DVD Forum approves 51GB HD DVD?
We haven't yet seen any official confirmation of the news, but it's been reported that the 51GB triple-layer single-sided HD DVD Toshiba first announced at CES has been approved by the DVD Forum. (The last we heard about this, the new format had been submitted for approval.) Of course, this might mean consumers will need new players to read 51GB HD DVDs, which could potentially damage the format more than help it; the last thing either HD DVD or Blu-ray need right now is to fork hardware compatibility with their own embattled formats, so we'll hope what we've heard about 2nd and 3rd gen HD DVD players being able to read 51GB discs via firmware upgrade is true. Also up to bat: the "twin" dual-layer DVD / HD DVD combo-disc was also approved, with one 5GB DVD layer and two 17GB HD DVD layers. We'll let you know when the DVD forum officially confirms (or denies) the news.[Thanks, Ken]
Read - News of the new approvals
Read- AVS Forum thread
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
A1 @ Sep 9th 2007 4:28PM
Needs at least another 2-3 years before we'll see them in stores. Fact.
Mike @ Sep 10th 2007 1:31AM
Not true...in FACT we will hear more next month about when this is coming out and it is less then a year.
Rumor...next month we also find out what the 1st movie will be on these discs.
Dave @ Sep 9th 2007 4:45PM
The rumor is--and it's just a rumor--that they'll work on ALL players--1st, 2nd, and 3rd generation. The other rumor is--you'll see them in commercial release in MUCH less than 2-3 years. Of course, those are just rumors. ;)
LJKelley @ Sep 9th 2007 5:53PM
Goodbye Blu-ray... If all rumours are true than all HD DVD players can support 51GB and thus have larger capcity than Blu-ray players at the moment and all other specs are much better for HD DVD.
I don't care for space as long as the movies fit... but this is just response to fanbois claiming victory only because of filespace.
Mak @ Sep 9th 2007 7:00PM
You realise that HD DVD is, and always will be bandwidth crippled compared to Blu-Ray right?
31Mbit/sec for HD DVD, 54Mbit/Sec for Blu-Ray.
Erick @ Sep 21st 2007 10:21PM
If only Space was the TRUE PROBLEM, blu-ray has already announced the 200GB disk since september 1, 2006.
http://www.betanews.com/article/TDK_Develops_200GB_Bluray_Disc/1157125164
julian @ Sep 9th 2007 6:28PM
wow 51 gigs that nice still dosent help the fact that hd dvd has shitty as bandwith i can just imagen all the problems coming up:P
Dave @ Sep 9th 2007 6:46PM
The HD-DVD bandwidth was designed for high-def movies in mind. Blu-Ray's bandwidth was designed for raw data in mind. This is why Blu-Ray's bandwidth is higher. But higher bandwidth does not equal higher quality. Or do you believe that a 10x increase in bandwidth would result in a 10x increase in picture and sound quality? I'll bet the pixels would sparkle! I'll bet the sound would be more realistic than reality!
SimbaDogg @ Sep 9th 2007 6:43PM
@LJKelley...
may i ask, do you like under a rock. Have you not seen the 100 GB 8 layer hitachi disks or the 200 gb TDK discs that were shown off nearly a year ago?
I for one find this particularly useless for HD DVD. HD DVD and blu ray have both shown that 25 and 30 gig discs are almost more than enough, as long as you use a good codec (goodbye mpeg 2). There's really only two things you can do w/ this extra space:
1) Add stupid amounts of extra features, or increase the bit rate for audio and video (but how much of a different in quality are you really going to notice by increasing the bit rate?)
2) Use this for data backup w/ an HD DVD burner...but where the hell are all the hd dvd burners i know toshiba showed one off @ CES...but i've yet to see a single one on the market?
MegaZone @ Sep 9th 2007 9:05PM
This is incorrect. The higher bitrate on Blu-ray is 100% for video. In fact, BOTH HD DVD and Blu-ray use ~36Mbps as their base 1x bitrate. Blu-ray specified a 1.5x speed *for video*. All video players are required to support ~54Mbps raw transfer speeds.
That is completely independent of data - and the base 1x data rate is 36Mbps. Though drives are 2x or 4x now.
The higher bitrate has nothing to do with data, it is even unique to the video players and not used on data drives (except when playing video).
SimbaDogg @ Sep 9th 2007 6:48PM
meant to say "live under a rock" lil typo
Mak @ Sep 9th 2007 6:58PM
There is no doubt that existing players will not be able to read the full capacity of these discs.
To focus on the 3rd layer requires a different pickup assembly, a firmware upgrade is not going to help.
The best I could envisage, is that existing players can access the 2 layers, and new player access the 3rd layer. It's possible (but not confirmed), that if discs were authored sensibly, then the extras could be put on the 3rd layer, meaning the main movie could still be readable by current players.
