Blu-Ray to Require Internet Authentication! [Archive]

Woz

03-09-2005, 08:43

I've skipped through the article twice and see no mention of internet authentication, but i may have just missed it.

If it's true though, i for one won't be touching it. It sounds a little too like the Cicuit City DIVX machines. Could end up as a pay-per-play medium.

James

On top of that, consumers should expect punishment for tinkering with their Blu-ray players, as many have done with current DVD players by, in some instances, removing regional coding. The new, Internet-connected and secure players will report any "hack" and the device can be disabled remotely.

"A hacked player is any player that is doing something it's not supposed to do," Setos said, adding the jury was still out on whether regional coding would be maintained or scrapped.

They must be looking into WiFi enabling these players, because it's surely unworkable any other way. Hopefully they will implement it badly and you'll be able to hack a stranger's BluRay player from outside their house :D

Won't this just mean that we all get our players hacked to get round the internet authentication issue as well as region coding?

There's always a way!

Not always, to be honest.
If they set it up to require certificate authentication every time you play a disc, then they could make it pretty much water tight.
Won't it be fun when the day arrives that you have to rely on your internet connection working in order to watch a movie?
I wonder how they think this will work for mobile users?
Actually, that's not a worry for them, because mobile users are all going to be using UMDs on their PSPs...

bluescrn

03-09-2005, 09:05

Not always, to be honest.
If they set it up to require certificate authentication every time you play a disc, then they could make it pretty much water tight.

And when they shut down the authentication servers (a couple of years after they introduce a new format?), none of your disks will play!

Don't buy into this sort of DRM!...

What will the historians of the future see of this time period, where all culture is locked away behing strong encryption for which the keys have long since been lost...

mattwakeman

03-09-2005, 09:11

The more I read about the next-gen of materials (be it blu-ray or hd-dvd) the more I find myself hoping that it will fail when it is first released. As ever the copy-protection is so draconian and clumsy that it will simply alienate those people (i.e. the non-fanatical) who are needed to make it a success.

To tell people of the lengths they have to go to be able to use the material (as well as only allowing HDMI input if I recall correctly) sounds like commercial suicide to me. Maybe in 5-10 years there will be enough HD ready hardware to be able to roll this out but at the moment they are just creating barriers even for those who are likely to want to be an early adopter.

Just plain silly.

Nick dVl

03-09-2005, 09:56

As far as I know, a Blu-Ray player downloads new authentication keys if the old ones have been compromised. I think it has the knock-on effect of rendering old discs unplayable though. Anyway, I won't be touching this with a barge pole!

I hope HD-DVD doesn't go this route!

mattwakeman

04-09-2005, 08:15

Anyway, I won't be touching this with a barge pole!

This is pretty much how I feel about this at the moment. I am just going down the HTPC route and one of the reasons that I want to do this is to have the convenience of ripping disks to my hard drive and combining two disks into one film (or one HUGE film in the case of LotR :nuts: ). I have no desire whatsoever to download films from the net or just pass on what I have brought to others.

But the way it is going I, like many others, will not be able to do so because of these draconican methods. So I simply won't buy it until a work around has been created which is 100% safe. So my money stays exactly where it is. And reading views on DVDFile and Home Theater Forum there are many people who will be doing exactly the same.

thescrounger

04-09-2005, 09:25

If Blu-Ray doesn't get it's act togeter it'll die on it's ass. This is just another nail in the coffin.

Faythur

04-09-2005, 22:13

I'm all for anti piracy measures with the pre-recorded media, but when there is talk of disabling a player just because it has been made multiregion, stinks! :razz:

I won't touch one, if this is the case, either.

They [Holywood] should scrap region coding in this day and age. They should be thinking 'global' markets, not area/region by region.

john316

05-09-2005, 07:01

I bet it never gets off the ground - I can imagine court cases will pop up everywhere and the entire thing would get messy as hell. I'm sure the HD-DVD group must be looking at this and seeing this as a situation to get the major jump on Blu-ray!

jlcraig

06-09-2005, 17:08

How many people nowadays have region encoded DVD players! Even my in laws got me to mod their player so they could watch discs they brought back from holiday in Florida.

As soon as ceap HD systems start coming out of China these sort of issues will go away, can you imagine a region locked, macrovisioned or internet authenticated player selling more than a handful of units in any Asian country?

Looks like Sony have learned nothing from BetaMax.

jayok

06-09-2005, 18:39

I certainly will not be getting this crap

Vulcan101

06-09-2005, 19:08

I think the phrase is "over my dead body". Of course the studios want this but it will, if not kill Blu Ray certainly hammer the market for this stuff flat.

Ok, there will always be some saddo who will buy it because its new. But I suspect most people won't when they work out that they have to connect this up to the internet. Imagine the server melt down following a release of a movie as big as Star Wars when everyone on the planet tries to authenticate their copy online, or the choas when some hacker switches off every BluRay disk player in North America.

My guess is that about 10 minutes after they bring this out someone will have written a bit of code that will run in the background of a PC and emulate the authentication server.

But personally I think this is a dead format. Lets hope HD DVD doens't try something as clumsy and stupid.

DK_UK

06-09-2005, 22:33

I am very concerned by this.

I import 95% of my DVDs only because I prefer watching films in their original run-time, and hate the sped up audio.
So obviously to me a multi-region player is essential.

Now reports are coming out that the future HD formats will have strict region enforcement, it leaves me with 2 options.

If the HD disks sold in the UK are in 24P or NTSC then no doubt I will buy one, and be quite content.
However if the UK HD disks are PAL (25 frames) then I will not be buying any at all.

