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Technology

Red vs. Blue Lasers Complicate DVD's Future 185

Posted by timothy from the outlook-hazy dept.
bnavarro writes: "The EE Times is reporting that the DVD Forum's Steering Committee voted this week to approve the use of low-bit-rate compression for high-definition DVD. The DVD Forum's decision, made at a meeting Tuesday (Feb. 26) in Tokyo, to stick with a red-laser-based scheme but switch to low-bit-rate compression, came only a week after nine of the world's biggest electronics companies agreed to promote a blue-laser-based format for next-generation video and computer optical disks."
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Red vs. Blue Lasers Complicate DVD's Future More

Red vs. Blue Lasers Complicate DVD's Future

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  • Well thats good... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Chicane-UK ( 455253 )
    The companies do one thing, but the standard commitee approve another?

    Perhaps they should try talking to each other.

    Just out of curiosity - could the electronics companies just go ahead and use what they want, or would they then be 'not allowed' to use the DVD name because it doesnt conform to the predetermined standards?
    • No.
      It's the same thing as a CD that can not play in a computer. If it does not follow the written spec, then it can not be labeled as the product.
      Just out of curiosity - could the electronics companies just go ahead and use what they want, or would they then be 'not allowed' to use the DVD name because it doesnt conform to the predetermined standards?
  • What's the difference between blue, red and green lasers?


    • Re:I'm an idiot but... (Score:5, Informative)

      by jimhill ( 7277 ) on Sunday March 03, 2002 @08:01AM (#3100860) Homepage
      The color.

      Light's color is a function of its frequency, which is inversely proportional to its wavelength. Higher frequency lasers can read pits which are closer together on a disc substrate, allowing them to put more data in the same areal density as lower frequency lasers. Blue is better than red for this purpose.

      Alas, it's also harder (read: more expensive) to make blue lasers and the industry has already spent a lot of money on reds, so a blue-laser technology would require the writeoff of existing gear AND the purchase of new. Not an easy sell these days.
      • Well, perhaps this new DVD format is just what HDTV needs to start-off. Since you have to buy a new TV set for HDTV, a new DVD format to store high-definition movies makes perfect sense.

        I don't know about you, but I am in more favor of a new media with increased capacity, rather than seeing more and more compression on screen. Some DVDs in the likes of Magnolia or Titanic hurt my eyes, because you notice compression artifacts so much.

        A new DVD format may take 10 years to become really widespread, but isn't this what happened to DVDs and audio-CDs. I'm ready to accept this change.

        • Re:Makes perfect sense for HDTV (Score:4, Interesting)

          by Richthofen80 ( 412488 ) on Sunday March 03, 2002 @10:26AM (#3101034) Homepage
          Actually, people are buying HDTV for DVD players now. Progressive scanning DVD players, that is. 480p is technically a DTV standard and you can only watch 480p on a DTV or HDTV. Most people who buy HDTV (and I sell a lot of HDTV) buy a progressive scanning DVD players. (you can get one for like $170 now)

          Also, the 16x9 formats usually have an enhanced mode for widescreen DVDs. So there's a lot of reason to have an HDTV now and use existing DVD technology. 480p is still pretty sharp compared to the crap we watch over cable.
      • Light's color is a function of its frequency, which is inversely proportional to its wavelength.

        ...and of course laser frequency is determined by the bandgap [britneyspears.ac] of the lasing material. Remember kids, at the end of the day it all comes down to material science.

        I agree it was a smart decision to go with red lasers, as they're much more mature. Nakamura's (sp?) work on nitrides notwithstanding, there's a long way to go before the material system is well understood.

        P.S. Nakamura and the Nitrides - that sounds like a good name for a band.

      • Regarding differences bewteen red and blue lasers... Another issue I haven't seen discussed much (except in bland materials-science articles that only physical science geeks like me and real chemists read) is that the blue laser disks will have to be made with a higher quality and therefore more expensive polymer. As I understand it the blue lasers can operate on a finer scale but are consequently more vulnerable to optical flaws in the medium. AN article I read actually made the presentation that the economies of scale driving higher quality polymers (I believe they're polycarbonates) was actually a bottleneck for moving this technology forward.


        Actually I think a transition is inevitable but will be slower than they think. Maybe get started in something like a video game console, where people are used to new, non-compatible machines coming out every few years. And unlike audio CDs (or even DVDs, frankly, unless you own a teevee that cost thousands rather than hundreds of dollars, which some of us think is a pretty stupid thing to own), video games can really use that extra capacity as Moore's law pushes the data-craving boundaries of video game processors.

    • What's the difference between blue, red and green lasers?

      Green laser pointers use an infra-red laser diode, with a yag crystal to double the frequency. Also, they increase the brightness of the beam by turning in on and off at about a 60/40 duty cycle, while driving the diode at a higher current than it could handle at 100% duty. You can actually see this by moving the dot back and forth quickly - it appears as a dashed line.

      They're a neat toy if you've got $400 to burn (last I checked).
      • Quick corrections (I'm a laser specialist)...

        Most of what you said was true a couple years ago, but it's been changing, mostly due to the entertainment industry (get to that in a second...)

        Green DPSS lasers (frequency doubled solid-state, as opposed to dye or ion gas lasers) use a very powerful infra-red (either 800 nm or 1.3 um) laser diode, usually 250 mW or higher... fire that at a Yag crystal or rod. The Yag crystal absorbs the infra-red light and lases at 1048 nm. For those who don't know frequencies, 400 is a deep blue, 550 is green, and 650 is deep red. You can see a powerful enough 750 nm beam, but most of the light is invisible.

