#*$)# Standards Wars.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2003-12-14 12:02am

Unsuprisingly, no-one can agree on the successor to DVD at the moment. There are three discrete formats that will be battling each other, though one is unlikely to make much of an impact in the West.

EVD: Red-laser, same physical format as DVD, but uses VP6 compression. China is pushing this one, but at only 4.7GB/layer it can't hold much HD content. Incompatible with DVD.

HD-DVD: Violet-laser, will hold 15GB/layer. It may be backwards. Currently they're deciding whether to use WM9, H.264 (i.e. MPEG4 AVC), MPEG4 or a hybrid of MPEG2 and H.264. Apparently it is going to be easier to implement than its main competitor, below.

BD-ROM: Blue-laser, will hold 25GB/layer. It will probably not be backwards compatible, but will continue to use the MPEG2 codec. It offers more advanced encryption (AES 128), better copy protection, key revocation schemes, Java for navigation menu programming and Internet-usage (grabbing subtitles, for example).

Personally, I'd like to see BD-ROM without the extra junk and copy-protection schemes but using a more sophisticated codec (such as H.264).

MKSheppard · Post by **MKSheppard** » 2003-12-14 12:21am

Ugh, I am not buying another DVD player...fuck this shit.

HemlockGrey · Post by **HemlockGrey** » 2003-12-14 12:25am

Are these things as superior to the DVD as the DVD is to the VHS, or better, but without such a huge gulf?

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2003-12-14 12:31am

HemlockGrey wrote:Are these things as superior to the DVD as the DVD is to the VHS, or better, but without such a huge gulf?

They will be superior, but I don't know how big the gulf will be.

I've seen HDCAM footage, and it blows away DVDs, no question about it - but HD-DVD and BD-ROM won't look nearly that good.

Alyeska · Post by **Alyeska** » 2003-12-14 12:59am

No backwards compatibility? Fucking bullshit. I am getting tired of having to get new systems every time they change. With the new digital medium over the older systems backwards compatibility is a much easier thing and they should be striving for it. This means when the new systems come out that they can already play a large library of existing material while new material using the system to its fullest can be introduced and eventualy replace DVD yet you can still play DVD.

How far off is the potential replacement for DVD?

Stravo · Post by **Stravo** » 2003-12-14 01:03am

Why the FUCK do I have over 200 DVDs and now its going to go the way of VHS?? At least VHS had the decendy of being around for 30 years. DVD has been popular now for about 5 years. Jesus.

darthdavid · Post by **darthdavid** » 2003-12-14 01:06am

URGE TO MAIM RISING.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2003-12-14 01:50am

Alyeska wrote:No backwards compatibility? Fucking bullshit. I am getting tired of having to get new systems every time they change. With the new digital medium over the older systems backwards compatibility is a much easier thing and they should be striving for it. This means when the new systems come out that they can already play a large library of existing material while new material using the system to its fullest can be introduced and eventualy replace DVD yet you can still play DVD.

I was referring to backwards compatibility in playing newer (EVD, HD-DVD, BD-ROM) media in older devices (DVD). It is probable that the newer players will be able to play DVDs, though I suspect that by that point most people will have DVD players anyways and will supplement it with one of the new ones.

How far off is the potential replacement for DVD?

Introduction will probably 2005-2007.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2003-12-14 01:59am

Stravo wrote:Why the FUCK do I have over 200 DVDs and now its going to go the way of VHS?? At least VHS had the decendy of being around for 30 years. DVD has been popular now for about 5 years. Jesus.

Heh. I've actually been expecting this ever since the FCC finally put their foot down and mandated the replacement of NTSC with ATSC. Now that we actually have monitors capable of displaying higher-resolution video the replacement of DVD was inevitable.

Andrew J. · Post by **Andrew J.** » 2003-12-14 03:17pm

Reminds me of a Simpsons episode (was it last week's?) where Homer went to a garbage dump; one pile was labeled "Beta," another pile was labeled "VHS," and an empty space was labeled "Reserved for DVDs." Guess it was even truer than I thought at the time...

HemlockGrey · Post by **HemlockGrey** » 2003-12-14 04:38pm

Of course, I suppose I'll have to get a TV made after 1983 in order to reap the benefits of these innovations...

General Zod · Post by **General Zod** » 2003-12-14 05:11pm

meh. DVDs haven't even been in common use for very long and they're already talking about a new format? unless the technological leap is as far beyond dvds as dvds were beyond VHS, i don't see any real benefit to switching to a new format that's going to have so many people bitching about it.

muse · Post by **muse** » 2003-12-14 05:24pm

Let me get this straight, DVD players still can't record stuff off the air like VCR's and they already want to "upgrade" the damn things? Not only that but there's going to be a format war too? And we just got a DVD player 2 years ago...

Psycho Smiley · Post by **Psycho Smiley** » 2003-12-14 05:28pm

Darth_Zod wrote:unless the technological leap is as far beyond dvds as dvds were beyond VHS, i don't see any real benefit to switching to a new format that's going to have so many people bitching about it.

You don't? You're just not trying hard enough. It's called "rape the customer's wallet because we won't give them a choice in the matter".

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2003-12-14 05:42pm

Darth_Zod wrote:meh. DVDs haven't even been in common use for very long and they're already talking about a new format? unless the technological leap is as far beyond dvds as dvds were beyond VHS, i don't see any real benefit to switching to a new format that's going to have so many people bitching about it.