Does anyone know for sure what video system the UK HD disks are going to use, 50Hz, 60Hz, 96Hz???

camaj

07-09-2005, 00:09

Looks like Sony have learned nothing from BetaMax.

Did Betamax have internet authentication DRM? If not there's no comparison. AFAIK sony really didn't have anything to learn from Betamax other than don't be the only company behind a format. On that basis they have learned since pretty much everyone but Toshiba are part of Blu-ray

I think people need to stop panicing. If Blu-ray requires this then HD-DVD certainly will, but I don't believe either group would. It's true that the DRM specs for both provide for renewable keys but the protection is so strong that I'd be surprised if they renew them more than once.

If they are renewed then they'd be renewed on they player side rather than the disc side so the player would still be able to play old films. All discs have their own keys anyway (same is true for DVD) it's not like one key opens the whole DVD library

When it comes to PC based players it might be a different story. PC's are almost invariably connected to the net and that's where and ripping would occur. Stand alone players would really be trying to combat vob files burnt on a RW disc

As people have stated any Net based DRM would mess with mobility and Blu-ray representatives made clear months ago that any DRM would require a phone home. Even if they were lying I'd imagine that everything would be optional so if Fox were the only studio using it, you could vote with your money and stick to DVD for Fox's stuff

downhillbiker

07-09-2005, 00:33

Wouldn't this make it impossible to have a portable BluRay player?

camaj

07-09-2005, 01:42

Wouldn't this make it impossible to have a portable BluRay player?

Well first of all it depends on whether any rumors are true or not. Clearly perminent connections would prohibit portable players which in turn suggests that perminent connections are unlikely

mattwakeman

08-09-2005, 18:52

Very interesting article at http://www.dvdfile.com/news/viewpoints/editors_desk/2005/09_05.html on this issue. For example:

'...Now comes word that to view HD on your computer will not only require a new optical disc drive and software driver, but a new interface board and a new monitor. Yup, you guessed it. High definition DVD will not be permitted to output full resolution images over the analog connections to your existing monitor. It's not yet clear whether older versions of the operating system like 98SE and XP will be updated to support the new anti-piracy measures, but without such updates, owners of existing versions of Windows are also out of luck. So Hollywood strikes again; not only will 6.6 million expensive home theater displays have to be discarded, but all Windows-based computer owners are expected either to buy new computers and peripherals or retrofit and upgrade their existing systems, throwing away our monitors in the process. Hollywood executives continue to be very cavalier with our hard-earned cash.'

As it stands at the moment the drive towards hd-dvd/blu-ray is looking more like the music companies desperately trying to sell (and not understanding why it failed) mini-discs over cd's as 'The Next Big Thing'.

DK_UK

08-09-2005, 19:25

I wonder what would annoy the studios and manufacturers more;

1. Distributing HD content without much copy protection and suffering a "loss" of a few million in piracy.

Or

2. Distributing HD with draconian copy protection and having the formats fail completely losing billions?

Grandmaster

08-09-2005, 19:29

Again, this is commercial suicide considering how many HD sets in the US use analogue component only. I just don't see the point of this at all.

I've been working on a 720p/1080p uncompressed capture project for the last couple of months, mostly so my company can deal with HD sources before they get compressed into MPEG2/MPEG4/WMV/whatever. While I'm not intent on putting movies out there, for my purposes, I'm going to stick to T2 Extreme Edition style disks that run off PC on dual layer DVD9s rather than bank on either HD-DVD or BluRay.

However, if I was a pirate, I'd simply reverse engineer an LCD panel (doing this with PSP now) and get to the picture post-decryption at the digital RGB level. Or else circumvent HDCP via the analogue converters out there, and recapture in analogue. Contrary to the hype, the visible difference between analogue to digital is not perceptible by the human eye if you're using high quality kit.

There's nothing that the creators of HD can do to stop piracy, and mark my words, there'll be more hooky HD disks around than ever, DRM or not. They'll end up on the internet, downloadable via the usual dodgy sources.

As is often the case, it's the average bloke on the street that will suffer the most from draconian DRM measures, not the pirates.

What's wrong with a simple, on-disk encryption? Despite the exploits on the earlier revisions of firmware, the 128-bit AES encryption on the Sony PSP would take literally years for hundreds of computers working in tandem to decrypt. There's just no need for online keys and licenses.

kiran_mk2

08-09-2005, 21:08

The more I hear about hD, the more I think it will just fall apart. Firstly I think the proportion of people who have HD Ready screens is minute, secondly if people have to plug their HD players into the internet, I can see a great deal of people passing on it. Have the syidios leanrt nothing from the music companies who spent millions of anti pirate measures that can be disables by turning off the autorun feature.

Pirates got around the Steam copy protection within a few hours of Half Life 2 launching so I think it shouldn't be long until HD discs with emulated authentification servers on them are available from the bloke down the pub.

Grandmaster

08-09-2005, 21:51

As I've explained in my last post, the pirate disks will be reverse engineered and re-authored with no DRM at all. There's no need to authenticate anything if you've recaptured the material having circumvented HDCP.

camaj

09-09-2005, 14:27

But that would mean you'd probably have to buy pirated material whereas most people just want to rip their own stuff for their own use.

Anyway, like I say, don't panic yet, I believe there's a lot of rumor mungoring going around and I wouldn't be surprised if it's inaccurate to some degree or another

Grandmaster

09-09-2005, 21:53

But that would mean you'd probably have to buy pirated material whereas most people just want to rip their own stuff for their own use.

In that case, they should stick to a tried and tested form of on-disk encryption rather than internet authentication. As I mentioned, nobody has managed to crack 128-bit AES encryption for one, and that's been around for a while.

