The new drive(model BWU-100A) supports up to 50 GB of data on BD-R (write once) or BD-RE (rewritable) discs or up to four hours of high-definition video using HDV 1080i on a BD-RE 50GB disc. The new drive is capable of burning a full 25GB disc in about 50 minutes.

For personal content captured on a HDV camcorder, the BD drive is optimized for keeping the video in the native HDV 1080i for playback on home players compatible with BD-AV format and PCs with BD drives installed.

Here is the link to the full press release....

http://news.sel.sony.com/en/press_room/consumer/computer_peripheral/storage_sol_others/release/23478.html

-gb-

I'm totally amazed by how quickly the new DVD technology is being deployed. A BR burner for $750 in 2006. Who could have guessed?

Aggressive pricing and, for an HD/BD product, a pretty early release. If this thing reliably burns 50G discs and burns a proper HD video disc without too much fuss... this will hurt HD-DVD. I don't even like Sony, but their product honestly does look better and the pricing is in line to get the non-rich early adopters looking.

www.philipwilliams.com

cheaper than $1,000 stadalones... =). 3-5 years before these types of drives hit $100?

Also means we can start storing our SD DV AVIs on a more accessible medium, up to maybe 4 full tapes per disc. That'll be nice....

Looks like we'll also be able to 'store' our HDV video, although unless you edit in native format, it still would need to be converted to an intermediate format...

I'm so excited I actually smiled!

Matt

What about the Pioneer Blu-ray burner that has been out for over a month now?

http://www.videoguys.com/pioneer.html

I know it looks like it is only single layer but this has been out long before the SONY burner. It has been possible to burn blu-ray disks for a little while now. The problem was that until recently there was no way to play those disks. As far as I know there still is no software player that will work with blu-ray movies.

The SONY does look like a better burner but it is not the first one out.

Also means we can start storing our SD DV AVIs on a more accessible medium, up to maybe 4 full tapes per disc. That'll be nice....

Looks like we'll also be able to 'store' our HDV video, although unless you edit in native format, it still would need to be converted to an intermediate format...

I'm so excited I actually smiled!

Matt

Agree. Both BR and HDDVD will provide whole project storage, DV clips and all (and some smaller HDV projects if I trim the clips, etc). I have a drawer full of Hard drives I'd like to replace. It can be expensive, but its better than having to recapture the media (which takes up time and adds wear to equipment).

Storage Storage Storage................ I'm so excited. I can stop hooking HD's up to my computer.

Sony states that this drive comes with software for Editing/Burning:


Cyberlink® PowerProducer™ BD/DVD Authoring Software
Cyberlink PowerDirector™ Editing Software
Cyberlink Power2Go Data Burning Software
Cyberlink InstantBurn™ Packet Writing Software
Cyberlink PowerBackup Backup Software
Cyberlink PowerDVD™ Player Software

What about the Pioneer Blu-ray burner that has been out for over a month now?

http://www.videoguys.com/pioneer.html

I know it looks like it is only single layer but this has been out long before the SONY burner. It has been possible to burn blu-ray disks for a little while now. The problem was that until recently there was no way to play those disks. As far as I know there still is no software player that will work with blu-ray movies.

The SONY does look like a better burner but it is not the first one out.

Agreed, Thomas. I wasn't suggesting the Sony was first, only announcing their entry into the market of internal BD burners. And an impressive entry at that.

Standard DVD and CD media have been considered unsuitable for archival purposes and I think BRD will change that. The professional discs, used in the XD cams and based on Blu-Ray are estimated via lab testing to hang on to your data for 50 yrs. Those discs however, are only storing 23gb per disc so it looks like they are sacrificing space for data integrity, much like mini-dv vs. dvcam.

-gb-

Based on spec sheet (pdf) it only supports mpeg2 encoding, not vc1. Is that a software or hardware issue?
It doesn't garuantee commercial packaged vc1 playback at high bit rates either. Probably not a problem, but worth noting.

That's great news. I don't know if the sales from low budget producers will be so great until there is a definite answer on which DVD format (HD or Blu-ray) will replace the other. Which format would you choose?

Sony States on the website, in the footnotes of the drive specifications:

"* Playback of commercial movies on Blu-ray Disc (BD-ROM) requires additional software/hardware not included with this product. Requires compatible high-definition display for high-definition playback. Playback of AACS protected media may require an HDCP compliant output and HDCP compliant display. Photo CD playback requires additional software not bundled with this drive."

I wonder how this will affect us?

Is HDCP available for computers?

I assume that our monitors are not HDCP compliant.

Some of the newer graphics cards and lcd monitors have hdcp built in. My current doesn't though (rage 850xlt).
Still, at least it's a start.

joe,

BR is hardware. VC1 is software. that means you can burn VC1 onto DVD-R's as well as long as the BR player plays DVD-R. likewise you can burn SD-DVD's onto BR as well or even CDR's. hardware&software can be intermixed to a degree.

dan, geforce 7950 has HDCP i think. HIS's newer radeon 1600 cards are also HDCP and some even have HDMI.

not all LCD displays are HDCP, in fact only a fraction are. dell's 2407, 3007 are 2 examples of LCD"s that are HDCP compliant via their DVI.

