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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

HD-DVD and Blu-Ray Discussion

In a format war, nobody wins. I guess Apple are as cautious about being burned as anyone else? Or just taking their fair old time about it?
 
Anyone know whatever happened to Holographic Versatile Disc?

I thought it was supposed to be around by now..

I want by 300GB discs!
 
Greg Voevodsky said:
I may be using Adobe for Blu-Ray if Apple does not hurry up. I hate the fact that they are supporting hd-dvd - the enemy. <snip> Pick a side... Blu-Ray is the better format...
Click to expand...

To continue with this thread-jacking... As somebody who is in the trenches of authoring on both HD and BD for Hollywood titles. I can confidently say that as far as interactive features and capabilities, HD-DVD's and Microsoft's HDi is vastly easier to work with and more capable than BD's interactive layers (This coming from somebody who's license plate reads "MACNTOSH"). More colors, full support for Picture-in-picture, internet and much more. WB's 300 is a perfect example. And even if they eventually re-release a BDJ version, it still won't match the HD version. So I consider Sony and BD to be "the enemy".

But I agree, the format war needs to end. Unfortunately, I personally think it will not, instead players that play both will become the norm, and content will continue to ship in both formats for the foreseeable future. Much like the DVD-R, DVD+R format war.
 
Not siding with either right now, but don't forget that Blu-Ray discs REQUIRE AACS and Region Code, neither of which HD-DVD requires (in fact all HD-DVDs are Region Free by design, thank goodness).

Why is this important? Well, for getting your own title mastered to Blu-Ray, you are looking at roughly US$10,000 in AACS mastering and checking for the glass masters, costs you don't have when mastering to HD-DVD. Info from AVSForum.

HTH

Paul
 
As long as we're threadjacking, now HD-DVD and BluRay have a new competitor: HD VMD.

Read about it here:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,136977-c,hometheatersystems/article.html

Players are $150, the discs hold up to 30GB per side, 40mbps rate VC1 or MPEG-2 1080p, and uses the standard DVD red laser instead of the new blue laser (much cheaper). The only thing that sucks is the lack of uncompressed audio.
 
pixelchef said:
DVD Studio Pro supports HD-DVD authoring.
Click to expand...

As far as I know, Apple just supports burning HD material to a regular DVD disc (which can be played on an HD-DVD player, but is not an HD-DVD disc). Adobe Encore does support burning Blu-ray discs on a Mac already, however - even with the footage you've cut in FCP.
 
Häakon said:
As far as I know, Apple just supports burning HD material to a regular DVD disc (which can be played on an HD-DVD player, but is not an HD-DVD disc). Adobe Encore does support burning Blu-ray discs on a Mac already, however - even with the footage you've cut in FCP.
Click to expand...

No, you can author HD DVD's with dvdstudiopro 4
and you can select 'red laser' or 'blue laser'(does this mean blu-ray?)

http://www.apple.com/finalcutstudio/dvdstudiopro/specs.html
 
Are there HD-DVD burners readily available? I know there is a decent selection of Blu-ray options out there.
 
unfiltered said:
HD DVD technically is a blue laser format. There is no Blu-ray support with DVD SP.
Click to expand...

Yet :-)

Don't forget that Apple is on the Blu-ray consortium. My guess is that DVD SP in particular will offer Blu-ray support after Apple starts selling Blu-ray drives.
 
Greg Voevodsky said:
I love Amazon but they are fueling the @#$#@ war by supporting both sides like Switzweland in WW2 and like Warner Brothers - shame of you!! The faster the war ends, with Blu Ray winnning the better for everyone...
Click to expand...

My view is that the swiss governement was entierly for the Nazi, but try to hide it. The people was not, but then Vichy governments was also for the Nazi, and if you want know English gov let Hilter build a big army thinking he will first strike the Soviet union, despite the fact Staline was trying to make allience with french and english, it ended with the "devil pact". But we could also speak about american history, for exemple how they wiped out native people...
But frankly I don't know what it has to do with DVD or motion pictures.

antoine.
 
Häakon said:
Yet :-)

Don't forget that Apple is on the Blu-ray consortium. My guess is that DVD SP in particular will offer Blu-ray support after Apple starts selling Blu-ray drives.
Click to expand...