I assumed that the more hardcore DRM was there to prevent more widescale piracy, but the bottom line is, if something can produce an audio-visual output of any description, it can be copied.

DK_UK

10-09-2005, 16:01

The thing is though, how many people that have £5000 worth of HT kit buy hooky DVDs?

Vulcan101

10-09-2005, 16:06

On the other hand look how fast the price of DVD players dropped, and there will be a lot around because SONY are using it on PS3.

mattwakeman

10-09-2005, 17:16

The thing is though, how many people that have £5000 worth of HT kit buy hooky DVDs?

But how many of them would like the ability to copy what they legally bought onto their own systems? As ever with these things the only people that really suffer are those who are playing by the rules as it is...

Woz

11-09-2005, 08:43

I'm not sure there are enough enthusiasts out there to support HD anyway.
Most people won't see any real benefit of upgrading unless they stand 2 feet away from their set. After all - in the average lounge, you're not going to want a 60" screen, and while HT fans might talk of 'cinematic' and '3d like pictures' the fact is that most people won't care and won't appreciate it.
I would imagine the average screen will be in the 32" range. I have a 42" SD screen in my lounge, and even as an enthusiast I see absolutely no need to go HD. I sit about 12' away from the screen and I challenge anyone to have the resolution in their eyes to really benefit from the different resolution at that screen size and distance.

I'm more and more of a mind that HD telly and the high res sound discs being pushed on us are coming this way not because of the real benefits to the consumer but as a way of retrofitting more secure DRM onto media products.

mattwakeman

11-09-2005, 08:47

Not only as a retrofit to make them more secure but also because HD will allow the studios to resell all of their films again just like cd's allowed the companies to make money as we all replaced vinyl. But I agree, as it stands at the moment the hassles appear to far outweigh the benefits but maybe I'll change my tune when I actually get to see and compare HD to SD...

Celtic

11-09-2005, 09:48

Warren - I was of the same opinion ...but having been in American and seeing Hidef....you will notice the difference mate...it is noticeable....

anyway it looks like it is going ahead...

Grandmaster

11-09-2005, 09:52

The thing is though, how many people that have £5000 worth of HT kit buy hooky DVDs?

Well let's consider the WMV-HD T2 Extreme Edition which requires internet authentication to check that you are viewing it in the USA and the USA only. Doesn't matter how much your kit costs, many will buy the media that plays on their system. Or download it off the internet if they can't...

DK_UK

11-09-2005, 10:58

Or download it off the internet if they can't...

Legally?

Dan

11-09-2005, 11:54

http://www.blu-ray.com/ifa2005/

Notice the LAN connection on the back and also a modem connection as well on them.

DeadKenny

11-09-2005, 12:02

If true, then my choice has definitely been made. HD-DVD all the way for me. BluRay can die as far as I'm concerned as a movie format.

Won't this just mean that we all get our players hacked to get round the internet authentication issue as well as region coding?

There's always a way!
Not when Sony is involved. All the players will be licenced through Sony and like with the PS2 they'll likely make it illegal to hack BluRay players. Whereas it's not illegal to hack a regular DVD player because no one company has such control.

On the other hand look how fast the price of DVD players dropped, and there will be a lot around because SONY are using it on PS3.
PS3's will remain high priced for many years. I can't see them dropping to £100 prices that the PS2 is now for 5 years at least. Meanwhile HD-DVD will be budget £20 in Asda within 5 years.

Hmm, which would I buy? :thinking:

PS2 carries a DVD player, but it's not the driving force behind DVD. It's overpriced and a crap DVD player.

DK_UK

11-09-2005, 14:27

I wonder if the sticking point over the lack of a Blu Ray - HD-DVD unification was the internet connectivity?

DK_UK

11-09-2005, 14:32

There is a LAN connection on the back of the HD-DVD player too...

http://www.blu-ray.com/images/ifa2005/toshiba_05.jpg

pjclark1

11-09-2005, 16:18

All this means is everyone will download pre-hacked movies
and nobody will be buying the originals.

If they can encrypt it, someone else can hack it.

Grandmaster

11-09-2005, 16:24

I'm not sure what we can tell from the HD-DVD player pictured above. It appears to have no digital video output, but does have what looks like firewire and USB2.0 ports! Also note the analogue component output...

DeadKenny

11-09-2005, 16:47

That firewire looking port looks like an HDMI socket (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDMI) to me.

Not sure why the USB and LAN. Maybe for connection of external devices so it can play media on removable drives and over a network. Maybe for download of firmware updates.

A LAN connection would be far too complicated for Joe Public ("Ether-what?").

Vast majority have USB broadband modems, not Ethernet and I can't see them wanting to connect a USB modem into the player just to play a movie.

camaj

11-09-2005, 17:05

PS2 carries a DVD player, but it's not the driving force behind DVD. It's overpriced and a crap DVD player.

No one's claiming it's the "driving force" though :thinking: Whatever your opinions of the PS2 it was a lot of peoples first DVD player. Not HT enthusiasts but ordinary people

Hmm, which would I buy?

Well you made your mind up months ago, presumably because Sony's part of Blu-ray, to go for HD-DVD

Anyone nuetral would go for Blu-ray, since that'd also be similarly priced with Blu-ray being the superior product. However I have my doubts that the prices will come down as fast as DVD did and that HD-DVD will even make it 5 years

I wonder if the sticking point over the lack of a Blu Ray - HD-DVD unification was the internet connectivity?

No, it would have been a non-technical issue. Really if Toshiba and NEC joined BDA that would be the unification even if they just used the current BD technology although that might be unlikely since they'd want part of the patent money.