Either way, it makes BD Profile 1.1 compatibility issues insignificant!
Even more bizzare, is upto recently, the HD DVD camp has been saying they did not need 50GB, now they can do it, it's suddenly required...
Dave @ Sep 9th 2007 7:18PM
Well, Mak. I'll tell you what--why don't we wait and see? How about you give this thing a month. If it turns out you're right, feel free to gloat. But it's already been confirmed by insiders on AVS that you are totally wrong. I think we'll know one way or the other long before you're watching Blu-Ray profile 1.1 content.
Smee @ Sep 9th 2007 11:48PM
@Mak
Ummm, and the difference means what?? Better audio and video quality?
Wrong, both as good as each other.
LJKelley @ Sep 9th 2007 7:14PM
HP sells a laptop equipped with an HD DVD burner... go check the HP website. Toshiba has also announced a laptop with HD DVD burner as well. So get your fact before you write...
Second its funny to see Blu-ray fanboys make fun of HD DVD when they claimed we had too little space and now also that we have more disk space... LOL
SimbaDogg @ Sep 10th 2007 2:25AM
maybe i should have made myself more clear, what dvd burners are available (hd dvd) that i can buy in a 5.25" standard form factor, and install in my comp, my brothers or my dads. not an integrated drive in a laptop, but something standalone. though i didn't explicitly say that before, having a hd dvd burner drive in one model of a laptop, or as an option in a laptop just wont reach the same base that a standard pc drive will.
SimbaDogg @ Sep 10th 2007 3:05AM
@LJKelley
"Sorry, forgot to mention. Its funny that you attempt to deride HD DVD by the supposed lack of burners yet these new formats you bring up (which I do know about btw) do not even have players or burners available nor if they did exist would it be affordable."
1)I really dont get what you're trying ot say here, i'm attempting to put down hd dvd for the lack of burners? no...i'm not attempting, i am. hd dvd was nice enough to show us that you really dont need 50 gb for a movie as long as you're using a good codec. (h264 or vc1) the only reason that you'd want to have a disc w/ that much info on it, HAS to be for data backup. Or, if you're a movie studio looking to put multipe movies on a single disc (which i really wish they would do, so we could cut down on those 5 inch wide box sets)
just search the net right now, for anyone that has a pc...and they're looking to get a hd dvd burner vs a blu ray, what are the options looking like. HD DVD NEEDS MORE BURNERS to really legitimize the creation of these larger disks. thats why i brought up that hitachi and tdk had already made 100 and 200 gb disks. [and on a side note, i did do a check on the hp laptops, couldn't find anything but HD DVD Roms...same thing w/ toshiba, every single comp that i tried to customize that gave an hd dvd drive, was only for reading...no writing]
2) as far as affordability, eh...there are quite a few writers to choose from that are sub 500 for blu ray, again...i'm not sure of anything that is available for hd dvd, i haven't seen anything for sale yet, though i've seen the disks which is kinda weird.
@Nfinity
you made some interesting points, but if you think this is the silver bullet for blu ray, i want some of the stuff you're snorting. Lets think of this 1 thing. PRICE...
I was browsing through the best buy ad because i wanted to make sure that kanye wests new cd comes out on tue, which it does. a few movies i saw were going for 19.99, movies i never heard of, but no matter...they were new releases. compare the 19.99 of a new release, to the say 34.99 of a hd dvd/blu ray new release w/ the 40+ dollars that you're going to find for a "all in one combo". You really think that people are going to go in droves to buy this? if anything i WOULDN'T buy a movie for that reason. its one of the main reasons i waited so long to buy apollo 13 on dvd, when it first came out it was almost $40.
the "trojan horse" method of including technology works if you basically include it for the same price, maybe a few bucks more. And many people here would say that the odds of getting that kind of combo disk under $40 are really slim to none. You're not going to sneak any "trojans" in people homes when they immediately see that they're spending double the price on a dvd. I've watched enough Jay Walking on the Tonight Show to know americans are stupid, but they're not that stupid.
LJKelley @ Sep 9th 2007 7:17PM
Sorry, forgot to mention. Its funny that you attempt to deride HD DVD by the supposed lack of burners yet these new formats you bring up (which I do know about btw) do not even have players or burners available nor if they did exist would it be affordable.
James @ Sep 9th 2007 7:46PM
So by the time these discs theoretically hit Blu-ray will theoretically have all it's interactive/web-enabled Java stuff together. So we just end up with stalemate part 2. So this means nothing.
However, if this means early adopters need new players, this may work in Blu-ray's favor by evening out the "I have an early player and go screwed" factor.
None of it matters anyway. Can't wait for iTunes or Amazon to start dropping HD downloads to the masses so both formats can burn.