        Anyways, the Yag crystal lases at 1048 and a KDP crystal in the optic resonator doubles the frequency, giving a wavelength of 524 nm. Though there are some loses in the KDP, this is more then made up for by the efficiency of the resonating cavity itself; one of the mirrors is totally reflective to 1048 nm, but totally transparent to 524 nm... any green light passes straight through it.

        Most DPSS solutions these days are made for entertainment. Someone figured out that there was a way to take DPSS and make it Continuous Wave (CW), thereby making it suitable for laser light shows. This was more expensive than ion gas lasers at the time (though that's not true any more), but was still attractive because its a much simpler design, has no moving parts, does not require expensive and difficult to maintain cooling, and can be housed in a much smaller box.

        As far as cost... if one looks carefully, one can usually find a 5 mW model for between $100-$200. Watts per dollar goes up sharply, I think hitting a peak at 60 mW somewhere around $400-500.

        If anyone reading this wants to know more, or acquire one of these... e-mail me at merlin_jim [mailto] on hotmail.
    • As George Lucas put it: red is for the baddies, blue is for the good ones.
    • TIE fighters shoot green lasers, X-Wings shoot red lasers.

  • Doesn't this mean (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anztac ( 322182 )
    Doesn't this mean that this is going to take more proscessing power? I mean, I may be a bit off my bonkers, but won't this also be a costly changover? A new decoding chip for every player? Why not make the next shift encompass both technologies?
    • Yeah, it does mean more CPU cycles wasted on decoding the data stream, but compare a $100 CPU upgrade to a $500-$1500 blue laser based DVD drive.

      Also if you have a hardware MPEG decoder on a Video card, you just need to upgrade that. No CPU upgrade, as the outboard hardware handles the new demand.

    • Re:Doesn't this mean (Score:4, Funny)

      by JediTrainer ( 314273 ) on Sunday March 03, 2002 @11:20AM (#3101127)
      Why not make the next shift encompass both technologies?

      So you're suggesting they use a purple laser instead?

      *ducks*
      • No, use x-rays!

        I have the *perfect* name for the intensive, open-air six-month live-in training programme....
      • No, but a blue laser can read the smaller pits in the higher physical density discs, as well as the large pits in DVDs (and CDs)... and if not, then just have a dual laser mechinism (they've been done before, and cheaply too). So the DVD player reads all formats. Hell, that's what they do now - almost all DVD players play VCDs and CDs.

        --
        Evan

        • if not, then just have a dual laser mechinism (they've been done before, and cheaply too).

          CD drives use an infrared laser. Cheap single-laser DVD drives can read the stamped CD's with the red laser, but cannot read CD-R or CD-RW. The dyes in CD-R/W go from highly reflective to almost back in infrared when written, but change very little in visible light. (Use about half a CD-R and try to see which part has been used; there is a subtle difference, but not at all enough contrast to read microdots.) Better DVD/CD drives have red and infrared lasers.

          Likewise, you could probably read standard CD's and DVD's with a blue laser, but if you want to read the writeable formats, you might have to put three lasers in the system. This gets expensive.

          OTOH, because there have been several competing writeable DVD formats, almost everyone has been waiting to see which one would win before buying, and so there isn't that big of an installed base to worry about. Get ONE blue-light writeable format that is capacious enough for hard drive backups, and I'll buy, even if I have to saw a hole in that damned fancy HP Pavilion case to mount it together with the CD-R/W drive...
          • Get ONE blue-light writeable format that is capacious enough for hard drive backups

            Isn't that the point of this new standard - creating a standard for High Density DVD ( to coin a phrase, aka Blue-Ray) that is compatable for HDDVDs, HDDVD-RWs and HDDVD-Rs? Define the standard for all the variations so the players that are made to the spec work on the R and RW variants as they become affordable and widespread.

            Oh, and a comment on your .sig - "When one reads Bibles, one is less surprised at what the Deity knows than at what He doesn't know. - Mark Twain" "Man wrote the bible, God wrote the world" - Bob Kanefesky, in the lyrics to "Eternal Flame aka "God Wrote in LISP" (yes, a song about how God had a deadline, so he used Lisp rather than Ada, Basic or C. It's a good example of a filksong, and is available on CD and mp3 [prometheus-music.com]).

            --
            Evan

            • In the time honored tradtion of replying to your own post when you've made a boneheaded blunder, I must say that my filk tapes are in storage, and mp3.com is down, but I'm thinking that quote is actually Julia Ecklar, from "Hand of God", also available at that same URL. I'm also fond of Fish's song "PGP".

              --
              Evan

  • MS Involvement? (Score:2, Troll)

    by MiTEG ( 234467 )
    Though the article is lean on details, this would fit suspiciously well into Microsoft's plan [com.com] to have DVD players support Windows audio/video. I'm not a Microsoft fan, but I've got to admit that idea of downloading a 700 MB .wmv file, burning it to a CD and being able to play it back in my DVD player at DVD quality is quite enticing.
    • What, you've never heard of SVCD format?
      • What, you've never heard of SVCD format?

        I burn them all the time, but you can't fit an entire movie onto one unless you drop to a really low bitrate (=crappy quality)...and even then I don't know if the format would even allow going to such low bitrates.

    • Re:MS Involvement? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by FreeUser ( 11483 )
      I'm not a Microsoft fan, but I've got to admit that idea of downloading a 700 MB .wmv file, burning it to a CD and being able to play it back in my DVD player at DVD quality is quite enticing.

      And what on earth makes you think Microsoft's patented DRM will ever allow you to do that? If you want to be able to move your content from medium to medium as you see fit, without restriction, your only real long term hope is to use free software. Of course, if the SSSCA is passed theres a good chance free operating systems, such as FreeBSD and GNU/Linux, will be outlawed as a result.
      • I'm sorry, but I refuse to believe that Microsoft is capable of producing a DRM system that cannot be cracked. I mean, come on! the Windows XP "Activation" system was cracked before XP was even on store shelves. I'm sure that any DRM functionality would be removeable from Windows Media Player and cousins quite easily.