Besides both formats have touted internet connectivity for a long time ago and both have the same DRM system. If there would be any kind of internet based DRM BOTH systems would have it, despite what the title of this thread would have you believe

thescrounger

11-09-2005, 17:36

Anyone nuetral would go for Blu-ray

But would they? I think the first considerations from a public perspective would be price and compatibility. Neither of which are currently desirable factors with Blu-ray.

DeadKenny

11-09-2005, 17:42

No one's claiming it's the "driving force" though :thinking: Whatever your opinions of the PS2 it was a lot of peoples first DVD player. Not HT enthusiasts but ordinary people

But they are. Every few posts claim that BluRay will win because of the PS3.

The PS2 was a popular first DVD player, but only for a short time. Cheap players from supermarkets put an end to that, not to mention the problems with the PS2 as a DVD player (i.e. crap quality, the need to get hacks to play via RGB SCART, incompatibilities with certain discs, need to buy extras like the remote).

Most ordinary people these days have a cheap DVD player. Kids might use the PS2 as a DVD player though, but chances are they've also got a cheap proper DVD player too in their bedroom.

Well you made your mind up months ago, presumably because Sony's part of Blu-ray, to go for HD-DVD
You're wrong there. I have been arguing about the merits of either and generally adding balance to the one-sided "BluRay will win" arguments by pointing out the benefits of HD-DVD, but I had been saying all along that I'll wait and see.

My opinion will change now though if BluRay requires Internet connectivity but HD-DVD doesn't. We've yet to confirm this though.

If HD-DVD requires Internet connectivity also, then things are back to square one and I'll still "wait and see".

If Internet connectivity isn't required then I don't really care which wins so long as Sony aren't fleecing the consumer by forcing high prices.

Anyone nuetral would go for Blu-ray, since that'd also be similarly priced with Blu-ray being the superior product.
Superior only by capacity. Capacity isn't everything.

P.S. Don't think I'm anti-Sony. The vast majority of my A/V kit is Sony and I'm a big PS2 fan :D. I'm just not keen on one big studio having control over a media format as it's not good for competition and thus not good for driving down prices. Much as I'm a PS2 fan, the evidence is there for all to be seen in the extortionate prices of PS2 games. Thankfully the market is different with PS2 games in that they find it hard to shift the games when they become dated, which is less of an issue with DVDs.

Just been watching an article on Channel 4 news about HD and the war between BluRay and HD-DVD. "Expert" on there backs BluRay but not with many valid reasons.

Personally I think if they can't agree on a unified format, the solution is universal players. If Sony can compromise on this and not make licencing the BluRay technology far too expensive for budget manufacturer's, then everyone will have a player that plays both formats and the average consumer doesn't have to worry which format to get. Movies by some studios will come on one and others on the other format.

Much like DVD recorders. They support all kinds of formats, but the average consumer doesn't need to worry, just goes out and buys a recordable DVD disc regardless of whether it's +R/-R/etc.

I do believe HD-DVD would be cheap in 5 years time. I don't believe BluRay will be cheap in 5 years though.

I still think though the biggest decider for the consumer is simply the name. BluRay may seem cool to us geeks, but HD-DVD means everything to the consumer. They are about to be bombarded with everything 'HD', and HD-DVD tells them it's DVD... but HD!

BluRay on the other hand... Blu What? Eh?

jdw

11-09-2005, 17:52

I can't see two formats being around too long.

DVD was a unified format and was huge selling because of the fact that there was nothing else to buy. I think consumers will likely stay away rom both formats until there is some consolidation.

Also there's no way 2 formats is workable from the studios point of view. Their greed will mean that they'll want to release it on both formats to maximise sales, but that simply isn't workable from a retail point of view. Most stores simply don't have the shelf space for 2 different SKU's for one movie. Even if the studios decided on Hybrid Blu-Ray/HD-DVD discs, I betting this'll hike the price and we'll still steer clear.

I'm certainly gonna stay well clear of both formats, cos in the not too distant future one of them will be gone and then i'll have an expensive and very bulky doorstop. :D

James
PS. And now there's FVD from Microsoft and the Blank disc manufacturers. The murkiness of the water is just getting worse...

Xenomorph

11-09-2005, 18:05

The whole mess is coming too soon IMO. Most people are not going to buy the same film they have on DVD again and I have serious doubts many will see the difference from DVD, most won't have sufficient kit to.

nwgarratt

11-09-2005, 18:15

I saw the channel 4 article. There was no mention that the TV also had to be HD.

I am not interested in either format right now. I have too many normal DVD's to enjoy and certainly will not replace them with the HD version. However, in a few years when one has become the standard HD format. I may get new films in the format (as long as I have an new HD capable Projector to play them through).

Most people will not care as DVD hasn't been out that long for most people (I know people who have only just started with DVD). The last thing they want to do is start with another format and I bet most people will not be able to tell the difference with the quality.

Vulcan101

11-09-2005, 18:22

This was one of the reasons why SACD and DVD-A didn't really take off.

Unless you have a audio quality surround sound system (and the speakers to match) there was no real benefit of the newer audio disks over normal CD's. No-one is going to replace hundreds of CD's for something that may be better only on a sound system that is 2 or 3 times more expensive than a reasonable hifi.

I suspect a lot of people will look at HDTV and say the same thing.

camaj

11-09-2005, 19:14

But would they? I think the first considerations from a public perspective would be price and compatibility. Neither of which are currently desirable factors with Blu-ray.

:shrug: I think you're trying to say that those are neither factors that BD has but of course that's not true. As has been stated many times in the past BD will probably be the same price as HD-DVD if not cheaper

That "more compatible" stuff HD-DVD fanboys keep throwing around is ludicrus. They never say how or why it's more compatible or even what it's compatible with? BD is compatible with PS3 while HD-DVD isn't so you could argue the opposite but either way it's a dumb thing to say.

