Microsoft joins the DVD+RW Alliance

[wkulecz]

Jerry, its editing the "new" MPEG/VR format without re-rendering that I'm interested in. Until hardware MPEG capture/encoders step up a couple of nothces in quality and reliablity, editing mpeg is just not worth worrying about.

--wally.

[arciervo]

Originally posted by Flying dutchman
@Arciervo:
Your description of "the world" kinda coincides with the NTSC regions (except Australia). Could it be that HDTV is more popular there because of the shortcomings of NTSC?

To be honest, I'm not sure that HDTV can be considered "popular" anywhere. In North America at least, there is limited programming available and the sets are still expensive. It's not clear when/if hi-def will really take off. (From the point of view of broadcasters, there are no real benefits from HDTV). On the other hand, prices have dropped to the point where I would start to consider an HDTV as a replacement for my existing main TV. (The 40" Sony direct-view HDTV I saw at an electronics superstore the other night made me drool; sadly, it's outside my price range.)

Although I believe the much-vaunted superiority of PAL vs NTSC may be exaggerated, I've no doubt that the newer sets do produce an excellent picture and there may not be a need for high-definition PAL.

Returning to your original question:

But for whom in the world did Sony develop this recorder? I personally think the necessity for a new DVD format is grossly overestimated.

I'm sorry you apparently took offense at my use of the word "world"; I simply meant the target market for Blu-Ray technology, i.e. those countries that support hi-definition broadcasting.

In the context of standard definition PAL/SECAM/NTSC, I totally agree with you about the non-necessity for a new DVD format.

However, once you take HDTV into account, conventional DVDs fall short of the resolution required. Rather than take a step backwards to tape technology (e.g. D-VHS), I'm sure most people would prefer to use a hi-definition replacement for DVDs.

Admittedly the first-generation Blu-Ray hardware and media is so expensive that it would only appeal to wealthy early-adopters. Of course you could say the same thing about first-generation CD and DVD players.

If (a big "if") the price of Blu-Ray hardware drops to approach that of DVDs, switching over to the new format is a "no-brainer". Just like people now buy a DVD player to replace their old CD player, I can see them buying a backwards-compatible Blu-Ray unit to replace their old DVD player/recorder.

If nothing else, by announcing commercial Blu-Ray products, Sony has created enough fear, uncertainty, and doubt in my mind that I've put "on hold" any plans for buying a standalone DVD recorder. (Not that I was all that close to buying one anyway; at CDN$1000 for a recorder and CDN$10 for brand-name blank media, the price is still too high. :-))

Tony

[dZeus]

Originally posted by Flying dutchman
HDTV is nowhere to be seen here; Over 90% of all transmissions in Europe are still in 4:3 format, and because of this most people still prefer TV's in 4:3 format over widescreen! I myself had to buy a new TV set a few months ago and also decided to buy one in the conventional 4:3 format, because it simply gives more square inches and bells and whistles for the Euro. What many people overlook: it is the height of the image that determines the optimum viewing distance, not the width.

and when you watch 2.35 widescreen movies you'll only have ~60% visible lines on your 'nice big' screen, while on a 16:9 set you'll get ~83 % visible lines. What was it again what you said about 'height and optimum viewing distance'? Broadcast TV is, admittedly, mostly 4:3 still, but the popularity of DVDs can't be ignored. Appearantly I've heard quite different numbers of the ratio of 4:3 and 16:9 TVs being sold than you did.

@Arciervo:
Your description of "the world" kinda coincides with the NTSC regions (except Australia). Could it be that HDTV is more popular there because of the shortcomings of NTSC?

I personally am convinced that PAL and Secam countries have less need for HDTV than NTSC countries, because our TV system has a higher resolution and better colour stability than NTSC in the first place. The slower refresh rate (50 Hz) used to be an issue but is certainly not so anymore: 100 Hz technology has already made the breakthrough. Most new TV's from roughly 600 Euro upwards digitize the signal and turn it into 100 Hz. My new Philips even does real-time interpolation of the fields and displays them non-interlaced !!! The image quality is superb.

Moreover, PAL happens to be very suitable for displaying movie material; the frame rate of the movie only needs to be slightly accelerated from 24 to 25 fps. Since PAL doesn't waste 20% of the frames in a clumsy "telecine" process it's easy to reconstruct the progressive frames from that. DVD's truly look awesome on my TV in 100 Hz progressive mode! Now what more can a man want, except a glass of good wine while enjoying the film?

On the other hand, if Hollywood would decide to start recording movies at 30 fps instead of 24 in order to better accomodate NTSC fans, I would really be very unhappy ;-)

PAL does have certain advantages over NTSC, but for broadcast TV this is a non-issue because the signal quality sucks so much anyway. As for DVDs: the quality of transfer is MUCH more important than the 'theorical advantage' that PAL has over NTSC. I've got plenty NTSC DVD transfers which look much better than many PAL DVD transfers.

