Columbia TriStar has officially announced that it plans to support the Blu-ray Disc high-definition format (http://www.eet.com/sys/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleId=18600329&_loopback=1) with movie titles. The studio will begin launching all its new titles on Blu-ray Disc (which was co-developed by parent corp Sony) starting in 2006. In addition to this announcement, many of the major Hollywood studios are working behind-the-scenes with the Blu-ray Group (http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2004-03-30-dvd-spat_x.htm?POE=TECISVA) on the final details of the format spec, as pertains to prepackaged films and other copyrighted material. Because of this, look for Blu-ray Disc's official launch to happen no sooner than the end of 2005, and probably early 2006. So where does this leave HD-DVD? Well... it looks like we're definitely going to have a format war, but I'll tell you, Blu-ray Disc definitely seems to have the upper hand at the momentSource: The Digital Bits / EE Times (www.thedigitalbits.com)

Is this technology compatible with existing DVD players.

I haven't looked to see, but off the top of my head, I would say no for this reason... your current DVD player uses Red laser, while Bur-Ray uses - yup, you guessed it a blue laser. The red laser is "bigger" than the blue laser, so I doubt it would be able to read the smaller pits created by the blue laser.

Cheers

Well then I think it's safe to say this format doesn't have a chance in hell. I aborted my VHS collection a few years ago and have since spent almost $1000 purchasing DVD movies, which is a lot of money for a kid who doesn't have a real job yet.

Considering people have embraced this format so quickly, it will be almost impossible to convince anyone to invest in purchasing a new player even if they can play their old movies, they would resent having to purchase a new technology so soon.

When buying a computer, there's an understanding that the technology will be replaced in a few months.

But nobody buys a CD player or walkman expecting it to be useless in a few years. And frankly I don't understand all the hype for HD video, it just seems like a desperate attempt to make people buy things they don't really need.

I think though, that since DVD's have been taken onboard by consumers we have finally moved into the realm of wanting good Home Theatre. In the older days we didn't give a damn, but now HT is a huge market. And with HD TV's becoming more popular and TV stations in the U.S. going to HD, I'm sure people will want to see their bought movies in HD also. I would think though, that manufacturers would includes oldschool DVD lasers in their new machines so that old DVD's aren't obsolete. It can't cost them that much nowadays right?

Aaron

Check the blu-ray FAQ (http://www.blu-ray.com/faq/) section of www.blu-ray.com. It will answer most of the questions you're asking, including current DVD's being playable in the upcoming blu-ray players.

it will be almost impossible to convince anyone to invest in purchasing a new player even if they can play their old movies, they would resent having to purchase a new technology so soon.I understand this and agree 100%, but technology is constantly outdating itself and people will just have to accept that. About 3 years ago, I bought a very nice Integra (Onkyo's higher end) DVD changer that was top-notch. Less than 2 years later, Target was selling players for $100 that had all the features of my Integra plus some, and that was all still within the same common format. That's technology, and always will be, whether blu-ray or HD or any other format.

Fortunately, my outdated Integra was constructed much better than anything Target sells, so at least it still has that going for it.

Have they solved the caddy problem yet? Last time I looked into Blu-Ray, each disc required being played in a caddy, like those first-generation CD-ROM drives back in 1993.

A Caddy is a good idea just like DVD-RAM. Protects the disc from damage and gives a lot more space to stick on labels that won't effect the way the disc plays. I use double sided DVD-RAM disc and they are great.

Ron Evans

I second that motion. We end up storing the CD/DVD in a case, which is kinda like a caddy anyway. The pain with the old CDROM caddies was that they were associated with the drive, offering none of the protection or labeling features that Ron mentioned.
I'm all for a slim-line case that permanently seals each disk.

Gah! That's crazy talk. You know how thick my beverage coasters would be if everything came in a caddy?