Presumably they mean "more compatible with DVD" but I haven't seen anything that suggests Blu-ray is less compatible with DVD. Both formats will be able to playback DVD which also negates the "I'll have to re-buy everything" argument

Interestingly, CH4 news have just aired an excellent format war report as I was writing this. Very fair and more accurate than most I've read. They made the point that it was basically Toshiba v Sony, most BD detractors say HD-DVD v Sony when if anything it's Toshiba v Blu-ray.

They made the point that Blu-ray had almost all the CE companies and Studios although they didn't distinguish MGM from Sony which is a bit misleading.

They showed a HDTV but made the point that you couldn't tell the difference although they sort of did so in a way that meant most people probably didn't understand. That would result in even more people thinking "it doesn't look that good"

They had a market analyst on and he basically said what I thought, that Blu-ray almost certainly too strong not to win and that both formats would launch but HD-DVD would only last for 12-18 months

Woz

11-09-2005, 22:08

...

They had a market analyst on and he basically said what I thought, that Blu-ray almost certainly too strong not to win and that both formats would launch but HD-DVD would only last for 12-18 months

All of the above is making the assumption that EITHER format survives.
We only have to look at DVD-A and SACD to see that this isn't a given. The public are not stupid and can smell a rat when they are given a new format with little real benefit to the average consumer but HUGE benefits to the studios.

I don't think the market is actually ready for it, and by the time it is, the studios will be wetting their pants about direct streaming of movies, which will give them total control of their IP and little or no production and pressing costs.

mackemansj1

12-09-2005, 06:16

Why jump on either boat, Wait a few months after they launch and get a dual player from samsung two birds one stone.

hookbeak

12-09-2005, 06:42

Seems to me that blu ray and HD DVD are the new laserdisk.

Grandmaster

12-09-2005, 07:00

All of the above is making the assumption that EITHER format survives.
We only have to look at DVD-A and SACD to see that this isn't a given. The public are not stupid and can smell a rat when they are given a new format with little real benefit to the average consumer but HUGE benefits to the studios.

I don't think the market is actually ready for it, and by the time it is, the studios will be wetting their pants about direct streaming of movies, which will give them total control of their IP and little or no production and pressing costs.

Even though it will have a impact on my own business (I did have plans to make a packet from HD :lol: ), I'm inclined to go with Warren here.

camaj - you can wax lyrical about blu-ray until you're blue in the face but the fact is that to get a launch off the ground, you need to entice the early adopter. This very discussion shows that HD right now does not do that.

If we buy a UK machine we're going to be lumbered with late, too-expensive software - and a limited library at launch if history is anything to go by. If we import a US machine, we will fall foul of the internet activation. I notice that camaj's argument about the DRM has gone from 'these are just rumours, ignore them' to 'well HD-DVD will have it too' which if true doesn't just doom one format, it dooms them both.

Personally I don't care which format out of the two wins (although right now I'm inclined to think that both will not succeed). The only difference is capacity at the end of the day, and having some experience of encoding HD footage, the lower capacity level of HD-DVD is more than enough for most movies plus tons of extras.

jdw

12-09-2005, 17:30

Something else I think Sony and their cronies have underestimated, is just how much the simple phrase DVD has embedded itself into popular culture.

HD-DVD has a head start over the totally rubbish moniker of Blu-Ray

James

DK_UK

12-09-2005, 18:24

Living in the UK, I won't be buying either format unless I can enjoy films with no PAL speedup (ie 24P or a NTSC type video system) here in good ol' England.

Quinnsey

12-09-2005, 20:01

Isn’t the lack of Pal/NTSC style formats a characteristic of the Hi-Def?

DeadKenny

12-09-2005, 21:49

Isn’t the lack of Pal/NTSC style formats a characteristic of the Hi-Def?
Sadly not.

HD comes in 24/25 and 50/60 versions (I think 24/25 for the interlaced formats and 50/60 for progressive), which means in Europe we get 25 and 50 formats (e.g. 720p/50 and 1080i/25), and that means speed up :oh-hum:

Nick dVl

13-09-2005, 07:57

Seems to me that blu ray and HD DVD are the new laserdisk.

That's pretty much my feeling too. It'll be a niche product which a few people will have but never catch on for the masses. High-def is certainly better than standard DVD, but it's not enough to entice enough people to shift (I wasn't exactly blown away by the high-def demo I saw - it certainly wasn't "3D-like", "cinematic", or "like looking out of a window" as people had led me to believe).

When they start doing +2000 lines of resolution without all the technical hassle, then Sony/Toshiba can give me a call... :D

bluescrn

13-09-2005, 17:53

IMHO, Hi-def without higher framerates is pretty much pointless (both for films and for games). Unfortunately, both the movie and game industries are pushing things in 'more pixels, but no more frames' direction :(

Grandmaster

13-09-2005, 17:59

A bit confused by that - Xbox 360's most comfortable graphics mode is 720p/60. You don't really need more than 60fps really do you?

jdw

13-09-2005, 19:30

A bit confused by that - Xbox 360's most comfortable graphics mode is 720p/60. You don't really need more than 60fps really do you?

That really depends on the apparatus you're viewing it. I doubt we'll ever see a 60Hz Hi Definition CRT, but a 60Hz CRT Monitor makes my head hurt and 60Hz TFT's sometimes make me feel a little sick. 75Hz is fine though.

James

bluescrn

13-09-2005, 20:45

A bit confused by that - Xbox 360's most comfortable graphics mode is 720p/60. You don't really need more than 60fps really do you?

