DigitalJournal.com – Digital Culture For Creative Minds — While this seems like a good idea on the surface I cannot imagine the expense of designing the manufacturing gear that would crank out such disks. Still, an interesting concept.
Digital Journal — In the war between Blu-ray and HD-DVD, the customer comes out the loser. The public isn’t ready to replace their DVDs yet, and high-definition penetration has yet to reach saturation.
So it only makes sense that a triple-standard DVD would save the format war from devolving into a chaotic mess. Warner is on the case: Two of its top engineers, Alan Bell and Lewis Ostrover, filed a patent recently that would combine Blu-Ray, HD-DVD and DVD on a single disc.
According to New Scientist, “Warner’s plan is to create a disc with a Blu-ray top layer that works like a two-way mirror… It should also let enough light through for HD-DVD players to ignore the Blu-ray recording and find a second HD-DVD layer beneath.” A conventional DVD could be layered on the other side of the disc.
Dual (or triple) formats are just a bad idea. Remember CD-R, CD+R, DVD-R, DVD+R, Dual layer, Double layer?
Wouldn’t it be simpler (and probably cheaper) from a manufacturing point of view to simply include 3 different formatted discs in the package? It probably only costs $1 per disc anyway.
Imagine if they ever came out with a blank media capable of doing all three different formats at the same time. Or at least two, so you would have ‘legacy’ support.
Then again, no cd-dvd blank media has ever come out, so…
Of course, there have been instances of dual media disks on the market, cd on one side and dvd on the other.
I don’t see how this gets brought to market. Disks will cost too much compared to the individual formats, and content owners will have to be conviced to release on this format (when the owners themselves may be part of one of the HD-DVD/BluRay camps).
Physical media are SO last century…!
#1: There is no such thing as CD+R. Dual layer and double layer are the same thing. They aren’t another format, though. They just double the capacity of either DVD + or – R. And no, it would be cheaper to just include all three discs, at least currently. Prices are finally down to where the consumer can buy bulk quality DVDs for about $.40 or so per piece, but the BD-Rs cost about $20 for one. I’m not sure if HD-DVD-Rs have even been released yet.
So no, it doesn’t “probably only costs $1 per disc anyway”
Who cares? Download it to either HD or flash, then play it. Too much DRM? Don’t buy it.
#7 I couldn’t agree with you more. But also, as John has observed and if you listen to TWiT you will have heard him say, we don’t even need special high definition media – regular dual layer DVD disks can easily be used for HD, with compression. Algorithms like H.264 and Xvid can do it, and I think they are open source algorithms so there is no commercial entanglement. We only need player manufacturers to include decompression in players.
#8 – That would require people to be using dual layer disks, which isn’t happening.
With seeding and torrent type distribution there’s no reason to think HD via download can’t become a reality.
“high-definition penetration has yet to reach saturation”
LOL! I dunno, about once a week…
Sigh… this just brings out the 13 year old me in….
#9
Bittorrent is really not viable for dvds, much less HD content. Its really only useful for very popular files. Even at a wide open speed of 5 mpbs downloading constantly, an HD movie would take several days if not a week to download. The highest speed over bittorrent i’ve ever achieved is a little over 200 kbps. That would take about a month to download an HD-DVD!
#11
I didn’t say Bittorrent, I said torrent… as in the technology behind bittorrent. A torrent network run by a large company that’s properly seeded would work to distribute this material, and Apple already does this with pre-release software distribution.
Now, if an end user can only download at 256 kbps, they should have a chat with their ISP about “real vs. advertised” speed, and not knock the distribution method.
I think that standard definition DVDs combined with upconverting DVD-players (or TV’s) will be good enough for a vast majority of consumers. Why would most people spend a lot of money on a Blu-Ray or HD-DVD player for just a little bit better picture than can be had with an upconverting DVD-player?
What am I missing?
Steve
An upconverting player (1080i) connected to an HD monitor gives exactly the same image as a standard DVD player (480i) connected to the same monitor. The difference is which device does the scaling (upconverting), the player or the display. A DVD’s resolution is 720×480. The HD DVD’s resolution is 1920×1080. You can easily see the difference. Whether it is worth all the fuss is another question. I love HD, but I’m staying well clear of the format wars and HDMI V1.3 audio problems until the dust settles. A well-transferred movie on standard DVD looks mighty good on a 60″ screen.