November 29, 2005 4:00 AM PST
New high-definition DVDs to use old video technology?
Last modified: November 29, 2005 7:01 AM PST
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That could mean disappointment for some of the tech industry's biggest names, particularly if other studios follow suit. Companies such as Microsoft and Apple Computer have been betting that their work on advanced video software formats, called "codecs," will help them sell their own products."
The lexicon of video technology often sounds like a foreign language. Here are a few key terms.
Codec A technology for squeezing audio or video into smaller packages for easier storage or transmission. The name is derived from a blend of either "coder-decoder" or "compressor-decompressor."
Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) An international industry organization that ratifies standards for audio and video technologies.
MPEG-2 A set of multimedia technologies finalized by the MPEG group in 1994. Typically used as shorthand for the video codec, finalized in 1994, that is used today on DVDs, cable networks and in many other places.
MPEG-4 AVC A later video standard finalized by the MPEG group. Also known as H.264 or Advanced Video Coding.
VC-1 The version of Microsoft's Windows Media 9 video codec submitted to industry standards bodies for use on DVDs and elsewhere. Was temporarily known as VC-9.
It's a little-known but equally intriguing subchapter in the yearlong fight between Blu-ray and HD DVD, two incompatible hardware technologies for high-definition DVDs, backed, respectively, by consumer-electronics manufacturers Sony and Toshiba.
Video codecs (a contraction of "coder-decoders") are important because they determine what quality of video can be squeezed into a given amount of digital storage space, or can be sent over a DSL or cable television line. The codec is an essential part of a DVD.
Microsoft surprised many two years ago when it submitted its Windows video technology, called VC-1, to technical standards bodies in hopes of seeing it appear on the new DVDs. Other technology giants hold patents in a rival advanced format called MPEG-4 AVC.
Last week, studio giant Sony Pictures quietly voted for "none of the above," and took a swipe at the new codec formats. The new advanced codecs aren't immediately necessary for discs released in Sony's high-capacity Blu-ray format, Sony Pictures executives said in an interview with CNET News.com, and the studio would instead use the 11-year-old MPEG-2 video codec used on today's DVDs.
"Advanced (formats) don't necessarily improve picture quality," said Don Eklund, Sony Pictures' senior vice president of advanced technology. "Our goal is to present the best picture quality for Blu-ray. Right now, and for the foreseeable future, that's with MPEG-2."
None of this alphabet soup of acronyms is likely to mean much to the average consumer. Once the discs come out, it will be a matter of matching a Blu-ray disc with a Blu-ray player, or an HD DVD disc with an HD DVD player. The discs should play as simply as they do today, no matter which underlying video format is being used.
But the studios' decisions could mean a great deal to companies that have invested heavily in creating or supporting the new video technologies. Microsoft has been betting that the adoption of its advanced video format by Hollywood studios, cable networks and satellite TV companies will help Windows-based devices capture a bigger share of the home entertainment market.
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how did the editor miss this one?
Seriously, what Eklund is saying doesn't make any sense. With the new codec you could cram BETTER quality picture onto the discs on less space. It's better than MPGE2 which BTW has MORE to do with DVD than the MS codec.. I guess it's just a Sony vs MS thing.
discs to watch HD, we will use our 24Mbit internet connections and
the new codecs.
Sony, be warned: You messed up once with your rootkit. Don't mess up again with MPEG2.
The reporter should look at the manufacturing costs of an iTunes download vs. a CD. The "manufacturing" costs of iTunes on a per unit basis are negligible... yet iTunes downloads often cost as much or more than CDs.
For a more glaring example, look at Sprint's music download pricing. $2.49 a track!
Entertainment products use value-based pricing. Manufacturings costs have little to do with.
movie format.
Why does the Average Joe need to know the difference between
Blu-Ray and HD-DVD? Seriously, this will be nothing more than
a tiny niche product until a unified format is developed. Look at
what is going on with the competing audio formats.
The fact that they're not even using the newer technology says
that this stuff isn't ready for prime-time.
These companies need to start developing stuff that HAS DIRECT
benefit. We are not just some lambs to call up to buy your new
technology because you need to make your numbers. There
needs to be value in it from our perspective as well.
Have these guys never heard the old english expression "Penny wise and pound foolish"?
They will save a few pennies per disk now by avoiding paying royalties on the proprietary parts of MPEG-4 AVC (aka H.264), but the rest of the "video industry" will be moving to the newer codec. The next generation DVD guys (HD DVD or Blu-ray Disk) will have to retool/convert to the new codec eventually, and the conversion will be both more difficult and more costly in the future.
Anything that depends upon transmission will move to the new codec as soon as practical. Transmission bandwidth is always limited, and will use the best, stardized codecs in order to transmit as much as possible in as small a bandiwdth as possible. As the story states this includes the satellite industry. However it also includes such other systems as video conferencing (even Apple's iChat already supports it if you have a fast enough Mac). Within the next five years the aggregate of the transmission markets will rival those of the next generation DVD market.
