Slides from CeBIT 2006: Blu-ray camp expects to win by 2010

[Ilya]

Judging by the slide shown at Press Conference at CeBIT 2006 by Frank Simonis (Strategic Marketing Director Philips Optical Storage), it looks like Blu-ray Camp expects to win the Format War by year 2010. In Europe anyway...

CeBIT 2006 slide presentations by Philips, Pioneer and Sony are attached. Enjoy!

 

[navychop]

Interesting. I thought the data transfer rates were the same for the two formats. One more advantage for BR, but perhaps a more significant one for data applications than video.

Thanks for the info. Now I wonder if they're posting similar data for North America.

 

[T2k]

Interesting. I thought the data transfer rates were the same for the two formats. One more advantage for BR, but perhaps a more significant one for data applications than video.

It's no advantage at all... Even though it's a simple fact that Blu-Ray will use the old MPEG2 transport stream encoding thus it needs much-much higer bitrate (about twice or more of that VC-1 needs) than HD-DVD, a 15Mbit VC-1 video stream would always look better than a 20Mbit MPEG2 one...

When will Blu-Ray step up to VC-1 and/or H.264 - that's another question and at that moment this whole issue becomes totally pointless.

BTW in case of data the spectacularly sounding total movie bitrates become 36.5Mbit in both cases.

 

[teamerickson]

It's no advantage at all... Even though it's a simple fact that Blu-Ray will use the old MPEG2 transport stream encoding thus it needs much-much higer bitrate (about twice or more of that VC-1 needs) than HD-DVD, a 15Mbit VC-1 video stream would always look better than a 20Mbit MPEG2 one...

When will Blu-Ray step up to VC-1 and/or H.264 - that's another question and at that moment this whole issue becomes totally pointless.

BTW in case of data the spectacularly sounding total movie bitrates become 36.5Mbit in both cases.

Yea, what he said!!

 

[GeorgeLV]

T2k is completely distorting the truth. Blu-ray supports H.264.

 

[teamerickson]

T2k is completely distorting the truth. Blu-ray supports H.264.

Slide 10 shows mpeg2? http://www.satelliteguys.us/attachment.php?attachmentid=8154&d=1143670669

 

[GeorgeLV]

Slide 10 shows mpeg2? http://www.satelliteguys.us/attachment.php?attachmentid=8154&d=1143670669

I fail to see what point your trying to make. Those slides clearly demonstrate that Blu-ray supports AVC (aka H.264, aka MPEG4 Part 10) and MPEG2. How supporting MPEG2 in addition to the next generation codes a disadvantage?

 

[teamerickson]

I fail to see what point your trying to make. Those slides clearly demonstrate that Blu-ray supports AVC (aka H.264, aka MPEG4 Part 10) and MPEG2. How supporting MPEG2 in addition to the next generation codes a disadvantage?

You are correct. They support it, but I don't think they are chosing to use it at this time.

Codecs
The codecs used to encode video and audio largely determine the amount of space needed to store the content on the disc. Some or all of the initial movies released in Blu-ray format will use MPEG-2.

The BD-ROM format specifies at least three video codecs: MPEG-2, the standard used for DVDs; MPEG-4's H.264/AVC codec; and VC-1, a codec based on Microsoft's Windows Media 9. The first of these only allows for about two hours of high-definition content on a single-layer BD-ROM, but the addition of the two more advanced codecs allows up to four hours per layer.

For audio, BD-ROM supports linear (uncompressed) PCM, Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital Plus, DTS, DTS-HD, and Dolby TrueHD.

In order to remain backward-compatible, BD-RE (and by extension, BD-R) will by and large support the MPEG-2 codec. For users recording digital television broadcasts, the Blu-ray's baseline datarate of 36 Mbit/s will be more than adequate to record high definition signals. Support for new codecs will evolve as new codecs are encapsulated by broadcasters into their MPEG2 transport streams and consumer set top boxes capable of decoding them are rolled out.

 

[Ilya]

Guys, FYI, I have just uploaded the third slide show (by Pioneer) to the first post in this thread. It failed to upload yesterday - a much bigger file.
Enjoy!

 

[navychop]

It's been posted many times that BR supports MPEG-4 also. Studios can decide which to use. MPEG-4 encoders are currently not as fast as MPEG-2, and that may be a minor consideration for the studios (major one for satcos, which need real time encoding).

BR has greater capacity and a greater transfer rate.
HD-DVD is cheaper, and has about a 2 month head start.
The jury is out on whether HD-DVD will prove to be more durable.