        I wouldn't put too much faith in Microsoft to make an uncrackable implementation of _anything_.... let alone something people care enough about to crack like DRM.
        • I wouldn't put too much faith in Microsoft to make an uncrackable implementation of _anything_.... let alone something people care enough about to crack like DRM.

          They aren't going to make it uncrackable through technical expertise, they're going to make it uncrackable through legislation. If possession of such a utility is punishable by five years in prison and a $500,000 fine, no one in their right mind is going to have a copy of such a DRM cracking utility lying around. In effect, that makes DRM uncrackable from a practical standpoint, even if the "encryption" is the same as Adobe's laughable rehash of ROT-13.
    • An earlier slashdot article stated that 90% of chipset makers have already signed on to include the low-bitrate MS codec. This post should not have been modded as "Troll".
    • "Given the strong representation of consumer electronics companies on the steering committee roster, the door is likely closed to proprietary schemes like Microsoft's Windows Media codec, code-named Corona."

  • wavelength (Score:2, Informative)

    by terradyn ( 242947 )
    the wavelengths of different color lasers are different. I believe blue and green are shorter than red and therefore would create much closer spaced pits and grooves on media. It would also therefore be able to read more data from the media.

  • What's the point? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by hexxx ( 546462 )
    What's the point in changing standards when the current one is ok? I mean current DVD technology is good enough for most video uses. This "improvement" can merely scare people from buying that DVD players to replace their VHS systems. It's too early to change standards! I mean VHS lasted for more than ten years and so should the current DVD technology.
    • What's the point in changing standards when the current one is ok? I mean current DVD technology is good enough for most video uses. This "improvement" can merely scare people from buying that DVD players to replace their VHS systems. It's too early to change standards! I mean VHS lasted for more than ten years and so should the current DVD technology.

      The point is that while DVD looks great on most standard TV's, HDTV's are another matter. Suddenly you can see lots of compression artifacts. This isn't much of an issue now, but it will be soon enough.

      I doubt DVD2, or whatever it will be called, will arrive in the next 5 years and if it does it will be in parallell with the current technology and cater mostly to videophiles and gadget freaks. There's a lot of money to be made from early adopters.

      I for one think it's a great idea to decide on a standard before companies start producing their own technologies. That has caused problems again and again. Nice to see people are learning from past mistakes.

    • VHS has actually lasted for over 25 years [ce.org]. I think that I'd rather use the cool technology available in 2020 than ancient DVDs.
    • First, Hollywood is in the business of selling you the same thing over and over and over again. Theatrical release, Original VHS Release, DVD Release, DVD with director's Comments, DVD with Never-Before-Seen Footage, DVD Remastered Specially for Progressive-Scan Output. Oh, and now DVD for HDTV. Probably in 3 different formats, too, released 6 months apart so you'll buy all 3 of them, 480p, 720p, and then 1080i.

      Really, how many versions of Star Wars and E.T. do you have???

      Second, (I'm taking this on faith, never having seen 1080i HDTV) the current standard is "ok" only by comparison to the crap that is VHS analog playback. Now, whether or not low-bitrate red-laser DVD will be at the quality of 25mbit/sec broadcast HDTV... I dunno. I can hope, but I'm not exactly optimistic.

      Third, don't think for a minute that this won't have a whole new collection of Son-of-CSS encryption built-in to prevent unauthorized copying.

      Reasons enough?
  • Right now the major impediment to sharing movies is the storage (and bandwidth, sometimes) requirements. A 150GB hard drive can only hold about 15 DVD's, so sharing of full-quality DVD's is rather expensive. As soon as 9GB+ rewritable disks become cheap or hard drives double in size a few times, DVD sharing will become popular.

    Going with a high-bandwidth encoding of HDTV would ensure that only the people buying the HDTV-DVD's would get the best quality. Choosing to go with a low-bandwidth encoding ensures that sharing full-quality HDTV-DVD's will become widespread quite soon.

    I expect that Warner Bros will regret this decision in a few years.

  • But blue lasers are still expensive (Score:5, Informative)

    by shoppa ( 464619 ) on Sunday March 03, 2002 @08:09AM (#3100871)
    There are two ways to put more video on the disk:
    1. More compression. Needs CPU horsepower somewhere (drive? your desktop CPU?), but CPU horsepower is dirt cheap today.
    2. Blue lasers. The shorter your wavelength, the higher your recording density. But red lasers are widespread and cheap, while blue lasers in consumer devices are not all that well understood and there is a very limited supply at the moment.
    If you're in the business of selling blue lasers, of course you want to promote method #2 above. But DVD companies are not in the business of selling blue lasers - they're in the business of selling content.

    Of course, the decision to not use blue lasers impacts those who use the disks for purposes other than what the DVD companies want. If you want to store data on the disk, the "new" DVD compression doesn't help you any. And if you want to play the new DVD's on your non-DVD-consortium-approved player, the new compression techniques will probably make your attempts more complicated (if not more illegal...)

    • "But DVD companies are not in the business of selling blue lasers - they're in the business of selling content."

      Actually, DVD companies are more interested in selling hardware. Better visual quality, better sound - it's the same principle as hardware upgrades for the PC (get the consumer to buy new stuff every 3 years).

      The only people who care about content are the content providers like movie studios, and they can care less what color laser you use (or even if there ends up being substantially more room on the disc). They cater to the mainstream (those who don't want to buy new DVD players every so often) and they're having a hard enough time filling the 4.7 GB they're being given now. Plus, it's at some companies advantage to use the limited space to create 2 DVD sets (for example, Star Wars 1) which they can sell for more money.