I never forgot where Apple stands in this ridiculous format war. They're not doing much for the Blu-ray format by being on the board and not supporting it with their products. I was just pointing out the other poster's "question" about the blue laser option when creating an HD disc. :)
 
Apple doesn't stand anywhere in the format war. They are indeed members of the Blu-Ray consortium, but they are also members of Toshiba's HD-DVD support group as well. They currently support the creation of HD-DVD within DVDSP.

I think DVDSP 5, when released, will have full authoring support for HD-DVD and Blu-Ray. I also think that Apple is waiting on including new optical drives until they can offer ones that support both formats for reading and writing. Currently LG and Samsung both have drives that can read and write Blu-Ray as well as read HD-DVD. LG has announced their next super-multi drive, which will read and write both formats, will be available by the end of the year. So it's coming...
 
From everything I've read, and DVDFile.com agrees, Blu-Ray is the superior format, much better imaging, much better capacity, but costs more money right now for players. I have always thought HD DVD was incredibly lame, but that's just me. I'm all for Blu-Ray winning that war.
 
Jeff Kilgroe said:
Apple doesn't stand anywhere in the format war. They are indeed members of the Blu-Ray consortium, but they are also members of Toshiba's HD-DVD support group as well. They currently support the creation of HD-DVD within DVDSP.

I think DVDSP 5, when released, will have full authoring support for HD-DVD and Blu-Ray. I also think that Apple is waiting on including new optical drives until they can offer ones that support both formats for reading and writing. Currently LG and Samsung both have drives that can read and write Blu-Ray as well as read HD-DVD. LG has announced their next super-multi drive, which will read and write both formats, will be available by the end of the year. So it's coming...
Click to expand...

Again, Jeff, I wasn't arguing that Apple wasn't playing the field. I wanted to point out that Apple may have one foot planted in each sandbox, but they haven't done anything, via their products, to support Blu-ray, as they have with HD DVD.

I agree all the way around regarding Apple's decisions around the hardware aspects. But I don't feel that those combo burners are going to be as robust as having separate burners for each format.
 
unfiltered said:
I agree all the way around regarding Apple's decisions around the hardware aspects. But I don't feel that those combo burners are going to be as robust as having separate burners for each format.
Click to expand...

I think the combo burners will be just fine. The differences between the two disc formats (HD-DVD and Blu-Ray) are very minimal. Same laser diode, they just require a lens / optics control system with a wider range of adjustment and the necessary software / firmware to control for either disc format.

I suppose time will tell and I'm sure we'll see a lot of quality issues with the first generations of dual-format burners, just as we've seen a handful of issues with the first models of Blu-Ray burners. HD-DVD burners are almost non-existent on the market due to technical difficulties with both media and burners.... IMO, this is the factor that could lead to the demise of HD-DVD, if it doesn't get solved by year's end.
 
JonathanLB said:
From everything I've read, and DVDFile.com agrees, Blu-Ray is the superior format, much better imaging, much better capacity, but costs more money right now for players. I have always thought HD DVD was incredibly lame, but that's just me. I'm all for Blu-Ray winning that war.
Click to expand...

Both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray support the same video codecs with nearly identical bit-rates for video playback, so image quality is typically the same between the two. Assuming studios do a good job of authoring a disc. It's true that Blu-Ray has higher capacity, but even the 30GB of HD-DVD is more than plenty for a very high bit-rate transfer of a 3 hour feature plus a good selection of extras.

Blu-Ray does however support a few more audio options and they have superior capabilities with their java-based menu system vs. HD-DVD's XML scripted HDi system.

As much as I dislike Sony's marketing tactics and this whole lame format "war". I would prefer Blu-Ray be the winning format. Simply because it's superior from a data-centric point of view. It has more room for future expansion of the standard (theoretically up to 12 layers on a single disc, 4 per side was demoed in a lab earlier this year). Blu-Ray also has superior dynamic copy protection and dynamic production process abilities where individual discs can be serialized or altered. We're far more likely to see a more widespread use of "managed copy" practices and legal (and consumer friendly) use of Blu-Ray with home media servers than we are with HD-DVD.

In the end, Hollywood is still divided pretty evenly and HD-DVD gained some momentum with the recent Paramount and Dreamworks announcements. I truly think that when this war is over, it will be due to universal players and not one format defeating another. I think in a few more years after players are all universal anyway, Blu-Ray will eventually phase-out HD-DVD. I could be wrong, but I think this is what's going to happen... There's already two universal players on the market with three more due within the next two months -- two of them are second gen units to replace the ones on shelves now.
 
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