Wether HDTV will catch on is not a question of how much better PAL is than NTSC, but when HDTV content will be available. Since DVD is too small for nice MPEG2 HDTV bitstreams, it probably won't catch on in most of the world untill blu-ray will be used for movies.

The market for the Sony device clearly is the Japanese market, as they have a technological edge over the rest of the world in availability of stuff like HDTV content, in the form of broadcast TV channels. (as well as many other technological advantages as Sasq pointed out). Sony doesn't sell this device for outside the Japanese market, so saying how useless it would be for you is completely irrelevant.

FYI:

The NTSC video format is used in the following countries:
Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bermuda, Bolivia, Canada, Chile, Columbia, Cuba, El Salvador, Jamaica, Japan, Mexico, Panama, Peru, Philippines, Puerto Rico, South Korea, Surinam, Taiwan, Trinidad, United States of America, Venezuela.

The PAL and Secam video formats are used in the following countries:
Afghanistan, Algeria, Andorra, Angola, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belgium, Botswana, Brazil, China, Cyprus, Denmark, Ethiopia, Fiji, Finland, Germany, Gibraltar, Hong Kong, Iceland, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, Kuwait, Lesotho, Liberia, Luxembourg, Malawi, Malaysia, Maldives, Malta, Mozambique, Namibia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Paraguay, Portugal, Qatar, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Swaziland, Sweden, Switzerland, Syria, Tanzania, Thailand, Turkey, Uganda, United Kingdom, Uruguay, Yemen, Zambia, Zimbabwe ,Benin,Bhutan,Bulgaria,Burkina ,Burundi ,Central African Republic , Chad, Comoros, Congo, Cyprus, Djibouti, Egypt , France, Gabon, Greece, Guadalupe,Guiana (French) ,Guinea, Guyana, Hungary, Iran ,Iraq ,Ivory Coast, Kiribati, Lebanon,Libya, Luxembourg, Madagascar, Mali, Martinique, Mauritus,
Monaco, Mongolia, Morocco, New Caledonia, Niger, Reunion, Romania, Russia, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Syria, Tahiti Islands, Togo, Tunisia, Tuvlu, Western Sahara ,Zaire

Number of countries is completely irrelevant. How many people (=consumers) live in the NTSC countries? how many live in the PAL countries?

[Kris1]

Depends on the number of Chinese and Indies with a TV-set.

Sorry, just couldn't help myself.

But I see your point. Fact remains, we over here in Europe might as well be standing on another planet when it comes to HDTV. *sigh*.

I did see "France" listed there though. France uses Secam as far as I remember. Calling that PAL is stretching it a bit me thinks, and raises question marks over the other countries listed there.

[Flying dutchman]

@Kris1: The list explicitly includes Secam as well as PAL because Secam has the same vertical resolution and frame rate as PAL. Some Secam varieties are even superior to PAL, they have a higher chroma resolution and 6 MHz bandwidth! But no room for videotext in the signal. I guess one can't have it all.


@dZeus:
Quote:
>...for broadcast TV this is a non-issue because the signal quality
>sucks so much anyway...

Cable & Sat offer pretty decent quality nowadays - nobody has a stick on the roof here. In Germany they're even starting terrestrial digital TV now, requiring only a settop box with a tiny 10 cm antenna! Analog antenna reception sucks, I completely agree, but that was ages ago...


Quote:
>and when you watch 2.35 widescreen movies you'll only have
>~60% visible lines on your 'nice big' screen, while on a 16:9 set
>you'll get ~83 % visible lines.

Well, since the 4:3 screen is a lot higher in the first place - even at 60% visible lines the visible area isn't that much smaller. But I must admit that I do find that the 2.35:1 format sucks, even on a 16:9 TV.

Come to think of it, at 3 metres viewing distance between the couch and the telly the phenomenon called "wide-screen TV" simply does not exist. The viewing angle is not wide at all. It is not nearly comparable to sitting in the rearmost seat in a cinema. The TV would have to be almost 2 metres across! The TV manufacturers should concentrate on making wide-screen CRT's truly wider instead of just sacrificing height...

But I agree with you 100% on the HDTV/HD-DVD relationship. The one can't exist without the other and I suspect the disks will be astronomic in price until HDTV is widely available.


PS I just ordered a DVD+RW drive and a bunch of Ricoh DVD+R's. Keeping my fingers crossed...

[dZeus]

Originally posted by Flying dutchman
<cut>

@dZeus:
Quote:
>...for broadcast TV this is a non-issue because the signal quality
>sucks so much anyway...

Cable & Sat offer pretty decent quality nowadays - nobody has a stick on the roof here. In Germany they're even starting terrestrial digital TV now, requiring only a settop box with a tiny 10 cm antenna! Analog antenna reception sucks, I completely agree, but that was ages ago...

even analogue cable and DVB-S suck donkey balls (pardon my language) compared to DVD. DVD NTSC source will _always_ look better than PAL analogue cable and DVB-S.