60fps would be just lovely (for games and for films)... but just because the screen scans at 60hz doesn't mean that content (films or games) will be at 60fps....

Wasn't it you that's in 'the industry'? Do you really expect (m)any next-gen games to run at 60fps given the expectations of a 'next-gen look', real-time shadows, complex shaders, excessive poly counts, and the big performance hit of rendering at HDTV resolutions?

I'm a bit pessemistic about next-gen, but I think it's fairly realistic to expect that there'll be a smaller proportion of games running at 60fps on next-gen that this generation :(. Especially when huge sellers like GTA and NFSU get away with absolutely awful framerates....

Everything I've heard/read has given me the impression that Microsoft couldn't care less about framerate as long as there's plenty of uber-high-res HDTV screenshots to be thrown around by marketing depts....

DK_UK

13-09-2005, 20:51

Frame rate is everything in games, the first priority should be a stable frame rate, then chuck in the detail.

DeadKenny

13-09-2005, 21:01

If a film is 24fps it's 24fps. You aren't going to gain frames by displaying at a faster rate. It's different with games where more frames can be generated.

60 and 50 refers to Hz which is fields not frames and is used with interlaced images. The number of frames is still 24 and 25.

CRTs can of course double up the scan rate and run at 100Hz which is twice 50Hz, but the frame rate is still 25fps. Increasing the rate reduces flicker on CRTs of course, but makes crap all difference on TFTs as they don't work in the same way and why all TFTs can hapily run at 60Hz with no flicker (which makes me wonder how jdw feels sick watching a TFT at 60Hz :thinking: ).

At the end of the day, we still have the same old hassle of Europe having films at 25fps and US 24fps as they should be.

:oh-hum:

jdw

13-09-2005, 21:21

(which makes me wonder how jdw feels sick watching a TFT at 60Hz :thinking: ).

The optician mentioned something about hyper-sensitivity. All I know is they make me feel ill, although I can't see any flicker, 75Hz is fine for me. (Fluorescent tubes have a similar effect on me from time to time)

James

bluescrn

14-09-2005, 07:16

If a film is 24fps it's 24fps. You aren't going to gain frames by displaying at a faster rate. It's different with games where more frames can be generated.
...
At the end of the day, we still have the same old hassle of Europe having films at 25fps and US 24fps as they should be.
:oh-hum:

I'm saying the framerate of film should change! Move it out of the 24fps dark ages! Record more frames! As everything's going digital, there doesn't seem to be a good technical reason not to. The only real issues would be artistic ones... and the risk of inducing motion sickness :)

A move to 50/60fps film would be *far* more noticable than the move to a higher resolution.

With so many new screens being TFT/Plasma, there's no need for a fixed refresh rate (which is purely a CRT thing) - the technology could potentially allow variable framerates, couldn't it?...

It's shocking that they've retained the 50/60 divide with HDTV. That should have been the first thing to be standardized out - even if it was required that they support both (for playing existing content) but that all new hi-def content would run at one or the other?

DeadKenny

14-09-2005, 13:10

Film doesn't need to be much faster. Bear in mind also that although it's 24fps in terms of frames on the film, it's actually projected at 48fps as 24fps would have far too much flicker.

DK_UK

14-09-2005, 17:04

bluescrn

14-09-2005, 17:59

Film doesn't need to be much faster. Bear in mind also that although it's 24fps in terms of frames on the film, it's actually projected at 48fps as 24fps would have far too much flicker.

Projecting the same frame twice reduces the flicker, but does nothing to reduce the 'judderyness' of 24fps.

Surely I'm not the only one that's notices how juddery slow camera pans on films can be, compared to the super-smoothness of scrolling on console games that run at 50/60fps....

DK_UK

14-09-2005, 20:16

DeadKenny

15-09-2005, 00:42

Projecting the same frame twice reduces the flicker, but does nothing to reduce the 'judderyness' of 24fps.

Surely I'm not the only one that's notices how juddery slow camera pans on films can be, compared to the super-smoothness of scrolling on console games that run at 50/60fps....
If you notice judder on slow pans it's probably NTSC 3:2 pulldown (http://www.dvdfile.com/news/special_report/production_a_z/3_2_pulldown.htm).

Are you noticing this mostly on R1 DVDs and you're watching on a CRT telly?

Progressive scan should sort this out.

There should be little judder on the film itself, anything like that is an artefact of conversion from 24fps to 60 fields per second (60Hz). The movie industry has spent a century perfecting techniques to prevent noticeable judder on film due to using 24fps.

HD cameras can run at 48fps (though converted to 24fps for cinema projection). Beyond that there's little benefit. I read somewhere that we generally can't perceive much beyond 70 anyway.

As for consoles. Consoles are running at 50/60 Hz not necessarily 50/60 frames per second. Even if they generate at 50/60 fps, many consoles at present generate interlaced output which means it's really giving you 25 or 24fps game and the other frames it may generate are redundant. That's why consoles don't need so much power as a PC as they generally only have to create a 50/60Hz interlaced image which means frame rates down at 25/24fps levels. Console games are also targetted specifically for 50 and 60Hz territories and the games themselves are tweaked or converted to work with the relevant format (though many complain about conversions of games to 50Hz, i.e. PAL).

bluescrn

15-09-2005, 06:38

[QUOTE=DeadKenny]If you notice judder on slow pans it's probably NTSC 3:2 pulldown (http://www.dvdfile.com/news/special_report/production_a_z/3_2_pulldown.htm).

Not at the cinema it isn't! And on a big screen is where it can be most noticable - it sometimes seems particularly bad with CG scenes

24fps simply isn't fast enough for the motion to be really smooth.

