"Blu-ray Disc" vs. "HD DVD": Neither Is Winning

[Jerry Jones]

In summary, "HD DVD" and "Blu-ray Disc" are as dead as disco.

Jerry Jones

http://www.jonesgroup.net

[Hulk]

Jerry,

I am thoroughly enjoying this discussion.

That 55 minute encoding time may be funny nonsense to you but it is the truth as tested. And the point is that the Apple TV only accepts 720p at 24fps at 5Mbps, hardly hi-def in terms of data rate coupled with the fact that you MUST transcode (and slowely) any content NOT using Apples own version of H.264.

You'll have quite some giggling time while you're transcoding all of your non-Apple video!

As for the resolution issue.

First, there are very few 720p camcorders out there and they DO go 30fps. No go for Apple TV.

Second, there are tons of anamorphic 1080i HD cams out there. That's 1440x1080 for static images, slightly less during moving due to interlacing. 1080 lines is MUCH more than 540. The Apple TV will have you throw a field AWAY! That's crazy. I'm no fan of interlaced video but jeez I'm not going to throw away a field.

Finally there every commercial production video, of course including movies, will be 1080i or p. And that's a no-go for the Apple TV.

Yes I'm a videophile. But people are still interested in 720/30p, 1080/60i, and 1080/30p and the Apple TV WON'T PLAY BACK ANY OF THEM!!!

Come on Jerry this thing has some development needed before it's ready for prime time.

The lack of accepting other than Apple H.264 video formats and limited range of resolutions and temporal rates it will accept severly limit this device.

Did you know that it's CPU is a 1GHz Dothan? That's an old Pentium M. And that is the reason for the limited video decoding. Once they upgrade that and let it playback other formats they'll at least have something decent.

But I bet they won't. They'll keep you locked into i-Tunes.

Like I said no thanks and I think I've provided some pretty solid reasoning. It's not like it just won't do 1080/60p or something. This thing won't play back 90% of the HD spec!

[Jerry Jones]

Nice FLASH presentation about SanDisk's new TakeTV device:

http://www.sandisk.com/Assets/Flash/TakeTV/SNDK_TAKETV5.html?TB_iframe=true&height=420&width=500

Jerry Jones

http://www.jonesgroup.net

[Jerry Jones]

If APPLE TV were not a great idea, then why are so many companies now selling products that do exactly the same thing?

1. SanDisk TakeTV:

http://www.take.tv/

2. ARCHOS TV+:

http://www.archos.com/products/gen_5/archos_tv/index.html?country=global&lang=en

3. TViX HD M-5100SH:

http://www.tvix.co.kr/Eng/products/5100sh.aspx

4. TViX HD M-4000PA/M-4000SA

http://www.tvix.co.kr/Eng/products/HDM4000.aspx

5. TViX HD M-4100SH:

http://www.tvix.co.kr/Eng/products/4100sh.aspx

6. D-Link DSM-520:

http://www.dlink.com/products/?sec=1&pid=438

7. D-Link DSM-510:

http://www.dlink.com/products/?sec=1&pid=542

8. D-Link DSM-750:

http://www.dlink.com/products/?sec=1&pid=547

The field just keeps growing!



Jerry Jones

http://www.jonesgroup.net

[Jerry Jones]

By the way, I just checked my two standard DVD players and their remotes don't have volume controls. The volume control is on the TV. So non sequitur, Mark.



Also, I would point out that most high definition TVs 42" and smaller that have been sold to date can't even display 1080i because their native pixel resolution is only sufficient to display 720p. So APPLE's 1280 x 720/24p movie resolution is flawlessly logical.

Jerry Jones

http://www.jonesgroup.net

[Jerry Jones]

4. A 702MB Xvid file takes 55 minutes to transcode on a 3.0GHz Mac Pro system! Wow the overpriced Mac Pro really don't do so well with the Apple transcoding application. Seems like a lot of money for such a slow system. As I've said before I can build faster hardware for 1/4 the price. Anyway that also another discussion.

5. It would be nice if the Apple TV had a volume control don't you think. For thinking of everything they sure missed that one.

Well, this is just funny nonsense.



Jerry Jones

http://www.jonesgroup.net

[Jerry Jones]

2. More unbelievable is that it only supports 960x540 resolution at 30fps!

Mark, surely you can't be serious with this complaint.

Are you not aware that most consumer high definition camcorders employ imagers that don't come anywhere close to acquisition with a true 1920 x 1080 HD pixel matrix?