      • When I said "DVD companies" I meant what you call "content providers". Sorry for the confusion.

        Not that I have any financial interest in the blue laser companies, but in some respects it's a shame that their proposals (which really *do* pack more bits on a disk) may not be implemented sooner. Blue lasers are expensive right now, but the sure way to make them cheaper is to build them into every DVD player made. And the sooner that happens the sooner we see 20 or 30 or 50 GB DVD-ROM media for cheap prices in the mass market.

    • It seems to me that the only people that want blue laser technology are the people developing it and videophiles. I fall into the latter category, and that's why I'm angry about this decision.
      The studios don't want it for two reasons:
      • The cost of manufacturing discs will go through the roof. The studios will have to eat a good chunk of that cost if they want the consumer to accept the new format.
      • The new format will mean they'll have enough room to store HD content at current compression levels. In their minds, this is a bad thing.
      The hardware manufacturers don't mind because they're going to be selling new equipment in either case. I'm sure they'd rather be selling new equipment that uses the blue laser tech they've spent so much money on.

      I'm angry because HD-DVD is basically the holy grail of home theater, and they're gonna blow it. This whole "improved" MPEG-2 sounds like crap. Filtering before compression?!? ARGH! What the hell is that? Apparently they have no regard for fidelity. In my mind it's a very simple issue: uncompressed HD content can occupy as much as 3 times the space compared to non-HD content (720p signal versus 480i gives (720*2)/480 = 3 or 1080i vs 480i gives 1080/480 = 2.25).

      If they keep red lasers, they're going to have to compress the data three times as much for 720p and 2.25 times for 1080i data (as compared to 480i). I don't care how good MPEG4 is, it isn't good enough to achieve that without throwing out some data. I don't even want to start on what MPEG2 would have to do to the data to fit it in the same space.
      So while technically we're getting a lot more resolution, what does it matter when we're throwing away so much data?
  • Warner Bros. and other content-production companies are behind the new DVD Forum proposal, which uses low-bit-rate encoding technology such as MPEG-4 to cram 9 Gbytes of high-definition video content onto a two-layer DVD.

    Is it just me, or are the content producers shooting themselves in the foot here? What's next, changing the CD standard so it supports MP3's? ;-)

  • different coloured lasers is good futureproofing (Score:5, Funny)

    by FrenZon ( 65408 ) on Sunday March 03, 2002 @08:11AM (#3100876) Homepage
    Can you imagine how confusing Starwars would be if everyone's lasers were the same colour?

  • DVD standards are a mess... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by dpbsmith ( 263124 ) on Sunday March 03, 2002 @08:18AM (#3100882) Homepage
    ...does Joe Six-pack understand the differences between DVD-RW, DVD+RW, DVD-RAM? Do _I_ understand the differences between these formats? Do you? Does the recent el-cheapo DVD player I bought play 2-layer disks? Do I know? WILL I know until I try to put one of them in and find that it won't play?

    And now we're going to have TWO competing high-definition DVD formats? And HDTV itself, or do I mean "digital TV," is six or is it eight different formats, which are high-definition, except when they aren't, that is they are high-ER definition but not HIGH definition, only you can't get the high definition, and all the digital TV formats are about to become obsolete...

    Anyone who buys ANY HDTV or DVD gear until the dust settles has gotta be nuts.

    But you sure have to be amazed at the complexity and ingenuity the industry is using to shoot itself in the foot.
    • Not necessarily. Everything is comlicated right now and will be for a few years. The TV's themsevles though are the most solid device in the chain. I have a high def TV, and I play 480p dvd's on it and 480p 60 fps Gamecube. It rocks. I can't watch high def TV because I don't get it yet, but I knew that before hand and that isn't why I bought it. I love HDTV and I don't think that I am 'nuts'. There you have a positive story about HDTV.
      • Here's a negative story: HDTV itself.

        High def. TV looks great with a good signal. Unfortunately, last time I saw one (demo model in an expensive hi-fi shop), whilst the image was crisp and clear and all the rest of it, the signal it was displaying was lousy - it was showing a standard UK digital TV signal, if I recall, a news program. Every moving image displayed compression artifacts that were all too visible on the lovely clear screen.I haven't the least idea what compression/bandwidth it actually was, but it didn't look too good.
    • DVD standards are not a 'mess' compared to HDTV.
      DVD is a standard there was some initial problem with first generation products, and many second gen were still shipping region free, but now that we're well past the third generation DVD is pretty solidly hammered out. BTW Dual layer was in the standard long before any drives were EVER built. Each hyphen/plus is an extention to the DVD standard. The extentions get to be a mess but at least DVD-R Tries to stick to the standard and is rewarded with media that will play in most standalone hardware. DVD-R also is DVD standard technology and carries the DVD logo because of that.
      My take on the Blu-ray Vs. HD-DVD is that Blu-Ray is intended for use in recorders. HD-DVD seems exclusive to pre-packaged stuff. Afterall the fastest computers out there only recently became capable of real-time mpeg-4 compression. Also, playback doesn't really take that much CPU horse power. The jump to mpeg-4 decoding is more like the jump from mpeg-1 hardware decoders to mpeg-2 hardware decoders. They can fit a mpeg-4 decoder into a chip intended for cell phones nowadays so really there is no technological barrier to adding mpeg-4 decoding support. In fact some existing decoder cards are actually able to hardware accelerate the decoding of mpeg-4 now with some modifications to the software.
      Also technically they only have to engineer for the highest resolution HDTV to ensure that they can support any resolution that becomes standard.
      However since it's aimed at pre-packaged they can pick a resolution and say everything will be encoded at that resolution, the way they do with MPEG-2 for DVDs now.
      I think blue lasers will eventually catch on. the only 'cost' that makes them prohibative is that there hasn't been any development in them. Given a few years on the market they'd be as cheap as red laser is now, but with far greater capacity.
      the trick is to make all the DVD recorders blue laser or something that everyone 'has' to have. adding a red laser read diode or two shouldn't add to the cost much so backward compatability can be preserved, and anything capable of encoding mpeg-2 streams from HD sources in real-time should have no problem decoding mpeg-4 either. A properly designed Blue laser DVD recorder should be able to support any industry standard DVD, even the mpeg-4 ones, although first gen units might not have enough time to tack on mpeg-4 decoding due to timing.
    • Does the recent el-cheapo DVD player I bought play 2-layer disks?