1) most manufacturers for blu-ray and HD-DVD have indicated
players will support the "old" DVD. How they do this doesn't
matter. Probably there is a red laser in there as well

2) as far as I know the caddy system for blu-ray is ONLY for
recordable media. It has a very soft layer that can easily scratch.
More so than CD (which is more reseliant than DVD!) or DVD.
Since the movies will be on pressed discs this shouldn't be more
of an issue than current DVD's

And then the whole DVD collection thing. I have around 150 DVD's
myself and I would not want to re-invest. But, as said, all players
should be backwards compatible so you can still watch them. New
movies you simply buy on Blu-Ray then for example.

Whether or not you want to re-invest into a movie on blu-ray
boils down to a few things. If you still have friends on SD systems
you might be able to sell your movies to them (the ones you wish
to replace). Or if you want the ultimate version of a movie the
same goes. Personally I'm not too interested in HD since no-one
has it here yet and DVD looks superb projected with a good
projector. Can it look better? Sure it can. But that's always true.

<<<-- Originally posted by Rob Lohman :
If you still have friends on SD systems
you might be able to sell your movies to them (the ones you wish
to replace). Or if you want the ultimate version of a movie the
same goes. Personally I'm not too interested in HD since no-one
has it here yet and DVD looks superb projected with a good
projector. -->>>

It's going to be a win-win situation for everyone. DVD sales have been through the roof for several years now, but this year for the first time the DVD market started to taper off. A lot of people see that as a sign of market saturation. DVD sales are still brisk, though, and that will continue, IMO. Now the market for used DVDs will be amazing as titles come out on Blu-Ray. HD-equipped people will be driving the new market by buying Blu-Ray discs and dropping used DVD copies of the movies they replace into the used market.

As far as interest in the new High-Def DVDs goes, I bought a Sony 34" direct-view 16:9 HD set about a year ago. It's a multi-synch model that can natively display 720p, 1080i or 480p and 480i. I have HD cable that comes in at 720p from the box and it can look amazing. Depending on the source and how well Comcast is running that day it can make my DVDs look pretty bad by comparison. I'm not sure how it would look on an SD set, but for people with HD sets it's instantly apparent. My HD set shows the flaws of the source material SO much more than I was ever aware of before I got it. Regular cable is almost unwatchable to me now. I seldom stray from the HD channels. Some of my DVDs that looked fine to me before look terrible on it. Personally, I can't wait to be able to buy films on Blu-Ray. I think the market will explode.

I agree that convincing people their DVDs don't look good enough anymore is going to be a tough sell. People think that just because it's digital it's the ultimate. There doesn't seem to be any interest in adopting a better audio format than the compact disc for instance. If anything, the public is going backward with MP3s.

<<<-- Originally posted by Marco Leavitt : I agree that convincing people their DVDs don't look good enough anymore is going to be a tough sell. People think that just because it's digital it's the ultimate. There doesn't seem to be any interest in adopting a better audio format than the compact disc for instance. If anything, the public is going backward with MP3s. -->>>

Well, almost anyone can see a drastic difference between High-Definition and SD, where most people can't hear any difference between 16-bit/44.1KHz audio and 24-bit/96KHz audio and, in fact, average listeners can't tell the difference between 24/96 audio and a 192 Kbps MP3. Selling someone audio that they can't distinguish from that they've got is a lot harder sell than video that looks so much sharper than DVD that it's hard to go back.

A guy I work with declared the other day that "DVDs look just as good as movies." Another person I know had no idea "28 Days Later" was shot on video until I told her. I'm not so sure that regular-type people are going to see such a dramatic difference, and even if they do, they might not care. I hope I'm wrong.

<<<-- Originally posted by Rob Lohman : Source: The Digital Bits / EE Times (www.thedigitalbits.com)

Columbia TriStar has officially announced that it plans to support the Blu-ray Disc high-definition format with movie titles. The studio will begin launching all its new titles on Blu-ray Disc (which was co-developed by parent corp Sony) starting in 2006.