With games it's easy to see the difference - look at PGR2 or Forza (30fps) , then look at GT4 or ToCA 2 (60frames/sec*). Huge difference. I don't know of any examples of high-framerate film to use as a comparison, though....

(*A game that runs at 60fps will generate a unique image for each field displayed by the screen. A game running at 30fps will generate a unique image for each pair of fields. Very significant difference!)

camaj

17-09-2005, 00:46

All of the above is making the assumption that EITHER format survives.
We only have to look at DVD-A and SACD to see that this isn't a given. The public are not stupid and can smell a rat when they are given a new format with little real benefit to the average consumer but HUGE benefits to the studios.

I don't know what you're trying to imply but there isn't some huge con job going on. People are being offered something they want, and there's huge benifits, it's up to them to decide if they want to pay for it. No ones forcing anyone to do or buy anything against their will!!

People use the DVD-A/SACD analogy but I've said many times this is a terrible example. For a start neither format is dead although neither look like taking off. However the main difference is most people can't tell when something sounds better and nor do they care. However most people can detect even relativly small changes in picture

camaj - you can wax lyrical about blu-ray until you're blue in the face

I don't think I've waxed lyrical about Blu-ray. I've waxed lyrical about HD

I notice that camaj's argument about the DRM has gone from 'these are just rumours, ignore them' to 'well HD-DVD will have it too' which if true doesn't just doom one format, it dooms them both.

It hasn't gone from one argument to another. It's always been "These are just rumors" I said "don't panic yet" rather than ignore them. Since people seem to have tried to use this as a stick to bash Blu-ray I also pointed out that HD-DVD would have it to, to illustrate the lack of even handedness. Also I believe the neither format will have it as it happens

DeadKenny

17-09-2005, 10:11

Not at the cinema it isn't! And on a big screen is where it can be most noticable - it sometimes seems particularly bad with CG scenes
Can't say I've noticed at the cinema :?:

24fps simply isn't fast enough for the motion to be really smooth.
They're projected at 48fps at the cinema (2 frames repeated per second) which makes motion smoother. There is also a deliberate motion blur in cinematography to ensure smooth motion (a trick adopted for consoles too, e.g. GTA III).

With games it's easy to see the difference - look at PGR2 or Forza (30fps) , then look at GT4 or ToCA 2 (60frames/sec*). Huge difference. I don't know of any examples of high-framerate film to use as a comparison, though....

(*A game that runs at 60fps will generate a unique image for each field displayed by the screen. A game running at 30fps will generate a unique image for each pair of fields. Very significant difference!)
With PCs yes, with consoles with a PAL, NTSC or RGB signal (all interlaced), as most consoles use, then this is impossible. A field in interlaced analogue TV is half a frame (in terms of lines). To show unique frames per field will result in a horrible mess.

The whole point of fields with analogue telly was to be able to broadcast a frame in less 'bandwidth' and so the TVs of the early days were able to cope with the number of lines being sent. Half the lines were sent in one field and the other half (alternate lines) were sent in the next field, thus building one complete frame within a second.

With VGA, DVI and progressive scan it's another matter but the vast majority of console users don't have this (and the likes of the PS2 don't have the options anyway, though the XBox does I believe).

The reason consoles might work better at 60fps is more likely because it relieves a bottleneck by generating 60fps. When it gets to the TV encoder however, half of those frames will be used as 60fps into 60Hz interlaced is impossible. Also console may generate at 60fps for those that can support progressive scan outputs (e.g. XBox), when hooked up to a suitable display with the right cables. Most however are playing games on their interlaced TVs.

It's very similar with PCs. Loads of games are capable of creating frames at a rate far faster than the display can actually show them. Again, it may reduce bottlenecks, but it's impossible to show them at the rate generated if the field rate is lower than physically possible to show the frame rate. However, PCs are progressive scan, so in this case a field is a frame, so 60Hz is 60fps.

AndyWilson

17-09-2005, 13:22

It's quite interesting to take a look at the LCD screens forum over at the avforums. People there are debating the best HD screens, but there's very little (if any) mention of Blu-Ray, HD-DVD or Sky HD. What is driving geeks there to search out HD nirvana is the X-Box 360...

thescrounger

17-09-2005, 13:40

Well, that'll be the first consumer friendly HD gadget out on the market.

Gizmo

17-09-2005, 14:24

Woz

18-09-2005, 00:13

I don't know what you're trying to imply but there isn't some huge con job going on. People are being offered something they want, and there's huge benifits, it's up to them to decide if they want to pay for it. No ones forcing anyone to do or buy anything against their will!!

I'm not sure that 'con job' is the right word, but believe me, the studios love the idea of HD because it gives them the chance to finally get DRM right from their point of view.
Piracy and control of their IP is a huge deal with them, and the only realistic way they are going to regain control is by pushing out another format because the horse has well and truly bolted for DVD. The hardware manufacturers need to get the studios on-side, and this is a big plus.
Remember also that Sony own a hell of a lot of the content they are putting out. It's in their interest to control it's use (in fact they are one of the top companies for DRM solutions on existing media).
This isn't a conspiracy. These companies are already investing serious money into copy protection and DRM. This is business.

Whether the benefits to the consumer are actually huge is of course a matter of opinion, but I've already said that I don't percieve them as 'huge' and I'm a pretty critical viewer. 'Huge' is not really a word that should be used for the benefits that will be seen by joe average using Matsui or Goodmans HD players and sets and sitting an average distance away in an average lounge.

AndyWilson

18-09-2005, 07:52

Well, that'll be the first consumer friendly HD gadget out on the market.