      ALL DVD-V (DVD Video) players must support RSDL discs. It's been part of the specification for a very long time.

      Whether the general public understands the details is almost irrelevant. They almost certainly didn't understand the details behind the various CD formats - CD-DA, CD-i, CD-MO, CD-RW, CD Extra, VCD, CD Plus, CD-XA (1 and 2), CD-RFS, CD-UDF - but this didn't stop CD from becoming a hugely popular format. You probably don't know (or care) that your Playstation uses CD-XA while your discman uses CD-DA. You simply buy a Playstation CD for a Playstation and an Audio CD for your discman.

      The public knows that "DVD players" will play their "DVDs" from BlockBuster. They don't know or care that it's DVD-V. They just know that "DVDs have movies on them". People interested in the more exotic formats (DVD-A, DVD-RAM) will learn what they need to know. The system will look like chaos to people who know the details, but the general public won't give a flying crap.

      • Two CD standards became aa hugely popular format, Red Book and ISO-9660. Everything else ended in the dumpster.
        • Two CD standards became aa hugely popular format, Red Book and ISO-9660. Everything else ended in the dumpster.

          Perhaps, but that doesn't invalidate my point. Almost certainly most of the DVD formats will become casualties. We're already seeing the possible death of DVD-A (SACD has had better marketting and now carries more titles). The 3 recordable DVD formats look like they're about to be replaced with a 4th. Only 2 DVD formats seem to be surviving at all: DVD-UDF seems to be doing OK and DVD-V is hugely successful.

          And just a minor correction. Playstation popularised the CD-XA format. With over 100 million Playstations I'm willing to bet there's more than 100 million CD-XA discs out there. PhotoCD is still hugely popular in the graphics industry. VideoCD is popular enough considering the niche market it aims at (I can buy VideoCD silvers at my local Target, for example). CD-DA (RedBook) and CD-Data (YellowBook) certainly dominate the CD formats, but they're not the only 2 that made any numbers.

    • I think "Joe Sixpack" is going to learn just enough to get by, either the "hard way" or by anecdotes from his buddies.

      EG. He may not know what all's involved with DVD+RW vs. DVD-RW, but he will quickly get the idea that "DVD-RAM is the older stuff, that is really only good for backing up your files; people still buy it only because the discs come in cartridges that keep them from getting scratched up." He'll also probably buy (and return) either a DVD+RW or DVD-RW drive, once he makes a few movie discs with it and finds out those "darn re-recordable discs don't play in anything besides my computer!"

      If he does a little more asking around, he will probably buy a Pioneer DVR-A03 drive that uses DVD-R discs, because his buddies tell him those are the most compatible ones around right now.
  • Comparison chart [cmpnet.com]

    I don't see a benifit especially in storage space for the red laser format.

    Anybody have a reason other than politics?
    • Since blue light is more or less 2 x shorter wavelength than red, a blue laser can read 4 x more (2 dimentions) pits from the disc surface than a red can.

      That's basically it.

      • My argument was obviously to demonstrate blue light superiority in terms of storage capacity.

        If your question was, why is red being promoted, then I really can't see a reason other than lobbies.

    • >I don't see a benifit especially in storage space >for the red laser format.
      >
      >Anybody have a reason other than politics?

      Blue laser diodes are expensive and have a very short lifetime compared to red ones, at least at the moment.
    • "OTOH, the electronics companies benefit from the blue laser format, since blue lasers are still Really Expensive.Guess which format the electronics companies are pushing?"

      But that's the confusion.

      If the blue laser is better in doing the job but is more expensive for the manufacturers, then why: "...nine of the world's biggest electronics companies agreed to promote a blue-laser-based format for next-generation video and computer optical disks." The electronics companies are the ones who have to make millions of blue laser readers for all the people to read them, the dvd sellers only have to buy 10 writers to make millions of dvds, more if they have the throughput needs, in which case they have the money.

      it would seem to me that it's backwards.

      Also:
      consumers want inexpensive larg capacity DVD burners. If the cost of the burner is $300 but could store on a 5 dollar disk more than most standard hard drives (50G), I'd buy it. It's like having 50g drives, which, I'm sorry but I only use for archiving anyway. there's no way I access over 50g activly, I compile it and store it, perhaps change around 20 gigs if I'm organizing or cleaning house. Tape drives aren't cheap and they're lame as far as tech and time. searching sucks and dvd is sooo much faster.
  • Blue is a colder color than red, therefor blue lasers can be overclocked more than red lasers.

    Today is Monday, and right now its 01:40, so you might want to go get your self a generous bowl of coffee and do something more constructive than this :)
  • Weren't blue lasers supposed to be part of the original DVD spec in the very beginning? 27GB per disc or something like that? Now they basically said, hey! instead of making the discs store more data, we're just gonna compress the hell out of it (it will look like total SH**, completely ruining the whole point of HIGH DEFINITION!!).

    Does anyone else think they're just digging a whole here in delaying a larger capacity format?