JeffDM @ Sep 9th 2007 9:38PM
LJKelly; One potential problem is that writing through two layers to hit a third may be a problem. Double and triple layers is great for pressed discs, but it's an open question whether it is good for long-lasting recordings. As it is, a write to a dual layer DVD gets a LOT higher error rate on the second layer, right away, nevermind after the media's been stored a while. That's not something I want for a recording that I want to hold for longer than just shipping.
Smee @ Sep 9th 2007 9:54PM
Personally I cant really see the need for bigger discs for movies, data back up yes, but not movies. 95 % of all movies will fit on 1 disc, so if it doesn't fit on one disc, use 2 discs, who cares.
Kevin Murphy @ Sep 10th 2007 12:35AM
The bottom line isn't capacity or bandwidth. It's what you do with them. BD's huge problem is that nearly all its installed base (i.e. PS3) is 15-30 year-old males.
Family films, chick flicks, foreign films, old films -- in fact anything other than the latest action or SciFi blockbuster -- and there's no one there to buy them on blu-ray. Paramount took a good look at the demographics and bailed.
Ninety percent of BD buyers are in one demographic bracket, and they think it's ALL about size.
Kevin Murphy @ Sep 10th 2007 12:37AM
Oh, BTW, cheap flash and cheap hard drives means no one will ever care about BD or HD for backup.
lucyfan62 @ Sep 10th 2007 12:45AM
Wow, if these new 51GB triple-layer HD-DVDs work in all the players as well as the Dual-Layer DVDs did then that's going to be a real plus...for Blu-Ray because despite the claims from the DVD+R alliance those DL disks do not work in every +R compatible player, so I wouldn't get my hopes up about these new disks working in 1st or 2nd gen HD-DVD players.
Mike @ Sep 10th 2007 1:36AM
There is no doubt...you are wrong. All HD DVD's players currently being sold will play the TL 51gig discs.
There are rumors the A1 drives can read it too.
Nfinity @ Sep 10th 2007 2:25AM
I think that people need to understand that TL51 is really a non-issue for HD DVD Group. Triple Layer 51gb is pretty much a talking point as we've already seen that 30gb is more then enough to provide excellent (even better) picture then Blu-Ray and incredible sound. So this is really a non issue.
I personally think that TL51 might not work with all current and past genereation players but this is really a no biggie. The real thing that TL51 brings us is 3 LAYERS.
This means that we will see VERY SOON a 2 layer HD DVD disc with 30gb space for hi-def movie and DVD size 3rd layer for regular DVD.
This is actually the real war ending, because it will allow all HD DVD studios to come out with day/date releases on 1 twin TL HD DVD that will play on both regular DVDs and HD DVDs without any compatibility issues or confusion HD DVD combo brings. The production of TL discs (2+1 layers) will be pretty much the same as regular DL30GB HD DVD discs which is very much affordable.
This is the real value of TL51.
@Ryan Block
Just an advice. The news you are reporting would benefit more from you being unbiased instead of making statements that sound like we already need new HD DVD players for this discs. Please.
If you guys, seriously, want to be objective, then do some research, read through some of those SOURCE urls. Read what Amir (MS vice president of consumer technologies) says. He already confirmed that the TL51 was approved and that the tests for compatibility with legacy HD DVD players are underway.
I find it very unfair for you guys to constantly report news with such a high Blu-Ray bias. Just re-read your comment you made following the news title. It is very much saying how you feel about HD DVD and TL51. Let's get some objectivity here. TL51, IF, manages to play on all players, is the final nail in Blu-Ray coffin. This will make Disney go back to neutral and at that point it's pretty much over. How about that point of view?
nigel @ Sep 10th 2007 6:56AM
320 GB hard drive on Amazon for $120, who gives a toss about backing up data on discs
Kevin Murphy @ Sep 10th 2007 9:57AM
nigel--
Actually, that's a bit high. Bare 500GB hard drives go retail for $100 here in LA, which is about 27 cents a GB. This number is falling, of course. So, except for speed, reliability, cost, ease-of-use, and re-writeability, BD/HD discs are the wave of the future for data storage.
And that's begging the question why 10 DVDRs aren't just a good as one BDR.
Xyzzy @ Sep 10th 2007 10:36AM
To the people posting about the 200G BD disks -- are those officially in the spec yet? Everything I've read says that they're PROTOTYPES. This is news because it's been officially ratified by the DVD Forum - it's really part of the spec.
It's possible that I just missed the news about the 200G BD disks being officially ratified, but I don't think so...
Xyzzy @ Sep 10th 2007 10:38AM
One other thing I find funny from the BD camp.
First, all we heard was, "BD has more studio support!"
Paramount went HD DVD exclusive.
Then we heard, "BD has more capacity!"
HD DVD ratifies TL51 disks.
Now we hear, "BD has better bandwidth!"