Dear Fong Yu,

Thank you for the valuable information. I will take this into consideration when I purchase a new video card and monitor.

joe,

BR is hardware. VC1 is software. that means you can burn VC1 onto DVD-R's as well as long as the BR player plays DVD-R. likewise you can burn SD-DVD's onto BR as well or even CDR's. hardware&software can be intermixed to a degree.

Thats right. I can actually see for at least a few years most people producing HD projects onto DVD. If some form of mpeg4 or WMV is used you can actually get almost 2 hours of 1080i HD on a dual layer DVD. A dual layer DVD is about $3-$5 bucks. A blu-ray disk is about $20.00 for a single layer disk.

For small projects under 20 minutes such as music videos and TV commercials even a $0.65 single layer DVD could be used with mpeg-2. Heck you should even be able to get a TV commercial on a CD in mpeg-2. This means that people that do have HD players, we as producers can make low cost disks for clients that will look just as good as if they were on a blu-ray disk. Really the only thing using an actual HD-DVD or blu-ray disk give you is a lot more storage space and faster datarates.

It's kind of like how when DVD first came out a lot of people who could not buy a $4,000 DVD burner made a VCD instead. Now we can do the same thing except this time the cheaper version will look just as good just shorter in length.

One final bonus to using DVD for now is the fact that it will play in a Blu-Ray player or a HD-DVD player. Since the codecs are the same between both formats, as is the fact that they will play DVD and CD, using a DVD will mean it will play on either player. Using a blu-ray disk right now means it will not play on a HD-DVD player. This is also true about playing a HD-DVD in a Blu-Ray player. Now this may change in the future but right now this is the case. By using WMV I can create HD disks for my clients and I do not have to care what player they are using. They can use a standard PC, Mac, HD-DVD player, Blu-Ray player or some funky newer DVD player that will play HD content off of a DVD.

when DVD first came out a lot of people who could not buy a $4,000 DVD burner.....


Gee were they that expensive, I only remember around 1000.00

thomas,

by that ratio & competitive lowering of prices, we should be able to buy a BR or HD-DVD burner for mere $10... in 10 years. ;).

The first DVD burner was a Pioneer DVD-A burner for $4,500.00. For a few years they kept trying to BS us that the DVD-A format was better. It finally died out as a total rip off. You are right that the first DVD burner that really started to sell to the consumer market was about $1,000.00. It quickly dropped in price.

Even if the price of Blu-ray and HD-DVD burners and disks drop in price it may still be better to use DVD's for awhile. Some clients may only have one player or a player that only plays one HD disk type. As pros we will need to have a Blu-ray and HD-DVD burner or at least a burner that can do both.

If the price of HD disks does drop then so will the price of blank DVD's. Besides if you really are using a disk for a short video why waste a HD disk when the video at the highest level of quality would easily fit on a CD or DVD.

The only problem I see with the universal HD playback on DVD disks is the fact that HD-DVD and Blu-ray use two different authoring languages. While a disk could be made to be universal you would not be able to have any menus or chapters. They may be a way around this but I do not know of it yet.

well, i'd imagine workflow being:

- use any NLE you like and output to 'standard' VC-1 or AVC profiles/spex. for me, it'll be vegas (does it support it now?). the other aspect that's fun is output both .ac3 and a "TrueHD" or DTS-HD master file? dream on? i wish, yeah i know, most prosumer's equipment doesn't reach that high-quality of 16-bit anyway let alone 24-bit/96kHz... but one can dream =).

- then a BR/HD-DVD authoring program would take both audio and video files and help you create the special features. that same authoring program will be able to output to HD-DVD OR BR OR SD-DVD.

does it work that way now for those already knee-deep in HD disc authoring?

i mean, outside of owning HD-DVD and BR players, the only way i think of is outputting from your fav. NLE to a container like .wmv or .avi with mpeg4-level compression, be it wm or xvid/divx or 264. then burn that file onto a single or DL DVDR.

The authoring languages for DVD, HD-DVD and Blu-Ray are all very different from each other. Any authoring program would have to know how to translate whatever you are trying to do into any of the three languages. That would be a pretty complex program considering that even to this day only a few DVD authoring programs allow all the specs of the format. The program would also have to know what features are and are not supported by the format of your choice. It would have to make sure to turn off those features if your target medium does not support it.

If you master to VC-1 or WMV or AVC you can pretty much use any medium that you want to use with only the file size being the restriction. Authoring based content such as menus and sub titles is another issue. I'm pretty sure HD content wouldn't work in a normal DVD menu structure so that leaves you three options.

1. Author as HD-DVD format
2. Author as Blu-Ray format
3. Make a straight video and audio only disk.

I just read an interesting piece from Microsoft that talks about how to make a hybrid HD-DVD on a DVD disk. You can actually author both where there will be the typical VIDEO-TS as well as the folders for the HD-DVD authoring structure. This way if a client does not have a HD-DVD player they can use the same disk to watch the SD version on their normal DVD player. When they do get a HD-DVD player then they can just use the same disk and enjoy their video in HD. Of course these means half program length for each format since they both share the same DVD. A dual layer DVD might get you close to 60 minutes for each format.