpeg-2 for those and VC-1 for the newer stuff. I just want I, Robot as it is still the best HD video I have seen to date.

Everyone else will probably use VC-1.

If I had to speculate, I would expect everyone on both platforms to standardize on h.264 (aka MPEG-4 AVC) within the next 2 years. It's at least twice as sophisticated as VC-1, and an order of magnitude better than MPEG-2. I've been encoding content in h.264 for about half a year now, and it just blows everything else away.

From an interview with Sony's Kiyoshi Nishitani: