Multi-format DVDs (Blu Ray, HD DVD, SD DVD)
 

http://www.newscientisttech.com/article.ns?id=dn10102

Interesting! And since a lot of articles these days talk about consumers' "we could care less" attitude towards the hi def DVD format wars, this may be the answer!

heath

Its success will depend on its cost, as with most consumer technologies.

Next year we'll have downloadable movies in HD resolution. Myself personally I can't see the need for any hd disc format. I and many like myself I'm sure are ready to be done with discs, having movies on a home server is just too convenient, when it's done right that is.

I'm also interested in Pioneer's plans in making a "variable/adjustable" blue laser HD-DVD/Blu-Ray combination drive.

http://www.i4u.com/article6445.html

That might be another solution.

Wes, thats what I have been saying for a while now. I need NO new optical media!!! How often does not ever watch a movie twice? I just want to be able to download any movie I want, for lets say 3 bucks for one showing. Then its gone. I have already encoded my entire 100 hours of home movies and put them on a video server. The only weak link now is still the client side.

Dave

While I certainly like the idea of downloading HD I thnk that at the current 20+ gig per movie we are not there yet, If this did start to catch on you can be sure the ips would start adding charges for extra dowloads, If say you watched 3 movies per week, you are looking at 250+ gig per month.

I think that was a lot of the reason Apple went with a lower res from dvd version, they are getting the movies in at under 10 percent of the HD size

Sharyn

Many will still want some removable storage
 

As a "content creator", like most on this board, I will always want some kind of removable, long lived media for my projects. As a former IT manager, I have little confidence in the long term operability of anyone's hard disc or other type of server. If the device doesn't fail on its own, the business model behind its support may. Any tape or disc will outlast any server!

As for Warner's patent on a combo disc, getting a patent is vastly different from getting the licensing rights to produce them commercially - the Blu-Ray group would have to agree.

You know except for the small storage space I still like the idea of HD on DVD disks. They are very cheap and you can fit a lot of VC1 or AVCHD content on a dual layer disk. For short projects you can still fit almost an hour of HDV on a dual layer DVD which isn't that bad considering most people were limiting DVD's to 60 minutes when they wanted the highest quality.

I really wish all new normal DVD players would add HD decoding. I think most consumers would be happy about having a 30 minute HD version on a DVD that they could create for not a whole lot of money.

The great thing about HD-DVD on a normal DVD disk is that it will playback in a HD-DVD player. So when clients get the new players they will still be able to enjoy what disks they already have.

[QUOTE=Don Blish]As a "content creator", like most on this board, I will always want some kind of removable, long lived media for my projects. As a former IT manager, I have little confidence in the long term operability of anyone's hard disc or other type of server. If the device doesn't fail on its own, the business model behind its support may. Any tape or disc will outlast any server!

I agree ... plus with DVDs you get menus, chapters, etc. which make navigation easy ... I suppose that's possible with movie downloads but I'm not sure if that's been done yet.

With Mpeg2 DVD, yep you get menus. But so far, there has been no authoring s/w that allows HDV material to have menus that play on any set top DVD player I have found.

Now, once the authoring tools come out for HD-DVD and blue ray, and these players ship that seem to work correctly, then I guess it may be possible to author these discs, with menus, and burn onto a DVD for cheaper costs.

Now, PremierePro2 does not output HD-DVD or Blue ray discs. Guess these things are just being released, or will be.

So, if I can author my HD material to media that is priced fairly, and players can be got at a fair price, and they have menus, sign me up!

Dave

This combo format is very unlikely to ever come to market. Such a disc would have to be licensed and approved by both consortiums... HD DVD and Blu-Ray Disc. Since both consortiums couldn't agree to pool their patents, split the license fees and create a common format, it is unlikely that they would agree to allow a hybrid disc which meets the specs of both formats.

The patent could be invalidated in any number of ways. The idea is fairly obvious, and it is quite possible that someone thought of it before these Warner Brothers engineers. There is nothing revolutionary about the idea. Dual-layer DVDs work on the same principle - a partially reflective layer 0 (closest to the read laser), and a fully reflective layer 1 underneath. Dual-layer HD DVDs and dual-layer Blu-Ray discs work on the same principle. This idea is just to blend the formats. So, I wouldn't put too much stock in the patent at this point.

Each disc could only hold the content of a single-layer HD DVD (15 GB) and a single layer Blu-Ray Disc (25 GB). Blu-Ray discs are easier to manufacture as single-layer than dual-layer. But HD DVDs are nearly as easy to manufacture as 30 GB dual-layer HD DVDs as they are in single-layer format. So if you are authoring a major movie title as an HD DVD you would normally want a bit budget of 30 GB. This combo format would severely compromise the capacity of the HD DVD layer.

But worst of all is the idea that the disc manufacturer would have to pay license fees to both consortiums for one disc. So each disc would have twice the license fees. This is more expensive than producing discs in both formats.

Lastly, if you wanted to make a combo DVD/HD DVD/Blu-Ray disc, you would have to mold one substrate with information on both sides. This is highly unusual... CDs, DVDs, HD DVD and Blu-Ray are all molded with information only on one substrate, then 2 substrates are bonded for DVD or HD DVD, and a protective layer is applied to CD or Blu-Ray. I'm not sure how easy this format would be to manufacture... it would probably be very difficult.

In my opinion, this idea is not something to get terrribly excited about at this point.

plus it'll be thick as a LD ;). heh heh heh.

this combo DVD isn't going to hold dual or triple layers of HD-DVD and dual to quadruple layers of BluRay AND dual layers of SD-DVD at the same time... which makes it useless. most SD and HD contents will be on dual layer or more.

re: availability of downloadable HD. one doesn't need to have files as big as 20-40GB. with x264 compression, it can look every bit (pun) as good as the original but at a fraction of the size.

Yep.

There's so many more issues that are not addressed (in addition to layer configurations, licensing and manufacturing). The patent is merely conceptual in nature and I think these guys at Warner are jumping on the opportunity to patent one or more concepts that may potentially be the solution to this format war. They're hedging their bets on a compromise of sorts and this being one possible solution.

It seems a lot of consumers are more interested in just waiting to see how it shakes out. You have the XBox 360 getting an add-on HD DVD drive (not internal yet), and the Playstation 3 getting a built-in Blu-Ray. If history is an indicator, PS3 will outsell XBox 360 worldwide, around 3 or 4 to 1, if not higher.

I think that's what will determine the battle. At least WMVHD is out of the picture--too much confusion.

heath

What is the confusion over? WMV HD = VC-1 is one of the mandatory codecs for both formats. Encoders for WMV have existed for years now.