    • Re:Not Blue Already??? (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      DVD standard was never blue but people wanted it to be. Also from the beginning they supported double sided double layer. At 4.7GB per layer that is nearly 19 GB. Consumers don't like double sided media because they can't tell which side is which. Double layer is harder to verify, in fact some of the older systems could only verify the content on the first layer, to reject bad presses. Double layer is harder to pirate (via DVD-R) though, so studios are trying to go all double layer. Mpeg-4 conversions take a lot of time and CPU power, and at any decent quality they only save 1/2 to 1/4th the space over mpeg 2 compression. Blue laser will enable better quality HD when it becomes available, and will enable incredible capacity when it's finally combined with mpeg-4 compression.
      Basically the mpeg-4 HD-DVD will look better on HD than normal DVDs do, but blue laser systems will look better still.

  • New DVD standard (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Hmm ... another incompatible standard that requires the purchasing of yet another DVD drive. And once the new 'blue' standard has been taken up by the majority of computer users, they will come out with another incompatible standard requiring the purchase of yet another expensive-but-different DVD drive. Ingenious! Why do we fall for it?

    Well, I didn't. I still don't have a DVD drive. So hah! I have fooled them all!

    BTW, I will not purchase a 'blue' DVD drive either - I am waiting for it's successor.

  • Color is important! (Score:2, Informative)

    by NWT ( 540003 )
    With the wavelength of the laser, the color varies! For example red has a wavelength of 622-780 nm and blue has a wavelenngth of 455-490 nm! Red Has the longest wavelength, followeed by orange, yellow, green, blue and violet which has the shortest wavelength!
    Refer to this [usbyte.com] document for further information ...
  • At 9Mbit/sec for video you'd think people would be happy. I mean you can get TV quality video [on a desktop monitor] from 320x240x29.97 at 1.15Mbit/sec.

    If 9Mbit/sec is not enough for your 720x480 movies then "boo friggin hoo". I'd rather not be forced to upgrade all my equipment because some videophile wants a crystal clear 1600x1200x60fps picture. Personally I am not that obsessed with TV and movies to really care.

    I'm of the league that watching 320x240 movies is considered ok and fun [specially when full screen].

    Tom
  • I've been thinking about getting a DVD-ROM drive (and maybe a DVDRW as well) for my pc for a long time.
    For the purposes of mass digital storage (like backing up many gigs) as well as dvd ripping.
    What would you guys suggest I do? Wait until the "standards" become standards? How do I know when the right time is?

    Should I wait for this fabled 28G on one disc?

  • Why bother? (Score:1, Flamebait)

    by forgoil ( 104808 )
    This feels like a step back towards VHS to be honest. No matter which laser and underlying techique for saving the bits they use, they want to use a lower bitrate, and that will not make for good results. Is this so that we can't enjoy good quality movies at home? The day they start to care about quality, for real, is the last day I will ever download a movie...
    • Careful--they're not just changing the bitrate, they're also changing the codec. MPEG-4 yields much lower distortion for a given bitrate than MPEG-2. The tradeoff is in the increased CPU requirements.

  • Investments (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Vishniac ( 548699 )
    The investment in current DVD technology has already been made, just look at your local video store. Any new standard must be developed so that it doesn't make current DVDs and players completely obsolete. Maybe they could release simultaneously blue and red laser discs of a movie, as they release VHS and DVD versions now. People with older red laser systems would by the more familiar discs, and those with the latest blue laser systems could purchase the new DVDs to take full advantage of their HDTV resolution.

    At the end of the day, it comes down to the analogous course that music has taken: the record to 8-track to cassette to CD to MP3 trip. How many times do I have to buy the White Album? How many times do I have to buy Top Gun? How many times are consumers willing? You have to space out these changes, with "mandatory" switches no earlier than ten years apart. Any more frequent and people get burned out chasing the technological carrot.

  • The Hershey's Times is reporting that the Colored Coating Forum's Steering Committee voted this week to approve the use of low-sugar-rate coating for high-definition RED M&Ms. The Colored Coating Forum's decision, made at a meeting Tuesday (Feb. 26) in Tokyo, to stick with a red-color-based scheme but switch to low-sugar-rate coating, came only a week after nine of the world's biggest candy companies agreed to promote a blue-coating-based format for next-generation coating and coloring optical appeal.

  • The REAL reason why content providers want red (Score:4, Interesting)

    by eyefish ( 324893 ) on Sunday March 03, 2002 @12:27PM (#3101332)
    I cannot believe these industry "expert" groups. They claim that the main reason for using red lasers is cost. However, they seem to "forget" that using a low-bit rate technology as opposed to a blue laser actually will INCREASE costs since supporting MPEG-4 will require higher processing power, and thus more powerful and more expensive silicon.

    BUT most important to consumers is the fact that MPEG-4 compression is just NOT SUITABLE for high-definition content which is meant to be seen on a decently large screen (29 inches and above). MPEG-4 simply produces too many artifacts (even today with low-bit-rate MPEG-2 you can see on cable how dark images in motion seen to leave a "ghost" behind).

    So now the REAL REASON why they (the content providers) still want to pursue red-laser: They get to give consumers a low-quality version of the video image!!! By doing this they feel they are protecting their investment, while in reality they are simply giving consumers a low-quality solution.