Surely you know that even some professional-level high definition camcorders acquire with a 960 x 540 pixel matrix as the following article about the Panasonic AG-HVX200 from BROADCAST ENGINEERING magazine documents:

http://broadcastengineering.com/eng/HVX200-Panasonic-20060322/

Surely you also know that many high definition TVs scale down the high definition broadcast signals that they receive to be 960 x 540.

You know this.

Again, you seem to fit into the category of videophile and not the average consumer, which will be plenty happy with 960 x 540 resolution files.

I submit you are not representative of the average consumer.

Your comment about encoding times actually made me giggle.

The APPLE video editing software includes easy-to-use export presets for APPLE TV and the render times are no different for those output options than would otherwise be the case if you were rendering a timeline full of intermediate codec source files from *any* PC non-linear video editor to *any* HD output such as AVCHD or HD MPEG-2!



Jerry Jones

http://www.jonesgroup.net

[paulw]

Actually Hulk you have summed up a good reason why I didn't get an Apple TV and include the adition bit that TV and movie content is not available outside the US.

A better media player is a TVix http://www.tvix.co.kr/eng/

[Hulk]

When I do my 5 mile runs (at sub 6min/mile pace) I use a good old AM/FM radio. I get bored with my music collection, even though it consists of thousands of songs. I'd rather be able to move though my 5 presets and find something.

To my ears ALL Audio compression degrades sound staging, imaging, dynamic range, and focus to some extent and is only useful for computer listening or other portable devices. Compressed music begins to be listenable at 192kbps in my opinion and even then only on fairly low resolution systems. I'll take PCM for my serious listening. But that is another discussion and a very subjective one. That's how I hear it.

Jerry, I hope this wonderous streaming infrastructure gets here sooner rather than later but right now for me I'm going with an optical disc player and a high def TV. I'll rent my movies from Netflix until the format is dead then I'll move on to whatever replaces it.

And now let's discuss your beloved Apple TV.

1. Unbelievably it only supports a 5Mbps bit rate for 1280x768 resolution at 24fps for H.264 video!

2. More unbelievable is that it only supports 960x540 resolution at 30fps!

3. Truly astounding is the fact that it only plays Apple's version of the H.264 video codec which means you can forget about playing back ANYTHING not acquired from the i-Tunes store UNLESS you go though a lengthy transcode process. And remember don't go above the wimpy resolution, fps, and bitrate figures I've posted above! What a joke.

4. A 702MB Xvid file takes 55 minutes to transcode on a 3.0GHz Mac Pro system! Wow the overpriced Mac Pro really don't do so well with the Apple transcoding application. Seems like a lot of money for such a slow system. As I've said before I can build faster hardware for 1/4 the price. Anyway that also another discussion.

5. It would be nice if the Apple TV had a volume control don't you think. For thinking of everything they sure missed that one.


As is usual with Apple if you stay locked up and confined in their little world the Apple TV seems tolerable, if just. Just make sure you like the i-Tunes virus, buy and play only Apple i-Tunes content, don't want 1080p or 720p at 30fps, and don't need to change the volume.

No thanks.

[Jerry Jones]

True, but as bandwidth increases you can imagine how great it will be for those of us who do video as a profession/hobby.

We'll be able to share very easily as folks on each end of a Web connection will be able to see production techniques and scrutinize lighting and so forth and the download times will be greatly reduced as the bandwidth expands and gets cheaper.

I think universities will be required to focus on presentation to a greater degree than they do at the current time.

The reason is that educational content will be more compelling if more attention can be devoted to cleaner text/graphics and higher quality images.

I work directly in IPTV at a local university.

We transmit video/audio live from one city to another.

So it is part of my job to anticipate the technological changes that are coming.

Jerry Jones

http://www.jonesgroup.net

[Mehen]

I think you're forgetting one very important thing here: not everyone that downloads music is PAYING FOR IT. It is only so popular because it is either a) dirt cheap, or b) free!!

It's hard for CD$ to compete with free music.

[Jerry Jones]

MOST RECENT UNITED STATES BROADBAND ADOPTION STATISTICS:

47% of adults have high-speed internet connections at home as of early March 2007, up five percentage points from a year earlier.

Among individuals who use the internet at home, 70% have a broadband
connection while 23% use dialup.

SOURCE: http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/217/report_display.asp

In addition, Pew compiled a report in PDF format here:

http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_Broadband%202007.pdf

What's interesting in the preceding report is the rate at which broadband adoption is growing; it's really amazing.