How long before we hear, "BD players are shinier?" :)
Anthony @ Sep 10th 2007 1:37PM
Point 1...BD Still has more studio support.
Point 2...I wonder why after saying that the 50GB disk size was to be a non-issue they go and create one...Hmm...last two weeks of trailing Blu-Ray in player sales have anything to do with it?
Point 3...Is a proven non-issue for both sides.Until its shown to be a factor it doesn't really matter.But it does show something that I think is overlooked.
One thing I have noticed is that Blu-Ray appears to have more room for growth where as HD-DVD appeals moreso towards the here and now.
Landlocked @ Sep 10th 2007 1:20PM
My concerns with that many layers is that the slighted smudge or a good spec of dust is really going to hose recording/playback. I would hate to burn 51 GB worth of data and find out it didn't take. Even if I verified the disc...I'm still out...what...$50?
(oh and I do own the HD-A1 and a HP laptop with HD DVD)
Xyzzy @ Sep 10th 2007 2:13PM
@Anthony:
"Point 2...I wonder why after saying that the 50GB disk size was to be a non-issue they go and create one...Hmm...last two weeks of trailing Blu-Ray in player sales have anything to do with it?"
Considering it was submitted for ratification back in April, it obviously had NOTHING to do with the past few weeks (even though that data that Sony presented was found to be flawed). It was done to remove yet another talking point about how superior BD is supposed to be.
As for studio support -- HD DVD has more movies available, so I'd equate that with better studio support.
anthony @ Sep 10th 2007 2:44PM
"It was done to remove yet another talking point about how superior BD is supposed to be."
That was my main point.Both sides playing tit or tat instead of just unleashing the gauntlet so to speak.
Only a 17 title lead after the flip-flop from Paramount.They have only revived Fox and Disney and I do thank them for flip-flopping again.So now in 08 we can see Disney and Fox drop some more hits and make Paramount even more irrevalent in this format war.
Richard Bourke @ Sep 11th 2007 7:12AM
FACT:
Blu-ray 1.5 bandwidth was designed to handle the inefficient (ancient 15-year-old) MPEG-2 video codec - and streaming to writeable disc of MPEG-2 streams (e.g. from TV broadcasts).
This was purely a cost-saving feature - as MPEG-2 encoders are far cheaper than MPEG-4 encoders.
As 99% of all HD DVD Hollywood movies use MPEG-4 they do not require the extra bandwidth that the Blu-ray movies do (50+% of Blu-ray titles are MPEG-2).
Leroy Vargas @ Sep 16th 2007 4:56PM
AND, MPEG-2 takes up less memory and less CPU load for real-time processing.
On my computer (equipped with a dual-core 2.2-GHz AMD64 processor, 2 GB DDR400 RAM, and two GeForce 7950GT SLi HDCP-compliant graphics cards), I always had serious multi-frame-skip problems when playing back VC-1 (MPEG-4) encoded Blu-ray movies, but had no issues at all for MPEG-2 Blu-rays. (Put simply, VC-1 requires faster CPU processing and more memory space; MPEG-2 runs lighter.)
As for the new info about a triple-layer 51GB HD-DVD holding more space than a Blu-ray, it is overlooking the fact that Blu-ray was doing 50 gigs with only two layers; now imagine Blu-ray with three layers... That translates to 75 GB! Still, Blu-ray wins over HD-DVD in terms of physical data efficiency (more data per layer: 25GB/layer vs. 15GB/layer [single/dual-layer HD-DVDs] or 17GB/layer [tri-layer HD-DVD]). Also, the fact that layers on a Blu-ray disc are closer to the reading surface also allows for more layers to be pumped into the disc (by filling up the space between the two outermost layers and the label surface) - hence those announced multi-layer 100GB and 200GB prototypes.
Fredster @ Sep 11th 2007 8:46AM
Can anyone explain why a triple layer wouldn't play on a existing player? Is it that much different from a dual layer? Just curious. And this IS great news!!!
Richard Bourke @ Sep 11th 2007 12:16PM
@Fredster:
Triple layer discs have been in the HD DVD specifications since day 1.
So they will work - the only thing that may be required is a firmware update - and since all HD DVD players have a network port (unlike Blu-ray players) firmware updates are quick and easy :-)
realgeorge39 @ Sep 12th 2007 6:35AM
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derek leonardo @ Sep 16th 2007 2:48PM
blu-ray praises that that tdk has made a prototype of a 200gb bd disc.which would only be used for data backup they let little blu-ray minds that play ps3 all day assume that it is possible to have the disc created in mass numbers WRONG an 8 layar disc will never be mass produced because of the amazing amount of disc read errors ,short data read life span ,and cost of disc structure. meaning for data backup at the rate of cost to produce such a disc it would be four or five times the price of an equal size hard drive for backup reasons