New Blue Laser DVD Format

[Joseph George]

NEWS
Toshiba is currently developing its own brand of next-generation blue laser optical storage. Current rival technologies produce discs that are much thicker than conventional DVDs--meaning they require a cartridge for protection--and data is stored on multiple levels read by focus-shifting the laser.

Toshiba's offering will not require any new housing, and promises to be cheap to produce mainly because it can be created using current manufacturing equipment (with a few adjustments). The disc is 120 mm wide and 1.2 mm thick, and is single-sided with dual layers bonded back to back. Reading the disc is also very similar to current DVD drives, which use a lens to focus the laser.

Putting all these features together means the disc will be cheap to produce, backwards-compatible with current CD and DVDs, and able to offer in excess of 36 GB of storage. The new disc is currently undergoing scrutiny from the DVD Forum.

[Rob Lohman]

Toshiba and others on a blue laser/HD format

[Margus Kivilaan]

yeah, and i've read that sony showed this year at NAB two cam models and 3 player/recorder models, all using blue-ray disks.
disk capacity was 23GB, 90min recording time in DVCAM format, 45 in 50Mb/s IMX.

Margus

[Will Fastie]

I'm absolutely dying to see a cost-effective bigger-than-DVD solution show up on my desktop, if for no other reason than storing my original MiniDV footage conveniently in a manner that allows computer speed (as opposed to tape speed) retrieval.

I'm not dying to sit through another format/feature war.

It seems to me that the diverse, professional community here could do a bang-up job of proposing the next generation solution. Why don't we try to develop a feature set consensus based on our needs?

This would not be a technologically driven proposal except in some minor particulars related to standards (e.g., Mt. Ranier) or compatibility (e.g., backwards to CD & DVD).

What say?

Will

[Margus Kivilaan]

i think there will not be format war in terms we have seen earlier. If recording media is not tape, you can basically write onto it in any format, if writing speed is high enough.
Just close my eyes and dream a bit.
I have a camera which writes onto some kind of memory card or rw disk. I can choose freely compression method: uncompressed, dv, mpeg2, mpeg4, mpeg_whatever. If some new and exciting compression method appears, i just load new drivers to cam and go.
It's not very far future, but it will probably have downsides, like poor reliability (system has made an illegal operation, please restart the computer - sounds familiar?)

just dreamed
Margus

[Will Fastie]

There are already several different blue laser devices under development that are different. I've not heard any of the vendors say that they will be compatible with one another.

The DVD +/-/RAM debacle is instructive. The fact that vendors are hopping on to the dual format bandwagon is helpful in a practical sense but means that we will continue to pay more because of the additional development effort and cost of parts to make dual format work.

It would be nice not to make the same mistake again.

[Joseph George]

There are 2 battles shaping up right now. It will resemble VHS Beta war. One is again Matsushita vs. Sony, and Sony is likely to lose this one again. It is for a universal flash memory disc standard -- for recording -- on future camcorders -- to replace tape/disc media. Memory Stick vs. MC? something that Matsushita I believe developed and San Disc? and others are backing up.

Another bottle will naturally include the blue laser. The blu-ray HD DVD was developed by Sony and Nishia? and then Sony included others on the blu-ray consortium. It is the best of the HD DVD formats, in a cartridge, like the mini disc.

Whoever wins each war will make most $ in licensing fees.

PS

It's similar to DVD+R and DVD-R war mainly headed by Sony vs. Pioneer -- again the licensing fees are at stake. I prefer the DVD-R. Sony and their consortium seems to be slowly winning this one with their DVD+R.

[Margus Kivilaan]

yes, but war over tape formats costed for us much more. in tape formats there are things like tape compartment reliability, about 10 motors running, and so on, so any tape recorder costs a way more than say blue-disk recorder. That should reduce developing and producing costs for disk recorder, and even more if using any memory card. What i wanted to say, in earlier days (and now) if you wanted to run some video business, you had to have at least one tape machine per format (SP-SX-IMX-digibeta, DV-DVCAM-DVCPRO, d1-2-3-and_so_on, MII...) i hope that that will change and we will see less incompatible variants in the field. So we as users will pay less per any format to developers for developing and building every format.
Margus

[Joseph George]

There is so much $ to be made in licensing fees that the wars will continue. Non-compatible formats, and all

[Margus Kivilaan]

if you say so;)

[Mark Richman]

I hope this doesn't resemble the Beta vs. VHS war.

A encapsualted proprietary format will not be welcomed nowadays just like the old CD burners that used these discs.

However, if you now introduce Blu Laser DVD with this encapsulated disc, the whole process starts over and we pay for a Blu Laser DVD player to go beside our old Red Laser DVD player, instead of just upgrading to our Red Laser to the new combo Red and Blu laser DVD player.

My entertainment unit was cluttered and confusing with of all of these seperate devices (CD player, Pro-logic tuner, DVD player, S/VHS recorder) so I bought a combo unit and haven't look back since. Now I have a S/VHS recorder and an all in one solution for CD, DVD, VCD,SVCD,Mpeg, and Pro Logic tuner. Do you think me or anyone else wants another remote control?

I use DVD-R and DVD+R, and most DVD players nowadays don't really care which format you use. In several years this will be a mute point. However, Blu Ray could munk this all up for the consumer.

Mark

[Joseph George]

I see an advantage to the encapsulated disc. Toshiba has a hard time making a reliable system with the open discs because the distances/tolerances are a lot smaller with the blue ray laser. Sony is already planning to introduce 144 Mbps blue ray system with the cartridge based disc. You will not have to worry about scratching the disc, or sun UV rays to downgrade it, or care much about proper storage.

[Joe Carney]

It could completely replace tape as an archive medium, which would be good for SD as well as HD. That is if they come out with support for standard data storage.

[Mark Richman]

Another blank media type and different style player just complicate the process.

The first CD burners used this type of media and the cost was high. After some time the hardware technology became good enough to get rid of the encapsulated disc. Our current disc media format will work. I understand the laser needs to be closer, but the technology is there to avoid the encapsulated disc.

This is just another way to milk more money out of us so we buy the first encapsulated dvd players and then replace them with another player without the encapsulated discs in two years. All the time, the minor adjustment to the media playing hardware has created an unnecessary market with an expensive proprietary media that we never needed to begin with.

I can just imagine the mess if each Blu Laser DVD format uses a proprietary encapsulated disc.

How many old encapsulated dvd/cd burners are sitting around or at the waste dump?

You can still buy encapsulated discs for the old burner systems, however, I am sure they are a lot more expensive than plain old blank DVD/CD discs we buy now.

Justify it if you want, but I don't like the media format but love technology. Like most, we will watch and wait while open you open your wallet.

[Joseph George]

The DVD forum just killed Toshiba's red laser HD DVD format. Blu-ray will most likely become the standard although it was never submitted for an approval.