Which of these factors will actually mean anything in the real world is yet to be determined. Posturing now may be emotionally satisfying but will not change the end results. We'll see what a few months in the real world do to these products. Surely long term usage reports should be out by the end of year holiday buying season. Too bad they aren't putting out kiddie shows first. 500 playings of a disc by a kid would be a wonderful durability test.

 

[teamerickson]

The jury is out on whether HD-DVD will prove to be more durable.

Don't you think this should say if BD will prove to be as durable as HD DVD? HD DVD has proven durability through the DVD.

 

[navychop]

My statement was meant to be taken as "more durable than BR."

I think BR discs will be just fine in the durability department. But maybe not. Again, I suspect word will be out by year's end.

Oddly enough, the correct references are to "Blu-ray" BR and -RE rather than -RW. I'd rather -RW and maybe even BD, but the consortium has declared otherwise.

 

[mike123abc]

MPEG-2 is a big selling point at this time for studios. Right now authoring software is much more mature for MPEG-2 than MPEG-4. Being able to use the old tools for Blu-Ray is a selling point for the studios, it has nothing to do with the consumer. If the studio decides to invest in/contract out to MPEG-4 they can do so and put it on Blu-Ray.

HD-DVD also supports MPEG-2. You just would have trouble using MPEG-2 on HD-DVD because of the space constraints. Of course the Blu-Ray camp slides would show this over and over since they want the studios to think that they will be able to offset the cost of the more expensive Blu-Ray discs by saving on the authoring.

 

[navychop]

Thank you for the clarification.

 

[teamerickson]

MPEG-2 is a big selling point at this time for studios. Right now authoring software is much more mature for MPEG-2 than MPEG-4. Being able to use the old tools for Blu-Ray is a selling point for the studios, it has nothing to do with the consumer. If the studio decides to invest in/contract out to MPEG-4 they can do so and put it on Blu-Ray.

HD-DVD also supports MPEG-2. You just would have trouble using MPEG-2 on HD-DVD because of the space constraints. Of course the Blu-Ray camp slides would show this over and over since they want the studios to think that they will be able to offset the cost of the more expensive Blu-Ray discs by saving on the authoring.

Does MPEG-2 support 1080p?

 

[mike123abc]

Does MPEG-2 support 1080p?

Yes, MPEG-2 can really support any resolution. There is not a limit, but there is a limit of the decoders. The decoder will only have so much memory and processing power. One would assume that both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray compliant devices would have to have a decoder that can handle 1080p. Note that once it is decoded it could then be sent out of the box interlaced 1080i, or scaled to another resolution.

 

[Brewer4]

Compairing capacity and transfer rates is like compairing horse power on a car. I see commercials all the time saying my car has more this in one category than the Honda Civic, etc. In the end, I think what will matter is value for the dollar. High end folks may choose a BMW 330i (lets call it BluRay) but the masses may be very happy with the Honda Civic. Sure it cant go as fast but overall, its still a good product, lasts, and has great value. HD DVD may prove to be a longer lasting very good product. Not the best in certain categories but then, the general public may not care.

 

[T2k]

T2k is completely distorting the truth. Blu-ray supports H.264.

Or perhaps you just can't read?
FYI: support != actual usage

 

[T2k]

MPEG-2 is a big selling point at this time for studios. Right now authoring software is much more mature for MPEG-2 than MPEG-4.

Since when the authoring part has anything to do with the codec used at the end, for encoding?

Being able to use the old tools for Blu-Ray is a selling point for the studios, it has nothing to do with the consumer. If the studio decides to invest in/contract out to MPEG-4 they can do so and put it on Blu-Ray.

HD-DVD also supports MPEG-2. You just would have trouble using MPEG-2 on HD-DVD because of the space constraints.

Since they do have a 30GB DL layer disc, hardly. Show me one movie which wouldn't fit into 30GB, even in 1080p... of course, there's only few 1080p-capable display, so I don't think studios really concerned about this.
However when you're talking about seasons and such, you're right, better codec or larger space becomes a necessity - and that's why HD-DVD went with the better codec which not only halves the space but actually looks better at half bitrate than MPEG2.

No, it's just the fact that they were baking on saving money on authoring and such but they lost this argument because Blu-Ray's mf'ing/conversion costs are enormous, several magnitude higher than HD-DVD's. Studios doesn't give a *&^% about that but BDE hast to deal with it...