-->>>

is this concidence or what - who owns columbia pictures?

SONY -isn't it?


just curious,

filip

Obviously Sony would want to put their Blue Laser product out there.

Of course Toshiba and others in the DVD "consortium" are also working on a Blue Laser DVD format/player, some of the same "players" (companies) are on both sides of this equation. They are also under investigation for potentially slowing the developement of the Toshiba backed format so the Sony backed one can be out first.

Sony's crams approx. 23 Gigs onto a DVD whereas the Toshiba only puts approx 18 Gigs on the same disk. The Toshiba product is planned to be backwards compatible and play existing Red Laser DVDs as well.

Both obviously could provide HD playback.

I'd rather have to change a disk on some of the longer features and still be able to play my library of DVDs in the future.

From some of the other articles I've been reading depending on how your local TV station/cable company/DBS provider compresses their MPeg streams (for multicasting, for instance) you may not see your full HD glory on your nice big HD set over the air.

I'll try to re-find some of these articles, I've paraphrased.

MR

Unfortunately, a new player is necessary for the new format. Standard DVD players can only handle around 8mbits/sec of information and High Def stuff is around 19mbits/sec. So unfortunately, the new players will be required not only because they have a different type of laser system, but because they will be able to read a much higher bandwidth of information. But yes, most of what I've read says that they will be backwards compatible with standard DVD's.
Hey, at least it's not as bad as the switch from VHS!!

Just wait a year after Blu-Ray comes out and you can either play your DVD's in the players or you can probably transfer/copy/backup your red laser DVD's to blue laser.

I want the extra space blu-ray provides, I want to put more than an hour and a half of mpeg 2 on DVD.

the problem is Sony will want to sell it's own media type. Example Memory Stick and Miny Disc. I see a cartridge style disc media being very expensive.

my 2 cents.

Mark

Is it too soon for blu-rayinfo.net?

No, that's not too soon. BUT, blu-ray isn't only for video work
so to speak...

I wrote and article about this a couple years ago. You can read it here:
http://www.visionengine.com/board/view.php?s=&pg=valueofdvds

I'm going to reference what I said in the article because I feel exactly the same today.

When DVD's were first released they had several big selling points to them.

1. DVD's were digital (no loss in quality after so many watchings)
2. Twice the resolution of a VHS tape.
3. Better then CD quality sound. (people could relate to CD quality sound versus tapes as they already had CD's)
4. No need to rewind (Be kind rewind :p )
5. Bonus features up the wazoo
6. Nice packaging (4 color picture printing on disks versus text label on tape)
7. Able to play in computers, car decks, laptops, ect.
8. Chapter markings
9. Audio Commentaries
10. Subtitles
11. Multiple languages
12. Players could play audio CD's

Plus as time went on DVD's became cheaper to produce then VHS tapes and easier to navigate through. So you have seen more episodic material released on it, such as many television shows that would have never been released on VHS.

People could clearly see the benefit because there were a lot of them. Surprisingly there are still many people who don't even have DVD's players yet. Like my girlfriend. She's still satisfied with VHS. Even though I make films and hang around her all the time and have educated her on many aspects of it all. To her it's about the programing and not the quality. To most of my buddies DVD is about ease of use and not necessarily quality. I've noticed they are just as happy with a VCD as a DVD.

Of course this should be very apparrent with the MP3 craze. It's all become about portablity and ease of use and less about quality.

Plus most people don't even own HDTV's yet to take advantage of these blu-ray discs. HDTV probably won't saturate the public more for another 3-5 years. Even then it wil need more programming to sell better.

I have a feeling that Blu-ray will be what laser disc's were in the era of VHS. Expensive with a limited selection. I just don't think most people care enough.

Well, considering Columbia is owned by Sony, who is part of the blu-ray consortium, it's not really suprising they've announced this; they're trying to do away with the other H-DVD standard because they know the major Hollywood studios won't back two standards.