It's not just that - Sky HD is on the horizon but nobody's asking "will my LCD work with Sky HD" - and nobody's asking if any screens have the right connections / DRM for Blu Ray or HD DVD. I'm less sceptical about HD generally than I used to be, but I'm still far from convinced it will be a success. The main problem is that the entry level is far too highly priced for anyone other than home cinema enthusiasts or gaming geeks.

DeadKenny

18-09-2005, 09:49

Interesting that the PS3 supports 1080p. Not sure the XBox 360 does. The Xbox is also targetted around hooking up to a Windows MCE PC, whereas the PS3 is standalone.

thescrounger

18-09-2005, 09:58

It's not just that - Sky HD is on the horizon but nobody's asking "will my LCD work with Sky HD" - and nobody's asking if any screens have the right connections / DRM for Blu Ray or HD DVD. I'm less sceptical about HD generally than I used to be, but I'm still far from convinced it will be a success. The main problem is that the entry level is far too highly priced for anyone other than home cinema enthusiasts or gaming geeks.

I think people have different prioritites. As soon as there's a date for HD-DVD or Bluray, I'm sure they'll be forum posts asking what screen will I need.

We mustn't forget all the professional opinions from 8 years ago who said that DVD would not take off.

Grandmaster

18-09-2005, 10:31

Interesting that the PS3 supports 1080p. Not sure the XBox 360 does. The Xbox is also targetted around hooking up to a Windows MCE PC, whereas the PS3 is standalone.

My concern with adopting 1080p support is the affect on gaming performance. Hook up a PC and run it in 1920x1200 and you'll see a big performance hit compared to 1280x720 even on the most powerful hardware. I honestly can't see how games consoles will be any different since the 'big two' are using nVidia and ATI cores.

Already the developers of Project Gotham 3 are using GPU power saved on 480p output to increase AA to 4x over the 2x inherent in the standard 720p mode.

I have a nagging doubt that any 1080p screen modes will not be native 1080p but instead a rescaled 720p, or interpolated 1080i. Perhaps the belief is that scaling within the machine is preferable to letting the display do it? I can see the advantages here - there are some very decent scaling algorhythms out there these days. The alternative is to lose frames or eye candy as you scale the resolution upwards.

My gut feeling is that unless PS3's graphics core really is a step beyond X360's (which I doubt to be honest), 720p will be the standard there too, and there's nothing wrong with that IMO.

With regards Bluscreen's comments earlier about game developers going for detail over frame rate, that is of course down to the developer. The likes of Polyphony, Namco and Criterion will always push for 60fps. At E3, Call of Duty 2 was already running at 60fps on the alpha hardware.

DK_UK

19-09-2005, 20:55

I think the saviour for us multi-region DVD hunters could be Australia.

Over there its law that all DVD players must be sold multi-region from the off, so maybe when HD - DVD comes out we will see scores of Australian exporters doing record trade?

Niceguygeoff

20-09-2005, 19:53

I was at Sony Weybridge earlier today, and the Sony rep I spoke to seemed quite excited about the BD-J (for Java) internet extension for BD-ROM discs, which allows for downloading of extra content along with a few other interactive bits and bobs. Whether the user will have to pay for this content is yet unclear. He also said that for Blu-ray (in Europe at least) Sony have not yet decided on what forms of content protection they will implement, although given the BD-J issue it's obvious that the internet will play a big part in Blu-ray's domestic future as a movie-playing medium.

As for hardware, write-once BD-R drives are expected to make it into home PCs before the end of the year, although not in Sony's own computer products (!) because they're waiting for full compatibility with BD-R, re-writeable BD-RE and BD-ROM in one drive. Stand-alone BD video recorders are also still quite a few months away for the UK, but that's a given thanks to the widescale lack of HDTV coverage in the UK.

I just hope that AACS is not pushed to it's full draconian extent when BD-ROM finally reaches our shores, because being stuck with one region (and sped-up video/audio to boot) would suck donkey balls. I'd have to give in eventually because Hi Def is worth all the hassle (well, almost!) but DVD can keep me going for quite a while yet.

mattwakeman

10-10-2005, 09:16

More updates on this:

'It’s been widely reported that a Japanese daily newspaper named Asahi Shimbun quoted on Friday a source close to Warner Bros. indicating that the studio will soon announce that its films will be released on Blu-ray Disc as well as HD DVD. This shift away from being a key supporter of HD DVD follows Paramount Home Entertainment’s announcement that its films will be released on both formats. This leaves only Universal Studios Home Entertainment as the sole holdout uncommitted to releasing content on Blu-ray Disc. We may be approaching the point where HD DVD finds itself irrelevant. Will the format war be over before the first shot is fired in the marketplace?'

Again more interesting stuff and the whole article can be found at: http://66.180.193.7/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=5068&Itemid=11

DeadKenny

10-10-2005, 12:45

Been discussed on this thread...

http://www.thedvdforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=200410&page=35&pp=20

GAmbrose

10-10-2005, 13:09

My concern with adopting 1080p support is the affect on gaming performance. Hook up a PC and run it in 1920x1200 and you'll see a big performance hit compared to 1280x720 even on the most powerful hardware. I honestly can't see how games consoles will be any different since the 'big two' are using nVidia and ATI cores.

I don't agree on this. The PS3 will be using an Nvidia GPU that will be more powerful than the 7800GTX and should be more than poweful enough for 1080p.

Now, I myself have a FX55 with Geforce 6800GT and can run all games (thus far) at 1680x1050 without framerate problems. I'm sure people with 7800GTX's can run most games at 1920x1200 in the same way. And consoles are inherently much faster than the equivalent PC counterpart (In terms of clock speed and GPU power) because they are a single closed system. PC games are coded to take into account 1000's of configurations whereas the developers of console games know exactly where they can squeeze more performance from.

Gary A