Brian, I downloaded a standard definition Star Trek episode via the APPLE iTunes store and I have a relatively slow broadband connection and it didn't take long at all... not even close to the "1.75 days" time you stated for an HD film.

I haven't yet downloaded an HD film, but I'll look for one and do a test and I'll time it.

The reason I suspect your HD movie download time estimate is inaccurate is due to the fact the APPLE TV specifications clearly state that the APPLE high definition movies will be scaled down to two resolutions:

H.264 and protected H.264 (from iTunes Store): Up to 5 Mbps, Progressive Main Profile (CAVLC) with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps (maximum resolution: 1280 by 720 pixels at 24 fps, 960 by 540 pixels at 30 fps) in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats

So -- again -- I suspect your calculations are in error for these types of HD files.

True, APPLE download customers won't be getting 1080p, they'll be getting 720p, but for many of us that is plenty good enough.

Susan Wu writes yet another opinion piece about how video downloads will be the future and that both high definition DVD formats have failed.

http://reality.org/2006/12/01/the-unwinnable-war-in-high-definition-dvd/

The movie companies seem to be doing a decent job of not making *all* of the same mistakes the record companies made during the MP3 boom, so I believe this future will materialize before either high def DVD standard can declare victory.

She also hits the nail on the head here:

High definition DVDs will do well with the videophile niche and certainly won’t disappear but they also don’t really have a chance to become mass market for years and years and years when there is no difference between the price of current standard upscaling DVDs (less than $100) and HD-DVD and Blu-ray players.

I agree with Susan.

I suspect the difference between Mark's point of view and my point of view is that Mark is a "videophile" while I am not. I am perfectly satisfied with HD 720p.

Jerry Jones

http://www.jonesgroup.net

[Evildead666]

Just wondering how long before studios start making crap picture quality copies of DVDs hoping that people will driven to the hidef formats..

They already are...

i watch all the DVDs I rent on my PC. don't have a TV, and I have a sweet 4.0 system set up (should really get round to plugging in the last center speaker...).

I have noticed that nearly ALL of the last 6 months of DVDs have been R5's, i.e. 4.7Gb and less. A mere single layer of data.
The DVd pops to dual layer, since there are some 400Mb or so of trailers and adverts etc...

The DVDs that I have purchased, seem to be full dual layer DVDs, going to 8Gb.

the only exceptions lately have been V for Vendetta and Superman Returns, which were both over 7Gb (Just, with trailers). They are pretty long films, i'll give you that.

I'm just surprised that the Rental DVDs are so small, why not use the 4Gb of space to make a High Quality stream ? So I would go and buy it ?
Or so i could compare to a HD source and see the crapness of it, even when upscaled.

Spiderman 3 is out this week, and i hope it'll be a full DVD...

edit : Jerry, could you leave off the APPLE for a while, please ?

[Tjalfe]

expect another 10 successive posts from jerry with the counter argument

[Brian Ellis]

There's a world of difference between 3 Mb for an item of pop music and 30 Gb for an HD film. The theoretical fastest I can download anything is 1024 kbit/s, in practice, oon a good dat, 800 kbit/s = 100 kb/s, so a 30 Gb film would take 83 hours =3½ days to download. What would the chances be of doing that glitch-free? And I'm one of the lucky ones with broadband. You forget that over 85% of the internet world is still on DUN, often with speeds as low as 14.4 kbit/s, if it isn't 9.6 kbit/s. Less than 2% of the world's households have a cable connection and most of those are coaxial, limited to ~10 Mbit/s, not optical fibre.

The film companies will simply NOT cater for such a tiny segment of the market as their principal outlet when they can hit much larger quantities with physical disks.

Then, whatever the outcome, it must be something that uneducated and often illiterate people, even blondes, can handle. Take S. Africa, for example, which is the most developed sub-saharan country. Its basic literacy rate is officially 82%, but it has a 94% rate of households with access to TV, but only 47% with phones and 8% with an Internet connection, yet its per capita GDP is relatively high. Even here, which is considered a developed country with 109% phone connection, only 22% have an Internet connection. Even in your USA, the median download speed for the 50 states and the District of Columbia was 1.9 megabits per second. which is only 2 x what I have (i.e., 1¾ days to download a HD film). According to surveys, somewhere between 30 to 40 percent of Americans still connect to the Internet with a dial-up connection. Only one-quarter of middle-income families earning between $30,000 and $50,000 a year subscribe to broadband.

You are wrong, Jerry, I'm sure. Get real!