It may actually be quite a leap (640x480 progressive scan is nice but could be a lot better) but you'd need a decent HD monitor to appreciate the difference.

muse wrote:Let me get this straight, DVD players still can't record stuff off the air like VCR's and they already want to "upgrade" the damn things? Not only that but there's going to be a format war too? And we just got a DVD player 2 years ago...

There are actually standalone DVD+/-R recorders you can record with, but they aren't too popular.

Psycho Smiley wrote:You don't? You're just not trying hard enough. It's called "rape the customer's wallet because we won't give them a choice in the matter".

Get real, they aren't going to suddenly drop DVD production for this. They still release most titles on VHS right now, and DVDs reached mass-market acceptance years ago.

muse · Post by **muse** » 2003-12-14 05:51pm

phongn wrote:There are actually standalone DVD+/-R recorders you can record with, but they aren't too popular.

Unfortunately I don't have $850 Cdn lying around, and I suspect that recordable DVD media ain't cheap either. Ideally I'd like to see those prices drop to 2-300 bucks for the players and 2-3 bucks/DVD before all the new formats come in. That way the VCR can be retired for good and we'll have an affordable replacement for it, and the new format will take the place of DVD's

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2003-12-14 05:57pm

Standalone burners will almost certainly come down in price as time goes on, but it's a relatively new technology. Give it some time; it also took awhile for CD-R prices to come down. (Of course, there's also a standards war right now over the sucessor to audio CDs - competition between SACD and DVD-A)

DVD media is about US$1-3 for a single-layer 4.7GB disc.

General Zod · Post by **General Zod** » 2003-12-14 05:58pm

phongn wrote:
Darth_Zod wrote:meh. DVDs haven't even been in common use for very long and they're already talking about a new format? unless the technological leap is as far beyond dvds as dvds were beyond VHS, i don't see any real benefit to switching to a new format that's going to have so many people bitching about it.
It may actually be quite a leap (640x480 progressive scan is nice but could be a lot better) but you'd need a decent HD monitor to appreciate the difference.

true. though that's still not as big as an innovation as DVDs were over VHS. it might improve the quality and storage capacity somewhat, but it doesn't seem to offer anything as drastic. and no backwards compatability means it's even less useful. If it somehow had backwards compatability, then it might be worth buying one of the newer machines.

Post by **The Yosemite Bear** » 2003-12-14 06:38pm

Unleashes flood of 8 tracks and Beta's on the bad, bad people....

No literally flooding theiiir homes with entire realities worth of Beta and eight track cassetes....

aerius · Post by **aerius** » 2003-12-14 06:48pm

phongn wrote:(Of course, there's also a standards war right now over the sucessor to audio CDs - competition between SACD and DVD-A)

Fuck, don't even get me started on that one. 2 different formats, completely incompatible with each other, and there's no overlap in the titles available in the 2 formats. If I want Metallica I have to go DVD-A, and if I want Pink Floyd I need SACD, and universal players cost more than my entire headphone setup. Did I mention the very limited number of titles available and the questionable mastering jobs done on some of them?

Asst. Asst. Lt. Cmdr. Smi · Post by **Asst. Asst. Lt. Cmdr. Smi** » 2003-12-14 07:17pm

DVDs are good enough for now, I don't see why they need to be made obselete so soon. What are you going to do with all of the extra space?

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2003-12-14 07:47pm

Asst. Asst. Lt. Cmdr. Smi wrote:DVDs are good enough for now, I don't see why they need to be made obselete so soon. What are you going to do with all of the extra space?

HD footage takes up more room than NTSC. IIRC, they're considering moving to ~15mbit video streams (average) from the usual 4-8 mbit stream they use now.

aerius wrote:Fuck, don't even get me started on that one. 2 different formats, completely incompatible with each other, and there's no overlap in the titles available in the 2 formats. If I want Metallica I have to go DVD-A, and if I want Pink Floyd I need SACD, and universal players cost more than my entire headphone setup. Did I mention the very limited number of titles available and the questionable mastering jobs done on some of them?

Indeed. Such as pain in the ass over that, but for now I keep with basic CDA

Darth_Zod wrote:true. though that's still not as big as an innovation as DVDs were over VHS. it might improve the quality and storage capacity somewhat, but it doesn't seem to offer anything as drastic. and no backwards compatability means it's even less useful. If it somehow had backwards compatability, then it might be worth buying one of the newer machines.

You couldn't play DVD in VHS players - or even SVHS in VHS - either

Robert Treder · Post by **Robert Treder** » 2003-12-14 11:39pm

I'm not too worried about this. I'll keep buying DVD, and wait until the format war seems to be favoring a contestant, and then I'll switch to that. Since my DVDs aren't liable to up and degrade any time soon (unlike VHS), I can keep my current collection, and then just start a new one of the new format later. Hopefully I won't feel compelled to replace my DVD titles with a new format; then I would be mad.

Durandal · Post by **Durandal** » 2003-12-14 11:42pm

I don't really care as long as Microsoft's codec stays out of the running for the next generation DVD format. Windows Media 9 playback on my 733 MHz G4 (which can easily decode 1024-width MPEG-4 video) is just abysmal. Gee, I wonder why ...

Post by **Gandalf** » 2003-12-14 11:57pm

Fuck, I'd still be happy with my old VHS if DVD hadn't been thrown upon us. Now I'll have to upgrade again?

Not happy.