    If and once they provide this stupid red laser approach for high resolution video, what they effectively will have done is invite third parties to come with competing high-quality products (which sadly will probably will never be supported with popular content since there is a monopoly among the content providers and media player producers), OR some hackers will come up with a scheme to rip high-quality video out of HD broadcast (for TV or movie theatres) and distribute it in a competing format themselves over the Internet. In other words, Napster all over again because for the same reason as before: they industry is NOT thinking about what consumers want, and what consumers want is a high-quality display system to match their new TV.
    • No. I dont think you see it here but the content companies dont want Blu-Ray because they dont want even cheaper large storage. Look at the price of DVD-RAM on pricewatch.com. You can get a recorder for 200 and 4.7gig for $3.6 . This is only 5 times more expensive per meg that CD-R and LESS than TWICE the price of CD-RW in large quantities. This already is going to cause content companies problems. If they used blue-laser, for read-only movies they would support the price reductions and volume in blue-laser technology.
    • Sure MPEG-4 decoding requires more transistors than MPEG-2, but Moore's law will take care of that. The money saved by having only one (cheap) red laser instead of a red laser and an expensive blue laser makes up for more money spent on the decoder chip.
      • Moore's law does NOT take car of the transistor problem in devices like DVD players. DVD manufacturers don't throw specially designed chips at DVD decoding, they just throw a larger number of dumber chips at the problem. A more complex CODEC means a much larger increase is silicon required which means more heat and power draw which eventually leads to lower reliability and customer dissatisfaction. You'll notice the manufacturers are the ones pushing for the blue laser, they are the ones eventually eating the cost of adding more complex silicon to DVD players. The content producers wanting to use lower bitrates is just plain cock jockery. They want to bitch slap the consumers more and more by giving them as little as possible in terms of quality. The less video information the consumer gets on the disk the lower quality the image is going to be as it is blown up onto larger monitors. If I fork over the money for a big screen TV that will display progressive scan video I don't want my fancy new DVD to look like shit on it because a cheap ass CODEC is being used.
        • Moore's law does NOT take car of the transistor problem in devices like DVD players. DVD manufacturers don't throw specially designed chips at DVD decoding, they just throw a larger number of dumber chips at the problem.

          Moore's law takes care of the transistor problem everywhere. What, you think DVD players do MPEG2 decoding with a truckload of 7400-series logic chips? DVD manufacturers certainly do use specially-designed chips for DVD decoding; my DVD player uses one of ESS Technologies' [esstech.com] single-chip DVD solutions. MPEG2, DTS, AC3, and MP3 decoding all on one chip. Plus a MIPS CPU core.

    • Re:The REAL reason why content providers want red (Score:4, Informative)

      by mr3038 ( 121693 ) on Sunday March 03, 2002 @05:04PM (#3102309)
      BUT most important to consumers is the fact that MPEG-4 compression is just NOT SUITABLE for high-definition content which is meant to be seen on a decently large screen (29 inches and above). MPEG-4 simply produces too many artifacts (even today with low-bit-rate MPEG-2 you can see on cable how dark images in motion seen to leave a "ghost" behind).

      I think this HD-DVD standard in question would use bitrates equal to current MPEG2 streams but with MPEG4 content. If your DivX video seems lower quality than MPEG2 DVD it might be that your DivX video has 750kbps bitrate compared to about 5Mbps bitrate of MPEG2 video. If you compare 1600x1200@5Mbps/MPEG4 with 768x576@5Mbps/MPEG2 stream it should be clear that the former one is much better.

      And what comes to "ghosts" in low light scenes it's only issue with current encoder software. Basically current encoders are using linear comparision between original and compressed instead of logarithmic and they treat 2 to 4 in intensity like 244 to 246 even though the former one has 100% increase and the latter one has 0.8% increase. Obviously you're going to notice ghosting due to this in darker scenes only.

      Though, I have to admit that when you consider the CPU power needed to even decode 1600x1200 resolution MPEG4 stream it might be cheaper to jump to blue laser. Not to speak anything about real-time recording/encoding! If only they could create single RW standard this time.

    • MPEG-4 decoding logic is just silicon -- it will become very cheap very fast when it goes into full production, while blue lasers use exotic materials and processes, and probably will remain rather expensive. So red-laser will genuinely have a cost advantage. Blue-laser will have two definite advantages: better picture quality, and the writeable version (when it comes out) will be high enough capacity to do complete computer backups in two to five disks -- red laser writeable DVD is not only snarled in incompatible formats, but with capacities around 5 GB, it's too small compared to modern harddrives.

      So now the REAL REASON why they (the content providers) still want to pursue red-laser: They get to give consumers a low-quality version of the video image!!! The content providers have probably already sold you Star Wars (for instance) on VHS and DVD both. If they go straight to proper blue-laser high density, they only get to sell it one more time. If they put out red-laser psuedo-high-density first, they sell it two more times. That's all...

  • Why is something needed so quickly? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by donglekey ( 124433 ) on Sunday March 03, 2002 @12:57PM (#3101434) Homepage
    I think it would be great if a high-def DVD format came out in the next year, but it probably won't. Why limit things while still using 9GB DVD's? I don't understand the immediate need. DVD's are doing wonderful, and DVD's in progressive scan look great. We can wait 2 years for blue laser players to become a reality, it won't hurt anything to keep DVD's going longer, people are going to be mad about switching anyway.

    The solution of the Red laser camp seems to be better compression (good) better post processing (good) but on the same size disc (bad). Switching formats is a hard transition for everyone, why don't they really switch formats and go for something that will be good enough to last for 10 years. Put blue laser discs, Mpeg 4, and good pre and post processing together and you have something that just may stand the test of time, like CD's. CD's are the first technology that I can remember that could possibly be called 'good enough'. I still want DVD-Audio and SACD to do well, but CD's are the first consumer technology that was really limited by how well they were made and the equipment used to play them back then by the format itself. These technology companies have the chance to do that now, with video, but it doesn't look like they are going to take it.

    Look back in history to other formats that were just better use of the same space. SVCD, HDCD (20 bit CD) SVHS, the list goes on. They didn't do too well did they? What makes these companies think that 7 Mbit Mpeg 4 is going to look good enough to make people want to switch? There will compression artifacts all over at high resoltuions. Now 1080p 24fps, that is a beautiful thing and will make people drool.