Well, since the 4:3 screen is a lot higher in the first place - even at 60% visible lines the visible area isn't that much smaller. But I must admit that I do find that the 2.35:1 format sucks, even on a 16:9 TV.

Well I don't really care much in what format the movie is in, as long as it's the same format as it was shot in. And because that's 1:2.35 most of the time, I think it's better to have 16:9 TV for the purpose of watching DVDs. Most good 16:9 TVs have some tricks for displaying the 4:3 signal fullscreen as well, with only small deformations.

[wkulecz]

The 65" widescreen projection units are almost 5' wide. Too big for most room. Ours was delivered today, unboxed it, and obviously it'd been dropped between Japan and here :-(

Replacement scheduled for delivery on Tuesday :-(

--wally.

[Flying dutchman]

Sorry to hear that. Let us know about the quality when it's replaced!

[CaN-o-PuS]

Come to think of it, at 3 metres viewing distance between the couch and the telly the phenomenon called "wide-screen TV" simply does not exist. The viewing angle is not wide at all. It is not nearly comparable to sitting in the rearmost seat in a cinema. The TV would have to be almost 2 metres across!

Get a really wide viewing angle for only $1499.00


http://www.projectorcentral.com/infocus_x1.htm

[wkulecz]

A 65" diag 16:9 screen is within 20% of being 2 meters across, so wadda you mean "wide-screen phenomenon" doesn't exist? Toshiba, Sony, et.al. appear to have done well with the basic geometry calculations

Our replacement Toshiba 65H82 arrived yesterday.

Progressive scan DVD playback on the 65" diag screen is truely nice.
My homemade DVD+R made from SVHS tapes look pretty good but on a large screen like this 4000 Kbps VBR is a bit lacking.

I'm quite impressed with the various "zoom" modes to show 4:3 on the 16:9 display, although standard 4:3 with the gray bars on the side is the best overall picture quality.

HDTV hookup form the cable company is supposed to happen Saturday.

Sitting at the "sweet spot" about 8 feet from the screen is awesome. The view from the kitchen about 30 feet away is still very nice. Closer than 6 feet pretty much looks like crap with 4:3 digital cable source. DVDs hold up better as you get closer, but you cleary see every defect in the film stock the DVD was made from which can annoy.

--wally.

[Flying dutchman]

Yo, 65" oughta come real close to cinema feeling. But it's hardly a common telly... You said it's a projector? Is the RGB pixel convergence any good?

[wkulecz]

Convergence looks as good to me as any other properly working CRT -- white text is white with no color ghosts along the edges. Only defect I see so far is a noticible bit of barrel distortion on the top 5% of the center 1/3rd of the screen. At first I thought it was an artifact of the non-linear "stretching" alogorthim used to turn 4:3 into 16:9 (which works much better that I'd expected) but its still there in "native" 4:3 mode, just a good bit less noticable.

This weekend after the cable guys do the HDTV hookup I'll have a stronger opinion and some time to see if the "adjustment" menu has controls to address this distortion.

--wally.

[funky-d-munky]

In regards to the DVD-ram format, I have notice a type 1,2,3,4 in the medias discription. What are the differences? Can all types be used by all DVD-ram drives?
funky

[Jerry Jones]

Yes, I'll be testing the DVD-VR capability soon, Wally.

I'll let you know.

When I get the time.

I've been focusing on my future career as I quit my job last month.

Got really tired of dealing with the public relations mess associated with this:

http://www.kbcitv.com

(Click on the SHAKE-UP AT BOISE CITY HALL banner for the sad details of how Boise's mayor and senior managers really made some bad choices that has made life miserable for many city employees.)

I might be heading back to the university to pick up an advanced degree.

Haven't decided yet.

Jerry Jones

http://www.jonesgroup.net

[Jerry Jones]

On the subject of DVD-RAM drives...

Some DVD-RAM drives can only handle the bare DVD-RAM discs, which look just like DVD-R discs.

But other DVD-RAM drives feature DEEP-DISH trays.

The Panasonic LF-D321, LF-D311, SW-9571, and LF-D521 all have DEEP-DISH trays that can handle both cartridge and bare DVD-RAM media.

The LG GMA-4020B only handles the bare DVD-RAM discs and not the cartridge DVD-RAM discs.

As for Type 1, Type 2, etc.:

These refer to whether or not the disc can be removed from the cartridge and used as a bare disc.

Some cartridges... Type 2 and Type 4... allow you to remove the DVD-RAM disc from the cartridge.

OptoDisc has a good explanation on this page:

http://www.optodisc.com/d_word_d.htm

Jerry Jones

http://www.jonesgroup.net