The developers of Blu-ray Disk and HD DVD need to not be left behind. I can understand backward compatibility, but they should press content providers to produce in the best standardized formats. It will be easy to make the change to MPEG-4 AVC at the same time as the disk change. Doing anything less is just short sighted.
This would explain why some Hollywood studios prefer the HD DVD format, even though it is technically inferior and less future proof than Blue-ray DVD. My guess is they want to switch over to a new format as soon as possible and as cheaply as possible to once again prevent consumers from copying DVDs.
http://www.blu-ray.com/news/?date=2005-08-09
http://www.widescreenreview.com//news_detail.php?recid=10227
Even Bill Gates recognizes that BD+ (unique to Blue-ray) is anti-consumer:
http://www.betanews.com/article/Gates_Bluray_DRM_is_AntiConsumer/1129572265
And guess what, the latest studios that endorsed Blue-ray did so AFTER the BD+ protections were added.
No more wrangling on Bluray vs HD-DVD. No more worrying about changing assembly lines for new manufacturing. Just new codec support in DVD player hardware and PC/Mac hardware. Same media. No assembly line change. However, DVD authors need new equipment for encoding. Bite the bullet.
In the end, for consumers, it means nothing. Both formats support all three codecs.
As for Warner's plans to cram HD onto a 9GB DVD using VC-1 - they've proposed that to the BDA, it hasn't been adopted at this time. And it makes me cringe. Even with VC-1 that's not much room, so they'll probably need to lower the resolution (720p, not 1080i, let alone 1080p) and crank up the compression.
codec to maintain the quality of the movies. MPEG-2 is less lossy
than MPEG-4 or H.264. Maybe most people can't see the
difference, but it IS there. ANd the MPEG-4/H.264 codec war
hasn't been exactly settled yet.
So, the MPEG-2 codec will work very nicely for HDTV - it just
needs the higher capacity DVD's - HD=DVD, Blu-Ray, or
Holographic.
In time, maybe people will recognize that MPEG-4/H.264 is
virtually as good a codec, and generates much smaller files. H.
264 might be able to put HDTV on a conventional DVD - maybe.
Still would need a new DVD player, tho.
What are we saying?
A 25USD DVD that comes out, the manufacture costs of the disc(s)
inside is about waht 0.18 cents or so? And that with blu ray these
will jump?
lets say by 5 times. That is still under a dollar.
Any new 'manufacturing costs' we find on the new generation DVD
are not created at the manufacturing plant (IMHO)
- Sony's Scared
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by bcsaxman
November 29, 2005 3:44 PM PST
- All this talk about MPEG2 being cost effective or having better DRM misses, I think, the most obvious point this article brings up. Namely, that Warner Bros was going to make a BluRay hybrid based on cheaper DVD manufacturing techniques. With the better compression codecs, they would be able to fit a high def movie on one of these 9GB discs. Both things drive a stake in the heart of Sony's argument regarding BluRay's superiority to HD-DVD.
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See all 68 Comments >>We all know HD-DVD is the most cost effective of the two formats. However, BluRay champions constantly, and thus far effectively, use the greater capacity argument to offset that serious cost disadvantage. Now here comes one of your own backers with a plan that pretty much negates that assertion. I mean come on - if you can get even a 780p version of a movie on a 9GB BluRay hybrid disc, then the 15GB minium of HD-DVD is looking pretty damn good - especially for the money. 30 and 45GB discs are positively decadent! The whole house of cards Sony has built in justifying their push to make BluRay dominant just comes crashing down.
When you factor in the other issues - such as the 3-5yrs either format will need to become as popular as DVD currently is, and the extreme likelihood that some other technology (maybe holodiscs, maybe high capacity flash memory) will supplant them both in that time - then the high investment costs of BluRay look even more ridiculous than sober assesments already make them out to be. If I'm Sony, I need to find some way - any way - to end the capacity discussion in my favor and get the cats herded once and for all. Enter MPEG2.
With MPEG2 Sony has, finally, a legitimate case to make regarding capacity issues. Certainly Warner's 9GB disc plans are stopped in their tracks. And just as certainly, while HD-DVD will probably get a high def MPEG2 movie within 15GBs, it will be at a real disadvantage in terms of extras. That would be fine for a hybrid BluRay disc, but NOT for a technology that's trying to present itself as a full-fledged challenger to BluRay.
Sony is adopting MPEG2 in order to bolster it's case that HD-DVD isn't 'big enough', and that the increased costs of 'going blue' are thus worth it. With MPEG4 or H.264 alone, that argument slowly reveals itself to be a red herring. With the same codecs on an even smaller hybrid BluRay disc, it's a big honking red light for any studio's CFO (not to mention the buying public). Sooner rather than later, all those companies - and the public - would wake up and give less support to Sony's format.
Sony turning to MPEG2 is a last, desperate measure by them to keep their rhetoric in line with reality. If what this article says is true - that the studios will follow Sony's lead on this - then it may even succeed. But, all other considerations aside (which I think also favor HD-DVD in general) if this is what it takes to make BluRay a success, I'm becoming more and more convinced that HD-DVD is the better alternative.