    • Look back in history to other formats that were just better use of the same space. SVCD, HDCD (20 bit CD) SVHS, the list goes on. They didn't do too well did they?

      SVCD did well, but not in the United States.

      HDCD was not a new format but merely a mastering technique. The label made sure that the master data had at least 20 bits of precision, then they quantized to 16-bit in such a way as to shove all the dither noise into the 16-22 kHz band where humans can't hear very well.

      SVHS and Betacam SP are still used in professional television equipment.

      • HDCD was not a new format but merely a mastering technique. The label made sure that the master data had at least 20 bits of precision, then they quantized to 16-bit in such a way as to shove all the dither noise into the 16-22 kHz band where humans can't hear very well.

        It still doesn't hide the fact that it isn't widely accepted.

        SVHS may be used elsewhere but it isn't really a consumer technology in that movies are not distributed in SVHS.

        SVCD is probably the closest parallel and it isn't really relevant to the United States since its predecessor did so poorly too. I still don't think HD-DVD's using simply Mpeg 4 will do well, but it looks like I can't back it up with history.
        • HDCD is one label's trademark for noise-shaped mastering of 20-bit audio data to a 16-bit CD.

          It still doesn't hide the fact that [noise-shaped mastering] isn't widely accepted.

          Ever look at your CDs through Cool Edit's spectrograph? If, during quiet parts, you see a lot of noise (up to -40 dB) in the 16-22 kHz band, that's noise-shaping. (I see this on lots of albums.) If during a song's fade-out, the audio remains relatively clear even down to -70 or -80 dB, that's noise-shaping. (I'm still impressed by how clean the fade-outs on Genesis - Turn It On Again The Hits sound.) About half of the CDs that my family has bought and ripped recently had been mastered with a noise-shaping technology.

          SVHS may be used elsewhere but it isn't really a consumer technology in that movies are not distributed in SVHS.

          Likewise, hard drives may be used elsewhere but it isn't really a consumer technology in that movies are not (legitimately) distributed on hard drives.

  • To me this sounds a lot like SVHS, superior technology that only the professionals buy because they're the only ones with the equiptment to use it (these new DVDs aren't going to look significantly better on a standard consumer TV). Worse, because only professionals use it the companies have to price it at professional rates, virtually guarenteeing that the average consumer never even sees it. When was the last time you saw an SVHS player at Walmart? How many people even have S Video jacks on their TV? Most of the people I know still hook up their TV through the Coax because that's the only input their TV has.
  • Can't we all just get a long and agree on my compromise -- a green DVD laser. Only $50,000 to me for the idea, so it's cheap, does the job, and everybody is happy!
  • VHS or Beta?
    Tape or LaserDisc?
    Tape, LaserDisc or DVD?
    Tape or DVD?
    Letterbox or Pan&Scan (never a problem for me here...)?
    Standard or HD?
    Red or Blue laser?
    480 or 1080?

    Wife: I got that copy of _The Matrix_ you wanted...
    Husband: Honey, you got the wrong one?
    Wide: Whatd'ya mean? It says "The Matrix" right on it!!!
  • Why not use both, Blue lasers at 405nm giving approx. 27Gbytes of storage capacity along with MPEG-4 for video compression?

    The industry always seems to aim for "Just Enough" technology to get the next planned innovation out the door. It would be nice to see them aim for the moon and just let innovations develop as a result of the technology.

    Just imagining a new form of media entertainment, where you watch a movie from the perspective of each character independently. It would be extremely non-linear and very watchable (if well written (think the experimental film "Foor Rooms" but where each character is followed...not just the bellhop)). Just an idea but POSSIBLE if the tech companies would produce technology and let the content providers peddle there wheres on whatever platform exists.

    Think about it, Blu Ray (w/ MPEG4)= 25-35 hours of video? Yummy....
  • Check out this EE Times article. [eetimes.com]:
    But the world is also full of new ideas for lower-bit-rate encoding, including wavelet, MPEG-4 and such proprietary codecs as Microsoft Corp.'s Corona. The DVD Forum's technical working group has already proved that encoding rates as low as 7 Mbits/s will yield HD video of acceptable quality.

    3 points:
    1. Microsoft is let off completely by Justice largely due to the requests/lobbying of digital-content-providers.
    2. In return for getting off the hook, M$ provides its new codecs to said content-providers, along with its current Digital Rights Management [findlaw.com] scheme.
    3. M$ monopoly is secure as it helps other industry players squeeze the consumer, reduce choice, and further consolidate power in the hands of an incredibly richer and more powerful anointed few.
    You could see it another way, but I don't know how you would without willingly choosing to be naive.
  • If blue lasers become common for DVD recorders, but the studios stick with red-laser, low-bit rate encoding for films they release, it will be possible, nay, likely, that pirates will release high-bit-rate movies that will be superior to the studio versions. That would be the ultimate insult -- with video tape, pirate copies were always worse than the originals -- with DVD they could be exactly the same, but if this decision goes through -- they could be better.

    Interesting times.

    thad
  • Given that Microwaves and X-rays are even smaller tha blue lasers (spectrum) [amastro.org]
    Why not skip-to-the-end so to speak. I know they have x-ray lasers. And Microwave technology is pretty well known by now. Seems kinda silly to be in the visible spectrum at all anymore.

    • That chart you're looking at is incorrect. Microwaves are around 0.1 mm, somewhere between the infrared and radio waves. Microwave lasers (masers) have been around since the 50's. X-ray lasers currently require a nuclear explosion to operate. If someone ever figures out how to get x-rays to reflect efficiently, maybe then we'll have an x-ray laser.

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